Pulp Gamer Out of Character

A super show guys!
I was interested in hearing this one. I've never play a supers game. SHOCK! As much of a comics geek as I am I have yet to play one. The good news is one of the guys in one of my groups picked up DC Heroes. GamerChris picked up Necessary Evil. And I picked up BASH. So now we just need to play. NE is the most interesting of the bunch to me.
Smallville sounds fun. I'm interested in seeing what the mechanics are all about. That is intriguing. And kudos to Margaret Weis Prod. for all the games they are doing.
Veronica, the trunk joke was great.
You didn't mention Capes. Have any of you played that?
For Jason and Ron -"DC Comics has confirmed for CBR News that work has begun on a new, six-issue limited series called "Formerly Known as the Justice League" that would reunite the comic creators." They're baaack.
Ron's idea of a JLI game is really awesome. How much fun would that be!
By the way, if you like clever humor and excellent characterization and writing in comics check out anything by Jeff Parker. He is FANTASTIC! Agents of Atlas is one of the best series I have ever read. I'm building SOTC characters based on a couple of the Agents. Gorilla Man in particular.
Origins - it pains me to see the website. I've had to cancel my plans to go this year. Just couldn't swing it. So I hope I'll see some of you at some other NC base con this year. Or a very remote possibility of me making RinCon. Maybe.
Last, Veronica seemed to have some trouble with the outro. I'll ask a friend if he might be able to help with that soon.
That's all from N.C.
Go Forth and Game.
tomg
tomgurg.wordpress.com

Pulp Gamer Superheroes

First, a problem with episode 116 downloaded through iTunes. It showed the episode as 016. The only thing that I can figure is someone was using an external keypad and had a fat finger incident.

Second, the episode regarding teaching RPGs. The best games are where both the players and GM are flexible, i.e. not wed to their characters or plots. You can get some great synergy going. I've been playing games, both board games and RPGs, for over 30 years, and these are definitely the best.

Third, 116. I've been playing superhero games for about as long as they've been coming out. In the early 80's, when I was working and playing at Flying Buffalo in Tempe, I played the original: Villains & Vigilantes, Marvel Superhero, DC Heroes, and, of course, Champions. The Buffalo Crew were tight with the Hero Games crew and I think we had beta or pre-release copies of Champions and we have been playing it ever since. So that's been over 25 years of Champions, every edition.

I had a wonderful time when a friend of mine was running Superworld, the super game by Chaosium using the same mechanics as Call of KUHTHOOLOO. My GM friend asked me if I wanted to run the villains. I said sure! I took him aside and whispered in his ear what I wanted to do. His eyes lit up and he agreed.

I ran the Hounds of Tindalos, from C of C, and killed every single one of the heroes.


My best GM experience was in LA. I drove down from Phoenix to attend Origins in 1984(!) and especially wanted to play in the Champions tournament. Unfortunately, the person who wrote the scenarios to be used in the tournament not only did not send the scenarios in, he didn't show up at Origins, and they were desperate for someone to run some Champs.

So I did.

Since the last thing that I wanted to contend with was 6-8 totally unknown heroes that people had been running in campaigns with totally unknown power levels and design specs, I decided to provide pre-gens. And I did it by digging out the Enemies books. These supplements were provided to give GMs villains to run as needed. I had all three Enemies books (at that time) and pulled out 10-12 bad guys who were all 250 points or so. I wrote them up on character sheets and gave them 25 points of unspent XP.

The framework of the game was that all of the players had been villains. They had been caught. They served time in prison and were now on parole and were working together. AS GOOD GUYS. They could customize their characters any way that they wanted except they couldn't increase their speed, dex, or ego. Anything else was ok. I didn't allow them to change those characteristics because I had already done up the watch list with the villains that they would be fighting.

The scenario started as a basic bank robbery. The “heroes” mowed through the thugs robbing the bank without too much difficulty, as planned. What actually happened was the robbery was a diversion for the abduction of the governor's daughter, to be held for a ridiculous amount of ransom money.

The final battle was an island assault to rescue the daughter. The fight was tough because their opponents were my hero characters that I ran in Champions campaigns in Phoenix! They were all, through earned XP, in the 350-400 point level, but there were fewer of them.

This worked quite well. I knew the “villains” capabilities and efficiencies intimately, since I ran them on a regular basis, I didn't have to worry about the power level of the “heroes”, and the players loved it. I pounded them mercilessly, but the participants won in the end.

We all had a lot of fun and I got a lot of congrats for a game well run.


But that's not the cool part.


Several years later, I was at a science fiction convention in Phoenix with my gaming friends. Some of my friends were talking in the hall with Michael Strazinski. This guy on the fringe of the group started staring at me, then finally came over and said “Do I know you? I think I know you.” I said “No, I don't recognize you.” He said “Yeah, I know you! You ran Champions in California!” I said “Nah, I've never ran Champions in California!” I had totally forgotten about running at Origins in '84 and didn't remember it then. He started recounting details and it all came together for me. He finished with “That was the best Champions game that I ever played in!”


He ran Mongoose, a fast and pretty lethal martial artist. He was fighting the main villain, Damian Styx (a nice guy – no, really! He's just misunderstood!) Styx was blasting him with ego killing attacks, but couldn't knock him out. Mongoose couldn't stun Styx because of a forcefield. The battle went on for over a full round, Mongoose fighting while near death, and finally Styx fell and the day was saved.


