It’s clobberin’ time! Okay, now that I think of it, that may not be the best way to start a game review. Article Assemble? Yeah, let’s go with that one. Follow me, and ponder the question, what if . . . I reviewed the Marvel Multiverse Roleplaying Game? For the sake of continuity, you may want to read this prequel to today’s review: Marvel Multiverse Roleplaying Game Playtest Rulebook First Impression | Gnome Stew

This is definitely not the first Marvel roleplaying game. This isn’t even the first Marvel roleplaying game to be published directly by Marvel Comics instead of through a licensed game company. This game follows TSR’s Marvel Superheroes, TSR’s Marvel Superheroes Adventure Game, Marvel’s own Marvel Universe Roleplaying Game, and Margaret Weis Productions’ Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. For perspective, the original Marvel Superheroes RPG and Marvel Heroic Roleplaying are two of my favorite RPGs of all time.

Disclaimer

I am not working from a review copy, and I purchased this game in multiple formats. I was following this project in its early stages, have made several characters with it, and have also played in a session of the game as well.

 Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game

Writer/Designer: Matt Forbeck
Producer & Project Lead: Carlos “CJ” Cervantes Jr.
Editor: Brian Overton
Assistant Producer: Amir Osman
Cover Art: Iban Coello & Jesus Aburtov
Chapter-Opening Art: Mike Bowden, Andrew Dalhouse (Chapters 5–6, 8–10) & Juan Fernandez (Chapters 1–4, 7)
Logo Design: Jonathan Silva
Graphic Design & Layout: Simeon Cogswell
Additional Graphic Design: Rodolfo Muraguchi
Additional Writing: Marty Forbeck
Editor In Chief: C.B. Cebulski
Business Development Lead: Trent Bielen
Executive Director, Marketing & Integrated Planning: Tim Dillon
VP Production & Special Projects: Jeff Youngquist
VP Corporate Dev. & Production, Digital Media: Jesse Berger SVP.
Business Development & New Initiatives: Daniel Fink

First Issue

This review is based off multiple formats of the game. I have the hardcover core rulebook, the Roll20 version of the game, and the Demiplane Nexus version as well. I’ve made characters in both the Roll20 character builder and the Demiplane Nexus character builder. While this isn’t specifically a review of the different formats, I will give the nod to the Demiplane Nexus character builder as being a little more intuitive, although the Roll20 version has the same amount of functionality, you just have to hunt a little to find everything.

The hardcover rulebook is 320 pages. I’m an easy mark for a book that has the right heft and texture, and I like holding this book. While I know a lot of RPG companies have excellent, professional printers lined up, I have to think that the quality of this book is improved just because it’s directly published by Marvel.

The layout and formatting is pleasant to look at as well. While it’s not a big negative, I will say that the range of art styles definitely runs the gamut of artwork that Marvel has utilized over the years, so at times it’s a little jarring to see Ed McGuiness on one page, Greg Land on another, and Alex Ross on yet another.

Marvel 616

One of the first things we knew about this game system was that it was going to be called the d616 system. That’s a fun bit of synergistic framing, but what does that mean functionally? Well, to start, you need two d6s of one color, and a d6 of a different color. Resolution has you rolling three dice, adding a number determined by your attributes, and comparing it to a target number. That special d6 determines if you rolled a critical effect. Instead of a 1 and a 6, there is a “Marvel” and a 6, meaning your Marvel die can’t roll a 1. If you roll a “Marvel” result, your check is a Fantastic Success. If you roll two 6s and a Marvel, that’s an Ultimate Fantastic Success, which means you can’t fail.

Under favorable circumstances, you might gain an Edge, which lets you reroll one of your die results. If you are under unfavorable circumstances, you may have a Trouble, which means you must reroll your highest die result. Edges and Troubles cancel out, but you can end up with more than one Edge or Trouble if you still have leftovers after canceling everything out.

Individual characters have a rank from 1 to 6, with one being a normal human being, and 6 being a cosmic level hero, like a Herald of Galactus or someone on that scale. Your average target number changes based on your rank, so a regular person is only looking to get an 11 on three dice to perform a Challenging task, but a Challenging task for a rank 6 character is a 16. The sliding scale accounts for larger upper limits for attributes available to rank 6 characters. There is also a chart that modifies the difficulty from -6 to +6 based on how far removed the task is from “Challenging.”

That takes care of resolving a single task, but what about combat? In that case, the target number for a character is going to be based on their attribute scores. If you successfully hit a target number with an attack, you multiply the number you rolled on the Marvel die by your rank, and that determines how much damage your character does. You may also pick up a few additional multipliers based on individual powers, and you may need to subtract multipliers due to powers that increase a character’s resilience.

