I’ve been playing role-playing games since ’82, and sometimes that hobby intersects with my writing.
I’ve always loved superhero games, and when DC Adventures came out this year I was ecstatic: it combined Mutants and Masterminds‘ D20 rules with the classic DC Heroes system. It’s the perfect fill-in game for my group, since we can do quick pick-up games with familiar characters and histories without rules or background overload.
I designed their current adventures based on an Academy of Super-Heroes arc. ASH is a shared-world superhero fic in the same vein as Wild Cards, only published free on rec.arts.comics.creative. I learned the craft partly through writing issues of Conclave of Super-Villains starting in 1997 (though at the time I didn’t think I’d go into writing professionally).
Conflicto, fan art by Joe Singleton
I co-wrote the Deep Armageddon arc with Matt Rossi, Marc Singer and Dave Van Domelen, and always wanted to play through that plotline with a gaming group. So I statted up the characters and gave my players a choice of Justice League heroes to fight the CSV. For some reason they picked Green Arrow, Black Canary, and Zatanna–not exactly the powerhouses of the League, but against the odds they made it through the first adventure (CSV #3). We switched it up for the next adventure (Warden #8), with the team being Superboy, Aquaman, Batman, Nightwing, and the Flash, adding Gorilla Grodd and the Cheetah to boost the power level. They’re in the midst of ASH #13 right now.
Though we wrote Deep Armageddon in 1998, the arc still holds up pretty well. I’ve included relevant story links below.
Deep Armageddon
- CSV #3 – And A Partridge In A Pear Tree
- Time Capsules #1 – Conclave Arise!
- CSV #4 – Collision Course
- Warden #8 – Hunting the Hunter
- ASH #13 – A Bomb In Nation
- STRAFE #5 – Falling Stars
- CSV #5 – Fallout!
If you’re playing DC Adventures, give me a shout. I’d love to hear about your games.
Tony Pi, F&SF Writer 