Taking a seat at the Universal Table

I can't imagine that anyone taking the time to read this blog doesn't already know what FASERIP is, but just in case:

• Fighting
• Agility
• Strength
• Endurance
• Reason
• Intuition
• Psyche

Collectively, these were every character's abilities in the Marvel Super Heroes game. Each of them had a rank, a descriptive name that was associated with a specific number. These ranks were used in conjunction with something called The Universal Table.


The above table was the heart of the Marvel Super Heroes RPG. Everything that a hero did was resolved on this table. The ranks running across the top of the table (Feeble, Poor, Typical, etc.) were the various ranks for a hero's abilities and powers. They determined your success or failure in accomplishing anything and everything. The chart determined whether or not you hit the bad guy. The rank number determined how much it hurt.

One of the most underrated aspects of the game was the use of descriptors as ranks, as opposed to raw numbers. This may have been done in other RPGs, but I'm not aware of it. It was always more fun to say that your character had Remarkable strength as opposed to a strength of 30, and I don't think there was anyone who I played the game with that eschewed the name of the rank in favor of the number. Also, the descriptors that they chose are perfect within the context of a comic book universe (click on the pic to see all of it):


That just seems right, doesn't it? You start off modest (Feeble, Poor, Typical, Good) and get more extraordinary as you move up (Excellent! Remarkable! Incredible! Amazing!) before getting to the levels where our simple minds can scarcely comprehend what's going on, and fear naturally sets in (Monstrous! Unearthly!). You can see that the distance between these numbers exponentially increases along these lines as well, which is wholly appropriate. The "shift" columns (Shift 0, Shift X) were there because occasionally factors could "shift" your rank to the left or right, thus decreasing/increasing the impact. I don't know why they decided on "Shift X" -- maybe it was a precursor to the "X-mania" that would soon overwhelm the Marvel Universe -- but when the advanced game came out (which we'll discuss later on), they ran with it, creating two more columns, Shift Y and Shift Z. Class 1000 was supposed to indicate power levels that were well beyond human understanding, the sort of beings that could wipe out the Earth by flicking a booger at it. This was also expanded upon in the advanced game, adding Class 3000 and Class 5000, presumably so these cosmic entities could have some sort of bragging rights over each other. And there was a final column, "Beyond" for which the number was an infinity symbol. The rank refers to one of the sorriest characters ever to grace the Marvel Universe, but we'll discuss *him* in later chapters as well.

Next up: The fascinating subject of Karma.