What would it take to make *real* supers?

[Quertus]

So, something that has always bugged me about superhero systems is that you cannot make heroes from the comics / movies.

Let's take a look at professor X. In both the comics & the movies, he selectively telepathically paralyzes (with no memory of the event) a mall, a government building, and a huge chunk of the population of the United States. With just 2 supers, we're looking at the ability to send a telepathic message to everyone on the planet simultaneously.

Pick your superhero system of choice, and ask yourself - can that be done in that system? If so, what would it take?

For some other examples, oldschool Superman used to push whole planets around (heck, even Fry was moving stars), several heroes have put shields around entire planets (with varying degrees of success), numerous vile beings have mind controlled entire superhero teams or even the entire planet, and several characters have teleported or reality-shifted the entire planet (I believe even the Doctor has accomplished this particular feat).

What other truly epic heroic deeds can you think of superheroes (or even not so "super" heroes) accomplishing?

What would it take to accomplish these deeds in various existing superhero systems?

And are there any systems with good rules for this, where the "default" heroes can accomplish these truly heroic deeds?

Spoiler: Answers so far

Show

I probably should organize this, by system and/or by deed...

DC Heroes.
So if you want to push the Earth into a new orbit: The baseline for weight is 50 lbs at 0 APs. According to Wikipedia, Earth weights about 1.31668 X 10^25 lbs. which would be 78 APs of weight. Anybody who can fly and can reach that level of strength - either normally or by spending hero points - can move the Earth.

zero cost,

(Homebrew? And if nothing heroic opposes it.)

Earth masses roughly 6*10²⁴ kg. In Mutants & Masterminds/DC Adventures, that's 78 mass ranks. You need Strength 78 to lift it.

So...

Flight 1 * 2 PP
Strength (Limited to Lifting) 78 * (2-1) PP

So, 80 PP, you can move the Earth. At your kind of pathetic flight speed of 4 km/h, but still. You can do this with a typical starting character (PL 10, 150 PP) with just a little over half your initial PP budget. Because the Strength ranks are Limited to Lifting, they don't even break any of the PL limiters.

Superman as actually statted in the DC Adventures book can't do it. His lifting Strength is only 23 (200,000 tons). But he's actually useful for things other than very patient solar system remodeling.

Professor X is trickier and more expensive, but, distance rank 20 is enough that he could sit in a mansion in Westchester and have more than enough range to cover the entire contiguous United States. 22 will give him the whole planet. So:

Affliction (Will) (dazed→immobile→paralyzed) 1 PP/rank
+Area (burst) 20 +20 PP/rank
+Selective +1 PP/rank
Total cost: 22 PP/rank

There are other things you can add or limit the power with, which would make it more or less effective and expensive, but that's the basic effect. If we assume Professor X is PL 15 (like Superman) and the effect is PL-capped at rank 15, that's 330 PP. Which is a lot... Superman, as statted, is only 289 PP total, and Chuck has more powers than just that. But on the bright side, you can for super-cheap start adding Alternate Effects to the power, and spend those 330 PP again and again.

Mutants and Masterminds 3e

• Moving planets? Let's take a standard flying brick with Strength 12. Power stunt it into Enhanced Strength, Limited to lifting, and throw a few flaws on (Concentration, Distracting, and Tiring, say; that's pretty reasonable for "moving a planet") and we get the cost down to 1 point/8 ranks; with 24 base pp to work with, we can go up to an effective lifting Strength of 192. If my math is correct, that's... more than the total mass of the universe. Exponents are dumb.
• Putting a force field around the planet? Enhanced Protection, Affects Only Others, Affects Only Objects-- 1 point/rank. No RAW limit on how big an object you can affect at once...
• Affecting the entire earth at once with a power? We'd need 21 applications of the Area modifier; that's a lot if you're talking about a PL-appropriate power, but if we just need to worry about mooks... your basic PL 10 psychic with ~30 pp in their array to play with could pull out, oh... Area 21 Affliction 1, Selective, and boom, you're pinging the entire world for 23pp. If you want to make it worse, slap on our flaw friends Concentration, Distracting, Tiring, add on Unreliable 2 (1/session), and we only need 34pp in our array to nail the entire world with rank 2-- more than enough to obliterate the base populace. And that's not even getting into the stupidity of Perception, Contagious effects...
• Searching an entire city in a blink of an eye? XKCD estimates visiting every apartment in New York would take 10 years. That's only Time Rank 26; again, easy to hit with a power stunt to convert your ~30pp of super-speed tricks into straight Quickness.
• Touching the minds of everyone on the planet? I believe all you need is something along the lines of Detect Thoughts, Ranged, Radius, Analytical, Penetrates Concealment, Extended...7, I think, is all you need; the planet is only about 4X10^7 feet in diameter, and Extended 7 multiples your range of vision by 10^7. Boom. Only 15 points, too; plenty of room to throw a couple Rapids in there for good measure.
• Time, space and dimensional travel? They're plot abilities with absurdly low base costs. Easy to add onto any of the above.

