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Be Heroic!

Lady America - MSH

So I've decided that I will post the occasional member of the Zenith Universe fir my Mighty Super Heroes hack of Marvel Super Heroes (FASERIP).  The reason I am doing this is because first I make (very little) money by selling heroes and villains for other systems and secondly because I cannot sell characters for MSH legally but I REALLY want to share these characters with you!

Note these characters will be build using my House Rules which you might want to take a look at them to understand the differences.

So without further ado, let's get down to business!

Let's start with the character sheet.

Art by Oliver Castaneda

Name: Lady America
Secret Identity: Amanda Reese

Attributes
F: Am(50) A: In(40)    S: Ex(20)   E: Rm(30)
R: Gd(10)  I: Rm(30)  P: Ex(20)

Statistics
Popularity: Uy(80) Resources: Ex(20)
Health: 140 Karma: 60 Initiative: +7 (+12 in Melee)

Powers & Equipment
Armour Cloth Suit – Ex(20) protection vs. FORCE and Ty(06) vs. ENERGY

Talents
Acrobatics
Guns
Martial Arts A – Slam & Stun regardless of comparative STR/END
Martial Arts B – +1CS Fighting Unarmed
Martial Arts C – +1CS STR for Grappling & Escaping, +1CS Agility for Dodging
Martial Arts D – Ignore Body Armor for Slam & Stun
Martial Arts E – +1 to Initiative
Martial Arts F – +1CS damage, HTH can be Edged
Martial Arts G – +1CS Dodge, -1CS Damage
Martial Arts H – +1 Attack after 1 Round
Martial Arts I – +1CS to Recovery FEATs and +1CS vs. Slam & Stun
Martial Arts J – +1CS to Evasion FEATs
Martial Arts K – +1CS to Blocking and vs. Slams & Stuns
Master of the Martial Arts
Military
Quick Striking – +1CS on Multiple Action FEATs and +1 Initiative
Thrown Objects
Thrown Weapons
Tumbling
Wrestling

Positive Quirks                 Negative Quirks
Benefactor                         Attitude: Hard Ass
Fame                                  Duty
Fighting Logistics              Enemy: Überfrau
Reputation                         Nightmares
Static                                  Personal Code: No Man Left Behind
Quick Learning                  Zealot: America

So there she is, in all her glory, though there are a few things that need to be explained as well.

She has a Negative Quirk called Nightmares (which I made up) and it requires her to make a Psyche FEAT, Yellow result or better, with a -2CS each night.  If she fails this roll, she does not sleep well and suffers a blanket -1CS to everything the next day.

Her Duty is to the Government of the United States of America and specifically to the Oval Office from where she takes her marching orders.

Her enemy is Überfrau, whom she has sworn to one day bring before the courts to be held accountable for her atrocities.

This ties into her No Man Left Behind code, which requires her to make a Psyche FEAT to leave an injured ally on the field of battle.

Lastly she is a Zealot for the ideal of America and American values.  She is no fan of corporations and bankers, but she would require a Psyche FEAT to go against the orders of the President.

Roleplaying Lady America is essentially 1 part John Rambo, 1 part Ellen Ripley and 1 part John Wayne.  She is not a hokey icon like Captain America is so often portrayed.  Unlike him she lived through the years and changed with the times.

She is a relentless hard-ass who treats everyone like they are in the military primarily because she has been for over 70 years, but she is loyal as hell and will never give up on an ally.

Well there she is, maybe next time I'll bust out a piece about the one time she had powers.  In the meantime please let me know what you think in the comment section below.

Cheers!

Whimsy Cards and Mighty Super Heroes!

Okay I refuse to let the only writing I do today be that self-indulgence from earlier, so here is something I have been working on since last week and wanted to get done.

As recent readers know I am going to run a heavily house ruled version of Marvel Super Heroes from TSR that I have rebranded Might Super Heroes, because I am oh-so clever and MSH.

On top of creating my own Colour Chart for use in the game, since I changed the ranks a wee bit and use the Blue Result after years of resisting it, I wanted to add in something that has been a staple of my gaming for years.

Whimsy Cards.

