Corebook cover
Rotted Capes was a Superhero tabletop RPG with a twist, released by Paradigm Concepts
in 2013.
It takes place a few years into a Zombie Apocalypse caused by a virus of unknown origin, but one that took place in a superhero world. The players control heroes, or sometimes villains helping out to increase their own odds of survival, who protect communities of survivors. However, the reason they're uninfected is they're "B-Listers", sidekicks and underlings or other minor players in the hero-villain world, who weren't on the front lines when the undead suddenly attacked. All the great heroes were, and a lucky few died, but most became twisted reflections of themselves after being infected by their undead enemies.
Meant to be a game that's as much about interpersonal drama between the B-Listers and the survivors in their communities and the struggle to stay alive in a world gone mad, as it is about them fighting monsters and their now evil former idols.
Rotted Capes provides examples of:
- Achilles' Heel: The common superhero trope is of course present in the game. Some character types demand it; if the player's character is from the Supernatural Being template, for example, they're required to take a "thematically appropriate" vulnerability. Like silver bullets for werewloves, being repelled by crosses or a stake through the heart for vampires.
- After the End: It used to be a thriving world with powerful heroes protecting the populace, but now they've become the biggest danger to those who are left.
- The Apprentice: Mage player characters will likely be this, with their mentors probably having fallen in the apocalypse before they could learn any of the advanced stuff.
- Atrocious Alias: A lot of the premade supers for the game have names that are pretty bland, but a few are just embarrassing. The module "Fair Trade" for example has the players briefly meeting a pair of fellow heroes who later show up as undead minor antagonists. These heroes? A brother and sister duo called Crackle and Pop. That kind of thing might be seen as parodic, if not for the grim The Walking Dead with Physical God zombies setting it's in.
- Brainless Beauty: One of the stranger character disadvantages has your character being so attractive everyone thinks they must be stupid, or NPCs sometimes putting themselves at risk to protect such beauty because the character couldn't possibly take care of themselves.
- Character Class System: While the game uses a Point Build System, it still has something of a class system in that a character's origin and archetype also offer different advantages and disadvantages. Heroes with inherent powers, for example, are slightly tougher than normal and get a boost to a power of their choice, but having a lot of points in a power actually makes it easier to get infected by the zombie virus (explaining why all the big-time heroes succumbed). Heroes who get their powers from devices are extra-smart, but the supply chain for tools and spare parts they once relied on is gone, and their devices are prone to acting up without the regular maintenance the character can no longer provide. Mages aren't allowed to get a power they didn't get in character creation, unless the GM deigns for them to find something teaching them the spell that would represent that power.
- Call a Hit Point a "Smeerp": The Game Master is called the "Editor-in-Chief" to reflect the settings' comic book roots. Likewise, a single session is an "issue", and an arc's worth of story is a "graphic novel".
- The Chosen One: A possible archetype for mystically-aligned characters. The downside is it means the hero has a patron, whose agenda might not always align with their own. The more points it's worth, the more adversarial the relationship is.
- Disaster Scavengers: A common mission is to venture into dangerous territory to stock up on needed supplies.
- Do Well, But Not Perfect: Accomplishing the mission usually involves collecting the objective and getting back safely. Players who treat this like a typical RPG where they're supposed to kill all the enemies they meet are going to get in big trouble, quickly.
- Elite Zombie: Besides just the obvious ones who were big-time heroes and villains before being turned, sometimes there are zombies who have special powers, liked bladed hands or the ability to walk through walls. Worse, someone with the "ultragene" that gave superhumans their powers, but never had it activated before the apocalypse, can become monstrous "abominations" with powers limited only by the GM's twisted imagination.
- Expansion Pack: Called the "Survivor's Guide", it opens a up lot of the more interesting options of superhero creation, allowing players to create robots, aliens, mages, demigods, cosmically-empowered characters, etc. Along with examples of the kinds of signature gear A-Listers who were killed by the undead swarm might've left for players to find.
- Fallen Hero: The A-Listers who didn't just die, and instead rose again as dark reflections of themselves because of getting the zombie infection.
