Golden Age Champions

[Dr. Anomaly]

During the last month, I started and ran a solo Golden Age campaign. I'd like to share a few thoughts and ask for some views and opinions.

 

First off, at the request of my player, though it was set in WWII, it for the most part avoided the "Golly gee whiz!!"-type of stuff most people seem to associate with the Golden Age comics. Instead, it being war, the heroes carried guns or had powers that allowed them the option of lethal force. Though there was some of the "edge-of-silliness" patriotism, that's about the only concession to the "Golly gee whiz!!" end of things.

 

The campaign is set in Britain, starting a few months before the U.S. joined the war. That doesn't stop there being some U.S. heroes there to fight the Axis, though...as part of the Lend-Lease program.

 

The player played Pendragon, a descendant of Arthur and the current custodian of Excalibur. Because of the attitude toward/about women in the 1940s, the character -- who is female -- wears full-coverage armor and helm. The helm has an enchantment on it to make her voice sound like a man's voice.

 

It was with the initial design of Pendragon that some of the "more serious" aspects came into the game. After all, if you carry Excalibur, you're going to use it. If you're fighting to keep enemy soldiers, planes, and tanks off your native soil, you're not going to just chop their guns in half or hit them with the flat of the blade, are you? And...in the comics published back in the 1940s, when a character went to war...well. There was none of the squeamishness we see in today's comics.

 

The single biggest problem I had was discarding modern views and mindsets and trying to use those that were prevalent at the time. A trivial example to illustrate: two sessions in, my player looked and me suddenly and said "Something's been bothering me, and it finally hit me. Not nearly enough people are smoking. During the war, everyone smoked." I blinked, agreed, and made it a point from then on to insert little bits like that in the game.

 

It also came to me near the end of the series of game sessions, that I can't do what I normally do...create the write-ups for a "stable" of NPCs on both sides, and use them for the duration of the campaign. In the next-to-last game session, there was a huge battle including 8 Allied hyper-men and 12 Axis ubermenschen. In that battle, 3 of the Axis members died, and many more were seriously wounded. All of the Allied hyper-men were badly injured or otherwise in a bad way, and one of them very nearly died (stabilized at -3 BODY).

 

In other words, it came to me that running a campaign like this, NPCs on both sides are going to die. Possibly with some regularity. Of all the NPCs that I wrote up, only one did not have some kind of Killing attack (even though for a couple of them, it was just the 1/2d6 Killing Strike from Martial Arts).

 

Not that this bothers me that much -- it is war, after all -- but it's a bit of a paradigm shift from the usual Silver Age-style stuff I run.

 

I wish I could share the NPC write-ups with you, but a great many of them have appeared in previous HERO publications, and even though I've extensively re-written them, since the names are the same I feel it would be infringing on HERO Games' copywrite if I posted them. I may post some that are entirely of my own making, but the vast mass of those haven't been converted into full characters in Hero Designer yet.

 

It also occured to me that, contrary to the way most Golden Age things I've seen are done, both the PC and the NPCs ended up being much more powerful than the usual starting 350 point characters. Pendragon, for example, came in at 625 points. Most of the NPCs are in that ballpark, points-wise, though there are some exceptions. Esprit de Corps, for example, a French hyperwoman, is over 800 points. I didn't set out to run a "high-powered" game, just created the NPCs in ways that "felt" right for what I was trying to do -- and that wasn't firmly defined in my mind, and to some extent still isn't -- and they wound up costing what they did.

 

All in all, it was a very good time, with lots of drama, big fights, heroic acts, and evil Nazi plots to be stopped.

 

Now, I'd like to ask for some of your views.

 

Have any of you ever run a Golden Age game that wasn't of the "Golly gee whiz" variety, but was more along the lines of what I'm talking about? If so, how did it go? Any tips or tricks or suggestions for the next time I run stories in this campaign setting?

 

Even if the Golden Age game you ran was of the "Golly gee whiz" variety, what social conventions from the period did you find caused you the most trouble? Any tips on keeping them straight?

 

Any comments or questions about my game? So much happened, and so many little details, I don't really know where to begin on telling the details. It might be easier for me to answer any questions people might have, or talk about things they're wondering about. The reason I'm asking for this is that I'm trying to 'gel' some things about the campaign in my own mind, and I'm not really certain yet even what needs to be 'gelled', so I'm hoping some questions or discussion might help get focus in on such things.

