Best Superhero system?

[Dubious Pie]

I don't know which to shove moneys at. In the past I've played both 2e Mutants & Masterminds and 4e GURPS Powers, but I don't know what superhero RPG to get. GURPS is tempting because I can use it for other things as well.

[The Rose Dragon]

My preference is Mutants & Masterminds, but some people swear by GURPS or HERO.

[Scarey Nerd]

This (http://www.ualberta.ca/~okidder/Phoenix.beta.10.Ultimate.pdf) is a great system, I've used it in the past and it's so flexible. And free.

Alternatively, Risus (http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/risus.htm) :smallbiggrin:

[Lord Bingo]

there is a Savage Worlds setting called Necessary Evil that has some nice mechanics for super powers. It is an easy system to learn too:smallsmile:

[Ragitsu]

You can't go wrong with Mutants & Masterminds 2nd Edition, HERO 6th Edition, or GURPS + Powers/Supers.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Well, I haven't yet played it, but the ICONS (http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=81475) system looks really solid. Best part? Courtesy of a sale, it's currently $1 as opposed to $30. So you may want to have a look at it, for that price.

[Dubious Pie]

I'm not going for "gritty", I am trying to get a "goofy 80's cartoon" feel.

[Ragitsu]

I'm not going for "gritty", I am trying to get a "goofy 80's cartoon" feel.

Mutants & Masterminds it is, then. You'll get to "goofy 80's cartoon" feel without much work.

[Thefurmonger]

+1 for Hero system

[Tengu_temp]

GURPS is tempting because I can use it for other things as well.

M&M can be used for a lot of other things too - it represents pretty much every setting well, except for very gritty ones. I played and DMed a lot of M&M games, and not a single one of them was traditional superhero fare.

[Ragitsu]

M&M can be used for a lot of other things too - it represents pretty much every setting well, except for very gritty ones. I played and DMed a lot of M&M games, and not a single one of them was traditional superhero fare.

Absolutely.

The only downside to M&M, in the regard mentioned, is that the entire range of distinctions between "low powered" (read, real life) folk is fairly low.

This isn't a serious criticism of the system, because it's simply not what it's engineered to excel at.

[gbprime]

Hero system. Swear by it. Character setup takes time, but the mechanics are both fast and intricate. You spend your time playing, not record keeping.

[Da Beast]

MnM 2nd edition is great, especially if you're going for the feel of an 80s superhero cartoon. 3rd edition is out (or soon will be), but I don't know much about it.

[Southern Cross]

Before 6th Edition came out,I would have unhesitatingly recommended the Hero System as the best superhero system.However Steve Long took 6th Edition in a direction that I didn't agree with.( He removed Figured Characteristics from the game, made OCV & DCV independent of DEX,and finally got rid of Elemental Controls replacing them with the Unified Power Limitation).

[The Rose Dragon]

GURPS is tempting because I can use it for other things as well.

I just wanted to address this part specifically. Since superheroes are such a wide and flexible genre, I would look askance at any superhero game that can't handle a variety of other genres at least competently.

[Ragitsu]

He removed Figured Characteristics from the game

Not a big deal at all. It, in fact, allows a greater flexibility in character creation.


made OCV & DCV independent of DEX

Agreed. Just because a character is agile, this doesn't necessarily make them a good warrior. Glad this is also the case in Mutants & Masterminds.


,and finally got rid of Elemental Controls replacing them with the Unified Power Limitation).

More simplistic, and basically does the same thing. Sounds like a win to me.

[Pinnacle]

3rd edition is out (or soon will be), but I don't know much about it.

Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=175422)'s a thread with some information on it.

Short version:
Right now, the 3rd Edition of Mutants & Masterminds isn't out yet. What's available now is DC Adventures, which uses the same system that MnM 3E will use when it comes.
The core of it is pretty similar to 2E.

[Seerow]

I played HERO for a while, it's a great system as far as character building goes, very flexible and the like...


Just make sure that the group collaborates and tries to keep defenses at least within a certain range of each other. We had a problem where we had a group where each of us had a different idea of what acceptable armor levels was. So to even have a chance of hurting one person would result in one shotting another, making it hard for the GM to design suitable encounters. That was the biggest problem we ran into that I recall.


edit: At least I think it was HERO. Based on some of the responses here about the system I'm not so certain anymore. I'd have to find the books :/

[Fhaolan]

Old school. Villains and Vigilantes. :smallcool:

Honestly though in my experience, the superhero genre is more about the adventures than the system. I've played over a dozen different superhero RPGs, using a variety of systems from the originals to the most recent incarnations, as well as freeform and so-called 'storytelling' systems. And in each case the successfull games were more due to the players (including the GM) than to any aspect of the system. Heretical, I know. I'll probably be flamed at the stake for saying so.

