Darkness and Light

Frank Miller's iconic cover for Batman: The Dark Knight Returns #1

People remember the Eighties for Miami Vice pastel colours, Madonna in her "giant hair bow" incarnation, and Michael Jackson in a red leather suit dancing with a horde of zombies. Ronnie Reagan was the President of the United States, smiling that harmless smile that said nothing bad could possibly happen on his watch (and if it did, well, he didn't recall it). It was a decade of silly pop energy and shoulder pads.

But around the mid-point of the 1980s, there was a darkness gathering in the comic book world.

After-Action Report: GOLDEN SKY STORIES

The world needs more games like GOLDEN SKY STORIES.

Review: MASTERS OF UMDAAR

Every once in a while I read a game book that straight-up makes me happy. Every page is a delight, filled with ideas and energy and the kind of heedless pleasures that drew me to gaming in the first place, those many years ago. Let me tell you about a game book like that called MASTERS OF UMDAAR.

Can't Get Enough of Your "Special" Moves, Babe

Mr. White, a little mood music if you would?

Aww yeah.

Now, where were we? Oh yes. APOCALYPSE WORLD.

I've written before about the provocative nature of Vincent Baker's great roleplaying game, which recently ran a successful Kickstarter to fund a second edition and return to print. It's the kind of game that was designed to shake people up, change the way they do and think about things inside the parochial little world of roleplaying. As a long time GM, the way the game framed the role of the "MC" initially scared the living shit out of me. Or, more accurately, made me deny its usefulness, then angry, then depressed (because it felt like an attack on GMs), then eventually a cautious return to grapple with its ideas and eventually accept them. The five stages of APOCALYPSE WORLD.

Prep

Ready, Freddie?  The eternal question.

No matter what style of game you play, figuring out the proper amount of preparation required to run a session is not a trivial matter. Some modern games make it easier on you, providing you with tools to create a session on the fly or else making preparation unnecessary / verboten. The "powered by the Apocalypse" games require a certain amount of preparation early on, but for the most part GMing those games is about reacting dynamically to events as they unfold. That's a fine thing, and a good philosophical perspective on the GM role (that is, the GM's job is not to plan a story, it is to respond to the decisions the PCs make); it can be unnerving if you're not on the ball, though, because you don't have the security blanket of pages of notes to fall back on.

The Pros and Cons of Reincarnation: NOT FADE AWAY (Part Two)

If you're like us, you probably read the description of the game -- a game about immortals that frames the story in the present and fills in the backstory via flashbacks -- you're probably thinking that this is a very large undertaking. With four characters in the main cast, and a "signature era" for each one in various time periods of the past, that makes the story a sprawling affair, stretched from the ancient past to the fall of Rome to the Crusades to the Salem Witch Trials, not including glimpses we get of the "Gotterdammerung" events that took place in 1945. Or brief glimpses we get of the characters meeting in other time periods.

The Pros and Cons of Reincarnation: NOT FADE AWAY (Part One)

After a long dry spell, we have finally started a new game this past Saturday night. Let me tell you about it.

But first, a little theme music. In deference to my friend Amanda, the version you'll be hearing is not the sublime original by Queen, but the cover by the Protomen. It should still get you in the mood for a story about sword-wielding immortals.