Marvelous Phile: Popularity in Marvel Super Heroes RPG
Hey, guys, Professor Bill of Comic Book University (where tuition is always free) and I’m bringing you the fifth article of the Marvelous Phile, an homage to the excerpt in Dragon Magazine back in the ’80s.
FASERIP game mechanic – popularity
In the previous adventure (season 2, episode 5) of Marvel Super Heroes Roleplaying Game live play, our heroes had to use their Popularity. Now, there are rules for how this works but they don’t always transfer well to paper, especially if you have negative popularity.
The easy fix for this is that you treat the number like a stat. Therefore, 14 popularity would be a GD (10) score and you would assign a difficulty to the roll.
FASERIP examples
- PR (4) – convince tenants there’s a fire in the building
- GD (10) – talk your way out of being arrested when you’re caught at the scene
- RM (30) – get a celebrity to make a special appearance
- AM (50) – Get a private meeting with the U.S. President.
If you have negative karma then I recommend using the tables in reverse. What I mean by this is just ignore the negative sign and recognize a -14 Popularity to be GD (14) while a -47 would be AM (47). However, since there is a negative, you will not be able to use positive means of using your popularity; that would automatically fail. Rather, you would have to use negative persuasion tactics like bullying, bribing, intimidation, and so forth.
FASERIP examples
- PR (4) – make someone move out of your way through threats
- GD (10) – break up a fight between a few criminals by being more intimidating
- RM (30) – form a supervillain group
- AM (50) – stare down Galactus (that may be a stretch)
Basically, just have fun with it. Remember, it’s MSHRPG, where rules lawyers aren’t needed.
Character profiles
Thanks for reading and keep your dice hand strong!
Professor Bill
Comic Book University
Class dismissed
Join us for good karma
The Universal Table determines the outcome of all the action in the Marvel Super Heroes RPG
Marvel Super Heroes Roleplaying Game streams live on Mondays at 8 p.m. EST on the Nerdarchy YouTube channel. Viewers in the live chat are encouraged to get their percentile dice and join in as Professor Bill leads Season Two players Nerdarchist Dave, Travis Boles from WebDM, writer and YouTuber Davae Breon Jaxon, Nerdarchy web editor Doug and staff writer Megan R. Miller through a street-level campaign featuring original superhero characters.
You can learn more about how karma is gained and used by viewers in the live stream chat here. Live chat participants can use karma to affect the results of dice rolls using the same mechanic as the players. Before rolling the dice, a player can spend karma to add to the result on a 1:1 ratio. After a dice roll, karma can be added to the result on a 2:1 ratio, with a minimum of 10 karma spent. For example, if Ash is about to make a roll to use his Fire Manipulation power, Megan can choose spend five karma to add an equal amount to the dice result. If Megan decides to roll without using karma, and rolls a 60 (a green result), she could spend 22 karma to add 11 to the result, bringing to total to 71 (a yellow result).
Marvel Super Heroes Roleplaying Game Season Two is produced by War Eagle Keep, creating overlays, running sound and a million other things that make to make this live game awesome in the Mighty Marvel Manner! Check out War Eagle Keep on Instagram @war.eagle.keep
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