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

 

[aramis erak]

I think that Marvel and Conan* are the only ones with five (if one includes the forthcoming work for Marvel.) The Lord of the Rings has had four (MERP, Decipher, the One Ring, Adventures in Middle Earth), as has Traveller's Third Imperium (various editions of Traveller**, HERO license, GURPS license, d20 License.)

*Conan: AD&D adventures, TSR game, GURPS license, Mongoose d20, Modiphius 2d20.
** If you consider some of these to be separate lines that might tie with Star Trek.

You missed ICE's Lord of the Rings Adventure Game which was a 2d6 based engine, only vaguely related to MERP.

So...
D&D (unofficial, but OE D&D got sued successfully and had to "de-Tolkien" for 1976 and later printings.)
ICE's Middle Earth Role Playing, aka "Rolemaster Light" and "MERP". d100+Mods. 2 editions of it, too.
ICE's Lord of the Rings Adventure Game. This is a 2d6 rules light offering.
Decipher's Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game, a 2d6 system compatible with their Star Trek game.
Cubicle 7's The One Ring. Really, Francesco Napolitano's work, sold via C7, under sublicense.
C7's Adventures in Middle Earth, a D&D 5E variant, using the same setting materials as TOR.
It's going into Free League's The One Ring, 2nd Edition. Should be aiming for the printers in a month or two.
Whether your count D&D or not is entirely a point of view issue.
Unlicensed but clearly directly derived: Against the Darkmaster, which is a MERP pseudoclone, Middle Earth Adventure Game, a fan rework of LOTRAG, and Midnight, A "what if Sauron Won?" setting.

Star Wars... WEG had 3 editions (1e, 2e, 2eRE) and 1e had, essentially, 2 sub-editions by rules expansion releases. Plus Star Wars Live Action, a set of LARP rules from the 2eRE era, but the rules can easily be used for tabletop.
TSR had 3 editions (SW d20, SW d20 revised, SW Saga Edition)
FFG has one edition, but in 3 corebooks, each slightly tailored.
SO, 6 editions, and depending upon whom one asks, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 rulesets.

Star Trek has...
Enterprise (Licensed in Japan. Never sold officially outside. Very minimalist OSRish rules, but it was from back when that was still considered relatively recent)
Heritage Star Trek (released in a magazine. Mechanics are similar but less extensive than Enterprise. Essentially, rules for a barfight set on the bridge.)
FASA Trek - 2 editions, mostly intercompatible. Star Trek: The Roleplaying Game.
Task Force Games's Prime Directive RPG, released under a sublicense from Franz Joseph, still available due to Paramount losing to ADB & FJD.
Last Unicorn's Star Trek RPGs (TNG, DS9, and TOS cores.) Star Trek the Next Generation RPG, Deep Space 9 RPG, Star Trek The Original Series Role Playing Game.)
Decipher's Star Trek the Roleplaying Game. Better known as D-Trek.
ADB's GURPS: Prime Directive, Prime Directive d20, and Prime Directive D20M: all under the same license as the original Prime Directive. 2nd editions for two of those
Modiphius' Star Trek Adventures. Second Core is out, too, Star Trek Adventures: Klingon Core Rulebook.
10 rulesets, 14 rules editions, 3 alternate cores... 17 different rulebooks. Too many knockoffs to get more than mention.

Both Trek and Middle Earth have more editions/rulesets than Marvel's now 6.... and by named editions, so also does Star Wars.

 

[aramis erak]

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.

Actually, FJD didn't deal with Roddenberry. Roddenberry blew off Mr. Schnaubelt. Lucille Ball, however, did not. And signed the license for FJD. FJD then sublicensed Lou Zocchi (SFBM), and shortly after, Steven V Cole (SFB).
In the late 1980's, when FASA overstepped their license, it was pointed out that SFB also was stepping on Paramount's rights. Paramount lost. See the last four issues of TFG's Nexus Magazine, which I are being rereleased in PDF; I'm not certain those issues are out yet.
Paramount lost, and was forced by the California courts to license ADB... but only to the materials from FJD's works, and their extrapolations from it.

 

[overgeeked]

There's a 20th Anniversary Edition and a 5.5 edition, iirc.

If you’re counting those, the d20 version should also be included, bringing it to 10. Sorry if this was already mentioned.

 

[overgeeked]

It's certainly possible to come up with superhero classes, but it definitely doesn't feel like the most obvious way to go.

I really, really hope they don’t do something like classes and levels.

 

[Ghal Maraz]

Cubicle 7's The One Ring. Really, Francesco Napolitano's work, sold via C7, under sublicense.

Francesco Nepitello.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Um,Icons is not PBTA.

Mea culpa, I was thinking of Masks.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It is how he did it in Brave New World, though. You had power packages like "Flyer" and "Speedster" and (IIRC) "Brick".

That's definitely probably the way to do superheroes with classes. The problem, as alluded to earlier by other folks, is that approach can't capture the whole range of superhero power-sets without other add-ons, like the ability to take abilities outside your set or feat packages or something.

It's a lot easier to make things a la carte, even if it's most optimal to link them all together with feat trees or other pre-requisites. (The ancillary abilities of DC's speedsters, for instance, like vibrating through objects or creating tornadoes with their primary power set, would be an awkward fit for someone who's primary ability was being a brawler.)

 

[Parmandur]

It is how he did it in Brave New World, though. You had power packages like "Flyer" and "Speedster" and (IIRC) "Brick".

Seems pretty relevant, considering that's Matt Forbeck's work.

 

[Parmandur]

That's definitely probably the way to do superheroes with classes. The problem, as alluded to earlier by other folks, is that approach can't capture the whole range of superhero power-sets without other add-ons, like the ability to take abilities outside your set or feat packages or something.

It's a lot easier to make things a la carte, even if it's most optimal to link them all together with feat trees or other pre-requisites. (The ancillary abilities of DC's speedsters, for instance, like vibrating through objects or creating tornadoes with their primary power set, would be an awkward fit for someone who's primary ability was being a brawler.)

It wouldn't surprise me if we see something like what you describe in the second paragraph: a Class system with Talent trees.

Given that Forbeck and the press release felt the need to call back to Dungeons & Dragons circuitously, it seems plausible that he's looking to the market leader for ideas. Level and Class has worked well for Fantasy, and I would be very interested to see that approach with Marvel characters.

 

[Greg K]

It wouldn't surprise me if we see something like what you describe in the second paragraph: a Class system with Talent trees.

Given that Forbeck and the press release felt the need to call back to Dungeons & Dragons circuitously, it seems plausible that he's looking to the market leader for ideas. Level and Class has worked well for Fantasy, and I would be very interested to see that approach with Marvel characters.

I never want see a class/level system for Marvel. D&D style class/level systems have been done several times for supers. Three of the most prominent have been Heroes Unlimited (Palladium), Foundation: A World in Black and White (Nightshift Games) using 3e SRD, and Vigilance (RPGObjects) for d20 Modern. It has been awful every time for handling supers. Vigilace, probably, did as good a job as can be done with D&D style class/level for supers and still failed (and I say this as someone that like the author's work for d20M and considered his work to better than the d20M genee material put out by WOTC).