Superhero Storm

[Clockwork]

Hi all (especially Jubal though, because he's not busy enough with the gazillion things he's doing),

I'm making a tabletop game! I've actually done a fair amount of the building and planning wrt sizes already but I'm really unsure about how to design core rules. I want to keep them really simple and using d6es so I've been looking at Dungeon World RPG (roll 2d6 on a 2-6 you fail on 7-10 you get an action (such as attack/defend/cast spell) and are attacked and on 11 you get an action with no consequence and on 12 you get 2 actions) and I'd like a system like that.


Right the game is set on basically a slightly larger chess board (exact number of squares tbd) and there are 4 levels of verticality because flying is a mainstay superpower and I want it to basically be the USP.


Jubal, I know you're fantastic at creating games so if you wouldn't mind very generously giving me a few pointers that would be phenomenal


So I have a basic idea that you get a small number of heroes per side (say 5?) and one side will favour destruction and one protection. There will be objects on the board to be destructed/protected and I think there will be 4 stats which give + or - to dice results.


There will be an advanced ruleset (with all the fun things) but I'm trying my best to ignore it atm to focus on getting a core game set up.

[Jubal]

Eeee! Yes, very up for this Happy to give whatever advice I can!

The 2d6 action rolling thing sounds good, though that seems quite a high chance of failure (which will be fine if failures are interesting & that's the point, annoying if failures are boring).

Do you want a literal constructed four level board, or four levels of board that are actually set side by side on the table?

[Clockwork]

Yay! Thanks

Yes I neglected to mention failures mean the other person gets an action so something will always happen, I want it to be thematic of how in most duels there's frames of each getting the upper hand before one is the victor

Neither (ish, though kind of the first I just wanted to exclaim )! I have 3 different sizes of straws (plus the ground level) attached to cardboard bases and removable flying bits of cardboard


The flying thing is some flyers are melee actions only but get +s for how far they fly towards their action target. For instance Hawkman (DC) has a mace and so I wanted to capture the action of him flying down to one layer above ground level and smashing a target as he flies off.

Not using DC heroes just an example. This may be shocking but I haven't got any heroes yet

[Jubal]

OK, I guess victory/damage resolution mechanics will be a fairly important thing to sort early on. How complex do you want these to be? You could go for a straight-up hitpoints system, or have something a little more outwardly complex (knockback/stun/crit hit effects with some rolling tables for result) that might give a bit more in the way of interesting options for what happens.

[Clockwork]

Yeah good point, I don't know how to do victory mechanics. I was vaguely toying with points - 1point for each destroyed thing, 1 for each opposing hero taken out: 1 for each thing protected, 1 for each opposing hero taken out and having a battleships-like hitpoint mechanic to establish priorities and areas of conflict.

[Jubal]

I guess what I'm think for damage res is that having too strong a hitpoints mechanic might make the whole thing a bit too much of a countdown slugfest and avoiding that might make life more dynamic.

Example idea: two heroes, who I'm going to arbitrarily call Golden Lance and Shadowsword.

Golden Lance gets an action, and use her basic "attack" (equiv to punching etc) on shadowsword, who is adjacent. She could then roll on the following table:

1 Fail/miss
2 Knockback 1 square
3 Knockback 2 squares
4 Stun: the enemy may not be selected for an action next time their player goes
5 Knockdown: the enemy needs to get an action and roll a 4+ to get back into battle, and falls out the sky if they're flying
6 Critical: roll on another chart, has chances to seriously damage or kill the enemy

Something like this (maybe modified) could be the basic attack for everyone, with certain heroes having alternative charts or abilities that modify that - for example, Golden Lance might have a "Lance Charge" where she can fly or move up to 5 spaces then attack as a single action.

Further thought: you may want some randomisation in movement, maybe give all heroes d3 squares movement for free before acting unless they're stunned. The trouble otherwise is that people's hero placement and just about avoiding the range of others' attacks can become too important, risking the game getting into a very slow grind whereas having a bit more randomisation might encourage players to take risks and that might help get a bit of a fluid combat feel.

[Clockwork]

I like it but I'd keep that to the advanced rules. The basic rules are going to be incredibly basic

I was thinking of using something like this as the basic rules:



Actions:


Attack
Grapple
Throw
Heal
Take Off
Move/Fly


Stats:


Strength: Attack Grapple Throw
Psychic: Attack Heal
Power: Attack Heal
Endurance: Heal


Order of Play:


Choose unused hero
3 actions


A round is every hero acting. Each player takes it in turn to pick an unused hero to use for that turn.

Actions except Move/Fly/Takeoff are done by rolling 2d6 and using whichever modifier you choose. You can attack with Strength, Power or Psychic but individual heroes will have different modifiers. E.G. Hawkman has +1 Strength so rolling a 6-12 would succeed in a strength attack but he has -2 Psychic so would need a 9-12 to succeed in a Psychic attack.


A hero may defend with the Stat they are attacked with or Endurance.


Although I'm thinking of changing the success to an 8+ and not have any - modifiers because they're bad from a psychological standpoint.

