My gaming group recently returned to D&D 4th Edition with a megashot of the Revenge of the Giants supermodule. I talk about our experiences with Wizards of the Coast's homage to the original 1st Edition Against the Giants tournament modules on Episode #121 of The Tome Podcast.
I'm joined by Quinn Murphy of the excellent At Will 4E blog and regular Tome host Jeff Greiner. Check out the podcast.
Winter is here. The nights have grown long, and while they're broken by the beauty of annual Christmas and holiday light displayers, they merely hide a daker evil. Talk of Christmas stars and Hannauka lights gives way to memories of another set of stars ... those who lock away the Great Old Ones in their watery grave, and who's proper alignment could bring about the endtimes.
Thus we have A Very Scary Solstice, an album of holday music inspired by the insanity-inducing, reality-sundering (and yes, entirely fictional) Cthulhu Mythos, and giving the question "Do you hear what I hear?" an entirely new connotation.
It's the Winter Solstice, and what better way to celebrate than with a rousing chorus of (and a music video for) "The Carol of the Old Ones"? While the stars may not be right this year we all know it's just a matter of time.
This song's taken from A Very Scary Solstice, the most excellent Cthulhu-inspired holiday music album by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.
Episode 27 of The Secret Lair is online and features a discussion of the (unwanted?) intersections of fantasy and science fiction. It also has the audio version of my review of The Day After Ragnarok, a campaign setting for Savage Worlds that asks the questions "what if the Nazis had summoned the Midgard Serpent in the end days of WWII ... and what if America had killed the wyrm with an atomic bomb?"
The Secret Lair is mixing up its format, bringing in more guests and special features, and I'm curious to see how it all shakes out. You should be too -- go listen now!
There are some things so weird, so strange, so downright incomprehensible that they could only have emerged from the cyclopean depths of the 80s. The music video for "Total Eclipse of the Heart" -- a song heard by many, but perhaps only seen by a few -- is one such artifact.
Indeed, it so transcends our modern understanding that the only thing we can do is mock it. And mock it literally. The "literal version" of the music video replaces the original lyrics with a musical transcription of what's happening on screen.
And yes, Arthur Fonzarelli really does have an army of clones...
Three weeks of rainy days put a major crimp in my podcast-listening schedule in May as I was forcd to drive (rather than walk) to work. It's the difference between a 2 minute commute and a 15 minute one ... as well as no podcasts or three podcasts a week.
With the sun finally shining again and eastern Pennsylvania drying out, I've fired up my iPod and returned to some old favorites. After catching up on the Cato Daily Podcast (which provides me with regular audio injection of libertarian commentary) I turned to the Accidental Survivors.
Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition and Star Wars: Saga Edition were the big topics of conversation on my third guest appearance on The Secret Lair podcast. Hosts Kris Johnson and Chris Miller and I spent about a half hour talking about the latest iteration of the venerable fantasy RPG before launching into why my gaming group decided to ditch it in favor of Star Wars. We had some technical issues while recording, caused by Skype, faulty microphones and my cranky son, but once we got past those we had some solid conversations about both games.
Wish you had a new episode of Radio Active to listen to? Never fear, a new one is on the way, but in the mean time you can listen to Episode 17 of The Secret Lair podcast, in which I talk with hosts Chris Miller and Kris Johnson about S.M. Stirling's alternate history/modernized pulp novel The Sky People.
In this book, Stirling creates a solar system in which Venus and Mars were habitable, just like they were in the pulps - Venus is a jungle world complete with near-human civilizations and dinosaurs, while Mars is a dying desert planet populated with ancient civilizations. Unfortunately, we found the premise to be a lot more interesting than the actual book.
It's been a while since I've talked about the podcasts I listen to, partly because for much of the late summer and early fall I really wasn't listening to many of them (save the Order 66 podcast, which I've listened to slavishly since realizing my Star wars campaign was really going to happen). That's changed over the last few weeks as I've made an effort to queue up and listen to a summer's worth of podcasts.
Mick Bradley joins the cast, the crew talks about their favorite episodes, and there's an interview with Burning Wheel creator Luke Crane from GenCon 2008. Luke talks about the Magic Burner, the latest Burning Wheel supplement, which introduces a bunch of new magic systems. What I like most about what he describes is that magic in Burning Wheel has a cost; not a casually dismissed cost like spell components that no one uses, but a real, tangible cost that can affect your character ... and perhaps bring about unwelcome changes should he/she fail.
Wizards of the Coast launched a new podcast dedicated to its Star Wars Role-Playing Game, providing more evidence that WotC's getting more serious about supporting the RPG side of its Star Wars offerings.
The first episode features designer Rodney Thompson talking about the Saga Edition rules and running SW campaigns. Check out the show by visiting the Star Wars game home page or download the file directly. Wizards has also been featuring more and more RPG content on the site, including articles about Behind the Threat: The Sith and Star Wars: The Musical Experience, Part 1.