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Theron Reads Superhero Fiction

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 05:36:31 GMT

Welp, I haven't posted here in a couple of years, but I need someplace to host a large post. Nerdy9th Rules apply: no negative comments, please.

For this #nerdyninth, I’ve decided to expound at length about something you’re probably aware of. Besides reading funnybooks and watching superheroics on TV and movies, I also happily consume superhero prose. And by “superhero,” I don’t mean people with powers. I expect the tropes to be honored, or at the very least subverted in an entertaining manner. So, no “Heroes” fiction, for instance. Also, most of “Wild Cards.” Don’t get me wrong, I love “Wild Cards,” but until the few most recent books, it’s primarily been about people with powers and their impact on society. Superheroing was what the deluded few attempted, usually to their grave misfortune.

While I can look on my shelves and find superhero fiction dating back to the 70s, most of what we’ve had until recently was either the aforementioned “Wild Cards” or licensed novels from Marvel or DC. Of these, I’ve read a scant handful, and enjoyed fewer (I’ll talk about a couple I like later on).

Oddly enough, it seems the real breakthrough (such as it is) for superhero fiction came from Urban Fantasy writers. This shouldn’t be entirely surprising: Urban Fantasy is mostly people with unusual abilities dealing with unpleasant people with unusual abilities. The unusual abilities just focus on the supernatural and the genre doesn’t play with other superhero tropes. It’s almost like Urban Fantasy was a way for authors to write superhero stories in an acceptable manner.

(Breakthrough really is overstating. Superhero fiction is a tiny little corner of a subgenre. A lot of this stuff is self-published in ebook-only formats, but we’re starting to see some changes on that front.)

What follows is Theron’s Survey of Superhero Prose He’s Read (Or Tried To Read), In Roughly Chronological Order:

SOON I WILL BE INVINCIBLE, by Austin Grossman
This was the one that kind of kicked things off for me. It got a fair bit of hoopla when it came out in 2007, lots of “Amazing first novel” buzz. Truth is, it’s a lot of fun. Grossman totally groks comics. He gets that superhero stories are about (as Alan Moore put it) “Mad, beautiful ideas.” This was the first superhero novel I recall reading that wasn’t a licensed product. Not a parody. Not a treacle-coated tribute to lost childhood memories. It’s smart and full of mad, beautiful ideas. Sure, it’s got its warts and the first-novel lack of polish shows through in places. The internal continuity is all over the map. But it also features passages like this:

"...I'm looking for a piece of a private collection, brought to America and broken up after World War II. Luckily, I know my way around the archives. It's right where the catalog said it would be. Tactical Climatology, 1927 edition in two volumes, Neptune Press, copious illustrations, fair condition. Officially proscribed by a wartime council of generals, senators, and scientists, only four people alive know it even exists, which makes it one of the better-known works of Ernest Kleinfeld, aka Lianne Stekleferd, aka Lester Lankenfried. Better known as Baron Ether."

DEVIL’S CAPE, by Rob Rogers
I really need to dig this out and reacquaint myself with it. I picked it up back in 2008 and read it in a few days. Looking at my notes from the time, I found it more openly superhero-y than Wild Cards, and much less tongue-in-cheek than Soon I Will Be Invincible. Though written by a gamer, it didn’t read like gaming fiction (see below). Dark, grim, and violent. I remember the big superhero fights were over in seconds and relied on the element of surprise. Lots of good characterization. Yeah, I definitely need to re-read this one.

KINGDOM COME, by Elliot S! Maggin
A licensed adaptation of the graphic novel by Mark Waid and Alex Ross. Maggin was the go-to Superman writer in the 70s, and also wrote a pair of Superman novels back in the day that I really need to read. I don’t remember much about reading this except that he had a real knack for translating the visual idiom into prose that absolutely soared.

IT’S SUPERMAN, by Tom DeHaven
Set in the Depression, De Haven tells the story of Clark Kent's journey from Smallville to New York, and his journey from misfit youth to budding superhero. And a remarkable journey it is, with stops in Texas and California along the way. Accompanying him is Willi Berg, a would-be photographer on the lam after being framed by Lex Luthor.

Yes, Luthor's in this. And Lois Lane. And scads of minor and major real-life figures. De Haven populates the novel with so much authentic detail and popular culture references that it's impossible not to be dragged into his just slightly larger than life take on the Man of Steel.

(There's even a Doc Savage reference. It made me grin.)

The book's cover is illustrated with a cel from the Fleischer Studio Superman animated shorts. It's a perfect pairing with the novel. The world of the Fleischer Superman is a dark, Art Deco place, and their hero is a mysterious and shadowy figure. De Haven chooses a terse prose style, and while it's not as crisp and sharp as James Ellroy, it beautifully maintains a pulp sensibility throughout.

Perhaps the best thing, in my opinion, is that De Haven approaches the topic of a cultural icon like Superman not with ironic disdain, nor with sacrosanct reverence. The novel begins with, “Our version of the story opens on the last Saturday of May 1935 with the arrival of Sheriff Bill Dutcher at the police station in Smallville, Kansas.”

Our version of the story. Knowing full well this isn't definitive. That this is just his take on the character, just one of many in a lengthy procession. At the end, he gives his cast of characters a figurative curtain call, where he acknowledges that this story now joins all the others. For a mainstream novel about a character of near-mythic importance, it's a deft, respectful touch, and as a fan of the so-called "lesser medium," I appreciated it.

CAPTAIN FREEDOM, by G. Xavier Robillard.
From my original review, from 4/19/2009: Continuing the current run of superhero-themed books, I turned to G. Xavier Robillard's Captain Freedom. Mr. Robillard is a web humorist who writes for McSweeney's and Comedy Central. Captain Freedom, subtitled "A Superhero's Quest For Truth, Justice, And The Celebrity He So Richly Deserves" is his first novel.

Despite a glowing cover blurb by Christopher Moore, this is not a very good novel. Nor is it a very good work of humor or satire. The plot, such as it is (the memoir of a superhero forced into retirement by his corporate comic book masters) is weak. The main character is an unlikeable douchebag, which I suppose is actually the point of the book, but it makes large swaths of it a very painful read.

The best bits are those which are more or less pure throwaway, like a reference to Washington DC's beltway being an actual magical zone that prevents the truth from passing through it. Or Clandestine, a tiny country nestled between Syria and Jordan, where wealthy people with a need to lay low tend to dwell. But most of it is the sort of superficial cheap shots that pass for satire in the "Mad TV" stripe, rather than something more cutting, like "South Park" or the "Daily Show."

In fact, the whole thing reads a bit like an SNL skit that got pitched with one sentence and runs five minutes after it stopped being funny. D-. Will not read from this author again.

BLACK AND WHITE and SHADES OF GRAY, by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge
If I remember right, I picked up the first one of these based on a recommendation over on the Hero Games forum. I initially approached the first one with a bit of caution. It's a superhero novel, which is always a risky proposition. Further, it's a superhero novel by two authors who are already established in the Urban Fantasy genre, a field that has given us everything from the Dresden Files to Trailer Park Vampires and a whole lot of tuff chicks with weapons and tramp stamps staring over their shoulders on the covers of romance novels that just happen to have demons (vampires, werewolves, pixies) in them. So, I wasn't sure what I was going to get.

