At my old blog, I once did a short post on trying to get back into reading comics, that was titled something like "Some Comics are Bad." Brilliant, I know. Not sure why Pulitzer hasn't called yet.
Still, the issue was that, with the totally unscientific sample of books I had been able to grab off the shelf of my local library, I found precious little from either DC or Marvel, that was worth the time it took to read. Thus, I largely pulled back in and read only what I could get of work by my friends Greg Rucka and Jen Van Meter. This kept me largely away from Marvel and often put me in the Indie Comics world with stories that I really enjoyed. Based on that limited view, I knew that comics could be very good, but I doubted much could be found, particularly at Marvel.
Why so down on Marvel? Well, even though there are a ton of characters that I love from Marvel, I often find the universe and the editorial management of it pretty awful. I could cite a lot of things, but the crazy, messed up storyline that resulted in eliminating Peter Parker's marriage to Mary Jane really exemplified the kinds of style without substance that I perceived working at Marvel. Trying to read Civil War in trades (again, yay library) also reinfoced that. Here we had a mega event, with tons of talented people working at it, and yet I found the storyline just bad (my opinion, doesn't have to be anybody elses, but I'll say again, it was BAD). What stuck with me was the event was extremely plot driven and the organic development of or reactions by the characters were subordinated to the plot. For me, that is never good. The characters in many cases came off as cardboard pieces on a big game board, rather than interesting and complex individuals. Since Marvel was doing one of these plot driven monsters pretty often, it just seemed like, even where you had a solid creator behind a title, it was likely going to be hijacked and the characters would start doing really stupid out of character things to advance the plot.
So, I stayed away, read my Rucka and Van Meter stuff, and dove into the past getting trades of the old Question, Justice League International, and Walt Simonson's run on Thor.
Two things made me reconsider. One, Greg started writing The Punisher. Now, while The Punisher has been a long established and somewhat interesting character from time to time in Marvel, mostly I considered him kind of a bad joke. Hey, let's have a superhero whose power is, wait for it, GUNS! In general, not my thing, and not, I would have thought, Greg's thing.
Ah, but the power of a good editor and a writer given a chance to write a character (a bunch actually), that, I had not counted on. Now, I just have to say, thank you Stephen Wacker, I think you are the best! Suddenly I was pulled into the Marvel Universe by a character I had scant given consideration to. Great writing and great editorial changed my mind. Still, I was not that interested in going deeper in.
Then, Margaret Weis Productions new Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game came out, and it is really fun. It set me on a path back to exploring Marvel, and suddenly, I found out that, despite all the things wrong with Marvel (and I still maintain they are many), there are some really terrific writers who have written some fantastic books in the last 10 to 15 years. So, while you know I am totally biased towards Greg Rucka, here are some other writers I am really happy to know.
Ed Brubaker (Secret Avengers, Captain America, Daredevil, Winter Soldier) I know, you all are saying "duh!" He wrote Gotham Central with Rucka, and that was amazing. How hard was it to find him? Well, I have to admit the heresy of not liking Criminal very much and while I enjoyed his reunion with Rucka on an arc of Daredevil, I was just kind of avoiding Marvel comics in general. But dang, Secret Avengers! Those totally rock. The other stuff then follows and there is no doubt he is a terrific writer. I have been reading what I can get my hands on (on a limited budget).
Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente (Incredible Hercules, Prince of Power, Chaos War) OMG! Hercules was this B-list character, a foil for Thor. Not ANY MORE! These guys reinvented Hercules and gave us Amadeus Cho. The world will never be the same.
Mark Waid (Daredevil [and a million other things I am going to discover]) Mr. Waid is poised to win a number of Eisners, and despite my rabid Ruck bias (who was not even nominated darn it), I have to say he is really deserving. The current run of Daredevil is astounding. And, he handles both sides of the character right. A lot of writers really don't understand what Matt Murdock does as a lawyer. However, that is a really important part of the character. Waid gives a lot of time to it, and he does it right. I am really, really impressed. I know he is a long time player in the comic book world, and I am looking for more stuff to read, especially some Fantastic Four stuff, becuase I hear that is great.
Brian Michael Bendis (New Avengers, Moon Knight, and like a gazillion other things) Okay, I know, "DUH!!" Clearly, he has changed a great deal about Marvel. Mostly for the good. Now, I have to qualify my love for Bendis. He does some great character work, and I think nobody does Spider-Man like him. He also did some really intersting things with Moon Knight and I am sorry they have cancelled the title. However, he does have a terrible habit of having characters go on, and on, and on, in rambling di/monologue. You can get used to it, but sometimes he has a story really humming along and you hit a page that is just a person talking, talking, talking, for like six, eight panels, all down the page, and it is like hitting a traffic jam. Still, he writes good characters and gets to do things no one else has done at Marvel.
Jeff Parker (Agents of Atlas, Gorilla Man) Okay, another OMG moment. I love Agents of Atlas. I can't say that Marvel didn't try to make them work. Maybe they didn't do it the right way, maybe some other plan would have made the first or second ongoing survive. It's hard to know. All I can say is, thank you for the time we had with Atlas, because it was really good. Now I have to seach out other stuff Parker has done.
Paul Cornell (Young Avengers, Captain Britain & M.I. 13) Captain Britain & M.I. 13 was another series that did not last, but the writing, for me, was top notch. I didn't love every element of the first arc of Young Avengers, but in general it was good. Must see what else Cornell is doing for Marvel.
Matt Fraction (Defenders, and lots of other stuff) Just "discovered" Fraction's Defender stuff. It is gonzo fun. Hope to read more by him.
Honorable metion: Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men) Yeah, super-"DUH!" Don't have to look for his comic work though. Whedon had a very solid run on Astonishing X-Men. He really hit great character notes. Some of the plot stuff did not wow me, but he inherited a lot of it. I more appreciated that he really understood the characters and even in plots I disdained, I enjoyed the characters, because he understood how they would act and react. Now, he is (hopefully) going to be making many insanely popular bockbuster movies, and punctuating that with little side projects, and he probably won't write comics for a long time if ever again.
On the horizon: Kelly Sue DeConnick (Captain Marvel (2012)) I have not read a word by her in comics yet, but she is pioneering the latest effort to get a female flagship hero into the stable of Marvel Comics. I want that to happen, and so, how can I not start buying. Captain Marvel is slated for release in July 2012 and I have my preorder in at my local comic book shop (Beyond Comics, yay!).
So, that is my growing list of authors for whom I will search. Marvel, I have a love hate relationship with a lot that you do, but you have employed some terrific writers, and I am going to do better about finding and following them.
Showing posts with label DC Comics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DC Comics. Show all posts
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Marvel Heroic Role Playing event chapter seed: Welcome to the Murder Games!
So, I have been thinking about what I could do with a MHRP game if I could sign up some players. As ideas fermented in my brain, the following elements blended: the super villain Arcade (see also here) (and various Murderworld stories, as well as the old MSH module of the same name); several Justice League Unlimited episodes ("The Cat and the Canary", "Grudge Match"), and episode of Wolverine and the X-Men ("Hunting Grounds") and throw in The Hunger Games and what do I come up with?
Welcome to The Murder Games!
The premise:
Arcade, with a cross-dimensional distribution and syndication deal brokered with Mojo, has set up a new environment for the amusement of the masses and the murder of superheroes. This 21st Century Arcade is all about blending the time honored entertainment of built environments designed to kill you with the hot new trend of reality TV. Add to that, the hottest literary property about a dystopian future (now a major motion picture) and you have the ingredients for a show to hit #1 on the Mojo network and be terrifically amusing for the master of deathtraps.
And may the odds be always in HIS favor.
But wait, wouldn't people object to Acade trespessing on this intellectual property? Of course they would, so of course he has thought of that. And that's why he has the author and the main cast of the film detained and awaiting certain death, unless the heroes put on a VERY GOOD SHOW. Heck, he might also even have a few of the books biggest fans on hand, just in case there is one or two of the heroes who get stubborn.
So, what might be the initial set up?
The environment is going to be very manipulable, with Arcade's stats often providing the dice pools, and in other cases provided by the Doom Pool. Of course there are cameras everywhere and trackers on the heroes. Of course, clever heroes may figure out how to fool the cameras, lose the trackers, or turn the technology against the villains.
Of course, maybe Arcade has, for round 1, a set of villains, perhaps some who broke out of the Raft, to compete against the heroes. Whilte the heroes may have no moral problem beating the paste out of the escapees, at some point, Arcade is going to do something like put a gun to the head of a hostage and insist that the hero finish the job.
Now, to really mess with things, some of the hostages and some of the villains are probably Life Model Doubles, Androids, reprogrammed Doombots, or something. However, as soon as a hero feels like it is safe to kill an opponent or to allow a hostage to die, well then that is likely going to be a real person.
Of course the environment will also produce deadly challenges. Arcade has probably, inspired by the movie (he might not do much reading) recreated the Tracker jackers (cause, ya know, they're fun), as well as having things like velociraptors and maybe a T-rex or whatever seems fun to try to mess with the heroes. And Arcade can probably do things to help them on the fly, like make the T-Rex firebreathing or whatnot.
Round 2 may be not against villains, but instead against captured heroes (with a little Mojo brainwashing perhaps), and maybe or maybe not there are some androids, robots, whatnot interspersed, but heroes are going to have to worry not only about surviving and taking out the opposition, but also figuring out if they are fighting a person or a copy. And what to do with the real heroes, and what to do when Arcade demands a death ("or else the sequel won't get made with this actress . . . ")
WIth these first two rounds, heroes may be able to win freedom for hostages or other concessions by winning challenges (arbitrarily made up by Arcade) or perhaps be appealing to sponsors or the audience ("text interdimensional 662 if you want Captain America to get to choose a hostage to free").
Round 3, then is the single elimination round. Time for the heroes to fight each other (or the Girl Scout troop gets it, or some such thing). There the rubber really meets the road. Will Arcade demand death? Will Mojo insist that a contestant needs to be able to return for next season? Can the heroes phone a freind? Lots of possibilities.
Of course, what the players will be trying to figure out is how to get to where Arcade is, so they can beat the paste out of him. They may also want to try inflicting emotional trauma on him by facing him down, acting in a way that thwarts him, but wins audience approval. Etc. This is still unformed, but I would expect the arena is in a bubble in some controlled pocket of a dangerous environment (the deep sea, space, under the earth, in Antarctica, etc.) Breaking out is going to be hard and dangerous and possible fruitless unless the heroes can carefully manage things.
I am opposed to the idea of having the control room right next to the arena, cause that is just to easy. However, there might need to be interdimensional or teleportation portals, and there may by some physical conduit. I would be flexible in letting the heroes try to come up with a way to manage things without it being too silly.
I see this events milestones as something like as follows:
Welcome to the Murder Games
1 xp Inflict trauma on an opponent.
3 xp inflict d12 trauma on an opponent
10 xp agree to kill an opponent or refuse to kill an opponent allowing a hostage to be killed
This is a pretty dark scenario idea (really, I'm a very nice guy), but given the trend in Marvel (Secret Avengers, Dark X-Men, X-Force, etc.) it fits into a corner of that multiverse. The main thing that Arcade and Mojo want is a "good show." While Arcade would love to wipe out some heroes (and may have side contracts to do so), he is not above have subbed in a LMD or clone, or something to torture the heroes into thinking they have killed someone or allowed someone to die, but then, it was all just part of the twisted "fun house" that Arcade loves to create. After all, you have to bring people back to see next season!
Also, further plot hooks would involve tracking down Arcades ties, customers, and bases. Further, doing some dimension hopping after Mojo, his minions and "entertainment" holdings. It is likely that the heroes are but one of many teams being put through this hell. Maybe there are more people or heroes, or even villains to rescue? Maybe Arcade and Mojo are really diversifying. Heck with Sauron gone, maybe it's "And this week on Murder Games - The Savage Land, we have a mutate versus SHIELD grudge match. Who will emerge victorious?" or, "We've always wanted to know, who would win, Iron Fist or 500 Hand Ninjas? Well, this week, we find out on Murdergames, The Amazing Chase!"
Just a few ideas. Hopefully, I get to form them up and run with them. However, I throw them out because I'd be happy if someone beat me to it and got some play in with these ideas as well.
May the odds be ever in your favor.
Welcome to The Murder Games!
The premise:
Arcade, with a cross-dimensional distribution and syndication deal brokered with Mojo, has set up a new environment for the amusement of the masses and the murder of superheroes. This 21st Century Arcade is all about blending the time honored entertainment of built environments designed to kill you with the hot new trend of reality TV. Add to that, the hottest literary property about a dystopian future (now a major motion picture) and you have the ingredients for a show to hit #1 on the Mojo network and be terrifically amusing for the master of deathtraps.
And may the odds be always in HIS favor.
But wait, wouldn't people object to Acade trespessing on this intellectual property? Of course they would, so of course he has thought of that. And that's why he has the author and the main cast of the film detained and awaiting certain death, unless the heroes put on a VERY GOOD SHOW. Heck, he might also even have a few of the books biggest fans on hand, just in case there is one or two of the heroes who get stubborn.
So, what might be the initial set up?
The environment is going to be very manipulable, with Arcade's stats often providing the dice pools, and in other cases provided by the Doom Pool. Of course there are cameras everywhere and trackers on the heroes. Of course, clever heroes may figure out how to fool the cameras, lose the trackers, or turn the technology against the villains.
Of course, maybe Arcade has, for round 1, a set of villains, perhaps some who broke out of the Raft, to compete against the heroes. Whilte the heroes may have no moral problem beating the paste out of the escapees, at some point, Arcade is going to do something like put a gun to the head of a hostage and insist that the hero finish the job.
Now, to really mess with things, some of the hostages and some of the villains are probably Life Model Doubles, Androids, reprogrammed Doombots, or something. However, as soon as a hero feels like it is safe to kill an opponent or to allow a hostage to die, well then that is likely going to be a real person.
Of course the environment will also produce deadly challenges. Arcade has probably, inspired by the movie (he might not do much reading) recreated the Tracker jackers (cause, ya know, they're fun), as well as having things like velociraptors and maybe a T-rex or whatever seems fun to try to mess with the heroes. And Arcade can probably do things to help them on the fly, like make the T-Rex firebreathing or whatnot.
Round 2 may be not against villains, but instead against captured heroes (with a little Mojo brainwashing perhaps), and maybe or maybe not there are some androids, robots, whatnot interspersed, but heroes are going to have to worry not only about surviving and taking out the opposition, but also figuring out if they are fighting a person or a copy. And what to do with the real heroes, and what to do when Arcade demands a death ("or else the sequel won't get made with this actress . . . ")
WIth these first two rounds, heroes may be able to win freedom for hostages or other concessions by winning challenges (arbitrarily made up by Arcade) or perhaps be appealing to sponsors or the audience ("text interdimensional 662 if you want Captain America to get to choose a hostage to free").
Round 3, then is the single elimination round. Time for the heroes to fight each other (or the Girl Scout troop gets it, or some such thing). There the rubber really meets the road. Will Arcade demand death? Will Mojo insist that a contestant needs to be able to return for next season? Can the heroes phone a freind? Lots of possibilities.
Of course, what the players will be trying to figure out is how to get to where Arcade is, so they can beat the paste out of him. They may also want to try inflicting emotional trauma on him by facing him down, acting in a way that thwarts him, but wins audience approval. Etc. This is still unformed, but I would expect the arena is in a bubble in some controlled pocket of a dangerous environment (the deep sea, space, under the earth, in Antarctica, etc.) Breaking out is going to be hard and dangerous and possible fruitless unless the heroes can carefully manage things.
I am opposed to the idea of having the control room right next to the arena, cause that is just to easy. However, there might need to be interdimensional or teleportation portals, and there may by some physical conduit. I would be flexible in letting the heroes try to come up with a way to manage things without it being too silly.
I see this events milestones as something like as follows:
Welcome to the Murder Games
1 xp Inflict trauma on an opponent.
3 xp inflict d12 trauma on an opponent
10 xp agree to kill an opponent or refuse to kill an opponent allowing a hostage to be killed
This is a pretty dark scenario idea (really, I'm a very nice guy), but given the trend in Marvel (Secret Avengers, Dark X-Men, X-Force, etc.) it fits into a corner of that multiverse. The main thing that Arcade and Mojo want is a "good show." While Arcade would love to wipe out some heroes (and may have side contracts to do so), he is not above have subbed in a LMD or clone, or something to torture the heroes into thinking they have killed someone or allowed someone to die, but then, it was all just part of the twisted "fun house" that Arcade loves to create. After all, you have to bring people back to see next season!
Also, further plot hooks would involve tracking down Arcades ties, customers, and bases. Further, doing some dimension hopping after Mojo, his minions and "entertainment" holdings. It is likely that the heroes are but one of many teams being put through this hell. Maybe there are more people or heroes, or even villains to rescue? Maybe Arcade and Mojo are really diversifying. Heck with Sauron gone, maybe it's "And this week on Murder Games - The Savage Land, we have a mutate versus SHIELD grudge match. Who will emerge victorious?" or, "We've always wanted to know, who would win, Iron Fist or 500 Hand Ninjas? Well, this week, we find out on Murdergames, The Amazing Chase!"
Just a few ideas. Hopefully, I get to form them up and run with them. However, I throw them out because I'd be happy if someone beat me to it and got some play in with these ideas as well.
May the odds be ever in your favor.
Monday, February 27, 2012
A Few Words on the Marvel Heroic Role Playing game
There is a lot to say about this great game and the company that produced it, and I can only speak to a fraction of it at the moment. However, I wanted to get some thoughts down before I get to actually play the game (which will happen at the previously mentioned Taste of Marvel at the wonderful Labyrinth Games) and then give some more impressions after I get to experience it in play.
So, I am actually buying the hard copy book from Labyrinth and picking it up at the event this weekend. However, since I prepaid, I received a prompt and efficient e-mailed link and coupon code for a free download of the PDF so that I could start looking at the game last week. MWP was prompt and the download on Drive ThruRPG was easy. This is the second game I have bought from MWP (I pre-ordered Leverage for a friend), and this interaction confirms my initial impression, that they do good work and are very competent with their customer care.
