RIP: James Shigeta

James Shigeta passed away; rest in peace sir.

I knew of him largely from his appearance in Babylon 5's s02 episode "A Spider in the Web". Though I did recognize him in a couple of Outer Limits episodes during a TV marathon years back. I didn't even recognize him in the original Die Hard movie!

I'm placing him in the IDIC Files tag because I did get a thrill from seeing him in major, non-villainous, non-token roles in these TV shows. Despite the last name (and his general appearance) being clearly Japanese, in the back of my mind I often wondered if he was partially Filipino. I can't explain it; his mannerisms and speech patterns triggered 'old Filipino gentleman grandfather' in my mind.

And I secretly patterned some of my old NPCs in my Fading Suns campaigns after him, as a result.

D&D 5e: Character Sheet Try-Out

Trying out some of the character sheets for D&D 5th Edition EnWorld stuff. I really like the compressed nature of the stats on this one done by Verys Arkon, as well as the layout of the skills grouped into each Stat.

Wish there was a similarly clean way to handle character abilities, but that's another animal.

The variances of the font sizes can't be avoided, I suppose, given the length of the skill names.

The Combat column is nice, though I feel a bit strange about that proficiencies portion. Could the Proficiencies be combined with the Exploration portion? Or perhaps with the skills associated?

Perhaps after a bit more adventuring, there'll be a few more options for useful blocks on the character sheet front portion.

Rinaldo Cardano is my character for the Echoes 2 campaign, being run by a friend of mine. It's in a homebrew setting which doesn't have native divine or arcane magic, so I guess we'll see how my cleric will deal with things. He assures us that I have herbal-based healing abilities; we'll need them based on the feedback from other bloggers on the nature of combat in this edition.

Echoes Book 2: The Echo of Treviso

A Watery Reality

This reality is composed of really quite a lot of water, islands, and approximately five hundred archipelagos, each comprising anywhere from two to thirty, but most typically an average of three to four large islands, with numerous islets.

These archipelagos do not necessarily form countries, but more often than not are clustered into loose collections of city-states, including that of Piacenza.

The City State of Piacenza

Map of the City-State of Piacenza
(by Andrew Drilon)

Piacenza, due to its geographical location, is a crucial waypoint in sea or air travel to many places of the world, and has thus become a flourishing trade city, its population frequently hosting as well as interbred with foreigners of various stripes.

It is composed of fourteen major islands, each privately owned by one of Piacenza’s fifteen noble families. Each family and therefore island is responsible for a certain Mandate of governance, with the fifteenth (or first) family – that of the Doge – enjoying (or not) oversight and a modicum of rulership over the whole.

The assignment of Mandates (and thus home islands) among families is a shifting affair, such that a family may ‘go into ascent’, taking the office of the Doge, thereby forfeiting their previous island and its rights, resources, and income to another family.

The majority of noble families normally do not wish to ascend, as the Doge and his or her kin live on an artificial island that generates no income aside from a percentage of tithes and taxes from the other fourteen, although this can be fairly substantial.

The Doge, however, has the privilege of assigning Mandates and their associated islands among the fourteen, which may be levied as either favor or burden, as the assigned family thus receives not only the potential income and influence, but also the entire responsibility – financial and otherwise – of operating their designated Mandate.

Mandates & Districts

Each Mandate is linked to a specific island and its neighboring islets, collectively referred to as a District. Each District houses a variety of residential, commercial, and government establishments, along with a number of Guild headquarters.

The Guilds, essentially, are trade associations that operate across the archipelago, some functioning directly under particular Mandates, while others are staunchly independent.

Politically, then, authority in Piacenza is held and granted by, first, the Doge, then the ruling Houses of each District, then the Guilds for professional matters and the Councils for domestic concerns, and lastly, very unofficially, the Fellowships.

Councils are subgroupings of five to ten households, which may or may not be related. The Councils handle non-business-related concerns before elevation to the District level, often with support from the Judiciary or, preferably, Diplomatic Mandates.

Fellowships are informal gatherings of friends or allies toward a common cause or agenda. These are formally banned, but nevertheless thrive in secret.

Fourteen Mandates/Districts, along with some of their linked Guilds

1. Water
1. Sanitation
2. Distribution
2. Resources – No more than three tree preserves exist in all Piacenza.
1. Forestry
2. Animal Husbandry
3. Transportation – Two airships are maintained under this mandate.
1. Freight
2. Drivers
3. Transport Maintenance
4. Infrastructure
1. Architects
2. Maintenance
5. Public safety
1. Police
2. Fire
6. Military
1. Veterans
2. Mariners
7. Trade
1. Merchants
2. Fishermen
8. Judiciary
1. Barristers
2. Judges
9. Diplomacy
1. Spies
2. Linguists
10. Finance
1. Accountants
2. Coral
11. Sciences
1. Steam
2. Clockwork
12. Communication
1. Genealogy
2. History
13. Far Water
1. Cartographers
2. Explorers
14. Culture – The head of the Culture District is married to a Civita Vecchia native.
1. Courtesans
2. Actors

The five most important Guilds include the Jewelers’ and the most powerful, the Guild of Smoke (The Thieves’ Guild).

Given its resource limitations, Piacenza tends to be highly-regulated in virtually in every aspect of life, not least of which is marriage. Since the islands are relatively small, intermarriage is far from unusual, and often even encouraged, as Piacenzans are not generally very fertile. On the other hand, every Piacenzan is, from birth, considered to be an asset belonging to his or her District, so unions between Districts, while ideally welcomed, are, in practice, subject to long and complex bureaucratic processing. (The couple eventually chooses – or is ‘guided’ to choose – one of the relevant Districts to live in and be affiliated with; any children of the union will be citizens of that district.)

Both despite and because of such regulation, Piacenzans by nature tend to be very savvy people – especially about the rules that relate to them personally – and exceedingly devoted to their families first and friends second. They love to celebrate and are extremely fashion-conscious – it’s a rare Piacenzan indeed who does not sport some form of jewelry on a daily basis, and is not able to make a rapid assessment of another’s general social status based on attire. They are quick to take offense, and quick to forgive – situationally, and at times, only quick to appear to forgive.

There are no private armies, no magic, and no particularly-revered gods in Piacenza. Perhaps as a result of this lack of religion, courtesans are publicly recognized and well respected. A notable aspect of the regard in which they are held is that, while married Piacenzans are expected to refrain from affairs once their unions have resulted in children, dallying with a courtesan or three is not viewed as a violation of this – it is merely a transaction with a businesswoman or businessman, as the case may be. Most courtesan houses and private courtesans reside in the Culture District, although there is one powerful establishment situated elsewhere – a subject of some tension.

Other recent unrest in Piacenza is attributed to a suspected underground group partially composed of inhabitants from, or influenced or financed by Civita Vecchia, one of Piacenza’s three main external trade partners. These are:

1. Savona – which enjoys a long-standing, harmonious relationship with Piacenza, where they have a permanent embassy (real-world equivalent = Caucasian)
2. Portici – formerly known as Porti, with which Piacenza once had a troubled relationship, but is now under new governance (Middle Eastern & African)
3. Civita Vecchia – at war with Piacenza as recently as two generations ago, in the course of which two of the three fallen (and since replaced) noble families collapsed; one of these held the Mandate of War. Currently, only the Cultural and Diplomatic Districts interact with Civita Vecchia. (Middle Oriental)

Using D&D 5th Edition: Blowing on the Embers

The emergence of D&D's Basic Rules (5th Edition, yo) has made its way into our normal rules lite gaming habit.

Season 01 of the Echoes campaign concluded last month, and the second season is undergoing some world- and character-building exercises.

Part of that is actually reading the rules for D&D and seeing what we can use for the (for now) magic-free world of Treviso.

Being called on to create much of this world is forcing me (for reasons that will become clear in subsequent posts) to not only become familiar with the ruleset and subsequent extensions (and cribbing from the OSR library, whee!), but to also unearth some great source material from Blue Planet and other RPGs with similar settings.

Echoes Season 2: District Crests of the City-State of Piacenza

All art by Andrew Drilon

Mining Firebirds: Grimjack 01 - The Setup

The inaugural issue of Grimjack was not the first Grimjack story. He'd already appeared as a backup feature in Starslayer, and quickly proved that he could stand on his own. But I start here for several reasons: because it's issue number 01, and that carries some weight with me; because it's a solid story, and made an impression on me in terms of the writing by Ostrander and the visual storytelling by Tim Truman; and because it's one of my fave Grimjack stories.

Now, let's get on with mining some plot, character, and setting elements from this issue for use in Fading Suns! I hope it goes without saying: SPOILERS galore for those who've not read this 30 year old story.

Here's part 01 of Grimjack #1: A Shade of Truth -- the adventure setup.

We start with a suicide. A young girl plummets to her death in a place that is clearly not Earth (note the satellites or planets above the building). That's because Grimjack's default setting is on Cynosure -- a place where dimensions meet, and where ultimately, every dimension or bit of the multiverse will intersect eventually.

Firebird 01: This kind of matches the Fading Suns setting, with its mix of low tech and high tech, psychic abilities and theurgical rites, and other hidden secrets of magic and science.

