Role Playing Games Part 7 - Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game

Superheroes are my passion. As a comic book collector and a roleplaying game fanatic, a number of superhero roleplaying games were bound to find their way to my shelf. I already mentioned Supercrew and Hi/Lo Heroes when talking of small RPG’s in my last post. My favorite superhero RPG is the Marvel Superheroes Adventure Game.

I own everything that came out for this system. The Marvel Superheroes Adventure Game uses a deck of custom playing cards called the Fate Deck instead of dice for conflict resolution. The system is called SAGA, and TSR used the system for their Dragon Lance 5th Age game as well. I didn’t like the system in the Dragon Lance game. I love it here! It does abstraction well, it’s versatile, and it’s not too complex.

I would happily play this game again. Unfortunately, unless all the people playing own a copy of the Fate Deck, playing over video-chat will prove impossible. There is a way to play the game using a deck of standard playing cards. In fact, to promote the game upon its release, comic book stores had free comic books that taught the basics of the game using a standard deck of playing cards. So, maybe ... 

The core game came in a box set. It contained the rule book, a roster book with many example heroes and villains from the Marvel Universe, and the Fate Deck. These custom cards were beautifully illustrated with Marvel characters, both heroes and villains. 

The deck has five suits. Four are based on character attributes and one is a suit that benefits the badguys: Strength (in green, represented by the Hulk); Willpower (in purple, represented by Dr. Strange); Intellect (in blue, represented by Mr. Fantastic); Agility (in red, represented by Spider-Man), and Doom (in gray, represented by Dr. Doom.)

The free comic books that taught the basics of the game were: Comic #1 – Wolverine vs. the Brood Queen, and Comic #2 – Captain America vs. Baron Zemo. After these were: Adventure #1 – X-Men: Who Goes There? and Roster Book #1 – the X-Men. This book focused on all sorts of characters from the X-Men comics, heroes and villains alike.

Two more Adventure / Roster Book pairs were released: Adventure #2 – Avengers: Masters of Evil, with Roster Book #2 – the Avengers, and Adventure #3 – Fantastic Four: Fantastic Voyages, with Roster Book #4 – the Fantastic Four. Adventure / Roster Book pairs featuring Spider-Man and the Hulk were planned, but the series met its untimely end before these were produced.

8 Fantastic Four

Two final books saw print before the end: Reed Richards Guide to Everything, which contains a whole lot of rules options to expand the game, and A Guide To Marvel Earth, which was a great resource for the various special locations featured in Marvel Comics from New York City, to the City of Atlantis, to the Blue Area of the moon. This book and the Roster Books also had the distinction of being printed on glossy paper in full color, something that no other books in TSR’s product line had.

When TSR was purchased by Wizards of the Coast, the Marvel License was abandoned, and the Marvel Superheroes Adventure Game was axed. In addition to the two products mentioned above, a book called: Green Goblin's Guide to Crime was in the works and lies in limbo somewhere in a filing cabinet at the Wizards of the Coast offices … sad.

Role Playing Games Part 7 - Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game

Superheroes are my passion. As a comic book collector and a roleplaying game fanatic, a number of superhero roleplaying games were bound to find their way to my shelf. I already mentioned Supercrew and Hi/Lo Heroes when talking of small RPG’s in my last post. My favorite superhero RPG is the Marvel Superheroes Adventure Game.

I own everything that came out for this system. The Marvel Superheroes Adventure Game uses a deck of custom playing cards called the Fate Deck instead of dice for conflict resolution. The system is called SAGA, and TSR used the system for their Dragon Lance 5th Age game as well. I didn’t like the system in the Dragon Lance game. I love it here! It does abstraction well, it’s versatile, and it’s not too complex.

I would happily play this game again. Unfortunately, unless all the people playing own a copy of the Fate Deck, playing over video-chat will prove impossible. There is a way to play the game using a deck of standard playing cards. In fact, to promote the game upon its release, comic book stores had free comic books that taught the basics of the game using a standard deck of playing cards. So, maybe ... 

