New Marvel RPG coming in 2022

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By DC being "optimistic" - I mean in relation to their world setting. DC Earth reveres its heroes by and large. Whereas Marvel's heroes are constantly struggling with more semi-realistic pathos of the Post-Silver Age. DC has definitely gradually slid closer to this, but it's still not as bad as Marvel.
 
By DC being "optimistic" - I mean in relation to their world setting. DC Earth reveres its heroes by and large. Whereas Marvel's heroes are constantly struggling with more semi-realistic pathos of the Post-Silver Age. DC has definitely gradually slid closer to this, but it's still not as bad as Marvel.
Definitely not the same runs I read. But like I said, I read most of the Bat stuff during that era...
 
Well, at least DC never did anything like Marvel did with Spider-Man and destroyed his good name.
 
Not caught up on the thread completely yet, but concerns of the pay to playtest are likely unfounded, at least for now. According to Forbeck's blog they have all the playtesters they need at this time.
 
Not caught up on the thread completely yet, but concerns of the pay to playtest are likely unfounded, at least for now. According to Forbeck's blog they have all the playtesters they need at this time.
We're talking about a different stage - Forbeck is talking about some form of closed playtest, whereas the part we're mostly objecting to is the "Playtest Rulebook" they'll be releasing next year (The pay-to-playtest book) with the full release 2023.
 
Am I mistaken, or did FFG do that with one or more of the Warhammer 40K RPGs? I was only ever interested in Dark Heresy, so I didn’t pay too much attention when all the second editions were released.

I’m not terribly offended by that practice, though. I mean, if you’ve got the cash and the need to see the game as soon as possible, then you’re making the choice to spend money on something that might change in the final release. If you don’t think it’s worth it, then ignore it until the final game is released.

I’m more concerned that they’ll do something like only sell physical books but require a subscription to Marvel Unlimited or something to get access to a digital edition. That would be enough to get me to skip it entirely.
 
Am I mistaken, or did FFG do that with one or more of the Warhammer 40K RPGs? I was only ever interested in Dark Heresy, so I didn’t pay too much attention when all the second editions were released.

Dark Heresy’s second edition had a playtest edition you had to pay for though I believe it was PDF-only and if you bought the final edition from them they credited you for the playtest cost.

The first version of it was very different from what came before or after, and from what I understand the damage threshold system which is often cited as its biggest flaw was just one of several issues with it. I’ve never looked at it, though I beliebe an associate still has his, so maybe I’ll see if I can take a look at it. I just know everyone online and that I knew who complained about it always brought up the damage thresholds as the biggest problem.
 
Am I mistaken, or did FFG do that with one or more of the Warhammer 40K RPGs? I was only ever interested in Dark Heresy, so I didn’t pay too much attention when all the second editions were released.

I’m not terribly offended by that practice, though. I mean, if you’ve got the cash and the need to see the game as soon as possible, then you’re making the choice to spend money on something that might change in the final release. If you don’t think it’s worth it, then ignore it until the final game is released.

I’m more concerned that they’ll do something like only sell physical books but require a subscription to Marvel Unlimited or something to get access to a digital edition. That would be enough to get me to skip it entirely.

FFG did it with the three core Star Wars books, if I recall.

and Marvel Unlimited is worth more than the game is going to be, but I'm biased.
 
I mean...as a comic fan I’m used to doom and gloom when it comes to speculation, so I’m not surprised that many are saying this game won’t do well. And sure, maybe it won’t. Maybe superheroes are a niche market when it comes to RPGs.

But....if there is a franchise or license that could bring supers more to the forefront of RPGs, I think Marvel has the best shot.

Also....it has “Multiverse” in the title. No reason they need to limit themselves to only the current day Marvel Universe.

They could do an MCU Sourcebook and a Bronze Age Sourcebook and an Ultimate Marvel Sourcebook. The possibilities are endless.

Well, endless in the sense that it’d just be a slightly different version of what they’d already sold us....but hey, that’d capture the true spirit of superheroes!
 
