Marvel to Launch Official 'MARVEL MULTIVERSE' Tabletop Role-Playing Game in 2022

Matt Forbeck announced on Twitter that he’s working on a new in-house D616 Marvel RPG due for a 2022 release! It looks like there will be an open playtest.



What’s the D617 System? “… the all-new D616 System, an accessible and easy-to-learn system for newcomers to tabletop RPGs and a natural evolution for those familiar with the most popular tabletop role-playing games on the market. Use Might, Agility, Resilience, Vigilance, Ego, and Logic to win the day, and discover your true abilities as you face impossible odds!”

Marvel to Launch Official 'MARVEL MULTIVERSE' Tabletop Role-Playing Game in 2022

Use the all-new D616 game system to embody your favorite Super Heroes and Super Villains like never before!

www.marvel.com

 

[Morrus]

THE BLOODY PRESS RELEASE SAYS MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT ON IT PEOPLE!!!1!!!one!

To be fair, when I pointed out - in answer to your question about it - that the press release said you could make new characters, you said:

Marketing announcements are where weasel-words go to breed. And remember how 5e was supposed to be "modular"? How well did that turn out?

So do we believe the press release or do we not believe the press release? You can choose either, which is fine, but not choose one and then yell at people for doing likewise.

 

[Umbran]

So do we believe the press release or do we not believe the press release? You can choose either, which is fine, but not choose one and then yell at people for doing likewise.

So, Morrus, back before 5e came out, they said it was going to be "modular". That failed to turn out. But, nobody ever doubted that WotC was going to be the publisher. It is almost as if who is publishing it and the qualities of the unseen future work aren't comparable pieces of data. How surprising.

 

[Parmandur]

So, Morrus, back before 5e came out, they said it was going to be "modular". That failed to turn out. But, nobody ever doubted that WotC was going to be the publisher. It is almost as if who is publishing it and the qualities of the unseen future work aren't comparable pieces of data. How surprising.

We're still bickering about whether they failed to ddeliver. They included optional modules that moat people don't use, that don't break the game either way, that some people feel everyone must use because the handful of tables they know use them. Mission accomplished.

 

[Bardic Dave]

So, Morrus, back before 5e came out, they said it was going to be "modular". That failed to turn out. But, nobody ever doubted that WotC was going to be the publisher. It is almost as if who is publishing it and the qualities of the unseen future work aren't comparable pieces of data. How surprising.

A press release vaguely promising "modularity" (a nebulous concept that could mean a lot of different things), and a press release advertising the inclusion of character creation (a much more discrete concept–either you can create characters or you can't) are not at all comparable. I think it's pretty much a sure thing this game will include character creation if that's what they're advertising. With respect to this detail, your "weasel-words" claim feels a bit off the mark.

I think Morrus hit the nail on the head with his post though: it's asinine to defend the fact that you overlooked a detail by claiming press releases are all "weasel-words" with one breath, while chiding others for overlooking a detail from the press release with the next.

But really, could the staff please stop publicly bickering? It's a really bad look.

 

[pemerton]

Also saddled with the fact that you couldn't make your own characters ( a edict from Marvel)

It's very straightforward to make PCs for Marvel Heroic. I wrote up two (for my kids) in about 10 minutes each yesterday. I've designed characters using the same system for fantasy RPGing too.

You just work out what the character is able to do, and assign appropriate traits and abilities.

 

[pemerton]

What about characters with total regeneration? For example Wolwerine or Deadpool. Or the characters to rich, not only Tony Stark, but also the Fantastic Four or Mark Spector.

How to avoid the overpowered characters?

I think there are many solutions to these "problems" able to be learned from contemporary RPG design.

I don't specifically need random, or point buy.
I do specifically want a system that implements some balance in the game, and doesn't shift that burden entirely on the GM's shoulders making them into the villain who has to personally implement all limits. Let a system do some of that work, please.

The MHRP system does do this work: powers are scaled at d8, d10 and d12 and so you can see pretty straightforwardly whether your character is at Punisher/Captain America level, at Spidey/Power Man level, or at Thor/Hulk level. And the system itself does a pretty good job of accommodating different power levels.

I've played quite a bit of MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic, and built characters for it. The only balance concerns I've had, and they certainly weren't enough to break the game, were Wolverine being perhaps a little too good in a straightforward supers game, and Gandalf being perhaps a little too good in my LotR game.

There was a whole section on creating new Datafiles. The section mentions creating datafiles for unpublished Marvel heroes, but does not mention non-Marvel heroes. However, creating a datafile for a character published by Marvel, some other publisher, or one's own unique hero is the same process.The vast majority of people in the discussion threads on RPGNet had no problem with it. It was only a handful (maybe, slightly more) of people that were upset that random or point buy generation was not included. As to whether or not it was a user-friendly method is a separate issue (personally, I found it user-friendly except Milestones which are awkward for how my games go).

