The Silver Age - a new Guardians' campaign

[SteveZilla]

Thought I'd share the opening announcement here.

-------------------------------------------------

 

Reflecto, criminal master of mirrors, stepped through the dressing room

mirror as if walking through the front door. He had come to Llewellyn's

Finery that afternoon on the pretext of looking for an engagement ring. In

actuality, it was to case the joint. He knew exactly what he wanted...

everything in the front jewelry cases, plus the stuff in the storeroom in

the back. And while he was there, he'd find a nice engagement ring, and

maybe a fur coat. Mathilda would love it.

 

He knelt behind the front counter and took out a small mirrored disk. The

special mirror focused the lights of the display into a tight beam that cut

slowly into the glass. Wisps of smoke rose toward the ceiling as he worked,

slowly and patiently. He had almost managed to open the case when the lights came on. Reflecto looked up, suddenly, at the brightly colored figure

standing in the front door of the shop.

 

"Well, well, well... looks like the janitor forgot to take out the trash.",

the voice was strong and confident, and Reflecto recognized it immediately.

"The store's closed, Reflecto... you going to come quietly, or do we have to

do this the hard way?"

 

Reflecto scrunched his eyes closed, as if against the sudden onset of a

headache. "Aw, fudge!"

 

 

******************

 

 

The Silver Age! is looking for eight (8) players, and I am now taking

submissions.

 

The campaign page is not officially on the Campaign index yet, but it is on

the website at:

 

http://www.globalguardians.com/campaigns/silverage.php

 

Read that page! I say this, because characters that don't fit the attitude and the times will not be accepted into play!

 

Starting in 1948, and continuing for the ten years, the heroes of the Golden

Age (and, surprisingly, the villains they fought) began to fade away. Some

died in World War II, of course. Others died of causes unrelated to their

crime-fighting, or were injured, or retired to be with their families or for

any of dozens of possible reasons. By 1956, the number of confirmed

metahuman incidents around the globe was less than 10. Such incidents were

so few in 1957 that the year has since been dubbed "the year without

metahumans".

 

In 1958, a new generation of heroes (and villains) began to make their

presence known. It didn't take too long for experts in such things to figure

out that this new generation tended to be more powerful than their

predecessors, as well as being less provincial. These new heroes were facing

threats far greater than the fancily-costumed gun wielding criminals the

heroes of the 30s and 40s tended to face.

 

Its now June of 1963. The player characters all made their debut sometime

between the start January of 1958 and December of 1960 and have been making a name for themselves ever since. Six months ago, they were each contacted by a man representing U Thant, the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

 

Three months ago, the Secretary-General presented you to the public as the

Global Guardians.

 

Characters created for this campaign must be stereotypically Silver Age in

nature, and when I say stereotypical, I mean stereotypical. Characters that

would be fully approved of by the Comics Code Authority and that would fit

into the time period like a hand fits into a glove.

 

 

All characters in The Silver Age! should follow these guidelines:

 

Starting Points: 250

Maximum Disadvantages: 150

Maximum Points From Non-Psychological Limit Disadvantage: 50

Maximum Points From Psychological Limitations: 75

Maximum Active Points for Any One Power: 60

Maximum DEF (Resistant or Not): 25

Special Restrictions, Requirements and Exceptions:

 

It is advised that the player make use of all 150 points of Disadvantages.

 

All player characters are required to purchase Fringe Benefit: International

Police Powers for five points.

 

All player characters are required to take the 20 point Psychological

Limitation: Code vs. Killing. There will be no exceptions to this

requirement.

 

Each character is allowed a single exception to the Active Point Cap of 60

points; for a single power, the character may take up to 75 active points.

Each power so taken must be unique to the individual character. (For

example, if someone takes 75 active points of Energy Blast, no other

character is permitted to take 75 points of Energy Blast.)

 

This is an international team. Characters should thus be from countries all

around the globe. That being said, no character from any Communist country

(as of 1963) will be accepted.

 

As far as power sets are concerned, I am looking for the following. If your

character doesn't fit one of these character archetypes, it will not be

considered:

 

One Aquatic Brick.

One Archer With Trick Arrows.

One Super-Strong Brute With A Heart Of Gold And The Looks Of Ten Miles Of

Bad Road.

One Flying Brick Who Also Possesses Some Kind Of Energy Blast.

