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The Politics of Tabletop RPGs

Masks is very good at telling the very specific style of story it wants to tell, but struggles to tell anything outside of that.

and honestly, I think that's the right choice.Superhero comics are a broad genre and The Punisher and Superman cannot be modeled by the same system
 
Spartakrod said:
I think American Superhero Comic Books are kind of a poorly suited genre for TTRPGs as a whole and any attempt to emulate them is always going to leave some itch of the genre unscratched. It's doable but the genre has a lot of idiosyncrasies that fans of it are attached to that I think generally make for less than ideal group play.
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The other thing I feel like is that it's a fairly hard concept to balance and create a system where everyone can actually find time to shine. Because in practise, a game where one player wants to be "Batman" and another player wants to be "Superman" probably means that the superpowered players are going to be incredibly powerful with a versatile array of abilities whereas "Batman" is probably going to struggle to feel like an equal part of the team, especially as progression takes hold and people get more powerful. Unlocking better gadgets and cooler acrobatic stunts isn't the same as being able to fly as fast as an airplane or being able to lift up a tank.

And honestly, comic books and other super hero media cover up so many imbalances from simple narrative conceit. Batman is able to go toe-to-toe with foes with superhuman capabilities because he's "just that prepared" with just the right gadgets and technology to counter said foe. But when you take away the plot armour (as you would for a TTRPG game), Batman's either going to get killed outright by the alien zombie robots or the rest of the team is going to be forced to cover for him so that he doesn't get killed by the alien zombie robots.

I suppose the solution would be to make games that focus on one or the other: high-powered heroes saving the world from alien invaders vs. low-powered/normal heroes saving the city from a crime boss but IMO that runs into issues of its own. If the world is constantly threatened by high-powered supervillains and invaders from other planets, what's the real impact of taking out Johnny Two-Shoes and his gang of mobsters?
 
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BossFight said:
Masks is very good at telling the very specific style of story it wants to tell, but struggles to tell anything outside of that.

and honestly, I think that's the right choice.Superhero comics are a broad genre and The Punisher and Superman cannot be modeled by the same system
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I actually agree, much as I was criticizing Masks earlier. It pretty much chose to do Teen Titans, and focused more on enabling Teen Titans plots than modeling being a Teen Titan. It sort of goes, "look, your power does what it does as flavor and enabling the rolls that matter, and the meat of the story is Being A Teen Titan". I don't like the mechanical feel, and I think the worldbuilding is overgeneric, but I think it also made the right choice:

Bad system to do Superhero Stuff in, but if you just wanna play Teen Titans 2003 and have it feel a lot like the show, go for it.
 
Kaiya said:
I actually agree, much as I was criticizing Masks earlier. It pretty much chose to do Teen Titans, and focused more on enabling Teen Titans plots than modeling being a Teen Titan. It sort of goes, "look, your power does what it does as flavor and enabling the rolls that matter, and the meat of the story is Being A Teen Titan". I don't like the mechanical feel, and I think the worldbuilding is overgeneric, but I think it also made the right choice:

Bad system to do Superhero Stuff in, but if you just wanna play Teen Titans 2003 and have it feel a lot like the show, go for it.
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Yeah, and what I was saying wasn't meant as a disagreement so much as a bounce off of your post
 
Madam Carstein said:
whereas "Batman" is probably going to struggle to feel like an equal part of the team, especially as progression takes hold and people get more powerful.
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In this example "Batman" should have a very well established secret identity with large amounts of social and economic pull, and access to bleeding edge military surplus.
If the players ever needs a place to hide and regroup? Batman has the Bat Cave.
If the players needs access to a country that doesn't normally allow Supers to legally visit? Bruce Wayne drops a mention of just how thrilled he would be if an actual superhero attended that party the prince was throwing.
etc.
 
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IMO I think it would be fun to go in the opposite direction and just not bother to adapt game to genre at all. Just do the most basic of bitch DnD campaign except Superheroes.

You have the setup of meet wizard, go on journey to get or kill THING. Except instead of a Wizard it's Commissioner Jimbo. Instead of a fantasy land you have The City or something and instead of a dungeon or enemy citadel you have a supervillains lair.

Like normie-grad tabletop you have disconnected batches of random ass monsters to fight along your way. Except now it's gangs of superfreaks who march out to brawl when you enter their territory, as in fantasy wilderness. Maybe this implies a breakdown of law and order like Batman: No Man's Land. And like DnD adventures you'll end up doing fucked shit with no regard for consequences.

This concept kinda reminds me of some battle anime, where instead of good guys vs bad guys you have various teams of superhumans motivated to fight you but can also shift allegiances. But in game form that would just put workload for the DM who has to come up with his own version of Jeice and Burter to RP.

Since in the gang city scenario playing the actual boy scout superhero might be it's version of playing a paladin. And I guess Bards are Van Halen from Dexter's Lab or something.
 
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Madam Carstein said:
The other thing I feel like is that it's a fairly hard concept to balance and create a system where everyone can actually find time to shine. Because in practise, a game where one player wants to be "Batman" and another player wants to be "Superman" probably means that the superpowered players are going to be incredibly powerful with a versatile array of abilities whereas "Batman" is probably going to struggle to feel like an equal part of the team,
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Actually it's pretty trivial to model a Batman that works on the same level as Superman - you just have to use the right system.

I think the question really is, are you going to be modeling "people with superpowers", or "comic books", because depending on the answer, you'll get very different results.

"People with powers" is modeled quite well by games such as Aberrant, Mutants and Masterminds, Hero, and a whole bunch of others. They have a lot of flexibility, and people on the same power level tend to work will together. BUT, if you try to emulate heroes of ostensibly different power levels, you got problems.

"Emulating comics" games work by abstracting the powers and abilities, and look at it from a dramatic POV of "how do you approach this problem?". The truck is that abilities don't actually have concrete measurements.

So for example, in Fate Accelerated Edition, you may have "Strange Visitor From Another Planet" and "Caped Crusader". And they could approach problems like:

*Cross a chasm between buildings*
"I fly across"
"I use my grappling line from my utility belt"
Ok, you have permission to not even need a roll for that.

*Lex's goons unload heavy weapons on you!*
I Quickly dodge with the martial arts part of "Caped Crusader".
OK, roll Quick."
"+2 + *roll* 2. So 4."
You gracefully Dodge the bullets. Now Supes."
"I'm going to use "Strange Visitor" and let the bullets Forcefully bounce off me
"OK, roll "Forceful"
"+3 + -1. So 2. Drat."
"OK, one of them had a grenade launcher, and it launches you back into the museum exhibit. You aren't hurt, but take 1 Stress."

Likewise, in Masks, Princess Tiffany, daughter of Morgash the Planet Eater will use Freak to use her energy powers, while Urban Ninja will also use Freak to parkour up an alleyway. And I'm Sentinel Comics RPG, all characters will build actions from a pool ranging from D6 to D12.

The limitation is that this can a problem for people who think of powers in a tactical or real world sense. It doesn't make sense to them that a Kryptonian and a human should be on the same level (r/powerscaling can just SHUT UP), even though if you watch Justice League, just that very thing happens.
 
RoseEmbolism said:
"People with powers" is modeled quite well by games such as Aberrant, Mutants and Masterminds, Hero, and a whole bunch of others. They have a lot of flexibility, and people on the same power level tend to work will together. BUT, if you try to emulate heroes of ostensibly different power levels, you got problems.
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Using that system Superman would have some standard powers and some MegaAttributes.
While Batman would have loads of Backgrounds and Merits( and possibly be a Darkstar, someone with powers that aren't readily noticeable without an in-depth examination).
 
RoseEmbolism said:
Actually it's pretty trivial to model a Batman that works on the same level as Superman - you just have to use the right system.

I think the question really is, are you going to be modeling "people with superpowers", or "comic books", because depending on the answer, you'll get very different results.

"People with powers" is modeled quite well by games such as Aberrant, Mutants and Masterminds, Hero, and a whole bunch of others. They have a lot of flexibility, and people on the same power level tend to work will together. BUT, if you try to emulate heroes of ostensibly different power levels, you got problems.

"Emulating comics" games work by abstracting the powers and abilities, and look at it from a dramatic POV of "how do you approach this problem?". The truck is that abilities don't actually have concrete measurements.

