THE POWER OF THE RETCON

 

Comic books function on their own crazy sorts of internal logic. Explosions and toxic levels of radiation, poisons and energy give you superpowers. Science and magic exist side by side and the cosmos is a never-ending collection of new species, places with Earth itself seemingly full to bursting with secret lands, hidden places and powered people. Even Death itself seems to be mutable and there is always a way out or a twist to it. Much of the magic of comics comes from their emergent storytelling but a lot of it has to do with the almighty retcon.

Retcons have always been used with varying degrees of success in comic books. Often they are used for genuine storytelling reasons while other times they are used purely for production and marketing reasons. Many times this has to do with the ever-changing creative teams assigned to titles and characters. Guy before you kill off a character you really wanted to write or draw? No problem, just pitch  great comeback or a story twist that invalidates what waas written before or rewrites it as something that was believed but untrue. but the use of retcons isn't alway a bad thing. Sometimes it creates truly interesting and memorable moments. 

When running superhero RPGs, the retcon can be a useful tool in a GM's arsenal. moreso than any other genre, the retcon not only seems allowed but even welcome. It can be used to bring back seemingless dead villains, revive lost heroes, or even change the fabric of the campaign should you choose to do so. You can even use the recon to fix mistakes you might have made along your way. Wrote yourself into a corner? Guess what, things never were as the players thought they were. Plot twists can sometimes be retcons though they are not always and the better ones avoid being such. 

The key when using the retcon effectively, is to make it feel as right or appealing as what it is being used to replace. A clumsy retcon will always feel unsatisfactory but a well-orchestrated retcon will feel like a plot twist or plot development. Make your retcon meaningful, even if it's just there to correct a mistake. If the villain you threw at the characters died too easily, then have their death come about in a way that leaves some ambiguity. Even if the death is very obvious and undeniable, you always have the fuzzy logic and weirdness of comics to use to your advantage. A dead villain can come backfro mthe dead, be remade, be copycatted, make a deal with the Devil, be a robot, be a body double, etc, etc. The list goes on forever, but whatever you do, put a little time into the retcon so that when the players figure out what is going on, they get some story with it. 

If your villain comes back as a copycat, figure out why this new person is taking up the mantle of the dead villain. Are they a relative, an admirer, maybe they are that same villain from another dimension or time? Why is the villain suddenly more agile and energetic? Do they look younger? Is the motivation of a relative returning as the villain simply revenge or is there more? 

There is more to retcons than returning characters from the dead. Maybe you've created an organization or team for your game but you really don't like the direction they are going. You can change their nature or character by simply deciding what their new direction will be and writing some logic to explain it. Perhaps you have created an organization that relies on high technology but the campaign really seems to be moving more into magical, supernatural territory. You could shift this organization behind the scenes so that their "tech" is actually magical in nature and simply masquerading as machines in the mundane world of men. Imagine the surprise when the powersuited baddy is destroyed only to reveal that a spirit was housed inside that armored shell. 

The most important thing to remember about retcons is that they aren't there to let you be a lazy GM. Yes, they can clean up messed and they can provide some unplanned changes or developmets in your game, but it is important to always be intentional with your retcons and not use them haphazardly. Retcons should never be used to be mean-spirited. Sure comic book retcons often come in the form of gotchas but you should always strive for "wow" reactions and never groans from your players. 

YOU START IN AN INN

 

There is a stereoptypical beginning to D&D and other fantasy adventures and campaigns. It's tried and true and for soe reason has become a bit of a joke. While yes, it is overused, it is still an absolutely solid place to start things. 

Inns and taverns are THE meeting place in a medieval style setting. While there are plenty of other places to start things off, an inn/tavern is the most universally accessible location besides an open, public space. Other locations may often lack any reason for some characters to be there but everyone eats, drinks, and needs shelter. Inns are also incredibly generic and as such can easily be used to set any number of tones for your adventure or campaign setup. 

The Action Start
In this start, the inn becomes a sight of an action scene that instigates the adventure. After a brief setup, the PCs either knowing one another or having introduced themselves, suddenly find themselves in the middle of some sort of action that starts the adventure. Perhaps the man they are all looking for gets wide to them and springs from the crowd to try to get them before they get him. Maybe that same person tries to sneak out and the character spot him. It could be that the action only indirectly addresses the adventure. Perhaps the city guard, minions of an evil NPC, are in the inn, taking prisoners or searching for the PCs themselves, their master having been tipped off to the characters being there to thwart him?

The Mystery Start
The players have come together and find themselves in the midst of soemthing mysterious that sets off the adventure. This is not just a simple quest giver introducing a mystery plot but something mysterious occurring whole the characters are in the inn. Perhaps a specretal presence makes itself knowm, signifying the beginning of something, even the adventure. They might witness a suspicious interaction between inn patrons. Perhaps the lights or flames in the inn act strangely as a hauntng sound filters in through the windows and doors.

The Unintended Quest
As the party gets to know one another, or as they enjoy their latest rest after a long adventure, something occurs within the inn to make them aware of  a possible quest. This can tie in with any of the previously mentioned sorts of starts. In these sorts of starts something such as a rumor, a tvern tale, a song sun by a bard, or even a curiosity among the decorations fo the inn draw the players into an adventure. Perhaps they ask the inkeeper about a strange monster head hanging above the fire. The bard's song might sing of a place that sounds worth finding. An old drunk mutters something about gold in the dark hills. This sort os start does very much require buy-in by the players.

HOW PLAYER-FACING THINKING CAN RUIN THE GM'S FUN

 

It can be difficult to have discussions about the things modern gaming has brought into the hobby that may not be all their cracked up to be. I have long been the sort of grognard that isn't the groggy-est or...um..nardy'est (maybe the wrong way to put that), but even I sometimes run into issues with the new fangled gaming thinking. While I am okay saying some of these new ideas are good and, often, not as new as a lot people thing they are, sometimes there are new concepts that can either be misunderstood or even misused. One such concept is the player-facing or players first sort of game.

As I understand it, these sorts of game place an emphasis on collaboration both in terms of a game's plot, story, themes, even worldbuilding with the goal being greater player buy-in and an increased sense of belonging and participation. this can be great and, to a certain extent, I do enjoy and encourage GMs and players to embrace this. However, this is often overplayed or pushed too far. While the intent may be to give players some say in shaping the game and making sure the game is something they want to play, it is possible for the game's balance between players and GM to fail.

Over the years, I have seen a tendency for players to take this to the extreme - considering themselves in charge of the game and religating the GM to a simple adjudicator of rules and not an active participant in the game. This is a terrible place to put a GM an ultimately will result in the failure of a campaign as much, maybe even more so than a group of poorly invested players. A GM's character really is the game world and creating an running that world is where the joy comes from, for most GMs. 

How this manifests can vary greatly but often takes the form of players expecting that they can just go off and do anything they want in the game as if their agency trumps any consideration for the plot or adventures at hand. If this is the sort of open, ultimate sandbox campaign you have all agreed to play, that's fine, but if everyone has come to the table to play in a world either created by or presented by the GM along with the adventures and plots they wish to run there, then players really do we it to the GM to play along. Chosing not to do so, with the players insisting on doing their own thing regardless of any plans by the GM is inconsiderate and rude.

The GM is often the player putting the most amount of actual work into the game. Players need only show up and play along. Players who want to express their characters selves should find ways to do so that work within the construct of the game world and not disrupt it. Most GMs are going to be very collaborative and considerate of player's desires and generally find it quite easy to find a way to fit it in or figure out a way to let a player player a character they want, in some manner or another.

At the end of the day, players are in charge of their characters but just as they expect the GM to be responsible for presenting a game that is fun for them, so should they also respect the work, time, and the world the GM is putting before t hem.