A bit mysterious at the beginning, but deaths and suicides are possible in the Fading Suns universe. In the Known Worlds, there are limits to healing, limits to technological regeneration -- and if the suicide was very thorough despite access to miraculous healing tech, that says something too about the desperation or the purpose of the death.

Of course, in the tradition of many great RPG adventures, someone wants to find out why the victim took her own life and drags the PCs into it.

In the case of the late Marcie, her mother (Mrs. Sondra Grant) wants to find out the truth about her daughter's suicide. She wants it bad enough to go into one of the roughest parts of Cynosure -- the Pit -- and seek out one of the oldest and toughest guys with a rep for solving difficult problems: John Gaunt a.k.a Grimjack.

I like the line "She looked like an angel slumming." It really drives home the disparity between the quality of her clothing, the care of her skin and hair, and the breeding that must show in her body language, in her poise, and in her speech.

Of course, that's to be expected. The ex-wife of Cynosure's Finance Minister would certainly be of excellent stock and upbringing.

Firebird 02: Of prime importance is this type of character -- one that the PCs are unlikely to ignore out of principle, or curiosity, or profit, or personal interest. She becomes the embodiment of the problem they're trying to solve, the one who helps facilitate things that may be out of reach, and the one who pushes them when they're stuck.

Also, she has ties to very powerful people that are somewhat blunted by the implied severance (or perhaps weakening) of those ties. And she's motivated by very strong emotions to keep close to the PCs to find out the truth.

Of particular interest is this bit: the ghost of Marcie. Her mother, Sondra, went to her former room to look for clues to her suicide.

There, she finds an apparition of her deceased daughter scribbling furiously before taking a step out into the open air. It keeps repeating until dawn.

Now while this may seem tragic and *ahem* haunting, Sondra is also a sharp and practical woman. She searches for the note, paper, or diary that her daughter must have been writing on, but she cannot find it.

Someone must have taken it: why?

Firebird #03: this is the McGuffin that the PCs will be after. Sure, in the process of investigation they'll probably get a lot of additional information from witnesses and antagonists. But the diary will be the words of Marcie -- a deathbed confession of sorts -- to give her own version of events that led up to her extreme actions.

Firebird #4: In the Fading Suns universe, given the religious themes and elements, engaging in activities that will lay a soul to rest would be of critical importance to many. However, this may be balanced against the secrets that some one like to keep. And perhaps some would argue that some souls do not deserve peace -- but that won't sit well with her mother, and probably not with the PCs as well.

NEXT: Grimjack 01 -- The Investigation. Wherein we see how the progress in this case introduces us to different corners and players in the setting of Cynosure, and how such a framework might be used for Fading Suns adventures as well.

IDIC Files: Introduction (or Is Romeo Tanghal Filipino?)

I'm going to start posting about little mentions of the Philippines and Filipinos (and Filipinas) in gaming and geek culture. But for some reason, I feel the need to explain why.

And that's why I'm going to talk a bit about The New Teen Titans and Romeo Tanghal.

In the days before the world wide web, you couldn't just Google things that you were curious about. And in the infancy of my fandom, there were many things I wanted to find out -- and tried to, the old-fashioned way:

library searches
fandom magazines
letter columns of comic books
and so on..

One of the things I wanted to know -- something that many of my comic-book reading grade school classmates wanted to know -- was this: is Romeo Tanghal, inker on The New Teen Titans and other comics from DC, Filipino?

In the days of Google, a quick visit to a suggested link reveals that, yes, Romeo Tanghal was and is Filipino.

But back then, going only on his name, we guessed he was. (We originally though Perez might be too, but we also knew that Perez was a name that was more Spanish-derived in origin, and we quickly found out via the letters pages and fan publications that he was Puerto Rican.)

Why was this of interest to us?

The thrill of identification

I suppose it's very similar to the feeling of knowing that someone from your family, from your neighborhood, from your hometown, from whatever you consider your "tribe" or "group" is doing well or doing something cool.

Perhaps because we all liked comics, and a fair number of us had given some thought about getting into the industry, it was like hoping that someone from the Philippines had already made it into the industry. (Of course, we didn't know about the Filipinos that HAD already made it into the industry, because they hadn't really been the focus of the sources of info available to us; but that's another story).

It's not (necessarily) about being a minority

Before this threatens to become a talk about being a minority looking for more equitable representation in media (which is a worthy goal, though I'm not necessarily agreeing with all the ways that have been suggested online and offline), let me just make a few statements as to why it isn't exactly that.

At the time, I was living and studying in the Philippines. I was surrounded by Filipinos, and the mestizos and folks who could pass themselves off as American or European were few and far between. I guess what I'm saying is, we didn't necessarily need to see more Filipinos represented in media -- because we got that every day by virtue of where we lived.

