Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, slice by slice

[Baz King]

I should point out, there's rules here for coming up with your own hero, or writing up a Marvel hero that the publishers haven't done. I guess this had to be included really, because this is one of those deal breakers for some people. I'm not bothered myself, but it doesn't bother me that the rules are included. I didn't mention before but all the powers, specialities and other stuff were listed out earlier in the book. I skimmed through them because it seemed to me to be a duplication of what was already on the Datafile. If you want to custom build, this is the sort of info you'll need. Knock yourself out, the rules look fair, simple and balanced. Should take about 30mins.

[Steven]

Hi Pete. Stress can inflict trauma. Complications don't last. Also, you can be stressed out by exceeding a d12, and you're out of the conflict, whereas a complication will only hamper you.

Sorry. Poor question. What I mean is whats the point of a complication? Why wouldn't you go for the stress? Is it narrative? Give me some of your world famous perspective Baz.

That's a good question mate. On a closer read, I can't see any game reason to choose one over the other, unless you don't want to inflict trauma (and even then you can pull your punches). Perhaps the Datafiles will make the choice more compelling, but I have a feeling it is just a story based decision. There's plenty of comic book scenarios you could consider, like trying to immobilise, or delay, or embarrass, or confuse. I'm thinking of a mind controlled ally, something like that. But you're right, tactically, you might as well hit em with your super axe.

Lots of heroes and villains will have powers that allow them to resist stress. For example, Wolverine isn't going to go down to your attacks cos he can soak up as much stress as you can dish out. But he can be taken out of the fight by Complications.

[signoftheserpent]

You guys might dig this. I just spotted that the Marvel RPG has become the best-selling game of all time on the DriveThruRPG storefront. Within two weeks of release. That's amazing.

(You find this stuff out by clicking on the metal sales level badge, which takes you through to a page with the Gold and Platinum products listed. Mongoose's Legend had previously climbed rapidly to take the top spot. Which, btw, is currently on sale so it's less than $1, which I don't think makes sense but go for it.)

That's the rpg.net hype machine.

[signoftheserpent]

What puzzles me the most is some of the uses the Doom Pool can be used for. Not so much in terms of how they mechanically work, but why they are there.

Such as 2D12 from the pool to end the scene. It just seems odd.

huh?
the gm can toss 2d12 to chuck his toys out the pram?

[signoftheserpent]

d around than Aspects (for me). I like the idea of generating plot points without the rather awkward compel mechanism from FATE, but now I'm reviewing another game, so I'll stop! Suffice to say, these look lie a good blend of utility and flavour.

Edit : you can have scene distinctions too, like On Fire or Shadowy. Seems like an odd place to call that out, seeing as they wouldn't be on a Datafile?

How do they work like aspects?

How much do you know about aspects in FATE games? I'd need to know that before I could answer your query properly.

i know what aspects are.

[ian_orourke]

Lots of heroes and villains will have powers that allow them to resist stress. For example, Wolverine isn't going to go down to your attacks cos he can soak up as much stress as you can dish out. But he can be taken out of the fight by Complications.

The above, as Steven said.

It's about the reaction roll. As the reaction roll has to draw on traits that "reflect that it’s a reaction to the acting player’s attempt". This gives you the option of taking an enemies highest traits out of the reaction roll.

So, if you have a highly regenerative adversary then it might be better to hit him with other things like 'bound in iron girders' and the like.

Also, if you have a tough villain and you lack some punch to get through his defences using the effect die in better ways than raw damage might allow for some 'team tagging' to take him out via trying to use the initiative order well.

Also the die attached to the complication may offer a better range of logical uses than the damage applied to the adversary.

The ignores various goals that aren't about causing damage to the adversary in the first place. It's analogous to maneavers in fate in many ways (but not all).

[Baz King]

[quote="Baz King"]d around than Aspects (for me). I like the idea of generating plot points without the rather awkward compel mechanism from FATE, but now I'm reviewing another game, so I'll stop! Suffice to say, these look lie a good blend of utility and flavour.

Edit : you can have scene distinctions too, like On Fire or Shadowy. Seems like an odd place to call that out, seeing as they wouldn't be on a Datafile?

How do they work like aspects?

How much do you know about aspects in FATE games? I'd need to know that before I could answer your query properly.

i know what aspects are.[/quote]

Ok. So in MHRP you get three, and they're phrases or qualities or disadvantages in exactly the same way aspects are. You apply one (or more) to your action where applicable, and take a reward for doing so (d8) or take a risk (d4).

The mechanical consequence is different to that as seen in FATE but the spirit is the same, add some characterful flavour to the game, get benefit.

I'm sensing you'll disagree.

[Baz King]

You guys might dig this. I just spotted that the Marvel RPG has become the best-selling game of all time on the DriveThruRPG storefront. Within two weeks of release. That's amazing.

(You find this stuff out by clicking on the metal sales level badge, which takes you through to a page with the Gold and Platinum products listed. Mongoose's Legend had previously climbed rapidly to take the top spot. Which, btw, is currently on sale so it's less than $1, which I don't think makes sense but go for it.)

