Five or So Questions on Disposable Heroes

Hi y’all! Today I’ve got an interview with Liam and Ren from Sandy Pug Games about Disposable Heroes, which is currently on Kickstarter! It sounds like an interesting take on superheroics. Check out their responses below!

Mockup/Work-in-Progress prototypes of the cards for Disposable Heroes spread out on a table with bright purple, green, and orange backgrounds and lettering and very vivid and action-styled design.
Mockup/Work-in-Progress prototypes of the cards for Disposable Heroes.

Tell me a little about Disposable Heroes. What excites you about it?

Liam: So the basic pitch is a PbTA/Dungeon World based game where the playbooks are replaced by cards that are rapidly cycled in and out of play. We got rid of HP for the heroes, and made it so every hit they take is deadly – when they die, they discard their card and draw a new one – with a new class, weapon and set of stats. Obviously this changes the dynamic of the game a lot, and pushes players to get really creative with their class powers. One thing that I tell people is; you know how every pbta playbook has That One Move. The one that makes you go “oooh snap, yes, this is it right here”? What we tried to do with Disposable Heroes is capture that feeling the whole game. We want players to be hyped and excited and have their minds race when they draw a new character.

I’m also really pumped about the art design. We’ve tapped into the electro-neon-funk of Jet Set Radio and Lethal League where possible, lots of vibrant and loud colors, high energy, thick line art. Stuff rarely, if ever, seen in TTRPGs. It’s mostly being done by my partner Ren, who also came up with the core concept and who I’m assisting with the game, but if funding goes well we’ll also be bringing a bunch of guest artists on board to do a set of the cards – and they have a wide wide variety of styles that we’re really excited to showcase. Like so many Sandy Pug projects, I guess what I’m most thrilled about is getting to show off the amazing talents of other folx.

This sounds very cool! How have you altered the PbtA type system to suit this, beyond HP, to make the disposability snappy but still really grabby?

Liam: Honestly, not a whole lot had to be done to adapt the system itself – We encourage GMs to run things so that whenever they can inflict damage as a move, they do so, and we made armor ablative rather than subtractive (That is, it acts as a HP pool for characters that have it). The rest of the changes really come from applying the PBTA system to a card game. Making moves around the deck and drawing and such. Dungeon World already feels, at least in my opinion and experience, snappy and exciting. Making it so you’re constantly getting new tools to solve problems just amplifies what’s already there in a big way.

Mockup/Work-in-Progress prototypes of the cards for Disposable Heroes with bright purple, green, and orange backgrounds and lettering and very vivid and action-styled design, this one for the Humpback Whale or The Bard character.
Mockup/Work-in-Progress prototypes of the cards for Disposable Heroes.

That art sounds amazing. What are some of the benefits of a variety of artists and how it presents the characters in your game?

Liam: For a start, it means your game looks amazing. I’m a big believer in the idea that having lots of perspectives and ideas makes a project grow and pop more than anything. All the artists have their own really cool takes on the characters who are, remember, just a class and a name and an animal for the most part. To see them take those ideas and make this logo that screams a ton of personality is worth it all by itself for me.

On a more mercenary level, having a big team has always helped Sandy Pug Games punch above our weight. One person yelling about the game they made is one thing, having 10 people doing the same yelling amplifies things a whole bunch, and I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a consideration when we were kicking around ideas. As for how it changes how characters are presented – you know how people tend toward the same kind of themes for their characters in TTRPGs sometimes? I know I’m a big fan of Fighters With Cool Weapons and playing Tieflings all the time, I find artists tend to have a “vibe”, and while Ren’s vibe is really freaking awesome, it’s rad to get a bunch more “vibes” on the project.

Mockup/Work-in-Progress prototypes of the cards for Disposable Heroes, with bright purple, green, and orange backgrounds and lettering and very vivid and action-styled design, this one depicting the Barbarian, Bruiser, detailing stats.
Mockup/Work-in-Progress prototypes of the cards for Disposable Heroes.

What are the heroes like? Who these one-punch people?

Ren:They are Delivery beings just trying to get the job done and go home in one piece! I say beings because we like to allow players imagination run wild on this one. The heroes are anything from literal animals, animal humanoids, or humans dressed up with ears and tails and process said animal characteristics. As the artist, I particularly found it amusing to imagine a literal whale using a hovercraft pool as a means to get around on land. The art in particular allows for creative leeway and a more versatile cast. 