FFG did it with the three core Star Wars books, if I recall.
Yeah, all of the Star Wars FFG books had "beta" book releases. Granted, I can kind of understand why that ended up happening, because if you wanted an open playtest, they had to charge because they couldn't produce pdfs of any kind because of the dumb shit way the Star Wars video game license was written that included anything digital.

IIRC they were pretty cheap. I still have the AoR beta book and I think it was like $20.
 
and Marvel Unlimited is worth more than the game is going to be, but I'm biased.
Oh, I’m currently subscribed to Marvel Unlimited, too.

But reading something on the app isn’t the same as having a PDF, and I don’t want to be tied to that platform in order to have access to the game.

To be honest, I don’t actually think they’d do it that way. But it’s possible, and it would be something that would be enough to get me to skip the game.

(If I buy a subscription to a digital platform for an rpg, then it has to have a ton of useful functionality beyond just reading the book, like DnD Beyond does so well.)

Marvel makes strange decisions sometimes, so I was was just playing What If...?
 
Oh, I’m currently subscribed to Marvel Unlimited, too.

But reading something on the app isn’t the same as having a PDF, and I don’t want to be tied to that platform in order to have access to the game.

To be honest, I don’t actually think they’d do it that way. But it’s possible, and it would be something that would be enough to get me to skip the game.

(If I buy a subscription to a digital platform for an rpg, then it has to have a ton of useful functionality beyond just reading the book, like DnD Beyond does so well.)

Marvel makes strange decisions sometimes, so I was was just playing What If...?

Oh yeah, I get what you're saying now.
 
Yeah, all of the Star Wars FFG books had "beta" book releases. Granted, I can kind of understand why that ended up happening, because if you wanted an open playtest, they had to charge because they couldn't produce pdfs of any kind because of the dumb shit way the Star Wars video game license was written that included anything digital.

IIRC they were pretty cheap. I still have the AoR beta book and I think it was like $20.

Yeah, if the Marvel playtest is over $20-$25, I'll consider whether or not I want to buy it. If it's less than that, I'll pick it up for the curiosity factor alone.
 
I remember the buzz at the time was that Marvel had extremely unrealistic expectations for any Marvel RPG. As in, they expected it to outsell D&D and become the new industry standard.

Not quite. The MarDisVelNey execs wanted the same kind of revenue guarantee that they demand from video game licenses, because All Games Are The Same or something. Believe me when I say those execs had no idea what TTRPGs are, much less D&D.

(The Fandom wiki guys, OTOH, actually do seem to think Cortex Prime will be some kind of contender to D&D in the online TTRPG space).
 
Not caught up on the thread completely yet, but concerns of the pay to playtest are likely unfounded, at least for now. According to Forbeck's blog they have all the playtesters they need at this time.

It was mentioned in their official press release:
Marvel and tabletop RPG fans who pick up and play the PLAYTEST RULEBOOK will have an opportunity to help shape the game with a chance to offer feedback on the rules before its full release in 2023! More details will be coming soon.

Hence all the concerns being brought up
 
Well I'll hold out my 1%.

You otherwise are restating my claim, heh. I think I've been involved or at least have read most if not all the Super-related threads on this forum and others many of us haunt, and the systems that are not Marvel Specific have their adherents but the fact of the matter is Supers is a pretty niche segment. And the more systems that have proliferated have only cemented those communities because by dint of design and needs of the genre - Supers requires both mechanical and narrative material to really make it work and a GM that can really sell it. Most GM's that run Supers have a pretty solid idea of what they want and what they don't in a system after lots of trial and error.

Very few systems make this cut.

1) At minimum you need a very flexible and robust system that is capable of exceptional levels of scaling. I'll go even further - Supers is the genre that is the *benchmark* for scaling system design. If you can do a full-blown Supers RPG system that covers the spectrum of Supers play, then you're onto something that puts you in a rarified field of design. It demands the designer *really* understands genre and has the design chops to pull it off with fidelity.

2) Narrative material. Marvel has this in buckets. The problem here is the primary material Marvel/Disney will be pushing will likely be the modern era of Marvel which is complete trash. If they go MCU - then they'll be somewhat safer, but that is limiting the potential context of the game for the future dramatically.

