Granularity in Stalwart

It occurred to me this morning that there's an easy way to add some more granularity to Stalwart; you can add modifiers to your four core traits (the basic die), but this only affects rolls with the trait, and would not change the Static Values for those dice. You could receive a modifier of up to 1 below the next tier; so, you could have D4, D4+1, D6, D6+1, D8, D8+1, D10, D10+1, D12, D12+1, D12+2, D12+3, D16, D16+1, D16+2, D16+3... so this increases the 'available' range of scores significantly. The game goes from 6 possible trait ratings to 16... this does not affect the derived abilities; so with might D12 (whether it's D12, D12+1, D12+2, or D12+3), your endure is still locked at 6, unless you purchase tags to increase them. There aren't many other ways to add bonuses (other than a die shift), so this doesn't cause much in the way of power creep. It's pretty easy to add in - you get half your tier SV in bonuses to distribute among your traits. So, as a super (D10), you have 2 points to add... you could add +1 to your might D8 and to your reflex D6, or you could put the full +2 with your power D12. This would allow for a significant upgrade to overall character customization without even remotely breaking anything. If you're using the options for stablizing dice, you just keep the modifier; so your D12+2 with stabilization becomes D8+6 (D8+4+2). 

This little game keeps surprising me with what it is capable of... it might be time to start on the Stalwart Companion 2.

 

Retconning My Retconning

I'm trying to get a LOT of ducks in a LOT of rows with the history of Doc Stalwart and his comic series. I keep moving things around and revising (even editing things I wrote three years ago), to get all of the various pieces to line up. For example, I changed the release dates (by about a year) for the Bronze Beacon storyline... because I realized the title of the series, "Raider of the Lost Art(ifacts)" would be a year before Raiders of the Lost Ark was released... so it wouldn't make sense that the creators would have created a pun for a movie that they didn't even know was going to be coming out...

I also moved the "Death of Doc Stalwart" storyline back three years as well (I originally had it around issue 200.. now it's in the 240s), because it didn't make as much sense where I had it. I also had two 'death' storylines in relatively close proximity, and decided to merge them into one. In its place at issue 200, I added the wedding of Doc Stalwart and Augury, since this would have been a big event (and I've never even mentioned who she was or when they got married - and that would be a big event in the comic). I also realized (after paging through my collection of Fantasic Four 21-40 in glorious black and white) that there was a LOT of melodrama and romance in those issues, so having a love story is an important element of borrowing from the source material.

There are a lot of moving parts here... but it's coming together.

The OTHER thing that I really, really like is that I'm linking events together - so when Doc's Secret Lab goes rogue (remote controlled by Simian Prime) and starts flying towards Simian City, Doc has to crash it into the ocean to keep it from falling into Prime's hands... and then it later is found by Lord Lamprey, and Doc has to go fight him in the ruins of his old HQ that is now a submerged wreck. The events in the story influence later events, which I saw as one of the things that gave Byrne's run on FF (my model for all of this really) such a great internal consistency. You never knew when something that happened 20 or 30 issues ago was going to suddenly come up again and matter in a new way.

World of Stalwart Update

I have been tinkering with the World of Stalwart campaign book quite a bit, and I've made some discoveries along the way...

1. Somehow, I'm in a groove here. I have found a place where my art and the vibe of the game world align almost perfectly.  I really like the character designs I'm coming up with. For example, I knocked out the Keeper of the Mystic Veil in about ten minutes, and I could not be happier with how he turned out. I could spend a few hours on this and I wouldn't be able to get it any better than this. Several of the designs have ended up feeling very iconic - they 'feel' to me like the Bruce Timm DC Universe without copying his style. The character designs he created for those shows were so simple and clean, and I've got some of that energy going, even though my style is very little like his.

2. I have detailed about 20% of the Doc Stalwart Comics catalog at this point; I'm starting to see the scope of the series over 25 years taking shape. I'm seeing the larger trends and stories, and how they sort of fit together in this huge narrative. The process is very much one of discovery. I remember that somehow as a teen I had copies of GI Joe 1 and 2, then had 5, then had 8 onward. I missed issues 3, 4, 6, and 7 when they first came out, and it was several months later when I was able to start tracking them down at flea markets, conventions, and comic books stores. I knew they were out there, and my imagination had started to fill in what they must be about. By the time I actually got to read them, they had earned almost a mythic significance in my imagination. Somehow, 'disovering' what happened in a Doc issue from the 60s, 70s, or 80s is very much like this; I know that they already exist 'somewhere', and I'm going through back issue bins in my imagination, pulling them out of the box, and carefully pulling back the scotch tape holding the bag closed. It's a surreal experience, but one that I'm finding strangely rewarding.

3. I've written before about how I always wanted to publish this huge, extended comic book over years. I wanted on a level I can't quite explain to undertake a legendary run on a book like Lee and Kirby on FF, or Byrne on FF, or Chris Claremont on X-Men... you get the idea. Doc allows me to do that in some way.

4. Doc has ended up being the perfect central character to pull the whole thing together. Having his comic book be THE story of this game world has made it small enough that I can build the whole thing (eventually), but big enough that it's a fully-developed superhero universe. It doesn't have the massive cast of characters of Marvel or DC, but it's got a fully-realized superhero world. I believe that by the time I'm done, this will be the most well-documented and fully-realized superhero game world ever created outside of actual comic books. It cannot imagine how it won't end up being the most well-realized superhero RPG world. It's very organic, because I've rooted it in an alternate history where the comics were 'actually' published, with all of the messiness that entails. Creating 'clean' superhero game worlds doesn't actually make sense in the context of the history of how comics have really developed.

The Stalwart Companion

The Stalwart Companion is now live. It's a PWYW download, and I have left the original link (to the Google Doc) as well, so you can get it either place. I don't see me making any changes to this - and I don't think I will have too many more 'core rules' to add. If needed, I'll start a 'Stalwart Companion II', but that's a ways off (if ever).

I debated putting it up for $1 with no PWYW option, but decided the game will have greater visibility as PWYW - and people who like it will tip me anyway. I think as more people find out about the game and want to play it, I can justify maybe re-packaging this at some point as my superhero magnum opus... or something something.

