I may have to spring for Mutants & Masterminds…
I heard today that the new supplement, Mecha & Manga
I don’t watch much anime these days, but I’m a fan from way back, and manga and anime style have informed my roleplaying for almost two decades. A well-done anime RPG or sourcebook always catches my attention. And this one is by my old friend Alejandro Melchor, who previously wrote the Kitsunemori campaign setting for third edition. I know he does quality work.
All of that, on top of the good things I keep hearing about Mutants & Masterminds
Anyone have anything to report about Mutants & Masterminds that might help push me over the edge? Or about Mecha & Manga specifically?
Categories: Industry News | Comments (2)
What are the Best 4e Ability Score Arrays?
I’ve been following an interesting thread about 4e ability score arrays at ENWorld. Poster 77IM calculated all of the possible arrays on a 22-point buy, and posted the list. Turns out there are 121 unique arrays, in case you were wondering.
Then the analysis began.
Categories: Philosophy and Rants, Player Advice | Comments (3)
Review: Divine Power
Divine Power
I was previously pretty happy with Martial Power and Arcane Power, and based on my initial reading, Divine Power
As I mentioned in earlier reviews of the Power series, this sort of class-focused supplement has been pretty common in D&D’s history, with varying levels of quality showing in the finished products — but the Power books tend to fall toward the top of the quality scale. This is still true of Divine Power.
I should mention, perhaps, that I’ve had a long-standing fondness for the cleric class, and that I’ve found avengers and invokers equally attractive since their introduction to 4e D&D. So maybe I’m a little biased. After looking through the book, though, I’d have to say even paladins come off pretty well now. This might be my favorite Power book yet.
Categories: Reviews | Comments (2)
“No, Wait…”
Order of the Stick #1, by Rich Burlew. Upgraded to 3.5e!
There’s an interesting thread at the Giant in the Playground forums that deals, in part, with retracting an in-character action. (As a side note, if you’re not reading the Order of the Stick comic at GitP, you really should. There’s a lot of terrific gaming humor there.)
Among the questions the original post poses is the following:
- Do you allow your players to revise an action, if, a second or so later, they remember themselves why they shouldn’t do that?
There is, naturally, quite an array of views on the matter. Some espouse the “you said it, it’s done” school of thought. Others allow retractions with few restrictions. There’s a lot of ground in between. General opinion seems to fall toward “it depends,” which I realize isn’t terribly dramatic. But the question of what, exactly, it depends on remains intriguing.
Categories: Comics, Manga, and Anime, Philosophy and Rants, Websites | Comments (2)
Mythic Japan: the Tengu
A tengu and a Buddhist monk. Print by Kyosai.
The tengu of Japanese legend is an odd creature. It seems to have started out as a type of evil spirit, specifically one opposed to Buddhism. Over the years, the priest-abducting, temple-burning bird-monster became both more humanlike and more benevolent. Tengu became mischievous, powerful creatures not unlike kitsune fox-spirits, and eventually became protectors of Buddhism, seekers of wisdom, and master swordsmen — though they retained their weakness of pride. It became common to ascribe to great swordsmen, such as Minamoto no Yoshitsune, tengu training.
Obviously they make a great addition to a game that features mythic Japanese elements.
The Kenku of D&D, which was introduced to fourth edition in the Monster Manual 2, is clearly based on the tengu, but its attributes have changed to reflect its place in D&D lore. The kenku could be used to reflect the mischievous version of the tengu, but it’s a poor match for the demons, and even for the wise blademasters.
So I used stats of my own. In 4e, they look like this:
Categories: Mythic Japan, Original Game Content | Comments (0)
