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Author Topic: The All new Marvel rpg, this times the charm  (Read 11623 times)

palaeomerus

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Re: The All new Marvel rpg, this times the charm
« Reply #135 on: July 17, 2021, 07:53:32 PM »
Lately I'm seeing long box stores suddenly make a come back. Not sure what is up with that or how business is but maybe nostalgia is a big driver in comics such that those who buy manga are also buying trades and omnibuses of older stuff and when necessary actually seeking out cheap n cheerful dog eared low grade back issues. I have no idea how that crosses over with gaming as right now it looks like board game is king.
Emery

GeekEclectic

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Re: The All new Marvel rpg, this times the charm
« Reply #136 on: July 17, 2021, 11:38:41 PM »
Second - the characters on the cover are not the current incarnations of the characters in the books.
Dude, they're still popular characters. I don't think people in general are going to be all that confused because it's not the exact palette swap they're used to.
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*a bunch of other stuff*
Okay, 1, I am way too toasted to comprehend all of this right now. And 2 . . . you were just like "recent batch of trait-swapped characters" and all I pointed out was "like some of the most well-known characters, in any iteration, with like 2 or 3 exceptions." I don't know how good this is going to do. I don't know what other characters are going to be in the book, though I assume at least a few of the newer ones will probably be in there. I'm not sweating it. At least the cover looks pretty good. I'm very pro-Galactus, by the way. I am not unbiased.

We've got a system name, a game name and cover, and the stat spread that says MARVEL. It might not end up as good as it looks, but it looks fine right now.
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tenbones

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Re: The All new Marvel rpg, this times the charm
« Reply #137 on: July 17, 2021, 11:59:47 PM »
Second - the characters on the cover are not the current incarnations of the characters in the books.
Dude, they're still popular characters. I don't think people in general are going to be all that confused because it's not the exact palette swap they're used to.
Quote
*a bunch of other stuff*
Okay, 1, I am way too toasted to comprehend all of this right now. And 2 . . . you were just like "recent batch of trait-swapped characters" and all I pointed out was "like some of the most well-known characters, in any iteration, with like 2 or 3 exceptions." I don't know how good this is going to do. I don't know what other characters are going to be in the book, though I assume at least a few of the newer ones will probably be in there. I'm not sweating it. At least the cover looks pretty good. I'm very pro-Galactus, by the way. I am not unbiased.

We've got a system name, a game name and cover, and the stat spread that says MARVEL. It might not end up as good as it looks, but it looks fine right now.

My only claim on this game is it will fail.

You can nitpick anything you want. I'm merely citing my observations.

While you can point out "these are popular characters" - to WHOM? Anyone interested in playing long-term Supers RPG's *is already doing it*. And they are a very small, but super-enthusiastic slice of an already small slice of the gaming population.

If your only claim is "It might be good." LOL great! Buy it. But that's not saying much. Nor is point you're making very meaningful in the context of the overall situation.

And hey look! I *could* be wrong. But I'm not betting on it.

GeekEclectic

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Re: The All new Marvel rpg, this times the charm
« Reply #138 on: July 18, 2021, 01:14:42 AM »
My only claim on this game is it will fail.
Yeah, they don't have a great track record. I can dig that.
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While you can point out "these are popular characters" - to WHOM?
Literally everyone. If you consume western media, you likely know what a Spider-Man or Wolverine is even if you don't read the comics or particularly care about the movies. If you play the video games, you're likely familiar with a lot of the older costumes even if you've never picked up a comic. Including a bunch of those is something Marvel game makers love to do.
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Anyone interested in playing long-term Supers RPG's *is already doing it*.
Statistically unlikely. You have to assume that everyone who would be interested in playing a supers themed RPG already knows that superhero RPGs exist. Yeah . . . a lot of people's knowledge of D&D is spotty at best, much less anything more niche. Hard to want what you don't even know is an option.
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And they are a very small, but super-enthusiastic slice of an already small slice of the gaming population.
Niche of niche, I'm following.
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If your only claim is "It might be good." LOL great! Buy it. But that's not saying much. Nor is point you're making very meaningful in the context of the overall situation.
My only real claims are that the cover looks nice enough and actually does contain currently popular characters . . . and I guess that the specific palette swaps used aren't going to be as confusing as you seem to think.
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And hey look! I *could* be wrong. But I'm not betting on it.
I prefer not to gamble, too.
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"Isnt that why RPGs companies are so woke in the first place?" - Godsmonkey
*insert Disaster Girl meme here* - Me

tenbones

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Re: The All new Marvel rpg, this times the charm
« Reply #139 on: July 18, 2021, 03:10:04 AM »
I think we generally see eye-to-eye on this.

