Quote from: TristramEvans;687397But I think that MSH took an approach to the game that ensured its success that the other three, MHR especially, would have done well to have learned from.

I'm curious: how would you articulate that specifically?

Mostly, I'm just curious, but secondarily (and off-topic), after consistently reading so many people say that not only was MHR the best Marvel game, but perhaps the best supers game ever, I'm trying to understand.  I went back to read it and, while having fond memories of it, it still needs extensive houseruling to actually work IMO.

Quote from: drkrash;687411I'm curious: how would you articulate that specifically?

Mostly, I'm just curious, but secondarily (and off-topic), after consistently reading so many people say that not only was MHR the best Marvel game, but perhaps the best supers game ever, I'm trying to understand.  I went back to read it and, while having fond memories of it, it still needs extensive houseruling to actually work IMO.

I guess there are four broad areas of MSH worth singling out.

1. For a lot of fans I guess it comes down to getting the right balance between detail and playability. In that respect it's highly subjective and not tied to any specific design feature.

2. Karma is the key design feature one of the more innovative features of the game. It binds genre conventions with the reward system and allows heroes to be heroic when it counts.

I think it goes a lot further though. In the Karma rules you have the unheralded origins of the Fate point economy. MSH put the player in the position in which the player knows he can probably win anyone encounter by spending enough Karma, but what will this cost him in the long run, both in terms of dealing with the next encounter as well as long term advancement (Karma acts both as Fate Point and as XP). It should be noted that by the rules Karma should be computed and awarded at the end of each encounter (not lumped together at the end of the session). This makes the makes it very obvious whether the net between Karma spend on the encounter and Karma earned from the encounter is a gain or a loss.

I think the Karma rules are what make MSH really work. In practice I think a lot of these finer points about Karma were glossed over houseruled.

3. Stunts. The solution in MSH to allowing powers to occasionally do unusual things is very flexible and elegant. I don't know how unique it is to MSH but it seems a modern concept for an 80s game.

4. The other feature of MSH that was fairly unique was "modelling" as a character generation system. That is of course one of the things MHR did take from MSH.

Quote from: James Gillen;687368Or Batman hiding from Darkseid's Omega beams.

JG

Batman evading the Omega beams is cool as hell, but he really should not be able to

Quote from: drkrash;687411I'm curious: how would you articulate that specifically?

a couple things...

First off, MSH required an incredibly low "buy-in" from new players. The system literally takes only a few minutes to explain. It assumed its audience was people new to roleplaying or coming from D&D.

Related, but more important, though all Marvel games have had revolutionary (meaning here new as opposed to superior per se) approaches to game design, FASERIP still presented the game in a way that would be instantly familiar to anyone who played a standard RPG: You had 7 Attributes, Talents (skills), and then Powers and Equipment. You had Health (Hitpoints) and Karma (XP). All of it Presented like an atypical rpg of the time. What one came to realize as They played it for a bit, however, was that MSH was actually a point resource allocation system , with Attribute rolls just there to provide a bit of a break.

Additionally, while other MSH systems have gotten progressively more abstract in their character stats, MSH went out of its way to clearly define what every number/adjective meant in real world terms. It's 1to 10 ranking system wasnt concerned with the nitty gritty, like exactly how many pounds The Thing could benchpress or the exact IQ score of The Leader, but a player knew exactly how your rank compared to other characters in the MU or compared to an average citizen, what "weight class" you were in to use an analogy. This not only helped new players interpret thier character sheet and confidently know what thier PC was capable of, but also made it very easy for the GM to create characters on the spot.

The gameline was incredibly well-supported, with resource books and box-sets that appealed to comics fans who'd never played RPGs, with books like The Weapons Locker, the Lands of Doom boxed set, and the Official Handbook series, which detailed nearly every extant character in the MU at the time, from the obscure (Forbush Man) to various iterations of popular characters ( stats for 10+ of the Iron Man suits fr the big gold original to the rarely-used Hulkbuster). Even just with the core rules, one had stats for over a hundred of the most popular heroes and villains. And rules were provided not just for making one's own characters, but also for "modelling" a comicbook character that hadn't been statted up yet (or belonged to a different company).

