FOR THE TWELFTH GAME OF XMAS, TWENTY-TWENTY-THREE,
TWELVE HEROES MARVELIN',
ELEVEN WEREWOLVES HOWLIN',
TEN HACKERS HACKIN'
NINE GIRLS A-PLANTIN'
EIGHT MAIDS A-SHIELDIN'
SEVEN VIXENS VIXIN'
SIX MICE A-SQUEAKIN'
FIVE GOLDEN HAINTS,
FOUR UPLIFTED BIRDS,
THREE GODSENDS,
TWO DUSTY BOWLS,
AND CHUUBO'S MARVELOUS WISH-GRANTING ENGINE!
What If... season two just ended yesterday, so it's kind of appropriate.
This is the last chargen post of 2023, it makes 122 characters this year (ten a month plus two extra in December for 12 games of Xmas). I had 250 games left on the list on 1/1/23, and now, on 12/31/23, I have...205 (counting this one as done). So doing a little math, I've picked up 77 more games this year. I believe that's what they call "glacial progress."
The Game: Marvel Multiverse RPG
The Publisher: Marvel
Degree of Familiarity: None with this incarnation
Books Required: Just the one
As I've mentioned in the past, I love superheroes and superhero RPGs. One of these days I'll run a campaign again; I ran a pretty lengthy game of Marvel Heroic a few years ago (stopped before the finale by the pandemic), and I ran Masks for a while, too. If I were going to pick any game system in which to run said game, however? It probably wouldn't be Marvel Multiverse.
It's not a bad game, and certainly there are a lot of very talented people who worked on it, and so the "game" part of it doesn't feel phoned in or derivative or too weird. It's just that it's fiddlier than I'd like, and I think there would be too many things on the sheet to keep track of, which isn't something my groups love. Plus, any supers game I run has to compete with Marvel Heroic (which I really like) and Marvel Superheroes (which is trad as fuck but I know it well), and that's before you get into more specialized things like Masks or Galaxies in Peril or whatever.
But, with that said, the game looks perfectly playable, so maybe I'd give it a whirl just to see? Let's make a character, anyway. Ugh, no PDF (I had a friend pick the book up from GenCon, and apparently you don't get a PDF with the hard copy, booo).
We start off with character concept, but really we probably should start off with Rank, since that'll determine the scale of my hero (Rank 1 is very much street level, Rank 6 is more Captain Marvel). Since I don't have much of a concept, I think we'll go Rank 2, which is enough to have some powers but won't keep me here all day.
Falling back on my usual method of finding a concept from nowhere, I shall see what iTunes wants to give me.
Oh, haven't listened to this in a while ("I'd Do Anything," Jason Mraz). So, it's a smooth, quasi-seduction kind of song, basically saying "I'm good with whatever you want to do, but like, fucking is an option." My initial thought is "what if a fuckboy became a superhero?" and that honestly does seem like a bit of a challenge. So:
Landon Lay was a college dropout and lived with his mother but paid his bills by doing gig work - driving, delivery, whatever the new app was. When he wasn't working, he dealt drugs a little, and claimed to be working to put a band together, but mostly it was an excuse to noodle on a guitar. Everything was in service to pulling girls, though he prided himself on not lying ("only betas have to lie"). And then one night he struck out at a house party, his buddy Justin wouldn't give his keys back, and he wound up wandering home through a part of the city he'd never seen. He saw a truck backing out of a warehouse and some dudes in ski masks driving it. He pulled out his phone to take a picture, and the truck sped straight toward him.
He moved, but not fast enough, and something in the truck fell out and exploded. The residue coated him, and Landon fell against the wall, coughing. The truck stopped and one of the dudes in a ski mask walked up and put a gun to Landon's temple...and Landon yanked it right out of his hand, pulled the other two guys out of the truck, tied them all together with some rope he found back in the warehouse, and was halfway home before any of the dudes knew what was going on.
Landon spent the next few weeks learning to use his power. He's still not 100% sure how it works - does he stop time? Move super fast? Teleport? - but the more important lesson he learned was that dude with the gun was willing to blow his goddamn head off just because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like...that sucks. People shouldn't do that shit. And Landon ain't trying to save the world, but like, that's really not cool, bro.
OK, good enough start. Next we do Abilities. The Abilities here are Melee, Agility, Resilience, Vigilance, Ego, and Logic (MARVEL, you see). As a Rank 2 hero, Landon gets 10 points to split up. Average is 0.
Well, Melee is straight close combat, so I want a little; I'll put it at 2 for now. I'll put Agility at 4 (since it helps determine speed). I'll put Resilience at 1, Vigilance at 2, and Ego at 1.
And next we do Powers. I get four Powers per rank, so I get 8. They're arranged in sets (and then some that are Basic, which don't have a set), and if I just take powers from one set, I get one more power. Let's see which set makes sense of ol' Landon.
Probably either Super-Speed or Teleportation. Let's look at those sets specifically.
OK, I think for what Landon can do, Teleportation makes the most sense. The only actual power from the set I want is Blink...actually, no, I'll take Blink Barrage, too. That lets me teleport and attack, but it doesn't let me get too far away.
Now, can I do everything else I want Landon to do with Basic powers? Maybe. Combat Trickery is nice; it just means I can reroll a die when fighting a higher-rank opponent, but I dunno. Ooh, I definitely want Evasion (allows me to use my Agility defense against Melee attacks). Definitely Slow-Motion Dodge (enemy gets trouble when I use Agility Defense against their attack). I'll take Wisecrack, too (lets me do damage with an Ego attack if I hit someone or someone fails to hit me).
Well, heck, that's only five powers. I can take three more even if I take them from another set. Is there anything from Super-Speed I want? Actually, sure, I'll take Blazing-Fast Fists (edge on all Melee attacks).
I don't think I want any more powers, so I have two picks left. I can trade them in for Abilities or Traits, so I think I'll wait and do the next step and see which I'd like to do.
So, next step is Backstory, which means I choose an Origin and Occupation, which give me traits (which have game effects) and tags (which don't). Obviously Landon got his powers from whatever that thing was that exploded off the truck, which would seem to indicate his origin is Weird Science. Let's do that. That gives me the Weird trait, which means I do better on Ego checks with people inclined to like me and worse with people disinclined to like me.
Occupation! There's actually not one that fits, surprise surprise. Let's call his occupation "gig worker" and say that gives me Poor. He keeps his identity secret, so um, that's the Secret Identity tag. I don't see any other Traits or Tags that make sense, so on to derived traits!
Health is 30 x Resilience, so 30. Focus is 30 x Vigilance (60). Initiative is equal to Vigilance, etc, etc. I'm gonna use the two power picks I had to bump my Agility and my Ego each by one, I think.
So that's everything, really, just need a description and a codename. Landon is pretty average in teams of height and weight. He's got brown hair but frosts it, and he's got a couple of tattoos on his shoulders, but his mother threatened to kick him out if he got any on his neck.
Codenames are always hard (also, this is not the first speedster-adjacent character I've made; teleportation is just so cool!). Let's say that Landon calls himself Limit! Like, speed limit. Or everybody to the limit. Or limit-less! Yeah, pretty dope.
Ahem. Anyway, he's got himself a green-and-white costume; the top is spandex but the bottom is more like tactical pants because like he's gonna be caught dead in spandex pants. Plus he wants pockets. He wears a half-mask like Iron Fist's, because he figures his frosted hair might give him away to anyway who knows him.
And that'll do it, actually. Happy New Year!