But this thing here...
Literally everyone. If you consume western media, you likely know what a Spider-Man or Wolverine is even if you don't read the comics or particularly care about the movies. If you play the video games, you're likely familiar with a lot of the older costumes even if you've never picked up a comic. Including a bunch of those is something Marvel game makers love to do.

Knowing about a thing, and consuming those things are entirely different actions. Let me elaborate a bit - *I* can see where you're coming from based on certain assumptions I make about you: 1) you're an RPG Forum talking about RPGS 2) you're *actually* talking about Marvel Superheroes 3) You're indicating that you have interests in these characters beyond either of these two endeavors (comics and TTRPGs).

My gut reaction is SURE - they're "popular" to the NPC normies. But... the reality my head tells me is this: They NPC Normies only know what they're told. They're not wide-spread consumers of these things. TTRPG's are their own distinct tribe of many intense little tribes. Videogame players are their own distinct tribe composed of many intense smaller tribes. Pop-culture consumers - movies, TV are in an entirely different orbit.

The degree of what you an I might agree is "popular" is relative. I own north of 30k comics (probably closer to 40k) going deep into the Silver Age and several complete runs of books up to One More Day where I pretty much quit collecting monthlies... and dwindled down to indies (Basically anything from Matt Wagner, Mobius, and a couple of others). I'll stand and bang talking comics with *anyone*. I've been running MSH (FASERIP) pretty much since it dropped at my table - so barring other campaigns, it's been a constant for the last 35+ years.

So I'm saying this to illustrate that I am a "fan". But the things I'm a fan of - pick your character from the Marvel Universe, is probably for reasons utterly so unknown, so obscure it may as well not even exist for the average modern fan that knows Marvel from all other pop-culture sources OTHER than comics. That includes TTRPG's.

I understand very clearly that these tribes consume comic-media in very different and discrete ways. So Captain America is popular to most people today because by the numbers people have watched the MCU. THAT is Captain America to them.

Captain America, disaffected by 1970's politics, wearing a Disco-pop-collared blue-plunging neckline to his dick-root Nomad-era cap, sans-Star Spangled Shield, but now tossing these weird little yellow frisbee-pucks would cause most modern "fans" to go "W.T.F.?". Or his now current modern Captain America - who now apparently is wrestling with his own realization according to modern writers, he's a Nazi creation that deep down hates America. MOST MCU viewers, the largest "fandom" that currently exists - would also scratch their heads at trying to square that circle too.

So yeah *I* am the outlier here. Not the NPC's. This is part of the problem. The only demographic that making this game makes *any* sense to is precisely no one but ultra-casual, borderline board-game enthusiasts that also happen to dabble in TTRPGS.

Hardcore TTRPG players tend to *not* player Supers RPGS - because it's hard enough to get GM's to run D&D, much less have a GM that wants to run a Supers RPG in lieu of D&D and find players that are willing to play. It's more of a GM issue than a player issue (to be sure).

MCU fans generally aren't going to become such fans that they suddenly want to play a Marvel RPG*

*Now - kids that learn about Marvel via the MCU might do this. And this is important, and where the Dead on Arrival prediction hurts most: Because Marvel can't even run their own Comicbook business anywhere but straight into the ground, what in the fucking world gives anyone the faith that they're magically going to become successful as an RPG enterprise? Those kids that play will suddenly find themselves with a mediocre game at best that will get dropped once the bean-counters realize that the money made on this project will amount to shit. Most of those people coming in via that vector will fade out... and if we're lucky, may decide to have a good enough experience to try another RPG and go a little further. But how many people will this be?

How much marketing do you actually think Marvel is going to put behind it?

Better still - they might discover there are scads of Superhero RPG's already out there with pretty vibrant communities that won't budge on their tried and true systems of choice, because those communities support their own games with their own content that *vastly* covers Marvel, DC, and pretty much every other pop-culture icon out there. Fuck man, I just wrapped up my latest MSH story-arc where the PC's fought alongside Raydeen from the Shogun Warriors against Ghidorah - and Beta Ray Bill, with members of Overwatch, and characters from Mutants and Masterminds off the coast of LA. There's *that* much stuff out there.

