What's the Best Superhero RPG?

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

I always assumed it was Mutants & Masterminds, but now I'm so sure.
I want to get into a Superhero RPG, but I only want to invest my money into one.
Is it Champions? M&M? Superworld? DC Adventures?

[Maxios]

DC Adventures is pretty good.

The Marvel RPG is pretty good, too, and you can get all the rules for free as PDFs

[Hyfigh]

I like Mutants and Masterminds, but saying something is the best is so subjective...

Edit: For rules-lite, and I know I've touted it before, Mini-Six is pretty awesome. It's free and based on Open D6, but the rules are simpler and more flexible.

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

I want something with simple, fast-paced, easy to learn rules. Superworld looks great for this, but I heard it's not very good.

[The Rose Dragon]

DC Adventures basically is Mutants & Masterminds 3rd Edition. So, I'd either suggest that or the 2nd Edition.

[Britter]

What is "best" is going to largely depend on what you want the system to do.

Mutants and Masterminds 2e, or the 3e system being used in the new DC book, have a really solid rep for being a good system (although I haven't played them, I have perused the MnM rule books, and I think the reputation is well deserved. System is a little too crunchy for my taste, but it is good at what it does and works a lot better then d20 DnD, imo), but like all d20 products they have a fair amount of rules, and character generation can take some time. It also requires you to lay down some ground rules and make sure people don't intentionally or accidentally break the game, which can be an issue with point-but style rulesets.

FASERIP, the old Marvel system, is freely availible online. It has been used as the base for a number of lighter rules systems out there, like the Four Color System (free on RPGNow). BASH uses a similar system, I believe.

Icons, BASH, and SUPERS! are all relatively inexpensive rule-lite systems. They have slightly different focuses, but are all fairly well regarded for what they can do.

And thats not even counting some of the systems that are less traditional, such as Truth and Justice.

I would suggest figuring out how you want your game to feel, how interested you are in learning a new rule set, and how much time you want to invest in prep. Once you know those things, it will be easier to zero in on a system that does what you want it to do.

Edit: Just saw your response. Honestly, I would try SUPERS!, BASH, or Icons. They are all sub-200 page rule systems (SUPERS!, which I own and like, tops the scales at maybe 130 pages, and is a very easy read. It also plays simply, is very flexible, and is intuitive to use.).

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

DC Adventures basically is Mutants & Masterminds 3rd Edition. So, I'd either suggest that or the 2nd Edition.

Isn't there an M&M 3rd edition that's not DC Adventures?

[The Rose Dragon]

Isn't there an M&M 3rd edition that's not DC Adventures?

Not yet, no. However, it is being worked on (and I, for one, await the Freedom City update that inevitably happened in the last five years).

[Hyfigh]

I want something with simple, fast-paced, easy to learn rules. Superworld looks good for this, but I heard it's not very good.

Again, subjective. I am personally so familiar with D20 that M&M came quickly to me. I was able to design super-heros with ease. The rules flowed so well, in fact, that I started using the system for many of my campaigns in other genres...

Mini-six is based on Open D6. I started my P&P RPG'ing on WEG Star Wars 2nd edition, so I'm quite experienced with this system as well. The rules for this, like M&M, came readily.

Both are readily flexible, and still have well thought out rules. Mini-six is "simpler" in that it doesn't have as many rules in place. It's surely an easy pick-up-and-play. The rule book is small.

[truemane]

I want something with simple, fast-paced, easy to learn rules. Superworld looks great for this, but I heard it's not very good.

I vote for FASERIP. Partly because all the actual books are free, partly because it's about as rules lite as a system can be and actually involve dice, and partly because it's just plain awesome.

[Hat-Trick]

Champions or HERO system is the system that I've been exposed to most and, while being very flexible in what it can do, it requires a calculator to make the characters unless you have the character creator software. My seniors in gaming have used it since at least 4th ed and I haven't really heard of them using anything since, so they at least find it a good system once the math and rules are figured out. Unfortunately, that can be confusing at times. Probably not what you're looking for.

[Britter]

FASERIP has a lot to recomend it, not the least being that the Interwebs are full of FASERIP stats for many traditional Marvel and DC characters, so it is 1)easy to dig up NPCS (Palette swap/name swap to fit your world, or use them as is, up to you) 2) Easy to see how to stats a particular concept and 3) Easy to play as esthablished comic book characters, if that floats your boat.

