A Moment of Silence for Erick Wujcik

Erick Wujcik, RPG writer & designer, died on June 7, 2008, after a long battle with cancer.

Erick Wujcik is well known for his work on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness RPG, and the Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game.

Eric Wujcik challenged how I thought about roleplaying games and systems, and I'm a better GM and player for it.

Roman's Recent News

• Mom is having cancer surgery on Thursday. Again. Fortunately they caught it very early this time. What she's truly dreading, however, is the radiation therapy afterwards, which she found far, far worse than the surgery. Keep her in your thoughts and prayers, thanks.


• A few months ago, I was approached and asked to write a proposal for a science fiction readers advisory book. I was told yesterday that my proposal was accepted. Now I suppose I actually have to write the thing ... *bemused grin*


• My nephew, now nearly four years old, god bless him, struggles with mild cerebral palsy and autism. Still, it is one of my great joys to spend time with him. Just the other day, he finally recognized me and said my name without prompting--"Unca Stee." Best gift I've gotten in a long time.

Carry on.

Thank You, Gary Gygax, and Rest in Peace

Originally, I was just going to post about tonight's DeKalb Roleplayers Meetup tonight at Borders in DeKalb at 6:00 p.m.

But something bizarrely related and even more important has come to my attention:

Gary Gygax, "Father of D&D," dies at 69

I can honestly say that my life, my mind, and my imagination are richer thanks to the work of Gary Gygax. Playing RPGs is my favorite hobby, and some of the best times in my life have been spent with good friends bellying up to the table, rolling polyhedrons, slaying monsters, getting loot, and celebrating our victories.

Ironically, or perhaps fittingly, today is also GM's Day

So go do something to honor the father of RPGs. Indulge your imagination, savor the time you have with your loved ones, and ...

Go. Play.

Reasons for Reading, Watching, Gaming

Originally, I was going to title this post "Why I Read," but the reasons are as applicable to watching films and playing RPGs--the activities of imagination, whether feeding it or exercising it.

I love good dialogue between characters. Elmore Leonard is king, with Tarantino a close second. Joss Whedon has a good ear for conversation too--witty and smart.

I love interesting characters, whether they be stylish variants of types/archetypes, or fully fleshed. (As an aside, many fans demand fully realized characters. Funnily enough, I've discovered that these same fans, when reading outside their favorite genres, call the characters two-dimensional and cardboard, then apply different standards to their favorite genres, in which their favorite characters are really little more than recognizable variants of types with very little covering the skeletons.)

I love well-done plots, whether simple, intricate, or outrageous--doesn't matter, so long as the author paces it well and ties it up skillfully.

But more than anything else, I want something that excites my sense of wonder. What I look for is something akin to what C.S. Lewis called experiencing Joy. It's as if there's this X-shaped hole, and I've stumbled across something that fits that hole perfectly, like a puzzle piece. That's my sense of wonder.

"It's about, as Alan Moore put it, 'mad and beautiful ideas'; the sense of wonder, the feeling of marvelous secret things just beyond our field of vision, and the revelations and splendours and dangers and bastards tied up in it all."
~ Warren Ellis

I want the mad ideas. Take Michael Moorcock for example. Moorcock regularly rattles off a hundred brief, beautiful, brilliant, shining mad ideas on every page of his works. Many authors would take any one of those ideas and try to craft an entire novel around it--Hell, an entire series. Moorcock, on the other hand, dispenses these ideas like candy, tossing them out to his fans, with the side effect of making his worlds that much brighter, that much more wondrous, suggesting vast gulfs of adventure, intrigue, horror, discovery, and beauty.

And mad ideas aren't the same thing as so-called "big" ideas. I've seen far too many of these "big" ideas as the focus of many novels, particularly science fiction novels, and they can't carry the novels by themselves. The idea can be something small, and precious, and bright, an author's unique combination of the most common tropes. But that combination somehow hits the "turbo" button on my imagination, and I'm daydreaming and wide-eyed, with a big goofy grin or a sly smile.

And that's what I want.

Shoot 'Em Up

I just watched the movie Shoot 'Em Up, starring Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti, and Monica Bellucci.

... and I really wish I'd seen it in the theaters when I had the chance.

