John Kahane's Friends
[Most Recent Entries]
[Calendar View]
[Friends View]
Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
[ << Previous 25 ]
| Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 |
flamesrising
|
2:35p |
Hunter Corrections I just received some updated information on Hunter: the Vigil and have made a couple of corrections in my recent posts. Apparently the document I had last week was an earlier edition. The relevant changes are: Organizations are now called “compacts,” and agencies are “conspiracies.” Check out the Light in Shadows and Professions teasers for more information. |
james_nicoll
|
3:10p |
|
james_nicoll
|
3:02p |
Idle question
If you were going to insert a detective into one of Shakespeare's tragedies, would you go for a character like Philip Marlowe [1] or one like Miss Marple [2]? The Chandleresque character strikes me as more likely to live to the end of the story but Marple could be played as a kind of wise fool.
1: I started off with Hammett's Continental Op but Marlowe's speech patterns are more amusing to me.
2: Or Tommy and Tuppance if you want the detectives to have a confederate with which to converse. |
gmskarka
|
1:47p |
American version of "Life on Mars" ABC announced that the US version of Life on Mars will be on Thursday nights this Fall. Here's the cast, with Colm Meany playing Gene Hunt:  Apparently, the show has been relocated from Manchester to Los Angeles (expected) and from 1973 to 1972....which makes the title a bit problematic. Bowie's "Life on Mars" was released as a single in '73. Although, to be fair, it appeared as an album track in 1971 on Hunky Dory -- although the single never charted in the US, and the album didn't chart until 1975. Beyond keeping the title the same as the UK release, I'm not sure if it will make any sense for US audiences, since the song isn't something they strongly associate with the 70s. The original is one of my favorite series of all time -- I cringe at the possibilities of this new version. |
thebitterguy
|
2:41p |
Curves are meant to have someone on the back end. So at FCBD my FLCS had a sale on some of their used console games. I picked up Crackdown, because it said I could participate in a Halo 3 Beta (rimshot). It took a bit to get into, but it's gotten to be quite fun. I wave off any concerns of racism by noting that most* criminal organizations are racially homogeneous anyways. So, yeah, I really suck at driving in the game. Really. Everytime I take a car out, I apply more carnage than the warring gangs do. I am good at shooting people, though, and I'm getting good at bombing people too. But the jumping remains the most fun. There's nothing like leaping from ledge to ledge to the top of a large building and hopping from rooftop to rooftop. It's so much fun it's criminal. So far, I've cleared out Los Muertos (after bumping into a few of the seven bosses entirely by accident), and am working my way through the Volk. I kind of accidentally found the hideout of the Volk's big boss, but he still had his full complement of bodyguards hanging aboot. I like it so far. I'm still working to get a handle on the controls (I hate going to kick someone and instead jumping over their head). I'm also fond of one of the Xbox Arcade games about a little fish who gets bigger by eating smaller fishes. I haven't bought the full version yet, but that's only a matter of time. I once thought "I liked this better the first time I played it. When it was called Shark! Shark! ", but I like this more than Shark! Shark! *By use of the qualifier, TBG releases himself from any action that may result in someone posting about the rainbow coalition of their favourite Organized Crime group. Current Mood:  geeky |
whiteharlequin
|
2:17p |
The Shadow of Yesterday While I do advocate actually buying the book in order to support the author, he has listed the entirety of the text, along with fan authored extras, here. Rockin. Get on it. And especially the part about Goblins... wow. Current Mood:  hopeful |
alexanderfans
[ jenk ]
|
10:41a |
Upcoming Dates Kore's been unable to update the website with all this traveling, so I'm going to throw out a few things here. May 17-18: Alec will continue to perform at Oklahoma's Renaissance Faire, in Muskogee, OK. May 23-25: Alec will be Music GOH at MARCON 43 at the Hyatt Regency, Columbus, OH. June 14th, 8-10pm. Alec will be performing at Avatar in Everett, WA. ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) skydancer will be bringing his sound system so's to make sure everyone can hear Alec, too :) June 16th, 7pm: Alec will be at The Lucky Lab Pub, Multnomah Village on Capitol Hwy, in Portland. June 26-29 AnthroCon in Pittsburgh, PA. July 4th: Tricky Pixie will be performing at Tacoma's Tall Ships Festival. July 12-13: Alec will be performing at the Mt Vernon Highland Games in WA this weekend. |
james_nicoll
|
1:11p |
Is there a formal term
For future settings where the setting is limited to one small region and only makes sense if one assumes the rest of the planet has been mysteriously depopulated so as not to take advantage of the setting's inherent weaknesses?
