A group of players and I started running D&D 5e... and honestly, no one is feeling it.  I pitched the idea for a superhero RPG, and everyone seems to be down for that.  With this comes a couple of concerns.

I'll be using my own 'setting'- which is hardly a 'setting', but more or less the real world with a few twists here and there- 'Enhanced Persons' are a relatively new development that became public knowledge in 1999.  'Physics' is still a thing in this setting, so nothing too absurd.  It's a few bits gritty, a few bits deconstructive, but I'm not going to have people Roleplaying a Frank Miller setting with everyone in plain clothes.  There are heroes, there are villains- however, some Enhanced Persons are 'heroes' because it simply gives them what they want, not really because they are genuinely good people.  Villains are generally empowered people who feel like they might be actually doing the right thing (and some may be convincing the public of this as well).  

And yes, I will be doing that cheesy thing where I have a 'GM player character' (although, he takes mostly a backseat and acts as a plot device off-screen, as his motives are not completely clear at this time).  Of course, we will be rotating GM's- this is to sort of simulate different writers' story arcs, as seen in comics.

I'll share some of my ideas here, and I'd like for you guys to offer critique and guidance.  Mostly, what I'll be doing is sharing some of the characters I've made- NPC's of various sorts.

However, right now what I'm looking for is the best system to use.  I hear 'Champions' is a bit heavy on the math- but I don't remember playing Dark Champions and having that much difficulty.  I still actually own Aberrant, even though I see its setting as seriously as I would a clown cock-slapping a tambourine (although, I distinctly will say that 'Champions' is just the same, except there's another clown farting on a bass drum).  I have used the D20 system as well, and it's okay.

So, here are the caveats to the campaign(s):

-Heroes are not 'epic' in power level.  Mostly, they should be 'enhanced'- but should not have extreme superhuman abilities or assets (think "X-Men" or "WildCATS").  
-'Supernatural' abilities are not public knowledge, and anything of the sort should be easily dismissed as a form of 'Enhanced Ability'.
-Much of the initial campaign will be 'street level' and is lacking things like alien invasions, cosmic god-like threats, and things of this nature.

Any guidance you guys have would be great.

If you must have a supers game, the two supers games I like the most are BASH! and Mutants and Masterminds. Just pick the supplements and the one with the mechanics you want. Pretty much most/all supers games have some sort of rules for "street" level powers.

My preference and the way I would do it would be to run my favorite RPG that lets anyone have magic and use magic as super powers. This is pretty much how I created my homegrown RPG.

TSR's Marvel Superheroes or Aberrant. MSH has the most options to do practically anything.. While Aberrant has a more focused scope and possibly more balance.

In order -

FASERIP - tons of support. *Insanely* easy to use. And it's all free. Scalability from street-level to cosmic.
ICONS - It's like FASERIP with the numbers scratched off. they're 99% compatable - but you'll have to crib some stuff.
Savage Worlds Supers - EASY (it's Savage Worlds) works wonderful for street-level, to Spiderman/Avengers-level. After that? Debatable. Good system nevertheless.

I recommend all of these because essentially they're toolkits by design which are perfect for your homebrewed game.

Mutant and Masterminds has been standard flagship for superhero games decade of more. It's took crunchy for me but I guess it is a logical starting point especially if you are coming from D&D.

Personally I've had a lot of success with ICONS. It's got a interesting mix new and old game design drawing equally from the old TSR Marvel Superhero ("Faserip") and Fate. It is on the rules light side but that suits me. ICONS is probably one of my favourite systems from any genre.

And speaking of TSR Marvel Superhero, it doesn't look like much but it works really well.

Quote from: Crüesader;939948A group of players and I started running D&D 5e... and honestly, no one is feeling it.  I pitched the idea for a superhero RPG, and everyone seems to be down for that.  With this comes a couple of concerns.

I'll be using my own 'setting'- which is hardly a 'setting', but more or less the real world with a few twists here and there- 'Enhanced Persons' are a relatively new development that became public knowledge in 1999.  'Physics' is still a thing in this setting, so nothing too absurd.  It's a few bits gritty, a few bits deconstructive, but I'm not going to have people Roleplaying a Frank Miller setting with everyone in plain clothes.  There are heroes, there are villains- however, some Enhanced Persons are 'heroes' because it simply gives them what they want, not really because they are genuinely good people.  Villains are generally empowered people who feel like they might be actually doing the right thing (and some may be convincing the public of this as well).  

