Chronology, Continuity, Comics and Champions

[MisterVimes]

I have noticed something common in Modern games (particularly in Champions as I will address further) that seems to be absent in other RPGs and I am looking for your solutions.

Comics have attempted to keep there magazines cohesive to the story, while keeping the topics as current as possible (Dazzler and the Hypno-Hustler not withstanding). But this has led to huge continuity issues and 'necessary' retroactive continuity (or retconning). As an example. Spider-man was created in the eraly 1960's. He was a high school student about 16 years old. Today Peter Parker should be about 57 years old. He and the Fantastic Four had adventures that mention the new groups "The Beatles". Superboy went on a 'Mission' for JFK, finally pinning him down to a time and place (and despite supermans WW2 adventures, made him about the same age as Spider-Man after that tale.)

The point I am making is that because the comics come out at a rate of once per month, in comic book time, that means that only a few days may have passed in 12 issues, but to keep things current, the back story has to continually be bumped up. This is NOT a problem for comics like Conan and the majority of the CrossGen comics which do not take place during the real world timeline.

As it relates to gaming, games set on different worlds and in the distant past or future (or even the recent past or future for that matter) rarely suffer the same problem. The few exceptions would be regularly updated settings like MechWarrior (with its yearly line of new Mechs) and Cyberpunk games (with their annual catalogs on new technology).

Because combat in Champions may take an Hour (or so) of real time when only seconds pass in the game, weeks of game play may only take up a day or so of game time.

The question (you knew I'd get around to it) is how do YOU keep the Chronology straight? Do the Characters age a year each year? Do you keep a calendar at all? And how do you keep the players looking at time from the Game perspective when the real world spins by?

[RDU Neil]

In fact... I'm obsessed by it. I read comics, but I despise the constant updating of timelines. IMO, Spider-Man SHOULD be 57 years old. I hate that he's not. I stopped reading most Marvel comics in the early 90's, because I was sick of classic stories and a very solid continuity being ignored. (If not, year for year, from early sixties to mid '80s... Marvel's characters had a steady progression from teens to young adults, to full adults that mirrored the times... after twenty years or so, things began to stagnate, and I lost interest.)

In my campaign, which is in it's 16th year... time and age takes place, just like the real world. Characters that started out in their 20's are in their late 30's to early 40's now... though most are NPCs by this point. My original character, Pulse, who was 20 at the time, is now 35, has a wife and kid, and a VERY different perspective on life.
Characters that don't age, are beginning to be noticed, and their relationships with normals is strained.

These kind of changes add drama and pathos to a potentially shallow comic book world. The actions characters took a decade ago, still have repercussions today. Characters live, age, die, retire... whatever... just like real people, they just have wild, amazing, super adventures along the way.

The world itself has changed dramatically. It is no longer a status quo earth with supers. It has drastically changed with alien and magical cultures introduced, radical technology and war changing economics... politics very different, but still somewhat mirroring todays real world.

I love this part of gaming. Long term world building/world development. This is WHY I game. I have a written chart of EVERY SINGLE GAME run in the campaign (issue number, title, what heroes and villains starred). I have writeups of months and years of change, tied to specific timelines, for all this as well. Again, this is where I get my pleasure in gaming. When a character meets an NPC, and realizes this is someone with a rich history... the players enjoy this. When players can look back on ten years or more of gaming, and see how their characters have grown and matured and changed the world... they get off on that... and that is satisfying to me as GM.

Again... continuity and long term storytelling is WHY I game. I love it.

[Supreme]

I'm sad to say that none of the campaigns I run or play in last so long that the characters have been adventuring for years. While many of the players enjoy the campaigns greatly, few GMs have the stamina to keep things going that long. Generally, our timelines assume that time elapsed "off-camera" between sessions is about a month or so. This seems more realistic as it means that our characters can hold down their jobs and aren't ditching their work shifts to fight evil everyday. As for continuity, we love playing period games; golden age, silver age, etc. We almost always work characters from a previous "age" into the background of each period campaign. In fact, I recently worked out a campaign timeline that includes all previous PCs, most published characters (comics, novels, and pulps), and many historical/folklore characters (Hercules, Robin Hood, Paul Bunyan, John Henry, etc.).