First of all, any movie with the title Shoot 'Em Up and the ad campaign this film had is going to be an action movie. But Shoot 'Em Up isn't just an action film; it is a love song to gun-toting action films in the same way that Big Trouble in Little China is a love song to Hong Kong action films.

And that sentence alone will likely determine if you even see the movie or read any further.

For those of you who haven't fled in a mad burst of rapid-clicking, Shoot 'Em Up had me cheering throughout the movie. Yes, cheering. Out loud. At my television set, when I'm the only one in the house. It is a smart, genuinely funny, film.

Smart, because the movie designers know all the tropes of the action film and push them even further without tipping over into outright camp or spoof, and that takes some skill. Clive Owen is a good choice for the antihero with a bad attitude and a need for redemption, Monica Bellucci is the prostitute with a heart of gold, and Paul Giamatti is the funniest, nastiest, villain I've seen in a long time, completely stealing the show as he masticates the scenery into oblivion.

The plot is outrageous: save the baby whose sole purpose is as a bone marrow donor for a corrupt Senator desperately clinging to life. As the Senator pushes for strong gun control legislation, the gun manufacturers want the baby dead, thus effectively ending the threat from the Senator.

And then there are the action scenes, including:

• gun fights in free fall.
  
• the protagonist getting into a head-on collision with the bad guys' van, propelled forward at the moment of collision and diving through his shot-out windshield, through the bad guys' shot-out windshield, and into the back of their van, where he systematically shoots all of them
  
• gun battle while in coitus with Monica Bellucci--an Academy Award winning scene if I've ever seen one.
  

Everything in this film is turned up to, and past, 11. Everything in the film is insane, outrageous, bizarrely over the top ... and it all works. It all genuinely WORKS, without descending into spoof or outright camp, and that's what impressed me the most. I'm laughing, cheering, screaming "Oh, FUCK NO WAY!", and having a blast the entire time, without ever feeling that the movie is meant to mock the action genre or its fans.

And that takes some doing.

Iron Man

Let me simply give you the link to the new Iron Man trailer.

'Cuz ... DAMN.

DeKalb Roleplayers Meetup Tonight!

DeKalb Roleplayers Meetup Group!
6:00 p.m. tonight, February 26, 2008
@ the Borders in DeKalb


I'll be in the cafeteria area, with a big d20 at the table.

On another note:

Those of you actually interested in joining the campaign I'm going to be running can print out the quickstart rules stored on our meetup group site. It just occurred to me that the gaming group should be limited to about 5 regular players. If there are more people than that who want to play ...

... well, I suppose I could run two different games, alternating every other week.

*yikes*

Yet, a strangely fulfilling thought.

See you tonight!

Deep Thoughts about Religion

Christianity: The Cliff's Notes



You know, I actually read the book. Twice, even. But damn - the short version would make a fricking hilarious fourth Evil Dead movie!

Somebody call Bruce Campbell! NOW!

Upon Watching Early Episodes of Doctor Who

I don't know if it's the long exposure to humans or the regenerations or what, but Doctor Who sure did change a lot since his earliest incarnation.

Because I'm telling you, while the current Doctor seems to see himself as a defense mechanism against All That Is Bad, the first William Hartnell Doctor Who?

God damn manipulative, selfish, thoughtless, cantankerous old bastard, willing to risk others' safety and lives on a whim of curiosity and has no qualms about using the last members of a nearly-extinct race in order to save his own ass.

And those are his good points!

Reason #947 Why Manga Are Kicking the Asses of American Comics

What would you do if the one person you counted on turned out to be an imposter?

With the Skrull homeworlds destroyed, they believe the Earth to be theirs. It has been foretold in their scriptures!

The shape-shifting alien race known as the Skrulls has secretly infiltrated every super-powered organization on Earth with one goal...full-scale invasion!

Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Francis Yu leap off the pages of mega-hit New Avengers and deliver a story that will change the Marvel Universe forever (again).

Great. Once again, the reset button is hit, and status quo is restored. Guh.

My favorite part, of course, is the last bit of the last sentence. I mean, come on, how many times can they "deliver a story that will change [insert comic book universe here] forever" before American comics finally go bankrupt?

Green Lantern Corps - ROLL OUT!

