TheRPGSite

I'm a little late to the party since the game's license has been pulled by Marvel but I'm still curious about it. I have the core-book but I haven't had the opportunity to play yet (hopefully soon). As a super hero role playing game how does it stand up/compare to the others like FASERIP, Champions and Mutants and Masterminds? The premise and implied play-style appear to be very different but the mechanics strike me as odd but interesting but I don't have much experience with other Cortex based games.

It's very gamey and narrative focused.

I found it to be WAY too much work and futzing around with dice for the trouble.

It's fans like to blame Marvel for canceling the licence but I suspect it got canned because nobody liked it and it didn't sell.

I played it for several months and enjoyed certain aspects of the game, but that's because we tended to play it very stripped down.  Where it got fiddly, it got fiddly fast.

Quote from: Piestrio;686705It's fans like to blame Marvel for canceling the licence but I suspect it got canned because nobody liked it and it didn't sell.

I don't think it had to do directly with sales. Every release jumped to the top of the dtrpg list and stayed there for a bit.

I think it has more to do with:

A. MWP bungling physical product. Seriously, out of the 6 books published, they only managed to get 2 of them to printers. This wasn't a problem with the game, it was a problem with their management.

combined with:

B. REALLY high expectations from Marvel. They are riding the movie zeitgeist right now. I imagine they were expecting a much higher return than they were getting, and the return they were expecting was probably higher than an RPG was going to produce, especially when the physical product was managed horribly.

But, either way, we are both speculating. But: there is no evidence the pdf copies sold badly, and plenty that they sold well. The physical releases on the other hand. Well yeah, fuck that shit.

Quote from: RunningLaser;686708I played it for several months and enjoyed certain aspects of the game, but that's because we tended to play it very stripped down.  Where it got fiddly, it got fiddly fast.

What did you find fiddly?

The fiddly part for me was that I felt like the dice pools were playing poker with each other.

Quote from: Nexus;686712What did you find fiddly?

I remember having my character picking up an object, like a steel girder or some-such, and using it during a fight.  But it wasn't as simple as picking it up and swinging it around, I had to turn it into an asset for it to be used.  Then there were things like making complications- little stuff that tripped me up.  

Lot's of dice to roll as well, and each time you went to do something, you had to go through and see what dice it was possible for you to roll.  "I'll use my Cunning Fighter distinction, this affiliation and this power...."

All in all, it wasn't something that I was used to and I never fully "got it" as the months rolled by.  Combats seemed only to end when the Watcher wanted it to.  Towards the end, we just used it in a very stripped down way.

I was happy that I got to play it, but in the end I like my supers games simpler and more straightforward.

MHR is one of the few RPGs that when people dismiss it as a "storygame", I don't disagree. It's a very system-orientated abstract system that makes a number of assumptions that I think killed it, as it's intentions seem to rest on players mostly playing established characters in published railroads, adopting the PoV of a comicbook writer rather than taking on the role of a character. It's woefully under-supported, with the core rulebook providing an abysmal amount of info in comparison to other Marvel RPGs. There's some interesting ideas badly implemented and buried under a lot of crunch existing only "because game".

In short, it doesn't come close to touching MSH/FASERIP as an rpg, but if you just want a game where Kitty Pryde and Thor are 'balanced' and you're more interested in combat than the actual soap-opera-like comics Marvel is famous for, it's not bad. Though you'd probably be better off just getting into Heroclix

Quote from: Emperor Norton;686709But, either way, we are both speculating. But: there is no evidence the pdf copies sold badly, and plenty that they sold well. The physical releases on the other hand. Well yeah, fuck that shit.

The very best pdf sales are under even mediocre print sales from any decent game line (barring indie crap no one buys). Having great pdf sales means you sold 300 copies. That's shit for real book sales.

I think the game could have held on if 1) it charged $10 more cover price, 2) it went with a b&w interior, and 3) they immediately starting putting out "handbook of the MU"-style hero/villain rosters.

Quote from: danbuter;686731The very best pdf sales are under even mediocre print sales from any decent game line (barring indie crap no one buys). Having great pdf sales means you sold 300 copies. That's shit for real book sales.

Even if you have exact numbers to back that up, it has no connection to "no one liking it". They screwed up physical releases a lot, and without question that hurt their sales. Which is once again a management issue, not an issue with the game itself.

I would be interested to see what numbers though you have to back up that PDF sales are a huge order of magnitude less than physical copies. I'm not disbelieving you, I just would like something other than a random post on the internet. High sales for ANY RPG, physical or pdf are not exceptionally high, barring a few special cases.

Of course, if you want to say that pdf sales mean nothing, then I guess everyone here who heralds how much money WotC is making by releasing the pdfs of TSR era stuff and how its so so popular based on them shooting to the top of the lists when they are released area also zero evidence of interest.

We had fun with it but there was a serious lack of real consequence. You get physically mentally or emotionally stressed out and you are out of a scene.

Maybe it was our GM but there were no real "oops you're dead" moments. Ever. Mind you we have the same issue with Fate.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;686746We had fun with it but there was a serious lack of real consequence. You get physically mentally or emotionally stressed out and you are out of a scene.

Maybe it was our GM but there were no real "oops you're dead" moments. Ever. Mind you we have the same issue with Fate.

You generally don't have "oops you're dead" in Fate, anyway.  Death can happen, but it's not a big emphasis of the system.

What you have, if things aren't going well, and your GM is doing his job, is an accelerating snowball of suck that will make your life a living hell.

But if you don't have a GM that's used to doing that, it can be a pretty tepid experience.

I assume the same thing is true with MHRP.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;686740Even if you have exact numbers to back that up, it has no connection to "no one liking it". They screwed up physical releases a lot, and without question that hurt their sales. Which is once again a management issue, not an issue with the game itself.

I would be interested to see what numbers though you have to back up that PDF sales are a huge order of magnitude less than physical copies. I'm not disbelieving you, I just would like something other than a random post on the internet. High sales for ANY RPG, physical or pdf are not exceptionally high, barring a few special cases.

It was from various threads from guys who worked at rpg companies. I didn't save the links, though. Feel free to believe or disbelieve, I'm not playing your lame-ass forum game of "prove it!".

Cortex is a shit system... Unfortunately MWP refuses to realize this so it gets saddled to even more licensed property... And because of this, I refuse to buy product from them I otherwise would have gotten due to the Licensed IP (Supernatural, nBSG, Serenity, Marvel, and now Firefly)

Cortex is the only RPG that makes me actually angry trying to play it... The dicing mechanic is shit... Even talking about it makes me unreasonably angry... In 30 years of playing RPGs, I have NEVER encountered a system that makes me want to punch someone... I really gave the system a try. I played it 4 times before I gave up... Each game made me angrier and angrier...

Which, I don't like being angry... I'm a pretty laid back person and it takes a lot for me to get mad... But holy shit... Cortex is a good way to fast track me there...

I was really interested in it, enough that I bought the print copy without looking at a preview first. The core book was beautifully produced.

The rules, however, were a non-starter for me. It was like it was written in Basque. I never made head-nor-tails of it.

I'd still be willing to give it a shot as a player, with an experienced referee, just so I could finally understand what I'm missing.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;686758I was really interested in it, enough that I bought the print copy without looking at a preview first. The core book was beautifully produced.

The rules, however, were a non-starter for me. It was like it was written in Basque. I never made head-nor-tails of it.

I'd still be willing to give it a shot as a player, with an experienced referee, just so I could finally understand what I'm missing.

You aren't missing anything...

2 of the 4 games I've played were by Dave Chalker and Phillippe-Antoine Menard of the Cortex Plus Hackers Guide... Even good GMs cant make a shit system any less shittier... And these are two developers? What. The. Fuck.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;686758I was really interested in it, enough that I bought the print copy without looking at a preview first. The core book was beautifully produced.

The rules, however, were a non-starter for me. It was like it was written in Basque. I never made head-nor-tails of it.

I'd still be willing to give it a shot as a player, with an experienced referee, just so I could finally understand what I'm missing.

The poker analogy is apt.

Every time a conflict breaks out you have to stop role-playing and play this byzantine little mini game.

Super bothersome.

There are lots of fiddly rules and strange terms to build up dice pools that end up all feeling the same.  I played it one-on-one with my wife (giggity!) and it just didn't add much to the game.  The Doom Pool was awkward and clunky, and generally it felt like a bunch of rules for the sake of rules.  I was excited by it, but ultimately disappointed.  The "invulnerability issue" really bugged me, more than it should.  Shrug.  I can't say I'm bummed they lost the license.  I wish they'd just redo MSH and be done with it - it still remains the best Marvel system.  Hell, one of the best systems overall.

Quote from: Obeeron;686774I wish they'd just redo MSH and be done with it - it still remains the best Marvel system.  Hell, one of the best systems overall.

This x like, a bajillion

Quote from: YourSwordisMine;686752Cortex is a shit system... Unfortunately MWP refuses to realize this so it gets saddled to even more licensed property... And because of this, I refuse to buy product from them I otherwise would have gotten due to the Licensed IP (Supernatural, nBSG, Serenity, Marvel, and now Firefly)

Cortex is the only RPG that makes me actually angry trying to play it... The dicing mechanic is shit... Even talking about it makes me unreasonably angry... In 30 years of playing RPGs, I have NEVER encountered a system that makes me want to punch someone... I really gave the system a try. I played it 4 times before I gave up... Each game made me angrier and angrier...

Which, I don't like being angry... I'm a pretty laid back person and it takes a lot for me to get mad... But holy shit... Cortex is a good way to fast track me there...

