History TabletopGame / WildTalents

* ILoveNuclearPower: What's the first power listed in the book? "Suppress Nuclear Fusion." At a level sufficient to ''turn off the sun, killing all life on earth.'' Why? Just to show what you can do.
** Note that you can buy two hard dice of that power as a standard 250-point character. You won't be able to do anything else--you'll be a social maladept, fragile, sickly, and lacking in any worthwhile skills, not to mention ''unable to survive the sun turning off''--but you'll essentially have the world at ransom. Or you could use it to defuse every nuclear warhead on the planet. Or all the nuclear power plants...

* MemeticsInFiction: In Progenitor it’s called “Syntergenics”, a compound of synergies, genetics, syntax, and interaction. Supers can create weapons-grade syntergenes.

* SuperEmpowering: The Dark Energy that powers superpowers in the Progenitor setting is contagious, with any super out to ten degrees of separation from Amanda Sykes, the titular Progenitor, having a chance of giving powers to a non-powered individual they use their powers on. Allowing plenty of opportunities to both CreateYourOwnHero and CreateYourOwnVillain.
* SuperheroSpeciation: Encouraged by the rules. Lack of it is occasionally mocked or highlighted in-text; Progenitor includes stat blocks for "Zippermen" (its version of the flying brick) at every level of power.
* SuperpowerLottery: Touched on in several settings. Those who win the lottery tend to be batshit insane "Mad Talents" in Godlike and Wild Talents. Extremely literal in Progenitor, where one woman gained [[Comicbook/{{Watchmen}} Manhattan-level superpowers]] by obscene cosmic accident, and ten other people randomly obtained a fragment of her power, who then passed it on to one hundred others, and so on, with the closer you are to the source the more powerful you are.

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Let's just say the writers of the Kerberos Club were ''not'' on the South's side during UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, to the point of the FATE version having a sidebar dedicated to explaining how much slavery sucks and they suck for supporting it.

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Both of the two alien species in World Gone Mad are examples of this. The Builders go around destroying planets in the name of "organizing" the universe. The Fish, if anything, are even stranger: they start a war with humanity that lasts five years, then suddenly announce they want to enter an alliance against the Builders, and see no need to explain themselves on either count.

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Let's just sat the writers of the Kerberos Club were ''not'' on the South's side during UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, to the point of the FATE version having a sidebar dedicated to explaining how much slavery sucks and they suck for supporting it.

* MinMaxing: Quite friendly to it, and a guide to basic min-maxing is included after the power creation rules. Why? So long as one guy doesn't try to one-up every other person at the table, min-maxing creates [[TropesAreNotBad extra-effective and efficient characters.]]

* HybridOverkillAvoidance: Averted and played straight simultaneously. Averted, because as long as you've got the points, you can be whatever the hell you want and the system can take it. Played straight in that the only significant advantage in being, say, [[ChristianHumberReloaded a half-demon half-dragon cyborg wolf vampire Saiyan]] would be resistance to Nullify powers.

''Wild Talents'' is a roleplaying game from Arc Dream Publishing. A sequel to Godlike in both mechanics and setting, it's massively expanded from the original into a hugely adaptable superhero game specializing in bizarre superheroes and other super-empowered beings.

The heart of the game mechanics is the One Roll Engine, which [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin is based around resolving actions in a single roll.]] One attack roll, for instance, will tell you if you hit, where you hit, and how hard and fast you hit. There is a great deal of emphasis on flexibility and customization. There are loads of optional rules for streamlining the rules, adding complexity, or lowering or raising the lethality of combat--the latter in particular, as the basic game is ''extremely lethal.'' Wear a helmet.

The most impressive feature is the extensive and wide-open superpower creation rules, allowing for complex or unusual supernatural abilities expressed in a simple fashion. You first buy your Archetype, which is composed of a Source and Permission. Sources are where you get your powers from, Permissions are what you can do. You can pick multiple sources if you wish (for instance, a mutant who's also bolted into a suit of power armor would have the Genetic and Science sources), and if you want a grab bag of random powers, you can always pick the Super permission (to make like Silver-age Superman). After that, you can buy Hyperstats (for super-strength, super-intelligence, etc.), Hyperskills (for super-martial-arts, super-hacking, etc.), and/or Miracles, which cover the flatly impossible (eye lasers, subdermal armor, projecting your soul out of your body, being a Martian, etc.)

