Publisher: Adamant Entertainment | Author: Mike Lafferty | Pages: 84 | Year: 2007
Adventure: 5 (Awesome) | Substance: 5 (Awesome) | Art & Layout: 3 (Average)

Defcon 1 is an M&M Superlink supplement covering all that’s needed to run Eastern and Western Block heroes in a Cold War setting. This supplement allows players and GMs to decide whether they want to play in the actual Cold War or whether the Cold War is now behind them (but not quite forgotten).

Mike Lafferty does an absolutely tremendous job at making this supplement easy to read and implement without much confusion on the part of any players not familiar with Cold War events. The characters are all very dynamic from a design perspective allowing them to be used as allies, enemies, good guys, bad guys, complications, buddies… I know it seems like I’m repeating myself with these words but what makes an ally doesn’t always make a buddy, what makes a bad guy doesn’t necessarily make him the enemy, etc. Trust me Lafferty does a much better job of making this all straight forward and easy to incorporated into any game.

The introduction story alone sets up the perfect example of what I tried to describe above. The Texan cosmic defender (I know that alone is awesome right… picture it, the guys language is perfect too) get caught up in a city fight with a giant robot until a duo of Russian supers come in and take down the robot. A bit of back and forth happens until Lone Star’s temper causes him to blast the Russian tank in classic four-color comic book fashion where two heroes have to brawl before they end up working together. Awesome.

Section 1: Roleplaying Concepts

All the examples in the book could be great additions to any Superlink game. After describing a concept, the book gives complications, scenarios and nicely backs up each with a couple movie references and comic industry counter parts.

It goes into further details and examples for “Story-Arcs”, “Plot Twists”, and by far my favourite concept, the “Thought Bubble” moment. These moments are prevalent in comics so why not in a comic book inspired roleplaying game? There is a lot of room for metagaming that could weaken the benefits from this roleplaying opportunity. If you can strip your character’s thoughts from your player thoughts, this could add a new layer of entertainment to your gaming session.

Section 2: The Characters

You may still be wondering how a group of players can make US, British and Russian heroes and use them in the same team? That’s what this section breaks down. The keystone to the whole thing coming together is an international security group called UNMSF (United Nations Meta Security Force). Think of them as something like the Security Council with a little mix of United Nations.

Even this group is not without being used with some of the spice mentioned in Section 1. For example, it was common during the Cold War era for governments to post their heroes into the USMSF in order to spy on opposing forces.

First up are the Soviet (or Russian… I go back and forth because it depends on whether you’re playing in the historic setting or in modern times). The book gives some suggestions for Russian phrases, quotes and suggested battlecries.

The character roll follows detailing five Eastern Block characters and seven Western Block characters. They can be used as characters or non-player characters, with options suggested for how to use them as either. Each entry provides a Shtick, a Twist, a Hook, a Scenerio and/or a Complication (mentioned in Section 1 as new concepts to spice up the roleplaying element of your game).

My favourites: Red Hammer. Imagine a Russian old time hero with the scepticism of Nick Fury, the patriotism super-soldier status of Captain America or loyal dedication of Superman, with a demonic connection to Hell’s grasp like Spawn. Except Russian. Great stuff can come of a character like this, as a player or an NPC to move along a campaign.

Second runner up is incidentally Red Hammer’s counterpart… kind of. John Bull is a British hero who went under the same Nazi super-soldier process as Red Hammer. The process wasn’t duplicated correctly and he was the sole survivor, mutated to take on the appearance of a minotaur. The fact that he’s a recluse and paints and gardens on his time off just won it for me. Once I saw the image of him with his stolen Nazi electro-mace, I knew he’d be the Western favourite.

The best addition to this list is the Plot Hook. Six characters have Hooks meaning you have yourself six mini sessions to take up an evening of play.

Session 3: Mini Adventure

The next 30 pages are dedicated to a mini adventures that brings the whole book together and sets itself up as a catalyst for players to continue in this kind of setting if they wish.

A feature I found unique was the way the “action items” of any particular part of the adventure were laid out cleanly for the GM to follow and inject into their game. Things like providing Roleplaying Scenerio (Section 1) opportunities for players to enter into pre-formulated Shticks, Complications, Roleplaying Opportunities, etc.

The adventure doesn’t follow a rigid plan. In a superhero game, more than traditional fantasy (in my opinion and experience) it’s difficult to put any expected actions into a strict formula. Super powers are so random that fluidity in the adventure design is just as important as the variety of objectives that exist to take up an evening of play (or multiple evenings). This mini-adventure provides such scenarios that flesh out a scene as a stepping stone into the next section.

