My Hero Academia-Inspired Superhero Funnel Proof of Concept

As I'm wrapping up Maximum Recursion Depth, I've been considering what I want to do next, or if I want to take a break before working on my next big project. I've got a lot of thoughts on follow-up issues of MRD, but then I learned about this Funnel Jam on itch.io, and I'd been sitting on this Superhero Funnel idea for a while, so I thought I'd try this as a palate cleanser. I don't know if I'll actually finish it on time, or if it will receive any kind of layout or just be a google doc of a glorified blog post, but I'm excited about the idea nonetheless. One of the MRD followups I've considered is superhero-related, and that's all I'll say on that for the moment, but this might inspire or replace that to some degree or another, we'll see.

The Funnel is inspired by My Hero Academia, a brilliant superhero shonen anime where the characters are students at a superhero school. The opening arc involves a competition where only the top X participants, or participants who exceed a certain score, I forget off-hand, but only a limited number of applicants get into the school, so in effect, it's a Funnel. So that's what I'm going for here; less so deadly DCC Dungeon, more so My Hero Academia competition.

Below is the basic outline for what I'm thinking, and I would absolutely appreciate feedback, but I might change things pretty significantly by the time I actually put it together. I have never designed, run, or even played in a Funnel, so I imagine there are a lot of concerns I'm not fully anticipating.

It will be a while before it's ready, but I would also like to playtest it if anyone is interested!

Funnel Jam

Basic premise and mechanics

The game is designed specifically for the module/funnel in mind, although I think it could work for a longer form MHA-style campaign with the addition of advancement mechanics.

Because it's a funnel, it would be hard for players to create and roleplay multiple interesting characters with interesting personalities, without any guarantee of who will make it and who won't, so I wanted a set of pre-made characters ready to go, but with some randomization both to increase the number of possibilities via combinatorics and also to give the players some sense of ownership over the characters.

There will be a list of pre-made superheroes with superhero names, costumes, and powers, but with high randomization so that no two games have an identical batch of superheroes. For instance, the superheroes table is separate from the alter ego table (imagine if Bakugo and Midoriya were flipped!). Also, each superhero will itself have some degree of randomization as well, like different signature moves or variants on their powers. My hope is that way you could even have two heroes with nearly the same powers in the same game and it would still be interesting; you'd just need to give them a different name and costume but otherwise, they could have "the same" powers.

• Inspired by My Hero Academia UA Entrance Exam.
• Very rules-light, FKR-ish.
• Hero Point system on top of "survival".
• Ability scores aren't physical but based on the scoring categories of the competition.
• Diegetic.
• Challenges or trials can be solved in many ways, but bonus Hero Points in some cases for solving in one way over another creates interesting circumstances.
• Random Tables:
• Superheroes (name, costume, power).
• Weaknesses/shortcomings.
• Signature moves.
• Variants.
• Alter egos (using my character formula).
• Multiple trials with different conditions.

I have not decided on a resolution mechanic yet, but it'll probably be ability score generation with 3d6 and roll-under ability with d20. Could also be roll-under with 3d6.

Ability Scores

The ability scores are abstracted, as are the Hero Points (as opposed to Hit Points), which all tie into the ideals of superheroes but also sportsmanship and celebrity, the kinds of themes that MHA explores. In this way, the various conditions of the trials of the tournament and how the superheroes engage with them are diegetic and create interesting tactical or strategic choices. Like, maybe you could solve a trial with either SHOW or TEAM, but for this particular trial, bonus Hero Points will be rewarded if you use TEAM, so you may be incentivized to use TEAM even if you have much higher SHOW.

It also allows for characters with very different powers to all interact in a relatively "balanced" way. There's definitely an FKR component where I think sometimes you just have to say, there is no feasible way this character could / could not succeed at this specific action given their powers or those of the opposition, and I think that's ok, but this framing of abilities should hopefully lend itself to interesting encounters regardless of team composition.

