Rick Jones' Journal

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Threes and Gaming
One: Car needed new tires.

Two: Roman cut his ear on something. There was a lot of blood to clean up. But he's been to the emergency vet and is now wearing a cone that he clearly hates. But he'll be fine.

Three: The pipe that leads from the AC's drip pan to outside was partially plugged up. It overflowed. I learned this when I went back to the kitchen with a fistfull of paper towels to throw away and saw water dripping out of a nail hole (the previous owners had something hanging on the wall). The kicker is that, for some reason, AC repair folk are hard to schedule during the summer in Houston. So they won't be able to fix it until tomorrow. And then I've got to get someone to look at the sheetrock and see if it's gotta go or not.

Glad this sort of thing doesn't happen in fours. (Knocks wood)

The Great Gaming Reorg continues. The google spreadsheet has 16 possible RPGs pitched. Sadly, none of my pitches are in the top. On the other hand, I think the top of the heap games sound like a heck of a lot of fun, so there's that. I do think having many games in rotation is going to require a different sort of playstyle. So much of gaming is about the long term, but this will require focusing on having the awesome show up right now, as opposed to the slow burn.

The Force Unleashed (Wii version)
I have to return the game today and didn't get a chance to finish it, so this is based on my incomplete play-through.

Plusses: It's got a very visceral "you are a Jedi and your lightsaber is the one Bad Mother F***er written on it" feel to it. You're swinging the wiimote and cool lightsaber stuff happens. You gesture (with the nunchuk) and you are picking stuff up with the Force and throwing it at people. The interface is simple enough, even for all the different combos for different attacks. It's got the feel of the SW universe (and visits to familiar haunts) but also some totally new worlds. The familiar characters (Darth Vader and the Emperor, plus Bail and Leia Organa and some of the EU folks who helped found the rebellion) are very familiar. And I like the new characters as well (Starkiller, Juno Eclipse and PROXY).

Minuses: It is pretty much just a fighting game. Not until the very end do you have any choices. It's "fight your way to the Level Boss" with some resource collection so you can get upgrades between missions. There's not even different ways to beat the levels. You have to beat up the enemy - no "ninja" ways to finish without attracting lots of attention.

Mixed: Depends on if you like playing the bad guy or not. Starkiller (aka "Vader's Secret Apprentice" is a Sith and generally spouts off a lot of anti-Jedi bile. The upside is that you are working for Darth Vader and you can use Force Lightning. The downside is that, because the game is so linear, the only chance you get to choose between good and evil is at beginning of the endgame. Accordingly, Starkiller is a bit of a jerk throughout the movie - killing informants, force choking anyone who gets him mad, etc.

the morning report
Reading: Back into the Star Wars Legacy of the Force novels. I think the part I'm enjoying the most is that everyone seems to be on different sides and (except for the Sith faction) there's not a clear map of "this side is right and that side is wrong." Now, once [SPOILER]'s fall to the Dark Side (all done with the best of intentions) is complete, we will get the clear "ah, we are supposed to shoot THESE GUYS." But for now, I'm enjoying the ambiguity. (Also, it's cool to see Leia as a badass Jedi.) I do wish we'd get a peek inside Luminya's head to see what parts of her schpiel are what she believes and what parts are her playing her new apprentice like a rented drum.

Watching: Mostly True Blood, with some Jack-safe videos when he's about. I'm liking the show, though I suspect that if there was an "Adventures of Sam and Tara" spinoff, I'd say goodbye to Sookie and Bill.

Gaming: We rented The Force Unleashed (Wii version) from Blockbuster to give game rental a try. Quite a workout, I must say. Most of the games we've got (with the exceptions of Wii Fit and Wii Sports) don't use much of the motion sensing technology. Yes, I could wave the wiimote around in some of the Lego games, but that duplicates button mashing. That's not the case with TFU. If you want to swing a lightsaber, you've gotta wave the Wiimote, and lots of the force powers require movement of the nunckuk. It's something of a workout. (Which may say something about my general physical condition.) We also played in the 3.5 D&D game last Tuesday (and I'll be missing tomorrow's game). We're also plotting a re-org of the Tuesday crew (splitting our too-big group of 10ish into 2 smaller groups). Right now, the "what do we play" polling looks like clear victories for Shadowrun (4th) and Pulp Hero (5th). Falling behind them are a homebrew Gamma World (forged out of 3.5), d20 Modern/Call of Cthulhu and Buffy.

Creative: Not so much. I worked on pitches for the Tuesday Game Reorg. I doodled a little. That's about it.

stuff that I've been doing
Reading: I finished the Kitty Norville books. Fun and mostly light werewolf fiction in a post-Masquerade-breaking worlld. (In fact, Kitty was largely responsible for this.) I have to say that I like the term "The Long Game" for the long-term power plays that vampires engage in. Also been re-reading some Vampire The Requiem sourcebooks.

Gaming: Still doing 3.5 D&D. Next level is Shades, I think. Oh, and a Deck of Wonders (which is like a Deck of Many things, but more awesome) as the fabulous door prize. I continue to have GM ADD and haven't really worked on any ideas since the last time. Not even sure I want to run something. In terms of Computer RPGs, I started Vampire: The Masqueade - Bloodlines again, this time making a tough as nails Brujah that likes to hit things with a fire axe. So far, I've done 2 out of 3 of the quests that had stymied my Toreador.

Watching: Didn't see Transformers. Jack and his mom saw that. I'll have to hear what he thought about it. Kat and I have been watch the Dresden Files on DVD. OMG, if the first set of episodes had had as much magical FX as Storm Front did, I think the show would have done lots better. (Interestingly enough, Storm Front is the pilot, but they held it back and did a second edit with clips from other episodes as flashback material and much better special effects. We also watch the first 2 episodes of True Blood Season One. (Oh, and why the smeg does HBO insist on putting so few episodes per disc? Carnivalle was the same way and it's irritating for the Netflix user.) So far so good. I have to confess, from reading just the back covers, I never got why Sookie (who's telepathic) would be interested in a vampire (whose thoughts she can't read). But the show (and I assume the books too) explained why she is so captivated by Bill the vampire - it's because for once it's quiet.

Creative: Done lots of doodling last week. Not much writing.

Son of the Podiatrist of Games I Want To Run (Part Three)
I've come to a realization over the past couple of days. I really don't want to run all those campaigns so much as I want to either write a story in those settings or just PLAY in those games (which is like writing a story in that setting without all the pesky work of writing the story down). I don't think I wanted to run Star Wars so much as I wanted to PLAY A JEDI. Or I didn't want to run World of Darkness so much as I wanted to write a story set in the WoD. And so on and so on down the line of ideas. A lot of the GamerMaster advice I've heard over the years is to write the kind of game you'd want to play in. I think that perhaps the advice is not exactly true. I mean, obviously one should like the campaign they're working on, but there's got to be something more there. Not sure what, exactly.

So, where does that lead me? Well, I've slowly but surely been working on what I guess is Star Wars fanfic. A lot of Writerly Advice I've read is that you have to write a lot of crap before you actually learn to write well. I agree. So I've been working on ideas that either I can't sell (because I don't own the IP) or are so infinitely impossible that there's no possible way it could actually become something salable (a movie script - because writing for Hollywood appears to be even more cutthroat that prose).

ever have one of those....
Ever have one of those realizations that is simultaneously "I'm a genius" for solving a problem and "I'm an idiot" for not seeing it for so long?

Just sayin'.

Tonight is D&D 3.5, where The Order Of The Basement bravely assaults the lair of some aboleths. We are all around 12th level, and only ONE of the group does not cast spells (me, fyi). We literally had to make a spreadsheet to properly categorize all the buff spells we're throwing up prior to the fight. At least in Champions, you only need the spreadsheet for character creation - not during play. Of course, part of the problem is that there are 8 characters, seven of them pre-casting buff spells. But there is a huge incentive to multi-class into a spellcasting class. (I wonder what the results would be if divine spellcasters had their own "Prayer Books" - where they could only cast spells that you've learned.)

Save Me From My Gamer ADD
Gamer thoughts whiplashing around all over the place....

