The companion adventures, of which I have done two (one is exclusive to KS backers) is working under similar conditions; these are long enough to represent an individual comic book issue, but short enough that I don't get bogged down in getting halfway through a draft and then giving up. I have a model in place that I can keep building on, and that was important to me to keep the game growing. If all I do is Stalwart Philes and short adventures, there's a solid foundation for the game to grow going forward.
Act 1 - Decades ago, on one of their final missions, Freedom's Four defeat Doctor Voltus in his castle by trapping him in a closed cicruit system within his castle; they know it is a temporary fix.
Cut Scene 1 - In the present, the modern-day heroes (or Doc Stalwart if playing solo) meet with the retired older Liberty Lass and Bronze Beacon 2, who recount one of their final battles; we learn that Captain Reicher is up to something, and that something might be bringing back Doctor Voltus. Liberty Lass dons her gear for one last mission...
Act 2 - Travel to Doctor Voltus' old castle; a battle with Captain Reicher and minions. (Modern hero team with Liberty Lass).
Cut Scene 2 - Set up a device that can 'trap' Doctor Voltus; create mechanical keys in play that must trigger to permanently trap him so he can face trial for war crimes.
Act 3 - Final battle with Doctor Voltus with some triggered events built into the battle.
Cut Scene 3 - Funeral for Bronze Beacon 2? Something to finalize the events. Maybe have an event where the wrist bands he carried are donated to the museum his neice works for... set up the future Bronze Beacon? Historical comment about how this event was later ret-conned to include BB 3 even though that was never
Hmm. I solved a lot of this as I was blogging. I know that I spoke about this at some point, but writing is really a thinking process as much as it can be a process of revelation; I talked to my students earlier this year about how I don't use writing to put down the things I already have in my head. Sometimes, I sit down with only the vaguest idea, but the PROCESS of writing it down and getting it out in front of my eyeballs allows me to see how the dots connect. That is exactly what happened here. What I ended up writing down is a lot more than was in my head, and much better organized, than when I started. Writing process for the win!
I finally stopped trying to be clever and did what I wanted to do originally, which is follow the format for the Marvel Phile from Dragon Magazine back in the day - a short article with 3-6 character stat blocks, and no particular frills. I'm going to alternate between my characters/world in odd-numbered Stalwart Philes, and PD characters in the even-numbered Philes. I'll be posting these with a direct link to the pdf to the FB group and the Kickstarter, but I'll also put these up as a PWYW release on DriveThru in case you feel like tipping and to increase awareness of the game to the larger community.
Thanks!
And it gives me a chance to blog about an actual idea that has something to do with gaming... someone posted on FB somewhere about how Sandman could basically just kill anyone. He can send a little bit of sand into your heart or brain and cause a stroke and boom. In effect, many super-heroes could do this. If they really used their powers in a smart way, many supers could just cut off oxygen to their foes and end fights quickly... but they obviously don't.
And that got me thinking about why playing superhero RPGs is in many ways harder than other types of games - you have to willingly suspend your disbelief to have your character conform within certain standards, even when you have better options. As a fighter, your best option is going to be your long sword. If you had a fireball spell, you would use it. Every time. A supers game basically says, 'yeah, you have unlimited fireball spells, but wouldn't it be fun to conjure flame here and see what happens?' Everyone at the table has to be in agreement that this is the way the game is going to roll. You could use your force field to choke Simian Prime out in one round. But you don't because... you pull punches? You are dumb?
Because it's a convention of the genre.
I have some built-in safeguards with Stalwart Points and ways you can use your powers in 'unusual' ways, but there's no rule saying that knocking out your foes with your force field isn't the 'usual' way you use that power, except that it's not a comic book way to do it.
Therein lies the rub for supers gaming. If you have one player at the table who's like, 'uh, logically, I just use my teleport to teleport the criminal directly to prison', then the game is already over. In effect, the players have to choose fun over winning. It's a mindset everyone has to agree to. Building a game that has traditional XP progression and advancement rewards players for winning. A supers game, to my mind, has to have rewards that have little to do with 'winning' the encounter, and more to do with 'enjoying' the encounter. Fun has to be the reward.
I have tried on and off to work on both the adventures I'm writing (Cataclysm and Issue 58), but as soon as I get to math or specific details of plot, my eyes roll into the back of my head and my brain just won't cooperate. I have swelling in my hands and feet, so even building LEGOs right now is challenging because of uneven control of my fingers - just typing this feels weird because of the pins and needles feelings in my fingertips that's been here a few days.
So, I doodle a bit and scroll. However, this morning I found an image I'd started during the KS campaign that I never finished (not sure why - but I obviously did now) of Satana, a PD character, and realized that she's the heavy hitter that Act 3 of Cataclysm is missing. She'll be appearing there, but I thought I'd at least share something that I am working on. I'm hopeful that since I'm almost a week out from my last chemo treatment, and have two weeks until my next one, at some point sooner than later this chemo fog will lift and I can get to some actual progress.
However, in the interim it has been incredibly gratifying to watch you all start a community around Stalwart '85 on FB, and I'm very grateful to all of you who've contributed or shared your enthusiasm for the game. It has really and truly been a source of amazing positivity in the suckage of cancer.
