DC Heroes and Villians

Now that both volumes are out, I can fully talk about the awesomeness of the DC Adventures Heroes and Villians books by Green Ronin. I am a Green Ronin fangirl, and we pretty much own the whole catalog. I was so happy that my favorite company that publishes my favorite superhero game got the license for my favorite comic company.

First, I love the fact that they got permission to search the DC Archives for art. It was just right to use their art. I loved the original art of the covers. I love the fact that flipping through the book, I could recall which comic it was from and memories of my childhood or memories of dating my now husband and spending Saturday mornings reading comics and watching cartoons came flooding back.

Second, each entry was a well written history of a character by authors that are obviously comic book fans. For some entries, like Lobo, the writer chose a fun and different approach to teach the reader about the character. The authors also give tips for altering the hero to fit a certian age in comics. Aquaman, for example, has stats for if you choose to play the version of Aquaman with the hook hand. Robin (my favorite) has a section on how to alter the basic stats to fit the version of the character that you are playing. (More athletic for Dick Grayson or more investigatory like Tim Drake? You decide. They have it right there for you.) The Ra's Al Ghoul section made me squee with delight. (I LOVE the artwork that they chose.)

But last and certianly not least, I love the fact that I learned about heroes and villians that I had never heard of. It made me start dreaming of ways to introduce these very obscure characters to the masses.

They have a great index of all the heroes and villians, and they even include the pets. (Which by the way would be a great intro for young kids. An all pet heroes game?)

I recomend the books, even if you don't want to run the DC Adventures system, the changes between DCA and Mutants and Masterminds 3E are so minimal. You can easily run heroes in the M&M system.

Lazy Sunday

Boston is getting some much needed rain today, and it has been lovely to be stuck indoors. My loving, wonderful, amazing husband constructed my IKEA ENnies shelf so the submissions would not be lying around in a box. They look so pretty sitting there just waiting to be read and played.

Speaking of reading... I finished the Dresden Files 1st volume on Thursday (really gorgeous, reads easy, and looks like it will be a blast to play. Full review coming soon) and have been under the weather ever since. However it did give me a chance to look over some of my "READ ME" pile, and get a good grip on what I have ahead of me to read.

I decided to postpone reading volume 2 for a week so I could let volume one settle into my brain.

I figured I would make this week a Superhero Themed week. Superhero games are one of my favorite genres to play and run. It is really where I feel in my element. I read ICONS as a PDF well before I became an ENnies judge and re-read it as soon as I got the book, so that one is all read. This week's reading is the Smallville RPG (based on the TV Show) and Champions Universe. Champions is a game my husband is really excited for me to run, he is curious to see how the rules have changed since he last played.

As much as I can go on and on... these books won't read themselves.

Besides, I certainly wouldn't want them to.