Champions Now PDF

NOW
From Champions the Super Role-Playing Game,

by George MacDonald and Steve Peterson
The storyline or plot of the game should be very flexible and responsive to the decisions of
the players. No two adventures will be the same, because of the different directions that the
characters can take. The Game Master should be willing to integrate the player’s ideas and
responses into the game. Ideally, a role playing game involves continuous feedback between
the players and the Game Master.
1st Edition (1981)
CHAMPIONS is not a game for the weak at heart. It takes guts, intelligence, and
imagination to succeed. It will be worth it.
3rd Edition (1985)
Author: Layout:
Ron Edwards Ruben Smith-Zempel
Cover Art: Editing:

Erica Rossi Jason S. Walters
Interior Art: Development:

Rod Anderson, Brendan & Brian Jason S. Walters
Fraim, Sarah Yoshimura
Publisher:
Art Direction: Hero Games
Ruben Smith-Zempel
HERO SystemTM ® is DOJ, Inc.’s trademark for its roleplaying system. Champions Now is Copyright 2020 by DOJ, Inc. d/b/a
Hero Games.
HERO System Copyright © 1984, 1989, 2002, 2009 by DOJ, Inc. d/b/a Hero Games. All rights reserved.
All DOJ trademarks and copyrights used with permission. For further information about Hero Games and the HERO System,
visit www.herogames.com.
1
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Chapter 2: Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Chapter 3: Your Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Chapter 4: Special Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Chapter 5: Hero Making. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Chapter 6: Structural Mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Chapter 7: Villain Making. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Chapter 8: The Now. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Chapter 9: What’s Happening. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Chapter 10: This is the World We Live in. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Chapter 11: Fighting Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Chapter 12: Dynamic Mechanics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Chapter 13: The Next Now . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Chapter 14: Who are You. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Chapter 15: You Must Change. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Appendix: the Defiants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
2
Chapter 1
Introduction
Chapter One • Introduction
W elcome to a superhero comics role-playing game. There are many, but this one
is uniquely yours. Its original version was inspired by newsstand comics which
were wide-open for weird and headstrong creators, so appropriately, it was the
first role-playing game to hand you and a few friends the creative studio, in full.
The instruments in the studio can’t do anything by themselves. As a group, this
will be your own superhero comic experience. No one can tell you what a hero is.
No one can tell you what makes a superhero comic silly or not silly, cool or not
cool, retro or contemporary, appropriate or inappropriate, safe or edgy, relevant
or not relevant – or which of each paired terms you should favor. You don’t have
to conform to an existing franchise’s commitments or to a fanbase’s expectations.
Here are the tools. Here are the instruments. Let’s see what you make with them!
Diamonds in the garbage

Face it: superhero comics are junk. They were born in black market paper
racketeering, to dispose of the excess as literal “pulp,” in stapled reprints of
newspaper adventure strips, even cheaper than the throwaway paperbacks and
soft porn mags. Their bulk concealed boxcar transport of bootlegged booze,
illegal birth-control kits, and stolen goods. They were meant to disappear into
the unaccountable newsstands, losing money in the tax books while spreading
vig in the shadows. Even at purchase they smelled of already-rotten newsprint
and the cheap ink which rubbed off at second contact.
Who cared what was printed on the pulp? Desperate, dissolute, or naïve creators
could be hired and swindled for a bit more content to launder more paper. They
scribbled crazy, stupid stuff copied and mixed-up from all sorts of pop culture
of the time. Thuggery, vigilantism, radio-theater drama, science fiction, fetish,
and idealism collided. There was a super-strong man in circus tights delivering
a suspiciously socialist brand of two-fisted justice, a pistol-packing avenger in a
Halloween costume battling organized crime or at least extirpating some of it,
and a boy whose magic word launched a fantasy and science fiction universe of
adventure. They were soon joined by many others, including a mythic princess
showing as much skin as possible who fronted for her creators’ polyamory and
sex-positive BDSM. (1)
Hardly anyone would call this “art” for generations, and those who did
disavowed the costumed superheroes. But that was a mistake, because they
had something special. Down there in their underground, trashy media, they
were afforded surprising freedom. Even when their images were scrubbed clean
and made patriotic in newspaper strips, radio, movies, and television, their
subversive, indulgent, insightful, and audacious features kept sneaking forth in
the newsstands.
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A golden-skinned hero best understood as Hippie Space Jesus explained it

perfectly, when he was trapped in a psycho-verse called “The Land of the Way
It Is,” confronted with piles of garbage built by insane clowns. He finds amazing,
priceless gems buried in there. (2)
... the most beautiful substance known of throughout the galaxy! What’s it doing
in this garbage heap?
Oh, that stuff! We just can’t seem to get it out of our refuse! Someone keeps
putting it in there while we’re not looking!
How could the diamonds keep appearing, and how were they discovered and
valued by feckless youth, year after year? No creator was rewarded for being
good at it, and no reader was rewarded for appreciating it. Maybe it was how you
bought them without permission or oversight, the way they constantly arrived,
and how you individually chose which to get, how you ultimately enjoyed them
by yourself, free from supervision. Or maybe it was a way to receive adult voices
without institutional framing or demands, simply as shared creativity and
thought. The superheroes offered fantasy, yet commented upon the world we
knew, and they connected far-flung people socially, yet without expectations.
But that’s all better now, right? Superheroes have arrived! They are cool! We
have movies, toys, games... but that’s not true. Superheroes had movies, toys,
and games ever since their beginning. The question wasn’t whether they’d go
mainstream. It was whether the superheroes’ weird, uncontrollable power
uniquely in the comics would survive.
And that battle is over. For three or four decades, as the owners grappled for
profitable buy-outs and presence in other media, the comics were kept going to
maintain IP, with their content ignored or pilloried. In this context, occasional
idealistic, alienated creators could share their thing with their young soulmates
en masse each generation. For three or four decades more, as the corporatism
gelled and its lowering gaze turned more attentively toward the little pamphlets,
creators dodged subordination here and there, but less and less. As of the 1990s,
the paper no longer smelled bad, and that was the beginning of the end.
By the 2010’s, the ultimate villain Doctor Franchise has won. The comics are
engineered adjuncts for other media, a clever way for customers to pay for the
advertising, like buying t-shirts with logos on them. Although a movie can be a
good movie and a TV/Netflix show can be a good show, their superheroes are
solid commercial fare, with no garbage and no diamonds. They are comfortably
dramatic, broadly enjoyable, intelligently reminiscent or deconstructive - and
nothing more. They have suffered the inescapable death of legitimacy. The strong
man cannot break these chains. The detective vigilante cannot thwart this trap.
The amazon princess cannot slip from the ropes and bind her captor, to his secret
delight. The ultimate hero’s magic word may be spoken but its meaning is silenced.
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Then again, the underground never dies. Webcomics have taken up the role,
and the superheroes in them are full of energy and authentic content. Good old
table-top role-playing remains exactly in the same shadowy, no-account position
to other media that it always had, just as comics had previously. At this moment,
in pop culture’s most dispersed, uncontrollable, and creatively dynamic art form,
perhaps our very own superheroes are needed more than ever. (3)
This game, your game

You play it with a few friends, typically three or four, although the rules are robust
for just one player and one game master, and for up to as many as nine or ten
players if you don’t mind more ensemble-style, rambling play. It’s not a one-shot,
convention-scenario type experience. Long-term play is incredibly strong, and
even a few sessions pay off big too.
It begins with brief statements to customize your shared comics title, then
proceeds into players’ own inspirations for heroes, and then into the game master
developing a landscape of supporting cast and antagonists, working mainly from
the hero sheets.
The immediate instruments for play itself are few: just the hero and villain
sheets. Nearly everything else in play is either common knowledge, perhaps with
some paper references, or auxiliary to a sheet, like a map of some location that’s
important to a hero or targeted by a villain. Oh, and dice, lots of them, all six-
sided. You will be rolling big handfuls sometimes.
Here’s what the rules about roles look like:
▶ Aside from heroes’ contributions, backstory content is the game master’s job.
▶ Situations in play are nailed down in frames, or transitional panels if you will, by
the game master, but also determined by players through their heroes’ actions.
▶ Conflicts and crises are sometimes prepared, but may always emerge through
played events.
▶ Mechanical outcomes are rock solid: there are no special points to adjust rolls,
no take-backs, no re-rolls, and no fudging.
▶ Several mechanics have considerable plot impact, especially concerning
dramatic interactions and luck.
▶ Minor details of locations and circumstances are open to casual additions by
anyone.
▶ Colorful details of situations and outcomes may be included by anyone.
▶ Ongoing development of the heroes and a great deal about their circumstances
are the players’ job.
6
Play is full of supporting cast and antagonists who have strong feelings and
poor impulse control, in a world that’s full of the real contrasts and pressures
that we all know. A session typically features intersections or juxtaposition of
what everybody is doing, without much need to stage or shoehorn anything into
position, because something’s going to blow!
Outcomes of these situations are operatic and violent: conflicting goals and
ideals, desperate and dangerous combat, discharges of weaponry, trade-offs
among heartfelt priorities, every conceivable version of explosion, proclamations
of all sorts, the breaking and re-shaping of relationships tried to their limits,
the destruction of unfortunate architecture, heartrending disclosures, and
occasionally the sundering of time and space. Never mind going over the top.
There is no top.
Or sometimes, with the same intensity and operating by the same rules, things
turn out gentle, authentic, kind, uplifting, heartwarming, insightful and - if you’re
not too cynical - beautiful enough to make you cry buckets and be glad you’re
alive. Hard to believe, but it happens.
The system drives toward conclusions. Fights are won or lost, goals are met or
failed, people and locations are affected, political and social power arrangements
shift. A session’s events means things have happened, and the next one begins with
a new landscape of active persons in motion and potential crises to be resolved.
The heroes change too. Players have a lot of heft to improve and alter their
heroes’ capabilities and the complications that define their dramatic lives. In
time, these changes drive session preparation as much as anything the game
master has in mind.
Heraclitus of Ephesus tells us, No one can step into the same river twice; for one
thing, it’s not the same river, and for another, you’re not the same person. What’s
happening all around the heroes has changed since last time, and the hero you
bring to play has changed too.
What is this version?

Here’s my concept of the history of games published as versions of Champions.
First-generation Champions is comprised of the first three editions (1981,
1982, 1984/85), which are recognizable as a single design project by the same
authors and their publishing company. It’s notable for a few things:
▶ It includes no setting at all, and no canonical characters or fictional history to use.
▶ It relies solely upon the users’ own enthusiasm, knowledge, and standards for
what comics heroes, villains, and stories are like.
▶ Its rules must be customized by concepts and descriptions provided by the
users, or else they won’t work.
7
During this time, the company produced several other games (e.g. Super Agents,
Danger International, Justice Inc, and at the end of this phase, Fantasy Hero) and
arrived at the idea of a Hero System which would unite them. However, as yet, it
was just an idea and this version of Champions, despite being the founding title,
is “not like the others” in several key ways.
In the late 1980s, the Hero System was designed, and its current games were
redesigned to fit into it. Champions presents a special case, as its imprint was
leased by Iron Crown Enterprises and the Hero System version, or 4th edition
(1989), was designed by a different creative team from the original authors. It
was published almost simultaneously with the first textual Hero System (1990),
recognizably its own thing as second-generation Champions. It includes a general
shift toward a canonical setting and its philosophy of design and play conforms
more to the original Danger International or Star Hero, as well as the recently
published GURPS (Steve Jackson Games), than to the first-generation version.
The unique features of the original design were minimized or abandoned.
As with most of pop culture, things got a little complicated in the 1990s. You
can learn more about the R. Talsorian publishing phase including Fuzion and the
brief Cybergames phase at the Hero Games website.
Then in 2001, Hero Games was acquired by DOJ Inc, with Steve Long as the
lead designer, to re-launch the Hero System including Champions 5th edition.
These titles are the capstone of the second generation, collating and refining the
developments and diversification of the system’s past decade, including Steve’s
Dark Champions among many others. They went on to develop the canonical
setting in detail, including a license to Cryptic Studios in 2009 for the MMORPG
Champions Online.
In 2010, DOJ Inc also published Steve Long’s powerful Champions 6th edition,
which is very much its own thing, like a springboard from the previous versions
at a different angle. I like to think of it as “Champions Steve.”
Champions Now is similar: a springboard with its own direction, but
furthermore, from a different starting point at the first-generation only. The
exact titles include Champions 1st, 2nd, and 3rd editions, selected parts of the
supplements Champions II and Champions III, and Aaron Allston’s campaign
supplement Strike Force.
These ancient and forgotten texts carry considerable wisdom and power which
I have tried to forge anew. We played them, changed things, played more, changed
things, and just kept going. Between you and me, I thought I’d hit a stopping-
point beyond which I couldn’t or wouldn’t go, and wind up with not much more
than a nostalgic best-practices guide for this historical phase of the game. To
my surprise, there came a traumatic moment of breaking a concept-barrier, after
which I could actually design my own Champions after all.
8
The what now?

The “Now” captures the features of first-generation Champions that I’d like to
bring forward. Here’s my best shot at stating them outright.
Playing this game is only, and ever, about creating a comics title of your own. It’s
not planning it, it’s not promising it, it’s not dreaming about it, it’s not pitching it,
it’s not promoting or marketing it. This is it – do it now, as awesome or schlocky
as it may be. As with the great superhero comics, it will probably be a mix.
It doesn’t have a fictional or textual setting, no ‘Verse. You’re working off “Earth
Now,” meaning, the world as you know it and how you think it works, used as
the backdrop for super-powered conflicts. Anything about it can be tweaked and
truly bizarre made-up nonsense can be popped wherever it might be needed, but
you also stay authentic about those real-world things you care about most, the
politics and locations and values and people that fuel the conflicts of today.
The immediate problems and emergencies of play arise from the heroes and
villains – their goals, their problems, their relationships, and their efforts. They
include a rich supporting cast full of opinions and actions. You can be ready with
what everyone is doing at the start of the session; but a few events into it, you have
to play what they’re up to now, prior expectations be damned.
The rules of play proceed by two overriding principles: first, that the fictional
qualities of all those powers and super-stuff feed into the mechanics in striking
ways; second, that complicated and dangerous situations can swing one way or
the other quite drastically. You can’t predict how a fight or crisis will turn out, not
in every way, and often not at all.
9
There’s no planned epic; arcs emerge organically. Situations shake out into
resolutions, relationships break up and re-form, and heroes undergo crises,
transformations, and conclusions. By playing, you ride the wave-front of fiction
in action, and the path you’ve traveled turns out to be comics authorship.
The heroes themselves change in unexpected ways, so that you find that you
didn’t build who he or she “is” back at the start of play, only what he or she
seemed like at the beginning. Who are they really, and what have they become?
You discover your hero through play - and by this point it’s too late. He or she is
already becoming even more than that.
I hope you can see it. Now what will happen?
References
This book refers to many comics superheroes, more or less anonymously to avoid
distraction from the game. But it’s not supposed to be clever or a guessing game
either, so all the names and specific references are given at the end of each chapter.
(1) Superman was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, first appearing in
issue #1 of Action Comics (1938), submitted to Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson’s
company National Allied Publications, but published or stolen, depending on
who you talk to, by Independent News. Batman was nominally created by Bob
Kane, possibly more so by Bill Finger, first appearing in issue #27 of Detective
Comics (1939), published by the intermittent company Detective Comics Inc,
just as it was acquired by Independent News. Wonder Woman was created
by William Moulton Marston and Harry G. Peter, first appearing in All-Star
Comics #8 (1941), published by All-American Comics, which was financed by
Independent News, soon reconfigured into National Comics, and absorbed in a
complex merger into National Periodical Publications in the mid-1940s.
Captain Marvel was created by Bill Parker and C. C. Beck, first appearing in
issue #2 of Whiz Comics(1940), published by Fawcett Publications. Superman,
originally street-political and a bit thuggish, would be reconceived and revised
throughout the 1940s to resemble his more friendly and cosmic rival.
(2) Adam Warlock, at the time authored and illustrated by Jim Starlin,
confronted The Land of the Way It Is in Strange Tales #181 (1975), published by
Cadence Industries under the Marvel Comics Group imprint.
(3) Superhero webcomics include Magellan, Strong Female Protagonist, Grrl
Power, Spinnerette, Supervillainous, Most, Ms Rocket, Pulse, Inhibit, and Switch,
among many others.
10
Table-top superhero role-playing games:

Date Stand Alone V&V/Dee HERO GURPS/Jackson Licensed
(included due
to influence and
platform)
1977 Superhero 2044 (2x) TFT: Melee*
1978 TFT: Wizard*
1979 Villains & Vigilantes
1980 Supergame The Fantasy Trip*
1981 Official Superhero Champions
Adventure Game
1982 Golden Heroes/
Super Villains V&V
revised Champions
2nd/Champions II
1983 Superworld/Super
Squadron
1984 Heroes Unlimited Champions III Marvel Super
Heroes
1985 Challengers Champions 3rd DC Heroes
1986 GURPS
1987 Enforcers (2x)/ GURPS 2nd Marvel Super
Heroes Unlimited Heroes Adv.
revised
1988 Strike Force GURPS 3rd
1989 Champions 4th/Hero GURPS: Supers/
System Super Scum/Wild
Cards
DC Heroes 2nd
1990 GURPS: Supers 2nd
1991 Guardians
1992
1993 Underground Dark Champions DC Heroes 3rd/
Superbabes/Heroes
& Heroines
1994 Street Fighter
1995
1996 Champions: The
New Millenium
1997 Heroic Do-Gooders
& Dastardly
Deed-Doers/Trinity/
Stuperpowers!
1998 Blood of Heroes/ Marvel Super
Heroes Unlimited Heroes Adventures
2nd
1999 Brave New World/ DC Universe
Aberrant
2000
2001 Nemesis/Godsend
Agenda
11
Table-top superhero role-playing games:

Date Stand Alone V&V/Dee HERO GURPS/Jackson Licensed
(included due
to influence and
platform)
2002 Mutants & Champions 5th
Masterminds/Silver
Age Sentinels (2x)/
Godlike
2003 Inou Tsukai Marvel Universe
2004 Trinity D20 GURPS 4th The Authority Role-
Playing Game
2005 With Great Power.../
Capes/Truth &
Justice/BASH!/
Living Legends
2006 Wild Talents Big Bang Comics
2007 GURPS: Supers 3rd
2008
2009
2010 Icons/Inou Tsukai V&V 2.1/V&V 2nd Champions 6th M&M: DC
2nd/Supers! Adventures
2011
2012 Capes, Cowls & Champions Marvel Heroic
Villains Foul Complete
2013 Triumphant!/
Prowlers &
Paragons
2014 Masks/Supers!
Revised
2015 Sentinels of Echo
City/Superhuman/
Metagene/With
Great Power...
revised/Worlds in
Peril
2016 Phase Four
2017 Wearing the Cape Mighty Protectors
(V&V 3.0)
2018 Capers
I would like to mention that the terms “Superman DC” and “DC Superman” were
imprints, not a company, acquiring commercial status as DC Comics in 1977 as
a small division of Warner Communications, which had absorbed NPP during
its own merger-birth in the late 1960s. The terms “Marvel Comics” and “Marvel
Comics Group” were similarly never a company, acquiring commercial status
when Cadence Industries was purchased by New World Pictures in 1986, as an
internal division of New World Entertainment.
12
Comic Book Publication History

Date DC Marvel Others
This sequence maintains This sequence includes shell Many of these are affected
ownership by Harry Donenfeld companies and confusing by or intertwined with DC
and Jack Leibowitz, including practices; some names are and Marvel; some names are
the single sale and merger omitted. It changes owners omitted. Entries in italics were
into Warner (* asterisk). many times (* asterisks). soon absorbed into the DC
Entries in italics were column.
licensing companies that
became owners.
1925 1929 Dell Comics
1930 1934 National Allied
Publications/1935 More Fun
Comics #1
1935 Independent News/1938 Goodman Publications 1936 The Phantom
Action Comics #1/1939 (imprints: Timely, Atlas, (newspaper)
Acquires NAP, AAC, & QC Marvel, others)/1939 Marvel 1937 Detective Comics
Comics #1 #1/1937 NAP includes
Detective Comics
Inc/1938 All-American
Comics (includes All-Star
Comics)/1939 Fawcett
Comics, Quality Comics
13
Comic Book Publication History

1940 1940 The Spirit
1945 National Comics merger 1947 Magazine Management 1945 Charlton Comics/1946
Acquires NAP & AAC Archie Comics/1947
National Periodical Entertaining Comcs (EC)
Publications includes NC
1950 Approx. 1951 consistently
uses “Superman DC” imprint
1955 1956 acquires Quality
properties
1960 1960 NPP acquires Fantastic Four #1 / Approx. 1960 Warren Publications
Superman Inc/1961 NPP 1963 consistently uses
issues public stock 1961 “Marvel Comics” imprint
1965 * 1966 Kinney Service * 1968 Perfect Film & 1965 Tower Comics/1968
Inc/1968 Warner merger Chemical Corporation witzend
1970 1972 licenses Captain Marvel 1970 Cadence Industries 1972 Seaboard Periodicals
(name change) (Atlas/Seagate)
1975 1977 DC Comics named 1977 Eclipse Enterprises,
within Warner Heavy Metal Magazine (U.S.)
1980 1981 Capital Comics, Pacific
Comics/1982 Comico, Warrior
Comics (U.K.)/1983 First
Comics
1985 1986 acquires Charlton * 1986 New World 1986 Dark Horse Comics,
properties/1989 Warner-Time- Entertainment/* 1988 Malibu Comics, Innovation
Life merger Compact Video (Andrews Publishing/1989 Voyager
Group) Communications (Valiant
Comics)
1990 1991 acquires Fawcett 1991 issues public stock/1992 1992 Image Comics (6
properties Toy Biz studios)
1995 1996 Marvel Studios/* 1996 Homage Comics
1998 Marvel Entertainment
(includes TB & MS)
2000 2001 Time-Warner + AOL
merger
2005 * 2009 Disney
2010
2015 2018 AT&T merger =
WarnerMedia
14
Chapter 2
Basics
Chapter Two • Basics
G ame mechanics are about procedures and results, with everyone empowered
to use their instruments in pursuit of them. The main instruments for everyone,
game master and players alike, are their hero sheets. They are most like musical
instruments in that they provide specific opportunities and features; but the
human holding them determines what they do in the moment, and playing
together shows us how they interact with one another.
There’s no consensus, no negotiation, no scene contruction conferencing, no
“how about” workshopping, no story points, no adjustment of rolls, no massaging
of outcomes – you do it to do it, and you get what you get.
The sheet
Every group, or table, is creating its own unique comics title, beginning with
framing statements. To understand someone’s hero sheet, you must know the
statements they used to create it. This example is taken from a game based on
these:
▶ A superhero stands for something and means it.
▶ You got family in my politics! You got politics in my family!
▶ It was set in Hartford, Connecticut, at the suggestion of a player who’d grown
up there.
Your game doesn’t have to be more politically charged than you collectively
want it to be, but superhero comics have always leaned that way. This playtest’s
statements follow that leaning, and the heroes show it. (1)
This hero was made for this game: RUBY RAY. She’s conceived from these
ideas:
▶ The person: rejects mainstream lifestyles, rebel soul; very close family and
friends, abstracted toward everyone else; Dark Web DJ, underground reputation
and income
▶ The powers: zooms around as a bright red laser beam, almost “zaps” from
place to place, public appearances and heroic actions, legitimized by facing a
dangerous supervillain
▶ The problems: marginalized, disaffected, unfairly criminalized, in danger from
both “sides” of the law
The sheet begins with her Situations because these, more than anything else,
provide the material for how the player and game master describe what she’s
doing and what’s happening around her during play.
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Situations
Public Identity
Psych: Stands up for marginalized person’s selfhood (often)
Psych: Brash (sometimes)
Psych: Fun-loving (sometimes)
Vulnerable: 2x Knockout from red-colored attacks or hazards
Dependent non-player character: Bri, her brother (secret identity)
Hunted: Killer Coil (individual, super-powered, ruinous)
Hunted: Federal Communications Commission (organization, manipulative)
Ruby Ray’s difficult circumstances should be pretty clear. She’s a principled

outlaw hero, so she has enemies at both ends: the establishment FCC, a real-
world organization well known for its secure hold on entertainment, media
content, and economics, and a dangerous criminal supervillain. These are made
tougher because she’s “out” to the world in all ways, in terms of her real name and
general availability.
That openness carries some more weight given that her “super weakness” is not
easy to hide; and that her brother and ally, Bri, has his own reasons to keep the
relationship and his activism entirely secret. A Dependent Non-Player Character
(NPC) is defined by the phrase, “their problems are your problems,” so Ruby Ray
helps with that secrecy.
That leaves the three psychological Situations. How are they used? Most casually,
they give everyone playing a good indicator of what impressions Ruby Ray makes
on other people, and how often. They do not include the words “always” or
“cannot” – they provide a good baseline for her inclinations, but it’s the player’s
choice how Ruby Ray acts toward or against them at any given moment. They are
windows of vulnerability for Ego-based powers, but they can also be sources of
bonus dice when they’re spontaneously invoked.
How are these Situation things used, exactly? Extensively, because there is no
pre-conceived story to find or follow. Instead, the game master and players have
jobs to do.
▶ Game master jobs: play the Hunted and Dependent NPC Situations proactively;
introduce people and hazards which are relevant to the Psychological issues;
describe or request details regarding how the Identity is addressed by strangers
or handled by the character; be ready for Vulnerabilities and other limiting
factors to be invoked by events.
▶ Players’ jobs: put the Psychological issues into action, whether to indulge or
resist them; be proactive regarding the Dependent NPCs’ Situations; address
concerns about Identity; and cope with the Hunted Situations as best you can.
17
Although the two jobs concern different fictional entities, they’re more similar
than they’re different, because both introduce actions and events. It’s not about
players waiting for the game master to do something to them. As far as where
play happens and what anyone is doing there, the players “GM” the game master
as much as he or she “GMs” them, just because they say what their heroes are
doing.
Characteristics Endurance cost
Strength 2d6/- +6d6 Strength only when flying/Presence 3d6 2/+6
Body 14/- Recovery 14, Stunned 14, Knockout 28, Endurance
42/Speed 4/Defense 10
Dexterity 13/Intelligence 12/Ego 11
Two of the Characteristics, Strength and Presence, work similarly. An ordinary

person has a score of 2d6 for each, and each additional die roughly doubles its
magnitude.
The Strength Chart in Chapter 9: This is the World We Live In shows how strong
Strength is. When Ruby Ray isn’t flying, she’s no stronger than an ordinary person.
When she’s flying, she’s incredibly strong, able to bring a medium-sized truck
along, to smash through a solid wall, or to meet and possibly stop an oncoming
small plane. However, that’s not a maximum. Anyone can push harder to go
above their listed value at the risk of hurting themselves.
When she’s exerting Strength against some opposition or trying to break or
hold something, you roll the score with dice: 8d6 for Strength if she’s flying, or
2d6 if she’s not. This is a magnitude roll, or “damage” if you like. You don’t have
to roll to hit just to exert force.
For example, Killer Coil has grabbed her with those robotic tentacle-coils, and
Ruby Ray tries to tear out of there by flying. Here, I’ll roll eight dice: 1, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6.
You read them in a coded way called the Core result.
▶ For each 6, count two points
▶ For each 1 count zero points
▶ For anything else, count one point.
For Strength, the Core indicates the genuine damage that it does, or how much
it opposes whatever countervailing force she’s up against. In this case, the result
is 0 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 2 = 9.
When you’re striking someone, you read the same dice another way,
simultaneously: you add the showing values for a grand sum. This is the Knockout,
in this case, 33. Since our particular case is a contest of grab vs. escape, we only
care about the Core, which is contested by a similar roll made by Killer Coil. The
Knockout result is only used for fisticuffs and blast’em powers damage.
18
19
All this exertion doesn’t come from nothing. You pay for it with Endurance, at
the same rate of 1 per 1d6 of Strength. In rolling to break the grab, successful or
not, Ruby Ray spends 8 points of Endurance; in fact, more than that, because it
costs Endurance to fly too. She can also “push” her Strength and Powers past the
listed limits, which burns up Endurance a lot faster.
Ruby Ray is noticeably more “present” in a social or communications situation
than most people. Presence affects play differently from physical features and
powers: it’s a free action, you only count the Core value, and it costs no Endurance.
It’s subject to a lot of immediate modifiers, so Ruby Ray could be looking at a
pretty wide range of possible total dice to roll. Presence Attacks are wonderfully
easy and effective, but they require intelligent timing or you’ll be looking at a
measly one or two dice.
To evaluate its effectiveness, compare the Core rolled on the dice with the
Core rolled by the target’s Presence, and consult the Presence effects in Chapter
10: Fightin’ Words. For example, Ruby Ray is trying to awe a crowd of panicked
people into proceeding around the corner in an orderly fashion, rather than
rushing about frantically. She’d roll her base Presence for 3d6, but modified for
-3d6 for going against the targets’ prevailing mood. That’s terrible, so I make sure
she’s using a power (+1d6), saying something very sensible and dramatic (+2d6),
and it also so happens that this is happening at a benefit concert that features a
huge picture of her and a light-show, so that’s an appropriate setting (+2d6), for
a final total of 5d6.
I roll 2, 3, 5, 6, 6, for a Core of 7. That’s a lot better than the targets’ Presence
result of 2 (they’re ordinary people, collectively rolling 2 dice) According to the
listed effects, that’s enough to break up their current activity and to get them
to consider what she says. She hasn’t hit the total that would command instant
or uniform compliance, but it’s good enough to keep them from turning into a
danger to themselves.
The Dexterity, Intelligence, and Ego characteristics are used differently: not for
magnitude, but for success or failure. You roll 3d6 and add the rolled values, and
if you hit the listed number or less, she succeeds.
The sheet includes no mundane skills, social status, or wealth. Does that mean
Ruby Ray is incapable in those things? Not at all. She’s a skilled DJ, knowledgeable
musicologist, successful promoter, and effective navigator and user of the Dark
Web, as well as anything else that seems related. She has all the resources, contacts,
and knowledge that go with it, as well as with anything to do with her own
personal background. All of those things are bonafide skills that Ruby Ray may
use during play, and they don’t have to be detailed beforehand. To use them in
ordinary situations doesn’t require dice rolls. But if the outcome is consequential
or dangerous, then resolve them as Dexterity, Intelligence, or Ego rolls as seems
appropriate for the moment.
20
For Intelligence, Ruby Ray might be compiling obscure music for an online
protest. Another use for Intelligence rolls is perception, when she might notice
that her web activity is being monitored. For Ego, she might be steeling herself to
fly through a corridor lined with glowing red fluorescence.
The rules include several formal Skills, though very few compared with most
role-playing games. These are super or comic-booky versions of whole skill-sets,
applied well beyond how they’d credibly work in most fiction. You might even
think of them as powers hand-waved into skill descriptions.
Some of them are resolved with Dexterity or Intelligence rolls, like Detective
Work, Security Systems, Stealth, and Computer Programming. Others provide
advantages in certain circumstances, such as bonuses or specialized maneuvers.
Still others modify whole situations, such as Luck. Both of Ruby Ray’s listed skills
are the second sort.
Skills
Acrobatics
Skill level: +1 with Move Attack
Acrobatics provides a defensive bonus given a minimum amount of movement,

and the Skill Level is a customizable bonus, in this case applied to attacks that are
based on movement. Neither requires a roll to be put into action.
It’s good to customize any of these listed skills, so that one person’s Martial Arts
is known to be Tiger-Claw Kung Fu, and another’s is Capoeira. In Ruby Ray’s case,
the Acrobatics is not so much circus or performance art, as her awareness and
orientation concerning angles of flight or of incoming threats. These descriptions
fuel more visualization and useful applications in action.
Powers Endurance cost
Elemental Control: Red Laser
Transformation
Laser Zap: Flight 20 hexes/linear only, 4
cannot go less than half-speed
Hard Glow: Force Field 16 8
Light Up: Flash 4d6/only at end of flight 8
path, no range
Every power is named, and that’s a big deal. In play, they will have properties
and effects based on that name and its implications. Sometimes a named power
will include more than one power from the rules, i.e., you name the power you
want and make it work by combining powers.
21
The effects use Core results as with the Strength and Presence dice, or they
interact with those types of results in some way. For instance, the Light Up attack
uses the textual power Flash, which requires a combat roll to hit, and if it does, it’s
then rolled with 4d6 and counts the Core result to see how long the effect lasts.
Her Hard Glow, on the other hand, is based on the textual power Force Field,
thus soaks damage that hits her, reducing both Knockout and Body damage by
16 points.
They also require spending Endurance. The Light Up requires 2 per 1d6, and
the Laser Zap is based on distance, at 1 Endurance per 5 hexes. (A “hex,” by the
way, is a person-sized area in three dimensions.)
That Elemental Control thing is a Power Framework, which holds related
applications. A framework is optional and there are three kinds. Its relevance
here is that the powers in it aren’t traded off or managed in some way; Ruby Ray
can use any of them in any combination based on the actions she’s taking.
These hero sheets are more than just lists. It’s good to read them like a Wall of
Crazy in a moody detective movie, as if each item had strings pinned to one or
more other items. For Ruby Ray, the most important connections lead to and
from her Laser Zap (Flight). The obvious ones are that when she’s using it, she’s
very strong, and she gets a bonus on her Combat Value when she’s fighting by
flying past and into people or things. More subtly, since she can only fly in a
straight line and can’t drop below half speed, her Acrobatics allow her to turn
hard corners during a given movement action. Clearly Ruby Ray is very oriented
toward high-speed, powerful actions, which is why she’s especially good at
clotheslining opponents or barreling into them, with her Skill Level.
Every hero is most understandable and playable when you see those “pinned
strings” across pieces of the sheet. Any number of heroes might happen to include
Strength, Flight, and Flash, but they are not Ruby Ray and she is not them, in
concrete and consequential ways during play.
Space and time

A person running around gets up to 6 hexes for a given effort at movement.
When Ruby Ray flies, or rather, light-zaps herself along a fixed path, the textual
power Flight allows up to 20 hexes, which in her case can’t be reduced below 10
hexes. How far and fast is that?
The hex unit is equivalent to one ordinary human’s personal space, roughly
just above a person’s height, surrounded by arm’s reach. If you must quantify, it’s
“about two meters,” in quotes because it’s intentionally vague at the boundaries,
or in American English, “over six feet.”
22
If you want, you can use a hex grid for organizing complex situations like fights,
but you don’t have to; the unit is quite intuitive and works well for theater of the
mind play when referencing typical architecture and areas.
Sometimes standard measures are easier to use, so there’s a conversion chart
in Chapter 11: Fighting Words. At 20 hexes/move with Speed 4, Ruby Ray’s
maximum un-pushed flying speed is about 60 mph/96 kph, and out of combat, it’s
double that for the same Endurance cost. However, once you get into significant
travel, these rules don’t scale up, and other rules apply.
In a complicated situation when a bunch of characters are moving around and
(probably) trying to hit or zap one another, actions are organized by Speed and
either Dexterity or Ego. Here’s the Speed Chart:
Speed Chart
Segment
1 2 3 4 5 6
Speed 6 • • • • • •
5 • • • • •
4 • • • •
3 • • •
2 • •
1 •
Play proceeds through the segments 1-6, then wraps and repeats with no break
of any kind. Your Speed sets which segments are available for you to act; e.g.,
with a Speed of 4, Ruby Ray “goes” on 1, 3, 5, and 6. These are called her Phases.
For characters who go on the same Phase, they proceed in order of their
Dexterity or Ego values, depending on what sort of action they’re taking.
Ordering the action isn’t entirely robotic or predictable. You can wiggle your
character’s Phases “off sequence” a little, and dialogue is utterly free, delivered
whenever you like. And remember Presence? Presence Attacks are considered
dialogue for purposes of timing, so they can strike at will.
23
Fighting
So! It’s one of your Phases and your turn to go, and you want to hit someone
or zap them with a power. To hit them, use Dexterity or Ego depending on the
action, and roll 3d6. However, this one is a little more complex than the usual
Dexterity or Ego roll.
▶ It’s subject to modifiers based on how much you’ve moved and what you’re
doing, so the adjusted, instantaneous value gets a name of its own, Combat
Value.
▶ The difference between the attacker’s and defender’s Combat Value is applied
to 11, and the result is the number you must roll equal or under in order to hit.
For example, Ruby Ray is zooming past someone and striking in passing. Her
Dexterity is 12, but this maneuver is -2, and she’s using her Skill Level for +1, so
her Combat Value is 11. Her agile and maneuvering opponent’s value has ended
up at 13, so she has to roll 3d6 with a target equal to or under (11-13) + 11, or 9.
Which isn’t great.
It’ll work much better when she times her attack to follow up immediately on
her pal Grimfire, who’s grabbed the opponent with his Hellish Fury Blaze aura
going and thrown him or her into the side of that cement mixer over there. She’ll
get a +1 for a surprise hit, and if all that mayhem has momentarily stunned the
opponent, then his or her Combat Value drops to 6, in which case Ruby Ray is
rolling equal to or under (11-6) + 11, or 16.
Even better! She can target the cement mixer instead, which is easy to hit, and
in motion she’s strong enough to crack it and pour cement goop all over the
opponent.
(A little pro tip from the comics: even the noblest heroes typically fight pretty
dirty.)
A successful hit does damage or otherwise exerts some effect depending on
the powers involved. For straight-up damage such as Ruby Ray might deliver
with that fly-past attack, it’s treated as a Strength roll, delivering its two values as
described earlier. We’ll use the same roll.
▶ The sum total, 33, is Knockout damage, and whatever gets past defenses
will appropriately reduce the target’s Knockout score. If it goes to zero, the
character is unconscious.
▶ The Body total, 9, is Core damage, and after defenses, similarly reduces the
target’s Body score. If it goes to zero, the character is dying.
In both cases, the target’s total Defense soaks up the incoming amounts. If
someone had a total Defense of 20 against that attack, then they would subtract
13 Knockout and 0 Body. Body isn’t overly threatened by most punches and
24
powers, but some attacks and hazards feature end-runs around defenses that can
be dangerous.
The system is appropriately generous in that you get one “stand up and keep
going” after hitting 0 for either Knockout or Body, such that your unconscious or
dying status was more like a warning. And even being taken to 0 Body after that
is only comic-book dying – actually being killed isn’t required by the mechanics.
Keep an eye on that Stunned value, too, because if the Knockout damage that
gets through exceeds that amount, then the character is Stunned until the end
of their next phase, and quite vulnerable. (I referenced this effect with Grimfire’s
attack, above.)
Using Strength or powers costs Endurance, usually 1 point per 1d6, but
sometimes more. Keep in mind that missing a target still costs you the Endurance.
Ruby Ray is a spend-high, get-it-done type of character, so she can’t fight stupid
with powers blazing Phase after Phase, trusting only to her soak defenses for
protection. If she Laser Zaps past someone for a clothesline hit, that’s 20 hexes
(4) + 8d6 Strength (8) and if she has her Hard Glow on (8), that’s 20 Endurance.
If she has to push her Strength or powers at some point too, that will rip up
Endurance even faster.
You can keep acting at Endurance 0, but at that point you’re burning Knockout
instead, which might also be getting racked by attacks on you, obviously. Even
small amounts of Knockout from those attacks make it that much easier for your
own heroics to take yourself right out.
That leads us to the remaining value on the sheet, Recovery, which is how much
Knockout and Endurance you can restore by taking a Phase off. It’s a bit risky
because your Combat Value drops low, which is why “Cover me!” and ducking
behind site barriers aren’t merely window dressing.
It’s better to fight smart. Set up surprise hits, save maximal blows for an
opponent at a disadvantage, learn how to use powers flexibly and reactively, and
take phases for Recovery as safely as possible. And don’t forget those perfect
Presence moments!
SUMMARY OF DICE MECHANICS
What is used What to roll Reading the result
Effects Strength/Presence/ Multiple d6 Core/For Strength or Blast, also sum
Powers the total values for Knockout
Resolution Dexterity/Intelligence/ 3d6 Sum of values/Success: Characteristic
Ego/Utility Skills or less
Attacks Dexterity or Ego 3d6 Success: 11 + attacking combat value
– defensive combat value, or less
25
Details and Oddballs

Superhero comics include conventions that certain rules encourage, based on
visual effects, character concepts, and our enjoyment of what’s happening.
▶ Thinking of comics panels rather than a single screen permits very effective
play, especially for simultaneous events, and turns the Speed Chart into an
artistic device rather than a metronome.
▶ A related concept is the gutter, the narrow blank space between panels, which
permits time and motion effects to “wiggle” as needed.
▶ Word balloons, thought balloons, and captions aren’t desperation devices at
all! They permit considerable context, opinions, necessary minor explanations,
and above all, critical emotional connections, and in terms of play/action
timing, are wonderfully free.
▶ Visual sound effects fit very well into table-top dialogue, describing big chubby
letters and punctuation almost as if they were actually there.
Playtesting has shown that these things are more than just “style,” because they
contribute to everyone knowing what’s going on, jumping in to describe what’s
happening, and helping to move things forward.
Fighting gets its own menu of comics content. In addition to the familiar
damage from a successful hit, many attacks include Knockback, the nonsensical
jet-propelled displacement that’s so much fun to draw. If you get knocked into
something, that’ll do damage too, so it’s an effective tactical consideration, as is
affecting and disrupting opponent’s preferred positions and movements.
Play is also open to opportunity bonuses, typically a +1 to a roll or an extra
die for effect, on the loosest of criteria: simply that whatever was just said seems
fun and spot-on for the moment. It can be style or content, or in character or out
of character. You can think of this as genre reinforcement if you want, or social
acknowledgment, or anything, really – it doesn’t even need a name.
Some heroes also feature a mechanic called Luck or Unluck, and some even
have both. It throws one more wild card of effect into play, which cannot override
direct dice-based outcomes, but certainly twists them into new forms.
Finally, all of the mechanics are considered to be expressions of the fictional
naming and descriptions of everything, to the extent of the character as a whole.
Therefore the mechanics are not treated as fixed and maximal descriptions of
what a power or anything else about the character can do, but only as what they
can reliably do “inside” the broader applications. This feature is so important and
central to play that it gets its own chapter.
26
References
(1) Captain America provides several political snapshots, none of which are
neutral. The World War 2 stories in Captain America Comics are unequivocally
anti-Nazi, but that doesn’t mean the hero is just a true-blue boy scout. His slam-
bang superheroics are contrasted with being constantly picked-on as a lowly,
apparently incompetent private. This side-eyed view of the brass is similar to
many enlisted-men’s cartoons like William Mauldin’s Willie and Joe cartoons in
Stars and Stripes, Sad Sack by George Baker in Yank, the Army Weekly, and the
postwar newspaper strip Beetle Bailey by Mort Walker.
The Fifties stories are straightforwardly McCarthyite, in which he battles
extreme racist stereotypes who spread communism right here in the U.S.A. with
mind-control devices. These appeared briefly in Young Men/Men’s Adventures,
and Captain America (1953), by an unknown writer, Bill Everett, Carl Burgos,
and John Romita Sr. among others, published by Goodman Publications using
the Atlas Comics imprint.
27
As written by Stan Lee during the 1960s, published by Magazine Management

using the Marvel Comics imprint, he is very decent but also alienated, delivering
little or no “my country this and that” patriotic speeches even when up against
the anti-American Hydra. The 1950s portrayal is negated by the narrative of
his being frozen before the war ended. He never speaks in favor of American
intervention in Vietnam. In this case absence is not neutrality; this portrayal
repudiated the flag-waving John Birch Society, a fierce public topic at the time.
During the Decent Interval phase of the Vietnam War and the Watergate
scandal, Cap faces a long list of domestic crises in Captain America and the
Falcon #153-176, including:
▶ Battling the racist, right-wing 1950s Cap, retconned to be a different person
(in fairness, not all the prior Captain Americas were Steve Rogers).
▶ Discovering that the President of the United States is the leader of the
heinously corrupt Secret Empire; when Cap confronts him in the Oval Office,
he shoots himself in the head. The president’s face isn’t quite shown but it’s
only a caption away from explicitly being Richard Nixon.
▶ Defying the National Security Council and refusing to work for the espionage
and security establishment, thus renouncing being Captain America, at the
time intended to be permanent.
All of these were by Steve Englehart and Sal Buscema, published by Cadence
Industries using the Marvel Comics Group imprint.
During the early 1980s when AIDS finally become public knowledge, gay
subculture and homosexuality in general endured a new wave of dismissal and
contempt, especially from the Reagan administration and public policy in general.
It intensified the demonization made public by such figures as Pat Robertson and,
worse, mainstreamed it, making the mass deaths into a nation-wide acceptable
joke. By contrast, Captain America unequivocally supported his gay friend Arnie
Roth in the first open, naturalistic treatment of the issue in superhero comics
and, as happened more than once at Marvel, in defiance of the company policy.
Arnie was fully introduced in Captain America #270 (1982), by J. M. DeMattheis
and Mike Zeck, publisher credits as above. Arnie and his lover Michael became
ongoing supporting cast members, including the chilling “Things Fall Apart”
story in #296 (1984; pencilled by Paul Neary), probably influenced by Martin
Sherman’s controversial play Bent (1979).
28
Chapter 3
Your Game
Chapter Three • Your Game
T he experience which results from play is your superhero comic title. It doesn’t
have to be consistent with or imitate any other. The rules won’t tell you what a
“hero” is. There is no editor directing how the story is planned. There is no genre
guide to conform to. There is no franchise to support. As far as you and your
friends are concerned, this is the superhero comic you most want to be into right
now, and that is all it needs to be.
▶ Medium is the stuff you make art or entertainment with, or transmit it
through, like “film” for movies (back when they were on film), or “newsstand
pamphlets” for comics or more generally “words and pictures on paper,” or
“instruments” or perhaps even just “harmonic sounds” for music.
▶ Idiom is a topic or general set of familiar things to see or listen to or imagine,
which is developed by artists or entertainers; it can be expressed in lots of
ways, like a distinctive style or look, or a specific topic like, well, superheroes.
▶ A given medium may be used for many idioms.
▶ A new idiom typically emerges in a single medium but can be expressed in
others and jumps over to them soon.
▶ New idioms appear all the time and old ones are always being revisited.
▶ Works in the same idiom can differ in their meanings and their audiences.
▶ Genre is what fans and critics come to expect and demand of a given medium-
idiom combination.
The range of appearance, content, emotions it’s supposed to evoke, and attitudes
are necessarily much narrower.
When the art or entertainment is big business, funders and managers enforce
the narrowed content.
Some of the audience fancy themselves to be cultural owners of the topic.
Here in the medium of role-playing, this group is now in command of the
superhero idiom, and everyone else’s genre expectations aren’t your problem!
This group, this time, and this game may draw what it will from the vast sprawl
of source material and can invent what it needs to modify it. How much of each
doesn’t matter, because even the most literal homage is still yours. It’s your choice.
Organizing play
Most of this chapter speaks directly to the person who’s bringing other people
together to play.
Get with some people who love the stuff you love, or whom you think might. If
that means fewer people, that’s OK. Just two or three players will work fine, with
another acting as game master. The game also responds well to expanding the
group size later, after a foundation is laid by a few motivated participants, and it
works extremely well for a large group.
30
The people you invite need to know a couple of mechanical details right away.
▶ Their heroes will be constructed using points, all at about the same amount.
The total value for a hero does not correspond to categories like “super-
powered” vs. “trained normal” vs. “agent.” Their heroes can be conceived in
any way and still have the same number of points.
▶ The point total and the rules for using it are faithful to the comics in terms
of how heroes – especially the most famous ones – were initially introduced.
They were surprisingly less “super” than you might think, without most of
their perceived signature abilities or concepts, and very light on explanation
or justifications.
A session of play is a lot like a single issue: the way superhero comics have
mostly been sold and read. A hero changes through play, which is a good reason
to plan for more than one session. Also, the buy-in and preparation are rich
enough that a single session is hardly enough to appreciate what can be done
with the material. Things often come together in just a few sessions, so consider
a short-form but multi-session game experience.
You may be tempted to promote and plan the game as a very long-term, epic
series. However, in practice, if you plan for a long-playing epic, then it often stalls
out or seems sufficient at an issue or two. But if you dive into an issue or two for
their own sake, then you discover you’re riding the wave-front of an epic. So, in
planning, say what you want, but also stay flexible.
Setting and concept

The people with you are bound to ask, “What’s it about,” thinking that’s an easy
question because the book must already lay down what a hero is and the art style
and so on. Since this book does no such thing, the task now is how you and they
are going to answer it instead, without one of those tedious what-if how-about
conversations.
The comics that inspired this game didn’t have a setting. Instead, they were set
“right now right here,” without much reflection or justification. Look around –
and imagine some superheroes there too. And that’s all. As time went by, yes, the
comics eventually made a setting, not so much by the creators trying specifically,
but more through the observations and efforts of fans.
The game follows that model. You’ll get a setting, if you play and keep going. But
you need a powerful start too, using these rules – and, by the way, the playtesters
were adamant that I needed to stress, right here in the text, that these are really
rules. Not suggestions, not guidelines. Rules.
31
Okay! When you get people together, have the following two statements at the
ready, no more and no less.
▶ One solid bit of content about superpowers, heroes, or villains
▶ This part might be back-story, or purely visual, or just atmospheric.
▶ One solid bit of fictional style and specific types of problems
▶ Include the location of play (ideally, somewhere that someone in the group
knows really well)
▶ This part says nothing about powers or superhero/villain material. It’s really
tempting, but resist.
This isn’t a pitch. It’s not negotiated, discussed, debated, or explained. If you
chose phrases that are fun – that you like to see or want to see in comics – that’s
enough.
Two other things may help with initial group orientation, presented in the same
up-front, non-consensus way. One is to provide one or two example comics pages
with a distinctive art style, and say, “it looks like this.” Another is to establish
a super-naming convention that all such characters use. These follow the same
logic as the two statements, providing an aesthetic anchoring point without
complicated justifications, to see what people make of it.
You’ve seen this in the earlier chapters, with the game set in Hartford. To repeat
its two statements:
▶ A superhero stands for something and means it
Cold Soldiers, featured in the comics pages as well, is based on these:
▶ Powers require effort, pain, practice, sacrifice, dedication
▶ Military life and careers, in Portland, Oregon
MetalTürk as well:
▶ Powers are based on and themed as metals, as in, the elements.
▶ Cosmic hope and justice, in Istanbul, Turkey
Another played game that will show up in these pages is Legacy
▶ Powers are bright, fun, and hopeful
▶ The past is always present, on the Left Coast [Big Sur to Vancouver]
Other examples, some of them already played, some of them planned.

