Status of the Marvel Multiverse RPG?

 

There are a lot of great superhero RPGs out there right now:

• Mutants and Masterminds is still chugging along. There aren't a ton of new things out there but they've been doing adventures lately which is about the only thing the game hasn't thoroughly covered.
• ICONS is another mature RPG that is still cranking out new material.
• Champions is not one I hear much about anymore but it is still producing things like .. .character creation cards? I'm not sure I get that but I'll have to take a closer look.
• The Sentinel Comics RPG is one of the newer entries in this category and the latest thing there is the new version of the starter set which is probably a good thing but I wish they were doing more! I'll have to cover it in another post but this is a very promising game that just needs a little more attention.
• Absolute Power is the new version of Silver Age Sentinels. It's been out for a year or two now and has decent support so if you think a BESM approach to supers is interesting it's worth a look. This one is probably worthy of a separate post as well.

All of the above games are currently in-print and have pretty solid support beyond the basic rules but there was one potentially giant new entry in the field in the last couple of years that many of us were interested in - the Marvel Multiverse RPG, published by, well, Marvel itself. My own account of a tryout game is here and I thought it was worth considering as a real option. 

For Marvel we saw the main rulebook come out in 2023 along with a starter adventure and  since then we've seen an "Adventure" - Cataclysm of Kang and an "Expansion" about the X-Men. That's decent enough and there is one other announced book coming which is the Spider-Verse Expansion. There was also a set of Marvel Dice and a short Deadpool adventure that came out around the time of the movie last year.

Recently though I saw new copies of the core rulebook show up at a local Half-Price Books. Not one copy, but multiples. Now Half-Price is a pretty regular stop for my wife and I - there are quite a few of them around DFW - and we hit them whenever we are out and about. Over the past few weeks I've seen multiple new copies in multiple stores in the area. That's not a great sign for a new game as that means they are remaindered or whatever the official industry term is and sold off as a bulk lot. It happens from time to time but being fairly aware of what shows up on the RPG shelf in local used bookstores sometimes things jump out like this. So I am concerned about how the game is doing - I decided to check around online.

The MMRPG D616 Facebook group used to consistently show up in my FB feed as a group with "10+ posts a day" as recently as last year. Now it's down to "5 posts a day". Well ... 

The MMRPG Reddit group has slowed from maybe around 5 posts per day to roughly 3 per day. Not as dramatic as FB but it does seem less active. 

There is also a starter set that was supposed to be coming out from Gamefound that has been delayed from September-November to "early next year" which is ... now. It funded in February 2024. It's causing some friction. Beyond that there were some other accessories mentioned like GM screens and maps and power cards and more dice  - all of them seemingly tied to some of the supplement books. None of them have appeared or seem to have release dates. None of that is good. 

I wonder if some of the accessories are being held up or "reassessed" due to sales numbers maybe not being what they were expecting. The lack of announced books beyond the Spider-Verse book also does not feel great. I know a lot of this is anecdotal and I'm not trying to jump too far to conclusions - it's been a fairly slow-grow game line but it does seem to have gotten really slow here of late. I've been watching these things for a long time and what I'm seeing here is not positive. 

Let me say that I hope I am wrong about the direction things look to be heading. A thriving Marvel RPG could be a great way to both bring in new players and pull existing players away from D&D as their only game. I hope that we are just in a slow period where a company new to RPGs (Marvel) is working with a new partner on accessories (CMON) and things are just taking extra time. If that is the case I'd love to see a new Avengers book or Fantastic Four book announced - there is a FF movie coming out after all - for later this year. I'll be crossing my fingers as I watch for the next update on this game.

Top Ten Anticipated RPGs for 2025

 

EN World does this every year and I usually try to comment on them. I'm running a little late but I thought it was worth bringing up. The list and discussion is here.

10 - Starfinder 2E: Well I own a PDF of 1E but that's it and I've never run or played it so while I'm very aware of it I am not feeling a ton of anticipation. The straight up fantasy-in-space thing just has never really been my thing despite a love for Rifts and 40K and the occasional D&D/Gamma World crossover back when. I'm not sure why but I think a lot of it is the setting - expanding outward from their fantasy planet while leaving a big gap in recorded history as far as what happened to the place just does nothing for me. Maybe it's topo generic-feeling. So many other interesting settings out there that mix magic and tech - this one just never clicked for me.

9 - Alien Evolved: Another new edition of a game I haven't played.  We don't do a lot of horror here and if we did I'd probably lean more towards something like Mothership but I haven't done anything with that one either so ... no real anticipation here either.

8 -13th Age Second Edition: Well I did the Kickstarter for this one so yeah, I'm interested. Some genres just click with you and D&D-style fantasy will always be one of those for me. I liked 13th Age when it came out but I never ran it. I will make room to at least give it a tryout this time as I like what I see in the previews. It's just different enough to make it interesting. So yes, "anticipated" for sure.

7 - Coriolis The Great Dark: Well if you either haven't heard of it or weren't paying attention to it ... at all ... it's hard to say you were anticipating it. I've heard the name over the years and after perusing the Kickstarter page it looks interesting. I'm getting Expanse vibes from it and that's not a bad thing. I'm just not sure my players would choose it for "dark exploratory sci-fi game" over say 40K Wrath and Glory. It was not "anticipated" but I'll keep an eye on it.

6 - Dolmenwood: I did the Kickstarter here too so yes, it's definitely anticipated. It's another OSR thing but it has what looks to be an interesting setting and a lot of support material. I think it's a sandboxy campaign one could finish, to some degree, and not just another generic fantasy world. It's a big forest with specific inhabitants and an English folklore-y background and that approach and the art really pulled me in - all of the art on this post is from Dolmenwood.

