with great power . . . classic

So I finally got to read and study +Michael Miller’s original incarnation of With Great Power, and there is so much to love about it. It is a tightly designed game and a really well-written text.

I’m a big fan of games whose narratives are born directly from the specific protagonists being played, and With Great Power does so elegantly and without a lot of work by the GM. First, an agreed-upon “Struggle” loosely defines the theme of the session. Then, after brainstorming about their superheroes, players use the Struggle to decide on the 3-6 Aspects of their character to focus on, choosing those that best highlight the Struggle. The players then choose a single Aspect that will be central to the story, which is called their “Strife” Aspect. The GM, or villain player, takes all the superhero characters’ Strife Aspects and creates a “Plan” for the villain that targets all of them. In every scene, then, the villain player knows what Aspects she wants to target, how she wants to eventually gain control of them, and how she ultimately wants to transform them through the execution of her plan. That’s damn cool, and exactly the way I like to see situation and character meet up in an RPG.

Aspects in With Great Power are themselves neatly done. Characters have no stats on their character sheet. In fact, other than their name (and a drawing if you’re into that), there is nothing on the character sheet except those 3-6 Aspects. Each Aspect has its own “Suffering” scale, 5 steps from Primed to Devastated. For each scene your superhero appears in, you choose an Aspect or two whose Suffering will increase or decrease. When you increase the suffering, you get to add cards to your hands, and when you decrease suffering, you remove cards at random from your hand. The greater the Suffering, the more cards you get to draw or discard. It’s a tightly designed pressure valve as players need cards to win their conflicts and defeat the villain’s plan. The incentive is always to put your Aspects at greater and greater risk, until they eventually become Devastated, at which point the villain player takes control of the Aspect. The villain player is of course angling for the Strife Aspects for her machinations, and since Strife Aspects give players additional cards, players will want to risk them especially. It’s a cycle that pushes the characters to the point of do-or-die, and I absolutely love that construction.

With Great Power also uses cards in its resolution mechanic in a neat way. I love games that succeed in creating a beat structure with in conflict, so that players play out the thrust and parry in an exciting dance of action and reaction. Michael uses cards to create a dynamic conflict with detailed fiction and exciting interactions. It’s a smart design.

And then there’s the Story Arc, which is a simple mechanic that ensures that the climactic stuff happens in the climax. Whenever superhero players lose a conflict, they can choose to fill in the next stage on the Story Arc. The Story Arc has five stages, and at each stage, the villain player has fewer tricks and resources. And it is only when the fifth stage has been reached that the heroes can devastate the villain’s plan or the villain can transform the heroes’ devastated aspects to complete her plan. Just a glance at the Story Arc page will tell the players where they are in the story and in that evening’s game. It’s not heavy-handed and seems like a solid pacing mechanic.

Yeah, there’s a ton of neat stuff in the game and a lot to think about.

I’m looking forward to Michael creating a blogpost of his own talking about why he decided to make the new edition of the game as a complete reimagining of the rules. Outside of noting how great the Swords without Masters approach is, I don’t want to speculate. But I will say this:

In the creation of the Master Edition, Michael has successfully captured the spirit and tone of the original game. The heroes look almost the same, and though they consist of Elements rather than Aspects, they keep all the same qualities and feel. The villain is still created just like the heroes and still has a plan to be thwarted, even if the plan is much looser and made up as the game goes along. Both editions create stories of melodrama, focusing on the superhero as both hero and complicated human being with difficult relationships. For example, the Personal phase in the Master Edition is strikingly similar to enrichment scene in the Classic Edition. In short, it truly is the same game, even though all the rules have been changed, which is a pretty amazing feat.