Coming Soon...Defcon1: Cold War Character Pack!

[dirkgentry2000]

Coming soon....from...someone...(errm.... We haven't begun talking to publishers yet....)

But -nevertheless - Coming Soon...


DEFCON1: Cold War Character Pack
Taking M+M Superlink into the age of Détente and Mutually Assured Destruction!

*A dozen pregenerated characters from the Warsaw Pact or the Nato Alliance - with shared backgrounds and interwoven history

*Roleplaying Shticks - to flesh out a character and get your players roleplaying fast

*Roleplaying Scenarios - liven up any gaming session

*A mini-adventure that will take characters from the city streets of New York to outer space to a mysterious fortress in the icy wilderness of Antarctica

Here's a preview of some of the art we've commissioned for the project from Jon Gibbons (board name DrZero), Jacob Blackmon (board name prodigyduck), and mapmaker Steff Worthington)









(edited for spelling)

[dirkgentry2000]

Happy to field any questions, comments or whatnot
Here's another image from Jacob Blackmon - a Reichbot

[dirkgentry2000]

We've reached an agreement with Gareth over at Adamant Entertainment - and it looks like they will be publishing this product!

[prodigyduck]

Huzzah! A publisher at last!

[mancerbear]

Excellent news

Cheers,

[Rubber Baron]

You know, I will probably buy this if only for the laid out Nazi base in Antarctica (who doesn't need one of those?).

But why is a "Cold War" supplement dealing with Nazis?

Hello, the Cold War was between the USA and USSR. Are we so afraid of angering Putin that we don't want to call the era-appropriate enemy the enemy? Are there threats of Cuban hit teams?

This book looks like it will have a lot of Post WWII Nazi-bashing fun, and I'm all for that. But where is the Cold War? Or are we making references to Antarctica?

[dirkgentry2000]

Well - that map was so nifty - I couldn't keep from including it in the preview. I probably should have - as it might give the wrong impression of the product. But, man, I just really liked that map. Steff Worthington does great work and he really knocked it out of the park on that one.

But yeah - the focus of the product is on a dozen super-soldiers characters from the Cold War Era who are affiliated with either the Warsaw Bloc or the Nato Alliance.

(Note: these characters can just as easily be played in modern era campaigns - and we give tips on doing that.)

The bulk of the product is focused on the bios and common backstories of those characters and providing tips and techniques for roleplaying them.

The map is from the mini-adventure at the end of the product.
(ENGAGE SPOILER MODE)
.......................................................
...................................................
...............................................
........................................
....................................
..............................
........................
..................
..........
.......
....
..


The mini-adventure has mysterious attacks against both the US and the USSR bringing the world to the brink of World War 3.

The heroes uncover the true enemy behind the attacks is a Nazi mastermind.

He's manipulating the Eastern and Western nations into war so that he can take over the world and found a Fourth Reich after his major opponents have destroyed each other. (Which I think is Official Evil Overlord™ Plot #248)

The mouldy, evil Nazi super-scientist provides a climatic common threat for the godless commies and running dog imperialists to join forces to defeat after most of the adventure has focused on playing up the distrust and competition of the Cold War.

Sort of like Belushi and Schwarzenegger getting over their differences and fighting the mobsters in Red Heat.



(SPOILER MODE OFF)

[steffworthington]

Hi guys,
Thanks for all your gratious comments about my map. Mike is a dream client, he allows width and variety in the projects he asked me to do and his brief, and by extension, our working relationship has been exemplary.
He knows what he wants so he gets it.

Thanks again for your comments.

Steff

http://steffworthington.blogspot.com

[Ben Robbins]

I've read the pre-release draft and I have to say that calling this product a character pack is completely selling it short. Completely.

Mike is doing some very interesting stuff with setting up inter-character dynamics and mapping out the kind of conflicts you have among the heroes (think Action Shticks but for superhero relationships). This is the kind of thing that can make it much easier for the GM to create a game that really feels like a comic book and gets the players in the right frame of mind.