• SHOWmanship: Power displays, catchphrases, signature taunts.
• TEAMwork: Help others, self-sacrifice, wholesomeness, public safety.
• WILLpower: Resistances e.g. elements, suppression, manipulation, and overcoming limitations.
• TECHnique: Using items or abilities in complex or atypical ways, technology (excluding tech relating to powers / personal gadgets), infiltration.
• EXAMination: Notice subtleties, investigation, deduction and prediction, intel gathering.
• Hero Points: Hit Points, stress, tournament score.

Trials

The meat of the module will be in the trials themselves. The trial structure lends itself well to one-shots and funnels where you maybe want things a bit more game-y and focused. Ideally, I want these to have some degree of randomization, but I also think there's an opportunity to pre-design them in very interesting ways, so I'll need to find the balance.

Trials can involve things like obstacle courses, defeating enemies, sports or games like king of the hill or capture the flag, rescue trials, morale trials, and so on.

Where things get complicated is in managing the Funnel. How many teams should there be? How many PCs should each player have per team? How do you manage free-for-all vs. team reorganization? I had originally thought that PCs should be punished for leaving their team or switching teams, which I still think is true to some extent, but logistically, to manage all the characters, there needs to be a way for players to move their characters around for the sake of game flow, so I added some conditions under which PCs can swap teams freely. But I think this is the part I'm most worried about.

• Free-for-all: Reach the goal, bypass opposition. After all other PCs have passed or failed, the last PC gets a single action to finish, or else they auto-fail.
• If they pass, they get bonus points.
• Teams: The PCs are broken into teams to pass a team-oriented trial. Ideally, each player should only have one superhero per team, with team sizes of 3-4 (or whatever works best). GMPCs or players with multiple superheroes per team can be used if necessary.
• Subsequent trials don't require superheroes to stay with their team, but they lose points for leaving their team and even more points for betraying a teammate.
• Superheroes should be able to amicably switch teams without losing points, or under certain conditions like between trials. I like the idea of the team/solo tradeoff and "punishing" superheroes for being selfish, but if players have superheroes who get disqualified asymmetrically, I want there to be ways for teams to regroup to help with game flow, without punishing them.
• Solo superheroes or partial teams can make new teams so long as the max team size is not exceeded.
• Trials are more difficult for solo or partial teams, but more points, so being strategically selfish is sometimes viable, creating tension and drama.
• Various challenges
• Defeat villain
• Reach a goal
• Rescue civilians
• De-escalation
• Morale
• Medical assistance
• Protect object or environment / minimize collateral damage
• Sports / Game-y like capture the flag or king of the hill

Despite this outline, I think some more thought will need to go into the overall design of the module and how the trials fit into that before I can delve deeper into particulars.

Heroes

Here are a few Heroes as proof of concept, although I may change this up significantly for the actual game. I want them to have distinct appearances and personalities, even if the players aren't doing much roleplaying per se (it seems like it would be difficult to get into character with a Funnel), they'll at least have some idea of how the character would behave.

Also, I want the powers to be interesting. I've created plenty of superpowers already, but I think these will be a little simpler and more focused.

For weaknesses, variants, and signature moves, roll 1d4 for one each. The "Signature Move" doesn't have to be taken too literally, they're more so just to inform how to think about and potentially use their powers. So potentially a hero could do something similar to one of the other Signature Moves, but more limited in scope or a less impactful effect.

Likewise, some of the powers may have weaknesses implicitly or explicitly, but the randomly rolled weakness is either especially vulnerable or to emphasize the point.

Superhero

Bloodhound

Costume: Form-fitting black and tan or amber suit, mask with floppy ears that pick up scents and assist in scent analysis.

Powers: Low-level superstrength, durability, speed, agility, and super-smell. They can reconstruct entire scenes from smell, including precise spatial and temporal resolution, pheromones, and minute chemical particles.

Weaknesses: 

1. Poor vision.
2. Ears sensitive to touch and also loud or high-frequency noises.
3. Singularly focused when following a scent.
4. Sensitive stomach.

Variants:

1. Powers are entirely technological, with the ears doing all of the scent analysis.
2. Anthropomorphic bloodhound.
3. Foxhound; smaller but faster and more agile.
4. Uplifted bloodhound.

