Theme feedback
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So this is a general thread of my asking for feedback on theme ideas more then anything. I've got no intentions at all on shutting down 4tmu but something I see regularly from new perspective players of the mush is that the setting is too hard to wrap their head around.
This made me come through a few questions in my mind most prominently what can be done to lesson the confusion that comes with the theme.
Is there a way to get people invested and understanding the 30's dieselpunk supers theme or is it better just to move on and try something new? What sort of information can really be given to make sure players feel comfortable and better yet excited for a theme that's somewhat distant from the norm?
Is it simply that the 1930's is so far back in global history that people just can't empathize with the setting? Is there something that I'm missing which other people find obvious?
And I guess one that I've been wondering myself: Is it that the theme is complex (Being Dieselpunk AND 1930's) or is it just that it's too far back and something different like 1980's Cyberpunk would work better?
I'm genuinely quite curious what fixes can be applied if any to make the idea work in the mushing environment.
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For me, there's nothing wrong with the theme or setting.
I just had little traction with my PC. Perhaps it was for lack of effort? I spent the better part of a few weeks logging in regularly, and there just didn't seem to be anything happening. Except for Batgirl, no one even attempted to pull others into their RP, and this seems to be a problem for me on all super games.
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Well as staff I tend to offer up rp, but I too find all too often I'm the only one offering the RP, which is yet another roadblock. I'm trying to do what I can to figure out solid ways to remove roadblocks between players and actually playing.
I know there's got to be some way to make the place work, I'm just looking to the mushing community to see if people have ideas.
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Personally, I don't even know what dieselpunk is. I'd never really seen the term until your game and Savage Skies started using it.
I know steampunk is boots with cogs and watch faces on it.. does everyone drive a VW or something in dieselpunk?
And I think anything too time specific is going to be hard. "Medieval" is a broad range. 1930s? That's pretty narrow and a ways back. At least 1980s you can say that is basically modern but without so many computers, the internet and cellphones
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@Mr-Johnson said in Theme feedback:
I know there's got to be some way to make the place work, I'm just looking to the mushing community to see if people have ideas.
I wish I had more of a response for you. Maybe narrowing down the sorts of PCs? Like, pick a -verse to work with -- like the Batman-verse, for example -- and stick with it. That might make it easier for players to figure out connections in game.
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The theme is a bit confusing. The name of the game is a bit confusing. Titanic Two Tone what? What do any of those words mean? Noir? Then I'm on the website and it says things like dieselpunk and alternate reality 1930s and I begin to struggle to figure out where to go to get more info. Once I figured out there is the wiki I click that and it's a big long article that is frankly a mess. I skimmed through it and didn't immediately get a basic run down of what the game is or what the theme is or anything so I close the webpage. I didn't really get to figuring out if you need to adjust your setting because I couldn't figure out what it is.
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@Mr-Johnson You and I have talked about the theme elsewhere, and I still say you should stick with it. For others following the thread, here's some of my points I've made to Mr. J...
-Niche appeal. And this isn't a bad thing; it's just a reality. I'd love to see a Victorian-age Supers MU, or a Wild West Supers MU molded off limited series like DC's Justice Riders or Marvel's 1885. The fact is, alternate time periods are just not going to have the same appeal as modern settings.
-Difficulty in translation. The 1930's may have been the start of the Golden Age of comics, but relatively few characters have survived up to this point, much less remembered. Most characters that people are familiar with don't have any ties to that time period that can be referenced. And this goes beyond toning down some characters to fit a Golden Age setting; look at the change in costumes for female characters like Wonder Woman, from when she first appeared in 1941 to the most well-known modern incarnations of her costume. The 'public' of the setting would scandalized if female characters wore what passes for a modern costume.
Like I said, it's worthwhile, and I encourage @Mr-Johnson to keep at it. However, I also agree that there might be a need for more 'refinement' or 'details' to the setting. Just in example, in the 1930's, popular characters that would be deemed appropriate for 4T's setting would include Superman, Batman, The Green Hornet, Dick Tracy, The Lone Ranger, The Shadow, The Phantom, Mandrake The Magician, Doc Savage, and Captain Marvel/Shazam. That's a huge range of themes, types, and 'flavors' of characters, some of which are conflicting. Sometimes, things will mesh well, Dick Tracy's rogue's gallery would fit in with Gotham's colorful criminals style wise, but other conflicts will appear; the grim avenger of the night Batman killing criminals with the gun that killed his parents vs. Dick Tracy's two-fisted, square-jawed, four-color punch-outs.
Also, remember that there wasn't even a connected 'DC Universe' at that time. Batman and Superman were both published separately, without any interaction, even though both Action Comics and Detective Comics were printed by National Comics (the forerunner to DC). They were seen as incompatible; a gritty crime drama with dramatic elements versus an adventure fantasy. In fact, Two-Face's original name was Harvey 'Apollo' Kent, a subtle dig by Bob Kane and Bill Finger at the seeming 'perfectness' of Superman. So, most creations of that time period are not designed to interact with a 'larger' world.
