Question Revenge of the Tabletop Gaming Thread!!!

OK, so, I could use some advice on a good choice of RPG system for a campaign set at Whateley, or at least in the WU ficton.

I normally don't have the confidence to act as a GM myself, and haven't done any RPG gaming to speak of since moving to Jawjya, but now that I have escaped the suburban hell that is the Atlanta North Perimeter area for the relative (in)sanity of Athens, I started looking to get back into tabletop gaming. I recently joined a gamers' group called Colorful Geeks , but while there is some interest in a campaign, the group right now are mostly console and PC gamers. None of them really have much RPG experience, and the few that do have only played D&D. So it looks as if I am the only one really able to step into the gamemaster role right now.

I was gonna let it slide, but I really want to have a WU campaign. I've played superheroic campaigns before, mostly using HERO System, but it's been a while.

I am thinking of getting the latest version of HERO System (or Champions, which is the same system but with added milieu and genre material), since I knew the v. 3 and v.5 systems (I ignored that crappy FUZION-based v.4) but I was wondering if anyone had any other recommendations. I have used GURPS, but not for superheroic campaigns, so it's an option but not really a preference. I have never used Mutants & Masterminds, ICONS, Villains & Vigilantes (which I hear is back in print decades of obscurity), or Godlike (which sounds really interesting, but I never got enough people interested in the WWII era setting, and it wouldn't really fit for a WA centered campaign, and I have never seen the sequel, Wild Talents). What little I have seen of Aberrant not only makes it clear why WW discontinued the game, it makes me wonder why they published it in the first place - it comes across like a bad Marshall Law fanfic, not that ML was any good to begin with (it was itself basically a bad Judge Dredd fanfic thrown together to give Marvel something Darker and Edgier).

I could also see BESM or even TFOS used for a WA campaign, too, though they would probably really only be suited for one focused on Wondercute

there is a bonch of supers RPG's out there that would all work.

* Fate Core & Venture City Stories. Honestly Fate would be my first pick for a Whateley campaign.
* Icons
* Savage Worlds + Super Powers Companion
* Basic Roleplaying.
* Mutants & Masterminds
* Gurps + Supers
* Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (this would be my 2nd choice)

Ah, thank you, I hadn't heard of Fate before. I'll look into it. From what I've read about it so far, it looks good, and avoids two of the three problems I have with HERO: the 'erector set' power creation method and the more or less obligatory minmaxing (the third, the nerfing of the lethality level, is usually appropriate for superheroic campaigns but doesn't really fit WU).

Worlds in Peril is a modified version of the Powered by Apocalypse World Engine system for superheros. Powers you just write down a description of what your hero can do, Basic Stats are modifiers to methods of doing things like Smash, Influence, Maneuver, Protect, and Investigate with moves used with them. There is a Creative Commons version of the system for free here: Worlds In Peril Creative Commons version

Plus a new Fate-based system called Daring Comics that is for superheroes as well, adds on a system for superpowers, along with complications, that works great. Can find that on RPGNow.com site easily.

I'll add my thumbs up to Fate. Very flexible, very rules lite. But once you understand how the system works you can play with it in all kinds of really neat ways.

Any system that can recreate the Dresden Files gets thumbs up from me.

I've used Fate before. It's pretty different, but it's quite good once you get the hang of it. And it really promotes teamwork.

I'm personally a big fan of Mutants and Masterminds (2e or 3e), but a) the point-buy system does make for sort of an "erector set" type of construction and b) the system is geared towards balancing everyone out to about the same level, which doesn't necessarily work in Whateley where most of the characters are outliers who are either inherently special and more powerful than everyone else, or are exploiting some loophole to consistently break the power level.

I'll throw another contendor into the ring, with a Caviat though. If you are a fan of very light rulesets, and are comfrotable with things being defined in a loose and freeform way I'm a fan of the HeorQuest RPG

Its very narrativist, to the point not having statistics for NPC's but determining them based on what the story needs them to be at the time the NPC's come up.

