MEGS works with the Traveller Scheme

 Traveller is widely known for the simple structure of a character, PC and/or NPC. The Universal Personality Profile is hexadecimal notation (letters and numbers) which makes prep super simple and scanning a character's abilities super simple. For example, in Traveller a basic, normal npc would have the following stats: 777777. Sevens across the board. 

MEGS/DC Heroes/The Blood of Heroes has nine stats instead of Traveller's six. Also, The stats are arranged on the MEGS character sheet follows a grid with each row and column having some significance. Anyways, here would be the stat line for a normal person in the MEGS power scale of stats,

2 2 2

2 2 2

2 2 2 

twos across the board. Here is how I would arrange them ala Traveller's UPP. [222-222-222], ini: 6.

Wala, anyone who plays MEGS is going to know what all these mean and how the grid is written out straight across (physical attributes, mental attribute, mystic attributes, etc.). I add the character's initiative total after the stat string. With attributes and initiative listed you really have all you need for any old NPC you need to make up on the fly!

Even Heroes Bleed #26, the Life Form released

 Now we got the crew back up to 3 PC Heroes; Mettle, Bug, and Olympian confront what lies beneath the Pawnsville Mine.

This episode features a monster unlike any they have yet fought. It will take all their ingenuity and dramatic run of 18's to survive the initial onslaught. 

I used to be able to publish

 The fucking twelfth time I've done this. I think I will just make an indesign document to drive thru specs with no content. Just a one page document with all the specs dialed in from the instructions from the publisher page so I can see the same error message and frame it on my wall so when I wake up in the morning and need a dose of existential absurd I don't even need to get out of bed. grrrr

Should I Start Live-Streaming Again?

 I mean, recording the game session is my major priority. I think editing the audio and posting it later is a much more interesting product to consume, but some folks do enjoy seeing a game session being run in real-time. 

I dusted off OSB and it is dead-simple to reconnect and fire up a live stream on my youtube channel. I've changed over my output folder for Bandicam to my hardrive so as not to lose my recording of the game session to "jiggly" cords and my dry run with sound check appears to make a audible live stream as well as audio recording.

From past experience I know I can feel a bit rushed and get flustered trying to get everything set before the game goes live and this can put me off my focus for the job at hand, being the GM of the session, which at the end of the day is my ultimate priority. 

The upside of live stream is it offers another means of engagement with the roleplaying community and this illusionary closeness and connection does give warm fuzzies. But not altogether necessary. Sifting through the pros and cons I end up at the same place; I like mucking around with broadcast software and creating content for online consumption, whether it gets much notice or not. So I'm going to start doing it again.

If you think this is a bad, bad idea drop me a comment and let me know. Otherwise, tune into the Vanishing Tower Press Youtube channel Sunday morning 7am MT/-7 GMT for the next session of Even Heroes Bleed!

Ascendent Review

[ADDENDUM] Ascendent plagiarizes a shit ton of content from write-ups dot org. So no attribution to the source material for this glorified heap built on past accomplishments.

  I have recently digested my pdf copy of the new superhero game Ascendent and here is my take;

The game is a rehash of TSR's Marvel Superheroes and Mayfair's MEGS system for DC Heroes which came out in the 80's. Somehow the authors of Ascendent have taken two of the greatest supers systems and mashed them into a horrible parody of what made each system unique and playable. Even the horrible art in The Blood of Heroes has more imaginative life than the generic line art in the book. The layout feels Champions 5e which to me is pretty lifeless. Give me my heavily highlighted, badly taped together, pages falling out BoH and the MEGS game system it contains any day over this.