And yes, I will be doing that cheesy thing where I have a 'GM player character' (although, he takes mostly a backseat and acts as a plot device off-screen, as his motives are not completely clear at this time).  Of course, we will be rotating GM's- this is to sort of simulate different writers' story arcs, as seen in comics.

I'll share some of my ideas here, and I'd like for you guys to offer critique and guidance.  Mostly, what I'll be doing is sharing some of the characters I've made- NPC's of various sorts.

However, right now what I'm looking for is the best system to use.  I hear 'Champions' is a bit heavy on the math- but I don't remember playing Dark Champions and having that much difficulty.  I still actually own Aberrant, even though I see its setting as seriously as I would a clown cock-slapping a tambourine (although, I distinctly will say that 'Champions' is just the same, except there's another clown farting on a bass drum).  I have used the D20 system as well, and it's okay.

So, here are the caveats to the campaign(s):

-Heroes are not 'epic' in power level.  Mostly, they should be 'enhanced'- but should not have extreme superhuman abilities or assets (think "X-Men" or "WildCATS").  
-'Supernatural' abilities are not public knowledge, and anything of the sort should be easily dismissed as a form of 'Enhanced Ability'.
-Much of the initial campaign will be 'street level' and is lacking things like alien invasions, cosmic god-like threats, and things of this nature.

Any guidance you guys have would be great.

Going by the power level you're aiming for, I suggest checking out AMP: Year One and it's supplements, Year Two & Three. Power level is on par with early X-Men (before Wolverine, etc joined). I had the chance to play this at GenCon last year, and I enjoyed it.

Cold Steel Wardens is another rpg I played at GenCon. It's designed to emulate the Iron Age era of comics. Powers are in the range you're looking for (and WildCATS started out in the Iron Age), but it doesn't have a comprehensive amount of powers.

While many loathe it, I liked Brave New World. Ditch the metaplot and it's got a decent low powered supers engine inside (though they spread the packages across a bunch of books, which did kind of suck). It played fairly street level in the demo I played before the game was released.

If you choose one of the more popular games (ICONS, M&M, Supers!, Champions), there is a setting for all those games called Extreme Earth. The setting doesn't gel with what you want to run, but might provide inspiration with the character concepts. Each game has it's own version, so you can get it for whichever one you might decide on.

On the background/setting level, it sounds like you're going for some realism - but you also want costumes and crime-fighting. To resolve assumptions on this, you should both have some defined source material that sets the tone - like the X-Men movies, say, and plan out how and why the heroes are teamed up to fight crime. Key things to explain include:

1) How the PCs find violent crime to fight. In a street-level game, it can quickly get silly if the PCs have to walk the streets looking for muggings, or alternately if credibility is strained such that bank robberies happen right beside them.
2) Why they do so as costumed vigilantes rather than by other means.

For the group - a combined origin is one option (i.e. Fantastic Four). Another option is a core hero who organized the team (Professor X, say) - I would suggest a PC but *not* your GM PC.


For system, lots of people have suggestions. If you're looking for something more rules-light, I've enjoyed the Truth & Justice system - which is on the minimalist side, but still has concrete rules for powers and such. Rules-heavy vs. rules-light is a matter of taste.

Maybe a good question is "What type of 'feel' are we looking for?"  You're clearly not looking for Avengers level.  How about Daredevil, Spiderman, that more your take?

Cuz some systems are better at it than others.  I wouldn't recommend FASERIP or M&M for low level supers.  FASERIP has a problem with granularity and M&M gets wonky under or over certain power levels.

"Supers" is a straight d6-pool game that works best for Street Level. Very flexible, but relies a lot on GM interp. Downside: big dice pools win out over small ones, which can lead to some one-trick ponyism, but, as you use a power for one thing a round (i.e., if I attack with Super Strength, I cannot defend with it, and vice-versa), there are some built in limits. The revised edition cleaned up a lot of the issues with the previous, and added some granularity. Flexible options!

Triumphant is basically the same game, but uses step dice, and is much swingier. It does allow some dice stacking, take the highest, where logical (i.e., Accuracyd6 (a power)+ Ranged (bows) d8 [a skill/spec], roll both, take highest. There are two task resolution charts, with the one used for powers having lower DC's (so Super Acrobatics d4 might need only a 1, whereas skilled/trained non-super Athletics d8 would need a 4). Combat can be dicey, even if you're slinging around a d10 power (which is hard for street level to have). Very easy to roll 1's, and have a slovenly Mook rolling a d4 give you a face full of bullets.