For everything that should be so wrong with this pic ...

... somehow it is just SO RIGHT

Dig It!

Comics Bestsellers - February

Take a look at Publishers Weekly's February Comics Bestsellers List, which is really a Graphic Novels Bestsellers list, but whatever.

An interesting list, in that Anglophone comics actually managed to get two spots on the top ten, one at #1, and neither are properties owned by Marvel or DC. And the top spot was an indie comic.

And HOLY #$%@*! look at how Naruto sells. That's a damn good argument for having your backlist in print ...

And why is Publishers Weekly's list better than those found in Wizard or Diamond Comic Distributors' Previews? Because the latter two publications cater to the extremely insular direct sales market, whereas Publishers Weekly gives a far more accurate picture of what the public as a whole is buying and reading, as they monitor bookstores.

And as you can see, manga are still kicking the ass of American comics. Which is too bad, really. And no, I don't think that Marvel's recent announcement to publish more Eurocomics will help them very much. DC tried this with both Humanoids Publishing and 2000 A.D., and the effort was swiftly abandoned. Then again, DC didn't exactly fall all over themselves in their effort to advertise or promote those publishing ventures, either.

And this post went a lot longer than I meant it to.

FreakAngels: Go. Read. Now.

23 YEARS AGO, TWELVE STRANGE CHILDREN WERE BORN IN ENGLAND AT EXACTLY THE SAME MOMENT.

6 YEARS AGO, THE WORLD ENDED.

THIS IS THE STORY OF WHAT HAPPENED NEXT.

FREAKANGELS

Happy Horny Werewolf Day!

From the Bad Signal e-newsletter by Warren Ellis:

Happy Valentine's Day to all. And to those who hate the day, I say this: Valentine's Day is a Christian corruption of a pagan festival involving werewolves, blood and fucking. So wish people a happy Horny Werewolf Day and see what happens.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Coming May 22! WOOT!

The Year of Conventions

I have now gotten time off, sent in my applications, and made living arrangements for Odyssey Con, WisCon, DucKon, and, last but not least, my Mecca, GenCon.

Busy busy.

(Extra special super thanks to my friends, Cason and Jennifer, for getting me shelter in Madison--twice!)

Quotation Fun and RPG Meetup

I saw the following quotation today, and it made me smile:

“Critics are like Eunuchs in a harem. They're there every night, they see how it's done every night, they see how it should be done every night, but they can't do it themselves.”
-- Brendan Behan (1923-1964)

Also, don't forget:
The DeKalb Roleplayers March Meetup
Feb. 12th
6:00 p.m.
DeKalb Borders
A chance to meet and hang out with other tabletop RPG gamers in your area.

DeKalb Roleplayers Meetup Group

The DeKalb Roleplayers March Meetup
Feb. 12th
6:00 p.m.
DeKalb Borders
Just a chance to meet and hang out with other tabletop RPG gamers in the area.

Hope to see you there!

Author Interest

The following fantasy authors have caught my eye recently, for one reason or another:

Joe Abercrombie
Scott Bakker
Alan Campbell
Steven Erikson
Robin Hobb
Paul Kearney
Scott Lynch

Has anybody read their works? Thoughts?

Currently Reading:
Fading Suns, second edition revised
Castles & Crusades Players Handbook

Hailsperm and Cloverfield

Wow. That's a lot of snow. I'm thinking I'll have to be out there shoveling every 2 hours to keep up with it. It doesn't even look like snow. It looks like little tiny white beads falling from the sky, like all the world's hail shoved the young out of the nest. It looks like Hailsperm.

Still, it's a day off from work.

Went to see Cloverfield last night with and Kevin. It was fun and entertaining, with good effects, if a standard plot--the presentation was different, though, and it wasn't just a remake of a previously existing property. I'd give it 3.5 stars: entertaining (3) and trying to do something a bit different (0.5).

SO ... What to do today, eh?

I'd better work on that RPG conversion some more ...

Important RPG Quotation!

"Although the rules have been thoroughly play-tested over a period of many months, it is likely that you will eventually find some part that seems ambiguous, unanswered, or unsatisfactory. When such situation arises settle it among yourselves, record the decision in the rules book, and abide by it from then on. These rules may be treated as guide lines around which you form a game that suits you. It is always a good idea to amend the rules to allow for historical precedence or common sense -- follow the spirit of the rules rather than the letter."

