ALL ACCESS!: Titans Together!

For me, it's all about the team.

  

The Legion of Superheroes

By amazing artist (and my personal friend)

Chris Batista

Growing up reading comics, I was primarily into team books.

I read very few solo titles regularly, and those I did follow were always ones which featured a character who played a significant role on a team. As a matter of fact, while I checked out solo books my friends read, I myself only bought Green Lantern from DC, and Iron Man from Marvel.

Spiderman, a favorite character of many, many of my friends, and recently identified as the highest grossing merchandised character, was never a big deal to me. It's not that I didn't like him. After all, he has a neat costume, and cool, pretty unique powers. He was simply never a character I really collected.

His adventures, and his enemies, were too mundane for me. I was into the big, epic, science fiction superheroes. The thing that turned me off of him the most though, was that he wasn't on a team.

My favorite comics (as I've noted before on the blog) were the All-Star Squadron, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, Infinity Inc., the Justice Society of America, the Legion of Superheroes, and of course, the Teen Titans, and the X-Men.

Let's not forget Alpha Flight!

Illustration By John Byrne

 

 

When creating a Superhero campaign, it's all about the team, because that's who the Player Characters are. Sure, you're going to get that one jerk who wants to be a 'lone avenger of the night' who doesn't 'play well with others', but you have to let him, or her, know that you're sorry, but you're not the only person at the table.

 

The group's size, scope, 'vibe', and especially it's interpersonal dynamic, will determine a great deal about the campaign, and vice versa.

 

I think all too often, many GMs think of the team in a Superhero game the way they think of the party in D&D. Basically, the GM creates an adventure, and a setting for it to be in, and the players generate a bunch of adventurers who go check it out. It really doesn't matter to the adventure who the PCs are, as any group of thrill-seeking, treasure hunters will do.

 

You can certainly run a Supers game this way, and in fact, in the good ol' days of running Villains & Vigilantes we probably did just that.

I personally take a different approach, and the results are usually much more gratifying.

For the team to really shine as a team, they need to be on the same page. The individual team members may have different styles, approaches, goals, and certainly personal demons, but they share the ideals of truth, justice, helping defend the defenseless and stopping villainy. In addition, it's helpful if some ideal, event, or other element unites the group in a more encompassing way. 

 

The New Teen Titans, the 80's smash-hit comic by Marv Wolfman, and George Perez, began with a story of how one of it's members, Raven, formed the group in order to combat the menace of her father, a demonic entity known as Trigon. One of the great early stories revolved around Starfire's evil sister Blackfire, and a battle with the Citadel, alien tyrants who were enemies of Starfire's people, the Tamaraneans.

In the first instance, while the introduction to the campaign was clearly focused on the Raven PC, it effected all the PCs, as Trigon threatens the entire world. In addition, her backstory and arch-enemy was the catalyst for getting the team together.

In the second example, the team had grown fond of fellow member Starfire, and certainly wanted to help her against her extraterrestrial enemies. A romantic subplot would later develop between the Starfire PC, and another PC, Robin/Nightwing.

 

From Marvel's Fantastic Four, to DCs Legion of Superheroes, many teams have members whose origins, allies, and enemies effect not just themselves, but the entire group for years and years to come.

 

The nature of the team determines the type of adventures they go on, and the kinds of villains they face. While it's distinctly possible in the universe of Marvel Comics that the Heroes for Hire might face off against Thanos, it is much more likely they are going to do battle with the Kingpin, or similar street-level organized crime figures.

The Defenders had a tendency to do battle with much stranger, esoteric, supernatural enemies than the Avengers did, while the X-Men's enemies are usually directly connected to the X-Men's status as a team of Mutants.

Consider the difference in character relationships on different superhero teams. The Titans are a family, but there is also a lot of teen romance and angst. The same is true with the Legion, but it's larger membership means the relationships are all the more complex. The Justice League and Justice Society, at least classically, are all adult, professional, friends who happen to work at the same job. In the Silver and Bronze Ages, it wasn't strange to see Clark Kent (Superman) grab a cup of coffee with Hal Jordan (Green Lantern), or the whole group go to a barbeque over at Ralph and Sue Dibney's house (Ralph being the Elongated Man). By contrast, the Avengers are sometimes friends, and sometimes at each others throats.

