Revisiting Old Haunts

Sunday. Our last day of Easter vacation (kids are going back to school tomorrow) and I, for one, am a little sad for it to be coming to an end. It's been enjoyable for the whole family, despite not really doing much of anything...I think the kids really needed a break from the "grind" of clock-punching for school. All of us are a little more slack these days...the wife even said she's not looking forward to her office reopening (she's been working from home since last February), and I'd imagine there are a lot of folks who feel the same after adapting to the amorphous Covid-induced limbo of "shelter-in-place."

One thing we didn't get to, though, was much gaming. Sad but true...the boy had a full schedule of sports this week (soccer Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday; baseball on Wednesday; and then both a baseball game AND a soccer game yesterday).  Today he's sleeping in...giving those poor legs a rest...but the last couple weeks of the soccer season look to be equally as busy as it continues to overlap with the Little League (and my daughter's first season of LL is slated to start in a week as well). Seems he may have finally been "called up" to a higher tier in soccer (that's the reason for the extra practices)...just as he was getting ready to chuck the thing in frustration. For me, I'm just happy I can watch my kids play in sunny weather. Yesterday was a beaut of a day (and the boy went 3 for 4 with two runs and an RBI as the leadoff hitter...what a stud!).

D&D. I think we'll be playing some D&D today. Need to exercise the "mind muscles," too.

However, while I have the minute to type, I wanted to blog a few words on my superhero side project. Even though I haven't been gaming this week, I have been designing like a bit of a madman. Even done a bit of writing, though most of that's going to need changes. Thing is, I've been tweaking my whole concept, and while I still like the idea of a game focused on the "superteam" I find I need something altogether different for play-testing. Because the fact is, I don't HAVE a "team" of players to draw upon.

But it's not just that. This week, I've found myself going back to an old well that I abandoned far too soon. Specifically I've been revisiting my old DMI (Deal Me In) game system and Legendary Might (my supers version of DMI). Last tinkered with circa 2015, there were a lot of reasons I set the thing aside:

• a lack of "robustness" in game play and character generation
• lack of system for incorporating human elements to contrast with super slugfests
• need for a modified card play mechanic to allow character effectiveness without "breaking the bank"
• need for a more abstract combat system, incorporating power usage and comics/film "violence"
• need for procedural systems that create more than just fight scenes

A lot of these things are interrelated (duh) and while I had ideas for them, they also represented a lot of work (brain sweat) that I just couldn't put together back in 2015, mainly because I was dealing with the upended life and culture shock of moving to Paraguay (not to mention a new baby). Game design in general (for yours truly) was being "backburnered" in those days, and it's not all that surprising I let the thing get all dusty and forgotten on Ye Old Laptop's hard drive.

Stuff happens.

Welp, I've cracked it out of storage and started hammering away again. And with the steady diet of superhero fare we've been ingesting this week (old X-Men films, the Falcon/Winter Soldier series, the old Fantastic Four movies, Guardians of the Galaxy, the entire two seasons of Agent Carter)...well, it's no wonder really. I've got heroes on the brain.

And, astounding as it might seem, it feels like I'm making actual progress (at least, from a design perspective). Much as I was enjoying my MSH-HU mashup of design, the system was feeling far too wargamey for the genre...and the more I wrote, the more I found myself filing off...or amputating altogether...systems that were too specific, and not abstract-y enough.

Because...well, look. When you try to model comics with reality-based specificity (say, something like GURPS, or Champions, or DC Heroes), you find yourself running into all sorts of problems because neither comic books, nor films, give a rip about emulating "reality" UNLESS it is in service of storytelling. How fast is the Flash? As fast as he needs to be. How strong is the Hulk? As strong as is necessary. "Reality" only matters when it makes a decent plot point (like Flash vaporizing himself by pushing past the lightspeed barrier). The laws of physics have never applied to Superman's abilities...only the laws of a "good story."