I have not read the game itself cover to cover yet. As is my usual, I have done a combination of flipping through, looking things up (good index and TOC) and then started slowly moving the bookmark (so to speak with a PDF) through the volume.
Everything that I have seen so far impresses me.
First, they have a foreward by Jeff Grubb who helped bring us the original Marvel Super Heroes game from TSR. It is a nice piece, and it is classy to have him, in effect, hand the torch to the new game. Despite many criticisms I have written here about the old MSH game, I have a great fondness for and terrific memories of playing it. From the first pages, I get the feeling that MHRP will similarly gain a solid place in my RPG repetoir.
The look of the book is great. The layout is clean and clear. The art is well selected from a back catelogue probably hundreds of thousands of images in the Marvel library. But the selected art fits with the themes of the sections they adorn and are not just randomly assigned. The feel is very professional, very comfortable and it communicates well as the system is described bit by bit. Right up front they have a breakdown of what things make up a character and a summary of what they mean, using Captain America's sheet as an example. Then you can dive into the details of the rules immediately following.
Of course, before digesting all the nitty gritty of the rules, the first thing to do is to flip to the back and check out the official stats for the included heroes!
There are 23 super heroes fully statted out and ready to play in the "Mini Event" included in the book. They include a good representative group from Mavel's popular teams: all of the Fantasitc Four, important members of the Avengers and X-Men, and of course a number of popular "unaffiliated" (at least before the Avengers Disassembled story arc) heroes like Spiderman and Daredevil. I have no complaints about the initial group of heroes, though I do have some observations.
The group is very representative of the marvel Universe and should satisfy most Marvel fans as a first round of official stats.
What is disatisfying for me, which is not the game's fault, is the lack of representativeness of the Marvel Universe.
In this group of heroes, we have 8 women heroes and 15 men. Marvel suffers from a lack of solid and interesting female heroes, and has never developed any female hero iconic as DC has in Wonder Woman (and even if she is constantly treated as a distant third behind Batman and Superman, no matter what DC does, it has been unable to not have her in that big three). Here we have Armor, Black Widow, Emma Frost, Invisible Woman, Ms. Marvel, Shadowcat, Spider-Woman and Storm. These are all solid heroes, but given the almost 2 to 1 ratio of male heroes to female, I hope that somehow the game can overcome the inherent gender issues in the Marvel Universe to get girls and women to the gaming table with the game. Because I like it a lot.
Looking through the vector of race/ethnicity, there is a starker contrast. 19 of the heroes are white/caucasian background, with other racial/ethnic groups represented by two black Africans, an African American and an Asian (Japanese) character.
Gaming should know no boundaries, and imagination should admit everyone. Marvel, along with mainstream comics everywhere, has definitely got some major gaps in how representative its heroes are. While Marvel has established an imaginary world where there are 9000 significant characters, many from all over the world and from all kinds of backgrounds, the most popular, the most promoted, and the most famous tend to be white and tend to be guys. This game is not going to fix the industry. However, going into the game and making the Marvel Universe your own to game in, one has to understand that the way things play out in character selection for the write-ups is pretty reflective of the Official Universe.
The nice thing about it is that, if you don't like it, in the game, you can change it.
Hopefully, MWP can find some way to tap into those players who maybe don't see themselves in the "top tier" of Marvel heroes and nonetheless get them interested in the game. With luck, that may bring in some more readers who may be able to exert some market forces for change in the official universe to balance out its cast.
As it is the rules make creation of heroes or statting up of your favorite (but as yet not officially released) hero fairly easy.
I'll have to talk about that tomorrow, as I am out of time to write today.
So, I am actually buying the hard copy book from Labyrinth and picking it up at the event this weekend. However, since I prepaid, I received a prompt and efficient e-mailed link and coupon code for a free download of the PDF so that I could start looking at the game last week. MWP was prompt and the download on Drive ThruRPG was easy. This is the second game I have bought from MWP (I pre-ordered Leverage for a friend), and this interaction confirms my initial impression, that they do good work and are very competent with their customer care.
I have not read the game itself cover to cover yet. As is my usual, I have done a combination of flipping through, looking things up (good index and TOC) and then started slowly moving the bookmark (so to speak with a PDF) through the volume.
Everything that I have seen so far impresses me.
First, they have a foreward by Jeff Grubb who helped bring us the original Marvel Super Heroes game from TSR. It is a nice piece, and it is classy to have him, in effect, hand the torch to the new game. Despite many criticisms I have written here about the old MSH game, I have a great fondness for and terrific memories of playing it. From the first pages, I get the feeling that MHRP will similarly gain a solid place in my RPG repetoir.
The look of the book is great. The layout is clean and clear. The art is well selected from a back catelogue probably hundreds of thousands of images in the Marvel library. But the selected art fits with the themes of the sections they adorn and are not just randomly assigned. The feel is very professional, very comfortable and it communicates well as the system is described bit by bit. Right up front they have a breakdown of what things make up a character and a summary of what they mean, using Captain America's sheet as an example. Then you can dive into the details of the rules immediately following.
Of course, before digesting all the nitty gritty of the rules, the first thing to do is to flip to the back and check out the official stats for the included heroes!
There are 23 super heroes fully statted out and ready to play in the "Mini Event" included in the book. They include a good representative group from Mavel's popular teams: all of the Fantasitc Four, important members of the Avengers and X-Men, and of course a number of popular "unaffiliated" (at least before the Avengers Disassembled story arc) heroes like Spiderman and Daredevil. I have no complaints about the initial group of heroes, though I do have some observations.
The group is very representative of the marvel Universe and should satisfy most Marvel fans as a first round of official stats.
What is disatisfying for me, which is not the game's fault, is the lack of representativeness of the Marvel Universe.
In this group of heroes, we have 8 women heroes and 15 men. Marvel suffers from a lack of solid and interesting female heroes, and has never developed any female hero iconic as DC has in Wonder Woman (and even if she is constantly treated as a distant third behind Batman and Superman, no matter what DC does, it has been unable to not have her in that big three). Here we have Armor, Black Widow, Emma Frost, Invisible Woman, Ms. Marvel, Shadowcat, Spider-Woman and Storm. These are all solid heroes, but given the almost 2 to 1 ratio of male heroes to female, I hope that somehow the game can overcome the inherent gender issues in the Marvel Universe to get girls and women to the gaming table with the game. Because I like it a lot.
Looking through the vector of race/ethnicity, there is a starker contrast. 19 of the heroes are white/caucasian background, with other racial/ethnic groups represented by two black Africans, an African American and an Asian (Japanese) character.
Gaming should know no boundaries, and imagination should admit everyone. Marvel, along with mainstream comics everywhere, has definitely got some major gaps in how representative its heroes are. While Marvel has established an imaginary world where there are 9000 significant characters, many from all over the world and from all kinds of backgrounds, the most popular, the most promoted, and the most famous tend to be white and tend to be guys. This game is not going to fix the industry. However, going into the game and making the Marvel Universe your own to game in, one has to understand that the way things play out in character selection for the write-ups is pretty reflective of the Official Universe.
The nice thing about it is that, if you don't like it, in the game, you can change it.
Hopefully, MWP can find some way to tap into those players who maybe don't see themselves in the "top tier" of Marvel heroes and nonetheless get them interested in the game. With luck, that may bring in some more readers who may be able to exert some market forces for change in the official universe to balance out its cast.
As it is the rules make creation of heroes or statting up of your favorite (but as yet not officially released) hero fairly easy.
I'll have to talk about that tomorrow, as I am out of time to write today.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Into the Marvel Universe pt 4
Despite good intentions (Road to Hell paved? Check!), I have been less than constant in my blogging this week. Nonetheless, I will play a little catch up today while my son practices with his Pipe and Drum band.
So, I have raised a lot of questions about how the new Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game about to be released this next week by Margaret Weis Productions is going to play, and I have expressed various hopes while mentioning misgivings, many tied to my former experience with TSR's old Marvel Super Heroes (MSH) RPG.
However, I think that my hopes are pretty much going to be fulfilled and my worries allayed based on this terrific post (Collateral Damage #0: The Making of a New (Marvel RPG) Series) by the Chatty DM over at Critical-Hits.com. He outlines some of his challenges even though he is working on the game and goes through the start of a new ongoing campaign and the creation of the new player characters. It is a great write-up and showcases what can be done within the framework of the basic rules. While what he describes is not without a speedbump or two, it is a clear demonstration of the robust and flexible character creation possible. This is very heartening. I was pretty sure such would be the case, but, sadly, even good companies sometimes make major mistakes, especially with licensed properties (which are just no easy thing to work with (Fred Hicks has some good thoughts on them here).
So, now that I need not hold my breath on the game, what is left to say?
Hey folks, this is the blogosphere, there is always something to say.
