Why is GURPS not considered a good fit for the Supers genre?

[Lovewyrm]

Not very fair to GURPS that four color superheroes are complete nonsense plot armor hackery.

It shows how BS these heroes are and how they need some adjustment and actual thought and care.

Otherwise, just invent more cosmic powers that just override everything just like they do, while pretending to live in a normal everyday world to make them "super".

And while that is a bit homebrewy, that's still part of RAW. Says it right there, on B119, new Advantages.

But for real.
$%$#% """""American""""" 'Hollywood' nonsense, eternal apologism required, nerd blood was spilled over it all, Superheroes.

Edit: And if that is either too harsh or too obtuse.

Go and try and accurately stat Popeye even, not a superhero, but also a complete nonsense character whose eyes can smoke pipes because the writers thought its funny.
Or his spit turns into rivets for steel beams.

That's what most of these superheroes are. Nonsense.
Fun, yes, but complete cartoon BS at the core.

So, to accurately play Popeye in GURPS, do the following:
Write "It's Popeye" on the character sheet, in big spinach green lettering, all across the sheet.

And play him like Popeye, outside the rules because Rule 0 "There are no rules" also applies to GURPS.
Now you have accurate Popeye in GURPS.

Either that or you spend six quintrillion to the power of grahams number CP and employ the population of Guam to really stat him out in GURPS RAW blocks.

But be sure to send that char sheet to Segar or the Fleischers once its done so they can instantly one up it and pull a new ability out of the hat for him because he's a cartoon and GURPS isn't a cartoon.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

I feel like TTRPGs have to stop encouraging fiction-first emulation and start encouraging game-first adaptation. You don't use GURPS to emulate a cartoon where it just makes **** up as it goes along.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw

I feel like TTRPGs have to stop encouraging fiction-first emulation and start encouraging game-first adaptation. You don't use GURPS to emulate a cartoon where it just makes **** up as it goes along.

That is extremely unlikely to ever happen.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw

I feel like TTRPGs have to stop encouraging fiction-first emulation and start encouraging game-first adaptation. You don't use GURPS to emulate a cartoon where it just makes **** up as it goes along.

I don't think it's impossible for an RPG to work that way. I've run a Toon series where the players and I did a lot of that, and it went well. I grant, though, that GURPS may not be the best rules set for running toons!

On the other hand, I came up with the Ultrapower advantage in GURPS Supers specifically to emulate the ability of supers to do this sort of thing, while tying it to a specific theme.

I think that you can actually do supers in any of the three primal styles:

* In a simulationist treatment, you postulate a physical effect of a power, of a certain order of magnitude, and you work out the physical implications.

* In a narrativist treatment, you choose a central trope for a super, and you emulate the ways that trope is applied in graphic novels or in live-action films with FX, with a more informal and visually based scaling.

* In a gamist treatment, you grant supers certain moves that are calculated, individually or collectively, to be on a par with each other as far as utility in play is concerned, and then you have players game out contests with each other or with the GM.

These imply different abilities to make things up.

[cavesalamander]

Hmmm, thinking of a Popeye rpg where stats include ‘Strengthk’ and ‘Intellishence.’

Anyway, one of my longest running GURPS campaigns was a superhero game. Once the GM has set up their guideposts and benchmarks for the game (like max levels for damage and defense, which impulse buys to use if any, etc), then superheroes are one of the easiest games to run at the table, since so much of how the characters and the world interact are pure handwavium. Is the brick strong enough to smash through the wall? Sure, cause that’s what bricks do. Can the psi do it? Well maybe, if they have TK ST on par with the brick. Can the Batman analog do it? Hmm, not his thing.

Does this mean you throw out the rules entirely? Of course not. But it does mean you don’t spend time calculating precise jump distances down to the inch. Roll and shout is the order of the day.

If I wanted to run a gritty neo noir detective or war game, I’d approach things different.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by cavesalamander

Is the brick strong enough to smash through the wall? Sure, cause that’s what bricks do. Can the psi do it? Well maybe, if they have TK ST on par with the brick. Can the Batman analog do it? Hmm, not his thing.

That's kind of how I'd handle that power level, personally: have something on the sheet that said "This character gets to automatically succeed at this one thing because it fits their archetype", maybe with ICDM scales if we need their to be a bigger fish. Whether or not to charge points for it, I don't know: I wouldn't want to charge a lot, but I also wouldn't want people to intrude on each others' archetype territory without consent.

[WingedKagouti]

Originally Posted by cavesalamander

Anyway, one of my longest running GURPS campaigns was a superhero game. Once the GM has set up their guideposts and benchmarks for the game (like max levels for damage and defense, which impulse buys to use if any, etc), then superheroes are one of the easiest games to run at the table, since so much of how the characters and the world interact are pure handwavium. Is the brick strong enough to smash through the wall? Sure, cause that’s what bricks do. Can the psi do it? Well maybe, if they have TK ST on par with the brick. Can the Batman analog do it? Hmm, not his thing.

