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cnTextContent” valign=”top”>PORTLAND, Ore. 09/19/2023 — Bestselling, creative trailblazer Rick Remender has signed a three-yearexclusive contract with Image Comics, effective immediately. This exclusive gives Remender carte blanche on his upcoming titles and…

Miami, Florida, USA – American Mythology Productions is known for their popular line of classic comedy comicbooks, featuring icons like the Three Stooges, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Pink Panther, and many…

In this DIY rpg world, there are a lot of factions, cliques, theorists, declarations of movements, manifestos, categorizations. I'm not really adherent to any of these except in the loosest since of being an rpg enthusiast of a certain vintage, preferring games of a more traditional tabletop lineage (in which I would include most rpgs) rather than strictly story games, and being a member of the Hydra Co-op and enjoying the gaming material written and run by my fellow Hydra heads. I do have things that I like in games and try to produce in the games I run.

It should go without saying, but to make it clear, I don't necessarily think these things are better (though sometimes maybe I do!), they just happen to be my preference. Starting loosely with a list that gets quoted a lot in Old School and related circles that I believe was created by Scrap Princess allow, here's what I like:

1. Interact with the world. I want players to approach the world as if their characters are inhabiting it, not as a gloss over a rules set or just flavor. The world, however, isn't merely composed of (imaginary) physical objects and locations but of (imaginary) social relationships, and conventions of genre or setting.

2. There is nothing that is supposed to happen, but some outcomes are more likely given (1). The story is in the hands of the players, but the world is going to dictate some more likely outcomes of actions. To give absolute, unfettered agency is to violate the first principle, but there is always a high degree of variation within a broad outcome, and the player actions and preferences are going to determine how it all turns out.

3. The player is an actor but also a participant in a social activity. I don't mean actor in the arch sense of the stereotyped thespian behavior, but I mean that the player has the roll of portraying a character, but also in considering (in a somewhat metagame fashion) what makes sense for that character within the larger context of the "story" unfolding. (And by invoking "story" here, I don't mean in a preconceived way. I mean: given the inputs of character, setting, situation, and genre, what seems cool to the player to have happen?)   This differs from the stance of strictly playing the character, wherein the player gives no consideration to the big picture, which can lead (in my view) to a player becoming too involved in the character and viewing the character's losses or setbacks as a loss or setback for themselves. Also, "it's what my character would do" can lead to disruptive behavior at the table.

4. It's the player's job to make your character interesting and to make the game interesting for yourself and others. This follows logically, I think, from (3) and (1) and leads directly to (7) below. The GM is also a player in this regard.

5. The character sheet is the mediator between theory and result. Plans and actions should be conceived in line with (1) and a lesser extend (3), but the mechanics of the game should support the actions players are likely to engage in. The character sheet as the rules-based abstraction of the character's capabilities ought to have some role in that, otherwise why not just play pretend and dispense with it?

6. Player skill/talent is important. The way I see rpgs as "winnable" is not primarily in character survival or successfully achieving goals (though those things are far from insignificant) but rather in making the experience more fun or cooler. I like skills and related systems some old schoolers dislike, but I think good, clever roleplay and tactics--defined as ideas that are not merely sensible or logical in the abstract but are also entertaining, spur/inspire players, and show clear consideration and interaction with the sustained, consistent, imaginary world we are involved with--are crucial.

7. Sometimes your character will die, but it's seldom interesting to die pointlessly. Death can be an important possible outcome in rpgs and I don't generally favor removing it as an option (though perhaps some games make a case for this), but I don't find pointless death as a result of computer game style "gotchas" or super-swingy rolls fulfilling. It's more gamey perhaps than I typically want. Often, another sort of setback other than "start over" is a better option to me.

8. It's fun to try new things. New settings, new mechanics--all worth a go. I don't think there is a particular formula of the type of game I want to spend all my time with. To me, it would be akin to eating the same thing every day for lunch. It gets old. Sometimes that even means sampling something you already know you aren't going to like most of the time to see if you enjoy partaking of it rarely.

