The Masters of the Universe Role Playing Game

The Masters of the Universe Role Playing Game
By Ross Babcock and Jack C. Harris
FASA Publishing, 1985

Availability is probably only through Ebay and a search of 17 May 2022 shows none available.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Masters of the Universe Role Playing Game (henceforth MOTURPG) is not a standard rpg but rather it is more of a board game with roleplaying elements tacked on.  MOTURPG came as a boxed set, including a 24-page rulebook, stand up counters for the heroes and villains, character sheets for the heroes, and a map of the dungeon, and a card explaining that some characters in the game have spells listed which are not included in the boxed set.  According to this card, the Advanced version of the game is to be released in "the fall of 1986".  I don't think it was.

The counters include characters such as Trap Jaw, Skeletor, Evil-Lyn, He-man, Orko, Teela, and the unfortunately named Fisto.  I think that Fisto must have had a rough childhood.  There are also counters for monsters and treasure, but not that many of either.

The game board is laid out in squares.  The dungeon is supposed to be Snake Mountain.  The game expects to have the characters use the game board.  With a competent Referee, the game board won't be needed, perhaps dictating that Movement Points are rather yards/meters moved per turn or something.

The character sheets are for the characters included in the game.  Each sheet includes what you would expect, such as ability scores, skills, spells, special abilities, possessions, life force, and magic points for the spellcasting characters.  Oh, each one includes a picture of the character, competently drawn.

Ability scores are rated from 11 through 66.  Poor Fisto has a Magic score of 11 and He-man, of course, has a Strength of 66.  The other abilities are Agility, Intelligence, and Life Force.  The definitions are the usual in every game; however, Life Force = hit points.  Skills are rated from 1 (basic familiarity) through 6 (master).  He-man, having paid his 30 silver to be the main character, rather than the much cooler Skeletor, has his sword skill rated at 6 and his pistol and rifle skills are rated at 3, which is higher than Man-at-arms, who one would think would be an expert at weapons, but is barely competent with a 2.  Ram-man has the animal skill rated at 3 - presumably because of his name?

Special Abilities are based on the character.  Orko can fly and teleport without using Magic Points, Ram-man can use his "Ram-attack", which causes 20 damage against foes but he suffers 4 points of damage, himself.  Both of these numbers are divisible by 4, which I make a point of questioning, below.

Half, or more, of the rulebook is a comic book.  Players and Referees might be tempted to skip reading the comic but a nearly all of rules are included in this section.  He-man and the Sorceress (Rawr! I always dug her when I was a youngster) explain the rules to a kid from Earth who gets magicked from home to Eternia.  The goal of the adventure is to steal the Crown Jewels from Skeletor.  I don't remember much slang from the 80s other than radical and tubular, but the He-man writers must have had a good laugh with names like Fisto and Crown Jewels!

I keep saying Referee like there is actually a player who is the Ref.  There isn't.  Monster reactions, treasure, and the like are controlled via random dice rolls.  I say Referee because one can easily be involved, and will need to be involved if the game progresses beyond the simple board game into real role-playing.

In MOTURPG, weapons do a static amount of damage, which to my minimalist thinking is a good thing.  Swords to 12 damage, pistols do 16, rifles do 24, and clubs and other melee weapons do 8.  Remember that I said ability scores can be as low as 11?  If you are so unfortunate to have Life Force of 11, any hit other than a club will end your adventuring career.  Telee has the lowest LF of 36, however, so she can soak a couple of laser pistol blasts before going down on the next hit.  A good punch lands 4 points of damage, unless you are He-man, whose punches cause 8 damage.  I can only assume they do these amounts of damage since the LF ability is actual hit points.  A smart Referee would have Life Force divided by 4, rounded, and then use that has hit points and then divide all damage by 4 (they are all divisible by 4) to make the number crunching easier.  I would.

The comic describes a handful of spells, and shows how that loser, He-man, needs the help of an 8-year old 80s kid rocking a Luke Skywalker haircut to beat the mighty Skeletor!  Spells are pretty easy to figure out, flying lets you fly, teleport allows you to teleport an enemy to any square on the board, and some spells have a range based on squares (Shield spell covers 3 squares).

The center of the rulebook has the encounter tables which are to be used, spell casting instructions, the combat table and modifiers by weapon.  Spell casting is 1d6 + skill level vs. difficulty of 3 on the chart.  Combat is 1d6+ skill level + weapon modifier vs. foe's 1d6 + skill level + weapon modifier.  Comparing the two numbers on the chart gives the final result.  The result can be anything from attacker hits foe for damage to attacker and defender hit each other to attacker misses and has a penalty next round to attacker drops weapon and inflicts damage on himself.  

Magic items can give a boost on the attack roll or have some other effect.  The Blast Jewel is a device used in attacking but it's weapon modifier is based on the user's Intelligence and Magic ability scores.

Since this game was released in 1985, it hadn't yet fallen pray to the Satanic Panic, and demons are mentioned.  Skeletor the Mighty is able to summon them - which is much cooler than having 'roid rage muscles, in my humble opinion.

The rulebook ends with character sheets for the foes and monsters.  The mighty Skeletor rocks it with a Magic ability of 62 and carries a +4 magic sword.  Each foe has a list of tactics he will use depending on which hero he faces.

There are no character creation rules in this game.  Presumably, they would have been included in the Advanced rules, which I don't believe ever were published.  This game would certainly rate higher if you can actually play your own self-created character.  The comic book part of the rules seems to imply that this was going to be the case.

➨ GRIT:  ★★★★☆ The game certainly works well as a board game with a small amount of roleplaying added.  A good Referee can take what is here and expand upon it to make a full-fledged RPG.  If rated as a standard RPG, it would be 1 star.  The game does accomplish the task it has been set.

➨ VIGOR:  ★☆☆☆☆ The game fails big time here.  Imagine playing Chutes and Ladders over and over again, but you get to pick a weapon or spell and there are enemies on the board and you won't be far off.  After playing this 2 or 3 times, I would be done forever.

➨ GRACE:  ★★★☆☆ The box is pretty, if the characters don't look exactly like their cartoon counterparts.  The contents don't look bad.  The comic book portion of the rules are well-drawn and match the cartoon pretty well.  Little Boy Skywalker Cut could easily have been me from 78 to 83.