No Marvel Tonight

We had issues with player and GM illness, so the Marvel game via Skype got postponed.  But the night wasn't completely without superheroics.  I picked up the PDF version of Heroes and Villains v2 for Green Ronin's DC Adventures game.  It's, not unexpectedly, lovely.  But it also makes me kind of sad, because GR wisely opted to write up the iconic versions of DC's stable of heroes and baddies.  Contrasted with the sheer crapfest the DC Universe has degenerated into since the advent of the "New 52," it's kind of a depressing reminder of how great things were.

In other news, it looks like I'll be running another D&D (or D&D-ish) for newbies game in the very near future.  I need to speak with the player recruiter to figure out details, so more on that when I know the score.

Finally, "John Carter" is fantastic.  Go see it before it drops off the radar.

A Quick Shout-Out

I recently discovered 2 GM's, 1 Mic, a truly outstanding general RPG podcast.  I really can't say enough good things about this one.  The hosts are personable, knowledgeable, and discuss their chosen topics without discussing them to death.  They focus on a wide variety of games and topics, including the "Favorite Game of the Week," a notion that appeals greatly to my Gamer ADD.  Best of all, they seem to understand economy.  Each podcast runs right around an hour, and I have yet to see the sort of bloat that often infects podcasters (Order 66, I'm looking at you).

It's a fun show, and well worth checking out.

Deeper Than I Usually Get

I still had some time off from work to burn before the middle of March, so I went ahead and took this week.  As I had no big plans, I set myself the task of rescuing the game books that are stored in boxes in my garage.  About seven years ago, I had to temporarily turn my study into a guest room, which meant getting rid of some shelves and moving in a couch-bed.  As a result, about thirty bankers' boxes of games ended up stored in the garage.  In the ensuing years, said boxes got raided when I went looking for something, and many of them were half empty, causing the remaining books to get bent out of shape.

So, I bought new shelving, unboxed all the books, and put them on the shelves, where I can access them, and where they can either stand up straight or lie flat.

 

After I took a picture of this and put it up on Facebook, I decided to photograph the rest of my accumulated library:

My Main Bookshelf

Main Bookshelf Detail - Left

Main Bookshelf Detail - Right

Auxiliary Shelf #1

Auxiliary Shelf #2

For a few moments, I felt a sense of pride in it.  But right now, I'm actually feeling kind of disappointed in myself.  Those shelves represent the investment of thousands of dollars over the course of decades.  But mostly, they're full of untapped potential.  There are hundreds of books on those shelves I never used for gaming.  There are scores I've read once, or possibly never read at all.  Not to mention boardgames unplayed, software unused, and Gigabytes of PDFs purchased over the years.

I consider myself lucky that I get to game regularly once a week for three hours, and for four or five hours on a less regular basis.  But I want more.  I want to feel that sense of wonder, that spark of creation, something I rarely feel at the gaming table anymore.  I want to run games and have people in my home to enjoy them, something that just isn't feasible at the moment.  I'm worried that I just buy gaming stuff to try and fill that need and it's been going on for a very long time. 

On the other hand, this may just be a consequence of having a week's vacation and the house all to myself.

So, Here's That Podcast

Give it a listen, if only to hear me utter the lamest "Sweet Christmas!" in human history.

Vigilance Podcast

Unexpected Gaming Night

This afternoon, I got an unexpected invite to join some folks from the Vigilance Podcast to play the new Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game, from Margaret Weis Productions.  So, for the past three hours, I've been Luke Cage, helping Spider-Man and Iron Man try to put the hurt on Carnage, Electro, and Tombstone.  It was both my first time playing MHR, and my first time playing via Skype.  Things didn't go very well for Luke, I'm sorry to say, but all in all, the game itself went quite well. 

MHR is a different sort of superhero game, far more interested in telling comic book stories than simulating comic book powers, if that makes any sense.  It uses a very interesting dice management game, one that's entirely transparent, so the players and GM know exactly what they need to do to succeed at any given time, so they can make informed choices in spending plot points in order to add to or manipulate their dice pools.

One thing I particularly like about it is how the rules for gaining plot points (the economy of the game) are explicit throughout.  Too often in games like Mutants & Masterminds or ICONS, a stingy GM can bog down the players when they should be giving out points.  In MHR, the ways both the players and the Watcher (the GM) are spelled out in clear and simple detail (as are the ways to spend them).