So why did we look for it? Why did I look for it? I mean, it's not like it was this big thing that I spent nights wondering about -- but it pleased me when I found out.

It's a big world, and I'm just one guy

Well, I can only speak for myself, and introspection isn't always my strongest suit.

I do believe that it's not just one reason, but a multitude of reasons of varying intensitives. Here are a few:

• I can be president after all -- one of the major exports of the U.S. to the Philippines is the American Dream, the one that says anyone born anywhere (in the U.S.) can become whatever they want to become, even president, so seeing someone from the Philippines doing something you want to do yourself, seems to re-affirm that possibility and chip away at barriers (like the fact that I'm NOT someone born in the U.S.)
• I'm not alone -- you get made fun of for having strange, unpopular hobbies, and perhaps not-so-practical plans for your future; and it's nice to see someone you can identify with doing the very thing you want
• That person's like me -- I believe it also has something to do with looking for something that resonates with you in media -- whether it's in a profession, or on the news, or in fictional exploits. For example, I tend to react less strongly to, say, a Filipino in the news who is an ultra-athlete than a Filipino who had a very nerdy childhood

Mining Firebirds: Grimjack

Way back in 2011, I mentioned how I'd been using Grimjack as an inspiration for some of the Fading Suns games that I'd run in the past.

And that I might do a series of posts mining the ideas in the comic for adventure seeds, characters, and setting ideas.

Given the sudden ton of work that has descended on my head, I think I'll be doing more of that in the future.

It'll work nicely with my returned fascination with comics in general.

I'll try to go sequentially through the series, but be advised: this comic didn't start with an origin story. In fact, the protagonist is already old and ageing, and comes with a ton of backstory between him and many of his supporting cast.

Any other Grimjack fans out there?

Things I Learned from Champions: The stories are spectacular

A classic trope: protagonist team meets
other protagonist team for
the first time, and fights!

All RPG adventures and campaigns have a chance at immortality -- living on in a story that gets told again and again when you and your friends get together. Supers RPGs are no different -- but the uniqueness is the genre, of course.

Sometimes it's heroes vs. heroes, sometimes it's heroes vs. villains, and sometimes it's the team hunted by the government or some corporate paramilitary group.

The complex interplay of individuals wielding powers and abilities far beyond those of mere mortals, overcoming normal and extraordinary challenges on a regular basis is part of the attraction of the genre. And there's a lovely shorthand that emerges with every group, a mixture of modern parlance and game system speak:

It was glorious! Alex Raven took five turns of an uncontrollable continuous autofire middle attack. On top of that, he was taking 15 missiles per round for four rounds because everyone else except for Silent Strike and Ayano were down. The Indestructible Man was taken out by one of [the Campaign's] old villains. I took the time to one shot him in the head while being riddled by missile fire. 

Silent Strike and Ayano moved the target out of range before Silent a Strike returned. The Crone did a Body Drain on one of the Black Eagle armor units to kill him on the next turn. Siphon was obliterated in the first salvo but was healed and came back to the fight. 

Oh, the armor units were hitting us from a quarter mike away.

Ah, the stories. They live in our memory for a long, long time.

Source Files: LSH #285 - Night Never Falls on Nullport

This was my jumping on point for collecting the Legion of Super-Heroes (LSH). I'd encountered them before, in something known in the Philippines as National Bookstore reprints -- an interesting Philippine artifact that I'll tackle in another post.

I suppose it was time -- I was reading the comics of my classmates, began dabbling in Marvel & DC comics, and this cover jumped out at me.

Now, the Legion wasn't new to me. My Superman / Superboy fandom had brought me to various anthologies, compilations, and trivia books and had prepared me for most of the cast of this book.

However, the ongoing plotlines and the visually arresting cover and contents of this book really hooked me, and sustained my interest for many issues to come. This cover, in particular, promised action and the use of a rarely used superpower (even to this day) among super-heroes, along with some great space opera action (assaulting the bridge of a space ship)!

The story starts with a handful of members from the Legion of Super-Heroes (Shadow Lass, Mon-El, Colossal Boy, Star Boy, and Shrinking Violet), sent to Nullport -- a key spaceship drydock of the United Planets -- to pick up their Legion starcruisers.

After some expository captions, dialogue, and good-natured ribbing between the teammates, there is an accident. A starcruiser undergoing work suddenly begins to topple -- Mon-El manages to save the workers, but Colossal Boy (as seen to the right) misjudges the effect of reduced gravity on Nullport, and is unable to prevent damage to the afflicted ship.

RPG Comments: This is a great little scene, allowing a GM to establish the setting and situation, and the initial goal of the team, while immediately bringing the overall conflict into play right away with a related inciting incident.

