I co-wrote the comedy skit stage show Company OutCast‘s Best Bits, a Monty Pythonesque revue and tribute.

They wanted to have a hymn parody, along the lines of the Python’s “All Things Dull and Ugly.” I put together this tour de farce based on “Amazing Grace,” but we ended up not using it in the show.

So here, for your amusement, is a Special Feature — a deleted scene from the show.

A Grazing Mace

A grazing mace twas but a scratch
that struck a knight like me
No man may pass upon this path
for I will smiteth he

A logging place where I could leap
from tree to mighty tree
I like to dress in women’s clothes
and go to the lavat’ry

A squawking face could speak and sing
if he had life like me
Norwegian blue could fly so free
but he has ceased to be

A fighting space lets me behave
as contradictory
I argue with our customers
if they have paid the fee

A walking pace takes me to work
for public ministry
of silly walks and strolls and struts
that are cockamamie

(c) Dave Mattingly, 2019

At a convention a few years back, I was the Gaming Guest of Honor and Jim Butcher was the Author Guest of Honor. Since I love his Dresden Files novel series, and the game based on it, I ran a game based on all the famous monster hunters in movies in television (at the time).

The Characters

I did my best to supply a balance of characters who specialize in muscle and fighting, investigating and science, and magic and supernatural. I hoped that every player would know at least one of the characters well enough to jump right in.

• Ash Williams (Evil Dead) has a missing hand that can wear a strong metal gauntlet or a chainsaw

• Johnny Blaze (Ghost Rider) is a demon-possessed stunt rider who punishes the wicked

• Peter Venkman (Ghostbusters) is a dodgy scientist with an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back

• Nick Burkhardt (Grimm) is a cop that unexpectedly inherited the ability to see monsters

• Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) is a cheerleader with a calling to kill the undead

• John Constantine (Constantine) is part exorcist, part spellcaster, and all asshole

• Selene (Underworld) is a vampiric assassin who lives semi-exiled on the outskirts of her kind

• Hellboy (Hellboy) is a demon who was raised by a good human man, and fights monsters in secret

• Melinda Gordon (Ghost Whisperer) can see and talk to ghosts, and helps them find their final peace

• Hermione Granger (Harry Potter) is a brilliant magic student with a smug know-it-all attitude

• Mouse (The Dresden Files) is Harry Dresden’s dog, with a holy lineage and celestial powers

• Flynn Carsen (The Librarian) knows something about everything but almost nothing about living

The Plot

The are many ways to bring everyone together, varying a lot based on which characters are playing.

• rumors of an evil coming
• an ancient prophecy
• a murdered ghost (Jake, a school janitor) contacts Melinda
• a museum exhibit of ancient spiritual books, including the Necronomicon
• or whatever else will tease the character’s interests

The rest of the plot is vague and fluid, and should be played by ear. Introduce villains one by one, perhaps disguised by a glamour spell or in an alternate identity, until a battle explodes on the scene.

The all-star villains that I generally use are:

• Lo Pan (Big Trouble in Little China) is an ancient intangible black magician
• Mothman (The Mothman Prophecies) is an enigmatic interdimensional busybody
• Kurgan (Highlander) is a skilled swordsman that gains power with each kill
• Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice) is an insane trickster ghost who wants the ability to interact with the real world
• Killer Klown (Killer Klowns from Outer Space) is a shapeshifting alien bent on enslaving humanity
• Mr. Tumnus (the Narnia series) has a naughty mind control flute
• The Scorpion King (The Mummy Returns) is a homicidal demigod sponsored by Anubis

The Character Sheets

I’ve supplied the character sheets in standard Dresden Files RPG format, and in a “dossier” format that I designed.

Download

You can download the character sheets here, and character nameplates here.

Years ago, my friend Joe Linehan ran a roleplaying game based on cereal mascots as the player characters. To ramp up the strangeness, he kept it grim and gritty by running them through the plot of Watchmen.

