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Old 09-22-2017, 08:51 PM   #31
Daigoro
 
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Default Re: Marvel-DC World Building Help

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Originally Posted by Drakyrias View Post
I think that was just the movie, and doesn't classify as a patron since Lucifer isn't really willing to do stuff for him.
Yeah, that's why I mentioned Unwilling. It's an Ally limitation by RAW, but I think it can be generalised to Patron. It doesn't make a complete write-up, but it's a start.

Did he have any special protection in the TV series? I don't properly recall much about it.
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Old 09-22-2017, 09:02 PM   #32
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Default Re: Marvel-DC World Building Help

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Yeah, that's why I mentioned Unwilling. It's an Ally limitation by RAW, but I think it can be generalised to Patron. It doesn't make a complete write-up, but it's a start.

Did he have any special protection in the TV series? I don't properly recall much about it.
Not sure. He didn't get into too much detail with his abilities and protections when he guest-starred in season 4 of Arrow (from what I could tell, same guy). All I took away from his own series was "gypsy magic is the blackest of all magic", which is a total load of phooey. They cast him convincingly, but the scripts were clearly written by someone who didn't know the character. (Contrast with movie!Constantine, which had good (though not great) writing and lore consistent with the character, DC metaphysics, and DC history, but was clearly miscast as a vehicle for three actors' careers over all other considerations.)

He did transfer some tattoo-like protective runes from himself to Ollie in an island flashback scene, though. Seemed to trigger when Ollie got too close to a mystic power source relic, IIRC. I'd imagine TV!Constantine could get his hands on similar protection tats.
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Old 09-24-2017, 11:47 AM   #33
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Default Re: Marvel-DC World Building Help

Moving away from the singular heroes- villain groups like the Hand and League of Assassins.

Any alliances or mergings?
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Old 09-24-2017, 02:40 PM   #34
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Default Re: Marvel-DC World Building Help

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Moving away from the singular heroes- villain groups like the Hand and League of Assassins.

Any alliances or mergings?
Not so much a merging, but the Masters of Evil and the Injustice League - as well as groups like the Avengers and Justice League, X-Men and Teen Titans or Doom Patrol, etc. - would likely have members from the other company.

For example, I can see Shadowcat and Miles Morales/Spider-Man as Titans, and Jericho was explicitly called out as a mutant in the New Teen Titans Annual that introduced him during the Judas Contract storyline. Both Jericho and his sister Ravager would make interesting X-Men (actually, I can see Ravager in X-Force or the New Warriors rather than the X-Men).

Throw DC's Blockbuster and Killer Frost into whatever incarnation of the Masters of Evil you're using, and Bullseye and Scorpion into the Injustice Gang. Really, at this point you can pretty much justify any DC villain joining their Marvelous Competition's teams and any Marvel villain joining a team from the Distinguished Competition.

Anyway, for mergers there's the entire line of Greek Gods and Titans of Myth. I'd use Marvel's Ares and Hercules over their DC counterparts, and the DC version of Hera. Herc may or may not be Wonder Woman's father; one version of WW had her formed from the soul of Hippolyta's unborn and unknown child; the only male Hippolyta was known to have had sex with prior to her death was Herc. That alone could make for an interesting inter-company crossover.
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Old 09-24-2017, 04:41 PM   #35
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Default Re: Marvel-DC World Building Help

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I've recently embarked on running a 'street' level Supers game set in a crossover world drawing on elements of both DC and Marvel Universes.

Details already set in the game: The game is currently set in Nov 1996

Charles Xavier, Magneto, General William Striker, Amanda Waller, Bruce Wayne/Batman, Victor Zsasz (a version combining Arkham city and Gotham tv series), and Carmine Falcone all exist.
If the first two are going to play a significant role, you'll need to consider why, and what your players can do for or against either one. Charles, esp. is a terrifying foe and a dangerous ally, since he can change your mind...whether you want to change it or not. It's also kind of hard to keep secrets from him.

For 'street level supers', those 2 may be too potent as written.

