Notable Posts
Scenarios
In Episode #29 of The Secret Lair our favorite overlords return to their familiar gaming stomping grounds as they interview Mick Bradley (he of the Harping Monkey) about story games. The audio version of my review of Magic: The Gathering - Duel of the Planewalkers appears in this podcast, as does always amusing Chief Medical Officer’s Progress Report by John Cmar.
When it comes to social media, I'm not a big fan of Facebook. At least within my circles, there doesn't seem to be a hell of a lot of interesting conversations going on there -- instead I get a never-ending stream of application requests and useless friending updates. I've played around with a few games, most notably D&D Tiny Adventures but for the most part Facebook is a site I only check once or twice a week.
That may change. According to Industry Gamers, Sid Meiers is launching the "Civilization Network" on Facebook. Civilization (and its scifi follow-up Alpha Centuri) are two of my favorite games; transforming Civ into a networked, social application could finally scratch that Civ multiplayer itch I've had for a decade or more. Of course, the danger is that it could be as huge a time sink as Civilization proper, so I'll have to exercise extreme caution in playing it ... but I am curious.
It took me two years, but I finished Mass Effect, Bioware's science fiction RPG and the company's follow-up to Knights of the Old Republic. I wasn’t far from the end – it only took a two-hour push to finally beat the main campaign – but finding those two hours had been a challenge when I was reviewing a new game every other week.
I’ve since scaled back my review schedule, and I’ve got to say that it’s been nice to slip into some of my old favorites and see what corners I might have left unexplored or (as is the case with Mass Effect) what stories were left untold.
According to CNN, thirty-two new planets have been discovered outside of our solar system, bringing the grand total to 400. I've got to say that as a science fiction geek and space enthusiast, I love that we live in a world in which we've confirmed the existence of so many exoplanets. I can't wait until we reach the next stage: identifying terrestrial planets with Earth-like atmospheres.
The Role Play Media Network is social media networking site for blogs and podcasts dedicated to role-playing games operated by Berin Kinsman of UncleBear.com. The site is a place to talk shop about blogging and podcasting, as well as the game systems we all love, be it a flavor of D&D (3.5, Pathfinder, 4.0), Savage Worlds, d6 System or something else entirely.
Planet Stories is Paizo Publishing's pulp imprint that's republishing some of the classics of the genre. Their blog, PlanetStories.net (twitter: @planetstoriesTM) is written by Erik Mona talks about new releases in the line, reviews of released product, and the occasional side post about notable stories in the genre.
Here's my Follow Friday list for October 23, 2009:
My copy of Kobold Quarterly #11 arrived yesterday, and paging through it I came across a color-full page add for Twilight Sector, a space opera setting for Traveller by Terra/Sol Games. It's scheduled for an October 2009 release.
The Twilight Sector is a frontier sector, located on the fringes of human space. There's not a huge amount of information about it on the site -- just a few developer blog posts -- but I'm intrigued. While I don't run Traveller, I'm always looking for inspiration for my Star Wars campaign. The artwork's successfully captured what I look for in a good space opera, and if the prose is half as good, Twilight Sector could be worth picking up just for the brain candy.
According to Reuters.com, NASA's Ares 1-X rocket -- the proposed successor to the space shuttle, and a scaled down version of the rocket that could return the U.S. to the moon -- is being rolled out to its launch pad. It's scheduled to be launched on October 27th and you can be sure I'll be near a computer to watch a live stream on that day. I can still remember Columbia's maiden launch, and if this rocket (and its descendants) really do return us to the Moon, the asteroids and Mars, then this launch could be every bit as monumental.
I should note that I'm not personally in favor of a renewed moon program; given the end game of reaching Mars, it seems to me that deep space missions to near-Earth asteroids are a better use of resources (especially given how asteroids and comets have a nasty history of actually hitting the Earth, where as the Moon is ever-so-slowly getting further away from us). Sinking trillions into a moon won't bring us any closer to Mars, and it certainly won't help with the deep space experience we need to actually get to Mars.
Regardless of its initial destination, I'm sure that the launch is going to be one hell of an impressive display ... and there's no way I'm missing it.
We’re heading back. A year after our last paragon-playtest of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition (a one shot adventure set continued our Planetorn campaign) we’re going to be running Revenge of the Giants, a new megamodule for paragon-level characters.
I recently received a review copy of the module and that – plus the latest round of D&D actual play podcasts -- led me to get the 4E contingent of my gaming group back together.
When last we played 4E, I was the game master, and I walked away from the table having experienced something I’d never had in 20+ years of GMing: boredom.