The core of the system looks extremely sound and I see it as seriously more malleable and functional than the old MSH system (as much as I enjoyed playing it). The question I do have is how does it operate on the extremes. For example, is it going to work at the very low powered end (say you want a S.H.E.I.L.D. campaign inspired perhaps by DC's Gotham Central or Checkmate type approach (why yes, I am a flaming Greg Rucka fan))? I think the answer is yes, but I'd like to see a test drive.
Also, how does it work at the very high level side? Can you do something like the Incredible Hercules run by Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente or the classic Thor stories by Walt Simonson? A campaign like these inspirations require some major city demolishing, cosmos shaking, dimension bending power to be available, and more importantly, it needs to be interesting. I think one of the problems with old MSH, was that the system just might have made the high level stuff uninteresting. Okay, you take 1000 points of damage, and we're done. Obviously, a good GM could do a lot more, but the system did not provide a lot of support.
I am thinking that in both cases, for the highs and the lows, you can get very good play from the system, but I am still hoping to see some actual play and first hand accounts.
One of the reasons that this is important to me is my own experience. One of the things that worked incredibly well in the old campaign (so very long ago (and hey here's an article about my old GM), was that it wasn't the powers that made us heroes, it was the fact that we were heroes and happened to have powers (sometimes). So, for example, we had an armored hero, who was still working hard on his I-want-to-be-Iron-Man suit. It started off fitting in a really big box and had to be carried around in a van. Sometimes, there was not enough time to don the armor. That did not stop the player. He was ex-military or law enforcement, and, for example, when Hydroman was rampaging, he was more than willing to shoot up a gas station with incendiaries (BOOM) and drive him off. Another time, a huge Sentinel robot attacked our fellow hero who was a mutant weather controller. Once again, the need to don armor was a hindrance to going "super", so the player just grabbed the nearest semi truck and rammed it into the robot, allowing me to do a little laser surgery on its head (if I recall correctly (and I had been, at that point, transformed from a ROM the Spaceknight clone into a Justice clone)).
So, the moral of the story is that, I want that feeling that the players are the heroes of the stories, powers or not, and that they have something to do, that is easily modeled by the rules. Cortex+ looks like it will do it, but I am still at the "show me" stage. After all, we are about to get The Avengers and the quote is
"Big man in a suit of armor, take that away – what are you?"
"Uh... genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist,"
That needs to work. I will be looking at Chatty DM, my own experience upcoming at Labyrinth Games, and other actual play reports to see how things play out.
But I would say things look very, very good.
So, I have raised a lot of questions about how the new Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game about to be released this next week by Margaret Weis Productions is going to play, and I have expressed various hopes while mentioning misgivings, many tied to my former experience with TSR's old Marvel Super Heroes (MSH) RPG.
However, I think that my hopes are pretty much going to be fulfilled and my worries allayed based on this terrific post (Collateral Damage #0: The Making of a New (Marvel RPG) Series) by the Chatty DM over at Critical-Hits.com. He outlines some of his challenges even though he is working on the game and goes through the start of a new ongoing campaign and the creation of the new player characters. It is a great write-up and showcases what can be done within the framework of the basic rules. While what he describes is not without a speedbump or two, it is a clear demonstration of the robust and flexible character creation possible. This is very heartening. I was pretty sure such would be the case, but, sadly, even good companies sometimes make major mistakes, especially with licensed properties (which are just no easy thing to work with (Fred Hicks has some good thoughts on them here).
So, now that I need not hold my breath on the game, what is left to say?
Hey folks, this is the blogosphere, there is always something to say.
The core of the system looks extremely sound and I see it as seriously more malleable and functional than the old MSH system (as much as I enjoyed playing it). The question I do have is how does it operate on the extremes. For example, is it going to work at the very low powered end (say you want a S.H.E.I.L.D. campaign inspired perhaps by DC's Gotham Central or Checkmate type approach (why yes, I am a flaming Greg Rucka fan))? I think the answer is yes, but I'd like to see a test drive.
Also, how does it work at the very high level side? Can you do something like the Incredible Hercules run by Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente or the classic Thor stories by Walt Simonson? A campaign like these inspirations require some major city demolishing, cosmos shaking, dimension bending power to be available, and more importantly, it needs to be interesting. I think one of the problems with old MSH, was that the system just might have made the high level stuff uninteresting. Okay, you take 1000 points of damage, and we're done. Obviously, a good GM could do a lot more, but the system did not provide a lot of support.
I am thinking that in both cases, for the highs and the lows, you can get very good play from the system, but I am still hoping to see some actual play and first hand accounts.
One of the reasons that this is important to me is my own experience. One of the things that worked incredibly well in the old campaign (so very long ago (and hey here's an article about my old GM), was that it wasn't the powers that made us heroes, it was the fact that we were heroes and happened to have powers (sometimes). So, for example, we had an armored hero, who was still working hard on his I-want-to-be-Iron-Man suit. It started off fitting in a really big box and had to be carried around in a van. Sometimes, there was not enough time to don the armor. That did not stop the player. He was ex-military or law enforcement, and, for example, when Hydroman was rampaging, he was more than willing to shoot up a gas station with incendiaries (BOOM) and drive him off. Another time, a huge Sentinel robot attacked our fellow hero who was a mutant weather controller. Once again, the need to don armor was a hindrance to going "super", so the player just grabbed the nearest semi truck and rammed it into the robot, allowing me to do a little laser surgery on its head (if I recall correctly (and I had been, at that point, transformed from a ROM the Spaceknight clone into a Justice clone)).
So, the moral of the story is that, I want that feeling that the players are the heroes of the stories, powers or not, and that they have something to do, that is easily modeled by the rules. Cortex+ looks like it will do it, but I am still at the "show me" stage. After all, we are about to get The Avengers and the quote is
"Big man in a suit of armor, take that away – what are you?"
"Uh... genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist,"
That needs to work. I will be looking at Chatty DM, my own experience upcoming at Labyrinth Games, and other actual play reports to see how things play out.
But I would say things look very, very good.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Into the Marvel Universe pt 3
Missed out on wrting yesterday, but will try to regain ground today.
So, continuing on with my thoughts and hopes from the planned release of Margaret Weis Productions new Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game I wanted to start by contrasting what I think and hope we'll see from the new game with the classic, but not perfect, TSR Marvel Super Heroes game (MSH). One of the issues with MSH was a certain inflexibility in the resolution mechanic. There was a universal chart and various abilities and powers were rated at fixed levels (good, amazing, unearthly, etc.) , and things had a fairly binary correspondence. Breaking down a door required strenght, dealing with attacking ninjas required fighting. There was not a lot of room to innovate and mix things up with the rules as written. So, if you had an armored hero who wanted to break a door down by charging or flying through the door as a self propelled battering ram, it was not really clear how to adjudicate a rating for that. The rules would tend to force a GM to either say "you can't do that" or to make up something arbitrarily. Now all games have such limitations at some point. Somewhere, the "physics" created by the rule system break down.
However, with a game inspired by the amazing and crazy things that can happen in the pages of a comic book, the farther off you can push that rigidity, the better. This is one of the reasons I am quite pleased at the prospect of the Cortex+ system driving the new Marvel system. From what I have seen of the impementation in Leverage, the manner in which creative description and flexible ability and skill categories can work together make for a powerful and fun system that has much fewer "you can't do that" moments, and many more pick up your dice and see how it turns out moments. That is exciting to me, and I am really happy to get a test run of the game at my favorite game spot next month (Labyrinth Games in Washington, D.C.).
Now, I can still see some downsides.
First, the Marvel Universe, as much as it has produced stories and characters I have enjoyed, it comes freighted with a lot of crappy baggage. One of many not great things from Marvel is their many mediocre at best "events." The new RPG is going to have at its heart, a whole variety of the past events to sell additional products that expand the basic game and the defined universe (read lots of hero and villain descriptions and advice about running various places and aspects of the mainstream Marvel Universe). I don't begrudge Margaret Weiss Productions this organizational structure, but I think it showcases the bland filler of the Marvel Universe along side its more positive aspects. This is not to say that every event has been a failure artiistically as far as story (I'm not even competent to speak commercially), but as I have tried to go through back issues and from time to time follow through one event or another (and Civil War was the last one I seriously looked at (with disappointment)), I can't say that I love any of the big cross overs (and this goes back all the way to the Secret Wars craziness that perhaps began it all).
So, there is that which may weigh against buying much into the line of products.
Also, there is just a lot to dislike in the Marvel Universe. Obviously, both big publishers have always had trouble in balancing their portrayal of women and minorities in the pages of their books. While not bereft of success from time to time, on the whole, the comics of the Marvel Universe are targeted at the white, middle class, heterosexual, male reader who expects female heroes, when they get seen, to be seen as wish fulfillment fantasies first and their story, personality and intellect, if shown at all, are all secondary at best. This is not a view I want to subscribe to or to have prevelant at my gaming table (on those rare occiasions I get to game). So, in taking the mainstream Marvel Universe as the default field of play, I get stuck with a narrower world than I would like, and a lot of work to make it over into an image that I feel more comfortable in (and having my players, most likely including my children, play their stories).