INTO THE CELLAR AND OTHER TIRED OLD 1ST-LEVEL ADVENTURES

Considering other ways to give low-level adventurers interesting adventures 

The stereotypical, almost memish next step after "you meet in an inn," seems to be the ubiquitous kills some giant rats in a cellar adventure. While there are many other first, "training" adventures out there, this is the (in)famous one. What I would like to do here is to present some alternatives to this. These can be added to DMs' collections of ready to go campaign starters or peppered in as filler on a slow night.

The important thing to remember when trying to come up with these first steps adventures is scale and completability. These sorts of adventures are designed to be simple, to the point and able to be completed by beginning adventures but that is not to say they cannot be interesting and challenging. One of the best ways to achieve these goals is to think of what non-combat aspects can be added to the adventure. Consider role-playing encounters, puzzles, tricks and traps that can be figured out by the players as well as their characters. These will ad texture and complexity to the adventure that does not necessarily put the characters in harms way.

If you are going to include traps or hazards, make sure they are not too lethal or perhaps not harmful but only add obstacles to the scenario. A hzard with a rickety ceiling, precariously balanced on some worm-eaten supports needn't fall and hurt characters but could demonstrate the potential for harm while blocking one route to an objective, necessitating the need to come up with a Plan B. Obstacles which can be circumvented through creative means are also a great way to add interesting elements. How do the characters get through that iron grate that keeps them from the room they ned to get to? Is there a way around or oever that bubbling pool of filthy muck?

So what might a few such adventure ideas look like?

THE MERCHANT'S GOLD

The party is approached by a merchant who has need of their aid. He explains that, fearful that he was being followed by robbers, her snuck out to a nearby wood, where he his a chest of coins. Worried that the robbers may still be watching him, he is looking to hire some relative uknowns to fetsh the chest for him, hoping that if he leaves the village on his own, the robbers will follow him and ignore the adventurers as they fetch his chest.

The party (and DM) will need to decide if the merchant is being honest and if they trust him enough to do the job. Of course the merchant may have a contingency. In this adventure, the party mayface a few bandits or perhaps the bandits are fooled and the DM decides that the encounter in this adventure might be another monster who has found the treasure chest. If the DM wanted to make a bit more of a mystery and substantial adventure of it, they could decide to have the treasure be gone when the party arrives, having been taken by some other party. Perhaps a local band of goblins has taken it? Maybe, a local farmer found the gold and, thinking it a stroke of good fortune has taken it home. Now the adventure expands to locating the gold and recovering it from whoever has it.

HERBAL REMEDIES

The party is called upon to venture into the wilderness to recover a supply of a medicinal herb. This can be done in the face of an actual illness or perhaps just to resupply a tapped out herbalist. In either case ,the adventure sets the party into the nearby wilderness in search of the needed medicine. They may be given its location or perhaps are left to locate it as well as recover it. This adventure could be set at different times of the years ot adjust the theming and inherent danger, though as it is an herbal harvest, it would have to be an herb that i available at that season. 

Along the way, the party may encounter various wilderness dangers such as environmental hazards/obstacles or animal encounters. The location of the herb should also be a challenge itself, whether through some of "guardian" or simply being dangerous to get to.

OLD BONES 

Approached by a strange person dressed in robes and a cowl, the party is recruited to go to a local burial site (tomb, graveyard, barrow, etc.) to fetsh a particular set of bones. The DM can decide whether or not the quest-giver is upfront with their motives or not but the goal is just the same. The party may be given specific instructions or they may be more vague depending on how much complexity the DM wishes to insert into the adventure. the chosen location will also determine a portion of the complexity with a graveyard being inherently less complex than a barrow or a tomb. If a very simple location is needed, it could be an isolated burial site, perhaps under an old tree or some such. 

This adventure is best used to introduce players to undead as the site of the bones is perfectly suited for it. Keeping with the goal of making this a low-level experience, the undead should be things like skeletons, a single zombie, maybe even a single ghoul or, if the DM is seeking a more challenging encounter, then select one of the many low-power, less lethal incorporeal undead types. There is still room along the way to place encounters with other creatures but, much like the rats in the cellar, you do not want to have too many additional monster encounters as this will clutter what is meant to be a sort of test-drive adventure. 

