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The Basics
This review is for the expanded version of the rules. The initial release was 74 pages. The author then published a short supplement for the book, and then decided to combine the two into the 115-page version under consideration here. There is a Table of Contents, but no index. The PDF is bookmarked.
The presentation of the book is very plain. Wide margins for what appears to be a digest-sized publication surround a large, simple font. Artwork is in color, but is scattered sparsely throughout the text. All of it is the work of a single artist, which provides consistency in the presentation, though the style and quality of the work was not to my tastes – the characters were cartoony and not always well-drawn.
It is worth noting that, in August of 2012, Zenith Comics purchased the IP for Supers! from Beyond Belief Games and are at work on a 2nd edition of the game. The guys at Zenith are creative and have a great love for supers gaming and I expect that they will do a fine job.
The System
The core system used in Supers! is my favorite part of the game. It is easy to understand, fast-moving, and allows for a tremendous amount of creativity. At its core, it is a d6 dice pool system, with pools rarely getting larger than five dice. Each Power, Aptitude, or Resistance is rated as a number of dice; dice are rolled against an opponent’s dice pool or against a static difficulty. In combat, damage is determined by the amount the attacker’s roll beats the defender’s. Damage is subtracted from a character’s Resistance, reducing the number of dice available. If a Resistance is reduced to zero dice, the character is defeated. That’s it.
Resistances refer not only to a character’s physical abilities (Fortitude and Reaction), but also the character’s Will and Composure. Thus, a character could be defeated by being mentally broken, driven to exhaustion, or even embarrassed into being unable to continue. While Supers! was not the first supers game to use this approach, it included it well before it became the norm for newer systems in the genre.
My only complaint with this core system is damage. By reducing dice from Resistances, the possibility occurs of a sort of death spiral effect occurring. Furthermore, given the fairly low numbers used in the game, most attacks are only going to do one or two dice of damage, which seems to suggest that most super characters are going to take four to eight hits before going down.
For Starters and Creating a Super
The book begins with a short, serviceable description of role-playing in general and the design philosophy of Supers! in particular.
Character design is a fast process of dividing 20 dice between Resistances, Aptitudes (skills), and Powers. The book is inconsistent in first stating that a character can spend 5D on Resistances, 3D on Aptitudes, and 12D in Powers, but later noting on p. 14 that the 20D can spent anywhere.
Aptitudes are 17 broad skill categories of varying use in most games (e.g., I can’t see “Animal Handling” as equally useful as “Fighting”). Every character starts with 1D in every Aptitude. If a player chooses to increase an Aptitude beyond 3D, they can choose a specialty, but no Aptitude check can score higher than 18. For rolls of more than 3D, only the highest three are counted towards the total.
Powers are chosen from an included list of 46 powers. Each power is given a description of its normal uses and any special rules that apply to it. Suggestions are also offered for creating new powers, but I think the included list covers a lot of ground.
Any game that uses established benchmarks and/or specific rules for specific powers also creates a sort of worldview for the heroes that inhabit the worlds of that rule set. Supers! is no exception. The power level here is fairly low: characters lifting 100 tons or flying at supersonic speeds, for example, are fairly costly endeavors.
A more significant problem with the powers list is that some powers seem just too valuable for their cost. Healing, Regeneration, Vampiric Powers, and Webs all offer more effect for their cost than other powers. Ultimately, it is up to the Judge (GM) to balance these situations, but this is sometimes easier said than done.
Powers can be modified further with Complications and Boosts. This provides some much needed flexibility to power choices, but the final result is still far from a full points-based, effects-driven system (with all the good and bad that that entails).
Finally, a character can take Ads and Disads. Ads allow a character to automatically succeed in certain situations, but then allow the Judge to invoke one of the character’s Disads later in the story.
The chapter ends with an example of character creation: a leaping character named Jumping Jack. As I am not a fan of silly characters (or even slightly silly characters), I would have preferred a more traditional archetype for this example.
All in all, characters gain their flexibility by the freedom they have in describing the effects of the powers in game. This is a good approach, though it means example characters are not especially evocative to look at and compare. Recently, I commented to a friend about the power descriptions in DK Publishing’s Marvel Encyclopedia. So many characters’ powers could be summarized as “Flight, Super Strength, and Energy Blasts.” Of course, the differences between these characters are played out more importantly in actual stories. The same principle is at work in Supers!: characters may not look terribly distinctive on paper, but that actually frees them up to be more distinctive in play. It is a difference in perspective from games in which characters are more discretely defined (and often limited as a result).
Playing the Game
This brief chapter offers a full explanation of the core mechanic. It then describes character advancement, thus taking a stand on whether or not supers should advance in power over the course of a campaign.
Fighting
Fighting is conducted through a series of opposed rolls. The attacker chooses an Aptitude or Power, describes its use, and rolls dice. The defender chooses a Power or Resistance, describes its use in protecting the character, and rolls dice. If the attacker rolls higher, damage is calculated and subtracted from the defender’s Resistances. If the defender rolls higher, the attack has no effect. As long as the player can convince the Judge, any power can be used for attack or defense, but each power can only be used once per round. There are a few options to modify this process slightly, but it really is that simple at its core.
Against lesser opponents (Mooks), rather than being designed like individual characters, Mooks are merely given a rating indicating their number and competence. That number is used for all rolls instead of rolling. As the group is damaged, the rating decreases. I like the simplicity of this, though it makes Mooks more of a numerical annoyance in a scene rather than a distinct opponent to fight: cops, Hydra agents, zombies all feel exactly the same.
The best part of this combat system is that characters are free to describe all sorts of wild actions and creative uses for their powers, including interesting interactions with their opponents’ powers, without needing a bunch of specific rules to describe each separate power use or each separate combat tactic. Creativity in narration allows combat to feel like comic book action, while the mechanic keeps things moving along at a jaunty pace.
But there are a couple problems here. The first is the seeming durability of characters, which threatens to make fight scenes last longer than perhaps desired. Even a lone hero against a group of 10 thugs probably has five rounds of combat to wade through.
To me, the second problem is more serious. The system seems to favor super strong fighters over super skilled fighters. A brick might have Super Strength 5D, allowing five dice to attack, while a skilled fighter likely has only 3D. The skilled character may have a specialization that allows more dice, but he or she can still only keep the highest three, capping results at 18. In a group melee, this is balanced somewhat by the fact that the brick can only use Super Strength once per round, while the martial artist could use the Fighting Aptitude over and over. But in a one-on-one fight (or a group vs. one fight), the strong guy is going to have a consistent advantage. The feel of this inequity is further enhanced when one remembers that a single roll encompasses attack and damage. Players of martial artist characters will find themselves less capable than powered heroes in general, and with little variety with which to build their characters.
The chapter ends with a couple useful combat examples.
NPC Types
This chapter describes the different levels of NPCs that the PCs will encounter. Essentially, characters are either Mooks or Supers, though Supers can be built with as few as 6D or as many as 40D. There is also the idea (supported in the example setting) of making generic “agents” as very low level supers. I like this idea because it makes such characters more distinctive than just being a number, but I’m not sure why both this rule and the Mook rule are included.
Disasters
This section is another great idea. I first saw a version of this idea in Supercrew, but the system here is much more developed. A disaster can be defined by a number of dice, which determines how dangerous it is. Each round, heroes in the area of the disaster are “attacked” by it. In turn, the heroes can use their powers to attack the disaster. If they reduce the hazard to 0D, they have contained or stopped the damage.
Several disasters are described, along with lists of powers that might be useful in stopping them. I like the idea of having a simple way to have heroes interact with a disaster, with all the heroic opportunities that implies, using a rule that is easy to use at the table and gives a clear sense of progress. Good stuff.
Supersville and Adventure
The author decided to include a sample setting, but provided too few details for it to be really worthwhile. He even included an in-game reason why people literally call the city Supersville, which I found too far-fetched even for a genre known for the far-fetched. There are 11 locations briefly described, with some sample plot hooks. The following chapter contains a sample adventure, which is more of plot outline than a fully developed adventure.
NPC Collection
The last section of the book contains 27 characters, both heroes and villains, both solo characters and teams. Each sheet has either brief designer’s notes or a brief origin, but plenty of details are left open for anyone wanting to use these characters. The roster demonstrates good representation of the broad archetypes of the genre. While the artwork doesn’t always help, I appreciated that only one of the characters had a somewhat comedic intent.
I couldn’t always make the math work for some of these characters, but I assumed that had more to do with my inexperience with the rules. More importantly, looking at these characters will really tell whether or not Supers! is the right game for you. There’s nothing wrong with these designs, and knowing how the system works, I can see them doing plenty of interesting things in-game. But looking at the simplicity of the sheets, I just have a hard time getting excited about any of these characters. I don’t find myself wanting to dig in and compare how one character compares to another, because frankly, there isn’t much to compare other than broad powers and skills defined by a fairly narrow range of dice.
The PDF ends with a character sheet and a cheat sheet for character creation.
Conclusion
Supers! is a game that takes basic principles of traditional RPG design and uses them in a core mechanic designed to encourage creativity and narrative flexibility. There are no rules for distinguishing different types of scenes, no hero point mechanics, no rules designed to “emulate the genre.” This puts it in an odd position among its peers. Those looking for detailed character design or tactical rules options will be disappointed. Those who want a free-flowing system that allows shared control of the narrative will be disappointed. I find Supers! to be living in the same neighborhood as BASH, but I find BASH to dwell closer to its rules-heavy counterparts, while Supers! is arguably rules-light. As it is, it is not the right game for the style of play I enjoy, but I think there are some great ideas here.
Style: Simple presentation with art that didn’t really work for me. But I don’t think the game was designed with stylistic frills in mind. Score: 3 out of 5.
Substance: A simple system that allows great flexibility, unfortunately burdened by some of its definitions of powers and abilities and the blandness of character design as a whole. Score: 3.5 out of 5.
