RPG Systems that allow for characters of diverse levels of Power

[Wofano Wotanto]

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".

Given how often both Jimmy and Lois have had superpowers over the years I'm not sure they're ideal examples, but I get the gist of the argument.

One other possibility might be a supers game where everyone makes a hero PC and also a competent but non-powered PC that's some other player's supporting character, playing one or the other as the situation dictates. Sort of borrowing from Ars Magica's troupe-style play, and you could even add in the opportunity to temporarily play as innocent bystander "grogs" when appropriate. Might be best with either a very small table (2-3 players?) to limit confusion, or maybe a campaign where the heroes and supports are all part of a formal organization, like an government-funded hero team with specialists attached as liaisons.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That was kind of my point. Batman as written for the past 20-30 years has an arsenal of equipment and a plan on how to use it against nearly any super-powered threat he knows of. With enough time to prepare, he’s a threat to virtually any DC character on Earth, and some off of it as well.

Yeah, that's pretty fair. Now, convincing a player with a similar character not to pull out the big guns all the time might be a challenge (which is of course the gig with a lot of this sort of thing and why I say "medium matters"; there are things done with characters in other media that would be a hard sell in a game because you'd have to convince players to put up with things that work in the other media because they're all being operated from a singular central source).

 

[John Dallman]

I say "medium matters"; there are things done with characters in other media that would be a hard sell in a game because you'd have to convince players to put up with things that work in the other media because they're all being operated from a singular central source).

Exactly. RPGs are a medium of their own. Trying to emulate different medium's forms of story in them is fraught with peril.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yeah, that's pretty fair. Now, convincing a player with a similar character not to pull out the big guns all the time might be a challenge (which is of course the gig with a lot of this sort of thing and why I say "medium matters"; there are things done with characters in other media that would be a hard sell in a game because you'd have to convince players to put up with things that work in the other media because they're all being operated from a singular central source).

I can’t speak to other games, but HERO has a pretty good history of illustrating how to build classic comic book characters, especially in magazine articles. Besides obvious NPC homages to certain characters in game supplements, I’ve got several articles in which writeups for various Marvel & DC characters were presented. I remember several Teen Titans and X-Men heroes & villains in particular, including Magneto.

And the thing is, the writers did a good job in using the ruleset to model how those ancillary assets worked and accumulated. Very useful for GMs & players alike.

 

[Umbran]

Yeah, that's pretty fair. Now, convincing a player with a similar character not to pull out the big guns all the time might be a challenge (which is of course the gig with a lot of this sort of thing and why I say "medium matters"; there are things done with characters in other media that would be a hard sell in a game because you'd have to convince players to put up with things that work in the other media because they're all being operated from a singular central source).

Agreed. Even reading the comics, you have to sometimes wonder why Bats doesn't pull out the big guns every time. In a game, when the player looks at a character sheet, and it says he can do a thing... why doesn't he just do it? If you have a big "I win!" button, why don't you press it every time?

There is a game with a partial answer to how to handle such things mechanically, at least - Sentinel Comics RPG. The scene and characters have a status track - Green, Yellow, Red, and Out (GYRO). As the situation becomes more tense, more character abilities become available. The character's Big Guns are likely not available at Green or Yellow status.

This puts some mechanical support to the genre trope of only doing the major moves when things get dire. It doesn't solve the narrative problem, which kind of has to be handled with each separate narrative.

 

[uzirath]

I've had some success with this in GURPS, despite it being a fairly traditional system. GURPS Supers and a few other books have guidelines for this sort of thing (as well as having suggestions for how to manage sidekick and mentor characters), but I primarily handle it by making sure the group discusses what role each character will have. Gandalf, for example, may be worth two or three times as many character points as the other characters on paper, but in a regular fight with some orcs, he's not that much crazier than everybody else. His build is focused on lore skills, contacts, reputation, and other skills that are emphasized outside of combat.

This can work well if only one player is interested in playing to that lore-master niche but also doesn't want to be the traditional squishy wizard. You give them enough points to hold their own in combat plus an extra bucket of points to spend on lore skills.

I've also seen this work with a face character who has lots of money and social status. They shine during phases of adventures that take place in high society or when their money can purchase gear or transport or whatever. But when the group gets ambushed by raving cultists, they're not particularly OP.

 

[Umbran]

I've also seen this work with a face character who has lots of money and social status. They shine during phases of adventures that take place in high society or when their money can purchase gear or transport or whatever. But when the group gets ambushed by raving cultists, they're not particularly OP.

In Fate, this is pretty easy to do as well - if a system allows one to make a character that will be okay if a mook or two comes at them, but they aren't a major threat to draw attention in a fight, that supports high power disparities.

 

[mr_monkius]

Years ago I ran a campaign where the players ran a big mercenary company in the Birthright setting. Everyone got a 7th, 5th, and 3rd level character that had different roles in the company.

Sometimes we did a major battle and they all got to use their big characters. Other times they would have a smaller adventure where the quartermaster (thief) and the accountant (junior mage) took some low level troops to track something down and the accountant managed to get into a bar fight.

So the different adventures mixed up whose character was in the spotlight and who was supporting.

 

[Reynard]

In Fate, this is pretty easy to do as well - if a system allows one to make a character that will be okay if a mook or two comes at them, but they aren't a major threat to draw attention in a fight, that supports high power disparities.

All narrative systems do it pretty easily, because ultimately the idea of high powered and lesser powered characters contributing equally is a narrative conceit only.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Agreed. Even reading the comics, you have to sometimes wonder why Bats doesn't pull out the big guns every time. In a game, when the player looks at a character sheet, and it says he can do a thing... why doesn't he just do it? If you have a big "I win!" button, why don't you press it every time?

There is a game with a partial answer to how to handle such things mechanically, at least - Sentinel Comics RPG. The scene and characters have a status track - Green, Yellow, Red, and Out (GYRO). As the situation becomes more tense, more character abilities become available. The character's Big Guns are likely not available at Green or Yellow status.

This puts some mechanical support to the genre trope of only doing the major moves when things get dire. It doesn't solve the narrative problem, which kind of has to be handled with each separate narrative.

Yeah, that's the sort of thing you really need, but then you have to deal with the same people who have issues with things like non-magical "encounter" or "daily" powers getting weird about it, when the real answer is that it works that way by convention, not any real in-world reason in a lot of cases.