Marvel Heroic Roleplaying - Thoughts on our first Civil War session (Spoilers!)

[Spatula]

Is the doom pool basically arbitrary, or does the Watcher have control over how many are int he pool based on scene?

The Watcher sets the starting doom pool for each chapter. It can range from 2d6 (the standard) to 4d10 for "catastrophic stakes" on a "cosmic" scale. After that, it grows mainly when players roll 1's or when NPCs use a negative distinction. It can also increase through some player or NPC actions.

The Breakout scenario that comes with the basic game uses 2d6 as the starting doom pool. The Civil War event uses 2d6 for the lead-up to the SHRA passing and 3d8 after the law goes into effect.

And it looks like the Doom Pool can be cannibalized by the Watcher to buff foes' rolls, in the same way PP does for heroes (ie: add a die, step up a die, etc.)

Yes, that's correct. Players use plot points to boost their actions and the Watcher uses the doom pool. It can also be used to introduce new scene elements, new foes, and some other stuff.

What about XP? Do they step up dice, or what do they do?

XP are mainly used to unlock scenario-specific goodies (called unlockables), such as equipment, contacts, or aid during a fight. They can also be used to change your character's stats, and in an emergency can be burned for more plot points.

Here's an example unlockable from Civil War that's only available to SHIELD-affiliated heroes:

Life Model Decoy: For 5 XP, you can declare that the hero you’re playing has been a Life Model Decoy—a highly sophisticated, lifelike android—for some period of time, maybe since the beginning of the Act. The “real” hero can then show up in any Scene you like. For 10 XP, you can declare that any character who has died during the Event was actually an LMD and the real hero is alive and well and available for play.

I can't tell you about the hard-copy quality, as I only have the PDFs (which are nicely bookmarked and have clickable references). I do know that if you buy the hardcopy from MWP or one of their preferred retailers, you get the PDF for free. The basic game is $20 retail for a 230 page softcover, which is a surprisingly good deal.

 

[Drowbane]

I also wish you had better words to convey what you mean.
I've been curious about this game and this further piques my curiosity. A little tight on money at the moment, but I might check it out when my birthday rolls around.

[MENTION=17106]Ahnehnois[/MENTION]
Well HERO System, for example, goes out of its way to tell you exactly what the Super Hero can and can not do... it tries to have a rule for everything.

MSH leaves a lot of that to the Players and GM/Storyteller/whatever. It doesn't try to give you a physics engine (or RPG version of such), it gives you the broad strokes and lets narrative guide the scenes. Players can take a bit of control and make things happen... and sometimes the Dice get in the way of that (they shouldn't always succeed ).

MSH is the first "Rules Lite" system I have ever liked playing...

 

[Spatula]

I also wish you had better words to convey what you mean.
I've been curious about this game and this further piques my curiosity. A little tight on money at the moment, but I might check it out when my birthday rolls around.

I think the difference that I notice in Marvel Heroic Roleplaying vs more codified or "traditional" RPGs is that MHR, like superhero comics themselves, doesn't sweat the small stuff. It doesn't have a lot of rules to cover every possible situation (nearly impossible in the supers genre anyway) or to precisely model each power and all its permutations (ditto); instead it has an abstract and very flexible framework that you can hang all sorts of concepts on. So if you want to do something unusual or interesting with (or without) your powers, you just do it, and the system just handles it.

 

[flyingcircus]

I just wish they would get my pre-orders to me!