The Giggling Dark: Session Twelve

Xellous: The main character, played by Ryan, who is the fourteen year old protagonist. Known as The Hero of Khouria, Xellous has crafted his own pair of Behemoth Gauntlets and Pyra, a bow that can destroy practically anything. Komas, Prime Minister Archibar's assistant, had let him into the King's Tower and left the key to the inner room with him.

King Varlur: The King of the Kingdom of Tala. His wife, Queen Veldora, had drowned their child, Prince Kallus. King Varlur had shut himself into a high tower, refusing to come out of the last few months, throwing the realm into chaos.


Xellous stood, facing the door, key in hand. He took a deep breath and walked in. The smell hit him like a falling tree as the door cracked open. The King's greasy hair fell in grey locks upon his shoulders. He sat before a window, looking out over the city of Broadnough, shadows barely present in the noonday sun. Xellous forced himself to breathe in the full stench of a month's seclusion. King Varlur didn't turn to acknowledge Xellous, and indeed Xellous didn't think the King even heard him.

So Xellous went out, grabbed the cart, and wheeled it into the room. He returned to a gaze that was as dead as it was wrathful; the King's aura shone with a muted rage. Xellous told the King he had to come to help him, that he knew of the King's loss because of the loss of Kora. Xellous spoke passionately of his own heartbreak and his wish to help King Varlur in his own dark hour.

King Varlur yelled that those who disturbed him were to be sentenced to death. As King Varlur jumped, his aura shifted, which distracted Xellous long enough for the King to wrestle Xellous to the ground, hands on Xellous' throat. Xellous pushed King Varlur off and grabbed the sheet concealing the preserved Khen-Zai and pulled it off, shouting that this was the thing that had taken King Varlur's child from him. King Varlur fell back onto the filthy bed, stunned. Xellous explained his horrific history to the King: how the Khen-Zai manipulated women into drowning their children, only for them to be reborn as the flaming revenants known as Flammeous Lads, and how the Lads ate their mothers, creating a vicious cycle that kept the world going. Incredulous, King Varlur asked Xellous if that meant Queen Veldora was innocent, which Xellous emphatically confirmed.

King Varlur asked how a mere child such as Xellous could have survived an encounter with the Khen-Zai. The Hero of Khouria's tale was known by him, and the thought of a fourteen year old boy taking on the Behemoth of the Apocalypse  and these Khen-Zai was hard for the King to take in. Xellous told him he was an enchanter and showed him Pyra, as well as his Behemoth Gauntlets. Astounded, King Varlur asked where Xellous had learned how to do such things. Xellous abashedly told him that enchanting came naturally to him, that he had always known how to do it. King Varlur told Xellous that he'd had more life experience in his fourteen than most greybeards, if not several at once! If King Varlur had been in Xellous' shoes, he would have retired already. Xellous replied that he needed to get his wife home before that happened. Rising, King Varlur commanded Xellous to kneel; confused, he did so. The King knighted him Sir Xellous and made him a part of The King's Bodyguard!

They left the tower, to find utter chaos at the bottom. A page boy recognized the King and  ran up to him, but nobody else seemed to. Sir Xellous yelled for everyone to stop and kneel for their king, but nobody recognized the king after his seclusion. King Varlur whispered to Sir Xellous to shout "LONG LIVE THE KING!" Sir Xellous did, and everyone started. Finally seeing the King, they all knelt before him. The King asked the page who knelt before him what was going on. The page explained that Prime Minister Archibar had vanished, along with half the court, and Lord Mayor Reven was coming, right then and there, to be crowed King!

Hot and Cold: Session 0

So I am really excited about this Marvel Universe RPG, so I decided that I wanted to GM a game for it... now. Yeah, that's probably a bit rash on my end, but I'm not known for my patience, or my prudence. Fortunately Shmitty was more than happy to try out the game, with a few caveats: he did not want to be in the current Marvel Universe. He was pleased to find that I wasn't a great fan of the state of modern Marvel either. I basically pitched my article at him and he was happy enough to play in.. whatever it was we came up with? I'm sure that'll be defined over time.