5 - Discworld: I love the Discworld series of books and I've been reading them since the 80's but I've never felt compelled to make it an RPG setting. Even when the GURPS version came out I didn't really feel the need to get it, run it, or play it, and that is still true today. I don't think anyone could run it the way Pratchett wrote it and it's just not going to feel right in my opinion. Humor is a huge part of these books and running a comedy RPG that everyone at the table finds funny is damn near impossible in  my experience. I've been very aware of this new edition as a big time Kickstarter but I have no interest in it as a game.

4 - Draw Steel (the MCDM RPG): I became aware of this one only after the Kickstarter had run and I will say I am interested in seeing how it comes out as a lot of the descriptions of the rules look really interesting. For something that originated with D&D it looks like it's dumping or changing a lot of the core D&D concepts and I do wonder how that will go over with people who came in with 5E. I'd say it's "anticipated" here now.

3 - Daggerheart: Never heard of it, don't know anything about it. Looking at the web page doesn't tell me enough about how it works, what it aims to do, or how it's different from the endless supply of other fantasy RPGs to make me want to dig into it beyond that. So no, not anticipated.

2 - Cosmere: I am certainly aware of this one after the Kickstarter hype but I haven't read enough  Brandon Sanderson to care. I can't see much about the mechanics but it looks like it uses standard RPG dice. Yet another fantasy RPG ... I don't have any attachment to the books so I'm going to give this one a pass. Not anticipated here.

1 - Legend in the Mist: I know City of Mist has had gained some attention  - lord knows I see enough ads for it online - but I haven't played or run it, don't own it, and the modern urban fantasy thing is just not my genre. It looks fairly FATE-y or Apocalypse World-y and that's fine but this new version says it's a rustic fantasy using a similar system and ... just not my thing man. I would probably play it if I encountered someone excited about running it but this is not a game I'm going to drive with my players. So no, not anticipated here. 

Things not on this list that I am anticipating:

• d6 System Second Edition
• Ashes Without Number
• Deadlands: Abominable Northwest
• Savage Rifts: Europe

Among others. There are definitely games to look forward to this year and if tastes vary as to which ones well, hey, that's part of the fun of this hobby. 

RPG Stuff

 

Yeah I'm still running that. We did take a break while I was dealing with the other stuff but we have started back up and Session 16 will happen this weekend barring extended weather complications. They actually made it into the Temple Proper last session in a way I have never seen before. There were several highlights (including an illusion that fooled everyone for a bit) but nailing multiple party members with a lightning bolt -twice- was particularly enjoyable. If the old bounce-it-off-the-walls rules were still a thing they would have been in serious trouble. The players take on it is available here. I am looking forward to the next visit as they try to figure out where they are and what is going on in the temple.

Beyond that I haven't done a whole lot else. With one game running every weekend there is not much need for active development on another. I offered to split our time between two games (alternating weekends) if it would make scheduling easier for some of my players but it was universally rejected - they want to stay focused on the one game. So for now that's what we do.

I have gotten some Kickstarter stuff in and there is probably more on the way but for now it's mostly being set aside for future use.

The Circle of Life Swings Back Hard

 

I had started working on some posts last month after taking a break and then things just started to come up.

My father had been fighting cancer for several months. A year ago everything was fine - especially considering my parents age. Then as the 2024 progressed it went rapidly downhill. Over the course of six months we went from "something is wrong" to "cancer" to "hospice care" and a hospital bed in the living room as he could no longer climb the stairs. Then in early November he lost consciousness for a few days and left us on a Saturday morning. It's not an easy thing even when you know where things are headed. There's "this is going to happen" and then there is "it's happened" and crossing that boundary is big. I don't just mean myself here - my mom had to deal with this and after being together for over 60 years she gets to contemplate going on alone. It's a hard thing. 

Yes, my parents got married a long time ago and stayed together for the whole ride - more than I have managed to do - and that means I have had both parents my whole life and my kids have had all of their grandparents their whole lives until this year. Now in 2024 they have lost both grandfathers which is not a great thing to look back on.

The main outcome of this day-to-day has been that mom needs more help with things, particularly all of the things dad used to handle around the house or with the cars or with the technology side of things. That mainly lands on me and so there has and still is some adjustment to how to handle those things and there are still all of the other things to deal with too - accounts and stuff and what mom wants to do with the house and the rest of her life. These are all new experiences but I'm trying to make it more of a positive by looking ahead to how I (well, me and the wife so "we") can try to make it easier down the road for everyone ourselves. I don't have to like it all but I can at least try to learn something from it.

Now for the "circle of life" part

So when dad passed that morning I had let the kids know earlier where things were going and Blaster came back with "we are at the hospital". My son got married a while back and they are expecting and yes, the universe decided to go poetic and so later that night, about 12 hours after my dad departed, my first grandbaby arrived.

I had been hoping dad would hang on long enough to meet his first great-grandkid but but he didn’t quite make it. I like to think there still might have been something as they passed each other with one arriving and one departing but that might just be me thinking about it too much. Insert spiritual passage/song lyric/Star Trek quote of your choice here as a lot of stuff crossed my mind that night.

It made things complicated for Blaster too as he couldn’t be there for the end while he was dealing with the beginning across town. Lots of mixed emotions all around that day.

The ray of sunshine here has of course been baby Nickname As Yet Undetermined who reminds us all that life goes on and the future is still out there. He picked a complicated day to arrive but he made it here happy and healthy and we are all very glad for that.

I have to look at 2024 as a year that is not my favorite one for sure - but had a very wide range of good and bad and one of the most emotionally complex days I've experienced.

Now we start the new one and hopefully we find a more upward trajectory as it goes on.

More to come for sure and more of the usual stuff coming soon.