Marvel Multiverse RPG Introductory Solo Playthrough (Using Mythic GM Emulator and ft. Dark Claw)

[@iamnottim.]

Congratulations on 1,500, brother! ❤ Great channel - I appreciate your thoughts, insights, reviews, and hard work.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Not Tim, thanks for the shout out my man! Working on editing a video for the weekend right now, with any luck it will be up by morning, if not sometime tomorrow. Got something special in the mail today!

[@muigokublack6487]

The fact you're giving some love to the Amalgam universe just makes me so happy haha I wonder if this system would be good for running adventures in the Amalgam Comics universe. Super Soldier, Thorion Of The New Asgods, Thanoseid, etc. I think Sentinel would be better suited but I hope this system will surprise me.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

I was talking to one of my sons about this the other day. It would be easy to rank up existing characters to create Amalgam versions of them. When I sat the 1990’s Amalgam book next to my hardcover copy of the RPG, even the covers look very similar… color palette, angles of the clashes, poses, etc. I enjoy the system, and really like the way it is able represent the medium, while still feeling like a game.

[@muigokublack6487]

@@booksbricksandboards783 What do you mean by rank up existing characters? Like making say The Flash and Ghost Rider then mixing them to make Speed Demon?

[@booksbricksandboards783]

In the Marvel Multiverse RPG they have a system of advancement called “Ranking up”, essentially leveling in most RPGs except that there is not a set time to do it (no xp or even milestone, just when it feels right). So for example, when I built Dark Claw I went from scratch and built from rank one up to four because I wanted to have a rank four hero to play… but I could have “ranked up” Wolverine, used the extra 5 attribute points, 4 powers, and 1 trait, in order to add the missing bits from the Batman. Also, I could swap (1 for 1) existing traits or powers to better reflect the Dark Claw. Hope that makes sense. Basically a short hand way of creating characters that share a lot of the same DNA. One thing I really like about the Marvel Multiverse RPG is that it uses its own systems to create the heroes in the book, like you could create heroes using the creation system and end up at the same point as the official heroes (except for a few oddities, like Iron Man’s odd health and focus scores which I think are a typo).

[@cox2060]

Your channel name just about sums up my life 😀

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Lol good, that means there are at least 2 of us!

[@SoloBoardGamingKnight]

Thank you so much for doing this! Now I have a really good idea on how to integrate the heroes into an actual scenario. I wish Marvel would’ve included an adventure in the book itself. Seems like a huge missed opportunity. Other than that, this still worked incredibly well and seemed like a legit scenario. Great video!

[@SoloBoardGamingKnight]

Do you recommend Drive Thru RPG as a good site to purchase the emulator?

[@booksbricksandboards783]

You are absolutely welcome SBGK! I agree 100%, it is really an ideal system for a newer group of players, except it lacks that intro adventure to initiate that! But otherwise a great little system.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Yes I do. On larger books like that one, I suggest the softcover if you do print, because the I feel like the hardcover bindings are quite as good with POD. That said the PDF is amazing and the softcover is perfect. Also, once you know the system, you can print the summary rules which are maybe 20 pages (going by memory) and they are really enough to play. Good luck!

[@SoloBoardGamingKnight]

@@booksbricksandboards783Great! Thanks for the info.! Also, congrats with the 1,500 subs! Final question, it seems that it is possible to solo this playing as multiple heroes at once, is that correct?

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Absolutely, you would just need to track whose turn was whose. I kept it simpler because I was juggling the camera and trying get as much correct as I could. Another item to keep in mind, the more heroes, the stronger or more villains you need. That will add some extra keywords and choices for you to track. I’d start with one or two heroes and add to the story as you play, organically adding allies.

[@windmark8040]

Congrats on the 1500! 👍

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Thanks Paladin!

[@joshkell3660]

This cool

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Thanks sir!

[@HuyTran]

I hope you do a run of Anyone Can Wear the Mask someday!

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Haven’t heard of that. I will do some research. Thanks Huy!

[@skyblazeeterno]

That's more journalling than roleplaying imo

[@richmcgee434]

Solo supers (either with an actual GM and a single player or truly solo) is a surprisingly ill-served niche in the TTRPG industry. The vast majority of systems are written with group play in mind, for better or worse. Tends to leave the combat systems in particular feeling a little shallow since (as you said) you miss out on teamwork and ally support mechanics.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Which is pretty ironic, because most of the comic books were either offshoots of solo books, or solo books themselves.

[@richmcgee434]

@@booksbricksandboards783 Yeah, it's one of those cases where adapting from one medium to another requires more changes than you'd expect at first glance. I would have thought some publisher(s) would have rushed a solo-play focused version of their existing supers rules out during the COVID lockdown but it didn't really happen. I suppose they were having their own issues at the time, but so many other solo systems dropped around the same time it was obvious there was serious demand.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

@@richmcgee434 Spectaculars is close, not EXACTLY an RPG, and not totally solo. But it is pretty much a sandbox procedurally generated supers experience in a box, so it is probably the closest effort I know of.

[@richmcgee434]

@@booksbricksandboards783 You are planning a solo Sentinels RPG vid, right? I'm curious to see how you deal with that. The action scene construction section is kind of optimized for team play with 3-6 players and needs some tweaking to handle 1-2 heroes smoothly IME.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

@@richmcgee434 Yeah, it will probably be a month or two before I run a solo session. When I do it will almost certainly be with two heroes (more for interaction than balance). The solo plays take a bit more time to create and edit, and right now I am in job hunting mode, so trying to get some shorter content in the hopper with and hope to have some built up before I start a new career and have a ramp up period there. Keep an eye out, it will be on here eventually! :)

[@ryanbulthuis9399]

The tables look great! Do you happen to have those for download?

