Supers

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The usual nickname for RPG settings and systems with Superpowers, especially those with Superheroes. Called "Supers" probably in part because the word "Superhero" is trademarked by Marvel and DC.

An exact definition of the genre is a bit annoying because broader definitions can include The Epic of Gilgamesh (literally the oldest surviving literature), and Greek myth (the origin of the "hero" part), both of whom often feature in modern superhero fiction. Even narrower definitions will predate comic heroes with pulp figures like Zorro. Luckily, for /tg/'s purposes the genre can defined somewhere along the lines of a system designed for playing characters and adventures in the style of (/world of for licensed works) DC and Marvel comics (and their competitors/imitators) and the adaptations of those comics.

And, yes, Batman counts as part of the genre. His impossible-super-science gadgets (which even the Dark Knight trilogy and the Adam West version engaged in), otherwise ridiculously high degree of schooling, and the level of recovery from injury all count as "Superpowers".

Some General Trends

There's a vast amount of territory covered by Superpowered RPGs, in keeping with the comic books and TV shows that birthed most of them. There are a few general trends:

  • Secret Identities
    • As a general rule, as time has gone on, fewer and fewer superheroes have them, as the reason to have one has gone down. That being said, the usual explanation nowdays is to protect unpowered family members, which as reasons go is at least reasonable.
    • Further, as a general rule, at Marvel, there's a general feeling that "Street-level" superheroes are allowed a secret identity; those whose individual aspirations extend beyond a city are not (e.g., The Fantastic Four, Iron Man (even back when Iron Man was Tony Stark's "bodyguard", there was no question but that Iron Man worked for Stark))
    • Japanese (and East Asian more generally) superheroes either don't have them, have them because a transformation is part of their powers, or have them more because the hero is an benevolent infiltrator of some kind.
  • Power level
    • As powers get more powerful, the "relatability" of the hero goes down.
    • It's possible to make this work, by emulating mythology and going full SuperGods, or by making the OP superhero a supporting character (which is how Superman's spinoffs worked).
    • Live-action TV shows tend to love superpowers that don't require any expensive special effects, such as Telepathy or Mind Control. Look out for budget cheats.
    • A setting can have a very vast degree of scale of powers; DC has Green Lantern (cosmic scale science fiction) alongside Batman's Gotham City, where Killer Croc (mild super-strength and crocodile traits) and Mr. Freeze (who has a freeze gun and immunity to cold) are unusually powerful.
  • Unpowered Superheroes
    • They exist. They're usually impossibly well-trained and skilled, but, again, that still count as the level of training or skill in question is usually impossible for a real person.
    • Usually exist in either lower-powered settings, or are effectively just masterminds or stealth operatives.
  • Villains and Sanity
    • How insane the villains are is something of a variable from setting to setting, and villain to villain. Some villains can be "ordinary" criminals, just some of them have powers; some villains are obsessed with destroying the universe (and haven't thought through the "but that's where I keep all my stuff!" objection), and have the power to pull it off.
    • Nowdays, more rational villains are more common then they were back in the Silver Age. There's usually some flaw in their thinking, admittedly, but mostly gone are the days of inventing revolutionary and marketable technology so you can rob banks for money.
  • Technology
    • Civilian technology on Earth is usually kept just barely beyond the current state of the art, to maximize "relatability". Heroes and villains can invent super-science gadget and/or own giant, supposedly innovative, companies while lab have fantastic inventions for villains to steal or create the monster of the week, but none of the stuff seems to actually get to market. Military technology is rarely better for the common soldier, but don't be surprised to see special projects that produce something (even if flawed or unreproducable) or them having something to throw at a superpowered threat. The most common exception, if the age rating requires it, is the proliferation of energy weapons.
    • But the Important Named Characters usually have access to stuff that's flat out impossible.
    • This leads to a certain tendency of Super-Inventers to be restricted in some way.
  • Genre
    • If you don't count "Supers" as a genre, or only partly so: While individual settings and stories can be Mundane, Horror, Science Fiction, Urban Fantasy, or a few others, most supers settings that get glommed together as they evolve (such as DC/Marvel or many animated ones) tend to be classifiable as Science Fantasy.
  • Sidekicks
    • The inclusion of a second character, often a minor in older works, as a secondary and subservient character to the hero. Much less common nowdays. This is mainly because having children in physical danger has clashed poorly with comics becoming more serious and less child oriented, and having a second character as an equal partner instead of an inferior opens more plots and character expression than a child did. Batman, as with many now dropped genre conventions, gets his wards grandfathered in. (Child superheroes still exist as solo characters, characters in a team with other minor aged characters, and as the biological child of superpowered parents working with their mom and/or dad.)
      • Interestingly, Stan Lee's hatred of Kid Sidekicks (he killed Bucky Barnes off for just this reason) led to him creating Spider-Man in an effort to fill the "kid character" niche with something a bit less stupid
      • And even Batman writers have at least moved somewhat to make things a bit less "Child endangerment" (on Batman's part, at least): Two of the more recent additions to the Bat-family, Cassandra Cain and Damian Wayne, have a backstory of being specially raised as assassins but wanting to be something else, and thus being trained by Batman.
    • Non-action sidekicks who serve an investigative, mission control, or support roles are still a thing; how much they show up probably depends more on how useful they are for storytelling than their actual usefulness.
      • In particular, a "Watson" type is frequently necessary for Detective characters who don't monologue like a Film Noir Protagonist; that is, somebody to hear all the deductions made by the detective character, and ask some obvious questions.
  • Timeline
    • Time progresses much slower than publication history. A character may reference a plot from 15 years ago, but the events won't have occurred fifteen years ago (This becomes particularly confusing with child characters. Franklin Richards was born in a 1968 comic and didn't hit natural puberty till 2019). The exceptions to this rule are things created as historical events (such as a bounty hunter in the Wild West), and characters/events bound to World War II.
      • Notably this is the one signature element of comics that roleplaying games try to avoid. The games that managed to live long enough have had the time between editions progress in real time, with the printed characters aging and developing.
  • Masquerade
    • A few Urban Fantasy or Conspiracy-themed settings are, effectively, Masquerades concealing the existence of Superpowered individuals. Why varies, but the result is usually fairly stupid.
    • Some Superhero settings have a partial Masquerade, usually involving either Magic or Time Travel, since both of those can unbalance the setting away from "Relatability".

