So you’ve decided you’d like to try Men & Supermen out? Good for you! Creative gaming can be a lot of fun. There are three basic steps to getting a game going:

1. Call your friends!
2. Create a world!
3. Choose an editor!

Call your friends!

First, call up your friends, tell them what you want to do, and ask them over some night—preferably some night where no one has to worry about getting up too early the next morning.

Create the world!

The first night you get together, everyone creates their character and writes a bit of backstory for their character. “Backstory” is writer-slang for “what happened before the adventure started”. Everyone should be working with each other to create a good backstory for their characters, and a good setting for the adventure.

Character Backstory

• Current and Ex Romances
• Employment and Skills
• Hobbies
• What other characters has your character met, when, and why?
• What trauma or fun did your character feel, receiving or acquiring their special abilities?
• Is there a special goal your character is seeking?

Setting Backstory

• Is the world substantially different from the “real” world in any way?
• Are there lots of Super Heroes, few, or none in the “rest” of the world?
• How do the governments of the world feel about Super Heroes? Vigilantes?
• How do the common people feel about Super Heroes and Vigilantes?
• Will the adventure be set in the current time period, in the future, or in the past?

See The Brand X Hero’s Guide for lots of great backstory ideas!

Each player will of course keep track of their character’s backstory, but someone has to take notes about the setting. That someone is you—it was your call to play the game, remember?

So take notes, and when things calm down a bit, you can read back from the notes, and everyone can listen to make sure it sounds okay. When you’re ready, you’re ready.

Choose an Editor!

You’ve got the characters, you’ve got the setting, you’re ready to go home.

But first, you’ve got to figure out who is going to be Editor when you get together again. The Editor, recall, is the person who creates the next adventure.

Everyone who thinks they’ll have time to create an adventure before the next time you get together should volunteer to do so. If more than one person volunteers (and this should happen often!), each volunteer rolls 2d10. The volunteer with the lowest number must create the next adventure.

Each volunteer should remember who had the next highest roll, above them. If the lowest rolling player discovers that they aren’t going to have time, they should call the next highest roller; if that person isn’t going to have time, they call the next person, and so on, until you have to reschedule the game.

If two volunteers roll the same number, and it’s the lowest roll, they can co-author the next adventure.

Once the next adventure’s Editor is chosen, the rest of the players need to help that Editor out. Each other player should take a slip of paper (or e-mail it later), and write:

• what their character is doing in the game time between now and the next adventure;
• and something really cool that they think ought to happen during the next adventure.

Some adventures may take more than one game to complete, of course. But after each adventure concludes, repeat the above. Choose an Editor, and help that Editor out.