Fire n Dice

1st Anniversary Prize to 1st itunes reviewer. Welcome back to Kamigan via Owlcon as our players continue their quest to keep the town of Cua safe, but a new threat arises as they finally meet up with the mysterious Ghost Fox.

Happy Anniversary to Fire n Dice, it has been a full year since we began this adventure and as such I will be awarding a copy of BESM 2nd edition to the first itunes reviewer (in the continental US). All you have to do is be the first to write a review (preferably a positive one) in itunes and send a copy of that review with your name and mailing address to yuureighost@gmail.com and I will ship out your prize. Limited time only, good through Feb 29, 2012. So spread the word, tell your friends, and come join us at the next con. Rumour has it you might find us at Delta H con this June, stay tuned for more information.

Kamigan adventures return, this time through Big Eyes Small Mouth at Owlcon. New adventurers emerge to defend their home village of Cua while the rest of the country travels to the Imperial City to witness the Emperor's Coronation. Our guest players are (from left to right) Mikala, Alex, Jeff, Ghost (that's me in the middle), James, Derek, Kevin, and Hero is off screen taking the picture.

Beginning with the Big Eyes Small Mouth one shot being run this year at Rice University's Owlcon, Fire n Dice will be converting all of it's current campaigns to the Tri-Stat system published by Guardians of Order.  You've seen changes happening around here lately, Anima has become Kamigan after the setting, Wild Talents is now FeroCity, and Unknown Armies is Space City.  These are settings that I am creating with the help of players and plan on doing much more with them in the future.  The only constant is change, as they cliche, and that certainly holds much truth with FnD and Swing and a Miss.  Maybe we will switch to a different set of systems after Tri-Stat, who knows? What always remains is the setting.

Kamigan will continue to grow, the child emperor will begin a new reign, the Oda-Shichi will unleash their secret plots, and a soon to be revealed enemy from afar will begin a campaign of slaughter and domination over the entire known world.  What will become of Nyxth, Mofar, and Giri might never be known, but the world is vast and there are many stories yet to tell.

Space City still holds many secrets.  Magic, conspiracies, and a constant struggle across the border continue.  The Mnemosyne project still experiments on vessels, living bodies with no discernible consciousness, using them like radio receivers.  Brujos de Sinaloa will continue to traffic the Rio border, what their intentions are beyond self fulfillment is unknown, even to many of their own members.

VeloCity will see the rise of its sister city, FeroCity, come to power.  The super detectives may even make crossovers into the world of super mutants.

Also, new character profiles and stories will be added more regularly while a new group of players is being rounded up.  The new systems will be:
     Big Eyes Small Mouth - Kamigan
     Dreaming Cities - Space City
     Silver Age Sentinels - FeroCity

Preregistration for Owlcon is now open. You'll want to get in as early as possible, many games have already filled all their seats. Look for my games BESM "Dragons and Bandits" and Unknown Armies "Brujos de Sinaloa" and Hero's A Penny for My Thoughts games when perusing the list of tabletop games to choose from.

Very soon I will have character sheets for UA posted up under the Unknown Armies tab, just as the Kamigan character sheets were posted up under the Anima/BESM tab. Also sent off to have business cards made, should be in just in time for the convention. If anyone is interested in joining the gaming group to play in Kamigan or in a new upcoming superhero campaign (a companion to Hero's Wild Talents campaign in a new gaming system) contact Ghost at yuureighost@gmail.com and we will begin that immediately following the convention.

More to come.

Two annoying things that can happen playing a tabletop game at a convention are having to pick a pre-made character and figure out how that character is supposed to act, and/or making up my own character if the process is long and drawn out. No one time game should lose an hour of it's four hour limit to character creation, nor should I be playing the entire game wondering if I'm living up to the gm's expectations of what my character should be doing. I mean, the gm made this character (assuming the pre-made), I did not.

