Emerald Specter – Emerald Specter

Why Davies, Moffat, and Chibnall Shouldn’t be Showrunners for Doctor Who

Doctor Who is the longest running science fiction series of all time. Some people qualify that by adding “television” to that statement but it doesn’t need to be there. No other science fiction has been active longer than Doctor Who (active throughout its entire existence). Star Trek is 3 years younger. Twilight Zone had a huge inactivity gap. Doctor Who stands at the top of that mountain.

The Doctor Who of 1963 is not the Doctor Who of today. One of the reasons that Doctor Who has stayed relevant so long is that the property has adapted to survive. Replacing the lead actor, changing the way stories are told, telling different kinds of stories, and most of it done with a ridiculously small budget. Before the 1995 TV movie, fans only had a couple of decades worth of material to debate over and some of those fans became obsessed with trying to explain certain things that really didn’t need an explanation.

A prime example of such a thing is in the 4th Doctor story The Brain of Morbius, where the Doctor and another Time Lord named Morbius battle each other mentally using a contraption between them. Appearing in this contraption are several faces, which fans have long pointed to as former faces of Morbius and surmised that others must be pre-William Hartnell Doctors.

The fan that seemed to have latched onto this the hardest was Chris Chibnall, a man who would eventually become showrunner for his favorite sci fi show Doctor Who. What better way to tie up his pet peeve than to write a reason this episode had unrecognizable faces?

Chibnall wrote up the Timeless Child, which most fans hate outright. I actually like the concept and enjoy the fact that the Doctor is far more special than just a Time Lord. However, this is a fan of the show getting too deeply involved in fixing something that did not need to be fixed. Chibnall literally wrote fan fiction that is now Doctor Who canon and as a fan that makes me a little upset. I don’t want to see fan fiction made canon, I don’t want to see fan fiction period. This isn’t how a professionally made show should work.

Another example of such a thing is the 5th Doctor story Arc of Infinity, where the Doctor ends up on Gallifrey and has a back and forth with a Commander Maxil. This interaction isn’t really the important part but Maxil was played by Colin Baker, who would go on to be cast as the 6th Doctor (Peter Davison’s replacement) and debut in his first story Twin Dilemma.

Fans at the time may have noticed that an actor from the show had been cast as the Doctor but no one really made a big deal out of it. One person did apparently think this was a big deal and NEEDED it to be a huge deal: Stephen Moffat.

Moffat was a fan who latched onto this hiccup and decided his obsession needed to be everyone’s obsession.

Moffat wrote up the story The Fires of Pompeii, which featured Peter Capaldi as a Roman citizen in the city of Pompeii who would narrowly avoid being consumed by the lava with his family. When Moffat became the showrunner of Doctor Who, he cast Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor and made everyone wonder (due to a lot of dialogue about it) why the Doctor looked like some random dude from Pompeii.

Why is this an issue? This has happened before and no one cared. I still don’t care about this happening. Colin Baker was on the show and then later was cast as the Doctor. Same thing with Peter Capaldi. Move along, nothing to see here. But, again, we have someone who wrote some fan fiction that got made into canon and just like I mentioned with Chibnall above, that upsets me.

Moffat has committed a worse crime than Chibnall, though. He’s written A LOT of episodes that literally end with a hand wave resolution. Doctor Who isn’t supposed to do hand waves, yet a good chunk of Moffat’s era is “meh, it’s just fixed now because we say so.” I do not care for Matt Smith as the Doctor and I write these words realizing for the first time that it isn’t Smith’s fault… it’s Moffat’s. Smith’s era feels less like Doctor Who and more like an exercise video that has some elements of Doctor Who in it.

There’s one more to go over.

Russell T Davies became the showrunner of Doctor Who from 2005 to 2010 and selected two different individuals as the Doctor in that time. He was a fan of the show growing up and turned the show more towards character drama, over the top resolutions that didn’t make a ton of sense, overly explained dialogue, and lack of a long term structure.

Rather than spending most of the time he had on the show creating a new age, with new villains to rival the old, serialized storytelling (with less episodes per serial), and really bring the show from the classic era into a new one. (Side note: by serialized, I mean 2 episode arcs, an homage to the classic series, then slowly phased out.) Instead, we got a spotlight on reintroduced classic villains, melodrama to the limit, a frequent deus ex machina resolution, and allusions to the greatest story ever doomed to happen offscreen.

In Davies most recent run, he’s been a whole different mess than above. The 15th Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa (an actor I very dearly love, and I even enjoyed his Doctor), is largely seen as being wildly out of character from previous portrayals (too emotional). Other problems with the new era are a high level of what ignorant people call wokeness (here and there isn’t bad, but it was shoved in our faces from episode 1 until episode 16 is too much), diversity for diversity’s sake (I’m not opposed to including everyone but when everyone is special, we’ve lost the plot), and too much focus on the personal lives of the characters and not enough plot driven narrative that should be what stories are about.

And his worst crime only came to the forefront when I watched The War Between The Land And The Sea. Don’t worry, I won’t spoil it for those who can’t watch it yet, but I will say that it contains Davies’ worst crime: everything “interesting” happens off screen. As writers (I am one), we are told to “show, don’t tell.” This is a cardinal sin of writing.

While I did like some of Gatwa’s stories, others just read as a “Davies writing his opinion column in the form of a Doctor Who episode” story. These are Davies version of the fan fiction above. Moffat and Chibnall made their fan fiction into canon Doctor Who. Davies takes Doctor Who and makes it into his personal sounding board for whatever social issue he’s interested in at the time of writing.

These are not the people who should be writing for or running Doctor Who.

Doctor Who used to be about telling great science fiction stories, historical pieces with the Doctor involved, and episodes that were filled with story first and character building on the side. I sincerely hope that whoever takes over the reigns rights the ship, at least backing way back from where we left off. And can we please not do Billie Piper as 16? Please?

If you have anything to comment on, you can email me at emeraldspecter – at – gmail – dot – com.

Thanks for reading.

Proof of Concept: Chess as Entertainment Spectacle

Chess is a game that has existed for somewhere around 500 years. In all that time, the players who play the game have gone from really good to inhumanly great. Unlike other things that have existed that long, chess seems to be the one thing no one seems can turn into a spectacle. Though I’ve suggested things in the past, I am going to lay out a concept and then (once the details are solidified on my end) I’m going to simulate it to prove it can be done.

The first time I had a concept of turning chess into a spectacle was the Kasparov-Kramnik World Chess Championship Match. Back then, without much experience at looking at all the available data and having less available data, my example was professional wrestling. The problem with trying to explain turning chess into a spectacle using professional wrestling is that everyone goes to the obvious “and then I hit him with a chair, right?” At no point could I get anyone to understand that the competition was real, the idea was that they would simply play up some personalities to hype up their matches… CHESS matches.

I didn’t give up with that failure, though.

Another World Chess Championship had rolled around and I again began thinking about the correct way to turn chess into a proper spectacle. With more time between the last attempt and this one, I had seen plenty of Texas Hold ‘Em Poker on TV and I had a better comparison than pro wrestling.

Poker was the perfect analog for chess because I could literally point to the cards, tell you to remove them and replace them with chess, and say “why can’t we do that?” I was a little alarmed at the lack of enthusiasm from this idea, not even just a silence about wanting to see anything like this, but silence as feedback. I asked a wider audience and I got a smaller return in response than the pro wrestling callout.

My failure on this one wasn’t that poker on TV wasn’t a good example, the failure was in my lack of asking about a specific speed control of chess.

I didn’t give up, though. I kept moving forward.

An idea struck me when I had a Chess.com paid membership and I was running a lot of tournaments: I love sumo and I love chess, why not try to run chess like sumo (organize it like sumo)?

I ran a tournament called Chess Basho with an explanation of what the tournament was about, what it meant to participate, and how we could collectively build it up if we worked on it.

No one single player other than myself played in every tournament. Only three other players came back for between three and five tournaments. I never won any of the tournaments. No banzuke (official ranking) ever was produced because of the randomness of the players.

This concept was without a “play up the personalities” aspect but really needed a set group of people willing to belong. I didn’t have that.

Again, I did not give up.

I went a long time without thinking or caring much about chess. There were at least two World Chess Championships played during this period in time and I can tell you that neither of them had Magnus Carlsen as the World Champion. I just sort of fell out of love with chess for a little while and I needed a some distance.

Then I felt a pull.

I hadn’t stopped playing chess during that time. My lack of caring did show as my rating slipped from somewhere around 1100 to my current low 800s. Let’s not focus on that, though, let’s focus on the fact that I started really getting back into wanting to restart my Chess Bashos again. This time, however, I wanted to do it in a way that actually proved my concept and that meant I had to simulate things to make it work… THEN bring it to the world to play in.

