d20 Supers: Recommendations?

[WizarDru]

I know that this is probably one of the perennial bi-weekly topics, but I've never participated in one such, and was curious for input.

The recent admission of several of my players into the "City of Heroes" beta test and their subsequent glee with it has rekindled my interest in Superhero RPGs.

Most of my players have Champions experience, and the one that doesn't has GURPS Supers experience (no comments, please ).

I know there are several d20 Supers games out there, and would like to get an idea of which one is the best (if one can be said to be) for emulating classic four-color comics. I'm thinking classic Avengers or JLA stuff, here. Stuff like Byrne-Claremont X-men, Wolfman-Perez Teen Titans, and Kirby-Lee Fantastic Four. I want a system that will allow my players to make honest-to-goodness superheroes who can tear up a city block in heated battle with Nazi Robots!

My brief knowledge of what's available is Mutants & Masterminds, which sounds like the front-runner. Godlike doesn't appear to be the right feel, and it doesn't seem to deliver what I'm looking for. Four-Color-to-Fantasy I have no idea about, though it appears to lack M&M's polish. And don't even bother trying to point out how bad that one with the bra-sizes is ("The Foundation", was it)....I knew that when I first saw it 2 years ago.

What say you good people?

 

[Morrus]

I'll slide this over to the d20 Games forum.

 

[cthulu_moose]

I'd say it depends what type of campaign you're going to run. Both 4CtF and M&M are good products, but I'd use them for different types of campaigns. If I was running a straight supers game I'd use M&M, but if I wanted to integrate this with a more general setting I'd use 4CtF. I'm planning a WWII supers/horror game and will be intergrating material from 4CtF with D20 Modern and Hell on Earth, and may be a bit of Blood and RFelics thrown in, buit don't tell my players .

Moose.

 

[Ghostwind]

Besides Mutants & Masterminds, take a close look at Deeds Not Words, one of the most underrated Supers games out there. It's pdf only, so that may not be your cup of tea. Another decent one is Silver Age Sentinels, although I feel the Tri-Stat version is superior to the d20 version because it gives a better feel.

 

[DMScott]

I know there are several d20 Supers games out there, and would like to get an idea of which one is the best (if one can be said to be) for emulating classic four-color comics. I'm thinking classic Avengers or JLA stuff, here. Stuff like Byrne-Claremont X-men, Wolfman-Perez Teen Titans, and Kirby-Lee Fantastic Four. I want a system that will allow my players to make honest-to-goodness superheroes who can tear up a city block in heated battle with Nazi Robots!

My brief knowledge of what's available is Mutants & Masterminds, which sounds like the front-runner.

M&M is the front-runner, and sounds like a good match for the type of game you want to run. Mechanics are good and play fast, Champs/GURPS veterans will pick up character generation pretty quickly. However, the books are a bit pricy because the production values are really high.

"Four Color to Fantasy" also gets good reviews. Mechanically it's fairly close to D&D, and the price is right. It seems like it should be OK for a comic book game, but I think it's better for lower powered supers (i.e. as a d20 Modern add-on).

Most of the other really prominent superhero RPGs seem to be non-d20, so if you're restricting your search to d20 stuff you'll miss some of the market. The new Marvel game seems to get decent reviews, Champions still exists, and I think White Wolf's game is still out there (Aberrant, was it? I can never keep their titles straight).

 

[Psion]

M&M is very decent, though I don't like the way they handle skills. Their errata has some optional rules "if you want more focus on skills." IME, this should not be an exceptional case as many four color characters are skill based (batman, anyone?)

FCTF is more a tool to add supers to an existing d20 game than a stand alone.

SAS d20 is more effect based which may appeal to your champions fans. That said, they do through some silly schenanigans just to use the d20 logo and make it perform like a supers game should (i.e., redefining chargen), and then they don't even bother to use feats. That said, it's a nice take on the TriStat ability system without the main disadvantage of TriStat, namely, the delusion that you can describe the basics of a character in only three stats!

Vigilance I didn't like (though I have the new version, I haven't read/reviewed it yet) and it highlights some of the cheif problems of trying to use d20 for supers. That said, it has one of THE best systems for disadvantages in any d20 System games. Unearthed Arcana's disad system should be so good! Heck, GURPS or HERO should be so good!

If I were to boil it down, I'd say use M&M if you want a whole game and want something d20-ish (otherwise, I'd say skip it and dig up a copy of DC Heroes), or FCTF if you just want to add superheroics to existing d20 games.

 

[SSquirrel]

"Four Color to Fantasy" also gets good reviews. Mechanically it's fairly close to D&D, and the price is right. It seems like it should be OK for a comic book game, but I think it's better for lower powered supers (i.e. as a d20 Modern add-on).

I think White Wolf's game is still out there (Aberrant, was it? I can never keep their titles straight).

4CTF is excellent and there are 2 versions available...a standard 3E based one and one that was redone for d20 Modern. I only own the original 3E version so I can't comment on the Modern version, but I've found it to e excellent. Just lay the supers rules overtop of the d20 rules you already know and you're ready to go. The Hero class provides power points aplenty to make your character. Mutant & Mastermind does look gorgeous, but they had a lot more money to throw at a nice hardback than ENWorld Publishing did. Don't let looks fool you tho, its an excellent pdf product.

Aberrant is the White Wolf supers game (it was in the same universe as Adventure! and Trinity...20s pulp and future sci-fi respectively) and I've run it before. It's my favorite way to run supers games simply because the storyteller system is very easy and the main book allows you to make most of the marvel universe style characters. If you have the Players Guide as well, you're definitely set as there is some errata there as well. I made a few small changes. For example, Quantum Blast is WAY overpowered so I removed it...no blasts of energy from players unless they get a power like that from something like Magnetic Control. Those variants are much toned down. You could also just change its power level to fit one of those better.

Haven't gotten to see Deeds Not Words yet, but I've heard great thing about it as well.

SAS d20 is more effect based which may appeal to your champions fans. That said, they do through some silly schenanigans just to use the d20 logo and make it perform like a supers game should (i.e., redefining chargen), and then they don't even bother to use feats. That said, it's a nice take on the TriStat ability system without the main disadvantage of TriStat, namely, the delusion that you can describe the basics of a character in only three stats!

GURPS uses 4 stats and gets by ok, but I tend to agree. Apparently 3 stats works fine for BESM tho. SAS d20 I don't enjoy as much b/c it seems more complex than it really needs to be. Then again, they want you to be able to completely customize your powers...which you can do wonderfully.

Also I wouldn't necc say that 4CTF is only for ading to an existing campaign world. Technically they have a setting built into teh pdf which you can use, but you can also easily just make up your own world to run it in. Me I wanna combine teh d20 Mecha and Gamma World treatments from Polyhedron (maybe the SJ minigame as well) and 4CTF on top of D&D....mutated trolls....super powers...mechs that run on magic...it'd be a blast heh

Hagen

 

[The Cyber Samurai]

I prefer Deeds Not Words. I have M&M and 4CTF, and although I like them both, Deeds Not Words defintely gives more bang for the buck. The only shortfall I see for DNW it does not yet have a D20 Modern conversion, but that is my own preference, and Scott Lynch plans to do an add on for D20 Modern some day. It is easily adapted to D20M, again if that is your preference, by dropping the character classes and using the basic classes. I would rate 4CTF as a very close second.

Steve

 

[Psychic Warrior]

I only have 2 different 'supers' games in my collection. HERO 5th edition and Silver Age Sentinels d20. I have never gotten a chance to run or play them so take what I say with a grain of salt.

HERO main drawback is a very steep learning curve. It took me the better part of a week of constant reading and re-reading to really understand character generation. There are a ton of options and it was easy to get overwhelmed at the beginning and frustration is a very real possiblity. That being said the depth and richness of the game system is amazing. HERO can, of course, be used for things other than superheroes but wether it is low or high powered the system is not going to break down on you. It is very difficult to make a 'munchkin' character in HERO (mainly because right from the start it hammers home the idea that the GM and players should be making their characters together) simply because it has gone to great length to balance powers with their cost and any powers with potentially game breaking aplications (like Time Travel) come with warnings to that nature as well as very high point costs. Overall, if you can make it past the initial period of learning HERO can be very rewarding.

SAS d20 is a lot easier to approach and still manages to have some of the depth of HERO. It is also a dedicated supers game system so will probably appeal more to you for what you are going after (the 'classic' superheroes - they would be much easier to model in SAS d20 than HERO IMO). Now the main problem with SAS d20 is the character classes. They really seemed forced into the system and are a poor choice for what is, in reality, a point buy system (you choose a class and then get points to use to puchase additional abilites). my suggestion? Dump the classes except for the Adventurer one and have players build from them. ANything the classes give you can be modelled with the powers and skills your points can buy. I was really confused as to why they tried to mesh point buy and class levels together and feel this is a major reason the game isn't more popular. Because SAS d20 has some great stuff going for it. Want to model the Flash, the original where he could fast enough to break the barriers between dimensions? It can be done is SAS d20! Superman? No problem (although both of those characters would be pretty high level - or be made in a high-powered supers game ie - they would start with a lot of points which I think is what you would be after). In addition, and you may feel this is completely unimportant, SAS d20 is a simply beautiful book with lots of illustrations, comic book lore and a really good 'vibe' that the creators of this book love comic books and loved making this game.

Bottom line - whiel both of these games will work wonderfully for your supers game in the end I would recommend Silver Age Sentinels d20 beacuse i think it has more of what you're after - a classic feel to modelling some of the odl time superheroes.

Hoep this has been a help.

 

[slingbld]

I prefer Deeds Not Words. I have M&M and 4CTF, and although I like them both, Deeds Not Words defintely gives more bang for the buck. The only shortfall I see for DNW it does not yet have a D20 Modern conversion, but that is my own preference, and Scott Lynch plans to do an add on for D20 Modern some day. It is easily adapted to D20M, again if that is your preference, by dropping the character classes and using the basic classes. I would rate 4CTF as a very close second.

Steve

I'd hafta agree. If you are looking for a D20 system. DnW is the best way to go IMHO.
Now if you realy want to do it in D20M, then I'd say the revised 4CtF is the way to go.

Both systems are good & both do a great job of not straying too far from the core rules.
I realy like M&M but it is a game that realy showcases the OGL. It is NOT a D20 or D20M game. It uses many of the smae mechanics but they have made enough changes that the D20 logog could not be put on it. (But then again, that's what they were shooting for anyway ).

I'd have to say steer clear of Silver Age Sentinels D20. It's just not laid out well IMHO. If you want SAS, use thier Tri-Stat system instead. It's very well done...