(I felt a bit better when one of the authors dedicated the book to her mom for giving her a mint copy of X-Men #94 as a Bat Mitzvah gift. I felt a lot better about it as I got into the book.)

The novels are set in a rather dystopian future, about one hundred years from now, where a vast corporation controls many aspects of day to day life. Chief among those aspects is superheroes. The Corp has them and they keep society safe. Chief among the Corp's heroes is Jet, a manipulator of shadow; New Chicago's official protector and the golden child of the media. Her opposite number in every way is Iridium, a supervillain (in the setting, they're called 'Rabids') with light powers. Of course, given comic book causality, they were once best friends, partners at the Academy.

The novel alternates between an ongoing present plot and flashbacks to their academy days. It also alternates chapters, with the POV switching between the two main characters as it winds to the inevitable climax.

Where it really shines is in the world-building. New Chicago, outside of its shiny corporate enclaves, is a nasty, scary place. The Corp is intrusive and slightly sinister, but they keep you hoping it's the lesser of two evils. And the supervillain prison as tourist destination was a stroke of genius.

I need to go back and read the sequel, Shades of Gray, because while I know I enjoyed it (and hoped for more), my notes from the original reading are basically non-existent.

EX-HEROES, by Peter Clines
A mash-up of one of my favorite genres (superheroes) and one of my absolute least (zombie survival horror). It started rather poorly, to be honest, as it seemed the author was still trying to transition from his day job (screenwriting) to the novel form, but the plot got going before the one quarter mark. It wasn't super-great but it was entertaining enough to keep me going to the end.

I did have some issues with a number of the characters, particularly those of the female persuation. One in particular, who could, I suppose, be charitably read as a parody of uber-hot, uber-competent superheroines. Which might have worked, if that approach wasn't undermined by her own backstory, namely, the ultra-hot, ultra-smart girl trades on her looks to put herself through school only to find that no one will take a famous lingerie model with two Ph.D.’s seriously, so she becomes a superheroine and conceals her face so she can be judged by her actions for a change, but still wears a costume so tight and sexualized that one male character calls her "a ninja dominatrix" and another uncomfortably notes not only that he can see her nipples through the fabric but can tell whether or not she's shaved her legs recently. Ugh.

There are sequels that do a lot more world building. I haven’t managed to get through them, though. Because zombies. Meh.

PAX BRITANNIA: GODS OF MANHATTAN, by Al Ewing
This is an odd book, but so much of it was squarely in my wheelhouse I enjoyed it tremendously. When I first saw it, I was convinced it was some RPG tie-in, but this does not appear to be the case. It is, however, part of a series of novels sharing the same setting, a world of twenty first century steampunk, where Great Britain still holds sway over most of the globe, and the brain of Adolph Hitler still rules Germany. It's an intriguing alt-history, filled with historical and fictional characters in somewhat different wrappings. For instance, Andy Warhol is still an artistic visionary, but his visions are of the terribly mundane world of electronics and digital technology of our world.

As its title indicates, Gods of Manhattan takes place in New York City, the greatest city of the United Socialist States of America, the good old USSA. That second S got inserted in the 1950s, after Joseph McCarthy's failed fascist coup led to a six-day second civil war. The hero of the war, and the hero of the City is Doc Thunder, an intriguing amalgam of Doc Savage and Fleischer Brothers era Superman. The plot involves a series of murders perpetrated by The Crimson Spider, a relatively new masked vigilante, whose methods are far too bloody for Doc's tastes. Complicating matters is the insane Mexican swordsman El Sombra, who tends to monkeywrench their otherwise straightforward objectives.

In other words, it's Super Doc Savage versus The Shadow while Zorro keeps annoying them from the sidelines. With Lex Luthor along for the ride, because hey, why not?

Along the way there are more pulp/comics references and in-jokes than you can shake a girasol ring at.

The book's not perfect. Ewing makes the dreaded physiology/physiognomy mistake at least once, and there are so many Easter Eggs that it feels like fan-fic at some points, but there are also some truly marvelous ideas as well, making for an inspiring and fun ride.

Addendum: I had some difficulty locating this one. When I heard about the book, the friend who recommended it simply called it "Gods of Manhattan." As it turns out, there's a YA series with that name that has nothing to do with this. If you're interested (and I suspect a couple of you will be), make sure you're looking for "Pax Britannia" or Al Ewing. (Yes, the same Al Ewing who writes for Marvel these days.)

AFTER THE GOLDEN AGE, by Carrie Vaughn.
Meet Celia West, Forensic Accountant. No, it's not a superpower and she's not a superheroine. She is, however, the daughter of the two foremost heroes on the block, Captain Olympus and Spark. It hasn't been an easy life, but it has taught her some very valuable skills to fall back on when kidnapped (which happens several times throughout the story).

While I enjoyed the book, I can't say I did so unreservedly. The major plot twists were telegraphed from miles away, and many of the superheroes were simply unlikeable. Unlike Vaughn’s Kitty Norville stuff, this novel was written in third person, and I felt a bit too much like an observer. While first person narratives have their problems, I think this would have been a stronger book had Vaughn gone that way. But that's just my opinion.

The other problem is more a symptom of the clash of media. Novels should ideally be self-contained. Comics seldom are. As a result, I had few doubts that all of the plot points would wrap up neatly by the end of the book and relate directly to the protagonist, and indeed such was the case. It felt a bit unsatisfying and "pat," if that makes any sense.

BATMAN: NO MAN’S LAND, by Greg Rucka.
Oh hey, it’s a novelization of a rather dumb...no, strike that, EXTREMELY dumb "Event" from the pages of DC's Batman comics. But it’s by one of my favorite writers. Conflict!

For the two or three of my readers not up on comics parlance, an "Event" is a setting-changing circumstance, usually presaging months or more of ongoing stories revolving around them. In this case, the event is a massive earthquake that destroys much of Gotham City. On the heels of the disaster, the US Government decides its better to simply seal Gotham off and declare it a "No Man's Land," rather than, you know, fulfill its mandated duties of disaster relief and rebuilding. In other words, a Republican wet dream. Anyway, the comics, and the novelization, deal with life in the ruins for those who stayed behind, focusing in turns on various criminals (Two-Face, Penguin, The Joker), the cops (led by Jim Gordon), and the vigilantes (obviously Batman, but a number of others as well, most notably Oracle).

Considering that the basic premise of "No Man's Land" is ludicrous and considering that Rucka is novelizing events from several comic book series, the fact that he can stitch it into a coherent narrative is no small feat. That he does so and makes an entertaining read out of it is even greater. I shouldn't be entirely surprised, really. He's an outstanding crime novelist as well as one of the best writers in comics. And what I think really makes it work is his use of Oracle's journals to frame the story. In those short chapters, his work really sings.

"As Batgirl, I learned Gotham City like the back of my gloved hand. The Gotham that Fodor's doesn't write about, the Gotham that lives between criminal madness and ultimate despair. I know things. For example, I know that the sewer grate on the north side of Middaugh and Cohen is a false one, not on any city record, installed by a certain vigilante to allow for immediate access to a cache of equipment if he's ever low on Batarangs as he's passing through.