3) Marketing. This is the toughest part because it will be working directly against the first two. Because of the niche player market that exists for Supers - they are already fairly solid in their camps because the genre is that niche. So they have to appeal to the rest of the RPG fanbase that otherwise already has opportunities to play in many many established Supers games with relatively robust communities online/offline (depending on where you live). This mean marketing has to be so good that it pulls GM's away from running D&D (mostly) or other non-Supers games to running whatever they come up with - and for longterm value, they're going to have to produce something as good/better than whatever it is their group currently plays. Or at least good enough to get into the rotation after a few sessions.

Let's not forget that a lot of Marvel fans feel largely dislodged by the direction of Marvel/Disney. So they'll lose potential customers based on that alone.

That's a gigantically tall order from someone that isn't known for producing noticeably remarkable design-work. Backed by a company that has gutted its own fanbase for their primary product, in the pursuit of an ideological agenda, and are hemorrhaging money for no reason other than their own ineptitude. This smells like a fishing trip into hell for someone in Marvel to pretend they're doing something to justify their existence. Marvel doesn't even care about its own comicbook IP, why in the world will they care about an RPG based on them?

It will be semi-interesting to watch, but I'm not banking on it.
All of this is assuming that they're going after that niche market (supers) in a niche hobby. But it sounds like their approach is to try to make the 'next big thing', and their hope/intent (not that they'll be successful at it, mind) is to convert a bunch of absolutely new people into the hobby.

So I agree with you that the current supers rpg crowd is quite fragmented, but I don't think that's their intended target audience.
 
Not quite. The MarDisVelNey execs wanted the same kind of revenue guarantee that they demand from video game licenses, because All Games Are The Same or something. Believe me when I say those execs had no idea what TTRPGs are, much less D&D.
I believe G Gabriel was referencing the Marvel Universe rpg, which was published by Marvel and cancelled about 5 years before Disney even entered the picture.

One of the leads on the rpg team (I think Jeffrey Simons) said in an interview that when the Marvel exec told them they were cancelling the game, the Marvel guy said something along the lines of "If we can't challenge Dungeons & Dragons for the #1 spot in market share, then what is the point of publishing this?"

I'm pretty sure the revenue guarantee issue was for the Marvel Heroic rpg, which was published by Margaret Weis Productions in 2012.
 
All of this is assuming that they're going after that niche market (supers) in a niche hobby. But it sounds like their approach is to try to make the 'next big thing', and their hope/intent (not that they'll be successful at it, mind) is to convert a bunch of absolutely new people into the hobby.

So I agree with you that the current supers rpg crowd is quite fragmented, but I don't think that's their intended target audience.
... and you think that who, precisely is their target? Before you answer... consider the **vast** scope of RPG players are Fantasy players. VAST. VASTITY-VAST-VAST. So much so even in a cottage industry of TTRPG's the totality of players never even touch a Supers RPG without a GM advocating for it.

And if the assumption is they're going to convert those GM's - my question still stands, what are they going to *possibly* bring to the table that isn't already sitting on the table? If we can agree that it's reasonable that there is very little chance they're going to out-design what already exists. Then it has to be based on pure marketing.

Marketing - you know those people in Marvel that that have to push product made by people that currently have ulterior agendas to their work that have nothing to do with comics more than those topics that we can't talk about here, which when combined make for *horribad* stories which is killing the comic-industry. Yeah it's not a case of having a fragmented player base. It's a case of a tiny section of the playerbase that engages in Supers RPG's that likely are old-school fans suddenly being convinced to run a version of Marvel pumping out modern conceptions of the comics that are "unpalatable".

My Supers games are absolutely "What Ifs" - and I don't use any of the silly crap in modern Marvel or DC in them. This is not to say I don't have my own silly crap in there, but my silly shit makes sense internally to my setting (otherwise I don't put it in there).

