Blast From The Past - My First V&V Character

I'll never forget my first character for Villains & Vigilantes. It was the third one I made.

If you went, "Eh?!", then I say, "Eh?! not true believer!", as I spin the spectacular spellbinding story of...
THE PCs THAT NEVER WERE!

Or...
By My GMing BETRAYED!

But first, you may want to check out these back issues.

Meanwhile...

After convincing a friend of mine to go 'halfsies' with me on the box set of Villains & Vigilantes 2nd Edition, I set out to create a campaign. Basically, I was just going to run the official module that came with the game, Crisis At Crusader Citadel and see what happened.

By this point in 1982, due to some bad experiences with other GMs and all the gamers I know basically preferring I GM, I played as a player extremely rarely. Still early in my time in the hobby, I sort of felt bad I wasn't getting to 'play'* and so very often I would create PCs to use as NPCs in whatever game I was running. These PC-NPCs would help round out a team, enable me to have a 'guide' in the universe I was running and provide me with a PC quality character should someone else want to GM and I want to play.

My first character was Saint Patrick, aka Patrick O'Ryan, an Irishman (our team was international, something like the Global Guardians from DC Comics) who had been granted mystical powers by the Wee Folk. His power was the same as the Human Torch of Marvel or Fire from DC, as I had rolled Flame Powers. There was a twist in that I had also rolled a Mutant Power (a 'Make Up Something Not On The List' power). I decided that the flames were mystical and made me look like an emerald Human Torch (i.e. exactly like Fire would look many years later). As the flames were essentially Balefire or Faerie Magic, they could not be doused by water nor snuffed out by vacuum. At the same time, I could not melt or damage 'Cold Iron' and cold iron objects could go through my fiery shield and hit me.

My second Non-Player PC as it were was U.F.O., The Ultimate Flying Operative, mentioned in one of the back issue posts above. U.F.O. was basically an Iron Man type armored character, except his origin was a mix of the Hal Jordan/Green Lantern story and a bit of UFO conspiracy stuff. He was an Air Force pilot investigating reports of a flying saucer when his equipment cut out and he crashed his helicopter (or plane, I forget). He found the downed alien space craft and entered it. A suit of futuristic armor was suddenly constructed around him. He was ejected from the ship and then it self destructed.

I don't remember much more than that. His powers were cool though. His abilities were mostly psionic in nature, like Telekinesis, a TK Force Field, psychic senses, etc. The armor gave him psionics. Neat huh? I certainly thought so. I liked that he was so different from most armored guys.

Anyway, I never really got to play either of the above characters. I used them as NPCs only. So my first real PC for Villains & Vigilantes was...
Excelsior.

I actually created Excelsior before I discovered RPGs. I had him copyrighted. I love this guy. At one point I updated his story, look and other elements every few years.

When I got the chance to finally play in a game of V&V a friend was running, I randomly rolled Armor B, Disintergation Ray, Heightened Strength B and two Mutant Powers. From the armor I got the additional abilities of Flight and Heightened Endurance B. My Mutant Powers? Double Final Carrying Capacity (giving him Uber Super Strength) and a Disintergration Field (basically objects or people hitting the field are struck with damage as if hit by Disintergration Ray).

His weaknesses included Magnetic Powers (his powers were Anti-Matter based) and a special one which was basically that he can't take off his armor or he'll die (in a huge explosion that would likely vaporize a city block).

He was and is an awesome character. His personality, his origin...oh so cool.

But that is a tale for another time. A time not too far away...

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Barking Alien


*Yeah, at one time I felt that in order to be a 'real' RPG gamer you had to be able to both play and GM. Now, I don't really care if I never play again. I actually do get to from time to time, more nowadays then I have in years but if I couldn't it wouldn't bother me at all. I love to GM, really don't like playing and that's about the size of that.

Bluer Than Blue

And so the story goes that when cartoonist Pierre' Culliford, who the world would come to know as 'Peyo', could not, for some reason or another, remember how to say “sel” (“salt”) while dining with a friend, he asked his companion to pass the "Schtroumpf".