 

Raider of the Lost Art(ifacts) Part 1

Over the course of the Mighty Doc Stalwart #221-228, Byron John allowed his assistant, Timothy Bruce, to try his hand at creating his own narrative as an extended backup feature (8 pages each). This was a chase as the Bronze Beacon III traveled around the region to recapture pieces of Tessek's Garb and Totem before these could be reclaimed by Tessek. 
 
Tim would soon leave comics and move to animation, where he would oversee one of the greatest animated series of all time, adapting a long-standing comic book for the Distinguished Competition. 
 
Gameplay: It’s a chase to recapture the lost pieces of Tessek’s garb (three pieces) and Totem (three pieces). I’m going to say that Tessek has zero villain points for the final battle with Bronze Beacon, but each piece he recovers gives him two points to use in that fight; he could have zero, or he could have 12. That might make a difference. I also have an idea for a temporary power up for Bronze Beacon for her big fight… We’ll see how these work when we get there…
 
Part 1 (Backup feature in the Mighty Doc Stalwart #221)
 
Hook: 
    Bronze Beacon soared over the countryside north of Meridian. On the other side of her headset communicator was the Mighty Doc Stalwart. “Thanks for the heads-up, Doc. I thought there might be some trouble with transporting Tessek and his artifacts to the new museum in Gap City…”
    His voice came through, “No problem. You had a good plan - divide the artifacts in six parts and send them secretly. Unfortunately…”
    She sighed, “Yeah. I didn’t realize my assistant had been charmed by Tessek. So now I have to get the pieces back before - who again?”
    Doc was doing something. She heard a hiss of oxygen. Was he in a space suit? “I sent the data files. Six different villains have been sent… it’s a big job. I’m sorry I can’t be there to-”
    She stifled a laugh, “Doc, you’re on the moon. I can handle it.”
    He paused, clearly wishing he could be two places at once, “Okay. But if you need backup, let me know and I’ll see if Messenger or Twilight Archer is around…”
    She was already reaching for the switch to end the call. Doc didn’t need one more thing to worry about, “Nah. I’ve got this. Thanks, though. Bronze Beacon out.”
    She paused, looking around “I’m still not used to calling myself that… or to seeing stuff like this…”
    Below, a sleek black car wound down a forested street - and then something happened…
 
Round 1
Pliant has stretched himself across the road, and suddenly tightens (his legs around tree, his arms around another on the other side of the road). He has to check power, and we’ll say DT 6, because stopping a car with a giant rubber band is moderately difficult… He rolls and gets 4. He’ll use two villain points and bump this to 6. The car hits the huge rubber band dude stretched across the road, and flips over. Bronze Beacon charges. She can be there in 2 actions (it’s about a thousand feet). Pliant goes first; he will use 2 actions; the first is to reach in through the broken glass and the second is to recover the piece of the Totem he’s been sent to retrieve. He has to check reflex to keep from cutting himself on the glass (DT 4) and rolls 6. He’s fine, and he is standing there with the briefcase containing the piece of Totem. Beacon flies to within 100’ of him (2 actions), and uses 2 more to attack with her energy bolt (at -1 shift because she’s using extra actions this round). She hits with a 5 and a 4 (rolled pretty well), and Pliant is unable to dodge; she deals 10 and 5 hits with two energy bolts. His invulnerability reduces this to 6 and 1, so he’s at 9 hits. She yells for him to drop the briefcase, but he refuses (of course).
 
Round 2
He’s going to use one action to slingshot himself at her; he checks power (DT 4) and gets 12; dang! He tries to ‘hit’ her with himself, using his stretching to emulate a binding attack. He attempts power against her endure, getting an 8. He stretches all around her and binds her. I’m going to rule she suffers a -1 overall shift while so bound. She also cannot fly, and is sort of levitating here a hundred feet up with him wrapped all around her. She uses 1 action to create a wedge that pushes him outward, attempting to break the hold he has on her. She checks power and gets 10. Yup. She is still surrounded by him, but there are two generated brackets pushing him away from her and freeing her up. She uses her second action to fire an energy bolt at him, getting a 6. She only deals 1 hit, and he absorbs it. She will continue to use an action every round to keep him away from her.
 
Round 3
He’s going to start punching at her (as he’s wrapped around the energy-generated brackets about 100’ up). He rolls 6 and 4 with his two punches, and hits with the 6 only. He deals 4 points, and she is at 10. She uses her first action to maintain the brackets, and uses 3 others to attack with three energy bolts (at -1 shift because she’s using extra actions); she rolls 5, 3, and 1. She uses 1 hero point of her 4 to bump the 3 to a 4, so she hits twice. She deals 9 and 3 points. His invulnerability soaks the entire 3 and 4 of the 9. He suffers 5 hits, and is at 4 remaining.
 
Round 4
He swings two more haymakers, getting a pair of 5s; he barely hits twice. He deals 5 and 1, for a total of 6 points. She is at 4. She continues to use an action to keep him stretched out away from her, and then uses one action to fire a bolt at him (planning to use her hero points as needed; she wants to hit him with a solid shot). She rolls a 7 to hit (whew) and rolls 11 for damage! Huzzah.
 
He’s at 0, so he drops and crumples into a pile of spaghetti in the grass; the briefcase flings in another direction. She flies after the briefcase and catches it with a hand she generates from her bracers; she then hears the driver below, and pulls him from the car. He’s badly hurt, but she’s able to use her healing to restore his broken arm and mend his lacerations. However, by the time she turns to check on Pliant, he has escaped, slinking off into the nearby woodlands.
 
“Bronze Beacon to Doc Stalwart – I have recovered the first piece of the Totem.”
 
She takes off into the sky, ready to seek out the next piece.  
 
Bronze Beacon III

Kira Keller, Curator of the Grand National Museum in Gap City First Appearance: The Mighty Doc Stalwart #179 Paragon Hero (D8[4]2) Hits 14; Move 30’ (fly 500’); HP 4 Might D6 (3); Mind D8 (4); Power D12 (6); Reflex D8 (5) Energy Bolt; Energy Solidification; Force Field; Flight; Healing   Brawling +1; Dodge +1; Profession (museum curator) +2 Gauntlets must be charged with direct exposure to sunlight once per day.

The daughter of Bronze Beacon II, she is the curator of the Grand National Museum, located in Gap City. She inherited her father’s gauntlets - and his responsibilities as a costumed hero. She considers herself a ‘part-time hero’, wielding the gauntlets only when she deems it necessary. Her rogue’s gallery includes the Bod, Gloaming the Shadow Bandit, Pliant, Professor Frosten, and Vyperion.
 
