Old Heroes Never Die (No, Really)

Yes, "Superhero Week" continues here at the ol' blog.

I spent a few minute again this morning watching the trailers for the new Captain America movie on the YouTube. Boy, do they get me revved up!

I've written before that Cap is one of my favorite superheroes...maybe my favorite of all time from the Marvel comics universe. Well, Daredevil's up there, too (even the Ben Affleck version).

[*sigh* I thought of writing a Top Ten List of Superheroes this morning, but then realized how utterly ridiculous that would be...there are so many, old and new, that there's no guarantee mine would even be "set in stone." And what would I be basing it on? Writing and artwork? That varies across the length of a series. How the hero is portrayed in film? Varies by actor and director. Based on which powers I'd like to possess? No way! THAT list would include characters like Wolverine, Silver Surfer, and Green Lantern...none of whom would fall into my list of "favorite" superheroes. At least not these days]

Even though Cap is one of my faves, I've owned very few of his comics over the years...like maybe one or two. Not that I haven't owned comics that included Captain America...Avengers, of course, Marvel Team-Ups, Secret Wars (the first series anyway), etc. Cap is a character who really stands out when working with others...not because he isn't badass in his own way, but because he gets to demonstrate more of his intangibles: his leadership, his idealism, his ability to inspire and mentor.

Still, I stopped buying comic books with any regularity back around 1990, and those were mainly Silver Surfer or Dark Horse imprints, not the Marvels that would feature Captain America. The last Cap-featured comic I purchased was probably around 1985 or '86. Maybe even earlier than that.

However, I've had the chance to visit some of the later comics, thanks to my old high school/college buddy who is (possibly) a bigger nerd than I am. No, he doesn't play role-playing games (or even computer games), but he has the largest collection of comics, Legos, and toy paraphernalia of any adult I personally know. He's loaned me a few of his trade paperbacks for Captain America, allowing me to follow some of the story arcs of the last 10 years (give or take), and that's why the trailers for the new film getting me so stoked: without a doubt the Falcon and the Winter Soldier are (other than The Ultimates reboot) the two best things to have happened to Captain America since I was a kid.

[yes, I realize that Cap and the Falcon were a team back in the 1970s, but this was before I was reading anything other than Golden Key comics...during the 80s, I just didn't see Falcon that much, and it was only after he got thrown back into the comic that I saw what a nice pairing they made]

Please O Please keep the name "Snap"

I'm not a huge fan of Snap's re-conception as "Bird Master;" sometimes less is more with superheroes, and I was plenty satisfied with his low-powered heroics. Why must you get your Cosmic Cube in my peanut butter? But I am totally on-board with him as a super-secret agent-of-SHIELD dude that appears to be the situation in the new film.

[for folks who haven't seen the latest trailer, here's a link]

And Winter Soldier? Other than being just about the coolest Marvel villain since before Apocalypse (who ruined O-So-Much for me)...well, folks should know by now how much I love tales of heroes falling to the Dark Side and then getting a shot at redemption, right? Add that to my passion for cyborgs (which I've blogged about on numerous occasions) and you can see why WS is in the top two or three Marvel baddies of all time...for me, anyway.

[there will probably be some spoilers in the following paragraphs, so consider yourself warned]

Winter Soldier does something that few plots in the comic book do...he emphasizes the age (or rather agelessness) of the comic book character. When the writers of Captain America decided to bring Bucky Barnes back (Cap's original WW2 sidekick) they had to figure out why he would still be spry and kicking ass after so many decades. Cap, of course, has the Super Soldier Serum running through his veins that makes him (apparently) as ageless as any mutant, but Bucky was just a young, highly competent "masked man;" how would he have survived decades to come back and haunt his former mentor?

Thank goodness for the comic trope of periodic cryo-freeze!

Thing is, I like the idea of the aging (or increasingly decrepit) superhero. We watched Pixar's The Incredibles the other evening, and I was once again struck by how entertaining it is to see costumed crusaders transition into "normalcy" (domestic life and the subsequent challenges it brings). Sure, this may be in part because I can identify with it (as I gradually take on more aspects of "middle age" myself)...but the reason we can ALL identify with it is because it does happen to all of us...all of us outside the four-colored world of comic books, that is.

And I think it's interesting to see people who were super heroic...who are still super heroic, actually...deal with those challenges.

The subject of the aging or "past their prime" hero is not a new subject for exploration. Miller did it in his Dark Knight graphic novel, it was explored at length in Moore's The Watchmen, and you can see traces of it in film: the aforementioned Daredevil with Ben Affleck and the most recent Batman film of with Christian Bale show the effects of crime-fighting taking their toll (non-stop Advil consumption and lost cartilage leading to knee braces). But usually, it's perpetually glossed over (or outright ignored) in the genre...Batman being as effective as ever despite a lack of supernatural or superhuman ability.

