19th Level

There have been a number of RPGs based on Marvel Comics but my favorite remains the original game, as published by TSR in the 1980s. It's been around 25 years since I've played the game but I still have very fond memories of the game. I believe TSR made the game from 1984 to 1993. There were two main rules sets - the original basic game in 1984 and the advanced game which was releases in 1986. TSR later published a revised basic set. The game reflected the changing Marvel universe - it began with a strong Bronze Age of comics feel, though over time it acquired the Iron Age feel of late 1980s and early 1990s comics - the proliferation of X-Men teams, supernatural characters, etc. Though strongly rooted in the Marvel Universe, the game had rules for your own characters, teams, headquarters, etc.  The mid-1980s saw a number of "table-based" RPGs - Chill, Gamma World, Marvel Super Heroes, and Conan are the biggies I can think of. Of the TSR games, I think Mar...

There is still a Star Wars RPG   being published - three actually, by Fantasy Flight Games. I ran a campaign with Edge of the Empire and found it to be a perfectly enjoyable game. But for my money the incarnation I've the fondest memories of is the D6-based RPG put out by West End Games in the 1980s and 1990s. I literally played my first game of it the day I got it. It was so easy to play and so easy to GM - and it felt like Star Wars. The system wasn't perfect - I can see areas where a 3rd edition might have cleaned some things up. The Force rules worked well for wanna be Jedi type characters like Rey and Luke prior to being trained by Yoda. It required a bit too much dice rolling in combat. I found the stats for major film characters to be a bit over the top. But I played a game a few years back and it still played just fine. I know sometimes licensees get permission to republish old versions of products that they didn't make. For example, Marvel has republished St...

When it comes to Supers RPGs I've not had a ton of luck. I think it is largely because there's a number of genre conventions in superhero stories, primarily in comic books, that don't translate well in an RPG. Getting captured, letting the villain get away, etc. These are things that don't just sit well with most gamers. With that in mind I've a bit less experience in supers gaming than in other genres. Off the top of my head I've run or played in: Marvel Superheroes (TSR, original and advanced games) Champions 3rd Edition DC Heroes (Mayfair, 1st and 2nd editions) Mutants & Masterminds (own all 3 editions, played 2nd) Wild Talents As with a number of earlier entries, it comes down to two main games. I played a ton of the old TSR Marvel Superheroes game. It really seemed to capture the Marvel Universe of the 80s and early 90s rather well and was fun and easy to play. I have also done a brief Wild Talents game, using the Kerberos Club...

When I first started gaming the DM was God. You rolled dice. The DM indicated what happened. When the DM rolled the dice it might be behind the screen and you took what you got and you didn't get upset. Now that I think back to it, in 1st edition of AD&D combat tables and saving throws weren't even in the Players Handbook - rather you had to go to the Dungeon Masters Guide . I'm trying to remember what the first game I encountered that injected some narrative control into the players' hands. I believe it was Victory Games' 007 James Bond RPG, first published in 1983. This isn't to say it was the first such game - I'm willing to bet it wasn't, but I'm pretty certain it is the first that I encountered. In the 007 RPG your success was rated by a quality rating. The game gave each player a certain amount of Hero Points which could be used to shift quality ratings up or down, allowing a player to improve his or her own quality ratings and reduce ...

Batman is not impressed with my genre emulation issues. Despite my loving comic book superheroes I've had limited luck in long-term superhero RPGs. I've been thinking that a bit of late with the summer movie season in full swing with an allotment of three superhero movies (I remember a time when there would usually be none...) Sooner or later I'll want to try my luck at another one so it's with a little bit of self-interest that I give some thought as to what it is that makes superhero campaigns challenging, at least for me. I think that genre emulation is something important to the superhero RPG, typically balanced with how it handles action. In games such as   Smallville  genre emulation is the most important thing, even linked to the action. Why you are using your powers and for whom plays a huge role in how effective you are in a game of Smallville . The game I think handled genre emulation best while keeping the action level high was TSR's Marvel Super...