Motivational Monday

Thanks to rpgnet.

Taking it to the streets

I’m a big fan of street level superheroes. Guys like Union Jack, Dr. Midnight, Iron Fist, Wildcat, etc. So I’ve been really pleased with the titles that have been coming out lately.
JSA Classified, Moon Knight, The Black Panther, Union Jack, and the re-launch of Heroes for Hire. In the last few issues of Black Panther, prior to his wedding with Storm, T’Challa was hanging out with Blade, Luke Cage and The Falcon- we had the makings of a cool ethnic team there for a bit, I would love to see that premise taken further. Coming up is a re-launch of Iron Fist and a special Dr. Midnight limited series in JSA Classified. All this street level coolness almost makes up for the travesty that was the Warlord series earlier this year…almost.

Sci-Fi sale

Amazon has a pretty decent Science Fiction DVD sale going on. For those of you looking to fill a hole in your library it may be worth a look.

If you’re not watching Heroes, you should be.

In my opinion this is about the best show on network TV at the moment. It’s well written, the characters are engaging, visually its crisp, and at the end of each episode you are left satisfied but still hooked and wanting more, unlike “Lost” which just fucks with your head, teases you and then leaves you there hanging for five weeks.

The official website is well supported with clips, interviews, games, blogs, and all kinds of geeky goodness to help you catch up to speed. They even have their own comic...um excuse me. Graphic Novel, thank you very much...

Just one word today...

VOTE

Motivational Monday

Free gaming magazines!

Heads up gamers! Mongoose games has released over a dozen issues of their Signs & Portents Magazine as free PDF downloads. Lots of great articles usable for a wide variety of genres. What a bargain!

Motivational Monday

Thanks to RPGNET.

The heady days of Geekdom gone by...

And still another pulp post...

One of the things I do in my PBP games is give each character a sort of “Mini-adventure before the actual game starts. Nothing fancy just an encounter so that the player and I can get a handle on the character. It can also help to establish a little background outside of the usual dry character background write ups. The scene below is from a “Lost Worlds” Pulp game I’m currently running, It’s a series of back and forth posts edited together. This is an encounter set several days before the actual adventure begins. The character is globe-trotting Geologist / Adventurer- Archibald “Archie” Armstrong.

Honolulu, Hawaii-1936

Three days till the ship leaves for San Francisco. Three days in paradise. Beats the hell out of West Virginia. Archie thought to himself.

Sitting back in his rattan chair enjoying some Filipino egg rolls that Lita had called “Lumpia”- good stuff, At the moment life was good... Archie sat up as Lita returned to his table with a tray holding a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.
“Did you miss me?” she said with a twinkle in her eye.
Lita was Filipino / Hawaiian with golden skin, long, silky black hair, and a body that would put Venus De Milo to shame.
“You know,” she said as she nuzzled close to him and proceeded to pour the drinks, “I don’t get off for another two hours. But if you want to pay my “bar fine” we could go to Waikiki, my cousin plays in the band at the Royal Hawaiian hotel. It’s a real high-class place.”

Archie’s attention turns from the beauty at his side to the bar where a group of Merchant sailors are loudly announcing their arrival. One of the larger sailors turns as he lifts a mug of beer, and spies Archie’s table.
“Lita baby!” he exclaims. “C’mere and give me some luvvin baby doll!”
“Just ignore him honey.” Lita says as she takes a swig of her drink.
“Hey, HEY!” the sailor exclaims. “What the hell? Are you ignoring me?”
Another sailor attempts to restrain him, “C’mon Nick, lets get a drink.”
“Naw” Nick says, pushing his friend away. “I ain’t letting no damn Chink Bargirl, give me the blow off.”
The sailor stalks over to Archie’s table. “Who do you think you are huh? You two-bit floozy, playing it up all innocent for this Mook?” he says as he points to Archie.


