Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game and Champions

[phoenix240]

The (now discontinued) Marvel Heroic Role playing game seems to have gotten a significant audience during its run and still has a number of advocates. I was wondering what people here who have tried it thought and, more specifically, is there anything that could be taken from it for use in Hero System/Champions play and if so how could it be adapted?

[TheQuestionMan]

Greetings Program, I own the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying books, but have not played them. One of our Gamers adapted from it for his Star Wars Cortex Plus campaign. It needed a better Table of Contents, Index, and tidier Layout, but otherwise a great read and resource.   

 

Personally I liked it and would adapt a lot of the Roleplaying aspects to award Character Points per session/mission/scene. A lot gold in those pages, but you have mine/work for it.  

 

QM   

[Cassandra]

Adapting the Adventures themselves should be fairly easy for a Champions campaign, even without using the Marvel superheroes.

 

The Adventures Club had a conversion table for turning Marvel Superhero Game characters into Champions, but the point differences between say Thor and Black Widow was too great for them to be in the same campaign.

[Hyper-Man]

I think this is in reference to a more recent RPG based on the Marvel Universe.

[phoenix240]

Yes, I was referring to the recent Cortex based rpg "Marvel Heroic Role playing" from MWP.

[Hyper-Man]

Marvel Superheroes (MSHRPG) aka "the FASERIP system"

 

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying

[Greywind]

The Adventures Club had a conversion table for turning Marvel Superhero Game characters into Champions, but the point differences between say Thor and Black Widow was too great for them to be in the same campaign.

 

Whedon made both relevant.

[Spence]

I have a very large number of the books PDF (there was a sale IIRC).   I didn't get too deep into it because they are PDF and not real books ( Us old cranky types need paper) but it looked like a tight and very well thought out system.  They explained everything very well and I had no real issue in understanding how powers and abilities worked. 

 

It's major drawback (to me) was a complete lack of character design rules.   Essentially you either played a pregenerated Hero from the Marvel'verse (they did out do themselves with plenty of pre-gens).  But if you built a PC from scratch or modified one there were not balancing guides at all.  No costs.  It would be building Champs characters with and unlimited budget. 

 

In MSHRPG you are free to just assign any power at any level that you feel your PC would have.  I can make a character and just decide I was stronger that the Hulk. 

 

Then play. 

 

Nothing inherently wrong with that approach.  I am just old in set in my ways and prefer some kind of structure to character construction, be it points or levels or something.

[phoenix240]

One of the biggest positives to MHRP according to many of its fans is that "power level" doesn't matter. You can have Daredevil and Thor in the same scenario and both can be relevant without undue effort from the GM>

[Spence]

Whedon made both relevant.

 

Yep, but then movies/novels are closed items where the creator can just make it work.  

 

An RPG is a free form game where many players prefer the level playing field concept.  Not that an RPG can't have PC of wildly different capabilities, but in general that takes a group of talented players to make it fun.  At least in my limited and sheltered experience

[phoenix240]

Yep, but then movies/novels are closed items where the creator can just make it work.  

 

An RPG is a free form game where many players prefer the level playing field concept.  Not that an RPG can have PC of wildly different capabilities, but in general that takes a group of talented players to make it fun.  At least in my limited and sheltered experience

 

I agree with you. It can be done but it takes a good group that's really onboard with the idea. Its somewhat easier to have characters of differing power levels as far as combat goes but with the same points just invested in other areas like skills if the Players of characters with less firepower are willing to play support during the fight scenes and creatively applying the abilities they do have.

 

And/or the game isn't too focused fighting.

[Greywind]

And/or the players are generally comfortable with their characters and not in competition with each other.

[Spence]

One of the biggest positives to MHRP according to many of its fans is that "power level" doesn't matter. You can have Daredevil and Thor in the same scenario and both can be relevant without undue effort from the GM>

 

"can be relevant"

 

That is what I call a backward evasion.  It is like the phrase "well rounded" when applied to a college degree. 

 

Any character can be made relevant in any system.  I can make a 0-level Cook relevant in a D&D campaign of mostly 20 level characters.   

 

Now making characters of wildly divergent power/capabilities equally playable in a campaign is hard.

[phoenix240]

"can be relevant"

 

That is what I call a backward evasion.  It is like the phrase "well rounded" when applied to a college degree. 

 

Any character can be made relevant in any system.  I can make a 0-level Cook relevant in a D&D campaign of mostly 20 level characters.   

 

Now making characters of wildly divergent power/capabilities equally playable in a campaign is hard.

 

 

That's what I meant.  Supposedly (I've never played the game) power levels don't really matter and you can easily have Gods and Street Level vigilantes in the same scenes and it will work easily and fine with no undue effort on the part of the GM or players.

[Beast]

Now have the giant armored flying worms enter the scene
Cap,BW and Hawk are all side lined and only Thor ,Hulk and Iron man can go against them
now the 1st 3 can only deal w/ the mook army

 

BW was able to beat Loki in a mind game and got him to reveal his endgame

Hawkeye was able to deduce that the flying chariots could not turn worth a damn
Cap's shield reflecting the power of Thor's hammer back at him to stop the fight over Loki w/Iron Man

 

in a game this would have been the GM having to give something to those character to MAKE them relevant

That's what I meant.  Supposedly (I've never played the game) power levels don't really matter and you can easily have Gods and Street Level vigilantes in the same scenes and it will work easily and fine with no undue effort on the part of the GM or players.

[phoenix240]

Let's not shoot the messenger here.

