Stalwart Phile #8

The 8th issue of the Stalwart Phile is now posted. It focuses on the Null Zone, presenting a few creatures who come from it. As you can see, I've done some housekeeping here on ye old blog. I've also done some updates to the Doc Stalwart Comic Database, and added a bit to the Resources tab for Stalwart '85. 

First of all, Stalwart Phile #6 is now available for download, so you might want to head over to DrivethruRPG and check that out...

In other news, my good friend Rob came over last night, and we had a grand time playing HeroQuest. It was my first experience with the game, and I really enjoyed it. It made me hanker for some solid solo play rules for Stalwart '85, but as I started to think about that, I immediately ran into the old bugaboo of supers RPG adventure design - the wide variety of powers that characters could have immediately puts up barriers towards concrete design. In a fantasy game, the heroes can ignore the trap, disarm the trap with a thief, or use magic to foil the trap; in a supers game, there are dozens of ways the trap could be foiled or even exploited, and a GM needs to be present to adjudicate the creative use of a power. HeroQuest always presented me with two or three viable choices in each situation, but it was only two or three - I could quickly sort through my options and pick one from a limited menu. Supers gaming theoretically blows that menu up and gives you an infinite number of options depending on your power set. Rob and I talked about cards, and maybe having a series of event cards to guide you through the adventure, but even there a supers game is wider in scope and scale than dungeon crawling; dungeons by their nature are limited environments with limited choices. 

It's something I'll puzzle over more, but it was great to sit with a friend for a few hours and roll some dice.

Aldo's Character Building Walkthrough

Aldo did a fantastic job of walking us through character building for Stalwart '85. I really appreciate the time he took to make and post this. It's really helpful, if you've had trouble wrapping your head around how character creation works.

Thanks, Aldo! 

Stalwart Phile #5

The Stalwart Phile #5 is now available, and it expands Doc's world into a new location, Port City, with a new central hero, the Skarab. While Echo City is a street-level city that is largely controlled by the criminal empire, Port City is a more 'normal' city, with a more garish and motley collection of villains. I was tempted to give Messenger a sidekick and expand Gap City, but decided instead to add a whole set of new comics to the mix. 

Creative Cycles

I've written before about how I tend to do the bulk of my creative work (gaming and comics stuff) between about April and August... because my job as a teacher, and especially my work directing plays and musicals, has demanded the vast majority of my creative energy, leaving me sort of tapped out when it came to gaming-related stuff.

This year, obviously, is different. I was forced to retire in July due to my prognosis and treatment, so as the school year has gotten going, it's been doing so without me. I have to admit that the first few weeks, and a few benchmark events along the way, have been a bit rough. This last weekend was the high school's fall play, and that was my 'baby', so it was a little rough that the show must go on without me.

But... that also means that I have all of this bottled-up creative energy that is suddenly springing forward. First on the docket was a revision of my Army Ants game, and then it was back to Stalwart '85. Over the weekend, I put together Stalwart Phile #4, and I've already almost finished Stalwart Phile #5. I am really, really happy with my work on this, and with where my drawing is at. I put together this cover this morning, and thought I'd share it, since it's going to be nestled on page 1 of SP #5. I just have to draw a helicopter and do an editing pass, and I'll be releasing Stalwart Phile #5 in the next day or two... 

And I've already got plans for #6, which is going to be Christmas themed. I mean, you're not really a hero unless you've saved Christmas at least once... 

Stalwart Phile #4

Stalwart Phile #4 is now available, providing an overview of the Circle of the Serpent and their base of operations. I already broke with my plan of alternating releases between PD characters and my own world; I think I'm going to lean towards expanding Doc's world more and on PD characters less, but we'll see. Some Christmas-themed write ups might be fun for next issue... hmm...

Stalwart '85 Character Advancement

I just posted about how I had to get some clutter out of the way, and suddenly I'm thinking of Stalwart '85 and character advancement... I was thinking that in the comics, characters do grow over time, but it tends to be very slow, with gradual increases in character effectiveness and power, and (once in a great while) bumps in character growth. I was thinking of something like this to tinker with for S85 and character progression...

