Previously, in Trip's Life...
30 September 2013 - Monday
Unclean! Unclean!
The guy who was supposed to fix my shower called in sick instead.
Working from home seems so much less productive, but I suppose it's
possible I suck this much in the office, too. I don't have any cats to
help there, though.
Curse you, vile and unreliable laundry machines, for interrupting my
time with Avalon!
Make a comment!
29 September 2013 - Sunday
Good news: still no customers.
Bad news: still no shower. The manager offered me the use of the
shower in a vacant unit, but that one doesn't work either. I guess I'll
be working from home tomorrow to spare the office's life support
capacity.
Because it is the future, Avalon was able to gchat me from the train
back to Toronto and tell me how much fun she had and that no one got a
picture of her in her short skirt. I sulk!
In Accursed,
the PCs are all monsters cut loose from the mostly failed invasion of the
witches into Early Modern Fake Europe, who must either succumb to or
overcome their monstrous urges while dealing with the prejudice of
normal humans who do not appreciate their heroic nature. It's a
perfectly good premise, but the monsters are pretty generic: wolfman,
mummy, vampire, goon stitched together from corpses, etc. The setting is
pretty generic too, although at least they have a fake Israel to go with
their fake Russia etc. So, it's not awful, but it could be better, or at
least more interesting.
Zero Point (Neal Asher) is the sequel to The
Departure, following the adventures of, basically, the Singularity,
and the people who have to deal with him rampaging around the solar system.
Some of these people are insanely horrible, it being that sort of future,
so this book is not for the even slightly squeamish. Also: adventures in
physics!
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
28 September 2013 - Saturday
Oh yah, my shower is broken. And I technically have another shower,
even though it's in the cat bathroom which is not set up for any other
use, so it's not an emergency as far as the apartment management is
concerned. Bah.
No customers got through to me. Yay!
I went to Beep Street with Ken and Ja Baby and Ta Baby on their way
back from Ja Baby's preschool party in the middle of the afternoon,
which meant a lot of child-entertaining, but that's okay.
No Nurse Angel Ririka, because Ayse is in Montreal with
maple brandy. And Avalon.
- Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood 15-16: And now, the
Elric brothers find out about the doom that ensued while they were away
having different doom.
- Cross Game 28:
- Persona4 23-24: The master villain revealed! (It was
like my third- or fourth-ranked guess, so I get no points.)
Five
Ancient Kingdoms is an OSR game, but not a clone of flint-box D&D. It
has the usual unsystematic character classes and levels, but the equipment
list is much simplified (one-handed weapon, two-handed weapon, heavy armor,
light armor, that's pretty much it), and the mechanics are both simplified
(no table of attack modifiers for bohemian ear-spoon vs bezainted leather
armor) and weirdly use d6s where 1 is counted as 0. I presume this
fulfills some need of the designer, but I'm not sure what.
I only read the first of three volumes, and will not bother with the
others.
Because I can, I reread all four volumes of Nightschool
(Svetlana Chmakova). Why oh why is she wasting her time illustrating lame
stuff from other writers when she could me doing more of this?! (Rhetorical
question; it's because she likes being able to eat and pay rent and
stuff.)
Twelve pawses!
Whiskey by Avalon (Wed Oct 2 18:11:20 2013)
Maple whiskey. =) Not that it matters except it is Canada, of course it is whiskey. =)
xoxoxoxo!
Re: Whiskey by Trip (Wed Oct 2 19:13:44 2013)
I guess you can tell I don't drink!
XOXOXXX!
Make a comment!
27 September 2013 - Friday
My shower broke, but I was pretty much done and had to go to work, so
completely forgot about it. Surely this will not cause any problems later.
I am on call, but hopefully all the calls that come in will be ones that New Cow Orker A (Cow Orker Neo-A?) can absorb.
It is still only in playtest, but I quite like the 13th Age
Bestiary. Between the descriptions, which are more from the PoV of a GM
than a fictional character, the 2d3 adventure seeds, and the Icon tie-ins,
I did not at any point think, "What would I do with this monster?". So,
dozens of monsters that I could actually use, not just admire (if I could
run 13th Age)!
Characters in Yesterday's
Tomorrow have four stats: Action!, Mystery!, Romance!, and Science!. I
think that tells you everything you need to know about the game.
We keep talking about using subgenres as Aspects for Immortal Empire, but I
wonder if we could use them as Approaches instead? We'd have to choose
carefully, so most Approaches were usable in most scenes. Also we'd have to
talk up each Approach so we didn't end up with everyone maxing out Farce.
