October 27, 2011

Stevil Van Hostile




Do you know Stevil from the hit comic book Knights of the Dinner Table?  Not sure if Stevil is based off of Steve Johansson from Kenzer & Company, but I've spent enough time around Stevil, er I mean Steve, that I totally see the influence.  Even if Stevil is based off of Steve, they are two totally different characters.....and they both are characters.

Stevil.....the real one...he tells it like it is.  He likes to go off on these little rants about games, gamers, and life in general that are hilarious to watch.  The thing about his rants though, when I ignore the delivery and actually listen to what he's saying I tend to find I really agree with him.  The man is very insightful at times.

Even though he's a member of the D-Team, he doesn't participate all that much on the KenzerCo Forums.  The man is busy, ok.  When he does post it is usually to put up some new alpha or beta testing material for the upcoming release of HackMaster.  Most of the playtesters are running a mix of HackMaster Basic and whatever new rules have been released for testing.

Stevil's name and image have recently been cropping up to taunt GMs that have dropped the ball and given their players far too much control, or GMs that simply screwed the pooch.  I'm currently playing in an adventure where another table's GM apparently specifically went against the authors specific instructions regarding the introduction of the adventure and of course the players had a cakewalk.

I'm not sure Bulburd will survive his zombie adventure, but I'll be damned sure that he takes as many deadheads as he cane with him!

This other GM.....some of the GMs are giving him a well-deserved hard time.  Steve chimed in to say something about the God of Assassins.  Piecing things together it sounds like this GM has a player who follows the Assassin deity and was able to command the undead in the adventure, forcing them to immolate themselves in a bonfire the players built.  Assuming this is true, there are some issues with this.  a) Clergy of the Assassin God evidently don't have the ability to affect the undead in any way, b) There were some penalties (I don't know what) that should have made commanding/turning much more difficult...possibly impossible, c) Undead aren't going to off themselves.  That should have been construed as an attack and their control ended at that point.

Someone else had posted a pic of Stevil's floating head which I appropriated to commemorate Stevil's thoughts on the Assassin God possibly seeing a contract kill shambling around as the undead.  The second pic was just my entry in making fun of the GM.

If you would like to make your own KenzerCo/HackMaster/Aces & Eights floating head spouting Stevilisms.  Here's a base file:

EDIT I had another go, using some higher rez pics and downloading a nicer background.  The heads aren't as big, but I can play around with them easier.




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