What are the activities like in Disposable Heroes? What do players encounter?

Liam: Although the Heroes’ main goal is delivering a package, their missions take them through treacherous, neo-future dungeons. The game is essentially a classic dungeon crawler; our heroes solve puzzles, dodge traps, fight monsters, and the usual. The only real twist is the package has to remain intact and undamaged, then instead of facing off against the Big Bad Guy at the end, they simply deliver it. Gotta get that 5 Star Rating!

A promotional image featuring mockup/Work-in-Progress prototypes of the cards for Disposable Heroes, with bright purple, blue, green, and orange backgrounds and lettering and very vivid and action-styled design. It notes the Kickstarter launch September 15th.

Thanks so much to Liam and Ren for the interview! I hope you enjoyed it and that you’ll check out Disposable Heroes on Kickstarter today!

Quick Shot on CAPERS Noir

I have an interview today with Craig Campbell on CAPERS Noir, which is currently on Kickstarter! Super interested to see what’s up with this new installment in the CAPERS system.

Three circular images wreathed in smoke displaying a woman in a 1940s style fitted jacket and skirt with her hair in a bun as she creeps around corners, takes down information from a uniformed woman, and speaks across a table to a man who is sliding a paper across to her.

What is CAPERS Noir, both as a product and as your vision?

CAPERS Noir is the first supplement for my award-winning CAPERS RPG. It provides new character options and new GM tools as well as an alternative setting for the game. It takes the core game setting of the 1920s Prohibition era and moves it forward twenty  years to the WW2 years. This alternative setting shifts from gangster shoot-em-ups to moody, atmospheric, crime noir stories filled with mystery and some horror elements. The additional rules and tools help fill out this noir setting but are also perfectly usable in the core Roaring Twenties setting. 

This supplement is a test case for me, to see if CAPERS has the legs to become a full game line. The early success of the Kickstarter makes me feel it does. The fan base (old and new) have been very enthusiastic, supportive, and looking forward to seeing more. I have plans to publish at least two more supplements, each about the same size as CAPERS Noir. Each will take a similar path of being an alternative historical period/setting/theme while also expanding options for all other versions of the game. My hope is to explore a variety of “cops vs robbers” themes and tropes with these supplements.

What are the Noir rules like and how do they change CAPERS?

The core rules of CAPERS Noir are still the same (and you need the core book to play). There are some new powers, and I’ve tried some different things with how you gain abilities and boosts, flexing the powers system a bit. The first big difference is that CAPERS Noir includes investigation rules using the core playing card mechanics. This rule subset allows an investigation to move forward (that is, clues keep getting found) without shutting down the whole thing over one bad trait check. Success and failure on the investigation checks instead describes how you gain additional information or add complications to the story.

At the end of a hallway, three silhouettes appearing to be two men and a young girl are backlit by a window, and their shadows cast down the hall past multiple doorways to a man standing with a rifle pointed their way.

Additionally, the horror elements brought to bear in CAPERS Noir provides for the possibility that your character’s soul will be corrupted. Temptation lies around every corner. Committing terrible acts at the wrong time can bring you a bit more power, but at a cost. A “shade track” defines how far your character has fallen to darkness and what benefits and hindrances this causes. You can pull yourself back out in a few different ways, most commonly by paying attention to and pursuing your “beacon,” a person, place, or thing that you hold dear and seek to help and protect. 

What have you put together to flesh out a 1940s setting and explore that complex era?

Noir fiction and film that developed in the 20s and 30s (and feed forward into the 40s and 50s) are at the core of CAPERS Noir. The crime noir themes of the alternate setting explore the darker side of humanity, nihilism, fatalism, cynicism. Things aren’t what they seem, morally gray characters are everywhere, and the protagonist doesn’t always “win.” It’s a world of mystery and darkness, where the good must struggle simply to stay good and the darker characters are at risk of falling deeper into darkness even more easily. Plus, lots of characters smoking cigarettes in the rain. 

The supplement doesn’t deal directly with World War 2, but the ravages of war and its aftermath certainly are on characters’ minds in the game. (And that’s not to say I won’t ever explore the actual war, with super-powered characters taking part, in some future supplement.) 

The CAPERS Noir Kickstarter promotional image noting that it funded in 30 minutes over a noir scene of 1940s cars passing down the street as two smartly-dressed individuals smoke under a street lamp. The tagline reads "An RPG of Criminals, Cops, Mystery, and Monsters!"

Thanks so much for the interview Craig, and the promise of more CAPERS! I hope you all enjoyed the interview and that you’ll check out CAPERS Noir on Kickstarter today!

Five or So Questions on Power Outage

Hi all! Today I have an interview with Bebarce El-Tayib on Power Outage, a superhero game for kids that’s currently on Kickstarter! Bebarce has given some excellent answers to my questions, so please check it out below!

The words "Power Outage: Be a Hero" in yellow and purple. The O's in Power Outage are lightbulbs, one of which is broken. In the P, the hollow space is a lightning bolt.
This is a logo that was announced post-launch!

Tell me a little about Power Outage v 1.4. What excites you about it?

Power Outage 1.4 is a large leap in a series I’ve been developing for the past 4 years. It’s a Super Hero themed tabletop roleplaying game designed to be played by kids and GMed by adults. This would be the first attempt at making the book something I’m comfortable with being available in Print.

It’s exciting to me for a ton of reasons aside from the fact that it’s probably the largest and longest running creative endeavor that I’ve ever taken on. But I would have to say that the biggest excitement comes from the scope of change between 1.3 to 1.4. It’s a monumental shift. There is a completely revised mechanic system, much greater resources for crafting your own adventures, and the biggest thing of all is the expansion of guidance to not only include differentiation, but also a focus on creating more accessible gaming tables. Plus its just the inherent potential of creating something that introduces a new generation to a hobby that I and many others love.

Two character sheets, one more complicated design (labeled before) and one refined visually on the left (labeled after).
An example of the result of the Kickstarter funding on the character sheet.

When making games for kids, your point about a accessibility is super important. How do are you designing and developing Power Outage to be accessible, and why does it matter to you?

My work in Public Education as a technologist has me dealing with data often. Part of that involves creating considerations for Special Education, and managing Special Education Data. So when it comes to creating accomodations I realize the monumental task in front of me. As soon as I started I realized there was no end, so I’m tackling it from two fronts. In the book I have a section dedicated to Accessibility guidance. I broke the sections into 5 specific domains outside of general guidance. Physical, Communicative / Receptive, Behavioral, Cognitive, and Emotional. What I’m essentially doing is tackling the topic from a symptomatic approach, rather than a cause approach. Tthat limits me to an extent from the specificity inherent with conditions, but allows for the broadest spectrum of guidance. I have 2 directors of special education I’ve worked with helping to ensure that the information I’m providing is safe, sound, and that the terminology is effective.

Seperate from that I created a wiki called www.accessible-rpg.com It is currently under developed, and tailored primarily to children, but eventually I’d like it to become a free resource to people developing games or running tables, to create a more accessible gaming table. It’s a larger goal than Power Outage itself, and its only going to be successful with community involvement. That’s why it’s built in the wiki format. It has to be populated with information from the people who are directly effected. It has to be live, and continually changing. I plan on jumping right back into it once I’m done with the kickstarter, and pulling in as much guidance as I can get.

As to why it’s important to me, I could try to relate to work, or family members, or some forms of tangible relationships to be people I know that have disabilities, but in all honesty, it is something that we should ALL be working toward. Roleplaying games allow all of us to not only break free of the limitations we find in our every day lives, but express our real selves through our avatars. We bring our strengths and our perceived weaknesses and allow them to shape a world we actively create. The absolute NEED to make that process available to everyone is imperative. We need to be accessible. We need to be inclusive. We need to bring everyone to the table, and if we can’t, then we need to drag that table over to them.

A muscular character in a cropped jacket with a toaster for a head, a carafe as a gun, and a waffle press hammer labeled "BREAK FAST"

What are the mechanics like in Power Outage? How do you encounter and overcome challenges?

So we’re working with kids. That takes “expectations” and throws them into the waste bin. So the idea behind Power Outage’s mechanics is in compartmentalizing game play so that kids can be playing their own individualized game while still contributing to the greater narrative. It’s taking the concept of differentiation from the classroom and applying it the gaming sphere.

What it boils down to is the idea that the game is more a guide then a hard set dogmatic codex that must be followed. GMs provided guidance to players based off of their capabilities, and to do this effectively, the mechanics have been made so that it’s easily accessible to everyone involved.

Characters have 4 attributes. IMPACT – which effects basic human characteristics POWER – which effects their super heroic capabilities OHMER – which is the stat that IMPACT and POWER compare againsts and YP – Yield Points – which is the point pool that Heroes have before deciding them must Yield or regroup. There is no death in Power Outage.

The 4 attributes covers a lot of types of conditions, but is a reduced amount of record keeping so that not only are kids able to focus more on roleplay and story elements, but so that GMs can more easily manage groups of kids who for instance may not be able to read yet, or add large sums.

In order to allow creative freedom for kids to make the heroes they want, Power tables are provided with effects are provided and grouped to Combat, Support, and Utlity. Kids work with the GM to determine what their heroes can do, and the GM helps match the power to an effect on the table. So if you’re doing 1d4 damage from up to 20 spaces away, it doesn’t matter if that effect comes from a flame torch, or a snow ball, or lightning bolt or psychic shock. In short, Power Outage provides the effect, and the hero provides the flavor.

One last thing I’ll mention is the CAPE system (Combat, Alternative, Puzzle, and Exploration) It’s a way to compartmentalize adventures so that you can cherry pick what you want for your play sessions. In the prewritten adventures (to be released, although one is included with the core book) it becomes a choose your own adventure mechanic. Do you prefer to not have violence in your session, Alternative Components match up to every Combat Component. Are puzzles too difficult? Move around them directly to exploration. It allows GMs to build adventures that pertain to the needs of their group.

All of this comes from the game kids want to play, rather than the game kids are forced to play. And it happens at all levels. From something as simple as the character sheets “Character image” section being enlarged because kids want more room to drawing their characters, to color/symbol coding Attributes so that a GM can easily say “Tell me the red number” or “Tell me the number with the boot symbol”

letters and symbols in primary colors: C with a fist in red, A with a shield in green, P with a puzzle piece in yellow, and E with a magnifying glass in blue.

The five regions for playing in sound really fun! What are they like to play in? What exciting elements do they have in store?

So not only are the 5 regions different stylistic settings, the settings themselves allow for potentially uniquely suited playstyles as well.

The Atomnyy Zavod is a always night gothic soviet atomic punk city. It’s gritty, and confusing, and the some of the starker elements are only highlighted by the oddity of it’s semi-futuristic elements. You’ll see old-timey vehicles driving under nuclear battery powered street green glowing street lights. But this is the perfect setting for gritty noir mysteries. You’ll use Exploration and Puzzle solving components just as often if not more often then Combat/Alternative.

Shorai City is it’s opposite in many ways, with it’s soaring Neo-Japanese inspired towers, flying cars, and robotic servants. This city has become a gathering point for many big heroes and villains, and often becomes the setting for large confrontations. This setting is great for large Beat Em Up style baddies that hearken back to the Golden Era comic days. Villains include Mrs. Roboto and The Tempuritan.

The Overgrowth is by far the most expansive region of Outage. The product of Outages once barren but strange landscape, had tests done on it in the early stages of American involvement causing the worlds largest forrest to grow. That forrest however was both invasive, aggressive, and sentient. Still outpost seem to coexist within the Overgrowth. A musical troll city, a city of Outcast Powers (the name for people with Powers in Outage), and a School for Sandwich Magic are just a few examples of what is discovered, but certainly more mysteries lie within under the canopy. This setting is great for all sorts of Campy Adventures or Mythical Fantasy type games. One area might hold dragons, and the other might hold dinosaurs. Ancient civilizations come to light or scientific outposts. Villains include Treestache and Swagneto.

The sink is a geological anomoly. It is a peninsula on the south eastern coast of Outage. One end appears to be sinking steadily in the ocean while the other side of it emerges from the ground far inland, seemingly with intact ancient structures. At it’s tip, the sink features a floating shanty city of disreputable individuals known as The Scum. Under the ocean as the sink delves further into it’s depths lie ancient cities under the water, sealed off from the ocean that surrounds it (for now). This is a great city for acting a bit rebellious enjoying some not so squeaky mission, confronting morale dilemmas, or just outright exploration. Whether you’re in the muddy bayou, exploring submerged catacombs or getting into naval battles with or against pirates, it’s usually a nonstop adventure. Villains of note include The Boat Rocker and InstaGator.