WHEN this gets brought to you there will be solid and completely laid out rules to prevent anyone from asking questions about whether or not something is above board. Why? Because if I wanted to participate again I don’t want my participation to be questioned because someone didn’t understand a rule. This means everything needs to be very clear and covered. The simulation will be run until everything is covered, including how players are ranked after each tournament, how “named ranks” are determined, how chess basho’s version of a “Yokozuna” is determined, and more. While I may own this concept at the moment, I would want a “council” involved to adapt things as new things arise. Things WILL arise.

You’ll hear more as the year goes on and you’ll get to see (and possibly hear) the results of things as we move forward. I will release everything as I am ready to but I need to make sure all of the rules and presentation are correct before any of that happens.

Interested? You can email me at emeraldspecter – at – gmail – dot – com and tell me about it, sign on, get involved, or just get notified when things start dropping on this site.

Thanks for reading.

Drafting the 10 Best Heroes and Villains to Start a Comic Book Universe Part 2

Welcome back! If you haven’t read part 1, go there and start there because the rules and what is happening is all there. This time I draft the supervillains to populate this new universe! Since I’ve already used my team choice, it’s all individuals, too! Let’s get to it.

SELECTION #1: Ursa of Krypton

Not Zod, Ursa. She’s got her own motivations, she’s Kryptonian, and she’s super tough to handle on Earth, making her one bad ass to deal with for our heroes.

This introduces our alien element and the possibilities of other Kryptonians existing within this new universe, as well as the possibilities of other species out there in the universe. Ursa was the one I went with because I wanted to avoid such a male dominated field, of which this is definitely going to be, and she is going to be one of the toughest, if not THE toughest of the group.

Ursa brings a detached evil, cold and calculating, without remorse and clear goals set before her. Is she coming to Earth to get revenge for something or is she just here to try and conquer the place? This is where our first supervillain gets interesting because we can really open things cup right out of the gate with a powerful being that few of our heroes can contend with in a one on one battle.

Depending on which version of Ursa, she can be used to embody the essence of Zodiac rather than just be his complete replacement in this universe.

SELECTION #2: The Plutonian

Forget the heroics and the attempted being of good, this Plutonian will be the “Brightburn” or villain from the start. As a Homelander-esq mentality but having no heroic facade in this universe, the Plutonian will be a sadistic creep and may be more than our heroes can handle when it comes to stopping the unstoppable.

The Plutonian brings to the table our “nurture vs nature” debate, where we can swing an altered origin for this universe to be a poor bringing up of abuse and neglect leading into what will become a horrible personality instability once he gains superpowers. What’s worse than someone who has vast powers and a problems with authority figures?

He’s going to be so mentally unstable that he’ll likely have issues with other supervillains, even if he has agreed to work with any of them for any length of time. Having superpowers is going to lead to the Plutonian having some sort of power trip and pushing his weight around like he’s Darth Vader making new deals every 5 minutes in Empire Strikes Back.

SELECTION #3: Magneto

Three powerhouses right out of the gate, Magneto adds the mutant flavor to the major villains and also adds a new ultimate force to the villain side of the equation. Not gifted with super strength, speed, or flight, Magneto brings an elemental force of nature to bear against everyone who will be dealing with him.

When dealing with someone like Magneto we discover who has metal on them and who is susceptible to being taken down by metal objects in a fight. With control of such magnetism, Magneto presents opportunities against heroes he’s never faced off against in this universe.

Magneto will be more closely related to Cyber Force in this universe and may have some cybernetic connections rather than just mutant connections. This adds a new twist to his personal mission and would also be an interesting twist in whether he would be a deep state government operative or if he is well and truly operating on a villainous front, since his Marvel motivations were the same as Professor X’s in Marvel, he just saw a different means of achieving those goals.

SELECTION #4: The Maker

Bring on the Maker, the evil Reed Richards who became what is easily the greatest villain of the 21st century so far.

The Maker creates things, he “makes,” and that would be this universe’s primary source of weird and bizarre creations that would be our small time threats. They could also be bigger than small time threats, like one time threats or perhaps even iconic nemeses that might emerge down the line.

The best part about the Maker is that the door is wide open with this threat. He would like be in a pocket dimension most of the time, meaning he’s out of the way when other threats are about but pops in when he wants to run a simulation or a test with one of his creations.

Having the Maker in this universe provides us with the “smartest person in existence” threat that can be more than strength or superpowers. He’s more than a Lex Luthor or Norman Osborn and he’s definitely a threat to every hero on my list.

SELECTION #5: Giganta

An unconventional selection but one that adds a twist. Using science rather than magic as the source of her growth, she’s being brought in as a sort of “Hank Pym” villain, the source of growth science while also being an evil personality about it.

Having another woman on the villains list, and converting her to be a top scientist, adds another weapon against the heroes that we wouldn’t get with the others.

Her size provides strength and super human abilities and with her being a scientist in this universe, she will be a double threat to be able to contend with heroes on multiple different layers.

SELECTION #6: Ozymandias

Not a cartoon supervillain, he’s not going to tell you his plan until it is impossible for you to stop it, Ozymandias is absolutely the best possible villain one could want in this new universe. He’s got the smarts of someone who can think with the best of them, he’s got the skills to fight with the heroes that think they can overpower anyone, and he’s got the ability to out maneuver those who aren’t sure how to approach him.

Ozymandias also brings another angle to the universe we are missing: a non-super powered being as a villain. His fighting skills are highly honed and very precise but they aren’t super human. His mind is highly developed and considered to be among the smartest in the world… but not super human.

From the Watchmen, Ozymandias worked from within the system as a hero to create his masterful villain turn but in our universe he is a hidden villain only in the fact that he keeps a public persona different from his Ozymandias persona. Think Lex Luthor but different.

SELECTION #7: Ultron

With the cybernetics of the Cyber Force, the technological angles of the Iron Man and Batman, Ultron is a perfect “machine intelligence” arising from experimentation gone wrong in this universe.

Unlike the actual origins of Ultron in the comics, I would begin with Ultron 1 and the slow building of this villain from the very beginning. This would be a slow burn build up to someone realizing over a long time that they’ve made a huge mistake and then releasing Ultron onto the unsuspecting world in a big way.

Ultron wouldn’t iterate as quickly as he did in Avengers Age of Ultron, that was more of an homage to the iterating done in the comics. He popped up with a backstory in the comics with his first iteration being something like Ultron 9 and having been created already but this universe will see his actual origin and the repercussions of creating machine intelligence with cybernetics attached to that.

He may be the most sinister of my villains because he can be seen from the very start.

SELECTION #8: Doctor Doom

A magical powerhouse, a technological powerhouse, and a mastermind of diabolical thinking, Doctor Doom is a man to be watched when it comes to villainy. As the ruler of Latveria (a fictional nation I would keep), he stands as a foil for all my heroes that would be truly interesting to defeat as he is not only a supervillain but also the sovereign ruler of a foreign nation.

Doctor Doom ties in a lot of loose ends as far as drawing together heroes from my list. Shazam has the magic, Iron Man and Batman would have the tech, Cyber Force have a mutant angle but they deal in cybernetics, and the Crow would fall into the mystical… everything that Doctor Doom is into as far as lore and business.

No universe would be complete without a solid heavy hitter and while some would claim a Darkseid or Thanos would need to be that heavy hitter, Doctor Doom fulfills that role without sacrificing the character to a “one track mind” (looking for Infinity Gems or the Anti-Life Equation).

Doctor Doom keeps his fingers in a lot of different pots.

SELECTION #9: Black Adam

My only direct nemesis chosen is that of Shazam’s Black Adam. I wanted to include the direct opposite of the lynchpin of my new universe in this one as having someone else who has the same powers as one of our heroes.

Like Doctor Doom, Black Adam is the ruler of a sovereign nation (Kahndaq) and I would again keep this nation to build upon. This adds a layer of complication to just a straight up “go get him and throw him in jail” reaction to conflict with Black Adam.

Black Adam could also be ancient enough to know more about what the other wizards from the Rock of Eternity were powered by (see part 1 for more on that). His presence in this new universe also opens up some epic conflicts that would see some great battles: vs Shazam, vs Iron Man, vs Hulk just to name a few.

SELECTION #10: Toyo Harada

From Valiant Entertainment’s comics universe comes the dangerously overpowered Toyo Harada. He’s a business man, deep ties to the government, and he’s a psiot (giving me access to psiots as an option for superpower individuals as well).

Toyo Harada is the primary antagonist for the Harbingers in Valiant’s universe and his powers are numerous. He’s got telepathy, mind control, precognition, psionic bolts, telepathic invisibility, telekinesis, force-fields, flight, illusionist, and he’s got eidetic memory. That is a lot of anyone but for a villain who wishes to unlock other psiots to serve in his private army, that’s alarming. Just like in the Valiant universe, Harada will have the limitation of a low conversion rate, meaning that he kills more people he tries to convert than he actually converts. Psiots are turned if they have the potential to become psiots unlike other forms of superpowers and in Valiant he has an opposite with ways to convert at 100%. Will this universe have that, too?

Including Toyo Harada will be the most important pick because with all of the power stacking, muscle, magical, and otherworldly aspects of the rest of my villains, Toyo Harada can still hang with all of them. He’s been alive for a lot longer than any human is supposed to live and he’s virtually untouchable as far as someone to fight with. His powers allow him to go toe to toe with just about anyone and in this universe there would need to be someone to emerge to handle him in a unique way… or the heroes I’ve drafted would need to do some overwhelming indeed.

That’s my draft. What did you think? What are your picks? Who would you start a universe with?

I’d love to hear about it at emeraldspecter – at – gmail – dot – com.

Thanks for reading.

Drafting the 10 Best Heroes and Villains to Start a Comic Book Universe Part 1

Have you ever sat back and looked at the Marvel, DC, Image, Valiant, or other universe and thought “that hero or villain belongs in this other universe?” I’ve said that about a number of heroes and villains from a number of different universes and have even gone as far as creating my own universe with a plethora of pastiches from those universes to see how they work together. (Side note: that universe has evolved over the course of 20+ years into a universe of original heroes and villains that will be written, drawn, and released in the future by myself.) Here, though, I plan on drafting the 10 best heroes and 10 best villains from every comic book universe to use as a basis for creating one universe to start from scratch. There will be people who hate what I’ve chosen and others who love what I’ve chosen, but my goal is to get you thinking and maybe even discussing the possibilities.

The rules: individual heroes and villains are the intent to be chosen here, however, you can choose a group consisting of up to 6 individuals (if you name them) but you can only do that ONCE. Every other selection must be an individual. You do NOT automatically get any hero’s rogue’s gallery nor do you get any villain’s nemesis. Your selections are the entirety of the draft and they are the basis of your new universe.

SELECTION #1: Shazam (or The Captain)

Yes, I’m starting out with a strange pick for most of you but I’m starting out with my favorite superhero of all time: the original Captain Marvel.

The entire story behind Shazam is a great one and with the “relaunch” of the Shazamily for the modern DC era, it also sort of allows for the expansion of the myth to go further than just Shazam. The Wizard was part of a council that he granted his power to Billy Batson when there was no one else worthy to become the champion.

Well, if I were expanding this in a new universe, what about the others on that council? Did one of the others possess a power other than living lightning? Could there be a hero with living fire or living water as base powers? If so, these guys would have to pre-date Black Adam because there has been no mention or indication that any of these “champions” existed between Black Adam and Shazam (assuming I also draft Black Adam), leaving the door wide open for a whole pantheon of possibilities.

Shazam is the first pick because he is the cornerstone of this universe and this universe couldn’t exist without him. He’s the source of magic and the one who ends up being the one who really controls how magic works in this world.

I think this is a great start and we now move onto the next pick.

SELECTION #2: Captain America

This one may make you look at me weird, especially after I went with the pinnacle of magic, but Captain America is a big deal in comics storytelling for me. Captain America represents a lot of things about America (the way it should be), about Marvel, and about how heroes should act. Captain America is a leader, a tried and true hero, and someone who will stand up for what’s right whether or not he’s going to survive the experience.

While the man I am drafting exists in both the MCU and the comics, the one that I’m primarily leaning on is the one in the MCU/Ultimate Comics because that is the Captain America that isn’t saddled with hundreds of issues of continuity.

Finding an American hero in the ice after everyone thought he was lost in the ice is something that would inspire my new universe of heroes to rise up against the evil in the world and fight for good.

Captain America opens up the opportunity to do what the MCU did: use the super soldier serum as the basis for all kinds of new super heroes and villains in this new universe. How many other people tried to do the same thing and ended up doing something to themselves that was nowhere near what ended up happening to Steve Rogers? Using this as a premise, we can create all kinds of weird side effects that can open up possibilities to create powers that will be interesting and be able to contend with Captain America on his level.

What other countries would have created their own Captain America? Captain Mexico? Captain Canada? Captain Russia? Captain Ukraine? The possibilities are endless.

SELECTION #3: Cyber Force (Specifically Ripclaw, Velocity, Cyblade, Impact, and Ballistic)

My favorite Image launch comics, Cyber Force took me by storm when they debuted and I have loved them ever since. Choosing Ripclaw, Velocity, Cyblade, Impact, and Ballistic specifically was due in part to needing to include the members that I most cared about in the comics and that I wanted to include in this new universe. While Stryker and Heatwave are also interesting in their own right, they didn’t make the cut in this universe.

Cyber Force allows me to include mutants into the mix but also allow cybernetics to be included as well, giving this universe a level of tech that will be used for all kinds of things that won’t be questioned and keep this universe separate from our world.

The personalities are interesting and rather than have them all on the run like they are in Image/Top Cow, I would have them involved in a different kind of story. My tales would include heroics against villains that operate in the shadows, villains that operate in locations in other countries than the US, and villains that are actively looking to replace a lot of humanity with mostly cybernetics.

Cyber Force is considered the perfect blend of cybernetics and super powers while anyone else trying to do this would most likely end up being some sort of freak or genetic mishap if they were converted by a villain or well intentioned individual who doesn’t know exactly what the repercussions of such actions would be.

SELECTION #4: Batman

How can you have a comics universe without the world’s greatest detective?

Batman/Bruce Wayne allows for the new universe to have ourselves a “more than human” individual on a one man mission to make a city clear of crime in revenge for his family’s murder. In DC Comics that city is Gotham City but I don’t really like to do fictional cities if I don’t need to, so I would end up making that city a real world equivalent like New York maybe Newark. I would definitely keep it on the east coast of the US, though and only go as far in as Baltimore but Batman would definitely be THE hero of that city in question.

Having Batman in the universe means we have an altruistic billionaire fighting crime and while DC has an entire entourage of family members behind him, this new universe would have him solo and allowing for a chance to make all kinds of new help (if I so chose to make him a new Bat-family).

Along with the other heroes on my list (even the ones you haven’t read about yet), Batman would very much adapt his technology to fit his goals and use everything in his power to adjust to fight anything that his new city’s criminals could possibly throw at him. The wonders of what Batman in a brand new setting could be something to witness.

SELECTION #5: Iron Man

Another billionaire? Yes, another billionaire.

Tony Stark brings a different kind of flavor to the universe. Iron Man is technology based, something out of science fiction if you go far enough, and Tony Stark is often displayed as being beyond the cutting edge of technology. The Iron Man suits are the result of that drive to be beyond the cutting edge and that’s why I’m including him.

With Iron Man comes a certain realism but also the ability to include technology into superhero DNA that would explain a lot of things that can’t be explained. I’m not talking about DNA as in their genetics, I’m talking about how powers work or how super suits can go without being damaged. This is one of those cases where my previous pick, Batman, would integrate some of Iron Man’s tech into his own stuff, meaning that both men could benefit from each other in the long run.

Where as Bruce Wayne has a stable demeanor and a thoughtful process to work things out to solve problems, Tony Stark is more of a “let’s build a thing and throw it at the problem to see what happens” type of guy. These are two totally different billionaires trying to solve problems in two entirely different ways.

I really wanted to include the Iron Man suits/tech in this new universe and this was a necessary pick.

SELECTION #6: Green Lantern

The Green Lantern I have chosen to go with is Sojourner “Jo” Mullein, a female of the group and one of the newer Lanterns of the Corps. I absolutely wanted to include a Lantern in the mix because this gives the universe a cosmic element while also allowing the universe to have someone who can also operate in Sector 2814. Unlike DC where it seems there are a hundred Lanterns working on Earth, Mullein will be the only Lantern operating on Earth.

I went with a female specifically because if you notice the list so far, it is quite male dominated. Yes, Cuber Force has quite a few females but I wanted some independently operating females, and this is the first one that I decided to choose.

Choosing a Green Lantern also opens up the possibilities of including all of the other Lantern Corps, as well as creating a number of other Green Lanterns without being tied to the Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Guy Gardner source that the original DC origins were. There is a greater opportunity to change and expand the Lanterns in a way that isn’t just based on emotions or the like and could be utilized in a different mythology, creating a whole new way to look at them.

With Jo Mullein being the original Lantern you’re introduced to in this universe, we also eliminate the Alan Scott precursor and the muddled mess that is the Golden Age with heroes that existed and aged out of the ability to continue heroics.

SELECTION #7: Atom Eve

Who thought I was going to completely leave out the Invincible universe in this selection process?

Atom Eve is the perfect character for this universe in that she has a versatile set of powers without having a lot of baggage in other areas. Those who haven’t read outside the main DC or Marvel universes will be introduced to a great character that can show off a variety of powers that will dazzle and hang with the best of the best in times of need.

The inclusion of Atom Eve sets up a world where she can blend in as a mutant, or be one of the offshoots of the super soldier serum experiments, or maybe even a byproduct of some magical spell that didn’t go as planned. Whatever her origins end up being, Atom Eve brings a girlish facade to a very testosterone fueled battle where she can hang with even the strongest of them.

She also acts as an unlikely leader in times where a team might form or a person like Captain America might not be available to take charge.

Atom Eve also keeps this list from being just a DC and Marvel party.

SELECTION #8: Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman brings in the world of Gods, Goddesses, and the wonders of mythology. She also gives this universe a taste of demigods and something more to fight for than just modern day problems.

While Captain America was our hero fighting in World War II, Wonder Woman would have been the inspiration and fighter alongside everyone in World War I. This gives us two long term heroes that have links to the US’s past and might even make them kindred spirits in this world as they would have a unique connection.

I personally would go with the white and gold costume as the preferred one to the red, white, and blue one she’s normally pictured in. Honestly, I’d probably have the outfit redesigned entirely, foregoing the red, white, and blue motif entirely in favor of something a little more “Greek Mythology” and a little less America.

Wonder Woman represents the first nearly immortal character I’ve chosen on this list and she would represent the first character on a God-tier level. She represents the one who would be who aliens from other planets might be seeking to duke it out with to see if they match up.

Wonder Woman is a necessity for this new universe.

SELECTION #9: Hulk

Yes, the Incredible Hulk is on the list because the giant, green, rage monster needs to be part of the new universe.

Having a Jekyll/Hyde type character is always a great idea and having the Hulk himself opens up the world of other irradiated beings into the fold. Rather than having a bunch of weird rogues from Hulk’s gallery, we can create new sideshow freaks from scratch that might fit better in a properly thought out universe. Planning ahead can make all the difference and not having to worry about previous baggage is a wealth of wonderful story opportunities.

Bruce Banner not having to contend with Thunderbolt Ross (if I don’t decide to draft him) or not starting as the Gray Hulk (if I didn’t decide to start that route) would be an interesting way to begin the Hulk, telling a totally different story than the one we already know, either from the 616 or the MCU.

We can begin to build up a whole new mythology behind how the Hulk operates, mentally speaking. Just like the MCU, we can also slowly allow the Hulk to develop rather than spend 40 years keeping the Hulk in a child-like state in the comics.

Was the Hulk a byproduct of a super soldier serum attempt like in the MCU? Was it like the gamma bomb like in the 616? Is Hulk the product of an alien infection that has mutated him? Speaking of mutation, is the Hulk a mutant? Fun times lie ahead.

SELECTION #10: The Crow

Wait, what? The Crow?

Yes, the Crow.

Introducing the Crow, and the entire concept of how the Crow operates, brings a unique element into the comics universe that wouldn’t exist in any other shared comic book universe: a hero that is out to even the odds but isn’t the same person every time.

Marvel has a spirit of vengeance in Ghost Rider, but he has less of a direction than the Crow would. DC has a spirit of vengeance in the Spectre, but he is bound to Abrahamic deities. The Crow manifests to exact justice and that is what the Crow is: a spirit of Justice.

The Crow is this new universe’s unique twist that exists in different forms, following different storylines at different times, and involving themselves in the greater plots of other heroes when their paths meet one another.

This is the completion of the selection of heroes for this new universe and completes part 1 of the column. Join me next time for part 2 when I select the villains for this new universe, knowing that the “team” has already been used.

You can provide feedback at emeraldspecter – at – gmail – dot – com.

Thanks for reading.

Tron and How Disney Screwed Up the Easiest Franchise Ever

In 1982, Disney released a science fiction movie not about aliens invading Earth or about humans going into space but about humans going into a computer world and seeing what that experience would be like. When Tron came to theaters, it was considered a financial failure by Disney and part of the budget was written off… but critics were giving it rave reviews as being visionary, interesting, and something like nothing the world had ever seen. The movie is considered a “cult” classic and is beloved by millions, despite Disney seeing it as some sort of weird blight on their record of movie making history.

Fast forward to 2010 and Disney finally released the sequel Tron Legacy. Legacy did much better in theaters but didn’t do quite as well with critics, at least not universally. The reviews were all positive with the special effects and overall look of the film but most of the hits came to the character development, which seemed to take a bit of a backseat to the visual spectacle that Legacy ended up being. Fans reacted much more positively to this film, though, and were far more interested in seeing where Disney would go with this franchise now that it had gotten a shiny new coat of paint and one of the best soundtracks (by Daft Punk) ever.

An animated series called Tron Uprising was released to keep fans’ hopes up and to continue the story, this time completely from the program’s perspective, and give all of us a tale that was interesting enough to make us beg for multiple seasons… multiple seasons that would lead into a new sequel that we knew would be coming up. Sadly, only a single season of Uprising ever came out and we just sat with mouths open wondering what went wrong. We wanted more.

What did Disney do to capitalize on this? They waited 15 years and refused to make a sequel, forcing Hollywood’s worst actor’s to push the sequel forward and make a disaster under the Disney banner.

Let me take you through the journey of the creation of Tron Ares.

The sequel, originally under the working title TR3N, was greenlit by Disney in 2010, was going to continue the story of Sam Flynn and Quorra as they explored the relationship between themselves and Quorra being in the real world (and whether or not she wanted to stay). Some rewriting of the story happened between 2010 and 2013 and Bruce Boxleitner (who plays Tron) stated that filming could begin as early as 2014. When Disney’s 2015 Tomorrowland bombed in theaters, TR3N was cancelled outright.

WHY WAS AN UNRELATED MOVIE INVOLVED IN THE PROCESS OF TRON? The two were completely unrelated and Disney really shit the bed right at this moment. This is the exact moment that proved Disney can’t be trusted with big properties.

In 2017, Jared Leto (who thinks he’s an A-list actor but he’s mid B-list at best) became a producer and the lead character of Ares for a “soft reboot” of the new sequel now called Tron Ares. There were conscious decisions not to bring back anyone from the original two films other than Jeff Bridges because of the idea that it would be too much “fan service.” The film lost about half it’s budget after being in theaters and has been given positive reviews for its visuals, just like Legacy, but not much more.

This is where the meat and potatoes of the problem comes in for Disney.

How in the world can you screw up the simplest franchise in the world? It is dead simple to win with Tron. DEAD. SIMPLE.

I have been a super fan of Tron since the beginning. I saw Tron in theaters, I own both Tron and Tron Legacy, and I continue to hope for the best for the franchise as a whole. When Tron Uprising came out and was running on TV, I thought there was a big plan for a long term franchise with Tron and we would be seeing Tron in multiple forms of media for decades: movies, TV, books, video games, TTRPGs, toys, etc. I was ready. Then Uprising was cancelled and Disney went quiet. Absolutely no news about TR3N until the rumors about Jared Leto started popping up.

Jared fucking Leto? It’s Morbin’ Time Jared Leto? The literal embarrassment of Sony and the joke of the filmmaking industry Jared Leto? THE butt of the joke Jared Leto? Disney handed over the keys to Tron to Jared Leto?

I can say, in all honesty, that I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a Jared Leto project. Morbius was NOT good. Haunted Mansion was not good. Despite everyone pointing to his Joker, he was not a good Joker and I hope he never returns to that role. Blade Runner 2049 is not a good movie (I also hate the original). One of the saddest things I’ve discovered is that I was extremely interested in the upcoming Masters of the Universe movie but he’s playing Skeleton, so I’m now highly concerned the movie is doomed to fail because he’s involved in it. Jared Leto isn’t the lead, so maybe there is some hope for it.

People are really tired of reboots. I am really tired of reboots when reboots don’t need to be done. Tron didn’t need a reboot. Tron Ares isn’t a good movie. I went into my viewing really wanting to like the movie. I spent the entire movie really wanting to like it. When the movie ended I asked myself if I liked it and I had to come to the conclusion that I didn’t and that it was because it wasn’t a good movie. I am a die hard Nine Inch Nails fan and the soundtrack is excellent. In fact, the soundtrack is the best thing about the film, but beyond that… The visuals were great but the story was bad, Leto was bad, Evan Peters was bad, the premise was bad, and I don’t think anything could have saved that movie beyond it being a direct and correct sequel to Legacy.

The biggest roadblock to good movies are executives. Executives that are too stupid and are paid too much.

I could fix Tron… hell, the four escaped monkeys in St Louis could fix Tron. I could fix Tron and not only can it be fixed but it NEEDS to be fixed. It also needs to be fixed by someone who isn’t connected to Disney directly. I want it fixed so badly, I’ll even tell you all how to do it.

