RM26: The Reaction

Holy shit, when did they all regress to 12-year-olds? Ned, love ya lots, but what's up with the tantrums, dude?

The RPG Podcasts Currently in My Player

Here's what I've currently got loaded up and am enjoying (now with links to stop Britt and Becca from bitching at me!):

• The Game Master Show's AP and Review of Colonial Gothic. This one is decent, though the Game Masters have run games that I've found more entertaining (Hellas comes to mind...). I started listening to this one since I plan on doing a similar play-and-review of that very game with the Pantsless Gamers in the near future (so all you other PGs stay clear of this one--I want you unsullied). I found it to be medium-informative regarding the mechanics (and it was good to see that Mario struggled with the very same editing difficulties I noticed in my own prep), but frankly the story was lackluster. Like the intro adventure included in the .pdf, it was a standard plot line, without anything that grabbed you into the setting. Hopefully, I'll do better (and I know the Game Masters can).
• The Gaming Grunts Adventure! campaign. I started listening to the Gaming Grunts with their sessions of the Day of the Beast campaign for CoC. To be brutally honest, I prefer these CoC recordings over the Yoggies, and so far they've got me hooked on this new one. It is currently on Episode 2 (plus an "Ep. 0" for character gen), and it is worth a listen. And of course the Grunts are part of the rpgmp3.com extended family, so show them a 'lil support, yo.
• The Kore RPG Myr Campaign. To the best of my knowledge this is the only other AP podcast that records a Skype game. I began listening simply from "professional" interest in how they got it done. I still listen because the story is engaging, even if it does tend to be a whole lotta Victor. Currently posted is Episode 23, "Victor's Dream". Walt Snider, the producer (and the one who plays Victor, but I'm sure that's a coincidence), keeps the eps right around an hour in length for easy scheduling, so it isn't a huge investment to give the first episode or two a listen. Just keep in mind, these guys ain't the Pantsless Gamers, and I mean that in both good and bad ways.

Okay, is everyone satisfied that I listen to a few 'casts that aren't hosted on rpgmp3.com? Good. 'Cuz here's what's happenning over there this week:

• Rolemaster Episode 25. Yes, yes, I know I promised not to abuse my VIP status to get at the goodies that I morally should pay for. But this is Rolemaster, bitches! My integrity lasted about a week. After that my self-loathing for compromising my integrity lasted about three minutes into the first session I would have otherwise had to wait two to three weeks for. I got over it. I moved on. So should you. General release is up to Session 21, I believe, so really the Patrons aren't too far ahead for once. I'm loving the RM sessions. Even if I weren't a rabid RM player, I'd still be frothing over the skilled GMing, and the awesome awesome fucking awesome Texan group. If they could find a way to shoehorn James into that game I think I might just sully my trousers.
• Warhammer Episode 7. See above disclaimer concerning me and Patron content. WFRP. Okay, so I'm not so much a fan of this game system. Its too...shitty. By that I mean, the setting is too low-magic and there's too much...shit. Squalor. Medieval realism. Whatever. Call me old-school but I like my fantasy to be fantastic, and the heroes should be heroic (I'm talking to you, Ned). That being said, this is Hal and the Texan crew (including James), so I'm still having a blast.
• SLIDEways. Its Whartson Hall. 'Nuff said.
• Accordlands... Oh, man. If memory serves (and even if it doesn't I've got my fracking DL Manager console right in front of me...), the last episode of the BAG-People's Warlords of the Accordlands campaign (which I love--and it is the last 3.5-based game "in production" on the site) I listened to was... Episode 38. General release is now up to 57. Patrons (see above about seeing above) are up to 60. Yeah, it'll be some time before I can talk about the Accordlands, but here's your chance to jump ahead of me! Go on. I dare ya.

So who's got something I should be listening to but ain't? Anyone?

Star Trek: I'm Speechless

I need to see the movie at least twice more (preferably in IMAX if the shitheads at the Aquarium ever get over their cranial-rectal inversion disorder), before I'll be able to give a full and impartial review.

In the meantime, y'all go see it. You won't be disappointed. As April said as we were exiting the theater: "Oh my God, Dad, I think I actually like Star Trek!"

One bit of advice though: don't bring your mother. Especially if she's a talker.

And Speaking of Early Sci-Fi...

One of the items in a recent care-package is the first season of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Man, that's a blast from the past (thanks Britt!). Growing up, I loved that show, though I want to categorically state that I'm not that old; I caught reruns of it on Saturday afternoons on the local low-budget UHF station.