For DMs looking to add more complexity to this, consider a barrow or tomb or placing the burial site beyond some hazards/obstacles. These could bae as simple as a stream that must be cross, a swamp that must be navigated or perhaps even being partially up or down a cliff or something as basic as under a rock.

WANT YOUR 5E CAMPAIGNS TO MOVE SLOWER?

One of the main complaints about modern D&D is that character zip through levels too fast. This often creates a game where the players never really have a chance to get to know their characters and their abilities or, in some extreme cases, even get to use a new ability before another is piled on, thus resetting the process. There are all manner of fixes and tricks and tips that have been suggested and created to address this but it seems to me that one of the easiest ways to do so is to take a note from another RPG, Call of Cthulhu. 

To begin with, I am not suggesting the adoption of sanity rules or even Lovecraftian horror to fix your games. Neither of these is really a fit for all campaigns and so does not really work well as a generic solution that can be applied to any campaign. Instead, what I am suggesting is that the game shift from slaughtering hordes of lesser monsters while delving endless dungeons to something more akin to the investigative style of the Call of Cthulhu RPG and increasing the threat of individual enemies so that they each become meaningful and pit your players against opponents that require more nuance and forethought to confront. For a more direct fantasy example, think The Witcher.

Because 5E, as written, only provides for X.P. for the slaying of monsters, simply reducing the number of monsters the party encounters will naturally slow their characters progression through the levels. This, however, is an overly simplistic way to approach this and must be considered only a piece of the puzzle and not the complete answer. Once we reduced the number of monstrous encounters we then need to consider the power level and complexity of the monsters the party will encounter. Of course, more potent monsters will come with greater experience rewards, but since they will also pose a greater threat to the party at any given level, the players will hopefully be encouraged to spend time role-playing and seeking out help or lore that will aid them in defeating these more potent threats. 

The goal here should never be to punish the players by denying them chances to fight for their X.P. but to make each fight become central to a plot and amount to something more than an a never-ending spree of slain humanoids, wild animals and bandits. That's not to say that these sorts of encounters can't fit into this new model, but you can now do away with the need to pad out an adventure with encounters to keep the action going and use role-playing, NPCs and mysteries to pull the players toward these, in my opinion, more rewarding encounters.

The mechanics of this shift in play style is pretty straight forward. Target your encounters to be at least dangerous or greater difficulty level in nearly every instance with the exception being those lesser encounters that push the plot along such as scuffles with NPCs, minions or the freak environmental encounter (wolves, dangerous plants, lesser undead) that build the theme and tone of the adventure. Choose your featured creatures from those that are complex and powerful, looking for those who have multiple resistances and vulnerabilities that the PCs can learn to counter and exploit. Monsters with lair, legendary and even epic actions are most suitable to this style of play. If needed, I fully encourage beefing up existing monsters to suit your needs through simple tweaks such as increased AC, additional resistances and new abilities that fit their theme. I highly suggest that you avoid adding more HP to these modified monsters as this will not add much in the way of interest to the creatures but will certainly turn fights against them into slogs. What we should always be looking for is creatures that can be defeated if only the party knew how. 

Once you have established the central encounter of the plot, you must then spin a web of motivations, secrets, lore, clues, and useful items the party can find to use against these potent foes. This is the meat of this style of play and I cannot overstate the importance of making the majority of such adventures as much, if not more, about the preparation to confront the foe as it is about the confrontation itself. Items that will aid the party in their fight can be normal magical items that one might find in other D&D games or they can be things that resemble lesser artifacts, full of risk and danger themselves. It is also easy to make these key items into single-use items.

So, you have your plot, it's main encounter and a web of investigative clues, tricks and tricks. Why would your players ever want to play this style of play? 