 

I haven't played so I don't know how easy mixed power level adventure is or isn't compared to Champions. MHRP seems aimed more at emulating the narrative "feel" of a comic story while Champions (along with most more traditional games) are more focused on simulating a comic book world, a place where the comic "laws of physics" applies but the narrative flow is provided by the gm and players actions and role playing aren't necessarily enforced by the game mechanics, at least not more than marginally (combat isn't extremely deadly overall, for example).

 

It probably is easier to do certain types of scenes in Marvel Heroic like extremely large scale battles (like final scenes of Iron Man 2) because the characters can be really summarized and there's no measurement needed. More of the action takes place in the participants heads but they can lead to a loss of detail and over generalization of characters and their actions that some (including myself) don't find appealing.

 

But I think there maybe some things worth emulating and borrowing from MHRP approach, at least for some Champions fans looking for a more narrative playstyle that still want to keep with Hero System. In some ways many of the flavorful aspects of MHRP of are already present in Hero System but just in a different form or not codified in dice roll (like creative tactics and use of powers or Skills like Tactics and Teamwork). But it can be like nailing jelly to a wall to convince some people about that.

[megaplayboy]

Well, in comics, there have been a few instances where Lois Lane saved Superman's life, or where Alfred Pennyworth bailed out Batman when he was in a jam. There are different approaches possible to level the playing field--more noncombat situations, situations where a powerful hero's limitations come into play, situations where the street hero is in a position to take out the crewed mega weapon that just stunned the flying brick. Etc. I know players generally want their PCs to be able to go toe to toe with each other(in theory or in a danger room) on a fairly even basis. But it doesn't mean that a mixed power level approach is completely unworkable.

[Spence]

That's what I meant.  Supposedly (I've never played the game) power levels don't really matter and you can easily have Gods and Street Level vigilantes in the same scenes and it will work easily and fine with no undue effort on the part of the GM or players.

 

Ah!  I understand where you are going. 

 

I haven't read the rules in depth or tried to run them, but I don't recall any "special" mechanic that promotes anything like that.   Unless a feeling of undefined or vague is a mechanic.  FATE handles wildly differing power levels just fine too.  But that is mostly because FATE doesn't really define that much. 

 

With the detailed abilities/powers in the game, I don't see how they can also be as rules-light as something like FATE.

 

Of course I also have not really learned the rules and it is easy to miss things when you are skimming rather than really reading a rule-set.  And just because I never saw something before doesn't mean it isn't out there.  

[Spence]

Let's not shoot the messenger here.

 

Hopefully that is not me   

 

If it is and I seem to be getting a little snippy, it wasn't intended to come across that way.  Sorry

 

I haven't played so I don't know how easy mixed power level adventure is or isn't compared to Champions. MHRP seems aimed more at emulating the narrative "feel" of a comic story while Champions (along with most more traditional games) are more focused on simulating a comic book world, a place where the comic "laws of physics" applies but the narrative flow is provided by the gm and players actions and role playing aren't necessarily enforced by the game mechanics, at least not more than marginally (combat isn't extremely deadly overall, for example).

 

It probably is easier to do certain types of scenes in Marvel Heroic like extremely large scale battles (like final scenes of Iron Man 2) because the characters can be really summarized and there's no measurement needed. More of the action takes place in the participants heads but they can lead to a loss of detail and over generalization of characters and their actions that some (including myself) don't find appealing.

 

But I think there maybe some things worth emulating and borrowing from MHRP approach, at least for some Champions fans looking for a more narrative playstyle that still want to keep with Hero System. In some ways many of the flavorful aspects of MHRP of are already present in Hero System but just in a different form or not codified in dice roll (like creative tactics and use of powers or Skills like Tactics and Teamwork). But it can be like nailing jelly to a wall to convince some people about that.

 

Well I can certainly see the appeal to a rules lite narrative game.  In fact there is a FATE drive game called Base Raiders that has become really popular at my local store. 

[Cassandra]

Whedon made both relevant.

 

No, Scarlett Johannsenn made Black Widow relevant.

[Greywind]

Widow was always relevant. Didn't you see her take down Happy?

[GhostDancer]

Чёрная вдова (Black Widow) is essentially Captain Soviet, given the Red Room's version of the Super-Soldier Serum.  No Avenger approaches her espionage skills, and she's a sniper.

[Beast]

in the comics I think it was just the infinity formula(longevity) same as Fury
but we have not seen that in the movies(Fury was not a Howling Commando,and none of Capt's crew(those that looked and acted like the HC did not get the infinity formula and become part of shield

as for a sniper I'd say she is just fantastic w/ any firearm

Чёрная вдова (Black Widow) is essentially Captain Soviet, given the Red Room's version of the Super-Soldier Serum.  No Avenger approaches her espionage skills, and she's a sniper.

[GhostDancer]

Yeah, the Red Room business is retcon, introduced later in comics, Beast.  Good point re: firearms, too.

 

...none in the whole army are more intimate relations to be maintained than with spies. #

Tu Mu and Mei Yao-ch`en point out that the spy is privileged to enter even the general's private sleeping-tent.

 

None should be more liberally rewarded.

- Sun Tzu's Art of War, Chapter 13 http://suntzusaid.com/book/13#sthash.ex2xyHEg.dpuf

 

[Greywind]

...and become part of shield

 

With just one movie out so far we have no idea if any of the Commandos joined up with SHIELD. With Peggy in SHIELD and her relationship with Cap and his crew, there is a good possibility that they did join.