On top of that, it is pretty rules-lite, which I feel is a must for a supers system.

[TheEmerged]

HERO/Champions. In my not-so-humble experience, this is the "best" system out there for most values of "best". I played mostly under the BBB era ("Big Blue Book"), but played quite a bit of FREd ("Fifth Revised Edition", there's a funny story behind that).

Spoiler

Show

Since the 4th edition had an established nickname, when 5th was actually coming to print after a long hiatus the player boards were discussing what to call the new edition. Steve Long, the writer/editor came on to the board and joked that "You can call it Fred for all I care as long as you buy it." Someone quickly developed an acronym for FREd and it stuck.

HERO is not really a gaming system. HERO is a gaming system creation tool. What this boils down to is a common wag about HERO. The best part about the system is that you can build almost anything using HERO. The worst part is that you HAVE to build almost everything in the system.

Meaning that for your established definition of best ("I want something with simple, fast-paced, easy to learn rules."), it's not what you're looking for. Which is a pity, because I've had >20 years of fun with it.

------------------------------------------

So, within your definition of "best"? I have to second the recommendations for FASERIP. It's available free, it comes with a readily available way of describing the scale ("You're about as strong as Spiderman..."), and is actually quite fun to play. It also lends itself better to story-intensive play than a lot of systems. The main weaknesses are that it doesn't represent the scale differences in play as well as they're defined, and that some of the powers are a *lot* more flexible than others (and that can stick out like a sore thumb if you're randomly rolling the powers).

I don't believe it's available for free, but the old 9-attribute DC Superhero system had its charms as well. It better differentiated the scale of powers... but had some gapping flaws (the equipment rules... just don't go there).

There was a Marvel Saga... that stunk beyond words. No really, treat it like the 2nd & 3rd Matrix movies or the 3rd & 4th Superman movies. You're better off believing it doesn't exist.

There was also White Wolf's Aberrant system. The world was interesting and tried to deal with some of the issues that suddenly having superheroes in the world might cause. However there were problems with determining how powerful a character actually was, as well as the "power creep" problem (there's a trait in one of the final volumes that all-but-nullifies most mind-altering powers, for example), and it was a White Wolf product with all the usual problems of villain sympathy and more conspiracies than realities...

Another one I've messed around with was "Brave New World". The world was better than the system, simply put. I ended up adopting a fair amount of the world but playing it under HERO.

GURPS Supers is something I tried and didn't like. Our longest-running campaign started as an experiment in GURPS and we ended up converting the characters to HERO after about the 4th session.

[The Big Dice]

FASERIP has a lot to recomend it, not the least being that the Interwebs are full of FASERIP stats for many traditional Marvel and DC characters, so it is 1)easy to dig up NPCS (Palette swap/name swap to fit your world, or use them as is, up to you) 2) Easy to see how to stats a particular concept and 3) Easy to play as esthablished comic book characters, if that floats your boat.

On top of that, it is pretty rules-lite, which I feel is a must for a supers system.

It's not exactly rules light though. Between random character generation ( I can fly,I can control snails by the power of my mind and I can jump really high!) and the extremely iffy chart, talents, ill defined powers, weird ranges (I can shoot webs three Areas) and the usual mid 80s style of writing for the books, it's not a simple game at all.

but you can get it all for free, from here

[Britter]

I agree, I should have said it is more "rules medium" really. And it is not as cohesive as other, more current systems.

As I mentioned above, SUPERS! is my prefered rules-lite system, but like many such systems, there is a lot of abstraction, and that doesn't appeal to everyone. Heck, if you are willing to abstract things, you could just use RISUS or Wushu, and have a pretty simple, highly abstracted, and incredibly rules-lite superhero game.

[Apophis775]

Actually, I liked BESM (Big-Eyes Small Mouth)

It allows a LOT of freedom with character creation, despite being more anime-themed.

[Optimator]

I've played Mutants and Masterminds 2nd edition and liked it a lot. I've played Heroes Unlimited but it's not very good.

[Beleriphon]

Not yet, no. However, it is being worked on (and I, for one, await the Freedom City update that inevitably happened in the last five years).

GR has said no Freedom City update is planned, they are doing an Emerald City book.

[Warlawk]

Good old White Wolf Aberrant!

.
..
...

No one?

I love the basic white wolf system. So flexible and open. Aberrant is far and away my favorite superhero system. Course... its been out of print for quite a while and there really isn't much presence for it anywhere. But that's not really the point.