I know that feel. Unrelated to Cortex, but some systems make my teeth itch too.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;686746We had fun with it but there was a serious lack of real consequence. You get physically mentally or emotionally stressed out and you are out of a scene.

Maybe it was our GM but there were no real "oops you're dead" moments. Ever. Mind you we have the same issue with Fate.

Of course, you don't often have "oops you're dead" in superhero comics, either.

That, to me, is the main reason why I don't play superhero RPGs.  The risk of death is a powerful motivator.

Quote from: Obeeron;686774There are lots of fiddly rules and strange terms to build up dice pools that end up all feeling the same.  I played it one-on-one with my wife (giggity!) and it just didn't add much to the game.  The Doom Pool was awkward and clunky, and generally it felt like a bunch of rules for the sake of rules.  I was excited by it, but ultimately disappointed.  The "invulnerability issue" really bugged me, more than it should.  Shrug.  I can't say I'm bummed they lost the license.  I wish they'd just redo MSH and be done with it - it still remains the best Marvel system.  Hell, one of the best systems overall.

What's the "Invulnerability issue"?

I think it's interesting that the system encourages two criticisms on the polar opposite of the RPG spectrum.

"It's too much of a story game"

and

"It's too much of a dice game."

And I agree, to an extent. The level of abstraction is very broad. You're only really meant to use Marvel Characters - the whole thing kind of breaks down when you use your own. With the dice range being so narrow it was hard to get excited about characters, because they all ultimately felt the same - like a big bag of dice being rolled.

There were some great things about it, things that I will take into other games. This was the only superhero game I've played where I could have snake-like robot arms coming out of walls, and giant buzz-saws, and turret lasers all involved in what's going on without it being annoying.

I just feel like it wasn't finished yet, even after it was done.

//Panjumanju

Quote from: flyerfan1991;686820Of course, you don't often have "oops you're dead" in superhero comics, either.

That, to me, is the main reason why I don't play superhero RPGs.  The risk of death is a powerful motivator.

In superhor comics, Batman (A skilled human being) can take a punch from Darkseid (A god that is at least 1-10 million times stronger than a human being) and not be knocekd unconsious.

Comics are storygame not simulationist :)

Quote from: Panjumanju;686876"It's too much of a story game"

and

"It's too much of a dice game."

I don't think those are opposites at all.

In fact the rampant disassociated mini-games are really what turn me off the most about story-games.

It never feels like I'm role-playing so much as moving a piece on a board.

I've played cortex+ action (Leverage), and the loose nature of your assets makes coming up with a technobabble explanation really easy, which would probably work better for a comic book RPG. Heroic is definitely the most crunchy of the iterations; the concept of balance through giving every character a large range of toys for roleplayers to play withis a good one, if completely different to other effectiveness-balanced superhero rpg's, but MHR does also add a ton of rules on top which are going to make some things more powerful. It's certainly not 'game engine as physics engine' like, say, M+M.

Haven't actually played Marcel Heroic, though, and I'd probably be more inclined to go for MSH for my superhero fix.

Quote from: Bill;686879In superhor comics, Batman (A skilled human being) can take a punch from Darkseid (A god that is at least 1-10 million times stronger than a human being) and not be knocekd unconsious.

Comics are storygame not simulationist :)

Your comment is a storygaming comment.

Disclosure: I'm running a FASERIP game right now with modified Karma rules (much more simpler, leveraging Aspects) - and I like a *little*simulationism in my super-heroics. I like knowing the limits of my PC's and NPC's.

Batman isn't *just* a skilled human... he's The Worlds Most Interesting Man, James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Captain America, Gil Grissom, Bruce Lee, Bruce Leroy, Popeye, Tony Stark and Reed Richards all rolled into one.

Getting slapped by Darkseid is probably death-inducing, but Bats wears the monicker of "being just human" but let's be real... if *anyone* (as a GM) can forgive a mere mortal for taking the galactic-slap from Darkseid and survive - Batman is certainly in this territory.

MHR sucked big Galactus balls imo. Cortex is the most horrible system for RPG's I've ever seen. too bad too - they have a lot of good licenses.

Quote from: tenbones;686904Your comment is a storygaming comment.

I don't know what you mean by that. My statement was intended as humor. I love comic books, but they bend physics in a humorous manner.

Quote from: tenbones;686904Batman isn't *just* a skilled human... he's The Worlds Most Interesting Man, James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Captain America, Gil Grissom, Bruce Lee, Bruce Leroy, Popeye, Tony Stark and Reed Richards all rolled into one.

I maintain that Batman IS a skilled human being. Close to THE most skilled in DC. As much as like his character, he performs far, far beyond what is remotely believable even withing comic book absurdity.

Quote from: tenbones;686904Getting slapped by Darkseid is probably death-inducing, but Bats wears the monicker of "being just human" but let's be real... if *anyone* (as a GM) can forgive a mere mortal for taking the galactic-slap from Darkseid and survive - Batman is certainly in this territory.

MHR sucked big Galactus balls imo. Cortex is the most horrible system for RPG's I've ever seen. too bad too - they have a lot of good licenses.

Not probably. Instant death if the blow makes any degree of contact.


I am not trying to be argumentative, I just stand by what I said.

Quote from: Nexus;686838What's the "Invulnerability issue"?

I actually meant the "Intangibility Issue".  If you have d12 in Intangibility, which is described as, "At d12, the power makes you completely out of phase with reality, including even energy waveforms. You're essentially not even there." you can still be hurt by any attack that gets "through" your pool.

Quote from: Obeeron;686932I actually meant the "Intangibility Issue".  If you have d12 in Intangibility, which is described as, "At d12, the power makes you completely out of phase with reality, including even energy waveforms. You're essentially not even there." you can still be hurt by any attack that gets "through" your pool.

That is odd. I guess you're supposed to come up with some handwavium to explain or assume that, for some reason, you became corporal at just the wrong moment. I guess you could get the Invulnerability special effect to cover your ass too.

Quote from: Panjumanju;686876And I agree, to an extent. The level of abstraction is very broad. You're only really meant to use Marvel Characters - the whole thing kind of breaks down when you use your own. With the dice range being so narrow it was hard to get excited about characters, because they all ultimately felt the same - like a big bag of dice being rolled.

Now this is a major check in the "Con" column for me and my current group. In supers rpgs we prefer to make up our characters and settings.

Quote from: Nexus;686947Now this is a major check in the "Con" column for me and my current group. In supers rpgs we prefer to make up our characters and settings.

There are guidelines to create your own heroes, but not a real system in place.  Players work with the Watcher and you use the characters listed in the book as a guideline of what to do.  It wasn't that bad creating a character.

Quote from: RunningLaser;686950There are guidelines to create your own heroes, but not a real system in place.  Players work with the Watcher and you use the characters listed in the book as a guideline of what to do.  It wasn't that bad creating a character.

I've seen a few threads about that; it wasn't encouraging. But it was more than the previous post confirmed a concern. Specifically that the game doesn't work well with original characters and they can start to feel very similar. I really like mechanical diversity among characters. It's a problem I've run into with a number of systems particularly rules lite (thought MHRP doesn't seem to fall into that category).

Quote from: Nexus;686934That is odd. I guess you're supposed to come up with some handwavium to explain or assume that, for some reason, you became corporal at just the wrong moment. I guess you could get the Invulnerability special effect to cover your ass too.

In comic books, that stuff happens a lot, illogical as it may be.

The Flash, who is so fast that someone like spiderman would appear utterly motionless to him, gets hit when the writers feel like it.

The guy could make a sandwich and enjoy lunch while keeping ann eye on a laser barely moving toward him :)

But Captain Boomerang is going to hit him?

I supported the system, conceptually, until newer supplements came out and I realised that they were giving every character Enhanced Reflexes and Enhanced Durability what-have-you, just so they could have something to roll in every situation. I grew very discouraged that they were trying to shoehorn Statistics into a game without Statistics.

Already most of our play time was spent with players trying to figure out how to shove some characteristic or another into an action just for another lousy dice, and like previews at the beginning of a film by the time they got to rolling all that dice they usually forgot why they were rolling. I thought that would get better after a few sessions, but no.

One advantage to the system is that you can have J. Jonah Jameson in your party along with Spider-man, and it works. My players told me the characters that were more fun to play were the simpler ones, rather than ones with powers to cover everything. If you do plan to run this, I suggest - keep it simple. Keep the dice numbers low.

I feel like the system had a lot of potential, and it needs a really good hack.

//Panjumanju

In MHRP Daredevil can fight with The Sentry and hold his own.

That's either awesome or terrible depending on what you seek in your supers game :)

Quote from: Bill;687065In MHRP Daredevil can fight with The Sentry and hold his own.

That's either awesome or terrible depending on what you seek in your supers game :)

I think this is a remarkably succinct summary review of the whole game.

To this day, I haven't decided whether that is good or not, but I lean strongly towards not.

Quote from: drkrash;687154I think this is a remarkably succinct summary review of the whole game.

To this day, I haven't decided whether that is good or not, but I lean strongly towards not.

For me it depends what hold his own means exactly. Win a straight victory should be damn near impossible but outwit, out maneuver delay, evade or otherwise deter from what he was trying to stop Sentry from doing even if its by talking and playing to Sentry's (numerous) psychological issues. I can see that. That's heroic and awesome. I like to see that in my own supers games.

But just punch him out? Not for me even though that could  happen in the comic book. I don't go for that level emulation of comic book narrative logic.

Aunt May vs Galactus: The Herald Wars!

Quote from: Panjumanju;686876I think it's interesting that the system encourages two criticisms on the polar opposite of the RPG spectrum.

"It's too much of a story game"

and

"It's too much of a dice game."