Miracles are built on three qualities--Attacks, Defends, and Useful. Each represents one way a power can be used. For example, Spider-Man's webs can be used to attack (shooting web balls), defend (pull him out of the way of attacks), and be useful (swing from building to building, tie up foes, and be used for web-like stuff). In Wild Talents terms, you'd buy ADUUU--one Useful for swinging, one Useful for tying, and a Useful with Variable Effect to represent Everything Else. Add Extras, Flaws, and you get the cost per die. Voila! Your own superpower!

The heart of the game's ''settings,'' however, is the open defiance of ReedRichardsIsUseless; its main theme is "If you can change the world, ''how'' does the world change?" With two exceptions (''This Favored Land,'' intended to be The Civil War [[RecycledInSpace WITH SECRET SUPERHEROES!]], and ''eCollapse,'' a dark ''ComicBook/{{Transmetropolitan}}''-esque satire), every setting is dramatically altered by the presence of "talents," the game's term for DifferentlyPoweredIndividual types. While Godlike's talents made the world a weirder place, the end results of World War II are recognizable. Contrariwise, after World War II, history goes OffTheRails with dramatic ferocity, creating an elaborate hi-tech AlternateHistory full of heroes, villains, the uncanny, and the all-too-human, described in loving and elaborate detail. Other settings, such as ''Grim War,'' ''This Favored Land,'' ''The Kerberos Club,'' ''Progenitor,'' and ''eCollapse'' all take the concept of superheroics in a different and fascinating direction. Kenneth Hite's essay "Changing the Course of Mighty Rivers" explains how you can make your own.

Definitely worth a look. The base rules are only 10 bucks (5 for a .pdf) if you don't want to get the giant hardback version, and versions of ''The Kerberos Club'' for TabletopGame/SavageWorlds and FATE are available.

The heart of the game's ''settings,'' however, is the open defiance of ReedRichardsIsUseless; its main theme is "If you can change the world, ''how'' does the world change?" With two exceptions (''This Favored Land,'' intended to be The Civil War [[RecycledInSpace WITH SECRET SUPERHEROES!]], and ''eCollapse,'' a dark {{Transmetropolitan}}-esque satire), every setting is dramatically altered by the presence of "talents," the game's term for DifferentlyPoweredIndividual types. While Godlike's talents made the world a weirder place, the end results of World War II are recognizable. Contrariwise, after World War II, history goes OffTheRails with dramatic ferocity, creating an elaborate hi-tech AlternateHistory full of heroes, villains, the uncanny, and the all-too-human, described in loving and elaborate detail. Other settings, such as ''Grim War,'' ''This Favored Land,'' ''The Kerberos Club,'' ''Progenitor,'' and ''eCollapse'' all take the concept of superheroics in a different and fascinating direction. Kenneth Hite's essay "Changing the Course of Mighty Rivers" explains how you can make your own.

''Wild Talents'' is a roleplaying game from Arc Dream publishing. A sequel to Godlike in both mechanics and setting, it's massively expanded from the original into a hugely adaptable superhero game specializing in bizarre superheroes and other super-empowered beings.

The heart of the game's ''settings,'' however, is the open defiance of ReedRichardsIsUseless; its main theme is "If you can change the world, ''how'' does the world change?" With two exception (''This Favored Land,'' intended to be The Civil War [[RecycledInSpace WITH SECRET SUPERHEROES!]], and ''eCollapse,'' a dark {{Transmetropolitan}}-esque satire) every setting is dramatically altered by the presence of "talents," the game's term for DifferentlyPoweredIndividual types. While Godlike's talents made the world a weirder place, the end results of World War II are recognizable. Contrariwise, after World War II, history goes OffTheRails with dramatic ferocity, creating an elaborate hi-tech AlternateHistory full of heroes, villains, the uncanny, and the all-too-human, described in loving and elaborate detail. Other settings, such as ''Grim War,'' ''This Favored Land,'' ''The Cerberus Club,'' ''Progenitor,'' and ''eCollapse'' all take the concept of superheroics in a different and fascinating direction. Kenneth Hite's essay "Changing the Course of Mighty Rivers" explains how you can make your own.