[Tom McCarthy]

We have comic book time. The seasons change in the background, but three Christmas adventures later, the character's age hasn't perceptibly changed. Everyone remains in that fuzzy age bracket of 'adult, but not yet worried about getting old'.

I like the experiments in storytelling where characters age in real time. Champions Universe is an interesting example of this, where the FF ages and eventually disbands. John Byrne (love him or hate him) had a miniseries Generations where the DC Universe aged appropriately, but it became a mixed bag as he crossed retcon lines.

[Hermit]

I don't worry too much about it, but when 5th came up, my players and I shoved some of our 4th Edition adventures back a decade or so, historically, and suddenly we could play 5th edition descendents (if we wanted) of them. :) I keep it fairly fluid.

Continuity can be fun if used in a humor/camp campaign. I recall the time in an old Marvel SH Game when my character defeated Dr Doom by showing him a comic of "The month before" where "the real Doom" had been sucked into an alternate universe. The current one we were facing, my character extrapolited, was either a robot... or could not exist. He poofed away in a puff of continity confusion. :) Of course, I wasn't able to bask in the glory as reality rewrote itself and we all ICly forgot anyways. Just can't win. :)

[ProfessorM@ss]

I'm also a continuity nut.

I started playing (visualize embarrassed grin) Heroes Unlimited in my current setting in 1988. In the fifteen years since, my gaming universe has evolved dramatically, through three sets of players, and my own experiences.

I've had to retcon the continuity twice. When our first gaming group broke up to go off to college and such, I ended the campaign with a massive alien invasion. I ended up retconning that a few years later, because it made the setting virtually unplayable.

Then there was my abortive attempt to start a comic book company (visualize a pained expression). Well, that was a bollicks from start to finish. However, it led to another revision, and it was a good one.

My most recent group now has a fully functional gaming setting, with a history, justifications for common power types (akin to what DC Comics did with the "Speed Force," for example), and background characters who occasionally make an appearance.

For whatever reason, my current team of ex-black ops gov't superheroes keeping running into Golden Age superheroes. A buddy of mine calls it 'Four Colour Heroes Meet Full Colour World.'

Quite fun. I'm building a webpage for the setting as we speak.

--->M@ss

[nblade]

You know I've thought on this recently, since I was starting a new Champions game. For me time will rougly flow more or along with actual time. While session to session might cover only a few days, the "time" between adventures will cover the required lag time to make up for the difference between Game time and actual time. At least that is what I'm thinking about right now.

[Agent X]

I have been playing Champions for about 12 years now and only in the last few years have I felt that I had enough of a handle for it to even bother trying to maintain any continuity or chronicling the adventurs. Naturally, I have very little time now that I have the "knack."

[Supreme]

A friend of mine actually strictly enforces a rule that every session is one "issue" of the comic book that the PCs are playing out. This means that he has to resolve each and every session's plot in that session. He also likes to makes sure that there are "Christmas" and "Halloween" issues. It takes all kinds.

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Supreme
A friend of mine actually strictly enforces a rule that every session is one "issue" of the comic book that the PCs are playing out. This means that he has to resolve each and every session's plot in that session. He also likes to makes sure that there are "Christmas" and "Halloween" issues. It takes all kinds.

I've done that, but each issue did not necessarily resolve the storyline... it was just continued to next issue:D

And once a year we'd have a marathon "Annual" on a saturday and game for 12 hours... I even had a player who drew the covers.

[Hermit]

Originally posted by MisterVimes
I've done that, but each issue did not necessarily resolve the storyline... it was just continued to next issue:D

My group won't let me do what the comics would refer to as Cliffhangers...
"Tattered, bruised and tired, you've over come these mysterious creatures, and appear to be finally at the center of their base. You open up the door to see who is the mastermind behind all this... and you see...."
"And we'll pick up next week."

Threats inevitably follow. *Gulp*

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Hermit
My group won't let me do what the comics would refer to as Cliffhangers...
"Tattered, bruised and tired, you've over come these mysterious creatures, and appear to be finally at the center of their base. You open up the door to see who is the mastermind behind all this... and you see...."
"And we'll pick up next week."

