Magnificent Heroic Roleplaying System Reference Document (MHR SRD)

What is this game?

Magnificent Heroic Roleplaying is a "Retroclone" of an old, out-of-print tabletop roleplaying game that I love. The game remains my favorite superhero TTRPG ever. It is one of the first games to really get "comic book logic." It's mechanics broke from the common mold at the time of trying to emulate superheroes as if they existed in real life. Instead, it offered a simple, intuitive system for handling the types of narratives in the genre. 

Sadly, the game was short-lived as it was a licensed game and the license was pulled unexpectedly. Copies of the game in the wild are almost completely gone. Outside of a few diehard fans, it's pretty much forgotten. 

How does it play?

I will give a brief overview of the central mechanic, but there is a lot more to it to see from the document itself.            

The game is based around forming dicepools. Each player has a Statistics (Stat) that represents an element of their character. These Stats come from different groups like "Attributes," "Powers," "Skills," "Aspects," etc. A Stat's dice ranking can be taken freely from each category when forming a pool. Certain rules -- such as Stunts and Fate Points -- may alter that restriction. You then roll against the opposition's dicepool.    

For an NPC, they have their own Stats to pull from. When there is no NPC, the Difficulty Pool is an ever growing and shrinking resource that represents the tension of the scene and supplies the Game Master with a meta-resource to use to alter the game. After rolling, both sides pick two dice to make their Value by adding together the number result on the dice. Then, a third dice is chosen to determine the Magnitude of the action, where the number of the sides on the die determine the potency. 

Quite a few additional rules govern how pools are formed -- like Stunts and Fate Points -- and how they are interpreted. Players grow their characters by pursuing their own narrative arcs in Quests, with them either being intrinsic to the character or from the Campaign itself.

Why make this?

My goal here is to provide a document that other developers can use to make their own game. It also can be used as a rulebook for those interested in the original game who still want to experience it. 

What is a Retroclone?

A retroclone is, essentially, when you remake an entire game without violating the copyright of the original game. The goals of retroclones are game preservation, as companies may not be able to or aren't interested in preserving this media. Retroclones can then keep the media alive for future generations.

What is a System Reference Document?

This is a "System Reference Document" or "SRD." The term was popularized in the early 2000s. Essentially, it is a scaled down, basic version of the game's rules so that future developers can copy this description and implementation of the mechanics verbatim to make their own projects. It doesn't include any artwork, proper layout, or setting details.  A later, "full" game version may exist, but, with how complicated licensing rules can be, the simplest way of avoiding issues or confusion is to make a separate document that is only the text you want to put out on an open license. That is what a SRD allows.

While United States of America does not copyright game mechanics, the text itself is still under copyright. As such, that is a barrier of entry to any new developers who want to use those mechanics. A SRD often exists to remove that issue by giving a curated text version that can be copied verbatim in derivative works.

How does the license work?

The SRD is licensed under "Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution." This license means anyone can copy the text within, verbatim, to use in any derivative works without my approval. The only requirement is supplying proper attribution. Acceptable attribution is supplied within the document. As long as that attribution is included in your work, you are free to do whatever you please with the document and its text. 

For example, you can make your own superhero game entirely -- borrowing whole sections or even the entire document for your rules -- then simply putting your own setting or campaign on it. You can add your own mechanics. You can even just resell this document in a differently formatted fashion. The license precludes me from contesting any of these actions. It is essentially in the public domain, outside of the one attribution stipulation.

As per the terms of this license, it is unrecoverable. By putting this document onto the marketplace, I activate it. Thus, it now belongs to the belong, in most material regards.

What is included?

Provided here are two forms of the same document. An unedited, PDF without any layout work that can be read easily for referencing rules. You also reference a word processor document so you can easily import the text into your own works when you wish to use it for a derivative project.

Is this version final?

Not necessarily. I might return to it to clear up typos, expand on elements I only briefly explained, add in new mechanics, or other such updates. However, anything major -- like making a proper game -- would be separate. If I do add new mechanics into a "full title --if I were to do so -- I'd likely add a supplementary SRD to put them also under the Creative Commons license. I also have plans to convert some other works that I made over the years using this game as a base into their own SRDs in the future. However, I plan to give them their own page.