So for example, in Fate Accelerated Edition, you may have "Strange Visitor From Another Planet" and "Caped Crusader". And they could approach problems like:

*Cross a chasm between buildings*
"I fly across"
"I use my grappling line from my utility belt"
Ok, you have permission to not even need a roll for that.

*Lex's goons unload heavy weapons on you!*
I Quickly dodge with the martial arts part of "Caped Crusader".
OK, roll Quick."
"+2 + *roll* 2. So 4."
You gracefully Dodge the bullets. Now Supes."
"I'm going to use "Strange Visitor" and let the bullets Forcefully bounce off me
"OK, roll "Forceful"
"+3 + -1. So 2. Drat."
"OK, one of them had a grenade launcher, and it launches you back into the museum exhibit. You aren't hurt, but take 1 Stress."

Likewise, in Masks, Princess Tiffany, daughter of Morgash the Planet Eater will use Freak to use her energy powers, while Urban Ninja will also use Freak to parkour up an alleyway. And I'm Sentinel Comics RPG, all characters will build actions from a pool ranging from D6 to D12.

The limitation is that this can a problem for people who think of powers in a tactical or real world sense. It doesn't make sense to them that a Kryptonian and a human should be on the same level (r/powerscaling can just SHUT UP), even though if you watch Justice League, just that very thing happens.
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If Batman is dodging bullets we're in one of the versions where he's not even pretending not to have superspeed and precognition anymore lol. Which, admittedly, was Justice League! Batman had super strength, super speed, and super durability in Justice League, they just sometimes lied to the audience and said he didn't.
 
Kaiya said:
If Batman is dodging bullets we're in one of the versions where he's not even pretending not to have superspeed and precognition anymore lol. Which, admittedly, was Justice League! Batman had super strength, super speed, and super durability in Justice League, they just sometimes lied to the audience and said he didn't.
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This is a joke right? You've for to be joking.

Batman has always been dodging gunfire on the comics. I mean seriously, how menu comic spray pages have there been where Batman is jumping down into a group of guys with guns? The events in the BTAS animated series where he ducks around gunfire? Is established that he does dodge gunfire. As does pretty much the rest of the Batfamily

Now there's a lot of explanations for how he does this, at carrying levels of realism. He relies on ambushes and darkness, he is a master of controlling combat range, his appearance and reputation cause people to lose their nerve and fire wildly, his cape extends out his silhouette and confuses aim, he can see where people are aiming and jink away...but honestly, it's a genre thing. These comics are ones where sufficiently good martial artists can dodge automatic weapons. And it isn't just Batman- Nightwing, Batgirl, Green Arrow, Black Canary.... It is frankly a setting element.

Now you can argue that that is unrealistic. 🙄 But then again, that just says you want to play a "people with powers" game like Wild Talents where"normal people can't dodge guns (and I have to wonder, if "realism" is your bent, why you accept powers in the game) The other category is games that emulate comics. If you're emulating the comics, then guns can be dodged.
 
RoseEmbolism said:
This is a joke right? You've for to be joking.

Batman has always been dodging gunfire on the comics. I mean seriously, how menu comic spray pages have there been where Batman is jumping down into a group of guys with guns? The events in the BTAS animated series where he ducks around gunfire? Is established that he does dodge gunfire. As does pretty much the rest of the Batfamily

Now there's a lot of explanations for how he does this, at carrying levels of realism. He relies on ambushes and darkness, he is a master of controlling combat range, his appearance and reputation cause people to lose their nerve and fire wildly, his cape extends out his silhouette and confuses aim, he can see where people are aiming and jink away...but honestly, it's a genre thing. These comics are ones where sufficiently good martial artists can dodge automatic weapons. And it isn't just Batman- Nightwing, Batgirl, Green Arrow, Black Canary.... It is frankly a setting element.

Now you can argue that that is unrealistic. 🙄 But then again, that just says you want to play a "people with powers" game like Wild Talents where"normal people can't dodge guns (and I have to wonder, if "realism" is your bent, why you accept powers in the game) The other category is games that emulate comics. If you're emulating the comics, then guns can be dodged.
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Realism isn't my bent, I just hate "I have superpowers, but I pretend I don't have superpowers because my fantasy is to be able to be better than the person whose fantasy is better than human but WITHOUT any help, just pure gumption!"

