Teddy Roosevelt was Spider-man

[Entsuropi]

I do not know about america, but here in britain compulsory schooling was only introduced around 1830 ish. So yes, there have been BIG changes to education.

[Brian]

In the last 150 years? Since the 1850s? What has really changed?

I can't speak for the British -- but here in the states, these are the major changes I can think of: Boarding schools have become less popular, there is more career-oriented education in high school, and teachers are, as a generality, slightly less strict.. in other words most of them won't beat you with a stick if you do something wrong. But the actual methods and systems of education are the same.

Actually, the most evolved education system I know of is in the small island country of Malta. But.. this is entirely off the subject.

[42]

Well, actually their have been some huge changes in US Education in the past few years. For one, students are now required to attend which has actually only been enforced in the past 70 years. Also, it used to be that a teacher could deny a student an education.

In Industrial America, most people dropped-out of school in sometime in the elemetary grades. A lot were forced to work since child labor laws hadn't been introduced yet.

One of the many problem's I've had with Palladium Heroes Unlimited, is that it's education section is quite dependant on high technology. The system also doesn't adapt to well to the creation of new skills or education backgrounds. The system doesn't give you any reference as to how to handle new skills and education is based on our current public school system. In other Palladium modules, education is based on character class, which doesn't work at all with the'r Heroes system. So I'm stuck having to create the entire skills and education system from scratch which I don't want to do.

D20, has proved to be a lot easier, becasue it doesn't make the education assumption that Palladium makes. It just gives character skill points and feats which can then be spent how the players choose. It sort of assumes that people are always learning, irregardless of public schools.

Course, I like the variety of super heroes presented in Heroes Unlimited. Which I would like to incorporate.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Your not looking for a rules set your looking for a history book.  I can reccomend several... the best being "the good old days they were terrible"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0394709411/junoandherpea-20/104-1729381-5342320

Education really isn't that important enough to worry about in roleplaying games.

Players ruin education all the time by including bits of knowledge that they would know that their players could not. Plus its not much fun playing in a campaign where you have to roll to see if Sven can read the street signs.

One of the most important elements of a super hero story or game is the heroism of the PC's. Which Im not sure I see your players accomplishing without busting a few heads especially in the day of hired pinkerton thugs, Strike breakers, muckrakers and Street Gangs.

[Brian]

Details aside, I think you should just choose one system and stick with it, and make any necessary changes from scratch.

It sounds to me as though you've set your heart on using D20, so I'll go ahead and add my two bits since thats the only system I've any real familiarity with anyway.

The major problem with using D20 for a superhero game, that I can see, is that in D20 everything is dynamic -- there are no static abilities. The closest is feats, but you can choose one or more new feats with each level gain.

So you'd probably have to use a new set of abilities called something like "Powers." Because I'm bored I even came up with an example Power to illustrate. I should hope the source would be obvious.

Hulking Beast
Description: When angry, the character transforms into a hulking creature with immense strength, and flies into a rage.
When overcome by anger, the character grows one Size larger (i.e. from Medium to Large). Instead of the standard size modifier to STR, the character's old STR is exactly doubled. The character also flies into a rage, incurring all the standard benefits and penalties of the Barbarian special ability Rage.
Uses per Day: 1 per level
Duration: Maximum 10 minutes per level, or until ended by player.

Ok, I'm not much of an Incredible Hulk fan, nor do I have access to my D&D books right now, so this is not going to be perfect, but after all its just an example.

[42]

Actually, I think my biggest problem is laziness. I sort of wish the perfect system would just be presented to me instead of having to go do any research myself.

I'm actually starting to look fairly heavily at the Hero system. If I have to go through a lot of work, then it probably is the system to use. Course it also means having to do a lot of historical research.

What I really need is to get together a group of players for their input and then start playing. This actually works really well. I did this with my current campaign, where I allowed the players to create sections and histories in the world. It eleviated a lot of my work and got the players more involved with the campaign. It also took out a lot of power balance issues.

[42]

Oh yes, Super-villian pinkertons. Cool.
And a shape-changing strike-breaker would be just so...evil.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I like world building with the players. It leaves the players knowing a whole lot more about the setting that their characters would know, without having to stop out and field questions.

[42]

Yes, have the players help build the playing world helps a lot. I also give my players homework, like please design your characters family tree pointing those who would make the best dasmels in distress or demon sacrifices.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Hero would be a good system

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

How much research do you really want to do?

You could have an Ultra realistic game that focuses on the minute by minute news of the day. Pricelists from Sears Roebuck and other niggling details. Or you could turn the Game into an allagory for the modern world.
And set it during a fantasy version of the era.

Like I said  buy the book "the good old days, they were terrible"
Five points would be a fun setting....
The Jungle by upton Sinclair would be a good resouce too.

[Entsuropi]

The wealthy are opulent, the poor are oppessed.

Can anyone name a single RPG that did not include this line in it somewhere? I sure can't.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

umm hero, Feng Shui, Big Eyes small mouth, Traveller, T20, Top Secret SI, Harn, Runequest, MERP, Rolemaster, Spacemaster, Sengoku, Usagi Yojimbo, L5R, 7th Sea and many many more

[42]

I think many RPGs should be edited to include that line. Particularly if it makes the system more confusing.