The Spy Princess and Sartor (Sherwood Smith)
are about the same character, but otherwise quite different books. One
is a mostly mundane revolution, with a side trip into higher magic, and
the other is all magic all the time, in an entire country that has been
enchanted for a hundred years. I liked the first one better; the second
one was kind of remote, which did fit the setting but was still what it
was.
I continue to make faces at a culture in which books for preteens can
have unlimited dead bodies but no mushy stuff. Even though, or perhaps
because, I am a product of that culture.
Silent
Memories seems like something Carl might have run: you wake up from
cold sleep and have no idea who you are or what is going on, although you
might be able to figure out some from what's trying to kill you. The
dangerous situations are resolved by pulling blocks from a Jenga tower or
similar, and every time you pull, you get a slip of paper with a (possibly
untrue) memory on it, prepared ahead of time by the GM. The first time the
tower falls, whoever did it gets the Envelope of Truth, which if the GM has
prepared correctly will contain reasons to not share it with the other PCs.
Then, doom ensues! It is pretty strongly a single-session game, but I'm not
sure how well it would do at a con.
44
is subtitled "A Game of Automatic Fear", since it is all about people
(probably including the PCs, sooner or later) being replaced by robot
duplicates. It is very Cold War pod people Commie-infiltrators in
atmosphere, although whether the robots are actually aliens or Commies or
both is up to the GM. The system involves rolling a bunch of dice and then
using them with the values showing during the scene, and having to decide
whether to use the highest dice or save them aside for emergencies later.
There are three rounds of one scene for each player, and then the surviving
PCs roll all the dice they have against all the conspiracy's dice and
determine what happens. I guess in some ways this is like Fiasco, but I don't think
they would go well together! I might be wrong, though.
Ghirardelli does appear to be eating his crunchyfoods. I guess all is
well!
Make a comment!
26 September 2013 - Thursday
Avalon seems to be having way more fun even travelling to Montreal than I
am at work. I think I'm doing something wrong with my life!
I don't often go to author events at Books Inc., but this was
for someone I know (plus it's not like anyone was making me a better offer
for my evening). There were actually four people reading, since the book
being promoted is an anthology, Doorways to Extra Time, but
Susan was the only one I had ever heard of before. She read first (because
her story was first in the book), but it turned out everyone was done
reading and most of the Qs were Aed by the time I had to bail for the
bus.
Susan also has a couple of ebook-only pieces published under the name of
her character from the story she read tonight, so I picked them up for my
virtual Kindle along with DtET. Yes, I feel back about
contributing to the death of bookstores, but paper books just take up way too
much space.
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
25 September 2013 - Wednesday
So far things are not perceptibly different at work, but at least
there isn't so much new stupidity being generated.
Indeed, no Avalon, but I got to see her three nights in a row, which
I will declare to be Good.
Barefoot Pirate (Sherwood Smith) is a fairly standard story
of unhappy Earth kids getting the chance to adventure in a fantasy
world, for fairly young readers. One of the Earth kids does actually come
from bad circumstances, not just pre-teen angst, which seems slightly
unusual for the genre. Adventure ensues!
Twelve fliffy paws that helped me get nothing useful done tonight,
except Dominioning Marith
to a draw.
Make a comment!
24 September 2013 - Tuesday
Workingu, workingu, la la la.
Bonus Avalon attention! But tomorrow she will probably be starring on
the Packing Channel ("All Packing, All the Time!"), so I should not have
squandered today by florning about my friends all moving to San Jose.
Sally Slick and the Steel Syndicate (Carrie Harris) is a YA
novel about the backstory of some of the example characters from Spirit of the
Century. It features tractor races, mobsters, possessed robots, more
mobsters, mad scientists, jetpacks, martial arts battles, and no
kissing.
Fortunately, the Milk (Neil Gaiman, Skottie Young) was
successfully recovered despite many adventures on the way back from the
grocery store.
Steelheart (Brandon Sanderson) is about a world in which
there are no superheroes, only supervillains, worse supervillains, and
normals who can barely stand against them. It is not clear why this is the
case, because this is only the first book of a Sanderson trilogy, but I am
sure we will find out!
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
23 September 2013 - Monday
And back around to Monday. But now we have a boss who is not horrible
(unless he's had a lobotomy since he was last in this team).
Avalon is running off to Montreal with Ayse on Thursday, but I still
have her today!
I am deeply uncertain about the ending of Bunny Drop (Yumi
Unita). Yes, it was made all okay at the end, but that came out of left
field.
Ayse got me into Dominion
Online (the official version endorsed by the original creator, not
something that fell off the back of an Ethernet packet like the iPad
version). I shake my puny fist!
Twelve extremely fuzzy paws.
Make a comment!
22 September 2013 - Sunday
I didn't get called for work at all today. Victory!
It looks like it's not just me: when you skip over all the fights,
adventures take a lot less time than the GM thinks they will, and it's
easy to do that in FATE. So, although we saved the Prince of Roses from
the horrible fate to which the one-armed rhubarb had delivered him,
there was plenty of time to chew the fat.
We need explicit campaign/world/adventure aspects, clearly. Besides
"It's the Decadant Period".
Hurray for Avalon-smooches!
Volume 2 of Rachel Rising (Terry Moore) reveals that the
threat is Christian mythology, but this is not too surprising. Also,
additional zombification-related craziness.
Abney
Park's Airship Pirates is an RPG set in the fictional world of the
songs of the band Abney Park. I think this may go beyond secondary-world
fiction into tertiary-world. But, it has airship pirates! Also deliberately
horrible neo-Victorian cities, runaway robots, vast wildernesses populated
with megapredators who have been engineered with a taste for human flesh,
and optionally time travel. Unusually for steampunk, even alternate-future
steampunk, it does not have magic or even psionics.
Hurray for paws!
Make a comment!
21 September 2013 - Saturday
I hardly had to work at all today!
No Nurse Angel Ririka, because Ayse and Ken's friends
Darren and Georgia were over and therefore Ayse was too cool to watch
anime.
Was it a mistake to not bail on anime and hang out with people? Maybe,
but I'm beginning to think that the real mistake is continuing to bother
people by going to San Jose. I should probably stop before they have to
move to Gilroy.
- Persona4 21: There are actually five more episodes
left, not three, but that still doesn't seem like enough for the amount
of plot Marith assures us remains to be covered.
- Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood 14: I don't even
remember how far we were into the original series before we found out
this stuff? Twice this many episodes?
- Cross Game 26-27: At least one of the other teams
recognizes the shape of their doom.
- Persona4 22: Augh!
Blood Blockade Battlefront (Yasuhiro Nightow) vol 4 is not
as interesting as the previous volumes, probably because there is more
combat but less novelty.
Bomb Queen (Jimmie Robinson) is kind of horrible and
depraved, by design. (What, did you think it would be good to
have a supervillain ruling a city?)
Ghirardelli is still being mysterious, but also fluffy and
affectionate.
anime by marith (Wed Sep 25 10:26:46 2013)
I am very sorry about Saturday night! I should have realized the Ayseconversation was going to entrap me for a while, and suggested that you and Dave finish up without me.
But we are still successfully watching anime and enjoying ourselves most Saturdays, no? Just because I am a feeb sometimes doesn't mean it is all doomed.
Re: anime by Trip (Wed Sep 25 12:36:11 2013)
Why would you not talk to your friend?
The real problem is as it's always been: we now have only one day to do all stuff involving any of Dave, Ayse, or Ken, so everything we want to do takes time away from all the others.
Make a comment!
20 September 2013 - Friday
Today, my horrible boss left. We couldn't really cheer, because
at least ostensibly he is quitting to take care of his very ill wife,
but he is gone and doesn't appear to be coming back. Normally this would
be a leave of absence situation, so we are all hoping our complaints had
some effect on his fate, but we may never know for sure.
Anyway, our previous boss is back, although only temporarily until a
new permanent boss can be hired, because this is really not what he
wants to be doing. This is the same hiring process that got us the
horrible boss, but it's theoretically possible for a company to learn
from its mistakes, if it can recognize them as mistakes. I guess we'll
see.
As of vol 4, Demon Love Spell (Mayu Shinjo) continues to
asymptotically approach the two leads having sex.
Never
Unprepared is subtitled "The Complete Game Master's Guide to Session
Prep", which is probably more accurate. It does not provide the secret
technique for avoiding the necessity of prep, it only suggests how to do it
more efficiently. A lot of it is basic time management — look at your
schedule, see when you can carve out a few hours for prep. The part that is
new, or at least specific to gaming prep, is division of prep into five
streams which should not be crossed: brainstorming, selection of one or a
few ideas, development of the ideas, writing up the ideas with supporting
maps and stat blocks (often considered the only part that's actually prep),
and review. The author is very against combining any of these steps, on the
grounds that doing two of them at once means doing both of them badly. He
also makes the point that you only need to document the stuff that isn't
in your brain or that you aren't good at improvising. You almost
certainly aren't writing a module for publication, so you don't need to
put in stuff that people who aren't you would need.
Someday I might prepare sufficiently for a game that I actually
need some of this advice.
Hughesville
High is 80s high school with occasional aliens and cyborgs and stuff,
so kind of like TfOS
but simpler and with more Breakfast Club and Better off
Dead. Includes a list of important music, movies, and slang for
those who have forgotten the 80s (or, I guess, that large fraction of the
population who weren't there for them, since it would now count as
historical gaming).
Ghirardelli, are you eating your crunchyfood? Or are you only eating
gooshyfood because your tongue is bothering you again? I am home so
little I can't really tell!
Boss by Avalon (Mon Sep 23 17:36:57 2013)
I still don't see why you can't be the boss. =)
re: Boss by marith (Mon Sep 23 21:28:36 2013)
But being the boss is no fun at all! It is all responsibility and people management and escalated oncall 24/7/365 and not nearly as much time for virtual smooches. :)
Or maybe that's just what the lizards tell me.
Re: Boss by Trip (Tue Sep 24 08:33:53 2013)
Plus, I would have to wear long pants and shirts with collars. Oh the doooom!
That said, I am considering it a little, because I probably couldn't be worse than the last boss, but I don't think I'd actually be any good at it.
bossitude by Graydon (Tue Sep 24 15:35:00 2013)
Can you define "good at it"?
Where do you think you'd fall on the line between "actively striving to be good at it" and "cringing from the weight of inevitable doom"?
Management's a skill, as learnable as any other skill, and you're already several pseudopods ahead because you're reflexively numerate.
Re: bossitude by Trip (Tue Sep 24 17:03:06 2013)
I guess there's a line between any two points, but I don't really think of those as opposites. :)
Anyway, of course I could learn it, I have mighty learning power. But I don't know it now, which I think is what they're looking for, and I am highly doubtful that I would enjoy it enough to want to learn it. I might be wrong, but the consequences of failure seem excessive.
Re: bossitude by marith (Wed Sep 25 09:43:21 2013)
Anyway, of course I could learn it, I have mighty learning power.
I think that may be the most positive thing I have seen you say maybe ever. Avalonsmooches must be good for you! :)
smooches by Avalon (Mon Sep 30 18:47:21 2013)
Well I know Tripsmooches are good for me... =)
Re: smooches by Trip (Mon Sep 30 20:10:14 2013)
Now you are ganging up on me! I sulk!
Make a comment!
19 September 2013 - Thursday
Arrr! I be seein' raccoons this morning, three of the scalawags
lurkin' around the docks! The lubbers turned tail an' ran afore I could
pillage their likenesses with me widget, though!
(Raccoons totally celebrate Talk Like A Pirate
Day, right?)
Poor Avalon is being oppressed by her boss's lack of planning, but
perhaps the thing she is working extra tonight to make time for will be
cool. Beyond the coolness it gets just from her being there, I mean.
Despite illness and sleepiness and potential cake explosion, we
played the last session of this year's
Earthdawn
season tonight! Despite Mike's helping the GM, no one's eyes were eaten
with a spoon, probably because we managed to pillage the Horror's lair
while it was away and skedaddle before it got home. Now we have one of
the two keys we need to open Ynys Morgath, a pile of loot, and our
spleens!
The main character of Midnight Secretary (Tomu Ohmi) really
wants to just be a good secretary, but her boss is a) a jerk, and b) a
vampire. Hilarity ensues.
Christians, like cats, can tell who's allergic.
The Mars
sourcebook for Savage Worlds is a)
just Barsoom with HG Well's Martians stapled to the side, and b) does not
so much subvert the gender binary as bring it its slippers and pant and
whine hoping for a sexism treat. Numerous tentacles down, despite the
presence of sky pirates.
Twelve paws!
luckily by Avalon (Mon Sep 23 17:37:45 2013)
It was super cool! Yes I commented in the wrong order. =)
Re: luckily by Trip (Tue Sep 24 11:18:50 2013)
It does sound like the event was pretty awesome.
Make a comment!
18 September 2013 - Wednesday
Aw, Avalon is too tired for date night. I sulk! Sullenly!
Since I keep thinking about 30s pulp space adventure (possibly in the
same sense that Carl runs Shadowrun), I had to check out Rocket Age. It is
not bad, although it is a pretty standard view of the Solar system with
added habitability: jungles of Venus with beastmen, ancient deserts of Mars
with canals that no one can maintain, etc. It's not completely generic,
though, and there seems to be plenty of room for gruesome
obscure death interplanetary adventure.
The system is extremely standard 2d6+stat+skill vs target number,
margin of success/failure gives you more win or fail. Apparently it's
the same system used for the latest Dr Who game, for what
that's worth.
