What's the best superhero system?

Mutants and Masterminds or Valor are both good

>>52709660
Weaverdice for character creation.
M&M for actually playing the game.

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>>52709660
Mutants and Masterminds is OGL garbage

Marvel Heroic is quality, but lacks a procedural character creation system, but there are MANY homebrews online, some of which are quite good.

MASK: The New Generation, works quite well for the very narrow focus for which it was designed (teenage superheroes trying to live up to their namesakes.)

Aberrant is good for nostalgia's sake, but kind of a mechanical clusterfuck

Wild Talents is good until people learn true optimization, then it's basically just OGL garbage by another name

Marvel FASERIP is actually pretty great considering the era it's from, and is a decent balance of "can work" and nostalgia.

D6 Supers, which got a DC Universe addaptation is pretty good, but suffers from a WIDE spread of optimization potential.

Of all these MHR is what I'd recommend the MOST. Unfortunately it is still unfinished, and never will be finished, thus relying on fan material to be complete, which turns many people off. It's a shame that there isn't a superhero game out there that's both good and complete.

Supers! or Bash!

no one in /tg/ knows this games

>>52709660
GURPS is good at it. There's a long-running supers campaign called Aeon that you can read replays of.

>>52709660
Best superhero game I've ever experienced was in BESM.

I've played superheroes in Supers!, FATE, and Mutants and Masterminds, as well. The first 2 were pretty good, but I wasn't a fan of M&M. I like the mix of crunch and flexibility that BESM can bring, though.

>>52709660
How crunchy are you looking for? Do you want a dedicated superhero system, or would a generic system that allows for superpowers also work? What type of superhero game would it be (for example, are the heroes doing detective work, cosmic defense, or nazi hunting)?

>>52709776
>Weaverdice for character creation
>in which the player gets no say at all

>>52709660

There is no single best system. For me, it's Champs 4E.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Champions4Essentials

Hero System (Champions for specifically Super-hero stuff) is my go-to for anything. It's GURPS but profoundly robust.

>>52710352
>OGL garbage

THANK YOU. I have been saying this forever but nobody seems to agree.

>>52710352
Heres hoping abberent 2e is fun.

>>52713234
Eh, compared to plenty of other point buy systems it's just as broken and a lot less complicated.

The big strike against M&M is that they went with arbitrary Power Level caps instead of some kind of energy/fatigue system. I'd be willing to bet almost any complaint with the game can be traced back to that one bad decision.

M&M 3rd.

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>>52710352
I mostly agree with this man, though I think that procedural chargen would miss the point of the style that MHRP is going for.

>>52711763
its cool you dip

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There is no single best system. For me, it's M&M 2e. Lots of people like the 3rd ed version.
Herolab has a character builder for it, the demo version is free.

>>52716548
What makes you like 2E more than 3E?

I've always felt that the best parts of 2E - namely some of the more flexible power creation rules - aren't super hard to port over to 3rd. Meanwhile, 3rd did a pretty good job of cutting back at some of the OGL detritus that didn't really help anything.

>>52709660
It's totally unbalanced and it's the GM's responsibility to make a good game when you have things like a mega hero and super sleigh on the same team, but combat is incredibly intuitive and there are random charts for EVERYTHING. A good GM can mak character with literally anything you want with what's in the books as there's a huge and very varied list of powers.

Heroes Unlimited.

>>52719621
How would you do King Crimson in Heroes Unlimited?

>>52711941

This, Champions 4th ed.

>>52719621

Dude, the Palladium games are trash, and Heroes Unlimited is the worst of them

>>52710352
>>Wild Talents is good until people learn true optimization, then it's basically just OGL garbage by another name
I don't really get this. The system is quite up front with how to create broken powers and tells you that you need to keep it down yourself. It's at least honest here.
Mind you, I haven't got around to play it yet, just have the softback sitting around

>>52723620

Incorrect. For the right group, Heroes Unlimited is hella fun, especially when combined with Ninjas & Superspies and other Palladium games.

>>52711763
Not the poster you were replying to and I wouldn't call it objectively the best either, but the character creation part in itself is pretty unique and interesting and definitely could be fun to use if the group is ok with not having control over what they get

The whole rest of the system should just be ignored though.

