MIB: Men in Black

by George Strayton

Play as one of the MIBs.

Genres: Nonfiction

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay... with the new movie trailer dropping, I thought I'd reread what I remember being one of the funniest RPG rule books I've ever had the pleasure of getting my grubby little hands on.

Licensed product RPGs have a VERY bad rap and often for good reason. For every WEG 'D6-Cinematic License' game (Ghostbusters, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Men in Black) or their version of DC Heroes there a dozen more like Palladium's TMNT and Robotech, FASA'S Star Trek, Dr. Who and He-Man (the latter of which wasn't even completed when it was published), TSR's third version of Marvel and White Wolf's attempt to use their dark, gothy, mystic, schtick to cash in on Street Fighter that aren't just bad games but downright unplayable.

I have a lot of great memories of the West End Cinematic Engine in general. One minor complaint, which as a director turned to be a strength in one instance, is that there are very few rule modifications that separate say Men in Black from Ghostbusters and Indiana Jones. (Which led to something cool in a college when a friend of mine was running Indiana Jones and Ghostbusters games on alternating Fridays and I was running a weekly MIB game. His Indiana Jones game was wrapping up as we approached May 1945 in game time. Ghostbusters was taking a winter break hiatus and was set to become weekly in the spring. My MIB game was going on winter break hiatus as well. So we decided to do a two night four game mega event. It was EPIC. Since the three games had mostly the same players and by chance one of the only characters to survive the Indiana Jones episode had been playing a young boy orphaned by the blitz, he played the same characters 55 years later in Ghostbusters and MIB. Really, the annoyance is the rules are much the same. But how they are applied can sometimes be different. Go the Gamemastering section and the characters section are worth reading even if you have the other two games. (Three if you count Star Wars.)

The only thing that really dates the game are some of the jokes. References to CD players, faxes machines etc were very true of the world at the time but now those technologies have been all but abandoned.

Still, you can still use these books and have a hell of a time playing the games. If you have the chance, do it. But bring a sponge.

[Taddow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Also made by West End Games, this role-playing game (RPG) uses a “lite” version of their popular (Star Wars) D6 system. The game setting is meant to be funny and references the movie as inspiration for running and playing the game. Even the RPG book is written in a tone meant to be humorous and light-hearted.

The rules set is easy to jump into and character creation is relatively simple (you basically get a starting pool of dice to divide up amongst your attributes and another pool to divide up amongst your skills, whatever skills do not have dice added to them just default to your attribute ability). Success in tasks are archived by rolling your dice in a skill (or attribute) and equaling or beaten a target number set by the Director (game Master).

There is a short simple solo choose your own adventure style mission to get used to the setting and rules and a basic adventure for a Director to run for their players. I think this would actually be a fun game to run for a group that enjoys cracking jokes and setting up awkward funny situations (plenty of my “serious” RPG session already go this route a lot of the time anyway).

[Gemma Meadows]

This is a amazing book I absolutely love this book ☺ 😍😘😹✌💋❤💓💕💖💗💙💚💛💜💝💞💟💘

[Kosuke Muramatsuu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Start:October1st 70hours
7words:alien,black,men,cockroach,memory,cat,partner
Discussion question:Have you ever seen alien?
What's your favorite movie?
Do you know something news about alien?

[Abraham Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

good rpg based upon the movies!