CAPES has been mentioned already and I'll mention it again, a particular aspect: in that game, it is quite explicit that a theme of the genre (is that a trope is it?) is that those super powers come at a price. I don't mean Superman's vulnerability to kryptonite, I mean his having to hide his identity. Many of them can't lead normal lives and so on. All of this is explicitly modelled in the rules (from memory).
To my mind, it could be well worth looking for a way to adapt HQ/QW specifically, mechanically for different genres. I don't mean just working out whether superpowers map on to magic, how guns work given ranged combat or whatever. I mean something at the level of hero points say - these are there to make HeroQuest a game about heroes. Well, if superheroes' use of abilities comes at a price, they could accumulate Superhero points every time they use such an ability, say, which have some effect directly related to those big flaws which they must have. How, I don't know, but I think it is worth examining. A Western game should have some mechanic for whatever the theme is - Redemption could be it I guess. Redemption points.
I don't know, I'm not a game designer and have no pretensions to be, but it might be worth playing about a tiny bit with some of these mechanics to give those different feels.
Sam.
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