For the past about eight weeks, I’ve been running a Marvel Super Heroes campaign. It’s been fun. But one of the other players in the group has mentioned he has an idea for a MSH campaign. I’d love to play a character again, so we decided to give his game a go.

We’ll be playing young mutants, new recruits for Professor Charles Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Here’s my character:

Zachery “Zip” Harrison

Montesse, Wyoming. Nothing to do in the High Plains, for Zip, but run, run, run. He has actually somewhat embraced being a mutant — likes his ability, and being out in the middle of nowhere, he hasn’t really experienced much anti-mutant bigotry. He also wants to be a hero, but in ranch-land Wyoming, there’s not much to do in that line of work — find lost calves, run sick dogs to the vet, check fences, run into town for a new part for the truck, etc. Pretty darn pathetic.

Mom and Dad are ranchers, older brother in college, younger sister in grade school. Zip is excited about being invited to Professor Xavier’s school. He’s likely to sneak out after curfew to get into troub. . . er, go on hero patrol (or a fast-food snack). He’s already picked out a hero costume. “No, that’s not an ‘X’, it’s arrows.”

His metabolism is very high — he eats several times as much as a normal 16 year old his size. He loves fast food (of course, pun intended), and most of his money goes towards that. 16 years old — he doesn’t have a driver’s license. ‘Cause, why would he need one? He can outrun the truck on foot.

His civilian clothes always includes a baseball cap — he has a dozen. No, he doesn’t wear a cowboy hat — he has only one, for special dress occasions.

Fighting: basic
Agility: above average; some practice
Strength: regularly works out
Endurance: regularly exercises (loves to run); enhanced stamina due to mutant power
Reason: above average, but doesn’t have patience to actually study
Intuition: normal
Psyche: normal

Powers:
Primary: Super Speed
Secondary: Fast Healing (not regeneration)

He has the normal skills of a rancher: horse riding, cattle herding, rope use, shooting, etc. Generally nothing of use to a city super hero. (I have no intention to use a gun.)

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Many RPG players have compared high-level D&D characters with comic book super heroes. With magic spells or magic items, high-level D&D characters are so far beyond the realm of normal D&D-world characters, they are like Captain America, Superman, and other heroes with super powers. Well, that’s not true. High-level D&D characters are more powerful than even comic book super heroes.

For instance, look at Captain America: he’s basically a 20th-level fighter with a single magic item (an artifact, really). His physical abilities are all within normal human limits, although at the very maximum limits. A 20th-level fighter in D&D is going to have magic items to boost his physical abilities beyond normal limits. He’ll have magic items that allow him to fly, and resist magic and effects, and he’ll have a whole suite of magic weapons, armors, and miscellaneous gear.

Superman? A 20th-level wizard would clean his clock. Even if Superman made every saving throw roll, a high-level wizard has so many options at his command, he can easily catch Supes in a no-save spell. A single 20th-level wizard has more options, and more powerful options than the entire Justice League combined. And that’s before even considering magic equipment.
There is no argument — high-level D&D characters are, indeed, super powered characters. But they were not born with this amazing, super power. They did not get it all at once in some mutation, or freak chemical reaction, or even some magical experiment. A 20th-level D&D character worked up from 1st level, gaining power in small, incremental steps. A 3rd-level D&D character is not super powered compared to a 1st-level character. An 8th-level character is not super powered compared to a 6th-level character. A 13th-level character is not super powered compared to a 10th-level character. A 20th-level character is not super powered compared to an 18th-level character. The power did not come at a big jump. The power increase is relatively slow, gained through many adventures, over many months or years, in game time and real world time.

And this is all a good thing. There’s nothing wrong with playing a super hero-like character in a non-super hero world. If that character was built up from low level, through the normal ways — adventuring, overcoming obstacles, surviving dangers — gaining the super power levels feels natural and smooth.

A comic book super hero character usually starts his or her career with super powers. They are either born with them, or at some point they go from 1st level normal person to 20th level super hero in one jump. But D&D characters usually start their career at 1st-level hero, then work up to 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and a long last, 20th-level hero, through a lot of work.

