'The characters are super heroes that are trying to save the people they care about by direct action' Do they think Tony doesn't do that when he's not in his suit? It reminds of the first Avengers movie "Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off and what are you? Billionaire genius playboy philanthropist"

Firstly, let me say that this was a fantastic discussion. It was great to hear differing options is a discussion style podcast format. I maintain you could easily do an hour long podcast on a topic and have enough content to talk about the game for days. I did want to address one issue. Building Armor. I shouldn't just say armor, but rather creating a character's backstory through through stats. This is one thing this game does well. Let me explain. We often hear about people creating a Rank 3, 4, etc character from there, rather than creating them 1 rank at a time. The end result may end up the same, but if you break down a character's life over a defined period, you start to see key events happen that changed their life. Since Tony Stark was used in your discussion, lets look at who Tony is in the MCU (just as a benchmark and for consistency). In Avengers, Tony says it best when speaking with Captain America after being asked, "Take away the armor, what are you?" Tony's response: "Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist". None of those have anything to do with 'hard' stats (Melee, Agility, Resilience). Does this make him worthy of more than the 3 maximum for non-supers? Yes. Does it make him way beyond that? No, and for the reasons Fuzzy mentioned in this episode--its all about the Traits and Tags a character has, mainly because this is a "skill-less" system. Instead we have Traits that act in place of a skill system. You could easily make a skill system for this game by having a list of them with 1-4 levels that adds to an ability check, but lets stay away from that. IMHO, Tony is likely a Rank 2 character, is the same way Nick Fury Jnr, Maria Hill, and Phil Coulson are. His suits of Iron Man armor, however, are where he gains his ability to become a super hero that can go toe--to-toe with the likes of Hulk and Thor. J.A.R.V.I.S. can help, as can his glasses, suitcase, etc, His gadgets provide him with something extra and is a true example of how Tech Reliance should operate. If I was allowed to add anything to this game it would would be species maximums. An Eternal or Kree might have the ability to have a higher than 3 in the physical stats, while a Skrull may have a higher than normal Ego. For Humans, the limit of 3 is typical for our meat sacks, but the other three could have limits of 5. Having said that, I don't like the limits as they stand at all as they don't take into consideration peoples perceptions of Athletes, parkour artists, stunt performers, and true geniuses, never mind those who possess a pre-disposition to mental abilities (ESP, etc--if you believe in that sort of thing). So with that in mind, I think you could easily create Tony Stark as Rank 2, building him from Rank 1 in his college years to a Rank 2 businessman. Then, he gets his heart injury which redefines his life. He decides in that moment to create the Iron Man suit. Initially as a Rank +1 improvement. You then design the armor so it gives "+" to attributes, and powers much in the same way Cap's Shield gives a +1 Rank of the "Shield" power. As each suit changes, you create the same from scratch. The Hulk Buster Armor may provide 3 ranks instead. Anyway, that's my opinion.

This highlights that I wish we were getting a gear book before a Spiderverse book.

Great talk, and very much appreciated the discussion around Ability Scores. On page 18 of the CRB it says: "Standard human abilities range from -3 (in the case of an extremely ill person) to +3 (the limit of human ability)". There then follows a description of each of the Abilities and what they pertain to. Trying to get all of those pieces of information to correspond properly across all the character sheets and Powers seems to be a big failing in the game. I remember when we started my campaign my players took minuses in certain things and played it off normally because I hadn't taken in that "extremely ill" note. The implication of that to me is that taking minuses in your abilities does have an affect on your character's strength and intellect and the like from a roleplaying perspective. The Alpha Primitives character sheet has a -2 to Logic and they're functionally mute. -3 Logic then implies someone being a vegetable for all intents and purposes. There could do with being a streamlining process in this correlation between Ability Scores, Traits, Tags, and Powers. It's all very busy at the moment and the information is spread out across the CRB to the point where you forget certain things are relevant to others. I enjoy the game, but I'm left wanting by the character creation. It seems to have been designed purely to pick up and play without much thought for in-depth play sessions.