Champions

World Domination: Major Transform 1 point, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Persistent (+1/2), Indirect (+1/2), Based On EGO Combat Value (Mental Defense applies; +1), Area Of Effect (4" Radius; +1), Continuous (+1), Penetrating (x2; +1), MegaScale (1" = 10,000 km; +1 1/4), Invisible Power Effects, Hide effects of Power (Fully Invisible; +2) (49 Active Points)

M&M.

And shout-out to 2e, which had...I think an extra called Progression that basically scaled values one step per PP spent. So that would make this kinda stuff fairly easy.

Telepathic message to the whole planet's easy. Mental Communication 4 (Area, Selective). 24 PP, no sweat.

Teleporting and reality shifting a planet is basically the same as pushing it, using Increased Mass. Expensive, but straightforward. Less expensive with flaws.

Forcefielding the planet...looks like the surface area of the earth is 197,000,000 square miles. Somewhere in the vicinity of 5.5 trillion square feet, if I'm calculating right. Create...33 could cover that, assuming you make the forcefield a foot thick. Thinner could lower the rank needed, and because volume rank is stupid there's not technically a minimum dimension (though I find 6" to be a sensible sanity limit). A Limit or two makes that quite affordable.

Regardless, you've still got the classic Extended 7 Radius Penetrates Concealment Vision, backed by a Perception Range Reaction Selective Affliction. At 7/rank +12 for the super-sense it's expensive, but doable.

[Anymage]

Exalted.

You'll also run into one of the problems that Exalted faces. Galactic level supers, at least you can explain that they spend most of their time fighting galactic level threats. Being some of the most powerful superhumans on the planet means that you have a very small number of antagonists that the PCs can face, and practically nobody to reign them in if they go all murderhobo. Given that RPGs are still games as opposed to fully constructed stories, and that murderhoboism is a well known trend in RPGs, I see there being a lot of practical problems with the playstyle.

[Imbalance]

HeroClix has done a fair job of codifying and individualizing thousands of characters and, in some cases, dozens of versions of marquee characters to represent what they can do or have done, but it's still a skirmish sim out of the box. Sure, you can homebrew roleplay with the system, but if you want to say Superman epically pushed a planet in-game, what? Are you going to pick up the map and move to a different table? Say Prof does MC the whole board, what next? Do you want Onslaught? Because that's how you get Onslaught. Thanos snaps his fingers so you randomly put half of your figures back in the box?

I mean, yeah, Clix has tried to capture that feel while keeping the game within balanced-ish parameters to varying degrees of success. Those legendary moments from the source material are orchestrated to be epic to the reader/viewer. Translating that for the player to accomplish in-game is a entirely different approach to story telling that all game makers strive toward, but it's ultimately up to the observer to interpret and embellish.

[JeenLeen]

I think Mutants & Masterminds can. I'm not real adept at the system to build Professor X on the fly, but I'm pretty sure everything is there to make something like "Target Everyone on the Planet" with an effect of "Control" and a save DC so high they can't pass it (or only 5% pass if it's a 20 on a d20 always succeeds.)

[JoeJ]

Your examples are quite feasible for DC Heroes. Everything in the game is measured using an exponential scale of APs (attribute points); so a character with a strength of 5 is twice as strong as a character with a strength of 4. M&M uses the same exponential scale, just using the word "rank" instead of AP.

So if you want to push the Earth into a new orbit: The baseline for weight is 50 lbs at 0 APs. According to Wikipedia, Earth weights about 1.31668 X 10^25 lbs. which would be 78 APs of weight. Anybody who can fly and can reach that level of strength - either normally or by spending hero points - can move the Earth.

[NichG]

I'm running something now where this sort of thing is viable. The basic conceit of the system is that you can make a power that does pretty much anything within your theme for zero cost, but anyone (with powers) who would be affected gets a prompt to intervene even if they have no way to be aware of it - at which point the amount you spend starts to matter.

A concrete example of this is that one character on a destroyed alternate Earth that had been turned into an automated interdimensional doomsday device used a single action Lv0 power to decommission all the equipment on the planet and convert it into spirits in his service. But if there had been one villain crewing the weapon, they would have had to resolve interference first before it went off.