San Angeles in Demolition Man, for example, seems to be simultaneously incapable of defending itself and yet has not been occupied by Canadian troops pursuing our legitimate territorial claim to that region. |
|
jeffvandermeer
|
4:38p |
Rewarding Mediocrity? http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2008/05/13/rewarding-mediocrity/ http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/?p=1055 Interesting post at the Reading Experience slapping reviewers on the wrist for their positive takes on Amy Bloom’s novel Away which Dan Green thinks is mediocre. I haven’t read the novel, so I have no opinion on it one way or the other. But I find the idea that reviewers may actually reward mediocrity and unoriginality interesting. It’s certainly true that some novels are easier for a reviewer to grok on a first read, and under the pressure of deadlines those novels may come off better than ones that require multiple reads to fully appreciate. There is a phenomenon in high schools, for example, related to the fact that writers who use a lot of symbolism are easier to teach because it’s something for the teacher to latch onto and create a discussion around. (This is, of course, a gross generalization, but I’ll throw it out there anyway.) |
elfquest
[ panthia534 ]
|
9:47a |
|
james_nicoll
|
12:43p |
|
willshetterly
|
9:15a |
|
animadversio
|
11:56a |
Hillary's "Gift" To Women Barbara Ehrenreich on Hillary Clinton's "ground-breaking campaign for President": "Surely no one will ever dare argue that women lack the temperament for political combat. But by running a racially-tinged campaign, lying about her foreign policy experience, and repeatedly seeming to favor [John] McCain over her Democratic opponent, Clinton didn't just break through the 'glass floor,' she set a new low for floors in general, and would, if she could have got within arm's reach, have rubbed the broken glass into Obama's face . . . "Hillary Clinton smashed the myth of innate female moral superiority in the worst possible way -- by demonstrating female moral inferiority. We didn't really need her racial innuendos and free-floating bellicosity to establish that women aren't wimps." As usual, Ehrenreich's assertions are impeccably logical and accurate... full text here. Current Mood:  angry |
ohbejuan
|
11:53a |
Some one double check my Geek-dar for me? I have watched the X-files trailer. I did watch the show for a while, and I have fond memories of it, but I was not all that excited to see X-Files: I want to believe. I am still not all that excited, but I thought there was a BSG sighting in there. So, peps, did I see the Cylon Leoben in this trailer? I would also like to say that I don't think he will ever be able to play anything but a creep. Not because of BSG, he is just one creeping looking dude. I mean would you ever buy him as a loving parent? As soon as the movie started, you are going to be thinking "but where will he bury his wife?" Current Mood:  curiousCurrent Music: Garbage truck |
waiwode
|
11:25a |
Android
Man, that's one sexist word. I mean, there's no "gynoids" are there? |
xnbach
|
7:58a |
Forty-Four This week is the celebration of my forty-fourth consecutive round trip around the sun. Yesterday at work they did the birthdays for the month. I got to choose the cake, so I went with a cheesecake (my mom used to make me one for my birthday every year before she died). I was thinking just good old New York cheesecake, but Hiroko (the one who goes out and gets the cake every month) wanted one of the fancier ones so I went with a white chocolate raspberry cheesecake. They got it from the Cheesecake Factory. This may be blasphemy to some, but that place is not the end all and be all of cheesecakes. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't the best. It wasn't even in the top five. There were three people with birthdays in May and the Cheesecake Factory managed to spell everybody's name wrong. I guess there are still people who have a conniption about spelling my name T-H-O-M, but the other two were "Eric" and "Deborah". Go figure. This weekend I am getting the heck out of Dodge, so I fly out Friday and get back Monday night. So thanks Mister President for floating me the cash for the trip. I still think you are one of worst presidents we ever had, but I do need to get a break from the temporary digs for a while. I bought myself some practical things, but I also got a birthday present for myself. They had the new Flight of the Conchords CD on sale at Easy Street Records in West Seattle, so I picked that up. I loves me some Flight of the Conchords. I've played that CD to death and it still makes me laugh. Current Mood:  happyCurrent Music: Flight of the Conchords |
waiwode
|
9:49a |
