Tips for Running a Neo-Silver Age Superhero Game in GURPS

[Phantasm]

"Neo-Silver Age" - adj. Capturing the light-hearted feel of the Silver Age without being stupid about it, having had some influence by the Bronze and Iron Ages of comics. Heroes attempt to capture instead of killing, bystanders are rarely injured, and villains are not in it simply for "teh evilz" and may actually be sympathetic, if not Shakespearean tragic heroes (Magneto). Deaths of PCs and named NPCs - when they happen - are dramatic and story- or character-driven. Life is not cheap.

Point values can vary wildly, but I find that 150 points for the character before powers makes for a competent character. In this case, "powers" includes the various traits of a super-normal. I typically suggest 250 to 500 points for a street-level supers game (Daredevil, Batman); up to 750 points for a "competent team" like the New Teen Titans, X-Men, Justice League Detroit, and most Avengers lineups; and starting at 1,000 points for national- to cosmic-level heroes (Fantastic Four, original Defenders, Superman, Green Lantern, movie-Avengers).

Mixed point values can be a thing. Bricks and flying bricks, for instance, are more likely to need 500 more points than their fellows for stuff like Super ST, DR, and IT:DR than blasters, scrappers, psychics, super-mages, or element controllers.



What I see as some of the needed Setting Switches:

Man of Steel, World of Kleenex: Supers - hero and villain alike, along with the full spectrum in-between - with superhuman strength intentionally pull their punches unless they know for certain their target can take the punishment. Generally, they'll do 1d-1 damage with their punches against living beings regardless of how much they'd normally do. Cars, tanks, buildings, and bricks with DR, of course, are fair game for full-power punches. As Charles Xavier once joked while dying during Magneto's World Court trial, "You can always tell where my X-Men have been by the mess they leave behind." Property damage will skyrocket, but the heroes are never held responsible; typically, the properties being damaged are already vacant and/or scheduled for demolition anyway . . . .

Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Thugs carry guns, of course, commonly handguns and occasionally sub-guns or bullpup carbines for the well-funded "private security force" employed by organized criminal cartels. Thing is, they won't take time to Aim, don't have Gunslinger, have gun skills in the 10-12 range, and always suffer from range penalties. This means that when it comes to hitting the heroes, they can't hit the broad side of a barn.

Ballistic Fabric Super-Suits: Unless you don't need protection (Superman, Ben Grimm, and Iron Man have built-in protection powers), your superhero uniforms are generally made of Kevlar - or in some game worlds Reflex fabric. The GM is encouraged to say these come free with your standard wardrobe as "clothing for the job", and to roll replacement suits into your Cost of Living; a good hero or villain will have two or three of them on hand in his closet.

Anything else you can think of?

[Otaku]

Just to be clear... you're looking for optional/alternate game rules to reflect the feeling and not actual reasons why the setting may function this way (with or without said rules)? I ask because it looks like the former but I was expecting the latter.

For example, whether current (or even completely accurate) or not, I've heard that "The Rogues", an association of Flash villains has established a code of conduct and procedural rules that often match-up to at least some Silver Age notions... and it is justified through their histories and some decent reasoning. The best specific example among them is that outright attempts to kill, cripple or maim are avoided because its reciprocal: they pull their punches and enforce others pulling their punches because that means the Flash (and perhaps to some extent the legal authorities and civilians) do likewise. If you run with them, you follow suit. If you aren't running with them and are the competition, especially when you aren't following anything resembling their code of conduct, then they won't hold back either.

So with appropriate Duties, Sense of Duties, Codes of Honor, in setting laws and a lot of real world things (like how most folks appear to have Reluctant Killer or Cannot Kill) the switches aren't needed. Of course if you don't want to deal with that, then by all means keep those switches flicked. I'll just try to remember to enjoy reading further posts without commenting (much) more because I'll be lucky to be any help. XD

[Adversary]

I think that avoiding lethal force could actually be realistic for lower-powered superheroes. The official/law enforcement response to a costumed yahoo running around, leaving the occasional beaten-up badguy at the scene of an interrupted crime or tied up in front of the police station, is going to be fairly lenient/minimal. But someone going around assassinating people via laser eye-beams or by popping their heads off with super-strength? Even if the targets are criminals, that is going to result in a full-on official manhunt pretty quickly.

In terms of mechanics for reducing the importance of firearms, how about this: picking up a dropped firearm (or even one that is sitting on a table, propped by the door, etc.) under combat conditions is a slow process. 1 action to pick it up, a second ready action to get it into a firing grip and position. Maybe if it is rattling around on the ground during combat you even need a dex roll to pick it up in one round...or you need a move action to get to it, and can only stoop and pick it up the following round, for a total of three actions (move, pick up, ready).

This explains why in many superhero shows/movies (for instance Marvel's Daredevil series), once a thug has dropped his gun he goes into hand to hand combat. Thugs have guns at the start of the fight but almost never rearm.

You could also impose a rule that says if you are stunned or knocked down, you drop your gun. And/or allowing disarming or grabbing a weapon to be performed at full hand-to-hand combat skill.

[Kalzazz]

Not Supers specifically, but in GURPS it can be very difficult to Make Things Go Down. What with HT checks and HP and everything, things can take a licking and keep on ticking. You can knock a boring normal mundane human right to Death Check land, and with a bit of luck he can stay up and in the fight. If the DM decides foes should have more than 10 HT? (like many templates the DM might steal from would suggest). Even harder for things to go down.

