I'm looking to create a campaign, or series of campaigns, basically going through the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So the campaigns themselves will be based off that, like starting off with Captain America: The First Avenger and chronologically proceeding through the rest of the movies, and the characters that the players make will be the heroes and villains within the Marvel Universe, including those that haven't been introduced in the MCU yet, like 3-D Man and Arabian Knight. The thing is, we are still going to use the 5e classes and races to create these Marvel characters and fight 5e monsters. So it's basically 5e, just a homebrewed campaign I guess.
The issue I'm running into is with the characters the players would make of the Marvel characters. I want to allow them creative freedom to create who they want/how they want, but I don't want these characters to be off the wall crazy, like Hulk being a Wizard or Dr. Strange being a Barbarian. I also don't want them to use whatever backgrounds they want, I feel as though it should make sense with the character they are trying to make. Like Cap should have a background as a Soldier since he was in the military and Iron Man should probably have a background as either a Sage or even a Noble.
Should I compile a list of Marvel heroes and villains and create recommendations/limitations on what they can be or should I just allow complete freedom in these characters? I know as the DM I would have the final say on whether a player's character is allowed, but should I limit them to start with, or change each character as they get presented?
I have some characters but I would recommend you try out Tulok the barbarian (Youtube) for ideas. Later if I can remember I might send you characters I made in the lions den character creator.
It sounds like you know exactly what you want from the characters. And the story line is laid out as well by the movies. But it seems to me a good deal of the fun of the campaign is either not knowing what is going to happen, or approaching a known challenge in a new way.
I'm wondering, what do you have in mind to put a fresh spin on a well established storyline? You may want to present a parallel universe version of the movies, where one or several high profile characters just don't exist or are conspicuously absent. What happens if you run the story line with B-list Marvel Characters? Or perhaps the atmosphere of the universe is off somehow, where the iconic characters and locations and events are only vaguely recognizable, but don't quite seem to interact or behave as expected...sort of a shadowfell version of the Marvel Universe.
Another option to shake things up is to do exactly what you are concerned about. Take the iconic characters and spin them on their head. What if Hulk's body started streaming out gamma radiation like a wild sorcerer, and in doing so, lost his strength and mass? What if Captain America was outlawed and had to go rougue like Hawkeye did? What if Tony Stark didn't have any money and had to rely on his charisma as say a bard, rather than what his fortune allowed him to do as an artificer? What if Tony Stark was a Warforged, with all their quirks?
Now, your group may be super excited about knocking out the awesome storyline of the movies as written. But if they are looking for something of the unknown, you may have to get creative. Best to ask them.
And TimDonovan's idea mirrors mine. Marvel had a What If series that were alternate realities. You can go so far as to have things like What If Captain America had been a Wizard working on the Super Soldier program. That gives the players the fun of playing the iconic hero, but mixing it up to be what they want to play.
You may not want them to do a What The series though. Those got insanely weird, but did give us Spider-Ham.
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Hi all,
I'm looking to create a campaign, or series of campaigns, basically going through the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So the campaigns themselves will be based off that, like starting off with Captain America: The First Avenger and chronologically proceeding through the rest of the movies, and the characters that the players make will be the heroes and villains within the Marvel Universe, including those that haven't been introduced in the MCU yet, like 3-D Man and Arabian Knight. The thing is, we are still going to use the 5e classes and races to create these Marvel characters and fight 5e monsters. So it's basically 5e, just a homebrewed campaign I guess.
The issue I'm running into is with the characters the players would make of the Marvel characters. I want to allow them creative freedom to create who they want/how they want, but I don't want these characters to be off the wall crazy, like Hulk being a Wizard or Dr. Strange being a Barbarian. I also don't want them to use whatever backgrounds they want, I feel as though it should make sense with the character they are trying to make. Like Cap should have a background as a Soldier since he was in the military and Iron Man should probably have a background as either a Sage or even a Noble.
Should I compile a list of Marvel heroes and villains and create recommendations/limitations on what they can be or should I just allow complete freedom in these characters? I know as the DM I would have the final say on whether a player's character is allowed, but should I limit them to start with, or change each character as they get presented?
I have some characters but I would recommend you try out Tulok the barbarian (Youtube) for ideas. Later if I can remember I might send you characters I made in the lions den character creator.
It sounds like you know exactly what you want from the characters. And the story line is laid out as well by the movies. But it seems to me a good deal of the fun of the campaign is either not knowing what is going to happen, or approaching a known challenge in a new way.
I'm wondering, what do you have in mind to put a fresh spin on a well established storyline? You may want to present a parallel universe version of the movies, where one or several high profile characters just don't exist or are conspicuously absent. What happens if you run the story line with B-list Marvel Characters? Or perhaps the atmosphere of the universe is off somehow, where the iconic characters and locations and events are only vaguely recognizable, but don't quite seem to interact or behave as expected...sort of a shadowfell version of the Marvel Universe.
Another option to shake things up is to do exactly what you are concerned about. Take the iconic characters and spin them on their head. What if Hulk's body started streaming out gamma radiation like a wild sorcerer, and in doing so, lost his strength and mass? What if Captain America was outlawed and had to go rougue like Hawkeye did? What if Tony Stark didn't have any money and had to rely on his charisma as say a bard, rather than what his fortune allowed him to do as an artificer? What if Tony Stark was a Warforged, with all their quirks?
Now, your group may be super excited about knocking out the awesome storyline of the movies as written. But if they are looking for something of the unknown, you may have to get creative. Best to ask them.
And TimDonovan's idea mirrors mine. Marvel had a What If series that were alternate realities. You can go so far as to have things like What If Captain America had been a Wizard working on the Super Soldier program. That gives the players the fun of playing the iconic hero, but mixing it up to be what they want to play.
You may not want them to do a What The series though. Those got insanely weird, but did give us Spider-Ham.