So I asked Shmitty what he wanted to play, and he said he wanted to play the Hulk... who is possibly the most powerful character in the whole book, in terms of action economy. 21 red stones to play with once transformed? AH! I mean, I can handle it... I think. It's going to be a bit of a wild ride, but I think I have a good enough idea of how to handle the regen rate this guy's going to be doing. Shmitty was surprised that I said yes, but the Hulk's Shmitty's favorite character, why on earth would I tell him no?? To the deep end of the pool! Let's go!

The pitch that I threw at him from there was the Bruce Banner wandering around the American Southwest, desperately trying not to get caught by the authorities and running into weird small towns. We'd start in New Mexico, and I'd pick a random town for us to start in. The plan is to use Google Maps to navigate the town and get a good feel for it. I decided, for the lulz, to start in El Rito, NM. Obviously I don't know anyone there, so if anyone from there reads the blog HELLO! Please tell me if I'm getting the town... somewhat correct? I just needed a backdrop.

Anyway, we'll be wandering around places like that for the whole campaign. I pitched the idea of one town an Issue, which gives some time to get to know the inhabitants and do a few fun things and then move on. Shmitty seemed pretty fine with this. Fortunately I've got a lot of profiles I can use before ever needing to make anything.

EDIT: I usually have a song in mind whenever I GM a game.... and Andy sent me this. It... works. A dark game about PTSD, mental illness, and horrors beyond imagining deserves Katy Perry.

The Marvel Universe RPG: A Marvelous Manifesto

Last week I wrote up my review of The Marvel Universe RPG, along with the play report of Andy's and my Daredevil session. I have ranted and raved to my family and friends about this game, probably to a rather unhealthy degree, but such is life. An entire campaign centered around Daredevil popped into my head over the weekend, which I immediately pitched to Andy. Hopefully we'll get to play even a fraction of what I had in mind at some point. As I worked through my campaign idea, filled with themes, characters, and plot hooks, I realized that I had a particular way of thinking of the Marvel Universe, one which modern Marvel runs counter to, so I thought I'd put it up here. I am quite aware that what I'm writing is my opinion and really have no illusions about it. I'm sure anyone who's a lover of cosmic Marvel or the Avengers could answer me, point for point. Marvel is decades older than I, and I truly cannot pretend to have read it all, even in the default 616 universe.

The Marvel Universe Should be Local

Once upon a time Marvel was about what would happen if super-powers occurred in our world. I would argue they abandoned that concept, opting to insert magical realms, aliens, multiple realities, and other things that completely invalidate that concept, in favor of fan-service feel-good nonsense. Gone are the days when the Marvel Universe felt like the real world, and one could argue that they abandoned that feel rather quickly. Books like Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man should have been the norm, not an exception, in Marvel's history. If I do so much as leave Hell's Kitchen in the Daredevil run I'm planning then I have done something wrong.  This means that my version of Hell's Kitchen will be worked out in pain-staking detail. It is its own world and will be so full of life that even going a block away from it will feel like going to another planet.

The Marvel Universe Should be Weird

Early Marvel tales were cautionary fables about messing with nuclear power and scientific concepts that challenged the nature of reality itself. Super-powers were just as often heavy burdens or outright curses as they were incredible boons to the people who possessed them. The themes of the best early Marvel stories were adapting to sudden and (at times) horrific change, the moral limits of science, and the thoughts of the common man on the nature of the world. This means that my  version of Hell's Kitchen will have all sorts of weird things happening to its inhabitants as the result of new super-sciences. Gang wars will end because some kid can exhibit calming pheromones... only for one of  gang leaders to kidnap the child to use on potential victims. Mutations should be a common thing, especially after exposure to toxic waste, nuclear power, and really any sort of freak accident, even if it's as simple as getting struck by lightning. 

