Top Ten Craziest AD&D Rules (part 2)

5) Nearly Anything in Unearthed Arcana

Sure, the cantrips were nice, and weapon specialization was popular with players, and already in-use in many campaigns -- but the unbalanced "new" PC classes (mostly cribbed from Dragon Magazine), the new sub-races of elves (why play any elf but a grugach or drow anymore?) really embraced the new "risk-lite" era of gaming, in which munchkin-ism was an assumed part of the game, and characters being anything less than superhuman was unthinkable. UA also introduced the new format of most TSR products from there onwards; the half DM/half player supplement. Which obviously never worked. DMs couldn't surprise players with the new info, since most of them obviously read the "for the DM's eyes only!" material. There is no honor amongst thieves, nor amongst gamers when it comes to players trying to beat their DM.


My take: UA blew me and my friends away when it came out. We used the new classes shamelessly, to the point where pretty much every character in games for around a year were classes out of this book. Cantrips, spells, whatever, I loved them. Never really used proficiencies, and don’t really use anything out of it in terms of characters these days. I let Big Dan run a female drow. There will be no more female drow PC’s in my game. Nuff said.

4) God Stats

If you don't want me to kill Loki, don't tell me how many hit points he has. It's as simple as that. Deities and Demigods went to great lengths in gaming-up pantheons (both real-life and fictional -- including the Melnibonian, Nehwon, and Cthulhu mythoi that would be excised for copyright issues in the third printing), which was sort of cool--but giving the divine stats is really just begging for them to be used as high-level monsters. Which, it was constantly claimed by TSR, was not the point--though the fact that TSR's own module Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits includes a climax in which it's very possible (if not exceptionally easy) to kill Lolth herself makes this claim somewhat dubious. Later editions have had their cake and eaten it too in claiming that these stats aren't the gods themselves, but their avatars on the material plane. Which is sort of cheating, but then again, so is claiming to have killed Zeus fair and square.


My take: Heh, I love that first sentence. Deit & Demi’s was a fun read on the toilet, but never got much in-game use out of it. Especially when I had created my own gods for my game world at around age 13. I actually got more ideas of of the book for my Call of Cthulhu games than I did for my D&D, although it was my reference for a Lovecraft inspired D&D campaign I did in the 80’s.

3) Material Components

Ah yes, the rule that turned all magic-users into ghoulish souvenir-hunters and gem-hoarders. This is one of those rules that some DMs used just to piss their players off--I mean, Identify is one of the most common spells cast by Magic-Users, and the material components are a 100gp pearl, and an infusion of an owl feather in wine with a miniature carp both swallowed whole. (Minature carp? Is that even a thing?) And at higher levels, the components get ridiculously expensive -- Shape Change requires a jade circlet worth at least 5000gp, Duo-Dimension requires a similar ivory cameo of the caster worth 5000-10000 gp, and even the fifth-level Wall of Force requires a "pinch" of diamond dust. It's pretty ridiculous, and with all the weird stuff that wizards would have to cart around for all their spells--gloves for the Bigby spells, balls of guano and sulphur for Fireballs, and rotten eggs for Stinking Cloud (you don't really even have to cast the spell--just throw the damn egg) -- it's surprising that Magic-Users in D&D don't come across more as the fantasy equivalent of cart-pushing bag ladies.


My take: yeah, it gets pretty stupid. In a lot of ways I think some of this takes the piss and fun right out of spell use. I really don’t like to have any component be all that rare or expensive. I for sure don’t make Big Ben’s high elf MU Lumarin in my game swallow a fucking miniature carp when he does one of his ID spells. Then again, in his particular case maybe I should just for laughs. Ben is sort of “by the book. ”Take that, sucker! Make a con roll to avoid choking on that fish and owl feather.”

