![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackThe plan
My plan was to design from scratch superhero concepts that were about equivalent to a 5e 3rd level character. I chose 3rd level because it's the level where most classes get their signature abilities, but is still simple enough for a beginner to play, and for me to adjudicate.
I know that transplanting to system to a different world sounds ridiculous, but I thought it made surprisingly much sense. 5e characters feel quite like mid-level superheroes to me. They bounce back from damage easily. They have an array of fantastic powers. The fights feel reasonably like superhero fights to me: a mix of chipping away and decisive blows, ending fairly quickly. In particular, it works if they're mostly specific powers you can use on the spot, whereas if your characters are known for "incredibly strategic plans" (like Vorkosigan Saga), it's harder to model those by rolling dice.
It doesn't have any superhero *specific* mechanics, no "pull out all the stops and collapse exhausted", no "count the number of bystanders you rescued", but I reckoned that wasn't necessarily needed.
The hope
In particular, I wanted a not-too-heavy game where combat mattered, but if some of the powers were a bit inconsistent or overpowered in some situations, we could handwave it away. And I wanted free reign to be able to include cool stuff that didn't necessarily fit a specific mechanic.
E.g. instead of "misty step, you can teleport this far" you can have a character who has a extra ability that at the start of the scene, he can always be dramatically emerging from the shadows behind someone, regardless whether you know how he did that or not. Like, you could have a teleport power and roleplay that use of it, but it feels more like Batman if you specifically have THAT ability, and you assume it's NOT a teleport, but that you're just really good at setting stuff up.
E.g. You can have a "really big strong" character who has the special ability to break through walls. And don't try to model that by "walls are this strong, this character has this much strength compared to other characters" and get into binds like "if she can hit a wall that hard, why can't she hit supervillains that hard?" Instead, just directly say, "special, break through a normal wall". I added a limit of 10 times per day mostly for flavour reasons.
The execution
That... pretty much worked exactly as I'd hoped. I'd like to hear from my players, but it seemed like everyone enjoyed it. There were some rough edges on the character sheets, but I don't think they were worse than any first session in a new system, and they didn't cause significant problems during play.
Simplification of character sheets
I used the normal 5e rules, although I was more willing to let stuff happen that didn't quite fit the rules and adjudicate on the fly than I would be in a more tactical game.
The character sheets were simplified, which was interesting. Most of the changes were actually just to emphasise the important information, mechanical changes were fairly small.
I listed character name and player name REALLY BIG at the top so everyone could see the names from round the table. There was a line for concept like "Low-budget bruce lee" or "trust-fund sorcerer supreme".
I had HP and AC. I left out "recover this many hit dice worth of hp equal to your level over short rests" stuff and said I'd just say, if you get to rest I'll tell you "everyone recover half your total hp" or whatever I deemed appropriate to the situation.
I removed ability scores entirely, since most superheroes are defined by abilities not ability scores. Most of the time it doesn't matter if someone is a bit stronger or a bit cleverer since I was eyeballing the skills, hp, and attacks anyway. But I kept the saving throws, well dex/fort/will renamed to "dex", "toughness", "will", because it felt flavourful for some characters to be good against some things and bad against others, and that did come up and I think it was well worthwhile.
Indeed, I'd left out initiative, but we started using the dex score for that too, and that worked fine. Technically this is different to regular DnD as in the original rules it would mean some would get their proficiency bonus and some don't, but that seemed equally appropriate. And also at player suggestion, I started using toughness for strength checks which came up surprisingly much. And that was fine too. I think the superhero game doesn't need to distinguish "strong" from "tough" in the same way.
The most important change IMO is having a clear section for "here is a list of actions you can take", mostly combat ones. That's not easy to find on a regular character sheet. Those would have been prettier if I'd had a better graphic design program to use.
Then I had an "other" section which listed abilities that aren't a combat action. And skills. I didn't list skills, I just said "+5 to ninja stuff" and adjudicated on the fly what was appropriate.
How I'd redesign DnD character sheets
Based on that experience, it does feel like I'd like DnD character sheets to be different even for regular DnD.
It very rarely matters what your actual ability score is during play. It could be moved out to a "details" section only used during character creation. And even the ability modifiers, how often does it matter that you make a dex check (without your proficiency bonus) not a dex save, or an acrobatics check? How often do Str checks come up -- if you just rebalanced things so martial classes get to include their proficiency bonus on the str check as well as the str save would it make a big difference? You could move the ability modifiers to the "details" section, which you only use when you're *calculating* your weapon attacks, skills, etc.
Then you could have one big column which would have "Dex, Con, Wis checks", "Str, Int, Cha checks" and skill values, each as a +number including a raw ability score and sometimes a proficiency bonus. You'd always use the same value for a Str check as a Str save, even if some things give you a temporary bonus to one or the other not both.
Or if that's too much, you could have two columns, one for net, one for gross, for ability scores, and maybe even skills. So the first one is always the ability modifier, and the second one is the ability modifier with proficiency or any other bonus added when appropriate. And then you use the first column for ability checks, and the second for saving throws and skill checks.
As above, I'd emphasise the "here are the actions you can take" bit! I'd make them bigger and central. Although unlike 4e, I wouldn't try to include a button for *everything*, just the ones you *usually* want to take. I'd include standard combat cantrips and "cast a spell", and then have a list of other abilities like second wind and activate wand and so on elsewhere.
I would also include, in really tiny print, the calculation for each number at the bottom of its box. I know that might be clutter, but if it doesn't draw the eye you can scan past it, but it means you don't always have to wonder "WTF am I calculating this right"? The beginner can see their +4 to hit and look closer and say, "oh right, +2 for str and +2 for proficiency" and not feel like it's magic they don't understand, or keep asking "wait, do I add my proficiency to attack? what to damage? Wait, it's already there?"
My plan was to design from scratch superhero concepts that were about equivalent to a 5e 3rd level character. I chose 3rd level because it's the level where most classes get their signature abilities, but is still simple enough for a beginner to play, and for me to adjudicate.
I know that transplanting to system to a different world sounds ridiculous, but I thought it made surprisingly much sense. 5e characters feel quite like mid-level superheroes to me. They bounce back from damage easily. They have an array of fantastic powers. The fights feel reasonably like superhero fights to me: a mix of chipping away and decisive blows, ending fairly quickly. In particular, it works if they're mostly specific powers you can use on the spot, whereas if your characters are known for "incredibly strategic plans" (like Vorkosigan Saga), it's harder to model those by rolling dice.
It doesn't have any superhero *specific* mechanics, no "pull out all the stops and collapse exhausted", no "count the number of bystanders you rescued", but I reckoned that wasn't necessarily needed.
The hope
In particular, I wanted a not-too-heavy game where combat mattered, but if some of the powers were a bit inconsistent or overpowered in some situations, we could handwave it away. And I wanted free reign to be able to include cool stuff that didn't necessarily fit a specific mechanic.
E.g. instead of "misty step, you can teleport this far" you can have a character who has a extra ability that at the start of the scene, he can always be dramatically emerging from the shadows behind someone, regardless whether you know how he did that or not. Like, you could have a teleport power and roleplay that use of it, but it feels more like Batman if you specifically have THAT ability, and you assume it's NOT a teleport, but that you're just really good at setting stuff up.
E.g. You can have a "really big strong" character who has the special ability to break through walls. And don't try to model that by "walls are this strong, this character has this much strength compared to other characters" and get into binds like "if she can hit a wall that hard, why can't she hit supervillains that hard?" Instead, just directly say, "special, break through a normal wall". I added a limit of 10 times per day mostly for flavour reasons.
The execution
That... pretty much worked exactly as I'd hoped. I'd like to hear from my players, but it seemed like everyone enjoyed it. There were some rough edges on the character sheets, but I don't think they were worse than any first session in a new system, and they didn't cause significant problems during play.
Simplification of character sheets
I used the normal 5e rules, although I was more willing to let stuff happen that didn't quite fit the rules and adjudicate on the fly than I would be in a more tactical game.
The character sheets were simplified, which was interesting. Most of the changes were actually just to emphasise the important information, mechanical changes were fairly small.
I listed character name and player name REALLY BIG at the top so everyone could see the names from round the table. There was a line for concept like "Low-budget bruce lee" or "trust-fund sorcerer supreme".
I had HP and AC. I left out "recover this many hit dice worth of hp equal to your level over short rests" stuff and said I'd just say, if you get to rest I'll tell you "everyone recover half your total hp" or whatever I deemed appropriate to the situation.
