Comics Magazine Association of America Original Code for Editorial Matter

[Karmakaze]

I considered popping this into the Champions Section, but, well, it covers any gencre that's been a comic book.

I ran across the The Comics Magazine Association of America Original Code for Editorial Matter
As Published in 1954 in the course of surfing today, and it's a fun read.

I'm half tempted to put together a CCA approved module for a con now, or maybe a challenge module with "how many of these guidlines can you break in one session..."

Let's see, last nights session violated...
B-3 All lurid, unsavory, gruesome illustrations shall be eliminated. (we have an artist in the group. His sketched could easily be classified as "lurid")

B-5 Scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism and werewolfism are prohibited. (Our heores are tyring to locate and rescue a teenaged werewolf)

C-Dialogue-1 Profanity, obscenity, smut, vulgarity, or words or symbols which have acquired undesirable meanings are forbidden. (Well, you know...)

C-Costume-1 Nudity in any form is prohibited, as is indecent or undue exposure. (Cheerleader rousted out of bed in the middle of the night in her undies.)
C-Costume-2 Suggestive and salacious illustrations or suggestive posture is unacceptable
C-Costume-4. Females shall be drawn realistically without exaggeration or any physical qualities. (See B-3 for both of these)

C-Marriage and Sex
2. Illicit sex relations are neither to be hinted at or portrayed...
5. Passion or romantic interest shall never be treated in such a way as to stimulate the lower and baser emotions.
6. Seduction and rape shall never be shown or suggested.
(Most of these were in the aftermath of the rousted cheerleader scene...)

[TheRavenIs]

OK, now you have those out here for us to look at, just how would you set up the game?
I ask because that it would be intresting to read, and I have to admit, borrow/steal as an idea for a game, or game world.
Repped, but what now?

[keithcurtis]

I did a report on the CCA in High School. My favorite rule was:

The letters of the word "crime" on a comics magazine cover shall never be appreciably greater in dimension than the other words contained in the title.

Keith "Seduction of the Ignorant [sic]" Curtis

[Karmakaze]

OK, now you have those out here for us to look at, just how would you set up the game?
I ask because that it would be intresting to read, and I have to admit, borrow/steal as an idea for a game, or game world.
Repped, but what now?

Well, the easiest would be to apply it to an exising game in the same vein as your average "drinking game":

- Print out the list, either one for each player or just one for a designated "censor".

- Each time a rule is violated, place a tick mark next to the rule violated (and, if you're being obsessive, a note about the nature of the violation).

- Depending on the goal, everyone will be either trying to minimize or maximize the "score".

- Perhaps one could offer a round of beer for the high score, or ice cream sodas for a low score.

[Karmakaze]

For a Module...

Were We Ever The Way We Were?

Every decade, things seem darker. The bright innocence of days past leave us. Once, children used to respect their elders. A man would never hit a lady. The bad guys were easy to spot, and the good guys always won. Now the media trumpets 'heros' worse than the villains whose defeat we used to cheer. 'Ladies' look more like streetwalkers. Children show no respect, and are allowed to run loose.

Or, at least, that's how the world looks to the men and women of the Twin Springs Retirement Home. And if today's youth can't fix things, it's up to the greatest generation to take action. Joe DeLuca has kept his Wishing Ring in a box since he retired from heroic work. He'd gotten too tired and disillusioned, and the younger heros pushed him out. Now he takes out the ring and calls together his peers. With the years of magic charged up, and their collective wills, maybe they can make a miracle; maybe they can make the world right again...

In the morning, everything is better, at least at first. The PCs find their battles easier. Villains stand out, and they fall like tenpins. Sure it's odd that costumes have grown several inches of extra fabric in key places and everyone forgotten how to swear, but it's a small price to pay for such a wonderful day... except... it's not quite real, is it? Slowly it becomes clear that some external force is shaping events, subjugating free will to make things the way they 'should' be...

Is the new 'perfect' world worth the price? And, in a world where the good guys always win and the bad guys always loose, how does anyone stand a chance against the ultimate "good guys" at the center of it all?

[Karmakaze]

I wish I had my copy of The Mystic World on me, so I could place this one on the right plane. Maybe I'll go look that up later...

For a Module...

Bite Your Tongue...

The MacGuffin possesses great power and cannot be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. Now it's necessary to save the Earth! In order to protect the MacGuffin, a Mystic Master placed it on a sub-plane with some... interesting natural laws (pass out copy of CCA guidelines). Persons dressed inappropriately cannot even pass through the portal. Violation of the rules of conduct can result in the offender being forcibly "retconned" into better behavor, or even ejected from the plane. (Since one of the axioms of the sub-plane is evil never wins, the Mystic Master figured the device would be safe there.)