My recent games...both published and "not-yet-"...have all tried to take into account decrepitude and the toll taken by the adventuring lifestyle. I know that when you're a teen or 20-something gamer, you don't care all that much for these kinds of rules...in fact, when I was a teen playing AD&D or Traveller the penalties for advanced aging always annoyed the hell out of me! I wanted to play a perpetually young/prime of life character in the same stripe as a comic book super or cinematic action hero! But nowadays, that's a lot less interesting to me. I'd rather play a guy fighting his own slowing inertia than a young buck with a randomly required weakness or limitation.

The problem with such rules is the tendency to make them too crunchy or granular, necessitating more record keeping than I (or my usual players) want to track. For something semi-abstract like Marvel Superheroes, you could do something easy like:

Middle Age =  minus one column shift on all actions (-1 CS)
Old Age = minus two column shift on all actions (-2 CS)

[yes, that includes mental-based actions like inventing stuff...why do you think all those battle suits are scratch-built by YOUNG inventors? You lose focus and drive as you age, too]

Of course, experience and wisdom (i.e. the Karma mechanic) can still be used to offset this.

But for crunchier hero games, like Heroes Unlimited or Mutants & Masterminds, age mechanics can be a real pain to incorporate. And it's nigh impossible with more abstract, narrative-driven games like Capes and With Great Power...unless the players themselves want to account for this in their story-telling.

Mmm-mm-mm...I know there are some readers out there, who consider this whole line of thought to be of little-to-zero worth, and not just the youngsters. I can hear one particular person I know, ringing in my ears with "People don't play RPGs to emulate the sucky-ness of real life! They want to escape from these things for the length of a game session!" Ugh...you ARE escaping from the suck, dude! I'm just trying to incorporate a different and (I think) interesting new wrinkle/challenge. Ah, well...it's time for me to go pick up D from daycare. Maybe I'll write about this more later. Maybe.

I might just have to settle back into the writing of my own supers game.

Of Dice And Men

Some folks might be wondering, "hey...when JB moves to Paraguay, what sort of books and gaming equipment does he take along for the ride?"

Truthfully, not much. The plan was to to be down here a couple months (from mid-January to mid-March), then return to the USA for the birth of our child before making the more serious move in May intended to last for twelve months. This initial two month "trial period" was to supposed to give us a chance to settle in and see the things we'd really be missing, so as to better prepare when we come back in early June.

For me...a guy who's personal office space is practically over-flowing with books and games...I had to make some serious editing of what was important and what wasn't. I figured I probably wouldn't be doing much gaming down here, if any (so far, that's proven pretty accurate), but I hoped to at least do some reading and writing, and that would necessitate some source books.

Here are the games I packed (alphabetically):

Five Ancient Kingdoms (print copy, including dice...you never know!)
Hillfolk (Robin D. Laws)
Kingdom of Nothing (Jeff Himmelman)
Polaris (Ben Lehman)
Western City (Jorg Dunne)
With Great Power (Michael S. Miller)

While it's not actually a full game, I also brought my copy of WH40K's supplement Codex: Space Wolves (3rd edition), mainly because I was thinking of creating a game that riffs on the Space Wolves' "fluff." Haven't quite gotten to that, yet!

Other than 5AK, there are probably a lot of titles here that are unfamiliar to my usual readers (since I've kind of made a name in the "old school D&D" biz and these are anything but!). I'll probably do a write-up of each over the next few days, just to explain why I brought them and what value each holds for me. None of them were brought for "nostalgia" purposes...in fact, other than 5AK, I've never played ANY of these games. They all hold interest for me as a designer.

[okay, okay, I have used the Space Wolves codex before, but mainly for house guests interested in using my few Space Wolf models...when I travel with minis, the only thing I pack is my Khorne Worldeaters]

As far as books go (non-gaming), I managed to sneak a handful into the suitcase as well. Besides the children's books we brought for Diego, my reading material includes the following:

• 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson (SciFi novel given to me by Steve-O...haven't yet cracked this open).
• Alien Legion Omnibus #2 (a trade paperback...i.e. "graphic novel"...of the comic book series. I was intending to use this as research inspiration for a game idea also, but I got bored after the first couple chapters and haven't finished it).
• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (this is a book I was reading to Diego back in Seattle)
• Of Dice and Men by David M. Ewalt (mom gave this to me before I left...finished it a few days ago)
• Win Forever by Pete Carroll (was reading it, but am taking a hiatus from football at the moment)

And that's it. I've got the internet (now) and a few things downloaded to my computer (mainly RPGs) but I really haven't had much time for reading. Heck, I haven't even had a chance to watch the last week's Downton Abbey, and you should know by now that the watching of quality television is a priority in my family (being one of the few things my wife and I both fully enjoy).