The (Real) X-Men are the Backbone of the Marvel Universe

Up until about a decade ago the X-Men, and the little guys' reaction to them, was the Marvel Universe default: the vast majority of the super beings in the Marvel Universe were hated, feared, and vastly misunderstood, with the mutants making the heroic decision to protect those that hated them, regardless of the consequences. The Avengers, up until about ten years ago, while they had many a good run, were hardly A-listers, and not even C-listers. This is because, a lot of the time, characters like Iron Man and Captain America were thematically incompatible with characters like Spider-Man and the X-Men. The world of the Avengers is a vast and magical place, filled with gods, vast alien civilizations that may actually be helpful, and cosmic beings that are just as wondrous as they are terrifying. The X-Men's world always seemed to have a creepy science vibe, from aliens like The Brood to space pirates that were as liable to kidnap you as you were to find out they were your father.  And that's before we get into The Phoenix Saga, which shows the lengths the X-Men were willing struggle even against their own selves, in the form of Dark Phoenix and Cyclops. The point always seemed to revolve around doing the right thing, even if it meant your own life being sacrificed in the process. I never seemed to get that vibe from the Avengers, or not as much at any rate. Sure, characters like Hawkeye and Black Widow are amazing, and Iron Man's foibles pushed him to greatness a number of times, but the emphasis seemed to be on a more "heroic" fantasy, which always struck me as wrong, considering Marvel's origins in weird science gone wrong.  The theme of the X-Men was so evocative, so good, so selfless, that it could not help but be popular, regardless of political under (and over!) tones.

What Should Be vs. What Is

For me, Marvel has always been about the friction between the human and superhuman, ideal and need, personal and communal. This struggle is universal; I don't know of a single person who doesn't connect with the concept of wanting to do the right thing and not being able to, or finding the right thing repulsive. The point is not to look at any one hero and say "They represent me!", but to say "Boy, I get what they're feeling". If anything the point would be to connect with others that you are not like because the both of you see something in a character that you communally admire, even if you admire them for differing reasons. 

And I think that a Marvel RPG would take this as far as it can go. You take on a character that you like, without the intent of putting yourself into the character but to play out the character as you understand them, while allowing them to develop and to change to their own internal logic, as you understand it. RPGs in general attempt to do this, but a Marvel Campaign would have to do it more explicitly. "Would I gut that dude? No, but Wolverine would, because they're in his way, and Wolverine has a very short fuse on things like that", even though the action might be something you actively don't want Wolverine, a well known comic book character, to do. And that objectivity is an important thing when playing a well-established character. Wolverine isn't going to bring flowers to someone he loves, as healthy of an action that would be. No, he's probably going to shut her out and make sure she gets as far away from him as possible! 

And sure, during a person's playtime, the character will change; your Wolverine may eventually bring flowers to a woman that he loves, it's totally possible! You are putting your own spin on it, after all. But, no matter what happens, that character is still a character that you did not make. That's part of the fun: you are putting your own spin on something that others will as well, in their own time. As dumb as an interconnected multiverse is in Marvel it is attempting to answer a need we all have to see ourselves in modern day mythological archetypes.

Marvel is Tragic

Marvel is, at its core, about failure. Science fails people. People fail each other individually and corporately. The people of the world fail to appreciate the X-Men. Spider-Man failed his Uncle, Gwen Stacy, and literally everyone else in his life. The Avengers fail each other. Bruce Banner fails to find peace with "The Big Guy". All of the great Marvel stories feature this element of tragedy. For all their power the characters of Marvel are powerless to stop the fundamental issues of humanity: heartbreak, loneliness, and death. 

Conclusion

Anything I do in the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game will feature grounded settings, weird science, with super-powered people consistently hated and rejected, constant friction between what is desired and what is, and heart-wrenching tragedy. Superpowers can only fix so much, and sometimes not even that. I don't know if anyone else sees the Marvel Universe this way, but when its firing on all cylinders this is what I see Marvel doing. It's awesome. And I'm sure as hell not going to leave it.

The Marvel Universe RPG Review

When I was younger my mom used to let me go into Borders to read whatever I liked while she went into Whole Foods, which was next door. I would browse the shelves of unlimited knowledge, usually stopping at the art books or the graphic novel section. And, of course, the RPG section was right next to it. While it would be a number of years before I started playing RPGs this section was always very interesting to me, particularly the non-DnD stuff. The game that caught my eye the most was The Marvel Universe RPG. In between reading graphic novels and checking out the weirder RPG titles I would stare at this game. It was the only diceless game in the whole shelf of a (relatively) diverse shelf of games, and that piqued my interest! What was this thing like? Why did they decide to go diceless? I had no answers.

