Comics and Superhero Gaming

[mikelaff]

I decided to post this question here rather than on a comics forum, because I seek the answer in regards to conceptualizing a superhero game.

In the "ages" of comics, the Iron Age came about in the 90s with bad attitudes, lots of loners, black leather, and guns.

In the new millennium, especially as typified by the attitude of Marvel's "Ultimate" universe and largely mirrored in the attitudes of Marvel's summer movies Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk, is this still considered the "Iron Age"? Or have we moved on to something new? And if so, what is it called? And how would you typify its shared characteristics as they apply to a role-playing game?

(emphasis mine)

that's an interesting question. it's hard to say how to get tone right at the gaming table.

Since you mentioned the Ultimates - I'd say two elements are key to emulating that book (at least the Millar, Hitch run)

I Cinematic feel.

In an interview about the inspiration for the book Hitch said: "We just set out with the basic idea: What would we do if we had to make The Avengers as a movie?"" And the book reads that way - it's got that bigscreen feel.

The main thing I'd recommend for getting a cinematic feel in a supers game: Keep combat fast and fun


Things that help me personally run fast MM combats (err - relatively fast, anyway). YMMV
a) liberal use of the minion rules
b) handy gaming aids at the table. These action cards for MM come in very handy and eliminate a lot of page flipping. Also - they're free.
c) I make the knockback rule optional. This saves some additional number-crunching that can slow down combat.
d) MM has a lot of powers that don't deal damage but have status effects. Be familar with the different status conditions (stunned, dazzled, fatigued, snared, etc) to save yourself some more time pageflipping. I try to have a cheat-sheet of the different status effects the NPCs for a given session are capable of inflicting.


II Contrast of "real world" issues and the accompanying complexity with the fantastic elements.

Without delving too deep - here are a few key examples from Ultimates

a) Bruce Banner is worried about the team's PR. They're a high-profile government funded super-team with no visible super-villains around to fight. There's some grumbling in the press and in Congress about how much the Ultimates must be costing. So - to save the team (in his mind anyway) - Banner triggers a transformation into the Hulk in downtown New York, to give the team a dangerous highly visible threat to combat.

b) Hank Pym goes on the lam after beating his wife. Capt America mounts a rogue mission to bring him to justice.

c) In the Grand Theft America arc, a coalition of various (well, nameless) Middle Eastern, Asian and Eastern European nations are concerned about how America is aggresively deploying its super-soldiers (or "persons of mass destruction") and decide to build their own team and launch a preemptive strike against the US in the name of self-defense. At the end of the day - it was the basic superteam vs superteam fight, but the political commentary/stage-dressing elements gave it another dimension.

In regards to bringing this kind of 'feel" to the gaming table, there's obviously a danger of veering into preachy/"very special episode" territory here if you do it wrong.

What I do is
1) Occasionally have opponents who are motivated by a different or greater causes than just world domination or pure evil.

Obviously, Magneto's a good example of this. A mercenary super-villain like Mirror Master is another (in the Morrison-penned [ame="http://www.amazon.com/JLA-Vol-3-Rock-Ages/dp/1563894165"]Rock of Ages [/ame]JLA story-arc, Batman gets Mirror Master to drop out of the fight by simply doubling what Luthor was paying him.) At the very least, it adds a smidgen more depth to a situation and sometimes it can give the PCs another way to solve a situation besides smashing things (if they're so inclined).

2) Occasionally have allies who are misguided or outright turncoats. In the last year in my own campaign, I've had a jingoistic super-cop who needed to be reigned in by cooler heads and a long term ally who (while outwardly a big blue paragon of virtue) was actually hatching a secret amoral scheme to increase his own power and riches. (not too terribly different from the Jeff Bridges character in Iron Man, come to think of it.) Nothing earth shattering here - just some NPCs who are drawn with shades of grey - and the occasional "oh " moment when the PCs uncover some surprising dirt on someone.

 

[klofft]

Thanks for all this. Well put. I'm not worried about being preachy; my group is totally amenable to me being preachy.

 

[Agamon]

I thought the Giffen-DeMatteis run on JL/ JLI/JLE (and, lest we forget, Justice League Antarctica) was one of the best things to come out of the 80s and 90s. Somehow - it always gets left out when people are talking about the Iron Age.

That was a favorite, for sure. Batman one-punching Guy was a highlight of my collecting days.

 

[BASHMAN]

You could almost call the current age of comics the Second Bronze Age, because a lot of modern writers like Brian Bendis and Ed Brubaker and Grant Morrison are consciously harkening back to the 70's and 80's and trying to recapture the magic brought into comics by Chris Claremont, Marv Wolfman, George Perez and John Byrne.

Not to mention that the modern age has the "grittiness" & "edge" of the bronze age-- without the bughouse warped reality seen in iron-age comics where all the cops & government were evil, and heroes blew everyone's brains out. Sex & drugs are alluded to, rathre than drawn in vivid detail.

But to answer the OP's question the Iron Age is over-

 

[pawsplay]

I usually say we're in the Post-Deconstrutive Age. The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, and Lobo are behind us. Some comics continue the darker, grittier vibe, others are homages to silver age styles, "smart" Iron age studies of morality of power, many are blended. We've kind of moved away from the fad era to a segmented market, much of which is interested in "art."