Colloquially speaking, Culliford had what we in the USA would call a brainfart. He ended up pausing for a moment after saying, in his native French, "Can you please pass the..." and then searched in vain for the right word. Unable to find it he asked for "the thingie"* or "le schtroumpf". His dinner mate, Franquin, took the opportunity to mock and tease Culliford and replied (as translated into English), “Here’s the Schtroumpf. When you are done schtroumpfing, schtroumpf it back.” The two, on vacation together, shared a laugh and found a new game; for the rest of the weekend, they continued substituting “schtroumpf” and derivations thereof for various words.

Now Peyo was a cartoonist and one of his comics was Johan, the tale of a page in medieval times. In October of 1958, Johan and Pirlouit (Johan's trusty if comedic sidekick) encounter a strange, little blue man who leads them through the enchanted forest of The Cursed Lands** and into the hidden, mushroom village of his people. Needing a name for these faerie like creatures, Peyo dubbed them Schtroumpfs or in English...Smurfs.

The rest, as they say, is history.

The Schroumpfs/Smurfs were so popular in their first appearance that Peyo brought them back a few times until they received their own spin-off. A few books in and the Smurfs were a smash hit. Now distributed world wide and translated into dozens and dozens of languages, the Smurfs remain a favorite of childern and adults alike.

There are several interesting elements to note about the Smurfs that may not seem obvious at first. Canon information is in blue. My own ideas and interpretations are in white.

Their appearance resembles the faeries of various sorts but most notably early descriptions of pixies (more accurately the root term 'Pictsies', little Picts, which were often said to be blue).

The color actually came from Peyo's wife, who was at the time the colorist on many of his works. She felt green people would fade into the background as the Smurf stories mostly look place in the forest. Red would stand out too much and be too jarring. Yellow? Well, believe it or not, Yellow is considered an unlucky or unfavorable color to the French-Belgians. The only logically color left was blue.

Now lets take a look at the Smurfs themselves for a moment.

There are originally 99 Smurfs, plus Papa Smurf, all male.

Smurfette and Sassette (two of the three known female Smurfs) were created by means of magic and clay. The origin of the third female Smurf, Nanny, is unrevealed.

The Smurf Village, also known as the Mushroom Village, was originally located in a region called 'The Cursed Lands'. As time went on this was dropped and the dark forest began looking much more hospitable. Only the area around Gargamel's house was sometimes depicted as not as nice as the rest of the land.

The Smurf village is protected from discovery by an enchantment. The only way for a Human to find it is to be lead there by a Smurf, or be considered a trusted friend of the Smurfs.

The Smurfs are each 100 years old. Papa is 542 years old. Smurfette and Sassette are more recent creations. The Smurflings were normals Smurfs magically reduced in age (they count within the 99). Grandpa Smurf is twice the age of Papa Smurf. It is said he was Papa Smurf when Papa was a regular Smurf. Nanny's age is unknown but considered a contemporary of Grandpa. Lastly, Baby Smurf was brought to the village by Stork on the night of a rare Blue Moon.

So...many questions arise...

Why is Papa so much older than the rest? Where are the other Smurfs of his youth?

Likewise, if Grandpa is twice as old as Papa, well the same query applies.

Where did Nanny come from?

What was the curse of the Cursed Lands and is it still in effect? If they stopped calling it that and the place kept being illustrated nicer and nicer perhaps the curse faded. That would explain...Holy Smurf! I got it!

***

So there is a curse on this land nestled somewhere in middle-ages Belgium that makes it very difficult for magic or faerie folk of a good nature to exist. Black Magic, Dragons, Trolls and other nasty things do just fine (Peyo's Johan and Pirlouit - Peewit in the USA and England - featured such things).

There is a spell that can summon, for a time, a small village of magical creatures to help the caster do good. When the village is brought into existence it contains but a single, tiny, blue, bearded inhabitant. A Papa Smurf.

The Papa Smurf determines if the the caster's goals and intentions are good and just and if he feels they are he brings forth 99 additional, identical Smurfs. Over time, if any of these Smurfs show a strong interest or predisposition toward a particular emotion, mindset, occupation or hobby, they will be gifted with becoming 'that' Smurf. (Hefty, Handy, Brainy, Grouchy, etc.).

