Marvel Comics Season One

Comics used to be a passion of mine.  I read the occasional Marvel comic as a kid, and got really into them as a teenager to the point I ended up working at a comic shop in college.  At that point I switched over to DC comics and later indie comics before getting out of comics completely for about a decade.

The Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game has me thinking about Marvel again.  Along with the new Marvel movies, it reminds me about what I've always liked about Marvel comics.  Unfortunately, Marvel comics themselves don't interest me too much anymore, for a couple of reasons.  One is that I'm not really a fan of the way they seem to be continuously having a big crossover storyline going on.  Stories like Secret Wars were special largely because they were special.  Now that they're the norm, why even have individual comics?  Why not just have one comic called "Marvel Universe?"  I could also go on about the state of several different iconic characters in the Marvel Universe, but it would just be "comic book guy" style ranting, so I'll refrain.

The other reason is Marvel's digital strategy, or lack thereof, but I'll go over that in another post.  

One exception to my general disappointment with Marvel is with the Season One comics.  There are obvious similarities to DCs Year One stories, but there are significant differences as well.  First, Year One stories are mostly original stories, covering stuff that was never really detailed in the original origin stories of the characters involved.  Marvel origin stories have always tended to be a bit more complete than those of DC, so instead of completely original stories, Season One stories are more re-tellings, or possibly re-imaginings.  One of the biggest differences is that they bring those stories into the modern age, a jump of almost 50 years for some of these stories.

For example, X-Men Season One opens with a teenage Jean Grey talking on an iPhone, and the Fantastic Four Season One has their initial flight being part of a plan to develop a space tourism business to raise money to support Reed Richards' other projects.  While details like that are changed, the broad outline of the original stories remain the same, and those broad outlines are great.

You can really see the potential of these characters, and see why they became so popular.  I'm left wanting to see what happens next, it's just too bad that's not really an option, but I'll get into that in a moment.  They're still good stories on their own, and the best outlet for scratching that nostalgic itch that I've found so far from modern Marvel.

Now the rant on wasted potential.  Where I want to continue the story from Season One, instead, each Season One ends with an issue of the comic that was current when the Season One story was first published, and they are a pretty mixed bag.  The X-Men one is just sad.  There's exactly two characters that are in Season One that are also in the "current" X-Men storyline:  Cyclops and Magneto.  If I was using Season One as a starting point, there would be nothing interesting to me in the current comic.  They might as well have included an Avengers comic for all it had to do with what I just read.  Most of the characters I was just introduced to (including the main point of view character) are gone.  It's even more jarring since Season One sets up the budding romance between Jean Grey and Scott Summers, only to have our introduction to the "current" X-Men showing Scott and Emma Frost as an item.

Fantastic Four is a bit better.  There are no changes in the lineup in the "current" storyline, but there have obviously been big changes elsewhere.  Season One ends with Sue Storm lamenting that Reed Richards will probably never marry her, but that she loves him anyway.  The "current" issue opens showing Val and Franklin Richards, Reed and Sue's kids.  

Thus, while good stories on their own, Season One also hi-lights just how badly the Marvel Universe is in need of a re-boot.  It's in worse condition than the DC Universe was prior to Crisis on Infinite Earths (there's even a multi-dimensional zombie apocalypse going on in the Marvel Universe at this point... some might find that cool, I just find it silly).  At least they can still make good possible starting points for my own Marvel Heroic Roleplay games.

Retconning Gone Wrong

Warning:  Extreme Geekery Ahead!

I love Star Wars, but I increasingly dislike most everything outside of the original trilogy.  There's simply too much out there, to the point that people are forgetting why some things were introduced in the first place.  Case in point:  back-up hyperdrives.

The back-up hyperdrive was invented to cover a plot hole in The Empire Strikes Back.  When the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive goes out in the Hoth system, they somehow are still able to make their way to the Bespin system.  How did the Falcon travel from there if its hyperdrive wasn't working?

This was solved early on in the West End RPG by saying that all ships larger than a starfighter have a back-up hyperdrive.  Much slower than the main drive, and with less endurance, you'd still want to get the main fixed as soon as possible.  It was basically the equivalent of a "donut" spare on a car.  Thus, a plot hole in the movies is fixed to nearly everyone's satisfaction.

