MEGA TEAMS - THE SECRET TO FLEXIBLE GAMES

Tired of not being able to play when players don't show up? Worried that your campaign won't progress because of so much missed time? Do you have a player who's character dies all the time or who is fickle and never wants to play the same character? 

No problem, play a mega team! 

Mega teams are those teams that seem to have an endless membership. Justice League, Legion of Superheroes, Avengers, Defenders, or even The Green Lantern Corps. These teams usually have extensive memberships made up of an ever-changing, ever-growing roster of primary members, secondary and even back-up members. New members come, go and are and are not available as other missions take up their time or their own private lives keep them out of action. 

These sorts of teams allow for a nearly infinite flexibility in both individual adventures as well as campaign progression. They ccomplish this in a number of ways but it all comes down to allowing play to continue no matter who shows up. Three of the most common and useful to gamers are as follows - 

1) Guest Appearances: These are sessions where character who were not originally involved in the main campaign appear in one or more sessions. This can be done for a number of rreasons such as a new player joining the game or an occasional player being available on a given night. They are also useful for when a regular player has a character taken out of action. The popular Marvel Team-Up series is a great example of this but guest appearances are very common even in the main continuity of comics. 

2) Crossovers: Similar to guest appearances, crossovers have a bit more intent to them. These are best used when a GM know he's not going to have all of one or more of his regular players available for the game for a period of time allowing him to plan a crossover event that includes the characters that will be available. 

3) Spin-Offs: These games are most often played with completely new characters and are best used as palate-clensers, fill-in games, or ways to accomodate an influx of new players. Spin-offs can include characters from the main campaign but should not do so unless they take place at some other point in continuity or those characters are not involved in the main game anymore. They are also a good place to reintroduce returning regular players who may have been left behind by the main campaign. Good examples of this are Justice League International, The New Mutants, or West Coast Avengers. 

The main benefit to keeping campaigns going and enriching the overall campaign experience is that the game and thus the players' comic book universe is perpetually growing as each adventure and character comes with its own NPCs, settings, plots and world-building that grows the whole and creates feedback loop. It is also important to not get overly wound up on ironclad continuities. Comic book continuity has always been a bit loose at times using flawed logic, handwavium and retconning to explain things.

MORE THOUGHTS ON THEMED TEAMS

I thought it would be fun to talk, some more, about another fun way to setup and play a superhero game - theme teams.

A themed team can come in many forms. Whether is is a common origing, style, or focus the one thing they all have in common is that every member fits the theme in some way. Themes can be tight, like the Metal Men pictured along with this article, or loose like the X-Men who all adhere to the theme of "mutants" but are all over the place within that theme. Tight themes are, in my opnion, trickier to work with but ultimately mor satisfying from an artistic point of view but a looser theme can allow for much greater freedom for players to create their characters. 

Some themes are more stylistic, like the Serpent Society, which is a loosely themed team that relies far more on aesthetics and naming conventions than anything more concrete for ots theme. the Green Lantern Corps is an incredibly tight themed team where all the members share pretty much the same power set with what variation there is based on their experience and whatever species-specific traits they might have. Power Pack has the theme of "kids" and, on the surface, that is it. But Power Pack also has a common theme in terms of the origins of their powers. There are some teams, like the Avengers, has a theme that is so loose as to not really be a theme at all. "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" is about the only real theme they have and that tagline seems relatively meaningless given the wide disparity it power level between the team's members. 

In my experience it is better to start with a tight theme and then loosen it as needed. If your theme is "mutants" but one player really has his heart set on playing an Iron Man type character then maybe work with him and let his mutant ability be something like hyper-intelligence, mechanical aptitude, or even some sort machine speech which allows him to make the suit and other cool stuff like the team's transport, training room, etc..Similarly, if the players were making villain characters who were member of the Serpent Society and a character wanted to make an Iron Man type character, you just need to make sure whatever battlesuit they make for themself adhered to the theme of "snakes". Just remember, tight or loose, the important thing is that every player makes their character fit the theme. 

When conceptualizing your character it is up to you, as a player, to make your character fit the theme. While this may seem chalenging at times, it is ultimately your responsibility, in an agreed-upon theme to make your character fit. A handy trick is to look at other themed characters and try to imagine them as something other than the themed character they are. When you realize that that spider-themed, web-slingers, could just as easily have been made as a battlesuit or commando with a handy bag of tricks rather than radioactive spider powers, this reverse engineering of theme can help you to realize that theme is really not all that tricky. 