[austenandrews]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

First off' date=' at the request of my player, though it was set in WWII, it for the most part [i']avoided[/i] the "Golly gee whiz!!"-type of stuff most people seem to associate with the Golden Age comics. Instead, it being war, the heroes carried guns or had powers that allowed them the option of lethal force. Though there was some of the "edge-of-silliness" patriotism, that's about the only concession to the "Golly gee whiz!!" end of things.

Golden Age is one of my favorite games to run. But I confess, I'm unclear what you mean by "Golly gee whiz!" stuff. Can you elaborate? I ask because in my experience, adopting the simpler tone of GA comics is not at all in contrast to lethality. Especially in war stories, people got gunned down and blown up and fell off of cliffs all the time.

 

It was with the initial design of Pendragon that some of the "more serious" aspects came into the game. After all, if you carry Excalibur, you're going to use it. If you're fighting to keep enemy soldiers, planes, and tanks off your native soil, you're not going to just chop their guns in half or hit them with the flat of the blade, are you? And...in the comics published back in the 1940s, when a character went to war...well. There was none of the squeamishness we see in today's comics.

Right, exactly. They weren't nearly as graphic as they are now (until horror comics boomed, anyway) but they weren't squeamish about people dying. Comics emulated adventure serials and features, and were only as graphic as those. Which is to say, if the hero shoots a bad guy, the bad guy just crumples and falls. If the hero chops or stabs a bad guy, the bad guy... just crumples and falls. If something really nasty happens, it's offscreen. (Heck, in Lugosi's original film, Dracula gets staked offscreen.)

 

To me that's the difference between the Golden Age and modern sensibilities. Golden Age attaches no intrinsic value to character's demise. As a story element, it's just something that happens now and then (more often for some characters & settings than others). In modern stories it's treated as over-the-top or graphic or "hardcore." There's often hand-wringing over morality and whatnot. That's not present in Golden Age. (Which isn't to say that all GA characters were bloodthirsty, of course. Only that death in the comics wasn't given any particular real-world social context.)

 

The single biggest problem I had was discarding modern views and mindsets and trying to use those that were prevalent at the time.

Period color is one of my favorite parts of running GA.

 

It also came to me near the end of the series of game sessions, that I can't do what I normally do...create the write-ups for a "stable" of NPCs on both sides, and use them for the duration of the campaign.

What I do, more informally than systematically, is to divide my NPCs into two camps - "disposable NPCs" and "campaign NPCs" (I just now made up those terms). Since villains often die at a scenario's climax, I only put "disposable" villains in situations where that might happen. If I want a villain to survive for longer, I always have a foolproof (as much as possible) escape plan. That can be anything from watching the proceedings safely through a video screen to switching with a decoy at some point during combat (sometimes retroactively ) to having a heat-proof escape boat hidden in the lava pit, so when the villain falls in the heroes think he's dead (of course my players are happy to proclaim, "No one could have survived that.").

 

In other words, it came to me that running a campaign like this, NPCs on both sides are going to die. Possibly with some regularity. Of all the NPCs that I wrote up, only one did not have some kind of Killing attack (even though for a couple of them, it was just the 1/2d6 Killing Strike from Martial Arts).

 

Not that this bothers me that much -- it is war, after all -- but it's a bit of a paradigm shift from the usual Silver Age-style stuff I run.

I'd keep an eye on that, though. It's easy to assume that characters in the middle of a war will haul around the biggest killing attacks they can find; but that in itself is a modern sensibility. Characters from Captain America and Bucky to the Vision and the Spectre and the Sub-Mariner did just fine - and sent plenty of bad guys to their graves - with no Killing Attacks at all.

 

It also occured to me that, contrary to the way most Golden Age things I've seen are done, both the PC and the NPCs ended up being much more powerful than the usual starting 350 point characters.

I've seen it before. Remember that Superman, the Spectre and the Sub-Mariner are Golden Age characters, too. You just have to scale up the challenges.

 

Also remember, though, that the inclusion of supervillains is itself a fairly non-Golden Age thing to do. So you'll have to reconcile that Ymir the Fire Giant can lay waste to as many Allied tank brigades as Superman can to the Axis.