Finally, thought I'd share that I have re-discovered the Decemberists, and I cannot believe how deep and rich their catalog is. It's like I find a new song and become completely obsessed over it. I have been listening to the Hazards of Love on non-stop rotation for a few days, but last night came upon the Infanta and just love it so much. I see that they are touring a little bit this summer, and I'd like to be strong enough to go and see them live. I don't go to many concerts (I have maybe gone to six in my lifetime), but the Decemberists would be front and center on my wish list. Being healthy enough in July to take a six-hour road trip to Canada to see them would be a huge win.
I spent a little more time with the grand comics database for Doc, adding some details from the core rules that had not been in my master document. I think it is all aligned now - as you can see, there are many blank spaces that need to be filled in, and a lot of placeholders where I know who or what may have first appeared, but I'm not exactly sure what the story was that they were involved in. That said, it's a pretty good skeleton of what the history of Doc's adventures have looked like, and it also leaves me with a lot of room to expand, deepen, and enrich the lore. If this was everything, I'd be okay. I think that there are still major storylines and characters who have yet to be introduced, and I'm excited to find those things hidden in my searches through the 'back issue bins' as I explore my imagination.
I also see several storylines that are going to adapt nicely into adventures. At present, I conceptualize adventures at around 8-10 pages - the cover of the comic, one or two samples of interior art (probably not full pages, but panels from throughout), a one-page overview of the storyline as it appeared (with historical context and all that good stuff), and an adventure broken into three acts with frame/cut scenes that help to shape the whole. While issue #1 would seem to be the most reasonable start, I'm actually leaning towards the first appearance of Malamus the Magma King in issue #58. This could break nicely into a first encounter in the northern streets of Meridian where Malamus' legions have risen from the earth to 'counter attack' the people who have been disturbing his caves. After a short battle, the Magmen would retreat, having made their point - continued hostility will bring even more damage. In a cut scene, we could learn that a company has been doing illegal sonic testing and drilling in the northern mountains, disturbing Malamus. In Act 2, the heroes could attempt to intercept a Project Javelin task force (maybe led by Prototype) that has been sent to destroy Malamus and crush his small empire. In Act 3, they go to his volcano and try to negotiate a peace agreement that will get Project Javelin to stand down and bring at least a temporary peace.
This would set in motion a lot of different elements of the comic, and introduce an organization that does unethical stuff that could be an ongoing background threat. Doc himself could either be present for the mission, or the idea is that he is always on some other mission but acts as a resource for the heroes via telecom. He could phone in with suggestions or send some help, but he just happens to be on the moon, or fighting tsunamis in Japan, or helping rescue people from Mr. Everest, or whatever.
For longer storylines, I could adapt them as multiple parts, doing smaller campaign arcs (war of the demigods), or I could find linked issues across continuity and release them as a cohesive story (the various stories having to do with Doc's secret lab being taken over, crashed into the ocean, and ultimately used as an undersea base). Staying with the idea of adapting the existing comics history gives me a nice framework to stay within, and really defines what these adventures will look like.
But Doc always comes back into the picture. I started play testing the Cataclysm Across the Cosmos this week, and realized that it's not that story unless Doc is there. Doc is the center of gravity for the whole thing.
In the last few days, I've been scrolling through some old scans online of Marvel 2-in-1, thinking it would be cool to have a character like the Thing who could go around and team up with other heroes to expand the world. Oh. I already have him. He's Doc. He's already doing that.
In fact, he's been doing it for 264 issues as of the time Stalwart '85 comes out.
It always comes back to Doc. That's the future - it's the past. I was thinking about how to develop adventures for the game, and realized that I have a database going of great adventure ideas in seed form - I have re-organized this a bit and posted it so you can see the living database, but the answers are all right there. I should be publishing adventures for the game, but they can be rooted in adapting the existing 264 comics. The game is set in April of 1985. It's a fixed point in time. I can now spend my time going back and filling in as many gaps as possible. It's a bit of a strange creative enterprise for me - my job is to spend my time going through the 'back issue' bins, organizing things and adding to them. I don't have to generate 'new content' - I can just spend my time building up the catalog of what already exists as of April 1985. That should keep me busy enough. This is the entire sand box I have to play in. I can stay within these walls and never run out of things to work on - if you figure an average Doc story was 16 pages, and there are 264 of those, that's over 4,000 pages I haven't figured out yet. I think that's enough to work with.
Plus, the whole idea of the game itself is that you're with me in April of good old '85. You bought the game, you own some comics, and you're itching to start your own game set in this world. You have no idea what storylines or continuity or strangeness is ahead, and you start building a game based on the comics you have. As you go, you hit conventions or comic shops or mail order and start to fill in your back issue collection. My job now is to help you do it.
Recovering from chemotherapy is a lot of time just... kinda sitting. I had a radiation treatment last week that required me to minimize how much activity I was doing, and to avoid exercise... so. Yeah. A lot of sitting around. Energy has been relatively low, but the last few days I've started to bounce back, and I keep thinking of things to keep my occupied. I worked on the adventure for Cataclysm yesterday and did some reading this morning to try and get into the zone for that a little more, but I also started something else...
We'll see if this comes to fruition, but throughout high school, I had this massive poster of the Marvel Universe on my bedroom wall. I stared at that thing for hours and hours, considering all of the characters and imagining what it would be like to have a universe that big. Then, I flipped through my copy of S85 and realized - it's pretty good-sized. I mean, I have almost a hundred characters. I figured it would be really nice to have a huge poster that has all of my Doc characters in one place. It would take me a long time to finish, but it's something I can do during days and times where I just need to zone out and have something to doodle on. It would be a cool to have a big poster of 'my characters'. So... here's the anchor for the middle of the poster - Doc.