Superheroes at GenCon 2011

After looking at fantasy, steampunk, and modern supernatural games at this year’s GenCon, here’s my take on some superhero announcements from the role-playing convention.

The aforementioned Margaret Weiss Productions, which is publishing the Dragon Brigade RPG, will be making the next iteration of a Marvel Comics game using its Cortex system. The new Marvel game will focus on post-“Civil War” continuity rather than the vague “present” of many comic books and RPGs.

TSR’s Marvel Superheroes, which used the “FASERIP” rules, was similar to the more recent Icons, even though that loosely FATE-based, rules-light game uses art similar to the animated DC universe. Speaking of superheroes, I’m still waiting on Heroes & Villains Vol. 1 for DC Adventures.

I have yet to play the third edition of Mutants & Masterminds (also used in DC Adventures) or Icons. But several people in the Boston-area gaming groups have been asking about superhero scenarios, so it’s only a matter of time before I get back to my “Societe de Justice Internationale” setting, if only for one-shots. As previously noted, the steampunk Kerberos Club is also FATE-based, but I’ve also seen a mention of another superhero game based on that system.

In related miniatures game news, WizKids, whose HeroClix for Dungeons & Dragons, DC, and Marvel have been popular, announced more sets for those lines, as well as Lord of the Rings, Pathfinder, and Star Trek figures. As with the forthcoming Lego minifigs for DC and Marvel, I’m sure that some of them will eventually grace my desk or basement tables.

Speaking of metahuman vigilantes, Kim A.G., Steve M.R., and Thomas K.Y. finally wound down their participation in the City of Heroes MMO, a few years after David I.S., Dexter V.H., and I left the “Dimensional Corps Online” supergroup to try other games. It’s the end of an era, and I miss the camaraderie of our team at its best. Jim J.D’B. recently started another Smallville play-by-post game.

Last month, Jason E.R. ran a fun one-shot of the Darkpages noir superhero game. I haven’t had time to write up my notes from his scenario, which involved a Ghostbusters-style haunted hotel, warring angels and demons, time travel, and of course, Nazis! Jason has also graciously offered to run scenarios including the alternate-history “Expeditio Africana” using Fvlminata 3e, “The Tenth Ray of Mars” using Savage Worlds or FATE, and “The New Shadow” using Pathfinder or The One Ring. Time is always in shorter supply than ideas!

Coming soon: Science fiction at GenCon and returning to “Vortex!”

Steampunk and supernatural games at GenCon 2011

Continuing my look at this year’s GenCon, after fantasy role-playing games, steampunk is one of the hottest subgenres right now. Cubicle 7, which publishes The One Ring, will also be putting out the much-anticipated Airship Pirates. Another RPG that looks promising is the FATE-based steampunk/superheroic Kerberos Club.

Margaret Weiss Productions, which already had tie-ins for Buffy: the Vampire Slayer/Angel, Smallville, Battlestar Galactica, Serenity/Firefly, Supernatural, and Leverage, will use its Cortex Plus system for the similarly themed swashbuckling Dragon Brigade. It might not be Dragonlance, and although the densely packed introductory “Opening Salvo” might intimidate newer gamers, Dragon Brigade could be fun.

Lady Blackbird is a better model of concise presentation in this mashup subgenre. As much as I like such games, after seeing numerous steampunky sky pirates at conventions in the past year or so, I wonder if they’re are all scrambling for the same audience rather than there being a few rules sets that can capture and build upon it.

Although I’m not currently playing in a steampunk game, I have fond memories of Tim M.B.‘s GURPS 3e “Arth” in Virginia in the 1990s and my own “Gaslight Grimoire” (using GURPS Steampunk, Castle Falkenstein and D20 Etherscope). I am currently reading Perdido Street Station.

Josh C.’s steampunk/fantasy combination of AD&D2 Spelljammer and FATE 3e Legends of Anglerre has wound down for now, and Jason E.R. has proposed running some alternate-history one-shots. Speaking of alternate history, it looks like the fantasy Secret Fire, whose breathless promotions said it would honor the memory of Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax and “end the edition wars,” may have been a bit hyperbolic.

In other licensing news, congratulations to Evil Hat Productions for the Origins and Ennie awards won by the Dresden Files RPG. Greg D.C. and Paul J. have been running the modern supernatural game (based on Fantastic Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment, or FATE 3e) for their portion of the Boston-area groups. Janice has read Jim Butcher’s novels.

They, Josh C., and Dave S.C. have also run various horror one-shots. I haven’t played in a longer-term supernatural campaign since Hans C.H.’s Storyteller: World of Darkness-Vampire: the Masquerade in the late 1990s in Virginia, but FATE is one of the more popular systems right now in my groups. Like Wizards of the Coast, White Wolf is moving from strictly pen-and-paper games to multimedia entertainment.

While I’ll leave coverage of board games, wargames, collectible card games, and assorted computer games to others, I’ll look at superhero and science fiction RPGs soon!

Fantasy at GenCon 2011

Cover for Issue 62 of Dragon Magazine — Larry Elmore's cover for Dragon 62

Right on the heels of this year’s San Diego Comic-Con was GenCon Indianapolis, so I’m still catching up on the news from those conventions. In addition to the usual game demonstrations and costumed fans were announcements of new role-playing games and licensees of well-known intellectual properties. Let’s start with some fantasy RPG news that I thought was noteworthy.

Cubicle 7‘s The One Ring is the successor to Iron Crown Enterprise’s Middle Earth Role-Playing (I’ve played MERP, which uses the RoleMaster rules) and Decipher’s movie-based Lord of the Rings. Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s (and Peter Jackson’s) Middle Earth wonder whether the choices of specific eras, locations, and character development options for various sourcebooks are the best approach to that epic fantasy setting. I’ll take a closer look at The One Ring in the next week or so. I’m also curious about WizKids’ Lord of the Rings HeroClix miniatures.

Tabletop publishing giant Wizards of the Coast announced Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition‘s return to the Neverwinter Nights setting (actually a part of the Forgotten Realms) across media, with role-playing, board, card, and video/online game supplements. I think speculation about D&D5e is probably premature.

WotC’s D&D4e continues to face stiff competition, however, from Paizo’s Pathfinder. The Ultimate Magic and Ultimate Combat splatbooks for Pathfinder provide a wealth of options for Player Characters, restoring some of the “code bloat” from D&D3.5 but doing so stylishly and in a fairly organized fashion. I’ll be using them in my current teleconferencing fantasy game, minus the gunpowder rules.

I liked its D&D3.0 incarnation, so I hope to eventually pick up the Tome of Horrors Complete for Pathfinder. Green Ronin has released a second boxed set for Dragon Age, another fantasy competitor to D&D4e that uses tiered advancement and is oriented at newer role-players. A few of the people in my Boston-area groups have expressed interest in it and A Song of Fire and Ice (for fans of Game of Thrones).

Even though there was a hiccup in plastic miniatures for D&D4e, we’ll soon have prepainted figures for Pathfinder. I understand the economics behind randomized sets of minis, but as a Game Master, I’d prefer, say, a set of Undead, or a set of low-level forest creatures, or a set of Clerics.

After getting inspiration from the retro-clone Lamentations of the Flame Princess (for which there are already some cool hacks), another indie game I’m looking forward to is Adventurer, Conqueror, King. “ACK” or the rules-light Old School Hack might be closer in feel to a lower-powered vision of my “Vanished Lands” fantasy setting than the D&D3.x or D&D4e versions. I’m also still considering the FATE3e Legends of Anglerre.

My Pathfinder/Skype: “the Vanished Lands” campaign has yet to resume after last month’s hiatus and various scheduling snafus, but I look forward to continuing the latest teleconferencing party’s adventures. When we left those Player Characters in the northwestern borderlands, they had returned to the haunted hamlet of Alarn, only to find that several of the knights sent there had been slaughtered…

I first ran games long-distance by “snailmail” back in the mid-1980s with friends such as David I.S. and Cheryl I.L. Later, I tried several “Vanished Lands” and “Vortex” scenarios by e-mail and play-by-post, but they tended not to last more than a few months each. I’ve had more success with the Skype telecom teams — now with members in New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Missouri, and Colorado — but busy parents and my own travel have acted as speed bumps lately.

Other tangential G.M.s also running fantasy include Paul J.’s Pathfinder: “Crossroads of Eternity,” Dave S.C.’s D&D4e “Attos,” Josh C.’s Pathfinder: Golarion/Inner Sea, and Bruce K.’s Conan. I haven’t had time to try any of them out, but I wish every game success! Next up — steampunk RPGs…

Steampunk festival

On Mother’s Day, Janice and I went to the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation. Waltham, Massachusetts, which was rechristened “International Steampunk City,” hosted numerous events focusing on the subgenre. Steampunk blends 19th century speculative fiction with modern sensibilities and has been growing in popularity.

We liked the museum, which contains artifacts from the real Industrial Revolution. The festival also included historical re-enactors, arts and crafts exhibits, vendors, and of course, fans of all ages in semi-period costumes.

Although the venues were spread out around the museum, Waltham Common, and Moody Street, I was glad to see strong attendance. I hope that the steampunk event brings business to the area and leads to an event that draws more performers and participants.

We also went to the Outer Limits comic shop and had lunch at Margarita’s, whose namesake drink was good, but the service was slow. This coming weekend, the festivities continue with high school chum Damon F.P.’s visit and a cookout!

24 November 2009: Super MegaFest report

On Saturday, 21 November 2009, I met former co-workers Ken G. and Brian F. at the Super MegaFest at the Framingham Sheraton (photos courtesy of Ken). I’ve attended this genre entertainment convention several times over the past decade, and it’s usually a good value for a $20 weekend ticket.

There were fewer panels than at the previous weekend’s New England Fan Experience (NEFX), but the celebrity guests were more accessible. Autographs were still expensive at about $40 apiece. I met Brent Spiner, who played the Asimovian android “Data” on Star Trek: the Next Generation, as well as The Bionic Woman‘s Lindsay Wagner.

Although I had seen them before, Ken waited in line for signatures from Jame Marsters, members of The Monkees, and Ray Park. There were also pinup models,
professional wrestlers, and some people in costume. Spiner proved to be sarcastically funny during his question-and-answer session, teasing me for not following him on Twitter and being teased by Ken for his robot-like recall of people’s names.

The vendors sold comic books, DVDs, toys, and other nostalgia items to a crowd that was almost as diverse as the one at the NEFX and Star Wars in Concert. Brian was disappointed that there weren’t more dealers in superhero-related statuettes, and I agree that there were fewer vendors than in past years. Overall, I had fun, and I look forward to more fan events, such as the “Harry Potter” exhibit at the Boston Museum of
Science and the just-announced New England Comic-Con.

In the coming weeks, in between work, gaming, and holiday shopping, I hope to blog about the recent wave of animation, the midseason turnover in genre television, and the nature of steampunk. If there’s anything you’d like to see here, let me know!

Janice and I will be driving down to Pennsylvania to see her grandmother before
spending Thanksgiving with my parents in western Virginia. Unfortunately, I probably won’t have time to visit family and friends near Washington, D.C., or New
York City, and I hope that traffic and the weather are cooperative. I hope that you have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!