▶ Techno-wondrous discovery
▶ Fraught personal drama, in Seattle, Washington
▶ Powers are dark, ancient, and secret
32
Chapter three • Your Game
▶ The damned die hard, in Los Angeles, California
▶ Powers are silly

▶ Reality itself is at stake, in (and way out of) Washington, D.C.
▶ Sooner or later, your powers will kill you

▶ Black ops and espionage, in southern Sweden
▶ The fine line between villain and hero is sometimes no line at all
▶ Small town, big secrets, in and around Davenport, Iowa
▶ Super-powered people are high-end celebrities

▶ Larger-than-life action, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
▶ Powers are ideals and emotions

▶ Grim street crime meets grim street justice, in St. Petersburg, Russia
▶ Powers are proprietary IP, enforced

▶ Young adults trying to work, in San Antonio, Texas
33
There’s no reason why you would like or want to use any of these. Use whatever
you wish instead, based on your own imagination and excitement about
superhero comics, including those which have existed and those which you’re
positive should exist!
Do that right now. You can’t use this book unless you do.
Most of this chapter addresses the game master directly, but here are some
thoughts for the players.
▶ Don’t try to guess or inquire after what the game master wants or plans, “can
I,” “is it OK if,” that kind of thing. They need what you want, so please yourself.
▶ Don’t get distracted by discussing where powers come from or how they work.
What do you like, want, or enjoy seeing on a page?
▶ Don’t debate what superheroes would or should do. Start with the statements,
but from there, whatever ethical or legal profile you want your hero to have,
that’s what they’ll have.
I’ll say it super bluntly: bring it. No one else gets to say who your hero is, what
they can do, or what is going to be important to them. There’s no paragraph in
the book which describes a required morality. You can’t even turn to the genre, as
superhero comics’ content ranges all over the map for these exact things. You’ll
own that, with whatever it entails for people wanting or not wanting to play with
you. Deal yourself and them a hand that you really want to play.
The gift
The two statements are the first step. The next arrives when the players make
up heroes inspired by them, using the rules in the next couple of chapters. The
process is a bit involved and is best done independently, not by committee,
because the statements and location provide enough anchor for unity. It’s part of
the point to see the diverse interpretations which result from them.
To go back to the game master’s point of view: for you, a kind of door opens
from the material all over their hero sheets. The process may be interactive,
especially if you are teaching the point-based rules as they go, including questions
like “could I be hunted by some kind of alien,” or “how about” exchanges when
someone seems stuck. But overall you’re now in a position of receiving a bag of
gifts.
You’ll get necessary setting features like what sectors of ordinary society are
involved, bringing in their historical context and specific places in the location;
and more than a few organizations, both inside and outside the law. You’ll also
see the starting range for the setting’s fantastic content, e.g., are there aliens and
what might they be doing, whether magic is afoot or, if you want to use the term,
how “realistic” this seems.
34
You’ll get a solid view of the heroes’ range in lifestyles, including their economic
and social positions (or lack thereof in some cases), their signature antagonists,
and especially, a big supporting cast. Plenty of other people or groups are also
implied by all of these, available for your invention and development.
You’ll also see the initial array or concepts of what super powers are and do.
This array serves the same purpose as a “let’s define powers” discussion as a first
step, but constructed as it is, and placed when it is, works much better. You may
find that the group is one of those tossed-salad mash-ups or, more often than one
might think, you may find a surprising common motif or concept that wasn’t
there before.
Finally, you get some idea of the upcoming game’s moral tone, partly through the
heroes’ specific features like Psychological Situations and the kind of adversaries
they formally oppose, and partly through a more general view of the kind of lives
they lead and what views or standards they imply.
That’s not to say you can’t extend what you see in any of these things, or add
something, or dial something down. You can and will. But let’s get this comic
started first.
The Hartford game

Let’s take it to Connecticut and Ruby Ray, who so far in these rules has been
floating in isolation, which is totally not what the game is about. Who else’s sheets
are here with her, and what do they have going on? You can see these sheets in
the appendix.
▶ Anybug is Manfred Owen Barfield IV, who goes by “Mo,” about 26, born to
privilege and determined to redress its wrongs. He’s super-nice, idealistic to
a fault, and his bug-powers’ slight silliness distract from the fact that he’s the
up-close heavy hitter of the bunch.
▶ The Which is Isabela García, younger than the others, from a business-
successful and establishmentarian family. She’s the most conflicted and
secretive, which ties directly to her open-ended probability-sorceress powers,
which radiate pop philosophy and trouble in all directions. More so than the
others, she is partly defined in contrast with a primary adversary, the multi-
personage, authoritarian entity called Domain.
▶ Grimfire is Yuri “Rob” Velikov, Russian-born patriotic American, with scary
occult-looking powers. He’s an older guy whose known superhero history
includes a “clean up the streets” vigilante streak, but with the suggestion that
he’s reconsidering his positions, including recently going public with his
identity.
35
▶ And to recap, Ruby Ray herself is Natalie Freeman, a black woman in her
early 20s, entirely open and out in her actions, wielding uncompromising and
straightforward laser-rays to fight the powers that be.
Looking at all of them, what emerges? Well, their powers are unapologetic
comic-book kookiness conceived from all around the map, like pseudo-super
physics, hellishness (whatever that is), and that characteristically-comics
interface between psychic and cosmic. No unity there, to the contrary, since a
couple suggest there’s more behind them than meets the eye.
Group consistency instead forms around the motivation and activism phrasing
in these statements, which opens up real-world problems as the linchpin for
play. The sheets provide the FCC and the Family Research Council as Hunted
Situations, and Hartford itself is a charged environment for policy debates. In
that context it’s understandable that the heroes would display some tension about
such subjects as accommodation, inclusion, acceptance, assimilation, defiance,
and do not form a smug consensus over what “alternative” or “progressive” even
means. Their collective effort toward society at large is a work in progress, no pun
intended, and it raises the important question: is it better to be inside or outside?
I love this kind of thing. It gets my brain going, about known-and-named forms
of activism, with great potential for hard-hitting teamwork, subject to agreement
and vulnerable to disagreement. And I didn’t have to make it up myself and hope
the others might be interested! Instead, this dynamic potential emerged from the
characters themselves. If they’d all been much more alike in outlook, that’d be a
different kind of group with necessarily different problems and adversaries.
Team & title

So, why are we all together? Fortunately, this is easy, because no matter what, this
is a superhero-team comics title, and so being together isn’t a question. You don’t
need to justify playing a super-team; instead, you cobble together a super-team,
see what it looks like, and justify anything you like. No need to struggle through
several sessions of “How We Met.” Because even if you do, it’s pro forma, and not
actually a problem to be solved.
In the superhero comics, the default is not to bother asking or answering the
question at all. The original, iconic superhero-team was a brazen IP ploy to keep
characters in print. The heroes were extracted from different publishing origins,
stuck into a headquarters, and given a patriotic name. A rival company did
the same, but it didn’t last, whereas the first shifted through a reboot and title
change. The rival company responded soon, and one of their famous super-teams
followed the same model again.
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These vague justifications weren’t a problem. They were even a future blessing
in disguise. Whenever either group featured stories beyond single-issue filler,
they always concerned the implied contradictions. The first would wonder how
aliens, foreigners, and anonymous vigilantes would or could work for or with a
specific government, and the second would feature drastic emotional shake-ups
about their roster and purpose. Fully half of all superhero team titles represent
imitators, expys, reimaginings, reversals, and deconstructions of exactly these
groups and each one’s respective no-justification starting concept. For example,
one fan-favorite, members-heavy super-team was self-referential in its concept,
being itself the in-fiction future fan group of the first team. (1)
Therefore extensive justification isn’t required. For your game, you’ve already
got the location and the conceptual overlap provided by the statements, as well
as the emergent unifiers and adversaries from the heroes, which is a lot more
than those very famous iconic teams had! (Comics super-teams did eventually
feature more unifying concepts, but these were always straightforward and easily
relatable.)
Here is my entirely unscientific Venn diagram madness to summarize eight
decades of superhero team titles. It doesn’t include teams without titles, and
only refers to comics, not films or TV; certain reboots are also not included for
simplicity’s sake.
37
This structure is purely historical and hardly sacred. Someone might publish
a superhero comic tomorrow that would force it to be entirely redrawn. You’re
under no obligation to fit your game into it. But it does open a window into which
concepts have arisen to define groups, entirely apart from nominal “universe,”
target audience, or exact concepts of super-powers.
The comics present these options most clearly:
▶ Whether the heroes’ powers have a common identity or cause
▶ Whether the heroes identify with an empowered social group (government,
law enforcement)
Then there’s a whole constellation of other things, which despite their arrangement
in the historical diagram, could easily be mixed and matched in any way:
▶ Family with all of its ties and antipathies, immediate and extended, including
close friends
▶ Marginalized or distrusted by the society we know and recognize
▶ Teens/young adults, finding themselves, maturing, bringing fresh perspectives
▶ Rebel band, which usually includes a substantial science fiction or extranormal
context
▶ Handicapped, whether real-world or in slightly science-fiction or fantastic
terms, strongly emphasizing powers as disabilities or compensations
▶ Under duress, which subdivides into different arrangements of legal vs. illegal
control over undeserving vs. deserving (or sort-of deserving) persons
▶ The past, meaning that current situations are heavily informed by events long
ago, and may include playing flashbacks or literal time travel
That’s a lot of analysis, but how does it turn into something practical for play?
It’s time for executive action: you, the game master, should pick anything you
think fits for these heroes, and go with it. You already have a lot to go by and it’s
probably more intuitively obvious than you expect. Translating those variables
into less abstract form results in a list something like this:
▶ We are a voluntary team or squad trusted by and at least partly established by
an institution.
▶ We are a team or squad, forced into it against our will.
▶ We share a common ideal or organization, and value our group’s purpose as
a united front.
▶ We share personal history with a common injustice and have united in self-
protection.
▶ We share a common age or similar demographic feature, and we understand
one another better than anyone else does.
38
▶ We’re very separate but like-minded people who group up occasionally help
one another’s individual concerns.
▶ We already share a literal family or extended family connection, and our
powers magnify and complicate it
There’s no rule for how arbitrary this has to be, somewhere along the line from
“It looks to me as if these powers could have the same origin, what do you think?”
to “You have the same origin, this is what it is, take it and like it.” That’s a matter
of preference and best application for this particular group, and sometimes it’s
a player who says “I want us to be a family!” and everyone goes with it. More
important is what everyone makes of it, going forward, like their sense of
mission, the most immediate crisis, the degree of organization, the nature of the
adversaries... all of which are surprisingly intuitive and do very well as a collective
player response. (2)
Again, never mind planning tedious machinations to make this group come
together in play. You can begin either well after the hero team is established and
no one processes it any more, or right when it’s been decided and the heroes are
all ready to try it out.
The Hartford game and others

Taking it as given that they are a superhero team, without worrying about
whether they’re not, I can point to the most obvious, least complicated way to
group them up without second-guessing or over-tightening it.
Ruby Ray, Grimfire, Anybug, and The Which in Hartford are a great example.
The diversity in their outlooks allows for a lighter touch in group concept,
not tighter, leaving that “inside or outside” question open for play. I decreed
or suggested (or somewhere in the middle) to the players that “like-minded
individuals who stay in touch, grouping up when they want,” is good enough
for us. The players responded by appreciatively referencing a famous super-team
who exemplifies this idea, and we were all set. (3)
The players even took it a bit further on their own, noting that Anybug and
Ruby Ray evidently agree strongly about non-anonymity. Grimfire’s player has
already said that he’s recently unmasked and thinks it makes sense for him to
have just joined the group on that basis. That’s plenty!
In this case, no one came up with a group name, and so the group tables that
question, trusting to further play to drop a great name in their laps sooner or
later. And a couple of sessions in, it absolutely does, naming the group and the
comic’s title THE DEFIANTS.
39
Whereas another game, set in Saint Louis, Missouri, generated a much more
unified picture, but not right out of the statements; instead, from the players’
similar urges in the moment. (Disclosure: this playtest came before I finalized the
“two statements” method so I’m retconning these based on the materials I gave
them.)
▶ Powers are all about pragmatic combat
▶ Real world, real problems, in St. Louis, Missouri
I’ll never know if this was a true coincidence, and I’m pretty sure it was, but it
so happened that each player brought a hero who was from the future, specifically
from a high-tech future war of some kind. ARC was deliberately escaping
to the past, our present, which he regarded as a utopia, and Agent One had a
mission to the past, again, our present day, but his programmed instructions had
malfunctioned. I suggested that this begged for each of them to be from opposite
sides of the same future war, now isolated from it. Considering their respective
scary time-based Hunted Situations, called the Timekeeper and Mother Necessity,
play itself quickly produced our comics title: AWOL.
All this timey-wimey SF threatened to overwhelm the statements a little, but
since it’s comics, a certain carelessness toward utter sense can be a source of fun.
One player added to the mix by conceiving of the two working closely with the
St. Louis police, which accented the other coincidental player-produced fact that
neither hero was white and neither was familiar with specific ethnic conflicts in
the present-day.
Finally, a third example shows the most “secure” or least guess-ish outcome,
from this starting point:
▶ The past is always present, on the Left Coast [part of the western margin of
North America, from Big Sur to Vancouver]
Given the statements, obviously all three heroes, Power*Star, Advance, and
Komodo Dragon, dragged in a ton of complicated family and powers-related past
events, which gave us its title right away, LEGACY. But they also independently
brought in elements of strange energy technology, which fit very well into the
location and its real-world culture and gave rise to a different shared origin
concept, in terms of powers’ definition.
40
Chapter three • Your Game
Where it goes
The heroes and the team will
change: their powers will grow
and transform, they will re-
assess their identities and their
place in society, they may
scatter or come to live together
in a base, and some may even
leave and be replaced by other
heroes. Their adversaries will
disappear and re-appear, or
form new goals, perhaps even
to become teammates. New foes
and problems will emerge.
All comics super-teams have
changed as they went along,
riddled with drama-heavy
shifts in priorities, internal
relationships, and membership.
Sometimes it’s drastic. One of
the major groups underwent a
radical conceptual shift during
its second year, when all the
founding members resigned,
leaving one person to mentor
the tricky addition of three
former supervillains. Another
team chose to die together
rather than submit to villainous
blackmail threatening the lives
of innocents. (4)
Therefore the choices you
make at this early stage can be
relaxed and enjoyable, rather
than stressed in terms of future
play. Whatever the heroes are
like and whatever the team
happens to be like at this starting moment is your launch point, not a static
contract signed in blood. Where you start matters only insofar as you get going.
41
References
(1) The original superhero team in American comics was the Justice Society of
America, first appearing in All Star Comics #3 (1940-41), by Sheldon Mayer, Gardner
F. Fox, and Everett E. Hibbard, published by National Allied Publications. The
methods by which the heroes were included in a single publication were paralegal at
best. The All Winners Squad was very similar, appearing in All Winners Comics #19
and #21 (1946), by Bill Finger and multiple artists, published by Martin Goodman in
one or another shell-game company, using its Timely Comics imprint.
The JSA was rebooted with more recent versions of some heroes as well as others
and renamed as the Justice League of America, first appearing in The Brave and the
Bold #28 (1960), by Julius Schwartz, Gardner F. Fox, and Mike Sekowsky, published
by National Comics using the Superman DC imprint.
The Avengers was structurally similar, beginning with The Avengers #1 (1963),
by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, published by Magazine Management using the Marvel
Comics imprint. Its members had individually appeared during the previous five
years, and soon included Captain America who had first appeared under another
Goodman-owned imprint in 1941.
The self-referential and eventually largest superhero team was the Legion of
Superheroes, first appearing in Adventure Comics #247 (1958), by Otto Binder and
Al Plastino, published by National Comics using the Superman DC imprint. As the
Legion was defined in the comics as superhero fans in the far future, it was later
promoted with the concept that real-life readers could become official members.
(2) The first teams to use non-government unifying concepts were the Fantastic Four
(1961, not yet called “Marvel Comics”), Metal Men (Superman DC imprint, 1962),
the Doom Patrol (Superman DC imprint, 1963), and the X-Men (Marvel Comics
imprint, 1963).
(3) The superhero team defined by voluntary, piecemeal association was the
Defenders, first appearing in Marvel Feature #1 (1971), by Roy Thomas and Ross
Andru, published by Cadence Industries using the Marvel Comics Group imprint.
This definition soon came to be almost the most solid unifier in superhero teams,
rather than the least, given how often its members explained it to other characters.
(4) In The Avengers #16 (1965), by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the Wasp, Giant-Man, Iron
Man, and Thor resigned (the Hulk had done so earlier). Captain America, who had
joined in #4, oversaw the inclusion of Hawkeye (a former Iron Man villain or at least
foe), Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch (both former members of the Brotherhood
of Evil Mutants in The Uncanny X-Men).
When the title Doom Patrol was canceled, its final story in #121 (1968) featured the
founding members of the team trapped on an island, threatened with a deadly bomb
unless they would submit to the villains destroying a village. They refused, saving the
village and dying in the blast. The final page is perhaps interpretable as defiant toward
their own editors as well as toward the villains. Regardless of later re-imaginings and
uses of the characters, the story is internally final and fatal for all four heroes.
42
Chapter 4
Special Effects
Chapter Four • Special Effects
Bare essentials
Most of the rules in this book are about numbers and timing; they’re mechanics.
But when it comes to the fiction, the “what is it” of these moments, the mechanics
are buck naked.
All the mechanics are governed by a single fundamental rule: that all play,
everything in it, whatever anyone says about anything, must be specified in
fictional terms. On the hero sheet, as well as in play, you have to say what it is
before you can apply mechanics to see how well and how much it works. These
what-it-is are called special effects: “nova blast,” “mystic mastery,” “spider-y
things.”
That’s why the names for the powers mechanics are so neutral. One person’s
Concealment may be a brooding pool of shadow, but another’s could be the least-
dark thing imaginable, like filling the air with mystic glitter. It helps to look at the
cause in one direction only: because you generate a brooding pool of shadow, you
can use the game-mechanic called Concealment.
This isn’t semantics – it’s really a thing, that the special effects “are” what is
happening in the imagined events, and the mechanics are used to create its
impact, rather than defining it.
With teeth
Here’s a hero to illustrate, named Miasma, whose powers are based on scary
hallucinatory vapors, such that she’s practically part of them. Attacks’ impact
affects her less, she can intensify this effect to move through solid objects and
for attacks to pass right through her, and she can expand the mists into a fog of
distorted faces or focus it into a jet-blast.
How does this conceptual specification get applied in play? The easiest, most
familiar use for the special effects is just “skin:” we describe and visualize that
she’s shooting loopy-looking drug gas and not, for example, ice or butterflies,
then you use the mechanics listed on your sheet, and that’s it.
44
However, the descriptions are more than just skin. A lot more. The special
effects have rules of their own. They can be applied to situations in play as if they
were mechanics, as solid and effective as the specific numbers described in the
textual rules. These consequences may aid or hinder the acting hero, depending
on the circumstances. The gas jet, for instance, might hit harder, it might do half
effects, it might not work, it might shut down the thing or foe it’s hitting entirely,
or it might do some wild thing that no one intended or knew could happen.
This procedure has no point total, no pre-arranged parameters, no number-of-
use limits, no “metagame mechanic,” nothing in rules terms beyond a standing
permission to do it. The decision formally lies with the game master, but in
practice, suggestions for such things pop up from anyone more or less regularly.
It works in three ways. The first is for the special effects to include concrete
consequences alongside the mechanics-based outcome. Let’s say that you direct
that psycho-scary drug gas jet attack in a cool laboratory situation, with tubes
and fluids and energies all over the place.
This technique is often obvious: hit someone with a fire-blast in a paper

warehouse, and no one will blink when the narration includes everything catching
on fire. The less obvious point is that such effects are completely optional and
decided upon in the moment, not as fixed effects, and they’re not expected to be
consistent. They don’t have to happen. It’s strictly a matter of fun and significant
consequences when they occur to you, meaning to anyone.
The second way is for the special effects to alter how the mechanics are applied
in a particular instance. For example, if that attack were directed toward someone
in techno-armor with a face-plate, the gas might be deemed extra effective as
long as any of it manages to get in there.
45
Again, applying the rule in the hero’s favor is not guaranteed. I was thinking of
armor with some environmental containment, but not so complete as to provide
its own internal atmosphere. Armor with that capacity might have the opposite
effect against a gas jet attack, ignoring the damage and only applying the impact
(Knockback) of the attack.
The third way takes this effect to the extreme, in which the special effects
override the mechanics, typically making a power totally effective or ineffective.
In this game, you don’t say, “just special effects,” meaning no effect beyond the
skin. Here, the special effects do things. The mechanics never fully tell you what
happens in the fiction; the mechanics are only there so the special effects have
something to work with.
At the table
“Naked” also means vulnerable. If you’re using special effects with teeth in the
mechanics, play is now vulnerable to negotiation about whether or not a special
effect is going to have a unique impact on the mechanics. It’s risky, but that’s how
it is for anyone creating a comic, especially in terms of finishing this issue right
now.
46
Comics creators are generally unconcerned with fans’ notions of what a power
is or can do, and much more concerned with how they see the hero in the conflicts
immediately at hand. Powers get conceptually squishy because:
▶ Prior standards or claims always take second place to whatever is most cool
right now.
▶ Every creator has his or her own notions about the powers, often not carefully
thought-out, about what’s right or most fun to draw.
▶ Overwork, deadlines, and other stresses can turn what would be a playful
stretch of a concept into an incredible exaggeration. The boundary is never
clear until afterwards.
The group in play is like that creator. You don’t have to apply teeth to the special
effects. But you can. The atmosphere and rules-use can be a bit like free jazz:
loose, occasionally pushing the envelope, always reaching for the best, tolerant
of missteps. Liberating. Comics sometimes rise to great heights this way, and
sometimes fall on their face. The game works the same way. (1)
Therefore be consistent, but not with the powers as such. Instead, be consistent
in how they’re socially and creatively handled. Here’s a recommended sequence.
▶ Describe powers’ incidental effects all the time and play incidental bystanders’
reactions and exclamations. Better yet, ask everyone to describe them, early
and often.
▶ When everyone is used to what the mechanics do by default and already
enjoys seeing powers’ unique fictional effects, then putting teeth in them once
in a while is easy.
▶ Put in the teeth only rarely, when powers really clash directly, or when the
immediate situation just begs for it, like the warehouse full of paper.
▶ Given the choice, favor the heroes: apply generous, helpful interpretations of
their special effects more often than otherwise. The players made up these
powers, so what better reward than seeing them proved to be the “right” ones
for the job? Also, they become willing to accept the same for their opponents,
once in a while.
▶ Stay a little flexible. If someone displays unmistakable signs of buzzkill due to
a special effect’s consequences, dial it down.
▶ Accept suggestions for special effects, especially those which seem spontaneous
and enthusiastic. When you don’t, instead of shutting it down, say, “maybe
next time,” and indeed do it next time.
These practices lead to play in which someone grins or groans when the special
effects’ teeth show up; but either way, says “Of course!”
47
Chapter Four • SpeCIaL eFFeCtS
Modifiers
Ruby Ray and the other hero examples in the Appendix include Modifiers
for many of their Powers. When you organize a hero’s mechanics with points,
Advantages use more points and Limitations use less. But what are they? It’s still
about the special effects.
▶ Advantage: Grimfire has the Weaken Power, against Presence, Modified to be
a Strike attached to his punch. This means being hit by him is worse than just
the damage; he is so fell and scary that it demoralizes you.
▶ Limitation: Ruby Ray’s Flight is Constrained, specifically that it won’t work
if she goes under half speed. This effect emphasizes that it’s a laser zap, not a
hover float.
▶ Advantage + Limitation: when Anybug takes on his Stink Bug form, he
can bonk you hard with the Blast Power, which is modified to be Reactive,
responding to being hit. It is also Conditional, along with everything else in
his transformations, to be fully effective only if he keeps his power pack on,
which is itself on a Focus Limitation, meaning pretty easily grabbed or broken.
48
Using Modifiers doesn’t give your power the special effect you want, because
you already have it, by definition. Using Modifiers says, let’s not rely on in-the-
moment inspiration to modify the mechanics, instead, let’s bake it in using points
so it’ll become mechanics. You include Modifiers when you like a given nuance of
your power’s special effect so much that you want to see it in action all the time.
Consider a hero whose powers are defined as powered armor. Let’s say in
addition to the literal armor, he flies, projects beams of some kind, and relies on
a battery.
▶ Version 1 has no Modifiers at all, so that he’s built the same as anyone whose
powers are intrinsic to their body.
▶ Version 2 has Modifiers here and there, to make specific features of the armor
always work in particular ways as mechanics.
▶ Version 3 builds the whole set of armor under unified Modifiers and perhaps
subsets for specific parts.
The most famous armored hero from the comics provides further insight due
to the varying plot-importance of such features. During his first decade, he was in
effect a disabled hero due to the focus on his heart condition and the high-energy
demands of his armor. After these were written down a little, then his problems
arose more from his alcoholism and his uncertain control over the armor.
Therefore its variations by creator aren’t only in the explicit designs, colors, and
invented features, but in its plot-affecting properties, including how vulnerable
some piece of it may be, how quickly its batteries run out or recharge, and how
dependent he is on it or how responsible in its use. (2)
In these rules, there isn’t a single way to build a hero like this one, because you
don’t have to say, “In order to have armor at all, I must take this or that Modifier.”
It’s already armor because you said so, and therefore it won’t work if he’s not
wearing it, its battery can run low on energy, and it has lots of properties based
on its materials and engineering. These were the powers’ special effects from the
start and will always be the special effects no matter how many Modifiers it has or
doesn’t have. The only Modifiers you need are those you want to cause consistent,
dramatic consequences in play.
49
Story power
That’s quite a handful of concepts: wide-open non-listed special effects,
opportunistic mechanical consequences, developing a group look-and-feel for
when they apply, and Modifiers as options rather than requirements. Clearly each
individual group will arrive at its own spin on enjoying the full use of special
effects in play, and no single crystal-clear example is possible.
What are they for? I can give you one thing they’re not for, and one thing they
are.
▶ Special effects are not there for one person to make the story go where they
want. They aren’t a plot hammer or fiat.
▶ Special effects are there to honor the potential for the imagined powers to
affect what’s happening, because of what they are, for good or ill.
The way to maintain the difference is to describe and use special effects based
on what’s already obvious in play at the moment, without inventing new reasons
for this or that power to have some privilege or deficit. It’s very effective: you’ll
stay authentic for your own enjoyment, rather than manipulative about the
situational outcome. Everyone in play appreciates it and they soon join in.
The result is vivid, unforgettable, and, for the group as a whole, entirely your
own.
References
(1) Two little square-thingies are egregious examples of do-anything McGuffins,
but also, against expectations, have fueled compelling stories. The Cosmic
Cube first appeared in Tales of Suspense #79 (1966), by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby,
published by Magazine Management, using the Marvel Comics Imprint. Mother
Box first appeared in The Forever People #1 (1971), by Jack Kirby, published by
Warner Communications using the DC Comics imprint.
(2) Iron Man first appeared in Tales of Suspense #39 (1963), by Stan Lee, Larry
Lieber, and Don Heck, published by Magazine Management. The significant
shift from health-based to resource-based problems occurred in Iron Man #85
(1976), by Len Wein, Roger Slifer, and Herb Trimpe, published by Cadence
Industries using its Marvel Comics Group imprint. The similar shift to problems
of addiction occurred in the “Demon in a Bottle” storyline, Iron Man #120-128
(1979), by David Michelinie, Bob Layton, and John Romita Jr, from the same
publisher.
50
Chapter 5
Hero Making
Chapter Five • Hero Making
T his is it! You’ve seen the two statements for your game, and you don’t have to
guess what they mean; the game master is waiting to find that out from you.
The pressure is lower than it might look. What you do now barely begins your
hero, like one of those one-page promotional illustrations that gets people excited
about the upcoming debut. You even get some wiggle room to re-adjust after
seeing how play goes.
Three corners
To begin the process of hero creation, fill in your notions at each corner of a triangle:
the person, the problems, and the powers (actually powers, characteristics, and
skills). Scribble a detail in one, skip to another, and skip back, in no particular
order – you’ll find that each one informs both of the others as the creative process
moves along.
The person has an ethnic, national, and economic background, age, gender,
somewhere to live, and some current or working identity in those terms. He
or she necessarily participates in or displays some subculture, employment,
important personal quality, or lifestyle too. Ordinary standards of attractiveness
fall into this category as well, as they are usually an amalgam of literal appearance
and social variables. You don’t have to say much, but say something. Brief phrases
here capture whole shelves of skills, knowledge, acquaintances, and resources.
When it comes to this real-world stuff, be honest and interested. This isn’t to
please an audience, but to please yourself. Powers can be cool, problems can be
sympathetic, but this person is someone you like.
52
The problems arise directly from your hero’s identity, standing, priorities,
activities, and situations, super-powered or otherwise. They’re also the meat and
potatoes of actually being a hero, so you want them to hit hard. He or she may
wail piteously about it, but not you. You’re doing this on purpose.
Think about:
▶ The hero’s social position, based on ordinary human circumstances as well
as on anything to do with powers and super-stuff, and certainly as related to
appearance or reputation
▶ Any direct difficulties from the powers themselves, whether they cause
problems or open up vulnerabilities to other effects
▶ Physical and emotional disabilities, which are often tied directly to specific
powers in a hundred possible ways
▶ Strong opinions and deeply-felt positions, about things that might crop up a
lot, or that might prompt unthinking reactions
▶ - These don’t have to be weird or unreasonable in content, and might even be
admirable
▶ Relationships of all kinds, especially family, romance, and work, but also
related to super-stuff, as with personal enemies and too-interested entities.
▶ - Relationships don’t have to be problems and might be associated with one or
both of the other corners instead, but when they are, they really are
▶ Then there’s plain bad luck. There’s a lot of truth in the notion that no one
wants to be the hero of a story – it kind of sucks, a lot of the time.
Plenty of this can and will happen without points. But if there’s one sector of
hero making that stands above the rest, it’s which problems you’ll choose to be
represented mechanically from those you’ve brainstormed here.
For powers, don’t look at the lists and points in the next chapter. Instead,
scribble in the special effects: what the powers look like, in action, against what
sort of opponents, in what sort of situation, and accomplishing what. Don’t
explain anything. This is about the visuals, like an artist’s concept sketching,
especially if you think of the hero doing something rather than floating there.
It may be hard to believe, but you really are free to name whatever powers you
like: tap into the space-time continuum, control any microbe, channel a god or a
whole pantheon, turn into your favorite creature (or all of them). The mechanics
express their scope and impact, but for what the power is, that’s all you.
Here are the three corners for Ruby Ray. I start with the two big statements for
our game, which is set in Hartford, Connecticut.
▶ A superhero stands for something and means it.
53
For the person corner, I know where I’m coming from right away. That whole
“politics” phrasing and, I admit, the location get up my nose, specifically about
feel-good smug activism that never really does anything. So my hero will be
someone who completely disavows compromise and establishment power, a total
doer. OK, I’m already filling in every corner, especially her (“her,” I suddenly
realize) powers: one hundred percent bright and obvious, not too subtle, as
classic super-physics hero as you can get.
That’s how the triangle works – without hardly trying, whatever you put into
one corner feeds into the others, and “someone” starts to appear in the “middle.”
The powers create problems, the person chooses what to do with the powers, the
problems make the choices matter, and a vision begins to form of the hero in
action, with things about to happen to them.
Without even trying, all this pops the name Ruby Ray into my head, and now
it feels like someone I’m discovering rather than inventing. Certain things that
draw from all three corners now feel obvious, and if I could draw, I’d sketch her
in the middle. Instead, since I’m getting enough sense of the people who are
associated with her, I write them there, including her own name and also a cool
adversary name.
54
Unconventional notions
You are now the master of idiom, not the slave of genre. Consider shaking off
some genre habits from comics fandom and role-playing conventions.
Originality is over-rated. Copy like hell, rip off anything and everything –
shoot, nab your favorite mask design and color it some other color. The best and
most famous superheroes all began as rip-off salads, because original powers and
appearance never made a character good. What did that is what someone did
with it, their way, all the way. (1)
Origin stories are over-rated even worse. Yes, a few of them are very good,
but not many, and a lot of those become significant well after the hero’s first
appearance. You may be tempted to write up a complicated text piece about the
origin of the character’s powers. I can’t stop you, having succumbed to temptation
myself, but try to make it about why our story starts here, rather than maundering
about little Sally who dreamed of flying.
55
Comics adaptations have worsened the origin problem by bloating a six-page

flashback piece of a longer story into whole movies and seasons of episodes,
creating the impression that superheroes have nothing better to do than get
originated. That, and going on forever about “Oh no, what’s happened to me? I’m
staring at my hands! What are these strange powers? Whatever shall I do?” Bah.
Make up a hero who’s figured that stuff out, even if it was just a few moments
before play begins. (2)
Names are also no reason to stress. There seems to be no such thing as a “dumb”
superhero name in comics. Effectively, if you write and draw a great hero, the
name becomes great, no matter how lame it looked originally, and the converse is
true as well, with a clever or arguably iconic name belly-flopping due to presenting
a crap hero. A simple iconic noun seems to have been acceptable throughout
comics history. Certain conventions were observed at various points, like nearly
universal endings with “-man” or similar terms in the 1940s and preserved for
some time; “doer” names throughout the 1960s and 1970s, as in “what do they
do;” animal names that proliferated in the 1970s even for heroes with none of
the corresponding animal’s features; the near-perfect correspondence with
music celebrity or band names during the 1980s; or non-hyphenated noun-noun
compounds, whether from the dictionary or never before seen by human eyes,
as in the 1990s.
For people names, the original convention was stricter, originating in the
pseudonyms used by authors and actors whose names were deemed too ethnic
to be marketable, and applied to the characters as well. They are so neutral as to
have an Uncanny Valley quality, as they are typically built from two given (first)
names with vague English origins, or a given name of that sort with a Germanic
surname connoting strength or otherwise threatening. The 1960s strongly shifted
to naturalistic ethnic names and corresponding identities for the heroes, and
comics naming has featured a blend of the old and new conventions since. (3)
You can relax notions of superhero types. Not only does the group not need
“one of these, one of these, and two of those,” but you don’t need to be any kind
of “these.” Again, the best heroes from the source materials tromp all over such
distinctions. Do what you want from the two statements, categories be damned.
Similarly, there are plenty of tactical games for mission success and combat
survivorship, and this isn’t one of them. Never mind making well-rounded utility
packages, neatly constructed in four quadrants of offense, defense, movement,
and perception. And forget about armoring up into invulnerability either. Believe
it: your hero is going to get hit and, sometimes, to hit the dirt.
What about weird heroes? Aliens, androids, visiting demon nieces … all
fantastic, when combined with recognizable material throughout the corners,
so the hero’s unusual exaggerations and deficits highlight all the same real-
people problems real-people have. Those effects might be seen in his or her or
56
its acquaintances. For example, you might go all the way into deliberately blank
space, whether it’s amnesia or “just created yesterday” or too alien and alienated
to know what anything is. If you ground that with a rich supporting cast, then the
person corner is as full as ever, and it works great.
All about points

You get a few game mechanics without using points. If you stopped here, your
hero would be one hex in size, have six hexes of running, two hexes of swimming,
Strength 2d6, Presence 2d6, Body 10, Speed 1, Defense 10, and Dexterity,
Intelligence, Ego, and Perception rolls of 11 points each.
You don’t use points for most things concerning the hero’s personal, social, or
economic identity. Whatever you want, say so, and it’s free. That includes any and
all wealth and skills that pertain to work and play, where they’re from, or what job
they may have, or what they want from life.
The points can illustrate or nail down these things in specific ways. For your
hero to be a “famous actor,” you only have to say so, but using points to increase
Presence gives mechanical weight to his or her actor’s charisma and steadiness
under pressure.
You can do the following in any order, and wherever you start, you’ll skip
around them as you go along.
▶ Which Situations are evidently demanded by the concept so far.
▶ What your Characteristics will look like, especially if one or more are super-
powered.
▶ Which Skills you’ll have.
▶ Whether you’ll use a Power Framework, and if so, which one.
▶ How strong your powers are, mechanically, and how they might be modified.
Mathematically, these are related like this:
100 + total Situations points = Characteristics points + Skills points + Powers
points

You get 100 points for free, then add as many points as your Situations provide.
You’ll use all of them; don’t bank any points for a starting hero.
How many for the total? The recommended value for a beginning hero is 200. If
the group wants to start higher, they can, but everyone should use the same value
and the game is not built to start over 220.
57
Chapter FIVe • hero maKING
The next chapter lists points for all these things, but crucially, some of them
can be reduced by various details called Limitations. That leads to a much more
important quantity than merely the obvious point total: the Ratio. It’s calculated
for a whole hero like this:
[The point total calculated without Limitations / The point total] x 100
For the first part, leave everything else the same, all the mechanics you’ll see in
the examples and next chapter, the Frameworks, Advantages, everything.
Here’s the rule: a hero’s ratio may not exceed 119. Limiting features of the concept
which would lead to a higher ratio must be left to non-point Special Effects.
Nuts and bolts

The Situations don’t “balance” the hero’s good stuff with some equivalent
amount of bad stuff. Situations are, themselves, good, and the equals sign in the
equation serves only as a useful cognitive device to make you stretch a little on
whichever side needs it.
The Situations are categorized:
▶ Identity
▶ Vulnerability
▶ Susceptibility
▶ Side Effects
▶ Enrage
▶ Psychological
▶ Physical
▶ Dependent NPC
▶ Hunted
▶ Unusual Looks
▶ Unluck
You may have several in one category in most cases, but the combined values
within it cannot exceed 50. The Exception is Unluck, which is capped at 15 points,
and believe me, that’s plenty.
It’s all right to be hazy on some of your Situations’ details, but give each one a
name.
It so happens that the Hartford game was set at 200 points for all the heroes
at the start. Ruby Ray’s Situations pretty much write themselves, landing on the
designated total almost as if by magic.
58
Chapter FIVe • hero maKING
Situations Points
Public Identity: Natalie Freeman 10
Psych: Stands up for marginalized person’s selfhood (often) 15
Psych: Brash (rarely) 5
Psych: Fun-loving (rarely) 5
Vulnerable: 2x Knockout from red-colored attacks or hazards 15
Dependent non-player character: Bri, her brother (secret identity) 15
Hunted: Killer Coil (individual, super-powered, ruinous) 20
Hunted: FCC (organization, manipulative) 15
Total points = 100 free + 100 = 200
To clarify a little bit of the processing, I focused on her identity, opinions,

relationships, and social situation. I could have added more onto the cartoon
physics of her powers, perhaps making her Susceptible to the color red, and I’d
probably go that way if we were working with a higher point total. I was deter-
mined not to tap into any “out of control” tropes for Ruby Ray, so Enrage and
Side Effects were right out.
59
The characters embedded in there will need a little development using points
of their own, but that’s not important to this total, which is 200 points to use for
Characteristics, Skills, and powers.
Here’s a useful point to know from the outset: the Psychological Situations
aren’t locked-down thespian commitments. They matter, or rather, using them
as Situations means you want to see them in play, but they do not dictate your
hero’s precise behavior in a moment of crisis. They aren’t phrased as “always” or
“will not.”
Therefore although Ruby Ray doesn’t like compromises about marginalized
people’s selfhood (rights, e.g.) and may well take laser-zapping stuff-breaking
action about it, that doesn’t mean she’s a robot who parrots the same line and flies
off the handle every single time it’s at issue.
The Characteristics are Strength, Dexterity, Body, Intelligence, Ego, Presence,
Speed, and Defense. These provide the basis for most skills and physical feats,
combat capability, and some specialized applications like Presence Attacks.
You build them up from a base value with points, at varying amounts.
Characteristic Base value Points Details
Strength 2d6 5/+1d6
Presence 2d6 5/+1d6
Defense 10 1/+1 ordinary/5/+1 Ordinary Defense 15 is 5
resistant points/Resistant Defense
5 is 20 points
You can use 4 points to upgrade a base point to be resistant

There are two ways to go with Defense.
▶ Bulk it up here with some or all the points being resistant. This works for
intrinsically tough bodies, automatic defensive features of certain powers
concepts, or for armor.
▶ Leave this value at baseline or maybe a little more, and get one or more powers
that increase it instead.
Body establishes the hero’s physical frame.
Characteristic Base value Points Example
Body 10 10/+1 Body 12 is 20 points
60
You don’t increase ordinary movement like running or swimming with Points.
If you want to go faster than the listed values, then you push with extra Endurance,
as described in Chapter 11: Fighting Words.
It sets the values for Recovery, Stunned, Endurance, and Knockout, which may
not be directly increased with points. They aren’t bought; you just get’em based
on Body.
Characteristic Derivation
Recovery Body x 1
Stunned Body x 1
Knockout Body x 2
Endurance Body x 3
Speed is your number of actions relative to everyone else.

Speed 1 10/+1 Speed 4 is 30 points
▶ Speed 2 is a bit slow for a hero but not absurdly so; it’s still twice as fast as an
ordinary person. 3-4 may be thought of as standard for comics heroes, and 5+
is surreally active and reactive.
▶ Don’t be greedy for speedy! It’s very easy to overrun your energy reserves that
way.
Dexterity, Intelligence, and Ego work entirely differently: their values are target
values for resolution rolls using 3d6.
Characteristic Base value Points Secondary values
Dexterity 11 10/+1
Intelligence 11 10/+1 Intelligence sets the base (free)
target number for perception
Ego 11 10/+1
61
Ruby Ray’s Characteristics focus on energy, impact, and speed.

Characteristics Points
Strength 2d6 0
+6d6 Strength only when flying 20
Presence 3d6 5
Body 14 40
Recovery 14, Stunned 14, Knockout 28,
Endurance 42
Speed 4 30
Defense 10 0
Dexterity 12 10
Intelligence 11 0
Ego 11 0
See that additional Strength? It should be 30 points, but it’s qualified by a key
phrase called a Limitation. You can read about the details in the next chapter, but
for now, recognize that sometimes things may use less points.
You don’t need points for the hero’s naturalistic skill-set, including resources,
contacts, and property. As mentioned in Chapter 2: Basics, Ruby Ray has an
impressive array of such abilities and connections, and so will any other hero.
The listed Skills are best conceived as super-skills, situated far into the concept
of popular or fantastic adventure. They deliver over-the-top applications and
effects that a real skilled person, even an expert, cannot do – for lack of a better
word, they are “comic-booky.”
They differ in groups based on certain point structures:
▶ Utility: Climbing, Computer Programming, Detective Work, Security
Systems, Stealth
▶ Maneuver: Acrobatics, Martial Arts (Attacks, Moves, Find Weakness)
▶ Situational: Skill Levels, Luck
The Utility Skills’ emphasis on sneakiness isn’t Ruby Ray’s thing, so she focuses
on the other types to work closely with her Powers and the Characteristics they
rely on.
62
Awareness Force Field Shrinking

Blast Force Wall Specialized Defense
Concealment Growth Stretch
Density Increase Images Surfaces
Desolid Instant Change Telekinesis
Drain Invisibility Telepathy
Entangle Life Support Teleportation
Extra Limb Mind Control Tunnel
Flash Missile Deflection Weaken
Flight Regeneration
The points for the formal Powers can be organized simply and their specifics
left to Special Effects during play, or they may turn into a bit of a design mini-
project. You can arrange powers’ relations to one another, set their values, define
Characteristics as Powers and mess with them accordingly, integrate Powers with
Skills, and more. You can also arrange their relations with one another with Power
Frameworks and significantly change their specific rules-effects with Modifiers,
either Advantages or Limitations.
You don’t have to use a Power Framework, but if you do, choose one: Elemental
Control, Multiform, or Variable Power Pool. It’s a good option if your hero’s
powers show off some special effect so consistently that you’d say, “fire powers,”
or “commands magnetic forces,” or “son of a star (like an actual sun-type star),”
or even something oddball like “master of the color blue.”
Advantages
Adaptive Effects Group Effect Reactive
Affects Desolid High Impact Separate
Area Effect Invisible Effects Sever
Aura Lethal Strike
Destructive No Endurance Cost Usable at Range
Ego-based Persistent Usable on/for Others
Expanded Scope Piercing
63
Limitations
Activation Costs Endurance Linked
Always On Focus No Knockback
Burnout Increased Endurance No Range
Conditional Involuntary Shutdown
Skill-based Tricky
For Ruby Ray’s Powers, it’s about raw visuals, inspired by some comics
characters but turned into her very own signature person-glow zap form, full of
punishing impact and lighting up the place.
Powers Points
Elemental Control: Red Laser Transformation 20
Laser Zap: Flight 20 hexes
- Constrained: linear only, Constrained: cannot go less than half-speed 10
Hard Glow: Force Field 16 20
Light Up: Flash 4d6
- Constrained: only at end of flight path, No Range 10
Her powers show a lot in just a few lines and will help you understand the next
chapter’s applications.
▶ Every one of them has an in-fiction name which, again, carries a wide range
of momentary applications or consequences that have nothing to do with
points. Many Powers’ interior mechanics need to be specified by consulting
your concept for it, with the name as the primary reference.
▶ They’re organized into a Power Framework, an Elemental Control, because
they are collectively just one fictional power being used in a variety of ways.
▶ -Without the Elemental Control, they’d be 40 points each. However, this
Framework reduces the points for whatever’s in it, so each one is 20 points
instead. Each one is rated at a value which happens to be based on 40 points.
Force Field, for example, gets you 2 Defense per 5 points.
▶ Two of the slots also have Limitations like her extra Strength did, cutting
down the already-reduced points in half in both cases.
64
The Elemental Control is the least constraining Framework, so she can vary the
amount of Defense her Hard Glow provides, for example. The two Limitations
nail down exactly how I’d like her Special Effects to apply reliably, focusing her
powered actions into the high-speed high-impact imagery I’ve associated with
her from the beginning.
Here’s a point about the Special Effects. Ruby Ray glows bright red; it’s implicit
in the name “Red Laser Transformation” and it’s explicit in “Hard Glow.” I don’t
need to spend points so she can glow, I can describe it how I like during play, and
I can use it in minor, or even significant, ways.
At a glance
Take a once-over moment for your worksheet. First, review your total points: 100
+ Situations = Characteristics + Skills + Powers = 200 to 240, or the specific value
in that range that was set for this group.
Given the structure of the Situations, their total will be a multiple of 5. If the
Characteristics + Skills + Powers side is not, then add the few you need to bring
it up. The easiest place for that is Defense.
You might have to go back into design if the totals are really different. If you like
the Situations right where they are, but you find that they provide more points
than you’ve built into the characteristics, skills, and powers, then bonus! Go get
more stuff there to make up the difference.
Conversely, maybe you’ve built the other side of the equals sign to a certain
amount, and you’re wondering how to fill up the Situations to match, thinking
maybe all those hassles will ruin your hero. That’s a good thing too, because,
typically, when you provide a new angle with one more strong Situation, or beef
up a couple you have already, you provide the clincher that makes the hero active
and full of life.
The more important final glance before play is qualitative: whether you have
found, or think you can find, your hero’s heart. I like Ruby Ray. She takes no
shit from anyone, herself included, and she’s put herself on the line for a lot of
others who probably don’t like her very much. She’s not a smug do-gooder, but a
genuine rebel and radical, smart enough to concentrate on the meaning of what
she does, not just hitting things. But if things need hitting, she’ll do that too.
This is a good time to consider her supporting cast as well, especially to think
more about her brother Bri and her adversary Killer Coil.
Transfer the information from your worksheet to the shiny use-in-play sheet.
The game master has to do some more work; but you are ready.
65
References
(1) Ruby Ray is influenced by Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau), first appearing
in The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #16 (1982), by Roger Stern and John Romita
Jr., published by Cadence Industries using the Marvel Comics Group imprint; by
Jetstream, first appearing in The New Mutants #16 (1984), by Chris Claremont
and Sal Buscema, by the same publisher; and also by The Ray, whose first version
appeared in Smash Comics #14 (1940), by Lou Fine, published by Quality Comics
(purchased by National Periodical Publications in 1956).
(2) Superman’s extraterrestrial origin as originally presented was a single panel,
quickly dismissed as a justification for his strength as he engaged in immediately
earthly goals and adventures. Familiar elements and some which were abandoned
were introduced piecemeal, but the origin was not developed into the familiar
science fiction saga until 1958 under Mort Weisinger’s editorship. Batman’s origin
was presented more quickly after the hero’s debut, about six months, but again,
not as the opening story (Detective Comics #39). Many origins were throwaway
or pro forma, sometimes framed as an extreme contrast, like Steve Rogers being
a “weakling” before becoming Captain America, or Barry Allen being a “slow”
person before becoming the second version of the Flash.
Some heroes’ origins were more relevant at the outset and often featured as
the hero’s first story, as with Hawkman in Flash Comics #1 (1940), by Gardner
F. Fox and Dennis Neville, published by All-American Publications, absorbed
by National Comics in 1944. This approach was repeated and explored from
many angles by most heroes co-created by Stan Lee, especially Doctor Strange,
Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Hulk, and Daredevil, but not all of them. Ant-Man
and the Wasp, Thor, and the Fantastic Four all had pro forma origins to move
past immediately.
(3) Hollywood history is full of names like Kirk Douglas (Issur Danielovitch) and
Cary Grant (Archibald Alec Leach), and so are the pulp authors and heroes. In
comics, two-first-names include Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Steve Rogers, Reed
Richards, Peter Parker, Donald Blake, and more. The pulps also established the
tough names, especially “Doc” Clark Savage Jr., who set the model for many like
Ben Grimm, Johnny Storm, and Tony Stark.
Stan Lee introduced ethnic naturalism to some heroes’ personal names, including
Henry Pym, Janet Van Dyne, Matthew Murdock, and Warren Worthington II. For
super names, he favored the “cool noun” approach, e.g. Magneto, Abomination,
but recommended the “doer” approach if you get stuck. When Gerry Conway
was stuck on the name for his expy of Mack Bolan’s Executioner, Lee asked him,
“What does he do,” Conway answered, “He punishes people,” and so it was.
66
Chapter 6
Structural Mechanics
Chapter Six • Stuctural Mechanics
H ere is the big encyclopedia of mechanics for the game. Later chapters develop
how they’re used, but these are all the tools and pieces.
Situations
In play, the Situations are the hero’s story-framing devices, both externally and
internally.
Your hero’s point total is 100 + the points provided by Situations. For a starting
hero, the permitted range for the total is 200-240 points, and a specific number
may be set for the group. You may receive up to 50 from each type, with the
exception of Unluck which is maxed out at 15 points.
Identity
Identity Your hero’s identity matters a lot to many people, including
significantly powerful sectors of society. Without an Identity-based
Situation, your hero’s personal information may or may not be well-
known, but it isn’t interesting or important to anyone either.
Secret Identity People want to know who you are, and there are 15 points
reasons you don’t want them to
Public Identity You are a public and easily-located figure, and it’s 10 points
important to people
Unusual Looks
Unusual Looks People react negatively to your hero’s presence or mention,
whether for appearance or reputation. It must be a specific hostile
emotion or aversive response, so a hero can have more than one
sort of Unusual Look. The reaction is checked once upon any NPC
interacting with the hero or considering them in conversation or
reflection. If the Situation is not triggered, their reaction is rational
considering the information they have. Unusual Looks may or may
not include physical appearance; it may be defined as something
less tangible, like a smeared reputation or creepy aura. Unusual
Looks affects Presence Attacks negatively, never positively.
Roll 8- 5 points
Roll 11- 10 points
Roll 14- 15 points (maximum per Unusual Look)
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Vulnerability
Vulnerability Your hero takes double points of effect from an attack, before
defenses are applied. It applies to all forms of effect, e.g., both
Body and Knockout damage from an attack which does both.
One specified Power 15 points
All Powers associated 25 points
with a special effect
Dependence
Dependence Your hero requires a substance or environment, either
constantly or at regular intervals no greater than 12 hours.
In a situation using the Speed Chart, 3d6 Destructive
Knockout damage applies per Phase, with no defense. In
other situations, the hero is debilitated, as if Drained for 3d6
Destructive effect, regarding any use of Strength or Dexterity.
For more severe consequences, see Side Effects.
Ordinary 10 points
Uncommon or weird 20 points
Susceptibility
Susceptibility Your hero takes 3d6 Destructive Knockout damage
from contact with or close proximity to a harmless
substance, with no defense applied.
Uncommon or weird 10 points
Ordinary 20 points
Includes Core damage to Body +5 points
Side Effects
Side Effects Choose one or more attack powers. This automatically damages
or affects your hero at no Endurance cost and no defense upon
specific circumstances. They may be defined as a specific action
by the hero, a specific action by someone else (anyone who does
it, not a specific person), or a specific condition or situation the
hero is likely to encounter.
Active Points = in points
(maximum 50)
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Physical
Physical Your hero has a disability that affects ordinary empowerment or
interaction. It may concern anatomical function or other aspects of
health, communication, or cognitive function, although not to the
point of removing personal understanding or responsibility.
Frequency Occasional 5 points
All the time 10 points
Severity Significantly limiting; may be compensated with 5 points
appropriate devices or practices
Severely limiting; it may be managed but cannot be 10 points
compensated to ordinary levels of function
Psychological
Psychological Your hero holds a well-defined, deeply-felt position or opinion. Its
justification, morality, or rationality are not rated in points.
Provocation Happens sometimes 5 points
Happens a lot 15 points
Response Stated opinion, visible expression 0 points
Irrational 5 points
Meltdown, defined as collapse, flight, or otherwise 10 points
non-functional response
Enrage
Enrage Your hero may exhibit a violent, retributive response when provoked
in a specific way or under specific conditions, to attack whatever
they perceive to be the cause. It must be their primary attack at full
power, toward the provocation. Defensive maneuvers or strategic
movement are not possible while triggered. Recovery is a 0-Phase
action at the start of every Phase, requiring a successful Ego roll;
a successful recovery is complete and the hero regains full control
over his or her actions.
Provocation Uncommon or weird 0 points
Ordinary or likely 5 points
Response Roll 11- 10 points
Roll 14- 15 points
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Hunted
Hunted Someone is dedicated toward your hero in a way he or she
definitely does not desire. You decide how much you know about
them. They are not affected by the Hero’s Presence.
Who One person 0 points
Small group 5 points
Large organization 10 points
Resources Ordinary 0 points
Extensive and/or unusual 5 points
Includes superpowers 10 points
Intention Manipulative 5 points
Ruinous or murderous 10 points
Dependent Non-Player Character

Dependent Non-Player Your hero is invested in the Situations of another person, for
Character reasons or emotions as you define. A DNPC may not have a
DNPC, and their Hunted, if any, may not be the same as the
hero’s Hunted.
They are not affected by the hero’s Presence
Situations 5 to 50 points = Situation value for hero
Unluck
Unluck When something goes well for your hero, roll all the Unluck dice and apply the Core
value as described for the relevant situation.
1d6 5 points/15 points maximum
Unluck effects may be prefaced with “due to bad luck,” and they range from 0 to 6.
0: Fortunately, no effect
1: Your attention is divided or you’re badly positioned
2: Tables turn: they spot you, or danger unfairly targets you instead of others
3: One of your Situations becomes relevant for no reason
4: As #1 and risks to others appear or are increased
5: As #2 and it applies to an ally as well
6: As #3 and applies to all the heroes in the situation
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Characteristics
Without using any points, a hero has all the characteristics at their base values, as
well as 6 hexes of running, 2 hexes of jumping, and 2 hexes of swimming.
Characteristics may be modified or included in Frameworks, affecting their
points.
Characteristic Base value Points Details
Strength 2d6 5/+1d6
Presence 2d6 5/+1d6
Defense 10 1/+1 ordinary/5/+1 You can use 4 points to
resistant “upgrade” a base point to
be resistant

Body 10 10/+1 Body 12 is 20 points
Speed 1 10/+1 Speed 4 is 30 points
Characteristic Derivation
Recovery Body x 1
Stunned Body x 1
Knockout Body x 2
Endurance Body x 3
Characteristic Base value Points Secondary values

Dexterity 11 10/+1
Intelligence 11 10/+1 Intelligence sets the target number for
perception rolls
Ego 11 10/+1
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Skills
These capabilities are coded as “trained” in the fiction, but they operate well
beyond the familiar and professional scope we know from life.
Skills cannot be Modified or included in Power Frameworks.
Utility Skills
These skills provide capabilities and are resolved by Characteristic rolls. They may be used
rapidly in stressful circumstances or over time with care and resources, with no difference in
target numbers but differing in their appropriate described actions and narrated effects.
5 points
Resolution Description
Climbing Dexterity The hero has no fear of heights and may move and perform
some actions on walls, ledges, and similar places, as
well as stay up there in circumstances other people find
uncomfortable. It does not defy gravity and is not stealthy.
Computer Intelligence The hero alters or negates the function of computer
Programming hardware or software, including programming new tasks.
It may be used to damage a system or to protect it against
damage. It may be used in tandem with Security Systems
and Detective Work for combined effects, or provide useful
context for the other Skills, but cannot replace the specific
effects of any other Skill.
Detective Work Intelligence The hero deduces facts, past events, connections,
motivations, and relationships which are otherwise secret,
obscure, or forgotten. It may be applied either as technical
analysis or as a flash of intuition, but requires a dedicated
attempt in either case; it cannot be performed by accident.
A successful roll does not permit the player to invent
information, but requires the game master either provide
backstory information or to invent some that will be of use.
Disguise Intelligence The hero conceals his or her personal identity from
observers of any kind during ordinary observation or
interaction. The hero may be seen as entirely anonymous by
filling a social role appropriate to the circumstances, or they
may impersonate someone specific, if they have enough
information or resources to employ toward this end.
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Utility Skills
Security Intelligence The hero bypasses technological and organizational means
Systems to prevent entry or movement within a controlled area, as
well as neutralizing or avoiding mechanized surveillance. Its
targets include locks, alarms, cameras, and beam detection.
It does not include personal stealth but finds windows in
procedures. It may be used to benefit others as well as
oneself.
Stealth Dexterity The hero evades ordinary perception in circumstances when
one’s presence would be noticed by living beings or would be
recalled by a casual observer. It includes non-technological
hiding, timing, and silence, but not disguises. It is limited to
oneself and does not provide the same benefit to others.
Maneuver Skills
These skills provide more options.
10 points Description
Acrobatics +2 DCV with a minimum of 2 hexes movement/Permits
Dexterity roll to reduce Knockback effects/May be combined
with a ½ Phase Action Defensive Maneuver
Martial Attacks Martial Punch and Martial Kick
Martial Moves Martial Dodge, Martial Block, Martial Throw, and And Out
Martial Arts: Find Weakness Designated for single, specific attack
Requires successful use of the attack, which does no damage
Subject to range modifier/Adds 1 die of effect per successful roll
against a target
Cumulative
Mental Discipline Ego Evade, Mindscape, Id Rush, Mind Bar, Mind Stab, Self Mastery
Situational Skills
These skills provide bonuses and alter situations.
5 points/increment
Description
Skill Levels +1 to a single Maneuver, Power-based attack, Skill roll, or Power-
based perception roll. A Skill level provides a permanent increase to
a Skill or perception roll. As a Maneuver or Power-based attack, it is
applied as a 0-phase action. It is assigned either to attack or defense,
and may be shifted otherwise as a 0-phase action.
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Situational Skills
Luck 1d6 When something goes badly for your hero, roll all the Luck dice and
apply the Core value as described for the relevant situation. You may
not exceed 15 points of Luck.
Luck effects may be prefaced with “due to sheer luck,” and they range
from 0 to 6.
0: Unfortunately, no effect
1: You’re in a good position considering the situation
2: You perceive the situation’s dangers or consequences better
3: You are absurdly able to take advantage of the situation
4: as with #1 as well as a useful insight or realization
5: as with #2 and it applies to an ally as well (for no reason)
6: as with #3 and dangers to others or to relevant things are briefly
reduced
Powers
Although we call these “powers” for convenience, they aren’t. They’re rules to
punch the powers’ special effects into play. A hero’s power may be composed of
one or more of them, and many of them require internal tuning. For example, if
the description includes the word “or,” you must choose an option and exclude the
others. If you want multiple options, you must use points for separate additions
to your worksheet. The same applies for descriptions that include a bulleted list
with additional options at different point values.
So far we’ve talked about Character Points, or just Points, which now must
be specified slightly as Power Points. Power Points are what you use for the
effectiveness of a power based on the values in this list. They set the scope of
effect, Endurance cost, range and area, the number of effect dice, additions to
other values like Characteristics, duration, protection, and more, depending on
the specific power.
The eventual Character Points you use for the power may be different from the
Power Points due to Modifiers and Frameworks, but that value always determines
the quantitative effect.
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Awareness
This power heightens senses or transforms ordinary senses into new forms,
allowing for greater scope for perception. The default form orients the hero
regarding his or her immediate surroundings, so that they have no “side”
or “behind” for purposes of combat. It compensates for ordinary darkness or
similar deprivation, although it does not reveal details that light is specifically
needed for. It also compensates for missing or impaired senses under ordinary
conditions, although it does not replace their specific deficits. See Chapter 12:
Dynamic Mechanics for its interaction with the Stealth Skill or the Concealment
and Invisibility Powers. This power may have the Expanded Scope Advantage.
Power Points Minimum: 20
Additions Utilizes a medium different from ordinary senses: +5 Power Points
Ignores Flash and Concealment: +10 Power Points/Analyze, permits identifying specific
individuals or effects, permits applicable Skill use to investigate further: +10 Power Points/
Perceives abstractions: “danger” or metaphysical phenomena: +10 Power Points
Endurance No Endurance cost
Blast
This power attacks at range, resolved with an attack roll. The target is harmed by
Knockout and Body damage and is also subject to Knockback.
Power Points 5/+1d6
Modifiers Range: 5 hexes * Power Points/Distance: -1 per 3 hexes
Endurance 1 Endurance per 5 Power Points of effect
Concealment
This power impairs ordinary sight, hearing, and smell within or through an area,
reducing attack and perception rolls by -3 and adjusting range modifiers to -1/
hex. The hero is affected by it to a minor extent determined by Special Effects.
The hero may use the effect to disperse or reverse an effect similar to its own. This
power may not include the Area Advantage.
Power Points 10/+1 hex radius
Additions Completely prevents the affected senses’ perception: +5 Power Points
Affects all perception, physical and otherwise: +10 Power Points
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Chapter SIX • StuCturaL meChaNICS
Density Increase
The hero becomes more dense and heavier without significantly altering shape.
Its use is easily perceived.
Power Points 10/+[2x mass, +2 Stunned, 1 unit of Special Defense: Knockback, and
either +5 Defense or +1 Resistant Defense]
Endurance 1 Endurance per 5 Power Points of effect; must be spent for each Phase
the Power is used
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Desolid
The hero moves through solid objects by becoming insubstantial. While desolid,
the hero does not take Knockback, cannot be perceived by hearing, sonar,
radar, or other “pingback” senses or detection methods, and emits no scent. He
or she cannot affect physical objects or attack anything or anyone that is not
itself Desolid. This power includes protection against many physical hazards but
does not provide life support or protection from Presence Attacks. It is rated in
10-point units. One substance or condition is impenetrable.
Power Points 10/+[2 Body of substance that can be passed through, 5 hexes Flight
while moving through solid objects for additional 1 Endurance per 2 hexes,
2 Resistant Defense]
Endurance 1 Endurance per 5 Power Points of effect; must be spent for each Phase
the Power is used
Drain
This power attacks with no range, resolved with an attack roll. It decreases
Endurance according to the rolled total, similar to Knockout. No other feature
may be Drained.
Power Points 5/+1d6/10/+1d6 if Endurance is transferred
Entangle
This power attacks at range, resolved with an attack roll. The target is restrained
in movement (running, swimming, climbing) to 0 hexes and also in ordinary
motions, preventing physical attacks and reducing Dexterity-based combat value
to 6 for purposes of defense. Certain attacks may be possible at Combat Value 6,
depending on the situation’s special effects. Ego-based combat is unaffected.
The Entangle effect operates as a physical object. The Body of the effect is equal
to the Core result and its Defense is equal to 1 per 10 Power Points. It may be
contested by Strength, movement, or the Blast Power. The attempt requires a full-
Phase action, although if a single attempt removes all the remaining Body, then
it becomes a ½ Phase Action.
Multiple Entangles on the same target are treated as a single effect with Defense
equal to the single highest Defense of the separate Entangles and with Body equal
to the single highest Body of the separate Entangles +1 per additional Entangle. If
the Area Advantage is included, the affected area is considered “sticky” to those
caught within it or entering it, using the Entangle mechanics.
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In the context of combat, it persists until it is broken, and in the long-term its
duration is determined by the special effects. This Power may not include the
Persistent Advantage.
Entangles do not provide protection for the target. It may or may not take
damage from attacks directed at the target depending on special effects. The
Entangle may be targeted, in which case the hex is attacked, and the target only
takes damage if the roll is missed.
Points 5/+1d6 for 1d6 (Core) Body and 0 Defense/10/+1d6 for 1d6 (Core) Body and
1 Defense
Endurance 1 Endurance per 5 Power Points of effect; no further Endurance is required
past the initial cost
Extra Limb
The hero has an additional arm, leg, tail, tentacle, or whatever, capable of ordinary
human limb functions. It may be permanently present and visible, or it may “pop
out” when desired, depending on its special effects. Each extra limb provides
+1 to attack rolls in hand-to-hand fighting. This Power may not include the
Persistent Advantage.
Power Points 10/+1 limb
Endurance No Endurance cost, except for Strength cost when the limb is used
Flash
This power attacks at range, resolved by an attack roll. It affects the target’s sight,
reducing his or her combat value and perception rolls to 6. It also disorients the
target, so that they cannot be sure which direction is which. The latter effect may
be corrected with an appropriate Skill or an Ego roll. Flash may also be defined
to affect other physical senses, but it may only affect one unless its points are
increased using the option below. The effect lasts 1 segment per Core result. This
Power may not include the Persistent Advantage.
Power Points 10/+1d6
Additions Affects all perception: +10 Power Points
Endurance Endurance cost: 1 Endurance per 5 Power Points of effect
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Flight
The hero flies. Special Effects determine the details beyond the basic move
mechanics, including environments in which it is impossible, whether hovering
is possible, and potential problems for sudden stops or turns. In flight the hero
takes an additional d6 of Knockback. This power may have the Expanded Scope
Advantage.
Flight may be redefined as a different mode of travel, in each case treating
gravity, friction, and momentum very casually, more like “flight” than the
nominal special effect would indicate.
▶ Gliding: level or downward most of the time
▶ Super-leaping: cannot change direction, must arc and land
▶ Super-running: surfaces only
▶ Super-swimming: in or at the surface of water
▶ Swinging: requires Acrobatics in use, requires surfaces, limited to arcs
For “walking on air” or other super-powered versions of ordinary movement,
see Surfaces.
Power Points 10/+5 hexes per Phase
Endurance 1 per 5 hexes moved or fraction thereof
Force Field
The hero’s Defense is increased with resistant points. This power is restricted
to the hero’s immediate person and does not create an external shield or wall.
Special effects matter greatly, as it may represent low density or even amazing
agility; the implied surface barrier is merely one option. The strength of the Force
Field is not altered by attacks, regardless of whether they exceed the defense.
Power Points 5/+2 Resistant Defense
Endurance 1 per 5 Power Points; must be spent each Phase the Power is used
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Force Wall
The hero creates a barrier which is placed at range, separate from the user’s body.
To create a full globe or similar enclosure around a person requires 8 units (six
sides + top + bottom), or 7 if you leave the floor open.
It operates as a wall to everyone including the hero who created it and must
be breached to get an attack through from either side. Unless the Body of Blast,
Tunneling, or a Strength-based attack exceeds its Defense, no damage gets
through and the Defense is unchanged. If it’s breached, that section of Force Wall
is destroyed and the Knockout and remaining Body get through. What happens
then depends on whether the attack was specifically upon the barrier or directed
toward someone or something, which would be resolved by the attack roll. It will
impede a Desolid person if it has the Affects Desolid Advantage.
The hero may create a “window” either to attack through or to let someone
through as a ½ Phase action, and the window may be closed with a 0 Phase
Action.
The hero may vary the effect’s size relative to the strength (Defense), but
the Endurance cost corresponds to whichever is higher. The hero may move
the barrier at running speed, up to 6 hexes, as a ½ Phase action at additional
Endurance cost as per running. Breaches in a larger Force Wall may be repaired
or the existing hexes may be re-shaped by spending the relevant amount of
Endurance. It does not require further Endurance to be maintained and may be
discontinued as a 0-Phase action.
This power may not include the Persistent Advantage or Usable on/for Others
Advantage.
Power Points 5/+[1 Resistant Defense for 1 side of 1 hex]

