As I was searching through my MSH stuff it occurred to me that while when it comes to D&D I am fine with using published campaign worlds, when it comes to Supers I typically like to make up my own. I think a lot of it is the baggage that comes with 50 years of backstory for a Marvel or DC universe - in the past I've found it constraining and overwhelming to new players.
This time is different though. With all of the movies and the cartoon out now, I feel like the Marvel-verse (?) is an advantage, not a liability. My players know who a lot of these gys are now. Even organizations like Hydra have figured prominently in some of these things, so if I throw them in I don;t get a bunch of blank stares. It's cool for a change.
Plus, and this is pretty important, at one time or another Marvel has had the rights to Star Wars, Star Trek, Transformers, GI Joe, Micronauts, Shogun Warriors, and Godzilla. As if I didn't have enough material to work with before! It would have to be a long-running campaign to work in all of those, but maybe a Secret Wars-style event could bring some of them together all at once a little ways down the road. We will see. Running for a younge crowd makes this even more interesting.
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ReplyDeleteThe key to running a Marvel, DC or any other IP as a RPG campaign is using what you like and not what you don't.
ReplyDeleteFor example, I don't say the Voyager series and characters don't exist when I run Star Trek but I don't really use them or refer to them either. You will see an Intrepid Class from time to time and your vessel probably has an Emergency Medical Hologram but I don't really involve the elements of that series that I didn't enjoy in any major way.
Unless the particular 'Infinite Earth' we are using as a setting prohibits it for thematic reasons, a player who wants to create a character for my DC Universe game inspired by, say, Justice Leage Elite, is free to do so even if I (the GM) was not a big fan of that comic.
When running Marvel (which I think I did once, looong ago but it may have been Champions set in the Marvel Universe), I try to come up with origins for characters that are not 'she's a mutant' about 3 to 1 over them being a mutant. Does that mean that in 'My Marvel Universe' there aren't a gigabillion mutants? Not necessarily. Maybe. I don't really bring it up.
I totally agree and that it applies to more than just Marvel - this is how I run my Forgotten Realms game too. Pick the parts you like, de-emphasize the parts you don't. If someone wants to play a Red Wizard then I may turn up the presence of Thay in my game but otherwise you may never encounter one. Same with Marvel, Star Wras, trek, etc.
ReplyDeleteGold stars for all of us!