The one on the docket today, Advanced Marvel Super Heroes, is the 1986 follow-up which actually featured character creation, as prior to this book, the only thing you could use was pre-published characters with Marvel-official power scales. Oh, how we take for granted now the trading card industry making it easy to know who was stronger, faster, or more powerful with their beams. (Not eye beams, as those are probably trademarked.) Anywho, Marvel Super Heroes!
According to the book, "Character generation has five steps: • Generate an origin, • Generate primary abilities, • Generate secondary abilities, • Generate special abilities, • Fill in the blanks"
Rolling on the origins chart, we have a member of an Alien Race, which to be fair is only like 5% of the chart. If this were DC, heck, I'd imagine most of them would be aliens. But, this is Marvel, so we're sparse on aliens. They define aliens as anyone with a weird origin, so Asgardians, Skrull, and even Home Mermanus count (though if Namor hears you call him a Homo Mermanus, you best expect to get punched right out of the ocean, ankle-wings and green briefs or not).
Aliens have access to a vastly superior stat chart, but get fewer power rolls as, you know, aliens are more likely to be good hand to hand fighters and be resilient, not have mind powers, shapechangers, or be able to phase through solid matter. Dammit, Marvel aliens. Right. DC aliens get everything, so I need to keep it straight which side I'm rolling for.
For stats, Marvel Superheroes uses the FASERIP system, which sounds like a roller derby team, but is an acronym for Fighting, Agility, Strength, Endurance, Reason, Intuition, and Psyche. Most of these look like normal attributes, except fighting is rolled like other attributes and is not a skill, as character in this game barely have skills and the ability to clobber another guy is basically the point of this game. We won't complicate an elegant creation with, you know, the ability to do stuff besides Hulk out and smash in some shit. How many comic adventures ended with the hero writing a strong sonnet or getting everyone to hold hands and sing Kumbayah? (Hostess Snack Cake interstitial advertisements where everyone stops robbing banks for Zingers do not count)
Rolling for my alien, I get Incredible Fighting, but poor Agility and Endurance, making me wonder how well he can fight if he's always tuckered out and clumsy.He has Excellent Strength and Psyche, making him physical and mentally robust, and is Typical in both Reason and Intuition. Apparently the planet he comes from prizes sheer force and ass-kicking, and not so much pondering life's mysteries. I'm imagining him currently as something of an intergalactic frat boy from a high gravity world. It explains the normal psychology and high strength and fighting while excusing the low agility. The low endurance is weird, though. Sickly from the new Earth atmosphere? Still not at full power since his crash-landing robbed him of most of his natural defenses from his home world? We'll see.
After rolling stats, we derive a few: Decent Health from the physical stats, an average amount of Karma to power tricks and re-rolls, and crap resources since apparently they don't accept space bucks in New York City. However, you get to make some decisions about your popularity (secret identity, etc.) and so I've outed myself as a crime-fighting alien, so everybody knows me and they seems to like me (My popularity is somewhere near an early 80's Iron Man. The hardworking hero and bodyguard, not the obvious gazillionaire playboy Tony Stark)
So far so good, I can kick ass, but that's not Super yet. I need the goods! Gimme powers! Rolling on the charts provided, I get... 1 power. Well, that's okay, I can roll up to 4 Talents and that'll help so I'll get... 2. Crap. And contacts where it's at, I can know the Justice League, or the Avengers, or somebody, whichever batch runs things here in Marvelverse. Oh, that's right, Aliens only get one of those. And if it's not my home race, they consider me an outcast and the Judge/Gamemaster has total authority to hunt me down and rape my character. Cool.
Well, let's make the best of this. Looking over the chart, powers range from teleportation to incredible toughness, projecting blades and energy powers, power armor and whatnot. I get distance Attacks, and rolling on the subchart we get Fire Generation. Now, I have a couple options here. This can be an innate power of my race, it can be unique to me and my experiences (think Fantastic Four), or it can be a device I carry with me. My race so far has not been so awesome that firebreathing isn't super cool, so I'm going to say it's innate, and something I share with others of my species.
I also get to roll to see how effective my powers are, which is kind of random, to be honest. You can roll up a hero with oodles of powers and have all of them stat out at Poor or Terrible, which would really suck. (Rolling up a mutant after this character, I got the Incredible power to dissolve inorganics by touching them, abilities to act superfast, a Remarkable stunning attack, and a ...Feeble Energy Generation power. Lame) For this alien pyro, I scored an amazing power level, which means my flame projection burns hot enough to melt vibranium and granite. No longer can Captain America hide behind beautiful statues, I will find him and melt him. Or, you know, the Captain Nega-America, the evil one with a goatee since you can't actually make villains with this system.
