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Post by WildKnight on May 28, 2015 15:29:37 GMT -5
Welcome to MURPG, where the posts are made up and the stones don't matter. See, this. This, exactly. I think virtually every GM who runs this game successfully will either admit that the stones only ever serve to give them a general idea of how badly a player wants to accomplish something and help them to focus the narrative... or they will lie and not admit that the stones only ever serve to give them a general idea of how badly a player wants to accomplish something and help them to focus the narrative. Treating this game like a real RPG is a disaster.
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Post by Brainstem on May 28, 2015 15:30:22 GMT -5
With respect to live tabletop play, I think the game works fine as long as all participants are on board with the way the game was probably intended to be played (Modifiers kept low; most players having ~average Energy; dynamic, story-driven combat; etc.) as opposed to how it's optimally played (Abuses of the energy gambling through Modifiers and ramped up regen rates). Even then, it's not great, but it can work out a bit better. A bit.
EDIT: Total fantasy world, though. Can you imagine getting 4 or 5 people sitting around a table to play and they all agree on how things work? HA.
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Post by Gris on May 28, 2015 15:36:52 GMT -5
I have that game. I have the special white hardcover edition with embossed red print. I have the GM screen and the player's guide for that game. ... I would rather play that system than MURPG 8) I have the black old one in Spanish, so I guess that makes me your nemesis or something It (of course) varies from group to group, but since mine would be ignoring the most part of any system that feels terribad, we feel more at easy ignoring large chunks of a no-dice system and "going with the flow" that looking at a "316, you can control mollusk"* and then ignoring it. *Not the real roll number, but if I remember correctly, that's a real power you can get at character creation.
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Post by WildKnight on May 28, 2015 15:41:38 GMT -5
With respect to live tabletop play, I think the game works fine as long as all participants are on board with the way the game was probably intended to be played (Modifiers kept low; most players having ~average Energy; dynamic, story-driven combat; etc.) as opposed to how it's optimally played (Abuses of the energy gambling through Modifiers and ramped up regen rates). Even then, it's not great, but it can work out a bit better. A bit. EDIT: Total fantasy world, though. Can you imagine getting 4 or 5 people sitting around a table to play and they all agree on how things work? HA. Even with "normal" characters, one game-breaking Action (of which there are MANY) can totally derail the game, as can the lack of comprehensible details on how some options are supposed to work. For instance, the Mastery option "transform into element" doesn't seem like a big deal, until you consider all of the ramifications. Obviously it's meant to indicate characters like Johnny Storm, but a player might, with no intent to break the game and with a totally reasonable expectation, buy Mastery of Shadow (for instance), believing that he would be able to transform into an actual shadow, making him virtually impossible to kill. Given, I think the game probably works better with a group that is more interested in narrative as opposed to rules-mongering nonsense (which, unfortunately, tends to be the group I'm stuck with...), but its SO easy to accidentally create a broken monster in this system. I mean, just browsing the costs of Actions and Modifiers...
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Post by WildKnight on May 28, 2015 15:45:07 GMT -5
I have that game. I have the special white hardcover edition with embossed red print. I have the GM screen and the player's guide for that game. ... I would rather play that system than MURPG 8) I have the black old one in Spanish, so I guess that makes me your nemesis or something It (of course) varies from group to group, but since mine would be ignoring the most part of any system that feels terribad, we feel more at easy ignoring large chunks of a no-dice system and "going with the flow" that looking at a "316, you can control mollusk"* and then ignoring it. *Not the real roll number, but if I remember correctly, that's a real power you can get at character creation. I feel like maybe you have the benefit of a less obnoxious table top group than I've usually got. I actually just left the group that I've been gaming with for years on Friday nights. Primarily it was because I wanted to start a game to teach my sons D&D (and they wouldn't be welcome in the other group), but it was also in large part due to my general frustrations with them as players. For the record, we (my old group at the time, not the one I just left) played the pre-published In Nomine adventure (was there more than one?), and never touched it again. I'm pretty sure we only finished the adventure out of spite. Other honorable mentions for worst systems I've played; Twilight 2000 and anything by Palladium.
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Post by roxolid on May 28, 2015 15:46:29 GMT -5
There's loads of unplayable crap out there that makes MURPG seem like the finest thing TSR ever put out in their heyday (and your opinion will vary on what that was). Just as a few examples... Shadowrun 1e. We were getting along fine until the matrix rules cropped up. Then you started hurting my brain. Traveller 2300AD. Bought it, thought to teach it to the group, found out I needed a calculator, squinted, read, pored, scratched my head and looked for something else to play. Rolemaster 1e. We'd already played MERP since the day it came out and despite the all over the place writing in that (text walls too) someone in our group decided RM was the way to go so bought the box set and shoved it in my direction (as GM I was expected to run whatever shite they pushed in front of me, and there was some dross). Character creation took an age. That was back in a time when photocopying was quite expensive per sheet unless you could get your mum to sneak it onto the work photocopier or you sorted out the dot matrix printer to sort of print in a style that would suit. Just... too much. Went back to MERP. As for MURPG, there is a grain of a good idea in there. The no dice thing is something tried again with Saga (and failed, though good look chasing that down on ebay for a reasonable price) and Marvel Heroic tried and failed to turn their game into the sales chart topping success pen pushers at Disney expected, but some got it (and thought it pretty good) whereas others just thought it was grabbing a number of dice and trying to top the other guys total. I wanted to love it, failed, still try to get my head round it to this day to a standard where I could run it but don't think the interest or enthusiasm would be there. As far as I know the only active Saga site on the internet is so because of kitchen sale spam posts, and Margaret Weiss' Heroic Roleplaying game (devoid of Marvel) has gone all quiet, with Cam Banks on to other stuff. With that in mind you could (stretching) say that MURPG is the 2nd most successful Marvel game ever made (after Marvel Superheroes. I preferred the first game to the advanced, but each to their own) in a list of 4. Not bad going *cough* Told ya I was stretching.