And there are number of other things that have been woven into the Marvel Universe that just violate my worldview. People in the Marvel Universe are really much worse and more banally evil than you find in the "real" world, for all its flaws and tragedies. This comes out most strongly in the Mutant Menace trope of most X-Men/Mutant etc. books. Its like regular people, at least if they are in an X-Men book (not necessarily a Spiderman or Fantastic 4 book mind you), have the super prejudice power. It only activates normally if you are in an X-book, and then beyond all history, evolving social understanding, or ability for information to be spread and people being able to rise above their context, you always seem to have just a mob of "mutie haters." It is absolutely incoherent and frustratingly so. I mean, I know this is a super hero comic, so with flying people and blue people and telepathy and all, the threshold of the willing suspension of disbelief is pretty high. Still, emotionally, most of these stories fail because there is not enough truth to them. People are prejudiced and they do hate, and it has and will continue to lead to suffering, injustice and even genocide, but it seems like there is truth (in an emotional sense) to how it gets portrayed in the Marvel Universe. The feelings come and go depending on what book you are in, and the story of prejudice just falls on its face because it almost never is told the way things really happen. There are a number of other examples of things woven in to the fabric of the Marvel Universe that just grate against me, but ifyou are going to get Spiderman, Captain America, Kitty Pryde, et al, all the rest comes with it.
So, of course you can, under your own steam, create a completely different reality, as in the already mentioned World War G post by Fred Hicks. Or, you could chose a slightly different flavor of Marvel by trying to use the Marvel related settings in other media, such as The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes animated show, or any of the Marvel super hero movies (Spiderman (1+2 but NOT 3) Iron Man (1+2), Captain America or Thor pretty good, first and second X-Men movie and X-Men first class also pretty good; Daredevil, Elektra, any of the Punisher, Ghost Rider or Hulk movies from bad to very, very bad), but I'm not sure where that really gets you. Also, there is the "Ultimate" universe, which has some promise. Unlike the old "New Universe" where Marvel tried to generate a whole new set of heroes in a new version of a super heroic universe (which did not last long), Ultimate, really starting with the well done early issues of Ultimate Spiderman, tried to remake the Marvel Universe by shifting, tweaking and reimagining its heroes. They seem to have done a pretty good job with Spiderman. But I tried to read the Ultimate X-Men books, and, for me, it was if they took all the dumbest plots from the last forty years of X-Men and found ways to make them DUMBER. So, your mileage may vary.
In the end, there has to be a way to make a corner of the universe your own and have your players' front a center. But deciding what to take and what to leave, especially when it gets all interconnected, can be a task, and I am not sure how I might take that on.
Wrote myself through another lunch, so, here's to blogging, unfounded opinions, and forceful statements without analysis.
Thanks for reading.
So, continuing on with my thoughts and hopes from the planned release of Margaret Weis Productions new Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game I wanted to start by contrasting what I think and hope we'll see from the new game with the classic, but not perfect, TSR Marvel Super Heroes game (MSH). One of the issues with MSH was a certain inflexibility in the resolution mechanic. There was a universal chart and various abilities and powers were rated at fixed levels (good, amazing, unearthly, etc.) , and things had a fairly binary correspondence. Breaking down a door required strenght, dealing with attacking ninjas required fighting. There was not a lot of room to innovate and mix things up with the rules as written. So, if you had an armored hero who wanted to break a door down by charging or flying through the door as a self propelled battering ram, it was not really clear how to adjudicate a rating for that. The rules would tend to force a GM to either say "you can't do that" or to make up something arbitrarily. Now all games have such limitations at some point. Somewhere, the "physics" created by the rule system break down.
However, with a game inspired by the amazing and crazy things that can happen in the pages of a comic book, the farther off you can push that rigidity, the better. This is one of the reasons I am quite pleased at the prospect of the Cortex+ system driving the new Marvel system. From what I have seen of the impementation in Leverage, the manner in which creative description and flexible ability and skill categories can work together make for a powerful and fun system that has much fewer "you can't do that" moments, and many more pick up your dice and see how it turns out moments. That is exciting to me, and I am really happy to get a test run of the game at my favorite game spot next month (Labyrinth Games in Washington, D.C.).
Now, I can still see some downsides.
First, the Marvel Universe, as much as it has produced stories and characters I have enjoyed, it comes freighted with a lot of crappy baggage. One of many not great things from Marvel is their many mediocre at best "events." The new RPG is going to have at its heart, a whole variety of the past events to sell additional products that expand the basic game and the defined universe (read lots of hero and villain descriptions and advice about running various places and aspects of the mainstream Marvel Universe). I don't begrudge Margaret Weiss Productions this organizational structure, but I think it showcases the bland filler of the Marvel Universe along side its more positive aspects. This is not to say that every event has been a failure artiistically as far as story (I'm not even competent to speak commercially), but as I have tried to go through back issues and from time to time follow through one event or another (and Civil War was the last one I seriously looked at (with disappointment)), I can't say that I love any of the big cross overs (and this goes back all the way to the Secret Wars craziness that perhaps began it all).
So, there is that which may weigh against buying much into the line of products.
Also, there is just a lot to dislike in the Marvel Universe. Obviously, both big publishers have always had trouble in balancing their portrayal of women and minorities in the pages of their books. While not bereft of success from time to time, on the whole, the comics of the Marvel Universe are targeted at the white, middle class, heterosexual, male reader who expects female heroes, when they get seen, to be seen as wish fulfillment fantasies first and their story, personality and intellect, if shown at all, are all secondary at best. This is not a view I want to subscribe to or to have prevelant at my gaming table (on those rare occiasions I get to game). So, in taking the mainstream Marvel Universe as the default field of play, I get stuck with a narrower world than I would like, and a lot of work to make it over into an image that I feel more comfortable in (and having my players, most likely including my children, play their stories).
And there are number of other things that have been woven into the Marvel Universe that just violate my worldview. People in the Marvel Universe are really much worse and more banally evil than you find in the "real" world, for all its flaws and tragedies. This comes out most strongly in the Mutant Menace trope of most X-Men/Mutant etc. books. Its like regular people, at least if they are in an X-Men book (not necessarily a Spiderman or Fantastic 4 book mind you), have the super prejudice power. It only activates normally if you are in an X-book, and then beyond all history, evolving social understanding, or ability for information to be spread and people being able to rise above their context, you always seem to have just a mob of "mutie haters." It is absolutely incoherent and frustratingly so. I mean, I know this is a super hero comic, so with flying people and blue people and telepathy and all, the threshold of the willing suspension of disbelief is pretty high. Still, emotionally, most of these stories fail because there is not enough truth to them. People are prejudiced and they do hate, and it has and will continue to lead to suffering, injustice and even genocide, but it seems like there is truth (in an emotional sense) to how it gets portrayed in the Marvel Universe. The feelings come and go depending on what book you are in, and the story of prejudice just falls on its face because it almost never is told the way things really happen. There are a number of other examples of things woven in to the fabric of the Marvel Universe that just grate against me, but ifyou are going to get Spiderman, Captain America, Kitty Pryde, et al, all the rest comes with it.
So, of course you can, under your own steam, create a completely different reality, as in the already mentioned World War G post by Fred Hicks. Or, you could chose a slightly different flavor of Marvel by trying to use the Marvel related settings in other media, such as The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes animated show, or any of the Marvel super hero movies (Spiderman (1+2 but NOT 3) Iron Man (1+2), Captain America or Thor pretty good, first and second X-Men movie and X-Men first class also pretty good; Daredevil, Elektra, any of the Punisher, Ghost Rider or Hulk movies from bad to very, very bad), but I'm not sure where that really gets you. Also, there is the "Ultimate" universe, which has some promise. Unlike the old "New Universe" where Marvel tried to generate a whole new set of heroes in a new version of a super heroic universe (which did not last long), Ultimate, really starting with the well done early issues of Ultimate Spiderman, tried to remake the Marvel Universe by shifting, tweaking and reimagining its heroes. They seem to have done a pretty good job with Spiderman. But I tried to read the Ultimate X-Men books, and, for me, it was if they took all the dumbest plots from the last forty years of X-Men and found ways to make them DUMBER. So, your mileage may vary.
In the end, there has to be a way to make a corner of the universe your own and have your players' front a center. But deciding what to take and what to leave, especially when it gets all interconnected, can be a task, and I am not sure how I might take that on.
Wrote myself through another lunch, so, here's to blogging, unfounded opinions, and forceful statements without analysis.
Thanks for reading.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Into the Marvel Universe pt 2
Hi all (?)
Continuing on from yesterday, and just to complete my last thought, the thing I found from playing our someone ongoing MSH game first was that a good Supers game has to make space for the player characters. Unless you are playing a deliberately ironic "third string" kind of capaign, you can't have it where Superman or the Avengers, or whoever are lurking just off scene to clean up the players' mess or to steal the players' thunder. So, you have to have your own universe, home base, or something that gives the players' Supers center stage.
If you go the established heroes route you have to avoid devolving into a space where you spend more time arguing over "Spiderman would never do THAT!" etc. One way to do that is mapped out well by Fred Hicks in his World War G post. Basically, you let the players reimagine things, so whatever they do as Spiderman, etc. is exactly what that character would do, because the character has ownership.