Thank you for this! I think you just helped me figure out how im going to do power suits in my game. So yes, more of this, please! Power suits are always a pain to quantify in superhero rpgs, and MMRPG is no different in that regard. I would do the same thing and start building the character out from 1 to 4 or 5 for Doom or Iron Man. Anyone can put on the suit, so maybe build the power suit sans Ego, Logic and Agility scores and just plug in the stats from the wearer. The time Frank Castle put on the War Machine armor immediately comes to mind.

Love these kinds of discussions. Love hearing nerds homebrew and be creative. Great video.

One thing that came to mind concerning traits like Inventor etc. and representing a "low rank" genius like Tony Stark is taking some inspiration from the cypher system and adjust the difficulty for certain rolls for these characters. Xavier may have a higher Logic rating than Tony but he's no techie. So instead having them both make a roll against the sametarget number knock down the difficulty for Tony because he's a genius inventor and knows a lot more than Xavier when it comes to this. An otherwise absurd (+6) roll might only be difficult (+2) for Tony for example. This way characters can be very effective within their field of knowledge without needing the best stats. Loved the talk, happy to get more stuff like this :)

Listening to this, the one person I agreed most with was Billy. Vann also had a lot of great points. Fuzzy I think you did a great job bringing everyone together for a thinktank session. I have one issue is you keep insisting on Rank 1 for some of these out of armor builds. Tony Stark I'm all for Billy's Rank 2 build, it makes sense. He's an establish hero and like Vann said, he is still very formidable outside the armor. Rank 1 build for me are the average joe, the beat cop, or the new supe that just discovered they have a power or two (maybe 3) but just learning how to use them. Also for me after playing multiple Superhero RPGs including the old FASERIP system. Armored or Gadget based characters, their mental based stats are rarely changed. What those abilities are in the armor are what they are out. Unless there's a special feature with their Armor or Gadget that enhances them, which is possible. I have to agree with Billy on why he initially kept Tony's Logic a 5 and why he did Tony as a Rank 2. I feel Logic is a stat that represents a characters Intelligence and corresponds to FASERIP's Reason stat. Kitty Pride can be a genius, but Tony has taken years to craft himself into the genius he is. Dropping him down to a 3 just to justify making him a Rank 1, I feel is a bit of an injustice to his brilliance, compared to Kitty being a blooming genius. Lastly, I do get where you were coming from with the Logic debate. But at the same time there are plenty of rolls and checks that could come about as non-combat rolls. Losing 2 points can have an impact on that. But my biggest take away from this excellent debate are the flaws in this particular system that needs to be homebrewed to give the game a full RPG experience. I'm a Marvel fan and I like many of the concepts of MMRPG. But its hard for me to love it. Especially after playing several other Superhero based RPGs that already do exactly what this video debate is trying to incorporate by homebrewing. Well, that is my long winded 2 cent reply. Either way I still enjoyed the video and stayed until the end which helped give me more insight on other ideas. 😀

amazing as always

Nice job really enjoyed this.

I feel changing Tony Stark’s rank without the misleading to the spirit and options. If I wanted to redefine Tony, I’d look at the stats and powers. Define what comes from the armor. His Marvel stat line can be left alone. If you wish to reduce his melee, agility, and resilience fine, but I wouldn’t go down by much. I would take all the value treated as part of the armor and allow it to be modular to be different suits and be easy to slide off. You could also pull them off and have your base Tony and let him keep his brilliance and other pieces.

Excelsior!

Ooh, bloodhunt campaign!

I do have an opinion on logic. It's absolutely the stand in for intelligence. If the elemental powers were logic based instead of ego you wouldn't hesitate to boost it. And honestly that's the answer... just Homebrew that you roll with logic because it's tech.

I love nerding out about homebrew stuff and watching other people do the same! More Q&A and panel type videos!

I enjoyed the discussion and would definitely be interested in seeing more vids like this. I will say that I didn’t follow all the nuances of the builds that were utilized, but that is totally my newness to the system. Maybe once I get into it a bit more, I could revisit this discussion and make more sense of it.

I love the Q&A. I’d love to participate with you if you wanted.

I disagree on your definition of Logic. It doesn't ONLY mean Intelligence. It can also mean things like Neurology or Quickness of thought. It makes sense for Telepathy to partially Ego (Your Power Level) and Logic (The Intricacy Level)

How would you handle someone who uses a device to transform like Amadeus Cho?