The new Marvel RPG, Or: Why Jared's Games Have a Shot Now :)

[Ron Edwards]

Hi guys,

Um, aren't we missing something?

The game Marvel Super Heroes was published, I believe, in 1984. It was remarkably different from any other game published so far, and from any game published later until Prince Valiant in 1989. Its design features correspond to all the concepts that Andy is so enthused about for this new game, although perhaps not as overtly.

I remember that at the time, I and fellow Champions-heads considered MSH "silly," but over time, I think that it's proved itself one of the best games ever published. In play, people Drifted MSH to fairly swift Gamism or very solid Narrativism (systems that facilitate these play-modes are often similar), depending on how they treated the reward system (Karma).

So I guess I consider Andy's enthusiasm to be unjustified. What's so special about a good, solid, non-Sim superhero game now, as opposed to twenty years ago?

I also think this concept is worth considering: that superhero games will bring gamers to comics, but they won't bring comics people to games.

Best,
Ron

[Matt Gwinn]

I also think this concept is worth considering: that superhero games will bring gamers to comics, but they won't bring comics people to games.

I'm not so sure about that Ron.
D&D was the first RPG I ever owned, but I never had the opportunity to play it with anyone until many years later.  For the most part I played by myself.  I made a party of characters, then went room by room through the modules and played out the combats.  All patheticness aside, was I a gamer at that point?  Seeing that I never actually roleplayed (I basicly imagined and rolled dice).

The first RPG that I actually played with other people was MSH and I think my interest in comics had far more influence on me playing MSH than D&D did.  And my friend Karl didn't game at all until MSH.

On a side note about that friendship.  When I moved from Connecticut to Michigan he suggested that we game by mail, which at the time seemed silly to me, but looking back it seems kind of inspired for the mid 80's as far as gaming goes.

,Matt G.

[Drew Stevens]

*blinkblink*

Er.  You mean the MSH's game that rated stats as Feeble, Amazing, Incredible, Monsterous and whatnot?  Or was there another one that I'm not aware of?

The one that was still a fortune-based system, as opposed to a resource-management one (albiet with some fuzziness, as you could spend your experience to enhance your actions).  And, at least as importantly, the one that was marketed to gamers, not comic bookers?

Hell, even if it was a re-release I'd be happy (not as happy as I presently am, but even so).  The last bit (Marvel's marketing strategy) has a chance to expand the current market of gamers a goodly chunk, which I strongly approve of and hope for.  What pushes me into tittering gigglefits is that a seriously backed mainstream game is going to be diceless.  Also, it looks fun as hell :)

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Yeah, that's the game that I'm thinking of (and played with great delight and surprise a few years ago). Your response reveals another point of disagreement between us, I think.

It's that term "diceless." Basically, I think dicelessness is nearly a non-issue, as you can see in my GNS essay. It doesn't indicate anything to me about the game's quality, focus, or

This new game appears, so far (and based on advertising text), to have more in its goodness-bag than the dice or lack of dice. It appears to have some focus, some elegance, and some real design (e.g. resource management). We have no idea what the focus is, whether that focus will appeal to comics readers, and most importantly, whether any aspects of the game will bring comics folks into gaming. I very much doubt that dicelessness, per se, has anything to do with this latter point.

And to be even more of a heretic, I'll challenge Andy's whole point in starting this thread by questioning whether "bringing people into gaming" is even viable through cross-medium marketing, especially en masse. Matt's anecdote doesn't refute my point at all; he was already a D&D player, solo or not, before the comics-connection was established.

Best,
Ron

[Drew Stevens]

Mm.  I'd say that diceless-ness isn't as much of a non-issue as you make it out to be.  Since traditional thinking in roleplaying games has been that diceless games won't sell, and so limits design to only games which have a stronger Fortune mechanic.  Making a resource-management game that becomes popular wouldn't just demonstrate the validity of another style of mechanic (resource management) but break down the old assumption (Fortune is neccesary).

And it does have all the elegance and suchlike- but I've already ranted on those, at length.  :)

As to the challenge- well, has it ever been tried before?  Not with RPGs, but I could make a strong arguement that the Sims, by radically challenging some of the assumptions of standard computer game design while creating a clever and elegant toybox, serves as a good model of how to bring non-gamers into a new market.

[Valamir]

Ron doesn't get it, because not only is he already in the choir, he one of the choir directors.

What we are talking about quite simply is a game that (from the sounds of it) seems pretty darn leading edge even by Forge standards in terms of breaking the mold of traditional RPG trappings...AND...is backed by a heavy duty license.  Sure there have been leading edge games before, but none that are likely to be checked out by such a broad swath of the gaming market.  Prince Valiant...sure...that's great to the few gamers who are into checking out innovative new stuff and the half dozen people who remember the comic strip from the newspaper.  Baron Munch, De Profundis...sure.  Those are great to the segment of the market who finds Hogshead's quirky New Line intrigueing.  

But this...this is MARVEL.  This is a MAJOR licensed product that isn't going d20.  That isn't going d20 with the serial numbers filed off like Coda.  That isn't going anything even remotely resembling a traditional RPG.  This has the potential to reach a larger segment of the gaming populace than Valant, Hogshead, et.al. put together....and its completely "out in left field" by traditional standards.  This is huge.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Shrug, man. They did the exact same thing in 1984 - the MSH back then was as innovative, if not more so, relative to all existing games at the time as this one is now. They were Marvel back then, too.

Why is this instance so special, aside from the usual giddy desire to believe that licensing somehow effects revolutions in customer preferences?

Or to put it a little differently, this desire is similar to the comics fans' deeply-held belief that a really kick-ass movie based on a superhero will create more comics fans.

Superman didn't do it back in the 1970s. I very much doubt that the current line of movies (X-Men, Spider-Man, Daredevil) will do it. And I think all of these were exceptionally good movies by any standards.

Best,
Ron

[Bill_White]

As Ron suggests, it may not be the case that the hope implicit here (that the new Marvel game will turn a whole host of new folks into "gamers" like thee and me, sort of like an entry-level gaming drug) will be recognized.   I think that's unlikely even if we accept all the claims about its novelty.

But the movie analogy is inapt:  a movie isn't a comic book, but a game is a game.  

So the new Marvel game might have an effect similar to MSH:  simply being another alternative for those who already role-play.  On the other hand, if it's sufficiently novel (which is what's being argued) in its conceptualization and delivery, then maybe it will have some kind of effect.  If I were more knowledgeable, I'd suggest a parallel closer to Magic:  The Gathering.  That created a class of "gamers" who aren't role-players in the big-tent sense alluded to in the history of D&D thread below, but who recognize themselves as "Magic players."

The extent to which Magic players become role-players is not known to me.  If it's a lot, then new Marvel game may have a profound effect.

There are holes in my argument that that I'd like to patch before posting this, but I have a meeting right this second.  

Bill

[Jared A. Sorensen]

I think that the only sure-fire prediction any of us can make about the new Marvel Universe RPG is that it will cause thousands of game geeks to acquire a weird mutant power that compels them to tell everyone about the "cool character I made up that's kinda like a cross between Spider-Man, Wolverine and the Hulk. With radar sense."

[Drew Stevens]

Oh, no way man.  My guy, he's like a cross between Wolverine and the Dark Phoneix, except HIS Weapon Z program gave him Nightcrawler's teleporting too.

He's cool, and by cool I mean totally sweet.

[Le Joueur]

Or to put it a little differently, this desire is similar to the comics fans' deeply-held belief that a really kick-ass movie based on a superhero will create more comics fans.

Superman didn't do it back in the 1970s. I very much doubt that the current line of movies (X-Men, Spider-Man, Daredevil) will do it. And I think all of these were exceptionally good movies by any standards.

All fannish belief aside, this new crop of movies isn't about 'trying to bring more kids into the comic book store.'  Notice who owns them?  They're about 'making more money off our licensed properties.'  Marvel puts out a movie, they make money, they make money off their assets; do they need to 'get kids into the comic book store?'

So, how about the same approach here?  Okay, so what, we can't 'get more people gaming' with tie-ins and licensed properties (I have no information about Buffy fans).  Fine, let's be the movie-production company; we'll make their games and take our slice.  If it puts bread on the table, if it tips ledgers into black, if it makes media companies sniff more profit¹, it can't hurt.

I can't complain if everybody knows the Scattershot imprint; I'd like to be a (hand to mouth) household word.

And if, heaven forbid, if we come up with something cool (more importantly something cool that can't be done as well as a movie or video game), hell can help us cross-market our stuff.  All that says to me is "find something more than 'just a neat setting' to sell."  If tie-ins and licenses keep me going until then, if they create the networking to cross-market the other way around, if they catch the attention of the odd credits-reading consumer, I won't complain.

If you think I see direct bank in this, yer crazy.

But it can't hurt.

Fang Langford

¹ As in 'I'm a big game and toy company, I wanna buy your gaming company for the big cha-ching; wanna sell?'

[Valamir]

I don't think Andy (or I) is claiming the game is going to sweep the world by storm and bring zillions of new gamers into the hobby.  I also don't really care what game may or may not have been "innovative" before (although having played the old Marvel game with its silly sounding adjective stats I can't possibly see how its being put on the same scale of innovation.  That game poked at the envelope, this one throws the envelope away and sends a post card).

What's Andy and I are both excited about is the additional credibility that will come to non traditional game mechanics by their being associated with a major license.  Would anyone really try to claim that diceless roleplaying didn't get a huge boost as a viable game mechanic simply because of its use in Amber?  I wouldn't.  It is the mass appeal of the Amber license that got enough people to give diceless role playing a shot.  If Eric W had published the exact same game as "Gods of Olympus" you have an interesting footnote in the history of gaming played by the same segment of gamers that already enjoy trying different mechanics.  Diceless mechanics gained enormous credibility as something more than a cute gimmick because enough people were attracted by the license for it to reach a critical mass of players.  Would Nobilis be the talk of the year if Amber hadn't paved the way.  I doubt it.  Why?  Because Nobilis (and Everway) are just plain wierd mechanically.

Wierd = bad to the mainstream consumer until someone with cred does it...then wierd becomes hip (witness any fashion trend).  So after several years of license product after license product falling to the d20 marketing machine its down right thrilling that a big license goes to something so completely "wierd" as what this game is described as being.

[Jonathan Walton]

We have no idea what the focus is, whether that focus will appeal to comics readers, and most importantly, whether any aspects of the game will bring comics folks into gaming. I very much doubt that dicelessness, per se, has anything to do with this latter point.

Here, I both agree and disagree with you.  First, despite what Q.E.D. is saying about their background in indie games and their innovative game system, there are a couple of signs ("One of his games even uses Tarot cards as a resolution mechanic" and the fact that they've never heard of Nobilis) that make me suspect that they're not as in touch with roleplaying's counter-culture as they'd like to believe.  Were they just asleep for Everway, Once Upon a Time, and Dust Devils?  How do you miss Nobilis when it's consistently getting 5/5 every week at RPGnet?  I'm going to be trying hard to keep my expectations low, since those 128 pages are likely to be filled with a whole host of traditional gaming gimmicks that will alienate potential cross-community purchases by comics fans.

However, you'd be surprised what Fortuneless mechanics can do to broaden your audience.  Look at the people who play Amber or Nobilis or Mind's Eye.  Is this the same crowd that would play D&D or Vampire in a dice-based tabletop setting?  I don't think so.  Is it a coincidence that there are many more female players in Fortuneless games?  I don't think so.  In my experience, Fortune mechanics create a kneejerk reaction in many people who have heard of roleplaying games but never tried it.  Also, many people will never be able to see the aesthetic value in anything that involves dice, just because they equate it with "children's" board games instead of making it look like a branch of avante-gard improvizational theater.

Or to put it a little differently, this desire is similar to the comics fans' deeply-held belief that a really kick-ass movie based on a superhero will create more comics fans.

My first roleplaying game was MSH, which I purchased because I was a comics fan and thought it would be like the X-Men board game (the one with little grey plastic miniatures).  However, I discovered that it was much, much more interesting because of the lack of limitations, and quickly moved on to other games (specifically, Robotech and other Palladium stuff).  Of course, me and my brother also got sick of rolling dice in MSH, so we played it diceless, comparing attributes ;)

Also, though good comic movies don't make non-comics fans buy comics, they do something else that's almost equally important: create a public image.

I walked into a dime store to buy a couple issues of Batman about a year ago, and the 20-year-old girl behind the counter said, "Comics are so cool.  I've always wanted to start reading them, but've never gotten around to it."  I asked her why and she said it was because of the movies mostly.  Now, she sounded like she would probably never get around to reading comics, but the fact that she saw it as something cool...

Feel free to extrapolate from there.

[Mike Holmes]

Is it unimportant that TSR published MSH, and this new game is being designed by a small group and distributed by Marvel itself?

Mike

[Matt Snyder]

First, despite what Q.E.D. is saying about their background in indie games and their innovative game system, there are a couple of signs ("One of his games even uses Tarot cards as a resolution mechanic" and the fact that they've never heard of Nobilis) that make me suspect that they're not as in touch with roleplaying's counter-culture as they'd like to believe.  Were they just asleep for Everway, Once Upon a Time, and Dust Devils?  How do you miss Nobilis when it's consistently getting 5/5 every week at RPGnet?  I'm going to be trying hard to keep my expectations low, since those 128 pages are likely to be filled with a whole host of traditional gaming gimmicks that will alienate potential cross-community purchases by comics fans.

Man, I'm glad you said this. I wondered if I was the only one thinking "Never heard of Nobilis and any tarot card game, and yet they're raving about innovation. Uh oh!" (And, hey, gotta love the Dust Devils, um, love!)

I have not yet been at all impressed with the hype thus far (diceless is more FUN and our playes prove it! Um, ok.) but I hope the game is good. MSH was my first game, too, and I have an interest again in supers RPGs that do something a bit different.