One Martial Arts-Using Gadgeteer Whose Gadgets Are All Themed.

One Shrinker.

One Speedster. Note: By "speedster" I mean "someone who runs really fast",

though I might take a variation if its an interesting enough character.

Super-teleporters need not apply.

One Flying Energy Blaster.

 

As far as the sources of each character's powers, I am looking for the

following. If your character doesn't fit one of these categories, he will

not be accepted.

One Alien In Exile.

One Character Based In Real World Mythology. Note: As racist as it sounds,

the mythology in question should be restricted to a European culture so as

to better fit with the Silver Age setting.

One Character Wielding a Gizmo of Unusual Origin.

One Character Who Had An Encounter With Something Mystical And Gained Powers From That Encounter. Note: the character need not be a wizard.

One Second-Generation Hero Who's Powers Are Similar If Not Identical To

Their "Ancestor" Hero.

Three Men-of or Two Men- and One Woman-of Science Who Gained Their Powers Through Experimentation or Their Own Technical Brilliance. Note: At least one of these three characters must have gained their powers because of an accident caused by Commie sabotage.

 

I am looking for a single female character. No more, no less.

 

Submissions will remain open indefinitely until either all the positions for

all desired archetypes, in combination with the desires sources of power and

the single female character, are filled or it becomes obvious that not

enough interest exists for this campaign to proceed. Positions will be

filled on the merits of the character rather than on a

first-come-first-served basis. Once an archetype and source of power has

been filled, I will make an announcement to that effect. Players who submit

a character for a position that is filled by someone else will be offered

the opportunity to submit for another position.

 

All submissions should be sent to jbutler@globalguardians.com

 

 

A Note On The Setting:

 

In comic books the Silver Age was that period between the late 1950s and

early 1970s. In my opinion, the Silver Age began with DC Showcase #4, the

first appearance of Barry "The Flash" Allen, and ended with either Green

Lantern/Green Arrow #76 (the beginning of social relevance, one of the big

hallmarks of the Bronze Age) in 1970, or The Amazing Spider-Man #121 (the

Death of Gwen Stacy... the first death of a major non-villain character in

any comic book, ever!) in 1973

 

Silver age comics differed from their Golden Age counterparts in that the

characters were more rounded and well-conceived. Most Golden Age characters in the comics were cardboard cut-outs with powers. Bruce Wayne, for example, was a millionaire playboy who put a suit on and fought crime. Nothing else.

 

In the Golden Age, the writers never bothered to go into *why* he did it

other than the rather shallow response "oh... because his parents were

killed by a mugger". They never actually delved into what precisely that

sort of experience would do to a person. Granted, the Silver age didn't

delve *too* deeply into character development. But it was a start.

 

The characters began to have conflicts that weren't related to their

characters. They suddenly had girlfriends (or very rarely, wives, though

that was more common in the Bronze Age) who wanted their attention, and who interfered with their crime-fighting appropriately. They had jobs which they had to attend to and actually perform, lest they get fired, and this

interfered with their crime-fighting. All of this was something you never

saw in the Golden Age. I mean, really... in the Golden Age, Superman might

have been a reporter in his Secret Identity... but Clark Kent never seemed

to ever be shown typing at his desk in the newsroom.

 

Believe it or not, one of the biggest changes between the Golden Age and the Silver Age was the origin story. The greater majority of Golden Age

characters never had their source-of-power explained, or else the

explanation was a secondary consideration to the fact that they had these

powers and nothing else really mattered.

 

So while Silver Age characters never got as rounded and deep as Bronze Age

(1970s to early 1980s)/Gilded Age (1990s to present) characters (and the

Iron Age... the 1980s to early 1990s for the most part... was a return to

cardboard cut-outs) were, they were better explored than their Golden Age

counterparts.

 

The Silver Age was heavily based on science fiction, which is understandable

given the times... it was the beginning of the Nuclear Age, the Space Age,

and the Computer Age, all rolled into one. Extraterrestrials abounded as

both heroes and villains. Characters gained their powers through intentional

application of science and technology, or else gained their powers in some

sort of scientific accident (the term "radiation accident", for a sudden

gain in power, dates back to this period because so many heroes gained their

powers from exposure to radiation). Huge monsters were commonly fought by

the heroes (at Marvel Comics, the heroes fought so many monsters they

actually created a place called "Monster Island" to explain where they were

all coming from). Aliens invaded on a daily basis. It was fun!