Endurance 1 per 5 Power Points
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Growth
The hero increases in size, maintaining proportions or mostly so. The values on
the table are approximate, such that the listed number of hexes is where height or
reach extends, not their precise values. Their standing area or occupancy expands
disproportionately but not entirely realistically, given the drawing conventions of
giant characters in comics.
Levels of Growth Height in hexes Reach in hexes Area

none Under 1 hex adjacent ½ hex
1 1 hex* adjacent ½ hex
2 1+ 1+ ½ hex
3 2 2 1
4 2+ 2+ 1
5 3 3 1½
6 4 4 2
7 5 5 1½
8 6 6 3
9 8 8 4
10 10 10 5
* at 1 level of Growth, the hero fills the hex so is at least two full meters tall and could be a little
taller
The hero’s reach is extended accordingly, permitting close-range attacks beyond

adjacent levels to his standing area. A hero with a higher Growth level than an
opponent gains the added Knockback effect of a lengthy striking instrument
and may direct a blow downward, so that the ground or floor strikes back. The
hero can exert +1d6 Strength even over the Growth-augmented Strength upon
structures at his or her scale, due to leverage, and may receive generous special
effects considerations regarding blocking, interposing, and similar actions.
The hero may use an increase from ordinary size to augment an attack, adding
1d6 damage for each Growth level and gaining a surprise bonus even if the target
knows they can do it.
82
Although attacks upon him or her may seem easier, the freakish effect of size
with mobility counteracts the effect of a larger target, so ordinary range modifiers
apply. All physics and anatomy that aren’t fun are hand-waved, including the
cube-square ratio and problems with balance. Body damage to the extra points
from Growth do not persist upon returning to normal size.
Growth or its reversal requires Endurance for the appropriate shift at each
instance of use, but it doesn’t have to be continually spent to stay at any one size.
Power Points 10/+[2x mass, +1d6 Strength, +1 Body (not derived characteristics), +1d6
Presence, +2 hexes Running, 1 level of Knockback Defense]
Endurance 1 Endurance per 5 Power Points of effect; see above for required use
Images
This power attacks at range using Ego for attack value, causing the target to
perceive phenomena of the hero’s choice. The images or impressions or whatever
can be placed anywhere in the target’s perceptual range, even if that exceeds the
hero’s. Images has many blatant and subtle applications which are discussed in
Chapter 12: Dynamic Mechanics.
Value rolled Person or object Environment Perception
1-2 Fleeting impression None One sense
3-6 Static None One sense
7-10 Moving, talking Weird All senses
embellishments
11-14 Interacting Dramatic changes Knockout damage
15+ Subtle changes Knockout and Body damage
Power Points 5/+1d6

Modifiers Range = perception; no distance modifier
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Instant Change
The hero changes appearance dramatically as a 0-Phase action, or out of the
combat timing sequence, instantly, without the ordinary actions of doing so
and without certain realistic considerations except insofar as you’d like to have
them. This power does not organize or specify other abilities, and its nuances for
different concepts are presented in Chapter 12.
▶ Clothes
• Into a specific outfit and back again: 5 Power Points
• Into any outfit: 10 Power Points
▶ Form
• Into one specific physically different person: 10 Power Points
• Into a variety of persons or forms, either pre-specified or improvised: 10
Power Points
Power Points As determined by application above
Invisibility
The hero cannot be seen beyond 1 hex and is difficult to see at close range. When
adjacent to someone else, that person may spot them as a 0-Phase action with
a perception roll, at least enough to know that someone is there, with specific
information as determined by special effects. Success means the person may
target the hero with an attacking value of 6. However, if the hero attacks someone
at close range, the Invisibility has no effect until and unless he or she moves farther
away. If circumstances arise such that someone attacks them at range based on
guessing where they are, the attacker first states the targeted area in enough detail
for the game master to determine whether the hero is or is not there. If they are,
then the attacking value is reduced to 6 and is subject to range modifiers.
Additions Includes all ordinary senses +5 Power Points/Includes Awareness: +10
Power Points/Remove close-range perception and targeting perception
(attacking negation cannot be removed): +10 Power Points
Endurance 1 per 5 Power Points; must be spent for each Phase the Power is used
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Life Support
The hero is protected from dangerous environments or does not need resources
to survive in them. The effect may apply to any environment, subject only to
special effects, and with one specified exception. Alternately, the effect may be
customized to one of the following environment or by combining more than one:
▶ Under water or similar conditions: 5 Power Points
▶ Vs. gases breathed or absorbed: 5 Power Points
▶ Vs. radiation: 5 Power Points
▶ Vs. vacuum and high pressure: 10 Power Points
Power Points 30/Complete/Or customized as above
Additions No required biological functions: +5 Power Points
Mind Control
This power attacks with Ego at range to force, influence, control the actions of
another person. The effect is immediate and the target loses no time, taking his
or her next action as indicated by the Speed chart. The hero must communicate
their commands successfully. This requires no special perception or action unless
conditions are making communication tough for everyone, but as long as it uses
ordinary communication, others can witness and comprehend the command
and evident control.
Core rolled Viable commands Psychological Situations
1-2 None, but they know what you want N/A
3-6 What they are inclined to do anyway Often, ordinary response
7-10 What they wouldn’t mind doing Often, irrational response
11-14 What they’re normally against doing Rarely, irrational response
15+ What they’re violently opposed to doing Contradicting
The control stays on with no further Endurance cost, but commands past the
first are dropped one level in effect. This reduction can be avoided by paying
Endurance. A target who receives no orders is inactive or performs any common-
sense activity to maintain his or her own position or safety; as long as the effect is
10 or higher, they cannot perform other volitional acts. Nuances of the power are
described in Chapter 12: Dynamic Mechanics.
Power Points 5/+1d6
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Missile Deflection
This power functions similarly to a Maneuver, permitting a Dexterity roll to
deflect the damage of Dexterity-based ranged attacks which the hero can perceive
coming. It is performed as a free action once between Phase Actions and does not
require canceling the upcoming Phase. It protects only the hero unless the Usable
for Others Advantage is included.
The attacks it may deflect include thrown objects less than 1 hex in size, gunfire,
Blast, and other attacks as determined by special effects. It does not protect against
Ego-based powers, Flash, Entangle, or attacks with the Area advantage, although
special effects may modify these restrictions, e.g., if the attack is delivered by a
bullet-like projectile.
Additions Each additional use between Phase actions: +10 Power Points
Negation
This power attacks at range to stop or suppress one Powers-based hazard or a
maintained or Persistent Power. The targeted Power’s special effects must be
vulnerable to the special effect of the Negation; otherwise it is unaffected. To
affect Ego-based Powers, it must have the relevant Advantage.
The Negation roll’s Core value decreases the current effect 1d6 or the equivalent,
such as 1 Body for Entangle or 1 segment for Flash. If directed at a Multiform or
Variable Power Pool, the pool is directly affected, altering the ceiling values of all
its applications.
The targeted Power continues to operate at its reduced value as long as the
Negation is maintained, which costs its user full Endurance as if it were not
Negated. If the Negation stops, then the Power resumes at full value. However, if
at any point the Core of the Negation reduces the Power’s effect to 0, then one hex
of the hazard is eliminated, or the Power is turned off or stopped.
Negation’s effect may be increased by attacking again, which requires both the
Endurance to maintain it and for the new, “stacked” effect.
Endurance Endurance cost: 1 Endurance per 5 Power Points of effect
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Regeneration
The hero regains additional Body per Recovery action as shown by the total
dice results. The hero recovers Destroyed Body per Recovery action equal to the
rolled Core results.
Shrinking
The hero decreases in size, becoming more difficult to perceive and gaining
many opportunities that are left to immediate situations of play. If the hero is
Stunned or knocked out, they return to normal size by default but this may be
subject to special effects interpretations. The hero’s own movement rates may
be maintained at the lower levels, but are subject to adjustments in comparison
with larger characters if necessary. Their perception of the environment does not
shift scale under 8 levels, at which point they are effectively operating in different
“worlds.” Similarly, below level 8, the hero’s own movement and ranged attack
Powers may or may not be subject to size modification depending on special
effects, but at level 8 they shift to inhumanly small scales of effect. Feel free to
hand-wave any physics that aren’t fun, including audibility and surface adhesion.
Levels of
Shrinking Size Visibility Movement
none Normative adult No effect No effect
1 Little person, pre-teen child Significant modifiers Minor modifiers
in comparison
2 Medium-size dog, toddler
3 Doll, action figure, most tools Effective Concealment
or toys
4-5 Most desk-top objects, books, Adjusted to scale
utensils
6-7 Pocket-size, loose change Effective Invisibility
8 Too tiny to recognize, insect
9 Speck Luck only Insignificant to
ordinary scale
10 Out of scope of ordinary Impossible
experience
11+ Increasing weirdness
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The hero may use a return to ordinary size to augment an attack, adding 1d6
damage for each un-shrinking level and gaining a surprise bonus even if the
target knows they can do it.
Shrinking or its reversal requires Endurance for the appropriate shift at each
instance of use, but it doesn’t have to be continually spent to stay at any one size.
Power Points 10/+[½ size, 1/8 mass, ½” Running, + 3 hexes Knockback]
Endurance 1 per 5 Power Points of effect; see above for required use
Specialized Defense
This power defends against a specialized attack as Defense, with no required
action. Multiple units of each may be used.
▶ Versus Ego based attacks: Negates the highest-value die of effect
▶ Versus Find Weakness: Negates highest-value die of an attack enhanced by
Find Weakness
▶ Versus Flash: Reduces the duration of Flash by 1 Segment
▶ Versus Drain and Weaken: Negates the highest-value die of Drain attack
▶ Versus Knockback: vs. ordinary Knockback, -1d6 hexes (read the value
showing on the dice); vs. High Impact, negates the advantage and the ordinary
Knockback rules are applied
Power Points 5/+1 removed d6
Stretching
The hero extends his or her body, or some part of it, to punch, lift, carry, grab, throw,
or, if perception permits, to manipulate or do skilled work. Running is also increased
by the reach, if the power is used to enhance it. The special effects matter greatly,
applied to action/reaction, grabs and Entangles, shape distortions or the distribution
of the stretching across one’s body, and the effects on points of perception. The
implications for skill use and powers combinations are legion, including getting
through unusual spaces and integrating shape change with size change.
Power Points 5/+1 hex additional reach
Additions
Endurance 1 Endurance per 5 Power Points; re-stretching or shaping a stretched
body costs additional Endurance; no cost for maintaining a given length or
shape, or for returning to ordinary shape
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Surfaces
The hero’s Running operates unusually on surfaces, and he or she does not
become disoriented by unusual positioning. Surfaces does not alter or otherwise
provide special effects for the hero’s rate of movement. It must be defined as one
of the following:
▶ Clinging is only nominally related to Climbing despite usually being visually
similar, as it works on almost any surface without considerations of available
protrusions or even aspects of gravity if the hero is touching a surface. Under
circumstances that may remove the hero from the surface, the Clinging may
be used to resist in the form of Strength.
▶ The Air-walking version permits the hero to travel along horizontal surfaces
as if he or she was touching them, but at any altitude he or she cares to walk to.
▶ The Escher version does not “stick” to surfaces but instead treats “up” as the
hero desires; it costs Endurance to maintain.
Power Points Clinging: 5/+1d6 Strength/Air-walking: 10/Escher: 25
Endurance No Endurance cost per for Clinging or Air-Walking beyond that of
movement or Strength exerted/Escher costs 5 Endurance to maintain per
Phase
Telekinesis
The hero lifts, carries, holds down, grabs, and throws physical objects from a
distance. He or she must be able to perceive them. Unwilling targets must be
successfully attacked using Ego. Telekinesis cannot be used as transport or
suspension for oneself. It cannot be used to squeeze for damage or to contest an
Entangle or grab. The interaction is not subject to action/reaction physics, and
the hero cannot feel through the contact or extend it into unperceived areas. By
itself it does not have surfaces or borders and cannot grasp fluids or energy. More
complex versions and other nuances are presented in Chapter 12.
Power Points 10/+2d6 Strength
Additions Fine work permitting Characteristic or Skill rolls: +10 points
Modifiers Range: 5 hexes * Power Points/Distance modifier of -1 per 3 hexes
Endurance 1 per 1d6 Strength
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Telepathy
The hero sends or receives thoughts across distances. The default interpretation is
equivalent to talking and listening, like a mobile telephone call, subject to special
effects. No roll is required to begin such a conversation with someone whom the
hero can perceive, and who is willing, or to maintain it if perception is lost. Visual
contact, or an equivalent, and an Ego-based attack roll are required to establish
such a link with an unwilling subject, and also to continue such contact per
Phase. Additional people can be added with 1 more point of Endurance spent on
maintenance if they are willing, and with attack rolls and appropriate Endurance
expenditure if they are not.
Value rolled Accuracy Psychological Effects
1-2 Send a single thought None
3-6 Read or send surface thoughts, None
frequent Psychological Situations,
recent Presence Attacks
7-10 Read or send hidden thoughts, rare None
Psychological Situations, Secret
Identity
11-14 Read or send memories Alter the wording of relevant
Psychological Situations
15+ Read or send into unconscious Add a new Psychological Situation
and values-based thinking, alter equivalent to 15 points
memories
Telepathy does not track the other person’s location or provide access to their
senses. More intrusive or stressful uses of the power are described in Chapter 12:
Dynamic Mechanics.
Power Points 5/+1d6
Endurance 1 Endurance per 5 Power Points; must be spent for each Phase the Power
is used
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Teleportation
The hero moves from place to place without traveling in between them,
instantaneously. It counts as a move action for all timing and distance mechanics.
The default is that they need to perceive where they’re going in order to use the
Power, but this and many other details are subject to widely-varying interaction
with other Powers and Modifiers, as described in Chapter 12: Dynamic Mechanics.
This power may have the Expanded Scope Advantage. The hero may maintain a
single memorized location where he or she may teleport regardless of perception,
as long as it is within noncombat range. It may be re-assigned as a ½ Phase action
when the hero desires, but only at that location.
Power Points Minimum: 20/10 hexes
Additions Per 5 hexes additional distance, with additional Endurance cost: +5 Power
Points/Per 2x mass, permitting transporting others or big objects: +5 Power
Points/Per additional memorized location: +5 Power Points
Usable as a close-range attack to teleport a target: +30 Power Points
Endurance Endurance cost: 1 Endurance per 5 hexes moved
Tunnel
The hero moves through solid objects by opening them. The Power can either
leave a tunnel behind or close it up as it goes along, or either as desired, as
determined by the special effects. It cannot be used to attack living things. If the
user changes directions while moving through the object, he or she must succeed
with an Intelligence roll in order to arrive at the desired destination, unless an
appropriate version of Awareness is employed.
Power Points 10/+[1 hex per Phase, vs. Defense 3]
Additions 5/+[2x mass, permitting transporting others or big objects]
Endurance 1 Endurance per hex traveled
Weaken
This power attacks with no range, resolved with an attack roll. It decreases one
Characteristic according to the Core of effect rolled. Strength or Presence are
reduced by removing dice equal to the rolled Core; Speed, Dexterity, Intelligence,
or Ego are reduced by subtracting the rolled Core. No other feature may be
Weakened.
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Frameworks
A Framework organizes several powers into a unique, related point structure.
They permit Power Points to be shared across Powers or sets of Powers, altering
the Character Points which account for them in building the hero.
Each type is a different spin on the same concepts:
▶ The Pool, a designated amount of Active Points that may be customized into
specific powers
▶ Slots, representing named and quantified powers
▶ The Control, a point value associated with the shifts or distribution of the
powers in use.
You can’t put one Framework inside another, and no powers can share or split
slots across more than one Framework. Skills cannot be included in Frameworks. A
hero may have more than one Framework but not more than one of each type. Also,
having No Framework is valid. These heroes are very straightforward, as what you
see is what you get, and each item is Modified independently. They typically have
some high Characteristics and some specialized form of alertness. They always have
one or more interesting Skills as well as carefully-tuned Skill Levels.
Historically, these heroes are defined less by their powers than by their cultural
and psychological situations, with stark iconography. Their Situations are
distinctive, so mutually supporting, and so intense that they make the character’s
super-name and appearance iconic.
The Variable Power Pool has a Pool and a Control, but no Slots, so it allows the
hero to use every Power. The player constructs new powers as notes, even on the
fly during play, so that, at any given time, the hero has some in a current array.
▶ The Active Cost of any single power in the array may not exceed the value of
the Pool, and the Character Points of the entire array may not exceed the value
of the Pool.
▶ The array of powers may be changed outside of combat, in relative calm.
▶ For 5 additional Points, you may invent a Control Skill which begins at 11-
and which may be used to alter the array of powers as a ½ Phase action during
combat or other stressful situations.
This must be a new skill, not listed in the rules; give it a name appropriate to its
special effects.
You’re stuck with the powers in the array until you get a chance to change them
in the ways described above.
▶ The Points represented by the Pool cannot be modified and will always be
bought outright.
▶ The Points for the Control are half the Pool, but may be modified.
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A Variable Power Pool typically maximizes either flexibility or modularity. The

flexible version works well for “mastery,” as in “master of ” some relatively abstract
or dramatic force, as well as for heroes whose powers’ effects are extremely
conditional, not only taking on features of the environment or other immediate
experiences, or dependent on things or situations, but altering what they actually
do as well. The modular version treats the Framework as a bag of tricks with
never-ending effects, often of the one-after-another variety. This works well for
weaponry with varying ammunition, or for inventing things for limited use until
you invent another one, or for spells based on memorization and rituals.
The Elemental Control has Slots and a Control, but no Pool, so it is free from
the conditional or temporary features of the other two Frameworks. It works
well for heroes who have what they have and do what they do in an energetic,
distinctive, and consistent way.
▶ Assign a value to a Control.
▶ List all the Slots you want in the Elemental Control.
▶ A Slot contains one or more Powers (Characteristics may not be included)
▶ Powers in the Slots must require Endurance (Powers that apply Strength are
eligible, e.g. Stretching, Extra Limb, Telekinesis; Strength is also eligible, but
no other Characteristics)
▶ Powers in the same Slot must be used together, and when used at lower power,
must vary proportionately.
▶ Each Slot’s total Active Points must be at least twice the Control.
▶ The Control “covers” its own value for each slot; therefore, each Slot only
requires Points over and above the Control value.
The Slots are not constrained by a maximum value, but rather by a minimum,
and the Slots are not “firewalled;” the hero may use the Powers freely across them
relative to one another, with Endurance costs setting the only hard limit.
The Multiform has Slots and a Pool, but no Control. It works well for heroes
whose powers can be split into modular options, so that they use either one
combination of them or another.
▶ A slot’s Active Point total may not exceed the pool’s Power Points total.
▶ The total Active Points of the slots in use cannot exceed the Active Points of
the pool
▶ Each slot is one-fifth the Active Points of its contents
The pool may be as big as you like within the confines of the total character
points. (Yes, your entire hero may be expressed as varying slots within one huge
Multiform!) Conversely, the Multiform may be one small aspect of your character,
like a modular weapon.
93
A slot is capped at the pool’s total, including Advantages. It can contain any
number of powers in that total. Its Active Point total must be a multiple of 5.
The slots are used as toggles, so that the pool’s Active Points total is shaped into
separate, full-use applications. The number of slots that can be employed at once
depends on how many Active Points each represents, so slots whose combined
internal totals do not exceed the pool may be used simultaneously.
▶ If all your slots are maximal size, then you have a whole-pool trade-off among
separate versions.
▶ Conversely, if many or all of your slots are under-sized, then you have a mix-
and-match combo menu.
You may use one or some powers in a slot and not others, as long as they are
not tied together locally, and you may use the powers in a slot at less capacity than
their total Active Points. In either case, however, the full Active Points are still
committed insofar as slot use is concerned.
If and when you’re using enough slots to account for your pool, then the other
slots are locked out of use or consideration of any kind. You can’t use half a slot
and half of another one; if you want two slots to be able to trade off among halves
like that, then get four small ones. Also, the slots are firewalled away from one
another, so you can’t have two attacks tied to each other across slots, or link things
in one slot to things in another, for example.
Changing slots is a ½ Phase action, always.
Modifiers
A Modifier alters the function of a power or a Framework, reflected in increased
or decreased Points based on advantageous or limiting effects. You do not have to
use a Modifier in order to conceive and play a Power in a certain way, ever – the
feature you want is defined by special effects, which are always relevant during
play, if variably so. Modifiers make particular special effects constant if you want
them to be. But once established, they aren’t detachable at will. To have different
modified versions of Blast, for instance, you’ll need to get each Blast.
94
Modifiers: Advantages
An advantaged Power is increased in points, yielding a new term:
Active Points = Power Points x (1 + sum of Advantage ratings)
For example, that 9d6 vaporous Gas Jet from Chapter 4: Special Effects has the
High Impact Advantage, with the value of ½. Therefore its Power Points are 45,
which is multiplied by 1½ for an Active Points total of 67.5. It is now established
that the jet will knock its target around, according to the rules for that Advantage,
rather than occasionally doing so.
Adaptive Effects
The Power’s special effects are derived from immediate circumstances. They
aren’t customized to taste, but instead must respond to external input of some
kind.
▶ If the power has its own special effects which are modified or stacked upon
(½)
▶ If the power requires the external input in order to work at all (¼)
This is a key advantage for many powers concepts, including reflecting attacks
(in combination with the Reactive Advantage) or taking on the properties of or
manipulating local materials or elements.
Affects Desolid (½)

The Power ignores defenses or the general properties of the Desolid power. There
is no reversed “Desolid character affects solid target” advantage.
Area Effect
The Power targets a hex rather than a person, and the effect extends into hexes
adjacent to it. The target hex has a defending value of 6. All individuals in the
affected area roll defense separately against the same attack roll which hit the hex,
and they may not use reactive defense maneuvers (but they may use defensive
Powers).
▶ Explosion: drop 1d6 of effect with each hex outwards from the target hex in
three dimensions (½)
▶ Single-hex (½)
▶ Sphere or cone with radius 1 hex per 10 Power Points in the attack (¾)
▶ Add ¼ to Advantage value if targets may be selectively chosen inside the
affected area
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Aura (½)
The Power (Blast, Entangle, Flash, Telepathy, Mind Control, or Drain) has no
range and is not used as an attack action. It operates against someone else’s grab,
touch, or contact-based attack as a free action, with no attack roll. It operates
similarly when accompanying the hero’s Grab maneuver. It must be activated
and Endurance is spent to maintain it (similar to Force Field). Aura damage is
voluntary, i.e., the hero can keep it from hurting others at will. If you want it to
be less voluntary, take the Tricky Limitation. It provides no defense and does not
add to Punch or Kick damage.
Destructive (½)
Damage delivered by the Power is not restored by recovery actions and is
recovered only via special effect or the Regeneration power.
Ego-based (½)
The attack value for the Power uses Ego, or the protective power’s Defense stops
Ego-based effects in addition to its listed effects. The Power may be targeted
anywhere the hero can perceive and is not subject to range modifiers. There is no
“reverse” version of this Advantage.
Expanded Scope
This Advantage significantly alters the function of Flight, Teleport, or Awareness to
operate at an entirely different scale. For Flight or Teleport, the Power is used as a
full move regardless of the distance traveled within the designated scale. If necessary
to compare with others’ actions, regional or planetary travel requires a full turn (six
segments), and the larger or weirder scales’ duration of travel is determined by
special effects. It may be used in a fight only to leave the situation entirely or to
return or arrive there. For Awareness, the Power permits perception to orient one’s
own position in the entirety of the designated scale. With the Analyze option, it
may also be used to understand phenomena and to locate individuals or objects
within it. If the target of such an attempt is known to the hero either personally or
through the operation of a relevant Skill like Detective Work, then the perception
roll is unmodified; otherwise it must operate at value of 9. A Power with Expanded
Scope may only have one scale, and no scale includes any of the others. To operate
at multiple scales, the Power must be taken more than once.
▶ Regional (¼)
▶ Planetary (½)
▶ Space/Interstellar (1)
▶ Dimensional (1)
▶ Psychic (1)
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Group Effect (1)

Instead of targeting individuals or areas, the Power targets everyone of a
specific category, and no one else, in the range of the user’s perception. Targeted
individuals roll individually for defense. “Category” is defined by the acting
person’s viewpoint, cannot be an adjustable or momentary condition or behavior,
and must have a clear, relevant exclusion boundary. It may be boring, e.g.,
observed features with no particular controversy in definition, or it may express
compartmentalizations, prejudices, or delusions. A power with this Advantage
may be given context by extreme Psychological Situations which establish or
rely upon such categories, in which case encountering targets who do not fit the
categorization will result in irrational or meltdown responses.
High Impact (½)

This Advantage applies to Blast. The Knockback delivered equals the rolled Body damage.
Invisible Effects (1)

The Power’s special effects are not perceived through ordinary senses. It still has
special effects which may be perceived by appropriate Awareness, and there must
be one condition or Power which reveals its use to ordinary perception.
Lethal (½)
The attacking Power which would otherwise do no Body damage (Entangle,
Telepathy, Mind Control, Flash, Drain) applies Body damage as rolled in addition
to its other effects. It is reduced by the appropriate Special Defense, or by resistant
Defense for Entangle, not by Defense.
No Endurance Cost (1)

Straightforwardly, the Power requires no energetic support from the hero. It may
not be Pushed. It cannot be applied to part of a single Power; however, certain
Frameworks or Limitations which separate Powers into different forms may
permit them to be parsed in this way.
Persistent (1)
The Power (Density Increase, Desolid, Force Field, Growth, Invisibility, Shrinking,
Surfaces) requires no additional Endurance to be maintained per Phase. The Power
still requires its initial Endurance cost to be used, and maintaining it, or turning
it off, is still a 0-Phase action. If the Power is turned off or stopped in some way,
it does not re-activate automatically and must be begun again using Endurance.
97
Piercing (½)
Body damage from Blast ignores non-resistant defenses.
Reactive (½)
The attack Power is attached to a defensive Maneuver or to the Missile Deflection
Power. The power is used as a free action when triggered by an attack and must be
directed toward the attacker unless it has the Usable vs. Others Advantage. It may
be used regardless of whether the triggering attack hits. The defensive Maneuver
or Missile Deflection operates normally but the power itself adds no defense
Separate (¼)
The Power, Strength, or Multiform slot moves and acts independently from the
hero’s body; it can be attacked without affecting him or her. It has Dexterity and
Ego as the hero for purposes of attack and defense. It has Body 1 per 5 Power
Points and Defense is determined by rolling 1d6 per 5 Power Points and counting
Body. It has Endurance equal to 3x its Body and cannot recover; the hero may
donate Endurance to it which will not recover until the Power is discontinued. It
disappears when it runs out of Endurance, or the hero may turn it off before then
as a 0-Phase action.
Its default action is a simple task, including the basic attack and defense
maneuvers, with little or no flexibility or comprehension. Directing it to change
tasks is a ½ Phase action. The hero knows and understands what the Separated
Power is doing as long as it is within his or her perception.
▶ If the Separated Power acts autonomously according to what the hero would
do given its perceived situation, so is effectively another “you,” increase the
Advantage rating to ½
▶ Per additional “copy:” ¼ Advantage rating each – built exactly as the first, no
deviation.
The precise psychological interplay between the hero and his or her Separated
Power is adjusted by the options taken and by accompanying Modifiers, but is
ultimately defined by special effects, including whether the Separated entity’s
experiences are known to or internalized by the hero when the Power stops.
98
Severe (½)
The Knockout damage delivered by Blast ignores Defense. It is reduced or stopped
by one (and only one) of the following:
▶ Resistant Defense, which reduces it by value
▶ One textual power (e.g. Force Field), which negates its effect entirely
▶ One special effect, which negates its effect entirely
Strike
The attack Power (Blast, Drain, Entangle, Flash, Images, Mind Control,
Telepathy, or Weaken) is attached to an attack Maneuver (Punch, Kick, Martial
Punch, Martial Kick, or either Move attack). The attack has no range. Additional
Modifiers to the attack Power apply only to its effects.
Regarding Blast, there is little point to assigning Strike instead of more
Strength in one construction or another. However, if one or more other Modifiers
is included, then many possible applications flow from there, as discussed in
Chapter 12: Dynamic Mechanics.
▶ Replaces Maneuver damage with power damage (¼)
▶ Adds power damage to Maneuver damage (¾)
Usable at Range (½)

Straightforwardly, the Power is used at range, with a maximum distance of 5x
Power Points in hexes. If it is a targeted attack, it is subject to the standard range
modifier of -1/3 hexes. In conjunction with Usable on/for Others, this Advantage
significantly expands the conceptual breadth of the whole powers list.
Usable on/for Others

The Power is used toward a person other than the hero, at close range, under
the hero’s control and Endurance cost. It either replaces or accompanies use for
oneself as determined by special effects.
The basic version is usable for Life Support, Force Field, Invisibility,
Regeneration, or Special Defense on or for another person. The extreme version
is usable for any Power, conceived as conferring control over the Power and its
Endurance cost to the receiver as long as the hero provides it in the first place,
which requires a 0-Phase action to maintain. This Advantage significantly
expands the application of the Usable at Range Advantage.
▶ Protective (the listed Powers): ½
▶ Confer: 1
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Modifiers: Limitations
The Active Points of a limited Power or Characteristic is reduced to arrive at its
Character Points, as follows:
Points = Active Points ÷ (1 + sum of Limitation ratings)
Regardless of all textual wording, a Limitation is intended to result in observed
inconvenience, risk, or difficulty for the hero during play. If it consistently does
not, then the hero’s construction must be redesigned without the Limitation.
Activation
The Power might not work when the hero tries to use it, as determined by a
roll immediately before the effect would occur. Failure to activate costs the full
Endurance. The Power’s timing is not affected.
▶ 3d6: 14-/(½)
▶ 3d6: 11-/(1)
Always On (¼)
The Power cannot be turned off with results that pose ongoing problems for the
hero. It is always at maximum effect for its Active Points and cannot be Pushed. If
the power costs Endurance, it must have the No Endurance advantage.
Burnout
The Power might stop working after the hero uses it, as determined by a roll
immediately afterward. A roll of 11 or less on 3d6 indicates failure of the power.
Restoration requires some specific activity appropriate to the special effects.
▶ Mild: restored by a recovery action (¼)
▶ Serious: restored out of combat (½)
Conditional
The Power or Characteristic works poorly or not at all under some condition or
qualities of its target, or conversely, it will not work fully or at all unless some
condition is met. The condition must be possible but not universally present in
the context of play, cannot defined by opinions, and cannot be controlled by the
hero or his or her usual associates.
▶ Reduced effect (½)
▶ All or nothing (1)
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Constrained (½)
The Power’s effect may be used only within a subset of the mechanics listed in the
Power’s description or only in a single circumstance of the hero’s other Powers’
use. The Power does not work outside the constraint.
Examples include but are not limited to:
▶ Constrained to high effect, at half or more of the Power’s capability
▶ Constrained to follow the use of a specific attacking Power by the hero
▶ Constrained to operate in a graded fashion, adding one unit at a time
The effect is to narrow the Power’s options for use that a hero would otherwise
be able to vary. It does not apply to Powers with no varying options, and it does
not include either environmental, external conditions.
Costs Endurance (½ )
Straightforwardly, the Power costs 1 Endurance per 5 Power Points. Maintaining
it, or turning it on or off, is still a 0-Phase action. It may not have the Always On
Advantage.
Focus
The Power or Characteristic is remarkably vulnerable to being grabbed, broken,
interfered with, or otherwise made unavailable by another person. Typically, but
not necessarily, it includes the special effect of relying on an object or device.
A Focus has Defense equal to 1 per 5 Power Points and Body either equal to
that value or designated to be unbreakable (although that does not stop it being
made useless or unavailable). A broken Focus can always be repaired or replaced
eventually. An Obvious Focus is easily be identified as the source of the power
when it’s used; an Inobvious Focus may be identified with a perception or relevant
Skill roll, subject to range modifiers. If Focus modifies a Characteristic, then the
entire Characteristic is made unavailable or dysfunctional by interfering with the
Focus. Other nuances are presented in Chapter 7: Villain Making.
▶ Inobvious (½)
▶ Obvious (1)
Increased Endurance (1)

The Power or Strength costs double Endurance, with a minimum cost of 5.
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Involuntary
The power is potentially activated by a specific event or environment which is
not under the character’s control or that of his or her associates on a roll of 11
or less on 3d6. The triggering effect must be likely in the context of play and
uncontrolled by the hero or his or her usual associates. It may not have the
Always On Advantage.
▶ In addition to voluntary use (¼)
▶ No voluntary use (1)
▶ Triggering is not affected by Activation; the power will go off
Linked (½)
The non-attack power is usable only when another non-attack power is active.
The other power must cost Endurance, and the Linked Power’s Active Points
cannot exceed that of the other Power.
No Knockback (¼)
Straightforwardly, Blast delivers no Knockback effect.
No Range (½)
Straightforwardly, the Power may not be targeted away from the hero. If its effect
covers more than one hex, the hero must be centered in it. It does not apply to
attacks (see the Aura and Strike Advantages). It applies to Concealment, Force
Wall, Illusions, and Telepathy.
Shutdown
The hero becomes inactive while using or maintaining the Power. Aside from
competently using the Power itself, he or she cannot move and combat values
drop to 6.
▶ Use can passively perceive things, interact, and slowly perform minor actions
(½)
▶ User is almost comatose, minimally aware, and helpless (1)
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Skill-based (¼)
The Power functions only in the context of a successful roll for a Utility Skill. It is
useful to think of the special effects as artistic devices that dramatize the mastery
over that Skill. The requirement does not replace or alter any rules of timing,
energy, or range of either the Power or the Skill.
Tricky
The Power requires a Characteristic roll to focus on the hero’s desired target or
outcome. A failed roll means the effect is directed toward another target or goal
of the game master’s choice.
▶ At first use in a situation (¼)
▶ With each use in a situation (¾)
Modifiers, meet Frameworks

Modifiers affect the contents of Frameworks at two very different locations in the
mathematical structure. Advantages are intrinsic to the Active Points of a given Power,
and Limitations modify the designated part of a Framework that holds the Power.
For the Variable Power Pool, the Pool itself cannot be modified, so its Character
Points are always the same as its Power Points. The Control can be Modified with
these specialized options only. They do not affect the internal Point totals for
Powers, and each may be taken only once.
▶ Advantage: The array may be altered as a 0-Phase action. This Modifier is
incompatible with the option to use a Control Skill. (1)
▶ Limitation: The current array of powers can only be changed with special
circumstances: e.g., touching a target, environmental circumstance, a
substance or location, extra time and effort. This Modifier is incompatible
with the option to use a Control Skill. (½)
▶ Limitation: Every Power constructed from the Pool must include the same
specified Limitation(s) and the resulting mathematical effect on its Points.
Regardless of the number of Limitations or their ratings, this is always applied
to the Control at ¼.
A power created from the Variable Power Pool may include any Advantages,
retaining the constraint that its Active Points cannot exceed the pool’s value. It
may also include any Limitations. Since Limitations reduce the Points, doing
so permits more powers to be available at once, including more than one at
maximum Active Points. The governing constraints to these Modifiers are the
special effects of the Framework itself.
103
Consider The Which’s construction in the Appendix. Her Variable Power Pool
is variously phrased as This or That, Either/Or, or Equal and Opposite. The Pool is
40 Points, so the Control Value has 20 Active Points. This is Limited at ¼ because
every Power made with the Pool must have the Tricky Limitation. She also has
the Control Skill option, named Free Will, which is 5 Points.
The Point breakdown is therefore:
▶ Pool: 40 Active Points = 40 Points
▶ Control Value: 20 Active Points with a ¼ Limitation = 16 Points
▶ Free Will Skill: 5 Points
▶ = 61 Points
In using the Variable Power Pool to make powers, their sum in Power Points
cannot exceed 40, nor their sum in Points. However, they must have the Tricky
Limitation, and they may be given any other Limitation as desired, so their Points
may well be far below their Active Points. For example, an array of Powers using
her Variable Power Pool might include:
▶ Force Field with 14 Defense, which is 35 Active points; with Tricky at first use
and Burnout (serious form), it’s at 20 Points, leaving 20 free.
▶ 6d6 Severe Blast (stopped entirely by Special Defense: Ego), which is 40 Active
Points; with Tricky at first use and Increased Endurance, it’s at 17.
That array at 37 Points fits within her Variable Power Pool, providing her with
two fearsome if energy-exensive effects.
The Which also has relevant Situations relevant to her Powers: Side Effects,
occurring at each use of the Variable Power Pool, and her Psychological Situations,
providing context to the whole construction.
Elemental Control is the most complex Framework. You may conceive of each
Slot constructed with its Powers and Advantages first at whatever level is desired,
and then the Control Value is retroactively set at half the smallest one. Then each
Slot is relieved of the “covered” amount of the Control Value. Each Slot is then
subject to both the overall Framework’s Limitation, if any, and to its own local
Limitation, if any. The Control Value is only subject to the former.
Consider Ruby Ray’s construction as outlined in Chapter 5. Her Elemental
Control is defined as Red Laser Transformation, with a Control Value of 20
Power Points. Therefore each Slot must include at least 40 Active Points. It so
happens that each is exactly that: the Laser Zap with 20 hexes of Flight, the Hard
Glow with Force Field 16, and the Light Up with Flash 4d6.
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Therefore the Point construction before Limitations looks like this:

▶ Control Value: 20 Power Points
▶ Laser Zap: 40 – 20 = 20
▶ Hard Glow: 40 – 20 = 20
▶ Light Up: 40 – 20 = 20
Two of the Powers are Limited as well, but not the overall Framework. Their
final Points are as follows:
▶ Laser Zap: 20 with two Limitations rated at ½ each = 20 ÷ (1 + ½ + ½) = 10
▶ Light Up: 20 with two Limitations rated at ½ each = 20 ÷ (1 + ½ + ½) = 10
The full Framework’s total Points are therefore:
▶ Control Value: 20
▶ Laser Zap: 10
▶ Hard Glow: 20
▶ Light Up: 10
▶ = 60 Points
Her Powers are significantly constrained in terms of which can be used relative
to the others, but that effect is a function of their individual Limitations, not the
Elemental Control.
105
Consider also Grimfire’s Elemental Control, provided in the Appendix, defined

as Hellish Fury. His Control Value is 15 Points, thus each Slot must include at
least 30 Active Points. This is exactly the case for the Nimbus and Embrace, but
the Fires of Wrath is 20 Power Points with a ¾ Advantage, therefore 20 x (1 + ¾)
= 35.
Therefore the Point construction before Limitations looks like this:
▶ Control Value: 15 Power Points
▶ Nimbus: 30 – 15 = 15
▶ Fires of Wrath: 35 – 15 = 20
▶ Embrace: 30 – 15 = 15
The Embrace is Limited with a rating of 1, with final Points:
▶ Embrace: 15 with one Limitation rated at 1 = 15 ÷ (1 + 1) = 7.5 which rounds
to 7
The full Framework’s total Points are therefore:
▶ Control Value: 15
▶ Nimbus: 15
▶ Fires of Wrath: 20
▶ Embrace: 7
▶ = 57 Points
His Elemental Control is structurally similar to Ruby Ray’s, but his Powers are
not so tightly inter-connected in use. They are instead tied distinctly to his Skills
and Situations.
Multiform is much simpler. The entire Framework may be given any Limitation,
affecting the Points of the pool as well as each of the slots. A slot’s Points cannot
be reduced with Limitations by itself; if that slot’s power or powers conceivably
require its own special limited effect, it is treated as a special effect.
Consider Anybug’s Multiform as presented in the Appendix, defined as his Bug
Simulator. The Pool is 40 Power Points, and each Slot has the maximum value
of 40 Power Points, and therefore each is rated at 8 Points. This means that in
his case only one Slot is usable at a time. The whole Framework is subject to the
Conditional Limitation rated at ½, so the Points break down as follows:
▶ Pool: 40 Points at a ½ Limitation, thus 40 ÷ (1+ ½) = 26.667, rounded to 27
▶ Each Slot: 8 Points at a ½ Limitation, thus 8 ÷ (1+ ½) = 5.333, rounded to 5
(thus 15 Points for 3 Slots)
▶ = 42
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Chapter 7
Villain Making
Chapter Seven • Villain Making
T he cover of this book features a villain front-and-center. Playing them is my

single greatest joy in the game, and flipping the whole thing around for the players
to be the villains would be by no means impossible - and certainly “allowed.”
Anyway, back to reality; let’s proceed with villains as non-player characters.
They’re not generic. No less than the heroes, they are expressions of the two
statements and the location – perhaps more!
The hero sheets provide the source, from their constellation of supporting
cast and organizations and implied history, with the Hunted Situations as the
most “primed” or personally-invested members. These are sometimes made
collaboratively. A player may conceive of an adversary in as much detail as the
hero, or they may indicate a Hunted as a blank spot they’d like the game master
to fill in, or the game master can say, “I have this great villain idea, would you like
it for your Hunted.”
Once built, however, the villains are the game master’s motor, indispensable
and, above all, running. In play heroes may be proactive or to remain reactive as
the players choose. But the villain is always on Go.
Bad guys – almost

So: definition time anyone? Unfortunately, “villain” is a convenience term. If
anything, it’s someone who opposes or comes into conflict with a hero, to any
degree. From there we can draw circles and arrows about antihero, antivillain,
villain protagonist, hero antagonist, white vs. grey, grey vs. black, grey vs. gray,
and who knows what else. Fortunately that’s not our problem.
For practical use, consider these differing concepts:
▶ A story role in the creator’s eyes: the antagonist, with opposing views and
goals
▶ A combat opponent from a plot perspective: the adversary to fight
▶ A legal designation in the fiction: the criminal, psycho, terrorist, or similar
status
▶ A visceral response from ourselves: a menace, a moral wrong, a “bad guy”
In the superhero comics, all of these have shifted and settled, then shifted and
settled again.
Superhero comics initially crossbred the weird gangster criminals from the
vigilante pulp stories and newspaper strips with playful science fiction for varying
degrees of psycho or clever or goofy. The heroes were vaguely cast as fantastic
“police” defending decent folks alongside the law. As decades passed, the stories
included more and more family and psychological drama, contemporary politics
108
and culture-clashes, and a pop spin on mythology. By the 1970s, heroes might
battle a direct menace or stop a crook or two, but they mainly struggled in the
grip of problems and forces that could not be so easily solved, and a fair number
of the villains held an understandable point of view.
Step by step, the “bank robber” concept disappeared in favor of questions like
“What does a villain ‘break’ anyway: morals or laws? Is the society the hero lives
in something to protect, or is it the source of the ills they confront? How bad
is bad, really?” Evil found new forms, some of them as influential upstanding
citizens, and others who were figuratively or even literally versions of the heroes
themselves.
So the comics can’t serve as a simple guide; they’re too specific to the moments
they were published. Your own group playing Champions Now must develop its
own spectrum of villainy from everyone’s appreciation in play.
Just the same – almost

Villains are not built to win nor to lose, but to matter. Your game’s setting as
an experience acquires its qualities from them. It’s a place where people like that
could emerge, persevere, and are always very much about to do something.
When you’re the game master, think of the initial hero and villain sheets on
a table. Some of the villains are already or nearly complete; others are merely a
mysterious name in a Hunted Situation; and others are half-conceived as notes
with some scribbled numbers. In terms of powers, concepts, conflicts, and
interactions, this is, for better or worse, the starting “family” of play. In terms of
the visuals and engaging humanity of superhero comics, they are its look-and-
feel.
To bring them into usable sheet-and-numbers form, here are a couple of
avenues to pursue. You can distort the opening statements, interpreting one or
the other to an extreme. Typically, this becomes a study of extremes:
▶ Their interpretation or expression of the statements is either overly simple or
overly complex, so the person is at least a bit unhinged.
▶ Their powers are more limited, or canalized, than those of the heroes.
▶ They slam hard into either very sympathetic or very unsympathetic, to opera
level and beyond.
You can do “not so different,” or “just over the line,” for a villain who is not
crazy or grossly wrong out of the gate, but has reached different conclusions from
one or more of the heroes. This build concept focuses on similarity:
▶ Begin by making a very sensible and non-problematic hero, as if you were a
player working with the same statements and location.
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▶ Then consult your inner standard for “what makes a hero,” and bump him
or her barely off of it, working with the features of a hero sheet which aren’t
represented by points.
▶ Twist one Psychological Situation very hard into fanaticism or certainty; also
consider relating Powers or other features to it through Limitations.
Finally, there is Otherness, relating to the statements entirely differently,
challenging their existence. This is sometimes a bad idea and should perhaps be
preserved for later play; after all, you can’t really challenge something unless it’s
been validated. But if you do it:
▶ Jump up the scale or scope of the villain’s attention, to render the statements
irrelevant, at least as far as the heroes’ general take on them is concerned.
▶ Find some other issues or venue that the statements aren’t able to handle, for
the villain’s area of concern.
You might look at the villain using the three corners, which can be a little strange
in a good way. Even absences in the person corner work fine, as something like “I
was never born,” or “unfeeling construct,” may take on identity through negation.
However, if such things carry no resonance or chance for reversal, then you’re not
talking about a villain at all, but a hazard, which is described in Chapter 10: This
is the World We Live In.
Here I am, looking at Ruby Ray’s character sheet, with the name “Killer Coil”
as a Hunted Situation. Who’s that? The player tells me that’s the widely-feared
villain whom Ruby Ray stopped from doing something awful, that she was kind
of lucky to manage it, and that the villain took it very personally. That’s it. Real
name, personality, goals, powers, criminal or outlaw or what? That’s up to you,
says the player.
So I’m thinking, what kind of adversary would not let go of a personal clash with
Ruby Ray, and probably vice versa? I decide to distort the statements and answer,
someone who stands for nothing, the precise antithesis of the kind of hero Ruby
Ray is. A mercenary at the most moral level, meaning none. The statement says,
“A hero stands for something!” but she says, “Well, I’m no hero,” and owns it. (1)
I start free-associating using the three corners and soon come up with...
▶ Person: Nicole Carr, utter mercenary, self-made, affluent
▶ Powers: Killer Coil, cybernetic switch-off for morality (so she can do any job),
robot wrist/forearm tentacles, tech assassin
▶ Problems: Disabled with a severe systemic disorder; totally regarded as
criminal; “won half the battle by losing the other half ”
In personal, antagonist terms this is working well. As a disabled person, Nicole
would potentially receive acknowledgment and advocacy from Ruby Ray, but
her own solution to her problems has put them on profoundly opposite sides.
110
Nicole doesn’t want anyone’s advocacy and, when on assignment, has insulated
herself from moral considerations. Thus she’s turned out to be rather monstrous;
but I note to myself that when she’s not on a paid job, she does have reasonably
ordinary morality and functions successfully as a person. Which is even more
frightening, actually, but at least it means she’s not a psycho all the time.
Numbers
Point for point, villains should outmatch heroes. Consider violent confrontations
for a moment. Heroes won’t do well if they wade in swinging and blasting, trusting
to the mutual statistical grind of damage dice vs. their defenses. That doesn’t
mean the villains can fight blindly either. They have Endurance to manage, and
all those maneuvers and positioning effects to consider too. But when it comes to
the numerical edge, they have it, not the heroes.
They should also feature higher ratios. The players’ heroes are capped at
119, but villains’ ratios can be taken up to 129. Another way to look at it is, if a
villain has a ratio in the range of the heroes, give him or her even more points.
This matches the comics villains’ tendency to wield more raw power in more
extravagant, sometimes less practical ways.
The extreme case study for this idea is the Focus Limitation. An object or
item wielded by a hero or villain doesn’t have to be a Focus. But if it is, its “plot
protection” of being part of that person, as a story-entity, pro- or antagonist, is
severely lessened. It not only can be taken away or broken, it pretty much will be.
For a hero, this Limitation is best suited to parts of a given power, or to a single
or a couple of characteristics; given all the spotlight they get, heroes need to be
playable with or without their takeable/breakable stuff. None of the items wielded
or worn by your favorite comics heroes matches the rules-limitations of a focus.
Various consequences of them being objects are easily played as special effects,
like not having them immediately on hand once in a while. Better Limitations
for such things are Burnout and colorful Conditional concepts that punch home
the special effects; Focus should apply at most to some specific application of a
power, rather than the whole fictional item.
But for a villain, whose story-role is more about confrontations, you’re free to
go “all in,” e.g., reducing an entire Framework’s Character Points, permitting its
effects to be notably higher than a hero’s would be. The powers in that Framework
will hit hard and do mighty things, shockingly or overwhelmingly so... unless the
heroes can get their hands on that damn Focus!
Limitations may be chosen to heighten the inherent downsides of each Power
Framework, trading more difficult management or contradictory potential for
magnitude.
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▶ Elemental Control relies on Endurance use, often for multiple powers at once,
placing this limited resource at risk.
▶ Multiform carries the inconvenience of using or being in one slot when one
would prefer another.
▶ Variable Power Pool seems nigh-unstoppable until one focuses on the
Limitations and special effects of the Control and, if present, the Control Skill.
Pro villain tip: it’s fun to pull a reversal with yet other powers or qualities, which
unleash who-knows-what awfulness only without the Focus or other Limitation.
Especially if the villain hates and fears that awfulness.
Villains’ Situations are a special place. For one thing, given the higher point
totals, there’s more of them, conceivably up to 160 points. For another, they
may be extravagantly emotional or unhinged, including more irrational, with
meltdown components, or having disturbing triggers for Enrage. Contradictory
Psychological Situations are especially good, resulting in a snake-pit set of values
and viewpoints churned by inner conflicts into extreme responses. Such a villain
might be so physically formidable that going for a psychological meltdown is the
only sensible option.
Now for the numbers! Ruby Ray has 200, so Killer Coil will have more; at the
creative outset, I’m thinking 220 or 225.
As usual, I don’t build each of these categories separately or in sequence, but all
at once, so you can’t really see the process on paper, but the result looks like this.
KILLER COIL
The central concept for her is that every time she shows up, she’s on a different job
and is therefore holding completely different values and purposes in her head.
Literally slotted or programmed in, mechanically. She feels no responsibility for
former jobs at all. It’s chilling on its own, but it’s also potentially complicated,
because those jobs did happen, and who knows what consequences all those
different actions may add up to.
My first thought was for her wrist-tentacles to be stretchy body parts, but
since her mental powers and concept are cybernetic, it’s more elegant and also
easy to draw upon a couple of favorite comics villains who mechanical coils for
dangerous infighting.
Situations Specifications Points
Dependent: cybernetic mental clearance Daily; 3d6 15
Physical: Requires assisted living Some of the time; limiting 10
Secret Identity: Nicole Carr 15
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Psych: Modular mission-defined values Often; irrational 20
Psych: Consummate professional Often 15
Psych: Limits of programming when values conflict Sometimes; meltdown 15
Hunted: New England states law enforcement Organization, extensive, ruinous 20
Dependent NPC: Roan Felder, allegedly Public identity 10/Idealistic 15
philanthropist media conglomerate zillionaire sometimes 5
That puts her at 100 + 125 = 225 points, which is just right for a nemesis villain
whom the player has already stated is supposed to be tougher than the hero.
Whatever shall we do with these 225 points?
Characteristics Effect Points
Strength 4d6 4d6 10
Presence 3d6 3d6 5
Body 12 20
Speed 3 20
Defense 12 Total Defense = 18 2
Resistant Defense 6 obvious focus [1: armor] 15
Dexterity 13 20
Intelligence 13 obvious focus [2: cranial module] 11 without focus 10
Ego 11 0
Skills
Security Systems 13 with focus, otherwise 11 5
Martial Arts Attacks 10
Martial Arts Maneuvers 10
Martial Arts Find Weakness 10
Powers
Awareness, tied to Security Systems, Shutdown Mission investigation, regional, 23
high-tech, analyze
Awareness (orientation) inobvious focus [3: visor] This is a different Focus from the 13
one for her characteristics
Telescoping Coils: Stretching 3 hexes Her wrist-coils are technological, 15
but not a Focus in rules terms
Wrist Coils: Extra limbs x2 20
Painful Technique: 1d6 Flash Strike (adds to 17
Martial Punch)
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Chapter SeVeN • VILLaIN maKING
The total is 225 points, with a ratio of 119.6.