2) Encumbrance

The ultimate rule that almost no one played with. There's no denying that it makes sense -- if you're striving for realism, there's no way that your character is carrying around much gold at all, especially if you're a thief relying primarily on stealth and agility. And especially in that case, encumbrance rules are pretty generous. But still, they're a pain, and most groups tended to fall in to one of three categories: those that ignored it completely, those that really only paid attention to it when it was egregious, and those that were granted a plethora of bags of holding in order to "realistically" be able to ignore it completely. And why? Because it's a dumb, real-life rule that gets in the way of, you know, actually having fun. It's the same reason most characters are still carrying around that one-week supply of iron rations, and generally don't worry about food unless they're in a tavern. It's the same reason that there aren't rules for potty breaks in the dungeon. It's the same reason there's not a table for seeing if you have a stiff neck from sleeping on a dungeon floor. Because it's a game.


My take: I’m pretty easy going on this. Although sometimes it irks. Recently Andy told me he was carrying three weeks worth of food. What, for a fucking hamster? Do you have any idea what three weeks of food would be like? And not just for a 6’3” fatass like me, but even skinny Andy’s three weeks of jerky and trail mix would be three shopping bags worth. Ah well, best not to think on it too much. Like alignment and components, Encumbrance is a pain in the patoot.

1) Grappling

This system has never worked in the history of the game. Non-lethal combat -- even just grab-moves in weaponed combat -- has always been a nightmare of a process, in every edition. Which is a shame, because a good tavern brawl should be easy to have. It would also be a pretty fun way to make combat more interesting--instead of just trading blows, you could actually grab that evil fighter by the hauberk and throw him across the room. But no, it's not so easy as just rolling to-hit. You have to consult percentages charts, figure out how many increments of 10% your strength is over 18, compare it to how many points over 14 your opponent's dexterity is, determine the kind of helmet your foe is wearing (open-faced? nasaled but otherwise open? visored or slitted?). And then, at some point in the process, you consult the "do you no longer care about actually following through with this move?" percentage on Table F.I.2: Loss of Interest. And if you're like 99.9% of the players who tried this, you eventually determine: "Ah, fuck it. I swing my sword."


My take: when AD&D first came out when I was a little kid, I could already tell by the weaponless combat rules that Gygax had never been in a fight in his life. Not only did I have two older brothers who were quick with a punch (go tell dad and he’d say in his thick Scottish accent “better learn to git yer hands up” before bopping me on the noggin with his huge, coal miner hand), I grew up in a poor version of now rich and trendy Venice Beach, and had to make the occasional statement to creeps who were usually smaller than me but thought they could box me around. Even before getting into boxing/kick boxing later in life, I knew how to take it to somebody’s grill. Needless to say, I had my own brawling rules very early on. I’ll post on that one day, fight fans.

Top Ten craziest AD&D rules (part 1)

Here is a countdown of the top ten most insane AD&D rules. It’s from a site called Topless Robot (one of around a thousand geek sites with the word “robot” in the name). Each item is followed by my own (hold the applause) witty and informative comment on it.

Because it’s a little lengthy (3 or 4 pages or so) post, I’ll do the first five today, then post the other five in a couple of days.


10) Treasure Type

This system of treasure placement suggests that every Gargoyle has 2-8 pieces of gold on them at all times, or that Shambling Mounds always have on their person an assortment of coin, a few gems, a couple of scrolls, and maybe a potion or miscellaneous magic item (not to mention that carrot they have for a nose, just in case you're feeling snacky). Once players realized that this system was more or less a guarantee of at least a chance for a specific item type to drop, it becomes incentive to hunt them down. Who cares if nymphs are neutral good? She's Treasure Type Q and X, man!


My take: I hardly ever used the random treasure type stuff; although at some point in Jr. High I was using some tables from the monster and treasure assortment. Ultimately, it was more fun for me to just decide for myself what the creature had on its person or in its lair. Sure, I keep the Old School Encounter Ref in my game bag for emergencies these days for when characters wander off the beaten (and plotted)path, but that isn’t really based on monster type anyway. Yeah, we don’t need no steeking treasure type lists for monsters.

