Arkham Games - Something I'd Like to See

Edit: I mixed RockStar Games with RockSteady and somehow thought Borderlands was the same developer. Relevant incidents were limited to a couple of sentences which have been removed.

When we play a game in an established setting there's generally two things we want regarding the characters of that setting. On the one hand, we want to play those characters and get the feel of being the signature and famous characters of the setting. On the other hand, we want to meet those characters. There is almost never a circumstance where we don't want them to appear at all because why bother playing in the setting in that case. The Arkham series of video games gives us a great shot at being Batman and playing through his storyline from Origins through to Knight (which I admit that I haven't actually played yet). So they have so far provided the a lot of the first desire and a little bit of the second in the manner of encountering all the other named characters of Gotham though mostly via the eyes of Batman. However, there is something to be said for games where you create your own character and can explore the setting of a fictional world through those eyes.

Batman vs Superman - A Review from someone unimportant.

Having now seen Batman vs Superman, I can give something of a more definite opinion. Spoilers follow.

Divine Blood - Wasps Among Butterflies - First Session - A "Simple" Rescue

This session involved three characters:

• Arianrhod Monica Trengrove (aka Aria), Psyche Raised Succubus whose demon-form is referred to as Form of Scorpubus and who was Orphaned by a Van Helsing (slang term for hate crimes targeting the supernatural)
• Sophia Ecks, Voyeuristic Visionary, an Unethical Hacktivist and Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant
• Sarah Gow, a Napoleonic Werepanther from an Urbanized Tribe who tends to feel that if she's Annoyed, then Your Feelings are Irrelevant.

Highlander cultists

Hana Jin/Jean Hannah - Benevolent Flower

As you can tell by the City of Heroes character avatars, this is a character concept I've had for quite a long while.

Background

The Hana clan have been heroes for generations. Various members of their bloodline had been touted as valiant warriors or workers of magic at one time or another. In truth, they have a considerable legacy of psychic ability which they have honed in various ways. It is a well-established Legacy which Jin walked away from or at least tried to.

Hana Jin was never expected to be the one upon whom would fall the majority of the responsibility for taking up the mantle of the family legacy. She was second born and she knew it. Preferentially, the bulk of training was given to the first son in any case, most of whom were expected to go the way of the warrior. Daughters of the clan were expected to hone the more cerebral abilities of the family and seek out worthy matches in order to insure the continuance of the line or even the establishment of supporting branches.

M-Com - Monster of the Week Campaign

Relating to the information for my Monster-of-the-Week RPG sessions.

M-Com Mission Report - Operation Private Priest - Monster of the Week Campaign

M-Com Campaign

The diviners of the Mystic Division of M-Com found evidence of some sort of supernatural activity in south Italy dispatching several teams to investigate incidences that may or may not be connected to the divinations. Thomas Riley and Kasper Sierzant were sent to Messina along with six other M-Com operatives to investigate ten high-profile missing person cases.

Starting with a list of ten names including two employees for the Medici Tech company, three individuals with ties to the Oberti crime family and five other individuals. Searching the official police files, the most that Agent Sierzant could discover was that all of the missing persons had disappeared from their homes at night.

M-Com Mission Report - Operation Subtle Mason - Monster of the Week campaign

 M-Com Mission Report - Operation Subtle Mason

M-Com Campaign

Living Spells

This is a preliminary first draft on a setting and system idea in response to someone on the Fate Core community suggesting that they'd like to hear more about this particular setting. There is a short story which features the example character (though he's not named anywhere) and his spirits and spells, but I'm still thinking of selling or publishing that somewhere. This is the work of about five hours and is thus very raw and has had little to no editing. I am mostly putting it up for ease of linkage and reference for people interested.

Divine Blood in GUMSHOE, Preliminary Thoughts

As stated above, this preliminary thoughts on how to do a GUMSHOE version of the setting.

To make things simple, I'm just going to link to the Divine Blood page (which really you could get to by linking to the page menu bar above so I guess I'm making more work for myself) rather than repeat extensive explanation of the setting.

Divine Blood Page

Vampires are not genre exclusive

Vampires are classic and popular monster type which have figured in works of fiction for at least two hundred years and in myths and legends world-wide for thousands of years. The vampire has come in a number of flavors. Even within the limits of the four Gothic vampire classics you have the reluctant vampire who hates his condition and seeks to save himself (Varney the Vampire, 1845), the vampire that uses an innocent seeming appearance to lure victims into vulnerability rather than being terribly powerful themselves (Carmilla, 1872), the seductive and mysterious nobleman of great power (The Vampyre, 1816), and the sadistic and monstrous arrogance of a war-lord who abandoned God in favor of power (Dracula, 1897). It makes it hard to determine what precisely is a true vampire.

What's a "Real" Rolepaying Game?

It’s not as common as it used to be, but from time to time you still see a particular phenomenon pop up as a point of contention within the hobby of roleplaying. The phenomenon in question is a tendency by one group or another of roleplayers to decide that some other style of the hobby is inferior or else not even roleplaying at all. I have seen fans of the older style games hurl invective filled tirades at newer games, dismissing the players as sycophants, fad-followers and other such terms. I have also seen fans of newer style games dismiss even classics of the hobby such as Dungeons and Dragons as being wargames or even simply a board game. I have heard stories related to the Forge in which some individuals who had had some clout in the industry tried to paint certain styles of gameplay as being inferior, or even damaging, as compared to others.