Killer Coil is strong enough to heft and throw a motorcycle without pushing,
and fierce combinations arise from her high Dexterity, the martial arts, multiple
stretchy limbs, and situational awareness. She can fight multiple opponents from
any direction at varying distances, or gain immediate bonuses by exploiting
unusual angles for surprise. If it came down to pure hand-to-hand power, she’s
not as strong as Ruby Ray, but Martial Throw is the big equalizer, given that Ruby
Ray has to be flying to use super-strength.
Her build includes the Focus Limitation, but not all-in-one – some of her
techno powers aren’t a Focus at all, and the others are spread across three different
devices. So a single “grab it” isn’t going to shut her down. As a side point, she
offers a good example of a strong build without using a Power Framework.
But mind the more situational variables. Her Intelligence, Security Systems, and
the two Awareness powers intersect so that she enters situations knowing what is
going on and where her target is, at the time and place of her choosing. Killer Coil
is one of those villains who conduct operations, so when in their element, doing
what they want to do, they are tremendously well-situated. They set things up for
a lot of soft or incidental details to go in their favor.
But those are the villains by choice. Contrast them with the world’s eternal
losers, often quite horrid in appearance or in the downsides of their powers. You
almost have to admire them for persevering at all. For Anybug’s Situations, the
player wanted a Dependent NPC who was a former villain. Having produced the
perfect icy professional in Killer Coil, artistic balance suggests going the other
way, all the way.
Toward that end, I was thinking about a famous superhero, conceived as an
inoffensive individual who shifts into a super-strong, freakish form driven by
fury, sometimes sociopathic and sometimes developmentally delayed, depending
on the writer. I thought, the only reason this guy is still a “hero” is because
coincidence keeps ensuring that the buildings he destroys never crush a bus full
of kindergartners or that his well-known fits of violence toward other heroes
never go too far. (2)
What if the next guy like that isn’t so lucky? I came up with ...
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115
DEVOUR
Anybug’s grandfather, thus Manfred Owen Barfield II, is listed as required by
the Situations rules. However, that does not stop me from providing a villain
sheet who happens to be the same person. Decades ago, Devour was one of
the most feared uncontrolled and uncontrollable super-menaces, and also the
most pathetic, as his transformations were entirely involuntary and savagely
cannibalistic. He was never apprehended; unknown to anyone, his condition was
diminished and effectively canceled by the onset of mild dementia.
Secret Identity: Manfred Owen Barfield II Anybug’s grandfather 15
Dependence: human flesh Eww! (since he doesn’t get it, 10
he’s often feeble and debilitated)
Physical Limitation: Memory loss, mild to He has forgotten that he is 10
moderate dementia Devour
Psychological: Loves and admires Miles Often 15
Psych: Desperately seeking cure Sometimes (when he 15
remembers); meltdown
Psych: Infuriated when people don’t listen Sometimes; irrational 10
Enrage, triggered when attacked Common, 14 or less 20
Unusual Looks: odd, offputting, or when 11- 10
transformed, horrifyingly fanged and distorted
Hunted: U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Organization, extensive, 20
Agency manipulative
Unluck 2d6 10
That’s 100 + 125 = 225 points, just like Killer Coil. The player specifies that no
one knows grandpa’s secret history, and that he hasn’t transformed for decades.
This guy is totally screwed! I feel bad for him already.
116

Strength 2d6 See summary of additions 0
Presence 2d6 0
Body 14 40
Speed 4 conditional on using Multiform Otherwise 1 20
Defense 14 See summary of additions 4
Dexterity 12 10
Intelligence 11 0
Ego 11 0
Skills
Stealth 12 or less (Dexterity) 5
Powers
Instant Change fully involuntary Change into monstrous form 5
Life Support Vs. gases, vacuum 10
Awareness Unusual sense: empathy 25
Special Defense: Ego X1 5
Regeneration 1d6 burnout, severe 7
2d6 Blast Strike (Punch), Severe Adds to damage 22
Multiform: Monster 60 conditional on 48
Situations (see chart)
Density Increase x1 0 Endurance + Growth Slot is 40 points 6
x2
x3
x4
That makes 225 points, with a ratio of 116.0.

Multiforms can be complex in play, so here’s a summary of Devour’s
“progression” through his powers.
117
Condition Powers Total values

Instant Change Density Increase x1 + Growth 8x mass, 1+ hex height (3m or
triggered by x2/4 Endurance/Phase about 9 feet)
Psychological Defense 19
Situation “infuriated”
Stunned 16
Special Defense Knockback x3
Strength 4d6
Presence 4d6
Body 16
10 hexes Running
Triggered by Density Increase x1 + Growth 16x mass, 2 hexes height (4m or
response to Unusual x3/6 Endurance/Phase ~13 feet)
Looks in monstrous Defense 19
form
Stunned 16
Strength 5d6
Presence 5d6
Body 17
12 hexes Running
Triggered by Density Increase x1 + Growth 32x mass, 2+ hexes height (5m or
Enraged x4/8 Endurance/Phase ~16 feet)
Defense 19
Stunned 16
Strength 6d6
Presence 6d6
Body 18
14 hexes Running
I’m creeped out now. This poor old guy just tries to orient himself, but hovers on
the edge of realizing he’s a horrible cannibal berserker, and if he does remember
and tries to work on a cure, he’s one bad interaction away from bulking up into a
giant, fanged, rampaging monstrosity. And the empathy lets him know when he’s
being humored or ignored.
Similar to Killer Coil, he represents a distortion of the statements, in his case, the
second one about “family,” rather than the first about “standing for something,” in hers.
118
Great big villains

How do you get these monstrous yahoos? You could pile on points, a handful of
dice higher on every attack, 10 or 15 points higher on every defense, a wider range
of specialized defenses, and basically, “more.” In practice that doesn’t work very
well, turning confrontations into a tedious statistical exercise centered around
calculating few Knockout points at a time.
Consider instead at least a couple of the following design features.
▶ An admittedly over-powered defense. You can get to them, but not that way.
▶ Significant social context and capabilities, not expressed in points, in some
worldly sphere.
▶ An unfairly advantageous special effect for
some or all powers, resulting in basic conceptual
superiority over the heroes.
▶ About something. A great big villain is based on
a great big idea.
Beginning from there with more points than a
starting hero (but not much more) is a remarkably
powerful technique. I have not yet seen such a
villain look weak or fail to shock the heroes. If
you’re interested in minions, bases, servitors,
doomsday devices, lava traps, ships or other
impressive vehicles, or similar things, they
are described in Chapter 10: This is the
World We Live In and Chapter 11: Fighting
Words.
Just as in the comics, you can’t
guarantee a forceful villain identity
with an initial build, but you can set the
stage for it across several villains, and
see what happens. For the Defiants, I’m
developing a fairly horrific, violent villain
cast, but so far insufficiently ideological
for a group of activist heroes. In thinking
about a “biggie,” I try for more subtle and
directed ruthlessness and outright evil.
119
DOMAIN
This is a group or hive entity that forms from many people, representing the
complacent privileged social position which regards itself as “just average;” I
think of it as a kind of evil psychic Elks Lodge. Furthermore, there are always
a couple of minds in overall control, those who represent or influence the most
people (hard to tell which). Hobie and Ginny have used their leadership or, as
they see it, “most average” position for maximum individual gain, but bad as they
are, any other two would be just as bad or worse.
I imagine one of these hood-and-cloak floating foes, but in the hood are two
faces, weirdly divided or superimposed, and all these other, indistinct faces
surround it like bubbles or backdrop, a whole horde of them.
Secret Identity Virginia Goode 15
Secret Identity Hobie Bartmann 15
Psych: Entitled establishmentarian Often; irrational 20
Psych: Odd consensus mind Often 15
Homophobic Rarely; irrational 10
Enrage: explicitly ideologically defied 11 or less 10
Side Effect: if mind control is broken 3d6 Entangle + 1d6 Blast 35
Hunted: The Which Super, ruinous 20
That’s 100 + 140 = 240 points, a nice heft compared with the heroes beginning
at 200 points.
It snaps together for me nicely. In this case, it would be lazy to go full-on
horror, like sacrificing people in their meetings and so on. No. This is banal
power. Domain wants things to go just as they are, enjoying the benefit of forcing
problematic lives on others, then smugly blaming the others for any problems. It
enforces and exploits the way things are and the powers that be.
I feel better already. Killer Coil and Devour are rather tragic monsters with
understandable problems; systemic disorders and dementia are no joke and
should not be villainized. However, Domain is a true force for oppression and
discrimination, by choice and entitled self-blindness, and infuriatingly pleased
with itself about it.
120

Strength 2d6 0
Presence 4d6 10
Body 10 0
Speed 2 10
Defense 26 Total defense = 32 16
Resistant Defense 6 30
Dexterity 11 0
Intelligence 12 10
Ego 14 30
Skills
Mental Discipline 10
Powers
Above It All: Flight 5 hexes linked to Aura 8
2d6 Knockback resistance linked to Aura 8
Elemental Control 45 points: Make My Reality; Reduced effect 36
in private: non-public spaces or without audiences
Hegemony: Mind Control 12d6 Separate x2 Limitation as above 36
The Bubble: High Impact 5d6 Blast Aura 0 Endurance 36
Limitation as above
The numbers match at 100 + 140 = 240, with a ratio of 118.75. (3)
121
Love to hate them,

hate to love them
In the comics, villains tend to decay over time, often very quickly. If you read
one of those big collected volumes, you can actually see the moment when their
story, or role as an active participant, disappears in favor of “Back again! Oh no!”
for yet another rogues’ gallery appearance to preserve IP. They’re not villains any
more, they’re punching bags, used for filler.
That’s a sad fate! Its only prevention rests with both game master and players.
To the game master: these villains are what you want in a comic, specifically this
comic, so at least while you’re directly playing them, be on their side. Show it with
word balloons: say their point of view, and have them act on it.
For most of them, I find genuine sympathy in doing so. The villains as much as
the heroes are situated in the recognizable concerns of the location and the whole
context of play; or even more so. They may be mistaken or crazy, but they aren’t
stupid. They want things, they care about things, and in some way those things
make sense. Their wrongness can be understood.
Some are beyond my sympathy. But that works too. If they want or represent
something that I, personally, truly despise, then I can still find their voice and
articulate that position to every last vile justification or rationalization it has. If a
villain concept goes all the way into evil, then speak the evil out loud.
LA SOCCORSA
I suppose it’s time to introduce you to the woman on the cover. When artist
Erica Rossi and I talked about a villain as the central figure, we agreed that the
stereotyped gloating psycho or moldy old rule-the-world nonsense wasn’t very
interesting. I crossed my fingers and asked her what she thought of someone who
drew the line at the bombing of Libya. Perhaps who lifted a whole Mediterranean
island out of the sea, claimed sovereignty of it, and also jurisdiction over all
refugee movements and locations throughout Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey,
Libya, and Syria, with a promise to one day follow up with Palestine, Egypt, and
Lebanon.
Erica’s eyes narrowed. The character instantly became female. She was an
Italian physician, acting in the combat theater, overwhelmed by atrocities,
constant injuries, roving gangs funded by external governments, uprooted lives,
international indifference, vindictiveness, and disease. She dared the powers
who’d permitted and abetted this disaster to stop her, and she had everything it
would take to back that up.
122
123
I ran with that. Let’s get out of the U.S., I said; out of New York, especially
the Hollywood version. Let’s get really Mediterranean with the heroes, and
furthermore, let’s go full Jack Kirby, with a good dose of modern techno-versions
of ancient myth, including weird headgear. And of course, she was sketching the
whole time.
And here we’ve arrived at my favorite sort of villain: the well-intentioned
extremist.
Public Identity Antonia della Rossi 10
Unusual Looks: aura of suffering, 11 or less 10
ailment, and fear
Psychological: Arrogant Common 15
Psychological: Selfless Common; irrational 20
Psychological: Loves hero Zulfiqar Sometimes; irrational 10
Enrage: law-abiding rhetoric 8 or less 10
Hunted: NATO Large group, extensive, includes 30
superheroes, ruinous
Hunted: Verethragna, Zoroastrian Single individual, super, ruinous 20
god of war
Dependent NPC: Lonni Daniels, Psych: American patriot (sometimes, 20
hostage U.S. Journalist irrational), 10; Physical: badly injured, 10
Vulnerability: Drain 2x effect before defenses 15
That’s 100 + 160 = 260 points, about as high as I’m willing to go for anyone
without increasing points through play.
The cover art includes a little drama too, as the patient at the lower left is the
superhero confronting her, in the center at the top right. That’s the love content
in the Situations, all grand opera and sweeping gestures.
124

Strength 3d6 5
Presence 3d6 5
Body 10 0
+4 Body, limited to +1 per received attack 20
Speed 3 20
Defense 22 (5 resistant) resistance on Activation 14 or less 25
Dexterity 12 10
Intelligence 12 10
Ego 12 10
Skills
Security Systems 5
Martial Moves 10
Powers
Special Defense: Ego x2 obvious focus 5
Elemental Control: The World’s Pain, 30 Points: 30
See the Pain: Images 5d6; Area 24
Effect, tricky 30
Feel the Pain: Entangle 5d6 30
Feel it More: Lethal Flash 3d6 25
The Truth: Awareness w/Analyze (suffering); usable by others, 10
regional; costs Endurance, obvious focus: helmet
What I See: Telepathy 5d6; Affects Group (oppressors); send only; 15
obvious focus: helmet
Succor: Regeneration 6d6; usable on others; obvious focus
That’s 260 points, with a ratio of 128.7.

Villains also begin with 5 to 40 points for bases and vehicles, as presented in
Chapter 10: This is the World We Live In. The amount is arbitrarily determined
by whatever the game master think the villain ought to have. La Soccorsa gets 40.
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Base
Lipari Island, suspended above the ocean
Distinctive 5
Monolithic 10
Facilities
Medical 5
Regeneration 1d6 Usable on others 20
Staff 5
Mass living space 5
Public Identity Situation; reduces base points [10]
See them grow

At first build, a villain is provisional. You can be sure about how they’re introduced
and what they think they’re doing, but not what will happen or what they’ll
eventually be like. All iconic, beloved, feared, and respected villains in the comics
began as just another foe-schmoe among others, sometimes even second-raters
or throwaways. Sometimes they didn’t “get better” until after their abandonment,
having been subsequently picked up by later creators.
Even the great-and-powerful villains weren’t that big at first. They had to grow
into place. One fellow began with just a metal mask and a time machine, and his
first story was average at best. But through several years of re-appearances and
added ideas, he became a walking refutation of the super-team whose name titled
the comic, almost to the point where he could have become the title character
himself. (4)
▶ Super-science inter-dimensional exploration? So what? I do that too; and I
zing it up with forbidden magic!
▶ Your leader is a genius? Bah! I went to college with that guy, and he’s a dick.
▶ You own a building downtown? How impressive. I have a country with a
military and a seat at the UN.
▶ You’re apolitical? I’m an expy of Josep Tito.
▶ You’re All-American White Joe Cold War? See above, and I’m born to a
widely-despised minority.
▶ You’re a bickering but loving family? I have no family. They were killed by
fascists, and I’m pissed off about it.
▶ You show your faces to the world, no masks? This mask is my face.
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There is a reason the first 100 issues of that title are

called, without irony, superhero comics’ Great
American Novel, and this guy is probably it.
Without him, they couldn’t be them.
What villains “work” like this or don’t
ultimately depends on the players. What makes the
difference is always some moment of interaction
with a hero, in some human context, when they
suddenly understand one another. It might be an
unexpected mix of action and dialogue during a
super-fight, or it might even be very normal or
casual. This understanding produces raw emotion,
specific to these two people, from hostile loathing to
reluctant admiration or even to hot attraction.
Things change after that. The villain was about to
rob the bank or take over the government or stop
time in its tracks, or whatever, and they probably
will still try. But now they care very, very greatly
about this hero’s involvement, and vice versa. The
feelings can be positive, negative, or a mix, but they
are fully personal. From now on, it’s only partly about
the bank, the government, the world, et cetera. It’s not
a fight scene any more, but a new phase of an ongoing
relationship.
This phenomenon can’t be imposed or faked and, once
in effect, it can’t be denied. With it, even a not-very-
threatening villain is a genuine nemesis; without it,
twice the points are just two times a zero. You can’t
anticipate who will get there, and for which hero. You can never tell who’s going
to capture the group’s collective admiration, fury, or dread.
The important thing is that some will, and to be ready.
References
(1) Constrictor is the tentacled villain who most influences Killer Coil visually.
Constrictor first appeared in The Incredible Hulk #212 (1977), created by Len
Wein and John Romita Sr., illustrated by Sal Buscema, published by Cadence
Industries using the Marvel Comics Group imprint. Doctor Octopus is inevitably
invoked as well, as the king of this motif; Doctor Octopus first appeared in The
Amazing Spider-Man #3 (1963), by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, published by
Magazine Management using the Marvel Comics imprint.
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(2) The influences on Devour combine the anger-escalation and transformative

features of the Hulk with the descent into murderous hunger that characterizes
Morbius the Living Vampire. Both characters have been presented sympathetically
more often than not, as their struggles to find a “cure” conflict with the sometimes
necessary utility of their dangerous powers. The Hulk first appeared in The
Incredible Hulk #1 (1962), by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, published by Magazine
Management using the Marvel Comics imprint. Morbius first appeared in The
Amazing Spiderman #101 (1971), by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane, published by
Cadence Industries using the Marvel Comics Group imprint.
(3) The frightening super-villain’s “no-sell” defense has many examples, but
standouts include Kang the Conqueror’s force field and the Kingpin’s mass and
fighting competence. Kang first appeared in The Avengers #8 (1964), by Stan Lee
and Jack Kirby; the Kingpin first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #50 (1967),
by Stan Lee and John Romita Sr.; both were published by Magazine Management
using the Marvel Comics imprint.
(4) Doctor Victor von Doom holds or at least shares top billing as the premier
supervillain of mainstream comics, often having captured the love of creators
and readers above the nominal heroes. He first appeared in The Fantastic Four #5
(1962), by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, published by Magazine Management using
the Marvel Comics imprint. His key developments occurred in The Fantastic
Four Annual #2 (1964), by the same creators and publisher; in Marvel Super
Heroes #20 (1969), by Roy Thomas and Larry Lieber, published by The Perfect
Film and Chemical Corporation using the Marvel Comics imprint; and in
Astonishing Tales #2-6 (1970-71), by Roy Thomas and Wally Wood, by the same
publisher. Further developments and interpretations include but are not limited
to Supervillain Team-Up #7 (1976), by Steve Englehart and Herb Trimpe; and
The Fantastic Four #236-278 (1981-1985) by John Byrne; both were published by
Cadence Industries using the Marvel Comics Group imprint.
Doom’s evolving correspondence to Josep Broz (Tito) may or may not have been
intentional by the creators, but it is undeniable: the fictional Latveria is situated
precisely in the region of former Yugoslavia that was Tito’s base, Yugoslavia
was notably the single East European socialist nation to reject the Warsaw Pact
(“communist bloc” in U.S. terms) as well as NATO or association with the United
States, and Tito’s ruling policies and support for the Non-Aligned Movement
were confusing to Americans, both easily demonized and provoking thought.
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Chapter 8
The Now
Chapter Eight • The Now
W hose story is this, and what is “the story” anyway? I wish I could shrug and
say, “like in the comics,” but the grim truth is that superhero comics make great
stories except when they don’t. Which isn’t much help.
But there is this. Before the mid-1960s, many superhero comics stories were
isolated one-offs without much forward drive, consequence, or character
development. By the mid-1980s, they were mostly forward-planned, editorially-
controlled, franchise-driven publicity campaigns for toys and movies. The
superhero comics in between were uniquely different from either model, and
they inspired the original Champions. What we can learn or do based on them?
▶ Whatever happens has consequence and fuels development
▶ Play moves into an unknown future rather than according to a planned
structure
For this to work in role-playing, each session of play is “the first day of the
rest of your game,” fanning outward to an unspecified and unknown number of
possible outcomes, rather than inward to a planned event. You need a thing which
represents, not an itinerary or schedule for isolated actions, but an across-content
leading edge of what just happened and what is or could be about to happen.
The method
Here I’m speaking to the game master. Starting before, during, or just after the
first session, build a cast list outline based on each hero: his or her name, relevant
identity terms, persons they know or who are otherwise relevant to them,
locations, institutions and group and groups of all sorts. Include reminders of
whatever personality, goals, and details seem obvious to you, for anything in
there, with brainstormed inspirations or modifications as well as the known
things.
Sketchy is perfectly all right; just one or two points of detail per thing is plenty.
Add a few items if you must. I can’t think of one time I’ve played without pulling
in an original villain or two whom I’d made by the time I got to working on this
part.
With each session or couple of sessions of play, add and alter copiously, but do
not replace the document. Instead, layer it onto the previous one; and, yes, they
will pile up! I used to do this with stapled sheets of messy photocopies, and now
I do it with digital files and printouts, with new filenames for each save. That’s the
Now: the newest file, or the front page, or the top of the stack.
My format uses lots of subheadings and bullet points, but yours should be
whatever works for you. Some people like Venn or similar diagrams better, or
spreadsheets, or a Wall of Crazy with a bulletin board, and some even like to
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pepper it with creative details like newspaper articles about what just happened.
What matters is that it is a list rather than a prose story or essay: that you can read
it with little concentration, that it’s casually accessible, that it can be easily added
to or noted upon, and, as time passes, that you can look back through its older
incarnations.
As you make or alter each new version, it transforms from a location and list
into the physical and social ecology of immediate, about-to-play play. It is full
of previous outcomes’ consequences and also of “wants to” and “about to,” and
is therefore dynamic. In motion. Due to that and only that feature, this thing is
now a setting without pulling in the baggage of world-building. Or, stated more
positively, within a very few sessions you will discover that you’ve powerfully
accomplished world-building. The noun of a “world” is being created through
the repeated outcomes of verbs.
As far as settings and world-building go, this is also where everyone playing
contributes to the game’s collective naturalism and its science fiction or otherwise
fantastic contents, moving along from the ideas that went into and proceed from
the Now.
What goes in there

You already have the hero sheets for every little rules detail, so this document
(or whatever) is for all the qualitative content: names, places, events, concepts –
whatever has happened or could conceivably be on the way to happening. It’s also
a kind of research archive, as you add or enrich a few things for satisfying use.
This is completely subjective, judging what you see using the world as you know
it, and ladling in the extravagant comics content as you like.
The location is one focus for attention, as a little bit of research goes a long
way. If you’re not the person most familiar with it, ask the person who is a few
questions; and, guaranteed, some remarkable and actionable material will appear!
Playtesting taught me a bunch of stuff.
▶ The New England Knowledge Corridor running through Hartford, and
the saga of family power and money that underlies mainstream reform in
Connecticut, Vermont, and Massachusetts
▶ The physical properties of the metallic element tungsten, including its cool
name in Swedish, wolfram
▶ The section of İstiklal Street in Istanbul which features unadorned mannequins,
like, hordes of them, displayed in shop windows, on balconies, and in front of
stores, for several blocks
▶ The key role of the Deacons for Defense in the U.S. civil rights movement
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▶ The history and architecture of the Space Needle, which has certainly already
seen its share of disasters in comics, but there’s always room for more
▶ The bizarre organization and jurisdiction chart for the Kansas City police
department, considering the two cities by that name which comprise the state
boundary between Kansas and Missouri
▶ Speculative and not-so-speculative technology for Mars habitats
▶ The power of the Family Research Council and the Heritage Foundation
▶ Operation Wetback in 1954
▶ Project Gnome, which I’ll let you look up and wonder why this didn’t make it
into a comic book by now
Work from your own interests. Mine (apparently) skew toward politics and
science, and I admit to adding a fair dose of psychedelica onto whatever I dig up,
but yours might include crime drama, mysticism, pop psychology, or classical
myth, to name a few which have also featured widely in superhero comics. Such
information instantly reveals or suggests organizations and institutions - and
those, in turn, are like free gift emporium in providing persons of influence and
strongly-felt goals, whether real or fictional.
One’s mind understandably turns toward super-powering such persons. Villains
may serve or oppose organizations, and the question of other, NPC heroes arises
as well, also in a variety of relations to institutions and situations. At that point
no rules guidelines are possible. Whom you may invent (or expy) and what they
may be doing, in your Now, is so specific that all I can say is: do it and find out.
One option is to create an NPC hero who operates as a member of the players’
heroes’ group, sometimes called a GMPC. I’ve played a lot of these, done without,
and very reluctantly I would favor not using them, if I had to choose permanently
one way or the other. The risks are real: creating the role-playing equivalent of
a Canon Sue, whom everyone is supposed to like or favor despite deserving no
such thing; implying and eventually falling into the play-practice of “oracle,”
i.e., consistently providing insights or knowing what the group should do next;
becoming a lightning rod for player dissatisfactions if any should arise; and
worse. Then again, certain instances have been very successful for me and for
others, so I leave the option open and hope for the best.
For, while I love the villains and non-player heroes, it’s easy to forget that
for them less is more. Whereas for the ordinary people in and among all those
organizations and social situations, the best practice is the opposite: more is more.
Not just in numbers, but in the game master’s commitment to them as thinking,
active beings. Supporting cast make play come alive. (As discussed in Chapter 9:
What’s Happening). List the ones you know from the sheets, then invent some
more based on the heroes’ lifestyles, relationships, work, and families. Then,
during play, discover and invent even more!
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These people are highly consequential, because most of a character concept

isn’t represented by points. The most powerful executive officer of the nation
where the heroes live may be a “normal” in points terms, but that doesn’t make
him or her less able to affect the characters’ lives, or necessarily bad at that job. It’s
good to have a big collection of names handy as a sideboard during play. I don’t
know why, but picking these names almost at random curiously results in one of
them being perfect for someone you suddenly need it for.
See if any existing Dependent NPCs make sense as members of one or more
groups or organizations in the Now, and also if any of them make sense as non-
quantified supporting cast across more than one hero. Don’t forget that their
own Situations create content for the Now just like a hero’s does, especially since
by definition those Situations are up-front in the designated heroes’ lives. This
helps to get Dependent NPCs ready to play as people with good brains and
understandable commitments, who are not ditzy, clueless, emotionally helpless,
abrasive, or bereft of common sense. They don’t have to be arbitrary, unwanted
hooks to pull heroes into things, but are instead active participants in situations,
fun for the game master to play, valued and even half-and-half played by the hero
players, and worth voices of their own.
The Defiants
Looking over the heroes in the Hartford game, not yet named as a group, but
organized into a kind of unity via a Now arrangement, I could see something
jump out immediately: gay pride, and every possible angle on assimilating
versus rebelling. It even helps, rather than hinders, that one hero is straight and
one either nonconforming or agender, rather than all four being “comfortably”
categorized or unified.
We didn’t play very many sessions with these heroes, so I’ll only reference the
limited Now we used in terms of Hartford’s long-running activist history, which
at times seems like an establishment of its own, and its fraught ethnic conflicts
despite its position in the popular symbolism of American freedom. Here I want
to showcase the supporting cast that emerged from the heroes’ sheets.
Anybug, Manfred Owen Barfield IV

No question about it: “Mo” is privileged and wealthy, with an extended and
established family, slated to be its “name” face member in a Roman-numeral
succession, on schedule. Being out gay and a publicly-identified superhero
throws a wrench into all this, but he has reversed it into an advantage, at least for
the moment making his family take it and like it. Obviously that implies at least a
few of them who are inclined to do neither.
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The Public Identity Situation implies a strongly-invested public, which in his

case goes directly to his orientation as well as being slated for power. He’s the
hero who led me to start investigating the recent history of Connecticut, the first
state to legalize gay marriage, the impressive if somewhat self-righteous history
centered on the Hartford Green, and the complex power structure of centrist
liberalism called the Knowledge Corridor that I mentioned earlier and its
associated institutions.
As if all that weren’t enough, the real wrench shows up with his grandfather,
Manfred Owen Barfield II, who is none other than the long-disappeared
terrifying berserk monster supervillain called Devour. Who seems now to be a
mildly disoriented, pretty nice old guy who totally approves of his odd grandson’s
activist bravery. I asked, does Mo know his grandfather’s past? No, said the
player, no one does. Which means it’s high time to develop Devour’s long violent
history with institutions like the military and certainly a bevy of prior or older
superheroes.
Grimfire, Yuri “Rob” Velikov

This guy required a little player explanation, as Russian-born but very
Americanized, to the point of being a tough-guy vigilante with edgy politics back
in the 1990s. His fiery, occult-looking powers made him a target for evangelical
Christian outrage, especially since he exposed a corrupt branch of the Eagle
Forum. Many people from back then are now in positions of national power and
inclined to take their common history personally.
He’s specifically just made his identity public, and although this isn’t problematic,
i.e., it is not designated as a Situation. Still, people he knows are going to have
feelings about it. Uniquely among the heroes, he has no designated Dependent
NPC Situations; but no one knows nobody, so there must be somebody. In
addition to people within the Hunted Situation, I’m thinking of plenty of people
with direct experience of his history, maybe someone he saved through a ruthless
action, media who criticized him, and given his loneliness, alienated family or
friends.
The Which, Isabela García

Isabela’s Situations are full of family, explicit in the Dependent NPC, her twin
sister Tina, and developed by her player in the person corner, regarding her
relatively high-income, well-assimilated Mexican-American family with middle-
conservative politics. This is tied easily to her closeted gay orientation and her
commitment to a Secret Identity (unlike the other heroes). It might also go with
the tricky duality and mystery of her powers, and perhaps even a certain identity
confusion with Tina, although not to the degree that it becomes a Situation of its
own.
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Her Hunted Situation, Domain, was initially conceived simply as a powers-

contrast, control in opposition to uncertainty. But given this context it snaps
into place as you saw in Chapter 7: Making Villains. Domain is a collective
conformist identity, an amalgam of “the middle,” which is perfectly tolerant as
long as you want to be normal. It also demands the application for one of my least
favorite motifs, Mind Control, in dreadful realization that it would make perfect
sense, and The Which’s parents are certainly involved. That’s why this villain is
potentially the big one in that game, so strongly connected to the location and
points of crisis.
Ruby Ray, Natalie Freeman

You know Natalie pretty well by now, so I’ll quickly mention that her Dark
Web music and advocacy activities are considered criminal by the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC), a real-world governmental (but
“independent”) organization known for its fixed views and considerable reach.
“Note to self,” I said to myself, “Let’s find out more about these bozos,” and
proceeded to scare myself silly.
In family terms, Ruby looks like the Which’s opposite, at least insofar as fully
up-front and public disclosure of herself and anything else is concerned, said loud
and proud via her radio/web shows. A Public Identity of this kind is a big deal,
as just about anyone knows who she is and has an opinion about it, and no few
of them take action thereby. However, she’s more like the Which than it seems,
flipped around, as her brother Bri is her working partner (or co-conspirator if
you like). He certainly needs some thought and effort put into his actions and
views.
You’ve seen her Hunted Situation as well, with Killer Coil, but I stress that
this context of the Now provided the platform for the creative build you saw in
Chapter 7: Making Villains.
Looking over these summaries, I should clarify something: I could not have
stated them this fully at the outset of play, and I do not recommend trying. In
retrospect, everything written above was “there,” but a good half of it clearly
existed at a more intuitive level, because it only gained specific words and stated
views as we found them ourselves during the first session.
Now I’ll switch to another superhero team to draw upon extensive play material
for a more complete example.
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Legacy
I briefly mentioned this hero group in Chapter 3: Your Game. We played it for
enough sessions to see the Now really blossom and boom, and I kept a good
running record as we went. To remind you of our opening statements:
▶ The past is always present, on the Left Coast [Big Sur to Vancouver]
The starting heroes were Power*Star and Advance, soon joined by a third,
Komodo Dragon.
It offers some practical insights about the Now as a technique. You’ll see a
lot of emergence from the coincidence that the starting players independently
focused on alternate technology for their heroes’ powers, making it a central,
even unifying feature of our game. Also, since its statements explicitly brought in
history, that shows up here even more than it usually does in my games.
The following material is ripped straight from my Now for our first session of
play. The text in italics was red in the original, to remind myself that the content
isn’t known to the heroes.
Power*Star, Mike Mandella

30 years old, former restaurant entrepreneur, lives in Seattle
Powers
▶ The Power*Cave headquarters under Capitol Hill – Mike doesn’t know how it
works, uses the dusty obsolete manuals
▶ Massive Tesla tap coils
▶ Higgs-Boson space: tap receivers in the suit
▶ Teleport disks throughout northwest
▶ Known: Seattle, Portland, Vancouver
▶ One is at the prison where Dr. Darkstar is
Family
▶ Hippie parents and general culture of upbringing
▶ Hence the misspelled surname
▶ His brother Aaron, idealistic author, pressuring him to donate the money
▶ His ex and Aaron’s wife, Michelle
▶ Conflicted, still loves him mainly on memories, but believes more in Aaron;
determined not to ask for or accept money
▶ Runs the restaurant he left behind
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▶ Former Power*Star, Mike’s grandfather

• Dr. Charles Edison (1890-1969) – “estranged from the family”
• Founded The Fund for American Studies (thus renamed in 1987)
• The money was sequestered for twenty years, then entered confused
litigation that was re-defined and resolved recently – could not go
to anyone but a single person, but no person was designated, and so
ultimately it went to Mike
▶ Darius Darkstar – so many mysteries and potential here
• Invented the Edison-Tesla tech used by the original Power*Star, implied
all the way back in 1920s
• Been in prison for a long, long time, from Power*Star’s heyday
• The Black List – the list he’s given to Mike to investigate or stop
▶ The Dark Cohort – broken off from Darkstar
• No member has ever been caught
• Searching for the new Power*Star – no joke, intend to put him down immediately
The public
▶ Monica Stewart – nosy journalist
• Knows a lot more about the original Power*Star history than Mike does
Advance, Vikhrov “Vince” Vasilivich

60 years old, energy researcher and consultant, lives in Humboldt
Powers
▶ Mysteriously shut off in the early-mid-1990s; just as mysteriously have
reappeared
▶ Inadvertently revealed to everyone during an outdoor concert, which was
attacked by a supervillain, Mirror Mirror
▶ Totally public and totally unprepared for modern notoriety
Family
▶ His wife Denise, researcher and entrepreneur partner –
• Newly discovered he’s the former Advance, along with the rest of the
world, supportive
▶ Advanced Futures energy company
• Gavin Holmann, dedicated business partner
• Helen Jacobs – politician, resourceful, manipulative, gunning for Advance
Futures’ tech, either to co-opt it for her party or to shut it down
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▶ The Continuum – interdimensional entity

• Taps into the past to send 80s villains at him
• Doctor Bang, Gemfire
Concepts
▶ The power structure of northwest coast energy
▶ Families, histories
▶ Projects, local economies
▶ Vancouver’s green commitment
▶ Conflicting/cooperative state and international policy
▶ U.S. vs. Canada; California vs. Oregon vs. Washington; city vs. county
jurisdiction over the financing of power
Heroes’ powers
▶ The dimensionality and time-skipping occurrence of Advance’s powers
▶ The Continuum
▶ Tesla/Higgs space
▶ The Power*Cave and the disks
Super-history
▶ 1920s-1960s original Power*Star, he was the first superhero
▶ Darius Darkstar as his nemesis, in prison since what, 1960 or something
▶ 1970s Dark Cohort
▶ 1980s Advance’s illustrious career before his powers vanished in the mid-
1990s
▶ Continuum gets its “minions” from this period
▶ Mid-1990s Mike is born
▶ Family drama about the grandfather’s inheritance begins during his teens,
sometime around 2010
All this was just at the beginning! We were soon joined by a fourth participant
with this fellow, who shows up in my Now like this:
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Komodo Dragon, Jake Drake

21 years old, student and vlogger entrepeneur, lives in San Francisco
Powers
▶ Meditative focus; “reptilian brain” psychobabble
▶ What on earth are they really?
Family
▶ Elaine Liu, mom
• Venture capitalist, obsessed with social standing
▶ “Tony Liu,” deceased grandfather, former Komodo Dragon during the 1950s
in Indonesia
▶ KomodoLife LLC
• Vlog: his exploits, reflections, opinions
• Team Komodo: YouTube lifestyler fanbase – demanding and interfering
▶ Chase Galván, media director and lover – constantly overbooked
▶ The Basilisk
• Competitor online vlogger, adversary, alt-right ideologue
• Anonymous
• Certain remunerative codependence has evolved between them
▶ Project Beyond, U.S. government
• Exotic energy strategizing
• Revived investigation into Komodo powers now that Jake is active
Little of this content was my direct doing. The material came right from the hero
sheets, albeit filtered through my first bits of research and my own investment
in the location. It had become something of its own, but not a ‘Verse. It’s not
a gazetteer-style mapped setting with known horizons, brilliantly conceived
backstory, and inevitable climactic conclusions. Instead, we had a nascent, highly
specific setting in action, ready to grow, and more so, to do it right Now.
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Emergent properties
There are things even in the very first Now that you don’t see coming, indeed,
that no one can.
For the Legacy game, Alan, Power*Star’s player, had spitballed the name
“Charles” as an intermediate ancestor between his hero and Thomas Edison, and
was surprised as anyone when Charles Edison, Thomas’ son, turned out to be
a historical person. I hadn’t heard of him and assumed Alan had chosen him
deliberately, so I’d put some effort into learning about him and conceived of the
content and timing of the original Power*Star’s career based on what I’d found.
That content and timing influenced us all, including such things as Alan
enjoying an extremely retro appearance for his hero, reminiscent of 1920s pulp
rather than 1950s comics, and quite a bit of political context for the imprisoned
nemesis, Doctor Darius Darkstar. That in turn provided a framework into which
the other starting hero’s history, including the initial appearance and mysterious
disappearance of his powers, could be timed.
The interplay of input, interpretation, and connection was impossible to plan or
control. It looks planned, even quite clever. I’d be proud of it on our behalf, except
that this is normal, something everyone can do, as long as they share a certain
aesthetic, contribute things playfully but with genuine interest, and remain ready
to accept and adjust.
It’s also good example of where superhero comics of the relevant era overlaps
with role-playing.
One of the most well-known and beloved superheroes in the world first appeared
in a short piece in the last issue of a canceled anthology title, featuring a uniquely
detailed costume with a curious mix of arachnid powers and gadgets. (1)
Who “created” him? Before you answer, consider these:
▶ The 1940s comics superhero, the Spider Queen, who crawled stealthily upon
inside and outside walls and used web-shooting devices on her wrists
▶ Another 1940s comics vigilante, the Tarantula, who fought crime using
acrobatics and a “web gun.”
▶ A Halloween costume displayed in New York store windows in the late 1950s,
including not only the characteristic webbed patten and full-face mask, but
even a name strikingly similar to the as-yet uninvented hero
▶ Preliminary artwork by two, not one, of the primary artists at this particular
company
▶ A writer and an artist who had already honed a mutualistic technique for
a decade of horror and monster stories together, in which each altered and
adjusted to what the other was providing
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Comics fandom writhes and wrestles about “who did it” and no one will ever
win the argument, because so often in this art form, the auteur theory disintegrates
when applied. And here’s another one, from the end of the relevant era of comics
rather than its beginning:
▶ A defunct company’s hero characters from the 1960s had been purchased by
an ambitious company during the 1980s
▶ A comics creator from a foreign land, rejected by his company of choice, had
gained fame with one of this company’s B-level titles
▶ Assigned these characters for a limited series, his proposal was audacious
enough for the editors to only permit it using expys (stand-ins, “official
imitations,” or no-serial-numbers IP revisions)
▶ The work was freed from the need for continuity with other company heroes
and from expected constraints of this company’s typical thematic outcomes
▶ The artist was included at the author’s request, as they’d worked together in
the foreign land, and his distinctive designs and layout deeply informed the
nature of the script and ultimately the plot
▶ Partly due to the shift in “who” the heroes were, many, even most of the details
and at least one major plot point were last-minute improvisations, for the
series as a whole and for each individual issue (2)
Even the one superhero comic which most famously showcased clockwork
determinism as its story content was not itself made that way. They received,
retooled, thought of new things, and, sequentially, used what they’d just done as
an opportunity to add or alter more.
Greatness for these titles, especially for specific heroes’ personality, development,
and fate, jumped unexpectedly out of a convergence of legal adaptation, semi-legal
copying, synthesizing, toss-it-in, “editorial opportunity” (i.e., relaxed control),
and the personalities who contributed to it. It happened consistently during
the writing-forward, relatively unmanaged context of that period in superhero
comics, for which these two titles are pretty good representatives of its beginning
and end. The skills, or if you prefer, creative genius, are found in knowing what
to do with the stew you get (or are in), not in pushing a magic mental button to
produce it as planned on demand.
That ties really well to role-playing based on multiple player input for situations
of crisis and drama, which shines when it takes that same lesson to heart: not
a directed, controlled glide along step-by-step confrontations toward a pre-
supposed climax. Instead, the guiding principle is clear: play doesn’t follow plots,
it takes up the craziness of what’s at hand, and makes them.
In your game, ride the wave of Now.
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References
(1) Contributors to the concept of Spider-Man include or may include:
▶ The Spider Queen first appeared in The Eagle #2 (1941), by “Elsa Lesau” (Louis
and Arturo Cazanueve), published by Fox Features Syndicate.
▶ The Tarantula first appeared in Star Spangled Comics #1 (1941), by Mort
Weisinger and Harold Wilson Sharp, published by Independent News using
its DC imprint (soon revised to “Superman DC”).
▶ Joe Simon and Jack Kirby provide differing accounts of their development of
someone called either the Silver Spider or Spider-Man during the 1950s.
▶ A Halloween costume produced and marketed by Ben Cooper beginning in
1954 undeniably displays distinctive features of the eventual comics costume,
as well as the name “Spider Man.”
▶ The Fly first appeared in Adventures of the Fly #1 (1959), by Joe Simon, published
by Archie Comics Publications using the Red Circle Comics imprint.
▶ Stan Lee describes pitching the Spider-Man concept to Martin Goodman
in 1962 and arranging its publication in the final issue of the canceled title
Amazing Adult Fantasy.
▶ Jack Kirby provided pencils for an initial Spider-Man story that was not used.
▶ Steve Ditko designed the costume.
▶ Steve Ditko pencilled and often inked the comics, beginning with Amazing
Adult Fantasy #15 and then The Amazing Spider-Man #1 going forward.
▶ Lee scripted the comics but the credits are carefully parsed regarding plotting
either by him or by Ditko throughout their collaboration on the title.
(2) Watchmen #1-12 (1986-1987), by Alan Moore and David Gibbons, was
published by Warner Communications through its DC Comics division. The
circumstances of the title’s conception and production are well-documented. One
almost unbelievable example of confluence is that the Galle crater on Mars does
look like a smiley face from straight overhead. It was photographed by Viking
Orbiter 1 in 1976 just after the almost identical image became an international fad
(on Earth), as if both were waiting for Moore to re-invent the hero Peacemaker as
the Comedian with the smiley-face motif and the hero Captain Atom as Doctor
Manhattan who is obsessed with Mars. Granted, no one knows which detail came
first as a creative process. The point is that it’s always a stew.
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Chapter 9
What’s Happening
Chapter Nine • What’s Happening
H ow about play itself? We all know that the next session will include super-powered
crisis and action, probably including heroes and villains hitting one another, as well
as emotional developments and confrontations. But how is this done?
It’s not done by keeping one powerful hand on the controls for what can and
will happen at all times.
Let’s turn a critical eye to the difference between preparation and play. The game
master has the job to set fictional facts before play: things like a location that a
villain seeks to destroy, that this particular villain happens to be the most active
adversary this time, or that this event coincides with a tricky local political decision
and a contested election. During play, as well, the game master serves as the arbiter
for where most things are and what people besides the players’ heroes try to do.
But the authority stops there, specifically:
▶ When players say heroes’ decisions and actions
▶ Before planning or anticipating outcomes during play
The game master’s tasks make play possible. But what happens during and
because of play isn’t under the game master’s control. That’s tough for some to
contemplate. Maybe not you; but a lot of people associate authority over prepared
facts with authority over a pre-conceived series of events and, in the end, a final
pre-planned confrontation. For them, doing the one without the other is cutting
their skill-set in half.
This cut-in-half authority serves superhero role-playing very well, with the
content nailed down but the events’ outcomes wide open for discovery. Here’s
how to do it.
Crisis and conflict

The what in the chapter title is easy: an absurdly large injection of adversity and
adversaries. It’s found in the Now, in the most obvious and urgent actions about
to happen. They’re dramatic, so indicate those parts dramatically; in my files, for
example, you can see the bolded material in each step for “do this next!”
Villains are the obvious choice, the pesky boogers. They simply can’t settle
down. Most of them are always a moment away from launching into action based
on their own Situations alone, even without prior events of play to motivate them
further. Whoever it is, consider their current motivations, goals, and connections
with everything else. Whether they’re coolly strategizing, or lashing out at last.
Consider all the groups and institutions as well, busy as always, with their
current power players setting and carrying out policy, changing the world,
throwing around their resources, influences, messaging, and ops; basically
showing you what real villainy is. And they’re so damn blatant about it.
144
That’s the “what,” now for the how. These people and entities from the Now
must already be in action at the start of the session. It’s not something to “get to,”
or to maneuver people into somehow arriving there; you have to own it and say,
this is what the Now has brought us, period.
Once you’re committed to it, here’s a useful dial to contemplate: coming in hot
or playing it cool.
Coming in hot is assertive situation-framing. For a game master, it includes:
▶ Prepared locations and saying “you are here.”
▶ Imminent or even already-happening crisis, in your face, no need to go
looking for it.
▶ The arrival of information right now, and this is what it says.
▶ Other people act on their goals, with immediate effects.
Whereas playing it cool is based more on these:
▶ Asking “It’s first thing in the morning, where are you?” or any other variant
on “what do you do?”
▶ Other people interact with the heroes and provide opinions.
▶ Various known things are updated through ordinary means, like checking
one’s emails or going to work and seeing what’s new.
▶ The known and observed features of the world shift a little based on what the
Now has brought it, but not urgently so, or not yet.
▶ When the interactions and circumstances provoke someone enough, they
turn up the action hot as the gates of hell.
Neither is better play. They operate as a dial.
A day in the life

The hot and cool concept starts right away, depending on whether you tell a
player, “you are here,” or ask, “where are you, where do you go.” Either way works
to showcase the heroes’ lifestyles: where they live, how they live, what they brush
their teeth with, whether they wear pajamas or not, if they’re worried about the
rent, whether they go to work in a designated workplace, and if so, how they get
there... all that stuff.
The extensive cast and population is easily introduced by continuing to play,
beginning with anyone whom the hero would deal with on this particular morning
or whenever, showcasing their personalities, priorities, and expectations, and
see what the hero does and says. We’re talking about colleagues, bosses, family,
romantic partners, friends, and whoever they may meet.
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▶ Incidental persons based on the immediate location; e.g., if we’re in a coffee

shop, there’s a barrista. Such people are surprisingly capable of jumping up
and demanding identities in play and, when they do, should be welcomed and
named.
▶ Necessary participants in the heroes’ lives, based on what we know from the
three corners. Think of them as the orbiting faces in one of those “hero solar
system” graphics, with special emphasis for anyone included in the Situations.
▶ Dependent NPCs are a special case of supporting cast, partly because their
problems are the hero’s problems too, as established by the hero’s own choice
and values. Therefore they are uniquely emotional and interactive.
Playing this way includes cutting back and forth among the heroes, with no
need to drag out or “finish” anything. Thinking like comics panels works perfectly
to keep anyone from having to sit and wait, as the spotlight shifts about for a
montage effect of brief portraits and personal moments. The interactions and the
cuts create a tapestry displaying the heroes’ relationships, social identity, relevant
institutions, and locations.
It’s full of potential for action. In “Days of Our Lives” fashion, any of these
situations may yield differences of view, open disagreements, and conflicts. This
may sound terrible, but in a lot of ways, these interactions in the heroes’ ordinary
lives are sometimes like combat. Even loving, friendly people can disagree, let
alone the simmering hostilities and challenges of some families and workplaces.
In the comics, a conversation can be illustrated using the same layout and
composition techniques as a fight. You can do the same in play. In that case, it’s
time to roll dice!
These rolls typically call upon Intelligence or its application as perception,
especially regarding minor or brewing conflicts among people or concerning
such things as status and employment. Think of how much we actual people work
at “nuance” in ordinary conversations, and use these rolls to bring it into the open
or to note that it’s festering for later.
Another important roll is how you influence someone, using Presence. Given
good rolls, even a cranky person will take what you want seriously and perhaps
with some sympathy; and a great roll can get you what you want, the way you
want it. Think about it – that’s no small thing!
Play comes alive when these situations’ outcomes are at the mercy of these rolls.
When a hero’s life is full of important things to notice, succeeding or failing to do so
matters. When people have strong opinions or expectations, then whole emotional
landscapes depend however well or badly you do with a Presence roll toward them.
That brings up the Dependent NPCs again, because, like Hunted Situations,
they are immune to the Presence mechanic. It’s not that they don’t listen to you,
it’s that they’re not overawed or dominated. It’s the perfect opportunity to provide
contrasting or supportive points of view and for the hero to put their actions on
the line rather than spouting pretty claims.
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The learning curves

One learning curve is obvious for everyone in playing this game, as with any
role-playing game. It takes a session or two to know the cogs and levers well, to
grab’em for resolutions, to see how those points you wrangled matter, and to feel
the savage burn of Endurance under pressure.
Meanwhile, there’s another curve that’s special for Champions and to each
group playing it, to learn who says what for situational framing: where we are,
who’s there, and what’s happening.
It works very well for the game master to play the first session quite hot.
▶ Choose Statement-rich adversaries and crises for the Now
▶ State opening circumstances based on Situations
▶ Ask strong questions about locations, descriptions, activities
▶ Cut hard and brisk; meet a relevant non-player character or two and move on
▶ Achieve nice solid short portraits for everyone
▶ Drop the Now on’em at its most dangerous and immediate point
But after that, it’s time to cool down and to use the Now more responsively. It’s
still there, but it’s developing rather than dropping in through the skylight. When
the players feel in their heroes’ skins, playing them doing things, the game master
can feel the same way regarding the villains and everyone else. When these are
the case, then each event of play can proceed directly out of what just happened.
Imagine that the Now provides us with an off-kilter academic who’s just
completed the chemical formula that can make him a cold-fusion mutated
jellyfish man. Instead of him having flipped his lid just before the session begins,
see whether he snaps based on the events of play or not, and if so, against whom.
It’s less “safe” if what you want is a reliable fight scene at the halfway-mark of your
play time, but it honors the social and emotional environment of the heroes, and
it makes far more use of what role-playing has to offer.
Also, it’s not all-or-nothing. You can keep something hot when that seems most
sensible. You can try it different ways, like playing all the personal-life stuff cool
and the villains’ actions hot, or vice versa. Even better, everyone can play with
the dial a little, as players discover how situations depend on what the heroes do
and how actively they utilize the locations of play. Therefore this curve results in
a unique interactive style for each group.
Shifting like this may be a little tough, because playing super-hot for everything
works, so you’re easing off on a method which may have become a comfort zone.
But the payoff is worth it in expanding play and validating the heroes, ultimately
impacting the Now in all sorts of ways, even the parts they don’t know about.
If you like the idea of the Now “feeling real,” especially that the game master is
subject to it just like the players and isn’t a puppet master, this is the way to get it.
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Chapter NINe • What’S happeNING
Where the action is

Any and all action requires location. If you’re coming in hot with violence, then
having some locations already prepared is a must, but that’s just a subset of the
real task, to have plenty of them on tap for use in the region of play, planned or
not.
Therefore everyone playing should slowly develop a pretty good geographic
understanding of that region, usually a city. This is why Chapter 3: Your Game
includes someone who knows the area well, so if it’s not you, ask them things,
before and during play. That person is especially useful in analogizing something
that’s known to a more-or-less fictional location in the region.
This isn’t a game sourcebook thing. Direct resources are plentiful and easy to find,
including neighborhood maps, historical summaries, and economic indicators.
By far the most useful physical tool is a real-world visitor map, specifically, the
schematic ones you get from public transit, a university, or a high-use area like a
famous building or an amusement park. They’re usually in three-dimensions and
otherwise designed for spatial understanding. They are good for more than just
locating play at that specific place – adapting a big-city aquarium map into an
alien spacecraft, or a park map into a dream-landscape, or anything of the sort, is
remarkably easy and applicable in play.
How is location-information integrated with the events of play? Certainly,
naturalistic play appears hard to reconcile with mandated confrontations. And
equally certainly, two well-known attempted solutions are terrible:
▶ Forcing the confrontation as a fixed set-piece by overriding all actions or
knowledge which might alter the plan.
▶ Various fake-action methods, including hinting broadly so it “looks like” they
do it, or laying track in front of whatever they do so they end up there.
We’re not doing those. This is high-action melodrama, which means a ton of
coincidence, but hard framing by the game master, for all play all the time, with
player-directed action as window dressing, isn’t going to work. This is also about
heroes who matter. And for the heroes to matter, players have to matter. The
heroes’ decisions and actions significantly affect the circumstances of play all the
time, not just during fights.
Let’s take a look at the hardest and least likely situation: when no hero in play
has Luck or Unluck, Detective Work or similar Skills, and no Awareness or similar
Powers. In this case, the heroes’ deductions and perceptions would be confined
to their ordinary professional and lifestyle venues. Their rolls would be mostly
reactive, and successes would yield the bare minimum of what coincidence can
provide, in terms of being able to deal with what the Now is presenting.
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Chapter NINe • What’S happeNING
149
In this case, the adversity will arrive mainly how its perpetrators want it to,
when and where they want, and all the rolls can do is alert and prepare the heroes
a little better for it. It doesn’t have to be nearby and they will most likely be engaged
in other difficult or important things at the time. Playing this way includes a lot of
“uh oh” realizations punctuated by hard cuts to “oh no” as the crisis hits.
Players are free to prefer this “default” activity level, without the Skills and
Powers dedicated to situational framing. It means they like being ordinary-
people heroes whose lives get gate-crashed. If so, then the game master should
honor that choice by playing pretty hot.
Smart and lucky