 

Whoops, out of time for the moment. I'll add more tonight.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

Golden Age is one of my favorite games to run. But I confess, I'm unclear what you mean by "Golly gee whiz!" stuff. Can you elaborate? I ask because in my experience, adopting the simpler tone of GA comics is not at all in contrast to lethality. Especially in war stories, people got gunned down and blown up and fell off of cliffs all the time.

 

 

Right, exactly. They weren't nearly as graphic as they are now (until horror comics boomed, anyway) but they weren't squeamish about people dying. Comics emulated adventure serials and features, and were only as graphic as those. Which is to say, if the hero shoots a bad guy, the bad guy just crumples and falls. If the hero chops or stabs a bad guy, the bad guy... just crumples and falls. If something really nasty happens, it's offscreen. (Heck, in Lugosi's original film, Dracula gets staked offscreen.)

 

To me that's the difference between the Golden Age and modern sensibilities. Golden Age attaches no intrinsic value to character's demise. As a story element, it's just something that happens now and then (more often for some characters & settings than others). In modern stories it's treated as over-the-top or graphic or "hardcore." There's often hand-wringing over morality and whatnot. That's not present in Golden Age. (Which isn't to say that all GA characters were bloodthirsty, of course. Only that death in the comics wasn't given any particular real-world social context.)

 

 

Period color is one of my favorite parts of running GA.

 

 

What I do, more informally than systematically, is to divide my NPCs into two camps - "disposable NPCs" and "campaign NPCs" (I just now made up those terms). Since villains often die at a scenario's climax, I only put "disposable" villains in situations where that might happen. If I want a villain to survive for longer, I always have a foolproof (as much as possible) escape plan. That can be anything from watching the proceedings safely through a video screen to switching with a decoy at some point during combat (sometimes retroactively ) to having a heat-proof escape boat hidden in the lava pit, so when the villain falls in the heroes think he's dead (of course my players are happy to proclaim, "No one could have survived that.").

 

 

I'd keep an eye on that, though. It's easy to assume that characters in the middle of a war will haul around the biggest killing attacks they can find; but that in itself is a modern sensibility. Characters from Captain America and Bucky to the Vision and the Spectre and the Sub-Mariner did just fine - and sent plenty of bad guys to their graves - with no Killing Attacks at all.

 

 

I've seen it before. Remember that Superman, the Spectre and the Sub-Mariner are Golden Age characters, too. You just have to scale up the challenges.

 

Also remember, though, that the inclusion of supervillains is itself a fairly non-Golden Age thing to do. So you'll have to reconcile that Ymir the Fire Giant can lay waste to as many Allied tank brigades as Superman can to the Axis.

 

Whoops, out of time for the moment. I'll add more tonight.

Wasn't Ymir the Ice Giant; Surtur the Fire?

[mattingly]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

Have any of you ever run a Golden Age game that wasn't of the "Golly gee whiz" variety, but was more along the lines of what I'm talking about?

When my GM runs Golden Age supers, it almost feels like Shadowrun. very pragmatic, to put it gently.

What social conventions from the period did you find caused you the most trouble?

I'm bad at historical chronology. The GM tells me that it's such-and-such date, at the battle of this-and-that, then we get into another 5 or 10 minutes of me asking "Has X or Y happened yet? Is Z still alive?" and so on. Having a patient GM who loves the source material helps tremendously.

[austenandrews]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

Wasn't Ymir the Ice Giant; Surtur the Fire?

Not necessarily in a Golden Age game.

[starblaze]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

I ran a rather long Golden Age game set mainly in the European Theatre. The one requirement for the PC's was that they had to be in the military. I ran it like the heroes were part of the O.S.S. and fought with resistance groups and basically were a kind of superpowered commando squad. They had no problem with killing and in fact I had a Norwegian Werebear who had bloodthirsty as a disadvantage. His entire village was killed by an S.S. squad and he ended up wiping out the whole squad the first time he changed.

 

I never really got the whole homefront hero as being the only method in order to play even though I did have a face team in my campaign.

[MisterBaldy]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

Wasn't Ymir the Ice Giant; Surtur the Fire?

Yes, Ymir was King of the Frost Giants to be precise.

 

Here's some info on Ymir: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ymir

 

Surtur was also the Leader of The Fire Giants.

 

Here's some info on Surtur: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surtur

 

Hey Enforcer84...You been Repped!!! Excellent Norse Mythos Knowledge. Way to go Big E!!!

