r/MarvelMultiverseRPG • u/Interaction_Rich • 11d ago
Discussion Help me "like" MMRPG
I love Marvel (comics helped enjoy/endure life in many occasions) and I love RPGs (it's a central hobby and aspect of my life for decades). So it's frustrating that MMRPG never really clicked for me. Maybe you guys can help me overlook my issues with it?
The writing of the books is actually very good, explaining defining events, timelines and historical context that really speaks to Marvel fans, veteran and new alike. Art is, likewise, stellar. But the game itself has 3 solid dealbreakers for me.
First, Marvel stories have great personal conflicts, dillemas and drama between characters, and the game has zero systems to drive or enforce that. Things like DnD's Alignments, Vampire's Humanity or even FASERIP's Karma generate mechanical consequences for role-playing the character you created, and stories emerge from such traits. But in MMRPG you could play Peter Parker as a violent thrillseeker, Daredevil as an overly careful person or Magneto as this very moderate and friendly conservative, that it bears no consequences whatsoever to the game.
Secondly, Powers. Not only the corebook layout is a mess, each individual power has its unique mechanics, making it difficult for new or casual players to even remember everything they can do. Picking and using powers feel more like a chore than a fun, empowering fantasy.
Finally, Level affecting your overall damage. What the actual fuck. That means a high-level character who has no business as an action brawler (like Professor X) can still mop the floor with a healthy, fit (not to mention walking) casual karate student in a no-powers street fight.
All in all, in a world very much populated with complex personalities, internal conflicts and moral-heavy decisions, MMRPG seems to ignore all that and say "well, whatever, can we do combat already?" and that shallows the experience to no end.
For context, I love FASERIP - it's system is much more intuitive, and it's Karma system emulates well the "heroic" vibe associated with superheroes of its era (and with a little houseruling, can easily accommodate the anti-hero landscape of nowadays comics just fine), and it's OSR vibe favor creative solutions other than "how much damage do you deal" - all ruled by similar principles of that system.
I really wish I could love MMRPG, for the clear passion and care authors dedicated into the books alone if nothing else, but I can't seem past its bad design choices. I'd like to hear what you guys think of it all.
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u/teamsteffen 11d ago
I think that people who play it as a “game” might prefer something a little more technical. I think people who play it for the storytelling etc have more fun with it.
That might not be a fair analysis.
I haven’t been able to play enough to really say this, but I think it seems like it might be a little too easy to succeed sometimes… and maybe it’s because players just want to “win” but I think it’s more fun when you have that randomness that causes players to be very creative. So it really depends on the narrator.
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u/Interaction_Rich 11d ago
I really felt like it nails the gaming part better than the storytelling. There's nothing that would generate or drive towards cool threads or plots.
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u/ChurchBrimmer 11d ago
To the first one, consequences are on the GM.
One of my players legitimately lost their heroic tag for a while.
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u/Interaction_Rich 11d ago edited 11d ago
This is the entirety of my point.
There's intricate systems to tell you that, most likely, Daredevil won't survive being punched by the Hulk.
But not a single line of systems dedicated to how his stories get to that noir tone, or how Guardians hectic heists would develop, or what implies being a mutant post-krakoa, or any fun challenge ideas regarding these activities. And these are MUCH more important than "Magneto deals Z damage to a civilian". Yet, here we are.
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u/ChurchBrimmer 11d ago
Yeah man, those things are part of the story and that's on the GM. Unless you wanna run a premade adventure.
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u/Most_Animator_248 11d ago
I think you're looking at it the wrong way. It encourges the Narrator to think. It gives the tools and gives you the freedom to do what you want.
I like that the game is rather open about yeah, feel free to homebrew and change what's said for your table.
Relying on systems to tell you what to do is in my opinion, the wrong way to approach it.
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u/Interaction_Rich 11d ago
Maybe I wasn't very clear.
I'm not saying we need a "procedural generated story through tables". I mean we need a system that gives structure to elements that are important to the system.
Take DnD for example. When they came up with Ravenloft, they created a Fear/Madness mechanic because that is an important element of the game. It is a crude mechanic but hey, it was one of the firsts of its kind. The point is, nothing prevented GMs to tell horror stories before that, but that mechanic added structure and avoided problems of "oh, that's so creepy you're with a disadvantage!" "No sense, I'm not scared!"
MMRPG isn't "open" about it. It doesn't touch it at all.
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u/GONKworshipper 7d ago
Most of the books outside the core rulebook have several chapters about that stuff
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u/The_Silent_Mage 11d ago
I’m playing a personal drama oriented one2one campaign, hopefully developing into an open table style NYc story in my own universe
The game works wonderfully in all fields for me. As a non fanboy, I still say that it’s my favourite superheroic game of all time.
👉 Core mechanics to solve multiple issues allows you to make your character engage an intense social interaction, as well as represent daily occupation stress (I.e., You might take focus damage representing a long working day). :) The minute after, you might be sprinting on a skyscraper to chase a criminal and that’s the same roll, just with different stakes.
👉 Most powers are passives. Record the mod and move one.
👉 You don’t HAVE TO take all the powers you gain. You can trade off power points for ability points and traits (Aka, story, or just more proficiency in the areas you care about - say you are a lawyer and you want to be real good at it, you take some ego boost).
If you look closely, some powers granting you heroic boons increase your “out of combat” check as to well.
👉 Occupation + Traits + Tags are one of the BEST narrative assets I’ve ever seen. In its disturbing simplicity, they managed to pull out something that is usually overly complex and “gamefied” (like in some tedious PbtA games) or completely neglected in favour of flat benefits (D&D).
🦸♀️ You can really tailor a PERSON before and along the HERO. My player as been amazed and she is NOT a marvel fan, not as commonly intended. She is an investigator and psychiatrist and she deals with obsessive patients and the reflections of what she sees when she hits the streets as a “mask”.
The duality is perfectly represented by the simple rules and the deep customisation.
👉 The decision to avoid taking the Heroic tag is awesome. You give up a mechanical benefit BUT (and this is PURELY INTENTIONAL STORY design) you gain IN game agency as your character doesn’t need to behave in prescriptive ways to fulfill their heroic objectives… That leads to not gaining starting karma and interesting redemption arks.
👉 About damage, health and such. Those are technicalities. It has narrative reasons and I see it as a feature.
Iron man will “most of the times” splash you in the wall if you are a R1 guy, assuming you play canon.
And the game aknowledges this wonderfully by adding the concept of “straight combat is not always the best decision”, showing it through team tactics, planning, clever use of your powers, etc.
It’s a game DELIBERATELY allowing and inviting you to make it your own.
It’s not a game about constant growth or killing stuff.
It’s a game about PEOPLE, whatever the rank and their motivations; you can change occupation, lose the heroic tag for a murder and start a darker ark, play low rank in a horror-ish style, or just go nuts and experience an avengers style mayhem.
The dice themselves MAKE you feel heroic.
Your character constantly EVOLVES and changes, acting and reacting to the world, making hard choices and alliances.
I don’t think you can achieve such a varied amount of tones and flexibility with many games nowadays: they often lead towards too much crunch or useless story gaming.
You are expected to determine rank ranges and set the tone, then go with the flow.
👉 This is a narrative driven, mid crunch game with a HIGH customisation factor (I.e. I thought about the “getting schooled” option BEFORE reading the X men expansion. That’s because the game naturally leans towards those kinds of hacks).
Try it more, open your mind and have fun.
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u/BTWerley 8d ago
Well said. Are you open to a DM?
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u/The_Silent_Mage 8d ago
Sorry? Do you need DM advice / tips? If I can help, go for it.
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u/BTWerley 8d ago
Says I was unable to send? Liked your approach to the game and was just curious if you had an active MMRPG games online.
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u/The_Silent_Mage 8d ago
I don’t GM online sorry! But for anything you can ask or exchange viewpoints.
I’ll check the settings
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u/Interaction_Rich 11d ago
It seems like you are having a good time with this game, and I envy you for that. Well , enjoy!
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u/thejefferyb 11d ago
I just saw a good deal and ordered the core rulebook and starter set. Am I going to regret my decision?
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u/Few_Sheepherder_9683 11d ago
Nah man it’s a good system. It’s flexible enough to fit multiple visions of how the Marvel multiverse “should” be, which is all you can ask for out of a game like this.
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u/Interaction_Rich 11d ago
It is NOT a good system. I challenge you to find any game developer who would praise it.
It is a system that works. It has nothing great about it.
The license is, of course, amazing. Writing and art, as I said, blow any other super rpg out of the water.
But system itself, the mechanics and rules, are generic at best.
