/shg/ - Superheroes General

Supers generally have immunity from their own powers. It's just a thing. Guys that shoot energy don't burn their hands when it comes out. Guys with super strength don't break their muscles. Guys with super speed don't burn up to cinders from friction. That supers that DO have to worry about this are generally exceptions that proof the rule.

I'm going to be working on punching up the the stuff we have until an organized pdf. It'll be hard going, but I really like Cape World.

>Korea

So what I gather from the last thread this is what we got:

Korea would be the "good" country with all their supers registered for military service.They believe in military oversight of superhumans but they're being less of a dick about it than China or Russia. They like treating their supers well because they see their supers as protecting them from anti-superhuman China and Japan (old wounds from WW2 die hard).

They also want military supers with good PR because they experienced first hand the horrors of the Korean War. In our world the Cuban Missile Crisis scared the shit out of everyone with the thought of planetary annihilation. In Cape World the Korean War scared the shit out of everyone with the thought of multiverse extinction. Supers got involved in the Korean War and it nearly caused the apocalypse with poor Germany in the background going I TOLD YOU MILITARY SUPERS WERE A BAD IDEA.

Korea to this day is a filled with Stalker-esque distortions in reality. Its a little like Australia, but while Australia's weirdness is due to having the Atlantean Wall extremely thin in Korea its due to the Atlantean wall being twisted and battered by fighting supers. They have less of a wall and more of a twisting ribbon, so less Dreaming Critters like in the Outback and more weird spots that teleport you around and places where the gravity smashes you to atoms.

Some think the trauma to the wall has caused it to adapt. Some think it may even be somewhat alive.

...

I'm not sure I like tying the weird shit in Korea to the Wall, it's starting to take over the setting. It would work better as rogue killer robots, irradiated pockets, dormant giant monsters and other remnants of a super-war than more Wall junk.

Which Marvel RPG? The 80's one? Because mechanics wise its shit, but it has one of the funnest and weirdest character creations, and they talk at length on how powers work and what GMs can expect from them.

Did she just do an Owlie?

>Alligator with a mech suit

Is his arch rival a guy in a gator suit Rhino from Spider-Man style?

In his case it would be more accurate to say It --- Works.

...I hope that joke wasn't too obtuse...

>"don't think about it too much."

You can't develop a power unless you know how it works, hombre.
You can do "bad science"- this is superheroics; no one expects you to justify everything, but not understanding the psuedo-science of your powers is bad writing.

Normally I wouldn't be so autistic, but when it comes to capeshit a superpower IS almost like an entire other character that needs it's own statistics, development, personae, So you can understand it, develop it, flaw it, etc.. like you would any other character.

>Its starting to take over this setting

It IS the clue holding the cosmology together, but I do see your point. Things can be a lot more flavorful and diverse if started putting the brakes on LOL WALL.

I agree that war-remains should be the MAIN focus in Korea. But I do fucking love Tarkovsky's Stalker. It can be a real small place, sort of like the Zone in the movie and book its based on. Just a place where a real strong battle took place that contorted the wall and weird physics happens. It'll be just one of the features in your list instead of overpowering the theme.

Could that work?

Your face is bad writing

>That supers that DO have to worry about this are generally exceptions that proof the rule.

I figure there's two sorts of immunities:

>Physical
In the sense that you are physically immune or extremely resistant to your own power whatever it may be: heat, cold or the otherwise physical strain caused by your own ability like going really fast or being super strong.

>Subconscious
They say that a human can bite through a finger just as easily as a carrot and that we can't physically strangle ourselves all because our "brains" are hot wired to pull our punches when it comes to our own bodies.
I imagine there are some powers that are like this.

I've been brushing up on my Amerifat-level geography for Capeworld and I think we can do something interesting with Andorra.

In real life its a a small country between France and Spain known for having one of the highest, if not the highest, life expectancy in the world. Its small in both population and size.

Now In Capeworld Spain overthrew their General Frano styled dictator an his superhuman army with non powered capes like gadgeteers and armor users. I don't think Spain would have any de jeur discrimination against natural supers, but culturally natural supers fought for Not-Franco, and moon knights and iron men fought against him.

I figure a lot of Natural Spanish supers would move to Andorra and culturally Andorra would take more after France (a nation of explorers in the Jules Verne and Tintin vein who open portals to Wakfu worlds) than Spain.

Just adding a tiny piece of flavor to the tapestry of Cape World. What do you think thread?

