Quote:
Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic
The C&D book most definitely lacks in some areas and story hooks is one of them. Taking Southernap's comment from the initial post about Merc: 2000 being the bastard child of T2k, I'd be inclined to disagree with that and argue that C&D was the bastard child!
I mentioned that the background given in the book is comprehensive and it is sufficient to give a condensed background of the original material but the book never develops anything with it. For example, it's implied in Xenozoic Tales that the Wassoon tribe want a strong alliance with the City by the Sea but if an alliance cannot be achieved then acquiring technical knowledge from the City by the Sea should be attempted.
It's also hinted at that the City by the Sea, while using a collection of mismatched equipment for farming that does give them the edge over other tribes in the region, is having problems with expanding its agricultural industries and it's hinted at that the Wassoon tribe have a more sustainable approach to agriculture that may solve the problems the City by the Sea is having.
There is a throw-away part of the game book that shows this, it's one panel from the comic and while it states the situation clearly, the book never goes further with the notion.
The game book also doesn't really stress enough the almost druid-like treatment the Old Blood Mechanics receive (not just because of their mechanical skills but also because of their attempts to preserve the balance of Nature in the world). This sets up a number of minor and a few major conflicts between the Old Blood Mechanics and members of the Tribe who are pushing for the expansion of various industries e.g. mining, or who are involved in various criminal enterprises e.g. poaching.
It also doesn't really push the idea that the Tribe of the City by the Sea are the most successful society in the region, having well developed primary industries and a scientific branch that is attempting to research the world around the City by the Sea, learn what various items of equipment in the Vault are used for and how to operate them, reverse engineer equipment as well as understand the past history of the Tribe.
Unfortunately, success also breeds corruption and smuggling and poaching as well as stealing equipment from the vaults are good money earners for a number of people of the Tribe. (The vaults are the shelters the people inhabited when the world turned apocalyptic, they are controlled by the scientists but the Old Blood Mechanics have a lot of sway over what equipment can be recovered, the Old Bloods fear that if people become too technologically advanced or too reliant on tech, they will damage or destroy the world like their ancestors did.)
All of that can easily lead into story hooks but the game book just doesn't seem to go there. It's as if the writers felt that GMs would be experienced enough to extract those ideas themselves. This is very similar to the situation in regards to Dark Conspiracy - there is little to no guidance on how to use the background material presented in the book as it seems expected that experienced GMs will run the game and known how to use the book.
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So I did some digging through the internet. One of the hard parts with C&D is that the licenses were all over the place and with only 14 issues of the original comic to draw from and only
13 episodes of the cartoon to draw from, it seems hard to make lore for it. Then not stray hard from the original intent of the creator.
In addition it appear that the creator of Xenozoic Tales had to pay a licensing fee to General Motor for every last car that was featured in the cartoon and the right just to use some of the descriptions of cars that he drew about with trademarked names,
including Cadillac.
So this is one that if anyone wanted to renew it, they would either have to have big money upfront to pay the royalties or find a way to heavily sand it into something useful with more generic names or obvious parody names.