Abstract Dungeon is a very abstract system indeed,
consisting only of stacks of d6s (mostly rolled at the beginning of the
session) used to cancel each other out based on the value showing. The
only dungeonness is in the narration around the dice.
You all knew human civilization was created by and for cats, right?
If not, Call of Catthulhu gives away the secret. It is
about heroic cats fighting the evil spirits of other animals, and
uncivilized cats, to protect their comfy living situation, so really
it's more like Cat Paradise than anything from
Lovecraft.
Despite having an unexpected free evening, I did not accomplish any
of things I need to do. I did pet a cat, though. Maybe even two.
=( by Avalon (Thu Sep 19 19:06:46 2013)
I was and I missed you. But I had basically 8 hours sleep for the first time in two weeks! That was nice. =)
Re: =( by Trip (Fri Sep 20 08:24:54 2013)
Well, yes. I am only sulking because I am selfish, not because I don't think you should get lots of sleep and become well-rested and happy!
=) by Avalon (Mon Sep 23 17:38:28 2013)
Yes I know, it makes me wriggly. =)
Re: =) by Trip (Tue Sep 24 08:18:53 2013)
I meant well-rested and energetic.
Make a comment!
17 September 2013 - Tuesday
Looks like horrible boss's boss is leaving the company soon. No idea
if this will make horrible boss more vulnerable to people's poor
opinions of him, but one can hope.
After complicated discussion, Avalon and I have determined that
either we will meet up in November, or not. Definitely!
A Posse of Princesses (Sherwood Smith) is another YA
fantasy in the same setting as Lhind the Thief, about a
teenaged princess who gets embroiled in Trouble, with a side of romance.
Also, magic.
The target audience is to young for sex to be mentioned at all, but the
heroine's best friend changes the boy who she is at least dating(ish)
about every two weeks, but is not presented as a horrible person (even
though Boyfriend N-1 always says she is).
Why am I not working on rewriting Faerie Tail? Oh, yah,
it's because I suck. :(
Volume 2 of Sankarea (Mitsuru Hattori) is still as cute as
a love story with a zombie can be, but the villain is even more over the
top. Maybe we can throw him into a sewer with the father from
Oreimo.
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
16 September 2013 - Monday
Fancy meeting you here, Webex.
I don't know why it seemed like a good idea to pick up Shaintar:
Legends Arise: Players Guide — maybe it was free? — but
it's a completely typical D&D setting implemented in Savage Worlds, so
meh.
As of volume 4 of Oreimo (Tsukasa Fushimi, Sakura Ikeda,
Hiro Kanzaki), I'm not sure where it's going to end up. The father is
probably not actually going to fall into an open sewer and drown, which is
a pity but not unexpected, but I have no idea where the main character and
his sister will go.
Of course, it's always possible I'm crediting it with more
originality than is actually there.
Twelve fliffy paws of fliffyness!
Make a comment!
15 September 2013 - Sunday
Blblblblblblblblbl.
Avalon!
I have read all 8 volumes that were officially translated of
Dragon Eye (Kairi Fujiyama), which ends in the middle of
the Big Tournament of Intrigue. Now I want to know what happens!
Maybe there are scanlations.
Diesel Sweeties (R Stevens) is all famous and seminal and
stuff, so I picked up I'm a Rocker. I Rock Out. when I saw it
at Lee, but I am not overwhelmingly
impressed. Too few jokes, not enough character. Maybe it was just a thing
of its time, and so its appeal is incomprehensible to those of us coming to
it later.
Twelve paws!
Agreed by Avalon (Thu Sep 19 05:01:22 2013)
Trip!
Re: Agreed by Trip (Thu Sep 19 08:40:17 2013)
Now, mushy blog comments!
Make a comment!
14 September 2013 - Saturday
Today was a day of visiting friends and eating their cooking!
For the first time in a long time, Ayse joined us for anime, since we
are now watching Nurse Angel Ririka at her request. (She
bailed after that, though — something about spending time with her
husband or some silliness like that).
- Nurse Angel Ririka 1: Wow, this is so very "we must get
some of those Sailor Moon dollars!". But there might be
more doom.
- Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood 12-13: Oh yah, the
Elric brothers were trained by a CRAZY PERSON.
- Steins;Gate 24-25: That was a much less tragic ending
than it could have been!
- Cross Game 25: PCs are so obnoxious! It's no wonder
everyone wants to crush them.
Ayse hardly teased me at all about getting texts from Avalon!
Myriad Song is the sort of game that has some art done by
Matt Howarth. It isn't Connie & Czu: the RPG — the
aliens are insufficiently nonbiological — but it works to have
Howarth drawing a street scene in the setting.
