Favorite superhero RPGs?

[aramis erak]

I quite liked Marvel Saga back when it came out, and would enjoy a game today if I could get a group together.

Mutants and Masterminds 3e is pretty cool, but it can be a little complicated to get a hero together.

if, however, someone really wanted to play a superhero game and we wanted to get right into it, I'd run ICONs. It's nice and simple, quick to make a hero, and if you really want, it translates the old marvel RPG easily in the system since the numbers are essentially the feeble to unearthly scores of that system.

My rankings as supers games:

1. Sentinel Comics
2. Marvel Heroic RP
3. AMSH
4. Marvel Super Heros Adventure Game (Saga system)
5. Champions

The ones I've played outside those: Mutazoids, GURPS Supers, DC Super Heroes (circa 1985), Champions: New Millennium. Villains Finish First, Good Guys Finish Last, Batman d6,

As universal systems, instead, Champions, then AMSH, then CNM... then d6 (but not the batman version). Most of my Hero System play has been Fantasy Hero, tho' I've played Champions, Danger International and Robot Warriors, too. And a one shot of Autoduel Champions.

 

[dbm]

We don’t play a huge amount of supers games, but we have played a few down the years. I had the original DC RPG back when it first came out, though I don’t think we did anything with it other than trying out a few characters. We played quite a bit of supers using the 3e GURPS book, which was OK but there were some pretty significant balance issues with that iteration of the rules.

Recently we tried to get into Hero and play Champions. The fine tuning available in that system is truely amazing, but the overhead that entailed as people new to the system was big, and we found the game quite tricky at the table. The normal damage / killing damage mechanics didn’t seem to add much in practice but the way of reading dice slowed things down procedurally. I am sure that would speed up with familiarity.

After playing Champions for a few months, when the Super Powers Companion came out for Savage Worlds we decided to transfer everything to that system. Despite being less granular than Hero / Champions it let us recreate the essence of the Champions characters in a satisfying way while reducing the technical weight of the system, and operationally it was a system we were all familiar with anyway so it just flew at the table.

The Super Powers Companion for SWADE is now definitely my system-of-choice for supers games. They have also just crowd funded one completely new (and two converted from earlier editions) campaigns for the SPC too - Necessary Evil. Those are on my list of games to run in the near future.

 

[Vael]

I've not had good luck with superhero RPGs. I ran a short "Heroes" like campaign in FATE Accelerated that was the best experience, even though the players were having fun, it was my second time GMing Fate and I was having a difficult time.

Masks has a very limited scope, so I felt like I was struggling to get a playbook that fit my character concept, and that never got past chargen.

Blood of Heroes, a generic reprint of a DC system, I think, was my worst experience, gave up during character gen. Having to use a spreadsheet to calculate the point buy and then not wanting to spend all one's XP because you also use it as in game currency? Hated it.

TBH, I think my favorite superhero experience was playing a short epic tier DnD 4e campaign.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Champions. The fine tuning available in that system is truely amazing, but the overhead that entailed as people new to the system was big, and we found the game quite tricky at the table. The normal damage / killing damage mechanics didn’t seem to add much in practice but the way of reading dice slowed things down procedurally. I am sure that would speed up with familiarity.

The basic Hero dice mechanics do feel pretty easy with a little familiarity, 3d6 roll under target is not exactly more complicated than d20, just has a bell curve. Killing damage adds a bit to the game when there are low/no resistant def characters involved - which, for some groups, means NPCs - in that it allows for characters to be dying but still conscious, a definite trope in some genres.

The vast majority of the complexity is in chargen. Pre-gens are good for newer players getting used to Hero - or any system, really, just the more options there are in chargen, the more sense it makes to go pregen, at first.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The basic Hero dice mechanics do feel pretty easy with a little familiarity, 3d6 roll under target is not exactly more complicated than d20, just has a bell curve. Killing damage adds a bit to the game when there are low/no resistant def characters involved - which, for some groups, means NPCs - in that it allows for characters to be dying but still conscious, a definite trope in some genres.

The vast majority of the complexity is in chargen. Pre-gens are good for newer players getting used to Hero - or any system, really, just the more options there are in chargen, the more sense it makes to go pregen, at first.

Yeah, I see no reason why players can't handle a little complexity in character generation if it doesn't really translate to necessary complexity in play.

 

[dbm]

The basic Hero dice mechanics do feel pretty easy with a little familiarity, 3d6 roll under target is not exactly more complicated than d20, just has a bell curve. Killing damage adds a bit to the game when there are low/no resistant def characters involved - which, for some groups, means NPCs - in that it allows for characters to be dying but still conscious, a definite trope in some genres.

I’m talking about how you need to parse damage dice for 1 / 2-5 / 6 results to work out killing damage, on top of summing the dice for regular damage. If you are rolling 14 dice for damage like one of the characters did, that takes time. And it didn’t add to the play experience for us.

 

[Ulfgeir]

The ones I have played:

Champions
Daring Comics rpg
GURPS Supers
Marvel Super Heroes (once at a convention)
Mutants & Masterminds 2e + 3e
Villains & Vigilantes (once at a convention)
Wraring the Cape (a very short campaign. started as a werid sf-setting)

Other games I know of (both are Swedish):
More than human (the name should contain a larger-than sign)
Supergänget

The one I like the best was Mutants & Masterminds 2e (I did not care for 3e). I liked how you really could build what you liked without being totally unbalances as you could easily get in GURPS as the powerlevel set limits.. Daring comics used FATE. I noticed though that characters were more powerful than expected

 

[Tony Vargas]

I’m talking about how you need to parse damage dice for 1 / 2-5 / 6 results

Counting body on normal attacks like that becomes second nature. It's funny, I find myself doing it when I roll a bunch of d6's in D&D (hm... that fireball did 8 BOD...) ... normal attacks give more consistent damage, KAs are swingier (which is oddly realistic, but, like, why in a superhero game are you being oddly realistic? As Hero put out Danger International and the like, and eventually became a universal system, sure....)

 

[Committed Hero]

My rankings as supers games:

1. Sentinel Comics
2. Marvel Heroic RP
3. AMSH
4. Marvel Super Heros Adventure Game (Saga system)
5. Champions

The Sentinel Comics RPG is the best superhero comics game I have played (among V&V, Champions, TMNT, & the original FASERIP and DC games) But it is important that it tries to emulate comics as opposed to the supers genre as a whole. It handled two tests better than any game I knew:

1) someone statted up Stilt Man as an effective villain. Not a world-beater, but competent in a fight.
2) Flash, Batman & Superman could be in a fight without any problems or power level issues.

It is not a system for everyone, but fights run with it feel like comic book fights.

 

[overgeeked]

The Sentinel Comics RPG is the best superhero comics game I have played (among V&V, Champions, TMNT, & the original FASERIP and DC games).

I bounced so hard off just about every aspect of that game.

But it is important that it tries to emulate comics as opposed to the supers genre as a whole.

Yeah, that’s one bit I bounced off.

It handled two tests better than any game I knew:

1) someone statted up Stilt Man as an effective villain. Not a world-beater, but competent in a fight.

That largely depends on the build and builder.

2) Flash, Batman & Superman could be in a fight without any problems or power level issues.

MHR does that brilliantly.

It is not a system for everyone, but fights run with it feel like comic book fights.

Had the same experience with MHR.