But Autoduel Champions did nothing for me and I never heard other gamers incorporating the concepts. Both offered point-build core options and time/speed/actions mechanics. On the flip side it presented more complicated systems for handling vehicles in Champions and running CW-style games in several settings. It offered odd rules for bringing superheroes into Car Wars. Easy to forget in these present days of plenty, but back then you treasured any non-module supplement for your game.Īnd this.well, I don't think I ever used anything from it. I bought it without flipping through and walked home poring over the pages. Then in 1983 Autoduel Champions dropped- a bizarre hybrid supplement combining Champions & Car Wars. Still I bought everything for CW because SJG offered relatively cheap supplements: Sunday Drivers, Truck Stop, etc.
In the same way I ‘played’ Star Fleet Battles, I never fully got the game mechanics but muddled through. We 'played' Car Wars in grade and middle school. So while comics started to move into more experimental superhero material, other media remained stagnant. Superman III, Supergirl, and The Toxic Avengerhit theaters. It was a little better with cartoons with Spider Man and His Amazing Friends, Super Friends/Super Powers, and the Incredible Hulk. In other media, superheroes fared badly with Misfits of Science, Automan, and The Greatest American Hero on prime time TV. At Marvel they countered with Secret Wars II. Most importantly it saw the start of Crisis on Infinite Earths which changed the face of DC- ending and beginning many comic lines. 1985 heralded the launch of many small, independent comics companies. 1984 saw the launch of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Secret Wars, West Coast Avengers, and Marvel’s new Epic lines. Alan Moore began to make his mark with Miraclemanand V for Vendetta. New Teen Titans and the X-Men remained strong. In 1983’s superhero comics saw some important shifts, including the first appearance of Jason Todd as Robin the start of Walt Simonson’s run on Thor, and the first issue of Batman and the Outsiders. I’m sure it would have been different had a solid comic book store been available- or a hybrid game and comic book store. We read comics to complement the rpg stories we told. But almost no one seriously bagged or indexed their stuff. I luckily had an older sister who bought lots of comics for a time and I’d raid her collection. I loved the Defenders and Miller’s run on Daredevil another really dug Nexus another followed the Legion of Super-Heroes fanatically.
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But everyone had a few series no one else bought. But within our group everyone bought at least a few books and some- Teen Titans, X-Men, Avengers- served as shared touchstones. The local gaming store tried out comics, but stuck to indie press materials like The Spirit, Cerberus, and R. The half-dozen I recall opened and vanished quickly, usually under cover of darkness. We had few 'collectors' because we never had a steady comic book shop. In the 1980’s I think just about everyone in our gaming groups also bought comics. My Mutants & Masterminds campaign includes a player who only gets his superheros from the movies, supers novels he devours, and the occasional cartoon caught with his kids. How tightly do comic book and rpg fandom connect? How much is that affected by your location? Comics completely passed by my Play on Target co-host Sam Dillon, a solid gamer.