I first encountered Whimsy Cards in TORG, a game I loathed, but the cards really sang to me.  Years later I saw an article in an RPG APA I was part of on how to adapt these cards to WEG's Star Wars game (remember how much I love D6?).  Well that just showed me that I could adapt them to MSH easily as well.

So I did.

Over the decades (literally) these cards have mutated and changed.  I've added, removed and adjusted cards until I got the set I now use for MSH, though I've made them for almost every system I have ever run.

Without further ado here is how they work.

• Each player has a hand of 5 cards.
• Only 1 card per player can be played per round.
• Instead of playing a card into action, the player can choose to play it into their pool.
• Pool cards can be played at one time, breaking the 1 card per 1 round rule.
• Cards are only replenished at the beginning of a new scene, though do not replenish unplayed cards in a pool, they count towards the player's hand.

Pretty simple right?

The cards themselves are an eclectic mix of adding bonuses here and there, giving a karma boost or the all-powerful subplot cards that allow for very specific in game effects.

Without going into too much detail, the cards are pretty much self explanatory, though there are a couple of Subplot Cards that have a * on them which means there is more than what is written on the card, due to space limits.

The Mano-A-Mano card says; "You and a single foe gain +2CS vs. each other until the end of the fight." but more so there are 2 more rules that you can choose to add.  The first is that if anyone attacks either of you, other than each other, the bonus ends, breaking the one-on-one dynamic.  The other rule is that if the opponent you've played this card on also happens to be your Nemesis (from the Quirks) the bonus is raised to +3CS.

The Master Plan card says; "Pick up the last card played." but a more practical rule is to limit the Rally card from being allowed to be picked up.  The Rally card lets the players discard as many cards as they want and draw new hands.  I have seen Master Plan, Rally, Master Plan, Rally events happen and it is a tad abusive.  Your mileage may vary.

The Self-Sacrifice card says; "Your hero dies so your allies can escape." which is great, but I also give that player's next character 200 bonus starting Karma, just 'cause.

Again the rest of the cards are pretty self-explanatory so I encourage you to give them a read.

I have put a zip file of them here in sheet form for your usage, with a card back that has my custom colour chart values, but these cards can be used as is with rules-as-written MSH, so no worries there.

Cheers!

Mighty Super Heroes A.K.A. FASERIP or MSH

Well mid-summer is upon us and as happens every year to my gaming group we lose players every session due to live, trips, work and vacations.

As such I find it is best to run a campaign where folks can drop in and out between sessions and not disrupt the storyline/plot.

Superheroic roleplaying to the rescue!

When it comes to superheroes there is only one game that all my players can agree on and that is Marvel Super Heroes Roleplaying Game from TSR, a.k.a. FASERIP, though we just called it MSH.

This is in no way a slight against any other game, especially SUPERS! of which I am a part owner, it is just that I game with people mostly my age and they know MSH well and more importantly they don't want to learn a new system most of the time.

So with that in mind I have begun work on a new campaign for them, which has kept me creative and excited!  More on that campaign in a future post (and I will try to cross-stat it for SUPERS! as well).

Go here for full size!

The first thing I had to do was gather my House Rules, that is the easiest as some I have used for the past almost 30 years of playing MSH and some I grab off the internet.

Then I make a colour chart to include said house rules, it looks something like this.  I am rather proud of that myself.

Go here for full size!

Next I make the astounding (amazing? remarkable?) Unipage!  This is a one
page sheet that provides some important stuff for players to have for the games.

Lastly I have my Whimsy Cards, of which I am very proud!

With that I await the first session and updating you with not only excitement and drama, but some stats as well!

Cheers!

Mighty Super Heroes Are Go!

Hey there,

So I am getting back on the horse. I want to take this moment to thank everyone once again for their kind support and their warm humanity with my recent batch of troubled times. It was very very appreciated.

Now as to what is this "Might Super Heroes" thing all about?

As you may notice to the right hand under the "What I am playing" section there is a mock-cover for the not really real Mighty Super Heroes RPG. What happend to BASH! UE? What's going on? Has the world gone crazy?

Well a note about BASH! UE. I still think it is a tremendous game and the first ever power builder I actually enjoyed. I will continue to move forward with my plans to publish roster books for it (and M&M and ICONS, but not HERO since they want a cut of sales for the privilege and the pie will already be super small after the online distributors take their slice) but I won't be running it at my table. Nothing against the game, I just can't fight my Marvel Super Heroes RPG roots. They go over 20 years deep and I just don't feel comfortable running my style of game in another system.

That said MSH (get it?) has a lot of problems, or old mentalities. So one of the things I am doing is updating the FASERIP engine to be more modern. This actually has a lot to do with other super hero games.

For example I am adding the "Callings" from the Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game (SAGA), the "Mental Malfunction" of BASH!, the "Wound Track" from Mutants & Masterminds and other things, some even my ideas too!

Not sure if you guys want to see this here yourselves, but I may post about it and will certainly put up characters with the stats from it.

I will not publish it ever. I might make up a pdf of it but only as a free download and never for cash. Might Super Heroes isn't about that, it is merely about the game I have loved for 20+ years getting a bit of a pimping.

Face front true believers, this is gonna be fun!

*The art used for the cover was taken from the internet and is used without permission. No offense intended.

Mighty Super Heroes! or Excelsior! ?

This is the question.

I have promised to do a retro-clone this year of MSH Classic (FASERIP for those who remember) in response to my feelings on 4C. Yes I wasn't very impressed.

Now over on Grognardia there was some talk about MSH Classic today and I posted about this. Naturally I posted about my plan to do this and how I wanted to call it "Mighty Super Heroes!" Get it? M-S-H?

Anywho, an upright citizen named Delta reminded me and everyone that Marvel and DC hold the trademark on the term "super hero". Now while I don't fear that they would come after me for a "free" project, nonetheless anarchist (yes I see the delicious irony in that) suggested calling it "Excelsior!" instead. I like that too.

So what do you think folks? What are you thoughts on title?

Comment please :)

25th Anniversary!

So with 2010 right around the corner, I realized something. This is going to be my 25th anniversary of roleplaying! I started way back in 1985 as a freshmen in high school and never looked back int he quarter century since.

Wow.

Unlike most people I didn't start with D&D but actually with FASA's Star Trek game. I quickly moved on to Villains & Vigilantes and then dabbled a bit in D&D.

Fantasy rping always took a back seat to Star Trek or Superheroes, that's just the way it was up until 1989. Then I discovered a game that made all others moot for me, it came in a minimalist black box and cost my $18 at Captain Quebec (uFLGS) and it was called Cyberpunk.

I ran Cyberpunk for years (both 2013 and 2020) and was considered quite a lethal referee. I still am. I have always warned players that all other games I run for them to have fun and explore the world... Cyberpunk I run for me. And I like shootouts, double-crosses and non-stop action. All of these things lead to very high PC bodycounts in Cyberpunk and I am quite fine with that.

The other two themes I have ran to death are Superheroes and Star Trek.

I was the only person in my circle of gamers who held onto MSH Classic (FASERIP) after everyone else had moved on to Mutants & Masterminds. I just never got into all that book keeping. Wasn't for me. MSH was elegant, fast and I could eyeball a threat/power level in seconds. I didn't need to then perform a bunch of caculations based on that eyeballing, all I needed to do was add some ranks and Bob's your uncle.

I have run homegrown campaigns, Marvel Universe campaings, DC Universe campaigns and a weird folded Universe that lasted a bloody longtime as well.

Star Trek is another game I have ran in almost every incarnation, though not the one that came before FASA Trek. I have run Next Gen Campaigns, Movie Gen Campagins, Post-Gen Campaigns and even my own Ultimate Universe version of Star Trek. I have run Prime Directive using the original rules and D6. I know my Trek, but surprisingly only became a fan after I start RPGing it. That is why the FASA Universe will always be in step with how I see Star Trek and as such Movie Gen being Trek to me.

So with my 25th Anniversary of gaming looming I plan to spend 2010 revisiting these awesome genres (as well as continuing work on Final Age) and really have some old school fun with myself. The only difference is that I will use SAGA instead of FASERIP for my supers. I don't know what I will use for Trek and I will use my melange of 2013/2020 rules for Cyberpunk.

It's gonna be a good year for gaming!