Threats inevitably follow. *Gulp*

I do that... Heh. Suck it up Man! Wear a Helmet, carry weapons... Hire bodyguards... GM via sattalite!

or not... :D

[JohnTaber]

Interesting question Mr. Vimes...it is also very appropos for me. I decided that I wanted to pickup my first Champions campaign that ran for a few years in 1982 to 1984. Yeah...I'm from the Bay Area where Hero began. Anyway...in 1984 we were in high school. The plots were simple and frankly not adult.

I decided to leave the time zone but I made some changes happed where heroes get suppressed. In fact I got some great ideas from this board for the move. Anyway...the short answer...in the past I didn't care about continuity. I'm gonna try to keep track this time...we'll see how it goes...

[Herolover]

I HATE to retcon. I can't stand it. I just use the same standard for Champions as I do in any campaign that I run. I start the campaign out on a certain date and just keep track of time from there.

I have started using Adventure Record Sheets and have found them to be very helpful.

[Patriot]

I think its called Marvel Standard time.
Most Pcs quit,die or retire within a few years,so its mostly not an issue for my group.

the few that have stuck around real long8 years + have one way or another justified a point of lack of ageing .


Ive had to retro fit once in my time running Champions
IRL a person was furious with the group,and the pc was written off(zero-houred so to speak)
well, they came back to the game some time later, so i had them die a Marvel Death

[Supreme]

Anyone ever been tempted to play out a retcon? Do a Crisis on Infinite Earths game?

[Hermit]

VERY tempted.

I am considering explaining the seemingly abrupt change in the Champions Universe (4th to 5th) by running the "Secret Crisis" mentioned in CU 5th. I envision some sort of sacrifice of some heroes own personal destinies to make the 'survival of the multiverse' possible :)

[Mutant for Hire]

There are a bunch of reasons that Marvel and DC characters don't age, none of which apply to a superhero campaign. Personally, I like the idea of superheroes having a shelf-life and then going off and retiring.

It allows for all sorts of things with new champions characters like having one or both of their parents be retired superheroes. Makes for some great roleplaying opportunities, as well as allowing for inherited enemies. Old geezers saying that this young pup isn't a patch on the hero's grandfather, now there was a real hero...

[lemming]

Sam Bell and I once did a massive retcon on the shared Universe we had. We wound up retconning some teams back a few years and this timeline was a result.

It wasn't kept up (my fault) after that last entry in '88.

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Supreme
Anyone ever been tempted to play out a retcon? Do a Crisis on Infinite Earths game?

Doneit. Combined Four seperate campaign (under three GMs) into one campaign world. Only one Universe could survive as the Chronovore ate time from the beginning. When the Heroes from many worlds (different sessions with each of us playing mixed teams from different campaigns) stopped the Chronovore. When it was done, the final team of Heroes had to sacrifice themselves at the Heart of time to jump start the universe...

I was pretty proud.

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by lemming
Sam Bell and I once did a massive retcon on the shared Universe we had. We wound up retconning some teams back a few years and this timeline was a result.

It wasn't kept up (my fault) after that last entry in '88.

*Stolen for my own evil purposes*

[lemming]

Originally posted by MisterVimes
*Stolen for my own evil purposes*

Mwa ha ha! They've taken the bait!!!

damn. I'm shouting out loud to myself again.

[Agent X]

We have had a very stable gaming group that has even had players return from out of state multiple times! There are five core players who have been gaming together for 13 years and 3 of those have been gaming for 17 years. Another "latecomer" has been gaming with us for about 7 years. Other players come and go but we have remarkable stability, probably because the game is secondary to our friendships.

As for Crisis, we only recently had a time-shifting event that has permanently altered our universe. It was, of course, played out and we still haven't returned to the game to see what has changed. This is not a retcon with an excuse. This was a time travel story that exploded in the players' faces! And for some reason we are all very enthusiastic to see what has changed.

[st barbara]

Interesting thoughts. I must admit that I hadn't thought much about the ageing process with regards to characters. I suppose that I should have. "St Barbara" was eighteen when the game first started but without asking the referee I can't be certain how much time has passed, particularly as we are "off dimension" so I can't be sure how old Pia is in "Earth prime" as our ref refers to it. (In case I didn't mention it earlier, Pia Elfstrom is "St Barbara's" real name). I assume that we have been playing for a year, maybe two, in "game time' so I suppose that she is about twenty ? (She still looks about fifteen or sixteen however!)

[Hermit]

Originally posted by MisterVimes
I do that... Heh. Suck it up Man! Wear a Helmet, carry weapons... Hire bodyguards... GM via sattalite!

or not... :D
Let me guess, you find you can bear my endangerment with great fortitude? :)

[Thirdbase]

The group I belong to uses a single calendar, that has no bearing on the current date. This can cause problems, because I believe at one time there was 4 separate campaigns with 4 GMs operating on 4 different dates.

What ussually happens is at the end of a major storyline, a large period of time passes, bringing the campaign up to the current date, and new characters come and go.

[Tom McCarthy]

We played out Wings of the Valkyrie recently (a time travel adventure in which time changes, then is changed back). I've used it to retcon some things (a player who moved away, new team name, Millennium City, etc.).

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Hermit
Let me guess, you find you can bear my endangerment with great fortitude? :)

Yes... I'm willing to sacrifice you for the greater good :D

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Tom McCarthy
We played out Wings of the Valkyrie recently (a time travel adventure in which time changes, then is changed back). I've used it to retcon some things (a player who moved away, new team name, Millennium City, etc.).

What I wouldn't give for a copy of that module. I saw it ONCE at Lou Zocci's booth at Dragon*Con in the late 80's... I should've grabbed it.

[Jhamin]

Originally posted by Supreme
Anyone ever been tempted to play out a retcon? Do a Crisis on Infinite Earths game?

Just did it. When I converted from 4th to FREd I had the Despoiler damage the Keystone of Reality in the Outback. His entropic powers were vastly increased as the universe unraveled, but an alliance of heros and villians were able to contain him (with a little help from Mrs. Miegs from Horror Enemies)

The real fun was the jockeying for supremacy by various cosmic forces while the crystal healed. The heroes eventually got things mostly back in the right place by the end. There are just a few hiccups, like Millenium City, the new (CKC inspired) rosters of a few teams, and the return of a couple enemies they thought gone for good.

It was great fun. My players have also demanded a temporary moratorium on time and dimension travel stories.;)

[Agent X]

A good way to set up a calendar in a campaign that is not anchored to our Real Time is to just start at "Year One" and go from there.

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Agent X
A good way to set up a calendar in a campaign that is not anchored to our Real Time is to just start at "Year One" and go from there.

I've tried this and it does work well. One thing I did in previous games was to set the campaign in an OBVIOUSLY divergent Earth (No Revolutionary War, or World War 1 lasted 20 years, etc)... This, of course, prevented such problems as "I know it's May in the game, but we are at war with Saddam in real time, can we go to Bagdad and kick his butt?"

[lemming]

Originally posted by MisterVimes
What I wouldn't give for a copy of that module.( Wings of the Valkyrie ) I saw it ONCE at Lou Zocci's booth at Dragon*Con in the late 80's... I should've grabbed it.

Ebay. Though I didn't see one up at this time. Should cost you less than $20 for a still shrink-wrapped version.

It's not that great of a module, but somewhat entertaining.

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by lemming
Ebay. Though I didn't see one up at this time. Should cost you less than $20 for a still shrink-wrapped version.

It's not that great of a module, but somewhat entertaining.

Nah... but it's a piece of Gaming History
$20??? That's a deal. I'll keep an eye out

[Ghost Archer]

My campaign has been running since 1982 and my primary character, Ghost Archer began at the same point thru another GM. Since then many, many characters have come and gone but thru it all I have maintained a more or less real time history. Now, 21 years have passed and my bowman, an immortal, is seeing friends and enemies age dramatically. Friends he went to school with, friends he has known since kindergarten are now, apparently, 20 years older then he is. The fact he also travels in time, means he has aged chronologically over 200 years in twenty making it even more difficult for him. Teammates have retired and are raising their children and a new generation is coming up, leading to a certain amount of conflict between the 'old man' and the 'kids'. Now he's become much more of a loner, letting the younger team fend for themselves unless they find themselves in truly dire straights.
I prefer the richness an aging campaign provides and detest rewrites of history.

[Graviton]

We're continuity freaks as well. We started our campaign waaaayy back in '82 and played for about 4 years. Two of those PCs, and a couple of the villains, are still active. We had about an 5-year layoff and then picked up again in 1991. We retrofitted only the year of our origin, moving it up from 1982 to 1986. We've been keeping track of game time on Frederick's calendars from the appropriate years. All the characters age appropriately, and we incorporate real-world events into our scenarios. Right now in game time we're in June of 1993, so in the past 10 or so years of gaming, our game universe has only seen 3 years pass, and since the campaign's inception in 1982 only seven game years have transpired. But it's been an amazingly eventful 7 years!

[Chaosliege]

We try not to put too much thought into stuff like that. I'm playing to get a little break from reality, so what if it doesn't make sence that the character I've been playing for 6 years hasn't aged a day.

[zakueins]

Peter Christian, probably the best CHAMPIONS GM I've ever played under (sadly, he games much less these days, he's MAKed), ran his campaigns under some simple principals. As a GM myself, I've tried to uphold the tradition-

*One game session (more or less) is a single "real time" month.
*Almost as a rule, a character starts out new, levels up to a level of power pretty quickly, then doesn't change very much, and EP totals should reflect this.
*Supers tend to have (reasonably) a super-career life of about 10-12 years, then they burn out, get cynical, get very badly injured/killed... Most players should understand this in ther character creation.

There's some more, but it's mostly deep rules stuff.

(Ed note-the term MAKed means "Married and Kids". Hey, happens to the best of us.)

[zornwil]

I haven't had and don't expect to have campaigns running more than a few years. The last one and the current one started in a real-world date and time with generally very similar world events and such, and as the games do go slower than real life I've let them just lag. Sometimes, as storylines permit, I'll let several weeks or even 2 months pass between and/or during sessions. In the current campaign 9/11 just occurred though with campaign-consistent (one hopes) differences. This was actually handy as if we had run in real-time I would have probably ignored or skipped that due to the emotional immediacy. However, I think now that the event has occurred it will be a trigger event for the degree to which the world has already diverged to diverge much more dramatically and quickly than it has.

In general I prefer the idea of a campaign running its course and continuing on rather than resetting the clock or changing things, if I'm running it. If others are running a campaign, I don't care so long as I have fun.

[Shiva13]

Yes, I have a well worked out continuity for my campaign setting. Part of this was a response to the retconning in the comics I had been reading. I wanted stability and some reliability that was cut and dried from the outset that was fading from the comics because of lazy writers.

Also, there are two aspects extremely popularly used in comics that are either not included in my setting or is nearly nonexistant. Dimensional Travel and Time Travel.

Dimensional travel was tossed out, because it takes the character's attention off the real world around them and actually making a difference noticeably in the actual setting. Dimensional travel causes characters to have to go off on tangents that have no real significance.

Time Travel is a slippery slope I just don't care to deal with. It's a threat to continuity and story credibility.

[Superskrull]

Originally posted by Shiva13
Yes, I have a well worked out continuity for my campaign setting. Part of this was a response to the retconning in the comics I had been reading. I wanted stability and some reliability that was cut and dried from the outset that was fading from the comics because of lazy writers.

Also, there are two aspects extremely popularly used in comics that are either not included in my setting or is nearly nonexistant. Dimensional Travel and Time Travel.

Dimensional travel was tossed out, because it takes the character's attention off the real world around them and actually making a difference noticeably in the actual setting. Dimensional travel causes characters to have to go off on tangents that have no real significance.

Time Travel is a slippery slope I just don't care to deal with. It's a threat to continuity and story credibility.

Hmmm. Well, to be honest, I love the time and dimension travel stuff. My only rule of thumb so far is that time travel should be done TO the PCs but don't let the little beggars have any real say in keeping such plot-shattering stuff on tap.
That kinda mischief is staying in my personal bag of tricks where I can whap them in the head with it, smile knowingly as they speculate for hours on the ramifications, then ignore their half-assed theories and keep on with what I already worked out for travel rules.
Mostly though, it's used by me as an excuse to have Nazis available. they make great villains/fodder/punching bags for our heroes.

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Superskrull
Hmmm. Well, to be honest, I love the time and dimension travel stuff. My only rule of thumb so far is that time travel should be done TO the PCs but don't let the little beggars have any real say in keeping such plot-shattering stuff on tap.
That kinda mischief is staying in my personal bag of tricks where I can whap them in the head with it, smile knowingly as they speculate for hours on the ramifications, then ignore their half-assed theories and keep on with what I already worked out for travel rules.
Mostly though, it's used by me as an excuse to have Nazis available. they make great villains/fodder/punching bags for our heroes.

This is solid comic book fare as well. I mean, Dr. Doom had a time machine. Did he use it well? No.

And any excuse to:

1) Fight Nazis
2) Fight Dinosaurs
3) Meet the Legion of Future Heroes
4) Team up with the Golden Agency to fight Hitler's Automen
5) Have their travels create an implacable Lord of Time
6) Have the Lord of Time create divergent versions of himself so the Heroes never know what's coming.

Is good with me!

[RDU Neil]

Originally posted by MisterVimes
This is solid comic book fare as well. I mean, Dr. Doom had a time machine. Did he use it well? No.

And any excuse to:

1) Fight Nazis
2) Fight Dinosaurs
3) Meet the Legion of Future Heroes
4) Team up with the Golden Agency to fight Hitler's Automen
5) Have their travels create an implacable Lord of Time
6) Have the Lord of Time create divergent versions of himself so the Heroes never know what's coming.

Is good with me!

Or even better...

7) Have the Lord of Time actually be one of the PCs future selves!

That subplot has been running through my campaign for years. One PC had it thrust upon him, and his whole character changed direction in order to avoid that possible future at all costs. The other came up with some ideas himself (his character is immortal already) and in a "time squall" scenario he began to have flashes of future events and people, including two different futures selves... and he really groks on it. He'd LOVE to become the Zen Master of Time at some point

Just found that control issues aren't as bad as the fact that some players hate time travel stuff, and others like it. If a player hates the theme of a game, they aren't going to enjoy it, no matter how well it's run.

[Patriot]

When Team Vanguard first began, the team liked time and plane travel, but the current group isnt to keen on it.


I think it makes for some of the best scenarios:

Umm guys, Why is Dr. Destroyer wearing white armor????

(normal from a crowd) Destroyer...no thats our guardian , Professor Preserver.

Blink blink...I dont think were in Kansas any more

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by RDU Neil
Or even better...

7) Have the Lord of Time actually be one of the PCs future selves!

That subplot has been running through my campaign for years. One PC had it thrust upon him, and his whole character changed direction in order to avoid that possible future at all costs. The other came up with some ideas himself (his character is immortal already) and in a "time squall" scenario he began to have flashes of future events and people, including two different futures selves... and he really groks on it. He'd LOVE to become the Zen Master of Time at some point

Just found that control issues aren't as bad as the fact that some players hate time travel stuff, and others like it. If a player hates the theme of a game, they aren't going to enjoy it, no matter how well it's run.

Hero framed as Future Villain is always nice (when done correctly: Hulk-Future Imperfect comes to mind... and then the disappointing Hank (Hawk) Hall/Monarch nonsense does as well.

Well (QUIT READING JOE!) my team will be discovering the joys of Time Travel coming up very shortly... and as I have just read the entire Avengers: Kang Dynasty (as well as read up on my old Steve Englhart Kang stories) ... they are in for a doosie.

[RDU Neil]

Originally posted by MisterVimes
Hero framed as Future Villain is always nice (when done correctly: Hulk-Future Imperfect comes to mind... and then the disappointing Hank (Hawk) Hall/Monarch nonsense does as well.

Well (QUIT READING JOE!) my team will be discovering the joys of Time Travel coming up very shortly... and as I have just read the entire Avengers: Kang Dynasty (as well as read up on my old Steve Englhart Kang stories) ... they are in for a doosie.

Assuming you've read the excellent... Avengers Forever... by Busiek and Pacheo... right?

Wow... great stuff. Wrapping up all the twisted time travel plots in the Marvelverse was no small feat. Just wish Marvel had more of a legacy style universe, so we'd see characters aging and retiring and dying a bit more... which would allow for time travel stories to have even better resonance.

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by RDU Neil
Assuming you've read the excellent... Avengers Forever... by Busiek and Pacheo... right?

Wow... great stuff. Wrapping up all the twisted time travel plots in the Marvelverse was no small feat. Just wish Marvel had more of a legacy style universe, so we'd see characters aging and retiring and dying a bit more... which would allow for time travel stories to have even better resonance.