First and foremost, get Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, and Cillian Murphy back under contract and get Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross to do the soundtrack. Write a sequel to Tron Legacy, ignoring Tron Ares COMPLETELY. Since elements of the original story were integrated into Ares, the story will have to change, so here’s the story I’m suggesting (TR4N):

Quorra has been living in the real world and isn’t really finding her place in it. Sam has been trying to help her find a place but has also been creating an Encom Grid to help provide her a purpose. Edward Dillinger Jr. has been building something bigger: an army of militant programs. Dillinger plans for a hostile takeover of Encom’s systems to gain access to a printer that will allow programs to enter the real world, currently controlled by Encom. Sam takes Quorra into the new Grid to show her the potential she has to turn it into something great and fulfill Kevin Flynn’s original vision.

Agents for Dillinger breech security and introduce the army into the new Encom Grid to have them get to the portal where they can be printed into existence. As Quorra, now the Grid Administrator, is building the Gird in her own image, she discovers this intrusion and is forced to join with Sam and her own volunteer program army to battle the intruders to prevent giving them access to the portal.

The Dillinger army is whittled down but they do get printed into the real world, along with several of Quorra’s army (including Quorra and Sam), where they complete their battle in the real world for the fate of the world.

I’ve eliminated the permanent code. I’ve kept things mostly in the Grid, which is where Tron is supposed to happen in. This is a sequel to the movie that everyone wanted a sequel to and I’ve brought back the characters everyone was interested in seeing in the movie.

The next step is to produce and release a TTRPG. TTRPG, for those not in the know, is a table top roleplaying game. This will allow people to create their own adventures in this new Grid (or the Legacy Grid), as many as they want, and become more engrossed in the world that was created by my TR4N. Any expansions for this can tease at or be directly related to future things that will come from the Tron franchise from this point on.

After that, we start getting authors to write novels in this universe. What stories can they tell without using the real world? How big is this new Grid? What flaws didn’t Sam know about when he created it? What things is Quorra corrected or molding in her image? When the direction of the franchise has a solid view of where it’s going, what can the authors start including in their stories from there?

Next: video game (or series of video games). Action game? Yes. RPG? Yes. Both in one? No. I’m talking multiple video games doing different things. One can relive the events of the movie, or can play along side the movie… or you can avoid the movie all together by having original adventures entirely. Why not do what the novels and TTRPG are doing and tell original adventures? You can create a video game franchise off of this, too? In fact, we could possibly even continue the franchise AS a video game franchise and then Disney wouldn’t have to worry about having to produce giant movies often. The key here is NOT to do first person only content because of how many people cannot play first person content (myself included).

What comes next? Well, this is where I’d start plotting the next movie (TR5N). TR5N, TR6N, and TR7N would be envisioned as a standalone trilogy and could or could not involve Sam and Quorra directly. At this point we don’t need the Legacy characters to continue but we could continue to use them if we’d like. The possibilities are endless and are completely open.

Would you want to see a trilogy about just the Grid? Does the real world need to keep intruding? Does the Grid evolve to the point it needs so many resources it is in direct conflict with the real world? Does Kevin Flynn’s Legacy statements of our worlds combining start coming true with our world and the Grid slowly merging?

I’d love to hear from you on this at emeraldspecter – at – gmail – dot – com.

Thanks for reading.

All In On Pathfinder

In 1994, I was introduced to Vampire the Masquerade (2nd Edition) and loved the game. The group that I played with played weekly, then multiple times per week, then almost nightly for 3 solid years before slowly that pace down until I left the Navy. After leaving the Navy, I ran only Vampire games from 1997 to 2015 before finally branching out into other games (due to finding a group willing to branch out with me).

As you could read in my previous article, You Can’t Protest Against D&D and Continue to Play It, I outline that I refuse to play Dungeons and Dragons due to the company that owns the property. I won’t rehash that article here but it comes down to wanting to dip back into fantasy and my options for “big name” fantasy titles really boiled down to Fantasy AGE and Pathfinder. When I mentioned this to my current group and they heard the word Pathfinder, that became the defacto option.

After a bit of reading I went all in on Pathfinder.

First and foremost, I wanted to prevent myself from running into a conflict with my DnD protest, so Pathfinder 2e was the obvious choice. The OGL connects Pathfinder to DnD and while the initial release of 2e to Dnd, the Remaster project is removing all traces of the OGL from the system. While my group initially started with the base 2e system, we are migrating towards the Remastered materials at a pace that I consider acceptable.

Knowing this, let’s not linger on the bad stuff, let’s talk about the greatness that is Pathfinder.

Building the Never Ending Campaign

The first thing that I did that I have never done with my groups before was announce that I am not building in an ending to this campaign. With all of the actual plays this website has released and all of the games we have played in the past, I have built in “seasons” of limited runs to give us breaks to play other games to get a rotation of different systems going on so we can get some variety going. My changing this coincides with my attempt to turn my Discord server into a full blown RPG server AND to get more games running on the server at once.

Currently on the server, we have one of my Pathfinder players running Exalted 2e and I am running Pathfinder 2e (Remaster). Ideally, there would be many, many more games being run on the server. But back to Pathfinder.

I launched the idea of running a never ending campaign. The first move was to pick a place to work from, an origin point from where the players could work from for at least the earliest part of the game. This was the city of Ardport, which we chose a location using the globe on the Pathfinder Wiki and then I bought Inkarnate to make the actual map of the city. We are in Andorran, at the delta of two rivers joining.

Having to build a city from scratch was a lot more fun than I initially thought, especially since Inkarnate helped with their pregenerated building options. Even for Ardport being my very first map, I think the whole city turned out really well.

Once I had a city for the players to operate out of I needed a “tutorial” for the combat for them to interact with, so I created a mini-dungeon for them to be able to fight a bunch of monsters and find some loot. This was intended to be a one night affair and little did I realize this would turn out to take 4 full weeks of fighting their way through this place.

FOUR FULL WEEKS.

Learning that combat is a slower affair than what I am used to was something that I needed to learn as well as the players. I am also new at Pathfinder and that was a big eye opener. Everyone loves the 3 move economy but man does it tend to slow things down quite a bit.

I am developing my own RPG as well and while I want to have a multiple action economy as well, I am trying to prevent having such a lag as Pathfinder has.

Having everyone’s character sheets in one place was also something I really wanted, too. That task fell on this wonderful website I discovered (and purchased full access to immediately) called Pathbuilder2e. This sheet does everything for you, except make the choices you need to make for character creation. All the math is done for you, all the clues that you need to make choices you might have forgotten on a pen & paper sheet are prompted, and you are able to roll right off of the website because it gives you everything you need to make the rolls! As a GM, I am also able to put on buffs, conditions, see their damage taken, and know what is going on with the characters just by having their sheets open on my computer!

While I intended to have some experience points handed out after each session, after the 4 weeks in the tutorial dungeon, we collectively decided that milestone leveling was probably the way to go. The amount of combat in the dungeon they incurred leveled them up to 2 and their encounters since have had them level to 3. Sure, this seems like quick leveling but I have been slowing it down and I have a plan for their continued progress forward.

Structuring the Campaign

Now that we have established the characters and have established Ardport, there have been several questable things that can be done for small gains that can be made if the group doesn’t want anything too heavy hitting. These include ideas I have found online, such as a Magical Text Recovery system from all the libraries in the world (that will pay for the retrieval of magical texts that are lost, stolen, or missing), as well as the Adventurer’s Guild hosting wanted posters for some villains or monsters in the area.

The idea behind these things is that they can get used to seeing wanted posters in every Adventurer’s Guild so that they can always make a “quick” buck or two if they need some action, or they can snoop around in their adventuring and happen across some strange text that might be available for some coin to the libraries.

I made sure to make ALL libraries part of this because that way, like a video game, they can turn these texts into any of them and get paid rather than just Ardport’s library. The idea is that I want Ardport to be a place they can always come back to but not some place they should feel tethered to unnecessarily.

On a side note, I was initially worried about coming up with titles for these magical texts, but I happened across a random magical text name generator (which is for DnD but it’s really just a fantasy magical text title generator, really). The website is DnDSpeak and is specifically their Random Book Generator part of the site. Serendipitously, the site also gives a gold piece amount for each book (which I’m only using as a sort of guide) and a page count, as well as what the book has for contents. Far more than I could have asked for, which was just the name of the book.

Google and the Internet is a wonderful place for resources for TTRPG resources. If you embark on something like this, make sure you are Googling for the resources you need and make sure you check out more than one source because sometimes what you need isn’t the first one.

