I tend to think that his should be an automatic success.

A few weeks ago, in our Iron Kingdoms campaign, my friend Dan made what I think was a spectacular roll.  When the GM asked for a d6 roll, Dan's die came up corner "corner".  There is no trickery in these photos, the die actually landed and stayed on it's corner.  Indeed one of the craziest rolls that I've seen on my 35+ years of gaming.  Does anyone else have photos of wacky or improbable die rolls?

Some Film Inspiration for your Dungeon Crawling Enjoyment

Several years ago, I came across a lesser known German horror film from 1967 luridly entitled The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism.  As it starred Christoper Lee, and as I am a notorious sucker for bad horror flicks, I was of course obliged to watch it.  While the film falls squarely into the realm of gothic horror, I found that it provides great dungeon crawl inspiration as well.  Let's start with the characters who feel almost as if they were rolled up from a Dungeon Crawl Classics zero level table.  We have a Nobleman, a music teacher, a priest/highwayman, and a serving girl.  These three embark upon an overland journey by carriage to a mysterious castle which is said to be ruined, and about which the locals refuse to speak.  Their journey takes them through a phantasmagoric landscape of blood red skies and a forest where human limbs sprout from the trees, and dead bodies line the roadway.  Upon arriving at the castle they find that much like many classic dungeons, it turns out to be a ruin where only the dungeons below remain.  Descending into the dungeon, the heroes find themselves in a maze of twisting passages filled with secret door and falling portcullises.  Disturbing frescoes festoon the walls, and skulls abound.  The characters are obliged to explore this underworld by torchlight and encounter things like huge buzzards, a zombie, and an axe wielding vampire along with a multitude of deadly traps.  A pit trap opens beneath one of the daring explorers.  A sleep gas trap knocks a character out.  A retracting walkway threatens to drop one of the characters into a pit filled with poisonous serpents.  Now all of these things don't make for a great movie, and the ending is a bit unsatisfying, but the set design is great and it really got me in the mood to do some dungeon designing.  For those interested in checking it out, the film is currently available on Amazon Video, and it's free to Amazon Prime members.

R.I.P George Barris

Sad news for my 500th post.  George Barris, the automobile customizer responsible for the iconic 1966 Batmobile and the Munster's car has died at the age of 89. :-(  Say what you will about the campiness of the show, but that car was awesome.

Wow, 40 years.

40 years ago today, Queen released the single Bohemian Rhapsody from their album A Night at the Opera.

Queen never seemed to get much respect in their heyday, but in retrospect, they really were quite amazing.

The Superhero Dilema

      I like superheroes.  I've really enjoyed the recent Marvel films, I still read Batman comics, love playing the Arkham games, and really like watching the Awesomes, but for some reason, I've never been that crazy about superhero roleplaying games.  Oh, I've played them.  In college we played Champions occasionally, and a few years ago we played a friend's home-brew system, but I've always been more a fan of guys with swords.  So where am I going with this?  Well, lately I've been feeling the urge to run a superhero game, and as usually happens, I'm debating which system I would use.  In my mind, the game would be a one-off, rather than a regular campaign, and I would want the flexibility to create characters of varying types.
     To me, the seemingly obvious answer is Champions / Hero System, but it's not as clear cut as all that.  While I know that Champions and the Hero System have a bit of a reputation for complexity, the core mechanics (3d6 roll under) is pretty simple.  The heavy lifting comes with character creation, which is a bit of a double edged sword.  While Champions lets you create just about anything you can conceive of, it can get a bit overwhelming if you don't already have a concept.  Building the powers can be a bit of a turn-off to some, but once the characters are done, the game flows pretty smoothly.  Combats do tend to take a bit of time, but that's pretty much in keeping with comic books where you generally only see one big fight per issue.
     Mutants and Masterminds of course is in the mix.  I love the DC Universe supplements which means that I'd never run out of ready-made antagonists, but it doesn't seem to be that much lighter then Champions.  Character creation still seems to be the stumbling block for new players, but man is it a beautiful book.
     GURPS is that game that I've always wanted to love, but just don't quite.  Sort of like Champions without all the stats, which is probably why I'm not that fond of it.  Had I come to GURPS before I'd ever played The Hero System, I'm guessing that this would have been my go-to game, but it didn't happen that way.  Plus, I'd need to tote around at least 3 books just to do character creation.
     So maybe Savage Worlds?  It's a great system for pulp games, and would probably be awesome for a costumed vigilantes fighting Nazis type game, but I'm not sold on it for straight up Superheroes.  I need to do a d6 only have for Savage worlds, as I'm just a fan of using d-sixes and.
     Finally, we come to Icons.  I picked up the Assembled edition last winter and it really seems to scratch that more rules light while still doing supers itch that I seem to have.  I like the idea of random superhero creation, and it uses all six sided dice.
     In the end, this doesn't really go anywhere.  I doubt that I'll run anything soon, but it may e a fun diversion for the times when all of our regular group can't get together.  I think that either Champions or Icons would win out, but who knows?

Miniatures Monday

This week or Miniatures Monday, we have the last member of our Iron Kingdoms party, Voldrag the Doomreaver.  The Fellblade was a bit tricky, and I had a tough time deciding which pieces of armor to do in red, but overall I'm fairly pleased with the results.

Miniatires Monday

For this week's Miniatures Monday, we are continuing with miniatures from our current Iron Kingdoms campaign.  Here we have a couple of photos of Ellyon the Warcaster in his coal powered armor.

Miniatures Monday

This weeks for miniatures Monday, we have an alchemist from the Iron Kingdoms.  This is one of the miniatures that I painted to represent the adventuring party in our current campaign.  He's a bit monochromatic, but he is an alchemist, and I'm not sure that they are the flashiest of dressers. :-)

Miniatures Monday

This weeks we have another Iron Kingdoms miniatures.  This one is  a warjack intended to represent our gobber's's steamjack.  All of the rivets took a bit of time to paint. :-)

Wrecking Crew: Work In Progress

It's no secret that I enjoy painting miniatures, and for years I've been intending to paint miniatures to match the characters from whatever campaign we are playing.  Sadly, I tend to be a rather slow painter, and it seemed that just as I was finishing the first miniature, the campaign would end.  This time I set out from the very start of our Iron Kingdoms game to collect and paint miniatures that I felt matched our characters, and amazingly enough, they are nearing completion!  Oddly enough, my Doomreaver (in the center) is the farthest from being finished.

Miniatures Monday

A gobber miniature for our Iron Kingdoms game.  I'm actually pretty pleased with how this one turned out, but then how can anyone be sad about a miniature with a spyglass and a pocketwatch? :-)

Best action figure ever.

No, seriously.  Words fail me.

Random Artwork: Mountains at Night

Just something that I sketched the other day.  A precariously leaning tower atop some impossible mountains, and yes, the moon is made of green cheese.

Miniatures Monday

Miniatures Monday this week brings us a Black Orc Hero from Reaper Miniatures.  I intend to use this miniatures as on Ogrun for Iron Kingdoms, so I painted him in colors more suitable to that.  I'm pretty satisfied with how this one came out, even though the flesh wash was a bit darker than I wanted.

Miniatures Monday

This week, Miniatures Monday brings us two photos of a red robed cultist wearing some groovy purple slippers and wielding a bloody dagger.  No doubt, this fellow is up to no good, probably out looking for his next sacrificial victim.  I've never been particularly good at painting large areas of red, and while I did some shading on this one, I'm still not particularly satisfied with how he turned out.