Signature Moves:

1. Blood-bound: If they draw blood, they can perfectly track their target until the wound no longer bleeds.
2. Scent Analysis: By touching their ears to the ground or a surface, they can reconstruct a scene, including the order of events, and to some extent thoughts or sentiments (from pheromones), from the scent alone.
3. Bloodlust: They become significantly more powerful, but enter a near-uncontrollable rage, after drawing blood from one of their targets.
4. Power Pack: Their super senses and animal instincts make them excellent team players and benefitting their whole team on tracking-related tasks.

Scanner Darkly

Costume: Suit and tie, mask that obscures their face and shifts facial features, and modulates their voice, so that they are entirely unrecognizable.

Powers: They can infiltrate a group without anyone realizing it. They take on the features and personality of whoever they need to be to best fit into the group they infiltrate. Like dream logic; obvious after the fact that they don't belong, but makes sense at the moment. They also have a secret benefactor such as a corporation or government, who gave them various combat and espionage training and superspy gadgets.

Weaknesses:

1. The longer they stay in deep cover, the more likely they are to lose sight of their original purpose.
2. Brain hemispheres operate independently, leading to infrequent hallucinations or delusions.
3. Substance abuse problems relating to controlling their powers.
4. Burned by their organization; they have limited resources and many enemies.

Variants:

1. Powers are entirely drug-based.
2. They are actually a distributed intelligence funneled* into a human shell; underneath the mask is an empty void. Even their "true" self is an illusion.
3. Powers are entirely technological.
4. No secret benefactor, this is itself a delusion; training and gadgets come from acquired through mysterious means.

*pun intended

Signature Moves:

1. D: Even if spotted, if there is a crowd, they can seamlessly blend into the crowd under (D)eep cover.
2. Multi-Task Maneuver: Their split brain hemispheres allow for superhuman multitasking, and they are uniquely trained for fighting while outnumbered and using their opposition's numbers against themselves.
3. Panopticon: Carries holographic scanners, an array of micromachines tossed like dust that can coordinate within a space to reflect light signals between each other, functioning as a comprehensive surveillance system across a large space.
4. Blue Flower: Attached to the suit lapel, causes mild hallucinations and delusions to those in the vicinity when pressed, and the effects compound over the number of exposures in a short time and proximity to the flower.

Gray Goo

Costume: Iridescent silvery-gray particles that lick against their body like flames.

Powers: Convert matter within a 6x6 space around them into nanomachines, which can be converted into anything so long as they understand its composition, or integrated within a nanomachine virtual reality which they must consciously maintain. Living things may be converted only into the virtual reality, only as themselves, and are ejected as themselves if the virtual reality is shut down such as due to lack of concentration.

Personally, I find this power to be really interesting and I've explored this idea on my blog before, but I worry that most people won't understand the intrinsic relationship between nanomachines and virtual reality or how the distinction between real and virtual becomes somewhat arbitrary when nanomachines are involved, and it would probably be too bulky to try to explain it. Yay or nay on this?

Weaknesses:

1. The nanomachine virtual reality has subtly incorrect details like objects being differently colored, or lower resolution like being static to wind or light.
2. Converting too many objects in a short time span makes them lightheaded.
3. One experiences a distinct myoclonic jerk like falling asleep when scanned into the nanomachine virtual reality.
4. There is a 1 in 6 chance that a converted object is dysfunctional, and this will not be apparent until it is used.

Variants:

1. They are actually gray goo and their human form is that of or inspired by a human loved one.
2. The gray goo is an artificial intelligence with its own personality, loyal to the superhero but with cat-like independence.
3. The gray goo is an alien or extradimensional organism that has developed a symbiotic relationship with the superhero.
4. They are a gray goo blob and for some reason cannot change their own form except inside the virtual reality.

Signature Moves:

1. Labyrinth: The nanomachine virtual reality is a maze full of paradoxically twisting planes that disorient those inside who may not be aware that they're in a virtual space.
2. Entropy Bath: The nanomachines vibrate into a 6x6 sphere of plasma.
3. Protocol 42: The nanomachines operate as a super-advanced quantum computer, able to perform computational tasks that would otherwise be impractical or impossible.
4. Golem: The nanomachines are programmed into larger forms that protect them and attacks opposition within their influence.

