Graph Paper Games

I've owned this game for a very, very long time and with my mini-convention coming up was thinking about doing a Star Trek scenario.  I wanted to try it out, however, and decided to run a one-shot using the Last Unicorn Games version of Star Trek. I'll say first off that PC creation is a cinch and only takes a couple of minutes if you use the pre-made packages for their early childhood, training cruise, etc.  There's enough options for ship positions to round out a five-person party easily without someone having to be "Ship's Counselor," which I think would be a dull position in most cases. I will say that the dice mechanics, as it played out in the scenario I designed were odd.  When you want to make a skill check you roll the number of dice equal to the applicable attribute, pick the highest die (they are all d6's) and then add the skill rating value.  So if you have a skill rating of 2 and an attribute rating of 3, you roll three d6's, pick t...

     Since World War II, there were always those guys.  The ones that got dressed in tights and Halloween costumes and hurled exploding frisbees at each other.  Mystery men.  Daredevils.  Acrobats.  Brave heroes and diabolical villains, but very, very few could actually be called "superheroes."  There were always rumors, legends, and stories about people with powers beyond those of normal humans, but few believed them and fewer turned out to be true.      Then came the Age of Wonders.  An incredible trinity of beings came into the public light, and thankfully all three of them were on the side of humanity: the alien, the sorceress, and the genius.      Unquestionably the Celestial was the most powerful and least human.  His first appearance at the turn of the century truly began the Age of Wonders.  Possessing incredible powers including godlike strength, the ability to fly through space, and ...

I've written but not posted about five different blog posts weighing the pros and cons of using licensed universes for superhero RPG's, but I realized each time that the article's content was so obvious that it didn't really need to clutter the blogosphere (short version: licensed universes are familiar to players, yet difficult to shoehorn new PC's into). My deliberation back and forth had me to the point where I wondered if I should even more forward on running a Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game when I had a bit of brainwave (no pun intended) thanks to the good people at DC Comics, namely Earth 2 . For those who don't know, as part of the wholly loathsome "52" quasi-reboot/retcon/fiendish-plan-to-alienate-readers.  DC Comics started from scratch with their characters, but then promptly created an alternative universe in order to continue to milk money from people like me who liked the Justice Society of America.  Hence, Earth 2 . The basic plot ...