games

Quick note before I become productive:

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Skyrim releases today, of course, and I was really taken by this article about it: Things I Ate In Skyrim.

See, I buy games used and play them after they’ve been out a while. I never go online, preferring single-player exploration of the world. I always play on easy.

There have been times when I tried online games, usually through my buddy Jim’s account. He’s tried to get me hooked on Dark Age of Camelot (has it really been ten years?) and City of Heroes. The latter almost worked, but luckily my home life is antithetical to online gaming; if it wasn’t I’d never do anything else.

I’m not exactly Mr. Moderation here.

But I sometimes buy used games and put them in. Recently I played LEGENDARY, which was an amazingly stupid game. I bought because “Call of Duty with monsters instead of Nazis” but yikes.

Lately I’ve been playing FABLES: THE LOST CHAPTERS (I think that’s the title, anyway). It’s sort of interesting and sort of dull. When I’m not playing it, I want to be. When I am playing it, I keep thinking about how much time I’m wasting. And I’m annoyed at the traders who keep clustering around me while I fight bandits and hobbes, when they should be clearing the fuck out. I’m getting devil points with my area effect attacks, assholes! Back off!

Anyway, I’m mentally comparing the epic fantasy novels I’m reading with the “story” in the game, and trying to figure out what I can learn from it. Not much, apparently.

My #FridayReads is still The Name Of The Wind

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Jeez, that book is slow.

Yesterday I sent a short story for an anthology over to the editor. It’s a little long, but maybe it will work for them anyway. At the moment I can’t see what else to cut from it, but in about two weeks I’ll probably think it’s twice what it should be.

Anyway, the story is called “Don’t Chew Your Food” and as I mentioned before it’s set in the world of Don’t Rest Your Head an indie horror rpg by the folks at Evil Hat. If you play with character sheets and dice, you should check out their site. My story is about a celebrity chef and… well… eating. Can you tell I’m reducing, as they used to say?

I was also paid for a short story I wrote for a different anthology, although I’m not sure if it’s meant to be talked about in public. It’s a shared world anthology with a growing background, and my story is about a mage who specializes in love magic.

Fun! Short fiction, it was nice to hang with you for a while. Don’t be such a stranger, okay?

Today I’m walking across the bridge to work on the new newest book, an epic (hopefully) fantasy with the working title A Blessing of Monsters (aka “Fantasy with gate magic”).

No, it’s not a Twenty Palaces book, but I can’t sit around doing nothing until I hear the official word, right? Must work work work.

Anyway, I’m turning off the internet for a few hours so I can get a long walk in, plus writering. And today I’ll remember my house keys. Happy October.

Randomness for 10/6

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1) This is the guy who should be redesigning DC’s rebooted heroes.

2) Artwork created in rice fields.

3) The 20 Biggest Idiots on Facebook. via Marisol

4) Spooky Victorian Mansions made of Legos.

5) Who Killed Videogames, A Ghost Story

6) Microphotography contest winners.

7) “We are the 1%.”

Randomness for 8/20

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1) Interview of a One-Year-Old Child. Video. Way funnier than it sounds.

2) Moebius did concept art for the movie WILLOW. Check out the art design that could have been.

3) Astonishing bike stunts in abandoned industrial facility. Video. Music’s nice, too.

4) Better Book Titles.

5) Everything you need to know about the video game industry in one graphic.

6) The 10 Most Brutal Moments in ‘The Savage Sword of Conan’!

7) A steampunk apartment.

We went here yesterday

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Card Kingdom. It’s a new board/card game store in Ballard, and I didn’t even realize they were opening. It’s big, with lots of space, and not only do they have Pokemon tournament events that my son can take part in, they have an attached coffee shop where I can do some writing while he turns his toxicroak loose (or whatever).

Cool place, which a big family game section. I foresee many trips in my future.

Dear Everyone Who Recommended The Game “Dominion”

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Thank you, you beautiful fucking geniuses. Honestly, Dominion is a blast, and my board-game-loving wife was pleased as hell when we played it. She was a little uncertain when she unwrapped it, but it took no time at all for us to be having a blast.

Thanks for helping to make her birthday extra awesome.

