[Superhero RPGs] Changling of the Teen Titans: The Same Hero in Different Systems

Those of you who read this blog on a regular basis know that  I consider Different Worlds magazine to be one of the great publications of what James Maliszewski calls the Golden Age of D&D.  The magazine ran from 1979 to 1987.  It was initially published by Chaosium, then by Sleuth Publications, and finally by Different Worlds Publications.  Two of those companies are still around today, and one is going very strong.

I was particularly impressed with Different Worlds' famously reprinted issue 23.  That issue was a "Special Superhero Issue" that contained articles by the designers of CHAMPIONS, VILLAINS & VIGILANTES, SUPERGAME, SUPERWORLD, and SUPERHERO 2044.  That's right, the designers of all the major superhero rpgs of the time had an article in that issue.  Add to this a cover illustrated by Bill Willingham and stats for the X-men in three different game systems (V&V, Champions, and Superworld) by the game designers, and you have a truly special magazine issue.  I would argue that it is the single best issue of a gaming magazine published to date.

 

The success of this issue led Tadashi Ehara -- the magazine's editor -- do make the Special Superhero issue a somewhat regular feature, and a year later with issue 30 in September of 1983 the magazine had a special "New Teen Titans" issue.  This issue provides statistics for the New Teen Titans -- Nightwing and crew, though he's still Robin at the time -- for CHAMPIONS, VILLAINS & VIGILANTES, and SUPERWORLD.  Three systems that each handle super powers differently, but that are all workable systems.  The statistical representation of the characters, all done by the system designers, reveal interesting things about the rules themselves.  This is especially true for the character of Changeling.  As a shape shifter, his powers are a challenge to emulate.  How do you design a character who can become any animal?  It's a difficult design question, but one that comes up from time to time in the comics.  It is also a question that eventually led CHAMPIONS to adopt the "Multiform" power, a solution that I've never been fond of.

 

Starting with CHAMPIONS, the character of Changeling is represented as a relatively normal heroic character in his base statistics, but has all of his shapechanging powers in a single 200 point multipower with all of his abilities represented as variable "multi" slots.

133 pts.   200 pt Multipower (+1/4 only reasonable creatures, +1/4 x6 END Battery) 

27m        Growth (200 pts)

  7m        Density Increase (50)

            7m        Flight (50)

It goes on like that to include a number of possible power combinations.  It's a solution, but one that isn't much better than the "multiform" solution later implemented.  I have always liked the use of a multipower in order to simulate this kind of ability, but I prefer one of two options not presented by Steve Peterson here.  First would be the each "animal" is a different "ultra" slot in a multipower.  Thus Gorilla would be one slot and Monkey another.  The other way would be to have several multipowers.  One for offensive abilities, a second for defensive, a third for movement, and a fourth for "variable senses and options."  Any of these can work, but as you can see any version also requires a lot of work by the player to get what they want.

Steve Perrin's SUPERWORLD adaptation was to just give Changeling all of the powers -- heightened strength, shrinking, growth, armor, movement, etc. each with a conditional use modifier of "only in certain shapes."  This is followed by a list of shapes that Changeling can assume: man, bear, cat, bird, canine, snake, elephant, octopus, and so on.  Any animal that he has listed, he can become.  And the GM and player can discuss which powers are appropriate to the form.  This is a pretty good solution, but it also requires bookkeeping with regard to building and then maximizing each form.

Jack Herman in his VILLAINS & VIGILANTES adaptation highlights the "rulings over rules" nature of the V&V system.  In this game, there is not shapechange power that quite captures Changeling's ability.  So Herman gives Changeling the following power:

TRANSFORMATION (Shapeshifter/Creatures): PR for each change equals the square root of the number of Basic Hits possessed by the new form assumed.  Any shape having over 20 Basic Hits cannot be maintained for more than 11 turns.  Smaller shapes have no time limit.  Only creature/animal shapes may be assumed, including intelligent non-human species, but he must be familiar with the creature to copy its shape.

 That's it.  Leaving the player and GM to design each and every animal the player can turn in to.  Other than having to design a lot of animal stats, this is a pretty nice adaptation.  It is also one that Herman had to invent as the power isn't in the rulebook.  That's the nature of V&V though.  House rules rule the day.

