Look! Up In The Sky!
May. 26th, 2009 12:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theronSomehow, during my formative years, I'd managed to completely avoid comics. I think this was largely due to the fact that there was no direct market when I was in high school and the vast majority of comics were purchased on spinner racks at convenience stores and pharmacies. I had a few, here and there, and I was rather fond of Marvel's "Savage Sword of Conan," which could be purchased from the grocery store magazine rack, but I wasn't into them (or superheroes) for that matter. Ditto for superhero games. Of course, there really wasn't much in the way of superhero games in the late 70s. There was Superhero 2044, which was more of a set of ideas and a very nebulous setting than an actual set of rules for creating and playing superheroes. We tried it out once or twice (I've still got my copy), but rejected it almost immediately as being basically unplayable. Of course, none of us knew from comics anyway, so we were already in over our heads. I'd seen a copy of Villains & Vigilantes (1st edition) at some point and thought it looked kind of clever, but I never saw it in a store to pick up, and besides, I just wasn't that into superheroes.
(Though I do remember making up something resembling a superhero game out of Gamma World's character creation rules one afternoon and playing out a battle with my brother, before deciding the better of it.)
Until December, 1982. I remember so much of it like it was yesterday. I'd gone with my friend Michael to the Witte Museum to see a traveling exhibition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's medieval arms and armour collection. It was absolutely incredible. Afterwards, he asked if I minded running by this comic book store he'd found. Michael, it seemed, had recently gotten into comics, notably Arion, The Warlord, and Moon Knight. He'd also found a shop that sold comics. And, he added as encouragement, games. They had lots of games.
And so, we drove to ComicQuest, over by the old Eisenhauer Flea Market. And there, everything changed. Yes, ComicQuest did sell games. Lots of games. Games I'd never even heard of. Michael picked up his comics, and I picked up a brand new, shiny copy of Villains & Vigilantes, 2nd Edition, which took my gaming to an entirely new level. First off, I loved the game design. It felt...vivid. Like the material it was trying to reproduce. The characters were interesting and strange and mad and beautiful. The random character creation rules triggered all sorts of creativity I'd not really tapped before.
There was really only one problem. I knew basically Jack and Squat about comic books and superheroes. Clearly, this would need correction.
The first two comics I bought were from the local Stop & Go, at 11 PM on a weeknight, because it was the only place open that had funnybooks. They were Marvel's "The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #3" and a digest-sized DC Comics treasury of Legion of Super-Heroes origin stories. The next afternoon, I was back at ComicQuest looking for more source material. They had issue #1 of TOHotMU, but not issue #2. The guy behind the counter recommended I try driving across town to some place called...The Dungeon.
Which I did. And If I thought ComicQuest had a lot of games I'd never heard of, The Dungeon was a revelation. It was, simply put, the biggest game store I'd ever seen. (The biggest comics store too, but I'd only seen two at that point, so that was kind of a moot point). It was a dank, smelly, ill-organized mass of eccentricity owned by a chain-smoking rail-thin hippy named Pete. As a result, Weird Pete from The Knights of the Dinner Table always had sort of a special resonance with me. Anyway, Pete had issue #2 of the comic I wanted, tons of other cool stuff, and I had discovered a second new haunt in the space of a week. And a new lifelong hobby, if the decor in my office and the huge stacks of comics I've accumulated over the years is any indication.
But back to superhero gaming. Acquiring V&V was one of those occasions where everything just lined up at the right spot. My other cohorts were interested enough to give it a try, and FGU was turning out some really good adventure modules at the time. Coupled with my new-found four color inspiration, V&V quickly became our go-to game, and as we hung out at ComicQuest, we began to meet more potential gamers. One of them, Alvin Ronnfeldt, began sitting in with us, though he talked a lot about another supers game he preferred, something called Champions. During Spring Break of '83, while he was driving me back from an epic session of "The Secret of FORCE," I picked up a copy of "Space Gamer" magazine sitting on his car seat and thumbed through it. It contained an adventure for Champions called "School Holiday." I read through it, but honestly had no idea what I was looking at. What the hell was an OAF, and why did The Denier's wings have it? What were all these Disadvantages and why would a character have so many? Alvin started to explain, then said it was too complicated. But he did have an extra copy of the rules he'd sell me if I was interested.
I'm pretty sure that was the best five bucks I've ever spent.
(Though I do remember making up something resembling a superhero game out of Gamma World's character creation rules one afternoon and playing out a battle with my brother, before deciding the better of it.)
Until December, 1982. I remember so much of it like it was yesterday. I'd gone with my friend Michael to the Witte Museum to see a traveling exhibition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's medieval arms and armour collection. It was absolutely incredible. Afterwards, he asked if I minded running by this comic book store he'd found. Michael, it seemed, had recently gotten into comics, notably Arion, The Warlord, and Moon Knight. He'd also found a shop that sold comics. And, he added as encouragement, games. They had lots of games.
And so, we drove to ComicQuest, over by the old Eisenhauer Flea Market. And there, everything changed. Yes, ComicQuest did sell games. Lots of games. Games I'd never even heard of. Michael picked up his comics, and I picked up a brand new, shiny copy of Villains & Vigilantes, 2nd Edition, which took my gaming to an entirely new level. First off, I loved the game design. It felt...vivid. Like the material it was trying to reproduce. The characters were interesting and strange and mad and beautiful. The random character creation rules triggered all sorts of creativity I'd not really tapped before.
There was really only one problem. I knew basically Jack and Squat about comic books and superheroes. Clearly, this would need correction.
The first two comics I bought were from the local Stop & Go, at 11 PM on a weeknight, because it was the only place open that had funnybooks. They were Marvel's "The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #3" and a digest-sized DC Comics treasury of Legion of Super-Heroes origin stories. The next afternoon, I was back at ComicQuest looking for more source material. They had issue #1 of TOHotMU, but not issue #2. The guy behind the counter recommended I try driving across town to some place called...The Dungeon.
Which I did. And If I thought ComicQuest had a lot of games I'd never heard of, The Dungeon was a revelation. It was, simply put, the biggest game store I'd ever seen. (The biggest comics store too, but I'd only seen two at that point, so that was kind of a moot point). It was a dank, smelly, ill-organized mass of eccentricity owned by a chain-smoking rail-thin hippy named Pete. As a result, Weird Pete from The Knights of the Dinner Table always had sort of a special resonance with me. Anyway, Pete had issue #2 of the comic I wanted, tons of other cool stuff, and I had discovered a second new haunt in the space of a week. And a new lifelong hobby, if the decor in my office and the huge stacks of comics I've accumulated over the years is any indication.
But back to superhero gaming. Acquiring V&V was one of those occasions where everything just lined up at the right spot. My other cohorts were interested enough to give it a try, and FGU was turning out some really good adventure modules at the time. Coupled with my new-found four color inspiration, V&V quickly became our go-to game, and as we hung out at ComicQuest, we began to meet more potential gamers. One of them, Alvin Ronnfeldt, began sitting in with us, though he talked a lot about another supers game he preferred, something called Champions. During Spring Break of '83, while he was driving me back from an epic session of "The Secret of FORCE," I picked up a copy of "Space Gamer" magazine sitting on his car seat and thumbed through it. It contained an adventure for Champions called "School Holiday." I read through it, but honestly had no idea what I was looking at. What the hell was an OAF, and why did The Denier's wings have it? What were all these Disadvantages and why would a character have so many? Alvin started to explain, then said it was too complicated. But he did have an extra copy of the rules he'd sell me if I was interested.
I'm pretty sure that was the best five bucks I've ever spent.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-27 01:56 am (UTC)Derek