What's the best superhero system? M&M is terrible

What's the best superhero system? M&M is terrible.

The problem is that 'superhero' is a really wide genre so no one rpg is going to be a good all-round superhero game without also being really generic.

That said my favourite is Masks: A New Generation, it focuses as much on the team dynamics and social drama between the PCs as it does the heroics which I like for giving the game stakes (since the PCs can't actually die) and helps give the fights with various villains a bit more emotional depth.

It's Wild Talents.

This. It can be dense to new comers, but that is more a "problem" with superpowers then anything.

M&M is amazing, you're just a retard. But maybe you've just been playing 3e. Try 2e, it's vastly better.

Why is 2e better than 3e?

3e gutted several parts of the system.

They made Impervious worthless. In 2e, an attack ha to meet or beat your Impervious value in order to hurt you. Id in;t reduce damage, it just meant there was a minimum to have a chance. In 3e it has the same cost but is half as good. You could make Superman in 2e and he'd play like Superman. Convert the same build to 3e and he loses power (more on that below) but his Impervious value, at the same cost as before, becomes worthless. The toughest character you can make still has a 1 in 20 chance of being hurt if someone duct tapes some C4 to his chest.

They added two more ability scores, giving you more thing to spend points on and dragging own your power in every other area.

Your defense is more limited, you can be good at resisting damage but your willpower has to be crap to do it. Want to be good at blocking melee attacks? Well you have to be shit at resisting damage. Can't have good Fortitude and Will both, or Dodge and Toughness.

They made skills twice as expensive for no reason.

They removed buying powers. Now, you buy effects. For example, 2e had separate sections for magnetic control and telekinesis, and a list of sub-powers that could come with them. Not anymore, now it' Move Object and you have to manually factor in the cost of limitations to actually make it the power you want. Want super strength? In 2e you paid 2 point per rank for +5 lifting strength, and a list of alternate effects. Thunderclap, super breath, earthquake punch, counter punch (punching a ranged attack back to the source), etc. Now you have to get Enhanced Ability (Strength) and manually factor in the cost of limiting it to lifting strength only, an those alternate effects? Yeah, you have to do all that too. In 2e you paid 1 point for the alt power feat and all your super strength ranks turned into ranks for another thematic power, quick, easy, simple.

tbc

Continued

2e had a "Time and Progression Value Table." In the far left column you found the rank of the power in question, then simple looked at the appropriate column next to it to see how fast your super speed was, how long your power lasted, etc. And there were only three columns, because you only needed three. This is your rank, this is your multiplier, the base value is in the power description.

3e has a "Measurements Table" where you add two ranks together to get a total that you check to see what your total mass/volume/distance/time is. One rank is your power, the other is completely subjective.

>"I have super speed 5, how fast am I?"
>2e answer: move down the column to 5, and on the right is your multiplier, 25. Base rank is 10mph, so 25x10=250 miles per hour.
>3e answer: okay you have a speed rank of 5, and you want distance per HOUR so that's a time rank of...9, so we add 9 to 5 and we get 14, and distance rank 14 is...60 miles. So, 60 miles per hour.

What the ACTUAL fuck. Not only is that slower, it's aggravating as hell, because every time you have a different time value, you have to do it ALL OVER AGAIN.

Speaking of super speed, it actually functioned as such in 2e. You had movement and mental speed at an equal value, plus +4 Initiative equal to your rank, and you could buy 1 point each extras for running on water, or up walls, or throwing small objects fast for attacks, or hitting multiple enemies in the area. An to know how powerful these effects were, you simply looked at the number of Super Speed ranks you ha. That's it. In 3e, you have to buy all of those effects separately, because they think making character creation take ten times longer was a good idea.

I will agree with you that Impervious got nerfed a bit too hard 3e, but 2e's version was way too OP. I think the Power Profiles for 3e has examples of alternate rules that hit a perfect medium.

As for character creation taking forever, all it really takes is looking at the prebuilt examples.

