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There is a trope, common among anime shows but also appearing in a lot of comic book and fantasy worlds, of a setting where each character has an individualized, unique power that is a defining feature of who they are and what they do.

Typically for main characters, this results in the general storyline revolving around them discovering the ability early in the narrative, and developing it to its full potential throughout the series. For side characters, the unique ability gives you an extremely quick and easy shorthand to get the viewer familiar with a large ensemble cast, and for villains, it allows for longer, more involved fight sequences that generally revolve around the main character or characters trying to figure out the internal rules of their opponent's power so they can take them down.

I realized thinking about it...despite these kind of shows being apparently structured incredibly well for an RPG setting, I've never seen a system that tries to create something like that. Superhero comics that involve larger ensemble casts tend to, not always, but tend to present heroes that have a more easily explainable set of one or two powers that is "their thing" and then they combine them or use them creatively to do different stuff, versus solo superheroes who will more often have a large suite of powers so the character isn't always trying to do the same thing when he fights a bad guy. Spiderman can do "everything a spider can" but Mr. Fantastic is stretchy, The Thing is strong and rocky, The Human Torch does fire, and the Invisible Woman turns invisible (and does force fields because we realized being invisible really isn't that versatile).

RPGs tend to be structured in one of two ways:

1) A freeform list of separate, point-buy abilities that you use to construct sort of a large laundry list of cool disconnected things you do, and in practice generally you forget about a lot of them or just stop using the weaker ones when you level up and get better ones. Pros: Allows for more freedom in character design. Cons: characters tend not to feel quite as distinct from one another, and often the various abilities you have don't seem to really gel together.

2) Rigid assignments of archetypes, classes, races, some other system like that based on the foundation of DnD. Here's our superhero game: You can choose to be not-batman, not-spiderman, not-loki, not-hulk or not-storm. If two players pick the same class they're going to have to try REALLY HARD to feel distinct. Pros: Easy to get people in to, and as long as people play different classes, easy to make people feel unique. Cons: Replayability tends to suffer, and often this system just seems to get shoehorned into every RPG despite being put into settings where there aren't really 'class' archetypes present.

So, if you were given a list of IPs like:

-X-men
-Naruto
-Soul Eater
-Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
-One Piece
-Fantastic Four
-Piers Anthony's "Xanth"
-Wild Cards
-Fullmetal Alchemist

And you were to try and come up with a core structure for constructing a character's "Signature unique ability" what would it be? How would you create a leveling system to allow players to augment it, improve it, and add new offshoots to it? How would you incorporate figuring out an opponent's ability, its rules and limitations and weaknesses into combat?

That's an interesting thought.

My concerns for an RPG with specialised and specific abilities would be in character progression. Spiderman can learn new moves, batman can make new inventions, but what about some of the lower tier characters, like Cyclops. fires eye lasers, and just getting "moar laser" wouldn't be as rewarding when unbatman just got access to a grappling hook and a cool motorbike that can't go around corners.

I would lok at building it in a class sysem like the (in my opinion, brilliant) games City of Villains and City of Heroes, which were MMORPG's in which you made a hero or villain and then did MMORPG stuff with your powers. As you got better, you gained more powers and upgraded existing ones.

So, rather than having a character who is spiderman, you might have an "Acrobatic" class (poor name but I'm tired) which would allow you to make heroes like Spiderman, deadpool, beast, etc. Then you would have a "bruiser" type, for the hulk, juggernaut, the blob etc.

Abilities would be tied to their purpose. So you might have "ranged combat", "close combat", "Travel", "Special", as ability classes. Different classes have access to different abilities, like in D&D.
Abilities can be added or upgraded when they level up, EG ability to run fast (transport) can either be upgraded (can run faster, and on water) or they can buy a new power (super jump).
Thus a character could feasibly have one power in each class (assuming levels specify which class you can upgrade) and pour all their upgrades into them, whilst another character might have a whole load of low-level abilities.

Couple this with interesting races, EG Mutant - free new power every 3 levels - and kryptinian - new powers arrive on level 2 - or billionaire genius playboy philanthropist - can swap abilities out on leveling up if you want to - that sort of thing.

Having "raw" abilities (like super strength) be superior to invented ones (iron man suit), but allowing the ironbatman to make a number of suits and then swap between them when at the super-base would be a cool comparison.

I would certainly look at making the number of tiers on an ability the same as the number of levels in the game. If you focus solely on one ability, you will achieve the ability to destroy planets with your eye-beams at level 20, but will die to a brisk slap (or a mirror). The issue with making characters with one ability is the inevitable boredom. when the novelty wears off, you will find players don't want to play for a long period of time as the guy who shoots lasers from his eyes. either they are no use (we need to climb over this laser-proof wall) or they will perform the same actions over and over (bad guys? better fire lasers from my eyes!).

Ask anyone who's played D&D at low levels as a ranger. my turn, eh? guess I'll fire an arrow...

You'll also note that in most of these series with mono-powered characters, they feature a lot of characters with a lot of powers, and rarely have a single main character without other support from characters who themselves have their own unique abilities - none piece has zorro zorro, vash the stampede has the priest and the insurance girls, x-men have umpteen different characters who conveniently disappear when their powers would shut down the bad guy in one move ("Nothing can stop me except lasers! Fortunately, Cyclops is at the opticians getting new glasses! And I rigged the test to show signs of glaucoma, so he will be there for hours! muahahaha!!!")

I'm not certain a game which forces players to focus on one ability would have the staying power and continual playability for fum, but one featuring the ability to improve powers or add new ones would be fun.

In FATE you start designing your character with their High Concept (and a number of other aspects) that you can call upon during your games. It can be anything so no rigid classes or risk of duplication in a player group.

https://fate-srd.com/fate-accelerated/who-do-you-want-be
https://fate-srd.com/fate-accelerated/example-characters

Though I didn't have a chance to play beyond character creation there was a game I saw a while back that had an interesting approach to differently powered characters.

IIRC it was Dresden (fate system?)

The less superpowerful the character was, the more fudge dice they had. So superman might have superstrength, but batman could pull out a load of extra dice for rerolls and bonuses to skill tests.

In an rpg-like setting both characters could choose to level up their non-super skills, but at the end of the day superman will still always have his strength and batman his fudge dice. And the more superman decides to further boost his superpowers the less fudge he gets.

Cyel wrote:
In FATE you start designing your character with their High Concept (and a number of other aspects) that you can call upon during your games. It can be anything so no rigid classes or risk of duplication in a player group.

https://fate-srd.com/fate-accelerated/who-do-you-want-be
https://fate-srd.com/fate-accelerated/example-characters

I agree that Fate is an interesting place to start from in settings like this, where mostly characters have a singular shtick of "who you are" and then a singular struggle, and the interesting aspect isn't how that invidual acts in a given situation, but how they combine their abilities creatively with their team.

I wonder if you could play Fate in such a way that, rather than it being normal for individuals to act and take turns, the players quickly come together to plan and then execute their plan of action.

I think you will wan tot look at various Super-Hero RPGs as a start. For example, TSR Marvel had "Power Feats" that were open to the characters to interpret how they were using their Fire Manipulation abiliity in the game. They might create a fire tornado, shape it into forms that attacked, or just throw a fireball. There was also rules for characters working together and augmenting each others abilities as well. Pretty swanky and right up your alley.

In addition, many game systems have "Elementalists" of some type who harness powers based on water, wind, earth, fire, etc. Typically, these work the same as any existing magic/combat system except the powers follow a logical progression.