I picked up this game a couple months back and I'm going to run it for a few friends soon. I'm so excited!
But I'm running into a bit of an issue that I'm not quite understanding how exactly the character creation process goes (mostly the part about assigning stats based on the arrays you've chosen). It's probably just my brain, but do you maybe have a video or a dumbed-down step by step document that I could consult? Any help/advice would be immensely appreciated!
Putting together an explainer video is a great idea. Not sure I could put one together any time soon, but I can try to help with how arrays work. For this walk through, I'm going to use the values from Classic Power Level, as shown on Pg. 19 of the Metahumans Rising core book. Characteristic Levels used to describe Attribute Values are then found on Pg. 21.
The character begins with a History Value of 10.
The player then selects from one of the three arrays
Heroic, a mix of Expert, Above Average, and Average attributes
Well Rounded, a more even distribution with most attributes landing Above Average, with one Expert attribute and one Average attribute.
Focused, here the character has a Remarkable, Expert, and Above Average attribute, the rest falling into the Average range.
Players can then assign the values provided freely across the attributes. For example, a bruiser how tanks damage might do something like this:
Attribute Array: Focused
History 10 Strength 12 Dexterity 4 Constitution 15 Sense 5
This sets up a lot of classic tank tropes, they are strong and tough, but not too quick. They are also strong willed, but have fairly average attributes outside of that.
Reminder: Characters start with AP which lets them boost Attributes, so even if something is a little lacking initially, the player will have a chance to go back and give it a little bump near the end.
How to decide what goes where?
Other than History, nothing is preselected where things have to go. Players choose what attribute their Power(s) is linked to , this means they have the freedom to decide what's important and what makes narrative sense. Revising the example above, let's say instead of being a traditional tank that derives their power from their body, they are a psychic that weaves a telekinetic construct around themselves in battle. Functionally, the power might change only very little* but instead of Constitution being the Parent Attribute, now we want Intelligence. In this scenario they might have their array lined up like this:
Attribute Array: Focused
History 10 Strength 4 Dexterity 5 Constitution 5 Sense 8
Here we use the same array, but in a very different order. This casts a very different light on who the character is as a person, and how they might play at the table.
I hope this helps you and your friends as everyone makes characters. If you have other questions, or want to dive into something here, let us know.
* Very Little Change: Both characters might start with the Invulnerability sample power, Pg 71, but our psychic adds the Unique Drawback: Activation Required to Passive Defense, and Locks the rest of their Defensive Boons to this to represent activating the construct.
This is such a great game, and even free at that! I've been having such a blast within the past hour by just building the vast world with all kinds of insane stuff like magic, aliens, and metahumans, obviously. And of course, I have to talk about the art, too. I love the art style; it reminds me of all the comics I stealthily read at the bookstore when I was small... Setting up the table right now, gonna call my buddies over for a session, who I'm sure would love the game as well.
Seriously, this is one of the best finds I've come across recently on Itch.io.
I can't believe this book has gone under my radar for such a long time.
Thank you so much for your kind words. Hopefully, Metahumans Rising can provide you an expansive toolset to craft your worlds. Community copies were a bit thing for us as it removes barriers for people wanting to try new games. This is also why most of our adventures are PWYW, it helps to keep everything accessible. (The material that isn't has come from our now completed Patreon, for the Steel Aces comic, we wanted to still be able to offer it, but didn't want to minimize the aid our patrons provided as we brought the Aces to the page.)
Here's to your adventures to come, we hope you enjoy.
Metahumans Rising can facilitate most game tables, typically 2 to 6 players, with 3 or 4 being a kind of sweet spot. At conventions I've run one on one games, and once a table of 12 people. At that size though we got a bit wild and woolly to keep things moving.
I really enjoy the fluid way that characters can utilize their abilities in this rule set. The ability to spend session resources of your character to think of creative ways to add extra skills/power/abilities to your role as long as it is in a way that makes sense it pretty awesome.
Thanks for the callout r0wntree! The ability to adapt powers and tactics is something we felt was an iconic aspect of comics and superheroes. It's also something we wanted to make sure was represented in Metahumans Rising. We're glad you enjoy the game and the ways we tried to encourage creativity.
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I picked up this game a couple months back and I'm going to run it for a few friends soon. I'm so excited!
But I'm running into a bit of an issue that I'm not quite understanding how exactly the character creation process goes (mostly the part about assigning stats based on the arrays you've chosen). It's probably just my brain, but do you maybe have a video or a dumbed-down step by step document that I could consult? Any help/advice would be immensely appreciated!
Putting together an explainer video is a great idea. Not sure I could put one together any time soon, but I can try to help with how arrays work. For this walk through, I'm going to use the values from Classic Power Level, as shown on Pg. 19 of the Metahumans Rising core book. Characteristic Levels used to describe Attribute Values are then found on Pg. 21.
How to decide what goes where?
Other than History, nothing is preselected where things have to go. Players choose what attribute their Power(s) is linked to , this means they have the freedom to decide what's important and what makes narrative sense. Revising the example above, let's say instead of being a traditional tank that derives their power from their body, they are a psychic that weaves a telekinetic construct around themselves in battle. Functionally, the power might change only very little* but instead of Constitution being the Parent Attribute, now we want Intelligence. In this scenario they might have their array lined up like this:
Here we use the same array, but in a very different order. This casts a very different light on who the character is as a person, and how they might play at the table.
I hope this helps you and your friends as everyone makes characters. If you have other questions, or want to dive into something here, let us know.
* Very Little Change: Both characters might start with the Invulnerability sample power, Pg 71, but our psychic adds the Unique Drawback: Activation Required to Passive Defense, and Locks the rest of their Defensive Boons to this to represent activating the construct.
This helps so much! Thank you!
This is such a great game, and even free at that! I've been having such a blast within the past hour by just building the vast world with all kinds of insane stuff like magic, aliens, and metahumans, obviously. And of course, I have to talk about the art, too. I love the art style; it reminds me of all the comics I stealthily read at the bookstore when I was small... Setting up the table right now, gonna call my buddies over for a session, who I'm sure would love the game as well.
Seriously, this is one of the best finds I've come across recently on Itch.io.
I can't believe this book has gone under my radar for such a long time.
Thank you so much for your kind words. Hopefully, Metahumans Rising can provide you an expansive toolset to craft your worlds. Community copies were a bit thing for us as it removes barriers for people wanting to try new games. This is also why most of our adventures are PWYW, it helps to keep everything accessible. (The material that isn't has come from our now completed Patreon, for the Steel Aces comic, we wanted to still be able to offer it, but didn't want to minimize the aid our patrons provided as we brought the Aces to the page.)
Here's to your adventures to come, we hope you enjoy.
How many players is this game?
Metahumans Rising can facilitate most game tables, typically 2 to 6 players, with 3 or 4 being a kind of sweet spot. At conventions I've run one on one games, and once a table of 12 people. At that size though we got a bit wild and woolly to keep things moving.
looks like lots of fun
We hope you enjoy playing!
I really enjoy the fluid way that characters can utilize their abilities in this rule set. The ability to spend session resources of your character to think of creative ways to add extra skills/power/abilities to your role as long as it is in a way that makes sense it pretty awesome.
Thanks for the callout r0wntree! The ability to adapt powers and tactics is something we felt was an iconic aspect of comics and superheroes. It's also something we wanted to make sure was represented in Metahumans Rising. We're glad you enjoy the game and the ways we tried to encourage creativity.