Marvel Super Heroes Advanced Game: Rules Thread

[greyman24]

We will be using the 1986 Marvel Super Heroes (MSH) game as printed by TSR—sometimes called the FASERIP version. This game is called that due to the primary attributes (or, as the game calls them, primary abilities) of the players. These are:

Fighting-Measure of raw combat ability. Used in hand-to-hand combat (armed or unarmed).
Agility-Used for aimed/thrown weapons, driving and other feats of dexterity as well as feats of adroitness.
Strength-In addition to lifting, also determines success for wrestling/grappling, blocking and escaping.
Endurance-Determines normal speed in movement and for charging attacks as well as what you’d expect.
Reason-Just what you’d think
Intuition-Roll this for initiative, observation checks and resisting emotion-control.
Psyche-Used in resisting or controlling magic/psychic powers. 

All actions within the game use percentage dice (d100) and a chart (to be explained later). Scores are assigned based on pre-set rankings. These are (for PCs) Feeble (2 points), Poor (4), Typical (6), Good (10), Excellent (20), Remarkable (30), Incredible (40), Amazing (50), and Monstrous(75). Powers and abilities all have ranks and mean something different based on what it is.

The unassisted human cannot naturally rank above Remarkable in any ability.

If the power is the generation of some kind of weapon (say, claws), it generally refers to the damage applied. Other powers, such as Telepathy or Electrical Manipulation, it refers to both the strength of the power and how easy events are for the player. So, Wolverine would roll Fighting and apply damage equal to his claws’ rank. Elektro would roll his Electrical Manipulation and apply damage equal to that powers’ rank.

[greyman24]

Primary Abilities

To a certain extent, what each is for is self-explanatory. What may not be, however, is that you will be rolling based on the score you have in these abilities more than anything else. Skills (or, in FASERIP parlance, “special abilities”) aren’t rolled based on their score, but instead give you a bonus to roll something else.

These are FEAT rolls (don’t ask me why it’s all in caps). Occasionally, players will roll a “power rank FEAT” instead. This means the player rolls the power instead of an ability, such as Telepathy or Darkforce Manipulation.

For instance, say I want to jump from one rooftop to another. I would roll Agility to make the leap safely. However, if I studied acrobatics, I would still roll Agility, but success would be easier due to a bonus in the form of a “Column Shift” (more on that later).

Secondary Abilities

Secondary abilities are Health, Karma, Resources, and Popularity. These fluctuate based on a variety of things. Resources is generated randomly in character creation, but Popularity, Health and Karma are calculated.

Physical abilities (FASE), added together, give you your hit points (Health).

Mental abilities (RIP), added together, give you Karma.

[greyman24]

Karma

Karma is, perhaps, one of the most divisive components of this game. Personally, it’s one of the things that really makes the game for me.

This is Karma more in the Earle Hickey/”My Name is Earle” sense than in the Buddha/Sevenfold Path sense. Every good thing you do earns you Karma. Each gaming session (which, for us, will be every “scene”) the GM tallies up all the good things you did, and awards points. Unlike experience points, however, these are used for 3 things:

1.   Advancement—This is the most expensive (and therefore the most rare) form of expenditure. The justification for the expense, here, is that rarely do superheroes just randomly gain a new power...as long as their book is selling, that is… The following are possible forms of advancement:

• a.   Improving/adding a power
• b.   Improving an ability (whether a primary ability like Agility or a secondary ability like Resources)
• c.   Improving/adding a special ability (skill)

2.   Modifying dice rolls—This is the most common and, perhaps, the most powerful use of Karma. Prior to rolling, the player must state that he/she will be using Karma for this roll. This means he/she will automatically spend at least 10 points (or her remaining amount, if she has less than 10). The player makes the roll and may then modify the roll by spending points.

• a.   Example: Awesome Man needs to throw a rock across the room to hit a button. Unsure if he’ll hit, he states that he’ll be spending Karma. He currently has 125 in his reserves, so he’ll definitely be spending 10 at least. In order to hit the bullseye, he needs to roll a 56 or higher. Rolling the dice, he finds his concerns were justified. The dice say 24. Spending 32 Karma, he’s able to hit his target and save the day!

3.   Power Stunt—The most common form of character advancement, this allows you to use your power in a way you hadn’t before. It works like this. The player must spend 100 karma and succeed in using the power in this new way 10 times—the first time with a high penalty (Red FEAT), the second and third time with lesser penalties (Yellow FEATs), and from that time on with no penalty.

