Yeah, Gary Gigax was a dick, SO?

Let's make no mistake, he was an asshole, he engaged in predatory market practices in an attempt to be a monopoly, and he obviously was educated with all the -isms of his time... but he's also been dead for what? Ten years? Longer? It must be nice living such charmed existence as to not having anything better to worry about than some long dead neckbeard (especially in our current societal collapse).

I mean, journos and other bottom-feeders who live scrounging for -anything- to post in their slavery to the 24/7 "news" cycle? Sure, making mountains out of molehills is how they put food on the table... now what's everyone else's excuse for such low hanging fruit dunking? What's YOUR excuse? It's the laziest form of clout chasing if you ask me.

(oh, look! Internet clout!)

Want to actually practice what you preach? Well, we have ACTUAL NAZIS at our doorstep (or whichever brand of fascist at your country), denounce them, confront them, fight them. We have actual people being persecuted (from minorities to the press and otherwise "enemies of the state"), protect those you can. We have mobs with torches at the yard of the New Alexandria Library, archive all that you can, protect your local libraries, donate to wikipedia and the internet archive. The arts as a whole stand on the brink of disappearing as a viable livelihood, refuse to consume anything that uses plagiarizing software. THAT is clout I respect, not dunking on some long-dead neckbeard.

(How about we get busy dealing

with THESE guys instead?

Priorities, please)

Agency Levels and Low Level Plots (or Why You're Not Supposed to "Balance Superman")

The moment your players get access to "Detect Whodunnit" powers, your table becomes immune to "low level plots."

And this is NOT A BAD THING.

A common folly of most DMs I know is persisting on  the idea of running the same basic plots at high levels, only to kick and scream that "the game is broken" because the table's lvl 12 diviner solves their "clever, intricate murder mystery" in six seconds.

But... what is a low-level Plot?

Be understood a Low Level Plot as an adventure premise that only works on PC parties with the minimum amount of agency contemplated in a given game. As PCs numbers grow bigger and their abilities' repertoire grows, so does their ability to trivialize an increasing number of premises. Furthermore, if we're talking about non zero-to-hero games, they're likely to have said "disruptive" abilities at their disposal from the start:

• Characters with flight or otherwise "travel powers" make of "the trip to PLACE!" sessions a non-issue and void most environment-based hazards and obstructions.
• Genius-type characters void "Go ask the sagely NPC" hooks since they can figure out solutions themselves (because, you know, that's their whole schtick and raison d'etre).
• ESPers or otherwise "diviner"-type characters bypass any "detective stories" (or, at the very least, easily skip over half the loops the GM had planned).
• Any characters able to do "tunneling" or straight punch through walls dismantle "dungeons" in minutes.

I'm sure you get my point by now.

(no, the solution is NOT nerfing Superman, it's either not using him for this story, or coming up with a story better suited for him. Credit: the-gutters.com (url now dead))

Bad GMs throw a fit and resort to Pre-Emptive Gaming, constantly coming up with ways to cancel the PCs abilities in order to force the players through the hoops they had planned:

• Even 7/11s are warded against divinations.
• Every-single enemy is fire-based once the wizard learns Fireball.
• All buildings in the city are made of Antiplayerium

...and otherwise any form of Green Rocks of Lazy Writing.

Good GMs adapt and make their peace with the fact that heroes of different power levels have different stories.

Superman isn't supposed to care for petty crooks (leave those to Robin!), and you don't use Superman in a Nancy Drew novel, he'd just use his super-senses and X-ray vision to uncover the culprit right away. He's supposed to be out there saving sinking ships trapped in hurricanes in the middle of the Pacific: a needle in a haysack only he can pinpoint with his world-reaching super-hearing and only he can reach in time with his hyper sonic speed before all crew is dead. When he fights, he fights other terrestrial gods without secrets or weaknesses that no one but him can fight.

Batman no longer cares for petty muggers in Detective Comics (ok, he does, but he does his beat "off camera," one-sided beatdowns don't make for engaging stories), he chases the masterminds behind global conspiracies that use nameless operatives without fingerprints, are fed by slush funds no sane person can track, have meetings in ultra-high security facilities not even other metahumans can easily access, and plan webs of schemes that often take outright unnaturally accurate leaps of logic to untangle (remember, Batman is NOT "a normal human"). When he fights, he fights super-criminals of low-to moderate metahuman ability that fight dirty and constantly deploy abusive tactics of the kind that would kill any other vigilante dead without the chance to fight back (and would have your players flipping the table at you)... but not Batman, since he's a master tactician and is prepared for everything.

In zero-to-hero games (i.e dnd and all its derivatives), the narrative and dynamics likewise have to change as the PCs go up in levels: 

Early Game:

PCs are barely elevated muggles, they know nothing and live bumbling through peril and somehow live to tell about it. While the PCs are handy to have around in the neighbourhood, the problems they deal with are ultimately things you could solve by calling the police. Examples: "Go hit the neighbouring goblins with a pointy stick," any Nancy Drew or Scooby Doo mystery. Any story within the horror genre. THIS is what I call Low Level Plots. This tier is where all high-lethality adventures live.

No divination powers? Check

No means to beat the main bad guy face-to-face? Check

You could substitute any member of the cast at any moment for any Joe off the street? Check

Yes, this is a low-level plot.

Mid Game:

PCs are problem solvers that actually know what they're doing and use their considerable talents to tackle problems outright impossible for muggles (and they do it all ON THEIR OWN POWER, with no aid from "sage NPCs," external McGuffins, or otherwise deus ex machina). PCs in this tier no longer fear being mugged in an alley, and while they can still die, nothing short of overwhelming odds or dropping a moon on them will stick. If the PCs turned to villainy, they could handily take over the city. Examples: Solve a "mystery" for which there are no mundane clues whatsoever (i.e a perfect crime), assassinate a warlord that lives in an inaccessible place (castle in the sky, pocket dimension, etc), stop an invasion.

Endgame:

The PCs are the setting's high rollers and, being honest, they're more Plot Devices than they are characters at this point. They are The Magnificent Seven Elminsters, they are The Justice League. This time, the PCs are the "elderly quest giver" that pays cheap labor in peanuts to do menial tasks while they actually make sure there will still be a world tomorrow. At this stage, "death" is merely a temporary setback and the laws of physics are "just guidelines"... and such degree of agency is not "an advantage," it's merely the entry fee. The only reason the PCs haven't taken over the world is because they have bigger fish to fry (or they're Superman). Examples: Stop an earthquake before the city crumbles or any civilian dies, time travel shenanigans until the heroes realize the past plain cannot be changed, broker peace between two near-omnipotent entities.

Granted, not all GMs have the creativity of Mark Waid or Robert J. Sawyer (nor they are obligated to). If high-agency is not your thing, then I recommend sticking to low-powered games. There are many good choices in the market (my personal recommendation is Gumshoe) and it's both easier and better for everyone than throwing tantrums at your players because you keep shoehorning low-level plots to high-agency characters.

Magic vs. Science? No, they're not opposites... they're just REDUNDANT

If we discovered magic today, we wouldn't need to discover cold fusion or mass reaction, we'd just use magic to fill in the unobtanium blanks in our current warp drive theoretical designs and sail to the stars right away.

If we had discovered magic before the LHC, we wouldn't have needed to discover the Higgs' boson, we'd have created it.

If we had discovered magic before Einstein, we wouldn't have needed to discover the relativity theory since we already would have magic portals.

If we had discovered magic before the steam engine, we wouldn't have automobiles now, we'd all ride magic chariots and brooms and cat buses.

If we had discovered magic before laser, we'd all be making war with deathray-spewing magic wands.

If the first homo sapiens had been born with magic, we'd have never needed to discover the wheel.

Invention is the product of need. If the satisfactors already exist, there's little need for less efficient alternatives. It's not "either magic OR science," in fantasy worlds, magic is their science.

("you just figured hydraulics out on your own? That's cute,

I just come from creating a new species.")

A world with magic wouldn't evolve into us, it would evolve into some magical post-scarcity society with crystal ball-based psionic internet and Shakespeare theatrical troupes with Hollywood-grade FX. Something like Dalaran or Dragon Half or whatever fantasy anime. What you can't keep from changing and evolving, though, is society. Sooner or later people will demand equality and not living in the muck, and sooner or later, some industrialist mage will do "The Great Leap Forward" in fantasyland.

(food on every table, a magic golem in every home
...and an imprisoned god in the city hall's sub basemen)

Of Motivation, Learned Behaviors, and "Roleplaying Rewards"

Tabletop Roleplaying games are a product of humans, and reflect human nature.

One of said most persistent reflections is our habit of endlessly repeating the same mistakes. It is because of this that the hobby keeps repeating the same set of discussions even after 40 years.

This time, in my twitter feed, once again someone asked people how do they adjudicate XP for "roleplaying."

Ok, context: Back in the days of yore, all we had was d&d, a game that, for almost 40 years now, has only given XP for stabbing people in the face, and while sure, the DMG grants cute, "token" awards like 40XP (or something in that vein) for "roleplaying," the truth of the matter is that once you're level 5 and "roleplaying" still gives you 40 XP while stabbing a monster in the face gives you 4000XP, then stabbing people in the face is all your players will care about.

Is this a flaw in d&d's design? No, because breaking in people's houses, stabbing the owners in the face, and looting everything that isn't bolted down is exactly what the game is all about. D&D was originally an offshoot of a miniatures' game and its focus has always been combat, everything else is afterthought.

Now, here's the part where somebody else surely says "what about giving roleplaying XP in terms of fractions of a level"? Sure, that sounds more fair for task that doesn't go "up" or "down" with level. However, hear my counter-proposal:

Why are we supposed to give XP for roleplaying AT ALL?

"Roleplaying" is what the whole thing is about. If you're not roleplaying then what are you even doing at the table? We're at the table because we like roleplaying, and not everything you do at the game needs to be rewarded (Call of Duty doesn't warrant match points for every bullet fired, does it?)

Furthermore, giving uneven "roleplay awards" turns the most basic part of the hobby into a competition, I don't care for the more domineering players constantly trying to upstage each other while making the more introverted players further hide in their shell (unwittingly erasing them).

Roleplaying is a team sport, not a competition.

Deny all you want, but learned behaviors are a thing. If people are consistently rewarded for doing an action, they'll be increasingly inclined to do it again and again (unless it's something they actively hate to do). Running a game where the biggest reward is for eating someone else only to kick and scream because your character party turns your game into Lord of the Flies goes beyond folly, it's solipsistic (make that double if that's actually the only thing in game that grants actual XP, see Vampire: The Masquerade 5E).

A Solution: Equal XP

There were a few things dnd 4E did right, and one of them was stating that, at all times, XP was to be always evenly distributed among all party members, even if a player wasn't part of a scene, or even if the player didn't show up that session (furthermore, if a PC died, the replacement character would be of the same level and XP as the rest, losing a character is punishing enough to be forever forced behind the curve also, that's only piling insult upon injury). The people who complain about Equal XP for everyone remind me of those that oppose wiping student debt by saying that "it would be unfair to those who already paid theirs."

Once again for those in the back: Roleplay is a team sport, not capitalism. Only bad GMs intentionally pit players against each other, nothing ever gets done that way.

M&M Lego Sets: Encounters for Street-level Games

About 4 out of 10 GMs I know openly claim to prefer "street level games."

Said GMs, however, usually have a hard time putting up anything interesting and most of the time end up reverting to type and leaning on the crutch of (mini) "supervillain of the week" (thus chucking out the whole "street" element from the game). This is probably not their fault, since most GMs have the trad paradigm too deeply ingrained in their brains so the moment they are faced with "lego box systems" like M&M or minimalist ones where everything is DIY their heads only draw a blank because they're conditioned that "if it isn't written in the book, it doesn't exist."

