80s Action Cartoons Were Very Gameable

I'm not just talking about the usual suspects like Thundarr the Barbarian or The Pirates of Darkwater; or ones that already have games like G.I. Joe, Transformers, or of course, Dungeons & Dragons. Even the deeper cuts are great too. Let's take a look at a sampling and the gaming inspiration they provide.

Sky Commanders (1987)

If you're a fan of hexcrawls or even pointcrawls, could I interest you in high elevation, feature-to-feature exploration? The premise is a new continent has arisen in the Pacific thanks to some weird energy source, and a multi-national group of mountaineering-specialist good-guys fight the baddies via flight, or by using "laser cables," a fancy rappelling line shot from combat backpacks. There are all sorts of environmental hazards to contend with too, and some monsters.

Spiral Zone (1987)

The high concept takeaway here might be G.I. Joe meets the Walking Dead. In the show, an evil scientist and his Road Warrior refugee have released a weird, bioactive mist (the Spiral Zone) that turns the people in it into mindless zombies. A crack team of agents and their tricked-out vehicles and protective suits do battle with the badguys. A twist is that both sides want to limit civilian casualties as the bad guys want to use them, and the good guys want to save them. 

Defenders of the Earth (1986)

While this team-up of several King Features Syndicate characters against Ming the Merciless might seem like a low-powered supers thing (and in some ways it is), the takeaway here, I think, is genre crossover. You've got a sword & planet guy, a pulp hero (or two), and a wizard who get together to take out a villain.

Wednesday Comic: DC, December 1983 (week 1)

My ongoing mission: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands on the week of September 8, 1983. 

Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld #8: Mishkin/Cohn and Colon give us a bit of the history of Gemworld, and we discovered that the humans originated on Earth and fled to another dimension as magic began to fade. Citrina, it turns out, was the one that led the ritual. Meanwhile, the mysterious Emissaries of Varn, working as mercenaries for Dark Opal, attack and destroy the House of Diamond. Amethyst and her allies are unable to stop the Emissaries and their magic absorbing power, but they are given a reprieve by the sudden appearance of one of the priests of Diamond.

Blackhawk #265: The editorial a few issues back was just a preview as Evanier and Speigle final get around to dealing with some of the lingering racism in Chop-Chops portrayal in story. Unfortunately, it also culminates in him appearing to get written out of the story. As the Blackhawks try to track down Merson through his finances, Chop Chop is uncharacteristically irritable, feeling like he's a second-class member of the team. His attitude forces the other Blackhawks to reflect and realize he has been treated differently. After playing a pivotal role in their capturing Merson, Chop Chop makes a formal announcement that he wishes leave to go fight the Japanese invaders in his home country. Blackhawk presents him with his on Blackhawk uniform for the first time and the group salutes him, addressing him under his real name for the first time in print, Wu Cheng. 

In the Detached Service backup by Evanier and Boyette, Chuck's plane gets stolen, and he's stranded in Europe for a couple of days, while he tries to get it back. He finds some of his plane in a black-market warehouse being run by a sleazy black marketeer Dmitri Hocking. He forces the man to help him retrieve the other parts, but things don't go smoothly, and they run into Nazis. Chuck is forced to assemble a patchwork plane of disparate parts for a dogfight before it's all over.

DC Comics Presents #64: Scientist and TV host Victor Epoch's (his show Astro seems a Cosmos stand-in) time experiment brings portions of the After Disaster future to present-day Metropolis, including Kamandi. He teams up with Superman to fight off the time-displaced Great Caesar and his tiger troops. This is Kamandi's last appearance prior to Crisis, courtesy of Evanier and Saviuk/McLaughlin.

Justice League of America #221: Conway is back again with Patton/Marcos and a particularly violent and bloody story for the JLA. The JLA members individually encounter and seem targeted various sorts of anthropomorphic animal people, and those guys don't pull punches. A rhnio man impales Flash on his horn, a flock of birds push Elongated Man into a press, and scorpion men fighting Hawkman impale a bystander bloodily. Firestorm meets the only animal woman, a cat woman named Reena, who seems opposed to the others. He convinces her to come back to the satellite and tell her story. We don't hear what that is this issue, but we meet the mastermind behind this all: a lion man named Maximus Rex who's ordering around a scientist named Dr. Lovecraft.