9) Level Titles

Okay, so these are pretty damn cool, and remain a fond memory for most players familiar with the 1st Edition rules. But if you think about it, they're also pretty nuts -- why is a 1st level fighter a veteran, if they're first level? They're even sort of insulting, in some cases. Take the Cleric titles: at sixth level, you're a Catholic Canon; at seventh, you embrace Buddhism as a Lama; and at eighth, you're a Patriarch out of the Greek Orthodox tradition. All this from a cleric who worships Odin. Seriously, this is just asking for religious boycotts. And while we're talking about it, was there anyone who played a kick-ass Monk who wanted to go by the title "Grand Master of Flowers"?


My take: this is a very good point, and flavor or no I don’t really use them. Let’s for sure hold off on calling Mr. 1st level fighter a “veteran” until he has killed his first orc and kissed his first girl (put a female orc in there and you got yourself a two-in-one).


8) Magic-Users

The name alone warrants inclusion on this list. Later editions fixed this -- "mages" in 2nd Edition, "wizards" in 3rd. But really, anything was better than what they fixed upon for the 1st Edition. It becomes status quo for most players, but think about it--by this nomenclature, fighters (which had at least by this point graduated from the gender-exclusive and similarly lame class title of "fighting men") should have been called "sword-users" and thieves would have been called "lockpick-users." (I'm excluding clerics from this example, since they would have been called "healing-users with a blunt weapon of only marginal combat value"--which they already sort of were.) But the real beef about Magic-Users in 1st Edition was that in terms of magical combat, they were one-shot and done. One magic missile or sleep spell, and they were done for the remainder. Mages make up for this by being insanely powerful on the other end -- when fighters are doing only slightly more damage per hit than they were doing at first level, mages can lay waste to an attacking platoon in a single round. But getting past that early going when a decent wand is more useful than you? That's a tough row to hoe there, Gandalf.


My take: Bah, I don’t really care. I tend to use the term MU or Magic-User because I like to reserve terms like mage or wizard for a character that has advanced somewhat (but not necessarily a name level). In in may game world, I assume people refer to them as magic-users (even though there are other types of spellcasters). As far as MU’s being a little light in the pocket spellwise at low levels, well, them’s the breaks. In the last couple decades I gave new MU’s a couple of random spells “in mind” that they can cast once a day, but for my next campaign I’m just thinking of giving them access to cantrips again, and making those cantrips free and castable anytime, with perhaps a 3-5 a day limit.

7) Arbitrary Limits as to Gender, Race, and Class

Admittedly, this is a broad category. But the problem here is well represented in the early pages of the first edition Players Handbook, in which in his preface on page 6, Gary Gygax mentions that readers will find "no baseless limits arbitrarily placed on female strength"...and then two pages later, the rules specifically state that human female fighters are limited to no more than an 18/50 strength. (It can, of course, be argued that this can still be seen as consistent, and that Gygax meant that those limits -- which are even more stringent, by the way, if your character is demi-human and not a fighter -- are neither arbitrary nor baseless...but that only exacerbates the problem.) But seeing as how that score is (supposedly) rare, there are better examples: how about a cleric of Poseidon who can't wield a trident? A dwarven fighter who can't rise higher than 9th level? (And too bad for you if you wanted to be a half-elf cleric, because you couldn't go higher than 4th level.) Why? Some of it is game mechanics -- unlimited levels were one of the few perks that existed insofar as being a human was concerned, back then -- and the game designers didn't want magic-users and clerics using swords, so they just forbade it (and even though 3rd Edition and onwards has corrected this issue to some degree, it still lingers in legacy games like World of Warcraft.) But other things -- like gender differentials for ability scores and the like? That's not a game balance thing; that's just alienating half your potential audience. To be fair, later editions of the game went too far the other way, and relied almost exclusively on the feminine pronouns -- so the game switched from exclusionary to pandering. Great work.


