More Details From Marvel RPG Writer

Matt Forbeck, the writer of the upcoming official Marvel Multiverse RPG, talked a little more about the game on his blog.

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...

www.enworld.org

He confirms that you can create your own characters, as well as play existing Marvel characters. The last Marvel game was the 2012 award-winning Marvel Heroic Roleplaying by Cam Banks and Rob Donoghue, powered by Cortex Plus. Prior to that was Jeff Grub's 1984 Marvel Super Heroes (known as FASERIP due its its attributes of Fighting, Agility, Strength... etc.), and a couple of other games.

The current game borrows that latter idea, with MARVEL standing for the abilities of Might, Agility, Resilience, Vigilance, Ego, and Logic.

Read more from Matt Forbeck at the link below!

The New Marvel RPG

On Friday, Marvel announced its plans to publish a new tabletop roleplaying game called the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game. Normally, I’d be pretty excited about this because I’m a…

www.forbeck.com

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That's a mainly 3E thing, in my experience.

Every ruler and major leader statted up in the 1E World of Greyhawk settings was high level, even the ones who didn't come into their power through military means. You can look through any of the zillions of 2E setting books and see the same thing. 5E mostly avoids it by not stating not always stating what someone's class or level is (and implicitly just making them classless NPCs), but when they do have a level and class, it's high, as though "worked a long time at a wizard's library" means they should be capable of taking on various types of monsters.

 

[Samurai]

A more full list, for folks who might like the context:

• Marvel Super Heroes (often called "Marvel Classic" or "FASERIP" after the names of its stats) - published by TSR in 1984, the Advanced version in 1986
• Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game - Based on the SAGA engine, also published by TSR, 1998.
• Marvel Universe Roleplaying Game - published by Marvel itself, using novel bidding mechanics and no dice, 2003
• Marvel Heroic Roleplaying - using the Cortex Engine, published by Margaret Weis Productions, 2012.

I bought the first 2 games on this list and enjoyed them a lot, especially FASERIP. I skipped the last 2 because I felt I already had superior Marvel games with the other 2. Not sure what I'll do about this new one, but it needs to stick closely to the classic Marvel characters for me to give it a chance, because I haven't collected comics in quite a few years now and everything I hear about current books/storylines sounds like a mess.

However, to be honest, I would just use Mutants and Masterminds to play in most any superhero setting, including Marvel, DC, etc...

 

[Umbran]

I bought the first 2 games on this list and enjoyed them a lot, especially FASERIP.

So, I started playing RPGs with Tunnels and Trolls, and then AD&D.

Marvel Super Heroes was the first RPG I bought for myself - our D&D group was a bunch of avid comic book readers, and we jumped at the chance to play in the genre. I recognize the design isn't perfect, but boy did we have a lot of fun playing that game.

I did not get a chance to play the middle two. The Cortex game runs very well, imho, but I have issues with it over character generation and advancement. Good for an arc, but not for a campaign, again, imho.

However, to be honest, I would just use Mutants and Masterminds to play in most any superhero setting, including Marvel, DC, etc...

I'll play M&M, but I find it a bit too fiddly to be my game of choice for supers-genre.

 

[Sunsword]

I wonder which RPGs have had the most licensed RPGs? Star Wars has had... 3? Judge Dredd is currently on its 4th version. I'm sure there are some with more than that though!

Elric/Stormbringer has 6 I think.

 

[aramis erak]

Elric/Stormbringer has 6 I think.

5 editions from Chaosium alone (Storbringer 1e to 5e)
ISTR a chaosium "Elric!" which was a variation on 3rd ed Stormbringer.
2 from Mongoose (One each for MRQ and MRQII)
A d20 adaptation

And that's not counting the other eternal champion based games - at least 3 for Hawkmoon. (2 Chaosium, 1 Mongoose)

 

[AmerginLiath]

There's a lot of debate here and at RPG.net about whether the allusions to D&D mean it's going to be like D&D or not and what "d616" actually means. My guess is he's saying both of those references were very intentional, although we may not find out significantly more until next year. (Which raises the question, of course, about why hype it this far in advance.)

With the Multiverse name and 616 being the designation of the main (comic) Marvel Universe within their multiversal arrangement, I’m curious if there’s some use of their dice mechanic meant to literalize potential outcomes in the narrative?

(with Kang the Conquerer right there on the cover, the idea of actions branching or potentially branching into new timelines whenever dice are rolled sounds like a very Marvel by way of Mark Gruenwald idea, and solves the issue of the classic characters being in different places in “your game” while it still feeling right; each table is just elsewhere in the Multiverse)

 

[Dungeonosophy]

OGL isn't a system. It's an open license which is used to share a system.

True. But could say it's a Meta-System.
It's mind-boggling to consider how many products are licensees of WotC's OGL meta-system.

 

[Parmandur]

True. But could say it's a Meta-System.
It's mind-boggling to consider how many products are licensees of WotC's OGL meta-system.

There are non-d20 games that are OGL, like Traveller.

 

[Umbran]

With the Multiverse name and 616 being the designation of the main (comic) Marvel Universe within their multiversal arrangement, I’m curious if there’s some use of their dice mechanic meant to literalize potential outcomes in the narrative?

We can't say no, but... that seems a pretty extreme meta-design ideal.

I suspect that, if it isn't just a cutesy reference, the point of the name is more to note that the game design is intended to model the basic comics universe, as opposed to what's been on TV or in the movies.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

I don't know. But for myself, with Judge Dredd games, I count four - Games Workshop, Mongoose d20, Mongoose Traveller, EN Publishing WOIN. For me, that's four licensed games. But I guess it's however one decides to divide them.

I edited the earlier listing to include Judge Dredd as a 4-game contender.