Categories
Software and Programming

Geekage

Flushing open windows into blogmemory:

Categories
Roleplaying

Promethea!

… somewhere on the “internet”:

The Moniker: Did you read Promethea?
Paradox Backlash: I’ve read Promethea, yeah. Got the TPs to show for it.
The Moniker: Ah. I finally figured out the way to run Aya a greek mythology/superheroes/fantasy campaign was to run her Promethea, instead of noodging her to read it.
The Moniker: Then she says to me “but no psychedelia“.
Paradox Backlash: I’m laughing over here.

Categories
Comics Science Fiction and Fantasy

Dark He-Man

Marko Djurdjevic’s He-Man Redesign (via Uncle Bear) reimagines one of the silliest TV shows/Toy lines from the 80’s into something very dark and surprisingly cool. His Skeletor is a Marlyn Manson-ish “evil fag” (actually, he reminds me more of P. Craig Russell‘s take on Elric, but that just dates me), his Evil-Lyn is Not Work Safe (Frankenstein fetish full frontal), his supporting cast is really cool (all those funky helmets finally removed from the plastic bodybuilder standard molds and put onto bodies and costumes that make them look good).

Only the good guys (He-Man and Teela) come out ironically as rather ‘blah’. He-Man with a Kurt Cobain hairstyle and despondant attitude is, well, lame.

Categories
Comics

Morrison on All-Star Superman

An interview with Grant Morrison about his new Superman series, All-Star Superman. You can’t top the extract quoted in LinkMachineGo:

My first issue, for instance, has a new power for Superman and I thought I’d come up with something, well…not bad…then I just read – yesterday in fact – the story ‘Superman’s New Power’ which appeared in Superman #125 from November 1958. And guess what Superman’s new power was in the ‘conservative’ ‘50s. That’s right – it’s a teeny-tiny little Superman who shoots out from the palm of the big Superman’s hand and does everything better than Superman himself, leaving the full-size Superman feeling redundant and worthless. Holy analysis, Batman! It’s mindbending, brilliant and eerie work. This is what it would be like if Charlie Kaufmann wrote and directed the Superman movie and it’s far from goofy or childish, it’s genuinely affecting and slightly disturbing to read Superman saying stuff like ‘Everyone’s impressed except ME! Don’t they understand how I feel — playing second fiddle to a miniature duplicate of myself…a sort of SUPER-IMP?’

And people think I’M weird ? I %$%$^ wish I was weird like this! I wish pop comics today had the balls to be as poetic and poignant and truly ‘all-ages’ again, and a little less self-conscious. I feel a little ashamed for not even daring to think of a magnificent tiny Superman who makes the real Superman feel inadequate every time he springs from his hand. Those kinds of stories were like weird fever dreams and they sold millions and millions of copies every month.

Categories
Roleplaying

Roleplaying epherma

Roleplaying links, assorted mix:

  • A thread on the rpg.net forums about the worldbuilding in Robert E. Howard’s work vs. that of Tolkien devolves pretty quickly into a petty flamefest, but picks up when the Ent posts his idea for a high-concept cross-over:

    As I always do when threads like this one crop up on Open, I’ll mention my über-campaign idea (or, is that ûber-campaign, since Tolkien’s involved? ):

    Conan and Elric team up and enter Middle Earth in an attempt to hunt down that bad mofo badass, Kane, who’s masquerading himself as “Sarukane” and, as usual, is attempting World Conquest!!!, by way of extreme threachery and extreme violence. On the way, Conan “makes love to” various female LotR characters (without asking permission, really), Elric kills various heroes by mistake, Kane destroys everything that’s even tangentially involved with him, and in the end, when Kane flees to some other dimension, still with Conan and Elric on the trail, they leave only some savages living in still-smoking ruins, “but, then, the civilizations had all stagnated and went into decay 1,000 years ago anyway, so no big loss, damn reactionary buggers!” as all three main characters agree on. Possibly except the Rohirrim, but “the Rohirrim just HAD TO DIE” as Conan put it.

  • Two threads on the rpg.net forums singing the praises of Shadowrun: newer, older. In the newer thread, SteveD quotes himself saying in the older one:

    Shadowrun is the most perplexing of games. From the outside, it looks like RIFTS.
    From the inside, it’s almost as good as Buffy.
    It is a FANTASTIC game. Every chapter, you’ll find something that’s now a staple of our hobby, because so much was inspired by Shadowrun.

    It’s not the setting.
    It’s not the system.
    It’s the QUALITY.

    A useful link from one of the threads explains the differences between the 2nd and 3rd editions of the game. I was particularly interested in the explanation of how the changes in combat in the 3rd edition even the playing field a bit for characters that aren’t combat monsters or mages.

  • A set of GMing advice essays, including a nice series on How to run game X.
  • Jürgen Hubert’s development journal for Urbis, a d20 setting he originally conceived for WoTC’s setting search contest. Here’s a post where he takes apart his original submission for the contest.

And if you’re reading this on LiveJournal, you may have not noticed that I completed the entry on my deceased campaign (LJ link).