Favorite Superhero TTRPG

It's worth asking, what supers systems generate balanced characters? I'm not even clear if Champions is perfectly balanced, despite decades of play and revision.
Champions (or the Hero System) is pretty well balanced (so long as the GM keeps an eye out for intentionally dodgy constructs) - but not in the way many people think of balance. Its balance is not from the perspective of “all characters built on X points will be equally effective.” Its balance is from the perspective of “X points spent on power A will be as effective as X points spent on power B” - which does keep a player from building a character that has holes in it.
 

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Its usually possible, to various degrees, to tune individual use-cases of a generic system to fit the genre you're trying for better (both Savage Worlds and Hero do this to some degree with optional rules to modify core assumptions) but you do have to do the heavy lifting, and at least the first version of GURPS Supers didn't do so. I suspect this was because of how early it was in the evolution of the system, or because of biases of the system administrators (there were problems with some other early products; the Witch World sourcebook, while not bad as a summary of the setting, tried to shoehorn the magic from the setting into the basic GURPS magic system, and it didn't work even half right. Later on they showed much more willingness to do more than one magic system to fit different settings).

Out of interest, does anyone know if later editions of GURPS Supers improved? And if so, how?
 

Champions (or the Hero System) is pretty well balanced (so long as the GM keeps an eye out for intentionally dodgy constructs) - but not in the way many people think of balance. Its balance is not from the perspective of “all characters built on X points will be equally effective.” Its balance is from the perspective of “X points spent on power A will be as effective as X points spent on power B” - which does keep a player from building a character that has holes in it.

There's an interesting feature of supers games - particularly those with point build systems - that is best described as an escalating arms race between attack and defence. Which is not to say that other genres don't have this. Fantasy games such as PF, D&D, and Sword World, frequently feature tanks, glass cannons, and the like. However, these systems have built-in guardrails to provide balance and prevent lopsided character builds. (Which is not to say you cannot do it, but you have to really work at it.)

I find most superhero creation systems tend to be opaque on this matter from the start. It takes serious study to find the balance point between attack and defence (or the benefits of one power over another). Let a n00b loose in these sandpits and they are likely to come back with wonky characters who are either OP or will topple over in a light breeze. (This has happened to me numerous times as GM.) Given the propensity of a lot of players NOT to do their homework on this until they are really invested in a game system, you have a substantial hurdle for the GM to clear. Do they just allow players their weird builds and deal with the consequences (and complaints) that might turn players off from the game? Or do they intervene and guide player builds to be more balanced? For my sins I trend towards the latter.
 
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Golden Heroes-style random character creation gets you to a character, but not necessarily a balanced one. Part of the challenge for players is rolling with what the dice give you. Granted, not all player groups are up for that.

It's worth asking, what supers systems generate balanced characters? I'm not even clear if Champions is perfectly balanced, despite decades of play and revision. I remember both Superworld and GURPS Supers generating some quite unpleasantly lethal and un-comics-like combats.
In my experience, Champions is the most fair balance of any of them I've played - because the rules conceit is you buy the effect, and describe freely how it happens. But that balance is only in-campaign, since there's so much subjectivity in the character advantages and disadvantages, and in some of the power modifiers.

Sentinel Comics is next - it has a balance system, and growth is so carefully handled that it remains relevant for a good long time, but it can (and does) get really swingy in play. There's some chances for players to accidentally nerf themselves, but I've only had one player fall into that. He got a rewrite after one session. Again, it's buy the effect, slap a description on it...

the palladium options don't even try to balance (Heroes Unlimited, Villains Unlimited, TMNT, After the Bomb).

GURPS fails to balance because GURPS was originally buy the cause... and the three superhuman abilities types in the system (Magic, Supers, Psionics) are each internally moderately balanced, but a 500pt wizard is going to kill most 500 point supers...

TSR's Marvel games made no efforts at balance. It was, however possible to use the rank numbers to get a relatively valid balance - per character, I averaged FASE, and added the average of the best three offenses and best defense or movement power. Was kind of rough, but kept me from instaganking the party. For casters, I swapped Psyche for Fighting.
 