I remember in Earth-X it was revealed that all Marvel supers were subconscious reality warpers in training, and the Asgard gods and eternals were just evolved versions that GET GUD with the reality control.

haven't run it yet, but all my future cape games will be supers revised edition.

the longest running camping my table ever had was a superhero game in Risus. Supers strikes me as similar enough [in resolution mechanics and character building at least] to risus to share its strengths [speed, flexibility etc] but has more to it to the point where it might play like an actual rpg.

I'm super out of the loop but posting the newest random country table, since it seemed to be overlooked as of the thread before previous

It now works on 2d20 - first for region, second for country

>Which Marvel RPG? The 80's one?
OP clearly states Marvel Heroic. The newest one

Rolled 10 (1d20)

>Marvel Heroic in OP
That's what I get for being an idiot.

Ohhhh....new table! Can we try it out?

I'M ROLLING FOR REGION!

>We now have flavor for a nothing county that doesn't even rate showing on maps.

Has Cape World gone too far?

It's Russia, comrade

I must say I put it together around the time Statesmen were being made... so it might require some tweaking of the numbers. Again.

Ideas are welcome

>a Veeky Forums general starts wanking to its own head canon to a recursively incestuous degree

How shocking.

>moon knights

what now?

Also it's de jure

de jeur isn't a think and du jour is "of the day"

In the original book, there were Zones all over the world. Might do something with it.
Also, their origin was never stated and there seemed to be no system to their placement

>supers revised edition

Got a pdf?

Ah good, don't even need another roll then. And it could use some new capes. We got that WMD one and Ice Breaker of the United Front and I think one or two more.

Should I roll on the MM generator or the Marvel Ultimate Powers generator?

Only major change would be putting North and South Korea together as just Korea

Maybe I'm too high on soda right now but I can't seem to figure out what your sentence means.

"Moon Knights" as in guys without power that go around throwing shit at people.

Like Moon Knight. Not counting that one time he got powered up so that he had super strength during the full moon and shit.

>Should I roll on the MM generator or the Marvel Ultimate Powers generator?
MUP is made for Marvel's mutants with their often weird powers. Go with MM one, it's more archetypal

Or use MHR rendom generator attached to this post

So am I right in saying Cape World Spain is sort of like pic related?

its incoming. connection speed is sluggish today.

link

mega.nz/#!YgxCHTYJ

key

!B3Nu5qku79zGPTacQOW0HVQ2KLol2ZUzHAkbTscreNc

Downloading now. Give me a quick opinion on its strengths and weaknesses?

Maybe a cape had an unknown environmental impact with their powers, resulting in odd physics, twisted lifeforms, and all sorts of crazy shit. The "Zone" is just the scene of a large battle involving said cape. The scariest part of this is that this didn't crop up until later, which means that anyone at said battle may have this malignant power. All the world's greatest heroes and villains were there, but who was the catalyst?

Doesn't even need to involve the Wall.

very fast for both players and gms. once you have a moderate grasp of the book, chargen takes as little as 10 minutes.

its very difficult for someone to become an invincible combat monster; everything is handled in d6 pools. though as always, a high enough powers will becomes STORY breaking in the right circumstances.

quite flexible for its relatively simplicity. powers are highly customizable, and the boosts, complications, advantages, and disadvantages are broad enough to let a player model essentially any concept.

on the weakneses side... everything beind done in broad d6 pools leaves it not nearly as granular as some of the more crunchy systems, like M&M, or Gurps, or Hero System. So the cap of what you can get out of it for what amount of effort is a bit lower.

if your game happens often enough, you'll need to throw out the advancement rules as written to prevent say, street level pulp heroes from going all the way up to mega-city defending world class champions in 8-10 adventures.

Using the MM one.

mediafire.com/download/3m6g7tc3wdwpcws/[GRR 5502] Gamemaster's Kit.pdf

Here it is if anyone else wants to roll and play along.

Anyone want to play?

ROLL 1D20 FOR ARCHETYPE!

By the way, I have an idea for Portugal sense we've been going Iberian today. I think they could take in a lot of Spain's natural supers like Andorra, but I want to do something with their being the first global empire in history.

I'm thinking they're less super explorers like France and more like super ambassadors. They use Spanish technology to augment and change natural supers to better interact and live in other dimensions, worlds, and Earths.

Think of it this way. France explores. the USA accepts immigrants and ambassadors from other places, and the Portuguese are the ambassadors from Earth, or at the very least they make the ambassadors. They likely work a lot with Italy which is the biotech post-humanity country and Canada with its illicit power creation research.

