[Tabletop gamers] Complications with RP systems

[Breakaway_republic]

Hey fellow RPers!

Lately, my friend started a very creepy Sci-fi horror campaign using a system called "The Blood of heroes". The only real caveat about the system is that it is HORRIBLE on the idea of character advancement. you don't get ANY hero points [points that can be used towards increasing any stats in powers, skills, or attributes] until the end of the adventure. also, if you "Kill" anything in-game your character is penalized SEVERELY!

In spite of that, my friend institued a few "changes" such as:

1.The killing penalty is relaxed, so that killing innocents is prohibited [and not monsters/baddies]. under regular TBoH rules, we'd have no choice but to "play nice" with killer monsters [both inhuman and human].
2. Just as in GURPS [3d6 based system], players get any where from 10 to 20+points at the end of EACH SESSION. They get 20 or more points if they did a good job in RPing and/or accomplished some great feat. Or if they stunk, they only get 10 or none.
3.Every player can power up their characters 1 point per stat at a time per session [to avoid power gaming by both players AND the DM, but to help people get more powerful].
Despite my not knowing smeg about the mechanics [yet], i think these are good changes.

What does everyone think about this? is there a better way to run a superhero game as a Sci-fi/horror/Adventure game?

 

[Kelly]

I heard about a homebrew horror RPG that uses the game Jenga instead of dice. Each time a character performed an action that would normally mean dice in a typical game, the player had to pull a Jenga block. That would work well with how proper horror should build to a tense climax.

 

[peacefulfire]

dramatic!

 

[Breakaway_republic]

Yes... very interesting, what'd happen if the tower fell?

 

[Kelly]

A critical failure, basically character death, I believe. Then it would get restacked and play would continue.

 

[Solomon Kane]

I'm not sure what you are looking for in a superhero/modern horror game.
If you want something that deals with "normal" humans finding themselves caught up in a fight with supernatural creatures and having a high kill factor I would recommend;Dread*
The setting is a world where a number of demons have escaped from hell. the characters are recruited to hunt them down and send them back.
The superhero aspect comes from the fact that the characters have been "enhanced" in order to help fight this war. Some have great strength, others speed, etc. In addition, almost all characters know some form of magic that directly hurts the demons.
Complications arise in the fact that these demons will recruit humans to worship them and carry out services for them. which means that you might have to go through a dozen cultists before you can locate the demon. Also, some of the demons are able to hide inside of people. While it is possible top force the demon out, it might be easier to get it out of the body by killing the host.

*Warning: The site contains both language and images that should be considered NSFW!

 

[Kelly]

I've played a couple of systems for super-hero roleplaying.

Champions seemed to be the favorite of die hard gamers. HERO system was another. Both of these systems were very labor intensive. We would allow everyone to build their character and then redesign after the first few scenarios, because it was somewhat easy to make a 'broken' PC, where you were seriously lacking in either defense, movement, etc if you didn't calculate your character smartly.

I prefer Mutants and Masterminds, it worked really well and plays fairly quickly.

I've used GURPS for supers and thought it was pretty poor for that genre.

On the tabletop miniatures front, if your games are mostly fights, you might want to skip the RPG aspects and go right for the punching and shooting with SuperSystem, a great, simple miniatures ruleset for super powered fighting. I played this a few times at Gencon a couple of years back and had a great time.