Pliant

First Appearance: The Mighty Doc Stalwart #207 Paragon Villain (D8[4]2); Hits 16; VP 4 Might D8 (4); Mind D4 (2); Power D10 (5); Reflex D8 (4) Invulnerability (4); Stretch Brawl +1; Infiltration +2; Stealth +1

A common burglar who was exposed to a chemical that gave him stretching powers, Pliant has used his powers to commit more and more challenging heists. He is a frequent enemy of the Bronze Beacon. 

A Dearth of Heroes and Game Worlds

As I was working on cranking out content for Stalwart (I've added a lot of stuff today), I was thinking about how much the villains outnumber the heroes, and how the heroes really aren't all that powerful. One of the problems with Marvel and DC is that, with so many heroes with such great power, do you really need any more heroes? I mean, once you have Superman, you're pretty much covered. My game world doesn't have that problem (I keep thinking of its power level as comparable to The Incredibles - some cool stuff, but nobody is lifting a pyramid or flying fast enough to move through time). Doc Stalwart is the world's greatest hero, but he's about equal to Doc Samson of Marvel Comics, circa 1985. That was the most direct inspiration, by the way. Doc Samson is cool - he can ONLY lift like 25 tons (Amazing in FASERIP), so Doc Stalwart is slightly stronger (Monstrous in FASERIP). But if HE'S the best you have, you are going to need more heroes. The key players around him are comparable to Quicksilver, Hawkeye, and Raven from Teen Titans. I mean, that's the A team? There are a few more powerful heroes - but they are busy fighting threats from other dimensions and traveling to other planets. 

Conversely, I just keep adding villains. They outnumber the heroes significantly. There are lots of villains doing lots of villainous things, and there are just not that many heroes to do much about it. The peeps we have are all stretched pretty thin.

Sounds like a good place to set a supers game, if you ask me.

By the way, I'm going back through everything I've published for supers and adapting it. While I had set Stalwart Age 25 years before Sentinels of Echo City, I'm sort of hand waving some of my canon and grabbing things from there to add to Stalwart. If I ever go forward far enough into that world, I'll deal with it then (and this is the same timeline as Stalwart - so I have things that are linked in there; for example, in Sentinels the Citadel of Tomorrow is in ruins, having been destroyed from within... so you kind of know where that is ultimately heading I guess - spoiler alert after the fact). Meridian has been destroyed by an alien invasion. I've already retro-fied Emissary (he was originally sent by the Messari from another planet - now he was sent 25 years earlier by Null from the Null Zone - same purpose). I figure that Sentinels takes place in an alternate future of the current game (or something), but the larger point is that I'll be adapting some of my favorite things from that book to this timeline. I have a lot of characters I have created that I haven't touched on in a while, so there's quite of bit of room for the World of Stalwart to grow. 

But it will probably be mostly more villains. 

  

Just Working Away...

I have the Stalwart Companion close to a 'final draft' stage... I added several new gifts, cleaned up some rules, added a few things, dotted i's and crossed t's. It's 14 pages, and I would like to get to 16, but am not sure without adding something that doesn't really belong... I'm going to give it another day or so before packaging it for DriveThruRPG, but it's pretty far along. I like it a lot, and the new gifts I added bring a lot of variety to the game, which is good. It's a significant expansion.

I've also been tinkering away at the World of Stalwart, and my favorite addition of the day is the organization TENDRIL...

T.E.N.D.R.I.L.

The Terror Enclave of Nihilists, Dissenters, Radicals and Insurrectionist Liberators is a social and political organization that has infiltrated governments around the world. They seek disorder, chaos, and the fall of the United World Council. They believe that a free world will be one with only local leadership; to them, any leader who cannot shake hands with every one of their constituents is a bad leader. Their figurehead is the masked figure Demagogue the Dark, who may or may not be a shared identity among several leaders.

It's got a Cobra Commander type of leader, which is great for building a campaign around. I also am happy with how the acronym worked out... and the whole idea that it gets its 'tendrils' into everything. It's kind of spot on. I've been trying to add some 'masterminds' to the game, because I think that they increase the scope from 'villain of the week' to telling longer narratives that are interconnected. I also like that the more I add to the game, the less I feel like it's just an echo of DC and/or Marvel. The Amalgam Universe was already a thing - my game doesn't have to be another one. 

Now THIS is what I call research!

It's Friday night, so what better to do than pull a bunch of old Official Handbooks of the Marvel Universe and Who's Who for DC, and browse some entries. Here's part of my collection...

Right away, I flip to Superman, and it says he could lift one of the Great Pyramids... and that is about 600 million tons. So... a little stronger than Hulk (100 tons)... um. yeah. The entries in the Marvel books are so much richer and more specific (and lean towards trying to sound scientific). The Who's Who books are, on the whole, more hand-wavey. I'm not sure, but I have a 40-year-old memory of reading something where the DC editors and writers wanted more freedom to re-imagine powers as needed, whereas once something was in print for Marvel, fans could immediately start challenging the comic stories vs. the 'facts' of the Handbook - it says Thing can lift 75 tons, but he lifted something that should be over 100 tons, and that's more than he can lift... yaddah yaddah yaddah. Superman can be as weak or strong as the story needs him to be. He can lift a Pyramid one month, and struggle to lift a tank the next, and the writers don't have to justify these against hard numbers that are in print. As a reader, I always wanted the numbers, but now as a sometime writer, I like having a little more wiggle room so that I can challenge heroes within the context of the stories I write. 

And about Stalwart:

- I've added a few more gifts and some minor tweaks to the Companion. It's at 12 pages, and I don't think there's too much more I can add... I want to go through it with a fine-tooth comb, but I might lock it down, add some art, and 'release' it this weekend.

- I hit 50 copies sold today of the core rules for Stalwart! That's a big milestone for me - in less than two weeks, I've sold 50 books, which is a really great number for me. Another very positive review was posted this week as well, so the momentum is there... I hope it keeps building. I think that the potential audience for this is in the low thousands... we'll see. 

- I'm working on some actual play that blurs the lines - it would be an adaptation of a backup story that appeared in Doc's comics... so I'd be playing through the plot of the backup stories, and then my actual play will become 'canon' for what happened in those issues. It's kind of meta, but everything about this is kind of meta, so I guess it fits right in.