I know, too, that if you dive off what was once Babylon Towers with a good cable and perfect aim, you can loop your throw around the statue of the Zion Lion thirty feet below, the one that sits atop the GCBC building. If you do it right, your arms will feel like they're leaving their sockets the hard way, but if you keep your grip and your nerve, you can swing all the way to the penthouse apartments overlooking Victory Square.

I know that if you do it wrong, you'll hit the ground so hard they'll need a sponge to get you out of your costume.

I know that, if you do this at 2337 hours Monday through Friday, you can clear the next three rooftops in time to land atop the J Street el as it slows to turn up Broadway. On Saturdays, you've got to do it three minutes earlier."

I love bits like that. They made this book for me.

WEARING THE CAPE, by Marion G. Harmon
This was the first of an ongoing series of self-published ebooks. You know how folks have called Feist’s original “Riftwar” trilogy “My Awesome D&D Campaign in Prose Form”? Yeah, that’s “Wearing the Cape,” though Feist has vastly better writing chops. That said, there’s a lot to like about (most of) these books, and the price point is very attractive. Most of the series focuses on a young woman named Hope who gains superpowers. It’s one part coming-of-age story, one part superhero yarn. The world-building and action are first rate, the coming-of-age stuff, a little hard to take sometimes. Hope is relentlessly nice and liked and not quite a Mary Sue (no author self-insert), but she treads the line. The supporting cast is generally terrific and the sequels are quite satisfying.

The one exception (and it’s a howler) is Bite Me: Big Easy Nights, a novel focusing on a vampire character who actually works pretty well in the main setting as an Avenger of the Night. In this one, she goes to New Orleans. And deals with other Vampires. Because, of course she does. It’s an odd departure, basically a hard left turn into the Urban Fantasy Bayou, and it just doesn’t work. That said, it’s easily avoided, since it doesn’t really impact the main plot arcs at all.

Overall though, I’m a fan. If nothing else, they give me a mark to shoot for in my own fiction. Other volumes in the series: Villains Inc., Omega Night (a short story), Young Sentinels, Small Town Heroes, and Ronin Games.

IN HERO YEARS, I’M DEAD, by Michael A. Stackpole
Speaking of superhero fiction derived from gaming, this is a novel based on Mr. Stackpole’s character Revenant from the long-running Champions campaign at Flying Buffalo. This too is an e-book only publication, telling the story of a superhero who's effectively been "on ice" for the previous twenty years coming to terms with a very different world than the one he remembers. One part midlife crisis novel, one part social commentary, one part rip-roaring superhero yarn, it's a pretty good read, with a few caveats: it's self-published, and even though Stackpole is a veteran bestselling author, he needs an editor. There are a lot of annoying typos throughout the text and parts of it could have been leaner. Also, the social commentary is pretty heavy-handed. If you agree with his politics (I do), that's not necessary a bad thing, but I can see where it would annoy folks who don't.

HEXCOMMUNICATED, by Rafael Chandler
I’m putting this down as a superhero story, but it’s in a weird middle ground with Urban Fantasy. The characters roughly correspond to the classic monster archetypes, but their powers are actually due to scientific intervention. It also bleeds over into military action, so it’s got something for everyone.

PLAYING FOR KEEPS, by Mur Lafferty
If I didn’t have this on my Kindle, I’d not remember I’d read it. I think I got it in a charity bundle, to be honest. Refreshing my memory online a bit, I note it was a cut above the average superhero stuff, even though it focuses on “Third Wavers,” the people who end up with more or less useless powers, like never being able to lose anything. It’s light-hearted, but not a parody. Not particularly memorable, but overall, worth five bucks.

VELVETEEN VS THE JUNIOR SUPER-PATRIOTS, by Seanan McGuire
Poor Velma “Velveteen” Martinez. Born with what she’s told is a second-rate “support” superpower (the ability to animate toys), she’s basically sold to Super-Patriots, Inc. at the tender age of twelve. By age eighteen, she had enough and walked out on her contract. Now, after six years of hand-to-mouth existence, she’s just trying to get to Oregon for a job interview. Unfortunately, life keeps getting in the way of things, what with the crawfish rebellion, the coffee cultists, and her stupid ex-boyfriend, Awesome Dude getting in the way. Accompanying the story are McGuire’s observations on innumerable superhero tropes, delivered as delightful asides.

Light-hearted, funny, but also affecting, the stories comprising this volume explore Vel’s past and present, ultimately giving her a future that bears further exploration. Fortunately for the fans, there’s a sequel, Velveteen Versus The Multiverse that’s equally well done.

ROCKET AND GROOT STEAL THE GALAXY, by Dan Abnett
A Guardians of the Galaxy novel! By Dan Abnett! Did you like how hilarious “Guardians of the Galaxy” was? That’s pretty much down to Mr. Abnett’s writing in the comics. If you like that sort of thing, you really need to read this book. It’s like Marvel’s Hitchhiker’s Guide. OK, maybe not as profound, but a whole lot more violent.

THE ASTOUNDING ANTAGONISTS, by Rafael Chandler
Set in an entirely different world from his earlier book (Hexcommunicated), this novel focuses on a group of “villains” who are, in all honestly, far more forthright, honorable, and just plain decent than the so-called heroes of the world. It’s a good Robin Hood sort of reversal and a fabulous read. Also, it’s got a character named “Helen Damnation,” which makes me seethe with jealousy every time I see it. Read this book!

So, there ya have it. I'll be happy to field questions, but remember, let's keep this positive.

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Sun, 28 Nov 2010 14:09:13 GMT

My Dice Are Older Than You has moved. Please join me at it's new home, http://myolddice.blogspot.com. This site will remain up until Dreamwidth says otherwise.

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Pulling Up Stakes

Sun, 28 Nov 2010 01:12:51 GMT

I think I'm going to move my operations over to Blogspot. I like their tools and it's easier for folks to reply. The bare bones of it are up now at http://myolddice.blogspot.com.

I don't know if there's a way to backdate entries or import them from Dreamscape. If that's the case, I'll leave this one up and link to it from the new site.

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Plugging The Apocalypse

Sun, 21 Nov 2010 17:35:22 GMT

I'm not much on post-apocalypse gaming. It held a brief attraction for me back in high school, but it was never one of my favorites. Maybe it's because I grew up in one of the USSR's top targets at the height of the Cold War. All I know is that once I figured out I could use Gamma World's mutation tables to make up superheroes (and villains), I stopped scrounging through the post-nuclear ruins entirely.

My friend Justin, on the other hand, loves that stuff. This last summer, he kicked off his Gen Con with a six hour old school Gamma World game that started off with random character creation. It's his thing. Which is why I'm glad to see he's now sharing it online. "A Field Guide To Doomsday" is his repository of critters "For Mutant Futures, Gamma Worlds, and Assorted Post-Apocalyptic Wastelands." It's delightful. If it's your thing, you really should check it out.

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Barbarians of Lemuria Playtest

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 17:10:40 GMT

I meant to post this yesterday, but between a wicked cold and massive work commitments, this is the first chance I've had to collect my thoughts.

