RPG Systems that allow for characters of diverse levels of Power

[Wofano Wotanto]

wasn't there a "Batman Inc." series that basically did this? Superior spiderman sorta did this as well, with Doc Oc (in the body of Spiderman) creating squadrons of spider henchmen to keep the city safe for him.

There have been several variations on that theme over the years, some dating back into teh Silver Age. Both Batman and Green Arrow (who was once a complete Batman knock-off, complete with Arrowcar, Arrowcave, Arrowboat, etc.) spawned an international legion of imitators so you had (for ex) British Batman and GA, "African" (because that's not a whole diverse continent or anything) Batman and GA, Spanish batman and GA, etc., etc. They were all terrible national stereotypes that mostly just copied their inspiration's approach back in the Silver Age, but (at least with the Bat-imitators) some modern authors have tried to rehabilitate them into something a bit less awful. Beyond that, I can't tell you anything about Batman Inc. though.

Bruce has also been portrayed as resorting to robots ("Bat-Sentries" IIRC) to help police Gotham in some stories (eg Kingdom Come), and there was a very tongue-in-cheek video game a while back where there were gangs of vigilantes dressedin unconvincing Batman costumes fighting in the streets with other gangs dressed like Joker.

The last I checked OMAC (the Jack Kirby creation) was also supposed to be Bruce's fault, with Wayne Indistries having secretly built the Brother Eye AI satellite to monitor the Earth for emergencies and if needed, turn unknowing civilians into super-powered OMAC emergency response drones with nanotech they'd been infected with without their consent or knowledge. If that sounds like a dystopian horror show that could easily go tragically awry, it was. Bruce is very dumb sometimes. As someone who quite liked the original OMAC I found that particular re-imagining especially offensive on many levels.

 

[Reynard]

There have been several variations on that theme over the years, some dating back into teh Silver Age. Both Batman and Green Arrow (who was once a complete Batman knock-off, complete with Arrowcar, Arrowcave, Arrowboat, etc.) spawned an international legion of imitators so you had (for ex) British Batman and GA, "African" (because that's not a whole diverse continent or anything) Batman and GA, Spanish batman and GA, etc., etc. They were all terrible national stereotypes that mostly just copied their inspiration's approach back in the Silver Age, but (at least with the Bat-imitators) some modern authors have tried to rehabilitate them into something a bit less awful. Beyond that, I can't tell you anything about Batman Inc. though.

Bruce has also been portrayed as resorting to robots ("Bat-Sentries" IIRC) to help police Gotham in some stories (eg Kingdom Come), and there was a very tongue-in-cheek video game a while back where there were gangs of vigilantes dressedin unconvincing Batman costumes fighting in the streets with other gangs dressed like Joker.

The last I checked OMAC (the Jack Kirby creation) was also supposed to be Bruce's fault, with Wayne Indistries having secretly built the Brother Eye AI satellite to monitor the Earth for emergencies and if needed, turn unknowing civilians into super-powered OMAC emergency response drones with nanotech they'd been infected with without their consent or knowledge. If that sounds like a dystopian horror show that could easily go tragically awry, it was. Bruce is very dumb sometimes. As someone who quite liked the original OMAC I found that particular re-imagining especially offensive on many levels.

Morrison's Bat-period (again, lasting 20 years or so) was marked by him returning to a lot of the wackiness in the silver age titles and turning them into serious elements of the mythos. It did not always work, of course, but you can't fault him for trying to make something coherent out of that mess.

Morrison was so important to Bat Mythos that when they rebooted the universe during his tenure, his Batman stuff remained largely untouched.

 

[Umbran]

* I’m somewhat surprised nobody’s done a Batman (or Iron Man) “clone” who uses his resources to finance a private army of capable individuals to be vigilantes in a broader geographical area. All of the, wearing the same costume and using the same gear. Hmmm…maybe my next superhero character…

cough Age of Ultron cough.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

cough Age of Ultron cough.

