Review: Civil War|50 State Initiative Event Supplement
The first Civil War supplement book is out, and Margaret Weis Productions was kind enough to send me a copy of the PDF to review. 
Let’s get to it!
First off, one of the coolest parts of this book, to me, is the credits page. Regular Plot Points readers will find one of the members of the Writing & Design team to be VERY familiar…
The 50 State Initiative Event Supplement has three sections, each focused on a different group that plays a major role in the post-Civil War Marvel Universe, as well as a collection of new datafiles. Each sections includes information on featured groups as well as associated Watcher datafiles, Action Scenes, story seeds, Milestones, and XP Unlockables. It’s really packed with goodies for players and Watchers.
The first section deals with The Initiative, the program that put a supers-team in all fifty states. Highlights for me include: Omega Flight and The Great Lakes Champions (but we all know they are really The Great Lakes Avengers, I don’t care what the book says). This section also has my favorite Action Scene in the book. It’s an assault on the Hydra Terror Carrier. With a full Watcher datafile for the Terror Carrier!
The next section focuses exclusively on The Thunderbolts and gives a lot of background information on the team, as well as suggestions on running games that feature the Thunderbolts with either the players or Watcher as the Thunderbolts. The Action Scenes presented would work well as one-shots, or a “flash-sideways” in a larger campaign. Also, in the interest of self promotion, I’ll mention that we have some additional Thunderbolts Team Milestones that will work nicely with this section.
The last section presents options for using the Heroes for Hire team. I’ll be honest, I know nothing about this group. The only Heroes for Hire I know anything about are Power Man and Iron Fist. That said, I found a lot to like in this section. Especially the idea of playing as mercenaries trying to navigate their way through the Civil War, while still hoping to turn a profit.
All of these sections contain a metric ton of Watcher datafiles. Almost all the Watcher files would be really simple to turn into Hero datafiles. Just add Milestones.
Just like all the MHRPG books, this one comes with many Hero datafiles. In this case associated with the different sections of the book. The Thunderbolts were presented as Watcher characters in the main Civil War Event book, but now most of them are available as fully fleshed out characters. You also get several more obscure (to me anyway) characters who are new recruits to the Initiative program. Plus Camp Hammond instructors like Gauntlet and War Machine. Hero files for the Heroes for Hire include Shang Chi. There are also a couple of surprises. For example: Howard the Duck. Yep.
Overall, I really like this book. It has some great suggestions for continuing your game beyond the Civil War. It does presuppose that your Civil War Event ended the same way as the official comic continuity. But throughout there are tips and sidebars that offer suggestions on changing things up if the Anti-Registration side came out the winners in your game. If you are at all interested in exploring the 50 State Initiative period of the Marvel-verse, or even if you just want a boatload of new datafiles, I highly suggest you pick this up.
Civil War|50 State Initiative Event Supplement is available for pre-order from Margaret Weis Productions which includes a free copy of the PDF, or you can get the PDF only right now at Drive Thru RPG.
7 comments on “Review: Civil War|50 State Initiative Event Supplement”
Leave a Reply
Marvel Plot Points 
I personally think this book sells itself just cause of Howard the Duck. But that’s just me. 😛
do you guys think that they will come out with a equipment based book i mean thiers many heros with equipments that are excellent and i like your santans claw but people like to build custom caracters and the build for a superhero is easy but a build for a trained hero isnt near as good i have noticed its far better to be a mutan then most other things and a equipment book would make it easier to build a equipment based hero i know they just started and they are taking there time and i can respect that i loved the event book and i broke it down to sevral 3 acts but servral diffrent stroy that ends in one of two way and thats great but i got so many ideas in my head that i wanna throw at you guys and see what you think and if you like one please take it or email me id love to discuss my ideas and see if there new or if you guys already thoguht about it i love your work your version of gambit is my favorite i made a few tweeks too his distinctions but thats cause i want him to be more about combat please keep up the excellent work and sorry for the bad grammer and typos im at work and speeding through thids
I don’t think you will see a book with just equipment. It’s pretty easy just to lift gear you like from existing datafiles. You may see a few item datafiles, like Mjolnir in the Civil War book.
I’m not sure if I would run the scenarios as an addendum to Civil War, but some of the set pieces are easy to use in general, and there are a lot of fun datafiles in this product. Plus, that Hydra monstrosity definitely shows you how mean you can go with your large scale threats!
do you think they will come out with a official character builder book or something? maybe a add on to a book or something i know about the generator but is that their official thing? or will they be redoing it?
No I think that will be it. The focus is really on playing existing characters. When it comes to creating your own characters, you can pretty much just do anything you want.
ok so as a watcher they can decide if its to over powered or not thanks alot… so for the most part thats it the basic book and event books?