What is nice is that it builds a notition of graduated success on top of a very simple dice mechanic. Every player needs exactly 1 20 sided dice, and thats it that is the only dice you ever roll.

It also has some nice rules for communities and relationships that could really shine in a Whateley setting. Though adapting them would take a bit of work.

Or if you want to go even lighter then Risus would work. You could take an MID from the Wiki and use it as a Risus character sheet without changing or adding anything.

Thank all of you for the advice. I'm going to post on the gaming group's FB page about the idea and see if anyone is interested, and if they have any preferences about system - I don't think any of them will, because most of them have never done much tabletop RPGing, but you never know.

If they're new to pen-and-paper gaming, I'll give you one very basic piece of advice: Keep It Simple. For a first time superhero gamer, give him Superman or the Hulk, something that he can understand. In a Fantasy Game, give him a Fighter, even if he wants to play a Mage or something exotic, because everyone understands 'I hit him with my sword'.

That's an excellent point, true. I was already trying to think of how to restrict the power levels anyway, and while I don't want to put out any hard and fast rules, I should encourage the inexperienced players to play things like PK Super types.

To elaborate a bit, here's what I already said on the FB page about the series and the possible campaign, though I know most of them won't get the Whateley-specific references yet:

The premise of this web serial/shared universe series is somewhat similar to the X-Men, or more accurately, the original iteration fo the New Mutants (that is, there's no superhero team going around doing good deeds, just a school and a bunch of kids).

Whateley Academy is a secret high school for super-powered mutant teens where they can learn to control their powers and learn survival skills needed to avoid being taken advantage of and/or attacked by mobs of hostile 'baselines' (ordinary humans). Both heroes and villains alike are supporters of the school, and the school maintains a policy of neutrality, so there is no actual imperative to become superheroes (or super-villains), though some students clearly have plans in one or the other direction from the start.

Most of the 600+ students have relatively minor powers - for example, one student, Aquerna, is an Avatar (a spirit-catcher, who can make a bond with a spirit being such as a totem animal or a kami and use it's abilities in exchange for giving the spirit a hallow to live in) who has the spirit of the Squirrel; her powers are mostly limited to talking to squirrels and chipmunks, climbing, and jumping really far, making her one of the school jokes. Some, on the other hand, have real world-shaking power, such as the New Olympians, who are the hosts of the ancient Greek Gods.

One thing I should mention is that the series has a lot of gender-bending in it; all of the six original main characters (except Jade) had their gender reversed as part of their power manifestation. It is part of why they became a team, in fact. Other characters through the course of the series have it happen to them as well. A lot of people find this fetish-y aspect of the series a turn-off, especially since a few of the stories go into more explicit details (though those are rare), but there are quite a few stories where it is toned down or even absent.

I also gave them links to the TK origin stories and the Welcome to Poe/Ninja Night story. Some notes on the campaign limits as well:

I would probably set the game either before the 2006 series, or somewhere between 2008 and the start of the 2016 series. I would have the canon characters as NPCs, and the players would be new students (presumably freshmen, but I'd consider either sophomores or sub-freshmen if you can talk me into it. The students can be in any dorm (including Hawthorne, though that shouldn't be taken as an excuse to minmax a ton of disads in exchange for munchkin power levels).

I am thinking of a fairly mid-level characters, so nothing like Tennyo (think something between Superman and the Phoenix - I probably won't even show her in game if I can avoid it) or any of the godlings (no, you can't claim to be one of the missing New Olympians) or Class X entities (GOOs, Elder Gods, and other Lovecraftian fun, as well as the more powerful Faerie), though an Avatar serving as a minor god's Paladin might be permissible (if you want to be a Paladin for a Class X entity, we can play Call of Chthulu some time instead... with that character getting a starting SAN of zero).

