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A jam submission

Super - ashcanView project page

a few-shot superhero ttrpg
Submitted by Arcane Atlas Games (@AtlasArcane), Peter Graham (@peter_graham_) — 6 hours, 29 minutes before the deadline
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Super - ashcan's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
SUBSTANCE#124.0004.000
Overall#253.1003.100
STYLE#272.2002.200

Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted

I'm a sucker for superheroes, I'm a sucker for "society that bans superheroes" and I'm especially a sucker for "superheroes that absolutely do not give a damn about the superhero ban". So, ultimately, yes. I like this a whole lot.

I'm seeing a few parallels to MASKS with the origin & drive beats, but handled completely differently in that each beat has its own unique effect on the character as opposed to granting the character the option to choose one of many advancement effects, and I wholly appreciate that each one has at least one "negative" outcome from a beat where its occurrence would be out of character - self-doubt, overconfidence, collateral damage.

When you tidy this up for a final version don't forget to clarify your tables' dice outcomes - you mention a D36 table but then both axes on it go up to 6 rather than one of them going up to 3, and similar formatting with your other tables. It might be better to just state D66 (especially since almost nobody has a d3, and a d2's just a coin flip which would make the axes even less readily parsed).

I'm very eager to see a final version of this one.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for checking it out!

That’s really useful feedback. We were already thinking that ‘Roll 2 dice’ is more intuitive than d66 / d36, especially to people less familiar with TTRPGs, but particularly helpful to have that confirmed by another creator.

Submitted(+3)

This is pretty neat, looking forward to seeing the final version!

Submitted (1 edit) (+2)

saw that you were leaving detailed reviews in this format on other games, and i really respected that, so i decided to return the favor!

Why you should check this out: an incredibly genre-savvy super story with an interesting mechanical base for narrative & lots of random tables to make GMing easy

Style: it’s an ashcan! i don’t think this is where it’s aiming to compete, and that’s ok 😅 

Structure: very well laid out. i love the glossary right at the beginning, it’s very helpful. the use of diagrams, even simple ones, makes it really easy to understand the structure of mechanics at a glance. 

Content: the progressively built villains based on player discoveries and additional random elements is fantastic. Powers are a great take on FIST’s traits, and Origins and Drives are a fantastic take on FIST’s Roles. i love the “you can/sometimes/[mechanical bonus]” structure of Powers—the “sometimes” communicates so much narrative so concisely. having story beats determine advancement in a way that changes specific attributes related to the story beat is so compelling—and i love that they can subtract attributes as well. in general, all the trait/role equivalents are very flavorful, and GM tables are perhaps even more flavorful. this would be an incredibly easy game to drop into and immediately start playing a genre appropriate story with very little prep!

What might I change?

Structure:
1. you mention “ Instead, they slowly emerge as the Supers make a Discovery”, but haven’t yet mentioned Discoveries outside of the glossary—consider a brief definition of the term when you first use it, and some indication you’ll find out more below
2. you do such a great job defining most terms in the glossary, or using capitals to indicate it’s a Concept, but “beats” or “story beats” aren’t defined anywhere, just referenced informally when talking advancement & listed with Origins/Drives—i was a bit confused when i got to Origins and assumed i’d missed the definition for beats, so i’d maybe give them their own subhead?
3. consider introducing “Help” after Grit & Stress, so that those terms mean something (mechanically) to you when you’re reading the helping mechanic. i had to go back and reread at the end to process how helping works (and why Stress matters)

Developer

Thank you so much! That is such a thoughtful review + some really handy feedback, we’ll look into those definitions. Definitely one of those where we’ve talked about it so much that it seems obvious to us, but you need fresh eyes to remind you that it isn’t.

I love writing the more detailed reviews for jams. It’s meant so much anytime that someone has taken the effort to read out stuff and leave their thoughts so happy to motivate others to do the same (especially when they’ve clearly got what we were going for!).

Can’t wait to check out Planet Fist! :)

Submitted(+2)

Super is superhero ttrpg loosly based on Fist, the powers works the same way as FIST's traits, you roll the dices the same way, and you play underdog in a world where vilains are against you and the system want to stop you.

The name of everything is different (the four characteristics of FIST are changed to better work with super heros, the hp are gritt,the refere is a game master ), and a few mechanic are introduced, the stress mechanic (which come replace the role of the war dice mechanic in FIST) is brillant and the advancement mechanic (For me it's a best of both world between FIST narrative objectives to advances, and pbta which design clear change based on your character ) look really fun. 

The game come with 36 powers (and it's still in public test), 18 origins and 12 motivation, allowing to randomly creating a character in no times. The game also come with multiples arrays to generate vilain, plot, and events in the spirit of the matrix arrays of FIST (And I love array ! )

What appear to be a good superhero game, would love to the final version with,I hope, more details on this world that banned super heroism. 

Developer

Thank you for the kind and detailed review!