Podcasts I Listen To—As Requested

For a long time the only "Podcast" I listened to, was Coast to Coast AM. Which really isn't a Podcast, since it is a syndicated Radio program, and to download the "Podcast" requires a subscription.

I really got into listening to Podcasts because of P. On an online Social Network—not Facebook (I'm still resisting Facebook)—I reconnected with P, someone I knew in High School. Funny thing, in High School I wouldn't Necessarily say that P and I were friends, we knew each other and had some classes together, but that was it. I find it somewhat odd that we weren't better friends back then, we were and continue to enjoy a lot of the same interests...

That observation, in and of itself, is another post entirely.

P and I had a nice casual conversation about Tabletop Role Playing Games, and he told me that he satiates the lack of opportunity to play more often, by listening to podcasts about gaming and recommended one called: Fear the Boot.

The funny thing about all this, is the reason I listen to so many podcasts. It can be summed up in two things. Savage Worlds and Board Games.

In one of the Earlier Shows of Fear the Boot, one of the Hosts was very enthusiastic about a Role Playing Game called Savage Worlds. His Enthusiasm transferred to me, and now I run a Game twice a month.

When I was getting into Savage World, I wanted to find out everything I could about the System and its associated settings. I found a Podcast called: The Game's the Thing. (The Website Sucks, and I have a Love Hate Relationship with the Podcast because of the hosts)

As much as Ron and Veronica annoy me, they have the best information about Savage Worlds so I listen to The Game's the Thing.

It was downhill from there. Fear the Boot shortly after I started listening joined a network of Podcasts about gaming called Pulp Gamer. (Pulp, as in the stuff that becomes Cardboard and Paper...the stuff Board Games are printed on)

Shortly after I caught up on the shows for Fear the Boot—The Game's the Thing also joined the Pulp Gamer Media Network.

I noticed that a lot of shows on the Pulp Gamer Network talked extensively about Board Games, and since we play a lot of Board Games (that is to say non-traditional board games—i.e. mostly not published by Hasbro and Subsidiaries) at our house and I like hearing about the New Shiny in the world of board games I started trying out the different Podcasts at the network.

I should mention that I have a little thing inside me, that makes me want to devour things in their entirety. I could not just listen to these podcasts in their current state as I would a live broadcast show. Since the Libraries of the Show go back to the beginning (for the most part) I have this thing inside me that compels me to start at the beginning.

I now listen to the Following parts of the Pulp Gamer Network:

Fear the Boot—Advice on Playing and Running Role Playing Games

The Game's the Thing—Information about Board and Role Playing Games particularly Savage Worlds

Pulp Gamer out of Character—Members of the Pulp Gamer Network talk about various game related topics.

The Game Kennel—Brief overviews about different Games.

Family Night—Like the Game Kennel, but geared toward Family Games.

Game On! With Cody and John—Reviews of Games and some Gaming News (Extremely Professional From The Beginning—most podcasts are a little rough in the first episodes as they figure out who they are—The Website is also Very Professional)

Pulp Gamer Inside Track—Interviews with people in the Game Industry

Pulp Gamer Special Presentations—I think this is stuff they did that doesn't fit into any of the other podcasts.

The D6 Generation—Gaming News, Detailed...Very Detailed Reviews of Games—Geared Particularly toward Tabletop War Gaming (a type of gaming I'm not really in to, but I find I have to keep listening because they increasingly do cover other topics) If you try this one out, the show starts with a parody of the McGlaughlin Group that can be a little jarring the first time you hear it, in fact I turned it off the first time I listened to it, because there was no way I was going to listen to that for 3 hours (also I has Scouts in the Car) But it's generally only about five minutes—and has become one of my favorite segments of the show.

They're pretty much all about gaming. I'm caught up on all of them from the beginning, except The D6 Generation—it's a three to four hour show so it's taking me much longer to catch up than the others did. I'm on episode thirty-eight of forty-five.

Also, Ron and Veronica have a new podcast, and as much as they annoy me, and as much as I think the theme song is pretty lame—I'm going to listen to every episode, because it is exclusively about Savage Worlds. Smiling Jack's Bar and Grill.

I don't get why the hosts that annoy me the most are the ones that get all the interviews with the Savage Worlds people, and talk the most about Savage Worlds, and get all the good scoops on Savage Worlds. As much as they annoy me, they have the content that is most interesting to me.

I also listen to the Dungeons and Dragons podcast when they put out series of shows that are recordings of Dungeons and Dragons sessions; Dungeon Mastered by Chris Perkins from Research and Development at Wizards of the Coast, and played by Mike and Jerry of Penny Arcade (a Webcomic), Scott Kurtz of PVP (another Webcomic), and now Wil Wheaton famous geek. —This Podcast contains some strong Language, it's not for everyone, I just started listening because I was curious about 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons.

Speaking of Wil Wheaton, I recently started listening to Memories of the Futurecast. I don't recall how I found it, but here's the skinny. Wil Wheaton played Ensign Wesley Crusher on Star Trek the Next Generation. He recently wrote a book, Memories of the Future, about his memories of being on the cast. He does some readings from the book in Memories of the Futurecast—really interesting if you were a fan of the show. —Again, there's some language in this one. He does some other podcasts as well, but I haven't listened yet.

I've wanted to start listening to some other Podcasts, but I have to catch up to the ones I'm listening to currently first.

What Podcasts do You listen to?

Supers Companion

The Savage Worlds Supers Companion Should Be Available in print April 2010. I'll be putting money aside for this.

Expanding the Possibilities of Necessary Evil, or trying to run your own Supers Campaign with Savage Worlds.

Google Wave Invitations

I have some now.

Brandon, I sent you one. It can take a couple of days.

What a Commute

Generally I take the Bus.

Today, I was more than happy to take the bus. With the Snow accumulating like that, and the roads generally not clean, I was glad that I didn't have to drive.

I bundled up. I walked to the Bus Stop.

When the podcast I was listening to ended, it signaled that the Bus was indeed late—not surprising considering the weather and traffic situation. However I was getting cold, and I could not see a bus approaching that was perhaps the one I take. So I went back to the corner and crossed in two directions and looked up the road—I had a better view from this location. I thought I saw my bus coming, and I could definitely see the bus for my alternate route coming. I walked back to the stop (that's crossing the street in two directions again)—but what I thought was my bus, was a School Bus. So I crossed the street (in two directions) again and waited at the other stop.

Making a left hand turn was taking so long that I crossed the street six times and still made the alternate bus.

After boarding the alternate route, I continued to watch in the other direction, and I never did see the Bus that I take.

Two and a half hours after I left the house, I finally made it to the light rail station. The wait there was only about eight minutes, but when the train arrived it was only two cars and it was packed. I've never seen it that packed. Then we picked up more and more people. Then I realized that I was on the wrong route and had to hop off and wait for the next train. The snow was wreaking havoc with one of the doors on the train, it would close—but not enough to let the driver leave. Which had caused a delay at three stations, so when I got off to catch the right route, it was literally right behind us.

So three hours and fifteen minutes after I left the house, I walked in the doors at my place of employment. I'm still glad that I didn't have to drive.

Perhaps the Trick is to Not Expect Anyone to Come??

I started running Savage Worlds when my wife went out of town. Due to reconnecting with P and some online conversations about Gaming. I had started listening to a Gaming Podcast, and one of the Hosts had been raving about Savage Worlds. My interest was piqued enough to pick the book up, and I had been dying to play. I decided that my wife being out of town was the perfect way to get some people to come over and give it a shot.

Since Savage Worlds is a Generic system, I still had to decide what kind of game to run. I had decided to run a Zombie Survival game and the Tuesday before the Scheduled game, Pinnacle Re-released the adventure module Zombie Run updated for the current revision of the Savage Worlds Rule Set. I thought that it would be easier to run an established story rather than come up with something of my own, since I had never run a game before. Add to that the fact that it was on sale I purchased it.

Mostly I had in mind more of a One Shot adventure. Little did I know, Zombie run was not a One Shot. So here I am, seven months later still running the campaign adventure. Things seem to have fallen off a little as of late, and if there's one thing I know, it's that the Holiday season can kill a campaign.

So, this weeks game was supposed to take place next week—I forgot that we had a Birthday Party to attend next week. So in a desperate bid of last minuteness I updated the invitation to indicate that everyone was invited this weekend to play.

I think one of the things that has kept the campaign alive, is the fact that I've invited so many people to play. The initial invite that I sent out was for seven people. Three Attended. At this point there are eighteen people that are invited. I've never had more than five attend a session. Session to session it's different people. I explain what happened last time, and we always assume everyone is there—but only the people that make the session are kept track of in any given situation.

The last two sessions took place despite the fact that one session was the week of Thanksgiving, and the other session was scheduled a week earlier than normal at short notice.

Maybe the trick is to just not expect anyone to show up. . .