Actually, the Watcher doesn't have plot points.  He has the Doom Pool.  And a splendid mechanic it is.  You see, at the beginning of a game, the pool only consists of 2d6.  However, he can give the players plot points in specific circumstances which allow him to either add more dice to the pool or increase the size of the dice, to d8, d10, or even d12.  These dice are used (again, in very specifically defined ways) to make the heroes' lives miserable.  And since the threat of the pool increases as the adventure progresses, the overall tension level goes up.  However, some of the things the Watcher can do with the pool deplete its dice, possibly permanently.  So the management game exists on that side of the table as well.

I'm not sure MHR would work with the entirety of my regular gaming group.  But with the right bunch of players (like the ones we had tonight), it totally works.

Tomorrow, I've got an actual pre-scheduled game, going back to our 4e D&D campaign for the first time since November or so.  We're starting early and bringing a pot-luck dinner to celebrate.  Here's hoping the rest of you get to rock the dice this weekend.

It Only Gets Worse From Here, Folks

Introducing the second of the Well-Meaning Friends: Mister February, Captain Upgrade!

Captain Upgrade
Carl Unger
Transformed

Prowess  3
Coordination  3
Strength  3
Intellect  5
Awareness  3
Willpower  3

Stamina  6
Determination  1

Specialties
  Leadership
  Investigation

Powers
  Wizardry 4
    Ability Boost (Prowess)
    Ability Boost (Coordination)
    Ability Boost (Strength)
    Ability Boost (Intellect)
    Ability Boost (Awareness)
    Ability Boost (Willpower)

Qualities
  Catchphrase : "Time To Upgrade - For Justice!"
  Motivation :  Effiiciency
  Connections : The Well-Meaning Friends

Challenges
  Enemy : The Time Bandit
  Weakness : Can Only Use One Ability Boost at a Time

Origin:
Carl Unger was a minor regulatory compliance administrator for the Government Accounting Office.  In the course of what should have been a perfectly ordinary audit, he found himself embroiled in a plan by the Time Bandit to steal the wasted milliseconds that make up everyone's day.  Of course, being a capable regulatory compliance administrator, Carl knew time-wasting when he saw it.  But what could he, a lowly bureaucrat do against an actual supervillain?

Quite a bit, actually.  At least, after the wizard got through with him.

Did I mention the wizard?  Yeah, so it seems Time Bandit had this arch-nemesis, a wizard from a temporal sideline created when the Bandit stole his present.  This wizard, who Carl swears was named Roosevelt Churchill whispered a secret in Carl's ear, bestowing on him the ability to upgrade himself to face any foe.

That's Carl's story and he's sticking to it.  After defeating the Time Bandit, he went on a brief spree of crime fighting, eventually meeting up with other itinerant do-gooders, and founding the Well-Meaning Friends.

Miss January: Sonic Replicator

Here's the first of the Well-Meaning Heroes.  Between her name, her generic costume, and utterly meaningless powers, I pretty much had to make her up from whole cloth.  It wasn't easy.

Sonic Replicator
Sonia Reposada
Transformed

Prowess  3
Coordination  4
Strength  3
Intellect  4
Awareness  6
Willpower  6

Stamina  9
Determination  *

Specialties
  Computers
  Electronics
  Science (Geology)

Powers
  Elemental Control 5 (Sound)
    Attacking
    Shaping
  Duplication 3
  Supersenses 3 (Sonar, Enhanced Hearing, Extended Hearing )

Qualities
  Catchphrase : "Time for some three-part harmony!"
  Motivation : Means Well
  Connection:  Well-Meaning Friends

Challenges
  Personal : Poor Eyesight
  Weakness : Powers Do Not Work In A Vacuum

Point Total  40

Origin

Sonia Reposada worked as a systems administrator in a subterranean data center, remotely managing a series of seismic experiments.  The biggest and most important involved recording the sounds of earthquakes forming deep within the Earth's crust, in order to find new ways of detecting them.  The sounds required massive amplification and enhancement, and much of her work involved babysitting the computers that did the heavy lifting.  All in all, it was actually pretty boring stuff.

Until Zzyrge struck the nearby hydroelectric dam.  The ensuing power surge overloaded every circuit in a 100 mile radius.  In the case of Sonia's center, it also triggered what invetigators later called "a massive sonic anomaly."  Exposed to extreme ultrasonic vibrations, Sonia changed.  She became a being composed of "solid sound," possessing the ability to generate sonic blasts, as well as create and shape "solid sound."  Furthermore, she could split herself into three identical copies.  Shortly thereafter, she was contacted by the Well-Meaning Friends, and she joined immediately.

Next Up: Mister February - Captain Upgrade!