I loved the idea so much that I spun off a scenario based on Independence Day and Aliens. In my game Plan Q from Outer Space, Quisp invaded Earth with giant cereal bowl spaceships poised to shoot giant beams of milk to destroy major cities. On board the ships were alien Soggies, with lactic acid for blood.

Joe and I have run several games in the cereal-verse since then. My favorite title was Joe’s wartime epic A Box o’ Trix Now (“I love the smell of cereal in the morning.”).

Night of the Living Crunch

In the zombie horror game “Cereal Killers: Night of the Living Crunch,” the dead rise and want to eat your grains.

The Breakfast Club is…

The Character Sheets

I was inspired by another friend’s game props. Karl Keesler ran a League of Extraordinary 1970’s Gentlemen game, with the character sheets designed as 8-track tapes. That inspired me to step up my character sheet presentation, and I found a way to print cereal box wrap-around designs. So I turned Joe’s original character sheets into boxes, and taped them onto actual mini-cereal boxes. These are written using the HERO System rules.

Downloads

You can download the character boxes here and the printer-friendly black-and-white version here.

At Origins Game Fair (and at home beforehand), I ran a roleplaying game based on the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse movie (and comics that inspired the movie).

I used the Marvel Super Heroes (1984) system for the game. The system is sometimes nicknamed the FASERIP system, since that’s what the initials of the abilities spell (Fighting Agility Strength Endurance Reason Intuition Psyche).

The Spideys

Since the movie included Peter A Parker, Peter B Parker, Miles Morales, Spider-Gwen, Spider-Man Noir, Penni Parker, and Peter Porker the Spectacular Spider-Ham, I chose to write-up some of the other Spideys that have been in comics over the years.

• Agent Venom: Flash Thompson lost his legs in the war, then bonded with the alien Venom symbiote

• Spiders-Man: Millions of radioactive spiders believe that they are Peter Parker, and collectively adopt his shape

• Spider-Punk: Hobie Brown uses punk rock to fight the man in a dystopian future

• Superior Spider-Man: Dr. Octopus transferred his mind into Peter Parker’s body, but accidentally also got his conscience

• Spider-Woman: Jessica Drew can fly, blast bio-energy, and carry a child

• Spider-Man 2099: Miguel O’Hara’s DNA was blended with a spider’s to save his life

• Lady Spider: May Reilly invented a mechanical spider harness

• Six-Armed Spider-Man: Peter Parker tried to cure his spider-ness but grew into it

• Kraven the Spider: Sergei Kravinoff “killed” Spider-Man then put on his costume to prove he was the best

• Spider Monkey: Peter Parker comes from the Marvel Apes world where everyone is a primate

• Spider-Man India: Pavitr Prabhakar‘s powers are similar to classic Spider-Man’s but all magic-based

• Supaidaman & Leopardon: Takuya Yamashiro fights crime with spider-powers and a 60-meter mech

The Write-Ups

A standard FASERIP character sheet is a rather nondescript wall of text.

In the movie, characters each introduce themselves with a comic book cover, so I formatted the character sheets to look like a comic.

Each “comic cover” features the character name and a pose. The inside holds the character write-up. The back cover highlights the character background, motivation, or other key scenes from the history.

For characters with Combat Sense, I also highlighted the Intuition stat to remind the player that the power’s rank replaces the Intuition score during combat,

The Scenario

I vaguely followed the Spider-Geddon comics story-line that covered the attack from Morlun and his family of Inheritors. They’re an immortal family of interdimensional totem-eating vampires that like eating spider totems the best.

Depending which characters the players have chosen, they can get pulled into the adventure through Spider-Man 2099 watching Morlun kill a different Spider-Man 2099, a dire warning from Madame Web, a galactic alert to Agent Venom, an Avengers alert to Spider-Woman’s dimensional watch, or some other hook. From there, it’s a matter of Spideys gathering their forces before Morlun attacks.

Download

You can download the Spider-Verse Characters (PDF) here.