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sSUPERVERSIVE: Terms of Enlistment by Marko Kloos
Tuesday , 19, July 2016 Superversive, Uncategorized 3 CommentsI was tipped off to Marko Kloos’ Frontlines series by The WrongFun Podcast last fall, and they’ve been sitting on my kindle since then– not forgotten, precisely, but in the press of theological texts and papers and a whole spate of John C. Wright stuff, plus books people were giving me for review, they got […]
Creating an Oriental Adventures Setting with Appendix N
Monday , 18, July 2016 Appendix N, Game Design, Tabletop Games 10 CommentsThe most critical element of role-playing game design is the reduction of friction. If it is not addressed sufficiently, the game will not be played. Now, this is not an issue quite so much for people that treat rpg’s as a new form of literature or for whom the primary design goal is to sell […]
William R. Forstchen’s One Second After is the scariest book I have ever read. No horror novel ever came close to shaking me up like Forstchen’s tale of an electro-magnatic pulse (EMP) attack on the United States by terrorists. One Second After chronicles what happens when three nuclear bombs are exploded above the atmosphere. The […]
DevGame has announced that the classic TSR fantasy wargame, Divine Right, is now being developed as a computer game. That may or may not be of interest to readers of this blog, but what will almost certainly be of interest is the last paragraph of the post. Castalia House also acquired the right to produce […]
One of the many things I noticed in this issue was the significantly larger portion of the magazine dedicated to adspace. While the earlier issues I’d read had a few ads in them, your typical Charles Atlas plugs, build your own radio kits, and some various household gadgets, the issue I finished had several pages […]
SUPERVERSIVE – Voltron: Legendary Defender
Tuesday , 12, July 2016 Superversive, Uncategorized 5 CommentsOne of the wonderful things about cartoons is that they tend to be a low-risk investment when it comes to the time required for them. Most animated shows are only twenty minutes or so without commercials, and so if they turn out to be terrible, it’s not a huge waste of time. I say all […]
Guest Post by Bill Morgal: Designer John Poniske Brings History to Life
Monday , 11, July 2016 Wargames Leave a commentHistory’s Voice in Gaming John Poniske, Game Designer by Bill Morgal “I’m John Poniske.” The words came from a lanky, crewcut man with a salt and pepper beard sitting across the gaming table from my son and I. His open outstretched hand was not the first thing I really noticed about the man. Nor was […]
Shattered Shields is an anthology of military fantasy. In fact, it might be the first one. Baen Book published the trade paperback November 2014. The mass-market paperback came out this past February, 355 pages, and $7.99. I have never heard of the editors- Jennifer Brozek and Bryan Thomas Schmidt. Brozek has edited ten small press […]
Action on Azura by Robertson Osborne was featured in the Fall 1949 issue of Planet Stories.
As I mentioned in several of my previous articles, notably Complex Interactions and Roles and Rolls , Wargames are typically played and supported by educated and rigorous people. In this article, I wish to point out that this is far deeper in origin than a simply complicated hobby: This draw is inherent to wargaming, certainly, […]
Occasionally the idea of a “superversive canon” comes up in our discussions. We’re flexible enough in our terms (good storytelling, heroic characters, and a sense of wonder) that people can have varying ideas of what is and isn’t superversive. My wife, a woman who is supremely kind and beautiful but a muggle, doesn’t really see […]
Pretty Good Punch For Its Weight: Third Flatiron Anthologies’ Hyperpowers Hyperpowers is an anthology of sixteen short stories of science fiction available in several formats from the publisher’s web site. I reviewed the ebook format, which contained no errors worth mentioning and played out across my screen with ease and had smooth links throughout where […]