I'd never even imagined I could make my own character in a con game until I played Dogs in the Vineyard. You have to give credit to indy games. They know what the common gamer struggles with and shapes their entire game structure around addressing those issues. You won't find World of Darkness, Dungeons & Dragons, or Shadowrun creators deviating very far from the tried and true methods that made them so much money. So, DitV showed me that you can make a character in a four hour one shot game, but they still took too long to do so. I think half our game was going through each of eight people creating a character one on one with the gm. Try it, it's actually very fun, just time consuming.

So, you wanna do this right? Some considerations will have to be forfeit in order to save time. I created character templates for players to choose from. It is, in many ways, a borrow from D&D, right? But at the same time I've condensed the process way way down. For normal BESM character creation you'd need the book. It's not simple, and so gives you lots of options. The templates I've made fit the world in which we'll be playing and hopefully should run as simple as: pick the race you want from 7 different, and then pick the class you want from 4 different types each of 3 categories. Warrior class has the balanced fighter, the defender, the ranger, and the dual wield. Deception class has the ninja warrior, the thief, the swindler, and the alchemist. Mage class has the swordmage, the sorcerer, the priest, and the druid. Choose a race, then choose a class, then add the few bonuses listed on the class sheet to the race sheet, grab to d6's, and you're ready to embark on a mystical, magical journey through a world filled with wonder, danger, and excitement.

Kamigan is based on the idea of D&D set in an Asian fantasy universe. It is like many manga/animes in that it can be any mood you want it to be, whether it be silly fun, serious excitement, dark and scary, or sensual. I mean, there are cat-girls in here. So, come take a journey with me, won't you? The snows have just begun to fall, the fire is warm, and the road is long. Who knows what adventures lay before us on the way to see the imperial coronation...

Our players are confronted with brujos from Sinaloa, their pursuers since the events that they cannot recall. How will they survive such a devastating attack?

Also, after this episode was recorded, the players have decided to take a break for holiday events, faire, and preparing for a new family addition. It is undetermined yet when this storyline will continue. Fire n Dice is looking for new players to continue the Kamigan storyline, so leave a comment if you are interested and live in the area. Be sure to find us spinning fire at Renfaire campgrounds, enjoying Oni-con for the first time Oct. 28-30th, and out at Owlcon where I will be running BESM set in the Kamigan universe, and UA set in Sinaloa where our favorite villains originated. Until next time...

After their meeting with Malcolm, our players decide the first step in finding out what they can't remember is to head back to the Menninger Clinic and confront Dr. John Carver. They have no idea what is waiting for them.

The players sit down and have a discussion on the direction of the group. Jester has great plans for a new campaign, one that sounds rather exciting to play, and will be a welcome relief to me, seeing as how I GM more often than I get to play. I introduce a new system to continue the Kamigan campaign I began with Anima.

Fire n Dice began as a means to separate itself from Swing and a Miss initially by hosting campaign episodes. We still plan on keeping to that ideal, but things have to change, as they often do. At first we planned on Anima, Wild Talents, and Dragonlance, but I was forced to change headings and fill in with Unknown Armies. Now it appears that the Wild Talents game will be put on hold until further notice, but in its place Jester will be running a new campaign, either for the UA group, or a new group entirely plus Jester and myself. (I am Ghost, by the way, just in case.) Listen to this short episode as we discuss the months ahead in store for Fire n Dice.

With no memory of the last few days, our players must figure out who they can trust and what their enemy is after. Mysterious voices, trashed homes, uncontrolled visions, and strange music are their only clues as they begin searching for the truth.

This storyline Mega Death is written by Ghost in collaboration with the FnD players, Javar, Jamie, Ashley, Hero, and Jester. Intro song "El Calmaninos" by El Calmaninos is provided under a creative commons 3.0 license and can be found on Jamendo .

The zombie hordes have finally caught up with me, took a huge bite out of my dignity, and turned me into one of their kind. Fire n Dice now has a Facebook page. So, you can either shoot me in the head, or visit our page, subscribe, post comments and suggestions, or whatever it is that all us zombies are supposed to do on these social network sites. The site will grow, but as for now you can find pics of us, the players, and reference materials used in game. Enjoy.

The new group:



Around the table clockwise from bottom left is Javar, Jamie, Ashley, Hero, Jester, and my backside.