The only mechanical thing in this system stopping a starter character from turning all blood in the universe into acid is that there are other supers with blood who would contest it.

[tomandtish]

Champions was always pretty good at letting you design comic characters. Back in the 90s I had most of the main Marvel heroes statted out pretty accurately (IMHO).

Where these type of games fall down is balance, because a lot of heroes aren't balanced in the comics. It took a lot more points to build an accurate Thor than it did to build an accurate Spider-Man.

[John Campbell]

Earth masses roughly 6*10²⁴ kg. In Mutants & Masterminds/DC Adventures, that's 78 mass ranks. You need Strength 78 to lift it.

So...

Flight 1 * 2 PP
Strength (Limited to Lifting) 78 * (2-1) PP

So, 80 PP, you can move the Earth. At your kind of pathetic flight speed of 4 km/h, but still. You can do this with a typical starting character (PL 10, 150 PP) with just a little over half your initial PP budget. Because the Strength ranks are Limited to Lifting, they don't even break any of the PL limiters.

Superman as actually statted in the DC Adventures book can't do it. His lifting Strength is only 23 (200,000 tons). But he's actually useful for things other than very patient solar system remodeling.

Professor X is trickier and more expensive, but, distance rank 20 is enough that he could sit in a mansion in Westchester and have more than enough range to cover the entire contiguous United States. 22 will give him the whole planet. So:

Affliction (Will) (dazed→immobile→paralyzed) 1 PP/rank
+Area (burst) 20 +20 PP/rank
+Selective +1 PP/rank
Total cost: 22 PP/rank

There are other things you can add or limit the power with, which would make it more or less effective and expensive, but that's the basic effect. If we assume Professor X is PL 15 (like Superman) and the effect is PL-capped at rank 15, that's 330 PP. Which is a lot... Superman, as statted, is only 289 PP total, and Chuck has more powers than just that. But on the bright side, you can for super-cheap start adding Alternate Effects to the power, and spend those 330 PP again and again.

What kind of sorry excuse for a supers system are you looking at that can't actually make supers? Savage Worlds?

[JoeJ]

Earth masses roughly 6*10²⁴ kg. In Mutants & Masterminds/DC Adventures, that's 78 mass ranks. You need Strength 78 to lift it.

So...

Flight 1 * 2 PP
Strength (Limited to Lifting) 78 * (2-1) PP

So, 80 PP, you can move the Earth. At your kind of pathetic flight speed of 4 km/h, but still. You can do this with a typical starting character (PL 10, 150 PP) with just a little over half your initial PP budget. Because the Strength ranks are Limited to Lifting, they don't even break any of the PL limiters.

Superman as actually statted in the DC Adventures book can't do it. His lifting Strength is only 23 (200,000 tons). But he's actually useful for things other than very patient solar system remodeling.

Superman had a strength of 50 in 1e DCH, which seems like the low end of his range in the silver/bronze age. 2e came out shortly after Crisis on Infinite Earths and dropped his strength to 25. That seems about right for when John Byrne was writing him. The current DCA/M&M rating of 23 may have been based on the animated series. It feels about right for that.

[Hackulator]

Yeah I don't know what makes you say this, there are various systems where you can model that level of power, M&M easily. I'm wondering if perhaps you're being fooled by the fact that most of those games suggest starting at much lower power levels, however that doesn't mean you can't have characters that powerful.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Mutants and Masterminds 3e can do some pretty stupid things, if you let it. You don't even need high level characters, just a willingness to allow (RAW-legal) hyper-specialized power stunts.

