Showing posts with label Comic Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Comic Books. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

SENTRY FORCE #0 Provides an Entertaining Glimpse at Tiny Supers' "Gallantverse"

Gallant Knight Games ran the Kickstarter campaign for their Tiny d6 based super hero role playing game Tiny Supers in July/August 2018. I've chatted about Tiny Supers on the Geekerati Podcast, but haven't done a full review of the game. The tl;dr version is that the system has quickly become one of my top 10 super hero rpgs ever. It's easy to learn and very flexible. I loved the system so much that in the blog post for the Tiny d6 episode of the podcast, I did quick conversions of two members of the Fantastic Four (The Human Torch and the Invisible Woman).



I'll do a full review of the Tiny Supers game later this week, but last week Gallant Knight Games' own Alan Bahr sent Kickstarter backers a copy of Sentry Force Prime #0, the first (and hopefully not only) comic book based in their in house Gallant-Verse super setting. I've had a chance to read the comic, several times and in a couple of formats, in order to give it a thorough examination. Before I get deep into the weeds of my analysis of the book, I'd like to give you my overall impression of the book.

TL;DR/Overall Impression


I like it a lot. It's not perfect, and suffers from what I call "pilotitis" when discussing television shows, but it is a fun and engaging book. I love the illustration style and I am impressed with Alan Bahr's attempt at writing a "team origin story" for his first ever comic book script. The short and sweet? Buy it and make sure you read the pdf in "2-page mode" in order to get the most out of Nic Giacondino's art work.

The Good, the Bad, and the Awesome

There are two things that are essential in order for a comic book to "work, you need good writing and good art and in that order. Sentry Force has both. They aren't perfect (as will be discussed in "The Bad" section) but they are good.

When I was an undergrad I took a couple of creative writing classes with an award winning Science Fiction and Fantasy author. Over time, she became one of my most supportive mentors and I am eternally grateful to her. One of the most important lessons she taught me was that "writing a novel is hard, but writing a short story can be even harder." What she meant by this is that readers of novels will allow the writer to meander, but readers of short fiction demand tight, lean, and compelling prose. The medium itself demands it. While comic books may have the benefit of beautiful art, their word count is small and if you are writing a fully contained origin story for one-shot title, you've given yourself quite a writing challenge. There's a reason that the Avengers comic book was written after the characters had their own stand alone books, and there's a reason the Marvel movies started with solo stories rather than jumping right into the first Avengers film. It's easier to create one compelling protagonist at a time than to try to connect readers with multiple protagonists in one go.

It's a difficult challenge to meet, but author Alan Bahr manages this task. The Sentry Force is filled with an interesting array of characters that fit a nice array of super hero archetypes while retaining a touch of their own personality. Velocity, the techie "Iron Man" proxy and the hero who assembles the team, is presented as a man desperately outmatched in a city on the edge of collapse as new villains emerge. He's running as fast as he can to keep the city safe, but he cannot do it alone and what heroes there are in Sentry City have yet to work together in any meaningful way. Velocity wants to help, but all he can do is triage. A fitting metaphor as in his secret identity, he runs a medical supply company. The character is a nice balance of arrogance, vulnerability, and desperation. He might also be, as is revealed in the comic's "voiceover," one of the causes of the rise of meta-humans. Bahr crams in a lot of backstory without a lot of exposition. That gives depth to the setting, but it also leaves room for interpretation and development. Did Velocity's tapping into the Tachyon Bridge merely result in the creation of his Velocity armor, or is it a partial explanation of the emergence of meta-humans? I'm guessing it's just the first, but the second possibility could be developed into some fun story lines.

The first Gallant Knight Games product I backed on Kickstarter was the Powder Mage Roleplaying Game based on the excellent book series by Brian McClellan. It was a very good attempt at adapting McClellan's fictional world to the Savage Worlds rules set. It was especially rich as a Black Powder Mage Universe world guide. In another world, that might have been the only Gallant Knight Games product I purchased, but that would be a world where Alan Bahr didn't work with great artists. From the first time I saw concept art Michael Leavenworth put together for the 2nd Edition of the Tiny Dungeon Role Playing Game, I knew I had to back that game. From their, Bahr introduced me to a number of talented illustrators who's work was different than that being used by other role playing game companies. Of the Gallant Knight Games pool of artists, one stands apart from the others in my esteem. Nicolas Giacondino is the Jack "King" Kirby of the Gallant Knight Games stable. His work is consistently evocative and fun and brings to mind many of my favorite comic book artists. When I see a Giacondino page, his work brings to mind the layouts of Keith Giffen and the art of Matt Wagner, Chris Sprouse, Ty Templeton, and Mike Wieringo. All of these artists have clean line work and demonstrated that the 4-color illustration style of the Silver and Bronze age of comics could be as sophisticated and dynamic as the best of the Iron and Digital Age illustrators.

You can see the influence of these artists on Nic's work in many places, but one place I wanted to examine briefly is in how Giacondino approaches page layouts. Take a look at these three pages with art by Matt Wagner, Keith Giffen, and Nic Giacondino. It should be noted that I intentionally chose one of Giacondino's "least interesting" pages in order to make this quick demonstration, but it should also be clear from even this basic page that Giacondino understands how to tell a story graphically. Each of these pages is a riff on the classic "9 panel page." Two of them are expressly 9 panel pages. Giacondino's page uses the structure of the Giffen (center) page, but uses narrative techniques demonstrated in both the other comics. Notice how Giacondino starts at a wide anger and zooms in one step at each step of the conversation. He's playing with point of view and demonstrating the increasing intensity of the argument between the characters. It's similar to what Wagner is doing in the panels from MAGE #1, which alternates from mid-shot to close-up to match the information being transmitted in the dialogue.

One of the things that stands out in the Giancondino piece, though this really should wait for "The Awesome" section, is that he hand inked the pages. Inking by hand and not digitally or by color coding gives his illustrations a nice depth of space more closely aligned with the Wagner illustration on the left than the more flat-space dominated Giffen art from LEGION OF SUPERHEROES in the middle. Even in a "boring" Giacondino panel, you see variety and texture. We'll see more of his work as I move through "The Bad" and "The Awesome." I do have one small quibble with the page and that is with the lack of window frame behind Camila Cantor. The yellow space behind her is a paneled window and those panels are shown on the next page and add needed background to the page.

Which brings me to "The Bad" elements of the book, none of which are too bad but all of which need to be discussed honestly if I want you to trust my opinion about comics and other media. I really liked this book, but has roughness around the edges.

