Monday, October 6, 2025
Stalwart '85 Character Advancement
My Fickle Muse
First of all, a brief health update: I had my second round of nuclear medicine treatments on October 1, and I'm feeling remarkably well for someone who was given less than 12 months to live 10 months ago. I'm looking forward to crossing that barrier (which is December 10, for those keeping track). I keep setting new objectives for myself: as of now, I want to live long enough to watch my daughter graduate high school in June. Once I accomplish that, I'll set another goal.
On to gaming stuff. I've been feeling well enough the last week or two to work on gaming-related stuff, and I keep trying to sit down and work on Doc Stalwart. I still have a few miscellaneous things to finish from the Kickstarter before it is 'complete'. While the primary items (the game itself and the adventure; all of the stat blocks for the public domain characters, all of the original character drawings) are done, and I've finished the core items and some stretch goals, I have a few stretch goals yet to achieve. I don't have a dedicated web site (okay, I had a domain but didn't do anything much with it), I have yet to finish the 8-page comic story, and I still have to figure out some VTT support. So, stretch goals remain incomplete, and I'm aware of that. However, I have released several other things (a bonus adventure and some Stalwart Philes with stat blocks, a database of Doc's comic adventures), so I don't feel TOO bad about it - however, these items are still on my to-do list.
The things is, each time I have sat down to work on any of Doc's stuff, I struggle to focus, and the material I've been able to knock out is not up to my standard. I'm having trouble locking in on Doc Stalwart stuff at the moment.
However, my muse REALLY wanted to work on some Army Ants stuff (because that's how she rolls), so I ended up starting a draft of a new Army Ants RPG that is a hybrid of MTDAA Legacy and Stalwart '85. I have come to think that the basic engine for S85 is really, really malleable, and could be used for any sort of setting. You have a basic action ('attack') die based on your character's level, and you have four traits. Three traits are basically the same across games (might/body, reflex, and mind). However, there is always a fourth trait that is unique to that game. In Stalwart '85, it's Power for your superhuman powers. In the Army Ants game I'm tinkering with it's your Spirit (intuition and connection to the natural world). In a fantasy RPG, it would be magic (your ability to wield arcane or faith-based powers). In a Sci-Fi game, it would be whatever stand-in I'm using for the Force. The cool thing is, I can just set thresholds for 'activating' it, and then it's tiered already. For example, it would be easy in a fantasy RPG to say that at Magic D4, you can read magical scrolls, but you don't have any ability to use magic on your own. At D6, you can cast rudimentary spells, but by D20 you're throwing huge fireballs and raising the dead. The force would work similarly; you don't unlock "Jedi" type powers until maybe D8; D6 might be 'sensitive', allowing you to maybe sense things or have a greater connection to the Force than others, but at D8 you get to start minimal telekinesis, while by D20 you're lifting battle cruisers and surviving for short periods in space.
It's a very adaptable basic game engine.
That said, the newest iteration of Army Ants, MTDAA Final Frontier, uses a version of this system. I've got the playtest document that you're welcome to tinker with (as I am doing), and we'll see where this goes. I will get back to Doc stuff soon enough, and maybe I just have to get this out of my system. I often talked with my students about journaling helping writers because you get the clutter out of your mind and onto the page, and then you can do more focused writing. It might be that this is some clutter I need to clear before the next phase of Doc stuff hits me. Thanks, as always, for your support of and kindness towards me. It is truly appreciated.
Wednesday, September 17, 2025
Passing Me By...
Monday, September 8, 2025
A Huge Sigh of Relief
This might sound a little crazy, but I have been afraid to sit down and draw anything for several months... the last time I did a drawing was in the beginning of April, and in the time since, I have seen a significant detioration in my penmanship. I often find it hard to hold a pen steady enough to write legibly, and my hands shake a bit. My father had this condition (not sure the scientific term, and I decided not to look it up)... and I watched him in the last decade or two of his life struggle to write anything neatly. Towards the end of his life, he could barely hold a pen. I was deeply concerned that I too had lost the ability to draw altogether, and I was very hesitant to even attempt a drawing for fear of what my stylus would emit...
This afternoon, I finally decided to give it a go, attempting to re-create one of the more iconic Superman images with Doc. And, while I can see there are places where I have lost a little bit of control of some of the finer points, the overall drawing is still (to my mind) up to a standard I can live with. I also presume that this drawing carries more than a little rust, because again it's been about four months since I even tried to draw. We're going to chalk today up as a win, and it has also inspired me to start actual playing Doc's adventures starting with issue one, and just going in order. It gives me something to do... and I already have an idea for how the first issue plays out (heavily inspired by the first ten minutes of The Incredibles), so I'm looking forward to giving that a go.
Friday, August 15, 2025
Superhero Team Concepts
In the middle of the night, I was thinking about superhero teams, and how to build them with archetypes that fit roles. I started to think about re-framing this; instead of thinking about 'roles' (mentalist, tank, damage dealer, speedster...), I would think about building a team from a storytelling perspective, in terms of origins. I realized that part of the reason the New Teen Titans work so well is because they frame things from an origins perspective, and it provides so many more storytelling opportunities. I haven't thought about this too deeply yet, but here are some examples:
- Technology (Cyborg). Bring in stories about technology and the impact of new technologies.
