‘Marvel Rivals: Timestream Adventure’ Brings the Hit Video Game to the ‘Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game’

Next game night, brace for Timestream Entanglement!

The world of Marvel Rivals comes crashing into the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game with the special one-shot, Marvel Rivals: Timestream Adventure written by Paul Allor and Marty Forbeck! Join Sai, Emma Frost, Jeff the Land Shark, and more as they try to break out and escape from the Collector’s Museum in Marvel Rivals: Timestream Adventure, an all-new RPG story that includes a 10-page comic!

Writer Paul Allor discusses his work playing in the ultimate sandbox with the Marvel Rivals: Timestream Adventure role-playing game, as well as the MARVEL RIVALS INFINITY COMICS. Read on to learn more about his experience fleshing out the Marvel Rivals Multiverse.

MARVEL RIVALS: TIMESTREAM ADVENTURE
Written by PAUL ALLOR & MARTY FORBECK
Art by IG GUARA
Cover by RICKIE YAGAWA

MARVEL: The Marvel Rivals: Timestream Adventure role-playing game serves as a prequel to the Marvel Rivals video game, with both a 10-page comic and an RPG adventure. What kind of Multiversal capers can fans expect?

ALLOR: This story begins when a group of captives breaks out of the Collector’s Museum, where they’re being kept on display. But breaking out of their cages is just the beginning — after that, they must find a way to get out of the museum itself, in an adventure that puts them in contact with strange artifacts, angry guards, and some of the galaxy’s most ancient and powerful beings. You can play as anyone, of course, but we’ve also created several character sheets for specific, fan-favorite Marvel Rivals characters. And, yes, Jeff the Land Shark is one of them. 

MARVEL: Did you have any previous experience with RPGs before this?

ALLOR: Absolutely none, as either a writer or even a player! At some point, I’ll need to get some more experienced friends together to play this game, and that will be my first RPG!

MARVEL: How does RPG writing differ from comics writing?

ALLOR: In comics writing, you are telling a linear story that you and your collaborators design from the ground up. You know how it begins, you know how it ends, you know what leads from scene to scene, and none of that changes. You also know exactly who your collaborators are: the artists, colorists, letterers and editors who made the book happen.

In RPG writing, you do not know your collaborators, and you never will know most of them, because your collaborators are the thousands of people who buy, play, and enjoy the game. They are taking your work and using it to create their own story, with their own structure, characters and stakes. They are writing countless new stories, all based on the starting point that you provided. It’s really beautiful and exciting. And because of that, RPG writing requires you to be flexible and open-ended in all the same places that comics writing requires you to be definitive and prescriptive. 

MARVEL: You co-authored the RPG side of the book with Marty Forbeck. How did that collaboration work?

ALLOR: I had a huge learning curve to overcome on this project. Marty (and everyone involved) was so incredibly patient and helpful, fielding my many, many questions and, more importantly, answering the questions I didn’t even know I needed to ask. I can’t count the number of times Marty had to patiently explain why the thing I’d written wouldn’t work for an RPG — because it could end the game too early, or because it didn’t offer the players enough flexibility, or a dozen other reasons. 

Marty also handled most of the more technical aspects of the game — character sheets, game mechanics, the inner workings of fight scenes — while we collaborated on the narrative itself. 

MARVEL: You, of course, bring considerable experience of this Multiversal mash-up to the table, having written the Marvel Rivals and MARVEL RIVALS UNLEASHED INFINITY COMICS. How much do you enjoy mining the limitless storytelling potential?

ALLOR: I enjoy it immensely! The Multiversal nature of the game removes one of Marvel’s most familiar storytelling tools, the weight of shared history built over decades. In its place, you have characters who recognize one another only in fragments, through alternate versions and incomplete memories, creating space for unexpected relationships.

In the Hellfire Gala story, for instance, we suggested that Captain America came from a future shaped by events similar to Days of Future Past. That gave him an ominous perspective on the future of mutantkind — and paradoxically put him at odds with some of the less-time-displaced X-Men in a big and dramatic way.

And that conflict comes from a sense of perspective rather than ideology, which is really well-suited to what the Marvel Rivals team is doing. They’re very invested in telling stories about characters who come into conflict not just because some of them are good and some of them are evil, but because they have a radically different perspective on how to solve the problems of the Multiverse.

MARVEL: How much does this new RPG tie in with your previous MARVEL RIVALS INFINITY COMICS? 

In the MARVEL RIVALS comics, every arc is its own story, set in the same mashed-up Multiverse, and this game continues that tradition. You don’t need to have read or played one to understand the other.

Having said that, we did recently wrap up a Thieves Guild story set in the Collector’s Museum, the same location where this game takes place. And since Ig Guara’s inks on the prequel story were already done, the artists on that comic (Jason Muhr and Jethro Morales) were able to use them as reference: same guards, same catwalks, same universe.

MARVEL: Ig Guara has also previously worked with you on the Infinity Comics. How do you enjoy that collaboration?

ALLOR: Yeah, Ig came on for two issues of MARVEL RIVALS INFINITY COMICS, and he rocked it! He’s so good at dynamic action, and this prequel comic has so many great character actions and fun storytelling moments.

MARVEL: How do you approach the task of dovetailing with the actual video game continuity, and how much freedom do you have to explore new territory within that framework?

ALLOR: It really varies from story to story, and I work closely with the teams at Marvel Comics, Marvel Games, and NetEase on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes — as with the Hellfire Gala story and its follow-up King in Black — we stick pretty closely to the game’s continuity, fleshing out the in-game beats without straying too far from them.

 Some stories use the game more as a backdrop for parallel tales — like Luna Snow wandering K’un-Lun in search of a certain dive bar, while Angela and Daredevil’s conflict plays out in the background. And then you get stories that take place in the Marvel Rivals universe while barely touching the game’s main plot at all. Things like Namor and Jeff planning a heist on the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda, or Bucky confronting both his metaphorical and very literal demons on a distant world.

MARVEL: There are some notable breakout characters/versions of characters in Marvel Rivals. Who are your favorites to write, and why?

ALLOR: Jeff is an obvious choice, and one I stand by. There’s a surprising emotional range in that adorable little character, and the Rivals version leans into it beautifully – Jeff and Namor develop a bond rooted in shared isolation.

I’ve also enjoyed writing their interpretation of the Winter Soldier, which emphasizes the horror and weight of his past in a very literal, tentacle-y way. Arnim Zola’s fascination with the Winter Soldier is both adversarial and unsettlingly respectful.

As long as the stories remain rooted in character and consequence, there is still so much of the Multiverse left to explore.

Marvel Rivals: Timestream Adventure is available now on Amazon and other book retailers. Pick it up at your local comic book shop and game store starting March 18!

The Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game is a tabletop RPG that brings the magic of Marvel to your game night. Take on the roles of Marvel's most famous Super Heroes—or create your own—to fight some of the most dangerous Super Villains in the Marvel Universe. Visit www.marvel.com/rpg for more details, including free downloads and starter rules!