• Moving planets? Let's take a standard flying brick with Strength 12. Power stunt it into Enhanced Strength, Limited to lifting, and throw a few flaws on (Concentration, Distracting, and Tiring, say; that's pretty reasonable for "moving a planet") and we get the cost down to 1 point/8 ranks; with 24 base pp to work with, we can go up to an effective lifting Strength of 192. If my math is correct, that's... more than the total mass of the universe. Exponents are dumb.
• Putting a force field around the planet? Enhanced Protection, Affects Only Others, Affects Only Objects-- 1 point/rank. No RAW limit on how big an object you can affect at once...
• Affecting the entire earth at once with a power? We'd need 21 applications of the Area modifier; that's a lot if you're talking about a PL-appropriate power, but if we just need to worry about mooks... your basic PL 10 psychic with ~30 pp in their array to play with could pull out, oh... Area 21 Affliction 1, Selective, and boom, you're pinging the entire world for 23pp. If you want to make it worse, slap on our flaw friends Concentration, Distracting, Tiring, add on Unreliable 2 (1/session), and we only need 34pp in our array to nail the entire world with rank 2-- more than enough to obliterate the base populace. And that's not even getting into the stupidity of Perception, Contagious effects...
• Searching an entire city in a blink of an eye? XKCD estimates visiting every apartment in New York would take 10 years. That's only Time Rank 26; again, easy to hit with a power stunt to convert your ~30pp of super-speed tricks into straight Quickness.
• Touching the minds of everyone on the planet? I believe all you need is something along the lines of Detect Thoughts, Ranged, Radius, Analytical, Penetrates Concealment, Extended...7, I think, is all you need; the planet is only about 4X10^7 feet in diameter, and Extended 7 multiples your range of vision by 10^7. Boom. Only 15 points, too; plenty of room to throw a couple Rapids in there for good measure.
• Time, space and dimensional travel? They're plot abilities with absurdly low base costs. Easy to add onto any of the above.

None of which a GM should let you do, but hey. The only thing you really can't do is impose no-save conditions on other characters.

[John Campbell]

One of my DCA characters had, as an incidental side effect of her main power, the ability to sense anything that interacted with photons in any way anywhere inside roughly the orbit of Neptune. Results of the combination of the exponential power ranks and the way Alternate Effects work... I had an uncapped, cheap-per-rank detection power using the same point total as my PL-capped, expensive-per-rank primary power.

Another was literally immortal. Not just unaging (though he was that too), or only killable in specific complicated circumstances, but actually unable to die in any way whatsoever. If killed, he'd just respawn 24 hours later. That was only a minor part of his powers - 21 of his initial 150 PP. His big thing was covering people in glue. (He was Elmer, the Modern God of Glue.)

I also built a villain for a game I was running (though I never actually used him) called the Inverse Ninja Principle. His sole power was the ability to summon anything between a single 228 PP ninja and literally 73 quintillion 15 PP ninjas.

[SimonMoon6]

Superman had a strength of 50 in 1e DCH, which seems like the low end of his range in the silver/bronze age.

Don't forget that it is possible to "push" his strength, so his meager ;) strength of 50 can be temporarily raised up to 100, which is more than enough to move the Earth around.

[Quertus]

So, systems I've played that have superheroes... Hmmm... I'm senile, and reserve the right to add to this later, but... Heroes/Champions, Mutants & Masterminds, Heroes & Heroins, Marvel facerip, Marvel (not facerip), Gurps, Rifts, and, given that one episode with the previous Doctor, I suppose I need add Dr. Who. Plus homebrew. And, this one time, someone played a Marauder who thought he was a superhero, so WoD M:tA (that character actually felt more like a superhero than most "superhero" characters, actually).

Of course, if there's multiple editions of any of these systems, assume that I'm only familiar with the "worst" version.

For example, although I own M&M (somewhere), I'm not remotely familiar with half of those tricks. Although I will say, 5% of normal humans just ignoring Professor X's ability represent an epic failure of the system to instantiate the character.

Another thing that I'll admit had me biased is where the systems have the characters normally start, and how quickly (slowly) they advance. It doesn't matter if the system theoretically let's you push the planet, if you have to play for 40 years to get to that point!

And... I really need to add the answers I've been given to the OP.

[JoeJ]

Don't forget that it is possible to "push" his strength, so his meager ;) strength of 50 can be temporarily raised up to 100, which is more than enough to move the Earth around.

True, but in some pre-Crisis stories it doesn't seem like he's even breaking a sweat when he moves planets around. Superman's power level seems to vary between different writers to an even greater degree than most comic characters, although maybe not as much as the Spectre's.

[SimonMoon6]

True, but in some pre-Crisis stories it doesn't seem like he's even breaking a sweat when he moves planets around. Superman's power level seems to vary between different writers to an even greater degree than most comic characters, although maybe not as much as the Spectre's.

Agreed to some extent. I still have certain issues trying to figure out how to explain things like Superboy moving the planet by blowing at it with his super breath or how he could move all the planets in one galaxy to another galaxy by connecting them with a chain and carrying the chain with him through space. But generally, the pre-Crisis Superman had no limits on his strength (there was nothing too heavy for him to lift), even if we didn't always see him moving planets every day, and he was constantly pulling his punch, which explains why he doesn't always KO everyone he hits. For me, the only real way to gauge his strength is by how much damage he can do to other Kryptonians (or himself, as he was once mind controlled into beating himself up), but then we have to determine how invulnerable Kryptonians are, since they can't be hurt by *anything* (not counting their specific weaknesses) other than Kryptonians or people of equivalent power (or rarely, characters of greater power, such as Validus or the Galactic Golem).

But in regard to "not breaking a sweat," I'm not completely convinced that spending Hero Points to increase a character's abilities temporarily (whether with Dice Actions or pushing) necessarily involves the character straining. To my mind, these expenditures of Hero Points can sometimes simply explain these inconsistencies that often happen. (Which is another reason why the DC Heroes RPG is one of the best games ever for modeling superheroes: it allows for the inconsistencies seen in the comics to play out in a game.)

[SimonMoon6]

Yeah I don't know what makes you say this, there are various systems where you can model that level of power, M&M easily. I'm wondering if perhaps you're being fooled by the fact that most of those games suggest starting at much lower power levels, however that doesn't mean you can't have characters that powerful.

Most games that I've encountered, other than TSR's Marvel Superhero RPG or Mayfair's DC Heroes RPG, tend to have low power levels as their default, and even if you can somehow theoretically imagine a character of greater power, it's usually far beyond what the game is designed to allow. Games like GURPS, Superworld, and even Champions... they don't want you to be able to play someone who can move planets. They don't even want to describe how you could build such a character. Some games have ugly kludges like "extra lifting" advantages that a person could take multiple times so that the game doesn't have to actually let you *really* have that much strength. Such games are not something I would have any interest in. I want to be strong in the real way. A lot of games are simply designed to let you play a normal person, possibly with a power or two... but not actually superheroes of the Pre-Crisis power level. GURPS is particularly bad in this way, being a game that's really about being a normal guy... and tacking on superpowers just doesn't work in that environment. It's just not a good game for superheroes.

But, actually, the way I judge a superhero game is more than just "can you make a character who can push the planet around"? That's an important aspect for every superhero game to have because otherwise, you can't play (or model as NPCs) actual superheroes like Superman (and then, what's the point of the game?), but it's not the only qualification to be a "good" superhero game. For me, a good superhero game needs to also make all character concepts quick and easy to both create and play. For example, any game in which Beast Boy's power to turn into animals is not an easy thing to build (hello Champions) or play (hello Champions) is a game that is terribly unsuited for superheroes. If I can't easily make Beast Boy, Metamorpho, Rogue, Deadman, Mimic, Green Lantern (both pre- and post-Kyle), or anybody else with versatile "meta" powers is a game I don't want to play. Likewise, if it is difficult to play such characters (like in Champions where I could have a Multi-Power, where I suddenly have to spend X amount of points to rebuild my character, which will only take me an hour or two, every single time I use my powers), then this is a game that is horribly unsuited for superheroes.

Also, any game that is overly focused towards normal people (like GURPS) is generally not going to work well. Or any game like D&D where you have to specify every single combat skill that you have or specifically do NOT have (this guy can punch, but not kick; this guy can disarm people but can't do a foot sweep; this guy can punch two people at a time, but not three; this guy can use a sword but not a halberd; this guy can use a short sword but not a dagger; this guy can throw dirt in your eyes, but can't punch you in the crotch)... that sort of game is also unsuited to represent martial arts oriented superheroes (like Batman) who generally aren't lacking any particular combat skill.

Those are my criteria.

[Hackulator]

For example, although I own M&M (somewhere), I'm not remotely familiar with half of those tricks. Although I will say, 5% of normal humans just ignoring Professor X's ability represent an epic failure of the system to instantiate the character.

Another thing that I'll admit had me biased is where the systems have the characters normally start, and how quickly (slowly) they advance. It doesn't matter if the system theoretically let's you push the planet, if you have to play for 40 years to get to that point!

And... I really need to add the answers I've been given to the OP.

You have to remember that everything that happens in a comic book is happening by the equivalent of DM fiat. There is only so far game mechanics will go in getting to that, the last bit requires, well, DM fiat.

Also advancement speed is entirely up to the GM.

But, actually, the way I judge a superhero game is more than just "can you make a character who can push the planet around"? That's an important aspect for every superhero game to have because otherwise, you can't play (or model as NPCs) actual superheroes like Superman (and then, what's the point of the game?), but it's not the only qualification to be a "good" superhero game. For me, a good superhero game needs to also make all character concepts quick and easy to both create and play. For example, any game in which Beast Boy's power to turn into animals is not an easy thing to build (hello Champions) or play (hello Champions) is a game that is terribly unsuited for superheroes. If I can't easily make Beast Boy, Metamorpho, Rogue, Deadman, Mimic, Green Lantern (both pre- and post-Kyle), or anybody else with versatile "meta" powers is a game I don't want to play. Likewise, if it is difficult to play such characters (like in Champions where I could have a Multi-Power, where I suddenly have to spend X amount of points to rebuild my character, which will only take me an hour or two, every single time I use my powers), then this is a game that is horribly unsuited for superheroes.

Well, you can model all those superheros pretty easily in M&M.

[icefractal]

You can easily do all those things in Champions, it just costs a lot of points. Or in some cases, not even that many points. While it wouldn't be appropriate for most campaigns, you can do this:

World Domination: Major Transform 1 point, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Persistent (+1/2), Indirect (+1/2), Based On EGO Combat Value (Mental Defense applies; +1), Area Of Effect (4" Radius; +1), Continuous (+1), Penetrating (x2; +1), MegaScale (1" = 10,000 km; +1 1/4), Invisible Power Effects, Hide effects of Power (Fully Invisible; +2) (49 Active Points)

This is a generally undetectable telepathic attack that will, within probably less than 15 minutes of turning it on, make everyone in the world who doesn't have doubly hardened mental defenses into your loyal followers. Or make a more subtle change, such as installing a telepathic "back door" you can use to bypass their defenses and make your normal telepathic stuff nearly automatic.

For reference, 49 points is below average by superheroic standards. A rocket launcher could easily cost more.

[NichG]

(Homebrew? And if nothing heroic opposes it.)

It's a custom system (here's a link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pD...xMFGmT4isb9iGI). I wanted to try to distill down the superhero genre into an underlying question or point - basically, what is it that actually matters in a world inhabited by superheroes? The answer I came to is that everything that can be done with powers is essentially arbitrary, but the things that are not arbitrary are the psychological factors which apply to the individual heroes. Preserving bonds with childhood friends, gaining the respect or fear of others, protecting a place or an ideal - those things all matter because they matter to the human part of the character's mind, not because their power cares.

So actual victories and defeats, increases or decreases in power or importance are all based fundamentally on changes to a character's psychology more than they're based on changes to the way the world is. This is especially with the impermanence associated with superhero settings - people die and come back, people visit alternate realities, erase the timeline, clone it, and suffer an invasion from the original, etc. The erasure and restoration of the Earth is less important than the fact that seeing it happens makes a hero more jaded, or more paranoid, or more aggressive, or whatever.

I wanted a system that reflected that idea, so I made one in which there is almost no true mechanical limit on power or agency so long as the resolve and will to call upon that power exists in the player. At the same time, the system is designed to make it so that everyone lives in a perpetual state of mutually assured destruction - you can do almost anything in terms of effect, but there's also almost no way to prevent someone from doing something even worse in retaliation before they're taken out. Generally attacking with intent to kill (establishing a consequence that ends another Breaker's life) means that they have no reason not to borrow an infinite amount of XP against their mental state to make some overpowered Move in order to save their life at the cost of their sanity, as long as they value their life or whatever is on the line over the fallout from unleashing an insane, arbitrarily powerful force upon the world that wants to systematically end anything that threatens their existence. So you get a number of superhero tropes falling out naturally from that (namely, you have these overpowered fights that chew up the scenery, but they very rarely end in the death of a participant unless something very serious is on the line).

[Quellian-dyrae]

More from M&M.

First and foremost, the sanest way to do stuff like this, if you're a GM wanting to run a game on this scale, would be to just houserule the ranks and measures table to scale even faster. I mean, that's not something you can do out of the box with the system, but from a practical standpoint it's easy and effective.

And shout-out to 2e, which had...I think an extra called Progression that basically scaled values one step per PP spent. So that would make this kinda stuff fairly easy.

Telepathic message to the whole planet's easy. Mental Communication 4 (Area, Selective). 24 PP, no sweat.

Teleporting and reality shifting a planet is basically the same as pushing it, using Increased Mass. Expensive, but straightforward. Less expensive with flaws.

Forcefielding the planet...looks like the surface area of the earth is 197,000,000 square miles. Somewhere in the vicinity of 5.5 trillion square feet, if I'm calculating right. Create...33 could cover that, assuming you make the forcefield a foot thick. Thinner could lower the rank needed, and because volume rank is stupid there's not technically a minimum dimension (though I find 6" to be a sensible sanity limit). A Limit or two makes that quite affordable.

Now if we're getting into insane, broken, never-ever-try-any-of-this-as-a-player-or-allow-it-as-a-GM-but-technically-possible-within-the-system nonsense...

For telepathically affecting everyone on the planet, with a solid effect rank, on a budget...huh, I thought you could combo Perception Area (Mental) with Mental Communication, but actually looking back over the exact wording of Perception Area it looks like that wouldn't work. Good on you, M&M.

Regardless, you've still got the classic Extended 7 Radius Penetrates Concealment Vision, backed by a Perception Range Reaction Selective Affliction. At 7/rank +12 for the super-sense it's expensive, but doable.

And if you really want to be nonsensical about things, the Summon power can be abused to trivialize point costs. Summons have 15 PP per rank. The GM would have to be insane to allow you to have a Summon* that basically lets you spend 30 PP to create a minion (or some arbitrary object or effect that mechanically functions as a minion) who can blow your entire budget on a single ludicrously overpowered move (possibly as an Affects Others Only Enhanced Trait so that you are the one actually doing it). But it is something you can technically do with the system, and on a starter hero's budget no less.

*Granted, I could probably end this sentence here, but that's another matter.

[Jay R]

Most such things can be done -- by abusing the rules past the point a competent GM would allow.

Suppose the most powerful being on earth is worth 400 points. In Champions, you can have a 400 point sidekick for 80 real points, and double the number you have for 5. So for 85 points you have two 400 point sidekicks.
For 90 points, you have four of them.

For 80 + 165 = 245 points, you have 8 billion sidekicks -- everybody on Earth is at your beck and call.

Similar abuses of mega-scale and area effect would allow a character to use mental powers on the entire world.

They don't come up in games only because GMs put limits on total points and on points per power, as explained in the rulebooks. [In fact, the example of making the entire world your sidekicks came from an early rulebook, and was used as an example of why you must limit the powers.]

In some game from the early 1980s, the rules said that if a player found a clever way to exploit the rules for too much power, you should "congratulate them on their ingenuity and ruthlessly disallow it."

[Quertus]

Most such things can be done -- by abusing the rules past the point a competent GM would allow.

They don't come up in games only because GMs put limits on total points and on points per power, as explained in the rulebooks. [In fact, the example of making the entire world your sidekicks came from an early rulebook, and was used as an example of why you must limit the powers.]

In some game from the early 1980s, the rules said that if a player found a clever way to exploit the rules for too much power, you should "congratulate them on their ingenuity and ruthlessly disallow it."

So, part of the reason I can't make real superheroes is because the rules encourage the GM to disallow them? And later games tried to just bake that into the rules / make rules with fewer "loopholes"?

[JNAProductions]

So, part of the reason I can't make real superheroes is because the rules encourage the GM to disallow them? And later games tried to just bake that into the rules / make rules with fewer "loopholes"?

Do you actually WANT to play Superman? Because, face it, what actually challenges him?

And, moreover, how would the other players feel if you're playing Superman?

[Jay R]

So, part of the reason I can't make real superheroes is because the rules encourage the GM to disallow them? And later games tried to just bake that into the rules / make rules with fewer "loopholes"?

No. You can't make over-powered superheroes because they don't lead to fun games for the other players. A good writer can make a good Superman story, by finding ways to prevent gross abuse of extreme power, but it's much harder to create a game scenario that Superman, the Atom, and Hawkeye can all enjoy and take part it.

[Note that in early Justice League stories, kryptonite was absurdly common, just to make it possible for Hawkman to save Superman as often as Superman saved Hawkman.]

Also, I reject your assumption that Daredevil, the Atom, Captain America, Night Owl, Elongated Man Mr. Terrific, and others aren't "real superheroes", just because they cannot lift planets or mentally control the entire world. There is a subset of real superheroes you can make, and a subset that you cannot make.

[Quertus]

Do you actually WANT to play Superman? Because, face it, what actually challenges him?

And, moreover, how would the other players feel if you're playing Superman?

... Good question.

I guess... I have a concept of what "superheroes" means from comics & movies. If the system cannot meet my expectations, then it just feels... incomplete. It feels like your choices are "lame" or "GM fiat".

If the system technically could meet those expectations, but no PC will ever have enough points/XP to accomplish those feats, then it feels like your choices are, once again, "lame" or "GM fiat".

If you can accomplish those feats as a PC, but the system falls apart when you do, you are at least outside "lame" or "GM fiat", but into the realm of "gentleman's agreement" or "unplayable". This is arguably where 3e D&D lives.

So, I suppose, what I'd really like is either a) a system so well made that these classic superhero feats are able to be accomplished by the PCs without breaking the system, or b) a group that knows how to make cool epic superhero moments in an otherwise broken superhero system.