Any non-mutant students had better have a very good justification for being there; just being Imbued or a Legacy is not reason enough. While characters like Bladedancer, Josie Gilman, and Journeyman show it has happened before, it doesn't happen often. Similarly, being the child of a major superhero or supervillain will need to be justified very well, and I would expect it to be roleplayed out as well as having the appropriate advantages and disadvantages worked out.

Changelings and characters with GSD will need to take a package of advantages and disadvantages (mostly disads) to reflect that as well, and I will try to come up with packages for common power sets such as Exemplar, PK Superman, Devisor, Gadgeteer, Package Deal Psychic, Speedster, etc.

I forgot the most recent post about the game rules:

Oh, and one last thing: any character who would (deservingly) get an Ultraviolent armband based solely on their backstory will be rejected out of hand, as will any Thornies who cannot physically leave Hawthorne Cottage due to problems with their powers - not that I expect anyone would want to play someone like Puppet or Fubar to begin with, but...

Playing FUBAR would be cool.
And I could picture playing a character like puppet, just need to make her slightly more mobile.

Dom, doesn't that sort entirely negate the dramatic thrust of the character?

In a story, yes.
In a table top game it would have the potential to be a very unique character idea.

In a Mage: The Awakening game, a friend of mine played a hacker type magician who was completely paralyzed. he got around in a souped up magic van and did things through magical remote controlled robots. From the stories he told it was pretty interesting, as he was seldom hurt or threatened in a mission but removing him at a critical time, or when they found his control center evened it out nicely.
I could picture a slightly more mobile Puppet like character doing something similar.

But again that's for a game only.

That's sounds like, I dunno, Antenna or Musk, perhaps (assuming they ever get Sue's environment suit to a usable point). A character like that would be acceptable, but difficult to play, and I wouldn't let a novice player running someone like that without them doing a lot to convince me they could handle the RP.

After talking about this campaign with several members of our gaming group today, I went ahead and created a Google Group for discussions on the game . Since it probably won't be until July or August that we can organize the first game session, this will give us a chance to hash out things like the game system, the player character concepts, and so forth, as well as let the players read up about the series (on the wiki, if nothing else) and ask me questions about it.

If anyone here wants to on the discussion, or even join the game (if you happen to live close enough the Athens, GA to get to the sessions), send a join request and I'll consider it (well, I probably would just say OK, but I have to look like I'm doing my job, you know).

I'm still reading the Fate Core rulebook, but in order to try and understand it a bit better, I took some time to write out two of the main characters from the 2006 story arc as they existed at the start of the series. I'm not sure yet what, if anything, I got wrong in them, but experienced players will note just how simplified the character information is compared to, say, D&D. There are some stats that I didn't include, such as Refresh, but most of them have to do with the current status of the character in the moment, rather than their character design. Also, I used what I gather is an unusually large number of Aspects, even disregarding the four I have as a standard package for WA students, but it seemed the only way to really shine a light on the characters.

Phase (Ayla Goodkind), as of 1 September 2006

Aspects:
Whateley Academy student package
* Mutant
* Secret Identity
* Whateley Student
* Minor
Personal
- Rep: from mutant-hating family
- Wealthy
- Sheltered Upbringing
- Changeling (intersexed) and publicly known
- Self-Loathing
- Financial Genius
- Poor power control
- Looks female, thinks male

Skills:
* Eidetic Memory +3
* Finance +4
* Plan elaborate gambit +1 (the low bonus reflects his state of mind at the time)
* Persuasion +1

Extras:
* Exemplar +2 (if this sounds low, remember that it is on a scale of 1-4)
* Desolidification +2
* Density Increase +2
* Contact Disintegration +1

Stunts:
* Phase Disruption +1

---

Fey (Nichole Reilly), as of 1 September 2006

Aspects:
Whateley Academy student package
* Mutant
* Secret Identity
* Whateley Student
* Minor
Personal
- Sidhe Royalty
- Changeling (MTF)
- Powerful Compelling Glamour
- Limited power control
- Politically Influential Father
- Awkward in a Fight
- Powerful Guiding Spirit
- Vulnerable to cold iron and synthetic polymers

Skills:

Extras:
- Spellcasting +1
- Sense Magic +4
- Receiving and Projective Empathy +2

Stunts:
* Oops! +2

If anyone knows the Fate system and sees some kind of mistake or misunderstanding, let me know. I've also posted this to the game discussion group mentioned earlier.

