Marvel Universe Role Playing Game
I’ve been going through my old role playing games, and I keep coming back to the Marvel Universe Role Playing Game (MURPG) produced by Marvel themselves.
This game was published after the highly successful Marvel Superheroes Adventure Game (MSHAG) by Wizards of the Coast, a game that I really enjoyed and lamented the cessation of. MSHAG had a great system of using a deck of cards instead of dice, which in my experience seemed to encourage players of the game to role play instead of concentrating on rolling dice. As good as the system was though, it had a few faults, one of which was its solid seating in the Marvel Universe. The cards all had images of Marvel heroes, so trying to use the game in a different universe kept drawing the players’ attention back to the Marvel Universe; distracting to say the least.
On the other hand, MURPG can be used for any universe, and could quite easily be used for almost any genre as well. The game comes packaged in a hard cover trade paperback sized rule book which is lavishly illustrated by some of the best marvel artists of the time. Flipping through the book is a pleasure, but in a very real sense, the trappings of rule book are the only real connection to the Marvel Universe the game posses.
The system is simple. Each character possesses a number of beans or counters. The beans are distributed among the actions the character wants to perform, which are then compared to a difficulty level. If the number of beans surpasses the difficulty level, the character succeeds. This mechanic is used for every action, so the game master is free to concentrate on running his adventure as opposed to adjudicating game mechanics. A nice change; and a lesson learned from its predecessor.
Characters are defined by 7 statistics, ranging from 1 to 10. A number of beans are allocated to these stats, defining how mundane or superhuman the character is. This system reminds me of the ranking system used on many Marvel collector cards, which I think was completely intentional. I suspect the idea was that cards published after the game would give updates to the Marvel characters featured, potentially drawing players of the game to collect the cards.
Super powers are relatively freeform and easy to use and equally easy to alter or create new ones. A large selection of powers and abilities are given in the main rule book, and others are provided in later source books. I found the list of abilities more the adequate for an introduction to the system.
The game master information at the back of the book is fairly standard fair. The potted history of the Marvel Universe was nicely done, and should be an example to designers of their own worlds how to write a concise background for their players. A few more examples of other races such as the Eternals, the Inhumans, etc would have been a nice touch, but their lack of appearance isn’t a major disaster.
Unfortunately the adventure at the back of the book is fairly simplistic and juvenile, which is a real disappointment. I feel the designers didn’t quite understand the maturity of most role players when considering the introductory adventure. What the adventure does do though, is provide ample chances for players to utilize the game mechanic. In this case, it is well written and a valuable tool for introducing new players to the system.
Overall, I really enjoy this game, and have been wanting to run it for a long time. I think I wouldn’t use it for running the Marvel Universe though, but for my own Federation City campaign. I’d love to hear back from people who have played this system with their feedback and thoughts.