Thursday 8 September 2011

4 reasons why Marvel Heroes will be an amazing RPG {Comics}


At this year's GenCon Margaret Weis Productions announced that it has acquired the rights to one of the biggest properties at the moment - Marvel Comics. MWP has always been at the forefront of licensed games, but Marvel is definitely its biggest and most important to date and I for one cannot wait to sink my teeth into it.

Here are 4 reasons why I'm so psyched about the new Marvel Heroes RPG:

1. Cross-over events
Currently Marvel's big cross-over is Fear Itself, where Odin's nemesis, the Serpent, is released by the Red Skull's daughter, Sin, and takes control of both heroes and villains with magical hammers similar to Thor's Mjolnir. It's a cool idea and I'd love to see it in roleplaying form, but like rival DC, Marvel has a massive library of cross-overs that would make amazing campaigns - from Secret Invasion to Civil War to character centric stories like the current Spider-Island or the Clone Saga.

2. Weekly inspiration
I'm one of those people who buys comics every week, so I have a constant flow of inspiration for a super hero game. There is a massive catalogue of ideas in the Marvel Universe and there are news ones cropping up each week, along with new characters, that make fertile ground for the imagination. If I like an aspect of the current Captain America run, there's nothing stopping me from putting it into my campaign. You could even watch the campaign unfold as the comic does (just make sure none of your players are reading the same one).

3. Playing as my favourite hero
Ok, it's an obvious one, but as a big fan of Marvel characters I think I could get a really big kick out of playing as characters I know inside out. From the almighty power of Thor, to the insane strength of the Hulk and the tough wit of Luke Cage, I know that I can pick a hero and already know tonnes about them, allowing me to roleplay more effectively.

4. Creating dream teams
We may have a large assortment of Avengers to choose from nowadays (Avengers, New Avengers, Secret Avengers and Avengers Academy) but you don't have to go with the tried and tested teams. You can go crazy and make a group consisting of Ms Marvel, Deadpool, Captain America, Sasquatch and Black Panther if you wanted. Or maybe you think that a certain person doesn't deserve to be in one team or that one person really, really does. I can see this being a really fun thing to do, even if it's not implemented into the game.

What about you? Are you excited for the release of Marvel Heroes or couldn't you care less? Let me know in the comments or @scottmalt.

3 comments:

  1. I'm excited about it, but not as much as I could be. I would rather have seen it released by Green Ronin for M&M so I could more easily do DC & Marvel crossovers. But I guess I could buy Smallville RPG and do still do some kind of x-over. Cortex just seems less Superheroish than the M&M system.

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  2. @Geek Gazette I think Cortex Plus is a little different, which is what they're using, but we'll wait and see.

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  3. I'm super (ha!) excited for "Marvel Heroes". It's hard to find a supers game that's more than just a powers-generation system plus combat. "Capes" and "With Great Power..." are great, but a bit esoteric. I'm hoping "Marvel Heroes" bridges that gap.

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