Mighty Marvelous Act 1

A 3 Act look at a superhero game!

I’ve been on the lookout for a superhero TTRPG, and I have a few already in my library, but just was not sure if I wanted to try to tackle them solo. I randomly came across a posting for Mighty Marvelous by Sarah Solo aka Sarah Blount on Reddit and decided to give it a try, since it was on sale and only a few bucks. Less than if I bought myself a fancy coffee. Plus, it was created specifically to play solo!

Thumbnail is cover-art from rulebook by Miguelangel Bastidas

The layout of the rulebook is very basic. There are no links to the pages from the table of contents. It is difficult to read on a mobile/tablet. But on my PC, it works just fine. But the rules themselves are quite nice. It’s a PbtA style game, where you roll action dice vs challenge dice and then derive a strong hit/weak hit/miss.

There are lots of random tables included in the rules, introduced within each section. But she gratefully also includes them all in the appendix at the end of the rulebook for much easier referencing. Good on you, Sarah!

Regardless, I still pulled in a few helper tables from my Book of Random Tables: Superheroes by dicegeeks and my beloved Mythic GME.

She also provides an oracle roll, two d6’s, one for yes and one for no. Compare the two for your answer. If they tie, it’s a “Yes, but”. And each tie adds in a Twist Mechanic you can use later.

Inspired by Paul Walker’s 3 Act series, I’ll do something similar here. We’ll play out a few scenarios in the game, and I’ll summarize them in 3 Acts. I won’t show all of the rolls for the hero generation but go over my selections. Basically, you select your character’s gender/name/goals/ethics/personality/background etc, or you can roll for them on the provided tables.

You then roll 4d6 for each Ability and drop the lowest value. You can choose which of your 6 Abilities gets each score, I just rolled mine “down the line”.

In addition to your Abilities, you also have Skills associated with each Ability. For the most part, you will use the Skills during gameplay, only occasionally rolling against an ability directly. Each skill uses a different die, based on the level. Level 0 is a d4, Level 1 is a d6, Level 2 is a d8, and Level 3 is a D10. As your character levels up by completing tasks, you can earn more skill points. There are 25 skills to choose from, and an allowance for the creation of custom skills as well, which is cool.

Here is my superhero:

Name: Archie Wise
Superhero name: Glacier
Age: Adult (30)
Gender: male

HP 9
Abilities (Value/Modifier): Brawn 12/0, Agility 15/+1, Fortitude 7/-1, Intelligence 9/0, Wisdom 16/+2, Charisma 15/+1

I’ll list the skills I have assigned my initial points to, the rest are all level 0.
Unarmed: 1 (d6)
Acrobatics: 1(d6)
Athletics: 1(d6)
Stealth: 3(d10)
Defense: 1(d6)
Research: 1(d6)
Healing: 1(d6)
Magic: 3(d10)

Glacier has 3 superpowers: Flying, Invisibility, and Freeze Breath. I’ll use Acrobatics for Flying, Stealth for Invisibility, and Magic for Freeze Breath.

Archie/Glacier is an emotional man. He often lets his temper get the best of him. He has chiseled features, and a tall, willowy body.

He is weak against psychic energy. Though I rolled this randomly, I think it coincides well with his lowish Fortitude and Intelligence.

For his costume: he has no cape, but he wears a jumpsuit that is dark purple, silver, and white. Over it all, he wears an old leather jacket and a ninja style mask.

As his alter ego, he works as a journalist.

There’s more to the backgrounds and whatnot, but we’ll reveal it as we develop the story! Here we go!

Act 1

First roll for background mission: Find Missing Person.
Oracle: Is this person my starting Bond? Yes 4, No 1. Yes it is!

Inciting Incident for Act 1: Someone falling from tall building.
Oracle: Is this the missing person? Yes 3, No 2.

Wow, so my Bond who was missing was apparently kidnapped and is being dropped from a tall building.

Location table: 7 Hospital

I rolled a d8 for if it is caused by a Criminal 1-5 (low level), Villain 6-7 (mid level), or Archenemy 8 (boss level). 2 Criminal

Criminals have 1HP each and are in groups of d4=2. I rolled on the Criminals table and they are Assassins! This is particularly interesting because my character’s background is that I left a group of trained assassins. So maybe they are trying to “get back at me”!

Being assassins, they probably know my Bond, Violet Lewis, my best friend, is dear to me and are using her prospective death as bait to get me to come to them.

Year 2000: Huntsville, New Mexico

Archie Wise sat in his office at the local newspaper, Huntsville News. He was supposed to be writing a story on the ever-growing crime incidents in the city. Instead, he was furtively looking for clues as to the location of his missing friend, Violet Lewis.

The phone on his desk rang, startling him from his concentration with the sudden noise. He distractedly picked up the receiver.

“Hello, this is Archie Wise, Huntsville News.”

Oracle: Does the caller know his secret identity? Yes 4, No 1.

“Archie, this is Officer Amabel Gupta. Can I speak freely on this line?” a smooth female voice responded over the phone.

“Yes, go ahead.” He said in as normal of a voice as he could manage. Archie’s secret identity of Glacier was known only to a few people in the city, and Officer Gupta was one of them.

The line was silent for a few moments, then her lowered voice said in a whisper, “There’s trouble down at the county hospital. A couple of men have a woman held captive, threatening to throw her off the roof unless Glacier comes to meet them there.”

“Understood” he said grimly. He was about to hang up when he heard Officer Gupta call out on the line.

“Wait!” She cleared her throat. “Archie, please try to remain calm. I don’t want another incident where the criminals are not alive to be prosecuted. Do we understand each other?”

Archie gritted his teeth. He knew in his mind that he had to allow the justice system to work as intended. But there were times when he was battling enemies and casualties happened. Sometimes, arrest was not an option. When a police officer killed a criminal, there was a brief investigation, then all was good. When he did…well, then he was no better than a vigilante.