OK probably not (if you don't expect anything out of people, they will live up to your expectations), but that's how the last two sessions have played out for me. I want to remain consistent and not let this thing die on the vine so even though I don't really expect people to come—I plan to run a session. I have one more session that has, I-don't-expect-anyone-to-show-up status. It falls on the day after Christmas. For those of you that are players. It promises to be a good one. If you thought the maps that we've played on before were great. You haven't had an experience like the one I have planned. It is going to be Legen....wait for it....DARY!

So this weeks session went well. We had some scavenging, and zombies did indeed show up. Then there was the extraction of a spy—and plenty of Zombies for flavor. I think that as far as mechanics go, this session was the smoothest. Now I just need to start describing things a little better—spin a yarn as they say.

Transiberian Orchestra DLC

DLC is Downloadable Content for those not in the know.

I propose that there needs to be a Transiberian Orchestra Guitar Hero, or Rock Band, or Band Hero; or if they aren't willing to make a fully Christmas themed game, just offer it up as downloadable content. I was listening to some Transiberian Orchestra last night, and thought again about how easy it would be to get me to spend money on such a thing.

You Will Do As I Command

Because I'm Very Persuasive—the fortune cookie told me so.

I hate fortune cookies that don't have a fortune. They just aren't as fun. You Will believe me, the cookie told me so.

Waving

Okay, I've had some time to play with Wave.

I think the Industry Buzzwords are confusing what the actual product does; add to that the lingo that Google has labeled the parts of Wave with and it's no wonder that I had no idea what it was. I don't think it's very intuitive as a result.

That is, until you start a Wave with someone else. Then it all starts to make sense.

What it boils down to is a really advanced chat room.

It feels very old school because you see everyone involved typing in real time (soon to be a feature that can be turned off—so you can finish a thought and then have it available). But then you realize that each of those little chat boxes can be edited by anyone invited, that the text has rudimentary formatting, that you can link sub comments, and that members of the Wave can have a private side chat—and it doesn't seem very old school anymore.

On top of all that there, are all kinds of Gadgets that you can use, and people are writing new gadgets all the time. You can bring in a Google map and mark off areas and label points of interest. You can add a gadget that allows you to scribble a la MS paint. You can add one of many gaming dice gadgets and generate random numbers. You can add a deck of cards that can be manipulated much like a real deck or two or three...You can upload files that everyone can access. You can Create a Poll. You can integrate your social networking of choice (Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, etc.)

It essentially takes the rudimentary and simple concept of a chat, and elevates it to a collaboration tool. I can see it as a very useful and fun tool with which to work.

How Long Will the Batteries Last?

(There may be some small spoilers for Zombie Run)

Savage Worlds Game Night is Falling on all the Holiday Weekends. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years.

I read a lot of gaming Blogs and I listen to a number of Gaming Podcasts. One thing I've picked up is that the Holidays are a major destroyer of the regular role playing game. I'm experiencing something different. The Games all around the Holidays are falling apart, but the games that fall on the week of the holiday are working out.

I really enjoy the surprises I get when acting as GM.

This session revolved around the need to shut down the Nuclear Power Plant in Palo Verde. Tiring of keeping track of Allies, I sent the party in by themselves. Storytelling-wise there were others with them. When it came down to putting the figs on the map on the table, it was just the characters.

The control room had two bad guys for every good guy plus one.

My wife is playing a wannabe goth. Her character dresses the part, but her perky meter goes to eleven—and she's always looking for storybook romance.

She did something completely unexpected. She burst into the control room, with the injured engineer on her back, playing the part of confused valley girl. She exploded her persuasion dice and moved the entire room from hostile to helpful and the very people that were there to stop them from shutting down the reactor, ended up fixing the coolant system—leaving the party safe and sound and hidden (save the Perky Goth and Nuclear Engineer).

So the next thing would have been handled better if I was a more experienced GM. There were two planned zombie encounters for the evening's game. The first was just a possibility and the party dodged the zombies when scavenging.

The second was a group of zombies in the radioactive core that would be encountered when they needed to enter the core to repair the coolant system. Except the Perky Goth convinced the Bad Guys to Go into the Core.

I didn't want to just make up what happened in the core, so I started to Roll it out. Playing the part of the Villains and the Zombies. Luckily someone reminded me that I could have the players take on the part of the NPCs for that part of the session. A more experienced GM would have just done that instinctively.

I've heard that advice on the Podcasts and in the Blogs, but I was always a little wary of letting the players control the NPCs. Contextually it worked and was appropriate, I just wish I had come up with it.

Also, Brandon bombed a stealth roll sneaking out. I realized after I told them to roll that I shouldn't have done so, because I wasn't willing to play out the consequences (It was late and time to wrap up the session)—so I let it slide a little and let the Bad Guys hear him, but they didn't see him to pursue him.

So, to summarize what I learned this session.

1) I keep saying this, but it is a constant that never ceases to amaze me. Gamers will solve the problem in amazing ways you never considered, even if the outcome of said action was a small possibility. I knew that they could possibly talk the Bad Guys into Helping rather than hindering, I never expected it to happen—let alone in the manner in which they did so.

2) Lone-wolfing is Bad—if you find yourself in that situation, hand the NPCs over to the players.

3) Only have players roll the dice when you are willing to play out the consequences (Good or Bad). Corollary : if you need things to go a certain way—don't rely on the dice, just tell the story.

New Super Mario Brothers Wii

I admit that I am a Mario Fan through and through.

I remember the first time I played Super Mario Brothers. It was a Sunday. We were at my Mother's Uncle's House. My second cousin had the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) hooked up to a small color television in the basement (The Same Color Television Doubled as a monitor for a computer—Commodore 64 or something like that).

I watched a second cousin play through a few levels and I excitedly asked if I could try it out.

With the Atari 2600 as my primary prior experience in console gaming. I walked Forward and right into that first Goomba and died. Then I did it again. I was trying to use up on the directional pad to jump. So there I am on my last life when my cousin finally tells me how to jump. I fared a little better, but not great.

I've been hooked ever since. I probably bugged my parents about getting a Nintendo from that point on.

Dad relented once and rented one from Blockbuster. The new Shiny on the block at the time was Super Mario Brothers 2—and what a glorious game.

We finally got a Nintendo for Christmas, and Super Mario Brothers became a challenge to overcome. It was hard. Very Very Hard.

Playing video games is a very different affair these days. Back then there was no internet. If you were stuck, you were stuck until you figured it out. Cheat codes were passed among friends on pieces of paper and they originated from the one guy that had a subscription to Nintendo Power, or the inside of Cereal Boxes, or as a bonus from watching some cartoon on Saturday morning.

I remember the sheer thrill, when I hear from a friend of a friend about the Konami Code (I didn't know that's what it was called at the time) and how excited I was to take that pencil scrawled ripped piece of paper over to my friend's house to try it on Contra. Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A (select—for two players) Start. We passed Contra the first time that day, with the help of 30 extra lives.

Now that I have the Nintendo Wii, I've picked up every Mario Game I can get my hands on: Super Mario Brothers, Super Mario Brothers 2 (US and Japanese Versions), Super Mario Brothers 3, Super Mario World, Super Mario 64, Super Mario RPG (Shout-out to Natalie for that one), Super Mario Sunshine (Thanks to Nintendo for Backward Gamecube Compatibility), Super Mario Galaxy, Super Paper Mario.

I'm still lacking in the Mario Kart arena, and the Smash Brothers Arena.

So, it should come as no surprise that I picked up New Super Mario Brothers Wii.

New Super Mario Brothers Wii is in spirit just like every side scroll platform Mario game that came before. The last traditional side scroll Mario game that came out was New Super Mario Brothers in 2006, but that was a Nintendo DS game. I don't own a DS, but I borrowed one to play that game because prior to that the last traditional side scroll Mario game was Super Mario World in 1990 on Super Nintendo, a system I never owned. New Super Mario Brothers was FUN—VERY FUN, but playing on that little screen just isn't the same.

Over the years, I've become less of a solitary player—I enjoy the social interaction of gaming, which explains the proliferation of Music Rhythm Games in our home. Even though Super Mario has traditionally been mostly a single player game, it's more fun with friends. We would take turns passing the controller. You can make fun of each other when you fail and you can celebrate wildly skillful playing. 

New Super Mario Brothers adds true multi-player to the Mario equation. Up to Four players can compete or co-operate on screen at once. No longer constrained to passing the controller, or taking turns on screen as Mario and Luigi.

So far, I'm loving this game, it's completely new and yet it's completely familiar. I haven't played much, because I'm really craving the multi-player and haven't had a chance to try that out as of yet. What I have played has been fun in an old school meets new school kind of way. If you thought Firepower was fun—wait until you try Ice Power. If you thought the Tanooki suit and the Cape were great, wait till you try on the Propeller Suit. If you thought the Frog Suit was an Awesome Power up for Water Levels you're gonna love the Penguin in Ice Levels. Also—Yoshi.

The Stars Are Right.

The Cthulhu Mythos is an interesting bit of Modern Horror Fiction that was born during the age of Pulp Fiction.

As I understand it, H.P. Lovecraft envisioned a world where we humans amount to nothing. In the Mythos he created a world where Elder Gods once ruled, but are now currently sleeping. Though they sleep, their minds reach out to prepare for their eventual return, they influence people who become cultists. These Cultists prepare the world for their return through horrific rituals. Those that attempt to learn about the Elder Gods and the World they ruled, are faced with the realization that man is nothing; merely ants in the grand scheme of things. This knowledge added to the understanding that the Elder Gods will soon return leads to a loss of sanity. The Elder gods Will Return—when the Stars are Right.

H.P. Lovecraft had close ties with other Pulp Fiction Contemporaries, and they too added to the Mythos—Including Robert E. Howard (Known Best for Conan, Kull, and Solomon Kane)

The Stars are Right is a Card and Tile Game. The Tiles are Laid out in a grid pattern in the center of the table. You then play cards to arrange the star tiles to allow the activation of cards based on patterns of stars found in the grid. The Goal is to arrange the stars in patterns that allow the Summoning of various Cthulhu Mythos monsters each worth different point values. The player that reaches ten points first wins.

I liked this game. The ties to the Chulhu Mythos were very prominent (but not something you need to know to play). Summoning lesser creatures yields lower points, and help in the eventual summoning of the Elder Gods (worth more points) by allowing portions of the Star Patterns to be ignored.

The thing I can see some people not liking about this game, is that it is extremely difficult to plan ahead, because every one is changing the stars. This slows the game down as getting the stars arranged in such a manner as needed does require some thinking.

I want to play this again. Next time, I hope there aren't two screaming kids, and two yapping dogs. Then maybe I'll be able to think clearer and Summon the Great Cthulhu—when The Stars are Right.

Google Wave—Shameless Begging

I've been hearing all about this Google Wave thing.

I still can't seem to wrap my head around what exactly it is, and I want to check it out, but it's currently invitation only.

I figure someone Geeky that Reads My Blog could offer me one of their invites.

To prove exactly how shameless this begging is, I'm applying all my labels to this blog. From what I understand, Google Wave could apply in some way to all of them.

Musical Rhythm Games

Musical Rhythm Games are  really popular at our house.

Essentially they are Karaoke games that everyone can play whether they can sing or not. The Guitar and Drums can be tricky, but they level well enough, so even players on the Easy Level can enjoy. When we purchased Guitar Hero 5 in the first month it was available, we became eligible for a free copy of Guitar Hero Van Halen. We also picked up Lego Rock Band and Band Hero.

Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero are essentially the same game with a different skin/style and different song selections. They are geared specifically for party play. You can hop in and out and change difficulty on the fly, and you can play with any combination of instruments—i.e. if you happen to have four drum sets, you can all play drums, and you can change instruments on the fly as well.

I played We Are the Champions and American Pie last night and it was a blast.

Guitar Hero Van Halen, isn't even out yet. Its release date is about a month from now. I'm not a big Van Halen fan, but If it's free, that's the price for me. I found that I recognized a lot more of the Van Halen Music than I thought I would, and enjoyed most of it. It has one Queen song in it, and I've been a little obsessed with the music of Queen lately—A very talented group. I remembered that in the Movie Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, that they were always trying to come up with a way to get Eddie Van Halen in the Band—now I understand why. There is some truly challenging stuff in this game due to the Amazing things he did with the real instrument. The Game feels like Guitar Hero III, as far a menus and game play, but updated to handle More Varieties of plastic toy instruments. It's challenging, and frankly I'm surprised at how much I've enjoyed playing it.

Now let's talk Lego Rock Band. When rumors of this game started to spread, a lot of people groaned and a lot of people cheered. Count me as one of those that cheered. The thing about Lego games I like are the Humor and the Family Friendly Nature. There is one problem though. The Wii version is Nerfed. The ability to download songs from the Rock Band Store has been completely removed. This feature was limited in the Xbox and Playstation 3 Versions—but it was limited in a way I found useful. Only songs marked as family friendly are available—which is perfect, I don't really need to be adding songs that are not family friendly. This was a feature I was really looking forward to, because there are a lot of songs in the Rock Band store that I would like to get.

The game is fun. Especially the Challenge levels. The animations going on in the background are amusing enough to distract you form your playing at times. So far the tasks we have completed used the Power of Rock! to Demolish a building, Scare Ghosts from a Mansion, and Fight off a Giant Octopus—amusing stuff indeed.

Podcast Irregularity

So there's this podcast that I listen to, and I can't stand either of the hosts. They are a Husband–Wife duo. He is cold and emotionless, she is overly emotional (no, she doesn't cry—she gets a little too excited about things—i.e. ultimate fan-girl) and not in a charming way, in a slightly irritating way.

Yet I keep listening. Sixty-four episodes. Now, add to this that they have launched another podcast, which I intend to Listen to regularly.

What I do like about the podcast is the content. I'm generally very interested in the content and the people they interview—but when it gets to the "just be yourself on the mic" portions of the show, I just have to grit my teeth.

They remind me of those socially uncomfortable friends that you have. You know, the ones that are tolerable, but a little weird on their own. But now they're dating and every time either of them opens their mouth the room is full of awkward.

Now, their podcast has joined a pod-casting network—so now I get to hear them on other pod-casts that I previously enjoyed without them.

Also, in that same suite of pod-casts there is another show that has a show segment where the wives of the hosts give their view of things. I really like that pod-cast, but that segment drives me insane. There is this Guy vs. Girl thing that I've always hated. Men need to be men, women need to be women, and neither is complete without the other, and we need to just accept each other as is and stop it with the whole Men are better or women are better garbage—we each have our roles. What I've noticed is that the people that are always pushing the whole your side needs to stop thinking that my side is inferior attitude, seem to be the ones that think their side is superior and act very immature about the whole thing.

Oh look, a mini rant ended up in my observation of myself listening to a multitude of pod-casts wherein I find the hosts annoying.

The Case of the Missing Players

This weeks campaign was supposed to be exciting. I had Six people R.S.V.P.—five of those were planing to attend. A sixth person had given me a maybe, and a seventh generally comes, but never reads his e-mail and as such, never gives an R.S.V.P.. Also, one of the five is a friend of mine from high school that lives out of state now, and was in town for business and family purposes.

I was excited to run a session that featured enough combat to keep every one satisfied.

Right before go time I got a message from the maybe man—he had a wedding reception that he had forgotten about and was obligated to attend. My wife had called the person that never reads his e-mail and he indicated that he would be over in a bit.

A little after go time, my friend that now lives out of state arrived. He was the first—which worked out well, since we had not yet created a character for him. So we took care of that, we talked a little about how the system works—and no one else had shown up. It was getting late—but people have shown up late in the past. I called though, because I like to know what's going on.

Three of the people that indicated that they were going to attend weren't answering their phones. About twenty minutes later my wife got them on the phone and they weren't coming. The person we called, who stated he would be over in a bit—never showed up.

Essentially, I invited my friend from out of state to some Zombie Hunting good times and everyone else that stated they would be there (except my wife) bailed. Which left me with two players—and the bare minimum I will run the game with is three.

We ended up just talking and catching up—which was nice, but I think we both would have liked catching up over the rotting corpses of the undead just as much.

I'm not sure what I learned from this session. 

Five seems to be the R.S.V.P. kiss of death. If five indicate they are coming, only one comes. That's what happened last time. There were two other sessions where five people played, but I think on both occasions only three people had indicated that they would attend.

The next session falls on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I'm not holding my breath in thinking that enough people will come to play. But, I am hoping that people will need a break from their crazy families and holiday shoppers—thus helping them to choose to blow off steam, by blowing up Zombies.

Google—It's a Mystery

I'm not sure why Google created this, but you should know it's out there.

MysteryGoogle

You get what the person before you searched for.

I searched for "Gary Gygax" (The Late creator of Dungeons & Dragons) and got the Results for "if I eat a pinecone, will my farts smell like christmas?"

My observation is that it's easy enough to get inappropriate results from an innocent search—why invent a tool that increases the likelihood of such an occurrence?

Chalk Dust Season

Does anyone else go through this?

Approximately twice a year—as the seasons change—I find myself having a difficult time breathing.

It's not that I'm not getting enough oxygen, it just feels and smells like the air around me is full of chalk dust.

It's happening to me right now. It's as if someone grabbed two chalk board erasers and banged them together and created a cloud of chalk dust around me. That's the only way I know to describe it.This happens on and off for a few weeks, and then it's back to breathing as normal.

Apparently Winter is Closing in.

Halloween Gaming—Not Terribly Spooky

So, after six weeks we finally played Savage Worlds again. Last Session was derailed when only two people showed up. The session before that was set aside for Beatles Rock Band and Guitar Hero 5.

