A question for Nic Logue re: MSH game


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Liberty's Edge

Do you use marvel characters, or does everyone make up their own guys? And are wolvie and Hulk there in the backstory?

I used to run Villains and Vigilantes looooooooong ago. Everybody was in the X-men, and all the real X-men were around, and I'd steal heroes and villains from the DC Universe.

Dark Archive

And Deathstroke the Terminator was a ruthless dingo-killer.

Liberty's Edge

PulpCruciFiction wrote:
And Deathstroke the Terminator was a ruthless dingo-killer.

That he was. The dingo asked for it, though.

Contributor

In general everyone makes their own characters in my game. Actually they give me a rundown on the character they want and then I stat them up and create them because the random character creation system in Marvel, while incredibly funny, does not always generate the kind of character people get excited about playing.

My long time players and I have developed a whole comic book mythology of our own, with cross-overs, alterate dimensions, and revivals of long thought to be dead heroes over the years. Heck, we even do Christmas themed adventures around the holidays.

That being said, on occasion I will do a one-shot with people playing actual Marvel superheroes, but I usually do this with a fun twist (like the other PCs don't know that the Capt. Rogers who is helping them sneak into the Nazi camp is actually...you guessed it...CAPTAIN AMERICA!!!). I have done a couple of adventures where the PCs all play X-men too and that is fun for what its worth.

Still my favorite are my home-brew campaigns with our own brand of justice and all new heroes crafted by the players' own imaginations. Some of the coolest superhero characters I have ever imagined have been whipped out by my players.

MARVEL remains the only game I have never had a bad time playing by the way. I have never had a session of MARVEL that was unexciting or sucked. This game is flawless. In my opinion at least (and in my home-brew of the rules...mostly being that the rules don't meddle with the action too much).

Liberty's Edge

I hate when a character concept you come up with ends up in a comic 5 years later.

Contributor

Heathansson wrote:
I hate when a character concept you come up with ends up in a comic 5 years later.

This happened so many times to our group. Sad.

Dark Archive Bella Sara Charter Superscriber

Nicolas Logue wrote:
Heathansson wrote:
I hate when a character concept you come up with ends up in a comic 5 years later.

This happened so many times to our group. Sad.

Yeah, but did anyone in your group ever email a lawyer they knew informally with the following message:

Dear Sebastian,

I know you are the best lawyer in the U.S. and a god among men. I thought since we posted together on the Paizo boards all the time, you might represent me in my suit against Marvel comics. I made this character for the MSH game called Steel Claw Dude. He could heal superfast, had metal claws (KEWL!), and could track people. He was a cigar smoking rebel anti-hero. Anyway, Marvel totally ripped him off.

As always, your biggest fan ever,
Heathansson

P.S. Did I mention he was a ninja! NINJAS ROOLZ!

Contributor

So I put together a new Marvel campaign last week (between obsessively posting to the messageboards, emailing Paizo lords with annoying questions, and writing 15 more Dungeon adventures) and we played the first session last night. It was the bomb!!! I let my three players give me some thoughts on what kind of characters they wanted first and totally independantly from each other these are the notes they came up with for me:

Methos: A "shard of war" who doesn't really know what he is, but he knows he is immortal and is constantly drawn to military conflict in every age (he is old old old old!). He might be a portion of Aries' avatar, or some sort of messed up alien experiement...the ballots are still out on that one.

Manitou: Native American (Cherokee) who died long long ago and his spirit returned as a protector of the land with great powers.

Falconeye: Super-Archer. A super-solider, but from the French Indian War time period.

So there I am looking at these notes, and frankly at first I was a little sad. I was like "darn they are all trying the 'I'm really old and nobody knows it' theme" which is not going to be as fun for any of them if they all do that same type thang...then this idea hits me:

Set the adventure during the French and Indian War. I have never done "Colonial" Marvel before (ala 14## something or other, which I never read but heard a lot about). It was great! I whipped up Manitou and Falconeyez as pre-superhero characters first, and whipped up "post transformation" versions too (keeping those in my folder until the right time). I set the whole adventure up as the Origins of Manitou (now just the son of a Cherokee shaman, named Soaring Hawk), and Falconeyez (Lieutenant Etiene Gallard in the French Army, and a sworn brother to the Cherokee tribe...yep, they were very very Brotherhood of the Wolf type characters).

