Whatever happened to MURPG 2.0?

[roxolid]

As the title. I think the last time I posted on these boards will have been 4-5 years ago before my recent return and I think there was talk of some collaborative effort to revise the game system with the house rules and tweaks that people use on the board, only... well, did anything ever come of it? What are the main issues with the game? Energy and Modifiers? The vague rules for certain powers (masteries seem to be a bit of a mess, with rules and options spread over three books)? Did MURPG v2 fizzle out?

[WildKnight]

Too many cooks.

Speaking for myself, I lost interest when it became clear that the thing was going to go in a direction that I felt wasn't going to be much better than the house ruled versions of the original rules that already existed.

[takewithfood]

Too many cooks for sure, but even knowing that from the beginning, I was really interested in the project, and I think a lot of good came out of it. I don't think it was ever going to wind up as a cohesive set of rules that we could safely call MURPG 2.0, but some of the rules we came up with are still in use in various games.

When it comes down to it, every GM uses their own house rules anyway. ^__^

~TWF

[WildKnight]

Oct 19, 2011 22:18:26 GMT -5 takewithfood said:

When it comes down to it, every GM uses their own house rules anyway. ^__^

~TWF

This is, basically, what I meant to say. Not that the project didn't have merit, but that ultimately people would have ended up doing their own thing with it anyway.

[Brainstem]

Oct 19, 2011 20:27:26 GMT -5 WildKnight said:

Too many cooks.

Speaking for myself, I lost interest when it became clear that the thing was going to go in a direction that I felt wasn't going to be much better than the house ruled versions of the original rules that already existed.

[Gryphynx]

I'd be willing to help with a different MURPG 2.0, but only if it were really a new system. The problem with 2.0 (from what i read) was mostly that it was house ruling 1.0. That's never going to work. It would have to be completely from scratch. The energy system itself was fantastic, and could be expanded upon to make it more inclusive, but you'd want it in a manner that you could play at various levels. This means having the default stones spent closer to 100 than the current 5. This allows for a wider variety of game settings, from the low-scale games of barely-better-than-humans with a 20ish energy average, to Thanos vs Thor at 250 energy average.

Defense would need to be broken into types, as would offenses. And unlike the current system, a manner that defenses were always active without exhausting a person in the process.

As for healing, I'd actually make that dependent on the energy levels. Not a healing factor so much (though you could upgrade of course, for the Wolverine type).

But if 2.0 is just something like (Replace X with Y from the 1.0 book), then it won't ever feel like 2.0, it'll feel like house rules.

[Brainstem]

I've actually found a great MURPG 2.0. It doesn't have resource allocation, which does blow, but everything else about it is phenomenal. It takes the beautiful adaptability and broad nature of MURPG, but condenses it to a form that, while less simple to pick up and play, makes for a much more authentic super hero game. Sphynx, it even plays with your notion of power levels and differentiated defenses. Check it out.

[Brainstem]

And no, I'm not trying to be (too) snarky with that. I really think that it provides the perfect alternative to MURPG despite using dice. Every other aspect of the system seems like it took the good of MURPG, kept it, and fixed most of the awful.

[Gryphynx]

Yeah, M&M is pretty cool, but the cool-factor of the MURPG isn't how it plays in paper-dice format, but forums. The energy usage is the one and only factor that must absolutely not be replaced for it to be MURPG 2.0. You remove that, and you're in a different thing entirely.

I really really like a diceless system that's not amber-generic, nor just another card game. Stone usage makes it strategic, especially in a tabletop game (not so much on forums where I clearly see that many NPCs not only don't have CADs; or they wouldn't cleave a man in half, negligably deflect a 9 stone arrow, and go toe to toe with a seasoned warrior all within 2 panels. ) Forums are really a different thing entirely...

Back to point, it's cool that you get to out-think a GM, and not have it thrown in your face by rolling a 1. It's just as cool that you get to outwit your players without having your plot dumped because you roll a 1. (and without having to flat out lie by saying it was a 16 because its behind your GM screen...).

No... M&M is awesome, but it lacks all the things that I like most about MURPG just because it uses Dice instead of Energy.

[WildKnight]

Oct 20, 2011 3:42:29 GMT -5 Gryphynx said:

Yeah, M&M is pretty cool, but the cool-factor of the MURPG isn't how it plays in paper-dice format, but forums. The energy usage is the one and only factor that must absolutely not be replaced for it to be MURPG 2.0.

This. I don't think the energy usage system is good or fun by any means, but it makes PbP SO much better

[roxolid]

I'd make Abilities into modifiers. Free stones, all the time. Weapons I'd change so that they don't add stones to the attack, but instead to any damage inflicted.

e.g. Green Goblin uses Close Combat (3) + Strength (5) and pays 3 stones for an 8 stone attack. He also uses his gloves (+3 to damage) so if his 8 stone attack overcomes Spidermans' defence, it increases damage by +3. Doing it that way essentially makes a weapon modifier free for Close Combat, but it's weaker (only adding to damage AFTER you've hit). Ranged combat should get an ability modifier (probably a perception or intuition stat. Heck, why not use the FASERIP stats instead of MURPG stats?). If you hit, the ranged weapon adds to damage.

Toughness and other defensive powers don't make you harder to hit, but instead soak up damage. Spiderman should be able to hit the Thing easily. Getting through that orange hide is another matter. Say he puts 13 stones into an attack and Thing sticks 9 stones into defence (from strength). Spidey hits with 4 stones, right? Sure, but those 6 stones of rocky hide block him every time. In the FASERIP game spiderman can't even make a dent on Thing, and he can forget the Hulk.

To break any deadlock, I'd suggest being able to 'push' your abilities by using hero points (1 hero point per extra free stone) or spending 2 energy per stone over your normal limits. Spiderman beat Firelord - classic example of a great one off super high dice roll but we don't use dice, so need another 'ultimate effort' mechanic.

Weapons that add to the attack should be much more expensive. Thors' hammer doesn't help him hit an agile foe, but if it does hit it sure helps with pounding that foe into a smear. If it did it should cost double the stones.

That would require different costs for everything from ground up, obviously, but I don't see why the Thing takes a battering from the Hulk, loses a pile of health and is unable to lift a certain amount of weight because he hasn't the energy stones. No other supers game does that (in most other supers game, a character can fight at full effectiveness until they drop. I'm not suggesting that, but instead make things harder when someone has the snot beaten out of them. It's still a death spiral of sorts, but nowhere near as steep).

Anyway, those are just off the top of my head thoughts. Doubtless Gryphynx or Wildknight can come up with some way to break what I've written down, but that's what I'm suggesting with this thread. Suggest ideas, see if they break. If they stand up and improve things, who knows where it'll lead? Just a thought.

[Gryphynx]

I would definitely oppose FASERIP, since there's just no way Fighting should be an Attribute.

The thing is, putting it all as defense/offense makes sense in the MURPG. Not only because it simplifies things, but because it leaves a lot of space to GM Discretion. IE: Spider vs Thing. Just because spiderman has fewer stones in offense than Thing has in defense, doesn't mean Spiderman missed. It just means Thing took no damage. Spiderman wailed on poor Thing, chips of stone coming off, but Thing just stood there taking it. Important thing is that you easily, without having to go back and forth on different things, see offense vs defense. That's very important in a PbP game, though not quite as important as energy vs dice.

I would however, support Abilities as Modifiers. I think that was the original intent, based on little "mishaps" in the editing, such as the page 41 goof that says: "Agility is most often used as a Modifier for Actions such as Close Combat, Thieving, Acrobatics, Wall-Crawling, and Web-Slinging".

I think the problem was that it was too much. They last-minute removed it and made it always cost stones from your Energy Pool, this was because it was just too much, every action tended to have more free stones than energy stones....

If we do like I said, and make 100 stones the average instead of the 5, and make Abilities 10 to 20 on average, then that 10 to 20 "free" stones into your Close Combat that you put 50 stones into (and maybe similar levels from modifiers like a weapon or claws), is a nice boost, but not all encompassing. To use Abilities as Modifiers, they need to average no more than 20% of the Action Average.

[takewithfood]

I think I spent the most time making the argument against modifiers. "Green Goblin uses Close Combat (3) + Strength (5) and pays 3 stones for an 8 stone attack" sounds great until you realize that when the Green Goblin attacks, his player has only 3 options: do I pay 1 stone, 2 stones, or 3 stones? That's it.

And there goes half the fun of playing a roleplaying game: the decision-making process.

I find that the reason people want to put more modifiers into the game is to help negate MURPG's energy problems. I prefer to deal with those energy problems more directly.

I think the 3 things that I really drew from the whole MURPG 2.0 brainstorm for my own hous rules are:

1. split Durability into 3 abilities (durability, energy recovery, energy pool)
2. increase the size of energy pools (I chose to go with pool x 5 instead of the usual x3)
3. reduce dependence on modifiers

After that it's just a matter of tweaking things that need balance and cleaning up/clarifying anything that needs cleaning/clarification.

~TWF

[Brainstem]

I feel like more stones won't really fix things, though. If anything, the books should just have a bunch of different D&R charts to use for various Power Levels. There could just be a quick conversion where every two PL difference between characters gives a stone of Situational Modifiers in favor of the higher PL.

I do see where you're going, though, and I like the idea of incorporating Power Levels (it's one of the things I really like about M&M and I think they did a great job with it), but I don't know if the way to differentiate is by Thanos having some ungodly high set of Abilities and 300 Energy to throw around compared to the Punisher's much more modest amount. Yes, Thanos is on an entirely different playing field than Punisher, but that kind of gross difference will just create characters that suffer the same issues they do now while creating unnecessary gaps in power.

What I love about MURPG is the abstract nature of it. Going back to the idea of differentiated D&R Charts, a 3 doesn't always mean the same thing and it shouldn't. A 3 should reflect where your character stands relative to the world that he or she interacts with. Loki, for example, doesn't necessarily need to have such high numbers in all of his Abilities. The system, as-is, demands this because power is based on stones put in. His character, however, is a Norse God and interacts mostly around those settings; it would make sense, then, for his Abilities to be relative to his peers. When he jumps down to Earth and dukes it out with the Avengers, then he gets Sit Mods in his favor to reflect the difference in power. Not necessarily the best example, but I hope the idea was at least conveyed?

Ultimately, a character with 90 stones of Offense attacking 100 stones of Defense is going to have the same trouble as 9 attacking 10.

[roxolid]

Oct 20, 2011 11:57:38 GMT -5 takewithfood said:

I think I spent the most time making the argument against modifiers. "Green Goblin uses Close Combat (3) + Strength (5) and pays 3 stones for an 8 stone attack" sounds great until you realize that when the Green Goblin attacks, his player has only 3 options: do I pay 1 stone, 2 stones, or 3 stones? That's it.

And there goes half the fun of playing a roleplaying game: the decision-making process.

I find that the reason people want to put more modifiers into the game is to help negate MURPG's energy problems. I prefer to deal with those energy problems more directly.

I think the 3 things that I really drew from the whole MURPG 2.0 brainstorm for my own hous rules are:

1. split Durability into 3 abilities (durability, energy recovery, energy pool)
2. increase the size of energy pools (I chose to go with pool x 5 instead of the usual x3)
3. reduce dependence on modifiers

After that it's just a matter of tweaking things that need balance and cleaning up/clarifying anything that needs cleaning/clarification.

~TWF

That's why I suggested this:

Oct 20, 2011 11:05:49 GMT -5 roxolid said:

To break any deadlock, I'd suggest being able to 'push' your abilities by using hero points (1 hero point per extra free stone) or spending 2 energy per stone over your normal limits. Spiderman beat Firelord - classic example of a great one off super high dice roll but we don't use dice, so need another 'ultimate effort' mechanic.

You spend energy over and above your action to break any deadlock or give you an edge. It's expensive, but that's your call.

Or maybe combat should boil down to:

Speed, Agility (free stones), Skill & Powers (costing stones), Luck (oops, a D10 from the GM for each side. Probably get pelted by tomatoes for suggesting that round here), Equipment and Modifiers. Compare one score against the other, highest wins and difference is taken as damage.

Strength should increase and/or multiply damage IF you hit

Durability and Toughness should reduce damage.

Stones should be spent on giving you a bit extra, 'signature moves' like the Things "It's clobbering time!" where he pays a big chunk of energy and throws it into a punch for an extra effect (armour piercing to a certain degree?) or "hulk Smash!" where Hulk, uh, smashes.

Bit like a video game (Marvel Ulimate Alliance) where you spend energy on your special moves. Johnny Storm can blast flames all day long but to really turn up the heat he 'goes nova' as his special move. For every stone he spends he increases damage and range of his attack, etc.