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Post by WildKnight on Mar 19, 2012 6:54:19 GMT -5
Because we do love Hulk and Thor, they're coming in some DLC in the next couple of months, along with some nasty villains we didn't include in Breakout (four people who tried the whole cosmic ray rocket ship method of getting super powers, and four who wreck things for a living thanks to Asgardian magic). Also, since the Operations Manual (the rules section of the Basic Game) will appear in every Premium Edition Event Book (there are three of those this year), Basic Game is not a core book. It's just the FIRST book with the rules in it. Cheers, Cam Not trying to be needy here Cam, but any chance we'll be getting Doctor Strange (as an example of Magic with SFX) any time soon? What about other mega-villains like Doom and Magneto? Also, will the Event Books include new Powers, Specialties, and the like? Or will all future datafiles be built on what's already there for the forseeable future? In my group, we've made up a few Specialties (Charm Master for Gambit, and something else I can't remember off hand).
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Post by cambanks on Mar 20, 2012 9:12:46 GMT -5
Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom are both in the Civil War Event Book. Magneto's in Age of Apocalypse, but it's not quite the same guy as that's an alternate universe.
Event Books may add a couple of rules bits here and there, but the Operations Manual will remain the standard core rules for the foreseeable future. It's a good idea when coming up with new Specialties to ensure that they aren't just skills but also contacts, a means of gaining resources, knowledge bases, etc. Generally, we'd use Psych for charm or seduction.
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Post by WildKnight on Mar 20, 2012 10:08:44 GMT -5
Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom are both in the Civil War Event Book. Magneto's in Age of Apocalypse, but it's not quite the same guy as that's an alternate universe. Event Books may add a couple of rules bits here and there, but the Operations Manual will remain the standard core rules for the foreseeable future. It's a good idea when coming up with new Specialties to ensure that they aren't just skills but also contacts, a means of gaining resources, knowledge bases, etc. Generally, we'd use Psych for charm or seduction. Alright. As a follow-up, if new rules are created for one of the event books, will they be included in the basic versions of the Event Books, or only in the version that comes with the Operations Manual?
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Post by cambanks on Mar 20, 2012 21:19:13 GMT -5
Any new rules will be specific to the Event that they appear in, and will not be part of the Operations Manual.
Cheers, Cam
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Post by Kaimontfendo on Mar 20, 2012 21:44:18 GMT -5
So, if the only book so far doesn't have big names Like Thor, Hulk, Doctor Doom, and Magneto, just who does it have? Hulk and Thor were founding Avengers for Pete's sake! Doctor Doom and Magneto are two of the most iconic villains in comic book history! (Certainly in Marvel History, before someone asks if I forgot the Joker and Lex Luthor.)
On one hand, I can understand the idea of an "event book" not including characters who aren't relevant its story. On the other hand, does that mean Spider-Man and Wolverine will show up again and again in more "event books" because they've been around for ages, and seem to show up in everything? And that dozens of pages of the same rules will also show up in book after book, because each book has to have a full set of rules?
You know, I'd like a core book that has stat blocks for several character types from across the Marvel Universe. Major X-Men, Avengers, and Fantastic Four characters, both heroes and villains. And then have additional books that can help fill in the gaps.
Personally, I feel like this is one of the things MURPG did really well. 42 characters in the book, and all the biggest of the big names are in there. Hulk, Thor, Doctor Doom, Magneto... and plenty of not as well-known, but still helpful characters like Mystique, Venom, Abomination, and Baron Mordo. Would they all show up in the same story? No, and that's the point! You could put whichever ones you wanted into your own story, and it could involve bumping into Mystique one session, and then fighting Doctor Octopus the next.
Don't get me wrong, I like making stat blocks, but sometimes it's just so time-consuming. I usually do alright with powers, but skills get so tedious. "Hmmm... How many points do you think Gambit should have in Agility? or Pickpocketing?" Of course we all know that he's really good, but putting a simple number on it is more challenging.
Sorry. I kinda started ranting there. If they'd make an event book for Maximum Carnage or Herald Ordeal, I'd probably go for it. I've got a weakness for those two stories. Otherwise, the idea of event books doesn't really appeal to me. Actually, a classic Avengers, or Secret Wars book could be cool. *Sigh* Here I am suggesting books based on things that happened 20 years ago or more. I guess I'm just not very "Hip" or "With it" as you youngsters would say.
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Post by jayholden on Mar 20, 2012 22:50:48 GMT -5
Did you just say that the CADs as written in the MURPG core book was something that was done *well*?
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Post by Dullahan on Mar 20, 2012 22:55:13 GMT -5
I think he was referring to the characters chosen, not the sheets themselves.
Cause, well, they sucked.
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Post by kito on Mar 21, 2012 0:52:33 GMT -5
based of his rant i would say he is saying alto they might not have been perfect it give a firm bases how how the hero your making can compare the the 1 u like and how the first mmorpg book had such a wide bases it was easy to simply make the hero u wanted because you could view such a wide range of hero/villans. also i think he is saying because there where hero/villans from all over it was easy to make you own campain and throw in any of the major hero/villans need and a few minor 1 for flavor.
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Post by WildKnight on Mar 21, 2012 5:51:49 GMT -5
So, if the only book so far doesn't have big names Like Thor, Hulk, Doctor Doom, and Magneto, just who does it have? Hulk and Thor were founding Avengers for Pete's sake! Doctor Doom and Magneto are two of the most iconic villains in comic book history! (Certainly in Marvel History, before someone asks if I forgot the Joker and Lex Luthor.) Did you read the thread at all? The Basic Game came with the characters available/required for the Breakout mini-event. That's it. It wasn't an attempt at a comprehensive list of important characters in Marvel.
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Post by jayholden on Mar 21, 2012 7:09:48 GMT -5
Has anyone stopped to consider that the reason the vast majority of the MURPG CADs were so terrible was because there were so many of them? If a game developer has a limited time to commit to creating sample characters, making and balancing 10-15 is going to turn out a lot better than making and balancing 40-50.
I can kind of understand that more variety would be nice, kind of like a year of mildly windy 74 degree weather, but this is the real world where we get what we pay for.
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Post by WildKnight on Mar 21, 2012 7:14:37 GMT -5
Has anyone stopped to consider that the reason the vast majority of the MURPG CADs were so terrible was because there were so many of them? If a game developer has a limited time to commit to creating sample characters, making and balancing 10-15 is going to turn out a lot better than making and balancing 40-50. I hadn't, but you make a good point
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Post by roxolid on Mar 21, 2012 7:27:55 GMT -5
Aside from Venom, I can't think of too many in the basic MURPG book which were miles out. Masteries are/were a bit of a vague mess so the characters with them probably needed better refining, but I don't think the CADs in the books were a disaster. Clearly others do - which ones? As for Marvel Heroic, the 'when is a core book not a core book?' question is somewhat confusing. To date, the only book you can buy is the one with the rules and a sample mini event in, which is not a core book, apparently. That makes it what, a preview book? A core book, to me, is one required for playing the game. If you get the non premium event books, without a complete copy of the rules included, I expect you will need the 'not a core book' in order to play them. That to my mind makes the 'basic rules' a core book. They can call it what they want though, it's their game. The other issue is the choice of characters in the not a core book. I'm a fan of Marvel and it had me scratching my head, but as Cam has said, they went off the comic books, so blame Bendis if you don't have a clue who some of the bad guys are and for the fact that there are only a handful of characters in the 'not a core book' basic game. Whatever else I think about the game, I applaud MWP for trying something different, from top to bottom. Why tread down the old (unsuccessful) path of knocking out a game then churning out sourcebooks for teams when we know only TSRs original Marvel game back in the day was successful. The others that followed (including MURPG) would have sunk without a trace without the support of sites like this one. The Saga game has already gone, which I think was a shame. But those two examples (Stones/Diceless and playing cards) also show that being different doesn't always mean successful. Time will tell ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) Plus, if the 'not a core book' is the basic game, does that mean there will be an advanced game at some point, as per the first Marvel TSR game? I'll have to book in with my dentist in advance to deal with the crunch of a more complicated Marvel Heroic game...
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Post by WildKnight on Mar 21, 2012 7:41:47 GMT -5
Aside from Venom, I can't think of too many in the basic MURPG book which were miles out. I'm going to make a list of the CADs in the MURPG book which were utterly worthless; all of them That was easy.
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Post by roxolid on Mar 21, 2012 7:56:08 GMT -5
Aside from Venom, I can't think of too many in the basic MURPG book which were miles out. I'm going to make a list of the CADs in the MURPG book which were utterly worthless; all of them That was easy. Well you're wrong in the respect that all the CADs give a baseline from which to improve them, so they have some worth. What's wrong with, say, Daredevils CAD? I'll grant you that only a half wit would think that the Thing has 7 Ranged Combat. Strange how I missed stuff like that after all these years. That doesn't make the rest of his CAD worthless though, just in need of editing. Maybe we should set up a new thread to rejig every character in the core books with up to date listings. Spiderman, for example, should have higher Close Combat having been trained in Kung Fu. Of course, that was a couple of months ago so it has probably been retconned already... That to me is the real tricky part of statting comic characters - the version you are statting up is out of date by the time you publish the stats...
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Post by cambanks on Mar 21, 2012 8:45:02 GMT -5
Any book with the Operations Manual included in it (beginning with the Basic Game) has all the rules you need to play. We abandoned the idea of a core book in order to provide a way for folks to pick up a single Event Book (the Premium version includes the OM) and have all the rules they need to run it.
Basic Game includes Armor, Beast, Black Panther, Black Widow, Captain America, Colossus, Cyclops, Daredevil, Emma Frost, Human Torch, Invisible Woman, Iron Fist, Iron Man, Luke Cage, Mr Fantastic, Ms Marvel, the Sentry, Shadowcat, Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, Storm, the Thing, and Wolverine.
So that's Whedon's Astonishing X-Men (with Armor), the FF, Breakout's Avengers, and a few others connected to the Avengers like Black Widow and Black Panther. Civil War will have 30 hero datafiles, including ten of the ones in the Basic Game updated for the post-House of M period.
Cheers, Cam
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