Playing with Loom - My First Video Tutorial

I figure that I can create some videos to help get the word about the stuff I create. Here's a video I created with a new character I designed on the spot... still figuring out how to embed this places and get it to youtube and signal boost it and all of that good stuff, but at least I have a video. Maybe next time I'll drink more water so I don't cough and will go somewhere my dog won't be barking :)

Visually Representing the City

I showed Mary the map I had started for Meridian, and she was... not a big fan. She doesn't think it should look like a GPS map, but an isometric view like the Disneyland and Batman LEGO maps that follow... but to do something on the scale I'm thinking would be... massive. It would be a HUGE project. It would be awesome, but man that would take a few weeks (not that I have a lot of other stuff I NEED to do... but still).

Hello City - Options

In shifting the game (a bit) from focused on my stories to focusing on stories that players could tell, I've been thinking that I'd like to publish a series of adventures (crosses fingers that I FINALLY get this right... it's been my big bugaboo in expanding games in the past - so I need a plan for it to work this time). I think that the adventures will be set in a 'new' comic series from Stalwart Press. The idea is that after Doc Stawlart #250, New Stalwart Press launched a new comic series, "the New Stalwart Adventures", that followed 'new heroes' on 'new adventures' (the PC heroes, in the new adventures I publish). 

While these stories are not limited to one location, I need a default city for the game to build from. I have two cities so far: Echo City (which I detailed pretty thoroughly in Sentinels of Echo City - I mean, it's in the name), and Midvale (which I detailed more briefly in Stalwart Age and then ported over to the World of Stalwart Vol. 1 with some edits and clarifications). I see my options as:

1. Build on Midvale. It's got a foundation in place, and it wouldn't be hard to add some things to it. This is the cleanest option; it's a smaller city with fewer moving parts. It's a great starter location for heroes (that's why it's in the book). However, this is also its biggest limitation; there's only so much to do here, and the heroes are likely to 'grow out' of the city in short order. There is not a lot of intrigue here; the mayor goes to the July 4th Parade and eats too many hotdogs, and his blood pressure is a bit too high. That's about it for local drama.

2. Continue to build Echo City. This is the most well fleshed out of my three cities so far, and there are lots of things I really like about it. There are many places where this setting could grow. However, what I have could also get cleaned up, revised, and moved into the World of Stalwart Volume II... that's NOT a bad idea... also, in terms of tone, this is more Gotham City and less Metropolis. In fact, if I make this the focus on World of Stalwart Volume 2, that gives me more nitty-gritty to build.

3. Design a new city. This was where I started yesterday morning. The drawing above is for a city I was calling Brimsbay, in the Pacific Northwest. I like this drawing, but I can move it anywhere (I'll be finishing and coloring it. obviously... but it's the line art). This gives me a blank canvas to work from. I could also do this with a city I have only minimally mentioned (San Helios or Gap City, for instance). 

4. Design Meridian. Honestly, as I've been writing this post, I've convinced myself this is probably what I should do. It has the most stuff happening, I've already made this the 'most important' city in the game world, and I know that in the future, it's key to other events (if you have read Sentinels of Echo City, you know that it's doomed - at least in one timeline. I have already decided that Sentinels of Echo City takes place in an alternate earth... because I've already diverged from some events there, so it's now a different world. I don't think the Powers Family ever shows up in this reality, for instance). It's been the historic 'center' of superhuman activity, but it's also largely without heroes right now; Doc is off at the North Pole, the Victory Legion has broken up, and the villains haven't gone anywhere. It's a great place to set new adventures, and it's large enough to encompass a lot of things happening. Plus, I could make the arrival of the Messari (and another competing alien race) a central part of the new setting (and the new adventures that take place there)...

The idea is that this city gets its own 'sourcebook' (maybe 16 pages? maybe 24? I don't want to go much larger than that... the idea is that it's the foundation I can build upon as we go)... then the new adventures ("The New Stalwart Adventures") would be set here. The covers would feature the villains doing their villainy, with heroes either not on the cover at all, or at the edges in silhouette (to suggest that these are the PCs of the game). This gives me at least 16 'issues' I could produce before being 'caught up' to the current Doc continuity. That gives me a lot of room to grow.

By the way... I've realized that stealing what Marvel is doing with the MCU and the multiverse saga is probably the best move of all... all of my games and superhero game worlds (including the old Resolute RPG) happen in divergent realities from the main one (Stalwart Earth). So, I now have liberty to cross-pollinate my own work over 20+ years and have it all be interconnected in some grand way. The best thing about Spiderman: No Way Home was that it made all of the Spiderman movies 'canon' (and it will do that with X-Men next, which is a brilliant move). It's a way to honor the messy history of comics and make all of that work, and all of those stories, still matter. 

Reddit Link

I'm realizing that I'm pretty good at writing games, and very not good (whatever the opposite of good is) at promoting them. Any positive word of mouth or talking the game up on other platforms would be greatly appreciated (and I am VERY grateful for the reviews people have already left - those are HUGE).

That said, I'm going to be on Reddit more often to try and engage in conversations around superhero games, and maybe create a little more awareness for my game in the process. I asked a question there about superhero cities, so if you are on Reddit and feel like jumping into the conversation, please do!

(Augury is mind controlling you... go do that... go do that...)

Thanks!

World of Stalwart Volume I

The World of Stalwart Volume 1 is now up for sale as a PWYW download. And just... wow. I LOVE it. It has:

• 110 entries
• 66 characters (5 expert tier, 21 paragon tier, 18 super tier, 10 legendary tier, 7 titanic tier, and 2 ultimate tier... along with 3 entities).
• Snapshot descriptions of about 1/3 of the 260+ issues of Doc Stalwart (it's a lot of story). 
• 66 illustrations (!)
• All packed into 54 pages.

Also, believe it or not, I'm already at work on Volume 2. I didn't even get to mention Aegis Prison and its controversial history... or the Stalwart Legion from the 28th Century... or the War of the Gods (between Olympus and Asgard that leads to the creation of the New Eternia)... or the TriUne of Id the All Knowing, Oculo the All Seeing, and Omeg the All Powerful (and their eternal conflict)... so I have a LOT to still write about.

I found my groove with this... and I think I have two more such "World of Stalwart" books (of this scale) in me before all is said and done... which would be pretty amazing. By that point, I think I would have covered all 260+ issues of Doc's adventures, and every character who had appeared in his book. Then I can get back to writing 'new' adventures starting from 261... and Skye Stalwart... and maybe another spinoff.

I ALSO have an idea for how I can publish adventures for you to take your own unique characters on that would be scalable to various tiers and also within the 'official canon' of the game world... so you'd be playing in 'official' storylines in the comic world... I'm going to be very busy this summer.

Rolling Forward

First of all, this is unapologetically a riff on Mr. Freeze. This character, and particularly his presentation in the New Batman Adventures, is perfect. So, I just ripped it off. Sue me. (No, I don't mean that LITERALLY, DC Comics... jeez).

Second of all, I'm starting to see this project as something of my magnum opus. It's the most complete game I've designed, in the most complete world I've created, with a complete novella that supports it. I'm thinking that EVERYTHING (so the three game books, the novel, and a bunch of other stuff I make during this summer) is going to end up in the Ultimate version of Stalwart. I'm thinking of trying to do something bigger with this - a Kickstarter or a real solicitation or something. I don't know yet... but the wheels are turning.

I think this is the book that I carry around with me for the next ten years and say to people, 'here's the best thing I ever made'. I want to do everything I can to make this as special as I can.

Character Concept: Rochambeau

I mean, if your game doesn't have a super villain named Rochambeau, is it a game you really should bother playing?