I can imagine Champions being the closest to notional balance. But it's still too much crunch for my old age. Just the thought of prepping villains to fight in Champions gives me hives. I guess when I was younger this was far less daunting. Oh, to have the vitality of youth, again!

I really want to like what the Sentinels Comics RPG does. As you say, it's very much a 'here's the effect - skin it how you will' system. That said, I went back recently to look at it with fresh eyes and it's just opaque enough, particularly in interpreting the 'Red Abilities', that I think those players who do not own the books will need handholding through the character gen process.
 

Out of interest, does anyone know if later editions of GURPS Supers improved? And if so, how?

At the very least they had to move away from two things GURPS leans into; quasi-realistic damage, and pricing powers on things other than utility. Given the system biases, I suspect the first would have been easier than the second.
 

There's an interesting feature of supers games - particularly those with point build systems - that is best described as an escalating arms race between attack and defence. Which is not to say that other genres don't have this. Fantasy games such as PF, D&D, and Sword World, frequently feature tanks, glass cannons, and the like. However, these systems have built-in guardrails to provide balance and prevent lopsided character builds. (Which is not to say you cannot do it, but you have to really work at it.)

That's why a lot of serious point-build games tend to have secondary limitation systems in addition to just the points. A point build system, in the end, only does one thing with authority: it says that two players can end up with exactly the same capability of character if their character concept is the same (random gen systems can't even say it in that situation). Most well designed ones can say that if you pay attention you can also construct a character who will have the level of capability your concept demands. But the points by themselves can't make characters balanced, because even if they're split into subcategories (and there are good reasons both to do and not to do that depending on one's design ethos) there are always going to be things that are more or less efficient ways to get to where you want to go. Sometimes this doesn't matter, sometimes it does, but having things that define limitations (and sometimes just as important, expectations) in where you end up in certain areas makes the kind of problems you describe far less likely to occur.
 

I can imagine Champions being the closest to notional balance. But it's still too much crunch for my old age. Just the thought of prepping villains to fight in Champions gives me hives. I guess when I was younger this was far less daunting. Oh, to have the vitality of youth, again!

That's the devil in these things; in superhero games in particular, one can sometimes be in the situation of trying to make two pieces of rope meet that just--don't. Its why I had to give multiple suggestions earlier in the thread, because I have reservations about even my favorites. There were times in my life when I could have given Hero or M&M without such reservations (which is not to say I'd have expected everyone to want either of them because different people need different things), but these days I just can't. I'm not actually sure its possible for a superhero system to entirely fit my wants, because I want things that pull in different directions. The last time I ran a superhero campaign I used BASH UE and it was--okay. But I found myself often wishing for something different in one part of it or another, in areas where I didn't feel getting my house rule oar in would entirely suffice.
 

For me, the problem is less: 'can the points system create balanced characters?' I assume you can. It's more: 'can you herd your player-group of system-novices to a place where they have viable characters?'

The complexity of points building, and the opacity of the system to those who are new to it, tends to spit out wonky character builds. And too often I find that colours the subsequent play, which in turn becomes a problem with retaining player interest in the game. So it's hard to get your group to the point where they are veterans turning out good superhero builds.
 

That's the devil in these things; in superhero games in particular, one can sometimes be in the situation of trying to make two pieces of rope meet that just--don't. Its why I had to give multiple suggestions earlier in the thread, because I have reservations about even my favorites. There were times in my life when I could have given Hero or M&M without such reservations (which is not to say I'd have expected everyone to want either of them because different people need different things), but these days I just can't. I'm not actually sure its possible for a superhero system to entirely fit my wants, because I want things that pull in different directions. The last time I ran a superhero campaign I used BASH UE and it was--okay. But I found myself often wishing for something different in one part of it or another, in areas where I didn't feel getting my house rule oar in would entirely suffice.

I think that's why I've shifted towards narrative systems like FATE and QuestWorlds. Where narrative is the goal, mechanical balance is actually far less of an issue. Aspects or keyword systems like these push players towards storytelling their way through conflicts rather than combat resolution. Prep is also much lighter. I could set up and get a QuestWorlds supers game running with relatively little prep.
 

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