Batman isn't dodging bullets, generally, people are missing him because he stays moving. He only rarely has a time where someone has a bead on him, pulls the trigger, the bullet flies out, but he moves faster than it does.

I have no issue with Batman being a difficult, evasive target, but I don't like it when he has superspeed and superstrength without a power suit. I dislike Nightwing, Batgirl, Greenarrow, and Black Canary, on the rare occasions that, through pure gumption, they beat a superhuman or god in their specialty.

Thankfully, that's super rare and I almost never have to deal with it.
 
I mean usually iirc he isn't dodging bullets he just has armor that can take them and hits them from the shadows before they locate him to shoot him
 
I know that the Batman skirmish game is built around the premise that Gotham is dark: guns have extremely short ranges unless a character is near a light source, in which case it's line of sight. This means melee characters (including the batfamily) have better odds then normal because they can lurk in the shadows and attempt to ambush thugs.
 
The Narrator said:
This level of pedantry feels like it's deliberately disingenuous.

People refer to dodging the shooter's aim or make yourself a difficult target as "dodging bullets" all the time.
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And none of that requires super human abilities.
Which is what was claimed of Batman "dodging" bullets.
Context matters.
So, yes, Batman does dodge bullets, but only the same way that almost any human being who ends up in a fire fight does, he's just better at it than most.
 
Valmond said:
And none of that requires super human abilities.
Which is what was claimed of Batman "dodging" bullets.
Context matters.
So, yes, Batman does dodge bullets, but only the same way that almost any human being who ends up in a fire fight does, he's just better at it than most.
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If we're saying that context matters then we should use the initial context, which is talking about Batman's 'higher power' showings, for lack of a better term. And in those showings he isn't really dodging that way. Batman being essentially superhuman when he's in stuff like the Justice league crossovers is a well worn criticism, so I'm not sure why so many people in this thread are suddenly treating it as if it's a novel observation that Batman suddenly gets much stronger, tougher, and acrobatic when he's on league business.

Like, come on, are you suggesting that the Batman who often has to be careful and somewhat strategic about dealing with un-powered thugs in Gotham is showing the same capabilities as the one annihilating Parademons or whatever?
 
Poorly written batman is effectively superhuman, especially in Justice League, but also outside it.
But same is generally true of most action heroes and badass normals.

The point is that "dodging" bullets is not an example of Batman being superhuman.
 
Valmond said:
Poorly written batman is effectively superhuman, especially in Justice League, but also outside it.
But same is generally true of most action heroes and badass normals.

The point is that "dodging" bullets is not an example of Batman being superhuman.
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It absolutely can be though. Like, the scene of Agents and Neo dodging bullets in the Matrix is an incredibly famous scene showing how superhuman both characters are, purely communicated by both dodging bullets. So as you yourself claimed, the context of the claim matters, and it's pretty clear in that context that Kaiya is talking more about Batman or other 'purely human' characters pulling a Neo or something similar.
 
Cosar said:
It absolutely can be though. Like, the scene of Agents and Neo dodging bullets in the Matrix is an incredibly famous scene showing how superhuman both characters are, purely communicated by both dodging bullets. So as you yourself claimed, the context of the claim matters, and it's pretty clear in that context that Kaiya is talking more about Batman or other 'purely human' characters pulling a Neo or something similar.
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That's due to the presentation of the Agents in the Matrix dodging bullets while not moving from their standing position. It's the difference between "I dodge bullets by being faster than them" and "I dodge bullets by not being there when they are fired".

A potential comparison might be in Star Wars, where the Original Trilogy had swordfights operate on "by the time you swing, I have moved out of the way", while the Prequel Trilogy does "I flip around so you cannot even aim your swing".

Still, I've seen examples where characters dodge bullets from close range, just by tilting their head at the exact right moment or some such. (Most recent example was my re-watch of the anime Lycoris Recoil.) It's always presented as "immense training", possibly with "innate talent of excellent kinetic vision and foresight to tell when the opponent is pulling the trigger", but from another point of view it could also be "superpowers that pretend not to be superpowers".