And our two newest unsung heroes and players, Indigo and Frog:

After waking up in a mental hospital with no memory of the past few days, our players team up, investigate why they're here to begin with, and quickly try and find a way out.

Imagine you wake up in a bed that is not your own, in a room you don't recognize, you barely even remember who you are, and a tv screen comes on with a video you don't remember recording of you speaking directly to yourself watching the video and telling you who you really are. That is what happened to Javar, Freya, Lilith, Patrick, and Ben in this introduction episode of Greg Stolze's Unknown Armies.

This storyline Mega Death is written by Ghost in collaboration with the FnD players, Javar, Jamie, Ashley, Hero, and Jester. Intro song "El Calmaninos" by El Calmaninos is provided under a creative commons 3.0 license and can be found on Jamendo .

Okay, FnD fans, I have just had my first meeting with my new gaming group tonight. I will still be bringing you adventures in Kamigan and Velocity with the SaaMies, but very soon I will be bringing you a new campaign with a different play group: Jester, Ashley, Jamie, and Javar. We have decided to run...
(drum roll...)

Unknown Armies!

I am so excited about this campaign. I have been drooling over this game ever since I got the .pdf a year ago, and I finally went out to my local gaming store and bought a copy of the book. This world is gritty, the magic is obsessive and crazy, the madness meters alone will make this campaign. Next week we build characters, and then from there we begin play.

So, yes, May has been very busy. We had the move, we had the Flipside of Con, and this was the tent we got set up to play in.



I got to meet a couple of people out there and almost got a game started, but if you know anything about the Flipside of Con, it's not exactly a follow-the-schedule kind of event. Ever heard of herding cats? Better luck next year, and maybe I'll figure out how better to wrangle a group of gamers, play lead to a communal kitchen, spin my many fire props, and still find time to run around like the "ooh, what's that?" kitties.

But, in better news, I have found a gaming group apart from the Swing and a Miss group. I will still be playing and running with the SaaMies, but while Hero is off plotting his next scheme for world domination from his secret underground volcanic base, I will be putting together another campaign for your listening pleasure, and mine of course. The game has yet to be determined by the group, so stay tuned for that. Any suggestions?

Also, more awesomeness. Hero will be bringing the game back this weekend, so more superhero action will be flyi... uh hum, I mean phasing your way very soon. In the mean time, comment, leave feedback, let us know you're listening and that you like/love/dislike/hate us, whatever you feel, let us know.

Ghost

This Summer Supers is the long awaited release of Mutants and Masterminds 3rd Edition, released in April of this year. The release of DC Adventures, essentially a Mutants and Masterminds 2.5 but featuring all your favorites from the DC universe, was a welcome addition to the tabletop gaming world in August of 2010, but left Marvel hero fans on the sidelines. M&M3, while not obtaining a Marvel license, allows players the ability to make their own superheros patterned after anything they desire, including Marvel characters, with far greater ease than in prior editions.



M&M3 boasts a streamlined system that allows new and veteran players alike to create a character and begin play in just minutes, using a single die roll to determine outcomes of conflict, and thus playing hours in a game without being bogged down in combat mechanics. If you have played DC Adventures, then you'll be familiar with the system in Mutants and Masterminds, 3rd Edition.

So if you're looking to create some superhero action of your own, give this a try. At only $21.75 on Amazon, you can't beat the price, unless you're getting the Wild Talents Essential Edition, and if you enjoy the book, you'll want to get your hands on the GM Kit and Gamemaster's Guide going on sale July 12, 2011. Also check out the Mutants and Masterminds website. They have already released 22 adventures for you to play for 3rd edition, entitled Threat Reports, on sale for only $0.99 each.

Game on!

(Cover for JUSTICE LEAGUE #1; Art by Jim Lee and Scott Williams;
Colors by Alex Sinclair;
Copyright: DC Comics)

All right, big news in comics, DC has announced they will be relaunching 52 of their major lines of comic series, beginning with Justice League #1, with newer, younger, more modern looking heroes starting this September. Along with this relaunch will also come the release of digital versions of the paperbacks we've all grown up with, set to go on sale the same day as the print releases in stores. This fresher, greener approach to delivering four color action has already been adopted by Archie Comics, but their biggest comic rival, Marvel, has yet to report any desire to follow suit.

