Character Creation?

[DarriusAdler]

I do not have my copy of the book yet but a reviewer on DriveThruRPG stated the book only allows you to play established Marvel heroes. Is this true? Is it possible to make your own heroes if you have the main Cortex book and the Marvel one? I had been hoping to be able to use this to allow my players to create their own heroes and for me to be able to create some villains on the power scale of Marvel heroes.

[pksullivan]

It's completely not true. Yes, the game includes lots of examples of established characters and the events are set in established crossovers in Marvel comics history (complete with Marvel characters).

You can make characters from scratch with just the Marvel book. Check out the character section of my website for examples of characters I've made (a bunch of them are for my Mass Effect hack of the MHR system). Or you could see the random character generator that Margaret Weis Productions put together.

As discussed in a lot of places, Marvel's character creation is very open ended and doesn't place many restrictions on character creation. There aren't any points to spend or levels to be gained. Some people don't like this, as they enjoy the constraints and the creative methods of playing with the system that constraints allow.

Other people really enjoy the freedom to make the character they want out of the gate, which is what Marvel encourages and promotes. It's more concept driven character creation than mechanical.

The only thing preventing someone from powergaming completely is the design of the character itself and the social contract of the group.

[MidnightBlue]

PK nailed it.

Anything your players want to play, they can play. They just have to have some idea of what they want and find a way to translate that into the system.

Check around these forums.

We've got characters up from other comic book licenses...we've got Jedi...we've got City of Heroes/Villains characters...we've got characters translated from Heroclix pieces...we've got our own versions of characters published in the Basic Book...we've got Voltron and Power Rangers...it's chaos I tell you...pure chaos!!!

[MidnightBlue]

Is it possible to make your own heroes if you have the main Cortex book and the Marvel one?

Just to clarify...

The Marvel Heroics Roleplaying game uses its own version of the Cortex Plus system.

You just need the Basic Game to play. You do not need the old Cortex RPG book at all. I'm not even sure if there would be anything to help with this game.

[DarriusAdler]

It's completely not true. Yes, the game includes lots of examples of established characters and the events are set in established crossovers in Marvel comics history (complete with Marvel characters).

You can make characters from scratch with just the Marvel book. Check out the character section of my website for examples of characters I've made (a bunch of them are for my Mass Effect hack of the MHR system). Or you could see the random character generator that Margaret Weis Productions put together.

As discussed in a lot of places, Marvel's character creation is very open ended and doesn't place many restrictions on character creation. There aren't any points to spend or levels to be gained. Some people don't like this, as they enjoy the constraints and the creative methods of playing with the system that constraints allow.

Other people really enjoy the freedom to make the character they want out of the gate, which is what Marvel encourages and promotes. It's more concept driven character creation than mechanical.

The only thing preventing someone from powergaming completely is the design of the character itself and the social contract of the group.

Ahhhh, ok. I expected a little more restraint in character creation than that but nice to know you can go as over the top as you want. Kinda figured I needed the Cortex book so I ordered that as well anyway.

I suppose maybe down the line someone can put together a point based character creation system to help try to keep characters relatively on par for level of power (which is my only real concern with total free form).

I have been looking for a decent supers RPG for years. One that is complicated enough to be good but easy enough not to bog things down horribly in combat or so complex that a computer program is almost necessary to make a character. Tried Heroes Unlimited (way back in its 1st or 2nd edition), Champions (it came with the program to create chars), Silver Age Sentinels (d20), and Savage World's Supers/Necessary Evil. Ran into some problems with each of them, though the Savage Worlds one was just that the level of power seemed a bit low compared to your average comic character. Recently got to try the Marvel SAGA system which was a lot of fun and seemed to work nicely but good luck getting a copy of it. Really hoping this will be the item to fit all the supers stuff I have been wanting to run.

[Spatula]

Character creation is covered on OM110-OM116. There's also a random character generator PDF found here that is handy for coming up with some ideas for a new character.

[pksullivan]

Ahhhh, ok. I expected a little more restraint in character creation than that but nice to know you can go as over the top as you want. Kinda figured I needed the Cortex book so I ordered that as well anyway.

I suppose maybe down the line someone can put together a point based character creation system to help try to keep characters relatively on par for level of power (which is my only real concern with total free form).

Power balance really shouldn't be an issue the way the game is designed. As long as everyone is observing Wheaton's Law as Applied to Tabletop Game Dynamics (Don't Be a Dick) the system is built so that "low" powered and "high" powered heroes can adventure together while both contributing meaningfully to the adventure. Unless someone has a really good reason to play Superman, you can just tell someone who puts D12s into everything to stop being a dick.

[SKINer]

PK nailed it.

Anything your players want to play, they can play. They just have to have some idea of what they want and find a way to translate that into the system.

Check around these forums.

We've got characters up from other comic book licenses...we've got Jedi...we've got City of Heroes/Villains characters...we've got characters translated from Heroclix pieces...we've got our own versions of characters published in the Basic Book...we've got Voltron and Power Rangers...it's chaos I tell you...pure chaos!!!

Pure chaos indeed. At the risk of Marvel banning me from this forum, you don't need Marvel comic books. ANY comic book or comic book like setting can do.

In my build thread alone, I've made builds from AC Comics and another super hero rpg. Someone over on RPG.net (Jill Valentine) has been making Resident Evil builds. From that same forum, someone made builds for the justice league.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing to stop you from creating DC, Image, or any other publisher characters. Once you grasp that, making an original character will become infinitely easier (speaking from experience here). This game actually rewards you for putting the time in building a background for your character (M&M, Champions, and to an extent even FASERIP forced you to shoehorn your concept into set limitations).

[DarriusAdler]

Power balance really shouldn't be an issue the way the game is designed. As long as everyone is observing Wheaton's Law as Applied to Tabletop Game Dynamics (Don't Be a Dick) the system is built so that "low" powered and "high" powered heroes can adventure together while both contributing meaningfully to the adventure. Unless someone has a really good reason to play Superman, you can just tell someone who puts D12s into everything to stop being a dick.

Sure, which works fine for table top but I have this other mad scheme that keeps creeping around the back of my mind. For many years now I have played on or run RPG chat games. A set of dedicated chat rooms to represent sections of a city where people can login and RP with each other at any time. With these chats there is also a DM team and these members login when they can and run adventures for the players who are online at the time. With a system like this it is beneficial to have a set standardized character creation rules to keep a balance between PCs. Since it is open to anyone on the net to play your bound to get some troublemakers eventually.

[SKINer]

Power balance really shouldn't be an issue the way the game is designed. As long as everyone is observing Wheaton's Law as Applied to Tabletop Game Dynamics (Don't Be a Dick) the system is built so that "low" powered and "high" powered heroes can adventure together while both contributing meaningfully to the adventure. Unless someone has a really good reason to play Superman, you can just tell someone who puts D12s into everything to stop being a dick.

Sure, which works fine for table top but I have this other mad scheme that keeps creeping around the back of my mind. For many years now I have played on or run RPG chat games. A set of dedicated chat rooms to represent sections of a city where people can login and RP with each other at any time. With these chats there is also a DM team and these members login when they can and run adventures for the players who are online at the time. With a system like this it is beneficial to have a set standardized character creation rules to keep a balance between PCs. Since it is open to anyone on the net to play your bound to get some troublemakers eventually.

Very bold idea.

Two questions:

1. How much?

2. Gimme!

(50 points goes to whomever gets the reference)

But seriously, that seems similar to what someone did with MnM 2nd edition (Freedom City play-by-post). It could work better with MHR, due to it's more simplistic and narrative nature (from what I hear, Freedom City pbp is a bit tenuous sometimes).