Yep... I loved Avengers Forever. I love time travel and parallel world stories (Like the New Warriors Sphynx storyline or the Original Roy Thomas Sqaudron stuff).

I'd LOVE for marvel to do that... the closest we got was Earth X (Blech!)

Though the last run of Guardians of the Galaxy made a nice attempt.

[Supreme]

I too read and adore "Avengers Forever." This is simply one of the best limited-run series I've ever read. BTW, I believe the first super-hero to face an adversarial future version of himself was marvel's Adam Warlock who faced the Magus. It's a great concept.

I ran a silver age version of my favorite brick character, Champion. We were all allowed to write little inconsequencial side-stories on our characters for extra EPs. I wrote one about Champion experimenting with the cosmic radiation that gave him his powers to try and boost them. Something went wrong and he was catapulted into a future where his experiments to increase his powers went horribly right. He became the corrupt overlord of the Earth, Lord Champion. The good Champion defeated the bad Champion in a climactic battle that caused a space-time disruption which hurled the good Champion back in time to 1959, where he decided not to pursue the experiments after all.

After I was forced to leave the game because of schedule conflicts, another GM ran a Champs campaign set a few years later wherein the characters had to face Lord Champion. It was cool, as the GM consulted with me about all kinds of things including what the good Champion would be doing in retirement.

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Supreme
I too read and adore "Avengers Forever." This is simply one of the best limited-run series I've ever read. BTW, I believe the first super-hero to face an adversarial future version of himself was marvel's Adam Warlock who faced the Magus. It's a great concept.

I ran a silver age version of my favorite brick character, Champion. We were all allowed to write little inconsequencial side-stories on our characters for extra EPs. I wrote one about Champion experimenting with the cosmic radiation that gave him his powers to try and boost them. Something went wrong and he was catapulted into a future where his experiments to increase his powers went horribly right. He became the corrupt overlord of the Earth, Lord Champion. The good Champion defeated the bad Champion in a climactic battle that caused a space-time disruption which hurled the good Champion back in time to 1959, where he decided not to pursue the experiments after all.

After I was forced to leave the game because of schedule conflicts, another GM ran a Champs campaign set a few years later wherein the characters had to face Lord Champion. It was cool, as the GM consulted with me about all kinds of things including what the good Champion would be doing in retirement.

That's one of those great moment :)
I played a not-so-nice hero called Kestral. Some of the other players hated him because he was pretty mean and didn't play by the rules (he had no Code vs. Killing). But Kestral would pull their fat out of the fire, so they put up with him and his mean streak.

A few years go by and I hear that one of the players has resurrected the campaign for a whole group of new players. A few weeks into the game I ask if I can sit in and I get a 'Yes'.

I walk in and pull out the old Kestral sheet and the GM looks him over and says 'OK'

A Short while later the room fills up with a crew of kids 5-10 years younger than me. They introduce themselves and Sam (the GM) introduces me as "Kestral".

Suddenly they ALL inch away from me.

It appaears while I was gone that Kestral was the Bad-Guy... :D

It was great.

[MCMaenza]

Usually the campaign I start running in my world tends to take place at the same time/year it is in real time. Depending on how things progress, the characters can find themselves a few weeks/months off of real time depending upon the flow of the game, how often we played, etc.

Continuity and world history is very important to me though (as evidenced by the timeline on my gameworld site - see link in my signature). Characters age, retire, die, etc. Some have their heroic legacy picked up by a newcomer while others blaze new trails.

[Karmakaze]

We've been known to kick the "start date" back one to five years so that if we wind up with too much between game downtime, we don't wind up in the future.

As far as campaign to campaign continuity goes, I tend to use a more alternate universe sort approach than the US Comics sort of major retcon. If you're importing characters from another campaign, it's kind if like the difference between, say, Superman (the comic book), Superman: the Animated series, and Smallville. The general flow of things carry over, but details may be adjusted to fit the new setting.

And yes, this can cause some repeat players to think they know how a subplot is going to work out... And if they get too sure, then they are sure to be wrong...

[Savinien]

Who was that masked Necroposter?

[keithcurtis]

Alert! Alert! Thread Necromancy!
This thread is over two years dead!

Keith "I miss Mister Vimes" Curtis

[TheRavenIs]

Well the game I am running right now was started on 7/4/1995. I have to move the game upto early 2016, so I have to be aware of time and it's movement. The PC's all know that they will age, change and (I have one player who has a C that will not grow personalty wise, that will....even if I have to make it happen, happen). The reason for the need to go thru the 20+ years is that this world has a direct connection to one that has run for over three real years and over 11 game time years.
I have the game more or less ploted out for the complete 20+ yrs. The two worlds are in many ways an Earth 2 (Defender Earth: DEF) and Earth 1( Jump Start Earth: JSE) type worlds. The first one is Earth 1 and my world is a Earth 2. The two worlds are interdimensionaly connected, meaning the the two worlds will have to work together to save each other in a few game years, DEF years.
I played in a game that ran from over 13 yrs, it had a full history. Heroes aged, died, married, had kids. They changed and grew, it is one of the things I want and need to happen for my personal enjoyment and my players.

[sinanju]

The only long-term game I've played in was one back in Virginia. It started my freshman year in college (1977-78) and the campaign is still active. I played thru it until I moved away in 1991. It began as a "Traveller" universe game with bits and pieces of Gamma World, Metamorphosis Alpha and Starguard (SF minis game) background and continued to mutate over the years into a 100% homebrew system.

The GM kept track of passing in-game time. Years and decades accumulated (especially early on, when we were using Jump Drives--one week/jump--constantly. Players have retired characters and played their kids or grandkids on a number of occasions.

Anyone ever been tempted to play out a retcon? Do a Crisis on Infinite Earths game?

I've played thru several. The campaign described above has undergone constant change over the years. Sometimes minor changes, sometimes major. Changes of game system, changes of combat rules, background changes, etc. Once or twice the entire campaign was essentially "rebooted" with a whole new background, though recurring NPCs and many PCs usually got transplanted, sometimes rewritten from the ground up and sometimes not.

At one point, the GM decided to switch to an entirely swords & sorcery campaign; he ran a series of linked adventures that culminated in a complete transition to a single world campaign with swords and sorcery. Some PCs were translated into fantasy version of themselves and never knew anything had changed. Others remembered the previous campaign universe. (It became traditional, when such characters thought they're met a fellow refugee to throw a term into the conversation that only a fellow rememberer would understand, like sign and countersign.)

"Sure wish I had a microwave oven."
"Yeah, and some frozen pizza...."

Now in its third decade, the campaign continues. Most of the NPCs from early on have long since retired or died; the campaign is full of their descendants. Most of the adventures these days are based on relationships--good, bad or indifferent--between NPCs and PCs. One Fu Manchu-like immortal bad guy is still around...sort of. The native version of him was murdered by his more ruthless "evil twin" from another universe, who is currently causing most of hte trouble in the campaign world....

[Matt Frisbee]

Anyone ever been tempted to play out a retcon? Do a Crisis on Infinite Earths game?

I'm in the process of setting it up in my campaign -- I've been leading into something called "The Time of Gathering" when the dimensional barriers of the established parallels of earth (about 20) become so tenuous that modestly powerful creatures (i.e. superheroes and their ilk) can cross them without magical intervention. Because of this, new alternate earths are created as the merged realities mix and mingle and then separate again with creatures of alien dimensions still within.

Essentially, each dimension must fight the influences of corrupting dimensions to remain intact. Of course, for the sake of adventure opportunities, there will be plenty of interdimentional enemies (including analogues of the characters themselves) who will be trying to end all existence for the game dimension. In the end, what stays and what goes will depend on what the characters do and when.

As a way to tell when The Time of Gathering (TToG for brevity), Arcainus Prime of the game dimension (named Dr. Who, just because he looks a lot like Tom Baker after he's raided Dr. Strange's closet) created The Five Pillars of Reality, which would disappear one by one if the game universe were in danger of being lost in the shuffle. As of the last adventure, one of the characters in the group was in possession of one (unwittingly) and it was destroyed...only four left now, and the fun is just beginning.

Actually, TToG was intended to be the major story arc for the campaign, but it has taken 13 game sessions just to set everything up for the big event to get started. :) I must be getting older or something.

Matt "The-Don-Quixote-in-search-of-the-ultimate-campaign" Frisbee