New Marvel RPG coming in 2022

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Eh, I understand the collector's impulse; there are things I "collect", stuff that isn't there to be useful, just to make me feel good. It's kinda like owning a piece of art - it doesn't serve any function, yet it still improves your quality of life in some little way.

For some folks I guess that's just anything to do with a game they love. For others it's uh...TVGuides. Or those little Precious Moments figures. Or Beanie Babies...

I mean, jeeze, never forget the stamp collecting hobby is bigger than our entire hobby, and was socially acceptable decades before RPGs
Yeah, I get that. For me, the playtest copy was the crappy one that I never looked at again once I had the real version. But I got to be a playtester, so the experience was more important to me than the physical artifact of it. I can see how it would be an interesting window into the design of the game for a fan of the game that wasn't involved at the time.
 
Just glancing at those pictures, I don’t see anything that makes this worth $17,500.

Yeah, it may be delusion on the guy's part. Maybe he's hoping to snag a whale.

But baseball cards are just one of those things that are a huge market, and I've never understood the appeal of. Occasionally as a kid I'd end up with a pack, usually as a gift or something, and I just had no idea what to do with them or what was meant to be interesting about them - pictures of ugly guys in weird clothing with nonsensical percentage ratings on the back, and sometimes a stick of stale bubblegum as hard as as a jawbreaker...
 
Eh, I understand the collector's impulse; there are things I "collect", stuff that isn't there to be useful, just to make me feel good. It's kinda like owning a piece of art - it doesn't serve any function, yet it still improves your quality of life in some little way.

For some folks I guess that's just anything to do with a game they love. For others it's uh...TVGuides. Or those little Precious Moments figures. Or Beanie Babies...

I mean, jeeze, never forget the stamp collecting hobby is bigger than our entire hobby, and was socially acceptable decades before RPGs
It's not that I don't understand collecting, I just think that I put RPGs in a separate category in my head, same with board games.

I collected Transformer toys for a long time.
 
I made a home-brew 40K: Rogue Trader game using the WFRP rules back in the '80s, so I just laughed sadly when I heard someone else was going down that same dark road.

If memory serves, it was the issue of White Dwarf where Rough Night at the Three Feathers first appeared where there was a snippet saying they were going to do a 40K RPG, but tgey wanted to create an all-new system for it, and not just use the one found in WFRP.
 
Trying to think about how a 3D6 mechanic where ‘616’ is top might work. Maybe you have a positive/negative dice combo, with an extra D6 for effect?

So, (D6-D6) + D6 where rolling ‘616’ results in (6-1) + 6 = 11 (the top score).

The full range would be -4 to 11.
 
Trying to think about how a 3D6 mechanic where ‘616’ is top might work. Maybe you have a positive/negative dice combo, with an extra D6 for effect?

So, (D6-D6) + D6 where rolling ‘616’ results in (6-1) + 6 = 11 (the top score).

The full range would be -4 to 11.

clever, but I doubt they are being that clever, just based on that list of Attributes (shudder)
 
Yeah, it may be delusion on the guy's part. Maybe he's hoping to snag a whale.

But baseball cards are just one of those things that are a huge market, and I've never understood the appeal of. Occasionally as a kid I'd end up with a pack, usually as a gift or something, and I just had no idea what to do with them or what was meant to be interesting about them - pictures of ugly guys in weird clothing with nonsensical percentage ratings on the back, and sometimes a stick of stale bubblegum as hard as as a jawbreaker...
Baseball is my favorite sport and I always loved statistics. One of my other hobbies is playing a PC game called “Out of the Park Baseball” where you can be the GM of a baseball team and draft, trade, pick up players over the course of decades. The game simulates seasons and every players numbers. You can go down the rabbit hole pretty far, including deciding how much a ticket costs for fans to see the games and balancing numbers on the books. I enjoy it.
 
I did enjoy this one baseball game on the NES - think it was called "RBI Baseball"? The players looked like Fisher-Price toys
 
Baseball is my favorite sport and I always loved statistics. One of my other hobbies is playing a PC game called “Out of the Park Baseball” where you can be the GM of a baseball team and draft, trade, pick up players over the course of decades. The game simulates seasons and every players numbers. You can go down the rabbit hole pretty far, including deciding how much a ticket costs for fans to see the games and balancing numbers on the books. I enjoy it.

I've always been curious about "Fantasy Baseball" _ I have no idea how it's played or anything, but the gamer in me always kinda wanted to figure it out and see if there was any part of it that was RPG-esque or portable
 
I've always been curious about "Fantasy Baseball" _ I have no idea how it's played or anything, but the gamer in me always kinda wanted to figure it out and see if there was any part of it that was RPG-esque or portable
Fantasy baseball is very time consuming because you have to check your rosters every day basically. If you are interested in doing anything sports fantasy related I would start out dabbling in football due to there being only one game a week and proceed from there if you like it.
 
Fantasy baseball is very time consuming because you have to check your rosters every day basically. If you are interested in doing anything sports fantasy related I would start out dabbling in football due to there being only one game a week and proceed from there if you like it.