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The only core cannon group from either universe I see as existing without any real tampering is the X men since they exist a a mutants training and protection group that primarily looks at the rest of even their own universe and tells it to shove off as often as not.
That could work at street level, with caveats. A few of the X-types are too powerful for that sort of setting, esp. the various versions of Jean Grey. It's even caused major problems in canon for their own titles.

If you want the X-men and Magneto and the Brotherhood or the Hellfire Club or whatever, it could be done in a Gotham-style street setting, but you'll probably need to adjust some membership and/or power levels. For ex, the Hellfires could fit into Gotham easily enough, in concept, a club of the rich, powerful, businessmen and politicians and self-flattering kinky sorts and the like prey, and a core of mutants with nastier plans. The court of owls might overlap with them easily enough.

But Emma Frost (if she's one of them) is an issue for the same reason Charles Xavier is, just a little less of it. From the POV of a normal person, either one is terrifying and almost impossible to cope with. (I'd far rather take on Sebastian Shaw than Emma Frost in a fight. I could conceivably hide from or run from Shaw, or trick him.)

If you're allowing telepathy in-game, you probably need to either give your PCs some defenses against it, or weaken it substantially. Xavier/Frost would be much more manageable if we reduce their range considerably, and make it easier for a strong-willed person to resist them.

Quote:

Batman is still in year one.
Here's a thought: what if Batman, because of his will and insane dedication, and the Joker, because of his insane thought processes, are both more-or-less immune to telepathy, even Xavier's or Emma's? No resistance roll necessary, it just doesn't work on them, because of their particular mental states.

Would your players ally with the Joker against an evil telepath? Which is the great evil?

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I'm looking for help and inspiration with any and all cannon characters and team or group affiliations from either universe. (i. e. Dr. Fate and Dr. Strange etc) along with stat help. 3rd edition rules preferred but I'll backwards compatible if I like something.

Thanks!
Strange, Fate, etc. are probably too powerful for a street-level Gotham game, unless you scale them way down. The Phantom Stranger might fit, for all his power, because he follows his own hidden set of rules. He might be theoretically able to blast the city apart but forbidden to do more than zap a lock or two on any given day.

In practice, though, you probably don't want to mix 'cosmic power levels' and 'street level superheroing' in one game setting. it works (sort of) in DC and Marvel because the authors have total control of character behavior, but even there it sometimes combines clumsily, making WSOD hard.

You might do best to assume that there just aren't any 'cosmic-level superpowers' existing. Make people like Magneto and Charles the high end of power, and make them rare. You might well want to scale even Charles and Magneto down some along the way too. The Hulk could work OK, as a very rare, very-high-end menace/ally, for all his physical strength he's still a one-trick pony.

In a Gothamite 'city scale setting', I'd say you'd probably want your enemies to be on a human scale. Add 25% of Metropolis to Gotham, in the rich and powerful residential areas and the downtown corporate/business core. Play up the distance between the two sides of Gotham. Batman operates in both, but even he uses different methods in each. The bright and shiny part of Gotham is at least as corrupt and criminal as the poor-and-shabby parts, but it's a different flavor and less out-in-the-open. There are good guys and bad guys in both.

Along with supercriminals, and maybe a bigger long-term problem, are the Kingpin, Carmine Falcone, the Mafia in general, the Yakuza might be in play. Play up the differences between fighting a powerful but lone supercrook and an organization of competent normals, esp. when you add in political corruption and crokked cops and so on. Play that right and your characters may end up being more worried about making the Kingpin mad than the Joker.

Spiderman could fit into your Gotham easily enough. In fact he might do quite well there. The Punisher, ditto, though he and Batman are just enough alike and just different enough that they'd likely end up mortal enemies. The Punisher would see Batman as a deranged kook trying to deal with deadly serious enemies by tea party methods, Batman would see Castle as just another perp, maybe a sympathetic one because of his backstory, but still a murderous criminal.

Daredevil could fit in without too much trouble, and his services as Matt Murdoch may come in handy, too, if somebody gets busted for something (and they likely will).