Tuesday night, I ran my planned BoL playtest for Owlcon. As planned, I used pre-generated PCs out of the back and one of the short canned adventures.

System-wise, the game ran really well. There were a few moments of looking things up, but I was able to fit just about everything the players needed to know to play the game on two pages. I need to get a better grasp on setting difficulties, but things generally ran quite smoothly. A couple of players commented on how well the game reinforces the genre, like the use of the term "Lifeblood" instead of Hit Points.

As expected, the adventure from the book came nowhere near to filling the time I'll be allotted at the con. This is fine, as it let us brainstorm additional encounters along with a completely different plot to plug them into. It's far from ready to run, but I'm happy with the shape it's taking. At this point, I'm trying to decide whether or not to "crowdsource" it a bit on RPGnet to try and tune it up to maximum awesomeness.

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A Slight Deviation From The Usual Content

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 02:39:43 GMT

But very slight, I assure you.

I am, as I'm sure anyone bothering to read this already knows, a big geek. RPGs, fantasy, SF, and comics are my primary poisons. I am one of those few who was lucky enough to marry someone who is in all major respects a kindred spirit. While her passions are for music and dance, she loves comics and RPGs.

Well, most RPGs. You see, she absolutely, positively, and without reservation, HATES Dungeons & Dragons and virtually any RPG that takes place in an era with an abundance of magic swords and a commensurate lack of flush toilets. Her tastes in fiction mirror this: she'll happily read fantasy, just as long as the word "urban" precedes it (and I don't mean "Ill-Met In Lankhmar."

Of course, I seem to play a lot of D&D or D&D-ish stuff. More than I think I did even when it was the only game in town. I'm certainly enjoying it more. And because I enjoy it, and because hope never dies in my optimistic little heart, I still occasionally push D&D-ish stuff her way, hoping to -- I don't really know -- I guess maybe show her it doesn't completely suck. She dutifully looks it over, then turns her nose up and we go about our business.

Today, I put something more than D&D-ish in front of her. It was very much a D&D thing, namely the new Dungeons & Dragons comic from IDW. I picked it up at lunch, largely due to the fact that it's written by "Leverage" creator John Rogers, an admitted gamer himself, who wrote some stuff for 4e during the Hollywood writers' strike a few years ago. It is, in my opinion, just about as perfect a specimen of an RPG tie-in product that you could ask for. Such a product, in my opinion, needs to give the reader (whether a gamer or an interested bystander) a glimpse of the ideal sort of stories you can tell with the game. But the reader shouldn't hear the figurative dice clattering offstage. In this respect Rogers' gifts for pacing and dialog shine through beautifully. The comic is full of action and wit, two things that make an easy sell to new readers.

So, having enjoyed it thoroughly over lunch, I decided to put it to the real test, plopping it down in front of The Missus, who was waiting for me to cook dinner. As I busied myself heating up the creamy tomato bisque and making grilled pimiento cheese on rye sandwiches, I heard a giggle. Then more. Then full on laughter. At the end, she pronounced it "Delightful," and instructed me to make sure she gets to see the next issue.

Now, if I can just figure out a way to sell her on trying the game out again.

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Back on the Path(finder)

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 16:16:52 GMT

Last night's game took us back to Pathfinder and "The Dawn of the Temple of Elemental Evil." Previously, our heroes had liberated the Inn of the Welcome Wench from the hobgoblin boss, wiping out most of the hobgoblin contingent in the process and rescuing the family of Ostler Gundigoot. While resting after the battle, one of the Temple's lieutenants came sniffing around our hideout and we ended on a cliffhanger while the Adventure! game got underway. Last night, we picked up with rolling for initiative, since it was clear that Einar (my PC) and his buddy Farrukh, the half-orc druid, weren't going to let these guys report back on our whereabouts. The fight went pretty fast. Einar started things off by tripping the boss and Farrukh hit him with a staggering touch. The rest of our crew were alerted and began putting the hurt on the minions. When the staggered boss tried to stand, he triggered an attack of opportunity and Einar critted for 63 points of damage. After that, it was just mopping up.

After we determined the brief battle hadn't raised any alarms, we set about our next major objective: rescuing Gundigoot from the Tollhouse before his scheduled execution the next day. Interrogating a convenient toad (actually, the familiar of the late lieutenant), we got a decent idea of the lay of the land and planned to hit the place at night. We knew Temerek, the head guy at the Tollhouse was paranoid and loved traps, so a straight up frontal assault was out of the question. Scouting around, Shayd (our rogue) noticed some disturbed earth in the back of the Tollhouse compound. While Farrukh examined it, a strange creature popped its head out of the ground - an osquip! Thinking quickly, Farrukh befriended first one such critter and then the entire colony, allowing us safe passage through their tunnels, which eventually broke into a larger, man-made excavation.

From our conversation with the Toad, we knew that Temerek had a bolt-hole under the Tollhouse, and this looked to be the place. Avoiding a series of cunning traps, we discovered a pair of secret (from the other side) doors, as well as a ladder leading up to a trap door. Using goggles of x-ray vision, we determined the trap door led to Temerek's room. He was engaged in conversation with a rather large snake with an infernal look about it. Waiting for the serpent to depart, we quickly put together a plan of action. Shayd (standing on the shoulders of Alecto, our sorcerer) would throw open the trap door. Farrukh (standing on Einar's) would immediately cast Wood Warp on the only door in the room, trapping Temerek within. The plan went off with only one hitch: before we could get to grips with the villain, he produced a small white sphere and smashed it on the floor, filling the room with a dense white fog. When it cleared, he was nowhere to be found.

After a cursory search, we decided to go forward with our plan to rescue Gundigoot. Stopping at the first secret door, we checked with the goggles and saw jail cells on the other side. As we came through, an alarm was raised and it was time for initiative again. Initially, we found ourselves fighting our way out of a narrow corridor, which allowed Einar to hold the front rank and get in lots of killin'. The first opponent was an eight foot tall humanoid with the face of a mandrill. He may have been big, but he went down hard with another crit from E's greataxe. Another of his kind challenged us and fell, and then human thugs behind them. One fled (having seen his mate go down with one hit), shouting "Get the fire beast!"

As we pressed down the corridor, we found Gundigoot in one of the cells. Of course, by this point, we'd already strung ourselves out a bit and the prospect of a "fire beast" meant we were going to stick around and clean this place out rather than flee out the tunnels.

As it turned out, the fire beast was a pyrolisk, a creature that would have been much more problematic if not for Farrukh's ability to cast Produce Water at will. As it was, between Einar hitting it a few times and Farrukh hitting and biting it, the thing went down before it could do us much harm.

And that's where we left off. Next week, I run Barbarians of Lemuria, but I even I'm far more looking forward to the next session in this game.

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The Plan Is Not To Plan

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 15:11:46 GMT

The Barbarians of Lemuria session I'm running in ten days is supposed to be a playtest of one of my rounds for OwlCon. I'm going to run one of the adventures out of the back with pre-generated PCs that came with the game and see what happens. At this point, I don't expect much of that adventure, or the PCs, or possibly even the default game setting to make it to my final round.

Some of this (OK, a lot of this) is due to personal conceit. I don't like using canned adventures at conventions. It feels lazy and less creative. I like making up stuff. I like building worlds and creating characters to populate them. I don't mind starting with someone else's foundations, but I want the thing to have my own stamp on it by the time it gets to the table.

Fortunately, my Tuesday group is good for this sort of thing. They're happy to interrupt a playtest so we can talk through the things that aren't working. If they improvise something, I'll run with it and see where it goes.

Here's today's inspirational bit. I don't play MMORPGs, but I love highlight trailers. I can't comment on how good a game "Age of Conan" is, but I'll be damned if it doesn't look beautiful.

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More Inspiration

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 16:16:29 GMT

Actual content will resume. In the meantime, this is one of those images that always puts me in the mood for Swords & Sorcery.

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The Best Way To Get Me Working On A Game

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 04:56:46 GMT

Is apparently for me to open my mouth in front of people willing to play it. Tonight, we wrapped up the first arc of our Adventure! in the 1890s game, "The Coming Thing," with plans to go back to "The Dawn of the Temple of Elemental Evil" next week. However, the week after that, our Pathfinder GM has a commitment, so we've got a hole in the schedule. "I've got something I can playtest for OwlCon," says I. Which is more or less true. I'm running a Barbarians of Lemuria game in one of my rounds and I know basically what I'm going to do with it, and I figure I can get a one-shot into shape in two weeks.

The current plan is to start off with one of the adventures out of the book, with a few personal modifications. I expect it'll run a bit short and we can workshop things to flesh out the action a bit. Once I've got that, I think I'll crowdsource it a bit here and on RPGnet to see if we can squeeze the maximum amount of awesome into it.

More on this as it develops. In the meantime, some inspirational artwork:

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My Mind Works In Weird Ways

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 01:44:27 GMT

So, I went camping over the weekend. Three days of living off the grid, plenty of time to read. Most of what I read was a novel called Ex-Heroes, a so-so mashup of the superheroic (which I like very much when done well) and zombie survival (which I basically never enjoy all that much). By the end of the book, I'd decided that for NaNoWriMo this year, I'm doing a superhero novel of my own, based on some pretty decent campaign histories I wrote nearly twenty (!) years ago. Which meant digging those histories out and reading them for the first time in at least a decade (it was the first real Champions campaign I ran after moving to Houston, so we're talking '94 or 95', and I'm not sure how long the hard copies have been sitting in file folders, but ten years or so seems reasonable).

Turns out, there's some good stuff in there. Not all of it, and lord knows I'll have to change and flesh out a ton of stuff to actually make a work of coherent fiction out of it, but some good ideas.

At any rate, that got me looking at Champions stuff, and realizing that I've really never sat down and figured out HERO System 6th Edition, like I always said I was going to do, and the next thing I knew, I'd fired up Hero Designer, sat down with an NPC out of one of the world books, and started entering stats.

Turns out the things I had some trouble wrapping my brain around are pretty simple once you go through the entire process. Now, I'm curious how it'll play. I imagine not that differently from 4th or 5th edition, really, but it does make me want to pull out the "Bucket O'd6s" and give it a shot.

Of course, I'm still swamped at work and will be for another three or four weeks and NaNoWriMo starts November 1, and then there's the holidays, so I probably wouldn't actually get to do anything with it until January and by then I'll be finalizing my Owlcon preparations, so the fact is, this is probably a dead end or at least a false diversion.

C'est la vie.

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KIII-YAH!!!

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:18:04 GMT

For some reason, I've suddenly decided that I must run a Feng Shui campaign. Not a one-shot, not a short arc, and not a reskinned version, but straight up, out of the box (more or less), crazy Secret War, explosions, cackling eunuchs, kung fu guys, and cyborg gorillas Feng Shui campaign. Where the heroes actually need to worry about capturing and keeping feng shui sites, and allying or crossing factions.

I can totally make this happen. I just need players.

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New Campaign, New Characters.

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 13:11:21 GMT

I haven't updated this as much as I'd like. Work and real life have been conspiring to eat my time and drain my creative juices. I'd love to say it will pass soon, but I'm expecting another month of it at least.

Our Tuesday group likes to have two games in rotation in order to prevent GM burnout. For the past few months, that's been sort of spotty. We ended our massive 3.5 Forgotten Realms campaign and started a new Pathfinder game ("Dawn of the Temple of Elemental Evil"), but we really hadn't gotten a second campaign going.

Last night, we kicked off "The Coming Thing," a pulp western campaign set in the 1890s using White Wolf's Adventure rules. My character is Dr. Lysander Algernon McCoy, a skeevy psychic who is one lab accident away from full-blown supervillainy. The rest of the group includes a Watcher (from the Buffyverse) with very powerful healing abilities, Stephen Austin - "The Six Thousand Guinea Man," and Raban and El Feo - a pair of very different gunslingers.

For all my gaming, I've actually had very few opportunities to play any version of the Storyteller System, so I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.

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My Groups May Be Occasionally Disfunctional, But At Least We're Not These Guys

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 15:38:52 GMT

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Is It OwlCon Time Already?

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 21:06:52 GMT

Well no, not really. The con is still about four months away (end of January), but the call has gone out for GMs to submit their games. This is always an interesting challenge for my Gamer ADD self. I have to figure out what it is I'm going to run many months ahead of the con, and prepare it, thus committing a piece of my attention span to a very distant target. Compounding the challenge this year is my decision to not run a fourth "Heroes of the New Wave" game, which leaves me with two slots to fill.

Generally, I like for one of my games to be somewhat out of the ordinary. Either an obscure game or one that's underrepresented at the con. Last year, that was Lucha Libre Hero. In past years, I ran Marvel Super-Heroes and Mazes & Minotaurs. This year, I've decided to run Barbarians of Lemuria. I've got an old RuneQuest adventure I last ran about twenty years ago that can easily be adapted for more traditional Swords & Sorcery, and I've really wanted to give BoL a try for a while, so here's my chance.

(Also, since I typically playtest my con rounds with the Tuesday Night Crew, it might give me a chance to sell them on it as well. Bonus!)

For my second game, I'm heading straight for my comfort zone. 2010 has been a great year for superhero games, and I intend to take advantage of this by running DC Adventures. I considered Icons, and could certainly run my published adventure, but I'm really digging DCA. The adventure is going to be set in the animated universe, some point after the end of "Justice League Unlimited." So far, all I have is a title and a short blurb, but I'm fairly sure it'll write itself.

So, now I've got the basic ideas. All that's left is to flesh them out. And write up characters. I wonder when the DCA character books are due out?

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Picking Up A New Skill

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 22:32:22 GMT

I'm not a big one for using minis and scenery in my own games. For years, a Battle Mat and a box of Cardboard Heroes was more than enough for my needs. For my last Champions campaign, I did go the extra mile, making customized counters, but otherwise, I still took a low-tech approach.

But one of the D&D 4e games I'm in makes heavy use of not only minis but Master Maze dungeon terrain. Our game environment is as close to WISIWYG as the DM can make it and it's pretty damned impressive.

With the prospect of running a DC Adventures game though, I realized I could indulge the visual element a good deal more fully. After all, I've got several hundred appropriate HeroClix I accumulated over years of playing the game, and any game I run set in the DC Universe is certainly going to incorporate as many existing characters as possible. So, if I'm already committed to using minis for the game, why not take the next step and go whole-hog on scenery as well?