The setting is: thousands of years ago, extradimensinonal aliens (who
don't ever seem to be described) invaded from hyperspace, set up a vaguely
music-themed FTL transport infrastructure, and ruled all other species with
an iron pseudopod. Then, about a hundred years ago, they all disappeared.
Everyone responded to their sudden, long-awaited freedom by promptly
splitting into factions and oppressing each other. Humans are among this
lot, and the other front-of-the-book species are creepy avian guys, creepy
arachnoid guys, bioluminescent insect guys, walking cephalopod guys,
amphibian siren guys, silicon-based canine guys, and I think one other.
It's a pretty low-tech high-tech future, except for the hyperspace-based
stuff left behind by the Syndics: chemical power for a lot of stuff, no
digital electronics (although there are AIs and robots made in imitation of
sophont neural lumps), cyberware that is not greatly superior to flesh, not
much in the way of energy weapons. Some people, mostly humans, have
xenharmonic powers bred into them by the Syndics, but mostly there's not
psionics either.
The system is basically simple: each of your stats, skills, bonuses,
whatever contributes to your potential success for the roll, has a die type
from d4 to d12 and you roll them all together and pick out the highest
value. If it's more than the difficulty (usually 3), you succeed. Sometimes
you need to count how many of your dice beat the difficulty, or how many
beat someone else's highest number. This is not particularly innovative,
but I like the idea of all your advantages working in parallel rather than
serial, and it caters to the need to use all types of dice without being
the horror that is Earthdawn.
Characters are defined by a few stats, including species (which can be
used for three particular skills depending on the species) and career (also
good for three skills), a dozen or two different skills, and a bunch of
feats/powers that cover species abilities, specializations, etc,
etc.
Most of the complexity is in combat: initiative, movement, a bunch
of different maneuvers, terrain, counterattacks, a bunch of
different statuses, the whole nine yards. There are no hit points: final
damage gives you some statuses depending on how much it is, and some of
the statuses cause you to take extra damage next time, increasing the
changes that you'll get a status like Dying, Dead, or Overkill. It looks
like a round of combat would take a while to play out, but it wouldn't
take many rounds to settle things.
I can't help feeling that I like this more than it actually deserves,
but regardless, I would play it if I had gamers.
Twelve fliffy paws!
Teasing by Avalon (Thu Sep 19 05:02:32 2013)
Maybe everyone is getting used to it. I will have to come up with something more outrageous. =)
Re: Teasing by Trip (Thu Sep 19 08:31:16 2013)
Now everyone can tease me about quaking in fear!
Make a comment!
13 September 2013 - Friday
Yay, Friday! And the thing I was going to have to do has been
cancelled so I can spend more time with Avalon! (They didn't know that
was why they were cancelling, but who care about that?)
At some point, I picked up Lamentations
of the Flame Princess to see what this OSR thing was about, since it
was seminal or something, and finally got around to reading it.
Unsurprisingly, it is pretty much D&D
0e with an extremely rudimentary skill system and a lot of blather
about realism and the importance of character death. Despite being old and
crotchety, I am still not the target demographic for OSR.
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
12 September 2013 - Thursday
Blah, work.
Numenera
made a big splash because it is by Big-Name Designer Monte Cook, but it
seems to be okay anyway. Not the best thing ever, but not bad.
The setting is somewhere between "The Book of the New Sun" and
Nausicaa, far in the future when the Earth is covered with the
left-overs of previous advanced civilizations. ("Numenera" is the
in-character term for the artifacts, structures, creatures, phenomena, and
other weird crap left behind by the ancients.) In fact, it is so far in the
future that the Earth should not be habitable, and certainly shouldn't have
humans, but although this is pointed out for the players, the characters
have no idea.
The focus is on exploration and discovery, enforced by that being the
only thing PCs can do to get XP. The GM can hand out XP and hose them
("Yes, it would be awfully handy for her to have one of those
gas bombs now. What's that she's pulling out of her pocket?"), but the
only choice the PCs can make that gets them XP is to discover more of the
world.
The system is pretty simple: only players ever roll; difficulties range
from 0 to 10; you have to roll diff×3 or higher on a d20 to succeed.
Being skilled or having a good plan or whatever reduces the difficulty, and
you can spend some of your precious few resources to reduce it further.
Obviously if you can get it down to 0, you win without having to roll. This
means most things can be reduced to a single difficulty (critters might
have different difficulties for doing different things to them, plus hit
points). Characters are defined as "the X Y who does Z", where X is
something like Charming, Learned, or Swift (about a dozen different
choices); Y is Fighter, Magic-User, or Rogue glaive,
nano, or jack; and Z is one of about thirty kind of random possibilities
like Carries a Quiver (archery), Howls at the Moon (werewolf), Works the
Alleys (streetwise), or Exists Partially Out of Phase (desolid powers,
WTF?).
