Friday, August 23, 2019

Super Hero RPGs Part 2


I first started Role Playing when I was 19 years old and a sophomore in college. My first RPG was Champions 4e, the "Big Blue Book". It was like learning a program language and we we all had enough free time to do that. However, even though Champions was the game we were playing, I found a copy of the Magic of Palladium Books that sold me, I mean SOLD ME on Rifts, Ninjas and Superspies, and Heroes Unlimited. These games had CLASSES and LEVELS!

Due to my gaming ADD, I bought it and couldn't figure numerous things out about. It was arcane. There were huge glaring holes that book didn't answer...I was confused. To make matters worse, the rest of the group didn't want to switch games, we already were pretty good at Champions/HERO System.

But I couldn't help myself, there had to be even better superhero RPGs out there. So I bought Marvel Super Heroes, DC Heroes, Guardians, GURPS Supers, GURPS Wild Cards, Villains and Vigilantes , DC Universe, Aberrant, and others I've since forgotten. We played many of them but none of them worked any better than Champions (though DC Heroes was pretty darn close).

In the last few years I've come to realize some basic preferences I have in RPGs in general and Superhero RPGs in particular. 

First, I like Hit Points. I don't enjoy wound tracks to damage boxes. I like Hit Points.

Second, I don't want to roll buckets of dice. In Champions, you have to total the dice to find the amount of Stun (assuming it's not a Killing Attack), then look at the dice again to see how much Body damage there is, and then check for knockback.  That. Is. Insane.

So I'm being really picky in the superhero RPGS I'm looking at. Which is cool, I have no ETA on when I will run this game.

I just know I want a game with Hit Points, small pools of damage dice, and fairly quick and easy character generation.

My top contenders right now are Guardians (an excellent OSR game that is what Heroes Unlimited wanted to be), Rotted Capes, Event Zero, Vigilante City, Champions: The New Millenium, and Champions Now. I was looking at the Sentinels Comic RPG today but realized that you apparently automatically hit in combat.  That was a dealbreaker for me.

No comments:

Monster Monday: Ork City's Chupacabra for Shadowdark

Welcome to Ork City! In the middle of Ork City's Hatt Island is the Park, a wild and dangerous forest filled with all manner of nightmar...