• a.   Example: Mento, the Fresh Mentalist Fighter, has Telepathy at Amazing rank. He wants to use his telepathy to make himself invisible to others. He states his intention to the GM, and the GM agrees. He spends 100 Karma, and makes a power FEAT roll.
• NOTE:   Please let me know how you feel about this rule. We can play this by the book, but I have a different way of doing this that requires almost as many points of Karma, but isn’t quite as drawn out.

A VERY IMPORTANT POINT ABOUT KARMA

One of the most important differences between Karma and experience points is in its fluidity. Karma giveth, but Karma can also be taken away.

You can lose Karma for one of several unheroic things, including committing a crime or attacking an innocent civilian.

However, if you ever kill anyone, or if by inaction allow another to be killed, then you immediately lose all Karma.

[greyman24]

Universal Table

As stated earlier, everything is rolled either based on an Ability or a power.

But regardless of whether you're rolling a FEAT or a power FEAT, you will ALWAYS roll on the Universal Table.

Put simply, you roll d100, look down the appropriate column, and you can see how you did. The colors determine either the difficulty (eg., climbing that grease-covered wall in the rain is a Red FEAT) and/or the effect (eg., a red blunt attack is a stun; a red edged attack is a KILL).

Effects are listed at the top of the table, based on what it is you're using or trying to do. Columns with question marks are for when you're resisting someone else's effect.



MSH handles bonuses or negatives as "Column Shifts" or CS. These move you to the left or right on this table. If, for instance, you're about to try to catch a grenade that was thrown at you, generally you'd roll your Agility (let's say it's Incredible). But if you also happen to have the Special Ability of Juggling (which gives you +1CS to catching), you'd roll on the Amazing column instead.

Now you just have to worry about the thing blowing up.

[greyman24]

Logistics/mechanics.

First off, my goal in this game is primarily to have fun. We are playing a game that is most decidedly NOT meant to be taken seriously. To that end, I am employing this Karma rule from the Players book:

Humor Award: Let's face it: one of the key reasons for role-playing is the gathering together of diverse people with the intent of swapping bad jokes. Laughing in the face of danger is a trademark of some heroes, but even Wolverine and Captain America get in a wry chuckle from time to time. The Judge should award 5 points to any player who can come up with a joke, pun, or humorous situation so dastardly that play must cease while everyone takes a deep breath and tries to recover a sense of direction.

Secondly, it should be noted that this is a shared experience, and as such, there will be times when ALL of us (myself included) may have to give up things we want for the good of everyone. I'm going to mercilessly steal this from Ezechiel: taking part in this game means we are all entering a social contract. Rousseau's contract was for generating a government, but we'll stretch the definition a bit to make it fit. In return for pretending that, in this game, Spider-Man has organic webshooters, we will all have a better time.

I'm kidding about the webshooters.

Or am I?

Thirdly, I'm stealing Navarre's rules for posting. These are below:

Posting Rules:

• Actions and Descriptors: If you are describing something or doing something, just type it as usual. Greyman, here. I'm also adding any OOO commentary or questions to this. These should be kept to a minimum, but no coding is required.
• Spoken Dialog: All spoken dialog (anything your character says) is to be enclosed in quotation marks, italicized, and in green font. Example: "Your character talks here."
• Telepathic Dialog: All telepathic dialog (something your character thinks to an entity with telepathic communication abilities) is to be enclosed in greater/lesser brackets, italicized, and green font. Example: <Your character projects their thoughts here.> Greyman again. Keep in mind that, should someone else read YOUR thoughts, and should you be unable to resist this, I will (based on the NPC's roll) select what gets communicated. The only exception would be those characters who have Iron Will or some kind of telepathic training.
• DM Posts: For effect, I may sometimes place something in italics, boldface, or even colored font. But I will also apply the above posting rules to myself. Where necessary I will denote which of a group of NPCs is speaking.
• Waiting Your Turn: Because we are having to post everything, it will be more challenging to have conversations. Let's do our best to stay in character and follow the appropriate flow of posts by others.

Code: (In-Character Dialog)

[i][color=green]"Your character talks here."[/color][/i]

Code: (In-Character Telepathic Dialog)

[i][color=green][i]<Your character talks here.>[/i][/color][/i]

You may note that I've revised some of these, with redacting some of the color/punctuation requirements. MSH is (at least as I run it) a more casual playing atmosphere. While I believe it's important to be respectful and role play your characters, I want you guys to be able to go with the flow and enjoy the playing experience.

Lastly, with regard to handing out Karma, the book references three times Karma is handed out: at the end of a battle, at the completion of a task and at the end of a gaming session. That last occasion doesn't work for our purposes, so we'll stick with the first two for now and hand out other Karma as it seems most appropriate.

