I suggest Mini Six, or Open D6. Both free and really quick for PC creation.

OK where to start?

ICONS ASSEMBLED: based roughy on the Fate rules, great little game with a fantastic random generation system, though you can build your own if you want.

Supers! Revised (Also referred to as RED): simple and flexible, uses only D6s.

Squadron UK: Created by the guy that wrote the Golden Heroes rig of the late 80s

D6 powers revised and expanded: uses the D6 system made famous by Westy End games for their d6 star wars rules

There are others but out of these I'd suggest you look at ICONS and Supers!!

I've heard a lot of good things about Wild Talents, but I've not had a chance to play it.  I assume it'll take longer than 10 minutes to make a character, though.

Cartoon Action Hour also gets good press and seeks to emulate 80s cartoons, which were often superhero shows.  That'd be another one I'd suggest looking at.

yeah Wild Talents is a great game but is not a light or medium crunch rules set

I'd suggest either Icons or Capes, Cowls, and Villains Foul for a good rules light Super Hero system.
This message was last edited by the user at 16:34, Mon 04 Jan 2016.

Some friends and I had some fun with a system called Smash a couple years ago.  The whole rules set fit inside a single pamphlet that I think was 20~30 pages long.  I have no idea where the GM found it, but it was pretty fantastic.

Had a look through the free start rules for all that are sugested and again they suffer from the same uissues either too rules light or too crunchy there is no middelground in this genre for some reason.

(Icons has been suggested a few times but i cannot find a free version of the rules to check them out.)

What systems do you like, in other genres? That might set baseline. "Middle of the ground" is catch phrase that isn't very qualifying. In essence, everything is middle ground when you're dealing with the Window and HERO. Tell us other games, that you like, to give us an idea of what you consider 5 to 10 minutes.

It takes me an hour to make D&D 3.5 character, and I know the system like the back of my hand, which honestly means I know most of it but not every nook and cranny. It took me over a week to make HERO character, and that was under GM  'Expert guidance' and over six hours of just 'after hours' phone calls, and still I got a character nowhere near to what I asked for.

It takes me about five minutes to make a BESM character, which to me is rules-lite (and arbitrary). I dare say if you want to make a character, in a new system, it would have to be rules lite. From the reading plus decision plus computation alone. Maybe I'm just slow though.

What takes that amount of time for you? Something else you enjoy. Maybe I've at least heard of the system, even if I haven't played it.

I too am nauseated by HERO and M&M 2e. The wreak of someone who plays at the playground saying "No, I'm wearing a bullet-proof, fire resistant...vest, so you can't hurt me" kind of system. where you have the have all these gears and cogs to essentially "be legit" making it not even worth it to learn the "rules" for essentially semi-automated "make believe".

So I'm partially here for the same reason you are, the answer you seek I have too. Bad super heroes games keep souring the genre (for me). I'd really like to find a system akin to what D20 should have been. That's me though. I used to make D&D NPCs for store credit and feed my MTG addiction (year ago). If I had no emotional attachment I could pump out the NPCs about ten to the hour with short blurb of tactics and motivations.

The problem is solved by defining the region beyond subjective terms. Consider how long it takes to make simple homecooked meal. Now consider the fact you want it to taste good, and the recipe needs to be "not to complicated" or "not too simple". WE need a frame of reference. Tastes vary.
This message was last edited by the user at 08:46, Tue 05 Jan 2016.

Hmmm. the quick NPC generation is really only a secondary concern. And it only tok me 10 min max to generate a 3.5 character anyway.

Ok i've always had a big thing about the system should be made for the genre.

ADnD is a good system for running fantasy adventures nothing else
Ars magica is a good system for playing bookworm wizards nothing else.
Pendragon is a good system for Arthurian legends games Nothing else
e.t.c

try using any of those systems for anytihng else and you will have a bad time. but they are designed for one thing and they do that one thing really well.

If a system is too open with its rules it looses focus and flavor from the game as the system is no longer supporting the story.

The mechanics in the game should enhance the experience of the game. this usually means new rule sets. however this will reach overload point if the system is too clunky.

I always found a good balance point to be the WOD games, their focus is on the fluff but they also have some crunch to them. just the crunch isn't bogging down anything.

this issue i have with most Supers systems is they are never dedicated to supers (if that makes any sense) they allways try to paint a broad brush where anything is possible so the crunchy syatems have far too much crunch and the light systems are far to light.

the only system that seems to come close is fate, but that still suffers from the fact that it tries to do everything and so will never do the one thing exceptionally well.

I understand that Monty Cooks Cypher system can do superheroes to but not really looked into it though it might be worth looking at.

FWIW, the 2nd (very very important as the first edition was a mess) edition of the Savage Worlds Super Powers Companion is actually much better than it looks on paper.  Unfortunately because the first edition was so bad, I don't think a lot of people are willing to give it a chance.

I'm not saying it's perfect but I'm surprised by how good it actually is in actual play.  It's not "balanced" from the perspective any given super has a fair chance to defeat any other of equal power, rather it's "balanced" because anything you can build you can just as easily build a perfect counter for, so it all comes down to situations/context.  It does have a few rough corners but I like it as that middle ground between a more robust rule set and a super crunchy rules set.

