And now, a character. But which game? Hmm.
The Game: Marvel Universe Roleplaying Game
The Publisher: Marvel, I guess. It's out of print.
Degree of Familiarity: None. I've read it, but it doesn't really turn my crank.
Books Required: Just the core.
Yes, another superhero game! Whee! Can't have too many, really.
This
reads more like a...I dunno. Board game, kinda sorta? But no board. No
minis. It's a resource allocation game, where your stats are decided by
where you put your stones. No dice, just shifting stats around, which is
fine. It looks playable, but as I've said about other games, I have
some awesome supers games (With Great Power..., Marvel Superheroes, ICONS) so why bother with one I only half-like?
But
let's get started. I start with 40 white stones, which can be broken
down into 3 red stones each (so why not start with 120 red stones?). I
use them to buy all my stats and stuff.
The book puts the
example of character creation before the process, which is weird, but
whatever. They start off with a concept, and since it's point-buy, I
should do the same.
Whew. I've made a bunch of supers, so what should I do that I haven't? Well, after watching Crank
last night, I kind of want to make a harsh, fighty, hyperkinetic
superhero. And I like the notion of him drawing power from electricity.
So let's see if I can do that with this system. After coffee.
OK,
I remember why I didn't like this game. It crows about how it's a "new
kind" of RPG. It's not. It's a resource-allocation game. And it makes
weird insinuations about gamers laboring under the randomness of using
dice in the past. Puh-leaze.
Anydangway, my Abilities are
Intelligence, Strength, Agility, Speed, and Durability. Wolverine has a 4
in Strength, Thing has 9, and I don't see a handy scale otherwise.
Blah.
Let's start off here:
Intelligence 3
Strength 6
Agility 5
Speed 6
Durability 5
That
spends 15 of my 40 white stones, and apparently makes me pretty tough.
Oh, wait, hang on. Durability costs 3x what other abilities do, so
instead of 3 stones it costs 9. 22 stones spent, then.
Oh, hang,
just found the scale. OK, with these stats, I'm roughly college
educated. I can left up to 10 tons (good lord). I can run at up to 250
MPH (again, yike). OK, I'm gonna bump Intelligence down to 2 and
Durability down to 4. That means I really only spent 16 white, 2 red, so
I have 24 white, 1 red left. BLAH.
OK, I guess with do Actions
now. This system asks you to buy each action, so you define your
character by what he can do in really specific terms. I want my guy to
be able to whoop some ass, fighting with an energized, flailing fighting
style born of manic, electrified energy. So I'll take "Room-Clearing
Combat" at 5 levels. I'll add "Area Effect" so I can kick the asses of
everyone in the immediate area, which bumps the effective level to 8,
and makes my cost 9 white stones. I can take Specialties, so I take
Club, Knife, Staff and Kickboxing, too.
I want some power that
lets me absorb electricity for more power. But, guess what, there's no
such power listed. Argh. OK, you know what? Bullshit. Let's do this.
We'll
take the Energy Absorption/Reflection power. I want it at 4 levels,
which means I have to buy it at 9 (12 stones). But I don't want it to
reflect (I can't zap people), I can just use the red stones to power my
Close Combat and Unstoppable powers (I'll get there). So I figure that's
worth a reduction in levels, and probably another for only working with
electricity. So maybe I buy it at 6 levels, which would be 4 stones,
but that's less than half the normal value, so I'll pay 6 stones. Whew. 9
white, 1 red left.
I want Unstoppable. I'll take the bonus from
Speed. I'll just take 1 level, so that costs me 2 white stones (7
white, 1 red left).
I'll take Vehicle Operation at 3 levels (1
white), Ranged Combat at 3 levels (1 white), Acrobatics at 3 levels (1
white, and I take Pistol and Thrown Weapon as Specialties), Wealth at 3
(1 stone), Thieving at 4 levels (2 stones, and I take Robbery, Move
Silently, and Evasion as Specialties).
Hmm. One white, one red
left. I'll leave them, I think. Oh, wait, I have to take at least one
Challenge. Well. We'll say my guy needs occasionally jolts of
electricity to stay alive. Using his powers drains the juice faster,
sure, but if he doesn't get a few hundred volts a day, his organs start
to shut down. And I promise his backstory won't be exactly like Chev.
OK,
backstory! Ellis Zimm was an Olympic sprinter, took the gold in the
100m, and was planning on going to the games again. And then his
military background caught up with him. Zimm was ex Spec Ops, and
apparently his name was on a list of "unstables," soldiers who needed
careful monitoring because their genetics predisposed them to gaining
superpowers if something weird should happen.
It did. In a street
battle between Electro and a bunch of policemen (Spidey was busy),
Ellis, who was trying to help citizens get to safety, took a
full-strength blast of lightning and was knocked into a transformer. The
electricity made him hyperkinetic, manic and completely badass, and he
took down Electro before any other supers could get there. The army
wants him back, but he's more interested in general do-gooding. He'll
sometimes go out at dawn and see how much petty crime he can stop before
his "battery" winds down.
Costume-wise, Ellis isn't flashy.
He's muscular, lithe, keeps his hair short and wears a black jumpsuit,
bandanna-like face mask, and fingerless gloves. His suit is accented
with blue at the elbows and knees, and he has a blue tattoo that goes
around his neck, down his back and down both arms. It sparks when he
charges up.
To evildoers everywhere, he is known as: Manic.
(Not "Maniac." And the papers keep fucking it up.)