-Chainmail, 3rd edition, page 8, by Gary Gygax & Jeff Perren

Game Master means just that. Game. Master. It does not mean merely mastering the rules, nor does it mean slavish devotion to the rules at the expense of sacrificing their spirit. It means that the game is yours and your group's, to do with as you will.

If a GM notices that the rules are actively interfering with the fun, either fix them--Hell, we did it all the damn time with house rules, in the days before the Internet made official errata easy to find and access--or get a new system.

At the same time, GMs cannot blame the rules for interfering with their games. It's the GM's responsibility to see the problem, listen to the players, and have the courage to fix the problem.

(Original quotation taken from Jeff Rients' blog.)

Comic Book Heaven

In a time when most comics suck the chrome off a trailer hitch like a whore custom-built by Hoover, I delight to see the shiny bits of my youth being collected in lovely GN format.



I am overwhelmed with giddy joy at the following comics that have been reprinted.

Behold the trifecta perfecta:

Nexus



Grimjack



Badger



And for something published recently that doesn't suck:

Immortal Iron Fist




My inner child is kicking your inner child's ass.

Off a cliff.

And laughing.

Musing Buddhism

I am by no means as well read re: Buddhism as I am in other religions and philosophies.

That said, is Buddhism (one of the few? the only?) philosophies / religions that doesn't prescribe violence as a solution to a problem?

(The New Testament may have qualified, if not for that whole Revelation.)

Freely admitting my lack of knowledge, here.

Doctor Who Addendum

And is it just me, or did Russell T. Davies, the writer of "The Last Time Lord" (Doctor Who season 3, episode 13) see Flash Gordon one too many times?

A cute little homage, with a woman's well-manicured hand reaching for Ming's the Master's ring, with a slight chuckle sounding out.

Of course it's the Master's companion who reached for that ring. Or at least her body.

Of course her shooting the Master was part of some escape plan of the Master. (Mind switch at the last moment?)

Of course we're seeing the Master again.

Random Musings - Pride

While we might take joy in and celebrate a number of things, can there be any true, solid, humble, and foundationally positive pride in anything that we did not have a conscious choice in, that we did not achieve? Not necessarily without the help of others, mind you. In fact, perhaps achievement in tandem is more powerful - achievement through community. Hm.

Feeling philosophical of late.

Upon Completing Three Seasons of Doctor Who: Raw Impressions

I actually liked the show. Which surprised the Hell out of me, really, as 99% of the time I'd really like to see something new rather than see something old rehashed. Overall, I think SF fandom spends too much time resurrecting and fawning over its old favorites and turning to comfort food (Star Trek, I'm looking at you) rather than creating the new, new voices and images and stories to fit a changing world (thinking of Cowboy Bebop, especially, with its funny / action packed / sad / poignant / human-centric stories, which Firefly touched on a few years later). Even if the building blocks are familiar, it seems important that they be combined in interesting, new ways to open up new panoramas of vision, scope, focus, even beauty. Seems to me that's what SF is about.

(And here's where some smartass comments on my love of classic works of the genre. Those works did what they did first--note the use of the word "resurrection" above.)

But back to Doctor Who. It's pulpy and fun, and doesn't take itself very seriously despite the fact that it takes some of its underlying themes and philosophy rather seriously. It's reminiscent of my favorite kinds of fiction in having such a BIG playground and toolbox that just about anything and everything can happen. (As opposed to the all-too-often train wrecks where anything and everything does happen.)

Christopher Eccleston is impressive, both in his intensity and his childlike delight. About the only time he failed to impress was, and this is memorable, every time he'd go on about being the last of the Time Lords. And really, that's just bad scripting--show, don't tell, people. You could almost read the script in those scenes, as if it was projected onto the screen like subtitles:

DOCTOR: (with a vaguely distant and hollow, shellshocked look) I'M THE LAST OF THE TIME LORDS. THE REST ARE ALL GONE, LOST TO THE LAST TIME WAR.

Every. Blanking. Episode. Yes. We get it.