Because they've gotten good at suping up and augmenting supers Portugal is also big on super-crime. Criminal organizations seek us of their knowledge and techniques to build a better super villain. There are even rumors of a secret empire in Portugal of universe hoppers. They travel to vulnerable, weak worlds an strong arm their resources with powerful supers.

Good idea for Portugal?

I was the guy arguing for the wall, but I think that's a really good idea. I really like the "who done it" vibe. It ties more naturally into the super Korean War than the wall, and I think we should go with your idea instead of mine.

ps. forgot to mention, its the first superhero game I've seen that has pretty much properly balanced RANDOM cape generator. since any power or aptitude can be used for attack, defense, and movement as long as you can describe it properly in context, its almost impossible to end up with random powers that leave you useless.

> any power or aptitude can be used for attack, defense, and movement as long as you can describe it properly in context, its almost impossible to end up with random powers that leave you useless.

I imagine you'll have to be veryyyyy careful with that. Give players an inch and they'll take a mile.

Rolled 5 (1d20)

Glad you like it, was hoping to give some room for more "Zones" elsewhere under GM discretion.

We got an Energy Controller Ruskie!

In before its atomic energy...

ROLL 1D20 FOR ABILITIES (PERSONALITY BASICALLY)

it all depends on what tone of superhero game you want. i tend to lean VERY silver age craziness. but then I used to run my supers game (they called themselves The Dogooder Squad) in RISUS. So I'm used to someone with dice in pro cup stacking using THAT as a weapon.

if you want to restrict a specific power, encourage the player to use the extra effect/restricted effect boosts/complications to make the power much cheaper/more useful for one or 2 things and useless elsewise.

for example, if someone wanted a grappling hook gun to swing and get around, but didnt really use it for attacking, you can make it less useful as a weapon, to gain equivalent dice for movement or defence.

the description you accept is set by the GM. speaking of GM; the speed is much appreciated. gangs of mooks, traps, and things like wildfires can be modeled using basically identical mechanics if so desired.

Her body is effectively an internal resonance chamber that builds up the intensity of her scream. This also serves to prevent the sound from damaging her body, and directs it almost exclusively forward. She perceives it as no louder than a normal scream, while those in its path experience the full magnitude.

There's your pseudoscience.

Rolled 12 (1d20)

HOW PORTUGAL COMPARES IN TERMS OF:

SUPER ENHANCEMENTS:

Spain: Enhances humans to perform at superhuman levels

Italy: Enhances humans and superhumans to experience the world in ways never thought possible. They'd think seeing different wavelengths of energy would be a better development than being able to shoot that energy. They're very philosophical, even spiritual about super powers in Italy.

Cape World Italy should remind one of Renaissance humanists like Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. It should present the world and the experience of the world as an adventure in and of itself.

If any country appreciates off-beat "weird and useless" supers its Italy.

Portugal: Enhances people that already have super powers. They optimize superhumans, either to make stronger heroes or stronger villains, either to make them better ambassadors for strange worlds or to make them better conquerors and exploiters of weak worlds.

How does their dice pool work?

>Hotheaded

Oh boy. RUSSIA WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?

ROLL 1D20 TWICE FOR ADVANTAGES

Rolled 16, 1 = 17 (2d20)

Get him out of here.

I'm getting really tired of this super-cliche Capeworld. You guys are just stamping this shit out of an industrial press now.

>AGGRESSIVE AND PRECISE

RUSSIA NO. STOP.

ROLL 2D20 FOR SKILLS

>Super Cliche

What do you find Cliche about it? Perhaps you can help us make it less cliche with your comments?

Rolled 9, 2 = 11 (2d20)

Great...

Let's see.

Oops.

I mean, I don't see it, but I am a bit out of the loop. What'd I miss?

basically, you have 3 kinds of abilities: resistances, aptitudes, and powers.

resistances are composure, fortitude, reaction, and will. of you can't think of something else to defend with, you roll these to defend. they are also your damage track. if someone attacks you in any of these and gets you to 0, you are disabled from the current combat in a relevant way. every one starts at 1d.

aptitudes are skills. every aptitude starts at 1d automatically. though you can buy higher than 3 dice with specializations or the super aptitude power, their result is hard capped at 18. batman has invested herwe.

powers are what they sound like.

say im attacking someone with super strength 4d, and they roll fortitude 3d to resist. i roll a 14 against their 9, dealing 1 die of damage to their fortitude. if i had rolled a difference of more than 6, they would have taken an additional die of damage for each 6 points between our rolls.

impiortant to note, unless you take a specific boost which reuces your pool to split its use into multiple powers[-1d to use it for 2 things etc], reach power/aptitude may only be used 1 way/1 time in a round. this forces diversicfication. even if they only want 1 power, they can buy other powers/aptitudes and fluff it as being an expression of the base power.

ie i have time control 3d, and buy up my fighting aptitude to 3d. and buy fast attack 3d, letting me do 2 fighting attacks in a round, to represent super fast boxing, while still having the time control power to defend, freezing time and dodging in a split second.

