Howdy. So I’ve been running a 5e D&D game live at a table and another one on foundry. Both groups kind of collapsed over the holidays and that’s fine. I want to try a super hero RPG. I’ve been looking at Masks but it seems kind of teen focused which I’m not into. Does anyone know if this system is more adaptable than I’m giving it credit or if there is a better system they could recommend?
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Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. It’s out of print, but you can get Cortex Prime and easily get the rules.
FATE Venture City
FAESRIP is the old-school classic TSR Marvel Super Hero RPG.
For something more modern there’s always Mutants and Masterminds, which is based on the D20 system.
City of Mist is another cool one that’s also PBTA like Masks, but more mature and noir in tone.
Two that come to mind are GURPS Supers and HERO[1], both roll 3D6 and allow you to make pretty much any type of character you want with incredible detail. Character creation is also the single biggest hurdle for both systems, since you just have so many options that even using their character creator programs makes you feel like you might be missing something.
1d6chan has some of the best overviews of some systems, as curated by /tg/ anons. Case in point: “The dark history of Hero System is that the game is written by an actual lawyer. Much like how a Lawyer Mind set killed off AD&D, and TSR, the same has slowed and largely killed off adoption of the system, leaving it a forgotten relic. Said author has gone out of their way to curb fan sites, roll20 support, and much more. After all lawyers are trained to stomp out fun in the name of Copyright.” ↩︎
I’m not big on superhero games, so I don’t know if that will make my recommendation better or worse, but my favorite is called Aberrant. It’s a bit of an older system, but very flexible in both character making and how you play. What makes it stand out is the rich setting (it is a White Wolf game), in which you can play anything from small scale (like fighting local crime) to large scale (making pocket universes, tweaking the laws of physics, etc.), to different story styles, such as standard crime fighting, spy/conspiracy stories, transhumanism stories, etc. And there’s a metaplot you can get into or not that can even link to two other games (even if only for interest’s sake).
Originally I only bought it as a sourcebook for one of those other games (Trinity) which is a long time favorite of mine and my group, but we were all surprised by how fun this game was as well and played it for years. Even making characters is fun because it’s more than just picking powers.
@Murdoc @iconic_admin And there’s a newer edition called “Trinity Continuum: Aberrant”, just fyi.
Unfortunately I don’t have a recommendation :(
I’m homebrewing one but it’s not finished yet.