I'm not familiar with it but I've heard M&M 3ed. is actually more streamlined than 2e?  That's hearsay on my part though.

savage worlds super companion 2nd ed is actually very good if you have SW deluxe perhaps give it a go

Personally, I like M&M3 quite a lot.  It takes out a lot of the fiddly bits of M&M2, streamlines some stuff, and just generally makes it a smoother game.  There is a quickstart and an SRD http://www.d20herosrd.com/ .

For the crunchier systems, there are tricks to building characters that really help.  GURPS and HERO both have pretty decent character generation software available (not for free, though) that really helps.  HERO/Champions, in particular, also has a large number of reference sites out there where folks have done extensive character builds for, say, almost every Marvel Comics character.

If you like WOD games, then why don't you check out their Aberrant?

In reply to trooper6 (msg # 15):

See above! Yes, aberrant is the white-wolf version of supers. I think they have two versions, since I played the d20 version, and it seems intuitive they'd have d10 version. I don't know though. I personally didn't like Abberant in d20 since it felt very unbalanced. I also personally feel WoD suffers from both being too crunchy and yet still poorly defined. So I'm afraid, my middle ground is not calibrated with your middle ground.

If you like WoD, you might read up on Aberrant. If you want a free bare-bones system, you're out of luck though. I'm fairly sure all of them have already been named. They have blurbs, but most systems I've seen don't have a free version that can be used beyond the sample module. Even AD&D (being reprinted after decades of being in print) still doesn't have much of a free version, as much as it does a sample based on that scenario.

Good luck though! As it seems I can't be of much more help.
This message was last edited by the user at 22:08, Tue 05 Jan 2016.

There is, in fact, a d10 version.  The d20 version is almost certainly an abomination that should not be mentioned!

I thought about mentioning Aberrant early on, but... it is not a super-hero super-hero game.  Your characters are becoming monsters, and they are only to going to get worse as the game goes on.  I recall the powers being a little thin, but on looking back over it, it's not so bad.

I am going to second Supers! Revised Edition. As a d6 pool game it is very straightforward. Chargen is easy, 10 minutes once you know the system. There is enough crunch in the combat but it is still resonably light. Optional rules are there for more combat stuff too so you can add as desired. It is definitely worth checking out.

if you are looking for rules which are more setting orientated you could look at the following.

Rotted Capes: Superheroes battling zombies and super zombies... sounds for fetched but its actually quite good.

Amp Year 1: a bit like aberrant but has a more early x-men feel to it

Better Angels: now I really love the concept behind this but its not for everyone. Basically you play a person that makes a deal with a demon to give you powers the only thing is the demon is part of you but the actual demon character is played by the person to your left round the table. Character ten is collaborative and the person playing your demon has a say in what he / she is like and what powers they have. It all sounds complicated but the rules are set up to give a lot of checks and measures to stop people making life too difficult for each other.

Looked through the suggestions

Aberant: i don;t know a modified WOD system for supers might work but that system allways tended to fall apart with higher power level characters.

Icons: looks very good and intregueing, but seems to be missing half the polish it needs, this might be in the Assembled edition, but the D6-D6 mechanic sees like my NPC's would have nothing to roll against on a PC.

AMP year 1 - had a brief look over some reviews but  can;t find any quickstart rules out there or examples of play but this seems to be the one wit the most promise so far, just need to try and find out how closely linked with its own setting it is.

I think I saw a YouTube video from the creator describing AMP year one have a look if I find it I'll post you a link

I am again going to recommend Supers! Revised Edition, IMO it has more going for it than ICONS. If you don't want to pony up for the Revised Edition you can always check out the original Supers! The Comic Book Roleplaying Game available in pdf from Beyond Belief games on DrivethruRPG. It is what the Revised edition was based on just without a lot of the detail and options of Revised. If you thought ICONS looked decent I think you will like Supers!

One of the cool things about either edition of Supers! is that you can use ANY Skill or Power as a defense if you can justify it. Someone fires a missile at you. Super Speed? Dodge out of the way with lightning reflexes. Super Brain? Calculate the velocity and trajectory at computer speed and move out of the path. And so on it goes...

FASERIP perhaps? I think character generation should go fairly fast with that system and it can easily be scaled to whatever power level the GM wants to run. However, as written, there are some random elements involved in creating a character, which might not be to everyone's taste.

I'll second FASERIP, that was the one my friends played in high school, and I've had some good play-by-post super games using a loose adaptation of D20 rules.
Marvel had some really good resources for New York City, and a module for Days Of Future Past where you took a map of your home town and played that.

Palladium's Heroes Unlimited might be worth a look, I never played it but I used to have the sourcebook. Rolling up a character was fast, you had a choice of creation or generation, and options for crazy heroes like Badger or Deadpool.
It worked nicely with other Palladium books like Ninjas and Superspies if you wanted advanced rules for martial arts; and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles if you wanted to use mutant animal characters.

If you are one of those players who can live with changing/adjusting the rules to "fit into your line of sights, so to say", then this system can do a lot.  Now strength wise even the most gimp built hero, in this system, can still not lift a whole lot.  Again though, if you're not big on changing the rules you can simply tack on a zero, to whatever heroes can lift.  Heroes Unlimited does link in with all other Palladium products so there would be a lot of different source material.

If you swing indie/narrativist instead of simulationist (and seriously, simulating super powers is destined to fail in a game IMHO), With Great Power is a beautiful and awesome playing super hero game.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Great_Power...

Note the second edition will be out very soon, and I know some things will change.
This message was lightly edited by the user at 18:56, Tue 03 May 2016.