Yet we know that not all superhuman abilities are created equally. Spider-Man and Luke Cage are plenty strong, but they can't do what Thor or the Hulk can do. Many comic book characters have an agility the equivalent of an "Olympic gymnast;" but even in gymnastics, some Olympians are better than others on a given day (that's why they give out medals). There are super soldiers and there are super soldiers but there's only one Captain America, and it's not really about the shield and costume. 

Going psychotic...as predicted.

Trying to model these things with specificity in a game is a fool's errand. Which is why games like Jeff Grubb's original MSH and Simon Washbourne's Supers! do such a great job: they embrace the abstraction inherent in the genre. Of the two, I think Grubb has the better design, but it still falls down in three areas for me:

• too much randomness/lack of coherence in character generation
• too much procedural fiat rather than direction in adventure design
• too much "wargame" inherent in the game's logistics (in some ways more "board game" than RPG)

[although the last is somewhat corrected in the Advanced MSH system (doing away with the "area" system) it ends up falling prey to the too much specificity pitfall inherent in other games of the genre]

And it's still a pretty darn good game...probably the best for its genre of any I've read/played. At least, so far as system design is concerned. Which, of course, is why I was looking at a streamlined version of MSH for my own system as recently as a couple weeks back.  It just does a lot of things right.

But Legendary Might, especially in its current incarnation, has (I believe) great potential. And its design is all mine, for a change...not drawing from (or knocking off) some other designer's hard work. That has immense appeal to me, a dude who's made most of his money piggy-backing off concepts pioneered 40+ years ago. For that reason alone, I'd like to make the thing work. No, I'm not the first person to use playing cards as a randomizer, nor am I the first to use cards in conjunction with narrative structure...ain't saying that. But the Deal Me In system is still mine, and the way I'm using it NOW in this game...well, it's kind of exciting. 

I kind of want to play-test it. Sooner rather than later. Maybe today, instead of D&D. Maybe.

Happy Sunday to you all. Hope everyone has a good week going forward. Thanks for taking the time to read!

: )

U is for Uprising

[over the course of the month of April, I shall be posting a topic for each letter of the alphabet, sequentially, for every day of the week except Sunday. Our topic for this year's #AtoZchallenge? Revamping the Grand Duchy of Karameikos in a way that doesn't disregard its B/X roots. I got behind by a couple days because of the Easter weekend, but I'm trying to catch up as quickly as possible]

U is for Uprising, specifically the Marilenev Uprising, a suggested adventure for a campaign set in the Grand Duchy, and one of many included in GAZ1. The description reads like this:

The Lady Magda finally snaps. She and her subordinates begin fomenting revolution in the streets. The adventure is the riot that ensues in the Grand Market when Lady Magda is making the greatest speech of career; all her own soldiers are in the crowd, pretending to be passerby and whipping the crowd into a cheering frenzy. Then the city guard shows up and the riot ensues -- between the city guard and the Marilenev guardsmen, with more arriving to help both sides every minute. The characters can be on one side or another, or trying to keep innocent people from being hurt. (After this adventure is over the Estate of Marilenev will probably have another master and another name...)

Bleah. Just...bleah.

The background for this adventure takes place thirty years ago with an earlier uprising led by the Marlilenev clan. Well, actually, I suppose its origin starts 100 years prior with the Thyatia conquest. Marilenev, named (presumably) for its ruling family, was a flourishing trade city and the chief port of the Traladara region. After its conquest, the Thyatians renamed it Specularum, built walls, and stationed a contingent of Thyatian soldiers to ensure (nominal) taxes were paid and everyone knew who the new boss was. As the wealthy families retained their properties (if not self-rulership) business and life went on, more-or-less, as usual.

Some folks, however, appear to have been less than satisfied with the new situation. When Stefan took over (70 years after the conquest), "the powerful Traladaran families in Specularum saw the political change as an opportunity to reestablish Traladaran independence" and plotted to kill the Duke while still in the early stages of his settling in. The thought was that if they could take the town and erect a strong enough defense, they might make it economically unfeasible for Thyatis to launch a second conquest attempt. Unfortunately:

"...the Marilenev clan prematurely led an armed revolt against the Duke and was decisively beaten by the Duke and the garrison. Most of the Marilenev men died in the attack. Naturally, from that point on the Duke had his eyes on the other powerful families, especially the Radu and Torenescu clans."

