MRQ Superpowers

[Michael P Hopcroft]

If one wanted to graft a set of superpowers, inborn or otherwise, onto the MRQ ruleset, what do you guys think would be the best way to go about it.

Chaosium did release a BRP superhero game called Superworld, in the perod where they were scattershottedly releasing practically dozens of BRP-inpsired games in hopes one or two would connect with the audience. IIRC, the only one that actually did was Stormbringer, although there were enough Elfquest fans at the time that people did buy that game.

However, I want to find a somewhat different approach to how superpowers are obtained and super characters created, even if the basic function of how they work is something that you pretty much have to do a certain way. And one thing that's certain; in any campaign at that power level, skill percentages are going through the roof, which poses its own functional issues!

 

[weasel_fierce]

I'd argue Call of Cthulhu was a pretty decent success

Magicworld ended up being the foundation for the biggest swedish RPG to date (no benefit to Chaosium of course but still an achievement)


In any event, I would imagine the current legendary ability framework is the place to start.
A lot depends of course. One campaigns "superhero" is a guy with telepathy, anothers is Superman.

 

[Michael P Hopcroft]

I'd argue Call of Cthulhu was a pretty decent success

Yes, but that was what made them ATTEMPT the approach in the first place that led to a lot of interesting games very few people played.

In any event, I would imagine the current legendary ability framework is the place to start.
A lot depends of course. One campaigns "superhero" is a guy with telepathy, another's is Superman.

That reminds me of how you would use MRQ to build a world with no magic but with a decetn smattering of psionics, but that may be another issue.

I wonder if the Anime d20 SRD from the late, lamented GoO can yield a few clues -- they did open the content, and the point structure isn't that different aside from the skills issues. I may play with that for a while if I can find it again.

 

[Osentalka]

The BRP games are as follows:

- RuneQuest (1st Edition 1978 and 2nd Edition 1979; Chaosium 4000 - 4023)
- Stormbringer (1st Edition 1981, 2nd Edition 1983, 3rd Edition 1987, 4th Edition 1990; Chaosium 2006, 2101 - 2114)
- Thieves World (1981; other stats as well, but also RQ; Chaosium 2007)
- Worlds of Wonder (1982; Chaosium 2008/2201)
- Call of Cthulhu (1st Edition 1981, 2nd Edition 1983, 3rd Edition 1986, 4th Edition 1989, 5th Edition 1992, 6th Edition 2005; Chaosium 2009, 2301 - 23110)
- Superworld (1983; Chaosium 2011, 2401 - 2404)
- Other Suns (which can´t deny it´s BRP roots; 1983; Fantasy Games Unlimited 2201)
- Ringworld (1984; Chaosium 2501 - 2502)
- Elfquest (1st Edition 1984, 2nd Edition 1989; Chaosium 2601 - 2605)
- King Arthur Pendragon (sort of BPRish... 1st Edition 1985, ... ; Chaosium 2701 - 2719)
- Hawkmoon (1986; Chaosium 2106)
- Elric!/Stormbringer (1st Edition 1993, 2nd Edition/5th Edition 2001; Chaosium 2900 - 2907, 2115)
- Nephilim (1994; Chaosium 3100 - 3108)

 

[Utgardloki]

I've been playing around with such ideas, and think that Runequest would work well as a basis for a supers game.

By my calculations, the strongest superheroes would have basic characteristics scores in the hundreds. This assumes that carrying capacity goes up exponentially with Strength, which I believe to be the case. The numbers are manageable.

I've also calculated that skill percentages for immortal characters could go up to the high hundreds or even a bit over a thousand. Using an alternate system of subtracting multiples of 100 when testing high skill scores makes this into a system where there are a series of "leagues", where you really only have a chance against somebody within 100 points of your own score.

The hard part is assigning special advantages. I've been working on a system where starting characters get a bugdet of 'character points' to spend. Systems like GURPS and Mage help, but really the point values have to be considered for MRQ.

What I was working on was a game setting based on the 1970s TV shows, in which a few superheroes existed in the setting. There were about half a dozen "true" superheroes, a smattering of lesser-powered "ultras" and a larger number of "wannabes" who were best talented at getting themselves into serious trouble.

 

[RosenMcStern]

Uhm, which TV shows in the 70s? I cannot remember a good one.

MRQ is surely more suited to supers than old RQs. The infamous Resilience roll that makes a Dragon unbeatable becomes an advantage when YOU are supposed to be as tough as a Dragon.

The old good Marvel SuperHeroes (by TSR) used a d100 based system. Of course it had tables instead of percentiles, what is the fun of using a d100 roll if you must not cross-read it on a table?

Anyway, a different way of evaluating damage must be used when your characters must consistently deal 50+ damage in a blow: rolling 8d12 may become a bit boring.

 

[Utgardloki]

By my accounting, the following superheroes had live action TV shows in the 1970s, and therefore would have a presence in my "Tales of the Association" Runequest Modern campaign: Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, Captain Marvel, Isis, Electra-Woman and Dyna-Girl.

I also would include Batman, Robin and Batgirl because they were almost in the 1970s and had a cartoon and TV movies made in the 1970s. Normally I wouldn't include cartoon superheroes, of which there were many, but my concept also included consideration of TV shows from other decades, so there would be a predecessor of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I'd also include foreign live-action superhero programs such as Ultraman.

I never figured out what to do about Superman, since there were a number of Superman TV series, none of them in the 1970s. My thought is that they'd cancel each other out, so this world would have no Superman.