Armstrong stood up, positioning himself between Lita and the bellicose sailor, he did so while maintaining enough distance that he wouldn't be sucker punched in the process.
Archie had been down this road before, many times and in many countries.. But at least this time he actually had the luxury of understanding the language of the goon in front of him.
"That's "Mr. Mook" to you swabbie, ya better put dat finger away if you wanna keep it!! I gots ten damn good reasons why youse should apologize to the lady and go sit down with your buddies"

Archie then gave the merchant seaman his "steely eyed glare". Unblinking and without emotion, most men would wither under Armstrong's intense stare. Those who encountered it called it the “dead face". More often then not this would settle a fracas before it would happen. If that wasn't the case even though he appeared relaxed, Archie was ready for the "Oh so familiar” pugilistic dance.

The whole bar went quiet except the sound of the angry sailor's breathing.

Nick meets Archie’s stare.
No one will ever accuse Nick of being the sharpest tool in the shed, but the sailor knows a bruiser when he sees one. Nicks a bully and a loudmouth and when he looks into Archie’s eyes he sees neither.
Looking down at Lita who is sitting at the table, Nick mumbles an apology and backs off.
“That was close” Lita says as she daintily closes the butterfly knife she was holding under the table and secures it in her garter. “I need this job.”
Looking at Archie again “So what do you say Guapo? Wanna go buy a girl a steak?”

Archie silently remains standing as he watches Nick humbly go sit back down at the table of merchant seaman.
There is a sigh of relief from the bartender and the rest of the bar resumes it's usual drunken jovial hub-bub.

Armstrong nod's at the fellow who tried to restrain Nick, the sailor raises his mug of beer as a salute in return. Archie turn's and grins down at Lita.
"Ya want's steak does ya baby!?.. I just can't say no to those honey brown eyes of yours darlin'..So let's blow this Popsicle stand and you take me to this fancy hotel you wuz talking about and, Archie winks. "We can watch your cousin play his ukulele"

Giggling, Lita lithfully rises and the bar looks on in envy as Archie hands the Mama-san a twenty and escorts Lita out of the bar into the warm Hawaiian night.

An incessant knock finally rouses Archie from his pillow. Running his fingers through his hair, his eyes slowly adjust to the daylight streaming from his Hotel window. Taking a deep breath he stands and locates his skivvies. Sliding them on, he glances at the beautiful naked form of Lita as she lay sleeping.
*more knocking...*
Archie mumbles something incoherent as he covers Lita's lower half with the bed sheet and heads for the door.

Distractedly scratching his rear, Archie grumpily stomps towards the banging door while muttering to himself. " Rassin' Frassin'...*grumble*...don't ya know a fella needs his beauty sleep..."

In one very swift action Archie hurls the door open.

"What part of DO NO DISTURB do you not understand!!!!?” He bellows.

In the hallway are two serious looking men in grey suits. Suits, in Hawaii.
G-Men.
Suit #1 speaks first “Mr. Armstrong.” A statement rather than a question. “I'm Mister Smith and this is Mister Jones.” Smith deftly presents his credentials-they’re legit (Archie also notices that “Smith” has a heater in a shoulder rig, which means “Jones” is probably packing as well).
Smith continues “We’re with the War Department and we’ve been sent to escort you to Hickam Airfield where a plane is waiting for you. Your presence is requested in Washington at the highest level.”
Mr. Jones finally breaks his silence. “We’ll wait out here Sir, while you get ready and uh…say yer goodbyes.”

Archie quickly soaked in the situation and grinned at the stern proper clean-cut men.
"Sure fella's..I guess I'm back in the saddle huh? See ya PDQ!!!" He whispered as he quietly closed the door.


Armstrong silently dressed and quickly packed his valise; his years living abroad meant he knew how to travel light and just pack the essentials. His mind raced as to what could be so important that two of J. Edger's finest would be escorting a mug like him to the big ol' Washington DC? And by plane no less. This was something big..

He strode over to the sultry sleeping form on the bed..
"What was her name again?" he wondered? He felt a little sad, so many ports, so many open arms but the connection always fleeting. At the very least a gentleman remembers the name of his dalliance.