Rolling up my talents, I find that I'm an Acrobat (weird) and a tinker/mechanic of some note. The Acrobatics skill ups my rolls for all types of evasion, including dodging, getting out or wrestling holds, and not getting blowed up by eye rays or the Nega-Shield of my nemesis. And, to make things interesting, I'll take my contacts in the Soviet Military and take credit for the Tunguska Event, since mainstream Marvel comics have not claimed it yet. (Now, Ultimate Marvel Super Heroes and I would have problems, as I am not Vision.)
One of the cool things about Marvel Super Heroes is it has a fairly elegant resolution mechanic (note the singular). Everything in the game is ranked according to adjective (FATE-like!) and rolls on the Universal Table, which is the back cover of every MSH book. Roll percentile dice, check the result. White is bad, green is success, yellow is notable, and red is critical. All the various roll results are summarized across the top of the chart and difficulties are straightforward. The other things I dig is a concept called Power Stunts, which encourage players to use their powers in unexpected ways. Take a base power (like flame projection) and use it like a comic book hero. I want to build a bridge of fire that crosses a gap I can't jump across, or make a giant flaming icon of myself to get a crowd's attention. Not the power as written, sure, but common in superhero books. The MSH Power Stunt mechanics make such a feat initially very difficult, but easier and easier as time goes by until at some point (using such a stunt ten times) it no longer counts as a stunt and becomes part of the power description. I think that encourages players to think outside the box and get creative, much like our caped predecessors.
My power has one such stunt pre-packaged which I get to pick, and I'll take the ability to absorb flame and heat up to my power level, so that when we do finally tangle with other members of my race, I can mitigate the majority of their flame projection.
Generate Gap: Ylli Kulik, Meteor
Stat Rank # Compares to...
Fighting Incredible 36 DAREDEVIL Agility Poor 3 a BRONTOSAURUS Strength Excellent 16 CAPTAIN AMERICA Endurance Poor 3 a CHILD Reason Typical 5 WOLVERINE Intuition Typical 5 DR. OCTOPUS Psyche Excellent 16 NIGHTCRAWLER Health 58 SHADOWCAT Karma 26 Resources Poor (3) ROGUE Popularity Excellent (20) IRON MAN Powers Distance Attacks: Fire Generation (Amazing) Uses Agility to hit, 20 Area range, destroy granite or vibranium Talents Fighting Skill: Acrobatics (+1 CS to dodging, evading, escaping) Other Skill: Repair/Tinkering (+1 CS to Reason FEATs) Contacts: Soviet Military ScienceNOTE: Able to leap small buildings in one bound (up to 16 feet)
Only a 15% chance I have enough cash on hand to buy a bicycle.
History
Though large portions of his own memory were damaged in his arrival to Earth, Ylli recalls some of his original occupation and the purpose for his escape to Earth. A member of a warlike race of sentient aliens, he had helped to develop a new superweapon, using his race's innate ability to control flames and heat. The device was installed in the flagship of their galactic armada and they set course on a nearby planetary system to subjugate its inhabitants and control its resources.
Initially involved in the fighting groundside to prepare to deliver the payload of the device, Warlord Ylli was witness firsthand to the terrible holocaust his people's device unleashed, focusing the powers of dozens of trained technicians onto ground targets, laying waste to population and property alike. As he had been raised as a warrior, he thought the concept of such wholesale destruction to be barbaric and swore to sabotage the device and escape with the knowledge of its construction scattered to the stars.
The device damaged beyond repair and all copies of plans of the device successfully destroyed or altered, Ylli made his escape to the stars, picking one of the targets his compatriots had selected: Earth. His high-speed escape vessel darted among the stars with Ylli in suspended animation, making his course impossible to follow, until it was damaged on its descent to Earth, crashlanding in Northern Russia at the turn of the century. Ylli himself was not found until years later when Leonid Kulik and others explored the crash site, and he was returned, injured but preserved by his own technology and the freezing cold, to a secret lab in St. Petersburg.
After many years, Russian scientists activated the defrosting process, and Ylli emerged, injured but determined to warn the world of the coming threat. It is unclear how long it will take his fleet to catch up to him, and if they will have re-created this technology in the meantime. Until then, he will use his powers to protect this planet and help them prepare for the inevitable attack, recalling what little he can from before the crash landing and fighting for Earth under the title метеор.
Generation Gap Ranking: Would I use this system/generation again? For a rule-light supers system, far from the crunch of even Necessary Evil? Yeah, I would. It's got a campy pickup game quality that I like.
Would I play this character? Sure. I like the powers and stats, kind of a fun mix of kick-ass and utility... The minor repair trick could be fun in a pinch, but he's fairly blah for a super. All the neat stuff is the background, which Marvel Super Heroes does not care about.
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