Marvel Super Heroes Basic Set

by Jeff Grubb, Steve Winter

This setRule BookCampaign Book with over 80 heroes & villains.Two full-color maps55 character cards and stand-up playing pieces.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Games

80 pages, Boxed set

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

He is an author and game designer.

See more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Grubb

Reviews

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember play testing this when it was demoed at GenCon. While the game mechanics are not to my liking the game was nice because you could finally play your favorite comic character. Recommended

[Brian Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had cause to pull this down to pass along to my 12 year old daughter as she started up her own gaming group of like minded 6th grade Avengers fans, and on revisiting it I am reminded of exactly how blow-the-doors-off innovative this was for its time. There was literally NOTHING else like it on the shelves, from the universal table to using terminology more than numbers to the brilliantly innovative Karma system interacting with the percentile dice and the universal table. There is so much good stuff going on in here for one of the first games to directly push for narrative and simulation of a narrative genre over simulation of reality. It's brilliant.

Add on to that the idea of having Spider Man be the one explaining the rules to the players, which I kind of pooh-poohed when I was a sophisticated 14 year old gamer but my daughter loved for making the game accessible and fun. It's a perfect gateway game for new players and especially new GMs. (OK, the Karma to character improvement economy needs revision, but if that's the ONLY substantive problem in a 30 year old game design it has a lot going for it!)

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

The core system is extremely elegant. There were a couple of typos here and there, and the combat system is insanely clunky, but there's a lot there to work with. I really want to read the "Advanced" rules now and see how they stack up…

[C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Over-all, a rather mediocre game best suited for entry-level players and middle-school students. Rolling up players, however, was endless fun, as there were the "random power tables." A few dice rolls, and then you had to figure out some plausible character who had flight, sonic-concussion waves, and a force-field. Uh . . . "Boom-Box," the crime-fighting break-dancer whose costume involves built-in speakers that assault criminals with concussive waves of hip-hop! Yeah, most characters were that lame, but have you read a late 70s, early 80s marvel comic recently? I'm pretty sure the editors were using this system to generate most of the villians who faced "Cloak & Dagger," and perhaps the entire cast of the "New Warriors."