Just this once, can we be original?

I've been a gamer for over twenty years.  For the vast majority of those years, I've been interested in superheroes games.  There have been long stretches I didn't play D&D, because, let's face it, Tolkenian fantasy is only so interesting, and, some iterations of the game have had some serious flaws, but I always had some superhero game that caught my eye.  And there have been a lot of those, Two different iterations of Marvel Comics based games, the old DC heroes game, GURPS, HERO, Villians &Vigilantes, two White-Wolf based superheroes games, and two iterations of Heroes Unlimited have all taken up space on cheap bookshelves in my life before I picked up a copy Wild Talents.

So, believe me when I say I know the genre.  And, with that, I know the people who tend to play it and the sorts of characters you tend to see.  And, it's with that in mind that I ask why we as players have clung so tightly to boring tropes from the Justice League?  I know that seems almost painfully oversimplistic, but the vast majority of characters fit one of the following molds:  Brick (Superman/Wonder Woman), Martial Artist (Modern Batman), Gadgeteer (60's Batman), Speedster (the Flash), Blaster (Black Lighting), Magician (Green Lantern/Zatana/Dr. Fate), or Psychic (Martian Manhunter), okay, that last one is kind of a stretch--most PC psychics are either Jean Grey or Professor X--but he does read minds.

My problem isn't with these characters, they're classics of the genre who largely defined what four-color superheroes look like.  My problem is that there are myriad alternative models of what a superhero can look like, why aren't there that many models of what superhero characters in RPG's look like?  I understand that in the early days of superhero games, you had a shopping list of powers and those powers tended to push you into one of those molds, but, most modern games use some kind of point buy system like GURPS, HERO, or ORE.  In a point-buy system, there's no inherent reason to link powers thematically, nor to combine powers into those molds. 

To put it another way, if the power to ignore an attack is defined by effect, turning intangible and being bullet-proof are the same power.  In a world like that, there's no reason to connect travelling quickly to thinking and acting quickly (And certainly, there are classic characters who can do one, but not the other), nor is there inherent reason to connect invulnerability to inhuman strength.  But people still do that. 

My question is why?

My guess is that it's laziness.  There's no inherent reason to connect invulnerability and super-strength, there is a practical reason that a strong character should be able to take a hit or survive a super-fistfight, but there's no reason that the power making that possible has to be invulnerability, or that those two have to imply flight (Superman, Captain Marvel, and Hawkgirl, I'm talking to you).  It's just way easier to go there than to think about a more interesting combination.

Because I don't just want to be a jerk who pisses all over everyone's favorite way of making superheroes, I'll add that what most people are really doing with these is buying three powers, an offensive power (or two--usually one hand-to-hand and one ranged), a defensive power, and something interesting outside of a fight.  Certain hero types are weighted a little differently, but, really, it all comes down to those questions.

My theory is that, with a couple of very specific exceptions, or powers that fit multiple categories, all superpowers are really either:  An attack, a ranged attack, a defense, a means of moving quickly, or a means of doing something interesting outside of combat.  So, I'll provide a non-exhaustive list of sample powers, and characters who have them from comic-books based on that breakdown.

Melee Attack:  Super strength (Superman), Martial Arts Training (Batman), Fantasy-Style Weapon (Wonder Woman/Black Knight), High speed punches (The Flash), Pulling out Opponent's heart which then immolates (Evil Shaman from second Indiana Jones film)

Ranged Attack:  Shooting lasers/Energy Blasts (Superman/Black Lighting), Specialize thrown weapon (Batman), Throwing objects normal people couldn't move (Hulk), Telekinesis (Marvel Girl), Prehensile Hair (Medusa), Guns (Punisher), Archaic Ranged Weapons (Green Arrow), Gadget Ranged Weapons (Green Arrow), Illusionary/Telepathic attacks (Mastermind), Specialized Teleportation/Temporarily invoking demons (I made those up)

Defense:  Invulnerability (Superman), Intangibility (Shadowcat), Turn into a hard substance (Absorbing Man/Collossus), Invisibility (Invisible Girl), Shrink really small (Atom), Dodge (Batman), Martial Arts Defense (Batman), Specialized precognition (Midnighter), Regeneration (Wolverine), Illusion/Telepathic mind clouding (Mastermind), Create forcefields (Green Lantern), Shield (Captain America), Specialized Shapeshifting (The T-1000 in Terminator 2) Large quantity of Hit Points/Exceptional Toughness

Means of moving quickly:  Flight (Superman), Cool high-tech vehicle (Batman), Teleportation (Nightcrawler), Swing on webs (Spiderman), Astral Projection (Dr. Fate), Become intangible/out of phase (Shadowcat), Turn other people into you (Agent Smith from the Matrix movies)

Useful outside of combat:  Regeneration (Wolverine), Turn into something really small (Atom), Mind reading (Martian Manhunter), Tongues (Cypher--Maybe my favorite metahuman ever), Shapeshifting, Many mundane skills

So, next time, rather than make a super-strong character who is invulnerable and flies, consider a character with a sword, the ability to turn invisible, and the ability to walk through walls.  Or maybe don't do that, it's a little too "ninja" for my tastes, but, you get my point.