Here are the more player-active ways for heroes to be involved in the rapidly-
arriving adversity of the Now. They get right past all those issues of “Oh no, what’s
happening?” and “Oh no, however shall we get there?” and, since at least one hero
is bound to have one of them, it’s good to understand how they work.
“Smart” is about knowing things, not just noticing them; and “lucky” is about
being places in relevant ways, for better or for worse. Each one is very distinctive
for a hero and how he or she relates to the fiction as a whole.
Briefly, before getting into the nuts and bolts, this is how heroes force their
adversaries to be reactive, and to change up how and where confrontations
emerge. When the heroes’ actions drill directly into how the conflict is met, or
better, what the conflict even is, then the players will seize the day faster than
most game masters are prepared to believe. So that’s a big deal – it’s the huge shift
from plot hooks to plot drivers.
Being actively smart, referring here to the hero as such, means they’re generally
“ahead of the game” regarding problems and confusions. It is mechanically
expressed through Skills, first and foremost Detective Work, perhaps backed up
with Disguise, Stealth or Security Systems. Powers play into it as well, via many
applications of Awareness especially when coordinated with variants of Telepathy
and several other powers as described in Chapter 12: Dynamic Mechanics.
Crucially, these Skills and Powers are not invoked or assumed by the game
master. This is dedicated player activity, via statements about what the hero is
doing, whether routinely or following up on something specific. Such statements
necessarily also call in personal sacrifice or risk. There is no such thing as a
neutral “miss” for any of the associated rolls.
This activity could be a single solid question and answer, acting as a turning
point of events in the session. Or, if the adverse situation is subtle, it may begin
a duel of secrecy, deduction, misdirection, and senses carried out through many
events, ultimately resolved as who gets the drop on whom, and where.
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The mechanics’ outcomes, if successful, permit the hero to be well-situated

and well-informed before the badness hits, and to organize a shared response if
they’re inclined to. It opens up adjustments to the location of the confrontation,
and, effectively, is how you earn your “just in time.”
One subset deserves special attention: some fashion in which the hero is super-
smart, due to their special effects like a computer implant, a scary brain mutation,
an exotic species feature, obsessive and possibly disturbing psychology, or an
extra degree of square-jawed know-how.
Here’s an example from a designated super-brain, cunning fellow in arguably
the most beloved super-team in comics. Our heroes have been captured and
imprisoned by a powerful government military force. We’re at the top left of the
next page in this issue, and a couple of the characters have found a moment for
some dialogue. Here it comes – the first thing said by that Designated Very Smart
Hero: The execution is scheduled for the day after tomorrow.(1)
See what they did there? It’s not that he “found out” something that we, the
readers, were already aware of. Instead, we find out right here, and it becomes
the whole frame for what can and cannot occur, because he already knows. As
a functional plot feature, it sets up the time the heroes “now” have to put their
gadget and escape plan into action, which is about to be shown throughout the
next panels.
This is a special feature in fiction, as if the hero were a co-author, able to frame
time and circumstances for all the others, even his or her adversaries. Pulling it
off in role-playing has been a creative challenge throughout the hobby’s history
and has been solved in many different ways.
For this game, there’s no dedicated mechanic for it; it’s all based on the same
Skills and Powers mentioned before. What the special effects permit, however,
is what you get from it, which is more time. It’s not content. You couldn’t say,
for instance, “the execution”, without there already having been an execution
established. But a successful roll right there mean you get to say “the day after
tomorrow,” which means – functionally – plenty of extra panels to play in first.
It’s the only way you get that.
Feeling lucky, by contrast, is about places, not time. Luck and Unluck “bounce”
the hero a little concerning physical position and opportunities. They may
be rolled when things get hot, putting the hero smack in the middle of things
through no virtue or fault of their own, affecting what the hero wanted to do and
presenting risks to things they care about.
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Rolled
value Luck Unluck
0 Unfortunately no effect Fortunately no effect
1 You’re there, as if the problem had You’re there, but with divided
landed there just for you attention, not well-positioned
2 You’re right in place to see and Tables turn, they spot you, or
respond to the problem, as if you’d danger targets you
planned it
3 Absurd position and opportunity to Absurd inclusion of unrelated
respond with an advantage Situation
4 As 1 plus you get an insight or useful As 1 plus there are added risks
observation to others (even if they have to be
invented)
5 As 2 and applies to an ally (no reason) As 2 and applies to an ally (no
reason! Damn it!)
6 As 3 and dangers to other people or As 3 and applies to all the heroes
things are reduced, for the moment (oh now, come on)
Ready steady
The next chapters drive into play at the table, so here’s a review for their context.
▶ Preparation is solid and definite for certain things, specifically the fierce
presence of some part of the Now.
▶ Heroes’ lifestyles, personal priorities, and point-of-view experiences provide
the backdrop and most consistently-visited situations of play.
▶ Group play includes hard frequent cuts across heroes, giving everyone a good
spotlight and establishing simultaneity.
▶ Situations develop and change due to what happens, using and responding to
decisions, actions, and rolled outcomes.
▶ Locations are modified by easy additions and even heightened focus on things
just because they’re interesting.
▶ Adversity comes in hot at least a little, and possibly a great deal. It doesn’t have
to be maneuvered into or nudged in order to happen.
▶ There is no planning for or fudging outcomes, at any time.
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Your group’s version of play develops all of these beyond mere “style,” almost
to the level of game design. You’ll have your own collective accepted range for
hot and cool, and specifically for what. You’ll collectively arrive at a functioning
mix of formal and informal ways to play locations and their details. The players
will tune their own proactivity and use of relevant Powers and Skills into a highly
distinctive method for “what happens,” to the point of nigh collaborative game
mastering so far as situational framing is concerned.
To illustrate a great benefit of customizing and creating your own Champions
Now this way, consider one of the famous writer-artist collaboration in the
comics. The hero team in question revived a fallow title with a hodgepodge of
pre-existing and new characters,. The writer focused on the social crisis of the
heroes, who were distrusted and sometimes demonized by the general public,
and who often put their lives at stake on that public’s behalf, so now you know
whom I’m talking about.
153
One of the artists with a long influential run on the title was an effective
co-author, and one of the comics’ features during that time was its difficult
compromise between them. Briefly, the artist liked the action and bad-assery,
especially for his favorite characters, whom he beefed up considerably in
effectiveness. But the writer liked the dialogue-heavy relationship drama and
social musings, especially in naturalistic settings in ordinary clothes. Each was
candid in complaining about the other: “they sit around, out of costume, in jeans
and t-shirts, and just talk;” and “to me, the fights are bullshit.” (2)
The point being that violent melodrama can be tough to arrange, because either
the fights or the talking can become pro forma, or filler. This comic turned out
to benefit largely because neither creator budged, resulting in better and more
mutual justifications for both than many. But all too many titles founder either in
irrelevant fights or irrelevant blither, and are read in partial fast-forward mode,
similar to a certain other genre which I’ll leave at that.
However, in table-top play, that reinforcing quality between talking-situations
and violent fights is much easier and more about mutual creative enjoyment.
We are contributing, paying attention, and running with the consequences, from
anyone to everyone according to each person’s role. So the developments proceed
and the confrontations emerge based on just those things, making much more
sense and with a generally mutualistic spirit.
Solid preparation plus open outcome, full of readiness but with no control. It
works.
References
(1) Brainiac 5 of the Legion of Superheroes provides the gold standard for super-
smarts which effectively define whole situations by figuring them out ahead of
telling the reader anything. This particular example is from Adventure Comics
#345 (1966), by Edmond Hamilton and Curt Swan, published by National Comics
using its Superman DC imprint. Batman’s surreal detective savvy provides a
close second, with honorable mention going to Spider-Man’s eponymous “sense,”
which more or less tells him where the plot is.
(2) Chris Claremont and John Byrne collaborated on The Uncanny X-Men #108-
143 (1977-1981), published by Cadence Industries using the Marvel Comics
Group imprint. Nominally they were respectively writer and artist, but Claremont
was also an experienced layout artist and Byrne was also an experienced writer.
Their creative tension and their respective interactions with Jim Shooter as editor-
in-chief are legendary in comics fandom, due to the results on the title’s plot and
the characterizations and fates of several heroes. The quotes here are referenced
in Sean Howe’s Marvel Comics: The Untold Story.
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Chapter 10
This is the World We Live in
Chapter Ten • This is the World We Live In
T he default setting for superhero comics is easy: ours. Not only that, but ours
as it goes along, adding fantastic elements to the past and present without much
regard for logic or consistency. If the Egyptian gods were real for purposes of a
cool hero or villain to appear, well then, they were. If alien warrior species from
the Sirian system is real because it’s fun to draw them invading, well then, they
are. Contrary to any sense, such things have no effect on history that brought
modern life into being; or, if they did, only to make it get into the state that we
actually know. Nor, going forward, do they affect who gets elected president for
the comic’s nation of origin, nor anything particularly about life, culture, or the
economy there, all of which simply follow along the course of real events.
Just as with newsstand and spinner-rack comics publishing, for every new issue
or, rather, for every session of play, the Now is our Now. “Our” world can have
anything in it as serves the fun of the super action, but it never diverges from
“our” course of reality.
You might prefer a more logically consistent or more original setting if that’s
your thing. Sometimes it’s mine too. As of this writing, my current Champions
Now game is set in modern Istanbul, in the thick of shifting real-world alliances.
We rely on real-world maps, the personal knowledge of the players, and news
reports, treated as a wave-front of continuing setting input as we play week by
week. But my next one is going to be set in a future Mars habitat, because as of
this writing, the 165 designs submitted to NASA just became available online
and beg for in-game use. In such situations, play must rely instead on prepared,
invented information.
Either way, these are the tools that make a given location work for the action
of play. But how does the setting work, mechanically? I pick up the tractor and
throw it at him! How does this spaceship work? Does this blast of proton rays
hurt?
The things there

Where you are, and how you got there, was discussed in Chapter 9: What’s
happening. Once you’re there, it’s time to get concrete, because specific locations’
physicality is central to superhero comics.
The rule is, whether you’re using a map or not, if you’re somewhere where this
particular thing is strongly implied to be, then it’s there. Office corridor? Water
cooler. Busy highway? Lampposts and, incidentally, cars. Military airport hangar?
Oh goodness. “Is there a jet fighter here?” “Yes, why did you bother to ask?”
More is better, because the things scattered around the action get swept up in
it. Why, they may be lifted, thrown, toppled, and shattered – and, if you are very
lucky, they’ll explode!
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In the following lists, the Strength listed is for lifting the thing or toppling it.
Throwing requires at least 1d6 higher, for range in hexes equal to the difference
as the default. Double the distance for anything designed for throwing, and halve
it for anything notably awkward, unbalanced, or jointed (including an unwilling
person). Endurance is spent for both lifting and throwing, separately.
As a starting references, here are some things from around the neighborhood.
The listed Defense and Body indicate demolishing them into shards and rubble.
To pull off or uproot the ones that are attached or rooted, ignore Defense.
Defense Body Strength to lift, if detached
Fire hydrant 8 5 3d6
Public mail box 6 5 3d6
Street sign 4 3
Lamppost, telephone pole 5 8 4d6
Medium tree 5 8 5d6
Big tree 5 11 9d6
Some things aren’t lifted or broken entirely, but in pieces. The listed Defense
and Body in this case refers to about a hex. Additional hexes’ values are the same,
but a greater area must be affected in some way to apply more widely.
Strength to lift,
Defense Body if detached Notes
House wall Also roofs, doors,
4 3 n/a furniture, stairs, et cetera
Plate glass pane 1 1 n/a
Reinforced glass 3 1
Brick wall 5 3 n/a
Concrete wall 6 5 n/a
Rock wall or surface 5 13
Concrete/asphalt road To shatter or tear up about
surface 6 5 n/a 1 hex
Metal fire door Use same values to tear
7 5 4d6 off/out
Safe door 10 9
Vault door 16 9
Lobby/industrial I For underlying structure;
furnishings are crap at
5 6 3d6 Defense 2, Body 1
157
Sometimes a thing is too big to contemplate lifting or destroying. In addition to

knocking holes in it or tearing things off, you may also consider toppling them –
you don’t break every piece into rubble, but you ruin it as a structure. Doing this
requires a little investigation, using an appropriate Awareness, Find Weakness;
or preferably both. If you can damage the right piece, using the list above or
corresponding values, then the thing’s structural integrity is compromised and
you are now, congratulations, in the midst of the hazard you just made!
Certain things convert nicely into usable, throwable weapons once you’ve
busted them up or torn them loose.
Defense Body Strength to lift
Lumber/broken wood 3 4 2d6
Concrete chunk 6 5 3d6
Stone chunk 4 11 4d6
Steel girder 9 6 5d6
Preparing or improvising objects is best done by extrapolating from the other

tables, but the following lists will work for solid, simple things, such as sheets,
blocks, and shaped or cast fittings.
Substance Defense Mass Body
Sheet metal 4 1.6 kg 1
Chain, heavy tube 5 6.4 kg 3
Metal beam or bar 6 25 kg 5
Armor plating 13 100 kg 7
Plastic castings 2 400 kg 9
Heavy fiberglass 4 1.6 metric ton 11
Plywood 3 6.4 metric tons 13
Heavy wood 5 25 metric tons 15
For masses of natural stuff, the listed values apply per hex, if you’re trying to
destroy or break through it. If you’re buried in them, use the Hazard rules.

Defense Body
Dirt 0 16
Rock 5 12
Snow 8 6
Ice 6 10
158
Motor-driven equipment or vehicles include the complication of being disabled

rather than demolished into scraps, when they receive half the listed Body dam-
age; for delicate machinery or electronics, just 1 Body past the Defense value
will do it.
What happens to multi-part objects depends on the details of what happened,
e.g., you ripped the hull right off the boat, but the radio in the cabin is fine. Also,
some are dangerous when they’re compromised badly enough and convert into
hazards when they or their relevant piece is broken.
Gas-powered motor vehicles include fuel tanks, which may explode into a
notable hazard if compromised. Real-world observation tells us this does not
happen in any way similar to cinema, and since there is no freaking way to write a
compromise rule that makes everyone happy, I leave the triggering circumstances
and dice rolls for that up to you.
Defense Body Strength to lift
Family or police car 4 9 6d6
Motorcycle, mini 4 5 4d6
SWAT or military transport 7 10 7d6
One-man tractor 5 6 5d6
Truck, full-size bus 4 10 7d6
Forklift 5 7 7d6
Crane, backhoe 5 9 9d6
Motorboat 3 8 5d6
Helicopter 3 9 7d6
Jet fighter 4 11 9d6
Tank 10 14 11d6
Passenger jet 4 15 13d6
Industrial machinery is similar but more durable. These values are for single-
operator size, one or two hexes. For bigger, factory versions, use the same Body
and Defense values, just increase the area and the required Strength.
Defense Body Strength to lift Notes
Light 5 4 2d6 Lawn mower, outboard motor
Medium 7 6 3d6 Pool/pond pump, bandsaw
apparatus
Heavy 8 9 4d6 Small cement mixer, hydraulic
car lift
159
And would we be without alien, future, other-dimensional, and magical

devices? Not in the right comics, that’s where! As with motor-driven devices,
they’re disabled at half Body. For reasons best known to the alien engineers, they
also turn into hazards when they take any Body damage.
Strength
Defense Body to lift Notes
Precision energy 5 3 3d6 “Don’t touch that, earthling!”
processor, portal
Control console 4 4 4d6 “Or that!”
Cthonic machinery 8 8 6d6 This thing is probably
producing a hazard field
already
People pod/tank 7 3 4d6 They shield these things
pretty well
Hovercraft 5 9 9d6 Generic four-seater; adjust
for alien-ness
People
Character Points address the diversity and capabilities of super-powered heros
and villains. They are not fine-grained enough for the diversity among other
characters. Therefore all the system mechanics for regular people are the same,
or nearly so.
▶ Strength 2d6
▶ Presence 2d6
▶ Speed 1, Body 10
▶ Defense 0 (that’s really zero, not a typo)
▶ Dexterity 11, Intelligence 11, Ego 11
Outside of super-powered stressful situations, these people’s differences are
played as special effects. Their skills, wealth, social position, attractiveness,
power, ordinary opinions, relationships, and all related matters are considered as
bad or good as makes sense for each individual. That especially applies to their
lifestyle and professional competence in the ordinary course of events, which
may be quite excellent and are not resolved with dice.
Continuing, interactive people, or supporting cast, may seem to you to
require a bit more. It’s best to do so after their actual interest and importance
is established or confirmed in play, rather than front-loaded in their original
160
appearance. If so, and if you think some person’s competence is notable in non-
ordinary circumstances, these parameters are sufficient, and usually not more
than one or two of them.
▶ 1-2 more Intelligence or Ego
▶ One Skill
▶ 1-3 more d6 of Presence
You may assign Situations to them as seem applicable, since these mechanics
often add power to play. However, they have no quantitative effect, i.e., they do
not “buy” Points for other things.
The point values of the game start at 200 and grade up from there; everyone
else is not rated in Points and should not even be considered “below” 200. It may
seem to you as if this ignores a whole category of “trained agent” or “soldier” or
“alien warrior,” but this is not the case – when such individuals or groups swing
into action, ignore the concept of individual builds and use the Hazard rules as
you see fit for the danger and capabilities they represent.
The people who are explicit or implied in Dependent Non-Player Character
and Hunted Situations are built exactly as described above with these exceptions:
▶ Dependent NPCs definitely have Situations, whose total Points are calculated
into the hero’s build.
▶ If a Hunted is defined as super-powered, the relevant characters are fully built
as villains.
▶ No one explicit or implied in either of these Situations may be affected by that
hero’s Presence.
Hazards
Heroes are often confronted by big-ticket situational hazards, including familiar
crises like buildings on fire, natural disasters, technological catastrophes, or weird
conditions like dimensional rifts or magical vortices. Inimical environments count
too, including straightforwardly dangerous situations like an active construction
site, or more deadly surroundings like ordinary water or vacuum. Extreme
situations concerning crowds of people also qualify, when they are too diffuse
or dispersed to be addressed as a group, and too many to fight in the hope of
stopping anything. Devices or weapons which guard or attack may qualify, insofar
as they make an extensive area dangerous and can’t be targeted as objects. (1)
These hazards can’t be fought in the sense of combat; the question concerns
surviving them, passing through or escaping them, and perhaps stopping them.
Combat-specific hazards, which is to say, foes and devices you can hit, are
discussed in Chapter 11: Fighting Words.
161
Hazards can be the main problem or situation the heroes face, even prepared
much as one prepares a villain. However, superhero action is rife with emergent
hazards, so applying the rules on the fly is a basic game mastering requirement.
Hazards vary according to concept:
▶ What region is affected
▶ How the danger affects the region in terms of motion: whether it simply
persists in that spot, or sweeps over it while going somewhere else, or spreads,
or whatever
▶ Whether the danger is time-limited in any way, ranging from over in an
instant to eternally present; for anything that lasts more than a single Phase, it
has an effective Speed 2.
▶ Whether the source of the hazard is breakable, and if so, it has Defense and
Body as the materials warrant.
A hazard’s damage or effects are built as one or more Powers, using 60 Active
Points, with an appropriate Area Effect that doesn’t affect its Point total. It doesn’t
attack; the effects always work on whoever’s in the affected area. Use the powers
list with abandon: if you fall into the wet concrete, it’s an Entangle; if you stick
your head into the turbine at the power plant, it’s a Lethal Aura; I could go on all
day and you can too, once you get the hang of it.
A hazard’s effect encounters defenses. It is quantitatively reduced by whatever
Powers or Characteristics apply through the ordinary use of the rules, and it is
also countered absolutely by some specific defense or some action, the latter
typically requiring a dice roll.
Finally, a hazard includes some way to solve it. Sometimes that means nullifying
the hazard entirely, putting a stop to it, and sometimes the best you can do is
escape, pass through, or get enough time to accomplish something. In addition
to whatever is listed, obvious special effects apply and people may also hit upon
some other way that makes perfect sense, which is all right too.
162
Hazard Effects Defense How to stop or traverse

Collapsing structure 5d6 Piercing Blast/4d6 Force Wall Force Wall
Entangle
Interior of a burning 3d6 Flash/3d6 Severe Life Support (gases) Acrobatics/Telekinesis
building Persistent Blast
Submerged in water 8d6 Lethal Entangle Life Support (water) Swimming
Submerged in mud 5d6 Lethal Blast/6d6 Life Support (water) Swimming
Entangle Desolid
Compromised power plant 6d6 Severe Blast Force Field Computer Programming
Superheated steam 4d6 Severe Piercing Flash Life Support (extreme
Blast/4d6 environment)
Force Wall
Blast furnace 9d6 Severe Piercing Blast Life Support Force Wall
(extreme
environment)
Molten metal 6d6 Severe Piercing Life Support Force Field
Blast/3d6 Entangle (extreme
environment)
Radiation leak 3d6 Severe Persistent Blast Life Support Computer Programming/
(radiation) Security Systems
Caustic or corrosive 3d6 Piercing Persistent Blast Life Support Desolid
chemicals (extreme
environments)
Explosive decompression 4d6 High Impact Blast/3d6 Density Increase Movement power 10 hexes
Severe Blast per hex
Rocks fall 12d6 Blast followed by 6d6 Missile Deflection Desolid/ Telekinesis
Entangle
Panicked, dispersed, 4d6 Entangle/2d6 Flash Stealth/Climbing/ Flight/Acrobatics/Desolid
dangerous crowd Desolid
Explosion: dynamite 8d6 Explosion High Impact Density Increase or Force Wall
Blast Special Defense:
Knockback
Explosion: C-4 6d6 Explosion High Impact Density Increase or Security Systems
Blast/4d6 Piercing Blast Special Defense:
Knockback
Explosion: petroleum- 4d6 Severe Piercing Resistant Defense High Impact Blast
based fuel Blast/4d6 Flash
Lightning bolt 6d6 Severe Destructive Blast Force Field Force Wall
High-tension electrical line 9d6 Blast Aura Force Field Security Systems
or wire
Drifting rifts in time and Teleport Expanded Scope Mental Discipline Awareness Expanded Scope
space
Swarming tormented 5d6 Flash/6d6 Images Special Defense: Ego roll
spirits Ego
163
Some hazards’ damage is a little more complicated.

▶ Cumulative effects: if the damage is Persistent, and you stay (or are trapped) in
the affected area, then new attacks come in on top of it, so you might be taking
multiple strikes of the same attack, each one persisting.
▶ Secondary and often nastier attacks are activated by the first getting through,
e.g., Flash following Blast, for instance, if you get a face full of chemical spray.
Some attacks don’t damage you but just lock you down, with Force Wall,
Entangle, or both. However, one of these might then be followed with secondary
damage, or an Entangle might itself be Lethal.
Some hazards are engineered specifically against heroes, in a guardian or
programmed situation, or even a specially-designed trap, with Powers that
operate directly against their limitations. However, these work best as part of an
adversary’s intelligent goal. The stereotypical “deathtrap” was a cliché before I
was born and has persisted in comics mainly as a self-referential joke. These rules
allow you to build one if you want to. (2)
Some locations offer a more subtle hazard, in that they aren’t exploding or
trying to burn or dissolve or suffocate anyone, but they are more difficult to move
in, offering more casual risk.
Hazard Effects Defense
Weird broken surfaces and Movement of all kinds Clinging operates normally
scary angles reduced to 3 hexes per (no roll required)/Acrobatics or
Phase situational/Awareness permit
Dexterity roll per Phase to
move normally
Unstable or fragile surfaces Landing at speed from Flight Acrobatics permits Dexterity roll
or a variant results in 6d6
Entangle
Unpredictable jets or gouts 6d6 Severe High Impact Blast Acrobatics
of dangerous stuff
Slippery surfaces 8d6 High Impact for purposes Superleap
of Knockback, as the first
stage of falling damage
Hazards may emerge in the moment, such as the impact from or between
vehicles. In this situation, each vehicle involved is treated as a Move attack.
▶ Move By: base damage is ½ Body of the item in d6, plus the velocity in hexes
divided by 5 in d6
▶ Move Through: base damage is the Body of the item in d6, plus the velocity in
hexes divided by 2 in d6
164
Chapter teN • thIS IS the WorLD We LIVe IN
The vehicle takes the damage itself as well as delivering it; which, as you can
imagine, turns a head-on collision into a Grade A disaster!
Heroes have been known to match their might against a careening vehicle. The
safest way is to pull backwards on it, in which case Strength and velocity may
be matched in terms of rolling Body for a relatively easy resolution. However, if
you jump in front of it for direct impact vs. might confrontation, then roll the
Strength exerted by the hero against the damage delivered by the vehicle. If the
Strength delivers equal or greater Body, then the vehicle is stopped. The hero
still takes the damage, and the player decide whether the vehicle does or doesn’t,
treating the hero’s roll as another vehicle’s head-on impact.
People inside a colliding vehicle have no such option and take damage upon
impact, as a Blast with d6 equal to the Body damage that penetrates the vehicle’s
defenses. However, the details of a given vehicle and a given situation may require
customizing a more complex hazard on the spot.
165
Falling is one of the great emergent hazards, and not even a flying hero is
immune to it, if he or she is Stunned while aloft, for example.
Segment Velocity (hexes per segment) Distance fallen in hexes
1 5 5
2 10 15
3 15 30
4 20 50
5 25 75
6 30 105
Thereafter 30 +30 per Segment
Specially-dense or heavy things or people fall faster, at +1 hex per level of

Density Increase, i.e., doubled weight, to a maximum of 30 hexes per segment, or
terminal velocity.
Impact hits with 1d6 per hexes of velocity, making that “terminal” all too literal.
To avoid it one may counter the falling velocity with a movement Power, like
Flight obviously, but also Superleap in the riskier context of actually landing. In
either case, the hexes of movement are subtracted from falling velocity: if they
exceed the velocity, then the fall is broken and the hero is now moving under his
or her own Power; if they do not, then the velocity is slowed by the difference and
can be maintained at that value as long as the movement Power is feasibly still
employed against it, as the hero continues to fall.
In the lucky event that the location offers some projections on the way down,
the hero may grab at them to arrest the fall, with a Dexterity roll. If it succeeds,
then the Defense + Body of whatever it is subtract from the velocity in hexes.
As objects go, repeat offenders include flagpoles (Defense 2, Body 4), awnings
(Defense 3, Body 1), and branches (Defense 3, Body 4).
If that’s enough to bring it to zero, then the hero is hanging there from the thing.
The thing also receives damage as 1d6 per hex of arrested velocity, which may
break it – therefore, if the velocity exactly equals that value, the fall is stopped, but
the thing breaks. More elegantly, a hero with Acrobatics may attempt a Dexterity
roll to use such a projection to move to a controlled landing.
Trying to save a person by catching them at the point of impact is ridiculous;
but that doesn’t stop it from happening in the comics! It’s a feat of both Dexterity
and Strength, rolling the former to make the maneuver in the first place, and
the latter to match against the velocity of the fall. If the Body rolled by Strength
equals or exceeds the Body of the velocity dice, then all is well; if it doesn’t, then
the damage of the difference applies to falling and catching persons alike.
166
Cool digs and hot wheels

No matter how expensive or high-tech, most places and vehicles aren’t rated or
built in Points. Roughly speaking, the things that fit well into the “person” corner
for each hero may be considered part of their lives, whether owned by them
or part of their jobs or anything similar. If the hero’s lifestyle or circumstances
change dramatically, then the places associated with them shift accordingly,
again, without Points involved.
You may, however, turn Points to the purpose of enhancing or inventing
locations and vehicles, making them part of a hero’s sheet just like anything
else on it is. In terms of the three corners, this is the only way you can associate
locations and vehicles with your hero identity and actions, as opposed to the
person corner, and they may certainly surpass realistic limitations in terms of
tech, coolness, and capacity.
▶ Heroes use their Points from their total amount.
▶ Villains begin play with a grant of 5-40 Points.
Cool as it may be to have such a place or vehicle of one’s own, it’s downright
awesome to have one that’s built across more than one sheet, with two or more
heroes contributing Points. Such things may amass considerable emotional
investment and development in their features, and go very far to establish and
maintain a distinctive group identity.
For 5 points, you may designate a place or vehicle the hero would reasonably
have due to his or her person corner or establish a new one at about the same size,
approximate value, and general features. These Points effectively make the item
permanent, in fictional terms. If it’s damaged or even destroyed, you can get it
back or get something equivalent as soon as conceivable. They also count toward
the Powers and other features described below.
Its Point total may be increased with Situations, which apply in play to any and
all heroes who make use of the thing, not just the ones who provided the Points.
Situation Points Details
Public Identity 10 It is the topic of ongoing government, media, and
cultural attention, including visits which bypass
concealment or secrecy
Unluck 1-3d6 5 per d6 Unlike the hero version of the Situation, this is due to a
specific feature or ongoing circumstance
167
No other Situations may contribute to its Points. Even if a supporting cast

person lives at the location or invented the vehicle, he or she is not a Dependent
Non-Player Character for it, nor does a villain or organization who wants to
destroy or control the base count as a Hunted. If you want individuals with these
roles or goals in play, then they are either included as part of Unluck’s definition
or they belong in a hero’s Situations.
You can put more Points into it, and very probably should.
All Powers and Advantages are eligible. They require no Point-based staffing
or maintenance, and they have no formal Endurance or Limitations, however,
they are subject to aggressive interpretations of their limitations, requirements,
vulnerabilities, and energy requirements as special effects.
The following may remind you of some well-known examples from the comics.
Feature Powers Variants
Hidden Concealment, Invisibility Hard to locate it within an obscured
region/Some part or area inside it is
obscured
Surveillance Awareness Of things inside it, Situational/Of
the surroundings, Expanded Scope
for the region/Of further targets,
increased Expanded Scope
Hardening Force Wall Durability for structures
Barrier to prevent access
Specialized Special Defense, Life Support For itself, vs. exterior and interior
protection attacks/For persons within it, vs.
exterior attacks
Strange Flash (orientation) Teleport vs. others (disrupts
interior movement)/Random/Controlled or
directed
Mobility Flight, Teleport, Swimming; Getting to it and back from it/
Expanded Scope Traveling around in it
Weaponized Any attack On contact (Aura)/Ranged/
Specialized for impact (Strike)
Living and working spaces are common features, either for a base as a literal
home or a vehicle as group transport.
168
Feature Rules Points

People’s space Living quarters for everyone who contributed Points; 5
includes sanitary, sleeping, and dining
Passenger accommodations for everyone who 5
contributed Points
Common or dormitory-style quarters; includes common 5
dining and sanitary
Offices and specialized professional space 5
Public space for reception, interaction, events 5
For facilities, the listed Points establish the space and basic functions. For them
to do anything special, you’ll also need some Powers.
Functions Variants Points
Exercise and training Strength, flexibility, fighting practice 5
“Danger rooms” for practice vs. automated, 10
responsive attacks
Medical 5
Security Information 5
Physical protection 5
Labs 5
Libraries or databanks 5
Recreation 5
Imprisonment per unit 5
These features require maintenance personnel unless the Autonomous feature

is included.
169
References
(1) Dimensions may certainly be a hazard unto themselves, especially for
stranding people. Kryptonians have long punished criminals, and occasionally
Superman, by banishing them to the Phantom Zone, where they can drift ghost-
like and observe, but cannot interact with, our universe. (Fortunately, it’s not
very secure!) Similarly, the Negative Zone is so alien and forbidding that Tony
Stark at one point builds a prison for wayward superheroes there. The former
first appeared in Adventure Comics #283 (1961) by Robert Bernstein and George
Papp, published by National Comics using its Superman DC imprint. The latter
first appeared in Fantastic Four #51 (1966), by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, published
by Magazine Management using its Marvel Comics imprint.
(2) Sometimes the deathtrap joke is more funny than others. The third Mist,
a particularly deadly and disturbed foe of Starman, managed to kill the second
Amazing Man, Crimson Fox, and Blue Devil using a series of cleverly fatal traps
that included holy water in a sprinkler system, glass
walls painted to look like steel, and a handgun in
Starman Vol. 2 #38 (1998), by James Robinson
and Dusty Abell, published by Warner
Communications in its DC Comics division.
It’s good to know whether the point is the
“death” or the “trap.”
170
Chapter 11
Fighting Words
Chapter Eleven • Fighting Words
T hese rules and their outcomes are to be used with verve, toward the decisive
finishing of fights. And let the results fall where they may! If everyone plays their
heroes as best they might, and you’ll find that these points of decision and thought
pay off. Abandon the habit of softening blows or handing over victories. Don’t
manage “where the story goes.” That pernicious nonsense has no place here.
Ordering
This chapter is about the fight once you really know you’re in it. It is unequivocally
in progress, after whatever single-action moments which may have signaled its
onset. It’s on – and it’s going on.
The sequencing unit is called a segment, and we consider six of them at a time.
You refer to a segment by number as if it were a location, as in, “on 2,” “on 5,” et
cetera.
You don’t get to go every segment. That’s what Speed is for – the number of
segments you get, which are ordered like so:
Segment 1 2 3 4 5 6
Speed 6 ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴
5 ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴
4 ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴
3 ✴ ✴ ✴
2 ✴ ✴
1 ✴
A segment you’re active on is called a Phase, or rather “your Phase.” Find your
Speed and read across, and the dots are your Phases. Lots of things occur until
the start or end of “your next Phase,” so it’s important vocabulary.
Within a Phase, actions proceed based on Dexterity or Ego, depending on what
the character happens to be doing. It’s pretty easy once you’re in it – “All right,
that’s the end of Segment 2, we’re on Segment 3,” and everyone whose Phases
include 3 takes action from highest relevant score (Dexterity or Ego) to lowest.
Then we all go to Segment 4 to see who’s got a Phase there.
For tied Dexterity and Ego values among heroes, the players decide who goes
first. When villains or other NPCs are tied, they go in the order the game master
decides. When villains and heroes are tied, villains go first.
172
Obviously, you need to know how much you can do on your Phase, which is
one and only one of these:
▶ Stay where you are and do any full-Phase action
▶ Stay where you are and do any half-Phase or full-Phase action
▶ If the first half-Phase action isn’t an attack, you can do another one, attack or
otherwise
▶ If it’s an attack, you’re done
▶ Move over half your movement allowance (a full move, up to your maximum)
▶ Move up to half your movement allowance and do a half-Phase action
▶ Do a half-Phase action that isn’t an attack and then move up to half your
movement allowance
▶ Do a 0-Phase action, timed in the Phase according to the particular type; you
can do more than one, but only one of each type
▶ Any Free actions you like; these are liberated from the Speed Chart and may
be thrown in during your Phase or during anyone else’s, whenever you want
Full-Phase Actions
▶ Full Move (any distance from half Move to full)
▶ Move-By or Move-Through (any distance up to full Move)
▶ Fully defensive avoidance: Dodge, Martial Dodge
▶ Recover from being Stunned
▶ Voluntary Recovery (no Phase actions permitted; free actions are permitted)
▶ Use most skills; exceptions are indicated below
Half-Phase Actions
▶ ½ Move (any distance up to half Move)
▶ Basic Maneuvers: Punch, Kick, Grab
▶ Break free (Strength or Ego)
▶ Martial Maneuvers: Martial Punch, Martial Kick, Throw, Martial Block
▶ Actively seek something with a perception roll
▶ Shifting slots within a Multiform, only at the beginning of a Phase
▶ Shifting the Variable Power Pool array using a Control Skill, only at the
beginning of a Phase
173
0 Phase Actions
▶ Turning a power on or off, at any point during a Phase
▶ Using the Climbing or Acrobatics skill to move, or the Stealth skill with any
other actions
▶ Pushing a power or characteristic as an add-on to an action, during its use
▶ Making an Ego roll associated with an action, e.g., pushing extra, during its
use
▶ Sensing something without trying, as called for by circumstances, only at the
beginning of a Phase
Free actions
▶ Speaking (“Monologue”)
▶ Presence Attack
▶ Missile Deflection
Reactivity
You’re not supposed to wait obediently for your formal go-moments in the Speed
Chart. Doing that creates a potential stop-motion, freeze-frame effect which isn’t
really what the system’s for. It’s more dynamic if you use the Chart merely as a
chassis for anticipatory and reactive options.
You can hold actions, meaning, not acting when your designated moment
arrives. To hold, you must state what you anticipate doing, to give everyone an
idea of what your hero is looking at and how they’re acting, although you’re
not entirely locked into whatever you say and can shift to doing something else
instead. Any combination of ordinarily-permitted actions is allowed when you
do act.
You cannot hold a ½ Phase action by itself, i.e., doing a ½ Phase action and
holding “the rest.” To hold an action, you have to give it all up at its default arrival,
even if all you do with it later is a ½ Phase action.
You can hold until later within the same Phase, in which case you can either
“step in” just after someone else goes, or pre-empt someone whose action is about
to come up. If your pre-emption is an attack, you must succeed with either a
Dexterity roll or Ego roll in order to get in first. You may also hold past the end
of the Phase, which isn’t really all that different. If your actual next Phase arrives,
however, then the hold ends and the potential action is lost.
Holding actions is necessary for two of the most important team-tactics in the
system, assisting and coordinating attacks.
174
Reactive actions concern being attacked. Your hero is not standing there like a
post on a target range, so his or her relevant characteristic is already factored into
the standard attack roll. A few specialized maneuvers and powers allow for rolls
in response to an attack, including Martial Block and Missile Deflection.
You also have the more drastic option to cancel your next entire Phase’s worth
of action to defend better than you currently would be able. You may perform
a defensive combat maneuver (Dodge, Martial Dodge, Martial Block, Martial
Throw, Missile Deflection, or an attack power with the Reactive Advantage)
or turn on a defensive power (Force Field, Force Wall, Desolid, Shrinking, or
a similar power). In doing so, you can move up to two hexes, getting the bonus
from Acrobatics if you have it, but you can’t use a movement power.
If it’s during one of your Phases before your place in “line” has arrived, then
you lose the Phase you’re in. If it’s after your action during a Phase, or during a
segment that isn’t your Phase, then the following Phase you’d act in, whatever it
might be, is lost.
Positioning
Super-combat is pure choreography, and knowing who’s where, whether they’re
in motion and how much, can be an art of its own.
The rules terms imply using a hex map for most situations of play, in which
a hex represents two meters of fictional space. However, in practice you don’t
need an actual physical sheet with hexes marked on it. The listed distances are
approximate and intuitive: a hex is “personal space,” a sphere just a bit taller
than a person, or a bit more than full arms-width, which is the same thing. For
movement within this space, by default a hero has 6 hexes of Running, 2 hexes
of Jump, and 2 hexes of Swimming; but most will obviously have more extensive
capabilities based on characteristics and powers.
As mentioned above, the Speed Chart does not represent a metronome for
fixed-in-fiction time. If it did, then continuous movement from Phase to Phase
would become quite strange, e.g., is the character moving while he or she cannot
otherwise “go?” If not, what does that even look like?
Instead, these mechanics embrace comics-panel logic and treat the Phases as
“what we see,” e.g. when the attack or movement lands, letting the in-between
fall into the gutters of the panels. Whatever time-slash-physics wiggle you may
need goes into those and thus doesn’t bother our heads. That’s been perfectly
functional throughout the history of comics, and it’s functional here.
You’ll need to attend to high-momentum moves sometimes, e.g. shaving off
a hex of movement for turning corners during maximum Flight or Running, or
slight time-lapses for especially far Superleap and Knockback so that they finish
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Chapter eLeVeN • FIGhtING WorDS
at the end of a Phase. Flight may also see some adjustment based on its three
dimensions, as it hardly ever goes completely flat or completely vertical.
The listed hexes-traveled for a power doesn’t describe actual distance-over-time
outside the scale of one Phase, so traditional speedometer descriptions of velocity
usually aren’t relevant. However, when they are, e.g., you’re trying to catch or get
ahead of a vehicle in motion, Speed must be factored in.
Speed
hexes 1 2 3 4 5 6
5 6 kph 12 kph 18 kph 24 kph 30 kph 36 kph
Or in U.S./UK units,
Speed
hexes 1 2 3 4 5 6
5 3.75 mph 7.5 mph 11.25 mph 15 mph 18.75 mph 22.5 mph
10 7.5 mph 15 mph 22.5 mph 30 mph 37.5 mph 45 mph
15 11.25 mph 22.5 mph 33.75 mph 45 mph 56.25 mph 67.5 mph
20 15 mph 30 mph 45 mph 60 mph 75 mph 90 mph
25 18.75 mph 37.5 mph 56.25mph 75 mph 93.75 mph 112.5 mph
30 22.5 mph 45 mph 67.5 mph 90 mph 112.5 mph 135 mph
However, movement velocity is much, much different outside of combat and

these values don’t apply.
Orienting
In a combat situation, everyone’s understanding of the physical situation should
be interpreted generously by default, to the unrealistic degree of a bird’s-eye view.
A given hero will know where everyone in their perceptual field is, what they can
and can’t attack, who might be targeting them, and they won’t get disoriented
about who’s moving which way or doing what.
However, if the location is confusing or has features that don’t allow analogizing,
the default switches, so that a given hero is disoriented about directions and
uncertain about what everyone else is doing. It’s treated as a hazard specific to them,
applying the power Concealment, customized as needed for the situational details.
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Chapter eLeVeN • FIGhtING WorDS
177
To orient oneself, whether about the location or regarding an opponent, a

hero makes a perception roll, using Intelligence. A different “however” occurs
when someone gets sneaky, using some combination of Stealth, Security Systems,
Climbing, Invisibility, Concealment, and movement Powers that may apply,
varying in who is and isn’t deceived. Chapter 12: Dynamic Mechanics provides
the nuances.
Hitting and not hitting

Roll 3d6 to target anyone or anything successfully, comparing a characteristic of
the attacker to that of the defender to arrive at the right target number.
The characteristic is Dexterity for physical attacks and by Ego for ego-based
attacks; in this context, the one you use is called the Combat Value (sometimes
abbreviated to CV). To hit someone, add your Combat Value to 11, subtract
theirs of the same type, and that’s the target number for rolling 3d6. Equal to that
value or below hits.
Example: Grimfire punches Killer Coil. His Dexterity is 12 and hers is 13. 11 +
12 – 13 = 10, so the player must roll 10 or less on 3d6 to hit.
Example: Anybug uses his Stink Bug Spray on Domain. His Dexterity is 14 and
Domain’s is 11. 11 + 14 – 11 = 14, so the player must roll 14 or less on 3d6 to hit.
Example: Domain uses Hegemony (Mind Control) on The Which. Domain’s Ego
is 14 and hers is 12. 11 + 14 – 12 = 13, so the game master must roll 13 or less on
3d6 to hit.
Different groups talk through this roll differently. If I’m the game master, I like
the player to say their Dexterity or Ego out loud, then roll the dice and tell me
what they got. I’ll do the little “+11 – target’s value” in my head and tell them if
they hit or not. Other people like to rearrange the spoken algebra their own way;
it really doesn’t matter.
The characteristics used in the roll to hit are almost always adjusted by fast-
and-momentary tactics and circumstances, determined mostly by whatever
maneuver describes the stated action best.
Hitting a stationary thing or a hex-sized space at close range requires no
roll; doing so at a distance uses the same roll as above, for which the target is
considered to have a relevant value of 6.
But before listing those tactics and circumstances, note this well: the game
master also throws in a +1 or an extra die of effect whenever someone announces
something fun and exciting. There’s no limited resource, so don’t negotiate about
it or plead for it – this is another one of those loosey-goosey special effects
concepts, with no standards beyond who is playing and what is happening.
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Fighting Maneuvers
Offensive Defensive Damage/notes
Punch (any close physical attack) +0 +0 1x damage
Grab -1 -2 May be followed by
squeeze or throw
Dodge +0 +3 No attack
Interesting Maneuvers
Area effect attack Range modifier +0 Target area defensive value 6;
-1/6 hexes attack roll is then compared to
individual defensive values
Coordinated attack -2 -2 Requires simultaneity; Knockout
damage is cumulative; Knockbacks
are added together
Assist +0 -1 Requires simultaneity; provides
offensive value for another
attacker’s use
Find Weakness +0 +0 Increases attack effectiveness by
1d6 per successful use against a
given target
Move-By -2 -2 +d6 damage / 5 hexes moved
Move-Through -4 -4 +d6 damage / 2 hexes moved
Martial Maneuvers
Martial Punch +0 +1 +3d6 damage
Martial Kick -2 +1 +6d6 damage
Martial Block +0 +2 No abort for reactive use
Martial Dodge +0 +5 No attack
Martial Throw + velocity/5 +0 +1d6 damage / 5 hexes moved; prone
And Out +0 +0 ½ Move following attack
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Ego Maneuvers
All modifiers apply for Ego-based attack and
defense only
Ego Evade +0 +3 Defensive action.
Mindscape +2 +2 Accompanies an attack and may be maintained
thereafter. As long as it is maintained, only Ego
Maneuvers and Powers may be used.
Id Rush +3 -3 Accompanies an attack. Requires an Ego roll
to resist irrational action based on one or more
Psychological Situations regardless of value
Mind Bar +0 +1 Defensive action. No roll is required; the bonus
applies so long as it is maintained. Locks down
an attacking mental power and prevents it from
being used. Maintaining the bar is a ½ Phase
action. Escaping the bar is a full Phase action
and requires no roll.
Mind Stab +0 +0 Target must already be Mind-Barred; no attack
roll required. Inflicts 1d6 Knockout per 1d6 points
Endurance spent.
Self Mastery +0 +0 Attack using Ego to shift level of Ego-based
power affecting you downward by one level. It is
not necessary to perceive the target.
Range for Dexterity-based distance attacks

Modifier
0-3 hexes +0
Each additional 3 hexes -1
This and that

Effects
Move before attacking -1 offensive
Acrobatics +2 defensive, move at least 2 hexes
Skill levels + to relevant value as assigned by player
Surprise moves +1 to +3 offensive bonus
Prone -3 defensive for adjacent attacks; + 3 defensive for distance attacks
Flashed or Entangled Defensive value drops to 6
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This is the complete list, so you don’t have to cross-reference it with anything.
The net effects are extremely dramatic, but since they’re all cumulative, it’s a lot
to process until you get used to your hero’s typical use of them. A bunch of little
counters to shove around for plus and minus can help.
Example: When Grimfire punches Killer Coil, it so happens that she used the
Martial Kick maneuver in her last Phase, so her defensive combat value is +1,
therefore 14 instead of 13. Therefore the player’s target number on 3d6 is 11 + 12 –
14 = 9 or less.
Example: When Anybug Stink Bug Sprays Domain, it so happens that he is about
8 meters away (about 25 feet), or 4 hexes. Range modifiers work in units of -1 per 3
full hexes, so his combat value is -1, at 13 instead of 14. Therefore the player’s target
number on 3d6 is 11 + 13 – 11 = 13 or less.
Example: When Domain uses Hegemony on The Which with the Id Rush
Maneuver, for a +3 attacking combat value of 17. Therefore the game master’s target
number on 3d6 is 11 + 17 – 12 = 16 or less.
Down, out, and over

Successful attacks are assessed for damage and other effects like Knockback
based on the powers being used. Don’t forget that missed attacks may well hit
something and are often an important event in a fight.
Getting knocked around

Strength-based impacts and the Blast power typically produce a secondary
damage effect called Knockback, which is that wonderful, jet-propelled-looking
long-distance sprawl that is so much fun to draw.
In addition to the ordinary damage dice, roll 1d6.
▶ 1 means no Knockback
▶ 2-5 means that many hexes of Knockback
▶ 6 means that the hexes of Knockback equal the Core rolled for the attack
The High Impact advantage is like always rolling a 6, so the attack’s damage
always equals the Core rolled. Special Defense: Knockback cancels it back to the
ordinary rules. Hitting with a bat-like object gets you extra Knockback hexes per
length of the object in hexes.
If you are flying or otherwise not standing on anything, or if you are currently
Stunned, then roll an additional die and add the results to the first. If you are
not knocked into anything, you are considering to be falling at the end of the
knockback path. For every two hexes you are knocked back, take 1d6 damage
181
as a separate attack if you aren’t sent into anything. If you are, then roll and take
damage as if for the initial attack, again. A person who is knocked back ends up
prone, unless they can do something about it using Strength or Acrobatics.
Given a solid surface to brace against, including the ground or floor, you may
roll Strength to resist Knockback as a reactive action, spending the required
Endurance. The Core rolled counteracts the hexes of Knockback one for one,
with the added benefit of not being knocked prone.
Acrobatics permits a Dexterity roll to avoid being knocked prone or, if you are
flying, to remain airborne at the end of the path. Neither applies if you’ve been
knocked back into some object.
Getting Stunned
Losing Knockout points is a foregone conclusion, and in small doses it has no
immediate effect. However, if, after defenses, you take Knockout damage from a
single hit that equals or exceeds your Stunned value, you’re stunned.
▶ Your defensive values for combat rolls drop to 6.
▶ All active Powers that cost Endurance turn off.
▶ You may only perform free actions during your next Phase and you cannot
move at the scale of hexes. This Phase is called “recovery from being Stunned,”
but you do not recover Body, Knockout, or Endurance.
Getting knocked out

Predictably, if your Knockout is taken down to 0, you’re knocked out. Your
Endurance drops to 0 as well, and you are considered an inanimate object for all
purposes of movement and targeting. You can Recover in your next Phase, to be
at your Recovery value for both Knockout and Endurance. But you can only do
that once in a fight. Get knocked out again, and you’re an insensate hulk until
such a time as the game master says otherwise.
Getting hurt
The other kind of injury you take comes off Body, which is potentially real tissue-
trauma injury. As long as Body remains above 0, there are no mandated effects
of injury, but players have been known to assign their characters penalties or
reduced function of some kind, just because they like to.
Body damage does recover, at 1 point per recovery action. By default, the
perceived injury isn’t as bad as it seemed at first, or is simply treated unrealistically
in terms of permanent harm. If Body is taken to 0, it operates similarly to
Knockout: the character may recover, but if Body is reduced to 0 a second time,
they are rendered helpless. Furthermore, they are nominally dying.
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A dying character’s Endurance drops to 0 and their Knockout to 1, unless it

was at 0. This condition is not automatically fatal, but the character cannot do
anything but talk, and then only if they have positive Knockout.
▶ Dying is elective for a hero, occurring only at the player’s choice.
▶ If you want justification, consider that anyone who stays with the hero can
keep him or her alive, even absurdly so, like a dog or a toddler; or that thinking
“must – hold – on!” may be considered a relevant action
▶ Adverse circumstances afterward may prevent a dying character from
becoming functional again until they receive specific care or some condition
based on the injury’s special effects, at the game master’s judgment.
▶ A dying non-player character may be declared dead by the player whose hero
delivered the relevant attack.
▶ A dying non-player-character who came to that state by another non-player-
character or some environmental effect lives or dies as the game master says.
Getting negated
Characteristics may be reduced by Weaken and Powers may be suppressed by
Negate, or if it’s nasty and Destructive, ruined by it.
▶ Strength taken to 0 dice may still be used at that value, relying on Pushing.
▶ Presence taken to 0 dice may still be used at that value, relying on situational
modifiers.
▶ Dexterity may be used normally at 6 or above, below which the target is
unable to direct his or her physical actions. Using Ego-based or otherwise
non-physical actions depends on the circumstances, especially for their field
of perception.
▶ Intelligence and Ego may be used normally at 6 or above, below which the
target becomes confused or demotivated.
▶ The target must make the relevant Characteristic roll at the current value as a
0-phase action in order to direct any and all actions of any kind; failure means
he or she cannot act or performs some nonsensical, non-advantageous action.
▶ Actions using the relevant characteristic use the current value, including 0.
▶ A Power whose effect is exceeded by Negate is switched off; if it is Destroyed
in the process, it cannot be used at all until the recovery condition is met.
Absent relevant special effects or the Destructive Advantage, reduced features
are restored by recovery actions.
▶ Strength and Presence regain 1d6 per Recovery, or 1d6 equal to the value
rolled if Regeneration is used.
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▶ Powers regain one unit of effect per Recovery, usually expressed as dice.
▶ Dexterity, Intelligence, and Ego regain 1 point per Recovery.
If any of these is taken to 0 a second time during a confrontation, an appropriate
incapacitating effect occurs, equivalent to the effects for Body and Knockout.
Getting tired
In combat everyone burns Endurance like mad. You have to do it just to move
and fight at all, or when you try to break free of things using Strength or Ego.
Even missed attacks spend the stuff!
Ongoing powers which require Endurance only cost you on your Phases, not
on the segments in between. (That’s the comics panels logic coming in again.)
Then there’s Pushing, which you can do with any action that requires Endurance.
▶ Pay d6 Endurance per 5 Active Points of increased effect
▶ Pay d6 Endurance per the Strength’s or power’s 5 Active Points for one of the
following effects
▶ Area Effect (single-hex or explosion, no selective targeting)
▶ Piercing
▶ High Impact
▶ Severe (damage is reduced by resistant Defense)
To Push a further consecutive action, make an Ego roll. If you fail, you cannot
Push this time, but merely hit the listed value on your sheet (and spend its
Endurance cost). you’re free to start a new Push next time, assuming you’re still
upright.
When Endurance hits 0, you can use Knockout instead, taking 1d6 Knockout
damage for each equivalent of 2 Endurance spent. This either rolls over during
an action if Endurance runs out in the middle of it, or is used to power an action
from scratch if Endurance is already at 0. And always remember: Endurance is
a precious commodity, to be tracked, protected, and husbanded with great care.
Spending it has real, in-game consequences, and losses due to Drain are thus
justly feared.
Reviewing recovery
Super-fights are a race against your own reserves, villains included. If combatants
make it past the first full-powered furious assaults, they’re sucking wind and
fearing a solid hit. Knowing how to recover, and what, and how much, is a key
factor in play.
184
The simplest recovery is when you’re Stunned. It’s involuntary and requires a
full Phase. You regain no points of any kind, but when it’s over, you’re not Stunned
any more.
The other kind is voluntary and again requires a full Phase, permitting only
free actions. All of the following effects are applied.
▶ If Endurance and Knockout are not at full values, both regain points equal to
Recovery, up to each full value
▶ If Strength and/or Presence are reduced by Weaken, both follow the same
rule, with 1d6 restored per Recovery
▶ If Powers are reduced fully by Negate, they all follow the same rule, regaining
a unit of effect per Recovery if the Negate is not maintained
▶ If Body, Dexterity, Intelligence, Ego, or Speed are damaged or reduced, they
all regain 1 point
The above values also apply when Knockout or Body reaches 0 for the first time
during a fight, occurring during the hero’s next Phase. These values recover up
from 0. If either is taken to 0 again during this fight, then the hero is unconscious
or dying and will remain so throughout the fight.
The Regeneration power allows 1d6 more Body, Dexterity, Intelligence, Ego,
and Speed to be regained through recovery per 10 Power Points. It does not
prevent the unconscious or dying results, but it does ensure that “dying” status is
entirely nominal as far as fictional causes are concerned.
The Destructive Advantage prevents the effects of the attack from being restored
by recovery, although Regeneration permits restoration of Body and the other
relevant scores equal to the Core value rolled. If Destructive damage takes a hero
to 0 Knockout or Body, it is treated as the second time, so the hero is thoroughly
unconscious or dying.
Example: Anybug has been busy in a fight, so is at Knockout 11, Endurance
20, and Body 10. He takes a Phase to recover. His Recovery 13, so Knockout and
Endurance are brought up to 24 and 33 respectively, and Body is brought up to 11.
At some point thereafter, he receives 15 points of Knockout from a single blow,
bringing him to 9 Knockout and Stunning him. His next Phase is automatically a
recovery from being Stunned, but it does not change his current values for anything.
Interaction and influence

This is comics, so the words on a page don’t care how long it takes to read them.
The system does this too, not just because a paragraph and a half spoken as
the hero flips in mid-air is funny, but because fights are more than competitive
choreography, they are confrontations.
185
Speaking (called “monologue,” but it includes dialogue), including Presence

