Marvel Superheroes RPG Derivates

 Lately, I've been been looking at games employing the old Universal Table. That is derivates of TSR's Marvel Superheroes Roleplaying Game, sometimes called FASERIP, which is potentially confusing as one of these derivatives is name FASERIP. I haven't made an exhaustive study of them, but I have gotten a feel I think for what the authors were looking to update or add to them.

Interestingly, the Karma system is tweaked in all three of them, suggesting the way it works in the published editions is high on the list of thinks to fix.

Anyway, here's my brief rundown:

FASERIP: This one hews the closest to the original. Mainly it seems to switch out the original powers and their descriptions for a semi-"effects based" system system derived from Icons. It also changes advancement to be based around "milestones" and the pushing of abilities. I hear the character generation system is based on Golden Heroes, but I'm not familiar with that game.

Astonishing Superheroes Book 1: The Basic Rulebook: This is the newest of the three. In fact, it's not really complete yet, though the the published books and a Beta of the second book give you enough to actually play it. It occupies a middle position of the three. It's changes/innovations include adding a mental/spiritual health score called Resolve, and rolls for social interactions like persuasion and the like. It's Karma system cuts character's initial Karma by 10, but makes up for it by more greater rewards based around character personality traits/ideals/ believes. It's power system is a looser than FASERIPs, though perhaps not looser that the original games, other than drawing attention to this looseness by discussing how you would create new powers.

Marvel Superheroes Nth Edition: Is a bit like a mashup of Fate and MSHRPG with a bit of Marvel Heroic Roleplaying in there. Like more than one MSHRPG "heartbreaker" or fan-tweak it adds more ability ranks (more than most others I've seen) and a critical failure level on the universal table. It also adds more attributes, making them more specific in their focus. Talents also get expanded ranks. It adapts the "Four Actions" of Fate, and ditches Karma entirely for a system of Drama Points based on invoking Distinctions, traits that define the personality and backstory of characters. Like ASH, it adds a mental/spiritual stress track (Sanity) and rules for social interaction.

Nth Edition has some interesting ideas, but there's just too much there for me. It's like it wants to be a crunchier MSHRPG and a more narrative one. I'd prefer it picked one or the other. FASERIP is probably the game for those that just want a cleaned up MSHRPG, but really, unless the author's concerns are exactly congruent with your own, it seems like it's playing with someone else's house rules. Of the three, Astonishing Superheroes seems like it overall balances putting some modern innovations into the game without making it alien to the people who love it.

Marva

More about the setting I'm going to use or my 5e pulp sci-fi game...

Marva, fourth planet from the sun, is harsh, desert world, made so by natural processes but also as the result of a long ago atomic war. In ancient times, the advanced science of Marva's native intelligent species, the Vrusk, was bent to the art of weapon-making to wield against the members of rival sociopolitical groups. The Vrusk refer to these conflicts as the Hive Wars. They very nearly led to the race's extinction.

The Vrusk bear some resemble to giant insects in their form, though they actually have internal skeletons and possess eight limbs. Most of the "civilized" Vrusk live within one o several domed cities or the underground structures beneath. Toxins from the ancient wars are still present, so it is prudent to limit exposure the the exterior environment unprotected.

The dwindling resources of their world have forced the Vrusk to develop a fairly regimented society by human standards. Every Vrusk knows their role and performs it for the good of all. Their Council of Experts advises and oversees the various  citizen committees which manage most aspects of Vrusk civilization. Vrusk consider it their duty to serve their race in whatever capacity required of them. Modern Vrusk are seen as industrious, stoic, and rational by most of the Solar Systems peoples--some (like the Hadozee) might call them boring and pedantic.

Of course, Vrusk have their free thinkers and eccentrics just like any other people. When the Vrusk collective cannot find creative ways to utilize these individuals, they are politely ostracized and they typically drift elsewhere in the system.

Wednesday Comics: DC, September 1981 (wk 1 pt 2)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around June 4, 1981.

