Thursday, October 16, 2014

Superhero RPG Appendix N Blog Challenge

I came across this interesting Barking Alien challenge by way of +Lowell Francis:
I challenge you, the Superhero RPG GM, and/or player, to list between 5 and 10 Superhero comic books, and 5 to 10 Superhero live action or animated shows or films, that typify your style of Superhero RPG campaign.
Having just started a new super-hero campaign, this stuff has been on my mind quite a bit, so all right, here we go:
  1. Fantastic Four - From as far back as the flea markets could provide, up through much of the Byrne era.
  2. Avengers - Mostly the mid-70's through the mid-80's.
  3. Rom: Spaceknight - All of it.
  4. Micronauts - All of it. This and Fantastic Four were the first comic books I followed.
  5. Uncanny X-Men - The Claremont/Byrne and the second Claremont/Cockrum run. I don't mean any slight to the others; this is just the bit that influenced me.
  6. Nova - The original series, from the 70's, with Marv Wolfman and Sal Buscema (and later, unfortunately, Carmine Infantino).
  7. Alpha Flight - Byrne through Mantlo. 
And for the shows & films... Sometimes I feel the need to justify these, so there's some blather about why I think they fit:
  1. Farscape - Farscape is the gold standard for all my role-playing games, super-hero or otherwise. Its style and attitude had a huge influence on the games I run now. If you can figure out how the characters in this show, each with their own, often violently conflicting, agendas, can come together - or somehow muddle through the crisis without coming together - you can deal with any group of players. 
  2. Transformers - Season 3 (the original series). 
  3. Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes - (I mean the Avengers cartoon that was prematurely terminated, not the obnoxious one with the movie-based costumes and Red Skull's League of Villains Least Likely to Ever be Part of a League.) I almost hesitate to count this, because watching it feels so much like reading the comic book that I take pretty much the same inspiration from it.
  4. Archer - No, seriously. While, again, not about four-color spandex super-heroes, this is another study in how wildly conflicting characters act when thrown into a dangerous situation... or an office building. And, while the comedy does often find its way into lighter moments, the way this show plays out has a lot of influence on even the more serious of my ongoing plots.
  5. Aqua Teen Hunger Force - I don't know. It's really hard to find movies or shows that have anywhere near as much influence in this area as even the most cursorily-perused comic book, and it would be cheating to count something like City of Heroes as a movie or show.
Okay, your turn.

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