The reason I don’t post a ton of superhero RPG stuff on here aside from Power Rangers is because it’s my go-to comfort genre. It’s the one I return to time and time again when I just need a break from fantasy, horror, and sci-fi. It’s sorta where I started, and I’ll probably be buried with 2d6 and a set of percentile dice among other things. (2d6 for ICONS and percentile for Marvel SHRPG from T$R.)

I actually have a great deal of fiction written about my old DC Heroes character, Avenger from when I was in high school all the way through last week. (DC didn’t have equivalents of Iron Man, Wolverine, Punisher, or the Fantastic Four back in the day, so my group and I filled in the gaps. Avenger is similar to Iron Man minus the Tony Stark angst and sarcasm with a very different history.)  I have my own ICONS multiverse I refer to as the JCU. I even have a JC logo that looks like the DC logo from back in the day.

So many game systems that all do basically do the same thing and I love them all.

Supers games have been translated into most TTRPG systems from Dungeons & Dragons 5E all the way through Cypher System and beyond. GURPS Supers, albeit complex, is one of the best superhero games probably ever written. Savage Worlds has its own excellent superhero book. Then we get into what I call dedicated supers games.

My first two dedicated supers games where Marvel Superheroes RPG and DC Heroes. I read a ton of comics growing up and Justice Society, Justice League of America, Detective, and Uncanny X-Men are among my favorites. I dabbled in a lot of other books over the years, but those are my supers RPG roots. A lot of the indie comics companies hadn’t popped up yet, so my influence was the big two from the 1980s.

It wasn’t long before I started dabbling in other game systems and supers games. A friend of mine asked me to run Palladium’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and other Strangeness. This was a gateway to Palladium games Ninjas & Superspies (*which is perfect for an Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. campaign, btw) and Heroes Unlimited.

I was also aware of Champions, which I didn’t get into seriously until college. It’s a fabulous game, but it has some fairly crunchy mechanics. I dipped my toes into HERO System, but I’m here to tell you there are a lot of books for that game depending on the genre and the GM’s take on the genre. If you want to run any variant on the supers genre, HERO probably has it covered. Wild West, Mecha, Horror, even Anti-Hero Cartoon style settings will fit into Champions.

My love for Champions blossomed when one of my favorite all time game companies, R. Talsorian, did a collaboration with Hero Games and did the Fuzion System. I’m a big Bubblegum Crisis/Crash fan and Fuzion was used for BGC RPG and Champions: New Millenium. I think Fuzion was a match made in heaven even if it was a bit on the crunchy side. I wish more companies would collaborate like this, but I don’t think it’s been done much since. (*I might be wrong.)

Back in ye olden days I was also aware of an RPG called Supergame. I didn’t get into it back then, but Precis Intermedia has reprinted it in all of its glory. Link to the OG version here. I love everything Precis does, probably because they’re pros as reviving old game lines. I’m hoping to really dive into Supergame sometime in the near future. The print version of the original and 3rd Edition are also available on Amazon if anyone is interested.

Let me also talk briefly about two slightly more obscure superhero games: BASH! and Capes, Cowls, & Villains Fowl. BASH! (Basic Action Super Heroes!) isby Basic Action Games uses d6s and has blown up into a generic system with Fantasy as well as Sci Fi editions. It’s on my short list of games to run in the vast sea of someday games.

CCVF got my attention because I like Cartoon Action Hour 3E so much. Spectrum Games, who I mention frequently on here, make more than one superhero game depending on how you take your heroes. Biff, Bam, Kapow! is meant to simulate the campy 60s and 70s TV show supers such as Green Hornet and Batman. Spectrum also puts out Four-Color Heroes which emulates the fantastic Golden Age of comics and newspaper strips. Spectrum can be found on DriveThruRPG here if you’d like more information.

All this, and we’ve barely scratched the surface.

I geek out on superhero games way too much. Next time we’ll be discussing my go-to superhero game, ICONS, why it rocks so much, as well as Mutants & Masterminds, Masks, Absolute Power, and the new Marvel Multiverse RPG. We will probably also touch on all of the takes on FASERIP out there because it’s the original Marvel SHRP with the proprietary information stripped out. It’s kind of the Old School Renaissance for superhero geeks like me.

Thank you for stopping by. I never realized this topic ran so deep until today. I appreciate you. Keep fighting the good fight.