My take: Heh, I remember some gaming material in the 80’s going with the “she” or “her” instead of the usual male reference. Political correctness at its finest. I also remember fondly articles in The Dragon and The Dungeoneer in the early 80’s aimed at female players (with titles like “Those Lovely Ladies”) that seemed to think women in gaming were getting the short shrift. I had a superhot girlfriend who played in my games when I was in high school (she was already a fan of Sci Fi and fantasy so this hot chick playing D&D was not that weird), and all my jealous gamer friends would have their characters kiss her charcter’s asses in attempts to at least get favor from her PC’s in a way they could only dream of in real life. This was in stark contrast to when I took her around my football teammates, where my friends would try to kick my ass to impress her. Best of both worlds. Jeez, I took this comment in a weird direction. Ah, memories.

6) Bards

Holy crap, why was it so hard to be a bard in first edition? Any idiot can pick up a lute and start strumming it in a tavern -- so why in the world would they need to be at least a fifth level fighter, a 5th level thief, and a first level druid before becoming a first level Rhymer? Especially in a game that didn't seem to have been designed to support characters going much higher than 14th level or so? (No modules were created early on for levels above that with the exception of Isle of the Ape in 1985, and even though the spellcaster tables go up to 29th level, once most classes hit name level---10th, they stopped accumulating even full hit dice, let alone new powers or abilities.) Bards were effectively the first prestige class in a game system that didn't yet support them. Bards--along with psionics and several items above--are a good example of why the stuff in the Appendices were relegated to the appendices in the first place.


My take: D&D bard was indeed some stupid shit, at least in my games. In the 80’s onward you were lucky if I ran a campaign long enough to get your character to 7th level, so a regular bard would be out. At some point I created a bard subclass of thief that gained skill (in music, performance, and art in addition to some thief skills) as they went up. Due to Andy’s early (and fairly mild) power gaming with this kind of bard at the start of this current campaign, I have altered my bard heavily since he rolled up his character Vaidno (much to his chagrin). I love the Vaidno character nowadays, but my bard class will be a different animal if anyone runs one in the future (although in Andy’s defense, I gave my bard a D4 for hit points, which makes up for almost every other problem with my bard class).

Night Below: Murder Below

We are finally in the home stretch of this Night Below campaign, which is getting close to the two year mark. I’m guessing we have about two games to go. I could easily have stretched this out. The Derro town urban location I created as a last stopping point before the City of the Glass Pool could have provided a ton of role-playing opportunity, with its marketplace and slave trade and all. All sorts of humanoid types mixing it up there. But with the previous game more or less being one giant waste of time (taking place almost entirely in a small cave two characters were recovering from going into the negatives), I feel I should not dilly dally. Personally, I am starting to feel a bit burnt out on running AD&D. Not for good mind you, I just want to spend the upcoming year focusing on a Knights of the Old Republic campaign, and maybe a bit more Metamorphosis Alpha and some Champions. I need some quality time with a game where players cannot argue with me on every point.

I’m going to do a long post with my final thoughts for posterity on this setting when the campaign is over, but for now I’ll say that it is not just challenging and often brutal in terms of combat, but is also a bit of mental grinder. Besides the oppressive underground setting, there are around half a dozen mostly neutrally aligned tribal forces that have to be dealt with, either through some kind of appeasement or with a huge fight. I see online that there have been groups that have had campaigns go for the better part of a decade with this module. Sheesh, good thing I am stopping with book 2.

So in this game the party carried on, meeting and counseling with the group of Derro Renegades who oppose the Mind Flayers who have enslaved many of their people. Jump ahead to the party going into the Derro Town, meeting the few allies they have there, and making an assault on the Mind Flayer tower where the Crown of Derro Domination is supposedly held by an Illithids. If it is there or not, the group decided that if they were going to assault the City of the Glass Pool, they didn’t need this place at their backs with evil reinforcements. So we ended the game with them beginning assaulting the tower, and the giant Derro cavern rocking with explosions from the Renegade Derro causing distractions for the party.

