Recurring comment about Marvel Heroic RP that seems wrong to me

[Thomas Shey]

Well gosh now I kinda want to play this game that apparently has no system, or maybe a system that isn't a system, or perhaps a system that some people just don't like and therefore it can't possibly count as a system.

Note I never said the game had no systems. Its actually full of them, and in many ways they're pretty decent. I just disagree that the modeling process is among them.

 

[Thomas Shey]

How are monsters built in RuneQuest? By "modelling", as in the GM assigns the abilities that will make the monster perform, in play, as its fiction demands of it. This is the same way that NPCs and creatures are built in 4e D&D.

I don't consider those systems either.

I've never heard it asserted that RQ, and 4e D&D, don't allow for the creation of monsters, NPCs and the like.

Any game permits the creation of those by analogy. The more detail there is in components the easier it is, but that doesn't mean they have a system for it (as I recall, 4e has a formal system; RQ doesn't).

By saying there's "no system" in MHRP, all I hear is that there is no points buy, and no character classes.

No. But I don't think going around on it is useful, because you're not going to agree with my premise so it'll just go around and around. If you don't recognize the difference between guidelines for creating monsters and NPCs and a systemized process for PCs--well, I'll just note that even other Cortex games have more structured systems for creating characters, including ones for superheroes, so...

 

[Kannik]

This sounds cool. I am not well-versed in comic book heroes, but it looks like that doesn't really matter. I could just come up with a concept and build to taste, and the premises of the game, should everybody playing accept them (a big ask I know!) mean that it would be cool. I would be interested in seeing those specific four pages, now!

While MHR is out of print, if you get the Cortex Prime rules there is a hack that recreates MHR-style games available here. (And, of note to this thread, character creation rules begin on page 12.)

One thing (among many) that MHR does very well and that I really appreciate is model something that often happens in superhero stories (such as at the battle of New York in the Avengers movie) where heroes of differing focuses and "power levels" to all be instrumental in leading the team to victory.