Psion
Adventurer
My turn to ring in.
I have played or owned the following Supers Games. Attached are my quick analysis:
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.
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- Villains & Viginantes: Was fun for a while, but the system is outdated and frail.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.