In FATE (and FATE-like systems), this would be an incident where Colossal Boy's player gets a FATE point for his failure. In more physics-emulation systems, the low gravity effect would be reflected as a penalty to an attempt, especially during the initial acclimatization period.

MEANWHILE, on Orando:

This cut to Karate Kid and Princess Projectra on Orando -- a world considered incredibly backwater by the United Planets (a sword & sorcery world in a science fiction setting) -- may seem a bit odd.

While it does help to establish for new readers the breadth and variety of worlds in the the United Planets and the overall setting, it really just sets up a plotline that gets resolved in a later issue.

Of additional note is the artwork of Pat Broderick, who seems to be quite fond of this 'stop-motion' effect used to show the sudden collapse of Orando's reigning monarch. He used it several times earlier to depict Colossal Boy shrinking to normal size, Star Boy performing some acrobatics, and Colossal Boy growing to giant-size once more. I also liked much of his panel-to-panel storytelling in this issue.

This was also part of the appeal of the LSH comic book. While one team was doing some thing in one corner of the United Planets, others were doing other things elsewhere, some were back at base, others were back at home -- lots of interesting locations and mostly interesting plot threads, back in the days before decompressed storytelling became popular in comics.

RPG Comments: You may consider this as an approach for troupe-style play in a supers RPG. This scene could've been run by a different GM, using all the same players + the GM for the main storyline, allowing everyone a chance to play and a chance to run. I believe some similar ideas were broached in the ICONS Team-Up sourcebook.

Back on Nullport: I really enjoyed this one-off alien with an interesting personality who was in charge of running Nullport. H'hrnath, a horse-headed creature with hands, hooves, and tentacles, with a very strong concern over costs and profit.

It really drove home the alien, far-future setting of the LSH, in a pretty matter-of-fact way.

RPG Comments: This scene shows a way that a GM can establish an interesting-- but not that insurmountable -- obstacle, to PC investigations. H'hrnath is a foil, a person of authority who isn't necessarily a power-mad control freak, but has legitimate reasons not to let well-meaning, unknown quantities (the Legionnaires) investigate supposed sabotage taking place at Nullport.

It's also a great opportunity to drop clues or setting-building exposition in a non-boring way (through a colorful, opinionated character), letting the PCs pick up on any interesting tidbits that may catch their attention.

With the Legionnaires finally allowed to investigate, after another 'accident' on Nullport, the heroes get to use their powers to investigate (it's not all about combat, folks!) and get to the causes of the sabotage once and for all.

Mon-El gets to use his microscopic vision to keep track of Violet's progress in the circuitry. While there are communication devices, it's nice to have this kind of investigative teamwork between super-powered individuals. Especially with Mon-El being the heavy hitter that he is, normally trading blows with the toughest creatures in the galaxy.

Shrinking Violet discovers, after some exploration of the circuitry, the source of the remote controlled accidents on Nullport, and vaporizes it -- presumably with some handy equipment from the local authorities.

But this is a temporary solution to a specific problem. Having identified that the culprits must be the Khunds, and that Nullport is a target due to its strategic importance to the military capability of the United Planets on this border, the Legionnaires struggle to come up with a way to prevent this type of thing (or something worse) from happening in the short to medium term.

Star Boy -- at home with a costume sporting a plunging neckline (Legionnaires don't care about your 21st Century fashion sense!) -- carefully explores their options, finally coming to the conclusion that there must be a nearby base or ship controlling the devices that they can knock out of commission.

RPG  Comments: This is where the comic book for me really shifted away from mere superheroics, into a sort of space opera procedural with superpowers. And it really reminds me of players sitting around, strategizing about how to resolve a situation with finality -- beyond merely barreling through obstacle after obstacle.

And a good thing he does, too.

Because, like any good Klingo -- Khunds, the espionage / sabotage team near Nullport has just decided to launch an all out attack. And that team is located on the flagship of a fleet of Khund ships!

What a Khundish thing to do -- death for failure, even if it's your son. Very brutal (and wasteful) warrior culture that is unlike anything we've ever seen before in Science Fiction (ahem). They also clearly disdain hiding from their opponents, as evidenced by the bright red and yellow military uniforms, and the green hue of their flagship. Ah, what the heck, they're great villains.

The look of the Khunds changes after this issue, by the way, when Keith Giffen takes over as artist for the Legion of Super-Heroes.

This was a great little bit for me, Mon-El using his superstrength to hurl a giant-sized Colossal Boy at the Khund flagship. Colossal Boy wreaking havoc from inside the ship. And Mon-El and Star Boy generally disabling the various ships of the fleet with their respective powers.