[ooo-ooo...quick sidenote: the second season of Vikings just started up on the History Channel, and damn am I sorry to be missing it! Yes, it is available for download on iTunes for a hefty sum, but I hope to catch-up via On Demand when I'm back in Seattle in two weeks. But, boy o boy is it hard to wait! I've decided that the series was definitely my favorite of last year, and quite possibly in the running for favorite television series of all time. You can read my thoughts on the show in this prior blog post]

But even with so little time, I did manage to knock out David Ewalt's book in a couple-three days. Of Dice and Men is an easy read, and an interesting one for any gamer interested in the underpinnings of D&D and its corporate history. It doesn't bother me that Mr. Ewalt plays a different edition (3.5) than myself, and even though he covered a lot of ground that was old news for me, it was fun to read about his personal journey of discovery (and rediscovery). It helped remind me of things I know but sometimes forget: like how we're all kind of in this hobby together and we should bitch-slap each other too much. Even Mike Mearls.
; )

The Underappreciated D12

It was especially nice to see into the heads and gaming minds of those oldest of old schoolers with whom he had a chance to game (Frank Mentzer and Ernie Gygax); the anecdotes he relates about them and others (including the contrasting styles of Arneson and Gary) just gave me a lot of food for thought and a deeper appreciation of the different ways one can approach the game of D&D...in any edition. Heck, even hearing about Ewalt's own gamer group's different style of play (call it the New York Groove) was interesting. Hopefully I'll have some more to say about that stuff later.

I still need to get a copy of Jon Peterson's Playing at the World (it's been recommended to me by more than a couple people), but Ewalt's book wasn't half bad. I'm glad I made space in my luggage for it. I'm sure glad my mom had a chance to read it (she's the one who gave it to me)...she said she finally has an understanding of this whole D&D hobby thing of mine.

Sheesh, mom...it only took you  32 years!
: )

Forging Heroes

Back to the blog list.

I was thinking of penning my thoughts on David M. Ewalt's book, Of Dice and Men (one of the few non-game tomes I packed for the journey and the only one I've found the chance to finish), but I'll save it for another day. I will say the book was a good, quick read and it gave me a newfound appreciation (or at least cooled any leftover ire still harbored) for WotC and recent D&D issues, including the whole D&D Next thing (I've really lost track of that, by the way...how is 5E coming along these days?). I've even got a little soft spot for Mike Mearls (who I've badmouthed before on this blog)...at least as a human being and fellow gamer. But the last week or so I've not been thinking (much) about Dungeons & Dragons, or sword and magic style adventure games.

I miss Heroes Unlimited.

Which is absolutely silly, of course. Hard to miss a game you've hardly played.

[we'll get to that in a moment]

My son is very much into superheroes at the moment; can't really get enough of them. This is what comes from being exposed to such at too tender an age by a terribly nerdy father. Not that he wouldn't be exposed anyway...ever since I was a child, the images of Spiderman and Superman and Batman have saturated toy stores and graced everything from t-shirts to backpacks to coffee mugs. Heck, I remember (as a child) there being a cheapo yellow air mattress in our house with an illustration of "Your Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman" on it, circa 1979. Comic book characters (or their marketing, at least) have only seen to have grown more popular with the years...especially with the advent of the successful live-action films.

But having a father who knows the characters and the stories...and can relate them in depth...means that my kid has a walking font of knowledge on tap for any of the images he sees. The last couple days, for instance, our waking hours have been filled with playing "Iron Man" (or more often "Tony Stark"), with D as the perpetual hero and papa as "Tony's Amigo" (Rhodey).

[my son actually has a steel trap memory, especially for proper names of characters and places. It was a source of amusement to my wife over the weekend that he just couldn't seem to remember Rhodey and would most refer to me (whether in the 3rd person or directly) as "Tony's Amigo." 'Hey, Tony's Amigo, should we go fight some bad guys?' This from the kid who has no problem remembering other supporting cast people (my wife was "Pepper") plus secret identities like Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Peter Parker, etc. as well as all numbers and manners of super-villains and super-powers]

So we've been playing superheroes a lot (and building a lot of secret HQs with Legos...when not building taco trucks, anyway), and blowing time watching old cartoons on YouTube, and it has of course put superheroes on my brain. Plus I've had the chance to watch the trailers for the upcoming Captain America and Spiderman films, which really gets me juiced. Well, the Captain America one anyway.