Be they World Protectors, Neighborhood Patrol, Space Police, or The Teen Team, each superteam's unique personality and style should be reflected in the campaign's design, and the atmosphere the campaign features should be seen among the members of the team.

Our own team is still forming it's group identity, though they share a desire to protect innocent people from those who would use superhuman might, dark magics, and advanced technology to cause them harm.

Super Thoughts Continue...

AD
Barking Alien

 

ALL ACCESS! Great Caesar's Ghost?!

Imagine if you will one of those company wide, crossover events that comics seem to have weekly nowadays.

Try to remember a time (if you can, and are able to since you were alive and of reading age at that point) when said events mattered. A time when these types of comic book 'Maxi-Series' and 'Mini-Series' were rare, special, occurring perhaps once every few years. The stories in these books were epic, gathering nearly ever major hero and villain together to battle each other, or combining their forces to stop an even greater threat to the very existence of their universe.

Now imagine that the first session of your new Superhero campaign, is the final issue of such a series.

 My apologies to Mike Zeck and Bob Layton, and to George Perez.

 

 

Our story begins at the end of the world, the destruction of the universe, the final moments for all of time, and space.

The Anti-Monitor, a cosmic entity from the Anti-Matter Universe, was using a wave of Anti-Matter to annihilate reality after reality. As each universe perished, it's energies were absorbed into his 'Life-Shell' armor, increasing his powers. In addition, the Anti-Matter Universe would increase in volume in order to fill the dimensional void that the destroyed universes had left behind.

Meanwhile, The Beyonder, another vastly powerful entity (hailing from beyond our multiverse, in a dimension known only as, 'The Beyond Realm'), discovered the Anti-Monitor's activities, and was both fascinated, and displeased. While there was nothing he could do about those universes that were already gone, the Beyonder wasn't about to let him eliminate the universe of Champions Earth-Delta Ceti Mu Alpha Delta-1, better known as Champions Earth-Max Duo-1. Max Duo-1 was a favorite of the Beyonder's, for reasons as yet unrevealed.

By utilizing his own reality-warping powers, Beyonder began to absorb the energy bleed off of the various universes wiped out by the Anti-Monitor's Entropic Wave (aka The Anti-Matter Wave) at the moment of their destruction. The wave would wipe out a universe in a destructive cascade, empowering The Beyonder, then the remains of the universe itself would be absorbed by the Anti-Monitor, empowering him. Finally, the quantum space the universe once occupied would be filled with the Anti-Matter Universe.

The Beyonder's end goal was to protect the reality of Champions Earth-Max Duo-1...by making himself a nigh infinitely powerful god-like being in control of it!

While these two villains battled each other for ownership of all existence, the heroes of Max Duo-1 had assembled in an attempt to stop them. After 11 issues of large failures, and all too few small victories, the World's Greatest, and Earth's Mightiest Heroes joined together for one last ditch effort.

Prof. Reed Richard/Mr. Fantastic, The Atom, Iron Man, Mr. Terrific, Doctor Strange, and Doctor Fate, combined their vast knowledge, both technological and arcane, to create a towering device that would set their Earth 'out of phase'. By vibrating at a quantum frequency all its own, their world would theoretically be safe in a dimensional warp all its own while the Anti-Matter Wave passed harmlessly by.

The key to machine's operation was a circular, treadmill-like running track, and four energy conversion ports. The Flash would run around the track, using his incredible speed, and ability to enter alternate dimensions unaided to set the right quantum vibration. Then, the device would receive 'fuel' in the form of the emerald energies of Green Lantern, the nuclear forces of Captain Atom, the Nega-Bands of Mar-Vell of the Kree Empire, and cosmically powered blasts of Alex Summers, the Mutant known as Havok.

By now you understand what is transpiring here, do you not dear reader? Or at the very least, where this new campaign takes place?

Yes my cosmically curious cohorts, this is a joint Marvel and DC universe, where the two companies milieu are combined together. They are not merged. You will find no amalgamated Bruce Parkers, or Clark Rogers here. Superman is Superman, Spiderman is Spiderman. New York City is home to the Avengers, while the Justice League and Superman are headquartered in Metropolis, somewhere in Delaware.

