Next Game: Dunno
This upcoming Friday is the 4th of July. Do we want to meet some other time this weekend (Saturday or Sunday), or does it just not match our schedules? Let me know if any time is particularly good or bad and we'll see if there's sometime that works for everyone.
UPDATE: I spoke with Kev last night. He's working unavailable Friday, works 1-10 on Saturday, and 11-7 on Sunday. It doesn't look like we'll manage to get our normal game up and running, though Jennifer and I are discussing backup options if there's interest and availability.
Little Brother X
I wolfed the book down. It kept me up several nights-- I kept thinking just one more page, one more chapter. It was well written, and I really liked the characterization. As Jennifer said when she finished reading it, this book is going on our gift giving list. It has a lot to recommend itself to everyone, adult and teen.
Moved to a new space
After struggling with infection and slime on llamafodder, I gave in and created a new blog. I imported the old posts and comments-- so after a very little while we'll be all the way up to speed again. Let me know if you have any problems!
Valedemar: Winds and Storm Trilogies
Another solid six books in the series and a good conclusion to the world.
The Wind Trilogy is Elspeth's and is about her long journey, training, and return. She's a more complex character and not completely sympathetic, which is good. She's given a number of gifts and talents, which seem to exceed the demand that's put on them by a pretty wide margin much of the time. The book also introduces Darkwind who has a lot of POV chapters and his own struggles for the first two books before falling in beside Elspeth for the conclusion.
The Winds trilogy returns to a tighter set of POVs; typically Karal (the Karsite scholar). As the series goes on other POVs become more common, but the story is still Karal's. Karal gets a lot less cool powers and status-- most of the time, his efforts are like a Buffy scooby-- inspiring, but not the person slinging the power or beating the bad guys by himself. The second book's conclusion is a little disappointing, mostly because the third book's conclusion is so similar. If you're annoyed by "reunion books" where everyone in every other book makes an appearance, you might be annoyed-- but it's handled quite well and doesn't dominate everything.
Next Game: Friday June 27th
Please let us know if you'll have any problem with making it this week. We left off just after your ambush of the Ogre camp, the rescue the gnomes, and the interrogation of the fallen Ogre. We'll resume next with with the characters at 6th level. See you then!
UPDATE: As Kevin mentioned below, he's not going to be able to make it when we start, but he encouraged us to begin without him. Unless you hear otherwise, we'll play as usual tonight.
Cool Initiative Idea
Bruce Brown had a great idea on the FATE list for initiative.
The theory goes that GM calls out the adjectives on the ladder in descending order. Players can then use any skill that matches or exceeds that at any point during the round.
Masculinity and other cool quotes
A great quote from Hilzoy:
And besides, this all plays into a pretty ludicrous conception of masculinity, according to which George Bush's swaggering and bluster are supposed to show that he's manly, while -- well, something, though what exactly is never clear, is supposed to show that Obama is not. If I truly thought that masculinity was anything like the sneering, bullying caricature that people try to foist off on us every four years at about this time, I'd either take a vow of celibacy right now or spend some serious effort trying to discover whether it's possible to become gay by sheer force of will.
The whole post is good, but I was tickled by her concluding paragraph (above).
Afterward, I found a great post from Kameron Hurley about finding happiness and fearing it. Here's one (of many) good paragraphs:
I worry that happiness is a dangerous thing. I worry that it's not something we should strive for, but just something you get periodically, a lull between the long stretches of darkness, like the short, sharp Alaskan Summer. Those three months of intense, gorgeous, beautiful life and sunshine that make the 8 months of winter worth it.