Sorry, the title doesn't lead much to creative interpretation.
Every Friday I have "Daddy Daughter Date Night" with my 6 year old and my 4 year old. Usually we watch alternate, watching a movie one week, or doing some craft/project/recipe another.
Last week I had my daughters create their own super heroes.
I told them to pick 3 powers, and 1 weakness. Then they drew their superheroes.
I likewise created a super villain to appose them.
Here's what they made.
My 6 year old made "Butterfly girl"
Powers
1. Turn into a small indestructible butterfly.
2. Flight (even in non butterfly mode)
3. Confusion light - The ability to shine a light that disorients villains.
Weakness - Birds and fear of birds.
My 4 year old made "Ice Princess"
1. Transform herself. Allows her to mimic, create the appearance of clothes, costumes, or change texture/density.
2. An ice wand.
3. A sword master with an unbreakable sword.
Weakness - Can't swim.
I Made "Break Fast"
Constantly confused as a breakfast themed villain.
1. Has a device that breaks inanimate objects.
2. Is super fast.
3. Shoots a super adhesive maple syrup like substance.
Weakness - Low Blood Sugar.
I thought it was a fun project but I decided afterward that I could take it to another level, so I decided to build a D&D game out of it. Because they're young I couldn't go with a full on D&D session, so I took 4E and I scaled it down drastically and added a few of my own elements.
I'm attaching my notes, but I'll post the general rules I'd devised here.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zh2zft17bv2i1ny/Power Girls.pdf
So basically I dropped down a lot of numbers, and I stripped a lot of attributes to reduce complexity. The basic game is
Str, Pow, Arm, and HP - Starting points are 2, 2, 10, and 10+d6 respectively
I have to somewhat treat them equally because get angry if they see differences set for them right off the bat, so I said at level 1, and with each odd level they can add 2 point to any stat they want, while HP will raise each even level by a d4 roll.
There are two types of attacks
- STR (Punch or Kick) which I've not yet figured in differentiating and
- POW (One of their Power Cards)
So STR attacks are a simple STR points + d20 vs Villains Armor with a straight 2 dmg (Increments up some how over levels, not sure how yet)
Same goes for Power attacks POW points +d20 vs Villains Armor
Villains attack their armor with the same style of attacks.
For powers, I've started creating list of powers per odd level. The get to pick up to 3 powers per increment, of which they can use 5 powers per battle. Any additional mobs that join combat mid battle adds 1 power.
STR attacks are unlimited.
I tried to be a bit creative with the spells, you can see them in my notes, as well as some villain stats for a session I built.
They play a move minor standard but have a default of 10 movement. I know that's high, but I'm not ready to make them work too hard just yet.
They can also heal as a standard action by rolling a d20 and getting a score greater than 10. They can then heal for 1d6. I'll make some of their powers boost a heal chance eventually.
Finally in order to create their weaknesses I've decided to make Crit Hits cause their weakness to generate. It basically makes them lose a turn.
Tomorrow I'm going to test run the first session with them and Ill let you all know how it goes (if you're interested). They're pretty smart girls, but I designed it so that my older daughter can handle the addition, while my younger daughter can just pick the battle cards she wants to play and i'll do the math involved with her dice rolls.
Posts
This is exactly what my 4-year old would want to have as a superpower. She literally changes her clothes 3 times a day. Once when she wakes up, then after nap time, then usually after dinner. And that's not even talking about pajamas.
Keep us updated about this game, I would love to try this with her when she gets a bit older.
My younger daughter rolled a Nat 20 on a finishing blow.
Doctor Delicious, a man bend on world domination builds a dealth ray but instead of killing things, it turns stuff into candy. Anyone who eats the candy becomes mind controlled to Doctor Delicious.
I've written up an old villain I made called InstaGator. A guy in a gator outfit that starts fights between people.
The Division, Warframe (XB1)
GT: Tanith 6227
During one of the fights ice princess paused to offer one of the henchmen a slushy shed made. It was abnormal tactics but I allowed it.
The next time she offered another henchman a slushy he took it and he got a brain freeze causing him to not be able to attack a round.
Meanwhile butterfly girl realized tactics fantastically and kept the group together. She guided her little sister to focus on one guy before moving to the other.
There were many high fives handed out at the end of the battle.
So I started talking to a bunch of people, and the more people I mentioned this too, the more people wanted me to expand this into something they can play too.
So, I decided to go forward with it. I've renamed the game Power Outage, to be more gender neutral.
The game setting is in a parallel earth large island called Outage, Alaska found at the southern tip of the Bearing Straight.
I've modified strength to Impact so that it can effect either punch/kick or command of presence.
I also refined the components of the build into RP (roleplay) and CEPA (Combat, Exploration, Puzzle, Alternative) components. This way I can build around the battles so that it's only one of many activities that can be done in any session. Alternative paths usually offer a nonviolent solution to the problem that still progresses the story block to the next level.
It looks like I'm going to be building a website, and making the game available for free to encourage parents to play with their kids.
On the website I'll have
A core rule book, a quick start guide, a gallery of villains, a repository for game session blocks, and a gallery/submission for heroes.