The Estate of Marilenev remains, just outside of Specularum: a small farming village of 900 souls watched over by Castle Marilenev, "a Gothic monstrosity of depressing walls and crumbling towers." Lady Magda Marilenev is its ruler. "Magda was the young wife of Lord Marilenev 30 years ago, when the Marilenev Rebellion was put down." Now a bitter, resentful widow in her 50s, she is described as "a barrel of resentment:" resentful of the Duke, resentful of the other clans whose help she required after the Rebellion, resentful of her state of affairs in comparison to that of the city...she is primed with hatred and ready to "snap," as she does in the suggested adventure. Allston (thankfully) stats her as a Normal Human, rather than a classed character; a surprisingly average woman with an Intelligence of 10, Wisdom of 10, and Charisma of 13. Hardly, a scheming revolutionary or inspiring rabble-rouser, she's just a bitter old woman and (as I infer from the final line of the Marilenev Uprising adventure) an obstacle to the "heroic" player characters being given a castle and township just outside the capital city.

This is Lady Magda and her background as presented by Allston in GAZ1 (the first appearance of the Marilenev clan and its history). There's a little more embellishment in the later Karameikos: Kingdom of Adventure. I haven't written much about K:KoA, an AD&D 2E campaign setting credited to Allston and Jeff Grubb, published in 1994 (seven years after the Gazetteer). While it takes into account the events of 1992's Wrath of the Immortals, advancing the GAZ1 timeline ten years and changing Archduke Stefan to King Stefan I, nearly all of the text is a reprint of the material in GAZ1...word-for-word content, with stats slightly altered for the AD&D rule system (BECMI was very close to 2nd edition AD&D at this point, so not much was needed).  If I had to guess, I'd suspect Allston receives co-credit because so much of the text is taken from GAZ1...Grubb's name is listed first in the byline and I imagine he's responsible for what little new material is found in K:KoA.

But as I said, there's not much (for Magda, especially)...but what there is, is very interesting. She's still the average ability, 0-level character, though aged a decade (she's now in her 60s); she's still the bitter, "barrel of resentment" waiting to "snap" (no Uprising has yet taken place in the advanced timeline). However, now we learn that Magda's own children, Britan and Caspar,

"...were captured by Stefan's forces, who were in turn ambushed by orcs, killing all."

Yowza! This is a much darker portrait of the Marilenev Rebellion (quick historical note: if it fails, it's a a "rebellion;" if it succeeds, it's a "revolution"). K:KoA provides genealogical ancestry for noble houses (each going back three to four generations), and Magda was the only known survivor of the Rebellion, with Magda's husband and his three brothers perishing, and her sister-in-law (Melanie Marilenev) disappearing and never again being seen (in 40 years!). Now "widowed, childless, and stripped of much of her power" no wonder Magda's ready to snap. I'd think she'd be closer to the edge of madness...after all, how old could her sons have been at the time of the Rebellion? Magda herself was only in her early to mid-20s at the time.

Lady Magda now...but
not at the time of the Rebellion.

Of course, now I have to wonder: why. Why has this woman been left to fester for four decades? A young widow, a landed, titled noble, still of childbearing age (and proven as such having had two healthy children), and yet possessing no heirs to her estates...WHY wouldn't she have married into some other wealthy or noble family (Traladaran or Thyatian)? This was no Lady Olenna Tyrell (yes, another Game of Thrones reference), long past her childbearing years who, upon seeing the death of her son, grandchildren, and heirs by the hand of Cersei Lannister, had nothing left to live for but "fire and blood." Lady Magda had EVERYTHING left to live for...including sweet, sweet revenge on Duke Stefan. She should have gotten herself married to someone ("Hey! I've got a castle! And lands!"), and got about the business of breeding new kids too carry on a legacy of hatred and vengeance against the Thyatian invaders. 30 years wasted (40 by K:KoA)?! Aleena was a 12th level cleric by the age of 22! Come on!