I don't see an upside to this project - maybe we'll get a decent system. I'm super-duper-doubtful. But there is no way they're going to support it with enough value to pursue. Sweet Galactus on a Pogo-stick - look at the fansites that exist for MSH and Mutants and Masterminds alone!!! It's a hobby for some of these wonderful loonies to *create content* that is **better** than the original material for free. I'm not saying Marvel *couldn't* do it. I'm saying they won't for a very good reason: it's a corporate decision.

If Marvel were independent of Disney and someone there was fan of TTRPG's then maybe there is a significant chance. But as it is? I don't see it working much beyond the initial release and maybe a couple of supplements - obvious ones like a Villains/Hero stat book, and maybe some adventures. Then they'll realize how little of a dent them made and call it a wrap. Forebeck will get his paycheck and move on to the next thing.
 
... and you think that who, precisely is their target? Before you answer... consider the **vast** scope of RPG players are Fantasy players. VAST. VASTITY-VAST-VAST. So much so even in a cottage industry of TTRPG's the totality of players never even touch a Supers RPG without a GM advocating for it.

And if the assumption is they're going to convert those GM's - my question still stands, what are they going to *possibly* bring to the table that isn't already sitting on the table? If we can agree that it's reasonable that there is very little chance they're going to out-design what already exists. Then it has to be based on pure marketing.

Marketing - you know those people in Marvel that that have to push product made by people that currently have ulterior agendas to their work that have nothing to do with comics more than those topics that we can't talk about here, which when combined make for *horribad* stories which is killing the comic-industry. Yeah it's not a case of having a fragmented player base. It's a case of a tiny section of the playerbase that engages in Supers RPG's that likely are old-school fans suddenly being convinced to run a version of Marvel pumping out modern conceptions of the comics that are "unpalatable".

My Supers games are absolutely "What Ifs" - and I don't use any of the silly crap in modern Marvel or DC in them. This is not to say I don't have my own silly crap in there, but my silly shit makes sense internally to my setting (otherwise I don't put it in there).

I don't see an upside to this project - maybe we'll get a decent system. I'm super-duper-doubtful. But there is no way they're going to support it with enough value to pursue. Sweet Galactus on a Pogo-stick - look at the fansites that exist for MSH and Mutants and Masterminds alone!!! It's a hobby for some of these wonderful loonies to *create content* that is **better** than the original material for free. I'm not saying Marvel *couldn't* do it. I'm saying they won't for a very good reason: it's a corporate decision.

If Marvel were independent of Disney and someone there was fan of TTRPG's then maybe there is a significant chance. But as it is? I don't see it working much beyond the initial release and maybe a couple of supplements - obvious ones like a Villains/Hero stat book, and maybe some adventures. Then they'll realize how little of a dent them made and call it a wrap. Forebeck will get his paycheck and move on to the next thing.
Just 'cuz you're not wrong doesn't mean I don't want you to be wrong. :brokenheart:
 
tenbones tenbones I know you like crapping on Disney but isn’t the Disney-approved Star Wars game from FFG your favorite?
 
who, precisely is their target?
I'm assuming it's comic book/pop culture collectors, honestly. I know the vast majority of sales of Marvel Heroic were apparently to Marvel fans who were not RPG players.
 
tenbones tenbones I know you like crapping on Disney but isn’t the Disney-approved Star Wars game from FFG your favorite?
I don't *like* crapping on Disney. I'm calling balls and strikes where I see them.

FFG Stars Wars - almost the entirety of the game across all three lines have nothing to do with the Disney era Star Wars. And even that said - I've *never* run Star Wars during the modern era (Lucas onward). My campaigns have been exclusively Old Republic era.

/shrug.

I'm have no interest in this game failing, mainly because I have no belief that it will succeed beyond the reality presented to me by Disney and therefore Marvel itself.

In a normal world *none* of these franchises would be shitty. I'm certainly not even asking for perfection. There is **NO** reason why modern Marvel comics should be remotely as shitty as it has become. But it has.

And just the same - I have no interest in shitty things being turned into RPG's for which I have no use. Just like if they came up with a Disney Star Wars trilogy sourcebook(s) - I wouldn't buy them. I have no use for them, as there is nothing I find redeeming about the movies, the characters or anything they introduced into the canon.