Notable subtypes

  • Street-Level: Characters, generally of low power, that fight local threats instead of global conspiracies and alien invasions.
  • Mystery men: Low power pulp heroes, especially powerless gadget wielders set before 1942.
  • Cosmic: The exact opposite of the two above; if they're fighting Dieties on a regular basis, it's probably "Cosmic".
  • "Silver Age" or "Four Color": More or less what comics looked like in the 1960s. Think thirty different kinds of kryptonite, Jimmy Olson getting new powers (and then losing them again) every issue, comics written cover first, or on the Marvel side, ideas being thrown around like ticker tape at a parade and excessively soap-operaish or melodramatic storytelling; and in both, science fiction so soft it makes marshmallows look like diamonds and dialogue that sounds about as natural as the food coloring on Cheetos.
  • Tokusatsu (特撮, literally "special effects"): A Japanese genre of masked, transforming heroes (the better to change actors so they can film those scenes on the cheap). Often includes giant robots and size changing to allow fighting a multiple scales. Examples include Super Sentai (which Power Rangers recycles footage from), Kamen Rider, Ultraman, and the 1970s Japanese Spider-Man (which is a fascinating story all in itself).
  • Magical Girl: Girls change into super powered forms to (generally) fight evil. Unlike Toku heroes, magical girl forms generally aren't masked but instead have some kind of physical element to the transformation that hides the user's identity. Despite being strongly associated with Japan, Mary Marvel is the earliest proper example.
  • "Deconstruction": There's a lot of not very well-thought-out use of this word in criticism of superhero comics. We'll go with the TVTropes definition, where deconstruction is more about taking a trope or story type, and either trying to play it out like it would in reality, or show the disturbing supporting tissue needed.

Commonly Cited Non-/tg/ or /v/ Originating Settings

  • DC Comics. Most notable heroes for /tg/ purposes: Batman, Superman, Green Lantern. Most notable villains for /tg/ purposes: Darkseid, Lex Luthor, Ra's Al Ghul.
  • Marvel Comics. Most notable heroes for /tg/ purposes: Iron Man, Spider Man, Thor, Captain America, The Hulk. Most notable villains for /tg/ purposes: Thanos, Galactus, Paste-pot Pete (that last for the idea "they can't all be winners")
    • The X-Men have, since their 1975 revival, and particularly since the 90s, been sort of their own continuity, almost-but-not-quite separate from the main Marvel one.
  • Various adaptions of the two above. Most notable is the inexorable Marvel Cinematic Universe and various animated versions of DC and Marvel's characters.
  • A few anime; notable Supers anime include "My Hero Academia", "One Punch Man", and "Sailor Moon".
  • The Super Hero Time programming block of Super Sentai (which was and is mined for stock footage to create Power Rangers) and Kamen Rider.
  • Pretty Cure/PreCure: Bucking the trend of magical girls being aimed exclusively at young girls, PreCure takes the unusual direction of simultaneously marketing itself to men with disposable income 16-35 by making the fights extremely physical. Airs adjacent to Super Hero Time and is widely considered an unofficial member.
  • Wild Cards, a setting masterminded by the same George R.R. Martin of Game of Thrones.
  • The "Fate" (of Fate/Stay Night) franchise; particularly those parts that involve Shirou Emiya. While the Fate stuff in general that involves Summons can be fairly termed "Supers under Masquerade", Shirou's ideals and powers are such that many people class him as a "superhero deconstruction".

Supers Roleplaying (Or: /tg/ Relevance)

There have been plenty of Supers roleplaying games. Here are some of the more notable ones:

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