|
Okay, I'm guessing it's a little crazy to even post this here, but I've had an idea for a PbP kicking around my head and it won't go away until I at least see what people think...
The basic concept would be a PbP game using the Heroes Unlimited rules where the PCs play supervillain mooks - the kinds of guys who, in the comics, all hang around a supervillain bar and pull the 'classic' crimes: knocking over armoured cars, working as mercenaries / hired thugs, that sort of thing. Not serial killers or terrorists or criminal masterminds, but 'regular Joe''career criminals'.
Now I know that the Palladium rules sets have more holes in them than Swiss cheese, but I've a sort of nostalgia for 'em, and besides, every supers RPG has a different 'feel' to the setting, and Heroes Unlimited has that feel where actual cash is a motivation (rather than many supers games where a couple of dots spent during chargen sets your lifestyle level), and a sort-of 'gritty' feel that seems to fit what I'm picturing such a campaign to be like.
I've developed a bunch of house rules for Palladium stuff over the years, but to be honest, with a PbP game I do a lot of stuff descriptively anyway, so any flaws in the system could be plastered over with purple prose (on the part of both DM and players).
Characters would be pretty low-power supervillains: two minor powers a piece, and many of the power categories wouldn't be available (Aliens and Mystics usually have other concerns, Bionics and Robotics can be taken away the first time the police nab you, and the various Training-based characters, including Hardware guys, probably have better things to do than pull 'thug duty'). Generally it'd be simplified chargen, with the origins / Category of the characters' powers being background fluff.
While the Palladium books site hosts chatroom games, that sort of 'gaming on a schedule' is basically as hard for me to arrange as actual face to face games (and I'm sure I'm not alone in that), so the PbP format, and this site with its 'other games allowed' policy, not to mention such a great community of gamers, seemed like a place this idea would at least get some discussion... of course, I may well be proved wrong on that (for all I know no one who checks this site has even heard of Heroes Unlimited)!
So, what do people think? Crazy, or interesting?
Heroes Unlimited eh? Which edition? I haven't played that game in about 17 years, I still have the book though (along with Beyond the Supernatural and Ninja's and Superspies).
|
|
I was starting to think that no one had even heard of the thing!
'Revised second edition' is the latest one I have (and I believe the latest one published). It's been a long time since I played it myself, but like I mentioned, I get nostaligic. I actually played a lot more 1st edition BTSN than HU, and have played a little Ninjas & Superspies as well (not to mention most other Palladium games at one time or another)... although thinking up James Bond style plots for Ninjas & Superspies proves a lot harder than it would seem from the films... mostly 'cos players have more common sense that Bond (I work for the government? Sweet - here's a list of personel, equipment, and resources I request... what? You said this was world-threatening, why wouldn't they let me have all that?).
I'm also thinking it may actually work better as a PbP than as a tabletop game - one of the bugbears of the Palladium games is that you basically get everything cool for your character at level 1, and after that it's just little skill and combat bonuses as you level, for the most part... but PbP games generally run so slowly compared with tabeltop games that the lack of additional 'cool' as you level won't be so keenly felt. It also does kinda' fit the whole supers genre, where most characters develop a little over time, but generally their power sets are there from the start.
Heroes Unlimited is one of the few supers games where cash is left as... well, cash - as opposed to some background or feat pick or something - so can still be a motivator. The game also features robotics, bionics, genetic engineering, gadgets, etc. all brought with cash. Combined with the whole lack of new powers, this tends to leave buying cool stuff with cash the alternative to getting cool stuff as you level. Of course, the cash-based motivator works a lot better for bad guys than for heroes.
It's also more comics-genre to have single heroes that can handle multiple thug-type villains, whereas teams of heroes tend to require cosmic threats to be challenged - so to run a lower power-scale game it seems that playing the bad guys could be the way to go.
Also - playing the bad guys once in a while is kinda' fun... ;)
Are there many differences between 1st and 2nd ed? The book I have is 1st.
Consider me interested if you get enough other folks to make it happen.
|
|
Probably not enough differences to matter much, with the simplified chargen I'm thinking about... may take a bit more back-and-forth but once up and running wouldn't be a big issue, I'd guess.
Thanks for the interest! To be honest I'm not overly surprised that there hasn't been much response - it was a long shot on this site anyway - but I'll keep an eye out to see if there's any more responses for a while longer: if we could get three of four players it'd be worth giving the idea a go at least. Otherwise, no harm no foul - at this stage I've mostly just got ideas, so it's no great loss of time and effort if nothing comes of it.
Probably not enough differences to matter much, with the simplified chargen I'm thinking about... may take a bit more back-and-forth but once up and running wouldn't be a big issue, I'd guess.
Thanks for the interest! To be honest I'm not overly surprised that there hasn't been much response - it was a long shot on this site anyway - but I'll keep an eye out to see if there's any more responses for a while longer: if we could get three of four players it'd be worth giving the idea a go at least. Otherwise, no harm no foul - at this stage I've mostly just got ideas, so it's no great loss of time and effort if nothing comes of it.
I would give it a shot for sure, you might be seeing less of a response as it was a holiday weekend for the US guys and they are just trickling back into work today :)
|
|
Two interested, that's pretty good considering it's a bit far from the usual D20 based stuff round these parts (although Palladium probably would have done well from doing some D20 versions of their stuff back when it was an open game license free for all - after all, their base system, as was everyone's back in the day, is basically a rip off of original D&D...).
Didn't know the Americans were having yet another holiday! :)