Marvel Heroic Roleplaying: Marvel Heroes Events

I’m really, really getting excited for this thing to come out on February 28th.

On the 28th, you can pick up the core book, and in the coming months there are a host of other books coming.

Marvel announced their MARVEL HEROES Events here. Basically, the Events are adventures to the basic game, but come in a variety of books, depending on what you need.

Essential Editions are full color casebound hardcovers priced at 29.99 and include a full MARVEL HEROES campaign, with character rosters, locations, and expanded rules. Best value for those who already have the Operations Manual from the MARVEL HEROES Basic Game.

Basically, these will have the campaign, extra rules, and characters. Excellent. You have the Operations Manual? You get this one.

Premium Editions are full color prestige hardcovers priced at 39.99 and include all the Essentials Edition content plus the Operations Manual and additional resources.

This one’s more expensive, but it includes the full rules for the game. This is great for having all the rules in one place. I like this idea.

Event Supplements are full color perfect bound softcovers priced at 19.99 and expand or build on the storylines and character.

It seems like this is an addition to the other two books, with more adventure to expand on what’s in the books. You’ve played the adventure, and want to keep going? Here it is. At least, that’s what it looks like to me.

Here’s what really gets me excited. Every few months these books are coming out, with major events in the Marvel Universe.

March: CIVIL WAR
The Civil War was a major event in the Marvel Universe, pitting hero against hero, as the Superhuman Registration Act became law. Some heroes were for registration (led by Iron Man), some were against (led by Capt. America). The results were massive, leading to Captain America’s death (which later got reversed), and contributed to the ability of the Skrulls to later invade the planet. The repercussions of the Civil War ended up echoing for years following the plot.

I own most of the TPB for this (there were about 20), so I’m looking forward to this one coming right on the heels of the core game.

June: ANNIHILATION
This was a major event in the galactic side of the Marvel Universe. If you like your massive space wars, this is the one for you. It involved most of the cosmic entities in Marvel, including Thanos, the Beyonder, Galactus, Silver Surfer, Annihilus, and my favorite, Ronan the Accuser.

The Skrulls are involved, there’s a massive intergalactic fleet, and everything goes very, very wrong. This series doesn’t feel like Marvel, in the sense of superheroes fighting one another. Instead, it’s more like everything badass you’ve ever imagined about Sci-Fi. I’m looking forward to this one.

September: AGE OF APOCALYPSE 
This storyline takes place in an alternate Marvel Universe, in which Xavier is killed, and Magneto takes up the mantle of peaceful coexistence with humans. With Xavier’s death, Apocalypse decides to take over the world, which shouldn’t have happened for another 10 years. As a result, the world isn’t ready, and becomes enslaved to one of the most powerful foes the Marvel Universe has ever seen. Every once in a while, Marvel goes back and looks at the Age of Apocalypse, and I know a lot of people really, really enjoy that alternate universe.

Again, I’m really looking forward to all this, and can’t wait to give the game a try. I’ll keep updating the blog as new updates come out.

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying: Captain America & The Savage Land

You can now take a look at what heroes in the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Game are going to look like! Marvel has released previews of both Captain America as well as The Savage Land. The Savage Land is part of the adventure in the first book. It all looks very, very slick.

 What’s the first thing the heroes face? (Spoilers!) A T-Rex and Raptors! That’s a way to get off to a good start.

The character sheet for Cap is really good looking. All his stats are on one page (in keeping with the Cortex rules), while his history and abilities are on the back side, as well as a fantastic picture.

I’m really looking forward to giving the game a try, and am considering running a session of this at my FLGS once it’s released.

Kingmaker: The Road from Restov

My Kingmaker Pathfinder campaign began on Saturday. Two players failed to show, so it was Jack, Josh and myself. We were initially thinking we’d just talk about the campaign, but I was begged into running “Something, anything!”

So here was the session.

Ransom, a dwarf rogue, was making his way down the road, traveling from Restov, where he was tasked with exploring the Greenbelt, a section of the Stolen Lands to the west of the city. He recieved the job through a contact in Brevoy, and was told he would be able to meet up with the rest of his group at Oleg’s Trading Post in the Northern Greenbelt.

Riding his great ram, Ransom found the day to be bright and clear. It was nearing midday, and he estimated he was within a half hour of the trading post, when he saw movement in the forest to his left.

