Gaming Superheroes: Age of Ultron, and What Not to Do.

I often play marvel inspired Superhero games. And Marvel Studios has been producing quality work for a while now (except for Agents of SHIELD which has been rather mixed IMO). So naturally off I went to see what ideas I could mine from their latest release.

And the result?

Well...

Spoilers.
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Basically the movie can be summed up as follows: The Avengers fail, JARVIS (an NPC) and the Vision (likely a GM PC) saves the day, most of our heroes go off to sulk, and we get a new Avengers Team. And there was much rejoicing? Well, tons of money were made.

Ran as a RPG, you'd have a player revolt against the railroading in general and all are asking why the new kid at the table (Vision) is built on four or five times their character points.

Meanwhile:

• The player for Betty Ross is wondering how Black Widow pulled a pod person switch on her.
• Ironman's players bemoans the fact that he failed every skill roll he attempted.
• Captain America's player is asking why Hawkeye stole his nearly trademarked "Dare to be Badass" speech (made to Wanda).
• Jean Grey's player asks why is Wanda using her character sheet. Did the dog eat Wanda's again?
• Quicksilver's player asks, "How did I die again?" (I'll cut the movie some slack here and note that the player should notice that his Hero System END hit zero at just the wrong time).

And so on. Only Hawkeye's player is happy. He got some quality role-playing in there.

Everyone is please with Red Reddington showing up to GM Ultron, but are disappointed that he and his army of Ultrons were about as dangerous as barking puppies. Death by the hundreds against even the weakest of our heroes does not a threatening villain make.

As RPG inspiration goes, this movie is likely the worst of the ones Marvel Studios have given us. Although still better than most of Fox and Sony's. In too many ways, it was a copy of the first Avenger's movie.

It serves better as an example for what not to do.

Or perhaps as an example of getting rid of old characters (and/or players) and starting a new group. Yes, it does work for that now doesn't it?

But seriously Wanda, get your own character sheet. Jean's coming to the next X-men game Friday...