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The Infinitely Expanding World of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition

June 14, 2022 by krisis Leave a Comment

The first email list I ever joined was about Dungeons & Dragons.

I’m always surprised when I remember this.

Image by ScalyDragon from Pixabay

I wasn’t all that into D&D as a newly-minted teenager. I had never even played it. To that point I only knew it by the lingering reputation of its satanic panic and because that one stereotypical metalhead in my 8th grade class played it.

Yet, I had recently made the connection that the finite worlds of video game RPGs like Final Fantasy could be emulated in Dungeons & Dragons.

Between obsessions with comic books and music, I begged for a set of the core trio of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books as a gift, and spent spare moments imagining the worlds that could be built with them while trying to understand exactly how ThAC0 worked.

Thus, early in my days on AOL, I joined a D&D email list.

I fucking tormented them with my terrible ideas. I wanted panthers with wings a a playable race because I had made them up in a fantasy story I was writing. I wanted every character from Final Fantasy 3(/VI) as a playable class because that was my doorway into D&D.

I’m not sure if I got kicked off or if I wandered away dejected when no one liked my ideas. I never did wind up playing much D&D.

If you were on that mailing list: I’m sorry. I now fully understand the pain of having to occupy the same internet as the entire world of overeager teenagers.

I’ve fallen back in love with Dungeons & Dragons again over 25 years later for some of the same reasons I was enamored with it in the first place: it’s a vast storytelling system that is infinitely extensible and invitingly hackable. Any character or creature or setting you can imagine is just a fistful of stats away from fully existing in your campaign world.

The toy of Mon*Star was the perfect scale to swat a G.I. Joe out of battle as if he was kicking a puppy.

I love that. I’ve always loved that! I was the kid who always wished all of his toys could be the same scale so they could inhabit the same worlds as each other. Even if they weren’t that wasn’t going to stop me from having my Super Friends Wonder Woman team up with my G.I. Joes to fight Mon*Star from Silverhawks.

That D&D mailing list was a small window into the world of extending and hacking D&D at the time. There were also 3rd party D&D products, although you’d be forgiven if you never got to them because there were so many official D&D materials to choose from it felt like you could never even see them all, let alone own them all.

(I’m sure someone on that listserv owned them all. They probably hated me.)

Over the years, Dungeons & Dragons has increasingly realized the sheer power of that infinite extensibility. In 2000, Wizards of the Coast released the 3rd Edition of D&D and, alongside it, the concept of the D20 System and the Open Gaming License (OGL).

Simply put, the D20 System meant you could expand on the established rules of D&D with your own products bearing the D&D logo, but you could not supplant the need for a core rulebook

The accompanying Open Gaming License meant you could use, change, or omit any of the rules and mechanics of D&D with the brand and lore filed off like a forgotten serial number.

This freed Wizards of the Coast from having to produce disposable, low-profit books of adventures to keep their players glued to their tables. Any company could produce a derivative work to offer to D&D players via the D20 system, which could be as minor as a few new monsters, or via the OGL, which could be an entire gaming world and system that just happened to use D&D mechanics. That means you could officially use D&D rules for a modern day setting, or a sci-fi story – not only at your home table, but in a published work.

Fast forward to the present day and the current 5th Edition of D&D – 5e, for short, which has been in play since 2014. [Read more…] about The Infinitely Expanding World of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition

Filed Under: games Tagged With: 5e, 5e Compatible, D&D Beyond, DMsGuild, Dungeons & Dragons, kickstarter, TTRPG Tuesday

It’s time to DIE – pre-order the deluxe hardcover AND the role-playing game!

June 7, 2022 by krisis Leave a Comment

DIE is a brilliant comic book about role-playing from Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans, and Clayton Cowles.

DIE is also a brilliant storytelling role-playing game (RPG) from Kieron Gillen and Rowan, Rook and Decard.

This takes some explaining.

The thing you need to know right now is that if you want a deluxe physical copy of the RPG you have only three more days to Kickstart it, and if you want a deluxe physical copy of the entire comic run you can pre-order it right now (including pre-ordering from your local comic shop – yes, it’s already time to pre-order November hardcovers).

Okay, now on to the explaining!

DIE is one of the most-fascinating indie comic books of the past few years, both in concept and execution. The comic has already come and gone – it ran for 20 self-contained issues from December 2018 to September 2021 in four tight 5-issue arcs with no fluff.

(Mild first-issue spoilers lie ahead.)

The story started something like Stranger Things: 25th Anniversary Reunion.

A group of friends used to play role-playing games together in high school, but it ended with their sudden, inexplicable disappearance – and just-as-sudden reappearance years later, minus one member of their party and with a bevy of physical and psychological scars.

Where were they? They’ve never uttered a word about it to each other or anyone else and went on with their lives. Some of them were successful, some started families, while others could never shake their trauma and subsequent guilt.

On the anniversary of their disappearance they receive an unsettling reminder of their shared experience and they cannot help but be sucked back into something they know is much more serious and deadly than any game.

There are plenty of “real world people are transported into fantasy” stories out there, but DIE had a special, undeniable magic to it.

Central to that were the real world characters – five wounded adults, some of whom had spent their lives trying to be completely different than their game characters while others chased after becoming more like their fictional selves. They each had relatable stories about loss, addiction, identity, and disability, and those themes were amplified by the fantastical world around them.

As the story progressed, it became clear that this was a fantasy story with a very specific structure. In fact, the structure was so well-formed we could refer to it as a set of rules.

That’s because Kieron Gillen, in all of his wild genius, not only scripted a 20-issue comic story, but also the complete ruleset of the role-playing game the characters were playing in the story. [Read more…] about It’s time to DIE – pre-order the deluxe hardcover AND the role-playing game!

Filed Under: comic books Tagged With: DIE, Image Comics, kickstarter, Kieron Gillen, RPGs, Stephanie Hans, TTRPGs

Comic Book Review: Grief, an OGN anthology by Frank Gogol (launching TODAY on Kickstarter!)

April 4, 2017 by krisis

Launching today on Kickstarter is a campaign for Grief, an all-original graphic novel about sorrow and loss from writer Frank Gogol and a host of collaborators.

I’ve been lucky in my life to not have to grieve for many people or things I’ve lost for good. From the grief I have experienced, both personally and in supporting my friends, I’ve learned that grief is a permanently ongoing process. It isn’t a single thing or a passing feeling.

If you view it negatively, you could say grief is like a virus that has been introduced into your psyche, one for which there is no cure or permanent recovery. You can ignore it or build up defenses against it, but ultimately you need to experience it to begin to recover.

If you view it as an inevitable part of the human experience, you might instead think of grief like an update to your operating system. Some things will change that you wanted to stay the same. Other things will be streamlined or totally new to you. It will feel alien and miserable at first. Eventually, it will simply be how you operate.

Grief is much more in line with the latter perspective than the former. It’s not a lot of people having nervous breakdowns about how sad they are. It’s about characters coming to terms with a transformed life.

Frank Gogol shared an early copy of Grief with me for review, but the only way for you to get your hands on this comic is to pledge to Kickstarter – a digital copy is just $5!

Want to know more? Keep reading! 

Grief – stories by Frank Gogol (Kickstarter)

Written and designed by Frank Gogol. Line art by Nenad Cviticanin, Bethany Vani, Ryan Foust, Jey Soliva, and Kim Holm. Colors by Esther Gil-Munilla, Luca Bulgheroni, Nenad Cviticanin, Bethany Vani, and Emily Elmer. Letters by Sean Rinehart. Cover by Dani Martins.

Bottom line: This indie comic anthology themed on grief rarely cries, never preaches, and is surprisingly sparse on treacle. It packs its punch not with heroes (though there are a few) or tear-jerkers (though a few tales come close), but with story after story that squeeze meaningful character moments into just five pages each.

Grief is an anthology about all kinds of loss, but it’s not a downer. Instead, it’s an introspective look at how grief is a twisting path that can be full of sorrow and loss but also hope and gifts – sometimes both at once.

This series of ten vignettes each have an indie comic look and feel. The characters populate a world adjacent the high-flying, super-powered, magic-wielding heroes we love from glossy superhero comics. For some stories, we’re in the middle of that world, but in others we’re on the margins. Some of the tales could work as introductions to ongoing series, but others are complete and satisfying all on their own.

A page "Gravity," a story in Frank Gogol's Grief OGN with art by Nenad Cviticanin.

A page from “Gravity,” with art by Nenad Cviticanin.

Two of the best stories in the anthology, “Gravity” and “The World,” feel like pilots to incredible indie super comics that ought to be. Yet, their narrative punch comes from delivering truth about their characters in a handful of pages, not from big action beats.

By contrast, “Different” and “Highs and Lows” are both self-contained character studies, each about how you can find something new within loss. More pages wouldn’t change their stories – they might even lose their impact if they were longer.

Before I made it that deep into Grief, the first thing that struck me was that it looks like a major publisher comic book.

That’s remarkable.

There are many brilliant authors and artists in the indie crowdfunding world with genius to offer, but being good at their craft doesn’t make them good graphic designers.

We’ve all learned not to judge a book by its cover, but poor choices in colors, fonts, and layouts can kill a project before it ever finds a fanbase. Even many mid-sized comic publishers can’t design an attractive book jacket to save their lives (or businesses).

Grief‘s graphic design (by author Frank Gogol!) is strong, from the stark, shattered logo to the placid blue of the interstitial pages drawn by cover artist Dani Martins. It feels a lot like Jonathan Hickman’s approach to collection design, where even the chapter breaks are part of the story. [Read more…] about Comic Book Review: Grief, an OGN anthology by Frank Gogol (launching TODAY on Kickstarter!)

Filed Under: comic books, reviews Tagged With: Bethany Varni, Dani Martins, Emily Elmer, Frank Gogol, Grief, kickstarter, Nenad Cviticanin, Sean Rinehart

Kickstartered: Steve Lichman by Dave Rapoza & Dan Warren

July 13, 2016 by krisis

Given that my to-read pile of graphic novels is currently a nine-month backlog and my to-play pile of new games is at least six boxes deep, I thought it might not be a terrible idea to highlight things I receive from Kickstarter as they roll in, rather than whenever I get around to reviewing them.

Steve Lichman CoverSteve Lichman, Vol. 1 arrived a few weeks ago, and I must admit I had completely forgotten it existed since the Kickstarter campaign closed in October.

It only added to my confusion that the padded envelope I opened contained a cloth-bound hardcover book the size and heft of a novel with a skeleton debossed onto the cover in gold foil. Had I pledged to support a horror anthology?

In fact, this tome was a graphic novel – quite literally the nicest graphic novel I think I’ve ever received out of my collection of thousands of books. It has all of the external trappings of a beautiful signed-and-numbered 1st edition novel (mine is #5,518) and the paper and reproduction quality of a professionally produced comic collection – all for less than Marvel charges for a crap-quality six-issue trade paperback.

That means creators Dave Rapoza & Dan Warren self-published a literal 250 pages of comic all in one go. Given that the history of Kickstarter is littered with the failed projects of similarly ambitious creators, the quality of this project (and it hitting 1000% of its funding goal) makes more sense when you learn that Rapoza is a professional illustrator who works with client IP like Bethesda (Fallout, Elder Scrolls), Hasbro, and Blizzard (Warcraft), and on concept art for films like the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

It’s hard to explain exactly what it’s about. I guess it’s It’s sort of like Seinfeld if Jerry was a Lich and George was Dracula and their apartment was a dungeon? I don’t know, I’m an old, you can probably think of a better sitcom analogy than that after you read a lengthy preview of Steve Lichman on Rapoza’s site. Here’s their Kickstarter video:

As for how I found about this project or why I pledged… I’ll get back to you on that one. It literally doesn’t ring a single bell, and I can’t find mention of it on any of the comic sites I frequent. This might have literally been a blind pledge from browsing the Kickstarter comics section, and it could not have possibly turned out to be a better choice!

Here’s another pair of photos of their marvelous book! I’ve loved the humor first few pages and the illustrations are consistently great, so I’m looking forward to digging into this further when I dig deep enough into my to-read pile.

Steve Lichman Endpaper

Steve Lichman Interior

 

Filed Under: comic books Tagged With: Dan Warren, Dave Rapoza, kickstarter, Steve Lichman

Review: Heartbreak Quadrant: Phase One by Barrett Stanley

June 4, 2016 by krisis

There are three kinds of comic book Kickstarters.

One is from seasoned pros who want to do their own project – perhaps with a set of new intellectual property. A second is from indie creators who have published some work – perhaps digital only – and want to head to print to widen their potential audience. A third is from an unknown – maybe an artist in another medium, or maybe someone publishing their first work.

I’ve pledged to all three kinds of Kickstarters and I’ve seen all three fail. Yet, the first two have a leg up on the third in existing support and goodwill of their audience. You’re not likely to get angry at your favorite creator for telling you their project will be a month late or ten pages shorter than planned.

heartbreak-quadrant-phase-one-coverThe artists in that third category have no leeway, not an inch of slack. To convert you from one-time speculator to long-term supporter they have this single chance to win you over – to impress you on every level.

I’ve pledged to all three kinds of Kickstarters and I’ve seen all three succeed. Yet, the third are the ones that most often stun me.

Heartbreak Quadrant: Phase One 4 stars 

Story and art by Barrett Stanley. Buy Heartbreak Quadrant for $15 at the Red Grapefruit online store.

#140char review: Loved the penstrokes & handcrafted colors of Heartbreak Quadrant: 2 women space scavengers in a vivid sci-fi world full of personal touches.

CK Says: Consider it.

Heartbreak Quadrant is a vivid slice of sci-fi crammed with big ideas but primarily about people.

Ida and Kumi captain their own peculiar spaceship resembling a massive red grapefruit through a post-Earth universe full of genetically tampered-with people who covet the simplicity of artifacts of their old planet. Ida is practical, canny, and loyal. Kumi is impulsive, optimistic, and can be dangerous. As they recover from a job that was tougher than they anticipated (“a little trouble with a candy amplifier”), an old contact reaches out with a hard-to-fill request for the most-coveted artifact of all – a baseline human, or “blank.” [Read more…] about Review: Heartbreak Quadrant: Phase One by Barrett Stanley

Filed Under: comic books, reviews Tagged With: Barrett Stanley, Firefly, Heartbreak Quadrant, indie comics, kickstarter, space

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