Necromancer Wrote:
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> I think at a point a dedicated judge must absolutely
> remove his MSH campaign away from the comics or
> cut off the Kirby verse continuity at the culmination
> of the Infinity Gauntlet. Following the comics is not
> good for ones gaming group these days. Also, this
> is MSHRPG at this site not some power rankings for
> superheroes website. I come here for good gaming
> ideas (of which I see few ). I don't care who can
> bench press planets or who would beat who in an
> imaginary battle between Superman and the other
> heavy weights out there (if you see me respond to
> one of those it is all for laughs.) I come to this sight
> because I seek to tell my story to my gaming groups
> and regale my players. While being a player in one
> of their adventures.


So I read this in the canon characters section and it got me thinking. I know I've divorced myself from the comics continuity, probably in a number of ways for various reasons. But one of the biggest changes? Howard the Duck. I know lots of people love this character, but I've never been a fan, so basically he's not real in my Marvel Universe. Instead, he's a trademark character who has been associated in advertising along with Beverly Switzler in a animated character/real person media blend... and Switzler's life has been put in danger from some villains in different ways, the most notable being Doctor Bong who used his genetics mad science and ability to evolve animals into anthropomorphic intelligent creatures to temporarily create a "real Howard" to impress the girl he obsesses over. A suddenly real talking duck, however, proved terrifying and when all of the failed experiments showed up as well, the players had to rescue the girl from the horrible monstrosities and put an end to Bong's efforts to woo. So, "Howard" died in the end, but he was never really real to begin with.

How about you? What crazy changes to mainstream continuity have you had in your games, whether you are the judge making the changes or just a player dealing with your judge's retcons?

Feel free to tell me how awful my Howard the Duck change is, too.
I care not. It amused me and my group a great deal, and that's all that matters.

Lol, good old Howard.

I once ran a mini campaign that revolved around the PC's encountering Howard the Duck and Pip the Troll on vacation who mostly spent his time in a drunken stupor.

Howard and Pip shared a dumpster behind a bar as living quarters and would manage to get on the UCWF as a midget wrestling act.
I thrust the players in as body guards for the unlikely duo to protect them as they wandered around putting on matches and gaining popularity.

To make matters worse, Pip, who was really drunk most of the time became impressed by an Avengers news spot he saw on TV, after receiving a head injury that addled his mind for a period of time, Pip had stolen a pair of Captain America feety pajamas and painted a trash can lid to match Captain America's shield. He would moonlight at night as a drunken avenger saving pretty ladies from muggers.

It was a mini-campaign and did not run for long, but it was amusing to say the least.

It is (almost?) impossible to stick to the main continuity in any game in my experience.

I start off with a rough approximation of cannon and then, as new issues of the comics come out, and the PC action take place; the two worlds very quickly diverge. there are too many changes to list, but as our game is based in the UK (for now) we don't have many interactions with specific Marvel characters (Excalibure/MI13 are sadly lacking in regular updates)

if things go the way i more or less expect them too, we will have a major discontinuity in the resurrection war story i am planning. Our PC gadgeteer has developed a device that cures all wounds and can even bring back the dead (on the 'good column')!

I intend to play out the consequences of this - imagine a criminal group or country with foot soldiers who can never die! mix in a little right wing extremism growing in the UL and EU, the rise and rise of the Turkish/Kurdish conflict and a insane fascists elected to the US presidency (what?) should have all the ingredients for a world destroying cataclysm! and no time-travel based 'takesy-backsey' in my continuum either!

I try to stick to cannon but mostly my players use original characters and I try to avoid them interacting with the main Marvel heroes as much as possible. The villains on the other hand I love to use and there have been times in the past where I borrowed from the current comics line to add stories into mine. For example I had some Skrulls pop up during the Invasion time, Sentinels rampaging NY during Onslaught.

Recent posts have made me realize that within my own campaigns I had unknowingly accepted the long ago retcon with The Eternals universe. I have also realized that due to my own disdain for modern Marvel my timeline tends to end with the Infinity Gauntlet event, no major canon events after that. I find it to be a fitting end to the continuity so far.

While not outside of canon or maybe it is because Marvel no longer holds the IP. The pre cataclysmic ages of Hyboria and Atlantis are an integral part of my campaigns and have served to be a great playground for dodging the fascination with all the cosmic events of today. Looking back at it in hindsight, I have to say it has turned out very nicely for our group so far.

Even now, I am working out stats for The Devourer of Souls to create a mini-series for some awesome precataclysmic swords and sorcery action. My campaign tends to feature everything in a mini-series format with various players taking the role of judge, we all tend to have a stable of heroes we switch between as well to further ongoing stories and return to old favorites.

It's a given that the moment you introduce player characters that you're deviating from canon material even if you distance the players from the comics characters and events by setting your game in a different city. But I'm more curious about specific changes that could be considered What If? variants of the standard universe.

"What If Howard the Duck Wasn't Real?" for my scenario.
And ignoring canon events after a certain point is as easy as "What If (...) Never Happened?"


Also, I wouldn't say that ancient Hyboria and Atlantis play as important a role as they do for your game, Necromancer, but I do like to keep the option open for special occasions like the first vampire, Varnae, making an appearance or if I need/want to bring in an ancient magic maguffin I can just have something long buried be recently discovered; and sending the heroes to a D&D-like world is as simple as a very long distance time travel portal rather than inventing a whole new reality and then arbitrarily connecting it to my Marvel. The pre-history of Hyboria/Atlantis is Marvel's history as far as I'm concerned.

I didn't know with any certainty if it was still canon or not because of the IP. I know for awhile there, Marvel made an attempt to replace many flashbacks with certain pre-cataclysm heroes with Ulysses Bloodstone.

The setting has been very important, my main hero that I play is an immortal sorcerer from long ago Atlantis who did learn his abilities with the cult of Zhered-Na and later would learn more forbidden powers at the feet of Thulsa Doom, while he was chained before the great city of Arallu for 10,000 years. This character is still my main (20+ years and still going) he managed to escape the cataclysm by journeying to other dimensions and increasing his knowledge for quite some time, becoming a Sorcerer Supreme equivalent before returning to Earth in more modern times. However, he possesses the ability to re-enter long ago Atlantis and the Hyborian ages by re-entering and traveling through these other dimensions. Time has also not been an obstacle for many enemies from his past to locate him in the future. Also, the section you underlined Thrudjelmer, is that a link? or was it suppose to be a link?

Necromancer Wrote:
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> Also, the section you underlined Thrudjelmer, is
> that a link? or was it suppose to be a link?


No, I was just underlining "is" to emphasize my opinion on the matter of Marvel history and I got my tags mixed up... started with the underline tag but inadvertently typed the the boldface closing tag. My bad, and fixed.

Anyone else out there like to share? I know this is not a Superman vs all franchises post, but I would like to hear more.

This is an interesting topic. I'll share my story. Background info first. I've been running my current game now for about a month, but it's set in a world that's had a game of some kind running in it for about 4 years now. Everyone created new characters and it's diverged a bit and stayed pretty similar. We started with the then current of 2012, but we followed Marvel comics rolling timeline theory. The initial starting period was at the same time as the first Secret Wars were occurring. See, at the time, I thought it would be a good idea for the heroes to make a name for themselves by stepping into the hero gig while the main Marvel heroes were in space. It didn't end up working so well because they wanted to be based in Ireland.

Since then, we've ran through many of the Marvel storylines since then leading to now. I picked which ones I and my group were interested in and we played through them. We ran through Inferno, whatever that New Mutants to Asgard event was, the Mutant Massacre, Infinity Gauntlet, Kang Dynasty, and the Civil War. Now the group is dealing with the aftermath of the Civil War and the Initiative. A lot of things got changed along the way and some turned out for the worst or better. Characters have died, some have lived, but for the most part, I don't like how the Marvel characters don't age or die, so in this world everything keeps moving forward.

If you're interested, I have a complete adventure log on Obsidian Portal. I don't make any claims for quality assurance and the characters are using a variety of house rules, so their stats probably don't make any sense.

[marvel-heroes.obsidianportal.com]

Username, impressive list of villains aligned against your PC's.

Ha, thanks. I've been lucky to have both people that really enjoyed comic books and those that didn't know much about them. So, they've really enjoyed meeting characters from the Marvel Universe. They've also all rolled really well during character creation for their power. This current group may be one of the "weakest groups of heroes I've had so far, but they're all still sitting in the low 100's for their health. Necromancer, you've been playing for a while, you must have faced many of the Marvel mainstays as well, right? Also, I'd be interested in hearing what people's opinions are on 616 canon and where they end with following canon? I find my patience with it ends sometime in the early 90s because that's when the forward progress of time in the Marvel Universe stops and death starts to lose any real significance. So, I find that I cherry pick modern events, but try to fit them into the style of an earlier Marvel Universe.