Busier than a Mahout* *I don't know how busy they are. I just like the word. Lots of stuff to do today. I've already had this window open for an hour. Last night was possibly the last session of my bastardized amalgam of HARP and Rolemaster. Note to self ... don't do that again. Go one way or the other. It is bad when one thing becomes two. One should not look for anything else in the Way of the Samurai. It is the same for anything that is called a Way. If one understands things in this manner, he should be able to hear about all ways and be more and more in accord with his own. -Hagakure, by Tsunetomo Yamamoto Still, I’m making a note here: huge success. It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction. The goal? To play an RPG on week-nights. To keep it light and fun and to do something rather than sitting around. Was it "gaming as high art" or anything even remotely approaching the top of my form? No, of course it wasn't, in fact it was nearly the furthest thing from that. But we rolled a bunch of criticals, and cast a bunch of spells, and we had fun. It is the latter that I judge this game by, despite the messy kludge of never-fixed mechanics and stuff that I mostly tried to keep invisible from the players. Although I love me some crit charts and stuff, the fact is I've changed as a gamer, and no longer have any real love for the big, flat percentile mechanics when there are a dozen die-pool mechanics out there that are easier to use. Where I let the side down? Tim clearly wanted to spend time sneaking. In the "big Sunday game" I'd have given him a scene or two where he could bust out the stealth. But here I wanted to keep the group together and keep things moving. Penultimately? ( :) ) The players. Morally Ambiguous Squad had some new blood. Tim, coming in a session ago as the one character who should have been the most morally ambiguous member of the squad, was decidly against linking his fate to the group ... more on that in a bit. Chris fit right in, as the MAS's artillery. Charlie, once the glorious morally ambiguous leader of the squad in his previous character, was now a very different, upright elf, and some of the accommodations offered to allow him to slide into the MAS instead became ammunition against them for his dénouement, and Helen played a big mean bully of an orc. Very appropriate, but there was a point at which her violent rough-housing of the other characters ran into the wall of "no you didn't." That brings me to my final point. Never before have I run a game for a group whose characters didn't gel that I actually liked. In fact I think the failure of PC groups to gel is the third of my top three reasons for dropping a game like a hot tomato (a lot runnier than a hot potato). It trashed last summer's Reign game for me, it spawned a growing hatred of L5R, it was one of the underpinning factors of my dropping The China Game ... and this time I really thought it worked. So the funny thing is, these guys weren't the A team, they weren't the B team, they weren't even sophisticated roleplaying androids from the future. If anything, they're the C team. So it's kind of funny, that is the cast-offs of a couple other groups and some new/infrequent players I found a group that can do something that I thought I'd never accept ... and have me liking it. Kudos to the C team. :) Doug. Current Music: The Clash - Train In Vain |
robot_mel
|
3:24p |
Devil in Love - Cazotte I managed to read this month's ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) bibliogoth book last night in less than 2 hours. I learned of this book reading the Dumas Club, in that story the Devil (also in the form of a woman) gives this book to the man she is trying to help. I loved the idea of the female devil attempting to seduce the man. This was short but very fun. The devil is highly amusing. I particularly liked how she taught him not to waste his money gambling without skill and acted most virtous in order to get him to marry her. I'm glad the ending was re-written as the longer version made much more sense. Should make for an entertaining meeting. |
vae_editor
|
6:51a |
Wondermark, an Illustrated Jocularity Our trip to the Emerald City Comi-Con allowed us to also make the acquaintance of David Malki !, creator of Wondermark (an Illustrated Jocularity.  Mr Malki !'s work is GRAND, and you can see a new item every Tuesday & Friday. We obtained copies of "The Annotated Wondermark" and "Dispatches from Wondermark Manor, Volume 1" (a bit of a Victorian novel!)  |
doc_mystery
|
9:19a |
[Book 35] Death’s Crimson Juggernaut by Norvell Page (Girasol Reprint 2007)  A series of crucifixion murders, then tenement firebombing, and still later excursion ship sinking’s baffles both the police of New York City and also her greatest and most passionate and most ruthless pulp hero, The Spider. Richard Wentworth, alias The Spider, has a whole heap of problems in this story. He is attacked twice in the first few chapters (both gun-men and grenade throwers), he is accused of being the Spider and being behind these dreadful crimes, his men are thrown in jail, his friend Kirkpatrick has lost his job as Police Commissioner, and for at least half the story he is blinded by some toxic tear gas (with it touch and go if this will be permanent) and must fight for his life so dreadfully handicapped. A splendid mess of a pulp novel (first written in November 1934 by Norvell Page) where plot takes a back seat to frenetic action and crimson stained adventure. This is the first part of Double Spider #2 reprinted by Girasol Collectibles. Great full sized cover, and for both stories they includes the original illustrations, but with no interior ads or short stories. ::B:: |
simonjrogers
|
1:49p |
Map of the Month - Pete Fenlon style Many of us remember, and were inspired by Pete Fenlon's wonderful maps for the Middle Earth Roleplaying Game. Today, Pete is Chairman and Studio Director at Mayfair Games. In January, with Pete's permission we released a style pack for making maps in his style as part of the Cartographer's Annual 2008. Steve Townshend produced this beautiful map in the Pete Fenlon style.  It uses only specially designed vector symbols combined with CC3's effects to get the right look. Style packs are preconfigured so that if you select a tool (for example, rivers, roads and terrain), it looks right for the map style. To create a forest, you just select the forest draw tool, click points for the border, and it does this, adding random tree tops and edge trees.  You building up mountain ranges by selecting a symbol, then placing. They are selected randomly from a collection of symbols. So this was one click per mountain, and the mess at the bottom is a mountain cursor. You can tab through random styles if you don't like the current mountain at the cursor.  The distinctive ridges are also built up of symbols. On the left, with CC3 effects off, on the right, with them on.   Although the styles definitely make it easier to create maps such as these, Steve Townshend demonstrates that the human touch is still required to get an aesthetically pleasing map - style packs just make it easier to get the desired effect. You can download the map in CC3 format here. |
flamesrising
|
7:13a |
World of Darkness, New Stuff A new SAS was released yesterday. The New Kid is written with World of Darkness: Innocents, but you can run it just fine with the original WoD core book. Today brings up my next Hunter: the Vigil post on Flames Rising. This time I'm talking a bit about Professions in the new game. I even posted a sample Profession for folks to check out. |
arielstarshadow
|
4:37a |
Word of the Day
dep·re·date
\ˈde-prə-ˌdāt\
[Late Latin depraedatus, past participle of depraedari, from Latin de- + praedari to plunder]
transitive verb
1: to lay waste: plunder, ravage
intransitive verb
1: to engage in plunder |
deense
|
5:57p |
My cat has a twin in Communist China Communist Cat - please note this is NOT my cat.  Ziggy - this is my cat!  |
robin_d_laws
|
3:59a |
Tentacles Wrap  Sunday — The day kicks off with the ever-reliable GM Troubleshooting seminar. Tentacles offers a powerful incentive to ten a.m. seminar attendance. If you’re not in the cafeteria by 9:45 you miss breakfast. As always for this topic the bulk of the discussion revolves around the difficult trade-offs involved in balancing the action in your game to varying sets of player tastes.
Tentacles sells lottery tickets to game events run by its guests. My initial idea was to run Ad Hoc HeroQuest, an event where we’d pick the genre at the table and go from there. Then when Greg Stafford couldn’t make it I also offered to also run a second game of the new HQ set in Glorantha. I was too tightly scheduled to actually fit in two contributions to the lottery, so winners were given the choice of either of the two ideas. I thought for sure they’d leap at the Glorantha. By the time I arrived for the game the players were not only assembled but had come to a consensus with no prompting required from me. They wanted to play retired superheroes.
I asked each player to pick a superhero name, which would operate as the character’s highest ability. (A cool and ambiguous reference, in HQ parlance.) So the group had such abilities as Starlight, Dr. Shadow, and the Chief. Their next-highest abilities were civilian identity descriptors: native American beer truck driver, bad shoe salesman, pushy claims adjuster, et al. Then, explaining that the PCs were all ex-members of a super group called the Mighty Squad, I had each player specify the thing about the character to his right that he held responsible for its breakup. So each got further defined by another player with ability/flaws including control freak, collateral damage, and sell-out. In three hours the characters were reunited by crisis, confronted by a weird mystery, and brought to a series of personal epiphanies leading to a strange return for the Mighty Squad.
The set-up offered opportunities aplenty for fun discoveries and creative action descriptions. I allowed more rules discussion than I normally would in a demo. My usual rule (copped long ago from Jose Garcia) is that it’s not really about teaching the game but rather showing the players a good time. Here though everyone knew the current HQ and was there to get a taste of the new nuts and bolts.
The first ever Tentacles wine tasting followed shortly thereafter. I don’t at all mind a sweet white, so the five selections from the local Dur Fledermaus winery were right up my alley. It was late starting, so I had to try the last of them during the final Ask Robin seminar, which kept going with nary a lull for two hours. The almost exclusive topic was HQ new and old.
All told, I had a fabulous time, even though my brain was mush by the end of it. It was a three day visit to an alternate universe where the most popular RPGs in the world are Call Of Cthulhu and HeroQuest. Naturally this would be a happy place for me. In this dimension, it’s only the latter game that has an eagerly anticipated new edition on the way. There’s some other thing called 4E but that’s barely on the radar.
Monday — The traditional post-game dinner with the guests of honor takes place at the Alte Burg in Dreieich, which serves German fare with an emphasis on regional Hessian dishes. As is the case at many international cons, the guest is expected to consume something local and appalling that the organizers masochistically adore. Here it’s the infamous handkäse, a.k.a. musical cheese. And yes, it’s affectionately named after the explosive flatulence it is meant to provoke.
( Read more... ) |
[ << Previous 25 ]
|
|
|