While 3E discarded the PL 6 as lowest tier for games, even at PL 6, single street thugs were never meant to be a "life threatening battle" for a superhero (it's M&M, not Mystery Men). This, however, does not mean you can't do "Batgirl of Burnside" with M&M, but you need to know your tools in order to turn bottom feeders into a fun opposition (remember, FUN is the operative word, not deadly, not overpowering, fun).

Kit One: Biker Gangs and Vehicle Combat

NOTE: While the core book has no proper "vehicle combat" rules, it's not hard to extrapolate the basic rules for what happens when "man vs. car" happens. For regular "vehicle vs. vehicle" conflicts, however, just use the vehicle's base stats as usual.

Car vs. Character
(all extrapolations courtesy of Relative Speed principles)

* Characters inside a car or bike add the vehicle's speed class to their melee attack and damage ratings while the vehicle is moving.
* Characters inside a car or bike subtract the vehicle's speed class from their ranged attack's rating.

* Characters attacking from inside a car or bike are assumed to possess the Move By Action advantage (for obvious reasons, attribute it to Descriptors).
* When aiming specifically at a vehicle's driver, characters inside a car or bike add the vehicle's speed class to their dodge and parry stats while the vehicle is moving, and they add the vehicle's toughness rating to their own.
* Cops firing from behind the open doors of their parked car enjoy full cover.
* Characters attempting a Trip attack on a motorbike use the toughness of the object they're trying to jam in the wheel versus the bike's strength

Basic Statblock: Biker Gang Banger (basic NPC: thug)
Numbers divided by a slash indicate (vehicle/driver)

* STR 1/2, STA 2, AGL 1, DEX 1, FGT 2, INT 0, AWE 0, PRE -1
* Equipment: Leather jacket (+1 Toughness), light pistol, cell phone.
* Skills: Athletics 4 (+6), Vehicles 4 (+5). 
* Offense: Init +1, Melee  +8 (Damage 10),  Pistol -9 (Ranged Damage 3).
* Defense: Dodge 10/8, Parry 10/8, Fort 8/4, Tou 8/11, Will 0. 

(Now you know why Batman keeps the Batmobile handy

image credit: Electronic Arts)

Kit Two: Police Crackdowns

Remember that the Aid and Team Attack actions are in the book for a reason. Send in a big enough swarm of minions (10 per PC minimum) and, statistically, you can just waive all the extra dice rolling. Your swarm will only roll one attack check per turn, but it will be one with a +5 bonus to attack. Furthermore, if your swarm is a minimum of 20, your lead attacker can enjoy both a +5 to attack and a +5 to damage.

(And that's how they got Rorschach
Copyright: DC Comics and Paramount)

The Catch: The moment your swarm's numbers no longer sustain critical mass, the bonuses are gone.

While usually only the police and the army are organized enough to pull these stunts off,  particularly organized crime (like your token tacky martial arts crime syndicates and low-tier, non-superpowered ninja clans) will also use these.

Kit Three: Blockades, Kill Zones,  and Dragnets

While (again) gangs are usually not organized, drug cartels and terrorists are prone to rising blockades full of armed people ready to fill would-be tresspassers full of holes:

* All members of the defacto firing squad are assumed to fire from cover (full). 
* Every turn characters are within firing range, they're target of two attacks: A regular firearm attack, and a Demoralize attack with a +5 bonus (unless the target is bulletproof and has no reason to fear standing on a kill zone, that is). Since we're talking "street level," it's fair to assume most characters can't fly, and thus would rely on mundane skills to get past a blockade, that's where the Demoralize action becomes crucial.

(add extra vehicles and armed goons to taste)

Basic Stats: Blockade (manned by at least 20 thugs)

* Skills: Intimidation 9
* Offense: Init +1, Pistol 1 (Ranged Damage 3).
* Defense: Dodge 7 Fort 9/4, Tou 9/3, Will 0.
* The nature and difficulties of the Athlerics/Acrobatics checks to get past a blockade will depend on its composition. Just remember that characters are Vulnerable while climbing, so trying a frontal approach to zip past obstacles they can't surmount on a vertical jump will turn into a Re-enactment of Kagemusha's ending.

When talking about a kill zone trap, usually the heroes are lead somewhere with a single access point, same that it's getting blocked as soon as they're at the center (example: two buses blocking an alley exits). While characters with the right skills may realize before the trap closes, failing to do so guarantees an unpleasant time.

A Dragnet, finally, is a Crackdown where also the police happened to establish a perimeter around a building, so players trying to escape the Crackdown also have to go through a Blockade. While characters escaping through the rooftops have a way past the blockade secured, the police will usually have at least one helicopter ready as well... and if SWAT is involved, this means elements are probable also waiting in neighbouring rooftops, turning each into a separate Crackdown.

Kit Four: Snipers

Modern military rifles have an effective range of at least one mile (and that without resorting to old sniper tricks like slightly parabolic shots), and rifle scopes exist for a reason. Barring telescopic vision powers or wearing Batman's cowl, characters have a -5 on Perception checks to detect a sniper's presence stationed in a proper Hawk's Nest (so chances are the first shot will always catch the target Vulnerable). After the first shot, however, any character with the Investigation skill can point at the sniper's location with a check.

(the ultimate sneak attack)

Kit Five: Mastermind Showdown

Sooner or later, the heroes will have a showdown with the Crime Lord in turn, who will be either waiting for them at the penthouse of his ominous skyscraper, or making his way to the heliport in the rooftop to make his escape. Either way, once again we resort to the Team Attack action. Give the Crime Lord NPC at least 10 thug minions as buffer so the Crime Lord has a constant +5 bonus to Dodge (and the human wall would keep him away from melee range).

Alternatively, if he is making his way to the helicopter, make it a "timed challenge": Give the Crime Lord 10 minions times the number of rounds you're giving he heroes before the Crime Lord makes his escape.

(or, you know, just give the crimelord a mecha, whatever)

I may add more as they come to my mind.

Peace.

Also, read MY WEBCOMIC and check MY PATREON.

Learning to Create Interesting Combat Encounters for "Superman"... with Mazinger-Z

People who lack creativity will always say Superman is "boring" because "he's invincible."

Ok, the point of Superman isn't whether he can do something but whether he should and the consequences of his action or inaction, just like he is meant to be inspiring rather than "relatable" but that's not the point of this post. The point is that... yes, you can write interesting combat encounters for him, and you can apply the same basic rules to run games for "overpowered" characters (or for just, you know, any superhero game, since superheroes are by definition bonafide badasses).

(It's not "The Relatable Iron-Man" or "The Balanced Iron-Man" or

"The You're-Better-Off-Playing-A-Mutant Iron-Man"...

it's THE INVINCIBLE IRON-MAN)

Strangely enough, all of these guidelines come from an old anime.

So, let's take lessons... from MAZINGER Z:

As opposed to contemporary shounen anime, Mazinger didn't intend to sell you the "Dragonball Z formula" where a weakling is constantly picking fights with someone stronger than him until he eventually surpasses and beats the villain (sorry to burst your bubble but, if every single enemy is always stronger than the hero, is he really a badass? No, he isn't). Mazinger was originally the giant robot to end all giant robots, and indeed he was famous for making short work of rival robots in a straight, fair fight.

The father of the "Super Robot" genre

So, how did Go Nagai keep Mazinger's fights interesting? Here's how:

Rather than resorting to Dragonbullshit or Green Rocks Of Lazy Writing, what Nagai did was handicapping via unusual circumstances that often kept Mazinger out of his element: Flying enemies, submarine enemies, illusionists, and otherwise enemies with "battlefield control" abilities. I'm not sure how much of this was Nagai and how much his editor but, in addition to this, whenever the enemy became repetitive with the same gimmick, Mazinger got an upgrade in order to turn the circumstance a non issue in the future (he got adapted for aquatic combat after the first 2 submarine enemies in a row, and after the first 3 flying enemies, he got his aerial upgrade) and thus avoid the Green Rocks Of Lazy Writing.

To keep things fresh, sometimes instead of handicapping circumstances, the enemies would force the hero to change tactics by being immune to whatever quality was becoming a comfort zone: Sometimes they'd be immune to whatever weapon he had been more consistently relying on, and sometimes enemies would have the specific ability of nullify his super-alloy (forcing him to dodge and use strategy rather than just tanking every enemy attack).

Then, there was always the occasional "puzzle monster," which could only take damage under specific circumstances (example: Twin mechanical beasts that regenerated all damage unless both were destroyed at the same time), or that required a specific attack sequence, or that were only vulnerable to a specific weapon at the right time (example: A photon beam right at the moment he monster opens his chest cavity to unleash its biggest weapon).

In none of the aforementioned cases the mechanical beast was innately stronger than Mazinger, it was the handicap that leveled the field. Only in a couple cases (one of which was the series' end) Nagai resorted to the "strictly dramatic" encounter where the enemy/circumstances were insurmountable and the only reason the hero lived to see another day was by some contrived serendipity that opened a window of opportunity at the eleventh hour... and that was indeed good since narratively these are the most boring: The author got the hero into an impossible situation only to get his bacon out of the fire himself, thus there was zero meaningful input from the hero (needless to say, this is even more boring in a tabletop game, since it's interactive entertainment and the players' choices are supposed to matter).

Those are my two cents, take 'em or leave 'em. If any of this sounds like too much work for you, stick to low-powered games (plenty of them in the market, after all!).

"The Great GM": Experience or Preference?

As a certified teacher, I can tell you that yes, you can learn how to become "the best GM for every possible demographic" if you actually set your mind to it.

As a teacher I have dealt with kinaesthetic students, I have dealt with squares, I have dealt with problem children and teacher pets, I have dealt with elementary school kids and senior citizens, I have dealt with students with learning disabilities and students who think they know more than I do (and some that occasionally do, even). I'm trained to deal with all types because I'm literally paid to deal with them all.

Does that mean I enjoy dealing with all and every type? Heavens no.

THAT is the question you must ask yourself when evaluating a GM's "quality."

I dealt with more than my share old-schoolers and storygamers and reactive gamers and fishmalks and lone wolves and psychopaths. Do I enjoy dealing with them? Hell no! Would I be prepared to deal with them in my table if I had to? Perhaps... but why on earth would I want to?

GMing is my hobby, not a job. I run the kind of campaigns I want, using the systems of my preference (unless I'm trying a new one, case in which it can go either way), for the people I want to play with. As a result of this, while I may know other ways, I'm more likely to perfect the techniques for what I like to play the most. Furthermore, ever since I learned the most valuable lesson in the hobby (no gaming is better than bad gaming), it's been about a decade since I haven't had to deal with anyone I don't want to. I have way more experience in running games for proactive players than reactive ones. I have lots more games under my belt ran on shared narrative systems than trad/OSR/storygaming ones. I haven't had to deal with players I need to drag kicking and screaming through the flow of events in over a decade, so chances are my skills at dealing with "trouble children" at a gaming table are rusty by now (and then, I screen potential applicants to make sure they'll be a good fit for my table and game in question precisely so it never gets to that point).

So, the question is... sure, as a GM I'm pretty long in the tooth but... am I a "great GM"?

The Answer: I don't need to be. I just need to know what I like, and make sure what I do at the table gets me what I want. As obvious as it sounds, however, it's a harder lesson to learn than you'd think. I know GMs with more flight hours than me who have yet to learn. No amount of time will build Intrapersonal Skill on those unwilling or unable to do self-reflection.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

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Magic in D&D: Of Haves and Have Nots

In d&d land, there are two kinds of people: Those who have magic, and those who don't.

There a reason I mostly play spellcasters in d&d: I like having agency.

D&D has always been a disfunctional premise on a concept level from the moment it allows Haves and Have Nots in a same group, and if a player at my table insists on playing a muggle then so be it, but I warn said player that they're playing a concept with a limited shelf life.

This is not only as a player. As a GM I don't like dealing with magical Have Nots because they limit the stories I can tell and adventures I can run. D&D character levels go up and eventually "go hit the neighbouring orcs with a pointy stick" must grow into "ask the overdeity's oracle for the archfiend's true name, for which you have to go to a lost demiplane with access point in a sunken city under the sea," something the protagonist will never be able to do if all they can do is hitting things with a pointy stick. If I'm going to run an adventure, the character party must be able to pull their weight on their own power, because if I have to keep solving their every problem via McGuffins and Deux Ex Machina NPCs, then there was never a challenge, the whole thing is a travesty.

Fictional "muggle heroes" can be divided in two:

1) The Vanilla Action Hero: All this guy can do is fight. He's usually a blockhead whose fighting ability is only rivaled by his bull-headedness. Because of his lack of ambition, the call to adventure always falls straight on his lap, and because of his lack of brains or skills, the stumbles through the plot advancing only because of the purest serendipity, everything he needs just falls at his feet via the divine providence, and his foes tend to lose because of some contrived circumstance that creates an lethal opening at the exact point in time.

(The girl fell into his taxi without any input or effort from him: Check

The army literally knocked on his door to give him the means to get into

the resort cruise in space to meet the contact: Check.

The girl gave him every clue short of outright spelling-it-out for him to

figure out what the Fifth Element was: Check)

2) The Badass Normal: In a fantasy world (call it magic, superpowers, etc), the badass normal is... no, they are not a "non-superpowered person," they're rather someone whose superpower is Hypercompetence. The BN is ridiculously fit (regardless of apparent muscle mass), unrealistically resourceful, and crazy-prepared; they're all that and an order of fries; the pinnacle of human ambition. While people misleadingly sell BNs as "heroes like you," the thing about BNs in fiction is that, once you actually get to assess they things they do on a regular basis, you realize there's nothing "normal" about said badasses. Plus, they're often impossible to emulate in class-based games... or rather just impossible, period. Just the list of accomplishments of ANY BN (even Hawkeye's!) is impossible to normal humans in and of itself. If anything, being a BN is in itself a superpower.

(World's Greatest Detective... who also happens to be world's top weight lifter, 

best martial artist, accomplished gadgeteer, all-round Modern Man of the

Renaissance, trillionaire, decked with technology at least ten years ahead of his time,

and has his life sorted out just the right way so his two lives never come in conflict in 

any way... sounds legit)

D&D biggest offense regarding the Fighter is that they sell you a Badass Normal but what they give you is a Vanilla Action Hero, and the Vanilla Action Hero works only in literature and otherwise passive media because the author arbitrarily resolves the hero's problems via contrivances, serendipity, and Swords Of Plot Advancement whenever is dramatically appropriate. If this VAH had no Plot Armor and a "benevolent God," he'd have no way to reach the underwater city, let alone traverse between the planes, or defeat a god.

In addition, I don't like my players getting frustrated, and classes like the Fighter are nothing but a recipe for frustration. All (useful) character classes bring something to the table, and ALL classes fight, so if all your character can do is fight then you're not contributing anything to the adventure. Furthermore, eventually the fighter can't do even that (fight) because eventually the party reaches lvl 5 special qualities make their appearance (incorporeals, damage immunities and resistances, etc) and waving a pointy stick at them won't do. Enemies with special qualities become more frequent as levels go up and the fighter player accuses me of "targetting them." In addition, the adventure eventually grows into "ask the overdeity's oracle for the archfiend's true name, for which you have to go to a lost demiplane with access point in a sunken city under the sea," and all he can do is watch the spellcasters asking deities for the city's location, growing gills to swim, sky diving into elemental planes, and he can't contribute to any of that, so yeah, of course the player gets frustrated.

(well duh! It's a fucking ghost! Of course waving a pointy stick at it

won't work. Now stand aside and let the adults work.)

Games are not books, or anime. the Vanilla Action Hero is an archetype that shouldn't exist on any fantasy game, since all it does is mislead the players. If you play one in full awareness that you won't have any agency (or actually just play for the combat minigame), then more power to you, but if you like to have agency and making choices that matter, muggles are a trap option. Don't even bother.

More Than "Just Guidelines"

While d&d 3E was full of blessings in comparison to old AD&D, I think the best thing about it was the actual institution and enforcement of standards.

3E's rules were by no means perfect, but they were structured enough that you could go to any gaming table and know you had a pretty good chance that you didn't have to re-learn the game's rules all over again (hell, you could even play your character from your previous game mostly as-is). The rules stayed mostly the same from table to table.

And that's why every viking hat on twitter spewing rules-are-bad rhetoric (i.e "it's all guidelines!") to me sounds like this:

Rules exist so we can all agree on what game we're playing. They set expectations and ensure players can make informed choices (starting with the most basic choice of whether I want to join your game or not). Like most adults, I'm a busy person, so If I'm going to give you three hours of my time (or possibly 7, if commuting in meatspace), I better be damn well sure of what I'm getting. I don't sign blank cheques with my time.

I'm thankful to all those GMs that honestly answer the questions I ask them about their games and houserules, even those whose answers tell me I wouldn't be a good fit for their game (or rather, I thank especially them, since their honesty keeps me from wasting both my time and theirs).

It was supposed to come off as a longer rant.

Kiss and Module Design Tips

In an online community I hang at, we were talking about one thing but the topic eventually derailed to adventure building, and someone posted a nice checklist for module design.

Anyone who knows me knows I'm not a fan of canned adventures since they're railroads by definition.

HOWEVER

There's a thin red line between a railroad and a theme park: A theme park is a railroad that's actually enjoyable.

If you ask me, there's just one requisite for a successful theme park:

K.I.S.S

(I was thinking of "Keep It Simple, Stupid," but KISS also makes everything better)

A module is, first and foremost, a scenario:

Definition of scenario

plural scenarios

1a : an outline or synopsis of a play; especially : a plot outline used by actors of the commedia dell'arte

: the libretto of an opera

2a : screenplay

b : shooting script

3: a sequence of events especially when imagined; especially : an account or synopsis of a possible course of action or events

• his scenario for a settlement envisages … reunification
•  —Selig Harrison

As a scenario, even the most flexible modules will offer you at most one out of two choices at specific moments in time (which is inevitable since writers can't account for all possible player actions). So, the best modules are those built around circumstances that:

1) Are so simple that changes are irrelevant.
2) Are inherently fun, so the players have no need to want things any differently.

Just keep things simple and fun. Just like GMs use modules when they don't feel like writing their own material, players are likewise entitled to put their brains in neutral and go with the flow.

Now, while "modules with rich stories and intricate plots" sound pretty on paper... the thing with rich stories is that you run the risk of players actually wanting in on said stories, and interacting with them... and your module's scenario happens to be written in stone, and 9 out of 10 GMs will stick to the script*, so the more complex the plot, the more it will look like a Second Order Idiot Plot from the outside (see Rise of the Runelords) and the more players will resent being railroaded.

((Boots, right before mysteriously contracting a case of lead poisoning))

So, say with me:
"I'm not the next JRR Tolkien."
"I'm not the next GRR Martin."
"I'm not the next Ryo Mizuno."

A module with such a simple premise as "the player characters wake up inside a labyrinth, don't ask why." is perfectly valid: The player characters are already there, it could be for any reason (it could be a dream for all we know), no motivations are needed, and there's no "story" the players can "disrupt" (also it used to work for Robert E. Howard, Conan used to start each tale in a different place under different circumstances with no explanations given).

Never underestimate the simple little things.

* P.D: Yeah, I know there are those few and proud unicorns who upon reading a module, they de-compile it in their heads and turn it into a sandbox where players can do anything with the story. In case you're one of them, congratulations, but you happen to be the exception, not the norm, and never having experienced a problem yourself doesn't make that problem inexistent to the rest of the world.

The Paradox of Puzzles

Of all the old school's traditions, few I care less for than in-game puzzles and riddles.

1) They take you out of the game since they're meant for the player, not the character. It's as if the GM said that, to beat the BBEG of the game, you had to beat him in Super Smash Bros. This breaks narrative flow and immersion.

2) They break roleplay. You are not your character, nor you are obligated to. You are not presented with vector calculus sheets whenever your character needs to land a plane. You are not required to narrate the full procedure when your character is performing surgery. You are not required to study at the police academy and then take the detective course to play a private eye. Whenever your character undertakes something you can't, that's where the skills, attributes, and dice come in the picture.

Warning: This only works in cartoons, or in campaigns with overbearing, micromanaging GMs

3) GMs are rarely (if ever) actual game designers themselves. I say this as a GM: "Clever puzzles" usually aren't. Descriptions always seem clearer in our heads than the way they're actually conveyed to players. The solutions to each puzzle are always "obvious" to us because we wrote them; as GMs, we play with a full deck. Truth is: Our descriptions are usually as incomplete as our clues, which means players have as easy a time trying to solve our puzzles as a female creator trying to get to the top in Marvel comics.

 (Tip: Ask Chelsea Cain about her feminist agenda).

Puzzles are something I lump straight with bait&switch, BDSM, and playing Numenera. If the whole table is into it then go ahead, more power to you all, but never force it on the unwilling, and be aware that the lesser your degree of expertise, the higher the chances of one or more of your players flipping the table on you.

Shounen Anime, Superheroes, Oil, and Water

Saying that adding superpowers to a story automatically makes it a "superhero story" is like saying adding lasers and spaceships to a tale automatically makes it "science fiction" or slapping gears everywhere automatically turns it into "steampunk." While you may see anime with superpowered people (like My Hero Academia or One Punch Man), these are still shounen anime, and follow the genre conventions of shounen anime, any similarities with actual superhero comics are merely superficial. In fact, after reading this, you'll see how both genres are almost polar opposites.

Warning: This comparison is for superhero comics. Superhero tv series and movies are their own thing that only take the occasional trope from the genre.

The Hero

As much backlash as the genre has faced by puriteens, at heart, superheroes are still all about the might of the self-realized individual, and superheroes are individualists of the highest order. A solo superhero may have contacts and otherwise "supporting cast," but they'll never have -peers-. Other than (perhaps) those closest to them, everyone else sees the superhero differently. Not only that, the hero tends to see themselves differently. Being on a different level in the food-chain as everyone else comes with a different perspective on things, that's why one of the main struggles of the superhero is not losing touch with the people they protect (one that Superman deals with way better than Batman, but that will be stuff for another post).

The shounen anime hero, on the other hand, is educated that only the power of friendship and unity can help him overcome adversity and the monster of the season, so he gets himself a band of merry men, from which he gets backup and emotional support. Also, unlike the superhero (who starts the story already a made person), the shounen anime hero is always a boy out to meet the world and wet behind the ears; as such, he has a mentor/surrogate paternal figure who will help guide him (the shounen anime hero is always a teen, and a male) through the "coming of age" part of his story. The shounen anime hero is always part of a family of which he is spiritually the youngest. In addition, regardless of the amount of power possesed, shounen anime heroes are somehow immune to the power changing their world view (as it would normally happen to anyone else), and will always be the same chuckleheads who can't show up in time for school. Furthermore, this power somehow doesn't alienate those around the shounen anime hero (as it would usually happen in any other case when people finds out their neighbour can erase them from existence with a sneeze).

Beginnings and Narrative Flow

Most if not all superhero comics start In Media Res, with the superhero already fully formed and springing to action in issue #1; "origin stories" are usually told only after issue 2, and in a most abreviated way. The narrartive/marketing model for the superhero comic is a self-contained, episodic one. The reasons for this are twofold: The most immediate one is that, as a product, the superhero must remain recognizable, so the basic premise must not change (just like syndicated shows, the objective is that your potential audience can pick up any random issue and take it from there). The second reason is the same reason why George Lucas started Star Wars with Episode IV and not Episode I: Given the choice, audiences would rather skip straight to the good stuff rather than waiting months/years before being given what they actually paid for (Batman Begins' reception was poorer among the critics than Warner would like to acknowledge).

(20 years training...but you don't want to hear about that)

While shounen anime also follows an (relatively) episodic formula, there are important differences. Your average shounen anime can usually be split in two parts: "Coming of Age" and "Monster of the Season." The first act is a standard, almost cookie-cutter analogy for adolescence, adding some miscelaneous weirdness to the usual "boy meets world". The second part is optional, and is the more familiar, repetitive narrative where a stronger monster appears and lays the smackdown on the hero who then has to "level up" and get a new power in order to beat the enemy. Unlike superhero comics where an episode rarely takes more than three issues, an anime Monster of the Season arc actually takes several months. Once the monster of the season is defeated, repeat the same format with a different villain ad nauseam.

(Just add different villains. Source: vgcats.com)

Crime and Punishment

Superheroes operate outside the law, but still acknowledge the existence of the state and the need to respect it. When not government-sanctioned, superheroes are sometimes persecuted as outlaws, and if they become problematic the state is willing to escalate the conflict (still, even when the superhero could easily overpower law enforcers, they choose not to, just running away instead). In the most extreme cases, world powers have been known to go nuclear once superhumans prove themselves a threat to the establishment (see Kingdom Come).

Shounen anime settings, on the other hand, are basically Westerns; lawless communities where the only effective authority is that of the fastest gun (in this case, the heroes and villains). Law enforcement bodies (i.e police and the army) are, for all practical purposes, non-existant, and the few times they do show up, they're ineffectual at best and openly ridiculed at worst (see Dragonball-Z). Because of the authority of the state being held in contempt, shounen anime heroes are free of the consequences of their actions, just like gunmen in the wild west: Murder, collateral damage, and property damage ranging in the millions of dollars are the order of the day in your average shounen show. This freedom from consequences and contempt for the state also breeds anti-heroes who are considerably less conscientious than their western counterparts. The unshown collateral deaths in your average shounen anime fight would make Frank Castle sick.

(Remember that time the JSDF declared war on 

Mazinger-Z for destroying half Tokyo? Yeah, me neither)

Anonimity

Can you imagine how many death threats Robert Mueller (the man leading the current investigation on 45, for those who don't read the news) gets per week? And we're talking about a figure that's so public that is impossible to just disappear (and such incidents have happened, see Hoffa). Now try to take down a Mexican drug cartel while showing your face and having your data available in the phone book and tell me how that works for you and your family. That's why superheroes wear masks, because no good deed goes unpunished.

(One day you're the most beloved lawyer in Hell's Kitchen, and the next you're

sleeping with hobos because your ex sold your secret identity for drug money)

In the case of shounen anime, it's hard to tell how much of this is due to genre conventions and how much to Japan's face-saving-based culture, but shounen anime heroes have no need for secret identities because they have never had to deal with the consequences of stepping on the wrong toes. For some reason, they never have to deal with the possibility of waking up with the head of their significant others next to them, or being sent shoeboxes with their childrens' fingers and genitals, or being fired from their jobs and evicted from their homes (and since it's a western, they don't have to fear incarceration for their multiple, heinous crimes either).

Power Levels

Reed Richards doesn't get smarter or "more elastic" with time. With very few exceptions (like Iron-Man), a superhero gets his superpowers and they mostly stay the same throughout their career. While every (print) decade or so an event may increase the hero's powers, they are given as a straight bump with an in-story explanation (like Captain America getting an indestructible shield during the Secret Wars, and Spider-Man getting the infamous black costume). Most important, a superhero always stays within a same "league" so to speak: No matter how many decades' worth of issues pass, you'll never see Batgirl duking it out with Parallax (not without being butchered at least, see Zero Hour). There are two exceptions to this rule, however, the first one is writers, as writers with favorites then to give specific characters unreasonable boosts as long as they're writing the title. The second exception is characters with "power of plot": Back in the silver age, Superman was plainly as strong as the story needed him to be.

(This was NOT the cover of Action Comics #1,

because this is NOT how the superhero genre works)

Shounen anime, on the other hand, goes full on "videogame logic." Shounen anime series are "zero-to-hero" narratives where the hero is constantly gaining "experience levels" in a steady vertical growth and acquiring new powers whenever a stronger villain appears. The hero starts like an apprentice and ends up like unto the gods, much like a game of Dungeons and Dragons.

Group Dynamics

In teams, superheroes have peers... alas, peers with egos just as big as theirs. Each superhero is used to be the big fish in the pond, and to do things their way; because of this, in-fighting is common in hero teams, and their greatest weakness is usually their lack of cohesion. Only when they manage to set aside their differences long enough to get things done is that they come victorious. Superhero teams may or may not go for the Five Man Band format, but in either case, the spotlight rotates among team members as much as possible, giving each the chance to save the day regularly (even Hawkeye, and he's the butt of all Avengers' jokes).

(Now picture them trying to decide on where to go for lunch)

Shounen anime presents an interesting contradiction here. You see, while in the theory, the hero needs the friendship and strength of his merry men to overcome adversity, in the practice all that pretty talk goes out of the window about one third into the story, point at which the rest of the casting gets their "experience points" income cut in half so they can get invariably left in the dust by the main protagonist, who is then stated as the one and only valid savior, and the only one who is in any position to face the subsequent monsters of the following seasons. While the merry men still get symbolic promotions, once badass decay settles in, the merry men's fuction in the narrative is reduced to serving as a buffer of human shields so the hero can run the gauntlet set by the monster of the season with as little damage as possible.

(See that name in the title? It's MINE, so stay back, bitches!)

The Role of Women

It's 2017, and I'm still asking WHERE's NATASHA? Much to my dismay, in 2017, the Big Two are still pretty much a boys' club. However, while boys outnumber girls by at least 20 to 1, we have at least a handful of big-league superheroines (see Wonder Woman, Sue Richards, Raven, Jenny Sparks, Jean Grey/Phoenix, Scarlet Witch, Squirrel Girl) to say with confidence that we DO have superheroines that are actually super on their own right. Alas, as already mentioned, the industry is still largely a boys' club, and with the illustrious, aforementioned exceptions, women are not only painfully underrepresented in superhero comics, they are also made purposefully vulnerable. Every superhero goes through dark moments, but heroines are intentionally bereft of the plot armor inherent to male heroes, and are prone to being killed, depowered, and otherwise destroyed with impunity (Women In Refridgerators, anyone?).

(Because nothing says "drama" like killing or maiming a heroine

just to rouse the manly hero into action... NOT)

Now, for women in shounen anime... oh boy, where do I start? While superhero comics have been dragging their feet the last two decades, the industry at least acknowledges we live in different times now (to a degree), whereas shounen anime is unrepentant in its firm belief that we're still in 1950. A lot of people read manga in Japan, and there are genres for almost all demographics... in this case, shounen manga/anime is aimed strictly at a male teen demographic... or rather, a male -juvenile- demographic... a male, juvenile, misogynistic demographic, to be precise: Women in shounen anime are written specifically to be The Chick of the Five Man Band, and are there strictly to be love interests, damsels in distress, or backstage support for the big boys. While a female co-protagonist will always possess a useful skill or even be presented as an apparent badass, once the chips are down, all pretensions of competence will be dropped like a hot potato and she'll be invariably beaten like a chump, relying on the manly man of a protagonist to pull her bacon out of the fire. Even when the story requires the woman to be pivotal to the monster of the season's downfall and even if she actually has the means to do so, it is only after she is mansplained motivated by the manly man that she'll realize her own strength  (See Clockwork Planet). Only rarely you'll see a true Action Girl in shounen anime (like Kill La Kill's Ryuko Matoi), and there will always be a catch to keep the target audience happy (namely, all the fanservice in Kill La Kill).

(Oh, sorry Erza, did you really think you were the team's ace?)

Note: While this is a comparison and not a competition, in this area, both sides are almost as bad.

The Hero's Journey

Because of their episodic nature and need to keep an unchanging premise, superhero stories are narratives without a third act: there's no Return and no Freedom to Live, Batman will never hang the cowl. Instead, every time the narrative enters its act 2, something happens and things revert to the second half of act 1 before things reach the point of no return (or sometimes, right after the point of no return, but the farther you take it from there, the more stupid the retcon will look, see One More Day and Maximum Clonage). In the most egregious cases, superheroes live frozen in time: Batman has been 28 years old for almost a century now, and even when his narrative includes 10 years of sidekicks, he is still 28.

(And I want my 20 minutes back)

While the Monster of the Season part of every shounen anime is always the same formula, the Coming of Age part follows Campbell's structure to a Tee. Depending on the series' popularity, however, the return to normalcy may or may not be followed by the Monster of the Season iterations. While shounen anime stories are meant to have an ending, and most do, successful authors risk becoming prisoners of their own success and casted into the hell of churning filler issues and monster of the season iterations until they die (see One Piece).

(There, I just spoiled you the plot of every 

shounen anime ever. You're welcome)

Conclusion: Both genres are action oriented, and both are about heroic figures who stand head-and-shoulders above the norm, but each genre has its own unique method to get there, and the results obtained are different for each.

Peace.

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Daleks, Face Punching, and "Disproportionate Response"

When either of opposing sides in a conflict adopts a Dalek stance of genocide and/or "ethnic cleansing," all civility has been pre-emptively stabbed in the face and the possibility of any peaceful solution becomes zero.

You can't reason with daleks, you can't bargain with daleks, and you'll never be able to peacefully co-exist with daleks, for as long as they exist, they'll try to destroy you and everything you stand for time and time again until they succeed.

And that's the catch for them: Good has to be forever vigilant, evil only has to win once.

This is the reason why being actually committed to tolerance requires immediate rejection of any philosophy of hatred, and expedient action whenever such hate groups form and acquire power... and if the institutions won't do something about it, you must, physically and forcefully if necessary (for the reading-impaired: Because if you don't, the intolerant ones will kill you, and tolerance dies with you).

So, when the nazis' ultimate goal is either to run you out of your own country or kill you, is a "punch in the face" a disproportionate response?

Yes... disporportionately HARMLESS.

How come Arpaio (or the Fergusson killers in blue, or their successors, etc) hasn't been greeted by a lynching mob yet is anyone's guess. The people is not angry enough, not by a long shot. I hope it's not too late by the time they finally are.

Peace (just remember the price of peace, just saying).

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Mei, Hollywood Fatness, and Wish Fulfillment

Last Wednesday, Blizzard uploaded a beautiful video on the "origin story" of Mei, one of Overwatch' characters... and  inevitably, the theme of her weight came about at the twittersphere.

Number One: No, Mei isn't fat, she's just thick, and calling her "plus sized" just because she isn't a willowy size 0 is probably offensive to actual plus-sized people.

If anything, she'd be videogames' equivalent to "Hollywood Fat."

Number Two: She isn't even meant to to be "fat."

As some of you know, Overwatch was originally meant to be the superhero MMO dubbed "Project Titan" while in development (which was cancelled, but then the devs re-pitched as the arena FPS you now know, for which they just re-used prior game assets)... and there are no fat superheroes.

Now put down your torches and pitchforks, people, I'm not done yet. Let's get into context:

In the classical sense, the superhero genre is first and foremost a power fantasy. Superheroes are not about what we -are-, but about FANTASIZING. Yes, it's important that we learn to love and accept ourselves as we are (or alternatively, improve, if it is within our means), but if you can't love yourself while reading Superman then I can only pity your inability to tell reality from fiction (and recommend you to stay away from open windows before you get yourself killed trying to fly).

Mei's physique, while on the thick side, is still an idealized version of her body type. If we were bringing "realizms" to the table, she'd be an endomorph who goes through great pains just to stay the way she is now.

Now, while there are in fact two schools of the superhero genre, the "Marvel vs. DC" thing will have to wait for another post.

Peace.

P.D: In case you missed the video: