Popular Posts

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

I Wanna Play Batman!


Yes, there are quite a few people who play role-playing games as adults (and no I don't mean strapping on a plastic stethoscope and playing "doctor").

As witness the boys (and several girls) who get together for these sorts of games in the comic book Knights of the Dinner Table. Mostly they play a modification of Dungeons and Dragons known as Hackmaster (a real game based on D&D with a license to do so!), but occasionally they take a break and use other game systems. The central group that lends its name to the comic book usually play a Wild West version of the game called Cattlepunk, while the players you see here from the Black Hands group play a superhero game. In this game, you can either make up your own superhero or play an established character from a comic book or movie.

Naturally this leads to people thinking, "Hey, I'll play the coolest one with the unbeatable powers!" But as anyone who plays these games knows, the GM (GameMaster) is always right, and if he chooses to modify things, he can. You want to play Batman? Fine. But I'm going to take away all the stuff that makes his crime fighting so effective, like his money to start...:) But as Kick-Ass's alter ego Dave discusses with his friends in the movie of the same name, what is Batman without his money? A brawler with a gas-guzzling car.

I love how the artist, who reminds me of Matt Groening in so many ways, draws "the boys" gathered around the table, most of them in costume. The only one who doesn't is Stevil Van Hostile, who as you can tell from his name, is a bastard who always plays a bastard. The art itself doesn't change much (like Groening's, at least in the early days). It's the story that really gets you laughing.

No comments:

Post a Comment