OPTION ONE 

After every adventure, you have a cumulative 1 in 20 chance of advancing (so after the first adventure, you would have a 1 in 20 chance... after the second a 2 in 20 chance... after the third a 3 in 20 chance)... once you are successful, this resets. If after your third adventure, you roll a 2, you'd get to advance in some way, but the chances of increasing again would be reset to 1 after your next adventure. When you advance, you'd roll 1D6 to see how you advance...

1. Shift Body +1 Die

2. Shift Mind +1 Die

3. Shift Power +1 Die

4. Shift Reflex +1 Die

5. Gain one new Gift.

6. Increase Tier/Level +1.

On average, you would advance once every ten adventures, and you'd advance your tier/level once every 60 adventures. The GM would (of course) set caps on such advancement (or not. Think of Jean Grey becoming the Phoenix as an example of a character who got a pretty significant upgrade).

OPTION TWO

This is a more traditional XP progression. You earn experience points (an average adventure grants 5 xp... you earn 2 xp for an adventure that you do poorly on, but can earn up to 8 xp for a very successful adventure). You bank XP and then spend them to increase traits or tier, or to purchase new gifts.

Traits are 10x the dice value you are moving to... to shift from Might D10 to D12 costs 120 xp.

Tier are 20x the dice value you are moving to... to shift from level 4 (D8) to level 5 (D10) costs 200 xp.

New gifts have a default cost of 100 xp.

Slugfest!

It dawned on me this morning that I have never actually drawn Doc vs. Simian Prime. I mean, I have lots of drawings of Doc, and a few of Simian Prime, but I've never drawn them actually... you know... fighting. So, I took up the challenge and decided to go for the most iconic sort of late 60s slugfest image I could manage. I'm quite pleased with how this has come along. It's going to be the cover to something at some point... here it is in both black and white and color. I even like the black and white version. It's very clean.

Doc 127 Cover

Here it is... the finished cover for Mighty Doc Stalwart #127, which is also the final piece of art I had to finish for the Complete Rules for Stalwart '85. The layout is done, and I now have to do final edits and little bit of number crunching, but today was a big milestone in getting this project done... and, by the way, the members of the Stalwart Legion are (from left to right):

• Gamma Grrl. She was created in a lab, but she's mostly a real girl.
• Roboto Jr. His dad is the Stalwart Sentinel, so this makes him Skye's half brother (kind of)
• Skye Stalwart. You've met. Doc thinks she's a descendant of his a hundred generations from now. He's about 99 generations off...
• Gil Gamesh, final survivor of the planet Gamesh (he was 'Gil of Gamesh', but dropped the 'of' when his planet was destroyed, leaving him the lone member of his species).
• Blue Sun Boy. He has the power of a blue sun. 
• The Earthquake Kid. As you might have guessed, he controls geo forces.

As you can see, I split the difference between Legion of Superheroes and Marvel Family, and ended up with something... else?

Surreality

There's something surreal about having a character in my head for twenty years, but never really having drawn (or even attempted to draw that I can remember) the character. I've always 'known' what Vyperion kind of looked like, but I never really KNEW what Vyperion looked like. I mean, I created him, so I should know. However, the process of finally drawing him today for the first time in two decades was a lot like listening to someone on the radio for a few decades before you finally see what they look like in real life, and being both surprised and 'oh yeah, that makes sense' at the same time. He's not what I thought he'd look like, but somehow he's also exactly what he should look like. And I really like him.

Turning the Page

I've gone through my page on DriveThruRPG (and will hit itch in a hot minute), and I've taken down the books for Stalwart, and replaced them with the new, improved, super snazzy core rules for Stalwart '85! Thanks to the Kickstarter backers, this book is a pay-what-you-want release, and includes everything you need for ongoing play. The Kickstarter continues until September 11, and you can get you copy of the full rules (160+ pages) in pdf and print, as well as a number of cool, exlusive add-ons and nifttiness. 

Thanks SO MUCH to the backers of the Kickstarter whose support made this project possible. We still have two weeks to go! 

Stabilizing Dice (Feedback Welcomed)

I've had a few conversations around the dice in the game, and different options for reducing the swinginess of the options. I had already published one alternative, but I've come up with a second as well... here is a picture of the working draft of this page. Feedback is welcome! (By the way, the 2 or 3 always failing on 2D keeps this statistically similar to the current rules for automatic failure).