So, next time you sit down to run or play a superheroes game, consider giving the team a theme. It can be challenging, creatively rewarding and in the end just plain fun.

WHY NOT BORROW A HERO FOR YOUR NEXT HERO? - USING SUPERHERO TROPES TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

It is safe to say that nearly any concept for a superhero character has been tried, done, and likely done to death. This can often lead to a feeling frustration when trying to come up with a new character to play in TTRPGs but it doesn't have to.

The truth of the matter is that the massive body of comic book work has already provided you with all the character ideas you will ever need. Find yourself a character you like and as the time-honored comic book question of "what if?". This what if can take any form but the idea is that you are going to remake the character in your own way. A new name, and a new take on the theme and Ben's your uncle and you have a new character. Even if you are making a new version of a very iconic character that exists in the game world you are playing in, it doesn't matter. There are plenty of cities, alien worlds, other dimensions, alternate timelines and kingdoms in hidden parts of the world to justify the existence of your character. How do you think the real comics folks do it?

If you're still not sold, just remember that the professionals have been swiping character from each other for decades, even duplicating characters that exist in their own comics universes. If that's still not enough, remember, David Kraft created Demon Hunter for Atlas Comics then recreated the exact same character as Devil Slayer for Marvel and then later Buckler, an artist who worked with Kraft on the previous two incarnations of the character, took the same character to his own own Galaxia magazine as Bloodwing.

THEMED TEAMS

When it comes to superhero teams, themed teams are a fun and quick way to establish a sense of place and character for the PCs in your game. It can be argued that almost all superhero teams are themed but for the purposes of this discussion we will be talking about teams that are perhaps a bit more specific in their theme. Yes, "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" might be considered the theme of the Avengers but as themes go this is very general and casts a very broad net when it comes to a sense of person and place in the universe. 

Whether you are talking about classics such as the X-Men or Fantastic Four or cult classics such as ROM and the Space Knights of Galador, or even new favorites like the Spiderverse, establishing a theme up front will provide your players with a shared connection between their characters while not necessarily limiting their character creation options. The theme of "mutant" or "cosmic energy derived powers" certainly hasn't limited the diversity of powers and in some cases we have seen crossover characters such as Cipher, Magik, Mr Fantastic, and Wolverine who combine their mutant abilities with other power sources such as technology and magic. 

A stronger theme can also be very fun and provide a sort of limited palette for creating characters. Great examples of this are concepts such as ROM and the Space Knights, The Spiderverse, or, in the realm of villains, the Serpent Society. In each of these cases there is a stronger sense of theme that extends beyond a simple shared origin. Each character is now a variation on a very identifiable theme and from this come myriad iterations on that theme. Finding new ways to come up with special powers for a Space Knight that distinguishes them from the other knights or a fun way to interpret the Spider-Man concept can be incredibly fun and worthwhile. 

So, next time you are starting a superhero game, consider picking a strong theme and running with it.

BEN 10 - ONE OF THE BEST ORIGINAL SUPERHEROES IN A LONG TIME

I don't think this show gets enough attention. The original Ben 10 (not so much the shows that followed) was a breath of fresh air in the cartoon superhero genre. While the main character was a kid and the show was clearly directed at younger audiences, I feel the show had plenty to offer older audiences. 

While the titular Ben has most of the power in the show, it is imperfect and quirky, making it fun and unpredictable. Along for the ride but by no means background characters are his cousin Gwen and their grandpa. Gwen is tech savvy and has much to offer along the way while grandpa seems very aware of what is going on for most of the series and ultimate is revealed to be something of a Men in Black sort of guy. 

The villains in the show are a combination of enemy-of-the-day and ongoing foes with many return appearances and even evolutions in powers and then nature of the characters. This creates an immensely entertain romp through a very good comic book universe of its own. There are the usual combination of disasters, low-level thugs, and super villains to keep the action ever-changing and interesting. 

Ben's powers are also an amazing bit of power and world building, using a strange bit of tech to produce a set of powers that are not fully understood and ever-evolving but which also tie into the world at large. The limitations of his powers also make for a fun set of parameters in which the character can be written or, in a TTRPG, could be played.

SPACE KNIGHTS

The Space Knight of Galador make for a great cosmic campaign. Offering you many timeframes in which to play the Space Knights can be played as a war story sort of campaign as you play through their conflict with the Dire Wraiths or any sort of space adventuring you would like to play in. 

One of the benefits of the playing a Space Knights campaign is that all Space Knights share certain base powers. This allows the group of players to really get to know and share their collective knowledge of their characters' base powers. Shared powers are then enhanced by each Space Knight having some unique powers and gimmicks that distinguish them from the others, allowing each player to still stand out. 

With the entirety of space as your playground and a vast collection of aliens, cosmic entities and mysteries as the inspiration for your adventures it is hard to see this sort of campaign ever growing stale.

WHY SUPERHERO RPGS ARE SOME OF THE BEST RPGS YOU CAN PLAY

When it comes to TTRPGs there is always that moment when you sort of hit that invisible wall where you feel you are either out of material or maybe you are just tired of playing the game you are playing. This is perfectly natural and is generally a biproduct of simple creative burnout or feeling the constraints of the genre into which your game is placed. Superhero games really don't suffer this and offer an incredibly free environment in which to play and here are some reasons why?

1) Easy Transition Between Characters One of the biggest things to haunt players of TTRPGs is character burnout. We have all been there with that character that seemed like a great idea or was fun to begin with but is wearing thin. Comic books traditionally involve easy ins and out for characters without ever needing much in the way of plot or explanation. Between guest appearances, random team-ups, reserve team members, the seemingly flimsy barriers between realities, cosmic realms, and much much more, there are so many reasons a struggling player could swap out a character or take a break and divert to a different character for a bit.2) Guilt-free Character Death One of the staples of comic book stories is that nobody really ever dies. Death and dying are handled pretty fast and loose and while character may be presumed dead or even dead for a while, they eventually come back in some fashion. Even if the original character dies, their costume and mantle is often picked up by another and the hero persona continues even though it might be a new person under the mask. Long dead heroes can be returned through all manner of means from mystical reanimation, fake or false deaths (in any number of forms). A hero may not have died but been kidnapped and brainwashed by a victorious villain, only to be rehabilitated by his former teammates or some well-meaning bystander.

3) Good Fun Comic books, even at their darkest and grimmest (with a few exceptions) are still just great fun. There isn't much that doesn't feel right in a comic. Any character, any backstory, any event just feels right. Seldom is something objectively unfun in a comic book setting. The most mundane activities can easily be turned into amazing fun and adventure in the context of superheroes. A day at work, a trip to the mall, or a vacation can quickly turn into another action-packed issue.

4) Flexible Pacing The wide variety of comic book stories spans such a huge array of topics and styles of storytelling. This is true not just across different titles but within the same title. We frequently see the same characters in action-filled romps and going through emotional and heavy stories and everything in between. For a tabletop game, this means being able to tell so many different stories with the same characters.

5) A Weird and Wild Universe Superhero universes are generally huge, filled with all manner of exotic people and places. From fictional cities and countries to alien peoples and into god and cosmic entities a comic book universe is a vast, unending playground. Not only can you choose to start in any one of these amazing places, but you can freely transition from one to another without sacrificing the integrity of your characters and stories. The X-Men may have started in a posh mansion in New York but they have travelled the cosmos and visited lost worlds, travelled through time and dimensions. Characters from all over the multiverse can come together, interact, and even form up into the same teams. The Avengers have gods and aliens among them. The Justice League has several aliens as well as earthborn interstellar police officers.

6) Playing With, Outside, or Against the Conventions A lovely part of comic books and superheroes is that they are so widely known and have such established tropes that they provide easily accessible frameworks upon which to tell stories. Whether you adhere to the traditions of comic book stories, work outside of them or blatantly work against them your players are certain to get it and enjoy the met knowledge of what you are doing. Because comic books are traditionally told from a very omniscient point of view, it is easier for players to be comfortable with metaknowledge and playing off of it.

7) No Pretense of Balance Because the characters in comic books are traditionally depicted as have a very mixed bag of power sets and power levels operating alongside one another TTRPGs based around the genre do not suffer so much from the expectation that characters will or should be balanced nor is there an expectation that their enemies will be matched to them. This makes it quite easy for players to be happy with their characters regardless of their power level and for GMs to create stories that involve enemies with highly variable power levels. Part and parcel with this is the concept of teamwork and the struggle to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. Characters with wide-ranging power levels have an opportunity to find new ways that their individual powers can be used together and weaker characters are encourages and often rewarded for finding unique solutions to defeating enemies well outside their power level. Let's not forget that Spider-Man has defeated Juggernaut despite having no powers that can match the unstoppable mutant.

I hope that I have demonstrated to you why I think that superhero TTRPGs may be the ultimate in TTRPG fun and freedom, perfect for one-shorts, short campaigns, or an ongoing campaign in an ever-changing cast of characters and stories.