Editing Supers (section)

==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. Here's some general trends, staples and constraints of the genre:

* '''Relatability'''
** A frequent concern with actual comic books and linear media adaptions<ref>Video games have their own separate series of cans of worms that parallel "relatability", but also frequently diverge from it heavily</ref>; if the audience can't see themselves or at least a functional equivalent of the world they live in in the work, they may come away disinterested. Many modern, mass-appeal media with Supers does their best to make the Supers and the world they inhabit relatable and down-to-earth as a result, while more dedicated superhero fans go for the more obscure, but also more pure superhero stories.
** If you're wondering where Kid Sidekicks, below, and "Captain Ethnic" characters come from, attempts to improve "Relatability" are why.
*** Of some note, this is a frequently cited factor in why [[Superman]] can be hard to write. (In reality, he's slightly easier [[Sanderson's laws | when you focus on either things he ''can't'' do, or the morality of power]].)
* '''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]].
** Further, there's a surprisingly vast array of other genres the Supers genre can be on either end of the "Subgenre" of. To name some of the odder types that get seen somewhat frequently: Romance, Drama, Historical Fiction (including [[Western]]), Sex Comedy, Giant Robot, War stories, Full Fair Play Mystery, Surprisingly Hard Science Fiction, Horror, Martial Arts, and ''Musical'' (yes, really).
* '''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 power levels; 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.

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* '''Antiheroes'''
** From very early on in the 60s, comics have shown a massive fascination with various kinds of Anti-heroic figures of all stripes; well-meaning failures, villains who take an otherwise good idea way too far, sociopathic figures who could only be called "heroes" because of the side they're on, physically monstrous heroes, heroes who subscribe to a moral code that puts them on the "wrong" side of the law, heroes who have more character flaws than then many of their villains, characters doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, characters doing bad things for reasons that seemed good at the time, superhero comics have gone through them all.
*** Bruce Banner (The Incredible Hulk) is notable for being all of the above at one time or another, what with his severe multiple personality disorder.
** This fascination can be attributed to two common impulses in Superhero writers: answering the "what makes a person a hero?" question with a character (either for us to judge, or to spell out an answer, depending on the current capacity for subtlety of the writer), or because they make for good Foils for the current hero of your book.
** There was a big wave of popularity for more extreme antiheroes in the 90s and early 00s, but the sheer stupidity of most such examples, along with a change in national mood in the US, lead to most of them going back into the edgelord shadows. On [[TVTropes]], this is referred to as the 90s Antihero, because it's distinct enough from the standard Antihero. Note that a 90s Antihero isn't ''inherently'' stupid, but the bad examples are prolific, and when combined with a general distaste for 90s culture, they're usually held up as an overall negative example of the genre.

* '''Alternate Universes/Continuities'''
** Have '''long''' been a thing in comics. Since 1961's "Flash of Two Worlds" long (and arguably, even before then). DC was always more fond of them than Marvel, although Marvel's had more than its share.
** That being said, there are also a lot of works that are explicitly in their own continuity, or are "this never happened"/"what-if" stories. Some of them are merged into the wider setting's "multiverse", but most are left alone.
** If you're going to have a large enough Science Fiction and Big Ideas in your Supers setting, you'll eventually have to deal with Alternate Universes, just because it's an easy way to have "Hero vs. Himself" stories, and is now rather iconic of Supers works.
* '''Capes'''
** Since 1960, not much of a thing. Superman wore one, as did a lot of heroes in his wake, but most heroes stopped wearing them by the 1960s. Most Marvel heroes avoid capes.
** The reason capes vanished is twofold. In the golden age, capes were a send-up of wrestlers, boxers, and circus strongmen; but after the 60s this was no longer a relevant reference. Ask the heroes themselves why they don't wear capes, they claim it's because they realized that capes have a tendency to get snagged on things. (''The Incredibles'' and ''Watchmen'' both have this as a plot point.)
** There are exceptions:
*** Batman uses a cape to disguise his motions (is he going to throw a punch or a batarang?) and frequently uses it to glide. (It should be added that he was doing this well before ''Batman Begins''; the reason he looks so weird on that first Detective Comics cover is because the original idea was he was going to be gliding with that cape.)
*** Doctor Strange has a Cloak of Levitation, which is what allows him to fly, among other things.
*** A lot of villains, because they put style over substance.
*** Characters whose primary power (or one of them, at least) is flight. It's usually "explained" that a well-made cape allows better control over flight for these heroes; how plausible that is depends on the cape in question.
*** Some characters are so strong and tough (such as Superman), they only have to worry about their cape being damaged if it gets snagged.
** That being said, Supers get called "Capes" a lot, for reasons lost in the mists of time. To the point that "Capeshit" is what a large chunk of the Internet calls Superhero-related media.

