Superhero game

[zinycor]

My group is looking to try out a superhero game, any recommendations?

[Koo Rehtorb]

Masks: A New Generation. Must be okay with teenage drama.

[Grod_The_Giant]

What level of complexity do you guys like? Do you prefer narrative or simulation-oriented rules? If you're okay with mid-high level complexity (power creation is complicated but crazy flexible and fun; gameplay is straightforward and fast), Mutants and Masterminds 3e is an amazing game.

[Beleriphon]

With Grod I'll support Mutants and Masterminds 3rd Edition.

Its not hard to play, only need a single d20 per character, but character creation can be complicated depending on what you want to do.

[Mutazoia]

My go-to's for Superhero games have always been DC Heroes first, followed closely by Marvel Superhero (FASERIP).

[Bastian Weaver]

Marvel Superheroes. Nuff said!

[Vorpal Glaive]

Check out Mighty Protectors from Monkey House Games. It's the newest edition of Villains & Vigilantes. You can random roll heroes or use the point-buy system. Characters can be street-level, cosmic-scale superheroes or anything in-between.

All the versatility of M&M, Champions, or GURPS Supers but way less complex.

[Razade]

Masks: A New Generation. Must be okay with teenage drama.

I'll second this though the drama is only what you make of it I find.

[Max_Killjoy]

At least check out HERO system, specifically 5th edition.

[Ken Murikumo]

I'll also throw in with Mutants & Masterminds 3e

[Vorpal Glaive]

ICONS Assembled is FASERIP + FATE.

[Malphegor]

I'd second HERO System/Champions, it is very good at making weird or unusual characters, I've heard. (I've only played the MMO based on it which uses generic mmo mechanics sadly, but from what I've heard HERO System is pretty robust at letting you make any character you can think of, since it leaves the fluff of a lot of powers up to the player)

[Rhedyn]

I'm big on Savage Worlds with the Superpowers Companion.

I've also heard good things about both ICONS and Mutants & Masterminds.

[Quertus]

What do you know, and what do you want?

I suppose I would most recommend Mutants and Masterminds (or its DC variant) to an unknown group with unknown goals. But Hero/Champions, Marvel FASERIP, the other Marvel system? They can all be fun. As could Heroes and Heroines, Smallville, and numerous other systems.

I would not recommend Rifts (or GURPS, but I recognize that I'm prejudiced there, as I've never played GURPS supers - I just don't like GURPS in general).

[Milo v3]

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying is probably my favourite superhero system, with M&M 3e second favourite but only works if my group is fine dealing with lots of crunch in character creation.

[Vorpal Glaive]

Wouldn't recommend Mutants & Masterminds unless the GM has a strong grasp of the rules, especially power-creation. It is very easy for players to build broken powers that ruin games.

A M&M GM us required to know how effects, modifiers and flaws can be min-maxed. The GM also had to be prepared to deny certain builds.

[Beleriphon]

Wouldn't recommend Mutants & Masterminds unless the GM has a strong grasp of the rules, especially power-creation. It is very easy for players to build broken powers that ruin games.

A M&M GM us required to know how effects, modifiers and flaws can be min-maxed. The GM also had to be prepared to deny certain builds.

This is very true, however its hard to create something completely broken. Completely annoying sure, but or new players those will usually chew up so many build points that they can't do much else. Its entirely possible at power level 10 and 150 points (the suggested starting values BTW) to make a character immune to everything, but all they are is a human punching bag. They can't fight back in any meaningful way or have an useful skills.

That said, even a quick glance a the effects rules give a good idea about what to look out for, and the worst offenders are called out in the books. In a lot of ways its like HERO but without the bad reputation for math (HERO really isn't bad, I just prefer the way M&M achieves similar results).

[Grod_The_Giant]

Wouldn't recommend Mutants & Masterminds unless the GM has a strong grasp of the rules, especially power-creation. It is very easy for players to build broken powers that ruin games.

A M&M GM us required to know how effects, modifiers and flaws can be min-maxed. The GM also had to be prepared to deny certain builds.

Eh... while you can easily create broken or disruptive crap in M&M, it's generally really obvious you're doing so. You don't have to know every subtly of the system to see the problem in a character with perfect concealment and invisible powers; you don't have to understand the mechanics of a summon-loop to see that there's something fishy going on.

