featherynscale | Diversions, in versions.

I'm working on something to do as a little diversion beginning Januaryish, and I'm looking for some input on the process. You see, I've got a vast and mostly unwarranted affection for Palladium's Heroes Unlimited game. Recently (okay, at DragonCon), I acquired a well-loved (i.e. battered and annotated) rulebook for same. And I'm thinking, let's do some hero gaming.

Here's my plan: Because I lack the ability to add anything really time-intensive to my schedule, and I know this is an issue for practically everyone else I know as well, I'd like to put together a monthly/bi-monthly 'pickup' game of Heroes. Players can bring their own characters, or use one from a stable of characters I'm building. Each session will be roughly equal to one comic book's worth of story, though stories will arc from session to session.

Players will be encouraged to 'own' at least three characters each -- at least one hero, at least one villain, and if you like, one 'plot device' (i.e. the plucky journalist who is a love interest for a hero or villain, the aged relative who is all a hero or villain has left in the world, a henchman of some sort, etc.). From among those characters (and any claimed from the character pool), I'll draw a few at random to feature in each session. Some days, you're the hero. Some days, you're the villain, and so on. Some sessions may require pre-game briefing for the heroes or the villains, but in the actual session, heroes and villains will generally play against each other, with mere mortals caught in the middle.

Because each session should be more-or-less self-contained, players can drift in and out as they like -- if someone doesn't show up for a session, his character is simply not featured in this issue.

I'm thinking of tweaking the game rules a bit, since Palladium is really weak on the 'leveling-up' concept. Probably the way it will work is that players won't get experience points at all, but can add to skills or combat numbers according to what skills they actually use successfully, and will earn money either by pulling of schemes or by being rewarded for their heroics. I'll add in some other ways to advance in various areas as well, but the way the game is set up by default for advancement is sort of crap. I'll also be adding in the ability to build headquarters, which I think is a wildly funny concept.

The tone of the game is pretty tongue-in-cheek. I'm thinking of something with a near-future feel, with some weirdnesses in the setting to account for all of the different possible hero types the system allows for (which include aliens, robots, mutants, magic users, superspies, and so on). If this sounds like fun to anybody local, drop me a comment and I'll add you to my contact list for when the games start. Also, I'm currently working on building my setting, so if you have thoughts about what sorts of things would be in the ideal genre-bending comic book city, feel free to drop those here too.

Also, I thought I had a superhero icon, but I don't! V is the best I can do, and he's a Discworld joke. If I'm going to run this thing, I'm going to need a new icon.

EDIT: Possibly In: