Super Hero RL - Design Fail?

[guest509]

This page is relevant: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SuperWeight

Superweight, I like it.

That would sort of correspond with character building. You get so many 'power points' to build your character.

Gotta disagree about stats and such only because this is trying to be a game system, not a narrative system. We can argue they are the same, sorta, but I don't get that deep.

[guest509]

You would of course have to include Rogue!  Actually, her ability-absorbing powers could be quite interesting - bump enemies to gain their powers temporarily.  Could lead to some cool tactical gameplay if you're facing a bunch of enemies of different types and need to plan out how to use their abilities against each other.

Oh shiz! Good call. Her power would be pretty easy to implement I think, her 'bump' ability would copy over the other person's powers for a number of terms based off of the rank and her 'energy' stat...

[guest509]

@Quendus - I guess a system could be made that is all about abilities and then hit points or 'KO Resistance' being the only real stat.

You'd have a system like Brogue's. HP and Items make your character, only in this case HP and Powers make up your character.

[wire_hall_medic]

I've been kicking around something similar for quite a while too; here's kind of an info dump on what I've been thinking.

The player should always feel powerful.  Most enemies should go down in one hit, three tops.  And there should be a lot of them.  There would of course be champions, who are a lot tougher.  And of course the super villains . . .

I wanted to do open world, but it was just a staggering amount of work for something I didn't really want the player to dink around with (exploring an apartment building isn't getting you closer to something actually interesting).  So I settled on a linear game (what you called a dungeon dive).  The game is divided into progressively longer episodes of several maps with a common theme; there is very little healing available, but the player entirely refreshes between episodes.  Episodes have (at least) one supervillain at the end, and an associated story (ie, bank robbery, morlock invasion, etc).

Episodes should culminate in something more interesting that "beat up the bad guy" most of the time.  Disarming bombs, evacuating civilians, etc.  Of course, the bad guy will be there too . . .

For combat, I'll be doing an attack roll to hit (if 2d12 + attackStat - defenseStat >= 13, it's a hit).  Attack stats are shooting, fighting, and throwing.  Defense stats are dodge (for ranged), and parry (for melee, or ranged attacks from adjacent squares).  Damage is damageRoll - armor.  Damage types are energy or physical, and armor applies to them separately (that is, there's a physicalArmor and an energyArmor).

Collateral damage.  It's not a comic book if the city doesn't get smashed up.

Interactive environments.  Any character can throw debris, if standing in a square of rubble (strong guys can throw bigger things too).  Characters have a jump stat; that's how many high-passable squares (like pits, tables, and low walls) they can jump over.  For example, a character with a jump of 2 could vault over small pits and tables.  A character with a jump of 10 can leap rooftop to rooftop.  Characters who can fly cannot jump; they just treat high-passable squares like terrestrial characters treat low-passable squares.

The player chooses a number of powers at the start of the game.  One of these is a major power, which has a big impact on how the game plays (essentially picking an archetype).  Each power has 5 sequential bonuses the player gets as they put more points into them; however the best benefit is the FIRST on the list.  Players get fairly few powers at the start of the game, and a handful more as the game progresses.  They do however get a bunch of points to level up their powers, though not enough to max out everything.  Shallow power curve.  Bonuses from powers can be static or activated abilities.

Activated abilities have a cooldown time.  Lower cooldown times can be given as bonuses (ie, the Human Torch type character has reduced cooldown for energy attack powers).

Action points.  The player starts each episode with 1 action point, and can have up to 5.  When the player uses an action point, they get to take two turns in a row (ie, their next action does not reduce their energy level; I like the ADOM/DoomRL energy system).

Gadgets.  The player comes across gadgets; items which can be used a number of times per episode.  The could provide temporary buffs (like a jetpack, or force field projector), or activated abilities (like gas grenades or a grappling gun).

Stealth is a thing.  Fear is a thing (player characters are, of course, fearless).

I had thought about a reputation system, but I'm more interested in a hackfest, rather than a more resource management-oriented system.

I decided to keep it abstract; The Punisher's gun and Green Arrow's arrow are both ranged physical shooting attacks.  I'm going to let the player pick the powers pretty freely; if they want to play Gambit, they shouldn't have to load the game over and over until they get what they want.

I've been trying to get excited about programming it for Android, but I HATE Eclipse, and I'm not so fond of XML.  So I'll probably just do it for console.  I'm working under the title "Rogue City Heroes."

[Paul Jeffries]

One thing that could make the 'energy' stat more interesting is if it were tied in thematically with the source of that character's powers. 

For example: Superman and Cyclops are solar-powered, so their abilities would recharge faster when outside and in daylight.  The Hulk's strength is proportional to his anger, so he would get an energy boost every time he got hit.  Iron Man would have to go and plug himself in (or get hit by an electrical attack) to recharge.

Similarly, there could be situations that would cause the character to lose all their powers and revert to standard human form temporarily;  Krytonite for Superman, inhibitor collars for mutants, being away from Mjolnir for too long for Thor and so on.

[guest509]

One thing that could make the 'energy' stat more interesting is if it were tied in thematically with the source of that character's powers. 

For example: Superman and Cyclops are solar-powered, so their abilities would recharge faster when outside and in daylight.  The Hulk's strength is proportional to his anger, so he would get an energy boost every time he got hit.  Iron Man would have to go and plug himself in (or get hit by an electrical attack) to recharge.

Similarly, there could be situations that would cause the character to lose all their powers and revert to standard human form temporarily;  Krytonite for Superman, inhibitor collars for mutants, being away from Mjolnir for too long for Thor and so on.