In contrast, in scenes where Eccleston has to communicate everything merely by his expressions, like his feelings for Rose, he's unbelievably effective. Likewise, when he's allowed to rant and vent his anger and rage.

David Tennant can really chew the scenery, but he does so in such a whimsically entertaining and delightful fashion that you cannot help but giggle right along with him. He's having so much damn fun that it's infectious--you have to play along with him. It's imperative.

Rose was such a good companion. Really. She had balls and spirit and chutzpah, even in the earliest episodes. I really miss her.

Martha Jones is such a BAD companion. Really. She whines and moons over the Doctor incessantly, playing like some incompetent Mary Sue* who's only purpose in the script is to serve as the writer's stand-in for mooning over the Doctor. The character lacks (or, at best, merely badly mimicks) Rose's best qualities. Worse, the character, and thus clearly the writer, is actually conscious of this fact, drowning the audience in annoying rather than simply giving the character some purpose and personality. While I'd hoped that Martha would be enveloped in a fiery ball of sudden good sense, alas, a brief Internet search revealed that she's slated to appear in the fourth season. Such is life.

The third season episode Blink is genuinely one of the most effectively creepiest, scariest shows ever made. Ever. If it didn't win every major award it was eligible for, it was robbed. "The angels have the phone box," indeed.

Doctor Who does not so much solve mysteries, as pull the answers out of his ass. When the show and character were initially described to me, it seemed that the Doctor spent a lot of his time solving mysteries. It even appears to be the case on the show. However, the show doesn't feature solving mysteries so much as an illusion of mystery, in which the solutions could only have been figured out by the vast knowledge available to a Time Lord, and are thus pulled out of thin air with a flourish of eureka and pseudoscience. Still, the illusion is entertaining enough that I don't mind.

Doctor Who is not humanist. At least, it doesn't appear so to me. Granted, the Doctor (and the scriptwriters) seem fascinated with the spirit, courage, beauty, endurance, ingenuity, blah blah blah etc., of humanity. The Doctor says so every episode. But it seems to me that, inherent in the definition of humanism is humanity's ability to save itself and figure out its own problems.

In contrast, Doctor Who features a humanity and universe that would be utterly lost without an immortal, seemingly all-knowing being, a being who stands outside of space and time and uses technology so advanced its indistinguishable from magic, constantly saving us, or at least giving us detailed instructions on how to help him save us.

Thus: The Doctor is God, and the Companion is his prophet.

*blinks*

I am going to have a T-shirt made with that.

The Lesson of the Day: If you can't sleep, blog.


*Yes, I do realize that Mary Sues are typically ultra-competent stand-ins for the writers. It still fits.

Chewing What I've Bitten Off.

Recently started sketching all I need to read and convert in order to run Fading Suns in the Savage Worlds system ...

*whimpers*

Still, it will be a great game, damn it! I mean, come on! A delightfully weird mix of SF, fantasy, space opera, planetary romance, dying earth (dying universe?), and horror genres and subgenres, with liberal dashes of Dune and Warhammer 40,000, and just a sprinkle of Babylon 5's epic beauty. Action! Adventure! Romance! Heroism! Saving the universe! You just can't beat it!

*stars in my eyes*

*deep breath, exhales*

Now, to work!

The Future of Destination Wonder

Working up my list for next year's Destination Wonder.



Year 1: 2005-2006
Sept. 2005: Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
Oct. 2005: Ring, Koji Suzuki
Nov. 2005: V for Vendetta, Alan Moore, et al.
Dec. 2005: The Etched City, K.J. Bishop
Jan. 2006: A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Feb. 2006: The Light Ages, Ian R. MacLeod
Mar. 2006: Fitzpatrick's War, Theodore Judson
Apr. 2006: Galveston, Sean Stewart
May 2006: Watchmen. Alan Moore, et al.

(Temporary hiatus occurs)

Year 2: 2007-2008
Sept. 2007: The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
Oct. 2007: Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
Nov. 2007: I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
Dec. 2007: The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman
Jan. 2008: Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
Feb. 2008: Paragaea, Chris Roberson
Mar. 2008: Resume with Monsters, William Browning Spencer
Apr. 2008: Last Call, Tim Powers
May 2008: Hyperion, Dan Simmons



I'm seriously contemplating asking the group if they'd be willing to read an entire trilogy of books as a single selection, given said trilogy weighed in around 600 pages or so. Specifically, the first three Earthsea books by Ursula K. Le Guin:

A Wizard of Earthsea
The Tombs of Atuan
The Farthest Shore

Maybe they'll go for it.