The PCs have to make their way through the sub-plane to where the MacGuffin is kept, pass the trials to recieve it from safekeeping and guide it back the portal - meanwhile carefully observing the rules of the sub-plane lest they be ejected (or worse, subjected to a humiliating plot-level Major Transform!). They may also run across local villains, or even villains sent to stop them who have figured out that as long as they balance being completely reprehensible and the PG rating, the sub-plane won't eject them (Sure, they'll lose in the end, but they can slow the heros down).

[Matt Frisbee]

Karmakaze -- repped.

This has been a hoot so far -- I'm down-loading the code just to give my future players what four-color really means...

Matt "Not-quite-that-old-school. . .yet" Frisbee

[Karmakaze]

And I notice that even though I carefully put this in the All Genres section, my two off-the-top-of-my-head modules were pretty Champions oriented. I think it's because applying that sort of thing in-game is very meta, and supers seems to handle meta well.

Still Champions, but on the "violate the rules side"...

So Iron Age It Hurts

Gather together your homebreaking gunbunnies, your dark and gritty thugs, your PCs so vicious that you call 'em protagonists 'cause you can't say the word "hero" with a straight face. Pull out your Comics Code Guidelines and use 'em for toilet paper. Ew! Not literally. Here, let me get you a fresh copy. "Toilet paper" was a metaphor - we're really using 'em for a checklist.

Now, where were we? Oh, right, in the Iron Age, surrounded by the sleaziest batch of deviants you ever did see. And they're gonna clean up this city, no matter how dirty they have to get in the process!

[Maybe each player gets a copy of the CCA guidelines and can note down when a fellow player or the GM violates the code. Extra points may be applied for style at the option of the table. At the end of the game, see who wins in each category.]

If this game runs more than a session, it's because all the PCs turned on each other and the resulting combat goes into overtime...

[Karmakaze]

Oh, now I really need to come up with something in another Genre. Hey - how come nobody else is posting ideas? (Because I started the thread? Well, if you're going to inject logic into the conversation...)

All right, this one should work for a light interlude in Pulp game, maybe a few other genres, depending on campaign tone and PC backstories. This could be run as the gaming version of a flashback epsode if you're missing a few players.

You Kiss Your Mother With That Mouth?

It's Mothers day, and any of the PCs that have Mom's have invited them back for a nice Mother's Day dinner with the gang. Mom wants to hear about the job. Tell us some funny stories about what adventures you've been up to - in a form suitable for Mom's ears!

Action version: Your enemies have no respect, and start something up on Mother's Day. There's nothing to do but take Mom along. Better be on your best behavior, and maybe there's some stuff she doesn't need to see...

Action version II: Instead of Mom, it's one of the PC's kid sister/neice who has to tag along. She's a sweet, pure, innocent girl (at least as far as the PC relative is concerned) and cannot be exposed to anything that might shock her delicate nature. Now the PCs have to go about their business, but make sure that everything she sees has a CCA-approved rationale (and none of you PCs better cuss while she's around either!).

Fantasy alternate: You're at a state dinner with the very sheltered princess who wants to be regaled with tales of your adventures. Remember, she might repeat anything you say to Daddy, and her governess is sitting well within earshot!

[Curufea]

For Star Hero - just run a Farscape game

[Midas]

How about setting a pulp or low Champions campaign in the 40's or 50's, have a few edge of "Spicy" runs (like the one Karmakaze discribed), then have Fred Whertham and Estes Kefauver go after the heroes themselves rather than the publisher?

Midas

[AlHazred]

Okay, here's a sci-fi variation:

Depraved New World

It's the future, but not quite the one we all hoped for. Sure, the world seems like a better place on the outside - heavily integrated security technologies help police things, to keep everybody following the rules, but who gave the AIs this ruleset to follow? Even taking a flitter to the Moon or Mars is no help: the corporations that control the facilities on those planets use the same security and surveillance technologies as on Earth. Everybody is forced to live in a sanitized, vanilla future, where swearing is illegal, every controlled substance and illicit activity is strictly controlled, and the AIs manipulate events behind the scenes to keep everybody in line. It's for our own good, after all. Right?

But all hope is not lost. You are members of a small group of technoanarchist rebels determined to break the hold that excessive overregulation has on the world. You're only rule: figure out how to successfully break the rules, then break them.

[Captain Obvious]

B-5 Scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism and werewolfism are prohibited.

Wait, so Weird War Tales wasn't in compliance with the CCA? I'm pretty sure it carried the seal....

[Captain Obvious]

Here, check it out. All those WWT covers, nearly all with a vampire, werewolf, walking dead, iron cross, or swastika, and all with the seal of the Comics Code Authority....

[Karmakaze]

Here, check it out. All those WWT covers, nearly all with a vampire, werewolf, walking dead, iron cross, or swastika, and all with the seal of the Comics Code Authority....

The version of the Code linked is from 1954 and the covers you mention seem to be from the 70s. There was probably a revision or two in there somewhere.