It's just that everything is based on some sort of national stereotype and happens at the national level.

>OBSERVANT ATHLETE

We're making more or less a human nuke aren't we? Watches the borders of Russia ready to attack with aggressive precision.

I wonder if he was involved in the Korean War...I'm getting the mental image of a big general guy in full military dress with glowing energy guys.

Imagine talking nuclear politics with a guy that IS a nuke. That's what I'm thinking so far. A guy as powerful in politics as he is in battle capable of fiery rhetoric.

ROLL 1D20 FOR TYPE OF ENERGY

And darn, there's no atomic option...

Rolled 5, 14 = 19 (2d20)

FUCKING SPETSNAZ

They messed with my roll, this is the power of Russian Special Forces.

fine, you want specific to a smaller area? a big company in vancouver has an in-house team of pulp level supers. they are part of a non profit shell branch of the company. altrhough they get used for publicity and such, their main job is as enforcers for the company. getting sent into cheap housing the company has bought[and so they are technically acting as in company security on company ground] to remove a ring of drug dealers from some cheap shit housing so the company can redevelope it into condos and benefit from higher property values. boom. specific city level shit.

also the national level stuff isnt just stereotypes. its mostly based on things that demonstrably exist and are important to a given country, turned up and twisted a bit on superpowers.

if you doubt that Vegas is a gambling town through and through, that Germany's entire political landscape is grown out of reactions to nazi shit, or that Canada suffers a lot of tensions between the English, french, and natives, i suggest you brush up on history.

>National Stereotype

The trick is making a country in Cape World that is cultural similar but not exact to the real world counterpart.

So we take cultural and historical ideas and take them in odd, interesting directions. Like Korea is a place of fallout from an almost-end of the world crisis because of the Korean War, but there's nothing really stereo-typically Korean about supers exploring and dealing with the fallout of an uber-war.

Or take Cape World Spain that takes the Franco years and spins them into a normie vs super story. There's nothing stereotypicaly Spanish about power suits and Batman gadgets.

Or take Cape World Greece. It takes influence from the financial crisis yes, but it also draws on Greek mythological history of inattentive, abusive gods and adventurous heroes exploring islands of weird monsters. Its hardly "Captain Greek with the power to throw lightning".

What specifically do you find stereotypical? What would you change to make it better?

>national level

That's just the point of worldbuilding we're at now. We're working top to bottom.

I can point to Canada and it seems less of a stereotype than most comics. Korea isn't very standard. I'll give you the political superpowers, but those are hard to change. Africa and Australia are only kind of cliche. Most of Europe, especially Germany, is actually pretty original to my knowledge.

Rolled 6 (1d20)

>also the national level stuff isnt just stereotypes. its mostly based on things that demonstrably exist and are important to a given country, turned up and twisted a bit on superpowers.

if you doubt that Vegas is a gambling town through and through, that Germany's entire political landscape is grown out of reactions to nazi shit, or that Canada suffers a lot of tensions between the English, french, and natives, i suggest you brush up on history.

This guy gets it.

>5

>Cosmic

OH NEVER MIND IT IS ATOMIC ENERGY. BUT MORE AND WORSE.

Are we making Red Doctor Manhattan? God is real and he's Russian?

ROLL 1D20 ONCE FOR POWERS

are there any Nova Scotian supers?

I feel like reppin the home province, but I don't know exactly how saturated Canada is for supers right now

Rolled 15 (1d20)

We all know that Stalin is the one true power and God is a lie, hail Mother Russia.

Compare Cape World Europe to comic Europe. I think Cape World Europe comes off pretty damn good.

The hard part is deciding when is something the culture of a country and when is something cliche. Its not always an easy thing.

I think there was one mentioned, but I wouldn't say anything is "saturated" at this point.

Energy Control: Array (24 points, plus 4 points of Alternate Effects)
• Energy Blast: Ranged Damage 12 • 24 points

Take the Energy Control array and Energy Blast (above), then roll 1d20 four times on the Alternate Effects sidebar (re-roll if you get the same result twice) and add them to the Energy Control array as Alternate Effects.

So basically he's diverse in his powers.

