Along the lines of Malcom Craig's Strike!, I'm planning to run a Contenders game at Dreamation, tweaked for superheroic play.
Contenders seems perfect for portraying supers dealing with the balance of power and responsibility. Only some name changes are in order, and I'd like feedback on the following ideas.
Contenders Term / Revised Term
Hope/Motivation
Cash/Information
Pain/Responsibility
Reputation/ Q Score
Also, Scene Types get new names
Contenders Scene / Game Scene
Connection / Organization
Work / Investigation
Training / Danger Room
Promotion / Planning
Fight / Battle
Threat / Team-Up (Brawl) and Annual (Threaten a Connection)
So, rather than Cash, the characters are seeking Information to provide it to their Organization. The characters can acquire Information from Battles and Investigation.
Finally, the End Game is a little different:
Rather than pairing off, the Final Battle is a free-for-all between all the Characters. Each Phase, starting with the Character with the Highest Technique, Characters select an opponent. Multiple Characters can attack a single opponent; however, once a character is engaged that character cannot choose to attack someone else. Characters attacked by multiple opponents use the same Style (tactical option) against each attacker, but draw a new hand against each opponent. Damage done to a single target is added together to then determine the number of Victory Points awarded for the Phase. The highest card among all the combatants involved in a single fight gets to narrate what happened in that Phase.
What gets tricky, I think, is that someone's got to be the Villain. So the Final Battle is likely to involve multiple heroes fighting the bad guy...I'm not sure that the hack would survive that situation. But I'm hopeful there is a way to make it work!
Mel
Ka-Pow!
Submitted by JoE PrincE on Fri, 14/12/2007 - 23:47.
Interesting, I'm always keen to see Contenders variants, even if people insist on calling them hacks. What colour is your hat?
Super Contenders eh? I think the most problematic aspect will be the Promotion/Planning scenes - who sets up the battles? Where does the info come from?
I think responsibility is too positive for a Pain replacement, I'd suggest Rage instead. The 'heroes' should be teetering on the brink, more vigilantes than four colour sentinels.
Hope works fine, not sure what Motivation adds. Q Score I like, don't know what it means but it sounds cool!
As Rage builds the more villainous supers should emerge during play.
Course you should check out Pumpkin Bomb by yours truly over on Graham's site. Its a focused card based supers game that kicks ass.
Cheers
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JoE
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Prince of Darkness Games
Rock N' Role-Play....
Bearing in mind I don't know how Contenders works...
Submitted by Tim Gray on Sat, 15/12/2007 - 09:24.
Reputation and Training are fine terms to have in as they are. Having "Information" as the goal is not very supers-y, unless you're on a specific variant like, I dunno, Dark Angel. Seeking Responsibility or Reputtaion would probably fit better, depending on the character's personality (or, indeed, Power or Wealth).
Tim Gray
Silver Branch Games
www.silverbranch.co.uk
Variant
Submitted by Mel White on Sat, 15/12/2007 - 14:04.
Interesting, I'm always keen to see Contenders variants, even if people insist on calling them hacks. What colour is your hat?
Umm...huh? I'm happy to call it a variant. My hat? I don't get it.
Super Contenders eh? I think the most problematic aspect will be the Promotion/Planning scenes - who sets up the battles? Where does the info come from?
I think responsibility is too positive for a Pain replacement, I'd suggest Rage instead. The 'heroes' should be teetering on the brink, more vigilantes than four colour sentinels.
Hope works fine, not sure what Motivation adds. Q Score I like, don't know what it means but it sounds cool!
As Rage builds the more villainous supers should emerge during play.
Rage is good...I'd like to have 'Responsibility' in there somewhere, though. It's the current theme on the big screen, right? "With great power comes great responsibility."
I agree about the difficulty incorporating the Promotion scenes. But I'm thinking it would provide for the fairly common requests for assistance type scenes we see in the Avengers mansion or the Xavier Academy when the heroes learn of a problem and resolve that something must be done. So the battles aren't set up in terms of a third party fight arranger, but they're set up as someone asks for help or as government liaisons warn of a danger to global security.
I'm not happy with Motivation, either. I just didn't want to leave Hope as the sole relic of the original. So perhaps Hope remains, or maybe it becomes Power and then there is a clear balance between Power and Responsibility...or Power and Rage.
And I will check out Pumpkin Bomb!
Mel
Terms
Submitted by Mel White on Sat, 15/12/2007 - 14:16.
Reputation and Training are fine terms to have in as they are.
I changed them for 'feel'. Q Score is a measure of reputation but it may not be common enough to be useful. I like the idea of calling training scenes 'Danger Room' scenes because that's what happens in the comics--heroes test out their skills in the danger room...
