What's your favorite super hero RPG?

[Psion]

My turn to ring in.

I have played or owned the following Supers Games. Attached are my quick analysis:

• Villains & Viginantes: Was fun for a while, but the system is outdated and frail.
• Marvel Super Heroes: Unless you have the Ultimate Powers books, fuggedaboutit. Even then, while the ultimate powers book had lots of neat ideas, it was a munchkin's wet dream. No matter the case, character generation was quirky, illogical, and intolerably random and its attribute names were lame IMO. In short, fuggedaboutit.
• Heroes Unlimited: Uses the quirky palladium system along with all of its foibles, such as skills that take forever to write up. A few interesting ideas, but nothing too original.
• GURPS Supers: Pale imitation of champions; GURPS does NOT handle high point totals well. GURPS is a very fine detailed game; trying to do supers was like using a spoon to dig a trench. Plus the world setting was rather lame, I thought.
• Champions: Has some of the pointmongery of GURPS, but it can actually support the power level. You can build nearly any power using the power system ... if you are not afraid of math. Unlike others here, I have never had a problem with combat, and it actually went rather slick for us.
• DC Heroes: The system is somewhat fuzzy at "normal" level, but it gives you good control of your cahracter concept without too much accounting. The system scales extremely well and runs very quickly. Only drawback is that it requires a central chart... but at least it is better conceived than marvel's. The DC Heroes system (like most of these) is out of print (do NOT confuse it with DC Universe, which is a lame WEG D6 abomination). However, the Blood of Heroes game is in print and uses the same system sans the DC comics material.

Of these, I would recommend DC Heroes / Blood of Heroes first and Champions second. If you get blood of heroes, I have heard you should go for the deluxe edition.

 

[Alaska Roberts]

Aberrant ! ! !

Not exactly Superhero, but very easy to tone down to that level. Overall great stuff!

JMHO

 

[The Crimster]

Champions, without a doubt.

First of all, let me get one thing straight: You do not need to know algebra or geometry or trig to play Champions. When people say you need to know math to play Champions, they refer to the ability to add 12+15+3+2 etc. etc.

This is not hard.

Character creation allows the utmost in flexibility, at the cost of a lengthy creation time. The solution is software, of course. There are many different types of Champions character generators, pick and choose, they cut down on this time dramatically.

Combat is lengthy. But it is fairly detailed, as well. There are a variety of tactics you can use that puts 3E to shame.

The good news is that Hero Systems is putting out a fifth edition, most likely next month. I recommend you buy it, sit down with it for awhile, and have an open mind!

Oh yes, consider this a shameless plug. I have a Champions Story Hour called Vendetta, right here on these boards! Visit http://www.enworld.org/messageboards/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2558 to read.

The Crimster

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Champions all the way for me, and 5th ed is coming out soon. It is even being displayed at the dundracon thing in the bay area this weekend if your into cons and in the bay area.(I'm in the bay area not into cons)

Character creation is great yeah it requires some basic math so if adding, subtracting and multiplication scares you it might be tough. But we are talking like 4th grade math here since they use the ever so complex decimal point when multiplying.

Combat it never seemed slow to me it is attack roll, damage roll, subtract defense from damage roll and apply to stun(health). Now the damage roll may be a lot of dice so think high level mage style rolling but it isn't really slow. As you become more familiar with the system you can start adding maneuvers, and once you know them it wont slow things down a bit. I think the slow happens when people want to do everything out of the box, then you are so unfaliliar with the rules yeah combat slows down. But combats in d&d where people grapple, trip, and bull-rush always take a while since I have used them so infrequently I have to look it up mid-fight to use it.

 

[Wild Karrde]

Combat it never seemed slow to me it is attack roll, damage roll, subtract defense from damage roll and apply to stun(health). Now the damage roll may be a lot of dice so think high level mage style rolling but it isn't really slow. As you become more familiar with the system you can start adding maneuvers, and once you know them it wont slow things down a bit. I think the slow happens when people want to do everything out of the box, then you are so unfaliliar with the rules yeah combat slows down. But combats in d&d where people grapple, trip, and bull-rush always take a while since I have used them so infrequently I have to look it up mid-fight to use it.

Combat in Champions isn't slow as in the mechanics. It just seems to me that it's a much more combat oriented system and when you have a group five heroes going up against a group of 8 villians it can take awhile whether you know the rules or not. I've played for years and so have all the players I game with yet we still have fairly lengthy combats taking place.

I think it's just a matter of how much damage it can take to bring somebody down. And there is quite a bit of record keeping in Champions that might lend to this as well.

 

[Kamard]

When we play super heroes around these parts, we just use Fuzion, and that includes the Champions: New Millenium book.

I have the Big Blue Book often spoken of by Hero players, but you know what? I hate fractions, so we don't use it.

 

[MulhorandSage]

Champions for me. And the soon-to-be wonder that is FRed. (Fifth Revised edition Hero System, for those without telepathic understanding of excessively cute acronyms).

I've also played DC Heroes, Abberant, Superworld, both Marvels and V&V. All enjoyable under the right circumstances, but Champions is my preference.

Scott Bennie

 

[Cyragnome]

/me wonders why Scott Bennie would like Champions (seeing as I have all the books he wrote or editted for Hero/ICE)

Yep, Champions is my poison. Fractions, blah, math, feh...you want that in real quantities get FATAL, Champions is *the* Supers Game (IMO, YMMV)...

 

[Horacio]

I've played quite a few supers RPG:

* Marvel: I liked the game because I loved the Marvel Universe (I was 13), but I hated the system with the (IMHO) silly universal table...

*DC Heroes d10: A very good system, very flexible. Now the system is used in a RPG called Blood of Heroes.

*Heroes Unlimited: I didn't liked it, I don't remember why.

*Champions: IMHO the best of the best. It takes a long time to prepare a character, but it is worth of it. Flexible, elegant, I love it. I've already preordered FRed...

*Champions the New Millenium: it uses the Fuzion system, rather similar an much simpler version of Champions' Hero System, quite good for a quick game.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Combat in Champions isn't slow as in the mechanics. It just seems to me that it's a much more combat oriented system and when you have a group five heroes going up against a group of 8 villians it can take awhile whether you know the rules or not. I've played for years and so have all the players I game with yet we still have fairly lengthy combats taking place.

I think it's just a matter of how much damage it can take to bring somebody down. And there is quite a bit of record keeping in Champions that might lend to this as well.

Sure but the same will be said about any system. How slow is a fight in the oh-so streamlined 3rd ed d&d with a party of 4 7th+ level pcs against a group of 8 non suckers, or heck against just one big bad.