Origins Award Winner
The 34th annual Origins Awards were presented by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design on June 28, 2008 during the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio. And Hobby Games: The 100 Best was presented the award for Non-Fiction Publication of the Year for 2007.
Linkages:
http://www.originsgamefair.com/aagad
http://www.flamesrising.com/origins-recap/
http://www.critical-hits.com/2008/06/28/34th-annual-origins-awards-winners/
Posted in Games on June 29, 2008 by Jesse
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Goth elf (D&D 4th Edition)
I got a chance to test drive (er, playtest) a cleric in Robin Laws’s 4th edition D&D game tonight. I can’t say too much about the game (NDAs and all, despite the game being shipped early and torrented all over the goddamn place), and if you’re up on your 4e, you certainly know more than I do, but this is what I know:
It was a helluva exciting time.
Now, we didn’t get very far. The sessions are short, there’s a TON of cross-referencing the books to figure out which power does what exactly, and some members of the group (myself included) are too quick to kibbitz about non-game stuff.
But playing my elf (Xerxes, natch), a “battle priest,” cleric of the Raven Queen (goddess of death, winter and fate, I believe), was pretty damn cool. I got to carry around a big-ass morningstar, had a bunch of options every round of combat - both attack and healing - and felt like a core, but not necessarily essential, part of the group.
I may just be parroting all the buzzwords and talking points I’ve picked up about D&D 4 over the last six months, but my first and last impressions were:
It was D&D.
And it was fun.
Oh, and Robin is as fiendish a DM here as he is with any other game!
Posted in Games on May 29, 2008 by Jesse
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Smurf Club
It’s been a long while since I’ve updated. It’s been a crazy and incredibly busy and difficult winter, but now that the snow is gone (it seems dumb to type that on April 20, yet I’m /still/ not convinced we’re out of the woods yet), things are starting to feel a bit more positive. I feel like I’m getting a bit more done (and I don’t just mean completing a song on Guitar Hero III).
SMURF CLUB
Work is getting very busy, and will continue to be so for the next few months. Unfortunately, I can’t talk about what I’m working on. Our codename is Smurf Club, and it’s going to be really really cool. At the moment it’s research, playtesting, and drafting various internal documents. But you’ll just have to wait until I can say more. “The first rule of Smurf Club…”
SCRIPT NEWS
In other news, Dev and I have finished the 2nd draft of our Western Horror script. (OK, that’s a lie, we have about 12 words in one scene that we’re still kicking at, but otherwise…). The second draft was a lot harder to do than I figured it would be. But it feels great to have pushed through. It was harder for a number of reasons, including:
* The worst enemy of the second draft is the first draft. (I think Goldman said that, though it might have been someone more recent. Regardless, it’s bloody true).
* The parts that we glossed over in our original outline, that we said “oh, we’ll just go with this for now and fix it later,” Yeah, those sucked. Giant roadblocks that forced us to grind to a halt for long sections. I swear we did 6 to 12 passes on one nasty scene in particular.
* Both of us suddenly having full time jobs and lots of things going on in our personal lives. Funny that…
* Corollary to the last, just having enough time to hang out together, watch movies, shoot the shit…all the stuff that is needed to fuel the writing process (though it can also be detrimental to it, if one overindulges). On that note, I finally saw 3:10 to Yuma. Um. It was OK. Not as bad as I feared, with a couple of nice scenes. But to say it’s the “best Western since Unforgiven” seems disingenuous at best.
But overall it was a great process and I’m very happy with the end result. At least, I think I am. Right now I’m in the zone of “God I can’t stand looking at this bloody thing anymore,” but I suspect after I’ve had a short break I’ll enjoy it again.
Now we just need to figure out what to do with the bloody thing…
Posted in Games, Writing on April 20, 2008 by Jesse
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Actor Looking For Work. Can Run With Crossbow.
Came across this last week on Dead Things on Sticks, a great blog by a Canadian TV writer.
They received it as a sort of actor’s resume, from Billy MacLellan. It’s pretty awesome as resumes go:
I am avail for work on The Border if you have a character that needs to…
-run with a loaded crossbow
-cock a shotgun with one hand
-uppercut a punk-ass onto a banquet table or into a large bowl of punch
-rollerblade chase through the streets of San Fran
-hang offa that part of a helicopter, ya know, that part. (not the propeller)
-Oh! Rescue a girl from train tracks. (No one does that anymore)
-Put quarters on my bent elbow and then catch them with the same hand. ( I think that I saw the Fonz do that one)
-Wrangle a wild stagecoach.
-Headbutt a Scottish guy. (or girl)
-Sing to a kid that is stuck in a drain. (H2O, not sewer)
-Cut the blue wire. (Hold on…)
-Cut the RED wire.
-Get kids outta a trapped bus, submerged in a pool.
-Jump offa a building because the alien in me is too powerful.
-Swim under water that is on fire.
-Ride on the top of an elevator.
-Hurdle over a German soldier to take out the tower with the live grenade around my neck.
-Oh. And I once played Tommy Djelias in The Music Man.