The core game came in a box set. It contained the rule book, a roster book with many example heroes and villains from the Marvel Universe, and the Fate Deck. These custom cards were beautifully illustrated with Marvel characters, both heroes and villains. 

The deck has five suits. Four are based on character attributes and one is a suit that benefits the badguys: Strength (in green, represented by the Hulk); Willpower (in purple, represented by Dr. Strange); Intellect (in blue, represented by Mr. Fantastic); Agility (in red, represented by Spider-Man), and Doom (in gray, represented by Dr. Doom.)

The free comic books that taught the basics of the game were: Comic #1 – Wolverine vs. the Brood Queen, and Comic #2 – Captain America vs. Baron Zemo. After these were: Adventure #1 – X-Men: Who Goes There? and Roster Book #1 – the X-Men. This book focused on all sorts of characters from the X-Men comics, heroes and villains alike.

Two more Adventure / Roster Book pairs were released: Adventure #2 – Avengers: Masters of Evil, with Roster Book #2 – the Avengers, and Adventure #3 – Fantastic Four: Fantastic Voyages, with Roster Book #4 – the Fantastic Four. Adventure / Roster Book pairs featuring Spider-Man and the Hulk were planned, but the series met its untimely end before these were produced.

8 Fantastic Four

Two final books saw print before the end: Reed Richards Guide to Everything, which contains a whole lot of rules options to expand the game, and A Guide To Marvel Earth, which was a great resource for the various special locations featured in Marvel Comics from New York City, to the City of Atlantis, to the Blue Area of the moon. This book and the Roster Books also had the distinction of being printed on glossy paper in full color, something that no other books in TSR’s product line had.

When TSR was purchased by Wizards of the Coast, the Marvel License was abandoned, and the Marvel Superheroes Adventure Game was axed. In addition to the two products mentioned above, a book called: Green Goblin's Guide to Crime was in the works and lies in limbo somewhere in a filing cabinet at the Wizards of the Coast offices … sad.

Role Playing Games Part 6 - Games In Small Packages

In retrospect, as awesome as it was, D&D 3.5 is my least favorite version of D&D. While it may be universally loved, it is very … crunchy. Dungeons & Dragons third edition introduced a lot of new ideas to give D&D tactical and mechanical richness. Players loved it, since this opened up more and more options for them, ways to manipulate and maximize their experience of the system. (That player agency that I mentioned before.)

I guess that my problem is that I “burned out” on this. I’m getting old. These days, I want simple. I want easy. I guess that’s why I like Basic D&D so much. It’s also why I own a handful of small systems. Simple RPGs that mostly come in at well under 100 pages.

Toon is by Greg Costikyan who created the Star Wars Roleplaying Game. It’s a wacky cartoon RPG about playing characters like Bugs Bunny and Woody Wood Pecker. It’s loony fun, and it works really well. Mine is the first edition of the game that comes in at 68 pages. Later editions of the game expand the rules to 100’s of pages, but why?!

Speaking of Greg Costikyan, or more specifically, his Star Wars RPG: Mini Six is a multi-genre RPG that covers playing in a variety of settings and uses the dice pool system that I talked about with the Star Wars RPG. It’s a great little gem at only 36 pages. If you want to run a game on the cheap, the Mini Six PDF is free, and print on demand is only $6! 

Hack-n-Slash Fantasy Roleplay is a simple fantasy RPG that uses the Fudge system. Fudge is a simple open source RPG rules system, and I think Hack-n-Slash may be the only book on my shelf that uses it. It’s good, and it has a cool method for creating random dungeons, so you could play this solo if you wanted. It’s a nice little hardcover book at 70 pages.

Ambition & Avarice is an interesting D&D clone that lets players play Orcs, Goblins, Lizardfolk, and Dark Elves alongside Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Halflings. This mixture reminds me of World of Warcraft and I like it. At 97 pages, it’s the biggest book in this list.

Simplicity is a version of Basic D&D that strips it apart and puts it back together to create a modular approach to character generation. You don’t play a Warrior or a Wizard, but you can select some of the benefits of either (or any of the other fantasy character classes and races) and mix and match them together anyway you like. It’s a really interesting and surprisingly simple system. It comes in at 48 pages.

