Damnation Decade: Designer Discussion Thread

[shaylon]

My one big critique of the book was your use of substitute names throughout the text; I found it quite jarring, and did not understand the reason for avoiding real names (at least for countries- I guess I can understand people). Is there a 'translation' index somewhere, even unofficial? Most of the people were identifiable, but some not, and even some countries were tough for me. Since a big part of the premise is a alternate history from the real world 1970s, I would think that using real names would help the versimilitiude.

I had a lot of trouble with this going through the book as well. It took me a couple of times to figure out who was who, and where things were.

I am interested to know if there is a translation piece out there, but my guess is not yet.

As far as why it was done this way, my best guess is because we live in a world that loves to sue. If he used any names, even the names of real countries, then Nixon's family might sue over Spobeck, D.B. Coopers long lost cousin could come out of the wood work, and Leonard Nimoy could throw a Vulcan neck pinch on on of the Green Ronin guys down and the San Diego Comic Con.

Another thing that I believe Rob mentioned in the book is that some of the characterizations of the NPC's mentioned are gross exaggerations. It seems to me that to make a game with believeable villians that is based on real life people you have to exaggerate their flaws. For example, Spobeck clearly resembles Nixon in a lot of ways, but mostly only the bad parts. There are many people out there who loved Nixon, even through his faults. From what I have read, Spobeck doesn't have that love from a section of the people. So the point of all of that is that if you are going to exaggerate or exploit flaws in people it is not a good idea to use real names! Some people feel very strongly about politics, religion, etc, and it would have been a much harder book to get out there I would imagine.

Anyway, I am sure Rob will be back to answer, those are just my thoughts.

-Shay

P.S. I forgot about Mork! I am going with Fez the alien!

 

[Rob Toth]

Night on Disco Mountain

Hey there--

Thanks again for checking in!

About the names: Everyone who saw the game early on had very strong opinions about this, pro and con. My friend Bill Simoni kept joking, "So what's Nixon's name again?" (In fact, he just checked out this thread, and said, "I love the one time in ten I happen to be right about something!") Shaylon nails the point about real people. There were just too many potential pitfalls, legal and otherwise, to using actual names.

With the countries, it was "in for a penny, in for a pound." It didn't seem right to have a made-up cast of characters and historical events, and then stick them all in the real world. If for no other reason than many of those characters and events don't precisely jibe with real-world locations. Ultimately, it came down to suspension of disbelief. I was counting on the made-up national names to reinforce the story of the game and the plausibility of the characters and events.

At any rate, I'm sorry if it's been a slog. Here's a quick translation. I'm going to leave out people's names for the reasons outlined above.

(As for my age, let's just say I'm heading into my late thirties. I think next year I lose a point off my Dex, but I get one back in Wis.)

Agaland: Australia. Reduced to Mad Max levels of savagery.

Alamo: Texas. Under military cordon. Radio silence. Bad things are happening.

Aleph: Israel. Surrounded. Facing no good options.

Americo: U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

Arcitan: Vatican City. Facing down the Red Army.

Arpad: Hungary. Invaded and occupied by Soviet forces.

Barrier Mountains: The Rocky Mountains.

Basta: Cuba. Sunk.

Bloc: The U.S.S.R. Hungry and on the move. Controls most of Europe and has designs on the rest. Will fight China for Central Asia and Vietnam.

Cartagh: Kinda-sorta Libya. The seat of power of OPEC.

Consortium: OPEC, reimagined as a quasi-mystical political empire.

Council of Nations: The U.N. Metric system, fluoridation, etc.

Daijong: Taiwan. Overrun by Chinese forces.

District One: Washington, D.C. Not very popular these days.

Dixon: Kinda-sorta Georgia.

Eden Atoll: No real equivalent. Somewhere between Samoa and Fantasy Island.

Elatic Ocean: The Pacific Ocean.

Esperanto: Europe. Currently looks like a "Twilight 2000" campaign map.

Faust: Germany. Fallen to the U.S.S.R.

Fleur: France. Threatened by the Red Army.

Fontana: Florida. An acidic swamp.

Fun City: New York City. Descending into "Warriors" levels of savagery.

El Gordo: Las Vegas. Now the Mos Eisley of the Southwest.

Great Inland Oceans: The Great Lakes, greatly expanded by melting icecaps.

Hardcastle: Britain. Descending into "Clockwork Orange" levels of savagery.

Hewland: Cleveland. The lake! The lake! The lake is on fire!

Hiko: Japan. Overrun by China.

Howe’s Chasm: Grand Canyon. Home to Native Americans fleeing environmental catastrophe.

Jencia: The Gypsies.

Kirbograd: Kinda-sorta Poland. A coastal nation where wildcat strikers are threatening the hegemony of the U.S.S.R.

Kish: India. Surrounded on all sides. No good options.

Kontan: Hong Kong. Overrun by China.

Lemuric Ocean: The Atlantic.

Leng: Peking/Beijing.

Maddamar: The Middle East. Oil, millennarianism...bad stuff.

Mango: Vietnam. Oil discovered offshore. The war's heating up again. No good options.

Middle West: Same as here.

Motor City: Detroit. Descending (prematurely?) into "Robocop" levels of savagery.

Mudack: Moscow.

Obelisks of the Elders: The Pyramids of Egypt.

Seawall Peaks: Kinda sorta the Sierra Nevadas and the Cascades.

Simoni: Pompeii. Named for a buddy with lots of opinions!

Sina: Asia.

Sphere: No real equivalent. China's empire, which controls most of the Asian continent.

Stanard: Canada. Now a marshland.

Suramerico: Central and South America. Revolutions, strongmen, Cold War proxies.