That's exactly the problem.  But it goes to what Piestro said- at a certain point the "narrativism" required of a storygame becomes a game in itself that some of us aren't really up to playing.  And in Cortex, at least this game, it really seems like all the dice "steps" make it that much harder to grok.

JG

Quote from: Nexus;687164For me it depends what hold his own means exactly. Win a straight victory should be damn near impossible but outwit, out maneuver delay, evade or otherwise deter from what he was trying to stop Sentry from doing even if its by talking and playing to Sentry's (numerous) psychological issues. I can see that. That's heroic and awesome. I like to see that in my own supers games.

But just punch him out? Not for me even though that could  happen in the comic book. I don't go for that level emulation of comic book narrative logic.

Sentry is good example of a character that can be defeated mentally and socially fairly easily.

But the physical matchups in MHRP emulate the worst of the comic book battles :)

Like Batman kicking Darkseid in the head :)

Quote from: Bill;687244Sentry is good example of a character that can be defeated mentally and socially fairly easily.

But the physical matchups in MHRP emulate the worst of the comic book battles :)

Like Batman kicking Darkseid in the head :)

Or Batman hiding from Darkseid's Omega beams.

JG

Without a list of attributes that all characters have (some don't have strength, for example) questions like "Can Daredevil move that fallen wall off the innocent bystander?" always puzzled me. Sure he can, by adding a die from solo, one from his trait things, one from his stick and something else. Man without fear D4 or whatever.

So wait, this wall weighs like 300lbs. Can he lift it? *clatter of dice* Yes.

How? Can he lift 300lbs? What about if it were 600lbs? *shrug* clatter of dice. Yeah.

It's that vague 'roll some dice to see if they can do it' thing and 'get dice from anywhere to do stuff' that always had me squirming some. I played it, but I never got the confidence to GM it.

Even to this day I scoop the core book up, read through it a few pages and hit a mental stumbling block. I don't know if its the system, the way it's explained, lack of examples or even a dislike of the game. I want to like it, I always did, and had plans to scoop everything up... But the aforementioned botch job of distribution meant I could get hold of the core book and nothing else. Think I got a few PDFs, but they have sat dormant on my Hard Drive for months.

A missed opportunity, and I think the game system could be made to fit a generic supers game (which I think is planned) but otherwise it's another case of the 'Curse of Marvel'. The last three Marvel games have all been playable and got their fans to some degree, and all were canned within about a year.

That's Marvel for ya, and now with Disney Execs poring over numbers, vulture like, you can bet there will be no more traditional RPGs from them. There isn't the money in it that justifies it at board level.

"Ok, next item. What's this? A role... playing.. game? What's that?"

"A game where people play in their imagination, with dice and such."

"Ok, how much profit did we make from that?"

"$8,453. It did really well in its field."

"You're fired."

Another major problem I had was the bunching of characters. Everyone who is superheroic in some way is rated from D8 to D12. That's it. Other games that were criticised for making characters look too similar have nothing on this one.

It's a shame. I don't hate it, I wanted to love it... I just can't, and it bothers me because I played and enjoyed all the other marvel games.

To one degree or another I've liked all the Marvel RPGs except for MHR. Marvel Universe was a brilliant system that desperately needed just a bit more (any?) playtesting and a strong editorial hand to clean up presentation. Otherwise it's the only diceless system that I'd consider playing. Saga had a lot to recommend it, but just from a purely personal taste standpoint, I didn't care for the card mechanic. Don't care for them in general, just find them too distracting from immersion. Meanwhile my favourite (actually favourite published rpg system in general), MSH / FASERIP was also the only one that could be considered a success.

That doesn't happen often with me. If I like a TV show, it's highly unlikely it will last past 2 seasons. If I like a film, chances are it won't make enough money to warrant a sequel.

But I think that MSH took an approach to the game that ensured its success that the other three, MHR especially, would have done well to have learned from.

Quote from: TristramEvans;687397But I think that MSH took an approach to the game that ensured its success that the other three, MHR especially, would have done well to have learned from.

I'm curious: how would you articulate that specifically?

Mostly, I'm just curious, but secondarily (and off-topic), after consistently reading so many people say that not only was MHR the best Marvel game, but perhaps the best supers game ever, I'm trying to understand.  I went back to read it and, while having fond memories of it, it still needs extensive houseruling to actually work IMO.

Quote from: drkrash;687411I'm curious: how would you articulate that specifically?

Mostly, I'm just curious, but secondarily (and off-topic), after consistently reading so many people say that not only was MHR the best Marvel game, but perhaps the best supers game ever, I'm trying to understand.  I went back to read it and, while having fond memories of it, it still needs extensive houseruling to actually work IMO.

I guess there are four broad areas of MSH worth singling out.

1. For a lot of fans I guess it comes down to getting the right balance between detail and playability. In that respect it's highly subjective and not tied to any specific design feature.

2. Karma is the key design feature one of the more innovative features of the game. It binds genre conventions with the reward system and allows heroes to be heroic when it counts.

I think it goes a lot further though. In the Karma rules you have the unheralded origins of the Fate point economy. MSH put the player in the position in which the player knows he can probably win anyone encounter by spending enough Karma, but what will this cost him in the long run, both in terms of dealing with the next encounter as well as long term advancement (Karma acts both as Fate Point and as XP). It should be noted that by the rules Karma should be computed and awarded at the end of each encounter (not lumped together at the end of the session). This makes the makes it very obvious whether the net between Karma spend on the encounter and Karma earned from the encounter is a gain or a loss.

I think the Karma rules are what make MSH really work. In practice I think a lot of these finer points about Karma were glossed over houseruled.

3. Stunts. The solution in MSH to allowing powers to occasionally do unusual things is very flexible and elegant. I don't know how unique it is to MSH but it seems a modern concept for an 80s game.

4. The other feature of MSH that was fairly unique was "modelling" as a character generation system. That is of course one of the things MHR did take from MSH.

Quote from: James Gillen;687368Or Batman hiding from Darkseid's Omega beams.

JG

Batman evading the Omega beams is cool as hell, but he really should not be able to :)

Quote from: drkrash;687411I'm curious: how would you articulate that specifically?

a couple things...

First off, MSH required an incredibly low "buy-in" from new players. The system literally takes only a few minutes to explain. It assumed its audience was people new to roleplaying or coming from D&D.

Related, but more important, though all Marvel games have had revolutionary (meaning here new as opposed to superior per se) approaches to game design, FASERIP still presented the game in a way that would be instantly familiar to anyone who played a standard RPG: You had 7 Attributes, Talents (skills), and then Powers and Equipment. You had Health (Hitpoints) and Karma (XP). All of it Presented like an atypical rpg of the time. What one came to realize as They played it for a bit, however, was that MSH was actually a point resource allocation system , with Attribute rolls just there to provide a bit of a break.

Additionally, while other MSH systems have gotten progressively more abstract in their character stats, MSH went out of its way to clearly define what every number/adjective meant in real world terms. It's 1to 10 ranking system wasnt concerned with the nitty gritty, like exactly how many pounds The Thing could benchpress or the exact IQ score of The Leader, but a player knew exactly how your rank compared to other characters in the MU or compared to an average citizen, what "weight class" you were in to use an analogy. This not only helped new players interpret thier character sheet and confidently know what thier PC was capable of, but also made it very easy for the GM to create characters on the spot.

The gameline was incredibly well-supported, with resource books and box-sets that appealed to comics fans who'd never played RPGs, with books like The Weapons Locker, the Lands of Doom boxed set, and the Official Handbook series, which detailed nearly every extant character in the MU at the time, from the obscure (Forbush Man) to various iterations of popular characters ( stats for 10+ of the Iron Man suits fr the big gold original to the rarely-used Hulkbuster). Even just with the core rules, one had stats for over a hundred of the most popular heroes and villains. And rules were provided not just for making one's own characters, but also for "modelling" a comicbook character that hadn't been statted up yet (or belonged to a different company).

The underlying base system, which was one of the earliest games to utilize the now-industry-standard universal base mechanic, was robust and modular, meaning it was incredibly easy to "hack" w/o worrying about the system falling apart.

The game was also written and presented specifically with the intention of being a resource book and game manual. The original boxed set is still a model of succinct game presentation, providing all the rules, including chargen, gadgetry rules, rules for building HQ, a wide variety of powers, and a comprehensive overview of the setting in under 50 pages.

Also, while this is an aesthetic niggle on my part, but I still think is relevant to its success and ease of use, it had a standardized art style. The tendency of later Marvel games to throw in random pictures from special painted covers, the 'hawt' artists of the moment, and images from Marvel Trading card sets with no eye towards consistency gave them an overall disjointed and jarring look, where one was supposed to assimilate a Terry Dodson Black Cat, a JRJ Spidey, a Frank Miller Daredevil, and a Liefeld X-Forcer as all part of the same setting. It's a minor complaint, but again another way MSH put a focus on clarity and utility in presentation.

Quote from: TristramEvans;687419What one came to realize as They played it for a bit, however, was that MSH was actually a point resource allocation system , with Attribute rolls just there to provide a bit of a break.

I apologize for being obtuse, but could you unpack this statement a little more for me? Is this a reference to Karma as SG was saying above?

(I'm also curious because I plan to run a long-term supers in the future and I am torn up about system because I can find something awesome about each of them and something I don't like about each at the same time.  All I know is that I am not returning to HERO.  No animosity towards it - just need a change.)

Quote from: drkrash;687420I apologize for being obtuse, but could you unpack this statement a little more for me? Is this a reference to Karma as SG was saying above?

(I'm also curious because I plan to run a long-term supers in the future and I am torn up about system because I can find something awesome about each of them and something I don't like about each at the same time.  All I know is that I am not returning to HERO.  No animosity towards it - just need a change.)