Pausing, he noted that the two shapes were moving at his pace, keeping back within the trees. To his right, there was a large rock outcropping, so he decided to move that way, in order to see if the shapes would continue along. Before he even made it to the rocks, an arrow whizzed by his head.

He turned, leaping from his ram, as a bandit burst from the woods, sword drawn. More arrows shot past him, avoiding actually hitting him.

Ransom drew his hand-axes, and advanced toward the bandit.

Suddenly, the whole forest went dark.

Looking around, he realized the darkness appeared to be centered on him. Being a dwarf, he was able to see perfectly, though the bandits weren’t so lucky. They began to stumble about aimlessly, trying to find the dwarf in the darkness.

Not understanding the purpose of the deep shadows, but never one to give up an opportunity, Ransom charged, striking down the first of the bandits. The other, deep in the forest turned to run, only to find himself standing before a glowing form of a man. He panicked, and turned the other way, stumbling through the undergrowth.

Ransom rushed him, cutting him down almost as quickly. Has he moved forward to attack the bandit, however, he noticed a shadowy shape rush past him, then vanish again into the forest. As the last of the two bandits fell, the darkness evaporated. The sky was clear and sunny.

Ransom looked around. The shadowy figure was nowhere to be seen.

“Spirit of the forest!” he shouted into the woods, “Are you friend or foe?”

Along the ground, a glowing question mark appeared, then vanished. He tried to call out again, but recieved no answer.

He waited a while, then moved to the bandits. Leaning their bodies up against a tree facing the road, he carved “BANDIT” into the chestpieces of their leather armor, as a warning to any others who came down this way. He then mounted his ram, and continued toward the trading post.

It was a good first session, and taught my two players how MapTool worked. They enjoyed it, and look forward to this upcoming Saturday, where we’ll hopefully have the full group.

You can follow our adventures, as well as see the character sheets here at our Kingmaker site.

Stop SOPA

Interpersonal Relationships In-Game

Here’s something I haven’t experienced much in-game: Player Characters dating either Non-Player Characters or other Player Characters.

About four years ago, on deployment, we briefly began to play Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, and my Cleric almost ended up in a relationship with an NPC, but the game sort of fell apart before that ever came to fruition.

In my current online Star Wars game, my character is a simple mechanic, just wanting to get home to his family on Alderaan.

Other than that, I’ve never really experienced relationships in game, either as a DM or as a player.

So, how does one handle this? What happens when a husband and wife are at the table, and the husband’s character begins flirting with the barmaid? How about when the wife’s character begins dating one of the PCs? How would one handle that?

I think that you need to set some ground rules if you’re going to be introducing relationships into the game.

1. Ask your players. If you’ve got a great idea for a romance between your NPC and a PC, ask them if they’re cool with that. Ask the others at the table if they’re comfortable with romance being addressed in-game. Some players hate it. Check.
2. Establish ground rules. I understand it could get a bit uncomfortable to watch two heterosexual guys making eyes at each other across the table as the DM discribes the flirting between the barmaid and the PC. Find out what the players are comfortable with before going forward.
3. If anyone’s getting uncomfortable, back off. You’re RPing some great ineractions between the PC and the barmaid. You look up, and his wife is looking upset. Stop, make sure everything’s okay. It may spoil the mood of the scene, but it never hurts to make sure all of your players are having a good time.

Those are the three tips I have. Keep things mature and friendly, and everyone will enjoy themselves.

Mum’s the Word

Within the next week or so, I’ll be a part of the 5Mind, playtesting D&DNext, so I won’t really be talking about the next edition, as I don’t want to let something slip.

However, there’s plenty else to talk about!

My 4e game is going great, though it looks like the Heroes of the Godfell Stone will have to take a break. It’s not definite, as I’m still seeing how well I’m able to balance it, but I’m in my last semester of college, and I’ve got a ton of classes. If I’m having trouble maintaining balance, I’ll be passing the group off to one of the players to run until March when I’m done.

The Marvel RPG is coming out at the end of February, so I’ll be preordering that, and waiting patiently for it to arrive. I’m a big ol’ Marvel fanboy, so I can’t wait to give it a try. I’ll probably be talking about Marvel stuff in the time leading up to it.

In addition, I’ll be playtesting (hopefully) something my brother has in the works that’s being sold to a game company. I know some vague details, but nothing to really talk about at this point.