* '''Captain Ethnic'''
** As superhuman characters from outside of the original WASP American backgrounds started to become a thing in the 60s and 70s, writers had to figure out a way to make it clearer who these characters were in terms of ethnicity. Taking cues from the Captain Patriotic trope of the Golden Age, Captain Ethnic characters are heavily defined their ethnicity or nationality, particularly when it comes to costume design or power set. At its best, these characters draw upon mythology or pop culture from their origins; for example, a Japanese super-inventor who uses [[samurai]] themed [[Power Armor]] and gadgets. At its worst, these characters are just bad ethnic stereotypes, such as an Irish superheroine who dresses in a sexualized version of the [[leprechaun]] outfit, has luck manipulation powers, and is portrayed as a drunken slutty party girl.
** A variant of this trend is African-American supers with electricity-related powers, an homage to the "Black Power" movements of the 70s.

* '''Captain Patriotic'''
** Superheroes specifically themed around being defined by their love of their country and nation, usually resulting in their costume choices. During the Golden Age of Comics - aka, [[World War II]] - superheroes of this stripe proliferated, but they began to die out afterwards as nationalism waned and, without an active war on, showy acts of patriotism became less of a big cultural thing.
** Can sometimes overlap with Captain Ethnic, but it's not mandatory for it to do so.
** Villainous Captain Patriotics are most certainly a thing, but with the fall of Nazism and Communism, the original go-to sources for them, they've fallen out of favor as much as their heroic counterparts have.

* '''Character Clones'''
** You might also know them as an "Expy", "Alternate Company Equivalent" or "Captain Ersatz" from [[TVTropes]].
** A frequent feature of just about all superhero related media: a non-copyright infringing version of a character from another company (or occasionally, your own). The most frequent use is parody, but pseudo-crossovers are also common, as are "deconstructions".
*** There have been self-company clones; usually, the reason is because the rights are tied up, or because the character is thought to be unfitting for the audience (for example, one reason DC had so many John Constantine knock-offs is because for many years he was an "adults only" character that was carefully confined to the "Vertigo" imprint).
** There's also parallel evolution, which is a ''very'' frequent thing in any storytelling medium. That is, two different characters or teams are designed to fill a niche, but in the process, the niche dictates so much that the two are almost identical. Notable examples in comic books include the initial versions of Swamp Thing and Man Thing (and both of whom were heavily inspired by an earlier, out of print character, The Heap), and the original versions of the X-Men and Doom Patrol; both pairs appeared effectively simultaneously, and were obviously based on roughly the same inspiration.<ref>For the former: "Horror comics are back, sort of. Hey, this Heap character was a good horror character, and he's out of print (and thus not likely to get us sued)"; for the latter, "What can we do to have a hero team that allows us to talk about discrimination?".</ref>
** Straight ripoffs are rarer, as it's widely considered to be playing with copyright lawsuit fire, but they happen, particularly of the type that can be played off as "parallel evolution". The most notable example would be Marvel's Squadron Supreme, a team of alternate universe heroes based on DC's Justice League. 

* '''Foils, aka Contrasting Characters'''
** Not foil as in "defeating", but rather a common trope in storytelling in general, but Superhero-related media in particular: Two characters are frequently shown together because they contrast one another, bringing out otherwise hidden aspects of both.<ref>The name derives from a common trick in jewellery: Metal foil is put behind a gem to make its features much clearer (and the gem as a whole shinier) in the light; similarly, the implicit background of one character makes some hidden features visible in another character.</ref>
** This can take many forms; two Heroes contrasting styles shows that one or both styles have their merits; or some kind of "Goofus and Gallant" scenario; or a villain whose backstory contrasts heavily with the hero's; or two villains whose goals and nature make them natural foes, just to name a few common such story beats.
** This gets to the point that villains have been known to migrate to other heroes in the same universe because the "foiling" on them is better.<ref>To provide one notable example, the Kingpin (more fully, "The Kingpin of Crime") started out as a Spider-Man foe, but is now much more associated with Daredevil, because the two have better opposing chemistry (to start with, Spider-Man is about "everyday shlub superhero", while Daredevil is more about "fixing the crime problem and criminal justice system", and the Kingpin is usually a good representative of almost everything wrong with both, making him a better fit for the latter hero).</ref>

* '''Legacy Characters'''
** In settings with an in-universe history of superhumans, you'll often have the concept of the "Legacy Character"; a superhero identity or "family" that is either literally passed down from one worthy character to another, or where one character's actions as a superhero inspire others to also become superheroes, leading to their deliberately styling their costumes and, to a lesser extent, their power sets after their inspirations in homage.
** A related trope is the "Affirmative Action Legacy", where legacy characters are of a different ethnicity, gender, sexuality, or combination thereof to their "progenitor". Done well, this can add to the feeling of realism and grounding of the base identity. Done poorly, as it usually is, you have an obvious politically motivated pandering character.

* '''[[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".

* '''[[Mythology]]'''
** Because mythological figures are generally in the public domain, and thus free for authors to use, a lot of characters, items, and monsters are taken from mythology. Villains, heroes, Macguffins, you name it, it's probably been used.
** Most commonly used are the Greek and Norse mythologies, for the usual reasons of "being widely known" and "easy to research". East Asian stuff is becoming more common recently thanks to [[/a/|certain influences]].

* '''Secret Identities'''
** Supers often act as vigilantes, or are otherwise outside the purview of the law, and thus must wear outfits to conceal their actions.
** 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 nowadays is to protect unpowered family members, which as reasons go is at least reasonable.
** In particular, 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), or on the DC side, Green Lanterns (who work for a Law Enforcement agency) and Wonder Woman (whose origins meant she didn't start with one, and for whose political goals maintaining an ongoing second identity would probably be counterproductive).)
** 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.

* '''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.<ref>Notice, for example, most versions of Batman that lack a Robin lean heavily on Alfred, to allow Batman to apply exposition to--in fact, one of the reasons Robin was created in the first place was explicitly to have somebody for Batman to provide exposition to.</ref>

* '''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 labs have fantastic inventions for villains to steal or create the monster of the week with, 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 at 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.
*** Several notable examples use a direct "Magic powered technology", in that the technologist's work is only functional because some superpower is allowing them to "cheat" physics (or biology or material science) in some way.
*** An alternate common approach is to make the technology in question dependent on some rare, fictional supermaterial.

* '''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.
** Cosmic retcon storms push major catalyst events (like Superman's arrival and Captain America being pulled out of the ice) and other character births/major defining events and return of old powers equivalently to the future every decade or two, allowing people to actually read without a continuity lockout or having to retcon entire lines of material.

* '''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; and some villains seem to have been "created" by just taking a section from a psychiatry textbook (usually the [[wikipedia:DSM-5 | current DSM]]) and treating it as a exact description of the villain in question<ref>In particular, any work primarily set in [[Batman|Arkham Asylum]] will probably have multiple such characters, for subtly obvious reasons</ref>.
** 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.

* '''Weaknesses'''
** Most weaknesses nowadays tend to be inherent in the powerset (characters with Super-Senses usually react badly to flashbang grenades up close, e.g.), or are some kind of time and/or power limitation (Hourman has his time limit right in his name, for example, or Green Lanterns ''used to be'' unable to use their powers on anything Yellow).
** There are two classes of exception:
*** Superman and Kryptonite, and direct knockoffs thereof. One important thing to note is that outside of Superman, Kryptonite styled weakness become less necessary as more Superpowered individuals appear.
*** [[Vampire]] supers (and there are a few Superhero Vampires and near Vampires, along with a whole lot of villains) are subject to the usual weaknesses of their kind, as are other traditional monsters with unique weaknesses.
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