Username Wrote:
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> Ha, thanks. I've been lucky to have both people
> that really enjoyed comic books and those that
> didn't know much about them. So, they've really
> enjoyed meeting characters from the Marvel
> Universe. They've also all rolled really well
> during character creation for their power. This
> current group may be one of the "weakest groups of
> heroes I've had so far, but they're all still
> sitting in the low 100's for their health.
> Necromancer, you've been playing for a while, you
> must have faced many of the Marvel mainstays as
> well, right? Also, I'd be interested in hearing
> what people's opinions are on 616 canon and where
> they end with following canon? I find my patience
> with it ends sometime in the early 90s because
> that's when the forward progress of time in the
> Marvel Universe stops and death starts to lose any
> real significance. So, I find that I cherry pick
> modern events, but try to fit them into the style
> of an earlier Marvel Universe.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah, back in the beginning we faced the "mainstays" a time or three as well. I don't think our campaign really started to gain momentum until we started running multiple characters in different eras. We tried the gods and cosmic heroes thing for a bit, overall we didn't find it enjoyable playing at that level for long periods of time. It was o.k. for an evening or two but not for an entire campaign, it seemed to get boring rather quickly.

Opening up the door to the Hyborian and Atlantean eras was where we first realized that Marvel has 3x more continuity that has faded into the fog of obscurity then they currently have in print. It was a literal whole new world of adventure with new baddies to face and nearly 100,000 years of Marvel history to explore. Of course, we just couldn't stop there, with the addition of Realms of Magic we also had to explore other dimensions and worlds, such as the original Weird World.

After getting the pre-cataclysmic era established we ended up making our third group of alternate characters, 1880's old west characters. This proved to be a highly entertaining era to play with. More than we realized at first, after we got tired of chasing bandits in the old west, we realized just across the ocean loomed fog shrouded London with Jack the Ripper and villains such as Dracula. Turned out to be a very enjoyable setting. Marvel's old west...every game should try it at least one time, it has become a permanent addition for us.

Those are the 3 main settings mostly comprising our continuity, like I said at the top of the post, our modern day continuity kind of ends with the Infinity Gauntlet. We have all had dozens more characters that we play here and there for spin offs and one shots but we always return to one of the above 3 settings, they are the backbone of our campaign world.

Another change, or lack of one, in my campaign is that I have the future Guardians of the Galaxy (with Vance Astro and crew) stuck in the present and appearing from time to time, so the movie team isn't needed and has not come together as a team, let alone under that name.

Speaking of teams still together, I never bothered with the Marvel/Malibu crossover event, so Rune never showed up in the Marvel Universe to steal the infinity gems, so Adam Warlock and his Infinity Watch are still together and guarding the gems. The reality gem has been stolen from Thanos, however, by the players to fix one of their mistakes. After using it, the gem blinked away. Whether or not it returned to Thanos, found it's way into other sinister hands, or just wound up somewhere in the universe randomly, they don't know and are worried that it's going to bite them in the ass when they least expect it.

They're not wrong to think that... but I haven't decided on how it's going to play out yet.

There nothing wrong in using canon anytime in your game world. I always thought using the toons from canon was between their events in the comicbooks, hence why they are never around!!
They were busy in my scenarios!!

Just to get a list of such events
Source:
[en.wikipedia.org]


For instance: House of M Event

What does it means for my players? nothing much. They survived? it didn't happen? A warped dream?

Civil war and all it aftermath (crap)- Doesn't exist
Simply all the effects of it is allot to follow in the fallout of the event

Allot of events that follow are rehash of old story arcs with new writers.

racism will never go away, so there always mutant discrimination, should it stem, from envy, fear or hatred.
Governments (regardless who), always wants to control the super powered, in some of fashion.
There always some alien empire, that covets earth genetic breeding advantage.

Some of the hardest though is doing global story arcs, that deals with anti american views/hatred to general knowledge of Alien empires that covet earth. Moving into today modern technology where everyone films everything, it be hard to conceal alien visitation and such. There a fine balance.

Getting ideas for game is easy enough, if you can reveal what in your mind eye. It sometimes calls for more details in many area so those who respond answer your inquiry.

