The Book of the Yokai

THE NIGHT PARADE

While I love running in my own worlds some published settings click for me. They overcome my desire to create and GM something I’ve come up with: Star Wars, Fading Suns, Changeling the Lost and especially Legend of the Five Rings. Some object to L5R’s mish-mash, but I like its space for play and approach to mixing fantasy and samurai. Of course with a world this big and this many writers you end up with some contradictions. I’ve been hitting those in the recent elements series (The Book of Earth, The Book of Air, The Book of Fire). So I’ve been thinking about how to reconcile those problems and decide what my Rokugan looks like. Right now I’m trying to figure out what the Shadowlands should be in my campaign.

I love the concept of the Shadowlands. It gives a foe PCs can beat, but cannot truly defeat within a campaign. Because Fu Leng’s realm exists as a force of nature that doesn’t feel like GM fiat. Players accept it as an evil to be fought and re-fought. That repetition doesn’t make it any less scary. The Shadowlands contagious nature ought to terrify the PCs. They should dread entering the Shadowlands or even facing the most modest creature unprepared. Infection ought to be at the front of their mind- not only for themselves but everyone around them. They should hesitate after defeating tainted evil within a village: do they now kill everyone and burn the place to the ground to be sure? Any encounter with a Shadowlands creature ought to be uncertain, terrifying, and deadly.

THE TAINTED GAME

But that presents a play problem for me. Legend of the Five Rings is a fantasy game as much as a pseudo-historical game. I have a group that likes investigation, problem solving, social interactions, and fighting. They’re less keen on more classic courtly set ups and problems. They can battle conventional foes: wild ronin, assassins, bandits. But because it is a fantasy game, I want them to fight monsters and the supernatural as well. They’ve battled a released oni and two Bloodspeakers groups so far. So they’ve run up against the question of taint which has several consequences.

1. Fighting Shadowlands monsters isn’t a brave and bold task. There’s little or no honor in such battles. They’re non-samurai status opponents, but more importantly they’re unclean and full of contagion. Anyone ought to stay well clear of a known warrior against the Shadowlands. Taboos about cleanliness prevent the taking of trophies, but I’d like to see players defeat great beasts, gain accolades and be able to tell those stories.
2. Shadowlands taint injects more modern horror and fears into the Rokugani setting. Classical Japanese monster and ghost stories have a mythic quality. They’re cautionary tales. Ghost stories often have a haunted mortal damaging themselves, rather than the ghost directly harming the victim.
3. The Crab serve as a bastion against the forces of the Shadowlands. They take any breach of their defenses as an affront and insult. That makes constant tainted threats hard to square with a campaign set in the interior.

So I want more monsters that aren’t Shadowlands. The books offer some options on that score. Let’s leave aside standard animals and anything with a taint rank. Going from the core book, Creatures of Rokugan, and Enemies of the Empire we have:

Types: Gaki, Ghost (Yorei), Guardian Statues, Kappa, Nue, Orochi, Spirits, Tsuchimon, and Zashiki Warashi.

Intelligent Races: Nezumi, Naga, Ningyo, Zokujin

Races make less useful foes since they’re generally neutral or at least non-evil. GMs could pit the PCs against corrupt versions or use them “as is” with Rokugani xenophobia coloring their perception (not a great or fun choice). The Spirit type offers a better set of options with many interesting variants: Bakeneko, Baku, Houou, Kitsune, Spirit Hound, and Tanuki. That’s a pretty full roster, but these can easily be added to. Since Rokugan blends together many Asian cultures, I won’t feel bad lifting from places like Hero System’s Asian Bestiary

.

Essentially I want to put emphasis on another class of monster. I’ll use the term Yokai since it covers a lot of ground. I want these to be more common foes, connected to local superstitions, without the additional fear of contagion. That’s not a big shift or even a revision, but it does require some rethinking about the setting. I want a background of monsters and creatures closer to that in Usagi Yojimbo, Natsume’s Book of Friends, Dororo, Princess Mononoke, and Matthew Meyer’s The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons. In some ways that just means bringing some ideas forward, but it also means shifting some concepts.

Importantly it doesn’t mean eliminating the Shadowlands. I hope that this approach will actually make Shadowlands creatures and the Taint feel unique and dangerous. They will be the terrors that even monsters fear.

WHAT DO THE YOKAI BRING?

It only makes sense that monsters create panic. But fear of Taint brings paranoia, suspicion, and long term devastation. So the general populace must have a means and language to distinguish between the Yokai and Shadowlands. Some of that could come from local folklore. Village elders or local priests might read the signs. Those readings wouldn’t be precisely accurate, but enough to quell fears. More importantly, I’d need to establish to the PCs that this is a reliable method. They should trust locals’ broad assessments about something being Yokai (or Yurei). Beyond that, however, they don’t know much. A particular mineral or sign could offer a more concrete sign. Perhaps there’s a ritual to test for Yokai or a simple divination to assess (like copper dropped in water with a sample from a site immediately tarnishes). On the other hand, I could put the onus on the PCs or authorities- they have to investigate and declare that something’s non-Shadowlands. The practical play consequence would be a population fearful about monsters but not burning everything to the ground.

Mechanically I’d gather most of the non-Shadowlands monsters from the books and put them under the loose category of Yokai. To those I’d add creatures from other sourcebooks and anime- especially the sources I listed above. I could add perhaps a new school or two: Yokai Hunters or experts. The Toritaka used to fulfil this role with the Shinomen Forest. Maybe it could be the speciality of another minor clan? A monk order? A variant Shugenja path? I have to think about that. At the very least a Yokai Expert will make a cool NPC.

I want to put together a random table for generating Yokai. You’d generate basic physical details first: features (huge, furred, human face, multi-limbed, etc), special abilities (flight, shrinking, unusual scent), and attack type (enveloping, blood draining, fearsome visage). To that you’d also generate some kind of unusual behavior by combining a thing (windows, milk, laughter) and a reaction (howling, obsession, blindness). Finally you’d generate a particular sign or symbol by combining effect (uneven, dust, clotting) and placement (windowsills, weather, food). This last could be used as the core clue for PCs investigating an incident.