G.I. Combat #233: I'll say this for Haunted Tank: for a kids comic, it doesn't skimp on the everyday grimness of war. In the first story, the crew is given a tank that they have just pulled the bodies of the previous crew out of. Their ghosts haunt Jeb and the boys until they get the German plane that killed them. The second story plays on the "honor among soldiers" thing Kanigher likes to get into from time to time. A German nurse threatens to blow up the Haunted Tank with a bazooka to save the wounded men in her charge. Instead of leaving them to die, Jeb and his crew transport them back to German lines. They are about to be executed, but the nurse argues for letting them go. The German tank commander appears prepared to take them prisoner, but instead escorts them back to the front and lets them go.

The O.S.S. story is the first appearance of the agent, Fleur, who claims to be the daughter of Mata Hari and appears to be working for the Germans, but then reveals herself to be a double agent. Drake and Tlaloc a story called "The Dummy G.I.s" where three illiterate and probably disadvantaged soldiers prove their worth. Kanigher and Henson tell the story of a heroic Gurkha fighting for his colonial rulers in various places, but he loses the use of his legs in Burma.

Justice League of America #194: Several members of the JLA have encounters (which they lose) with characters based off of Tarot card Major Arcana, leaving them all hobbled in some way. Zatanna (though blinded by her encounter with Devil) is able to cast a spell to lead them them to the cards' creator, Amos Fortune. Fortune unleashes the final card, Death, on them, but the League defeats him and they are returned to normal. Fortune tries to escape using his magic cards but only succeeds in getting himself trapped in the world of the Tarot deck. Another solid Conway/Perez installment.

Krypton Chronicles #1: This sort of thing is the closest we got to stuff like Marvel Saga or the History of the DC Universe until, well, we got those things. Bridwell and Swan have Morgan Edge deciding with the popularity of Roots and Shogun, they need to do a tv mini-series about Superman's Kryptonian roots. He tasks Clark with writing the articles that they will turn into a book and then a TV show. Clark realizes he doesn't know much about his family tree, so he and Supergirl head to Kandor to get some info from Supergirl's dad (Superman's uncle). In the House of El's Vault, they hear stories about their prestigious family line. While they do, a shadowy foe sneaks up and releases a Kryptonian yargrum with which our heroes must prepare to do battle.

New Teen Titans #11: Gar was critically injured by the Terminator, so the team is flying him to Paradise Island to save him with some Amazonian super-science. Before they can do that, Hyperion, Titan of the Sun, busts out of Tartarus and throws some mind control on Wonder Girl to make her fall in love with him. He whisks her away to free the other Titans. Starfire and the Amazons ride to her rescue, but Wonder Girl herself asks them to stand down. Then, a mysterious someone else appears. I know Greek myth has always been a part of the Wonder Woman mythos, but this story gives real Marvel vibes to me with its emphasis on supers versus mythological beings.

Secrets of Haunted House #40: Not great. In the first story by Wessler and Tanghal/Smith, a hag leaves her baby on a doorstep, because she's too poor to support the infant and her brother. And the baby looks "normal" so the family will take her in. The elderly couple does, but the baby's abnormality quickly becomes apparent. Soon the hag comes back for her, but the old woman doesn't want to give the child up and invites the hag and her soon to stay. Soon, the hag is ordering the couple around, and when the husband stands up to her, she threatens to turn them into the police for kidnapping. Ultimately, the couple is forced to move into an old shack on their land and the hag's family gets the house. Then there's a story by Harris and Rodriquez that has the shards of a crystal ball predict the fates of the cops that took it from a fortune teller--and seem to show the fates of their grown kids, who ultimately discovered a demon is responsible, but it's weakness is it's tied to the crystal ball.

The Mr. E story by Rozakis and Spiegle barely has Mr. E in it. Instead, the guy he met last issue and E's assistant, Kelly O'Toole, deal with a dog that turns into a monster. It's no werewolf but a witch-dog! It's all rather silly.

