Although the overall feel and appearance of heroes and villains in 
the gameworld is what most people call “four-colour,” the gameworld 
is otherwise meant to be “realistic;” not necessarily “gritty” or 
full of swearing and sexual situations, but we’ll try to capture an 
atmosphere of plausibility and believability that more strictly four-
colour games might lack. Unless offered otherwise, players should be 
in control of characters that are “heroes” for better or worse. Of 
course all sorts of psychological motivations, not all of them 
healthy, might impell a person to become a costumed crimefighter. 
But even if they try and fail, a character’s intentions should 
always be largely heroic. What sort of interpretation of this 
requirement players wish to take is pretty much up to them. At 
present there’s no room for anti-heroes in the gameworld, though 
they may appear as NPCs (like many of these stipulations, they apply 
mostly to new players; established players onto their second or 
third character may be trusted enough to undertake these sorts of 
different roles, or god forbid overturn the GM’s long-standing 
prohibition on men playing female characters). 

As heroes, players can expect their characters to be the centre of 
the game. Things won’t always go the heroes’ way, but it is their 
triumph that is intended, not their constant humiliation and 
frustration. Nevertheless, players must earn their victories. Like 
in any real role-playing game (as opposed to freeform) the presence 
of genuine challenges and problems to be solved within the framework 
of the plot is the guiding impetus and reason for playing the game. 
Without the chance for failure, our successes are meaningless. If 
you find yourself in a position of constantly falling short (and you 
haven’t been removed from the game for being intellectually unable 
to participate) then you should approach the GM to discuss the 
problems rather than presuming that the GM hates you or is out to 
frustrate your character’s ambitions. 

As much as possible NPCs will be completely neutral in the sense 
that the GM will not use them to air frustrations, to hurry players 
up or to steer the plot. Consequently, listening to NPC advice may 
be tricky since it may seem reasonable but in fact be totally wrong. 
The road to hell, as they say, is paved with good intentions. From 
time to time an NPC voice may be used to force the players to make a 
definite choice, but this is done only to limit the time spent on 
debating options and to move the game forward past a stalling point. 
As often as seems reasonable, NPCs, even lowly ones, will have their 
own ideas about things, conflicting outlooks and perhaps even 
private agendas. It’s a reasonably intelligent game for reasonably 
intelligent people. 

The heroes can expect for there to be consequences to their actions, 
especially if they themselves break the law or otherwise act 
improperly. However unless it can be milked for good dramatic 
potential (and that means good for player and GM) failures won’t be 
dwelled upon for too long. For the most part, the idea of 
the “superhero” imposes an impractical idea on a very complex world. 
Life is not black and white. While it is interesting to explore 
the “grey areas” that heroes will confront in the course of doing 
their thing, we will do so only up to a point. Taken to their 
natural extreme, these grey areas quite quickly show that people in 
colourful costumes righting wrongs is a fanciful idea but 
impractical and unlikely. Such an ultra-realistic perspective would 
actually deconstruct the gameworld so thoroughly as to make it 
unplayable (or at least not a lot of fun for anybody).