KublaCon Golden Gargant 2014 Final Standings!

Finally (I know; my fault, sorry) I've got the final results for 2014's Golden Gargant at KublaCon.

It's organized by win/loss record, then battle points. Ties were resolved via strength of schedule. Battle points were added straight into the total. Like the Frontline Gaming tournament system wins are worth 1000 points, ties 500, and losses no-points; I've also provided the win/lows/tie breakdown for the sake of completeness. For those who would like a PDF copy of the rubric you'll find one here.

An interesting note is that our four (soon to get a new codex) Ork players landed in every scoring bracket, from 3 wins down to 3 losses.

Thanks to everybody who came out. It was stressful because of a couple hiccups, but you guys made it an awesome event to run! Also thanks to the guys at Frontline Gaming for including us in the Independent Tournament Circuit, and to them and Powered play for providing awesome prize support!

Cheers and happy gaming!

~ Eddie

Workbench Wednesday - 6/5/14

Greetings! I'm actually making this post on Wednesday! Hooray for me. It has been a very successful and very fulfilling hobby week. After finishing my Medusas I was able to paint my 10 man Tactical Support Squad with Volkite Culverin in Mark4 armor. I have worked out an expedient way to paint my Death Guard, as evidenced by the fact that I finished a 10 man squad in a week! I'm waiting for the bases to arrive from Dragon Forge, after which I'll weather the marines with pigments and they'll officially be finished.

It should be a couple weeks, so in the meantime I'll be working on a 10 man Destroyer Squad with Jump Packs and two Apothecaries. After that will be  two 15 man Tactical Squads in Mark2 armor. I'll also be placing another Forgeworld order this week in which I'll be getting 10 more Mark4 marines to finish the second Tactical Support Squad, 15 Breacher Marines and some command elements. This project is proving to be as rewarding as I hoped it would be. Very inspiring. Hopefully I'll be on track to have a small tournament at the end of the year!

On to the pics!

Workbench Wednesday - 5/28

Greetings! I've had a very productive and rewarding hobby week. I am diving headlong into my Death Guard Legion. I finished my two Legion Medusas, and am really happy with how they turned out. I am really glad I practiced with the rhino and the drop pod. Without further ado, here are the pics!!

I forgot to put the soot on the exhaust stacks, which I fixed earlier today! I posted the Medusas to the Horus Heresy Painting and Modeling Group on Facebook and someone pointed out that I forgot the soot.  Sometimes a fresh pair of eyes is just what a model needs to be finished off.  Like most hobbyists, I'm very critical of my own work, but I just kindof shook my head that I could miss something that seems so obvious!  If you are interested in Horus Heresy miniatures, I highly recommend joining the group.  There are a lot of very talented hobbyists in that group, and I am constantly inspired by their work.

Workbench Wednesday (Saturday) - 5/21

Greetings!! After finishing the Helbrutes and sorcerer, and not being able to attend Kublacon, I've shifted my hobby focus to my Horus Heresy Death Guard Legion. To this end, I painted up some test models, a drop pod and a rhino. I wanted to try out some new techniques, especially using an oil wash for the first time. Neither model will be in my Heresy army, as the rhino isn't a Diemos pattern and the Death Guard rite of war doesn't allow drop pods. I found a tutorial on Battle Bunnies Blog, at it turned out brilliantly!  They're test models, so no transfers and I'm still waiting to do the weathering powders, but the majority of work is done.

After finishing the test models, my attention has turned to my two Legion Medusas. They're in progress right now, and so far are turning out really well. 

Water slide transfers are a total pain in my ass, but I've finally figured out a system that works, and will do a brief tutorial in the coming week, hopefully. I've also prepped a 10 man Tactical Support Squad with Volkite Calivers as my next project. 

I also ordered my bases from Dragon Forge. I normally use Secret Weapon Miniatures bases, but for variety I decided to go with Dragon Forge. They're simply the highest quality resin bases on the market. The downside is it can take 3-6 weeks to get an order as they're hand cast, but it's well worth the wait. They're simply the best. I'm looking forward to this project a lot, and will share it with you as time goes on! 

