I 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.
Book Review: Kings of the Wyld
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.
Continue readingSupers RPG Experimentation: B-Ko.
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.
Continue readingAzBat runs into a couple more back members of Batman’s Rogue’s Gallery – Lady Clayface and Clayface III.
My Video Game & Anime New Year’s Resolutions for 2024
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.
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Anime Review: Our Dating Story
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).
Continue readingIt’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.
Anime Review: Girlfriend, Girlfriend Season 2
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.
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Anime Review: Bullbuster
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.
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Book Review: Designers & Dragons (Vol. 1-4)
It’s time to kick off the new year with a look at a series of nonfiction books that I finished reading last year.
I try to climb the outside of the Tower, to retrieve a Skull from the top, without success.