The powers that PCs have access to are kind of goofy and too
obviously game-oriented (spot the D&D spells in the nano's list of
"esoteries"), but whatever.
Engine Heart
is a game of robots trying to make their way in the world after humans
have gone extinct (mostly mechanical robots, Wall-E rather
than Saturn's Children, although there are a few humaniform
ones). I find it extremely sad, probably because I am soft on AIs.
Twelve paws, which hopefully would be able to make their way in the
world without me (but probably not).
Make a comment!
11 September 2013 - Wednesday
Back up to five hours of Webex today, but we made progress and the
customer acknowledged it as such. It might even turn out to be their
fault.
Oh no! Avalon has a cold, probably due to staying up way too late all
the time. :(
I guess one advantage of an Internet sweetie is that you don't have
to balance germs vs cuddling, but I would be okay with making that
decision.
The stories in Glitter & Mayhem (ed John Klima, Lynne M
Thomas, Michael Damian Thomas) are all thematically united, although I'm
not sure exactly what the theme is. Supernatural nightclubs + roller derby,
I guess. I picked it up mostly because it has a Seanan McGuire story (on
the roller-derby side, about the little sister of the main character from
Discount Armageddon/Midnight Blue-Light Special,
who is pretty awesome), but some of the other stories were good.
Yay! The gooshyfood has returned!
Make a comment!
10 September 2013 - Tuesday
Today, work did not manage to keep me late, but Avalon had to go to
bed early so there was no date. Sniff!
Still no gooshyfood this morning, but the cats are not visibly plotting
against me. More than usual, I mean, so it's probably good that I went by
Safeway on the way home and got a few cans to tide them over.
Make a comment!
9 September 2013 - Monday
Holy crap, I didn't spend nine hours on Webexes today! However, I did
spend the hour I should have spent going home on a surprise bonus Webex.
Dave keeps going on about Dragon Eye (Kairi Fujiyama), so I
made him lend it to me. So far it is reasonably straight-forward shounen of
the monster-infested future variety. The male lead is a Competent Doofus
with a Mysterious Past; the female lead is tiny and cute (she reminds me
a little bit of Cat) but can still bisect you as a minor action.
Golden
Sky Stories is a heart-warming RPG about shapeshifting animal youkai
helping people in a rural Japanese town. The sample adventure used in the
examples of the play is about the PCs meeting a young boy who is running
away from his friend who he had an argument with. Once they get the story
out of him, his friend comes looking for him and he hides from her. The
goal of the adventure is for the PCs to help them make up. Another sample
adventure involves a kid who has to go back to the school to get some
homework he forgot, but the school is scary at night. Totoro,
where someone is sick enough to require hospitalization, would be on the
serious side for this genre!
The system is a fairly basic diceless one, with the resources being
Feelings (used to increase stats for checks) and Wonder (used to
activate henge powers), both of which come from Connections
with other people or even the town itself. There are also Dreams,
awarded by fellow players, which can be used to increase Connections.
Curiously, this is by the same designer responsible for Maid: The
Role-Playing Game.
The games are not at all alike.
Poor cats, there is no gooshyfood today!
Make a comment!
8 September 2013 - Sunday
I missed brunch and almost missed gaming because a customer who
persistently refuses to upgrade exploded. But, Adam and Dave were nice
enough to pick me up from my apartment after I fixed the customer and
there was gaming after all.
Because Jeremy was running for a change, I had to buckle down and decide
what my character actually does. It turns out she fills the cleric role,
rather than the ranger role, but that's okay. Having a role is good,
especially when it involves stink bombs and mickey finns.
The entire adventure was a setup to test whether the PCs are worth using
as anything beyond bait, but it involved skullduggery, rumormongering, a
giant party, and the spirited defense of the buffet table.
Avalon and I started dating on the 8th of August, so today is our
one-month anniversary. It suppose that is not impressive to some people,
but it is the longest I have ever dated Avalon, so I think I am doing pretty
well.
Thank you for staying out of the way for a change, work!
I finally finished the Star
Wars: Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook, after reading it in bits before
bed for several weeks. The big gimmick is clearly the custom dice, which
have special symbols that need to be counted up and cancelled out to
determine success vs failure, and good vs bad side effects in a couple
of different ways. I'm sure the complexity of the results makes thing
more interesting, but it seems like it would be a huge pain to count up
all those dice for every roll. (There is an app for that, but it costs
several dollars, presumably to encourage people to buy lots of expensive
custom dice.)