Yeah, Karma was basically the meat and potatoes of the game. At first glance, Karma is just spendable experience points. But unlike XP , which is typically rationed out after a game , Karma flows constantly in FASERIP. It determined how effective a character was, meaning the more heroic a character acted, the more likely they were to succeed and how often they got to pull off crazy stunts. Moreover, as a character's social obligations were a potent way of earning extra Karma, the system encouraged and provided motivation for the player character to maintain a normal life/secret identity outside of heroics.

And it also meant that the game took on a distinctly different, grittier feel with anti heroes like The Punisher. I use a streamlined version of the system for my pulp-flavored Call of Cthulhu game, and with my players being decidedly non-heroic in nature, they cant rely on Karma and so combat becomes a decidedly deadly affair and the players are much more cautious in approach knowing that every FEAT roll carries a high chance of failure. Meanwhile, in a four-colour game, taking the time in between hunting down super villains to patrol the city for street crime, perform acts if public service, or providing rescue/relief for natural disasters means that when they storm the bad guy's lair at the game's climax they can confidently wade into a small force of goons and lay them out with panache and ease,  or when they fall victim to a mad planner's would-be death trap, they can come up with imaginative uses of thier abilities to unexpectedly thwart the villain and make daring last-minute escapes.

Quote from: Soylent Green;6874143. Stunts. The solution in MSH to allowing powers to occasionally do unusual things is very flexible and elegant. I don't know how unique it is to MSH but it seems a modern concept for an 80s game.

It's also a good advancement mechanism. The first few times you need a power stunt, you're going all out, so have to spend karma for it. And lots of karma; your readers are having to accept this new thing you did, out of nowhere. After a while, it just becomes routine. From a gameplay point of view, it also lets you spend "over time" for a new power, rather than all upfront; saving 1,000 karma certainly isn't easy, but 100 now and then is fine.

Quote from: drkrash;687420I apologize for being obtuse, but could you unpack this statement a little more for me? Is this a reference to Karma as SG was saying above?

So the core mechanic is;

1. Decide if you're spending karma or not
2. Roll your dice. Depending on the attribute you're using, there are varying target numbers for good / better / best successes
2.5. If you rolled badly, someone at your table will say something like "I'm sure I heard you mention spending karma"
3. If you said you were spending karma, spend at least 10 points and add that many points to the die roll
4. Consult the chart to see how well you did

Aaaand that's it.

If you've got enough karma, you can simply buy any die result you want, but it's going to cost you. The die rolls simply indicate how little karma you have to spend to do this.

Failure is certainly always an option - and very likely, actually, because the game isn't hugely generous with karma and there are a lot of other things to spend it on.

Quote from: TristramEvans;687426Yeah, Karma was basically the meat and potatoes of the game. At first glance, Karma is just spendable experience points. But unlike XP , which is typically rationed out after a game , Karma flows constantly in FASERIP. It determined how effective a character was, meaning the more heroic a character acted, the more likely they were to succeed and how often they got to pull off crazy stunts. Moreover, as a character's social obligations were a potent way of earning extra Karma, the system encouraged and provided motivation for the player character to maintain a normal life/secret identity outside of heroics.

And it also meant that the game took on a distinctly different, grittier feel with anti heroes like The Punisher. I use a streamlined version of the system for my pulp-flavored Call of Cthulhu game, and with my players being decidedly non-heroic in nature, they cant rely on Karma and so combat becomes a decidedly deadly affair and the players are much more cautious in approach knowing that every FEAT roll carries a high chance of failure. Meanwhile, in a four-colour game, taking the time in between hunting down super villains to patrol the city for street crime, perform acts if public service, or providing rescue/relief for natural disasters means that when they storm the bad guy's lair at the game's climax they can confidently wade into a small force of goons and lay them out with panache and ease,  or when they fall victim to a mad planner's would-be death trap, they can come up with imaginative uses of thier abilities to unexpectedly thwart the villain and make daring last-minute escapes.

That's a very interesting point, given that in my experience the point of Karma was to do everything to convince players to stay on the "four color" path.  So if you go off of it to play a vigilante (decidedly NOT encouraged by the game material), that lack of "hero points" means you have to play things more realistically... which actually enforces sub-genre.

JG

Quote from: James Gillen;687678That's a very interesting point, given that in my experience the point of Karma was to do everything to convince players to stay on the "four color" path.  So if you go off of it to play a vigilante (decidedly NOT encouraged by the game material), that lack of "hero points" means you have to play things more realistically... which actually enforces sub-genre.

JG

Interesting, I hadn't thought about that either. I always thought of karma solely as four color genre enforcement. But since Karma was also experience, IIRC, wouldn't that mean vigilante would feature almost no advancement (it was pretty slow already). Which while it might fit the genre (the Punisher doesn't get allot more powerful over time, at least not in obvious ways) it might be make for frustrating game play.

I don't think it was intentional but it's just another way the system has continued to surprise and delight me. Personally I haven't found the Little to no advancement has really been a bother at all. I use character modelling for charges, so it's not a matter of implied zero to hero like a level-based game, rather my players start the game with an interesting character they like and generally are just entertained laying the character w/o worrying about improving abilities or adding Talents. Ymmv, of course, but I never found advancement systems particularly suited comics or most fiction genres myself. If a player isn't happy with some aspect of thier character or specifically wants to get better at something, I'll usually as a GM just handle it in-game and adjust the character profile as it suits things.

But one of my earliest and longest-standing house rules was to separate karma and advancement anyways, making a separate pool called Continuity that frees up karma for more stunts and roll-adjustments and mitigates the "hoarding points" tendencies of some players.

Quote from: Nexus;687763Interesting, I hadn't thought about that either. I always thought of karma solely as four color genre enforcement. But since Karma was also experience, IIRC, wouldn't that mean vigilante would feature almost no advancement (it was pretty slow already). Which while it might fit the genre (the Punisher doesn't get allot more powerful over time, at least not in obvious ways) it might be make for frustrating game play.

Well, that was the problem I had with the Karma system in general.  In my experience, games on a hero-point economy (like MSH and DC HEROES) end up having you burn whatever you make just to keep yourself intact.

JG

Quote from: TristramEvans;687771But one of my earliest and longest-standing house rules was to separate karma and advancement anyways, making a separate pool called Continuity that frees up karma for more stunts and roll-adjustments and mitigates the "hoarding points" tendencies of some players.

Ok, spill.

Quote from: Bill;686921I don't know what you mean by that. My statement was intended as humor. I love comic books, but they bend physics in a humorous manner.

I mean that comics have their own inherent "silly" logic - but they don't have to be storygames at all. The mechanics of the system are quite clear as are the cause and effect. That Darkseid can OBLITERATE a human regardless of how skilled they are in reality is no more of a "storygaming" abstraction than someone surviving a hit with Excalibur or Krod Mandoon's Flaming Sword of Fire - the arbiter remains, hopefully, the mechanics of the game. The assumption is you go into a comicbook game with the buy-in that such things are possible and indeed - in the case of Batman: expected.

Do you think by "comicbook logic" that Daredevil or Moonknight is going to take a pimpslap from Darkseid? Probably not. And given the stats of those characters - even mechanically - they probably wouldn't. "Reality" insofar as comicbook logic is preserved. Batman in 2e D&D would be like a 19th level Fighter/Rogue - getting slapped by a Pit Fiend ain't gonna kill kill him there either - and I wouldn't say 2e is a Storygame for that reason either.

Quote from: Bill;686921I maintain that Batman IS a skilled human being. Close to THE most skilled in DC. As much as like his character, he performs far, far beyond what is remotely believable even withing comic book absurdity.

Then in all seriousness of genre complaints - using Batman or maybe Captain America is a bad example? Absurdity is where you mix genre conventions (in this case reality and comic book "logic"). The *fact* that it's Batman justifies his survival by comic-book logic. I wouldn't say many other "skill-based" characters get that pass. Is it absurd? Sure. But that's the genre baseline.

In the Comic Universe of Tenbonistan - there are VERY few at least. YMMV.

Quote from: Bill;686921Not probably. Instant death if the blow makes any degree of contact.

I dislike absolutes. There are people that have fallen 30k feet and survived. There are people that have been shot in the chest and given speeches for 45 minutes afterwards (Teddy Roosevelt), among many other real-life absurdities. Give Batman and his ilk their absurd due.

In reality - a being like Darkseid couldn't exist. He'd explode from the high-energy content in his body that somehow houses the Omega Effect after all.

Quote from: Bill;686921I am not trying to be argumentative, I just stand by what I said.

Yeah I'm just having a silly convo with you too. No worries.


As for the Karma discussion in FASERIP - I just removed it. I use Aspects, and Sub-plots from Fate. This allows players to be heroes or anti-heroes or villains - or whatever.

I assign XP values to raise stats/powers or purchase talents. Doing bad shit screws your popularity. That's how I rein in PC's that get a little too rough. Being a villain and having the Avengers show up to beat your ass when you end up on their radar is rarely a good thing after all...

MHR was the super hero RPG I wanted to play. I suppose that's why I designed it the way I did. I've played all of the earlier Marvel licensed RPGs - spent several years running a MSH game in college, for example - and they all influenced MHR in one way or another.

It clearly wasn't the game everybody wanted, but I know it was the game a lot of people loved - I got a substantial amount of positive responses from it, many of which came from kids and women and newcomers to the hobby who appreciated how it worked and how it captured the flavor of comics. I think the bulk of the negative responses came from folks who had been playing traditional RPGs for a long time. But not all.