Yeah, that may be too much fantasy....I still am completely confused what it actually involves
 
Yeah, that may be too much fantasy....I still am completely confused what it actually involves
It’s just picking the players from your roster you think will earn the most points based on real-life statistical accomplishments. For instance, in football, a running back or wide receiver would get six points for every real-life touchdown they score that game (there are other categories). You add up the points and whoever has the most between you and your fantasy opponent wins that week. The good thing about football is you set your roster once a week because there’s only 17 games. Baseball is 162. I don’t really think there are any RPG elements about it. It’s just a popular pastime that can involve bragging rights and the occasional $$.
 
It’s just picking the players from your roster you think will earn the most points based on real-life statistical accomplishments. For instance, in football, a running back or wide receiver would get six points for every real-life touchdown they score that game (there are other categories). You add up the points and whoever has the most between you and your fantasy opponent wins that week. The good thing about football is you set your roster once a week because there’s only 17 games. Baseball is 162. I don’t really think there are any RPG elements about it. It’s just a popular pastime that can involve bragging rights and the occasional $$.


Oh...so they don't play fantasy games? That's disappointing
 
The 'fantasy' part involves being able to pick different players from different real-world teams to comprise your fantasy team. Subject to whatever draft rules apply, and other participants possibly getting a player you really want before your next draft pick becomes available.
 
The 'fantasy' part involves being able to pick different players from different real-world teams to comprise your fantasy team. Subject to whatever draft rules apply, and other participants possibly getting a player you really want before your next draft pick becomes available.

What I pictured in my head was way more interesting. Something like Battlebooks but with sports
 
It’s way easier to do fantasy football now with the apps you use that add up the points for you. Back in the day you had to use the newspaper and check all the box scores to see who did what and manually add up the points. I used to buy these books that had players ranked and rules you could use for your leagues.
 
Do you know the funny thing? I think I had a better attribute list for a Marvel game. But alas, plus I could use the online stats they share to play..!
 
Do you know the funny thing? I think I had a better attribute list for a Marvel game. But alas, plus I could use the online stats they share to play..!


Better than "Vigilance, Ego, and Logic"?! Shirley you jest...
 
leslie-nielsen-naked-gun.gif
 
I can see Ego. Logic and Vigilance, I dunno.
 
Baseball is 162. I don’t really think there are any RPG elements about it.
There's the quite wonderful Blaseball, a surrealist baseball-inspired horror slash fantasy sports game slash cultural event slash massively multiplayer online sports watching experience. There was no creating your own team, the game was set-up like a sports league with premade teams; fans (Players) earned (In-game) money through betting (In-game) money on the results of games, as well as the performance of their favourite team and favourite players, which they could spend on votes to change the structure or fundamental rules of the league, get boosts for the players on their favourite teams, or renovating their team's ballpark. Also, occasionally cosmic forces would stick their nose in and interfere with the game, the fanbase as a whole found ways to do things like reincarnate dead players, team rivalries and fan cultures built up from nothing, and eventually the entire game itself was self-destructed. If it sounds like a chaotic mess, then that's because it really, really was, and it was stupid and it was glorious. It's kinda died down now (It was HUGE during 2020, with a lack of real-world sports and a surplus of people who Really Needed Something To Do), as well as not running at the moment, but it was a lot of fun to take part in even on a fairly casual level and many of us are looking forward to Play Continuing next year, because it was just... fun.

I'm a Hellmouth Sunbeams fan, through and through. Stare into the sun...

---

I'm actually raging at my Fantasy Football team because I lost the first eight games of the season, and was on track for a perfect season at the bottom of the table - a quite spectacular level of rubbishness. But then I accidentally won a game, so now my performance is just going to be mediocre, not spectacularly poor.
 
Baseball cards? Football... nnngh. How many times does the foot actually touch the ball? Kick off and punts? Don't get me started on why you lot call it soccer. Grrr.

Besides...

thread drift

Digression from the topic of a thread or forum. See also off-topic. ...

Talking about the Marvel role playing game takes a twist into the world of ... Baseball cards! Who knew they were related?!?!

Original topic be like...

thread-drift.gif
 
Baseball is my favorite sport and I always loved statistics. One of my other hobbies is playing a PC game called “Out of the Park Baseball” where you can be the GM of a baseball team and draft, trade, pick up players over the course of decades. The game simulates seasons and every players numbers. You can go down the rabbit hole pretty far, including deciding how much a ticket costs for fans to see the games and balancing numbers on the books. I enjoy it.
Since OOTP3! I've missed the last couple of years, but Markus has always done really amazing things with that game.

Regarding the Marvel game, I'm a little surprised they didn't go with the stats Marvel uses in their handbooks. Int, Str, Spd, Dur, Energy Projection, Fighting.

I suppose it would make it harder to sell supplements, but I can't say I expect more than a core book and perhaps one splat before it gets yanked so that would have made it nice.
 