The plot of the story combines and modifies the stories of DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths, and Marvel's Secret Wars (and a little Secret Wars II).

While this sounds long winded and even confusing to anyone who is not a huge comics fan, it was so simple when I described it to the players that we went from introduction, to exposition, to play in about 5 minutes. I s*^% you not! Some of the details above were learned later in the session. It wasn't until the end that we were able to go back over everything to put the events in their proper order. There was also an epilogue, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Now, back to our story...

 
So close to success were the diabolical, dimensional deities (at least in each of their own minds), that they couldn't let any actions by the stalwart, Samaritan sentinels stop their parallel planet pummeling plans!

Both the Anti-Monitor, and the Beyonder gathered armies of supervillains to foil the heroes, and perhaps destroy their device. In addition, many villains were sent after items of power, such as The Infinity Gems, or The Spear of Destiny, just in case the heroes attempted to use those artifacts against one of the big bads.

This is where the PCs come in*. Teams of heroes, new, old, B-List to D-List, were sent about the world to obtain these items, or at the very least, keep them out of the hands of the enemy.

The PCs were one such team, and after quickly dispatching their first opponents to retrieve a very special I-Ching hidden away beneath the great temple at Nanda Parbat, the group went to assist another team having a much harder time of retrieving the Holy Grail, currently hidden away in Kyoto, Japan**.

Tomorrow: The team. Their tussles. The outcome!

All this in a double sized issue (64 pages, No ads!).

AD
Barking Alien

*This really is odd. In recapping this first session it looks as if the NPCs got all the screen time. It wasn't like that at all. We got into the story quickly, and right into the action just as fast.

Periodically, our 'team leader', Marcus' character, would check in with Captain America to update him on the team's status, or get a status update from him. That is where a lot of this exposition came from (a nifty trick I learned running Marvel Heroic with the kids at the tutoring center).

By breaking up the info they received and sent out into smaller bites scattered throughout the session, I was able to make the situation seem both desperate ("Can't talk now, Black Adam just took out Iron Man! I'll call you back when I can!"), and kept the vast majority of the focus on the PCs.




 



ALL ACCESS! Say you!

Posts are light for all our brethren this time of year it seems. No matter. I have something to talk about, and FINALLY, time with which to talk about it!

My group's new Champions 4th Edition campaign has had one session, and that session freakin' ROCKED!

It's hard to believe it worked as well as it did, but if it hadn't I would've probably turned in my gaming credentials, and taking up stamp collecting as a hobby instead.

I really put thought, and prep time into how to make this particular campaign idea work with this particular group. It appears to have been time well spent.

The JLA vs. The Avengers

Commission work by John Byrne*

 

 

HERE'S WHAT I WAS UP AGAINST:

Out of 7 players, only 3 are hard core Superhero comic book fans. There are 2 people who generally like comic books, but 1 is a casual fan, and 1 is more of an indie/Vertigo fan (not as into traditional Superhero comics). The remaining 2 are more Anime/Manga fans, only generally familiar with Superheroes through animated movies, TV shows, and live-action cinema.

To run a game to the best of one's abilities, one should run what one knows, and loves. For me, in the genre of Superheroes, that's the subgenre/specific style of comics most prevalent during the late 50's to mid 80's, otherwise referred to as The Silver Age, and The Bronze Age. Now, if you think it would be tricky to run a Supers game for a group in which more than half the members aren't all that familiar with Superhero comics, what are the odds they're going to comprehend the tropes of a particular era of Superhero comics.

Yeah. Exactly.

Finally, I noticed that a good number of the players tend to run the same types of characters from game to game, regardless of genre. They also tend to approach our games with a particular mindset, regardless of the setting, story, etc. How do I get those same players to play a bit outside their comfort zone, thereby avoiding the same old mistakes, and problems, without making them feel so uncomfortable that they lose enthusiasm for the game, and/or their characters?

HERE'S HOW I HANDLED IT:

First, we (those more heavily into American Superhero comics) gave those less familiar with the genre recommendations as to what to read, and watch to get the right feel for the campaign.

