Decades of playing tabletop superhero role-playing games has often drawn my attention to certain mundane challenges faced by the superheroes and supervillains. In fiction, the spotlight can be kept focused on that which furthers the plot. In a roleplaying game, one has to at least consider how one might handle certain issues, should the GM decide to call attention to them.
A Marvel-setting-specific issue has to do with social prejudice as applied to the diversely empowered. Specifically, there are many different reasons someone might possess superpowers. One group in particular, the mutants, are often subject to vicious bigotry. There does not appear to be a well-defined tell to distinguish superpowered mutant from superpowered non-mutant. Nevertheless, Marvel characters, super and otherwise, appear to be able to make the distinction easily, with few mistakes.
What the heck is going on here? Do all Marvel humans have an innate mutant-detecting ability?
Should Marvel-themed tabletop role-playing games take this ability into account? If such an ability doesn’t exist in-game, then miscategorization should be fairly frequent. Non-mutant characters should find themselves subjected to the same unjust treatment as mutants, while mutants might be able to pass. Perhaps that blue-furred, unusually agile gentleman is simply Canadian…
Another issue involves clothing. Specifically, are invulnerable people’s trousers as indestructible as their wearer? Is so, where did they acquire them and can regular people purchase similar items to reduce the hazards of commuting in a superhero universe? If not, approximately how much of their superhero career do invulnerable characters spend naked, surrounded by the ashes of their all-too-mundane clothes? “A lot” could be quite funny.
As I’ve noted before, some comic book continuities address this with characters such as Reed Richards (who invented a suitable material for costumes) or tailor Paul Gambi (able to provide his clients with durable and thematically colorful attire). I do not think it is coincidental that characters like this often have vast social networks. The demand for their services must be huge. Still, surely not all universes have someone like Gambi and not everyone would be able to afford their services. Good news for naturist superheroes, less good for everyone else.
Finally, one has to wonder how garishly dressed supervillains without access to exotic transportation options manage to reach the scenes of their crimes without being spotted and detained. Do their cars have unusually dark tinted windows? Do they limit themselves to panel vans? Do they park in back allies near the target to change? Have cops simply decided to turn a blind eye to people in garish costumes?
As I often assure my boss at the theatre, there is no human activity that cannot be improved with applied overthinking. No doubt there are superheroic conundrums about which many of you may have mused. Feel free to mention them in comments below.
In the words of fanfiction author Musty181, four-time Hugo finalist, prolific book reviewer, and perennial Darwin Award nominee James Davis Nicoll “looks like a default mii with glasses.” His work has appeared in Interzone, Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times as well as on his own websites, James Nicoll Reviews (where he is assisted by editor Karen Lofstrom and web person Adrienne L. Travis) and the 2021, 2022, and 2023 Aurora Award finalist Young People Read Old SFF (where he is assisted by web person Adrienne L. Travis). His Patreon can be found here.