But these would all be NPCs. The premise of the campaign was that the PCs were all hired by a secret agent organization called The Association, which has a strict "No Masks" policy.

 

[RosenMcStern]

Oh yes, I had forgotten that Bill Bixby used to play the Incredible Hulk in the good old days of low-cost TV shows. But do you really want to mix Marvel and DC heroes in your setting?

 

[Utgardloki]

Oh yes, I had forgotten that Bill Bixby used to play the Incredible Hulk in the good old days of low-cost TV shows. But do you really want to mix Marvel and DC heroes in your setting?

Yes! By all means fair and foul, Yes!

I am thinking of changing the name of my proposed 1970s campaign to "Plausible Deniability". The players do not seem to keen on the title "Tales of the Association", especially since one player pointed out that there was a rock group called The Association. "Plausible Deniability" represents one theme I am considering.

The tactic I am taking is that people know of the super-heroes, but whether these are true superheroes, or whether tales of their exploits have been exagerated, is a matter of some debate. Some people swear they've seen a giant green man or a flying man in a red suit, but others claim they've been drinking a little too much or smoking some interesting drugs.

 

[Rurik]

Just My 2 cents:

I love BRP and find it is a system that works great for almost all genre's - EXCEPT supers.

It does just not scale well. RQ always had a problem dealing with 'hero' level characters. It is really designed to deal with the human-ish range of skills and abilities. It does not well represent a scale as widley divergent as say Daredevil, Hulk, Superman all in one game universe.

Good for something like Watchmen, yes, but not so much for the Marvel or DC universe type games.

Perhaps it is just too realistic to really represent supers.

 

[soltakss]

I agree with Rurik.

I played Superworld for a while and it just didn't work properly.

The problem with Superheroes is "How do you resolve vastly different powers?"

For example, Open Eye has a large eye in the middle of his forehead that he can use to blast people with. Tanglehair has prehensile hair that she can use as a shield. How do you resolve One Eye attacking Tanglehair? One way would be to give One Eye a Bolt abaility that did a certain amou8nt of daamge and then give tanmglehair a certain amount of hair armour, but it gets messy and gets bogged down in the detail.

In my opinion, HeroQuest would be a perfect system for Super Heroes. It is scaleable, relatively quick and resolves any kind of combat easily using the same rules. So, One Eye might have Eyeblast 10M3 and Tanglehair might have Living Hair 10M4 (Hair Shield, Grab Foe, Swing by Hair, Confusing Hair), making it easily resolvable. Having descriptive powers also allows you to have free rein when describing a Superhero and means you don't get bogged down with the "If I spend 10 points, I get a 5D6 attack" or the "If I get a dependant then this gives my extra points to spend" mentality.

If I ran a Superhero game again, I'd use a simplified version of HeroQuest, give everyone SuperPowers containing Powers and treat them in the saem way as Affinities/Keywords are treated in HeroQuest.

So, an un-named Superhero might have:
Webbing (Swing From Web, Stop Fall, Spin Web, Trap in Web, Shoot Web, Webachute)
Agility (Flip-Flop in Combat, Hard to Catch, Fast, Swing Easily)
Acute Senses (Sense Danger, Sense Problem, Spider Sense)
and so on. None of these would need a detailed breakdown in the same way as Superworld or Champions would do, but the narrator and Superheroes would be able ti know immediately what kind of effects they would generate.

 

[RosenMcStern]

Not at all, Soltakss. That would be Un-named (TM) Sense
And you forgot the Wall-climbing affinity, too :wink:

 

[Utgardloki]

Just My 2 cents:

I love BRP and find it is a system that works great for almost all genre's - EXCEPT supers.

It does just not scale well. RQ always had a problem dealing with 'hero' level characters. It is really designed to deal with the human-ish range of skills and abilities. It does not well represent a scale as widley divergent as say Daredevil, Hulk, Superman all in one game universe.

Good for something like Watchmen, yes, but not so much for the Marvel or DC universe type games.

Perhaps it is just too realistic to really represent supers.

I guess MRQ kind of reminds me of the old game Villians and Vigilantes, which I used to run. In fact, just before GURPS had come out, I came up with three pages of house rules that turned V&V into a pretty good universal role playing system.

Characters in V&V tended not to be uber-world-shattering powerful. In fact, representing the DC and Marvel superheroes in V&V was a bit problematic -- I had calculated that Superman's strength weighed in at about 10 million.

So I guess MRQ supers would be a lot more subdued than DCU supers or Marvel universe supers, or even D20 supers.

I think it could be done, although perhaps with random generation of super powers rather than spending character points. One idea I had was to have players choose tarot cards, and receive super powers based on the cards that they chose. The pictures on the cards would be a clue, but they wouldn't know whether they were getting a strong ability or an ability that requires more cleverness to utilize to maximum effectiveness.

 

[CthulhuFnord]

An alternative could be adapting the Demon Powers from Stormbringer. Heck having a superpowers campain powered by the Lords of chaos could be good for a Laugh.

 

[Michael P Hopcroft]

One could run a campaign on the basis that Power is Evil and even if you use it for good purposes, it will inevitably corrupt you and you will become evil, or mad.

 

[CthulhuFnord]

Abberant has an interesting premise not unlike that. I thought of a slightly silly CoC game with superpowers that cost san to use. How long can you keep back the fould forces of the Great Old Ones before you go mad and join them.

One could run a campaign on the basis that Power is Evil and even if you use it for good purposes, it will inevitably corrupt you and you will become evil, or mad.