Character ownership is another issue we dealt with in that first campaign. As I recall, one of the things that was weak in old MSH was the character design piece. It was all to easy to default to the random tables, so beloved by us for AD&D, but really often a terrible way to design a character (okay so your powers are the ability to move through earth, water breathing and an enhanced sense of taste, what are you going to call yourself? Stupid Powers Man?)
My first character's first incarnation suffered from random creation, as did his background (another kind of clunky thing that the game did). My fellow players were more forcefull in making character driven decisions to put together their characters, but from our old school background, that design almost feld like cheating. Gaming has come a long way in that respect.
The lesson, I think, is that since the game is supposed to be the story of the characters, you want to give a lot of creative space for the players to make interesting and creative choices to design characters they want to play. The system has to have bounds, but good players tend to make good choices so that a well designed and thought out character does not break the system, but instead is the best expression of it.
I think that is one of the things I most look forward to in seeing the Margaret Weis Productions new Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game. Having read through their Leverage game, it seems to me that the company and authors really know how to customize the Cortex+ system to maximize player ability to creat interesting fun characters that are nonetheless well in-bounds for the system to handle. I am interested in seeing how the system handles the various power levels that you find within the Marvel Universe. I am pretty confident that they will be able to balance the game so that you can deal with everything from the Punisher at street level to handling Galactus and the Beyonder at the cosmic level. However, the devil is always in the details, and I will be interested to see how the design handles these issues.
I think a real challenges that any implementation of a universe, like Marvel, is to comprehensively handle the power levels so you can use the same system to reasonably run and resolve issues where you can have teams where the power levels can really range from the Expert human to the cosmically powerful (think the contrast between someone like, say, Hawkeye and Thor). I think this was something that was not so well balanced in the old MSH. As a number of smart people have observed (e.g. Ryan Macklin and Rob Donoghue as recent examples out in the blogosphere) game mechanics and the "physics" they set up,drive play and decision making. I think the old MSH, for me, made it very hard to have the flexibility to have mismatched hero/villain battles, despite those being a feature of comic book storytelling.
For example, you could definitely have an issue where, say, Captain America had to go one on one with Dr. Doom or Loki. However, the MSH did not really provide creative mechanics for making a match up like that fun or interesting. A good GM could make it work, but I think without support from the rules. I think this can be different in the latest iteration a Marvel RPG, and I look forward to what it looks like.
I also look forward to what it does for character creation. The publications all center around major Marvel events that allow for attractive and exciting releases of collections of villains and heroes that can plug into scenarious drawn from the huge comic history (though mostly recent) of the Marvel Universe (I would totally buy an event based on Walt Simonson's Thor run, but I don't see that in the immediate offing). In any case, while they must, as a matter of course, give us pre-made heroes from the mainstream universe, there has to be a way to create new characters. How that is done and what freedoms, constraints, tools and guidelines exist in the rules are reallly likely to make or break the game.
Since it is both a feature of the source comics and my past roleplaying with MSH, I also hope they will address, at least eventually, the transformation of a hero (i.e. how to trade in old powers for new). Obviously there needs to be some story driven justification on a change (although Marvel has set the bar pretty low (Psylock needs to be hotter, and Asian)), and the mechanics are probably easy enough as far as trading around dice etc., but it would be nice to see some process set out as it is 1) something seen in the genre, and 2) a way to give new life to a character that might be needed to inject new life or fun into a capaigm (then again, it might just be a gimmick, see Psylock above).
Well, wrote myself through lunch again. To your delight or horror, I promise more tomorrow.
Continuing on from yesterday, and just to complete my last thought, the thing I found from playing our someone ongoing MSH game first was that a good Supers game has to make space for the player characters. Unless you are playing a deliberately ironic "third string" kind of capaign, you can't have it where Superman or the Avengers, or whoever are lurking just off scene to clean up the players' mess or to steal the players' thunder. So, you have to have your own universe, home base, or something that gives the players' Supers center stage.
If you go the established heroes route you have to avoid devolving into a space where you spend more time arguing over "Spiderman would never do THAT!" etc. One way to do that is mapped out well by Fred Hicks in his World War G post. Basically, you let the players reimagine things, so whatever they do as Spiderman, etc. is exactly what that character would do, because the character has ownership.
Character ownership is another issue we dealt with in that first campaign. As I recall, one of the things that was weak in old MSH was the character design piece. It was all to easy to default to the random tables, so beloved by us for AD&D, but really often a terrible way to design a character (okay so your powers are the ability to move through earth, water breathing and an enhanced sense of taste, what are you going to call yourself? Stupid Powers Man?)
My first character's first incarnation suffered from random creation, as did his background (another kind of clunky thing that the game did). My fellow players were more forcefull in making character driven decisions to put together their characters, but from our old school background, that design almost feld like cheating. Gaming has come a long way in that respect.
The lesson, I think, is that since the game is supposed to be the story of the characters, you want to give a lot of creative space for the players to make interesting and creative choices to design characters they want to play. The system has to have bounds, but good players tend to make good choices so that a well designed and thought out character does not break the system, but instead is the best expression of it.
I think that is one of the things I most look forward to in seeing the Margaret Weis Productions new Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game. Having read through their Leverage game, it seems to me that the company and authors really know how to customize the Cortex+ system to maximize player ability to creat interesting fun characters that are nonetheless well in-bounds for the system to handle. I am interested in seeing how the system handles the various power levels that you find within the Marvel Universe. I am pretty confident that they will be able to balance the game so that you can deal with everything from the Punisher at street level to handling Galactus and the Beyonder at the cosmic level. However, the devil is always in the details, and I will be interested to see how the design handles these issues.
I think a real challenges that any implementation of a universe, like Marvel, is to comprehensively handle the power levels so you can use the same system to reasonably run and resolve issues where you can have teams where the power levels can really range from the Expert human to the cosmically powerful (think the contrast between someone like, say, Hawkeye and Thor). I think this was something that was not so well balanced in the old MSH. As a number of smart people have observed (e.g. Ryan Macklin and Rob Donoghue as recent examples out in the blogosphere) game mechanics and the "physics" they set up,drive play and decision making. I think the old MSH, for me, made it very hard to have the flexibility to have mismatched hero/villain battles, despite those being a feature of comic book storytelling.
For example, you could definitely have an issue where, say, Captain America had to go one on one with Dr. Doom or Loki. However, the MSH did not really provide creative mechanics for making a match up like that fun or interesting. A good GM could make it work, but I think without support from the rules. I think this can be different in the latest iteration a Marvel RPG, and I look forward to what it looks like.
I also look forward to what it does for character creation. The publications all center around major Marvel events that allow for attractive and exciting releases of collections of villains and heroes that can plug into scenarious drawn from the huge comic history (though mostly recent) of the Marvel Universe (I would totally buy an event based on Walt Simonson's Thor run, but I don't see that in the immediate offing). In any case, while they must, as a matter of course, give us pre-made heroes from the mainstream universe, there has to be a way to create new characters. How that is done and what freedoms, constraints, tools and guidelines exist in the rules are reallly likely to make or break the game.
Since it is both a feature of the source comics and my past roleplaying with MSH, I also hope they will address, at least eventually, the transformation of a hero (i.e. how to trade in old powers for new). Obviously there needs to be some story driven justification on a change (although Marvel has set the bar pretty low (Psylock needs to be hotter, and Asian)), and the mechanics are probably easy enough as far as trading around dice etc., but it would be nice to see some process set out as it is 1) something seen in the genre, and 2) a way to give new life to a character that might be needed to inject new life or fun into a capaigm (then again, it might just be a gimmick, see Psylock above).
Well, wrote myself through lunch again. To your delight or horror, I promise more tomorrow.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Into the Marvel Universe
At the end of this month Margaret Weis Productions is launching their new Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game built on their Cortex+ system which powers their Leverage and Smallville games, among others. Next month, I will be getting to test drive the new Marvel RPG at a Taste of Marvel at the wonderful Labyrinth Games in Washington, D.C. I expect the event will be a lot of fun. I have been impressed by what I have seen of the Cortex+ system. It appears to be a very flexible, fast playing system that allows for a lot of creativity and imaginative play that should be a good fit for a comic book style game.
Super hero role playing has been a hit an miss genre for me. I have read a number of games, played a few, and missed many more that have come and gone. Supers has been a style of play that came out pretty early in the RPG evolutionary tree, I think really flowering first in the early 1980s. Champions and Villains & Vigilantes seemed to be the games I remember being on the scene early. The Hero system came out sometime in that distant past too, and all of these were generics, not taking an identity from any particular license. Then both DC and Marvel did get into the game with respective licenses with Mayfair and TSR.
The old TSR Marvel Super Heroes (MSH) was my first experience trying to play any kind of ongoing supers game. I was never much of a comic book collector. I had friends who were fanatics, however, which was good, because I could read their stuff. While DC and Marvel both got represented in my friends collections, the dominating theme of those days were the X-Men and Marvel. DC made some inroads with Justice League International and Man of Steel, and (on the other end of the light/dark sepctrum) the Dark Knight Returns, but Marvel just seemed to dominate the majority of my peers' reading and discussion time. So, naturally enough, there was interest in MSH.