The underlying base system, which was one of the earliest games to utilize the now-industry-standard universal base mechanic, was robust and modular, meaning it was incredibly easy to "hack" w/o worrying about the system falling apart.

The game was also written and presented specifically with the intention of being a resource book and game manual. The original boxed set is still a model of succinct game presentation, providing all the rules, including chargen, gadgetry rules, rules for building HQ, a wide variety of powers, and a comprehensive overview of the setting in under 50 pages.

Also, while this is an aesthetic niggle on my part, but I still think is relevant to its success and ease of use, it had a standardized art style. The tendency of later Marvel games to throw in random pictures from special painted covers, the 'hawt' artists of the moment, and images from Marvel Trading card sets with no eye towards consistency gave them an overall disjointed and jarring look, where one was supposed to assimilate a Terry Dodson Black Cat, a JRJ Spidey, a Frank Miller Daredevil, and a Liefeld X-Forcer as all part of the same setting. It's a minor complaint, but again another way MSH put a focus on clarity and utility in presentation.

Quote from: TristramEvans;687419What one came to realize as They played it for a bit, however, was that MSH was actually a point resource allocation system , with Attribute rolls just there to provide a bit of a break.

I apologize for being obtuse, but could you unpack this statement a little more for me? Is this a reference to Karma as SG was saying above?

(I'm also curious because I plan to run a long-term supers in the future and I am torn up about system because I can find something awesome about each of them and something I don't like about each at the same time.  All I know is that I am not returning to HERO.  No animosity towards it - just need a change.)

Quote from: drkrash;687420I apologize for being obtuse, but could you unpack this statement a little more for me? Is this a reference to Karma as SG was saying above?

(I'm also curious because I plan to run a long-term supers in the future and I am torn up about system because I can find something awesome about each of them and something I don't like about each at the same time.  All I know is that I am not returning to HERO.  No animosity towards it - just need a change.)

Yeah, Karma was basically the meat and potatoes of the game. At first glance, Karma is just spendable experience points. But unlike XP , which is typically rationed out after a game , Karma flows constantly in FASERIP. It determined how effective a character was, meaning the more heroic a character acted, the more likely they were to succeed and how often they got to pull off crazy stunts. Moreover, as a character's social obligations were a potent way of earning extra Karma, the system encouraged and provided motivation for the player character to maintain a normal life/secret identity outside of heroics.

And it also meant that the game took on a distinctly different, grittier feel with anti heroes like The Punisher. I use a streamlined version of the system for my pulp-flavored Call of Cthulhu game, and with my players being decidedly non-heroic in nature, they cant rely on Karma and so combat becomes a decidedly deadly affair and the players are much more cautious in approach knowing that every FEAT roll carries a high chance of failure. Meanwhile, in a four-colour game, taking the time in between hunting down super villains to patrol the city for street crime, perform acts if public service, or providing rescue/relief for natural disasters means that when they storm the bad guy's lair at the game's climax they can confidently wade into a small force of goons and lay them out with panache and ease,  or when they fall victim to a mad planner's would-be death trap, they can come up with imaginative uses of thier abilities to unexpectedly thwart the villain and make daring last-minute escapes.

Quote from: Soylent Green;6874143. Stunts. The solution in MSH to allowing powers to occasionally do unusual things is very flexible and elegant. I don't know how unique it is to MSH but it seems a modern concept for an 80s game.

It's also a good advancement mechanism. The first few times you need a power stunt, you're going all out, so have to spend karma for it. And lots of karma; your readers are having to accept this new thing you did, out of nowhere. After a while, it just becomes routine. From a gameplay point of view, it also lets you spend "over time" for a new power, rather than all upfront; saving 1,000 karma certainly isn't easy, but 100 now and then is fine.

Quote from: drkrash;687420I apologize for being obtuse, but could you unpack this statement a little more for me? Is this a reference to Karma as SG was saying above?