Board game reviews

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Have any of you ever played any of these board games? What do you think about them?

Small World
Dominion
Power Grid
Catacombs
Puerto Rico
Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Board Game

Randomness for 2/26

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1) This is crazy and awesome: Man builds functional CPU in Minecraft, using only redstone dust, torches, levers and stone. Of course it’s bigger than two city blocks (and I have no idea what the hell he’s talking about as he describes the parts, but it’s freaking awesome. via @laura_hudson

2) Try to watch this video without reading the comments first. It’s pretty funny and kind of brilliant.

3) The Gettysburg Address as a PowerPoint presentation.

4) Silent security cam footage of a tornado hitting St. Louis airport. Video. Brr.

5) Animated gifs as art.

6) Awesome! Check out the new trailer for THOR… as made my mockbuster crap-slingers Asylum Entertainment. Video.

7) Cousins fight over GAME OF THRONES tv show. lol.

Game night

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Inspired by James Nicoll’s regular D&D posts, I thought I’d write up the session of Truth & Justice I just GM’ed. I’m doing it now because it’s late and I’ll forget if I wait until tomorrow.

Truth & Justice is a superhero paper-and-dice rpg. The heroes were:

  • Pressure, a gadgeteering scientist with the ability to control air pressure. The player is a 9yo boy.
  • The Black Monkey, a primate scientist, engineer, window-washer who was bitten by a monkey that he himself irradiated and who can now transform himself into a big, bulky human with a monkey tail, except that his eyes are glowing green and his body is a silhouette. Powers: Super-strength, -agility, -speed. The player is a 9yo boy.
  • Shait, a 12-year old daughter of archaeologists who is possessed by the spirit of the goddess of the Nile/flooding season/all water everwhere (courtesy of a shabbily-researched web site. If the GM had known they were looking up mythological figures, he would have advised them not to rely on a site with green text on a black background). Powers: Super-armor, Immortality, Water Control. The player is a middle-aged woman and non-gamer.

The player running The Black Monkey had never played any kind of rpg before, which put him one session behind Shait’s player and two behind Pressure’s. The session started where the previous had left off: Pressure had slipped out of his university lab and Shait had climbed out the window of a fleeing school bus and had defeated a villain called Nemesis. They were standing over the unconscious body when Black Monkey ran up, too late to join the fight.

Introductions were made, and Shait informed the other two that she was a goddess searching for lost relics. She also informed them that they would be helping her in this task. Despite their inexperience with gaming, I thought the expressions on their faces pretty closely matched the expressions the adult male characters they were playing would have. Sirens approached and all three left the scene, confident the police would be able to contain the villain.

Shait, of course, discovered that her school bus was long gone, having fled the appearance of a super-villain. She rolled well, found a discarded transfer and took a city bus back to her school. Her parents were called and she was grounded. The life of a pre-teen superhero is never easy, and it was going to get worse. Continue reading

“He couldn’t take the PRESSURE!”

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So! Chad Underkoffler read my books, liked them and contacted me through Twitter to ask if I wanted a free copy of an rpg he designed: Truth & Justice.

Now, while I am usually too uncomfortable to accept free things from people, this is a superhero game we were talking about, so I bucked up, said “Yes,” and dl’ed my copy.

I should mention that I used to game all the time. Back in Philly and when I lived in L.A., I gamed pretty much once a week, like any self-respecting gamer. Personally, I like horror and superhero games, but maybe you already guessed that about me.

In Seattle, not so much. My wife is not interested in gaming at all and I just didn’t have the time to find/make friends to create a new group. (I still don’t, really). But that’s why we have kids.

My son, looking over my shoulder as I downloaded the files, started to become a tad excited. We had tried gaming once before: When he was about…6? 7? and really into Scooby Doo, I designed a kid-friendly Chill adventure for him. It was basically a haunted house without a lot of actual danger.

He loved it. His favorite part was at the end, where I showed him the drawn-out house with the key numbers written inside, and the second page with the description of each room. He looked up at me with eyes as big as golf balls, and he said the 11 words I’d been dreading: “Dad, now I’m going to make up an adventure for YOU!”

What followed was two and a half hours of the most random, incomprehensible adventure I’ve ever played. Continue reading