The game uses the imagery of you being the writer to explain how you can play, say, Captain America and not have to slavishly adhere to the established personality of the character, that being that changes always occur when writers change. But you definitley play Captain America, not Ed Brubaker
I love this game. I enjoy it to pieces, my group loves it and we are anxiously awaiting Civil War. And we do use original characters as well as Marvel characters.
Allen
Hi Allen!
It's nice to see you comment on the thread.
I obviously disagree as to the nature of the game - it's pretty explicit to me that you are not playing as Captain America, but as the co-author of a story that features Captain America as your narration proxy - but honestly, It's not my goal here to challenge your own perception of narrative storytelling games. Just to explain my own. I'm fine with your own perception of the game, as long as you accept that my own perception may be different based on my own experience and conception of RPGs.
MHR definitely has storytelling elements but I do consider it an RPG.
It seems to me the storytelling element is the primary purpose and the core of the game's play and system. The main currency of the game is plot points, which is used to create complications and the like. The whole logic of the game is sustained by a narrative outlook on game play: you are building a story. That is not a role playing game to me,
because role playing games don't tell stories. The comment linked here was relevant re: Dogs in the Vineyard, but hopefully it'll help you understand where I'm coming from on this, which,
as I've stated multiple times, doesn't mean I can't enjoy the game for what it is.
Now all that said, providing context to what I'm saying, why, etc, let's not make this thread about this disagreement. This thread is about Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game, what are its features, how it plays, what's cool about it and what isn't, and as such, I more than welcome your input as I read through the rules and try to make sense of them for myself.
As for building the dice pool, you get one die from each part of the sheet; one for Affilation, one for Distinctions, one from each Power Set, one from Specialties. You can also add a Scene distinction rather than one of your Distinctions (or both, as long as one is a d4), your opponents Complication die if they have one, one die equal to their current Stress, a die for an Asset if you or someone else has created one. I have my players explain as they add dice why that die is being used. You can add an extra die from say your power sets by spending a Plot Point.
I read that in the rules book, yes. Let's take a practical example.
Let's say Captain America is trying to jurry-rig a car. What dice would you use for the dice pool? (I know the example sucks, but bear with me for a moment)
I run the unofficial fan page for the game on Facebook, by the way. Also, Cam Banks answers questions of the Margaret Weis forums, if you need any help.
Allen
Cam Banks is a nice guy. Do you have a link to the page you're running?