Marvel Multiverse RPG Releases Major Update

Marvel's upcoming tabletop RPG has received another overhaul ahead of its release next year. Earlier this week, Marvel released a new update to the playtest materials for Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing, a new roleplaying game that allows player to either play as Marvel heroes or create their own superheroes. The new updates are intended to further streamline the rules, with several of the more complicated parts of the game removed entirely. For instance, Action Modifiers have been gotten rid of entirely, while the Defense, Health, and Focus scores have all had their calculations simplified.

We'll note that this is a playtest, so it's not a guarantee that any or all of these changes will make it into the final Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing core rulebook, which is due to be released next June. Based on the timing of the update, this could very well be the final set of proposed changes to be released before the game heads to print.

The update is available on Marvel's website now.

The full list of updates includes the following: 

• Might is now Melee. The new name reflects the ability's purpose better.
• The number of ability points a character gets per rank has changed. These are mostly much lower.
• We're getting rid of Action Modifiers, which were the ability score plus Rank. Now we're just using the ability score.
• Defense scores are now 10+ the ability score.
• Health and Focus are now 25x Resilience/Vigilance.
• The initiative modifier is now the character's Vigilance score.
• Running Speed is now 5 + 1 for every 5 points of Agility, modified by Size.
• Effects from powers, traits, weapons, or any other item that add to or subtract from damage multipliers do not stack.
• Add the character's ability modifier to damage rolls.
• Damage Reduction now affects the attacker's damage multiplier rather than being a flat number.
• Characters can heal their Health or Focus at any time by spending a Karma point.
• Weapons now add to the damage multiplier. We also added rules for grenades.
• We updated the falling damage rules.
• We added a number of reaction maneuvers.
• Characters who are not heroic can gain and spend Karma but do not start with any.
• We altered the number of power sets and powers a character can have per rank. This mostly went up.
• We clarified how concentration works with powers.
• We clarified a bunch of powers and added a few new ones too.
• We changed the number of extra traits a character gets per rank.
• We changed a number of traits to tags and made the number of tags you can have unlimited.
• We removed a couple traits and turned Combat Trickery into a power.