 

Also, and this was a direct result of the Comics Code Authority, stories

tended be light-hearted when compared to later ages. Villains were corny and their crimes even more so. Heroes never faced tragic situations which shook their world-view to the core, no matter how dastardly the villains plots

were. The threat of imminent death of the hero, his friends, or his loved

ones just was never there. I mean, sure, the heroes were "in danger", but he

wasn't going to die, and neither were the innocent bystanders around him. In

a lot of cases, the stories were actually played for laughs (go watch the

old Batman TV series starring Adam West and Burt Ward... you'll see what I

mean). As a result, the heroes tended to be a little bland and vanilla, but

that was okay because vanilla was okay back then. (And besides, the Bronze

Age... which I think of as the greatest period of character development in

the history of comic books) was just around the corner.

 

Give you a good example: these days, the Joker is a psychotic madman who

kills at random. In the Silver Age, he was an inventive genius who was more

of an eccentric but harmless prankster and thief than a murderous

psychopath. (Ironically, the Joker was more murderous in the Golden Age than he was in the Silver...) Sure, he might tie Batman down to the Unnecessarily Slow Dipping Mechanism in order to drop him into the vat of acid, but it was going to take that thing an hour to finally dunk Batman anyway, so everybody knew Bats would escape. This is not the Joker that nerve gasses a theatre so he can watch "The Bicycle Thief" by himself. The murderous psychopath stuff didn't start up until the 70s when Batman was written by Denny O'Neil.

[Guest Lollygagger]

Re: The Silver Age - a new Guardians' campaign

 

What exactly does "man of science" mean?

[RobCRogers]

Re: The Silver Age - a new Guardians' campaign

 

What exactly does "man of science" mean?

 

(Posting on behalf of the GM)

 

It just means a character who gained his power through some sort of experiment gone wrong. Or gone right... either way works...

[Guest Lollygagger]

Re: The Silver Age - a new Guardians' campaign

 

(Posting on behalf of the GM)

 

It just means a character who gained his power through some sort of experiment gone wrong. Or gone right... either way works...

 

Okay, I get it. Thanks.

 

Second question: why so specific in what you're looking for?

[Powerhouse]

Re: The Silver Age - a new Guardians' campaign

 

As someone working on a Silver Age team, thanks for the post: it's quite useful.

 

As noted though, I wonder if you're being a little TOO specific. While guidelines and suggestions are great, I humbly suggest that you might be straight-jacketing the players a bit. Based on your suggestions, you would be disallowing some classic Silver Age heroes like Thor (unless you squeeze him into a brick/EBer), Martian Manhunter (again unless you do a flying brick/EBer but he's so much more), or Black Canary (martial artist but no themed weapons). Also, you're not allowing a mystic.

 

I hope I'm not being critical but just seeking to make a suggestions. Good luck with the campaign.

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: The Silver Age - a new Guardians' campaign

 

While the list is specific, given it's a GGU campaign, there will be at least three applicants for each spot on the roster (my guess).

 

I'm not the GM, but my guess is the specificity was to help with that, making it so he only had to pick the best contender for each category.

[Guest Lollygagger]

Re: The Silver Age - a new Guardians' campaign

 

I've got no problem working within the restrictions, really. I was just wondering about them. Most PBEMs aren't that specific. Only possible reason I can see for it is maybe to enforce the genre, and if so I can dig it. But it struck me as a bit odd.

[RobCRogers]

Re: The Silver Age - a new Guardians' campaign

 

I've got no problem working within the restrictions' date=' really. I was just wondering about them. Most PBEMs aren't that specific. Only possible reason I can see for it is maybe to enforce the genre, and if so I can dig it. But it struck me as a bit odd.[/quote']

 

I believe that's the core of it--enforcing the genre and giving guidance to players.

[SteveZilla]

Re: The Silver Age - a new Guardians' campaign

 

There's been some slight changes to this campaign's requirements. Here's the re-done call for characters:

 

The Artful Dodger struggled against the ropes that held him to

the crane's arm. If he could just... get... his hand... loose... he could

reach his utility belt, cut the ropes, swing to the ledge, use his pocket

laser to cut through the lock on the door, and be free before the crane

could finish its deadly task of lowering him into the pool full of

crocodiles.

 

As he wiggled his hand free, the Dodger couldn't help but thank

his lucky stars that Doctor Evil left him in here all by himself!

 

 

****************************************************

 

The Silver Age! is looking for six (8) players, and I am now

taking submissions.

 

The campaign page is officially on the Campaign index page. For simplicity, here is a direct link to the campaign:

 

http://www.globalguardians.com/campaigns/silverage.php

 

Read that page! I say this, because characters that don't fit the attitude and the times will not be accepted into play!

 

Starting in 1948, and continuing for the ten years, the heroes

of the Golden Age (and, surprisingly, the villains they fought) began to

fade away. Some died in World War II, of course. Others died of causes

unrelated to their crime-fighting, or were injured, or retired to be with

their families or for any of dozens of possible reasons. By 1956, the

number of confirmed metahuman incidents around the globe was less than 10. Such incidents were so few in 1957 that the year has since been dubbed "the year without metahumans".

 

In 1958, a new generation of heroes (and villains) began to make

their presence known. It didn't take too long for experts in such things to

figure out that this new generation tended to be more powerful than their

predecessors, as well as being less provincial. These new heroes were

facing threats far greater than the fancily-costumed gun wielding criminals

the heroes of the 30s and 40s tended to face.

 

Its now June of 1963. The player characters all made their

debut sometime between the start January of 1958 and December of 1960 and have been making a name for themselves ever since. Six months ago, they were each contacted by a man representing U Thant, the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Three months ago, the Secretary-General presented you to the public as the Global Guardians.

 

Characters created for this campaign must be stereotypically

Silver Age in nature, and when I say stereotypical, I mean stereotypical.

Characters that would be fully approved of by the Comics Code Authority and

that would fit into the time period like a hand fits into a glove.

 

All characters in The Silver Age! should follow these guidelines:

 

Starting Points: 250

Maximum Disadvantages: 150

Maximum Points From Non-Psychological Limit Disadvantage: 50

Maximum Points From Psychological Limitations: 75

Maximum Active Points for Any One Power: 60

Maximum DEF (Resistant or Not): 25

 

Special Restrictions, Requirements and Exceptions:

 

It is advised that the player make use of all 150 points of

Disadvantages.

 

All player characters are required to purchase Fringe Benefit:

International Police Powers for five points.

 

All player characters are required to take the 20 point

Psychological Limitation: Code vs. Killing. There will be no exceptions to

this requirement.

 

Each character is allowed a single exception to the Active Point

Cap of 60 points; for a single power, the character may take up to 75 active

points. Each power so taken must be unique to the individual character.

(For example, if someone takes 75 active points of Energy Blast, no other

character is permitted to take 75 points of Energy Blast.)

 

This is an international team. Characters should thus be from

countries all around the globe. That being said, no character from any

Communist country (as of 1963) will be accepted.

 

As far as power sets are concerned, I am looking for the

following. If your character doesn't fit one of these character archetypes,

it will not be considered:

 

A Superman-style flying brick.

An Aquaman/Sub-Mariner-style aquatic brick.

An Atom/Ant-Man/Wasp-style shrinker

A Flash/Quicksilver-style speedster

One flying energy blaster.

One Speedster

 

As far as the sources of each character's powers, I would prefer

that players use some of the classic origin sources from the Silver Age.

These include, but are not limited to being an alien in exile, being

connected to real world mythology in some way (European, naturally enough), wielding a gizmo of unknown origin, having an encounter with something mystical, inheriting your powers from a parent or mentor who himself was a Golden Age hero, and gaining your powers through a science experiment (especially if the experiment was sabotaged by the Commies!).

 

I am looking for a single female character. No more, no less.

 

Submissions will remain open until March 19th. Positions will be

filled on the merits of the character rather than on a first-come-first-served basis.

 

 

A Note On The Setting

 

In comic books the Silver Age was that period between the late

1950s and early 1970s. In my opinion, the Silver Age began with DC Showcase

#4, the first appearance of Barry "The Flash" Allen, and ended with either

Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76 (the beginning of social relevance, one of the

big hallmarks of the Bronze Age) in 1970, or The Amazing Spider-Man #121

(the Death of Gwen Stacy... the first death of a major non-villain character

in any comic book, ever!) in 1973

 

Silver age comics differed from their Golden Age counterparts in

that the characters were more rounded and well-conceived. Most Golden Age

characters in the comics were cardboard cut-outs with powers. Bruce Wayne,

for example, was a millionaire playboy who put a suit on and fought crime.