Attacks, uses no mechanical time at all. And unlike 0 Phase actions, which must
be performed according to the Speed chart and the various modifying rules, it
can be done at any time. You can do it in tandem with any action. You can even
do it when you’re recovering.
When communication is involved, whoever you want to perceive what you’re
saying will do so, unless obvious circumstances absolutely dictate otherwise. Any
relevant information you perceive or find out can be delivered, no matter who is
punching whom or currently clawing their way out from under a ton of debris.
And you can provide all the information, without needing a stopwatch at the table.
Take a look at Presence, sometimes tagged as the most significant mechanic
in the system, with good reason. It is directed against a specific target or targets
who can perceive the hero, affecting them and to a lesser extent everyone who
can perceive the hero.
To make a Presence Attack, you roll your Presence dice outright; there’s no to-
hit roll. It must represent a strong emotion or resolve. It may or may not include
a command, depending on what is said, if anything. The modifiers matter greatly,
as circumstances may yield surprising combinations for them. They are very
definitely cumulative.
▶ -1d6 you’re in combat
▶ -1d6 you’re at a current disadvantage, including during a Recovery action
▶ -1d6 you are unknown to the target or have a reputation that works against
what you’re saying
▶ -1d6 for any degree of Unusual Looks or combination of them
▶ -2d6 for repeating the same or similar Presence Attack against a given target
(cumulative)
▶ -3d6 for directly contradicting the prevailing mood of the target(s)
▶ +1d6 you’re exhibiting a power
▶ +1d6 you’re doing something violent
▶ +2d6 as above, but very
▶ +3d6 as above, but very very
▶ +1d6 good soliloquy (you’re making sense)
▶ +2d6 as above, but excellent (well-suited to the target’s values and Psychological
Situations)
▶ +3d6 as above, but incredible
▶ +1d6 setting is appropriate
▶ +2d6 setting is very appropriate
186
Some of these are obviously more suited to telling people something specific,
and others to just wowing them into inaction, but look at how important that
soliloquy and setting are. You’re penalized a lot when trying to talk down or
intimidate someone who’s punching you and hates your guts, but if you say the
right thing at the right time, you just might make your point.
▶ “Don’t do it, Death-Skull! She’s – your daughter!”
▶ “Gasp! You swore you’d never tell!”
▶ “My … daughter? But they told me you were dead!”
▶ And the whole fight changes.
It’s possible to end up with no dice and therefore no effective Presence Attack.
Aside from this unhappy case, once you know the total dice, roll them and count
the Core. Roll the defender’s Presence as well; it is all right to roll once collectively
for crowds or groups without specific known individuals in them. The defending
rolls use unmodified Presence only.
Subtract the defender’s result from the attacker’s and use the following table.
Difference in Core Effects
Less than 0 No effect
0 or 1 Impressed; opponents may act before the affected person this Phase
if applicable
2-3 Very impressed; they will consider the content of the Attack seriously
and will lose any held action or lose their upcoming ½ Phase action
4-5 Awed and inclined to comply, however briefly; they will lose any held
action and their next Phase, and drop DCV to 6 until the beginning
of the one after that
6+ Cowed; they may surrender, run away, or faint; if they do not, their
defending value drops to 6 for the rest of the fight
Everyone who perceives the Presence Attack is affected, but those it’s not
specifically directed against are reduced in effect by one step. Yes, your own allies
may be a little gobsmacked when you do the things you need for big dice bonuses,
and you may find yourself going before Mr. Speedy for once.
Example: Grimfire punches one of the kidnappers off of some elevated point inside
the burning church. With the young child held safe in one arm and his Nimbus
flickering out to its full Innocence extent, he tells the others, “This place is mine now.
Choose: the police outside, or me, in here!”
Let me count the ways: -1d6 for being in the midst of combat, -1d6 for his Unusual
Looks (they might be too scared to think straight), +1d6 for exhibiting a Power,
+2d6 for a violent action (the guy was really punched and fell hard), +2d6 for the
soliloquy (that was pretty good, I think), and +2d6 for the very appropriate setting.
That’s +5d6 to his base Presence of 4d6, for 9 dice total.
187
One consideration is the mood of the target: in this case, these opponents’ scheme
had already gone awry and they were not invested in any kind of endgame-
showdown with Grimfire. Against fanatics who were seeking exactly that, he would
have lost 3 more dice for the Presence Attack.
There is a single, specific zone of immunity: the Dependent NPCs and Hunteds
are immune to the Presence of the hero whose sheet they’re on.
Presence effects ripple throughout all the other mechanics in nigh-infinite
forms. Sacrificing Endurance may be the guts of a super confrontation, but
Presence is its heart.
Hazards you can fight

At the smaller scale of immediate combat, hazards are less like environments and
more like opponents, so they are a little more customized and easier to fight directly.
The basics remain the same: a hazard is located in an area defined by one or
more hexes, it has Speed 2, and its effects are expressed by powers with default
60 Active Points which do not need to roll to hit, as organized with the Hazard
rubric. The big difference is that instead of a diffuse effect throughout that area,
the hazard is actually a thing, so it can be targeted and fought as such, it can move
with a default running speed of 6 hexes, and the area that it affects doesn’t have to
be the hexes it’s in, or the same size.
It can be fought by delivering ordinary damage to its physical location, removing
its size by one hex. Its combat value is 6 and its Defense and Body apply to each
hex. One of the aggravating features of this type of hazard is that its effectiveness
is not at all reduced accordingly; it continues to be its annoying or even deadly
self until it’s all gone. Therefore if it occupies several or many hexes, it can take a
lot of time or a concerted effort by several allies to get rid of, and all the while it
can still produce its full effect.
One common combat hazard is made of people, in this case a concerted small
group, like a squad or little mob rather than the diffuse effect of a large crowd. If
they have ranged weapons, the effect acts as a cone or adjacent area, but they also
have an Entangle effect if you get in there with them, with may be fought directly
with Strength or avoided with Acrobatics. Perhaps their most important feature
is that you can’t ignore them, as they will run about doing things the heroes don’t
want, like killing hostages or setting off devices.
Also, they are subject to Presence Attacks, with a score of 2d6 for defensive
purposes. This may seem small but the -1d6 for combat and -3d6 for prevailing
mood apply at all times, and if they are associated with a hero’s Hunted Situation,
or are conceivably a Dependent NPC, then they enjoy the standard immunity to
that hero’s Presence.
188
Luck in a fight
Luck is rolled in combat when things are going badly for the hero’s goals: something
or someone they want to protect is in more danger than before, someone on their
side has been taken out of the fight to any extent; an opponent appears positioned
to achieve their overall goal; or the social or more general context of the fight has
turned against the heroes. Unluck applies for all the opposite circumstances.
In combat, their effects apply to logistic and momentary details rather than
to the general, situational, or potentially plot-shaping effects they have in less
hectic circumstances. They bring in physical and other circumstances that are
unexpectedly more helpful or unhelpful, but which are easily understood to be
already present, rather than things happening from out of the blue. If you’re into
realism, then Unluck is the perfect opportunity to dial down the “comic-book”
for a moment, to the hero’s dismay.
Core rolled Effects
0 No effect
1 Some object or structure provides useful vantage or protection, your
current position is more advantageous than it seemed, an ally is well-
placed for cooperating with something, someone’s covert participation
in the situation is now evident
2 Some object or event is helpful to your powers’ special effects, useful
information suddenly becomes evident, an opportunity for surprise
arises, an opponent encounters unexpected difficulty
3 Someone you needed to protect is taking care of themselves,
someone you wanted to stop loses a clear path to their goal, the thing
you wanted to get is now coincidentally in your possession
4 As 1 but applies to everyone in the situation whom you like and would
want to help
want to help
want to help
Unluck is rolled when things are going well for the hero: they appear positioned
to achieve their overall goal; their intended messaging is working; or one or more
opponents have been taken out of the fight to any extent
189
Core rolled Effects

0 No effect
1 A difficult surface or inconvenient object, impairs movement, an
equipment malfunction or frequency interference loses a little time, a
distracting detail or event loses perception of an intended target
2 A power goes awry or its special effects are blunted by something or
other, necessary communication is impaired, something you secured
goes missing, a new event divides your attention
3 A significant change occurs to the physical or social context for the
confrontation, an opponent gains a significant advantage for their next
action, your overall goal becomes more complicated or less available
want to help
want to help
want to help
In the multiple-action,
high-dialogue context of
playing combat situations,
the Luck/Unluck results
need to be kept quick,
so it’s most pragmatic
for the game master to
deliver them as rapid
punctuations of what’s
going on.
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Chapter 12
Dynamic Mechanics
Chapter Twelve • Dynamic Mechanics
T here is, indeed, a learning curve with Champions. The mechanics are robust
from the start, so they won’t screw anyone over just because they’re new at them.
But they’re also built to sink your teeth into, specific to your heroes and villains.
All these Point-quantified things are inter-connected devices which move, and
whose driving engine is you.
Fighting smart
What is any given fight about? “What are we fighting for?”
Or better yet, “What are they fighting for, or to do, or to get?” Only the most
simplistic comics featured a villain who’s committing crimes and a hero who
jumps in, fights them toe to toe, and stops them because the villain goes down
first. These were isolated filler stories. Superhero comics in all ages of the medium
usually posed more interesting social circumstances, more difficult conditions
of knowledge and its absence, and above all, more uniquely motivated villains.
Villains don’t fight in order to win fights. They have goals to strive for and
problems to solve.
Furthermore, the mechanics are built so that no one can “just” beat anyone else.
The treacherous dice, the energy requirements, and the shifting contingencies
of combat make the outcome more iffy as a fight continues, rather than less. If
someone hasn’t decked the other person quickly, and if both opponents are in it
to the last one standing, then it’s time to think – or lose.
Fighting smart relies on Speed and teamwork, which are all about timing, but
also on Presence and the terrible twins, Luck/Unluck, which don’t care about
timing at all.
With just one run through a fight situation, you can easily see that the Speed
Characteristic’s main job is the promptness of someone’s reactions. It’s more
psychological than physiological, and more than one favorite speedster from
the comics is better described with maximal movement, accuracy, and impact
mechanics rather than maximal Speed.
If you do have high Speed and use it just to do more actions, you’ll be blowing
a lot more Endurance, to the point of falling straight into a trap. It’s better used to
manage actions, rather than simply piling up a lot of them on a known schedule.
Consider losing a Phase due to being Stunned or to take a Recovery action. Having
an extra Phase or two operates like a soak for these, with the added benefit that
most people will be losing most or the rest of the six-Segment turn when they
take what you just took, and you’re still coming in next at about the time they’d
be if they hadn’t been Stunned or recovering.
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Every superhero group has its own meaning of “team” in fight situations. With
a nod back to Chapter 2, even the noblest superheroes are super dirty fighters,
and the question is how organized they want to be in setting up and ganging up
on their opponents. They vary from hardly any to highly-practiced ‘tac squad, but
there’s always just a bit of teamwork.
Teamwork relies mainly on timing. The simplest version is taking advantage of
Speed windows or moments of vulnerability while Stunned or Flashed. With held
actions, though, heroes can strike in concert.
▶ The Coordinated Attack Maneuver provides exact simultaneity given one or
more heroes holding actions; the attacks which succeed total their Knockout
before defenses apply.
▶ The Assist Maneuver permits one hero to use the attacking Characteristic and
bonuses of another who is directing his or her actions, again, given that one
or both has held an action in order to perform simultaneously. More than one
speedy, evasive hero has met an unpleasant fate from the ox-like bruiser who
let his or her strike be mentally guided by an observant, Ego-based, hyper-
aware partner.
▶ Heroes may arrive at useful, often entertaining combinations of their unique
abilities, some of which have even gained names of their own in comics.
Sudden or well-placed attacks get surprise bonuses, but such things are hard to
assign unless they use concrete features of the surroundings, accurately exploit
the target’s priorities, or arrive when they are paying attention to something else.
If you have a useful attack and want to be sure it lands, your friends can distract
or impede the vision of a powerful opponent they have little chance to take down,
setting them up for you.
In order to keep that same thing from happening to them, members of
especially cooperative hero teams tend to talk a lot about what they see and what
they think is going on. It does seem a bit odd, as if the place were full of brightly-
clad athletes acting as their own sports announcers, but the habit is practical, for
a group “eyes on” effect to keep anyone from getting bushwhacked.
All this positioning and timing may seem like a deterministic chess match, but
then along come the great disruptors of anything so straightforward as space/
time: Presence and Luck.
Presence Attacks during combat are mostly for entrances, as their effectiveness
drops sharply in the thick of things. Personal staging is harder to arrange, the
targets’ intentions are typically not cooperative, and repetition is penalized. The
significant exception concerns valuable content or context about the fight, for the
extra dice for monologues. Here’s where prior events and current relationships
matter most, as even the most ruthless villain may care about the fate of one or
more heroes or be influenced by the relationship to a third party shared with one
of them.
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What really makes the difference for Presence is its independence from the
Speed Chart and even from anything resembling plausible time. The Presence
Attack is the low-Speed combatant’s revenge: anyone can Presence Attack anybody,
whenever, and a good roll disrupts the target’s timing, forcing hesitations and lost
actions. It’s a big wrench thrown right into the chessmaster’s careful arrangement
of Phases and Maneuvers.
As a best practice, heroes should not use Presence Attacks on each other unless
it’s fun, like slowing down Enrages or helping to battle Mind Control. If they arise
in an ethical dispute, players may be reassured to recall that Presence is not itself
Mind Control and that although “consider deeply” may take them aback for now,
it does not mean “submit” or “agree.”
Not even Presence qualifies for the biggest monkey wrench award, however.
Fear Luck and Unluck alike! They laugh at mere bonuses or other statistical
adjustments, as they change the whole contexts in which rolls are made in the
first place.
I don’t even know where to start. Big things fall over. People run around in
wrong directions. Inanimate objects inexplicably arrive in unlikely spots. Devices
stop working, or perhaps worse, begin. Someone says exactly the right or wrong
thing. What you grab isn’t what you thought. All these and more happen to us,
real people, in our daily lives, so imagine the equivalent for a super-powered
crisis. And there’s not a Characteristic, Skill, or Power that can prevent it.
With either or both of them firing off, possibly on both sides of a confrontation,
a straightforward fight becomes a mad scramble over who can adapt faster to
whatever just happened.
Strong stuff
There is no such thing as “the Brick.” Ten super-strong heroes should each have
his or her own interesting profile of special effects, Characteristics, Powers,
and Modifiers to showcase how Strength is done in addition to merely having
Strength. (1)
Special effects play up and define Strength just as they would for a fire-bolt
or a pool of demonic shadow. For example, think of someone using the Block
Maneuver against a punch that’s strong enough to shatter a concrete wall. Since
special effects can be hardened into mechanics, any of these (or anything like
them) could be used to reflect the might on display:
▶ Half the Knockout damage gets through anyway; defenses apply
▶ Require an Endurance expenditure in order to defend
▶ Apply Knockback as if the strike had been successful
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If you want builds instead of momentary special effects, the mechanics are
just sitting there waiting. Although one must reluctantly admit that the famous
superlatives – unstoppable, immovable, invulnerable – will never literally be the
case, you can get pretty close.
Higher Strength may be made Conditional for Situations; Susceptibility,
Vulnerability, and Dependence may damage a hero, but there’s nothing like
heaving up an otherwise impossibly-heavy object while you’re reeling from that
very damage. And you can’t unsee it: Enrage begs for Strength and associated
Powers that only work under its influence or following recovery from it. Finally,
small-ish Powers can be attached to punches as Strikes that add their effects, for
extra pain and disorientation. A Severe little Blast with Strike and No Endurance
Cost sets up the “too strong to block safely” effect formally if you want. (2)
Consider defense as well, with the special effect of just flexing real hard, possibly
with the Costs Endurance Limitation for extra drama and pushing potential.
Such things might be Special Defense: Knockback tied to a Dodge or Block, or
Force Field which only works against Knockback, and of course, Special Defense:
Ego. More actively, one’s physical might can be extended for others’ benefit, like
a Force Wall with No Range, defined merely as looming into the attack: “Get
behind me!” thud thud thud.
How about tactics? The basic rule is easy: hitting things, throwing things, and
crushing things all do damage based on the Strength you were using. Things were
made to be broken, after all, and you don’t have to wait for a game master to fill in
what. Pushing for Piercing gives Strength terribly destructive force against them,
and a Perception roll can show you the structural details of a building or similar
object, so that destroying one hex can set up a collapse.
But there’s more to it, because more than anything else in the system, Strength
moves things around. You can throw anything! If it’s one level below you on the
Strength chart, you can shove or heave it a couple of hexes, and if it’s two levels
below, you can really wing it somewhere, a number of hexes equal to the Strength
dice you’re using. Pushing, obviously, bumps you higher on the chart.
A couple of technical points on throwing: an aerodynamic object can target
a person or something like that, but a non-aerodynamic object targets hexes
appropriate to its size. A willing person is aerodynamic; an unwilling one is not.
Also, at least one of the objects has to take damage upon impact, and it’s up to the
thrower to say which, or both.
And who said Knockback can’t be given a direction? “I’m hitting them that
way!” Remember that business about targeting vulnerable points of structures? It’s
even better if you punch someone into the super- duper scary, enormous device
and bury them in its so-expensive, now-useless pieces. The converse is nasty too:
if you have a size advantage from Growth or combine your punch with a leaping
attack, you can pound someone straight down and the ground will hit back.
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When Strength is pitted against Strength, or against its equivalent in movement

(1d6 per 5 hexes), matters are resolved with Body rolls. The moment of impact or
tug-of-war can be tough on something in the middle though!
Move it
Simply getting from here to there, because you want to go and have the hexes, are
the movement powers’ least important or interesting feature. Playing them well
starts with considering what each movement power feels like for each hero.
Take flight, for instance. The comics are always very clear about it: some fliers
seem to be swimming, some are soaring, some are jet-propelled, some walk
normally except for not needing the ground, others float, others use wings similar
to birds, glide using devices or clothing, and still others are riding a fantastic
version of a familiar high-velocity object or vehicle. Some leave a trail of effect,
some make an accompanying sound. No one “just” flies, and their respective
properties are used to their minor advantage and disadvantage all the time.
The same applies for all movement powers, for instance, whether your
Teleport involves subjective movement through weird intervening space, and
so on through the list. They should all be played generously, for example, high-
velocity or nominally less-controlled flight definitions are more maneuverable
or adjustable than they could really be. Also, in ordinary situations, heroes do
not run into lampposts and they can swerve at angles under 90 without trouble.
They can do plenty of things without penalties or complications, including most
0-Phase or half-Phase actions, by dropping a hex of their total movement based
on Endurance spending, or as much as called for if it involves shifting vertically.
Move attacks are included in this concept, as they carry their own modifiers.
However, there is no moving-power concept which allows a hero to go where
they will, however they will, oriented as they will, free to do anything they want
along the way, free from any action/reaction, guaranteed of a safe stop or turn.
Since fighting or hazardous situations quickly shift out of the ideal, daring
actions on the go push the limits of the movement’s special effects. Many hazards
explicitly impose this danger, as do attempting sharper turns and sudden changes
in altitude. Dexterity rolls may get you through, but if you’re surprised, and if you
don’t have Acrobatics, then the roll is dropped to 6, modified only by relevant
Skill Levels if you have any.
Every hero’s super-movement, then, has its own little nuances waiting for
whatever can go wrong: because it will! Everything previously hand-waved
about momentum, turn radius, and, you know, gravity kicks in, depending on
the situation and the movement itself. Absent obvious adverse side-effects of
the powers in action, convert your current hexes of movement into Knockback
in the most plausible and least desirable direction. Apply all the modifiers for
Knockback, especially to Flight.
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The same principles apply to orienting among obstacles. Most of the time, in
the absence of a designated hazard, heroes stay oriented and don’t blunder into
lampposts by default. But this default can be disrupted by a long list of events:
getting hit by a surprise move, getting Stunned, getting Knocked Back or thrown
somewhere, particularly into and through something, receiving contradictory
information. Unexpectedly encountering changed circumstances will do it too,
for instance, after recovering from being Flashed or perceiving your way through
Concealment.
The governing mechanic is the Perception roll, based on Intelligence and
relevant Skill Levels, as a 0-Phase action. Think of that quick lane-check speeding
heroes do in the comics, often accompanied by a thought balloon to keep the
reader oriented, and also of how the next panel might be their push to do what
they’re trying to do, or an unfortunate collision because they took their eyes off
the road.
Staying oriented maintains the movement action as intended and also allows
you to turn a moving reactive defense into active tactics. Think of it as suddenly
getting two free hexes, so go two hexes in a direction or to a location you want,
Acrobatically if possible. The latter not only provides a bonus to your defensive
value but significantly expands your options for the landing spot.
A failed roll, however, converts your immediate location into a standard hazard,
customized as in Chapter 11. And no, you don’t get a new Dexterity roll or reactive
defense. Failing the perception was the whole screwdriver and you’re screwed.
The one-stop solution for this general problem is the Awareness Power,
to provide broader and better sensing of one’s immediate situation, greatly
increasing the safety range for not even needing to roll to orient. However, even
that Power encounters limits in terms of exact senses and their special effects,
e.g., its vulnerability to overload.
Teleporting is supposed to be fun, so it’s overdoing things to require perception
checks before and after, every time. It’s best to treat it the same as running around,
only with weirder possible consequences in more difficult situations. Teleporting
heroes are well-advised to include the above-mentioned Awareness, even if it’s
Limited to apply only to that movement.
Sooner or later, special effects and stressful circumstances will lead someone to
try teleporting “blind,” without being able to perceive the destination. The easiest
solution is simply to decree that without a perceived destination, the Power cannot
work. However, that’s no fun; so if the acting player accepts some risk and states
the intended distance and intended direction/location, go for it. If the attempt
was triggered by the Involuntary Limitation, operating irrationally, or due to a
Psychological Situation, then set the range at maximum plus a Push. If someone
is unfortunate enough to occupy a solid space, presumably the effect isn’t good,
according to whatever hazard is best suited to the current special effects.
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Things get really funky with Expanded Scope in both Awareness and Teleport,
as the hero becomes a global, interstellar, dimensional, temporal, or psychic
journeyer. Although that’s obviously cool for the situations and stories of play,
failing to orient properly becomes considerably more dire. The consequences for
others who may be involved, when they lack these abilities, should be left to the
imagination. (4)
Moving others can be as good as moving oneself; a purpose for which the
attacking form of Teleport is remarkably nasty! It can be highly characteristic
and thematic given the choice of Modifiers, such as the “castling” or “switch
places” version. Applications with other Powers may be refined quite tightly,
as with the hero who used fine-work Telekinesis, Skill Levels with Grab, and
attacking Teleport Limited to small items only. It’s a bad day for the heavily-
armed opponents who see the hero smile, open his hand, and drop the pins from
the grenades they’re wearing on their vests.
Tunneling is obviously intimately connected with terrain, and its concept range
is very wide. Its special effects may be defined to remove substances automatically,
not at all, or opportunistically, and it works on any solid barrier or substrate and
not just the ground. So it doesn’t have to be literal burrowing at all. For example a
“desolid field” so that you can turn the immediate surroundings intangible, or an
energy discharge tied to a Piercing Strike which delivers awesome destruction to
the area your target’s in, as well as upon them.
There’s moving through and around terrain, and then there’s moving it around.
Tunneling in its more aggressive forms is an obvious way to tear up the joint,
not only making holes but doing something with the leftovers. Adding Force
Wall allows you to re-shape the whole place as you please. Force Wall by itself
cannot provide support, like a floor or bridge, but combining it with Telekinesis
can, either directly or by adding existing structures or substances into the mix
of making holes or new barriers. Combining these powers with Entangle and
Concealment yields so many applications, depending on nuances of linking or
relative values, that they almost comprise their own subset of the rules.
The way of fists and feet

The Martial Arts maneuvers are only a little more effective on their own. The real
opportunity is to create your own combat strategy with “martial arts” as a lens to
see the same rules everyone else is using, but in a different way.
High Speed fits right in, in a sneaky way that rarely does any more actions than
anyone else. A held action may be fired off at the end of the Segment just before
the Phase for the next scheduled action, then that action may be held. You’re
fighting one Segment into the future and they’re always one step behind, and you
can even deliver a rapid-fire one-two when you choose. It also means you can
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Chapter tWeLVe • DYNamIC meChaNICS
abort the held action for a necessary reactive defensive move without losing the
upcoming scheduled one.
The Maneuvers are savage in this context. The Attacks don’t cost Endurance
for their extra dice, bypassing that particular downside of Speed. Martial Block
and And Out provide defense and movement at moments that other people don’t
have.
Messing with others’ Speed Charts is possible too. Even minimal success with
a Presence Attack robs opponents of their expected positions in the order, and
Find Weakness allows for potentially Stunning blows, forcing lost Phases and
opening up repeated strikes. Find Weakness may not seem like much, just one
piddly die more, but it can be used multiple times against a single target as long
as you keep succeeding. And the effect doesn’t go away! That opponent remains
vulnerable to that attack for the rest of the fight.
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That’s why confrontations between martial artists often begin with the
combatants staring oddly at each other: they’re using Find Weakness and
a Presence Attack in a duel of forced hesitation and held actions, to gain the
advantage for a devastating strike.
The other benefit is getting to name a fighting style as a special effect, which
permits dipping into the Powers – in effect, “just fighting” but with a superhero’s
worth of smackdown attached to your favorite Maneuvers.
Strike can be attached to any attack maneuver – want your Throw to immobilize
someone? That’s an Entangle. A disorienting blow? That’s a Flash. Choke hold?
No problem, attach Severe Blast to the follow-up squeeze on a Grab, which
requires no attack roll. A big one can even be Conditional, to apply only to a
second consecutive strike on a given target. It works just as well for defense, so
that not even a hit hits, sometimes. Consider Force Field plus substantial Special
Defense: Knockback tied to blocking or dodging, or even Desolid with the right
Conditional Limitation.
Nevermind the “Glass Ninja” concept either. Consider instead that taking a
beating can be its own superpower. Considerable extra Body and Powers may
have be Conditional upon recovering from being Stunned. Or what if such
benefits are Conditional upon recovering from Enraged, making you more
focused and effective, albeit not particularly reasonable? That sounds more like
the great pop culture martial artists to me.
The fighting style may certainly include all manner of mystic, psychic, or mental
resources which ignore the simplistic brains-brawn divide. Mental Discipline and
Special Defense: Ego are a nasty surprise for the Psychic Psycho who encounters
your California-Zen-Tao training, and the Invulnerable Indestructo will be
equally unhappy with your Ego-based Drain Strength Strike.
And those are just individual Powers! You should be dreaming up a whole
Framework about right now.
Sneakier than thou

I can think of nothing more tedious in role-playing than hashing out mechanics
for “we sneak past the guards.” Leave that stuff to the so-called agents. For heroes,
stealth is about combat tactics, not avoidance: appearing and disappearing in
the moment, one with the shadows, striking at will, and mastering the whole
situation by controlling who perceives what. To address these circumstances, the
various rolls to hide and perceive operate in a strict hierarchy.
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The default is that everyone can see or reasonably sense what’s going on in their
ordinary field without trying, and that typically a Perception roll is only called
for when someone tries to discern something difficult. You don’t have to roll to
notice that some guy flew in and is trying to hit you.
The simplest outcome is whether the sneaky character can attack with a surprise
ambush, when and if the other parties have no idea that you’re even there, or have
tried to find you and failed. It’s nastier than the usual surprise bonus: the target’s
defensive value drops to 6, no reactive defense is possible, and he or she takes
double Knockout damage before defenses, or an equivalent increase for other
attacks.
A more complex case arises when one character stalks another to trade off
attacks with hiding, or even more so, when both combatants are doing it in a
relatively confusing or complex environment. The whole diagram may be called
into play across many Phases, turning the fight into a ruthless dance of timing,
recovery, Skill and perception rolls, distance management, set-up, and ambush.
When someone “loses” the duel of perception in this situation, they are not
gobsmacked as if they’d been ambushed out of nowhere. The attacker gains the
maximal surprise bonus of +3, and the defender may use reactive defenses.
Keep in mind the difference between the two sneaky Powers: Invisibility affects
persons (more generally, living things) whereas Concealment affects areas.
Therefore the Area Advantage provides personal Invisibility to people in an area,
but does not affect the area or objects in it.
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Going mental
The question about mental-psychological powers is whether they’re an additional
venue for glowing power-on-power combat, or a whole realm of insidious and
disturbing conflict. The first is nicely suited to applying the Ego-Based Advantage
freely and also providing Expanded Scope to Awareness and Teleport into freaky
dream or supernatural dimensions. This approach veers into pop mystic and
psychedelic territory, a fine place to go. The second is wonderfully exacerbated
by the Invisible Special Effects Advantage, irrational Psychological Situations,
misconceptions, disinformation, and perhaps the Mystery Powers concept
presented in Chapter 15. This approach brings forward psychology, personality,
motives, memories, reactions, trauma, and related matters.
In construction terms, Ego-based powers’ Modifiers interplay well with
Psychological Situations, as indicated by some of the rules. A group may like to
systematize these further by matching the parameters for Psychological Situations
to each level of each Ego-based power.
The further you go with such ideas, players’ agency via their characters will shift
its boundaries into new places. This is fine as long as it’s a shift to understandable
procedures, not a sprawl into disempowered play. The best practice, whatever
else is done, is to maintain full player authority over how the character feels about
the Ego-based powers experience afterwards, and to spend some play time for
the character to express it.
Just as a high Strength value doesn’t provide comics super-strength all by itself,
no single Ego-based Power provides mental and emotional mastery. To play like
the mental heavy-hitters in comics, you’ll have to combine two or more of them
into single attacks.
Images risks being overlooked. Compared with tossing a Chrysler (or toppling
the Chrysler Building), showing pretty pictures to a single target doesn’t seem
like much of a power. The first counter to that is that the minimal effect means
that the target genuinely perceives whatever the image is, and the target doesn’t
realize they’re being affected.
Overcoming that deception is hard. Some external stimulus must be involved,
whether it’s someone trying to “wake” you, another sense receiving a powerful
countering impression, or something that contradicts the illusion affecting you
dramatically; like, say, being hit by something else or stepping off a cliff! In the
absence of utterly contradictory input, the target must experience something
of this kind and succeed with a perception roll using an unaffected sense. Even
realizing the images are false doesn’t make them stop, although once you do you
can choose to ignore them and disciplined heroes can shift the effect down with
the Self Mastery maneuver.
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Continuing Images requires continuing to spend Endurance. But you can also
reduce or increase the effect, rolling the appropriate number of effect dice, with
no required new attack roll, so the continuing Endurance cost is based on that
effect.
Images’ applications vary immensely. One spin is to not to deceive at all, but
rather to depict or communicate something. This may still be its own form of
attack, using confusion and distraction, especially if the content is coordinated
with a Presence Attack. Perhaps it’s not even an attack, but a useful way to let
one’s allies know important visual information, such as directions, someone’s
appearance, or their Psychological Situations, perhaps backstopped with
Detective Work or Telepathy.
When believing the images are real is the point, then a high effect is the key. But
consider combining it with some other Power which itself carries the Separate
Advantage; after all, a complex image becomes a lot more convincing if part of
it just punched you in the face. Furthermore, since the biggest risk to Images is
contradictory impressions, Concealment of whatever the Images are not is a very
effective partner Power.
Higher levels of effect may alter the target’s concept of their whole environment.
It’s easier to change the perceived environment a lot, i.e., “the surface of Mars,”
“trapped in infernal flames,” than to do it subtly, like “everyone around you has
a clockwork key protruding from the backs of their necks.” When the altered
environment includes the absence of specific people in it, yourself for instance,
then Concealment or Invisibility can backstop it if the illusions don’t make it to
the needed effect. If you’re looking for disorientation and physical helplessness,
then Entangle, Flash, and even Severe Blast damage are fine participants too.
Any of these applications may be expanded to affect multiple targets with an
Area Effect, which, if deceptive, is effectively backstopped with Concealment
over the same area and following up with precise uses of Telekinesis. The affected
area does not have to be filled with images, i.e., they don’t have to be continuous
within it, but the entire area which contains any of them is considered a single
area in terms of how many hexes are affected.
By itself, Images won’t alter the target’s feelings or beliefs about the situation,
nor will it access their existing emotions or memories for the visual content.
These and similar effects require adding Telepathy. If the desired effect includes a
specific directive, then you need Mind Control too.
Mind Control is arguably the laziest, most unsatisfying plot device in
superhero comics, but it is occasionally redeemed when everyone understands
that the literal power’s sole purpose is to be broken. It isn’t being controlled that
matters, but what follows after: the wreckage, reflection, recovery of oneself, and
discovery of others’ views. (3)
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The rules are tuned to reinforce the “made to be broken” principle. First, the
Power by itself is more limited than it looks, as it can only enforce an explicit
order which precedes or accompanies the attack roll. For the orders to be willed
rather than communicated normally, you need minimal Telepathy, and effects
like “forget” or “believe” require much stronger Telepathy. To make the target
see or otherwise perceive what isn’t the case, which can go a long way toward
meeting the requirements for specific levels of effect, you need Images.
Unfortunately for the target, each attack roll constitutes the only substantial
moment of potential refusal. Psychological Situations that accord with the Ego-
based power were already taken into account regarding the level of effect, so
they don’t reinforce it or counteract it. The only effective resistance mechanic is
Mental Discipline to reduce its effect.
When acting under its influence, the target may perform any actions consistent
with the command, e.g., making tactical choices in combat when directed to fight.
The character knows he or she is mind-controlled and although they can’t do
anything else that requires a Phase action, they may take free actions. Commands
like “act normal” or “stay silent” can shut those down, or other Ego-based powers
can strike deeper to reinforce submission.
A separate Mind Control attack is required for every command, therefore
carrying its own Endurance cost as well. Although the Power is not technically
maintained, it may be continued through consecutive attacks in order to arrive
at some desired action by the target. Those who anticipate extensive rather than
momentary control should take the Persistent Advantage.
Puppetering levels of control are possible, but they not accounted for by
any single Power, requiring a customized mix of Mind Control, the Persistent
Advantage, Telepathy, and Images at the very least, and likely Awareness with
Expanded Scope. The complex build and high numbers of required Points reflect
the comics convention that people with this ability are pure specialists in its use,
and as with many complex systems, it is riddled with ways to go awry.
Telekinesis reinforces other Ego powers’ effects with tangible movement or
impact. It may provide significant auxiliary effects, such as providing Images with
physical manifestations, or restricting the movement and therefore maintaining
the perceptual range of targets for Telepathy and Mind Control. Plenty of other
concepts for mental prowess do well to include it.
The default application isn’t sensory, but it can be made so by including
Awareness, for an extended sensory self which can actually do things, without
going so far as the Separate Advantage.
Telepathy is a catch-all term for very different goals of thought-based
communication. The only thing they have in common is that contact may be
maintained at any distance at 1 Endurance per Phase given a willing participant,
otherwise repeating the initial Endurance expenditure per Phase. The most
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benign form is as described in Chapter 6, which nothing more than a mental

phone call. Going by comics conventions, language and alien-ness present little
or no barrier to communication. But if that sort of thing matters in the concept
of your game, treat it as a special effect which manifests as Special Defense: Ego.
More hostile applications include finding something out, which can be made
far more effective and interesting by including Mind Control and Images. Such
play results in complex interactions among Psychological Situations, secrets,
memories, and reactions. Managing content for these effects can be tricky, as
the attacking telepath can’t say “Ah ha, you knew the secret code, even though
you didn’t know you knew, and I just found it,” but on the other hand, the target
can’t say, “Sorry, I suppressed that info into my subconscious, you didn’t dig deep
enough.” Treat thoughts effectively as solid objects and the mind as a room with
varying degrees of put-away and in-the-open, and stay as simplistic as possible
regarding “where something is,” without weaseling.
Then there’s altering the target’s memories or personality, which is obviously a
really villainous thing to do, although the odd comics hero has been known to
do it “just this once.” Even with a solid roll for the Telepathy, you need to include
Images to provide a memory that won’t fall apart when questioned. Implanting
convictions doesn’t include directives unless Mind Control is included.
The Mental Discipline Skill unlocks the Ego Maneuvers, most of which do not
require using Ego-based Powers and are quite a boon to the hero who does not
specialize in them, particularly if they are strong-willed. Using them does not
make you oblivious to anything and ordinary defenses and defense options apply
unless some special effect causes trouble for them.
Adding the Usable On/For Others Advantage to the Special Defense: Ego
power is a significant addition to play. If someone is already being affected by
an Ego-based power, you can throw Ego Defense on them to reduce the effect.
For a group blanket-protection effect, you’ll need Ranged and Area Effect too.
Suppress is also useful in this fashion, but unlike Special Defense: Ego, it cannot
be used against any Ego-based Power as such, but only against any/all Powers
which conform to a particular special effect.
A hero specializing in Ego-based powers is not obliged to apply the Advantage
of the same name for other Powers, because physical vs. psychic concepts don’t
have to line up precisely with Dexterity-based vs. Ego-based mechanics. Special
effects are what you say they are, so it’s fine to include powers that attack using
Dexterity in your stable of “psychic powers.” The benefit of the Advantage is found
in limited defenses: plenty of adversaries may have high Dexterity, Skill Levels for
fighting, and Defense, but not so many with commensurate values regarding Ego.
A solid Blast or Entangle attacking from that “angle” of the mechanics can deliver
a real surprise. Therefore, for the same Active Points, you can choose between
more dice for the Dexterity-based version or foes’ potential vulnerability for the
Ego-based one.
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Another technique is to tie Ego-based Powers to Skills, especially Detective

Work and Computer Programming, such as Telepathy for ferreting out secret
information, perhaps combined with Images to arrive at important visual
information, like a specific face.
Awareness with Expanded Scope takes these effects to a frightening level,
especially for Skills. It uses perception by default, and it may stay that way and be
used in tandem with an Ego-based Power, or be tied to the same Skill as an Ego-
based Power. It permits Ego-based Powers to work into or across the perceived
range, which themselves may be refined in terms of the hero’s specialized
knowledge and insights based on features that are not expressed in Points. This
fits just right with Detective Work, for the find-anyone-for-I-am-the-night type
of hero. Less subtly, it can also strike at people directly through their minds from
afar.
Making the Awareness power directly Ego-based produces special properties
that arguably qualify the character as a true mental master, as the presence and
activity of minds becomes the perceived feature, not limited to or defined by the
physical senses as Awareness ordinarily is.
A common application is to hunt for a single mind, seeking its location in either
physical space or, conceivably, whatever spaces or equivalents are represented
by the scope of Awareness, but unhindered by the physical or metaphysical
difficulties of the area, or such evasions as Stealth, Concealment, or Invisibility.
Once you have the successful Ego roll that serves as the perception into the
appropriate region or realm, hunting for the mind requires an attack roll for
Telepathy. If the Telepathy attack roll succeeds, then the target is known to be
present if that was an issue. If the target isn’t there, then if the same roll succeeds
as a basic Ego check, the hero discovers as much.
Given a success, the target may be located given the degree of effect. If the
target is familiar to the searcher, the necessary effect is minimal. A data-match
based on knowledge gained in some concrete way, e.g., Detective Work, requires
the second level of effect, and to find someone defined along the line of “the
person planning to murder the mayor tonight,” the third level of Telepathy must
be achieved. These values are all shifted one level higher in effect if the region or
realm is crowded with other minds.
The Power may be maintained and the effect rolled again, requiring Endurance,
in order to achieve a higher effect, perhaps with Pushing, to zero in on the
location. An intermediate level of effect, i.e., not enough for an exact location but
better than merely knowing that they are present, reduces the degree of scope,
i.e., “accounts for” most of the region or realm. For geographic locations, even
if the precise location is not discerned, this degree of success may permit more
mundane searching now that the area concerned has been narrowed down.
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Such mind scanning is a fairly minimal application of the Advantage. It all goes
mad, in the good way, when you have a movement power at the same degree of
Expanded Scope, to combine “knowing and going.” The hero becomes an explorer,
traveler, and even denizen of the freakier, more psychic dimensions, connected
dreamscapes, or even whole realms defined by metaphysical concepts, where
“cosmic,” “philosophical,” and “mystic” special effects are the same thing. When
you apply the potential communications and control effects of Powers across this
level of perception and movement, it’s literally a game-changing capability.
Weaponry
The system features no rules subset for the technological range of ways to injure
people. You can be a weapon-wielding hero simply as a special effect for Powers.
Missile Deflection, Strike, and Blast are the most obvious, as well as your pick
of Area, defenses Usable for Others, and whatever else. A bit of added Flash as a
Strike is particularly appropriate. But they are no different, as Powers, from any
other special effect.
The good side of the special effect, i.e., holding this particular weapon, is that
it’s cool-looking and demonstrates something remarkable and fun about the hero
because they made it, or have the right to it, or can use it at all. That’s about it.
The bad side is that the thing can be damaged, lost, left behind, or taken away.
Granted, the whole point of special effects is that their impact is opportunistic
and inconsistent, so be comforted by the plot proviso that your khukuri or
widget or ray-gun will be replaced, recovered, or otherwise returned to your use;
especially if you put some effort into it. Also, such events won’t happen to you
any more frequently than anyone else’s Powers’ special effects giving them the
business once in a while.
Beware the Focus Limitation! It is not for heroes, at least not in the simplistic
sense that “My thing is an object, so it must be a Focus.” It’s not synonymous with
“the power comes from an object,” instead, it means the power will be broken,
interfered with, or taken away. Not “can,” but will, and what’s more, with merely
an ordinary attack. The signature weapons wielded by the comics heroes do not
correspond with the rules for Focus at all; I can’t think of a single one. As discussed
in Chapter 7: Villain Making, Focus is usually a villain thing, especially when it
applies to a whole object rather than to some aspect of a complex power. (5)
The other weapons to appear in play are typically directed at your hero.
Hazards of this sort, say, an automated device, a military vehicle, or a squad of
soldiers, may of course be any Power, but the most straightforward is Blast, with
the fortunate quality of being vulnerable to ordinary attacks. Designated as a
weapon or not, they are as dangerous as they are defined to be, based on Powers
and Points.
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Such a thing is also likely to appear as part of a foe’s Powers, constructed in the
ordinary fashion. It might be just like the one a hero will have, so in mechanics
terms, that usually means the Powers are unmodified or modified with some
weaknesses of being that particular weapon or device. For certain kinds of
villains, however, putting all or nearly all the oomph into a Focus is practically
standard, perhaps reinforced with some unhealthy mindset or relationship with it,
expressed as Psychological Situations with irrational and meltdown components.
Given the generous higher range for a villain’s Ratio, this kind of thing represents
an extravagant mismatch between the outrageous things the device is certain to
do and the all-or-nothing quality of trying to grab or damage it.
Now for the gray area: the pick-it-up situations, when the minion’s ray-gun or
the agent’s Desert Eagle .50 AE clatters over there, and you dive-and-roll, coming
to a crouch with it raised up to fire. What happens? It seems hardly fair to say
otherwise, so you go right ahead and turn that hazard, constructed as written,
upon whomever you want. Altering its function might be impossible or require a
specialized Skill like Computer Programming.
May I keep it? You may, if you use Points to construct a new Power with the
special effect of owning and using this thing (see Chapter 15: You Must Change).
Depending on what you do with the Points, it may function much as it did at first
appearance or, somehow, be re-imagined differently, with the original vanishing
into the common comics memory hole. If you don’t commit the Points to it,
however, at the end of the fight or immediate situation, it goes away. Explain or
depict that however you want; but the rule is that it happens.
The foregoing would be all that’s necessary for the topic, except that guns have
a fraught history in comics. What they are differs drastically from time to time
and title to title, ranging from little more than props that bad guys wave around
for some reason to terrifying slay-devices which are faster and more deadly than
anything else, including most super-powers, sometimes in the hands of anyone.
So here are a few extra words about the bang-bang. (6)
These rules include nothing magic about “a gun!!” that transcends the ordinary
meaning of Points. If you want “guns are deadly” in terms of real-world plausibility,
then you already have it. Ordinary people have Defense 0, so they are at lethal
risk from any ordinary attack which threatens 10 Body damage. More dice or
even a single Advantage out of several available turn that risk into near certainty.
If you want a gun, or guns in general, to outweigh most super-powers, then the
necessary Points increase accordingly: at least 60 Power Points in Blast, probably
more, Modified with Severe, Piercing, and Destructive, supported by significant
punch in Speed, Find Weakness, and special effects. The teeth-clenched squinting
insta-killer observed among certain comics favorites is walking around with an
extraordinary and, I might add, disproportionate Point total.
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Regardless of whatever lethality you want to associate with guns, other relevant
Modifiers for them and similar things include No Endurance and Burnout, to
dramatize ammunition which might run out. That way, you get all the unexpected
click-click and ducking around to reload that you’re looking for without counting
anything. If you want to pull the realism cord, then No Knockback can be
included, but I’ve noticed that even the fervent proponents of realism still want
bullets to knock people all around the place.
All shapes and sizes

The hero’s appearance is a special effect, including fundamental notions as
species, planet or dimension of origin, god (old or new), living vs. construct, or
really anything about “type” of entity at all. The vague and generic human chassis
for the rules is nothing more than the same convention in most science fiction
and fantasy. So if your hero has a cluster of seven eyes and no other facial features,
or is a meter tall as well as a nice shade of lavender, no rules need to reflect any of
that unless you want them to.
These kinds of special effects can be hardened by turning any Power effect
into an ongoing aspect of appearance and ordinary function. Common options
include Always On and 0 Endurance, and Extra Limb and tweaks of Awareness
fit in as well. Unusual Looks, however, is entirely optional, as comics are full
of funny-looking aliens or whatever whom no one seems to mind, as well as
others who are just barely off human-model but receive constant horrified or
disapproving responses.
Then there are heroes who vary their shape and form, calling on a different
profile of builds and concepts. The simpler kind of mutable heroes retain their
Powers and other aspects as their shape and appearance is altered, sometimes
drastically; they may look weird but are still “themselves.” Size is the obvious
example, with different concepts of giant-ness and itsy-bitsy-ness expressed
mainly through different kinds of energy management. Another version is the
“rubber body” concept, which appears in very different ways in the comics,
reflected here in different point-totals for some combination of Stretching,
Density Increase, Superleap, and, for those who like rebound attacks, Reactive
Blast with High Impact. It may also get surreal with such things as Gliding,
Growth, and Force Wall.
One superhero woman combined nearly all these concepts with the full range
of size change from speck to airplane-seizing giantess plus stretching about.
Instead of cartoony overkill, she was, in my eyes, at the top of the list of most
admirable, thoughtful, and bad-ass heroes in comics. (7)
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Another change isn’t as drastic physically, but rather socially: altering one’s
appearance to another identity, typically to deceive, in “master of disguise” or
“man of many faces” style. The Disguise Skill is the anchor for Images and Instant
Change, as well as Invisibility tied to Stealth for finding unlikely moments or
opportunities for being unnoticed. Other Power tweaks may emphasize disguising
either away from one’s own identity (“not me”) or toward someone else’s specific
identity (“them”).
If such a character has Unusual Looks, they can be nominally hidden as a
special effect, but that doesn’t stop them from getting their ordinary roll, which
if tripped, includes spotting them in the first place as well as the typical response.
If a hero is even more changeable, based on actually transforming rather than
re-shaping or looking different, then it may still be expressed as a special effect of
Instant Change with no other Powers involved, if the different forms don’t differ
in their capabilities.
Before looking at constructions for when they do, Instant Change deserves
some attention of its own. Its simplest form is to change clothes, but it may also
apply changing one’s entire appearance, whether to “my superhero self ” or in
service to the master-disguised concept described above. Most drastically, it can
mean becoming a different person, creature, or even thing. Perhaps surprisingly,
it’s the same number of Points, appropriate to its use, regardless of how many
forms or options are involved, so it could be a single “other me” or dozens, or
even customizable ones.
A radical version involves changing into inanimate objects. If the point is
actually to masquerade as the object, that’s a version of the Disguise-centered
construction above, and if its operating properties are important, that includes
Powers with Adaptive Special Effects. If the transformation is so thorough as to
become that object itself, then the mild form of Shutdown applies. Even more
bizarrely, consider Usable on Others in its aggressive form in order to turn
people into toasters or frogs, which include such things as Entangle or Shrinking,
respectively, with added powerful Ego-based combinations for “You’re a frog.”
When the different form or forms include different profiles of Powers or
Characteristics, then the Multiform Power Framework works best to organize
them.
With this type of hero concept, the Multiform is usually pretty big. You can
even allot the maximum possible Points into a Multiform and its Slots for
entirely different versions of the hero. Do this by first assigning Points outside
the Framework for any baseline they all share, which must include any Skills,
regardless of whether the latter are conceived to be specific to a given form. All
the other Character Points now become the Multiform’s Pool and Slots. If any
Limitation applies to the whole thing, figure out the math first so you know how
many Active Points are available.
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The versions may actually be different individuals, like a literal “alter ego,” or
maybe you’re a portal for different dimensional warriors. To associate them with
different personalities, organize several Psychological Situations accordingly. If
you want to be uncertain about which one you get or become, make the Instant
Change Tricky. And if you want to make one or more of them act unpredictably
relative to the others, that’s Tricky as well, for the Framework as a whole.
Then there’s the opposite, to make more individual versions of yourself, which,
in the comics, usually turns out to be not much of a power. If you’re going for
the mob dogpile attack, then it works better as a Blast or Entangle with the Area
Advantage, with all those grimacing versions of yourself as a special effect. If you
do use a Multiform, then the Point structure does not allow you to get multiple
and simultaneous full-power heroes for one hero’s Points. Instead it relies on
the Separate Advantage with the option to provide the separated entity the
independent range of action. You only need Multiform if the selves differ from
one another in Powers or Characteristics. Variants in the comics include fully
independent separate minds, full contact and integration via a single mind, and
carefully-tuned intermediate concepts. (8)
References
(1) Ben Grimm, or the Thing, demonstrates strength as a function of emotional
ties and determination, and applying it tactically, rather than simply out-hitting
weaker opponents. He first appeared in Fantastic Four #1 (1961), by Stan Lee
and Jack Kirby, published by Magazine Management using its Marvel Comics
imprint.
(2) Repeated heroes have demonstrated that being unequivocally strong enough
to beat anyone or do anything is sooner or later dialed back for stories to be
interesting. The standout example began with Superman #233 (1971), by Dennis
O’Neil and Curt Swan, published by Warner Communications using its DC
Superman imprint, including drastically reducing the hero’s powers and removing
vari-colored kryptonite as a central plot device. A similar effect occurred for the
Hulk beginning with The Incredible Hulk #331 (1987), by Peter David and Todd
McFarlane, published by New World Entertainment using its Marvel Comics
Group imprint. After this point the Hulk’s strength took second place to his
cunning, and focused on suppressed fury rather than going berserk.
(3) Most mind control in comics is binary: either it can’t be broken by its victim,
or it can and is, upon sufficient effort. The most striking contrast, in which mind
control relies upon and releases unconscious urges, is found in Mastermind’s
control of Jean Grey, in her persona of the Black Queen and the creation of Dark
Phoenix, in The Uncanny X-Men #129-135 (1980), by Chris Claremont and John
Byrne, published by Cadence Industries using its Marvel Comics Group imprint.
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This interpretation characterizes many instances of mind control authored by

Claremont.
(4) Doctor Strange is one of many similarly-themed and named heroes, but his
comics most emphasized mystic, psychic, and psychedelic realms, beginning
with Strange Tales #110 (1963), by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, especially while
Ditko was credited for the plots, published by Magazine Management using its
Marvel Comics imprint. This was also the central feature in Marvel Premiere #3-
14 and Doctor Strange #1-2 and #4-18 (1973-1976), by Steve Englehart, Frank
Brunner (Marvel Premiere), and Gene Colan (Doctor Strange), published by
Cadence Industries using its Marvel Comics Group imprint.
(5) The list of “not a Focus” widgets includes but isn’t limited to Green Lantern’s
ring, Wonder Woman’s lasso, Batman’s utility belt, Captain America’s shield, the
Punisher’s guns, Green Arrow’s or Hawkeye’s bow, Spider-Man’s web-shooters,
Iron Man’s armor, Thor’s hammer, Daredevil’s billy club, and more. The converse is
demonstrated by the many armored villains who are reliably busted up, switched
off, overloaded, or de-shelled as soon as the hero figures out how.
(6) Guns’ history in American superhero comics is inverted from its usual
presentation: to have them is the default, not the exception, varying only in how
often you shoot people. Early almost-comics pulp fiction and newspaper strips
were all gun-heavy, including The Shadow and The Phantom, later with The
Spider, and they never stopped, e.g. The Executioner, all of which include many
imitations and have steadily provided content mined by radio, film, and TV.
The first decade of the allegedly sweet-and-bright-eyed, so-called Golden Age
of Comics was littered with corpses left by heroes, brought to a terrifying head
with The Spectre. Special mention goes to the Captain Marvel movies – a festival
of super-powered homicide – and to the take-no-prisoners women superheroes
Fantomah, the Spider Queen, Black Fury/Miss Fury, Lady Satan, the Black Cat,
the Black Widow, Liberty Belle, Ms. Victory, Miss Masque, the Phantom Lady,
the Spider Widow, and the Woman in Red. The question isn’t why superheroes
starting shooting people in the 1980s, but why they stopped for a while.
The historical points explain why, with a twist.
▶ In 1940, Batman shot a foe and hanged another from the Batplane. As part
of Independent News’ policy of upscaling its image out of bootlegging and
porn, the owners instituted an in-house code stipulating that heroes would
not kill, that they would uphold the law, that authorities would be portrayed
sympathetically, that black magic or horror elements could not be shown, and
many similar rules. The superheroes they acquired, and especially their new
organization into the Justice Society of America, took on a distinctive glossy,
benign quality.
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▶ In response to public pressure specifically on comics beginning about 1948,

National Periodical Publications (now the name of Donenfeld’s and Liebowitz’s
owning company) and Archie Comics instituted the Comics Code Authority,
using the same code in 1954. Effectively, all newsstand comics had to “be”
NPP in this regard, which is to say, about the same edge as you would find in
“Goofus and Gallant” in Highlights, or they would not be distributed.
▶ In 1971, due in part to events in The Amazing Spider-Man, most of the Comics
Code Authority stipulations were relaxed. Newsstand comics erupted with all
manner of gunplay, surreal horror, and corrupt establishment figures, as well
as a zoo of monster protagonists, essentially returning to normal.
Here’s the thing: Batman missed his timing. In 1968, in the radically-changed
editorial environment at DC Comics as NPP shifted to new ownership, ambitious
writers Dennis O’Neil, Archie Goodwin, Frank Robbins, and Steve Englehart,
working with skilled artists Neal Adams, and Bob Brown, restored the Batman
(as they insisted on calling him) to his pulp roots ... except that the Code still
held, and they had no reason to know that it would be downgraded so soon.
They had to reconcile the lurking, ruthless, obsessive vigilante with Officer
Friendly. Batman’s weird psychology ever since stems from the resulting uneasy
compromise.
This artifact, which could not have formed at any other point in comics history,
persisted and underwent further examination with almost every hero written
or overseen by O’Neil afterwards, especially his editorship of Moon Knight and
Daredevil. It formed a new category between the default options, i.e., heroes who
shot people vs. those who were strong or weird enough not to have to. Therefore
guns for superheroes hold immense significance to comics fans far outweighing
their role in other media.
The appearance of another character just after that shift shows what might have
been. Creators at Marvel had been subverting the Code all along anyway and
seemed ready for the new opportunity. Gerry Conway, among other grimness,
introduced The Punisher in The Amazing Spider-Man #128 (1972), opening the
door for firearms to proliferate across many new characters. Furthermore, since
he was portrayed as unhinged as well as intelligent, the concept was harsher and
edgier than the character’s tough-talking but heroic depiction in the mid-1980s
and afterwards.
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(7) Although stretching heroes have been around since Plastic Man (Police Comics
#1, 1941, published by Quality Comics), the most intense versions are the women.
My reference is to Elasti-Girl who defied every convention of female protagonists
in the 1960s. The powers concept was taken up a level in Doom Patrol #115-
116 (1967), by Arnold Drake and Bruno Premiani, when her similarly stretchy
enemy, Madame Rouge, was driven mad by competing mental demands, split
into two, and fought herself (themselves?) with disturbing snakey stretches of
any body section for several pages. A similar villain with a slightly more animal
motif, Shapeshifter, first appeared in Elementals #1 (1984), by Bill Willingham,
published by Comico. The latest heroic representative is Kamala Khan, Ms.
Marvel, first appearing in Captain Marvel #14 (2013), by Kelly Sue DeConnick,
Scott Hepburn, and Gerardo Sandoval, published by the Walt Disney Company
in its Marvel Entertainment division.
(8) The typical copy-crowd hero or villain is Flashback, first appearing in Alpha
Flight #1 (1983), by John Byrne, published by Cadence Industries using the
Marvel Comics Group imprint. In issue #28 (1985), his disgruntled teammate
Diamond Lil tells him, accurately, “All those tomorrow men of yours are good for
is instant crowd scenes.”
Triplicate Girl, as she was originally named, presents a whole textbook for
duplicating heroes’ possible fates and multiple deaths, being whittled down to
one (Una) and ultimately “expanding” to nearly infinite (Duplicate Girl). She
first appeared in Action Comics #276 (1961), by Jerry Siegel and Jim Mooney,
published by National Periodical Publications using its Superman DC imprint.
Each duplicate is independent until their memorie are combined upon re-
combining. This is contrasted with the Engineer, or Angie Spica, who maintains a
single mind throughout a considerable number of duplicates, who first appeared
in The Authority #1 (1991), by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch, published by Aegis
Entertainment using its Wildstorm Comics imprint. The Mutiple Man, or Jamie
Madrox, is similar to Duplicate Girl. He first appeared in Giant-Size Fantastic
Four #4 (1975), by Len Wein, Chris Claremont, and John Buscema, published by
Cadence Industries using its Marvel Comics Group imprint; with special mention
as well to his appearances in X-Factor (1991-1993) by Peter David and Larry
Stroman, published by Compact Video using its Marvel Comics Group imprint.
Harem, or Daphne DeShantis, produces independently-acting duplicates who
share their memories and new skills at recombination, but who also experience
sensations and other effects while separate. She first appeared in the webcomic
Grrl Power #59 (2011), by David Barrack.
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Chapter 13
The Next Now
Chapter Thirteen • The Next Now
T his is a driving-forward game, and it creates a driving-forward narrative. But

how? Ongoing play has to go somewhere, right?
The answer is “yes,” significantly in the absence of a nanny, a guiding hand, or
anticipatory outline of an epic arc. If the group uses this chapter’s tools and cares
about what they’re doing, then together you will create one-off gems and complex
sagas that stand up with anything in the comics without signposts or rails.
The method is Chapter 8: The Now all over again, but this time with
consequences from the previous sessions of play.
The spinner racks

