Robert Kirkman’s coming-of-age superhero comic series Invincible ran for 15 years, and its rich and dark world is currently the basis of a hit animated series on Prime Video. Now you can step into it yourself and battle supervillains before rushing off to high school in the Invincible – Superhero Roleplaying game from Free League Publishing, which launches a Kickstarter campaign on Sept. 23.
“The thing that stands out to me as so ideal for adapting [Invincible] to a tabletop role-playing game is the idea of progression,” Invincible – Superhero Roleplaying designer and D&D Beyond founder Adam Bradford told Polygon in a Zoom call. “Whereas in other continuities of comics there are just these endless reboots and retcons […] Invincible has a beginning, a middle, an end. It tells this whole story over 144 issues.”
Invincible follows Mark Grayson, a high school student who takes on the mantle of Invincible after he inherits incredible powers from his alien father, Omni-Man. Mark and many of Invincible’s other characters change a lot over the course of the series, picking up new skills, honing their abilities, and shifting their worldview and priorities. In turn, Invincible players will be able to improve their powers and talents as they gain experience from completing missions. They’ll also need to find time between battles to focus on their personal relationships with social scenes that also allow characters to recover from the stress they experienced when fighting.
“You have to balance your everyday life with your superhero persona,” Invincible – Superhero Roleplaying designer and Free League co-founder Tomas Härenstam told Polygon. “I think it’s very much part of Invincible and [Invincible’s] own story where he has school, his parents, his girlfriend, and all his other friends in school and has to balance that with being a superhero. That’s something we try to build heavily into the game by having these social scenes that explore your character individually between the action scenes.”
Invincible – Superhero Roleplaying uses the Year Zero engine that serves as the basis for several other Free League games such as Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game and Alien: The Role-Playing Game. The ruleset is designed for high-stakes, story-driven games. One of the ways the designers tried to embody the feel of Invincible is with a critical hit table that fits the series’ gore-soaked battles that make it stand out from other superhero comics. Depending on the severity of the hit, options range from a character’s costume getting torn to their head getting smashed in.
“It was a challenge, but also a fun one to make it feel like not only a superhero game, but the Invincible superhero game. That means it’s darker, it’s bloodier,” Härenstam said. “It’s not like The Boys where every superhero is just inherently horrible, but it still does turn some of the tropes on their head.”
Bradford and Härenstam also wanted to make sure the game included some of the lighter elements of Invincible, so they created a system for banter where characters can mock their opponents to weaken their resolve.
“Sometimes you’ll play with players and groups where they’re going to throw in the banter whether you want them to or not,” Bradford said. “This is a big part of superhero comics, it’s a big part of Invincible, and this is a way to kind of mechanically incentivize that and prompt players that this is a viable option while you’re in combat because this is going to help you capture that feel.”
[Ed. note: The rest of this article contains major spoilers for early arcs of Invincible]
While Free League plans to release Invincible – Superhero Roleplaying at Gen Con 2026, players can get a taste of it immediately by downloading a free quickstart adventure. The story is set shortly after Omni-Man kills his former allies, the Guardians of the Globe, and reveals that he had been sent to Earth to conquer the planet. Omni-Man badly injures Invincible in a fight and then flees the planet.
With the world’s greatest heroes gone, the player characters have the chance to make a real difference. While the full game will include numerous powers and talents to let players create their own heroes, the quickstart provides character sheets for Invincible heroes, including Atom Eve, Monster Girl, and Rex Splode. Each has their own role in combat: Eve controls the battlefield by erecting barriers, while Monster Girl uses her great strength and toughness to defend her allies.
“We want to showcase the fact that you’re playing a team of superheroes,” Härenstam said. “It made sense in the quick start to have nobody playing Invincible himself so everyone is on the same sort of level playing field.”
The quickstart pits the heroes against the cloning superscientists, the Mauler Twins. It takes about an hour to play through and is the first chapter in the Metro Mayhem introductory adventure that will be included in a starter set along with dice, maps, and cardboard character standees.
Invincible’s long run has given Bradford and Härenstam plenty of material to work with. The Kickstarter includes stretch goals for a pair of digital bonus adventures – one focused on Atlantis and the other on the Gotham-like Midnight City. The designers also have ideas for campaign frameworks that will focus on street-level stories in the vein of Daredevil, or big cosmic adventures.
The books and starter set are packed with art from the Invincible comics by Cory Walker and Ryan Ottley. The stretch goal Bradford is most excited about is a limited run of Invincible #1 with a cover inked by Todd Nauck (Invincible Universe) and colored by Matt Herms (Sonic the Hedgehog) that depicts Mark playing Invincible – Superhero Roleplaying with his mom Debbie, his half-brother Oliver, and Eve.
“As a huge comic book fan, Invincible is my favorite series,” Bradford said. “I believe I have every variant cover for Invincible #1 so it’s going to be another one that I will proudly add to the collection if we can unlock it.”