Nothing else. In the Golden Age, the writers never bothered to go into *why*

he did it other than the rather shallow response "oh... because his parents

were killed by a mugger". They never actually delved into what precisely

that sort of experience would do to a person. Granted, the Silver age didn't

delve *too* deeply into character development. But it was a start.

 

The characters began to have conflicts that weren't related to

their crime-fighting careers. They suddenly had girlfriends (or very rarely,

wives, though that was more common in the Bronze Age) who wanted their

attention, and who interfered with their crime-fighting appropriately. They

had jobs which they had to attend to and actually perform, lest they get

fired, and this interfered with their crime-fighting. All of this was

something you never saw in the Golden Age. I mean, really... in the Golden

Age, Superman might have been a reporter in his Secret Identity... but Clark

Kent never seemed to ever be shown typing at his desk in the newsroom.

 

Believe it or not, one of the biggest changes between the Golden

Age and the Silver Age was the origin story: the greater majority of Golden

Age characters never had their source-of-power explained, or else the

explanation was a secondary consideration to the fact that they had these

powers and nothing else really mattered.

 

So while Silver Age characters never got as rounded and deep as

Bronze Age (1970s to early 1980s)/Gilded Age (1990s to present) characters

(and the Iron Age... the 1980s to early 1990s for the most part... was a

return to cardboard cut-outs) were, they were better explored than their

Golden Age counterparts.

 

The Silver Age was heavily based on science fiction, which is

understandable given the times... it was the beginning of the Nuclear Age,

the Space Age, and the Computer Age, all rolled into one. Extraterrestrials

abounded as both heroes and villains. Characters gained their powers through

intentional application of science and technology, or else gained their

powers in some sort of scientific accident (the term "radiation accident",

for a sudden gain in power, dates back to this period because so many heroes

gained their powers from exposure to radiation). Huge monsters were commonly

fought by the heroes (at Marvel Comics, the heroes fought so many monsters

they actually created a place called "Monster Island" to explain where they

were all coming from). Aliens invaded on a daily basis. It was fun!

 

Also, and this was a direct result of the Comics Code Authority,

stories tended be light-hearted when compared to later ages. Villains were

corny and their crimes even more so. Heroes never faced tragic situations

which shook their world-view to the core, no matter how dastardly the

villains plots were. The threat of imminent death of the hero, his friends,

or his loved ones just was never there. I mean, sure, the heroes were "in

danger", but he wasn't going to die, and neither were the innocent

bystanders around him. In a lot of cases, the stories were actually played

for laughs (go watch the old Batman TV series starring Adam West and Burt

Ward... you'll see what I mean). As a result, the heroes tended to be a

little bland and vanilla, but that was okay because vanilla was okay back

then. (And besides, the Bronze Age... which I think of as the greatest

period of character development in the history of comic books) was just

around the corner.

 

Give you a good example: these days, the Joker is a psychotic

madman who kills at random. In the Silver Age, he was an inventive genius

who was more of an eccentric but harmless prankster and thief than a

murderous psychopath. (Ironically, the Joker was more murderous in the

Golden Age than he was in the Silver...) Sure, he might tie Batman down to

the Unnecessarily Slow Dipping Mechanism in order to drop him into the vat

of acid, but it was going to take that thing an hour to finally dunk Batman

anyway, so everybody knew Bats would escape. This is not the Joker that

nerve gases a theatre so he can watch "The Bicycle Thief" by himself. The

murderous psychopath stuff didn't start up until the 70s when Batman was

written by Denny O'Neil.

 

So let the fun commence!

[Lemurion]

Re: The Silver Age - a new Guardians' campaign

 

I'm working on a Speedster, will see about getting it to you once he's done

[SteveZilla]

Re: The Silver Age - a new Guardians' campaign

 

I'm working on a Speedster' date=' will see about getting it to you once he's done[/quote']

 

Cool. But I'm not the one to send him to. The call deadline and submission address can be found on the campaign index page, about halfway down:

 

http://www.globalguardians.com/campaigns/campaignindex.php