Why doesn't GURPS do Superheroes well?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Any superpowers system in the Laundry Files would be added on by the user. The system doesn't provide one, unless it's in the new supplement which I haven't seen yet.

It was less work to come up with one than for Space 1889. I just read the list of spells at different levels as a list of available powers, and added a few more.

Bill Stoddard

[sir_pudding]

I think it's not coincidental that the last two Supers games I proposed for GURPS have some need of a sliding scale of realism and mundane detail. One needs fiddly details for ordinary life, and the other needs to have whole worlds that operate somewhere differently on a spectrum from Golden Age to the grittiest Enissian/Millarian Iron Age.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Realism is most certainly a genre.

I wouldn't say so. It's a mode – like "cinematic" or "silly," but not a genre.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I wouldn't say so. It's a mode – like "cinematic" or "silly," but not a genre.

I agree with that one.
I dont see why GURPS cant have supplement aimed at other Modes though.
Kind of like the Power Ups series but list the various design switches and optional rules by the Modes there best suited for.
Add a few new ones to flavor and I think it would be a great book.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Gnome

Back in the 3e days, some of the most fun I had was playing without a character point limit.

Now there is a great example of how to make GURPS better at a wider range of play styles or modes! However, the system has just about no support for it. I think my hints in that direction in GURPS Power-Ups 5 are about as far as we've ever gone. I'd soften my earlier statement a lot if we offered published support for alternatives like that one.

Originally Posted by David Johansen

One simple way to do it is to put things in two different pools.

An optional powers pool/skill pool system would be another example of a way to make GURPS better at certain modes of play, and one that would still retain point-build. However, it's very poorly suited to things other than supers, which brings me to another point . . .

Ultimately, pricing ST to make "bricks" more affordable is a solution only for supers. It's a glowing example of a super convention: "The extremes of strength are unusually common, and the ramifications are never fully explored." The pricing of ST is fine in all the styles of play where people abuse the hell out of ST to carry massive armor and weapons, and generally get their money's worth. It's just broken as a pure damage generator, which really only matters in supers, where it has to compete with Innate Attack, where the real issue is more likely "Innate Attack is too cheap." In most other kinds of games, ST generates damage by letting you wield a minigun or phaser artillery or Mjolnir, and typically does so well out of proportion to its point cost.

Originally Posted by whswhs

I tend to regard "balance" as mostly a formal device. I don't think numerical equality of scores indicates actual equality of play effectiveness. The main point is rather that each character should have a finite range of capabilities, so that no one character can do everything that's needed for successful play.

Agreed. That's pretty much what points are for: "You have so much creative flexibility. What do you use it for?" I certainly price new traits that way, not on the basis of what physical paramters apply to them. I think it's the only valid way to compare apples to oranges to three-ring binders to hagfish to microchips, which is what most point-build systems are doing. I'll grant that a series of pools would make this work even better, but my long experience with RPGs (I'm in year 34, now) is that the first question most players would ask would be "What's the exchange rate between pools?" It's almost a problem that people don't want addressed in Actual Play . . .

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I dont see why GURPS cant have supplement aimed at other Modes though.

Dungeon Fantasy, Action! and Monster Hunters are probably as much about mode as they are genre.

Mysteries and Horror are absolutely about mode (even though bookstores and publishers like to treat these as genres, they really aren't, as works like Caves of Steel or Alien should attest). Doesn't the introduction to GURPS Horror specifically discuss horror as a mode (or am I thinking of another essay on horror fiction)?

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Dungeon Fantasy, Action! and Monster Hunters are probably as much about mode as they are genre.

Mysteries and Horror are absolutely about mode (even though bookstores and publishers like to treat these as genres, they really aren't, as works like Caves of Steel or Alien should attest). Doesn't the introduction to GURPS Horror specifically discuss horror as a mode (or am I thinking of another essay on horror fiction)?

If Plato can call Drama and Epic Poetry a Genre I dont see why Horror and Mysteries don't qualify.
Point taken about the others being at least partly Mode books though, to which I would add Supers as it goes over certain genre assumptions.
But I really think a Power Up book that was more generic and aimed at various modes would work.
Modes: Gritty, Cinematic, Silly, Horror, Over the Top. Square Jawed Heroes, Four Color, etc.
each Mode has a chapter with a list of the rules and published material listed or referenced in it.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Refplace

If Plato can call Drama and Epic Poetry a Genre I dont see why Horror and Mysteries don't qualify.

I'm fairly sure that Platonic genres aren't really the same thing as what we generally mean by "genre" in role-playing games (or even in contemporary criticism or publishing). It's certainly possible to have sf/mystery, sf/horror, sf/comedy or whatever as still be science fiction. It's not possible to have sf/fantasy or sf/historical or sf/mainstream without something that's really an obvious hybrid.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

According to Wikipedia, Superhero fiction is a bona fide genre. And indeed, I see no reason why it shouldn't be regarded as one.

The issue is that genres are medium-specific, not medium-transcendent. I'd agree that supers is a genre in comics and possibly film. I'd disagree that it's one in RPGs. I don't see that as contradictory at all. More on this here.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Ultimately, pricing ST to make "bricks" more affordable is a solution only for supers.

No it isn't. Making Lifting ST more affordable is only really a factor for supers and monsters, but making Striking ST more affordable is a factor for any high tech setting. You're an idiot if you buy Striking ST in a high tech game, because muscle powered weapons are totally useless. This is realistic, but the strong guy (or alien, or monster, or cyborg) has a role in an awful lot of modern or future storytelling.