[that's a blog post for another time...maybe later this morning if I have a moment. I like the new J.J. Abrams style/old school look of The Amazing Spider-Man, but I'm a little burned out on the web-head at the moment. Plus Electro was never high in my rogues gallery of villains]

Anyway, getting back into a "gaming state-o-mind" combined with superhero overload is having the usual effect of getting me to comb the internet for the latest-greatest superhero RPG and also turning my brain to what I'm starting to feel must be my absolute favorite in the form of Heroes Unlimited. The fact that I have such a soft spot for a game I've hardly played...especially when it's rules/system are (IMO) an absolute heaping, steaming pile should tell you a couple-few things: 1) HU does something (for me) that other, better written games do NOT do, 2) I've found something tremendously dissatisfying in a lot of RPGs (since I've owned or read or played so many of the genre), and 3) nostalgia is at least partially in play.

But isn't the superhero genre (comics and film) always a bit about nostalgia? Certainly the movies that are making millions these days are doing so (for the most part) by telling stories already tremendously familiar to longtime fans. Sure, there are younger folks going to these movies to be wowed by special FX, or perhaps wanting to learn about a little-know hero, but for a geezer like me I'm at least as interested in how they intend to tell the stories I already know: what will be the "modern twists," what will they mash together and adapt, what will be recognizable, how "faithful" will they be to their subject matter. For a fan, these things are at least as important judgments/critiques as things like acting and editing and plot and pacing...it's what sets the superhero genre of film apart from most other genres (save perhaps from the adaptation of a previous long-running serial...whether we're talking TV or book series).

*ahem* Back to the subject: I perhaps misspoke a moment ago when I said I've "hardly played" HU over the years. It really depends on what you define as "play." Certainly, I've spent less time gaming with others around a table compared to other games, even compared to other Palladium games, like Rifts. But I've spent many hours poring over the HU books and making characters and running mock battles with the HU system, both of which can be considered forms of play. I would certainly consider the time spent as "playing" (as opposed to "working")!

Adventure included for solo play!

I also miss the aspect of play where I tried to model comic book characters in the HU system.  I've written before about how I love the granularity of a game that does everything from Misty Knight and  Colleen Wing up to something a little less than Thor, without the points-buy modeling nightmare of something like Champions or GURPS. With Heroes Unlimited, it's perfectly possible for one dude to randomly roll up Iron Fist while another to end up with the Juggernaut or some other uber-mutant; I really like and appreciate what others might consider a total lack of "game balance." Yes, you can create a wide discrepancy in chargen (via random roll) using Marvel Superheroes also but A) the end result is likely to be less cohesive than the power types of HU, and B) low-powered heroes in MSH really lack the granularity to distinguish themselves and the ability to be hugely effective (except using the limited metagame mechanic of karma).

Character creation is hugely important to a superhero RPG, much more than other genres of RPG in my opinion. Avatarism (something I'll be discussing in a later post) is a strong part of the genre...not just considering the question of 'how the existence of superheroes change the fantasy world,' but how (specifically) your character's unique set of superpowers change/affect your character's life. As I've also written before, the superhero genre is often the place of wish fulfillment: What would my life be like if I could teleport to work instead of having to take the stupid bus every morning? How would my crime-fighting/world-saving second life impact my own family/friends/relationships?

Heroes Unlimited, of course, doesn't delve (much) into these latter questions (unlike, say, Aberrant or With Great Power). What it DOES do, is give a very specific manner of easily creating very specific and enormously detailed characters...right down to origin, possible oppositions (for heroes on-the-run from the corporations that created them), education levels, and gadget budget. What HU does do is it gives you a chance to become really anchored in the avatar of character with very little input needed from the player in question. I get to make choices but I don't have to come up with much straight out of my head.

For some folks this may feel pretty darn constricting...but as with B/X D&D, sometimes a constraint of choice can help you free your imagination for other things much more important to actual play, like your character's motivation and behavior in-game.

ANYway, I dig on it. And I miss it. Certainly I don't miss my frustration with the game system, both as a GM and a player (I think I've described my one miserable time attempting to play...if not, I won't relate the story here. Suffice is to say the GM was a real prick), nor the mainly useless skill list, nor the length of time it takes to calculate all the damn stats and bonuses characters have. But I find myself wishing it would have been good to at least bring the book down here (to Paraguay)...perhaps to tinker with, perhaps to simply blow some free time modeling various comic book characters.

Lately (and by that I mean "back to November") I have been thinking a LOT about a different type of game design...something even more radical than indie, story-now type games. But the superhero genre is still one that benefits (I think) from a more old school approach to gaming...at least in the aspect of character creation. At least for long term (think "comic serial") play.

Did You Know (Paraguay 1)? Also, Updates

There is no postal service in Paraguay? This explains why I have no mail box.

People still get things delivered, of course...it's just delivered by courier or whatnot (when my wife needs stuff for her work, it's often hand-delivered by a person coming down here from the USA anyway). That's just nuts. I mean, thank God for the internet! It's allowing countries like Paraguay to enter into 1st World realms of business and enterprise even without the infrastructure of mail carriers...or even decent roads!

It really is the infrastructure that's missing...there's plenty of money here (and monied individuals). The neighborhood in which we live is chock-full of BMWs and Mercedes vehicles (mainly SUVs with tinted windows), absolutely huge houses with security boxes/guards on every 2nd or 3rd street corner and high, high walls. But the streets (for the most part) are absolute garbage, and the local parks (more like vacant lots) are entirely overgrown and unkept, and it is a resident/owner's responsibility to upkeep (or build) any sidewalks in front of their homes...and few bother. The tax rate here is one of the lowest (if not the lowest) of any country in South America, and decades of government corruption has resulted in little money going to those public works most Americans take for granted. I'm not sure if I've actually seen police officers here, but there sure is a lot of private security forces (everywhere from the shopping malls to the taxi stands).

There's a lot more that can be said on the subject, but I'll abstain for the moment.

The point is, there's nothing I can mail to anyone (or have mailed to me) without a postal service while I'm here: email is it (thank goodness my house finally came on-line...yesterday, in case folks failed to notice the post). I will be back in Seattle for a couple-three months beginning mid-March, but then I'll be gone for a year (till May 2015).

While I'm away, someone IS doing my mailings for me, so yes, you can still order books while they are in print. I'm strongly considering doing a couple more print-runs while I'm back next month, in order to make sure there's plenty of books on-hand for delivery, but we'll see. Sales of print-books (and PDFs) have definitely slowed down...especially for 5AK...but I figure a lot of that has to do with my lack of marketing and persistent absence from the on-line community the last few months. On the other hand, I've continued to get email requests for print copies of the B/X Companion and PDF copies of The Complete B/X Adventurer, and it would appear there are dollars to be made on both those items if I can just get my shit together...something I'm hoping to do.

In fact, I'm going to get to that right now. Well, right after I wake up my family who has drastically over-slept (at the moment it's 10am, Paraguay time).

Reboot

It’s been a while.

As I write this I have no internet and have had no ready access to the internet for more than a week.

Not that this matters a whole heck of a lot…when you have little-to-no free time, there’s not much use for the internet except to listen to your local (Seattle) sports radio station, basking in the ongoing afterglow of a Super Bowl championship. The fact is, it is only recently that my child has become enrolled in daycare here in Paraguay and so I have been mostly on 24 hour nanny duty since we got down here (i.e. since becoming unemployed). Most of my waking hours have been spent playing Legos or Batman or Spiderman or Pirates or “Star Wars guys” or Zorro or soccer or the usual care and feeding of a small child. Since our interaction has been limited by environmental constraints (we were in a hotel until about a week ago) and his limited vocabulary and depth of experience (he just turned three last month)…not to mention short attention span…it has been a somewhat constant source of inconvenience and frustration.

I’m sure I will look back on it as one of the happiest times of my life, and a very cherished part of my personal history. How many parents wish they could have more quality time with their children…at any age!

The experience (especially the heat and surroundings) reminds me of a time way-way back in my life. When I was very young - six or seven years of age - my family spent a week or three in Kuaii (one of the Hawaiian islands for the non-initiated) due to my father’s work taking him out there for some type of convention. We were put up in a house, and aside from memories of coconut pancakes and body-surfing with my father, the thing that stands out most vividly is the hours I spent playing with little plastic soldiers on the cool tile floor of the house. 

They weren’t actually soldiers; they were cowboys and indians. But you probably know the type I mean: one-piece, single-color, molded plastic miniatures in various action poses. The indians were mine, of course, while my brother had the cowboys. I always preferred the indians (and to be clear I am aware of the politically correct terms associated with our indigenous Americans, but these are the stereotypical toys I’m talking about, complete with war bonnets, buckskins, bows and knives…hardly a historical, factual representation of our Native peoples) to the cowboys in our games. I can recall we (my brother and I) had a couple “Lone Ranger” action figures at some point (the 13” type with actual clothes and plastic horses) and I favored Tonto over the proverbial masked man. I have never really been a “gun guy;” I’ve always been drawn more to swords and knives and bows and axes (tomahawks) when it came to weapons and the indians were easily the action guys of choice. 

