A freeform Superhero RPG inspired by the Free Kriegspiel Revolution!
Super simple d6 based rules and plenty of tables and generators to fill your game with heroes, villains, places, organisations, goons, missions and more! Includes HTML files with fully automated versions of all of the tables in the PDF to make generating game details happen with the click of a button!
Suggested Story Arc / Set up for A Super Hero RPG campaign:
The Setting: The Referee uses the “What is the Backstory of this Super Hero world?” generator to sketch out some details of the campaign world. They may also like to use the “Place Generator” to map out some places in that world then use the “What is happening in this Place of the Super Hero world?” to find out interesting things that are happening there.
Prelude: Players each generate a Super that they like and want to play. A quick solo session with each Super using the “Mission Generator” might serve as the origin story of each Super. These missions may happen in the places generated by the referee earlier.
Missions: The Referee generates three missions using the “Mission Generator”. They can use the “Organisation Generator” and “Place Generator” to flesh out details for these. The “Area Stocker” can be used by the Referee to see what are in specific areas within a place.
Mission 1: The team of super heroes that the players are controlling get together to attempt an important mission! An antagonistic opposing Super is introduced in this mission (the Referee can create a Super by using the same method the Players use) but is not directly confronted.
Mission 2: At some point in this mission a twist takes place! The Referee can use the “Twist Generator” for this. Again the opposing Super is not directly confronted.
Mission 3: At some point in this mission the opposing Super is directly confronted (and hopefully defeated by the players).
The End: Hopefully the Supers have learnt something about themselves and others on their team and they are ready to face the next challenge!
I saw The Suicide Squad (the new, 2021, one) and liked it so much I wanted to run a superhero game for the first time in my life! Here is what I came up with!
I'll start with the Super Hero/Villain Automated Generator because its a lot of fun to play with....
Creating a Super:
A player creates a Super by randomly rolling either:
1 Major super power, 2 minor super powers and a weakness or,
1 major super power and 1 minor super power or,
Any combination the Referee deems appropriate for their game!
These powers can be from the Hero Or Villain super power tables as the players see fit (or the Referee may deem only one or the other be used in their game).
A Super is very powerful in their Major power, and powerful in their minor super powers.
The player may then roll twice on the appearance tables to give their Super a random appearance (or decide the Super’s appearance based on their powers).
Finally, a player may roll on the backstory table to give their Super a random backstory!
The Referee and Players extrapolate what skills, possessions and bodily attributes a Super would have from their powers, weakness and backstory. Further, what types of actions would be possible by the Super and how Easy or Hard they would be to achieve via a Conflict Test, is also extrapolated from these.
The player writes down any additional important details relating to their Super as they play (new possessions, injuries, specific skills, etc).
Inventory can be handled by the Referee judging what is appropriate for a Super to carry. Determining whether a Super already has some specific, but related to their description, item in their possession can be determined by a Conflict Test.
• “Levelling up” or Super improvement is achieved by the player adding additional defining word/s to their PC on their Character Sheet. This word should be derived from the actions the PC took in the session and with the agreement of the Referee.
Now, onto the rules!
How to Play:
One player is the Referee, the other players will each control a Superhero or Supervillain.
The Referee will describe the imaginary world explored by the Supers, and determine the result and impact of their actions. Importantly, the Referee will determine the result of any Conflict Tests conducted by the other players.
The Referee’s role is to ensure the game world presented to the other players is interactive, dynamic, interesting and dangerous.
The Referee is free to interpret and present the imaginary world as they see fit, but it is important that this is consistent and that concrete consequences for the PC’s choices and actions are enacted.
The Super’s role is to have exciting and interesting adventures.
Conflict Tests:
If an entity attempts to do something of consequence in the game world (and it is possible for them to do so), or comes into conflict with another entity in the game world, roll a d6:
If a Player/Referee can argue them; add situational bonuses of +X to the roll.
If the Player/Referee can argue them; add situational penalties of –X to the roll.
Easy Test: If a Super/Aspect of Reality is in a very likely position to win the conflict/test, they can roll twice and use the highest result.
Hard Test: If a Super/Aspect of Reality is in a very unlikely position to win the conflict/test roll twice and use the lowest result.
Moments:
When needed (for example during combat lasting more than a single Conflict Test), events in the game can be played out in Moments.