I could provide a general cosmology for the Yokai. For example they might at root all be Spirits or Kami transformed by an event. Perhaps they had manifested in this world when the original Kami fell from the Heavens. That event changed them and made them into other beings, the Yokai- partially spiritual and partial material. They have an imbalance to them. When destroyed they revert to an elemental state (rock, mud, air, water). That could be used as a means of proving that an attack came from a Yokai rather than a tainted source.

On the other hand, I could also have it that the reappearance of the Yokai connects to some event. That offers an explanation and acknowledges the change, but probably raises more questions than it solves. Maybe they’ve always been around but something has made them more active and numerous? It would probably better just to state the Yokai as a given to the players.

If I want something more mythic I could elaborate on the idea of a Yokai society- with hierarchies and ranks. Natsume’s Book of Friends (and other anime) suggests an organization. Perhaps it could look something like a Fey Court? Some Yokai could be exorcised, some bargained with, and even some allied with. I like this concept as it offers a group for the PCs to play off of. But I don’t want a broad group- i.e. covering all of Rokugan. That brings up the question of a set of spirits subverting the mantle of the Hantei. Instead any court would be local: covering a region, a forest, or a mountain range. I could play with some of the elemental alignments as well. 

WILL OF THE YOKAI

I'll probably give this a try. If I put together those random tables, I'll post them. I like it because I can more easily have classic monsters and fantasy while being able to preserve the horror elements of the setting.  

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Six 1999-2001)

NON-POWERED ADVENTURERS

Those irritated by my inclusion of borderline items on previous list installments should be relieved. This chapter increases the purity of the supers items. A strong case can be made for calling all of these books and supplements superhero games.

In my last post I offered a scheme for breaking down those games (and comics, movies, books, etc.). That divides them into three loose categories: Sci-Fi, Pulp, and Mythic. I’ll try to explain what I mean by the second of these, Pulp. On the one hand it contains most of those superhero tales which self-describe as superhero. Indiana Jones, Tarzan, and even Doc Savage are pulp, but they aren’t superhero. Instead I’m talking about “Mystery Men”- characters with masks, gimmicks, and sometimes strange powers. That includes The Shadow, The Woman in Red, The Spider, Miss Fury, early Bat-Man, The Avenger, and so on. These appear in novels, radio serials, and comics. They’re icons of justice fighting against clear adversaries, but often solving mysteries at the same time. If a pulp game allows for crimefighters like those, I include those on the list.

But beyond that Pulp includes games and settings where powers mean less. On the one hand that can focus on non-powered adventurers or vigilantes. Dark Champions, for example, emulates these kinds of games. These stories include “realism,” street level conflicts, brutalized protagonists, and conflicts with the authorities. Key storylines focus on this aspect: Batman: Year One, The Punisher, The Question, Daredevil, Moon Knight, and Kick-Ass. We can see this on television with The Cape and Arrow. But Arrow’s immediate predecessor, Smallville, began as the other strain in this category: Pulp as Human Drama. Pulp stories, as I’m defining them, concentrate on the human costs and consequences. Characters worry about their expenses, the toll on those closest to them, how to maintain their secrecy. They struggle with these issues much more than they do with villains. Campaigns built this way can be tough on players expecting power and freedom. This kind of superhero story more about the people and less about the environment (unlike the Sci-Fi superhero story). Solutions and victories are usually small-scale and temporary (unlike the Mythic supers story).

TIMELINE

I’m stunned at how many X-books topped the sales rankings during this period: Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, X-Men Magneto War, Wolverine, Gambit, Mutant X, and so on. Marvel seems at the top of their game month after month, with the majority of the top twenty in sales consistently. Even the events all seem tied to these characters with the “Hunt for Xavier,” “The Twelve,” and the solution to the Legacy Virus problems. DC on the other hand brought some interesting books and series to the table, not least of which was the “No Man’s Land” crossover for Batman. On the other end of the spectrum lies cosmic Our Worlds at War series with cosmic level events on every page. Both publishers pull in interesting new voices like Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka- writers who’d toiled in the indie comics scene. The movies brought us very different takes on heroes: parodies like Mystery Men and The Specials; the revisionist Unbreakable; and the conventional X-Men. Television offered more diverse options. We got several new Power Rangers series, but we also finally saw Batman Beyond. Fox Kids destroyed us with the terrible Spider Man Unlimited and Avengers: United They Stand. Smallville arrived and slightly redeemed the idea of live-action supers shows, poisoned by fare like Witchblade and Mutant X.

These lists cover a smaller slice of time than my past rpg lists. I hope this makes them easier to read. I include mostly core books, but also significant setting or sourcebooks. I list revised editions which significantly changed a line. Generally I only include published material- print or electronic. I leave out freebie or self-published games like Bif! Bam! Pow!, Urge, and Four Colors al Fresco. I'm sure I've left something off without adequate reason; feel free to add a comment about a line I missed (if published from 199-2001). I've arranged these in by year and then alphabetically within that year.

History of Superhero RPGs (Part One: 1978-1982)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Two: 1983-1985)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Three: 1986-1992)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Four: 1993-1996)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Five: 1997-1998)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Six: 1999-2001)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Seven: 2002-2003)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Eight: 2004-2005)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Nine: 2006-2007)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Ten: 2008)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Eleven: 2009)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Twelve: 2010)
History of Superhero RPGs (Part Thirteen 2011-2012)

1. Aberrant (1999)

I bought into Aberrant late. White Wolf had begun to wind the line down by the time I started buying. The game looks and feels different from earlier superhero games, except its predecessor Trinity and maybe Underground. Compare the style and presentation of this to the big three Villains & Vigilantes, Champions, and Marvel Super Heroes. Aberrant brings the setting- deep, rich, and complicated. It tailors the superpowers to that world, leaving out anything which doesn't fit. It wants to be high-octane, furious, and over-the-top. But it may go too far in that direction. Aberrant suffers from some of the problems facing other high-powers WW products (Scion, Exalted). The mechanics spin wildly out of control when you hit higher power levels. Many people ran successful campaigns using these rules, but balance and rules density kept me away.

Despite that I love the Aberrant's setting. It presents some of the most consistent and smart world-building. More than nearly any other supers game before, it considers the implications of powers and new technologies on the world. While Underground goes for parody through excess, Aberrant explores consequences. It makes uncannily accurate predictions about near-future tech- like streaming TV programs requiring individual purchases. It explores new areas for supers games- including religion, wrestling, and even celebritydom. However that richness actually works against Aberrant as a campaign setting. For one thing, there's a strong and heavy metaplot running through the material. In other rpg lines (like Vampire or Mage) you could easily work around that. But the smaller size of this line makes that stick out like a sore thumb. The world-building and driving story push the PCs out. I would read an Aberrant novel or comic series. Critics suggest Story Gamers are frustrated novelists and Aberrant feels like an example of that.

The density works against the game in another way: player buy-in. Players have to read all of the setting material to really get the concept and tone. There's almost too much, especially with a genre usually given over to lighter settings and themes. Aberrant's dark and paranoid- reflecting White Wolf's approach but also reflecting a shift in comic books. We'll see that pop up a couple more times in this period and later years. White Wolf published many supplements for Abberant and they were among the earliest games sold as pdf. They also released a d20 version in 2004. If you like superhero settings, you really ought to read at least the core book. You'll find many concepts and details you can lift for a modern game. Point-buy generation. d10 resolution.

2. Brave New World (1999)

Comic books got dark in the 1990's. The seeds of that lay in earlier books like Watchmen, The New Statesmen, The Dark Knight Returns, Arkham Asylum, Miracleman, The Killing Joke, and the general indie movement. Comic book creators and fans learned many lessons from those- for good and for ill. Event books moved to darker themes, more graphic violence, and criticism of "four-color" idealism. That resulted in series like Spawn, Aztek, The Authority, Rising Stars, Stormwatch, and especially Kingdom Come. I dropped books as they got darker and less hopeful. I avoided those that just laughed at the old tropes without offering anything other than ultra-violence and grade-school black humor. I gave up on the superhero anthology Wild Cards once it went down that path. Too many authors embraced dark for the sake of dark rather offering an interesting consideration of the ideas. That obscured good work being done in comics, novels, and in rpgs. I avoided Brave New World for precisely because of that.

That's a pity because Brave New World offers an interesting and challenging setting. I wish I'd come to it earlier. Like Aberrant, it presents a darker and conspiracy-rich universe. BNW's even more dystopian- with the players battling against a super-powered fascist government bent on controlling all of the "Deltas" aka the remaining metahumans. The clash comes from a McCarthy-esque superhuman registration. While it feels a little like the X-Men's Mutant Registration Act, it more closely resembles Marvel's Civil War arc. Brave New World has a metaplot, but it doesn't feel nearly as constraining as Aberrant's. Instead it lurks in the shadows. GMs don't have to know the secret and shifting that won't render sections of the supplements unplayable. Brave New World also differs in feel from Aberrant. The latter buys deeply into sci-fi with a technobabble backstory and an emphasis on societal fallout. The former feels more mythic- with magical supers, an alternate history of twisted icons, and clear sense of foes and friends. (Though the actual metastory Forbeck had planned goes in a different direction).

Brave New World has an odd publishing history. It began with Pinnacle Games. The base mechanics feel like WEG d6 or Savage Worlds with a single die type. Shortly after launch BNW mofed over the Alderac. They released a number of supplements covering the basics (players guide, volumes for different factions, a city book, and a WW2 sourcebook). However they closed down the line before design Matt Forbeck could complete his plans for it. he has published a series of novels in the setting for those who like superhero fiction. There's some awesome stuff to be found in these books and I like the basic premise of rebel heroes against a corrupt government. Point buy generation. d6 Resolution.

3. DC Universe Roleplaying Game (1999)

West End Games filed for bankruptcy in 1998, the year before publishing DC Universe. That rpg came out from a WEG restored as "d6 Legacy," a division of French publisher Humanoids. Originally the publisher of Metal Hurlant/Heavy Metal, Humanoids evolved into one of the most important European creators of graphic novels, with DC briefly working with them to publish in the United States. This new organization published both DC Universe and The Metabarons rpg, until Eric Gibson bought WEG in 2003. So we have a high-profile US comic book license developed by a semi-bankrupt company under the auspices of a French publisher.

Despite those challenges, WEG managed to put together a strong and solid game. DC Universe uses the d6 Legacy system. That offers an interesting compromise between rules-light and granular mechanics. The character sheets, even for simple characters, pack a ton of information- lists of skills and abilities with die values. The write-ups resort to teeny-tiny font to fit everything in. Other elements make the game feel very classic and conventional. Pages have an intrusive sidebar that eat up text real estate. The designers subdivide broad areas into increasingly smaller bits in the form of specializations. These apply across skills, combat talents, and powers. That's an approach closer to the older DC Heroes than more open systems like Champions or Marvel Heroes. Despite that DC Universe isn't that heavy in play (unless you use the optional rules and countless modifier charts there). The weight of the game rests on character creation and trying to figure out exactly what you can do in play.

DC Universe did well enough that WEG published many supplements- for groups JSA Sourcebook, locations The Daily Planet Guide to Metropolis, and concepts Magic Handbook. If you like the d6 system, you should consider tracking down a copy of this (or d6 Powers). If you loved DC Comics in the 1990's, you could do worse than this as a sourcebook for the period. Point-Buy. d6 Resolution.

4. Heroes Forever (1999)

I'm not a collector of rpgs- I mean not a real collector. I buy many games and supplements, probably too many. But I'm looking for material for inspiration or ransacking. I don't hunt for items just to preserve them. So when I compile these lists I often hit things I'm unfamiliar with. That's when I turn to online resources like RPG Geek, RPGNet, blogs, online reviews, wikipedia, publisher's websites, and so on. Sometimes I'll find copies for sale- as pdf or as cheap used editions on Amazon or Noble Knight. At that point I have to decide whether or not to thrown down money just to see what's happening with a particularly obscure rpg. I've been burned by that more than once. To prevent that I've developed a set of warning signs:

• Typos on the cover materials or promotional information.
• An unnavigable or incomprehensible publisher site.
• 1990's state of the art websites.
• Bad cover artwork (or good only on core book).
• Blurbs which don't actually say what the game's about or what makes it distinct from other games in the genre.
• No reviews online for an older game.

Heroes Forever ticks all of those boxes. Guild of Blades publishing makes figuring out what's actually out for the game harder than it needs to be. I couldn't find any real reviews of Heroes Forever online. Usually I can find at least some nostalgic write-up on a blog talking about their fondness for something obscure. HF's generated almost nothing despite fourteen years and multiple supplements. Almost nothing- the few small comments I've found universally suggest the company could benefit from a spellchecker of any kind. I also saw the word incoherent thrown around. However once I saw the cover of the Magic Sourcebook, I decided I'd done my due diligence and wrote this. ??? Generation. d12 Resolution.

5. Century Station (2000)

While I mentioned Heroes Unlimited 2e on my previous list, I have to draw your attention to this book and its companion volume Gramercy Island. They're amazing, thick, wild, and absolutely bonkers. Bill Coffin builds a world to match the wild possibilities of HU in these two books. Century Station presents a once highly advanced city which has crashed and nearly burned. It looks most like Paragon City from City of Heroes. Anything and everything can be found here from wizards to mutants to vigilantes to cyborgs. Gramercy Island presents the adjacent super-prison (ala Stronghold or Lockdown). More than just a book of villains GI gives you the tools to run an over-the top prison-based campaign. That includes layouts, lingo, and adventure seeds.

Why do I love these two books? They're bursting at the seams with ideas. Many elicit a wtf, but that can inspire twists and turns to use at the table. If you're looking for something to kickstart your supers campaign grab one or both of these supplements.

6. Nemesis: A Perfect World (2000)

I'm not sure what to make of this one for several reasons. On the one hand the game seems to have an introduction by Paul Dini. On the other I'm unsure of Paul Dini's gaming bona fides. On the one hand the game calls itself 'superpunk' which sounds intriguing. On the other the cover blurb does nothing to explain what that means. The Amazon reviews seem positive, perhaps overly so given how fast this fell off the radar.

I'll simply quote the author's LinkedIn profile verbatim:

"In 2000 Nemesis: A perfect world would be published. This Superhero role-playing game would canonize the term “Superpunk” and be the inspiration for many comics and games including City of Heroes, NBC’s Heroes and others. Though applauded world wide Nemesis: A perfect world would not become a hit in the United States and would fall into obscurity when publisher Maximum CNG fiscal problems would prevent it from publishing expansions or follow-ups."

Point-Buy Generation. d6 Resolution.

7. Sketch! (2000)

I might not like full comedy rpgs, but I do appreciate some humor. Sketch! offers a goofy planet of good and evil locked in a constant four-color battle. Or perhaps a greyscale world, depending on what you're using to draw your characters. Each player sketches their PC as well or as badly as they want. Then the group votes on stats with the average vote becoming the ability's value. Most tests pit that against a 2d6 roll. This simplicity and unique device lends itself to one-shot games, however Sketch! includes rules for longer campaigns, with a mechanic for gaining and keeping fame (and infamy) for the PCs. Sketch! also wins for the best supplement- the Sketch Character Generator. Unusual Generation. 2d6 resolution.

8. Superheroes INC. (2000)

A Spanish RPG, this is actually the second edition of the game. The first edition published by Ediciones Cronópolis in '95 had a couple of supplements, but the company folded. A new publisher- La Caja de Pandora (Pandora's Box)- decided to revise and reissue the game in striking way. They published a separate basic manuals for each of the six character types: Inhumans, Vigilantes, Magic, Mutants, Gods, and Tech. That's neat concept except that each had different bits necessary to play the game. A later revised edition put everything together into one version. The game itself apparently leans heavily on Basic Role-Playing (BRP). Point-Buy and Random Generation. Percentile resolution.

9. UNSanctioned: The Dream Corrupted (2000)

UNSanctioned presents another dark and paranoid world of supers battling a corrupt government. The players can be rebels (the "un-sanctioned" of the title) or Peacekeepers. It offers a complete set of rules. Nightshift calls that the "Paradigm System" but I'm unsure if they've used that for other games. Reviews online are mixed. Writers on RPGNet heavily critique the game for reused text & art, weak & undeveloped mechanics, and editing problems. On the other hand, a DriveThru reviewer calls it "clever, creative and utterly distinctive." That points out the problem with online reviews more than it gives me a sense of what UNSanctioned's like. When in doubt I tend to go with the reviewer who gives me more supporting evidence and explanation. In this case that's the former. Nightshift published one supplement, Peacekeepers Illustrated. That contains additional material for running a government-centered campaign. Point-Buy Generation. d20/2d10 resolution.

10. Adventure! (2001)

Adventure! finishes the AEon trilogy with a bang. It offers the cleanest, smartest, and most complete iteration of the system and setting. The layout and presentation's clear and easy to get at. Where the other two rpgs in the series erected a barrier of background material, Adventure! blends that with the rules seamlessly. You can find what you're looking for. That makes the game easier to teach and offer to new players. The Storyteller mechanics also simply click with this genre and setting. Of all the implementations of that core system, I think Adventure! best balances power and options. It still has some of the base flaws of the revised Storyteller engine, but the rules mesh with what players do and how they play in the setting. Despite that it didn't make a splash and White Wolf published no supplements for this pulp action game.

Is it superheroes? Yes- more than most pulp games. As I mentioned above, I include those games if they offer masked vigilantes or other proto-superhero elements. Adventure! ties into the "Quantum" origin of powers connecting the three rpgs together. That reality shifting mechanic allows for a world filled with strange wonders while still keeping a coherent pseudo-science premise. That's a neat trick and I'm surprised at how well it works. GMs can embrace or ignore that facet of the background. That origin story also allows for a wide variety of interesting low-level powers. Most pulp games have these either as a rare option or a specific class track. Adventure! embraces them and offers talents to even apparently non-powered heroes. Death Defiance may be the best of these; characters can return from the dead if they managed to expire but no one saw their body. Adventure! consistently offers what I look for in a pulp game. If you want to run a 1930's or '40's masked adventurer game, I highly recommend this. Point-Buy Generation. d10 resolution.