I have every book for Pathfinder 2e Remastered to run the game, and to organize things for campaign needs I have been using Obsidian, which is a resource I have been using for notes and other things for years now. If you are a Game Master and you aren’t using Obsidian, you need to start looking into it. Specifically in this case, I have been using Josh Plunkett’s Vault (available for purchase or free if you subscribe to his Patreon). This vault is designed for DnD campaigns, but if you know what you are doing, you can convert it to being used for Pathfinder with some tweaking. I have tweaked it to work for Pathfinder and have been organizing things so that I can start keeping track of what has been going on… as of session 7, which is the next session as of this writing.

The Golarion that we are playing on is not the canon planet. I have chosen that because there is other stuff going on that will alter Pathfinder canon in ways I can’t recover from if I try to weave it into my larger story, so I decided right off the bat to just ignore canon. None of the players are interested in the cosmology (at least yet), so there is no interest in the solar system, the galaxy, or some such other points of interest. They literally are concerned with power gaining and what’s right in front of them, which sometimes is sad but also easy to plan for in the long run.

What Comes Next

I’ve been all in on this since we decided to play Pathfinder. I have immersed myself in the world, the lore, and I look forward every week to running the game. There hasn’t been a game I’ve run where I’ve been THIS excited on a weekly basis to run a game. With no end in sight, I can’t wait to see what comes next.

The plan is now to start working the campaign into a 3 plot system: an A plot, B plot, and C plot. The A plot will be the campaign’s BIG arc, meaning the largest goal to solve for the group before the major phase of play can end and we can begin a new phase. The B plot is a smaller arc that is designed to interfere with the A plot periodically but can end whenever the players decide to end that plot. Once plot B ends, it’s over. The C plot is the session plot, or the smallest of the plots. The C plot is the “get the macguffin” and return to home base plot so that we can do the next C plot next session. Sometimes that C plot might be 2 or 3 sessions but it will always be the short term goals.

I am in the midst of setting up the 3 plots, obviously starting with the first A plot, for the biggest arc of our first real campaign arc. Once I get the A and B plots set up, I can start just running C plots at them and see where things go from there.

On the side, though, I started pre-planning on a new Vampire the Masquerade campaign idea that has been stewing in the background. It is an epic idea that infuses elements of games I have run before into one (games like the archaeological/mystery game Weird AGE) and will challenge the idea of what the players think about what is established Vampire canon (as Vampire canon will be tossed out if the players end up making changes that alter the present). This game is, in movie terms, in pre-production at the moment so there is nothing to detail at the moment… plus my excitement for Pathfinder has my full attention at the moment, so Vampire is truly not he back burner.

Thanks for reading and see you soon.

We Have An RPG Discord Server

Were you aware that we have an RPG Discord Server?

If you’re interested in playing role playing games, running them, just click that link and you’ll be joining a group of folks who are also interested in the same things! We’ve got at least a couple of games running every week but we could have more! We need GMs as well as players. The more the merrier!

Why not come and join in?

You Can’t Protest Against D&D And Continue To Play It

If you are reading this, then you are probably aware of the mismanagement of the Dungeons and Dragons brand by Wizards of the Coast (and by extension, Hasbro). There isn’t going to be a lot of going over what happened but I do need to set the stage for this article by stating that everything discussed here is because of that horrible mismanagement.

Role playing game fans all know that Dungeons and Dragons started the whole industry, for all intents and purposes. We all also know that Wizards of the Coast has done some pretty heinous things with their stewardship of the intellectual property, too, which has led to many organizing boycotts of certain aspects of the IP or other such organized protests.

I argue that the only way to effectively protest is to not play.

DnD is arguably the most popular RPG in the world. I would argue that there are other games that would be well within that conversation at this point, but for the purposes of this article we’re just going to stop at DnD being the top. Since they are the number one in the world, there is a responsibility to maintain a certain level of understanding towards the fanbase regarding how they treat the IP in general.

Wizards of the Coast have failed in that stewardship at almost every turn.

When boycotts of products or services are organized, there is always an understanding that some will not participate. Having 100% participation in a boycott would be phenomenal in sending a message but there are always some who think they have no chance at affecting change, believe their part will be too small to make a difference, or just don’t care enough to participate to make things better. Wizards of the Coast want to make as much money as possible at the expense of the consumer, regardless of the quality of the product and that is why boycott talk started appearing. As soon as the small capitulation of Wizards giving in to the OGL controversy and making them walk back a terrible decision, most of that protest talk stopped. It shouldn’t have, though.

Protesting Properly

The last time I played Dungeons and Dragons was in 1996 in Okinawa, Japan with some friends in the Navy about three months before I detached from Naval service. I wasn’t pleased with the situation way back then but the only game I could get anyone to organize to play was DnD, so I joined their game. My participation ended about 3 sessions in, when the group and I made the mutual decision to part ways. The DM ran the game like a payroll department and I couldn’t have hated it more than I did, so I stopped playing.

I haven’t even looked at a DnD book since.

There are innumerable game companies that took the OGL license and built games off of what DnD originally established, which personally boggles my mind. Why would you build an entire role playing game off of someone else’s work? There are far more companies, however, that went out and built brand new systems and created so many more new ways to role play that the “crunch heavy” DnD looks cumbersome by comparison. I personally branched out along with these new companies and left DnD behind, expanding my RPG experiences 100-fold while others I asked to play with me often sat in their DnD rut and refused to leave.

All the while complaining about the same problems.

On this website, I have been trying to build a place for people to come and role play. Just like websites like the Glass Cannon Network, Happy Jacks RPG Network, and other places that host actual plays, I would love to host a variety of actual play podcasts done in a style that is befitting a professional gameplay style. The one game that I won’t participate in, nor allow on this website in an actual play, is DnD… at least until the stewardship of the IP changes hands to a much better steward.

I am against participating in Dungeons in Dragons, personally. I am also against participating in Dungeons and Dragons for others who have the same problems I do, as well. Their arguments usually end up being “but I’m not buying any new books” or “I’m pirating anything new I need.” That doesn’t send a message to Wizards of the Coast, though, because you are still participating in their intellectual property.

You and your normal game group get together to play DnD, even though all of you hate Wizards of the Coast. One of your friends brings along their girlfriend to lurk for the night because she’s curious about how the game is played. The game is played and the girlfriend loves what is going on and is into joining the group for the future. She doesn’t understand the hate for Wizards (she doesn’t even know who Wizards are) and goes out and buys her own copy of the DnD core book.

Protest failed.

Not only has your group produced a new follower of a game that has problematic stewardship, not only has that new follower purchased the products that are overpriced and ruining the brand, and not only has that group gotten someone new excited about their favorite game without the proper context surrounding the property but now she’s going to tell others about this and get more new followers into the hobby.

I do not play DnD. I do not purchase their books. I do not encourage others to play. I do not encourage others to pirate their books. I do not encourage others to encourage others to do anything I would not do. I do this because I want to affect change. I do this because not doing it is being a “rebel without a cause,” meaning I would be complaining about something that I actively participate in. If you like to box but you don’t like getting punched in the face, yet you still box, then you have no right to complain. Nothing is going to change that way.

If you want to make change, you have to do something different.

What Else You Can Do

If I’m not playing DnD, what else is there?

This is the one question I get after my argument that makes me the most angry. What else is there? Are you joking?

Without leaving the fantasy genre, I can name FantasyAGE, Pathfinder, GURPs, and Savage Worlds. If we expand to other genres we can expand to FATE, Genesys, and Burning Wheel. How about specific IP games like the Expanse RPG, Doctor Who RPG, Alien RPG, Dragon AGE, or the Marvel Universe RPG? There’s different genres like Legend of the Five Rings, Vampire the Masquerade, Call of Cthulhu, Blades in the Dark, and Traveler. These are just the games that I could think of off of the top of my head!

So, if I say to stand up and stop playing DnD and you respond by asking what else is there? It’s time to read a book because you’ve been living in a bubble. There are so many different systems out there to try, ones that are worlds easier than DnD to learn, ones that range from fantasy all the way through futuristic space operas, and ones that tell stories in entirely unique ways from DnD… so why would you want to limit yourself to only playing one system?

I do not play DnD. I do not purchase their books. I do not encourage others to play or purchase their books. I have taken a stand and now you understand what that actually means.

The SpecterVerse

Welcome to 2025. This very moment is January 1, 2025 and I have waited to reveal something until this moment. Why? Well, nothing says “this is a great place to start” than literally the first day of the year… of literally any year at all.

I am officially launching the SpecterVerse.

The SpecterVerse is a large scale multimedia project that will all belong to the same universe. There is a larger scale story I have wanted to tell and that story ties into a lot of different places, which means I need to tell that story in all of those places and put them under one banner. While everything may not initially seem to tie into the larger story, they will all eventually head towards the ultimate end of the larger story.

