Good Monday, Gamer!
I'm re-reading The Metabarons and Tribe this week. Tribe was published by Image in the early 1990s. It was centered around several PoC and minority metahumans in Brooklyn, NY, and their foes in the techno-conglomerate Europan. Larry Stroman and Todd Johnson were behind this influential three-issue run. Even after reading it again, I wish they had been more successful at publishing the comic—I'd have loved more issues of this. With only three issues, it quickly established the world through lore and several characters —promising big reveals and chills…that we never get. ðŸ˜
The Metabarons...maaaan. Part Big Mythology, part Dune with 7-kinds of space opera spice. It recounts the dynasties of perfect warriors called the Metabarons. There are rites, codes of honor, better-than-light-saber weaponry, and Alejandro Jodorowsky shenanigans —he was writing this comic while working on the early drafts of a Dune film. There are some comics that the best experience path is you read it as a kid, then again as an adult. You need both reads to get the full effect. The Metabarons is one of those for me. I’d play this game.
I have run my Twilight: 2000 one-shot, 'Heavy is the Crown'. I'm calling it a win, even though the players botched the mission to retrieve the Crown of Boleslaw I. Like, "Sir, this is a Wendy's," botched it! However, it was terribly fun. I gave them a pick of two starting positions for game setup, laid out the mission and answered questions as they picked playbooks. In short, a bandit prince who runs a town is wearing the treasured national crown of Poland; some aggressive Polish nationalists want it back, and they have your friends and family as hostages. The PCs make the trek from Krakow to Stalowa Wola. They infiltrate the town and talk to the folks there. They ask me: "Is this a scenario where we can't solve the puzzle with violence?"
I said: "Ma'am, this is a sandbox game. Do as you will."
I did say several times, on the scale of Saving Private Ryan and Kill Bill. These mechanics aren't The Fast & The Furious. It was a kinda, young group; my references might have missed them. They stormed the museum where the bandit prince resided... even with my mighty GM Fiat powers of do-overs, re-rolls, retcons, and ‘ignore that crit roll’ used in the spirit of one-shots... They were, indeed, playing the FF crew in a Kill Bill film. My last act of mercy was to let the survivors do epilogue scenes —and those were fantastic!! I love this hobby. I’ve got some updates to the scenario to make. Admin changes to the reference sheets, expand the starting situation (a hard frame) to four options instead of two, and think about what to do if the players abandon the main goal —which is ok with me. I think that means developing the agendas of folks/factions they might encounter. The next run is scheduled for May 4th, RPGKC Monthly Game Day
At home, we got in a fresh, non-tutorial run of Burncycle. It's a very fun, tense heist game with simple but challenging AI for the opposition. I like it. There are lots of moving pieces, though!
I'm also reading Ars Magica, 2ed. I've run 3rd and 5th for 4-6ish sessions before. However; I hear 2ed is where it's at. I hope to run a mini-series (4-6 sessions) this year. It is still my fever dream to hack up a Legacy: Magica game using the Worlds of Legacy SRD, inspired by Ars Magica, and The Dying Earth novel.
Catch ya next week!
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