This was a very Role Play session. The party was still in Flagstaff. Though P wasn't there I contended that his character had a Parrish and that he had acquired a bus for church purposes. One player, who hasn't been there for every session has a character that happens to be a surgeon (of the plastic variety)—this gave me an excuse to run the hospital portion of the story—which made it easier to get the group out of Flagstaff. Though they almost didn't take it (interestingly enough).

This was a difficult session for me to run—sort of. This campaign (as I've mentioned ad nauseam) is my first ride in the Game Master seat. I've found myself at times not confident in my own storytelling skills, and shaky in my ability to act as referee and make rulings with my limited understanding of the rules. Because, I know myself, I had a feeling this is how things would go. Which is why at the outset of this game, I didn't just start making a story up and allow my players to interact with it. This is why I'm running Zombie Run, rather than my own Zombie Scenario.

The benefit of running a scripted scenario, is that you don't have to take the time to create the world and characters and story—it's all there for you. Except when it isn't. This particular branch of the story was rather more sandboxy than previous story arcs. Since I'm not the story's creator—it's not a part of me.

Advice given to budding authors is to write what you know. If you write what you know, then when a new situation presents itself you instinctively know what is going to happen, because the places, characters, and situations are all a part of you.

The same goes for Storytelling through Game Mastering, if it's something you created—then it's going to be a part of you, and when new situations arise (as they always will—players will surprise you every time) you theoretically will know how to react.

So, this session presented me with the challenge of getting the characters to interact with a particular character. I tried to get them to go there last session—but there was no rhyme or reason to do so. This session however, there was a way to do so. Though I think, if this had been a story of my own creation I would have been more flexible last session and changed things to make it work differently. Sometimes when I'm in the thick of it—I forget to be flexible and forget I can change things to suit me.

Also, I find that I'm not descriptive enough. I need to use a palate of words to create mental visuals for my players, but I find that more often than I should, I just let the dice tell the story, which isn't that exciting.

Holiday Season is upon us, so there's probably going to have to be some schedule adjustment following the every two weeks rule lands a game on the week of Thanksgiving and the Week of Christmas. I'm willing to play those weeks, but understand if things just don't work out—Halloween almost fell through (humorous side note, two players were asleep on the couch the entire game—in spite of the Halloween Music playing on the Sound System quite loud at times...So a big thanks to Brandon and Tiffany for coming, it would have been Lame without you). I just hope this game doesn't die on the vine as a result—because it's written to end with a Bang!!

Curious About The History of an Area

The part of town I work in has some old buildings, and I get curious about them—but haven't really been able to dig up any information. (Some of the Large Pictures will take a while to load—I was using a work camera to take some of them and did not realize it was 8.0 Megapixel)

This building for some reason makes me think of a Speakeasy or Mad Scientist's Lair every time I walk past it.

I wish I had taken a picture before they dug it all up and redid the sidewalk—but there were some sections of old Brick Sidewalks that I used to walk on, on a daily basis.

Behind the building I work in, there is an old brick building that is an old warehouse.

The warehouse section of the building was added on to a much smaller building. In the North most room (Garage?), you can see what used to be the Face of the building.

They let us take a look around inside the other day, as a sort of Haunted Tour.

Apparently there is a room that some of the facilities people refuse to go into—they say the temperature drops dramatically when you walk in there. It was so cold yesterday when we took the tour, that if the temperature did drop, I don't think anyone would have noticed.

Juvenile, I Know

Every time I come around the corner and see this it makes me laugh—if it's too small to read click for High Rez.

Uhhh...Does My Ring Tone Really Warrant That Sort of Reaction?

So, Mondays I spend the morning at a different office. Since I'm only there once a week, I don't have a proper cubicle/office. When I first stated going to the location—I would just grab an empty cubicle. Then one day I showed up and all the cubicles were full.

So I went to the office coordinator and was giving her a hard time about not saving me a seat, and she gave me a proper office. It was technically assigned to someone else—someone that had literally used it once. Then they needed that office for another person that was to be on site regularly. I was moved to a corner office to share with someone else.

So I'm sitting here in the office and my Cell Phone Rings—and he Busts up Laughing. I answered the phone and did a little trouble shooting. When I hung up he apologized for laughing, he thought that my phone was some Illicit Website that I had unintentionally opened and was striving to desperately close.

I thought my ring tone was decidedly Jazzy—not Strip Teasey.

Rubik's Ice Cube

As Requested.

Not a Complete Bust

Tonight's Zombie Run Game Didn't Happen. All signs were pointing to the biggest session thus far.

I had five people RSVP (Usually I only have Two RSVP and I generally have 3-5 show). Of those five I had two show up (counting my wife). One of them has been out of a job for a while and has an interview coming up, but his art portfolio is not properly geared for the work they want him to do. So, I can understand that—he's cramming. One was sick—so, to that person thank you for not coming. One person was driving home from a trip to their Grandparents. I understand wanting to just go home and relax after a long trip.

So there we were. Me, my wife and one other player. The table leaves were in, the Game Master screen was up—dice a plenty itching to be rolled, Donuts, Brownies, and Ice Cream at the ready. Had there been at least one more player I would have gone ahead and played.

So, my wife stayed home, and I and the one player that did show went to a movie—a movie she didn't want to see—so, as the title says, the night was not a complete bust.

The next session falls on Halloween—so I know it's going to be nigh impossible to get the group together...Maybe. I still intend to run a session—I hope I can get enough people together. I really really want to play on Halloween.

The Stuff I See Walking to and From Work

I've taken some pictures (over the past year or so) of things I find interesting on my walk to and from the bus stop. The time has come to share. Behold: The Walk to/from Work Photo Dump.

There is this Greek or Roman style head.

Well—part of a head—over the entrance of an otherwise unassuming building.

I saw this guy pasted onto a wall one morning.

And I spotted this guy from the bus the next morning, so I had to walk over and get a picture.

I've seen several of these painted onto the sidewalk. Someone must have a Vendetta.

There was this little tower of stones on the sidewalk one day.

This appeared overnight.

This appeared overnight some time later in the same spot.

I've seen a so many abandoned Shoes, I started taking pics just so I could post about it.

That Grass is taller than me.

There's this plaque on a bench.

However the bench is missing an important element—this amuses me.

There's this area with Thistles that grow taller than me.

That isn't the tallest one but it's close. I was waiting and waiting to take a picture of the taller one because the flowers hadn't bloomed purple yet, and finally I decided I'd better take a picture before they chop the things down. Then I proceeded with video mode instead of camera. I didn't stop to change the camera mode and take the shot because I didn't want to miss the bus—next morning they had been chopped.

This one grew later, it wasn't tall. It's hard to tell from the picture, but that big leaf in the front is a good 3–4 feet wide. (Incidentally it was chopped the day after I took the picture)

When they finally bloomed I took a picture as well.

This was nowhere near Halloween. It was July.

A "Crop Circle"

And we'll end with a Rainbow.

My Rubik's Cubes

It all started at a previous job.

We were going through a slump (one that occurred every year). In fact, there were so few calls coming into the call center that they had started sending people home early—I would hold out as long as I could (they would send home volunteers first, and when they ran out of volunteers, they were forced to send people home based on schedule).

So I had this co-worker that decided to learn how to solve a Rubik's Cube. Shortly after he had it down, I decided that if he could do it, I could. No, I didn't figure it out myself, the internet is a wonderful thing.

I can solve a 3x3x3 cube in about two minutes, a 4x4x4 in about ten if I don't forget one of the moves, fifteen to twenty if I have to jog my memory. I'm pretty sure I could solve the 5x5x5 if I ever got my hands on one. The same goes for the puzzle cube based on the Rubik's Cube engineered in recent years by a Greek Engineer that allows for cubes from 5x5x5 to 11x11x11.

When I got tired of borrowing my coworkers cube, I bought my own. Then I got a 4x4x4. The 3x3x3 got lost, and I played with the 4x4x4 so much it was falling apart. Then Walmart started selling cubes in cheaper packaging and at a much better price and I ended up with a new 3x3x3 and 4x4x4. At one point I went to buy a cube at Walgreens since they had an advertised price of $5 combined with buy one get one free—I went to three stores and then asked for a rain-check.

I found that rain-check two years later and they still honored it.

I found an old cube from when I was a kid (you know, the first time these things were popular) and decided to combine my unhealthy obsession with Dice and my enjoyment of Rubik's Original Puzzle. I took all the stickers off and used white electricians tape to make it look like a pipped six sided die. An acquaintance at work borrowed it and he brought it back in pieces—the old plastic had disintegrated around one of the screws and the thing had just fallen apart in his hands. I was upset, but I also had a cube with stickers that were wearing out.

