Got to try it out.

[Chris Brady]

So some background. I am a heavily traditionalist player/GM. So when I heard about this game being made with Cortex, I was admittedly pretty skeptical. Then I got pointed to a 'sell me' thread on another forum, and sadly the examples used were of no help. Too broad or abstract for my little piecemeal approach. I don't want 10 actions resolved in a single roll, I want them broken down. Because that's how I work.

However, being a superhero junkie and seeing that core book was a measly 20 bucks, full colour glossy, 200+ pg perfect bound book, I scrounged up the pennies and bought it. I read through it, although didn't really grasp much of it. I mean, I got the basic idea, but really, it didn't grab me.

But being friends with a local game store clerk (I am blessed to have a really friendly store) we chatted, I gave him the examples, he nodded and tried to explain his point of view, but then pointed out that he was going to run a game of it on the following Saturday (As he always runs a new game every first Sat of the month, baring conventions and family.) Being intrigued, I decided to show up, calling dibs on Wolverine (he's Canadian, and so am I. And let's face it who doesn't want to be Wolverine at least once in their life, right?)

So Saturday rolls around and we get two other players. I get my pick of Wolvie, a friend and fellow DM for the 4e Encounters group picks out Spiderman (Which he was awesome with) and the last guy, sad he couldn't get Wolvie, picked out Iron Fist. And we set out to play!

And let me tell ya, it was a BLAST! See, the Watcher (as I'll call him) was a traditional GM too, running 3rd/Pathfinder and 4e D&D, so he broke down the situations into manageable chunks for us. And it really worked. Now admittedly, Spiderman and I were the Marvel 'know-it-alls', which I hope wasn't too bad, but it all worked. Even picking out the dice for what I needed to do felt 'natural'. It didn't break the flow of the game in anyway, despite my fearing it would.

If I had issues with it was that there were no 'hard caps' for character abilities, just general guidelines, and if you read comics, you know that both Marvel and DC list the definite abilities that their heroes have.

Batman and Captain America are peak human, so they can't chuck buses, ever. And Spidey is strong, but he'll never be able to lift anything close to 50 tonnes, without cosmic powers. These are listed in a 'bible' which every writer must consult if they have questions about a certain character. That aside, though? Awesome, awesome, game. Still not confident to run it, and definitely never making a character (Even with the random character generator so kindly offered here.) But damn if I don't want to play more of it.

Great game, and thanks for proving my fears wrong.

[Roman Virtue]

See, now that's the type of experience I'm hoping to have. When my group got to try out Smallville, it seemed just the opposite. I'm also an old-school gamer. I want to know human limits of traits and skills and I want to know where in a benchmark any given characters abilities fall. So the nature of this game is a little troubling for me. I've read it and feel like depending on who runs it, how it's presented and the level of confidence displayed with the system will all effect how it's received. I want to love it, I'd love to run it, but there's just something about it, maybe BECAUSE it's so different than typical old school games that leaves me feeling less-than-confident to run it.

I wish I could sit in on a session, or play with someone who has a firm grasp on the rules just to see it in action rather than wait for a trial by fire. Hopefully my experience will be just as awesome as yours!

[Spatula]

I'm glad to hear you had a great time playing, Chris. Were there any cool moments that stood out in the game?

The benchmarks are there, although they're not precise. Durability D10 means that small arms fire just doesn't affect you. Flight D8 means that you can't break the sound barrier. etc. Strength is even easier since you can find the official ratings in wikis. But of course the characters have exceeded those ratings when it was important to the story (e.g. Spider-Man lifting Doc Ock's collapsed base in an early ASM).

[Beast]

Exactly Spatula... that's why the game works a well as it does.

There's guidelines for power levels, but that doesn't mean your character can't pull off some amazing power feat when the time calls for it. That's why I still say this game feels more like you're playing a Marvel Comic than any previous Superhero RPG game. Every comic character has moments where they exceed what they're capable of. And the game really captures it. It also makes team-ups of diverse power levels work just like the comics. Where everyone can bring something to the table.

[Supplanter]

Also, MHRP secretly contains the entire MSH attribute scale!




Jim

[Chris Brady]

I'm glad to hear you had a great time playing, Chris. Were there any cool moments that stood out in the game?

All of it. Seriously. It was a simple one issue sort of game. Where a bunch of Frog Mutants were harassing people, and we found that the Grey Gargoyle was using Dr. (Lizardman) Connor's notes on Lizard physiology to create these goons. But he wasn't the big boss, some super Frog mutant was, which Wolvie soloed.

The benchmarks are there, although they're not precise. Durability D10 means that small arms fire just doesn't affect you. Flight D8 means that you can't break the sound barrier. etc. Strength is even easier since you can find the official ratings in wikis. But of course the characters have exceeded those ratings when it was important to the story (e.g. Spider-Man lifting Doc Ock's collapsed base in an early ASM).

Thing is, those moments are RARE. And are usually explained in terms of adrenaline, panic, booster shots, vitamins and eating their wheaties. Something the game doesn't actually list anywhere.

It's fun for what it is. A comic book simulating game.

It will never be my go to game for Supers, but I'm quite willing to play it, with the right people.

[MidnightBlue]

It's fun for what it is. A comic book simulating game.

It will never be my go to game for Supers, but I'm quite willing to play it, with the right people.

I love to see how we each look at something differently.

MHR is now my go to Supers game (even stepping above Aberrant) precisely because the other, benchmark-centric supers games never felt like a comic book game to me.

Oh, I could enjoy them, but it was usually hard to have a JLA-like game where you had a normal human Batman being every bit as important to and fighting alongside a character like Superman. This happens in the comics all the time, but the games couldn't usually hack it, because "benchmarks" made it too easy to make a less powerful character insignificant...or one hit killable.

You get the same thing with the Avengers. You have Ant Man/Wasp fighting alongside Iron Man, Thor & Hulk. The comics let the less uber powerful characters still be every bit as effective to the story as the big guns. I want a game system that can let me do that too...and MHR is it for me.

But I'm glad that you've enjoyed your play session and hope you get to try it out some more...as well as get more time to play the supers games that really do it for you.

[Chris Brady]

I don't know, Mutants and Masterminds 2nd and 3rd have been pretty good about that, for me.

And the main reason I play supers is to play SUPERS, not recreate a comic book, and MHRP is great at simulating a comic. So while I'll play in it happily, I prefer M&M (in this case) for my 'true' supers experience.

Of course, is purely a YMMV thing.

[MidnightBlue]

Of course, is purely a YMMV thing.

Definitely and ditto.



I want my Spider-Man to be "Super" when he's standing next to the Hulk and the Sentry and Galactus and whatever else the system can throw at him...and MHR does that for me.

But again, I'm not going to stop playing Aberrant, TSR Marvel Superheroes, DC Heroes, Adventure!, Godsend Agenda, Heroes Unlimited, Smallville, M&M 2 & 3 or any of 20 other supers games that I own if given the chance to play. I just love playing supers.

But when I have the choice...it's going to be MHR followed by Aberrant/Adventure!

[Chris Brady]

Because of the fluid nature of the system, I'm thinking this is possibly the only Supers system that can actually do Taskmaster, which does account for a lot.