If you are looking for some super hero rpg rules in the public domain, I put together Phase Four many years ago (based off of 4CS).

https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/product/187251/Phase-Four

All the text is public domain. All of the images are public domain in the United States as best as I could research them. Most of them are comic book images that lapsed their copyright when you use to have to renew your copyright.

I keep all of the text in my codeberg repository as a markdown file as well.

https://codeberg.org/random-wizard/phase-four/src/branch/main/markdown

#rpg #faserip #ttrpg #superhero #games

Started a thread about #superhero speedster running speed and the slowness of the speed table in Advanced #FASERIP (by Gurbintroll Games, a retro-clone of the 1980s Marvel Super Heroes) on Big Purple.

True to form, respondants keep bringing up things like extra actions and multiattacks, even though I SPECIFICALLY stated, more than onece, that I was only talking about straightline speeds. Thread is full of it.

Big Purple gonna Big Purple.

My copy of Advanced #FASERIP from #GurbintrollGames is finally here, after a week's delay. I'm excited! I never had any contact with the original Marvel version (sadly!), and only had a PDF of Phil Reed's older 4C retro-clone, so it's wonderful to have a beautiful hardback of the system to hold in my hands. Looking forward to making use of it! The Resolution Table on the back cover is particularly delightful.

1. First #TTRPG ever played? AD&D
2. First you ever ran? AD&D
3. Played the most? AD&D 2e or D&D 3.5
4. Run the most? D&D 3.5
5. Favorite? AD&D 2e or D&D 3.5 (I also love FASERIP Marvel)
6. Most recently played? D&D 3.5
7. Most recently run? D&D 3.5

#Dnd #ADnD #ADnD2e #FASERIP

The table is set for #MarvelSuperheroes #FASERIP! I love this game and hope the kiddo does too.

I've been tinkering with my own version of #FASERIP for several years now -- I feel its still an uncommonly nimble, versatile and vibrant system deserving of continuing attention. But I keep hitting a structural roadblock -- one of the game's three foundational elements* is a map-based skirmish system that's pretty good ... except that it makes no allowance for airborne combatants, in a game about superheroes. 1/2

Who is gaming this weekend?

Here are the new items in the #etsy shop. More superheroes than you can shake a stick at, a very fun introduction to the Third edition game, and some Dragon Lords for D20.

https://deigames.etsy.com

#ttrpg #D20 #superhero #FASERIP #shopsmall

@vkfarfalle

Five fave #TTRPG settings.

#JohnWick's #TheFlux (this is really every setting. Take a look at it to see what I mean).
#Spiritof77 America.
#StarWarsd6 Universe
#FASERIP #MarvelSuperHeroes (originally Earth 616, but they're pretty much all good).
#SpookyBeans (The Hollow).

@Covok Dollars-to-no-nuts that the people currently in the #Marvel marketing arm never actually heard of #FASERIP, and might not even understand what it was in the context of the game market at the time, or at the current day.

I'm pretty sure they don't actually understand what the RPG industry is. Only that comic fans often overlap in terms of storefront space with RPGs, and they have heard that comics are in some way connected to their industry.

The funny thing is that several of those Marvel RPGs are actually pretty good. Not all of them, of course. But some of them are quite well-designed in themselves.

They just get no support because as a licensing entity, Marvel has always been a bit of a nightmare, trying to support a #TTRPG in the context of what Marvel demands in terms of updating and expanding what's already published is just impossible.

Bit of a shame, but that's the thing. Licensed properties are really kind of a pit for publishers. Even when they are well done and successful.

Another set of comments on comics and gaming, the sort of thing I do all the time. This time l am looking at how the "this is a perpetual team-up book" worked in the Bronze Age.

Part of me really wants to start a 2 player MSH/FASERIP PBEM with two totally new to me players where one is is playing, I dunno, Spider Man, and the other plays a different PC every month.

https://subplotkudzu.blogspot.com/2024/07/on-ragged-universes-team-ups-and-supers.html

#VnV #FASERIP

This is what I though after seeing the portrait of Charles Windsor that is making the rounds on social network.

Baron Blooddeath
F (RM)30
A (Gd)10
S (Gd)10
E (In)40
R (Gd)10
I (Gd) 10
P (Pr) 4

H 90
K 24
Popularity -75
Wealth (In) 40

Powers
Psychic Vampire (Un) 100

Talents
Weaponmaster

Contacts
Mi6, SAS, British Government, HYDRA

#faserip #rpgs #statthis #villain

Maybe now would be a good time to promote PHASE four, a FASERIP inspired super hero game that is in the public domain, I put together many years ago.

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/187251/phase-four

#rpg #faserip #osr

A used book store recently opened near me (a wonder, given how rare they've become) with a wide spread of old gaming materials. Working on my own FASERIP retro-clone, I made some well-timed finds. On first read-through, they make it clear how MSHRPG was first and foremost designed as a battle-map game. "Time Trap" is directly just a contrivance to teleport the PCs to different battlefields to face villains of escalating power, basically like stages in a side-scroller beat-em-up. #FASERIP

1/2 Delving into the history of #FASERIP its interesting how the original texts are conflicted on what Power Stunts are for, even though they're now often seen as a core feature of the system. They're unmentioned in either Basic set, not appearing until the Advanced books. And despite how the rules describe them (spectacularly pushing an existing power into a wildly new use) the various character rosters list power stunts as if they were fairly mundane expressions of existing powers.

After yesterday's Hero Point bombshell, today I ask the tough question

"Are Villains & Vigilantes inventing rules the first Power Stunts?"

The answer may shock you!

https://subplotkudzu.blogspot.com/2024/02/new-salem-renaissance-mechanics-are.html

#VnV #NSR #TTRPG #FASERIP

Putting together my own version of #FASERIP has me looking up commentary on the system, and it seems that for every designer praising the Karma economy as the grand innovation and heart of the game, there's a an old-timer reminiscing, "never understood the Karma rules, so we ignored them, we just loved seeing what happened when Wolverine fought Mister Fantastic."

I had an "if you were to wish for something to find" find at a local comic shop today!! I am so very excited! It all came in one box!

#Marvel #TSR #FASERIP #RPG

If I've got this out, it can only mean one thing!

#TTRPG #MSH #FASERIP #UniversalTable

Its pretty noticeable when part of a rules text was designed on-the-spot as it was being written. I'm formatting the Astonishing Super Heroes SRD, a version of #FASERIP, for home use, and there are large swathes of the social interaction rules that I'd be surprised were ever play-tested past their first pass on the page.

So of course I'm *re-designing* them as I lay them out ... Hypocrisy, or continuing the tradition?

Well, I'm developing a crush on #FASERIP again, and for once it's well-timed. Two of the system's major retroclones (FASERIP proper and Astonishing Super Heroes) are getting revisions.

EDIT: it should be clarified, ASH was handed over to the writer of another project, Mighty Super Heroes (an unreleased clone) and the two are being combined into a new clone, HEROIC.