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

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

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...

[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