Having "Information" as the goal is not very supers-y, unless you're on a specific variant like, I dunno, Dark Angel. Seeking Responsibility or Reputtaion would probably fit better, depending on the character's personality (or, indeed, Power or Wealth).
True, 'Information' is not very supers-y sounding, is it? But it is, in effect, what the heroes need in order to confront the bad guys. Information about who is the villain, information about the villain's weaknesses...And it's what bad guys need in order to devise their nefarious plans. The terms has to make sense as a replacement for 'Cash'. Power could work. Hmmm.
Thanks very much! Lots to think about.
Mel
Cash
Submitted by Rich Stokes on Sat, 15/12/2007 - 19:42.
Cash can be viewed as the amount of time the hero has to do stuff (training, visiting Connections etc) before the next villain attack. So "time" might be a good idea, and Work scenes could be flipped on their heads: instead of the hero "earning" Time, it's the villain plotting something which will take Time.
Well, it's an idea...
Like Superman vs The Punisher
Submitted by JoE PrincE on Sat, 15/12/2007 - 21:32.
Interesting, I'm always keen to see Contenders variants, even if people insist on calling them hacks. What colour is your hat?
Umm...huh? I'm happy to call it a variant. My hat? I don't get it.
Ah just my psychosis, don't worry about it too much, it just grates that hacking has nowt to do with role-playing and implies breaking the source code using l337 skillz. In hacking terminolgy there are white hats (good-guy hackers) and black hats (bad-guy hackers). In fact I'm sure there's a hacking Contenders variant in there somewhere...=)
As for Responsibility how about making that the Hope replacement? It would be a good counterbalance to Rage.
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JoE
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Prince of Darkness Games
Rock N' Role-Play....
Hacking
Submitted by Rich Stokes on Tue, 18/12/2007 - 09:34.
In "proper" tech speak, a "hack" is an change made to something which makes it perform a task it was not originally designed to perform. The vast majority of hacks are completely legitimate and relatively mundane. I guess the most mundane hack I can think of is cutting up an old t-shirt so you can use it as a duster. A more advanced one might be, say, stripping the screen off an old laptop and using it as a regular computer monitor.
Here are some examples:
insane ipnone gps hack
control your PC with a Wiimote
Fridge modified to launch beer at you
Getting as game about boxing to work as a supers game strikes me as a hack.
Joe, I think you're referring to a subset of Hacking called Cracking. Easy mistake to make and shows your lack of nerdity ;^)
Fridge?!
Submitted by Gregor Hutton on Tue, 18/12/2007 - 14:03.
...I want a game modifed to jet Champagne at me.
Maybe a print book could get put together at some point with Contenders and tenn all these variants after it as a bumper deluxe pack?
Oh yeah...
Submitted by Rich Stokes on Tue, 18/12/2007 - 15:18.
...I had meant to actually say something really interesting about the Contenders/Supers thing.
But I forgetted.
I was going to suggest the following hacks as well:
Objection! - Courtroom drama
Replace the attacks with Harsh Questioning (aggressive), Reasoned Cross-examination (Balanced) and Useful Evidence (defensive). Replace Dirty Tactics with Expert Witness (because they're in the news at the moment for being full of shit half the time). Rename Power, Technique, Cover and Conditioning with Verbiage, Knowledge, Flannel and Research.
Critical! - Wargamers vs Life.
Players each control an obsessive wargamer. Training Scenes become Painting Scenes. Fighting Traits become Army Stats. Power stays as Power, Technique becomes Skill, Conditioning becomes Manpower (or Elfpower if your character plays elves etc) and Cover becomes Armour. Replace the attacks with Careful Advance (balanced), Strategic Withdrawal (defensive), Charge! (aggressive) and Rules Exploit instead of Dirty Tactics.
Heave ho! - Yacht racing
All stats are replaced with Cash, except Cash, which is replaced with Drunkenness. Fighting Traits become your Yacht's stats, like Speed, Handling, Hull Integrity and Gin Capacity. Player race against each other to win prizes and raise their profile in the local yachting paper.
Hacked off
Submitted by JoE PrincE on Fri, 21/12/2007 - 22:34.
In "proper" tech speak, a "hack" is an change made to something which makes it perform a task it was not originally designed to perform.
Joe, I think you're referring to a subset of Hacking called Cracking. Easy mistake to make and shows your lack of nerdity ;^)
Not so fast geekler!
Wikipedia agrees with me! Kind of.
So my dislike of the term is still vaguely rational hurrah! If I start talking to my gaming group about hacks they'll look at like I'm diseased.
What's wrong with house rules? You know where you are with house rules. My hack hack is to call 'em house rules or variants.
Mind you one can never have enough obscure jargon in gaming...
Nice variants Rich, I can empathise with the wargaming one!
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JoE
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Prince of Darkness Games
Rock N' Role-Play....