Retro Phaze is a personal favorite. It’s a fantasy RPG that is designed to emulate console video games of the NES/SNES variety, like Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior. It does this remarkably well, and uses only the ever wonderful six-sided die. It’s 32 pages of pure genius.

X-plorers is a sci-fi RPG that uses a system based on the very earliest versions of D&D. So, it’s both really simple, and familiar. It comes in at only 39 pages. The Supercrew is a 28 page comic book that is also a superhero themed RPG. I love this one for obvious reasons.

Finally, I suppose that I will mention: Hi/Lo Heroes and Five By Five. Both of these small RPGs are my own design. Hi/Lo is a superhero RPG and Five By Five is a multi-genre RPG meant to handle a variety of settings. Each has received a modest amount of accolades within the RPG community. Hi/Lo is 36 pages and Five By Five (a handsome hardcover book) is 56 pages.

Many of these smaller games are out of print and hard if not impossible to find. Thankfully, many of them can still be found in PDF format, but I wouldn’t give up my precious print versions for anything.

Role Playing Games Part 6 - Games In Small Packages

In retrospect, as awesome as it was, D&D 3.5 is my least favorite version of D&D. While it may be universally loved, it is very … crunchy. Dungeons & Dragons third edition introduced a lot of new ideas to give D&D tactical and mechanical richness. Players loved it, since this opened up more and more options for them, ways to manipulate and maximize their experience of the system. (That player agency that I mentioned before.)

I guess that my problem is that I “burned out” on this. I’m getting old. These days, I want simple. I want easy. I guess that’s why I like Basic D&D so much. It’s also why I own a handful of small systems. Simple RPGs that mostly come in at well under 100 pages.

Toon is by Greg Costikyan who created the Star Wars Roleplaying Game. It’s a wacky cartoon RPG about playing characters like Bugs Bunny and Woody Wood Pecker. It’s loony fun, and it works really well. Mine is the first edition of the game that comes in at 68 pages. Later editions of the game expand the rules to 100’s of pages, but why?!

Speaking of Greg Costikyan, or more specifically, his Star Wars RPG: Mini Six is a multi-genre RPG that covers playing in a variety of settings and uses the dice pool system that I talked about with the Star Wars RPG. It’s a great little gem at only 36 pages. If you want to run a game on the cheap, the Mini Six PDF is free, and print on demand is only $6! 

Hack-n-Slash Fantasy Roleplay is a simple fantasy RPG that uses the Fudge system. Fudge is a simple open source RPG rules system, and I think Hack-n-Slash may be the only book on my shelf that uses it. It’s good, and it has a cool method for creating random dungeons, so you could play this solo if you wanted. It’s a nice little hardcover book at 70 pages.

Ambition & Avarice is an interesting D&D clone that lets players play Orcs, Goblins, Lizardfolk, and Dark Elves alongside Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Halflings. This mixture reminds me of World of Warcraft and I like it. At 97 pages, it’s the biggest book in this list.

Simplicity is a version of Basic D&D that strips it apart and puts it back together to create a modular approach to character generation. You don’t play a Warrior or a Wizard, but you can select some of the benefits of either (or any of the other fantasy character classes and races) and mix and match them together anyway you like. It’s a really interesting and surprisingly simple system. It comes in at 48 pages.

Retro Phaze is a personal favorite. It’s a fantasy RPG that is designed to emulate console video games of the NES/SNES variety, like Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior. It does this remarkably well, and uses only the ever wonderful six-sided die. It’s 32 pages of pure genius.

X-plorers is a sci-fi RPG that uses a system based on the very earliest versions of D&D. So, it’s both really simple, and familiar. It comes in at only 39 pages. The Supercrew is a 28 page comic book that is also a superhero themed RPG. I love this one for obvious reasons.

Finally, I suppose that I will mention: Hi/Lo Heroes and Five By Five. Both of these small RPGs are my own design. Hi/Lo is a superhero RPG and Five By Five is a multi-genre RPG meant to handle a variety of settings. Each has received a modest amount of accolades within the RPG community. Hi/Lo is 36 pages and Five By Five (a handsome hardcover book) is 56 pages.