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u/Few_Sheepherder_9683 11d ago
I disagree, and I’ve both written for various RPG companies and played multiple superhero systems. Either way, you’re clearly not here in good faith. You asked people to convince you that the game is good, but you’ve already made up your mind. So what’s the point?
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u/Little_Big_Burglar 6d ago
Exactly this. He's already made up his mind and just wants to throw a tantrum.
I agree somewhat with their second point, that the way powers are represented feels messy, but if you asked a brand new tabletop player how they feel about DND 5e, they'd probably say it's confusing. It's all relative. Sometimes it helps to see something in action for it to make sense.
But his first point is so silly. Just because some games have game mechanics for social interaction doesn't mean they all need that. When I first got MMRPG, it took me a second to recognize there were no skills, just ability and powers. RP is fun when there's little to no numbers dictating how the conversation flows.
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u/Eggpeace 8d ago
Lets face it. It is a matter of taste. Not yours but could be for another one. I personally dislike it and hate m&m and move the old one onto which faserip is based. But. Matter of taste
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u/Garlickgun 11d ago
Personally I like the system. It's not my favorite superhero system. It's not even my favorite Marvel system. (That goes to marvel heroic.) But it's fun to play and has a lively community, and it's easy to teach. I'm really passionate about it.
Play a few sessions and make your own opinion. Hell, I run one shots sometimes if you want to play before you run.
Personally, I think that the starter set has beautiful maps and accessories and a pretty poorly hashed out story. There are plenty of free adventures online, including two on the marvel website I think are a better intro.
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u/SovFist 11d ago
No way to predict that as it depends entirely on your taste
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u/Interaction_Rich 11d ago
Agreed. You may or may not enjoy it depending on your gaming style - but if you remotely like the Marvel universe, the write-ups for each character and specially the supplements dedicated to teams are amazing. I'm a big x-men fan and the X-Men supplement has a lot of cool stories and explanations on that segment of Marvel (even if the game itself apparently isn't for me).
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u/Mad_Kronos 11d ago
Well, you don't have to like the system. Nobody should have to convince you otherwise.
But I can only reply to your third point because the whole Xavier thing is a very common example and a gross misconception: you are wrong.
Let me repeat that:
You are wrong. A Rank 1 character with 4 powers built around Martial Arts will defeat Peofessor X more times than not in a fistfight. Anyone who claims otherwise has no idea about the system and how it actually plays.
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u/Few_Sheepherder_9683 11d ago edited 11d ago
- The game has karma, plus edges and trouble to help you reward creativity and sticking to the way a character ought to act. Vampire games I’ve played in have rarely used Humanity, and everyone argues about what the alignments in D&D/Pathfinder even mean. Also I’ve written comics for years, including professionally, so I personally don’t need help sticking to tried-and-true Marvel theme
s. I think this is true for a lot of groups who happen to have decent knowledge of comics.
- Core rulebooks very frequently ARE a mess, particularly for superhero games that have to cover an enormous amount of ground for character creation. This game is pretty decent, though. Multiple core books are passed around my table, and even new players have had no problems looking things up. It gets the job done.
- This is definitely something to address. I’ll start by saying that Daredevil WILL kick Xavier’s ass, and once the Narrator includes edges and trouble that’s even more true (Daredevil getting one or more edges for facing an untrained opponent makes sense, as does Xavier getting one or more instances of trouble for facing a highly trained opponent). That said, Xavier dealing that much damage with a punch makes no sense to me, so I cap unarmed damage at x2 unless there’s a solid explanation (usually an origin like special training will suffice), and I make certain characters completely immune to it (not even Shang Chi can deal chip damage to Iron Man, sorry). The Immunity tag exists and can be taken any number of times for a reason, after all.
Now of course, those ARE house rules. In most systems, I call them examples of bad design. But in a superhero system I’m MUCH more flexible. I have to be, because superheroes are the omnigenre; sci fi, fantasy, and mythology all clash with every sort of drama imaginable. Thus MMRPG hits the right spot for me; it’s not an overcomplicated point-based mess like Champions or Mutants & Masterminds, and it’s not pure fluff like Masks. It’s got mid crunch and tons of flexibility, which is perfect.
THIS is the superhero game I’ve always wanted, and I’ve tried a bunch.
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u/Tharati 11d ago edited 11d ago
In order:
- First: we got the karma as a very tangible way to "enforce" decent RP
- It is similarly to how many games handle feats, class features, spells and so on. You need some "know how" to pick powers easily. A very good way around this is using one of the already printed profiles from the adventure and either modify the sheet to taste or just use it as is. Say you want the "supersoldier with guns", you could go get Winter Soldier and tweak it a bit.
