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If you love dice-rolling and superheroes, you're in for a treat...
|Published on March 20, 2026
Photo by Timothy Dykes [via Unsplash]
Superhero fiction celebrates that most fundamental political principle, that there is a no social issue that cannot be satisfactorily resolved given only a sufficiently forceful punch in the face. Organized crime, greedy landlords, the Oxford comma: none can withstand a person in tights with a good right hook.
Good news for the intersection of people who enjoy superhero stories and tabletop roleplaying: 2026 is shaping up to have a number of noteworthy Superhero TTRPGs (AKA SHRPGs1). Four in particular have caught my eye.
The DC Heroes Role-Playing Game 40th Anniversary Edition — Greg Gorden, Sam Lewis, Brian Reid, Ray Winninger, Thomas Cook, and Bryan Nystul, et al.
DC Heroes was a licensed tie-in RPG whose first edition was contemporary with DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths. DC Heroes had three editions—a slender, overstuffed box set, a larger box set, and a slender trade paperback—all of which shared the same flexible game mechanics. There were parallels between the Mayfair Exponential Game System and the even more venerable Champions system, in particular point-based character design and embracing logarithmic scales2. However, DC Heroes’ chart-based combat system is much, much faster than Champions’, in addition to which publisher Mayfair Games provided a large assortment of setting-specific support materials.
The DC Heroes line was cancelled in 1994. Since then, the DC Comics licence has been passed from company to company. Blood of Heroes reused the basic game mechanics without the setting details but was not, as I recall, well received. Generally speaking, nothing is deader than tie-in products without a license… so I was utterly gobsmacked to see the Kickstarter for the DC Heroes 40th Anniversary Edition.
For those with the cash to splash around, this offers the chance to acquire the whole line, from the 1985 1st edition to 1993’s 3rd, plus all of the support material. Of course, the older works are tied to versions of the DC Universe that haven’t existed in decades… but if there’s one thing DC fans should be used to, it’s variable continuities.
Mutants & Masterminds 4th Edition — Steven Kenson3
Green Ronin’s Mutants & Masterminds (M&M) offers most of the crunch of Champions4 while avoiding much of the math, as well as the nigh-theological discussions of how to apply the rules as written to characters as envisioned. Like pretty much every SHRPG on the market, M&M’s conflict resolution system is considerably less time consuming than Champions’. In addition, Kenson provides a game mechanic rule that discourages wildly unbalanced characters: you can be hard to hit or hard to damage, but not both.
Technically speaking, Mutants & Masterminds’ D20-based game mechanics make the game a distant cousin of Dungeons and Dragons. However, in fitting d20 to the demands of superheroes, Kenson has modified the mechanics sufficiently that I think the connection isn’t obvious.
Kenson has been tweaking the mechanics over the decades5. 1E was 2002, 2nd 2006, and 3rd 2011. I am very curious what effect 15 years of pondering will have on 4th edition.
Invincible: Superhero Roleplaying — Adam Bradford & Tomas Härenstam
As the title suggests, Invincible: Superhero Roleplaying is Free League’s tie-in RPG for Robert Kirkman’s gritty, ultraviolent superhero comic book and television series. The core mechanics are founded in Free League’s Year Zero Engine (YZE), as adapted to the needs of superhero gaming.
To be honest, I have not read the comics nor seen the TV show. This would seem to be an unlikely product to catch my eye. However, what I am is a Free League fan. I am very curious how YZE works as a SHRPG core engine. My experience with Free League has been positive enough that I own most if not all of their core RPG rulebooks. Even if the narrative universe isn’t my thing, the rules look adaptable to a wide array of campaigns.
In fact, Invincible would almost certainly be the next set of SHRPG rules I inflict on my long-suffering players, were it not for the fact 2026 is also the year of…
Outgunned Superheroes — Riccardo “Rico” Sirignano and Simone Formicola with art by Daniela Giubellini
2023’s Outgunned (OG) is Italian game company Two Little Mice’s action movie6 RPG. While Outgunned Superheroes (OGS) can be used as an expansion for OG, OGS is designed to function as a stand-alone game. OGS differs from DC Heroes and M&M in that its inspiration isn’t comic books and graphic novels, but very specifically television and movies, with an emphasis on protagonists who are, well, the good guys7.
As with OG, OGS characters are created by selecting a role and a trope: basically, the character’s job and how they approach it. The game uses Outgunned’s Director’s Cut game engine, a d6-based Yahtzee-like dice pool system, whose embellishments are very straightforward despite the inherent demands of the superhero genre (which can in theory feature any other genre).
About once a year, a new game will eat my brain. In 2023, that was Dragonbane. In 2024, it was Fabula Ultima. In late 2025, it was Outgunned, which offered a beautiful, well-bound product, and an impressive selection of supporting material, not to mention creators whose livestreams are a delight of cheerful enthusiasm. I’ve had a lot of fun running OG. I expect OGS will be even more fun.
No doubt there are other SHRPGs with new editions scheduled to hit the stands this year. What are in your opinion the most notable examples not mentioned above? icon-paragraph-end
James Davis Nicoll In the words of fanfiction author Musty181, current CSFFA Hall of Fame nominee, five-time Hugo finalist, prolific book reviewer, Beaverton contributor, and perennial Darwin Award nominee James Davis Nicoll “looks like a default mii with glasses.” His work has appeared in Interzone, Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times as well as on his own websites, 2025 Aurora Award finalist James Nicoll Reviews (where he is assisted by editor Karen Lofstrom and web person Adrienne L. Travis) and the 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 Aurora Award finalist Young People Read Old SFF (where he is assisted by web person Adrienne L. Travis). His Patreon can be found here. Learn More About James Not getting our (awesome) newsletter?The Reactor newsletter is the best way to catch up on the world of science fiction, fantasy, pop culture, and more!
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