08/03/2022
DMTG Full Game Review:
Multiverse Roleplaying Game Playtest Rulebook.
Marvel continues to lean into the multiverse with their latest game offering. The Multiverse Roleplaying Game Playtest Rulebook written by Matt Forbeck. It has some clever bits but overall feels like a throwback to the 90's as far as game systems go. I picked this up for about $15 CAD from Cape and Cowl, one of my local Comic/Hobby shops. The book is not a very long read, it's less than 120 pages. There is very little in it that is not the game engine, mostly because it is a play test book for feedback and partially because if you are not familiar with the Marvel Universe by now, you probably live in an anti technology cult. I like superhero games and played the old FACERIP system of Marvel Superheroes in the 80's and 90's. I also bought the Marvel Diceless system from about 15 years ago so I was interested in where this was going to go.
GAME ENGINE
The game engine that drives the game is called D616 system. Which I will grant is clever (616 is the number of the main marvel continuity). The randomizing engine uses 3D6 which has a long history of successful use for games. Both GURPS and the Age system uses 3D6 to great effect. I personally like both of those systems and prefer a bell curve probability provided by 3D6 over the linear progression a D20 or D100 offers. The system at its core is a fairly standard roll 3D6 add stat (called action value) and exceed at target number set statically by the environment or by a character's defense number. Some of these 'action values' can become obscenely large, and you find that you will be adding numbers to the dice that far exceed the maximum the dice can roll. 3D6 feels somewhat less important when you are adding 53 to the number you generate. These target numbers are all set out on character sheets or in the rules. The character stats are Might, Agility, Resilience, Vigilance, Ego, and Logic (which spells MARVEL, and is again, rather clever) and has two stats, Action value (for doing) and defense value (the characters ``target number" to exceed). At its core it is elegant and simple. Once you get out of the core however it starts to get a little more complicated and the further you get out the more convoluted it becomes.
The system borrows concepts from several systems including D&D 5e to come up with its own creation. D616 itself uses a specific 'wild die' (the 1 in 616) in order to add a sense of things not going as planned to your roles. This is called the Marvel die, when you roll a '1' on the Marvel die (which will be called 'M1' for brevity), counts as a '6' as long as you did not roll all '1's'. This is not a difficult concept to grasp, but just feels sloppy. It also kind of screws up the bell curve I like so much as the Marvel Die essentially has two '6' faces. An 'M1' along with an action roll that succeeds is a critical success. An 'M1' with an action roll that fails results in an unexpected result, the 'M1' still counts as a '6' for math though. Roll a '616' and you have a super-critical, and all '1's' is a critical failure. That is all pretty standard fare for a game engine.
Actions are pretty standard too, allowing players to have one standard action, one simple action, during their turn and a reaction that can be taken at any point. This is common to a lot of game systems but feels pretty close to the 5e system of doing things which is probably not an accident. D&D is the world's most popular RPG so staying close to what people know already is going to make it easier to play.
The system gives its players special abilities in the form of 'edges' and 'trouble', powers and circumstances can bestow these on the players. 'Edges and Trouble' work very much like Advantage and Disadvantage in D&D 5e but, because there are three dice, it can happen 1 to 3 times in any roll. After the action roll, 'edge' lets you re-roll 1 die and take the higher of the two and 'trouble' does the exact opposite. 'Edges and Trouble' on the same roll cancel each other out.
Combat and Damage to players are pretty standard too though they split the Hit Point pools in two. Instead of one pool you have 'Health' and 'Focus' as a separation between mental and physical. These numbers can also get very large.
CHARACTER CREATION
The game separates characters into archetypes and levels. Which is nothing new but I feel the character creation system is a little 'Lego Brickey'. The archetypes are Blaster, Bruiser, Genius, Polymath, Protector, and Striker. These come with their own modifiers that change the stats of the character. This part made me feel like I was playing "City of Heroes" MMORPG from the early 2000's with the real difference in statistics and powers coming instead from the 'rank' of hero rather than the 'type' of hero.
The ranks go from 1 to 25 and the DM players agree on the power level setting the minimum power and the maximum power your hero will attain. I don't know how I feel about this as knowing where my character will max out kind of removes the long game play feeling that I enjoy with RPG's. The ranks indicate the relative threats they contend with, 5 being street level, 10 city, 15 country, 20 planetary and 25 cosmic level. Though they encourage the mixing of levels I feel that in practice this leaves the powerhouses to fight the big villain while everyone else is stuck saving the cats and civilians. While that is fun the first couple of times the premise would run out fast for me. It is possible for several low ranks of heroes to take on one or two higher rank characters, though the damage difference between the two will wipe out the low ranked players pretty quickly.
Powers for your heroes are limited in this book, it is mainly a play test manual after all however there are enough for you to get a good idea of what the fully published hardcover will be like. Heroes are confined to 'power sets' they can select from and in these power sets there are prerequisite choices, so players who take the same power set are likely to have the same powers, especially at higher ranks. Again I don't know how I feel about a flow chart of powers I can take, some of them are only available at higher ranks of heroes, some require you take the power before it and some require both. This will probably feel like less of a burden when there are more powers to choose from but right now at least it has a cookie cutter sense to it.
OVER ALL
For a Playtest Manual this is pretty robust. The writers say that this is not a settled game yet so I would expect the rule set to get tweaked before they release the final book. This is not a simple system, but it is not overly complicated either. It took me a couple of re-reads to get the full scope of how it works, but for experienced players it has easy enough concepts. I don't see anything that makes me go "oh that is a neat idea" there is nothing that makes me shudder with revolution either. For the game master There are pretty extensive rules for affecting the environment and other characters that require trips back to the book to look up rather than intuitively ruling on them. This slows the game down but not any more than D&D or Pathfinder. It feels a little math-ey for a modern rpg which is not a bad thing but I have always found it slows the game.
Overall, I would recommend getting the Multiverse Playtest Manual. Its cost versus value is pretty high. When the full game comes out it might be worth picking up, assuming it is not outrageously expensive. The system is pretty solid, if you are good with rule look ups and 'mathing' your way to success, this could be for you. I hope they smooth out some of this allowing for the game to rely more on the Game master and less on the rulebook. That is a personal preference more than a dig at the rule set.