"Lita!...right...Wow..Wotta gal!" he thought to himself while trying to remember the previous night.

He gently nudged her shoulder, as she was beginning to awake Archie spoke in a low voice.
"Lita baby, sorry honey but I gotta go, I just got word I have to go work for my uncle. Next time I am on the island I'll look you up"
Archie turned and walked towards the door to leave, grinning while thinking about the world famous Hawaiian hospitality.

Riding a wave of pulp

Man I love this cover.





Anyone who reads this Blog regularly knows what a fan I am of the Pulp genre. I often whine about not getting to play in my favorite genre mostly because Pulp heads like me are few and far between. But for some reason at the moment I’m riding a wave of pulp.

Mutants and Masterminds-Golden Age
My buddy Ed W. his son Eddie and my boy Anthony had a rousing game of Mutants and Masterminds this last Saturday, Ed ran the game and is using the Golden Age setting. It was our first foray into the M&M system. Ed and his son are old hands at the D20 system so the there was at least familiarity, though M&M is not straight D20 it’s more like D20 with modifications. I ran a “Rocketeer” type character; Anthony had a character who was one part Captain America, and three parts Sgt. Fury. Eddie had a mystery man type claw guy and Ed. Ran an NPC tracker/sharpshooter. We had a jungle adventure featuring killer apes, Nazis, lava caves and a huge earth/fire elemental creature. Our team dynamic was spot on, with each character having a chance to shine using their special powers and abilities. The game was really just a way for us to get used to the mechanics and run through some combats, but it was fun for its own sake as well. I really like the one dice roll thing what a concept! We had a great time and I hope that we make it a regular thing.



Swords of Skartaris
I’m also running an online Lost Worlds Pulp game, nominally using the Savage Worlds system and the Skartaris setting from the DC comics Warlord series.
After a bit of character creation and preparation the players have just crash landed in Skartaris and the fun stuff is about to begin. I’m even kit bashing some figures of the group; I’ll be posting those soon.



Lands of Mystery
As it happens I won an EBay auction for “Lands of Mystery” Aaron Allston’s classic gaming supplement for the Justice Inc. RPG. In my opinion this book is one of the best gaming supplements ever written. I have a copy in storage in Hawaii, but that was doing me no good here in Sacramento. Hence the EBay purchase. And what a timely arrival it’s been. Flipping through Lands of Mystery is like visiting an old friend. Usually when I get inspired by a book or movie, I’m usually playing in some other type of genre- but this time the planets were in complete alignment- my PBP game is getting a head of steam and here I have Lands of Mystery to keep me on course with great advice and inspiration.



The Sand Pebbles and Blue world
In the casual reading arena I’m reading Richard McKenna’s novel “The Sand Pebbles”
It deals with the adventures of a sailor serving in a navy gunboat on patrol on the Yangtze River in 1920’s China. Steve McQueen starred in the movie version.




I’m also reading a short story collection by horror author Robert R. McCammon, called “Blue World”. In particular a short story titled “Night calls the Green Falcon”, in this story an old and destitute former Saturday matinee movie star from the 40’s goes on a quixotic quest to bring a serial killer to justice in modern day Hollywood.



It’s all Pulp and it’s all good!

Constant Payne - 2001 Pilot

This is one cool Toon. Action-Pulp flavor in the vein of Jonny Quest. Too bad it never got past the pilot.



Here is the website with more info.

Motivational Monday

Thanks to RPGNet.

The day Blogger died

I’ve been doing this Blog for a couple of years now, and I was thinking the other day that this is really the closest I’ve ever come to a journal or diary in my life. As I started going over my past entries I realize that certain posts sparked memories of where I was and in what frame of mind I was at that time, which for me was kind of neat. One post in particular dealt with the day that Yahoo (May they rot in fucking cyber-hell) yanked my membership and deleted not only my yahoo groups membership but deleted all of my Yahoo email addresses and files. For a “term of service violation”, they had every right to do it, but Damn them for it. The lesson learned that day besides back up all yer stuff, is that nothing lasts forever, which is why I started thinking –what if I woke up one morning and Google decides to discontinue Blogger? My mind began working on a safeguard for my posts. What I came up with was Snag it. Snag it is a screen capture program that allows auto scrolling of a webpage and then can save it as a jpeg. This way I can go back over my monthly entries and save them month to month as jpegs. I can then burn them on a CD and I have a set of archives of all my witty posts and photos. There may be better ways, and if you know of any let me know as well, but for now this is at least something-which is better than doing nothing at all.

A Gamer's Mantra

Yesterday over at the Treasure Table Forums, the question was posed “What is the best way that we, as RPG consumers, can help revitalize the industry?” One of the members, Telus, gave a most eloquent summary of what we all as gamers should strive for in relation to the hobby. Reprinted here, with his permission is the list of To Do’s.

•Don't be a closet gamer. Admit it freely, and ask your interlocutors if they play fantasy football, and to explain the difference.

•Buy the good stuff, and tell people about it. Hell, buy the bad stuff, and warn people about it.

•Get your friends to game, even if it's a simple-rules one-shot.

•DM if you don't already. There are a TON of players out there looking for DM’s.

•Go to cons, buy stuff, and give feedback.

•Don't be a stereotypical gamer. Bathe regularly, learn some manners, and get a haircut and a job that lets you move out on your own. You'll find a better group of gamers and maybe even "get some".

Solomon Kane Indy film

You Gotta admire the guys who actually go out and do the cool stuff. I have a hundred projects on my plate and maybe ten of them will ever get done. Which is why I love seeing projects like this one come to fruition.
the REH poem "The Return of Sir Richard Grenville" put to film. Great fun!

Special thanks to T. Allen of the REH Comics Group (an excellent resource, by the way) for the "heads up".

Motivational Monday

thanks to RPGNET.

Stop the Presses!

This just in...

"DUNGEONS & DRAGONS" The complete series
All 27 episodes to be released on a 5 disc DVD set on December 5th.

Press release

Amazon has it on pre-order.

Gamer Networking

I started A RPG group over at http://tribes.tribe.net/sacarearpg
Mainly to have a place where Sac area gamers can network and hopefully get some gaming going on.
I’m on several boards where they have “players looking for games” threads but I haven’t seen much in the Sacramento area. There is a great Meetup Group for D&D players that meets once a month. But they are for the most part a solid 3.5 ed D&D group. I enjoy D&D and I have recently started to play 3rd edition but there are a lot of other systems and Genres I would like to try my hand at such as Savage Worlds and Mutants and Masterminds. Being a gamer for over 25 years I’ve also amassed a collection of
“ Old School” games like AD&D, GURPS, Star Frontiers, Chill, CoC, etc. so I wouldn’t mind running some of the older stuff from time to time. So rather than play the Grog nard over at the D&D Meetup group, I decided to try and start a group that would have a bit more of a universal outlook, of course D&D is THE roleplaying game and it will have a place here as well. My intention is not to try and compete with any existing local groups out there it’s merely to offer a few more options.

A couple of the ideas I’ve had bubbling in my brain are:
Setting up a meeting place for a monthly gathering where we could do some actual gaming rather than just posting about gaming.
I’d like to get something going where we could highlight a different system from time to time, maybe one month The Savage Worlds system, the next month the GURPS system, and so on.
Another thing we might try is a genre theme. Maybe one month we do western games, the next Pulp, and then Horror and so on. Of course there would still be open play for folks who would rather play their own on-going campaign.

Anyway those are just some thoughts. Of course in order for any of this to get off the ground we need folks to join, so spread the word.

BROADSWORD cover art by Jeff Hebert

What is it?

Its called BROADSWORD. Its a soon to be released Sword & Sorcery RPG Written by yours truly.