Years went by, and I finally began to play DnD. Eventually I jumped ship to Burning Wheel and, to be honest, they ruined most dice RPGs for me. Burning Wheel's engine appears finicky but, once the learning curve has been mastered, it is a masterpiece. It is complete and utter control, at least as far as dice systems can go. I found myself "selling" my other dice games back to Half-Price books, mostly because I knew that I didn't actually want to play them. The bar had been set, for better or worse, at Burning Wheel, Mouse Guard, and Torchbearer (Urban Shadows is still sitting here, needing playing!).  There was a bit of a heavy feeling in my stomach as I gave the extra games I had away, but I wanted others to be able to use what I wasn't.

Of COURSE this was sitting at Half Price Books.
Of course.
WASN'T I TRYING TO CUT BACK??

Yeah yeah yeah, I picked it up.Yes, I rolled my eyes at myself as I did so. It had been about eighteen years since I'd last seen this game, so why even bother now? I had Burning Wheel, Mouse Guard, Urban Shadows, and Torchbearer, why did I need of any other games?

Yes, I backed it. So what? I like Chinese film!

I CAN QUIT WHENEVER I WANT!

ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE ME AND THIS ISN'T EVEN AN RPG!!!!

OK, that's just spite.

So, after the usual self-loathing I encounter was played out in a manner everyone else finds funny (comedy is tragedy remembered, after all!), I began to look through the book. The system is simple: if you have the stones (resources) to spend on the action, you can do it. There's a Difficulty and Resistance chart that you helps set up the minimum number of stones necessary to start the action and the number of stones necessary to complete it. A lot of the time those two numbers are the same, but not always. In the case of the Resistance being higher than the Difficulty the action could take multiple panels to complete. What's a Panel, you ask? A Panel is the standard increment of time in the game (30 seconds if it's a question of timing, although most of the time the actual timing of Panels is incredibly open), with a certain number of stones regenerated at the top of each Panel. An undefined number of Panels making a Page. An undefined number of Pages makes for a Mission, an undefined number of Missions makes for an Issue... not incredibly well defined, any of that, nor is there any actual mechanics attached to this names. They're just there. The rulebook is also filled with editing errors of a structural and rules nature, making some things unclear and necessitating some research to verify how often Stones recharge and the structure of sessions. My armchair designer senses began to tingle. Where was the tension in this game? Why was it so badly edited? How on earth was I going to GM it or play in it? I called my buddy Andy and we went over it, but the more we went over it the more confused we got. A playtest was in order.

As we began the playtest I found that the session organized itself into a natural comic book script format. I have reproduced what we wrote, in a semi-script form, which can be found here. And... we had a blast. None of our questions seemed relevant, not one! Andy was always scrambling to pay for the actions he wanted to do, and there always seemed to be a clear idea of when to end a page. We're both fairly analytical people when it comes to RPGs and we had no idea why what we did worked. Oh sure, we both thought the idea of constructing a comic book page could be taken a whole lot further than what the game did, and that recharging stones could be hooked into a splash and double splash page economy. But we had such a blast playing that we found ourselves hardly caring, at least at that point. I awarded him a Line of Experience, which is basically a blank check to the player, allowing them to write down an experience and attach it to an Action. Whenever you use that action you get to add a stone for all the Lines you have that apply to that situation. Ten such bonuses nets a permanent +1 to that action, those Lines are erased, and you start all over again. And that was great too! Andy wrote down "Dodged automatic gunfire". He chose how the character advanced. I'm a huge fan of the player getting to define the experience and what's important to them about it, and it did my heart good to see such a freeform reward mechanic.