I agree with all this except the bit about Milestones. I thought they actually worked very well for a supers-style game: because they create the possibility for the players to be managing their PCs advancement, via pushing towards and/or creating their own Milestone-relevant events, somewhat independently of the fiction being created by the GM as the focus of the Action scenes. This reminded me of how, in superhero comics, the personal development often happens largely independently of whether its Electro or Arcade or Dr Doom who is this month's villain.

 

[pemerton]

Might ≈ Strength
Agility ≈ Dexterity
Resilience ≈ Constitution
Vigilance ≈ Wisdom (Perception)
Ego ≈ Charisma (Sense of Self)
Logic ≈ Intelligence

Yep, it's straight up renamed D&D stats.

THAT SPELL M.A.R.V.E.L.

(Sorry, it just seemed important do state the most important bit unambiguously.

EDIT: I had a further thought that it's a good thing that we don't still have a Comeliness stat, because then the seventh stat would have to be Ugliness, to spell out M.A.R.V.E.L.U.

 

[pemerton]

I think this is a really important point, and one that a lot of RPG and even MCU fans just can't wrap their heads around--cape comics aren't about realism, so stop complaining about Black Widow and Hawkeye being in the Avengers, or arguing about whether Batman can beat Superman in a fight. Batman can, if that's what the story is, and Black Widow can kill alien soldiers with her dual handguns because these narratives are about clashes of will, not the nuances of pistol-caliber ballistics.

Obviously porting that sort of approach to an RPG is tough, but as much as I loved Champions back in the day, I don't think quantifying all of this stuff down, and therefore making some characters utterly helpless when not beating up a mugger, is doing the cape comic genre justice.

<snip<

Pulling this sort of thing off mechanically is really tough, and while there are some cool supers games, I haven't seen a system that's made it feasible and satisfying to have a Daredevil-level PC and an Iron Man-level PC on the same team.

Marvel Heroic RP does just this, by flattening without eliminating the numerical expression of power differentials, and by given the GM an incentive to throw extra resources against the more powerful PCs.

As for balance,I had enough people with actual play experiene tell me that the system balances characters in play and works for having Hawkeye and Black Widow on a team with Thor, Iron Man and the Hulk. Similarly, I was told that a street level character could hold their own in a team-up with someone with all d12 powers in power set.

I think that last sentence is probably a bit exaggerated - I think that sort of team-up (eg Green Arrow and Green Lantern) will push the system tolerances a little bit. Most of the characters in the Annihilation book - flagged as a "cosmic" event - are markedly more powerful (in numerical terms) than most of the characters in the Civil War books. I think this would manifest itself in play, though I'll admit that I haven't tried a game with such marked power differentials.

I'm just about to finish my first mini-campaign of Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. It's fantastic. I'm a bit shocked at the criticism of it in this thread.

It's always been controversial, partly for the character build thing and partly because it's extremely non-D&D-ish in its approach to resolution and to play more generally.

However, I still want to give MHR a try (thanks to a website that discussed using the game for non-Event based games) and it the first system to which I would turn for a certain style of game/campaign depending upon the players.

I've had no trouble using the system both for supers and (taking some ideas from the Cortex Hackers' Guide) for fantasy, without using an "event" framework.

I think it's a great system, and the supers play has, for me, been very comic bookish in feel.

 

[Rafael Martin]

I am looking forward to rolling a d616 and getting a 347.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

So, Morrus, back before 5e came out, they said it was going to be "modular". That failed to turn out. But, nobody ever doubted that WotC was going to be the publisher. It is almost as if who is publishing it and the qualities of the unseen future work aren't comparable pieces of data. How surprising.

Yeah, I share your concerns here.

Marvel RPGs have an interesting history. Most of them have had, for my money, excellent mechanics which were, if anything, before their time (FASERIP, MSHAG, Cortex being the ones I'm familiar with), yeah all three of them were very much focused on playing the default characters and worked well with that but increasingly less well with others. FASERIP probably did the best, for my money.

Really hoping two things with this one:

1) It has a genuinely great system, and doesn't break that trend.

2) As you say, it lets you create your own characters.

Re: 2, honestly what gives me the most hope is the blank outline character on the cover, which suggests "your character here" in a way not present in other Marvel RPGs.

The most concerning thing is that the lead developer isn't someone whose work I'm super-familiar with, except I really didn't like the system of Brave New World (or the original Mutant Chronicles). My worry is he wasn't chosen because he had some amazing vision for a Marvel RPG with a great, accessible system, but because he was experienced, and a "safe pair of hands", and Marvel execs don't give two shakes of a lamb's tail about the system because the game is going to sell based on other factors.

Glad there are two X-Men on the cover at least, so it's not some MCU-only deal. Though oh my god that is the worst Thor I've ever seen. If it wasn't for the hammer I wouldn't even have recognised him. Is it some weird-ass variant Thor, like Black Knight holding Thor's hammer or something?