Off the Shelf: HERO System

As I went through my storage boxes, I pulled out the set of HERO System 6th books I got during the pandemic, but I needed more time to play. It got put into storage last year. I got them out because I played a lot of Hero System 4th with my brother, and we liked the system enough to run it as a fantasy campaign. We also used it for our superhero system in the 1990s when we abandoned the heavily censored AD&D 2nd Edition. What is old is new again, with 6E being rewritten to avoid upsetting people; the old rule of every even version of D&D sucks is still true today.

These days, I would never use this to play Marvel or DC, and I would likely stick to the official Champions universe. Steaming service media companies have killed all the legacy superheroes. The death of Marvel and DC isn't about politics; it is a lack of self-control at the highest levels that allows directors and comic book writers to do whatever they want. You see it in many of these newer superhero movies; they are passion projects and self-inserts by the creators and have nothing to do with the original source material.

So, if Marvel and DC are dead, why play superheroes? The costumes?

I don't have an answer to this question. Another part of what killed superheroes is that everyone co-opted the model. This is like the overuse of wirework and bullet time after the release of the Matrix movie, and you see it today with those dumb "180 flip shots" that movies do, where they flip the screen upside down in some cheap visual candy.

D&D is superheroes. The D&D movie was a superhero movie. 5E-based games are superhero games. Story games are superheroes. Every genre is a superhero genre these days.

Today's tabletop characters are overpowered, never die, push enemies over, and larger-than-life figures. They walk into any situation and "boss" it. All media is superhero media. Any form of escapist entertainment is superhero entertainment.

Do we even need the superhero genre anymore?

I honestly don't know.

Are capes and costumes enough? Or is that just marketing and cosplay?

I play games grounded in realism, like Basic Roleplaying or GURPS. They give me a mental break from everyone being over-the-top and invincible. I am tired of the superhero genre these days. It has turned into a junk power fantasy, the same everywhere, and the entire message of the genre these days is this semi-fascistic "power makes me right" theme. All that matters is power, getting more, and using it to prove you were right in the first place.

There is no responsibility for possessing power anymore. Power is just a tool that validates your point of view. That may be what my HERO System game is about: the vast tide of "power makes right" versus a few still holding onto the old ways and them all destroying the world.

We will see.