Really the only thing that bothers me about 3e is although it got rid of the bad stuff of 2e (the awful ability score 3.5 dnd baggage), it also kept out a lot of useful rulings that 3e lacks entirely (IE Construct Characters and Extra Effort or how Affects Objects effects them, Banishment and whether or not it is a one hit kill, etc.).

How was it OP?

>Impervious: 1 point per rank of damage I can ignore
>Penetrating: 1 point per rank of Impervious I can ignore

Better defense and the ability to counter it had the same cost.

I'm partial to wild talents, but that may just be because it's what I know best.

I hear good things about the marvel system, but I couldn't *get* the schedule thing it had. My players also really like to set their pace, so I don't think they would've taken well to it

Imprevious is always "on".

Penetrating is only "on" against targets with imprevious and only up to their imprevious value.

The worst you some out of Imprevious is getting exactly the value of your points if it gets Penetrated.

The worst you can come out with penetrating is pissing points away into the wind for nothing.

I get your point but that's how the medium works. Some characters in comic book are simply unable to harm others, oh well. That's not actually a bad thing.

You asked how it was OP.

I explained.

Worlds in Peril is a more generic approach to the superhero genre than Masks, but uses a similar system.

>M&M is terrible.
why?

I like AMP.

What do you want in a supers system?

But that's not OP.

You seem not to understand what 3e tried to achieve (and succeeded). It's a system that balances everything, so no player will be left behind. It's about narrative and how you interpret the rolls, not minmaxing characters or creating build. Do whatever you want, you can make it work and you won't fall behind.

You bitch about stats or skills, but you seem not to notice how it's insignificant. Check the costs, it's all balanced and it doesn't matter whether you take dex or perks increased by it separately. Again, it's about narrative, you want low str? Sure, take low str, it won't make your character shit in melee, you can cover hit chance and damage with different things.

You can still make superman, he would be a very high power level. Obviously not for every player. Considering superman is a plot device most of the time, it's good that you can't make one unless rest of the party is on par with him.

You can make your speedster in 3e. Just THINK about perks of YOUR superspeed and buy appropriate powers. What's the problem? Maybe there is, since you have it with using simple mathematics and a very clear table...

If you don't mind spending time on character creation, M&M 3ed is great. If you want something faster, Wild Talents isn't bad, but it can be a bitch with lethality (one hit deaths can happen, had one strong NPC knocked out by another, weaker NPC in first round, because lol randum roll).

Depending on your players, one may be better than the other. M&M 3ed clearly limits your power, powergaming is thus limited. WT allows you to make anything and that may be a problem sometimes.

It would be cool to play superman, but where is the fun when you have constantly to limit yourself or rest of the group won't have shit to do? Players won't be as stupid as comics writers and won't forget that their character is super EVERYTHING, including intelligence (most of the time it's omitted in DC), so even a brainy character is no match for you.

...did you ever play in 2e? At all? None of the things you're complaining about, actually happen in any real game. Maybe in one run by an idiot.

>M&M 3ed is great
Do not listen to this person. 3e is shit.

Bloodshot is a pretty dank name.

DOOOMSHAAAADE

>Dead Hunter
Do I hunt the dead or am I dead and on the hunt?
Stat me, Veeky Forums.

I've had good experiences running and playing superheroes in Fate Accelerated, Marvel Heroic, and Open Legend. They each have a different take on how to build and represent characters, so chances are you'll be into at least one of them.

>Deadstrike
BRB, gotta stat up Dead-Strike for my current Open Legend game.

superheroes inc, of course

Is Aberrant any good?

I am not complaining about anything, just pointing out how wrong was someone about shitting on 3e. I am literally using only counter arguments, where did you saw any complaining??

>Deadshot
Bland. What would my fiancee's be...
>Blackhunter
Wut

Your counter arguments stem from an erroneous assumption that 3e isn't dogshit.

>One Roll Engine
Pure shit for 15 years and counting!

Could use the vehicle rules for the constructs, where they begin redlining their pieces and need repairs after.