So the core mechanic is;

1. Decide if you're spending karma or not
2. Roll your dice. Depending on the attribute you're using, there are varying target numbers for good / better / best successes
2.5. If you rolled badly, someone at your table will say something like "I'm sure I heard you mention spending karma"
3. If you said you were spending karma, spend at least 10 points and add that many points to the die roll
4. Consult the chart to see how well you did

Aaaand that's it.

If you've got enough karma, you can simply buy any die result you want, but it's going to cost you. The die rolls simply indicate how little karma you have to spend to do this.

Failure is certainly always an option - and very likely, actually, because the game isn't hugely generous with karma and there are a lot of other things to spend it on.

Quote from: TristramEvans;687426Yeah, Karma was basically the meat and potatoes of the game. At first glance, Karma is just spendable experience points. But unlike XP , which is typically rationed out after a game , Karma flows constantly in FASERIP. It determined how effective a character was, meaning the more heroic a character acted, the more likely they were to succeed and how often they got to pull off crazy stunts. Moreover, as a character's social obligations were a potent way of earning extra Karma, the system encouraged and provided motivation for the player character to maintain a normal life/secret identity outside of heroics.

And it also meant that the game took on a distinctly different, grittier feel with anti heroes like The Punisher. I use a streamlined version of the system for my pulp-flavored Call of Cthulhu game, and with my players being decidedly non-heroic in nature, they cant rely on Karma and so combat becomes a decidedly deadly affair and the players are much more cautious in approach knowing that every FEAT roll carries a high chance of failure. Meanwhile, in a four-colour game, taking the time in between hunting down super villains to patrol the city for street crime, perform acts if public service, or providing rescue/relief for natural disasters means that when they storm the bad guy's lair at the game's climax they can confidently wade into a small force of goons and lay them out with panache and ease,  or when they fall victim to a mad planner's would-be death trap, they can come up with imaginative uses of thier abilities to unexpectedly thwart the villain and make daring last-minute escapes.

That's a very interesting point, given that in my experience the point of Karma was to do everything to convince players to stay on the "four color" path.  So if you go off of it to play a vigilante (decidedly NOT encouraged by the game material), that lack of "hero points" means you have to play things more realistically... which actually enforces sub-genre.

JG

Quote from: James Gillen;687678That's a very interesting point, given that in my experience the point of Karma was to do everything to convince players to stay on the "four color" path.  So if you go off of it to play a vigilante (decidedly NOT encouraged by the game material), that lack of "hero points" means you have to play things more realistically... which actually enforces sub-genre.

JG

Interesting, I hadn't thought about that either. I always thought of karma solely as four color genre enforcement. But since Karma was also experience, IIRC, wouldn't that mean vigilante would feature almost no advancement (it was pretty slow already). Which while it might fit the genre (the Punisher doesn't get allot more powerful over time, at least not in obvious ways) it might be make for frustrating game play.

I don't think it was intentional but it's just another way the system has continued to surprise and delight me. Personally I haven't found the Little to no advancement has really been a bother at all. I use character modelling for charges, so it's not a matter of implied zero to hero like a level-based game, rather my players start the game with an interesting character they like and generally are just entertained laying the character w/o worrying about improving abilities or adding Talents. Ymmv, of course, but I never found advancement systems particularly suited comics or most fiction genres myself. If a player isn't happy with some aspect of thier character or specifically wants to get better at something, I'll usually as a GM just handle it in-game and adjust the character profile as it suits things.

But one of my earliest and longest-standing house rules was to separate karma and advancement anyways, making a separate pool called Continuity that frees up karma for more stunts and roll-adjustments and mitigates the "hoarding points" tendencies of some players.

Quote from: Nexus;687763Interesting, I hadn't thought about that either. I always thought of karma solely as four color genre enforcement. But since Karma was also experience, IIRC, wouldn't that mean vigilante would feature almost no advancement (it was pretty slow already). Which while it might fit the genre (the Punisher doesn't get allot more powerful over time, at least not in obvious ways) it might be make for frustrating game play.

Well, that was the problem I had with the Karma system in general.  In my experience, games on a hero-point economy (like MSH and DC HEROES) end up having you burn whatever you make just to keep yourself intact.