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Post by WildKnight on May 28, 2015 15:57:08 GMT -5
I'll take Shadowrun 1 over MURPG, and Rolemaster 1 wasn't that bad of a system unless you bought it thinking you were getting a D&D clone (in many ways, it was the "anti-D&D"). I'm not saying Rolemaster was good, its definitely on my "nigh unplayable" list, I just don't think that MURPG is a superior product. At least some thought went into Rolemaster. Never played Traveller 23000, but it sounds like the same problem I had with Twilight 2000; more math than game.
The SAGA card games were interesting (before Marvel, they put out a Dragonlance version). I thought they had the spore of a good idea there, but when it didn't make money, they didn't stick with it long enough to hammer out.
... the failure of Marvel Heroic is entirely Marvel's fault, on two fronts. First they wanted MWP to pay a ridiculous licensing fee, and second they insisted that the second "event" published be Annihillation because it was "current" when clearly the second (arguably, the first) event should have been X-Men related, as the X-Men are one of their hottest properties. Its got the bones of a great system, and around a table, it plays amazingly well, very much "comic book" action like I've been wanting since I bought the old TSR Marvel game, and have never really gotten.
I suppose one could argue that an additional failing of Marvel Heroic, and this could be blamed on MWP, is that the game was largely based around the idea of playing "events" and many of the mechanics revolved around those "events." Writing out an entire "event" is quite a chore for the GM, more so than creating a "campaign" in most other RPGs, and therefore the lifespan of the game outside of published work is pretty limited.
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Post by roxolid on May 28, 2015 16:04:59 GMT -5
Surely MWP knew what the sales targets were before they went into the deal? I know that when the Basic game rolled out I was astounded by how cheap it was. You could get it for about 8 quid over here (what's that in your funny money, about 12 dollars?) and maybe therein lay the problem. Or it wasn't immediately accessible like the original MSH game was in the early 80s (84 I think? Anyway, whenever) which had Spiderman explaining stuff and had you playing in minutes. The MWP game should have been sold in a box, with dice, with clear play examples (I think some were made available online which cleared some stuff up for people but closing stable door after horse bolted etc). I probably come across as a hater but I was just crushingly disappointed. We'd waited what, 10 years for a new Marvel game, and here it was, canned after a year and I would argue had they done it right they could have dragged kids into the hobby. There should have been a basic game in a box with a map/figures for kids to use, along with simple adventures to run, and a more advanced version to move onto.
I've no idea who they aimed the Marvel Heroic Game at cause it wasn't at beginners and veterans of RPGs either took to it (and even then, not enough if it was canned for low sales) or couldn't get on with it.
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Post by WildKnight on May 28, 2015 16:07:31 GMT -5
Surely MWP knew what the sales targets were before they went into the deal? So did WotC when they got the Star Wars license. They simply overestimated how much they could sell. Honestly, I don't know how licensed products stay profitable at all; the profit margin on physically published gaming books is something like 4%. If you're kicking up to Lucasfilm or Marvel just for the right to publish the book, that stamp on your cover better be A LOT of extra book sales.
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Post by roxolid on May 28, 2015 16:26:23 GMT -5
I think you can add the 'HOW MUCH?' tag to anything attached to Lord of The Rings as well. That's swapped hands several times in the last decade if I recall correctly. The original license with Iron Crown must have gone for peanuts as they held it for years and shovelled out a pile of stuff for it. begs the question is the profit to be made in adventures or core books? These days WOTC seem to think its core books. Back in the day West End Games were prolific with their star wars stuff too. I'm sat in front of a pile of it which is stacking up some other books in my 'man cave' (read crappy little boiler room which was once this houses' cellar, back in Victorian times. When kids come, you move down the pecking order ) and I bet it barely scratches the surface of what was put out. This chat about Marvel Saga made me get off my ass and see if I'd (finally) tracked down everything put out for that game. I could have sworn there is something missing from that pile, and it's gone in another box. Oh well. The 'fun' part was buying the boxed game and cheering, cause you'd been looking for ages, then finding out several of the cards were missing. Just like the last two sets you bought. Yay.
