Quick Word On The New Marvel RPG

GenCon is chaos and, unfortunately has has terrible, terrible connectivity issues. Makes it difficult to the the blogging that that I am actually at GenCon to do.

Those following m Twitter feed will have seen what the big Margaret Weis Productions (MWP) announcement on Friday was that they now have the rights to produce an RPG based on the Marvel Comics universe. I think that this was the big announcement of the convention. Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars announcement was big as well, but since that happened before GenCon started, they do not get the coveted "big announcement of the convention" prize.

Outside of the fact that they will be using a variation of the Cortex system (what MWP calls the Cortex Plus system), we don't know much in the way of specifics. Last night I was supposed to talk to Cam Bank of MWP after the ENnies, but the chaos of the moment (and the fact that MWP won a Judge's spotlight award for Smallville). Once I can arrange another meeting with him, I will find out the details that he can release to me.

Here is what we do know from the announcement and discussion at the panel:

• There will be a release of a "basic" book featuring all of the rules for play in February of 2012. This will be a complete game, and it will feature some of the Marvel Heroes, but which ones have yet to be determined.
• The license covers only the comic books. Movies, cartoons and other spin-off media will not be covered under the license.
• The packaging of the books will closely follow that of what Marvel uses for their compilations so that the games can be shelves along side of trades and hard cover compilations. I am assuming that they will be using trade dress similar to that used by Marvel Comics.
• This will be followed by sixteen (16) campaign books. These campaign books are going to be based around various events from the history of the Marvel Universe. During the announcement, Cam listed events such as the Secret Wars, Ultimates, Annihilation, Secret Invasion and Civil War. I know that Ultimates isn't really an event, but if we get a game book and stats for it, that will make me happy at least
• The event/campaign books will come in two formats: an "essential" edition that will be used with the core book released in February that will feature the campaign plot, character write-ups and information, but will not contain the rules that are in the basic game. A "premium" edition of each event/campaign book will also be released that will contain all of the rules needed for play, for those who would rather just have a specific event and play it out of the book, rather than collect all of the various events. I have to say that I like this strategy, and I will probably do a mix of the basic game, essentials of interest and the premium versions of events that were particular favorites of mine (I can see wanting stand alones for the original Kree/Skrull War and Annihilation, perhaps). This is  a nice approach because using premium editions with various essentials as supplements will allow groups to customize the creation of their own Marvel Universes.
• MWP and Marvel are working in what they referred to as a close partnership, and once was called "working in tandem," giving MWP an unprecedented level of closeness when it comes to approvals (this last bit is paraphrasing on my part). I think this is important for a release schedule of sixteen books in fifteen month. Having synergy with Marvel will make, or break, this project.
• On the topic of synergy, MWP has already been in talks with Barnes & Noble and Hastings about sales synergy that will see the game sold in close proximity to the Marvel trades and hardcover editions of story lines.

More information will come, as I get a chance to talk to Cam Banks, but I wanted to make sure that I was able to post a starting point for the conversation about the upcoming Marvel RPG, with the information that is currently available.