EDIT: Thanks to TristramEvans TristramEvans for pointing out I missed two (one of which played and and ran for years and have had at least one attempt at rewriting...). In my defence I was rushed and (am now) at work :sad: Luckily I'm spare today which means unless someone calls in sick or something disastrous happens I won't have to go drive any trains :grin: So, including the two I missed... (bold)

With regards the Marvel property, what do you consider as the pros and cons of each of the incarnations? For anyone not that interested in marvel stuff, it started here:

1984

msh-1.jpg


Percentile role, many peoples' first real go at supers genre (I'd tried V&V and Superhero 2044 when this came out), Marvel characters and art, easy to play. Very swingy/whiffy (which Karma tries to fix but nothing will help if the dice constantly stiff you) and some clunky mechanics like Remarkable 30 strength vs Remarkable 30 Body Armour. Random character creation was a few pages in the back and more or less an afterthought.

1986

msh-2.jpg


Gave much more space to random character creation, variable ranks and more of them (Shift Y, Z, CL3 and 5k). Also came out with the Ultimate Powers Book which I didn't like much (I'd always end up rolling a plant growth/machine conversing/floating instead of flying/Remarkable Strength brick with Feeble Endurance or some other drivel). By this time DC Heroes was a thing, and a good one. It's a better game. Your mileage may vary.

1991

msh-6.jpg


I never played this (I'd long since ditched Marvel for DC Heroes, the greatest supers rpg in any multiverse. Your mileage ... etc) but having had a look (it's 'free' as an unauthorised download if you search for it. I think TSR don't own the game and neither do Marvel as it was a joint thing so it's in limbo, which helps when you PDF the entire game line and make it free for download) it seems to be a tweaked, cleaned up, more options and more character write ups (Captain Britain with Unearthly strength! He's come a long way since being a guy with a pole vaulting stick who fought old guys with remote control eagles) game. So FASERIP, probably a lot of whiffy miss mis miss combat (I'm playing in a MSH game and it's toe curling the amount of missing that's happening) and easy to pick up and play.


1998

msh-3.jpg


Liked by those use played it (seemingly), uses cards. A bugger to get hold of (complete at any rate) and unloved by the masses as cancelled shortly after and the last hurrah of TSR/Wizards with Marvel.

2003

MSH-7.jpg


Disclaimer: I ran this game for a few years and played in it on/off too, then vanished for a while (real life) and came back to the forum at https://murpg.proboards.com so I like the game and am biased. I get what others say about no dice=no point because you can sum the game up as 'blowing your load in the first round of combat' and doing pretty much nothing thereafter. It's a resource management game. You spend energy to get things done and if you spend enough, it happens. If you can't it doesn't. The writing is iffy, some of the write ups are a bit off and the fan base is (sadly) on the wane these days but I can imagine interest will perk up at the MURPG board when the new game comes out. I like it. I think it had potential but it was canned after three books (and there was a Spiderman fan created guide) so that is that.


2012

msh-4.jpg


An internet darling and still 'best comic book game EVAR!' gushed over in certain places. Squishes characters into a range of five dice (D4, D6, D8, D10, D12) and bunches up even further at the high end so they are pretty much indistinguishable in game terms. Thing and Hulk both roll D12 for Strength. So do Colossus and many of the other bricks that were formerly separated by a rank or two in MSH for instance. Models Wasp, Hawkeye, Thor, Hulk and Iron man in the same team very well by squishing them together but loses something in the translation to my mind. Cortex maybe not the best fit for supers. Your mileage may... etc. Published in 2012, canned in '13. Getting tricky/hard/expensive to get hold of, especially past the core book (the red one shown). Great production values and the author, Cam Banks, is an RPG 'name', respected in the industry. Rightly so.

2022

msh-5.jpg


Matt Forbeck has credits for a number of roleplaying games including Brave new World of the 90s, a low/street level supers game where characters are hunted by the government and there's a big meta plot going on as far as I can tell (was that ever resolved?). System said to be '616' and using D6s, maybe with 'gimmick' dice (Dr Doom or Spiderman on a face, for example), we don't know. Stats spell MARVEL (Might, Agility, Resilience, Vigilance, Ego, and Logic) and depending on the current state of deals and licensing with the MCU and Comics/Sony (who still 'own' or at least rent Spider-Man as a movie property) might include certain high profile characters or not. Sure to e the next big thing, frothed over by fans on forums and lots of stats/fan stuff churned out.

How long will it last though? Place your bets...
 
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You missed the Marvel Revised Basic set that replaced the original basic set and was the last update of the original game published, and the Marvel Universe RPG, the in-house RPG version published under Gareb Shamus.

One could also include the FASERIP clones/pseudoclones G-Core, The Superlative System, Icons, 4C Expanded, and the fake FASERIP by Blacky the Blackball, etc.
 
I'll update the post for completion. Rushed so I missed them (I'm now at work ☹️). Think I have those on the shelves too...
 
Squishes characters into a range of five dice (D4, D6, D8, D10, D12) and bunches up even further at the high end so they are pretty much indistinguishable in game terms. Thing and Hulk both roll D12 for Strength. So do Colossus and many of the other bricks that were formerly separated by a rank or two in MSH for instance.
This glosses over the other effects that make them feel different in play, IMO.
 
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