Wednesday, May 13, 2009

The Flip Side

So anybody who ever visited this blog might see that we haven't updated in over two years. Speaking for myself that's because a little over two years ago I love 99% of comics and 99% of comics loved me. Flash forward a bit and the blush had definitely come off the rose. The way of the comics world is totally flipped and now the much larger percentage of comics don't love me so I don't love them back.

This isn't necessarily a reflection on their actual quality. That's a subjective standard that I won't even begin to fight about (although I'm always happy to discuss the merits of one or another specific runs, graphic novels or titles). But my perceived quality of the VAST majority of DC and Marvel is that it's all varying levels of crap. And for a variety of reasons, I want superheroes from my comics. There's good stuff out there but I'm taking the lazy infielder's approach to finding it.

In the meantime, I started writing for a roleplaying game publisher, Precis Intermedia the makers of many fine games including Two Fisted Tales. I haven't done much roleplaying in the last few years and some of that void had been filled by World of Warcraft. Well WoW started to feel like a job and the job I had writing for Precis started to feel like a bunch of fun I was making for everybody but me and my closest pals. So I first got in on a game, moved some atrophied muscles, blew the dust off my dice, that kind of thing. Then I offered to give the GM a break so I could run some stuff and it has been an amazing amount of fun.

I was going to run a superheroes game, naturally, but in speaking with my friend Rob he told me about a basic idea for a fantasy game. I vibed on it, we kept chatting and the more I thought about it the more clever it seemed. The group got sold on the idea and for the last few weeks I've been setting the stage for what we jokingly call Adventure Academy. In the meantime, Rob started with his group using the same basic concept but going in a wildly different direction.

I've been meaning to blog about the process a little bit to help flex those unused GM muscles even more and this seemed like a good opportunity to do so. Plus Rob will be joining me so that we can show how the same basic premise can end up in wildly different territory depending on players and GM. We hope you enjoy it!

1 comment:

Big Rob said...

Not content to let me linger in the shadows, eh? Just gotta spotlight me like deer at a canned hunt? Fine.