But, hey, let's talk about these dead children for a moment. Clearly, the authors want to steer away from the idea of any cruel impropriety by our "good" Duke Stefan. "Oh, yeah, sorry...orc ambush. Been known to happen." Yeah, sure, pal. How about having one of your MANY clerical cronies cast raise dead on my kids?! Both Sherlane Halaran and Oliver Jowett accompanied Stefan to Karameikos, and both were prominent Thyatian patriarchs (and, thus, high enough level to raise dead) prior to embarking on their Karameikan adventure. I can understand not raising the adult members of the Rebellion as a suitable punishment to their treason, but the kids? What was their particular crime, Mr. Lawful Good Archduke, sir? Just worm food (or orc food), huh?

A better Lady Magda

Sorry, I'm not buying any of this. If we make the Duke a more recent entrant on the scene (as I suggested a couple posts back), the Marilenev Rebellion can be a more recent affair as well, with the fallout still being sorted. Instead of a bitter, spiteful old woman, Lady Magda can be a vengeful, fiery young woman, ready to put the wheels of revenge in motion. This isn't Lady Tyrell; this is Cersei Lannister, trying to rebuild an empire on the smoldering remains of her family. She has absolutely no faith in the Duke's "orc ambush" story (and, of course, this is a barefaced lie...Stefan wants no young Traladaran nobles growing up with resentment over the deaths of their fathers), and she's willing to make whatever deals with the devil necessary to enact justice on the murderous usurpers. A good model would be the (fictionalized) Kwenthrith of Mercia from the Vikings television series. She's a complex character: manipulative, vengeful, and ambitious as hell, but still possessing some love and compassion that she supresses with ruthless practicality. The only thing she's truly "resentful" of is being born a woman in a society that makes her sex less worthy to rule than...well, than any number of flawed, terrible, male human beings. And, yet, she doesn't resent being a woman, she resents the patriarchy that would denigrate and devalue her for the fact of her birth.

Give Magda/Kwenthrith a real uprising, not some paltry riot quickly supressed by the Duke's Elvenguard. Give her a real chance at revenge, maybe some child-for-a-child payback (make sure you feed the bodies to orcs so they can't be raised...that's a Kwenthrith kind of thing to do). And make sure there are opportunities for the player characters to get involved, and not just "keeping innocent people from getting hurt." I just don't see that many innocent people in Karameikos.
: )

RPGaDAY 2017 #22

From the #RPGaDAY2017 challenge (info here):

Which RPGs are the easiest for you to run?

Ha! Note the plural in the question: RPGs, not RPG. If it was only the singular, the answer would be self-evident...I can run B/X Dungeons & Dragons practically in my sleep (actually, most editions of D&D, if you're just asking me run the thing and not prep and run). When I was running a regular game down at the Baranof, I could prep a multi-session adventure of B/X over my lunch break and run the thing despite two pitchers of beer and a very loud karaoke bar next door. Very easy.

But the reason it's so easy is because I've run it a lot. With practice, everything becomes easier (assuming you're approaching a thing with mindful intention). And so, when asked which games (plural) are easiest for me to run, it's really simple a matter of listing the games I've had the most experience (i.e. "practice") running. These would be (in order):

1. Dungeons & Dragons (including 1st edition AD&D, B/X, BECMI, and 3E)
2. Marvel Superheroes (the Jeff Grubb original, both Basic and Advanced)
3. Vampire the Masquerade (1st & 2nd edition)
4. Gamma World (2nd edition)
5. Stormbringer (1st edition)

Boot Hill (2nd edition is my favorite) is fairly easy for me to run as a one-off session, but I've had pretty much zero experience running it as a long-term...or even multi-session...campaign. I imagine that doing so would be fairly tough without a real investment of time and attention to a particular setting (Western films and stories, the main inspiration for BH, all tend to center on a single town and scenario/situation).