Superhero is possibly the most difficult genre for RPGs to model, because it has to be able to accomidate both the Planet-saving Gods and the Bad-ass Mortals. As examples, Superman and the Green Arrow. Or for Marvellites: Thor and the Punisher. If the system can't deal with both types being played at the same time at the same table, it can't really model the comic-book experience. All those discussions about Tier 1 and Tier 3 classes that show up on this forum on a weekly if not daily basis? A Superhero system has to not only admit that, but has to be able to make it *fun* to have mixed tiers.

No modern system really does that well. They all try to balance in one way or another to *prevent* that kind of thing, by having character points or similar concepts. Older systems didn't even bother. V&V and Marvel fully admited that their systems would produce unbalanced characters and that it was up to the GM and the players to figure out how to deal with it.

I had a point, I swear, I'm not just rambling... okay, maybe I am, but anyway... the system doesn't matter as much as the people. Go with something that you have already got books in, or that you have prior experience with, or something cheap. Heck, superhero is one of the genres that makes a good first dive into freeform/systemless, or one of the 'light' systems like FUDGE or something.

[Balain]

One of the games we are currently playing is a super heroes campaign. We use Fuzion with some modifications. It works well for us.

[Tetsubo 57]

I would suggest M&M 2E. I think it does a great job.

I found Blood of Heroes fascinating because it scales so well. I have heard that DC Heroes 3E is better however. I haven't had a chance to read the latter.

I have tried to use GURPS 3E to do a supers game and it just didn't work that well. It seemed like the system didn't really support the high point characters that you encounter with most hero scenarios. YMMV.

Savage Worlds works really well for a supers game in my opinion.

Using HERO for anything is like reading a college chemistry textbook. Just not my cup of tea.

[Southern Cross]

This is true, Tetsubo 57. Despite it's name GURPS is a realistic RPG system, and is much more suited to low-power scenarios. (Though GURPs 4e offers a lot more options for high-powered games than the previous editions, you'll need multiple sourcebooks, especially GURPS Powers. (Alternate Abilities (A second-rate version of Hero's Multipower Framework) should have been in the Character Creation book,darn it!)
Interestingly, Hero 6th appears to be more like GURPS than previous editions (in requiring multiple books) and GURPS 4e appears to be more like the Hero System than previous versions of GURPS (as it is more customisable and consistent than previous editions).

[sombrastewart]

I'm another M&M proponent. The difficulty with M&M in doing disparity of Superman level versus street level is that you have a point differential, pretty much they're different Power Levels. A street hero can pump points in his gear to keep up with higher power folks, but it is more difficult.

[J.Gellert]

+1 for Mutants & Masterminds, though 2nd edition from me as well. It's great for supers... and pretty much everything else, too, if by chance your next campaign takes a different route. So it's worth monies.

[Beleriphon]

I'm another M&M proponent. The difficulty with M&M in doing disparity of Superman level versus street level is that you have a point differential, pretty much they're different Power Levels. A street hero can pump points in his gear to keep up with higher power folks, but it is more difficult.

This is very true, but only if you're working at different power levels. At 150 points for building and Power Level 10 you can get a pretty decent Superman analogue and a Batman type that can both contribute pretty equally. There one thing to keep in mind, it's easy to make a character useless and still technically be the same power level. Best bet, max your combat stats and then work from there.

[kyoryu]

HERO system is good. The only caveat is you'll need to put some level of GM control on characters, as it's waaaaay too easy to minmax the snot out of it. Common controls I've seen include things like "no attack more than xyz damage", "no more than x points into attributes," etc.

GURPS Supers is fine, but GURPS tends to work better in relatively low-powered scenarios. So it's probably fine for a grittier supers game, but if you're going more four-color, I'd recommend HERO over it.

Really, everyone should play HERO at least once just to see how far you can separate fluff and crunch.

[malloyd]

An option I rather like recently is the last (third) edition of Big Eyes Small Mouth, though with the publisher gone under it's hard to find. It is after all *designed* to adapt comics, admittedly with a slightly different slant than superhero comics. It's quite a nice cross-genre game though, and works pretty well for all kinds of things where GURPS or Hero are rules overkill.

[Earthwalker]

I would recomend trying Sqaudron UK

You can get the basic PDFs free online from the publisher. So you can try it out.

[hamlet]

Palladium.

Mostly because it confuses the squares.

[Saintjebus]

I have to say +1 for Savage Worlds, using the Necessary Evil Supplement. I've run a game in it, and we had a zombie master, an unpowered archer(think green arrow), an iron suit(iron man), and a voodoo witch doctor. The power level stayed about constant, and many of those powers were simply the same power entry, refluffed to the player's want.

In short, the system is extraordinarily flexible, very simple to learn, and very easy to run.