So our group looked at MMRPG during the playtest and it was in serious need of overhaul. Player creation was not balanced (certain powersets had no depth while others were multitiered); combat was meh.
What is the state of the game compared to other systems; V&V 3rd Edition; Champions; etc.
Wow. Considering Demiplane just finished up a major playtest before release I was hoping for much more feedback. So to help others; here is what I found online.
“The Marvel Multiverse RPG playtest rules show promise.”
“The state of the playtests document does leave something to be desired.”
“Combat is a bit of DnD 3.x’s mechanical depth, a bit of DnD 5e’s action economy, a rules-light approach to positioning, and some subsystem for superhoic things like throwing cars and punching people through walls.”
“built to appeal to fans, hoping to port over the joyful investment of the fandom into a new medium, without truly working towards creating a wholly cohesive game that can be enjoyed without any knowledge of the fandom.”
“Its heroes feel posed, sterile and unmoving, while the game itself leans a bit too far into gimmicks and fan service.”
My personal take. The 616 dice mechanic is an unwieldy and unnecessary gimmick. At certain power levels eventually the 3-18 gets lost in the noise. When you consider it’s a bell curve vice a flat scale (like D20 systems) you generally are going to result in an average role, making the dice outside of the Marvel Die crit or failure meaningless.
Stats were not all created equal. Agility ruled all. It was the prime state for Defense, Damage and most of your important skill checks.
The powers at time of test were horribly unbalanced and levels of description varied. You can tell where they simply relied on known heroes and where that template existed the powers were better flushed out (aka if you wanted to build a “spiderman”) The powers could be game changing to completely useless in the same tier.
The rank system was completely broken as soon as heroes and villains got outside of about 5 ranks.
Traits for instance some gave absolutely zero bonus to take them while others like being a mutant gave you multiple.
I don’t mind chunky combat; heroes fight; superheroes are a fighty story… but not being able to heal in combat or recover until combat ends… meh.
They should have had more content on mastering a game session. Help new storytellers/GMs/Narrators on how to build stories around superheroes rather than just display a combat scene.
I really question whether or not they built something better than the Marvel games of the past however, my gameplay history is more based in a very crunchy champions; super rules light Villains and Vigilantes…
So I accept my exposure was only the playtest material and at the time the game was unfinished… however, what I saw was not positive enough to get me to leave other systems. The biggest problem was the lack of clarity; or perhaps consistent clarity.
Now this is being written in hindsight; so YMMV.
Thanks! This is thorough. I haven’t had a chance to play since the first playtest document came out, but I’m optimistic that the full release will be fun for my group
I am a fan of Hero System 6E (Champions), and I only looked over this one a bit when it was first announced. Given that I can’t say much other than most of the system seems to be like the old Marvel Universe Pebble and paper game, not over balanced and at its core is a gimick that might not add much to the system (I know if your dice come up as 616 that triggers something special). Looking through it I didn’t feel that I would look for a game of it over Champions but that is me and I do like the more custom build options in that system and the math isn’t that big of a issue unless you are trying to use a power at a lower number of dice.
Our groups are huge fans of Champions; it has become our gold standard for hero based (No pun intended) games.
I played a lot of V&V as a kid but champions really allows you to flush out a character and the combat systems was solid with body, endurance, and stun characteristics.
We found alot of systems do good in one aspect or another but rarely get character generation, power balance, and combat rules all balanced and fun.