Outside of that... I'm a filthy optimizer and I really like M&M; my friend Joel prefers a quick-and-simple build. We were in a two-year campaign, me with my twinky smoke/fire manipulator detective and him with his rocky thug. And while I certainly managed to squeeze a lot more stuff onto my character sheet than him, while I had a much wider range of options, when it came to the things he cared about? He was stronger.

The power level caps in M&M are just a really solid way of keeping characters in line. There's a lot you can do to expand your versatility, but not a lot to boost your ability to beat up bad guys.

(Now, you absolutely need a strong grasp of the tropes, because M&M is really good at letting superpowers be flexible and, well, super, but that's a problem that'll pop up in any good superhero game)

[Beleriphon]

Eh... while you can easily create broken or disruptive crap in M&M, it's generally really obvious you're doing so. You don't have to know every subtly of the system to see the problem in a character with perfect concealment and invisible powers; you don't have to understand the mechanics of a summon-loop to see that there's something fishy going on.

Outside of that... I'm a filthy optimizer and I really like M&M; my friend Joel prefers a quick-and-simple build. We were in a two-year campaign, me with my twinky smoke/fire manipulator detective and him with his rocky thug. And while I certainly managed to squeeze a lot more stuff onto my character sheet than him, while I had a much wider range of options, when it came to the things he cared about? He was stronger.

The power level caps in M&M are just a really solid way of keeping characters in line. There's a lot you can do to expand your versatility, but not a lot to boost your ability to beat up bad guys.

(Now, you absolutely need a strong grasp of the tropes, because M&M is really good at letting superpowers be flexible and, well, super, but that's a problem that'll pop up in any good superhero game)

I agree with Grod, you need to have a clear setup for the game other than "superheroes". That's too broad and can range from The Authority and the The Watchmen all the way to Super Friends (incidentally the Wonder Twins comic is really good).

[Vorpal Glaive]

Yes. Mutants & Masterminds, Champions, and GURPS Supers will require a GM who understands the system in order to avoid power "mistakes". People say "broken" builds are unexpected, but, my experience shows YEAH --- broken is easier than you think.

Reaction-based damage. Perception-based damage. The Jack-of-All-Trades & Eidetic Memory advantages combined. Damage linked to Affliction effects. Variable effects with a broad descriptor. Effects used to super-size Skills. Big arrays that allow "I can do Anything" capability.

If the GM can't see how certain builds can break the game, expect a broken game. I know because I've been there. I've seen my games as a new M&M GM smashed to pieces by a clever character build.

The GM has to know what they are looking at when they review a character sheet.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Reaction-based damage.

Unlikely to be a problem--the cost is high enough to basically prohibit having a relevant amount alongside other powers, and unless the DM approves a really stupid trigger (which the book warns you about). Enemies are allowed to change their tactics.

Perception-based damage.

Not broken. Auto-hitting is nice, but the inability to crit, power attack, and/or trade-off towards damage are significant downsides.

The Jack-of-All-Trades & Eidetic Memory advantages combined.

Not even remotely broken (Also, I don't see how they combine-- they're redundant, more than anything else). You're...allowed to have a smart character if that's what you want.

Damage linked to Affliction effects.

I mean, sure, having a Ranged Damage linked to Ranged Affliction is strong, but so is having a Ranged Multiattack Secondary Effect Damage, or a Ranged Progressive Affliction. Putting more points into an attack makes it stronger, ye gods, who could possibly have foreseen that?

Variable effects with a broad descriptor.

Which you're told not to allow.

Effects used to super-size Skills.

Honestly, there's nothing you can do involving skills that's "broken," not when a low-cost power can replace any one of them. I played a character who had Variable 2 (Skills and Advantages) and could throw a +20 bonus at any skill check he felt like; nothing broke.

Big arrays that allow "I can do Anything" capability.

Which you're told not to allow.

I've seen my games as a new M&M GM smashed to pieces by a clever character build.

I've never seen a game smashed to pieces by a character's build. The character's actions, sure-. I've done it myself. It's easy to forget just how strong superheroes are, and M&M is great at letting you use powers in unexpected ways-- but the same is true for any good superhero game.

