Source Material - Where To Begin

[Crion]

I'm going to admit it: I've been out of touch with Marvel for YEARS. Most of my Marvel knowledge is based off of random episodes of the old 90's cartoons (Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, X-Men), the "recent" films (X-Men 1-3, Wolverine, Spider Man 1-3, the Avengers line), and a few comics (a good bit of Generation X and Marvel Civil War).

As I read through this book, I feel like I'm missing a great deal more than I should if I'm going to be a Watcher. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what source material to begin with outside of wiki pages to get the right "feel" of the game?


Any and all input would be greatly appreciated.

[Lindharin]

I'm in the same boat. I'm mostly familiar with the 80's comics. However, Marvel has a wonderful online digital comic collection. For a reasonable yearly fee you get unlimited access to thousands of comics online. The older comics are hit and miss, but comics from the past 10 years are pretty well covered. I just finished the New Avengers run, which started with the breakout scenario from the basic game, for example.

[Spatula]

I'm going to admit it: I've been out of touch with Marvel for YEARS. Most of my Marvel knowledge is based off of random episodes of the old 90's cartoons (Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, X-Men), the "recent" films (X-Men 1-3, Wolverine, Spider Man 1-3, the Avengers line), and a few comics (a good bit of Generation X and Marvel Civil War).

As I read through this book, I feel like I'm missing a great deal more than I should if I'm going to be a Watcher. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what source material to begin with outside of wiki pages to get the right "feel" of the game?

I'm not sure what you feel like you're missing, so it's hard to answer your question. Are you talking about the Breakout mini-event? I personally felt it was a little skimpy on how to run the villains, so I bought the TPB of the original story, and I think that helped me out. But the game itself doesn't require any knowledge of Marvel comics of any time period to run - you could use it to to DC heroes, base a game on the 90's or 00's cartoons, or make your own superhero world with it.

[Mystrich]

If you really feel that out of it: Make your own Ultimate universe. (As in, Marvel is a Multiverse and that gives you, as watcher, plenty of room for AU)

As in, restart all the heroes stories from scratch. Run comics how you remember them or like them and change things as needed. Is Venom/Carnage now a clone of Spiderman? Great! Is Galactus now a horde of robot invaders? Perfect!

Sometimes surprising the players, despite that they feel everything is familiar, is great! Or just run the movies or comics or animated series you know. If a character's profile or milestones don't really match up, change them. Movie verse Spiderman has natural web blasters, mix those two powers together and remove the Gear limit! Tada!

[Johnny Awesome]

I know where this guy's coming from.

It makes a big difference to read Breakout before you run it, particularly on the villain side of things.

Sometimes it's difficult to make sense of the dice when you don't know what these guys are really capable of.

"Kinetic Control" isn't that descriptive when you've never read a comic with Count Nefaria, for instance.

[Jimalcoatl]

I'd start with New Avengers vol. 1 and/or the Civil War Trade paperbacks, since that is the focus of the next suppliment. It isn't the most recent Marvel storyline, but it should get you informed enough to run the first major MHR event.

[Supplanter]

Options include:

1. Don't worry about it. Make it your (meaning, your group's) Marvel. That is, seriously, what anyone does now, whether writing comics or movies or cartoons.
2. Hit the wikis: Marvel's own; the fan-driven marvel.wikia.com and comicvine.com; and of course Wikipedia itself.
3. If you've got Netflix or Hulu you can catch up with cartoons like S1 of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes; Wolverine & the X-Man; and various Nineties and Naughties series. These use their own, simplified continuities and can give you the high points of a lot of villain & hero powers, e.g. Graviton.
4. Go sit in Barnes & Noble for a few hours and browse the graphic novels and current comics. Maybe buy something to be nice.
5. Get a Marvel Digital Unlimited sub. This will cover you for an enormous range of comics from decades back up to about six months ago. We're now into the money-spending options - but only like $60 a year.
6. Start buying reprint volumes of current-series arcs. These will set you back $10-25 apiece depending on medium (digital or print), size, bonus content and some other things.
7. God forbid, start buying current issues of whatever looks good to you, in print or digital. Cost: Bottomless. (I've personally bought the last several months of the Miles Morales Ultimate Comics Spider-Man BUT IT STOPS THERE DAMMIT!!!! )


Jim

[Crion]

Thank you for all of the feedback, everyone!

If you really feel that out of it: Make your own Ultimate universe. (As in, Marvel is a Multiverse and that gives you, as watcher, plenty of room for AU)

Ah, the joys of a Multiverse. . .
Any game a Watcher runs will boil down to this; that much I am aware of. I just think it would be nice to keep enough of the Marvel feel and flair intact so I'm not running annother DC game.
Fact: I've run DC Adventures for a couple of months until one of my players moved. I knew enough DC to get by, but most of the heroes in the DC Universe don't seem as closely knit as those in the Marvel universe, especially after the events of M-Day. This game is being run at the request of one of the returning players who wants the change of pace in comic feel and mechanical feel.

I know where this guy's coming from.

It makes a big difference to read Breakout before you run it, particularly on the villain side of things.

Sometimes it's difficult to make sense of the dice when you don't know what these guys are really capable of.

"Kinetic Control" isn't that descriptive when you've never read a comic with Count Nefaria, for instance.

Johnny, you hit the nail on the head. Some of the powers don't make very much sense to me when I don't know the characters and what they are capable of. While I am used to using dice to quantify level of ability (lots of time in Savage Worlds and Deadlands), when I don't understand what the power itself is capable of, I'm at a bit of a loss.

Options include:
...

Thanks for those options, Supplanter! I haven't snagged netflix yet, but I know my friends I have, between us, the 90's X-Men and Fantastic Four, as well as some of the newer incarnations of the Avengers. That should help.

I'd also consider the subscription, but I'm not finding the value of it when I'll lose the next few months thanks to grad school.


Thanks again for the input, everyone! If you have any further ideas, I'd gladly hear them!


--Crion

[figurefour]

I'd start with New Avengers vol. 1 and/or the Civil War Trade paperbacks, since that is the focus of the next suppliment. It isn't the most recent Marvel storyline, but it should get you informed enough to run the first major MHR event.

I did this, and it worked well for me.

I'd also advise you follow that up by reading Annihilation, since apparently it's going to be the Event Book AFTER Civil War, and because it's REALLY GOOD. Particularly Annihilation: Conquest.

[Lazy Wombat]

I'd caution that a phrase like "go read the Civil War" TPBs has the potential to be misleading. My local library has quite a few of them but I have no idea what order to read them in or even if the collection is complete.