This post ,as it turns out, helped a bit, but not in the way I would've expected. Even before serving as a resource list of places the players could look to for an accurate sense of the games atmosphere and styling, it served as a benchmark to determine what they were already familiar with. Had they even heard of the Justice, or New Frontier series. Did they know who the All Star Squadron or Legion of Superheroes were? How much catching up was required? This allowed Dave, and myself (veterans of both Comic Book and Superhero RPG fandom), and to a lesser extent Ray, to direct the others more specifically and effectively.

Since I was really going for a very particular era of comics, and I realized that even reading those comics may not secure the concept in the heads of the uninitiated (they hadn't grown up on them - they aren't at the impressible age I was when I encountered these stories for the first time), I went to other more readily available sources.

For example, although also influenced by Golden Age comics, the animated series of Batman: The Brave & The Bold is a recent, widely accessible source of Silver Age goodness. Likewise, Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes is a strong early Marvel to Bronze Age Marvel love letter to some of the greatest stories in Avengers history (as well as the histories of some of it's individual members). While incorporating both Marvel Cinematic and current comic book elements, the show is really a shining example of The Avengers in it's Bronze Age heyday.

Now the last part was perhaps the hardest feat for me, for us as a group, to accomplish, even though the solution was quite simple. I simply said no to character concepts that I didn't feel fit the bill.

Normally, I give the players in my campaigns very general parameters for character creation. I see what they come up with, and build our game around their ideas. This time, I said this (Silver/Bronze Age Superheroes) is what I want to run. Make a character for this.

I'm sure I frustrated one or two of the players, but I also got some fantastic characters out of them. Chief among them is Will's character, and that is a big deal for me. You see, Will is the most active player in the game with the least amount of comic book knowledge.

***

 

Also...

Will is an Anime/Manga fan going way back (although oddly, so am I). His head appears to think in a Japanese storytelling way, not an American storytelling way. What do I mean? Well, simply put, I have noticed for some time now that all the backstories for his character involve a motivating situation, one that propels his character forward toward adventure, or into teaming with the others. Awesome right? A GM's dream you say. It starts as a dream certainly, but it becomes a nightmare very quickly.

Will's first, and foremost goal upon the start of the campaign is to solve his background drawback. For example, in Traveller, he began with the backstory that his character was looking for her runaway son. Cool. Episode one, first few moments of the game, he hires the rest of the PCs to help find the son. I liked that idea, and managed to spread out the search, and rescue into a really good adventure arc.

Then in Bushido, his Samurai's backstory involved him raising his daughter as the Mom died in childbirth. The mother's spirit haunts the house the father and daughter live in. What is the first thing he does? As soon as he is given the chance he wants to have everyone explore the house, discover info about the ghost, and possibly find a way to exercise it.

In Superhero terms, imagine Uncle Ben is dead, and Peter Parker now has to care for his feeble Aunt May in addition to finishing High School, and of course, being Spiderman. Will's Peter Parker would've made a phone call in the first five minutes of the game to have Aunt May put in a nursing home so he doesn't have to worry about Aunt May.

You bastard. How could you do that to Aunt May.

While I may be stretching my theory here, I feel like his is following a Japanese comic book technique here, not an American one. He is trying to get to the 'end of the story'. Unlike American Superhero comics, which generally go on, and on forever, Japanese comics, Manga, tell stories with a definitive beginning, middle, and end. While those endings are sometimes kept vague in case the creator wants to revisit the setting, and characters again at some later date, most Manga series will have a last issue. Spiderman, and Superman, will not.

In the end, Will came up with an idea that was somewhat vague, and ill-defined. It was also perfect. Neither Will nor his character know the exact details of the character's background. He has a distinct goal, a questing beast to chase, but he doesn't actually know who it is, or why he is chasing them. (More about this in an upcoming post).

***

This one has run long so I'm going to stop here. There is more to come though, so please check back. I have a number of non-Supers related posts coming soon as well, so stay tuned.

Oh, before I go, a Very Happy Birthday to the one and only Stan 'The Man' Lee! Happy 92nd! EXCELSIOR!

