Why Super-Heroing

A lot of people don't do superhero RPGs. This has always struck me as odd, as most RPG devotees that I know are avid comic book readers regardless of age. Maybe it's because of the loss of glitter as players have to sort through the rules in the various systems as they construct their own super-powered personas? There they are shifting through the pages as the process probably starts to feel like the homework that they were were trying to avoid by reading the escapist literature in the first place. Never forget the fact that the other role-playing settings can already fulfill the wonder of the basic adventurer having special abilities to the average person that are awesome in comparison. Along those lines being a murder-hobo is not a sign of villainy, surely that last fact can't hurt. Maybe they just don't think that they would look good in spandex and the cape looks clumsy.

But there are some perks for those that do the superhero thing.

Being that superhero
There's the version where the players get to be their special picks from a comic book line. Using whatever RPG rules system that is preferred the players get to be big name figures, such as Spider-Man, Jessica Jones, Blue Beetle, or say E-Man. Alternately the GMs get to write a comic book series that is usually the purview of billionaire nephews and publisher's favorite nieces. Note: to the one day big business comic book writer and illustrator; if you want to break into the business, have your dad buy the company.

For the more creative types, there is also the chance just to live in same world as Superman or Thor without being drawn by Jack Kirby. Clever GMs, like myself, will fill up double tables at big conventions letting people roleplay flatfoots in the world of Capes. That is especially true of Gotham City. While street level superhero drama is iffy for TV and big movie productions for RPG sessions these are blockbuster events.

The story that must be told
A lot of my fellow ICONS players and GM come from a group  that used to buy, read, and then try to write their own comic books as teenagers. Using their own takes on a superhero, sometimes a villain, they expand upon the experiences of the early days using an RPG campaign as the basis for that. I have used filling in the blanks of my online RPG experiences with City of Heroes in the Aughts to write up mini-campaigns for the same group.

The casual observer seeing the characters mentioned, often illustrated, may indeed be like, "That's a copy of..." but to the Player, it's probably a heartfelt homage. That is if it's not a totally different character that just looks similar to whomever the other person is thinking of.

The hangups are not really a hangup
The biggest drawback that I can think of for the superhero RPG genre is the writing of it. If the author-GM goes deep it becomes a lot of paragraphs in between fist fights. And to keep the fist fights interesting, there needs to be goofy NPCs with powers often based on puns.  Then as the GM, you just can't help but start writing background material again. 

Suddenly within every climax there is about four to six minutes of expository dialogue between kicks and punches as the heroes and villains are doing the twists, dancing with toys. Everyone around the table is paying attention and having to remember to swing when their turn comes around. The GM is suddenly Jack Kirby crafting an epic. 

For some reason, I am getting the feeling that other people feel somewhat similar to the way I feel about the Comic RPG. It could just be a fad around the corner waiting for GM-authors to make some fat stacks (up to 30$ a bundle) to get into. I know I have about thirty-fours years of notes to start typing up.