In celebration of IndieRPG month, I want to introduce you to a little game you probably have never heard of. This is my look at Streamlined Superheroes by John Fredericks of Sharp Mountain Games.
Full Disclosure
Full disclosure, John Fredericks is a friend of mine who both ran this system at, and was a sponsor for, Ecclesicon 25 back in March. He also sent me a copy of Streamlined Superheroes for free to see what I thought of it, but I went out and purchased a copy soon after I finished reading. I’m under no obligation to say nice things about the game, nor did he pay me for my thoughts. This is my free and fair review.
Core Mechanic
The core mechanic for Streamlined Superheroes is, well, streamlined. For checks Players roll a d20 + and add their attribute score. If the result is 10 or greater the check is successful.
On a successful check an effect die is rolled. This will reduce the target’s Hit Points if it’s an attack, or Hurdle Points if the attempt is made against an obstacle—such as a trap or a doomsday device that’s begun a countdown. When the target hits zero, it is defeated.
Both checks and effect dice can be rolled with both advantage and disadvantage, two of the same die are rolled and either the higher or lower number is taken.
For opposed checks both parties roll. If only one side is successful that party wins the check. If both parties succeed, they roll an appropriate effect dice to see who wins.
And, that’s pretty much the game in a nutshell.
About Characters
All characters have four attributes: Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Charisma. Players assign an array to these attributes during character creation: 3, 2, 1, and 0.
Characters also have a combination of four powers or skills, chosen by the player, to which an array of die types is assigned: d12, d10, d8, and d6. While it’s common for characters to have three powers and one skill (which is from their “regular” life), there’s no mechanical difference between the two. A hero may be all skill-based and be able to play with other characters in the game without any problems.
Characters begin play with 20 Hit Points, though if they take a body armor power or equipment the maximum number of whatever die type to which the body armor is assigned is added to their total. A player who takes a d10 body armor power, for example, begins with 30 hit points.
Both skills and powers are , with the exception of body armor and anything listed that is equipment, narrative only. If a character has a concept in mind and wants to change the narrative description for the power, no problem. When the power is activated the assigned die rolled, just as with any other power or skill. Only the in-game description changes.
If a player wants their character to have a weakness, like being afraid of the color yellow, then the character will get an additional d6 power or skill to use. Powers or skills based on gear are considered a weakness because the tools can be lost, stolen, or broken.
If a character ever wants to attempt something for which the character is not trained they may do so, but their effect die is a d4.
Characters advance by GM discretion, usually after a significant adventure. Each time they do so they may raise the amount of one attribute (to a maximum of 8) or increase one of their effect dice by one type (capping out at a d12).
About Combat
Unless surprised, which is determined by GM discretion, the default initiative in the game is for the players’ side to go first, from there combat alternates between NPCs and PCs until everyone has had a chance to go.
Inflicting blows on villains and dealing with hurdles uses the core mechanic as described earlier. In sticky situations, however, another hero may attempt to help another character with their action. The helping hero makes an appropriate check, called for by the GM, and if they succeed the hero being helped gets advantage on their attack check and advantage on their effect dice. Even if the helping hero fails their check, however, the attacking hero is still granted advantage on their check.
Characters who become ensnared by something need to inflict damage on the ensnaring force in order to break free. This is equal to the effect die’s value when the snare was unleashed upon them.
Design
Streamlined Superheroes has a minimalist and clean design. It’s not flashy, but it gets the job done. John is working on some changes to apply after the game’s been out in the wild for a bit, so I expect it to be updated in a near future.
Streamlined Superheroes is designed to appear as though it was a relic from the 80s, with two columns of full-justified text and a single font for the entire book (except for the sample Heroes’ names). It’s all no-frills, and it works.
The body and heading fonts are an easy-to-read serif font. Call outs sport a simple grey background. Headings are a larger, and heavier, version of the body font, and there are three levels. The footer contains nothing but the page number, and there nothing in the header.
Artwork is not plentiful, but what does exist is nice. It’s all either John Fredericks own art or public domain comic pieces from bygone eras.
It doesn’t try to break new ground, it just works. That’s not always a bad thing.
Play Report
Streamlines Superheroes was so easy I decided to run a game of it only two days removed from reading it. How did it play? Pretty good!
Character Creation was as fast as I expected. The players assigned their attributes and picked their skills and powers without a problem, and thought up how their characters acted (as well as their super hero names) as we played.
Once players got used to the concept of effect dice, which took all of a couple minutes, they were narrating their actions with a lot of fun flare. Here’s a few examples:
- Two heroes teamed up to freeze a couple of bank robbers in place.
- One hero magicked some restraints against another.
- One of the ice-power heroes described creating ice cube boxing gloves to punch a villain.
- Another grabbed a robber and teleported him out to the police, and his quantum based powers shunted any target that hit 0 hp to another reality for a bit.
- Because one of the players purchased a Mazda the day of our game, they decided that a Mazda CX was the group’s vehicle of choice. Why? Because they were sponsored by a local dealership. Their tank always rode with his head sticking out the sunroof.
I would run this again, it’s a blast. But there are a couple of things I’d change.
First is the ensnaring rule, which allows for the target to make an DEXTERITY check to avoid. This made it feel like to much of a toss up, and the players eventually decided to punch things because it worked better (and I didn’t want to TPK the party in the first scene, so I pointed that out). I brought this up to John and he said that was a rule he’d tried many different variations of. He’s going to try to run it without that DEXTERITY check to see how it works. Because the ensnarement roll creates hurdle points I think that’s a pretty good idea.
Second is initiative. Alternating between heroes and adversaries is simply, but I ran with six players and it ended up being ungainly when the number of adversaries is matched the number of heroes. It became even more ungainly when the characters ended up in three different locations in the scene! What I ended up doing, by instinct, was grouping all the adversaries who were both in the same space and same type into the same initiative. It felt more natural and sped things up.
Having an effect die roll an entanglement’s harder points, however, is wonderful. Two of my players successfully grappled some guards, but one of them only rolled a 1 for their effect—so I described him as having a tenuous grasp. This, in turn, brought another hero over to assist.
I like this game. And it may be the best “pick up and go” Superhero TTRPG I’ve seen yet. I think Sentinel Comics RPG better overall, but not by much!
Conclusion
Calling this 17 page book is “no-frills,” is an understatement. Streamlined Superheroes is a game which can be taught in minutes, character creation is fast and flexible, and the game is designed to move. Folks may scoff at its light-weight form, but Streamlined Superheroes feels very “comic book-ish.” And that’s about as high paise as I can give a super hero game.
If you want to pick Streamlined Superheroes up from DriveThru, you can get it for a whopping $2.99. This is well worth picking up.