We had a number of abortive attempts to start campaigns (after all it was competing with my sprawling, derivative, and in many ways lame, yet dominant AD&D campaign), but finally it settled in to three characters and the GM. We had an Iron Man type knock off, a Storm knock off and a, sort of, ROM the Space Knight knock off to start with. I definitely learned things from our play about runing these kinds of games and about the system TSR put together.
First, just like any game, you have to run a good story. There need to be fun bite sized bits you can get through, and you also have to have something bigger going on. Even if one night's play is, or seems, to be a one-shot, it still needs to showcase the interesting things about the characters, from their foibles to their awesome powers. So, for example, the game that my character started in was a rather abortive attempt to make an initial campaign that started, as most of our RPG experience did up to that time, in a Dungeon type crawl. That did not work. It was not effectively about anything. Then, as the other players dropped, but I wanted to keep my quirky, strange character, the GM had the very effective plan to drop me into a parallel Marvel Universe, where he then started the other two players, and use the first adventure to basically kill or cripple most of the important heroes in New York. We watched a horrible moster kill or make disappear most of the Avengers, Fantastic 4, Dr. Strange, etc. This was great, because it gave us as players a place to fit in, and small and large things to do. We had to 1) help stop the monster, 2) rebuild the hero teams, 3) find out what was behind the attack, & etc.
As it turns out, the framework to start the new RPG is not that different (now if we could only get paid for having the idea first . . .) as the setting proclaims:
"The Avengers have been disassembled, the Fantastic Four are somewhere in space, and the X-Men aren’t answering their phone. When dozens of dangerous villains are spring from the maximum-maximum security prison known as the Raft, who’s going to stop them? You are."
Of course this is a storyline already seen in the Marvel books as well, and it is a great place to start off because the story is about the player characters and how they can make an immediate impact (perhaps quite literally) on the story. The problem with established supers universes is that they may have one, two or three already of the kind of character that the players want to do. Unless you are having them run the established characters (which is a mixed blessing) it can be hard to make space for them. The problem with a blank slate approach (often the challenge with the generic systems) is where to begin to build your world. The models that people will think of are complex universes with everything from established teams to alien races and magical dimensions. You can find yourself biting off too much. Still, you have room to let the players' characters be the front page news, instead of being a note in the style section while Superman or Thor is on the front page.
I have some (many) more observations, but they will have to wait, as this is to be a lunchtime exersice in trying to write coherently for the next few weeks. So, for now, adieu.
Tomorrow more thrillng anecdoes and unfounded opinions.
Super hero role playing has been a hit an miss genre for me. I have read a number of games, played a few, and missed many more that have come and gone. Supers has been a style of play that came out pretty early in the RPG evolutionary tree, I think really flowering first in the early 1980s. Champions and Villains & Vigilantes seemed to be the games I remember being on the scene early. The Hero system came out sometime in that distant past too, and all of these were generics, not taking an identity from any particular license. Then both DC and Marvel did get into the game with respective licenses with Mayfair and TSR.
The old TSR Marvel Super Heroes (MSH) was my first experience trying to play any kind of ongoing supers game. I was never much of a comic book collector. I had friends who were fanatics, however, which was good, because I could read their stuff. While DC and Marvel both got represented in my friends collections, the dominating theme of those days were the X-Men and Marvel. DC made some inroads with Justice League International and Man of Steel, and (on the other end of the light/dark sepctrum) the Dark Knight Returns, but Marvel just seemed to dominate the majority of my peers' reading and discussion time. So, naturally enough, there was interest in MSH.
We had a number of abortive attempts to start campaigns (after all it was competing with my sprawling, derivative, and in many ways lame, yet dominant AD&D campaign), but finally it settled in to three characters and the GM. We had an Iron Man type knock off, a Storm knock off and a, sort of, ROM the Space Knight knock off to start with. I definitely learned things from our play about runing these kinds of games and about the system TSR put together.
First, just like any game, you have to run a good story. There need to be fun bite sized bits you can get through, and you also have to have something bigger going on. Even if one night's play is, or seems, to be a one-shot, it still needs to showcase the interesting things about the characters, from their foibles to their awesome powers. So, for example, the game that my character started in was a rather abortive attempt to make an initial campaign that started, as most of our RPG experience did up to that time, in a Dungeon type crawl. That did not work. It was not effectively about anything. Then, as the other players dropped, but I wanted to keep my quirky, strange character, the GM had the very effective plan to drop me into a parallel Marvel Universe, where he then started the other two players, and use the first adventure to basically kill or cripple most of the important heroes in New York. We watched a horrible moster kill or make disappear most of the Avengers, Fantastic 4, Dr. Strange, etc. This was great, because it gave us as players a place to fit in, and small and large things to do. We had to 1) help stop the monster, 2) rebuild the hero teams, 3) find out what was behind the attack, & etc.
As it turns out, the framework to start the new RPG is not that different (now if we could only get paid for having the idea first . . .) as the setting proclaims:
"The Avengers have been disassembled, the Fantastic Four are somewhere in space, and the X-Men aren’t answering their phone. When dozens of dangerous villains are spring from the maximum-maximum security prison known as the Raft, who’s going to stop them? You are."
Of course this is a storyline already seen in the Marvel books as well, and it is a great place to start off because the story is about the player characters and how they can make an immediate impact (perhaps quite literally) on the story. The problem with established supers universes is that they may have one, two or three already of the kind of character that the players want to do. Unless you are having them run the established characters (which is a mixed blessing) it can be hard to make space for them. The problem with a blank slate approach (often the challenge with the generic systems) is where to begin to build your world. The models that people will think of are complex universes with everything from established teams to alien races and magical dimensions. You can find yourself biting off too much. Still, you have room to let the players' characters be the front page news, instead of being a note in the style section while Superman or Thor is on the front page.
I have some (many) more observations, but they will have to wait, as this is to be a lunchtime exersice in trying to write coherently for the next few weeks. So, for now, adieu.
Tomorrow more thrillng anecdoes and unfounded opinions.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Superman renounces U.S. Citizenship or how to write badly
So, in the historic Action Comics 900, which invented in many ways the Superhero genre when it introduced Superman in 1938 with Action Comics 1, one of the short pieces has Superman declaring that he will "speak before the United Nations . . . and inform them that I am renouncing my U.S. Citizenship." The story was written by David S. Goyer and titled "The Incident."
There has been all kinds of reaction all over the net and cable TV and plenty of stupid things have been said. The analysis has been shallow on both sides and focuses on the act, rather than whether the story itself holds together.
My thesis here, is that it is a bad story that does not hold together. My thesis can also be summed up as "you don't pull on Superman's cape." Superman is a character with a lot of history and who is quite embedded in the American psyche. He exists in a imaginary universe where by dealing with larger than life issues, he illuminates things about our real world from kindness, to humanity, to heroism, to sacrifice. Superman has been done well and done poorly over his run. Superman seems to work best when his stories are told in the world of fantasy of the DC Comics universe. Bringing in more of the real world has to be handled very carefully. When you just throw in "real world" elements without carefully considering how to integrate such elements into a fictional universe you end up with a discordant and quite possibly silly outcome.
It can be done, but you can't just throw it out there. I would cite Greg Rucka's run on Wonder Woman, which focused as much on her role as Ambassador to the U.N. from the island of the Amazons, Themyscira, as it did on her role as a superhero. If you read those stories, you see how carefully the stories are plotted to blend the gonzo universe of superheroes with mythic, alien, magical, super science, etc. etc. orgins, with a discourse about political, ethical and religious beliefs. Not easy, but, when approached carefully, very satisfying.
I have to say that Goyer utterly fails. The central plot revolves around Superman flying over to Iran (not one of the DC Universes made up countries, but a real country where things are really happening) to witness a protest. He does not do any intervention other than appearing on the ground. This then supposedly causes an international incident as Iran accuses the U.S. of an act of war by sending Superman. Superman is confronted by a member of the U.S. administration who chides him, and he responds that he is going to announce that he is renouncing his U.S. citizenship in order to work more on a global level.
Dumb.
In my opinion, just dumb, unearned and poorly thought out.
Why?
When you write any iconic character, you have to serve the character. You don't bend it to your will to make your point. That does not mean that you can't make your point, if it is in line with the character, but you have to be subtle and respect the source material. Goyer fails.
If you are talking about having Superman intervening in real world events, you start down the road of wondering where Superman is for all the real world events. Why didn't he stop 9/11? Why hasn't he seized Gadaffi. Why wouldn't he disarm nuclear armed countries? You have to live with the conceit that Superman exists to deal with out sized threats to the earth, but he does not exist to solve all of the world's problems. He is not our dictator or ruler or supreme interventionist. He is Earth's protector and servant, but we all still have to do the hard work of making and not breaking our world.
Goyer story paints a Superman who has decided to start meddling in messy, complicated international affairs. But he does so out of the blue. No ground work, no development, no thought. And then, he delivers the punchline, sure to churn the news cycle and to go into reprints, but that makes no sense, the vow to renounce U.S. citizenship.