When the DC Heroes RPG eventually came out, they represented Changeling in the following way.

                                                                                                                           

He's got stats that are at the high end of normal human ability, except for his Body stat which is quite good.  His shape change power is represented by... well... the shape change power which is as follows:

I am a big fan of the DC Heroes solution.  It is similar to Herman's, but balanced by being a very expensive power to have at high levels, though inexpensive enough for a starting character to purchase it.  It limits abilities to existing animals, and many can be found in the appendix.  Like all of the options though, it does require a player to have a number of character sheets at the ready to represent Changeling in multiple forms.

I think it is interesting how the different games each approached the design challenge that a shape changing character brings.  I don't know that any has a perfect solution.  I like DC Heroes' solution, but only because their underlying AP rules structure means that each numerical value has a very specific meaning.

The Importance of House Rules to Ensure "Fun"

As often happens, is spent a part of last weekend playing games with my twin daughters History and Mystery.  We played a wide variety of games ranging from Candyland to Fantasy Flight Games' Rattlesnake with a little role playing as horses in between.  All of these activities were done not merely for the sake of occupying time, but also to create a sense of enjoyment among the participants.  In short, we were playing these games to have fun.

But how does one go about designing a "fun" game?  One of the reasons there are so many kinds of games (wargames, conflict games, area control games, cooperative games, track games) is because the goals of gamers with regard to what is fun aren't always the same.  Not only are they different among different people, but they are different for the same individual at different times.  For example, there are times when I want to play a little Battletech just to get out some aggression through robot vs robot conflict, but there are other times when I want to journey through Mirkwood with the help of my friend Jason in a cooperative fashion while playing Fantasy Flight's Lord of the Rings Living Card Game.  And those are just two of my moods.

I've also learned from playing with History and Mystery that sometimes the game's rules aren't the most fun way to use the game's components.  Let me just say that History and Mystery never cease to amaze me with regard to how they look at the world.  The other day, I had BURN NOTICE on in the background while they were coloring.  History looked up and saw the skyscraper condos overlooking the water and we had the following conversation:

HISTORY: That's pretty.  Where is that daddy?

ME: That, oh, that's Miami.

 HISTORY: Why is it YOUR ami?

ME: (Laughing) No...it's not My ami, it's not Your ami, it's Miami.

MYSTERY: It's not Your ami, or History's ami, but is it My ami?

I laughed for hours at the way their minds worked on that one.  It still makes me laugh.  I understood what they were getting at, and why they would mistake "Miami" for "My ami," but the way they are processing the information is hilarious.  I do think I was finally able to convey that it was just the name of the city...

At least I think so.

The point is that History and Mystery sometimes look at things differently than I do, and when this is combined with what they constitute as fun it leads to some enjoyable house rules.

Let's take our game of Rattlesnake as an example.  It's a simple game that comes with 12 very strong magnets that the players are trying to get rid of, and the first to do so wins the game.  The players roll a die and it tells them what color snake they have to set their egg upon.  If that egg disturbs another egg and they collide, then you have to pick up all the eggs that collided and have failed to get rid of any.  The magnets are very strong and the board is small, so this game can get pretty zany.

As written, I like the game and History and Mystery hate it.  You see "losing all your magnets" isn't fun for them.  What IS fun is making the magnets collide and picking them up.  For them, the loser is the first one to "lose" all of their eggs.  They find it fun to acquire the eggs.  What is interesting about this is that the trigger of the fun is the colliding of the magnets, which is one of the things I would argue is fun in the rules as written as well.  It is the fun that is inherent in the components.  The eggs have strong magnets that attract them to one another and they collide with a loud "clack!"  That's great fun.  That's great component fun, and it has nothing to do with the rules.  With regard to what my daughters find fun, the rules as written have an objective diametrically opposed to their fun goal. 