Since then, obviously I now remember the event pretty well, otherwise it would have been a total fabrication to write up this message.


I ought to recreate those villains and build another scenario like this, maybe run it at RinCon.


Anyway, I look forward to the rest of Hero Month Podcasts!

Hi guys! Sorry this is off topic (for the super heroes episode), but thanks for mentioning my game picks for the Summer. As you've surely heard, Fantasy Flight is re-releasing DungeonQuest this summer. Sooo... Ravenloft vs. DungeonQuest. Any thoughts? Both seem to be fully co-op / single player fantasy dungeon crawls. I'm not kidding myself; I'll end up buying both, but I wondered if you all might have an idea or take on what the difference will be.

What a great story, Wayne, and thanks for the comments, everyone.

TomG, "Bwah ha ha!"

To Mike: If you liked the Giffen era JL, you really should check out Jeff Parker's work. Though not as 'slapstick' type fun as often as JL it has great humor. AND the stories are good reads.
To Wayne: Congrats on taking the 'longest post' trophy away from me. I thought your story was interesting. Sounds like you had some cool times.
Looking forward to Hero Month,
Go Forth And Game
tomg

A long story needs a long post! Thanks for the trophy, Tom, I look forward to it arriving in the mail. How much should I insure it for when I have to send it back to you?


I've been wanting to comment for quite a while on the subject of accents. The only one that I do in role-playing recently is a Deadlands character: I'm occasionally playing the French school teacher in Tombstone by the name of Monique Lefevre. I built her on the gunfighter template and she's quite good at blowing away monsters. When speaking in character, I do a French accent with broken English, when it's me to GM I drop the accent. I don't speak French, though I have studied it and my teacher said I had a great accent, so it's certainly good enough for RPGs.


On the subject of learning accents, I've found some great podcasts from BBC Radio 4 and wish to commend unto anyone interested in UK accents the following programs: Friday Night Comedy (a rotating slot where one show does eight episodes or so, then another one comes in, repeat ad infinitum), Scotland's Funny Bits, and Radio Ulster's Funny Stuff. I commend them to people not just for the accents, but for the variety of accents. My wife's parents came from Scotland in the 50's, so I've met a few Scots and there are lots of different Scottish accents. They're all available on iTunes and RSS feeds from the BBC web site. Friday Night Comedy is typically around 25 minutes, the Scotland and Ulster shows are 6-12 minutes long, they're sort of clip shows of comedy bits from various radio shows during the week.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/fricomedy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/sfb

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/ulsterfun


If you want to take language exploration beyond learning an accent, there's another site, Radio Lingua, that has a series of podcasts called “One Minute [insert language name here]”. They have Gaelic, Irish, and quite a number of others where they teach you one or two words and that's it for the show. I haven't perused many of them, but they seem of good quality. Also available on both iTunes and RSS.

http://radiolingua.com/


And finally, I used to occasionally work at chess tournaments in Tucson. Most notably, we had a big one, I think it was the National Scholastic, at the convention center, probably in the late 90's. There was a live chess game between Josh Waitzkin (the inspiration for the movie Searching for Bobby Fisher) and a local Tucson teen phenom by the name of Paul something (I think). I think he was working on his Master ratings, he was very good for his age. At these events I mainly did computer work and photography, along with some floor directing. At the live game I happened to grab a photo of the girl who was the white queen who, for whatever reason, was holding one of her legs up behind her like she was stretching it or something. It was kind of funny, and I was quite surprised when the US Chess Federation decided to use it for the cover of their scholastic magazine, School Mates. So aside from publishing Zombie Cafe, I've also had one of my photographs on a national magazine cover.


That's it, looking forward to the next show!

I think I was there too, Wayne. It's pretty amazing how people's lives cross in this hobby.

I just recently discovered this podcast after hearing a mention of it on The Game's The Thing a little while back and I must say, I'm glad I did. The discussion of Pandemic on a previous episode, for example, brought to my attention one of the best board games I've played in a very long time. But, on to the current episode (116).

I love me some supers gaming! I've played FASERIP and Mutants and Masterminds 1E & 2E, have at least read through 4C, and have ICONS on preorder. I really liked how you covered a wide variety of superhero games on a basic level, as well as your anecdotes. My only regret is that I can't seem to find enough people with interest to play even a short campaign. You guys (and gals) rock. Thanks!

- Ron F. (Atlanta, Ga)

The Meet and Greet at Gen Con on Saturday sounds great. I will plan on seeing you and the other casters there. However, in regards to the Cannibal meet-up on the next Saturday, the first places up the street from Union Station is a White Castle and then the Red Garter. Either one would be ripe for a cannibal bloodbath but I like White Castle food so it cannot be there.

Is there a meet and greet at Origins?

In regards to playing super-villians, at Gen Con two years ago I played in a Call of Cthulhu session where we were villians in Gotham City battling some Cthulhu Mythos minions. It was a great game and the atmosphere was written well, combining the nightlife of Gotham with the eldritch taint of the Call of Cthulhu game.

The original Traveler game was famous for having a character generation system where it was possible to kill your character off during the actual generation.

Keep up the fantastic podcasts!