Truth, justice and Pyramid

[subplotkudzu]

Given that Guardians of Order is now officially folded, I decided it was time to start providing Pyramid content for another game system. Since I find Pyramid-preferred GURPS to be incomprehensible that meant finding something else.

I had been pushed to Mutants and Masterminds, but my flip through revealed PC creation looks fussy and persnickety, a feeling that docmystery backed up in A&E . Instead - in honor of its recent spate of awards, and because the author is a nice guy who asked me to peer review the system - I'll be going with Atomic Sock Monkey's "Truth & Justice" by the inimitable chadu.

Chad's even having a sale on the system right now if you don't own a copy! Go get one! Quick! Now if I can only convince Chad that he wants to publish the Firestorm Effect Universe source book, my life will be complete. Well, that and a pony.

Comments

[mylescorcoran]

That's funny, 'cos I always found BESM's character generation to be fiddly and the Mutants & Masterminds character generation to be relatively straightforward, at least in comparison. We all make the world go round I guess.

I do like Truth & Justice though. Good luck with it.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

I suspect that it has to do with how well one internalizes the system. I was in the SAS playtest and therefore got to know Tri Stat pretty well. I can see how it can come across as fiddly (and in some ways it is - Power Value Modifiers for example), but it's also possible to ditch the skills system, the PVMs and the vehicle creation rules without doing any damage to the system. Plus, the powers have titles that make sense (a big stumbling block in GURPS, where the way to give someone a beneficial effect is still called an Affliction).

M&M turned me off with the big list of feats for combat abilites. I'm left with the feeling that the system has much too steep a learning curve for character creation. I might be wrong, but the old Doc Menace said the same thing, and if I can't trust the most dangerous man in Canada, who can I trust? I'll probably still get a copy of it someday just to keep a complete set of Supers games, but I don't know that it will get played.

[mylescorcoran]

"I suspect that it has to do with how well one internalizes the system."

That's very important. I suspect that AD&D's long popularity, and D&D 3.x subsequently, is due in no small part to familarity and the many, many gamers who have already internalised the mechanics.

I can see why a big list of feats might turn you off, though I'm pretty sure you can drop most or all of them without breaking the system (too much). I didn't find the Mutants & Masterminds character creation rules difficult to get the hang off, but I'm coming from a Champions background which Mutants & Masterminds resembles, though in a massively simpler form.

GURPS is just off my list altogther for reasons of growing rules cruft primarily. Maybe things have changed with the 4th edition but I doubt it.

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

The 'hard to internalize' bit chimes a chord with me.

I have so little time to read a dense RPG book, that unless I'll be actually playing the game it makes little sense to even try.

Even if I do end up playing the game, unless I enjoy the genre/subject matter, I'm also somewhat reluctant to give it a good reading through that perhaps the game deserves.

Somehow the superhero genre never took off for me, and I really haven't internalized the genre's tropes and genre conventions. Other than a few random Batman, and Captain Marvel and Superman in the 70s, most comic books I read as a kid were Disney titles (Scrooge McDuck, Chip N' Dale), Archie Comics, Classics Illustrated titles, Scooby Doo, Magnus-Robot Fighter, Twilight Zone anthologies, the occasional horror comics lik The Witching Hour---in fact, nil superhero themes. Even in HS, I only read a few titles pushed on my by friends; Flaming Carrot, Cerebus the Aardvark, The Watchmen, V for Vendetta, but nothing one could consider a standard superhero comic.

::B::

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

I find myself doing the same thing - not giving the rulebooks a complete read through if they're dense - in part because the writing style is usually so damn dull. I have been flipping through GURPS 4e and can predict with some 85% accuracy when the authors will include a final exciting last sentence to an explanation (with an exclamation ! ). Yes, it's good that SJG has a strong house style, but does it have to read like a HS science professor trying to be hip?

Of course, there are so many rules in GURPS - so many special cases, more scientific alternate rules, etc. - and its selling point is that it's grounded in reality with it's 1 second combat rounds and 1 yard battle mats that all that extra clarification really is required. But I can't easily wrap my brain around that. Contrast that to Robin Law's writing in Feng Shui, which such a well written gaming book that I pull it off the shelf and read it for fun, and the difference is astounding. Naturally, FeS is looser and designed to fit genre conventions that have only a passing resemblance to reality, and I know people who couldn't stand it. GURPS Might be a brilliant system that's secretly the one I've been looking for my whole life, but I'll probably never find that out.

As for genre conventions Doc, I have the same problem with some of my players: the Psi-Men game crashed and burned when the players didn't get Supers, and one even pointed out, "Well, look at what you've loaned me: Powers, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Jon Sable. . ." I had never actually loaned him a straight up super-hero comic. I still haven't, for some reason, and even the follow-up teaching experiment Aquarius Odyssey still labored under the problem of him not knowing "the rules". My fault, of course, as GM, and AO has been an absolute hoot. But until I can get those players to internalize why one uses secret IDs and doesn't kill villains they're not really going to play a Supers game.

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

the Psi-Men game crashed and burned when the players didn't get Supers, and one even pointed out, "Well, look at what you've loaned me: Powers, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Jon Sable. . ." I had never actually loaned him a straight up super-hero comic.

Nod. I sometimes wonder what my little one will make of conventional fairy tales that make use of the standard conventions of doughty peasants, helpless princesses, brave knights, etc., after she has been subjected to literally years of unconventional non-traditional fantasy fare, like Shrek, Howl's Moving Castle, My Neighbor Tortoro, and all that Disney stuff.

::B::

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

Probably the sam thing she'll make of you telling her that Cthulhu is supposed to be Scary rather than cute and cuddly.

On a certain level I'm afraid hip, knowing, ironic postmodernism is the equivalent of heat death for genre conventions in the widely followed genres.

[mylescorcoran]

"Flaming Carrot, Cerebus the Aardvark, The Watchmen, V for Vendetta"

That's a pretty good list of entertaining comics.

Death by Spoon! Man, I loved Flaming Carrot back in the day.

I guess that the pulp staples don't overlap too much with the four-colour supers tropes, but I would have thought that there's plenty in the pulps that would feed into certain supers settings or campaigns.

[chadu.livejournal.com]

Now if I can only convince Chad that he wants to publish the Firestorm Effect Universe source book, my life will be complete. Well, that and a pony.

Drop me an email, and I'll point you to the PDQ licensing info and mail group. If you like the terms, golden. (Note it's mostly aimed at self-publishing, rather than me-publishing.)

But I can't help you with the pony, mang. That's all you.

CU