Saturday, February 17, 2007
Fantasy Doesn't Always Mean Escape
An idea that has been rolling around in my brain for a while now, something that I have talked about to gaming friends and mentioned on places like RPGnet has been a game setting that I have called Gutterpunk.
There has been a bit of resistance in the minds of some "typical" gamers when I talk about Gutterpunk because it doesn't have any of the standard trappings that you would find in an RPG. The characters are very normal people. There are no "kewl powerz" of any sort, no magic or anything. The game is about people who manage to find themselves in fairly crappy situations and have to deal with these situations as best as they can. The resolutions to their situations aren't always all that good either. Like I said, not your standard RPG fare, but it was something that I went into realizing that whis wasn't going to be the next D&D. I know that this game will have a fairly limited appeal, but I don't want to let that stop me from doing it.
Mind you, this isn't some "art for art's sake" game either. I can't stand when people do that with any sort of endeavor that they undertake.
The characters in Gutterpunk are, as I said above, normal. They are squatters, dropouts, homeless people, and the working poor who are just trying to get by in their lives and keep things from falling apart. It is a game about people outside of the normal social structures of American society, whether by choice or circumstance, who just want to live their lives as best as they can. I'm sure that this sounds pretty boring, huh?
But I think that I have finally found a system that would support what I want to do with Gutterpunk. That would be Chad Underkoffler's Prose Descriptive (PDQ) System. Follow that link to Chad's company site (Atomic Sock Monkey Press) for more information about the system. You can even find a free stripped down version of the game in the Freebies section.
What I like about Chad's system is that it can allow you to make normal people who can do something without having to have a lot of special powers in order to be unique and to be able to accomplish something. Yes, it does at time perhaps flirt with those "narrative" labels that I really don't like but for a game like Gutterpunk I think that it would be a good system choice. Yet again, it gives a way for "normal" characters to be able to stand out and do something without having to have a laundry list of powers, spells or special abilities.
I want to be able to tell other types of stories with the players during a game session, and play other types of games. "Escape" isn't something that is only one option which is fulfilled the exact same way for everyone at the gaming table (or in the gaming hobby). So, if I want a game to fill that On The Road meets Fight Club niche that I am looking for from time to time, Gutterpunk will be able to do that for me. That's why I called this post Fantasy Doesn't Always Mean Escape, because there can be more to an RPG than just pure escapism, just like there can be for any other form of entertainment. I'm pretty sure that there are a few people out there who have some similar ideas to mine on this topic.
Part of the reason why I posted these very early "design notes" here instead of someplace like RPGnet is because I wanted to pull some of the concepts that have been swirling around in my subconscious without the typical responses of "That doesn't sound like fun" or "That isn't escape." Who knows, I might cross-post this elsewhere but for now I want to see what, if anything, comes up from the people who read this blog (regularly or irregularly).
Post a comment and let me know what you think. Let me know what you would do with a game like this.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
A Princeton Lab on ESP Plans to Close Its Doors - New York Times
Over almost three decades, a small laboratory at Princeton University managed to embarrass university administrators, outrage Nobel laureates, entice the support of philanthropists and make headlines around the world with its efforts to prove that thoughts can alter the course of events.But at the end of the month, the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory, or PEAR, will close, not because of controversy but because, its founder says, it is time.
The laboratory has conducted studies on extrasensory perception and telekinesis from its cramped quarters in the basement of the university’s engineering building since 1979. Its equipment is aging, its finances dwindling.
“For 28 years, we’ve done what we wanted to do, and there’s no reason to stay and generate more of the same data,” said the laboratory’s founder, Robert G. Jahn, 76, former dean of Princeton’s engineering school and an emeritus professor. “If people don’t believe us after all the results we’ve produced, then they never will.”
Princeton made no official comment.
The gaming potential alone for this occurrence is pretty phenomenal. Where do all of these researchers and the accumulated knowledge go to? I am sure that there are corporations and shadowy organizations and individuals who would want to get a hold of the knowledge and researchers.
Obviously this information, like any other, can be used for either good or ill.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Doctor Who and the French Dalek
Imagine a mash-up of Doctor Who and Monty Python. Of course, if you click on this link you don't need to imagine it.
The Grand Gaming Library
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Dave's Funky Setting Generator, v 0.1
Dave's Funky Setting Generator, v 0.1
Here's what I got when I clicked on the link:
Premise: Rebellious transhumanists uncover a shocking conspiracy in the furthest reaches of the Astral Plane.
