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First up, I know this episode was supposed to be
the Second Part of 'Where Walks the Whenwalker?' and
was due out months ago. I am now employed as a file
clerk so my potentially sellable writing projects get
top priority for precious writing time. The module
is no where close to being done as I'd like it to be
and our Editor in Chief has been bugging me to write
something so I thought I'd oblige her by stealing a
page from Action Comics playbook and jumping to what
the article after that was going to be.
Which is this-- I know every other column has been
about bringing canon sources into your game
and sticking to it as closely as possible. Avoiding
Superman comics found on Peanut Butter jars from 1982,
episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series or even my
personal favorite 'Where's The Cap'n?'
in which Spider-Man fought the Sogmaster to save Cap'n
Crunch. I couldn't make that Tarq'veq up.
Anyway, today I'm going to talk about five of the
seven or so reasons to break canon continuity for the
betterment of the game by using even slightly modified
non canon material. I will also include at least one
instance where I or someone I know followed these
guidelines.
1) If the non-canon material does not conflict
with any major plot points than it is a case of no
harm no foul.
This is a no brainer. If a canon provides
little to no information about a characters past prior
to a certain point and a non-canon sources has
something pertinent to your character go ahead and use
it.
Case in point, they never really explained how
G'nort went from being the last Darkstar (Formerly
The Justice League) to being a Green Lantern again in
the recent Guy Gardener miniseries. A buddy
of mine joking, said that if his DC campaign got
started again our characters would be involved in the
telling of that story. (Though what good a
temporally and multiversal exiled
Half-Winathian/Half-Coluan with an 11th level
intelligence and mild electrical and gravity powers
could be amidst the Rann/Thanagar War-- I don't know.)
2) If the non-canon sources adds an element of
drama to the game.
For years people have been debating if Marvel
books like Godzilla or Rom Spaceknight which used
licensed characters interacting with the Marvel
Universe (and having said issues referenced in other
titles) were still part of canon after the license
expired. Added to this confusion was the fact that
sometimes Rick Jones would remember his adventures
with Rom and sometimes he wouldn't. (It would depend
on who was writing.) The same goes for Dum Dum Dugan
and Jimmy Woo's encounters with Godzilla.
I used as much of this questionably canon
material for the premise of a time and reality
temporal tumor stomping romp involving the player
characters, Godzilla, Rom Spaceknight, The Shogun
Warriors, Transformers, G.I. Joe, Ren and Stimpy,
Micronaughts, Cap'n Crunch and Meteor Man. Only later
to find out that I left out the WFW, Doctor Who,
Barbie, 2001: A Space Odyessy, Toxic Avenger, Beavis
and Butthead, Doc Savage and Fu Manchu. (Cases
could also be made for Conan, Kiss and Saturday
Night Live.)
3) If the non-canon material can be adapted
easily enough and it would add a fun element
for the players.
I ran a DC game once where the players were
trying to get dirt on Luthor by protecting a former
Lexcorp goon from getting offed by assassins working
on an open contract. All the informant knew was the
location of a mining operation key to one of Lex's
Superman killing plans. The first week's plot notes
ended write as the door opened on the goons hideout.
This was initially done for the purpose of me being
able to gauge the threat level of who I sent out after
them in part one so I could decide who showed up in
part two. It also gave me a chance to make up my mind
about this former employee. Now--
I had just been rewatching Superman: The Movie. If you
know where this is going you win a gold star. If you
don't-- it's amazing your brain generates enough power
to keep your mouse moving.
That's right-- I brought in Otis. Why Otis?
Just so when they finally got him to spill all he knew
(which wasn't all that hard or all that much) I could
say 'Duh--- Are we going to Addis Ababa Mista Souper
Heeroo?' Plus one of the players had never seen the
film and actually tried to get information out of Otis
using lessons from The Jack Bauer Coloring and
Activity Book for Children and Parents. He ended up
gaining villain points for his methods because he
didn't understand how little Otis actually knew. He
was expecting a Columbo style idiot.
We all got a laugh out of that. Well, except
for him. Then we showed him the movie and we all
laughed our asses off. The players ended up liking
having Otis around and he actually showed up again
later in the campaign working for another former
Lexcorp employee of non-canon origin-- Nigel St. John.
4) If the non-canon source smoothes over canon
continuity errors.
In second Star Trek pilot Gary Mitchell makes a
gravestone for James Kirk which reads
James R. Kirk. This would make all later appearances
of the name James T. Kirk (most of the
run) one giant error. Which isn't the way continuity
is supposed to work. The Star Trek: The
Next Generation novel 'Q-Squared' by Peter David has a
rather humorous way of explaining the
apparent error. James R. Kirk was correct for where
and when Mitchell wrote it but due
to a later (earlier) event in Q/Trellane time and
dimensional conflict some inconstancies were
left behind in various timelines. This actually
could conceivable explain any error including why
Ben Sisko's father is mentioned as being 'deceased' or
at least terminally hospitalized
during the second season and then shows up in about a
dozen episodes of Deep Space Nine.
In one of my games, that non-canon incident was also
used to explain why in Datalore, Data said he could
not use contractions but had used them several times in
the series prior to that.
5) If non-canon material adds dimension to player
or NPC feel free to mildly tweak it.
I once ran a DC universe game set at the Daily
Planet. Most of the characters were Planet staffers.
Lane and Kent were often seen as antagonists by the
players because they often beat them to big stories.
Anyway, I really loved the almost father/son dynamic
'Lois and Clark' set up for Perry and Jimmy. While
John Byrne and Jerry Ordway
touched on this briefly in their runs it was never
really dealt with to that degree even after the show
had been on the air. The writers used it but that
nearly that much. Since an off again on again player
was playing Jimmy I thought it would be really
interesting to play with that idea. We got some
great character moments between Perry and Jimmy. We
had a lot of fun exploring those two as people.
Well, that's about all the time we have for this
month. Be here next time-- for either
'Where Walks the Whenwalker' part two or some stupid
edition of my wildly popular internet
advice column 'Ask a Stupid Question?' only this time
with fake letters from comic book
characters instead of its usual mix of real letters,
fake letters and fake letters based on
real news stories.
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