So it turns out that Jeff Moore's "continually evolved ideas" blog continually evolved some of my ideas! Featured in Jeff's blog was his excellent superhero RPG called 'Supers Brawl' as well as a cool discussion of past superhero RPGs, which inspired me to work on a couple recent ideas I had for some superhero RPGs of my own.
While I started out working on a game called 'Zenith Supers RPG', I instead dug up a very recent idea I had to make a superheroic RPG along similar lines to the Detective Comics featuring Batman, namely that there would be no super powers, just trained individuals with super gadgetry. Originally conceived as a solo RPG e-book I would post at RPG Lab, my new game Crime Fighter RPG instead has become a traditional group RPG which I hope to have a solo variant for in the near future. I'll also finish Zenith Supers at some point most likely near the end of the year.
Crime Fighter RPG is available for download in pdf form via this blog. To go along with the rulebook pdf, there is a character sheet pdf. Additionally, I created a supplemental sourcebook for the game called 'Scofflaws & Scoundrels'. One thing I always liked about the classic superhero RPGs Champions and Villains & Vigilantes was that they put out sourcebooks filled with ready made supervillains... Champions had their Enemies books and V&V had it's Most Wanted books. I feel Scofflaws & Scoundrels serves that purpose perfectly for Crime Fighter RPG, though it does not have as many characters or go into as great detail as the Enemies and Most Wanted sourcebooks did. I have also added The Awful Eight now as well as The Worst Of The Worst, both being additional sourcebooks of ready made villains.
One interesting side note of creating this game was that I could not find any good superheroic clipart to use, but then I lucked out and found the Hero Machine online. For those not familiar with it, the Hero Machine is a program for designing superheroic art, specifically that of 'drawing' superheroic figures. It can be downloaded as well as used online over the internet. Check out the artwork in Crime Fighter RPG (especially in the Scofflaws & Scoundrels supplement) to see just how cool the Hero Machine is. You can then check it out for yourself online by using this link. If you like the Hero Machine program, the current version can be bought online, and it's older version is available for free download as well. Do check it out!
Thanks to the Hero Machine, Jeff Moore, and the RPG Lab crowd for inspiring me to make Crime Fighter RPG over the Labor Day weekend. Please download my new superheroic RPG and give it a try. I'd appreciate any feedback, and am curious to see how this game is received by the RPG Labbers. From watching the evolution of Supers Brawl, I have seen what a tremendous advantage it is to vet newly created games to the people here at RPG Lab. I look forward to hearing how Crime Fighter RPG looks in the eyes of others, and to get constructive feedback as to how to improve the game, or to just leave it as is if that's the general consensus. Enjoy!