Two things about Phase's 'Eidetic Memory' stat occurred to me this morning: first, the term is a bit too passive and formal, given the drama-oriented focus of the game system; 'Perfect Recall' may be better. Second, and more importantly, it probably should be either an Aspect, a Stunt, or an Extra, rather than a Skill, and I am leaning more towards Stunt given that it is sort of an all-or-nothing thing.

Also, I think I should give him another appropriate such as 'Excellent Student +4', to reflect his study skills. I would also give him two more Aspects, 'Refined Palate' and 'Man of Wealth and Taste', though given all the Aspects he already has that might be pushing things. Finally, he should have a Stunt, 'Iron Will' to reflect his intense self-control.

Schol-R-LEA wrote: Finally, he should have a Stunt, 'Iron Will' to reflect his intense self-control.

The Iron Will could be both a benefit and a drawback.

While it has helped him retain his sanity when fighting the demon during the Christmas break, it is also getting in the way when learning magic.

Still not sure how you'd reflect this in a game system.

Schol-R-LEA wrote: Two things about Phase's 'Eidetic Memory' stat occurred to me this morning: first, the term is a bit too passive and formal, given the drama-oriented focus of the game system; 'Perfect Recall' may be better. Second, and more importantly, it probably should be either an Aspect, a Stunt, or an Extra, rather than a Skill, and I am leaning more towards Stunt given that it is sort of an all-or-nothing thing.

Also, I think I should give him another appropriate such as 'Excellent Student +4', to reflect his study skills. I would also give him two more Aspects, 'Refined Palate' and 'Man of Wealth and Taste', though given all the Aspects he already has that might be pushing things. Finally, he should have a Stunt, 'Iron Will' to reflect his intense self-control.

Phase doesn't quite have perfect recall, he has an excellent memory, but it isn't perfect.

Ayla and the Tests Chapter 2 wrote: He started out with lists of one-syllable words, flashed on the screen in increasingly short time intervals, until I only had time to spot the first one or two words. Then he started over with two-syllable words. Then three-syllable words. If I could read the words, I could remember them with pretty high precision. Pretty good memorization skills, but definitely not eidetic memory.

One of my own favorite lines: "You say 'Stubborn'; I say 'Will of Iron'

Bek D Corbin wrote: One of my own favorite lines: "You say 'Stubborn'; I say 'Will of Iron'

Which is perfect as an aspect for a FATE character, can be a benefit and a drawback for the game.

I might poach that line someday if I can ever find another gaming group.

@Schol-R-Lea - For your RPG, how would you handle Chinese characters, given the dearth of mutants from China?

I guess it depends on the maker's initial idea...

Smuggling them out, might work?

Malady wrote: @Schol-R-Lea - For your RPG, how would you handle Chinese characters, given the dearth of mutants from China?

Well, that's what Unicode is for! But since most people can't make heads or tails of Chinese characters , may I suggest Pinyin romanization? Wade-Giles is so last century...
(And yes, I know what they meant. I just couldn't resist the pun)

@Sir Lee: To be fair, that pun was my first thought as well.

@Malady: I haven't really considered it, though it would depend on the era, mainly because of the varying degrees of tension between the US and the PRC (I assume you meant mainland China, as their are quite a few students of Chinese descent, but not from China per se, at Whateley in 2006, and several from Taiwan as well - and from Hong Kong, though the unusual semi-autonomy of that island since 1999 has probably affected how many were able to go in some years). I doubt there were any at all before 1988, or at least not ones who still held their Chinese citizenship, while their probably were more during the 1990s than their would be in 2006, when things were getting a bit more uneasy again. What would happen after the in-universe events in 2011 is pretty much up in the air.