Developing MOTU Roleplaying Game

[Fisto-cuffs]

I always wanted to develop a Motu RPG, because I always thought - and even moreso with the 2002 series, that the Masters were very interesting characters, entirely overshadowed by the "Superman Dilemma" of He-man. (The fact that he is invincible and always wins making him boring)

I want to start the RPG system rules with: "He-man is dead."

Now we get to the meat of it. What would the Statistics be for a Master of the Universe? What are the primary attributes of any particular said Master? There are may routes to take.

Toy-based model: All Player Characters are from the same model of strength and their differences come from gimmicks, like a whipping tail or spring fist.

Cartoon model: Broken down like a traditional fantasy RPG? I'm not sure...

Does anyone have any ideas?

//Fisto-cuffs

[TrapJaw]

The idea of creating/playing a Masters of the Universe RPG has been brought up more than once here on the boards.

There was a request of character stats on the Masters RPG Character Stats thread, where I posted the Dungeon & Dragons stats for He-Man and Skeletor that I had found on the net (I thought that they were highly inaccurate).

There was also the RPG - The Real Thing!?!?!?!?!? thread where I talked about the game that I ran a while back.

When I ran my MotU RPG, I used the rules of the Talislanta RPG (available for free in the Downloads section at Talislanta.com/) and I structured much more like a traditional RPG, but I did allow each character to have a "gimmick" similar to the action-features of a figure or toy.

[Mistico]

One of my buddies and I are trying to develop one using D&D rules/system. We've started with the main characters (He-Man, Man-At-Arms, Skeletor, Hordak, Teela...) and are working out their characterizations, stats, and all the goodies. It'll take some time (due to jobs and such), but it will [hopefully!] be done. He's been wanting to get me interested in gaming for years and thinks this might get me roped into it. ...He may be right!

[captainamerica]

Instead of killing He-man off, you could make his gear what makes him invincible: Power Sword, Harness, maybe even his bracers, belt, shield, or axe could all be massive bonus adding weapons. So, an encounter with He-man, sans power sword and shield, might be a challenging, but not fatal encounter for PCs.

I guess I'd say slightly more traditional RPG it might be easier to build the MOTU Characters into an existing system (while possibly adding 'special rules' for the masters) than to create an entire stand alone system.

Aren't there some MOTU gaming miniatures out there?

[TrapJaw]

Rather than having He-Man dead, I choose to go with setting my game just before He-Man or Skeletor show up. It gave the player characters a chance to establish themselves and not be forever obscured by He-Man's shadow.

Another advantage to the setting that I used touches on something that captainamerica brought up—in the Mineternian-styled MotU, He-Man doesn't have amazing superpowers, just the items that give him his advantages: the force-field harness, the super-strength harness (which was still gave him far less strength than he had in the toon), and a nigh-indestructible axe and shield (which aren't necessarily canon, but something I decided on).

It's far easier to maintain a semblance of game balance in a group of characters when one of them can't pick-up and throw mountains or make cyclones by whirling his sword.

[baronterror]

Well I've been successfully running a Masters of the Universe campaign in D&D Second Edition for about 10 years, off and on.

The thing is that it's set in the world of He-Man, but everyone plays their own characters of course.

The fun was setting up the map (before I had access, or the idea there was one) and deciding what creatures were races (which 200x did a good job of showcasing) and which were one off monsters (or of alien origin and not native to Eternia).

Also as was sorta suggested, the important magic items. But really, what I did was give the players one important artifact, be it weapon or whatever. This helped realize the "Gimmick" and unique nature of all the cool characters in MOTU.

Of course most of the populace are just normal members of their respective races. But the main characters we knew as toys always had something that set them apart.

Much of what I had to do was just keep my MOTU world straight. SO much could just be renamed and flavour texted just right, and I could keep basically everything from D&D.

I dont see why this cant be done for any game someone is comfortable with.

But having a party made of 2 humans, one merman, and a whiplash race, each having a unique special weapon (or sheild in one case) sent on a quest by the sorceress, and having run ins with both heroic and evil warriors... priceless.

It's all in seeing pre made game stuff through the eyes of what you need. Since making your own gameworld has always been kinda assumed in much D&D games (whatever the edition) that is easy.

But for instance, if there's a spell that allows you to see through walls, why cant it just be a headband that you use as you like? (Think Triklops)

Or if you want a sword that shoots magic missles, why not?

I guess it worked so well for me because I didnt worry about delicate balance but did what was neccessary to recreate the feel of Masters, and the players wanted to recreate the world too, so they were responsible, but more importantly, creative.

[Met-Hild]

Toy-based model: All Player Characters are from the same model of strength and their differences come from gimmicks, like a whipping tail or spring fist.

Cartoon model: Broken down like a traditional fantasy RPG? I'm not sure...

Especially if you go by the 2002 version, I think it would be intuitive to have different stats for every character. You have some really heavy bruisers like Clawful and Ram Man, and then guys that are basically baseline humans with bionic body parts like Mekanek. Tri-Klops is probably weaker measured in brute force than whiplash, but far more skilled as a fighter, and has the added powers of the visor. Someone like Stinkor is a living chemical weapon, so it might be that his physical strength isn't very great in comparison to hand-to-hand fighters. For novel characters you could have different minimum values for different races, for instance all caligars having higher strength and constitution than baseline humans.

Where things get crazy is with characters like Man-E-Faces whose traits and abilities change with the faces. For instance higher charisma for the human face, higher intelligence for the robot face and higher strength for the monster face.

[Eternian Poet]

....and the players wanted to recreate the world too, so they were responsible, but more importantly, creative.

This makes worrying about a delicate balance moot. Always best when players are this way.