As you may or may not know. The Wild Cards series of books is largely based on a super campaign ran by George R. R. Martin. Now there has been GURPS, and M&M books of Wildcards. But has anyone ever ran it using the RPG that helped to inspire it, Superworld? Anyone ever run Superworld in general? Just curious.
I haven't, but I'd love to try it out. I've got no experience with the system at all, in fact... Hopefully some other people have insights!
I thought that GURPS: Wild Cards was great, though (and I got to play in a one-shot with Melinda Snodgrass herself!)... Unfortunately GURPS: Wild Cards: Aces Abroad was not so good.
I will never touch anything with the taint of GRR Martin on it...
Biggest douche I have every met, and probably the creepiest as well...
I will not give the fucktard any of my money...
And it angers me that he has so much of it...
/rant off
I got about three books in before I tired of Martin's misery porn style. The first couple books were a lot of fun though.
I owned GURPS Wild Cards, I might still own GURPS Wild Cards, I'd have to dig a bit. I've never found GURPS to handle supers very well though.
I've also ran the version of Super World that came in the Worlds of Wonder box. It was okay but not as good as Champions or V&V. I didn't like that the better you rolled on your stats the more powerful you got to be. Sure, the comics seem to work that way some days but games aren't comic books.
Sadly, Superworld is one of the few supers games I've never owned. Albeit I'd love to have a copy.
I've read most of the Wild Cards novels, and got very tired of the Misery Porn, the recent few books seemed to turn it around until the end. (I'm a sucker for superhero fiction.)
I have played and owned Gurps Wild Cards, but despite liking the setting (Sans misery) I didn't pick up the M&M version because A) M&M got too complex for me and B) The cover art couldn't even get Jube right... if you can't get the cover art right, that suggests you won't get the interior rules right.
Wild Cards... is misery porn? Are we all reading the Sam multi-author anthology book series?
Well, yes, it very much is past about book 7 or so.
I don't blame Martin for that, though, as those books were being written at the same time as the Iron Age of Comics, where Grimdark ruled the day. One of the authors - John McICan'tArsedToLookItUpperton, the guy who wrote the non-powered archer character, said that was a big part of the shift in tone. It started out as an attempt to ape current comics and just got away from them.
Quote from: daniel_ream;638624Well, yes, it very much is past about book 7 or so.
I don't blame Martin for that, though, as those books were being written at the same time as the Iron Age of Comics, where Grimdark ruled the day. One of the authors - John McICan'tArsedToLookItUpperton, the guy who wrote the non-powered archer character, said that was a big part of the shift in tone. It started out as an attempt to ape current comics and just got away from them.
Weird, I haven't read the books in years but I don't remember them being misery porn. Well, except for maybe Kid Dinosaur, but he was created to meet his fate.
I do remember the books taking a downturn once Chris Claremont got involved, though, during the whole Bloat / Rox arc (Snodgrass told me that they had a hard time getting his head away from his work on Marvel mutants and focusing more on the way this series was supposed to be).
Hmm... I wonder how well
Godlike or
Wild Talents would work with
Wild Cards. Any ideas, anyone?
Quote from: Géza Echs;638631Weird, I haven't read the books in years but I don't remember them being misery porn. Well, except for maybe Kid Dinosaur, but he was created to meet his fate.
I do remember the books taking a downturn once Chris Claremont got involved, though, during the whole Bloat / Rox arc (Snodgrass told me that they had a hard time getting his head away from his work on Marvel mutants and focusing more on the way this series was supposed to be).
Hmm... I wonder how well Godlike or Wild Talents would work with Wild Cards. Any ideas, anyone?
I think Godlike/Wildtalents structure/mechanics wise would work fine. I personally dislike the one-roll system very much. But if it works for you, more power to you.
Quote from: Ronin;638757I think Godlike/Wildtalents structure/mechanics wise would work fine. I personally dislike the one-roll system very much. But if it works for you, more power to you.
Very much ditto.
As for tone, yeah. They killed off a bunch of characters (grim) and let the bad guys have a win for a while (dark.) In the end it shifted, but even now the last book I read had Martin removing a character that was pretty heroic and sweet, just to get that "grim in." That's the problem with Martin he got stuck in the Iron Age of comics. The authors who he recruited for the mosaic novels not so much.