One thing I love about this site is that everyone has ideas to offer, a different view, should it be right or wrong vs canon. Likes and dislikes, and the many netbooks that offer many things. fan created, fan used. thanks to all who did the work.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with following canon. I'm just interested in canon changes to see how people rewrite the canon to suit their own game world. If someone doesn't that's fine... but if someone does, it's interesting and I'm curious.

Thrudjelmer Wrote:
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> I'm not saying there's anything wrong with
> following canon. I'm just interested in canon
> changes to see how people rewrite the canon to
> suit their own game world. If someone doesn't
> that's fine... but if someone does, it's
> interesting and I'm curious.


Well, if i were to kinda rewrite why Civil War didn't bear fruit, simple,

Example 1
Tony Stark proto-type database was hacked and wasn't feasible.
He PISSED!!

Example 2
Tony Stark thought he was a match vs Magneto, "You must register!!" he brings up his Extremis Armor, Magneto rips it from his flesh and tell the pup, go back to the drawing board!!

Example 3
The Illuminati said no to Tony Stark, when Iron Man announced the impending Superhuman Registration Act, and asked that they all strongly agree in public in order to prevent a civil war. Again, the group was divided when most declared their opposition to the Act, leaving Iron Man and Reed Richards to dissolve the group.
The other Illuminati imprison Stark and Richards when they discovered the Negative Zone prison plans.

Which the US Gov has no real backing, drop the Superhuman Registration Act.

Thus World War Hulk would still transpire.

Would Secret Invasion Event bear fruit? I think it would.

Age of X seem more like a "What if"

In 1996 I was running a MSH play-by-email game with original mutant characters. There was one sequence where several of the characters visited the X Mansion and spent a few days there. I'd planned eventually to have them go back, but the game died before that could happen. As I said, this was in 1996 -- but I chose to basically ignore the prior ten years of canon. So my game's timeline diverged from canon at a point just before 1986's "Mutant Massacre". So Kitty and Kurt had never been injured, the original group of New Mutants was still intact, etc. etc. If I were going to start a new game now and have any interaction with various X Men, it would be in that same timeline.

Information obtained from the memory banks of a Kree Sentry robot reveals to the world that Celestials created Eternals and Deviants as well the genetic basis for humans to give birth to symbionts (mutants) as part of a massive experiment to have humanity branch and compete for world dominance. SHIELD (Symbiotic Human Identification, Extermination, and Liquidation Directorate) formed to defend humanity and purge the planet of alien DNA experiments and offshoots. Players as SHIELD agents using skills and technology track down and kill the often super-powered monstrosities in a desperate bid to sanitize the planet and prepare for the return of the Celestial threat that disfigured humanity into a genetic civil war for fun.

In our Star Wars games (hey, Marvel's publishing those again) I usually start 6 months after the Battle of Yavin. Everything after that is up to the players. Support the Empire or Rebellion, live on the Fringe, or just travel around and get into adventures. If the players don't want to directly save or conquer the galaxy, the big picture (movie) stuff just happens in the background and only affects their characters in the broadest sense.

It's the same with MSH: since the core game was set in the 80's (and I really enjoyed that time in the comics) we usually play in that era. We normally leave out Infinity Gauntlet, and have the published characters as a backdrop for cameos and team-ups. Marvel Earth is a big place with plenty of room for all sorts of fun and mayhem without upsetting the published apple cart. That takes a lot of pressure off the players and judge because we don't have to absolutely follow what happened in the books.

Never had any players that cared about canon. Always did our own thing. also freely mixed and matched between DC, Marvel, Movies, etc.

I have never run an MSH game... I want to someday, but have not worked up the player base to try. That said if I ran a Marvel Game, part of me wants to explore the idea of a world where Iron Man never revealed his secret Identity when he did in canon and when he finally does... well... Allow me to paraphase this quote from Batman: Curse of the White Knight.

"Well Tony, first the stock prices in your company would plummet to record lows as the F.B.I. and S.H.I.E.L.D. had a competition to see who could seize the most of your assets and arrest you for terrorism first. Tens of thousands of people at a minimum would lose their jobs, not just your employees but workers all over the free world as you single-handedly send the world economy into a tailspin resulting in even more crime and poverty. THEN you would lose your entire fortune as you accumulated hundreds of fines, and lawsuits from over a decade of vigilante activity. Nearly everyone you ever worked with would be facing potential charges of aiding, and abetting including your fellow Avengers, and countless other super heroes. You would be begging to go to prison by the end, as it's literally the only place you'd be safe from the thousands of criminals who would seek revenge."