Just Wanted to Share

I feinally designed Null the Devourer today, and put him with all kinds of Kirby Crackle. This feels like if Ditko and Kirby did a Doctor Strange/FF crossover back in the day. I think he's nifty. Appropriate for a game I am calling 'the world's niftiest superhero RPG'...

The Stalwart Companion

The Stalwart Companion continues on apace. I'm up to twenty more gifts (powers), and I've managed to include some of the 'tougher' ones to design...

I remember REALLY struggling with creating energy solidification for Stalwart Age. I really wanted this to feel like Green Lantern's ring, but I had the darndest time getting the rules to bend at the right angles to make it work. I had it on my list for the core rules of Stalwart, and decided it just wasn't worth the time and effort to put in the core rules - plus, I was hitting my 16-page target, and was sorting things into 'necessary' and 'less necessary'. However, I decided last night to give it a swing, and (to my mind) nailed it on the first draft.

Energy Solidification. You are able to use 1 action to shape energy into physical objects. Weapons you craft deal your power damage (and use brawling to attack). Other objects have hits equal to your power dice rating. Something you generate to lift or carry has a might rated at your power. Every item you create through solidification requires 1 action per round to maintain.

That's it. The whole thing. Easy-peasy. It sounds and feels just like a lantern ring - and it didn't require a single new subsystem, way to track objects, exceptions to the rules. It just took the existing rule framework and plugged in the appropriate information. Check. So even though Green Lantern only has Might D6, his Power D20 allows him to lift over a hundred tons with his ring. So, the idea of helping an airliner that is crashing level out and glide safely is not THAT far off the mark.

I also decided to try and replicate the Human Torch's full nova effect. Here's what I came up with:

Bomb*. No more than once per minute, you are able to emit energy in a massive blast centered on yourself. Use 1 action and roll power for damage, adding your full current hits to the result. You are immediately reduced to 0 hits, and must check might (DT 6). If successful, you are felled; if you fail, you are defeated. You deal damage in a radius of 10’ x your force. All in the area of effect suffer damage, but may check reflex (with a DT of your force) to suffer only half damage. 

Again, it was obvious (to me) how this should work within the existing rules - because the game already has rules for being felled and being defeated, it was just a matter of applying those concepts. I didn't have to develop new rules for being tired or reduced to zero hits or anything, because it is baked right in. I could just apply the existing rules to this new situation.

Thinking forward, I expect that by about 16 pages in I will exhaust almost every common, uncommon, and even rare situation that could arise. At that point, it will make sense to me to put a bow on this, and release it as a PWYW game expansion on DriveThru. DriveThru has greater visibility, and keeping updates in the larger game world's consciousness is only going to bring benefits. Then, I can add any very unusual new gifts or tags directly with the character to whom they are associated in the World of Stalwart, and dedicate all of my free time to updating that.

It All Comes Together

Well, I've had a productive day!

I spent some time on the Stalwart Age blog, moving content over to the World of Stalwart setting book. It's been a few years since I've looked at much of this, but... wow. I have enough time and space from it to see it for what it is, and what it is is pretty awesome. I mean, I'm back to being overjoyed to be able to live and create in this world. The best choice I made was setting the world of the comic in a 'messy' world of comics that has continuity problems, storylines that don't make much sense, and revisionist history. It has creators who don't get along and behind-the-scenes drama. 

I realized that the Doc novella I wrote is really, really good. I also realized that almost no one has read it. So, I posted a pdf of it on DriveThruFiction (hoping that help it might get some eyeballs), and I'm doing a little bit of signal boosting about it. It's a well-written, engaging novel set in a superhero universe with some cool things happening. It's a pay-what-you-want download. There's really no reason not to check it out. I think you'll be hooked in the first few pages. I was (again).

And, as far as that World of Stalwart book goes... well, it's coming along VERY nicely, thank you very much. I added an appendix, which is a game changer. It's going to ultimately be a complete list of every issue published in and about the game world. I've only got a few dozen comics listed there, and some of the entries are very brief, but I hyperlinked back to the Stalwart Age blog with the issues that have longer summaries. 

Ultimately, I've spent the day playing around in a world I know really well, and that feels very organic (because it is). I am very much experiencing what Tolkien once said about writing; you are not creating something. You are taking a leaf from the great tree of stories and doing what you can to describe that leaf as accurately as you can. I'm not making this up or creating it; I'm simply telling you about this world that already exists, and I just happen to have a front row seat at the window into it.

Stalwart Keeps Expanding

Stalwart keeps selling more copies on DrivethruRPG, and I am so grateful to everyone who has purchased a copy and said nice things about it :) Thank you!

The more time I spend on this game, the more amazed I am by its simplicity and applicability. I spent 40 years (no hyperbole) trying to write this game. I have entire notebooks filled with dice mechanics and brainstorming and notes and sketches of how to build a dice system that would be flexible enough to apply to any superhero situation, but also simple enough to be able to play without ever looking at the book. 

Seriously, once you know the dice (4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 16, 20) and know how to cut those numbers in half (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10), and know how to cut THOSE in half again and round down (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5), you know everything you need to know. That's the entire game. But, somehow, it still feels like it encompasses the full range of supers, and allows for a lot of nuance within what is a very simple framework.

The other thing that lets me know the design is pretty good is that every time I come up with a new problem, the game already knows how to solve it mechanically. I just added about a dozen gifts to the Stalwart Companion (it's up to 9 pages now), and every weird, unusual gift immediately had the most logical way to solve it in game. Part of the design trusts the GM in setting thresholds for challenge ratings (4, 8, or 12... with a 'default' setting of 6 if you really have no idea). Once you grasp that 4 is kinda challenging, 8 is pretty challenging, and 12 is like super challenging, you can solve anything that comes up. This also should make it really easy for players and GMs to develop custom gifts that are not in the rules. I think I'll add some suggestions to the GM section how to do that.

I've also gotten some feedback, and as a result I have two things I've been added to the companion: the first is point-build (rather than random) character generation. Again, it was an easy add, and I think it makes a lot of sense. I tied the number of gifts you get to your force (your power SV), because characters with higher power are likely to have more powers, and this allows the player to decide how many gifts they can get by allocating the points to power. The character you end up creating with this method is pretty much typical of a character you would get through random generation, so I don't see one as giving you 'better' characters... they're just different ways to solve the same thing.

