The responses I’ve seen on this one have been interesting. About half the people out there seem to be RPG hoarders like me who have tons of games they never play and the other half only play a couple of games and don’t have bother with any other books.
I’ve mentioned that the two genres I like that we don’t play because most of my game pals don’t like them are superhero and Scooby-Doo/Buffy/Supernatural/James Woods Vampire Killer stuff. I’ll go with superhero stuff for this question since most of the systems I would want to use for From Dusk Til Dawn the rpg we have played just not with that type of game.
So what’s a cool superhero RPG that I haven’t played? Well, the thing is that most superhero RPGs aren’t very good in my opinion. For a variety of reasons probably, but chief amongst them is that rpg designers usually make an attempt at game balance which makes things awkward because super-people aren’t balanced at all.
There’s a lot of reasons I like D6 Star Wars (as you read all these RPGADAY things back to back take a drink each time I mention it) and one of them is that there isn’t game balance. Force people are just better. Because they are. The other attempts at Star Wars systems aren’t as good to me in part because they try to bring Jedi down to the level of everyone else. When I play Star Wars I prefer to go with either there’s no force stuff going on, everyone is force people, or there’s going to be a mix and it’s just not going to be balanced entirely and that’s fine.
So what is a good superhero RPG that I haven’t played? I’ll say Sentinel Comics. It’s somewhat wonky because they try a little too hard to mash a game into a comic book framework with theme heaviness like calling adventures issues and having scenes instead of rounds but overall I think it’s a good way to play a super game. Or so it SEEMS, never having played it.
I own Mutants and Masterminds as well as Silver Age Sentinels and yeah, I don’t think I’d ever want to play them. I also own Torg, and tried that once, never again. I think the Cypher system does an alright job with super powers, but it still feels like the games not designed for it. I looked at Spectaculars, but I think it might be too? rules lite for a game I’d like to play, if that can be believed. More of a cooperative story telling than actual game, which is fine, but I’m not sure the sustainability. I also own digital copies (don’t tell Sighy Joe) of Godlike and WildTalents which I would like to play someday, but I’m guessing we never will.
Just as an fyi.
I have been enjoying this month long series of posts of yours. While I’m not a gamer myself, I have a lot of the same interests and outlooks and I enjoy reading these posts.
Thanks for reading, glad you’re enjoying it