Quote from: J Arcane;649386MHRP is one of the worst game books I've read in years.  

It was ludicrously overdesigned and overcomplicated half the time, and utterly underdeveloped and oversimplified in others, the writing was sloppy, the rules explanations denser than Hulk's thigh bones, and of course it all hinged on bizarre metagaming bullshit instead of even the pretense that the game world was anything but something invented for the players to go through pre-written adventure railroads with only minimal contribution while still having the illusion of freedom.

It was every single fucking thing that is wrong in RPGs all in one disgusting jumble, like a bucket of corn-syrup-glazed chicken topped with transfat flakes served in a slurry of hydrolyzed soy protein and washed down with raw vegan wheatgrass juice.

Its failure is just about the most predictable thing I can imagine.

Stop messing about and say what's on your mind!

So what was it about Marvel Universe that made it popular (with those that liked it)?

Marvel Universe didn't use dice. You had a bunch of numbers on a sheet which limited how much energy you could spend, a bunch of energy points (stones, chits, whatever you wanted to use) and spent them to accomplish actions. Equal or exceed the target number and you succeed. When it came to contests between characters you compare the totals of one character and another, highest wins.

The problems (and there are a few) as I saw it were that there was a death spiral, so taking a hit would reduce your energy pool, thus your ability to act and defend yourself, so it was only a matter of time before you went down. Combat was a front loaded affair. In the first round you threw everything in to chip away at the other guys health (and therefore his energy pool). Once that was done you could relax some, and keep chipping away in the sure knowledge the other guy was going down. Modifiers gave 'free stones' or free energy in effect to certain tasks. That made them vital, and most were quite cheap for what they did. Some powers were so vague and hand waving in their description that you weren't quite sure what the heck you could do with them. Everything? Anything? Nothing? Masteries (like the Human Torches mastery of fire, Magnetos mastery of Magnetism etc) allowed you to really rack up the cost with added options and make other characters feel somewhat redundant.

Min/Max gamers could really screw the system for all it was worth and turn out starting characters that would take down Thor. They couldn't do anything else mind, but Thor is an example of someone who has massive stone counts and modifiers (that hammer, for instance, and his belt) and he really was a heavy hitter.

None of these problems is insurmountable.

I believe there is a place for a resource management based supers game, but I would include dice. Instead of comparing your stone total to the target number, you could instead buy a die (easy enough - D6 costs 3 stones, D8 costs 4 stones etc). That would break the cycle of predictable combat. Say if Spiderman hit Hulk with 10 stones, you know that Hulks toughness of 7 will mean spidey inflicts 3 damage. With my proposed system Spidermans player could buy a D20 (for his 10 stones) and roll that to see how he does. He might roll 10 or lower, and actually lose out. He might roll 11 or more, and inflict even more damage on not so jolly green, but it brings another option to the game. Still resource based, but you can buy dice instead of relying on the numbers you have on the sheet. After all, comics are full of unlikely victors in fights (Spiderman vs Firelord, for example).

But yeah, the rules as written were a mess, for the most part. The potential was there, but the game was cancelled before any more books (than the three initial tomes) appeared.

As for why it was popular? It was a Marvel game, thus a must buy in many peoples mind. That brings great art, nice production values and (we hoped) reams of background material. Character sheets were easy to read, character creation was easy and fast, the game (as written) was easy to play for the first few sessions. It was something different, and you needed only the Action chart to have an idea of what difficulty numbers should be used. The books were low page count, digest size.

If the rules had been more clearly written, and the vague/broken bits fixed, it would have been a far better, easier to sell game.

Oh, and it also plays very well by post. Check out Marvel Universe RPG. There was an attempt to make a ver 2.0 but that seems to have fizzled...

Disney owns Marvel.  Hasbro owns WOTC.  Hasbro has made games for Disney in the past.  Lightning may strike again.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;649486Disney owns Marvel.  Hasbro owns WOTC.  Hasbro has made games for Disney in the past.  Lightning may strike again.

Hasbro can't even manage to make games based on their own IP much of the time...I wouldn't hold your breath.

Fortunately, we have the wonderful original Marvel Super Heroes
http://www.classicmarvelforever.com/cms/

I kinda expected this after getting the game and playing it a few times.  But the lack of main big named characters like Thor, Hulk, Silver Surfer, etc., really was a bummer and was a strain on a GM who wanted to run his own game world and campaign to me and I think that was it's biggest downfall which eventually had me stop playing it, not to mention the shit-load of dice you had to constantly have available to play and the d6-d12 limited scope of character abilities was so small, made you feel everyone was cookie cutter-like.