When is It coming out?

Very soon, the final stages of layout are being done.

Van Damme does pulp

I ran across a movie this weekend that really surprised me. It was called “The Quest”, It starred Jean-Claude Van Damme a B-list movie star who had a string of successful action movies in the 90’s. The Quest absolutely drips with pulpy goodness. Van Damme plays a pick-pocket in depression-era New York who somehow finds his way to representing the United states in a secret martial arts tournament in Asia.

It’s billed as a martial arts film but don’t be fooled, the movie is a pulp masterpiece worthy of any of the magazines of the era.
This movie has:
• Chinese Pirates
• Exotic locales
• A heavyweight boxing champ named “Maxie” Devine
• A Feisty girl-reporter
• A Zeppelin
• Hidden temples in the mountains
• Travel by elephant
• Prussians Aristocrats with dueling scars
• A priceless treasure
• British Expatriate Con men
• Supporting characters succumbing to an honorable yet futile death against a brutal villain.

Now you put all that together, and add a contest with every Martial Art style from Monkey-Style Kung Fu to Savate to Turkish Wrestling, and you have one Whiz–bang of an adventure story.

Motivational Monday

Thanks to RPG.net

Amazing Triple Action

Adamant Entertainment just released a new PDF E-Zine for Mutants and Masterminds. I picked up a copy over at RPGNow.
Here are some of my thoughts on it.

At first I was kind of put off by the first 12 pages being characters. Personally I don’t need more characters. There are plenty of books, Blogs, and websites full of characters for M&M. and if characters are going to be in every issue then maybe devote 2-4 pages to them not 12. What I did like is that the characters presented were useful in the storyline that followed in the other articles presented, at least it was a thoughtful process and served a purpose as a whole rather than just sticking some random characters in there for filler.
Next came a section on Archetypes. To me archetypes are just another name for prestige classes, character kits, hero packages, and so on (eventually I'm sure I’ll see an “Anti-Paladin Archetype”). Here again, there are so many of these “Archetypes” floating around in cyberspace do I really need three more?
The insider Info section was good. It gave a rundown on a hero who used the Internet to set up “workshops” globally so that when he fought evil far from home he always had a nearby place to repair his equipment. I enjoyed that article; it was inventive and showed some real “out of the box” thinking.
The fight scenery section gave a too brief overview of a south pacific island, it’s people, origins, and it’s spiritual guardian. I would rather have seen the extra effort and pages go towards fleshing this island out more, instead of towards 12 pages of new heroes.
Following the island section is a three-page adventure using the various preceding articles. As I stated earlier I admire the fact that most of the preceding information fed into the adventure, but again the material could have been fleshed out better.
The issue rounds out with a pair of articles on different types of teams and setting up a group. While the team types article was interesting the setting up a group was nothing that many publishers already add to their rulebooks in the “how to run a game” section.
Overall it wasn’t a bad read, but it didn’t rock my world either. I applaud the effort and I’ll probably plunk down the cash for another issue or two, just to see how it goes, but right now for almost $6.00 you’re not really getting too much. I would suggest maybe adding more articles on gaming techniques and novel uses for powers already in print. Another thing that might be nifty is to add some cardboard cutouts to end pages. Maybe each issue could have a building of some type, which one could print up on cardstock and use during actual play. And after several issues of collecting these buildings and sceneries you could have a city center or galactic outpost.
One of the things I always hear about super’s games is that beating up bad guys gets boring after a while. That may be because GM’s are having a hard time thinking of original material for a sustained supers campaign. This is where ATA could help. The wheel has already been invented; the thing to do now is to show people different things they can do with M&M rather than just foiling the super crooks at the First National Bank.

What were they thinking?