Wonder Woman #310: Mishkin and Beachum/Marcos have Wonder Woman considering revealing her secret identity to Steve Trevor and talking it over with Black Canary during a game. Canary is against it, but Wonder Woman tells a story of the Amazon Artemis and how Ares was able to manipulate her through her love of a Greek soldier Cleon into opening up Themiscrya to attack.  

The Cavalieri and Burgard/Rodriguez Huntress backup continues the story of the baby-selling ring run by Earthworm, but not a lot happens this installment other than we see how Earthworm prays upon the desperate and addicted to get the infants he sells.

An Adventure Path like a Dungeon

B1-9 flowchart

Recently I was reading the rpg Flash Gordon and the Warriors of Mongo (1977). The usual take on this game is that it is less an rpg and more a boardgame. That's likely the way it will strike most people on first blush, but I think Christian Lindke makes a reasonable case that it is a roleplaying game of its era (and underwritten even for that) with a definite campaign path, almost like some story games of today.

I don't see any reason why a game couldn't have a definite campaign arc. I think that would work with a lot of licensed properties, and I think the "adventure path" style of modern published adventures is a way to do just that. Unfortunately, these sorts of adventures suffer conceptually, I think, from a couple of flaws. One is the desire to have the campaign arc come as a surprise to players or at least to appear to arise naturalistically from the earlier campaign events. This requires the GM to be deceptive. Two, if the players weren't getting railroaded to get them into the adventure, they certainly are once it starts because the path through the adventure tends to be fairly linear.

I think it can be done better. This is an idea akin to my previous one about running an adventure point-crawl--in fact, it's really just a slightly different approach to the same basic idea. 

Both involve a goal to achieve, a geography to cover in doing so, and certain events or scenes that might occur. These locations and their events/scenes form the "rooms" in a conceptual "dungeon," or more accurately the points in a conceptual pointcrawl. An adventure of this sort would have a conceptual/narrative map and a physical geography map, not unlike the actual Mongo mmap compared to the "Schematic Map" of Flash Gordon and the Warriors of Mongo:

How would this differ from a standard, old adventure path? Well, in at least a couple of ways. As much is possible, nothing is supposed to happen. Certain events would make completing the task of the campaign easier, but only rarely would there be no other way to get it done.

Like in a pointcrawl, players are permit to just follow the physical geography. Nothing forces them to stay on the path, but the locations on the path have special features analogous (or perhaps literally, sometimes times) to secret doors, teleportation disks or what have you that allow quicker, easier travel between "points." "Solving" a "point" might unlock other advantages like allies or items that make completing the goal of the campaign easier. Just like finding certain items or meeting certain NPCs in a dungeon.

This break from linearity would mean the points would have to have less of a causal relationship than the events of adventure paths typically do. It would work best, I think, for certain sorts of campaign arcs. A rebellion (like Star Wars or Flash Gordon) would be one, but something like Pirates of Dark Water with episodic exploration in search of plot coupons would work well, too. Anything more like a broadcast era episodic TV series with a throughline and less like a feature film.

Terminal State is Now!

The Terminal State by Chris Vermeren Kickstarter is going now. Terminal State is a cyberpunk rpg that Vermeren promises isn't stuck in the 80s, but updated to be "the future of now." It's a Year Zero Engine game (like Forbidden Lands and so many others) with some innovations.

I've been following the posts regarding the game on the VX2 discord and it looks really nice. 

There's a quickstart over on drivethru so you can check out the vibe then head over to KS to give it your support!

Wednesday Comics: DC, November 1983 (week 4)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics on the newsstand on August 25, 1983.

Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew #20: Bridwell, Cavallieri and Hoberg/Lay finish out the series with guest appearances by Changeling and Gorilla Grodd and teases for an upcoming limited series that won't appear for another couple of years. The Cavallieri approach to scripting is a bit less punny than the writers that came before, but he does ring some mildly humorous bits from Changeling's bemusement at the differences with the Zoo Crew's world, and that world's with him. Grodd is defeated mostly by the Teen Titan, though. The Zoo Crew isn't exactly sidelined, but they also don't seem to have the lead. Based on one scene, Grodd appears to be working with a mysterious Roquat, who Oz fans will know is the Nome King, but I wonder if Grodd's involvement is still a part of the Oz-Wonderland Wars mini when it appears? Anyway, so long Earth-C.