The Referee determines the order in which entities (Supers and other characters/creatures/objects/etc in the game world) act. Then each entity has a moment to do something. Any conflict in these moments is resolved with a Conflict Test. This cycle of moments is repeated until the conflict/tension is over.
In the game world a Moment is only a few seconds long - The Referee rules what exactly an entity can get done in a Moment, ensuring they are fair and equitable to all involved.
The specific order in which entities act out their Moments may be determined by the Referee’s interpretation of the situation and the attributes of the entities involved, or Conflict Tests between entities to determine who will act first.
Damage and Death:
The Referee contextually judges when an entity (Super or other characters/creatures/objects/etc) is damaged from a conflict, the impact of this and the possibility of their death/destruction.
Any injuries received by a PC must be noted on their Character Sheet. The Referee must be made aware of any injuries a PC has before they make any subsequent Conflict
Tests, so appropriate penalties can be applied. The Referee should make similar notes for any injured pertinent entities.
A suggested, but not necessary, system for tracking injuries/simulating the chaos of combat is as follows:
If hit an entity rolls a d6 to determine where they were struck:
1 - 2 = Legs
3 = Torso
4 - 5 = Arms
6 = Head
The referee can then extrapolate the impact of a wound in that area.
Taking too many hits in the same location (2 or 3 depending on the location and the weapon) will result in death.
The Referee must contextually judge how weapons and armour worn may affect the outcome of a Conflict Test.
Super Rules:
There are two specific types of entities in A Super Hero RPG, Supers and Goons.
Supers are beings with super powers and Goons are pretty much anything else!
If a Super is rolling a Conflict Test against a Goon (or a group of Goons) they always roll at least two d6’s (more if the Referee deems it) and use the best result.
A Super will always overcome/defeat/kill a Goon with a single successful Conflict Test.
When rolling a Conflict Test against a Goon, if a Super rolls doubles of any number the Referee gives that Super a rating from 2 - 6 based on how powerful they are in the realm relating to the Conflict Test (Combat, battle of wits, hacking, etc). The Super then rolls a single d6 and times the result by their rating, they then overcome/defeat/kil that number of Goons with a single test (Alternatively, the Super could use the original double number they rolled as the multiplier).
If a Goon is rolling a Conflict Test against a super they always roll at least two d6’s (more if the Referee deems it) and use the worst result. When rolling a Conflict Test against a Super, a Goon will generally not cause any major or lasting damage to a Super unless they roll doubles (and also pass their test). Generally it takes double 6’s for a Goon to slow down a Super (and several double 6’s to kill them!).
A friend and I are working on an android app version of the The Generic Room Stocker. Its designed to quickly generate random fantasyish places for tabletop adventure games. I thought I would give it a whirl to show how it works and how easy it is to put together a place for your game. I gave the locale four rooms to avoid me spiraling off into writing a mega dungeon. Here is the "Frozen Slime Palace" - whack it on a hex map somewhere!
Assume large arch ways connect each room (made of ornately gold gilded frozen slime).
Room 1:
The gravity in this room is reversed and the thawing slime drips up to the domed ceiling in green, wet stalagmites. Half formed faces and skulls bob and leer and appear and disappear, upside down, in the slime walls. Several cages of hardened (frozen) slime, protrude from the domed ceiling - skeletons and rotting dead men in these.
A green statue of an armored man stands the right way up, surrounded by the up dripping slime - totally still. Gold circuitry runs across its form. Once interlopers enter the room it will smash them silently with green marble fists. When a punch is landed a bladed tube enters the target's flesh and begins to sap them of their internal fluids.
As the statue attacks interlopers the up dripping stalagmites of slime coalesce into firm tentacles that attempt to grasp intruders and place them in the ceiling cages.
Room 2:
A dome of frozen green slime. Large tables made of this same slime emerge from the floor. On each table is a glowing map of a specific area or building from the region. The map is chiseled directly into the table - hewn of frozen slime. A golden face on each table intones details about the map in a robotic voice.
A knight in black carapace armour studies one of the maps, discussing routes and details chattily with a map table's golden face. He leans on his huge barbed, insectoid looking lance and his massive rhino-beetle mount trundles around the room. If disturbed the knight will regale interlopers of his quest to rescue a larval damsel from waspian ruffians in nearby hivecliffs. He would appreciate companions on this task...