Which brought me to Fat Dragon Games' "Capital City" set. For those not in the know, Fat Dragon produces papercraft scenery scaled for gaming. Most of their stuff is aimed at Dungeon Adventures, but "Capital City" provides modern/urban structures suitable for superheroic adventures. Each of their products consists of a set of PDFs that can be printed out an assembled. Better still, most of the structures can be customized by turning various layers in the PDF on or off. For instance, the rooftops can display 1" squares (D&D scale), 1.5" squares (HeroClix scale) or 1" hexes (Champions/HERO System scale). Windows can be turned on or off, doors can be altered, etc, even bird dropping stains can be added for optional realism.

The set also comes with objects such as a dumpster, streetlights, roof access doors, a water tower, and even undamaged and damaged versions of a taxi.

Of course, the big question for me was how much effort it would be to put together and how would it look? I'm not a particularly "crafty" person. I've never painted minis or built models, but scissors, X-acto knives, and glue seemed within my skill set. So, I sat down with some card stock and my color printer, and went to work, and here's the first result:

The instructions are straightforward and clear. Fat Dragon provides a beginner's guide to paper modeling along with the specific directions for the set, which was extremely valuable. The hardest part by far was the cutting, requiring an X-acto knife and one of those cool "healing" cutting mats. The folding and gluing went pretty easy. It's a first effort, and there's a lot I could do to make it look better up close, but it's still pretty impressive.

The only downside for this particular structure is storage. Because I didn't want to get too advanced on a first project, I didn't use their optional instructions for building a collapsible building. The next one will be.

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Waxing Nostalgic

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 23:26:32 GMT

With my decision to run BECMI D&D, I've been soaking in the primary source documents at much as possible. Thanks to my recently acquired iPad and GoodReader, I can put the entirety of my Dragon Magazine Archive on it and read them in bed (granted, I could do this with a netbook, but this is much easier reading). It's interesting to see not only the transition from primitive house organ to slick magazine in the course of a few years, but also noting a number of names as they crop up. Seeing what was likely Ed Greenwood's and Roger Moore's earliest work, or an article by Michael "Old Geezer" Mornard provides a little thrill. Discovering that Todd Lockwood illustrated a monster entry of his own creation way back in 1980 makes his newer work seem more of a labor of love somehow.

And the endless letter column debates. They were like internet flamewars played out over the course of months. And over things just as pointless as the ones you find on message boards today.

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Irony. And possibly Mountain Dew.

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 00:40:25 GMT

Despite buying tons of new gaming stuff at Gen Con, it appears the next thing I'll likely be running on a regular basis is old-school Red Box D&D (or one of its retroclonal cousins). My friend and Gen Con roommate J is on an old-school kick, and his wife (also a Gen Con roommate) recently discovered the joys of killing things and taking their stuff via Dragon Age, and wants to do some tabletop gaming. So, it seems something appropriately old-school is the best choice to properly bring her into the fold. And while I keep flirting with the idea of Castles & Crusades, I keep coming back to the old BECMI rules. I've even thought about merging them into some sort of unholy union, but that's probably more work than necessary to get things off the ground and running.

In fact, I think what I really need to do with this is as little thinking about the game system as possible. Because every time I do, I start considering house rules and ways that later editions of the game improved upon this or that, and the next thing I know, I'm discarding things and throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

(The one real bummer in all of this is that my wife who, despite being a gamer of unquestioned credentials, hates D&D and fantasy gaming in general is rather disappointed because she really wants me to run DC Adventures. I've promised on a bag of dice that when the hero and villain supplements come out, I will run a proper DCA campaign, come Hell or high water.)

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A Bit Late To The Party, But Wow!

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 18:53:23 GMT

Somehow, in the all the hullabaloo of D&D 3.x along with the explosion of OGL products, I managed to completely miss Microlite 20. Probably because it was developed largely on the web in plain sight. Because that's usually how I manage to miss very clever stuff.

Put simply, Microlite 20 is D&D 3.x stripped down to the barest essentials. Three stats, a few skills, some simple rules for spellcasting and combat and your out the door. It's quite possible to put all the pertinent rules on a single page. But because it's derived from d20, stripping down published material to fit that paradigm is a snap, so there's tons of monsters and adventures just waiting to be plundered. But it gives a very definite old-school vibe, as minis and detailed tactical maps really don't have a place.

Best of all, it's so bare bones that it's easy to customize without breaking the system. And lordamercy, have people ever customized it. There's tons of fan-produced material out on the web covering everything imaginable. So much stuff that I'd despair of ever finding it, given my ability to overlook the obvious.

Fortunately, my old gaming chum Randall (we played together back in the 80s) runs Retro Roleplaying: The Blog. A big proponent of Microlite 20, he saved everyone the trouble of hunting down these supplements and put them all in one convenient, if huge, place.

The Microlite RPG Collection is over 600 pages of free material, from the core rules, through options and expansions, to complete Microlite games and settings, ranging from sword and sorcery to post-apocalypse, from cowboys to spies, and possibly the best ever Star Trek adaptation I've ever seen (and I own them all, including the one Heritage Models put out in the 70s). Seriously, the notion of the color of your shirt indicating your character class is absolutely brilliant. Sure, there's some stuff that I'll never use and probably never look at, but there are some rare gems worth exploring, and if nothing else, it offers something less cumbersome than d20 and showcases some truly outstanding creativity from our fellow gamers.

You should really check it out.

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Take That, Evil!

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 21:42:01 GMT

Rather than sit around all day doing nothing, I convinced my wife and son to join me in taking DC Adventures out for a a little spin. Taking inspiration from the Gen Con demo, I set up a simple map (a crazy factory deathtrap), printed out character sheets and counters for Nightwing and Black Canary, and set them against The Joker, Harley-Quinn, and a handful of henchmen.

(Yes, of course I printed out some of my custom-made counters. It wouldn't be a proper Theron game without props.)

(I also might have made custom GM screen. Because I like doing things like that.)

Anyway, I started the heroes off, straitjacketed, on a conveyor belt moving them towards various implements of Certain Doom. The Joker cackled madly and Harley controlled the machinery. Black Canary blasted an industrial drill press with her Canary Cry while Nightwing slipped his bonds using acrobatics. Black Canary slipped free and went after the mooks while Nightwing initially tried to shut down the machines, then decided swinging up to The Joker's vantage point (a control platform above the factory floor) and taking the fight to the villain.

Harley tried flinging a bomb at Canary, who barely dodged the blast and retaliated with the Canary Cry, bringing the control room down around the Joker's girlfriend. While she finished Harley off, Nightwing staggered the Joker, who stumbled back and over the railing -- on to the conveyor belt, which led to the loading dock and freedom!

WIthout hesitation, Nightwing leaped after him, blocking his path. The Joker tried to tag the former Robin with his Joy Buzzer, but failed, allowing Black Canary a final well-struck sonic attack to bring him down once and for all.