Characters have two pools that measure their physical and mental wellbeing, Health and Focus. If either of those are depleted, the character is unable to keep functioning until they can rest and recover. You may need to double dip into Focus, however, as some powers require you to pay an amount of your focus to activate them. Thankfully, there are a lot fewer powers that do Focus damage, but you may be burning a lot of Focus if you need to trigger powers and you’re fighting a hostile telepath.

Mephisto is in the Details

Because I know people will ask this, yes, there are character creation rules. Just like there were in another Marvel game that people didn’t pay any attention to. That said, creating a character from scratch is a major focus on the book. No, there aren’t any Marvel Superheroes style randomizers this time around.

The core resolution mechanic and combat are actually pretty simple, but this is a 320-page book, so where is that page count coming from? There are several elements that modify the rules in ways that let you customize your character.

Characters have Occupations and Origins, which in turn tells you what kind of Traits and Tags your character possesses. Traits rules modifications that might be a little less than a power, but more than a narrative element. These can also be positive or negative. For example, if you have the Symbiote Origin, you pick up a trait that lets fire and sonic attacks ignore your damage reduction and shut off your regeneration. On the other hand, if you have the Mythic Origin, you determine what you are the god of, and you get an edge on any rolls related to your portfolio. While some of your traits are determined by your Origin, you can also pick up an additional trait for each rank you have.

Tags are more like narrative permissions, and that narrative permission varies a whole lot. The main thing about tags is that it’s usually not something that affects how you resolve or resist actions. For example, if you have the Eternally Immortal trait that the Eternals have, you never age, and if you die, you can be brought back to life via the Activation Chamber. Narratively, that tag is doing a whole lot more than the Amphibious Tag that an Atlantean gains, but Tags remove “narrative permission” powers from the powers section of the rules, since they don’t really affect whether Namor or Ikaris can throw a punch at the Super-Skrull.

Powers are the next section of rules that define your character. You have a set number of powers per Rank, although if you have fewer Power Sets than your maximum, you may get an additional power. Some Origins will require you to take certain powers, especially if you have an origin like Kree or Skrull. These still come from your total number of powers. The Power Sets available in the Core Rulebook are:

• Basic
• Elemental Control
• Illusion
• Magic
• Martial Arts
• Melee Weapons
• Omniversal Travel
• Phasing
• Plasticity
• Power Control
• Ranged Weapons
• Resize
• Shield Bearer
• Spider-Powers
• Super-Speed
• Super-Strength
• Tactics
• Telekinesis
• Telepathy
• Teleportation
• Weather Control

Powers are things that are going to affect your dice rolls, resistances, movement, and other “active” game rules. Powers, in this case, are discreet rules definitions, and often Powers have separate Powers that further build on an existing power. In other words, there are four ranks of Control Weather, which start off reducing the ranges of ranged attacks, then create difficult terrain, and eventually modifies how the Elemental Blast and Elemental Barrage powers work. It’s also worth noting that “powers” in this case don’t mean things that a normal human couldn’t do. Martial Arts, Melee and Ranged Weapons, and Tactics are all things that could just be due to natural talent and training, but they have an active, ongoing effect on the dice rolls and how things are resolved.

Another example is the Teleportation Power Set. Early on, you can teleport, that’s easy. But the additional powers in the Power Set let you attempt to teleport without knowing your destination, teleport while carrying objects, or carrying other people. There are also powers in the Teleportation Power Set that let you teleport rapidly as a benefit to defense, or teleporting rapidly while striking an opponent from multiple directions.

What I’m trying to illustrate is that this isn’t a supers game where you can perform a “stunt” to attempt to use a power in a way you haven’t used it before. Individual powers under a given Power Set have very specific and narrow definitions. While you might normally think that Spider-Man has a lot more powers than, say, Nightcrawler, at the same rank, both of them will have the same number of powers, and in Nightcrawler’s case, that means having a lot of powers related to using his teleportation ability to pull of specialized tricks.

While characters might have the same attribute caps at the same Ranks, powers like Mighty increase your damage multiplier and ability to haul heavy things around, but they don’t break the upper limits of bonuses you can have for resolving actions.