Detective Comics #532: I liked this issue better than the last one due to an added dose of comic book silliness. Moench and Colon/Alcala have the Joker reveal to the captive Batman and Vicki Vale that his master plan is to get total control of Guatemala and turn the whole country into a Joker-themed amusement park with "killer" rides and attractions. In fact, he's got a site model to show them--and a Joker-faced train deathtrap for them both. Batman frees them both of course. Vicki snatches up a gun, and they fight their way out, collapsing the building on a still-laughing Joker.

Meanwhile, a remorseful Bullock convinces Barbara Gordon he's changed his ways at Jim Gordon's hospital bedside, and Alfred is reunited with his daughter Julia, who finally knows that he is her father.

In the backup by Cavalieri and Moore/Gonzales/Trapani, Green Arrow and the thief he was captured with manage to escape the Survivalists and through a number of outrageous trick shots and gimmick arrows, Green Arrow foils their plot and takes them captive.

Action Comics #549: Bates, Saviuk and Colletta/Marcos continue their "untold tale" of Superman and the Phantom Zone escapees, or as they call themselves here: The Zod Squad. It turns out those criminals are trying to do the right thing for once, and after a confrontation with Superman they manage to convince him. The real enemy is the Vrangs, who we now learn are conquerors with a history of subjugating Krypton (as first revealed in Superman #176). As Kryptonians, the Zod Squad is willing to make common cause with Superman to defeat them. However, when Superman is captured and two of the Phantom Zoners are killed, Zod is quite willing to use the Jewel Kryptonite in a way which will kill the Vrangs (who have a weakness to crystal, apparently) and Superman, thus ridding himself of two enemies. Superman manages to break free from the Vrangs on his own and use the power of the jewel to escape into the Phantom Zone just like the Zod Squad as the Vrang ship blows up. Supes quickly uses the jewel again to return to regular space and ensures the Zod Squad is trapped once again in their prison.

All-Star Squadron #26: Thomas and Howell/Houston again have a lot of characters to juggle, which makes the book constantly feel like a lot of its pages are spent on getting them from one place to another, not on superhero action. While the Atom is briefly hospitalized for his radiation exposure, the Justice Society use Wonder Woman's Magic Sphere to try to find Dr. Fate. They locate him at the end of his search for the Spectre in a Ditko Dr. Strange-esque weird dimension. The Spectre appears to have become the thrall of the evil being known as Kulak, High Priest of Brztal. He fights with Fate and in the end hurls him through an infinity of dimensions, off to the end of time. Then Kulak turns his attention to Earth. Gigantic blue hands, visible everywhere in the world, reach out from the rent fabric of the sky.

Arion Lord of Atlantis #13: Kupperberg returns to script the comic he co-created. Now that Wyynde's father has died, he is expected to become the next dhonu (leader) of the tribe according to the customs of his people. Although, he'd like to keep serving Arion and D'Tilluh, he does his duty. However, his cousin Graywolff challenges Wyynde for leadership during the ceremony, and the shaman Wintermoon uses his magic to help the treacherous Graywolff secure an advantage. Luckily, Arion has Wyynde's back and even without his full magical fight, he's able to help his friend win the day and take his rightful place with his people.

Fury of Firestorm Annual #1: Rafael Kayanan makes his American comics debut and begins a long association with Firestorm. While there are perhaps some amateurish panels here, I think some of his designs (Firehawk, particularly) are an improvement over what we've seen before. The story here continues from this month's issue. Firestorm has to figure out a way to escape Tokamak's plasma rings, which are compressing him right out of the universe. He does by causing a nuclear explosion, but don't worry, he absorbs the radiation. Meanwhile, Tokamak has again kidnapped Lorraine and returns to his base where it's apparent he's not acting rationally. Stein's ex again spies on his activites for Tokamak, who sends the new Enforcer to nab the physicist, but Firestom beats her just like her predecessor. Our hero arrives at Tokamak's base just as Multiplex is deciding it's time to bug out. 

