This is not the title or the cover.
Sat idle for a year.
Back at it with a vengeance.
Closing in on 80 pages.
It's a very unique thing.
And then there's this guy...
Tuesday, March 30, 2021
Sunday, March 7, 2021
Marvel (FASERIP) Praise + Revised Character Sheets
Opal. See stats below.
So there I was, experimenting with different ways to draw dungeons, when out of the blue, Marvel popped into my head, and stayed there (such is my brain.) I should redesign the character sheet, I thought...again. Make it more user friendly. Put the charts (Universal Table) directly onto the sheet. People don't really like charts any more. They can be very useful, but the Holy Grail of game design -- well, charts don't seem to belong.
But Marvel Super Heroes (FASERIP) is the greatest super-hero role-playing game ever made. Even though I played it to death, haven't touched it in years, having moved on to Heroes Unlimited or some variation there-of, including whole systems invented by yours truly (should post them here one day.) I now feel that no game captured comics like Marvel did.
Next thing you know, it's 3 A.M. and my sheet's been redesigned, with variations over the next couple of days. I guess the dungeons will have to wait a minute.
Marvel Super Heroes is such a solid game, they could republish it today with minimal tweaks. Our young minds didn't appreciate the finer details enough. We never used the defensive maneuvers (how cool is block? -- granted I would use it more proactively than rules-as-written) and we weren't all that creative with our powers -- some of which need to be fleshed out a bit more and given more practical use examples.
Another thing Marvel could've done better is character creation. As it stands, it's completely random -- which is a good thing, I love making sense of random rolls, but, there should be more archetypes available. Something like this:
01-20 Altered Human
01-50 Experiment
01-60 Super-Soldier (usually no powers, but very good stats + weapons)
61-80 Altered Form (animal, plant, mineral, etc.)
81-00 Random Powers
51-00 Accident
01-50 Altered Form (animal, plant, mineral, etc.)
51-00 Random Powers
21-40 Mystic
01-40 Martial Artist (plenty of fighting talents, limited selection of mystic abilities)
41-70 Sorcerer (quite a few lower powered powers "spells")
71-00 Mystically Bestowed
01-30 Random Powers
31-80 Magic Weapon/Item
81-00 Altered Form (animal, plant, mineral, etc.)
41-60 Mutant
01-30 Altered Form (animal, plant, mineral, etc.)
31-50 Experiment (Random Power + a cybernetic or two.)
51-00 Random Powers
61-80 Hi-Tech
01-40 Power Suit (roll on list of powers commonly found in battle armor)
41-70 Gadgeteer (each power is a separate gadget)
71-00 Cybernetics (roll on list of enhancements)
81-90 Robot
01-20 Swarm
21-60 Android -Human Form (random powers)
61-80 Non-Human Form
81-00 Transforming
91-00 Alien
01-20 Altered Form (animal, plant, mineral, etc.)
21-80 Alien race (list of strange beings, multiple eyes, arms, etc.)
81-00 Myth or Legend
There's tons of fan stuff for FASERIP out there. Many have expanded the universal table to include new in-between ranks such as: Awesome, Fantastic, Sensational, etc. I've looked into this before, but now I feel that it isn't necessary. I always felt Monstrous as a descriptor didn't quite fit. If I had to replace it from the list below, I'd probably choose Sensational. Anyhow, here's a list of words you could use if you're looking to expand:
- Awesome
- Marvelous
- Outstanding
- Uncanny
- Magnificent
- Sensational
- Spectacular
- Astonishing
- Fantastic
- Impressive
- Astounding
- Exceptional
- Stunning
And if you wanted to play a horror themed Marvel game you could rename the ranks from the following list:
- Dreadful
- Horrendous
- Terrible
- Ghastly
- Unspeakable
- Atrocious
- Shocking
- Pathetic
- Nightmarish
- Awful
- Eerie
- Abominable
- Lousy
- Alarming
- Daunting
- Formidable
- Harrowing
- Distressing
- Terrifying
- Ungodly
- Mundane
- Maniacal
- Demented
- Beyond
- Unreal
- Ridiculous
Let's give it a whirl:
- Feeble -- Pathetic (2)
- Poor -- Lousy (4)
- Typical -- Mundane (6)
- Good -- Formidable (10)
- Excellent -- Daunting (20)
- Remarkable -- Alarming (30)
- Incredible -- Shocking (40)
- Amazing -- Ghastly (50)
- Monstrous -- Maniacal (75)
- Unearthly -- Horrific (100)
- Shift X -- Abominable (150)
- Shift Y -- Unspeakable (200)
- Shift Z -- Beyond (500)
An oddity with the Universal Table: Shift X and Shift Y are almost identical. First of all, in my humble opinion, Shift Y should be 250, not 200. A yellow success should be 36, not 41, and Shift Z's yellow should be 31, not 36. Ignore what this does to the Class 1000 side of things -- those ranks are pointless to regular super-hero game-play.