So I rubbed all the color off the stickers, and had myself an all white cube. Then I colored loose leaf paper reinforcements black with a Sharpie and applied 14 of them to the cube. It was much easier than the electrical tape version and looks a lot better as well. At first it seems that it's harder to solve, but once I wrapped my head around it; I realized that unlike a standard cube you only have to solve ten of the twenty pieces—the rest of the pieces are all Identical. All you have to solve is the eight corners and two edges.

My Wife and Kids got me a Disneyland Rubik's Cube when they went to Disneyland. My sister got me an All Spark Cube (i.e. Transformers) for my birthday. I bought a Rubik's Ice Cube recently—it's a 2x2x2 cube made of transparent plastic and has a cool stand that looks like it's made of polar ice.

I have one more—which is what prompted me to write this post. A co-worker came to me yesterday morning and gave me a cube that I think was swag at a recent company event. You must understand that although my job is in computers, I work for the division of my company that is essentially a construction company. One of the companies that we contract with had a "Safety" BBQ and Equipment Rodeo. I didn't attend, because it was held at another location in the middle of the day. This Cube is a promotional tchotchke for Komatsu. It has Bulldozers, Excavators, and Dump Trucks on it.

Is "Rocket Science" What It Used to Be?

I overheard a conversation in the break room today. Someone used that old adage, about what we do not being "rocket science."

I was thinking about that. It's my understanding that Rocket Science isn't really "Rocket Science" anymore—because we have it down to a ... well, Science.

Which begs the question. What is today's "Rocket Science?"

Everyone Loves Dice

There must be something built into us that makes us like them. I've mentioned before how there's something primal about the thrill of that random number coming up; and it has nothing to do with the Gambling association that dice have. That same excitement is generated whether playing Dungeons and Dragons, Chutes and Ladders, Yahtzee, or Craps—money doesn't have to be on the line for the random number generation thrill to well up inside.

I observed this first hand several weeks ago. I was making a stop at our Friendly Local Gaming Store (FLGS). As I got out of my car I observed a Large car pulling close as possible to the front door, then little old ladies poured out like clowns.

Before I go on, I have to say—that of all the Local Gaming Stores this one is the best. As far as business practices go: they have the best selection of board games, they have a large selection of current title comic books and graphic novels (they've mostly gotten out of the comic-books-as-collectibles business), they carry large selections of miniature war gaming products in a very space efficient manner, they manage to cater to a large number of collectible card games (CCGs), they have a number of computers set up for online gaming, and they have the best selection of role playing games in town. They pretty much do everything right as a business (unlike most of the other game stores I've been to locally). However, the nerd and geek quotient of their customer base is still very high—i.e. the little old ladies seemed very out of place. There is another game store in town that has a narrower gaming focus (read: mostly euro, popular amero, and a sprinkling of old style war games (i.e. cardboard chit units on hexagonal maps)) that also does everything right as a business. Their Nerd and geek quotient seems significantly lower—and the little old ladies would not have seemed out of place to me at that location. [I have nothing to back this paragraph up except my own limited observations]

Needless to say, I was very curious what they were looking for. So I watched from a distance as they scanned the shelves. The employee on duty took great care of them, and found the product they wanted.

I thought that they would be in there to get either Bunco or a Gift for someone. I was wrong, they were looking to get Farkle.

Farkle is one of those games that drives me nuts that they even package and sell it commercially. It's a Dice game that uses standard six sided dice. I got the impression that they were looking for Pocket Farkle because they were shocked by the size of the box (it is ridiculously large for a game that uses six standard six sided dice). The Game Store Employee took the opportunity to introduce them to the dice selection they sell. I observed those women get all excited by the sheer amount of variety available. They perused the dice selection the rest of the time I was there.

I was curious what they would end up with, but I had to go. It was like watching kids in a candy shop. They were still exploring the magical world of dice when I left.

I observed similar behavior from my wife when she bought her first dice.

Everyone should go buy themselves at least one set of gaming dice from their FLGS—even if they don't plan to ever play games, make it a "window" shopping trip in that case, it's just fun.

Derailed

It never ceases to amaze me how different it is from one game to the next. Our last session marked the first time in our Zombie Run Campaign when the party has been "off the rails." Because, this Zombie Run Campaign marks the first time that I have been the Game Master I have been grateful for the guidance provided by the Zombie Run campaign guide. I've mentioned before that originally I was going to run Necessary Evil—I will admit to being even more nervous about Running that campaign than I ever was for Zombie Run.

The Night I had slated to be my first session ended up being a weekend that my wife was out of town. That meant that I didn't want to run Necessary Evil per se. In my mind Necessary Evil is a long extended campaign. I can see people playing for a year or two or three, at the rate that I'm running Zombie Run. I already had it in my mind to try and run some sort of one shot game for my first foray in to the world of Game Mastering—so when Zombie Run was released in it's Explorers Edition Compatible version, the week I had planned to run a game I was quite pleased. I purchased it then and there.

In my mind Zombie run was a campaign that would run a few sessions and then we could get on to Necessary Evil. Zombie Run is still running. I have railroaded it up to this point. Because that's exactly the sort of thing that I needed as a first time Game Master. The Adventure is written in such a way that makes running it as a railroad easy to do but not necessary.

I read about another group that was running Zombie Run—and they spent a lot more time in New York. They essentially had different factions in the starting building vying for the support of the party, each with different ideas of how to proceed (i.e. some wanting to get off the island, some wanting to wait for the government to come and help them, some wanting to restart society, etc.) and apparently the first chapter alone went on for many sessions. Well, getting into this I wasn't quite up to that sort of challenge. So I have (for the most part) run a chapter per session.

However the chapter in question that was slated for the last session is written fairly open ended. There are several different things written out in the chapter that the party can do, they have more choices than ever before in this adventure. They seem to have made up their minds about what they want to do—but how to do it? Aye, there's the rub. So I guess we're officially off the rails—and my poor new Game Master Brain is reeling.

I think the session went relatively well. The party avoided the only Big Fight that I anticipated as well as a scavenging fight which I was going to throw at them. I even cheated by re-rolling the dice three times to see if they were to encounter any zombies—and at that point decided to just give the success to them. So it ended up being more of a story telling/role playing session. I fear that may have alienated some at the table—but I hope not. They still got to roll the dice a lot. I like rolling dice, so while I advocate the role play over roll play—I feel there should be a healthy amount of roll—it is a game after all.

The fact that there's a priest (a pistol packing priest—that bluffs quite handily mind you) in this particular group has led to an interesting turn of events. He's indicated that he would like to start a Parrish, which is seen as a good thing by the militaristic "government" in Flagstaff, and since the chaplain went missing on a recent supply raid his request has been granted. I'm quite interested to see how it all plays out. Depending on how things play out the Zombie Run Campaign could be over in just a few sessions.

My Wife has asked that we take a break from Savage Worlds—while still continuing with Game Night every Two Weeks—playing Board Games and What Not—then start a new campaign.

I've had some interest in the Weird West for the next campaign—any suggestions from anyone else that plays with us? (FYI—I already have material for running: Fantasy, Superhero(Antihero), Steam Punk(ish), and Sword & Planet) Also, agree or disagree to a couple Non Role Play Game Nights between sessions? If so, what games are people interested in playing?

I Love the Internet—I Hate Lazy Acronyms

More "Get-off-my-Lawn" Style Ranting—

I run across Acronyms on the internet that I have never seen before. I hate pausing to look them up. I hate the Laziness. I'm very meticulous about the things I post on the internet. If I catch a spelling or grammatical error, I fix it. I read most of my own posts at least three times before posting (did you notice how I wrote out three instead of using 3—yeah, I do that too).

Phrases I've run across that I had to look up in order to understand what someone was trying to say.

OTOH

TLDR

AFAIK and all its close relatives

IMO and all related ilk

LM*O and related derivatives—especially from people that wouldn't dream of cursing in the real world

R U...

There are more, but these are all ones that have annoyed me recently. This sort of behavior does not Facilitate Communication. It's bad enough that the one place I run into this the most, is the one Internet Forum that I frequent—a forum for a particular brand of Role Playing game, and everyone makes up acronyms for the different products that the company sells, as well as for rules contained in the game—frankly, the assumption that everyone knows what you mean when you refer to an obscure rule by an acronym not used in the rule book is just bad form. Definitions Below—See?! The ones you didn't know are driving you nuts.






























OTOH—On the other Hand

TLDR—Too Long Didn't Read

AFAIK—As Far As I Know Etc.

IMO—In My Opinion Etc. (Especially IMHO—you are not expressing your opinion humbly!!)


LM*O—Laughing My "Head"Off, or worse (usually worse)

R U...—Are You Fill in the Blank

Gaaaaaaah!!!

Surreal Comment

I was reading a friend's Blog earlier today and he posed a question regarding the use of certain Photoshop features. I replied, and then later I saw him on Google Talk—we were chatting about that particular feature in Photoshop and I was telling him the solution I had used. I had a question as to whether the solution I used was the most efficient, because it seemed that there should be a better way.