11. Godlike (2001)

The Saving Private Ryan of Superhero games. Godlike's a bold rpg, too easily dismissed as just WWII supers. Several systems had published sourcebooks for the war- All This and World War II, The World at War. I considered the sub-genre in earlier posts "A Cape too Far" & "Four-Color Furies." No other game approaches the concept like Godlike. It is a World War II rpg that happens to have supers. The ideas, implications, and hellishness of that conflict come first. The game considers the what happens when you throw metahumans into a situation like that. How do people react? How do the institutions respond? What difference can one superbeing actually make on the battlefield?

Godlike brings the darkness, but that comes from a real place. Everything fits with that: Dennis Detwiller's creepy cover, the slightly distorted interior photos, the system's hefty crunch, the deep timeline of the war. Godlike's the first implementation of Greg Stoleze's ORE (One Roll Engine) which would go on to power several rpgs. The game manages to wring detail out of that fairly abstract dice mechanic (a pool roll read in two dimensions). Godlike balances concepts carefully. You have superpowers which can be finely tuned matched with highly granular weapons and equipment sets. Few other superhero games manage to tie their mechanics so tightly to the world they present. Godlike's done well enough over the years to launch several supplements, another more open version supers game (Wild Talents), and a second edition in 2012. Those looking for a game which smartly connects setting & system should check this out. Point Buy. d10 Pool Resolution.

12. The Foundation: A World in Black & White (2001)

The 21st century leaves behind some of the excesses of 1990s comic books, but picks up a new set of rpg excesses. d20 adaptations spring like weeds across all genres. I'm torn about this. On the one hand I like new source materials, especially those I can quickly understand. On the other I dislike supplements with more space for mechanics and stat blocks than new ideas. Plus my current favorite supers system, Mutants & Masterminds 2e, offers a d20 version though far from the source. Some gamers dismiss Fate, Savage Worlds, or (Insert System) implementations out of hand. I've been guilty of that with d20 systems in the past. But I have some reason. Many supplements seem slapped together. They take advantage of the potential audience without really tuning the system to their story.

This book may fall into that slap-dash category. The Foundation's the first d20 superhero supplement but not the last. Rather than a generic supers game, it draws from an author's short stories. Eric Metcalf published these online, but I haven't been able to track them down. The mechanics directly port from d20. Archetypes (Brick, Gadgeteer, etc) act as classes. But the book doesn't offer much more in the way of system. It leaves GMs to work out most of the problems and figure out character creation. Most of the book actually presents Metcalf's world. That includes the 'vital stats' of the busty female characters to quote the RPGNet review...shades of Superbabes. Interestingly Paul Lidberg's listed as the designer for this and UNSanctioned mentioned above. Pretty universally panned in the reviews. Mixed generation. Various dice.

History of Superhero RPGs (Part One: 1978-1982)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Two: 1983-1985)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Three: 1986-1992)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Four: 1993-1996)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Five: 1997-1998)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Six: 1999-2001)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Seven: 2002-2003)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Eight: 2004-2005)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Nine: 2006-2007)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Ten: 2008)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Eleven: 2009)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Twelve: 2010)
History of Superhero RPGs (Part Thirteen 2011-2012)

Story: Play on Target Podcast Ep. 22

THE NEVERENDING CAMPAIGN

This episode of Play on Target takes on the question of story and how that comes together in play. I’m really happy with this episode. We record several weeks before putting the podcasts up, so by the time I hear it I’ve forgotten exactly what we addressed. Usually I sketch out a list of points and ideas and then listen. Those that we don’t touch on I write up a little for these blog posts. This time we hit just about everything. I hope that’s useful material- if only to build confidence. I suspect much of what we discuss confirms experienced GM’s thinking. I didn’t always know this stuff. I railroaded players; I got angry when they seemed to be deliberately getting off track; I overprepared my material and wasted energy. I’m in a constant process of recovery- even as I uncover new mistakes to make at the table.

CAMPAIGN PREP 3: DEVELOPING STORY
Play on Target Roundup

FLIP SIDE

We talk about things from the GM’s perspective, but what’s the players’ role in story? When I’m playing I try to keep three things in mind: my character’s tale, the other PC’s stories, and the GM’s plot. My story’s easy. If I can connect what’s happening to it and that’s not going to bring things to a halt or cause problems then I do so. Can I reference something in my past? Can I investigate a troubling detail unsettled? Can I go see a significant NPC? Usually I expect the GM to signal the right time for those moves. More often I simply try to work in my character details into statements: “I was trained in a low-rent chantry, this ivory tower magical college freaks me out” or “I can sympathize with him since my father cast me out as well.” Parallel to that I’m looking for when my fellow players put those details out there. Can I play on those? Would it be appropriate to ask questions about them? Do they seem to want to explore those more fully? I try to pay attention to what matters to other PCs. Then when we have a question about what to pursue I’ll suggest we follow those lines. They become engaged, I get to hear more about their concept, and hopefully they’ll reciprocate in the future.

The relationship to the GM’s more complex. Most GMs don’t want to railroad. That’s such a dirty word that they’ll bend over backwards to avoid that. That can lead to players with no sense of where the interesting bits actually are. As a player I want some signposts: signals that the GM has some cool stuff waiting in different players. It shouldn’t a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but more of an Easter Egg Hunt with lots of presents and surprises spread around. I listen for those kinds of signals- but if I hear them, I want to handle that with caution. Despite their power, a GM can be a timid beast. If they lay a signal out there and the players immediately pounce, a skittish GM may fear the party thinks they have no choices or accept simply because they’ve submitted to being on rails. Just as players need both choice and the illusion of choice, players need to buy into and support the illusion of choice. They need to debate options- even if only minimally. As a player I want to see something of the story the GM’s come up with: the incidents, places, and people. And then I want to mess with that and put myself squarely in the center of the action.

Action and change makes story. Players need to take actions and acknowledge how the environment the GM presents affects their choices. Interact with the backdrop, say what you like, and be proactive.

