@zombiegenesis said in OC Superhero Discussion:
I think the crux of the OC superhero game is that everyone is going to want something different. I've seen these discussions happen before and they've generally ended with "Oh, you had me till you said X" or "Well, if it wasn't for Y I'd play there!"
Just my opinion, but I think that every player of every game that has been or will be created are all looking for the same thing. Investment. What differs is the level/intensity of investment and the method of investment.
Some players find investment through the character. Some through the game plot/setting. Some through relationships/TS. It's all different, but all looking for the same basic need: a reason to care about the game.
What it comes down to is the old adage: You can please some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time. You need to have a game that's as flexible as possible to allow players to meet their need for investment, but you also have to make sure that first, your needs as a GM are being met. And this does mean accepting that some people are going to, as a friend of mine put it, 'yuk your yum'. Quite possibly a lot of people will.
With that in mind, here's my idea for creating player investment. Every player is able to create 1 Homage character and 1 Legacy character. These two characters can be combined into a single character choice.
An Homage character is an FC with the serial numbers filed off. See my above post.
A Legacy character is the prime character in charge a a specific origin, tech, species, or other bit of important lore. Every character that falls into that lore needs to coordinate with the Legacy character to make sure everything lines up.
Example: Player A creates Praetorian, a superstrong, flying, bulletproof hero that was sent to our world, as an infant, from an alternate dimension where the Roman Empire never collapsed, called Earth Romanus. This particular dimension was disappearing as the result of an omniversal event. The trip between dimensions imbued the infant Praetor with incredible super powers. He is (currently) the only survivor of Earth Romanus. Praetorian would be both an Homage character (Superman) and a Legacy character for Earth Romanus, even though his app states he is the only survivor.
A few years later, Player B comes along. They like the idea of Praetorian and check if they can have a Earth Romanus character as well; a female cousin to Praetorian whose parents managed to send her to the 'Prime' Earth Dimension with her cousin, but in a separate pod. For whatever wibbly-wobbly dimensional reason, she arrives years after Praetorian does, just now showing up. Player A works with Player B to make sure powers and history and weaknesses all work with their established character and now, Lady Centurion is born as an Homage character (Supergirl). She's not a Legacy character, because Praetorian is still in charge of the Earth Romanus legacy.