[Clockwork]

Different heroes will have abilities such as 'Can use Psychic for throw and grapple actions' for a telekinetic or 'Can combine a Throw and Grapple into one action' for a luchador hero.

[Clockwork]

Cool, did a brief playtest and as I was hoping for the game plays a lot like Blood Bowl.

[Jubal]

Excellent If you send me a current version of the rules I'll try and do some run-throughs and give you some feedback?

[Clockwork]

Rules are the ones above! Just made up some hero powers like the aforementioned telekinetic and luchador (also had a speedster whom I gave a free movement to every turn, a colossus who used Endurance for attack and 2 flyers) made up stats for them, wasn't balanced but did a rough value of 3 points bonus per character -1 for flying. Objective was to defend a precariously placed USB stick of truth and a precariously placed flying DVD

[Clockwork]

Heroes! Hey guys and girls, a taste of the heroes I've been using so far, yeah they're dumb and tropey but hey, it's the 70's. Feel free to add your own. it's also not really set in the 70s, more like 1999. Although hey, do whatever you like, that's half the point of such a flexible system  


The format for heroes in this game is that they're relatively low power - along the lines of most xmen before they get their own damn character arc and develop power levels over 9000.
They generally have two points bonus overall, for example Icepick has 3 power - 3 psychic, giving him +3 on rolls concerning those powers, -2 strength and endurance. This can be affected by restrictions on actions or bonuses to action economy such as Conflict's restriction on healing or Luchadora's action economy bonus of combining grapple with throw.


Solar -

Spoiler

Gender: Female
Age: 29

Stella was an aspiring actress looking to make it big on the starry streets of Broadway until that fateful night which granted her strange cosmic powers!


Strengths:

Cosmic Powers - High power - Flying

Weaknesses:

None

Icepick -

Spoiler

Gender: Male
Age: 71

Icepick was a surgeon from a bygone era of painful electrocution based medicine and lobotomies. Since gaining superpowers he's found other means to help the world.

Strengths:

Cold powers - High Power and Psychic

Weaknesses:


Low Strength and Endurance

Dead Drop -

Spoiler

Gender: Male
Age: 22


Axel Grant-Hayward


To gain ultimate power has been Axels dream for as long as he can remember, so about a week! Unfortunately for him he's just tougher and stronger than your average Joe.


Strengths:


High Endurance - If moving before an attack, Strength is counted as 1 higher


Weakness:


Low Psychic

Luchadora -

Spoiler

Dolores Ortega


Gender: Female
Age: 36


Fighting is just in her nature some have said and by golly does she throw down with the best of them!


Strengths:


High Strength - Can combine grapple and throw into one action.


Weaknesses:


Low Power

Conflict -

Spoiler

T. S. Waymon


Gender: Non-binary
Age: 19




Conflict named themselves such because of the turmoil within them, the desire to do good vs the destructive nature of their powers.


Strengths:


Engulfed in permanent flame - High Power and Endurance - Acrobatic (Can jump over ground level objects and people as part of movement)


Weaknesses:


Engulfed in permanent flame - Can not perform heal action - Low Strength

BBS -

Spoiler

Sarah Donnovan


Gender: Female
Age: 19


Named for her extensive array of Bulletin Boards, BBS is never too far from her futuristic gadgets!


Strengths:


Flying - Can use Power to defend against Psychic - Can attack from range


Weaknesses:


Low overall stats

Coriolanus -

Spoiler

Martin Locke


Gender: Male
Age: 34


A former politician and political protogé to the mayor. Martin had an agenda to 'modernise' affordable housing in the city by turning it into premium property for his benefactors at the expense of the residents. At the eleventh hour he had a change of heart but by then it was too late and he retired from politics having angered both parties.



Strengths:


Metallic suit - extra strength - extra endurance


Weakness:

Can't defend vs Psychic - Must heal every turn when damaged otherwise lose 1 endurance per turn

[Clockwork]

My dudes I really need a name for this. I'm in the process of finding out all the armadillo I need to make this thing and I can't keep calling it Rob's Tabletop Superhero Game because that's a mouthful. And who's this Rob guy?


Started a kickstarter page for when I have a prototype made and I can reasonably ask for money to get it physically made so a title is becoming more of a priority

[Jubal]

OK, a random pool of ideas:

Fight n' Flight: The Game of Superheroes
Heroes of X, where X is a randomly named fictional or even real city (Yoreville, New Leeds, Storm City, Las Colinas)
Superhero Storm
Superheroica
Superpower Showdown

I'm not thinking very well, but those were my first few thoughts.

Also will post some hero ideas soon - I have two superhero-team type ideas mulling around in my head, one kinda space-cop themed bunch and one mythology-themed, which I'll try and get onto paper sometime

[Clockwork]

Awesome, thank you!


Heroes of New Leeds sounds hilarious


Superhero Storm is my favourite, captures the right image of it. Need to phone my arty buddy to try and convince him to draw some boxart and that title will help a lot, thanks