I gotta say, The Marvel Universe Roleplaying Game was way ahead of its time, and it's a shame too. Had this game come out today it probably would have killed in the Indie RPG market. But it released in 2003, when DnD was really the only thing that dominated the market. I'm really glad that I found it, though. Some things really are worth the nostalgia you attached to them as a kid. Not a whole lot, but man, when it lives up to those shiny moments from childhood, when the world was still an awesome place and when you still had hope, it's worth holding onto that as tightly as possible.

I will, trust me on that.

I'm going back to that Half-Price Books and I'm getting the rest of this game's books, ASAP. I highly recommend everyone else do it too.

The Marvel Universe RPG Review: Daredevil Playtest Report

Preamble: Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson are representing Vincent D'onofrio and yes, I had to explain to my Best Man who Vincent D'onofrio was and why it's funny! One day I shall forgive him for being a lesser man. One day. One More Day.... I need to take a shower. D'Onofrio was the head of the Italian crime family in New York, and had been captured by the vigilante Daredevil. But, shortly after being captured, the Italians began a gang war against the other gangs... and were operating just as efficiently as when D'Onofrio was free, if not better! Matt had sat with D'Onofrio while questioned by the police concerning the possibility of his involvement with the gang war while in jail and could practically taste the lie on D'Onofrio's lips as he told the cops he wasn't involved. It was time to get proof.

PAGE ONE

Panel One
 We're at the offices of Nelson and Murdock, as Foggy and Matt go through bunches and bunches of files in the late evening. Matt's pulled up information on an Angelo Bottecilli, D'Onofrio's former number two. He runs things now.

FOGGY

We really need a secretary, Matt. 

MATT (CAPTION)

Lead one. Now to step two.

Panel Two
 Daredevil's cornered some nameless thug in an alleyway and is beating the tar out of him with his billy club.

SFX

THUNK! WHUD!

DAREDEVIL (CAPTION)

Ugly business, but it'll work.

Panel Three
Thug crying.

THUG

I don't know nothin'!

SFX

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP.

DAREDEVIL (CAPTION)

Well that's an obvious lie.  Shouldn't take long.

Panel Four
The thug is on the ground, still sobbing from the beating he's gotten.

DAREDEVIL (CAPTION)

Ten minutes does wonders for a guilty soul.

THUG

*cough* Botticelli's just a patsy! He claims to be running everything, but who believes THAT??

DAREDEVIL

Where can I find him?

PAGE TWO

Panel One
Inset panel of a finger pulling a trigger. Daredevil is dodging gunfire from three sources in the main panel.

ANGELO BOTTICELLI

You don't need to look far.

SFX

BRRRAP BRAAAAAP! PT PT PT PT PT PT!

Panel Two
Botticelli pitches forward off the building he's on as Daredevil's billy club hits him square in the face.

SFX (GUN)

BRAAAAAAP BRAP BRAP!

SFX  (BILLY CLUB)

THUNK!

BOTICELLI

Uuuuuh....

Panel Three
Daredevil, with bullets glancing off of his kevlar suit, uses his billy club to bounce up into the air and catch Botticelli. Above the panel are three insets showing the billy club at work.

SFX

BRAP BRAAAAAP BRAP!

DAREDEVIL (CAPTION)

RETRACT. ANCHOR. SWING.

Panel Four
Daredevil is swinging as fast as he can, away from the goons, Botticelli in arm.

THUG 1

Don't shoot! He's got the boss!!

THUG 2

Damnit!

PAGE THREE

Panel One
We're inside an abandoned warehouse, at the docks. Botticelli is waking up in the background. He's grabbing a wooden board to defend himself. Daredevil is silhouetted in the foreground. The rest of the scene is bathed in the  blue of Daredevil's radar sense.

BOTTICELLI

Huuff... huff... bastard... will show him.

DAREDEVIL (CAPTION)

Seconds awake and this guy is already acting like an idiot.

Panel Two
Close up on Botticelli's fearful face as he hears a weird scraping noise. We cut to an inset panel of a crate crashing into the wall behind him!

BOTTICELLI

AH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH!

SFX 1

SCRAAAAAAAAAAPE.

SFX 2 (INSET)

KURASH!

