GURPS Essential core books

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Zarathustra

Slightly off topic question: Is Action a good fit with traditional four colour supers?

No, that would probably be GURPS supers. Action is mainly about gunplay, heists and chases, the sort of stuff you see in action movies like the Transporter, Expendables, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, the Bourne series, and so on. It's really geared for 200-300 point characters, larger-than-life guys who nonetheless "feel" realistic.

Supers, especially four color supers, tend to discard realism, and not just in the sense of the fact that they have super-powers. A super with a fireball power never bothers to pick up a gun, for example, and heroes infiltrate with infiltration powers. As a general rule, supers use their powers to do everything. Even heroes without powers (Batman, Iron Man) have some profoundly larger than life ability, and use that prodigious talent to accomplish everything. And even they tend to follow rules and stick to their core themes.

So for Supers, you want GURPS Supers, and GURPS Powers. Though I personally think that GURPS doesn't do supers well, though not for the reasons most people cite.