OK, the second edition of Wild Talents is coming out soon, but what's getting a good deal of attention is the Wild Talents Essential Edition -- a smaller, cheaper, stripped-down reference without all the bells and whistles and goodies and GM advice. That's the background.
Over the last year or two I've had superheroes on the brain, and I've come up with not one or two, but FOUR different setting variants that could easily get pasted over WT. One of these (Grim War) I've tested and turned into a big WT sourcebook, but now I'm wondering what to do with the other three. Each idea posits a single-source power setup, plays with the tropes of the superhero genre, and has rules that influence the course of events or that restrict avenues of play in interesting ways. They are...
EVILGASM or, The Good, the Bad and Their Girlfriends: All superhumans are mutants and the use of mutant powers is always illegal, no exceptions. Therefore, all the characters are either out-and-out villains, or- in a very, VERY rare best case- vigilantes who are really low on the cops' 'To Do' list. Players define what the characters care deeply about and stories spin out on that basis. The twist is that in every scene, players randomly draw cards to determine their characters' fated role for that scene. If you pull the Hero card, you get huge bonuses when you try to sacrifice your happiness for others. If you draw Villain, you get equal bonuses every time you try to destroy something someone loves.
SUPEREGO: All superhumans are projected from the minds of a small number of sleeping normal folk. Almost always, they act out goals or values that are frustrated and suppressed in waking life. Villains are rampaging Ids. Heroes are stern superegos. This is the one on which I'm foggiest, but there'd be a focus on the idea of the 'secret identity.' In this case, the identity is so secret that neither human nor superhuman necessarily knows the linkage. Can you find your nemesis' waking character and kill him to stop the supervillain? Sure, but there's an excellent chance that the host of the rampaging Id is a sad sack public school teacher whose girlfriend just dumped him. If you go all Romantic Comedy commando on this guy and get him in a happy relationship, will the Id stop? Yep. How you going to do that?
and BETTER ANGELS: This one's described here (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=411783).
So the question for which I'm soliciting opinions is... how do I release these?
OPTION 1: Ransom them out individually, trying to keep them really, REALLY short.
OPTION 2: Release them all in a single book, with each being of middling length.
OPTION 3: Release them as small, cheap, individual books. This option would probably make each one longer.
What do you think? Give your reasons.
-G.
I would assume that it depends more on the market: will people want or need all these alternate settings? It might be best to focus on one and build it up until you're sure people would like the others, especially if they're somewhat similar (which is how it reads to me.)
Hey Greg,
I'd go with option #3, and do it for the Better Angels setting.
Why? It's very, very grabby. I think Superego is essentially vanilla WT -- I don't see what there is to write there.
Finally, I'd argue that you've already written Evilgasm, and you just did it in your opening post. Sure, you could fluff it out a bit, detail your bonus mechanism, but unless there's more options than "hero/villain" in the cards, well...
Cheers,
D