Best d20 Supers game?

[SWBaxter]

What ever happened to Villians and Vigilanties?

Fantasy Games Unlimited went into semi-hibernation for a long time, but published enough stuff to retain the rights to the game, and wouldn't sell them to Jeff Dee and Jack Herman (the original authors). With the rise of the PDF market, FGU made most of the V&V line available, so you can get PDFs of the rules and many of the adventures from RPGNow if you're so inclined.

Jeff Dee eventually started work on an update to V&V, then it grew into a new game, which he released under the name "Living Legends." It's kind of a strange hybrid of V&V with a Hero/M&M/etc. style point build system. I think it's pretty cool, but it got very mixed reviews. It's also available via PDF, along with a couple of adventures that stack up pretty well against the old V&V modules.

So far as the thread topic goes, I liked M&M 1e better than 2e, though some part of that is just aesthetics. SAS d20 wasn't very good. Aberrant d20 was OK, uneven in places but with a pretty awesome setting. I quite liked Vigilance, though it's a bit of different style from classic comic book supers. I didn't know there was a Supers supplement for Modern^20 in the works until I read this thread, but if it does come out I'll be all over it.

If I absolutely had to play a d20ish supers game, it'd probably be M&M 1e. But I use other systems for my supers gaming - Hero, Godlike, and a fairly light freebie system called Powergame are my go-to SHRPGs, depending on my needs.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

FASERIP for the win!

Oh, wait....d20?

Mutants & Masterminds. Hands down.

 

[Boarstorm]

FASERIP for the win!

I was wondering how long it would take.

I still have boxes and boxes of material from the old MSH game. It's nostalgia factor is very very high.

 

[WayneLigon]

I've owned and played a lot of superhero games. The only ones I have not seen are some of the indie games like Truth and Justice or CAPES. M&M is by far the best system I've seen, and the only system that lets me build heroes that closely resemble their comic-book counterparts.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

FASERIP for the win!

I was wondering how long it would take.

I still have boxes and boxes of material from the old MSH game. It's nostalgia factor is very very high.

It's a tangent, but since you both went there...

Phil Reed went and developed a generic version of that system. He went ahead and released this toolkit for free. You can find it here:
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?cPath=1678_4322&products_id=50837

It's also here with an additional bit:
http://www.lulu.com/browse/search.php?fKeywords=4C System

So if you're thinking of going with "nostalgia", it's an alternative that will let you use your old books, and the folks at the table that don't happen to have them will still be able to have their own copy of the rules.

This appears to be the closest thing it has to a homepage:
http://www2.seraphim-guard.com/content/view/42/77/

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I've owned and played a lot of superhero games. The only ones I have not seen are some of the indie games like Truth and Justice or CAPES. M&M is by far the best system I've seen, and the only system that lets me build heroes that closely resemble their comic-book counterparts.

I'd second this. M&M is also one of a select number of superhero games (including MSHAG and to some extent FASERIP, not definately not any form of Champions/HERO) that actually FELT like a superhero movie or comic book in actual play.

 

[Kheti sa-Menik]

Forget M&M...it's clumsy and awkward.

Definitely D20Modern plus RPGObjects' "Blood and Vigilance" hands down.

 

[Mallus]

Forget M&M...it's clumsy and awkward.

Bite your tongue... with adamantium-laced teeth.

 

[Greg K]

FASERIP for the win!.

Some of my houserules/adaptations were collected by two of the largest fan sites for that game. That said, I don't think that I would ever touch that game again. Even for its time, there were better games.
The only thing going for it, imo, were the Marvel characters and they were often horribly researched.

 

[Greg K]

Forget M&M...it's clumsy and awkward.

Definitely D20Modern plus RPGObjects' "Blood and Vigilance" hands down.

As much I love d20Modern and Vigilance's work for d20 Modern, I find d20M and d20/DND class/level structure, hp/level, etc. are just horrible for supers.

M&M did everything necessary to make a good d20 Supers game which was strip d20 down its very core and rebuild it. Then again, this is exactly what I argued would be necessary on Monte Cook's board shortly after the release of the 3.0 PHB.