I suppose that we need to look at Super-Heroes themselves before we start this bad-boy. What follows is blatantly jacked from Wikipedia's article on the subject:
"A superhero (sometimes rendered super-hero or super hero) is a type of stock character possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers" and dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes—ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas—have dominated American comic books and crossed over into other media. The word itself dates to at least 1917.[1] A female superhero is sometimes called a superheroine (also rendered super-heroine or super heroine). "Super-heroes" is a trademark co-owned by DC Comics and Marvel Comics.[2] Superheroes are authentically American, spawning from The Great Depression era.
By most definitions, characters do not strictly require actual superhuman powers to be deemed superheroes,[3] although terms such as costumed crime fighters are sometimes used to refer to those such as Batman and Green Arrow without such powers who share other common superhero traits. Such characters were generally referred to as "mystery men" in the so-called Golden Age of Comic Books to distinguish them from characters with super-powers.
Normally, superheroes use their powers to police day-to-day crime while also combating threats against humanity by supervillains, who as their name implies are criminals of "unprecedented powers" in the same way that superheroes are crime fighters with "unprecedented powers," though just as with superheroes they do not necessarily need genuine superpowers. Generally, at least one of these supervillains will be the superhero's archenemy, though several popular and long-running series, such as Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man, each have a rogues gallery of archenemies. Superheroes sometimes will combat irregular threats that also match their powers, such as aliens, magical entities, godlike or demonlike creatures, and so forth."
Okay, so we know what super-heroes are, and we plan to try to utilize a variety of aspects in the game to make it feel like a super-hero game.
One of the discussions we've had here in the Tardis is one of tone. There's a variety of tones that the game could take (and some of them may be future expansions): Silver Age, Golden Age, Street Level Heroes, IN SPAAAAAAAACE, The 90s, Teen Heroes, Team Super-heroes, etc.
And what we've settled on is an attempt to make the system open-ended enough to accomodate a variety of styles. In the base set, I'm going to focus primarily on the Teen Super-Heroes from the shared comic book universe I and some of my college buddies were working on (a remnant of my CCG). Even within this frame work, adding a few characters from the other styles adds some diversity and gives a hint that this'll be covered at a later date.
The first player characters bring some themes (both in game tone and what kind of character they are)with them:
Alex "Shifter" Kinkaid/Justice: Street Level Hero, Teen Hero, Detective Work, Gadgets
Chloe Franklin/Ultra Girl: College Age, High Powered, Team
Courtney Taylor/Tiger Knight: Alien, Teen Hero, Romance, Coming of Age, Legacy, Team
Gwen MacDermont/Firefly: Teen Hero, Party Girl, Ranged Combat, Team
Jordan Jones/Knock: College Age, Street Level Hero, Gadgets, Romance, Team
Karmala (No Secret Identity): Fish Out of Water, Adult, Warrior Woman, High Powered, Mystic
Matthew Cole/Photon: Loner, Ranged Combat, Detective Work, Always on the Move, Hunted
Natalie Hart/Saffire: Teen Hero, Legacy, Ranged Combat, Mystic
Tom Turner/Claymore: Teen Hero, Team, Leader, Legacy
Z'Tryn Nar/Star Knight: Alien, High Powered, Space Cop, Ranged Combat, Fish out of Water
Now, overall the tone of the game will be four color heroics, but not skewed in the heroes favor. The villain will be played by a seperate player, and they need as much a chance to win as the team of heroes.
Looking at this, since the majority of the characters are from a teenaged team of heroes calling themselves the Peacemakers, some of the major themes of the base game will be of Teamwork, Legacy, and the Trials of Being a Teen-aged Superhero.
Join me in seven days as we go into how the game will work, and a discussion on the villains.
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