Genre: Crime/Pulp
Thursday, January 11, 2007
The Binary Death of Robert Anton Wilson
RAW Data: RAW Essence
Robert Anton Wilson Defies Medical Experts and leaves his body @4:50 AM on binary date 01/11.
All Hail Eris!
Saturday, December 30, 2006
The Stars Are Right Again!!
Hopefully this will give Chaosium a much needed push in the market.
[TMP] Unspeakable Oath Reanimating for 2007
Skirmisher Publishing LLC is excited to announce that it is partnering with Pagan Publishing to resurrect The Unspeakable Oath, a leading periodical devoted to various manifestations of Lovecraftian horror in games, books, and films.
The Unspeakable Oath was last published in 2001, and the partnership will resurrect it in summer 2007 as an annual digest, containing top-notch articles, scenarios, and support material for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu, Pagan's Delta Green campaign setting, Skirmisher's Cthulhu Live, and more.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
BBC moves to file-sharing sites
Time will tell the impact that this decision has.
BBC moves to file-sharing sites
Hundreds of episodes of BBC programmes will be made available on a file-sharing network for the first time, the corporation has announced.
The move follows a deal between the commercial arm of the organisation, BBC Worldwide, and technology firm Azureus.
The agreement means that users of Azureus' Zudeo software in the US can download titles such as Little Britain.
Until now, most BBC programmes found on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks have been illegal copies.
Beth Clearfield, vice president of program management and digital media at BBC Worldwide, said that the agreement was part of a drive to reach the largest audience possible.
'We are very excited to partner with Azureus and make our content available through this revolutionary distribution model,' she said.
Dorkland Participates: The Carl Sagan-Blog-A-Thon
Fans and bloggers are planning a worldwide blog-a-thon to commemorate the life and legacy of Carl Sagan -- consummate scientist, communicator and educator -- on Dec. 20, the 10th anniversary of his death. Sagan was Cornell's David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences.
Ten years ago bone marrow disease took one of the great popularizers of science from the world. Cosmos was an incredible television series that had a great impact on me in my youth.
"We are poised at the edge of forever." -- Dr. Carl Sagan
Today, on the anniversary of his death the blogosphere is saluting Dr. Sagan with the Carl Sagan Blog-A-Thon. Perhaps a chain of billions and billions of blogs will honor his memory.
Finding a copy of Cosmos on DVD is well worth the effort of tracking it down. The book is great too. My copy of the book has seen great use and wear throughout the years.
Dr. Sagan, I hope that your travels through the Cosmos are still as enlightening now as they were when you were here with us on Earth.
You can find the blog of Nick Sagan, Dr. Sagan's son, here.
On Google Video you can also find a NASA video of a 1972 panel on extraterrestrial life that features Sagan.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Cartoons inspire cosplay restaurant
Cartoons inspire cosplay restaurant
The only cartoon-themed restaurants that I've eaten at have been at theme parks and the only memorable one was Marvel Mania at Universal Studios, Hollywood. It has since closed down (probably because the food wasn't that great), but it was kind of entertaining to have Spidey hanging out at the dinner table. Perhaps drawing inspiration from that one selling point - that it is fun to sit with the characters - from such themed restaurants, a new cartoon-themed restaurant has opened up in Toronto that takes the theme further.
iMaid Cafe is a cosplay restaurant, which basically means that all the staff members are dressed in costumes and play a certain role. In this particular case, that role is of a maid from Japanese anime cartoons. 'I call them maids not waitresses,' said 24-year old Aaron Wang, the owner of the restaurant who is originally from Beijing. 'They smile a lot and they are cute. I want somebody cute like the characters from cartoons -- big eyes, long hair and young.'
[via Boing Boing]
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Light the Sky: A Comic Book in Progress /// Version 5.0: Fatally Yours
Light the Sky: A Comic Book in Progress
Martin Nodell -- RIP
It's a shame how the comic industry ends up treating its own in the end. Siegel and Shuster. Dave Cockrum. William Messner-Loeb. Jack Kirby. Martin Nodell.
He will be missed, but somewhere there is an engineer lighting his way with an emerald lantern that brings life, then death, and the power.
