Marvel Mutiverse RPG
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I know there are a few comic fans here, and Marvel just put out a new RPG, so I thought I'd share my thoughts on it.
To start, I was not a fan of the playtest material. I didn't think it felt like a superhero game at all. So I had given up hope on it. Last week, a friend told me I needed to check out the actual release because it was pretty different from the playtest material. So I ordered it from Amazon and was more than a little surprised. They seemed to have fixed most of my problems with it.
I won't bore people with a long-winded review of the system. Instead, I'll make bullet points of things I like and don't like. This is all based on reading the game and making a character. I have not been able to play it yet.
Things I like...
- It's a good-looking book. It's nice to have in my collection.
- It's a decent mid-crunch game. I say mid-crunch only because they use multipliers to achieve some results. This might turn some people off and be clunky in play, but it seems simple enough at a glance.
- It seems like it will play quickly.
- It's very thematic. This is not a generic superhero RPG. It's the Marvel RPG. Powers are named after their most iconic incarnations, but it's easy enough to reskin/rename a power to fit your character. For example, your Shield Bash doesn't need to be a Shield Bash. It could be any close-quarters attack that could knock someone prone.
- Character creation is very quick and simple. I think most people could make a character in 15 minutes or less.
- Powers are straightforward with no fiddly bits. A power does a thing, and that's it. They're all rated equally, making power selection very easy. Some powers are tiered, having a 2, 3rd, or 4th rank, but each is treated like an individual power with the previous levels as prerequisites. I like it. It's a nice counterpoint to something like Hero or M&M.
- It seems like it'd be very easy to make house rules for.
- They give a ton of example characters. Something like 100.
- And if you don't like how a character is built? I've heard a lot of people complaining because Daredevil is a Rank 2 character. Well, it's very easy to rebuild a character to suit your needs. Upping DD to Rank 4 would be very easy. To test the character generation system, I created my favorite fantasy build, a venomized Mary Jane. It worked very well, which brings me to my next point...
- Characters you build are on the same level as their Marvel counterparts. One of my big gripes with some RPGs built off existing IPs is that your characters generally can't compare or compete with characters from the IP universe. Spider-Man is Rank 4 and built just like any other Rank 4 character. I love that.
Things I don't like...
- There's no PDF. You can get a physical copy or access it through Demiplane or Roll20. That was a huge bummer for me.
- It's expensive. It's $60 retail(though Amazon has it for $35 right now) and $50 on Demiplane and Roll20 I think.
- Some things are a bit vague or up to interpretation. For instance, Telekinetic Manipulation says a character can manipulate objects with their mind. That's it. No discussion of how big or heavy those objects can be. Fixed with a simple house rule, but it still seems like an oversight.
- There is just no customization to powers. No mechanical method anyway. This can get a little clunky with some characters. Magneto, for instance, has a lot of powers that show how he can use his "element"(metal) to do things but has nothing that says he can lift a car. He could hit someone with a car, wrap people up in girders, and all kinds of other stuff but nothing that says he can lift a car or a mailbox or something. You assume he can, given the nature of his powers and all the things he can do. It's a bit clunky, and I can see it being an issue if you're playing with argumentative people.
- There's no adventure. I'd have given up some sample characters for an introductory adventure.
- It's very much a comic combat simulator. That's less of a gripe, given most RPGs are combat simulators, but the Storypath system has spoiled me, and I was hoping for more.
- They list a few unique weapons in write-ups(such as Mjolnir) but don't give the rules on how to create those weapons.
And that's about it for now. Maybe the system will fall apart in actual play, but I think it has promise. It's a nice middle ground between games like Hero or M&M and the more narrative-focused rules-lite systems. I can see having a lot of fun with it.
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@ZombieGenesis Great review, and now I want to check out this game at some point (despite being a bit burned out on Marvel).
I wonder if some of the vagueness isn't intentional, given in comics, characters often can or can't pull off extreme versions of their powers "at the speed of plot." But it definitely seems like you'd have to have the right group to play it.
He/Him
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I want this book now. Damnit. Why did you do this to me?
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@Devrex You may be on to something. It seems like they tried to craft a system where the mechanics did not get in the way of RP. It was also a substantial rework from the beta game in a short period, so who knows.
@Macha LOL It's a fun system. I think this might be a great system if you're interested in Marvel RP. And, at least on Amazon, it's not too expensive at the moment.
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Love that the physical book is cheaper than the epub.
