Golden Age Kickstarter thread

[Darren Watts]

is in the Kickstart forum, in case you're one of those forumites who skips straight here... dw

[TheQuestionMan]

I do now!

 

What do you want to see in Golden Age Thread needed.

 

IMOHO

[Christopher R Taylor]

A handy link to the proper forum page for the pre-kickstarter info and publicity.

 

I'd really like for this to do well, because I have a golden age campaign all written up and ready to roll.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Part of the reason I love the Golden Age of comics, besides the fascinating historical setting, is that the power levels were relatively lower.  So you could actually have the Justice League where there was Dr Mid-Nite (only superpower being able to see in the dark, but blind otherwise) along side Dr Fate and Superman, because their power levels were significantly lower.  Today having Superman and Wonder Woman with Green Arrow and Batman is almost a cruel joke.  The writers have to scramble to make there be some remotely plausible reason why the Flash didn't solve the entire mystery and crime while everyone was putting their socks on, let alone let the low powered guys have any use whatsoever.  The scale of power is so vastly separate, like having 2500 point characters in a group with 300 point ones.

 

Of course Specter broke this mold, by being able to do pretty much anything.

[Hugh Neilson]

Part of the reason I love the Golden Age of comics, besides the fascinating historical setting, is that the power levels were relatively lower.  So you could actually have the Justice League where there was Dr Mid-Nite (only superpower being able to see in the dark, but blind otherwise) along side Dr Fate and Superman, because their power levels were significantly lower.  Today having Superman and Wonder Woman with Green Arrow and Batman is almost a cruel joke.  The writers have to scramble to make there be some remotely plausible reason why the Flash didn't solve the entire mystery and crime while everyone was putting their socks on, let alone let the low powered guys have any use whatsoever.  The scale of power is so vastly separate, like having 2500 point characters in a group with 300 point ones.

 

Of course Specter broke this mold, by being able to do pretty much anything.

I don't know that this is actually a factor of relative power levels so much as writing styles. The JSA was the model for most "team of existing heroes" books in the GA. At its outset, it had two bookend stories to start and end the adventure. In between, each hero got a solo story. It didn't matter that Doctor Mid-Nite and the Atom were outclassed on a power level basis by Dr. Fate, the Spectre or Superman (none of whom appeared in a lot of JSA tales in the golden age), or Johnny Thunder when they each solved their own section of the story. Separate solo stories was also the Seven Soldiers of Victory model, and their power levels were much more comparable across the board.

 

Only later, when paper prices forced page count down, did the heroes work together in the intermediate chapters, and then there would be separate chapters for one, two or maybe three characters at a time. That "split up the team" model carried into Silver Age JLA for a lot of years as well.

 

That's probably an item for discussion in the rules - games tend not to handle "splitting the party" very well, and Golden Age superteams were all about splitting the party. That advice would also be helpful for games in any time setting or age of comics - the characters do split up a lot in the source material, but our teams of PCs often seem joined at the hips.

[CaptnStrawberry]

I will back and look forward to this!  I don't think the Golden Age is as innocent as popular belief holds - the heroines were always drawn sexy, and quite a few of the heroes had no compunction disposing of hardened criminals, Punisher style.  The Code put an end to that, of course.

 

I actually think the post-war era might be a perfect campaign era, you could have Nazis in Argentina, the Red Menace, and flying saucers! (sounds a little like an Ed Wood movie).

[Lawnmower Boy]

I will back and look forward to this!  I don't think the Golden Age is as innocent as popular belief holds - the heroines were always drawn sexy, and quite a few of the heroes had no compunction disposing of hardened criminals, Punisher style.  The Code put an end to that, of course.

 

I actually think the post-war era might be a perfect campaign era, you could have Nazis in Argentina, the Red Menace, and flying saucers! (sounds a little like an Ed Wood movie).

 

It's typical of a secret Communist like yourself to say something like that. We all know you just want to slip flouride into our water. 

 

Now excuse me, because I've got to go break the sound barrier! (I'm having this exotic new food for lunch. It's called a "burrito.") 

[Christopher R Taylor]

It varied a lot.  Some comics were pretty hardcore (Shadow, for instance) while others were very mild and light-hearted, like Captain Marvel.  Most of the time, they wouldn't go out of their way to kill, but wouldn't exactly save the bad guys from falling into the vat of spiders, or something.  He had it coming

[wcw43921]

Or as Batman said in his very first appearance--"A fitting end for his kind."

 

One of the ways I like to waste time be a comic fan in good standing is to come up with suggestions for the Amazing Heroes Action Figures line, both heroes and villains.  One of the things I discovered was how many pf the Golden Age villains did not recur--they would make one or two appearances and then be killed off at the end of the story, either by the hero or by their own schemes backfiring.  There were some exceptions--the Batman villains, for a few, and The Red Skull, all of which turn up in today's comics. 

 

And then there's The Claw, billed as the World's Worst Villain--certainly he was one of the ugliest.  He had, by my count, a total of forty-six appearances--which has to be some sort of a record for the time.  Fortunately for the world, he was always successfully opposed by a number of brave and able heroes, most notably the Golden Age version of Daredevil.

 

Hope that helps.

[bubba smith]

make It compatible with pulp HERO

[IndianaJoe3]

make It compatible with pulp HERO

 

How could it not be compatible?