There’s a new game out there called Hollow Earth Expeditions. It’s a pulp RPG from what I believe is a new company called Exile studios. I happen to be a big fan of the genre so naturally I want this product to do well. I don’t run a business and I know nothing about having a game company, but the guys at Exile Studios seem do be making some fundamental mistakes that even a neophyte like me can’t help but shake his head.
I first heard of hollow earth adventures on one of the many gaming boards I frequent. I went to the website to see what all they had. There was a game but it wasn’t ready yet. The game was going to be unveiled at GenCon. I waited a few weeks and checked back after Gen Con. According to all the sources I could find the game was visually very appealing and well put together. However they ran out of copies almost immediately. Their website has an online store but no game to sell. They either decided not to offer the game in PDF format it just didn’t occur to them in the first place.
So here’s a brand new company trying to break into a small competitive market. They have a visually appealing product which they unveil at the premier event in the business. However, they quickly run out of the product and have no means to sustain any buzz they may have generated with the grand unveiling. There is no option for obtaining a PDF copy, and a wait of several weeks before another run of print copies are ready for distribution, In the meantime though, the consumer is told that if they want to reserve a copy it’s $39.99. I looked at the website a few seconds ago and they are promising more copies arriving the second week of September, today is October 2nd ( it’s hard to put a lot of faith in a company that cant even keep their website up to date this early in the game). I’m not sure about most people but 40 bucks for a new game in an untried system is a bit steep for me especially if I’ve never even held a copy in my hand. For half that price I can go to RPGnow and get a couple of pulp games, supplements and even some cardstock buildings and miniatures. Yes it’s easy being an armchair quarterback, and I’m sure there are probably good reasons for why they did or did not do certain things, but I can’t help but feel they are losing a great opportunity. Like the saying goes “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” I wish them luck.

Motivational Monday

Thanks to RPG.net

Why is Mariah Carey on the cover of my D&D supplement?

I was reading an article in the May 2006 Sharkbytes newsletter, where game author Shane L. Hensley goes off on the newbies in the industry and The Open Gaming license. He delares that

"Everywhere you looked D20 Gamemasters were
saying "only official WotC books" could be used in their
campaigns. Who could blame them? Some of the stuff out
there was absolute crap, and the easiest way to sort through
the chaff was to just stick with WotC, which was (supposedly)
play-tested and certainly better thought out than most of their
competitors."

I didn't play D20 back then, but I remember those days well, including the onslaught of "Crap". Flimsy supplements with huge pricetags. I particularly remember the Avalanche press books with their busty sword babes.

Now, I cant say that the Avalanche supplements were crap. I never used them in a game. but the reviews i've read online aren't great. But then again I recently learned that many online "reviewers don't actually play many of the games they review. But that's another story.

What I do know is that all the young gamers would drool at the covers and the moms would just shake their heads as they watched their little men fall for the oldest marketing trick in the book.

Motivational Monday

Thanks to RPG.net

PDF's rule!

Today I went with my wife on a shopping trip to Target, as usual I took along some reading material knowing that much of our visit would be in departments that hold little interest to me ( I can only spend so much time scoping out the toy and electronic aisles).
I had a copy of the new Ultimate Power supplement for Mutants and Masterminds. On our way home from the store I realized that I didn’t have the book with me. It turns out while loading the van with our purchases I left the book in the cart. We turned around and went back; luckily I found it still in the shopping cart in the parking lot. If it was a print copy I could have been out &36.95 + tax. Since it was a PDF, I would have been out the price of a binder and the trouble of printing it up.
So yes of course, nothing beats holding a real book in your hands. But the argument for PDF’s just earned a +1 in my book.

Free Games!!

Some of you older guys might remember the dwarfstar games from the 80's.
Jeff from Jeff's gameblog just turned me on to a place where you can download copies for free!

Conan for your PC

Dark horse comics has Conan desktops.

Motivational Monday

Thanks to the folks at RPG.Net

The Inner world of Skartaris -Part 2

I finally finished my rendition of the Map of Skartaris from Warlord Annual #4 (1985). Here are a few notes taken from that issue in regards to the map.

" It is not a map of the whole inner earth, but only that part of it which has been fairly well explored by Travis Morgan in his travels. There is much more to Skartaris...this map represents only a small section of that world."


