Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game: X-Men Expansion Preview by Elisa Teague, Matt Forbeck & Marty Forbeck

I had the opportunity to stop by my friendly local-ish game store (shoutout to the wonderful folk at Game Kastle College Park) for the first time this past Saturday because it was Free RPG Day! I’ve missed every single iteration of the day since it’s inception, so was super ready to take part this year, even if only for a while or, if I could manage it, a whole session.

It was actually an email from Marvel that alerted me to this year’s festivities, and their free X-Men Expansion Preview that I beelined to after coming in and having a hello chat with the guy behind the counter. I have wanted to be a member of the X-Men ever since I was a pre-teen, possibly even sooner, but have found most superhero RPGs to be, frankly, underwhelming. Weirdly, I’ve had the most fun roleplaying as a superhero using GURPS. So I didn’t really pay much attention to the release of the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game (I’ve never dreamed of being an Avenger, which is basically the focus of the core book, and understandably so.) When news of the X-Men Expansion Book came out tho, I had to at least get a look at the preview to see whether this would be a game I want to make the effort to play.

The comic-book-sized preview starts by giving you a brief overview of the rules. The system is based on a d616 system, which cracked me up because a) lore, and b) it’s 3d6 like in GURPS! The bulk of the book is essentially the X-Force chapter from the upcoming expansion, giving the history of the group from when Rob Liefeld first debuted the name all the way to their current incarnation.

EXCEPT THEY DON’T TALK ABOUT THE MILLIGAN/ALLRED RUN SO EFF THIS BIO FOREVER.

Ahem. Perhaps the main book does a better job of explaining the omission. Perhaps there just wasn’t enough space here to include that prescient, bizarre, wildly entertaining iteration of the team. This preview continues to describe several locations pertinent to X-Force otherwise, as well as transport options. Perhaps most useful to an RPG group starting out with the game are the sections on team philosophy and recruitment, with a brief list of adventure hooks for the Narrator, as this system calls its Game Master.

The preview closes out with three character sheets of very established, fan-favorite characters in the X-Men Universe: Bishop, Dazzler and Gambit. While Bishop was a member of Psylocke’s X-Force, the other two have no significant affiliation with the team, being just cool ass characters to round out the book. The character sheets themselves, tho, hint at the complexity of the full game, as pretty much every box aside from the biography section had me going “ooh, what does this do?”

My Comic Book Guy annoyance at the elision of the best version of X-Force aside — and I get it, their reality show ethos is at odds with the special ops flavor of every other team that’s worn the title — I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t more of a quickstart flavor to this preview. I would have much preferred the inclusion of a mini-adventure to get a better idea of gameplay, rather than the list of perfectly fine but super open-ended and vague adventure hooks.

Am I looking forward to the release of the one-shot adventure Deadpool Roleplays The Marvel Universe in a few scant weeks? Abso-flipping-lutely. Will I probably wait to get it till AFTER the X-Men expansion releases almost a month later in August? You bet your sweet Aunt Fanny.

Today’s column was actually meant to be a review of several of the books I picked up during Free RPG Day, but I can apparently go on and on about my beloved comic book characters, so I’ll save the rest for another post. Consider this the first in the Free RPG Day 2024 review series tho!

Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game: X-Men Expansion by Matt Forbeck will be published August 6 2024 by Marvel Universe and is available for pre-order from all good booksellers, including

Deadpool Roleplays The Universe by Cullen Bunn will be published July 16 2024 by Marvel Universe and is available for pre-order from all good booksellers, including