Like most White Wolf games the concept is solid, the execution not so much

B L A C K E D

Deathlock

lol u mad

I personally recomend Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. It's the closest thing to a perfect system I've found for superheroes. The one problem, is that it doesn't STRIIICTLY have a character creation system that isn't "make up whatever with GM permission" or "roll randomly on this table." However, there are a number of fan-made ones that are very good, and if you have the random-table, you CAN just pick your results from the table, since the table tries to make different results on the table just DIFFERENT instead of BETTER.

\
>I get your point but that's how the medium works
>But that's not OP.

Pardon my reading between the lines; not him but you all but admitted that it IS OP, but that you don't mind its OP-nes because it's in-line with the genre. Perhaps he is willing to sacrifice some genre-truth, in exchange for making it a balanced game where everyone gets to feel useful and actually play.

Not saying that's what YOU have to do, but it seems like that's what he wants. Given that, M&M might not be in line with what he's looking for.

You could use Weaver Dice for character creation.

This.

Better name generator too.

Gurps

It'll be hell to get through on this board, which hates everything White Wolf for what the post-Achilli White Wolf wrote, but Aberrant is a fantastic fucking game.
It has plenty of good fluff without being insubstantial. solid crunch that might not be stellar but is sure not M&M's mess, real-world parallels without getting preachy, mature without being (believe me here) creepy, and has a huge amount of room for different genres, both played straight and played with in whatever way you like.
The setting is established, but the crunch is flexible enough to do more or less all games that involve "superpowers at a cost" - I ran a magical girl game in it, and it worked as if on rails. Of course, it covers Golden Age works to the modern day, and there's a game called Adventure! in the series too if you want pulp adventure.
In my personal opinion, it's generally just a better M&M - the general flavor of the abilities and the customizable genre-aware superhero themes are the same, but Aberrant has a more coherent setting, system and crunch that lends itself to inspiration a lot more.
Where M&M is mostly suited to making rules for concepts you've already thought up, because it's stupidly customizable, it reads like a physics textbook at times - it's very fuzzy, to the point where you could read the whole book and not get a single character idea.
Aberrant, while it's more limited to "modern" genres (M&M does everything well, Aberrant does everything so-so but is made for 90's supers) is generally a more fleshed-out and evocative game in my opinion, with an interesting setting, good fluff and - it bears mentioning again - managing to be a game for adults without having to resort to shock and edginess. It has perhaps some of the most viscerally satisfying chargen I've ever done outside Shadowrun, since it's deep enough to have plenty of flavor, flexible enough to accommodate most concepts without getting too fuzzy and doesn't get bogged down.

As long as OP doesnt state what he dislikes about M&M, it's hard to give him meaningful advice.

VALOR is great.

It's pretty customizatable and allow for a wide range of heroes

Shadowshayde
SpikeHammer

>Shadowlock
>Hammerfire

Fuck my real name.
From now on I am known an Maskforce.

>Crowshayde
Not bad

>using GURPS for supers

Kek.

But 2e isn't especially less balanced than 3e, (in fact both are broken by default due to being point-buy generic systems) and it certainly has no more emphasis on narrative than 2e. All 3e did was make ability scores and skills a shitty investment.

Is the rest of WD playable yet or still an unfinished mess?

>STRIKEBATTLE

I have no idea, to be honest.

"battlestrike" sounds like a really bad knockoff FPS

From your description 3e sounds vastly superior and more sensible. Paying for everything you want your powers to do is a good principle, it was completely broken in original M&M when you could get a completely different spinoff power at the same strength for 1 build point on top of whatever your main gimmick was.

>Shadowshayde
pls no

>(since the PCs can't actually die)
boring setting

Rolled 1, 2, 2, 4 = 9 (4d6)

>Cablelock

I sound like a piece of fucking construction equipment.

>death is the only consequence that matters
You certainly found the right thread for an edgelord like yourself.

Why? It seems decent to me.
Isn't it just a basic dice pool + speed mechanic?

Hero

My Leifeld name is Blade-blade.

>goddammit, who invited Blade-blade!

Rolled 2, 2, 5, 2 = 11 (4d6)