Definitely worth a look. The base rules are only 10 bucks (5 for a .pdf) if you don't want to get the giant hardback version, and versions of ''The Cerberus Club'' for SavageWorlds and FATE are on the way.

* IdiotBall: For some reason, the immediate global response to the an approaching alien attack is massive rioting. The Builder attack ended up being thwarted with relative ease, but the public reaction to the threat was so destructive there might as well have been an invasion.

''Wild Talents'' is a roleplaying game from Arc Dream publishing. A sequel to {{Godlike}} in both mechanics and setting, it's massively expanded from the original into a hugely adaptable superhero game specializing in bizarre superheroes and other super-empowered beings.

Miracles are built on three qualities--Attacks, Defends, and Useful. Each represents one way a power can be used. For example, Spider-Man's webs can be used to attack (shooting web balls), defend (pull him out of the way of attacks), and be useful (swing from building to building, tie up foes, and be used for web-like stuff). In Wild Talents terms, you'd buy ADUUU--one Useful for swinging, one Useful for tying, and a Useful with Variable Effect to represent Everything Else. Add Extras, Flaws, and you get the cost per die. Viola! Your own superpower!

** The most vivid example: US's first Talent was the Indestructible Man, who ''really was.'' Eventually brought down when his assorted war crimes (such as executing surrendering Talents) and other odious habits (incredible racism) came to light. Died of alcohol poisoning, [[IronicDeath which he didn't see coming.]]

* ILoveNuclearPower:What's the first power listed in the book? "Suppress Nuclear Fusion." At a level sufficient to ''turn off the sun, killing all life on earth.'' Why? Just to show what you can do.

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Let's just sat the writers of the Kerberos Club were ''not'' on the South's side during the AmericanCivilWar, to the point of the FATE version having a sidebar dedicated to explaining how much slavery sucks and they suck for supporting it.

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Both of the two alien species in World Gone Mad are well-done examples of this. The Builders go around destroying planets in the name of "organizing" the universe. The Fish, if anything, are even stranger: they start a war with humanity that lasts five years, then suddenly announce they want to enter an alliance against the Builders, and see no need to explain themselves on either count.

* BeyondTheImpossible: What's the first power listed in the book? "Suppress Nuclear Fusion." At a level sufficient to ''turn off the sun, killing all life on earth.'' Why? Just to show what you can do.
** Note that you can buy two hard dice of that power as a standard 250-point character. You won't be able to do anything else--you'll be a social maladept, fragile, sickly, and lacking in any worthwhile skills, not to mention ''unable to survive the sun turning off''--but you'll essentially have the world at ransom. Or you could use it to defuse every nuclear warhead on the planet. Or all the nuclear power plants...

** The World Gone Mad setting plays with this trope. For example, during the Kennedy administration, an international incident threatens to spark a war with the Soviet Union and bring about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. [[spoiler: The incident centers around Lebanon, and happens in 1971.]] Similarly, Vice President Al Gore serves in an administration that is rocked by scandal in its later years, and loses the subsequent presidential election. [[spoiler: this happens in the 2000s, and the scandal is that President Bob Kerrey kept a war with extraterrestrials secret from the American public.]]

The heart of the game's ''settings,'' however, is the open defiance of ReedRichardsIsUseless; its main theme is "If you can change the world, ''how'' does the world change?" With two exception (''This Favored Land,'' intended to be The Civil War [[RecycledInSpace WITH SECRET SUPERHEROES!]], and ''eCollapse,'' a dark {{Transmetropolitan}}-esque satire) every setting is dramatically altered by the presence of "talents," the game's term for DifferentlyPoweredIndividual types. While Godlike's talents made the world a weirder place, the end results of World War II are recognizable. Contrariwise, after World War II, history goes OffTheRails with dramatic ferocity, creating an elaborate hi-tech AlternateHistory full of heroes, villains, the uncanny, and the all-too-human, described in loving and elaborate detail. Other settings, such as ''Grim War,'' ''This Favored Land,'' ''The Cerberus Club,'' ''Progenitor,'' and ''eCollapse'' all take the concept of superheroics in a different and fascinating direction. Kennith Hite's essay "Changing the Course of Mighty Rivers" explains how you can make your own.