The first patch of roughness comes in the use of exposition. Bahr doesn't use a lot of it, but there is one case where it needed significant tightening. In presenting Velocity's backstory on page 3, Bahr has the following two sentences back to back. "We were exploring tachyon physics to cure muscular disability and illness, but we stumbled onto the Tachyon Bridge..." and "I had to shut down the research, lock it up, and control it, because what we unlocked with the Tachyon Bridge was bigger than anything I'd ever dreamed of." What is striking here is the repetition of the term Tachyon Bridge. The second sentence could easily read, "I had to shut down the research, lock it up, and control it, because what we unlocked was bigger than anything I'd ever dreamed of." By eliminating the repetition of "with the Tachyon Bridge" it reads quicker and cleaner. There are a couple of small things like this. They aren't deal breakers by any means, but they demonstrate a writer learning to write in a new medium. Comic book story telling needs to be tight and this is a little loose. To be fair to Bahr, I've been reading some older Gardner Fox books (his CROM comic book if you must know) and Bahr's work here is significantly better than Fox's on that title. Let's just say that when you're work is better than Fox's, at any point in his career, you're doing fine.

The second patch of roughness comes in the art work. I know I praised the art earlier and I'll praise it more because Nic is AMAZING, but he's not perfect. Let's take these two pages of action. Where Velocity foils a bank robbery by the villain Darklight. We've got great action flow on the first page, but then WHOAH! What's happening? That top panel on page 5 has me wondering who's PoV we are seeing from. It's not the guy Velocity saved. We can see him on the top of the panel. Who is looking at the world upside down and why? It really pulled me out of the action. Which is too bad, because the action of the panel is fantastic if confusing at this PoV. I can see what Nic is attempting using the split faces on the top of the page, and that's nice, but a small modification really helps the page pop in my opinion.

Sentry Force Pages 4 and 5 (as Published)


What if we didn't feel it was necessary to keep the compelling split faces as the top of the page and instead let them go to the middle of the page? As you can see, since Darklight is in the upper left of the panel when we flip it right side up, we cannot put the face there. We have to have the faces on the bottom of the panel if the action is right side up. And look at that action! It's dynamic. Bullets are flying, Velocity is running to the action, and our hapless customer is falling. The scene has emotional appeal and it brings to my mind the combat panels from the interior of the 2nd edition of the Champions role playing game, and that's a good thing.

Page 5 Image Flipped and Mirrored

Let's add this flipped panel back to the original page and give it a look. To me this is an improvement, especially when viewed in 2-page mode. The action from page to page, and these pages are paired in Acrobat, look dynamic and there is no confusion of the action in my mind. Your mileage may differ. You may prefer the original layout on the page, but this works better for me. Regardless of which works better for you, the illustrations by Nic are a lot of fun.

Sentry Force Pages 4 and 5 (post Tweak)

And that brings me to "The Awesome." There is so much that is great about this book. It starts with a complete vision for the setting. Alan Bahr has stories he wants to tell and he wants you to experience them. Whether we get them as an RPG campaign or as a comic book, I'm sure we will see more of the Gallant-verse. Bahr is a font of ideas on a Walter Gibson (the creator of the Shadow) scale. He's always writing and publishes RPG products on a schedule almost unmatched in the industry. Bahr and Wiggy Wade-Williams are old school writers who pump out quality material on a schedule. I'm in awe of Bahr's abilities and his imagination. He's put together a great team and a compelling universe with characters ranging from the Magician Asher Solomon (a mash-up of Constantine and Dr. Strange who is now one of my favorite super-wizards), Bulwark (a "Brick" and a little more), the Eagle, many more, and...the super-heroine Gallant (the Gallant-verse's "Superman" equivalent). These characters are all discussed in detail in the excellent Tiny Supers RPG and Bahr has provided a fun Gallant-verse adventure in the back of Sentry Force #0 for you to play.

If I wanted to go into "The Awesome" as much as I wanted, I would do a page by page breakdown of all the interesting characters and detailed examination of Nic's artwork. It's really a lot of fun to look at, though I'd desaturate the colors a little to make the very strong line art pop a little more, and he manages a couple of "Perez Pages" where the panels are filled with a horde of characters who manage to be distinct and dynamic and for me the ability to do "Perez Pages" is the measure by which all comic book artists are measured.

Instead of doing all of that, I'll just leave you with the panel introducing Gallant. It's pretty darn EPIC. It has all the emotion and power I want from a character introduction.


Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Role Playing Adventures in the "Alien Bones" Universe Part 1 (Tiny Frontiers Edition)

 
The Alien Bones graphic novel by Doc Wyatt and Chris Grine, released on October 2, 2019 and published by 1First Publishing, is a fun tale of "dim dark" adventure that introduces readers to a universe filled with alien dinosaurs, space pirates, intergalactic navies, and an existential threat called "The End." The universe is a wonderful mashup of Warhammer 40k, Doctor Who, Indiana Jones, Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, Lost in Space, Scooby Doo, Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series, and a host of other inspirations. All of this makes it a perfect inspiration for role playing game sessions.

The first volume, and let's hope it's the first of many, focuses on the character of Liam Mycroft. Young Liam is the 10 year old son of a Xeno-paleontologist who has accompanied his father on a variety of digs where his father studies the bones of "alien dinosaurs." During one of these digs, Liam's father disappears without a trace, leaving young Liam alone. It is here that Liam's adventure begins. Joined by his friends Dianna Varlou and Rosa Ortega, as well as his trusty robot bodyguard Standard-5 ("Stan"), Liam embarks on a quest to find his father and in doing so discovers the secret of an existential threat that could destroy all life in the universe.

I interviewed Doc Wyatt on my Geekerati Media podcast and he has given me permission to generate role playing game statistics for several of the characters.



While I am tempted to describe the universe in detail, I am instead recommending that you purchase the book on Amazon (or at your friendly local comic book store) and providing gaming statistics for the main cast, as well as the statistics for one of the threats the young protagonists face.  (I'm also tempted to do stats for Warhammer Adventures: Attack of the Necron, a similarly dim dark story with delightful young protagonists).

Today, I'll be providing statistics for the excellent and simple Tiny Frontiers role playing game. Tiny Frontiers is a perfect system for novice and experienced gamers, making it a perfect fit for the first set of statistics for your gaming pleasure. In later posts, I'll provide statistics for the Savage Worlds, Star Frontiers, and Aliens & Asteroids role playing systems. I might even provide stats for The Expanse and Warhammer 40k role playing games, as both have elements that work well in the Alien Bones universe, but those systems are slightly more complex and Alien Bones was written for ages 4 to 444 and I wanted to have systems that younger gamers could jump right into.

Without further ado, here are the main characters of Alien Bones with statistics for Tiny Frontiers.