“Various cultures often have their own names for places… The Desert of Sorrows, for example, is alternately called “The Great Desert” and the “Chyron Desert” by different tribes of people. The Haunted Mountains are known to some as the “Magic Mountains,” and so forth.”

“Krystovar’s map shows only the major city-kingdoms and does not include every little town, village, outpost, or camp throughout the area. And though the map shows some known towers, temples, and ruins, it is by no means exhaustive.”

“Except for mountains, deserts, and seas, most all of Skartaris is jungle. Those places called “forests” on the map are only arbitrary borders on one large continuing jungle, named for various reasons. In some places such as “Shadow Forest” the jungle is denser, while in other places, such as around the city of “Groniko,” the jungle peters out. But it is an ever-present form of terrain throughout Skartaris.”

The Inner-world of Skartaris - part 1

The other day I mentioned on the Savage World board that The World of the Warlord from DC comics would make a kick ass setting for Savage Worlds. with that in mind I have set forth on yet another project. I took the only published map of Skartaris (from Warlord Annual #4) and started to map it out using the AD&D core rules software mapper. I know there are better mappers out there but for some reason I like this one, even though you can't export to any graphic in the known universe. I'm half way done. I used Snag it for the various screen captures and then put it all together in photoshop. I still have the other half of the world to go. and then I might try to pretty it up a bit.

D20 and M&M

I had a couple of friends over late Saturday and tried to DM my first 3E game.
It isn’t half bad. I like getting rid of the THAC0, all the flatfooted, threatened squares, and tactical movement is going to take a bit of getting used to. We ran a simple first level game using core book characters, nothing fancy. I can imagine what a challenge a higher-level game with players who want to bring in characters from 100 different supplements into the game would be. The prestige class thing is like the 2nd edition kits on steroids. I said a while back that 2nd edition AD&D was created for the DM’s and 3rd Edition D&D was created for the players. After reading through the books and playing a session, I stand by that statement.

Everyone who games knows that the D20 system and the OGL has allowed anyone with a computer to publish campaigns and supplements. What I'm finding out now is that a good 80% of that stuff is crap. And from what I understand from D20 veterans was that it was much worse back when the system just started. One of the companies putting out a very decent product, in my opinion, is Green Ronin. I have been looking over their Mutants and Masterminds series for the last couple of days. When I get enough D20 experience under my belt from D&D3E M&M will be my next stop. I just picked up M&M Golden Age. If I cant get the D&D Meetup guys to stop suckling off the D&D teat, maybe I can at least get them to transition to another D20 game. Don’t get me wrong I love D&D, it’s just that it can’t be the ONLY game I play. If I can get a Golden age M&M game going then at least I can get a good pulp fix that way. Jeff R. suggested that I get real good at one system and then run a whiz-bang game at a meeting to generate interest. So I'm taking his advice and setting that as my long-term gaming plan.

Motivational Monday

Thanks to the folks at RPGnet.

I can now say I've been published several times

For those of you who just cant get enough of my rantings and ravings here, you can pick up this months Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine #118. I have an article in the "Lost games safari" column, covering the classic Pacesetter game "Chill".

Athena Voltaire

I originally picked up an issue of Athena Voltaire a while back. I enjoyed the hell out of it! But then it disappeared. Apparently the comic company went under. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the character and the series has been given new life by Ape Entertainment. I am hoping Athena is here for the long haul this time around. This series just cracks with adventure (see the free preview pages). I mentioned finding out about the Savage Worlds RPG the other day. The world of Athena Voltaire would make a fantastic setting for a Savage Worlds pulp campaign.
The guys at Ape entertainment should definitely have lunch with the guys from Pinnacle entertainment, hell, I'd buy lunch just to have a seat at the table and hear the brainstorming!

And by the way, Athena Voltaire isn't the only cool offering from Ape. The Blackcoat and U.T.F. are also titles well worth checking out for Pulpy coolness. They also have webcomics and...awww hell just go there already!