The entire fight took about forty five minutes, including explanation of the basics and stopping to look up a few things. The boy had a good time, and more importantly, my wife was impressed with the way things played out. Since her previous interactions with M&M were a lot less positive, I'm really pleased that she's on board with the newest version of the rules.

I think next week, I'll let Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel try and take on Solomon Grundy. Or maybe Black Adam.

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Conspicuous Consumption

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:45:21 GMT

Two months ago, I hadn't planned on doing much shopping at Gen Con this time around. I hadn't been able to save up for it like I did last year, but I'd come to term with that. Also, a number of things I might have been waiting to purchase there (like The Dresden Files) were available earlier this year via pre-order, so I already either had them or had them on order. Then, at the end of June, my boss took me aside and informed me I was getting an enormous bonus for work I did back at the first of the year. It amounted to an entire paycheck's worth of wages. At this point, shopping was most definitely ON.

Even so, I used SOME discretion. But it meant I could pick up a few things that won't be in stores for a month or so and put the money directly in the pockets of those who produce the products. Since a lot of those folks are friends of mine, I consider this a good policy. If it means I buy some things from HERO Games because I like the HERO guys, even if I'm pretty well burned out on their game system, so be it. It also gave me the freedom to grab things I hadn't heard about before the con that caught my eye.

Here's the entire list of my purchases, with a few notes:

DC Adventures: I've already pre-ordered it and have the PDF, but this way I got a signed copy. It's lovely. I love it. The hero and villain books will contain over 600 characters. Awesome!

Champions Universe and Champions Powers: Neither of these is immediately applicable to my gaming. But the UNTIL Superpowers Database was one of the best supplements for 5th Edition and CP is the new version of that for 6th. I bought CU because I like Steve and Darren and I enjoy reading campaign backgrounds.

Basic Action Superheroes! Ultimate Edition: I already own this in PDF, but I wanted a print copy. BASH! is looking to become one of my go-to superhero systems, so having an extra copy to loan out is a Good Thing.

Legends of Anglerre: I'm still more sold on the FATE system in theory than in practice. But there's something to be said for a big and meaty (400 page) done-in-one fantasy game book, especially one flavored with that particularly mad and wonkers style of fantasy particular to the British in the late 70s and early 80s. Also, I love Cubicle 7 (the publishers) to death. Maybe it's their posh English accents. Or maybe it's because they've gone from nowhere to become "The Good Mongoose." Or maybe it's because they publish ICONS, which gives me a tenuous connection to them. Whatever it is, I like them and it's a cool book.

A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying Pocket Edition and A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide: I love George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. I already had the SIFRP book, but the Pocket Edition is more portable and has all the errata incorporated. Just in case, you know, I actually ever somehow manage to convince someone to play it with me. Hope springs eternal, even if winter is coming.

Dark Sun Campaign Setting, Dark Sun Creature Catalog, and Tomb of Horrors: My requisite WoTC purchases. Because I'm enough of a D&Der that I feel honor-bound to buy something from them every year. I did notice a couple of sort of disturbing things though: First, Wizards was only selling these three books (and t-shirts) at Gen Con; if you wanted something else, they had a list of retailers in the Exhibitors' Hall who were selling them. Also, the Dark Sun stuff was limited to 100 copies of each per day. I had no trouble getting mine and only had to wait about five minutes to do so. Given some other rumors that were floating around about relative sales of Pathfinder vs 4e products, and I wonder if the great 4th Edition experiment is ever going to pay off.

I also bought two of the t-shirts, one for me and one for my son. Because we're dorky like that.

The Smallville RPG: The buzz on this one really took off in the weeks before Gen Con. It's a very different sort of RPG, one aimed at handling stories where interpersonal relationships are the most important factors. So, instead of being rated for Strength or Brains or whatever, characters have stats like Truth, Justice, Love, etc. It's a fascinating idea, one that I think would work extremely well for a play by post game. I also got a copy of the Leverage Quick Start for picking it up. It uses the same system, but with more conventional stats and a clever plot editing mechanism to reflect the "Caper" style of the series. Between the two, they show some remarkable innovation coming from a publisher I'd previously dismissed as just grinding out potentially lucrative licensed games.

Progenitor: This is another one of Greg Stolze's amazing settings for Wild Talents, a game that seems built specifically to handle the maddest of the mad, beautiful ideas of superhero gaming. It's massive (400 pages) and just the little bits I've read are incredible. It's one of those things I don't necessarily want to play, but I want to devour so I can absorb its knowledge and become a better gamer/writer for it.

All for One, Regime Diabolique: Another reason I love Cubicle 7 so damned much. The elevator pitch version of this is "Musketeers vs the Devil." Either that sells you or it doesn't, but it sold me in a big way. So much so that I simply picked it up without even opening the cover. It was only after I started looking through it at the hotel that I realized it uses the Ubiquity System (the same as Hollow Earth Expedition), so I already basically know how to play it. I knew nothing of the game before the show, so it counts as my big surprise of the convention. If I don't end up running it at Owlcon next year, I'll be surprised.

PS-238 #42: My comic store never orders enough copies of this comic and I was missing the issue. Aaron Williams autographed it for me.

Knights of the Dinner Table: If my comic store never orders enough PS-238, I'm convinced they order no copies at all of KoDT. I caught up on six months worth of missing issues, the new "Bag Wars" collection, and went ahead and subscribed for the next six months.

Wil Wheaton, Games Matter - A Sampler of Writing About Games, For Gen Con Indy 2010: Just what it says on the label, a chapbook of game anecdotes and stories from the Ur-Geek's blog. Good stuff, and it was a pleasure meeting him.

So, that's it. I seriously considered picking up Fantasy Flight's Battles of Westeros set for Battlelore (along with the House Lannister expansion), but that would have made packing to go home virtually impossible. Also, no one will play it with me and it would just become another expensive unplayed board game on my shelf.

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A Real Gen Con After Report

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:08:18 GMT

Man, what a weekend!

The flights up were pretty awful. Just as we pulled away from the gate in Houston, the pilot came on and announced they'd been issued a "ground hold" from Chicago. They DID take the plane back to the gate, so it wasn't one of those nightmare scenarios, but we were on the ground for an extra hour before we ever got going.

Since we had almost two hours of layover ahead of us in Chicago, this wasn't too awful a prospect, just boring. However, when we landed at Midway, we had to wait another half hour on the taxiway waiting for our gate to clear. This left us with a very short window to traverse the airport and grab some food. It was rather nerve-wracking.

So, of course, our flight from Midway to Indy turned out to be delayed for about forty five minutes.

Fortunately, our roommates had gotten in earlier and had already gotten the hotel sorted, so we just had to turn up and get our stuff. Last year, the guys I was with were staying way on the outskirts of Indy and we had to rent a car. This year, we were across the street at the Marriott and could get to the Convention Center without even going outside. Which was a good thing on Wednesday, as Indiana was in the grips of a major heatwave. The temps were in the high nineties and with the massive humidity, the heat index was around 106, only three less than Houstopolis. It was like we'd never left home.

We picked up our swag bags and gawked at the MASSIVE Will-Call line. Last year, on Wednesday, the Will-Call was about a five minute wait. This year, it was nearly an hour. I don't know if it was due to more folks pre-registering, or more folks choosing Will-Call instead of having their badges shipped to them, or more folks showing up on Wednesday, but whatever it was, it made me glad to have paid a few bucks extra to get our badges FedEx'ed to us early.