“Understood.” He repeated. She tsked and was about to say something, but Archie had already slammed the receiver back on the phone.

He grabbed his gym bag that he never left home without and hurried to the roof of his office building. He looked around surreptitiously, then hurriedly removed his clothes and donned his leather jacket over this dark purple, silver, and white jumpsuit. He pulled a mask up from his jumpsuit, then leapt into the air.

The wind buffeted him as he flew to the scene of the criminal activity at the county hospital.

Our first roll! I’ll do a skill check here to see if he can fly there quickly.
Acrobatics d6+1 Agility=5 vs 2d12 3,6. Weak Hit!
To see the complication, I’ll roll on the Fail table: 4 The Newspapers publish mocking articles about you.

As Archie, now Glacier, neared the hospital, he could see two men holding a struggling woman near the edge of the building. As he got closer, he could see it was his best friend, Violet! He willed himself to become invisible, so he could swoop in and grab her without being seen.

Stealth d10+1 Agility=10 vs 4,9. Strong Hit. +1 XP.

You earn 1 XP for every strong hit of a skill outside of combat. Combat XP is awarded per enemy defeated. You level up every 20 XP.

Glacier could see the men growling something to the woman, but he did not care what they had to say. He swooped down, invisible to their mere human vision, and grabbed Violet in his arms. She screamed in fear as she was swooped away by some unseen force.

Glacier flew down to the ground, where a gaggle of press had gathered taking pictures. He became visible as his feet touched the ground and he put Violet down. She looked up at him in admiration.

“You saved my life!” she gasped.

Oracle: does Violet know Archie is Glacier? Yes 6, 4 No. She does

Glacier smiled under his mask. “Sure did.” Cameras flashed as the press members snapped pictures of them standing together.

She gazed up into his eyes, she had known of his secret, but this was the first time he had ever saved her from danger. A twinkle he had never seen in her eyes now revealed something new. They could talk about it later, these goons had kidnapped her, and now had to be dealt with.

A nearby reporter from Huntsville News scribbled in his notepad, “Glacier was almost too late. The criminals mockingly called him names while he made out with their victim.” The man was Archie’s rival, Rafferty Baddoo.

The wail of sirens from approaching police drew nearer as Glacier landed on the rooftop, facing off against the two criminals.

“You have made a huge mistake for leaving the Invokers.” One of them growled.

Invokers. That was a name Glacier had not thought about for a while. Once it was discovered he had these powers, he was recruited into an assassin’s guild. He quickly realized they were killers, not the vigilantes they claimed to be. So, he left. Apparently, they did not forgive that affront easily.

They both pulled short-swords from under their long coats. Blades could still hurt him, though they were not as dangerous to him as to a Normie (what supers called normal people). Glacier scoffed as they parted to approach him from two directions.

According to the rules, combat should revolve around skills, but not Defense. That is for events that happen to your character. Like a car crashing into you, falling from heights, etc. Combat rolls are worked out like this. A Strong Hit on a skill check is 1HP from the enemy. A Weak Hit is no damage to either enemy nor hero. A Miss is the damage die of the enemy done to the hero. Criminals use a d4.

Criminals have 1 HP each.

I’ll do the rolls for the combat, then narrate the result for brevity.

One of the men feinted with his sword, while the other silently slid forward for a jab. Glacier slid to the side and released a cone of his Freezing Breath. The man nimbly avoided it while the other launched a second attack. Glacier leapt into the air over the sword blow, and attempted to punch the man as he descended. The enemy’s blade came up to parry his fist, and he grabbed the lapel of Glacier’s jacket in an attempt to pull him into his blade.

It was a mistake. Glacier breathed his frosty breath over the man, and he fell frozen to the ground. Alive…but very, very cold and unconscious.

+1 XP for criminal defeated

The other man’s blade scraped against his leather jacket, but Glacier was able to dodge aside before it bit into his flesh. He released a blast of cold air toward the man, but he was able to shake off the effects. The hero was surprised as the assassin slid forward and thrust his sword into his leg. He howled in pain as the blade drew blood. He tried to fly up into the air to escape, but the man grasped his legs. Glacier kicked himself free and turned invisible to try to gather himself.

At this point, I was down to 1 hp. The dice were against me!

“Coward!” the man yelled. Just then, police officers burst onto the roof of the building. The man glanced at them, then leapt from the roof, activating a jet pack to escape.

Glacier reappeared; he could not stay invisible for long. He zoomed after the fleeing criminal, desperate to bring him to justice. He dived upon the fleeing man to strike him like a falcon, but the man dodged aside with finesse. Who was this guy?

Glacier let another blast of his frigid breath blast toward his enemy, but the swift moving air as they flew kept it from his foe. He would have to do this with brute force. Once again, he flew toward the jetpack, hoping to damage the equipment. But the man anticipated his every move! He rolled on his back mid-flight and slashed out his blade as Glacier descended.

The blow was too much, and Glacier tumbled to the ground below. He groaned in pain as he gathered himself. By the time he was back on his feet, it was too late, the man was now gone from sight.

Glacier 0 HP. We get to decide what happens when you get to 0. I decided it meant the enemy escaped.

Stress when facing Criminals goes up by 1. When you get to 10 stress you have to do a Downtime event.

Healing d6 +2 Wisdom=4 vs 7,9 Miss. No healing

That will be it for this 1^st act! I’m going to level up this criminal to a Villain status so he can be a recurring encounter for my superhero. We’ll allow Glacier to heal up, increase his Bond with Violet, and get ready for his next bit of adventure! In Act 2, we’ll go through the “patrolling mechanics” presented in the rulebook.

See you next time!