Note: The style guidelines given here were mostly reverse-engineered from Adamant Entertainment’s official ICONS publications. They are intended to help authors and publishers give ICONS GMs and players high-quality, stylistically-consistent products. These guideline also include some general observations that should be useful for any superhero game. Obviously, these guidelines have no “official” status; use what’s helpful and ignore what’s not.

Abilities[edit]

Capitalize the names of the six abilities, as well as the words Stamina and Determination. Don’t capitalize the word ability itself.

When you’re citing a character’s ability levels, use one of the following forms:

a/an Ability of #, as in “a Strength of 3”
Ability #, as in “Strength 3”

However, when you’re citing a quantity by which a character’s ability levels might change, use the form # Ability, as in “lose 3 Stamina.”

Specialties[edit]

Capitalize specialties, specialty groups, and specialty levels using title case. Don’t capitalize the word “specialty” itself. Beyond this, Adamant’s publications format specialty entries inconsistently when levels and specialty groups are involved.

The specialties chapter of the core rulebook uses the form Specialty Level, omitting the name of the specialty group, as in “Bows Expert.”
The villain entries in ICONS (p. 96ff.) use the forms Group - Specialty and Specialty - Level, as in “Science - Archaeology” (Recluse) or “Occult - Master” (Serpent Sphinx). None of the villain entries in the core rulebook seem to have both a group specification and a level. Some of the entries in Hero Pack 1 follow this convention.
The ICONS Character Folio uses the form Group Level (Specialty) - Details, as in “Weapons Expert (Rifles) - Muskets.” Some of the entries in Hero Pack 1 follow this convention.
Some of the entries in Hero Pack 1 use the form Specialty (Level), as in “Athletics (Expert).”

Recommendation: Follow the practice in the core rulebook’s “Specialties” chapter, as this provides the cleanest format. Additional explanatory notes can then be placed in parentheses, if necessary, without nesting parentheses or stringing out different types of punctuation.

Additionally, Adamant’s publications waffle between Mastery (describing the skill) and Master (describing the person) as the medium specialty level. However, they consistently use Expert (describing the person), not Expertise (describing the skill). Recommendation: Use Master and Expert.