Nothing new on the RPG front here at Greywulf Towers other than a niggling desire to run a DC universe based superhero campaign as soon as possible.
On the one hand I’m excited about the direction DC is taking with it’s reboot of their whole universe. On the other hand I’m thinking Steve Kenson and the rest must be mightily pissed at DC for totally screwing with the universe right at the moment when they’re launching DC Adventures Heroes & Villains Volume I. Way to go with invalidating a book the microsecond it’s published, guys [1. Ok, it’s not that bad. Superman is still Superman and Batman is still Bats. But all those origins, histories and relationships….. it’s a whole new world]! And on the other hand, Dice Monkey makes the excellent point that the DC reboot is a perfect opportunity to jump start your own superhero campaign with a fresh new DC universe populated with shiny new heroes and new imaginings of the ones who have gone before.
Yes, I have three hands. Who knew?
All of these costumes. Different. Damn you, DC, said an unknown spokesman at Green Ronin.
Mutants & Masterminds 3e/DC Adventures is a superb system, especially if you like your games fairly crunchy. Character generation isn’t as complex as some folks fear, and your hero can be as simple or as detailed as you want. M&M is a game where you pick just how many Powers, Advantages (Feats), Skills, etc you have, not some bigass level-locked table. If you want your hero to have a multitude of Skills, he can have ’em. If you want a highly trained warrior, get lots of combat Advantages. Want a due with just one iconic Superpower, or loads? It’s up to you. You pay the points cost, and build the character you want, not a character who is limited to one Feat, two At-wills, one Encounter Power and a Daily Power.
M&M is about freedom of choice, and that’s always a Good Thing.
Dice Monkey is right. The DC Reboot is a chance to introduce the PCs and tailor the universe to your liking, all at the same time. Maybe Superman had a child with Lois Lane, and one of the heroes is Kid Superman (oh yeah!), or Green Arrow is a clone, a PC insists he is the real Green Arrow and is determined to prove it by any means necessary. How about playing a reformed Villain turned Superhero (I’m looking at you, Riddler), or Starheart, the living Green Lantern (oh Jade, I miss you already).
DC are playing their cards close to their chest regarding the whole reboot thing. If it takes off, the universe will remain forever changed (at least until the next Crisis. Damn you, DC). If not, then they will unboot and reset it back as it was before; it was all a Flashpoint-spawned trip into What-if Land and nothing more. I doubt that will happen though. This feels like the real deal. A reboot, for good or ill (at least until the next Crisis. Damn you, DC).
So, in the absence of role-playing, I’ve been playing rather a lot of Sins of a Solar Empire (Huge space battles! In space!), Minecraft, Terraria and getting back into World of Warcraft (free for the first 20 levels! Unlimited characters! Oh joy!). We live in utterly wonderful gaming times, do we not?
Till next time!
I wholeheartedly think they made some really poor choices with the initial 52 launch and many of these books are destined to fail, but, I’m actually really jazzed about the reboot. Despite what they say, the buzz is that Superman really initiated the whole thing since they want to wipe away any part of the character that the creator’s heirs claim and that DC will lose in the next couple of years anyway. Given some of the changes they’ve made I can believe that it is true and I for one want to see what they do differently.
I know that they have said the 52 aren’t everything and that more books will be launching in the coming months, but I think they could have gone with a stronger initial launch. But you gotta give them kudos for at least trying to do something different. They put unknown and/or niche books like Demon Knights, Blackhawks, DC Presents starring Deadman, Sgt. Rock, & Mr. Terrific as some of your flagship books for the reboot?!?! Then they put Cyborg as a JL founder?!?!? Kudos DC, kudos to you.
For the first time ever I’m actually eager to read a Hawkman book. I’m still not buying Aquaman, but that’s just because I can’t make myself like him, I’ve tried. Still I’m disappointed there is no Atom book. The Mighty Mite does apparently become one of the core 13 of the JL, but he doesn’t get his own book. Guess we Atom fans have to be happy with what we get.
Any way it goes I’m eager to read these books and eager to get some gamer playing around in this new sandbox.
The only DC based game that I’ve ever played was an M&M 1e game based on Byrn’s Generations so it was very much us playing the next generation of Superheroes.
I’ve been enjoying the Flashpoint universe. It is obviously a temporary setting so they haven’t been scared to do some really wacked out things… you know, like sinking Europe and giving the military some high grade gadgets. I could definitely play in that Universe.
I remember way back when the Green Ronin team made some comments about how they were putting the iconic versions of the characters into the books. The impression I got was that meant they were being as vague as possible about the specific histories and how that interacted with various reboots… so only one writeup for Brainiac 5 for instance. If they did their job then this should hopefully work under the new universe. Heck, maybe the delays on art were to get the new art done. Ok, I know that’s too much optimism even for me.
As for the books themselves, from everything I’ve read I’m viewing it as less of a complete reboot and more as a shift from DC time to Marvel time with a few retcons thrown in. Despite everything Superboy punching the walls of reality didn’t change all that much and the fact is that writers are going to write characters the way the envision/remember them which is both a good thing and a bad thing. No one but Morrison writes Batman the way Morrison does, much to Batman’s detriment.
And of course, my absolute favorite thing about the relaunch? “Dark”… also known as the repackaged Vertigo line.
The last I heard from Lee and Didio was that some areas of the DCnU will be pretty much the same as they were pre-Flashpoint. Things such as Dick just recently “quit” being Batman to return to being Nightwing or The Sinestro War and Blackest Night all happened. They might do some “tweaks” to Aquaman, Batman and Green Lantern’s areas of the universe, but it will be basically the same.
Other characters will will get soft reboots where things are changed, but it’s still the character(s) we know and love. I think Hawkman, Swamp Thing and Constantine are falling in this area.
Other characters will get be getting hard reboots. This is where Wonder Woman and Superman are. Like I said earlier I we will see familiar elements of the Superman mythos being wiped out due to the fact that WB/DC will be losing the rights to certain parts of Superman’s history in the next few years. By rewriting him now they avoid having to do it later, or continuing to pay the heirs money. This way they can establish the new Superman backstory and any future projects (movies) can reflect the changes. I’m pretty sure they are going to do some major overhauls stuff to Wonder Woman as well. I have no idea what, but that’s what it seems like they’ve been hinting at. Of course WW needs something done. There just isn’t a definitive version of her that a majority of fans can connect with. Everyone likes the idea of WW more than they actually like the character. If it wasn’t for the fact they have to print a WW book or lose the rights, they probably would have quit pushing her book long ago.
The ‘proper’ terminology is
On the one hand…
On the other hand…
And on the gripping hand…
You can thank Larry Niven’s Moties for that one.