Graph Paper Games

When I first considered doing this blog challenge, I spent a lot of time telling myself it wasn't going to work.  It was incredibly ambitious, both in terms of even conceiving of 26 supervillains in a month, much less writing them all out using a rules system with which I wasn't intimately familiar. So here it is, past mid-April and I've just gotten to "G."  I told myself that if I got five days behind, I would consider strongly throwing in the towel, and I'm there.  That isn't to say I did have ideas for the other days.  For example: Homunculus, a gargoyle summoned to this dimension by an evil sorcerer who has been captured by DOSHI.  Now Homunculus searches for a way to free him to he can return home. Ironsides, a major player in the criminal underworld who wears an antique suit of power armor passed down from one generation to another in his family. Judge Not, an anarchist who specifically targets law enforcement entities for the way they enforc...

I mentioned in my last post that I had been contacted by the creators of The Ultimate Hero that they were changing the PC creation rules, which I've been using for the April A-to-Z Blog Challenge.  They followed up by saying the rules were not changing substantially, and that my previous (and future) entries will translate into the newer rules without difficulty.  So I continue! Getaway Charisma 3 Intelligence 5 (Primary) Will Power 3 Dexterity 5 Stamina 2 Strength 3 Race: Kasen, Gatekeeper Power Level 1 Motivation: Greed Disadvantages: Wanted (major) Advantages: Attribute Bonus 5 (Intelligence), Portal Keeper, Secret Identity, Iron Will, Skill Point Bonus Skills: Brawling, Range, Athletics, Perception, Subterfuge (Escape, Stealth) Racial Powers: Improved Movement; +1 Racial bonus to Spot, Listen, and Tracking Specializations; Low Tech; Teleportation, Mystical Presence Powers: Teleportation 2, Invisibility, Psi-Shield, Protected Senses Sav...

So for this A-to-Z Blog Challenge I thought I would do a series of villains for the science-fiction/superhero RPG The Ultimate Hero .  At the onset I mentioned this game was in development, that I had played it at a convention last year, and that at that convention I had won a hardcover of the rules.  Or more specifically, the rules at that time. I got a very encouraging email from the creators of The Ultimate Hero  saying how much he liked what I was doing, but also mentioned that they were doing a re-work of the character creation rules right now.  From what he has been saying, the rules tweaking is a very good idea, especially in the way that it streamlines Advantages and Powers.  Some Advantages basically were "low-flash" superpowers, like superhuman strength or toughness.  Others, like Ally or Resources, reflect the whole "perk" idea you see in a lot of games. Anyways, I don't have the most recent set of rules as a result, and see little benefit in ...

False Idol Charisma 5 Intelligence 4 Will Power 6 (Primary) Dexterity 2 Stamina 2 Strength 2 Race: Human, Mental Mutate Power Level 1 Motivation: Power Disadvantages: Foe from the past, Megalomaniac  Advantages: Attribute bonus (Willpower) 6, Attribute bonus (Charisma) 5, Influential Benefactor, Power Pool increase, Resources 4 Skills: Meditation (Mental Focus), Social Interaction (Deception, Leadership) Racial Powers: Powers in Manipulation or Mental categories are 1/2 cost.  Power from Body Manipulation and Reduction categories cost double.  Vulnerability to power negation. Powers: Mind Control, Image Generation, Telepathy Saves: Kinetic 0, General 0, Will 6 Defense: Passive 11, Active 13  Health: 40 Endure Pain: 3 Power Pool: 115 Power Channeling: 7 Equipment: Ceremonial robes. Background: "False Idol" isn't what Simon Corrick calls himself; it is the name that DOSHI agents have given him.  Corrick has ...

Egregious Charisma 1 Intelligence 2 Will Power 4 Dexterity 3 Stamina 4 Strength 5 (primary) Race: Human, Physical Mutate Power Level 1 Motivation: Violence Disadvantages: Unusual appearance Advantages: Tough, Very Tough, Large, Attribute Bonus (Strength) 5, Skill bonus combat, Resources 1 Skills: Combat (Brawling 2), Melee, Range, Athletics, Vehicle Operations Racial Powers: powers from the Body Manipulation and Reduction are half price, powers from the Manipulation category cost double, Vulnerable to power negation Powers: Body Armor, Unyielding, Body Weaponry, Battle Fury Saves: Kinetic 12, General 7, Will 2 Defense: Passive 10, Active 14 Health: 127 Endure Pain: 6 Power Pool: 45 Power Channeling: 6 Equipment: Combat Shotgun, 8 Dimeload rounds, 3 Shrapnel grenades, $3000 Background:  Barrett Coles grew up in a difficult, poverty-ridden neighborhood on Earth.  As a youth he became a schoolyard bully and developed a viol...

I got a good bit of constructive criticism regarding my first handful of entries into the A-to-Z Challenge, namely regarding a lack of background, especially for those unfamiliar with the game (which would be just about everybody).  Some of that is just the pressure of cranking out all these NPC's, but I thought I would at least try to give some more insight into how I see these guys working in my own TUH games. Ajax: In TUH, humanity had superheroes and supervillains for over a century, but now there has been an explosion of spontaneously mutating humans manifesting powers.  In addition, the discovery of alien life and cultures whose technologies far outpace what humanity had to offer has caused huge societal changes for the Earth.  In less than fifty years humanity has gone from traveling through the solar system to spanning the galaxy, but their advancement has been under the very controlling gaze of the other races, especially the Xeros.  Those same alien race...

Continuing with my plan of creating 26 supervillains for the sci-fi/superhero RPG The Ultimate Hero Doc Clockwork Charisma 3 Intelligence 5 Will Power 4 Dexterity 4 Stamina 3 Strength 3 Race: Human Power Level 1 Motivation: Scientific Curiousity Disadvantages: Curiosity Advantages: Cyborg Powers (10), Keen Eyesight (3), Media Family (5), Resources 5 (20), Technical talent (20), Tough (7) Skills: Knowledge, Social interaction, Hi Tech Theory (Cybernetics), Medicine (Surgery) Racial Powers:  Powers: Artificial Senses, Cybernetic Arm, Dermal Reinforcement, Nanite Regeneration Saves: Kinetic 6, General 6, Will 2 Defense: Passive 10, Active 14 Health: 58 Endure Pain: 4 Power Pool: 55 Power Channeling: 6 Equipment: Doc Clockwork travels in a custom-built spaceship with a full medical bay including surgical suite.  He is often contracting private security or calling in favors from previous clients. Background: Doctor ...

For the A-to-Z Challenge I'm creating 26 villains for the sci-fi/superhero RPG The Ultimate Hero . Cryo-Jenny Charisma 3 Intelligence 4 Will Power 3 Dexterity 5 (Primary) Stamina 3 Strength 3 Race: Human, Meta-Mutate Power Level 1 Motivation: Greed Disadvantages: Wanted, Minor Phobia (fire) Advantages: Attribute Bonus Dexterity 5 (7), Jack-of-all-trades (15), Luck (10), Power Pool Increase (10), Power Trick Basic (20) Skills: Martial Arts, Range, Athletics, Subterfuge (Lockpicking) Racial Powers: Specialization (General Powers), Vulnerability to Power Negation Powers: Ice Manipulation, Hyper Speed, Night Vision, Combat Reflexes Saves: Kinetic 1, General 1, Will 1 Defense: Passive 10, Active 14 Health: 44 Endure Pain: 4 Power Pool: 115 Power Channeling: 5 Equipment: Personal Armor, Handgun (3 clips normal ammunition), silencer, business and casual clothes, PDA Background: Cryo-Jenny is a young mutate and professional assassi...

I'm creating 26 supervillains for the sci-fi/superhero RPG The Ultimate Hero for the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge. Borden, Lisbeth Charisma 3 Intelligence 3 Will Power 4 (Primary) Dexterity 3 Stamina 3 Strength 3 Race: Supernatural, Spirit Power Level 1 Motivation: Vengeance Disadvantages: Blood Lust Advantages: Hide True Power, Tough, Skill Bonus (Blade Master) Skills: Melee (Blade Master), Knowledge, Perception, Social Interaction, Subterfuge (Stealth) Racial Powers: Undead, Spirit Form Powers: Shadow Walk, Soul Forged Weapon (axe) Saves: Kinetic 1, General 1, Will 2 Defense: Passive 9, Active 12 Health: 65 Endure Pain: 4 Power Pool: 85 Power Channeling: 5 Equipment: Victorian clothes, axe Background: Three years ago local law enforcement were summoned to the home of Carl Morton, a senior partner at the financial consulting firm IFH.  There they found Morton and his wife fending off what the police described as a spectral woman...

Ajax Power Level 1 Human Paragon (full conversion cyborg) Motivation: Fanatic Attributes Charisma 4 (Primary) Intelligence 4 Will Power 5 Dexterity 4 Stamina 4 Strength 5 Disadvantages: Wanted (major), Intolerance, Advantages: Ally; Attribute Bonus, Strength 5; Attribute Bonus, Dexterity 4; Attribute Bonus, Will Power 5; Attribute Bonus, Stamina 4; Influential Benefactor; Iron Will; Military Heritage; Resources 2 Skills: Martial Arts (Kickboxing), Range (Firearms), Social Interaction (Leadership), Subterfuge, Demolitions Powers: Full Conversion Cybernetics       Power bonus to Kinetic and General 10      Health bonus of 20      Close combat damage bonus of 5      Strength 6 lifting capacity      Vulnerability to magnetics Saves: Kinetic 12, General 12, Will 9 Defense: Passive 10, Active 16 Health: 66 Endure Pain: 5 Power Pool: 120 Power Channeling: 5 Equipment:  Assa...

This all began in 2015 when I went to KantCon and had a chance to play The Ultimate Hero , a sci-fi/superhero RPG created by Paragon Notion .  It was a lot of fun and it was interesting to play in a game run by its creators as the game itself was in its Beta phase.  At the end of the session I happened to win the hardcopy of the rules which I've been picking my way through ever since. There is not a lot of supplementary material out there for the game, including any supervillains with which the PC's can come into conflict, so I thought for the April A-to-Z Blogging Challenge I'd try to come with 26 villains, including backstory and stats, from A to Z. The background of The Ultimate Hero is that it is the year 2135.  There have been superhumans thoughout history, rare individuals who became the stuff of legend and mythology.  In the latter half of the 20th Century there was a boom in superhumans fueled by human mutation, followed by the appearance of typical ...

One of the small joys of my life is being able to occasionally have lunch with friends (instead of the frequent work-related lunch) when I can talk about things I like, such as gaming.  So it was today when the member of my gaming group who also runs his own game on the side and I had lunch at the Japanese ricebowl diner near my house. Side note: having places like Japanese ricebowl diners and Vietnamese diners and Indian takeout curry places is one of the true treasures of my Midwestern oasis. As I said, we were talking gaming.  He's in the midst of a fairly ambitious D&D campaign, not your typical D&D fare but a "sword and sandal" epic set in ancient times.  Less Tolkein, more Harryhausen.  He's a good six months or so into it and it starting to encounter those challenges that all GM's face at a certain point, but that's for his own blog post if he wishes. On my end, we talked about Marvel Heroic Roleplaying  and its pending demise as an actively ...

This is a 30" by 40" piece of taskboard that I bought yesterday.  Taskboard is a fibrous kind of matte board made from recycled wood pulp favored by architecture students for making models.  It is flexible, cuts and sands easily, and isn't exactly cheap.  It comes in 1/32" to 1/8" widths.  This board is 1/8" thick, and I use it sometimes for basing Hirst Arts constructs like modular dungeons or buildings. Between creating stuff for RPG's, painting miniatures, or building plaster terrain, what I'm interested in has a lot to do with my mindset.  If I'm fired up and creative, then I'm using doing RPG material.  If I'm centered and focused, then I'm painting miniatures.  If I'm just needing mindless drudgery, then I'm casting molds of plaster, which doesn't take a ton of energy and focus but will keep me occupied.  Given how I felt back at the "T" entry, I'm obviously in a terrain-building mood.  So I boug...

All right, I can do this.  Back on the "A-to-Z" thing. I just saw some news over at The Other Side blog that Margaret Weis Productions will no longer be making books for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying .  Tim, the blogger at The Other Side, speculated that it was because you needed the right group to make it work.   I've been playing it a few times with my group, and he might be right. I'll also go one further and say that the game's lack of rules for building your own character and advancing that character, both staples of most RPG's, probably didn't help. I own the core rulebook and the Civil War  supplement in hardback. (I'm not a fan of pdf's for reasons I'll go into on another day.)  But I pre-ordered The Initiative through my FLGS, and now they won't be releasing the book.  Here's the news release , by the way. Naturally, not having a game in print doesn't mean you can't play it, and I'll probably continue on with MHR f...

When I started this A-to-Z blog thing, I had serious reservations about taking this challenge on.  I was very busy in April, and lot of things were going on. Well, now lots of more things are going on, and frankly I'm not going to be blogging much over the next week or so at a minimum, much less getting a daily entry in.  I'm sorry, but I have some other, more urgent things that require my attention.  My thanks to the faithful handful of people who have hung in there with me.  Hopefully sometime soon I can get back to at least posting something here. Until then, positive thoughts always appreciated.

I spent pretty much the entire day traveling back from the conference center.  Well, that's not entirely true, I spent 14 hours  door-to-door traveling from the conference center back to my home, and I somewhat foolishly decided to jump right back into work today.  The conference center material actually suggested that after eight days of intense introspection and planning, I should give myself a day to transition back into my regular life, but I had a hard time convincing myself that I could say with a straight face "hey I've been gone eight days to a place that cooked all my meals, catered to my every whim, forced me to spend hours lounging about thinking , and now I really need to pamper myself a bit before I tackle my regular job." So I didn't, and I should have, because I'm fatigued.  Travel, jet lag, and yes the difficult process of placing my shoulder to the plow once more have left me wiped out. And this, and this is petty, but there were 21 people...

One of the most disappointing things about this week was that I brought two not particularly good books with me to read.  The first was Dan Abnett's very Abnett-esque Ravenor Returns , and the other is the similarly licensed-product novel Edge of Destiny  by J. Robert King, a novel written in the universe of the MMORPG Guild Wars . So, where to begin.  Cardboard characters.  A detailed and even somewhat interesting first half that degenerates into a rushed second half where each chapter features the group of multi-racial, multi-class adventurers facing one uninspired Big Bad Evil Monster after another.  And then to cap it all off, an ending that basically leaves you, the reader, terribly betrayed and let down for any vestige of sentiment you might have towards any of the characters in the book.  A truly pointless ending, leaving me wonder if the idea was to open the door for a sequel, or a misbegotten attempt at pathos and tragedy by the author. Thank...

I've been spending a lot of the past week in "quiet time."  Now some of it has been "quiet while you're brainstorming/praying/thinking/writing time" but some of it is out-and-out time just spent being quiet. Much like novelty, this isn't what I'm used to.  I'm a "constant background noise" kind of person.  Actually I'm a "can hardly sit still" kind of person for that matter.  As it is I would sometimes plant myself in a lawn chair and sit quietly for fifteen minutes or so before I had to get up and walk again.  Thankfully walking the loop at the conference center was an acceptable way to spend quiet time. As I said, much of what happened over the back half of the conference involved making plans for your own life informed by the lectures and workshops of the first half combined with some preliminary work I did back home and the work done during the contemplative time.  Yesterday I completed three major goals, each of w...

KlawBerry: Good Girl. Bad World. I spotted this book looking for a present for my kids while I'm away.   Klawberry is a modern folk-tale with an artistic style reminiscent of the old Samurai Jack  cartoons.  The main character is a good spirit whose eye is stolen by a demon who uses it to take over the world.  Klawberry, obviously, needs to get it back. In addition to the book, I also picked up the plush Klawberry doll, complete with eyepatch as well.  My daughter is a little old for the book, but she'll like the weird monsters and superpowered heroine.

The internet is very, very spotty where I am this week, so I'm having to try to create blog posts in those brief windows when it is working.  In addition I've been fairly busy attending the conference but I do love this outdoor chapel, called someone unimaginatively Rock Chapel (the conference center is, in turn, Chapel Rock, which I believe is a reference to C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe ).  It's a beautiful place just to see, much less pray at, so I thought I'd share it today.  I will freely admit that I did have a voice in my head thinking I should work it into some fantasy game at some point, though.