Always wanted to

[subplotkudzu]

 As I noodle around on my supers setting building construction kit I have a question for my hordes of fans [Listens, daffy duck-like, for crickets]. Is there any super-hero concept that you've always wanted to play but either have had the opportunity or haven't found a system that could handle it? 

In my case two spring to mind (there used to be more, but I did get to play my super smart guy and my super-strong cowboy ideas in now defunct PBEMs). 

The first is an Adam Strange style SF adventurer: a two fisted science hero with a jet-pack, ray guns and other gadgets who, while a member of the super team on contemporary earth, is actually the defender of a different planet, time or timeline. The system would have to be able to handle someone who was basically a skilled, smart normal person with flight, a good dodge and a modest energy blast - a little tricky in some systems but more a matter of lacking opportunity rather than systemic problems.

The second is someone who has a separate energy body, similar to Negative Man, Raven's Soul Self or, ideally, Antibody from the New Universe book DP7. This is much harder to work mechanically - Cambias once recommended doing it as an Ally, or perhaps it's duplication where one of the duplicates has all the powers, or something of the sort. It's a really neat idea, but finding a system that could handle it is the problem. 

This latter is one of the reasons why I'm building the supers setting construction kit: the hope of being able to simply define the characters potency, versatility, and scarcity and have it be in the world as its own distinct power - if the scarcity is high enough (or even if it's not with an oddball power like this one) my PC might be the only person with it, but it would be a quickly defined part of the world. 

Finally, as a villain I still love the idea of a mummy whose internal organs were eaten away by vermin that now occupy his body cavities. He would be able to have his eyes turn into snakes, vomit up spiders, breathe out termites and so on for a variety of nasty effects. Icky, yes, but it just sticks with me,  

Comments

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

Body Horror Hotep.

Seriously, the others sound like neat concepts, but I agree they're tricky to represent in games rather than fiction.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

Cambias is correct: 4th ed GURPS CHARACTERS expands Ally to the point where both Antibody and Vermin Hotep are easily done. You modify Allies with Constantly, Summonable, and Minion, with Costs Fatigue, Size of Group, and Sympathy to taste. Although, POWERS does say that swarms of smaller creatures are often better done as Afflictions with mobile areas, so Vermin Hotep may want to go both ways.

[(Anonymous)]

I must say, the mummy sounds like a better supervillain concept than a hero.

Concept I've always wanted to try out: a hero who is obviously the "comedy relief sidekick" for the team (e.g. Rick Jones or "Snapper" Carr) -- except that his sidekick persona is a carefully-crafted mask for his true nature as a badass good-mastermind supergenius. As if Wendy or Marvin was really Batman in disguise. (Interestingly, I've noticed that superteams seem to have gradually abandoned the collective comic sidekick idea.)

Cambias

[mylescorcoran]

Is there any super-hero concept that you've always wanted to play but either have had the opportunity or haven't found a system that could handle it?

Well, pretty much all of them, as I rarely get to be a player as opposed to a GM, and we haven't really played a straight-up Supers game since my college days.

I'm more or less resigned to the conclusion that to do Supers properly (i.e. in genre) I'm going to have to steer clear of the traditional effects-based systems and anything that has anything more than the most simple and hand-waving of points-build systems.

I love speedsters - I've never seen a good implementation in RPGs. I love telekinetics, but I want more than Strength at a distance and force fields/bolts. I love teleporters, and time travellers, and the can of worms there would fill a TARDIS.

Please keep up the work on the construction kit, though. I really like the ideas of potency, versatility, and scarcity and want to see where you go with it.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

Okay, wished for characters: I've done several femmes fatale, but never have gone quite to the extreme of the Aeon Flux cartoon, particularly the ones where she runs through a factory with twin Uzis blazing, and mows down catwalks full of minions to either side. Somehow, it matters to my enjoyment exactly how this is done: working out the level of Guns skill and advantages required to reliably put each bullet into the vitals of each successive target is more enticing than something like being a high level Fighter and getting to attack N times against sub-HD creatures that die form minimum damage, and still less fullfiling is a HKAT or FENG SHUI-esque thing where plowing through endless numbers of minions is taken for granted.