Superman is a genius, he would have thought a few things through and remembered his history. Goyer is clearly not at his best here, and has not done his homework.
For Superman to renounce citizenship, you have to go through the gyrations of figuring out what citizenship he has. That opens another can of worms that Goyer just doesn't consider. Lots of versions of Superman's origins exist. In some, he is born on Krypton and then sent to the Earth, crash landing in Kansas to end up in an orphanage, or to be taken in by the Kents, or found by the Kents, taken to an orphanage and then adopted by them. At least one version had him in a "birthing matrix", which did not actually "birth" him until it landed in the United States (thus Superman is "born" on Earth in the U.S.). If there is going to be citizenship to renounce, Goyer has to settle which story of Superman's origin gives him any citizenship of the U.S. in the first place. Interestingly, there are considerations of this our on the internet -- link.
A number of legal theories could give Clark Kent, the person that Superman really is, U.S. Citizenship. And that is another thing that Goyer has forgotten. Greg Rucka (one of my favorite authors), has cogently said that Superman is the alter ego, but Clark Kent is the real person, who Superman really is. Whereas for Bruce Wayne, Batman is who he really is, and Wayne is just someone he has to pretend to be to do his job. So, if Superman is renouncing his citizenship, what about Clark (not to mention Mrs. Superman, Lois Lane)? Now, maybe, Goyer could have salvaged this by dealing with the "honorary citizenship" route. At one point, I believe, Superman was granted honorary citizenship in all countries who were part of the United Nations. His story could have had Iran revoke that honorary citizenship and still be provoked by Superman as a tool of the West and the U.S. and then Superman, for a more global perspective, might renounce all his honorary citizenships before the UN, to say that he, as Superman, would always act as some sort of "world citizen." Still not the best, but not nearly as dumb and in the weeds as this story.
Further, Superman can't renounce his citizenship without Clark Kent renouncing. And, it is not a straight-forward process. Generally, you need to leave the U.S. and renounce before a consular official of the U.S. Just making a speech before the UN has no effect. There is paperwork and there are interviews, and there would be a confirmation of identity and a confiscation of any passport.
Well, does Superman have a passport? Clark Kent probably does, but Superman? Would Superman out his secret identity to renounce? What really could happen? Why is Goyer dragging us into the bureaucratic weeds? Superman filling out paperwork and having us ask whether he has a passport is lame.
Goyer not having thought this through when Superman, who is brilliant and extremely well-informed, has failed the character.
Epically failed in my estimation.
The whole thing falls apart.
And after the news cycle churn and the second and third run of the comic happens, then, I expect that it will be mostly forgotten or soon taking out of continuity as if it had never happened.
Because it is dumb.
A smarter more careful writer might, just might have made something of this, but there are better stories to tell and a way to make the points without miring the Man of Steel in the messiness of real world immigration paperwork.
Superman is American, and born of dreams and imagination that happened in America. But he represents the best in humanity, and the irony is, of course, that he is not human, but a "strange visitor from another planet." Superman stories have to capture the strength, the brilliance, and the vulnerability of a person who can move planets, but who knows he cannot do it all alone. Goyer lost Superman's sense of wonder and power and moral authority in his story. And, for Action Comics 900, that is a shame.
There has been all kinds of reaction all over the net and cable TV and plenty of stupid things have been said. The analysis has been shallow on both sides and focuses on the act, rather than whether the story itself holds together.
My thesis here, is that it is a bad story that does not hold together. My thesis can also be summed up as "you don't pull on Superman's cape." Superman is a character with a lot of history and who is quite embedded in the American psyche. He exists in a imaginary universe where by dealing with larger than life issues, he illuminates things about our real world from kindness, to humanity, to heroism, to sacrifice. Superman has been done well and done poorly over his run. Superman seems to work best when his stories are told in the world of fantasy of the DC Comics universe. Bringing in more of the real world has to be handled very carefully. When you just throw in "real world" elements without carefully considering how to integrate such elements into a fictional universe you end up with a discordant and quite possibly silly outcome.
It can be done, but you can't just throw it out there. I would cite Greg Rucka's run on Wonder Woman, which focused as much on her role as Ambassador to the U.N. from the island of the Amazons, Themyscira, as it did on her role as a superhero. If you read those stories, you see how carefully the stories are plotted to blend the gonzo universe of superheroes with mythic, alien, magical, super science, etc. etc. orgins, with a discourse about political, ethical and religious beliefs. Not easy, but, when approached carefully, very satisfying.
I have to say that Goyer utterly fails. The central plot revolves around Superman flying over to Iran (not one of the DC Universes made up countries, but a real country where things are really happening) to witness a protest. He does not do any intervention other than appearing on the ground. This then supposedly causes an international incident as Iran accuses the U.S. of an act of war by sending Superman. Superman is confronted by a member of the U.S. administration who chides him, and he responds that he is going to announce that he is renouncing his U.S. citizenship in order to work more on a global level.
Dumb.
In my opinion, just dumb, unearned and poorly thought out.
Why?
When you write any iconic character, you have to serve the character. You don't bend it to your will to make your point. That does not mean that you can't make your point, if it is in line with the character, but you have to be subtle and respect the source material. Goyer fails.
If you are talking about having Superman intervening in real world events, you start down the road of wondering where Superman is for all the real world events. Why didn't he stop 9/11? Why hasn't he seized Gadaffi. Why wouldn't he disarm nuclear armed countries? You have to live with the conceit that Superman exists to deal with out sized threats to the earth, but he does not exist to solve all of the world's problems. He is not our dictator or ruler or supreme interventionist. He is Earth's protector and servant, but we all still have to do the hard work of making and not breaking our world.
Goyer story paints a Superman who has decided to start meddling in messy, complicated international affairs. But he does so out of the blue. No ground work, no development, no thought. And then, he delivers the punchline, sure to churn the news cycle and to go into reprints, but that makes no sense, the vow to renounce U.S. citizenship.
Superman is a genius, he would have thought a few things through and remembered his history. Goyer is clearly not at his best here, and has not done his homework.
For Superman to renounce citizenship, you have to go through the gyrations of figuring out what citizenship he has. That opens another can of worms that Goyer just doesn't consider. Lots of versions of Superman's origins exist. In some, he is born on Krypton and then sent to the Earth, crash landing in Kansas to end up in an orphanage, or to be taken in by the Kents, or found by the Kents, taken to an orphanage and then adopted by them. At least one version had him in a "birthing matrix", which did not actually "birth" him until it landed in the United States (thus Superman is "born" on Earth in the U.S.). If there is going to be citizenship to renounce, Goyer has to settle which story of Superman's origin gives him any citizenship of the U.S. in the first place. Interestingly, there are considerations of this our on the internet -- link.
A number of legal theories could give Clark Kent, the person that Superman really is, U.S. Citizenship. And that is another thing that Goyer has forgotten. Greg Rucka (one of my favorite authors), has cogently said that Superman is the alter ego, but Clark Kent is the real person, who Superman really is. Whereas for Bruce Wayne, Batman is who he really is, and Wayne is just someone he has to pretend to be to do his job. So, if Superman is renouncing his citizenship, what about Clark (not to mention Mrs. Superman, Lois Lane)? Now, maybe, Goyer could have salvaged this by dealing with the "honorary citizenship" route. At one point, I believe, Superman was granted honorary citizenship in all countries who were part of the United Nations. His story could have had Iran revoke that honorary citizenship and still be provoked by Superman as a tool of the West and the U.S. and then Superman, for a more global perspective, might renounce all his honorary citizenships before the UN, to say that he, as Superman, would always act as some sort of "world citizen." Still not the best, but not nearly as dumb and in the weeds as this story.
Further, Superman can't renounce his citizenship without Clark Kent renouncing. And, it is not a straight-forward process. Generally, you need to leave the U.S. and renounce before a consular official of the U.S. Just making a speech before the UN has no effect. There is paperwork and there are interviews, and there would be a confirmation of identity and a confiscation of any passport.
Well, does Superman have a passport? Clark Kent probably does, but Superman? Would Superman out his secret identity to renounce? What really could happen? Why is Goyer dragging us into the bureaucratic weeds? Superman filling out paperwork and having us ask whether he has a passport is lame.
Goyer not having thought this through when Superman, who is brilliant and extremely well-informed, has failed the character.
Epically failed in my estimation.
The whole thing falls apart.
And after the news cycle churn and the second and third run of the comic happens, then, I expect that it will be mostly forgotten or soon taking out of continuity as if it had never happened.
Because it is dumb.
A smarter more careful writer might, just might have made something of this, but there are better stories to tell and a way to make the points without miring the Man of Steel in the messiness of real world immigration paperwork.
Superman is American, and born of dreams and imagination that happened in America. But he represents the best in humanity, and the irony is, of course, that he is not human, but a "strange visitor from another planet." Superman stories have to capture the strength, the brilliance, and the vulnerability of a person who can move planets, but who knows he cannot do it all alone. Goyer lost Superman's sense of wonder and power and moral authority in his story. And, for Action Comics 900, that is a shame.
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