Maybe they'll just shoot me.

It's a toss-up, really.

SFBC's Top 50 SF and Fantasy Books? Hmmm...

My friend, Michael (see list of blogs I read to the right) has mentioned that I don't post very often, either here or on my other blog, Roman's Colosseum at LJ.

*sigh* He's right, of course.

So, I am going to try to make an effort to post something daily. I really should make more of an effort, as I enjoy building and growing online communities.

That said, I'm continuing the meme of the meme he began with The Top 50 Science Fiction and Fantasy books according to the Science Fiction Book Club

1- The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
2- The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3- Dune, Frank Herbert
4- Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
5- A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
6- Neuromancer, William Gibson
7- Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
8- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9- The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10- Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11- The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12- A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
13- The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14- Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15- Cities in Flight, James Blish
16- The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
17- Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18- Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19- The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20- Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21- Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
22- Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
23- The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
24- The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25- Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's [Sorcerer's] Stone, J.K. Rowling
27- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
28- I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29- Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30- The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
31- Little, Big, John Crowley
32- Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
33- The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
34- Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35- More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36- The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37- On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38- Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39- Ringworld, Larry Niven
40- Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41- The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
42- Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43- Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
44- Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45- The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46- Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
47- Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48- The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
49- Timescape, Gregory Benford
50- To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

The ones I've read are in bold.

The problem with lists of this sort is, of course, that not all classics age well (I'm looking at you, Stranger in a Strange Land).

Also, there's no way everybody's going to agree on which should belong (which is a good thing, really).

If we allow for anthologies of short stories, I would have included New Worlds, edited by Michael Moorcock--back in print after far too long.

Also, if I had only 50 books I could list, I would absolutely remove Interview with the Vampire and The Sword of Shannara.

It's good to see Sturgeon's More Than Human on the list.

I would plug the Dying Earth tetralogy by Jack Vance into one of those spots, and include both Clark Ashton Smith on this list, as well as Robert E. Howard. And where the hell is Edgar Rice Burroughs? Come on, SFBC! What the hell?!


Thoughts?

Fading Suns ... Savaged!

Well, I suppose it's time I used this space for something other than the equivalent of a webspace bookmark.

So what am I going to do with this LJ space?

If you guessed "something having to do with role playing games," give yourself a gold star.

Well let's see ...

I'm going to begin working up a campaign for my regular gaming group, as I am the next GM in the rotation and I'd like to have something substantial prepared before I take the reigns. To this end, I will be rereading the Fading Suns RPG, Revised Second Edition Rulebook once again to resolidify the campaign world / universe in my brain.



However, I don't particularly like the core system that the game uses, so I'll be converting and overhauling as much FS material as I can to the Savage Worlds system, one I'm particularly fond of.



I'm fairly notorious for pairing game universes with alternative systems, so I figure why spoil a good record?

When I ran the FS 2e system so many long years ago, I found it to be clunky and cumbersome. SW, on the other hand, lives up to its motto of "Fast, Furious, Fun"--it has sufficient crunch for those who really enjoy the actual game part of role playing game, with a variety of aspects to integrate and master. It includes cards, dice, and chips / counters in play, as well as a host of options, all of which boil down to a thankfully fast game in actual play, with a remarkably quick combat system that lets the gamers play with toys ... I mean, features fast tactical combat with miniatures. Yes, that's what I meant.

Best of all, SW reduces GM prep time and record keeping to a bare minimum, easily keeping pace in this area with a host of "rules-lite" games. This allows me to get on with other GMing essentials, rather than spending too much time statting everything out.

And all that for $9.99. That is a bargain for me!

Over time I'll probably use portions of this journal as a place to post campaign logs to keep everybody updated / reminded of what happened at given sessions.

But hell, I should also likely start posting book reviews and other stuff, just to keep it active.

For those interested in learning more about the Fading Suns universe, or are interested in getting a quick preview and Test Drive of the Savage Worlds system, click the links and enjoy.

That's it for now.