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Post by Brainstem on May 28, 2015 16:30:08 GMT -5
With respect to live tabletop play, I think the game works fine as long as all participants are on board with the way the game was probably intended to be played (Modifiers kept low; most players having ~average Energy; dynamic, story-driven combat; etc.) as opposed to how it's optimally played (Abuses of the energy gambling through Modifiers and ramped up regen rates). Even then, it's not great, but it can work out a bit better. A bit. EDIT: Total fantasy world, though. Can you imagine getting 4 or 5 people sitting around a table to play and they all agree on how things work? HA. Even with "normal" characters, one game-breaking Action (of which there are MANY) can totally derail the game, as can the lack of comprehensible details on how some options are supposed to work. For instance, the Mastery option "transform into element" doesn't seem like a big deal, until you consider all of the ramifications. Obviously it's meant to indicate characters like Johnny Storm, but a player might, with no intent to break the game and with a totally reasonable expectation, buy Mastery of Shadow (for instance), believing that he would be able to transform into an actual shadow, making him virtually impossible to kill. Given, I think the game probably works better with a group that is more interested in narrative as opposed to rules-mongering nonsense (which, unfortunately, tends to be the group I'm stuck with...), but its SO easy to accidentally create a broken monster in this system. I mean, just browsing the costs of Actions and Modifiers... Of course! And, on that end, any system is good if the players are more narratively minded because, as I've found, they'll just ignore the bad stuff that gets in the way.
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Post by WildKnight on May 28, 2015 16:32:00 GMT -5
I think you can add the 'HOW MUCH?' tag to anything attached to Lord of The Rings as well. That's swapped hands several times in the last decade if I recall correctly. The original license with Iron Crown must have gone for peanuts as they held it for years and shovelled out a pile of stuff for it. begs the question is the profit to be made in adventures or core books? These days WOTC seem to think its core books. Back in the day West End Games were prolific with their star wars stuff too. I'm sat in front of a pile of it which is stacking up some other books in my 'man cave' (read crappy little boiler room which was once this houses' cellar, back in Victorian times. When kids come, you move down the pecking order ) and I bet it barely scratches the surface of what was put out. This chat about Marvel Saga made me get off my ass and see if I'd (finally) tracked down everything put out for that game. I could have sworn there is something missing from that pile, and it's gone in another box. Oh well. The 'fun' part was buying the boxed game and cheering, cause you'd been looking for ages, then finding out several of the cards were missing. Just like the last two sets you bought. Yay. In the 80's/early 90's, licenses must have been much more manageable. ICE had ME forever, and West End held on to Star Wars for a long time as well. I've got nearly every book West End put out because I'm a sucker (and I can definitely understand the thing about the kids getting the space in the house...) I only ever played the Marvel SAGA once, in a demo when the game first came out. I'm surprised there is that much material for it.
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Post by roxolid on May 28, 2015 16:43:50 GMT -5
That Star Wars pile must be quite a stack. I remember when 1e came out I bought the core book and the sourcebook, and thought 'great, lets blow stuff up and save the universe'. Shortly after I returned to the game store (then Virgin Megastores, long since sold on) and there were rows of source books, companions, adventures, galaxy guides etc... jaw dropping. We played the game till the characters were nigh on Han Solo/Darth Vader level (not quite that high, but Blaster 9D, Lightsaber 11D certainly, and force powers around 7-9D, Dodge 9D etc) which took quite a while and by then Stormtroopers were irrelevant. I wish the force unleashed had been around back then cause the stormtroopers/sith troopers in that would have given a challenge to the players.
There's an unauthorised fan version of 2e revised and expanded (and updated) out there which is quite a piece of work. Still available, just search for Star Wars reup and check out the first link.
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Post by WildKnight on May 28, 2015 16:45:49 GMT -5
I should say that I have all of the books from 2 and Revised, I have almost nothing from 1st except a couple of adventures. Other than the various editions of D&D, D6 Star Wars is by far the most played system in my arsenal. Marvel Super Heroes is probably #3
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Post by roxolid on May 28, 2015 16:55:57 GMT -5
We played the hell out of (in order of appearance) Moldvay basic, then some homebrew games I wrote, then Mentzer Basic/AD&D (1e) at around the same time, the rest of BECMI as it came out, Marvel Superheroes, MERP, DC Heroes for the most part were our time devourers. Amidst all that you got things like Indiana Jones, Starships and Spacemen (and a load of other FGU stuff), Traveller, Villains and Vigilantes, Champions, even oddball stuff like the Conan RPG which I think was full of typos (don't have it any more) which struck as odd coming from TSR. We tried pretty much every game you could get but some notable exceptions:
Gamma World, Pendragon, Runequest (tried for 1 day), Tunnels and Trolls (the group collectively asked 'what is this shit? Why we wasting our D&D time?') and various other stuff, like Star Frontiers (have it still in a box upstairs, unplayed, same with Buck Rogers XXVc and probably other stuff).
In terms of hours D&D won, DC Heroes close second I guess, then Homebrew/MERP/Star Wars/Marvel Superheroes. We didn't know what the sun looked like or what girls/beer were for till the group broke up near our twenties...
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