Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game | ||||||||||||
TSR/Wizards of the Coast, boxed set RPG | ||||||||||||
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A review by Don Bassingthwaite
Ahem... well, maybe not. But that's definitely the mood of TSR's new
Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game. Yes, you too can take
the role of your favourite Marvel super hero, defending law-abiding
citizens from villainous criminals, protecting Earth from cosmic
menaces, and worrying if maybe your costume shows off just a little bit too much muscle.
Nawww... you can never have enough muscle.
The idea behind the game is certainly nothing new. After all, TSR first
published the Marvel Super Heroes Role-Playing Game back
in 1984. I remember that game. The descriptive rather than numeric
ranking of powers and abilities (from Feeble and Poor through Amazing,
Monstrous, and Unearthly), and the FEATs system of determining successes
were interesting ideas at the time and captured the comic book spirit
of super hero role-playing nicely.
The new Marvel Super Heroes improves on that system
dramatically. The game is based on the SAGA game system that
was introduced with TSR's Dragonlance: Fifth Age
game. SAGA resolves action using a deck of cards (the Fate Deck)
instead of dice. Don't worry, a complete Fate Deck comes in the
game box -- this isn't a collectible card game. Characters succeed
at an action when players lay down cards from their hand with a
total value that, when added to an ability or power score, match a
difficulty number. By using cards of an appropriate suit, the
players can draw additional cards off the Fate Deck to further
increase that total value (very important when attempting those
fantastic, super-heroic actions). It's a nice flexible
mechanic. Various elements of the cards can also have effects beyond
simply resolving actions. The more I see of this system, the more
attracted to it I am. There is still a strong random element (the
players don't always know the difficulty number that they're trying
to beat), but the play of cards permits greater and more interesting
control of the action.
The comic book feel of the game is great. As the rule book states,
the game action is always resolved from the heroes' point of view,
just like the comics. This has, for example, an interesting effect
on combat: if a villain is attacking your hero, the villain doesn't
have to try to hit you -- you have to try to dodge. There are some
optional rules presented that also add to the drama. A couple are
simple -- piling on in combat and pushing to the limit -- and it's
nice to see them included. Two other options are a little more
complex but bring the cards directly into role-playing. The first
is the use of the events described on the cards. These can
influence the actions of heroes with matching personality "callings,"
leading to things like the necessity of saving innocent bystanders
in the middle of energy blast firefight. This means that combat isn't
always just a slugfest. The second dramatic card option is the use
of the Doom suit. One of the five suits in the game has the mask of
Doctor Doom on it -- heroes can play these cards for their full
value, but the Narrator gets to pick them up and use them against
the heroes later on. Heroes have to choose their actions wisely!
In fact, the consequence of action is the subject of a whole
chapter in the rule book. A very tightly-written ten pages give
one of the best, most succinct guides to role-playing I've seen
in quite some time, covering hero qualities (name is important!),
how heroes get along in society (there's more to crime fighting than
just beating up the bad guy), and a day in the life of a super
hero:
One area where the new game makes a definite improvement over the
old is in character generation. The old version of
Marvel Super Heroes relied pretty heavily on random
throws of the dice. Were you a mutant or an altered human? Did
you get to fly and throw fireballs or did you just have extra
arms and a bunch of sensory powers? The new game leaves most of
the character definition up to the player, randomized by the suit
and value of cards drawn from the Fate Deck. You can fly and throw
fireballs if you want to, but you'll have to pay for them. After
making up a few trial characters, I liked the system. Even a lousy
draw of cards can be worked into an interesting character. The only
criticism I have is that the skills lists are radically limited and
could have stood some serious rethinking. Strength-based skills,
for example, are almost all combat-oriented, while Intellect skills
are very top heavy in the trained sciences. Otherwise, lists of
callings and powers are broad and quite complete. The powers all
seem well-defined and retain the old game's system of stunts to
emulate various uses of a basic power (for example, the base power
of magnetic control is the ability to manipulate ferrous metal
objects, with flight by riding magnetic waves as one possible stunt).
With the basic game set, you get the rules book (officially
called the Game Book), a Fate Deck, and a Roster Book featuring
a good selection of heroes and villains (each with full
game stats and a short history, of course).
These are more than enough to get you started. As the
game says, if you need more inspiration or background reading,
go pick up some comic books. The rules have instructions for
working out the game stats of established comic characters.
If you're looking at doing a longer running game though, picking
up some of the accessories for the game would be a good idea. Two
are available already: the X-Men Roster Book and
Adventure Book #1:X-Men - Who Goes There?. These are
probably just the first of more to come -- I can easily see
Avengers and/or Fantastic Four Roster Books on the horizon,
and Adventure Books aplenty.
The Adventure Book #1 is probably a good thing to pick
up if you want some pre-made adventures and ideas for how to
structure your own. It's a thin little book with seven quite
short and mostly unconnected adventures. If you're a confident
gamer, though, you may not need it. If you're planning an
adventure campaign based on the X-Men or any of the related
mutant teams (X-Force, Generation X, Excalibur, Alpha Flight),
however, you'll definitely want to pick up the
X-Men Roster Book. This is almost 150 pages of stats and
history on mutant heroes and villains, with histories of the
various mutant teams. It's printed on nice glossy paper, and
illustrated in colour. Heck, even if you're not planning on
running an X-men campaign, pick it up. It's good. I had fun
just reading through it, catching up on what my favourite
heroes have been doing. I might even go out and pick up some
of the Alpha Flight comics I've been skipping!
Good, clear mechanics, quick flow, strong atmosphere and good
background (the support of hundreds of comics doesn't hurt!) --
I think TSR has a winner with this game.
Don Bassingthwaite is the author of Such Pain (HarperPrism), Breathe Deeply (White Wolf), and Pomegranates Full and Fine (White Wolf), tie-in novels to White Wolf's World of Darkness role-playing games. He can't remember when he started reading science fiction, but has been gaming since high school (and, boy, is his dice arm tired!). |
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