Now that the Spider-Verse is hot again, I’d like to reboot the MARVEL NOIRVERSE (free-form) game I ran a few years ago.

It would be an Earth set in the 1930s (Earth-90214-C), where the amendment to end Prohibition failed to pass.

The Fantastic Four succeeded in the first flight to Antarctica, bringing back reports from the Savage Lands and the depths of the the Great Pit where the Mole Men dwell.

Captain America has recently returned from being lost in ice while fighting the Great War.

SHIELD is a federal agency known for enforcing Prohibition but is secretly much more.

Chocolate magnate Charles Xavier runs a boarding school for Special Youngsters.

The papers claim a Ghost Rider is waging war on the Klan in the South.

It wouldn’t be exactly the same as the comics version of Earth-90214, meaning you can do your own interpretations of the characters already seen. Want a female Daredevil? Go for it. Note that it won’t be a monochrome world like the one Nicholas Cage’s Spider-Noir comes from but it will have the film-noir aesthetic.

So…wanna put on your fedora and trenchcoat and join in the fun?

Do the snozberries taste like snozberries? On a semi related note, what is the plan regarding the game's rating?

Absolutely

Just FYI you don't really need an interest check for this I think. Games like this are usually heavily subscribed to. You could quite comfortably go straight to 'request for players' if you wanted to.

The major question that most people will want to know is 'what rule system'. Are there any details you want to flesh out and get people's help / thoughts on before you started?

I beg to differ! I've had a number of games as player & GM that could/should have been "heavily subscribed" & hardly got a nibble. PbP can be very difficult to predict.

I couldn't tell by looking at them which of the 4 games rpol tells me you're a GM for (including inactive and deleted) should have been heavily subscribed, so maybe just as a player? I have a similar problem of player traction, what I've found is after accounting for my neurodivergence, a significant part of it is not running a rule system or a rating players want. I'm not sure OP should go straight to WP though, it does warrant fleshing out details here.

My OSE and DCC campaigns are running just fine, but it’s hard to get traction for my Mark of the Odd based games.

It would probably be Mature. I have no desire to run an “Adult” campaign.

Also I was planning on just using storytelling. I don’t want to calculate how many tons a character can lift.

That's fair


That is also fair, but it may cause you to run into some problems. I dunno, it really depends on how things have changed since FASERIP, where I was given to understand that's one of the things they explicitly spell out. I have actually been looking for a system to transfer an old campaign I had with GURPS that's more handwavy than I've experienced in the past while also scaling well-ish.

Maybe FATE? I was in a fantasy FAE game on here once and I thought it would have been a better system for a supers game.

The choice of system is perhaps the most important thing you can do to determine if players will come (the purpose of this thread). It's in this context, I'm making these comments. They are just my views. I suggest we don't 'argue' about other people's views or we will hijack the thread, but just express our preferences (no one will successfully change someone else's views on systems). We usually want to say 'why' to help the OP make decisions.

My personal negatives on systems:
No FATE for me :) Along with PbtA it's in the list of 'too terrible to even contemplate playing again' list. Fate makes all characters identical, PbtA makes them all unable to do anything else their ultra specialised thing without crippling other players... YMMV.

GURPs is in the, for me, 'too boring to really want to play again' list but isn't terrible.

I will observe other people say they have had good experiences with those game systems. A good GM can compensate for most game systems, and different people have different objectives from a game system. (I've played them with good/great GMs though, and even there the comments I made above stand)

My positives on systems
The classical RPOL game for super heroes is Mutants and Masterminds. There are many of these games on RPOL, and they usually work well. There are other game systems that work well. The Marvel Heroic Roleplaying for example is great/superb for playing Marvel characters but is no longer in print. I've recently taken a look at Prowlers and Paragons (or the other way around) and that looks a blast. I've no experience with the other 'specifically Marvel' systems except the very first one. I'm told people like them.

Freeform works OK if you aren't planning on much combat. Again that's my perspective, other people like freeform for everything. Since combat is a speed bump and game killer in RPOL prefering social / investigation to combat works very well. And outside combat freeform is in many ways the default system even when there is a game system.

I am intrigued by the concept, but frankly freeform is a disappointment. I prefer games with mechanics. If you havent seen it already, the new Multiverse system looks like fun and shouldn't require much fussing around. https://www.marvel.com/rpg

I love the idea of Marvel Noir, and would at least be interested in checking it out. But if you go with a system that would be a no for me personally. I just don't like game systems with PbP roleplaying.

I'm also hesitant with the mature rating. I don't like censorship in my writing, so I generally like to have the full space allowed under the ToU that comes with the adult tag. which is in itself already far too limiting in my opinion (ah, what I wouldn't give to have the golden age of RPoL back). Doesn't mean it immediately becomes Marvel Noir Sexcapade Extravaganza just because it's an adult game.

But it sounds like you've got some decent interest, and if our preferences don't align, they don't align. All the best with your game regardless, should you decide to push forward.

I'll likely check it out regardless, just to see what you do with it.

So some of you prefer a purely narrative style and some of you prefer hard rules, I get it. How about a happy medium?

What I’m going to do is ask players to write up their character sheets in the style of the old Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. Then if a PC attempts a feat that tests their limits I’ll have them roll 3d6 using the (Yes! And) to (No! And) range. the Hulk could throw a tank across the street with no problem. For Spidey it would be a huge feat.

Marvel Noirverse (Season 2) is now active! Thank you everyone for your input!

So far we have:

Moon Knight
Jean Grey
Taskmaster
Angel
Monet St. Croix