Second, I'm adding some rules about stabilizing dice results on results (like damage). I like that superpowers have this large range of damage (D20 gives results of 1-20; so that cosmic energy bolt could potentially only deal 1 hit. I'm okay with that). However, for things like a tank cannon, it should deal more consistent damage in a narrower range. I think a reasonable alternative is to shift down 2 dice, but add that die's SV to damage. So, D10 (1-10) becomes D6+3 (4-9); D16 (1-16) becomes D10+5 (6-15). The average gets a little higher, but the range is narrower, and you cannot get the highest possible result. I like that option, and I think that players could choose this alternate damage for their attacks as well, if they so desired. D12 is the only outlier, and the stabilization is always superior to the standard die (since it still gives a 12 option, but the lowest result possible is 5). As I warn in the rules: if you are going to stabilize your dice, your enemies will too! This is another one of those easy fixes that the game had already told me how to solve.

 

Some Stalwart Musings

It's been a good week! Already, I've sold a few dozen copies of Stalwart - but FAR more importantly, people seem to genuinely like it and are talking about it. I'm very happy to have a game that people are demonstating genuine enthusiasm for. Thanks! The game keeps trending in the top 30 games under $5 (I've been on and off the front page a few times). It's very heartening.

Over on the Stalwart Age blog, I posted two things: the first issue (in prose form) of Skye Stalwart: The Girl Who Fell to Earth and an 'interview' with creator Byron John. Back in the day, I was always as interested in the interviews with creators (sometimes moreso) than with the thing that they created. To read an interview with John Byrne or Dave Sim would be the highlight of my week. I LOVED getting behind the scenes with the creative process and the politics of the world of comics. It's fun for me to be, in the most meta way possible, creating multiple layers: the game/comic world, but also the world of the people behind these comics. I'm creating the comics that are created in an alternate reality. 

I've made a bit of progress on both resources (linked on the left there) - I like how the World of Stalwart especially is coming together. I also like how the game design forces me to continually get things to the point where they are just barely not hand-wavey, and have just enough mechanical and structural support that they hold together as actual gaming. It's kind of like punk in this way (except it's nothing like punk, just to be clear) - it's like, how much can I make this sound like random noise while still having an actual structure that just barely holds it all together? I'm enjoying that 'living on the edge of chaos' mindset. There is just enough structure to keep the game together, but not a whit more. The master table on page 1 holds it all together. Everything fits in that one chart. There are no mechanical subsystems. I have to figure out how the new element I want to add fits into that structure, and it's leading to some cool discoveries. 

This has been a crazy week at work, but I finished the gauntlet tonight - so this weekend, I hope to get some solo gaming in... I would like to play Skye Stalwart and see how she does against some new villains. It's time to start building her rogue's gallery...

I'm Number (3)1!

It may not sound THAT impressive, but I'm very happy that Stalwart is now number 31 in the most popular under $5 category on DriveThruRPG. Ever since RPGNow was hoovered up, I have not had a game appear on any top whatever list there, so it's been a couple-three years. I appreciate all of the support and enthusiasm for the game, and I'm having fun creating game content. I've added quite a bit already to both of the resources for Stalwart, and the size of the game's total 'content' has almost doubled in a few days...

It is a HUGE help, if you've bought the game, if you also post a review or at least give it a rating in stars. This is a way that the larger community sees that real people are actually looking at the game and liking it.

Parenthetically, I can see how the makers of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (and Who's Who in the DC Universe) had to struggle with timeliness and continuity - and I'm a one-man operation! For example, which 'Vesper' do I present? The one from the core rules of Stalwart Age, or the one that she became later in my Doc Stalwart novella, when she ascended to the throne of the Shadow Lands? Since comic characters are constantly changing (and then changing back), what is the 'iconic' version to include in the book? I want to sort of 'freeze the game world in time' for convenience, but I'm also starting to think about stories to tell with Skye Stalwart, and if that was to happen, then characters in the game world are going to evolve and change. Heck, Mikah has gone from a naive sidekick trying to figure out his powers to the Chronicle, Keeper of the One True Story. They are both "Mikah", but they are fundamentally different characters. I suppose that I'll just constantly update the World of Stalwart to be current to the newest release, but that may mean that some useful game content gets written over - unless I keep adding new character variations and evolution as they happen, keeping a record of the old ones. It's a living document with infinite space to work (I presume that Google Docs has no maximum page count), so I should be okay...

Thanks!  

Stalwart Superhero RPG Resources

Here are some resources for your Stalwart game:

- The Core Rules are now available in pdf.

- The Stalwart Companion includes expanded rules and options. This is available as a google doc or as a PWYW download on DrivethruRPG.

- The World of Stalwart includes setting material, characters, and adventures set in the game's default setting. This is a free resource with regular updates.

- The Stalwart Age is a (semi-retired) blog that has significant background set in the world of the game (albeit using the rules for the Stalwart Age RPG). Much of this will eventually be adapted to the Stalwart Companion and the World of Stalwart resources. This blog also has the full text of the Doc Stalwart novel, set in the game world. However, a print edition of that book is also available, for those who prefer that. I also re-released as a PWYW download.

Aldo (a.k.a. Dragonfly) created two character sheets. Thank you!

     Hero Character Sheet

     Villain Character Sheet

A celebration of action management

The single best 'innovation' of Stalwart is the idea of action management. Here it is in a nutshell; you have a number of potential actions each round based on half your tier die, and half that many (rounded down) are available to you at full power.

So, if you are a D8 paragon, you can attempt up to 4 actions per round, but only 2 are at full strength. You can attack twice at d8, or 4 times at d6 (in the simplest application). If a foe is hard to hit, you might want the bigger die. Against large numbers of weak foes, you might take the bonus actions.

The awesomeness of the system comes when you are doing multiple things. Want to travel your full movement? That's one action. You either have one or three left - up to you. You have genuine decisions to make with resource management every round that change how your character operates, and which gives a lot of variety to combat without any additional rules.

Even better, it gets rid of all of the rules for how long things last for; how long is that foe under your mind control? How long does invisibility last? How long can you hold that car up with your telekinesis? Hey, if you want to dedicate an action to it every round, you go right ahead. You can stay invisible for hours if you feel like you want to dedicate one action every round to doing it. There's a genuine cost to maintaining powers over time, and decisions to be made - I now have three enemies under mind control, but I cannot do anything else... do I drop the mind control on one, or just accept I'm taking the -1 shift on anything else I do? Decisions... decisions... decisions. It makes the game a LOT more tactical without ANY additional rules to memorize or numbers to crunch. It's all hard-wired into that one mechanic.

And by the way, hyperspeed just eliminates all of the penalties and gives you the full assortment of actions every round. The flash gets to act 6 times per round, and doesn't take a penalty - and he can travel a mile with one of those actions (or six miles in the full round). He can run a mile to the store, grab something off the shelf, run to the counter, drop $10 on the counter, and run a mile back home in six seconds. It's easy to solve in game within the existing framework.

This eliminates the action creep that made its way into Stalwart Age... characters were getting insane numbers of actions just so I could keep things cinematic and moving. Now, just this minor shift in the application of the rule makes hyperspeed feel like hyperspeed without the numbers increasing at all.

Hashtag Blessed

No lie, I am one of the luckiest dudes in the world. As I've been working on Stalwart, I've been going through my drawings and notes and older materials, and I realize that the superhero world that 12-year-old me wished I had is here. It's the setting and the characters and the stories - and the game - I was always hoping to find. And, while it is not entirely original, it is still its own unique thing; I think of it like the Incredibles - it's all familiar and based in stuff you already know a lot about, but it's also entirely its own thing. 

I cannot believe how lucky I am to have this fully realized world that I just get to play around in and make stories for and generate cool stuff to go with. And, now, I have (almost) a game that fully aligns with it. I LOVE Stalwart Age - but Stalwart is better. It's more playable. It's more intuitive. It's cleaner and faster and more internally consistent. 

And as I was doing dishes, I realized that, while Stalwart Age was about Doc, this game is really about his daughter. Yes, he's a character in this world still, and probably its most famous one, but the character whose story seems more salient at the moment is his daughter Skye. She belongs on the cover, so I'm putting her there.

I also had this cool comic script pop to mind. I'll just describe it here, but I'll write the issue soon enough. It is after Doc goes on a mission to save his daughter from the Null Zone (I still haven't written these issues - I am waiting for the big piece I'm missing that pulls it all together to emerge. I'm getting closer...).

Anyway, this story takes place six weeks after she is successfully brought home. One of the long-term consquences is that both she and Mikah age dramatically due to exposure to the unstable energies of the Null Zone. So, Doc has just learned he has a daughter and rescued her - and now she is leaving for college.

The whole issue would be the letter she writes to her father about how, even though he needs time with her, she needs time to figure out who she is in this world. It's this somber meditation on fatherhood (because I'm a sucker for that - my daughter is turning 16 in a few weeks, and I'm starting to feel the pull of fate inexorably drawing her into her adult life). So the whole thing is Doc going around, doing maintenance on the Beetle, sewing his costume, and getting his boots ready for the next mission. Meanwhile, Mikah hangs up his costume for the last time and moves into Mr. Silver's old office, which is his now. Meanwhile, the text of the letter underscores everything. The last images are the three setting off into their new roles - Mikah starting a new file, Doc going on his first solo mission in a long time, and Skye hovering over the skyline of the new city she will be living in - San Helios, on the west coast of the Americas. 

  

Update on Stalwart

I've done a full-scale reformatting of Stalwart. You can view it here.

A few things:

- I think I'm locked in at 16 pages for the core rules. I don't want to go longer than this or it undermines my basic goal of getting the game into a tight package. I can still add a few things and stay within 16 pages.

- I've also given up on print as an option here; at only 16 pages, you can print it yourself! It would be four sheets of regular copy paper (5 with the cover). I changed the formatting (again) to 8.5 x 5.5 digest size with .5 margins. This is best (from my perspective) for looking at on a device. It looks really good on my phone.  

- I've sprinkled a mix of old and new art. I took some of my favorite images from the prior game and added some bolder line work to bring them up to speed. I was surprised at how thin much of the linework was that made it into the original rules. I guess I was nervous about using thicker lines - no idea why that was. I still have a few new pieces to draw (or older pieces to upgrade)... we'll see.

- I got rid of most of the tables. The larger tables were taking up a lot of room, and they weren't particularly attractive. I simplified things to bulleted or numbered lists. There are still opportunities to add to the gifts, tags, energies, and limitations lists, and I'm sure I'll add a bit to each before all is said and done.

Playtest #4 - Enter Doc Stalwart, Stage Left

The Mighty Doc Stalwart
Legendary Hero (D12/6[3]); Hits 24; Move 30’; Hero Points 8
Might D16 (8); Mind D12 (6); Power D6 (3); Reflex D8 (4)

Invulnerable; Leaping; Flight (jet pack 60’)

Brawl (+1); Popularity (+1); Profession (Science +2); Stalwart (+2)

Goonsquad Brawler

Normal Thug (D6/3[1]); Hits 12

Might D6 (3); Mind D4 (2); Power D4 (2); Reflex D6 (3)

Machine Pistol (D8); Kendo Stick (D8)

Gila the Monster

Paragon Villain (D8/4[2]); Hits 18; Move 30’; Villain Points 4

Might D10 (5); Mind D4 (2); Power D6 (3); Reflex D6 (3)

Amphibious; Invulnerable (5); Weapon, Claws (D12)

Brawl (+1); Popularity (+2; lizards/amphibians only); Sneak (+2)

Limitation: -1 shift if he is out of water for more than 24 hours.

I moved Doc up to D16 might - (in Eddie Murphy Gumby voice) because he’s Doc Stalwart, dammit! Also, I want to roll D16s. Because they are my preciousssss….

I decide that the ninjas were not replaced (those are not cheap), but four goonsquad bouncers are now standing watch in the warehouse when Doc arrives. He knocks on the front door, and then rips it off the hinges (I rolled a 2 on the first try, so he breaks the door handle; then I rolled a natural 16). “Guess you all didn’t hear me knocking. No problem. I’ll just let myself in.”

He doesn’t bother rolling initiative. He lets the brawlers each fire their auto pistols at him. Two of them hit, rolling 4 and 1, but all of these bullets just bounce off of his skin. He strolls in among them and starts swinging. He rolls 4, 8, 2, 6, 6, 5. These become 5, 9, 3, 7, 7, 6. He hits six times. He deals (rolling D12 six times): 8, 6, 5, 4, 7, 1. He drops the first with the 8 and 6, drops the second with the 5 and 7. He uses the 4 and 1 on a third, breaking his arm and forcing him to drop the pistol. They both fail their morale check (decided that will be DT 6; added that to the core rules draft).

