Blogroll
My personal blog of games, pop culture, content creation, web-technology, and whatever strikes my fancy.
-
A Guild Tale
“I need your help,” the voice called to Kenet. The place was dark about him, and memory eluded him. Where am I, he thought? He cast around the place, looking for something to tell him where he was. Dim fog filled the air, and shadows stretched across towards him. The figure stepped from shadow. It was Ele, her slight form cloaked in little more than shadow. She looked at him with sad, loving eyes. Her broken and blood-splattered hand reached for him. The deep cut in her throat made a sickening movement and spilled blood with her every breath. Her lips moved as if to tell him something, but…
-
White Star Cognates
Here is the idea. This is a write up I did with an eye on publishing it as a pdf. It is written for use with White Star, but a number of pieces could work in other scifi games. It is an homage to the Mentat’s in Dune. As White Star is all about that old school scifi gaming, it seemed a good choice. I never got around to publishing it to PDF. Partly due to being too broke to pay for good art, and being way too hard on myself. Depression is counter to many a goal in life. I am posting it here to get some feedback. If…
-
A guest shot on a friends podcast
I made a guest appearance on the Appendix N Podcast(one of the Tome Show sub shows), which reviews the books in the original Appendix N. This one was covering Stanley Grauman Weinbaum’s classic, A Martian Odyssey. http://www.thetomeshow.com/e/the-appendix-n-podcast-episode-20-a-martian-odyssey/
-
Notes on the Mars game
Notes on the Mars game Key goal is long term survivable colonies on Mars. This is accomplished mainly through careful planning, deals, and certain amount of luck. No single colony by itself should be able to survive on its own for quite a while. Water: Key resource to collect and spend You start with a set amount You acquire it through mining and trade you spend it on colonists You can spend it on food You can trade it. Can be depleted or reduced by events. Food: Made with water usage Spent on colonists Can be traded Can be depleted or reduced by events. Colonist: Are acquired from Sponsors Each colony…
-
New Zombie Orpheus stuff
I watched the two latest entries from Zombie Orpheus, and loved them. Human’s and Households is about people living in a fantasy world, who play a game where they imagine characters in our mundane one. It is a hoot. Gamers: The Natural One is a thinly veiled excuse to have some of the Gamers crew playing a Shadowrun type game. It was fun as well, with some gamer humor. It is done by the guys who did Gamers 1, 2, and 3. I am fond of those films and one of the things I enjoy about them is they are getting better with every installment. These are shorter bits, but…
-
Man of Steel
Superman is not an easy character to get right. Many people have taken approaches at him, and few have succeeded. Snyder’s approach was actually fairly new, and I am not sure if he succeeded or not, but if he failed, he failed in an enjoyable manner. Superman is a legend, a god that has feet on the ground like a man. He is the invulnerable, and unstoppable man. That is often the problem, as he is so powerful, it is awfully hard to give him a challenge he can’t rise to. More than that, he is big boy scout, always, and today’s audience is often seen as having a problem…
-
Star Treking
I have been thinking about Star Trek today. Specifically, I have been thinking about gaming in Star Trek. Star Trek has had a few RPG’s based on it. Fasa, Last Unicorn and Decipher have all done games based on the material, not to mention Prime Directive. They all had varying levels of success. Fasa, in particular, had an “interesting” time with the fact they came up with their own canon for the game world, only to have it directly contradicted later by the rights holder. Star Trek, in general, seems like a no brainer for a scifi game setting, that anyone would love. Unfortunately, i there may be a significant…
-
Many shades of black
Tonight’s Hannibal inspired me to write some things. Forgive me if I ramble. One of my all time favorite TV shows of all time is Millennium. It was done by some of the people behind X-Files and Space Above and Beyond, and it actually crossed over with X-Files at a couple of points. It was nominally about a guy who can see into the minds of evil, to help find killers. This is a premise that has been done often to varying degrees, but usually with a sort of typical police procedural feel. Millennium was not that model. It had a deeply melancholy theme running through it, a level personal…
-
The Beyond of comic future
I see a lot of people who complain about the state of comics, for various reasons. Some complain they have lost originality. I have heard others complain about how dark they have become. Of course, the classic complain of expense will always come up. One I have heard come up time and again, is that they seem to have lost a lot of that simple fun we all loved when we first started reading them. When I say we, I mean those of us who started reading in the 80s. Well worry not my friends. I have a cure for this complaint, of sorts. DC comics has a line of…
-
Why I love Eberron
I love Eberron. I have been reading some Eberron novels of late, and it has reminded me of this fact. With the exception of Spelljammer, Eberron has been my favorite D&D setting. Before you get to the question, I love a lot of D&D settings, but I will put a pin in Eberron, and say it is my favorite for a number of reasons.