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August 12, 2005
Eric Burns-White: Of course, City of Heroes lets me design a costume on a 3D model, which pen and paper roleplaying has trouble competing with. But that's minor, right? Right?
If you've been paying attention over this past year, you know that one of my favorite role playing games to come along in a long time is Chad Underkoffler's Dead Inside. If not, search through the archives and see a bit more. Suffice it to say, it's astoundingly cool. Underkoffler knows his craft.
Well, he's turned his craft -- and his PDQ resolution system -- to super heroes, which is a genre I know a thing or two about. And he's published the results in Truth & Justice, a game with an ampersand in the title. Fans of these comics we call web might also be interested to know that Randy Milholland (best known for his now defunct Ed Gein website) and Greg Holkan (who's in a special purgatory for people stuck trying to draw things I wrote) have both contributed some truly cool artwork to the book.
I love this game. And it's not because of the art, or because Chad writes good stuff, even though both of those are true. I love this game because for the first time in a superhero role playing game, I can honestly see evidence of a system that is designed to play the way a comic book reads -- with flexibility.
Now, don't get upset when you read that. I am an old school superhero RPG player and GM. I had and played the first edition of Villains and Vigilantes. I played many, many editions of Champions. I played GURPS Supers. I paused many times and said "what the fuck is this shit?" with my copy of Heroes Unlimited. I have the superhero street cred, mister.
The thing about most Superhero RPGs isn't a lack of flexibility. It's a lack of situational adaptability. Take Champions. You can do anything in Champions. You really can. When Champions Third Edition was out, I could create any character I wanted in it -- model any character from comic books. The only one I couldn't pull off was the Scarlet Witch, because her probability manipulation didn't play like Luck. It played like 'Writer fiat.' And when Champions Fourth (the Big Blue Book) came out, that stopped being a problem because there were Variable Power Pools.
But if you're going to do it, you really need to have number crunched it in advance. If you have a 12d6 energy blast defined as a supercold ice blast, you can't use your cold powers to freeze your opponents in a block of ice unless you've spent the points on Entanglement. If you have a lot of tricks you want, you need something like an Elemental Control or a Multipower to spare points while you make everything up, and even those require crunching the number and spending the points in advance. Otherwise, when you try to use your powers in unique, situational ways, it's up to the GM to kludge around things. The game isn't designed to simply handle new situations.
It's the same with the other games I mentioned -- a good GM could model almost any super power he wanted, but if a given power effect wasn't predefined, then it was a matter of winging it and having a sense that the player was 'getting away with something.'
And City of Heroes? Don't get me started. Like all cRPGs, you can do what you can do, period. No flexibility at all. In fact, with the Issue Five beta, one event has the heroes fighting a fire. Now, I'll admit I haven't tried an Ice Controller or Blaster in that event, but I've played other heroes... and there's no way to use their powers to fight the blaze. My Sonics guy couldn't use his super lungs to blow out flames. A person with superspeed couldn't whirl his hands into a tiny vacuum to suck the flames out. No, we had to go find the fireman standing nearby with the pile of fire extinguishers, and fly around the building squirting out flames.
Fire extinguishers. Yeah, I was feeling the superhuman rush there.
Anyway. The thing about Truth & Justice is your powers are a starting point. You have a number of powers -- like "Ice Beam" or "Super Strength." And having those means having... well, all the tricks associated with them. If you have ice beam, and you want to try trapping an enemy in a block of ice instead of blasting him, you tell the GM, maybe spend a hero point or two (think Karma or Blood Pool or Mana or any other action point based RPG of the past decade), have an easily determined alteration of difficulty and effectiveness based on it, and just do it. Tricks you do a lot -- say you freeze your enemies solid all the time -- you can take as lower cost "Stunts," that either give you broader abilities (spin-off stunts, like the Flash using his speed to run up the side of a wall) or give you bonuses for what you're already doing (signature stunts -- like Captain America bouncing his shield off three different Nazis' heads in one throw. You just associate that with him, so it makes sense he gets a bonus to do it).
Suddenly, you get the whole range of your powers. You're actively encouraged to think your way out of the situation instead of just firing off energy blast after energy blast, and arguing about whether or not your energy blast's special effect of being 'fire blasts' means you can set the ground on fire and burn them over time or not. That to me is vastly more "comic book" like -- it's almost as broad as the highly conceptual Nobilis, but where that game is about Gods, a super hero game should have more definition (and risk).
As a test, I made up Transit -- my favorite City of Heroes character, based on a Superguy character I created a lot of years ago. Trans is a teleporter. In conception, that's all she does. She creates gates in space/time using an incredibly precise command of mathematics and physics. She was grown in a lab by bad people for some dark purpose, but she was released before she was programmed by Good People, and now she fights crime.
(Yes, I play some female characters in City of Heroes. I own my piggishness, thank you very much.)
