Gaming

A number of GenCon pictures, at varying levels of amusement value, can be found here.

If and when I run that 70s Boston Angel game, the WhedonWiki (original) is gonna be a useful resource. Kind of a pity they don’t let anyone edit, but I can understand why — the spammers are getting aggressive about using wikis to improve their Googlerank. If I were doing spam fighting at Google, I’d be seriously considering removing wikis from the pagerank equation. (Bill, I still need a name for that wiki. Give me one and I’ll set it up.)

I just completed my 24 Hour RPG. Phew. Started: 1 PM, 7/24/04; finished: 1 PM, 7/25/04. Above The Earth (original) is a superhero game designed around resource management mechanics. It’s flexible enough to handle street-level superheroes and cosmic powers, all in the same fight. “You have a hundred six sided dice; when you run out, you run out.” I started this one with the example of play, which made writing the rest of the game almost painless. I wish I’d had another hour to review it and in particular double-check the math in the example of play; I looked at it a few times but I’m convinced I missed something. C’est la vie. ...

I think I need an artist to do a cover (b&w) destined for a 6” x 9” book, plus three or four half-page interior illos, also b&w. The subject matter is, unsurprisingly, superheroes. I’m not too picky about the era, although I’d want heroes rather than anti-heroes. I can’t pay real artist rates; I’m thinking more towards the low end of RPG artist rates — $125 for the cover, $25 for each interior art piece. I may be slightly off on those prices. I just want publication rights; I don’t want to own the piece. ...

Just in case anyone was wondering, there have been no updates in White Wolf v. Sony since the last time I posted. In theory, depositions were done by now, but I haven’t seen any signs of progress. The last court papers were filed on 11/5/2003 and there’s been nothing since then.

So Rachel Ray, Bobby Flay, Anthony Bourdain, Emeril Lagasse, Frederic van Coppernolle, Jamie Oliver, and Alton Brown get kidnapped by Princess Florimel to compete for the post of Head Chef of Amber Castle… Cooking ensued. Lots of fun, despite the fact that I am somewhat Food Network challenged. Mostly posted for the sake of my foodie friends, who can now proceed to be properly amused.

Oh, yeah, did I mention my new thing (original)? I did not. Now I have. It is a support site for a very cool roleplaying game plus it is also a technology demonstration. Next time I feel like doing a site that takes user submissions it’s going to be a lot quicker, I can tell you that. I used this script but modified a lot and more secure, yes yes.

One liner framework for an Adventure game: “Huey Long’s Men of Action!”

“Elvis’ entire career was a big mystical ritual, you know. He knew what he wanted to do all the way back in Memphis, and he put his whole life together so that he could pull it off. All those years, all those songs, all those different costumes — why, he was gathering up orgone energy decade after decade after decade. All flavors, too. Fat person orgone energy. Skinny pelvis orgone energy. Wartime orgone energy. All of it flowing into Elvis. ...

My current favorite piece of gaming slang is “lasersharking.” “Hey, you know, that game concept would be better if the sharks had lasers on their head.” Lasersharking. Leave the poor concept alone; not all concepts need lasers to reach their full potential. Rifts is all lasersharking, all the way to the bottom turtle.