Oh yes. A 'solar buff' or whatever that ups energy recharge rate. You can make it generic. Like popeye would have a spinach buff...:-)

As for the achilles heal and weakness, that would be a mechanic put in later. Have to think on how to do that. Most SuperRPG's have some sort of thing like that though, so it should be doable.

[guest509]

I've been kicking around something similar for quite a while too; here's kind of an info dump on what I've been thinking.
....

This is all great stuff. I think the key is going to be the episodic system. It provides a certain limitation, without that the game becomes hard to develop. I think I'll go with a procedural city, but with the missions/episodes sort of starting when you discover the bad guy doing something bad.

I've given thought as well to just having an headquarters screen where you are given a list of missions to go on, ranked by how hard they are. Traveling too and from the location is not part of the game. In this way you can go to the moon, mars, space station, cave lair, etc...you aren't limited to Hero City or whatever. The benefit of having a city is that you can walk around patrolling trying to stop crimes...I think the mission based system is FAR more doable.

The reputation mechanic will come into play when you meet police or other government agents. They will help, hinder or just ignore you.

[guest509]

@Wirehall -  When I get something truly workable I'll post it. I think a truly workable RPG system transferrable to a roguelike is a major design hurdle. I'm currently working on a cohesive system of powers with DiabloIII's system in mind. But of course you don't have to pick a certain Archetype, you can build your own, but Archetypes will be available to choose so you can jump in quickly.

City of Heroes has great archetype examples. And yes, for flavor the 'energy' system can be anything from 'focus' to 'rage' to 'solar power' to 'chi' to 'baddassery' to 'spinach' etc...your 'origin' category can effect this.

An example of the system I am trying to create. The 'blast' or 'ranged' or 'shoot' power is going to be fairly common. Examples...

<Flavor Text> SHOOT (RANK, EFFECTS, DRAWBACK)

The flavor text can by like Eye Beam, Gun, Ninja Stars or whatever. SHOOT is the generic game mechanic. Rank will be the damage level of the power, 1 for a sling shot and 9 for a huge cannon.

EFFECTS are status effects. Like pushback, damage over time, freeze, stun, debuff etc...explosion on target might be an effect too for like grenades and fireballs and such.

Note the EFFECTS are sort of like the runes system in Diablo III, allowing you to mod each ability somewhat.

Other generic powers:
DEFENSE [for armor, dodge or whatever helps a character avoid damage, permanent or toggle]
MOVEMENT [flying, web slinging, long jumping can all be done generically as 'terrain ignore abilities']
FIGHT [Close combat ability, bump attack basically. Rank 9 for adamantium claws.]
BUFF [Temporary + defense, fight, etc...think Hulking up, etc...]
RESIST [ignore some type of damage or status effect, a high rank is nigh immune to a damage type]
STEALTH [pretty basic, it just applies the 'hidden' status on the player while active]

Of course there will be more rare and exotic ones, like Rogue's powers, but just those ones above you can make passable versions of many heroes. Then you can build from there.

Check out HiLo Heroes online, it does some good generic treatments and solid mechanics.
http://dreamsanddragons.blogspot.com/p/hilo-heroes.html

Also check out Heroes Unlimited for some great random origin/background/flavor tables. Truly a fine and under rated product. PM me if you want a copy of the PDF, but if I were you I'd totally just buy it, along with the second super powers book which has tons of other 'origins' like super soldier, eugenics, side kicks, etc...

[guest509]

Also the Awesome Sauce RPG cannot be overlooked. :-)

http://trollhammerpress.blogspot.com/2012/02/other-p-rpgs-8-awesomesauce-roleplaying.html

It uses that 'action point' type mechanic, where on each adventure/mission/episode they can expend their points to do amazing things. This is also called 'edge' in some systems.

[guest509]

Hey Wirehall, you might add a dodge mechanic that's actually a dodge. As in, your character will actually jump to the side? I've always wanted to see that, perhaps it breaks the RL type game a bit because it takes control of your character...but I like NOT being able to dodge in a narrow passageway, makes for a greater variety of tactics in a combat heavy genre.

[wire_hall_medic]

Hey Wirehall, you might add a dodge mechanic that's actually a dodge. As in, your character will actually jump to the side? I've always wanted to see that, perhaps it breaks the RL type game a bit because it takes control of your character...but I like NOT being able to dodge in a narrow passageway, makes for a greater variety of tactics in a combat heavy genre.

That'd make a great ability for a martial arts character.  On a successful dodge, you get to choose an adjacent square to move into, which can be the attacker's square (but not any other character's).  Other reactions could be a possibility too; counter striking, throws . . .

[Vanguard]

Hey Wirehall, you might add a dodge mechanic that's actually a dodge. As in, your character will actually jump to the side? I've always wanted to see that, perhaps it breaks the RL type game a bit because it takes control of your character...but I like NOT being able to dodge in a narrow passageway, makes for a greater variety of tactics in a combat heavy genre.

Dwarf Fortress does this, but you can't control where you move.  Once I was having a duel on top of a tower, and my character jumped over the edge to avoid an attack.

[spelk]

Wirehall, any news or updates on your work on Rogue City Heroes?

[Trystan]

Has anyone started something like this? I've been looking for a small project to polish up my own roguelike framework and this seems like a fun project for it.

[guest509]

Oh man dude, I'm not sure a super hero roguelike is a small project at all. The character building, all the different power effects and the underlying game system to support all of that is daunting. Just daunting.

I have been working on a game system that would work mechanically, but it's still very much on the drawing board.