Liam Mycroft

Liam Mycroft is a 10 year old who is already on his way to becoming a Xenopaleontologist. His has great expertise regarding dinosaurs on all planets as well as knowledge of the ecosystems that produce these wonderful creatures.


Dianna Varlou

Dianna Varlou is Liam's best friend and steadfast companion. She is visiting Liam when his father disappears. She is the daughter of a respected Thermodynamicist, but her areas of expertise seem to lean more toward robotics and weapon design. She's kind of the team's MacGyver. When the team is faced with a new threat, she is the one who is able to weaponize Portal Crystals.

 

Rosa Ortega

Rosa Ortega is the class clown in Liam and Dianna's Holoclassroom on the Scholastic Network. While she doesn't seem to take things very seriously, she is a skilled computer hacker. She has an extraordinary amount of courage, which she clearly inherited from her parents who are both Generals in a Space Fleet stationed at Charon Base on the edge of explored space. Rosa has two sets of statistics. The first represents her as she is portrayed in the first half of Alien Bones, when she participates in the adventure only because she hacked a holoprojector. The second represents her as she is on a regular basis.


Standard-5 ("Stan")

Standard-5 is Liam's robot bodyguard or "Minder-bot/Nanny." Stan has many advanced skills that help him to protect Liam from a variety of dangers. Stan often seems over-protective of Liam, but can be convinced to allow Liam to take necessary risks. This can happen due to the use of an "Adventure Button" that Liam and Dianna installed*, or due to necessity.


The End

There are two main antagonists in Alien Bones. The first is the space pirate Captain Scarbones, but the long term threat is something known as "The End." It would be a bit of a spoiler to reveal exactly what The End is/are, but they are a foe on the scale of Tyrannids/Necrons in Warhammer 40k or the Sathar in Star Frontiers. They seek the destruction of all life and an end to the universe. Below are statistics for one of their drones. If you want to see what they look like, you need to buy Alien Bones. Chris Grines did a masterful job of illustrating an existential threat in a way that conveys the horror of the threat to adults while still being extremely kid-friendly.

I really enjoyed reading Alien Bones, and will be reviewing it later this week or early next week, and think it is a rich setting that I hope the author and artist will continue to explore.

Thursday, October 17, 2019

Episode 165: Chatting with Doc Wyatt about Alien Bones and Super Dinosaur

Geekerati Episode 165


Episode 165: Chatting with Doc Wyatt about Alien Bones and Super Dinosaur

We were lucky enough to connect with Television and Film Producer Doc Wyatt a couple of weeks ago to discuss a couple of his newly released projects. While Doc's producing credits include films like Napoleon Dynamite, our discussion focused entirely on his work in comic books and animation. 

His most recent comic book Alien Bones is an adventure tale in the emerging "Dim Dark" genre. Tomorrow's post will include a review of the book as well as role playing game stats for some of the characters, which should give a suggestion of what I thought of the book. HINT: I liked it and so did my daughters.

Doc's a busy content creator, who's work includes a wide variety of animated series. If you like super heroes and/or Star Wars, it's likely that Doc and his writing partner Kevin Burke have worked on your favorite show. He's currently working on a number of series, but Episode 165 highlights his work on the recent Super Dinosaur series, which is an adaptation of a comic book by Robert Kirkman of The Walking Dead fame. Super Dinosaur is a mash up of Science Fiction, Super Hero, and Hollow Earth tropes that is currently airing on Amazon Prime.

I don't want to reveal too much of the interview here, but here are a couple of things we touch on during the interview. 

Image result for warhammer adventures

The Dim Dark genre and books like the new Warhammer Adventures series. Let's just say that if you like Alien Bones, you'll like Warhammer Adventures and vice versa.

The Spelljammer setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role playing game, a setting of wild fantasy adventures in outer space.

Related image
Season 20 of Doctor Who featuring Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, and the Enlightenment storyline in particular.

The classic Vincent Price horror film Witchfinder General and the comic book of the same name by Doc Wyatt.



The short lived Jeph Hephner series Agent X that ran on TNT in the early 2010s.


The amazingly entertaining Disney Junior series Octonauts that my family loved so much I had to order toys from England as Christmas presents.



The old show Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, which is the live action adult equivalent of Octonauts, cool ships and all.




The Marvel comic book Death's Head featuring a character originally published by Marvel's British Comic book division in the 1980s.

Image result for deathshead comic 

It's a great conversation and we'd love for you to listen.


Wednesday, August 02, 2017

The Role Playnig Game I'd Most Like to See Published is... #RPGaDay2017 Day 2


Thanks to great services like Mythoard, I've been able to read a ton of old Judges Guild Journals and issues of Pegasus where there is a lot of early work by RPG Industry legends like Jennell Jaquays. I've also seen some wonderful advertisements for products of the early RPG era. Some of those products were published, but others faded into the ether never to be seen again. I would like to see most of those games published again in some form, and I'd love for most of the fanzine of that era to be scanned and sold by their original publishers on RPGNow, but the one I'd most like to see publication some day is Judges Guild's super hero role playing game. It was to be called Supra-Sentinels.


I wrote about this and a couple of other games back in 2014. At that time, one of the game's original authors said that they were looking into revising and releasing this game. I'd love to see it happen and would be among the first to buy it when it is released.

Over at The Acaeum, one of the original authors gives some clues to what the game would be like and it makes me all the more intrigued to see it:

1.  I'd like to think our game was pretty sophisticated for its time, yet less complicated than what we saw as our main (would have been) competitor CHAMPIONS.   It was a point-building system with dice for determining actions (ie. attacks, defense, etc.)   We'd studied the three or so systems out there around the early '80s and came up with what we thought was a pretty darn good game.   We were starting to worry that CHAMPIONS would eclipse us because it was taking so long for JG to get to the point of being able to afford to publish it.

2.   We were, indeed, very close to being in print.   The game would have been out probably 9 months sooner, had I not moved out of town for a job and my co-authors sort of...didn't do much with it to put the finishing touches on it while I was gone.   By the time I moved back into town and got to work on it again, JG was already getting shaky, financially.   The advertisement got us pretty excited.   Then, they went under just as it was about to go to press.   Took a while to get the manuscript back from them, as it had gotten buried under stuff at their location in Illinois.   (This was about 1982 or 83?)  To get that close to being a published author was one of the single most disappointing moments of my life.    It taught me a good lesson about how we all have them from time to time, though.


Tuesday, August 01, 2017

What Published RPG I Wish I Was Playing Right Now -- #RPGaDAY 2017 Day 1

For as long as I can remember, I've been a fan of Super Hero role playing games. My entry into this particular gaming milieu was Hero Games' excellent Champions 2nd edition role playing game. I happened upon a copy and was amazed that game designers had even attempted to capture super heroes using game mechanics. At the time, I was only familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, Star Frontiers, Tunnels & Trolls, and Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks. I had played all three of those games and their mechanical foundations did not prepare me for what Champions offered.

Unlike the other games with which I was familiar, Champions did not have randomly created characters and instead allowed players to build whatever they could imagine. The only limit to the character you could design was the number of points available at creation (100 points with 150 more possible if you took Disadvantages). Other than that, it was all good. During my initial Champions experience, I didn't have anyone to play the game with and spent all of my time making characters and doing some solo battles. My character builds were heavily influenced by the sample characters in the rule book and thus were typically of 200 total character points (100 and 100 from Disadvantages). This included my personal write ups for the X-Men. I was content with my view of the game, but this view was to be shattered in short order.

A couple of months after I discovered Champions my family moved to a new city, I finally encountered a group of gamers who played the game every weekend. Given that this was the Bay Area, and the game company was a Bay Area company, I soon discovered a rich and vibrant Champions community. I also discovered that how I interpreted character adaptations to the game was very different from others. Some of that difference, I maintain to this day. I personally believe that too many gamers inflate the stats of their favorite characters out of love for the character, rather than an examination of benchmarks and mechanics of the game. But these are things that can only be understood through play, and that was something I had not yet done with Champions. In playing the game, I learned how some combinations worked better than others and I learned that other players were much more likely than I had been to "grab" the "Obvious and Accessible" items some characters used in combat. Not that I designed a lot of those kinds of characters, I didn't, just that I had expected gamers to behave more like the characters in comics than like "tactical gamers" and that the rules treated gamers as tactical gamers while allowing them to behave like characters in comics.

Long story short, I learned that you can only truly judge the quality of a game by playing it. I still love Champions and think it is one of the top 3 or 4 super hero games out there, but my view is now grounded in experience of how the game works and how when some character building norms take over the game can slow down significantly and lose some of its charm.

Eventually, my love of super heroes and super hero games led me to purchase Villains & Vigilantes, Marvel Super Heroes, and DC Heroes, all of which have there charms. At one point in time, not that long ago by some standards, I could claim to own a copy of every super hero rpg published (at least in one of its editions). With the explosion of pdf based publishing, that is no longer the case and I'm sure I'm missing out on some great games, but I also have a HUGE backlog of games I'd like to play...see how I'm pulling this back to the question of the day?



Among that backlog is Jay Harlove and Aimee Karklyn/(Hartlove)'s early Supergame. It wasn't the first super hero rpg published, that was Superhero 44/Superhero 2044, but it was one of the first and predates Champions. Both the first edition and revised edition came out in 1980. I discovered the game as a "real" thing and not just something mentioned in old gaming magazines, when I moved to Los Angeles after graduating from college in 2000. I was looking for gaming stores and found a long standing game store in Long Beach that had a copy of the 1st edition. Later searches on the internet have shown me that I got a significant bargain on it, as I did with copies of Warlock and a couple of other games originally designed by the Southern California gaming community.

Supergame, like Superhero 2044 which predates it and Champions which comes after it, has a point based character creation system. It also has an interesting skill and combat system that I think has a lot of potential. Some of the stats are odd in how they are presented. For example, if a character has an Agony score (similar to Stun for Champions fans) of 10 or more they suffer no penalties to how they move or act. Given that scores start at 0, and that some sample characters have 0s in other stats implying that a score of 0 is sometimes the "average" score, it seems odd that a person has to spend points just to be a normal person in some areas and not others. Why not just have stats start at "average" and let people buy them down later? Or why not have Agony start at 0 with no penalties and allow negative scores to cause impairment? It's a small complaint, and there are a number of neat features like different defenses against different types of attack (pre-Champions remember). A thorough reading of the rules, both editions, and the supplements has convinced me that I need to play this game to evaluate whether the designed characters are effective at all in a way that would be fun. There are far more characters who have an Agony of 10, or a Physical (like Hit Points but with those with less than 10 being hurt), which means that if they suffer just 1 point of damage they will be impaired.


 I think there is a very good game buried in the Supergame rule books, but I think it is a game that needs a lot of play testing and rules tweaks to bring out that game. I applaud Jay an Aimee for their hard work on the game and their ability to get a game like this published in 1980, and this is definitely a game I wish I was playing right now. I have so many questions I'd like answered and I'd love to house rule this game into a more complete system.




Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Judge Dredd: Mega-City One in Development from Rebellion and IM Global Television



Fans of Judge Dredd received some potentially good news today with the announcement that Rebellion and IM Global Television will be producing a television show that takes place in the Dredd-verse called Judge Dredd: Mega-City One. From early press materials, including the interview with Producer Brian Jenkins and Rebellion CEO Jason Kingsley embedded below, it appears that the main character of the show will be Mega-City One and not Dredd. From a creative standpoint, this is will allow showrunners and writers to explore a wider array of stories, and delve deeper into Dredd-lore, than might be possible if the creative team focused on Judge Dredd. Not that there aren't many great tales featuring the Judge, but the comic's biting commentary on American culture will be stronger if the city is a strong character.


Jenkins and Kingsley show a lot of enthusiasm for the project in their interview, but they admit their own novice status as film and television producers and highlight their partnership with IM Global Television. Founded in 2007 by Stuart Ford, IM Global Televsion has recently announced a number of major television projects in development including Judge Dredd: Mega-City One and series based on Glen Cook's The Black Company and Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s science fiction novel Cat's Cradle. It's a relatively ambitious line-up for the relatively young company, but IM Global's President Mark Stern has a solid resume of work on genre properties from his time at the Syfy network where he was President of Original Content.

It's still very early in the development process, but as someone who owns many Judge Dredd collections, board games, and rpgs, I'll be looking forward to seeing what Rebellion and IM Global Television put together.


Thursday, May 14, 2015

Of Black Widow and "Boy's Toys" #WheresNatasha

It has recently been reported by Jenna Busch at Legion of Leia that Hasbro opted to solicit a toy based on one of the more exciting scenes in the recent Avengers: Age of Ultron movie. In this particular scene, S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and Avengers member Black Widow springs into action by dropping out of the Avenger's Quinjet on a suped up motorcycle.

It's a pretty amazing sequence and a scene I look forward to watching repeatedly in the future. It's one of those ideal moments when film manages to capture the magic of the comic book page and translate it into real life. Throughout a progression of Marvel inspired films, Scarlett Johansson has managed to bring the Black Widow character alive on the screen with a nice balance between snark and charm. This moment was created to give her character a well-deserved action spotlight. This makes the scene an ideal choice for a toy play set based on the film.

There's only one problem.

Hasbro's play set based on the scene doesn't include Black Widow. It doesn't include her in the box as an action figure, and it doesn't feature her as a member of the Avengers on the cover of the box. This is a huge problem that has been discussed at length on a number of Feminist and Geek sites. If you are interested in their discussion, and you should be, I'd direct you to start with the Legion of Leia  and The Mary Sue and move on from there. Even though I'm the father of seven year old twin daughters who adore Black Widow as on of the - too few - female super heroes featured on a regular basis, I don't have anything to say from that perspective that hasn't already been said better.

Instead, I thought I'd take a moment to address what I believe is an underlying assumption that informed Hasbro's decision to exclude Black Widow from their offerings. Surprisingly, this isn't the assumption that these toys are "for boys." That may be one of the assumptions over at Hasbro HQ, but I think this falls into the "boys wouldn't want to play with girls as toys" sub-category of that assumption. I think that Hasbro not only assumes that these toys are for boys, but that boys would have no interest in pretending to be Black Widow battling the minions of Hydra and Ultron.

They are wrong on so many levels. Way back in the before times, in the not now, when the consensus view of the 21st century was Zardoz... Okay, that time never existed, but let's stick to the before times, in the not now. A time we will call "The Eighties." During this dark and mysterious age, action figures were a relatively new phenomenon. Sure, full sized GI Joe's had been around for a while, but the smaller action figures that would come to dominate the action figure market were relatively new. I don't know if Star Wars action figures were the first of this new line of toy, but they were an early one and they inspired toy makers to create new action figures for kids to play with. 

Those toys included a new and exciting line of GI Joe action figures that tied in with an animated TV show of the same name. The first "series" of Joe figures included three characters who were then, and are now, my favorite characters in that line. I played with those toys for hours on end. I pretended to be these characters as they battled COBRA and its nefarious plots. To me, these three characters are my "core Joes." They define who I most liked imagining myself to be. They were Snake Eyes, Stalker, and...in a turn that makes Hasbro's decision to cut a character played by Scarlett Johansson all the more ironic.



What was the name of the company that made this mysterious female toy that both boys and girls (ages 5 and up) could play with? 

Hasbro.

As I mentioned earlier, Scarlett was one of the characters I most liked to role play when I was fighting against Cobra. She had an awesome skill set, just look up and check it out, and she had a hand crossbow. A freakin' hand crossbow! 

So I'd just like to add to the chorus of voices that are pointing out that young girls just as valuable as consumers, fans, and players. That it is also true that there are probably young boys out there who would be eager to pretend to be Black Widow as she defends the world against the forces of Hydra. Heck, I even know a father of seven year old twin girls who would jump at that opportunity.

 

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Intrigued by 20th Century Fox's FANTASTIC FOUR

I've fluctuated in and out of being a fan of Marvel's iconic family superhero team The Fantastic Four. I love reading some of the original stories due to their raw Kirby-ism. Similarly, I enjoy much of the John Byrne era for the way it incorporated X-men style soap opera drama to the book. And the Waid/Wieringo era is wildly entertaining. As a whole though, the Richards family has always seemed a little out of place in the Marvel Universe. Sure Reed stopped Galactus, but that victory merely highlights the separation. The Richards family are first and foremost explorers who encounter cosmic entities of vast power and keep them destroying mankind through a combination of scientific know-how and a never-say-die spirit.

The key point here is that the Richards (and Grimm) are explorers. They are Marvel's version of the Challengers of the Unknown, another Kirby creation, with the addition of superpowers and foes the like that only Superman would encounter in DC. As great as the powers of the Fantastic Four are, they pale before Galactus, Annihilus, Ronan, and Kang. When the FF books are at their best, they focus on the super-science, exploration, and family elements. When they are at their worst, the writers portray the team as a superteam more like the Avengers than the explorers they are.

Neither the Roger Corman, nor the more recent Chris Evans vehicle, captured the team in all of its glory. The Corman movie gets some things right, but it also gets so much wrong. Similarly, Chris Evans and Ioan Gruffud are perfect casting for their characters, but the interaction with Doom was off and don't get me started on the Silver Surfer film. I really wanted to like that movie, and I own it, but it just falls flat. With these failures, I wasn't surprised the 20th Century Fox would attempt something completely new with an "update" to the franchise. Like most fans, I was baffled by the choices they were making. The actors cast in the film have talent as performers, but they somehow didn't match what my concept of this team should be.

Then I saw today's teaser trailer. Now I'm intrigued. It looks like the movie will be focusing on a Challengers of the Unknown style narrative, and that is where the FF really shine. I know it's just a teaser, and that teaser's always look good, but I'm willing to give the film a chance. It may not be THE Fantastic Four, but it might just be A Partially-Exciting Four. Besides, the final shot of the trailer is just so STAR TREK V that if the film is terrible, it may just be terrible in the best ways.




Now to decide what game system to use when I convert the film into a campaign.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

#RPGaDAY 6: Favorite RPG You Never Get to Play -- DC HEROES in a Landslide



As I mentioned in the second post in this - behind schedule - series, DC Heroes is the first game I ever truly Gamemastered. I was an undergrad in college at the time and had just finished playing in a couple of remarkably well GM'd games.

There was Roger Frederick's GURPS Riverworld extravaganza that was a wonderful role playing experience and set us at odds with Horatio Herbert Kitchener. To this day, I despise Kitchener beyond all reason. There was the D&D campaign in which Rob Faust's character and mine were half-brothers...my character was "so strong he carried hemp rope." There was also a fun Amber game I played in that demonstrated both how well that system could be run and how lame it could turnout -- all due to the diceless mechanic.

I had also read a couple of books that discussed role playing games and how to run them. The best of these were Aaron Allston's Strike Force for the Champions RPG and the stuff in The Fantasy Role Playing Gamer's Bible based on Robin Laws' writings on player types.

I was ready to run an rpg and I was in the mood for a super hero game. I had recently acquired the 2nd Edition of the DC Heroes RPG and the sheer toy factor of that boxed set convinced me that this was the super hero game I wanted to play. That and the fact that TSR's Marvel game has some really wonky bits when it comes to certain match ups. Picture for yourself what a comic book smackdown between Captain America and The Everlovin' Blue-eyed Thing looks like. Got it? That's not at all what it would be like in the TSR Marvel system. There's a lot that is good about the TSR game, but unlike Champions (and to some extent DC Heroes) having a system where Captain America can hurt The Thing isn't one of them. Oh...and depending on the Wolverine write up, he can't hurt The Thing either.

So I wanted to us the DC Heroes system, but I wanted to use it in a manner that was "comic universe neutral." My DC Heroes earth had both Marvel New York and DC Metropolis. Captain America and the Invaders joined Sandman and the Justice Society in their quest to bash Nazis around. Conversion between TSR's Marvel to the DC Heroes system was a cinch since - in my view - DC Heroes APs correlate 1:1 with Champions DCs. Using this guideline the Hulk had either a 12 Strength or a 20 depending on whether I adhered to TSR's "carrying capacity" or just converted Strength 1:1 to Champions. I did the latter and my "DC" Hulk has a 20 Strength. Using the DC system, there is little need to give him the "grows as he gets mad" mechanics one might build into a Champions character. DC's "hero points" mechanic has that covered. If the Hulk needs to hold up a mountain - ala Secret Wars - he can push his Strength and spend the points. This had the effect that some of DC's more epic heroes were slightly more powerful than their Marvel counterparts, but close enough for government work. A battle between my "DC" Hulk and Superman wouldn't be without significant collateral damage, and it wouldn't be a cake walk for Supes.

What do/did I like most about DC Heroes? What makes it special? Most of these come down to Greg Gorden's design work on the game. If you don't know Greg Gorden's name, you should. He worked on the James Bond 007 RPG, Torg, Earthdawn, DC Heroes, Deadlands, and a host of other games. The games he worked on seem to share an ability to capture "cinematic awesomeness." The Bond game has areas of expertise where the PC is so good at stuff he/she doesn't have to roll to succeed. DC Heroes has the Hero Point mechanic and open ended die rolls on doubles. Hero Points can be spent to "push" abilities, but they can also be spent to "alter the environment." Did Hawkman drop his mace and desperately needs a replacement? Spend X number of Hero Points and there might just be a crowbar on the counter. DC Heroes pushes the players to become active narrators in the game play. DC even rewarded players for creating and playing out purely narrative sub-plots, this is very much like TSR Marvels use of Karma rewards for having Peter Parker pick up the laundry.

The game is great. It has clean mechanics. It's easy to learn to play and run. But it's out of print. None of the players in my group own a copy and while it is easy to learn the basics there are some maneuvers available in combat and non-combat that are more complex in concept. They are all easy in implementation, but you have to become familiar with them. The game also has a point based build component and even with this excellent character generator program, that means homework for the players or a PC generation day and my players don't tend to like those. Oh, and they also suffer analysis paralysis with questions like "How smart are you compared to Hank Pym or Batman?"

So I never get to play the game. That's okay. There are some other great superhero games out there. The Marvel Saga game and the recent Margaret Weis Productions Marvel game are pretty darn fun too.




Monday, November 11, 2013

Make Mine Savage -- What Statistics Can Tell You About Baseline Super Strength and Converting the Hulk

Sorry that it has been so long since my last post -- pretty much exactly one month -- you can blame that on my busy work and school schedule. I'm a full time Ph.D. student in Political Science at UC Riverside and work full-time as well. Add to that the fact that I actually spend time with family and game twice a month, and it leaves little time for blogging.

I'm a huge fan of Savage Worlds and the more that I play it, the more I find that the system falls into the sweet spot of where I am in my gaming life right now. I need a game that is relatively intuitive, that is flexible, that has some good tactical rules, has some good "abstract" rules, and can be played in a hurry. Savage Worlds is one of those rules sets. Recently, my group has been playtesting FENG SHUI for Atlas Games and playing around with the Accursed setting for Savage Worlds. In the near future, I hope that my group will be interested in playing a Savage Worlds based supers game. Before I ask my players to make that leap, I do want them to be more comfortable with Savage Worlds as a system. Super hero campaigns push any rules set to the limit and demand a lot of players with regard to knowledge of the rules set, so I won't likely be asking the players until early next year.

When I do run the campaign, I will likely be running a Marvel game or a Marvel/DC mashup game and so I'll be converting a number of characters as well as using some conversions I find online. As I've mentioned a couple of times in the Make Mine Savage series, one of the challenges in character conversion is avoiding "power exaggeration." This occurs when a player/GM substitutes their own power fantasy about a given character to set the assumed baseline instead of starting with the game's mechanical baseline and moving from there. The prime example of a power fantasy setting a baseline in relative power discussions often occurs when chatting about whether The Hulk or the Juggernaut is stronger. For gamers/comic fans of a certain age, one only has to wait until the second or third round of discussion before the scene from Secret Wars where The Hulk holds up a mountain range comes into play.

Let's just say that if you are setting your baseline for what The Hulk needs to be capable of at "Fifty Billion Tons" as a mechanical necessity, this is beyond even the Cosmic Level of Savage Worlds which would set d12+12 at 10,000 tons. Were I adjudicating the mountain scene above, I'd use the Dramatic Tasks rules and apply appropriate penalties with each failure on The Hulk's behalf equating to a level of fatigue.

So where would we set The Hulk within a Savage Worlds framework? What is the appropriate level for The Hulk? The old Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, as well as the old FASERIP system, place The Hulk at the 100 Tons range which is d12+9. This is useful as far as it goes, but doesn't really tell us a lot. This is especially true if the GM is using my alternate "dials" with regard to lifting or is using the following Edge:

Super-Brawny 
Requirements: Novice, Strength and Vigor d12+
     Your super-bruiser is significantly stronger than other characters in the setting. This is either because the character is large for his or her size category, or because she or he is very fit. The character is more resistant to damage than other characters (+2 to Toughness). Additionally, the character can lift or carry more that most characters with the same strength. This character can carry 10 times the amount listed on the Superhuman Strength chart. This edge may be taken multiple times where the multiplier stacks logarithmically (2xSuper-Brawny = x 1000 lift, but the character only receives the Toughness bonus once. If you wish, you can require the expenditure of a bennie and a STR roll at -6 to activate this ability. A failure on the roll equals 1 level of fatigue. Characters who become incapacitated from this fatigue must rest until they recover.

 I'm a fan of the above Edge because it allows for increased carry/lift capacity without altering the underlying damage mechanics of the game. One of the seeming truisms of comic books is that really strong characters, characters capable of lifting battleships, often punch street level heroes without turning them into paste. This emulates that aspect of the game.