Before I get into what you can start looking forward to, I must also tell you that things that have been released in the past will also tie into the SpecterVerse (although not as tightly). What, you might ask? Things like Legacy: Shadows of Blood, Dark Green: The Blackwood Chronicles, Emerald Nights, BuJoRPG, the under development BuJoRPG2, and other things that might pop up on the site that has appeared on my sites in the past.

Moving forward, however, I am planning to release chapters of a weekly LitRPG on this website starting in February (this will belong to the SpecterVerse). I will also be writing the script, producing the art for, and completely producing my first graphic novel for the shared superhero universe that I have been developing for over 20 years… the time has come to start producing the work or stop working on the project. There is also a novel that will be written as soon as the timeline for the world can be finished, which I have already begun working on (and will begin producing a “history podcast” in the vein of Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast as soon as I have enough of the history mapped out to start putting out episodes). A screenplay will also be written in the next two years to produce a film that will be available to the public (probably through Amazon) that will also fit into the SpecterVerse.

I don’t want you to think I’m overwhelming myself with work to try to do it all at once. Some of these things are essentially written in my head, I just need to get them down on paper. Other things will be written after certain precursors are completed. Everything has a time and a place and when enough of these things will be done ahead of time, a timeline will be revealed for projects when I know when they’ll be released.

Thank you for reading and I hope to see more of you on this website.

As for this month? Well, I am going to try to keep the Dohyo Download going uninterrupted this year as well as getting more Twitch streaming done reliably. There may even be some Twitch “hang outs” for some AMAs or something along those lines. Stay tuned.

Specter Chronicle 006: Sports Entertainment

You may look at the title and think that the topic isn’t worth reading about. Then again, you may be completely into the topic and want to read something worth your time. There will be something worth reading and something that I’ve been working on in the background, so read on and learn about what has been going on.

A Brief History: Pro Wrestling and Me

I started watching professional wrestling just before Wrestlemania (yes, the original) and was a fervent fan through the mid-90s when things kind of trailed off. Well, I really just lost the ability to watch for a few years until the Monday Night Wars were coming to their climax, then I watched until WWE became boring with their repetitive brand extension BS.

When Total Nonstop Action (TNA) came in, I watched with enthusiasm… then it was ruined by Hulk Hogan and Dixie Carter. When All Elite Wrestling (AEW) popped up, I watched with enthusiasm… then it went onto channels that weren’t accessible to people without cable. I’m a cord cutter. Why would you cut off your programming to cord cutters?

Anyway, from 1998 to roughly 2003 I ran some eFeds (electronic federations, slang for fantasy wrestling played online). I opened with the Dark Wrestling Organization (DWO), the Virtual Wrestling Matrix (VWM), the Sports Entertainment Organization (SEO), and the Professional Haven for Athletes of Sports Entertainment (PHASE). The DWO was the most popular one of the group, but PHASE had the biggest potential.

I ran some offline federations during (and around) that time, too. Naming them won’t matter, so I won’t. That should catch everything up.

My Involvement in Pro Wrestling Currently

Recently, there was a deal for Peacock subscriptions (99 cents per month for 12 months) and I decided to go for it. Peacock has WWE programming on it and that got me back into watching some of their programming… except for a PPV and a couple of recent (at the time) episodes of Raw, I mainly watched classic episodes of “old school wrestling” and Saturday Night’s Main Event. I’ve since watched a few of the documentaries available and they were pretty good, too, but WWE just wasn’t that interesting… the formula was obvious.

Then Vince McMahon left due to allegations of sexual misconduct. But I’m jumping ahead.

I searched hard for a way to watch AEW online and finally found a site that has a lot of wrestling programs available on it. They aren’t live (I can’t get the live to work, anyway, not that I watch appointment TV in the first place) but I’m plenty happy watching Dynamite, Rampage, and Dark in a binge once a week. It’s been super great.

Back to Vince, though.

He left WWE under sexual misconduct allegations and was gone something like four to six months. All of a sudden, the locker room was happier, people were feeling better about working for WWE and wrestlers were feeling optimistic about their future. Vince then suddenly comes back and the WWE is all of a sudden up for sale.

The best hope is AEW buys them. Worst case scenario is that the Saudi government buys them.

That really doesn’t have much to do with what I wanted to get to, though… I wanted to turn this back to the fantasy wrestling aspect.

A Brief History of Fantasy Wrestling and Me

When I was watching pro wrestling as a youth, the obvious thing to want to do is have your own organization and run your own created wrestlers against others’ created wrestlers in that organization. Well, that’s what happened. Sometime in the mid-80s, a group of us had a thriving fantasy wrestling federation (called World Wrestling Organization, or WWO).

Along side this WWO, I ran my own personal federation in my free time to test out some booking theories I had. I can elaborate on this after the announcement down below, as it’s part of the “historical background.”

After the WWO, I was part of a mail in federation (which was painfully slow but was interesting) for a few years before getting access to the Internet to start the DWO for a group of coworkers (and eventually the Internet).

Even though there were offline feds and online feds that all ran basically in the same basic (and short-lived) period of time, I look back on that period with fondness and periodically get the twitch to go back and run something like that again.

I’m more inclined to run the “my own personal fed” rather than an eFed, though.

The Real Purpose of This Column

I mentioned that there was an announcement, and we have finally arrived at that point. Let me announce that I have recently acquired Fire Pro Wrestling World and have been figuring things out to where I can begin running my own sports entertainment promotion. There is a history to the characters in this promotion (there are a lot of “children of the other feds I mentioned above” participating) and that history will also get written about in due time on this website. But let me announce officially:

Championship Unlimited Revolution Sports Entertainment (CURSE) Wrestling. I am diligently working on the details behind the scenes and will be getting actual content out on this website for CURSE as soon as I can.

These will be in the form of wrestling shows, so hopefully everything turns out great and I look forward to hearing from everyone!

Specter Chronicle 005: Why Chess Isn’t… More Grand a Spectacle

Most competitions, sports or games, eventually gain a level of grandeur after a length of time that puts them into a larger arena than when they began. Sometimes that takes a few years and sometimes that takes far more than just a few years.

In the special case of chess, there are other factors holding the game from joining other great “spectacles” of competition. Those on the inside can’t seem to figure out how to break through that barrier, so maybe someone who is on the outside can show them some examples of what might be holding chess back.

The trend for the chess world has been moving from a focus on single player matchups (which were largely World Chess Championships, to be honest) to almost exclusively tournaments. Anyone who follows chess wants to see more tournaments, the die hard fans that follow the game intensely. Single player events were really only a thing that happened before chess became popular worldwide.

Early on, chess was a game that was played between two people and for high stakes. There was a spectacle to playing chess, something to gather together and watch because two really great players were going to be playing.

We are in what some might call a “golden age” of chess, with thousands of Grandmasters in the world today, tournaments were a way to get them all together as often as possible, or a great many of them, at least.

Magnus Carlsen, former World Chess Champion (Photo credit should read EDUARDO MUNOZ ALVAREZ/AFP via Getty Images)

Chess has hundreds, if not thousands, of tournaments per year. No, I’d definitely say multiples of thousands per year. There are, of course, the large tournaments for the Grandmasters of the world, but there are also the tournaments for local championships and scholastic tournaments… there are even club tournaments for whatever events they hold, too.

Tournaments are a great way to involve those who need to improve at chess with their ratings, to get experience playing a vast number of different players, and to gain experience playing under timed conditions. Once you reach a certain level, however, tournaments are just something that occupies your time… because you end up playing the same players over and over again.

The top chess tournaments in the world see the same basic 30 players in almost all of them. Those would be the top 30 players in the world, with a different individual or two thrown in there from time to time.

I’m talking Magnus Carlsen, Ding Liren, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Alireza Firouzja, Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana, Anish Giri, Wesley So, Vishwanathan Anand, and Sergey Karjakan just to name the top 10 (as of the writing of this article). Are these guys in every tournament together? No, but you’ll see them together in some combination more often than not, and they’ll be the ones competing with each other more often than not in other tournaments if the one you’re watching isn’t on. Repetitive.

Chess has a “spectacle” problem, which is what has been the reason that “non-chess followers” don’t come into the viewership very often (or at all). Fans of something like a spectacle, and you’re not going to get a spectacle for the 157th time Carlsen and Anand face each other in two games in a round robin tournament. Especially not when they aren’t the leaders in that tournament and the scores they have are due to the fact they’ve mostly drawn.

Some alternatives have been suggested, and rebuffed by the purists, but some of those suggestions really need to be examined in greater detail. One in particular is something I want to highlight above all.