Much love,
Billy Mac
Heh. It was posted here, if you’d like to see the source.
I wonder if we can go back and add in a girl tied to the train tracks in the Western Horror script…Never even considered that one!
Posted in Link Blog, TV on by Jesse
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Gaming the Election
Robin Laws has a great piece today on the idea of treating the US primaries as a strategy game, and how Hillary’s people may have misread the rules.
So you know the Clinton campaign strategy of ceding most of the February contests to Obama and then dealing him knockout punches in the big states of Texas and Ohio? Problem is, the very complicated rules in Texas do not remotely favor this. Plain ordinary proportional delegate allocation would make it very difficult, but the weighting of districts according to past support for Democratic candidates renders it nigh impossible. When did Clinton strategists figure this out? A month ago.
…
If I were a Democratic primary voter in one of the upcoming contests, this blunder of nuts-and-bolts detail would weigh heavily on my decision.Especially in a candidacy predicated on being ready on day one, it would have been helpful to also be ready on day -346.
Interesting that Texas is suddenly so important. It’s nice, isn’t it, that one year Florida is key, then Ohio, now Texas has a turn…(sigh). Not sure why they have the make the rules so bloody complex. This ain’t Champions after all.*
I don’t have a lot to add other than I’m pleased so far with the leading candidates…on both sides of the spectrum. Oh, they all have their issues, and I’m sure we’re still in for a rough ride…but damn change will be good.
I need to figure out how to vote as an ex-pat once again…during the 2004 election my last residence had been in Boston (which was like throwing my vote into a sea of blue), although now that my last US residence was in Texas, I suspect it will be like throwing it into a red sea. Whaddya gonna do?
* I love the guys at Hero Games, and kudos to Steve, Darren, et. al. on the big news.
Posted in Current Events, Games on February 19, 2008 by Jesse
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Big Smoke Stories…Best in Show
Toronto. Friday night, cold but bearable, around midnight.
I was walking my aged dog down our street at the top of the block, watching for icy patches and guiding her around the snowbanks. At nearly 13, my malamute ain’t what she used to be. While she still has decent endurance for the winter, arthritis and muscle weakness have wiped out any sure-footedness she might once have had.
I had my hat pulled low, my hood pulled up, and was listening to Flogging Molly on the iPod. Our neighborhood is ok, but not great. The street we live in is generally quiet, older houses and older families, but the main drag one street south can be a bit rough and dodgy at times. I try to pay attention late at night, but was a bit startled to catch a maroon mini-van suddenly pacing us, watching us from the other side of the snowbanks.
Suddenly the passenger window rolls down and a hispanic dude - some kind of north of the border, suburbanite cholo - sticks his face out and says something to me. I can’t hear him, so I yank out my headphones and ask him to repeat himself.
“Are you breeding the dog?” he shouts out.
“Uh, no,” I reply, a little off-guard.
“You sure, man? It’s a beautiful dog.”
“Yes, yes I’m sure. Thank you, but she’s an old girl now.”
All this time we’re still walking, the van is still pacing us. Now the passenger door slides open, and another dude in the back leans out to check us out. He asks if she’s a pure breed, and then they roll up the windows and shut the doors and roll on down the street.
It was all very odd. We had just been propositioned like some kind of long-retired strippers, or grandmas-nee-street walkers. And the punk kids in the mini-van looking for a dog to stud or breed in the middle of the night. All very odd.
Posted in General on February 16, 2008 by Jesse
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GenCon files Chapter 11
From the GenCon site:
SEATTLE (February 15, 2008) Gen Con LLC announced today that it has filed for Chapter 11 protection in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the State of Washington. This action became necessary as a result of significant unforeseen expenses associated with attempts to expand its core business to encompass externally licensed events. Gen Con’s flagship show, Gen Con Indy, remains a vibrant, profitable event. Gen Con Indy will take place as scheduled August 14–17, 2008, in Indianapolis, Indiana.
The protections afforded by Chapter 11 will allow Gen Con to further its efforts to address its liquidity needs, preserve value for its creditors and explore strategic alternatives for the business. “Because the fundamentals of our business are strong; and because our debt problems are challenges mostly linked to one-time events, we feel confident that the profile of our company will benefit under Chapter 11 and come out strong in the end,” said Peter D. Adkison, CEO of Gen Con.
Chapter 11 refers to the section of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code that provides for court-supervised restructuring of companies as they continue to operate normally. This proceeding is intended to help companies to become stronger financially.
Gen Con LLC will continue to operate without interruption during this process and looks forward to an expeditious resolution to the short-term challenges and the ability to focus entirely on producing Gen Con Indy, The Best Four Days in Gaming. International Gen Con events are unaffected by this situation and will continue to operate as scheduled.
All of which is a little concerning, but not too terribly troubling. Peter is a smart guy, and he has lots of people who are going to make sure he gets through this intact - people who love GenCon, and have made it part of their lives by making it an annual ritual. It’s a tremendous business opportunity for anyone in - or interested in - the industry. And the increase in computer gaming over the last few years only increases its long-term viability.