Like I said: keep at it, keep refining the concept, and don't give up. But just realize the difficulty that this particular historical setting provides for a lot of aspects of character creation and RP.
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More narrow/refined would be good. Like mentioned, bat family for DC or spideyverse for marvel. Street level, one comic canon not multi-verse. Diesel punk 1930s with villians in deisel mecha suits and heroes to stop them via powers or better diesel tech could be fun without mixing up like fantastic four and justice league and asgardians etc. Would help people find connections and focus rp to get folks together.
Spidey with alchemical webbing and spider stuff versus kingpin in a diesel punk suit iron suit sort of stuff. Or Bat man in the mecha suit versus joker's mad science plans. I think street level would be ideal so the diesel punk makes more sense and is easier played up.
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Just to follow up...
I think that having a 'Theme' entry on the game's wiki would be helpful (I didn't see one when I checked). But, Make up a list of things that you consider to be 'in theme' or capture's the theme of the game, that players can read or view to manage their expectations of what to find.
Just some examples...
-Several of the Fleischer Studios Superman cartoons are on YouTube
-Ditto for The Shadow radio shows
-Graphic Novels and limited series like JLA: Age of Wonder and Spider-Man: Noir
-Films like The Shadow, The Phantom, Dick Tracy
-Even 'modern' series like Batman: The Animated Series or Defenders of the Earth.Describe some thematic tropes, like
"The Weed Of Crime Bears Bitter Fruit"-Criminals tend to get what's coming to them, whether it's jail or death
"If Only You Used That Intellect For Good"-Many of the villains the heroes faced were disgruntled or disillusioned scientists
Black & White; no Grey Areas: Good is good, evil is evil. And Good Stopping evil with a firearm isn't as 'grey' as modern times.And, make sure you emphasize that Heroes in the 30's were very different than their modern interpretations. Batman not only used a gun, he had no qualms about killing criminals to prevent more innocent deaths or the criminal escaping justice. Noir Spider-Man is not the wise-cracking Peter Parker we're familiar with, but a cynical investigative reporter that's dealt with betrayal at almost every turn; also, instead of 'With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility' Uncle Ben taught Noir Peter 'If there is too much power, then it is the responsibility of the people to take it away.', a message very on point for the era.
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So with our own Dieselpunk (and Two-Fisted Tales and Modern Magic) game, we were very careful to present a relatively light Overview page that provided the barest details on the setting with links to deeper study, plus a list of inspirations, a gallery (on another page), and a list of the top 5 pages on our web portal to start reading with.
Just like you, we've found that the amount of setting info and the theme is more dense than some people want with their pretendy fun-times (I want to be clear that I don't mean any insult by that--some of my better online friends have decided that they want something that they don't have to study as much to enjoy, and I respect that decision). I think that Runescryer has provided some great ideas, and I would also urge you to layer your content, so that people can just dip their toes in if they want, or they can stick their whole leg in, or if they choose to dive in they're at least diving into the deep end.
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Some basic definitions of thing would definitely be good to start. I think quite a few people just have no idea what some terms are when you throw them around.
noir? I know it's casa Blanca but couldn't really tell you anything else.
Diesel punk? See previous.
Two Fisted Tales? I know this wasn't on your game but another example of a theme term that I've never seen before and have no idea what it means.
Basically, don't assume your players have a clue. Runescryer gave a really good example of some defining things that I certainly wouldn't have know were thematic (if they are!)
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The issue I found with the game was a lack of focus, or perhaps it would be better to say a skewed focus. As some people have said, the name didn't exactly make things clear and there seemed to be multiple themes at once. Dieslepunk is its own thing, that is quite distinct from 'golden age comic books,' but there seemed to be some conflating of them.
Another thing is that I don't think these narrower themes work for 'broad' superhero games. Sometimes you can find a point of commonality that makes sense (ie the 1960's game makes sense combining the mutant and RL Civil Rights stuff), but often they do not. Some characters are timeless in a way that they can be re-interpreted in any setting, while some characters are timeless in a way where they simply do not interact with the setting at all. Get too many of these, and your game loses any sense of being about anything in particular. It's probably better to approach as OC-only, or with a specific kind of cast.
In your case, it was weird to make a point of banning Superman as a PC and yet ending up with a large number of Superman knock-offs and equivalents among the early PCs. There's not much point being Iron Man with a gas-powered suit when everything is alien eye lasers.
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I took a very brief stab at Iron Man, but it was hard to fit him into the setting. I think in my case it was really my fault; somewhere in my concept I could and should have filled in some kind of magic-related fuckery to make the suit work as everyone expects it to. I had an idea about having Edwin Jarvis' spirit somehow get trapped in the suit and planned to play that out on grid, but it would've been better as a trait in play at the time of creation. I couldn't wrap my head around how to Iron Man with a suit that doesn't keep up.
It's worth noting that I've also never played a supers game, so it was a little bit of a long reach for me in the first place.