[not that I don’t (now) enjoy a good Spaghetti Western shoot-up or game of Shadow Run, but in real life I can’t even stand the touch of a handgun…they just feel “icky” to me, and I have no idea why. Perhaps I was killed by firing squad in a past life…or maybe I shot a loved one or something (accidental or not)]

Anyway, my brother and I (he was a couple years younger) would play out little wars and adventures (cooperative) with these little plastic figures, spending hours making up stories about these two cultures and their interactions with one another. Not all of these were of a hostile or action-oriented nature…as I recall they had other dramatic events happen (flooding rivers, starvation, etc.) and our little “people” would have to figure out ways to survive. My brother and I developed stories and characters on that cold tile floor in the Hawaiian heat and humidity, and had a helluva’ time doing it.

We spent a lot of time making stories in those days, pretending all sorts of things. Once, I can recall my mother finding my brother and I crying in our downstairs hallway because we’d been playing out some sort of fantasy where we were on a raft in a flood (or river) and everyone had drowned/died and we were very sad. This would have been before age six or seven probably. 

“Playing pretend” on the playground was a common pastime of my friends and I, probably up until age 10 or so (when we were hardcore into D&D)…we were never much for shooting hoops or playing “flyers up” or four-square. If we used monkey bars at all, it was solely to navigate some imaginary obstacle (lava being the usual favorite) during our adventures…as knights or elves or Star Wars characters or Indiana Jones types or even Willy Wonka. Nothing so mundane as “cops & robbers” or “cowboys & indians” would have satisfied us.

My son seems to have the same “play pretend” itch I always did…almost always involving superheroes (Batman and Spiderman are the favorites), and often involving firefighting. Of course, he’s also exhibited a profound fascination with the ritual of the Catholic Mass, and likes to march around holding a cross, chanting “Amen, Amen” or hand out Eucharist wafers to people (though this behavior was more regular when we were still in Seattle).Encouraging his play, participating in it, and trying to steer it in positive directions (“Batman doesn’t shoot people with guns” or “a superhero’s priority is to help people before fighting bad guys”) has been a priority for me the last few weeks. 

And occasionally constructing paper batarangs.

*ahem*

But now it’s time for me to button down and get back to work. D has his school, and we’ve almost got our house and schedule in order. I’ve made some commitments to myself to get up early and focus my head in the right place. Even though the internet is still not working (latest glitch: no power to the router and the electrician can’t make it today due to heavy rains and random flooding throughout the city), I’ve had the chance to use the WiFi at the office down the street from our house. Mainly I’ve been using it to check on long-neglected email and catch up on the book orders.

[FYI to folks who placed orders in February: your books were mailed out from Seattle on Monday]

But now it’s time to get back to writing. And for myself, writing begins with this blog.

It’s time for a reboot.

When I first sat down to start Ye Old B/X Blackrazor blog, I wrote out a list of 100 potential topics to post. I did this because my prior blog (combining astrology with professional sports) had dwindled and dried up within three months after starting strong. I wanted to make sure I had enough I wanted to say, before actually throwing my hat into the ring, so to speak.

I probably only made it through half that original list before the ideas for blog topics took on a life of their own (responding to comments, reading other blogs, picking up new books, following the gaming industry, off-topic world events, etc.). Still, I knew that if I needed it, I could probably pull out the list and get back to the 50 or so posts I never got around to writing. It’s a comforting thought to have…plus, just the act of writing the list gets the creative juices percolating a bit, you know?

Well, that list is long gone (or, more likely, buried somewhere in an old notebook in my Seattle home). This morning after breakfast, I sat down and wrote up a new list of 100 topics (“Reboot” was the first item on the page), and I’m hopeful that these will lead me back into regular blog posts…which will feed my other creative endeavor of writing and designing games. It took me a little effort to start, but it was worthwhile…already my brain is starting to get back into “game mode” which it’s been lacking of late. I’m actually pretty excited about a number of the ideas on the list. And some are actually B/X related! Yes, really!

[there’s also some good stuff about wolves]

All right…that’s enough for now. I’m going to try to get this sent off today…which means going down the street before D gets home from school! Later, gators.

: )

Super Bowl, Super Game

It is 9:30am local time, which means 4:30am in Seattle, meaning most of my friends and family back home are probably still snoozing, perhaps with dreams of Seahawks bouncing around their noggins. After all, the big game is today...in a few hours...and from all the accounts I've been able to gather, the city is a little football crazy at the moment.