[austenandrews]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

Hey Enforcer84...You been Repped!!! Excellent Norse Mythos Knowledge. Way to go Big E!!!

Hey, no fair, I made that mistake intentionally! I do that all the time in Golden Age games, because it accurately reflects the source material. Always good for a chuckle.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

Yes' date=' Ymir was King of the Frost Giants to be precise.

 

Here's some info on Ymir: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ymir

 

Surtur was also the Leader of The Fire Giants.

 

Here's some info on Surtur: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surtur

 

Hey Enforcer84...You been Repped!!! Excellent Norse Mythos Knowledge. Way to go Big E!!!

Woot!

[Enforcer84]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

Hey' date=' no fair, I made that mistake intentionally! I do that all the time in Golden Age games, because it accurately reflects the source material. Always good for a chuckle. [/quote']

I kind of thought so...hard to believe a Gamer, particularly a GM would make a mistake like that.

[austenandrews]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

(Continued from above...)

 

Have any of you ever run a Golden Age game that wasn't of the "Golly gee whiz" variety' date=' but was more along the lines of what I'm talking about? If so, how did it go? Any tips or tricks or suggestions for the next time I run stories in this campaign setting?[/quote']

Again, I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to with "Golly gee whiz." If you mean you're running WWII superheroes as written by Quentin Tarantino, then no, I've never done that; it wouldn't really be Golden Age anymore. If you're talking about WWII superheroes as written in Batman-esque "noir lite" (which is a bit how Captain America would have been, if you took Bucky out of the equation) then yes, I've been there.

 

Personally I enjoy the power fantasy aspect of superheroes, and that goes double for GA. My GA campaigns are bursting with two-bit goons that the PCs can mow through like amber waves of grain. The catharsis would be magnified at the power levels you've described. With PCs in the 600-800 pt. range, I'd literally be throwing them against battleships and tank brigades and bomber squadrons. (I once had a Sub-Mariner-clone PC use his trident to carve a fully-manned U-boat in half.) The sheer amount of BODY damage thrown around would be entertaining.

 

At the same time I'd be absolutely sure that in nine out of ten cases, brute force alone won't solve the scenario. Even the Spectre had to investigate. That's where the good period references really come into play.

 

And in any case I'd say don't lose sight of the source material. If Der Schwartzenteufel has built a giant, cheesy-looking death ray to sink Allied supply ships, (A) the fact that it's cheesy-looking doesn't mean it's not highly lethal, and ( the fact that it's highly lethal doesn't mean it's not cheesy-looking. If that makes any sense.

 

Even if the Golden Age game you ran was of the "Golly gee whiz" variety, what social conventions from the period did you find caused you the most trouble? Any tips on keeping them straight?

I never had a problem with smoking, sexism, racism (toned down), romantic customs, pop culture, etc. I took my cues from old noir films, as did my players, by and large; and noir films were generally fast and loose enough to reconcile modern liberal sensibilities with the time period. But I often had trouble with rationing and other homeside wartime measures. Everyone remembers scrap metal and nylons and Rosie the Riveter, but beyond that I would get lost. Dunno why it was that in particular.

 

Ultimately I found that old movies were the best solution. I'd never hope for all my players to be geeks about the period, but I could get them to sit down to a good Bogie flick. Old movies would give the group a nice "baseline" for the period. Beyond that I could slip in other details as I remembered them or as research turned up something with a good hook.

[Sketchpad]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

Personally, the one GA game that I played in was for the Marvel Saga system and ran by Rikathos ... it was a ton of fun

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

Golden Age is one of my favorite games to run. But I confess' date=' I'm unclear what you mean by "Golly gee whiz!" stuff. Can you elaborate? I ask because in my experience, adopting the simpler tone of GA comics is not at all in contrast to lethality. Especially in war stories, people got gunned down and blown up and fell off of cliffs all the time.[/quote']

When you ask most people what they think of when they think "Golden Age" and you get things like:

 

"Holey hopping hockeysticks, Batman! The Joker's getting away!"

 

"Hahahahahahahaha! That's right, Boy Blunder! Hahahahahaah!"

 

In other words, cheesey, lame humor, bad jokes, and so on. (See the animated Batman episode where you have kids telling each other stories of what they think Batman is like. One tells the Frank Miller Batman; one tells a "Golden Age" Batman story.)

 

If it's not quite so out-and-out silly, it's more like...the Justice League episode where they wind up in a parallel world that seems never to have left its Golden Age. Hokey theme villains, a truck full of dynamite whose brakes fail just as its coming up on a busload of nuns, that sort of thing.

 

In my experience, that seems to be what most people think "Golden Age" means. And that's what I was trying to avoid, though I did leave a touch of it in, usually via the ultra-patriot types. (That is, the way they talked sounded like some of the more hokey Allied propaganda films of the time.)

 

And I should note that people are generally thinking of homefront heroes when they think these things, not about heroes actually on the lines. Since I was setting mine in England, with frequent missions across into occupied France, it was easier to avoid those things than it might have been otherwise.

Right' date=' exactly. They weren't nearly as graphic as they are now (until horror comics boomed, anyway) but they weren't squeamish about people dying. Comics emulated adventure serials and features, and were only as graphic as those. Which is to say, if the hero shoots a bad guy, the bad guy just crumples and falls. If the hero chops or stabs a bad guy, the bad guy... just crumples and falls. If something really nasty happens, it's offscreen. (Heck, in Lugosi's original film, Dracula gets [i']staked[/i] offscreen.)

 

To me that's the difference between the Golden Age and modern sensibilities. Golden Age attaches no intrinsic value to character's demise. As a story element, it's just something that happens now and then (more often for some characters & settings than others). In modern stories it's treated as over-the-top or graphic or "hardcore." There's often hand-wringing over morality and whatnot. That's not present in Golden Age. (Which isn't to say that all GA characters were bloodthirsty, of course. Only that death in the comics wasn't given any particular real-world social context.)

I don't do things "off screen"...if someone gets shot or badly hurt, there's blood and such as is appropriate, but nowhere near the level of a Friday the 13th slasher pic. Example: one of the first casualties in the big fight I mentioned was Augenblick, a German speedster whose resistant defenses were on the low side. American Eagle (Allied hyper-man) got a tremendously good attack roll and put a couple of rounds from an M1 Garand into Augenblick's chest...and I maxed the BODY: 6's on every damage die. Augenblick stumbled to a halt, a look of surprise on his face, and put a hand to his chest. He pulled it away, saw fingers smeared with blood, and muttered "That's not...possible! I'm too fast...for..." and collapsed. No great gouts of gore, no gaping craters of bloody flesh.

 

Period color is one of my favorite parts of running GA.

That's the part I'm having the most trouble with, because so many of my reflexes and speech habits are...well...habits! A few times I didn't catch myself in time and had to say "No, wait...he wouldn't say that...he'd say 'xxxxxxxxxx' " and then go on. Any tips for improving my 'period color' response success?

 

 

What I do' date=' more informally than systematically, is to divide my NPCs into two camps - "disposable NPCs" and "campaign NPCs" (I just now made up those terms). Since villains often die at a scenario's climax, I only put "disposable" villains in situations where that might happen. If I want a villain to survive for longer, I always have a foolproof (as much as possible) escape plan. That can be anything from watching the proceedings safely through a video screen to switching with a decoy at some point during combat (sometimes retroactively ) to having a heat-proof escape boat hidden in the lava pit, so when the villain falls in the heroes think he's dead (of course my players are happy to proclaim, [i']"No one[/i] could have survived that.").

Even though I knew I was setting it during wartime, I'm used to thinking of the deaths of superpowered people as rare, so I was a bit surprised by how high the body count became. I'm more prepared for the mindset now. I think what I may do for the more "disposable" types may be to create a core group of low-level ubermenschen with similar powers...a cut above regular soldiers or Star Wars stormtroopers, but well below the "average" hyper-man in ability. That way I can have a "named" ubermenschen commanding a squad of these lesser types; perhaps my "named" villains might live a trifle longer that way.

 

 

I'd keep an eye on that' date=' though. It's easy to assume that characters in the middle of a war will haul around the biggest killing attacks they can find; but that in itself is a modern sensibility. Characters from Captain America and Bucky to the Vision and the Spectre and the Sub-Mariner did just fine - and sent plenty of bad guys to their graves - with no Killing Attacks at all.[/quote']

In most cases the Killing Attacks aren't any larger than the damage done by an M1 Garand, so I'm not too worried. Of the killing attacks, the two largest...by far...are those possessed by Esprit de Corp, the most powerful of the Allied hyper-men (at 8d6) and Jagdgauner, the largest but not most powerful of the ubermenschen, at 10d6 Armor Piercing. Esprit de Corp was written up to be a literal tank-buster, among other things. Jagdagauner was written to be able to take out entire naval vessels by himself (he becomes a super-powered megaladon). Both characters made appearances during the course of the month, and neither one dominated play. Jagdagauner was driven off from convoy hunting by Pendragon, and despite her high-damage Killing Attack, Esprit de Corps was responsible for one of the three Axis fatalities in that big fight, and was very nearly killed herself (she's the one that stabilized at -3 BODY).

 

So far, "Killing Attack inflation" hasn't been a problem. Esprit de Corp and Jagdagauner have reputations about their abilities, too, so hypermen on the other side know well what they're getting in to when they tangle with one of them.

 

I've seen it before. Remember that Superman' date=' the Spectre and the Sub-Mariner are Golden Age characters, too. You just have to scale up the challenges.[/quote']

Hmmm...true enough. Scaling up the challenges wasn't really a problem, though, since the point levels came out to be approx. equal between the various hyper-men and their Axis counterparts. A few examples:

 

599 American Eagle

624 Pendragon

415 Big Ben

600 Blond Bombshell

800 Esprit de Corps

 

682 Jagdagauner

376 Kriegsmariner

471 Panzer Grenadier

666 Unheilvoll Drache

 

...though I should note that both Panzer Grenadier and Kriegsmariner are powered-armor wearers, and so are considerably more effective than their point totals might indicate (because of the price break of getting everything through an OIF).

 

Also remember' date=' though, that the inclusion of supervillains is itself a fairly non-Golden Age thing to do. So you'll have to reconcile that Ymir the Fire Giant can lay waste to as many Allied tank brigades as Superman can to the Axis.[/quote']

So far, I've used an oldie but a goodie: our hypermen tend to fight and therefore neutralize their hypermen, and the other way around. So though you do occassionally get the hypermen of one side or the other engaging regular troops or tank divisions, that's the exception rather than the rule; further, when that happens, there's usually some of the other side's super-powered defenders nearby, who will quickly arrive to engage the enemy hyper-man.

 

Having said that, one of the biggest fights was a massive air strike against London, catching them unawares because part of the Chain Home radar stations had been sabotaged in a non-obvious way, reporting clear skies when in fact hordes of enemy aircraft crossed the channel. During that air battle, Pendragon developed the technique of multiple flyby strikes to damage several aircraft with one attack manuever, and got pretty good at it...she alone accounted for over 40 downed enemy aircraft. Right up until she ran into Feindjaeger. She ended up fighting him for the rest of that engagement, and eventually won through the simple fact that he had to withdraw after expending all his ammunition. His plane was heavily damaged, and Pendragon herself had taken some large-caliber armor-piercing rounds in her gut, and was only a few BODY above zero. Her flying horse, Leaping Silver, had likewise been injured.

 

(Side note: I'm having to re-write Feindjaeger to make him deadlier. Why? Because while he was a good pilot and gunner...exceptionally good...he wasn't supposed to be an inhuman terror. But during that fight, my dice loved him. I couldn't miss! I consistently rolled 4's and 5's on 3d6 for my attack rolls with him! Fortunately my damage rolls weren't nearly so high on a consistent basis, and the "impregnable" magical armor that Pendragon wears turned most of the damage, but not all of it. In any case, the player now views Feindjaeger as not only a personal nemesis, but as some kind of near-god of aerial combat. Just in case my dice are not so loving of him next time, I'm re-writing him to make him as deadly as he was that night...assuming average die rolls. After all, I don't want to disappoint the player when she crosses paths...and swords!...with him again! After the kind of fight she had with him that night, I think she'd be very disappointed if he only performed "well" instead of "near god-like". )

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

When my GM runs Golden Age supers' date=' it almost feels like Shadowrun. very pragmatic, to put it gently.[/quote']

I wouldn't call what I did as "dark" as Shadowrun often is, but "pragmatic" feels like a good fit. At least, that's what I was aiming for, and the player seemed satisfied, so I think I managed it.

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

They had no problem with killing and in fact I had a Norwegian Werebear who had bloodthirsty as a disadvantage. His entire village was killed by an S.S. squad and he ended up wiping out the whole squad the first time he changed.

