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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SWBaxter" data-source="post: 2686061" data-attributes="member: 27926">I believe right now, the big three on the market are Hero (with the Champions line), Mutants and Masterminds, and Silver Age Sentinels (available in d20 and Tri-Stat flavours). There's others on the market, but I think those are the three that dominate the general superhero arena, other games are either niche products or bit players (often both). And actually I'm not sure about SAS, apparently their release schedule has slowed to a crawl.Hero is the oldest of the three, and IMHO the best engineered ruleset. Gamers have been pounding on its point system for so long that the exceptions and holes are either cleaned up or well enough known that the rulebook tells you what to do about them. The downside is that the system can seem dauntingly complex to a newcomer, though the great majority of the complexity is in character creation, during play most of it fades into the background. It's still pretty intimidating to pick up FRED (the big black and green rulebook) with the intention of making your first (or even 10th) character.M&M is the youngest of the three, very well-received. It's got a good basic system, not too unlike Hero's but generally simpler and quicker. IMHO first edition suffered somewhat from fencepost conditions - a small string of very good or very bad rolls could turn the fortunes of a fight completely around - but lots of people apparently had no such problems. I haven't picked up second edition yet to see if that's been fixed; there were also some obvious point balance problems in 1E, most of which look like they have been fixed.Silver Age Sentinels uses the Tri-Stat dX system (which is available free from their website, if you're interested: <a href="http://www.guardiansorder.com/downloads/" target="_blank">http://www.guardiansorder.com/downloads/</a> ), which is a pretty nice balance between fast play and system detail. I'd put it somewhere between M&M and Hero on those scales. The bad news is (IMHO) the system has more balance wonkiness than either of the others, a fixable problem if the GM keeps a firm reign on character creation.Hero has the most supplements available, I believe. SAS and M&M are tied for a distant second (though with M&M, most of the supplements are currently 1E). How many books you need for each depends mostly on GM familiarity with the system, and willingness to work. How many copies depend on how you do character creation, all three systems have fairly detailed character design so ideally a player who's designing their own character will have sole access to a rulebook for a few hours. IMHO:Hero - GM needs FRED, and the UNTIL Superpowers Database is pretty close to a must-have. Lots of other supplements are nice-to-have - I don't think any of the Hero supplements are clunkers - but they're all a matter of GM taste. Players can get by fine with a copy of Sidekick, which is a relatively cheap, stripped-down version of the rulebook that lacks many examples and a few powers. Goes for 10 bucks as I recall. Rulebooks are setting-free, if you want a campaign setting the books to look for are Champions Universe (which is the overview book) and whichever of the various city books strike your fancy. Millenium City is a modern superhero city, Hudson City is a dark Gotham-like place overrun with crime, Vibora Bay is a mystical Gulf city, all are darn good.M&M - GM needs the rulebook. Probably about one copy for every 2-3 players would be a good ratio at the table. It's another settingless book, Freedom City is one of the best setting books published for any superhero RPG (and worth a look even if you choose another system so long as you have a place for a Metropolis/Marvel New York-style city in your campaign, there isn't much crunch and it's a really excellent book). Other supplements are all 1E, and might not be much use to you without some conversion work, as I understand it many will be re-released in 2E over the next year.SAS - GM needs the rulebook, I'd suggest copies of the Tri-Stat dX .pdf for the players to start. I believe SAS includes a setting with the rulebook - leaning heavily towards the silver age, of course - other supplements are nice-to-haves rather than need-to-haves.For me personally, after trying out M&M 1E for a bit I found myself going back to Hero. I just found it suited my style better, YMWV. I haven't ever run SAS (or Tri-stat) in a full session, so I can't really compare how it plays to the other two.</blockquote>

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