[Arbane]

Truth and Justice is a pretty good drama-based RPG, at the opposite end of the complexity scale from M&M.

[Ken Murikumo]

Honestly, there's nothing you can do involving skills that's "broken," not when a low-cost power can replace any one of them. I played a character who had Variable 2 (Skills and Advantages) and could throw a +20 bonus at any skill check he felt like; nothing broke.

I did the same once, but limited it to knowledge checks and made it a full round action. Me and the GM came to an agreement of a 4pp cost to get a +10 to any knowledge skill if he took the time to whip out his smartphone and google the answer. "Use internet" was the name of the power. He was a regular-assed guy who was an occult investigator, no powers, just contacts and his google skills.

I've never seen a game smashed to pieces by a character's build. The character's actions, sure-. I've done it myself. It's easy to forget just how strong superheroes are, and M&M is great at letting you use powers in unexpected ways-- but the same is true for any good superhero game.

Ah, how the GMs go from a traditional D&D style campaign where climbing a mountain is a daunting task to running a M&M game with a similar mindset only to realize that the players can fly for dirt cheap, punch through it, or throw the mountain into goddamn space... Good times!

[Kyutaru]

You can actually use D&D still. It's capable of being a superhero game on its own. Tweak the setting if you want a modern flair, it doesn't matter mechanically since superheroes use melee weapons and energy blasts anyway.

I had a campaign I ran way back in college where each player was given a special race-class combo that gave them superhuman abilities even at low levels. It was a 3rd edition D&D game and if I recall correctly...

- Shade Shadowdancer - the rogue/assassin of the team, master of darkness, killed basically everything, could hide in plain sight virtually all the time due to racial powers

- Solar Heirophant - the angelic cleric healer of the team with natural flight and supernatural resistance who also brought down divine retribution and purged with holy fire

- Beholder Archmage - the anti-wizard wizard with all the disintegration rays you could want, and he specialized in ray spells while providing arcane utility

- Purple Dragon Purple Dragon Knight - the leader tank of the group who absolutely wrecked anything in melee combat while acting as his own mount (I let him)

- Mind Flayer Metamind - the psionic brain eater that wracked the minds of everything, which proved to be far more useful than any Charisma check could be

[Jay R]

Champions is the original, and is great at modeling any sort of hero.

Its limitation is that creating a character requires a lot of basic math -- addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. [You can create a character that requires some in play, too, but you don't need to.]

So your GM needs to be pretty comfortable with basic math, and each player needs to be willing to do it, or have somebody else do it for him or her. [I routinely built Glen's characters, which he could then enjoy playing.]

"... great at modeling any sort of hero" contains the assumption that you can create absurdly powerful ones. But they are pretty obvious. The standard approach is to limit the active points in a power, but there are other ways.

[Beleriphon]

Champions is the original, and is great at modeling any sort of hero.

Its limitation is that creating a character requires a lot of basic math -- addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. [You can create a character that requires some in play, too, but you don't need to.]

So your GM needs to be pretty comfortable with basic math, and each player needs to be willing to do it, or have somebody else do it for him or her. [I routinely built Glen's characters, which he could then enjoy playing.]

"... great at modeling any sort of hero" contains the assumption that you can create absurdly powerful ones. But they are pretty obvious. The standard approach is to limit the active points in a power, but there are other ways.

M&M 3E is largely in the same kind of game, with the caveat that the mechanics are more similar to D&D in any of its iterations than HERO is which uses a handful of d6s to produce bell curves with targets and difficultly based on those.

That said, the math in M&M tends to be more straight-forward and doesn't involve much division.

[icefractal]

I think that even in an extremely rules-light system, you're going to have problems if the GM and players aren't on the same page regarding what's an appropriate power. Mentalist whose abilities include subtle mind reading and scanning sounds like a legit character for supers, but could easily wreck a campaign based around solving mysteries and figuring out who's trustworthy. But in another campaign, that same character would be fine.

When using caps (which is the default in M&M and a very common house rule in Hero), an optimized character is going to be in the same playing field, just with more points left for side capabilities. Not a complete non-issue, but no worse than for most crunchy systems.