Encounters also provide scaling options for teams that are made to walk all over particular encounters. These are well described and easy to implement. In some instances more setting related sidebar content is added, sometimes connecting adventure bits to the characters described in the Characters section. This helped unify it all once again into a cohesive product.

Appendix I and Appendix II detail The Ice Palace, a Nazi base hidden in the cold regions of Antarctic, which is mentioned in one of the adventures and includes a map.

Conclusion

Final thoughts… Buy the book! I have taken some time off roleplaying in general but this book made me want to either play M&M again or jump back onto City of Heroes and play one of my “flag heroes”… American Eagle, Northwind (Captain Canada), Manowar (Portuguese)…

The only place this book didn’t completely win me over was the art and the use of old propaganda pictures. It wasn’t that either was bad, I just never felt they kept a uniformity over the entire product. The design of the book is very simple and clean which makes it a fast and east read, I can’t really complain about that. I’m just a very visual person. But the art aside, the content was just golden and did enough for me to visualize my own take on the setting which was good enough for me.

Buy at RPG Objects.com

[Watch video on YouTube]

There’s a memory in me that seems like it’ll never die. For people who know me close, they’ll know I have a compulsive disorder to “defeat” parts of games that aren’t exactly necessary or relevant to completing the game they are a part of. One of the most persevering memories I have from the last decade is the Final Fantasy VII stint to breed and race chocabos until I got not ONE, but a stable full of golden chocabos.

You can clear the game without ANY gold chocabos of course. When asked why I bothered. I’d answer, “Because I can.”

To those who know me close, they also know I have an aversion to birds out of cages or swooping near me. This is clearly a Japanese guy who was intent on giving people like me nightmares that The Grudge and The Ring could never provoke in me.

For those of you who just don’t understand… be greatful. For those who understand all too well, and like stated on Topless Robot,

P.S.—If, at any point during the video, you thought, “Actually, the bird isn’t getting the Chocobo theme exactly right,” congrats—you are an enormous nerd. Welcome to to the club.

At least I belong to SOME sort of club. Even one filled with people whom for a second forgot that this chocabo song was being WHISTLED BY A FREAKIN’ BIRD!

Are you a RPG gamer? A collector card guru? A miniatures maniac? Or are you a geek like me that mostly just bards it up with bits of all of the above? Well, with GenCon freshly in my mind and a 3-foot tall tower of newly bought RPG books to read through I couldn’t help but be inspired to right a D&D inspired song.

I re-cut the awesome Brad Sucks song “Making Me Nervous” with my new lyrics–which unlike Brad Sucks, may actually suck. 1. I am not a singer, 2. I am not a sound engineer, 3. I used the USB mic from Rock Band to capture the audio :). Enjoy!

Last week I hit up GenCon Indy in Indianapolis. The road trip was, for the first time, not costly on my car; no flat tires with 400 miles to go, not key scratch along the whole left side of my Honda Civic, no pot hole damage to my axis and alignment. It was just perfect–just like the beef jerky I got along the way (a spicy Italian sausage flavoured one, mm-mmm).

I’ve uploaded all my GenCon pics to Flickr, please check them out, I’ve left comments on a couple of them which might make you chuckle mildly. On a side note, there were in fact quite a few hotties at this years GenCon! I invite all other newbie (or old) girly gamers to take the power away from the above average sized guy gamers and give them something to think about other than Mountain Dew and assorted bags of chips. Get in those tight skimpy fantasy inspired giggity-giggity outfits and make us drool over your woman flesh!

You chicky-poos out there have given me a reason to go back next year. Thank you.

* Updated on October 3, 2008:You want the lyrics, you get the lyrics!

one step at a time, we’ll be walking single file
Not taking the end, i remember the last time
The wizard was slain by a wraith’s level drain
surprise rounds are a whore, resurection spell again

They’ll all meet my d20 die

Download the mp3 (right click and save as): Making Me Nervous D&D Version

I came across a character generator about a year ago for another site I run that supports a gaming community. The generator is called RPGQuest Hero-O’Matic designed by a Brazilian guy (sorry couldn’t find a name!) based on the art of Ronaldo Barata and Pietro Antognioni, the official designers of RPG Quest.