PETE TOWNSHEND’S LIFE HOUSE HC ON SALE DECEMBER 20 BASED ON MATERIALS BY PETE TOWNSHEND STORY JAMES HARVEY DAVID HINE ART JAMES HARVEY MAX PRENTIS COVER JAMES HARVEY DEAN PARIS…

BLACK’S MYTH TP WRITER | ERIC PALICKI ARTIST | WENDELL CAVALCANTI COVER | LIANA KANGAS B&W | 120 PAGES | $17.99 IN-STORE DATE | 2/4/2024 FOC DATE | 12/17/2023 A…

TITANS: BEAST WORLD #2 Written by TOM TAYLOR Art and cover by IVAN REIS and DANNY MIKI Variant covers by BJÖRN BARENDS and KENDRICK LIM Lenticular variant cover by NICK…

Title: Big Bang Adventures: Megatron # 2 Publisher: Big Bang Comics Story: Ray Mackay, Charlie Boatner Art: Ron C. Williams, Paul Bonanno Colors: Shayne Cui, Shayne Cui Price: $ 4.…

ABLAZE PUBLISHING Traveling To Mars #8 (Cover A Roberto Meli), $3.99 Traveling To Mars #8 (Cover B Miki Montllo), $3.99 Traveling To Mars #8 (Cover C Emanuele Gizzi), $3.99 Traveling…

Synopsis: Following the murder of Jason Todd, Barbara Gordon must choose between her life and her aspirations of finding and killing The Joker, Jason’s murderer. Directed by Kendall Felix Written…

This week’s Cosplay Girl of the Week If you would like to be the Cosplay Girl of the Week! Please send your photo to Giovanni.Aria@firstcomicsnews.com and you will be considered for inclusion in a future…

This week’s Cosplay Dude of the Week If you would like to be the Cosplay Guy of the Week! Please send your photo to Alex.Wright@firstcomicsnews.com and you will be considered…

This week’s Cosplay Team of the Week If you would like to be the Cosplay Team of the Week Please send your photo to Alex.Wright@firstcomicsnews.com and you will be considered…

Delilah Blast #1 Today is Delilah’s big day since she gets to join the Earth Science Association. Science runs the world and the Earth is governed by the E.S.A., the…

To the surprise of nobody who has followed my blog for any length of time, my productivity fell off the cliff right around the first of September. It MIGHT be that it coincided with the start of school. I just checked my history, and I often go from 20-30 posts in August to 1-3 in September, and then I start to slowly tick up again the following spring, peaking in the summer before crashing to earth again.
I managed to get a bunch of Army Ants pages in the pipeline by the end of summer, so I've been releasing new pages every day, and today finally hit the point where I had to go in and start adding more pages again. 
All of my creative energies at present are being devoted to staging our high school's production of "Romeo and Juliet", which I just cast on Tuesday and which has its first read through on Monday. I'm pretty jazzed for it. Maybe I'll share more about this at some point. I don't know if this will make as much sense to anyone else as it makes to me, but the pivotal fight sequence between Romeo, Mercutio, and Tybalt is underscored by the entirety of Ah-Ha's "Take on Me" and it's going to be sublime.
Trust me.
I would love to give you an update on gaming and comics stuff, but there isn't one, and I really just wanted to pop in, say hello, and remind you that the Army Ants pages are being remastered, released a page a day over on Comic Fury.  
I was thinking I might get a little solo gaming in this weekend, and the possibility is still out there... if so, I'll post about it. If not, I'll probably touch base again after "Romeo and Juliet" closes on October 27. 
Be well.

So, my favorite comic of the year has increasingly been coming from independent comics. This particular case comes from my San Diego comic con experience. I’ve been working on a…

WITH SPECIAL TRIBUTE SHOW THE QUEEN OF THE RING Los Angeles’ longest-running, most celebrated variety show (featuring world-class lucha libre-style wrestling, burlesque, aerialists, comedy, and more) returns to Los Angeles’…

  MILWAUKIE, Ore., (September 14, 2023)— Dark Horse and BioWare join forces once again to present three new Mass Effect statues that are sure to please fans of the beloved franchise. Mass Effect has endured as a fan-favorite,…

This January, experience a new chapter in Takashi Okazaki’s Ronin saga in Star Wars: Visions, the series of one-shots that see visionary creators boldly explore new territory for Star Wars…

Featuring the origin stories of Beauregard Lionett and Caduceus Clay MILWAUKIE, Ore., (September 14, 2023)— After diving into the backstories of Jester Lavorre, Caleb Widogast, Yasha Nydoorin, Fjord Stone, Nott the Brave,…

MISSOULA, MT (9/14/2023) – Vault Comics, in partnership with Slash of Guns N’ Roses, Shout! Studios, and Raven Banner Entertainment, will publish a comic book adaptation of the cult classic…