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Heading Out
Migrating over to Dreamwidth; I'm there as bryant. As has been the case for a while, my primary blog is Population: One. Entries there will continue to be crossposted to Dreamwidth, but not here ( Read more... ) -
Reading RuneQuest: Chapter 3 (Mechanics and Melee)
I got busy during the fall. What can I say? RuneQuest originally came out almost forty years ago so the extra few months won’t have hurt much.
The Mechanics and Melee chapter starts out pretty normally. You have time, including the concept of turns and melee rounds. There’s a note about how a real day should equal one game week, which is a bit of ( Read more... ) -
2017 Campaigns 1 of 5: The Golden Pyramid
Nights Black Agents campaigns are built using a diagram which represents the classic conspiratorial pyramid structure. It’s called a Conspyramid. The mastermind squats at the top, with minions at various levels beneath. PCs discover the fringes of the conspiracy, and work their way up as the campaign goes on.
The following diagram is a satire. Who ( Read more... ) -
Ingress in West Seattle
On Saturday, Susan and I spent the day in West Seattle doing an Ingress mission series.
( Read the rest of this entry » ) -
Reading RuneQuest: Chapter II (Character Creation)
RuneQuest character creation was pretty startling for me way back when. Tunnels & Trolls and Dungeons & Dragons were close relatives - sure, you swap out Luck for Wisdom but that’s not a huge change. RuneQuest retained the 3d6 rolls and had a reasonable seven stats, but what’s the bit where the ability to work magic (Power) is a primary stat? And ( Read more... ) -
Reading RuneQuest: Chapter 1 (Introduction)
I started gaming back in the early 80s. By “gaming” I mean “reading roleplaying books and wondering what it’d be like to actually play,” with a hefty side order of “running through Tunnels & Trolls solitaire adventures.” Tunnels & Trolls was my first RPG. I think RuneQuest was my third? Hard to remember exactly.
Chaosium just reprinted that 1980 ( Read more... ) -
It’s OK, My Lawn is Your Lawn
My perspective: veteran Ingress player, no previous experience with Pokemon Go, a fair bit of mobile gaming work experience.
I’m not gonna do the whole “wow, look at the wild news story!” thing. Hot take: geo-located gaming generates interesting behavior patterns. I do have one item I can’t resist sharing, though. Pokemon GO chauffeur services are ( Read more... ) -
Port of Call
Port of Call: A
Excellent Hong Kong drama based on a real murder case from 2008. Aaron Kwok was superb in this; he goes old, with grey hair and a mustache, and really vanishes into the role. It’s a tough part, full of damaged psyches grating against each other in an endless cycle. He plays it whimsical with a ton of pain showing right under the ( Read more... ) -
The Ninja War of Torakage
The Ninja War of Torakage: B
This was the weirdest thing I saw at Fantasia. Underneath it all you’ll find a pretty standard historical ninja epic about Torakage, this poor guy who just wants to retire from ninjaing and raise a family, but there’s a lot of insanity between the surface of the movie and the core. I don’t know Yoshihiro Nishimura’s ( Read more... ) -
Tales of Halloween
Tales of Halloween: B+
This review is maybe a bit of a placeholder; I did not take notes during the movie and I’d like to come back to it when I can find some better data on who directed what. For now, I will note that this was a totally fun horror anthology with ten segments. They’re very loosely linked insofar as they all take place in one town ( Read more... )