The biggest sadness in all this is that when I looked for their website, it was dead! The greatest happiness in all this is that I don’t just find a golden nugget and put it on my counter top. I take the damn nugget and store it away in a safe safe place so that I can keep fascinating myself over my precious.

So to the benefit of all who still care to play around with a character generator that has kick as art, I’ve got a downloadable copy right here! Mwhahaha!

There are some kinks in the layering of objects and the whole thing is in Portuguese. The layering can be fixed with selecting better lower-layer objects, and the Portuguese–if not known–can be figured out by clicking around and getting comfortable with what changes after you go clicky-click. The selection is mostly (if not all) fantasy based but it doesn’t reduce the beauty of the final output if you’re using it for visual kicks. It’s got an info-drop component to it as well: Name, Race, Class, Level, and stats and experience if you play games that need such things before you do a Print Screen for your next character sheet. I’ve designed myself with Webtertainment Battle Armour with a Librium of Social Who-Haa >> Race: Hyper-Human; Class: Awesome; Level: Epic.

As much as I’d like to forever more give credit to the original creators I wasn’t able to find their names then and I can’t find their names now. If someone knows of finds out can you please comment below with an update–especially if they have a site up somewhere again! Sorry original-creator-dudes but this is too good to keep under wraps… unless RPGQuest nailed you, in which case it’s a countdown for this post’s days as well! Take it while you can!

Download Flash RPGQuest Hero-O’Matic (1.30 MB)

UPDATE December 15, 2008 for Heroomatic (AKA Fabrica de Heróis)

RPGQuest Hero-O-Matic
http://rapidshare.com/files/117289940/RPGQuest_Hero_OMatic_beta.zip.html
Fábrica de Heróis
http://rapidshare.com/files/133970420/fabrica.rar.html
New Version
http://fabricadeherois.blogspot.com/

Publisher: Adamant Entertainment | Author: Mike Lafferty | Pages: 58 | Year: 2007 | Adventure: 5 (Awesome) | Substance: 4 (Above Average) | Art & Layout: 3 (Average)

The 6th Seal offers the Superlink a continent devastated by an apocalyptic disaster that leaves everything in shambles. Help is hard to come by and danger is right around the corner of every neighborhood. The feel is more Iron-Age bringing back memories of the grim and gritty nature of many indie comics of the 90s and even today. Four-colored heroics and action does not really match the style of this setting right off the bat, but a little creativity can change that any day.

The cool thing about The 6th Seal is that even though it is set in a world with this broad theme, the adventures help to ground characters into the setting as a starting point offering the opportunity to continue adventuring in this world afterwards if the GM wishes.

Section 1
The Earthquake Hits
Adventures: Disaster Strikes and Prison Riot

The great earthquake hits and it’s time to get your hero’s groove on! This book’s first adventure opens up right in the action. Something I really enjoy about how these adventures are set up is that there is a “Mini-Challenge” section early on that offer suggestions for GMs to run for their players if the moment is right, if they need a time filler or if they simply want to get as much out of the adventure as possible.

These mini-challenges aren’t even the typical mook throw-down. In this first adventure, 4 out of 5 challenges involve character interaction with stuff other then round by round villain mashups. This offers the opportunity for many different types of characters to shine. This is where the multitude of power options in a Superlink game really pays off for story telling and roleplaying!

When it IS time for a villain faceoff, The 6th Seal offers a heated hero called Brimstone. The scaling options are well described: simple, clean presentation and easy to apply last minute. The encounter is kept simple at this point with the villain having one particular goal in mind at the beginning of the encounter. With the right hero teamup this encounter could turn out to be quite short, but creative GMs should be well advised to make great use of the thug mooks and potential danger to onlookers and other random civilians caught in the crossfires of ensuing battle!

Once again, with encounter specific mini-challenges, The 6th Seal makes sure you have ample opportunity to make a seemingly simple encounter with a standard “average” villain more complex based on the experience of the players at the table or efficiency of the team’s dynamics.

Section 2
Life After the Quake

This section details key facts of life after the great quake. With the military occupied and stretched thin, Centennial City pretty much has to take care of itself. With the police and some National Guard troops being the best in non-supered defense, superhero assistance of any kind is almost a necessity.

Notable factions are mentioned and between super-powered thugs, a mystical death cult gang, skinhead survivalists and an underground vampire colony, I’m not sure how else this setting could provide an abundance of options for GMs to throw at their players if they decided to make The 6th Seal a major playing ground for long periods of time.

