Marvel Multiverse RPG (Part 1)

It is always clobbering time somewhere

Marvel Multiverse RPG is a game by Matt Forbeck and published by Marvel Entertainment. Content is reproduced and referenced here for review purposes, and is owned by Disney.

1. Every Individual Component Is The Best

In our analysis, we consider every individual artistic element of a game the best; we don’t find bad or good useful. So, the Split/Party framework assumes it is the best art, best layout, best writing, best design. This is an acknowledgment that nobody makes “bad” art on purpose; any given element is the best art that could have been produced at that point, restricted by its material conditions and constraints of time and effort. This is also because saying something is good/bad art is the most useless criticism that can be given. In practical terms, this section is for things we will not touch on the review but merit acknowledgment.

Lhuzie

What does appraising something on the material conditions when they have — in theory — all the resources of one of the biggest corporations on Earth behind it? Of course, on those grounds, anything short of the best roleplaying game ever made — or at least, the best superheroes roleplaying game, — would be a failure for Marvel Multiverse RPG.

More reasonable, in a situation like this, this point of the framework would be better served flipped on its head. When a barely noticeable to the corporation investment of money and labor would far eclipse all the resources that currently exist within the artform, what do the amounts of labor and resources committed say about the project?

I think it is enough to point out that there is a single writer AND designer credited for a game that seeks to present the entire Marvel brand while having its own novel, proprietary game system. When you compare the total number of people involved in actually making the art, it is a third of the number of people handling the brand, business and corporate.

You're a Split/Party reader. You can draw your conclusions from that. Enough said on this point.

Brad

Well, its time for us to take on a Titan, this game exists with a stunning cover and is the only RPG I can remember for a long time with multiple variant covers for its playtest documents.

Let’s crack in, because I think Lu is right, focusing on art design and direction here is obvious. it is an acceptable looking and laid out tome.

2. Meet The Game At The Level It Is At

Each game comes with certain expectations and tone. To properly break it down, we have to meet the game at the level it is: not lament its choice of premise and wish it was something else, nor resent for not conforming with our politics, not letting “missed opportunities” stand in our way of applying the critical framework relentlessly. It also includes not working with the game as marketed or how it exists in our desires, but as it is.

Lhuzie

The Marvel Multiverse RPG approach to safety is outright irresponsible, a paragraph squeezed in the corner of a page. The Usual Lists of one-size-fit-all safety tool, declaring them compatible with this game and there you go. When I complain how dismissive of actual work for safety and comfort that can be done when it is all stamping checkmarks from consultants or lecturing you to not do things that the rest of the game emboldens and gleefully does, this is a grim reminder of how even those token/meager/counterproductive efforts are an improvement over no attempt being made. You know what, if cannot be bothered to get more writers, maybe they should have thrown some consultants at this.

Where the game is more concerned, is on maintaining the spirit of the game: “you play superheroes who are trying to save the people they care about by direct action.” I bet some of you got really excited by reading that, but I'm pretty sure they do not mean you are doing strikes, overthrowing governments, burning down shipments to genocidal American puppets in the Middle East or doing certain things to insurance companies top brass. When they mean direct action, it means you arrest criminals rather than calling the cops¹.

One of the biggest surprises of Marvel Multiverse RPG is a sobering attitude towards GMs, House Rules and Rule Zero. Of course, a cynical read can be that they are doing so out of concerns of their brand and how it may be presented. Nevertheless, centering rules zero and house rules as something done with purpose, by a collective and by choosing to be under them, is a good alternative than the arbitrary privilege of a GM assumed by so many.

Brad

Multiverse centers the thing a superhero game should, telling you as players and game masters exactly what to expect. “Superheroes saving people.” The discussion in the opening even extend to discussing if you are playing in the mainline universe or one of its countless spin-offs and making sure that these things are centered by session zero!

I even can appreciate it laying out the basic mechanic of the game comes before character creation, you get to know how to build someone to be effective at something before you do it.

3. Identify What The Game Says It Is About

Games are about things. Usually. Mostly. That is often the same thing they market themselves as. This often means to establish the relationship of the game with systems, mechanical frameworks, genre, etc. This is how games establish exceptions about the nature of play and establish a common space for creation.

Lhuzie

Play all sorts of stories in the Marvel Multiverse! Bang your action figures together.

Brad

Explore the wonder of the whole of the Marvel Universe, be heroes in a world that hate and fear you with the X-Men, and carve out your own niche in this wonderful world true believers!

4. Uncover What The Game Is REALLY About

What the game says it is about is not always what the game is about. This is where we look at all the weird interactions, examining the system that game creates, how the way mechanics interact with the text and art, how it exists in a given context, how well parts flow together or get in the way. This creates a much richer environment that the original design could ever imagine once a game hits the table.

Lhuzie

Have you noticed how some of the coolest superheroes TTRPGs of the last ten years have nothing to do with branded stuff? Or at least, stuff not from two big ass corporations? Masks, Spectaculars, Ex-Capes, Apocalypse Keys? Hell, Split/Party literally started because of how good one of those games was in game design. But also that the artform is the more popular and approachable than it ever was?

This book is not in conversation with the rest of the artform. It seems to exist on its own bubble, like it is still in the 90s. It is dedicated to those two guys from the Hasbro TTRPG as the most remarkable influences. The mechanics and design it seems to show any significant dialogue with is Mutant & Mastermind — 2nd Edition, not even 3rd.

Considering how little investment a TTRPG needs as a piece of marketing, the resources committed to Marvel Multiverse, the art put out, there is only one thing I can compare it too. Younger readers may not be aware of this, but movie studios got a lot of superheroes movie rights cheap. However, to not lose the rights, they had to make things with them. Marvel Multiverse is like the TTRPG equivalent of making a Fantastic Four movie to keep the rights — except this time, it is to try to keep Marvel remotely relevant to what people in the artform think about when they think superheroes and TTRPGs.

Brad

Fight. Bang the Action Figures together. Do you think a superhero should be able to save a kitten from a tree or talk a desperate man down from the edge? No. Multiverses wants you to brawl, to fight the dangerous man and knock him down. You are a fuel-injected destruction machine and the world needs an ass-kicking!

Almost every single power effects combat rolls, most do so exclusively. You have fifty pages of them, and almost none of them discuss how you could use this power to teleport a person about to be hit by a train, or web up a derailed subway car.

You sure can learn how to knock someone around though.

1. It is outside of the scope of this article, but it can also be said, the system presented does well to serve Krakoa’s era X-Men run of titles, Immortal Hulk or the current Ultimates series.