Problem is, as I imagine it, the curse of the Cursed Lands means the village won't exist indefinitely. Eventually, the village will fade back into the realm of Faerie. Now, let's say a Smurf was not at the village when it leaves this world? Well, it would seem they stay here. Grandpa Smurf was on a quest for a magic stone and far from the Cursed Land (when it disappeared?). Nanny was lost in an enchanted castle.

Now, if Papa Smurf and his era of Smurfs allied with Johan, Pirlouit and the good natured king of their kingdom, perhaps he made inroads that made more good than evil in the land and as such, the curse is lifting. Also, the originator of the curse was perhaps an ancestor of Gargamel and since Gargamel is such a lousy wizard, he hasn't the power to keep the curse going.

If the curse lifts and good faerie magic can return in ernest, then when the next blue moon appears in the night sky, a stork will bring a new baby Smurf, a great sign that evil is fading.

More to smurf,

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Smurfing Alien

* By 'thingie' I don't mean to imply that 'schroumpf' actually means thing. It is a purely nonsense word created by Peyo on the spur of the moment.

** It is interesting to note that 'The Curse Lands' of Johan and Pirlouit were fairly well worked out and make for a interesting setting in their own right. I don't know that too many fantasy RPG supplements focused on the cultural and geographic region of Belgium during the Middle Ages.

Considering the history of the country and it's connections to the Franks, the Dutch and many other groups, I think setting the Smurfs RPG in a magical medieval Belgium would be fascinating.

Blast From The Past - My First AD&D Character

Before this blog goes 'blue' on Monday, I thought I would take a moment and mention my first experience creating a character for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition.

First a bit of set up...

My introduction to AD&D was, let's say, haphazard. I was already playing the Basic game for a while before I received my own copy of it as a birthday present. Prior to that I was borrowing the rules and such from friends. Not long after receiving the Basic D&D box set (Moldvay edition I think), another relative, my Grandmother I believe, bought me the original Monster Manual, seeing as how I was very interested in the Dungeons & Dragons game. Grandma didn't know that the Monster Manual was for Advanced D&D. And neither did I.

As a matter of fact, since the Monster Manual was the first AD&D game book published, I don't think I even knew there was such a thing as 'Advanced' Dungeons & Dragons. Between adapting houserules to Basic to allow for further level increases and the addition of monsters from the Monster Manual, my friends and I already had the game we wanted to play...or so we thought.

At some point I was GMing my Basic (mostly - Basic Plus?) D&D game at camp when a slightly older boy asked if I'd played Advanced yet. Actually, it was more like, "Why are you still playing Basic? Haven't you tried Advanced?"

The answer of course was no. I had not. As such, he invited me to a game of it with a bunch of his friends. Now these were friends of his who I didn't know and who, it turned out, were about a year or two older than me.

The fellow who invited me to the game, Andrew, lent me his AD&D Player's Handbook (something friends did regularly but acquaintances did very rarely) so I could make a character. I didn't want to disappoint him or his older and obviously (in my mind) more experienced friends, so I read the thing cover to cover and then re-read the important parts needed to generate my character.

I remember that I was not so much floored by the differences between AD&D and Basic but instead had thoughts along the lines of, "Hmmm. I get that. That makes sense." I especially liked the idea of Race and Class being separate. Other elements struck me as quite silly however. Elves live like 10 times longer than Humans but are limited in level as Magic Users. Elves?!

I decided to play an Elven Fighter/Magic User (my first and really only ever) and noted all the special abilities from noticing secret doors to infravision to whatever else I could. I rolled particularly well for Intelligence and about average to good for everything else. I was armed with a sword and a bow and arrow because Elves received bonuses for those and those weapons are always 'Elfy'. Armor was leather I believe. I don't remember much else.

When I arrived at the game and met the group, they seemed like a nice enough bunch of guys, though in retrospect I think they weren't overjoyed to have a new player at their table and a younger one at that. It was pretty evident once the game started.

First, the GM scrutinized my PC, citing several points where he felt I didn't generate him correctly. Some of these were legitimate parts of the rules I missed or misunderstood. Other elements were houserules (or more accurate house rulings on certain unclear areas).

All in all it was a pretty crappy experience, as the group (except for Andrew) made fun of the newbie and his 'overpowered' character. Yes, they thought me to be a bit of a power gamer and a munchkin, even though I had done nothing more then make up a character using the rules given.

We played a short adventure but I can't remember anything about it. Andrew's Mom noticed a bit of tension in the air and saved the day with some well timed refreshments as only a Mom can. While enjoying the refreshments the topic of discussion turned to comic books and I got my crushed confindence back as no one in the room knew as much about comics as I did (take that older kids!).

Afterwards the guys didn't feel like continuing the game and wanted to play touch football instead. I was eager to head home at that point.

A day or two later I saw Andrew again and he sort of apologized for his friends. I appreciated that a lot. We ended up being good friends and he showed me his copy of the Dungeon Master's Guide. I ended up converting my then current game over to Advanced D&D over the course of the next year or so, eventually getting all three volumes. AD&D was my main game after a while. I ran numerous campaigns with it, including my longest ever which lasted 3 and a half years realtime.

At the same time that AD&D fueled my passion for gaming, it would also point out and reinforce concepts that would eventually lead to my dropping D&D of any kind altogether. For a game about imagination, it seemed to be filled with limits. It was a Role Playing Game designed with playing a game in mind, not a role. I liked the role elements more then the rule elements and I still do.

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Barking Alien

Cure For The Summer Time Blues

OK look...you've got to trust me on this one. I did right by you guys with the Muppets didn't I? Come on, have a little faith. My next thing-that-should-be-an-RPG-but-shouldn't-but-sooo-should...




The Smurfs Role Playing Game

I got this. I so smurfing got this.

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Barking Alien

FYI - Pictured above...Chivalry Smurf, Shadow Smurf and Sherpa Smurf.

Blast From The Past - My First Traveller Character

Between my first D&D character and my first Traveller character, I created my first Gamma World character. I also GMed at least one but perhaps two other RPGs which I never personally made a PC for. One of them was Boot Hill. I do not recall the other game.

If you follow my posts this month, you will notice this trend pick up speed. I would GM more and more and play as a player less and less. I am trying to post these 'Blast From The Past' entries in roughly the actual chronological order of when I created my PCs. At some point you will see me create a character for a game years and years after the game came out. Very likely I'd been running the game forever and simply never got to play.

That said...

I summed up my earliest experience with Traveller in an older post, so what I will try to do here is remember the character I played in that first game.

That isn't easy to do. I didn't like that game. Between the first time I played Traveller and the next time I played it, 8 years would pass. I later grew to love Traveller and it remains a favorite of mine to this day but in 1979, at the age of 10, Traveller was far too boring for my tastes. It lacked everything that made Sci-Fi cool (and my favorite genre). No PC alien species, the idea of dying during character creation, low high-technology and virtually no pictures in the rulebooks failed to give the young me anything to get excited about in the game.

My character, like all the others in that session, was a mercenary. I believe he had the careers of Army and Scout on his sheet if my memory serves me right. He had a gun. Actually two, a pistol and a carbine I think. That is all.

Goodnight Folks! (The Tonight Show closing theme starts...)

Seriously, that's it. That's all I can tell you. And it's not because my poor, old brain can't recall any more (ok, partially it is I'm sure) but moreover because there really was nothing else distinctive about him. I don't even remember his name, though I believe it was a fairly mundane one, especially for me.

Like my first D&D guy, this character taught me a few things that I would later put into good use when GMing.

If you have a diverse group, they are going to want to play diverse characters. Even if they have the same 'job' (all are Starfleet Officers, Superheros, Knights of the Realms, etc.), focus on what makes them different (Area of Expertise, Origin and Background, Style and Personality, etc.).

Start small only if you're gonna end big. Otherwise, start big. If you are introducing something new to a group of players, don't begin in a way that won't wow them. If you do, it's unlikely they're going to be enthused about starting a campaign. This goes along with my ideas about one-shots.

Well, onward and upward. The next game I made a character for was...hmmm...Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition? Possibly yes. Huh. OK, so it was. Good ol' Thickstone gets his day in the sun then...

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Barking Alien

I almost forget - Happy Birthday Lucy! Today would've been Lucille Ball's 100th Birthday. I have always been a big fan of this classic queen of comedy and she was instrumental (along with her husband at the time, Desi Arnaz, by way of Desilu Productions) in the development of some of the greatest television shows of the mediums early heydays (including Star Trek!).

We still love you Lucy!