You kids won't like it. While it isn't campy per se, it certainly isn't in the same weight-class as today's programming. But it was wonderful Cold War adventure that ripped off--er, I mean borrowed from everything. Jules Verne, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, old World War II movies, spy flicks... Everything got the Irwin Allen treatment. None of this new-fangled moral ambiguity, either; the heroes were heroes dammit! Now, of course, it didn't hurt that I started watching it at around the same time that I first read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Advancing age prevents me from identifying which was first, but for sure there was some large amount of cross-pollination of interests there. And now watching it again, thirty years later what do I think? Two things: One, that here's something that's tailor-made for RPGs. And two: Somali pirates? No problem. Send Harriman Nelson after them, and he'll have the whole mess sorted out in time for Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.

Opening Nights

Opera notwithstanding*, I have never made any kind of effort to catch any form of entertainment on its opening day. It just isn't that important to me go out among a crush of fanboys and get cattle-driven into a crowded theater, or wait among eleventy gajillion folks in Harry Potter costume until midnight at the local Books-A-Million. I can ignore media reviews and spoilers, and wait a week or so.

Apparently not so this time, however. I have purchased my tickets for Star Trek so I can be among the crush of folks getting shoehorned into the theater to see it on Thursday. I'd love to see it in IMAX, but as of now they haven't posted showtimes or opened advance sales (Chattanooga Aquarium/IMAX Theater, FedEx just called and they need someone to come down and sign for your shipment of fail!).

So why is Trek an exception? I've never owned a pair of Spock ears, can't match up episode numbers to names, and I don't speak a single word of Klingon**. But the Trek films have always been special. Even the sucky ones. Probably it is just age; Star Trek was my first exposure to sci-fi, so it would be understandable to have some form of nostalgia. Maybe also it is boredom: here I've got something to get excited about and look forward to that doesn't involve a headset growing out of my head.

Whatever the reason, I'll have my review posted by 2230 EDT on Thursday, so y'all can ignore me until you see it.


*And that's not an issue since the CSO has canceled opera performances until further notice (CSO Guild, would you like an extra side of weaksauce with that?).

**Though I can tell you the name of the three-armed rock alien who sat in Chekov's seat in the animated series--WITHOUT looking it up on imdb or wikipedia. Losers.

Baby's First Geocoin...

My package from Groundspeak came in today, and in addition to some bug tags, I ordered the 2009 Groundspeak Lackeys coin. Now, obviously, I'd never purchased a geocoin, never even found one in a cache. So I had no idea what to expect. One it is gorgeous (as Funka will attest, below). I mean, really well-made. Two, this thing is a lunker. Its almost as big as my PJ challenge-coin, and equally heavy. Sorry cachers, I think I'm keeping this one in my pocket.

All You Rolemaster Haters STFU

On the craggy battlefields of the RPG Holy Wars, no game gets as much misinformed, undeserved, and completely groundless crap as my beloved Rolemaster. To be fair, a lot of the crap it gets is well-informed, as well, but it seems to be one of those lightning rods of opinion. People who have never seen a Rolemaster book become experts at how clunky it is. People who have never heard the name Terry K. Amthor moan about how it takes twelve hours to make a character. And folks who don't know their DB from from their BMR can tell you in exquisite detail how many charts and tables must be referenced in order to pick a simple lock [Ieqo says (ding!): One--The Static Action Table--but everyone who's never played the game knows that it must take at least four!].

Verily I say unto all of you: bite me! Yesterday I talked not one, but two novice gamers through the wonders of character creation! At different times! Over Skype! Without the luxury of a shared die rolling client! And it didn't take more than eight hours...

Yes, I'm stoked. My good friends Jess and Andy (fictionalfemme and dm501, respectively, for my fellow denizens of the rpgmp3 forums) took to the quirks of old-skool RM far better than I did back in the Days of Yore. Jess even managed to make an old Power Gamer proud with her character.

She's technically a "pure spell-user", but through some wonderful rolls for background options and a killer min/max choice of races, she's completely broken in the role of frontline fighter.

Andy's pure spell-user has more of a conventional magic-user's build, but his love of the Evil Mentalist base lists means I'm totally looking forward to being schooled in how to fuck up the enemy.

And the best part so far of my current Rolemaster adventure: I managed to break Illiani by showing him the Rolemaster equipment sourcebook. For the next two hours between "this is so beautiful", we were treated to exclamations like, "Four different types of bucket...Two different types of pegleg...they have stats for a zither...I don't even know what a zither is, but I love it!" My apologies to everyone else in that conversation who was supposed to be getting needed info off of Danny during that time.

Rolemaster: you don't know until you go. And that's all I have to say about that.