Marvel RPG

[Matt]

I guess that M&M currently holds the crown for most popular supers RPG. But there used to be a time when Marvel RPG was the best game in town. The game was relaunched multiple times, featuring wildly different rules, from percentile to a card based system.

The system in the advanced game books that came out in the early 1990 is still one of my favorite systems. It's lean, mean and easy to use. The streamlined system allowed me to run games that people could spend more time doing stuff instead of figuring out rules.

It has been a long time since the game died, so I'm not sure how many people here are familiar with it. I'm going to try to resurrect the system here so that hopefully we can introduce a few new people to the system, and possibly rekindle something in older players of the game.

Over the next few weeks I will provide all the information that you'll need to play the game. And today I'll give brief overview of the system.

If you have the time, check it out. I think it will be worth your while.

[Matt]

The Marvel RPG "FASERIP" System

Attributes

Almost all game mechanics are resolved by rolling percentile dice and comparing the results against a column of the colorful "Universal Results Table". The column used is determined by the attribute used; different tasks are resolved by reference to different attributes. All characters have seven basic attributes:

Fighting, which determines hit probability and defense against hand-to-hand attacks.

Agility, which determines hit probability, defense against ranged attacks, feats of agility vs. the enviroment, and similar acrobatics.

Strength, which determines damage inflicted by hand-to-hand attacks as well as the success of tasks such as grappling or the lifting and breaking of heavy objects.

Endurance, which determines resistance to physical damage (e.g., poison, disease, death) it also determined how long a character can fight and how fast a character could move at top speed by exerting themselves.

Reason, which determines the success of tasks relating to knowledge, puzzle-solving, and advanced technology.

Intuition, which determines the success of tasks relating to awareness, perception, and instinct.

Psyche, which determines the success of tasks relating to willpower, psionics, and magic.

Players sometimes refer to this set of attributes, or the game system as a whole, by the acronym "FASERIP". Attribute scores for the vast majority of characters range from 1 to 100, where normal human ability is 6, and peak (non-superheroic) human ability is 30. However, the designers minimize use of the numerical figures, instead preferring colorful adjectives in the Marvel Comics tradition, such as "Incredible" (scores from 36-45) and "Amazing" (46-62). A "Typical" (5-7) attribute has a 50% base chance for success at most tasks relating to that attribute. For example, a character with "Typical" fighting skill has a base 50% of connecting with a punch. As an attribute increases, the chance of success increases, roughly by 5% per 10 points. Thus a character with an "Amazing" (50) attribute has a 75% chance of success at tasks relating to that attribute.

Superpowers

Beyond the seven attributes, characters possessed superpowers, such as Spider-Man's wall crawling, or Mister Fantastic's elasticity. The powers function on a mostly ad hoc basis, and thus each character's description gives considerable space to a description of how his or her powers work in the game.

Each character had an origin, which put ceilings on a character's abilities and superpowers. The origins included: Altered Humans (normal people who acquired powers, such as Spider-Man or the Fantastic Four), High-Tech Wonders (normal people whose powers come from devices, e.g., Iron Man), Mutants (persons born with superpowers, such as the X-Men), Robots (created beings such as the Vision and Ultron), and Aliens (a blanket term used to cover non-humans, including extra-dimensional beings such as Thor and Hercules).

Talents

The game also featured a simple skill system, referred to as Talents. Talents had to be learned and covered a wide range of knowledges from Archery to Zoology. A Talent raised a character's ability by one rank when attempting actions related to that Talent. For example, a character uses his Agility score when attempting ranged attacks. A character with an Agility of Excellent would normally roll on that column when attacking with a rifle. However, if he had the "Guns" Talent he would treat his Agility as the next higher power rank (Remarkable). The GM was free to determine if a character would be unable to attempt an action without the appropriate Talent (such as a character with no medical background attempting to make a pill that can cure a rare disease).

Resources and Popularity

Characters also had two variable attributes: Resources and Popularity. These attributes were described using the same terms as the character's seven attributes ("Poor," "Amazing," "Unearthly," etc.). But unlike the seven physical and mental attributes which changed very slowly, if at all, Resources and Popularity could change very quickly.

The first of the variables, Resources, represented the character's wealth and ability to obtain goods or services. Rather than have the player keep track of how much money the character had in the bank or with him, the Advanced Game assumed the character had enough money coming in to cover his basic living expenses. The Resources ability was used when the character wished to purchase something out of the ordinary like a new car or house. For example, the referee might decide a character with Typical resources would probably be unable to purchase a brand new sports car, but with a Yellow Resources roll might be able to afford a used car in good condition. The game books note that a character's Resources score can change for a variety of reasons, such as winning the lottery or having a major business transaction go bad.

The second variable, Popularity, reflected how much the character was liked (or disliked) in the Marvel Universe. Popularity could be used to influence non-player characters. A superhero with a high rating, like Captain America (whose popularity is Unearthly-the highest most characters can achieve), might be able to use his Popularity to gain entrance to a club because the general population of the Marvel Universe admires him. If he were to try the same thing as his secret identity Steve Rogers (whose Popularity is only Typical), he would probably be unable to do it. Villains also had a Popularity score, which was usually negative (a bouncer might let Doctor Doom or Magneto into the aforementioned club simply out of fear). There were several ways Popularity could change. For example, if Doctor Doom defeated Spider-Man in front of the general public, Spidey's Popularity would go down for a short time. But if everyone's favorite web-slinger managed to foil one of Doctor Doom's plans and the word got out, he would enjoy a temporary Popularity boost. Since mutants were generally feared and distrusted in the Marvel Universe, these characters start with a Popularity of 0 and have a hard time improving this attribute.