Also, hopefully, the group would feel great about me playing Superman (whether they were playing equivalently "super" supers themselves or not). Honestly, this whole "competence envy" thing is baffling to me. When the party is clearly not up to the job, but one team member is awesome enough to carry the party? Great times. I really don't understand all the hate that most posters seem to have for such power disparity. So long as you don't go into it blind - so long as you know that that's what you're getting, it's fine.

[Quertus]

No. You can't make over-powered superheroes because they don't lead to fun games for the other players. A good writer can make a good Superman story, by finding ways to prevent gross abuse of extreme power, but it's much harder to create a game scenario that Superman, the Atom, and Hawkeye can all enjoy and take part it.

[Note that in early Justice League stories, kryptonite was absurdly common, just to make it possible for Hawkman to save Superman as often as Superman saved Hawkman.]

Also, I reject your assumption that Daredevil, the Atom, Captain America, Night Owl, Elongated Man Mr. Terrific, and others aren't "real superheroes", just because they cannot lift planets or mentally control the entire world. There is a subset of real superheroes you can make, and a subset that you cannot make.

... I can see how what I posted could be read that way. That wasn't quite what I meant.

What I meant was a double-meaning, for which your interpretation is an unintended third.

One thing I meant was, I want a system that can accurately model the feats of actual comic book / movie superheroes. "Real" here means "published".

The other thing I meant was, "really, really super - the superest of the super". Your examples certainly aren't the superest of the super.

I want a system that will model all published superheroes - and allow players to play PCs equivalent to all such superheroes, not just the least super of the superheroes.

Clearer?

-----

Now, as to your other points... Well, insert obligatory "I've played in a game with (figurative) Thor and a (literal) sentient potted plant - I was the potted plant" reference.

Now that that's out of the way, yes, you absolutely can have absolute power disparity and still have a fun game - if you have the right group. "Balance" and "Fun" are not synonyms.

That said, nothing in this thread should indicate to you that I have any intention of producing unbalanced superheroes. To not go down this wormhole, feel free to assume that I'm only discussing balanced high-end, world-altering superheroes.

[JAL_1138]

Dunno how relevant this is, but there’s a GURPS build floating around somewhere that lets you obliterate all organic life in the universe for 53 points.

[Quertus]

Dunno how relevant this is, but there’s a GURPS build floating around somewhere that lets you obliterate all organic life in the universe for 53 points.

Supposedly. I've heard it's been disproved as illegal or something, though.

[Hackulator]

... Good question.

I guess... I have a concept of what "superheroes" means from comics & movies. If the system cannot meet my expectations, then it just feels... incomplete. It feels like your choices are "lame" or "GM fiat".

If the system technically could meet those expectations, but no PC will ever have enough points/XP to accomplish those feats, then it feels like your choices are, once again, "lame" or "GM fiat".

If you can accomplish those feats as a PC, but the system falls apart when you do, you are at least outside "lame" or "GM fiat", but into the realm of "gentleman's agreement" or "unplayable". This is arguably where 3e D&D lives.

So, I suppose, what I'd really like is either a) a system so well made that these classic superhero feats are able to be accomplished by the PCs without breaking the system, or b) a group that knows how to make cool epic superhero moments in an otherwise broken superhero system.

Also, hopefully, the group would feel great about me playing Superman (whether they were playing equivalently "super" supers themselves or not). Honestly, this whole "competence envy" thing is baffling to me. When the party is clearly not up to the job, but one team member is awesome enough to carry the party? Great times. I really don't understand all the hate that most posters seem to have for such power disparity. So long as you don't go into it blind - so long as you know that that's what you're getting, it's fine.

Other than the idea of powers being automatically successful with no chance to resist or avoid, which is something that good RPG systems will not allow players to do mechanically, I feel like people have described more than one system here where you can do what you are talking about. Even Superman meets people he's not really stronger than, and even Professor X meets people he can't just control telepathically. If you want to houserule away 1s always failing or 20s always succeeding to make it so normals can't do anything against supers that's a pretty basic houserule.

As to your comment about "competence envy", people want to play the game, not watch you play the game. If you were in a party with a character who automatically did everything so much better and faster than you that you never got to do anything, that would not be fun. If you don't get that, well then I don't know what to say. If you do get that, then you must be able to realize that moving that line back a little so the really powerful character was doing 90% of the stuff on his own and you and the rest of the party are basically allowed to participate in 10% of things would still not be fun for a lot (or all) people. Where exactly the line falls that makes that acceptable depends on the group.