OK, but the most significant thing that happened this game was while among the Renegades. The Renegade leader had offered to purchase the party captive, Prentyss, the young female thief member of the slaver group from the previous couple of games (and a group that, with the exception of the added NPC Xavier, was a set encounter in book 2 of the module). Yet another argy bargy started (see last game for an example of such) over what to do with Prentyss, but Krysantha the Drow put an end to debate about the teen girl by taking her scimitars and murdering the helpless thief in front of all. It was kind of a chilling moment. I tried to give the other players a chance to do something, but with the Githyanki ally I had Paul (of Lily fame) running also ready to kill Prentyss to end arguments, there was not much they could do.

Let’s talk about big Dan and his drow character Krysantha for a minute. Dan is a big beefy dude from South Africa (white guy) who has also lived in Australia for a long period. He is an international businessman with his own internet-related company (and he lives up on Mulholland in a big house with a view and a hot wife, so I’m guessing rich or on his way to it). He has also worked in the past with some kind of mountain rescue, and you can for sure picture him coming down a mountain with a fucked-up hiker over each shoulder. Dan was one of our group’s original players along with me, Andy, and Terry. He is a funny guy, with a great enthusiasm for the game. Dan also justifies what I would call “powergaming” as just letting off stress and getting some escapism, which I truly believe. He is by no means a problem player as a person, but his character Kryantha has gotten my goat a few times in the past.

When we started this group I was just off of a more or less 7 or 8 year gaming hiatus. The year or so leading up the formation I was dying to do some gaming, but didn’t want to seek out other groups because I wanted to run my own games (plus I wanted to pick and chose the type of people I would sit for hours with and pretend – you know what I mean). So when we got together and my players base turned out to be pretty cool I was tickled pink. One of those side effects of the pink tickle was that I was pretty open with what I was going to allow for characters. Thus came Krysantha.

Krysantha is a female drow, and a fighter/druid. I didn’t really look up drow in the Unearthed Arcana to refresh myself on them before I said “OK, you can have one”, nor did I think of the power gaming ramifications of a female drow (females being the more powerful of the species) combined with fighter prowess and druid spell ability. Ultimately, this turned out to be a powerful character. How much of this did Dan count on? I dunno. See, in the 90’s I ran tons of games of all kinds for a couple of different long-term groups. Most of these people had at most a little bit of gaming experience. So they took what I had to offer without much complaint. Sure, somebody would occasionally point out an inconsistency or something, or ask for something for a character that was out of line. But for the most part, as long as they were having fun they didn’t care how the sausage was made. This is how I got in the heavy (and lazy) habit of house ruling so many things.

Well, as it turned out, when I got these much more experiences players for this latest group, I had house ruled myself into a corner. Both Dan and Andy had a lot of gaming background, and had played under different kinds of DM’s. This did not fully gel with my laid back style, but over time they mostly acclimated. Andy especially has stopped being a pain for me almost completely with this stuff. I think he now gets how I do things, and approaches things a bit more in a way that is more enjoyable to me. Dan as well to a degree, but there is still a side of me that sees the big guy as a shamelessly powergaming bastard. And I made it all possible.

But hell, Dan is fun and really into roleplaying and I would not give him up for anything. But his actions are still a bit frustrating. Before this last game, he emailed me saying he would like to change Krysantha from lawful neutral to neutral. “Oh brother” I said, “he wants to be more difficult with the character now.” That hasn’t panned out yet, but to avoid more argument against his characters wishes, he committed murder on a helpless (and not fully evil) captive and his neutral status prevents any kind of forced alignment change. My call, because Krysantha claimed to have done it for the good of the group (whereas I think Dan just wanted to kill something).

Anyway, it sets up an interesting dynamic. Big Ben’s Lumarin the high elf is lawful/good. Terry is neutral/good (actually, I think neutral with good tendencies), as is little Ben’s Ormac the gnome. Andy’s bard Vaidno is staunchly chaotic/good. I think the shock of this murderous act was palpable for a minute or two. Personally, I had more I would have liked to do with the Prentyss character in the future, but a part of me was glad because her death made a couple of things easier on me (like I didn’t have to have her boyfriend Xavier and friends try to bargain for her release).

