Shrine of the Nephilim

Everything is Political. Doubly so if you're writing an RPG set in modern times. We mean, if you're going to look at the international stage as part of the setting, how can you not get politics involved? Case in point. You're writing a superhero game. It's set in 2024. Superheroes are showing up now . And you want to address how this reshapes the world, how it impacts nations, how it changes the balance of power, how governments have to shift to adapt to this new reality. There's two major wars going on. You've got the Paris Olympics. And you've got this huge influx of people with supernatural powers. How do you not talk about the elephants in the room? "And this is how the nations of North America and the EU are affected." "How about Russia and Ukraine?" ".... so, Africa..." Of course, you could lay out a 2024 where nothing of import is happening, and the super beings that show up have little or no impact on national events (lo

"And there I was..." Alright, we aim to offend. What's wrong with this picture?  Nothing.  That's what's wrong with it. But some people are having serious difficulty with this picture. "There's sushi!" "There's tacos!" "This doesn't inspire to adventure!" Know what that's called? A lack of imagination. You see... sushi was around during the Tokugawa Shogunate. Tacos are even older than that. Neither of these things are "modern". The complaint is that it's ethnic food. Oh, but hey, there's pumpkin there.  But that's Western food and that's okay, even though that's from the New World.  Bet they won't complain about corn or potatoes, either. Which is why we're calling Bullshit on this. They don't like it because it's not European / Western Fantasy. And the complaint that the picture doesn't inspire adventure? Listen, peeps. What do your characters do between adventures? Kn

So, let's have a little talk about good and evil.  Most people have a pretty good understanding of 'good' and 'evil', but let's more look at it from a theological standpoint.  We'll start with Judaism and Christianity, then we can flip into Shinto a little bit. 

How would I do a Shinto-based fantasy campaign? Urban fantasy, high fantasy, whatever. Well a few ground rules would need to be put into play: The gods (kami) are everywhere. You have the celestial gods (amatsugami) , the terrestrial gods (kunitsugami), you have the little gods (mikogami). See a tree? It's god a kami in it.  A rock?  A sword?  A song?  All have their own spirit. Just in most cases, these spirits are quiescent unless you do something to get them going. None of these are Good or Evil. The universe and all it holds has a vested disinterest in you and what you're doing. Go about your life. The only thing that matters is that you're being spiritually pure (pure in thought, pure in word, pure in deed). If not, you annoy the kami. If you are, cool.  Good and Evil are mortal constructs, indicating what is good for harmony and society, and what is harmful, causing strife in society. All kami have two aspects: benevolent and wrathful. A kami in its benevolent aspect

Perhaps the one thing that pisses us off about comic books is the whole 'back to zero' thing, and the most recent example is the 'fall of Krakoa' arc. Don't get us wrong - we hated it.  But it was good for the comics, and we acknowledged that. It was done too quickly, it was 'too perfect' at the start, but it was different , and where it was going was something we actually became interested in. That they crash and burned it after only a few years is a travesty.  Of course, this being comics, the people behind Marvel would want things to 'reset back to zero' - because, you know, there's no way they'd ever make anything with lasting impact. But with Krakoa, this is especially criminal, and here's why:  It would allow them to tell a story that would actually be at the very heart of the X-Men and what they stand for. "What if people of colour, minorities, and the LGBT+ community was given actual power and legitimacy, and how would peopl

Some years ago, we were happy to hear a number of RPGs we liked were getting new editions. The games had been stagnant (or 'dead') for quite some time, so any chance to see them grow and inspire new campaigns was a good thing. For some, the initial engine had a few weak points, for others, the initial game was 'perfect' for our needs, and for some, they'd run through some iterations we were enjoying less and less. So, we were looking forward to seeing what was to come. The results were... mixed, to say the least. One game used an engine we'd had no interest in, but when we looked at it, it was incredible. It sold us on the game engine, and we'd backed it on KS, because it was a game we loved when it had first come out. The art was amazing, the feel of the game was awesome, we were quite happy to have it and run it. One game used an engine we'd had no interest in, and essentially killed the game for us. It had the same 'flaw' we'll mention in