Comic books were a pretty crazy place back in the day. A paragon of truth and justice would have an entire story devoted to meeting a monkey wearing the same costume, or playing amateur baseball, or even taking over the world, none of which are really superheroic activities. And it all goes back to normal by the next issue. Sounds kind of like an RTD, doesn’t it?
There are two types of stats: Ability stats, and skill stats. Ability stats represent what your body and mind are, and skill stats represent your knowledge of how to use them better than the average human.
There are six ability stats: Physique, Resilience, Wits, Knowledge, Magnitude, and Precision.
Physique represents short-term efforts of body, such as sprinting or staying in the fight after a nasty punch.
Resilience represents long-term efforts of body, such as running a marathon or spending some time lying down to let that bruise recover.
Wits represents short-term efforts of mind, like dodging a kick or tying a knot.
Knowledge represents long-term efforts of mind, like learning martial arts or how to build a bomb.
Magnitude represents the scale and strength of your superpower.
Precision represents your accuracy with and control over your superpower. It’s technically a skill stat, but it’s important enough to be included in with the ability stats.
There are countless skills that can be learned, too many to create an exhaustive list of.
Each skill is associated with a stat. When rolling a die for the skill, a die is rolled for the stat as well, and the result depends on both. (This is how using your superpower works: roll both Magnitude and Precision.) As such, there aren’t really critfails or overshoots, just degrees of success and failure.
A stat of 0 represents a crippled human (in ability) or an untrained person who shouldn’t be doing this at all (in skills). 1d3-1 is the roll without modifiers for this stat. (33% 0, 33% 1, 33% 2)
A stat of 1 represents a below-average human (in ability) or a neophyte who can avoid making things worse (in skills). 2d2-1 is the roll without modifiers for this stat. (25% 1, 50% 2, 25% 3)
A stat of 2 represents an average human (in ability) or an adept who can do the things you would normally expect from the profession (in skills). 1d3+1 is the roll without modifiers for this stat. (33% 2, 33% 3, 33% 4)
A stat of 3 represents an above-average human (in ability) or a quite capable person who edges into “master” territory (in skills). 2d2+1 is the roll without modifiers for this stat. (25% 3, 50% 4, 25% 5)
A stat of 4 represents the best human in the state (in ability) or an expert who knows the field like the back of their hand (in skills). 1d3+3 is the roll without modifiers for this stat. (33% 4, 33% 5, 33% 6)
A stat of 5 represents a world-class human (in ability) or a grandmaster-tier elite (in skills). 2d2+3 is the roll without modifiers for this stat. (25% 5, 50% 6, 25% 7)
But before monkeys, or baseball, or world domination, each superhero has to have an origin story. No superhero starts out as an established force, and few games work well without a little testing of the mechanics.
Name: What name does your character go by?
Alias: What name will the citizens one day cheer?
Backstory: Not the origin story, that’s something different. What life has your character led up to this point, and where are they in life now?
Catalyst: How did your character gain superpowers, and what are they? If the answer to the first question is “Intense training”, what made you go out and do your first act of heroism? If the answer to the first question is “Innate superiority of an alien species”, how did your character get to (and decide to stay on) Earth? This is what you’ll be starting out doing. Details may change depending on your actions, but the broad strokes will stay the same.
You have 18 points to assign to stats to put them between 1 and 5. At most one may be 1, and at most one may be 5.
Physique:
Resilience:
Wits:
Knowledge:
Magnitude:
Precision:
You have as many points for skill stats as your level of Knowledge.
Skills:
Author
Topic: Silver Age Superhero RTD (Read 16605 times)