While I’m caught up on the Rivers of London novels, I’ve fallen behind on a couple of the novellas – at the end of 2023, I decided to get caught up on those novellas. The first I decided to get caught up on was Winter’s Gifts. The novel focuses on Special Agent Kimberley Reynolds (first appearing in Whispers Underground), and introduces the demimonde of the United States to the series, the same way that The October Man introduced the demimonde of Germany.
Read moreI give my thoughts on an opinion piece by Ben Riggs (author of “Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons”) about how the Golden Age of RPGs has ended by moving away from a D&D 5e focused monoculture – and argue that he’s not just a little wrong – he’s a lot wrong.
December’s Sword & Laser Book Club pick was a Dungeon Fantasy novel, Kings of the Wyld, one that takes a different spin on the “Adventuring Band” concept – treating the “Band” idea like a rock band.
Read more
Waaayyy back in August 0f 2023 I did a post experimenting on creating characters for Sentinels of the Multiverse and Marvel Multiverse RPG based on A-Ko from Project A-Ko. I intended to follow up not long later with a write-up of B-Ko, but I never got around to it. Well, it’s time to follow up. This time I’m just doing a write-up of B-Ko for Marvel Multiverse, because that was easier to work with than with Sentinels of the Multiverse, mechanically.
Read moreAzBat runs into a couple more back members of Batman’s Rogue’s Gallery – Lady Clayface and Clayface III.
With a new year come some New Year’s Resolutions – and like many fans of video games and anime, I have a massive pile of shame, when it comes to series that I’m trying to get through each year. So, I’d like to try to make a dent in that, and hopefully, a public resolution will help. So, these are my New Year’s Resolutions for 2024.
Read more
Our Dating Story: The Inexperienced Me and the Experienced You almost feels like the polar opposite of Girlfriend, Girlfriend. While Girlfriend, Girlfriend is aggressively polyamorous with some hints at bisexuality, Our Dating Story is very monogamous and heterosexual. The other series is very horny, much more horny than the first season, while Our Dating Story is fairly chaste (while being aware of sex).
Read moreIt’s time to look back on the year that was, with 8 picks for my top Anime (along with 2 honorable mentions, which I guess means it’s 10) of 2023.
The core refrain of the first season of Girlfriend, Girlfriend was “They are such horny idiots.” – That refrain remained true in the second season of the series, with the addition of another Horny Idiot to the series.
Read more
When Bullbuster was announced, it was viewed as a more grounded successor series to Dai-Guard, a Super Robot anime series that had its tongue firmly embedded in cheek, as it grappled with the tough questions of how do you financially justify operating a Super Robot to fight kaiju. Bullbuster revisits those questions, except with a more grounded Real Robot (though still fighting fairly large monsters), and couches the story in the conflict between small businesses and big corporations.
Read more
