Just went to a VNV Nation concert in Utrecht. Sublime! Sick electronic music, harsh realities, and yet in the end real and unironic positivity.

Ronan Harris totally gets the audience there too. "Let there be... let there always be... neverending light" chanted by hundreds.

My wife and I took the 9yo, who loves the song Prophet. His first real concert!

And I danced like a maniac. Got a special thumbs up from the keyboard player at the end.

As of this morning, I'm at 4 Basic Hits.

That's all.

Some months back I promised to do some V&V work on the pulp supers subgenre based on the writings of Clark Ashton Smith. Well, here we are....

https://subplotkudzu.blogspot.com/2024/09/v-from-files-of-sir-roderick-hagdon.html

Bringing you yesterday's posts today, here's the report on what I learned from a month of super-hero module review.

https://subplotkudzu.blogspot.com/2024/08/new-salem-renaissance-supers-modules.html

Another set of comments on comics and gaming, the sort of thing I do all the time. This time l am looking at how the "this is a perpetual team-up book" worked in the Bronze Age.

Part of me really wants to start a 2 player MSH/FASERIP PBEM with two totally new to me players where one is is playing, I dunno, Spider Man, and the other plays a different PC every month.

https://subplotkudzu.blogspot.com/2024/07/on-ragged-universes-team-ups-and-supers.html

Ending out July with the last of the "How do supers modules read and what can they teach us" posts, this time taking a look at the 4 modules I own for the Mayfair Games _DC Heroes RPG_.

While these were published just a few years after the V&V and Marvel ones they are noticeably different in design (and layout but that's a factor of technology changing as much as game design)

https://subplotkudzu.blogspot.com/2024/07/new-salem-revolution-module_31.html

My review of super hero module design continues, but I've jumped from V&V to Marvel Super Heroes modules that I own now for review. The differences in design despite them being mostly contemporary publications is enormous, in part indicating just how much game design was changing in the mid 80's, and how different MSH was from the rest of the field.

https://subplotkudzu.blogspot.com/2024/07/new-salem-revolution-module.html

Question for my V&V peeps: I just finished Volume 1 of the collected fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith and was wondering if there was any interest in seeing a roster of 1930s pulp supers characters drawn from early CAS work?

Forgot to put this up yesterday, but I did post the promised Patrick Zircher art (pretty sure that this is @PatrickZircher but not 100%) from All Alone in the Night and it's just such clean, evocative, comic book cover as RPG aid work. 10/10 no notes.

https://subplotkudzu.blogspot.com/2024/07/quick-art-recap-on-alone-into-night.html

Here's the last of the PCs I got to play in V&V - an over the top 1980's action hero whose regenerative powers trap him in a battle between aliens and super-heroes, none of whom have the tactical sense god gave a popsicle stick.

https://subplotkudzu.blogspot.com/2024/07/memory-lane-codename-lazarus-for-v.html

Today is my last look at classic V&V modules and what they can show me about supers adventure design. Unlike last week's, neither of which worked for me, this week's are very odd ducks from Ken Cliffe: Alone into the Night and Organized Crimes

https://subplotkudzu.blogspot.com/2024/07/new-salem-renaissance-v-module-alone.html

I'm continuing my presentation of my V&V PCs (as opposed to the nigh infinite number of NPCs) with the second character based on a teen-aged me - the Silver Knight!

https://subplotkudzu.blogspot.com/2024/07/memory-lane-silver-knight-for-v.html

Since there seems to be some appetite for these, we're setting the WABAC machine to 1981 and my first ever V&V PC, based on me of course.

Of course I was trained by a master to gain my mystic/psionic powers in distant, exotic Barnesville, Minnesota.

https://subplotkudzu.blogspot.com/2024/07/memory-lane-manhunter-for-v.html

Another day, another of my V&V characters from back in the '80s. I don't know if anyone else is getting anything out of this little trip down memory lane, but I'm enjoying it. These are the last of my PCs from Mike's campaign in the late 80's, but I have two more from the early-mid 80's to look at later.

https://subplotkudzu.blogspot.com/2024/07/memory-lane-renegade-for-v.html

My urge to write up more of my original V&V characters continues with the second of my three characters from the 2036 DC Metroplex game my friend ran in the 80's. Impact is darker than Legerdemain, in the style of late 80's comics.

https://subplotkudzu.blogspot.com/2024/07/memory-lane-impact-for-v.html

For some reason I wanted to record some of my personal V&V characters in my blog. Legerdemain wasn't my first, but he was my favorite.

https://subplotkudzu.blogspot.com/2024/07/memory-lane-legerdemain-for-v.html

Another review of old V&V modules, and I'm learning things from the failures as much as the successes. These two are not all they could be but which doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

https://subplotkudzu.blogspot.com/2024/07/new-salem-renaissance-v-module_10.html

Follow up post on yesterday's V&V module discussion, digging into the artwork from Jim Holloway and Patrick Zircher

https://subplotkudzu.blogspot.com/2024/07/more-on-honor-and-terror.html

Continuing my overview of V&V modules, here are two that I ran to great effect that really capture one of the uses for packaged adventures: they are modular, smaller stakes, and don't effect your campaign one whit if you don't want them to.

I really which that there had been a better language around adventures back in the day to make it clear what the stakes were for these; would have been very helpful!

https://subplotkudzu.blogspot.com/2024/07/new-salem-renaissance-v-module.html