We solved it by not playing any more. MC is a hard setting to get into. I would rather go with fantasy.
Hm… true that the setting is not an easy one. I have never considered it that way but that may be only because I have played Doomtrooper CCG when it came out and really liked it… thus being quite close to me even nowadays… However I can also see one of my newer players struggling with it. True - he is also not putting enough time into preparation but nonetheless it seems he the learning curve will be quite a steep one as we get more into DS stuff. (I am slowly transcending from Bauhaus politics into heretics being involved.)
Sad you stopped playing it.
I am just starting with my group, so there is lot to come yet. 
Like a lot of BOOM! 
There’s always a boom tomorrow. I appreciate somebody’s having some damn perspective around here. Boom, sooner or later… BOOM!
(So good to see some Babylon 5 fans also on board.)
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There can be a few good options the fall back can be imprisoned with none of their gear and good luck getting it back
Total party wipe
or my favourite… talk to one of them away from the game and see if they’re willing to help you maybe at the cost of their character or maybe their character will gain a permanent wound or something from being hit but with a bonus for their next character or for current one if they take the hit
“No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There’s always a boom tomorrow. What? Look, somebody’s got to have some damn perspective around here. Boom, sooner or later… boom!”
Love the story about where the boom tomorrow thing came from
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The setting is if not unique, very rare at least. I was hoping Modiphious would have a fairly known author write a trilogy of books, so that players could get a better sense and feel for how the world works, or a comic.
That would be (or would have been) great. Specially if that hypothetical trilogy was better than the previous one, from the 90s, and thar would be easy, considering how bad that one was. I liked the old graphic novel, though…
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Some one like Michael A. Stackpole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_A._Stackpole
He did a trilogy for a similar setting that can work really well for MC, Dark Conspiracy
Published by GDW (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Designers'_Workshop).
- 1991 A Gathering Evil
- 1991 Evil Ascending
- 1992 Evil Triumphant
Michael A. Stackpole wrote the third book in the Apostle of Insanity trilogy. I never read that one (but I know the author, I’ve read some of his Star Wars and Battletech books). I think the problem with that previous trilogy is that the authors were not really informed about the setting. Not strange, it’s a complex setting, but there were big mistakes.
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I suspect that is for the best.
Some groups of players are poor matches for a particular game. I play for some folks where a few people would be into a really RP-intense game but enough aren’t, or aren’t capable of it. I’m running something fairly deep but it can be tricky and honestly in many ways I wish I hadn’t tried, even though I do think the campaign is, overall, quite good. By contrast, I’ve played with other folks who really are much more into heavy RP.
I quite liked the old trilogy. But, in my defence, I was younger back then. I think the one with the Cybertronic protoganist was my favourite, in hindsight. Hmmm … still got them, in a box or on a shelf somewhere. I might dig them out and re-read them some time.
I read those recently. Less than a year ago - out of curiosity, not because I was expecting the books to be good. In fact, they aren’t much worse than the usual RPG fiction. In this case there was an aditional problem, that the setting is complex and not well known. The one you mention is probably the third, because the first two - those I already read - don’t have a Cybertronic protagonist. I’ll try that one when I have spare time.
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Agree. The setting is novel (with regard to the diesel-punk aspect) and complex, and there wasn’t that much in 1e to actually give the feel of it, especially the feel of Luna. There’s a bit more in 3e, but I would never complain about having even more!
That said, I’m currently watching Foyle’s War, which is a police series set in the '40s, and it is giving me some ideas for plots that would work well in MC. As well as featuring a fine array of three-piece suits and good hats, which I always liked as elements of the MC setting. But then, I’ve always liked film noir, too.
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I am a film noir fan myself but I am yet to explore that side, as the pre-made campaigns don’t go that way (actually, I think this edition has much less noir feel than the previous ones. I suppose it was mostly the illustrations, more than the content, that gave the old ones that particular ambiance). But soon I’ll be starting a freelancers campaign. Maybe it’s time to watch that Foyle’s War series…
Hiyas
Sounds like youre not having fun. If thats the case better stop and find players more concordant. Its a lot of unwanted n unreasonable stress, my friend.
HTHs!
TBH, Foyle’s War isn’t actually noir, but it does give a very good idea about how a background of ongoing war can impact on investigations.
I might give it a try anyway, I heard good things about that TV show. Though my campaign will be set mostly on Luna, so the war is something going on some place else.
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Stackpole was actually the one who written the last installment in the trilogy, as MigRib pointed out… and it was rather bad, to be honest. All I can remember was the whiny nepharite.
The first two adventures were quite okay, while nothing spectacular.
However I had the feel they all kinda encompassed the feel of Mutant Chronicles a bit better than Modiphious in his books. To me they seem to have left the dieselpunkish feeling behind and updates the lore to some degree, it feels maybe less cartoony however it also seems to neglect the vibe of the previous editions. I have the feeling it is a bit too scifi and as you also said less noir.
One question which I still have in my mind and it was a bit unclear also when reading the aforementioned trilogy: it seemed like the general public did not even know or believe in the Dark Legion. As if they be just a fairy-tale or some Brotherhood conspiracy theory to give people something to fear and to constitute their reason for existence… So, is there a general knowledge of Dark Legion in the public or as they actually almost never have seen or met any DL mutants, do they feel like it is something made up? How do you guys go about this in your groups / lore?
I also had a strange feeling when reading the books where people did not even believe in the existence of the Dark Legion. Though I suppose at that time in the cronology it was the beggining of the Second Dark Legion War, and they might have been wiped from the collective memory, I think the authors exagerated a bit on the disbelief and the conspiracy theory explanation. In fact, not only the people in general were unaware of the enemy, but also most of the protagonists, some which were Capitol military.
I’ve been playing the Dark Symmetry campaign for a year or so, so the knowledge about the Dark Legion didn’t even really come up until recently, when I started the Dark Legion campaign. In my game the public in general don’t know a lot about what is happening (unless those who live in places where war is going on). For people in Luna, for example, the Dark Legion is something they hear about in the news, or through their respective corporation propaganda machine, or in the Brotherhood sermons. Not much knowledge, but definitely some knowledge.
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Brandon Sanderson ?
Ouch. I’d managed to forget that. Maybe I won’t re-read them.
I agree about it seeming a bit less noir and dieselpunk in 3e, though, focussing more on the world-saving epic campaigns.