Passing Me By...

I received an email advert for the new D+D adventure, and figured I'd clicky click and see what the new game was all about. I immediately met this picture on the other side of my teleportation across the Internet...

I assume that someone (or rather lots of someones) somewhere look at this and say 'heck yeah - that is the game I want to PLAY'. I look at this and go 'oh. So that's what D+D is now. Ugh'...

Because if my character gets married to a blue fay creature, I guess that would be okay. But I don't want that to be the, you know, POINT of the adventure. And, I mean, I guess the dragon is kind of cute and all, but I don't want to PET a dragon. I kinda want to fight one and take its stuff. And, like, there is nothing inherently wrong with being in a wheelchair, but if I'm in a wheelchair in the real world, I don't think I'd want to be in one in my fantasy world, too. As someone who has struggled with cancer for over a decade, the LAST thing I'm EVER doing is giving my character a terminal illness on purpose - I role play that enough.

I mean, getting married and petting a cute animal and being in a wheelchair are, I don't know, things I can sort of do in the real world. I don't need to do these in a fantasy game. I have always been under the strange delusion that I play a fantasy game to do something I CAN'T do in the real world. 

I was almost considering dropping $15 just to see what the new game was about, but (for the first time in my experience), the art actually sold me OFF of a product purchase - not because it's bad art, but because it depicts a world I have no interest in playing in. If the Keep on the Borderlands has handicapped parking spots and non-binary bathrooms, I have no interest in adventuring there. It should have cramped over-priced rooms at the top of rickety stairs with a bucket you can piss in next to a mattress crawling with vermin.

I wish the newest iteration of D+D the best of luck, I won't be along for the ride.

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.   

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.

This morning, I woke up feeling like I'd turned a significant corner. As Mary and Grace begin the ritual of gearing up for the school year, I am sitting here sipping my coffee and thinking about the world to come. I contemplate the final verses of Tennyson's "Ulysses"...

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

'T is not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Falling Into Stalwart '85

When crafting the rules for Stalwart ’85, I somehow missed rules for falling damage (thanks to Rick H for bringing that to my attention). Hmf. Well, let’s correct that! 

A normal human has 8 hp. A fall of up to 10’ is minimal damage to most humans (you might twist an ankle, but you are likely to come away from a 10’ fall none the worse for wear). A fall of 20’ or 30’ is likely to result in a broken bone or two, and a quick Internet search reveals that a fall of 80’ or more is often deadly. 50’ can be life threatening. Okay, that helps set some context. At the other end of the spectrum, the Hulk can fall thousands of feet and suffer minimal damage; he’s soaking 10 points, and we’ll assume that making his Reflex check would net him zero overall damage, but maybe 10 points if he failed… so setting a ceiling of 20 points of damage is reasonable. 

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’.

Building up that Rogues' Gallery

One of the strengths of the S85 world from a gaming perspective is that the villains outnumber the heroes, and the heroes aren't that strong or well organized. The 'problem' of stories set in Superman's Metropolis is that Superman is there - you don't really need anyone else when he's around. However, in Doc's Meridian, there are a handful of heroes, and they aren't very powerful. Doc himself is basically the Thing's power set with Reed Richards' intellect. He's powerful, yes, but not in the same league as Supes. That said, as I move forward, I do so wanting to add more villains to the game but not many heroes. One of the mistakes that I see supers games making is focusing on the heroes of the game world. In my experience, people want to play their own supers in the game world, and don't want to necessarily play the pre-generated superheroes. So, my focus should be on the villains. Players can focus on the heroes.

Parenthetically, this is one of the problems I’m running into with the Public Domain – the heroes outnumber the villains, and the villains are largely forgettable. I’m struggling to find really good villains to adapt to S85.

I spent a little time reviewing Doc’s rogues’ gallery, and it’s a really solid assortment of baddies. There weren’t a lot of gaps. I still have some iconic archetypes to fill in (there’s no ‘hunter’ villain yet, for instance; there’s no weather controller), but the biggest gap I noticed was in teams. I have a handful of both super and villain teams, but the comics are full of teams that are themed to work together, and S85 doesn’t have much of that. The good news is that the format of the Stalwart Phile is perfect for this exact need, so I’m going to devote a few Stalwart Philes to adding supervillain teams to the game. Here are a few examples of what I’m thinking:

• A Russian team that are ‘heroic’ but also 1980s Russians, so it’s complicated. This could be a team you hold your nose and work with, or that you do battle against. Or maybe both.
• An element-themed team.
• A chess-themed team.
• A snake-themed team that works for Vyperion.

Unlike most of the groups I’ve presented thus far, these are groups that always work together; they probably have matching costumes. They’ve got some team maneuvers that they’ve developed, and which can give them some other options in play. From a GM perspective, they are modular - you can design an adventure where the heroes go against a team of Russians, but you can easily sideline some of the members if needed to balance against your supers. 

Stalwart Phile #3 Now Posted

I've got the Stalwart Phile #3 now posted, and I am very pleased with this model for building the game going forward. Obviously, I based these on the old Marvel FASERIP Marvel Phile from Dragon Magazine, and it's a great format for me to work in. I can take a weekend and cobble one of these together, getting a substantive release out without feeling the burden of a 'complete' release. 

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.