A feat like the above, gives a tool that allows Savage Worlds to accommodate what The Hulk can lift, but it does little to tell us what The Hulk's combination of Strength and Damage should be. To establish this baseline, we need to ask how easy it is for the average "Brick" to destroy some very big and very impressive vehicle or piece of hardware. I think that the M1A1 Abrams serves this purpose nicely. The Abrams weighs approximately 68 tons and for all intents and purposes serves as a nice baseline for "Super Tank." According to the Savage Worlds Rulebook, the Abrams has a Toughness of 77/58/29 (60/41/12), or in "real" terms a toughness of 17. What I mean by "real" terms, is Toughness - Armor. This is because in the Savage Worlds baseline campaign it is possible for super heroes to add the "Focus" modifier to their "Attack, Melee" combat power. The Focus modifier allows attackers to ignore armor if they make a to hit roll at a penalty. One can imagine two kinds of Supers games. In the first, all "Bricks" worth their salt have the Focus modifier. In the second, none have the modifier. For the purposes of the statistical analysis here, I will assume that they do have the Focus Modifier.

This makes our question -- assuming that the "Mean" super hero can "destroy" an Abrams with one punch -- what is the right combination of Strength and Damage to achieve this task? Destroying a vehicle requires causing 4 wounds (+16 above the Toughness) and thus requires a roll of 33. We can set our bar lower to require only that the character be able to "Damage" an Abrams, but that is a setting dial. For our current dial, let's assume 33.

Using the calculator at Anydice - set to default settings -- this provides us with the following answer:




\bar{x} \!\,=31.81 σ = 7.99 min=13 max=116

If you prefer, you can make it d12+9 which makes x-bar 32.81 and increases the min and the max by 1 while having no effect on the standard deviation. In fact, at Attack, Melee 4d6 the amount of Strength above 12 provides a great dial for use with regard to punching holes in Abrams tanks and crippling them.  If you wanted to increase the spread of pluses, you could set the baseline as:

STR d12+5 with a 5d6 Attack, Melee Power with focus. 

\bar{x} \!\,=32.99 σ = 8.59 min=11 max=131

 Doing so would allow for some more control over where the supers fall in the distribution as influenced by the plus component rather than the d6 component. We can use the statistical information to decide where The Hulk falls within our super hero world.  First we have to decide in what percentile we want the Hulk to fall and then we can use a procedure called "Standardizing a Normal Distribution" to give us our number. We use the following formula in this case:

Z is a value that corresponds with a certain percentage of outcomes. For example, 90% of outcomes will be equal or less than z =1.645, 95% will be less than or equal to z =1.96, and 99% will be less than z =2.57. If The Hulk is stronger than 90% of really strong people in your game, you should set z to 1.645. If stronger than 95% of crazy strong people, at 1.96 etc. We would have an equation that looks something like:
1.96 = (x - 32.99)/8.59
Hmmm....the first thing that jumps out is that this tool isn't necessarily useful for our purposes. Another way to translate this is STR = d12 + z(Bonus - 5) + 4d6 attack.  What this means is that if we wanted The Hulk to be stronger than 95% of other Bricks we'd have to increase the "flat" number by 17.18 and that takes if off the chart. This tells me that the Abrams may not be the best baseline to use even if it's cool. This is largely due to the "swingy" nature of the open ended die rolls. Setting the baseline at such a high number means that we cannot use an actual distribution based on the likelihood of actual occurrence based on rolls and have it be very useful. In fact, even if we set the "average" Brick Strength at:

d12 + 2 with a 1d6 Attack, Melee

We get the following:

\bar{x} \!\,=13.27 σ = 5.83 min=4 max=56

Even at this level we see that The Hulk would have to be (1.96*5.83) points higher than average (11ish points) to be stronger than 95% of all other Bricks.

Does this mean that we cannot use a normal distribution to help us in our converting of characters? I don't think so. I do think it means that we cannot base our conversions on a distribution of damage, rather we have to create an arbitrary distribution and mean. Let's say we keep the mean around d12 + 6 (we can set the number of d6s of Attack based on how likely we want the character to be to damage, hurt, destroy an Abrams with each of those being an added die above 2d6). Given that a "normal" can have a strength of up to d12 without Edges (we can assume that the Edges allow for characters beyond human and in the low end of Brick like Captain America), this gives us a working range of +1 to +12. If we choose 2 (arbitrarily) as our standard deviation this gives us a distribution that looks like:

\bar{x} \!\,=6 σ = 2 min=1 max=12

If we use this in all of our calculations, we will get The Hulk as having a d12 + 6 + (1.96*2) Strength. In other words, a d12 + 10 Strength if we want him to have a Strength higher than 95% of other Supers. He'd have a d12 +9 at 90% and the percentage of people at d12 +8, +7, and +6 become larger until you hit 50% of your target population. Then the pattern repeats the other way with 95% of your Bricks having more than d12 +6 - (1.96*2) or d12 +2 Strength. That leaves only 5% of your Bricks with d12+2 or less. You can use this as a guideline to shape your campaign and should try to follow it as much as possible. This way if players as "How Strong is d12 +9?" You can answer that it is stronger than 90% of all other "Brick" caliber characters and be correct in saying so.

While some of this conversation may seem obscure, I think it is important to have some structured guidelines that help GMs and players when they are creating/simulating characters especially when it comes to abstract things like emulating the comics. The same player who might balk at The Hulk having "only" at d12 + 10 Strength when told it is 200 Tons might smile with joy when they find out that this is the level better than 95% of all super strong characters in the campaign universe...a campaign universe that includes Galactus and many others of the ultra-cosmic scale.

Additionally, we can see how Savage Worlds dice have a pretty big standard deviation due to the open ended nature of the rolling and the combination of several dice. The analysis was also useful for looking at what it really takes to create a character who can destroy an Abrams Tank in a single blow. It is easily possible through a number of combinations that are affordable at character creation.

For me, I wouldn't set that as the baseline for my "Bricks." I'd probably set it at around 21 which is the amount of damage it takes to do 1 wound to an Abrams, but YMMV.

Tuesday, September 03, 2013

Colossus -- Savage Worlds Style (A Beginning)

Way back in 2004, I started a blog with the bold title "Savage Worlds Character a Day" with the audacious desire to convert one character from comics, history, or television into the Savage Worlds game system per day. Needless to say, I didn't accomplish the goal. What I did do was to stat up quite a few characters I enjoyed and spark some discussions with friends. I've decided to move those write ups over to this blog in the hopes of both centralizing my "writing" and spurring more discussion.

I do not present these write ups as the only way to represent characters in the SW system, rather I hope to see your ideas and enter into a conversation with you about how you would write up the same characters. These are starting points. Let's chat and come up with a "merged" write up so I can create a page of "finalized" characters. The statistics below were adapted using the original Savage Worlds supers rules as presented in the original Necessary Evil campaign guide. Let's update this using the full Super Powers Companion.


Colossus (A Savaged Version)

Security Level: Novice

Race: Human (Mutant)

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit, D6, Strength d8 (d12+5), Vigor d8 (d12)

Skills: Fighting d10, Guts d6, Intimidate d6, Throwing d8, Knowledge (Art) d4

Charisma: +0, Pace: 6, Parry: 7, Toughness: 6 (10/Heavy Armor)

Hindrances: Mutant (Major as Minor Wanted and Outsider), Heroic (Major), Loyal (Minor), Enemy (minor)

Edges: Arcane Background (Super Powers), Brawny, Power Points

Super Powers:

Living Steel Form: [Super Attribute (8pp) +7 steps Strength and +2 Steps Vigor requires activation; Toughness (4pp) +1 and Heavy Armor requires activation]

Attack Melee (3pp) +2d6 requires activation

Security Level: Seasoned

Race: Human (Mutant)

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit, D6, Strength d10 (d12+7), Vigor d10 (d12+2)

Skills: Fighting d10, Guts d6, Intimidate d6, Throwing d8, Knowledge (Art) d4

Charisma: +0, Pace: 6, Parry: 7, Toughness: 8 (11/Heavy Armor)

Hindrances: Mutant (Major as Minor Wanted and Outsider), Heroic (Major), Loyal (Minor), Enemy (minor)

Edges: Arcane Background (Super Powers), Brawny, Power Points x2 (20 total), Take the Hit

Super Powers:  

Living Steel Form: [Super Attribute (11pp) +8 steps Strength and +3 Steps Vigor requires activation; Toughness (4pp) +1 and Heavy Armor requires activation]

Attack Melee (5pp) +2d6, Knockback, requires activation

Security Level: Veteran

Race: Human (Mutant)

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit, D6, Strength d12 (d12+8), Vigor d12 (d12+2)

Skills: Fighting d10, Guts d6, Intimidate d6, Throwing d8, Knowledge (Art) d4

Charisma: +0, Pace: 6, Parry: 7, Toughness: 8 (11/Heavy Armor)

Hindrances: Mutant (Major as Minor Wanted and Outsider), Heroic (Major), Loyal (Minor), Enemy (minor)

Edges: Arcane Background (Super Powers), Brawny, Power Points x3 (25 total), Take the Hit, Hard to Kill (2pp), Arcane Resistance

Super Powers:

Living Steel Form: [Super Attribute (10pp) +8 steps Strength and +3 Steps Vigor requires activation; Toughness (4pp) +1 and Heavy Armor requires activation]

Attack Melee (9pp) +2d6, Knockback 4 AP, requires activation





Thursday, July 25, 2013

Little Geek Girls: Don't Say Superheroes are "Just for Boys"

On Tuesday, Kirk Hamilton at Kotaku shared a music video by The Doubleclicks entitled "Nothing to Prove."  I'll be honest and say that the song itself doesn't do much for me and sounds a bit like a song that would be performed by Carrie Brownstein on an episode of Portlandia, though I guess comparing a song to a song by a member of Sleater-Kinney isn't exactly an excoriating review. The aesthetics of the song notwithstanding, it was the visual content of the music video that really resonated with me. In particular the woman holding the "Don't tell my daughters that Lego, Robots, and Superheroes are for boys."


That sentence struck me like lightning and with almost perfect timing. As regular readers of this blog know, I am the father of two young girls I call History and Mystery in my blog posts and who are the two "Twin Princess Superheroes" referred to in the right sidebar. To give you a picture, this is them on a "Fancy Day."


As you can see, they are wearing Fancy Nancy-esque clothing with sunglasses, domino masks, and History is holding forth a Captain America shield. This is them at their "Princess Superheroiest," well accepting when they where their Bell and Aurora dresses kitted with Merrida bow and arrow and Iron Man masks and "Boomers." All of which is to say that they have acquired many of their mom and dad's geek obsessions. I cannot express how much fun it is imagining playing D&D with the twins when they get older. I'm giddy right now thinking about it.

As you might guess, my daughters live a pretty happy life. They have parents who share their interests and who play are willing to play any game or support any interest. But that's not to say that these young innocents haven't already faced the dreaded "you aren't allowed to be interested in that" assertion by some of their peers. There was one student at their school - a student that History had a crush on no less - who saw that History and Mystery were wearing superhero tennis shoes (Cap and Iron Man) and who took it upon himself to point out to my daughters that "Superheroes" are for boys. What's more, the boy also pointed out the "Blue" is for boys too.

Blue.

BLUE!

Are you kidding me?! This kid tried to lay claim to a color? Ugh.

Back to the story. This young boy's attack upon their preferences was the first time that my daughters had been told that something was outside their purview. Sure, Jody and I have told the girls that we cannot afford certain things or that they have to wait until they are "bigger kids" to play Advanced Squad Leader with dad, but we've never told them that any given entertainment was reserved for a particular subset of society. Jody and I find that concept to be absurd on its face. No one is going to stop me from DVRing REAL HOUSEWIVES (OC and Jersey only), and certainly no one is going to tell Jody she cannot watch JUSTIFIED or THE AVENGERS because she's a woman.

So after this boy attacked my daughter's love for superheroes Mystery comes home weeping. She's upset that she's no longer allowed to like Captain America - who has fought off more Closet Monsters than I care to imagine - because he's for boys. Needless to say, it didn't take me long to inform my daughter that Captain America is for everyone and to give Mystery several real world examples of the women in my and Jody's life who are fans of "Steve." After which we watched a couple episodes of EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES and called it good. My daughters seemed satisfied. Heck, History started wearing blue (Mystery's favorite color) in solidarity with her sister.

But the story doesn't end with having a supportive mom and dad who have supportive friends. Sadly, this little punk has already sown the seed of a mental weed that must be constantly pursued and extracted as quickly as possible. I've already had History ask me if there REALLY are any female race car drivers and heaven knows what the next moment will be. One thing I do know, I'll have to be vigilant. It's no longer enough to just share the things I'm passionate about with my daughters. I now have to be prepared to help my daughters defend their enjoyment.

I'm happy to do it, but it's something that shouldn't have to be done. Stop attacking "Fake Geek Girls." Some of the kindest, warmest, and giving people I know are Geek Girls (yes I'm talking about you Jody, Susan, Shawna, and America...and many others). There is nothing fake about them.

And for those of you who spend the time "vetting" to see if a "Fake Geek Girl" is actually a real geek. You know that vetting time would be far more enjoyable if it was just a normal conversation where you both geek out right? Sure, you might end up fighting about whether Alan Scott or Hal Jordan are the better GL or how big a jerk Dan Didio is, but I guarantee that you will be more likely to leave that conversation with a friend than you will if you begin your "conversation" with an oral exam in which you scrutinize even the slightest error.