REVIEW: Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #522

When last we saw our hero, series writer David Liss and artist Francesco Francavilla had the Black Panther's alter ego of Mr. Okonkwo arrested by Homeland Security for falsifying immigration papers. Also arrested was Foggy Nelson, Daredevil's sidekick, confidant, and law partner, who also happened to be the attorney that helped the Black Panther obtain immigration papers for his assumed identity. This issue picks up with the pair in jail while the city of New York goes to pieces outside as a result of the "Fear Itself" storyline ripping through the Marvel Universe. Taking advantage of said chaos is an entity known as the Hate-Monger, and his jackbooted henchman, the American Panther. 

After Foggy cashes in some favors from a colleague in the legal world, he and BP's alter ego are released from police custody. BP tries to alleviate Foggy's concerns about the legal consequences they are facing, but to no avail, as Foggy is unaware that the man he helped is really the Black Panther - former king of Wakanda, Avenger, and all around bad ass.

Dungeons & Dragons Encounters: Lost Crown of Neverwinter, Episode 1

So tonight was the premiere of D&D Encounters Season 6, "The Lost Crown of Neverwinter".

If you'll recall from my post of 8.7.11, the prologue adventure to this season that was run on D&D gameday, "The Gates of Neverdeath", didn't go too well for me. Would tonight be another wipe for my PC and party, or would I and they have a chance at redemption?

Well, it turns out that tonight's adventure was an entirely different story (figuratively speaking). People showed up early to prep their PCs, and there were enough players for two tables, necessitating the drafting of another DM.

Dungeons & Dragons Gameday: Gates of Neverdeath

I was really looking forward to playing the Gates of Neverdeath adventure on D&D's Neverwinter Gameday this past Saturday and returning to the Forgotten Realms after a long, long, long absence from the richly detailed and supremely engrossing campaign setting (hadn't played there since my AD&D days waaaaay back, basically).

But...instead of a fun and entertaining session, all I got after nearly 5 hours of frustrating play was a Wipe/TPK.  

Well that doesn't sound so bad, you might say. Or you might ask, what IS a Wipe/TPK anyway?

So, without further adieu (and courtesy of the folks over at Wikipedia): 

Wipe/TPK - A Total Party Kill (TPK) or Wipe is the colloquial term for the demise of the entire party of player characters in a single encounter during the course of a role-playing game adventure. While many games permit other player characters to resurrect deceased comrades in some fashion, a TPK often results in all of the players making new characters (or the end of the campaign if the group is less cohesive).

Dungeons & Dragons Gameday Tomorrow! Neverwinter!

A new season of D&D Encounters starts tomorrow with the Nevwerwinter Gameday set in the Forgotten Realms Neverwinter campaign setting. I'm really looking forward to starting a season from scratch since I came in at the penultimate episode of the previous season,  Dark Legacy of Evard.

I'm hoping to play at a more experienced table tomorrow rather than at the newbies table that I had been playing at this past season. I think that I've picked up the mechanics of D&D 4e enough to not slow things down at the "regulars" table, and I've been getting a little short on patience for some of the folks at the newbies table - we barely managed to slog through and finish the season finale last Wednesday due to the slowness of some of the newbies as they fumbled with systems and mechanics pertaining to their characters.

I went a little overboard and pregenerated a dozen or so characters for the new season tomorrow, but better to be prepared with options than get stuck with one of the prepackaged PCs that every season has available for the Johnny-come-lately types. I'm hoping to play a Drow Bard, Human Mage or Half-Elf Sorcerer this time, or maybe even a Shadar-kai Monk, though I also have a Revenant Blackguard, a Human Knight, and a Minotaur Warden ready to go if I feel more Martial than Arcane. I'm also looking forward to the promise of an Eladrin Bladesinger class, so I whipped up an Eladrin Swordmage to use as a rough template should the new class indeed become available at tomorrow's session. Decisions, decisions!

I'll be back here with a play-by-play report of the gameday kick-off for the new season after tomorrow. I'm excited to be playing in the Forgotten Realms world, even if it has drastically changed since I last visited it many years ago back when it was still AD&D.

REVIEW: Digital Culture, Play and Identity: A World of Warcraft Reader

"Digital Culture, Play and Identity: A World of Warcraft Reader" published by MIT Press and edited by Hilde G. Corneliussen and Jill Walker Rettberg, is a collection of works by various authors regarding the World of Warcraft phenomenon and how it informs contemporary notions of culture, play and identity.

I stumbled onto this book at Half Price Books in the role playing game section, of all places. After reading it, I'm not entirely convinced that was the best place for it to be shelved. The majority of the contributors to the essays contained in the book are Norwegian and all of the contributors are based out of universities in Europe, where they serve as social science and cultural theory academics. They all play(ed) World of Warcraft on the European servers, all served as part of the same guild, and used their experiences while logged in as the basis for their research, even going to the extent of holding guild meetings in the game world to review and share findings.