The Official Handbook of the Marvel Multiverse Core Rulebook

The question a lot of people are probably asking is, who is included in the rules? So, we’ll take some time to answer that question here in a moment. I want to point out that there aren’t special rules for antagonists–heroes and villains are built using the same rules, so these character profiles work for all of your reformed villain protagonist needs. Without further ado, here are the characters in the Core Rulebook:

• Abomination (Rank 5)
• Agatha Harkness (Rank 5)
• Agent Phil Coulson (Rank 2)
• America Chavez (Rank 5)
• AIM Agent (Rank 1)
• Ant-Man (Rank 3)
• Average Civilian (Rank 1)
• Baron Mordo (Rank 5)
• Baron Zemo (Rank 3)
• Beast (Rank 4)
• Black Bolt (Rank 5)
• Black Panther (Rank 4)
• Black Widow (Rank 3)
• Blade (Rank 4)
• Blue Marvel (Rank 6)
• Brawn (Rank 4)
• Bullseye (Rank 2)
• Captain America (Steve Rogers, Rank 4)
• Captain Marvel (Rank 6)
• Clea (Rank 6)
• Colossus (Rank 4)
• Crossbones (Rank 3)
• Cyclops (Rank 4)
• Daredevil (Rank 2)
• Deadpool (Rank 4)
• Devil Dinosaur (Rank 3)
• Doctor Doom (Rank 5)
• Doctor Octopus (Rank 4)
• Doctor Strange (Rank 6)
• Dora Milaje Warrior (Rank 2)
• Dormammu (Rank 6)
• Drax (Rank 5)
• Echo (Rank 2)
• Elektra (Rank 2)
• Emma Frost (Rank 5)
• Enchantress (Rank 5)
• Forge (Rank 4)
• Gamora (Rank 5)
• Ghost Rider (Rank 5)
• Ghost-Spider (Rank 4)
• Giant Man (Rank 3)
• Gorr the God Butcher (Rank 6)
• Green Goblin (Rank 4)
• Groot (Rank 4)
• Hand Ninja (Rank 1)
• Hawkeye (Clint Barton, Rank 2)
• Hela (Rank 6)
• Hellcat (Rank 3)
• Hulk (Rank 6)
• Human Torch (Rank 4)
• Hydra Agent (Rank 1)
• Iceman (Rank 4)
• Ikaris (Rank 5)
• Invisible Woman (Rank 4)
• Iron Fist (Rank 3)
• Iron Man (Rank 4)
• Jessica Jones (Rank 3)
• Juggernaut (Rank 4)
• Kate Pryde (Rank 3)
• Killmonger (Rank 4)
• Kingpin (Rank 3)
• Kraven the Hunter (Rank 3)
• Leader (Rank 4)
• Loki (Rank 5)
• Luke Cage (Rank 3)
• Magneto (Rank 6)
• Magnitron (Rank 4)
• Malekith (Rank 4)
• Mandarin (Rank 5)
• Maximus (Rank 3)
• Mirage (Rank 3)
• Mister Fantastic (Rank 4)
• Misty Knight (Rank 3)
• MODOK (Rank 4)
• Moon Girl (Rank 2)
• Moon Knight (Rank 4)
• Morbius (Rank 3)
• Ms. Marvel (Rank 3)
• Mysterio (Rank 2)
• Mystique (Rank 3)
• Nebula (Rank 4)
• Nick Fury Jr. (Rank 2)
• Night Nurse (Rank 1)
• Nightcrawler (Rank 3)
• Okoye (Rank 2)
• Photon (Rank 5)
• Professor X (Rank 6)
• Psylocke (Kwannon, Rank 3)
• Quicksilver (Rank 4)
• Red Skull (Rank 3)
• Red Wolf (Rank 2)
• Reptil (Rank 3)
• Rocket Raccoon (Rank 4)
• Ronan the Accuser (Rank 4)
• Sabretooth (Rank 4)
• Scarlet Witch (Rank 5)
• Shang-Chi (Rank 4)
• She-Hulk (Rank 4)
• SHIELD Agent (Rank 1)
• Shuri (Rank 4)
• Silk (Rank 4)
• Skrull (Rank 3)
• Spider-Man (Miles Morales, Rank 3)
• Spider-Man (Peter Parker, Rank 4)
• Spider-Man 2099 (Rank 4)
• Squirrel Girl (Rank 3)
• Star-Lord (Rank 5)
• Storm (Rank 4)
• Sub-Mariner (Rank 4)
• Sunspot (Rank 5)
• Taskmaster (Rank 3)
• Thanos (Rank 6)
• Thing (Rank 5)
• Thor (Jane Foster, Rank 5)
• Thor (Thor Odinson, Rank 5)
• Titania (Rank 2)
• Ultron (Rank 5)
• Vampire (Rank 2)
• Venom (Rank 4)
• Vision (Rank 4)
• Vulture (Adrian Toomes, Rank 2)
• War Machine (Rank 4)
• Wasp (Janet Van Dyne, Rank 4)
• White Tiger (Rank 2)
• Winter Soldier (Rank 3)
• Wolverine (Laura Kinney)(Rank 3)
• Wolverine (Logan)(Rank 4)
• Wong (Rank 4)

I’m not going to argue some of my quibbles with what rank some characters were assigned. I will say I think it’s strange that Okoye gets her own entry, but she’s still just Rank 2 like the standard Dora Milaje Warrior. My main concern is that I really think there should have been a “Rank 0.” Untrained bystanders, low level SHIELD, Hydra, AIM, and Hand operatives, and brand-new heroes (if you choose to start at Rank 1) all bunch up together at the same rank. It really feels like there should be Rank 0 bystanders and Rank 0 “guy that’s only dangerous because he’s armed” characters available.

All of the characters are built using recent assumptions about the characters, at least at the time of publication. That means there is a trait for Krakoan citizens as well as a trait for Gamma mutates called The Green Door. I’m not going to spoil any current storylines, but wow, it sure was nice having that Krakoan trait while it lasted. Beyond that, it’s interesting that most of the characters are detailed as of their most recent appearances, but there are definitely some inclusions that made the cut because they appear in recent Marvel media outside of the comics.

Despite being influenced by current MCU and other Marvel media, there are some notable missing favorites, like Sam Wilson’s Cap or Kate Bishop’s Hawkeye. The first adventure, the Cataclysm of Kang, expands the roster to include some of these characters as well, but it’s definitely not an exhaustive list of heroes and villain stats. Later this year (2024) we should be seeing an X-Men and Spider-Man expansion, but you may be making some of your favorite deep cuts until that time.

The Jean Grey School for Gifted Narrators

The book contains what is probably the most concise explanation of the Marvel 616’s history as you could expect from a 320 page book that isn’t entirely dedicated to the topic. While I don’t think it would be enough to run a Marvel game “cold,” without any other contact with Marvel properties, I’m not sure anyone is coming to this game without some outside knowledge. What this section does well is explain some of the connections between various Marvel characters and institutions, in a way that will probably help someone that is used to one aspect of Marvel IP to understand some of the references to other Marvel characters and institutions they haven’t seen in their media of choice yet.

I’m really happy with the Narrator advice in this book. It would be easy for a book published by the IP owner to skim over potential safety issues. Instead, there is a solid amount of information on safety and content calibration. While I’m not surprised when established RPG publishers make reference to industry standard safety tools, I’m impressed to see the X-Card and Script Change get mentioned in a Marvel published RPG. There is also a section on Session Zero that has a nicely delineated list of items that you should consider during that process. The attention to safety concerns also includes a discussion on how to be careful when including elements of mind control in a supers game.

A lot of what I want in a game that is this based on numbers and expected difficulty ranges appears here, like how many opponents should be a challenge for people of different Ranks. There are still a few things I’ve grown used to that don’t appear. I’ve already mentioned that villains use the same rules regarding ranks and powers that PCs use, which means anything not built is going to take time to build. I wish there was a stripped down way to create threats that didn’t require a full character build. I also wish we had a system for complex task resolution, and a way to address the fact that you can’t “stunt” new applications of powers.

While there are some elements I wish were present, this is a very solid Narrator section. I’ve seen core books that get a little lost in flowery hypotheticals, and this section stays on point and engaging.

The Best There Is at What I Do

I think that anyone used to more traditional RPGs will be able to pick this up, run with it, and enjoy it.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this game, especially after seeing the playtest release. Not that the playtest was bad, but there was a lot going on. This feels very clean and very easy to pick up and play. While there are a lot of powers and traits, jumping in by playing an existing character and just learning what their powers and traits do isn’t too much of a cognitive load, and with every application of a power spelled out, there isn’t a lot of wondering “can I do this?” Most of your questions are answered where you expect them to be answered in the book, which is surprisingly uncommon, especially in books that hit the 300+ page range.

What I Do Isn’t Very Nice

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, there isn’t much flexibility in what your character can do outside of exactly what you can do. The game doesn’t break if you ask, “can I do this?” and the Narrator gives you a difficulty, but it also doesn’t explore this concept in depth, either. It’s going to be a little time intensive to make villains that don’t already exist, and while you can always model saving people from a disaster or an accident with a single roll, it’s hard to make an ongoing, challenging scene out of saving people, versus punching people for justice.

Recommended–If the product fits in your broad area of gaming interests, you are likely to be happy with this purchase.

While it doesn’t have some of the flexibility of some more modern supers RPGs, it does have a very strong vision for what it wants to do, and I think that anyone used to more traditional RPGs will be able to pick this up, run with it, and enjoy it. From a game development theory standpoint, this game is a great answer to “how do you translate what D&D teaches people about RPGs, without using any of D&D game system?” It’s also a fascinating game just from the standpoint of taking feedback, making changes, and hammering out a very solid game, while still being extremely transparent about the steps taken to get to the final form.