And this is where one sees the real importance of House Rules.  When I was younger, I made house rules to fix "what was wrong" with a game or to do a particular thing "better."  This led to the creation of a number of spell point systems, and no fewer than 5 versions of Superspeed for the DC Heroes role playing game.  At the time, I thought I was fixing the game objectively.  What I didn't understand, was that I was tweaking the rules to fit my fun-jective.  Having feeble Wizards -- regardless of how they matched up with other characters at high levels -- was annoying to me as a fun objective.  I wanted to play Gandalf or Merlin, I didn't want to be the apprentice in DRAGONSLAYER.  That just didn't seem fun to me, and the rules disagreed with that fun.  I liked the components of D&D -- the odd dice, the miniatures, and the rolling of 5 or 6 dice when casting fireball -- those were all fun activities.  Heck, one of the reasons I love Champions is the opportunity to roll handfuls of dice.  That's just a good time.  My fun goal and the fun goal of the game weren't lined up, even though the fun inherent in using the components was the same. 

Eventually, I learned to have a flexible definition of fun and to allow individual games to set the "magic circle" of what fun is being attempted.  In doing so, I've come to appreciate design efforts I might otherwise have overlooked.  Setting aside my personal fun-jectives from time to time leads to enjoyable experiences.  Heck, my journey as a game master in roleplaying games has gone from grudging acceptance to joy as I came to view the GM "fun" rule to be "Losing the game in a dramatic way is the job of the Game Master."  If you are losing properly, then the players are having fun.  The key here is "in a dramatic way."  There needs to be risk for the players, and character death must be an option.  But it's like a TV show, in that you know the protagonists will usually win out...not always, but usually... and they'll rarely die.  It depends on the game and the expectations, but players rarely enjoy investing time in creating a persona only to have it die as the GM laughs at how pathetic they are.  Though that can be fun from time to time too.

History and Mystery have reminded me of how important it is sometimes to forget what the fun being attempted by a game is, and to see what kind of fun the components of the game are advocating.  It was a nice refresher course for me, and it reminded me why I have all those Heroscape boxes lying around the house.

Play Like A Pirate -- Or if You're Going to Talk Like a Pirate, Go Big!

In 2008, I began advocating that people should celebrate "Play Like a Pirate Day" rather than participate in "Talk Like a Pirate Day." My contention was that one of the most irritating things you can hear your co-workers say is, "Aaaargh, Avast, Ye Mateys" a couple times an hour in some half-hearted participation in a day of international live action role playing. Even worse are the inconsistent uses of "Yar!"

What makes it most irritating is the fact that these small offering of participation are lackadaisical at best.

I would rather my co-worker show up dressed in full "Age of Sail" apparel, blunderbuss and cutlass in hand, and charge into the office while staying in character as much as is possible for the day.  A wholehearted celebration of Talk Like a Pirate Day, I can get behind.  It would be fun, in the "employees showing up to work in costumes on Halloween" kind of way. You know... like when a person comes to work in their full blown Optimus Prime costume -- one where they can actually "transform" from robot to big rig.  Things like that create moments where you are truly impressed with your co-workers commitment. On the other hand, when your other co-worker shows up with only a pair of "cat ears" on and a mild scowl on their face, it's annoying. 

Most participation in International Talk Like a Pirate Day is of the cat ear type, and not the Optimus Prime type. That's why I still believe that it is time for the phenomenon to die. That doesn't mean that we should no longer have a day "celebrating" piracy and the outlaw attitude, or as the founder of Talk Like A Pirate Day called it "Piratitude." Pirates are still awesome (though not as awesome as Transforming Psionic Robot Pirate Ninja Dinosaur Mutant Demon Hunting Vampires), it's just that talking like a pirate that is lame. I think gamers, and geeks of all kinds, should lay claim the holiday and re-cast it as "International Play Like A Pirate Day." That way the costume role players can  cosplay pirate and other people can play pirate themed games, read pirate themed novels, or watch pirate themed films.

As I wrote a couple of yeas ago, "from now on September 19th will be a day when families and friends get together and enjoy some form of Piratical Recreation. Such recreation can include celebrating by talking like pirates, certainly role play (in the traditional sense) is play. Our celebration is inclusive, not exclusive. But families and friends will no longer be limited to listening to the 'yars' and 'aaarghs' of everyone around them. Some might choose more formal ludographic participation -- that's game play."