CAMPAIGN PREP 3: DEVELOPING STORY
Play on Target Roundup

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History of Superhero RPGs (Part Five: 1997-1998)

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY

On the most recent Play on Target podcast I suggested you could break superhero material into three categories: Sci-Fi, Pulp, and Fairy Tale. These represent the 'big sweep' of a game or story. Some combine them, but usually have a clear emphasis. Systems often present a setting with a particular flavor, but some take a neutral approach. Even those neutral games simulate some of these themes better than others: the crazed levels of DC Heroes handle the mythic or techno, but break down for the pulp, strictly realistic action. There’s an additional dial- the drama tag- which modifies these types, but I’ll come back to that.

What constitutes superhero as sci-fi? Most obviously games using classic sci-fi trappings: set in the future or in space. Think The Legion of Superheroes, Marvel’s 2099 series, or Strikeforce: Morituri. But some stories with those elements lean in other directions (Adam Warlock, Nexus, Batman: Beyond). Sci-fi superheroics embrace those elements and also add at least one other trapping: a unified system for explaining superpowers relying on pseudo-scientific patter; consistent world-building focused on consequences; and/or heavy reliance on technology. So Marvel’s New Universe, Warren Ellis’ Planetary, George R.R. Martin’s Wild Cards series, Grant Morrison’s run on X-Men (and the films they shaped), Judge Dredd, Bubblegum Crisis, and the Icarus Project series by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge all fit into this category. Superhero rpgs leaning this way include Godlike, Cybergeneration, White Wolf’s AEon Trilogy, Brave New World, and Underground.

What does that mean to actual play? These games add a vocabulary for what’s possible- a certain kind of technobabble for justifying powers and events. They narrow imaginative space: demons, fairies, magic, all set aside. Unless, of course, they’re shown to actually be something else: a malice matrix, a trapped time-traveler, an alien invader. In other words, a supernatural foe from a Dr. Who episode. It often means presenting stories which rseriously consider the social, mechanical, and practical impact of super-powers on the world. I think Aberrant’s probably the best example of that. I’ll talk more about how these approaches differ and shape campaigns on a later list.

TIMELINE

The Onion AV Club had an interesting article on the New Universe (mentioned above), an experiment our local group followed in the early days but dropped by this time. Marvel tried a flashback month- renumbering all issues at -1. A couple of X-events "Zero Tolerance" and the "Hunt for Xavier" rounded things out. More importantly they brought back the Avengers and FF in "Heroes Reborn." DC ended up with "Genesis" (a battle against Darkseid) and "DC One Million" which connected the 853rd century to modern heroes. DC also introduced Superman Blue/Superman Red and a supermullet. Looking at the sales list, the X-Books continued to dominate. New #1 books- clearly collector grabs- also topped the rankings. The years also saw a second series of Amalgam- the DC/Marvel crossover/hybrid series. In the movies we got some truly horrible superhero releases: Batman & Robin, Spawn, and Steel. However we ended up with a Blade movie, one of the few truly successful outings for a B-super character. TV superhero material was equally thin: Power Rangers: Turbo & In Space; Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation; and Sailor Moon. On the plus side, The New Batman/Superman Adventures mixed repeats and new material and The Powerpuff Girls first appeared.

These lists cover a smaller slice of time than my past rpg lists. I hope this makes them easier to read. I include mostly core books, but also significant setting or sourcebooks. I list revised editions which significantly changed a line. Generally I only include published material- print or electronic. I leave out freebie or self-published games. I'm sure I've left something off without adequate reason; feel free to add a comment about a line I missed (if published from 1997-1998). I've arranged these in by year and then alphabetically within that year.

History of Superhero RPGs (Part One: 1978-1982)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Two: 1983-1985)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Three: 1986-1992)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Four: 1993-1996)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Five: 1997-1998)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Six: 1999-2001)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Seven: 2002-2003)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Eight: 2004-2005)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Nine: 2006-2007)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Ten: 2008)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Eleven: 2009)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Twelve: 2010)
History of Superhero RPGs (Part Thirteen 2011-2012)

1. AEon aka Trinity (1997)

By '97 I'd stopped working at the game store and so saw the industry more through online discussions, game cons, and mass market stocking. I recall when AEon hit- and then the quick weirdness of the switch of the title to Trinity. I actually thought WW had two distinct lines. I didn't catch Trinity's premise until Aberrant came out the following year. Sci-fi didn't grab me and I didn't understand that it revolved around supers characters.

I especially like where Trinity plays with some of the classic future-supers tropes. Other games like Superhero 2044, Enforcers, and Cosmic Enforcers have just a sci-fi backdrop. They seem to be closer to the great comic touchstone of the Legion of Superheroes. Others embrace the dystopian or cyberpunk over the superhero tropes (Cybergeneration or Underground)- closer to the various Marvel 2099 series. Trinity feels to me like the LSH through a filter of realism: how could this happen? What would it mean to have metahuman space agents? It that way it anticipates some of the darker and more conspiratorial storylines of the Legion in the '90's and '00's.

There's a great deal happening in the setting and Trinity has some amazing sci-fi world-building. Where I think it fails is in offering a coherent sense of what the game's actually about. The best way to describe it would be super-powered psionic troubleshooters in space. But then there's the whole Aberrant war, the alien race explorations, and strong emphasis on sourcebooks covering Earth. That ambition and desire to cover all ends of sci-fi means that it lacks focus. That might work for another game- like Traveller or SpaceMaster- but the strong design and presentation focus of WW really click when they cover a tight idea deeply. I hope the new Trinity edition does a better job of pitching and demonstrating the core idea. 

Trinity kicked off WW's linked set of games dealing with superpowers at three eras of a shared setting. It modified the Storyteller system to that end which worked...OK. ST had some problems dealing with large-scale and powerful beings. You'd see some of the saw flaws appear in Exalted and Scion. The action handling and speed in particular remains problematic across those lines. But generally the Trinity's sound and WW supported it decently with a variety of supplements large and small. Clearly Aberrant got more attention, but Trinity remained in print for some time. They adapted it to d20 in 2004. Onyx Path publishing has announced that they will release a new edition of Trinity. I hope they take a rules light approach.Point buy. d10 resolution.