You might bring in J.J. Jameson and his Daily Bugle, too. Use the versions of him that have him basically one of the good guys, if often a nasty and unpleasant one, still obsessed with Spiderman if he's here too. It's canon (or has been with some writers) that the same J.J. obsessed with getting Spiderman is also a crusader for law-and-order, willing to call out corrupt cops and politicians, and a defender of mutant rights. He makes a nice complicated frenemy. He'd likely have many of the same issues with Batman as Spiderman, too. Batman would be more likely to hit back than Spiderman (who needs the employment), but Batman might also hesitate to strike back too hard against a J.J. who was exposing the rot in City Hall, too.
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Old 09-24-2017, 11:47 PM   #36
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Default Re: Marvel-DC World Building Help

In Rock of Ages, the Martian Manhunter has to deal with the Joker telepathically and is only able to do it by temporarily making him sane, so there's some precedent.
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Old 09-25-2017, 01:20 AM   #37
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Default Re: Marvel-DC World Building Help

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In Rock of Ages, the Martian Manhunter has to deal with the Joker telepathically and is only able to do it by temporarily making him sane, so there's some precedent.
I could imagine a scenario where if Charles or Emma or Jean tried to read Batman's mind, all s/he ever gets is an image of Batman's parents being gunned down...no matter what. That so permeates his mind that there's just no way past it. All the rest of his thoughts and secrets are shielded behind that image. It's not a conscious defense, just his nature. The image would be too intense to alter telepathically, too.

I figure the Joker might simply give static. Maybe with an accompanying laugh track.

I might make the Joker and Batman both immune to Wonder Woman's lasso, too. They might not be able to lie under its influence, but they might be able to keep silent, or in the Joker's case just laugh.

If Wonder Woman is present in-universe, she could work, but you'd (again) want to scale down the power. The WW power levels from the old 70s TV show might work rather well in a street-level Gotham setting. It leaves her somewhat superhuman, but not impossible to cope with for clever mortals or other supers.

Green Lantern would have no place at all in such a setting, I would think. Even if you scale him down a few orders of magnitude to fit in, he's still too far out for it.

Green Arrow might well work, along the same lines as Batman or Spiderman. I think he'd be more likely a guest star, though, his home base would be some other city. He wouldn't fit into Gotham as such all that well on a regular basis, in terms of 'look' and 'feel'.

Aquaman or Namor could work...but I wouldn't try to use both. Whatever undersea society exists out there should not be a global superpower, but it might be a national-level power. Aquaman/Namor might show up now and then, but only occasionally because he'd be busy ruling his realm. (Also, in gaming situations water-based characters can be a headache to deal with.) In that sense, Aquaman/Namor would actually be a bit like von Doom, as head of state of a foreign power.

von Doom could fit in, scaled down in power a bit, but he too would be the sort of character who only occasionally shows up in the lives of street-level types.

The FF could fit...but you'd want to scale down the 'fantastic' part. Stuff like the Negative Zone, the Blue Area on the Moon, etc. doesn't fit in very well with street-level supers games. Doublly so with Galactus and the Watcher and the rest of the FF supporting cast.

But they could still make useful guest stars, I'd let them stay headquarters in New York rather than Gotham.

Tony Stark, as Iron Man, might actually fit in, for all his raw power, especially the version from the first movie rather than the later movies or the comics. A bit more limited, but still really powerful. But he'd be just as likely to interact with Bruce Wayne as Batman, if you see what I mean.

Of the rest of the Avengers, Hawkeye could fit in...but I'd use either Hawkeye or Green Arrow, not both. This is a common pattern because of a lot of Marvel/D.C. characters are expies of each other, or started out that way, and while some could work in the same world some would be redundant. Captain America could fit in. Mockingbird might fit in...but if she's around you want to remove Black Canary, or vice versa. Too similar.

Thor probably has no place in this world, and doubly so for Odin and the various races of 'gods'. Too powerful, and too weird. At most, any such entities should probably stay off-stage, only their concealed power or their minions in play. You might have Odin's Spear as a McGuffin in the story, but there should be no appearance by Odin.
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