CHARACTER CREATION CHALLENGE 2023: Marvel Superheroes (1 of 6)
THE GAME: Marvel Superheroes Revised Basic (1991)
Look alive True Believers! We’re here with a Magnificent Mighty Marvel Menagerie of randomly generated superheroes! The original Marvel Superheroes boxed set dropped in 1984, and was followed by the Advanced Set in 1986. This game is popularly referred to by those in the know as “FASERIP.” This is the abbreviation of the Major Abilities possessed by each character- Fighting, Agility, Strength, Endurance, Reason, Intuition, and Psyche. Unlike most RPGs where the stats are expressed as a number, in Marvel you have a Rank, which represents a range of numbers. You will be assigned a standard Rank Number, which will be used for any time your ability needs a numeric value. For example, Strength might be rated Good, or Excellent, or Monstrous. This would refer a player to a column on the colorful table on the back of the book, and the table generated results. If your Remarkable Strength is still at the default rank number, 30, then you will land 30 points of damage on a Strength-based attack. This made it a lot of fun to create supers or compare supers using the benchmarks included in the books to figure out the game stats of a new hero, or one from a non-Marvel source. But of course, the game had the ability to randomly generate new heroes, and that could become something of a game in itself. So here we go, using the Revised Basic Set that came out in 1991 to create some new supers. Warm up your percentile dice, and lets’ see who’s on our team mashup.
Marvel Superheroes Character Generation
Get an Origin
Generate Major Abilities
Generate Variable Abilities
Generate Powers & Talents
Fill in the Blanks
Step 1: Get an Origin
Every superhero got their powers somewhere. At this step, we roll d100 and consult a table. 88. That’s a High-Tech hero. This would be Iron Man or Ant Man, characters whose abilities come from their equipment.
Step 2: Generate Major Abilities
As a High-Tech character, our hero will have to re-roll anything above 80 on Agility, Strength, and Endurance. They will get a one rank bump in Reason and Resources. If we get Body Armor in the Powers & Talents step, we can take advantage of a special rule where the suit can enhance the character’s physical abilities. But we’ll come back to that if it occurs.
Fighting: 75, Remarkable. Rank number 30.
Agility: 80, Remarkable. Rank number 30.
Strength: 50, Excellent. Rank number 20.
Endurance: 08, Poor. Rank number 4. Ouch.
Reason: 98, Amazing. Bumped up one rank to Monstrous. Rank number 75. Daaaaaaang.
Intuition: 00! Wow! Amazing. Rank number 50.
Psyche: 21. Good. Rank number 10.
Step 3: Generate Variable Abilities
Health: Equals the rank numbers of F, A, S, and E totalled. In this case 84.
Karma: Equals the rank numbers of R, I, and P totalled. In this case 135.
Resources: Rolled a 27. Good, bumped up one level for being a High-Tech hero to Excellent.
Popularity: Since this character is not a mutant or robot, but does have a Secret Identity (why not?), initial Popularity is Typical.
Step 4: Powers and Talents
Powers
This is where the real fun starts. We get to see what kind of powers our hero has. The first thing to do is roll for number of powers available. 66. The table says that means 4 powers.
Our first power is… 50. A Body Control power. Roll for specific power: Shape-Shifting. Rank: Excellent. This power counts as two choices, so we reduce our total powers to 3.
Our second power is… 52. Another Body Control power. Specific power: Animal Transformation- Self. Rank: Remarkable. This differs from general Shape-Shifting above by granting the hero the powers of the animal into which they transform, not just the form.
91 for our third power. Body Alteration/Defensive. Specific power: Water breathing. Rank: None required. The hero can also survive at “great depths.”
Now, the rules do say you can choose the specific power after rolling the power category. I’m only doing completely random characters as a personal challenge to myself, to kinda remind me of the old days when random was standard. I’m going to fudge my own rule here in the name of a coherent character and choose the third power, swapping Water Breathing for Body Armor so we can take advantage of the High Tech rule for armor, and try to offset the terrible Poor Endurance of the character. In doing this, all the character’s powers will be resulting from their suit. In exchange, the suit may enhance the character’s Strength, Agility, and Endurance. To see by how much, we will roll on the Monstrous line of the chart due to the character’s Monstrous Reason, and see if the suit improves the abilities. 87, 29, 70. +3 ranks to Strength, +1 to Agility, and +2 to Endurance.
Talents
Talents are what other games would call skills. Our hero rolls a 12, entitling them to two talents. Rolling twice, we get Martial Arts A and Martial Arts C. Martial Arts A allows a hero to achieve Stun or Slam combat results even when their Strength or Endurance are outmatched by their opponent. Martial Arts C grants the hero a +1 column bonus when trying to grapple, escape, or dodge.
Step 5: Fill in the Blanks
What is your hero’s heroic name? Fantasy Name Generator says “The Brave Prince.” Ok, then.
How old are they? Let’s go with early 20s. She’s a college student.
Does the hero have a secret identity? How do they keep it secret? Yes. OK, so our hero has a really high Reason, but didn’t get any Talents that represent formal training in engineering and the like. So let’s go with the idea that (rolls dice) she is a really bright college student who invented her own superhero suit. Her hero name is “The Brave Prince” though, so perhaps the suit hides the fact that she’s a she, because she’s been vexed all her life by the way society-especially her family- tends to ignore her scientific expertise due to her gender. She looks forward to the day her reputation will be such that she can take off the helmet in front of the media and show everyone what her real identity was all along, and how wrong they all were. Sadly, I’ve seen this happen firsthand with my own daughter, being told what she can and can’t like by family elders based on the fact that she’s “a girl.” Kaylee, this is for you. In fact, we’re gonna give our hero the first name Kaylee in her civilian guise. Let’s go with an alliterative last name, because hey, comic book hero. How about Kaylee King? Which helps explain why she took the name “Prince” for her alter-ego. She is still enrolled in college, and only dons her suit on nights and weekends when it doesn’t interfere with her classroom obligations. But, like the daughter I am basing her on, she often stays up way too late and falls asleep in class. The character sheet has a space for Group Affiliation and Base of Operations. Let’s have all our heroes be from Austin, part of an organization called the Hill Country Heroes. Their Base of Operations will be a forgotten sub-floor of one of the university buildings known as “The Lab.”
How do they earn a living? Kaylee King works part-time at Einstein’s, the video arcade across the street from the U.T. campus, maintaining the machines, swapping bills for quarters, and sweeping up.
Where do they live? Kaylee currently lives in Dobie Tower just off U.T. campus in Austin, Texas.
What is their personality like? Outside of her suit, she’s quiet in large groups, but exceedingly talkative when she’s with her close friends. Her natural engineering brilliance comes out in her work, but not necessarily in conversation. She’s much more likely to talk about her favorite shows and movies than her latest gadget design.
Do they have any hobbies or pastimes? Her favorite pastimes are constructive in nature. Legos are her favorite. Computer games that allow for worldbuilding can eat all her sleep time, leaving her wiped out for class.
What does the hero’s costume look like? She designed her suit to look like techno-knight armor. Something like a futuristic Round Table knight.
Where did the hero get their powers? Kaylee created her battlesuit out of parts she scrounged from the arcade, her labs at the college, pretty much anywhere she could find them. She slowly constructed the protective suit and added the additional powers as she perfected her molecular transformation device that allows her to change into nearly anything of similar size/mass. She hopes to use the technology someday to make the world a better place - but until she perfects it, she uses it to fight crime.