Room 3:
A hut sized pot of green frozen slime marble hangs from the dome of this room by emerald chains. The pot is overflowing with a jungle of slime vines and flowers in a rainbow explosion of colours. The foliage creeps up the chains and coats the domed frozen slime ceiling and dangles down over the sides of the pot. Huge golden script covers the visible part of the pot not covered in slime vines.
The flowers emit no scent, instead whispering a muttering of many indecipherable voices. If approached the slime vines will reach out to interlopers. If left the vines and flowers will wrap around an interloper, the muttering whispers overwhelming them. After a few moments of vine foliage embrace the interlopers consciousness will leave their body and will be able to float high into the air, astral projecting. This process is useful for surveying the nearby region.
Room 4:
Columns of clear, green tinged, frozen slime fill this domed room. Floating within each are fist sized metal boxes of ornate gold.
Touching the frozen slime columns with the circuit covered marble of the statue from room 1 makes the slime soft and malleable - allow the extraction of the gold boxes. When placed on a flat surface the boxes miraculously unpack into three dimensional metal maps of random regions of the world, incredibly realistic and accurate.
Use this generator to create jobs for PCs to do! It was originally intended as a fantaspunkish shadowrunny city based game - but you could no doubt use it for other things!
I wanted to use my recently released Infinigrad: The Weird City Toolkit to create a suburb. Here is the result! I may end up creating some art for this and putting it into a PDF in the future, but other projects have my attention at the time being....(I used some A.I generated art for the post using this handy little tool: https://huggingface.co/spaces/flax-community/dalle-mini)
A coastal walled hamlet on the fetid shores of The White Sea. Limestone spires connected by crumbling arches tower over ancient canals. A secretive cabal of pirates are the ultimate authority in the town.
The Coral Walkway:
There are two docks in Coral Towers. Each is connected to a set of stairs that spiral around the nearest tower. These stairs ascend 6 storeys to where a large public balcony rings around all of the towers in the town. This is The Coral Walkway. This balcony is the major public thoroughfare in the town, high above the grey sludgy sand below. The Coral Walkway crosses over the canals of the town at several ancient limestone bridges. The main public entrance to each of the towers is from the Coral Walkway.
The Black Skulletilia Cabal:
A secretive band of pirates that runs Coral Towers from the shadows. Garbed in dark leathers, cloaks and helmets made of huge black lizard skulls. They are led by a master alchemist whose specialty is warping human flesh into semi-organic weapons. The pirates are famed for their fearsome hand to hand fighting using foul retractable claw blades their leader alchemically installs into their hands. The Black Skulletilia Cabal is in open warfare with several other pirate cabals that sail The White Sea. They are always opportunistically seizing fresh flesh samples (in the form of animals and prisoners) for their alchemist leader to experiment upon.
d6 Black Skulletilia Cabal Members: Assume all are garbed in dark leathers, cloaks and helmets made of huge black lizard skulls.
Cat the Beetled: Skin crawling with palm sized black beetles - these grant some protection from curses. Needs an outsider to assassinate a competitor in the cabal.
Skinny Ruib: Lizard skull helmet is gilded with a design of silver flowers. Eager to show his fighting prowess to nearby cabal members.
Chronok the Pompous: Has a huge crimson frilled collar beneath his skull helmet. Desperate for a meeting with his leader, Cornelis Helik.
Dancing Sword the Filthy: Stinks - outfit is coated in decaying fish. Attempting to gather a crew to dig a buried treasure he has the map of.
Bright Helm: Lizard skull helmet is white and glowing. Has been drinking and is keen for a brawl.
Plumm: Enormously tall and muscled. Doesn’t know how to swim and would like to learn.
Cornelis Helk, Master Alchemist: Rarely leaves his temple-like library of reagents. He has warped himself through decades of chemical experimentation to resemble a crimson scaled lizard man. Many horns sprout from his head, and needle claws delicately tip his red fingers. A retinue of confrontingly chemically mutated humans serve him - each warped into the shape of alchemical equipment: Crawling moaning and bleeding; beaker trays, buckets, cauldrons and the like (these do not live long in their tortured forms). His search for the elixir of immortality is never far from his thoughts.
Town Map:
1. The Barrel Factory (12 storey workshop): Topped by chimney stacks puffing plumes of black smoke. Ancient house-sized faces carved into the exterior walls, huge, crumbling, vacant and expressionless.
Sweaty, slimy skinned workers operate churning, thundering, automated machinery that produces perfectly air tight barrels of the highest quality.
