Curse you April! Get out of my sight you misbegotten month of malicious malcontent!
After a long and arduous battle, my life has succeeded where a powerful plethora of presumptuous paladins have paled with their paltry powers. April has defeated my attempt to unleash my victorious volley of vile villainy.
I am not going to make it. I have failed to best the A-to-Z Blog Challenge.
Real world concerns, both positive and pains in the posterior, have finally found the fatal flaw in my otherwise fiendish and foolproof plan.
But no matter. There will come...a reckoning. My twenty-six member army of evil will have its revenge!
From now until I complete my list, Sundays are Supervillain Sundays here at Barking Alien!
After a long and arduous battle, my life has succeeded where a powerful plethora of presumptuous paladins have paled with their paltry powers. April has defeated my attempt to unleash my victorious volley of vile villainy.
I am not going to make it. I have failed to best the A-to-Z Blog Challenge.
Real world concerns, both positive and pains in the posterior, have finally found the fatal flaw in my otherwise fiendish and foolproof plan.
But no matter. There will come...a reckoning. My twenty-six member army of evil will have its revenge!
From now until I complete my list, Sundays are Supervillain Sundays here at Barking Alien!
You have been warned...
***
There, I said it. I got that off my chest. I can release the breath I've been holding in for the last hour. It's the truth, it sucks but I can live with it.
Between two jobs, freelance, tax time, being sick and trying to get in some time to game with my friends, I simply couldn't also finish this challenge.
That realization and admission super stinks but, as my boss and good friend would say, "It is what it is."
***
In other news..
.
The Marvel Heroic Role Playing Game from Margaret Weiss Productions is no more.
The official announcement on their website is here. To read the comments below the news, highlight them as someone thought it a good idea to have dark text appear on a dark background (at least that's how it appears on my smartphone and home computer).
As I wrote to my friend and fellow blogger WQRobb:
"From everything I've seen, I am saddened by this but by no means surprised. After nearly a year on the market, the only items in the stores (in New York City - the city of, roughly, a gazillion people) were the softcover core rulebook, the hardcover Civil War book and the hardcover Civil War book with the rulebook inside it.
Wow. How diverse.
Wow. How diverse.
Sure there were lots of things online and I know the gaming industry thinks 'Online is The New Tomorrow, Today!', but unless something announces these releases that I am always looking at or receiving, all I know if what I see when I walk into my local game store, comic shop, Barnes & Nobles/Waldenbooks, etc. I see nothing new on the shelves, I assume (consciously or unconsciously) like the game is unsupported."
Note: Yes, I am still old school enough to want a book I can touch. I like the smell, feel and easy of paper. I like to support my local stores so our tanking economy tanks less (or at least slower). I walk into stores to buy things but I often find no one is making things for me to buy. Then I find out they are online. After the thing is no longer produced / in vogue / of interest / as cool or better than what's out now / take your pick.
"It didn't help that they opened with Civil War either. Much like Identity Crisis for DC, what was a very popular and critically acclaimed series at the time of its release is much maligned or simply forgotten now. It has little to no bearing on the current state of Marvel Comics. Most of the dead characters from it and even its aftermath are now alive. No one remembers Peter Parker is Spiderman. It really isn't a very good or action packed series to start out with from a Superhero gamer stand point."
Oh well. It is an interesting system and I'm sure it will see a lot of use at conventions. No real campaign sustainability limits its use outside that venue anyway.
On a related note...
The fourth and final book in the DC Adventures RPG series from Green Ronin, DC Adventures Universe, is available on PDF and for pre-order. Although it is disappointing to realize that this is the last of the DC Comics RPG items with official Mutants & Masterminds 3E stats, I am happy it is ending on this particular note. If they had waited too, too long, DC's current 52iness might have crept in, rendering the product uninteresting and useless. This book is not only the last hurrah for DC Adventures but in some ways, the last hurrah of the pre-Nu52 DC milieu.
Now here's a thought...maybe, with MWP no long producing a Marvel Comics RPG, Green Ronin could swing a virtually identical four book deal with Marvel. Hmmm? Oh the possibilities...
May approaches. Take us out Mr. Sulu. Ahead, warp factor 6.
AD
On a related note...
The fourth and final book in the DC Adventures RPG series from Green Ronin, DC Adventures Universe, is available on PDF and for pre-order. Although it is disappointing to realize that this is the last of the DC Comics RPG items with official Mutants & Masterminds 3E stats, I am happy it is ending on this particular note. If they had waited too, too long, DC's current 52iness might have crept in, rendering the product uninteresting and useless. This book is not only the last hurrah for DC Adventures but in some ways, the last hurrah of the pre-Nu52 DC milieu.
Now here's a thought...maybe, with MWP no long producing a Marvel Comics RPG, Green Ronin could swing a virtually identical four book deal with Marvel. Hmmm? Oh the possibilities...
***
AD
Barking Alien
Don't be hating the Doctor...
ReplyDeleteSorry Rob but color me confused.
DeleteI'm not hating on Dr. Doom, I practically wrote the opening of this post from his perspective. 😖
I liked a lot some of your villains (particularly Endgame and King Kaiju), so I'm looking forward to see the rest of them. On the other hand, Star Trek is what brought me to your blog... :)
ReplyDeleteWhy thank you Valerius. On both counts. :)
ReplyDeleteI'll be watching your Sunday posts but remember it's 10 points off for turning your work in late.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Marvel I am working on my own post but I mostly agree with you. I don;t have a problem with the making Civil War an Event Book, but I do have a problem with them making it the FIRST event book.
Keep pushing for the four book M&M Marvel series - I've got your back on that one. It would be awesome just to have DC & Marvel in the same system, let alone the actual content.
I never was able to understand MHRP due to its lousy writing. I know I was annoyed that the main Avengers and classic villains were not included but clowns I have never heard of were statted up for me. And their idea of a game session was for me to reenact bad comic book events? Bizarre. Would've made more effort to learn and play it if they had given me the classic characters (no Hulk, no Thor, no Hawkeye? with Avengers in theaters?!) and an actual adventure or three rather than "Hey, play out the first few issues of New Avengers from half a decade ago" (how suspenseful). Good riddance, says I. Would be cool if M&M did a Marvel version right.
ReplyDeleteI think the Marvel Heroic RPG, as a thing on to itself, was actually a pretty innovative and mechanically brilliant idea.
DeleteThe system and the tone it both emulated and set was perfect for modern Marvel comics.
Where the game failed or more accurately 'missed the mark' was in its lack of user friendly descriptions of the system and its marketing choices.
Possibly its biggest fault is that it was designed with Superhero comic fans in mind and not its actual audience, Superhero gamers.