Hi! I'm looking for a Superhero RPG system that is (a) Less Crunchy than Wild Talents or Mutants and Masterminds, but not too hand-wavy and un-crunchy; (b)  good for Street-Level heroes (the Watchmen who aren't Doctor Manhattan, X-Men); (c) works good without miniatures.

ICONS - looks good, but (1) I like to roll dice as GM; (2) i'm worried that Fate style superhero combat isn't that fun (take N turns to accumulate enough +2 tags to actually do something - sometimes it's fun just to punch things).

Things I've Read About: Supers!, Bulletproof Blues, Cold Steel Wardens, Prowlers and Paragons, Bash Ultimate Edition, Base Raiders / Kerberos Club.

I have played Savage Worlds but it really works best with miniatures (just my experience).

Quote from: PencilBoy99;836561Hi! I'm looking for a Superhero RPG system that is (a) Less Crunchy than Wild Talents or Mutants and Masterminds, but not too hand-wavy and un-crunchy; (b)  good for Street-Level heroes (the Watchmen who aren't Doctor Manhattan, X-Men); (c) works good without miniatures.

ICONS - looks good, but (1) I like to roll dice as GM; (2) i'm worried that Fate style superhero combat isn't that fun (take N turns to accumulate enough +2 tags to actually do something - sometimes it's fun just to punch things).

Things I've Read About: Supers!, Bulletproof Blues, Cold Steel Wardens, Prowlers and Paragons, Bash Ultimate Edition, Base Raiders / Kerberos Club.

I have played Savage Worlds but it really works best with miniatures (just my experience).

You could look at Triumphant! - which is similar in some ways to Supers! (I wrote both) but used die types rather than "dice pool".

You can take a look at precis intermedia's GD3 with the Bold and Brave supplement.

Supers! By Simon Washburne is really nice, but maybe too simple?

Hi Simon!

I'd recommend Marvel FASERIP (found here), but that's because I always recommend Marvel FASERIP for supers!

I might also recommend Silver Age Sentinels, particularly the Tri-Stat version, though finding a copy may be hard since the publishers been out-of-business for a number of years (then again, Internet and PDF's).

I have a friend who swears by Spirit of the Century, but I've never played, so I cannot directly comment.

TSR's Marvel Superheroes. AKA: MSH. (Which I never liked people calling it FASERIP.) can certainly do street level vigilantes. The system is pretty straightforward.

Villains and Vigilantes itself can do this as well. Its a little more mechanical than MSH.

Heroes Unlimited can do it as well. Like the others noted you do though need to put the brakes on just how powerfull the PCs are.

And numerous others.

Supers! Revised is a bit crunchier, but the basics are still straightforward and simple.

I've been running Triumphant! for a couple months in various capacities (in person and on line). It's much swingier than Supers!, so you might not like that. Like Supers! it is also pretty simple, from a mechanical point of view.

I find both of the above systems really capture that comic book flavor.  I've heard good things about BASH as well, but have not played it, so I cannot offer anything there.

My choice for street level supers was always Superworld but it's only available in PDF form nowadays. Fast, straightforward... the game that spawned the original Wild Cards characters.

Icons was fun but I don't recall the fights, just the wacky characters we made... which got me thinking that my ideal group for a supers game needs to get into the roleplaying a bit more than the average hack 'n slash fantasy.

I'd use Superworld but then I love Superworld because it's so intuitive and easy to use.  It's like Champions but without all the work. All you'd need to do for different power levels is decide how many points a character can have as a maximum.

How does Triumphant! differ from Supers Revised Edition?

I honestly don't know what you mean by 'medium crunch' and then claim that M&M is high.  D20, roll high.  Done.  How is that heavy?

Unfortunately, as I collect Supers games, the only rules light games that I have are clearly four colour/silver age.  In fact, my most despised age is the most popular.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;836634How does Triumphant! differ from Supers Revised Edition?

Very similar game, save that Triumphant uses step dice rather than dice pools. Triumphant also breaks the heroes into tiers (street level, national heroes, etc.). Similar to run, though -- choose an appropriate attack/defense, cannot use something to attack with that you've used to defend. The biggest difference I can immediately spot is the difference in task resolution target numbers between the mundane and the super (example, a normal would need a 4 to accomplish a task that a super could accomplish with a 2). Triumph dice play a BIG roll in the game when it comes to bending the narrative and doing neat stuff. Triumphant also has a system to deal with downtime between missions--characters have several options that can grant them additional boons the next mission, depending on what they choose to do (train, patrol, invent, etc.).  

In running the game, I've found that you just can't assume your character's safe. Even if you're defending with, say, d10 armor against a d6 laser blast, you can still roll a 1 on that dice while the opponent gets a 6--boom, have 5 pts. of damage. KO's can come before you know it. Triumphant also allows stacking of some abilities, in situations that make sense. For example, a character could combine their fighting with super strength, or archery and accuracy, and take the highest result. The upside to stacking is a better chance for a better result, at the expense of using up two abilities in one shot (and hereby not being able to attack/defend with them). However, since you still take only 1 result, you could still get stuck with that 1 or 2. In that regard, I prefer it to Supers, where bigger dice pools tend to triumph continuously. Of course, if you feel like, "well, bigger power pools SHOULD come out on top," then you'd want SUPERS. I prefer my players not be too self-assured.:-)

I can't say it's really medium crunch, although, like all of Simon's games I've played, you can do a WHOLE lot with what's there. However, if you want a great deal of rules coverage for every eventuality, it's simply not there. Works best if the players really trust the GM, because you have to make a lot of on-the-spot calls (though that's sorta what it's like to GM most every game, I would think). All my experiences, by the way, are from running street level campaigns--I stay away from higher level stuff. That said, I'd feel pretty comfortable running Triumphant at National Heroes (I think that's the next level up). The single result, die versus die, keeps the swinginess that I find more interesting.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;836656I honestly don't know what you mean by 'medium crunch' and then claim that M&M is high.  D20, roll high.  Done.

Maybe he means the upfront work creating characters. That can be a pain in the ass, especially if a player doesn't wrap his head around the whole "create your power from these elements, there is no powers list" concept.  And then there are those who freeze when presented with too many options.

Quote from: Matt;836708Maybe he means the upfront work creating characters. That can be a pain in the ass, especially if a player doesn't wrap his head around the whole "create your power from these elements, there is no powers list" concept.  And then there are those who freeze when presented with too many options.

That's fair I suppose.  But that's part and parcel with most Supers games, in my limited experience.  You have a concept and then you decide what he or she can do.  Then you find the Powers and/or Skills section and you plan out what you want.

Most supers don't really grow in terms of power much, outside of story plot reasons.  They might have their powers changed as a retcon, but not they don't increase like Fantasy characters tend to.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;836561ICONS - looks good, but (1) I like to roll dice as GM; (2) i'm worried that Fate style superhero combat isn't that fun (take N turns to accumulate enough +2 tags to actually do something - sometimes it's fun just to punch things).

I'm not sure ICONS is what you want, but I thought I'd throw this in here as a recent convert to the system.

ICONS Assembled Edition has the GM roll dice.  The combat is "Fate-like," but you definitely don't accumulate tags to get a decent result on a stress track.  A single hit does damage to traditional Hit Points.

The 1-10 scale puts human limits at 1-6, so there is some room for variation at Street Level.