But what next? These basically good characters could not really do much about Krysantha, even the lawful Lumarin. I mean, Krysantha is a deadly character with her two magical scimitars and all the rest. Plus they are in the “belly of the beast”, so to speak. More dissension in the group at this juncture could result in a total party kill. But considering this was a basically evil act, the good PC’s are unlikely to associate with the drow once this is all over. Also there is the party NPC, neutral/good ranger Dia to consider. She was obviously miffed at Krysantha for the blatant murder, and she carries the sword Finslayer. Finslayer, besides being and anti-Kuo Toa weapon, is also anti-drow.

The “epilogue game” after this adventure is going to be a hoot. That is, if they all survive the next couple of games.

Call of Cthulhu Friday: South Park Cthulhu

This new episode of the long running Comedy Central staple has been airing a lot this month. When I saw that it featured our favorite tentacle-faced god-priest, I considered that I might mention it in a post. But I have to admit that the sheer weakness of the characterizing of the Great One really turned me off. Don’t get me wrong, it was otherwise a pretty good superhero parody episode. In it, all the kids of the town follow the lead of The Coon and Mysterion and create costumed identities for themselves (all of them pretty fail). But the intriguing part of it is we find out that Kenny, the group pal who dies so often, actually has some kind of power that grants him this immortality along with an affect that makes others forget that he dies. So in his torment he creates Mysterion and patrols the nightscape.

That’s all good, but then enters Cthulhu. He has arisen due to the BP oil spill, but he isn’t too pissed off to be befriended by Cartman, who takes him on a spree of destruction than includes Burning Man, Whole Foods, and young pop singer and MILF magnet Justin Bieber.

As I said, I was pretty “meh” about it, but today I read on theclicker.todayshow.com where they seem to be asking if the makers of South Park were a little hard on the crooning kid jackhole. Well, that pissed me off, because I thought who they were hard on was Cthulhu. You see, I don’t mind when I see cute Cthulhu plushies or bumper stickers. That is all harmless fun. But the very fact that the South Park dudes just used him to squash things is to me unforgivable. Why didn’t they just use Godzilla or King Kong? Because they are trademarked or something? I mean, the appearance of Cthulhu should include the stars aligning, monsters rising, and people across the globe should feel the awesome psionic affect of Great Cthulhu’s mighty mind clicking into alien high gear. But no, he just crushes Whole Foods and other American conceits.

I think the makers of South Park are smart and funny, but I guess they just don’t really know what Cthulhu represents. I’m guessing they saw the plushies at some point, or a Miskatonic U. t-shirt, and then somebody told them “Oh, Cthulhu is a big monster that sleeps below the sea waiting to awaken and destroy the world.” Nuff said.

C’mon guys, do a little fucking research. This was a great opportunity to spoof the creations of Lovecraft in some meaningful way. But no. Worse yet, South Park has a way of bringing back monsters and things for further episodes, and it will probably just be more of the stupid chickenshit fail they did with Cthulhu in this one.

South Park, this is where you really jumped the shark. May Azathoth take your minds and souls.

The Icewind Dale Trilogy

Drizz’t Du’orden. Sure, a cool character twenty years ago, but like a lot of people I’m pretty Drowed-out these days. Hell, a player in my current campaign and his Drow character have me pretty much never wanting to see or hear of another Drow ever again. In the 80’s they were one of my fave species, but nowadays blah.

So the fact that I have been reading a book about D&D in general, much less one with a Drow as the main character, is pretty WTF. Much as I love the game, I never had a desire to read a D&D based novel.

