Ask The Readers Random musings RPG

Ask the Readers: What flavor of superhero do you prefer?

I still have supers on my mind! All the comments and discussion on my previous post left me wondering, what character would you rather play in a supers game?  And thus this poll was born. I always assumed part of the fun of role playing was creating your own character and enjoying the journey of developing that character.

Some people like to develop the story, others the mechanics, leveling up, selecting skills or benefits. But what about superhero games… Most systems are devoted to giving you the rules so you can create the character YOU want but people are always writing up the stats for published heroes, and there is all the excitement about the publication of games licensed from the big comic publishers. I guess I just want to know what you prefer.

[poll id=”6″]

Looking forward to the results!
Sunglar

Welcome, reader; thanks for taking the time to discover who I am! My name is Roberto, although I usually go by Sunglar online. I am a longtime tabletop RPG player, primarily a GM for the better part of that time; some will say that’s because of my love of telling a good story, others because I’m a control freak, but that’s debatable. I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, an island in the Caribbean with a small but active gaming community. I’ve played RPGs for almost 40 years, and for most of that time, I played D&D in all its permutations, including Pathfinder and D&D 5th edition. Other games our regular gaming group plays include Mutants & Masterminds, Castles & Crusades, Savage Worlds, Stars Without Number, Alien, and more. I have played many games through the years and plan to play many more. I am a compulsive homebrewer and rarely play a campaign I have not created myself. You can follow me on social media as Sunglar, and I’m regularly active on Facebook where you can find me posting regularly in the Puerto Rico Role Players group. I am looking forward to hearing from you!

view all posts

Related Posts

6 comments

comments user
Ed Healy

An original super, without a doubt. I find that one of the greatest challenges in designing a super is taking a 'common' power and giving the reason behind that power a unique twist… or coming up with a nifty power that may not have been seen before (similar to the former, if only in the flavor text).
.-= Ed Healy´s last blog ..The Freedom of Transparency =-.

Reply
comments user
Siskoid

I've played supers games a LOT with many different players. My conclusion – and your survey will bear this out – is that players would 99% of the time rather create their own. Two things about that:

1) The character creation system often becomes the star of the system. Gamers will like to create all kinds of characters, even if they don't use them.

2) It makes me wonder why there are so many splat books for Supers games. I mean, when I support a game, I tend to buy them all, and it's fun to see the starts for all the characters I'm familiar with, but are they really that USEFUL?

One thing I've done is allow for guest-stars. A guest player comes in and I'll hand him a character from the comics (or a choice of characters) and that character will guest star in the players' "series". We've had hilarious run ins with a very emo Red Tornado, for example.
.-= Siskoid´s last blog ..Brightest Day… Oh, You're Being IRONIC! =-.

Reply
comments user
Daniel Swensen

Another vote for original superhero characters here. Playing in an established canon would be limiting enough — playing an established character in any genre or setting would kind of drive me nuts.

Reply
comments user
Sunglar

Like all of you, when I play in a supers game I’d much rather play an original character than an existing here. I’ll even say that I like playing on original superhero universes. I have no interest in playing in an existing universe… Well with the exception of the Wild Cards universe. I loved those books!

Ed Healy, I usually focus on the character not the power, but that is an interesting take.

Siskoid, I think we buy those sourcebooks because we want to know how OUR heroes measures up to the characters from the comic books.

Daniel, I agree, but I wonder why so many people play clones of Wolverine in a supers game, or Drizzt in a fantasy game?

Reply
comments user
Daniel Swensen

Well, one could say something uncharitable like "lack of imagination," but I doubt that's the whole story. For beginning players who don't have a lot of experience with RPGs, cloning a figure one admires is a good start — it lets one establish character without having to make up a lot of details.

Also, my personal experience has been that duplicating characters like Wolverine or Drizzt is more likely among younger players. Perhaps especially because that's when the notion of having kewl powers and beating stuff up has the strongest appeal, and nobody beats stuff up like Wolverine and Drizzt?

Reply
comments user
Sean Holland

I generally prefer to play self-created characters but occasionally I have taken a shot at 'reinventing' comic character that were not being written about in various games. Overall, building a new character, even if working from an archetype, is usually more satisfying.
.-= Sean Holland´s last blog ..What Character Archetypes do you enjoy Playing? =-.

Reply