Hi, all.
I love superhero RPGs, and I'm looking for a way to do them solo. The freeform nature of many of them means that it's quite difficult to harness them with a solo engine. The problems tend to be two-fold: the actual resolution of tasks (there are so many options), and the story structure.
Does anyone have suggestions for a game or a game/solo engine pair? (I generally use Mythic when necessary, but I'd consider a different engine if it had recommendations.)
I'll take suggestions in both the improvised adventure and adapting a pre-written adventure spaces.
I've had some luck with ICONS and the Mythic engine. That leads me to suspect that FATE games would be a reasonable fit, but I only own Base Raiders and while others seem to have great success using FAE for superheroes, I can't wrap my head around it.
Marvel Heroic Roleplaying has so many dice and rolls and things to keep track of that it was a chore. (It's a great game, and I love playing it, but not as a solo thing.)
Champions suffered because I was busy falling out of love with the Hero System. I think in the fifth edition and earlier, it's a bit crunchy, too.
I think Supers! might hit the sweet spot, probably with Mythic, but I'm open to suggestions.
I like _Mutants and Masterminds_,/DC Adventures but it just feels too crunchy if I'm also handling the solo stuff.
I own DC Heroes and Truth & Justice but haven't tried them.
For story structure, I'm intrigued by what I've heard of With Great Power, but I didn't buy it when it was available. I'll get the new edition when it's available. (Hmmm. On reflection, Capes might work, but we only played one adventure, and I remember it only dimly.)
Given that there are to be two superhero games powered by the Apocalypse engine (Worlds in Peril is already out and Masks is still in its Kickstarter but it's already had pledges for several times its goal)... Does the tight restriction on moves help or hurt solo play? (I've never played or read a PbtA game, so I don't know.)
Anyway, the point was to say hi and ask for suggestions.
I had a bit of fun using the old White Wolf supers game "Aberrant", with Mythic. Deinitely worth looking into, it's got a nice setting and the same D10 pool resolution as the old WoD games. And it's handy to have D10s on hand when using mythic!
ReplyDeleteI know a lot of people find mythic clunky as an engine, but I find it works much better for freeform gaming than things like Tiny Solitary Solo or CRGE.
Thanks. Aberrant is certainly on my list of games I don't own but that I'd like to pick up.
ReplyDeleteI've been reading a PBtA game called Monster of the Week (think xfiles or Buffy).
ReplyDeleteI'm actually quite intrigued by the solo potential of GM moves/principles/etc. they are generic things you're supposed to actualize, but I think they're a great way to frame the way you ask Oracle questions.
I imagine that one could have them in a random table (or in an app like the one a lone wolf member shared here), and let that randomly narrow down the possible Oracle questions one might ask.
Combine that with the lightness of the system and i think it's probably a good fit for solo gaming
FASERIP. It's a cloneof the old Marvel Superheroic Roleplaying game. Simple percentile task resolution. I find one of the supplied settings (a sort of cyberpunk supers affair) REALLY lends itself to solo play.
ReplyDeleteWorld in Peril is a game I've taken a look at (SRD only, linked from the G+ group), intriguing but underdeveloped in the GM advice/one page handout I thought (at least in relation to other PbtA games). Funnily although they look great as GM rules, I've not yet played one solo, mainly because some of them I already do as part of my solo play.
ReplyDeleteAs supers is what I am doing for SGAM2015 I've looked at a long list. Something you might want to look at is Danger League, it is a hack of Danger Patrol by John Harper. You'll have to Google it as is only on a Story-Games thread I believe. I've hacked DP in the past to make it solo-able, so it's possible for DL too.
If you like light, then there's also League of Heroes, based on Barbarians of Lemuria. It didn't quite fit for me, but if you like BoL it's worth a look. Same for Truth & Justice, I'm not won over by the PDQ system, but it is light.
Regarding FAE, there's a great Fred Hick's blog post somewhere where he says that the approaches are great for describing how a character does something, rather than what they do. He also says that it's great where you have a lot of the same characters, and allows you to differentiate, for example everyone's a magical school child or cop. Basically if you were to design them on skills they'd end up very similar.
The FASERIP system, as well as being alive and well on MSHForever, is also repackaged as 4C, available freely from RPGNow et al. I'm mining it for superpowers.
Also something to consider is D6/MiniSix/MightySix. Available freely, apart from MightySix, it's D6 pool based game. It's a more than serviceable system which underpinned the first Star Wars RPG.
Myself I'm using a mix/mash up of Fudge/Fate 2.0/Fate Core. My discussion of my system is on my blog, linked from the SGAM group. Perhaps what I haven't mentioned is how I'm handling superpowers.
To start I am using the Danger League Roles (only 8 of those) for skills, plus I'm only street levelling, but I'm going stuntless and letting Aspects handle all the heavy lifting. It's a very stripped down Fate.
I'm not sure this has helped, other than list other games, but it is a process I went through recently so thought I'd share my thoughts.
Finally, I promise! I've started looking at all the possible adventure make-up/guidelines/structures and not found one to settle on myself, but is a very imminent consideration for SGAM, if you hit on something let me know! I'll do likewise through the blog/SGAM group. (For argument sake, it is entirely possible to run anything on Mythic alone, and I often forget this when planning).
In addition to Worlds in Peril, there's a simpler PbtA game for teenage superheroes called Masks currently being Kickstarted. Looks like a lot of fun!
ReplyDeleteDaniel Luce Many people love FASERIP and I've read it and tried to play it, but character creation always tripped me up. I think for someone else it's a good suggestion. About as close as I get is _ICONS_ (which I describe as the lovechild of FASERIP and FATE).
ReplyDeleteSteven Lincoln I had not heard of Danger League before this. I'll search it out.
ReplyDeleteWhat would be nice (he said) would be something that imitates the cycle of superhero games. Maybe the PbtA games have that in their GM material, but the increasing difficulty of the opponent(s) (which was done so nicely in MHR's Doom Pool).
Older comics are often structured in a fail-fail-try cycle, where the first encounter is a failure, the second provides the clue, and the third is the success. Obviously, I can arbitrarily set one ("He'll be powerless against....oh. I rolled yellow. Who the heck is vulnerable to a colour?") but that treads on the line of "You fail until I say you win." That seems too arbitrary and capricious to me.
I think in an improvised adventure it's reasonable to have some sort of resource that builds up from these failures, or that you can trade in your loved ones for... Hmmm. Maybe Capes has some useful ideas.)
Garth Rose It does look like fun. I haven't backed the Kickstarter yet (waiting to be paid) but I plan to.
ReplyDeleteSUPERS Revised has provided the best solitaire RPG experience of all I've tried. If you are interested in actual play write ups, I can provide links.. I did a whole series of kaiju battles, some typical superheroic scenes, and lately some modern action hero play-testing.
ReplyDeleteGary Brown I would be quite interested
ReplyDeleteJohn McMullen There is an alternate Point Buy style character creation for Marvel Superheroes (FASERIP system) on http://www.classicmarvelforever.com/cms/
ReplyDeleteThe random tables in the retroclone (appropriately titled) FASERIP are set up in a way to allow more choices & options.
I'm also very interested in Supers Solo RPG'ing. Haven't tried it yet, merely scoured the internet for random tables. I haven't quite worked out a "structure" for such games yet.