After a couple of our other Houston friends got their badges, we met a friend of ours from RPGnet (where he goes by Metallian) for dinner at Scotty's Brew Pub. Like a lot of local businesses, Scotty's goes in for Gen Con in a major way. There were gaming posters all over the place, "Galaxy Quest" was playing on the TVs, and they had a special Gen Con menu inspired by Castles & Crusades. The food was good as was the beer (or so I'm told: I didn't drink on Wednesday, so as to try to avoid potential migraine triggers). I ran into a couple more friends, and one of the Houston bunch became the first person to defeat Scotty's 24 oz burger challenge. H-Town represent!

Thursday morning, I was like a kid at Xmas. I woke up at 5 AM (which, according to my body clock was 4 AM) and didn't get back to sleep. The next five hours were an agony of anticipation, waiting for the Exhibitors' Hall to open. My roomie J had a six-hour 2nd Edition Gamma World game first thing, Jane (my wife) took his wife (Miss A) with us for her first exposure to Geek Prom. The ladies very kindly humored me as I checked a few things off my "must buy" list. First and foremost was DC Adventures, from Green Ronin. Yes, I've already got a copy on pre-order AND I bought the cheap PDF and bound it out. But to have a copy in hand at the convention? I imagine that's how Gary wanted us to experience Gen Con. Or something. Mostly, I knew if I got one in Indy, I could get Steve Kenson to sign it for me, so I happily grabbed one.

I spent the next couple of hours shopping, exploring, and taking it all in. The ladies went off to a Middle Eastern Dance class (One of the really cool things about Gen Con is that they know they draw families and they know that not everyone attending is a gamer, so they put together an entire non-gaming tracks with dance classes and craft seminars and the like). For Jane, who's a very good dancer who studies with some very well-regarded teachers, it was a nice chance to work on her fundamentals and meet some new dancers. For Miss A, it was her first crack at something she's wanted to try for a while. After, we grabbed some lunch, did some more shopping, and then returned to our room to chill out for a while.

This set the pattern for the next few days, where we'd hit the dealers' area in the morning, and relax in the afternoon until dinner time. Compared to last year's schedule, where I was pretty much in the Convention Center (or immediate vicinity) from 9 AM to 1 AM, this was a welcome change. Jane had another class in the evening and dinner was PF Chang's for just the two of us.

Friday was more of the same, with a bit less buying things a lot more running into folks I know "From the Internetz." We stood in line so I could meet Wil Wheaton, who was entirely cool. I told him that a blog post he made some years ago about running "Orc and Pie" for his son got me off my butt about gaming with my son, which he thought was awesome. This segued into talking about our "Dads and Kids" 4e game, which was further endorsed. In fact, I found myself talking about that game quite a bit over the weekend, and a number of people were really excited by it.

Dinner on Friday was Indian with Gareth Skarka's clan, along with Jason L Blair and TS Luikart, another couple of Imaginary Internetz Friends. Here, I discovered two things: 1) Indianapolis-level spicy is not Texas-level spicy, even with Indian food; 2) If you're looking for a quiet dinner at Gen Con and don't want to wait for a table, Indian is very definitely the way to go. Even if it wasn't as hot as I'd wanted, the food was still quite good and the company even more so.

(Amusing dinner conversation moment: Gareth was telling about how his teenaged daughter M had played D&D for the first time ever. She'd already been a bit taken aback already to learn that her "hermit" work-at-home dad is actually a Pretty Big Deal in the gaming industry. During the game, she texted him, asking if he knew the DM. Before he could reply, she wrote back, "You do! He looked at my name badge and said 'OMG! GMS!' And everyone at the table knows who you are!" Of course, that would have been funny in and of itself, but at that precise moment, a friend of mine replied to an LJ post where I mentioned going out to dinner with Gareth, saying "Heh! We gamed with Gareth's very nice daughter this afternoon." Small world.)

Saturday, I made a point to track down Dan Houser, the artist who illustrated "Sins of the Past." He wasn't in the main dealers' area, so that involved a trek over to the Anime Hotel. I had a nice visit, met his new artistic partner, and discussed upcoming projects. Then it was time for me to actually get in some gaming! I know, who goes to Gen Con to game?

First up was a one-hour DC Adventures demo. Granted, I'd already bought the game and was a fan of the system, but honestly, how often does one get to play a superhero game with Steve Kenson GMing? I played Batman, and while I suffered from some very mediocre rolls early on, I managed an amazing Intimidation check and pulled off a spectacular rescue of Nightwing at the end.

Following that was a Day After Ragnarok (Savage Worlds) game run by Jeb, a friend of mine from Austin. Yes, it's ironic that we have to travel a thousand miles or so in order to play in the same game. Jeb had recruited various folks he knows online, and it was a bit of an all-star lineup, consisting of RPG reviewer C. W. Richeson, and game designers Rob Heinsoo, Logan Bonner, and Jesse Scoble. For about ten seconds, I had a "What am I doing with these guys?" moment before my rational mind kicked in and reminded me that we're all gamers, and I probably had a decade at the table on couple of them. It was a fun session: we were members of the Texas army charged with determining the status of some large naval guns that had been on Galveston island before the Serpentwave devastated the area. We did a fair bit of recon and quite a bit of shooting. I think the ending pretty well defined the term "Pyrrhic Victory" (the bad guys committed a mass murder/suicide when it was clear we were winning), but it's a dark setting, so that was OK.

After the game, I met up with Jane and we stopped by the RPGnet meet and greet. It was cool putting faces to user names, and chatting briefly with one of the group who'd come all the way from Greece. After the meet-up, we had a quick dinner with Jeb and mutual friend Jason Durall, followed by a return to the hotel, where we watched "Shark Week" in hi-def and finished off some beer we'd bought earlier in the weekend.

We had an early flight on Sunday, so that was it for us. Another three hours in the air (with a couple at airports) and we were back in Houston. But we're already making plans for next year.

Next: The Stuff I Bought

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Gen Con!

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 20:59:51 GMT

So far, it's been pretty awesome. I've picked up quite a few things I'd planned and few more I haven't (All for One - Regime Diabolique, for instance). Reviewing everything is going to take a while, but I think I'll be up to the task. I've also had the chance to visit with lots of folks I only get to see once or twice a year, and that's always great.

I also got to meet this guy:

On his blog, he asked folks to bring him dice, so I brought him one of this blog's namesakes, the really old dice. You can barely see it in the mug in front of us - it's a pink TSR d20 that lived in my blue jeans pocket during high school.

Tomorrow, I actually do some actual gaming, with a DC Adventures demo in the morning and Savage Worlds Day After Ragnarok in the afternoon.

(Also, as of this writing, Sins of the Past is #1 on RPGnow's "Hottest Items" list. I'm not sure what they base it on, but if it's sales, that's really cool.)

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Two In A Row!

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 01:03:53 GMT

I'm finishing up my packing for Gen Con, but had to take a moment to post this bit of news:

Sins of the Past, my adventure for ICONS is now for sale at RPGnow.

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