AD
Barking Alien

*You may notice a lot of John Byrne art lately. That's because he is awesome. Also, while I haven't loved everything he's down professionally over the late decade, his commission work is astounding. Seriously. It amazes me how well he draws classic Superheroes when he doesn't have to draw them in comic books. Jeez. That reads like a slight, but I assure it's not. What I mean is, when he can draw an image in the way he wants to draw it, featuring characters he loves, you can see it in the picture. His feelings for the characters really come through.

ALL ACCESS! Oh My Stars and Garters!

I don't why I keep imagining that free time will pop-up out of nowhere, and enable me to get back to blogging regularly. It hasn't so far. Alas, I am every of the optimist.

From whence does this lofty sense of optimism come you ask? Well, Superfans and True Believers, it hails from beyond the mortal keen, to whatever strange source of power bestows upon me my ability to GM. For know you this, my friends and I aligned the stars just so, and I ran the fabulous first session of our new Champions 4th Edition campaign...

Yes Caped Crusaders, Green Goliaths, Maids of Might, and Merry Mutants, The Barking Alien Gaming Group (official title as of a year or so ago) has finally managed to assemble a Superhero game which (based on player, and GM reactions alike) looks like it has some legs to it.

And that's not all...Marcus is back.
 

For those unfamiliar with Marcus, he is a friend of mine, of ours, the group's that is, and was a player in our campaigns up until I kicked him out of the group approximately five months ago. Prior to that I had never kicked anyone out of any gaming group I've ever been a part of. Not in 37 years. You can read all the gory details if you like, but I'd rather focus on new beginnings.

In the five months that's he's been away, Marcus took on the role Gamemaster for some friends, largely running Dragon Age. In addition to experiencing some of his own medicine in the form of players trying to get away either his sanity or the game, he gained greater insight on being a good player by learning to be a good referee.

Marcus told me he began by reading the Gamemaster section of the Dragon Age rulebook, and then went on to check out articles and blog posts on GMing advice. He also, I discovered this past weekend, revealed to me that he reads this blog, something I had no idea he did.

The end result was a manifold change I didn't expect. He was truly sorry for his previous approach to our games, and desperately wanted another chance to game with the group. I should add that 'desperately' is not used here to illustrate a man desperate for inclusion just for inclusion's sake. Rather, this is a man who realized he really liked the group and the GM he had played with. After experiencing other gamers, he felt our campaigns were simply of superior quality (His words, not mine). He decided the flaw he had experienced, the obstacles to his fun, and ours, were situations he created himself.

I brought the idea before the rest of the group, and while there had been some raw nerves, and bad blood, they all unanimously agreed to give him another shot. While we don't feel it's right for him to return to the Traveller campaign, he is a perfect fit for this new Supers campaign (or rather the 'new him' is).

The hunches paid off a thousand fold. Marcus loves his character, everyone liked how it was used, and how he interacted with the rest of the team. Combined with an excellent, classically comic book backstory, Marcus' character adds a lot to the setting and the group dynamic.

I am very happy overall, and particularly proud of Marcus.

Marcus is not the only one deserving of kudos. The team performed beautifully. Lots of character banter, great role-playing, mighty fine teamwork against so very tough adversaries, and a lot of story potential going forward.

Well, that's all for this post. Much more to come as I describe the campaign's setting, the PCs, and what is in store for future sessions.

Later Days...of Future Past,

AD
Barking Alien

CHAMPIONS: ALL ACCESS!

Guess who's back baby?

Yes faithful followers, frequent friends, and finders of the fantastic, it is I, Adam 'Barking Alien' Dickstein, here once again to issue insight into the intriguing, and mayhap, the impossible!

 Commission Penciled and Ink By the legendary John Byrne

Colors By Mark Dominic

 

Things with me have been downright rough and tumble lately, and honestly, it doesn't look like peace and tranquility will be anywhere in sight for some time. Some much for good will towards man.

That being said, I am still looking forward to my gaming group's next major campaign endeavor, a new attempt at Superhero gaming entitled: CHAMPIONS: ALL ACCESS!

With the game just a few days away, I am going to start to reveal some behind-the-scenes information on what this campaign is about, what it took to put it together, and related notes and ideas on running a Supers campaign.

We've had several false starts with this particular genre, but this time I really think we have a chance at something awesome.

Up, Up and Away True Believers!

AD
Barking Alien