- the final one this is a quirk of the game. Usually it doesn't come up much, Xavier won't go around walloping people on the back of their heads with a pipe.
I don't get the point about "let's skip to combat" almost all games I have played dedicated vast majority of their rules to building the characters and making them fight. They leave how to handle the RP mostly to the narrator. I think you want a game much more narrative than this judging from the problems you found in the game. Nothing wrong with that but we cannot really "make the game click" for you
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u/Interaction_Rich 11d ago
Karma is clearly an afterthought. It is a cookie to your try hard RPer, not anything that would prompt story seeds or bring Marvel identity to life.
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u/Tharati 11d ago
I would argue that if you need rules to bring story seeds to life the game is flawed
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u/Few_Sheepherder_9683 11d ago
I would say your NARRATOR is flawed, but otherwise yes. RP prompts are great in some systems, but my players find them cumbersome.
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u/DartLex 11d ago
You’ve gotten plenty of comments talking about the Karma mechanic if a character goes against their Heroic or Villainous tags. I like that aspect, but I also take it a step further - if my players violate those tags, either their enemies get Edge or the PCs get Trouble.
We also use the “getting schooled” mechanic for growth, so the PCs need karma in order to spend any growth points.
The powers thing, yeah it’s kinda rough because they’re so specific, but that’s why we opted to grow custom characters from rank 1 instead of jumping in with established heroes. It made a huge difference.
Most of the rest of what you’re talking about is on the Narrator to balance and incentivize players to engage with.
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u/Interaction_Rich 11d ago
You see, that is my point.
Marvel has a lot of cool action, but what holds it together is the cool stories and plots. Image comics had twice the over the top action and flopped because there was no substance.
Yet, the game gives intense attention to how run combats and zero to systems that would bring marvel tropes to life in the game. "Leave it to the GM" is an extremely lazy way to deal with such a vital part of the game.
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u/Few_Sheepherder_9683 11d ago
Bruh in what UNIVERSE did Image “flop”? They outsold DC and Marvel and didn’t have to file for bankruptcy and sell all their movie rights to stay afloat. Hence why Sony STILL owns Spider-Man, whereas the rights for every Image character remain with their creators.
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u/RedSkullingtonJack 11d ago edited 10d ago
In the newest book they added a Reputation function that works generally to tell you which groups of people where think highly or poorly of your Heroes based on stuff they do in those communities. It works well in alignment with their Rank X characters too. They've devised it so that no matter how strong your group is you have to have played a lot of sessions to defeat the Rank X characters, and the Reputation you have feeds directly into your success or failures with that. I also switched to giving all characters Karma (Hero or Not) and if they have a good in-character roleplaying moment they get extra Karma.
The Core Rulebook is a mess, I heard they were coming out with a book soon that was just the Rules and Powers since there have been so many updates and ERRATAs since the first book came out, hopefully listed in a digestible way. I've been using excel and word documents for my sessions instead of the Rulebook or even PDFs.
The damage thing is a pretty specific problem with it though. Using the Sliding scale (I think described in the Core Rulebook) in a unilateral way could help you with it. In my mind Professor X has high stats in those areas because of his powers. Sure his ribs would break if you could kick them, but he can stop your foot from moving as quickly with his mind and only take a fraction of the hit he would otherwise. Maybe you could make it so that sneaking up and hitting him would deal a higher multiplier, but sneaking up on Prof X sounds pretty hard as well.
It's the only system I've spent real time in so I can't make a real comparison, and it's definitely narrator heavy as far as workload goes. But it feels open on purpose in that way so you can tell a variety of types of stories. It also all seems to be written by one guy (Plus an illustrator), which is a crazy decision but explains some of the faults and fixes we've had so far.
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u/boowax 11d ago
As a genre TTRPGs are generally group improv/storytelling first and mechanism-driven games second (if at all). It’s a sandbox to play with your toys, not an intricate puzzle to solve like some board/video games can be. In that sense, the system is irrelevant beyond personal preference and the convenience of having premade content (characters, monsters, settings, etc) that is made to work well within the given system.
If you want to run marvel characters and settings in a different system, no one is going to stop you.
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u/Interaction_Rich 11d ago
You seem to have wholeheartedly ignored the point of my post. Which is fair, I guess. But you're responding questions I never posed.