Many of these smaller games are out of print and hard if not impossible to find. Thankfully, many of them can still be found in PDF format, but I wouldn’t give up my precious print versions for anything.

Role Playing Games Part 5 - Wizards of the Coast and Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition

D&D’s entry point into the book and hobby stores of the world was through its distributor, Random House. The way this particular arrangement worked is that TSR (TSR was a company founded by Gary Gygax and childhood friend, Don Kaye. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson are credited with the creation of Dungeons & Dragons.) received a percentage of a book’s value immediately from Random House upon delivery and then the balance once the book was sold. If a book did not sell, it could be returned, and Random House would be reimbursed for their initial investment.

My understanding is that this distribution arrangement was unusual. It apparently served TSR well enough at the time. Dungeons & Dragons books were illustrated, hardcover volumes that were expensive to produce, and the immediate influx of revenue from Random House was helpful in keeping the books in print. Unfortunately, TSR got greedy (this is after Gygax has been forced out of the company) and over-produced a large percentage of product just to get quick money from Random House.

Random House sued TSR, and sent all unsold product back. They terminated TSR’s distribution contract, and that was the end of TSR. TSR lost the lawsuit, and had to pay Random House pretty much everything they had. While D&D as a property was worth millions, TSR couldn’t pay their people to produce the product, and had lost their primary means for putting their books on store shelves.

Wizards of the Coast was the hot young company on the scene. I have talked a bit about collectible card games and Magic the Gathering. Wizards of the Coast was the producer of Magic the Gathering, and many (the majority?) of its players also played D&D. It seemed like a good fit, and Wizards of the Coast acquired TSR. Initially, Wizards of the Coast kept the TSR name as they worked to put a small number of AD&D second edition books (old and new) on store shelves, and to restore some of TSR’s damaged reputation. Behind the scenes, Wizards of the Coast worked on an all new version of D&D.

Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition was a big deal. Many (myself included) feared what Wizards of the Coast might do to our beloved game of D&D. Were they going to completely redesign the game to give us “Magic the Gathering – the Roleplaying Game?” There was much speculation in this direction. There were a lot of eyes on the launch of the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons at a time when the roleplaying game industry was struggling. TSR had crumbled. Comic book stores were a major source of RPG sales, but these stores were struggling. Fortunately, it seems that Wizards of the Coast was aware of the burden it carried.

The third edition of D&D did in fact introduce major changes to the D&D game system. They did away with the distinction between Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Basic Dungeons & Dragons. The third edition was just: Dungeons & Dragons. The design was carefully made so that it would still “feel” like the D&D (or actually AD&D) that people were used to. The design tossed out a bunch of legacy mechanics that just didn’t make sense for smarter more useful mechanisms, but they didn’t toss the baby out with the bath water. The core of D&D was still in there. And it was good … better than good, it was great! And, for the first time, the books were in full color. D&D third edition was beautiful.

Also, to make sure that D&D was being played, Wizards of the Coast did something else very smart. They released this new version of D&D with something called the Open Game License. They told all of their competitors, “please, write materials for D&D.” And their competitors did, because D&D was hot, and everyone wanted a piece of the action. D&D 3rd Edition sold amazingly well.

I played the heck out this game. I loved it.

In 2003, three years after the release of D&D 3.0, Wizards released D&D 3.5. It wasn’t a new version of D&D, but in the three years since its release, it was discovered by virtue of the experiences of many, many players that there were things about D&D 3.0 that needed fixing. So, these things were fixed. D&D 3.5 remained in publication for five more years.

I own five of the 3rd Edition D&D books, and the core three 3.5 books. I also have two books that make up the Castlemourn Campaign setting, because it was written by Ed Greenwood who created the popular D&D setting: The Forgotten Realms, and because it was published by Margaret Weis of whom I am a fan. I’ve not gotten Castlemourn to the table, but it’s something that I hope to do one day.

I am sharing the covers of my D&D 3.X books with this post, but sadly after bragging about how beautiful these books were, you will see that all the covers are just … uninspired. I don’t know what they were thinking.