Murderworld!

Murderworld! is a role-playing game adventure published by TSR in 1984 for the Marvel Super Heroes role-playing game.

Plot summary

Murderworld! is a scenario in which the villain Arcade lures the Fantastic Four into his amusement park, a twisted playground for assassination.^[1] Murderworld involves the Fantastic Four with the super-villain Arcade, who attempts to lure them out of their headquarters into various traps.^[2] Meanwhile, two super-villain groups enter the Baxter Building and fight, turning on the Fantastic Four when they return.^[2] Other subplots lead to a final confrontation in another dimension.^[2]

Murderworld! is the third module produced for use with the Marvel Super Heroes game.^[3] Despite Arcade being the headline villain, the module does not feature the X-Men, but rather the Fantastic Four. Many of the group's more regular opponents also make an appearance, including Victor von Doom.^[3]

Publication history

MH3 Murderworld! was written by Jeff Grubb, with a cover by John Byrne and illustrations by Jeff Butler, and was published by TSR, Inc., in 1984 as a 16-page book, a large color map, and an outer folder.^[1] This scenario has 16 pages, and is packed with a cover folder containing character details and a double-sided 22"x17" map.^[2]

Reception

Marcus L. Rowland reviewed Murderworld! for White Dwarf #62, rating it 6/10 overall.^[2] He noted that the scenario was designed for the then-current Fantastic Four, with the She-Hulk replacing the Thing, but includes the Thing's statistics for his fans.^[2] Rowland reviewed the adventures The Breeder Bombs, Time Trap, and Murderworld! together, and declared that "All three adventures work reasonably well, but stress combat above role-play or campaign development. None give any opportunity for the characters to use their secret identities (an important feature of the game rules), all are extremely violent."^[2]

Pete Tamlyn reviewed Murderworld! for Imagine magazine.^[3] Now that several products had been produced to the game line, he felt that "we can start comparing them. The format is much the same as that of the previous offerings: card cover doubling as GM's quick reference shield, detailed plot neatly divided into chapters, nicely drawn maps, and illustrations by Marvel artists. The plot, in general terms, is an improvement on the other modules, in that there is more than one theme in it, giving the players more to think about."^[3] He felt that Arcade does pose a particular problem for the adventure: "Trying to use Murderworld as a setting for a scenario is not easy. To begin with, you have to get the heroes there as Arcade's prisoners, meaning that you have to arrange for the players to be defeated. Managing this without making it seem that you have fixed it so they had no chance (something which always upsets players) is difficult. Then there is Arcade's passion for making each hero suffer individually. The players have to be split up and each one put through his 'game' separately. This either leads to some very bored players and time-flow problems or to a very confused GM. Finally it is essential to the operation of Murderworld that the heroes do not realise that they are in one of Arcade's 'games'. As the module only provides a single mapsheet showing the whole of the Muderworld complex, this is pretty difficult."^[3] Tamlyn concludes by saying: "To sum up, a workmanlike job done with a bad basic idea. The module is a must for FF fans on account of the details given of the team, the Baxter building and Dr. Doom, but for the general purchased it is not such a good prospect."^[3]

Reviews

• Space Gamer #72 (Jan. 1985)
• Game News #8 (Oct. 1985)

References