Categories
Ancient Links Misc Roleplaying

Link clutter buildup severe. Initiate dump.

Talking about 4e’s second round of errata.
Cool fillable, pickable character sheet
Power Cards, character sheet, etc. links for 4e Dungeons and Dragons–
Levi’s Metasystem is up on Fang Langford’s wiki. Cool!
Via Greywolf: Quick cheap minis: 1, 2, 3.
Directed scenes: with a cool example.
Mini poker chips (for 4e conditions)
4e animal stats
ancient maps
Updated location for Maximum Game Fun
Encounter Formula: Challenge (combat, social, puzzle or other) + unique element (memorable NPC, fighting on a rope bridge, etc.) + a way to advance even if the party fails (although perhaps with penalties) = a successful encounter.
Points of Conflict: Self contained 4e encounters, ready to drop in.

Recent Alignments discussion:
(look for forge: Anti-pattern discussion)
http://theverbingnoun.blogspot.com/2008/07/obligatory-alignment-post.html
http://beneaththescreen.blogspot.com/2008/08/good-bad-and-neutral-cont.html
http://beneaththescreen.blogspot.com/2008/08/alignments-good-bad.html

Short stories– The First Commandment by Gregory Benford and The Sky is Large and the Earth is Small by Chris Roberson

End of life planning
: Sobering, a good checklist

Look for: Whitney Design Retractable 5-Line Mini Dryer ($10) for easy energy efficency

WATDH
Omnivoracious (books blog)
Land of Nu stories
A nasty practice: Not just earmarks, but skimming earmarks.

Cool quick reference about major states in the world today: Rising Powers
Stolen Pixels (webcomic)
Beyond Protocol and MMO/RTS game.
Sounds tasty; Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Categories
Books

The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy

Guy Gavriel Kay’s series began with The Summer Tree, continues in The Wandering Fire, and concludes in The Darkest Road.

The Summer Tree starts off quickly; leaping into the action before the main characters understand what’s going on. The five students from our world are dragged into Fionavar, where they’re faced with difficult tasks that change them. I was upset at the author’s treatment of Jennifer… even though I vaguely remember it serves a higher purpose, it’s a terrible role for a character to suffer. I hope that when I get into Wandering Fire I’ll see more of the character.

The core three are together but each is affected by Fionavar differently. Kevin seems to drift along the shallowest; enjoying the world and its explorations– there is more, but he’s the least affected. Paul’s grief finds its end– his change is mostly internal and dramatic. I appreciated the author’s skill in getting us into Paul’s mindset without starting the story earlier– the details that come from Paul and Kevin’s discussions are tantalizing, and his time on the tree reveals all. Kim is the most changed, at first acted on, but her decisions and choices establish her quickly as a deep character.

Dave’s separate time is very separate– but it doesn’t feel as tangential this time. The friends and community he finds prove important to his story… it works very well.

Wandering Fire starts off strong; Jennifer gets some spotlight time to start and Paul continues his solid competence. Their return to Fionavar involves an interesting hurdle that’s quickly disposed of; Kim’s later acquisition drives a lot of the remaining two books. She brings Arthur with her, who is known and recognized without introduction.

Fionavar is suffering from horrific winter– though it’s almost midsummer according to their calendar. The telling stutters here a bit, leaping forward then back filling somewhat annoyingly. Dave and Kevin soon rejoin the Dalrei, where Kevin finds himself reduced to a torchbearer. It’s an interesting development and shows the author’s confidence in allowing smart characters to realize inconvenient things. The action starts to spin up pretty quickly from there; Kevin winds up making a true and final sacrifice that… seemed very strange, but felt authentic. The relations between the kings are well done– the one upmanship and subtle posturing ring true.

Just as Jennifer’s becoming a character I care about, she gets Guinevere layered over her. It kind of works but has drawbacks– she immediately becomes more remote. (We never experience the courtship and winning of love– it’s just realized memory and feels like shorthand). Finn’s quick love works out pretty well, somewhat surprisingly. Paul’s meddling with Dani goes wrong, appropriately. The splintering into several independent quests feels right. Paul and Arthur manage to make a “we sail places as cargo” plot work out fine; the length of the voyage is implied well, but the story really focuses on the conflicts instead of dragging. Jennifer (and Kim) each push Dani in their own ways, and it works. The novel ends on the high note of Paul and Arthur’s quest, while appropriately keeping the outcome of the war overall doubtful.

The final book continues with several good quests; I enjoyed the dwarven visit and felt the terrible debate when the Belrath demanded. Lancelot’s involvement with Jennifer/Guinevere is very abstract; they clearly have feelings [due to written history, not events in these books], but he’s shuttled off quickly. Lancelot’s kind of strange; he does great deeds, but always feels like a loose end– why is he around again? He mostly exists to pressure Jennifer’s relationship with Arthur, but all three bonds are defined rather than experienced by the reader.