As many of the previous posters I agree the Wild Cards started really well (the story about the heroes during McCarthyism being particularly memorable) but series lost it's way very quickly, and descended into sheer exploitation.
In a sense I feel that is almost inevitable. It's a bit like with James Bond. Every so often they try to reinvent the franchise as something more gritty and mature, but after a while the cars, girls, gadgets and one-liners are back. So with supers most attempts to do serious, realistic supers eventually seem to slide back and draw more and more from the genres more glamorous aspects. The trouble is once you broken the genre conventions and lost the native innocence it all becomes a lot more jarring and uncomfortable.
Martin did write some good, though provoking sci-fi though. Windhaven (with Lisa Tuttle) and Tuf Voyaging come to mind.
Quote from: YourSwordisMine;638552I will never touch anything with the taint of GRR Martin on it...
Biggest douche I have every met, and probably the creepiest as well...
I will not give the fucktard any of my money...
And it angers me that he has so much of it...
How did he get so much of your money, if you won't give any of it to him?
Quote from: David Johansen;638559I got about three books in before I tired of Martin's misery porn style. The first couple books were a lot of fun though.
Quote from: Géza Echs;638607Wild Cards... is misery porn? Are we all reading the Sam multi-author anthology book series?
Oh, yes. Although I don't think you can truthfully claim it's *Martin's* misery porn. He was just the editor, although he wrote a couple short stories. I forget which ones... the Great and Powerful Turtle ones, maybe?
But very early on, the series focused heavily on the social injustices inherent in Jokertown, plus it wallowed in insecurities of a couple of the non-Jokers. And, as you note in a later comment, the series takes a huge downturn with the introduction of Bloat. Although the puppetmaster political candidate, Tachyon's relationship with his son and guilt over his dead girlfriend and the Frenchwoman he knocked up when he was drunk, and the lawyer who can bestow mutant powers by raping teens is pretty crappy, too.
I do have to blame Martin a bit for his editing and his role in selecting the stories he selected, even if they aren't reflective of his writing. This is one reason why I've been putting off getting into A Song of Ice and Fire, even though I saw the first season of the HBO series and enjoyed it well enough. I can tell, though, that it's probably heavy on the intrigue porn, so that's another minus for me.
Now, as for GURPS Wild Cards... it was kind of thin, but decent enough, and it's actually what lead me to the Wild Cards books. I'd never heard of it before I picked up the GURPS book. I've never seen the Superworld rules, so I have no idea if these would be better or worse than the GURPS 3rd edition supers rules for playing Wild Cards.
Six or seven years ago I had a desk job with a lot of downtime, so I read the entire WC series in order.
Overall I really got into them, warts and all. It's true that they go really, really off the rails in the later volumes, but at least they do so with a certain "If you're gonna go nuts, go completely barking apeshit insane" chutzpah. I even loved the much-despised book 10 (Double Solitaire)...space battles! Psionic war! The Transformers! Gender-swapping love triangles! It was like a DC/Marvel "Big Summer Crossover Event" gone completely, utterly mad.
I know all the dark/demented/violent sexual stuff (understandably) really turned off a lot of people, but after reading seventeen books of it in a row it gets morbidly funny, and gives WC a certain weird sleazy charge that makes it feel a lot different from any other super-hero universe, even Watchmen.
Quote from: Ronin;638506As you may or may not know. The Wild Cards series of books is largely based on a super campaign ran by George R. R. Martin. Now there has been GURPS, and M&M books of Wildcards. But has anyone ever ran it using the RPG that helped to inspire it, Superworld? Anyone ever run Superworld in general? Just curious.
I haven't read George Martin, but I briefly played Superworld ages ago - the original version that was in the Worlds of Wonder boxed set - and I thought it was pretty terrible. Basic Roleplaying really isn't superheroic in feel, and it only did a shallow job of trying to adapt it.
Quote from: YourSwordisMine;638552I will never touch anything with the taint of GRR Martin on it...
Biggest douche I have every met, and probably the creepiest as well...
I will not give the fucktard any of my money...
And it angers me that he has so much of it...
/rant off
What did he do to you?