Superheroes?

Previously known simply as "Undead Lily" or "Undead Lily and The Elemental Avengers"
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SpectralTime
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Superheroes?

Post by SpectralTime »

I'm actually a little confused by the storyline. Is it just them in the afterlife? If so, how are they superheroes without crime to fight, natural disasters to avert, lives to save, etc. etc.
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jack1974
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Re: Superheroes?

Post by jack1974 »

Well superheroes because have special powers. They fight against each other (good vs evil) :D
Maybe could use superhuman or some other word ?
fleetp
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Re: Superheroes?

Post by fleetp »

You could call the demigods.
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Aleema
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Re: Superheroes?

Post by Aleema »

Yeah, "superheroes" implies a comic book hero. I was confused, too. Since I didn't see anyone in capes or spandex.

Supernatural is perhaps the best word, superhuman is good too, but is more for describing their powers than themselves. A vampire or a werewolf is "supernatural," but has "superhuman" strength. </english lesson>
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pysali
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Re: Superheroes?

Post by pysali »

My two cents let me show them to you.

I have no problem seeing this as a Superhero game.

Superhero comics steamroll in a lot of different content and genres. All the time. There are horror comics, Marvel has an entire universe devoted to zombies. X-men has the Inferno Saga in the 90s where a huge chunk of the story was saving the soul of Colossus' little sister who had inherited the magical sword and position of leader in Limbo (a demirealm with hell implications). While at the same time Cyclops wife, who was also Jean Grey's clone (long story), Madelyne Pryor had become the Goblin Queen and in a deal with the hell denizens of Limbo was unleashing a literal hell on earth with her minions stealing children and eating people. Oh yeah and Nightcrawler's dad is Belasco, a big bad of Limbo. Illyana's entire character arc, once she was turned into a teenager after having been trapped in Limbo as a six year old and having aged more rapidly than the rest of the X-men (don't ask, it's a looooooonnnnnnggggg story) was about her trying to fight against her now partially demonic soul and keep ahold of her humanity.

Never mind the Avengers who routinely offer positions to gods (Thor, Gilgamesh & Hercules) and have to deal with larger story arcs than just saving the world (like having to broker peace between two races who would dearly love to annihilate each other at a moments notice and doesn't care if some third race is in the way). Or Hellblazer (John Constantine) and Swamp Thing who routinely deal with the supernatural in their adventures (especially when Alan Moore was writing it), Vampirella the skimpily dressed badass of the night and other superheroes who don't fit the normal labels (like Hellboy).

I say if the characters have died and come back to new powers to fight a battle to save the world through a morality game in Limbo that counts as super-heroic in my book. Saying it can't be a superhero game because they're not saving New York (the most danger and villain riddled location on the entire planet) or aliens from a planet incredibly similar to ours doesn't make sense to me, a person who grew up with comics where they would routinely mix in werewolves, Limbo, magic, alien bird people, experiments that horribly mutate people because it's happy hour at the local bar and the logic defying science geniuses, clones, evil twins, robots gone mad with power, masterminds and oh yeah a giant humanoid space man who eats planets because he's feeling peckish and would dearly love to devour our planet as soon as our collective backs are turned.

Call the game what you will, but if you want to call it a Superhero game because they wear special outfits and gain powers not seen while they were alive to fight a great and dramatic conflict with each other, I'm cool with that. Or it being a supernatural game, or just a fight between good and evil.
SpectralTime
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Re: Superheroes?

Post by SpectralTime »

I'm not complaining about the setup, just trying to make sure I understand it.
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jack1974
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Re: Superheroes?

Post by jack1974 »

Haha thanks for the suggestions/info. I think perhaps is better if I don't refer it as the "superhero" game anymore since seems a bit ambiguous term. I can just refer to "Undead Lily" game :D
The setting is voluntarily "weird" since in the game there is the map to conquer that is nothing real a normal map, but a series of "cells" or "zones" connected between each other, but each zone is like a unlimited space associated to an element. So in this case there isn't really a main plot/story to follow, since differently from Loren RPG this game should be more like the old strategy/RPG games. It should be more replayable, not having a "campaign" mode with a storyline, but every time offer a random map to fight upon.
Of course I haven't built the map/battle part yet so I don't know for sure, things might change radically. That's why I have told the writer to write the main intro, and all the romance scenes since those will never change (no matter how the rest of the game is) and I leave as last thing the main gameplay writing, because it's quite common to change the game rules as you go on.
Right now for example I'm redesigning good part of Loren Skilltrees because of the new battle system (which is going to rule) since there are now front/back row, melee/ranged, status effect like "staggered" that can unlock more special moves, and epic 8 vs 8 battles. So quite different from my original idea already :lol:
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pysali
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Re: Superheroes?

Post by pysali »

That works. Honestly if you'd wanted to make it a 'superhero' game it would have been as simple as saying, 'So my powers are like in a comic book? Cool.' and having the heroine/hero go from there. Or even 'so my powers are like magic? Cool.' and having them act like they're in a Tolkien fantasy. It's all in presentation, player perception and how your characters see their new powers. Comic books literally have the everything and a sink mentality which is why the Avengers can have aliens, gods, normal people, mutants, super soldiers, magic users, experiments gone wrong and so on.

Undead Lily and the Elemental Avengers a tactical strategy/rpg then?
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jack1974
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Re: Superheroes?

Post by jack1974 »

pysali wrote:That works. Honestly if you'd wanted to make it a 'superhero' game it would have been as simple as saying, 'So my powers are like in a comic book? Cool.' and having the heroine/hero go from there.
Yes I'm going to change that sentence like that now :)
pysali wrote:Undead Lily and the Elemental Avengers a tactical strategy/rpg then?
In my original idea yes. I wanted to mix something like RPG gameplay with some macromanagement/metagame. So beside gaining experience/leveling up/getting new powers like in a normal RPG, you could also build up your base (headquarter) with new stuff, research, and so on.
The only thing I'm unsure is if this system will fit together with my usual story-based gameplay. I mean for the romances ok, but I am not sure if the lack of a main plot could be a downside. I guess I could always use the same system but have two gameplay mode, campaign/story mode and free play. A bit like the old RTS games like Warcraft 2 or Command & Conquer, you can either play through several missions in a campaign or just play a random game.
From my experience, manually crafting levels/missions (opposed to randomly generating a map/game) guarantees more fun since I can play it and see how it will work from the end user's perspective...
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