I NEED 1D20 FOUR TIMES FOR ALTERNATE EFFECTS

Rolled 8, 11, 9, 20 = 48 (4d20)

Honestly, how often in comics will you hear someone even MENTION Spain and Portugal let alone have them say something like "I need to swing by Spain to pick up my new utility belt before dropping by Portugal for some power optimization therapy"

Have we done Brazil? It seems ripe for the picking in terms of conflict and culture.

We've not done anything regarding South America, actually.

Energy constructs, energy manipulation, energy weapons, and telekinesis.

A very powerful cosmically powered Russian general who not only can make big Jack Kirby looking shit out of cosmic energy and fire it as raw blasts but can take you apart Akira style with his mind.

I think we know who caused the weird spot in Korea now. Or at least he's one of the prime suspects.

ROLL 1D20 FOR DEFENSIVE POWERS

He starts with energy immunity.

I don't believe we have. It definitely has potential with its history and culture to be something cool. The sexiest super heroines probably come from Brazil

we did a pair for PEI,. one with water powers and one with magnet powers [iron rich sand made this mandatory].

i think my partner had an idea for one in the region that was heavily Gaelic inspired. had a claymore and super strength.

nothing specific really though. and none of them had names or backstories really.

Let's avoid Brazilian Nazis please. Nothing is worse than "Nazis did it".

>The sexiest super heroines probably come from Brazil
You mean space.

Rolled 18 (1d20)

agreed. no need to go all Hellsing with it.

I was gonna go more for the Nova Scotia-specific culture and not go all the way back to Scotland.
Like almost scottish, but then you add in more flannel and an extreme inability to speak gaelic OR english.

I was also thinking of adding in the whole conflicting part of Nova Scotia with the "a huge part of our culture is french, but we evicted the original french people who settled here. what are we?" thing

>You mean space.

someone. Brazillian Starfire. make it. PLEASE.
in all seriousness though, i honestly don't know much about brazil other than soccer, Catholicism, and the hottest women on the planet. and a fair number of none too shabby man chests either.

I just think there should be more focus on the individual heroes.

But then I think almost all of the Statesmen are horribly lame and handicapped by the need to personify their state

Me and /shg/ just aren't on the same wavelength I guess

Does she have three feet or a hoof or something?

Beautiful vistas, for one.
Being one of the most violent nations in the world, for another.

She's wearing baggy-yet-somehow-skintight thighhigh boots.

It's Starfire.

like, the people tend to get violent passionately? or, like, beheadings? I'm assuming closer to the later. south America is one of those places prone to... aggressive negotiation.

So far oddly enough its been Virginia with Virginia Daring.

I wonder if there are super heroine bikini contests in Brazil?

Force Field. Because you actually thought you could hurt him?

GENERAL ATOMNOYE laughs at your pitiful Capitalistic fire power.

ROLL 1D20 TWICE FOR UTILITY POWERS

>Need to personify their state
They were elected based on that mostly. The Statesmen is not a "super team" so much as a PR thing. I don't think you're getting the purpose behind them. It's almost like a Miss 50 States thing.

>Brazillian Starfire

How would this work? An Alien warrior princess that grew up and lives in Brazil?

half alien, half Brazilian? i could see a powerful alien falling in love with a Brazilian woman.

>How would this work? An Alien warrior princess that grew up and lives in Brazil?
Probably someone built like Starfire who comes from Brazil.

Rolled 2, 5 = 7 (2d20)

Russia too stronk.

to be fair, most things would feasibly fall in love with Brazilian women

hm, what if a civilian with minor emotional manipulation powers encountered an alien and took advantage, using the alien to protect her family who were in some sort of terrible situation.

Are you just saying that because the actual Starfire is powered by her emotions?

I don't know much about the political situation in Brazil, but that would definitely fit into a more at-risk nation in South America that I also don't know the name of because I am not a very worldly guy

Or, and this is ridiculous, but an alien found a woman attractive on her own merits. Slotting powers on every random schmuck kills settings.

no i honestly forgot that until just this moment. happy coincidence. i was trying to find an angle that was a bit different than JUST "Earth woman! I have selected YOU!"

i get your point, but once it occured to me, i liked th eidea of the resultant superheroine having a complicated relationshipt with her mother. proud that she was resourceful and strong, and did what was necessary to protect the people important to her, but at the same time unsettled that said safety, and possibly (but not necessarily. they might have legitimately fallen in love after a bit) her entire life was the result of her mother taking advantage of someone who had no reason to be dragged into whatever violent conflict.

fair enough. it doesnt have to be specifically brazil. but now that we've talked it out a bit im starting to like this concept.