Let’s glance at the physical superhero comics as they were experienced by the
authors of the original Champions. The comics were cheap stapled 36-page
pamphlets with at most 22 pages of story or sometimes anthologies. There were
very few dedicated comic book stores. You mostly bought them from the wire
racks, whether standing spinners or wall-mounted, where the new ones got
stuffed in front of the old. Precise distribution was spotty; the store owner or
regional manager didn’t care which titles were even present, let alone which
issues were coming in. You had to haunt several locations if you cared about “the
next issue.”
On the customer side, no one thought of collecting comics at the point of
purchase. Mylar, backing boards, and longboxes were unknown; you found back-
issues in unsorted open bins in magazine stores or barber shops, and anyone’s
“collection” was kept in cardboard shirt boxes or shopping bags.
Tired of the nostalgia yet? Good, because it’s not nostalgia. That whole situation
sucked, and I personally ruined Silver Surfer #4 by Scotch taping all my comics
together by title. But it did have one virtue as a very effective, useful model for
role-playing.
▶ Your game is a comics title and needs a name.
▶ Sessions are issues of a newsstand comic book, so they get titles and numbers.
This is more than a fun gimmick. It helps play immensely, because session
transition is completely adjustable in content. Just as with the comics, the first
page of the next session (i.e., issue) might be a full-page repeat of the last panel of
the previous one, a significant shift in location and time, or anything in-between.
It’s not like a classic TV episode or movie which must follow an immediate arc
structure.
Therefore the group may relax the habit, if present, to deliver a climactic
confrontation at two-thirds through the scheduled play time, or to fill that
designated time up to the closing minute, or anything similar. If things close out
216
“early,” then it wasn’t early at all, it’s merely when it happened, and play may either
close accordingly or be permitted some breathing room for new stated actions. If
things have progressed into more complications or actions that are easily handled
after plenty of real-time play, then the issue is free to close without cutting out the
action, as it’s fine to open with its continuation next session.
It’s good for the attitude too. Each issue, or session, matters as its own unit of
“waiting for it and enjoying it.” It needs to be, basically, a fun thing all by itself.
Even the outstanding emergent graphic novels of that time were not planned in
detail in advance or promoted as a single endeavor, and they were not received
and read as a single chunk. A session doesn’t have to feature a scheduled climactic
fight at the halfway point; but it does have to shine that spotlight around, to see
what’s changed for the heroes since the last time, and to watch it change a little
more right now.
The wave-front
Play began with a landscape of heroes and other people who were about to be
seen for the first time and whose goals and actions were generally independent
of one another. But even as soon as two sessions in, and certainly after about
four, things have happened! The game’s potentially dynamic situation has swiftly
become its own actually dynamic social ecology, with its distinctive history and
population of active persons.
Therefore your job is to keep modifying the Now, continually.
▶ Add characters who’ve appeared in play, and invent new ones who seem
reasonable to include next time.
▶ Update the circumstances of all persons and locations, including any changed
or unusual conditions and any relevant aspects of lifestyles, resources, and
attitudes.
▶ Consider the opinions and responses of every person to the latest developments
in play, as well as to real-world events and issues for this location.
▶ Do not hold steady! Everyone is up to something, whether they appeared in
play or not, because if they didn’t, they could well have gone places and done
things.
▶ Add “stuff,” meaning new ideas and problems, drawing on anything you know
about the real world, and anything fantastic you want to use to exaggerate it.
▶ For things that have been sitting there too long and received no reference
points in play at all, heat them up for the next session or just cut’em out entirely.
217
It’s all about consequences: what happened, what’s changed. Good practices include:
▶ Focus on the good the heroes have done or tried to do. It’s not fun to reverse
it all on them, “see, you screwed up here, here, and here.”
▶ Spread out from the immediate effects, to see what other people think and do,
not just those immediately involved.
▶ Keep utterly new material to a minimum, focusing first on known persons
and those who, if previously unknown, exist within known contexts.
As a minor but significant detail, I highlight or use a different color font for
things the heroes simply don’t know, and obviously, that changes each session.
Soon, the mischievous brain “sees” questions and connections among things
which were not originally conceived or recorded that way, many of which are
good or “that’s so obvious!” enough to become setting and conflict points, worthy
of development and play.
In play
The mutual creativity encouraged by the steps described in Chapter 3: Your Game
is intended to develop further into a whole-play technique, not as committee
discussion, but through the actions and attitudes of the heroes. If the players ever
thought they were supposed to be taking their cues for that from your vision,
they aren’t doing it any more.
Players often get active between sessions, either as dialogue or written material.
Expect in-character introspective musings, sketches or image montages, research
into historical, scientific, and metaphysical content, and dedicated reading of
past comics; all resulting in passionate opinions.
When that happens the heroes provide much more of the motion, as the
players respond intuitively to the current Now with force through the lens of
their heroes’ goals and actions. They can set quite a bit of the table as their heroes
go here or go there, talk to this person or to look for that thing, and to decide
significant things like whether to resign from their government status, revise
their entire relationship to society, take up residence on the Moon, change their
names and outfits, or anything personal, like getting married or divorced or
changing anything else. They aren’t going to wait passively for the next “scenario.”
During play they aren’t going to wait for cues to tell them where to go and what
to investigate. When the players drive the action through statements in play, the
game master may find that playing it cool is the hottest choice after all.
Remember coming in hot vs. playing it cool? At this point, given the game
master’s own excitement about the Now and his or her sense of identification
with the villains and other people, what to do becomes so obvious that it’s hardly
a conscious decision any more.
218
One historical player development was called bluebooking, meaning writing

fiction or dialogues as a form of play, i.e., what the heroes are conceived to do
and think. It became popular enough among early Champions players for them
to attend play sessions which were partially or entirely devoted to writing and
sharing them. Physical bluebooks themselves have fluttered into the dustbin of
the past, but the technique is very much alive. However, it’s quite binary: if the
players are into it, there’s no stopping them; but if they aren’t, there’s no way
to make them. So the best practice is simply to see if it happens and, if so, to
incorporate it into play, but not to expect or assign it. (1)
All this is to the good, even to the great. Chapter 8: The Now describes the
“fanning out” of possible consequences in play: which way is it pointing? That
was in the context of a single session; now it’s in the context of session to session,
and ultimately, it becomes the entirety of play.
Legacy
Remember that alt-tech Left Coast game in Chapter 8: The Now? Here’s what
its Now looked like after four sessions. The energy thing became so important
that I pulled it out into a “character” level category of its own, and you may be
sure that although I researched and printed plenty of schematics, physics, and
technobabble, the players were way ahead of me.
The boldfaced sections indicate things in this iteration of the Now which I
considered coming in most hot in the upcoming session.
Energy concepts
The power structure of northwest coast energy
▶ Shepherds Flat Wind Farm in north-central Oregon, second largest in the
world, completed 2012
▶ Vancouver’s Renewable City Strategy in 2015
▶ The Geysers in the Mayacamas Mountains (California), supercharged in 1999,
Santa Rosa Geysers Recharge Project in 2003
▶ Damaged by the Basilisk
▶ Seattle City Light: half the city area’s electricity; 88% of it is hydro, driven
by facilities on Skagit River and Pend Oreille River; 2001 directive to reduce
purchases for energy sources
The Skagit facility also damaged by the Basilisk
▶ GridFWD conferences
219
The dimensionality and occurrence of Advance’s powers

▶ Advanced Futures
The particle accelerator tube is ready to work again
▶ The Continuum
▶ Tesla/Higgs space
▶ The teleport disk network
▶ The Power*Cave
▶ Newly-discovered cosmic battery nexus point at the base of the Space Needle
▶ Draconic or whatever the Komodo powers are
▶ Connected to whatever just got activated (sent!) at the Space Needle
▶ Project Beyond, which has lost no time in getting government jurisdiction
over the Space Needle
Power*Star, Mike Mandella

▶ 30 years old, former restaurant entrepreneur, lives in Seattle
Powers
▶ The Power*Cave headquarters under Capitol Hill
▶ Massive Tesla tap coils
▶ Higgs-Boson space: tap receivers in the suit
This turns out to be public space! Hello tourists
▶ Teleport disks throughout northwest
Known: Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, Humboldt
Newly-discovered at Washington State Penitentiary – it only activated when
Power*Star was present
Family
▶ His brother Aaron, idealistic futurist author
• Upset with him because of the inheritance, thinks he’s not doing anything
worthwhile with it; seriously disgusted with the money’s source in the first
place
▶ His ex and Aaron’s wife, Michelle
• Conflicted, still loves him mainly on memories, but believes more in
Aaron; determined not to ask for or accept money
▶ The Asteroid II – Italian restaurant in Ballard neighborhood
220
Former Power*Star
▶ Dr. Charles Edison (1890-1969) – he was a crypto-fascist Cold Warrior, free
market ideologue
▶ “Estranged” from the family how? Possibly related to Mike and Aaron’s
hippie upbringing
▶ Founded The Fund for American Studies (thus renamed in 1987)
▶ The money was sequestered for twenty years, then entered confused litigation
that was re-defined and resolved recently – could not go to anyone but a single
person, but no person was designated, and so ultimately it went to Mike
Darius Darkstar
▶ Invented the Edison-Tesla tech used by the original Power*Star, implied all
the way back in 1920s; apparently was his technie-genius buddy assistant for
quite a while
▶ Been in Washington State Penitentiary for a long, long time, from Power*Star’s
heyday, despite having the power and the tech to get out if he wanted
▶ The Black List – they’re all actually bad, sprinkled on either side of the
nominal law line; Darius pressures Mike to act on this
The Dark Cohort – founded in the late 1960s, broken off from Darkstar, or rather,
unjustified in invoking his name
▶ Current roster: Obsidian (formerly JoAnn Severin), Circle (Celeste Seitz), The
Edge, Raptor, Eyefire (Jean “Andre” St. Andre), Roachkill (Frank Ketcham)
▶ No member has ever been caught; at least twenty have apparently retired
successfully, including the founders Psy-Chick and the Boomslang.
▶ Searching for the new Power*Star – no joke, intend to put him down
immediately
▶ Thwarted by Advance and Power*Star in their attempt to swipe the cosmic
energies stored via the Space Needle; working on a new plan vs. Project Beyond
The public
▶ Monica Stewart – nosy journalist
• Under the impression that this is the original Power*Star, at least for now;
after all, it’s the original Advance
• Knows a lot more about the original Power*Star history than Mike does
• Investigating him via Advance (she’s no fool)
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222
Advance, Vikhrov “Vince” Vasilivich

▶ 60 years old, energy researcher and consultant, lives in Humboldt
Powers
▶ Mysteriously shut off in the early-mid-1990s; just as mysteriously have
reappeared
▶ Makes the most sense if it’s related to the PowerStar power-up
▶ Might need some “back in the day” heroes to acknowledge, without getting
too distracted
Family
▶ His wife Denise, researcher and entrepreneur partner
• Determined to research why his power went on/off, and to develop the
energy sources and application
• Goes out hiking, and she’s got Public Identity
• And she’s riddled with side-effects of Advance’s powers all these years
Advanced Futures energy company
▶ Gavin Holmann, dedicated business partner
• Determined to get the messaging right now that Advance is revealed to
have been one of the prime movers all along
▶ Janelle James, no fooling around consultant – she has the full cooperation of
Todd, the former Mirror Mirror
▶ Helen Jacobs – politician, resourceful, manipulative
• All about sequestering the company’s potential within the existing
network of families, policies, and profits
• Investigating him via PowerStar (no fool either)
▶ The Continuum – interdimensional entity, ineffable at least for now
• Apparently determined to destroy Advance Tech’s research
▶ Reasons and purposes unknown
▶ The attack makes replicating the recent results impossible
▶ Taps into the past to send 80s villains at him
▶ Doctor Bang (Mark, young professor), Gemfire (Marga, Berlin hipster), so
far...
▶ More to draw upon: the Slickster, Voidoid, Dust Devil, Radd
223
Komodo Dragon, Jake Drake

▶ 21 years old, student and vlogger entrepreneur, lives in San Francisco
Powers
▶ Meditative focus
▶ “Reptilian brain” psychobabble
▶ Draconic symbology may or may not mean anything
▶ There is no psychic or magic stuff in this game, it’s all funky physics... but in
this comic, that does have its spiritual side
Family
▶ Elaine Liu, mom
• Venture capitalist, obsessed with social standing
▶ “Tony Liu,” deceased grandfather, former Komodo Dragon during the 1950s
in Indonesia
• Fought with communist resistance vs. Suharto, immigrated to States in
1961 and retired superheroing
• Cooperated with the precursor of Project Beyond
▶ KomodoLife LLC
• Vlog: exploits, reflections, opinions
• Team Komodo: YouTube lifestyler fanbase – demanding and interfering
▶ Chase Galván, media director and lover – constantly overbooked
▶ Merchandising, seminars, audience-building
▶ Worried about moral compromise
The Basilisk
▶ Host identities/bodies (typically fatal)
▶ Last known: Shelly Van Houtte
▶ New host is unknown; many candidates
▶ Competitor online vlogger, adversary, alt-right ideologue
▶ Chase is trying to escape from the mutual-condemnation cycle which only
fuels the adversarial base
▶ Now extended into significant power-players which every political person
on the Left Coast must defy or truckle to
▶ Previous “crimes” were almost completely meaningless; makes all “his” money
via the promotion
224
▶ Recently hit the California grid at the Geysers – upping that game considerably
▶ Project Beyond, U.S. government
• Exotic energy strategizing
• Quite happy to help Advanced Futures
• Now controlling the Space Needle
• Revived investigation into Komodo powers now that Jake is active
• Going slowly; they’re uncertain regarding his successful self-marketing –
makes it hard to bag him
• Totally hands-off regarding Power*Star and Darius Darkstar, due to
highly-classified past events
Is all play expected to be so topical and political? Yes and no. “No,” because any
such content comes from everyone playing, so it could conceivably not happen.
However, it’s “yes” in practice, sometimes as explicitly as my play-experience tends
to be, sometimes understated or indirect instead. This comes with the territory.
Superhero comics have always reflected upon the world they were written and
drawn in, and they cannot help at least showcasing things we really think and feel
about it. The best practice is not to force it or stifle it, but to seek authenticity in
anything brought into play, and to discover that your work is what it is because
we are who we are.
The powerful past

I probably don’t have to tell anyone reading this how wonderful it is to develop
your game-slash-comic’s fictional past piece by piece, and how it gains immensely
from players doing it too. Most of them probably already started it before you did,
with their first hero sheet. It’s a known, genuine turning point for the game, when
you review and summarize what you know, and begin to present it in play as the
consequential past. Everyone gets inspired to draw upon it, to investigate it, and
to discover conflicts that arise from it.
Superhero comics often developed interesting backstories by pulling in the
content of recently-acquired property or from long-gone comics to become the
retrofitted fictional past. In role-playing, without a body of work to draw upon
this way, the corresponding invention has to be at both ends. It’s necessarily
messy just as in the comics, but without the older texts to play with, it can turn
into flat splatter. (2)
One effective solution is illustrated in a comics title whose creators found
themselves in that very position. They solved it through focusing on a single
object, a group photograph. This convention is widely used in books and movies
for good reason, because it instantly focuses attention on the same questions:
Who were these people? Who corresponds to someone we’ve met? What has
225
page 2
Defiants: Issue #1,
PANEL 1
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panel I suggest
Panel 7: this is the only
maybe just focus
reconsidering slightly –
burning mask.
on the hand holding the
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Seems pretty iconic
panel.
close-up in the previous
226
happened? A similar device, photograph or not, goes very far to provide common
ground and concepts for inventing-slash-discovering the consequential past. (3)
By the time Legacy game’s Now had reached this point, I’d worked up a simple
history that had either been established through character creation or discovered
through play.
Super-history
1920s Power*Star
1930s Dr. Darkstar
1940s
1950s
1960s Dr. Darkstar defeated Komodo Dragon
(Indonesia)
Power*Star’s last
appearance
1970s Dark Cohort (original)
1980s | Advance’s heyday Dr. Bang, Gemfire,
the Slickster, Voidoid,
Dust Devil, Radd ...
1990s ongoing
2000s changing roster
|
2010s Power*Star Dark Cohort Advance‘s powers The Continuum Komodo Dragon
“reappears” (today) reactivate (San Francisco)
It may not look very complicated, but most of the developing Now presented
above reflects the questions that arose when I compiled it. It holds the danger to
“go for baroque” and build more elaborate backstories than anyone in your group
could reasonably care about, including time travel for extra points in irrelevant
cleverness. That’s happened in the comics plenty of times, with special mention
to hooking together three time-spanning villains or supporting characters into a
grand cosmic saga of who was who, when, at which point relative to this or that
other event, what any of them wanted at any point, what any of them knew at any
point, and in what order they fought our heroes. It’s been rebooted and retconned
repeatedly and still doesn’t make sense, and more unfortunately, it always lacked
emotional charge. (4)
I’m all too familiar with it from my own games, when the exercise in logistics
becomes its own end. It led me in many cases to start programming the outcomes
of play, forcing players to conform to situations and decisions, always resulting in
decreased enjoyment.
So beware of building the past as an end in itself; keep it connected to in-play
events and consequences rather than becoming your personal solo construct.
227
Breadth and depth

Lots of the game’s situations change at the personal level, where the heroes can
see it: lifestyles and roles change, people come and go, whole organizations can
interfere or get dismantled. Play also proceeds, perhaps inevitably, into higher-
scale changes. These can be “up,” meaning more power and consequences for
things we already do and know about; “in,” meaning driving deep into motivations
and perhaps psychic or memory-based content; and “out,” meaning the wider
venues of space, time, and other realms. Getting into these, even all three at once,
is more-or-less what super-team comics do, so your game is probably going this
way before too long.
How it happens is largely emergent rather than planned. References and hints
may have been thrown in for a bit of casual drama, but they take on a life of their
own if and when players act upon them. Then the content gains persons and
history of its own, and new connections may well form across different things in
the Now, looking for all the world as if they’d been planned by a genius.
Acting upon such inspirations eventually requires invention. Who are the
powers that be, why do they exist, what do they want, and why are our heroes
important to them? And since no one wants to be a pawn, when do the heroes
take the step of becoming such powers, or at least to demand that their voices and
views matter?
The risk here is similar to those for developing the fictional past: you can get
self-involved and over-committed to some grand tapestry, diminishing actual
play events by comparison and reducing the heroes’ agency in the here-and-
now. It also includes the grave danger of meaningless escalation in scope and
abstraction, as more than one play group has found that defending the very fabric
of time and space isn’t anywhere near as much fun as when they stopped the guy
from blowing up the gas station.
Done with heart, however, the payoff is superbly super. A great deal of modern
comics’ mythos is derived from exactly this sort of thing in the 1960s and 1970s
comics. (5)
▶ The appearance of a being who existed on such a scale that whole planets
were meals to him, yet the fate of Earth depended on the empathy among two
lonely men and a blind woman.
▶ The onset of a new age of high-tech heroes worthy of myth, including counter-
cultural ideals pitted against the most nihilistic, vicious rule possible.
▶ The opening and closure of a time-loop which determined the potential
transformation of a young messiah’s anarchic ideals into a galaxy-spanning
authoritarian church, or conversely, the destruction of everything as a gift to
Death.
228
Play suits this creative jumble very nicely, if the group remains committed
to the original two statements and attends mainly to developing relationships
among persons they care about. Then, expanding and adding locations and
powers-that-be confirms play rather than distracts from it, even to remarkable
degrees of complexity and intensity.
I like to distinguish these effects as Cosmos, as opposed to Universe. Universe
is an editorial requirement, a catalog of things to obey, and as happened into the
comics, degenerates into a struggle for control among contributors. Whereas a
Cosmos grows from what the creators value and want to develop, enjoyably and
unpretentiously shown as having “always been there” even as it is invented piece by
piece, adapting and deepening the content in the living document of the Now. (6)
In the comics, the Universe is legalistic, in constant angry dispute, and ultimately
creatively sterile. Whereas the Cosmos gave us joy in the making and remains the
wellspring of the stories which are re-told and rebooted today. Consider which of
them you’d rather do.
References
(1) This techique for building setting through play was showcased by pioneering
Champions author Aaron Allston in his seminal work Strike Force: A Campaign
Sourcebook for Champions (1988), published by Hero Games. The resulting
setting was later expanded upon by Michael Surbrook in Aaron Allston’s Strike
Force (2016), published by High Rock Press.
(2) When the new Marvel Comics imprint demonstrated surprising sales power
and a vocal fandom, Stan Lee began mining properties that Goodman Publications
laid claim to. The method ranges between literally adopting the old titles’ content
as “the past” and extracting features or names into newly-created heroes.
▶ Namor the Sub-Mariner had first appeared in Marvel Comics #1 (1939), by
Bill Everett, published by “Timely Comics” or whatever one wants to call the
impenetrable murk of Martin Goodman’s publishing concerns at that time.
These earlier stories were effectively treated as “true” relative to the current
fiction when Namor was introduced into the story of The Fantastic Four.
Captain America’s earlier stories were treated the same way when he was
introduced into The Avengers, including a justification for what he had been
doing in the meantime.
▶ By contrast, the original Human Torch, an android, first appeared in the same
issue cited above, by Carl Burgos, but although a hero presented by Lee and
Jack Kirby in The Fantastic Four adopted that name, appearance, and powers,
there was no fictional connection. (And their Namor apparently had forgotten
all about his frequent semi-ally/semi-foe back in 1940.)
229
▶ The earliest hero to use the name Wonder Man first appeared in Wonder
Comics #1 (1939), by “Willis” (Will Eisner), published by Fox Feature
Syndicate. He was the first imitator of Superman and promptly the first to
be scuttled by lawfare. (Fawcett Publications’ Master Man met a similar fate
shortly thereafter.)
▶ The earliest hero to use the name the Vision first appeared in Marvel Mystery
Comics #13 (1940), by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, published by Timely Comics
(Martin Goodman) in 1940. He wasn’t an android.
▶ The name Wonder Man was later used several times under the DC imprint,
but also for a somewhat sympathetic Marvel villain who appeared and was
killed in The Avengers #9 (1964), by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, published by
Magazine Management (Goodman Publications) using its Marvel Comics
imprint. No lawfare ensued this time.
▶ Roy Thomas invented a more extensive fictional “past” during the late 1960s
using similar methods, often with bizarre retconning and recombining. For
example (among many others):
▶ The android Vision as designed by Roy Thomas and John Buscema first
appeared in The Avengers #57 (1968), published by Magazine Management
(Goodman Publications) using its Marvel Comics imprint. In publishing
terms he preserved the IP for the name and general appearance of the Timely
hero, with no fictional connection between them.
▶ The dead Wonder Man’s brain-waves were retconned to have been recorded
when he died and utilized to construct the mind of the new Vision. as
described in The Avengers #58.
▶ For extra confusion, Rick Jones projects a simulacrum of the original Vision
along with other heroes of that era in The Avengers #97 (1972), by Roy Thomas
and John Buscema, so apparently he “existed” too in the context of the fiction.
▶ Thomas considered the new Vision to have been rebuilt from the body of
the Timely-published Human Torch, directly establishing that hero to have
“existed” relative to the current fiction. This concept entered the comic in
stages, eventually completed in The Avengers #134-135 (1972), by Steve
Englehart, Sal Buscema, and George Tuska.
230
Defiants: Issue #1, page 3

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231
(3) The group photograph device was employed in Watchmen #1-12 (1986-
1987), by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, published by Warner Communications
using its DC Comics imprint. Warner had acquired heroes from the now-closed
Charlton Comics and folded them into or alongside existing DC titles much
as they had done with Captain Marvel licensed from Fawcett. However, this
limited series was mandated to use derived, renamed versions instead. Therefore
the photograph served its ordinary function to focus attention on “who were
they then, what has happened since then,” but it also established that this past
belonged to this story without reference to anything that might have occurred in
the older comics, and was freed to be made up, while retaining a visual anchor.
(4) Kang the Conqueror first appeared in The Avengers #8 (1964), by Stan Lee and
Jack Kirby, published by Magazine Management (Goodman Publications), using
its Marvel Comics imprint. He was combined with Rama-Tut and Immortus,
villains with approximately the same publication date, throughout The Avengers
#129, Avengers Giant-Size #2-3, and #141-143 (1974-1976), by Steve Englehart,
Sal Buscema, Dave Cockrum, and George Pérez, published by Cadence Industries
using its Marvel Comics Group imprint. That was only the beginning; at last
count Kang’s multiple-timestream saga includes three more super-personae and
one ordinary human identity.
(5) The Galactus trilogy appeared in Fantastic Four #48-50 (1966), by Stan Lee and
Jack Kirby, published by Magazine Management (Goodman Publications) using
its Marvel Comics imprint. The New Gods appeared in the titles New Gods, The
Forever People, Mister Miracle, and The Fourth World (1971-1973), by Jack Kirby,
published by Warner Communications using its DC Comics imprint. The saga
of Adam Warlock, as well as Captain Marvel, the Magus, and Thanos, reached its
initial fruition in Strange Tales #171-181, Warlock #9-15, The Avengers Annual
#7, and Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2 (1975-1977), by Jim Starlin, published by
Cadence Industries using its Marvel Comics Group imprint.
(6) “Universe” as an editorial policy, as opposed to voluntary continuity, began
with the assistant editorship of Mark Gruenwald, made explicit in The Official
Handbook of the Marvel Universe (1983-1984), edited by Gruenwald, and Secret
Wars (1984-1985), by Jim Shooter, Mike Zeck, and Bob Layton, published by
Cadence Industries using its Marvel Comics Group imprint. The parallel process
occurred for DC with the editorship of Paul Levitz, made explicit in The Crisis
of Infinite Earths (1985-1986), by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, and Who’s
Who in the DC Universe (1985-1987), edited by Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, and
Robert Greenberger, published by Warner Communications using its DC Comics
imprint. The directive, strategic method for managing multiple-title crossovers
is called the Levitz Paradigm, including the canonical example of The Death of
Superman (1992-1993), edited by Mike Carlin.
232
Chapter 14
Who are You
Chapter Fourteen • Who Are You
T he game does not tell you what a hero is. You might already know and just do
it, you might be arriving at a conclusion about it throughout play, you might be
going all grey with it and moreso as you go, or you might, for some reason best
known to yourself, be deconstructing it. It doesn’t have to be a topic of interest
if you don’t want it to be; and, if you do, you can set up the kind of question you
want.
“You” in this case is the collective for everyone playing, so the answers or
approach present a collage or accord from your own events of play. Everything in
this chapter originates in your views and needs at the table.
Who you know

For each player, your hero has a social role and identity in the situations of
play. This is rich stuff, as the world is full of people and casual interactions are
boundless. The details and nuances can always develop and be examined from
different angles. The more people who observe or interact with the hero and offer
their opinions as incidental dialogue with them or with others, the better. Most
of them probably remain incidental, but the few that “pop” in play, unplanned,
become iconic.
You’re playing a superhero. Consider people who know the hero pretty well vs.
those who don’t, and consider when he or she is overtly engaging in “the hero
thing” vs. doing anything else. What do people do and say? What does he or she
do and say? What happens? There is a subtle but strong connection between the
fictional populace’s perception of the hero and how we, the real-world audience,
relate to him or her. They aren’t the same things, but they affect one another.
Playing with an eye toward the connection always pays off.
As if that weren’t enough, anyone associated with the hero enough to recur
in play is not just furniture, but a relationship, with his or her own perspective
and desires. The Dependent NPC and Hunted Situations obviously specify those
into particular problems and threats, respectively. Every one of them will have
opinions of the hero, which is different from one-dimensional plot roles like
“gotta rescue them again” or “oh look here comes my nemesis.” These interactions
shape the hero’s immediate life even when they’re not emergencies.
Then there’s the opposite of such personally-invested interactions: the law, and
more generally, the network of powerful people and institutions for whom the
law is a tool, a protective cover, or a weapon. How does each given hero relate to
these people and institutions in the first place, as originally conceived, what do
they do, and how does a hero deal with that?
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That is a wide open question for this game and these heroes. Considering the
law as a specific legal and physical set of actors and activities, and the larger/
scarier society as a system of influence and power, one question is whether a
given hero wields any of that in the first place. Although the term “crime fighter”
abounds in comics, the history of actually doing so is spotty, and by the 1970s
was practically absent in any sense of crime as we know it. Similarly, the notion
of superheroes as a government-associated but essentially independent global
task force is abundant in years and titles, but it’s specific to one group, its direct
offshoots, and a constellation of imitators, deconstructions, and parodies.
There’s no way to codify society + law for the game rules, because it speaks
to entirely personal views, including how everyone chooses to interpret the
statements, as well as to multiple actions and decisions during play. It doesn’t have
to be a problem, conundrum, or even a topic. You could hand-wave it, as after all
what’s good enough for most comics publishing is good enough for you, to say
“we’re the superheroes” and assume relatively positive working relationships with
state authorities and law enforcement systems, which remain generally stable
throughout play.
But it’s possible, even likely, that the Now-oriented techniques will bring
more substance, shaped as your decisions determine. One of our playtest games
produced a law-enforcement example, informed by a player’s personal and family
history, in which the heroes were part of the police force and aided the captain in
bringing much-needed reform to it. Another found the heroes acting essentially
as private citizens, for whom the state governments and law-enforcement
agencies were both occasional allies and potential problems, especially since both
included multiple actors. Furthermore, at least two featured heroes who by most
establishment and legal standards were criminals, “villains” if you will, willing to
put their reputations and even lives into the public sphere in defiance of agencies
and practices they deemed worth defying.
Here’s some hard-won advice: it’s a really bad idea for the game master to
wield the in-game, fictional law enforcement establishment as a reward and
punishment device toward the heroes and by extension toward their players, as
if they produced “good” or “bad” behavior, and as if the game master stood in
loco parentis toward the actual people they’re playing with. The social and legal
consequences of what the heroes do certainly become part of play, but this is
something you all discover and want, not imposed by one upon the others.
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What you show

The identity-based Situations are a playground for stresses between self and
society. If you don’t have one, that doesn’t mean your hero has no identity or role
among other people, it means that he or she is not troubled about it and takes
no special means to manage it. But even that status requires a little context, i.e.,
if there’s no problem, then why not, and the answer still plays straight into the
actions and opinions of the people around the hero.
Let’s take Secret Identity all by itself. It’s best conceived not as “no one knows,”
but instead, “I’m not telling unless I have to.” Therefore it’s not forbidden for some
others to know or even for someone to find out. It’s about the hero’s own behavior
and what “have to” means for them.
In that light, threatening to expose the secret to all and sundry isn’t an effective
or enjoyable use of the Situation for the game master. Arguably, it’s even contrary
to the letter of the rules: this might be a little too meta, but after all, the one way
never to blow the hero’s Secret Identity is to keep it listed on the sheet! Instead,
in thinking about the Now, the game master should focus on the hero’s self-
imposed reasons for maintaining a partial or complete lie as a way of life, and
their consequences. (1)
Public Identity is a lot more than merely the absence of a secret one. It refers
to being a public figure, whose doings are scrutinized and considered fair game
for all media and popular culture. The hero can be located unless they really
try hard not to be, and many organizations or authorities consider themselves
connected to them. The obvious application of this Situation is frequent or even
constant inconvenience, especially with the general populace. The cell phone
basically becomes the devil incarnate: people want selfies with you in the most
ridiculous circumstances, and weirdos call you using that number they’re not
supposed to have, with their ever more Rule 34 suggestions. But there’s more:
you’re dealing with mass expectation of who you are, which people don’t even
realize is a projection, with a mass negative reaction lurking behind it if and when
your actual self fails to conform to it. When you’re not lying, you’re vulnerable as
hell to others’ lies about you, especially when they’re doing it to themselves.
You can certainly have both kinds. One of the best radical heroes was an
escaped convict living under an alias, meaning a significant Secret Identity, but
that alias was also his professional, widely-advertised for-hire handle, hence
he had a Public one too. Another slightly-odd vigilante hero maintained three
separate Secret Identities, each with its own lifestyle and supporting cast. (2)
Here’s an important point as well: how bent is this notion of “identity” anyway,
in the hero’s own mind? Masks are serious ritual and psychological business, in
real life and in all cultures. If you want to tap into the power of that concept even
a little, take one or more of the identity-based Situations and tie its circumstances
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to a Psychological Limitation, whether just for a little extra electricity when suiting
up, or to turn your hero’s head into a real snakepit. It shouldn’t surprise you that
later writers of that vigilante hero turned the triple-identity into a psychological
disorder so that none of the three knew about the others.
What you do
Look long and hard through this book, and you’ll find no criteria for being a
good person, being a hero, contributing to society, or knowing whom to combat.
Significantly, there’s no morality in the point-improvement mechanics: no reward
for doing good, no punishment for doing bad.
You won’t find directives to guide you either. No rule says your hero must be
this kind of hero, whether ethically sound, law-abiding, or nice. If he or she is that
kind of hero, that’s your choice alone, no qualifications, full stop.
The rules for “what my guy does” are very hard and fixed for play, using this
table.
Game master
suggests, for Game
Actions Player says player approval master says
Difficult decision or
control
Respond as desired, Improvised Ego roll
or improvised Ego roll
Whether a Say yes or no
Psychological
Situation applies
Psychological Respond as Improvised Ego roll
Situation without desired, or
specific response improvised Ego roll
Psychological Respond as Respond as desired if
Situation with irrational desired, or cede to you have permission
or meltdown response game master
Enraged Situation Whether events
provoke the roll,
and who or what is
attacked
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The dividing lines are very clear. The game master states whether a Psychological
Situation or Enrage Situation is now in play. However, he or she has directive
power over the hero only when the Enrage Situation is involved. If the roll
indicates the Enrage is provoked, the game master also says who or what the hero
attacks. But that’s it. In all other cases, the player holds the authority over what
the hero does.
One neat version of that authority is to call for your own Ego roll, out of the
blue, to see what his or her hero does. It’s typically in some situation that seems
to call for self-mastery, defined as you like: to do something or not to do it, or
to overcome a Physical Situation or immediate constraint if that seems possible.
Playtesting featured a moment when the hero, who was considered (and possibly
was) dead for three years, saw his little son being brought by social services to
the same charity shelter where he, the hero, was living. I asked whether the hero
would rush to the boy, and the player decided to roll his Ego for it. He chose to
define success as mastering his emotions to stay hidden.
The player may include the game master either for a suggested improvised Ego
roll or for suggested possible responses. He or she may even voluntarily “give up”
the hero to the game master for a moment regarding an irrational or meltdown
response to a Psychological Situation, but does not have to.
In play, these decisions are easy and intuitive, but here are the principles
underneath them.
Psychological Situations which do not include irrational or meltdown responses
represent the hero’s opinions which he or she is not shy about but also manages
pretty well. They might be ideals, personal positions, or habits; slightly more fixed
things like beliefs, blind spots, or rituals; or even troubled but under-control
memories, fears, or fixations.
These Situations’ actual content, i.e., how normal or common or acceptable they
are or aren’t, isn’t rated in points. The points are only about when the hero gets
reminded or provoked by them: sometimes (5) or a lot (15). Sane vs. whacked,
admirable vs. vile, kind vs. mean, whatever – fill in as you wish, the points don’t
care.
Depth, intensity, and sincerity are not rated in points either. There’s a well-known
superhero who is determined to stop criminal actions to the point of mania, often
at a physical or psychological cost to himself, but is equally determined never to
use lethal force. He sets the high-water mark for the most sincere + troubled hero
in superhero comics... but if this feature were written up with these rules, none of
his Psychological Limitations would be at maximal points. He is reliably intense,
even melodramatic when faced with difficult choices about killing, but is not
irrational or prone to melt down.
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No Psychological Situation is absolute, and this kind, with no special intense

response, may certainly be played to its opposite in some stressful situation,
especially when you’re already played it as written a fair amount. Such decisions
are arguably what you took the Situation points for, especially during the soul-
searching, reflective aftermath. That’s why Psychological Situations are only
described by their content, never as “always” or “won’t.”
Psychological Situations which include the irrational response maintain the
player’s authority regarding what the hero does. Playing this way means taking
on the hero’s worst self or at least not thinking straight at the moment, i.e., not
upholding the usual sense of advocacy one feels for the hero. In practice, when
this happens or beckons, players often enjoy “handing over” the hero to the game
master briefly, but again, doing that is fully voluntary.
If you’re interested in playing a slightly out-of-control hero, consider structuring
the Psychological Situations across more than one. For example, here are two
heroes, each with the same two Psychological Situations in terms of content but
expressed differently in points:
▶ Psychological: patriotic (often) + Psychological: maverick (sometimes,
irrational). This person responds patriotically to everyday life: flies a flag,
thanks you for your service, tells people that freedom isn’t free and to get
out and vote. They are also primed-and-ready to do things “not by the book,”
perhaps even in defiance of patriotism, but it doesn’t happen often and may
surprise people who don’t know them well.
▶ Psychological: patriotic (sometimes, irrational) + Psychological: maverick
(often). This person is a rebel, habitually doing things without authority or
“not by the book,” or feeling driven to do so often by ordinary experiences
in life. They also surprise others when they suddenly display or reveal their
patriotism, usually kept private, but backed by considerable emotion and
impulse when it does appear.
Combinations like these make it easier to establish the hero’s “ground state” and
to tap into the irrational response mode of play more intuitively regarding why
they get triggered and how they might act.
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What have I done

If you’re playing a hero who flies out of control, you’ll be faced with things they’ve
done that weren’t too nice, even which you may not have stated. One moment,
you’re playing the superhero you know, built and working the way you want,
doing what you want, changing over time how you want. The next moment, this
small bank of mechanics rips that hero out of your hands as they literally rebel
against you as their player.
Again, including these mechanics for your hero at all is totally at your option.
If you don’t include meltdown for Pyschological Situations; and if you make any
irrational ones rare and maintain control over the hero’s actions; and if you don’t
take an Enrage, then it’s not even an issue. But if you do... get ready for a wilder ride.
The option is included for a reason: somewhere, deep in the murky pulp and
fetish origins of superhero comics, lies frustration, confusion, despair, and rage.
I call it the “Scream,” as quoted from one of these comics’ moments of greatness.
A lot of the time it’s just bathos, tantrums, and sudden violence to inject drama
or to fill some pages, but here and there, it’s real enough to make an existential
philosopher flinch. Sometimes it’s the unceasing injustice of ordinary life,
sometimes it’s seen in the psychology of an alien being or as the sympathetic
madness in a villain’s eyes, and sometimes it’s in the hero’s mirror. (3)
How do you play this without being a melodramatic idiot? Comics creators
have struggled with that forever, and their failures and successes show us the way.
▶ It’s all right to disagree strongly with someone, even aggressively. It’s stupid to
escalate after making your point.
▶ It’s all right to react strongly on the basis of insufficient knowledge. It’s stupid
to keep reacting the same way when someone shouts the full knowledge at
you.
▶ It’s all right to misunderstand or misinterpret what someone else is doing, and
to act swiftly and surely to stop them. It’s stupid to insist after they say or show
what they want to do.
The point is clear: all those breakdowns and acting-outs, all those
misunderstandings and miscommunications, and all those revelations and
shocked reactions can be enjoyable spectacles, not sudden cement blocks. They
work best when the moment passes, and the intense or misguided response
does not persist. In that case, the portrayals and relationships are revealed,
strengthened, or changed.
What about the rules? Irrational responses or meltdowns within Psychological
Situations, as well as Enrage, begin with provocation. Something sets them off,
as specified or at least described with some parameters. Here’s the rubric for who
says what:
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▶ Either the game master or the player may state that the provocation is sufficient,
and neither can be vetoed. There is no roll involved.
▶ The player chooses whether to say what the hero does or to cede that authority
to the game master; again, in either case, no veto applies.
▶ After a Phase of action or its noncombat equivalent (saying or doing
“something”), the player decides whether the hero recovers or not; if not, the
above options continue to apply.
The scary part is turning over the reins for what your hero does in that window,
with no veto power. Irrational indeed!
Whoever says what the hero does needs to know: what does irrational mean?
Certainly, whatever the acting hero does is definitely not to his or her social
benefit. It may or may not mean violent, and if it does, it doesn’t have to be
an attack. And it’s a response, so it doesn’t mean absurd, like doing something
irrelevant or loopy. Ultimately, the social definition is the bedrock: something
that defies what third-party observers, perhaps not well-informed ones, and
perhaps over-idealized, would think is the appropriate response. It doesn’t take
much to dismay such an audience – raising one’s voice or stating something
non-conformist or making an unwanted observation are certainly enough, and
grading up from there is fine too.
What does meltdown mean? It’s pretty extreme: fleeing or attempting to,
collapsing, withdrawing in the clinical sense, becoming unresponsive. Definitely
not to fight or to take any purposeful action. The hero is not turned over to
someone else for play so much as he or she briefly becomes unplayable. It’s not
a casual choice for a hero’s Situations, amounting almost to giving up or failing
outright, so consider defining its cause in a sympathetic, humanizing way.
Although it makes sense to relate or contrast the trigger for Enrage with one
or more Psychological Situations, the phrasing cannot be identical across the
Situations, as they work differently. Enrage is triggered by a roll rather than a
mandate or option, and its response is strictly limited to attack full-force. Its
target is also unequivocally out of the player’s hands: even when it’s obvious who’s
getting it in the face, the game master makes that call.
An Enraged hero is trouble, unable to do anything except keep attacking.
Fortunately the triggering target remains the target as long as the hero can perceive
them. However, if it becomes unavailable, the hero will attack something, most
likely the nearest and probably inoffensive inanimate object. In the unlikely event
no such object is available, including the ground, then the nearest living target is
fair game.
The hero gets the chance to recover as a 0-Phase action at the start of each
Phase, and may also roll to recover in response to interactions along the lines of
“stop, it’s all right, your mother’s gone now.” Or maybe a nice hug.
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With all this irrationality and mad-attacking going on, the real trouble is what
you might have done. Even if the hero mastered themselves in time to prevent
the worst, that very act of control was obvious and likely vocal. Damage to
persons and property and social proprieties aside, if no one has an opinion about
what happened in the throes of these mechanics, then you didn’t do it right.
Consequences are called for.
These concepts apply especially well to Mind Control as a plot component. There’s
no point in taking agency away from a player, saying “you did this,” and then forcing
them to accept responsibility for it. These easy principles solve everything, though:
▶ The player decides whether this instance of control overrides the hero’s will
completely, which is the default concept for the Power, or instead taps into
feelings or desires the hero would otherwise repress.
▶ The mechanics of Mind Control are designed to be broken, so exactly this is
done, or failed, deserves attention.
▶ Focus on the affected hero’s point of view afterwards, during which the player
says what the hero’s reactions and next actions are.
These work together to make getting mind-controlled about the hero instead of
negating or devaluing the hero.
A matter of life and death

Does a hero kill?!! You get to say. Defining heroes as “do not kill” is much more
infrequent in superhero comics than one might think, throughout their history. (4)
The game mechanics are designed to make it either really hard or really easy to
die, placing the responsibility upon the people rather than the dice. I’ll just run
down some thoughts and comparisons and leave you to it, because saying anything
else front-loads a comics concept and takes away your creative ownership.
One way is to set it aside, for almost entirely no-killing play. Fatalities would
appear rarely if at all, as notable possibilities or events, rather than a constant
feature or fact. Such play doesn’t have to be silly or overly light, nor do the heroes
have to be goody two-shoes, or conversely, to be constantly holding back. In fact,
part of the point is removing the need for them to be either, because the issue is
diminished in the first place and play concentrates on other things.
Another option is the most open-ended, to acknowledge killing as something
people do, but not as a constant thing, only one problem among many. This or
that situation may bring up killing as an issue, killing is an ethical problem, the
world is full of problems, and ethics are hard, so let’s see where events take us.
The heroes would make their way possibly with some element of self-discovery
or self-challenge, for those who include killing-oriented Psychological Situations
leaning in either direction.
242
The third option is again to acknowledge killing as a choice, but one which
the heroes and most everyone else have already made: to do it. “Life is cheap
and death is free,” as the song goes. Play doesn’t have to devolve into a dumb
slaughterfest, as it can draw from plenty of idioms in which killing is familiar or
even normalized. Two of the best superhero comics are all about it, one of them
featuring convicted villains who do black-ops for the U.S. government and think
little of racking up a body-count. The other features a faceless detective seeking
meaning in a corrupt city, who does not directly kill people but does leave a trail
of reactive murders and suicides in his wake.
Finally, the edgiest way is to make killing the explicit topic for the “losing
control” mechanics described above, so it becomes a traumatic, possible central
phenomenon. Since the Psychological Situations and Enrages all have their own
content and triggers, the range across heroes and villains can present many
degrees of insanity and responsibility. Psycho-crime and monster-victim stories
go this way, along with heroes with dubious legal status and who may themselves
kill without complete control or consider doing so to be forbidden fruit.
So much for the ideas. How is this done in practice, with actual people? The
problem is that just mandating some standard isn’t enough. Fortunately, the two
statements orient people remarkably well. If you’re writing them for an upcoming
game, and you care a lot about this killing-or-not stuff, one way or the other,
you can get a lot of framing content in there, as you can see across my examples
in Chapter 3. When the players bring their personal spins or angles of attack to
the statements, you get exactly what you wanted: heroes who fit with and bring
insight to the issues.
However, as always, real play outweighs preparatory hopes. That’s why, if you’re
a game master who cares about what killing looks like, you must attend to the
villains and the details of the Now. What the players will make of it is up to them,
but your part matters too.
The Legacy game is pretty straightforward this way, as the first statement
says that powers are “bright, fun, and hopeful.” It says “powers,” not “heroes,”
so I went with that especially when I created the The Continuum, who nabbed
villains from the Eighties to interfere with Advance’s technological experiments.
I even had to rewrite the feared Dark Cohort as they were too vile and vicious
at the first try, to strive for extra coolness instead. Most of the outright damage
in the game involved structures and generalized danger rather than gruesome
individual mayhem.
By contrast, the Hartford game turned out to learn more toward the fourth
option than I initially imagined: Domain, Killer Coil, and Devour are all deranged
and notably lethal. In retrospect it seems strange. Why would I lean that way
when none of the heroes was obviously bent toward killing-oriented trauma?
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The answer lies in that first statement that I’d written: A superhero stands for
something and means it. That calls for adversaries who put people’s lives on
the line, in two cases because they themselves stand for something (bad). That
means a hero’s stand is not merely posturing; it has consequences that matter
terribly, requiring activism to become action. I was cruel enough to land the most
idealistic hero with the most lethal foe, and most difficult to blame in simple
moral terms.
I typically don’t steer toward that fourth option for my superhero role-playing,
but this time we arrived at it honestly and played it through. You may be interested
to know that The Which fed Domain’s current host to Devour (eww!).
Indomitable spirit
This is probably the single most important characterization in the game, and
yet the shortest section in the rules, because it is entirely emergent. Willpower
isn’t found in an isolated attribute or mechanic. Instead, multiple rules interact
to generate each separate instance of a hero’s will as put into action. It’s not
something you have, but what you do once all the parts are moving.
The Ego roll seems like the first candidate, but it is not actually required much
by the mechanics. It isn’t the reference for any of the roll-based Skills. It doesn’t
affect another person’s views or emotions; that’s what Presence does. It formally
applies only to specialized powers and maneuvers and to recovery from Enrage.
However, its voluntary manifestation is a great example of emergent role-played
willpower rather than mandated.
In the very first session of the Legacy playtest game, the hero Advance was hit
hard by his own Side Effects and could not recover his powers, as the other hero
was battered by Dr. Bang and a techno-cosmic project went dangerously awry.
Advance, as his frail and aged “real” identity, set himself to the instrument panel,
hoping to solve the situation through mad science rather than combat powers...
and the observant game master pointed out the Physical Situation: Arthritis, on
his sheet. The player gritted his teeth: “I’ll try!” It seemed a good place for an Ego
roll, which for Advance stood at the baseline score of 11 or less.
The player accepted my suggestion, and as it happened, he made that roll,
and the following Computer Programming roll as well (whose target was rather
higher). Advance was a massive-growing, glowing, rejuvenated, temporal-
anomalous superhero, but he could never have stood out using those powers as
he did in this situation, as a sixty-year-old man overcoming the pain in his hands.
Enrage counts too, as it is certainly not always a bad thing to lose it and fully
unload on someone or something which is unequivocally horrid. Its hidden
benefit against mental domination certainly plays into that possibility as well.
244
Chapter FourteeN • Who are You
Defiants: Issue #1,

PANEL 1 (FULL PA
pa ge 4
GE)
Domain (separate st
atements – these
could be stacked vert
ically from the top
right or scattered ar
ound the top half of
the page.
- Why cause trouble
?
- Everyone agrees.
- Know your place.
- Your parents will un
derstand.
- Ask nicely.
- Be a good little ga
y girl.
- Get married.
- Go military.
BOTTOM RIGHT
Domain likes its hero
es.
Domain likes its quee
rs.
BOTTOM LEFT
We like them loyal an
d pr etty and safe.
liant as laid
Page notes: I think it’s bril
nk of anything
out, flawless. If you can thi
n more evil,
else that makes Domain eve
whole point is
and that clarifies that its
long as they
that “we include anyone as
just like us,”
kiss our asses in order to be
please feel free to include it.
245
Then there is the concept of Endurance as effort, which includes Strength

against grabs, Entangles, or relevant hazards, as well as the raw impact of powers.
The concept of willpower gains considerable teeth with Pushing and Pushing
further. Doing so bumps up the risk for the rest of a situation so much that one
simply must care about this action more than any that may come later. (5)
That’s powerful all by itself, but in combination with specific tactics or reactive
moments, it’s amazing. Consider your hero being attacked by a Blast packing
considerable Knockback. Combine two things: sacrifice your next Phase using
Dodge, which for purposes of the example does not save you from being hit;
and that being the case, resist the Knockback with your Strength. The Maneuver
includes the option to move two hexes, which in this case isn’t about literally
dodging but goes toward the attacker from wherever the reduced Knockback put
you. See what you’re doing? You’re wading into the attack, willing to keep eating
it just to get forward. Now... push.
Presence is an obvious heavy hitter too, in some applications, when you’re
literally attacking with what you want to get or to express, and since it isn’t
constrained by the Speed Chart and can accompany any and every other action
in play. Don’t overlook its use in defense as well, which can be played emotionally
and represents more directly than any other mechanic the resistant power of a
character’s will.
Finally, you can define and modify powers so that they reinforce or rely upon
one or more of these mechanics. One might even conceive of a hero whose
powers do that exclusively, as with a famous superhero whose current state of
anger serves as the context and specifics of his super-strength, admittedly, varying
greatly by writer and series.
The actions and events of play are typically impressive for any of the above
mechanics. When two or more apply simultaneously, play moves into the most
spectacular moments of character and plots that comics have produced.
There is a key sequence in the story of one of the world’s most popular
superheroes in which he is trapped beneath a fallen water tank weighing several
tons. He cannot lift it; it’s a fair question whether he can even shift it enough to
get out, even under the best circumstances, and it so happens that he is exhausted
and injured. The substance he needs to save his dying elderly relative is nearby.
You would think he’d invoke his love for her and her deceased husband to get out,
and he does try... but it’s not enough. Then, through a chilling series of visualized
faces and thoughts, he lets go of his original, childish devotion to them. He tries
again, this time alone, not because he needs this person, but has chosen to help
her and will not stop. (6)
This teen hero’s origin story has been re-told many times, and they always focus
too much on its beginning. It’s not the initial short story that earns him the “man”
that ends his name. It’s this one, three years later.
246
Such situations and scenes can’t be front-loaded or delivered into play like a
gift-wrapped package from game master to player. But when both of them stay
engaged and alert, the opportunities appear surprisingly often.
One last point about the villains. Villains in the comics sometimes go on and
on about how much they and the heroes are really not so different. Most of the
time, it’s just bombast or self-delusion; we know the heroes are at least trying
to be better people, and that makes all the difference. But when it comes to the
content of this chapter and the rules it reflects upon, this once, the villains saying
that are absolutely right.
References
(1) Secret identities have an ancient pedigree in myth and adventure fiction.
The immediate precursors to superhero comics include The Scarlet Pimpernel
and Zorro, especially with both having appeared in cinema, via very similar use
for The Shadow and other vigilantes in pulp fiction and for the somewhat more
ethical Phantom in newspaper strips. By the advent of superhero comics, it was
treated as a convention and often as a joke, rather than a naturalistic or justifiable
element. Jerry Siegel even tried to develop Superman as revealing his identity
but was overridden by his editor. The first superhero for whom it was presented
as a psychological or logistic problem was the Flash, beginning in Showcase
#4 (1956), by Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino, published by National
Periodical Publications using its DC imprint. The first for whom it was treated
as non-ironic drama was Spider-Man, beginning in Amazing Adult Fantasy #15
(1963), published by Magazine Management (Goodman Publications) using its
Marvel Comics Imprint.
(2) The escaped convict known only as “Lucas,” using the very public, indeed
commercial business identity of Luke Cage, debuted in Luke Cage, Hero For Hire
#1 (1972), by Archie Goodwin, George Tuska, and Billy Graham, published by
Cadence Industries using their Marvel Comics Group imprint. Moon Knight
first appeared in Werewolf by Night #32 (1975), by Doug Moench and Don
Perlin, by the same publisher. He was reconceived with three secret identities
(Marc Spector aka Steven Grant aka Jake Lockley) over several years including
Moench’s long run on Moon Knight with Bill Sienkewicz. The stress among them
became a defining character feature in #10 of that title, and it was reconceived
further as an amnesiac personality disorder in Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #1-6
(1985) by Alan Zelenetz and Chris Warner, by the same publisher.
247
(3) Beginning in the mid-1960s, superheroes became argumentative and hyper-

sensitive, perhaps making up for two decades of enforced chumminess. They
constantly quarreled among themselves, reacted impulsively to situations or
suggestions, and at least half the time threw a punch or weapon or energy-blast
at one another. A typical example occurs when Wolverine mouths off at Cyclops
and calls him gutless, Cyclops backhands him, knocking him ass over teakettle,
Wolverine threatens murder, and Storm threatens Wolverine, forcing him to back
down, as depicted in The Uncanny X-Men #97 (1977), by Chris Claremont and
Dave Cockrum, published by Cadence Industries using their Marvel Comics
Group imprint. By contrast, the next issue opens with some of the nicest, most
naturalistic warmth among comics heroes then or since.
(4) To pick three heroes often cited as high benchmarks for “heroes do not kill,”
the original Batman carried a sidearm, tossed a guy into acid and said he deserved
it, broke a man’s neck with a kick complete with sound effect, threw a goon off
a roof with a confirmed kill on the next page, and gunned down at least one foe
(the latter in Detective Comics #32, 1939, by Gardner F. Fox and Bob Kane); the
original Superman tore the wings off a no-goodnik’s airplane so it would crash in
a fiery explosion (Action Comics #22, by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, 1940; plus
a whole lot of murder attempts on the Ultra-Humanite before that); and Spider-
Man’s actions at the death of the Green Goblin are at best negligent homicide
and quite likely some degree of manslaughter (The Amazing Spider-Man #122,
1973, by Gerry Conway and Gil Kane), not to mention beating a would-be rapist
almost to death before the horrified victim stops him (The Amazing Spider-Man
#154, 1976, by Len Wein and Sal Buscema). Wolverine wasn’t the outlier that he’s
made out to be.
(5) Willpower is the core of superheroic comics. The first reboot of Green Lantern,
as Hal Jordan, showcased it as the hero’s primary asset and, especially, primary
vulnerability, far more so than the ring’s more obvious color-coded limitation.
It’s first referenced as poetic description, and it stepped to the forefront in Green
Lantern #15 (1962), by John Broome and Gil Kane, published by National
Comics using its Superman DC imprint. Sometimes it’s played quite hard, as
in The Avengers #104 (1972), by Roy Thomas and Rich Buckler, published by
Cadence Industries using its Marvel Comics Group imprint. A Sentinel pursuing
Quicksilver at high speed correctly states that he cannot escape, as its adaptive
powers permit it to maneuver as well as he can; Quicksilver responds by running
full-tilt into a mountain, breaking half his bones on impact, so that the Sentinel,
with far greater mass, cannot stop and obliterates itself.
(6) Spider-Man’s iconic maturation sequence appears in The Amazing Spider-Man
#33 (1966), by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, published by Magazine Management
(Goodman Publications) using the Marvel Comics imprint.
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Chapter 15
You Must Change
Chapter Fifteen • You Must Change
P laying this game is change. It’s a hero sheet’s way of making another hero sheet. (1)
Some superhero history has not featured interesting change. Plenty of it has
been non-continuous, treating each adventure as a rebooted episode. Sometimes
we’ve seen fake or illusory change, claiming transformations to promote sales,
only to settle back to the familiar version eventually.
However, looked at another way, change is constant almost by accident. It’s a lot
like sculpture, as heroes’ powers and appearance are enhanced and refashioned
without much explanation or with the implication that it’s always been like this.
The creators may get better at their skills or hone their notion of what the hero
is like, perhaps an artist arrives at the facial features that become the standard
for the hero, or perhaps an adaptation in other media introduces details or ideas
which the comics adopt going forward. (2)
Finally, sometimes, during a given creative team’s time with a title, heroes
have sometimes displayed genuinely dramatic and understandable development,
including their powers, outlooks, relationships, past history, social circumstances,
and even fates. The rate of such change varies from extremely steady to outright
catastrophic.
These rules relentlessly fuel the latter two types of change. The heroes and
villains in your game develop as a wave-front, a highly-textured call-and-response
across every other person and event.
They keep on coming

