Any Supers Game that feels Super?

[hawkeyefan]

League who have members like Thor & Superman working shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Batman, Hawkeye, or Black Widow.

Thor can usually hang with Hawkeye. Usually.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Masks is the winner so far. Sentinel Comics RPG does sound interesting, but also like quite an investment, and I really like campaign games.

??? Masks doesn't really support lengthy play either. You earn advances too rapidly and while you can change playbooks sooner or later you're going retire your character by either "growing up" to an adult hero or quitting the biz altogether - or, I suppose, going villainous instead. It's good for exploring a character's personal story arc but those arcs don't last for the hundred+ sessions I'd expect from a campaign game.

That said, there's currently a DTRPG pdf bundle with all the Masks books - core and three supplements (which are good fluff and idea mines even if you never play the game) - at about the same price as the SCRPG pdf. Overall page counts are slightly in Masks' favor there - about 530 to 458, so this would be a good time to invest.

I'd advise keeping an eye out for sales on the SCRPG if you're curious about it. They were selling the physical books at something like 30-40% off a couple of months back and I've seen folks saying they found copies at half off (so $30) at discount book stores earlier this year. Entirely possible that kind of sale may recur, so shopping around is a good idea as always.

If campaign duration (beyond the ~100 session mark that represents two years of steady weekly play) is a primary concern I'd suggest Prowlers & Paragons out of the ones I brought up. Its advancement system is pretty robust over time and it lets characters grow and change without breaking down better than most supers games I've played.

Definitely Palladium's Heroes Unlimited.... ...wait, why'd everybody leave?

It's got its fans, even if I'm not one of them. But if the OP didn't like V&V much, it's safe to say he's likely to HATE Heroes Unlimited, which takes the randomly-generated supers thing to a new high...or low.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Thor can usually hang with Hawkeye. Usually.

You ever read the Royal Guard webcomic? I feel you'd probably really like the Hood, who makes some appearances in the Silverback comic as well.

 

[overgeeked]

I absolutely agree that superheroes work better with lighter, more narrative focused game systems.

Masks: A New Generation for teenage angst superheroes.

Marvel Heroic Roleplay for beat ’em up focused superheroes.

Smallville for soap opera focused superheroes.

The last two are out of print but can be easily recreated with Cortex Prime.

 

[dbm]

I saw you read my post in a thread on Savage Worlds Super Powers Companion, @Starfox. It’s a great system for supers role-playing in my opinion.

I guess the main thing is: what sort of game are you looking for? The narrative games out there tend to be pretty focussed on a specific type of supers story, e.g. teen supers coming to understand their place in the world. If there is a game that focuses in on what you find interesting then happy days!

We come from a fairly ‘traditional’ background in my group and the strongly narrative games haven’t worked for us. Savage Worlds has a mix of trad and narrative elements in it, and that can work for us. It gives the GM a lot of tools to work with. I ran an old Marvel Super Heroes adventure for my group when we were trying out the system, and the adventure-as-written was basically a mix of completely free-form roleplaying scenes and a bunch of combats. There were no other mechanics based challenges for the characters. No overcoming hazards or even rescuing people. It seemed very weird to my current eyes, though I am sure it would have been fine to my younger self.

But that really emphasised to me how great Savage Worlds is in supporting mechanically interesting non-combat challenges. When I switched to creating my own adventures it was so easy to insert chases, and other challenges like rescuing civilians from a burning building or investigating clues. It has trad element when you want a tactically challenging combat, and more narrative elements to encompass the potentially huge and varied scope of supers while still tying things in the same core mechanics around skills, initiative and bennies so character abilities continue to function in the ways that make sense.

 

[Tonguez]

Smallville for soap opera focused superheroes.

Smallville doesnt really focus on Superheroes though - it focusses on the dramatic tension and dynamics between the folk who know Clark/Superman, its resolution system is pure soap opera.

I've had the best fun doing Superheroes via FATE accelerated. The Character Aspects do the heavy lifting of defining super powers and Approaches mean that the game is driven by Character style instead of specific skills, there are only four actions to worry about and the narrative outcomes also mean that characters of mixed 'power levels' can interact and contribute as equals

I think super hero role-playing probably works better with a more narrative structure, but I am pretty new to such games. Something like Blades in the Dark might work well. Actually the Princess World hack of BitD I have been using could be a good start. There each princess has a specialty, such as "Rose, princess of Flame" or "Clara, princess of waves" and whenever that specialty is relevant, you gain an additional die. Compared to base BitD this is really cheesy, but it works, feels heroic, and makes each princess unique. Considering the almost unlimited scope of possible superpowers, its impossible to write detailed rules for each.

What does PbtA stand for?

Princess World is a PbtA game, though its choice to do away with playbooks and just go with the Princess Specialties was inspired

 

[MacDhomnuill]

While I admittedly haven’t played many supers games the one that stands out was run with Risus. Lightweight rules set, use of tropes, simple conflict resolution system that could be potentially added to, to make them more complicated and give you more variety of results.

 

[overgeeked]

Smallville doesnt really focus on Superheroes though - it focusses on the dramatic tension and dynamics between the folk who know Clark/Superman, its resolution system is pure soap opera.

Sure. But you do have superpowers as stats. But yes, pure soapy fun.

I've had the best fun doing Superheroes via FATE accelerated. The Character Aspects do the heavy lifting of defining super powers and Approaches mean that the game is driven by Character style instead of specific skills, there are only four actions to worry about and the narrative outcomes also mean that characters of mixed 'power levels' can interact and contribute as equals.

Fate’s good, too.

 

[damiller]

Make mine marvel multiverse. The damage mechanic is kinda clunky, but its the best supers game I've played. I base that almost solely on the fact that I actually want to learn how combat works, and am interested in challenging my players in combat.

The way reactions work make team tactics really easy. If you want a game that is easy to learn, but takes some time to master, I'd suggest Marvel.

Before that I would have said Champions Now. If you can, I ultimately couldn't, get past the mountains of gibberish that comprise the first half of the book (and have a copy of Champions 3rd edition you can refer to about how the rules actually work) its a really fun game. I enjoyed the way combat worked there too.

Marvel Multiverse has in it the one mechanic I liked in Champions Now: The idea that some powers "cost". This means you can't just keep spamming your best power.

 

[pemerton]

Marvel Heroic RP is great. The fiction it creates feels like comics, at least to me. (And by "comics" I mean mostly Claremont X-Men and stuff in that vein.)