In case you are wondering what they are referring to in the press release by the “externally licensed events,” dollars to donuts it’s the Star Wars Celebration show. A few days ago news broke that Lucas was suing GenCon. My pal, the punk-hacker bastard Adam Jury, talks about it here.
It’s unfortunate that GenCon LLC hasn’t been successful with the SoCal show, and now with the Star Wars Celebrations (though maybe that has as much to do with the property being corrupted lo this past decade). But I think the Indy show will continue to grow - and it should be a blast this year. Doing my best to figure a way to get there…
Posted in Current Events, Games on February 15, 2008 by Jesse
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Mysterious Turbulence
I heard about Flight 190 on the drive home from work today. The first report was very odd. Something like:
“Flight 190 out of Victoria to Toronto was forced to make an emergency landing in Calgary after several passengers were critically injured on the flight.”
No explanation of what caused the injuries - mechanical, turbulence, crazy violence, space aliens, nothing. It was very odd. Almost immediately after they started filling in details: people were injured but nothing life threatening; it wasn’t mechanical, no it was, no it wasn’t; the plane was shaken by a jolt that threw some passengers into the ceiling…
“It happened really fast. One side of the plane went up sort of sideways and then came back down,” one passenger told CBC News.
She said she saw her friend, who was among those taken to the hospital, “fly up” and hit the ceiling.
“All of a sudden there were three big drops,” said passenger Andrew Evans. “I was in the very, very front seat of the plane and was watching dishes fly through the air.
…but in those first few moments it seemed like a tremendous thriller.
What if you started a story with:
- a plane forced off its flight path,
- landing in a foreign city,
- radioing for emergency medical assistance,
- a number of critical injured passengers and/or crew,
…and no one could tell you what the hell happened. Could lead somewhere interesting…
Update:
The 10 o’clock news tonight suggests it was likely nothing but turbulence. A type of violent high wind that only occurs in the upper atmosphere where jets cruise at their top altitudes, and that are very hard to detect. They had an image of a field of antennas, a type of “wind profile radar,” but it’s either one-of-a-kind or very rare. Interesting.
Posted in Current Events, Writing on January 10, 2008 by Jesse
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Corpse used to cash cheque
Great story from yesterday’s NY Times.
Corpse Wheeled to Check-Cashing Store Leads to 2 Arrests
By BRUCE LAMBERT and CHRISTINE HAUSER
Even for the once-notorious Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, it may have been a first: Two men were arrested on Tuesday after pushing a corpse, seated in an office chair, along the sidewalk to a check-cashing store to cash the dead man’s Social Security check, the police said.When Virgilio Cintron, 66, died at his apartment at 436 West 52nd Street recently, his roommate and a friend saw an opportunity to cash his $355 check, the police said.
…
The roommate, James P. O’Hare, and his friend, David J. Dalaia, both 65 and unemployed, placed Mr. Cintron’s body in the chair and wheeled it around the corner, south along Ninth Avenue on Tuesday afternoon, the police said. The men parked the chair with the corpse in front of Pay-O-Matic at 763 Ninth Avenue, a check-cashing business that Mr. Cintron had patronized.They went inside to present the check, but a clerk said Mr. Cintron would have to cash it himself, and asked where he was, the police said.
“He is outside,” Mr. O’Hare said, indicating the body in the chair, according to Mr. Browne.
The two men started to bring the chair inside, but it was too late.
The full article.
I really don’t have anything to add about it.
Posted in Current Events, Underbelly on by Jesse
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Lurching into 08
Evidently my super-secret plans to update this pseudo-blog over the holidays were far too secret, even for me. Plus ça change…
However, I came up with an idea for a short story that I need to flesh out. The “project title” is Groundhog Day, which isn’t a working title and has nothing to do with Bill Murray. But it’s a touchstone for me to remember my idea. Consider it a code-name.
This gives me a third or fourth story in queue. I did a very rough draft of a cute little modern fable last year during a long vacation, and also outlined two other stories of a similar nature. Not sure the outlines will hold up to scrutiny, but feels good to have a few ideas down. Of course, none of that has been fully developed since I’m still working on the second draft of the Western Horror Script (with Dev).
After the Western Horror I have a Modern Fable Script that needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. I think between them I may try to develop these short stories and see if I can do anything useful with ‘em.
In other news, work goes well. I’m in the middle of two giant projects, playing co-pilot on one and game designer on the other. Both should be interesting but face big challenges and are top-secret for now.
While I figure out if I can really get behind this blog thinger, if you haven’t, you should check out:
• Gameplaywright by the awesome duo of Jeff Tidball and Will Hindmarch (and apparently guests. Wonder what I have to do to guest-blog for ‘em. Probably write more regularly than I currently do….)
• Robin Laws wrote an interesting essay on the role and function of denouements in RPGs.
• And apropos of nothing (except that I’m starting realize how much I want Guitar Hero 3 to tide me over until Rock Band comes out for the Wii), check out Best Buy Bodhisttva by Julian Murdoch. I don’t know this dude, but I may have to check out more of his writing.
Posted in Current Events, Writing on January 8, 2008 by Jesse
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