My superhero game of choice is Mayfair's DC Heroes ttrpg, an out-of-print game from the Eighties, specifically the 3rd edition. The game system is commonly known as MEGS, Mayfair Exponential Game System. This choice was made for the simple reason it works best for me the way I like to run a game of supers. And this conclusion was reached after playing with Champions, Prowlers & Paragons, The Hero Instant, V&V, GURPS, Icons, Mutants & Masterminds, Supergame, and some others fairly niche and obscure. So, I feel solid with my choice, and have been running a satisfying game for several years online.
But there is only so much printed adventure material available stat'ed-up for the system. This has made for me to find ways to do conversions of other game systems into MEGS terms.
The simplest conversion method is to plug in the values I believe the character or gadget, vehicle, etc. should have. This is made easy with MEGS, writing these characters and features up takes no time. But many times, I actually want to see how my players stack up against known superhero properties, and of course, how they stack up against each other. Fortunately, we have both DC and Marvel properties written-up for ttrpg's and this gives us all baseline data to know how players are going to do against She Hulk, Wonder Woman, Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Superman, etc. There is even a conversion guide for Marvel Super Heroes/DC Heroes and back again already written.
Problem is, I cannot make sense
of the conversion guide found at
the most excellent Classic Marvel Forever site (for everything
related to the MarvelSuper Heroes Roleplaying Game published by TSR from 1984 to
the early 1990's), so I have come up with my own. I am not saying the
guides prepared by John Stafford are flawed in any way. They appear to be
comprehensive and finely grained... but damned if I can see the conversion. And
I am not saying I am an expert on the FASERIP system. I've played a few
sessions of TSR's game, and I get it just fine, but I run games of MEGS.
Therefore, this conversion
calculator is designed to work with the way I like to prep for live play.
Quickly! I'm not concerned with the calculator being necessarily backward
compatible, either. That is, converting MEGS characters into FASERIP
characters. It is designed simply for the purpose of quickly
converting FASERIP stats over to MEGS stats. To reduce it even a step more, the
conversion calculator is to get at a Marvel character I want to crib for a
villain in my current campaign and butter up that NPC biscuit fast!
Marvel Superheroes uses
descriptive names for attribute values as opposed to numerical values. Oh, the
numerical values are there. Just buried behind a thin patina of (useful)
narrative flair. These terms are, from weakest to strongest; Shift 0, Feeble, Poor, Typical,
Good, Excellent, Remarkable, Incredible, Amazing, Monstrous, Unearthly, Shift
X, Shift Y, Shift Z, Class 1000, Class 3000, and "Beyond". I'm simply converting these named values into AP (Attribute
Point) equivalents.
0 AP = Shift 0
1 AP = Feeble
2 AP = Poor
3 AP = Typical (My baseline assumption)
4 AP = (10) Good
5 AP = Excellent
6 AP = Remarkable
7 AP = Incredible
8 AP = Amazing
9 AP = Monstrous
10 AP = (100) Unearthly
11 AP = Shift X
12 AP = Shift Y
13 AP = Shift Z
14 AP = Class 1000
15 AP = Class 3000
16 AP = Class 5000
17 AP = Beyond
If I were to get cute I would find places to "jump" an AP to more closely the exponential curve of awesomeness which these fictitious numbers represent. For example.
-5 AP = Shift 0
-1 AP = Feeble
1 AP = Poor
3 AP = Typical (My baseline assumption)
4 AP = Good
5 AP = Excellent
6 AP = Remarkable
7 AP = Incredible
8 AP = Amazing
9 AP = Monstrous
10 AP = Unearthly
12 AP = Shift X
14 AP = Shift Y
16 AP = Shift Z
20 AP = Class 1000
25 AP = Class 3000
35 AP = Class 5000
50 AP = Beyond
Now to transpose these "results" into MEGS Attributes and Powers and such. For me it is most important to have a correlation with the MEGS standard attribute matrix, how the attributes are not only valued, but whether they are rooted in Physical, Mental, or Magical class of attribute. If I can't fill up the attribute matrix then I cannot have any conversion.
FASERIP stands for the list of attributes used by Marvel Superhero characters. These seven attributes are Fighting, Agility, Strength, Endurance, Reason, Intuition, and Psyche. This does leave me two attributes shy of MEGS 9-attribute spread, but it is not unusual for different systems to have a different number of "attributes" for defining a character in game terms. I will work with what I have first.
Fighting = Martial Arts Skill. Yes, this does give any converted Marvel character to have Martial Arts skill in a DC game, but having characters with exceptional fighting skills, no matter how they are defined or acquired, is not a hard proposition to swallow in a superhero game. It does mean I now have to hand-wave three MEGS attributes, not two.
Agility = Dexterity.
Strength = Strength.
Endurance = Body.
Reason = Intelligence.
Intuition = Influence.
Psyche = Mind.
Nothing too complicated here. The relations are rather organic and reasonable. For an example let us now look at She Hulk, a fantastic Marvel superhero, and write her up as a DC Heroes character!
Her Fighting of Remarkable gives her Martial Arts at 6 AP. Agility of Excellent gives a DEX of 5 AP. Strength of Unearthly offers a power level of 10 AP. The last of the three physical attributes is Body, and Endurance is are obvious corollary. 8 AP for Body.
But FASERIP does have numbers for these words. I put them in () above so their progression can be easily seen. Should this be considered when making these kinds of conversions? If Good has a standard ranking number of 10, what are the APs for a ranking number of 100, which is Unearthly. Is 10 APs ten-times greater than 4 APs? Enough to matter? 5 APs is twice, 6 APs is three times, 7 APs are four times greater....7x greater. By my scale Unearthly is only 7x greater than Good, not 10x. That is a problem. Let us consider a solution...