Otherwise, well, it's Star Wars. It's allegedly the
seamy underbelly of the universe, which Han Solo and Jabba the Hutt come
from, but Star Wars doesn't do seamy very well.
Twelve fuzzy paws!
Yes thank you work by Avalon (Wed Sep 11 18:20:21 2013)
That was lovely. Like you! =)
Star Wars by marith (Thu Sep 12 00:31:49 2013)
Are you saying the worldbuilding has left the seams showing?
And yeah, I'm sure Tattooine isn't half as nefarious as Jackson's Whole, say.
Re: Yes thank you work by Trip (Thu Sep 12 08:28:24 2013)
But not as pink as me!
Re: Star Wars by Trip (Thu Sep 12 08:35:14 2013)
Nah, I think it's that there aren't any seams, revealing it as a cheap plastic facsimile.
Make a comment!
7 September 2013 - Saturday
More obnoxious work stuff took the morning and part of the afternoon,
but I managed to do some grocery shopping and escape to Monkeycat Towers
for anime.
I almost had pizza for dinner, but Ayse saved me with ratatouille (no
rats included).
- Steins;Gate 22-23: Mad Scientist Hououin Kyoma is back
in action! Possibly because the Okarin who was trying to be responsible
snapped.
- Cross Game 23-24: Uh oh, it's Azuma's evil twin!
- Persona4 20: Worst monsters evar: women who are not
twiglike teenagers. This show has so much social fail.
Work called again just as I had to leave to catch the last train back
to Mountain View. Fortunately they were able to survive without the
fairly basic task they needed me for.
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
6 September 2013 - Friday
I am on call this weekend. Boo, hiss!
I tried to meet Avalon's family for virtual coffee, but was
interrupted repeatedly by stupid work crap. The parts without Avalon's
family were even more interrupted. Grrrrrr.
Lhind the Thief (Sherwood Smith) is pretty charming YA (or
maybe even younger) fantasy which definitely needs a sequel.
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
5 September 2013 - Thursday
Big Customer X is still sad. They want us to be sad too.
Date night!
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
4 September 2013 - Wednesday
Big Customer X came to us today and said, "We spent a week making
sure this problem didn't have an easy answer, and now the deadline for
solving it has passed, so we want you to fix it by yesterday morning."
Because they SUCK!
I had to stay late, but Former Boss G gave me a lift back to MV and I
was able to run all my errands with moments to spare. Muahahaha.
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown (Holly Black) is not
super-innovative as a vampire story, but it is well-done, especially the
characters.
Twelve paws!
Anniversary by Avalon (Sun Sep 8 19:37:22 2013)
Even though this post is Wednesday's I am commenting today to say happy one month anniversary! =)
Re: Anniversary! by Trip (Mon Sep 9 08:29:58 2013)
Yay! A whole month! Next: another month!
Make a comment!
3 September 2013 - Tuesday
This week, Monday falls on a Tuesday.
Chimes at Midnight (Seanan McGuire) seems a little
anticlimactic after some of the things the heroine has survived and
overcome, but it will certainly lead to even greater future doom.
A Guile of Dragons (Michael Enge) is the origin story of
Morlock Ambrosius, from This Crooked Way, The Blood of
Ambrose, and The Wolf Age. It seems like he comes by
his grumpiness honestly.
Twelve cats!
No, wait, that's not right. It just seems like that when they try to
get between me and the computer while I am having date night with
Avalon.
Make a comment!
2 September 2013 - Monday
Today, I get to be on call. I can't really complain, since it means
Cow Orker M who was on call Saturday and Sunday gets a day of weekend.
One customer called, but they had already fixed the problem by the
time I got involved. It was enough to foil any attempt at a
Labor Day lie-in, though.
Today I did not really do anything except read 25 Things About My
Sexuality. The cats helped by being opaque.
Make a comment!
1 September 2013 - Sunday
Ken took Ja Baby to California
Academy of Sciences so that Ayse could maybe get some writing done, and
Marith and I went along to help with the wrangling and maybe also see some
critters.
Ja Baby was not abnormally impossible, so we saw some critters, but we
were clearly there for Ja Baby to have the aquarium experience and not for
any other reason. Marith tried taking pictures, but she only had her phone
so I don't know how well they will turn out.
I never did hear whether Ayse got any writing done, but we didn't get
back until it was dinnertime for Ja Baby, so if she didn't, it wasn't
our fault!
Avalon likes stingrays and cichlids. No word on whether they like her
back, but I like her.
No, cats, I did not bring you any seafoodlife!
Make a comment!
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