Finally, Seward’s Refuge is central to the island continent. It is an American run scientific and military facility, that serves often as a waystation between regions, a central government, a barrier to the Overgrowth, and it’s Space Elevator even provides access to the stars. This region is great for multi-region adventures, political intrigue, science gone wrong, or incursion/spy missions. Villains of note include Agent Orangutan and General Specific.

Each region has areas that aren’t directly drawn out leaving exploration up to the imagination and creation of the GM. There is also a section in the book detailing potential other locations including Dimensional and Temporal options. It’s a huge sandbox that kids and adults can play in. You can build just about any game you want to in the world.

A character with short hair, goggles, and augmented clothing - armor with radar antennae, a claw hand, and braces at the knees.

With all of the efforts that you have put in, do you have any hopes moving forward for Power Outage and even other games to become more accessible for kids?

Yes, I think you’ll see a lot more of this cropping up. There is a positive shift in the culture of gaming that not only lends to more voices being heard, but a general awareness of the roles we play in inclusiveness, accessibility, and security. A lot of people grew up with these games, and are looking to share it with their kids. In he end, getting families around the table and talking and gaming with each other was the seed that my game grew out of. And as we learn more and more how games effect the ability to understand and retain knowledge, to become flexible and willing to learn new things. It’s becoming an imperative.

The Power Outage cover including an imposing image of a toaster-headed being in the background next to turrets, with a knight-styled character with a cape in the front holding a horse staff, next to a person in crash-test dummy styled costume.
What a nifty cover!

Thank you so much to Bebarce for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed it and that you’ll check out Power Outage on Kickstarter today!


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Five or So Questions on Tiny Supers

Hi all! Today I have an interview with Alan Bahr on Tiny Supers: Minimalist Superhero Roleplaying, a game currently on Kickstarter! Tiny Supers sounds like big fun in a small design space, so I asked Alan some questions. Check out Alan’s responses below!

A masked black woman superhero in a leather jacket and gloves over plain clothes, deflecting bullets while protecting a frightened white man with glasses.
Bastion, one of the GallantVerse Iconics! Art by Nicolás Giacondino

Tell me a little about Tiny Supers! What excites you about it?

Oh, that’s hard to answer. I grew up loving Superheroes. I’ve struggled with mental illness for a very large part of my life, and comics were a big part of that recovery and healing process for me. I’m a person who needs a goal and aspiration, and superheroes provide that to me. Tiny Supers and the GallantVerse are my love letter to one of the most formative parts of my life.

How do the narrative bangs and pows of Supers integrate with the mechanics of TinyD6? What have you done to create the heroic “feel”?

Well, Narratively, the powers in Tiny Supers aren’t focused on “ranks” or who is stronger. It’s focused on the needs of the narrative. Much like comic powers vary based on the writer, Tiny Supers has some “flex” inside it’s system, due to it’s nature of a minimalist game line. We’ve worked extensively to make sure powers are flexible, interesting, and dynamic. 
A superhero in a blue metallic armor suit, racing fast and leaving clouds of dust.
Ryker Swift, aka Velocity! One of the Iconic GallantVerse Heroes. Art by Nicolás Giacondino
What is the GallantVerse like? Who are some of the major players and what’s at stake?
Well, the GallantVerse is a fledging supers universe. Most of the supers are under 5 years of tenure. A majority of the lead-in stakes revolve around heroes learning the limits of what being a hero means in the eyes of the public and their own conscience. It focuses on hope, optimisim, and being a beacon. There’s a lot that can feel oppressive, cynical and bitter, and while we shouldn’t avoid confronting the harsh and hard things in life, having a place to escape where it’s a little easier to be a hero can be fantastic. That’s the Goal of the GallantVerse. We have a slew of Iconic Heroes like Gallant (our Paragon), Velocity (a Speedster), Bastion (the leader of our teen hero team The Bulwarks), and so much more. 
What does a typical Super look like in Tiny Supers, mechanically?
TinyD6 functions on a simple system of 1, 2, or 3 six-sided dice. Heroes will roll a number indicated by their abilities/powers and if any dice results in a 5 or 6, they’re successful. Power Traits often will increase chances of success, either by granting the third d6, giving a better range of success, or allowing a unique set of actions. Heroes will have an Archetype that gives them a special Trait, and then they’ll select 3-6 Traits/Power Traits. That’s it! It’s very easy to make a character. 
What makes a Tiny Super look the most different from a character in another Tiny d6 game?
The Power Traits, and Nicolas Giacondino’s fantastic art! Our book is so beautifully illustrated because Nic does such great work.

