Monday, March 25, 2013

April A to Z 2013



I did this in 2011 and had a lot of fun with it. I skipped it in 2012 but for 2013 I am going to do it again. Here is the basic information:


The Who

Now that we have that out of the way...



The What
My original idea was to review and build a character in a different Superhero RPG each day. I started doing research and realized how badly that matches up with the whole alphabet thing - e.g. 2 entries for A, 5 entries for B, 1 for C, none for K or L, 4 for M, none for O-P-Q, etc. I may still do that, but not for the A to Z month.

Instead I am going to do superhero characters - namely converting a bunch of homegrown heroes (and maybe a few villains) into various superhero RPGs. Most of these will be from my files of late, lamented City of Heroes characters and I will not be doing repeats of ones I have done previously - this will be all new entries. I have multiple characters for each letter, lacking entries only for Q. 

My plan is to have a picture, an ICONS statblock, a Mutants and Masterminds statblock, and then stats for some other game, probably different for each one. I might do Champions for one, BASH for another, Marvel for another, just to keep it interesting. I chose ICONS because it's easy for me to adapt them to that system and it's easy to translate from there into other games. I chose M&M because it will give me a month of practice with building them in HeroLab which can only help and it takes them to a more detailed level. I'm still figuring out which other systems I want to try them in - it will probably vary by character. 

I have 10+ characters to choose from on some of these. Is anyone interested in helping to choose which ones are chosen? Not sure how I would do it but it could be fun. 



The When and The Where
Well it's in April. 2013. So, next week. On this blog. According to this calendar:



The Why
Like this whole blog, I'm doing this mainly for myself, but actual character stats are one of those things other people might be able to use as well. April will substantially increase the amount of hard numbers/drop-in useful content on this blog and that's a good thing too. Maybe you need an NPC on the fly and remember that blog guy had some stats online, or maybe the idea or image inspires a new character for someone out there. Regardless, they will be here.

4 comments:

  1. I am definitely going to do participate this year and my idea is similar to yours.

    My plan is to post a different Super Villain of my own creation each day for 26 days, each having a name corresponding to the 'letter of the day'.

    I intend to drudge up old illustrations, draw new ones, get pals to draw them or whathaveyou.

    The only difference for me is I was probably going to go systemless, allowing viewers to put them in whatever system they prefer to use. The entries would be closer to those in the Official Handbook of The Marvel Universe or DC Who's Who comic books.

    I am undecided on this though. May make everyone up in Marvel Heroic just to have an easy reference point.

    Good luck with yours! I love seeing you spread the Supers gaming goodness.

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  2. My original thought was that in addition to a review that creating, say, Aluminum Man in each system as I reviewed it would give some insight into each system and a basis for comparison across all of them. Then I realized that was going to be a ton of work and kind of a split in my focus and decided I needed a better option. Focusing on the characters instead of the systems makes it more interesting anyway, I think.

    I think you should do some kind of stat-up. Marvel Heroic would be great and would put a nice pool of non-Marvel characters out there for people too.

    You know though, if you're doing villains and I'm doing heroes some things are inevitable: Crisis on Infinite Blogs! Secret Blog-Wars! Crossover! Team-Up! The Alpha Gauntlet! Something ... must ... happen!

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  3. I do like that idea...I like it very much indeed.

    I will have to do some musing of the mighty meta manner!

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  4. Good luck with the challenge! You've inspired me to sign up this year:

    Just Add Heroes
    http://justaddheroes.blogspot.com/2013/03/icons-to-z-2013.html

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