Normals Unbound!

[Storn]

Originally posted by Beetle

. They art was very good (don't be so self-critical, Storn!).

 

Self critical is how I get better!

 

If I'm truly honest, I look at Normals Unbound and see very easily where I was heading with my career, art skills etc. It is prior to entering art school... and while it is very raw, anatomy mistakes, etc, I do think I've always had a knack for getting personality within my figures, faces.

 

It is that aspect of my artwork in NU that I'm still happy with. Inking? well, that is another story... but even then, it was just part of the learning process... I really believe it took me 7 or 8 years to even approach mastering of inking. Now, I feel like I've gotten it down and I'm still learning.

 

My honest regret is that NU is SUCH a great, unsung product... I just wanted to do even better by it.

[Lord Liaden]

The Return of Dr. McQuark!

 

I love it when one of the veteran HERO creators stops by for a visit.

 

Nice to see your handle here, Mr. Bradley. FWIW Normals Unbound, The Blood and Dr. McQuark and Atlantis remain favorites of my Hero collection, and all worked into my campaign worlds.

 

I ended up using Dr. McQuark's facility as the basis for a school for young paranormals - his motivation, resources and the personalities of his staff seemed well suited to that.

[Beetle]

Originally posted by Storn

Self critical is how I get better!

 

If I'm truly honest, I look at Normals Unbound and see very easily where I was heading with my career, art skills etc. It is prior to entering art school... and while it is very raw, anatomy mistakes, etc, I do think I've always had a knack for getting personality within my figures, faces.

I'm no art critic, but I think you're definately right about putting personality in the drawings. I think that's part of what made NU so darn easy to use. There was a good combination between the excellent text descriptions of the characters, and your art for them. It made it very easy for me to get a handle on what the character was about.

 

Maybe we should demand that artists always get full write-ups for characters before beginning their work.

[brannonb]

Thanks!

 

First, thanks everyone for the kind words. I wanted to answer some of these comments, but there are so many that I figured it would be easier to do one post, than ten individual ones. Here goes:

 

> Some great characters in there. I even adapted some of

> them as Secret IDs for super heroes.

 

Some of them started out that way. Stacy Summers, as well as Matt and Shanna Armbruster were secret IDs for superheroes in our own game. I think there were a couple of others.

 

> I've used several of these normals as recurring NPCs:

> Kent Elfberg & Debbie

 

Kent was based on a real guy (in my game crew for many years), better known to some folks as "Elf", the moderator of Usenet's infamous alt.sex newsgroup for quite some time.

 

> BTW, just who's idea was the cute markswoman hillbilly cop-chick?

> She and her rather more loused-up partner were two of the best

> characters in the entire book.

 

Patty Garret was mine, Veronica Halstead (her-loused up partner) was Patrick's. We knew we wanted to do a pair, so we split the job and each did one.

 

> I will add, what i really appreciated about the book aisde from

> all the great characters was how so many of them had subplots

> going on that involved several other characters as well.

 

The goal was that you should be able to link the vast majority of them together in one long chain, to be able to introduce all of them logically in your game as the story went along. So Brad was the case officer for Switch, who was in the same gang as Addie, who grew up with Betsy, etc.. I wanted to make a flowchart for it, but there wasn't a practical way to get it in at the time.

 

Thanks again everyone,

-Brannon

[brannonb]

Originally posted by Storn

I just wish my art was as good as the writing.

 

I was pretty darn pleased with your work on NU, but I do have to agree that you've improved your technique a lot since then. Heck, so have I. As proud as I am of that book, it's painful to read it today :-)

 

-Brannon

[Dr. McQuark]

Unsung Hero Of NU

 

There is one person that needs a good deal of credit as well.

 

The project that eventually became Normals Unbound was given the green light by Rob Bell who gave us a lot of good advice and direction. He handed us the ball and we ran with it. I don't think NU would have been half as good without Rob's initial input.

 

BTW: I think the original title was The NPC Factory which (thankfully) was changed.

[Lord Liaden]

The Rob Bell era at ICE was probably the best period for Hero Games product pre-DoJ. Many fine books were produced under his editorial direction, from Aaron Allston's Strike Force through 4E HERO System and up to the second edition of Fantasy HERO.

 

Here's a personal story that I think reflects well on the man: When I was looking for Rob's ultra-rare Champions adventure Wings of the Valkyrie after it had been pulled from sale due to controversial subject matter, I wrote to him at Hero Games for suggestions as to where I might look for it. (This was pre-Internet, eBay etc.) Rob mailed me one of his personal copies, free of charge - and autographed.