Enjoy!

[greyman24]

Multiple actions:

You can increase the amount of combat actions by rolling "Fighting" (Remarkable for 2 actions and Amazing for 3) prior to calling your actions. Each action you add decreases the rank of your action by one column shift.

So, Great Big Eagle calls for 2 actions and rolls Fighting (Inc. rank). He rolls a Green result. During his turn, he elects to hit and then Evade. When he rolls Fighting to hit, he does it at -1CS (Rem). When he rolls Fighting to Evade, he does the same.

Later, Zinc Man decides to up the ante and go for 3 actions. He rolls his Fighting (Am) and gets a green result. Anything he rolls as part of those 3 combat actions will be at -2CS (Rem).

[greyman24]

Slams, Stuns and Kills

You'll notice, on the Universal Table (below) that the top bar shows 3 columns with question marks. These are Stun? Slam? and Kill?



These represent resisted effects that can occur on a red roll, depending on the method of attack. .

• A charge may Slam an opponent, knocking him/her backward and potentially causing more damage as he then knocks up against something else
  
• Hitting someone with a blunt object would potentially Stun
• Stabbing/electrifying someone may Kill

In order for ANY of these effects to be valid, you must cause SOME damage. If the defender takes no damage, there is no effect. Once you've gotten a red result and apply damage, the target will roll his/her Endurance and consult the chart.

Stun

White	Stunned 1-10 Turns	You are knocked out for 1d10 turn. During this time, you may take no action.
Green	Stunned 1 Turn	You are knocked out for 1 turn. During this time, you may take no action.
Yellow/Red	Stun Resisted	No effect

Slam

White	Grand Slam	You are thrown backward with the speed of your opponents Strength. In other words, normally you'd calculate how many areas per turn you could move based on your Endurance rank. A Grand Slam knocks you the amount of areas per turn according to the attacker's Strength rank. You will not only take damage for the hit (equal to Endurance of attacker or attacker's body armor, whichever is higher), but you will also take damage once you land/smash into something (equal to material rank strength on what you hit).
Green	Knocked 1 area	You are knocked back 1 area. All other rules above apply.
Yellow	Stagger	Defender is knocked back a step. Otherwise there is no effect.
Red	No effect	Nothing happens.

Kill

White	Edurance Loss	You are dying. You will be unconscious for 1d10 rounds. You lose one rank of your Endurance this turn. You will roll your full Endurance again next turn and continue to do so until stabilized or (after Shift Zero) you are dead. Loss of Endurance is temporary, and will be regained when healed to full.
Green	Endurance Loss for Slugfest or Shooting	If this is caused as the result of armed, edged weapon combat, or by shooting (i.e., a bullet from a gun), then this is pretty much the same as a white result. If this is an Energy attack, the result is no effect.
Yellow	No effect	Nothing happens.
Red	No effect	Nothing happens.

[greyman24]

Charging

When charging a character, you switch Primary Attributes in doing damage. Instead of doing damage according to your Strength, you do damage according to your Endurance (or body armor--whichever is higher).

As it says on the Universal Table, you roll Endurance to hit. Every Area (44 unobstructed yards) you charge through in order to hit adds +1CS to hit (max of +3CS) and 2 extra points of damage.

Example

Equine Man decides to charge. His stats are below.

-Fighting	| Remarkable
-Agility	| Excellent
-Strength	| Good
-Endurance	| Amazing

Normally, to hit someone he'd roll his Fighting (Rem), but since he's charging, he rolls his Endurance (Am). He's also running from 100 yds away (slightly more than 2 areas), so he adds +2CS to his roll (Unearthly) and 4 damage (54 damage).

Also, if he rolls a yellow or red result, it's a possible Slam (see rules for that above).

[Patrick]

Wow...I haven't seen FASERIP for years and years. Brings back good memories of playing and running super hero games (Marvel or Champions). Man, I would love to run or play in something by email.

[Navarre]

Wow...I haven't seen FASERIP for years and years. Brings back good memories of playing and running super hero games (Marvel or Champions). Man, I would love to run or play in something by email.

Unfortunately, this game died out almost before it had begun. I know of no plans for a new super-hero based game. Sorry.

[Patrick]

Well, I'd be willing to run one if it was play by post or email. Most familiar with the champions RPG. I could start a post on it I guess if you think people might be interested.

[Navarre]

I'm afraid I'm too obligated to other games and responsibilities to play. But you could certainly start an interest thread. Maybe someone is available.

[Patrick]

I totally understand. A little busy myself but I think I'll start an interest thread like you suggested.

Thanks!