The Big Show

I’ve been a gamer since 1978. I’ve gamed just about everywhere, from foxholes in the Army to the beaches of Hawaii. But I have never been to the “Big Show”-Gen Con. Today at work the mail clerk came in with a package for me. I wasn’t too surprised since all my eBay stuff comes to the office. But this time the package wasn’t an eBay purchase it was from my buddy Chris. Chris went to Gen Con this year and he took the time to fill a swag bag for the Evil DM.
Wow. That blew me away. We never talked about it, I never hinted at it. It was total karma from the goodness of this guy’s heart. The bag was full of online coupons, pins, cards, mini games, stickers, comics (Conan!) and of course Gen Con DICE! I was like a kid in a candy store, as I sat at my desk “ooing” at all the shiny goodies. Everyone in my office thought it was the coolest thing, and it was! Chris even had the foresight to get TWO sets of all the Conan stuff. I’ve never been to the big show, but for a few minutes today I was there in spirit.
Chris is an online buddy. I can’t even remember where or when we first met but we have been gaming online, talking action figures and hanging out for a couple of years now. Chris is one of the reasons why the internet is cool because without it I would have never met him. You have to deal with the occasional Troll and Creep online, but you also get to meet guys like Chris who make it all worthwhile, thanks dude!

Savage Worlds

I’m usually a bit behind the curve with the newer games, mostly because my days of buying everything on the “New this week” shelf at the game store are long past. So while “Savage Worlds” isn’t new, it’s new to me.

I picked up a PDF of the revised core rules the other day and have really been enjoying it. I enjoy PDF’s up to a point but generally I get the print version when I can. But I must say this is one of the best PDF efforts I’ve seen.

Sunday Score

We went to the American Cancer society discovery shop today. It’s a thrift store but a very high-end thrift store, all the volunteers are well of elderly women who are very particular about what they offer at their store. about 40% of all the donations are passed on to the local Salvation army. But despite their discriminating eye, the prices are no higher than any other Thrift store. this is the place where I found a complete set of MEGO Knights of the Round Table figure for $15.00 each. Today while perusing the book room I found a copy of D&D for Dummies ($4), a first edition DM guide ($2) and a brand spanking new copy of the 3.5 player handbook ($7).

It looks like fate is taking a hand. One of my biggest gripes about D&D 3E was the cost of the damn books. And to add insult to injury 40 minutes after I bought the 3rd edition Core rules WOTC declared them obsolete and told us we had to switch to 3.5 suddenly almost $100.00 worth of books (PH, DMG, Psionics, MM and three splat books) became totally worthless.

I suppose the Gaming gods are cutting me a break by letting me find a PHB for $7, and though I resent the fact that they felt they had to throw in a Dummies book on 3E, I still bought that too. Hell, I even bought the old two dollar 1st ed DMG (I felt it was my duty as a Gamer).

Kicking and Screaming

About a week ago I attended a local D&D Meetup. There were about 4 tables worth of folks ranging from early 40’s to early 20’s and even a couple of honest to gawsh girls.
I wasn’t really prepared to play, I just wanted to scout it out and see what kind of turnout there was. On one hand I was please to see so many people, on the other I was dismayed to see that D&D3E was the only offering. I have dozens of games, quite a few I honestly haven’t played in years. I was hoping to find SOMEONE interested in say, a game of GURPS, CHILL or any kind of Pulp game. But all they wanted to play was D&D.

Later that evening I thought that maybe I’ll meet them halfway. So I posted that I would be willing to run a D20 game (Conan, Adventure, Masque of the Red Death, Mutants & Masterminds, Sidewinder, Etc,) at the next Meetup if there was any interest. Three days later I had 20+ views but no responses (the audacity of it all!). It looks like if I ever want to game again I need to get out of my Ivory Second Edition Tower and join the rest of Gamerdom at the 3rd edition altar.