What’s that feeling?

  By Josh Bazin | May 17, 2012 - 12:01 pm | Comics
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This week was another big week in my comic file, as shown below.

Needless to say, it was an impressive lineup, especially with Dancer in the mix, which I’ve been looking forward to since it was announced.

Atomic Robo: Real Science Adventures

I started things off with Atomic Robo, since I wanted a bit of a humor pick me up after the day I had.  Oh boy, did it deliver.  I’ll admit, I haven’t read all of the Robo books yet.  I’ve read Vol 1, 3, and all the FCBD books, plus #1 of this arc.  After Vol 3, I didn’t think it could get much better (seriously, H.P. Lovecraft is in it, how could it get better?).  I am telling you right now, I was so wrong.

At first, I looked at this panel and had a pang of recognition.  Then it dawned on me.  These were the characters from Team Fortress 2 (if you haven’t seen the videos introducing the characters, Google them, its totally worthwhile).

I was not expecting this turn of events.  But damn, it’s opened a whole new world of potential awesome for Robo.  Just imagine if Robo met GLADoS?  Seriously, I think my mind just exploded with how crazy good that confrontation would be.

This issue of Robo has solidified a spot in my file for the foreseeable future.

Dancer

I was really excited for this book when I saw it announced.  I’m a big fan of the writing of Nathan Edmondson, especially in The Activity.  The solicits for Dancer put the book on the ‘other side’ of the law, but I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.

The first issue sets up the characters lives, then tears it down.  They are forced to go on the run by an unknown assailant.  When they finally get a glimpse of him…let’s just say it’s shocking.

When I finished the book, I was satisfied, but disappointed.  But then, as I gave it time to settle and I mulled the book over in my head, I wasn’t just satisfied.  This was the EXACT kind of story I am very interested in reading these days, but the disappointment lingered.  I didn’t understand it.

Then it dawned on me.  I was disappointed that I didn’t have more to read.  This doesn’t happen to me too often.  I recognize that I need to wait to get some closure from whatever I’m reading and I can live with that.  But when I am faced with this sort of feeling, I’m pretty sure this is a good thing.  Why?  I am anxious to see more, I want to keep reading.  This means Edmondson and Klein have been wildly successful in making me care for the story, and that’s great.

Winter Solider

I didn’t read this book, but I know it’s going to be awesome.  You know how?

Yea.  A Gorilla with a Minigun.  I HAS to be amazing.

The world is shrinking…

  By Josh Bazin | May 16, 2012 - 10:00 am | Comics, RPG
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I try to tell people (via Twitter) about the books I really enjoyed in a given week.  #yeggeek usually puts out a question to the masses about what book(s) they enjoyed in the week, so I am usually involved in that response string.

But sometimes I miss that.  Or something is so enjoyable, I feel the need to tell people about it right away.  Last week, Mind the Gap and Higher Earth fell into the later category.

A few hours later, I got a reply from Bryce Carlson (@brycercarlson), the Managing Editor of Boom! Studios, thanking me for reading and spreading the word.

Yesterday, I had expressed that I was excited that I was going to get two books by Nathan Edmundson (@Nhedmondson) and Nathan also responded with a thanks for reading.

I have had similar experiences with other comic creators, Greg Rucka (@ruckawriter) and Kurtis Wiebe (@kurtisjwiebe).  In the RPG realm, regularly interact with Sean Preston (@realityblurs) and countless others on an occasional basis.

Having creators respond to you (a fan) is pretty cool.  It’s even more cool when they’ve just come across the tweet (or whatnot) based on a social media search and took the time to respond.  It makes me feel great for being able to say “I appreciate your work” and know they’ve read and appreciated the feedback.

Anyway, in the world of social media, its great to get real-time feedback and acknowledgement that your fan mail has been read.  Great stuff.

Catching up

  By Josh Bazin | May 15, 2012 - 6:56 am | Video Games
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It’s been hard to set aside some time to write in the last little bit.  The kids have been getting up earlier in the morning, which cuts in to that time and once I get home from work, I just need some time to decompress.

So, let’s catch up.

Last week was a pretty big week for comics.The book I was perhaps most excited about this week was Mind the Gap.  The story sounded very intriguing and all the art previews I saw were top notch.  Mind the Gap did not disappoint! So far, it’s been great storytelling, lots of questions are already gnawing at me as to what is actually going on.

I was also looking forward to Higher Earth.  I saw the Previews ad (and, actually, the Project Wonderful campaign was run on my website) and thought it deserved a look.  What really got me was the tagline “You Are Illegal On This Earth”, which just piqued enough curiosity that really made me want to check it out, and on top of that Issue #1 was $1, so why not give it a whirl?  It was excellent and I look forward to learning more about the world and the characters.

The Night of the Owls books were, once again, extremely well done.  Excellent storytelling and each story is self contained enough that you get a sense of the chaos that has overtaken Gotham, but you don’t need to have read all the other books in the event (though, when you have read the other books, the chaos really comes to life).  I quite enjoyed the Batgirl story, which makes my decision about that book difficult, as I’ve been considering dropping it after this event.  I guess I’ll have to think about it some more.

Fatale and Ultimate Comics X-Men still need to be read.  I might get to them tonight, we shall see.  This Wednesday is going to be another relatively big week for me in comic books, so its possible that I’m going to fall further behind.  But, the last week of the month is only a one or maybe two issues, so I have time to catch up in reading before the next month begins.

Who’s the audience?

  By Josh Bazin | May 11, 2012 - 8:21 am | Design, RPG
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I think I realized why all my previous attempts at writing scenarios for public usage have petered out at one point or another.  Simply put, it’s the audience.

Most of what I was writing was not tailored to a wide audience.  It was meant for the characters in my group, who had VERY SPECIFIC needs in terms of character development and plot.  So, because of this, my previous efforts would likely fall very, very flat with people that weren’t in my group.

So, I needed to open my scope a bit.  Hooks needed to be more open.  Assume less about the player characters.

I think my initial one-sheet concept does fairly well at being open to a variety of groups in the setting it’s designed for.  There’s hook for players that have encountered certain kinds of creatures, hook for future adventures, and some new stuff that I think fits nicely with the setting.

I haven’t made much progress on the outline to draft, but, I am nearing completion of the introductory section, which provides the key facts of the adventure.

It’s been fun to try and think about this sort of thing over the last while.

 

Earth 2 and the Ultimate U

  By Josh Bazin | May 9, 2012 - 10:00 am | Comics
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It’s no secret that Ultimate X-Men is one of my favorite file comics right now and the reason for that is exactly the same as the reason I was really excited to jump in on the comics train when the New 52 launched – it’s free of the burden of all the stories that came before it.

Yes, I realize Ultimate X-Men has 100 issues of backstory, but ultimately, I don’t feel like I’m missing out on much in the 10 issues I’ve read thus far.  Sure, some of the details might be nice to have (and, I’m picking up the trades from EPL as I can) to fill that all in, but if the trades weren’t easy to get, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

What I love about the Ultimate universe is that there’s only a handful of books that cover the whole universe (right now, it’s Spider-Man, Ultimates, and X-Men), compared with the huge number of titles in the regular Marvel U.  If I wanted to read everything that occurred in the Ultimate Universe, I could easily do that.  The Ultimate U also gives writers the chance to give characters a different story and a chance to make different choices.  It’s all very compelling (and I’m sure it would be moreso if I was more familiar with some of the characters).

Hell, without the Ultimate Universe, we wouldn’t have Samuel L. Jackson playing Nick Fury.

Now, this brings me to Earth 2 from DC.  I wasn’t going to get this book.  I have enough in my file and there’s a number of great-looking independent titles coming in the next few months that I’m looking at picking up.  So, I was going to avoid wave 2 of the New 52.

Then Brandon (as @wizardscomics) tweeted:

Earth 2 is pretty fantastic. Feels like an Marvel Ultimate comic, with a clear cut DC taste.

All my resistance was shattered.  DC’s own Ultimates line.  Well, that was great news for everyone except my wallet.

And let me tell you – this book did not disappoint one bit.  I don’t want to give anything away, but there are some pretty gut-wrenching moments during the first part of the book.  I’m really looking forward to seeing how the heroes in the world begin to take shape.  It’s very exciting for me.  So far, there’s only the one book set on Earth 2 (World’s Greatest has Earth 2 inhabitants trapped on Earth Prime, so it doesn’t count), so you can grab one comic and have the entire Universe.  That’s awesome.

So, if you want to read a superhero comic and have been afraid to, now’s the time.  Go buy Earth 2.  I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

When you play a Game of Thrones…

  By Josh Bazin | May 8, 2012 - 10:50 am | Boardgames
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You win, or you die.

I was very late to the Song of Ice and Fire party.  I didn’t find out about the series until almost the release of A Dance With Dragons.  This may have been due to my near-automatic rejection of anything “fantasy” out of hand, due to my own notion that I was not a reader of “fantasy” novels.

First off, I shouldn’t judge books by their covers (though, I still do).

Secondly, Martin’s books while they are obviously set in a medieval period, the story could just as easily could be set in space-opera like setting.  The story is compelling, the characters are (generally) interesting and Martin makes you care for them (even if “caring” means you hope they get what’s coming to them).

I’m about 40% done A Dance With Dragons, and I’m going to be caught up on the story.  I am already anxiously anticipating the next book in the series.

Now, this post wasn’t really supposed to be about my discovery of the novels.  But, I felt the information was good background, as I meander my way to the true topic of this post, which is the A Game of Thrones board game (second edition).

I have been wanting to play the AGoT board game since I started reading the novels.  I was aware of the board game prior to reading the books and I had heard good things.  The thing in particular that I liked about what I was hearing was that it had many aspects that gave the game a Diplomacy feel.

This weekend, I finally got the opportunity to play the game.  I enjoyed myself.

I could get to the gathering of friends for their intended start time.  As they had six players, they started the game without me (the max players is 6).  I arrived around turn 3.  Tyrell and Martell were at odds in the deep South; Baratheon, Lannister, Greyjoy and Stark were all battling over the rest of the territory.