That's the rpg.net hype machine.

What? I've no doubt that marketing has an effect on sales, course it does, but you can't hype a crap game to those sales levels.

Why so dismissive? You are under no obligation to like it, but posts like this get into the 'and anyone else who likes it is wrong and/or a victim of hype'. Go there and you've shut down the discussion.

[ian_orourke]

Traits like stress, asset or complication also have broad similarities to aspects - or the mechanical use aspects can be used for.

[Baz King]

[quote="Baz King"]Hi Pete. Stress can inflict trauma. Complications don't last. Also, you can be stressed out by exceeding a d12, and you're out of the conflict, whereas a complication will only hamper you.

Sorry. Poor question. What I mean is whats the point of a complication? Why wouldn't you go for the stress? Is it narrative? Give me some of your world famous perspective Baz.

That's a good question mate. On a closer read, I can't see any game reason to choose one over the other, unless you don't want to inflict trauma (and even then you can pull your punches). Perhaps the Datafiles will make the choice more compelling, but I have a feeling it is just a story based decision. There's plenty of comic book scenarios you could consider, like trying to immobilise, or delay, or embarrass, or confuse. I'm thinking of a mind controlled ally, something like that. But you're right, tactically, you might as well hit em with your super axe.

Lots of heroes and villains will have powers that allow them to resist stress. For example, Wolverine isn't going to go down to your attacks cos he can soak up as much stress as you can dish out. But he can be taken out of the fight by Complications.[/quote]

Thanks. I haven't got to the data files yet. I thought there might be a lot more of the game to be revealed there.

[ian_orourke]

huh?
the gm can toss 2d12 to chuck his toys out the pram?

Well, it has different uses depending who ending the scene benefits, I'm just more confused as to why it is present. I can only assume if you put it in, you have a reason it (a) needs to be there or (b) enhances the game, ideally both. At the moment I'm confused on either of those.

You can also use the doom pool to split the team up - with an appropriate description. I can see why you might want to split the team, to challenge the Team, Buddy and Solo thing. Obviously, they felt the GM must use a doom pool resource for this to stop him arbitarily always targeting the lowest 'trait'.

At the same time, it does feel it gets into token spending resources to avoid dick GM's territory...or I'm missing something.

[signoftheserpent]

You guys might dig this. I just spotted that the Marvel RPG has become the best-selling game of all time on the DriveThruRPG storefront. Within two weeks of release. That's amazing.

(You find this stuff out by clicking on the metal sales level badge, which takes you through to a page with the Gold and Platinum products listed. Mongoose's Legend had previously climbed rapidly to take the top spot. Which, btw, is currently on sale so it's less than $1, which I don't think makes sense but go for it.)

That's the rpg.net hype machine.

What? I've no doubt that marketing has an effect on sales, course it does, but you can't hype a crap game to those sales levels.

Why so dismissive? You are under no obligation to like it, but posts like this get into the 'and anyone else who likes it is wrong and/or a victim of hype'. Go there and you've shut down the discussion.

The game will sell on its own merits. What I have a problem is that ridiculous site's constant love in with the fad game of the day. If MHR sells well that's great, I have no problem with that at all, but there are plenty of games that don't meet their standard of coolness that dont' get the same exposure. They are the problem not the game. The only real issue I have with the game which is a complete dealbreaker is the lack of character creation rules. There is no excuse for that whatsoever and it also suggests a design aesthetic I am not happy with.

[John Anderson]

All you need to create characters is in the rules, just not in a coherent "character creation" section that codifies it in one place. There are loads of people putting together characters over at rpgnet and story games that show that translating a comic book hero/villain over to an mhr character isn't exactly rocket science. I've tried to put together Capt. Britain based on what's available from the book, wikipedia and the marvel database and I'm really not a huge superhero comic book kind of guy. The emphasis is more on having a solid concept and then filling in the blanks.
John

[Pete]

This thread over on Story Games contains cheat sheets and enthusiasm.

Good thread Baz and contributors, I continue to read with interest.

Cheers
Pete

[Deleriad]

Lots of really interesting stuff here. I think the initiative system is ace (and profoundly stealable) and the Doom Pool is really intriguing. Solo/buddy/team is a really neat idea and using different datafiles for different 'events' is going to be interesting in practice.

At the risk of invoking a boardgame comparison and all that entails, at first glance what is really intriguing to me is the relationship between players and GM (aka Watcher). There's an almost boardgamey style (as in Mansions of Madness or Middle Earth Quest for example) set up where the Watcher is both limited and enabled by the Doom Pool that will test the Watcher's abilities as much as the players'.

It looks like a lot of fun and it also looks like MWP are trying at least via things like Cheat sheets to give the game a learning curve on a par with a complicated boardgame. It does feel to me that at a time when the rpg hobby is under massive economic stress that there's a massive amount of creativity being stirred up.