( So what happens if you Embrace a Jedi? )

Great Games I Want to Run
Side note: If this support person I'm trying to wring warranty replacements out of gets any slower, the space time continuum will collapse and time will reverse.

( Gamer ADD, AHOY!!! )

Great Games I Have Run
Rather than further indulge my Game-Master ADD, I'm going to borrow from

tfbretz and talk about games I ran.

( No really, I have dice older than you )

I saw a werewolf with a Chinese Menu in his hand....
Aside: Fanboys is an awesome movie. It's not just about four buddies making a road trip across the country so they can break into Skywalker Ranch to see Phantom Menace before anyone else. It's about friendship and deciding what's really important in your life. Also, if you enjoy cameos, it's got Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Ray Park, Danny Trejo, Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes, and William Effing Shater. (Oh, and it's got Ethan Slurpee playing Harry Knowles.)

But that's not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about Werewolves. Specifically Werewolf The Forsaken. I totally loved working on that game. While I feel like I'm patting myself on the back by saying it (even though I had nothing to do with the design decisions), I felt like WTF stripped out the stuff I wasn't wild about in Wt Apocalypse, and kept the awesome. (There are bits I miss, but they wouldn't fit in the new WTF.) I just flipped through (virtually) some of my WTF work and now I really want to run it. (It's got its hooks in me more than the Space Opera game or Star Wars or 4E.) (Cue

drelmo saying he doesn't want to play a sandbox game in 3... 2... 1...) I'm even tempted to futz with the setting a little, stripping out the "Tribes of the Moon" (or dropping their importance, aside from the TotM / Pure Tribes schism) so it's completely focused on the pack level.

What is Werewolf the Forsaken? They're beat cops in the city's most dangerous neighborhood. Except instead of badges and guns they can turn into giant hairy monsters and instead of gangs, they bust inhuman spirit monsters. Of course, they, in turn, are also criminals. Not just because of the random violence they leave in their wake, but because like a gang, they have territory and if they're not careful, another pack of werewolves will kick their asses and take their land. (If they're lucky, they'll just get their asses kicked - there's also a holy war between two factions of werewolves, with all the badness that a holy war can bring you.) I'm probably doing a cruddy job of selling it, but it's an awesome game that I wish I could run.

plans for world domination
First off, it's a real mind frak when you realize that so many of one's neuroses actually all tie together into one big ball of wibbly wobbly freaky deaky... stuff. That is all I shall share, but it does mean that a lot of my brain is now going into the "okay, now what do you do with that?" mode.

Secondly, Red Dwarf is good for the soul when the brain wishes to lock up in a spiral of neuroses.

Thirdly, I finally found something on the net I'd been wishing for for years and years. It's at www.yougamers.com. One simply selects a game from their list and, after running a java program, it will tell you if your computer can handle a game or not. After some experimentation, I've discovered that while my system is not nearly as out of date as I'd thought, my graphics card gets pointed at and mocked by the Game-o-meter.

Fourthly, my local Borders had a copy of the 4E Eberron Players Guide. Holy shemole, I want to play an Artificer so bad I can taste it. Not sure of the race, but considering there's a paragon path that lets you turn yourself into a magitech cyborg, how can one possibly go wrong? In terms of the flavor of their spells, it certainly brings the awesome.

Fifthly, additionally, I also am feeling the need to run Eberron, with the players acting as Mystery Men in Sharn. A member of our group ran something similar with 3.5 and some house-ruled "super-powers". I've lurved Eberron since it came out, but haven't felt like I could DM it until now.

SF Setting Notes
The Star Wars game didn't get much interest, but there is vague interest in doing non-Star Wars Space Opera. So here's some jumbled notes/thoughts for capture and critique.

( A long time from now, in this galaxy... )

Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.
Not exactly sure what's been causing it, but I've felt very busy lately, even if I haven't gotten much done.

Reading: I was helping

ciaracat go through a few shopping bags of

nicoleallee's paperbacks in order to filter out the ones that might actually be worth something on eBay. In the process, I snagged the Kitty Norville books. I had seen them in the bookstore but had passed them based on, well, the titles "Kitty and the [blah blah blah]" and my burnout on urban fantasy many moons ago. I blew through the first book in a day. The premise is that Kitty Norville is a late night DJ and werewolf in a world that is just on the edge of the Masquerade dissolving. A chance call-in one night leads to her show becoming an advice show for supernaturals and the humans who love them. Interesting times ensue.

Watching: We watched the Wonder Woman direct to DVD movie. I liked it quite a bit. Nathan Fillion is a real scene stealer as the voice of Steve Trevor. Pretty good stuff. We also saw Pixar's "UP" which is as awesome as folks say it is.

Gaming: Still playing Hollow Earth Expeditions. It's oodles of fun, though a bit more lethal than I like my pulp. I pulled my Star Wars game from our group's schedule due to general lack of enthusiasm. I'm wondering what I could possibly run for our group. The two big problems are finding games that handle a fluctuating player group (we have around 6-10 players, depending on various scheduling factors like jobs, kids, school, etc) and finding a system/setting that everyone will go for. (For instance, Champions would fail both qualifications because it'd be nigh-impossible to run with 10 PCs and because some of the group really doesn't go for supers.) I might consider scrubbing out the Star Wars ideas, create a new space opera setting, and see if that sells. Also, I've got an idea for a 4E Eberron game that'd be entirely city-based adventuring in Sharn. But I'm not sure that those would go over any better. Anyway, it certain is less work for me to not run something.

we are living in the future
Project Natal for Xbox. Controller-free gaming. Click the demo video. I realize that it'll be well over a year before it's out, but DANG.

gotta get your head in the game, gotta gotta get your head in the game
Yes, I have finally seen High School Musical. I survived it, the way I do with many musicals, by mocking it in badwrong ways. Ways that would move MST3K into the deep deep waters of NC-17. In spite of that, Kat still puts up with me.

Thanks for the suggestions. I probably should have added a couple of limiting parameters. Firstly, it couldn't be an expensive hobby, since money is tight. Secondly, I'm thinking it needs to be something away from a computer. But seriously, thanks to all.

Ruts
I am in a rut. I crave a new thing to light my imagination on fire and give me something new to do.

So, suggest something new for me to try.

Yes, I am being deliberately vague so as to cast as wide a net as possible.

life or an incredible facsimile
Been busy, and yet not. I suspect that the wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff may be in flux.

Reading: Still in Legacy of the Force. It's interesting to see the way [SPOILER] falls from Jedi to Sith. I find it most amusing that [SPOILER] sees (via a Force Vision) Anakin's fall and gets all "well, that would never happen to me" and "what a whiney git". It's also entertaining to see Boba Fett and Han still being bad-ass in their 60s. (Granted, I figure medical tech is advanced enough to stretch out their lifespans a bit, but the mileage is starting to show on them.) Also, it's always cool to see Leia being a badass Jedi.

Gaming: We tried Hollow Earth Expeditions.

tfbretz is running a fun game, and once we get used to the system, I think it'll be even more fun. There's already Nazis, dinosaurs and lost Conquistadors. My Australian cowboy (based on Hugh Jackman's character in Australia) is fun on a stick, and I can't wait for a chance to break a dinosaur like a bronco.

Watching: We went to see Night at the Museum 2. Jack loved it, and I thought it was pretty entertaining. It's nothing deep, and there's quite a bit of "just go with it, man". But there was loads of fun to be had with all the animated exhibits, now upgraded to animated paintings and photographs.

I also saw, thanks to hulu.com, the pilot for a new show on Fox coming out this fall: Glee. It's a light comedy/drama set in a small town high school, focusing on the kids in the glee club and the teacher. It's really all about embracing your inner geek and following your bliss instead of the expectations of others. And there's singing and dancing, including a Glee-Club-ized version of Amy Winehouse's Rehab. But the show stole my heart with the kids singing Journey's Don't Stop Believing. You can see the musical numbers on YouTube and buy the music on iTunes. For Heroes fans, there's a big cast crossover. It's got Meredith (the Firestarter), Charley (the girl Hiro fell in love with in Season One) and Bob Bishop (the transmuter / head of The Company). It's very broad comedy, but not slapstick. Check it out.