Superhero RPGs have been around for almost as long as fantasy RPGs, letting tabletop gamers collaborate to tell epic stories about costumed crimefighters in the style of Marvel's The Defenders or Mystery Men-type comedies about struggling third-rate heroes with less than impressive powers.
Superhero 2044, the first superhero tabletop roleplaying game, came out a mere four years after Dungeons & Dragons was released. It was swiftly followed by a plethora of more elaborate RPGs such as Champions or Villains and Vigilantes, games which adapted the premise of D&D to let players create their own costumed heroes, choose a unique set of powers to call their own, and roleplay stories where they protected their cities from a rogue's gallery of villains.
Most superhero RPGs also tend to focus on storylines in the vein of the Kick-Ass-style tales about third-rate heroes with shoddy costumes and underwhelming powers.
Mutants and Masterminds
Currently in its 3rd Edition, Mutants and Masterminds started out as a hack of D&D's D20 system, then grew into one of the most famous superhero tabletop games of this current generation. Mutants and Masterminds has elaborate yet streamlined rules that lets players build heroes with unique combinations of superpowers, mundane skills, and gadgets, while character level determines how big in scope of your hero's story gets. Players who want to tell stories about street-level heroics can easily do so by making low-level characters with lower-key abilities and smaller areas of responsibility.
Trinity Continuum
Originally published by the same developers behind Justice League, or psychic super-soldiers in a far-future sci-fi setting. Like Mutants and Masterminds, players can tell stories of blue-collar, street-level heroes by using low-level character builds. Additionally, Trinity: Continuum's different character creation rules for probability-warping Talents, mind-altering Psiads, and quantum powered Novas give players leeway to design superhuman abilities that vary in of strength and utility.
Masks: A New Generation
Masks: A New Generation is a narrative "Powered By the Apocalypse" RPG specifically designed for players to tell the stories of teen superheroes – young novices who are learning how to control their powers and save the day while also dealing with angst and adolescent drama. The different Playbooks in this game – the Delinquent, the Janus, the Transformed – represent the different archetypes of young superheroes from shows like Young Justice, but can easily be repurposed to represent working-class superheroes who lack the respect, reputation and godlike powers that big-shot superheroes have.
Hit the Streets: Defend the Block
More than any of the other games listed here, Hit the Streets: Defend the Block is focused heavily on stories of the protagonists usually seen on Netflix superhero shows like Jessica Jones, who fight localized crime in urban environments and form close bonds with the communities they protect. The straightforward narrative mechanics (with character creating guidelines such as "no flying powers" and "don't be a trust fund kid") are designed to generate superhero stories about grounded heroes who balance fighting muggers with paying the bills and doing community service.