The Avengers have been disassembled, the Fantastic Four are somewhere in space, and the X-Men aren’t answering their phone. When dozens of dangerous villains are sprung from the maximum-maximum security prison known as the Raft, who’s going to stop them? You are.
The Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game uses the acclaimed “Breakout” story arc from Brian Michael Bendis’ New Avengers to launch the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game product line. The Operations Manual gives you all the rules you need to play, from gathering your heroes to taking on the likes of Carnage and Mister Hyde in a desperate free-for-all!
Hero Files for Captain America, Spider-Man, Daredevil, Iron Man, Wolverine, and more!
A mighty mob of Marvel Super Villains, from Armadillo to Zzzax!
Easy to learn game rules make this a perfect entry point to super hero roleplaying games!
All the action and drama that gamers have come to expect from Margaret Weis Productions and the Cortex Plus System!
Operations Manual Written & Designed by Cam Banks
Breakout Written & Designed by Cam Banks with Rob Donoghue, Jack Norris, Jesse Scoble, Aaron Sullivan, and Chad Underkoffler
Based on New Avengers #1-6 by Brian Michael Bendis, David Finch, and Danny Miki
Based on Heroic Roleplaying rules concepts from Cam Banks, Rob Donoghue, Matt Forbeck, Will Hindmarch, Philippe-Antoine Ménard, and Jesse Scoble
I've been running a Marvel RPG campaign since the 1990s, and I actually really liked this system. It's open-ended enough that it's incredibly hard to break, there's little randomization in character creation, and it seems to have taken the best of most superheroic rpgs to make a highly flexible system that can generate a wide variety of characters and NOT make them overwhelming to each other. Good stuff and I'll be buying the rest of the line just as soon as someone explains how the Premium and Essentials versions work. :) Well done, guys... and the introduction by Jeff Grubb was a classy touch.
On to the bullet points:
Character generation is open ended. Build the character you want, assign him the powers you want, and call it a day. It gives you a good set of benchmarks as guidelines, and stays out of your way. As a bonus, it doesn't matter so much if you're the Sentry or Frog-Man as to how you'll interact in actual play with a group, by the way the dice mechanics and the Doom Pool work. I LIKE that. It's a system where proper use can create those scenarios where Squirrel Girl can stand against Thanos, and not be ridiculous.
Tons of character datafiles make it easy to run a campaign right off the bat, and open-ended powers and skills make character creation a breeze. I must admit missing the FASERIP system's variety of powers for inspiration, but it is nice to have a simpler system. Math-lite too, for those wanting to run with younger gamers.
At any rate, this is the best version of the Marvel RPG since the original, and I'm glad to see what the designers have accomplished. Here's hoping for a long license and some great products!