I’ve also got the Pathfinder online game I’m running, starting next week, so I’ll be able to talk about that too!

I had initially planned on just talking about why I wouldn’t be talking about the new D&D on here, but realized there’s still a lot I can talk about.

Keep rolling 20′s!

Dice Monkey Radio Bonus Episode: D&D Next Speculation!

Run, don’t walk, over to the latest episode of Dice Monkey Radio.

This episode is a bit different than the last two: A bonus episode with no news, no editing, and 6 hosts!

The hosts are: Tim from Dice, Food, Lodging, Jenn of Jennisodes, Michael of Online Dungeon Master, Michael of The Id DM, Gary of GMSarli Games, and of course, myself.

I know! It’s like a cornucopia of superstars!

I was really excited to record this episode. Note that I normally spend weeks editing a single episode, and spent next to no time editing this one, so you may hear some strange noises, awkward pauses, and other things here and there. Enjoy!

How I’ll be watching the New Edition Wars unfold

ANNOUNCEMENT: D&D 5e Coming, Will Use Fan Input

It’s coming! According to the NYT, 5e’s announcement is imminent, coming around 10 EST. According to the article:

“On Monday, Wizards of the Coast, the Hasbro subsidiary that owns the game, is expected to announce that a new edition is under development, the first overhaul of the rules since the contentious fourth edition was released in 2008. And Dungeons & Dragons’ designers are also planning to undertake an exceedingly rare effort for the gaming industry over the next few months: asking hundreds of thousands of fans to tell them how exactly they should reboot the franchise.”

Now, they’ve already been asking for some time, in polls on their site, how it is they should proceed in future editions. My prediction? At DDXP there will be some playtesting going on, and a playtest document, similar to what Pathfinder put out when it was still in beta, will be released around that time.

Get ready for a brand new Edition War!

iPad RPG: Heroes vs. Monsters

With the recent addition to the household of an iPad, I’ve been downloading a lot of games for it; Some free, some not. I’d like to talk about a couple of them over time, to show you what kinds of gaming experiences you can have via the iOS.

First of all, I’d like to talk about Heroes vs. Monsters, a free App in which you travel around the countryside, killing monsters and gaining levels and power.

The classes I’ve discovered so far (I’m guessing there might be more) are the Fighter, Cleric, Bard, Archer, Barbarian and Summoner. There are a few races, though there is no mechanical difference between them, and they don’t name them. There is the Human, Elf, Dark Elf, Orc, and an Elemental-type. Again, there may be more, but I haven’t discovered them.

Above, you can see the current make-up of my party. I have two Fighters, a Cleric and a Bard. The Bard switches in and out of the party with the Summoner and Archer, but other than that, the party stays the same.

In the game, you have an overland map where you can have your party march around, looking for trouble. There are a few castles which have boss fights, but you really need to wait to take them on, as you’ll get slaughtered if you aren’t powerful enough. As you’re wandering around, you’ll get jumped by groups of monsters. The game will tell you the rough level of the monsters you’re fighting, then ask if you want to fight, or retreat. If you retreat, no harm, no foul.

If you fight, it shifts into combat mode, like what you see above. Monsters come onto the screen, and you click one of your heroes, dragging your finger over the monster. In the case of the Cleric, you select which hero you want to focus on healing. Every 3-5 seconds, the Cleric sends out another Minor Healing to that hero.

The game requires some quick fingers if you want to optimize your combat abilities. As my Bard is still low level, I keep him behind the two heroes, performing a healing song to boost the two’s health replenishment. As he gets higher in level, he may end up replacing the Cleric entirely.

After the battle, you gain gold, XP, and sometimes some new items. Outside of combat, you can go to the village, where you gain skills after you level up, buy gear, sell gear, and hire new heroes.

As a free-to-play game you can, as in most, purchase more gold with cash, but I have not done so. I prefer to work for my gold. It requires a lot more fighting in order to get any good gear, but I think it’s worth it. My heroes now are outfitted with the best non-magical items you can buy.

As far as graphics go, they’re actually really good for being cartoony. The character’s hands and feet aren’t attached to the torso, allowing for them to easier animate the movements, but here it works. It all looks great, with dynamic scenery and great monsters.

If you’ve got an iPad (or perhaps an iPhone? Not sure if it works for those as well), you should pick it up!