Superman #363: Bates and Swan continue the story from last issue. Lana and Lois are dying of the same infection that killed the Kents, though Superman is the only one who knows it. Superman thinks about sending them to the Phantom Zone until a cure can be found, but the vindictive Phantom Zone criminals overload the projector so he can't. Next he goes to Luthor to help. Luthor points out Superman could coerce him, but infecting Luthor, too, but he know Superman won't. Luthor laughs at him cruelly as he refuses. Finally, Superman travels to the future (the 88th Century) to find a cure, but the they won't give it to him, citing potential disruption to the future. They do tell him that someone in his time will soon discover a cure. Supes realizes since he is immune he can pass the immunity in his blood. He saves Lana and Lois and the future folks muse on whether it was cruel not to tell Superman that he was one to discover the cure. The basic story was only so so, but I like Bates characterization of Luthor and he does a good job of giving Supes conundrums he can't punch his way out of.

The backup by Rozakis and Bucker is a another Bruce Wayne: Superman story. Wayne marries Barbara Gordon. She eventually makes him give up crimefighting in favor of putting his scientific talents to use finding medical cures. He's cured headaches and he's working on the common cold, when Barbara gets word her father was gunned down by a criminal. She turns vigilante and Batgirl and Superman team-up to bring Lew Moxon to justice.

Weird War Tales #103: Every one of these War That Time Forgot stories makes it abundantly clear that Kanigher is no paleontologist and neither is Bob Hall. This story features a giant (like big enough to carry a WWII sub), orange carnosaur that encounters a U.S. submarine while submerged, then carries it on land and defends it from a bunch of other monstrous dinosaurs.

Jones and Sutton present a story than seems inspired by Twilight Zone episodes and is the strongest of the issue. An astronaut awaiting rescue watches ants develop civilization and destroy themselves in nuclear war after consuming the brain nutrient leaking from his damaged rocket. It turns out he's on Earth and his rescuers don't believe what he saw, but the detritus of the ant civilization remains. 

Allikas and Tuska present a weak story about a German World War I holdout locked in a tower. The remaining story by Newman and Yeates has a White Knight championing fighting for the Christian forces in the Outremer. It turns out the knight is an illusion created by a minstrel with hypnotic powers, but then the Knight takes on a life of his own.

Wonder Woman #283: Conway's and Delbo's story is much less interesting this time around: no Demon or Klarion. Instead we get international intrigue with the Red Dragon trying to restore feudalism to China. The only interesting twist is that the Red Dragon is revealed to be an actual dragon.

The Huntress backup by Levitz and Staton/Mitchell backup wraps up the arc with the Huntress taking down the Joker after he's flushed out of hiding by the supposed return of Batman (whose actually deceased). The Huntress had intended to pull this trick, but Dick Grayson returns to Gotham in this story and beats her to the punch. 

Rockets & Rayguns

Most of my gaming group got together (virtually) for a character creation session for the pulpy science fantasy thing in 5e. I've been blogging about the setting here which borrows from Star Frontiers, Spelljammer, and assorted works of the pulp era of science fiction. The mechanics are the pertinent bits of Rocket Age 5e on top of regular 5e.

Anyway, so far the the party has a Hadozee Explorer, a Vrusk Scientist, a Human Soldier, and a Plasmoid Scoundrel. 

I'll probably be posting some of the material I wrote up or that in an abbreviated form, and certainly the session reports will show up here.

Weird Revisted: An Assortment of Faeries and Spirits

The Denham Tracts (1846-1859) on folklore contain a list of fairies and other creatures of the North of England. The list is supposedly based on alist given in Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) but is much expanded (in some cases, by duplication). In fact, the Tract contains beings not otherwise attested, suggesting Denham may have invented them.

Of course, that's not particular bar to their use in-game. Here's the complete list to start statting from:

"ghosts, boggles, Bloody Bones, spirits, demons, ignis fatui, brownies, bugbears, black dogs, spectres, shellycoats, scarecrows, witches, wizards, barguests, Robin-Goodfellows, hags, night-bats, scrags, breaknecks, fantasms, hobgoblins, hobhoulards, boggy-boes, dobbies, hob-thrusts, fetches, kelpies, warlocks, mock-beggars, mum-pokers, Jemmy-burties, urchins, satyrs, pans, fauns, sirens, tritons, centaurs, calcars, nymphs, imps, incubuses, spoorns, men-in-the-oak, hell-wains, fire-drakes, kit-a-can-sticks, Tom-tumblers, melch-dicks, larrs, kitty-witches, hobby-lanthorns, Dick-a-Tuesdays, Elf-fires, Gyl-burnt-tales, knockers, elves, rawheads, Meg-with-the-wads, old-shocks, ouphs, pad-foots, pixies, pictrees, giants, dwarfs, Tom-pokers, tutgots, snapdragons, sprets, spunks, conjurers, thurses, spurns, tantarrabobs, swaithes, tints, tod-lowries, Jack-in-the-Wads, mormos, changelings, redcaps, yeth-hounds, colt-pixies, Tom-thumbs, black-bugs, boggarts, scar-bugs, shag-foals, hodge-pochers, hob-thrushes, bugs, bull-beggars, bygorns, bolls, caddies, bomen, brags, wraiths, waffs, flay-boggarts, fiends, gallytrots, imps, gytrashes, patches, hob-and-lanthorns, gringes, boguests, bonelesses, Peg-powlers, pucks, fays, kidnappers, gallybeggars, hudskins, nickers, madcaps, trolls, robinets, friars' lanthorns, silkies, cauld-lads, death-hearses, goblins, hob-headlesses, bugaboos, kows, or cowes, nickies, nacks, waiths, miffies, buckies, ghouls, sylphs, guests, swarths, freiths, freits, gy-carlins, pigmies, chittifaces, nixies, Jinny-burnt-tails, dudmen, hell-hounds, dopple-gangers, boggleboes, bogies, redmen, portunes, grants, hobbits, hobgoblins, brown-men, cowies, dunnies, wirrikows, alholdes, mannikins, follets, korreds, lubberkins, cluricauns, kobolds, leprechauns, kors, mares, korreds, puckles, korigans, sylvans, succubuses, blackmen, shadows, banshees, lian-hanshees, clabbernappers, Gabriel-hounds, mawkins, doubles, corpse lights or candles, scrats, mahounds, trows, gnomes, sprites, fates, fiends, sibyls, nicknevins, whitewomen, fairies, thrummy-caps, cutties, and nisses, and apparitions of every shape..."

Wednesday Comics: DC, September 1981 (wk 1 pt 1)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! I'm a couple of days later than my usual Wednesday post, but I'm looking at the comics at newsstands on the week of  June 4, 1981. 

This month is notable as we have 2 new series. These are the first new series from DC since New Teen Titans debuted with a November 1980 cover date.

Arak Son of Thunder #1: Thomas and Colon/DeZuniga present a partial origin of the 8th Century Native American, Sword & Sorcery hero. He's picked up afloat in the Atlantic in a canoe and adopted into a group of Vikings. As an adult, he's at odds with the leader's bloodthirsty nature. He battles a sea monster that's in the service of the sorceress Angelica, then sets off for the court of Charlemagne. In a sea of off-bramd Conans, Arak is certainly a bit more original in concept that the usual comics S&S fare.

Batman #339: Conway and Novick/Mitchell bring back Poison Ivy, not in her later, plant-controlling eco-terrorist mode, but doing her original femme fatale with plant toxins conception. Here she kisses a number of prominent men in Gotham (the board of Wayne Enterprises as it turns out) on one pretext or another and puts them in her thrall--including Bruce Wayne. She calls them all together and has them sign a document giving her control, and forbids them to tell what has happened. As Batman, Bruce confronts her, but using some vines to strangle him, she makes her escape. Batman is afraid he won't be able to stop her, and is unable even to tell the police what she is doing thanks to the suggestion.

The Conway/Novick Robin backup has him still performing with the Hill Circus. He reflects on how he was shaped by two fathers: his biological one and Batman. His quick thinking saves him from plummeting to his death when his distraction harms his performance.