A woman superhero with a G on her chest, styled in purple and grey with shoulder-length light brown hair.
The Iconic Hero and paragon of the GallantVerse, Gallant! Art by Nicolas Giacondino

Thanks so much to Alan for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed it and that you’ll check out Tiny Supers on Kickstarter today!


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Five or So Questions on Champions Now

Hi all!

I did an interview with Ron Edwards on his Kickstarter project, Champions Now! Ron prepared our audio recordings and edited everything into a video, so you get to hear the interview on the following video. I hope you enjoy it and that you’ll check out Champions Now on Kickstarter today!

https://youtu.be/Pkfg6uxu2EY


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Five or So Questions on CAPERS

Today I’ve got an interview with Craig Campbell on CAPERS, a super-powered roleplaying game set in the 1920s, which is currently on Kickstarter! Craig talks about the setting and the mechanics of the game in the following responses – check them out!

CAPERS cover by Beth Varni.

Tell me a little about CAPERS. What excites you about it?

CAPERS is a super-powered RPG of 1920s gangsters. Players portray bootleggers and mobsters working to make their fortune and their mark during Prohibition in the U.S. And they have low-level superpowers. But so do their rivals and so do the feds. The game uses a press-your-luck playing card based mechanic. You might have a successful card flip but only be barely successful and opt to flip another card to try for a better success. But you might fail in the process.

I’m not a huge comics fan, but I am a superhero TV and movie fan. I love stories of people with extraordinary abilities in what is otherwise our normal world. There’s plenty of supers games out there set in the modern day (and plenty that are about HEROES), so I decided to explore a period in history from a less heroic angle. The Prohibition era has always interested me and I enjoy the romanticized movies and TV shows that tell stories set during that decade. So I thought it’d be fun to explore it in RPG form. There aren’t many RPGs that touch on the 1920 other than Call of Cthulhu stuff. And the majority of supers games fall in the comic book style, capes and cowls and all that. These two things make CAPERS pretty unique, but also familiar.

It’s become sort of a chocolate and peanut butter thing for me. I took two things I really dig (super-powered characters and the 1920s) and mashed them together to see what would happen. I feel it’s worked out pretty well.

A different kind of car chase by Beth Varni.
Where did you build your setting from? Did you use a lot of realistic resources or did you span out? 
The world of CAPERS is based on real-world history but with some liberties taken. Most notably, a small percentage of people started exhibiting extraordinary abilities shortly after the Great War (WWI). For the most part, the origin of these abilities is kept vague. However, there’s a chapter that brings science into the game setting, along with a largely not understood source for the powers.

A trio of primary backdrops have been developed for the game – New York, Chicago, and Atlantic City – along with a bit of info describing a handful of other cities. Much of what’s described there is based in real history, though some details have been changed and some new things have been added, wholly from my and other writers’ imaginations. A general overview provides context for the world. What are the new technologies of the era? What’s popular in entertainment? What is life like in the 1920s.

Several notable personalities of the era are present. Enoch “Nucky” Johnson and Al “Scarface” Capone are described in some detail and provided with stat blocks. However, given that the well-known personages of the time are largely Irish and Italian guys in their 20s-40s, historically, I’ve taken some liberties. Atlantic City’s Mayor Bader is a black woman. Charles “Lucky” Luciano has become Carla “Lucky” Luciano. And the hardcase DOJ agent making trouble for Capone in Chicago is Vanessa “Ness” Elliott rather than her real-world male counterpart. Additionally, a wider variety of characters of color, female characters, and LGBT characters are presented to round out the world. All in all, this is presented simply as “how this world is” though some of the animosities between different ethnicities remains for flavor, such as Capone’s largely Italian gang squaring off against Dean O’Banion’s largely Irish northside crew in Chicago.

Concussion beam in action by Beth Varni.
How do superpowers function in CAPERS? What makes them really pop?
First a bit on the game mechanic.