Fast forward a couple of decades and back-up hyperdrives are now an accepted part of Star Wars lore, but the people behind the new Haynes Millenium Falcon Owner's Workshop Manual seem to be clueless as to why it was introduced in the first place.  Instead, they see it as introducing a plot hole, because why would the Falcon have needed repairs if they had a back-up?  Thus, they say that due to the extensive modifications made to the ship, the primary and back-up hyperdrives share a motivator, so when the motivator goes out on the Falcon it takes out both!

Congratulations, you just undid the whole reason the back-up was introduced in the first place, and we must once again wonder how the Falcon got from Hoth to Bespin without Han and Leia having died of old age during the journey!

The DarkStryder Campaign

The DarkStryder Campaign is a series of products that are now over 15 years old, created for the West End Games Star Wars RPG.  It is an attempt to create an extended campaign for the system spread over one boxed set and three modules.  It provides some great adventure ideas and character concepts, but as a playable campaign out of the box it's a failure.  I'm reviewing it now because I only recently had the chance to read through the whole line while preparing for a Star Wars game I'm running.

I'll be including some possible spoilers in this review, so on the off chance that you expect to actually play in a DarkStryder Campaign I'll summarize here and suggest that you not read the rest:  don't do it, unless the GM is simply using the published material as inspiration.  If they are actually going to try to run it as published, then expect to be both frustrated and disappointed.

First, the good stuff.  Much of the setup is great.  The New Republic is stretched thin trying to mop up the Imperial remnants following the Battle of Endor.  They have just liberated the capital of the Kathol Sector, decisively defeating Moff Sarne, although the Moff himself got away.  Kathol Sector is a backwater sector on the edge of what was once the Empire, and now that the Moff has been defeated, the New Republic fleet must move on to more important matters, leaving only a token force to track down the defeated Moff.

The players are that force.  They are given the FarStar, an aging Corellian Corvette formerly under the control of Moff Sarne.  The ship had been undergoing a complete refit and conversion under the Moff, being retrofitted with a docking bay for carrying fighters, along with some other upgrades.  Getting it spaceworthy in time to be useful requires a great deal of effort and jury-rigging.

The crew is a mixed bag with a handful of elites along with unwanted castoffs from the rest of the fleet, and a large number of volunteers recruited from the newly liberated world.  The latter includes a volatile mix of both victims and servants of the former regime (most of the latter attempting to keep their pasts a secret).  Many of the pre-generated characters have interconnected backgrounds that could provide fodder for great roleplaying.

The result is a crowded ship with every spare corner filled with supplies, cables and conduits running everywhere, and a crew that is sometimes suspicious of each other and often irritable due to the conditions.  It reminds me a bit of the atmosphere of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica.

Several of the adventures that are scripted for the FarStar to go through have good ideas, and the nature of the situation they are in provides a lot of inspiration for other ideas.

Now for the bad stuff.  The situation provides some good ideas for carrots and sticks to keep the players on track, but the campaign as written doesn't use them.  Instead, it sets the FarStar solidly on a set of rails and gives it a solid push to get it going.  This is possibly the most railroaded campaign I've ever seen.

If the player characters include the command crew, as is suggested, then they will often find major decisions taken out of their hands and instead decided by GM fiat.  If they don't include the command crew, then they will simply be spectators as the major events of the campaign go on around them.

In addition, many events over the course of the campaign are fated to happen in a specific way, including some characters leaving the campaign through death or desertion (remember, these are likely to be player characters, not NPCs), as well as major plot points both good and bad for the players.  In some cases deus ex machina appears to have been the first resort of the designers rather than the last.  This applies from the first scene where two of the main characters are removed from the story no matter what the players do (remember, these are likely PCs) to the climactic battle where multiple fleets inexplicably appear to join in the battle, somehow managing to navigate through an incredibly dangerous area of space that the FarStar itself only managed to get through because they had the only navigator known to be able to do it!

There are also a lot of plot holes in the story when it's looked at too closely.  The DarkStryder technology that is supposed to be the reason why the New Republic can't just let the Moff get away doesn't really seem to be that powerful.  It consists of ultra-rare, one-use items that only have a limited effect on a small scale.  A far bigger threat is the Moff's fleet, which includes multiple Star Destroyers.  The reasons why the Moff doesn't use this fleet to retake the capital after the New Republic fleet moves on are flimsy.  The reasons why the FarStar doesn't immediately fall back and call for reinforcements after learning the Moff has Star Destroyers are non-existent.

