One of the easiest tropes to play in the game and why.

Disclaimer: Statements expressed in this article are strictly my opinion. If you disagree or have a different opinion, that’s okay. I’m not an expert on everything. I’m not always right. I’m just writing from my experience as I know it. Your mileage may vary.

Here are a few comic book examples and their ICONS ability equivalents:

Daredevil: High Prowess. High Coordination. Specialty in Martial Arts and/or Weapon- Batons. “Power:” Batons. And then he’s got Qualities such as Man Without Fear.

Batman: High Prowess. Reasonably high Coordination. Max human Strength. Master Specialty (+3) in Martial Arts (maxxed.) Specialty in Weapon: Batarang. Everything else is secondary or tertiary to what Bruce needs to be an awesome fighter. He’s even said it’s never about the gadgets or equipment.

Iron Fist. Prowess, Strength, Martials Arts Master Specialty again, and probably Ability Boost Prowess and Strength through magic if I had to guess. I also wouldn’t rule out a couple levels of Fast Attack.

Wolverine: High prowess character with tons of extras. That’s likely what Prowess 9 or 10 looks like.

Power Man: Huge Strength, invulnerability and Prowess. He hits stuff.

Captain America: Prowess, Acrobatics, Martial Arts, and an Adamantine/Vibranium disk.

I could keep going naming character after character new and old in every conceivable comics universe. We love big, muscle-covered fighting characters. It’s very easy to emulate in ICONS because of the under-complicated attribute and skill rules.

Prowess is just like the Fighting Attribute in the old FASERIP system. One stat rules punching, kicking, etc. It’s ridiculously simple. Then ICONS adds in Specialties for Martial Arts and Weapons to give a little additional boost. When the system only truly ranges from zero to ten, having a +2 or +3 to something is huge.

Characters tend to be closer to regular humans in most cases if they are going to go full martial arts masters. Except Wolvie, but I mean, come on. The guy’s basically immortal. I just want to mention a particular book from the past for this type of character called The Ultimate Martial Artist by Hero Games. If you ever want more ideas for maneuvers or what to call them, it’s a truly amazing resource. I would also happily pull out Palladium’s Ninjas & Superspies. (I love that book so much I own two copies of it. N&S used to be my favorite game in the whole world.)

I try to pull a little something from every superhero game I see, every comic universe I know about, and lots of martial arts movies. I’m an 80s kid, so everything ninja is golden. But the simplistic beauty of ICONS gives us a simple engine that we can add tons and tons of descriptions to.

Criminals beware; the Golden Lotus High Kick is coming for you! Or the Masked Avenger could just give them the old One-Two barroom brawl punch to the jaw. Same stats, same idea.

Fighting is cool in comics and games, but let’s keep it imaginary. Fighting online or out in the real world is as unproductive as it gets when we’re squabbling within our own  TTRPG community. Make cool gaming moments, not argue with one another over everything imaginary.

Thank you for being here with me today. I appreciate you. Keep it real, but please strive for positivity, too. Please embrace the things that bring you the most joy in your life.