Astonishing Super Heroes Book 1: Basic Rulebook
A downloadable game
It's your turn to the be the hero!
Astonishing Super Heroes is a roleplaying game of superpowered action and drama. Streamlining the classic FASERIP system from the ground up via the OGL, Astonishing Super Heroes plays faster and adds dramatic roleplay mechanics to better represent the variety of challenges superheroes face in the comics, shows, and movies we love so much.
The Basic Rulebook includes:
- Everything you need to emulate superpowered characters from any comic, TV show, or movie universe you're already familiar with.
- A revamped Karma system inspired by modern narrative RPGs and customized to your superhero's identity: play an inspiring moral paragon, a clever mystic willing to deal with dark powers, a violent antihero, or a reformed villain.
- Rules that promote teamwork and that can be as tactical or freeform as you want.
- New rules for challenging social interactions using a stress and resolve mechanic, as well as leveraging money and resources against your foes.
- 30 pages devoted to building custom super powers and gear, with over 100 fully-built powers as examples.
The Basic Rulebook also features great character sheets and comprehensive reference sheets, making it a breeze to run! Plus, it's fully compatible with other FASERIP games, and broadly compatible with most four color supers games.
The Basic Rulebook is Book 1 of 2 for the Astonishing Super Heroes RPG. Look for Book 2: Spectacular Origins, coming soon!
Spectacular Origins BETA PDF Included
We've included the BETA PDF of our second release, Spectacular Origins. This gives you multiple character creation methods, loads of advice and inspiration on building thrilling scenarios and customized profiles, and optional rules for simplifying NPCs and Powers. Plus, you'll have a chance to provide feedback on even more systems and rules ahead of its release!
We'll be periodically updating this PDF so new systems and tools can be tested ahead of the release of Spectacular Origins.
Powering the LSOSW Podcast
Astonishing Super Heroes is the fully realized, fully customized FASERIP-inspired system powering the actual play podcast LSOSW! Check us out on all your favorite podcast services and social media as LSOSWpodcast, and with this RPG, build your own custom heroes and epic storylines!
Get free downloads, updates, alerts, and provide feedback in the comments here on itch or at AstonishingSuperHeroes.com
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Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $4.95 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Development log
- ASH Lives On in HEROIC - Now On BackerkitDec 26, 2023
- Errata Fixes and Color Blind AccessibilityMar 30, 2022
- Form Fillable Datafiles Now AvailableMar 04, 2022
- 40% off today only for Creator Day Feb 18 2022Feb 18, 2022
Comments
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Hi, great work! Question: it seems starting karma is 10 times lower than the original game, but its effect on dice roll is the same (+1 to percentile dice roll). Aren't street-level characters going to fail a lot ?
In our playtests, the ability to rack up Karma via the Profiles plus the "free" milestone of "Quote superhero media in a contextually appropriate way" generated Karma at pretty massive rates. Our system also runs RAW as an immediate reward, whereas the original FASERIP's reward system had some rewards operate on specific time-frames like a weekly reward or the like.
But YMMV. It's trivial to house-rule that it starts the same as Resolve. Additionally, I suspect a good number of tables are going to prefer to remove the "quote superhero media" milestone since it's a bit too meta for many folks coming to what is otherwise a (somewhat) simulationist game system. I encourage tables to find a flow that works best for them over a couple game sessions.
For some behind the scenes knowledge, we tested a straight lift from Cortex (1, 3, and 10 Karma), and a much bigger scale (I believe it was something like 10, 15, 25 Karma). What we landed on in the final game seemed to work best across all our play groups, though I'll readily admit that it did mean you saw lower-power-level characters scrounging for bonuses from Talents, temporary Gear (often acquired through roleplay and Contacts), and calling in Contacts for help. In many ways, this felt as-intended. I liken it to Daredevil Season 1: the highlights might be DD's big one-against-many fight scenes, but don't forget how early he meets Claire Temple, and how quickly others figure out that Matt's regularly getting beaten up (or "walking into stuff"). He pretty regularly needs backup...or else long recovery times!
ANNOUNCEMENT!
We will be adding updated files for the Basic Rulebook that fix all errata. We're very lucky: there wasn't much! We'll also have a Dev Log with a list of all fixes coming in shortly.
Stay tuned.
All files updated! An additional Errata PDF has been included to track the changes, if you wish.
Additionally, we've added an accessibility-friendly version of the Uni-Table in a color palette that should be better for folks with color blindness.
I don’t have any experience with FASERIP or its origins, but I cannot wait to try ASH for the first time.
Major shoutout to Anja Svare for the extremely clean layout.
Two things:
I adore this i loved faserip. So the most important question is when is the Kickstarter so i can back this at the highest level?lol
An incredibly admirable modernization of the old FASERIP ruleset. I'd never really considered delving into the old FASERIP rules before reading this, considering how esoteric and old they are; however, Astonishing Super Heroes repackages the old engine in a stylish modern set of paint, making the system look approachable and appealing with it's stylish (if basic) presentation and clear rules.
Highly recommend the game. My only wish is for the game to get more content and support, and to receive more well deserved recognition. Well done!
Thank you so much for your support and kind words! You'll be glad to know we're well into developing book 2, which has loads of additional content for the game: additional character and power creation mechanics, campaign and scenario building advice, downtime and advancement systems, NPC stats, and more!