[FenrisUlf]

Originally posted by Lord Liaden

Here's a personal story that I think reflects well on the man: When I was looking for Rob's ultra-rare Champions adventure Wings of the Valkyrie after it had been pulled from sale due to controversial subject matter, I wrote to him at Hero Games for suggestions as to where I might look for it. (This was pre-Internet, eBay etc.) Rob mailed me one of his personal copies, free of charge - and autographed. [/b]

 

That was nice of the fellow, especially considering that I've seen it selling for $95 at Noble Knight Games.

 

And may I ask just what was so controversial about it?

 

BTW -- to Storn and everyone else involved with Normals Unbound -- I loved the art and the writing, so if you were wondering how well people liked those aspects of the book, relax. You did great. And while a flowchart would have been fun, really, with a little work anyone reading it could figure the inter-character relations out for themselves.

 

And it could really be fun when two PCs, each thinking their NPCs/subplots are unique to them, learn that 'their' NPCs are tied in to some other player's problems.

[bcholmes]

Originally posted by Steve Long

NU was a fantastic book; I hope we can replicate its quality and utility when we do our own planned book of normals for Champions, Everyman.

 

For the record, I think Normals Unbound is a much, much, much better name than Everyman. I mean, in addition to the issue of gendered language, it sounds like I'd be buying a medieval morality play.

[Kristopher]

Originally posted by FenrisUlf

That was nice of the fellow, especially considering that I've seen it selling for $95 at Noble Knight Games.

 

And may I ask just what was so controversial about it?

 

I wondered the same thing, so I poked around online. From the bits and pieces I was able to find, it was controversial because it had Nazis in it.

[Hermit]

Originally posted by Kristopher

I wondered the same thing, so I poked around online. From the bits and pieces I was able to find, it was controversial because it had Nazis in it.

 

I'm not sure myself, but from what I've been told by others, the thing that made it controversial wasn't that it had Nazis, but that it was a time travel adventure that had the super heroes discovering history would actually end up worse without the Nazis in the long run and bigger picture.

[Bazza]

Originally posted by FenrisUlf

That was nice of the fellow, especially considering that I've seen it selling for $95 at Noble Knight Games.

 

And may I ask just what was so controversial about it?

Lord Liaden gave a brief description of it here: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=159650&highlight=Wings+AND+Valkyrie#post159650

[FenrisUlf]

Originally posted by Hermit

I'm not sure myself, but from what I've been told by others, the thing that made it controversial wasn't that it had Nazis, but that it was a time travel adventure that had the super heroes discovering history would actually end up worse without the Nazis in the long run and bigger picture.

 

Well, having looked at the description of it, I have to say that it sounds more like 'moral quandary' than 'endorsement of Nazism'.

 

Though it does sound like a nice casty idea to show how, say, Nazism was 'better' in some way than whatever might have happened without it.

 

Like, say, a Germany that swung hard left rather than right. So when Spain has the Civil War, it also become a communist regime with German/Russian aid -- and then the rest of Europe winding up a Stalinist empire. Which leads to a world deivided between fascism in America and Japan, and communism in Europe -- and ultimately a nuclear world war. Okay, it wouldn't exactly be /better/ (innocent people would be dying either way) but it might do to show you that sometimes you have to decide not who to save, but who winds up dying.

[Bartman]

Originally posted by FenrisUlf

Well, having looked at the description of it, I have to say that it sounds more like 'moral quandary' than 'endorsement of Nazism'.

Exactly right. And frankly I think it was an overreaction for the distributor to force it to be pulled. But I can't say that I completely fault the response. If 6 million odd members of my religion had been killed by a group, I would probably be critical of an adventure where the 'goal' of the heroes would be to make sure that the slaughter took place.

Though it does sound like a nice casty idea to show how, say, Nazism was 'better' in some way than whatever might have happened without it.

In theory, yes. In practice I don't think the actual adventure was particularly good. As it was written it was a bit of a railroad. The players really didn't have much choice. I understand that originally it was far more ambiguous. And Hero/ICE made Rob change it to make the proper choice much clearer.

 

As it was I don't think it would be particularly well loved or talked about if it hadn't been pulled. It would have been remembered as something like Target: Hero or Scourge of the Deep. Namely it would be mostly forgotten. Instead it is routinely brought up and discussed. Unforseen consequences. Had the distributor not made a fuss it would probably never be mentioned. Instead he assured that it will retain a noteriety far beyond it should have.

[Lord Liaden]

Bartman, with all due respect I have to disagree with your assessment of WotV. I found it to be a very logical, well-constructed adventure. The altered timeline didn't make our group feel "railroaded" into keeping the Nazis from being slaughtered - we felt that it created a balancing factor on the choice of whether or not to allow the Children of the Holocaust to go ahead with their plan. Whatever the PCs decide to do the debate over it can be a great opportunity for role-playing.

 

For the record, when it came to the crunch our group decided that our characters would allow the Nazis to be killed to prevent the Holocaust. Rather than going back to the altered future our PCs stayed in the past, turning the campaign pseudo-Golden Age while fighting to prevent the dark future we had seen from coming about (a possibility mentioned in the adventure). That lasted for about a year, and was an interesting variation on gaming in a past era since we weren't really bound to follow an historical course.

[drrushing]

That was a great supplement. I look forward to seeing/purchasing the new 5th edition Everyman supplement.

[Bartman]

Originally posted by Lord Liaden

Bartman, with all due respect I have to disagree with your assessment of WotV. I found it to be a very logical, well-constructed adventure. The altered timeline didn't make our group feel "railroaded" into keeping the Nazis from being slaughtered - we felt that it created a balancing factor on the choice of whether or not to allow the Children of the Holocaust to go ahead with their plan.

 

That's fine LL, there is nothing wrong with disagreeing. But I still think that it was something of a railroad job.

 

If the characters allow the assassinations to succeed then they will disappear from future realities. I think "do this or your character will have never existed" counts as coercion on the author's part. And that is a classic characteristic of a railroad adventure

 

Your GM was more lenient than Rob in allowing you to stay and correct the problems in the alternate timeline. According to the book even if the characters stay and attempt to solve the problems of the future, it happens anyway. Basically the GMs are instructed to punish the players for making the wrong choice. Once they have learned their lesson, "lenient" GMs are encouraged to allow the players to restore the original timeline.

 

So the adventure as written says that players have two choices. If they choose one they return the world to normal and go on with their lives. If they choose the other their old lives are destroyed, and everything they do after that is moot until and unless they go back and correct their choice. It sure sounds like a railroad to me.

 

All of this is not to say that a GM can't change it. But as I said, "As it was written it was a bit of a railroad."

[Lord Liaden]

I'm afraid I couldn't find quite the degree of rigidity in the WotV that you see in it, Bartman. Sure, the characters will cease to be themselves if they return to the alternate future (not actually disappear, just lose their pre-time travel memories), but they would explicitly retain their wonted personalities and powers if they remain in the past. And the players aren't punished for making the "wrong" choice; the adventure showed them what the alternate future would be like if they allow the Children of the Holocaust to succeed, so that they would have full knowledge of the consequences of their actions.

 

Don't forget that one choice isn't just "the players return the world to normal," it's "the players return the world to normal and allow six million Jews to die." That's a big weight on the other side of the balance.

 

For me and my group the adventure just made it really, really hard to make a decision on a course of action, which led to some great in-character debate. I will grant you that the degree of apparent "railroading" would be influenced by how the GM chose to present the events in the adventure, though. I'm sorry if it wasn't satisfying to you and your group when you played it.

[Bartman]

Hey I'm not saying it was a bad adventure. I just don't think it was a great one. When people post asking what everyone's favorite adventures were, there is a short list that everyone seems to agree on. The Great Supervillian Contest, To Serve and Protect, and V.O.I.C.E. of Doom are all routinely listed as great adventures. I don't think that Valkries would fit into that if it had been widely availible. I don't think most GMs could pull it off without it feeling heavy handed. And just like Scourge of the Deep, I don't think I would ever run it again without extreme modifications.

 

As it is written no matter what choices the Heros make, the adventure forces them to end up at the beer hall. The decision tree forces that on them. Once there they will defeat the Children. Rob states that has to take place. Then the players make their choice. As written they either take eveyone back home or the heroes have to slaughter 40+ men themselves. This alone would prevent half the PCs I've ever played from making the choice your players did, because they have had a code vs killing.

 

I think it is great that you and your group had a great time with it. In fact I think it is credit to your GM. But I don't think that would be the standard outcome. Unfortunately we will never know because few groups will have ever played it, due to a distributor decision a dozen years ago.