Men & Supermen Rules: Index: Choosing Your Type of Hero

Men & Supermen allows for more variability in character type than most roleplaying games of any genre, even if you decide to follow the rules. You are more than welcome to simply create a character non-randomly by choosing your powers, skills, and abilities. Your Editor, of course, has final say on any character’s existence.

Superpowers: Do you want superpowers, abilities far different from anything a human has ever before experienced? Then choose a Class Power or a Special Power. The Class Power tables create general super-powered characters. Each Class Power table produces a set of powers that originate from a certain base. These are psychic, animal oriented, enhanced human, and cosmic. The Special Powers table lists powers that are self-contained. Choose the Class Power Superhuman and you might become stronger, healthier, more skilled in unarmed combat, and able to see infrared light. Choose Special Powers and you may instead end up with the ability to Control Magnetism—one power, but as versatile as a set of powers from the Class tables.

Package Heroes: What about heroism without superpowers? Check out the Package Heroes. With the Special Agent Package you can be a hardboiled detective or a debonair superspy. With the Civilian Package, you can be something even more normal—perhaps a journalist, a computer operator, or a charter boat captain. Any civilian occupation can be created using this package. If you want something less normal, try the Eccentric Professor, the Magician, or the Combat Skill Packages. The Eccentric Professor, also known as the Mad Scientist, is the quintessential inventor/sage devoted to pseudoscience, and can be a great change of pace from standard characters. The Magician is a master of sleight-of-hand, and is often a con artist also. The Combat Skilled hero has mastery of a specific combat skill, be it archery, swordsmanship, martial arts, or any other combat form. For those of you who like to be completely different, there is the Intelligent Robot Package, for the creation of an intelligent, nonorganic being. Finally, there is the Wizard package. Wizards control (or channel) the forces of magic and the occult. Wizards can be either general or special; classical or mnemonic. This allows you to create most styles of sorcerer from most literary works. In addition, there are magic styles, for specialization within magic.