In the end it comes together in a very strong concluding fight between the gathered forces of Light and Dark. The aftermath and goodbyes are interesting and round it off well.

While this isn’t my favorite Guy Gavriel Kay book, I enjoyed it quite a bit and saw a lot of new and interesting things on this reread.

Categories
Game Group

Next Game: Friday August 15th

Last week it sounded like everyone will be available on Friday. You’re a couple of days away from the Ogre’s city, just finished a battle alongside trolls, and have a wagon with ten heavily armed gnomes that you’re escorting. The rain has been pretty intense, which makes you wonder how the wagon will fare tomorrow…

Categories
Game Group

Next Game: Friday August 8th

We’re on for Friday, August 8th. Jennifer will be away, but she’ll try and join us remotely. Be there or be square.

Categories
DnD FATE Games Roleplaying

Random gaming update

D&D:
Make a 4e Druid from a Fey Pact Warlock.
Earthdawn is being released as a 4e world setting
Mount clarifications
Chatty reports on the new catalog spilling that Players Handbook 2 will include Druid, Barbarian, Sorcerer, and Bard classes (eight in all). New races will include the gnome, the half-orc, and the Goliath.

Fate/SotC:
Starblazer Adventures is preordering.
Triple Ace Games is a Pulp RPG publisher.
Actual Play of SotC:
The Revenge of Zombie Kong and the Lightning Zombies
Hadrian Helm and Johnny Stripes vs. the Evil Earth
Spirit of the Century presents: Revenge of the Tyrian Deathlord!
Centurion Science Heroes vs. the Murder Nation

General:
Tailoring the plot obstacles to the PCs is an Eigen plot
The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen is returning to print. (It’s supposed to be a lot like a freeform version of Once upon a Time.)
Advice on pacing: one of the hardest things to get right in a game.

Random Acts of Senseless Violence is supposed to be an excellent and disturbing book by Jack Womack. (It’s hard to find– the library doesn’t have it.)

Chris points to good advice from Lester Chan to ensure that you don’t fill up your wordpress revision table.

This is a great example of humility over on Rhubarb Pie.

Categories
Books

The Neverending Story

This is a reread; one I enjoy but don’t get to very often. Michael Ende has written a beautiful book about adventure and dreams. As a kid I remember empathizing with Bastian, but also feeling somewhat superior– while weak and unathletic, at least I wasn’t fat and hated. Looking at it now, he picked a great constellation of attributes for Sebastian– a few positive and a enough poor that it’s easy to imagine that you (for essentially every value of you) feel that you could do as well. Even his hesitation at coming to Fantastica is something I could “easily beat”.

The first and second halves are fascinating. I’m currently reading a paperback version, which is good, but I miss the red and green text of the hardback. (They make the difference italic versus standard print, which is good, but feels less otherworldly. I suspect House of Leaves is similar; while I read a paperback version with house highlighted blue, I bet the art version would have been fascinating as an object.)

Categories
Books

Travels with Charley

Hey, a Steinbeck novel I liked! It’s a sketchy snapshot of the people and countryside of the 1960s as he travels around the country. It does a good job by admitting his biases and limitations up front; despite wanting to strike up conversations around the nation, we see very few interactions. There’s a lot more time and space devoted to musing about masculinity, his dog Charlie’s thoughts and motivations, and so on.

The book turns out to be a look inside Steinbeck’s head as he drives around, with random things sparking off trains of thought and detailed observation. As he mentions several times, a different person driving the same route and stopping in the same places would record entirely different experiences. And that’s just fine.

Categories
Misc

The Cinderella Pact

This book was written before The Sleeping Beauty Proposal and doesn’t link to it at all. There are familiar elements, but there’s a different hunky guy to fall for this time.

I enjoyed it– it was another quick read. It wasn’t as compelling, likely because the formula was more apparent (probably because this was the second book I’d read). Noticing the formula derailed unconscious reading a bit. Still, the friends who struggle together against their bodies and society work very well and feel like three real people, as do their relationships. Nola’s little shadings of truth (and bigger lies) are interesting… though it does feel like a strange theme in both books. I guess I’ll read the third when it comes out and see if its lead is honest and gets ahead despite it, or if she also cooks up some crazy deception.

Categories
Ancient Links Misc

Just upgraded to WordPress 2.6

It was pretty painless– even though I made a foolish mistake, it didn’t slow things down at all. So far, this seems like a great platform.

An unfortunate side effect is that the themes (affecting how it looks) haven’t caught up to the new version– hopefully, I’ll find a good one soon.

Categories
Roleplaying

Psi-run

There’s a cool game out there called Psi-run. I understand it was at the Ashcan Front last year (2007) and I’m curious about its current status.

Its die system is a derivative of Vincent Baker’s Otherkind System… but that’s about all I know. Does anyone know if they’re trying to make GenCon this year?

Here are a few of the links that I think will be useful if I find/run the game: Vasco’s wiki, Char sheet (PDF), an Actual Play thread, and a quick play example.