The mooks of each faction are detailed in another section. Instead of reprinting all the mook stats, The 6th Seal references mook statistics from M&M with alterations to their powers or equipment. It’s seems a good enough thing to do. It keeps the section tight and lets GMs have a little freedom when putting specific individuals together. I can see how some may have wished to at least have one of each sample mook printed for easy reference, but I believe the additional equipment options are variety enough. Once you copy the mook out of M&M once, you’ll be more or less good to go on many fronts on that alone… so no point in complaining strongly about it.

Two allies are detailed. The first, Red Specter, is a street avenger who patrols the city by night who wears the armor of his deceased nazi-fighting grandfather. He reminded me immediately of Batman’s street protector personality. The second is, Silver Lynx, a villain super-theif turned refugee-protector after being taken in by St. Augustine’s Cathedral.

Villains Mentioned:

• Nektrotic, the black magic Ghost Posse gang leader is detailed with a history connecting him to the vampire forces in Centennial City.
• Dead Hand Jenkins of the 59er Disciples is next with his ambitions to take his small gang to big places in Centennial City as the “iron fist” that rules them all.
• The Templar of the Rattail Grenadiers, a racial supremacy gang follows, with his power suit offering opportunities to lead skinhead survivalists to the top of the criminal underworld in Centennial City.
• The Atomiknight, a mercenary villain who works for the highest bidder with no conscience.
• Midnight Bombardier used to have the most powerful gang in the city now he takes advantage of the chaos to increase his turf and get revenge on the Police Department. With the help of high ups in his gang like Iron Liberator and Red Front from Russia and Black Death, an assassin from Japan, and a psionic loan-shark, he’s more then capable of making a hero’s life full of entertainment.

Conclusions

I think the skeleton for the gang network across Centennial City was well described and detailed just enough to get things moving. One thing I did wish there was more of was the kind of detail that made me love the adventure sections. I wished the villain writeups featured mini adventure plots or adventure hooks; maybe offered a small section on which other gangs or gang leaders were seen as allies, neutrals or enemies. This could help a GM flesh out the gang politics without too much effort. Right now it leaves too much open (which is great for the GM who likes full control on these kinds of details in their settings).

Adventures: Arms Race, Rise of the Undead and Barbarians at the Gates

My feelings are similar to those expressed in the first two adventure review above. I loved the mini-challenges. Once again they offer more “complications” based on the surrounding area and dilemmas than things you can punch into the ground.

We get to see some inter-gang dynamics here which helps resolve the point above a little more. Also, like the first two adventure reviews, the final villain fights can go as fast or as long as the GM wishes based on how complicated they want to make the encounter by using the mini-challenges.

The second adventure here with Silver Lynx also offers a great “grey area” roleplaying opportunity that is always fun. Follow the law, or turn a blind eye for the greater good; a common place theme in comics and always enjoyable to see played out at the table.

The third adventure culminates in a massive all-out battle between the four main gangs and the police with Red Specter and the heroes to stand in the way! This is the kind of battle that used to happen in 90s Annuals! It’s make or break times and the heroes are what stand in the way of a civilization collapsing even further into chaos or strengthening it to push forward into the darkness (cinematic enough description or what?)

Appendix A: Seasoning Encounters

If mini-challenges weren’t enough, there is an appendix at the end with MORE mini encounters to sprinkle into the moments between all the critical adventure events. One thing I wished was added to each encounter was a Power Level rating. Power Levels do not always indicate perfectly what characters would be up against but it helps gage an encounter for GMs (like me) who might run one of them on the fly and just roll with what’s on the page until it’s too late for the heroes.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it was a nice read and an entertaining setting to envision being wrapped around the continent your heroes live on, or scaled down with the alternate history of being centered only on the city the heroes live in. In any case, it can be run alone as a temporary cataclysmic event, or stretched out to apocalyptic proportions. There’s enough here to run a whole hero’s campaign on before moving on to other heroes and settings.

I am a fan of scalability, and this was almost perfect. I just wish the same details and options applied to the adventures was applied to the character writeups. I’m also getting a little tired of seeing the same art crop up across Superlink products. I can understand the reason for this (costly) and at the end of the day, art in PDF products (for me) usually get scanned past or only acknowledged for “essence” value only.

Other then that, this Superlink product was tight and would be a worthwhile addition to your PDF collection. With the lack of adventures out there for the Superlink community, it’s good to see additions like these in the Superlink-o-sphere!

Buy at DriveThruRPG