I removed ability scores entirely, since most superheroes are defined by abilities not ability scores. Most of the time it doesn't matter if someone is a bit stronger or a bit cleverer since I was eyeballing the skills, hp, and attacks anyway. But I kept the saving throws, well dex/fort/will renamed to "dex", "toughness", "will", because it felt flavourful for some characters to be good against some things and bad against others, and that did come up and I think it was well worthwhile.
Indeed, I'd left out initiative, but we started using the dex score for that too, and that worked fine. Technically this is different to regular DnD as in the original rules it would mean some would get their proficiency bonus and some don't, but that seemed equally appropriate. And also at player suggestion, I started using toughness for strength checks which came up surprisingly much. And that was fine too. I think the superhero game doesn't need to distinguish "strong" from "tough" in the same way.
The most important change IMO is having a clear section for "here is a list of actions you can take", mostly combat ones. That's not easy to find on a regular character sheet. Those would have been prettier if I'd had a better graphic design program to use.
Then I had an "other" section which listed abilities that aren't a combat action. And skills. I didn't list skills, I just said "+5 to ninja stuff" and adjudicated on the fly what was appropriate.
How I'd redesign DnD character sheets
Based on that experience, it does feel like I'd like DnD character sheets to be different even for regular DnD.
It very rarely matters what your actual ability score is during play. It could be moved out to a "details" section only used during character creation. And even the ability modifiers, how often does it matter that you make a dex check (without your proficiency bonus) not a dex save, or an acrobatics check? How often do Str checks come up -- if you just rebalanced things so martial classes get to include their proficiency bonus on the str check as well as the str save would it make a big difference? You could move the ability modifiers to the "details" section, which you only use when you're *calculating* your weapon attacks, skills, etc.
Then you could have one big column which would have "Dex, Con, Wis checks", "Str, Int, Cha checks" and skill values, each as a +number including a raw ability score and sometimes a proficiency bonus. You'd always use the same value for a Str check as a Str save, even if some things give you a temporary bonus to one or the other not both.
Or if that's too much, you could have two columns, one for net, one for gross, for ability scores, and maybe even skills. So the first one is always the ability modifier, and the second one is the ability modifier with proficiency or any other bonus added when appropriate. And then you use the first column for ability checks, and the second for saving throws and skill checks.
As above, I'd emphasise the "here are the actions you can take" bit! I'd make them bigger and central. Although unlike 4e, I wouldn't try to include a button for *everything*, just the ones you *usually* want to take. I'd include standard combat cantrips and "cast a spell", and then have a list of other abilities like second wind and activate wand and so on elsewhere.
I would also include, in really tiny print, the calculation for each number at the bottom of its box. I know that might be clutter, but if it doesn't draw the eye you can scan past it, but it means you don't always have to wonder "WTF am I calculating this right"? The beginner can see their +4 to hit and look closer and say, "oh right, +2 for str and +2 for proficiency" and not feel like it's magic they don't understand, or keep asking "wait, do I add my proficiency to attack? what to damage? Wait, it's already there?"
no subject
Date: 2019-01-31 08:56 am (UTC)It got used for quite a lot of CURS One-offs back in the day.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-31 10:19 am (UTC)But I mean... you can have more than one game in the same genre. Not every comic fantasy is "reinventing Pratchett". Not every superhero roleplaying game is the same superhero roleplaying game. At Heffers, lots of people said, "Why not use Mutants and Masterminds" which is also awesome, also a vibrant superhero setting with combat that is supposed to be cinematic but also somewhat tactical, but (it looks like) very different to Feng Shui.
For instance, features I was looking for (with mixed success):
* For people who LIKE somewhat tactical combat, and having a metric to gauge how strong foes are, but don't want the mechanics to be so heavy it's slow
* Tying it to an existing system means there's context for things like "shooting lightning is different than shooting fire is different" because monsters might have different resistances/vulnerabilities, or different AC vs saving throws.
* Existing archetypes and skills are prompts, not restrictions, on characters.
* Being able to define characters who have abilities there isn't already a mechanic for, like "walk through combat miraculously unscathed" or "always find someone's secret good side" or "invent the right gadget on the spot, but only so much"
It sounds like FS does some of those, but maybe has different goals for other ones?
no subject
Date: 2019-01-31 02:42 pm (UTC)It was interesting to here how you adapted the system in a way that seems to have worked really well, as well as adapting the character sheets. The superheroes genre isn't one I'm hugely into, but I still appreciate the systems discussion from a game mechanics perspectives!