The French hyperman that I've mentioned, Esprit de Corps, is a bit like that. Dr. Qual experimented on her using the Spear of Destiny, and inadvertantly created a very powerful superbeing who escaped his laboratory, taking the Spear with her...though she ended up losing it in the Channel.

 

Esprit de Corps is gradually growing in power, because every time a Frenchman dies because of the Axis, she absorbs their spirit. She's haunted by their voices and their dreams, and is not very happy most of the time, though she puts on a good face. She feels like a living incarnation of their lust for vengance, and has no qualms whatsoever about tearing apart Nazis with her bare hands. She also regards herself as "living on borrowed time" and has a sense of her own impending doom. She doesn't mention this anymore, because it disturbs the other heroes with whom she works.

 

(Side note: this Golden Age campaign is taking place during the WWII of my usual Champions game setting. Because of a past campaign in which the current solo player's character knew American Eagle, the player knows about Esprit de Corps...and that American Eagle fell in love with her, and that she dies before the end of the war, decapitated by a German 88. The player has asked me if history is fixed and immutable, or if Esprit de Corps might be saved. I've said that history isn't fixed, or there'd be no sense to playing a game set in a prior age. But in the next-to-last game session, Esprit de Corps came frightenly close to death...and now the player is wondering if the dice might be having a thing or two to say about whether or not history is "fixed and immutable"... )

[OddHat]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

Sounds like a fantastic game.

 

I'd highly reccomend Godlike, a game setting about, well, really wussy Superheroes in WWII. I ran a campaign using elements from that book and Hero system; worked well.

 

Re: Power Levels. 350 points without min-maxing is not enough for Doc Savage, the Shadow, or even Superman after 1942, unless you give bases, contacts, and background skills for free. However, it's possible to build a world where 350 point versions of those characters work. I tend to do that out of habit.

 

My wife's Victoria Davis solo game folowed the character from her childhood in the 1930s (as an apprentice to Patricia Savage) through pre-war adventures and the early years of WWII. It rocked.

 

I'm trying to tell a good story about real people in impossible circumstances. I may love a genre convention (Bat Caves! Secret Bases! Henchmen! Monkeys!), but if I have to choose between running the convention straight or reworking it to fit the story, the convention gets reworked.

[ldorn]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

The best way to get the speech patterns down for the period you what is to find a collection of old radio shows based around the years you want. You should find these among the audio books in places like Borders.

[Agent 13]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

The best way to get the speech patterns down for the period you what is to find a collection of old radio shows based around the years you want. You should find these among the audio books in places like Borders.

Or many places on-line, including:

http://otrfan.com/

http://radiomemories.libsyn.com/

[austenandrews]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

Also for dialog, movies of the period are great for sticking in your head. Watch a few before you plan a game session. You may never think to have a grown man use the word "swell," but watch Bogart say it a few times and you'll carry a different perspective into the game. Classics like Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon are brimming with good lines. When you come across one, practice it a couple of times. If Sam Spade makes you think of the line "The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter!" then you've already committed the words "crook" and "patter" to memory.

 

For quips and interjections, comedies are a great resource. The Vaudeville influence made snappy lines, and shocked "straight-man" responses to snappy lines, a staple of the time. Personally I like Marx Brothers and Thin Man films for catchy quips. Practice the ones that make you laugh, and you'll inadvertantly pick up some period idioms (I can't think of Groucho without hearing "How do you like that?" or Margaret Dumont's "Well, I never!"). Also check out Mae West, W.C. Fields, et al.

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

Those are all excellent suggestions, and I'm make sure to use some of them before I run that game next...which will likely be in 6 months or so. I'm asking now while the thoughts from having done it are fresh in my mind, so I can feel better prepared next time.

 

AA, did I manage to convey a better idea of what I meant when I was referring to "Golly gee whiz" stuff?

[austenandrews]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

AA' date=' did I manage to convey a better idea of what I meant when I was referring to "Golly gee whiz" stuff?[/quote']

Yes, now I understand. You're talking about people's expectations, not the actual source material. The two are quite different, to a degree a lot of people probably don't realize. Many of the tropes people associate with Golden Age are actually more Silver Age in flavor. Actual supervillains weren't common until quite late in the GA, and the ridiculous excesses (death traps shaped like giant musical instruments) weren't common until the Silver Age revival of superhero titles. Likewise it was the Silver Age that took the edge off the characters, who previously emulated the pulps & serials with their casual body counts.