Karma

The game's equivalent of experience points was Karma, a pool of points initially determined as the sum of a character's three mental attributes (Reason, Intuition, and Psyche).

The basic system allowed players to increase their chances of success at most tasks by spending points of Karma. For example, a player who wanted to make sure he would hit a villain in a critical situation could spend however many Karma points were necessary to raise the dice roll to the desired result. Additional Karma points were distributed by the referee at the end of game sessions, typically as rewards for accomplishing heroic goals, such as defeating villains, saving innocents, and foiling crimes. Conversely, Karma could be lost for unheroic actions such as fleeing from a villain, or failing to stop a crime: in fact, in a notable departure from many RPGs (but strongly in keeping with the genre), all Karma was lost if a hero killed someone or allowed someone to die.

In the Advanced Game, Karma points could also be spent to permanently increase character attributes and powers (at a relatively moderate cost, ten times the attribute number raised, powers were steeper, at twenty times the number.). The Karma system thus united two RPG mechanics—"Action" or "Hero" points (which allow players to control random outcomes) and character advancement (e.g., "experience points")—in one system. It had the virtue of emulating two central features of super-hero comics, namely, that heroes almost always win, even in highly improbable circumstances, and that heroes' power levels remain mostly static. Furthermore, the system helped encourage players to keep their characters' behavior to the equivalent concept of their alignment by giving a strong incentive to behave heroically and morally correct.

[SkyLion]

Hey Chosen, my home grup long ago adapted Palladium's Rifts to the Marvel Advanced System. Not only did it work surprisingly perfectly but it also fixed all the problems inherent in Palladium's system.

Heck, if I could ever be persuaded to ST a game it would be a Marvel Rifts game...

[El'Jinn Uu]

HAH!!!

"SkyLion" NO ONE CAN FIX Palladiums flaws... Even with a Rockn system like FASERIP!!! NOOOOOOOO ONNNNNNE!.

I just got all my post on their message boards Deleted...

But Anywho, as always Chosen, you've got killer taste. Marvel FASERIP one of my Fav Gaming experiances. Thank you for remembering it. If not fer MF, I'd have never gotten into Aberrant... I'd still be playn "ACK" Heroes Unlimited!

I like Nightspawn, but that's about it... Hummmm Nightspawn Vs. a Nova, who would win...a...oops, I forgot, palladium sues Anyone who trys to convert their matterial, even in a question like that... I'd better shush

[SkyLion]

Eljin I respectfully disagree. FASERIP Rips the shred out of Paalladium's bum R.I.P. Palladium...

[El'Jinn Uu]

???Nah Gah??? Wahhozzits nah?

I know it does, I was sayn that. PB's system sucks, and even FASERIP Can't make that peice of Squwat better.

But I'am curios to know how you guys pulled it off. It sounds like mountains of work, converting all that armor, guns, magic spells, Chi powers...etc.

[SkyLion]

It was a cinch! We completely ditched the system in favor of Marvel and kept all the cool races, faces, places and classes that makes Rifts so distinctive and awesome. back in the day their was a cool webring called "Quality in Rifts" that had alot of Aberrant style editorials or deconstructions of various classes designed to make Sembieda's often pedantic and simple concepts into fully fleshed out and plausible ones.

One of the biggest things that irked us about Rifts was that things operated on different scales. There wer 3 different scales for Strength, normal, supernatural and robotic. This makes absolutely no sense...strength is a measurable continuum. Marvel's universal table gave us just the solution!

Everything on one scale and strength was the starting point. For example we know in Marvel, an Excellent Strength is the normal human maximum...we are talking super ripped gold metal weight lifter able to bench 800 lbs. We know that the juicer augmentation package pushes those limits and then some so your average juicer has Remarkable (30) Strength. Titan and Mega Juicers could get up to Incredible (40).

Magic and psionic are the same way. We used Marvels magic system instead and its awesome...with its summomning, dimensional and universal spell categories it is a perfect fit fopr the feel of rifts.

For Mega Damage and stats we convert it on a 10-1 ratio. basically for armor divide by 10. A Glitter Boy with 770 MDC in Marvel has an armor of Monstrous (75). We converted weapon damage in a similar manner but its been awhile so I need to go back and check my notes.

All in all: It worked. We have played many a rifts game that had the complete feel of Rifts. Marvel made a great setting actually playable.

[El'Jinn Uu]

Sounds good. I must admit, the MDC issue was always a little annoying, what with it generally starting and stopping at 100 SDC. I eventually added a Universal Protection scoring system (AKA UP score) based on the Moh's Hardness scale to the game.

Instead of all ultra tech matterials being listed as Diamond hard MDC (100), now some may only be at 75-85 (Titainum) or 50-60 for Steel hardness. Bones as 40-50...etc. I based doing this off of playing FASERIP.

Great game.

[El'Jinn Uu]

Looks like others want to play FASERIP to. Just came across My old (and first) GM. He's also wanting to get a game going. It's just one of those games.

[barna10]

I'd be interested in any web-based game using the marvel system.