Panel Three
Botticelli takes out a burner phone, chucks it, and runs like hell.

BOTTICELLI

TAKE IT! TAKE IT!

Panel Four
Daredevil carefully picks up the phone, a grim smile on his face.

Sabina's Castle: Session Three

Spar: Andy's character, a dwarven con artist. He's convinced the stupid humans he can listen to stones and hear everything said around them. Yeah. He's full of crap, in far more ways than one.

Tara: Spar's human lover, and a prominent member of The Kami Guardians, the magical agricultural guild.

Herminus: The lawful stupid guard that never ceases to amuse Spar.

Herminus was promoted to the head of castle security. He called a meeting of the staff. Herminus told everyone he was going to do a background checks on every staff member of the castle. Ranus, the head cook, was clearly unhappy about it. The rest of the staff wondered about Ranus, which Spar, not wanting to be discovered as a dwarf, stoked this suspicion to a fever pitch. He also poked around to find out whatever he could about Ranus from each of the people he was manipulating.

Spar checked in with Herminus later that night. Herminus enlisted Spar as his eyes and ears, despite Spar's feigned protests to the contrary. I mean, who else would be a better look out for the head of security but the unassuming janitor? Herminus asked Spar what he knew about Ranus. Spar told him what he had learned: Ranus was related to the Duke of Reinus, he had formal chef training at The Academy, and he was probably a noble (or at least a former noble) himself. Herminus told Spar that Tara, who was sleeping with Spar on the side, seemed to know Ranus as well, and that information could probably be gotten out of her.

So when Tara came to visit that night Spar warned her about Herminus wanting to investigate her. Tara was amused and laughed at Spar's concern that Herminus would be trying to use him to get information out of her the next day. And that's exactly what happened: Herminus wanted Spar to question Tara. The two of them faked a conversation, and Tara baited Spar into asking why Ranus had left his family. Tara considered it a tragedy. Ranus had accidentally killed his cousin's -The Duke of Reinus' - wife. Tara had helped set up Ranus with the job here, at Sabina's Castle. Confused, Spar went to his daughter Salt for guidance. Spar didn't want to hurt Tara by hurting Ranus. Salt told him he needed to stick to his guns, and to get Herminus to go after Ranus. Spar agreed.

The next day Spar and Herminus met up. Herminus had decided on his own not to investigate Ranus; some things needed to stay buried. He wondered aloud if he should investigate Tara, which Spar quickly said was a bad idea. Later that night Tara told Spar he was happy he'd gotten the heat off of Ranus, and that he had a good heart!

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #7

I am still bitter about One More Day. I doubt I will never not be. But there come times when Marvel lets Spider-Man be himself again. The quietly confident, quippy, adult that Peter had grown into sometimes gets to shine back through. And that's the guy I see in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man again, and man! I missed this guy. 

It doesn't hurt that Tom Taylor is a fantastic writer, with an eye for characters and plot that's pretty hard to match up anywhere else. I mean, c'mon, don't tell me you don't get a chuckle out of the following:

"ARE you mugging him?"
"No! But... I  can see how it would look exactly like that."

"Are you robbing the place?"
"I'm not! But I can see why it would look exactly like that"

Little things like this in plots please me a whole heck of a lot. It means the writer is paying attention, and it's just plain old funny to boot.

The story itself is exactly what I want out of a Spider-Man comic. Don't give me soap operas about the super-villain of the week, focus on the characters we already have. And Taylor uses these elements to incredible effect. I love that May has reopened F.E.A.S.T., and, while I dearly wish if they were going to kill Aunt May they would just leave her dead already, Taylor makes the best of editorial's inability to conceive of anything where Aunt May is dead and gone. I love how the narrative takes full advantage of her health plight, injecting a fair bit of pathos into the story.

Taylor's narrative had been moving a little slowly in the first six issues, but this issue takes all the things that I had been loving about those issues and amps them up, creating an issue where Spider-Man is exactly where he needs to be: near the ground, with the rest of us. Spider-Man is, at his core, an Incarnational hero, a god amongst us. And it's great to see Taylor not only recognize this but take it in new directions.