>>52723683
>The system is quite up front with how to create broken powers and tells you that you need to keep it down yourself. It's at least honest here.

This is also true for M&M, GURPS, and Champions. The problem is that even if you're honest that there's a spectrum of possible point allocations between 'fair character' and 'overpowered bullshit', the boundary between them isn't always clear.

Having your character idea vetoed because the GM is worried it might be on the wrong side kind of sucks, and figuring out during play that something that looked good is actually broken is even worse. It's not a dealbreaker that makes these games unplayable, but basically asking your customers to balance your game themselves through trial and error is hardly a good design pattern either.

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>>52710352
I'll be that newfag: What does OGL stand for?

>>52727597
Open Gaming License.

>>52709660
Any D&D edition including all spin-offs

>>52713266
>any product from Onyx Path
>good

>>52727646
And I take it that's a negative due to no quality control? Thanks, that makes sense.

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>>52726794
>but basically asking your customers to balance your game themselves
>balance your game
>balance

You realize these are superhero systems right? Balance was never going to happen if you intend to stay true to the source material. The games point out that due to the nature of designing a system to allow for all the things you see in comics it can also be broken in two seconds, Wild Talents gives you two TWO broken powers as an example, the ability to stop nuclear fusion with a range that allows it to affect the Sun and another that is Complete Invulnerability

Just tell your players what you do and do not allow and how many points they can spend and in M&M's case what Power Level you want

>>52729825
It's stupid, but this is actually why my GM prefers a FATE based system for superheroics. Rules light, story focused due to the way that you gain Fate points, and if the GM does it right it can fit into basically any genre.

the big problem I have with it is that it's essentially the next best thing to freeform. I personally prefer being able to map out my character advancement, and there's too much frippery in FATE for that to be viable.

>>52718417
Taking a dump on skills.

>>52709660
Since Virgil actually played DC Heroes, how does that stand compared to what's been mentioned?

>>52709660
Better Angels, for what it does.
Generic system wise they all seem to depend on how much you can say no to your players as a GM.

>>52729825
>>52730363
honestly in a superhero setting the GM should be able to think around any ridiculous power level. Completely invulnerable? Then every enemy super immobilizes him or puts other people in danger to force him away. For the stop nuclear fusion one the GM can make it that if ever does try to put out the sun it just doesnt go out for mysterious reasons, and thus you have a plot hook for another story.

>>52709660
I played M&M and I liked it.

>>52731844
Never heard of that one before. What does it do?

>>52731986
>thinking around something
>lolnope you power doesn't work. Myyysteryyyy

That's not how that works. You can't say that a GM should be able to fix everything by thinking, then immediately cop out by saying that denying someone's powers is a good option because plot hooks. It's a bad way to handle the situation.

>>52734276
Haven't heard of it before either but google led to this review, it sound interesting.
http://www.geeknative.com/39746/review-better-angels-a-supervillain-roleplaying-game/

Basic summary from what I've understood:
One half of the players are supervillains while the other half are demons, each supervillain gets assigned a demon who grants them their powers.

The villains have to do stuff that amuses the demon to keep their powers as the demon tries to corrupt the villain and drag them to hell, demons seem to be amused by overly complicated stereotypical evil villain schemes like:

"Eeeevil: “Only you can appreciate the genius of my plan. When I push that button, a meteorite of solid sodium, towed from the asteroid belt, will smash into the polar ice caps! The detonation will raise the sea levels worldwide and I, having prudently invested in inland territories destined to be the new fishing meccas, will be rich beyond avarice!”
(is better than)
Evil: “I’ve been sandbagging ecological legislation for decades.” "

>>52729825

But superhero storytelling is balanced. In a weird way, but look at how the stories actually play out.

Looking at the Avengers, you can conclusively say that in absolute terms, some of them are stronger than others. There are clear, stratified tiers of power. And yet from how the film shot them, they were all equal, and all their contributions to the victory were portrayed as just as badass, despite their vastly different capabilities.

Superhero games should be balanced, since by the very nature of superhero stories everyone does get involved and help out, regardless of how unlikely that might seem.

>>52734370

It's not that one half of the group play each, it's that each player plays their own supervillain, and another players demon. So each person essentially has two characters, and character creation is shared between you and the person playing your demon.