All in all, I think we did a pretty good job given the sheer number of constraints the license imposed upon us. If you're wondering why the book never mentions creating your own original characters, or why the product line didn't include handbooks for the Avengers or handbooks for the X-Men or handbooks for gerar and equipment, that'd be why.

Cheers,
Cam

Quote from: Cam Banks;696615All in all, I think we did a pretty good job given the sheer number of constraints the license imposed upon us. If you're wondering why the book never mentions creating your own original characters, or why the product line didn't include handbooks for the Avengers or handbooks for the X-Men or handbooks for gerar and equipment, that'd be why.

I think even at the time it was fairly obvious the system was strangled to death by its trademark owners.

//Panjumanju

Quote from: Cam Banks;696615MHR was the super hero RPG I wanted to play. I suppose that's why I designed it the way I did. I've played all of the earlier Marvel licensed RPGs - spent several years running a MSH game in college, for example - and they all influenced MHR in one way or another.

It clearly wasn't the game everybody wanted, but I know it was the game a lot of people loved - I got a substantial amount of positive responses from it, many of which came from kids and women and newcomers to the hobby who appreciated how it worked and how it captured the flavor of comics. I think the bulk of the negative responses came from folks who had been playing traditional RPGs for a long time. But not all.

All in all, I think we did a pretty good job given the sheer number of constraints the license imposed upon us. If you're wondering why the book never mentions creating your own original characters, or why the product line didn't include handbooks for the Avengers or handbooks for the X-Men or handbooks for gerar and equipment, that'd be why.

Cheers,
Cam

That does explain why no rules for custom characters. Someone really thought that was a good idea? Must have been rough with constraints like that.

Quote from: Cam Banks;696615MHR was the super hero RPG I wanted to play. I suppose that's why I designed it the way I did. I've played all of the earlier Marvel licensed RPGs - spent several years running a MSH game in college, for example - and they all influenced MHR in one way or another.

It clearly wasn't the game everybody wanted, but I know it was the game a lot of people loved - I got a substantial amount of positive responses from it, many of which came from kids and women and newcomers to the hobby who appreciated how it worked and how it captured the flavor of comics. I think the bulk of the negative responses came from folks who had been playing traditional RPGs for a long time. But not all.

All in all, I think we did a pretty good job given the sheer number of constraints the license imposed upon us. If you're wondering why the book never mentions creating your own original characters, or why the product line didn't include handbooks for the Avengers or handbooks for the X-Men or handbooks for gerar and equipment, that'd be why.

Cheers,
Cam

While I understand licensing issues, I think one of the main problems was Cortex system itself. I have never played a game system before that literally makes me angry playing it... The core dicing mechanic is just horrid. Not only is it frustrating, but it pulls you completely out of the game and breaks immersion unlike any other game system I have ever played.

It makes me sad, cause you guys get a lot of cool licensed products I would love to buy... Just with them being saddled with Cortex,  I never will...

I kind of agree about the cortex system in that it's a like or loathe thing. Chuck a bunch of dice and choose the best ones, doesn't matter where they came from. It's good in that characters aren't one trick ponies - they may be the greatest at whatever but sometimes their fear of failure D8 saves their ass or whatever, but on the flip side as an old fart I can't help but wonder how strong, smart, tough, strong willed a character is, in other words I like traditional stats.

I will watch out for a license free version of the game though, and hope it will be easier for us older types to pick up. The writing in the core marvel book had me flicking back and forth when trying to pick it up.

Quote from: Cam Banks;696615All in all, I think we did a pretty good job given the sheer number of constraints the license imposed upon us. If you're wondering why the book never mentions creating your own original characters, or why the product line didn't include handbooks for the Avengers or handbooks for the X-Men or handbooks for gerar and equipment, that'd be why.

Any chance of seeing a IP-free version of the system, refined and revisited without those constraints?  I'd love to see a variant of it that went through another round of critical editing, and allowed to really stretch its wings!

Quote from: APN;696670I kind of agree about the cortex system in that it's a like or loathe thing. Chuck a bunch of dice and choose the best ones, doesn't matter where they came from. It's good in that characters aren't one trick ponies - they may be the greatest at whatever but sometimes their fear of failure D8 saves their ass or whatever, but on the flip side as an old fart I can't help but wonder how strong, smart, tough, strong willed a character is, in other words I like traditional stats.

I will watch out for a license free version of the game though, and hope it will be easier for us older types to pick up. The writing in the core marvel book had me flicking back and forth when trying to pick it up.

I'm not incredible familiar with Cortex. But the impression I get is that it works like this: Build a dice pool based on your characters traits (which are rated by dice). Roll that pool and create a narrative for action based the results (succeed or fail) and the dice used to build the pool. Is that close?

Quote from: Cam Banks;696615MHR was the super hero RPG I wanted to play. I suppose that's why I designed it the way I did. I've played all of the earlier Marvel licensed RPGs - spent several years running a MSH game in college, for example - and they all influenced MHR in one way or another.

It clearly wasn't the game everybody wanted, but I know it was the game a lot of people loved - I got a substantial amount of positive responses from it, many of which came from kids and women and newcomers to the hobby who appreciated how it worked and how it captured the flavor of comics. I think the bulk of the negative responses came from folks who had been playing traditional RPGs for a long time. But not all.

Well you got way further than most, so congratulations on that, and people should only ever write games they want to play. And yeah, it wasn't the type of frame I enjoy, but it was well written and comprehensive within its own goals.

QuoteAll in all, I think we did a pretty good job given the sheer number of constraints the license imposed upon us. If you're wondering why the book never mentions creating your own original characters, or why the product line didn't include handbooks for the Avengers or handbooks for the X-Men or handbooks for gerar and equipment, that'd be why.

Cheers,
Cam

Yeah, I heard they initially tried to put the same constraints on the original MSH RPG, which is why the authors snuck the çhargen into the appendix in the first release. Honestly, you should have fought them on those points. Its like Hollywood, creative directors have to fight tooth and nail with executive meddling. The suits should never be telling the talent thierbusiness.

Quote from: Panjumanju;696621I think even at the time it was fairly obvious the system was strangled to death by its trademark owners.

//Panjumanju

Which is the usual problem with licensed games.

JG

Having done now three games based on licenses... Yeah. It is a total bitch.
First book: Went fairly well for five years until a rival company started causing trouble. Then the IP fell through and Im left with alot of product I cant move anymore.

Second book: Went ok at first. But getting getting little details was a nuisance. Then another company yanked the deal out from under me at the 75% mark.

3rd book: Getting setting details was a total pain in the ass. The owners were barely communicative and then went dead silent. IP folded not long after. Luckily was only 25% through the book.

Getting the creators to talk is the main hurdle. You sure as hell better know the IP inside and out. Little mistakes fans will jump all over half the time and its the fans that are your target audience.

Getting art is another absolute pain. New art will likely cost you. Retreads will get occasional groans from fans. Others will like it.

IP deals can fall apart at a moments notice and sometimes for no foreseeable reason and then you are left with work done and nothing for it.

Quote from: YourSwordisMine;696652While I understand licensing issues, I think one of the main problems was Cortex system itself. I have never played a game system before that literally makes me angry playing it... The core dicing mechanic is just horrid. Not only is it frustrating, but it pulls you completely out of the game and breaks immersion unlike any other game system I have ever played.

It makes me sad, cause you guys get a lot of cool licensed products I would love to buy... Just with them being saddled with Cortex,  I never will...

You know, man, I'm really sorry the game gets this kind of emotional response out of you. All I can say is that this isn't the same experience others have. I really hope you've got games you like to play and don't need to worry about this one.

I do feel it's kind of important to note that Cortex Classic (BSG, Supernatural) and Cortex Plus (everything after those ones) really aren't all that much alike outside of the "rating stats with dice" aspect of it. In fact, even one Cortex Plus game isn't necessarily the same as another - look at the difference between Smallville and Leverage, or Marvel Heroic and Firefly.

Cheers,
Cam

Part of the problem (at least for me) was the anticipation of seeing another Marvel game in print only to be presented with another 'non traditional' RPG, like Marvel Saga (cards) and Marvel Universe (diceless). I actually happen to like both of those games but understand why others don't.

When Marvel Heroic came along we're presented with a bunch of traits rather than stats, and whilst I will hold my hands up and admit it does the best job of putting the Falcon and Thor in the same team of any Marvel game I've seen (i.e. not relegating the falcon character to the sidelines watching Thor smite and 'I say thee nay!' to everyone) it does so by dragging the upper tier characters down. It's feasible, through lousy rolls, for Black Widow to beat Hulk in an arm wrestling contest, unless you handwave and say 'higher stat beats lower stat no need to roll' or whatever.

Come to think of it, the Widow pulling her zip down at the front, batting her eyelids at green meanie and playing footsie under the table might get her the win.

Anyway, lack of traditional gaming stats for characters and the event books rather than module type adventures are just a couple of the reasons I'm guessing people didn't care for it (many did, mind). I don't know about anyone else, but I can't be bothered with the annual universe wide events that are forgotten about or retconned in comics almost as soon as they happen. Give me a standard, short, module any day.

Quote from: APN;697219Part of the problem (at least for me) was the anticipation of seeing another Marvel game in print only to be presented with another 'non traditional' RPG, like Marvel Saga (cards) and Marvel Universe (diceless). I actually happen to like both of those games but understand why others don't.

When Marvel Heroic came along we're presented with a bunch of traits rather than stats, and whilst I will hold my hands up and admit it does the best job of putting the Falcon and Thor in the same team of any Marvel game I've seen (i.e. not relegating the falcon character to the sidelines watching Thor smite and 'I say thee nay!' to everyone) it does so by dragging the upper tier characters down. It's feasible, through lousy rolls, for Black Widow to beat Hulk in an arm wrestling contest, unless you handwave and say 'higher stat beats lower stat no need to roll' or whatever.

Come to think of it, the Widow pulling her zip down at the front, batting her eyelids at green meanie and playing footsie under the table might get her the win.

Anyway, lack of traditional gaming stats for characters and the event books rather than module type adventures are just a couple of the reasons I'm guessing people didn't care for it (many did, mind). I don't know about anyone else, but I can't be bothered with the annual universe wide events that are forgotten about or retconned in comics almost as soon as they happen. Give me a standard, short, module any day.

Just for fun we had Daredevil take on Sentry in hand to hand combat.

Daredevil held his own.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;686709I don't think it had to do directly with sales. Every release jumped to the top of the dtrpg list and stayed there for a bit.

I think it has more to do with:

A. MWP bungling physical product. Seriously, out of the 6 books published, they only managed to get 2 of them to printers. This wasn't a problem with the game, it was a problem with their management.

combined with:

B. REALLY high expectations from Marvel. They are riding the movie zeitgeist right now. I imagine they were expecting a much higher return than they were getting, and the return they were expecting was probably higher than an RPG was going to produce, especially when the physical product was managed horribly.

But, either way, we are both speculating. But: there is no evidence the pdf copies sold badly, and plenty that they sold well. The physical releases on the other hand. Well yeah, fuck that shit.

Really, if MARVEL want's a decent return rate and book output ratio for a game, they need to quit dealing with small time operators, when they license a MARVEL RPG.  They probably, even though I don't care for them, should have licensed the game to someone like WoTC/Hasbro who has the money to put the books out on a timely basis or maybe even Fantasy Flight Games (even though, they may even blow it, they seem to be kinda slow on book output as well).

BTW, they got 5 books to the printers not 2, I have them in my hands right now; The Basic Book, The Civil War Premium Event book, X-Men Event book, Civil War 50-States Initiative book and the Young Avengers/Runaways Event book.

Quote from: flyingcircus;697255BTW, they got 5 books to the printers not 2, I have them in my hands right now; The Basic Book, The Civil War Premium Event book, X-Men Event book, Civil War 50-States Initiative book and the Young Avengers/Runaways Event book.

I can't find any information anywhere about the X-Men, Young Avengers, or 50 States Initiative books ever getting physical printings.

When I said get them to the printers, I meant PHYSICAL copies for sale on store shelves.

Quote from: APN;697219It's feasible, through lousy rolls, for Black Widow to beat Hulk in an arm wrestling contest, unless you handwave and say 'higher stat beats lower stat no need to roll' or whatever.

Kind of like Amber Diceless, then.

QuoteCome to think of it, the Widow pulling her zip down at the front, batting her eyelids at green meanie and playing footsie under the table might get her the win.

Kind of like Amber Diceless, then.

QuoteAnyway, lack of traditional gaming stats for characters and the event books rather than module type adventures are just a couple of the reasons I'm guessing people didn't care for it (many did, mind).

It is a maxim of geek fandom that the most hardcore fans of any property have the poorest understanding of it.  Comic book fans demand official immutable stats and rigid continuity.  The writers throw them a bone occasionally but know full well if they actually enforced either of those they'd lose most of their fanbase because those things are actually inimical to superhero adventure comics.

Marvel Heroic came closer than any other superhero RPG I'm familiar with to mimicking what actually happens in superhero comic books.  This is exactly why gamers hated it.

QuoteGive me a standard, short, module any day.

Kind of like Breakout, then.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;697268When I said get them to the printers, I meant PHYSICAL copies for sale on store shelves.

"Ensuring shelf presence in the brick-and-mortar retail channels" is not even remotely close to the same thing as "getting [them] to the printers."  Learn to say what you mean.

Quote from: daniel_ream;697283"Ensuring shelf presence in the brick-and-mortar retail channels" is not even remotely close to the same thing as "getting [them] to the printers."  Learn to say what you mean.

Learn to context.

The full text of what he was responding to:

"A. MWP bungling physical product. Seriously, out of the 6 books published, they only managed to get 2 of them to printers. This wasn't a problem with the game, it was a problem with their management."

I was addressing the fact that they didn't get shit on shelves. IE Bungling physical product. I even mentioned that six books were published! I may have used the wrong wording, but what I meant was very obvious from the context of what I said. Only 2 of the 6 books they published had physical copies, when ALL of them were supposed to, and the release of the Civil War book in physical was WAAAAY behind schedule as well.

There was no shelf presence for the other 4 books because they never made it into print. There were pdf copies, but that was it.

I for one have never wanted an rpg that emulates "exactly what happens in comics"

At least 75% of the comics I've read are barely literate fanfic, running the gamut of genres, and the notion of continuity (which was a late addition to the medium as it were) hasn't existed since Jim Shooter was ousted as EiC.

What Ive always wanted is an rpg that lets me play a character in world where superheroes exist.

I have no desire to mimic what actually happens in comic books. I want to make my own characters and have my players be the star of their own show, not Spiderman or Thor or whoever. I want those canon characters to turn up, interact and be part of the background so that you feel like you are in the Marvel Universe. I want home grown characters to battle against homebrew bad guys and established marvel villains.

The first Marvel game (early 80s) assumed you'd play Marvel Characters and tacked character creation on as an afterthought. They corrected it (in the advanced game) with a much expanded character creation system, plus the ultimate powers book.

DC heroes 1e got it right straight away with a fully fleshed out character creation system (much improved in 2e) and that was why it won out (actually, smashed its face into the ground, pulled its hair and called it names) over Marvel for our go to game.

Marvel Heroic had that same tacked on character creation system in the basic game. The assumption that you wanted to play established characters is all well and good, but it was one of the things people complained about when the game came out. A handwaving style 'choose what you like, within reason' character creation approach that gives you little in the way of guidance especially with things like milestones and special fx didn't help.

I think an alternate character creation system was offered as a pdf (to Cams' and MWP credit - no one can argue they didn't do their best to support the game) but by then people seemed to have decided they loved or hated it. In a market as saturated as Supers is (probably second only to Fantasy) with a big (probably the biggest) license in the genre you need to get things right first time and hit the ground running with good sales or you'll go the same way as the previous two Marvel games (1 year and out) and so it proved to be.

With regards the Breakout adventure in the basic book, fine, a standalone 'adventure' (well, big cloud with fists and feet poking out) but how many times are you going to play that?

The original MSH saturated us with different modules and sourcebooks. I feel that format and type of support would have been better than putting out (or rather, struggling to put out) hefty event books (at least in premium editions) especially as in the UK we were pretty much starved of anything bar the Basic book in dead tree format.

I supported the Marvel Heroic game as best I could (basic in print and pdf, pdfs for the rest and wanted to get the whole lot in dead tree) but the rollout was botched, for whatever reason. A missed opportunity, again, with the Marvel game and unless FFG get the license (seeing as they have the Lucasfilm stuff it's feasible they might get the Marvel stuff too) in the next couple of years I can't see there being another Marvel RPG for a long time, if ever.

Goal of the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game was: emulate Marvel comic books.
Goal of 90% of other super hero RPGs: play a character in a world in which super heroes exist.

I was once asked, why couldn't you just use Mutants & Masterminds? I said, that game is already out there, aren't you playing it? I think what they really meant was, why can't you make official Marvel stats for my favorite Marvel characters in the M&M system?

Also, it's true that the 3 supplements for Civil War never actually made it into widespread distribution but MWP did print sufficient numbers to fill preorders. Annihilation was ready to go to the printer (I think they even had all the files) right as Marvel pulled the plug. Luckily a lot of folks got it in PDF before the end.

Cheers,
Cam

Quote from: Cam Banks;697383Also, it's true that the 3 supplements for Civil War never actually made it into widespread distribution but MWP did print sufficient numbers to fill preorders. Annihilation was ready to go to the printer (I think they even had all the files) right as Marvel pulled the plug. Luckily a lot of folks got it in PDF before the end.

Cheers,
Cam

I want even aware ANY of those got printed

Quote from: Bill;697245Just for fun we had Daredevil take on Sentry in hand to hand combat.

Daredevil held his own.

When you get right down it, Aunt May can beat Sentry.

Quote from: Cam Banks;697383Goal of the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game was: emulate Marvel comic books.

Emulating Comic Books and their narrative tropes isn't what I'm looking for in a roleplaying game, but I will have to say if I was, MHR looks like it does it really really well.

So, while I'm not your audience, I applaud your ability.  Also you've always been a good sport on forums, even when you're getting piled on. :hatsoff:

Also, for people like me who aren't all that narrative, you might want to check out a Cortex+ system for the dice pools.  I do think it's interesting the way you can customize the die pools for what you're trying to accomplish, and you don't have to go Full.Story with the rest of the mechanics either.

Quote from: TristramEvans;697331I for one have never wanted an rpg that emulates "exactly what happens in comics"

At least 75% of the comics I've read are barely literate fanfic, running the gamut of genres, and the notion of continuity (which was a late addition to the medium as it were) hasn't existed since Jim Shooter was ousted as EiC.

What Ive always wanted is an rpg that lets me play a character in world where superheroes exist.

Villains & Vigilanties, Champions, Heroes Unlimited, Scraypers, even SMT, and others do that. Its how they do it that attracts or not. Same for license games that happen to have personal characters as an option. Someones going to love MSH and hate DC, and someones going to love MHR and hate MSH, etc.

Some people like a pre-defined world to play in, others want to build their own.

Quote from: TristramEvans;697331I for one have never wanted an rpg that emulates "exactly what happens in comics"

At least 75% of the comics I've read are barely literate fanfic, running the gamut of genres, and the notion of continuity (which was a late addition to the medium as it were) hasn't existed since Jim Shooter was ousted as EiC.

