Invincible - Starter guide
Invincible - Superhero Roleplaying puts you in the tights of a hero who is still figuring out what being unstoppable actually costs. One day you are a teenager sneaking out through your bedroom window, the next you are holding a collapsing bridge together while your ribs scream at you. The game leans into both lives at once: homework and heartbreak on one side, city-levelling punches on the other, and it never lets you forget that both are real.
That tone comes straight from the source. Invincible began as a comic by Robert Kirkman, Cory Walker and Ryan Ottley, and became one of the most talked-about superhero stories of the last decade for refusing to flinch: capes get broken, victories cost something, and nobody is safe just because they are wearing a logo. The roleplaying game keeps that honesty intact.
Netherbook carries the edition designed by Free League Publishing in collaboration with Skybound Entertainment, released in 2026. It is built by Adam Bradford (founder of D&D Beyond) and Tomas Härenstam (Free League co-founder, designer of the ALIEN RPG and Blade Runner RPG), with original artwork by Cory Walker and Ryan Ottley themselves.
How does the system work?
Invincible runs on the Year Zero Engine, the same rules family that powers Vaesen and Tales from the Loop. You roll a pool of six-sided dice equal to an attribute plus a skill; every six is a success, and rolling several at once unlocks extra effects, called stunts, on top of the basic result.
The signature rule is the push. Fail a roll, or want more from a success, and you can reroll every non-six die once. It costs nothing in resources, but every one you roll while pushing lands as a point of stress on your Resolve, a track that sits next to your Hitpoints and measures how close you are to breaking mentally rather than physically.
Reaching zero on either Hitpoints or Resolve breaks your character, with consequences that carry into the next session, from a lasting injury to a dent in their nerve. It keeps every scene a little dangerous, even for someone technically capable of punching through a mountain.
Attributes range from 2, an ordinary human baseline, to 12, full Viltrumite strength, so the same six stats (Fighting, Agility, Strength, Reason, Intuition and Presence) describe a street-level detective and a hero who can punch through a mountain. Characters also pick one of eight roles, such as Blaster, Brawn or Leader, which shapes what they are best at in a fight without locking them into a rigid class.
What do you need to start?
The Starter Set is built for exactly that: zero prior knowledge. It comes with a trimmed rulebook, six pre-built heroes including Invincible and Atom Eve, the three-part introductory adventure Metro Mayhem, dice, an action map, initiative cards and tokens, so a group can be playing within the hour. Nobody needs to bring anything beyond a willingness to punch through some scenery. For longer campaigns and full character creation, the Core Rulebook adds the complete ruleset, all eight roles in depth, and guidance for running your own stories in the setting.
Who is this game for?
This is a good fit if you grew up on the comic or the animated series and want your table to feel that same weight: victories that cost something, and villains who occasionally win. It also works well for groups who already like the Year Zero Engine's dice-pool feel but want a supers setting instead of horror or sci-fi.
It is not the game for a lighter, more forgiving superhero night. The source material does not soften its violence or its consequences, and that carries into play. It is also a licensed setting rather than a blank canvas: you play in Invincible's world, with room for original heroes, but not a system built for inventing an entirely new universe from scratch. If what you are after is a superhero game with no strings to an existing IP, look elsewhere first.
How does it compare to other systems?
Where Dungeons & Dragons 5e tracks levels, classes and hit points that only go up, Invincible measures a hero in two currencies at once: physical Hitpoints and mental Resolve, both of which can break. There is no levelling treadmill; the push mechanic does the work of making every roll matter instead.
Compared to Netherbook's other Year Zero Engine games, the shift is mostly one of tone. Vaesen uses the same dice pool and push for slow-burn folk horror investigation, and Tales from the Loop for wistful 80s science fiction. Invincible keeps the engine but turns the dial toward high-impact, high-cost action, so if you already know one of those games, character creation and the core roll will feel immediately familiar.
Where do you start?
Pick up the Starter Set first. Metro Mayhem is designed to teach the rules as you play, so nobody needs to read the book cover to cover before the first session, and a group of four or five can usually finish it over two or three sittings. Once your group knows the basics, move to the Core Rulebook to build original heroes and run longer stories.
Recommended products at Netherbook
Start with the Invincible - Superhero Roleplaying Starter Set, which drops a complete first adventure on the table the night it arrives, and move up to the Invincible - Superhero Roleplaying Core Rulebook when your group wants full character creation and longer campaigns.
If the Year Zero Engine sounds like your kind of dice pool, Vaesen - Nordic Horror Roleplaying and Tales from the Loop RPG are both available now and run on the same core system, just in very different genres.