A battle ensues between Firestorm and Tokamak, which it looks like the villain might win, until Firehawk shows up to help. Lorraine's powers got re-triggered by a potential plunge to her death. Firehawk proves she's free of Tokamak's control forever, and the two heroes defeat Tokamak, evening dealing with his explosion, then share a kiss.

Returning to the Day home, Ronnie finds out his father was in the witness relocation program after testifying against the mobster, Shine. Shine tried to have him killed but failed. He's still alive, and he and Ronnie can be reunited now that Shine is dead. Not really sure what the point of this subplot was given that it was resolved so quickly. 

Jonah Hex #78: Fleisher and Ayers/DeZuniga take a bit of a side trip from the ungoing story of Hex being framed for the governor's murder. He does rescue Emmylou from the Turnbull's goons, but as he goes to find the letter than will exonerate him (at least for the original sentence; not for killing the governor) he runs into a massacred group of Indians. He gives aid to the sole survivor, but the kid ropes him into helping bring the men responsible to justice. Hex helps out then becomes the young man's "blood brother." That done, he returns to his mission only to fall into a trap laid by bushwhacking bounty hunters.

New Adventures of Superboy #47: Kupperberg and Saviuk/Schaffenberger conclude Superboy's visit to Japan. We find out Sunburst isn't really a villain but is being forced to commit crimes by criminals who are holding his parent's hostage. In a typical Superman comics twist, Sunburst told Superboy this last issue, so the two are actually working together to set a trap for the crooks. Superboy rushes to rescue Sunburst's parents, who reveal Sunburst must have come by his powers by inhaling vapors from a volcano that happened to be erupting the day he was born. If he appeared again, I'm betting his origin got retconned to "mutant." Anyway, Superboy helpfully super-hypnotized Sunburst so that the hero forgets he has the powers that have been so burdensome. 

In the Dial H backup by Bridwell/Rozakis and Bender/Hunt, Trouble Clef and Venus the FlyingTrap must defeat a cadre of new villains serving the master: Metalliferro, Darkstar, Spyderr, Titaness, Solar Dynamo, Trojan, Blue Damsel Fly, Serpentina, and Cableman. In the end of the issue a shocker: the suggestion the duo's friend Nick might be working for the Master.

Sword of the Atom #3: It turns out Taren's old righthand man, Voss, isn't a spy but only sort of jealous of the Atom usurping his position. In tried-and-true action media tradition, once the two fight a bit, they come to grudgingly respect each other and work together for the rebellion. Meanwhile in Moriadh, Deraegis continues his plan to steal the throne from Caellich by repairing the stardrive that powered the ship their people came to Earth in to power the city. Caellich forbids this because he fears the engine is unstable, but Deragis instructs his men to continue the work.

Back at the rebel camp, a troop of army ants causes an emergency, forcing the rebels to run for safety. Taren, who has been feeling he is a drag on the group, takes the opportunity to commit suicide by ant. This pushes Atom to decide the time has come to lead the rebels forward--and also frees him and Laethwen up to act on their feelings for each other.

World's Finest Comics #297: Big shift in art style this issue as Colan/Smith replace Andru/DeCarlo. We're treated to a long fight between Superman and the Pantheon member Omicron while Batman gets the secret origin of the villains and just what they're about from Rho. It's a kind of interesting set up, having a definite 70s Marvel feel, like something Gerber would have done. A CIA agent comes across a mysterious Living Diamond in his work, killing the person that had it to take it. Everyone he shows it to, from the priest he to whom he confesses, to a jeweler, to a husband and wife scientific research team fall under the diamond's sway. They find a way to harness the diamond's mutagenic affects and hasten their own evolution. They realized the diamond was a seed of the Cosmic Tree, so they set out to find the tree, believing it will complete their evolution so they can remake the world in their own image. Like I say interesting, to the it takes up a lot of pages.

Batman and Superman finally get together. Batman goes to warn the League to bring in reinforcements, while Superman pursues the Pantheon, hoping to stop them from bringing forth, Zeta, who would be their strongest member from the roots of the Cosmic Tree. The issue ends with him appearing to be too late.

