Making superhero gear make sense (mostly Marvel related)

[Cyronax]

Still zero recollection of it.




Nah, it wasn't any one thing in particular, but an aggregation of factors:

1. Ho-hum writing in general- I felt I wasn't getting my $$$ worth.
2. Money was a bit tighter for me at the time
3. Sheer volume: i gave up comics in 1996, and yet my collection currently takes up the same volume of space as a car- no joke. I simply foresaw a point where storing it would be impossible. (Currently organizing it and putting an approximate appraisal value on it to get rid of it, FWIW.)

The 'slapfest' occurred somewhere in #226-228 of Spectacular Spiderman. I tried looking for a chip of the incident but only found a cover. I know I saw it before .... because I used it in a thread in comic book resources I posted to defending Hank Pym.

Yes. That Hank Pym:

Sorry to Threadjack.....

 

[Cyronax]

Not who you were talking to but I in fact did drop a $60 a week comicbook habit cold turkey the day I read (in the comic, not in the news) that Peter Parker was actually a clone. It was about 5-6 weeks later when I took the stack of unread comics and just dumped them in a box still unread.

A few years ago I was curious what was going on in comics and found out about the PP/MJ marriage retconn and was glad I was still out of comics.

Reading comics is invariably an exercise in seeing how far along you can go before you feel betrayed.

Its a very similar cycle to D&D. I'm not going to elaborate, because that statement can be read as true by all sides (or none). I also am not singling out a specific edition ....m'kay.

Spiderman hasn't been handled well by Marvel these last few years. I prefer the Ultimate Spiderman by leaps and bounds. Google Ultimate Marvel if you want to find some more 'realistic' Marvel stories (but stop before you get to Ultimatum .... anyway).

 

[prosfilaes]

It is the GM's job to screw them over! The players have effectively asked the GM to sit there and throw hard-to-handle tasks at them! Does Spider Man ever have it easy? NO! He's always hosed! Superman? Batman? Same.

The error is in thinking that you can win an arms race with the GM, and that you actually *want* to win such an arms race. The glee of having all the right tools so that you've got little to no risk is cool once or twice, but as a regular game it quickly gets boring.

If my character runs into situations where he needs rope, he's going to start carrying rope. Invoke genre conventions all you want, but when they get in the way of my character doing the obvious reasonable thing, they're going to be more frustrating than fun. Perhaps if you're playing with people more serious about the Supers genre, you can sell them on enforcing genre conventions that don't play well, but other players are going to have a problem.

I don't see equipping my character with what he might find useful an arms race. Nor do I see it as fun to have my character deal with problems that would have been trivial if my character were carrying the simple everyday items that I wanted him to carry. If my character's life challenges are defined by the fact he's too stupid to carry a rope or screwdriver, I'm not sure I want to play that game. If you don't want me to carry tools, tell me I won't need them, and then carry through on that promise.

Again, this all might seem more reasonable to someone more interested in the supers genre. It's not badwrongfun to want to play superheros that don't carry tools and are challenged by the lack of them every day. But I don't think it silly or unreasonable not to want to play that game.

 

[Piratecat]

If my character runs into situations where he needs rope, he's going to start carrying rope.

Mine won't. If my character runs into situations where he needs rope, I'll tweak his superpowers to provide him with microfilament, or psychic restraints, or the Swinging power, or any number of other powers that create a rope effect without having to haul around a coil on my back. What, you want to ruin those streamlined costumes?

And that's really the point. Genre is everything in a supers game. I don't come into Paranoia expecting to work together, I don't come into a Supers game expecting to need to micro-manage inventory. Hell, my superhero characters don't even have inventory; they just take the "millionaire playboy" advantage and we wing it from there.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Because fighting crime with a sai is cool, stylish, memorable, and sort of terrifying.
Because he's frikkin' Superman. He is his own weapon; that's what defines him.
Because Batman is a minimalist who only has what he needs. Batman doesn't carry superfluous gear; if he has it, he needs it. Period.
Because even though splitting into multiple people is sort of a lame power, it's still a super power, by golly, and they'll never earn their own comic book if they don't kick someone's ass.
Because cyborgs are so awesome that they're shielded by plot-eon particles.

Because there's nothing cooler than getting your arse kicked by a guy wearing tights?


Tune in next week on SuperBallerina when ...

(Olgar admits to never quit grokking the four-color supers genre. It requires the same suspension of disbelief as swords & sorcery or science fantasy, but for some reason tights, capes, and secret identities just missed their mark.)

 

[prosfilaes]

Mine won't. If my character runs into situations where he needs rope, I'll tweak his superpowers to provide him with microfilament, or psychic restraints, or the Swinging power, or any number of other powers that create a rope effect without having to haul around a coil on my back. What, you want to ruin those streamlined costumes?

In which case, I won't need rope. But Umbran said "The glee of having all the right tools so that you've got little to no risk is cool once or twice, but as a regular game it quickly gets boring." So apparently in Umbran's game, lacking those tools is a big deal.

If you have a player that that's not sold on Supers, and you've forced him to leave behind his equipment, then challenging him on that lack of equipment is not going to make the game fun for him. Maybe the GM will need to explicitly point out in-genre options.

Genre is everything in a supers game.

But genre being everything only works if you have buy-in to that genre. If you have players who don't buy a particular aspect of a genre, then you either need new players, or you need to avoid the issues of the genre that annoy them.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The 'slapfest' occurred somewhere in #226-228 of Spectacular Spiderman.

The cover said #228, and that was released in 1995. And while I remember the Pym incident, I cannot recall that issue of Spider-Man at all.

Maybe I quit earlier. Maybe I just found it a bleh storyline. Maybe I wasn't buying that particular title at the time.

Maybe...I had one too many Amaretto Sours.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

What I've learned from playing superhero RPGs is that mundane equipment like rope and zip ties are always available - they appear like magic if you want it, but usually they are insufficient for the job. If the challenge could be defeated by your local Boy Scout with his penknife and some twine, then it didn't really need a superhero.

As for the idea of loud, spandex costumes; to be a Superhero, you almost always need to have some kind of ego. You know you are smarter/faster/stronger than the ordinary person and use that advantage to help others. The costume is in part there to scream it loud and proud.

 

[WizarDru]

But genre being everything only works if you have buy-in to that genre. If you have players who don't buy a particular aspect of a genre, then you either need new players, or you need to avoid the issues of the genre that annoy them.

That's fine...but then you're not actually playing that genre. In which case it seems odd to persist in trying to play a genre that no one is apparently interested in or enjoying. Saying you want to play Superheroes without capes is one thing. Saying you want to play a supers game with the characters as part of highly trained realistic paramilitary force with a full military kit using advanced warfighting tactics....well, you're not really playing the supers genre any longer. You're back to d20 Modern or some variant thereof...which is fine, of course, if that's what you want. But the OP wasn't asking for that, he was asking for some degree of verisimilitude or explanation as to why supers, particularly in the MU, did NOt do that.

Since PirateCat is responsible for running one of the most fantastic Superhero genre games I've ever played in (using M&M, complete with a Justice Fruit Pie commercial in the middle), I'm a fan of his advice, here.

 

[Cyronax]

The cover said #228, and that was released in 1995. And while I remember the Pym incident, I cannot recall that issue of Spider-Man at all.

Maybe I quit earlier. Maybe I just found it a bleh storyline. Maybe I wasn't buying that particular title at the time.

Maybe...I had one too many Amaretto Sours.

Yeah I saw the cover number too, but I can't confirm it was in that issue. Wikipedia for Clone Saga says it was in #226, so its probably the three-issue 'Peter commits spousal abuse' arc. Great way to round out a 'great' comic event.

It makes Secret Invasion look like a freakin masterpiece.

C.I.D.