Origins of Super Hero RPGs
You can’t talk about super heroes without a good origin story, right?
Well, here goes…
Super Hero RPG games trace their origin way back to Superhero 2044 published by Gamescience in 1977. This futuristic super hero setting never gained traction and quickly faded from the market.
Next came Villains & Vigilantes which was the first game to really garner a significantly large market share. Published in 1979, this franchise has changed hands several times with the latest edition published by Monkey House Games in 2010 (by the original authors no less).
Champions (first published in 1981) and Mutants & Masterminds (first published in 2002) have had the most success of any non-setting specific supers RPG to date. For setting specific games, Marvel Super Heroes by TSR made waves when it came out in 1984, and is still talked about fondly by gamers today. Margaret Weiss Productions launched a new version called Marvel Heroic Roleplaying in 2012, but did not renew the license.
The other 800 lb. gorilla in the comics industry, DC Comics, has featured in several games as well. DC Heroes came out in 1985, and its popularity led to a 2nd and 3rd edition. Most recently DC Adventures, published by Green Ronin, is carrying the torch for the franchise.
Bringing things to present day, let’s take a look at 10 readily available Super Hero RPGs that represent this genre well (listed in no particular order).
1. Mutants & Masterminds Deluxe Hero’s Handbook
Since 2002, Mutants & Masterminds has earned its title as the World’s Greatest Superhero RPG, inspiring countless game sessions and winning many awards for excellence. The Deluxe Hero’s Handbook is the revised and expanded core rulebook of the game’s Third Edition and it gives you everything you need to have your own super-heroic adventures.
- A flexible and powerful system for creating the hero that you want to play.
- A huge variety of super powers, skills, and advantages to choose from and customize.
- A core system that emphasizes action and uses only a single 20-sided die.
- Integrated rules for gadgets, vehicles, and headquarters.
- Ready-to-play archetypes and a Quickstart Character Generator if you want to get to the action even faster.
- Advice for Gamemasters on creating and running your own adventure series.
- Introductions to Mutants & MasterMinds premier settings, Emerald City and Freedom City.
- Two brand new adventures, Ghost Town by Seth Johnson and Time of the Apes by Christopher McGlothlin.
Grab your copy in Print or Digital format.
2. BASH! Ultimate Edition
This book has everything you need to create characters and run super-heroic adventures within minutes. The rules are light and easy — all you need are two ordinary dice, a piece of paper, and this book. Character generation is so simple, you could fit all the info you need on a 3×5 card.
Do not assume that by simple, the authors mean incomplete. BASH! UE has over 50 versatile super powers, numerous skills, and even rules for collateral damage. The action is fast and furious, paced over a series of panels, pages, and issues, just like a comic book.
Grab your copy in Print or Digital format.
3. Icons Superpowered Roleplaying: The Assembled Edition
Icons is a tabletop game of superhero adventure, creating exciting stories of the imagination with your friends, based around the heroes you create. The Assembled Edition of the game features:
- Quick Hero Creation! A few die rolls are all it takes to create your hero, giving you the spark for your imagination to bring it all together. Describe character abilities on a numerical scale, or use adjectives like “Great” and “Amazing,” as best suits your style and situation.
- Flexible System! Just a few basic game mechanics resolve in-game actions, but they expand to cover a wide range of options, making Icons easy to learn, but broad enough to keep things interesting.
- Heroic Determination! Bring the qualities of your heroes into play to gain advantages or perform amazing stunts, or to create trouble, from personal drama to weaknesses, in order to make your hero even more determined to save the day!
- Universe Creation! Collaborate to create your own comic book universe and play out the stories of the different heroes in it.
Grab your copy in Print or Digital format.
4. Worlds in Peril
Worlds in Peril is a collaborative roleplaying game designed to bring a comic book world to life. Learn the rules to the game by reading the comic inside and follow along to create your own hero with the exact powers and abilities you want them to have by mixing and matching Origin stories and motivations. Test their limits and watch their powers expand and change as you push them to learn and grow.
Go up against two-bit villains, world-dominating masterminds, and unknowable beings from different planes of existence. Find out what happens when superheroes are powered by the Apocalypse World system (same system as Dungeon World).
Grab your copy in Digital format.
5. Supers! Revised
Building on rules created by Simon Washbourne, SUPERS Revised Edition takes the action and adventure of your favorite Super Heroic comics and slams it back down to your gaming table. Crafted by system experts Aldo Regalado and Rus Boyd, SUPERS Revised Edition lets you take the rules you love and make them the rules you can’t game without!