First of all, any use of this method is going to require buy-in by your players but it is important that your frame it to them in a way that assures them you aren't trying to rob them of X.P. or the chance to see their characters improve and truthfully, this is absolutely not the intention of this method. The real goal here is to provide the players with a chance to act less like cartoon action heroes and more like their favorite investigative, problem-solving characters in fiction, movies and TV. Police procedurals, detective stories, true crime podcasts, even YouTube lore videos are what this style of play feeds into. As mentioned earlier, The Witcher is a great source to reference what you are going for. 

You can assure your players that their characters will grow and develop but they will spend more time getting to know their characters. It is also worth noting that their accumulations of lore, secrets, tricks and items that let them combat these more powerful foes will add texture to their characters while they spend a greater span of time at any given level, much like in older editions. The end goal should always be adventure but adventure with more nourishment of the imagination and the player's abilities. Fights will be tough but rewarding and the pre-work of the players and their characters should pay off every time.

ON THE BENEFITS OF REUSING MONSTERS

With the vast variety of monsters available to DMs, it is tempting to try to use new monsters all the time. The temptation of the next challenge or the fear of encounters becoming boring is a difficult impulse to resist, but there is merit in resisting the call toward ever-new and differing monstrous encounters. It has been said that limitless options is almost as bad as no options and this is demonstrated easily in the use of monsters in your campaigns. If every encounter is something new and unique then no encounter really means much of anything. Reusing monsters helps establish a consistency and believability to your game world. This helps establish a sense of place and thematic consistency. 

As your players learn the world, they will learn its denizens and there is a profound sense of achievement for players as they begin to learn the workings of the campaign setting. Not only does this help the players feel they are getting to know the world, this familiarity will start to take monstrous encounters in new directions. The squeaking and fluttering from a dark cave begins to take on a new meaning with your players after their third encounter with bat swarms or stirges and their recognition of this queue will send them thinking and planning how they can avoid another round of blood loss and/or disease. When they encounters orcs again and again, the will start to find out that sometimes orcs can be bribed and that some orcs maybe aren't so keen on other monsters in the party's path.

There is a strange tradition in D&D of withholding monster identities from players and their characters. This often takes the form of a somewhat tedious, cat and mouse game of selective description that seems to serve no other purpose than to gaslight the players. While I recognize that this is generally intended to instill la sense of in-world wonder and mystery I also have to wonder if it is really all that necessary or even realistic. 

D&D is ostensibly based on the model of a medieval world in which the monsters of myth, legend, and fiction actually exist. The people of those worlds live and interact with, war against, and generally fear those monsters. So, if this is the case, why would any adventurer need to stumble through some one-sides 20 questions description of every monster they encounter? 

This is not to say that there aren't monsters worthy of or where a descriptive encounter is not needed and/or proper, but there are a good number of monsters that people would know from their day to day lives. Other creatures would be known through stories, song, family histories, teachings, and other methods of conveyed knowledge. It is for this reason that I feel the creators of the game really did a great disservice to players and the Monster Manual by removing the "Frequency" (and the number appearing for that matter) entries from the monster listings.

Even when using the frequency mechanic, DM's can still free to choose "show" rather than "tell" when the party encounters a new monster. This is especially true when they are travelling a good ways away from their home territory or when they are encountering creatures that are truly mysterious and unusual. Even when encountering common creatures, the DM can still play it close to the cuff. Would a party of beginning adventurers be able to tell the difference between an ogre and a hill giant? Perhaps locally, as in Tolkien's world, terms like orc and goblin are interchangeable? Just like in real-world folklore and legends, creatures often blur together or are even treated as individuals. When the party encounters fey creatures will they be able to distinguish between a sprite, a pixie, a brownie and a leprechaun? 

In the end, there is room for both descriptive monster identification and explicitly stated identification. Character lore skills, background, and even races can also be used as a guide for determining who knows what or filling in the blanks of any description provided by the DM.

