HeroScape is coming back!

[NecroBlade]

Originally Posted by Nukatha

Not sure that Leadbelly's political positions were well-known.

Fair, for I certainly hope something like my parenthetical wouldn't be considered worth referencing.

[chas]

Renegade Card Changes From The Original War Council/Anitar Cards

I finally realized why Knight Irene's recent sex change was bugging me so much! Unlike many people, my group has been playing with all of the War Council/Anitar cards for months up to now. One poster noted that the new Knight Irene card is now definitly female.

So I'll quote from Anitar's old card of Knight Adjuctor Oberon
which we've been using in our games (bold words are mine for emphasis):

Run 3 Before moving Oberon, you may add 3 to his Move value. If you do, subtract 2 from his Attack value this turn. Hence my discomfort with a character we've internalized here, to the degree that we pay attention to the description and new back story at all.

A point I've made recently to several people is that there have been a number of changes from the old Haslab War Council/Anitar cards as we have them here, including changes in Height, Stats, etc. between the War Council/Anitar cards and those we have now from Renegade. While some of these changes have been minor, some of them do affect how the cards play. Anitar said at one point the cards weren't being playtested, so perhaps some of these newer changes hadn't been noted as affecting play.

***

Several people, including Thrasher Darkrai, one of my local pals, and Anitar have told me that there have been no substantive changes between the two eras of cards, other than that one bear squad no longer bonds with some figures loyal to one of the new Generals, as they did back then. However, the idea this was the only important change is not actually so, if you want to play the new cards. I know that back when they were first made up, Anitar had to fill in some card info that was not completely made available during Haslab back when I printed out those cards. These cards did a great job of that, but those changes are now superceded, and perhaps were in their own newer drafts if there were any--I never went back to check them again.

Anitar's old cards, once the proud mainstay of the AOA site section, have now all disappeared from there with no explanation, as noted by one of my pals and now confirmed by me. But here at my place where play, we still have the old drafts, which we've been using right along, as printed out back then. Whatever the case, there have been in fact a number of changes between the card drafts.

Like Marvel comics changing the sex and ethnicity in many of its beloved old characters (which I mentioned in my post as a similar change that was bothering me), changes in cards and characters like this seem odd to me when I've been using the old cards right along. I suppose have nothing particularly against Knight Irene being female as such. It just seems "wrong" to me, as I've gotten used to the card and character as the heroic hairy old fellow he was, and as we've been playing him. Bear just happens to be my Totem Animal, as used in the old Native American tradition!

Apologies to anyone who took offense or thought I was being misogynist about this card. That's totally not the case. You don't know me, but I'm not like that. In fact, for years I used to teach a workshop on Cultural Diversity in my professional life, for goodness sake! Sorry if my rant gave you the wrong impression.

The important thing to know for Scapers is not the Oberon to Irene change, but that the cards as they stand now are not in fact the same as the old ones we and I'm sure some others have been using to play our games to include draft AOA for some time. This is not necessarily a horrible thing, but anyone using the cards as we have been needs to review them all for these various changes if they have been playing them and want to keep current with the new Renegade drafts. And of course the SOTM heroes and the Kyrie are totally new, since they were never presented in the Haslab offering at all. In fact, now having reviewed them all, I've just made the determination for our local group that we'll be using the new Official card versions from now on, to keep in step with the Renegade Heroscape, since I've been the motivator behind us using AOA.

As usual, if you want to follow what we do, see my signature thread. It includes all kinds of goodies you can use in your own games.

[Retlaw]

Again - with too much time on my hands, doing some more interwebby searches:

From Quora.com:
What does it mean when someone says goodnight Irene?
In the 1940's and 1950's, Goodnight Irene started being used to describe an event or situation with a disastrous conclusion.

So, is our "good knight Irene" a sign for your opponent of a disastrous outcome?

[chas]

Indeed!

[Tornado]

Originally Posted by Retlaw

Again - with too much time on my hands, doing some more interwebby searches:

From Quora.com:
What does it mean when someone says goodnight Irene?
In the 1940's and 1950's, Goodnight Irene started being used to describe an event or situation with a disastrous conclusion.

Rings a bit like prophecy.

[IAmBatman]

Chas - sounds like you’ve been playing with custom cards and found it jarring that the official cards are different

[wriggz]

I think it's like Duncan Idaho, if you didn't grow up reading Dune, that name can knock you out of immersion

[Alexandros]

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

Chas - sounds like you’ve been playing with custom cards and found it jarring that the official cards are different

I mean, we were given this information in an official capacity, presumably to allow us to fill in the gaps. It would be one thing if players were upset about how those gaps was filled- it's another for players to be peeved by Renegade changing the details we did know about somewhat arbitrarily.

The idea of getting bothered about some of the bears being women strikes me as odd- I don't know that I ever assumed the individually unnamed and ungendered Frostclaw Paladins were all male (though perhaps AH did clarify their gender and I missed it). The concept of a female bear knight doesn't bother me, and I think it would have been a great addition to the canon, but by this point I've really come to like the name Knight Adjutor Oberon and the allusion to Clapton* by a tester hasn't helped.



*I'm not sure that a Leadbelly reference is any less silly, though he's obviously less "problematic" than Clapton is.

[Shiftrex]

I think this is too much attachment to a character that wasnt released yet and we built no connection to.

This is not a fair comparison to changing the identity demographics of an established character that has been embraced for tears. This isnt Sonic the hedgehog being turned into a dolphin. It's an unreleased, draft of a character being officially released.

If this is a sticking point, it seems a bit much. Bats is very correct, you got attached to an unofficial draft.

[Lord Pyre]

Which marvel character has changed sex and ethnicity….?

[MrNobody]

Only on heroscapers.com can we establish that the boundaries of an issue are somewhere between 'Duncan Idaho' and 'Sonic the Hedgehog being turned into a dolphin.'

Originally Posted by Lord Pyre

Which marvel character has changed sex and ethnicity….?

Those teens from New Mutants: Demon Bear, duh.

[Lord Pyre]

Apologies, I forget how beloved Demon Bear is