Ronin #3: This issue didn't actually hit the stands until next month, but it was dated November. In Aquarius, a group meets to discuss the Ronin. Their security chief Casey would very much like to kill for murdering 3 of her men. The AI Virgo, however, reminds the executives of the value of the Ronin's telekinesis enhanced cybernetics. It appears, however, Virgo may have another motive. Anyway, the head of Aquarius agrees. He's thinking of moving into selling weaponry, something he had been against previously. Meanwhile, the Ronin acquires himself a horse, some clothes, and a bow. With an old hippie as his self-appointment manager, he seems to be starting to play Yojimbo in the middle of a race gang war between the Nazis and the Panthers. Then, Aquarius security shows up.

Miller plays with a lot of things that will again show up in The Dark Knight Returns and other works of his over the decade. Interesting to see how long he's been going to some of these same wells.

Weird Revisited: Setting History Should do Something

This post original appeared on 2020 and was one of my most popular posts that year. Recent discussion of what constitutes good "lore" over on X made me think it was time to revisit it.

If setting books for rpgs sometimes get a bad rap, history sections of setting books are probably even more widely reviled. There are reasons for this, but I don't think the solution is that history should be banned from rpg books entirely. I do think it's worth thinking about why we have history (particularly deep history) in rpg setting books, when it's useful and maybe when it isn't.

My thesis is that history in rpg books is most useful/good when it does something. Possible somethings are:

1. Helps to orient the reader (mostly the GM) to the themes/mood/flavor of the setting.
2. Directly establishes parameters that impact the player's adventures.
3. Provides "toys" or obstacles.

It is unhelpful when it does the following:

1. Describes events that have little to no impact on the present.
2. Describes events which are repetitive in nature or easy to confuse.
3. Provides few "toys," or ones that are not unique/distinctive.

Now, I am not talking specifically here about number of words or page counts, which I think a lot of people might feel is the main offender. Those are sort of dependent on the style/marketing position of the publication. Bona fide rpg company books tend to be written more densely and presumably read more straight for pleasure. DIY works are linear and more practical. My biases are toward the latter, but I am more concerned with content here. I do think in general that economy of words makes good things better, and verbosity exacerbates the bad things.

Let's get into an example from Jack Shear's Krevborna:

Gods were once reverenced throughout Krevborna, but in ages past they withdrew their influence from the world. Some say that the gods abandoned mankind to its dark fate due to unforgivable sins. Others believe that the gods retreated after they were betrayed by the rebellious angels who became demons and devils. Some even claim that the gods were killed and consumed by cosmic forces of darkness known as the Elder Evils.

Looking at my list of "good things" it hits most of them. It helps orient to mood and theme (lack of gods, dark fate, unforgivable sins), it sets parameters for the adventurers (cosmic forces of darkness, no gods), and provides obstacles (demons and devils, rebellious angels, elder evils).

That's pretty brief, though. What about a wordier example? Indulge me in an example from my own stuff:

So, the good stuff: orienting to theme, mood. etc. (deep history, memeplexes, super-science, transcendence as old hat, names suggesting a multicultural melange), setting parameters (a fallen age compared to the past, psychic powers, vast distances), and toys and obstacles (psybernetics and a host of other advance tech, Zurr masks, Faceless Ones!)

But wait, have I done one of the "bad things?" I've got two fallen previous civilizations? Isn't that repetitive and potentially confusing? I would say no.  The Archaic Oikueme is the distant past (it's in the name!). It's the "a wizard did it" answer for any weird stuff the GM wishes to throw in, and the source of McGuffins aplenty. The Radiant Polity is the recent past. Its collapse is still reverberating. It is the shining example (again, in the name) that would-be civilizers (and tyrants) namecheck.

Wednesday Comics: DC, November 1983 (week 3)

My mission: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics on newsstands around August 18, 1983.

Thriller #1: In an unspecified near future New York, Dan Grove is considering suicide, dealing with the trauma of filming his brother's brutal assassination by the terrorist Scabbard in the Middle East. Instead. he's reluctantly recruited into a group of adventurers named the Seven Seconds by a ghostly presence of Angeline Thriller, who wants "Seven Seconds to save the world."

The creation of Fleming and von Eeden, Thriller is (like Ronin) emblematic of the new things DC is trying in this era. I remember reading the Meanwhile column on it as a kid, and it seemed so different from anything I was used to in comics. Today, I would say it perhaps prefigures some of the things the British writers would do that became Vertigo, or perhaps more accurately, it resembles something you might see in the direct sell indies of the era. Unfortunately, the storytelling and presentation is as offbeat as the content, and I don't think that part works quite as well. We'll see if that impression changes with later issues.

Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #13: The indicia title of this issue says the title is still "The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl," though on the cover it's just "Supergirl." Kupperberg and Infantino/Oksner introduce a new costume ditching the short of "70s cocktail waitress/stewardess' vibe she was rocking. There's also the beginning of a new story arc, as Kara learns that her neighbor, Mrs. Berkowitz, has had a swastika painted on her door by a fascist group, the Party for Social Reform.  Linda attends a rally at which the group's imposing leader preaches some dog-whistle anti-Semitism.  When a riot breaks out, incited by the staged beating of one of the party members posing Jewish protestor, Supergirl intervenes and orders their leader to end the rally.  Instead, the woman reveals her name as Blackstarr, and she focuses her cosmic powers on the Maid of Might, knocking her to the ground.

Batman and the Outsiders #4: Another lackluster issue by Barr and Aparo. I think they're still figuring out what to do with the team. A former Batman (and Black Lightning) foe now calling himself Meltdown has broken out of prison and is stealing radioactive materials. The Outsiders pursue and do battle but Batman is suspicious something more is going on here. The one thing I did like about this issue was the twist that the warden of the prison is the real villain, and Meltdown was merely driven to desperation because the establishment was withholding life-saving treatment.

Green Lantern #170: I guess Cohn and Tuska/Sekowsky felt like last issue was great because they repeat the same basic framing sequence of the Guardians telling Lantern Kista X, who questions their treatment of Jordan, another story about a former Green Lantern aimed to convince her "the Guardians always know best." In this one, Green Lantern Monak falls to an invasion of his homeworld by the robotic forces of Z'nang after he had warned the Guardians about a despotic takeover on the Z'nang world and they had declined to allow him to intervene. His son, Meeno, because the next Lantern and makes war on the Z'nang in violation of the Guardians' orders, even directing a comet toward the world. When he's shown that the comet will kill many innocent victims of the dictorial regime, he redirects the comet but is killed by Z'nang soldiers. The ring passes to a Z'nang political prisoner who can now fight to liberate his people.  

Jordan wakes up from the mindgame test the subjected him to, and he is dismissed. He asks for another reply beyond "don't call us, we'll call you," particularly given his current exiled status, but none is forthcoming. Despite this, he tells Krista where he given the option to do it all over, he would still choose to be a Lantern.

Sgt. Rock #382: In the main feature by Kanigher and guest artist Spiegle, Easy takes a town and with it some German prisoners who all happen to be teenagers. The leader is as fanatical as the come, and refuses to go easily, killing some of Easy's "green recruits" with a grenade. This story is a bit unusual; I expected Rock to be able to get through to the kid a bit, but no, he's Nazi through and through.

There are a bunch of shorts on everything from the Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee to the F-111, but the only other story is a "Men of Easy" feature on Little Sure Shot, that's okay, other than the silliness of depicting Native Americans in the reservation (presumably) in what must be the 20s or 30s in stereotypical Hollywood "Plains Indians" regalia.

Legion of Super-Heroes #305: Levitz and Giffen/Schaffenberger have a group of Legionnaires go into action against the Shrinking Violet imposter that's married Colossal Boy. Her name is Yera, and she reveals she is working for a group on Imsk that turn out to be separatists. Colossal Boy naturally doesn't take this well but joins the others in trying to locate the real Violet. What follows is well-done, with Cham infiltrating the group as Yera, then calling in the others for a devastating assault. In the coda, Colossal Boy reveals to Yera that he has decided whatever her true identity, she is the one he has fallen in love with.

Warlord #75: Cool Jurgens cover. I reviewed the main story here. No Barren Earth backup this month.