I wanted experiment a bit with a D&D campaign concept. As I lamented in my Januaty 30 post, below, I have a problem with character death in my campaigns.

I would absolutely love, love, love for a group of PCs to go from 1st level to 20th level. I want to see PCs rise in power; I want to experience D&D beyond 10th level.

So, I’ve started my new campaign witih a “safety net.” If a PC dies, he or she will rise again, as though by a self-cast raise dead spell. I’m also awarding double xp for overcoming challenges.

This is not something I would do with just any group of D&D players. My group has been together for four years; the Players know me, and I know the Players. We have discussed this campaign concept, and everyone accepts it. We all know it’s an experiment.

There are only three Players in my group, so there are only three PCs in the campaign. They are built with 30 points for the Point Buy method, and other than the raise dead effect, they have no super powers beyond their normal class abilities from the core rule books.

And since this campaign is an experiment, I’m tracking some stuff for data examination. For example, I’m tracking how long combats take, all the way up to 20th level. I’ve been doing this data tracking for a couple years in my regular campaigns (see my June 27, 2006 post below), but this time I’ll see how it looks through all 20 levels.

I’ve already got some data and some posts to make on how the game has been going so far (three game sessions), so I’ll be updating this section just about every day this week.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I had heard a few comments referring to World War Hulk (WWH) a couple months ago, and it sounded really interesting. I looked into the Marvel comics event to learn the set up: who did what, why, how, and such. I learned what happened to the Hulk to make him go to “war”:

Fearing the threat he posed to humanity, Earth’s most powerful heroes shot Hulk into space.

Landing on a faraway planet, Hulk became an Emperor and fell in love.

But the shuttle that sent Hulk away from Earth exploded, killing millions of people, including Hulk’s queen and the baby growing inside her.

Filled with rage, Hulk and his Warbound warriors have set coure for Earth, to bring revenge upon those he holds responsible for destroying his world.

I picked up what I think is the first Incredible Hulk issue concerning WWH, #106, and read it. Hulk is not actually in this issue; this issue is about She-Hulk and Amadeus Cho. (I’ve never before heard of this “smart kid”.)

In the opening scene of this issue, Iron Man/Tony Stark easily infects She-Hulk with some “nanobot power inhibitors” that removes her big, green power. They reduce her to normal. My very first thought at reading this was, “Why didn’t they just do that to Hulk?”

I’ve since bought a few more issues of the WWH story: a total of three Incredible Hulk (IH), and two Iron Man (IM). Trying to follow this story is reintroducing me to something I really hated back when I was regularly collecting and reading comics: storylines that flow through numerous different titles.

In IH #107, you see the Hulk engage Iron Man, but then the story cuts away. A few pages later, Hulk is apparently done fighting Iron Man; obviously Hulk won the fight, but the action is not shown in this book. There’s no mention of what to buy to see the fight—I’d love to see Hulk beat the crap out of Tony Stark.

The cover of IM #19 shows Hulk’s fist knocking the head off of Iron Man, so I figured this is the action that IH #107 skipped. Inside, they eventually get to the Iron Man/Hulk battle. (Tony’s in his Hulkbuster armor.) Iron Man injects Hulk with the nanobots he used on She-Hulk—why inject? (He didn’t inject She-Hulk; he just snapped his fingers in her face.) But apparently the nanobots didn’t work on Hulk. IM #19 ends with Hulk starting to smash the Hulkbuster armor.

So I picked up IM #20 in hopes of seeing the end of the fight. But nope. The fight is over, and Tony is a prisoner aboard Hulk’s space ship. Is the fight wrap up shown in another title? I don’t know, because there’s nothing in any of these books directing the reader where to go for the next part of the story.

This is something that at least the old multi-title crossover stories gave the reader: notes on what book to get for the next part of the story. This WWH story is frustrating. IH #108 is about Rick Jones and one of Hulk’s new Warbound buddies from space. No Hulk action.

At the back of IH #108, there’s a checklist for the “Roadmap to World War Hulk”. Thirty-seven books from May to October. It’s unfortunate that this list is given in the September issue of IH. It would have been more helpful had it been in the May issue of IH, #106.

I’m actually loosing interest in the story now, because after purchasing five books, the story I’ve seen has so many holes (not plot holes, but missing pieces of the story), and is jumping around so much, that I’ve lost focus. I’m lost as to what is happening. I really hate this kind of comics series. It’s hard enough for the casual reader to pick up a series; the publisher shouldn’t make it a scavenger hunt to follow a single story.

I’m let down, disappointed, and very frustrated. Marvel won’t be getting any more of my money for this story.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Illness is trying to take me down. I can feel it. I can always feel when my body has some bug in it, trying to make me sick. It’s just a little egh feeling in my core. It feels like regular, full sick, but very light. Just enough of an ache in the body and head to let me know something is wrong.

Whenever I get this feeling, I drink plenty of Dole pineapple orange juice (my juice of choice) and go to bed early. Doing this usually lets my body overcome the bug in me. If I realize the sensation early enough, and take care of myself, I can wake up in the morning like nothing was wrong.

I rarely get sick. I get this little “potential sick” maybe twice a year, and actually sick maybe once every three years. Usually when I get sick, I get real sick – flu, strep, etc. My constitution is pretty good against the light stuff.

I spent the past week around a lot of people, shaking hands and hugging family and family friends. I’m sure that’s where this bug that’s trying to crash my body came from. Plus I’ve eaten a lot of . . . non-healthy foods—damn good foods, but not healthy. I don’t think I ate a single piece of fruit, and very little vegetables; lots of barbecue and cakes. That probably weakened my immune system a bit.

I hate going to bed early. Going down at 8:00 p.m. cuts up to four hours out of my evenings where I could get something productive and/or fun done. But, it’s better than being sick all the next day.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

If you’ve been paying attention to this series of posts, you may have noticed that there was no actual game play mentioned between my June 22 post about my new Marvel Super Heroes character, and my July 28 post about getting back into D&D. That’s because the Marvel Super Heroes game I was supposed to be a Player in failed to start.

In all the years I’ve been playing RPGs, there have been probably a dozen or more failed starts for new games and campaigns. Just off the top of my head:

I remember creating a character for a Middle Earth Role Playing game campaign. I never actually played a single game session with that game.

I created a character for the Living Steel role playing game, but the game never started. I never even got to read the books for that game.

I created a character for the Mechwarrior role playing game. I’ve played many Battletech table-top war games, but never the role playing version of the game.

I’ve played a couple very short Star Frontiers games (less than 5 game sessions each). I created a couple characters for SF that never saw even one game session.

I’ve played a few Marvel Super Heroes campaigns of from 3 to 10 game sessions. I created a couple characters that never saw more than one game session, and now I’ve created a character that never saw the first game session.

I’ve played only one Star Wars campaign that lasted more than just a few game sessions. I created a couple SW characters that never got past the first game session.

I’ve played only one Shadowrun campaign that lasted many game sessions, and I’ve got two or three SR characters that I never played more than one or two game sessions. (I’ve got one character that was created specifically as a background support character for my main SR character, but I don’t count that character among the “failed to launch.”)

I’ve created a few D&D characters through the decades that never saw a single game session. I’ve created and played a handful of other D&D characters that I never gained a single level. (This is not counting the character I created just for the fun of creating characters.) Ironically, I’ve created more D&D characters that never did anything than I’ve had D&D characters die doing stuff.

It’s kind of sad now that I’m sitting here thinking about them. All these characters that got created but never really got play love in a game. I think I’d rather have a character die in the first game session than to never even reach the first game session.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com