And my point against forcing GURPS for this type of gameplay, is that there are plenty of other systems which are set up to do this from the get go, which usually also means they have a bunch of predefined character creation settings which facilitate this style.

[Purple Snit]

I think we can safely say that if you are using GURPS as your go-to system, and not M&M or Champions, then you are already aware of the system's limits and strengths. And if you want a full-on four-colour Superhero campaign, you should probably look elsewhere, or temper your expectations, just as you would if you want to play a faithful World of Darkness or Scion:God game. That isn't a weakness in GURPS.

One of the big issues with the genre is that we are used to seeing Superman & Batman, Thor & Hawkeye, or Doctor Manhattan & Rorschach, all in the same adventure and fighting the same menace, and that is really hard to work out in a game unless you are just saying "now this happens, logic be damned", and forcing impossible genre conventions and tropes into the story. You need to be more aware of power levels and campaign theme when runnjng a game.

(Honestly, the inconsistent "whatever the writer decides" power levels is one of my biggest issues with comic shows and movies - TTRPGs at least quantify what the characters can do)

"GURPS doesn't do Supers well" isn't accurate, but like everything else it does, and it does a lot, it takes work from the GM to balance and define a campaign.

[Illusion158]

There are only 2 reasons my group have never done a Supers game.

Number 1 is that, depending on what you’re allowing, the point totals can get crazy. You basically HAVE to just ignore point totals at a certain point and try and make the characters balanced as far as what they can do is concerned. Otherwise you end up with stuff like one guy that can move water around a bit and another that can punch through walls. They might be the same point total, but one is a LOT more effective in play.

Number 2, and point number 1 definitely contributes to this, but we have a player who prefers playing anything ‘dude with gun’. He HAS played more supernatural things before, but when it comes to super games, other than increasing survivability, he finds everything else just very point inefficient. So, if we do games nearing the style of Supers, then while someone else plays Superman, he can shoot the wings off a fly from miles away and has more money and info sources than God. Leading Action Steve to be able to kill all of the godlike beings around him by shooting them through the eye with their kryptonite before they know he’s on the same continent.

TLDR: GURPS balance starts to breakdown at that level of play if using point total as a metric.

[Otaku]

I've got a few additional thoughts to share; please pardon me if I'm needlessly repeating anything. I've read the thread, but we're almost 60 comments in already. ;)

On March 30th, Batman officially turns 84 years old. While plenty of his storylines are of a similar vein, especially given how many titles he's either the star of or a significant part of the supporting cast, Batman has already done just about everything, hence people believing he can do just about anything. Which means more recent characters, whether from the past few years or "only" from the 1940s that have anything in common with Batman? They're also expected to have done or be capable of doing likewise. The writers will let Batman occupy any party niche they want to, but especially if it facilitates a good story!

I like how GURPS doesn't really work that way. Even back in the day, it was actually fun as you would

1. See an Advantage in Supers that was "obviously" under or overpriced.
2. Go to discuss it with your friends (and later, online)...
3. ...only to realize that you just didn't realize how limited/versatile the trait could be.

Duplication is a good example. I was shocked by whatever the base price was back in GURPS Supers 2nd Edition*: 75 CP! Of course, now its base cost is only 35, but I think the drastic price cut is because things that were formerly part of the baseline version of Duplication are now Enhancements you may take for it. I was a fan of Multiple Man (Jamie Madrox) from Marvel Comics before I knew GURPS, and that was probably why I didn't think much of Duplication. They've made much better use of Multiple Man's abilities over the last two decades, but in the early and mid 90s? Even using Fourth Edition's base cost for Duplication, even ignoring the Enhancements that would be required to emulate Multiple Man's exact version of Duplication, he's spent over 1300 CP** on his powers just to be a support/second-stringer kind of superhero! O_O

Because the writers wanted or needed to use him that way. As opposed to a player, who might realize that they could have a few dupes working for a living, a few dupes minding the house, a few dupes studying to improve, and possibly even split the rest into multiple superheroes... or even have some be heroes and some be villains! In a setting with martial arts, magic, or just enough points and a solid enough justification to the GM to add other powers and... well, we can see why Duplication costs 35/dupe, even though a dead dupe means that CP is gone.

But this leads to my final question: I have GURPS Supers for Fourth Edition, but I haven't read it exhaustively. I know it has some good advice for running a Supers campaign, and for playing supers... but I'm wondering if it might be good to release some splat books to go into more detail or cover some of the ways to effectively run and/or GM a particular superhero archetype in GURPS, and at varying levels of power. Maybe no one actually needs such a title, but I think of the cool stuff I've seen on the forums, or have seen over the last 20 years of fiction. Realizing how sneaky a low-to-mid power tank can be. Can't Hulk out and rip the turret off of a tank? Ah, but you're practically invulnerable to small arms fire, strong enough to quietly break locks on doors, and - should the setting allow - carry a weapon that can make good use of your ST, be it Striking ST or Lifting ST?

*Again, that's a book for GURPS Third Edition (Revised). Maybe straight Third Edition as well, but I don't remember for certain.
**At the time, Multiple Man could create up to 39 duplicates of himself.