- Unified mechanics mean less time in the book and more time in the battle.
- New Powers and Aptitudes expand the scope of the game.
- Apply Boosts and Complications to any aspect of the game.
- Optional Rules are included to expand the game to your liking.
Grab your copy in Print or Digital format.
6. Champions Complete
The ultimate super roleplaying game returns to reclaim its crown in Champions Complete! All the legendary flexibility and power of the renowned HERO System rules engine, plus all the superhero goodness Champions has been famous for over 30 years, now in one pulse-pounding, senses-shattering, heroic handbook of superpowered action!
At 240 pages, Champions Complete includes everything superhero gamers need, and nothing they don’t. New players will love the unmatched freedom of Champions that allows them to create and play exactly the hero they imagine. Longtime fans will appreciate the tight, concise new approach, presenting the full game system in a fraction of its former length.
Grab your copy in Print or Digital format.
7. Prowlers & Paragons
Prowlers & Paragons (or P&P) is a tabletop roleplaying game with a narration-driven, rules-light system designed to emulate four-color superhero comics.
The rules in this game are not effects driven. For the most part, they don’t tell you what happens. Instead, they tell you who gets to describe what happens. And that’s what it’s all about in P&P: describing what happens.
P&P is rules light. It’s chock full of gross oversimplifications and blatant inaccuracies that mimic comic book tropes rather than real-world facts. This also makes P&P a simple game with a streamlined set of rules. Once you know what you’re doing, you should be able to play without ever opening the book.
Let’s be perfectly clear: This is not a deep and cerebral game. P&P was designed to let you play stories about super heroes who save the world and beat the snot out of villains who richly deserve it. Like so much of the genre, P&P is a gleefully unapologetic exercise in heroic wish fulfillment.
Grab your copy in Print or Digital format.
8. Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Game
Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (MHRP), is the fourth roleplaying game set in the Marvel Universe, published Margaret Weis Productions under license from Marvel Comics. It is a fast playing game using the Cortex Plus system, with the first volume published in early 2012. In early 2013 Margaret Weis Productions announced they would not be renewing their license.
The game is designed to be fast playing and easy to use and run and very flexible, and designed explicitly for Troupe Play in which the players are expected to pick up new characters between action scenes (or occasionally within them). It has also been described as a “comic book story” roleplaying game, not a “superhero” game as is common with many other games of this type.
Marvel Heroic Roleplaying products are still readily available in Print format on Amazon.
9. DC Adventures
Join the never-ending battle for truth and justice in the world’s greatest super-hero universe, using the world’s greatest super-hero roleplaying game! The DC ADVENTURES Hero’s Handbook is a complete super-hero RPG, based on the award-winning Mutants & Masterminds system. Take on the roles of legendary DC heroes like Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman, or create your own!
Get started right away with a wide selection of hero archetypes, or build from scratch using a comprehensive creation system. The Hero’s Handbook provides everything you need for hours of adventure in the DC Universe, including all the rules of the game, an overview of the original comic book setting, and details on major heroes and villains, complete with game information. It’s all presented in gorgeous full-color with art by some of DC’s most famous illustrators.
Grab your copy in Print or Digital format.
10. Capes, Cowls & Villains Foul
Capes, Cowls & Villains Foul is a comic book toolkit, allowing you and one or more friends to tell your own tales of heroism and sacrifice, superpowers and masked crusaders! Designed from the ground up to emulate the narrative style of comic books, CC&VF is a game for comic book-loving gaming fans.
- Create your own heroes using “building blocks” called Traits, ensuring that the characters act, perform and feel like actual comic book characters.
- Link your powers together in awesome and creative ways.
- Create villains of all types that will prove to be more than worthy adversaries for even the most powerful heroes. No longer will non-combat-oriented masterminds be inferior foes to those who are more physically imposing!
- Fast-paced and descriptive action wherein damage is an abstract concept that can represent not just physical pain, but also frustration, exhaustion or simply being trapped.
- Villains designed to effective both solo and as a team. The rules ensure that villains are scalable threats for heroes of all power levels.
- Team-ups of different “power level” characters encouraged and fun for all!
- Character complications embraced as a way to enrich your stories and empower rather than cripple your characters.
Grab your copy in Print or Digital format.
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