A Herculean Effort

I'm confident that the game you finally get (you know I'm doing a Kickstarter, right?) will have been carefully vetted. 

Today, I spent a decent chunk of time changing the rules for invulnerable and impervious, linking these to power instead of might. My thinking was that this would give greater variety to heroes, since the characters with invulnerability tend to be the big bruisers, and the might/endure combination makes them very powerful with the single stat. However, halfway into the process of initiating this change, I realized that it created all sorts of weirdness - characters who shouldn't have high power ratings suddenly needed them to justify the invulnerability they should have had (and did with the higher might). I'm hitting the point in editing and work on the game where I realize that every change I think about making ends up being a step backward - the design is pretty solid as-is. I keep reminding myself I've been working on this game for decades (in significant ways), and everything I have learned about game design has already been baked into the core system. There isn't a lot I can do 'better' without making foundational changes to the game. It's very, very good at being what it is. I'm going to let it be that.

Also, after drawing Modi yesterday, I decided to draw her Olympian parallel today, the great Prince Heracles. My 'War of the Demigods' storyline is about the children of the elder gods and their efforts to establish a new home as their old ones were dying. Modi was a leader among the Norse gods, and Prince Heracles was a leader among the Olympians. They will both appear in Stalwart '85.

A Minor Revelation

As I am tinkering with the layout for Stalwart '85, I had a little bit of a revelation; I wanted the 'core rules' (40-50 pages at the front) to be totally under the Creative Commons License, and the back part of the book (maybe 120 pages) to be my copyrighted material; I realized that if I use the art of public domain characters throughout the first part of the book, and only use my original characters in the back part, I get to have my cake and eat it, too. I've been having a lot of fun playing with the public domain heroes, and adapting them. I particularly enjoyed adapting Moon Girl's Moonship. Here it is!

 

Captain Battle

I keep posting characters to the Kickstarter page (because I cannot stop myself today), and I found the history of Captain Battle (in the public domain), and drew him. If the Kickstarter was just "Captain Battle", and you only got this character, one page of rules, and a way to fight his arch enemy "Baron Doom", the Kickstarter should raise like a billion dollars.

In fact, here's my free micro RPG for Captain Battle.

In combat, Captain Battle always goes first. When you attack (because you don't have any other choices. The game is called "Captain Battle"), roll 1d6 and see below.

1. You disintegrate your foe with your pistol. Earn all of the experience points.

2. You defeat your foe with your American fists of justice. Earn a million experience points, and the hearts of 1d6 x100 nurses.

3. You flex your muscles and your foe runs away. Earn half a billion experience points, and also increase your popularity +1,000 (oh, never mind. You already have infinite popularity. Okay, it's now infinite +1).

4. Roll twice.

5. Roll three times.

6. Do all of these things. 

Two Creative Commons Characters for the KS Campaign

I've posted an update to the Kickstarter with two characters who will be in the KS-24 superhero pack (that is released under a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 4.0 License... these are drawn from the database of Public Domain Super Heroes, but I'm adding my own twist to each of them (and doing my own designs largely). I've got about twenty more to come... (although stretch goals may increase this even further).

48 Hour Bonus

I added a special reward for backers within the first 48 hours... and I really think you want to get this. I kept laughing at myself as I was working on it tonight. If you happen to have seen a particular blockbuster superhero movie that might be in theaters right now, you're going to want to get this.

I'm in the zone with this Kickstarter. No lie. I REALLY want to post the picture I drew, but I'm saving it for backers only.

Kickstarter Thoughts

I've spent some time brainstorming ways that a potential Kickstarter could end up being more than just 'here's a book you can buy'... and I have ideas.

Oh MAN do I have ideas.

Because the thing that I keep coming back to is that my whole goal is to build community. I want to have a community of fellow players who are all engaged in some way with this shared text. In some ways, I want to be the caretaker of it, but I also want it to be bigger than me. I'm excited about the idea of people having their own games that are set within the various realities connected to mine, with their own characters and campaigns and worlds and events that may or may not align with those in the 'official' game. 

I've got some really, really cool ideas for a KS that would directly and practically support this goal. 

I'm very, very excited about how this is coming together. I'll be sharing more soon.