He descends the stairs (seeing the blood from the ninjas) and enters the sewers. Gila uses 1 action to gather a found weapon (just added those to the rules as well). He has a chunk of concrete and rebar that he smacks against Doc’s back. He hits for 5 damage, but the entire thing just crumbles against Doc’s back. Doc turns and hits him with 3, 11, and 5 (which are 4, 12, and 6 after his brawling bonus). He hits three times, dealing 4, 13, and 9. Gila soaks 5 from each, so suffers 8 and 4, for 12 damage. He’s at 6. 

Gila claws twice, (I just realized I was letting Zealot take 5 attacks when his max is 4… oops. Not that it did him much good - he still got thumped good). He hits with a 6 (misses with a 2). However, the claw only deals 6, so Doc is able to soak the whole thing. Doc punches him with a natural 12. I rule that this is critical damage (see below). Doc rolls 16 for damage, and puts Gila 6” into the concrete wall. He then uses an attack action to finish him. He carries Gila’s limp body (not dead, but hurting like crazy) towards the lair of Sudoku. Trouble awaits…

Analysis

• Doc barely worked up a sweat; this makes sense. Captain Marvel is not going to have much trouble with Killer Croc; Thor is going to rip through the Lizard. These are not comparable foes, so it makes sense that the fight would be one-sided. I’d hope so. If Doc was taking on the entirety of Zealots’ rogue’s gallery (oooh. Maybe he’ll do that next!) it would be different. We’ll see.

• I started thinking about critical hits during the fight. It doesn’t make sense to have a max roll be a critical hit, because a D4 would crit 25% of the time, while a D20 would only crit 5% of the time. That makes no sense. I could see crits happening if your attack exceeds the dice rating of your foe; so Doc would score critical damage (+1 die shift) if he rolls an attack of 9 or better against Gila (since Gila has a D8 dice value). You can’t land crits against foes in the same tier (unless you have a bonus to hit) or higher, and the greater the difference between you and a foe, the more likely you are to crit. This makes a lot of sense. 

Zealot Playtest #3

Zealot
Paragon Hero (D8/4[2]); Hits 16; Move 30’; HP 4

Might D8 (4); Mind D8 (4); Power D4 (2); Reflex D10 (5)

Armor (4); Jump (swingline 120’) Melee Weapon (battle staves D10)

Brawl (+2); Infiltration (+1); Stealth (+1)

Gila the Monster

Paragon Villain (D8/4[2]); Hits 18; Move 30’; Villain Points 4

Might D10 (5); Mind D4 (2); Power D6 (3); Reflex D6 (3)

Amphibious; Invulnerable (5); Weapon, Claws (D12)

Brawl (+1); Popularity (+2; lizards/amphibians only); Sneak (+2)

Limitation: -1 shift if he is out of water for more than 24 hours.

I reworked the stat blocks for Zealot and Gila a little bit (just tweaks here and there), and changed the picture for Gila (mirror imaging it) so that he and Zealot aren’t in the same pose. I must really like that pose - I used it twice without realizing it. At least they now look like they’re going at each other.

I’m on a kick at the moment of building street-level villains for Zealot, so I’ll just keep doing that and build a little Rogue’s Gallery for him. I’ve already decided how Sudoku fits in to his ‘story’ a bit, so putting together a few more Batman-level foes (i.e. directly swiped from Batman the Animated Series) is on the priority list.

Anyway, Zealot has defeated three goons and two ninjas, and now is on to the basement. An open sewer grate in the boiler room has muddy tracks leading towards it, with clear claw marks. Zealot recognizes it immediately as Gila the Monster. He drops into the sewer tunnel and calls out for Gila, who emerges from the shadows. “Been waiting for this a long time, Zealot”. He cracks his knuckles and charges…

Round 1: Gila wins (8 vs. 1) and attempts two claw attacks. He misses with a 1 and 3. He spends 1 villain point to bump that 3 (+1 from brawling, +1 from villain point) to a 5. He hits and swipes at Zealot’s head. He deals 12 damage (dang!). Zealot’s armor soaks 4, and this leaves Zealot at -2. He is felled. His head smacks against a pipe, and he crumbles into the thick water. He spits out blood.

Round 2: Zealot rolls a 5, and stands back up, now at 8 hits and on his first recovery. He clicks his sticks together. “You’ve been practicing.” Gila wins initiative again, and hits with a 6+1=7. He deals 6 damage, and Zealot’s armor soaks 4, leaving him at 2. Zealot attacks with a flurry of five attacks, getting 6, 6, 5, 4, 2. With his bonus, these are 8, 8, 7, 6, 4. These all hit. Gila has such low reflex that it still makes sense to go for the extras (since he will hit with a roll of 2 or better). We’ll see about damage… he rolls five times for damage, and gets VERY lucky… 8, 8, 8, 7, 1. The one gets totally soaked, but after invulnerability he deals 3, 3, 3, 2 - so 11 points. Gila is at 7. 

Round 3: Gila hits twice (8+1=9 and 4+1=5). These deal 5 and 6 damage respectively. This drops Zealot for a second time. He tries to stand back up, but rolls a 1. He collapses in the water. Gila laughs as he drags the fallen hero into the lair of the one paying him all that money - Sudoku.

Analysis:

• Well, Zealot lost. I’m not entirely surprised. This would be a tough fight for him at full strength, and he walked into the battle already licking his wounds. It’s okay, because my D16’s just arrived (yay!) so now I’m going to playtest Doc Stalwart. That should be fun. This gives reason for Doc to go in search of Zealot, since Sudoku will now have him in a classic deathtrap. That’s fun.

• I like the synergy between evade and invulnerability. Some foes are easy to hit and hard to damage; others are hard to hit and hard to damage. I think that heroes will need either high evade or high invulnerability for optimal survival. Spidey and Flash will be okay because they have such high reflex. The Thing and Power Man are okay because they have the high invulnerability. Captain America has solid but unremarkable ratings in both, so he can manage. Characters like Magneto and the Invisible Woman are going to need to project force fields to offset the fact that they have no other way to evade or reduce damage. This also feels comic-accurate.