The game uses playing cards, rather than dice. Each player, and the GM, has their own deck (52 suit cards plus 2 jokers). Your character has six traits – Charisma, Agility, Perception, Expertise, Resilience, and Strength. Each trait is ranked from 1 to 3 (higher if you have the right powers). When you make a trait check, you look at the trait’s rank and that is your card count. If you have a skill appropriate to the trait check, your card count is increased by 1 .

To make your trait check you flip cards. You can flip as many cards as your card count but can stop at any time and take the most recent card flipped as your check. The pip count of the cards flipped (2, 3, 4, etc, on up to ace) determine success or failure, whilst the suit of the card determines the degree of success or failure, starting with clubs (lowest) and proceeding alphabetically to spades (highest). So, you might succeed, but barely, and choose to gamble for a better success by flipping another card… but risking failure.

Each superpower has a standard effect, the thing it does or effect it generates most of the time. Each power also comes with a variety of boosts. You choose which ones you want when your character gains a power and gain more boosts as you increase a power’s level. Each boost makes the standard effect better or more versatile, provides an alternate standard effect, or provides something else your character can do related to that power. However, each boost you use in a turn reduces the card count of whatever you’re trying to do by one. You can stick with your standard effect and not suffer card count reduction OR you can use several boosts to gain other cool stuff but reduce the chances of success on your action for that turn.

It’s a “press your luck” system. The combination of trait check mechanic and boost use makes the system a balancing act for each character each turn. More power equals reduced chance of success. Less power means greater chance of success. You also have a sense of what cards remain in your deck, so that colors your choices as well. Players have found the system very engaging. You’re making active choices whenever you’re flipping cards, not just rolling a die and looking at the number.

On the street by Beth Varni.
What were challenges you encountered trying to emulate both a unique time and place and a very trope-heavy genre?
Combining a specific time period and a trope-heavy genre can easily become overwhelming. The first thing I did was make a conscious decision that CAPERS is not a superhero game. It’s not a supervillain game. It’s not even a supers game really. It’s a gangsters game where the gangsters and law enforcement HAPPEN to have superpowers at their disposal.

Once I focused in on the gangster game, it became a question of what tropes of supers were appropriate and which weren’t. I wrestled with a number of powers I thought were cool, but ultimately ended up being too complicated for a game that is, at its core, a stylized cops and robbers game. I also scaled back the POWER of the superpowers. There’s no mind control. That’s a power that becomes to easily abused unless you give the target ways to get out from under the influence. And if you make that readily available, mind control loses its “cool factor.” There’s no magnetism control either. It’s just too darn versatile compared to the other powers in the game. There’s a reason Magneto makes such a formidable foe even on his own.

So, too, I looked at other tropes of comic book stories and developed my own take on them (or had another designer help with that). A 1930s version of super-science. An explanation for where powers come from. Alternate Earths and planar travel. Super-prisons. That stuff is in the game, but it’s all optional.


There are a lot of chances for something to fail, even though it’s got a lot of chances to win. What makes failing in CAPERS interesting? 

I’m a big fan of failure in RPGs. They add drama, insert complexity, and turn the story on a dime. That said, I don’t want every failure to be a huge narrative-laden thing that slows the pacing down. In CAPERS, you can succeed with a complication (a mini-failure), fail with a special bonus to help you next time, straight up fail (with no additional effect), or botch. Each type of failure has its place and helps the story in a different way. Complications add interesting tidbits that make the encounter more fun. Failure with a bonus later incentivizes the player to take further risks. Straight failure keeps the pacing moving. And of course, botches make for the best stories, especially when the characters ultimately succeed later, overcoming the botch.

The playing card mechanic requires the players to make choices on whether they keep the card they have or flip another and take a chance. A player who succeeds with a complication may choose to suffer that complication just because the group needs a success, even if it’s minimal. A player who fails with a bonus later may take that failure because they’ve suddenly come up with a cool idea for their character’s action next turn and want that bonus to come into play for their big risk.

How failure plays a role in a character’s actions is in the player’s hands a fair amount of the time. It’s not entirely at the whim of the random. It’s my hope that this provides for a more memorable story for the players.

CAPERS is coming from Craig’s company, Nerdburger Games!


Thanks so much to Craig for the interview! CAPERS looks pretty cool and I hope you’ve all enjoyed learning about it, and that you’ll check it out on Kickstarter today!


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