Never saw it. The only MCU stuff I’ve seen in theaters were the 1st Avengers and Iron Man movies. How does it’s plot apply to my musings?

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Morrison was so important to Bat Mythos that when they rebooted the universe during his tenure, his Batman stuff remained largely untouched.

I'd credit that more to the fact that DC as a company lives and dies based on Batman sales these days, and has for years. Bat-books and related characters make up an absurd percentage of their overall sales and they couldn't risk killing the goose that lays the golden eggs with serious changes. New 52 and onward has been very much about experimentation in an attempt to find something else that would sell like Bats, so there wasn't any impetus to change the stuff that was already working.

The company's situation is really precarious as things stands, with any lasting failure Bat-sales likely to trigger a massive collapse. They haven't had much success changing that, but they sure do keep trying.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

cough Age of Ultron cough.

Never saw it either. I take was Ultron is supposed to be some kind of robotic crime-fighting system to supplement the Avengers? They blamed Tony Stark for inventing Ultron instead of Hank Pym in the MCU too, right?

 

[Umbran]

Never saw it. The only MCU stuff I’ve seen in theaters were the 1st Avengers and Iron Man movies. How does it’s plot apply to my musings?

Never saw it either. I take was Ultron is supposed to be some kind of robotic crime-fighting system to supplement the Avengers? They blamed Tony Stark for inventing Ultron instead of Hank Pym in the MCU too, right?

Of course. I pick one of the most seen movies of the last decade, and you two jokers haven't seen it.

In The Avengers, aliens try to invade. They almost win. Stark almost dies trying to save NYC from a nuke.

Tony Stark responds to this trauma by trying to sort of put a suit of armor around the world: creating the Iron Legion - basically a large number of Iron Man Suits controlled by AI, that can be deployed to crises or battles without putting humans in harm's way.

Stark, examining Loki's scepter from the previous movie (the Scepter with the Mind Stone in it) finds what looks like an AI architecture within it. Seeing the possibilities of such an advanced AI for his Iron Legion, he continues to work on it...

...And it escapes, and uses Stark's tech to build itself a body (becoming Ultron) and taking control of Stark's Iron Legion, to be the traditional swarm of Ultron bots occasionally seen in the comics.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

...And it escapes, and uses Stark's tech to build itself a body (becoming Ultron) and taking control of Stark's Iron Legion, to be the traditional swarm of Ultron bots occasionally seen in the comics.

Huh. Somehow, that still a manages to be less awful than Bruce's daft Brother Eye/secret OMAC plan was.

Ah well, at least the re-imagining of Devil Dinosaur has been top notch. And Machine Man in Agents of H.A.T.E. was pretty great. Marvel's been treating Kirby's lesser creations well...oh, wait. There was that Eternals movie, wasn't there? Oh dear.

On topic, a number of superhero RPGs make PC death either extremely rare or entirely optional. Decreasing lethality compared to traditional RPG expectations is one part of handling wildly varying power levels, although it's obviously just part of the equation. Doesn't work well in all genres, though. Supers, action movies, cartoons, sure. Gritty dungeoncrawls, not so much.

 

[Reynard]

Huh. Somehow, that still a manages to be less awful than Bruce's daft Brother Eye/secret OMAC plan was.

Hyper paranoid Bruce was a weird period.

 

[Umbran]

On topic, a number of superhero RPGs make PC death either extremely rare or entirely optional. Decreasing lethality compared to traditional RPG expectations is one part of handling wildly varying power levels, although it's obviously just part of the equation. Doesn't work well in all genres, though. Supers, action movies, cartoons, sure. Gritty dungeoncrawls, not so much.

Yep.

The other arm of the "Jimmy Olsen problem" is to note that raw superpower is not the only way to influence the narrative. Lois Lane doesn't have superpowers, but she moves stories forward by sticking her nose where it doesn't belong, learning what's going on, influencing people with words, and being emotionally important to others. A game that allows high effectiveness at these things, or other "mundane" ways to move a story, without use of outright superpowers, allows for effective disparity in character "power".