From what I understand, R. Salvatore created Drizzt at the last minute, when his publisher asked that he include a backup character to the ones already created. So comes a Drow, not just a good and kind one, but a ranger no less. Drizz’t lives in the snowy North, fighting Yeti and Frost Giants and generally helping out the ungrateful humans who live in the snowy hell. Other main characters include a dwarf, a young barbarian Drizz’t trains in combat, and a female human child raised by the dwarves (that I guess the Drow gets to nail sometime later when she hits that age, or a decent mirkin is found for her).

I’m not a huge reader of this kind of stuff, but I can tell it is very basic writing and very basic storytelling. But the big draw for me is the D&D references. It’s fun to hear about encounters with Verbeeg, frost giants, and white dragons. This is the same reason I enjoy the Baldur’s Gate video games; you get to fight rust monsters and beholders and gnolls and all that good stuff. If it is something out of Monster Manual 1 & 2, then consider me tickled pink.

I picked this thick book up at the Socal Minicon as a freebie earlier this year during the summer. I’m only a third of the way or so through it, so that gives you an idea of the level of thrill I get out of it. Let’s put it this way, yesterday I read almost 100 pages of a book called “Blood Meridian” (by the author of “No Country for Old Men), something it took me months to do with Icewind. So there, that’s my review. I get some enjoyment out of the D&D references as I said, but it is unlikely that I will finish this book. Especially right now when I have about three other books I am more excited about and trying to pound through. But when I feel like some light, Jr. High School level reading about creatures out of D&D, I can always grab up Icewind Dale. It’s in the back of my Jeep…waiting for me to finish the others.

Should I have titles this post "Icewind Fail?" Yeah, that would have been funny...

Comic Book Dork Monday: Deathlok the Demolisher

Deathlok is Luther Manning, a soldier from near-future Detroit who is turned into a combat cyborg that fights against tyranny in a decaying urban landscape.

No, wait. Deathlok is a robot sent back in time to fight Captain America, and Luther Manning is a clone who also travels back in time to stop Deathlok from doing nefarious deeds. But wait, Deathlok is still Luther Manning and the Luther Manning clone never had the mind of Luther Manning. Luther Manning clone dies and Deathlok still has the brain of Luther Manning…

No…wait. Deathlok is John Kelly, and was created by the CIA.

Um, no, wait. Deathlok is Michael Collins, African American professor who becomes a cyborg in modern times and fights in Latin America for The Roxxon Corporation.

NO...he’s Jack Truman, an agent with SHIELD. Um, scrap that, because Jack Truman’s brain is removed from the cyborg and replaced by the brain of former SHIELD agent Larry Young.

Ugh. Way to go Marvel Comics. In the true style of “The House of Ideas,” a great original character concept, a refreshing 1970’s break from the typical superhero comic, is beaten, raped, and left to die.

Marvel did all kinds of stupid Team-Ups (the most irritating being one with The Thing from Fantastic Four) with Deathlok, and several ill-conceived time travel concepts that just beat the life out of what was a great alternative character in Marvel’s Silver Age. That not being bad enough, every several years they took what was a fairly unpopular but very cool and offbeat character and tried to reinvent him in what were very banal and not very clever ways.

But those first few issues of Deathlok were the bomb. Luther Manning was a soldier who got himself blown up, but the military forces that be reanimated his body and attached a computer and cybernetic limbs to it. The look of Deathlok was way ahead of it’s time. Spider-Man once described him as a “zombie cyborg” and that is indeed the look he had. Not only that, but the human portions of his powerful body were still decaying to some degree. Despite an anti-decay liquid that flowed in his veins instead of blood, Deathlok’s friends and foes alike often commented on the rotting smell that accompanied him. Cannibal surivers in the ruined cities could smell Deathlok a mile away, and came a ‘running to munch him up as if the dinner bell had rang.

A cool laser pistol and a magnetic knife (so it would stick to his leg without a sheath) made up his arsenal. Deathlok combated military dudes, suit and tie bodyguards, mutants, post-apocalyptic gang members and bandits, cannibals, robots, and other cyborgs in his grim and gritty original adventures. In the original run, Luther Manning’s brain was supposedly taken from the Cyborg shell and place in a Luther Manning clone. A character saved? Not quite. In usual Marvel style, they would later kill the clone (in a Captain America comic no less) and state that Manning’s true brain still resided in the cyborg. Great way to continue the character, no? Big NO. Some years later Marvel just went ahead and reinvented Deathlok again and again.

