This is the fourth RPG that has been made based on Marvel comics; the first was the much-beloved Marvel Super Heroes game by TSR Inc. from the 80’s. The second was the highly underrated Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game (also known as Marvel SAGA). The third was the Marvel Universe game, published by Marvel itself and purportedly killed when it didn’t overtake D&D in sales. Now we have this new effort, powered by the Cortex Plus system from Margaret Weis Publishing.
The first thing to be said about the new game is that graphically it is a joy to behold. It has art, of course, sourced from various Marvel publications. The layout of the book itself is amazing, makes it easy to read and find things, and is a testament to the skill of art director Jeremy Keller and his team.
The system itself is a narrative system; that is to say the game is powered by the descriptions the players give of their characters actions, not a collection of rules, corner-cases and exceptions. Characters are written up on a “datafile” that includes information such as the character’s Affiliations (whether they work better solo, with a buddy, or on a team), Distinctions (three aspects of the character that help define personality, catch-phrases or other notable features, such as Spider-Man’s “Wisecracker” distinction or The Thing’s storied battle-cry “It’s Clobberin’ Time”), One or more Power Sets that contain Power Traits, Special Effects and Limits that define what the characters super abilities are, Specialties (skills, rated as Expert or Master), and finally Milestones, which are the main method of obtaining experience points, and are personal storylines that the character can play through. The Milestones are a way of making sure that Captain America “feel” like Captain America; his Milestones cover things like mentoring other heroes and leading or disbanding the Avengers. Most elements of the character other than Special Effects, Limits and Milestones are given dice codes, so for example Colossus’s Godlike Strength is rated at d12, Mister Fantastic has a Tech Master d10 specialty, and so on.
In play, a character declares their action for the “panel” they are in, then begins assembling a dice pool, They may take one die from each section of their sheet to use in their pool. Distinctions are interesting because you can choose to use them positively, in which case you get a d8 for your pool, or negatively, which gives you both a d4 and a Plot Point. Plot Points are the major game “currency”. You spend them like water and they fall on you like rain! They are used to pay for certain Special Effects, to add a second die code from a Distinction, Power Set or Specialty, and other uses. Once you have assembled your dice pool, you roll them all. Any die that comes up 1 is an opportunity for the Watcher (the GM) to exploit, and is set aside. You pick any two dice remaining and add them together; this is your Total, and will determine of you succeed at your attempt. You then choose one remaining die to be your Effect die. The number on the die is not used here, what counts is the size of the die; d12 is a greater effect than d6, for example. The opposition now does the same thing, making what is called a Reaction test. If their total beats yours, the action fails. If it doesn’t, you compare effect dice; if yours is larger you get full effect. If the reaction effect die is higher, your die gets “stepped back” by one size, so a d8 would go down to a d6, and so on. Your effect die can be used to cause stress (physical, mental or emotional), cause a complication (such as knocking a villain through a wall or tying them up with webbing), or create an asset (you do not step down the effect die for a higher reaction effect if doing this) such as creating a handy manhole cover that can then be thrown at a bad guy by the next hero to act.
Initiative is an interesting feature of this game. The first hero to act is chosen by the Watcher. When that hero is done acting, he or she decides who acts next. It can be another hero, or a member of the opposing forces. This continues through the round, with the last character to act deciding who goes first on the next round. I like this a lot; it eliminates the “king on the mountain” effect I see in a lot of games where people seem to be obsessed with always going first, and adds an interesting bit of strategy to the game.
I mentioned “opportunities” above; those tie into another interesting feature of the game, the Doom Pool. Villains don’t get plot points; instead they use the Doom Pool for their actions in much the same way. When a hero rolls a 1 on any of his dice, the Watcher can choose to award that hero a Plot Point and “step up” the lowest die in the pool, which usually starts at 2 d6 but can be more if the situation is very dire. When a hero tries to do something that isn’t opposed by another character –say, catch a flagpole to stop their fall- they roll against the Doom Pool. The dice from the pool can also be spent to be added to a villain’s dice pool, or to power abilities or limits in much the same way that Plot Points are used for heroes. Watching the Doom Pool grow is a great way to show that the tension is ramping up, and things are getting serious! When a die in the pool reaches d12, any roll of that die awards 1 XP to the character or characters it is used against. When the pool reaches 2 d12, the Watcher can spend them to end the scene, with all players getting 2 XP. The end is then narrated according to how the players were doing at the time. I use this sparingly; if the pool is at 2 d12 but the players are having fun thumping on the bad guys I see no need to ruin their fun; I wait until the outcome is a foregone conclusion anyway. It does provide for those villain escapes that are often done in the comics, as well as other effects; it is used by The Sentry to determine if the Void shows up, for example.
Scenarios in MHR are called “Events”, and are based on actual storylines from the Marvel comics. The mini-Event given in the Basic Game is “Breakout”, based on the first six issues of New Avengers Vol. 1. I won’t spoil it for those who may not have read the comics but it is a lot of fun and gives you a chance to mix it up with some nasty villains such as Count Neferia and Carnage, and also some real D-listers . The selection of hero datafiles in the game include the heroes who were in the original story plus some others that would work well in this event. So, for example, Thor is not present, as he was dead at the time, but Iron Man is. Many of these heroes will be appearing in the more extensive Event books, or as downloadable content. MWP has announced three Event Books for later this year; Civil War, Annihilation and Age of Apocalype. Each of these will be chock-full of new hero and villain datafiles as well as a big adventure based on that event, and there will be additional supplements for them as well, rounding out each storyline. The Event books will be hardcover and will come in two varieties; an Essential Edition without the Operations Manual in it for those who have the Basic Game, and a Premium Edition that does include the rules.
I have seen elsewhere a phrase that I find useful in describing this game; this is a “comic book story” roleplaying game, not a “superhero” game as is common with many other games of this type. This is really true.
One more item of mention: character creation. As one might expect, the emphasis in this licensed game is on playing the Marvel characters. However, there was included in the game instructions on how to create new datafiles. While oriented towards creating datafiles for heroes that are not in the book (just in case you want to ignore that whole Thor being dead problem), you can certainly use them to create original characters. Beware though; there is no balancing mechanism such as points here. The character creation rules depend on “modeling”; describe what the character can do, then assign codes, create distinctions etc. to fit. As such, since there are no Marvel wiki entries for original characters, there can be potential for attempted abuse here. I say “attempted” because this game is about as close to unbreakable as I have seen; it balances at the table through the use of the Doom Pool and Plot Points, and when you have a game where Black Widow can hang with Iron Man and still feel useful, that tells me that this game is harder to exploit than people might think it is. Oh, and there is a Random Datafile Generator available on the Margeret Weis Publishing website so you can roll characters up, like in the good old days ! It also comes in the PDF package.
I really like this game. It plays well and seems to keep the people I have run it for well entertained. I look forward to the Event books and much more goodness from the good folks at Margaret Weis Publishing.
Review Summary