Likewise for modern Marvel. Fortunately there is 80+years worth of comicbook canon I can pull from and a variety of systems that are superb I (and everyone else) can utilize to get some fantastic gaming experiences with. That's what this new Marvel RPG is competing with for my time and money.
 
I'm assuming it's comic book/pop culture collectors, honestly. I know the vast majority of sales of Marvel Heroic were apparently to Marvel fans who were not RPG players.
Yup. I don't see many supplements even fan-based ones, continuing that concept.

It's a gimmick at worst. A well intentioned-poorly planned/marketed project/hail-Mary at best. And most RPG's fall into this framework, but most RPG's aren't built off a billion-dollar license that by all accounts *shouldn't* be failures in this regard.

I mean think about it... marketing an RPG (a niche thing to the populace at large) in a niche genre to non-RPG players... is like marketing high-performance motorcycles to kids who watch Power Rangers only tangentially related to Kamen Rider which happened to have motorcycles in them, in the hopes they'll eventually buy one when they grow up.

Edit: If it helps, and I don't want to drench the thread in Brown Rain, I will say this: I wish Forbeck ALL the luck in the world. And may I be proven totally and utterly wrong, and may The Living Tribunal grace us with the greatest Supers game ever.
 
Eh, I bought Mothership, and it's a beta. If this is good and reasonably priced, I'll probably get it.
Same here. That being said, I worked at a FLGS in the 90s and if there's one thing I learned from my experience, it's that a surprising amount of gamers are cheapskates or broke or both. It was a running joke that the place was used as a reading room.
 
Old man. Yes.

But that's not the REAL reason, heh. And you know why.

Well, I’ll put this out there first I think we agree on a lot of older stuff and I’d probably love to game with you. I will also say that I disagree with you about certain Star Wars stuff. I can easily joke about the prequels and sequels with the best of them but I like them overall and will admit that to anyone. I also like the MCU and that’s where Marvel really shines now. It’s basically Shooter’s comic continuity in movie form. The comics are just like a side project for Marvel now. I hope this RPG succeeds.
 
Well, I’ll put this out there first I think we agree on a lot of older stuff and I’d probably love to game with you. I will also say that I disagree with you about certain Star Wars stuff. I can easily joke about the prequels and sequels with the best of them but I like them overall and will admit that to anyone. I also like the MCU and that’s where Marvel really shines now. It’s basically Shooter’s comic continuity in movie form. The comics are just like a side project for Marvel now. I hope this RPG succeeds.
I disagree completely with your disagreeing with me on anything because I don't disagree with anything you say here. :tongue:

I don't use the prequels for one reason - I believe the Old Republic as presented in KOTOR and SWTOR is easily far more expansive and better for TTRPG's. It has nothing to do specifically with the Prequels or the OT.

There's simply a lot more possibility going on in TOR.
 
Well, I’ll put this out there first I think we agree on a lot of older stuff and I’d probably love to game with you. I will also say that I disagree with you about certain Star Wars stuff. I can easily joke about the prequels and sequels with the best of them but I like them overall and will admit that to anyone. I also like the MCU and that’s where Marvel really shines now. It’s basically Shooter’s comic continuity in movie form. The comics are just like a side project for Marvel now. I hope this RPG succeeds.
Didn’t the MCU really end with Endgame? I guess the Guardians of the Galaxy can do their thing, and Antman & Wasp are entertaining. But seriously. Cap is gone. It doesn’t matter who you give the Shield to, it isn’t Cap. Iron Man is dead. Thor ain’t Thor no more. Widow is dead. Hulk is in one of his weak combo forms, and Brie Larson couldn’t front a garage band, let alone the Avengers.

Jon Snow as Black Knight isn’t gonna fill the empty shoes. They need some serious acting power after losing RDJ and ScarJo. Thank god they still have Cheadle, Cumberbatch, Ruffalo and Olsen.
 
Mark Ruffalo is coming back for She-Hulk. Cheadle is coming back for Armor Wars. Olsen and Cumberbatch will be in Doctor Strange 2.

Loki is really getting off to a great start and I talk about that in the thread in Media. Totally MCU.
 
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