What I noticed right away was that there was much less negotiation than I would have expected.  Each House was just doing it’s own thing – with very little alliance building going on.  This may be due to several new players at the table, or just something that nobody really considered engaging in.

At around turn 5, Martell’s player had to leave.  I stepped in, but I was in a bad spot.  Tyrell was at Sunspear’s doorstep and I had little resources to push him back.  Additionally, with Baratheon focused north, there was no support for me in the Stormlands.  I tried to convince Tyrell that I could help him with a northern push, but he was not interested (I can’t blame him…).

I kept Tyrell at bay long enough to prevent him from claiming a seven-castle victory.  He was still the top of the heap at the end of turn 10, but without my push-back, the game would have been over much sooner.

I want to play again, preferably, with the ability to lead my own house from the get-go.  In fact, if I can scrape together enough people, I’d love to try and get a game going on Saturday mid-day.  If you’re interested, let me know!

Free Comic Book Day 2012

  By Josh Bazin | May 6, 2012 - 7:48 am | Comics
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Yesterday was Free Comic Book Day (FCBD).  The whole family made the trip out to Wizard’s Comics for the occasion.  I had checked out what was available on the Free Comic Book Day website and really only had one book that I really wanted to pick up, which was Atomic Robo.  I really wasn’t sure about anything else.

So, here’s what we ended up coming home with:

I bought the Queen & Country Definitive Edition Volume 2 and Jackson was very excited about The Penguins of Madagascar.  I always try to make a purchase at these sorts of events, since supporting the shop is as important as trying to introduce new readers to comics.

Anyway, this morning, Jackson asked for his new books.  I put them out for him and here’s the result (he wasn’t exactly pleased I was taking his picture):

Anyway, FCBD 2012 was a great success.  I look forward to all the great books that are coming out this year and the continued enjoyment of reading by my son!

Forward progress

  By Josh Bazin | May 2, 2012 - 9:50 am | Design, RPG
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Over the past couple days, I’ve been putting some time into outlining my first One-Sheet for mass-consumption.  I like how it’s shaping up, but it’s still in early stages and I think there’s several revisions in my future.

As I alluded to in Writing for other people, I want to start producing content for public use, as I build up my confidence and abilities as a writer to finally get started on a large-scale project that I think the gaming community will love.

Part of this process is documenting what I’m doing.

For the one sheet I’m working on right now, I had an idea.  For this particular adventure, was the location and an era, but the location could be in almost any modern city of the era.  I had an enemy in mind as well.

I let the idea bounce around my head for a while.  After the kids were in bed and wife and I were sitting in front of the TV, I took out some paper and started writing down bullet points.  I started with the City, since the idea began to take on a true location.  I did some brief investigation and wrote down a better time frame.  I wrote down the goal of the mission.

To me, One Sheets generally have three to four ‘scenes’.  I wrote down Scene 1, Scene 2, etc and left space to fill in the gaps.  I began to write details.

Scene 1 was the setup.  How the PCs were engaged on the task at hand, etc.  Basic stuff.

Scene 2 was a little bit of investigation.  I briefly noted the things that would be accomplished in the scene.

Scene 3 was to be a combat encounter, with some investigative elements.

Scene 4 was going to reveal the reality of what was going on, and a combat encounter.

I was happy with the outline.  The opponent I had thought was going to be involved – wasn’t.  No worries, he’s on another planning document for another time.

The next morning, I typed up the outline and added even more details.  Combat encounters weren’t built up more than knowing what creatures would be present, but the overall feel of the One-Sheet was there.

I passed this draft to a few trusted friends for comments.

Once I have those back, I’ll be incorporating any feedback into the outline and I’ll begin to design the combat encounters, which I think is going to be my biggest challenge.

 

War never changes…

  By Josh Bazin | April 30, 2012 - 10:36 am | Video Games
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For those of you expecting a post about Fallout, I apologize.  In fact, you might just want to stop reading now because this post is about Modern Warfare 3.

I’m super late to the MW3 party.  I was an early adopter of pretty much every Call of Duty game up to the original MW, which I skipped for a while, but eventually joined in on.  It should also be noted that I didn’t start playing multiplayer CoD until MW2, which is mostly because I didn’t have fun – but once I started playing with friends, it was a great experience (for the most part).  Once I had the MP bug, I played with fairly reasonable frequency on my own, just because.

Anyway, for one reason or another, I decided to forgo MW3, even though I had had a blast with Black Ops.  However, this weekend, I got the itch.  It’s been growing, but manageable (and ME3 was doing a fine job as a placebo), however, this weekend I cracked.  I had a 50% of a used game coupon at Best Buy, plus some Reward Zone certificates, so at a cost of $0, it was a great deal.

I started playing SP on Friday night.  I’ve always been an SP player for FPS games.  Sure, I could have dove in to MP (but, none of my friends were on, so, SP was an easy choice).  The story is decent, the environments fantastic.

Saturday, I played MP.  Man, how have I missed that.  I suck, but its still enjoyable.  I get frustrated, yet I want to play more.  I don’t know.  It makes me feel dirty.

So yea.  I’m back on the MW.  Goodbye, sleep.