These RPGs I've listed are systems in which I've run long campaigns, and I've an idea of how their games evolve and develop over time. These days, I'd probably stay away from Marvel (sorry, Jeff!) because I'm not a huge fan of its system/scale, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be easy for me to run...it's VERY easy, just not something I'm interested. The same holds (mostly) true for Vampire and Gamma World (the way they're written), though they might be more fun (for me) with a little modification to the basic rules and setting premise. Stormbringer is probably the easiest of the BRP games to run, mainly because its combat is more abstract, but putting together an actual campaign that doesn't bump into the albino sorcerer and his trail of wreckage (and making the campaign meaningful prior to the PC inevitable grisly demises) can be a real challenge.

I've run plenty of other games, but none of them are what I'd call "easy," either due to absurd fiddlyness, unfamiliarity, or badly flawed systems (examples include, Albedo, Sorcerer, and Rifts, respectively). The easiest ones are those I've listed...pretty sure that's enough for this post.

Wow Jeff Grubb! Power to the People!

So apparently Jeff Grubb, maker of fine RPGs like the highly innovative and elegant Marvel Superheroes RPG, lives in my neck of the woods...Seattle, WA! At least from his blog, which I just found on-line, it appears he'll be voting in the same elections as me.

Fortunately we seem to be on the same page with respect to our politics (even working The Stranger lines). Hell, screw The Stranger...I'm going with Jeff Grubb's endorsements this November!

Who do you like for mayor, Jeff?

What Goes Around Comes Around - Karma & Marvel Superheroes

Since I mentioned Heroes Unlimited/Rifts the other day, and recently discussed "experience mechanics" in non-Old School RPGs, I figured this is as good a time as any to discuss that crazy mother-f’ing hybrid Marvel Superheroes.

[in fact, the original title of this post was going to be “That Crazy Mother-F***g Game” but I decided I’d save that for a future post about some other RPG]

I’ve played a lot of Marvel in the past, both the original RPG (released in 1984) and the “Advanced” version (released 1986); the latter being essentially the same game though with more bells & whistles. Part of this was certainly due to my age (from 11 to 13 were prime “comic book” collecting years), and part was due to the friends who owned it (including my old buddy Jason, whose Mom was NOT a fan of D&D once their family became Born Again Christians).

Anyway, we played quite a bit of MSH back in the day, though our longest running campaign was the Advanced version and involved ZERO characters from the Marvel universe. Not that we didn’t like the characters in the Marvel universe (my friend, Jocelyn was a big X-Man fan), but we certainly were more interested in creating our own superhero soap operas and a lot less concerned with whether or not Peter Parker was going to make his dinner appointment with Aunt May.

Plus, with the advent of the Ultimate Powers Book, character creation was “off the hook,” so to speak, and we had too many cool options to worry about Marvel canon.

However, going with our own “Marvel universe” led to certain issues between game expectations and system rules; namely, what to do about that damn Karma stuff. Coming at the game with a gamist (i.e. “raised on D&D”) mentality, Karma certainly got us into trouble.

Marvel, similar to Palladium, is a bit of a hybrid game, at least a step removed from Old School gaming. However, unlike Palladium’s Heroes Unlimited, its game design is both innovative and elegant. Ron Edwards has pointed out that in some ways it is one of the first RPGs to facilitate a Narrativist creative agenda (though he also points out that the game is explicit in its text about also allowing the game to be played “gamist style,” simply duking it out between Marvel characters to prove once and for all who’s the toughest of them all). The reason it facilitates Narrativism is its excellent Karma mechanic (the same one I just mentioned that gave us headaches as kids).

For those who haven’t played MSH, Karma is the game’s version of “experience points.” It is a point pool and points are awarded to players based on their actions in the game. In a very Old School way, Karma informs in game behavior as it is awarded in specific amounts for specific actions (for example, foiling a robbery is one amount; defeating a villain gives a specific amount). It’s not perfect, but good enough (and with enough examples, especially in published modules) that it’s workable. However, unlike D&D experience points or Gamma World status points, Karma can also be LOST. Not just SPENT (more on that in a minute) but LOST through less-than-heroic action.

