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.