How'd Mon-El find the fleet? Telescopic vision, man! Yeah, in a procedural type of show or comic, folks with the powers of Superman are pretty handy to have around, even if you discount the sheer firepower at their disposal. It just goes to show that, sometimes, non-combat abilities are just as useful as combat abilities.

Speaking of non-combat abilities, Shadow Lass uses hers on a pretty large scale -- enveloping the entirety of Nullport in shadow stuff! This will allow the Legionnaires to essentially move Nullport to a different location while the Khund fleet is otherwise preoccupied. It's not a permanent solution, but it'll buy some time, we assume, for the United Planets to ready a better plan to defend this oh-so-vulnerable drydock.

I always loved team stories like this, where everyone has a chance to shine -- or at least perform one critical action relevant to the resolution of the plot.

As a kid, I didn't think that much about Shady's rather racy attire. Super-heroines all had pretty tight outfits, like many of their male counterparts. In Legion of Super-Heroes comics, I was more perturbed by Cosmic Boy's famous black bustier outfit. But that all changed when I grew into my teens, of course.

Star Boy increases the mass of Nullport to allow it to generate its own gravity! Wasn't sure about the science of this, but gleefully accepted this as a kid because of how superheroic teamwork resolved a key problem in the story. And it wasn't even combat related! By this time, of course, they'd incapacitated the Khund fleet and had turned their attentions to fixing the Nullport problem.

And what a solution by Pre-Crisis Mon-El! Moving the entire drydock to a different location using flight and strength alone.

Again, a non-combat use of superpowers.

For their efforts, the Legionnaires get a fantastic reward.

The miserly H'hrnath gives them five Mark 494 starcruisers for the price of one + a trade in on their old ship!

The Legionnaires muse about him and his heart of gold, talk about their patron R.J. Brande, and generally establish threads for future stories.

But on Orando, all is not well. The King has died, and Projectra stands to inherit the throne of Orando!

RPG Comments: This would make a great resolution to a well-played adventure. A generous reward, a friendly (but perhaps not so generous in the future) ally on a drydock, and some brownie points with the United Planets for resolving a stick situation. Something to keep in mind for any future adventures!

Source Files: The Legion of Superheroes

I began comic book collecting in earnest slightly before the start of that classic Legion of Superheroes storyline known as The Great Darkness Saga.

Since my current interests run along Science Fiction and Super-heroic lines, reviewing the source material around this era should make for some good inspiration and ruminations about gaming in the genres where the two intersect.

I'd like to point out that, while the Legion did take on the occasional 'cosmic' opponent, they also handled quite a number of other challenges, criminal gangs, political maneuverings, alien races, new discoveries, and so on. It wasn't quite in the 'cosmic' adventuring space; it really was an intersection of the super-heroic genre with traditional Science Fiction tropes.

And, perhaps along the way, I can point out some of the existing gaming material out there that can be tweaked or mined (and perhaps were inspired by) this sadly absent team in the modern DC Universe.

Quick-bits 2: More Supers RPG news

I forgot about this in my last post, and it was even mentioned on the Hero Games message boards!

It's like adding a new channel to your feed list. The more you write about it, the more you see. Here are some other little bits of Supers RPG news you may be interested in.

Extreme Earth: A Dystopian Superhero Setting (Kickstarter)

Extreme Earth is, as cited in its title, a dystopian superhero setting. Drink in the colored art and the the write-ups on their kickstarter page, but pay attention to this little bit:

The EXTREME EARTH campaign setting is written by Joe Bardales with artwork and original concept by Jon Gibbons. There are seven different books for seven different RPG supers systems: the latest versions of BASH!, Bulletproof Blues, Fate Accelerated Edition, ICONS, Mutants and Masterminds, Savage Worlds, and SUPERS! We have assembled a team of conversion experts to make sure each of these different rules systems is properly tailored to fit the EXTREME EARTH setting.

Aha! Multiple game systems! Excellent! Wait -- no HERO? *gasp*

Wait, wait, in the updates:

However, as a way of saying thank you to all of you who supported this Kickstarter, we are going to give free PDF copies of the Cold Steel Wardens and Champions/HERO versions of EXTREME EARTH when they finally become available to anyone who backs the current Kickstarter at the CITIZEN OF EXTREME EARTH level or higher as a bonus.

No print version, but a PDF version. Still pretty cool, especially if you've made the jump to digital like I have.

Settings of the Fainting Goat

I'm intrigued by the potential story of the fainting goat, but I have to say that I like two of their settings for the ICONS RPG: Welcome to Stark City and The Great Game.


Stark City is something I'm going to review in the upcoming weeks as a setting for superheroic gaming in the ICONS ruleset. It reads really well, and sparks lots of campaign ideas.