Even if you have no interest in the "Reds vs Red-White-and-Blue" theme the character arc stuff is useful for just about any supers game, so I'd say it's definitely worth a look.

[Jim Hague]

Congratulations on getting on with Adamant, Mike! Think Tankers, you'll be seriously missing out if you pass this one by. Having also gotten a pre-release draft, I can say that Mike and Adamant ave a winning thing going on here, and I definitely recommend y'all pick this product up whe it hits our virtual shelves. Mike's a tremendous talent, and he's got a great team supporting him. Throw your support his way!

Steff, I'll echo the sentiments on the maps you've drawn up for this product. Keep an eye on your mailbox; we've got a project going for PZP that you migt be interested in.

In the meantime, folks - go grab yourselves a copy of the Sixth Seal - that's another fine product ot there from Mike and Adamant!

[DrZero]

Gonna have to duplicate what Steff says about Mike. Top bloke who gives an artist a large amount of creative freedom.... plus he always pays on time

[dirkgentry2000]

Sorry for the delayed response - the day jobs been killing me.

Thanks to everyone for the kind words.

Right now, Jon is working on a cover for us - we should be published in the next month.

[dirkgentry2000]

thanks to Ben for mentioning the role-playing techniques I've been working on.

The full title of the book is going to be
Defcon 1 - Cold War Character Pack and Roleplaying Toolkit. (it's a mouthful)

As Ben said, a fair amount of the book is about setting up conflicts between the characters and mapping out inter-PC dynamics.

I've been hesitant to talk about this just because any forum discussion of different roleplaying techniques or just the broad topic of "how to roleplay better" seems to have a decent chance of devolving into a flame war or a theoretical discussion.

INTRODUCTION
So What's the Big Idea Here?

In a nutshell, this book provides pregenerated characters with common histories and themes and establishes some possible relationships between them.

The idea is to provide a quick and easy springboard for roleplaying.

These characters are designed to be easy to drop into most campaigns.

With a little modification, you can use these characters (either as PCs or NPCs) and the roleplaying scenarios that involve them in any adventure.

So Why Use Patriotic Characters (Flag Heroes)?

Two reasons.
Number one: characters associated with a specific nation have built in differences that can lead to conflict - and inter-character conflict makes for interesting role-playing.
The most prominent international conflict in recent memory was the long-running (and possibly resurgent) rivalry between America and Russia.
So we focused on Eastern block and Western bloc characters.
(Even if you're not running a game set in the Cold War - it's easy enough to shoe-horn these characters into a modern setting. We provide some pointers on how to do that.)

Number two: Frankly; some gamers really enjoy talking in accents. Providing Texan, Russian and British characters gives plenty of opportunities for that.

[dirkgentry2000]

Here's a bit more detail from the Roleplaying Section
===============
SECTION I – ROLEPLAYING CONCEPTS
Getting Started

So how much roleplaying is there in your roleplaying game?

Far too often roleplaying winds up being the twenty minutes at the start of a gaming session where players make stilted small talk in-character. Then, everyone starts rolling dice and thinking tactically and then all in-character interaction often goes by the wayside.

Even if you've got devoted players who've lovingly crafted three page long character backgrounds – how often does any of the material actually make it into a gaming session or into character interaction?

The answer is probably: "Rarely".

Super-hero genre games can have the problem even worse because character origins are so wide-open, players can wind up making interesting, detailed characters with absolutely no shared history or common ground to roleplay from. The surly street avenger hung up on his childhood tragedy just might not have much to say to the renegade ninja assassin trying to atone for her past or the self-aware robotic hero who's trying to discover what it means to be human.

This book tries to do something about that by providing pre-generated characters (for use as either PCs or NPCs) with a similar theme and inter-related histories.

Additionally, we suggest some role-playing techniques that have been lifted (i.e. stolen) from improvisational comedy and modified ( i.e. bastardized) for the table-top gaming setting. The resulting roleplaying shticks and scenarios are designed to foster in-character interaction (and more importantly – fun) throughout a gaming session.