IDK but the Cortex system really is shit when you think about it for anything beyond a normal or Sci-Fi level, like Serenity or Battlestar Galactica (another unfinished line), the only two games of Cortex I did like.

I think they really dropped Marvel because of Firefly and couldn't keep Marvel going at the same time or something, but Firefly's going to be shit because it's going to be using the new Cortex+ or some other wanky system of Cortex Storytelling bullshit probably.:rant:

Wasn't dropping MHRP Marvel's decision, not theirs? Which means that simple failure to meet revenue expectations was the suspect. Either Marvel was unhappy and cut them off, or they were giving such a big cut to Marvel for the licence, that they were not breaking even given copies sold.

As Kruger once told me (I only remember 'cos I re - read that thread, lad) Firefly was based on Cortex, starting with Buffy I believe it was Cortex+ (Well, it started with Witchcraft if I remember correctly but I meant tv shows - wise).

Quote from: Rincewind1;649658Wasn't dropping MHRP Marvel's decision, not theirs? Which means that simple failure to meet revenue expectations was the suspect. Either Marvel was unhappy and cut them off, or they were giving such a big cut to Marvel for the licence, that they were not breaking even given copies sold.

As Kruger once told me (I only remember 'cos I re - read that thread, lad) Firefly was based on Cortex, starting with Buffy I believe it was Cortex+ (Well, it started with Witchcraft if I remember correctly but I meant tv shows - wise).

The intarwebz would probably tell you. From what I recall, Firefly and Supernatural are both Cortex, Smallville is Cortex+, dunno what order they were released in though (and I haven't seen any Cortex+ systems except Marvel close-up to compare them). Not sure about the rest.

I imagine Marvel are unlikely to have realistic expectations about revenue from an RPG property. I think it'd be quite possible Weis would re-release a generic supers version of MHR at some point however.

Buffy and Angel were Eden Studies, not MWP, I believe.

Quote from: Novastar;649674Buffy and Angel were Eden Studies, not MWP, I believe.

I confused it with Smallville, yes. Buffy even runs a whole different system. Stupid stupid me . I mixed up Cortex+ with Unisystem - that's what you get when you go on forums during a late night Soprano marathon/working.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;649670The intarwebz would probably tell you. From what I recall, Firefly and Supernatural are both Cortex, Smallville is Cortex+, dunno what order they were released in though (and I haven't seen any Cortex+ systems except Marvel close-up to compare them). Not sure about the rest.

I imagine Marvel are unlikely to have realistic expectations about revenue from an RPG property. I think it'd be quite possible Weis would re-release a generic supers version of MHR at some point however.

Well, something had to happen for the RPG to drop like a cement ball. Seeing as it was hailed to "sell like hot cakes", it must've been not turning that profit for some reason, and I expect licencing is the most likely - or overblowing the art budget?

Leverage is also Cortex+, otherwise you are spot on.

Unfortunately the "collectible" accusations are kind of true. They gave no character creation system that made any kind of sense; they merely said time and time again that the Marvel characters in the game were built in no logical manner except that they included whatever 'fit best' for the concept. I appreciate that for signature characters but, um... when I buy a roleplaying game, I expect there to be rules on making those roles.

In other words, they kind of infantilized their fans but forcing them to simply buy more supplements so they could have the heroes and villains they wanted but give little to no logic on how to build your own.

What a strange, strange decision.

I'm not bashing the game in play. It was a fun dice-combat game. Felt there were barely any rules tying together combat scenes so I wasn't too on board with this as a typical rpg but, I will say, that it felt like a Marvel comic book and combats were fun.

well. Just got a 30-day ban on Big Purp for my MWP "good riddance to bad rubbish" post.

Gotta love their Mods.

The game was "Story-ish" & didn't translate well to many gamers (based on what I was reading across the interweb). Plot points? okay.

Grubbs had a better game (TSR's classic MSH) & maybe MWP ignored that legacy, unlike Kenson, who kept the DC Heroes mecha in his own game.

I'm glad Disney pulled the carpet from under MWP & it sends a clear message: our license trumps your fiddly game concept. Pay me or (bleep) off.

when I suggested Arc Dreams or Kenson or Fantasy Games Unlimited might do a better job with the license, a rpg.net mod banned me, profanity & all.

nice.

note: the Mod used the profanity.

Whatever happened to Cinematic Unisystem?