Author: Jason Brannen

Okay, so here we go with Heroes of the City (hotc) version 2.0.  With a little bit of peer review, I’ll be ready to try it out again in a play test. 

HotC 2.0 playbooks, powers, basic and special moves can be found here for review.  https://www.dropbox.com/sh/slqfwwavsal246t/AAAwODCiO0m9LwyKDQ8jWB7Oa?dl=0

Once again, I’m looking for a “sit down, generate a detailed supers character in 15 minutes, and play the game” experience.  This is for episodic games that might include no players from the previous week or any player familiar with DW.

This version varies further from Dungeon World.  I cleaned up the Basic and Special moves slightly for clarity.  You’ll still see some familiar moves for each of the Archetypes (AT), but I feel like I had to make up more moves in this version.  The DW moves, as written, just didn’t make sense with the mechanics and concepts I introduced.

There is once again one single Use a Power move.  The stunts you can pick from vary depending on what powers you’ve chosen.  I made a 5-6 primary and 5-6 secondary powers available to each AT from which to choose.  The advanced moves in the playbooks usually give you new ways to use your powers as you level up (at range, in a cone, more powerful, additional effects) combined with DW moves and some moves based on the same framework as DW.  I still like each power as a separate move (When you use Ice Control…, When you use Gravity Control…) as I commented in my last post, but I thought I’d try it this way, since there was advice from the community to do it that way instead.      

I really, really liked the Channeler playbook I read.  I tried a version where I tagged each of the stunts with tags, but I quickly realized I might have to make up too many tags to suit the ‘quick-boom’ nature of the game I need.  I loved the ‘pick specialty of combinations to form techniques’ and I’d totally love to play this class in DW.  I’m close to adopting this type of thing, but it would have to be more naratively based than mechanical.  Since this is just for me at this point, I can determine what the stunts actually do on the fly (you’re a controller using a minor heal power, roll 1d4, you’re a defender with the same power, roll 1d6 [primary vs. secondary power]).  Minor damage, +1 forward, +1 specific move, +1 ongoing, heal dX, etc. mechanics are things I’ll judge on the fly depending on the narrative.  I’ll take notes as to what choices I make and get feedback from players as to how they felt the choices worked.  They may become static parts of the stunts in a future version.  I still may try that ‘make a combo unique to you’ approach if this doesn’t go in the direction I want it to.

Things I’m starting to think about for future versions:  Pick only 1 very broad power.  I’d combine the effects so that the powers would no longer be primary and secondary.  For example, Fire Blast and Fire Manipulation stunts would be combined into one Fire Blast power with more stunt options.  This has fewer choices for a faster start, but less variety and customization to the current powers system.  I could make more powers to choose from (say 8-10) for each AT, but that might once again slow down the start time as people waffle between too many choices; The Channeler option I mentioned above; How to vary less from the base DW moves;  How the powers I have written now might interact with themselves.  I may need to make heavy use of the Hold mechanic to represent an ongoing power.  Hold is the only thing I’ve seen that the ‘sit down and play’ players don’t seem to grasp intuitively which, again, might slow down start of play.

The numbers of systems I can’t quite use for what I want include Icons, D6 Powers, Venture City, Silver Age, Valiant, Just Heroes, Worlds in Peril, Savage Worlds, Champions, Supers!  Revised, Marvel Heroic Role-playing, MSH (FASERIP), and more.  The biggest hurdles I had were either too much generation time for characters, dissatisfaction with the powers system (too complex or too simple), the base philosophy of the game was too esoteric to grasp quickly, or any combination of these.  It’s not that I don’t like these systems.  I just can’t use them for what I want to use them as I need to.

Thoughts?

Follow-up to a previous post:

Okay, I think I found the next thing I’m going to try in my attempt to make a superhero game that can start play in 10-15 minutes. I still like the Dungeon World playbook approach, so I’m going to keep trying that (here’s five options, pick one, quickly customize and let’s play). One of the weaknesses of the previous version was the powers system. It was very mechanical, it didn’t have a way to be creative or do neat things with your powers, and sometimes you were spamming the same power over and over again and never got a chance to use your other powers.

New paradigm: Powers as moves. For a controller:

When you use Ice Control, roll+int. On a 10+ pick two, on a 7-9 pick one. On a 6-, the gm makes a “move” (language and concept of the GM move to be polished later.)

• Deal your damage

• Create icy formations

• Make an area much colder

• Stop movement by freezing something in place

• Make things slippery with ice

• Affect 1d4+level targets

• Freeze the moisture out of the air

• Use your powers at near or closer range

When you use Gravity Control, roll+INT. On a 10+, pick two, on a 7-9 pick 1. On a 6-, the gm makes a “move” (language and concept of the GM move to be polished later.)

• Deal your damage

• Make something lighter or heavier

• Bring down something that is flying

• Affect 1d4+level targets

• Crush something under its own weight

• Throw something at a far target

• Levitate yourself or others

• Use your powers at near or closer range

One advance move at level 2-5 could be to pick one additional effect when you use your power, and a replacement move at levels 6-10 allows the choice of two additional effects when you use a power.

This idea puts the fiction of what you can do with a power first. The consequences are going to be determined by the situation in which you use it. During the playtests, I can gather ideas for fictional effects (power stunts) to augment or replace the current power options. The player gets a variety of choices on how to use their powers. I can limit the number of options a power has to a reasonable number of choices, so as not to overwhelm players with too many options.

I’m thinking about starting with five options for each of the five archetypes. That means I’d be writing 25 powers with options on the front end, which is a reasonable goal that doesn’t sound overwhelming. I wrote six powers last night. I’m not sure I’m going to follow the CoH paradigm of a primary and secondary power. That may overwhelm the player that is just sitting down with too many choices. We’ll have to see how that playtests. I’m somewhat worried that a team would need to have every archetype present to be balanced. The primary/secondary power combinations would help mitigate this, but I don’t know if it is worth the trade off in additional complexity.

So, next things to work on:

• Edit the basic moves for clarity and the special moves for the same. Also, evaluate if there has to be a special move included or if it is going to come up infrequently enough that, I can drop it from a main list.

• Write 3-5 power moves like those above for each archetype for the next playtest.

• Edit the playbooks to reflect the new powers paradigm, drop some confusing wording from moves, and modify or rewrite some of the starting and advanced moves.

• Possibly come up with a briefing sheet that instructs new GMs how to teach the game. I think it’s too early for this, but right now, a cheat sheet for me to cover the things players were confused about on in the last test is a good idea.

I’ll update again once I have the sufficiently worked on the next phase. I’ll upload the stuff to DropBox so people can take a comprehensive look at it.