The players take on the role of freelance staff of a comic book company in the Marvel Universe. Here, superhero books aren't fiction - they're biographical. They're news. Punched up a bit, perhaps, but definitely falling under the banner of creative nonfiction.

Specifially the players are field researchers. It's their job to investigate superhuman activities after the fact and piece together the story of what happened. Sometimes they're lucky enough to score an interview. Sometimes they're unlucky enough to be drawn into the action... not every costumed figure *likes* the scrutiny.

Chracters are capable but ordinary. It's a dangerous job, but you're not SHIELD. Just talented freelancers. Peter Parkers if he didn't have radioactive spider blood.

System: GURPS as 125 point characters. Or maybe Gumshoe; you are investigating, after all. I'll handle the mechanical details behind the scene as often as possible so you can just play your characters.

Variations: Maybe the game is set in the early 60s just as the superhero stuff is taking off. What's the deal with the Fantastic Four? Is the Hulk real? Is that muscle guy with the hammer really a god? Spider-Man: Threat or Menace?

Or maybe we bump the timeline up and it's set in the 21st century. Modern day takes.

Throw ideas at me, if you've got any.

Very interesting! Are you taking inspiration from Marvels or Astro City? I guess there’s an element of Powers as well, although that was criminal investigations. An intriguing premise!

Marvels is definitely an inspiration here, with a little Astro City and a little Powers. Even a little World War Z, though not so much "zombies" as "news dispatches of worldwide events."

I'll add that players generally will not be getting superhuman abilities. You're not playing superheroes. You're investigating them.

Any other questions, comments, concerns?

For the modern take, would the universe be current continuity, or would heroes be emerging for the first time? If it's set in 2021, would Peter Parker be an established hero, or would he be in high school and just developing his powers? I kind of like the idea of being on the cusp of emerging heroes but also a world with a history (the Defenders in World War II, etc.).

Since I'm far more familiar with silver and bronze age comics it'd be a modern emergence.

So maybe the 20s and 30s were rife with "Mystery Men" like the Shadow and Phantom, and the 40s were all about the Defenders and Namor and Torch, and the late 40s and 50s were all about alien invasions and giant monsters and fake propaganda Captain Americas... but then things were relatively quiet.

Maybe stuff like The Prisoner and James Bond and the Avengers was going on during the 60s and 70s, maybe we had some Knight Rider/Airwolf stuff going on in the 80s. Just sporadic comic book stuff unconnected to the main Marvel continuity; Darkman in the 90s, Burton's Batman, The Crow, nothing that changes the nature of the world TOO much but presents a gentle continuity of "real" strange happenings to make nonfiction comics out of.
This message was last updated by the user at 17:10, Tue 16 Nov 2021.

Sounds cool! So superhero movies become more like documentaries, then? Or perhaps "based on a true story," sometimes close to what actually happened, and other times perhaps even a complete fabrication. (I'm thinking of all the space reels from Top Ten's super group, the Sentinels, that were actually propaganda.)

Basically. Some stuff would be relatively unknown but there'd be a lot of propaganda and guesswork.

One of your jobs would be to dig in and figure out what the truth was. The Comic format is also variable; maybe the players are researchers for a web series or "True Supercrime" podcast if we use a modern setting.

In the absence of other interest would you be down for a solo game, Mad Mick?

Sure, if you’d like to run it!

Okay, here's the link where we can hammer out the finer details.

link to another game

It doesn't have to be a solo game so anyone else who wants to come by and discuss it can RTJ.