I also can't wait for the new Ork release!!!! Orks were my first army when I was a kid and the first army I made when I came back to the hobby. I can't wait to see what GW has in store for them! Needless to say I'll be picking up a bevy of new Orks to add to my Waaagh!

Pre shading with airbrush:

Workbench Wednesday - 5/14/14

Greetings! Despite a busy week with the family I had a very productive hobby week!!! I finished weathering everything I've painted recently, and finished all the Scrap Yard bases from Secret Weapon Miniatures. The weathering really tied the models together and gave them the look I'm going for.

I hope this will be one of my last posts from my phone as my wife and I just got a brand new iMac! Yay for real pictures. 

Also, it doesn't look like I'll be attending Kublacon after all as it is a holiday weekend and a busy weekend for those of us in the service industry. Boo. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop working on this project, just that the urgency has faded a little. I am pretty close to just finishing every model I have for this army, which is a rarity, so that's good motivation in and of itself. Still to go are the 60 cultists, 6 spawn and Kazak. And the Chaos Warhound, which will be quite the project in itself. I'm really excited about that project, though I seem to be missing one of the toes. I ordered a tentacle maker from greenstuff industries to make different hoses and tentacles to augment the Titan, and to replace the toe if I can't find it. 

Taking away the minority of my hobby attention will be my Forgeworld Heresy Death Guard. I had a very sizable force but decided to sell them to fix the family car, which was painful but the right thing to do. I am reconstituting them now and am very excited about that project. I'll be blogging the whole army build and painting journey.  I'm going to be starting a gaming group in the South Bay and hopefully running a tournament later this year. 

Anyway, on to the pictures of projects:

More after the jump.

Workbench Wednesday 5/7/14

Greetings!!  I missed last week's post, though I don't have much to report since then. I finished a 'good enough' paint job on the Heldrake and finished painting the sorcerer's corpse cart bike. I've hit a bit of a wall with motivation, and assembled Kazyk the Befouled and primed him. I also have prepped some Secret Weapon Miniatures bases for paint. I think some weathering and basing, thus finishing some models completely, will help a great deal. I'll keep updating as I paint the spawn and Kazyk, after them it's just cultists until the cows come home.

Closer pictures after the jump.

Workbench Wednesday - 4/23/14

So the post is a couple days late, one of the side effects of having a 6 week old daughter! Haven't made a ton of progress in the past week, as I'm pretty uninspired by the Heldrake. It's nearly finished, I just have to go back over all the black another time and do the metals, maybe touch up the OSL around the eyes. Really just need to get it finished before moving on to the sorcerer's cart, which should prove much more inspiring!!

I have a finished Heldrake on the left, WIP on the right. Could have done a better job with the shading but it's good enough. They'll looking intimidating screaming on from reserves, so that's a plus! Also really looking forward to getting going on the bases. My FLGS (Game Kastle in Santa Clara, CA) finally got my Secret Weapon Miniatures Scrap Yard bases for me, so I'll do sort of a review and painting tutorial for them when I get to them. With about a month until Kublacon I'm not sure if I'll finish everything, but will certainly get the core of the force done, barring any setbacks. 

The Heldrake WIP. 

I'd like to take an opportunity to plug a Kickstarter campaign as well. It's the first campaign I've ever backed, and am really excited to see what the rest of the campaign has in store and get my minis around November: Jeremy Glen's Creature Caster

They're huge, beautiful sculpts of daemons, and I'm a sucker for daemons of all kinds, especially big scary ones. I'm going to finish the Heldrake in the next couple of days and hopefully the cart before the next update! Until then, Happy Hobbying!

Workbench Wednesday - 4/16/14

Greetings! Another week has gone by and I'm pretty happy with the progress I've been making. I've finished painting the Helbrutes and the Sorcerer! They are awaiting weathering, which I'll do after I finish the Sorcerer's cart and finish painting their bases. The paint jobs are necessarily a little quick and dirty as the weathering is the real focus. 

I wish I had the ability to upload pictures taken with a better camera. Working with just a phone and a tablet has its limitations! More pictures after the jump.

Workbench Wednesday - 4/9/14

I've managed to get a decent amount done this week, the helbrutes are progressing nicely!!! Armor, metals, and flesh are done; basically all the big jobs. As they say, the devil is in the details. Still need to do hoses, horns, creepy chaos eyes, missiles, etc. I'm working on the sorcerer at the same time as he's in the same color scheme, though some robes, nurglings, skulls, etc will need to be done separately.

More pictures after the jump.

Golden Gargant 2014 Info, Rules, and Regulations!