When I was a kid Deathlok showed me that there was more to comics than good looking superheroes. I still have those original issues, and every few years I bust them out and have a great read of a great 70’s comic character.

The Serious sides of Gamma World/Mutant Future

Today in his “Free Friday” post, James over at Grognardia started a discussion on taking this genre more seriously, pointing out a Jim Ward article at “Wizards of the Cost (spelling mine).”

This hit home for me, as it reminded me of a bit of a conundrum in my recent attempts at doing a Metamorphosis Alpha game (using Mutant Future). We have played around four games or so far, and in the most recent game a couple of weeks ago the party came close to where they are going to exit the level and find out about the world “outside” the fields they know. The next session should be both interesting and exciting as they find out they are on a spaceship, and just how large the universe actually is.

But as far as Grognardia James’ post is concerned, it really struck a chord with me. You see, those first few games came off just so goofy. We had big fun with the powers and disabilities (nobody wanted to be pure human because we had such a gas with the random mutations), and character creation was a hoot. Unfortunately the hilarity did not stop with the wacko mutations.

In Gamma World and Met. Alpha games of my youth, we had some giddy fun, and there were laughs galore in the games. But we always approached it with a certain degree of seriousness. There may be insane powers abounding, but the game is still set in an apocalyptic setting. It is a game of survival even more than D&D, and at least in the case of Gamma World you are adrift in a decaying world full of danger. Now, I actually played in Cyclopeatron’s Gamma World (my first time sitting down as a Gamma World player in around 30 years) one-shot earlier this year, and the game was full of good chuckles. But even though this GW setting was more akin to what you would find on a classic heavy metal album cover (our characters were mutated rock stars of the far far far future), and was almost more high fantasy than any kind of serious science fiction, it managed to find enough of a dramatic tone to balance out the goofiness.

But goofy is just how my first few of these recent games I ran. But before this most recent game I put my finger on the button of what kept certain seriousness from drifting in along with the crazy mutants. And what the problem was comes right down to me. You see, without even thinking about tone, I went into the games laughing more than anybody. And I set the scenes and encounter with a certain comedic tone without even realizing it at first. All the laughing is great, but this isn’t fucking Toon or Paranoia or some other game where laughs are first and foremost. It’s basically Gamma World, and it should be more frightening and chilling than pure guffaws.

So before this last game I decided that the world could be as goofy as hell, or whatever the players wanted out of it. But for me, as GM, I needed to try and not share in the laughs. I had to approach my game setting and the session more or less serious as a heart attack. Instead of describing an encounter with a flock of sheep that turn out to be carnivorous with a big grin on my puss, I need to think in terms of just how scary this could be. A pleasant postcard scene of sheep on a hill, then suddenly this flock is tearing into you like fluffy wolves. Lovecraft could easily present this weird situation in a non-goofy manner, so why can’t I?

The funniest movies are the ones that act like they are not in on the joke. Austin Powers was funniest in the first movie because he wasn’t in on the joke like he seemed to be in the later films. And the funniest Jim Carry movies have everyone in the foreground talking about some serious matter, while in the background Ace Ventura is jumping around with an alligator or whatever clenched on his ass. Or, you can even turn that around a bit. The home invasion and rape scene in A Clockwork Orange has in modern times become sort of a comedic punch line, but at its core it is one of the most frightening scenes in any film ever made. It all depends on approach.

So in the last game I took a more serious stance, and although the players still had a jolly good time with their sicko super powers and crippling disabilities I think there was a bit more respect for the setting, and what I was trying to do with it.

The things that happen in any role-playing game very often elicit laughs and humorous ironies, but sometimes it is best if the GM doesn’t act like he is in on the joke.