DC Comics Presents #37: Starlin and Thomas present a sort of off-beat team-up with Hawkgirl. When a Kryptonese inscription is found in an archeological dig, Hawkgirl calls in Superman. They discover the site used to be a laboratory for Supes' grandfather, Var-El. He found a way into an "X-Dimension" where the expended energy of suns is pooled. While exploring, Superman falls into a vortex toward a red sun. Hawkgirl flies in to rescue him, dodging the weird bird creatures that live there and having her wings catch fire to save the Man of Steel. This is the sort of quirky but throwaway story typical of team-up books from the Big Two, but the characterization of Hawkgirl is pretty good for the era.

Flash #301: Barry Allen gets fired for missing work all the time, because he can hardly tell his boss what's really been going on. But when his boss goes for a pacemaker tune-up and gets kidnapped, the Flash runs to the rescue. He also figures out that the kidnapping was a ruse to turn the guy's pacemaker into an atomic bomb. Meanwhile, the villain masquerading as Barry's dad seems to be getting closer to revealing his plan (finally). 

In the Firestorm backup by Conway and Cowan/Smith, Hothead is still dealing with the Hyena, and the mystery of the hyena's alter ego. All signs point to a member of Day household, possibly Doreen's sister.

Ghosts #104: Dr. Paul Geist, Dr. 13's in-story mentor and the guy whose files all these stories are supposedly from, is out in favor of Squire Shade, a more conventional horror host who looks like the Gentleman Ghost put on a few pounds. He's not off to a great start.

The first story by Kanigher and Silvestri is about a brutal, Stone Age guy, who is convinced he's being haunted when he seems is own shadow in bright light and runs right into his comeuppance at the hands of a mama triceratops. The next (by Kanigher and Bender) is about a stuntman turned director who is getting spectacular, Oscar-winning stunts in his films by making sure the stunt performers die. The table's are turned when the ghosts of two of them ensures the director dies performing a stunt. 

The last is almost a 2000AD sort of tale, again written by Kanigher, but with suitably grotty art by Giffen and Beatty. In the distant future following a nuclear war, a cruel but wealthy man falls into the hands of all the robots he's tortured and mistreated, who remake him in their image and vow to replace his parts as they wear out so their vengeance can go on forever.

Jonah Hex #52: Mei Ling leaves their son to be watched by Jonah and the young boy from last issue while they are working on the farm, but the baby gets stung by a scorpion. Hex tries to suck the poison out, but the baby still mounts a fever and Mei Ling is furious. The fight turns to his inability to give up the gun over these past few issues, and she doesn't want to hear his excuses. When the mother of the boy who was helping him shows up to say her son has been kidnapped by men out for revenge on Hex, Hex takes up his guns to ride out and save him. Mei Ling warns him that if he leaves she won't be here when he gets back. Hex tracks the kidnappers down, but walks into a trap in a shack rigged with dynamite.

The Bat Lash story picks up where the last installment left off: a bunch of soiled doves have guns on Lash. The entrance of a blundering customer allows Bat Lash the chance to escape, but conflict between him, the woman who robbed him, and her henchman, wind up with the social club burning down and the Confederate gold melting and running down the street. Lash saves the woman, and she just might be starting to warm to his charms, but then she notices he stole her horse.

Weird Revisited: The Room At The End of the Hall

This post first appeared in May of 2012. It didn't make it into Weird Adventures...

 

An ominous door at the end of a hall in a cheap tenement somewhere in the City.  You step over the drunk sleeping it off outside.  Behind the door you find:

1. Two sets of men's clothes in puddles of goo.
2. A roiling, red-tinged fog that seems to pulsate as if with the beating of a heart.
3. A well-dressed man from nowhere.
4. Walls bare but for peeling paint.  The faint sound of a child sobbing.
5. A group of 1d6 hobogoblins gathered around table watching two men play Russian roulette.
6. A single bed with a large constrictor snake curled upon it with a ominous bulge.
7. Smears of blood on the floor; a naked hanging lightbulb swinging, as if recently disturbed.
8. A nest of bugbear hatchlings and their strange birthing machinery.
9. A hillybilly giant in a gingham dress sitting on a bed and sobbing into her hands.
10. The grim reaper seated at a table with a chess board.
11. The complete skin of an elderly man draped across a bed as if in repose.
12. Pulp magazines stacked almost ceiling high and forming a veritable maze.