Most prolific DC Comics writers

Now this is interesting.  It's a list of the "most prolific" DC comics writers as determined by the number of pages of published stories as recorded in the Grand Comics Database.  Very cool - I didn't know that the GCD had the kind of interface where you could get direct access to their data like that.

Interesting, but not too surprising I guess, that Robert Kanigher would be the most prolific -- he wrote a LOT of stuff back in the day.  And it's across every metric too - pages, stories, issues it just doesn't matter.  Gardener Fox comes in second, which is also not a surprise.

The surprising one for me is that Chuck Dixon comes in third.  I knew that Dixon wrote a LOT of stuff for DC -- I remember buying a lot of it -- but damn, he's got more pages under his belt than Bob Haney or Carey Bates?  That's surprising.  Also surprising - Geoff Johns coming in right behind him.  And he'll probably surpass him in a couple of years since he's only about a thousand pages and twenty stories behind him.  And right now Johns has Justice Society as his #1 title -- I imagine that will shift to Green Lantern if he keeps on the book for much longer.

Gamma World Origins - Magic-Users

I've been thinking a bit more about adding "Thundarr the Barbarian" elements to the D&D Gamma World game.  The previous three posts (and a few others that I'm still fleshing out) are some of my thoughts on characters whose primary abilities come through training rather than through mutations.  I have some more ideas on these types of characters, but there are other ways to approach this problem.  The Gamma World game has some suggestions on other origins that can be imagined as coming via training rather than training -- such as the Felinoid, Yeti or Speedster origins might be used for a martial artist, or the Hypercognitive as someone with highly trained intuition and reflexes.

This is approach I've been thinking about when it comes to magic-users in the Gamma World game.  The Dark and Psi based origins almost all scream wizardry - pick two, put them together and you have a wizard.  An elementalist, for example, could be built using some combination of Pyrokinetic (fire), Seismic (earth),  Telekinetic (air), Cryokinetic (ice) and, with a bit of re-themeing Gelatinous (earth or water) origins -- different combinations of these origins give you different elementalists.

Gamma World Origins - Fighter

Fighter
There's nothing subtle about your fighting style.
You have a very classic approach to fighting -- you move up next to an enemy and you hit it.  Simple and direct.  Maybe your friends call you reckless, or maybe they appreciate your blunt technique.

Appearance:  Your other origin is going to dictate your appearance -- with a little work almost anyone can learn to be a fighter.

Gamma World Origins - Knight

Knight
You're a defender of the innocent and protector of the downtrodden. Or maybe you just like dressing up in armor and carrying a big sword.
You wander the land righting wrongs, slaying dragons and rescuing princesses.  Or maybe you've sworn fealty to a king and act as the defender of his lands.  Or maybe you're just a weirdo who likes to dress up in heavy armor and hit things with a sword.

Appearance:  Your other origin is going to dictate your appearance -- Knights come from all walks of life.  However no matter what your other origin is you're probably going to be wearing some heavy armor, toting a hefty melee weapon, and carrying a large shield.  Otherwise why call yourself a Knight?

Gamma World Origins - Brawler

Brawler
You're an expert in fighting more than one opponent at a time
Your training focused on taking on multiple foes at once and making use of makeshift weapons that happen to be at hand.  Perhaps you were trained by a Revered Master in an ancient form of a long lost martial art, or maybe you've just been in a lot of barroom brawls.

Appearance:  Your other origin is going to dictate your appearance -- being a Brawler is more about training than birth (Brawlers are made, not born).  However your career as a fighter has probably left its mark somehow.  Maybe your face is scarred or you're missing an eye or an ear.

Gamma World

This past weekend I finally got a chance to run a session of the new Gamma World game from Wizards of the Coast.  All in all, I had an excellent time.  Part of that is that my group is fairly awesome, but part of it does come down to the fact that the Gamma World rules are just fun.  Character creation was relatively fast and simple -- and after a number of years of playing games where character creation takes hours and is all about making multiple painstaking choices, it was nice to run a game where dice are rolled and characters come together randomly.

And let's try this again

So it's been a while (ha!) since I last tried to do this "blog" thing.  It didn't go so well last time, but in the last 6 years my life has changed a bit.  I've finished my degree and have had a kid, and I'm finding that I need a creative outlet.  So I'm going to try this "blog" thing again


Right now I'm feeling the itch to work on gaming-related stuff, so this place is intended to be a bit of an outlet for that particular creative itch.  So we'll see.