So I Googled it. I read that the way I had done it was the only way to do it in the newer versions of Photoshop. In older versions of Photoshop there was a better way to do it which is why I thought the solution I had used was not the right way—though it was the only way I could figure out to do it.

So I read this tutorial, and as I read it, I thought of a workaround that would make the process a little easier the next time you wanted to do it. So I was reading the comments, and I was going to add my Idea as a comment—but the last poster had already suggested the same Idea that I was going to put in the comment.

Then I noticed the name of the person posting. It was my brother. It was a Surreal moment.

Beatlemania Update

I tried the vocals last night.

My wife is still not feeling well and did not participate.

I plugged in Two USB Microphones, and selected harmonies rather than solo. No, I have not mastered the art of Overtone Singing, but I wanted to see how it worked—because each instrument is generally controlled by a single Wii remote. The Microphones are controlled under a single Wii remote, and score as one player. So you can play with up to Six people at once: Guitar, Bass, Drums, & Microphone 1-3 (Some songs have a single vocal track some two, but most seemed to have three).

I did not fail out for not harmonizing. I tried on the first harmony track to sing the harmony, but couldn't quite find it, but at the end of the song it told me I got 1 of 7 harmonies.

I need to get a USB Hub and another Mic and have Some people over to play. I still don't think the gameplay is as optimized for group play as Guitar Hero; but being able to play with six players is cool. I'm Sure Guitar Hero 6 will steal and Improve upon the mechanic set forth by The Beatles: Rock Band.

Beatlemania

The Beatles: Rock Band arrived in the mail yesterday. Very fun, very fun indeed—who DOESN'T like the Beatles? I can't think of anyone. This game is Beautifully crafted. The opening sequence starts with an homage to the opening sequence of A Hard Days Night done in a very stylized 2D cartoon reminiscent of 60's era T.V. animation and then highlights the bands albums in a beautiful blend of 3D renditions of that iconic artwork.

Game play is mostly the same as in previous Rock Band implementations with a few small changes: Overdrive has been thematically changed to "Beatlemania" and there is even an option that can be turned on that scales the Crowd Noise up to more realistic levels when Beatlemania is engaged. During Sustained notes the whammy bar can be used as in previous Rock Band games to collect extra Beatlemania, but unlike previous iterations of the game it does not warp the audio. Similarly when you are doing badly the aural cue of a mis-strummed guitar string has been toned down to almost nothing and booing crowds have been removed altogether.

Because the Beatles stopped being a touring band and moved onto being a studio band in the latter part of the Group's history the nature of the game visuals change at that point. Songs generally start depicting the band in studio and as you play the song the studio fades away into what has been dubbed "Dreamscapes." These dreamscapes are visually stunning "music video" style animations reminiscent of The Beatle's Movies (i.e. Help!, Yellow Submarine, and Magical Mystery Tour). These dreamscapes are crafted with a lot of love for the band and I almost failed out a couple times when playing Yellow Submarine because I was trying to watch the dreamscape and play at the same time.

Having played Rock Band, Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, Guitar Hero: World Tour, Guitar Hero 5, and now The Beatles: Rock Band—I still feel that Guitar Hero is a better Game. The Guitar Hero Philosophy of Musical Rhythm Game trend toward the elements of Game and each installment of the series has sought to improve the playability and fun factor by adding new elements of game that either add challenge for seasoned players, or make it easier to play the game in a party/group setting—which is the ideal way to pretend you're playing in a band. Rock Band's Philosophy of Musical Rhythm Games trend more toward simulation, attempting to simulate the act of playing a real guitar or drums as closely as possible on Plastic Toy Iterations of said instruments—this sometimes results in repetitious gameplay.

Rock band was created by the creators of Guitar Hero after they lost the developmental rights, and Rock Band out Guitar Heroed Guitar Hero. Then Activision who retained the rights to the Gutar Hero Name enlisted the help of subsidiary Neversoft and Out Rock Banded Rock Band with Guitar Hero III. Rock Band 2 came out and was Rock Band with more songs, and very little in the way of competitive game improvements. Guitar Hero World tour and Guitar Hero 5 have continued to add new elements of gameplay and innovation. While The Beatles Rock Band is Extremely Fun and visually stunning, and a lovingly crafted, masterful, and artistic tribute to the Fab Four—as far as gameplay goes it's Rock Band with a retread—functionally the same.

Actually, I forgot—Three Part Harmony has been added to Rock Band: Beatles, but we haven't tried that out yet.

As a Game—Guitar Hero is Better. The Reason to have Rock Band 2 is the Sheer Amount of Music available in the game and as Download-able Content. The reason to have The Beatles: Rock Band is a no brainer—The Beatles. The Beautiful Visuals and the Awesome Sound of the Fab Four Make up for the fact that they haven't really updated the Gameplay since Rock Band (Three Part Harmony Notwithstanding).

Your Japanese Lesson for the Day Brought to You By Nostalgia From my Youth

Kaiju: Literal Translation—Strange Beast. Often used to describe a Genre of Film depicting Giant Monsters Typified by Godzilla.

Even when I was a kid I loved Movies. I don't know why, but I found that I had the attention span for them that a lot of my peers did not. One that I was always excited to watch when it was on T.V. (and tried to share with friends on multiple occasions with less than stellar results) was King Kong vs. Godzilla. It is available on DVD today.

I never know if these movies will stand up to the test of time. I always looked forward to the 1976 version of King Kong when it was on as well. When Peter Jackson remade King Kong a few years ago I borrowed the 1976 film from the library and was severely let down—it wasn't as good as I remembered—now that I'm thinking about it, the reason I recall a better movie is possibly because in editing it for T.V. it was improved by getting rid of a lot of unnecessary fluff. I also got the original 1933 version and watched it as well. The 1933 version is spectacular, there's a reason that version is a classic and it's not just because it's the original; it is a genuinely great movie.

Anyway, King Kong vs. Godzilla makes Kong a lot bigger than he ever was in previous incarnations, so as to match the scale of the much larger Godzilla. This also marks the first time either monster was filmed in color. 

More Roleplaying with My Three Year Old

When I put her to bed last night, she was a little disappointed that we had not played Candyland for family night. I told her that we could play tomorrow, and she suggested that we play the story game with the dice again.

This time she told a story with Princess Mommy. I introduced a ghost that made an etherial wooooo sound. She wanted to smash the ghost and I told her that her hand went right through the ghost. She didn't want to accept that outcome. I suggested that we roll the dice to see if she was scared by the ghost (an opposed guts check for the Savage Worlds savvy). She send the plush d6 across the floor for a four. I rolled for the ghost and got a two. I told her that she scared the ghost with all her trying to smash it and he ran away. She said that she smashed the ghost and it's head came off and it went down the stairs and outside to the car and that she took the head to the ghost —she really gets a kick out of making up these outlandish stories. 

I'm not sure where she gets these ideas about smashing and decapitation of the incorporeal undead. She almost exclusively watches Disney Princess Movies—some of which are scary I'm aware; she prefers to stick to the non scary ones like Cinderella. I suppose the most violent thing we've exposed her to are stories from the Book of Mormon—and some of those are fairly brutal.

I know I watched a lot of violent cartoons and such as a kid, and I'm a very non-confrontational non-violent person. In fact, I was watching some Tom and Jerry a while ago and was a little shocked—it had been so long since I had seen anything like that—even the "violent" Saturday morning cartoons presently in syndication pale in comparison. It was almost a little unnerving, but then I read some of the Grimm Brothers collected fairy tales and realized that there is a rich history of exposing our children to the cruelties of the world through "entertainment." It's almost better to expose them to such things in a safe environment where you can explain that things aren't always nice, but we should always strive to be civil and Christlike. Seriously, the Scriptures contain some of the most Brutal and twisted "stories" I know—and these are the stories we use to teach our children to differentiate wright and wrong.

To bring things back around to the original topic. Role Playing is an excellent tool for teaching kids, especially when they are young and have no social stigma associated with games of imagination—which kids just take to naturally notwithstanding. They can learn cause and effect in an environment of parental control. They can learn math. They can learn social interaction. They can learn the highly abstract subject of statistics in a practical hands on way and so much more.

More Role Playing With My Three Year Old

Role Playing With My Three Year Old Daughter

For her first birthday I gave my first daughter her first set of dice.

Big Plush Dice. We were sitting in her room recently and I was helping her clean up her toys. I grabbed a plush d6 off the floor and she told me that she likes dice and that Daddy plays games with them. I asked her if she wanted to play those games and she said yes. I asked her if she knew what kind of games they were and she was not sure.

I told her that they were storytelling games. I started "Once upon a time there was a princess named...?" She silently mouthed her name.

"This princess was walking through the forest one day when alooong came a spider and sat down beside her...and what did she do?"

—She kind of shrugged. I encouraged her tell me what she would do if there was a spider. She still was being hesitant.

"This spider was a biiiig spider, as big as your house, and it was hairy all over, and has big giant fangs!!"