JG

Quote from: TristramEvans;687771But one of my earliest and longest-standing house rules was to separate karma and advancement anyways, making a separate pool called Continuity that frees up karma for more stunts and roll-adjustments and mitigates the "hoarding points" tendencies of some players.

Ok, spill.

Quote from: Bill;686921I don't know what you mean by that. My statement was intended as humor. I love comic books, but they bend physics in a humorous manner.

I mean that comics have their own inherent "silly" logic - but they don't have to be storygames at all. The mechanics of the system are quite clear as are the cause and effect. That Darkseid can OBLITERATE a human regardless of how skilled they are in reality is no more of a "storygaming" abstraction than someone surviving a hit with Excalibur or Krod Mandoon's Flaming Sword of Fire - the arbiter remains, hopefully, the mechanics of the game. The assumption is you go into a comicbook game with the buy-in that such things are possible and indeed - in the case of Batman: expected.

Do you think by "comicbook logic" that Daredevil or Moonknight is going to take a pimpslap from Darkseid? Probably not. And given the stats of those characters - even mechanically - they probably wouldn't. "Reality" insofar as comicbook logic is preserved. Batman in 2e D&D would be like a 19th level Fighter/Rogue - getting slapped by a Pit Fiend ain't gonna kill kill him there either - and I wouldn't say 2e is a Storygame for that reason either.

Quote from: Bill;686921I maintain that Batman IS a skilled human being. Close to THE most skilled in DC. As much as like his character, he performs far, far beyond what is remotely believable even withing comic book absurdity.

Then in all seriousness of genre complaints - using Batman or maybe Captain America is a bad example? Absurdity is where you mix genre conventions (in this case reality and comic book "logic"). The *fact* that it's Batman justifies his survival by comic-book logic. I wouldn't say many other "skill-based" characters get that pass. Is it absurd? Sure. But that's the genre baseline.

In the Comic Universe of Tenbonistan - there are VERY few at least. YMMV.

Quote from: Bill;686921Not probably. Instant death if the blow makes any degree of contact.

I dislike absolutes. There are people that have fallen 30k feet and survived. There are people that have been shot in the chest and given speeches for 45 minutes afterwards (Teddy Roosevelt), among many other real-life absurdities. Give Batman and his ilk their absurd due.

In reality - a being like Darkseid couldn't exist. He'd explode from the high-energy content in his body that somehow houses the Omega Effect after all.

Quote from: Bill;686921I am not trying to be argumentative, I just stand by what I said.

Yeah I'm just having a silly convo with you too. No worries.


As for the Karma discussion in FASERIP - I just removed it. I use Aspects, and Sub-plots from Fate. This allows players to be heroes or anti-heroes or villains - or whatever.

I assign XP values to raise stats/powers or purchase talents. Doing bad shit screws your popularity. That's how I rein in PC's that get a little too rough. Being a villain and having the Avengers show up to beat your ass when you end up on their radar is rarely a good thing after all...

MHR was the super hero RPG I wanted to play. I suppose that's why I designed it the way I did. I've played all of the earlier Marvel licensed RPGs - spent several years running a MSH game in college, for example - and they all influenced MHR in one way or another.

It clearly wasn't the game everybody wanted, but I know it was the game a lot of people loved - I got a substantial amount of positive responses from it, many of which came from kids and women and newcomers to the hobby who appreciated how it worked and how it captured the flavor of comics. I think the bulk of the negative responses came from folks who had been playing traditional RPGs for a long time. But not all.

All in all, I think we did a pretty good job given the sheer number of constraints the license imposed upon us. If you're wondering why the book never mentions creating your own original characters, or why the product line didn't include handbooks for the Avengers or handbooks for the X-Men or handbooks for gerar and equipment, that'd be why.

Cheers,
Cam

Quote from: Cam Banks;696615All in all, I think we did a pretty good job given the sheer number of constraints the license imposed upon us. If you're wondering why the book never mentions creating your own original characters, or why the product line didn't include handbooks for the Avengers or handbooks for the X-Men or handbooks for gerar and equipment, that'd be why.

I think even at the time it was fairly obvious the system was strangled to death by its trademark owners.

//Panjumanju