The thing about Transit is she's hard to model in RPGs. Teleportation is usually a means of getting from point A to point B in very little time. You need a game like Champions that'll let you build powers by the result you want, and then tack whatever special effects you like on top of them, to really do the way Transit uses her powers justice. For example, when she punches a crook, she actually punches her hand into a gate, which opens up behind the criminal, hitting them from behind. A cool effect, very possible in comic books. (I think they did that exact trick in Atari Force, making me the one person in North America who read Atari Force.) However, you would need to build it as a form of energy blast (since it's ranged) with specific bonuses to hit and pay points to get to do it at all, in Champions. The same with using opened gates as means of 'deflecting' incoming fire. That's the way it works.
With Truth & Justice, I give Transit Teleportation at the Expert level. If I really want, I can also give her specific stunts of punching enemies from across the room or unexpected angles, or redirecting incoming fire harmlessly away. In the middle of a battle, however, when the Titan Beam is about to fire and destroy the Bakersfield Building, I can shout "I have Transit open a gate in front of the cannon, so the beam fires into it, with the aperture pointing at the cannon itself!" And the GM figures appropriate downshifts for doing something different with Transit's powers, gives me a chance to spend hero points if I wish, and we roll for it.
That's the way super hero comics work. Sudden, innovative flashes. Heroes using their brains as well as the cosmic death beams from beyond the fourth sun. And Truth & Justice nails it.
Making characters up isn't as fun as making up characters in Villains and Vigilantes or Champions. The very open flexibility of T&J means that you don't derive as much enjoyment from speccing out powers, crunching numbers, and figuring out how to push the system in directions you want. There was a time when making up a Champions character was leisure time activity for me. However, in the heat of actually playing a super hero RPG, Truth & Justice nails the genre like few have before it. And that's astoundingly cool.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:47 PM | Comments (47)
Eric Burns-White: Momentum and the lack thereof.
Here's the thing about writing. It's a question of momentum.
All those people who say "you should write every day, no matter how crappy a given day's output is?" They're essentially right. At least, if your brain works like mine -- and it's safe to say not everyone's does. You hear a lot about it -- practice, priming the pump, keeping the gears turning, and so forth. And they're probably all true, depending on which person we're discussing and what muse they're working with.
For me, however, it's a question of inertia. Of momentum.
See, if I write every day -- each and every day -- then writing comes frighteningly easy to me. Probably too easily -- there are some pieces that benefit far more from agonizing over word choice. So, when you discover you've written four thousand words when two hundred well chosen words will do, you haven't done the story any favors. (I know some people who think pretty much all my writing suffers from this. Nolo contendere.) However, I'm perfectly happy with it -- I enjoy editing after the fact, and I especially enjoy the headlong rush of the writing process. Fiction, nonfiction, stuff about webcomics, stuff about stuff, whatever. I like it. I like it a lot.
This is why something like the Shadow knockoff name issue can wreck my output so hard, by the way. When I have a good head of steam going, with many days of solid writing output behind me, hitting something that refuses to budge until I resolve it means suddenly all that momentum is slamming into a wall. It completely obliterates everything else in my brain. Curing cancer is nothing compared to resolving this one stupid point about a story no one will ever read -- my life is devoted to it.
(By the by -- the Shadow knockoff seems to be working, though not over the past several days, but then that's not the Shadow knockoff's fault.)
It's all about momentum.
That's where a week like the past week really kills me. I mean, kills me. I was very sick, and work was unbelievably stressful, and my hours were filled with unmitigated crap.
And I didn't write.
I couldn't write. I had no time to write.
I finally forced myself to have an evening off, a couple days back. And I got some writing done, and it made things better. But it came hard.
Just like this is coming hard.
The problem with the 'inertia/momentum' method of creative output is when you stop dead, you're dead. The blank page mocks you. It seems impossibly hard to fill the screen with words. You're smoke. Utter, total smoke.
And that sucks. That sucks donkey.
This is where I am today. There's stuff to talk about. There are good webcomics. And (wonder of wonders) I have ten minutes I don't need to be on the phone with angry people. So I have an input screen. For this. Our blog. Which theoretically I write for.
So what you're reading right now? Is essentially me walking around to the back of the car and shoving, hoping that there's not too much of an incline to push it up before we get going. Here's hoping it works.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:30 AM | Comments (23)
August 11, 2005
Wednesday Burns-White: [w] Taken by surprise
From For Better or For Worse.
Lynn Johnston nails it.
I nitpick comics, literature, films and television which incorporate any form of sexual assault. Telefilms, fine art, even black humour. To some extent, it's a distancing mechanism. While the vile practice can make for a dramatic moment, it's exceptionally difficult to convey without sliding into melodrama or exploitation. Many don't bother to try; some make a halfhearted stab, but aren't competent to follow through. After a fashion, the shell gets pretty thick. Rather than having one's night ruined by a series of unpleasant reminders, one can simply lean back, sneer, and declare, "Please. That's about as convincing as the plotholes that you could drive a truck through. What's their inspiration? Day of the Woman?"
In other words, "That's not what it's like."
Today? That's what it's like.
I spent a couple of minutes trying to find the flaws. "Liz must not have hit him very hard if he's still going without so much as a flinch. Wasn't her fist closed?" Since when have we seen Liz punch people before? "The prior stalking is a little oversimplified." But we know the constraints of the form, the way people in FBorFW communicate, and we so know what gaps to fill in. Putting aside a slight awkwardness in the rhythm, this is elegantly minimalistic -- we don't have to be told what else is going on, and we arguably shouldn't be. "The offscreen rescuer wouldn't have had the presence of mind to contribute the superheroesque comeback." Rubbish. It's an obvious retort, and it's cathartic.
No. Johnston gets it. She nails it. Assaults take various forms, of course, but there's a particular strain of jump and banter which she has down. Ignore the dialogue, if you need to; the body language conveys everything that it needs to. His arms.
That's exactly it.
Perhaps you might not want to read the strip today. I'm... I'm going outside for a while.
Posted by Wednesday Burns-White at 10:34 AM | Comments (71)
August 10, 2005
Eric Burns-White: The redemption of scripting.
I'm somewhere between eternal illness and exhaustive collapse. There is a lot of stress going on right now, which few if anyone here is that interested in. Except, of course, that I'm not writing very much on Snark. It's not because I don't love you.
However, there are things that need to be worked on, and one of those things is Gossamer Commons. Greg has been waiting for some scripts, so he can keep well ahead of the pack, and the same things that kept me barely here has kept me from getting scripts to him.
Tonight, I knuckled down and hammered out a month's worth of scripts. And damn if I don't feel good, now. Really good. Better than I've felt in a month, almost.
It helps that I really like how they're going. Chapter Two's pace looks like it's going to be about perfect -- which means I've learned a thing or two from Chapter One. Things happen, and as of strip eighteen of Chapter Two, no one's sat across a table from someone else while drinking coffee. This can only be a good sign.
It's interesting, however. I'm just as tired, and ill, and overly stressed, as I was yesterday. And this morning. (I was significantly late this morning, because I was so tired I could barely make it out of bed. My boss understood, because she feels exactly the same way.) Nothing's changed.
But I've written. I've written dialogue and script and plot. And it's good stuff. I can feel the goodness. (Of all my problems, low self esteem isn't on the list.)
So I feel good. I have hope. It all seems worth it. It all seems like it's going to work.
I've also had some very, very good news on the Snarky shirt front. Expect something tomorrow or Friday, at this rate. We're also going to be offering the Revelations: Strunk & White designs as a poster -- which some argue it should have been in the first place. (Though the run was a success, so I'm not complaining either way.)
So I feel productive. I feel creative. I feel in control. And that trumps exhausted, sick and stressed every day of the week, in my book.
Now -- to write some pulp.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 6:54 PM | Comments (11)
August 9, 2005
Eric Burns-White: Shirts sent, and I'm made of foam!
There is a weariness that settles over you. It soaks into your bones and flows through your spleen. It colors your thoughts and makes your brain the consistency of mush. And then, on top of it all, you feel sick.
This is where I live. Metown, population yo.
Through it all, however, I've managed to put in the "Revelations: Strunk and White" shirt order, and make preparations for the next shirt and other bits of stuff for the purchasing.
Also, there is the chance for other exciting bits of goodness. I for one would like to see tea mugs. I mean, dude. Tea mugs.
Or not.
Anyway. I'll make an extra effort to not be so crap tomorrow, and give you snarks and writings!
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:59 PM | Comments (16)
August 8, 2005
Wednesday Burns-White: [w] Eric status report.
Eric's still sick.
Don't get me wrong. He's getting better. They gave him drugs, and they're working. He's not going to die. I assure you, citizens of Townsville, he will once again make it possible for you to enjoy your long-playing records.
But work is also doing this thing where it puts stress on the pile. You know how stress is cumulative, and adding to the queue sort of makes recovering from prior stressors more than a little difficult?
Yeah. He's still fighting the Ministry of Pain.
So don't worry. He'll be back. It's just that he won't be back tonight. He needs time to recover. He very badly needs time to recover.
Cheer up! I'll be here to regale you with a multipart essay on Salem Kirban's seminal, highly elliptical premillenial-dispensationalist duology, 666 and 1000 -- Hey! HEY! STOP KILLING ME!
Posted by Wednesday Burns-White at 11:23 PM | Comments (12)
Wednesday Burns-White: [w] Coffee, Beer, Wine and Whiskey?
This seems about the right sort of time to ask if others plan to attend Ayacon, a British anime convention at the University of Warwick, over the weekend of 19th August. If so, this is also to check and see whether some sort of excursion for food and/or drink is indicated. Because, see, planning.
I intend to hit up Paul Gravett's lecture on manga history and culture, spend some time in the artists' alley (since Fred Gallagher isn't around this year, there may actually be space for one this time), hang about the bar with some Copic markers feeling indequate about my drawing skills, and attend any webcomic-related panels that happen to be scheduled1. Also, I plan to drink alcohol.
Hopefully, not Strongbow. Not this year.
1 I have no idea if any have been scheduled, but it seems like there should be -- the surge in minicomic/doujinshi/zine style small press work amongst British fanartists since 2001 suggests that webcomics would also be embraced. And I'm looking forward to what sort of material's been inspired by Gallagher's appearance two years back.
Posted by Wednesday Burns-White at 1:50 PM | Comments (8)