I've always been interested supers settings, and signature supers cities in particular are always a challenge to flesh out. Perhaps one day I'll be able to put together my fictional RPG supers universe stitching together all the fictional cities in RPGs across the world.

Wait, let's not spin off more work for ourselves. Here's a blurb from the product listing itself:

Stark City is ... both a source of inspiration and a home for all of those diverse ICONS adventures to comfortably take place, a framework to tie them together, and a springboard for your imagination. From the streets of the downtown Silver District to the ultra-modern Telsa Industrial Park, from the wealthy Platinum Coast to the seedy dives of Geartown, you’ll find endless opportunities for taking the ideas found in this book and transforming them into stories of your own, because Stark City is ultimately about your heroes and their stories, an additional player to add to the ensemble cast of your ICONS game. 

The Great Game is something different. Still a setting, it's for galactic & space-based superheroic gaming. I really love the homages to various seminal characters and organizations in comic books, and the twists are very interesting in pulling together various elements of the settings into a cohesive whole. Take a peek:

• A mad god searches for a dark ritual that will give him the means to destroy the universe.
• A corrupt space-police organization enslaves civilized worlds to enrich itself.
• An empire of sentient machines is exterminating any biological life in its path.
• Pirates prey upon the space-ways with impunity

Worth a look? You betcha.

Quick-Bits: Supers RPG news

I've not had time to write a lot about RPGs, what with all the deadlines and work, but here are a few items of RPG news related to super-heroes that are top of mind right now:

The Worlds In Peril RPG on Kickstarter

I learned about this from Google+, but the concept intrigues me: a supers RPG based on the *World engine, the system behind Apocalypse World and Dungeon World RPGs.

Not been able to play either one, but Worlds In Peril would definitely get me to try it out. From reading these RPGs (the finished versions of Apocalypse World and Dungeon World, and the in-editing version of Worlds in Peril), the idea of creating a PC in broad archetypeal strokes, and then refining and discovering more about them and the world during play intrigues me.

The fact that this is *World entry is in the super-heroic genre is enough to make me want to jump in!

Here's part of their marketing copy:

Worlds in Peril combines descriptive, creative and flexible powers with a narrative structure that encourages players to take control of their stories and build worlds together. Powered by the Apocalypse World system (2d6+ modifier), Worlds in Peril is a standalone RPG that will produce compelling super hero action in any world with little-to-no preparation. Play to find out what happens, be the hero you want to be!

There are a few days left (3 at the time of this writing), so if this is your kind of jam -- take a shot at this one!

Bulletproof Blues -- Successful Kickstart!

What's that you say? Bulletproof Blues is already an RPG; why was there a (successful) kickstart of this? Well, this is the 2nd Edition you see. They can improve all sorts of stuff on this RPG! Here listen to them:

"Bulletproof Blues is a rules-light, setting-dark superhero RPG. The game is getting new art and an updated layout. All of the art and text has been, and will be, released under a Creative Commons license."

Sounds good -- I look forward to the release of the second edition! Art looks good, and I'm digging the rules I've read so far. Waiting to get to the powers to fully grok things.

Invulnerable Super Hero RPG: Vigilante Edition

Yet another supers RPG? This one came out in April and caught my eye with its art and my interest in many things super-heroic related.

I'll admit to being a collector (not ultra-obsessive, just mildly so) for many supers RPG systems, because there are so very many subgenres of the super-hero genre, and I'm always down for using a specific system to effect a particular feel or mood due to the mechanics and the super-heroic color of the writing and the art.

Here's their spiel:

Invulnerable's simple, flexible system lets you create a super hero with a wide array of exciting Powers and Power Enhancements, quickly and easily. Purchase Levels in a Power and pick some Enhancements, and you're good to go! If you want more fine-tuned control, tweak every gadget and mutation with Power Modifiers.

Being a super hero is more than punching tanks and laser-blasting alien invaders, though. Invulnerable encourages roleplaying with its Motivations and Central Contradictions. What does your hero believe in? And what storytelling tension does this character bring to the table? Make the call!

Invulnerable supports every power level, from street-level crimefighters up to interstellar paragons, and includes a complete setting, Earth-Omega, with its own heroes, villains, and mooks to face. This new edition brings new Talent Focuses and Power Enhancements, revamps Power Modifiers, refines the damage system, streamlines combat, and has tons of new internal art.

Sounds like something for you? Pick it up at DriveThruRPG!

Valiant Universe: The Roleplaying Game

You heard that right.

The Valiant Universe RPG.

No way? Yes way!