Alter Ego

These first four are adapted from a previous blog post where I discuss my Character Formula. It's a common trope for superheroes to have alliterative names but I'm undecided if I want that to be the case for all of them or just a large number of them. I altered these to better fit the MHA/student theme, but in retrospect, this doesn't have to be a high school module, the assumption could be that they're college students or adults of any age really.

1. Riley Reiner: Rambunctious athlete and stamp collector who loves the limelight.
2. Simone Simpson: Nihilistic engineering geek and soup kitchen volunteer who isn't sure what she believes anymore.
3. Neal Nguyen: Charismatic class president and vlogger who enjoys the simple life (when he can have it).
4. Jivan Jarodia: Perky homebody and aspiring graphic designer who sublimates his violent temper through acts of kindness.

Example Superhero 1

Superhero: Scanner Darkly

Alter Ego: Riley Reiner

Rambunctious athlete and stamp collector who loves the limelight.

Hero Points: 6 (Tentative default)

Ability Scores (Tentatively assuming 3d6, down the line for simplicity)

SHOW: 14
TEAM: 7
WILL: 13
TECH: 14
EXAM: 10

Weakness: Burned by their organization; they have limited resources and many enemies.

Variant: Powers are entirely drug-based.

Signature Move: 

Panopticon: Carries holographic scanners, an array of micromachines tossed like dust that can coordinate within a space to reflect light signals between each other, functioning as a comprehensive surveillance system across a large space.

This version of Scanner Darkly is a bit of a contradiction; being high in showmanship despite their powers being very much the opposite. However, this goes well with their Alter Ego Riley Reiner, who loves the limelight. Perhaps they got burned by their organization specifically for trying to be too SHOW-y, and so they feel they have a lot to prove. I imagine they like to taunt their opposition, using the surveillance data from their panopticon to punk them in various ways. High TECH goes well with their Signature Move even though they didn't get the technology-based variant. The "medication" they've been taking for their powers and how it's affected their adolescent development (a metaphor if I've ever seen one...), along with their training, might explain their above-average WILL.

Example Superhero 2

To demonstrate the randomization, I'll stick with the Superhero Scanner Darkly, but reroll the rest.

Superhero: Scanner Darkly

Alter Ego: Neal Nguyen

Charismatic class president and vlogger who enjoys the simple life (when he can have it).

Hero Points: 6 (Tentative default)

Ability Scores (Tentatively assuming 3d6, down the line for simplicity)

SHOW: 9
TEAM: 13
WILL: 10
TECH: 10
EXAM: 12

Weakness: Brain hemispheres operate independently, leading to infrequent hallucinations or delusions.

Variant: Powers are entirely technological.

Signature Move: Blue Flower: Attached to the suit lapel, causes mild hallucinations and delusions to those in the vicinity when pressed, and the effects compound over the number of exposures in a short time and proximity to the flower.

Although they have a just average TECH score, the TECH ability is actually TECHnique rather than just technology, and even then it's more about external or novel technology, rather than the use of one's own gadgets, so I don't think it's a contradiction here. The fact that they have an above-average TEAM score and slightly below-average SHOW is a nice contrast to the previous version of Scanner Darkly that I rolled up. As class president and as a vlogger, they have good leadership skills and presentation skills, but more so dry, perhaps soothing, but less so sensationalist, which is also a nice contrast to the previous version. Their supertech was created by their benefactor in order to compensate for the neurological disorder they developed due to exposure to an experimental hallucinogenic blue flower. Their benefactor has since created a version of the blue flower that is safe for long-term exposure and may have beneficial pharmaceutical applications in the future, but for now, our Scanner Darkly uses it as a weapon. While I think the other version of Scanner Darkly gelled a little bit more cohesively on-face than this one, I can see the potential for this character if they pass the trials; this backstory lends itself to quite a few questions. What is the blue flower? Why were they exposed to it? Who is the benefactor? What are the supposed pharmaceutical applications? Is it actually safe?

Despite having the same superhero name, costume description, and base power, I think we have two fairly distinct characters who are both interesting in their own right, so I'm pretty happy with this prototype.