Ben Tennyson has been slapping a wristwatch and turning into something with extra limbs since 2005, and it is a little surprising that it has taken until now for the Omnitrix to acquire a rulebook. Ben 10 Beyond: The Roleplaying Game, revealed on 26 October, is billed as the first official Ben 10 tabletop RPG. It comes from D20 Culture, is developed in collaboration with Man of Action, the creator collective behind the original cartoon, and is licensed by Warner Bros.
The system uses a d20 action economy and something called the Tier Tension Scale, which we shall assume is how the game master decides when to ruin your afternoon. Progression runs on Ascension Points, known as PAX: heroes begin as local recruits at Tier D and can climb to Cosmic Legend at Tier S. There are more than twenty playable species, including Pyronites, Tetramands, Galvans and Kinecelerans, and the archetypes on offer include the Brawler, the Techno-Brain, the Investigator, the Outlaw and the Prodigy. Gear runs to Mechamorph Armor and Proto-Tools, and there is Anodite mana manipulation for anyone who wants to be Gwen. The premise is that the players join the Plumbers, the Omniverse’s long-suffering police force, to keep the galaxy in order.
Man of Action’s note on the project says they understand the ideas that produced Ben 10 but have also watched it grow through the contributions of hundreds of other creative people, and that a tabletop game feels a natural, personal next step. It is a sensible fit. Ben 10 is, structurally, a character-class system strapped to a child’s wrist: a menu of alien forms, each with its own powers and drawbacks, and a device with firm views on which one you get. The Omnitrix was a character sheet before anyone asked for one.
Man of Action, meaning Joe Casey, Joe Kelly, Duncan Rouleau and Steven T. Seagle, are also writing Dynamite’s Ben 10 comic, where ICv2 reported orders for the first five issues topping 500,000 between them, with issue six due on 4 November. D20 Culture, which makes games for Warner Bros. properties including Lord of the Rings and DC as well as Ben 10, is also behind the Justice League Unlimited RPG co-written by Mark Waid. Anyone interested in Ben 10 Beyond can sign up on the game’s launch page for a free Plumber’s Badge pin.
The only real danger is the one Ben has always faced: you reach for the heavy hitter, the Omnitrix hands you Grey Matter, and the game master smiles.
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