01-10 Good (10)
11-20 Excellent (20)
21-35 Remarkable (30)
36-55 Incredible (40)
56-70 Amazing (50)
71-80 Monstrous (75)
81-90 Unearthly (100)
91-94 Shift X (150)
95-99 Shift Y (200) or (250)
00 Shift Z (500)
Or if you want to limit things to Shift X...
01-05 Typical (6)
06-15 Good (10)
16-25 Excellent (20)
26-45 Remarkable (30)
46-65 Incredible (40)
66-80 Amazing (50)
81-90 Monstrous (75)
91-98 Unearthly (100)
99-00 Shift X (150)
The Character Sheets!
In order to make the result table fit, I combined the Blunt & Edge, Fighting & Agility results columns into one. This means you can now Slam with a throwing blunt attack. Which actually fits -- how many times have you seen Cap's thrown Shield or Thor's flying Hammer slam an opponent into the next area? How about a certain cinematic manhole cover? -- "Superman...!"
This was the first revision. The idea was to record the numbers you need to roll for each color feat, per ability...
And here's a sample character named Opal, an entity from the Darkforce Dimension -- that's all we know, that's all we'll ever know, because mysterious is better, every time. For a randomly rolled character, she makes a lot of sense. She can't control the Darkforce like Cloak, but she can generate it, and that stunning option is enormously powerful -- stun your opponent for 1d10 rounds if they fail their endurance roll. Yikes! I would allow and endurance roll every round to snap out of it. Maybe I would change it to touch only (she reaches an ethereal Darkforce hand inside you and grasps your heart...!) She makes a good villain, dangerous, and if she starts to lose, Bamph! -- she's gone to the Darkforce Dimension --she has to roll for that, of course.
And Martial Arts D allows her to slam and stun opponents with body armor who take no actual damage from the attack (I would ignore the fact that you're supposed to study your target for 2 rounds first, hate that kind of crap.) Very useful considering she only has typical strength, i.e., if she ever finds herself unable to generate Darkforce blasts. This Talent is an example of something we almost certainly overlooked or forgot while playing.
So play some Marvel, have a blast! And remember, when villains win, they usually leave the hero lying battered and unconscious in a dark alley or they capture them and leave them unattended in some sort of death trap. Playing one-on-one? -- introduce a new hero who has to rescue the first one (guest starring, the Marvelous _________!)
And keep track of the villains that you've captured, who are now locked up in a super-max facility. When in need of a random encounter, create a random breakout table. No need to explain how...
Could look something like this:
1 Doctor Octopus
2 Vulture
3 Scorpion
4 Electro
5 Sandman
6 Hobgoblin
7 Speed Demon
8 Hydro-Man
9 Roll Twice
10 Everyone on this list!
And what are they doing...?
1 Robbing a bank
2 Hunting Spider-Man
3 Hunting __________
4 Building a new Secret Base
5 Recruiting henchmen
6 Raiding a scientific laboratory
7 Planting a bomb
8 Holding a hostage
9 Marauding maniacally
10 Whereabouts unknown...
Their Secret Base is...
1 In the sewers
2 The top floor of a sky-scraper
3 An abandoned warehouse
4 Underwater
5 Basement of an old house
6 A penthouse apartment
7 A mobile truck or van
8 A junkyard
9 An old factory
10 Hidden in an iconic landmark
It's Clobberin' Time!