As mentiond above, we choose to use patriotic heroes (aka "flag heroes") as the setting for this – because they provide obvious differences that can easily lead to conflict.

Also – it's a fun, time-worn, comic book trope to play around with.

Definitions
Roleplaying Shtick - this is the basic personality trait that shapes how a character interacts with others. For example, if your character was a happy-go-lucky teenager who suddenly gained his super-powers when bitten by a radioactive insect, your roleplaying shtick might be that you try to use jokes and sarcastic wisecracks to help you deal with the overwhelming responsibility of being a super-powered hero.

In the case of Iron Ghost, a Soviet battlesuit hero, her shtick is that she's trying to curry favor with her superiors (who are either a Communist faction within the military or the old ruling Communist Party – depending on whether you set your adventure in a modern day setting or during the Cold War.) She stridently toes the party line to earn brownie points with the higher-ups.

She often derides capitalism in heated diatribes and quotes Lenin and Stalin at the drop of a pin. If (in a modern day setting) someone points out that Communism has fallen, she vehemently replies that it's never really been tried properly or that the West is to blame.

Several Roleplaying Shticks are presented in this book – feel free to come up with your own.

Roleplaying Scenario – similar to but looser than an improv game (like you might see on the TV show Whose Line is it Anyway), this is a predefined framework for impromptu interaction.

For example – there's a comedy improv game called Soap Opera. Two performers start on opposite ends of the stage looking away from each other. They take turns whipping their heads around to face each other and making exaggerated, clichéd, melodramatic soap-opera type accusations. (Such as:" How could you run way with Reginald to Chile for Columbus Day weekend! You know he's allergic to alpacas! You could have killed him!" The goal is to increase the absurdity of the claims until (after 4 or 5 exchanges one of the performers ends the game with a Big Reveal – which is a comedic exaggeration of the sort of plot twists not uncommon in soap operas. Such as: "You'll regret saying that. Because I'm actually your long lost cross-dressing second cousin Earl and I've returned because I'm going to buy up your town and turn it into an alpaca themed amusement park and wildlife preserve!"

It's unscripted and played completely by the seat-of-the-pants – but the basic premise does provide the framework for interaction.

We're doing something similar here. We provide the characters and some pre-built relationships or frameworks amongst them for you to play with.

Roleplaying scenarios are completely optional, and are not specific to a particular adventure. Because they're generic in nature, they can be used to liven up any adventure where you and your players might want to use them.

Sample Roleplaying Scenario
Scenario I - Love Interest
Basic Explanation: One character is attracted to another. Since we're emulating 4-color comic books, it's probably in the best taste to keep things PG rated.

Complication 1: Wrong Side of the Tracks. This scenario can make for more interesting roleplaying if the parties involved are from different sides of an important division –such as if one is a villain and the other a hero. Or if one is a Russian and the other is American. You get the idea. This has been used to great effect in comics with the relationship between Batman and Catwoman (of DC Comics) being the most obvious example.

Complication 2: Love Triangle . One of the characters involved in the Love Interest scenario is either in a committed relationship or is the object of another character's affection.

Complication 3: Not in a million years! Despite being strongly attracted, one of the characters is adamantly opposed to the relationship on ethical, moral or legal grounds. For instance, if the affair would involve adultery a character could be strongly opposed to it even if he or she were otherwise attracted to the other character.

Here's an example where both The Wrong Side of the Tracks and Love Triangle complications are used.
Before the game session, the PCs playing Red Hammer (a Soviet hero), and Memphis Belle (an American character) decide to roleplay the Love Interest scenario with the Wrong Side of the Tracks complication. The GM decides to raise the stakes and proposes the Love Triangle complication using the brash Texan hero Lone Star. Everyone agrees and the gaming session begins.

