
Xavier and friends come to the MMRPG: X-Men sourcebook out now
August 13, 2024To me, my X-men isn’t just a phrase made famous by Charles Xavier in the comics and X-Men Animated series…it’s also what I said when I FINALLY got my hands on the Marvel Multiverse Roleplaying Game: X-Men Expansion.
This new book (available as of August 7th, wherever fine RPG products are sold) is the first character-based expansion for the MMRPG and is filled to the brim with heroes and villains from the X-Universe – more than that though it also includes finalized rules for rank advancement which we touched on here.
The book touches on the history and origin of the X-Men in comics, and then offers a helpful primer on mutants and the X-Gene that makes them special. It also offers individual chapters on the X-Men, X-Factor, X-Force, the Maruaders, Alpha Flight, the Exiles, and alternate reality or future words like the Age of Apocalypse and X-Men 2099.
Each chapter does a good job of providing enough material to serve as a solid inspiration for the lore of any X-themed game, without being so detailed it’s overwhelming; after all, with almost 60 years of X-Lore, too much is definitely a bad thing here.
Players will also get new equipment and vehicle, traits, tags, and powers, as well as rules for mental duels, the danger room, and of course dozens of new character profiles for players to explore for almost every rank. Angel? Check! Bishop? Got him! Domino? You’re in luck! Gambit? Obv! There are so many profiles to pore over, you’ll need to set aside an entire game session just to settle on your characters (remember, a fantastic success breaks ties).
There are also plenty of villains to keep you busy for a long time.
Should you buy it?
This is always a question I try and answer more specifically than just an emphatic yes or no; books are expensive, and I recognize people can’t buy everything.
If you’re a narrator, you probably should pick this up, especially if you want to veer into mutant storylines. Additionally, you get the aforementioned ranking rules, which will allow you to provide your characters with more consistent upgrades; a thoughtful system I really like, over the kitchen sink, gain a level, get it all type approach that’s used by many other games.
If you’re a player, it’s not a must have, but goodness there are a lot of cool powers in here as well as character profiles you will probably want to check out. Books of this nature are sometimes hard to recommend for players, but there is a lot to love, even if you never narrate even a single game.
As I’ve said consistently about products in this line, the book is masterfully laid out – everything is in the right place, just where you’d expect it to be, and it’s visually stunning. As always. This consistency is something I want to continually point out because that type of output isn’t universal, even amongst the big names in publishing.
The Marvel Multiverse Roleplaying Game: X-Men Expansion delivers another solid entry into one of the last year’s best RPGs…and one of the top games on my shelf.