Technohol 13: Marvel Super Heroes Role-Playing Game Material
Monday, April 19, 2021
(posted on April 9th, 2021)
Hello, and welcome to the twenty-fourth year of Technohol 13: the Atomic Drink! Whether you've never visited before, or inexplicably keep coming back for more, I want to thank you for spending your time - and possibly your energy - on the products of my addled brain. Even if most of them are in a state of perpetual incompletion, I'm still trying to change that state of affairs before I drop dead, er, again.
That fear of dying before I complete what is ostensibly my life's work has been exacerbated by the whole 'almost shuffling off this mortal coil' event last August, so my urge to wrap up my unfinished projects has only redoubled. And this is why you may have noticed that I've been focusing on two of these specific, gargantuan stacks of work above all else, one or two days out of the Technoholic year notwithstanding.
To start with, I've been wanting to build downloadable, pdf versions of my rules works, but I've been unsatisfied with the number of grammatical and/or typographical errors scattered throughout the various books that I've written. Having proofread all of this material twice, even after a second round of revisions, I should have far less twitch-inducing, concentration-breaking foul-ups in my texts.
So, about half of what's had my attention the last few years (though more so over the last eight months) is the latest round of proofreading through all of the rules modifications and/or original creations I've ever written. And as of today, I am one-third of the way through the very last portion of this effort: all four variations on the Powers document. As luck would have it, though, they're riddled with mistakes.
While the vast, vast majority of such things are harmless, these errors draw a neurotic clown like me out of a read when I encounter them. So I try to eliminate them if at all possible, but when proofreading I often find better ways to structure a sentence or express an idea, so I've been modifying numerous power descriptions as I go. But I'm vastly more satisfied with the powers as I revisit them yet again.
The downside to holding all my writing to my current standards is that everyone who's requested pdf files of my various books hasn't gotten them yet. But on the other hand, once I'm finally done with those things, they're going to knock your socks off. Between the nigh-perfect text and all the original art that will ultimately be added in, these will be works of art, I tell you!
I'm working things such that I should finish up the final proofreading on the Powers documents within this Technoholic year, which will leave me time to either start in on the pdf building process or write one of my three remaining references. Assuming that I don't make forward progress with both notions, that is. I'll just have to see where the wind blows me to on that score.
Since I know a lot of folks just aren't into my original rules stuff, I also spend a lot of time on original character descriptions for your gaming use. There's actually a few more I would like to tackle before I'm too old or dead to fiddle with any of this stuff, but before I can get going on those I really, really need to sort out some of my extant character references once and for all.
The largest of these is, by far, my GI Joe reference. This project started out before there were sixty-six Snake-Eyes action figures, so it's sort of been in a constant state of flux, both in how each character is presented and just how complicated managing that turned out to be. Once I finally figured it out, I started upgrading my existing GI Joe descriptions, while finally adding entries for Cobra!
My original plan was to have both the GI Joe and Cobra rosters of personnel and equipment finished through 1994, but my life took a second drastic turn just last month, which was when me and my wife finally took possession of a massive school bus we purchased. We're going to be building that bus into a Skoolie, and living out of it while loitering just about anywhere in the country that we feel like!
As this heavy construction work will sap my time, I switched to simply upgrading Joe files to work 'ahead' on the site, as is my wont. While I mostly stopped writing Cobra entries (temporarily, I assure you) in the 1992 roster, I've wrapped up the GI Joe team's folks and stuff through 2002! My original plan for year 24 was to get both groups through 2003 so... I think I'm a bit ahead of the plan. Yay!
In fact, I may focus on just wrapping up the GI Joe team's rosters before I once again return to work on Cobras in earnest. That'll let me focus on just finishing the project once and for all, namely by grinding away at all the outstanding Cobra people and things I need to cover. My goal there is to indeed get Cobra done through at least 2003 before April of 2022 rolls around.
So that, in a nutshell, is what I'll be working on for the twenty-fourth year of Technohol 13: the Atomic Drink! The stuff described will cover most of this site year, but if I crack up and need to work on something else for a bit, I have plenty of options. Should that happen, expect minor forward progress in either my Myths and Legends reference, or possibly the 1985 Transformers.
Thank you again for dropping by for this, the beginning of the 13's twenty-fourth year. Though there may be a few gaps in my work, the intent is to keep making daily updates throughout the year. While the Updates page shows me skipping around a bunch, that's just to maximize the amount of time I can add to the thing while I'm at break or lunch. At least until I finally get to work from home again. mmm
In other news, I'm ostensibly still the steward of the 13's sibling site, Gaming Nerds ᴙ Us. Of course, I utterly broke the entire site when trying to upgrade its forum, so I'm in the process of rebuilding that from scratch. However, it'll be starting out on a good foot, since I've already arranged the filtering that was so successful in keeping scumbag spammers away. Yay!
Antisocial Media!
Despite the overt criminal nature of that corporation, Technohol 13 still has a Facebook page, which you can find here. I tend to make announcements there when I reach a major milestone on the site, in case you're one of those folks who doesn't like to watch my work in progress, and prefers to catch it all at once. Or if you just want to 'like' us. You're here, after all, so you must like us, at least a little bit!
But What Have I Done For You Lately, You Ask?
I've added plenty to the 13 of late, including Overkill, Headman, the Headhunters, Air Devils, Heli-Vipers, Toxo-Zombies, the Ice Snake, Flak-Vipers, Sky Creeper, the Detonator, Night Vultures, Cesspool, the Toxo-Lab, Sludge-Vipers, Interrogator, the Parasite, Crimson Guard Immortals, Incinerators, the Rat, Desert Scorpions, the Liquidator, Overlord, Vapors, Range-Vipers, the Earthquake, and SAW-Vipers!