More character points roll steadily onto the player-characters’ sheets after every
session. Each player gets the same amount, by these criteria as judged by the
game master.
▶ If things seemed only mildly adverse, or the session was short by the group’s
standards, then each player gets 2.
▶ If it was a solid session with some confrontations worth talking about, then
each player gets 4.
They add up fast. Two points that just landed on your sheet may seem like a little
drib or drab, but before you know it, you’re looking at double digits. These points
are exactly the same as those used during character creation, so once they’re on
your sheet, you can use them the same ways between sessions, increasing your
character’s total points. As long as you attend to the rules and stay within the ratio
limits, add to and modify your sheet however you like.
Staying on top of it or thinking about what to do can be daunting, and some
discussion can help. Some people don’t need it, because they consider every point
every session, and either spend it right away or have earmarked it for a specific
250
purpose whose Points they’ve already calculated. However, others might hesitate
because they are uncertain about the possibilities or the build mechanics, and
some might forget all about it.
Therefore, at 10-12 points gained, someone should check in to make sure
everyone even knows they have more points available and that they are free to
use them. A sort of “hero creation II” session is useful then, to clarify the options
and to review the rules. Whoever is most familiar with the mechanics may check
the math, including the ratios. However, no one has personal veto power over
anyone else’s choices about how to use the points.
Where are you going,

where have you been
Just as with hero creation, knowing what to do with your new points depends
on what you’ve already done without them. Many, many things may change for a
character based on the events of play with no points involved: legal status, wealth,
location, social status, most skills, general lifestyle, and more. That goes double
for relationships of all kind, which grow, change, end, and begin.
None of that uses any points; but it’s far from intangible. It funnels into the all-
important question of who your hero has become and what he or she wants now,
to set the context for what the incoming points may do.
The easiest concept is to get better: stronger, faster, more skilled, making the
existing numbers higher, and similarly, adding new powers because they “grow”
or you are training them up. Alternately, during or after the first few sessions of
play, you might adjust or wiggle the character’s values to meet your concept, now
that you’ve seen the powers and everything in action. They may fit your ideas
better in a slightly different build, and the additional points allow room to free
up the wiggling.
As sessions go by and the points flow in, you will see more interesting ways to
use them. It’s evident and easy to modify and arrange powers based on how their
special effects have been manifested in play so far, like an Advantage or a new
power to tie in. You might start with a nice simple Blast which happened to be
explosive and blinding at some point in play, and then, deciding you liked those
very things very much, formalize them by giving it the Explosive Advantage and
tying a die or two of Flash to it. Or, working with the same concept, you might
start a new power on more Limitations than you would ordinarily prefer, and
then continue to spend points to remove or reduce them, as the power “matures”
into its more reliable or preferred form.
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A more extreme version is to begin or rearrange a whole Framework. If you

began with a single signature power and have been adding related applications
of the same special effect, you can turn all of them into an Elemental Control.
Or perhaps you began with a Multiform that describes a modular device, and
you’ve added so many diverse slots that the whole thing makes more sense if it’s
rewritten as a Variable Power Pool. In each case, instead of tweaking the current
structure, write it anew and see if its old points plus any new ones, if you have
them, are sufficient.
Sometimes a player will have accumulated quite a lot of unspent points, either
by inclination or by underestimating their arrival rate. It’s not mandatory, but
at least consider visiting a drastic transformation upon your hero, necessarily
including a dramatic increase in effectiveness. In this case you’d rewrite anything
you want across the whole sheet, constrained only by your creative urges. Such
things can be overdone; but the right one at the right time can be legendary. (3)
You might even cede some control for the sake of unknown dramatic hanky-
panky, by letting the game master spend your points on who knows what, at some
rate you don’t even know. In this case, he or she can trigger the new powers in
play, focusing on special effects without being too clear about the exact rules being
used, and you can try using them on the basis of those special effects, without
really knowing what they are in rules terms. This can go on, as the whatever-it-is
grows in points, until such a time as you choose to bring it fully into the light and
the game master shows you what those points have been doing.
Fiction schmiction
Be literal if you want, letting the points “buy” fiction as if it were an assembly.
If something is played as a momentary special effect or mentioned as possible
during play, and you eventually have enough points to buy it, then you do. And
now you have it.
But you can also play games with concepts and time. It’s perfectly all right
to make the change on your sheet with no build-up whatsoever, then show it
off during later play, along the lines of “I’ve been practicing this, time to try it,”
although we’ve seen no such thing until now.
Go further if you want, to hand-wave the fiction-side changes without bothering
about “how it happened” and never mind whether this is a literal change in the
hero. It can be very satisfying to think of quantitative increases on the sheet as
revealing more about the character as he or she is, as if the effect in question had
always been there, but happens not to have been fully expressed in the fiction
until now. You might think of it as the artist simply getting better at drawing
explosions, so of course the hero’s explosions do more damage than they used
to. (4)
252
That concept applies especially well to skill-tied powers, either improving

them or adding them in the first place as far as the sheet is concerned, but not
distinguishing during play between how they worked before vs. how they work
now. You might begin with just a Stealth skill, then add Invisibility tied to it, then
do it again for Teleport. Wow, that fellow is really sneaky, and it’s still “just a skill
they have,” fictionally. (5)
It also applies when shifting a bank of powers to a Variable Power Pool, which
in comics terms means the creators are now creatively flexed and brazen enough
to depict a wider, even extravagant range of effects for a power. There’s no need to
consider this to be a change in the hero or the power itself, merely in how good
you are at showing it off.
Given this freedom from in-play setup and justification, one does need some
grounding. It’s reliably found in two things: first, whether the new way to play is
exciting to you; and second, whether you’re staying true to the two statements
which govern the aesthetics of this group’s game. Stay with those and the hero
you discover through play will transcend anything you might have conceived
without it.
Situations
Theoretically, you can also spend points to reduce or get rid of Situations, again
1:1. I suppose if a player wants to have a lower point total for Situations and is
willing to spend character points to get it, he or she can. In practice, however, this
makes hardly any sense, because those points have a use elsewhere and because
Situations are not actually bad. The character would not be himself or herself
without most of them.
All that said, given multi-session intervals and a lot of events, it’s reasonable to
rearrange and alter Situations based on what’s happened in play, maintaining their
point total. Perhaps that reconciliation with the villain hunting you is convincing,
satisfying, and final, in which case, cross the name right out of the Situations list.
Perhaps we’ve seen enough of that Vulnerability and you think seeing the hero
not succumb to it next time would be more fun.
This might apply in the negative as well, if a number of sessions have shown
that this particular Hunted or that Psychological Situation (or anything, these are
just examples) aren’t as much fun to play as we’d hoped, or aren’t making sense
enough to have been played at all.
It’s good to go slowly with altering or removing Situations, because a given
one typically doesn’t show up in every session, and you should at least see a fair
range of what it can do for play before shifting things around. This goes double
for Psychological ones because they can be expressed differently across different
253
circumstances. You should see it in action several times and develop it a little
in play for a while before considering a quantitative change. Consider adjusting
their points rather than changing their content outright, for example, making
a viewpoint more rational but more often expressed to reflect a maturing or
healthier attitude – or conceivably, the reverse, if that’s the way things are going.
You have to find something to do with the points of Situations that have been
freed up, by taking new ones or increasing existing ones. The only thing that
has to stay the same is the total. You might even rearrange the whole list a little,
upping this thing over here or reducing that one over there.
Much more so than for powers, change Situations based on events of play
rather than inventing entirely new material. Look for a foe who’d be happy to
become a new Hunted based on that memorable fight a while ago, or for an
intense viewpoint that has developed in play and merits formalizing.
However, the same story-logic that applies to powers works for Situations too,
in that sometimes a new feature on the sheet hasn’t been acquired by the character
but, instead, they always had it... and now it’s just becoming more relevant to
whatever is happening next.
Ruby Ray, ongoing

Let’s think about how the Defiants game might have gone in play, and see how
some points might be spent for Ruby Ray based on events. I’m drawing a bit from
what did happen, but also extrapolating to 30 more points, approximately ten
sessions.
In “dimension A,” things have gone pretty well for her and for the team as
a whole. Their strong shared goals have also led to enriched or strengthened
resolutions across family and politics for everyone. Her radio and web efforts have
developed their unified message that alternative or dissenting lifestyles do not
have to “buy” legitimacy, and she’s backstopped a whole movement that supports
prison reform, oversight of police actions, and protection for the homeless. The
heroes have all contributed points to a shared base, which is super-cool in being
partly in cyberspace. For her more personally, maybe she’s given the FCC as good
as she’s got and built her radio and web presence into a formidable social force
and backstop for the super-team.
254
Complications
Public Identity 10
Psych: Fun-loving (often) 15
DNPC: Bri (Secret Identity, 15) 15
Hunted: Killer Coil (individual, super-powered, manipulative) 15
Points gained from play 30
Total points = 100 + 100 + 30 = 230
Characteristics
Strength 2d6
Presence 4d6 10
Body 14, Speed 4, Defense 10 70
Recovery 14
Stunned 28
Knockout 42
Endurance 56
Dexterity 12, Intelligence 11, Ego 11 10
Skills
Acrobatics 10
Skill levels: +2 with Coordinated attacks 10
Powers
Contribution to hero-team base: Dark Web presence 4
Flight 25 hexes, linear only, cannot go less than half-speed 12
Force Field +14 resistant, usable on others 27
Flash 5d6, only at end of flight path, no range 12
Illusions 10d6, tricky 20
Total points = 230
Ratio = 118.7
255
Here, we’re looking at an inspiring, uplifting hero. She includes a boost to the
whole Elemental Control, therefore more dice and other effects, and conceivably
bigger lettering for sound effects and brighter colors. Her protective field now
extends to people she’s next to or carries in flight, she can induce glowing visions,
and she’s shifted her Skills to specialize in coordinated attacks, which along with the
base contribution represent an investment in the shared identity of the super-team.
I’ve reflected that in her Situations as well, by suggesting she’s habitually fun
rather than occasionally, maintaining the whimsical color-vulnerability, and
shifting Killer Coil in a small but significant way, suggesting frenemy interactions
or at least something more nuanced.
But things might have gone a little edgier. Over in “dimension B,” the
establishment has managed itself well against the heroes, and Ruby Ray has
suffered defeat in combat at least once. The team hasn’t gelled as a collective
action group, but remains an alliance of separate individuals. Their triumphs are
real and their vision is unbowed, but they’re half-and-half considered villains at
this point, favoring unequivocal results over approval ratings. A choice like that
has put the bite on the conflicts between family and politics for all of them.
Complications
Public Identity 10
Psych: Brash (sometimes) 5
Psych: Anti-authoritarian (often) 15
DNPC: Bri (Hunted by Homeland Security (organization, extensive, ruinous) 20
Hunted: Killer Coil (individual, super-powered, ruinous) 20
Points gained from play 30
Total points = 100 + 100 + 30 = 230
Characteristics
Strength 2d6, Presence 3d6 5
Body 14, Speed 4, Defense 10 70
Recovery 14
Stunned 28
Knockout 42
Endurance 56
Dexterity 12, Intelligence 11, Ego 11 10
256
Skills
Acrobatics 10
Skill level: +1 with Move attacks 5
Powers
Special Defense: Find Weakness 5
Life Support (gases, vacuum) 15
Flight 20 hexes, linear only, cannot go less than half-speed 10
Force Field +16 resistant 20
Overload: Severe Reactive Blast/Dodge 6d6, no knockback 30
Weaken Speed 4d6, conditional: direct external illumination, all or nothing 10
Total points = 230
Ratio = 117.4
This way, she’s a more hard-hitting, ruthless hero. Her Elemental Control
remains at the starting magnitude but is diversified into an arsenal, and clearly
she had a bad experience with someone’s Find Weakness. She doesn’t seem to
mind causing significant havoc and woe betide anyone who grabs her now.
The Situations show it too. She’s done with that “oh no the color red” cartoony
stuff. The fun, breezy personality is gone. Evidently Bri has been outed and is
considered a terrorist and by extension, so is she.
Considerations
How high can the points go? Pretty high. The game doesn’t scale indefinitely, but the
system is robust for heroes who’ve built up beyond twice their starting points. So
several dozen sessions is no stretch at all, in terms of points, dice, and how to play.
How low do we start? Pretty low, which corresponds to most comics heroes
in terms of their first appearances, but there’s more to it than merely mimicking
the source material. Those heroes became great through use, not through their
wondrous initial capabilities. It’s better to start with enough to work with and to
discover what the hero “is” by doing it.
Consider one character built on a lot of points from the start, say 300, and
another – perhaps the same concept – built within the rules’ starting range,
whose accumulated and utilized points through play sum to 300. Typically the
first one can hit harder and withstand more damage, and the second one is less
beefy but can do more things.
257
It’s not just “more,” though; it’s content that you cannot get any other way. The
changes in the played character represent what you cared about in play, each
time. The less-explicit connections across all sorts of things on the sheet are
grounded now, they matter, and can be easily acted upon in play by you and by
anyone who went through the character’s history with you. When a hero sheet
becomes a living document like this, and play honors the sheet, that’s how you get
the immersion that everyone likes to talk about.
What about differing point totals among the heroes? Unless every character is
present at every session, or unless the group introduces compensating increases,
they may well do so. It is typically not a problem. Play balance is a real thing, but
it’s not about heroes’ power, it’s about player respect and hero spotlight. When
those are maintained just as they would be anyway, super-teams whose members
vary across as much as 75 points are often more fun rather than less.
That’s why the ratios are more important than the totals, again, perhaps
counter-intuitively. It might look as if two heroes with 225 points but drastically
different ratios are “equal” because “the Points are the same.” But they aren’t, not
at the social level. Limitations command attention and spotlight time during play,
so one with the distinctly higher ratio is going to get more.
Obviously a hero’s ratio increases and decreases throughout their history, which
is fine as long as they stay within the limit. As you spend and construct points, see
if you can keep yours from consistently outstripping those of the other players’
characters, in the interest of respect and fun for all involved.
Villain points
Why yes, villains’ point totals improve too. The method is a little different due to
their irregular participation.
After a villain appears in play, give them 6 to 10 points. Use the points for
anything that seems obvious they’d have due to the events, or because it would
help realize the character’s concept better after having seen them in action this
time. This step isn’t so important in terms of power upgrade, but it matters
because it grounds the villain in the history of play just like the heroes.
Update their status in the Now. Consider where they are, who knows about it
or has something to do with it, what happened to them, who might be offering
something to them, and what they might do about any of those things. Alter their
Situations to match this status.
When you’re thinking about a villain appearing in upcoming play, review their
build and their current point total. There’s no rubric for how much they “should”
have relative to the heroes, because point totals aren’t combat ratings and this isn’t
a skirmish/boss-fight game anyway. So you can do any of these:
258
▶ Leave them as is, even if it’s lower than the heroes’ current values.
▶ Upgrade them to a little higher than the heroes at the moment, perhaps 10
points more, with a higher ratio.
▶ Rewrite them entirely, at whatever point total appeals to you
Any of those will work as long as you keep your eye on two things. The first
is general for this group’s game, the always-and-forever combination of the two
statements, which are straightforward enough to apply and yet nigh-infinite in
their options and connections. Situate the villain and his or her actions among
those. Second, and more specific, any emotional or revelatory interaction with
heroes which has supercharged the villain to seek or confront something they
care about greatly, and might succeed in doing.
What might happen with Killer Coil? For simplicity’s sake, I’ll go with the edgier
“dimension B” above, so that I can focus on increasing her threat factor rather
than a complex web of nuances. Let’s increase her total by 30 points, just as with
Ruby Ray, making her total 255, and since she’s a villain, a higher permissible ratio.
Where might she be in the Now? Perhaps she’s exploited the heroes’ troubled
legal status and established a working relationship with the more ruthless actors
in the national security apparatus, like Homeland Security and the Office of
Intelligence Analysis (U.S. Treasury), to the extent that she has legal grounding
in acting against the heroes. That has generated a split among agencies regarding
her (see the specification in her Hunted Situation). Perhaps she and her partner
have also expanded their operation into a staffed organization at two levels:
an overt and legitimized charity organization which hides a nasty anti-activist
espionage network. I can even imagine her slotting different morality modules
into her head depending on which one she’s managing at the moment.
Complications Specifications Points
Dependent: regular mental clearance Daily; 3d6 15
Physical: Requires assisted living Some of the time; limiting 10
Secret Identity: Nicole Carr 15
Psych: Modular mission-defined values Often; irrational 20
Psych: Consummate professional Often 15
Psych: Limits of programming when values conflict Sometimes; meltdown 15
Hunted: U.S. Secret Service and the Washington Organization, extensive, 20
State Police ruinous
DNPC: Roan Felder (public identity 10, 15
sometimes idealistic 5)
Total points = 100 + 125 + 30 = 255
259
Characteristics
Effect Points
Strength 4d6 10
Presence 3d6 5
Body 12 20
Speed 3 20
+1 Speed obvious focus 5
Defense 11 Total Defense = 17 1
Resistant Defense 6 obvious focus 15
Dexterity 13 20
Intelligence 13 obvious focus 10
Ego 11 0
Skills
Security Systems 13 with focus, otherwise 11 5
Martial Arts Attacks 10
Martial Arts Maneuvers 10
Martial Arts Find Weakness 10
Powers
Awareness, tied to Security Systems, mission investigation, 23
Shutdown regional, high-tech, analyze
Awareness (orientation) inobvious focus
Invisbility, Skill-based (Security Systems) 13
Elemental Control 16
Stretching 4 hexes 10 points 10
Extra limbs x2 10
1d6 Flash Strike/Martial Punch (adds) 10
+4d6 Strength, only with Grab 25
7
Total points = 255
Ratio = 122.0
260
The sheet mostly concerns hand-to-hand combat additions, working toward

her existing strengths rather than expanding anything. However, considered in
the context of any unique emotional connection or understanding she and Ruby
Ray may have had, Killer Coil is clearly no mere piece in an interchangeable
“rogues’ gallery.” She isn’t going to show up blithering about “revenge for the
defeat I suffered at your hands last time,” a jobber who arrives in order to lose.
Instead, she’s become a real nemesis. The heroes need to get out there and make
sure she isn’t about to get what she wants, because you can bet she’s working on
it right now. (6)
Arcs and endings

Play has no mandated ending, but in practice it does end. That can be a good
thing, even a great one. The key is to focus on whatever hero arcs are already
happening.
What is that? It’s not the ordinary “Now what?” of new problems being raised
and resolved, in a next-adventure next-issue cycle. It’s what a hero goes through
and becomes as a throughline, usually a pretty typical human drama: growing up,
finding a purpose, arriving at a stable relationship with individuals or institutions,
getting a message across, healing long-standing trauma, resolving a key mystery,
or, equally valid if more grim, decisive failure at any of those.
Think of each hero in your game as a spin on the statements and of their spin
stabilizing into an answer of sorts, or at least a reply. But that makes it sound
intellectual and planned, when in fact it happens without such processing, and
is enjoyed straightforwardly play. Analyzing or knowing what it’s “about” is
something you do afterwards, if at all.
No one’s under pressure to force grand opera onto themselves. One hero’s arc
may be milder or about less intense things than another’s, and unlike spotlight
time in play, there’s no need for arcs to match or keep up. The players’ inclinations
determine all of these; that’s what “playing my character” really means.
It may happen that the non-point and point-based aspects of the hero come
together to provide an ending that may feel much better than continuing to play
them. The gentlest form is when they have become so resolved and solid-feeling
that they make more sense in the background of further play. The hero is now
more like the title’s anchor rather than an intriguing question mark, and he or she
can serve as a reliable source of characterization, resources, and general sense of
pride in the history of play.
More literal hero endings appear in the form of departure from the situations
of play, or dying, meaning that the player chooses “true death” when the hero is
at dying status in rules terms. Both of these are relatively crude but are satisfying
when they’re authentic, acted upon in the moment. (7)
261
Chapter FIFteeN • You muSt ChaNGe

PANEL 1
No text
Sound effect: CRASH!
PANEL 2
Grimfire (thinking): Well, it was a good plan.
PANEL 3
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the last!
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Sound eff
PANEL 5
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.
262
Hero endings aren’t automatically the ending of play, but the ending of play can
arrive positively from hero arcs’ resolution within it. A distinctive arc closure or
a sufficient number of them might even show you that you just went through it.
Consider the alternative: when some external, not very arc-ish problem is
designated, say by the game master, as the climax or ending for play. It’s usually
presented in terms of a bigger-than-usual threat, following the grand showdown
or final boss concept. This typically doesn’t work out in terms of fun, even if
the logistic manipulations to set it up and carry it out go all the way through.
Those manipulations always feel distinctly forced and the grandness of the
threat typically falls flat. Manipulations to prep and tune it so that the players are
magically resolving their arcs in line with this big conflict’s cresting process are
even worse.
A great big blowout fight or climactic confrontation to end play isn’t out of the
question, but it doesn’t come from a controlled landing at the end of a planned
flight-path. Instead, it’s just another context to experience a sense of closure
about the two statements, as far as these heroes are concerned, and again, it’s best
recognized afterward as fulfilling this role.
An alternate and perhaps surprising version doesn’t end in the fiction or story
at all. Instead, the arc resolutions generate a sense that this comic title has hit a
smooth sailing groove and maybe it should be left there with pride. I can only
describe it as the feeling that somewhere, out there, the comic title is in good
hands and continuing with more great stories, whose creators show admiration
and thanks to all of you.
References
(1) The chapter title is taken from Captain Marvel’s confrontation with Eternity
in Captain Marvel #29 (1973), by Jim Starlin, published by Cadence Industries
using its Marvel Comics Group imprint.
(2) The single most obvious change to a hero implemented by adaptation to other
media is Superman’s power of flight. As originally conceived and portrayed, he
did not fly and the comic included no mention of such a thing, but the radio
show The Adventures of Superman (beginning 1940) portrayed him to be flying
and introduced the associated catchphrases (“Up, up, and away!” “Look! Up in
the sky...” et cetera). The show also introduced the talk of “truth, justice, and the
American way” in 1940 and kryptonite in 1943.
263
(3) Iconic transformations are not rare in comics, but they are rarely permanent.
Perhaps the most celebrated is Jean Grey, or Marvel Girl, becoming Phoenix
in The Uncanny X-Men #101 (1976), by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum,
published by Cadence Industries using its Marvel Comics Group imprint.
(4) Superman also provides an appropriate example for how basic and how low-
powered most beginning heroes are in comics. The sequence of his early powers
“acquisition” goes like this:
▶ In the first Action Comics stories written by Siegel, he can leap about, lift cars,
support trestle bridges, and break chains.
▶ Step by step during the first two years, he withstands small arms fire, inhales
and exhales mighty gusts, can see through things with X-Rays, and has super-
hearing.
▶ He does not fly until the early 1940s, show vulnerability to kryptonite (in the
comics) until the late 1940s, or have heat vision until the late 1940s.
▶ He does not have freezing breath until the late 1950s or show vulnerability to
magic until the mid-1960s.
(5) Super-stealthy heroes are always disappearing between the panels, equivalent
to the cut-away technique in film and TV, but the repeat offender award must
go to Batman, especially in casual conversation. It probably began with Swamp
Thing #7 (1973), by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson, published by Warner
Communications using the DC Comics imprint. This effect became standard for
him during the late 1980s.
(6) Supervillain jobbers are legion. The ur-example must be the Unicorn, first
appearing in Tales of Suspense #56 (1963), by Stan Lee and Don Heck, published
by Magazine Management (Goodman Publications) using the Marvel Comics
imprint. Through the decades, he presents a dizzying display of filler stories,
an unusual example of each visual redesign being worse than the last, writers’
attempts to kill or otherwise nullify him, and confusing reconceptions, for which
maintenance of IP is the only sane explanation.
(7) Doom Patrol was canceled in 1968. Typically, a canceled series’ content is
merely discontinued or abandoned. However, in this case, the creators ended the
team’s story in the final issue (#121) on an appropriately high note of defiance, as
they sacrificed their lives to save a small fishing village in Maine.
264
Dedication
This work is dedicated to the memory of K. C. Ryan and Michael O’Connell,
including the legendary Forte game and the Amateur Press Alliance The
Clobberin’ Times, but most especially their boundless imagination, enthusiasm,
good will, and indomitable spirit.
Great memories and thanks to fellow denizens of the ‘Times: Tim Watts, Jim
McClain, Aaron Storck, Bennett Bellot, Kaye Bellot, Jeff Baumgardener, Will
Geiger, Aaron S. Thompson, Derek Garrison, Greg Johnson, Scott Burnham (in
memory), Martin Maenza, and Joel B. Levy.
Acknowledgments
& appreciation
The great credit belongs to the original authors of Champions the Super Role-
Playing Game, George MacDonald and Steve Peterson, and also to contributors
Bruce Harlick, Aaron Allston, and Michael A. Stackpole. All of us who worked on
this project hope we have represented you well.
I am grateful to Jason Walters and Hero Games for this opportunity, and here’s
a whoop-whoop fist circle with my buddy Steve S. Long!
The big list of playtesters and participants in discussions sprawled into the
multiverse, but the most directly connected to the game as it develped are Mark
Delsing, Jay Brown, Rod Anderson, Ross Hunter, Santiago Verón, Alan Barclay,
Frank Ferraro, Jason Walters, Rick Loritsch, Jim Crocker, Robbie Boerth, Pawel
Solowczuk, Aybars Yürdün, Tobe Morgan, Erica Rossi, Sarah Yoshi, Robert
Baldwin, Abby Baldwin, James Schmitz, Gordon R. Landis, Keith Andreano,
David Wood, Sean Holland, Peter Lindstrom, John Desmarais, M Platinum,
Aldo Regalado, Chris Goodwin, Alan Bradley, Joel Davis, John Powell, Terry
Gant, Alice Peng, Brandon Powers, and Jerry D. Grayson. Special mention goes
to late-stage readers Craig Lewis, Peter A. Lindstrom, Jonathan D. Woolley, and
Aldo Reginaldo.
The long reach of the past arrived as well from John Hotchkiss, Edd Jones,
Maggie Goold, Ed Dunphy, Matt Jones, Kas Short, Kristen Fisher, Chris Funk,
Simone Cooper, Chris Miller, Randy Hardin, Marty Devine, Ken Norton, Tommy
Boyd, Lawrence Collins, Mike Kent, Patrick Beatty, Andy Rothfusz, and David
Baekey.
265
Bibliography
Timothy Callahan (editor), Teenagers from Outer Space. 2010, Sequart Research
and Literacy Organisation.
Pierre Comtois, Marvel Comics in the 1960s (2009), … in the 1970s (2011), … in
the 1980s (2015). TwoMorrows Publishing.
Jon B. Cooke (editor), Comic Book Artist magazine. TwoMorrows Publishing.
Sean Howe, Marvel Comics: The Untold Story. 2012, Harper Collins Publishers.
Will Jacobs and Gerard Jones, The Comic Book Heroes. 1985, Crown Publishers.
Gerard Jones, Men of Tomorrow. 2004, Basic Books/Perseus Publishing.
Stan Lee, Origins of Marvel Comics (1974), Son of Origins of Marvel Comics (1975),
Bring on the Bad Guys (1976), The Superhero Women (1977). Simon & Schuster.
A. David Lewis and Christine Hoff Kraemer (editors), Graven Images: Religion in
Comic Books and Graphic Novels. 2010, The Continuum International Publishing
Group
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics (1993), Reinventing Comics (2000),
Making Comics (2006). William Morrow Paperbacks.
Adilifu Nama, Super Black. 2011, University of Texas Press.
Matthew J. Pustz, Comic Book Culture. 1999, University Press of Mississippi.
Jim Steranko, The Steranko History of Comics, vol. 1-2. 1970/72, Crown Publishing
Group.
Durwin S. Talon, Panel Discussions. 2007, TwoMorrows Publishing.
Special thanks for help with my inquiries to the Comics Historians Group on
Facebook, to Ken Quattro’s Comics Detective blog, to A. David Lewis’ Sacred &
Sequential website, to Sean Howe, and to comics professionals whose names are
kept private.
266
Appendix
the Defiants
Appendix • The Defiants
Overview
This is a group of dedicated super-powered activists, operating in one of the
significant political power-centers of the United States. They do not consider
themselves guardians of the law or even of order; they seek change, and they are
done with “the system” as the only means for doing so. Such groups have often
been caricatured as fanatics or idiots in the comics, but here, they make it work
and they make it stick.
One reason it works is that they know they aren’t always going to agree, and
they respect one another enough to adapt, at least most of the time. The edge
cases provoke a lot of drama.
Another reason is that they understand messaging and use Ruby Ray’s and
Anybug’s social skills to promote the context and purpose of their actions.
They’ve managed to evade or counter establishment efforts to paint them as
empty-headed rabble-rousers – so far.
Ruby Ray, Natalie Freeman

The build
Situations Points
Public Identity 10
Psych: Brash (sometimes) 5
Psych: Fun-loving (sometimes) 5
Dependent non-player character: Bri, her brother (Secret identity, 15) 15
Hunted: Killer Coil (individual, super-powered, ruinous) 10 + 10 =
20
Hunted: FCC (organization, manipulative) 10 + 5 = 15
Total Points = 100 + 100 = 200
268
Characteristics
Strength 2d6 0
+6d6 Strength; 30 Active Points 30 ÷ 1½ = 20
Conditional: when flying (½ Limitation)
Presence 3d6 5
Body 14 40
Recovery 14, Stunned 14, Knockout 28, Endurance 42
Speed 4 30
Defense 10 0
Dexterity 13 20
Intelligence 12 10
Ego 11 0
Skills
Acrobatics 10
Skill Level +1 with Move Attack 5
Powers
Elemental Control: Red Laser Transformation 20 points 20
Laser Zap: Flight 20 hexes; 40 Active Points 40 – 20 = 20
Conditional: linear only, Conditional: cannot go less than half-speed 20÷2 = 10
(½ + ½ Limitations)
Hard Glow: Force Field 16; 40 Active Points 40 – 20 = 20
Light Up: Flash 4d6; 40 Active Points 40 – 20 = 20
Conditional: only at end of flight path, No Range (½ + ½ Limitations) 20÷2 = 10
Total Points = 200
Ratio = 115.0
Examine the Elemental Control to see how it’s modified. The overall Framework
has no modifications. Each slot has the minimum number of Active Points (twice
the Control = 40). Each slot’s Points are already partly acounted for by the Control,
yielding, in each case, 20. That amount is what’s affected by the Limitations.
Ruby Ray’s ratio is calculated by ignoring the Limitations (in italics), which
eliminates any calculation with a dividing sign. In that case, the total Points
would be 230. 230 ÷ 200, multiplied by 100 for easy reading = 115.0.
269
In use
Situations
Public Identity
Psych: Stands up for marginalized person’s selfhood (often)
Psych: Brash (sometimes)
Psych: Fun-loving (sometimes)
Vulnerable: 2x Knockout from red-colored attacks or hazards
Dependent non-player character: Bri, her brother (Secret identity)
Hunted: Killer Coil (individual, super-powered, ruinous)
Hunted: FCC (organization, manipulative)
Characteristics
Strength 2d6
+6d6 Strength
when flying
Endurance 2 for ordinary Strength, 8 for total Strength
Presence 3d6
Body 14
Recovery 14, Stunned 14
Knockout 28, Endurance 42
Speed 4
Phases 1 / 3 / 5 / 6
Defense 10
With Force Field, Defense 26 of which 16 is resistant
Dexterity 13
Intelligence 12
Ego 11
Acrobatics
Skill Level +1 with Move Attack
Elemental Control: Red Laser Transformation
Laser Zap: Flight 20 hexes
linear only, cannot go less than half-speed
Endurance cost: 1 per 5 hexes
Hard Glow: Force Field 16
Endurance cost: 8
Light Up: Flash 4d6
only at end of flight path, no range
Endurance cost: 8
270
Pro tips for playing Ruby Ray

Socially and generally:
▶ Consider her external dangers arriving in two different ways. The FCC is
a relatively small organization in terms of active efforts outside its routine
policies, and it wants to co-opt her rather than simply shutting her down
hard; whereas Killer Coil is a single individual, albeit super-powered, with a
personal and deadly grudge. Also, considering Killer Coil’s sheet in Chapter 7:
Villain Making, if she is “on task,” then her grudge vs. Ruby Ray may conflict
with her programmed mission.
▶ Concentrate on Dark Web activism, organizing events, and outreach to
grassroots community efforts; accordingly, work with Bri to use active
measures against the FCC and against any net-based prying into the team.
▶ Make the most of that underground celebrity identity: arrive with purpose, hit
hard where it counts, get your point across.
▶ Negotiate openly with teammates about what the Defiants are for, to focus on
effective action rather than stunts and to avoid being co-opted by apparently
sympathetic establishment players.
In combat or hazardous situations:
▶ Perceive as much as possible about the physical layout of the situation, to
anticipate and maximize linear flight.
▶ Keep moving, and end Move actions as far out of opponents’ field of perception
as possible, in order to attack them from the side or from behind, especially
when they’re engaged with an ally.
▶ Act as if you have Speed 3, holding an action to use Force Field for reactive
defense instead of keeping it on all the time; otherwise only use it in tandem
with a Move attack.
▶ Your Strength in motion is one of the team’s most valuable hidden resources,
so be ready to use it for maximum effect when it’s needed.
▶ Consider move-based timing carefully. Since you’re limited to fast flight only,
you cannot fly up to someone and hit them with an ordinary punch in the
same Phase, but must use Move attacks. However, grabbing something (say, a
car) in one Phase, then in the next, flying at half speed to an optimum position
and throwing it, is viable – and by using a held action, you can do this in rapid
succession.
▶ Use Presence Attacks as often as possible, maximizing them with Powers
and monologues, especially toward groups in order to protect people and to
promote the Defiants’ messaging.
271
Anybug, Manfred Owen Barfield IV

The build
Situations Points
Unusual Looks 11- (unfortunately repulsive bug forms) 10
Public Identity 10
Psychological: Thinks everyone knows entomology (often) 15
Psychological: Idealistic, “everyone will get along if they just listen 5 + 5 = 10
to each other” (sometimes, irrational)
Psychological: Very brave (sometimes, irrational) 5 + 5 = 10
Dependent NPC. aged grandfather, Manfred Owen Barfield II, 15 + 15 + 5 = 35
(Aged/infirm, limiting, all the time, 15; Secret Identity: Devour, 15;
Disoriented, sometimes, 5)
Unlucky 2d6 10
Total points = 100 + 100 = 200
Characteristics
Strength 2d6 0
Presence 2d6 0
Body 10 0
+3 Body
Conditional: Inobvious Focus, power pack (½ Limitation) 30 ÷ 1½ = 20
Recovery 13, Stunned 13, Knockout 26, Endurance 39 20
Speed 3 6
Defense 16 24
6 resistant (16 total)
Dexterity 14 30
Intelligence 12 10
Ego 11 0
Skills
Climbing 5
Computer Programming 5
Lucky 2d6 10
272
Powers
Superleap 10 hexes 20
Multiform 40 points: Bug Simulator
Conditional: ½ effect without power pack (¼ Limitation) 40 ÷ 1¼ = 32
Assassin Bug Bonk: 6d6 Reactive Blast; 30 Power Points
40 Active Points in slot
Stink Bug Spray: 4d6 Flash; 40 Power Points
Bedbug Slurp: 8d6 Drain; 40 Power Points
Total points = 200
Ratio = 112.0
The Multiform is set up with each slot at maximum Active Points, so only one slot may
be used at a time. If, for example, each slot were set at 20 Active Points rather than
40, then any two of them could be used (“on”) together. Modifying a Multiform with
Limitations is much simpler than an Elemental Control: you simply apply the Limitation
to the whole thing, Pool and Slots alike.
Anybug’s ratio is calculated by ignoring the Limitations (in italics), which eliminates any
calculation with a dividing sign. In that case, the total Points would be 224. 224 ÷ 200,
multiplied by 100 for easy reading = 112.0.
In use
Situations
Unusual Looks 11- (unfortunately repulsive bug forms)
Public Identity
Psychological: Thinks everyone knows entomology (often)
Psychological: Idealistic, “everyone will get along if they just listen to each other”
(sometimes, irrational)
Psychological: Very brave (sometimes, irrational)
Dependent NPC. aged grandfather, Manfred Owen Barfield II, (Aged/infirm, limiting,
all the time, 15; Secret Identity: Devour, 15; Disoriented, sometimes, 5)
Unlucky 2d6
273
Characteristics
Strength 2d6
Endurance cost: 2
Presence 2d6
Body 10
+3 Body inobvious focus: power pack
Speed 3
Phases 2 / 4 / 6
Defense 16
6 resistant (16 total)
Dexterity 14
Intelligence 12
Ego 11
Skills
Climbing 14-
Computer Programming 12-
Lucky 2d6
Powers
Superleap 10 hexes
Endurance cost: 1 per hex
Multiform: Bug Simulator ½ effect without power pack
Assassin Bug Bonk: 6d6 Reactive Blast
½ effect without power pack
Endurance cost: 6
Stink Bug Spray: 4d6 Flash
Endurance cost: 8
Bedbug Slurp: 8d6 Drain
Endurance cost: 0
274
Pro tips for playing Anybug

Socially and in general
▶ This is the team organizer, having provided the initial outreach and planning,
but also an idealist who values consensus.
▶ Bluntly: you are a lily-white East Coast Ivy Leaguer, and not a wannabe either.
Nor are you a wannabe radical, being perfectly OK with leveraging that
privilege against your own class and making people like it. That is as authentic
as anyone in the Defiants but probably gets you little credit.
▶ You prefer “Mo.” You wear its similarity to a slur as a badge of ... well, of defiance.
▶ Unusual Looks and Public Identity require some perspective: you don’t look
like a bug out of your gear, but you’re so public that people can’t help thinking
of you that way.
▶ Look on the bright side, look for a way to a better solution, and never give up.
You could walk away from it all and enjoy your 0.01% perks ... but you won’t.
▶ Luck and Unluck together are the devil’s playground. They don’t cancel out,
but instead, you’re in luck when the chips are down and in for the business
when they’re up (I guess chips can be “up” as well as down), likely resulting in
a “Perils of Pauline” sequence throughout a session.
▶ Your Situations contain a significant time-bomb in the form of your grandfather,
which you don’t know about, so play up the incomplete-information drama as
much as you like until the inevitable arrives.
In combat or hazardous situations
▶ Be brave: get in there and make it count.
▶ Careful – although you’re bug-like, you’re not acrobatic and you can’t cling
to just any surface. As with all the Defiants you’re vastly more effective in
coordination with others, not just wading in to fight your corner.
▶ The technological basis for your Powers is not vulnerable to being grabbed or
broken as a basic move in the fight, but the power pack is, so make sure not to
mention it out loud.
▶ Think ahead. It takes a ½ Phase to switch Multiform slots, so you can’t do it
reactively.
▶ Your default slot is the Bedbug Slurp, as it doesn’t cost Endurance, so you can
repeatedly jump onto people, Drain them, and jump off, perhaps sacrificing
a Phase for a reactive Dodge. The Bonk and Spray are surprises for hand-to-
hand fighting if you have to stand your ground.
▶ There’s more to you than your Powers and actions; those Luck and Unluck
rolls turn combat into a topsy-turvy mess, so that victory may well go to the
quick-thinking team rather than the super-damaging attack squad.
275
Grimfire, Yuri “Rob” Velikov

The build
Situations
Unusual Looks 11- (demonic-looking, scary) 10
Unusual Looks 8- (reputation as lawless, thoughtless vigilante) 5
Psychological: Despises hypocrisy (often) 15
Psychological: Struggles with despair (often) 15
Psychological: Lonely (sometimes, irrational) 5 + 5 = 10
Side Effects, when using telepathy: Images 6d6 30
Hunted: The Eagle Forum (organization, ruinous) 20
Total points = 100 + 105 = 205
Characteristics
Strength 6d6 20
Presence 4d6 10
Body 12 40
Speed 3 20
Defense 14 4
Dexterity 12 10
Intelligence 12 10
Ego 11 0
Skills
Detective Work 5
Martial Moves 10
Find Weakness 10
Powers
Telepathy 4d6 20 ÷ 2 = 10
Skill-based with Detective Work (¼ Limitation), Burnout, mild
(¼ Limitation), No Range (½ Limitation)
Elemental Control: Hellish Fury 15 15
Force Field Defense 8, Usable for others; 30 Active Points 30 – 15 = 15
Strike (adds to punch): 2d6 Weaken Presence; 35 Active Points 35- 15 = 20
Missile Deflection 2x b/t Phases 30 – 15 = 15
Costs Endurance (½ Limitation), 2x Endurance (1 Limitation) 15 ÷ 2½ = 6
Total points = 205
Ratio = 109.5
276
Grimfire’s ratio is calculated by ignoring the Limitations (in italics), which

eliminates any calculation with a dividing sign. In that case, the total Points
would be 219. 219 ÷ 200, multiplied by 100 for easy reading = 109.5.
The build illustrates a useful point: that rounding can land you with 1-4 points
between multiples of 5. In that case, you can rebuild the content to resolve it,
which can be irritating or mess up your concept, or you can add the difference to
Defense, which is intentionally kept to 1 Point per Defense point for this purpose.
You’re permitted to get to 5 Points higher than the “limit” in doing so, as reflected
the total Points for Situations.
That’s why Grimfire has 5 more Points than the other heroes: his 15 Points for
the Missile Deflection slot are cut down by Limitations to land at 6, for a total of
201. I could have further limited the power to bring it to 5 points, but that would
entail an additional ½-value Limitation further, and the current Endurance cost
alone seems arduous enough. So 4 more points went into Defense to level him off
at a multiple of 5, and I increased his Situations to match it.
Given this option, nothing stops you from just building to 205 (i.e., 5 points
higher) in the first place, if you really have a thing about “getting the most” or
“keeping up.” But you can’t double-dip by going for 205, then discovering you
have some rounding that puts you above it, and then leveling that total off with
more points in Defense for 210. That’s when you do have to suck it up and go back
to the build.
In use
Situations
Unusual Looks 11- (demonic-looking, scary)
Unusual Looks 8- (reputation as lawless, thoughtless vigilante)
Psychological: Despises hypocrisy (often)
Psychological: Struggles with despair (often)
Psychological: Lonely (sometimes, irrational)
Side Effects, when using telepathy: Images 6d6
Hunted: The Eagle Forum (organization, ruinous)
277
Characteristics
Strength 6d6
Endurance cost: 6
Presence 4d6
Body 12
Speed 3
Phases 2 / 4 / 6
Defense 13
With Force Field, total Defense is 21, of which 8 is resistant
Dexterity 12
Intelligence 12
Ego 11
Skills
Detective Work 12-
Martial Moves
Dodge, Martial Block, Martial Throw, And Out
Find Weakness 11-
Powers
Telepathy 4d6
Skill-based with Detective Work (¼ Limitation), Burnout, mild (¼ Limitation), No Range (½
Limitation)
Elemental Control: Hellish Fury
Force Field Defense 8, Usable for others
Endurance cost: 4
Strike (adds to punch): 2d6 Weaken Presence
Endurance cost 7
Missile Deflection 11-, 2x b/t Phases
2x Endurance (1 Limitation)
Endurance cost: 12
278
Pro tips for playing Grimfire

Socially and in general
▶ He’s a little complex for a character example, as his background drew upon the
player’s own context and is tied to the interactions between the United States
and the former states of the Soviet Union during the 1990s. But let’s see.
▶ This is all about the birth of hope. You’re older, you were committed to a way
of life and a way to be an American hero, but are now shifting gears.
▶ In this, and despite all the hellish flame and threatening demeanor, you are
perhaps the biggest idealist of the team. How that matches with your older,
perhaps out-of-date standards for political issues is grist for the mill of play.
▶ Taking off the mask: this is reflected in having neither Public nor Secret
Identity, meaning that people know who you are, but you don’t mind and it
hasn’t made your personal life a focus of media attention. It’s important to
your teammates, however, as an indicator of your commitment.
▶ You’ve got some history and background, with at least some justification for
Intelligence rolls concerning organizations and super-powered individuals
with pasts of their own, and then Detective Work to investigate those cues
thoroughly.
▶ Examine the interplay of Detective Work, Telepathy, and Side Effects. If
you’re talking to someone to discover what they know (your teammates say
“interrogating” like it’s a bad thing), you can use Telepathy on them at close
range; however, it triggers Images, mainly of what they know but aren’t saying,
but often distorted to accentuate your Psychological Situations for loneliness
and despair. You don’t melt down and snivel over it, but this is a traumatic act.
▶ Take the time to set up a finishing punch, using the defensive Martial Moves
and Force Field to draw fire without being hit too badly, while using Find
Weakness as many times on the same target as possible. With a little teamwork
this can set up even the most sturdy opponent for a takedown.
▶ Even without this long-term tactic, the hand-to-hand combination of personal
protection with the Force Field and punishing Punch is fearsome – no one
wants to get hit for a 2d6 drop in Presence, and doing it to someone lands him
quite a good bonus for Presence Attacks against others, even in combat.
▶ It’s sort of a signature move to shelter a person in danger from gunfire or
falling debris at close range by extending the Force Field. You can use it on
yourself, on someone else you’re touching, or both, but in the latter case,
you pay Endurance for both (8). This gets pricey if the high-energy Missile
Deflection comes into it too – Grimfire is built to suffer a little for his efforts
to protect others.
279
The Which, Isabela García

The build
Situations
Secret Identity 10
Side Effect, when Think Twice fails: 2d6 Entangle 20
Psychological Limitation: Complex morality, understands both sides 15
(often)
Psychological Limitation: Brutally honest to others (sometimes) 5
Psychological Limitation: Secretive to/about self (sometimes, irrational) 10
Dependent NPC: twin sister Tina (Unlucky 2d6, 10; Hunted: Domain, 10 + 20 = 30
20)
Dependent NPC: parents (Psychological: Homophobic, sometimes, 5) 5
Total points = 100 + 100 = 200
Characteristics
Strength 3d6 5
Presence 4d6 10
Body 12 20
Speed 3 20
Defense 10 0
Dexterity 12 10
Intelligence 12 10
Ego 12 10
Skills
Stealth 5
Think Twice (VPP Control Skill) 5
Skill Level: +1 to Think Twice 5
Lucky 3d6 15
280
Powers
Invisibility, 20 Active Points
Skill-based, with Stealth (¼ Limitation) 20 ÷ 1¼ = 16
Teleport 10 hexes, 20 Active Points
Linked to Invisibility (½ Limitation) 20 ÷ 1½ = 13
Variable Power Pool: This/That, 40 Points 40
VPP Control, 20 Power Points
Control Limitation: Tricky (¼ Limitation) 20 ÷ 1¼ = 16
Total points = 200
Ratio = 109.0
The Variable Power Pool cannot be modified; its Points are its Points no matter what.
The Control carries the blanket Tricky Limitation, which is rated at ½, but as applied to
the Control is only ¼. This would be the case even if a dozen Limitations were piled on
there.
For Powers constructed using the Pool, however, the Tricky Limitation is treated
normally, as a ½ Limitation reducing the Points. If you select other Limitations for them
as well, then you might have quite a few full-powered (i.e. 40 Active Points) effects
running simultaneously.
The Which’s ratio is calculated by ignoring the Limitations (in italics), which eliminates
any calculation with a dividing sign. In that case, the total Points would be 218. 218 ÷
200, multiplied by 100 for easy reading = 109.0.
In use
Situations
Secret Identity
Side Effect, when Think Twice fails: 2d6 Entangle
Psychological Limitation: Complex morality, understands both sides (often)
Psychological Limitation: Brutally honest to others (sometimes)
Psychological Limitation: Secretive to/about self (sometimes, irrational)
Dependent NPC: twin sister Tina (Unlucky 2d6; Hunted: Domain)
Dependent NPC: parents (Psychological: Homophobic, sometimes)
281
Characteristics
Strength 3d6
Endurance cost: 3
Presence 4d6
Body 12
Speed 3
Phases 2 / 4 / 6
Defense 13
Potentially augmented by Powers from VPP
Dexterity 12
Intelligence 12
Ego 12
Skills
Stealth 12-
Think Twice 13- (includes Skill Level)
Skill Level: +1 to Think Twice
Lucky 3d6
Powers
Invisibility to ordinary sight
Skill-based, with Stealth
Endurance cost: 4
Teleport 10 hexes
Linked to Invisibility
Endurance cost: 4
Variable Power Pool: This/That, 40 Points
Pool, 40 Points
VPP Control
Tricky 12-
282
Pro tips for playing The Which

Socially and generally
▶ You try to maintain an ordinary life in a complex family with high expectations,
partly in support of your more openly activist twin sister.
▶ Your relationship with Tina is central: she openly does what you do secretly,
enduring the family pressure, and a great deal of what you do is dedicated
to nailing her efforts to the wall. This has resulted in Domain mistakenly
thinking that she is The Which, not you.
▶ You’re a thinker: “Is this really right? Is that really wrong?” perhaps to the
aggravation of your more focused teammates. But without you, they could
easily steer too far, and by now, they know it.
▶ Your powers are tactically and philosophically demanding, as well as attracting
powerful entities’ attention. Furthermore, they go hand-in-hand with your
attitude, that things really can go this way or that way, and we bear the burden
of responsibility for each choice.
▶ You’re the only Defiant who has not unmasked, directly contradicting one of
the team’s explicit goals. You may eventually decide “which” way to go: full
secrecy or full truth, which would violate a Psychological Situation in either
case, unless you can find another way through.
▶ The fundamental tactic is to stay hidden and invisible, using customized
versions of Awareness or Telepathy to gather as much information as possible,
and to coordinate among your teammates. Then switch to an optimized attack,
preferably from full surprise. However ...
▶ You are about as wild-card a character as one may find, not only wielding
a substantial Variable Power Pool, but also coping with its unpredictable
targeting due to being Tricky and the paralyzing effects of losing control.
▶ Those effects are compounded further with substantial Luck, so that when the
probability-alternatives screw up the worst, things often turn out for the best.
With you and Anybug on the field, it’s like a reality warp for everyone.
The Variable Power Pool is for the bold, especially if it includes a Control Skill.
You may or even must create new arrays of Powers on the fly, including a bevy
of Modifications for each, with constraints both on each Power’s Active Points
and on the total Points they comprise. It not only takes practice, but requires the
mind-set that enjoys habitually rewriting a subset of hero creation in-play.
283
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285
appeNDIX • the DeFIaNtS

PANEL 1
Domain: My mind-sphere – gone!
PANEL 2
The Which: But I – am – here!
PANEL 3 (INSET)
No text
PANEL 4
Anybug: Gramps ... Gramps, it’s me.
PANEL 5
Anybug: And you’re you.
Devour: Miles? ... Mo?
Ray
a t Ruby
t h is is
s : I agree ft out. Th ry
note be le -sto
Page imfire can tuff, no in
r c s
and G retty iconi ary.
s o m e p n e c ess
e c t i v es
persp
286
Comic Title
NOW Point Total
Character Name Hero Name
Situations
Utilities
Recovery Value Stunned Value Knockout Endurance Body
1 1 1 1 1 1
Dice End Dice Total Resistant Other Luck Unluck
Strength Presence Dexterity Intelligence Ego Defense Luck Phases
Punch +0/+0
Grab -1/-2
Dodge NA/+3
Coordinate -2/-2
Assist +0/-1
Move Attack: By -2/-2
Move Attack: Through -4/-4
Skills Maneuvers
Powers
Name Powers Effect Range/Area End
Modifiers Slot
Modifiers Slot
Modifiers Slot
Modifiers Slot
Modifiers Slot
Modifiers Slot
Character Name Hero Name
NOW Personal Concept
Power Concept
Problem Concept
Situations
Situation Total Points
Characteristics
Strength
Characteristic (Limitations) Base Value Points Per Value New Value Limitation Value Total Points
Presence
Body
Speed
Defense
Dexterity
Intelligence
Ego
Skills
Skill Points Per Value Total Points Skill Points Per Value Total Points
Powers
Power Points Per Value Limitation Value Total Points
Point Totals
+ + + =
Total NP Spent NP Situations TP Characteristics TP Skills TP Powers TP Total Character Points

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NOW

From Champions the Super Role-Playing Game,

Cover Art: Editing:

Interior Art: Development:

Diamonds in the garbage

A golden-skinned hero best understood as Hippie Space Jesus explained it

This game, your game

What is this version?

The what now?

Table-top superhero role-playing games:

Table-top superhero role-playing games:

Comic Book Publication History

Comic Book Publication History

Ruby Ray’s difficult circumstances should be pretty clear. She’s a principled

Two of the Characteristics, Strength and Presence, work similarly. An ordinary

Acrobatics provides a defensive bonus given a minimum amount of movement,

Space and time

Details and Oddballs

As written by Stan Lee during the 1960s, published by Magazine Management

Setting and concept

Other examples, some of them already played, some of them planned.

▶ The damned die hard, in Los Angeles, California

▶ Powers are silly

▶ Sooner or later, your powers will kill you

▶ Super-powered people are high-end celebrities

▶ Powers are ideals and emotions

▶ Powers are proprietary IP, enforced

The Hartford game

Team & title

The Hartford game and others

This technique is often obvious: hit someone with a fire-blast in a paper

Comics adaptations have worsened the origin problem by bloating a six-page

All about points

Nuts and bolts

To clarify a little bit of the processing, I focused on her identity, opinions,

You can use 4 points to upgrade a base point to be resistant

Speed is your number of actions relative to everyone else.

Ruby Ray’s Characteristics focus on energy, impact, and speed.

Awareness Force Field Shrinking

Dependent Non-Player Character

Characteristic Base value Points Example

Characteristic Base value Points Secondary values

Power Points 5/+[1 Resistant Defense for 1 side of 1 hex]

Levels of Growth Height in hexes Reach in hexes Area

The hero’s reach is extended accordingly, permitting close-range attacks beyond

Power Points 5/+1d6

A Variable Power Pool typically maximizes either flexibility or modularity. The

Affects Desolid (½)

Group Effect (1)

High Impact (½)

Invisible Effects (1)

No Endurance Cost (1)

Usable at Range (½)

Usable on/for Others

Increased Endurance (1)

Modifiers, meet Frameworks

Therefore the Point construction before Limitations looks like this:

Consider also Grimfire’s Elemental Control, provided in the Appendix, defined

T he cover of this book features a villain front-and-center. Playing them is my

Bad guys – almost

Just the same – almost

Situations Specifications Points

The total is 225 points, with a ratio of 119.6.