People who know me know that I'm usually crazy about football and the Seahawks year round anyway...regardless of whether or not they're in the Super Bowl. So it is perhaps ironic that I've been out of the country since January 16th, bopping around Chile and Paraguay and Uruguay and (now) back into Paraguay. A couple things folks might want to know (I'll probably elaborate on South America in later posts): it is damn hot here (summertime, thanks in part to the reversal of the seasons) and most folks don't give a rip about American football. I've got a few dozens/scores of channels in my hotel room

[quick side note: I am fucking sick to death of living out of hotels]

and at least six or seven of them are devoted to sports. And you know what they'r playing?

Soccer. Soccer. Tennis. Soccer. Soccer. Racing.

Yes, yes...I don't expect Latin America to care nearly as much about football as the U.S. (it's been Super Bowl media week the last few days and I'd expect a ton of coverage on the ESPN channels back home). But do they really care more about what's going on in Italy's local soccer league? Or who's currently leading in Formula Four? Come on!

No, they play the (playoff) games on the television here...I was able to watch Seattle's smack down of the Niners in the NFC championship game. But there's no other news coverage. I didn't even get to see the presentation of the NFC trophy, as they switched away to cover French premier league soccer. France?

But whatever...it is what it is, and American football is probably a tough sport to figure out if you haven't played it or watched it for years. It's a lot more complicated to get into then soccer where the goal is to stick the ball in the net of the other side...or racing, where the object is to be faster than the other guys. I didn't fully grasp the rules of the game till I was 10 or so and I grew up going to Seahawks games at the Kingdome with my folks from the age of 7 or 8. My son enjoys the games immensely, but he really only knows to yell loud on defense and that touchdowns are good. And he recognizes the 'Hawks by color and logo, of course.

For folks who do understand the rules and nuances, football is immensely satisfying and much more interesting to watch unfold on the field than other sports...even though there's lack of accessibility to the average person. Perhaps the sport of cricket is the same for the cricket fan; I've never been able to figure out that one myself (admittedly, I haven't tried terribly hard).

There's a parallel that can be drawn between this subject and gaming, by the way.

Unfortunately, that parallel is going to have to wait for a later post...right now, my family's up and I've got to help get them ready for church. I never bother praying for a Seahawks win, but I do like to ask no one (from any team) suffers injury. And world peace, of course...can't forget that!

Later folks...to my American readers: hope you all enjoy our semi-national holiday! Go Seahawks!

Playoff Football, Baby

Since the NFL realignment of 2002 (12 seasons and counting), there have been 114 home playoff games played. Eight of the NFL’s 32 teams (one-quarter) have hosted five or more playoff games, and of those eight teams the Seattle Seahawks have the best record: five of six (.833) with the single loss coming in 2004, their first playoff game in their current (then new) stadium.

This year, the Seahawks’ record ensures that all their playoff games will be played in Seattle. The teams that remain alive in the NFC play-offs – the Panthers, the Niners, the Saints – have all been beaten by the ‘Hawks this season. New Orleans, the team they play this weekend, was blown out in Seattle just last month…and while Drew Brees and the Saints have proven they can win on the road in the playoffs, they face a rested Seattle team after an emotional, physical road win in Philadelphia.

Now this doesn’t mean the Seahawks’s path to the Super Bowl is clear, nor easy. Brees and the Saints have won in Seattle in the past…in October of 2007, in fact, on the Seahawks’ road to their fourth straight division title (since the realignment gave the NFL its current structure and roster of teams, only three teams have seen more post-seasons than Seattle: the Colts, the Patriots, and the Packers...just FYI). Brees and head coach Sean Payton are no strangers to the Seattle waaagh both in and out of the playoff setting…a difficult challenge, certainly, but not a surprising one for a veteran team.

Can the orks once more pummel the Nurgle team into a gooey pulp?

We’ll see. Marshawn Lynch can trigger “Beast Quakes,” but Jimmy Graham IS a beast…a Beast of Nurgle in Blood Bowl terms, though an extremely fast and agile one that few players can bring themselves to guard or tackle. In the December game, he was excellently shadowed by dauntless lineork KJ Wright…but Wright broke his foot in the ‘Hawks December battle versus the Niners and will be unavailable till the NFC championship round at the earliest…assuming the Seahawks can get past New Orleans.

If I was a betting man, I’d still put my money on the orks, because A) I’m a huge-ass homer (duh), and B) because it’s the smart money. Brees is a Hall of Famer, but the Seahawks are the better team.

I know, I know…few enough of my readers care about football at all, fewer still are still watching with any interest (perhaps because they still have a team left in the race to root for), and even fewer dig the Blood Bowl. Sorry, folks...I’ll talk about the nuttiness of the latest Hobbit movie in another post.

Playoff football, baby. When your team’s in the mix, it’s just about the best time of year.

