Simple Superhero Systems

[Tony Vargas]

Nobody loves HERO more than I do, but that isn’t the system I’d use for this. The thing is, I have lots of superhero games*, and I don’t think any of them are truly simple.
* off the top of my head, HERO, M&M, Silver Age Sentinels Tri Stat, Aberrant, Underground, Brave New World, Heroes Unlimited, and Godlike for sure, maybe others.

I played a session of Godlike at a Free RPG Day a year or two back, it didn't seem at all complicated.

For a genre with no simple systems, then, just using a good system doesn't sound so bad. The 5th ed of Hero did still have a very compact "Hero Lite" rulebook, BTW, and it really didn't give up much usefulness for being so much less ... well, Steve Long. (Mr. Long is well-named, he can write, he's a good writer & designer, but, he writes a lot....)

But for all that a book the size of a healthy magazine might be less intimidating, it's still a pretty seriously complex system.

I'm also a long-time fan of Hero (back to '84, I think it was), and know the 4th ed cold. I wouldn't hesitate to introduce new players to RPGs using Hero, I'd just use pregens, focus on resolution (it's all 3d6 under a target, essentially), and introduce them to the build system later when they start pestering me with new character ideas...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Could be. Been a long time since I peeked at it.

 

[Ratskinner]

I recognize that the title of this thread may be a bit of an oxymoron, but bear with me for a second.

I'm going to be running a bunch of one-hour lunch-break one-shots in a couple of different systems to get folks excited about role-playing games. I was running through the list of major genres in my head, and I have most of the majors covered (horror, heroic fantasy, dark fantasy, and sci-fi), but I realized I would be remiss to skip out on doing a superhero game.

I can understand why most, if not all, superhero games might lend themselves to very complex character creation systems. But the case being that I'm going to offering a bunch of pregens, are there any good superhero systems that are easy enough to just pick up and play? Assuming that my player base is probably going to be 50%-50% completely new to RPGs vs. having some experience with them.

Capes http://www.museoffire.com/Games/index.html is the single best supers game...and honestly one of the best story-type games I've ever played. Its the only one I've played that actually ended up working like comics do (or at least did, when I was reading them regularly). Its got a really simple set of very easy narrative mechanics, once you get to know them.

What it doesn't have is a clearly-presented core rulebook. Its not so much that the author did a bad job (although I think there's room for improvement), its just that gameplay has a few moving layers, and describing them all simultaneously can be...challenging. (Like, its hard to think of how to start.) Trying to understand it all by reading through the rules is unlikely to lead to success.

However! It does have a free DIY teach-yourself scripted version called Capeslite (look on the downloads page of the Capes site.) That does a very good job of teaching you the basics of how the game works. Character creation takes moments, literally moments. It ends up playing ridiculously quickly and smoothly. I'm actually quite surprised that similar mechanics somehow didn't take off. Capeslite plays well by itself and once you've got that, the rules will make a lot more sense.

I've used it to run fantasy as well, the basic mechanics don't care about genre.

My $.02

 

[5ekyu]

I'd probably go with Mutants and Masterminds over Champions for a game that was run over lunch times. Champions combat, while it follows some fairly straightforward principles, can run long and be fairly complex. Mutants and Mastermind's Toughness Save system allows me to run 2-3 fights in the time it would take us to run Champions combat vs typical supervillains.

Agree with MnM

 

[Gradine]

Masks, a 2017 Ennies nominee, seems a decent choice. It's about young superheroes like Marvel's Runaways.

Thanks for the advice everybody! My very limited experience with superhero gaming involved creating characters using an older DC Roleplaying Game system to build a new class of X-men (don't ask) that never actually got off the ground, but I do remember taking a long time to build my character. I'm trying to advertise and recruit new players into roleplaying and given the, err, prominence of superheroes in our current moment of popular culture, I'd figure I'd be remiss without playing to that genre.

I'm using at least one other PbtA game, and I have some familiarity with that style of system, and I'm definitely digging what I'm reading from Masks right now (fun fact: the mutant character I made all those years ago was codenamed Aegis). Given my audience is "people who work primarily with college students" the emphasis on young heroes also seems like it'll be a good draw.

But I'm also definitely checking out CapesLite as an alternative; thanks for the suggestion [MENTION=6688937]Ratskinner[/MENTION]!

 

[aramis erak]

For a lunch break game, I'd go either with Cortex Plus Superheroic (or its precursor, Marvel Heroic RP, which is OOP due to license issues), or 4 Color System (which is a knock-off of FASERIP AMSH).

Faserip's faster than cortex plus, but cortex plus is potentially more done in a turn.

 

[practicalm]

Make it cartoon supers and go with Toon

 

[Ratskinner]

I suppose I should also mention ICONS. It's a more traditional system that is sorta based on the Fate system. But it's very simple and fast for all that.

 

[ajanders]

Try one of the retroclones of Marvel's FASERIP system. Those are pretty light and fast.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I remember getting a very, very bad impression of FASERIP from the Gamma World version.