My Life As A Gamer: Handling A Superteam Game Sensibly

"Hey, Walker. You know a lot about running tabletop RPGs. How would you handle a Superfriends sort of thing?"

Better than DC or Marvel does.

Back in the '80s, there was a game by the name of Ars Magica. It was part of that wave of '80s games that tried to be "authentic", but what made AM stand out was that it was not just a Medieval Europe game- but everything was interpreted through the dominant believes of the era. So we're talking pre-Modern, pre-Luther, and all that jazz. (The big exception was the actual magic system, which had plenty of Victorian ananchronisms in it, but that's something the Pundit is better equipped to address.)

That's not the big think here. Instead, it's how the players were to go about playing the game. A campaign centered around one specific clique of mages, termed a covenant, and each specific adventure was to last one season of a year. That adventure was to have one player running his Mage, one or two playing non-user Companions, and the rest playing the cadre of grunts and followers termed "Grogs". This was meant to cycle with each season, so everyone got their time playing each type of character.

This is "Troupe-style". If you din't recognize it, that's all you need to know regarding how well it caught on.

But it's not that different from how D&D was actually played at Gary & Dave's tables. Read "PC" for "Magus", "Henchmen" for "Companion", and "Hirelings" for "Grogs" and now you have a better idea of what was possible if approached in a more practical manner. The innovation--which failed--was to make them explicit character types, and funnel specific play styles and events into each silo.

In other words, it was a recognition--however clumsy--that the overall genre had distinct subsets wherein specific characters were expected to operate and not others. This is what I take to a superhero game. "Cosmic", "Street", etc. are exactly those distinct subsets that should be addressed in a team-oriented environment and the best way to both satisfy the players as a whole and maintain verisimilitude is to go Troupe-style.

One need only look at some of the best arcs in Justice League/JL Unlimited to see this in action. Something that starts small, on the level that a Daredevil or Batman would address, can snowball over time into something far bigger as the plot threads link up and the threats scale accordingly. Your Street-level mask hand off the matter to the Avenger-level cape, who eventually may have to pass it to a Cosmic-powered super; being a bad enough dude to rescue President Ronnie means sweet fuck-all against the Anti-Monitor.

This approach also allows for players to switch up or down as their mood strikes them. Want to do some basic bitch legwork? Get your Street-level guys out, because Burbank has orders from The Shadow for them. Ready for a dust-up with the cartels? The Shadow sends a note to Barney and the Expendables go to work. Their boss does some weird voodoo shit? Time for The Shadow to come out, and he's called up The Phantom, Mandrake the Magician, Remo Williams to back him up. When that's too much, time to call in the Big Red Cheese and let (the real) Captain Marvel go to work- and if that's still not enough, there's always The Doctor, Dr. Fate and Doctor Strange.

And if they need backup, Kimbal Kinneson shows up. DONE. (If you need a Cosmic Space Cop, don't go for a knockoff; call a Lensmen.)