- Supernatural (Raven). Stories focused on magic, other realms of existence, and supernatural powers.
- Mythology (Donna Troy). Ancient gods and monsters.
- Cosmic (Starfire). Other planets and alien races.
- The Sea (Aqualad). Stories set in underwater environments.
- Villainous Past (Beast Boy... kind of). The former allies now enemies hold a grudge.
- Under the Shadow (Robin). You were a sidekick, and are trying to establish your own identity, but a lot of the villains that your mentor has still hold a grudge against you.
Having such a wide range of origins gives the GM a variety of hooks that personalize adventures to the characters while giving a grand scope to the game. If all of the characters are teenagers who were transformed in the same lab, you immediately have fewer options for built-in ways to progress the story. Conversely, if each character has a unique origin and also has three pieces of 'unfinished business' in their origin, all the better. For example, my technology character could have a rival inventor whose tech ended up in my cybernetics, a bug in my software that could be exploited (and which I'm trying to have fixed), and a previous participant who 'failed' to adjust to the cybernetics, and who went mad. Instant adventure seeds that are personalized to the characters.
This comes up because I have really wanted to start a solo campaign, and while I feel like it should be focused on Doc, I'm just as intrigued by starting a "New Teen Titans" or "New X-Men" sort of game. I also kind of want to go a little more Doom Patrol with weirdness and a little less prototypical heroes like Doc or a Justice League. I could see New Stalwart Press witnessing the success of the X-Men and Teen Titans in the early 80s and deciding to start a comparable series... something to ponder. I also like the idea of the whole team being 'under the shadow', as this team would replace a team from the previous generation who had disappeared. Rooting the campaign in an unresolved mystery gives an instant hook ("Whatever happened to the Force of Five?") and matches the vibe of both New Teen Titans and New X-Men, since both replaced earlier teams with the same moniker.
Some Work of Noble Note May Yet Be Done
My oh MY but it's been a few months... I thought I'd give a personal update, and then hopefully get back into some gaming stuff sooner than later.
I last checked in some time around April... since then, we've learned that the chemotherapy treatments I was receiving (even after they adjusted to a more aggressive chemo treatment) seemed to be having little effect; the tumors on my spine, pelvis, and ribs have continued to grow, with new tumors appearing in the last few months. Treatments may have been slowing it down a little, but not much. My doctors at Roswell suggested I get a second opinion, and after Mary (who has been a super hero) called around, we ended up meeting with a specialist in Pittsburgh, who decided to move from chemo to a newer nuclear medicine called Lutothera. The problem was that it's a more expensive treatment, and our insurance company REALLY didn't want to pay for it. Fortunately, the doctors in Pittsburgh are tenacious, and at the end of June I got approval for the treatment. I received my first treatment on August 1, and tolerated it well enough. Initial scans showed that the nuclear medicine went right to the tumors, and seemed to be getting to work. The idea here is that the nuclear medicine should be able to destroy the tumors, so I am also on a regimen of meds that are supposed to re-grow the bone, because the tumors are going to leave weak points in my bones, leaving me susceptible to fractures. So, I am taking it relatively easy, walking at least 15 minutes a day, and feeling some genuine hope for the first time in months. There is a very real possibility that my prognosis has changed from months to years to live. We'll see. I will receive three more treatments of the Lutathera, once every 60 days. I should receive my final treatment on February 1st. and we'll do a scan shortly thereafter to see how effective this has been. I'm hoping for 'very'.
Unfortunately, at the same time Mary's mom had a recurrence of her own cancer, and it ended up taking her life at the end of June (on Grace's birthday, and the day before Mary's birthday...). So, while Mary has been battling to get me treatments, she has also had to bury her own mom. She's been through a LOT.
Far less importantly, but not insignificantly, I've gone through the process of retiring due to illness, and have had to navigate that whole process about seven years earlier than I expected to... 24 years is a pretty good run, but I had wanted to get to thirty. I'm proud of my career and what I've accomplished, but it's also difficult to say goodbye to a huge part of my life when it hasn't been on my own terms. Our teacher's union hosted a wonderful retirment party for all of the retirees, but it felt like they spent a lot of the evening focused on me, which was a bit overwhelming.
Yesterday, Mary sorted the last of the things that she had received from her mom, we finished re-organizing our closets, and I was notified that my retirement paperwork is completed, and 'the check is in the mail' for my retirement benefits. My principal and vice principal also stopped by and brought me a retirement gift that they had for me - it was genuinely nice to see them. It felt like the end of many things.
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
Falling Into Stalwart '85
If we say that you suffer 1 point for every 10’ fallen, with a maximum damage of 20 points (200’), and you’re allowed a Reflex check for half, that seems reasonable enough (a normal human is felled at 150’ or more even with a successful Reflex check – and probably dies). Supers are going to be felled but not die… because they’re supers. The Reflex check is DT 4, so a normal human suffers zero damage (.5 rounded down) on a successful Reflex check falling 10’, and only 1 point on a successful Reflex check falling 20’ or even 30’.