Up until you lose, of course. My wife reminded me the other day (in conversation, with other people) of my general demeanor after the Super Bowl loss of 2005. That year, we felt like Seattle was a dominant, can’t-lose team…and then we lost to a sixth seed wild card team and a second year QB who appears descended from the mercenary Swiss pikemen of two hundred years ago.

It hurts to lose. It hurts to lose most everything…though the degree of hurt is generally commensurate with the thing lost. With regard to the entertaining pastime of football, losing a game in the regular season is disappointing, losing at home is rough, and losing one’s chance to advance to (or through) the playoffs can be devastating….assuming the rest of your life is in order. I’m sure there are Bengals fans that were immensely disappointed after their team’s loss to the “barely in” Chargers…and yet even the most diehard fan would be terribly disinterested in the game result if they were facing the loss of their home to an unpaid mortgage, or the tragedy of a loved one dying from cancer before their time.

I myself am in a fortunate position of “things are going well at the moment” so I can spare the emotional energy to get worked up about the home team. And I want to win…a lot. I want to win a lot more than I want to lose. I want to win convincingly. I want to win easily.

I’m as superstitious as any other sports fan. Superstition would generally say keep your expectations low, approach the game with humility, hope for the best, don’t “tempt the football gods.” But I know there are fans on both sides of the fence that shoot their mouths off, just begging for negative (football-related) karma…and we can’t both lose the match. So I’m done worrying about it. I want to kick some ass. And I think the circumstances are good enough that the better team (i.e. the Seahawks) should kick asses of the Saints, on both sides of the ball.

Here come the Rotters.

How do orks generally fare against Nurgle teams? Pretty good, usually. Like all Chaos teams, the mutations available to a Nurgle team can make them versatile and specialized with the right combos, but the right combos (like NFL wins) are never guaranteed. Without those advantages, the default is a slow, stompy team that infects injured opponents with The Rot, bringing other team’s players into the warm, slimy embrace of Grandfather Nurgle.

However, the orks are some serious tough buggers, making them less likely to be injured than most other teams (except with a string of bad luck, which sometimes happens). Because of this toughness and their natural versatility (they can acquire a wider range of skills than the Nurgle team) they tend to be more balanced than Nurgle and thus able to out-play plague teams.  Plus, depending on which version of Nurgle you’re using (there have been several different ones over the years), the players tend to be slower and weaker than a “normal” Chaos team, making them a team the orks can rough up pretty good.

People may think I’m disrespecting the Saints by comparing them to or by representing them with a Nurgle team, but the truth is I’m a HUGE fan of Chaos teams, especially Nurgle. My collection of Warhammer 40K minis is far more extensive than my Blood Bowl collection, and my Nurgle army is second only to my Khorne dedicated army in number, including some of my most expensive pieces (including a 4^th edition Chaos dreadnought and Chaos landraider)...and almost all have been customized/modified with extensive putty-work (“greenstuff”). My Nurgle BB team is unfinished only because…well, mainly because my painting/modeling hobby has been put on indefinite hiatus (probably till my children are teenagers and/or older). I like teams that stomp the hell out of opponents and convert them to their own, and who aren’t as fragile around the edges as skeletons and the undead…and Nurgle’s “fluff” is some of the best GW has to offer.

Sean Payton: Offensive Guru, Sorcerer

The Saints are a good team…that’s why they’re Nurgle and not, say, halflings or hobgoblins (that’s the Jets and the Browns respectively…*ahem*). They take prime players from other teams…like Brees and Darren Sproles…and make them starters on their own. Stylistically, they’ve got that bayou swamp-voodoo-thang going on (which totally shrieks ‘Nurgle cultist hideout’) and I usually equate “dome teams” with the darker, Chaos-oriented teams in BB (Skaven, Dark Elf, etc.). And Mardi Gras is, of course, an annual Chaos ritual of epic proportions.

But being a “good” team isn’t going to be enough to knock the Seahawks out of the playoffs in their own stadium. Good enough to beat the high elves, sure (i.e. the Philly Eagles…you have to know the BB fluff regarding high elves to see the parallels with the “City of Brotherly Love”) but not nearly what they’ll need to stop the Seahawks, especially with second-string beastmen in the backfield. It isn’t like the ‘Hawks forced three or four interceptions when they hosted New Orleans in December; the Saints coughed up the ball exactly once. Instead, they were simply manhandled by Seattle for the majority of the game…both offensively and defensively. I’m hoping to see something similar when the two teams play again this Saturday.

If only so I can continue the dream another weekend of playoff football.

; )

Who Dat? Not as scary in our neck o the woods.