Superhero Roleplay Ideas: 20 Plots With First Lines
A superhero roleplay idea works when the power causes a problem as well as solving one, like a secret to keep or a price paid for each use. Below are 20 original superhero RP ideas in five groups, each with a premise, a conflict and a first line you can send as it is. The last two sections cover a power's cost and limit and how to keep power levels steady.
Updated by the tempteo editorial team
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Superhero roleplay ideas about new powers
The first weeks with a power are awkward, which makes them easy to play.
The blue glow
Your new power works, but you glow blue when you're nervous. Your mentor is the character, a hero who retired five years ago.
Conflict: she wants this done in a week.
First line
You're my mentor? You're the one who quit.
The borrowed flight
A handshake gives you the other person's power for an hour, and they lose it. You just shook the character's hand.
Conflict: she can't fly, and she's due at a cliff rescue at two.
First line
I didn't know. How do I give it back?
Five seconds early
The character can stop time for five seconds, once an hour. You're a paramedic, and she beats your crew to every crash.
Conflict: she won't even tell you her name.
First line
You're at every crash before us. I timed it. How?
Hero or decorative
The character makes plants grow in seconds and wants a hero license. You're the clerk.
Conflict: the form has no box for her, and she won't leave.
First line
Two boxes, hero or decorative. Convince me.
Superhero roleplay ideas for heroes with day jobs
A day job gives a hero something to lose and someone to lie to.
The long lunch
You're a hero who works in accounts and vanishes whenever a siren goes past. Your manager, the character, has started timing your lunches.
Conflict: your review is on Friday.
First line
The sandwich queue really was that long.
Two suits, one tailor
The character mends hero costumes, no questions asked. You bring yours in scorched and spot the villain's costume on her rail.
Conflict: she sews for both sides.
First line
You made my suit. Did you make his too?
The fact-checker
You check facts at the city paper. The reporter at the next desk wants you to check her story, which unmasks you.
Conflict: every fix brings her closer.
First line
You've got his street wrong. The hero's, I mean.
The coffee that helps
Every cup the character pours at her café eases a small ache. You're the inspector sent to find out why.
Conflict: each cup tires her a little more.
First line
Three people say your coffee cured them. What's in it?
Villain and gray area roleplay ideas
In a gray area plot, the character's reason should make sense even when you disagree.
The cold snap
You're the parole officer for a former villain who freezes water with a touch and has kept every rule for a year.
Conflict: the harbor froze overnight.
First line
The harbor froze at three. Where were you? Make it boring.
The broken window
A hero saved your street last night and knocked a bus through your shop window. This morning she turns up with a broom.
Conflict: her agency won't pay for the glass.
First line
Are you here to sweep or to sign something?
The pension thief
You're a detective, and the masked thief returning stolen pensions is the character, your quiet neighbor.
Conflict: the company she robs once cheated your father.
First line
I know it's you. I know whose money it was. So what now?
The mind reader's interview
The character reads minds for the police. You're a witness who asked her not to read yours.
Conflict: she heard something private anyway, and it shows.
First line
You flinched when I sat down. What did you hear?
Hero team and rivalry roleplay ideas
A team or a rival gives the character someone to measure herself against.
Timesheets
The character runs your new hero team like a small firm.
Conflict: she wants every rescue logged in fifteen-minute blocks, and yours happened on your lunch break.
First line
Fifteen-minute blocks? It took seven minutes.
Six streets, one grant
You and the character patrol the same six streets and keep beating each other to rescues.
Conflict: next year the city funds only one of you.
First line
That cat was mine. I'd been talking it down for twenty minutes.
Ten years a sidekick
The character has been your sidekick for ten years and wants her own patrol.
Conflict: she's better at most of the job, and you both know it.
First line
You've been reading job ads on the patrol laptop. Leaving?
The borrowed base
Your headquarters flooded, and the only spare space belongs to the rival team the character leads.
Conflict: her team has a rule for everything.
First line
One week, I promise. Where do we park the van?
Small-town and low-key superhero roleplay ideas
Low stakes suit long chats, since a sheep in a ditch leaves room for quiet scenes.
Sheep and a flood
You're the only hero in a farming valley, where most calls are about sheep.
Conflict: the river is rising, and the fire chief, the character, doesn't trust you with anything bigger.
First line
Twelve sheep out of ditches. Trust me with this one.
The small powers club
The character runs a monthly club for people with small powers, like warming tea with a touch.
Conflict: her own power is growing, and she hasn't told anyone.
First line
I can turn traffic lights green. Mostly. Can I join?
Four minutes under
The lifeguard in your seaside town never takes the rescue boat and stays underwater far too long.
Conflict: the council wants a big-city hero for the summer instead.
First line
You were under for four minutes. I counted. How?
The name on the sign
The character has looked after your mountain town for forty years. Since you arrived with powers, people call you her replacement.
Conflict: she isn't ready to stop.
First line
They put my name on the new sign. I didn't ask them to.
How to design a power with a cost and a limit
An AI partner wants to help, and an open-ended power is the fastest help there is. Without a ceiling, every problem ends in one move. Before you start, write the power in four lines: what it does, how far it goes, what it costs and how others can tell.
The limit keeps the power from solving the whole scene, and the cost makes each use a choice. If moving a car door numbs her hands for ten minutes, she has to decide whether this door is worth it. On tempteo you can build your hero in the five-step creator, choosing her look, personality and name.
Power notes
OOC: Power notes. Power: Oona moves metal objects with her mind. Limit: nothing heavier than a car door, and only while she can see it. Cost: her hands go numb for ten minutes after each use. Tell: radios nearby hiss while she does it.
How to keep power levels consistent
Power levels drift both ways. In a tense fight the AI tends to make the hero stronger so she wins, and in a sad scene she may turn helpless. Twenty scenes in, Oona catches a falling crane on Tuesday and can't open a jar on Wednesday.
Treat the strongest thing a hero has done on screen as her ceiling and note it: "Strongest so far: pried open a jammed train door." Villains need a ceiling too, or the next fight has nowhere to go.
When a reply goes past the limit, correct it with one OOC line and ask again. If a fact keeps slipping, the guide on making AI remember things shows where to put it.
Reply that breaks the scale
Oona raises one hand, lifts the whole bus off the bridge rail and sets it down gently on the road.
One-line OOC correction
OOC: Oona can only move about a car door's weight, so the bus is too heavy. Please redo that: she pulls off the jammed door, and people climb out.