Comic book super heroes are usually far above all other people in the world, powerwise. You have normal people, and then you have super powered people. There’s a huge gulf between the two, like having 1st-level people and 20th-level people, and no one in between. But in a D&D world, you don’t have 1st-level normal people and then 20th-level super characters. You have a wide array of levels throughout the world. There are 19th, 18th, 17th, 16th, and 15th-level characters as well as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th-level characters. Sure, the high-level characters will be fewer, far fewer as the levels rise, but they are there.

Only when you look at the end result in isolation from all the work up to that point does the high-level character seem strangely super powered.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I ran a Marvel Super Heroes (MSH) campaign back in the 90s – the heroes were gathered by a mysterious man who supported their hero work. I don’t remember how they came up with the name for their group, but I have it written down in my MSH notes from the time: The Guardians. The campaign lasted probably a year or so.

Over ten years later (now), I’ve started another MSH campaign. It’s the exact same concept as the previous campaign, but different Players. The group decided (without my input or prompting) to come up with a name for themselves. They came up with about 20 names through e-mail exchanges over a week. The next game session (last week), they took 10 minutes or so to hash out the names. They eventually settled on a name (half by choice, half by random roll): The Guardians.

I showed the Players the notes from my old campaign (they know this is a repeat set up), and we were all surprised that they came up with the exact same name.

I don’t have anything special to say about this, really. I just thought it amazing that two different groups, in two different cities, in two different decades would come up with the same name for their group in the same campaign set up.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I want a group of adventurers that stick together and survive for long periods of time. I want stories and plots to unfold over time. I want a bad guy the PCs fought at 3rd level to come back to haunt them at 12th level. I want plots that the PCs first saw back at 5th level to be resolved when they are 15th level. I want the PCs to learn that the minor information they learned at 8th level is actually the missing piece of a puzzle they need at 20th level. I want the PCs to have back stories in and from the actual game play.

This storytelling* is what sets RPGs apart from other games. It’s the draw that makes me prefer an adventure RPG game over an adventure board game.

I’ve never had a single PC group/story that lasted more than about 6 levels. PCs die, singly or in groups. For instance, they make a powerful enemy at 3rd level, they encounter a big plot at 4th level, they have a history together by 5th level, then they die at 6th level. The enemy, the plot, the history are all dropped as a new campaign arises. I could keep the enemy and the plot for the new campaign, but the new PCs don’t really have any in-game connection to it as their predecessors had. I tend to hope to build new enemies and new plots that the current PCs actually build in-game histories with.

Or maybe they don’t all die at one time, but rather one at a time, over many game sessions, each dead character being replaced with a new character, such that by 10th level, there’s no original PC still in the group. That villain from 3rd level, the current PCs have no real history with him. That plot from 5th level, none of the current PCs have any connection to it. That piece of info they learned at 8th level, the current PCs don’t know it.

And bringing in a new 12th-level PC to replace the dead just feels so wrong; building a character up from low levels to high levels is a major cool factor of D&D. A highly experienced character just walking onto the set with no real in-game back story, to join other PCs, just seems so against the meaning of D&D. And starting a whole group at 12th level, a whole band of very powerful characters, with no real, in-game back story, just feels so fake.

I like looking at the 12th-level PCs and knowing they’ve been through hell together since low levels, and here they are “all grown up.” I don’t like looking at the 12th-level PCs and knowing that one leveled up from 5th level, that one from 8th level, that one from 10th level, and that one is just starting new with the group today, at 12th level.

I used to be content with the rotating door of PCs in a D&D game. The story went no further than the current dungeon. The PCs’ in-game back story went no further back than last game session. But now I want long-term stories, extended in-game histories.

I know some DMs cheat the game to make sure PCs never die. As a Player, I hate that. As a DM, I find it distasteful, but I also don’t think I’m good enough to do it without being obvious. I like seeing how things play out by letting “the dice fall as they may.” But that means deaths, and the end of stories. You can’t have it both ways, apparently. You can’t let the dice fall as they may and expect a long running story with long-term PCs. Are they just mutually exclusive?

I now find myself disappointed with playing RPGs. Character death really annoys me. Might as well play a board game where nothing carries over from session to session.

[* I don’t mean a “story” in the sense of a predetermined script, but just the natural story that evolves from playing the same characters over a period of time. Dungeon crawl to dungeon crawl creates a story just as much as following a plot path. Especially when elements of earlier crawls resurface or follow into later crawls.]

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com