Last week we discussed running a superhero roleplaying game using war as a backdrop in broad terms and some general things that you can do to make it a better experience for those sitting at your table. Ways that you can drive home the enormity of the situation without making things too dark and hopeless. One of the biggest ways suggested was to give the PCs plenty of chances to use their powers to gain little victories in the war. Allow the PCs to use their powers in unusual ways in order to help allies or civilians that may be in the line of fire. Simply put – let them be heroic. But the problem with giving that kind of advice is that unless you’ve built the characters yourself, it can be hard to guess what kinds of heroes the players want to play and what kinds of powers they want to have.
But all’s not lost! There are common types of powers that people associate with superheroes. And this week we’re going to take a look at some of those powers. In order to figure out what these might be, I went to Facebook and took a very informal poll asking friends and fellow gamers what powers or heroes they think of instantly when they think of the word “superhero.” I added in some of my own ideas, but came up with what I think is a fairly solid list of superpowers that your players might come to the table with.
Flight
This was by far the most overwhelming answer to my question. And it makes sense – it’s not that hard of a task to think of an established superhero that is capable of flying, either on their own or through technological means. What does this power grant you in a wartime scenario? Well, first things first, it allows you to take to the air to completely avoid enemy combatants. You might be capable of flying out of the range of conventional weaponry. And you might be small enough to fly in under enemy radar. If you’re strong enough to carry other men with you, you could insert entire units of men into occupied territory, albeit more slowly than a plane, but potentially undetected.
The power of flight also tends to go hand in hand with speed. And while you might not be capable of supersonic flight like Superman, you are still capable of covering great distances much more quickly than those on the ground. You’re also able to avoid areas of rough or impassable terrain. This kind of mobility affords you the ability to scout ahead (provided you are capable of seeing at such great distances) and run necessary intel faster than regular ground-based couriers could.
Having an ally that can take to the air also means a constant form of air support, whether that support is conventional weapons or other powers they may have at their disposal. If the enemy is dug in behind fortifications, the ability to drop munitions behind their cover to flush them out is powerful indeed. With the appropriate suite of powers, you are even capable of dogfighting with enemy aircraft (or enemy supers capable of flight as well).
Super Strength
Another fan favorite, super strength is another power that is easy to find in established superheroes. Captain America, Superman, Luke Cage, the Hulk – all of these heroes are capable of great feats of strength (some more so than others). Super strength may not seem as immediately useful in a game where enemy soldiers are shooting at you with guns and throwing grenades at you, but its real utility I believe comes into play in non-combat scenarios.
You can breach things that might otherwise require conventional explosives, and while your ability is generally anything but subtle, you can use it in such a way that you can gain access to a fortification or enemy location without giving yourself away with an explosion and a fireball.
You’re also able to help clean up a battlefield more easily than the common man. This ability becomes more useful with the civilian population than it does with other heroes, but when the chance comes to endear yourself to a village or a town that just suffered damage from an enemy attack – the ability to clear their streets of rubble and remove damaged and broken vehicles from the streets becomes very useful indeed. And if there are structures that need to be safely brought down? Well, you’re a human wrecking ball.
And even in a game of gunfights between opposing forces, don’t discount the ability to quickly and quietly take out enemy combatants – especially for a commando force. If you’re able to combine super strength with other stealthy powers that let you avoid detection, you can be incredibly adept at getting places you’re not supposed to be and accomplish your mission without giving yourself away.
Invulnerability/Regeneration
In a game where the threat of grievous bodily harm is ever present, the ability to ignore or recover from wounds is powerful indeed, and we see it time and again in comics. Superman simply stands there while criminal’s bullets bounce off of his chest. Wolverine and Deadpool come back time and again from wounds that would have killed anyone else.
This is a very self-serving power, and often very reactionary, making it hard to think of ways to utilize it outside of combat or in service of others. However, placing yourself in harm’s way to protect someone else from a bullet is always a good way of earning their favor. And being able to walk into a burning building to safely extract trapped allies or civilians is also a great source of heroics and a wonderful way to externalize that power.
Super Speed
The last power I want to discuss with you this week is that possessed by the speedster archetype – characters like the Flash that can move faster than the human eye can detect. While it is a wonderful thing indeed to be able to outrun bullets on the battlefield, super speed comes with another great series of benefits outside of combat.
First off, you are quite possibly an even better courier than a hero with flight provided the terrain isn’t rough or impassable. But even then, you might be able to move fast enough that it isn’t going to slow you down much or at all. Maybe you can move fast enough to phase shift through objects in your way. Either way, this allows you to get needed intel moved between sometimes distant units in a manner that cannot be intercepted by the enemy. Similarly it allows you to scout the enemy, moving in and out more quickly than they can detect you. And since you’re likely closer to them than someone in the air, you can get more details on munitions and numbers as well as the general look of the men.
If you’re strong enough to carry a person, you can make a great field ambulance. You have the ability to get a wounded soldier to an area where he can receive critical, life saving first aid and surgery much faster than a conventional vehicle. Even better, you can be back to the battlefield just as quickly to grab more wounded. This is great for when you’re in the thick of things as well as after the action. Seconds count in these kinds of scenarios, and can mean the difference between a scar and a joint that acts up when the pressure drops and a body bag. And you can help to clear out a burning building of occupants quickly enough for them to avoid smoke inhalation and nasty burns.
Finally, you might pair the ability to move incredibly fast with the concept of being able to just generally do things more quickly and efficiently or do many things at the same time. While you might not be able to help with the heavy lifting like your ally with super strength you can help clear a battlefield just as well. You might not be able to pick up the truck and move it out of the middle of the road, but you might be able to disassemble it and move its parts to a place it’s not in the way. The net result is the same.
Those are only the first four powers that I’m going to talk about. I could go on, and I shall, but in another article. Next week we’ll look at some other common power ideas and ways they can be used to earn those little victories to make the players feel suitably heroic in a setting that is way bigger than them.
Ben Erickson