UPDATE: THERE HAVE BEEN TWO SMALL CHANGES TO THE TOURNAMENT RULES! THEY ARE MARKED IN RED TEXT TO MAKE THEM MORE VISIBLE!

UPDATE #2 (5/1/14): FINAL UPDATE BEFORE KUBLACON! THE RULES HAVE BEEN ALTERED TO REFLECT THAT WE WILL BE PLAYING UNDER 6TH EDITION THIS YEAR, REGARDLESS OF NEW EDITION RELEASES. ROUNDS ARE 2 HOURS & 20 MINUTES LONG. SCENARIOS CHANGED TO USE DAWN OF WAR DEPLOYMENT FOR LOGISTICAL REASONS. CHANGES MARKED IN RED.

Hey, all! This marks my second year running the Golden Gargant tournament at KublaCon! This year instead of having a grotesquely long and complicated event listing on the KublaCon event search I'll be posting it here! Now you won't have to bounce all over the place looking at different sources for all the rules just to figure out what's going on! Before I go on I want to thank and give credit to the crew over at Frontline Gaming for providing an awesome tournament format that lets other tournament organizers have an easy base to work from and tweak for their needs. They also have some cool gaming mats that will be adoring a few of the tables this year (they're beer proof to boot...but let's avoid testing that for the sake of the terrain and minis).

Here's the basic rundown:
Sunday, May 25th.
Tournament Registration starts at 8:00 AM.
First Round starts at 9:00 AM.
1,750 Points. Standard Force Organization.
Three, Two-Hour & Twenty-Minute Rounds (Meal-Break After Round Two)
Hyatt Regency SFO

Full weekend passes go up to full price on April 15th, so get yours now if you plan on being at the con for more then one day! KublaCon Registration.

Click here to find the official event listing, though anything you need is likely in the rest of this post.

Tournament rules and more info after the jump.

Seriously?

I got invited to a game recently.  I'm not sure about it, but I"m pretty certain that the game isn't for me.  It's a superheroes game, which isn't a genre I have a problem with, but the guy wants to play Fifth Edition Hero System.  Further, he asked everyone what their favorite type of character to make is:  Brick, Martial Artist, Energy Projector, Psychic, or Speedster?  The last bit, was that we've been told nothing about the setting or game, though after repeated pleadings, found out that we'll be "saving the world" because we're "nice guys" and that there have apparently been superheroes since WWII, and giant monsters have attacked Japan, but that hasn't changed the world notably.  Oh, and since being invited, the game has changed from being a couple of times a month to weekly.

I know there are people out there who think that sounds fun.  Hell, I know there was a point in my life when I was one of them.  I guess I've just changed.  But, at this point in my life, that game sounds miserable.  Let me unpack the reasons why:

Conflict not Combat

Think about your favorite movie that isn't a documentary.  I don't care what genre it is, whether it's an action movie or a romantic comedy, I am about to tell you what it's about with 100% accuracy.  Your favorite move is about conflict.  If it's an action movie, it's about physical conflict.  If it's a romantic comedy, it's either about conflict between people (the love triangle) or about a conflict of values (the will they-won't they).  Movies and role-playing games have a common thread, there has to be a conflict or there's no peg to hang the story on.

My issue is that most game's take the term "conflict" too literally.  The conflicts are always physical, and resolution of those conflicts is always synonymous with violence.  That's unfortunate, because movies, television, and books, (all important inspirations to gaming genres) all see resolution as possible in different ways.

Workbench Wednesday - 4/2/14

This Wednesday I've made some progress on the inspiration for my Kublacon list - Helbrutes!! As you can see, they're magnetized to have multiple weapon options, though for Kublacon they'll be sporting a bunch of power fists as they'll be deepstriking as close to the enemy as possible for backfield disruption. The kits are awesome, and very easily magnetized. I used 1/4" magnets and any of the Helbrutes can carry any weapon (yay for me for not messing up the polarization).

They're painted in my 40k Death Guard theme, to go with my existing marines and terminators. Ironically they'll be the only models in my list that are painted in this theme unless rumors of a new plastic obliterator kit are true. As I'm using cultists and not Plague Marines, they'll stand out a bit, but I'll try to find a way to incorporate the scheme in the cultist units. They're going to be heavily weathered, and should look pretty decayed and menacing when all is said and done.

Conversion Corner: CSM Sorcerer on Bike - Construction Complete!!

Got a couple of hours to finish up construction of my Bike Sorcerer. I love how it came out, and am looking forward to painting it up for Kublacon! I started painting the sorcerer a week ago, and will be painting him alongside the Helbrutes, as they'll be the same scheme. Still on the to-do list for Kublacon are a Heldrake and Kazak the Befouled on Rot Beast, who will serve as my chaos lord on bike. On to the pictures!!!