She still didn't want to give in and tell me what she would do. So I prodded her a little.

"Would you Be Scared?"

—No (with that, 'Dad-you-know-me-better-that-that' tone in her voice).

"Would you fight the spider?"

—No.

"Well what would you do if there was a big giant spider, with eight Giant Eyes and ..."

I was trying to just come up with a situation for rolling the die so she had a basic understanding of why Dad likes dice so much and why he likes to share that obsession with her; and as imaginative as she is she was being a little hesitant. When all of a sudden the light clicked on and she realized that she could say anything.

—I would have a sword! A green one! And the Spider would Eat it!!

"Would it hurt the spider?"

—No, it would throw it up. Then it would go to its mommy and ask for a cloth.

I didn't get that at first, but after a few probing questions found that it was for cleaning up the throw-up.

Then the dog started barking like he does when someone is at the door. There was no one there—he does that a lot too, sometimes I swear he's hearing phantom noises. Unfortunately, that disrupted our little imagination game and we never did end up rolling the die.

More Role Playing With My Three Year Old Daughter

BattleLore—Not Made for Midnight

A fiend of mine came over Friday Night. We repaired a Guitar Hero Guitar and then proceeded to play Guitar Hero 5 untill we started getting worse every time we played. He turned to me and asked if I wanted to play BattleLore—I foolishly answered in the affirmative.

He started setting it up. To understand what that means, you must understand that BattleLore is a board game with the spirit of a table top miniature war game. Playing tabletop miniature war games generally involves purchasing your army one or a few models at a time, assembling and painting said models, in addition to having a table large enough to do so. BattleLore givees you a Large Board to deploy your units on, and a lot of miniatures with no need to paint.

So he had half the game set up when it donned on me that I really just wanted to go to bed, but you don't just half set up this game and then put it back in the box—it takes almost twice the effort to put it away as it does to set up. BattleLore uses the Command and Colors system, which is a game mechanic used for simplified miniature war gaming that is used in a number of games (Battle Cry, Command and Colors: Ancients, Memoir 44, and BattleLore). What's different is that BattleLore is essentially the Hundred Years Wars re-imagined with Fantasy races and magic. 

Which is kind of interesting if you know a little about the history of Role Playing Games. In the 70's Gary Gygax was an avid historical miniature war gamer. He wrote a book that added medieval fantasy elements to tabletop miniature war gaming called Chain Mail—which later evolved into Dungeons and Dragons.

As much as I like BattleLore, I just wanted the game to be over so I could go to bed. The thing about this game is the amount of luck involved in winning. Strategy and tactics help; but the mechanic for fighting involves dice. You could play your cards in such a manner that you have six dice to roll vs your opponent, and have not one of those dice score a hit. You could also be rolling as little as two dice in melee combat and take out three of your opponent's  troops.

So we played until two in the morning. The thing was, I was so tired that I kept trying to attack my own units, so I would venture to say BattleLore is not intended to be played by those that are only half conscious.

GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD!!!

I've had Play the Game by Queen, Contrecoup and one line of With the Dark by They Might Be Giants all mashing themselves together in my head for the past two days and I'm starting to lose my mind. I think Guitar Hero 5 will be in the mail tonight—perhaps that will help.

Games I've Played Recently

I haven't made a post like this for a while.

Stone Age—
Remember when I wrote about Agricola? We've taken to calling Stone Age, Agricola Lite. It has a very similar feeling to it, without the soul crushing difficulty. You have a tribe that has entered the age of agriculture. Each round you take your tribe members and set them to a number of tasks one task at a time (building tools, having children, gathering resources, using said resources to build huts or other advances in civilization) around the table until everyone is out of tribe members (Much like the family members in Agricola). Then each player takes a turn in which they resolve all of those actions in the order they choose, thus resetting the board back to the original state. Everyone then feeds each of their tribe members (Just like in Agricola) Empty Cards and Hut spaces are replaced and then the first player status moves to the next player and you all go at it again. The game ends when there are no more replacement huts available for the next round—at that point you count up victory points and the player with the most wins.

I like stone age, because it feels like Agricola (Which I find that I unwillingly enjoy as it beats me into submission)—but isn't hard like Agricola.

Dominion—
Dominion is a very unique card game. All the cards are divided into piles of identical cards, and the box is designed to keep all the cards in said piles. Then you have a pile of cards that has one of each type of card—you shuffle this deck and then deal ten cards off of it and pull those piles out and set them where every one can reach. There are three piles of treasure cards and three piles of victory point cards. Every one starts with three victory point cards and seven treasure cards.

Each round you deal yourself five cards from your deck and have one action and one buy. The first round you have no action cards so you buy one from one of the ten action card piles (or treasure from the three treasure card piles or victory points from the three victory card piles) based on how much treasure you have. Then you place all those cards in a personal discard pile. The second round you will also not have an action card so you will buy what you can afford with your treasure cards. At that point you've discarded all ten of the original cards you were dealt plus the two cards you purchased, then you shuffle your discard pile and deal again. Action cards allow things like more buys, more actions, bonus treasure etc. As you play your deck gets bigger and bigger. At the beginning of the game the trick is to amass money, and at some point in the game you want to switch to amassing victory points. The game ends when the six point victory point pile is gone, or three other piles are gone. Then you count victory points.

I like Dominion because once you understand the mechanics it is very fast. Each game is different because the available cards are different. There are a lot of different strategies you can try, and those will change from game to game based on the available action cards.

I only had one game of Dominion that I didn't enjoy. It was a two player game and at first I was doing okay. But my opponent found himself in a position where he was finding it difficult to amass treasure, but he had stumbled into an order of play that allowed him to use his entire deck every turn. This particular game had an action card that allowed the distribution of negative victory points (curses) to your opponent which he was doing so at an exponential rate. By the time I started to counter that it was too late. the round ended and though I had easily bested him at amassing victory points, he had decimated me with enough curses to negate almost all said points. The only reason I didn't like that game was that his turns were so long, and by the time I adjusted my tactics to counter his strategy it was too late.

That game just emphasized how different the game plays based on the random ten action card piles you end up using.


Acquire—
Acquire is a business building/stock buying game. You win by having the most money. You have a grid and tiles that have specific places that they belong on the grid that you draw randomly. Each turn you place one of the tiles in your hand onto the grid. If you place two tiles next to each other then you can start a business and purchase stock in that business (by creating a business you get a bonus stock in it). You have the opportunity to purchase up to three stocks in any active business each round. The business is represented by all the touching tiles. When two businesses come in contact with each other they merge and the smaller of the two is no more. If you have stock in the smaller business you can cash in or trade in your stock at a 2–1 rate.

This is a tricky game, the trick is to be one of the top two stockholders of the smaller businesses when it gets absorbed by a bigger businesses. That way you can get more money to buy more stock with. At the end of the game you cash everything in and the player with the most money wins. The trick is to spend wisely and make good decisions as to whether you want to cash in or not when your smaller businesses are absorbed. Sometimes you want to hold onto that stock when the business is no more, because if you can recreate that business you are ahead of the curve when you do so. Sometimes it's more profitable to cash in, sometimes it is more profitable to trade your stocks. There's math involved—which I'm no good at in my head on the fly, so I just play by instinct (which drives my calculator headed friend a little nuts) and sometimes my gambling pays off and I win—like that last game we played. Yes I also like Acquire.

Is there a game I do not like? Why yes, yes there is.

Wanted: An E-reader

Sure the big dog is the Kindle, but I don't like it.

I dreamed up just such a device back when I was in High School (It was Dual Screen, Color, and Used a Stylus and was approximately 11" x 8.5" when open, and the hinge could open all the way so it could be used a book folded back on itself. One screen could be used as a keyboard.) I have an Obsession for books, especially art reference books. The Kindle is missing certain things that I would like to have and I really hate that keyboard that's tacked onto the bottom.

I've hacked some e-reading capability onto my Zune, it works but isn't the greatest solution.

I was recently "forced" to upgrade my phone and am now using a Sony Ericsson. In the past I've liked my Ericsson phones, but I am an avid hater of the Sony Brand so I'm having a Schizophrenic relationship with this phone.

It took me a month to find a way to put the scriptures on the phone, and in the process of doing so I discovered many a way of putting books onto the phone—none of which were acceptable to me until I found this site presented by a Barnes and Noble affiliate. Each book is a Java application. I installed almost 200 books on my phone the night I found this site.

I was curious as to Kindle alternatives after doing so; I knew that Sony has a reader—I've already mentioned how much I hate Sony. I did however look at the Sony product, and it's not too bad, it has a lot of the features that the Kindle Lacks that I would absolutely "need," such as native PDF support and the lack of an unnecessary keyboard that takes up a considerable portion of the device in favor of touch control. But it's a smaller (6") device and I like the larger size devices because they display PDF files better.

