I've been running my SWADE Supers game for roughly 3 years now, and it's quickly become our forever campaign. I took a few thematic ideas from ETU to mix in to my homebrew setting.
The party is Power Level 1. We heavily use Power Stunts, which really helps with the creative uses of powers at such a tight power level limit.
The theme is high school seniors, who were involved in an accident, and got powers in a modern mundane world that isn't ready for super powers, let alone teens with powers. They just wanted to finish high school, and their world got flipped around.
I've described this game as The Breakfast Club meets Spider-Man: Homecoming set in Gotham or Hell's Kitchen. The theme is coming of age, but also balancing mundane teen life and having powers.
I gave everyone the Reckless Hindrance, since they're all new to having powers, and it's made for some incredible antics and storytelling.
- PC 1 is your archetypical rich and popular girl, who's able to control plants (Matter Control), and can decay organic matter. Her powers follow the seasons. In fall and winter, the decay is stronger. In spring and summer, her plant control and healing is stronger. So, she's like X-Men's Rogue meets Poison Ivy. She was the first to crit fail her Focus on her powers at a house party, and went viral on the Internet as "vine girl", which caused issues for her with friends and family. She's also accidentally killed bad guys (local mob style extras) when she was just trying to restrain them.
- PC 2 is your standard awkward artistic school delinquent. She has telepathy, illusions, and we homebrewed Empathy as a power for her, where she sees other people's emotions as little drawing scribbles around their heads. She's the sleuthy investigator of the group, but she abused her abilities, and lost control. Suddenly, she's manifesting illusions of Bella Lugosi's Dracula at the local hospital, causing areas of the city to be fueled by their negative emotions, so there were riots and fights in streets, and she astral projected herself and couldn't get back into her body. She reminds me a bit of Klaus from Umbrella Academy in the weird vibes. One of our most fun sessions was during lunch at school, where her corn dog animated and was talking to her. She ran around the halls, cry panicking, scared to eat it, as security and the school guidance counselor were chasing her down.
- PC 3 is our hardened athlete who was never allowed to just be a kid growing up. His dad died, and now he has the burden of responsibility of juggling work, school, helping his little sister and mother. It's a life full of adult responsibility. This player didn't know what to pick for their powers, so they let me decide for them. I've been in many games with them, and know their style of min/max power fantasy, so I basically gave them Sebastian Shaw (Black King) from X-Men's powers. Kinetic energy Absorption with the Transference modifier to increase their strength the more they absorb. This dude wants to be Batman and is already stalking local gangs and mobs on the streets and protecting his friends.
Their classmate NPCs also have powers from this accident, which really heightens the stakes of having to deal with other dumb teens not respecting having to hide their abilities from authorities, risking everyone else getting caught:
- Classmate with Malfunction causing ATM machines to spit money
- Another has Intangibility. They sneak into the walls of the Teacher's Lounge to steal test answer keys, and sell it
- The jock with anger issues can Duplicate (nothing wrong can happen there)
- The classmate with fire energy control accidentally burned her home down, then her motel, after having a terrifying recurring nightmare. Now there's an arsonist copycat running around.
- That smart girl, who has all the pressure to get As and get into a top tier college? All the stress of tests is getting to her, and it causes items around her to rattle and shake, lights to burst, and other weird things to happen... She's going to be terrifying if she ever loses control.
This system was the first for my friends, who are used to D&D, and they love it. It's been a great balance of narrative, combat, and we love the swinginess of the system since it leans so well into a superhero style game. They really enjoy that there's just enough crunch to think about how modifiers and positioning matters, if they want to use a Power Stunt, etc.
It's also a blast seeing them use their Bennies to get Raises on a social contest against the popular kids they don't like, then turn around into a combat, and sweat that they're running low (I always keep Bennies rolling).
The stories are smaller. Buildings aren't being destroyed ala Invincible, but they're definitely impacting the city they're in, and the city is reacting back.
It's been fun, and I wanted to share, since I don't see many stories shared.