Both are pretty rules light, and I can't really say they're excellent for long term play, but Triumphant has some excellent training options between missions that can grant some specific boons (i.e., training with the team allows some bonuses the next issue; patrolling between issues gives you a free skill the next mission, and so on).

BESM is a good system overall, even if it is anime-focused (I always liked anime over Marvel and DC capeshit), and can be used for non-anime games as well. They even have a superhero/capeshit variant of BESM called Silver Age Sentinels. Check it out, it might be a good system for what you are looking for.

You could also check out Champions or Dark Champions if you want something a little heavier.

Quote from: jhkim;9400031) How the PCs find violent crime to fight. In a street-level game, it can quickly get silly if the PCs have to walk the streets looking for muggings, or alternately if credibility is strained such that bank robberies happen right beside them.

Someone is tipping them off.  Remember when the Punisher's 'secret informant' years ago (that for some reason, everyone swore was 'Captain America')?  Essentially, a shadowy NPC begins tipping them off through social media to a series of things happening, forcing them to cross paths.  Without rambling on and on- there's a bit of corruption, in places it isn't expected.  The character feeding them info, 'Exitus', seems to know a LOT about what's going on- and the only thing they know about Exitus is based off unreliable witness statements and a really bad video that barely shows his silhouette (spoiler- he's wired into the CCTV around the city and uses voice recognition to spy on people).  

Quote from: jhkim;9400032) Why they do so as costumed vigilantes rather than by other means.

All the characters are rookies.  Most of them have dealt with some street-level shit before, but they get the 'who?' treatment from John Q. Public if someone mentions their name.  They aren't all cut from the same cloth- my only requests were "Don't make a sociopath, don't make a villain, you're basically a newbie to the whole 'heroics' thing".  Overall, most of the 'hero teams' are dealing with issues globally, or more overt in nature.  Exitus is getting them involved in something he's found (and depending on how they do things will determine whether or not his motivation is selfish or noble).

If you like d20 based systems and you want to have a similar feel and you want to keep control of their power level, you can probably accomplish this in Mutants and Masterminds, 3e being very well done and it has an SRD making the most important rules accessible. Characters are based on Power Level which is kind of different from Character Level. They can get more powerful but don't expect them to go too high at least until you get closer to whatever your end game may be. PL 10 is your typical Spider-Man/Daredevil stuff. X-men are around the same range, with a high end of PL 12 excluding heavy hitters. Your typical pulp hero would be around PL 8, a two fisted hero would be around PL 6. A  soldier PL 5, a cop PL 4, Various civilians and thugs and mooks PL 1-3. That would be around your scale range. The nice thing is you can build characters up without increasing their PL. They may not get more powerful, but they can become more versatile.

Powers are effect based, meaning you can have a power called blast and assign what damage type you want it to have. So the power descriptions are focused on mechanics and allows you to add fluff which is nice when you are customizing for your own setting. If you use this system there are some things to be aware of. M+M is not D&D. Okay, you can totally make a beautiful mashup of M+M 2nd Edition and True20, but I would not suggest that route unless you like to make work for yourself. M+M 3e is not very forgiving when you get a Power Level difference of more than 2. So if you pit four PL 8 heroes against a PL 12 villain, the villain has a really good chance of wiping the floor with them. It's not impossible, I've done it, but the odds are not in your favor. So this has it's up and down sides. The upside being that you don't have to constantly put heroes up against tougher and tougher foes. A character starting at PL 10 may never get higher than PL 12 or maybe 13 if they're like Batman or something. But that would be a veteran Batman. You'd probably want to have your characters start in the PL 8-10 range, PL 7 or even 6 if you want things to be grittier.

Converting stuff from other d20 sources isn't too bad. M+M is pretty similar in the latest two editions in this respect. As I recall, +2 is something like d8 damage and you can pretty much use that rule to convert stuff from d20 Modern and True20 back and forth. It works mostly the same with M+M. Also, everything scales. You can cap stuff where you want to cap it. There's a universal table for things like speed, distance, mass, time which makes importing stuff from other systems pretty easy. Though if you want the quickest and most efficient way possible to run this system, then I recommend Hero Lab. Heck, if you don't want to pay for it get the demo and build your NPCs and other stuff and just write it down.

Quote from: tenbones;939971Savage Worlds Supers - EASY (it's Savage Worlds) works wonderful for street-level, to Spiderman/Avengers-level. After that? Debatable. Good system nevertheless.

This is also a good option, particularly if you are playing with a live group because it uses cards for initiative. Combat can be quick and deadly. In addition to the most recent Super Powers Companion I'd recommend the Science Fiction Companion as well, so if you want killer robots or cybernetically enhanced Soldiers with CRISPR edited genes you can do that.

Quote from: Krimson;940097If you like d20 based systems and you want to have a similar feel and you want to keep control of their power level, you can probably accomplish this in Mutants and Masterminds, 3e being very well done and it has an SRD making the most important rules accessible. Characters are based on Power Level which is kind of different from Character Level. They can get more powerful but don't expect them to go too high at least until you get closer to whatever your end game may be. PL 10 is your typical Spider-Man/Daredevil stuff. X-men are around the same range, with a high end of PL 12 excluding heavy hitters. Your typical pulp hero would be around PL 8, a two fisted hero would be around PL 6. A  soldier PL 5, a cop PL 4, Various civilians and thugs and mooks PL 1-3. That would be around your scale range. The nice thing is you can build characters up without increasing their PL. They may not get more powerful, but they can become more versatile.

This is what I'd like to do.  I would rather the team be versatile and capable, rather than just go from shooting lasers from their eyes and blowing wood paneling apart, to shooting lasers from their eyes and destroying Australia (not really a downside to that otherwise).

Can you bump up their power level just a little, though?  I'd like to see their abilities get more potent.  This campaign is going to start at the street level, and develop into more as time goes on.

Quote from: jhkim1) How the PCs find violent crime to fight. In a street-level game, it can quickly get silly if the PCs have to walk the streets looking for muggings, or alternately if credibility is strained such that bank robberies happen right beside them.

Quote from: Crüesader;940077Someone is tipping them off.  Remember when the Punisher's 'secret informant' years ago (that for some reason, everyone swore was 'Captain America')?  Essentially, a shadowy NPC begins tipping them off through social media to a series of things happening, forcing them to cross paths.  Without rambling on and on- there's a bit of corruption, in places it isn't expected.  The character feeding them info, 'Exitus', seems to know a LOT about what's going on- and the only thing they know about Exitus is based off unreliable witness statements and a really bad video that barely shows his silhouette (spoiler- he's wired into the CCTV around the city and uses voice recognition to spy on people).

That's workable, but I'd toss out the idea of the PCs having their own direct sources of information rather than purely relying on an NPC. Exitus can and should remain mysterious, but the PCs should be able to still be effective even if he disappears.

Quote from: jhkim2) Why they do so as costumed vigilantes rather than by other means.

Quote from: Crüesader;940077All the characters are rookies.  Most of them have dealt with some street-level shit before, but they get the 'who?' treatment from John Q. Public if someone mentions their name.  They aren't all cut from the same cloth- my only requests were "Don't make a sociopath, don't make a villain, you're basically a newbie to the whole 'heroics' thing".  Overall, most of the 'hero teams' are dealing with issues globally, or more overt in nature.  Exitus is getting them involved in something he's found (and depending on how they do things will determine whether or not his motivation is selfish or noble).

With the last, does that mean that you'll be adjusting the background to fit with how they approach Exitus's thing? It sounds good to take into account who they are, rather than having an assumed mission for them, but it's hard to tell from the information here.

Quote from: jhkim;940272That's workable, but I'd toss out the idea of the PCs having their own direct sources of information rather than purely relying on an NPC. Exitus can and should remain mysterious, but the PCs should be able to still be effective even if he disappears.

Well, odds are- everyone's going to make wildly different characters.  If everyone up and said "Dude, we should be vigilantes", I could easily work with that.  But already we're looking at one reformed criminal, one lab experiment that's escaped, and other randomness.  The key is I want them to be brought down to the 'street level', and as things progress it will escalate.  Their own source of information could be plausible, but that all depends on what they can come up with.  

Quote from: jhkim;940272With the last, does that mean that you'll be adjusting the background to fit with how they approach Exitus's thing? It sounds good to take into account who they are, rather than having an assumed mission for them, but it's hard to tell from the information here.

Honestly?  I'm being flexible.  Investigation roleplaying (which will happen) can make or break a campaign- they can 'get it wrong' and everything goes south.  I don't want them railroaded- their investigations will yield a result- one of several.  Depending on the way they play, their suspicions, and what seems the most fun at the time- they could find out that there's a sinister agenda behind Exitus' plot.  They could find out that he's actually one of the good guys.  It all depends on what seems like it will be more interesting.  Just in case, I've made an additional character for me to play afterward in case he ends up thrown out a window or sliced in half.