Early in the gaming session, Red Hammer displays an obvious attraction to Memphis Belle - even though he tries not to show it. He roleplays this through stammering and hesitating comically around Memphis Belle and might even make use of a Though Bubble Moment or two (saying something like: "By Lenin's Beard! She is a most sturdy vision of loveliness!") Memphis Belle's character roleplays amused aloofness and might contribute a Though Bubble Moment such as: "Oh my...he's blushing! He's almost as red as his uniform!"

After a successful combat - the players might roleplay this Scenario with the following exchange:
Red Hammer: Comrade Belle...you acquitted your self most valiantly in earlier combat. Errm I mean.....you fought very well - for running dog imperialist oppressor of the proletariat that is.

Memphis Belle: Well, I declare, Hammer. That almost sounds like a compliment.

Red Hammer: Err..Uh....

At this point, the GM decides to step in with Lone Star acting out the Love Triangle Complication. Lone Star intercedes between Red Hammer and Memphis Belle, plants his finger in the Soviet hero's chest and says: "Hey - back off, Ruskie! We don't take kindly to godless commies chatting up our womenfolk!"

[dirkgentry2000]

Here's another Roleplaying Scenario -The Buddy Movie

Scenario II - Buddy Movie
Basic Explanation: Two characters with strongly differing viewpoints are forced - usually by a common threat - to work together. The hallmark of this scenario is a bombastic, sometimes comical animosity that may or may not soften as the characters relationship progresses and a grudging respect develops.

Over the course of the conflict, a grudging admiration grows. By the end of the conflict, they may or may not be friends - but they've grown to respect each other in their own way. The quintessential example of this relationship is in the movie 48 Hours where Nick Nolte plays a cop who needs the underworld knowledge of a convict played by Eddie Murphy.

This particular dynamic has been a staple of Hollywood for decades. Other prominent examples of movies that used this trope are: Shanghai Noon, Shanghai Knights, the Rush Hour series (actually – most of Jackie Chan's American releases rely heavily on this trope), the Lethal Weapon series, Red Heat (with Jim Belushi as a Chicago cop and Arnold Schwarzenegger as a Russian cop forced to work together) and Tango and Cash .

Some would argue that the Buddy Movie dynamic has been used to the point of cliché, and this could be true. That also means it's a dynamic that's instantly familiar and easily to emulate (or parody) in a gaming session.

Classic Example from Comics
An obvious example in comics is the interplay between Green Arrow and Green Lantern from DC Comics during the Hard Travelin' Heroes story arc in the 1970s. Green Arrow was an idealistic liberal who questioned the status quo and Green Lantern was a rigid space cop with an almost blind devotion to authority.

Complication: So You Think You Can Do Better? In this complication one character is the team leader and the other objects to how they run things. The interplay between Jayne and Mal in Firefly (and Serenity ) was often a good example of this sort of relationship. In Marvel Comics, Hawkeye and Captain America often acted out this dynamic.

Example : Old Glory (an American powerhouse brick sort of character) and Molotov (a Russian fire controller hero) have just defeated a massive robot that was rampaging through New York . The two heroes have been roleplaying the Buddy Movie Scenario by sniping at each other regarding their political and national differences. So, Old Glory was surprised when Molotov diverted from attacking the robot to blast a chunk of debris that had been knocked off a skyscraper and was falling towards him.

Old Glory: Thanks for blasting that rock before it made a dimple in my forehead. Maybe I was wrong about you, Russian.

Molotov: Mudak! I would do the same for any comrade in arms -even a capitalist swine such as you.

A few scenes later, Old Glory repays the favor by interceding between Molotov and a neo-Nazi supersoldier that was barreling towards him. Old Glory was knocked unconscious, but his sacrifice bought Molotov the time to be able to use his fire blasting powers to take the out the Nazi.

Concerned, Molotov hurries to the side of Old Glory just as the American hero is recovering.

Molotov: You did not have to risk your life for mine, American. I am soldier and I accept the risks.

Old Glory: You're welcome, Boris. And don't get all misty on me. This doesn't mean we're going steady. After the way you guys stood us up with Lend/Lease, I couldn't stand the thought of being in debt to a Ruskie.