How many teams in your supers setting?

How many teams in your world?

For me it varies from game to game. Sometimes the heroes are alone, sometimes they’re among dozens if not hundreds.

Licensed and other published settings tend to have a few teams around already as well as room to add more - indeed, they often feel somewhat crowded, especially if they include example NPCs in roles players might want to take up like the Avengers / Justice League style Big Team.

See New Orleans Superheroes for a recent example spun off from a Marvel idea, the 50 States Initiative.

That in turn was prompted by a return to the Heroes of Detroit game, which was about how Detroit specifically didn’t have any superhero teams before the Mayor pulled them together, and we never met another team from the rest of the universe.

Being just about alone makes the PCs feel more important and defining, but it needs a setting where rarity is built in.

The same is true of adventuring parties, Scooby gangs, Rebel Alliance cells, coteries of vampires and so on, but supers teams are often more visible across the setting. Dungeoneers might get into tales told by bards but it’s not as direct as footage and interviews on the evening news, while the others usually actively avoid fame for reasons of safety.

While I often tend to NPC bloat when GMing, I tend to go low when creating supers settings directly, partially because a smaller group of contemporaries means each one matters more - and partially because I struggle coming up with superhero names and power sets, and even more so with team names. This is why the New Orleans team still has no name two months later.

Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. season five, end of part one

Time to go home...

Ash Vs. Evil Dead

And so it ends.

For added sting, I saw the cancellation news when coming back from a Dead By Dawn anniversary screening of Evil Dead II. Thanks, world.

Vampire: The Masquerade 5

V5 pre-order is go, so we can get a look at the covers for the core rulebook and the first two supplements, the screen based on MMO concept art (noted as subject to change), and the dice.

Enlightenment In Blood revisited

A big update at World Of Darkness dot com in advance of the presale of Vampire: The Masquerade fifth edition, including a video trailer cut from footage taken at Enlightenment In Blood at World Of Darkness Berlin last year.

The side of my head is visible in one of the group shots!

Indeed, apart from a couple of the NPCs played by guests, I don’t think I even saw most of the characters shown clearly, it was that big of a night. The member of my group who went to help kill the Prince is visible at one point too - about to help kill the Prince.

Choose Your Own Adventure: The Motion Picture

You know how I’ve mentioned Choose Your Own Adventure style branching path narrative TV?

Well... they’re making an official Choose Your Own Adventure movie. With branching paths.

Star Wars Resistance

From Dave Filoni and various other makers of Rebels, Star Wars Resistance, the animated series. Pilots! Speed! Poe! BB-8! Phasma! Set just before The Force Awakens! Probably some useful worldbuilding as a result!

Inevitably...

Of course now I want to run a supers game.

Avengers: Infinity War

I have seen it.

I will update this as a spoiler post next week.

For now...

Edinburgh plays Edinburgh, and the geography is pretty accurate. It’s quite a short sequence, early on, but fairly hefty on the action.

And now: the spoiler post...

Hellboy: The Board Game

Well, skirmish miniatures game really. From Mantic, and the figures look lovely. I would only really want the heroes, personally.

You have to include these three elements

Tonight I got to meet the founder of the 48 Hour Film Project. For those who don’t know, it gives filmmakers a deadline and some other limitations as a spur to creativity, as well as a chance to win prizes up to a screening in the international meetup and a trip to Cannes.

Like Iron Chef, and indeed Iron GM, you get three elements to include - a character name and job, a line of dialogue, and a prop - and a genre to work in pulled out of a hat. These can set you off coming up with ideas you might never have thought of otherwise.

World Book Night

It’s World Book Night. Read a book. It doesn’t have to be about night. Necessarily.

Vampire: The Masquerade Fifth Edition

Vampire: The Masquerade Fifth Edition is due at Gen Con. Coming in shiny limited edition versions, and distributed by Modiphius, which should mean decent availability for retailers and quality control.

And new publisher Black Chantry is bringing back Vampire: The Eternal Struggle.

Save the world.

Happy Earth Day!

Dead By Dawn 2018

Watch this space.

The Crow

Age Of Heroes reaches The Crow. This is home.

A Quiet Place

A Quiet Place is really good. It would also be rather difficult to do in RPGs because so much comes down to speech and to talk through descriptions and then not talk in dialogue would be tricky. A monster that hunts by sound, sure, but just occasionally. The awkward family dynamic would be hard to sustain as well.

Superman

Action Comics issue 1000 came out today, marking eighty years since Superman essentially founded the superhero comics genre. There had been some recognisable prototypes like the Phantom, but Action Comics was the defining moment.

He’s always been around for me, even before Superman: The Movie came out when I was four - at the halfway point in that eighty-year run, so he’s had that John Williams theme half the time he’s been around. (That comic is a mockup, the Daily Planet wasn’t the Daily Planet then, but I always wondered why they didn’t use the original Action Comics cover.)

And all those stories over all those years, all the inspiration and hope creators have brought to him, it’s all worthwhile.

This one page alone would make it all worthwhile. You know the one, from All-Star Superman.

Or consider how Superman broke the Ku Klux Klan. A true force for good.

All-Star Superman would be my recommendation if you want one comic collection.

Superman: The Animated Series is my suggestion for other media. Like Batman: The Animated Series from the same crew, it adapts decades of material into a cohesive and fun series. It includes the only version of the destruction of Krypton that ever made me cry, as well as the theme by Shirley Walker being for me the best non-Williams theme he’s ever had.

And the current Supergirl TV series is absolutely worth a look too.

Up, up, and away!

Blackhawk

DC gets my interest with a new movie... possibly about WWII pilots... with Steven Spielberg directing. That might qualify as cheating.

Proxima Midnight

Casting news from Avengers: Infinity War continues despite it being ten days until it comes out. Proxima Midnight, one of the Black Order of space supervillains working for Thanos, is played by Carrie Coon, of The Leftovers, Fargo, Gone Girl, and... my V20 game, where I cast her as the de facto leader of the local Brujah. Even there, she rarely used her superhuman strength and never attacked anyone with a spear.

Hotel Artemis

CY BER PUUUUUNK

How to run a con quiz the Craig Oxbrow way

Other ways are available.

Apparently this will go to (a) the quiz team of DEATH and (b) the Conpulsion organiser how-to guide.

Short version:

Keep RPG, board card and war game, film and TV, and book and comic questions recent or evergreen - you can go a bit more obscure in the This Year’s Theme round. If you are going obscure, consider multiple choice or True Or False. Either the picture round or write-in round should be game-related if not both. Be prepared to give half points and be corrected, but don’t let them see you sweat. Have a funny question at the end of every round or two.

Long version:

... is three pages.

Conpulsion Conspiracy day two

Okay, quiz done. Expect to see it here fairly soon. Nobody swore at me in the answer sheets.

And I got to play Beautiful Anomalies! Hello Matt!

Next year: Conpulsion DEATH.

Conpulsion Conspiracy day one

I bought something at the auction.

I am reasonably sure the printing for the quiz exists.

Onyx Pathcast

Onyx Pathcast is go!

Happy birthday Rick!

Among other achievements, Keane in my current Vampire: The Requiem game. And Jack in my first Vampire: The Masquerade game.

Bob Naismith's Overrunners

Bob Naismith, designer of the first Citadel Space Marine, is Kickstarting a line of near-future SF soldier miniatures.

Thanks to Graeme Davis for the link.

I'm not asking for a miracle

CHVRCHES continue to produce quotably moving material. And I have new Demon: The Fallen end credits music.

Getting Hero Kids is itself heroic

Bundle Of Holding presents Hero Kids for the next three weeks, in aid of Reading Is Fundamental.

Nationals 2019

... will apparently be a group effort by as many Scottish teams as possible.

So, yes, funny story...

The Nationals pub quiz was, it turned it, awarded points like other events.

So me going “let’s go, it’ll be fun” and providing a few answers meant we came in third instead of fourth along with various wins and places in actual categories (beating Hull by one point) and since the first and second teams both turned down running it, we asked if we could shift it over to Glasgow for logistical reasons.

So yes, always go to a convenient nerdy pub quiz.

Nationals 2018 day two

Apparently my enthusiasm for the pub quiz means we go to Glasgow next year instead of Hull.

Getting John Robertson of The Dark Room to appear and compere the quiz was a nice idea, as was the discount curry night. Other ideas, not so keen. (I got to join an open revolt at one point, which was fun.)

Killing Eve

Killing Eve, a new spy series, split pretty evenly between an assassin and her hunter. Very snarky.  Very music-y.

Nationals 2018 day one

The Science and Media Museum is lovely.

Nationals 2018 prep, ultimate edition

I just saw I am supposed to have six players, not five. This includes the other ST, though, so emergency sixth character canned.

The coach to Bradford took six hours, including over an hour at services.

Found the hospital while looking for the university. (Easy mistake, big modern building complexes.)

Will have time to visit the Science and Media Museum.

What happens now determines what happens to the rest of the world.

Black Panther will be the first movie released in Saudi Arabia in 35 years. Interesting choice. (Not counting a private screening of The Emoji Movie.)

Keep working for the good

Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated fifty years ago today.

Nationals 2018 prep, ongoing

Blake, Daeva car thief
Costas, Gangrel thug
Chen, Mekhet historian stuck working as a lie detector
Lowell, Nosferatu runaway
Garner, Ventrue fence

A coterie of convenience, trying to hold on to their scrap of Los Angeles when the city burns.

Any resemblance to a Leverage Crew is completely not a coincidence. (Although Blake is a Wheelman rather than a Grifter.)

Nationals 2018 prep

All the Vampire: The Requiem PCs now have names. Surnames anyway, I’m planning on giving them all male and female options since the group demographics aren’t significant and this isn’t Buffy. (Insert grumble about it not being Buffy.) Which does mean finding ten photos instead of five, but oh well, I have to get photos for NPCs too.

Plot is... getting there...

And now as I’m writing the character backgrounds, I’m concerned that I may have made them too uncool. They’re a street gang, near the bottom of the ladder of vampire society, and while they have some things they’re good at they’re not exactly slick urban predators.

2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey premiered fifty years ago today. We’re still not close to colonising the moon. Although a big baby did put a car in orbit.

Conpulsion quiz planning proceeds

Considering a pub quiz picture round:

“Identify these Funko Pop figures.”

Might be too tricky.

Okay, okay, I suppose taking up an entire round just to complain about toys that look like 1960s light switches is a bit much.

Today:

Happy Easter or April Fools’ Day, for preference.