 

In some ways I am quietly amused when people snigger at genuine Golden Age tropes. When people claim, without a shred of irony, that Captain America and Bucky are less believable than a giant-breasted porn model with thong armor and a hundred-pound sword - because they show blood on the sword! - I can't help but laugh.

 

Not that there isn't plenty of humor to be mined from the source material, and not that I don't enjoy it (I thought that Justice League episode was a scream). But the truth is, Golden Age tropes aren't any more or less ridiculous than modern ones. The key is how you sell them. If your group doesn't enjoy implausible period tropes, make them plausible. That's what I meant earlier about the cheesy giant death ray being lethal despite being cheesy. Flamboyant does not mean impractical. (Someone once asked an old engineer from the 19th century why their cast-iron machine mounts were often so ornate. He answered, "Why not? They had to look like something.") No one questioned fighter pilots when they painted toothy faces on their planes. They were men doing a serious job, who happened to include a little flair. Modern writers have done a great job of portraying the Joker's flamboyance as the product of horrifying, murderous dementia. Look at how Batman Begins justified such silliness as a giant cape, spiky gloves and a mask with ears.

 

Approach your Golden Age flavor the same way and skeptical players might view it in an entirely different light. You can lose much of the goofiness and retain the tropes.

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

Not that there isn't plenty of humor to be mined from the source material' date=' and not that I don't enjoy it (I thought that Justice League episode was a scream). But the truth is, Golden Age tropes aren't any more or less ridiculous than modern ones. The key is how you sell them. If your group doesn't enjoy implausible period tropes, [i']make them plausible.[/i] That's what I meant earlier about the cheesy giant death ray being lethal despite being cheesy. Flamboyant does not mean impractical. (Someone once asked an old engineer from the 19th century why their cast-iron machine mounts were often so ornate. He answered, "Why not? They had to look like something.") No one questioned fighter pilots when they painted toothy faces on their planes. They were men doing a serious job, who happened to include a little flair. Modern writers have done a great job of portraying the Joker's flamboyance as the product of horrifying, murderous dementia. Look at how Batman Begins justified such silliness as a giant cape, spiky gloves and a mask with ears.

 

Approach your Golden Age flavor the same way and skeptical players might view it in an entirely different light. You can lose much of the goofiness and retain the tropes.

Wow! Excellent post, AA! I wonder if I can rep you yet?

 

Edit: Yup...I can!

 

 

I think I remarked earlier that I kept some of the "goofy" dialogue, mainly from a couple of ultra-patriot types. I guess I did a good job of "selling" it as "plausible", because the player -- who'd specifically requested avoiding the "Golden Age silliness" -- took it in stride and seemed to think it was appropriate to the characters and situations. In fact, despite the propaganda-film-esque nature of the dialogue in question, she described the characters as being "very ernest" and "gung-ho" rather than "silly".

[Twilight]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

Or, if your players are so inclined you can retain the goofiness and just work around it. After all just because it was goofy doesn't mean it was bad, which is not to say that AA's take on things is wrong either. Either point of view can work if that's what the players and GM want.

 

Me I kind of like a mixture of the two. I mean I do like the lighthearted Golden Age goofiness in moderation but I appreciate a good serious story too. A few adventures with our heroes slogging through occupied France to aid the Resistance against the Nazi hordes and Vichy French traitors can be great fun, but sooner or later I'll want some goofy stuff like Nazi werewolves or superintelligent SS gorillas to show up as well. Yes reading in Hidden Lands that Mole Men battled alongside the Nazi's brought a smile to my face from the sheer silliness of it.

 

No one way is the right way there's room enough for something like Dr. Anomaly's game and the likes of Professor Peril and Frau Doktor Veronica Von Frankenstein as well.

[John Desmarais]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

Actual supervillains weren't common until quite late in the GA...

 

They became more common in "after the fact" golden-age stories (stories set in that period but written many years after). In particular, Roy Thomas introduced a slew of them in both his Invaders stories and his All-Star Squadron/Young All-Stars stories. But yes, in the comics actually published during that time costumed, super-powered villains were almsot unheard of.

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Golden Age Champions

 

As the Co-GM of a Golden Age game I can say that I am trying to get at the 1970s revival Golden Age rather than the true Golden Age. I want costumed villians! I want Death Traps! I want fun and seriousness!

 

I like Pie!

 

Hawksmoor