For Batman in particular, I keep thinking back to the Arkham games. If a shooter sees Batman out in the open, Batman is definitely going to get clipped even if he dodges immediately. (And lose HP, which is not explained in the games, but might be like Uncharted's "luck" or body armour degradation or some such.) So "dodging bullets" there is done by moving very quickly via grappling hook, getting occasionally hit due to bad luck, and then trying to hide out of sight. Which doesn't really seem "superhuman", other than the unrealism of the grappling hook, but we've accepted that as standard suspension of disbelief.

I've not read any Batman comics before, but I assume the less good ones present Batman as standing in one spot and just tilting his body to avoid bullets, Agent-style. That's definitely "superhuman", and I can see where the complaints come from with those.
 
Adloquium said:
That's due to the presentation of the Agents in the Matrix dodging bullets while not moving from their standing position. It's the difference between "I dodge bullets by being faster than them" and "I dodge bullets by not being there when they are fired".
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Yes? My point about the presentation of the feat is what matters is, in fact, making the point that the presentation matters. In fact, this entire statement is just rephrasing Kaiya's point about how she differentiates between a human avoiding bullets and a superhuman dodging them(using her personal definition). I'm honestly not sure what you're trying to drive at here?
 
Batman has a variety of incarnations.

Some are more gritty, noir and realistic.

Many use unrealistic action hero tropes. Aside from wearing plot armour he might also perform various implausible to absurd feats of strength, speed, acrobatics, endurance or stealth. Whether it is poor writing depends on your perspective.

If a character tried to act like action hero Batman in a realistic game then I'd expect it go poorly just as I'd expect it to go poorly if someone tried being Batman in real life.
 
Cosar said:
Yes? My point about the presentation of the feat is what matters is, in fact, making the point that the presentation matters. In fact, this entire statement is just rephrasing Kaiya's point about how she differentiates between a human avoiding bullets and a superhuman dodging them(using her personal definition). I'm honestly not sure what you're trying to drive at here?
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Literally this, yes.
Adloquium said:
That's due to the presentation of the Agents in the Matrix dodging bullets while not moving from their standing position. It's the difference between "I dodge bullets by being faster than them" and "I dodge bullets by not being there when they are fired".

A potential comparison might be in Star Wars, where the Original Trilogy had swordfights operate on "by the time you swing, I have moved out of the way", while the Prequel Trilogy does "I flip around so you cannot even aim your swing".

Still, I've seen examples where characters dodge bullets from close range, just by tilting their head at the exact right moment or some such. (Most recent example was my re-watch of the anime Lycoris Recoil.) It's always presented as "immense training", possibly with "innate talent of excellent kinetic vision and foresight to tell when the opponent is pulling the trigger", but from another point of view it could also be "superpowers that pretend not to be superpowers".

For Batman in particular, I keep thinking back to the Arkham games. If a shooter sees Batman out in the open, Batman is definitely going to get clipped even if he dodges immediately. (And lose HP, which is not explained in the games, but might be like Uncharted's "luck" or body armour degradation or some such.) So "dodging bullets" there is done by moving very quickly via grappling hook, getting occasionally hit due to bad luck, and then trying to hide out of sight. Which doesn't really seem "superhuman", other than the unrealism of the grappling hook, but we've accepted that as standard suspension of disbelief.

I've not read any Batman comics before, but I assume the less good ones present Batman as standing in one spot and just tilting his body to avoid bullets, Agent-style. That's definitely "superhuman", and I can see where the complaints come from with those.
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Sometimes he backflips over them after they're fired, it's incredibly obnoxious, yeah. Like, it'd be fine if he had magic or superhuman reflexes, but his whole thing is not having that, but they still want him to judo slam elephant sized monsters and dodge bullets after they're fired.
 
Cosar said:
Yes? My point about the presentation of the feat is what matters is, in fact, making the point that the presentation matters. In fact, this entire statement is just rephrasing Kaiya's point about how she differentiates between a human avoiding bullets and a superhuman dodging them(using her personal definition). I'm honestly not sure what you're trying to drive at here?
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I was agreeing and adding my own viewpoints.
 
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