I've got some players singing the praises of 4e Powers for GURPS.  How does it compare with the other two rules-heavy hero systems; HERO and M&M?
I'm pretty familiar with the latter two but have not read the former (though I have read the 4e basic books).

RPGPundit

hrrm...well, I can't speak for Mutants and Masterminds, but HERO does superpowers better than GURPS.

The interesting things GURPS does that work well however are worth listing.

A Power in GURPS is a list of Advantages stemming from a single source of power, it has a Talent that can be purchased to get a bonus to any success rolls involving those Advantages.  As a result of the source there is a discount to the cost of the Advantages purchased as part of the power.  Why?  Because the Advantages can be canceled out by Advantages that effect that source.  For instance a Psychic Null power effects Psychic Powers.

Advantages in GURPS can be made COSMIC! this means different things to different Advantages.  For instance  COSMIC! Inate Attacks ignore armour that is not also COSMIC!.  The COSMIC! modifier can make skill rolls automatically successful and do other absolute trumping effects.  COSMIC! is expensive but it's fun.

GURPS power modifiers are in percentage increases and decreases which are totaled before being applied.  As these are generally in easy to use increments the math is fairly easy to do without a calculator.  There's an option for multiplying them which is better but some people are scared of good math.  But for that you will need a calculator.

Powers is a neat book that really adds a lot of flexability to GURPS.  Sadly, it's still crippled by some bad design choices made in fourth edition.  Super Strength is still an unplayable mess and armour is still too cheap.

Here's how I think of the three:

M&M: Too complicated
GURPS: Way too complicated
Hero: You've got to be fucking kidding me!

Oddly, I find all three of them to essentially have the same failings -

* None of them seem to get the attributes quite right for a superhero game.
* All of them are way too fucking complicated to generate a character, particularly since they all have at least three ways to build the same thing but with wildly different point totals in the end.
* All of them were apparently written by math geeks, not realizing that the rest of us don't particularly enjoy doing a lot of math just to slap together a character.
* All of them have eight billion fucking things to read through.
* None of them are very good about explaining a scale of attributes and powers that gives you an idea of real-world equivalents.
* None of them are easy to just take a character from a comic book and stat them out with any sense of accuracy.
* None of them handle super strength worth a shit.
* All of them are way too damn complicated for something that needs to be as free flowing as a supers game.
* All of them think that trying to come up with a balanced system for supers makes sense, then proceed to have a system that doesn't balance worth a shit and requires min-maxing to even be remotely competent.

Cool Guy with grinning Dog Avatar:

You might be mostly right.


I am NOT a Math Geek.

As a result I bought a copy of GCA (GURPS Character Assistant) as a result my life as a GM has been much easier.This does not mean that GURPS is too complicated - just some of us needed to see graphically on a screen the chain reaction or ripple effect of making certain character choices to 'get it'.
This has meant that I am now much more comfortable doing characters from scratch and in helping players write up their characters - because in  my memory those number interactions are accidentally memorized as animated moments on a computer screen.

I have tried to run a "Supers" game in many years - mainly because my regular players are not iunto that kind of thing. (Especially the player that grew up in Europe) Regular customers at the store, however have said that POWERs for 4/e made it much, much easier for them to run superhero-type games. Some of them even said they applied some of the POWERS stuff to their Fantasy/Sword & Sorcery campaigns - and it made things more interesting a very GOOD way.


- Ed C.

Quote from: jgants;313352Here's how I think of the three:

M&M: Too complicated
GURPS: Way too complicated
Hero: You've got to be fucking kidding me!

In my experience with the systems, that's where I'm at.  I had a cup of coffee with Hero back in the day, never done GURPS Supers, but played and ran GURPS, and had the biggest GURPS booster I know come out and say it is bad for Supers because of how deadly it is.  I really, really want to like M&M, but I don't know if I have ever even finished a character for it.

Third!

Don't get me wrong, the in-play mechanics of GURPS work just fine for Supers.  It's the points totals and cost relationships that are just plain screwy.  Innate attacks are too cheap without a highly debatable optional, modifier.  Strength based damage is roughly ten times the cost per die as innate attacks, depending entirely on the way you chose to add it up.  GURPS isn't too deadly but it's very important for supers that you buy up hit points and damage resistance in the right amounts and ratios.

Hero does super strength just fine as long as you're doing the Marvel in the eighties thing where lifting 100 tons is the be all and end all.  Well, and even then Marvel obviously didn't have a great notion of what 100 tons was at times.

To many of us in the early 80's Champions was a god send for Superhero RPGs. Finally we can make the hero we want with the powers we want. I will say that I can't imagine anybody trying to learn the HERO system as is today. It is one hell of a learning. 2nd edition Champions was a lot easier to digest.

GURPS 4th edition has made great strides in customization as well. Of course I have to learn the GURPS Tweaks as none of my HERO tweaks will work.

After using HERO and GURPS for 20 years a couple of observations.

In Superhero campaigns I wouldn't worry about points if you have a firm grip on character generation. By I mean you work with the players to come up with the hero. Just use the actual point total as a guideline. If works that a player can play Superman let him. If you let the players make up whatever then you need to point system to be fair.

Typically I ask the player what hero they want and then I work with them one on one to make up the character. They learn the HERO system (or GURPS) enough to apply experience. A few that are interested will learn the whole game.

2) Both HERO and GURPS have failed in recent editions to cater to the novice gamers. Champions 2nd edition wasn't that hard, Hero 5th edition is well something else. The same for GURPS 4th edition.

I understand how both games got to this point. Both edition are pretty good at being generic universal system. But gone is the day when I can hand out copies of GURPS 2nd edition and see players GMing for themselves the next week.

What I think what needs to be done for both is that they should keep their respective core books. For the experienced GM they are invaluable. However they should come out with a complete ready to run distilled version of their core game for each of the major genres Fantasy, Space, and Horror.

Understand they are not separate games but rather take all the options in the core books and distill it down for a specific genre using a specific setting with a one or two adventures.

The setting used for these books should be pretty much the average for the genre. Following the example set by D&D, Traveller, and Call of Cthulu. They should not be used to make way out there settings.

This way a player interested in HERO or GURPS can pick a package that is ready to run and start running a campaign. Then later when they want to branch out they can pick up the core books.

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;313361In my experience with the systems, that's where I'm at.  I had a cup of coffee with Hero back in the day, never done GURPS Supers, but played and ran GURPS, and had the biggest GURPS booster I know come out and say it is bad for Supers because of how deadly it is.  I really, really want to like M&M, but I don't know if I have ever even finished a character for it.

I am much the same way myself, as far as liking the systems.

I bought GURPS Supers (the forerunner to the current GURPS Powers) as my first GURPS genre book, and that was in the summer of 1995. I liked it at the time, but got mired in char-gen math as soon as I got into designing my own powers. That being said, I thought it was one of the greatest books on Earth at the time, since Marvel Superheroes was already out of print and no one had it, and my superhero game before GURPS was Heroes Unlimited, which doesn't even ALLOW you to create, let alone fine-tune your own powers!

About three years later, I bought a copy of Hero 4th, which was called Champions - The Super Roleplaying Game at that time. I came out with much the same impression: good book, thoroughly written and edited, it had some good points about the supers genre, some interesting parts, but I started yawning and getting headaches as soon as I wanted to buy something other than Characteristics. That still shapes my attitude towards HERO to this day.

Mutants & Masterminds came much later, and was a pretty decent competitor to HERO all of a sudden. I also bought both editions of it, and the Ultimate Power book after hearing it getting rave reviews and awards and what-not. Still, I'm not playing my superheroes with M&M, I'm playing them with Tim's Hearts & Souls, actually.

Now, I'm trying to steer this back to the original question:
I didn't know about the COSMIC! modifier, so I guess the 3rd edition GURPS never had it. I agree that it sounds interesting. Maybe I'll try to do that in another system.

Between the three more rulesy systems, I'd pick Mutants & Masterminds. What I don't like about M&M is that I have to add up so many different categories of things in char-gen: first you buy your attributes (Abilities), and calculate your bonuses and derived stats from there, then there is the Powers, and Feats, and then Skills. Do I create a powers-heavy character and cut back on skills, or the other way round? I always get confused.

I would pick Champions. GURPS IME is best for lower-powered games while M&M fails at some pretty basic stuff.

I have to agree that they are all pretty complicated, with M&M, debatably,  being the least so.
Like others have mentioned, GURPS works pretty well for gritty, lower powered games, and I have run some very fun and successful games in that vein. But I find it starts to run into problems in emulating more four color type games. GURPS Powers for running a Power-Man and Iron Fist game? Sure. Want to emulate a Justice League type of game? Not your best choice.
 
Not that anyone asked, but like a few others I have a fondness for Champions, going back to the 1st and 2nd edition days. Though Champions Deluxe, which I guess was 4th ed, was probably my overall favorite version. 5th has gotten far too clunky for my tastes.

Quote from: DeadUematsu;314233I would pick Champions. GURPS IME is best for lower-powered games while M&M fails at some pretty basic stuff.

Like what, exactly?

(FYI - that's not sarcasm, and I'm not spoiling for any kind of argumentation. I picked up the M&M books a while back, and am curious what you think of its shortcomings. Thanks!)

Like ranged combat having no disadvantages (The Thing and She-Hulk literally have to turn from melee bruisers into hulking hurlers or they'll get sniped to death by Agent X and Bullseye).

Like movement powers having no disadvantages (fliers and speedsters can safely ping thier assailants to death, even safer with ranged attacks, unless thier opponents have equally good movement).

Like no power source equality and by extension, no role protection (simply put because of how power stunting works, the Magic power trumps everything).

Like being unable to have Ultron vs. The Avengers battles (without having to work real hard mechanically for it OR spending hero points out the wazoo for Ultron).