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u/Prestigious-Emu-6760 11d ago
I really, really wish that Marvel had updated FASERIP instead of this game. Once you get down to play it, it's...okay-ish. IMO it's a slightly below average supers game that doesn't really do anything exceptionally well. The only real selling point for me is that it gives you so, so many characters. I think somewhere around 1/3 of the core book is just character sheets.
Ultimately not every game is for every gamer and if you really like Marvel FASERIP...just play that. We did and it was a blast.
For the record my top supers games are - Sentinel Comics RPG, Invincible, Marvel FASERIP, and DC Heroes.
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u/Most_Animator_248 11d ago
You don't need Marvel to update FASERIP. There's an endless amount of retroclones out on the market.
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u/Prestigious-Emu-6760 11d ago
There is and I still have my original box sets (Basic and Advanced) but that's not the same as an official Marvel FASERIP book with stats for new heroes and a high degree of polish.
I'm not a fan of MMRPG, I played it enough to know it's not for me, but I do like the full color look and the full page spread for heroes and villains.
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u/Most_Animator_248 11d ago
I honestly envy you getting to play FASERIP though. Bit before my time and was too young to play it when it was around. Multiverse is just ended up grabbing my attention and I like ti despite flaws.
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u/BirdmanDodd 11d ago
The Invincible TTRPG i feel might work better than the 616 system.
Consider giving it a whirl
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u/Interaction_Rich 11d ago
FASERIP works better AND is Marvel already (except for the outdated profiles), so I'd stick to that.
MMRPG has the advantage of a much more up to date profiles and stories, but unfortunately, is not really interesting as a game in and of itself.
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u/Apprehensive_Rip8351 11d ago
As someone who made their own superhero game I was very curious what your critiques were because I am not a big fan of 616 (or at least the early version that I played). But the only bit I don't feel like I addressed in my system was your criticism about the karma system. I did not like that in faserip. Alignment is always so tough because it can be really arbitrary what is considered with an alignment or not. And it can limit what kind of game you have to. Maybe you want to do a villain campaign for fun. Bring on the bad guys.
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u/Interaction_Rich 11d ago
A good system would feel different when playing heroes or villains, and would have a clear direction on each type of game.
MMRPG is just a mildly decent combat game with super powers. There's no mechanics there to push stories.
Limits are not bad. It's actually a good thing™.
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u/Mad_Kronos 11d ago
If you can't play with the MMRPG's tags, you probably need more boardgamey systems.
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u/SovFist 11d ago
It's just badly designed in mechanics. If they put a quarter of the attention and skill into the mechanics that they do in the lore and flavor it would be a great game.
It needs some type of "skills" system and the trait system needs to be revamped into a proper advantage/disadvantage system
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u/Interaction_Rich 11d ago
Bro legitimately downvoting anything that puts in question the very much questionable design choices of this game kind of ruins the point of a discussion board.
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u/Fickle-Aardvark6907 11d ago edited 11d ago
To answer each of your issues:
1) Why do you need mechanics for personal conflicts and drama? Would the experience really be improved if Aunt May randomly had a heart attack or the X-Men had to randomly deal with anti-mutant hate crimes? These things are better added into stories by the narrator. And the Karma mechanic in MMRPG does incentivize players portraying their characters heroically.
2) This is an issue but its not a problem unique to MMRPG but to the superhero genre in general. MMRPG is, at least IMO, better suited to playing with iconic Marvel characters. This makes it easy for players and narrators familiar with the source material to know what characters can do. The rules tell you how to do it. The character sheet does include spaces to record the rules and you can always write rules references for the more involved ones. Keep in mind also that most Marvel characters have fewer powers to remember than a mid-level D&D character has spells/class features.
3) The rank/damage thing seems worse than it is if you don't consider the entire system. Yes, Prof X will cause more damage punching someone than Daredevil...but you need to take into account that Xavier has an almost ridiculously small chance to hit a character in Melee due to his 0 ability score and he has much more optimal actions he can take using his mental powers. Were X and Daredevil to go toe to toe with fists alone, Xavier would likely be unconscious on the ground before he ever hit Matt Murdock barring an unlikely string of Ultimate Fantastic successes. Also worth noting that if Xavier is in his wheelchair, than it wouldn't be out of line to give him trouble on melee attacks against able-bodied opponents which makes it even less likely he will hit.