Sorry. I know it doesn't contribute much to the conversation. I just really like that speech.

That's a good speech, and sadly indicative of what would most likely occur. Of course the flip side is do they really want to make an enemy of Batman / Iron Man? Either or both of those geniuses branded an outlaw and driven to desperation would make an outstanding story.

Five years later from my last post in the thread, we're still running the same game. Players fluctuate, but the setting goes on. We've even had some other Judges run games in the setting. But, we've really deviated. All of the original characters are in their 30s or older by now and younger heroes are starting to come onto the scene. I think we're going to area situation in a few years with retirements and replacements of the real Marvel characters. Oddly enough, I'm setting it up to merge with MC2 canon with an introduction of a gap generation of the more modern and younger characters like Miles Morales or Ms. Marvel.

Quote
Username
Five years later from my last post in the thread, we're still running the same game. Players fluctuate, but the setting goes on. We've even had some other Judges run games in the setting. But, we've really deviated. All of the original characters are in their 30s or older by now and younger heroes are starting to come onto the scene. I think we're going to area situation in a few years with retirements and replacements of the real Marvel characters. Oddly enough, I'm setting it up to merge with MC2 canon with an introduction of a gap generation of the more modern and younger characters like Miles Morales or Ms. Marvel.

Yeah, my own game has adopted a very MC2-like background. Lots of retirees and older heroes doing the mentor thing.

I've been a fan of the Eternals since I first ran across them in the early 80's.

My favorite Eternal is The Interloper. I understand that fairly recently Marvel decided to give him a name, Betilakk, and kill him off offscreen, but years ago I made his back story; His name is Enkidu, the friend of Gilgamesh in the Epic of Gilgamesh. It's mentioned that the Eternal Gilgamesh (The Forgotten One) is one of the few Eternals he has anything to do with.

The reason he has little to do with his fellow Eternals is because he's only half Eternal. His mother is Cybelle, the Queen of the Eternals - wife of Zuras and mother of Thena. But his father is Enki the Sumerian god of water, wisdom, magic, and creation. So he has never felt welcome in Olympia or the other Eternal Cities.

And I only loosely follow the Defenders/Dragon Circle storyline - it's mostly okay, but as an Eternal, the whole having to be reincarnated into a host body is silly.

I also have some changes with Ka-Zar. Back in the day, he had some dealings with Belasco. In my Universe, Ka-Zar ended up killing Belasco with his own sword and now carries it as his primary weapon.

How many people here are discontent with the direction Marvel is/has been going and has departed at a fixed date? I'm a bit curious. For me, I began to depart from Marvel Canon in the mid/late 90s and the end of even roughly following Canon was with the 2001-2002 Avengers comic book Kang Dynasty. Roughly around the Infinity Gauntlet/a little later. I've included some of the newer characters, many that I really like and one or two storylines with alterations, but mostly it's original content since then.

Quote
Username
How many people here are discontent with the direction Marvel is/has been going and has departed at a fixed date? I'm a bit curious. For me, I began to depart from Marvel Canon in the mid/late 90s and the end of even roughly following Canon was with the 2001-2002 Avengers comic book Kang Dynasty. Roughly around the Infinity Gauntlet/a little later. I've included some of the newer characters, many that I really like and one or two storylines with alterations, but mostly it's original content since then.

I stopped with Civil War. I thought it was a lame story arc, and the writers lost the feel of the characters. Some of the following story arc cemented that opinion.
While i find the MCU entertaining, They made that canon and i was like: LAME!!

But the joy of gaming is you can discard what you see as lame or tweak the events or story arc.
I have played a few games on FB that i found interesting of the Judges vision, which i enjoyed.

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MajorSteel
But the joy of gaming is you can discard what you see as lame or tweak the events or story arc.

Yes, the Civil War stuff was lame and I did aa lot of discarding and tweaking to set that as a failed movement in the political and legal world of my campaign.

I stopped reading Marvel comics in 1991 when the new X-Men came out, except for a short flirtation with the Ultimate universe.

Because of that, cannon is not a thing I worry about. I wing it based on what I remember from the 80s and stuff from the MCU.