What Ive always wanted is an rpg that lets me play a character in world where superheroes exist.

You should read better books.

One thing I do think: MHR is proof positive that despite fears to the contrary, trying to sell 'stealth' storygames/narrativeRPGs/boogeymonsters/etc. doesn't seem to actually work.

Quote from: JonWake;697408You should read better books.

I've read them. They're just unfortunately 25% (and that's probably being very generous) of what the mainstream American comic publishers have produced since Action Comics 1.

Quote from: TristramEvans;697331I for one have never wanted an rpg that emulates "exactly what happens in comics"

At least 75% of the comics I've read are barely literate fanfic, running the gamut of genres, and the notion of continuity (which was a late addition to the medium as it were) hasn't existed since Jim Shooter was ousted as EiC.

What Ive always wanted is an rpg that lets me play a character in world where superheroes exist.

MHRP does seem to emulate the genre quite well but does aspects of it that I'm not really interested in capturing. Not a bad game but not a game for my preferences.

Quote from: CRKrueger;697402Emulating Comic Books and their narrative tropes isn't what I'm looking for in a roleplaying game, but I will have to say if I was, MHR looks like it does it really really well.

So, while I'm not your audience, I applaud your ability.  

Do not buy Hearts & Souls, please. Spend your money on some other superhero game you'd like more. :D

Quote from: TristramEvans;697425I've read them. They're just unfortunately 25% (and that's probably being very generous) of what the mainstream American comic publishers have produced since Action Comics 1.

90% of everything is shit.

Quote from: JonWake;69749490% of everything is shit.

I don't know about that, books seem to swing closer to 50% (though I haven't read nearly as large of the overall percentage, probably not even close. Maybe it's just easier to avoid the crap). TV is probably nearer to 90%. Film maybe closer to 80. Maybe the Internet is 90%.

Haven't, surprisingly, read that many really awful RPGs (well , published ones) But then , I avoided d20 like the plague.

I think I'm wandering far afield off topic though.

Anyways, yeah, a lot of stuff overall that happens in comics I wouldnt want my ideal supers rpg emulating. But then, I'm not a kid snymore, my tastes were less refined back in the day.

Quote from: APN;697219When Marvel Heroic came along we're presented with a bunch of traits rather than stats, and whilst I will hold my hands up and admit it does the best job of putting the Falcon and Thor in the same team of any Marvel game I've seen (i.e. not relegating the falcon character to the sidelines watching Thor smite and 'I say thee nay!' to everyone) it does so by dragging the upper tier characters down. It's feasible, through lousy rolls, for Black Widow to beat Hulk in an arm wrestling contest, unless you handwave and say 'higher stat beats lower stat no need to roll' or whatever.

Come to think of it, the Widow pulling her zip down at the front, batting her eyelids at green meanie and playing footsie under the table might get her the win.

If it was the Scarlett Johannsen version, certainly.

QuoteAnyway, lack of traditional gaming stats for characters and the event books rather than module type adventures are just a couple of the reasons I'm guessing people didn't care for it (many did, mind). I don't know about anyone else, but I can't be bothered with the annual universe wide events that are forgotten about or retconned in comics almost as soon as they happen. Give me a standard, short, module any day.

That's got a lot to do with my disdain for licensed superhero games too (including M&M 3rd Edition, a great game, but basically sold as the new DC characters game).  I saw this quote recently where J. Michael Straczynski talked about writing for Marvel Comics and mentioned how every time he and the staff made the setting consistent on their end, some new big-time crossover event would come in and wreck everything they did.

JG

Quote from: JonWake;69749490% of everything is shit.

Except for shit, which is 100%.

JG

Quote from: Silverlion;697477Do not buy Hearts & Souls, please. Spend your money on some other superhero game you'd like more. :D

Dude I bought that a long time ago.

Quote from: James Gillen;697511Except for shit, which is 100%.

JG

Except for when it's 1% corn.

So what would a Marvel RPG need to do to succeed?

What measure of success are we talking about? Thousands of copies? Tens of thousands? Kickstarting the hobby and dragging kids away from their consoles/smartphones?

Would it need to be of a traditional type (stats, modules, maps, minis) or one of the more recent trait based games, or try (again) to bring something new, 'exciting' and different to the table (bearing in mind that's been tried twice with Marvel games already, three times if you count MHRP as not a traditional pen and paper RPG)

Other than FFG, (who are the obvious choice at the moment seeing as they do the star wars stuff for Disney/Lucasfilm) who else might do a good job and make it a successful game? WOTC? Really? I think they will have a tough time making Next a successful game, but that's another story.

Who do you aim the game at? Perhaps it'd be best to split into a basic and advanced game, punt the basic game at the kids in the Disney store. Make it an RPG/Boardgame hybrid or some kind of tie in with a console, dice and heroclix style figures (skylanders style maybe)

Or are we looking at the last Marvel Licensed RPG? Maybe that ship has sailed, Disney has moved on, and expects great things from Spiderman socks. scarves and underpants in the fourth quarter as opposed to some quirky little book that needs funny dice and played by moaning old bastards.

As for comics, I'm not what you'd call a fan boy. I haven't followed them for a few years since the Avengers became half a dozen teams, Doctor Octopus became Spiderman and Hulk made war on the world then they fixed the world and made Hulk their friend. I used to take my son to buy comics (he was 8-9 at the time) and it got to the stage where he was saying "I don't think I should be reading this dad" and I could only agree.

Don't even get me started on the New 52 by DC. My son dropped those like a hot stone and having read a few of the first ones, I'm pretty sure I know why. Ditching what you know (and love) about characters and replacing them with porn stars who can fly (Starfire) and morally grey 'heroes' is fine, but I can't give that stuff to my kids. You turn him off comics now, and chances are he'll never get back into them, ever.

30-35 years ago I was a comic fan. I bought up whatever I could afford, it didn't matter who was in it. I could name every character, their supporting cast, and roughly what was going on with them (though the stories tended to be self contained for the most part).

Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I know what I like and the current (last year or two) Marvel/DC stuff isn't it.

Marvel's really never been the same since Shooter was ousted. I want to grit my teeth when Quesada comes to mind.

Quote from: APN;697534As for comics, I'm not what you'd call a fan boy. I haven't followed them for a few years since the Avengers became half a dozen teams, Doctor Octopus became Spiderman and Hulk made war on the world then they fixed the world and made Hulk their friend. I used to take my son to buy comics (he was 8-9 at the time) and it got to the stage where he was saying "I don't think I should be reading this dad" and I could only agree.

Don't even get me started on the New 52 by DC. My son dropped those like a hot stone and having read a few of the first ones, I'm pretty sure I know why. Ditching what you know (and love) about characters and replacing them with porn stars who can fly (Starfire) and morally grey 'heroes' is fine, but I can't give that stuff to my kids. You turn him off comics now, and chances are he'll never get back into them, ever.

30-35 years ago I was a comic fan. I bought up whatever I could afford, it didn't matter who was in it. I could name every character, their supporting cast, and roughly what was going on with them (though the stories tended to be self contained for the most part).

Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I know what I like and the current (last year or two) Marvel/DC stuff isn't it.

I can relate, and I am a lifelong superhero genre junkie.

Comic books have always had good and horrible runs; that comes with the turf.

But I like the 'oldschool' Marvel Avengers, Fantastic Four, DR Strange, Captain America, Thor, Spiderman.

DC had some great runs many years ago, Teen Titans and Legion of Superheroes leap to mind.

A lot of the 'newer' stuff seems terrible to me.

Quote from: APN;697532So what would a Marvel RPG need to do to succeed?

Firstly, it needs a licensor who is willing to either understand the RPG market, or just take the word of someone who does and not interfere too much beyond signing off on content.

I also think it would need a simpler but more conceptually-complete ruleset. The Cortex+ system is fine, but it's very much a gamer's system. Marvel Super Heroes is fine, but has some glaring holes in it's power applications. Mutants and Masterminds is not fine, due to it's obsession with points. Icons... I haven't bought a copy of.

Honestly, I think you could do quite well by using a diceless, narrative, system as your base.

Quote from: APN;697532So what would a Marvel RPG need to do to succeed?

Realistically? Get a time machine and go back to 1984.

With all due respect to Cam Banks and MWP, they were never going to be able to make a commercial success of MHR, not with the economics of licensed IP being what they are in 2013.  I'm keeping a jaundiced eye on the Star Wars RPG now that Disney's got the rights.

QuoteWhat measure of success are we talking about? Thousands of copies? Tens of thousands? Kickstarting the hobby and dragging kids away from their consoles/smartphones?

I'd love to be proven wrong, but that's never going to happen.  The hobby had its peak in the late 70's/early 80's because it was the Pokemon/Magic/Tickle Me Elmo of its day.  That lightning will never again be bottlable.

QuoteMake it an RPG/Boardgame hybrid or some kind of tie in with a console, dice and heroclix style figures (skylanders style maybe)

Fuse Disney Infinity with HeroClix.  That isn't really an RPG, but it's the closest you're going to get.

Quote...and played by moaning old bastards.

This is the money quote: I see no evidence that children in the age range we're talking about have any interest in superhero comics or tabletop RPGs.  You are correct about comic books - I can't be arsed to find the quote, but one of DC's editors said publicly that they didn't make comics for kids, they make them for 38-year-old nostalgic men.  And the local gaming stores here have parents advertising trying to find people for their 13-year-olds to play D&D with.

QuoteMaybe I'm just old fashioned, but I know what I like and the current (last year or two) Marvel/DC stuff isn't it.

If one is familiar with this thing we call "the Internet", back issues of superhero comics are readily available.  IYKWIMAITYD.

Quote from: CRKrueger;697527Dude I bought that a long time ago.

Ack. Was it too "genres/tropes" for you?

Quote from: APN;697534As for comics, I'm not what you'd call a fan boy. I haven't followed them for a few years since the Avengers became half a dozen teams, Doctor Octopus became Spiderman and Hulk made war on the world then they fixed the world and made Hulk their friend. I used to take my son to buy comics (he was 8-9 at the time) and it got to the stage where he was saying "I don't think I should be reading this dad" and I could only agree.

Don't even get me started on the New 52 by DC. My son dropped those like a hot stone and having read a few of the first ones, I'm pretty sure I know why. Ditching what you know (and love) about characters and replacing them with porn stars who can fly (Starfire) and morally grey 'heroes' is fine, but I can't give that stuff to my kids. You turn him off comics now, and chances are he'll never get back into them, ever.

30-35 years ago I was a comic fan. I bought up whatever I could afford, it didn't matter who was in it. I could name every character, their supporting cast, and roughly what was going on with them (though the stories tended to be self contained for the most part).

Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I know what I like and the current (last year or two) Marvel/DC stuff isn't it.

If you want comics that you can share with your kids I would not overlook the Marvel Adventures range. Yes some of it is a bit juvenile even by comics standards, but a lot of them are real gems, featuring the charm of four colour superheroes with the witty banter and clever plots of modern comics.

I'd look out in particular for issue penned by Paul Tobin. His "Dr Doom and Masters of Evil" and "Black Widow and the Marvel Girls" are among my favourite comics of the past decade.

Quote from: Silverlion;697690Ack. Was it too "genres/tropes" for you?

Oh yeah, way too genre-aware, way too collaborative comic book storytelling, but to be honest, I don't expect modern Super-Hero games to be traditional roleplaying games except for the "Super-Build" games like Hero or M&M.

I knew what I was getting into and really was representin' for a homie.

As a "writing the Comic Book from within" game goes, I think it actually does a better job then MHR.

IMO, you're a unique author in that you include interesting and strong narrative elements in your games that from everything I can tell, do not spring at all from the Forge and have a more organic nature, less focus on narrative control for it's own sake and more focus on the overall experience of the individual game.  Hopefully that didn't just cost you sales from the story crowd.

Quote from: CRKrueger;697726Oh yeah, way too genre-aware, way too collaborative comic book storytelling, but to be honest, I don't expect modern Super-Hero games to be traditional roleplaying games except for the "Super-Build" games like Hero or M&M.

I knew what I was getting into and really was representin' for a homie.

As a "writing the Comic Book from within" game goes, I think it actually does a better job then MHR.

IMO, you're a unique author in that you include interesting and strong narrative elements in your games that from everything I can tell, do not spring at all from the Forge and have a more organic nature, less focus on narrative control for it's own sake and more focus on the overall experience of the individual game.  Hopefully that didn't just cost you sales from the story crowd.

Thanks! I appreciate the feedback. I do wish I could write games for everyone, maybe I'll write another supers game someday like Steve Kenson.

As for costing sales with the story crowd, I'm pretty invisible to most gamers it seems. Story based or not.

I do try and focus on organic flow for the genre and putting things in the hands of the characters (albeit through the players.)

Quote from: APN;697532So what would a Marvel RPG need to do to succeed?

We've already been over that.  First and foremost Marvel would have to step back and let professional game designers make a complete game.

JG

Quote from: Emperor Norton;697268I can't find any information anywhere about the X-Men, Young Avengers, or 50 States Initiative books ever getting physical printings.

When I said get them to the printers, I meant PHYSICAL copies for sale on store shelves.

Well they where.  I got mine straight away from MWP along with the free PDF's, besides you said printers not store shelves, I may play a Psychic in M&M3E but really I'm not so I can't read your mind of "what you meant contextually", so lets not bugger about it.


{Originally Posted by Cam Banks  View Post
Also, it's true that the 3 supplements for Civil War never actually made it into widespread distribution but MWP did print sufficient numbers to fill preorders. Annihilation was ready to go to the printer (I think they even had all the files) right as Marvel pulled the plug. Luckily a lot of folks got it in PDF before the end.

Cheers,
Cam}

I also got the PDF for Annihilation as well, as I had the book Pre-Ordered but it never went to the printers, wish it did though, great book.

Quote from: flyingcircus;697887Well they where.  I got mine straight away from MWP along with the free PDF's, besides you said printers not store shelves, I may play a Psychic in M&M3E but really I'm not so I can't read your mind of "what you meant contextually", so lets not bugger about it.

I was incorrect that none got printed. I wasn't expecting you to read my mind: I didn't even realize they were able to fill their preorders. But you can't deny it was a huge fuck up that they were constantly delayed on printing, and the only way to have gotten 3 of the books in print was if you had preordered it from their site.

I liked the game, I played the game. I wanted the books. I even backed the Hacker's Guide because I like their work. But I was waiting to buy the MHRP books from my FLGS because I like my FLGS. The fact that they never got any printed copies out on 3 of the 6 books published except to people who preordered, and 1 of 6 NEVER saw print, because of massive delays is a huge screwup that severely hurt the game. And I only have 2 books in print, one of which I wasn't even that fond of (I hated Civil War), because I wanted to help make it successful so that it lasted long enough for the AoA books to come out.

So yeah. I didn't know they got it to people who preordered. I made a mistake, and already pointed it out when it was mentioned they had filled the preorders of physical copies. Which was something I wasn't told until AFTER I said the part about context. Because to my knowledge, it had never made it to print.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;697893I was incorrect that none got printed. I wasn't expecting you to read my mind: I didn't even realize they were able to fill their preorders. But you can't deny it was a huge fuck up that they were constantly delayed on printing, and the only way to have gotten 3 of the books in print was if you had preordered it from their site.

I liked the game, I played the game. I wanted the books. I even backed the Hacker's Guide because I like their work. But I was waiting to buy the MHRP books from my FLGS because I like my FLGS. The fact that they never got any printed copies out on 3 of the 6 books published except to people who preordered, and 1 of 6 NEVER saw print, because of massive delays is a huge screwup that severely hurt the game. And I only have 2 books in print, one of which I wasn't even that fond of (I hated Civil War), because I wanted to help make it successful so that it lasted long enough for the AoA books to come out.

So yeah. I didn't know they got it to people who preordered. I made a mistake, and already pointed it out when it was mentioned they had filled the preorders of physical copies. Which was something I wasn't told until AFTER I said the part about context. Because to my knowledge, it had never made it to print.

Well they also had I think it started at somewhere around 250-350 copies for each book on their site for sale they had, up until the deadline to pull all sales (I don't recall when that was, maybe Cam does) for anyone to buy plus the PDF's for free with the orders as well.  From what I understand they sold out right before the deadline.  So there's probably, counting all pre-orders some 400-450 copies of each book floating around the world right now, the rest had to be destroyed, they told me from the MWP email I got, so very rare indeed.

Dump the comics. Embrace the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  If it ain't from the films or TV show, it doesn't count, and it actually makes "consulting the source material" a fun thing in its own right for everyone.

Don't make your own game.  Make a fucking wiki, or cut a check to an existing one and bring them on board.  Off the main article page for each thing/person, you have Conversion or Adaptation pages; this allows you to make ready-to-go stats for each TRPG that matters without committing to any.

When we run a game featuring Spider-Man, which Marvel Cinematic Universe do we consult? :D

Quote from: Endless Flight;698418When we run a game featuring Spider-Man, which Marvel Cinematic Universe do we consult? :D

There is only one. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Cinematic_Universe)

Quote from: Endless Flight;698418When we run a game featuring Spider-Man, which Marvel Cinematic Universe do we consult? :D

Well, not a cinematic universe... But for me this was the only Spider-Man universe worth a damn now... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Girl)

Marvel has really killed Spider-Man for me...

You're preaching to the choir.

Quote from: YourSwordisMine;698517Well, not a cinematic universe... But for me this was the only Spider-Man universe worth a damn now... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Girl)

Marvel has really killed Spider-Man for me...

I own every issue of Amazing up to 327, and I lived and breathed Spidey as a kid. My first trip to the states was to attend the live action reenactment of Spidey's wedding to Mary Jane in 87. I read all of his comics and most of his guest appearances religiously for the first half of my life. But I realized about ten years ago that the character I grew up with no longer exists. I look at Spidey comics nowadays and I see a complete stranger. Ditto most media such as the newest film. The last gasp of the Spidey I know and love was the incredibly under-rated Spectacular Spider-man cartoon which exceeded Batman:TAS for pure adaption distillation. It's cancellation still makes me sad. The new Ultimate Spiderman cartoon is unwatchable.

I'm just not the target audience for this stuff anymore I realize.

(http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll237/bprdhellboy/null_zps50ad9b23.jpg)

Cool picture. It looks like you are holding one of the Mego figures.

There wasn't a better time to be a kid than the late 70s-early 80s.

Quote from: Endless Flight;698538Cool picture. It looks like you are holding one of the Mego figures.

There wasn't a better time to be a kid than the late 70s-early 80s.

Indeed, Mego Spider-Man. A Christmas gift when I was 4. As my parents tell it, upon getting the wrapping paper far enough off to see what it was, I got so excited I had to get my mom to unwrap it for me, I was shaking so hard. 70s and 80s was indeed a wonderful time to be a kid.

Lol, shortly after, my first year at kindergarten my mother took me out and spent several hundred dollars on new school clothes for me, and apparently immediately after getting home I took a permanent marker and drew webbing on all of them. Pissed her off pretty bad.