Well, there's only a quickstart rule download available now, but the full RPG is slated for release in July of 2014. Check out all their related offerings on DriveThruRPG:

The edge between superhero and villain has never been sharper. In the Valiant Universe RPG, players will immerse themselves in a dark and gritty world where every mission and every battle has deadly consequences. Whether playing X-O Manowar, Bloodshot, Shadowman or even the all-powerful Toyo Harada—or any of dozens of characters—Valiant’s most fearless heroes will unite for the first time in a roleplaying game, allowing you to join their stories and create new ones!

Whether you’re a longtime fan or brand new to the Valiant Universe, this is the only source you’ll need to bring Valiant’s leading characters to life in a fantastic superheroes setting!

I tell you -- with all this, plus the Marvel films, plus the 75 year celebrations of various super-heroes, it's a great time for the Super-heroic RPG!

Lazy Supers Post: X-Men / New Teen Titans Team-Up?

If well-written, I'd watch this as an animated show. Because nostalgia.

Things I Learned From Champions: Sometimes you just want to fight

It's no secret that the RPG hobby had its roots in wargaming. While, in the intervening years there've been great strides through gaming advice and gaming mechanics to help stimulate the story side of RPGs, there's also been some denigration of the combat aspect of RPGs across all genres.

This is different from people who critique combat systems in games (too long, too short, too complicated, too simple), as these types of concerns also appeared -- and continue to appear -- in board games and war games. No, these comments concerning combat as an activity itself in RPGs seem to be arguing that any games that require combat are somehow a lesser, inferior type of RPG play.

To them I say: sometimes, you just wanna fight. For the tactical challenge, for the stress release, for the curiosity, and for the incidental geekery that would erupt in the process.

And choosing a superheroic RPG -- a genre that tends toward that activity in the popular titles, that tends toward rewarding highly anticipated throw downs between individuals and teams, that tends to manage to avoid permanently killing most characters despite the frequency of these altercations -- is one of the places you're likely to see it happen.

But who would you fight? In our old games, there were several favorites types of opposition for an all-combat gaming session.

Other Players' Player Characters

 

Yes. I approve.

This came up occasionally in our games -- sometimes with a player wanting to test their new build against another PC to: a) see if their build was as effective as they wanted; b) prove that their build was as kick-ass as they claimed; c) find out how long they could last against a highly-experienced combat monster.

We could rationalize them as stunts for charity, as those unmentioned run-ins between heroes that lead up to misunderstandings, or some other flimsy excuse.

For us, it was often fun, even for the spectators, and allowed for kibbitzing and advice that sometimes came in useful in actual games.

And in our youth, a lot of these battles 'really happened' in our canon, leading to a few unfortunate deaths of PCs -- like the one-shot death of Shaka Jesus. Don't ask.

These are different from the incidents when a player brings in a character despite the warnings of other players that they would "-- kill that abomination the second my character encounters it in play." Tragic. Well, not really.

A super-villain team

We're fighting who? I'm out.

Ah, a classic dust-up. Super-hero team vs. super-villain team! Who gets knocked down or out? Who goes the distance until the decisive end? What interesting tactical decisions and match ups take place?

This is of greatest interest to me, because of (1) the roleplaying dynamic sometimes at odds with the tactical dynamic (just like in comics); and (2) the spectacular teamwork that sometimes takes place when everyone is on the same page.

There's actually quite a bit of variety in this kind of clash:

• an "arena" set up, meaning that both teams are kind of in an open space and arrive at the same time to the battle;
• the PCs don't even know where all the villains are and have to proceed cautiously (or sneakily) to triumph;
• the villains are fewer in number than the heroic team (less headache for the GM), but are greater in power level on a per character basis;
• the villains are greater in number than the heroes, but are lower in power level on a per-character basis;
• the villains are all agents, usually greater in number, more fragile, but with surprising combinations of gadgets, tactics and teamwork that have wiped the smug smile off of some complacent super-heroes;
• and so on.

A super-hero team

 

We're fighting who?
I said: I'm out.

In my old group, there was seldom any thrill in going up against another super-heroic team in the same universe. If, however, you were talking about a team from the DC or Marvel Universe, it was a different story. You wanted to see how you'd handle them (and how you'd ultimately be taken out).

To this day, I remember one of our early clashes with some members of the X-men (Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Rogue, de-powered mohawk-wearing Storm, and Colossus). We were outnumbered: my character was an armored martial artist, my teammate was a sharpshooter with a pair of laser pistols. We did quite well, with me running interference on the physical characters while my partner took out Nightcrawler (who could lay us out in two phases with his No Normal Defense multi-teleport stun attack) and Cyclops (the other ranged attack guy). Then Rogue grabbed me and pulled me out of position, while Colossus got a lucky punch in on my partner and laid him out cold.

Great fun, great stories.

And you can geek out about what you should've done, and how the super-heroes should really be built in the system.