I looked around and didn't find a lot of devices, but I did find one that fits the bill as far as features I like. The iRex Digital Reader 1000S. It's a larger screened device, has Wacom® Penabled® input (meaning you can write on it and use it as a digital sketch pad), supports PDF natively, bluetooth, usb, SDHC memory. Of course that means it has a slightly higher price tag.

Funny thing is, when I originally was researching this I couldn't find much. Then I was looking things up so I could write this I found the Mobile Read Wiki and their excellent E-Book Reader Matrix showing me that there were a lot more choices than I originally found—but cementing that I like the iRex brand. However, I also learned as I was writing this that Asus announced yesterday that they are planning to make a dual screen color e-reader, and that one side of it can be used as a keyboard priced at $165 which is cheaper than any other reader on the market—but still outside the sweet spot discovered by a marketing survey indicating $50–100 would make the market explode. That will be their high end model, they also plan to make a cheaper single screen edition that will be priced at $99 making it the cheapest e-reader on the market. Only issue with that is that they do not appear to be using the easy on the eyes e-ink screen technology (as far as the released photo—chances are that's just mocked up anyway and may not accurately depict the final product, but since we're referring to a comment made to a newspaper combined with prototype photos from a while ago, we'll have to wait for further announcement).

It's still out of my budget for the time being.

Savaged Birthday

Had a Savage Worlds session on my birthday this week. Due to the game night corresponding with my birthday we threw a Barbecue beforehand with all manner of friends and family. As a result I had ten people indicate that they were planning on playing. I was nervous about running the game again. I like running the game, but I start to feel overwhelmed when I know the situation is going to be different, and GMing for ten is certainly different than five.

Anyway, we had the "Barbecue" and a good time was had by all in attendance (I think)—then it was game time; at game time I had ten players in the house. Of those that indicated that they planned to be there: P was not feeling well so was unable to make it. My sister's husband wasn't feeling so great and didn't come. My sister came for the "Barbecue" but decided to not stay for the game. Two other players were there but decided they didn't want to play and spent the night serenading us from the adjoining room with the dulcet tones of Guitar Hero World Tour. Two other Players were there that I had not expected to be there, but they didn't stay to play. One more player was there, but had a "date"—I told him girls come before games.

I'm rambling, but I found it somewhat amusing that at game time I had ten players in the house, that did not match the list of ten players that RSVPed and when I did get the game going there were six players in the house and but four actually at the table. Of the four at the table only two had played with us before.

I've never thought of myself as someone that can think quickly on the spot. I adapt to situations quickly, but that skill is not as useful behind the GM screen. Mostly this is due to the fact that players always do something to throw you off the carefully laid railroad tracks that you planned for them. I deal with this different than most GMs. Most of the advice articles/podcasts that talk about GMing will tell you to play it in such a manner that the players don't know that they've thrown you off course. Again, I don't think fast enough for that—I can adjust eventually, but the players know it, and I am most certain that they can literally (and by literally I humorously mean figuratively) see the wheels spinning in my head as I try to come up with what I need to do next.

We did in fact complete all three encounters that I had planned for the evening. Encounter One Ended Backwards. Encounter Two Was not nearly as deadly as I had hoped, and had to be changed ever so slightly for encounter three to work, and could have had a problematic ending. I was saved by a poor dice roll by a player. Encounter Three turned out rather well, and not anywhere close to how I thought it would go.

One of the new players had a great character. He wrote one little detail into his character that happens to correspond with his own way of thinking. If people are taking too long to decide what to do, he's going to just go ahead and do something. It kept things moving along and was quite brilliant.

I know that I need to be more descriptive as GM. I think if I had the rules a little more internally ingrained that it would be easier; as it currently is—every game thus far has required me to know how to resolve a new type of situation. Because I know there are rules for said situations, it slows me down a bit as I try to find it in the book. However, if the rules were a little more ingrained in me—it would be easier to just use or throw mechanics out on the fly. It's the whole Rules/Ruling argument. I like Ruling as long as those making the ruling have an understanding of the rules. More than once during the evening things slowed down a little as I scrambled to find the details of a rule, and more than once during the evening, once I understood the mechanic I threw it out based on the situation.

It was a good session, the action moved along at a good pace, and the planned encounters all took place. I think the character knowledge of those they were fighting was just right.

To catch players up that didn't make it. Crossing the Rockies the group was overtaken by a convoy. They had a shootout and got away. Later they stopped to put chains on the tires of the bus, and encountered a pack of Zombie Wolves. While dealing with the zombie wolves the convoy passed them up and took a pot shot at them. They caught up to the convoy later at a mountain motel and had another shootout.

Comments that I heard after the game.

One person mentioned that they, "wish 'Seasoned GM' would stop trying to commandeer creative control, i.e. describe the action after poor or well rolled dice" —I didn't notice this myself, but the comment was made.

Another comment was, "The only thing that would have made the session better was if P had been able to come."

Savage Worlds—Fantasy Companion & the Forgotton D&D Endgame

Recently I read a blog post about the forgotten endgame of Dungeons & Dragons. Something that I never really understood about D&D was the purpose of all the dungeon delving.

When I was a kid, I voraciously watched the cartoon every Saturday morning (much to my Mother's chagrin) the plot was that these kids had been at an amusement park, took a ride on a roller coaster that somehow became a vortex and sucked the kids into a fantastical realm of magic. Their adventures focused on them trying to discover a way back home being guided by the mysterious Dungeon Master and being thwarted time after time by the Evil Venger. The other exposure I had to the game was advertisements in comic books. Smurf comic books.

I remember once that I walked over to my neighbors house, and he and his brother (my sometimes friends) were being mighty secretive about what they were doing. Eventually they said that they were playing Dungeons & Dragons, and having been warned to stay away from that game by my Mother, and being that I was mostly an obedient kid, I left. Thinking back on that (another in a long line of weird memories that stuck with me for no apparent reason) they had no books, they had no dice, they had a single pencil and a single sheet of lined paper. Based on my vague memory I think they were creating a character.

I never really heard of D&D again until Junior High when a teacher I looked up to and had respect for used a d20 and a table to give us Random Objects that we were supposed to work into a story. She briefly mentioned D&D. That was my first exposure to a non six sided die and I thought it was one of the coolest things I had ever seen though I didn't think to ask where one can obtain such a thing—I assumed the only way to get one was via purchasing D&D (which I had seen in Toy Stores, the Famous Red Box version).

Shortly thereafter I purchased Cloak and Dagger at a thrift store, mostly because it had a d12 in it.

I played my first game of D&D on Halloween in 2004 at the home of a member of our Bishopric. I've played quite a bit since. The games that I've been a part of don't line up with the typical Dungeon Delving that is the hallmark of D&D. It seemed a silly occupation to be a motley group that went into Dungeons and came out with treasure. That's generally what we were doing, it was generally masked by an overarching story about some great evil that needed to be overcome. but the party always ends up in these "dungeons," fighting random monsters. Often the party will find themselves at a Tavern, regrouping after the dungeon delve, chatting with the Tavern Owner that was once an adventurer himself and has a secret stash of treasure from the glory days—an interesting retirement plan.

Back to the point, I recently learned about the forgotten endgame of D&D. After amassing riches you would take said riches and establish a Barony, build a castle, become a Lord of Land. I found this concept intriguing. It does make sense when you realize that the roots of D&D are firmly established in Historical War Gaming. Establishing a Castle and Building an Army just brings that full circle.

D&D was a radical departure in tabletop tactical gaming, in that you were controlling one character that was going on adventures rather than maintaining an army. Knowing now that contained within the Original D&D books were rules for settling down and establishing a kingdom, a kingdom that would need an army really brings the game full circle.

Likely if I was to get a character advanced to that point, I most likely wouldn't establish his retirement; I'm more interested in creating a new novice character to go on new adventures. It is a good idea for a story though, and if I was tired of adventuring, I think it would be interesting to run a game in the vein of a Land Owner.

So, I recently got the Fantasy Companion for Savage Worlds—a supplemental book that aids in the running of Fantasy Role Play Games using the Savage Worlds System. Savage Worlds is a Generic System and can be used to play High Fantasy, Science Fiction, Pulp Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, etc. etc. etc. Pinnacle has plans to publish several of these Companion Books to help in the running of particular Genre Games; Fantasy, Superhero, Horror, Etc.

So, I was flipping through the pages of the Fantasy Companion and pages thirteen through nineteen are all about owning land and role playing siege warfare, and Savage Worlds already has Mass Battle Rules, as well as a subset of Rules Dubbed Savage Showdown geared specifically for Tabletop War Gaming. Intriguing indeed. Particularly concerning my newly gained historical perspective on Original D&D.

Fixed the Blue Dice Image

Apparently those of you using Internet Explorer couldn't see the Blue Glow Dice from my previous Post: Guess What?! I've Got a Fever, and the Only Prescription... is More Dice!

I have since fixed the problem—and you should all take a look because they are incredible!