WHY SUPERHERO RPGS ARE SOME OF THE BEST RPGS YOU CAN PLAY

When it comes to TTRPGs there is always that moment when you sort of hit that invisible wall where you feel you are either out of material or maybe you are just tired of playing the game you are playing. This is perfectly natural and is generally a biproduct of simple creative burnout or feeling the constraints of the genre into which your game is placed. Superhero games really don't suffer this and offer an incredibly free environment in which to play and here are some reasons why?

1) Easy Transition Between Characters One of the biggest things to haunt players of TTRPGs is character burnout. We have all been there with that character that seemed like a great idea or was fun to begin with but is wearing thin. Comic books traditionally involve easy ins and out for characters without ever needing much in the way of plot or explanation. Between guest appearances, random team-ups, reserve team members, the seemingly flimsy barriers between realities, cosmic realms, and much much more, there are so many reasons a struggling player could swap out a character or take a break and divert to a different character for a bit.2) Guilt-free Character Death One of the staples of comic book stories is that nobody really ever dies. Death and dying are handled pretty fast and loose and while character may be presumed dead or even dead for a while, they eventually come back in some fashion. Even if the original character dies, their costume and mantle is often picked up by another and the hero persona continues even though it might be a new person under the mask. Long dead heroes can be returned through all manner of means from mystical reanimation, fake or false deaths (in any number of forms). A hero may not have died but been kidnapped and brainwashed by a victorious villain, only to be rehabilitated by his former teammates or some well-meaning bystander.

3) Good Fun Comic books, even at their darkest and grimmest (with a few exceptions) are still just great fun. There isn't much that doesn't feel right in a comic. Any character, any backstory, any event just feels right. Seldom is something objectively unfun in a comic book setting. The most mundane activities can easily be turned into amazing fun and adventure in the context of superheroes. A day at work, a trip to the mall, or a vacation can quickly turn into another action-packed issue.

4) Flexible Pacing The wide variety of comic book stories spans such a huge array of topics and styles of storytelling. This is true not just across different titles but within the same title. We frequently see the same characters in action-filled romps and going through emotional and heavy stories and everything in between. For a tabletop game, this means being able to tell so many different stories with the same characters.

5) A Weird and Wild Universe Superhero universes are generally huge, filled with all manner of exotic people and places. From fictional cities and countries to alien peoples and into god and cosmic entities a comic book universe is a vast, unending playground. Not only can you choose to start in any one of these amazing places, but you can freely transition from one to another without sacrificing the integrity of your characters and stories. The X-Men may have started in a posh mansion in New York but they have travelled the cosmos and visited lost worlds, travelled through time and dimensions. Characters from all over the multiverse can come together, interact, and even form up into the same teams. The Avengers have gods and aliens among them. The Justice League has several aliens as well as earthborn interstellar police officers.

6) Playing With, Outside, or Against the Conventions A lovely part of comic books and superheroes is that they are so widely known and have such established tropes that they provide easily accessible frameworks upon which to tell stories. Whether you adhere to the traditions of comic book stories, work outside of them or blatantly work against them your players are certain to get it and enjoy the met knowledge of what you are doing. Because comic books are traditionally told from a very omniscient point of view, it is easier for players to be comfortable with metaknowledge and playing off of it.

7) No Pretense of Balance Because the characters in comic books are traditionally depicted as have a very mixed bag of power sets and power levels operating alongside one another TTRPGs based around the genre do not suffer so much from the expectation that characters will or should be balanced nor is there an expectation that their enemies will be matched to them. This makes it quite easy for players to be happy with their characters regardless of their power level and for GMs to create stories that involve enemies with highly variable power levels. Part and parcel with this is the concept of teamwork and the struggle to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. Characters with wide-ranging power levels have an opportunity to find new ways that their individual powers can be used together and weaker characters are encourages and often rewarded for finding unique solutions to defeating enemies well outside their power level. Let's not forget that Spider-Man has defeated Juggernaut despite having no powers that can match the unstoppable mutant.

I hope that I have demonstrated to you why I think that superhero TTRPGs may be the ultimate in TTRPG fun and freedom, perfect for one-shorts, short campaigns, or an ongoing campaign in an ever-changing cast of characters and stories.