The tower is powered by rusty, room filling machines housed in the lower storeys. These have massive cables that dig deep beneath the earth - taped into some subterranean energy source no living person no longer knows nor understands. ‘
The workers in the tower, and the residents of the town, all agree the machines here are haunted.
2. The Vivifying Tower (12 storey sorceric power generator): Tangles of arm sized tubing weaves in and out of this tower’s limestone. Each tube is pumping with dark red liquid. The tower hums and causes headaches.
Viscera covered workers in leather aprons work with heavy cleavers to chop free limbs from animal (and sometimes human) sacrifices. These are tossed into altar-like receptacles that grind and churn the meat and feed the building. Each storey of the tower has several leather and blood coated robed wizards chanting and meditating at the receptacles. Each wizard has a huge, bloody, third eye.
The blood based engineering magic summoned in the tower keeps the crumbling limestone structures of the town intact. A lack of sacrifices will result in cracks appearing in nearby towers, or chunks of rock falling loose. A spate of disappearances follows shortly after.
The ground floor is a putrid pool of ancient blood and viscera. An undead levithan wallows in the red muck.
3. The Black Skulletilia Cabal House (12 storey pirate loot vault):Planks and chunks of hulls of defeated ships are bolted to the exterior of the tower. Dead pirates hang from nooses or are crucified all over the walls - some are just bones.
Heavily armoured (donning chainmail instead of leathers) Black Skulletillia Cabal pirates the vault. They are silent and stoic and will not let any one who is not a part of the cabal inside.
Decades of ill begotten loot is locked away inside the tower. Treasure, weapons, magic items, anything a successful conglomeration of pirates would acquire. Well stocked and comfortable dormitories and pleasure facilities are also here for the cabal members.
Cornelis Helk, master alchemist and leader of the cabal has his laboratories and reagent libraries on the top storeys . Helk rarely leaves his temple-like library of reagents. He has warped himself through decades of chemical experimentation to resemble a crimson scaled lizard man. Many horns sprout from his head, and needle claws delicately tip his red fingers. A retinue of confrontingly chemically mutated humans serve him - each warped into the shape of alchemical equipment: Crawling moaning and bleeding; beaker trays, buckets, cauldrons and the like (these do not live long in their tortured forms). His search for the elixir of immortality is never far from his thoughts.
4. The Dockyard (12 storey storage warehouse): The walls of this tower have been melted by lobs of acid at some point in the past. Great melted craters pepper the top of the tower and thick rivulets of melted limestone run down the walls.
Each storey of this tower is devoted to a different warehouse. Some are owned by The Black Skulletilia Cabal, others by independent merchants/traders/pirates.
There is always hosts of dock workers lugging stock in boxes to and from the Dock 1 (d1). They are thick limbed, rough looking and utterly silent. They hate their work being interrupted.
Leathery imps the size of dogs record and operate the inventory list of everything stored in The Dockyard. They are rarely seen. The imps have been falsifying some of the records and have amassed a fortune of stolen merchandise at g1.
5. The Tower of Deathly Calm (12 store graveyard and dust den): Huge lengths of scarlet silk are bolted to this tower - they run down the walls like rivers of blood.
The bottom 6 storeys of this tower are devoted to the interment of dead pirates and residents of Coral Towers. Their bodies are laid to rests in crypts, tombs and limestone coffins.
The top 6 storeys of the tower are referred to as “The Dens of Grief”, here heavily cushioned chambers are devoted to the silent imbibing of dust. Mourners and dust users are required to whisper here, but may smoke themselves into forgetful oblivion with impunity.
Ancient catacombs dig deep beneath the town and the earth. Here ancient pirate lords lay - their hordes protected by traps, curses and rum soaked magics.
6.The Parlour (10 storey drinking and tattoo den):Ancient tattered ship sails hang from this tower. They are all painted crudely with the insignia of pirate crews, both active and defunct. A smattering of figureheads poke through the sails.
The bottom 6 storeys of this tower are drinking and dancing halls. The closer to the sandy ground floor one travels the more depraved and debaucherous the halls become. The many years of constant partying, near rioting, have had a toil on the lower levels - which are little more than ruins filled with refuse and merry making detritus.
The storeys above The Coral Walkway are the operating rooms and dwelling quarters of master tattooist - whose work provides minor magical enchantments to those who wear them. The tattooist, Dimir Guilder, has had both arms mutated into an insectoid and biological contraption of needles by Cornelis Helk, Master Alchemist (leader of The Black Skulletilia Cabal). The insectoid tattooing arms produce their own ink, which is vivid and prismatic.
Dimir Guilder has amassed a not inconsiderable horde of wealth, magical artifacts and curios as payment for his valued services. People travel from far across The White Sea to receive his inkings. He has grown to enjoy wealth and power and thoughts of overthrowing Cornelis Helk have begun to ferment in his mind.
7. The Garden Tower(8 storey condominium tower):Fresh water flows down the sides of this tower in pretty, miniature, waterfalls. An exotic array of paradisitic plants flower all over the walls.
The wealthiest and most successful residents of Coral Towers dwell here in opulent apartments. Competition to secure an apartment has become somewhat extreme of late, murders and assassinations to free up an apartment for new residents has become common.
Heavily armoured (donning chainmail instead of leathers) Black Skulletillia Cabal pirates guard the entrance to the tower and entrances to individual apartments. These positions are purely transactional though - and any one with enough coins can convince the Cabal guards to turn the other way during a break in (or even help bloodily evict their once clients)
The bottom two floors of the tower have been sealed off by mass of bonemeld (weblike tangles of bone). Beyond the bonemeld a powerful bone smith has been excavating beneath the tower in search of some ancient treasure they have spent decades infatuated with. Rumours say the hunted for treasure is a “Golden glowing eye”.
8. The Mess (6 storey inn): A tower rimmed with column and arch way balconies filled with revelers drinking and feasting. Piles of refuse have accumulated on the coral walkway beneath. The tower walls are burnt and blood/graffitti/vomit/filth stained.
Somewhat zombified serving staff assist the patrons here. Serving large quantities of foul food and drink for a handful of coins. Black beer flows in great abundance. The staff all appear to have open wounds - the observant will see tiny white crabs darting to and from these.
Filthy and unsecure rooms are available as lodgings. They are filled with sand, and stink of dead sea life. The previous tenant, in a drunken stupor, often needs to be forcibly removed.
The bottom floor of the tower is home to a hive of sentient and parasitic insectoid crabs. Tiny white crustaceans with electric blue veins running through their translucent carapace. The hive is a sodden mass of sand and decomposing flesh. The figurehead of the colony is an enormous, corpulent butcher who shambles through the tower wielding a meat cleaver. He is long dead, his decomposing flesh riddled with tiny crabs (who are in fact animating the flesh).
Other locations:
The Canals.
w1: The water here is dark and red. It stinks of flesh (run off from Tower 2).
w2: What appears to be a dead body floating in the water. It glitters with jewelry. If fished from the water the dead body will rouse (especially if the jewelry is pilfered with). The body is in fact a pirate who became comatose from the imbibing of too much dust in The Tower of Deathly Calm (Tower 2). Depending on their treatment the pirate may be thankful or enraged. The pirate would also like to know who threw their dust frozen form into the canal...
w3: A skin of tiny, dead, white crabs covers the water. The crustacean mass seems to have floated from The Mess (Tower 8).
The Docks.
d1: Largely empty. A large black sailed ship is being unloaded by silent workers. They are moving huge, locked chests, wrapped in chains - lugging them to The Black Skulletilia Cabal House (Tower 3). They are being watched by pirates garbed in dark leathers, cloaks and helmets made of huge black lizard skulls.
d2: Sullen dock workers silently drink from multicoloured stone steins. They are drinking a clear, highly alcoholic, liquid. They do not want to be disturbed.
The Ground Sands:
g1: Leathery imps the size of dogs have a village of scavenged storage crates and chests. There is a fortune of stolen merchandise and treasure squirreled away in the makeshift huts.
g2: A red crystal monolith, coated in barnacles. Touching it grants good luck for a day.
g3: A grove of misshapen trees and brushes - all constructed of melded bone.
g4: Slow writhing pirates mostly covered in mud, muck and sand. Uncovering them reveals their decomposing bodies are animated by a host of tiny parasitic, white crabs (the same crabs from The Mess, Tower 8).
g5: A group of crab/octopus/man mutants inhabitants a muddy village of broken, discard barrels from Tower 1. They largely survive from meat strained from the flesh run off from Tower 2 at w1. They have plans to break into The Vivifying Tower (Tower 2) and feast on the meat contained within.