Swelt: Africa. Revolutions, strongmen, Cold War proxies.

Tang: China.

Tasmadar: Jerusalem. No good options.

Taza: Kinda-sorta Egypt. OPEC's cultural capital.

 

[shaylon]

Thanks Rob, I am going to make a cheat sheet off of your notes.

Let me ask this, I know you don't want to post the names, but is it ok for one of us to do so? I don't want to get anyone in trouble but I was thinking of making my best guesses this weekend and posting them.

I will wait for your response before I do anything.

Thanks again for the information!

-Shay

 

[barsoomcore]

Hi Rob

I wonder if you could talk a bit about some of the rules changes you made and the thinking behind them. What design considerations drove your decision-making, what did you learn in playtesting, all that geeky stuff. I love that stuff.

And thanks for creating this thread!

 

[Rob Toth]

Bring in the Crunch

Hey there...

Best Guesses: Sure, if you want to take a crack at figuring out who's who, go for it. But you're not going to get a perfect fit in every case. In some instances, I combined several historical figures into one (or made them up entirely). Probably the best example is Theramin Hunker, who has elements of Ayn Rand, Margaret Mead, Timothy Leary and various 70s self-help gurus; she's all of them but none of them in particular. And even some of the more "obvious" characters aren't exactly parallel to the real-world version. Fedo Malese is clearly modeled on Qadaffi but doesn't exactly fit his history or his abilities. So, I guess, the best approach is to say: So-and-so is roughly equivalent to...

Crunch: I cover a lot of the rules stuff in part three of the designer journal. To boil it down, I didn't want to reinvent the wheel. I present a bunch of new feats, classes and bad guys, but the only huge change I made to the core rules was a new subsystem for psychic powers. The d20 Modern rules work fine, but they didn't have the right feel for the world. I wanted something a little more scary and random, where psychic powers can go spectacularly wrong and cause lots of damage. The other big addition was a subsystem for playing Omegaball.

The "keep it simple" philosophy came out of playtesting. The first draft of the game was filled with ambitious rules for social interaction and equipment malfunction (something like "Gamma World"), and in practice none of it worked. Heading back to the drawing board, I wanted to focus on simple stuff that would reinforce the tone of the setting. Feats that let you dazzle your opponents on the dance floor, for instance, or advanced classes that let you play smooth-talking heroes like Huggy Bear, Karl Kochak and McCloud.

Thanks as ever for writing!

Take care,
Rob

 

[HamBolger]

I thought Eden Atoll was Hawaii! Silly me.

For what it's worth, I think the name changes add to the fun. If playing the game is being in a 70s movie, then there should be characters with weird names who remind us of real people, and even made up countries. Gives the whole thing a kind of fevered, post-psychedelic fantasy feel.

I can think of other people that Theremin Hunker reminds me of. Who was it who started EST, again?

 

[Rob Toth]

My Postings Are for Phoenix Only

Somebody who's very, very litigious.

Take care,
Rob

 

[bento]

Hey Rob - I'm starting work on a one-shot adventure using DD along with D20 Modern for a college gaming club.

Your book has many great ideas on running different story arcs, but if you were to have just 4 hours to run an adventure from beginning to end, what would you do?

I keep thinking of old Scooby Doo or Harlem Globetrotter cartoon plots or that episode where Steve and Jamie run into Sasquatch!

Thanks!

 

[Rob Toth]

Bento, Don't Be a Hero

Hey there, Bento, sorry for the late reply.

All of your ideas sound solid to me. You could literally just watch an episode of any show you want and substitute the villain/motivation of your choice. (e.g., for Scooby Doo: Satanists are trying to scare away the owners of an old theme park because they need the space for some big ceremony/chamber of horrors. Or it's the site of an ancient Kreelak burial ground that the lizard-men are trying to reclaim.) Plus, everybody knows the characters and they've got an excuse to work as a team without any maneuvering on your part.

If you want something more specific, here's my discarded idea for a Gen Con demo. (If Bento's players are reading, stop now!) The players are celebrity guests on the Love Boat who stumble onto a smuggling ring: The ship's doctor is a war criminal who has been using the cruise ship to send squads of Sasquatch to Suramerico. Once there, the creatures will serve as an unstoppable army for his fellow fascists as they try to take over the continent.
The players are rolling along, piecing all that together--when a giant wave hits the ship and flips it over. Now the team must make it "up" to the bottom of the boat to escape, while saving as many passengers, and killing as many Sasquatch, as they can along the way. If the celeb approach doesn't work for you, the players could also be the ship's crew, and the bad guys could be guests.

Ultimately I dumped this because I couldn't find complete maps for a cruise ship, and I didn't feel comfortable winging it with the engine-room layout. But you could probably suss all that out with a few viewings of "Poseidon Adventure."

Hope this helps!

Take care,
Rob

 

[bento]

Those are both great ideas. I think the first has some great potential, as you say most folks understand character motives and how to play them. The second one, while using many more themes from 1970s entertainment, would probably take longer and take more prep work.

What's your feeling on doing a 10-15 page one shot adventure that Green Ronin can put on their web site like they've done for Blue Rose and True 20? I know it won't pay well (or at all), but it might sell a few more copies of the setting book. I don't know about others, but I'm always more tempted to buy a setting if I can see how the author would use it in an adventure.

Hey - did you see Garth Marenghi's Darkplace on Sci-Fi Channel last night? It's an homage to British sci-fi / horror TV shows from the early 1980s. Between the exploding possessed madman, a doctor who dabbles in the dark arts and a platinum blonde psychic it was a howling good time!

Thanks again!