Your PCs Are Superman: What Big Blue Can Teach Us About Level 20 Characters

“Superman is impossible to write…He’s too powerful…He’s as corny as Kansas in August…You’re better off with the other guy, the one with the pointy ears, narrow white eyes, and tragically dead parents lying next to rolling pearls.”
– Tom King’s introduction to Superman Up In the Sky

Like much of the movie-going world right now, I’m in love with Superman. Seeing the latest from DC and James Gunn has gotten me back into reading the comics. Specifically, Superman Up In the Sky written by Tom King with letters, illustrations, and colors by Andy Kubert, Sandra Hope, and Brad Anderson.

The deluxe edition of this comic includes a short introduction by King. You can read an excerpt above, but I highly encourage you to seek out the full thing, because as I started reading it, my brain began connecting the dots between writing a good Superman story and running a high-level TTRPG.

(Don’t worry, I’m gonna stay 100% spoiler-free for both the movie and the comic, but trust me, they’re both worth your time.)

King was initially hesitant to write for Superman. “Superman is impossible to write…He’s too powerful.” It’s a common complaint about Big Blue, but it’s also a common fear about running high-level, d20, class-based games like D&D or Pathfinder 2E.

“Level 20 characters are too powerful…The probability math breaks down…There aren’t any challenges…You’re better off running games in the 5-13 level range.”

My response to those hesitations is the same response Mr. King had to tackling Superman: Bullshit.

Now, it is true that when your PCs reach the upper echelons of power, there is a fundamental shift in the kind of story you’re telling. So yes, if you want to send your PCs into dungeons, hunting for loot, or solving crimes, the characters are too powerful. The math does break. There aren’t any challenges.

But that’s because at level 20, the question is no longer “will they succeed.” The question is “How will they succeed?” And also maybe a little, “Will they be able to live with themselves after?”

King discovered that “Superman is not impossible. He’s not even difficult. He’s, in fact, the easiest hero to write in modern myth. Superman just does what’s right, and all you have to do as a writer is follow where that truth leads.”

And if you’re on the cusp of running a campaign up to level 20, then first, congratulations. That’s a huge accomplishment. But if you (like me) are scared of how you’ll handle the power levels, I suggest you follow King’s advice: “follow where that truth leads.”

By level 20, your table has already gone big, gone bold, and gone freakin’ epic. Treasure doesn’t matter by this point. They’ve likely amassed enough gold to bankrupt several kingdoms. (Unless, of course, there’s a specific plot MacGuffin, but that’s another matter.) Experience doesn’t matter either, because your players’ builds are already set in stone.

The other thing that happens at level 20? Everyone at the table kinda already knows their characters won’t actually die until the final climax. (Or a sufficiently appropriate story moment.) A random encounter isn’t likely to take out your 20th-level guy. Not only because it’s actually really freakin’ hard to kill 20th-level characters, but also because having that happen would be SUPER anticlimactic and a bummer for everyone at the table.

Basically, by this point, you’re ride or die until the end game. You’re invested.

But you know what? That’s not a bug that removes all the tension. It’s a feature that can create amazing stories.

Back to King:

“That’s not to say Superman doesn’t live in a morally complicated world full of all the usual slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Superman forever flies through a sky of doubt and danger. But within that world, up in that sky, Superman finds the proper path, the hopeful way to a better tomorrow. As a writer, you simply create the chaos, then let him bring the order.”

At level 20, you, the GM, have the freedom to bring the ultimate chaos and leave it to your players to solve it. When a world-consuming (totally didn’t base it on Galactus) God is coming to their world to consume all of their resources and turn every last sentient being into mindless servants, what good are swords and some fireballs?

Time to find out!

But it’s not just about the fight. (It is a little bit about that last big fight, but up until then it’s not JUST about it.) Because what challenges Big Blue? It’s not the physical confrontations. It’s not even the shame of wearing his red briefs on the outside of his pants—it’s the moral quandaries. 

So until you reach that end boss, write challenges that ask your players, “What are your characters willing to do to get there?”

In Up in the Sky, Superman is faced with a simple problem — a little girl has been kidnapped by aliens, and he is the only person who can find her. Will he find her? Of course, he will, he’s Superman. BUT — can he leave a planet full of people that need him (aka Earth) to go chasing after one single person?

That’s the question and the tension that lives at the heart of Up in the Sky. And that’s the kind of oomf you can bring to your level 20 games. 

Here’s an example from my current campaign:

The BBEG is staging an invasion of the PC’s home from a pocket dimension. BBEG has amassed all of his troops into one place, assuming it is impervious to PC interference, but the PCs found a backdoor.

Seeing what’s what, they decide to build a dimensional bomb that will collapse the pocket dimension and wipe out all of the BBEG’s troops in one go.

Now, the PCs are super smart, super resourceful, very determined, and most importantly, they have the means and the magic to do this without rolling a single die. Where was the tension? It came in the form of a choice: they could make this bomb big and powerful and kill all of the BBEG’s soldiers. OR they could make the bomb non-lethal, and instead of blowing everyone up, they could shunt them back to their home dimensions. This would disrupt the invasion and give the baddies a chance to rethink their life choices.

But it will also take more time to build.

And during that time, the invasion will still be going on.

And there isn’t a guarantee that it will make anyone change their minds. (That part I left to a die roll, and my players don’t know how those dice fell yet, so I’m not gonna say here.)

Is it worth risking innocent lives to save the lives of killers?

Is it right to kill enemy soldiers when they know they can just send them away?

Those questions were the challenges my players had to overcome.

And maybe your PCs or their players aren’t as moral as Superman. (Who is, really? Certainly not me.) But by level 20, there are certainly places or people or things out in your fantasy world that they care about. So pull on those emotional bonds. Make them choose between what’s easy and what’s right; between simple and sad; between the thing they want to do and the thing they know they should do.

And then follow where that truth leads.