Here is a list of recommended activities for this year's festivities -- thankfully the Day doesn't fall on a Weekday this year:

1) Play a pirate themed roleplaying game. In particular, we recommend Pinnacle Entertainment Group's excellent PIRATES OF THE SPANISH MAIN. This is highly recommended for those who want to talk like a pirate. It encourages such behavior in an appropriate venue. Besides, by role playing (in the game sense) participants can act far more Piratical than is allowed under modern mores and laws.

If you want a more heroic bent with mystical aspects, you can always play Pinnacle's 50 Fathoms instead.

2) If you own a copy -- and not many do -- play an exciting session of the classic Broadsides and Boarding Parties

If you don't own a copy of Broadsides, try one of these two excellent pirate games from GMT Games.

3) Blackbeard: The Golden Age of Piracy. The game is a redesign of Avalon Hill's classic game of the same name. The new version is suitable for 1 to 5 players and has less "down time" for players who aren't in their current turn.

4) Winds of Plunder is a quick and fun game that is more in the style of the "Eurogame" than Blackbeard or Broadsides.

5) You can play the previously reviewed Sword and Skull.

6) Lastly, we recommend watching one of your favorite pirate films.  Personally, I'm going to watch CAPTAIN BLOOD with Errol Flynn today, and maybe a PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN film.

Or you can sing "For I am a Pirate King!"

Star Wars Anime? Sure. Why Not?

The Star Wars community has long been a creative force on the internet, and for the most part Lucas and Co have been very open to the use of the IP in fan created work.

I recently caught wind of a Star Wars anime project being tinkered around with on 4chan.  The project is far from finished, but this video gives a glimpse at the state of the animation -- the video I'm posting has sound that the /m/ animations lacked.

In all, I think that the animation looks good.  One thing struck me about this brief piece though, and that is how much it humanizes the Imperial Pilots.  The Star Wars films have always presented the Storm Troopers and Pilots as faceless and ominous archetypes -- and eventually as weak willed clones with subconscious "Orders" planted within their minds.  This artist, Otaking 77077, has given us a glimpse into the helmets of the pilots, and it changes the point of view in interesting ways.  I found myself rooting for the Imperials in this video.  It was an interesting sentiment to experience, as I'm used to the Empire as antagonists and not protagonists.

A part of me wonders if my point of view would have been different if the Imperials were represented with Zentradi skin tones or blue skin like the residents of Gamilon.

[Book Review] GIANT THIEF -- Where's the Likeable Rogue?

Easie Demasco is a character with whom I am conflicted. On the one hand, he is a witty character who has a well developed sense of humor. One the other hand, he's a jerk -- one who never really becomes more than a jerk. He's also the strongest and most compelling feature of David Tallerman's novel GIANT THIEF (published by Angry Robot Books).

GIANT THIEF is a fairly straight forward tale of:

1) Thief acquires MacGuffin not understanding it's value.
2) Thief meets people who understand value of MacGuffin and seek to use thief in battle against evil.
3) Well...you kind of know the rest.

Often these tales include a heroic journey or follow a bildungsroman format in which our Thief undergoes some major transformation or grows in some way -- usually evolving morally. Not so with GIANT THIEF.   Easie begins the story as a selfish and greedy rogue, and he ends the story as a selfish and greedy rogue with more grandiose plans than before.

Technically,  that does count as some kind of character development, but it lacks the moral evolution that often occurs in these tales.  Easie goes from a petty thief to an individual who seeks to become a master thief. He goes from pick pocket to one who wants to become a Thomas Crown-esque figure, but he lacks the sophisticated charm of a Thomas Crown and has instead a clownish sense of humor.  If one were to cast Easie for a film, one would look more to comedic talent than to cool sexuality.  He's more Daffy Duck than Han Solo.

There are quite a few clumsy moments in the book and the chapters establish and follow a  predictable rhythm. One is tempted to say that the book is one that isn't to be recommended based on these flaws, as they are often fatal to good storytelling. And yet...

I keep finding myself wanting to throttle Easie Damasco, or watch him get caned, or at least have a long talk with him to wake him up and set him on a more moral path. I keep finding myself imagining conversations with him.

All of which means that Tallerman has achieved something that is often rare within a novel, he's created a realistic character who lingers in ones mind weeks after a book has been read. That is a good thing indeed. If only Easie were more likeable. He's a rogue and a scoundrel...and that's it. He's not loveable. He's not nice. He doesn't harbor a hidden heroic heart. But he is interesting and I want to know more about him

[Gaming Notes -- Contains a minor Spoiler]

The book's MacGuffin and interpretation of Giants are perfectly suited for adaptation to the gaming table.  The MacGuffin is a non-magical stone sacred to the Giants that signifies who is the Giant's chief.  In Giant society the orders of the chief must be followed without question, even if they violate the morality of the tribe members.  The Giants in this case are gentle pacifist vegetarians, but they are asked to do some terrible things.  All of which could make for a compelling and morally complex D&D adventure.

You can play with PC preconceptions regarding Giants and slowly introduce them to the moral complexity of the situation.  How many Giants will the players defeat, or even kill, before they discover the secret of the stone?  How will they feel about their actions later.

These are good questions, that can make for a rewarding adventure as well.

[Gaming Library] Aaron Allston's STRIKE FORCE: A Must Own GM Resource

At the Origins convention in 1981 Hero Games released what would become one of the best selling super hero role playing games of all time, a game that is still around and which has served as the IP behind a  computer MMORPG.  That game is CHAMPIONSand it is one of the great games that the hobby has produced. 

CHAMPIONS has a large and active fan base, though it does seem to have dwindled a little between the 5th and 6th edition of the rules.  That dwindling may soon find itself reversed with the recent release of CHAMPIONS: LIVE ACTION and upcoming release of CHAMPIONS COMPLETE.  I've been of the opinion the past couple of editions of CHAMPIONS and the HERO rules have become a little bloated, and it seems that the designers behind CHAMPIONS COMPLETE agree as their upcoming rulebook is only 240 pages in total.  While much can be, and has been, written about the CHAMPIONS game, there is one supplement for the game that transcends the game itself and is one of the best "how to run a campaign" supplements ever produced...for any game system.

When CHAMPIONS was released in 1981, Aaron Allston worked for The Space Gamer magazine which was then a publication of Steve Jackson Games.  Steve Jackson returned from the Origins convention with news of the game and asked Aaron to review the game for the magazine.  Aaron did so and his positive review appears in issue 43 of The Space Gamer.  This article was quickly followed by a "proto-Strike Force" article entitled "Look Up in the sky..." in issue 48. 

In the article in issue 48, Allston describes how he came to be a CHAMPIONS player and game master -- he would later become one of its premiere contributors.

The superhero campaign of CHAMPIONS which I run, which is successful enough that it's been thrown out of TSG playtest sessions (it was crowding out all the other games), began as an irritation. Steve Jackson came back from Origins with the news that some new company in California had nabbed the name CHAMPIONS; I'd hoped to use CHAMPIONS on a personal game project.  I could review the Hero Games offering if I wished.  Wonderful.

 Looking over the rulebook, though, I was impressed.  The game appeared clear and coherent after a single read-through and seemed to faithfully simulated the four-color stuff of comic books.  Extensive solo playtesting ensured almost immediately, with the heroic Lightbearers waging a running war with the criminal mastermind Overlord.

In the end, Overlord's munitions-running scheme was wrecked; the Lightbearers disbanded, with one member dead and two others unwillingly allied with the villain; and I had chosen to run CHAMPIONS on a regular basis.

 There is a good deal more to the article in which Allston shares with potential players and game masters some guidelines and some pratfalls that might happen as one plays a super hero campaign.  How does one exactly acquire a super hero secret headquarters anyway?  One can see the foundations for the book STRIKE FORCE in the article, and Allston provides a nice glimpse into what can contribute to the running of a successful game.  As good as the article is, it pales in comparison to the CHAMPIONS sourcebook that Allston wrote based upon that early -- initially merely a playtest -- campaign.

Aaron Allston's STRIKE FORCE is one of the better campaign sourcebooks ever written.  It has a very simple arrangement.  It begins with a section on campaign use.  This section is not a how to plot an adventure section, as by 3rd edition CHAMPIONS had a pretty good chapter on that, rather it was advice for dealing with very specific problems.  This chapter covers the following:

• The "Character Story" -- discusses how to help players develop the character stories that they dreamed up when they initially created the character.
• Simulating the Comics -- discussed how to keep the players behaving in a four-color fashion.
• The New Player
• Aging the Hunteds -- How to make "Hunted" behave like real world constant interactions rather than as a mere random roll done each week.
• Listening to Your Players
• Ground Rules
• Translation Follies
• Types of CHAMPIONS Players -- The Builder, The Buddy, The Combat Monster, The Genre Fiend, The Copier, The Mad Slasher, The Mad Thinker, The Plumber, The Pro from Dover, The Romantic, The Rules Rapist, The Showoff, and The Tragedian.
• Character Conception Checklist
• How to Ruin Your Campaign

If Allston had written no other sections than the "types of players" and "how to ruin your campaign" sections of the sourcebook, this would be an invaluable resource.  Allston's breakdown of player types builds upon some of the discussions which had been going on in Different Worlds magazine and other places in the game-verse, but his clear description of the varied motivations of players is spot on and extremely useful.  Between STRIKE FORCE and Robin Law's book on Game Mastering Rules, you have almost everything you need to run any game successfully...if you follow the advice that is.

In addition to the overview on Campaign advice -- generic campaign advice -- Allston then continues providing an invaluable tool by giving us a look into his own campaign in the subsequent chapters of the book.  We are given an "Abbreviated History" of the STRIKE FORCE campaign, which can be used as an example or as an outline for one's own campaign.  He provides the full roll call of the STRIKE FORCE and SHADOW WARRIORS teams as well as Independent heroes and a number of Villains from the campaign.  This is followed by a detailed history of the campaign -- both his real world work and the in game history.  In the history, Allston shares some of the storytelling challenges he faced and how he overcame them in play.

If you can find a copy of the book, I highly recommend it.

Being a Parent Can Be Heartbreaking

Last night I spent a wonderful evening with my lovely 4 year old daughters History and Mystery.  They had spent part of the day coloring with Jody and had shifted from one creative activity to another, namely dancing.  Both of the girls had turned on their electric keyboards to play pre-recorded songs, neither in sync with the other, and had begun dancing with the free and unselfconscious joy that only young children can truly manage.

It was a beautiful scene to watch, and was one of those glowing moments when as a parent you feel on top of the world.  That natural high was about to take a severe drop...as you might have guessed from the title of the post.

As happens every night, and too quickly every night, the clock ticked past seven and thus initiated parenting subroutine 8.(e).D.7.1.(m).3.  That's right, it was bedtime.  It was time to take a quick bath, brush teeth, read stories, and sing a bed time song.  None of this was out of the ordinary.  There was also what appeared to be the typical groaning about how either History or Mystery had yet to finish some entertaining task, which usually amounts to "but Dad...Ironman needs to go defend the castle" or some similar activity.  This evening though, History was upset that she hadn't been able to finish coloring the pictures she had been working on earlier in the day.  Jody and I assured her that there would be plenty of time to color them tomorrow, maybe even when mom was working on some drawings of her own.

That's when it happened.  Mystery looked right at Jody and then at me and asked, "Why am I not an artist like mom?  I want to be an artist like mom."  I immediately felt as if, Mola Ram had reached into my chest, pulled out my heart, and left it burning in his hands laughing maniacally.  I was stunned for a moment as I tried to find a way to tell a 4 year old that:

1) Yes you can be an artist like mom.  You can be anything you want to be.
2) That some things take time to learn, and show her how she was more comfortable drawing and coloring now than she was a year ago.
        a) I'm not one to tell History or Mystery that they are now "better" at a task like drawing and       
            coloring at an age when they should be experimenting and feeling free. 

The books on parenting provide wonderful advice, but they don't do anything for the sinking feeling one feels in ones chest when a child expresses disillusionment at a perceived limitation.

Ugh.