More pictures after the jump.

Conversion Corner: CSM Sorcerer on Bike WIP #2

I got some work done on my corpse cart tonight, and it's coming along nicely!  I've assembled the main body of the cart completely stock as it comes from GW. I like the kit a lot, and it fits together pretty well!

Trying to fit the Forgeworld Nurgle Sorcerer where the corpse cart charioteer stands was impossible, as it was too small a space and obscured the sorcerer. Turns out the sorcerer fits well standing on top of the pile of corpses, which suits the feel of the model perfectly. I assembled the rider with a long stake carrying an impaled corpse, whose task it is to feed corpses to the engine of the cart.

Conversion Corner: CSM Sorcerer on Bike WIP

With the release of the Crimson slaughter codex, I've added a Chaos Space Marine sorcerer on a bike to my Kublacon list. Divination is the bee's knees. As my CSM army is Nurgle themed, I didn't want to just convert a Chaos Bike to have a sorcerer on it. That bring us to the Corpse Cart. Really cool model, obviously oozing Nurgle (quite literally), and perfect for a Sorcerer to ride into battle. Here's the problem though:

Workbench Wednesday - 3/26/14

It's been a pretty busy week! Built and magnetized 3 of the new Helbrute kits, and I have to say they were a pleasure to build! Looking forward to getting them painted and ready for Kublacon. On the workbench today are 40 cultists getting ready to be primed. I also have 6 spawn whose greenstuff is drying and who will be primed this week as well.

I've been toying with a few lists for Kublacon, and have narrowed it down to 3 possibles that will need some okay testing. Not knowing which I will bring does, unfortunately, necessitate me modeling and painting for all 3 possibilities. 

What Does the Pagecount Say?

When I'm thinking of buying an RPG, the first thing I do is look at the table of contents.  The table of contents tells you a lot about a game.  It tells you what the game is about:  A game with a magic system is about magic, a game without one, isn't.  A book where half the book is about game mechanics, with the other half sharing GMing tips, setting stuff, and character creation is going to give a very different feel than a game where one tenth of the book is about mechanics and character creation and the rest is an overview of the setting.

Look at the player's handbook for Dungeons and Dragons sometime:  There's less than twenty-pages of setting material, and extensive rules for spells, equipment, character creation, skills, feats, and combat.  From that I know what the game is really about:  It's about characters who use spells, equipment, skills, and feats to fight things.  Where they do it isn't that important.  On the other hand, Talislanta's five hundred page tome with all the rules crammed into fifty pages or so, is a game about a strange alien world where the differences between magic schools are shaped as much by social opinion as by what the magic does.

Workbench Wednesday 3/19

First things first. I know it's Tuesday, but I'm going to be taking a picture of my workbench each Wednesday to show current projects, plans for the next week, etc. I can assure you it will look exactly the same tomorrow!

With the release of the new Helbrute kits and the impending dataslate, as well as the new Crimson Slaughter codex, I unearthed my second Dark Vengeance set and am in the process of assembling them. On the right you can see three new helbrute kits (boss!), which I will be doing a review on and painting posts. The bits boxes on the top are full of empire Flagellants and state troop bodies, eagerly awaiting their transformation into cultists!  The pile of assembled minis in the top left are already converted Flagellants and Beastmen Gors which will also serve the Dark Gods as cultists. 

The Quandary of the Computer Hacker: What Modern RPG's Have to Learn from the Classics

The Role-Playing Game is a distinctly modern genre.  The roots of Role-Playing Games go back over a century.  The first miniatures wargame was published in the 1800's, but it took almost a century between that game and the revolution of small unit tactics games in the 60's, which would become Chainmail, which would become Dungeons and Dragons.

If you're a gamer of my generation, your first RPG was D&D.  It had its weaknesses:  There were really only a couple ways to interact with the world.  You could talk to things or attack them.  There were charts for both.  Certain classes had other ways to interact with things:  Elves could spot secret doors; Dwarves could understand architecture and tunnels; Spell-casters could do a lot of things; and Thieves (they wouldn't be renamed rogues until second edition) had a list of things they could do that were denied all other classes.  Some book added secondary-skills, giving each character a useful occupation such as "armorer" or "cooper" but there weren't systems for these skills.  The (wilderness and dungeoneers) Survival Guides added a system of non-weapon proficiencies which gave you some new ways of interacting, but, essentially, all characters had a set of buttons, one was fight, one was talk, and then there were a few more that varied by class.