Zealot Redux

After drawing Gila the Monster, I decided that was how I wanted character profiles to appear - waist up action poses. I feel like that better represented the character... so I gave Zealot that treatment, too, and I like this drawing better. Okay... back to work on my game now.

 

Before and After

I thought it would be helpful for me to see, and maybe to show others, how the game and my style have evolved in the last two years. First, here is a stat block for Gila the Monster from Stalwart Age...

Next, here is a new drawing and stat block for Gila from Stalwart...

Gila the Monster

Paragon Villain (D8/4[2]); Hits 18; Villain Points 4
Might D10 (5); Mind D4 (2); Power D6 (3); Reflex D6 (3)
Amphibious; Invulnerable (5); Weapon, Claws (D10)
Brawl (+1); Popularity (+2; lizards/amphibians only); Sneak (+1)

Limitation: -1 shift if he is out of water for more than 24 hours.

So... the art and the stat block have come a long way. Both are simpler and cleaner. The word bold comes to mind. Both the stat block and the art have a bit more of a sense of being bold.

More Stalwart Design Thoughts - A Deep Dive

The master table on page one of the rules is basically the greatest thing ever. I keep realizing that every problem I run into is already solved on the table. To whit, I was trying to figure out how to balance character creation and dice rolling to create reasonable results. I toyed with rolling your tier die (meh), rolling one below your tier tie (that sucked), rolling one above your tier die (that was a little better, but you still had a really good chance of ending up with a D4 even at higher tiers), or rolling your tier die + a set modifier (that was about the best solution, but I didn't love it). Then I realized I could just say you roll your tier die + that tier's SV... and the problem solved itself. Here's why:

• As a normal, you roll D4+2. You end up with either 3-5 (giving you a D4) or 6 (giving you a D6). A normal has a 25% chance of having an expert-level trait. That feels right.
• As an expert, you roll D6+3. You end up with 4-5 (giving you D4), 6-7 (giving you D6) or 8-9 (giving you D8). You have a 33% chance of being a paragon of something, a 33% chance of having some expertise, and a 33% chance of a trait being normal. Seems reasonable.
• As a paragon (the lowest level a superhero might be), you roll D8+4. Now things get interesting. You have a small chance of having a D4 (roll a 1+4=5 rounded down to 4), 25% chance of having a D6 (6-7), 25% chance of having D8 (8-9), 25% chance of having D10 (10-11), and a 12.5% chance of having D12 (12). I'm thinking characters like Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Daredevil (Nightwing, Aqualad, and Black Canary too) are at this tier. I can build any of them with these ranges.
• As a super (the most common tier for superheroes), you roll D10+5. The lowest you can have is D6 (you roll 6-7; 20% chance), but you have a 20% chance of getting D8 (8-9), 20% chance of D10 (10-11), and a 40% chance of hitting D12 (12-15). You are likely to have lots of ways to trade 2 for 1 here, and bump something up to D16 if you really want it, but are likely to have some decent dice one way or another. 50% of the MCU is in this tier. A lot of DC characters are, too (although most of the big names are the next tier up).  
• As a legendary character (the highest tier I would recommend for PCs), you roll D12+6. You cannot get to cosmic, but nothing is going to start normal. You are going to at least have a D6 (7), or will have D8 (8-9), D10 (10-11), D12 (12-15), or might even grab a D16 or two (16-18). These are Iron Man, Thor,... Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash... Batman and Captain America are capped at D10, but they've got so many bonuses that offset the relatively low dice at this tier. I think you can build them in this game (looking forward to trying).  
• Who is titanic? Thanos. Darkseid. Hela. Superman. Hulk. Maybe Silver Surfer. Thor after he becomes the 'god of lightning' in Ragnarok. It's a short list.
• This is a great distribution of scores. I really like it. 

***

Character advancement is just NOT A THING. I've decided to abandon a lot of (what I consider) bedrock RPG concepts - there is no character advancement, and I'm not particularly concerned about game balance. 50 soldiers with rifles are not going to harm the Hulk. That's just how it is. There's no treasure to recover, cool gadgets to unlock, or other 'advancement' markers. The game is a story-based game of superheroes. It is what it is. Anything else ends up making it feel less like the source material, and more like a game loosely-inspired BY the source material. A 'campaign' as it were will happen if you love the characters and are compelled by the story you are building together. A new campaign will start when you don't. It's like comics in that way, too - if you like it, you'll keep reading. If you don't, you'll try a different comic for a while. Maybe a new creative team will come in with a new story idea that revitalizes the characters - and maybe that character you put in a folder three months ago will get dusted off when your group comes up with a great storyline to tell together. I think I'll be using the word storyline instead of campaign, because that's what it really is.

***

I don't think that the core book should include much in the way of setting or background or campaign structure. I want the rulebook to be tight and focused, and to keep the page count low. 16 pages should be enough for the entire game; I've already got a bunch of other resources available. I like the model I'm using for Hack'D. The core rules are a dollar for the PDF, but everything else is PWYW or just linked for free to the site. 

***

I like how simple the descriptions are for gifts, and I like the built-in limits for bonuses based on tier. A +1 or +2 is a significant boost when you are rolling 1d10 against a target of 6. You quickly go from 50% chance of success to 60% to 70% with those bonuses. There's a nice, natural progression that keeps the numbers low. I'm very pleased with how I've found a way to scale a game at a superhero level without letting the numbers scale beyond the low 20s in almost every situation. It keeps math at the table relatively simple, which keeps the game moving. I think there's a real danger in having numbers so big that the experience bogs down. Yes, it's awesome to roll 12 dice and deal 73 damage, but then we wait while you subtract the 73 damage from the 142 hit points (but don't forget the 10% damage reduction ability, meaning that the 73 becomes a... wait... 73-7=65? Is that right? No. 13-7 is 6, so it must be 66. Okay. And 142-66 is... dang. Where's my calculator again?). The dramatic tension just slowly drains from the gameplay experience.

***

The single best thing about the design so far might be the rules for being felled and getting back up. This is the single mechanic that shifts this game from being a RPG where you reduce your foe to 0 hits and win to a game that emulates how comics and comic-based movies work. Your team FINALLY knocked down rampage... and now you hold your breath as the GM rolls, hoping he doesn't get back up again...