Martin Nodell -- RIP
Martin Nodell, the artist co-creator of Green Lantern, died this morning less than a month after his 91st birthday. I'm afraid I have no further details other than that Marty had been in poor health lately.
Marty was born 11/15/15 in Philadelphia. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago and later, Pratt Institute in New York. It was in New York that he began working as a freelance artist, in or around 1938. He soon started freelancing for several comic book companies that either didn't pay or didn't pay well. As he later told the story, he got tired of being stiffed by the smaller firms and decided to make an all-out effort to break into the majors. He called at the offices of the biggest publisher, DC Comics, and was told they were full up but that there might be work at an affiliated company, All American. The editor there was Sheldon Mayer.
Mayer gave him a little work. When Nodell asked what it would take to get steady assignments, Mayer, who was looking for a new feature for the company's signature title, All-American Comics, told him to come up with a character. Nodell returned a few days later with sketches and the germ cell of a strip called Green Lantern. He said the idea had come to him on the subway when he saw a man waving — you guessed it — a green lantern. Nodell also said he wrote and drew the first few pages of the first story...but he wasn't a writer so Mayer brought in one of comics' top writers, Bill Finger, to rewrite and finish the first tale. The result was that Green Lantern, by Bill Finger and 'Mart Dellon,' debuted in All-American Comics #16, cover dated July of 1940. The character, which drew inspiration from the legend of Aladdin, was an immediate hit on the magnitude of the firm's other new superstars, The Flash and Wonder Woman, and soon received his own comic. (The All-American company was later absorbed by DC Comics. A new version of Green Lantern was created in 1959 and that version remains popular today, though the original Nodell incarnation has also been known to reappear.)
The Graphic Work of Lien-Cooper, Greenlee and Howe
Panel2Panel.com
I will probably be posting more webcomics as I come across them through this site.
Edit: Be sure to check out No Stereotypes too. Pretty good stuff.
Georgia Erases 519 Places Off the Map
Georgia Erases 519 Places Off the Map
Poetry Tulip has vanished. So have Between and Climax. Cloudland and Roosterville are gone, too.
A total of 519 communities have been erased from the newest version of Georgia's official map, victims of too few people and too many letters of type.
Georgia's Department of Transportation, which drew the new map, said that the goal was to make it clearer and less cluttered and that many of the dropped communities were mere 'placeholders,' generally with fewer than 2,500 people. Some are unincorporated and so small they are not even recognized by the Census Bureau.
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Your Mom's Basement: GALACTUS IS COMING!
Your Mom's Basement: GALACTUS IS COMING!
YMB's crack investigative team has unearthed the long rumored, but never confirmed, collaboration from 1983 between Marvel's Chairman Emeritus Stan Lee and religious comic tract creator Jack Chick.
Long out of print and now only infrequently stumbled upon in the odd truck stop bathroom (as all good religious witnessing tracts should be) YMB is now able to present to you 'Galactus is Coming!'
Monday, November 20, 2006
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Sausages affected by draconian trade laws
Sausages affected by draconian trade laws
A SPICY sausage known as the Welsh Dragon will have to be renamed after trading standards’ officers warned the manufacturers that they could face prosecution because it does not contain dragon.
R.I.P. Jack Williamson
Jack Williamson
Jack Williamson has been in the forefront of science fiction since his first published story in 1928. Williamson is the acclaimed author of such trailblazing science fiction as The Humanoids and The Legion of Time. The Oxford English Dictionary credits Williamson with inventing the terms 'genetic engineering' (in Dragon's Island) and 'terraforming' (in Seetee Ship). His seminal novel Darker Than You Think was a landmark speculation on the nature of shape-changing.
Jack Williamson died Friday 10th November at his home in Portales, New Mexico.
Williams was 98 at the time of his death.
No Magic Fantasy and Keeping The Fantastic
These conversations represent my thoughts coming together on the matter. It seems that some can't grasp the concept of fantasy without magic.
And, since I've mentioned it in both discussions, this Wikipedia entry sums up some of what I am interested in within this genre of the fantastic.