Greg Shahade is an International Master in chess (the step right before Grandmaster) and the founder of the PRO Chess League (Professional Rapid Online Chess League). He’s turned chess from just a tournament (or series of tournaments) into a team “sport” (I’ve chosen to continue using the word competition, as chess is a game and not an athletic contest). Teams of players compete against each other in a scheduled series of meetings until the best teams at the end of the season go into the playoffs to compete for the league championship. While this is a great variation for chess in general, I have personally disliked what he’s chosen to do with the “teams” (or franchises, if you like) of the league, making them compete to get in.

Greg Shahade, founder of the PRO Chess League (photo via Wikipedia)

The PRO Chess League isn’t what I want to talk about what Greg Shahade suggested needs to change about chess, though. He’s suggested we stop with the long form games, the ones that take eight hours (or longer) and just go with shorter form games. I don’t remember the exact length that his ideal games would last but I don’t think that it was longer than 15 minutes per game.

Having chess go from longer form games to no longer than 15 minutes per game would greatly spice things up. In chess terms, this would be called rapid chess. This is the length of game that the PRO Chess League plays at. Rapid chess allows for an additional 10 seconds per move to be added but I’m suggesting a hard 7 minutes and 30 seconds per player, period. This adds a quicker dimension to the games that will keep the attention span of the viewer that can’t stand a longer game.

Going with 10 minutes per game would be even better, however, as that would suit a broadcast format a whole lot better. Chess is streamed online live as it happens (for the GM tournaments) but those are for the long games and those are not going to be for anyone casual, only the hard core fans.

Hold up… this isn’t all I’m saying should be changed. You also need to bring in the spectacle that chess sorely needs. This means returning the excitement when two big hitters meet up in a match, a player vs player match that doesn’t involve 14 other players. Just two players.

Lasker vs Capablanca… Fischer vs Spassky… Kasparov vs Karpov… these are all World Chess Championships that were big deals and caught the attention of the world. Today, the World Chess Championship is a side thing that happens while other tournaments are happening. Magnus Carlsen resigned the championship because the candidates cycle is just tedious and often doesn’t produce the best outcome for what chess needs. Let me change that, the candidates cycle rarely produces the best outcome.

We return to our 10 minute games, of which we can now squeeze in one as white and one as black in one 25 to 30 minute sitting (depending on whether to have a 5 or 10 minute break between games). If you have 4 matches scheduled for a single “show,” that’s 80 minutes of solid chess programming (the breaks for the games are filled with the next match’s game, so two matches can go on “at the same time” somewhat, using the 10 minute breaks). Throw in some chess commentary and some background stuff, you have a two hour show that would be entertaining and informative all in one. Plus, you could draw in some of the “casual viewers” that might not have normally watched a chess game, building up a fan base.

Did I lose you there? Let me use an example.

Let’s say we have a 10 minute preamble to our chess show, then we start with game 1 of Adam v Ben (10 minute max time)… the game goes the full 10, they then get their 10 minute break. So then we go to game 1 of Charlie v David (10 minute max time) but that game only goes 7 minutes, which allows us to cut to a little quick 3 minutes of preview of George v Henry as the main event. The show then goes to game 2 of Adam v Ben, they finish in just 5 minutes, which allows for a little analysis of their game until the 5 minutes ends. Game 2 of Charlie v David happens, which ends in just 3 minutes… which means the “halftime show” is 17 minutes long instead of just 10 minutes. After that we do the same type of thing with the games of Edward v Felix and George v Henry.

Make more sense?

This idea isn’t necessarily for the highest rated players, although, they would probably benefit just as well from this as anyone else. The problem is having players with personalities, ones that would be something more outspoken and maybe a little showy to draw in viewers. Casual viewers don’t want to see two stuffed shirts in suits staring for hours at a chess board… they want to see two trash talkers with distinctive clothing giving each other a hard time trying to win a vibrant chess game.

I have played with enough people rated at enough levels to know the players I’m likely looking for would be rated 1500 and lower. Potential casual viewers would want to be able to relate to the chance at beating the players they’re watching, but possibly just out of reach. Just like watching NBA players, viewers could possibly beat those players but likely won’t due to the talent gap.

A little pomp and circumstance, the right players with personality and flair, the shorter format game with the segments I listed above, and chess could go out to a bigger audience. A more casual audience.

Maybe that’s worth at least a little consideration, don’t you think?

Specter Chronicle 004: Digital Sports Are Coming

This website has been completely restarted due to a server issue and I did choose at that point to let quite a bit of the old stuff just… well… go away. So, anyone new to this site wouldn’t be aware that I’ve done little “digital sports” leagues on this website in the past. That’s what I’ll be talking about in this column, as well as which digital sports will be coming to Emerald Specter.com.

What Are Digital Sports?

Digital sports are what I call a simulation of a sport without a video representation of any kind. The simulation is basically a spreadsheet running the tough stuff and spitting out the results while I run the league and publish it all somewhere. That place, well, it’s here, on this website.

I’ve run both soccer and American football on this site in the past, not that you can see the archives, but they’ve both been done. The American football one was more talk about how the spreadsheet did what it did and was about four seasons worth of simulations that I was intending to turn into a more fleshed out league… and that never happened. Soccer was done with more of the fleshed out intent from the get go but I think I went too big too early and then I petered out.

The idea behind “digital sports,” though, isn’t just to simulate something that is already in existence… sure, soccer is out there in a myriad of forms as is American football. What I wanted to accomplish was to simulate the sports as accurately as possible for refining the spreadsheet.

In case you don’t know, I love spreadsheets.

Digital sports are fictional “players” playing these fictionalized sports. The simulations are of real sports but the players are all fictional. That is digital sports.

How Will This Remain Sustainable?

Unlike last time, I am planning ahead.

First and foremost, the spreadsheet needs to be able to accomplish the task it was created to accomplish. If the sheet is designed to simulate a sport then the sheet needs to simulate that sport as accurately as possible.

Next, the league needs to be like a real league in that it should begin like a real league: in a sustainable fashion. In the case of soccer, for example, don’t start with 20 teams, start with eight or ten and expand in future seasons. If it’s an MMA league, don’t begin with seven weight classes, start with one and build up from there (again, expansion as time goes on).

Then create all the logos and pages for the information to be stored for these leagues and teams. Yes, I design logos, too. In fact, I’ve been designing them for the better part of 15 years… because the visual aspect of promoting these digital sports will be important moving forward.

Finally, talk about what is going on with the digital sports. I intend on starting a podcast specifically for this aspect of the website. Digital Sports Weekly (DSW)? Whatever I call it, that’s what the show will be for and it will cover every one of the sports that will be running on this website.

Which Digital Sports Are Coming?

I’ve hinted at a few of them in this column already but I wanted to give you all something more firm than just allusions. So, without dragging this out any longer, let’s make the announcement.

The first sport coming is stock car racing. I’ve spent a long time building a racing simulation spreadsheet and although it’s only my “version 1” of the spreadsheet, I want to start using it to simulate a racing league. This simulator was built with the intention to emulate NASCAR Cup races, so that is the idea with this league. There will be a full field of digital drivers, teams, and so on but there won’t be 36 races in season one.

Next in line is sumo! There is a game called Road to Yokozuna that is played on Discord that is great fun and they’ve figured out the best way I’ve seen to simulate the sport. Their version is run with Discord bots, but what I’ll be doing is taking their basic version and doing some spreadsheet magic to make a similar version to simulate sumo in the same basic manner, but with some jiggery pokery added on. Unlike Japanese sumo, it’ll be multi-gender and will start with just a top division before expanding from there.

Up next is soccer, where a new take on the previous versions of the league are going to be coming. I haven’t determined how many teams to begin the league with yet but I do know that the league will be multi-gender in makeup. There are a few spreadsheets I’ve got made up for this, one for simulating the games, one for managing the league, and one for scheduling the season. All of these are complicated and when I put them together the spreadsheet barely moves, so I broke them apart. I’m working on them but this is definitely coming.

Finally, at least for the initial roll out, is mixed martial arts. I’ve built not one, not two, not three, but FOUR mixed martial arts simulator spreadsheets in the past and all of them were good… but none of them did enough to simulate MMA accurately. I could get some of them to do good stand up simulation and another good ground simulation but transitioning as well as having the spreadsheet make good choices was too much. Using the Road to Yokozuna as a guide, however, I’ve got high hopes to have something that will be interesting to see in action.

When Will We See This Stuff?

Nothing is coming before 2023, I can tell you that. I have a couple of tracks to finish for the racing league as well as programming a couple of tracks for the season, then I can run the simulations and get the logos going for the racing league.

After that, it’s just a matter of getting spreadsheets done and going for the other sports and they’ll come, too.

Ideally, I’ll have a sport running nearly at all times on this site (ie if racing is done, MMA will be going… if sumo is done, soccer can be on, etc).

Let’s hope I can get this stuff sooner rather than later.

Category Archives: Emerald Specter