27 Days Till GaryCon! Memories of GaryCon IV: Day Two

I've decided to use the vlog from last year for Day Two as that is the day that gets covered the most in video.

 

89 Days to GaryCon! I Want to Play... Marvel Super Heroes

While Dungeons & Dragons was the game that got me started in role-playing, most of my younger days was spent playing a different game. Being a young geek, I was very much a comic book fan, particularly of Marvel Comics and their flagship hero Spider-Man. So when I was that TSR had created a role-playing game based on Marvel, I made sure to grab it right away.

It has been a while since the classic Marvel Super Heroes RPG (lovingly called FASERIP by fans based on the acronym for the characters stats) has been in print. But after playing it and a few other supers RPGs, it is clearly the best one out of all on them. The main reason is that while other games tried to find ways of simulating the powers and abilities of super heroes, Marvel Super Heroes set out to simulate the feel of being in a comic book environment. And that is a major difference.

For example, let's say you have a super-hero that can generate ice blasts. In other games, you buy the power 'Ice Blast'. The 'Ice Blast' power lets you do a certain amount of damage at a certain range. Now let's say you are facing a group of foes, and you want to freeze the ground beneath them to skip them up. They do it in the comics all the time, so you feel you should be able to do it as well. The problem is that according to the rules your 'Ice Blast' is only good for doing damage at range, and that's it. If you want to do your ice slick trick, you need to buy that power separately or you don't get it at all.

Compare this to FASERIP where you want to try the same thing using your Ice Generation power. The Judge considers all the variables: the area of effect, the range of your power, the level of your power and maybe a few other factors (like if the ground was wet or there's a fire surrounding you), and determines just how effective such a stunt would be. In fact, stunt is an appropriate word because that's how the game defines such a task. Using the Power Stunt system the character can pull off tricks like freezing the ground with an ice blast even though by default the power just does ice damage at a given range.

In fact, such stunts not only allowed but encouraged, since there is a limit to the number of actual powers a character can have. I remember my brother playing a hero whose only powers were the ability to turn into a nigh-invulnerable strong man with the ability to make great leaps in the air. He came up with the idea of using his hero's leaping power as an attack, using his highly-developed leg muscles to do more damage than he would do with a punch. It's that kind of creativity that the system allows that lets a player exceed what would normally be a limitation of the system. And it's what made Marvel Super Heroes a great game.

Hopefully, the event catalog for GaryCon V should be out soon. And I know someone is going to run a game of Marvel Super Heroes, and I'm going to be at that table with my old red and blue mud d10s ready to rock.

On an unrelated note: I've decided that Saturday will be the day I talk about the games I want to play at GaryCon. So if you liked this post, be sure to check in next week for more.

92 Days to GaryCon! Other Stuff

While this series is about me counting down the days until GaryCon, it doesn't mean that everything has to be GaryCon related. At least, not directly that is. I do have a play-by-post game that I have been running for close to eight months now. And I am now playing in another play-by-post game.

The archipelago campaign has started up again with the party being charged to find fresh water on the island after the discovery of orcs being present. The party has managed to get themselves a packbearer in the form of a laborer named Jefel. They also had their first encounter with the human natives of the island, though the unintentionally scared them off. So now they are on their way through a path they have discovered in hopes of finding the native's village and hopefully water and allies as well.

The game is started playing in uses the Marvel Super Heroes (FASERIP) system and is set in the "Nightmares of Futures Past" setting from the X-Men comics. My character, Inferno, is a mutant with the ability to control and transform into fire. We only just got started, so nothing has happened yet to really write about. But it will be nice to be a player again since I'm usually on GM duty.

In a way this is related to GaryCon since the entire reason I am going is because I'm a gamer. And since I don't have a group of my own at the moment, it's nice to have something available until March.

G is for GaryCon (Followup)

If you haven't seen them already, here are my vlogs from GaryCon for days zero, one, two and three.

First of all, it looks like plans are underway for GaryCon V. The estimated attendance this year was around 550 people. At the rate things are going the convention may have to move to a bigger venue as The Lodge. I actually wouldn't be opposed to that. When GaryCon II was first held at the Lodge, I thought it was a great venue. It was big enough for all the con-goers and had great amenities like a Friday night seafood buffet and a Sunday morning brunch as well as a bluegrass band in the bar on Saturday night. It was a gaming convention with a little bit of everything else to keep things interesting. Then the hotel changed management and next thing we know, the restaurant is closed for the convention save for some burgers and overpriced bags of chips. This year saw a limited menu of "gamer grub", but it pales compared to the good breakfast I had with the Geekpreacher two years ago.

As far as gaming went, I overextended myself this year. At GaryCon I, I sat and played what would become HackMaster Basic with the Kenzer & Company D-Team. At GaryCon II, I ran my first HackMaster Learn to Hack and played Aces & Eights. At this year's convention, I tried to run and attend as many games as possible. And I ended up too tired to engage in any of the festivities in the bar afterward.