Hey there, true believers! So my wife got me the Marvel Heroic RPG Civil War Premium Event Book for Christmas. My short adventure must have been a hit! So one of the things I went and did after thumbing through the book was try out the Random Datafile Generator that’s included in the book. (which is also free on the website)

Basically, it’s a bunch of tables to roll dice against, very old-school D&D style. Actually, I think it gave me more of a Gamma World vibe, especially because of the handful of d10s to determine your random mutant/construct/psychic plant background. Either way, I was extremely dubious at first, having never had a good experience with those random generation tables. Particularly since these tables have quite a bit of power variation, and seemingly complete randomness with some elements.

Nevertheless, I was willing to give it a try. Dave Chalker, designer of the wildly popular Get Bit! game, did the design work on this piece, so… yeah, worth 20 minutes to me. And, obviously, several more for this blog post outlining my experience!

Back to Basics
First things first; step by step. For origin I rolled 1d12 – and got [3] Mutant, 2 Power Sets (step up one trait in the primary, automatic Mutant Limit on one). Okee dokee. Glancing across the page, it looks like we’ll get back to that somewhat later.

Next up? Affiliations! I coulda done this one random w/o a table, but hey. Roll 1d6 – get [5] Team d10, Buddy d8, Solo d6 – obviously gets along well with others. Oh, here we are, Power Sets next.

Ultimate Power!
Right? Here’s where power level gets all fiddly. Roll a 2? You get 2 d8s. Roll 12/11/11? Wow. Six d10s and four d8s!! In the case of this hero, rolling 1d12 for the primary power nets [12] Roll Twice, [6] 1d10+2d8, [2] 2d8 – that’s a lot of traits. And my origin steps one up? Wow. Secondary power was 1d10 (and I’m rolling real dice, once here, no fooling) [10] Roll Twice, [1] 2d8, [8] 2d10 – this is one versatile mutant, lemme tell ya!

But what do these dice mean!? So the two Power Sets, on 1d10 each, using the Mutant table, gives me [4] Common Powers and [7] Psychic Powers. Ok. So I’ll roll the first power set in order by die size (determined by the previous step) on another 1d10 table.

The heavier Common Power Set comes up [3] Movement d10 (but step it back), [2] Durability d8, [5] Resistance d8, [3] Movement d8 (stepped back), [1] Attack d8 (also stepped back). Ok. I’ll have to see what everything else does before figuring out those move, resistance, and attack powers. Oh yeah, and one gets stepped up at some point. (Spoiler: it ends up being Durability d10)

Psychic, huh? Neat. “I can kill you with my mind.” So: [9] Senses d10, [5] Invisibility d10, [10] Teleport d8, and [8] Psychic Resistance d8 – well, ok then, no killing with my mind. But the resistance presents an interesting conundrum. Reading through the powers section of the Operations Manual leads me to the conclusion that Psychic Resistance, plus Durability, plus a second Resistance would pretty much have to be Mystic. I exercised a little Watcher fiat and switched out the one from the other set for Strength d8, which will make perfect sense after all is said and done.

For SFX and Limits, the generator becomes far less random and encourages you to pick things that make sense with the power sets. So I guess I have to figure out what the power sets mean. I have to give one of them the Limit: Mutant – the psychic set looks good for that. What makes a good SFX? The suggestions for both Mutant and Psychic (dangerous, unleashed, constructs) don’t really fit the traits. So I went with sfx: Counterattack – Mental to showcase the very defensive feel to this power set.

The other power set, and I swear I didn’t do a thing with the Specialty rolls to support this (see below), looked a lot like a power-suit. Stark Industries style. I mean, hey, even Spider-Man’s got one now, right? We’ll just tuck in the “standard” power-suit SFX and Limit: sfx: Boost and Limit: Exhausted. Oh, and while we’re at it, let’s define the things we didn’t earlier. Flight d8, Swimming d6, and Weapon Systems d6 to round out the power-suit power set.

Everyone is Special
So at this point, I’m totally picturing a mutant whose mutant powers can be very easily hidden, and who wants to prove herself as a hero on merits other than being a mutant. She’s got some tech chops, maybe even science, if she had anything to do with creating that suit. Oh wait. I still have to roll up the Specialties? Perhaps I’ll have to think of something else. I roll the 1d10 for [6] Two Expert and One Master.

The first Specialty is forced by the psychic power set: Psych Expert d8. Come on tech, come on tech… [9] Tech Master d10 and [2] Business Expert d8 – like I said, I totally rolled these. After I’d figured the vague backstory. Weird.

Custom Mods
I’ll finish off the rolls here, but seeing as I’m not getting into an Event with this datasheet, I won’t flesh out the specifics. See, this is another series of aspects where you guide the character more than the dice, since they’re so personal. So, Distictions: rolling 3d6 gets [6] profession, [2] outlook or reputation, and [3] history/backstory. As for Milestones, with 2d10 we have one related to [6] a power set, and [3] her origin.

It’s About the Experience
Ok, I lied. I’m seeing a lot of nifty possibilities for those character traits. Let’s start with Stark Industries Intern, with hopes to upgrade that. Perhaps some Nope, Not a Mutant, Really, which has brilliant d4 / pp possibilities. I’m picturing her suit perhaps having some vibranium thrown in, possibly a hidden ally in Storm, so how’s about Child of Wakanda.

She’s really torn about her mutant abilities. We can weave that into both Milestones, I think – the origin one focusing on the mutant half, and the power set one focusing on the power suit and tech/business savvy. I’m amused by the classic Daredevil Out in the Open Milestone, so she’ll gain 1 xp when she denies being a mutant. Maybe 3 xp for solving a problem that would have been far easier with her mutant powers. And 10 xp for either finally accepting that part of herself, or finding a “cure”. The issue with this Milestone is that it has a perfect name in the Distinctions: Nope, Not a Mutant, Really. Ooh, inspiration just hit! The Distinction is now These Genes Don’t Fit.

Building one around the power-suit power set is more interesting. There aren’t too many examples in the supplied datafiles, other than Iron Man. Not a terrible plan though – I think he’s kind of a personal hero to this character. So 1 xp for shutting down a suit power. To break the mold, 3 xp for when an ally stresses out a villain using an asset or complication created using the suit. Finally, 10 xp when something really awesome or horrible happens as a direct result of using the suit instead of her mutant powers.

What’s In a Name?
Carbon and Alloy are both already taken in the Marvel Universe. Polymer? Heh, ok. Suit probably looks black and silver, made from carbon nanotubes and vibranium. Sweet. A black/silver psychic Samus clone named Polymer. Lovin’ it. Did some quick, completely unscientific, research on Kenyan and Nigerian surnames, nicknaming “Polly” from “Mary”, and decided her real name is “Mary Mosuro”.

Retrospective
This process is actually really awesome. One of the fantastic things about the Marvel RPG is how fluid and “storyish” all the building blocks are. I started this experiment just wanting to throw numbers on graph paper and see how outlandish the resulting hero was (’cause, let’s be honest, Doctor Volcano is pretty ridiculous), but I really like how Polymer evolved from the tables, and would love to play her in an Event. I can see this method, used in conjunction with my now-standard-for-campaigns Fiasco-style world building, really setting off an incredible group dynamic.

I threw Polymer together as an actual ready-to-play sheet. Good exercise – now I have a layout to use in the future!