- Gone Horribly Right: One module, "Mind Games", has the heroes learning about a secret government experiment trying to enable someone to telepathically control zombies. It does work, but unfortunately it makes the user erratic and eventually a complete sadist themselves.
- Heal It With Fire: The one sure way to keep a zombie bite from spreading is to cauterize the wound quickly. It's noted that one of the fallen heroes, the Flaming Fist (bottom left on the cover), couldn't do this after she'd been bitten, because her fire powers meant her body was immune to burning, making her fall to the undead inevitable.
- Honor Before Reason: One possible character disadvantage is still sticking to the "hero's code" even though the niceties of a civilized world are long gone. This means you can't lie or steal, and treating all enemies, even zombies, honorably (whatever that could mean).
- Human Traffickers: A module, "Bought and Paid For", is about delivering someone to a group of survivors. It turns out she has superpowers and the suit she wears is to let the survivors control her actions so they can use her to fight off super-zombies that might attack their sanctum. Besides how disgusting this is in general, her mentally-disturbed supervillain mom has been tracking her down.
- Immune to Mind Control: Mind control powers don't work on zombies, which the power description makes sure to point out. One of the pregenerated villains, the Zombie King, is extremely dangerous because he's the exception to the rule, and could conceivably take control of every undead hero in the city.
- Invincible Boogeyman: A lot of the undead A-Listers, let alone the team-stomping villains they once fought, are enemies B-List player characters aren't meant to be able to take in a straight fight. Just to get the hell away from.
- It Can Think: The worst thing about the Zombie Apocalypse is while most zombies are reduced to mindless animals, the undead supers retain their intelligence and identities, while also becoming totally amoral.
- Magic Harms Technology: Represented in a flaw called "gremlins" that magical characters have to take. Any machinery tends to break down or become uncooperative in their presence.
- Mama Bear: The module "Bought and Paid For" has a supervillainess tracking down her missing daughter, wanting to protect her in the zombie-infested wasteland despite being mentally disturbed and not fit for motherhood.
- Multiple-Choice Past: Various possibilities are suggested for the source of the Z-Virus, so that the GM's free to tie it into whatever works best for their campaign.
- Physical God: One option for a character type is the "Demigod", who's some kind of divine embodiment. It notes the GM's well within their rights to restrict this to higher Power Levels, even though the category doesn't convey any particularly powerful advantages.
- Point Build System: Like with most superhero RPGs, stats are bought with build points instead of die rolls.
- Power Levels: Determines how many points the character can spend on skills and powers. B-Listers like the players control have 150 points to make their character, while Ultras, or the "A-Listers" who were the greatest heroes around before the end, have 600. Above even that is the Omega class, which has 1200 points to spend, and represents the kind of villain the whole roster of Avengers or X-Men would have to work together to defeat. Above that is Cosmic, with twice the number of build points, but which isn't represented in anything premade.
- Recycled Premise: Pretty clearly meant to be an interactive take on Marvel Zombies. There's even a sidebar somewhat cheekily mentioning the GM might use the game to depict a zombie-infested version of a favorite real comic book universe to make things more interesting to the players.
- Summon Bigger Fish: In a piece of fiction in the rulebook, a group of B-Listers are confronted by the former hero Titan while on a mission, who's way out of their league. Fortunately, one of them manages to use his Eye Beams to get the attention of Judgement, the villain who was Titan's nemesis when they were still alive. The B-Listers slink away while the old enemies duke it out.
- Superhero Packing Heat: All player characters start with a gun in addition to their powers, given the cruel world they now live in.
- Urban Legends: Another source of adventures is trying to find things that might or might not exist, like a cure for the Z-Virus, a stash of weapons used by A-Listers, or A-Listers who haven't been turned.
- The Virus: The Z-Virus is transmitted by bite.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The module "Dead and Buried" is one to The Thing (1982). It's about the heroes being led to a supervillain's old lair by one of his former flunkies, with a bunch of techs to try to find anything worth salvaging. What they don't know is a mimicking supervillain killed one of the techs and infiltrated the base by impersonating him, and soon some unseen enemy is picking off the techs in a darkened underground lair with minimal power.