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Unfortunately because I use Marvel IP on them I can’t really share that (personal use only), however, if you would like I can wipe out the IP related names and share the clean ones which then you can fill in with Opposition Factions and Villains specific for your own campaign if that would be ok? If you would like that email me at [e-mail], I will check it over the next day or two and get you that.

[@Mal_3D]

Just screen shot it, thats what i did, there are two points in the video where he shows most of it, and then another point where he shows the part that gets cut off. Im gonna customize mine but yeah just take a screenshot. Im gonna use Googledocs and photoshop to remake it but clearer so i dont have to refer to a blurry screenshot everytime but its readable as is atm. Dunno why he doesnt want to release it, this is totally fair use for a pen and paper game. People make stat blocks for characters not officially in the game and Disney could make money on that but they dont go after them because that would be silly LOL. If you want a copy when im done with mine ill send it to you just let me know where.

[@cox2060]

I'm thinking about buying the marvel multiverse rpg to introduce my younger brothers and their friends to rpgs. Do you recommend using this game system for newer players?

[@booksbricksandboards783]

I think new players will be able to comprehend the system easily, and they will latch on to the known characters. I’m less likely to recommend a new GM to run it, only because it requires a little more work on the GM part at this stage. But if you have run some games before, I’d say it is a good choice!

[@richmcgee434]

If you're looking for good "absolute beginner" supers RPGs I'd recommend either Tiny Supers from Gallant Games or the Sentinel Comics RPG from Greater Than Games. Both are "one book" systems that don't really need any supplements to use and use very easily understood mechanics in play. Tiny Supers is extremely simple, inexpensive at $30 for the cheapest option (softcover, partial color) on Drive Thru RPG, and only requires a fistful of standard d6s to play. It might be a little too simple for its own good if used for a longer campaign, but as an intro system it's probably fine. You might need to review the characters and villains you use to avoid frustrating matchups where dealing damage can be nigh-impossible, it's not too hard to accidentally (or deliberately) stumble into that with anything but the most low-powered supers. Sentinels has a more elaborate game engine with considerably more depth while remaining quite simple to use on the tabletop. The pdf cost is nearly identical at $29.95, although the print version (hardcover, full color) is $60 (worth it IMO, it is well over 400 pages). The actual core rules take up about 30 pages with a lot of space used on illustrations and examples, with about another 30 pages of GM-facing advice, mostly around creating challenging action scenes. The most complex part of the system is character generation, but I'd still rate it as less involved than Marvel Multiverse and far better for beginners than (say) Mutants & Masterminds or Champions. You could just hand out pre-made characters of course, but however you approach it once the PCs are made that whole part of the system gets completely out of the way during session play, players will never need anything that isn't on their character sheet. You will want at least three sets of d4, d6, d8, d10, and d12 dice to play, and ideally some spares so players don't have to hand around dice would help, so that might be a small added expense if your existing dice pool won't cover it. Also benefits from having some markable tokens and/or index cards to use for tracking mods, minions, and challenges, but plain old scrap paper or spare dice will also work fine. EDIT: Oh, one spot where Marvel Multiverse might stand out is how much it differentiates between power levels. A level 3 super will get their ass handed to them pretty reliably by a level 4, and is dreaming if they expect to take on a level 6 or higher. You'll get some real walkovers in the system, which may or may not be too taste depending on how you feel about Hawkeye and Thor being on the same team. Tiny Supers can come close to that level of "you're too weak for this foe" but has fairly rapid character progression that willleave your early foes behind pretty quickly if you survive - it's more of a D&D style power curve than most supers games I've played. Sentinels is more diverse-hero-team-friendly and more or less levels the field for starting PCs, with all of them starting out similarly effective and the principle advancement mechanic being a metacurrency called "collections" (as in "how many collected volumes (trades) has this character been published in?" Makes it harder for any one PC to outshine all the rest - which again, may or may not be to taste on teams like the Avengers or the JLA.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Agree with most of what Rich says here (I can’t speak to Tiny Supers as I haven’t tried yet, but Rich is spot on with other comments so I assume his take there is good). I think Sentinels is a better “game” but it is different, so starting there might cause a bit of dissonance because of any expectations about what an RPG should be (like if they watched Critical Role or Stranger Things for example). Additionally, I think with newer players, familiarity might be a key factor to retain them, having official Marvel characters could be a good way to get them to buy in.

[@cox2060]

@@booksbricksandboards783

[@cox2060]

​i have been playing dnd for three years with multiple groups, and im pretty familiar with rpgs in general. my younger siblings just never seemed to have the patience to learn the game mechanics, or make a character, but as you said, i think the familiarity of it being marvel will really spark an interest in them.

[@jaybakata5566]

Have you played SWADE? How does this compare to that?

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Yes, I have played quite a bit of Savage Worlds. I would say that Marvel MRPG is not as polished, not as flexible, and not as fast playing as SWADE. Where it shines is in the theme, style and surprisingly nostalgia (as it does seem to draw inspiration from the old TSR Marvel). If I had to choose the better RPG, it’s SWADE. If I had to choose the better Supers RPG it’s SWADE (but Sentinel Comics above SWADE), but if I had to choose a game to play in the Marvel universe, I’d probably choose Marvel MRPG.

[@TONYNHODGR]

I would like to create a venom hercules hulk blade vision dr strange vilain hahahahahaahha😂😂😂😂

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Perhaps a bit busy, but then again, that was the strategy in early comic books. What was Superman’s power set? Whatever it needs to be good man, whatever it needs to be.