Next big thing

Categories: Gaming

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.

June 25, 2004 · 1 min · Bryant

Louisiana pulp

Categories: Gaming

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

June 8, 2004 · 1 min · Bryant

Elvis is everywhere

Categories: Gaming

“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. ...

June 1, 2004 · 3 min · Bryant

Term of the art

Categories: Gaming

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.

May 28, 2004 · 1 min · Bryant

The Civil War did not

Categories: Gaming

The Civil War did not end in 1865…. The Confederates went into hiding and in 1908 they used their boy Teddy Roosevelt to found the FBI - conFederate Bureau of Inquisition. You heard it here first. I collect kooks for the purposes of generating weird NPCs for games. Possibly I need a kook category.

May 24, 2004 · 1 min · Bryant

GenCon Schedule

Categories: Gaming

For the curious, my GenCon schedule follows. Thursday Iron Ref (Judge/Player), 2 PM — 8 PM This is run by a couple I’ve sort of kind of known for a long time, and whom I had a great time gaming with last GenCon. The concept is also terribly cool. Quasi-fortunately, my other first choice for this slot filled up two hours after registration opened, so I didn’t have to make a choice. ...

May 19, 2004 · 2 min · Bryant

Addictopolis

Categories: Gaming

For the record, I spent most of Saturday having a pleasant Mother’s Day celebration with my family. Sunday was the day I spent mesmerized by City of Heroes. And there is a screenshot album, which will keep getting updated as long as updating it amuses me. “Some villains do not wish to end their lives of crime. The Teleonaut uses his mystical shadow powers to reason with them.”

May 10, 2004 · 1 min · Bryant

Not quite Bobo

Categories: Gaming

Any MMORPG in which I can create a big bruiser wearing a green suit and a sleek black shirt, with a wrestling mask to match? That’s an MMORPG which is perfectly OK by me. I had a refreshing evening of beating up thugs and muggers, during which I looked a lot like this (click the thumbnail for the big picture): Now, that’s what I call entertainment.

May 3, 2004 · 1 min · Bryant

Winter Hill drama

Categories: Gaming

Mention Count: 2. In Angel, characters have Drama Points, which can be used for a number of quasi-narrative purposes. PCs get either 10 or 20 at the start of the game, depending on how powerful they are otherwise. (Think of the difference between Angel or Buffy on the one hand and Xander or Wesley on the other hand.) They have five uses, as follows: Heroic Feat, which gives you a +10 bonus on any one roll; I Think I’m OK, which instantly heals half the damage a character has taken to the point it’s used; Plot Twist, which creates a “lucky break” for the characters; Righteous Fury, which costs 2 Drama Points and gives a +5 bonus for all rolls for one fight; and Back From The Dead, which allows a character to come back from death. ...

April 21, 2004 · 3 min · Bryant

Whittemore on espionage

Categories: Gaming

A couple of quotes for Jere. First, about history: Well, it was simple enough, he thought now. Anna was often on his mind these days because of Assaf. And so in the desert this morning his memory had abruptly tumbled back through the years to Stern, all the way back to Egypt and the Monastery where it had actually begun for Anna and him, although neither of them had known then that it was a beginning, so long ago in Cairo. ...

April 3, 2004 · 4 min · Bryant