As I'm sure you can tell, FnD crew members are inherently more Marvel fans than any other (though I personally have only ever read from the DC Vertigo line), and so this new line up of fresher re-releases, aimed at the newest generation of the kids in everyone, will maybe hold some appeal for die hard Marvel fans. I know prepping for Hero's VeloCity campaign had me looking for a super hero cartoon fix, and I found myself watching the most recent Justice League cartoons over the older 1990s X-Men cartoons I'd watched as a kid. I'd already made up my character for Hero's game before I watched Justice League and thought it funny to see J'onn J'onzz as almost the same, at least as far as powers go.

So, whether you're a veteran of four color, or new to the genre and feel like starting up your own collection, give DC's Justice League a chance, starting again at #1 in September, 2011.

This next Summer Super comes from Scornavacco Martial Arts Academy in Longmont, Colorado. They are a private institution that specializes in offering kids training in the forms of practical self defense, safety skills, and character development. In the summer they have a super hero camp program for your kids. In the camp you get superhero training along with creating an identity, finding a cool name, designing and making your costume, as well as instruction on how to identify and overcome the nefarious plots of your villains.

The online brochure only lists June 6 - 11, 2010 as active dates. Hopefully the superhero project was such a success, as I know it is imagining it, that it is still continuing. A superhero camp sounds like a great way to spend a summer vacation. I'd like to hear from some of the kids who attended, let FnD fans in on your superhero identity, and if you would like, maybe the FnD crew can make up characters in Hero's VeloCity under the same identity.

Summer Movie Blockbusters.

Summer is the season for action, and comic super heroes are swinging, flying, shooting, and fighting their way onto the screen, all competing for your attention. With the release of Thor in 3D just last month, Green Lantern to open June 17, Captain America set to release July 22, a reboot of Spider Man set for summer of 2012, and X-Men First Class opening tonight, comic fans have a buffet of movie choices.



The FnD Crew, Hero mostly, are die hard comic fans, especially of the X line, X-Factor in particular. The release of this new movie is welcomed about as well as the newest Star Trek movie, where it deviates from all of the actors we've grown to associate as the main characters. As die hard fans we will watch the newest edition to the family, but are skeptical of the many changes. Often, the movies that take the origins approach feel too much like they're targeting the younger audience, alienating those of us who have grown up with our favorite comic characters.

But, until we can get another fix from Hero's Super VeloCity engine, we entertain ourselves in the ways the world provides, fantasizing about the superhero we imagine ourselves would like to be.

Flame on!

The summer is here and it is once again time for blockbuster action. While we wait for more of Hero's Wild Talents in Velo City, let's look at some up and coming super hero action. FnD's first look is at X-Men the new anime from Japan.

"The X-Men are reunited following the death of a teammate, and are summoned by Charles Xavier to Japan following the abduction of Hisako Ichiki (Armor). There, they confront the U-Men, a lunatic cult that steals and transplants mutant organs to further strengthen their own army, and the battle for justice is on." - Marvel



What could be a better way to start off our Summer Supers than with a new anime that combines the fantastic elements of Japanese culture, similarly in Anima, and super hero action, as in Wild Talents. I've watched the first episode and it is pretty intense. This is a show for a more mature audience, unlike the X-Men cartoon that aired in America in the 1990s. About the only issue I have with the series is that it is voiced in Japanese, which has never been a problem in the past. I prefer the original language animes over dubs, but hearing characters I have grown up with suddenly speaking to each other in a new language challenges my suspension of disbelief. I would have liked a Blood: the Last Vampire approach of Japanese and English language mix throughout. Also, there are some characters that have deviated in their look from the original design. Storm and Beast have been overhauled and look almost like new characters. In all, it's different, but if you love anime you'll love this twist on classic comic mutant heroes.

More Summer Supers to follow in greater detail. Power up and game on.