newbie needs help getting started with Supers

[B9anders]

If you have the time for it, I'd recommend sitting down with Powers and just reading through the book, minus chapters 2 & 3, slowly and meticulously from start to finish. If stuff gets mentioned you don't understand, try and look it up in the basic set. It's only 114 pages really.

Powers is, imo, really well written, structured and easy to follow. It's just dense. But once you've gone through it once to know what is in there, you basically understand everything you need to know about super powers.

Chapters 2 & 3, as well as the crunch in Supers, just becomes awesome stuff you now know how to use after that.

[jhite]

The most important piece of advice I can give you regarding how to use the tools of GURPS - specifically Advantages, and especially for a superhero game - is this:

Always keep an eye toward the end result you want. GURPS is like a Lego set: although you have all the pieces in front of you, they aren't necessarily assembled yet, and you can't always treat them as a completed whole exactly as they appear on the page.

For instance: don't get caught up on word choice, or flavor text, or anything else like that. "Gear," in your Batman and Iron Man question, is an excellent example. While "Signature Gear" might be a good choice for Bruce Wayne, to represent that he owns nice, expensive things, and can easily replace them without any "on screen" effort, it's a poor choice for Tony Stark's armor. For that, you have to answer the question "What does it DO?"

Conceptually deconstructing the Iron Man armor, what it DOES is provide defense, offense, flight, internal scanners, etc. - and it's (more or less) unique. Rather than finding a statted-up battlesuit that does this which the character buys as equipment, it's generally a better idea to create a character who has the Advantages which reflect these abilities - Damage Reduction, Innate Attacks of whatever flavor seems right, likely a ST boost, Flight, Detect or Hyperspectral Vision, etc. - all bought with various modifiers (such as the Gadget limitations, Temporary Disadvantage:Electrical, etc.) which reflect what makes these particular applications of the Advantages different from others.

This process is what makes superheroes viable with only the Basic Set. However, Powers and Supers could still be useful as tools which help to parse how you can think of those core rules in the service of achieving a specific feel, genre, etc.


EDIT: Looking back, my answer doesn't help you decide what you can do without. The only thing I'd add to others' advice is that all Optional rules - and even some standard rules - can be ignored if you feel they make things difficult. Worried that Extra Effort or Super Effort will make too much bookkeeping in combat? Don't use it! Concerned that an Advantage could get out of hand or be too difficult to keep track of? Don't let PCs have it! In terms of what is strictly necessary for your game, a lot of that will depend on what your players want to do, and whether there's a need for a special rule for that thing.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by jhite

This process is what makes superheroes viable with only the Basic Set. However, Powers and Supers could still be useful as tools which help to parse how you can think of those core rules in the service of achieving a specific feel, genre, etc.

In fact, the advice you gave is exactly what GURPS Supers recommends doing in those cases.

Bill Stoddard