Infinity Storm, my Mutants & Masterminds 2nd Edition campaign, ran from mid-2007 through early 2008. Featuring eight issues (aka episodes), it’s notable for being the first superheroes game I ever ran and featuring the first in-character blog I ever wrote. A dozen years later, the campaign still stays with me, despite its relatively short run. Two things stand out: … Read more
The new Marvel Heroic Basic RPG by Margaret Weis Productions is generating a good degree of buzz in RPG circles. A number of folks I follow on Twitter have been talking about it, and it’s been consistently hitting the top spot on RPGNow’s Top 100 Sales List. Since I’m a big Marvel guy, I decided … Read more
Superheroes need tall buildings to leap in a single bound … not to mention needing them to serve as backdrops for battles, penthouse homes for their mild-mannered millionaire personas, and possibly even secret lairs.
Freedom City’s Pyramid Plaza offers almost all this, and its entry in the Freedom City Atlas provides everything GMs need to incorporate it into their Mutants & Masterminds games.
The Dark Knight is brilliant. It’s intellectually challenging. It’s psychologically terrifying. And there’s a damn good chance it’ll scare the living daylights out of your 13-year-old. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to those who saw Batman Begins. The movie hews close to the comic books, which have run to the dark side ever since … Read more
The heroes of Freedom City will once again take to the skies tonight as my gaming group returns to our Infinity Storm campaign for Mutants & Masterminds. Player schedules — both mine and the groups — have played havoc with the campaign, and as a result the campaign’s been on something of a hiatus since … Read more
Back in November, when I was working on my novel, I wrote a scene in which the main characters got together for a graphic novel book club. When I mentioned this to my gaming group, they thought it was a great idea … and that we should give it a try in the real world.
After much discussion and a few delays, we’re finally doing it. Our first-ever Graphic Novel Book Club will take place tonight at WhichBrew, where we’ll be eating good food, drinking local beers, and discussing Alan Moore’s classic (if highly depressing) graphic novel Watchmen.
It’s a tough novel to start with because it truly feels like a novel. It’s dense and literary, with some chapters that spin the narrative wildly out of control, and an ending so depressing it could drive you to drink. It’s dystopian alternate history 1980s has almost no sympathetic heroes; there are plenty of reasons to hate them, and almost none you can admire.
It’s been a while since my last Game Day column, partly because of a crazy amount of work at home and job, but also because I haven’t been gaming as much as I’d like – I’ve missed two sessions in the last month, and will miss another next month. Haphazard schedule aside, my Mutants & … Read more
I missed out on gaming last week, which makes me overly eager to throw some dice tonight. We’ll eschewing our normal role-playing campaigns in favor of a a round of the most excellent board game Arkham Horror, this time with the very cool-looking expansion, The King in Yellow. We have one, maybe two role-playing sessions … Read more
Atlas stood crouched on the launch pad, his arms holding up the bulky form of a $250 million, 1.5 ton communications satellite. He shifted the weight easily, adjusting his grip on the titanium handholds mounted on the satellite’s protective shroud, then spoke softly into his headset. “Launch Control, this is Atlas. Ready for orbital insertion.” … Read more
Looking back over my Top of the Pile columns, and considering what this week’s might bring, I found that I was in something of a rut — I’ve got my standard comics that I get every month — X-Men, Conan, Ex Machina, Batman — but I haven’t been venturing very far from that core. That’s … Read more