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

 

[Morrus]

OGL is way in the lead as far as systems go. All OGL products, whether 3e, 3.5e, PF1, 5e, or PF2-based (or totally different systems which use the OGL, such as OGL Gumshoe), are official licensees of WotC.
But yeah, the original question was about IP Settings.

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

 

[Umbran]

I would guess that if your'e talking systems, as opposed to licensed IPs*, d20 System is way in the lead. And 5E is not far behind.

No, that's not what I mean.

I am currently playing in a Space: 1889 game, using Fate Accelerated as a system. But we have implemented NO RULES CHANGES at all.

With Open Gaming Licenses, you could imagine someone producing four different books, with setting information for a property, and a different core rules set attached, but making no changes to the core games.

Have they produced four new games for the property, or a system neutral setting?

How far do you have to go in rules changes to make it a game, and not a setting?

If they did need a license, would the separate editions of Call of Cthulhu be different games for our counting?

 

[Morrus]

No, that's not what I mean.

I am currently playing in a Space: 1889 game, using Fate Accelerated as a system. But we have implemented NO RULES CHANGES at all.

With Open Gaming Licenses, you could imagine someone producing four different books, with setting information for a property, and a different core rules set attached, but making no changes to the core games.

Have they produced four new games for the property, or a system neutral setting?

How far do you have to go in rules changes to make it a game, and not a setting?

If they did need a license, would the separate editions of Call of Cthulhu be different games for our counting?

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.

 

[Darrius_Adler]

Personally of the Marvel RPGs, I liked Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game (SAGA) rules the best. Might flip through this in a store if I see a copy but I am really happy with the Icons RPG for supers, take the power scheme of SAGA and uses dice instead of the deck of cards. For really quick play Tiny Supers is great.

 

[Rabulias]

Also, folks shouldn't make too much out of "creating your own characters". Marvel Heroic allowed for that too, it just didn't provide as much structure for it as most RPGs...

Assuming the cover art shown is final, the blank figure front and center suggests a "your character here" concept that says to me making your own characters will be a big part of this game.

 

[Greg K]

In the comments section of the blog post to which Morrus linked, Matt Forbeck wrote:
"That said, there are numerous influences on the game. I’ve worked on countless systems myself—and played even more—and those experiences all come into play (so to speak)."

 

[Staffan]

Forbeck saying to read the press release closely suggests that maybe people aren't reading too much into things by hyper-analyzing every word of the release.

I strongly feel that this indicates that there's some hidden info in the press release, but if there is it's beyond me to find it. Unless he counts that the stats spell out MARVEL.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I strongly feel that this indicates that there's some hidden info in the press release, but if there is it's beyond me to find it. Unless he counts that the stats spell out MARVEL.

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.)

 

[robowieland]

• Star Trek: 10 (not counting how Last Unicorn marketed each series as a standalone RPG). Yes Prime Directive games do count, because they are official licensees. I think there were also two vaporware (which would bring the total to 12 if they were actually published): PD d6 and and PD Traveller.

The Star Fleet Universe is a fascinating edge case in licensing. Roddenberry was very laid back about fan works between the end of the original series and the start of Next Generation. When Star Fleet Battles and Star Fleet Technical Manual came out, they got a tacit because elements of those games were incorporated in various novels and such. The timeline has since diverged significantly from later Trek media, which was an argument why they didn't have to stop production when Paramount killed a ton of licensed products in the early 90s. So it exists as a weird alternate universe licensee, so long as they don't mention any characters from the show.

 

[robowieland]

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.)

My take is that the basic resolution mechanic of rolling a d20 and adding one of the marvel stats to see if you do a thing will be similar to 5e, but a full on take like classes and "power slots" won't be happening.