This negative penalty is the first example I can think of where behavior mechanics are truly enforced with an in-game penalty of play (losing a level due to “poor alignment play” notwithstanding as that is arbitrary and subject to DM adjudication). FOR EXAMPLE (and this is the big one right off the bat): if a player character kills anyone, for ANY reason, then the character LOSES ALL KARMA. That’s it…karma goes down to 0. It’s the biggest penalty of the game (committing crimes or being a tool in general will cause your karma to take a hit, but killing is the only thing that zeroes it out).

Can you imagine being confronted by this as a player recently arrived from a cutthroat D&D campaign? Of course, this is before Dark Horse comics and “heroes” like Dead Pool…hell, even before the ascendancy of Wolverine as a solo cash cow for Marvel (before Weapon X, in other words). I doubt that young comic readers, used to the regular death and dismemberment in, say, the Authority universe or the Ultimate Marvel imprint would, frankly, understand the big deal about killing. I didn’t LIKE the rule, but at least I UNDERSTOOD it.

So what’s the big deal about losing one’s Karma? Well, aside from the pool of points used to develop one’s character (increase ability scores, purchase new powers/skills, etc.), Karma as a pool could be spent to influence dice rolls. Does the fate of the free world (or Marvel universe) hinge on the outcome of a single dice roll? Spend some Karma to ensure a critical success. Did the Juggernaut just crush some New Mutant’s flimsy skull with a lucky shot? Spend some Karma to un-do the hit.

The end result is two-fold:

1) It allows PCs to do all that crazy stuff that makes them survive and succeed even when (apparently) out-classed by a mega-powered opponent. Squirrel Girl defeating Dr. Doom? Sure…with enough Karma expenditure.

2) This is more subtle, but equally present: it allows PLAYERS (not just game masters) to address premise, allowing them to make a statement about a story’s theme BASED ON THEIR EXPENDITURE OF KARMA TO INFLUENCE DICE ROLLS. Do you want the game to have bystanders be killed through wanton destruction and flagrant power use? Don’t spend karma to avoid it. Do you want to succeed in some areas of the story (to show what MATTERS, what is INTEGRAL to the plot) then spend Karma there. This is REAL narrative power in the PLAYER’S hands…much different from any RPG before it.

Of course, as a 12 year old, I didn’t get this. Instead I focused on “why can’t I kill this villain? He’s a total asshole!” And kill the villain I would. Hey, once you went to 0 karma who cares if you continue to kill people?

Well, my GM for one. Scott (of whom I've written before) instituted a NEGATIVE Karma penalty…continuing to kill would dig me deeper in the hole. Now, unfortunately, there were no real repercussions for having a negative Karma (except that it took that much more to advance into positive numbers) and so I was content to be a Karmic “dead beat.” It didn’t help that development in MSH is glacially slow (this is by design; characters in the comic universe don’t often change power levels and so HUGE amounts of Karma were necessary for even minute changes), so I had little for which to “save up” points.

In retrospect, negative Karma IS both logical and thematically appropriate (at least if you have any understanding of the real world metaphysical belief of Karma). Being a much wiser individual these days, I would certainly institute real and quite possibly severe consequences for individuals carrying a negative Karmic debt…possibly including losing your character as an NPC vigilante/villain with a warrant for your arrest!

I would also like to note that when I GM’d Marvel (this was one game where we rotated GMs fairly frequently) none of my players ever had a “negative Karma” problem. Either they were all more mature than me (quite possibly), understood the basic premise of Marvel better (also a good possibility), or learned from my mistakes (less likely as I faced no consequences besides ridicule for my negative Karma).

Anyway, Marvel Superheroes was certainly a step removed from its Old School predecessors due to its Karma meta-game mechanic. Its action table is little different from rolling a 20-sided dice on a Hit Chart (a la D&D); the elegant/innovative part is that the same color bar system was used for all tasks, resistance rolls, etc., including ability to purchase things (no need to track money in a bank account, simply make a Resource roll!). Chargen was definitely of the Old School variety (random dice rolls determine almost every aspect of the character). Definite objectives/expectations of game play are present (in the karma rewards table).

But it is the USE of that reward system that is Marvel’s true innovation.