2. BESM (Big Eyes, Small Mouth) (1997)

 In my various lists, I've avoided generic or universal games except where they have a genre supplement. BESM's my exception- because the material overlaps with what we might call the "anime edge" of superhero games (Super Sentai, R.O.D. TV, Sailor Moon, and so on). We've seen (and will see) several games based on properties like those. Mutants & Masterminds (Mecha & Manga) and Hero System (Kazei 5) both added supplements to incorporate those concepts.

BESM offers a solid system to power the anything-goes world of anime and manga, with a decent set of powers. GOO would go on to use much of the Tri-Stat system which powers this as the basis for their superhero game Silver Age Sentinels. BESM gives both a mechanical toolkit these campaigns, but also good material on how to actually run in the anime/manga genre. The game did well enough that it generated three later editions (2, 2.5, and 3), a d20 version, several genre books, and resource guides for some popular series. If you're interested in a light and fast system, with a decent level of detail and options, I'd recommend checking out BESM (Big Eyes, Small Mouth) third edition. Point buy. d6 Resolution.

3. Champions: New Millennium (1997)

I suspect I'm not the best person to talk about this. When it hit, I still held up Champions 4th as pretty much what I wanted out of a supers game. To combine that with Interlock seemed more gimmick than sensible decision. We'd played a lot of Cyberpunk- but no one considered that an awesome system. In fact we often commented on how the game fought more than helped us. But one player in our group followed the development of Fuzion avidly, downloading everything available online. Fuzion blazed trails; it was among the earliest games with an open license. Our group tried it but didn't care for it.

So once I finally got a look at C:tNM, I was a little surprised to see exactly what this sourcebook was. Yes- it has the Fuzion rules, but it can easily be adapted for use with the conventional Hero system. What it offers is a new "reimagined" Champions. A newer, more gritty, and shittier version. This is a game setting which buys into all of the excesses of '90's comics. The macho tone, the poses, the hypersexualization, the dark undercurrent, the complete disregard for anatomy, the idiotic belts and straps and such. It certainly takes the more classic four-color Champions Universe and transforms it into something else. From this remove some of it reads like parody, but I suspect the authors drank the kool-aid. It would make a great sourcebook for an Iron Age campaign in M&M. C: tNM generated only two supplements- Champions New Millennium: Bay City and Champions New Millennium: Alliances published the same year. Point buy. d6 Resolution.

4. Providence (1997)

So far on the list we've seen a number of sci-fi supers supplements, but few fantasy ones. Providence bucks that trend...a little. I'd argue the most influential 'fantasy' superhero games aren't this list because they don't really want to be supers games: Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and Mage: The Ascension. Beginning in the early 1990's WW shifted the direction of rpg gaming and offered dissatisfied players a new outlets. Sure- these games could be used to deal with dark stories and tragic corruption. But often the tales I heard consisted of power fantasies and teams of monsters acting like super anti-heroes and fighting big bads. Werewolf in particular sets up a pretty clear bad guy for the PCs in the fight to save the world (Sam Haight as the Thanos of the setting?). And the Hulk's pretty much just a werewolf, right? Mage has the same set of clear adversaries with the empowered PCs battling against a hidden conspiracy. Pyramid had a great article considering how you could use the background of Aberrant as a cover for an Mage revolution.

Providence, though, doesn't play fantasy with our world. Instead it offers a crazy setting. I'll quote John Karakash's review on RPGNet to sum this up:

"Providence is a hollow world meant to serve as a prison for those who rebelled against a stratified and unjust society. They fought under the banners of Gods who turned out to be merely powerful mortals and were defeated along with their false deities. Soon after their interment into a number of prison-camps, the gates that deposited them to Providence stopped working, trapping guards and prisoners alike. After a number of bloody rebellions (and a few generations), the prison system broke down and most of the cities were freed. Most of the world is unexplored jungle, containing odd creatures that were once like the PC races. And it's a world that appears to be coming to end as cataclysmic natural disasters begin to tear it apart."

The reviews and comments I've seen talk describe an interesting (if slightly incoherent) world combined with difficult mechanics. Apparently it offers superheroics in that you're fighting for good and have strange powers. I've never actually laid my hands on the game, so I can't provide an better assessment.  Point buy. Various dice.

5. StuperPowers! (1997)

The title page image of the superhero with urine-stained pants and a pee pool on the ground as villains surround him didn't give me much hope for STUPERPOWERS!. A parody rpg that aims to take the piss out of the genre, it did well enough in '97 to spawn a second edition in 2001. If you like comedy games, you will probably like this. The layout's nice, they have art, and the game feels pretty complete.

I'm not a big fan of comedy games. I enjoy when humor and parody arise from play at the table, and I dig some spare humor in a gamebook. But I'm never sure what I'm supposed to get from these kinds of in-your-face satires (I'd count HōL in this category). I'm not going to play it and I don't really laugh when I read it. There's some smart stuff in StuperPowers that made me smirk- especially the take on '90's excesses. But a good deal of it feels like weak MAD Magazine stuff. I fear that I'm a humorless grump on this; I mean the Deluxe Edition has been carefully crafted and assembled. The game looks dynamite, but I'm not the audience for it. Random generation (sort of). Various dice.

6. The Blood of Heroes (1998)

Several years after Mayfair stopped publishing DC Heroes Pulsar games decided to use that system to create a freestanding supers rpg: The Blood of Heroes. The first edition from '98 vanished quickly, replaced by a Special Edition in 2000. Pulsar Games itself has changed hands since then. But there's some suggestion that they may not actually have the rights to the system. Ray Winninger believes everything surrounding DC Heroes actually belongs to DC Comics and Mayfair never had the right to transfer that license, even to the base mechanics. 

The game itself has the strengths and weaknesses of the MEGS system, but without the charm of the DC property. Everything's here in a dense hard-to-read single volume. The book buries whatever simplicity the system once had. It also delivers some terrible, terrible art. I had to look at a few of the full-page images for several minutes to figure out what the hell's happening. If you have a copy of the Special Edition, I recommend checking out page 136. Try to use that image as a writing prompt. The Blood of Heroes Universe takes up 100+ pages of the core book. It's a kitchen-sink, weirdly '90's gritty setting and strangely incoherent. Lots of NPCs and groups but little sense of what ought to make this world compelling or distinct. Too dark and messy, it doesn't appeal to me. Point buy. 2d10 resolution.

