Isn't This Most Major News Media?

I mean, really, who ever took TIME seriously? I sure as hell can't...

Review: Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (Basic Game)

Well, Andy wouldn't stop praising this game, so I went and decided to try it out. I sat down with some of my old highschool buddies (I'm back in Chicago for my last Christmas break... ever!), they picked characters, and we ran the first half of Breakout! The session took about 2 and a half hours to conclude, and what I learned about this game was amazing.

1. The rules are poorly written and organized. When I first started reading the dice rolling rules I was genuinely confused, and this is coming from someone who loves Burning Wheel's Fight! mechanics. The writing is abstract at best, and the organization of said rules had me jumping all over the book in a way that I didn't appreciate. I eventually gave up, called Andy, and had him explain how the damn thing worked. A ten minute explanation did more good for my understanding of this game than the actual rules text.
2. As poorly written as this game may be, it shines in actual play. We played a 2 and a half hour long combat, and it didn't drag in the slightest. Everyone was engaged and having a ton of fun, deciding how they were going to be awesome for their actions and reactions. The fact that it took a little longer to resolve actions didn't matter, for the simple reason that everyone was working out a narrative amongst themselves, not just rules stuff. If I'd run the same scenario in 4th edition this game would have been a crawling, boring slugfest. Instead it was an exciting game of being as awesome as you could be. 
3. The game is not easy on those who get hurt, and I mean that in a good way. This game has rules for injury that are intuitive and easy, allowing for the player to still do awesome stuff without getting rid of the drama of getting hurt, stressed out, or messed with. Again, the emphasis is placed on the narrative. 
4. Convincing people to play characters that they had not made themselves was a genuine pain in the butt. I felt like I was pulling a two-year-old's teeth, except the two year old had werewolf incisors, not a baby's, so when they bit it hurt like hell. They simply did not get the concept that the game was about playing already-existing heroes and, when this was explained, one of the players bitched and moaned for quite awhile. Eventually he sucked it up and moved on, but for the simple reason that he was so uncooperative I feel even less inclined to let people make characters. Besides, I like the whole "pick your favorite character and move on" feel that this game has.
5. Again, I like the pregen'ed events. I already have enough games that make the scenario on the fly, so I have no wish or urge to make up the narrative structure. Players do a better job of that in play, as do designers who have months to make all the groundwork and get paid to do so. So you better believe that, if I keep playing this game for any meaningful length of time, I'll get the events. 

Really, the highest praise I can give for this game is that the rules (once properly understood) are designed to get the hell out of your way so that way you can have fun. I've never run into a game that did it quite this, well, easily, in play as Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. It'll definitely be in my rotation of games from here on out. Now to just get my hands on a few more events, like Civil War. That should be interesting...

Review: Amazing Spider-Man 695-697 "Danger Zone"

Now that THAT joke is outta the way, on to the actual review.

Danger Zone is the 3 parter that leads up to the insanity that is the end of Amazing Spider-Man and it's... OK. There are some good beats here (and some awesome characterization) but really, this is the calm before the storm, and it shows.

The story revolves around a suitcase, which has...something... in it that everyone wants. Spidey's trying to stop the Hobgoblin (Phil Urich) from getting it, and is successful in stealing it. But that's when Tiberius Stone, the "shady guy" of Horizon, activates a device that ramps up Spidey's spider-sense. At first it's a nice bonus, until, well... Tiberius jack it up all the way, puts Madame Web in the hospital for an overload of "the web of life", and leaves Peter incapacitated. That brings Max Modell into the picture, as well as the original Hobgoblin (the real one this time, good to see you again Kingsley!), all of them getting mixed up into this whole stew of a mess.

Overall, the three issues are OK. The story itself is pretty easy reading, and while some of the stuff have some nice gems of characterization (particularly for Kingsley!), this story comes off as a distraction play. I'm betting we'll look back on this story after Superior Spider-Man 1 a bit more fondly, but without the context about what exactly we're being distracted from the story's a bit flat...

(And NOW with the knowledge that it was a distraction story I can say "brilliant job, Slott! This was a pretty well-executed in betweener!")

The City's Lights; Yoshino and the Creative Process, Part 3: What the Hell Have I Gotten Myself Into???

One of the things I hear a lot as an art student is "try and be different and original". It's the most damning phrase I can think of, really, for quite a number of reasons that I'll get into at the end of the blog post.

So last time I ended my post with a question: is there a collective unconscious? The evidence I've seen gives off a resounding yes, we tap into something universal when we try to create. I mean, look at all the myths that have been made over all the course of history. There are patterns, there are themes, in evidence between cultures that never had a chance to meet, but somehow had stories that are very similar. The themes mix in and out of different characters and make for a... well.. universal approach. Now the psychologists and scientists aren't coming out and saying it, but the last time science was sure of something they had to change their minds pretty quickly (I mean, bleeding people was a scientific thing), so I'm going to ignore them while they bicker about procedure.

The fact of the matter is, somehow we tap into the same myths, over and over and over. George Lucas figured this out with the highly successful Star Wars. He made a myth that, love it or hate it, you can't forget it. Luke's journey, while "typical", was the best selling trilogy of it's time. We can all connect to it in some way, shape, or form, whether we wanted to admit it or not (yes, I know people foolish enough to dislike Star Wars. No, I do not take their opinion seriously, especially when they're avid fans of Clannad). The story resonates with us and sticks there, deep in our souls, and we can't forget the story because we all know it, all believe it, and all want  to emulate it somehow, even if we hate the execution!

Clannad does a lot of the same stuff, strangely enough. It's the classic coming-age tale for a particular person, and what it means for him to grow up and have a family. Tomoya goes through the typical hero's journey, it's true, but what seems to strike the vast majority of Clannad fans isn't it's originality, but it's absolute sincerity. Like Star Wars, none of us give a damn if it's original, because we find it to be true.

Now, don't get me wrong, originality isn't the bane of all existence in art. I just happen to hate that particular line, because I like originality. But only up to the point where you're not trying to snub the universal rules. Because, like it or not, humans are creatures constrained by laws (otherwise there wouldn't be a concept of evil and moral good). Breaking those rules only works if you're trying to assert a "higher" rule, something people assert by intuition is more important. Something that's true.

And it's this quality of truth that's really the most important thing about the process, isn't it? I mean, with the possible exception of fans of 300 (and Zach Snyder's other putrid crap we call work) people want something that's real. Something that, even if we know it's not factual and doesn't actually exist, reminds us of those things we all hold in common, and that there are more good things than bad things. I know that, whenever I look at a piece of art, I look to be reminded of those things. I mean, it's already hard enough to find it in the "real" world, so it's nice to relax back into the truth, even if it's not see-able all the time in the factual world.

I guess I'm just glad it's a shared dream-space, and not a solitary one. I mean, how badly would it suck if our myths weren't universal? We'd all be alone.

New Contributor to the Blog:SpiderBob!

So, y'all, I have a new contributor to the website (in case you can't read titles, I'm just going to regurgitate info and hope you can read what's under this nice pic of the Amazing and Superior Spider-Men.... although if you can't read the title I have no hope of you actually reading this page!), I've got a new contributor, SpiderBob! He's here to, well, he says talk comic books with me, but I probably won't screen his calls, so it's whatever he decides to put up besides child porn (which is legal in New York apparently. Yeah, it's legal to screw kids and video tape it for people to jerk off to in New York! SO DON'T DO THAT BOB!). We'll be doing some joint work after I'm done brain-washin... I mean.... talking... with him. Dunno when he'll post, but he's here, watching.... waiting.... 

I creeped myself out.

Bye!

On My Tastes in Writing and Writer's Block

So I've been having a horrible writer's block for a while now, as far as fiction is concerned. I've been trying to figure out what makes me tick, and what I'd like to write about.So I started thinking about the types of stories that I have written. I've written stories about death: the process of facing it, mourning the life that you had, and being ready to move on. But recently I've found that that doesn't do it for me anymore.

I want a real bad guy. Real evil. Y'know, the guy who you look at and flinch, and realize that you're seeing a demented version of something real. The one who doesn't want to kill you because his wish is to see you like him. He wants a friend, not a corpse, and he'll do what it takes to make sure that you change to fit him.

He's alone, and wants company.

And he sees all the quality of a "friend" in the main character.

See, that would be a story I'd like reading.

The City's Lights: Yoshino and the Creative Process and... August Rush

Art is a very tricky thing to write about, because its complexity. You've got someone who hears something, sees something, views something and you find that you have to record it somehow. It may be something that seems rather sane to other people and yourself, or it may be incredibly off the wall and just insane to experience. But you have to record it, hell you may even have to show it to other people, to have them look at/listen to/ read this thing that you know is truth. Then you pray that everyone else isn't crazy and can see what you've made. Or that you've made it right. 

There's no doubt as to whether or not what you've seen is true, it's all in the communication, and in whether or not others can see it. To you, it is truth.

Now there's a reason I included August Rush in this, a Clannad post, because he really is the younger (and purer) Yoshino. He hears something, and realizes that he wants to reproduce what he hears for someone else. He never once loses sight of the fact that it is something that he hears, that he finds beautiful, but it's something he has to share with his parents. Yoshino's story is almost the opposite, it's the dark mirror of it. He has songs, but doesn't know why he's singing them, and realizes eventually that he was only making songs for Kouko Ibuki and himself. That was the audience that mattered to him. The fact that other people heard was really inconsequential to him, and to August as well.

Does this make artists selfish, considering that they only really make things for themselves and a select group of people most of the time? I don't think so, to be honest. Human beings have a need to take what's inside their own private worlds and bring it to the outside, into the outside world. I know that when I make an icon I don't make it to horde, I make it because it's inside of me and I want it to be around me, not just inside.

The inner world and the outer world need to be the same. We all feel this. And that leaves me with a question, one that directly relates back to Clannad: do we all share in the same inner world? Are we really tapping into the same place?