No Magic Fantasy and Keeping The Fantastic
I'm going to start this out by saying something that won't come as a big surprise to some: I'm not a big fan of fantasy literature. Sure, I've made my attempts at reading Tolkien, Jordan, and so many others that are out there but most of them have just not sparked my interest. There have been a few fantasy writers that I've liked over the years, but they tend to be sword and sorcery writers like Moorcock, Leiber and Howard. I guess that I just liked their energy a lot better. Because of this disinterest I got out of fantasy gaming round about 87 or, except for a couple of one shots back in college and a rather long run as a player in a D&D 3.0 game a couple of years back. The stuff just doesn't really get me going in a way that makes me want to run or play in a fantasy game for any long period of time.
I'm stating that so that we all have a baseline for the conversation here. This isn't going to be a 'let's talk Chris into liking fantasy literature' discussion.
However, recently (do to my buying up some old RQ3 stuff online...most of which I am still waiting to arrive) I've been eyeing putting together a fantasy game to run. Obviously I want something that will interest me as a gamer and a GM, which means that the heroic fantasy stuff is straight out. What I am interested in is something that has a very strong fantastic element to it, but without being the 'stereotypical' fantasy stuff that I am really not as interested in going into. Obviously, from the title of this thread, I am looking to run something with no magic in it. Period. No spell casters, no clerics with healing magic...none of that. I do want there to be elements of the fantastic in there, however. I want bizarre non-humans who are different from elves and dwarves, and who are more than just the familiar tropes and conventions dressed up in new clothing.
I want a world that is dangerous, strange and more than a little dark around the edges *but* at the same time I want the the heroes (the PCs) to be grand and larger than life. They are heroes who kick ass and take names, but at the same time there are grander threats to them out there in the larger world. But I don't want those threats to be so overwhelming that there is no chance of the PCs being able to achieve victory over these threads. I want mythic and fantastic, but without the usual trappings of magic that populate most fantasy games and books.
Please, comment and let me know what you think.
Edit: Here's an interesting blog post that was mentioned in the RPGnet thread.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Johnny Cash: God's Gonna Cut You Down
Not even death can stop Johnny Cash. And, Johnny Depp is everywhere.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Man arrested for strangling woman he met through suicide website
Man arrested for strangling woman he met through suicide website
An unemployed man was arrested Wednesday for strangling a woman he had got acquainted with through a suicide website, police said.
[via Warren Ellis]
Vertigo First Issues for Download
Dorkland reccomends: DMZ, Doom Patrol, Transmetropolitan and Hellblazer. It wouldn't be worth the efort to reccomend either Sandman or Swamp Thing. Those are just givens.
Vertigo First Issues for Download
Now you can read the full first issues of the many Vertigo series that revolutionized comics! Follow the links below to download a PDF version of the first issue of these classic Vertigo series now collected in graphic novel form. When you visit the Graphic Novels section of VertigoComics.com, any graphic novel titles with a #1 icon (#1) will have a download of the ground-breaking first issue!
Runequest III: Here, There and Everywhere
I've been spending the last few months working at tracking down some of the stuff for the game, and now I am in the stage of waiting for things to come in. I am very excited about learning the system. This is the worse part of buying a "new" game, the wait for it to arrive.
I was talking to Ben Monroe about my new interest in RQ3 and he pointed me to this great essay about the game written by Sandy Petersen (Call of Cthulhu and DOOM creator). I think that it brings up some really interesting points about the system.
Sandy Petersen on Runequest
Few RPGs permit playing a non-human with the facility of Runequest even today [1996!]. In fact, the trend is rather away from playing non-humans. 'Tis not necessarily a bad trend, given the rather lame interpretations of these beings that have infested the RPG market. Partly as a result of the difficulty in playing them.
You see, most games render non-humans as variations on humans. Example: 'dwerlfs are like humans, but with -2 from STR and INT' or whatever. RQ nonhumans are completely independent -- you could set up a RQ game with no nonhumans at all, and never make any reference to humans, and character creation and play would be smooth. I think that the psychological aspects of this difference have had an effect on scenario designers, essayists, and gamemasters.
There is another way in which RQ affected Glorantha. By the nature of most of Greg's early stories, plus White Bear & Red Moon, Nomad Gods, etc., Glorantha seemed to be a place where titans battled far above the level of mere mortal fodder.
So, are you a Runequest III fan? I would really like to hear your thoughts and experiences with the system. Share your stories, exploits and adventures. I will be writing more about the system here as the box sets start trickling into my mail slot.
Also, Ben has started a RQ3 discussion list on Yahoo. If you are interested in joining discussions on the game that don't necessarily focus on Glorantha, check out the discussion list.