The adventure turned out great, cause I set it up with this British Colonel (Pett, your people are the true Evil in the world) named Jacob Gristley (cool last name Tim Hitchcock if you're reading this, so I stole it) who is actually a foul demon sent to corrupt goodness in the world and spread evil before him like a tainted cloud. His Leftenant, Nigel Rathbone (better known as "Aries" throughout history) is a counterpart to Methos, but while Methos has tried to avoid giving into his murderous war-like urges, Aries embraces them.

The adventure centered around an imaginary fort named Fort Grimm, where the PCs were trying to fend off Gristley's Ghosts (his elite army) and protect the sick and wounded men within. It was awesome. Methos hurled a cavalry saber through Aries heart before he was blown to red mist by a barrage of musket fire and both Gallard and Soaring Hawk were captured. Gristly offered to let one go, but the other would be tortured to death horribly, he let Soaring Hawk choose, and the brave let his sworn French brother escape, before facing dismemberment and disembowlment at the hands of Gristley and his men.

Gallard staggered and groped his way through the snow (Gristley cut off his fingers before releasing him so he would never fire a bow again) and made it back to the Black River Cherokee (Soaring Hawk's people). Soaring Hawk's father, Red Eagle was beside himself to learn of his son's demise, especially because his son was due to take his spirit quest and become a shaman the very night Gallard returned and gave him the horrible news.

Red Eagle invoked an ancient rite of his people to draw Soaring Hawk's soul back from the Spirit World and link it forever to Gallard's. During the crazed midnight ceremony of chanting and bonfires, Gallard's fingers returned as wispy tendrils of ether, and Manitou returned in spirit form, forever bonded to Gallard in the form of a spectral hawk who can manifest briefly every day into a powerful apparition.

The last scene of the adventure was the scene a faire where Gallard and Soaring Hawk (now as Falconeyez and Manitou...much much more powerful than their former incarnations) return to the plantation style farmhouse being used by Gristley as a base, along with a new scout named Running Fang (actually Methos' new form). They laid waste to the soldiers there and took their revenge on the demon casting his evil soul back to the Abyss.

At the end the demon channled some hideous corrupted black energy at Manitou, and he had visions of eating his entire tribe alive. As they left the farmhouse the wind whispered one word...

Wen-di-go.

I had a blast running this...next session we may time leap ahead to the Civil War. Should be wicked good times!

Liberty's Edge

That's awesome.
That's the best thing I've read all day.
Probably tomorrow too.
After the Civil War they need to fight Rasputin the Mad Monk and Baba Yaga.
;)

Of course,...you know this begs the inevitable Wolverine teamup...

Liberty's Edge

You need to submit this to Image comics.

Contributor

Thanks Heath!

I really really enjoyed running it. Now I have to come up with something as cool for next week's installment...Can't decide between Revolutionary War (the Minute Men were badass...weren't they Pett?), or leap-frog all the way to the Civil.

I am also toying with the idea of jumping all around instead of staying linear. I am pondering setting the next installment in 2035, but with flashbacks that hop back to the Trojan War (with the two PCs playing Manitou and Falconeyez playing earlier incarnations of the same two souls). Can't decide, but I have a week so I'm sure I'll think of something.

MARVEL! FUN! GUAYAKI!!!

Liberty's Edge

You could do that Christopher Walken Prussian mercenary from Sleepy Hollow, the one that fought for no cause, that fought..."for the love of carnage."

Contributor

Heathansson wrote:
You could do that Christopher Walken Prussian mercenary from Sleepy Hollow, the one that fought for no cause, that fought..."for the love of carnage."

Nice! Maybe I'll make that the next incarnation of Aries (Methos' "other" half). That would be cool!

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