And worse, these are all 'the DM rolls dice and sees what happens' type things, so the players can feel their flinging attacks downrange rather futilely (and time consumingly). This can lead to a feeling of 'theres no kill like overkill', because only by racing the damage to 6 * HP as fast as possible can you truly control your own destiny in 'making the bad thingies go down'

So you might want to consider alternate mechanics (or stun damage or something) foe 'making the bad thingies go down', since I really think that there is a possibility people could get saddened trying to drop goons 1d-1 papercut by 1d-1 papercut.

My recollection is that when fighting mundane foes, hero types should be able to take them out by the bushel basket . . . . 1d-1 per hit is hardly going to accomplish that

(Admittedly, 'by the bushel basket' in general is one of the tricky things in GURPS . . . it is a matter of very funky builds to get a character who is a Slayer of Mooks)

edit - so, oftentimes the driving cause I've found in PC induced lethality is not so much 'the PCs really want to slaughter thingies' so much as 'Players want the thingies to go down, and they attack the thingies with intent to make the thingies go down, and the most reliable way of inducing 'go down' in thingies is to induce 'No HT roll required' automatic 'go down' at -5 x HP'

[dcarson]

Nothing says that all foes have to fight like fanatics. A serious wound and either running or staying down and waiting for the paramedics to get here is not unreasonable for people in for the money.

[Phantasm]

Consider, though, the mook rules in Campaigns. Your crime boss's hired henchmen - and really anyone you designate Henchman #1, Henchman #2, Mook Horde - go down with a single hit, don't defend, and don't All-Out Attack.

Superhero games - particularly the flavor I specified in the original post - is at least mildly cinematic, and often going very cinematic. Mooks having HP 10 and HT 10 or even HP and HT 9 isn't out of the question, and chances of them wearing armor is even less than their chances of All-Out Attacking. What you don't want is your super-strong bricks and AMR-level blasters outright killing the mooks with one hit. Genre expectations should be set and understood by all players, after all, regardless of which genre you're in.

That reminds me:

Variable Damage For Innate Powers: Blasters should be able to dial back the damage they do to less-than-lethal ranges. Insist that the players take Variable on their ranged powers so that they don't fire at maximum dice of damage every time.

Okay, maybe 1d-1 (1 to 5 damage) is a bit too little; 2d-2 (1 to 10 damage) might be better.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

That reminds me:

Variable Damage For Innate Powers: Blasters should be able to dial back the damage they do to less-than-lethal ranges. Insist that the players take Variable on their ranged powers so that they don't fire at maximum dice of damage every time.

Okay, maybe 1d-1 (1 to 5 damage) is a bit too little; 2d-2 (1 to 10 damage) might be better.

The last line confuses me (yeah, already speaking up again >.>): if we are worried about being "less than lethal" (and thus combat efficiency isn't the chief concern) then yeah, getting down to 1d (or less) seems like a good idea. I hope it doesn't sound like I'm stating the obvious, but GURPS points of damage are pretty significant; if you're not using some setting specific rule to "protect" everyone instead of Variable, then even 1d-1 can be a bit much.

Unless there are other factors I missed. >_< GURPS points of damgae tend to be significant otherwise: even if it is just crushing damage with no other modifiers, unless it hits the guy with a Kevlar vest or the like, a torso hit that is a 10 may not kill him but he'll probably be hospitalized for several days at least, plus fully recovering longer than that. 10 points of crushing damage to the torso in GURPS is what, several broken ribs plus massive amounts of bruising? Now imagine trying to knock someone out with a head shot or stop them fleeing by taking out a leg or other non-torso shots. O_o

It won't happen a lot of course but I imagine rolling for damage will happen a lot, even if you're using the mook rules so the dozens (then hundreds, then thousands) of mooks the heroes take down don't require damage rolls to be made. Mooks may fold like card tables but when you have a significant villain (super or none), even if he, she, it or they have good enough DR to blunt most of it, are they all going to be cool customers that don't freak out when they realize "If it wasn't for [source of DR] then..." and realize you might have broken one of their limbs or their skull, they might respond rather harshly.

[Infornific]

Coming in a little late on this but I have a few thoughts...

Allow predictive shots but only for Weaponmasters, Gunslingers and Innate Powers. That way PCs and major NPCs should have a relatively easy time dodging bullets from ordinary thugs but can target each other.

Possibly, have the system encourage pulling punches and multiple tiers of damage. Super-Effort with ST for bricks already tends to do that giving:

1. Casual strikes that don't burn Fatigue - for bricks these are likely to be in the 2d-4d range depending on skills and related Advantages. Damage wise equivalent to pistols or low end rifles.

2. High effort strikes that cost Fatigue. These can be 10d or more - high end of I scale or low end D scale.

3. Extreme effort through abilities like Power Blow. Will take time and multiple Fatigue. Note that GURPS Supers suggests using Power Blow with the Unusual Training Perk to simulate extreme effort.

The PC has a built in incentive to start at level 1 as that costs no Fatigue. Allowing for genre rules for damage this should minimize the odds of killing normal people. Level 2 is saved for when opponents simply shrug off blows. And level 3 is for exceptional challenges.

You could require a similar model for innate attacks and such so that the routine use is low. For level 2 attacks require the Costs Fatigue limitation. Level 3 attacks take multiple limitations (Fatigue plus Burnout or Recharge, etc) that make their use risky.

Also, when modeling character from fiction I'd focus more on concept than exact replication. Superheroes are notoriously inconsistent in power level. So if you're running an I level game you can make Thor have no more than Super ST 11/150 and just make sure that's the top level. If you want D level or higher adjust accordingly.