In fact, there's very little explanation as to what the FarStar is supposed to do once they find the Moff.  There's talk about them calling for reinforcements, but it takes months for the FarStar to get to its destination, and yet they expect reinforcements to arrive almost instantly?  Admittedly part of the time involved is because they have to find star charts along the way, but it would still be a lengthy trip for anyone following them, especially due to the navigational difficulties mentioned earlier.

The final book in the series includes some designers' notes that shed some light on how these problems likely came about.  A lot of the adventures in the series were written on a very short schedule that would have left little time for review of the finished work before publication, let alone any playtesting.  Also, external factors sometimes altered the original intent, such as when the choice to use cover artwork that included a Star Destroyer forced the last minute inclusion of a Star Destroyer into an adventure that hadn't previously included one.

Overall, the DarkStryder Campaign is worth mining for inspiration, but appears to have been created with little regard to how gaming groups actually operate at the table.  Something that may have been excusable had it been written back in 1985, but which designers in 1995 and 1996 should have been better able to take into account.

Board Game Afternoon

Attended my first regular board game event since the end of BGN.  A successful get together of nine people total, only one of which I've played games with before.  I got to play in three games, including two I've really been wanting to get to the table.  The best thing about it was that I wasn't the one running it!   That means I can arrive late and leave early, or skip sessions entirely, without it wrecking the event.  Something that's important for me to be able to do.

The location is a bit cramped, but friendly.  Bears by the Maul Gaming Lounge is an interesting location that takes up a narrow two story section at the end of a warehouse.  In addition to the cramped gaming area in the basement, you have to go outside and around the corner to get to the restroom, and they're pretty much a CCG only shop in terms of merchandise.  On the positive side, the staff is friendly and open to our playing board games there despite their not actually selling anything we play, and their hours of operation are good.

They're also located close to the bypass, which makes it more convenient for gamers from the north to drive down to play.  BGN's old location in the center of Fayetteville made that harder for some people.  Another thing that makes it easier for those people is the time slot:  Sunday from 2 to close, which seems to be around 7 to 9 depending on how late the staff can stay.  This means people working regular 8 to 5 jobs don't have to rush to get to the event.

With a time slot like that, I should also finally be able to get some of my longer games to the table, maybe even Die Macher, finally!

What I'm Up To

What I'm up to in gaming:

Roleplaying:  Still hosting the weekly Magpie Gaming Night, although we're also still trying to make it a bit less Magpie-ish.  The last few games have all been multi-session rather than one-shots, although a couple of them have featured only one adventure spread over multiple sessions.  These games have included Dungeon World, Ashen Stars, Pendragon, and a playtest of Jason Morningstar's upcoming game Durance.  That order also indicates the order of overall satisfaction that the group appears to have had with each game.  No intended slight on Durance, as it was a playtest after all.

Pendragon is the current game of choice for most of the group, although we intend to re-visit Ashen Stars, and possibly Dungeon World.  We're attempting the Great Pendragon Campaign, but disinterest from one of the players may eventually derail it before its conclusion.  This is a pretty ambitious project for a group called "Magpie," but it's something that I've wanted to do for a long time now, and there's a great deal of enthusiasm for it from some of the other players.  We'll just have to see how it goes.

Board Gaming:  Board Game Night is still on hiatus.  We started discussing a return at the beginning of December, but that's been derailed by developments discussed below, and will likely continue to be something that I'm unable to take the lead on.  I'd love to attend one if someone else would step up to run it, but that doesn't seem to be very likely at this point.

Miniatures Gaming:  Dead.  I get the itch to do something with miniatures every once in a while, but I haven't even found the time to go play a game where the miniatures were being provided by someone else, let alone try to work on some of my own.

Computer Games:  Star Wars the Old Republic is the "development" mentioned above in board gaming.  I've been playing the heck out of this.  The license combined with overall solid game play has hooked me in more than any MMOG since the last Star Wars MMOG first came out.  There's a few bugs, and the end game needs a bit of polish, or possibly just more people I know to hit 50...