The World's First Superhero RPG Is Planning A Comeback On Kickstarter

05/30/2017 04:36 pm EDT

Superhero 2044, the first tabletop RPG designed for the superhero genre, is planning a comeback in 2017. Checker Book Publishing Group has announced the purchase of the publishing rights to the classic role-playing game from Gamescience Publishing.

Checker BPG plans to launch a Superhero 2044 Kickstarter for the revamped new role-playing game as well as a Super Hero 2044 themed deck-building card game.

"Our goal is to upgrade the entire system and game to be the pinnacle of superhero gaming", said Publisher Mark Thompson. In a statement "Superhero 2044 is one of the fondest memories of games from my childhood. Superheroes dominate every entertainment medium from toys, movies, television, comic books, and video games and we feel this genre is underserved currently within the industry".

RPG industry veteran Lou Zocchi, who has been involved with Superhero 2044 since the game's creation, will continue to serve as an advisor on the game.

Superhero 2044 was first released 1977 shortly after the launch of Dungeons and Dragons, Runequest, and other games that were a part of the first wave of tabletop RPGS.

The setting of Superhero 2044 is, unsurprisingly, the future of 2044 following a massive, worldwide disaster. Civilization has become centered on the island of Inguira off of the west coast of the United States.

Superhero 2044 was innovative for its era. The game featured rules classifications for different types of superheroes, melee combat rules designed specifically for superhero fights, a ranged combat system, points-based character creation, and, in later editions, a comprehensive list of super powers.

More superhero RPGs have followed since Superhero 2044, including several based on the popular characters and universes of DC Comics and Marvel Comics. Other popular tabletop RPGs have built entire superhero universes from scratch as well, including Mutants and Masterminds and Champions, which spawned a massively multiplayer online computer RPG as well.

Like Superhero 2044, Mutants and Masterminds is also looking to get into the deckbuilding game genre. There was recently a Kickstarter to create Sentinels of Earth-Prime, a version of the popular superhero deckbuilding game Sentinels of the Multiverse that utilizes characters created for Mutants and Masterminds. The big two superhero comic book publishers are also represented in the deckbuilding genre, with Marvel Legendary from Upper Deck and the DC Deckbuilding Game from Cryptozoic.

That said, there's always room for more superhero tabletop games. Keep an eye out for the Superhero 2044 Kickstarter in the fall.

Checker BPG is a graphic novel publisher that published nearly one hundred graphic novels from 2001 to 2013. including launching titles with licenses such as Star Trek, X-Files, Flash Gordon, and Clive Barker. The publisher put the company on hiatus after the death of his fiancé, father, uncle, and the cancer diagnosis of his sister in 2015.

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