Best d20 Supers game?

[Mallus]

Yeah, in many ways, M&M is a training wheel system for HERO. It offers a lot of versatility, and it gives you the traditional archetypes out of the box, but you can't play around with type to quite the same detail.

Oh really? I used M&M2e to create the Egyptian God of Mexican Wrestlers, Joseirus by name. He could wrestle a villains soul, summon a part of Nile to drown them in, implore Nut the Sky Goddess to hurl them high into the air, or simply drop a pyramid on them.

I found that M&M offered plenty of mechanical support for even the most outre concept.

 

[Farmer42]

Oh really? I used M&M2e to create the Egyptian of Mexican Wrestlers, Joseirus by name. He could wrestle a villains soul, summon a part of Nile to drown them in, implore Nut the Sky Goddess to hurl them high into the air, or simply drop a pyramid on them.

I found that M&M offered plenty of mechanical support for even the most outre concept.

I'm not saying it doesn't, however it has a slightly more rigid structure in how it expects players to build characters. i am in no way criticizing the system. I feel that it's a great introduction to point buy systems. I just feel that HERO and GURPs are more open-ended.

 

[pawsplay]

Ironically, M&M isn't a d20 game, but rather a SRD-based OGL game. True d20 supers games include, hm:

The Foundation: A World in Black and White, Plus Misogyny and Bad Design

d20 Silver Age Sentinels

Four Colors to Fantasy, maybe?

Aberrant, if you want to call that supers

 

[RangerWickett]

Yay, someone mentioned my book - Four-Colour to Fantasy - though even I would play M&M over using it. But one of my players loves to use FCTF in normal D&D games so he can have super-powers in fantasy, so at least it wasn't a total waste.

 

[pawsplay]

I was actually musing over a supers approach very similar to what I know of FCTF, way back when. But you beat me to the punch.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Mutants & Masterminds is the 800 lb gorilla.

I personally like what I've seen of 1st Ed over 2nd Ed. But as with so many things, the people that stay with the older version are in the minority.

Silverage Sentinels had some mixed reviews. Some folks really liked it, others didn't. Before it had a chance to get really established, M&M showed up and blew it out of the water. To be honest though, most of the Guardians of Order d20 products weren't really well received. M&M really managed to nail what a lot of people wanted, and with 2nd edition they addressed a common complaint of "it's still to close to D&D".

Don't forget there was also Deeds not Words which enjoyed brief popularity, as well as Vigilance: Absolute Power from Mystic Eye Games.

Deeds not Words has been dead for a while, but the people that took over the rights to it have actually continued working on the project. It's all taking place here:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/phoenixprojectrpg/

Of course the thing many people are going to complain about is how close the game(s) are to the core rules as you see in D&D. Back when it was all getting started, that wasn't seen as a bad thing. Nowadays? Different story I think.

Afterall, just look at the success of M&M. None of the other d20 supers games have held on.

 

[Boarstorm]

Thanks, Scurvy. That helps a lot.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Is Supers20 available yet? Well, if it is, that's another option, based on Modern20. Which itself is a pretty nifty system, by the looks of it so far. I haven't had a chance to use it yet, what with all the other things going on, but there are some nice features to it - might be worth checking out a review, anyway.

Oh yeah, M&M 2e. . . well, I haven't tried it out for supers yet. I've been using it for fantasy, and it might get a go for something else, before it even gets used as it's 'supposed to'.

 

[GreatLemur]

Mutants & Masterminds smacked the supers crown off Champions' head, in my book. I used to think of it more as Hero System lite, but with the right amount of screwing around with the power construction system, you seriously can get the same (or, well, very nearly the same) level of flexibility as in Champions. Plus, character creation can optionally be far easier, if you don't want to go all Excel spreadsheet about it. And combat is a hell of a lot simpler (from what little I remember of Hero System), with a fun little central mechanic that doesn't even resemble hit points.

Ironically, M&M isn't a d20 game, but rather a SRD-based OGL game.

Thank you for biting the bullet on that so that I don't have to be the pedantic one.

 

[Festivus]

What ever happened to Villians and Vigilanties? That was what I used to play when I was a kid. Though I can't seem to find the cover to the one I have/had (I'll have to see if my mom still has my old gaming box). My V&V was a yellow cardstock cover and bound with three brads... probably a very old version of the game.