7.  Heroes Unlimited (Second Edition) (1998)

Heroes Unlimited landed in '84 (with the revised version in '87) so that's a respectable length of time for a game to remain in print. I'm not sure I agree with Kevin Siembieda's assertion in the intro that HU is "one of a tiny handful of contemporary superhero games." I think these lists put the lie to that. Heroes Unlimited 2nd has another striking Steranko cover (which pushes Siembieda's intro into an argument with online commenters taking exception to the US-centric imagery). The art throughout the book's more solid and consistent than previous editions. Some of it's wild and oddly out-of-place, but the whole thing doesn't seem nearly as a bonkers as other Palladium books.

Changes for this edition include overall clean-up of the mechanics and changing the magic system to bring it in line with other games sharing the base system. Overall the layout's easier to work through and material's presented in a more coherent order. However some rules appear well before the cart's even been built. As well many sections still feel like essays dropped in. And there's the weird thing that each subsection has a byline, with Siembieda's name appearing every few pages. HU remains a complicated game with a lot of working parts. It has gotten some ongoing support over the years with setting books (some of which I'll mention on later lists), the Powers Unlimited series, and others.  Random generation (some picks possible). Level based. Various dice.

8. Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game (1998)

Someone's going to have to help me here. This is the Marvel universe done using the SAGA rules which came from the Dragonlance: Fifth Age rpg. But that's different from the WotC Star Wars: Saga Edition which came out ten years later? That's a little confusing. The SAGA version of Marvel dropped off my radar despite having many interesting supplements. I missed it completely at the time, but finally got around to looking at it.

Wow- that's a striking and brave move on TSR's part- shifting a major license like that to a non-standard system. And apparently it worked, judging by the high ratings on RPGGeek. It's hard to tell from just reading the rules how well it will play, given the card-driven nature of the system. And I'm philosophically in favor of card-based games. I had a good time going reading the corebook; it has the clean and open presentation of top-notch TSR products. I checked in with my Play on Target co-host, Andrew Goenner to get his impressions. He thinks MSHAG rocks- the card system works well and allows for fast play without getting bogged down. So I'll have to put this on my list of grail games to track down.

Here's an odd thought. Marvel has had four rpg versions and DC has had three. Each of the Marvel Universe rpgs have been experimental or at least distinctly abstract. MSH used trait descriptors, karma spends, and some diceless effects. MSHAG goes completely diceless, with a card system involving suits, trumping, and hand management. The Marvel Universe RPG goes completely diceless with a game of resource management. Finally, the short-lived Marvel Heroic highly abstracts powers and conflicts, with relationships and other traits as important as mutant abilities. On the other hand, each DC game has been crunchy, rules heavier, and more concrete. Even the lightest of them, DC Universe, gives full power breakdowns with its use of the WEG d6 system. Does that say something about the respective universes involved? About the companies? Or is that purely an accident of fate? Point-buy (sort of). Card-driven resolution.

9. Revelation (1998)

I left Buffy off this list because its doesn't position itself as a superhero concept. Arguably Angel's closer and once we get to the Buffy comic seasons then all bets are off. But usually it reads as horror, supernatural, and conventional action. Revelation describes itself as "The Modern Superheroic Horror Role-Playing Game." But it’s just another version of Buffy, in a world with Demons and Angels battling (the 'Seraphim' and the 'Shaetan'). Essentially the PCs serve as monster-hunters. There's little conventional superhero stuff here. Point buy. Various dice.

10. Sailor Moon Roleplaying Game (1998)

I'm not a big Sailor Moon fan; I prefer contemporaries Revolutionary Girl Utena and Blue Seed. But I appreciate what it does- combining episodic shows with a long running mythology. I've mentioned Superfriends and the 1960's Spider Man cartoons as influences, but I also loved Ultra Man and Space Giants which aired on Chicago indie station Channel 44. When I could catch it, Battle of the Planets scratched that itch for cartoon action. All of that stuff felt superhero to me: using powers to battle a big bad each week.

Sailor Moon's the clearest riff on superhero tropes- with costumes, secret identities, and a team with differing powers. Guardians of Order's The Sailor Moon Role-Playing Game and Resource Book smartly positions itself for the market outside of gaming. It uses the Tri-Stat system with surprising detail. I expected less gaming material and more discussion of the background (ala Bubblegum Crisis: Mega-Tokyo 2033). Instead it splits pretty evenly and has an extensive GM advice section. Worth tracking down for anyone interested in the magical girl genre. Point buy. d6 resolution.

11. San Angelo (1998)

I love city sourcebooks especially for superhero games. I've written before on that (Superhero Metroplexual: We Built this City on 250 Points). City sourcebooks have a particular challenge. Often they must set up the premises and history of the setting as a whole, as well as describing the urban environment. That’s true for San Angelo, but the sourcebook doesn’t let that weigh it down. Instead moves quickly to laying out the city section by section. San Angelo doesn’t feel unique for a supers city- but the book presents it deeply and usefully for the GM. It takes into consideration the reality of supers and works that carefully into the background.  San Angelo can be used as is, serve as a model for your own campaign city, or be cannibalized for other games. 

The original edition came out for Champions 4th, but the revised 1.5 edition covers M&M 1e and Action! System. Gold Rush Games released several supplements to expand the setting: Denizens of San Angelo,  Enemies of San Angelo, and The Dragon's Gate: San Angelo's Chinatown. When I mention SA people comment on it fondly- describing it as the only city book they used. The money quote on the cover comes from Kurt Busiek of Astro City fame; he calls it “…an intricate, involving, well-realized gaming world.” 

History of Superhero RPGs (Part One: 1978-1982)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Two: 1983-1985)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Three: 1986-1992)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Four: 1993-1996)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Five: 1997-1998)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Six: 1999-2001)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Seven: 2002-2003)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Eight: 2004-2005)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Nine: 2006-2007)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Ten: 2008)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Eleven: 2009)

History of Superhero RPGs (Part Twelve: 2010)
History of Superhero RPGs (Part Thirteen 2011-2012)