The Boxcars role-playing game now has character creation rules.

I wrote a role-playing game. It uses two six sided dice. Find it at BoxcarsRPG.com.

Now that the veil of NDA has been lifted, I can say that I've been playing beta-testing the DC universe MMORPG, DCU Online.

The quickest assessment: pretty cool.

One of the first things that struck me is the physics. I thought Champions Online was pretty nifty because you could pick things up and chuck them about (walking into a warehouse and picking up a forklift so I could throw it at an evil robot who might be in the next room always amused me), especially after the quite static scenery of City of Heroes/Villains. In DCUO, things will get broken. If you're walking down the street and someone picks a fight with you, things will get knocked around and broken and blown-up, like it or not. Breaking stuff is fun.

Of course, the main reason someone is likely to choose DCUO over Champions or CoX is being able to interact with the heroes and villains of DC comics. I'm an old-timey traditional RPG nerd, so I thought it was pretty cool to play alongside Defender and other characters I remembered from Champions 4th edition (the "big blue book"). However, this has nothing on fighting back-to-back with perhaps the most iconic figure of modern fiction: Superman. Pretty much every character from the DCU is found somewhere, whether helping and guiding you, getting in your way or being rescued by you. The Booster Gold tourist-information-style kiosks may be the greatest thing in any video game ever, and Ambush Bug is (of course) aware that he is in a video game.

One thing that sets this apart from the other two superhero MMORPGs is that it has a premise. Where CoX and Champions entire premise is pretty much "there are superheroes," things have to be a little different for the DC game, since it is a well-defined universe with only a canonical handful of superheroes. The way the player characters fit in involves a major plot controlled by Brainiac, and interference from a time-traveling Lex Luthor.

Part of Brainiac's plan involves giving superpowers to a large swath of the population. This justifies more than just the known heroes having powers, as well as putting some structure on the storylines and the PCs. That means everyone has a built in origin story - not cool if you are looking for some RP (though I suppose you can ignore the "Brainiac gave you powers" thing if you want to play at being an alien or whatever).

That premise also explains why you don't start in an ideal state - you really are just a starting out in this whole superheroing/villaining thing. You get better at using powers and you get cooler costume pieces along the way.

Which is to say: initial character creation is a bit more limited than I'd like. There was much more flexibility in abilities for both Champions and CoX - I'm hoping the developers add more power sets as the game progresses.

Starting costumes are much more limited than either CoX or Champions, but the components that are there look great. Where Champions characters look appropriately cartoony and CoX characters are a relic of the graphics from a couple of generations back game-wise, DCUO costumes are amazingly detailed and textured. As limited as the initial design is, as you adventure you'll pick up more components that you may then wear; so you won't necessarily start with the look you want but you can build it as you go. Unlike many (non-superhero) games, you can use the costume bits with the most beneficial modifiers while having the appearance of any piece you've ever collected.

One of the reasons to play a superhero is to have a clever character, with the costume, origin and name all tied together, so major negatives from me in that regard; but the kinetic gameplay in a well-developed world might be enough to offset that.

About a week from now I'll be attending the San Diego Comic-Con for the twenty-fourth time - I'm not proud (or tired). Of course, one of the years I'm counting involved me stepping through the door, looking at the program schedule, saying "nah," and getting back on the trolley.

Somewhere around here is an incoherent ramble that was written in response to 2009's convention, in which I point out that every person who attended my first - every person, for the entire four days - could fit in Hall H of the new convention center. A lot more than just the scale of it has changed. The main thing that has changed for me has been *why* I go back every year.

I'm already feeling overwhelmed this year.

The first few years I went with my buddy Marc (his mom drove us), but I really had nothing to do with comic books. Didn't make, sell or read them, and had no interest in doing so. So why did I go? At first it was because I was interested in thing tangentially related to comic books: science fiction, role-playing games and other nerdiness.

The creativity and intelligence, the disregard for conventional behavior, and the passion for art and literature are what brought me back. It was a colorful, energetic experience. I became fascinated by the culture. I would tell anyone who would listen that they should go, even if they weren't into comics or science-fiction, just to experience the amazing culture.

There was no way I would not attend this thing - in high school, I would save my summer school "free" days-off to make sure I could go.

As it moved from Golden Hall to the convention center, I followed.

One of the first couple years there, we shared the center with a quilting convention. As the crowds got off the trolley, it wasn't much of a challenge to figure out who was there for which event.

It was soon clear that we could not share the space with the little old ladies, because they could totally take us in a fight the event soon took up the entire space, and was becoming something that people outside of my little subculture were noticing. The growth was wonderful and fascinating. The reach was going beyond the (stereo)typical comic book reader.

One year I found myself unemployed, but as I said, there was no way I would miss this cultural event. To get in, I volunteered to work there a couple hours each day. I ended up with disabled services, helping attendees register or get around the main floor or to and from programs, and met some great people. The focus and involvement are what made that one among my favorite years. I planned to do it again the next year. I didn't, though.

My reason for going the following years was because I got a job at a comic book store, and ended up working our booth at the convention. Also, I started to actually read comic books.

Once I stopped working at the comic store (for my first full-time radio gig), the convention became more of a social event for me. It is now a place for me to see old friends and meet folks of a similar mind-set.

Also, it has quite clearly become something else. You probably know that Hollywood studios and television networks now are using the summer event to announce upcoming projects and promote current ones. This year, Jeff Bridges, Sylvester Stallone, Kevin Smith, Penn & Teller, and Will Ferrell will be there, among many others.

The first year I went had me excited because I might get to see Larry Niven.

This is what's got me overwhelmed. Several years ago, I'd have friends saying that the convention has gotten too far away from comics, since they were having trouble finding an adequate supply of silver-age comics or whatever; I wasn't there for the comics to begin with, so it didn't bother me as the presence of comics became diluted. After all, it's not getting pushed out, just becoming a smaller percentage of this thing that has become gargantuan.

The misery of waiting in lines didn't get to me, I simply decided to attend program with less interest. It then felt more like the quaint event it used to be.

But this year... I don't know, it might be that I'm getting a lot more information in advance than I used to (via internet and press releases (movie studios didn't send me a lot of press releases when I was in junior high)), but this year nearly intimidates me. There's just too much convention, with no way I can experience everything. There's no way I can experience even a shadow of a tiny percentage of it. But I will go, I will try to experience a lot of it, and I will try not to wait in lines.

I will probably end up not going to some of the things I am currently planning on, in favor of fish tacos and beer in the Gaslamp Quarter with my wife and some friends I haven't seen in a while. And that will be very cool.

Tim Gunn critiques superhero costumes: