Just another Thursday Night on the blogs.

"There are sexist messages in RPG art and maybe we should think about that."

"No, that would just make the artists make shitty art."

The first is a no-brainer. The second, I don't agree with, but the guy saying it is smart and makes strong interesting arguments. Also, several of the comments are smart, specifically from Trollsmyth, TheCramp and Telecanter. Several others are mind-numbingly stupid.

Ah, the internet....

Skadi must Eat of Every Meat

Like barbarians? More accurately, like loving mockeries of Howardian fantasy archetypes? Even more accurately, appreciate a good butt joke?

You'll like Skadi as much as I do then. It's the Thursday update on Dumm Comics (several of the others are great too, though).

Ghostbusters RPG Part 1: I tear up a little when everyone is cheering Lady Liberty

I'm a big fan of Ghostbusters. How big? I think the second movie is just as good as the first, and am offended anyone would think otherwise. That big.

Naturally, I loved the Ghostbusters video game that came out in 2009 - it was an absolute dragon's hoard of fan service. It expanded on all the little details of the films, the pseudo-science behind them and their uniquely humorous occult mythos (you get to fight a fuckin' sloar! Nobody roasted in it's belly that day I can tell you!). The slavish revisiting of every location from the first film did get a little tiring, but it was forgivable when they got away from it in the later half of the game. I do have some issues with the story (did we really need a new young love interest for Venkmen to sexually harass into submission?), but otherwise it was perfect.

Almost.

You see, at the end of the game there's a voiceover where your character (a nameless rookie) is sent to open their own franchise in another city. Now, back in the 8- and 16-bit days there were several shitty GB games, and a reoccurring theme was having to buy equipment and pick a model of car for the ECTO. Those games sucked, but the idea of building a custom Ghostbusters team stuck with me. What if you got to play that franchise - getting a building and vehicle, hiring a team? And all those things had pluses and minuses.

And what if, instead of a linear plot (the new game was a typical "hit all these stops on the way to save the world" structure), you answered calls from a variety of locations? A family thinks they have a poltergeist, a restaurant's staff is being driven off by black shapes... and of course you get paid when you succeed. Talking to my wife, I realized what I wanted was a Ghostbusters RPG.

Then I thought about the 80s. There was a pen-and-paper RPG for everything in the 80s. Licensed properties were hot - Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles, Star Wars, Marvel and DC comics, the list goes on. This continued into the 90s, actually - Men in Black jumps to mind. So what were the chances there was a Ghostbusters RPG?

100%.

And it is absolutely awesome.


LATER: Details on the Ghostbusters RPG, the revised rules known as Ghostbusters International, how to get a hold of them and why you want to.

Like Nancy Drew, if Nancy Drew had a sex life and impaled people.

My wife, who eats novels like Sweet-Tarts, has recently bored through several series of fantasy novels with female protagonists. The other day, while finishing rereading The Atrocity Archives, I realized I couldn't say the same - in fact, I couldn't think of any books I read recently with women as the main characters. I've read several written by women, but even those primarily starred men.

That really bothered me. For one thing, I realized it was kind of boring. So I asked Kitty to suggest something to me from her collection.

"I think you'd like this series," she said, handing me Alanna: The First Adventure, the first part of the Song of the Lioness quartet. It was the edition I show here.