On the Heroes side people can pick up existing heroes, or they can submit their super heroes to the site (3 powers, 1 weakness) and I'll build them a hero deck of powers. I'm hoping that if the community get's big enough then others will volunteer.
The one stipulation is that they have to allow their heroes to be added to the gallery. That way it will always be expanding. I'd also like to receive the kids art for the hero so that they're attached. Perhaps eventually all the super heroes will have several renditions from professional to child created.
The game session blocks will each feature a main villain, and be broken up into 5 part story arcs. Each block will be for a specific level (1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16, 17-20) and each will contain 2-5 sessions worth of play.
I've been busy too. I've been working on the Core Rule book, the website, and the first Game Session block. Please note all of these are still incomplete, a first draft, not yet fully organized and completely subject to change at my whim or on recommended counsel. I also don't have an artist yet, so it's lacking in the graphics department, and any graphical accouterments (the logo, the page design) are currently being done by my own inept hands. But I figured I'd show them to you guys since it'll give you an idea of where I'm headed.
Here is the core rule book.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0lou01vkko97wnf/Power Outage.pdf
Here is the first Game Session Block - The Inventor
https://www.dropbox.com/s/r8y1lxfrtn9x7j7/The Inventor - Part 1.pdf
And Here is the temporary repository site, which still need a complete makeover/facelift.
http://www.gonerdy.com/PowerOutage/
Hope you guys dig it.
Which is to say: :^:
I completed one of the Adventure Story Blocks (I keep jumping between calling it Adventure Blocks or Story Blocks).
It's a Level 1 - 4 block of 5 sessions called Trading Spaces featuring the villain, The Inventor.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/r8y1lxfrtn9x7j7/The Inventor - Part 1.pdf
In total I plan to have 5 blocks in an Arc dedicated to 1-2 Villains, levels 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16, 17-20
And I plan on having anywhere from 5-6 Arcs.
Here are some of the pictures from this adventure
A remote that can be programmed to control the robots
1 of the 3 mazes they have the option of searching
The lair of The Inventor
1 of 2 terminals that need to be disabled to make their way through the lair
The terminal to disable her Swarmbot Trap
and finally here are the villains
Outstanding.
The Division, Warframe (XB1)
GT: Tanith 6227
It's been a while but I've not let go of this game, while I have a tendency to jump around quite a bit with my projects, I've had the opportunity over the past few months to work much more on the game.
I believe I now have a game that is playable. So if any of you are interested in beta testing this please check it out and let me know.
So what have I done since the last update?
I've put up the skeleton of a website to host my files.
http://www.poweroutagegame.com
And I've fleshed out most of the Core Rules Book which now includes
1. A quick play guide (not fully supported yet by the website as it states)
2. Level 1-20 powers.
3. All the mechanics that I can think of.
4. World Descriptions so that people can build their own adventures.
http://www.poweroutagegame.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Power-Outagev12.pdf
5. Came up with some new villain ideas: The Tempuritan - A maniacal japenese monk with a penchant for frying things, and The Boat Rocker - Most people don't like rocking boats. He does. Literally.
I've renamed The Inventor to Mrs. Roboto and updated the first adventure block but not much else has changed on that
http://www.poweroutagegame.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Power-Outagev12.pdf
Also while it's not really ready, one of the people I showed this to liked it so much that he started developing a mapping utility app for my first adventure block.
So where am I at now?
Well I gotta clean up the website and get more content in there. Including the Quick Start Heroes I suggested would be there in the quick play instructions.
I need to eventually find an artist, since my efforts to date are probably somewhat pitiful.
I probably will be tweaking and retweaking the Core Rules Book 1000 more times to get it to flow better with information.
I'm working on my next Adventure block to take place in Atomnyy Zavod (think Gotham but always night, and atomicpunk) featuring Break Fast.
And of course I'm looking for people to actually try playing the game other than myself so that they could spot issues with mechanics or areas I've left gaps of information in. Or to let me know if my powers list is over/underpowered, etc..
Where do I want to take it?
End goal, I want to have the Core Rules Book and any level 1-4 Adventures I create to be available digitally for free.
I won't ever be able to sell the CRB or Adventure Blocks as a printable edition until I get an artist to render some of the graphics, so here's to hoping that happens.
I plan on selling adventure blocks for levels 5-8, 9-12, 13-16, and 17-20. I'm aiming for like 5 bucks per block with a good portion of that going towards Child's Play (2-3 dollar per 5 still not figured it out yet.)
If the guy building the utility app ever wants to sell his app, he can keep all the proceeds.
Also on the site, I'd like to get a service going where players (I'm thinking typically parents GMing for their kids) can have their kids heroes drawn for them (or logos depending on costs) and those options would be direct artist to client deals.
I've also been contacted by a guy who has an interest in 3d design and printing who was talking about the possibility of printing custom mini's as some kind of service, but again, I'd link the client and vendor while keeping it out of it myself.
On the site, I'd like to have a submission option, where people are able to submit the heroes they've created, so that the pantheon of selectable heroes for those that don't want to custom build their own can just pick one up and run with it. I'll be putting up the custom ones my daughters design.
Anyway, that's all I got for now. Let me know what you think, and hopefully if you guys get a chance to play it, let me know how things go.