Outgunned Superheroes Review: So, You Want To Be A Superhero | The Gamerheads Podcast

Where to purchase: Free League Publishing

Price: $51.11

Growing up, I played a lot of tabletop RPGs. Besides just Dungeons and Dragons, my group of friends dabbled in DC Heroes Roleplaying Game from Mayfair Games (not one of my favorite systems), the Second Edition of Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game from West End Games (cool concepts, but it was too complicated for my group of friends), and Hero System 4th Edition. But our absolute favorite was TSR’s Marvel Superheroes. The basic set was okay, but the advanced set was by far one of the coolest game systems we’d played. So I went into my review of Outgunned Superheroes with a pretty high standard for what I expect from a superhero game. I walked away rather impressed.

Maybe holding the game up to TSR’s Marvel Superheroes isn’t fair. Marvel is one of the easiest systems to play, utilizing only two ten-sided dice and using FASERIP as the base for the stats (Fighting, Agility, Strength, Endurance, Reason, Intuition, Psyche). Success was determined on a grid. If the percentage (rolling the two ten-sided dice) fell into the green on the grid (depending on the difficulty), it was a success. Anything below that was a failure. There are a few more nuances to the game, but it was super easy to explain to my friends. We were in eighth grade when we started playing, so simplicity was important to keeping our attention.

What pleasantly surprised me was how easy Outgunned Superheroes was to pick up as well. The game utilizes only six-sided dice, and success is determined by how many matching dice I have. The difficulty is set by the Director (the GM in the game). A basic success requires two of a kind, a critical success requires three of a kind, and so on, up to a jackpot, which is getting six of a kind. The stats determine how many dice to roll. Each character has Attributes and Skills, with points assigned to each of these based on the hero’s role and trope. The Director determines the Attribute and Skill needed for the action the hero is trying to perform, and the points assigned to those abilities are added up. That’s the number of dice the player rolls to determine if they are successful. Pretty straightforward and easy for people to pick up and start playing.

Creating a character in Outgunned is just as simple and straightforward. Each player picks a role, which determines the powers (and attributes and skills) the character gets. There are fifteen base roles and two invincible roles (more advanced roles) for players to pick from. The game provides all the info needed to fill out the character sheet.

This is the only real criticism I have of the game: I feel some of these roles are too closely aligned with comic book superheroes, and the powers reflect existing characters as well. For example, The Armored hero gets a hyper-technological armor suit as their power, which gives them an energy beam. The book even suggests that the beam can be generated from their chest plate or hands. Creative players could easily come up with their own ideas of how to incorporate their powers, but for those who aren’t as creative, their game could easily become clones of existing heroes.

One way to combat this issue, though, is through tropes. Besides the roles, each player picks from one of the twenty-one tropes that are listed. Some examples include an anti-hero, a billionaire-genius, a working-class hero, and a deadly beauty, just to name a few. Now, a player could pick the armored hero and the billionaire-genius. There’s nothing stopping them from creating an Iron Man clone, but creative players will likely pick a role and a trope that creates something unique and different. Tropes also provide attributes, skills, and feats, which help round out the character.

Feats are special abilities tied to the player’s tropes or superpowers. Some of these feats give players a free reroll, while others allow the player to spend power points to perform certain moves.

Power Points are the other aspect of the game that can really sway the tide of battle. These are earned throughout a game session, and players can spend them to add dice to their rolls or use certain abilities. If you are familiar with Marvel Superheroes RPG, this is a bit like Karma.

Grit is also an important aspect of the game. When a player fails a roll, they lose a Grit point, which affects the character's status. When the final point of Grit is lost, the character is powerless. Basically, their powers have failed (for example, their armored suit shuts down), and any additional damage they take will leave the character for dead. There are ways to gain points back, plus there are mechanics like Spotlight Points, a rare currency that players can spend to make any action an automatic success.

What I love about the book is that you don’t need several books to play the game. The core book acts as both the Director’s and player’s handbook. The book also includes an adventure and several villains, too.

Final Grade: A-

I went into Outgunned Superheroes with high hopes. I played a lot of TSR’s Marvel Superheroes when I was a kid, and it was one of my favorite TTRPGs. I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to play Outgunned Superheroes, both in terms of the dice mechanics and character creation. I also love that the book is a standalone resource, meaning I don’t have to buy several books to be able to play the game. While it won’t replace my love for Marvel Superheroes, I think it’s a fantastic superhero TTRPG. If you have a table of players who love superheroes, check out Outgunned Superheroes.

Review copy provided by UberStrategist PR and Free League Publishing