I'm saying this game will be mediocre *AT BEST* and that's me being ULTRA GENEROUS, it will have very little support. And any initial sales it makes will plummet with intense speed because Marvel is an incompetent company in their own medium. They deserve zero benefit of the doubt entering into this medium, especially considering their current political manifesto that will demand catering to - not necessarily by us, but by the usual suspects currently ruining pop-culture (and the rest of culture writ-large).

palaeomerus

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Re: The All new Marvel rpg, this times the charm
« Reply #140 on: July 18, 2021, 09:09:51 PM »
That Marvel minis game that came out I think last year, Crisis Protocol, is popular among my friends but nobody plays it . They paint and the minis and are a bit competitive about it but they don't play. That's why I stay out of it, I am a slops painter and can't hang when there is a reference to compare models against. Same with the Knight Models DC and Batman stuff and their old Marvel stuff. They buy and paint 'em but I've never seen anyone play them.  It's kind of funny. I do have some of the knight models stuff though I use it in sci-fi skirmish and make no effort to pain them correctly and glue stuff to them. They make a nice line of huge armed thugs in raincoats or tank tops and a few powered armor things like the parademons and kryptonians from the Superman Movie and the Luthor Corp powered armor that work well for sci fi Skirmish. And I have a bunch of riddler and his gang stuff who I used as just cornball costumed bank robber type guys.

I was happy to find those fan MSH modules though. Those were neat. Spiced things up a bit.
Emery

tenbones

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Re: The All new Marvel rpg, this times the charm
« Reply #141 on: July 18, 2021, 09:41:33 PM »
That Marvel minis game that came out I think last year, Crisis Protocol, is popular among my friends but nobody plays it . They paint and the minis and are a bit competitive about it but they don't play. That's why I stay out of it, I am a slops painter and can't hang when there is a reference to compare models against. Same with the Knight Models DC and Batman stuff and their old Marvel stuff. They buy and paint 'em but I've never seen anyone play them.  It's kind of funny. I do have some of the knight models stuff though I use it in sci-fi skirmish and make no effort to pain them correctly and glue stuff to them. They make a nice line of huge armed thugs in raincoats or tank tops and a few powered armor things like the parademons and kryptonians from the Superman Movie and the Luthor Corp powered armor that work well for sci fi Skirmish. And I have a bunch of riddler and his gang stuff who I used as just cornball costumed bank robber type guys.

I was happy to find those fan MSH modules though. Those were neat. Spiced things up a bit.

Now this would be a very smart way to go if they went pre-painted. But it would be tough to make an evergreen line of minis for it, though they might be able to create some hybrid game where they produced battle-mat focused adventures and scenarios.  I never played the HeroClix game but damn I was sorely tempted if only to get all the Marvel/DC figures to use with my MSH games if nothing else.

Again the issue is Marvel doing it in-house. Something like this would be much smarter for their established licensees like Hasbro. But I'd prefer for it to go to a smaller crew of dedicated people.
« Last Edit: July 18, 2021, 09:43:08 PM by tenbones »

Aglondir

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Re: The All new Marvel rpg, this times the charm
« Reply #142 on: July 18, 2021, 10:21:50 PM »
Captain America, disaffected by 1970's politics, wearing a Disco-pop-collared blue-plunging neckline to his dick-root Nomad-era cap, sans-Star Spangled Shield, but now tossing these weird little yellow frisbee-pucks would cause most modern "fans" to go "W.T.F.?".
LOL! I remember that. 

hedgehobbit

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Re: The All new Marvel rpg, this times the charm
« Reply #143 on: July 18, 2021, 10:55:48 PM »
That Marvel minis game that came out I think last year, Crisis Protocol, is popular among my friends but nobody plays it .

At my game store, Crisis Protocol is the third most popular game they have after 40K and Star Wars Legion.

The main problem I see with a Marvel RPG is that there are already so many Marvel themed games that are much easier to get into than an RPG: Crisis Protocol, Marvel United, Marvel Champions have all been released in the last three years. Champions (pre-Hero System) was one of the first games I ever ran and I always found that it was a huge effort to make a decent superhero adventure compared to something like D&D.
« Last Edit: July 18, 2021, 10:57:19 PM by hedgehobbit »