I had the idea today of having the player make two characters to start out with. One is the protagonist and the other is the antagonist, only which one is which isn't determined at first. I think that reduces the problem of the player rooting for only one character. I'd love it if there were twists where the character the player thought was the hero suddenly becomes the villain. The fault I have with that is, how do you have the powerful supervillain threatening the city right off the bat in the story?
Each character would be dealt two specialty cards. They would be things like Leader, Skill, Power, Knowledge, Friends. The character could take them right away or let them develop over the course of the game.
For example, Darth Vader would have
Leader - taken immediately
Power - taken immediately
Luke Skywalker would have
Power - develop
Friends - develop
If you take the specialty right away, it's power will be limited at a starting level but if you take the develop status it starts at nothing but you have the potential to develop it more.
Handling this mechanically becomes an issue though. How powerful is this leadership status or this power or this knowledge? Since I'd like this to be a universal tool, I could only give general information and hope it makes sense for the system being played in.