Good progress

Yesterday I sat down and finished off the second leg of the Savage Worlds adventure. I am pretty happy with it, I left some elbow room for the group to role play and have some fun, but I also concocted what I think is a decent scenario for keeping them moving and focused. I hope it works out.

I can't go into as much detail as before because with the group about to start playing I want things to remain a surprise. Now the next chore is charting out what comes next. I ended this scenario with the characters having to pick one of 2 directions. I have a rough idea of what I want one of them to be. But I am not sure about the other.

The goal is one more scenario where they have to 'fight' their way through a problem. Once that one is done they will finally reach the city where they can decide what they want to do next. I figure 3 sessions worth of scenarios will be enough to get the players hooked or not on the world and campaign setting. If it works, and the group wants to keep playing I have a number of ideas on what do once they get to the city.

Well it's on now

We had a fun session last night, wound up Forrest's game. Wasn't our finest moment of role playing, but we pushed through, killed all the bad guys in suitably gory fashion. And we had a good time getting back together for the first time in over a month.

After the game we had some discussion about what to do next I piped up and said I was ready. And that was what we decided to do. It's on me now, for better or worse. I got the creative juices flowing yesterday and cranked out a very good start to the second night gaming session. I have to say I am really looking forward to this.

They really pressed me on what type of game we would be playing but I held firm to my plan of not revealing much of anything. Because I want it be a surprise because I think that will make the game more enjoyable. The game itself will be pretty much hack and slash, lots of action. But getting there will be what sets it apart. It will make it different from anything we have ever done before.

Tell Scholastic to go back to selling books only

I just took action on this issue and thought you might be interested too:

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/621/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26599

For many of us, Scholastic's in-school book clubs -- the monthly flyers distributed in classrooms -- played an important role in our childhood by providing the opportunity to purchase low-cost, high-quality literature.

But something has changed. Scholastic's book clubs have become a Trojan horse for marketing toys, trinkets, and electronic media—many of which promote popular brands. A review of Scholastic's elementary and middle school book clubs by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood found that one-third of the items for sale are either not books or are books packaged with other items such as jewelry and toys. Items sold by Scholastic in 2008 included the M&M's Kart Racing Wii videogame, the Princess Room Alarm, the Monopoly® SpongeBob SquarePants™ Edition computer game, lip gloss and a Hannah Montana bracelet.

Please take a moment to visit http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/621/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26599 and tell Scholastic to start selling books – and only books – in their in-school book clubs.

Good article on Star Trek

Although I often find people ascribing this much value to a TV show to be annoying and pretentious this article does bring home some interesting points. And nails some great lines as well.

And somehow finds a way to address the always interesting conflict of Star Wars versus Star Trek. This line really captures the difference between the two:

If Lucas is defiantly pop-cultural in orientation, delivering archetypal structure and fast-paced action rather than plot and conversation, Roddenberry skews much closer to traditional high or middlebrow culture.

Which explains the point I usually try to deliver when discussing the 2 and fail to make nearly as well. Star Wars is B-movie action, the original Star Trek is theater and drama (no matter how clumsily delivered).

One other interesting point:

the original "Star Trek" still has a passion and vitality that partly stem from its cheapness; the threadbare sets and effects created a coherent, suggestive atmosphere, and forced your attention onto the storytelling and the characters.

This is an important point to realize with the new movie coming out with a full range of all the best special effects money can buy. At it's heart Star Trek is about the characters, and the story. A point that several of the movies failed to grasp (and which Wrath of Khan did grasp).

Star Trek

So last night I used the kitchen pass I would normally have used for a role playing night to go see the new movie. (Apparently I either missed or misunderstood Forrest's announcement that we wouldn't play in 4 weeks meant 6 weeks). While I normally love our game, and the camaraderie of playing, I think watching this movie was well worth the disappointment I felt about missing the game.

The Movie

It Rocked! I loved it. I agree with all of the reviewers who thought this was just a great Star Wars movie. I put it right up there, just a notch below Wrath of Khan but ahead of all of the others. If you were a fan of the original series first then this movie is 100% for you. I had absolutely no problem slipping right into the story and no problem with the interesting idea for serving up a 'reboot'.

Things I Loved:

The action and Pace were awesome. At no point was I forced to sit and think: gee does this have any impact on the movie at all?

The concept for the reboot. I think the idea of jumping to an alternate reality time line really gives the creators freedom to do whatever they want, including returning the familiar and loved characters from the original series and movies. Because while the overall Trek universe is interesting, what brings most people to the series is the characters, especially the original crew.

The effects were awesome. I like the fact that they just made the decision to say: 'we realize the original sets were made on a shoe string TV budget from the 60's, that doesn't mean all spaceships should look analog.' Everything looked and felt right, none of the technology was out of place or jumped out at me.

The eventual camaraderie of the characters. It wasn't forced, you believed the way it worked. One of the results of the alternate reality is that now all of the characters are the same age, which makes some of the relationships more believable. And while some of the acting was a little forced (I liked McCoy but the acting was the closest to being an over the top impression of the original) for the most part it was great, and fit in the idea of how those characters always felt to those of us who grew up with the series.

The few things I didn't like

Uhuru: First, the whole idea of Spock engaging in a P.D.A. with anyone is wrong. And to have it be Uhuru makes it doubly wrong. Second, why did they pick the female crew members uniforms to be the one thing they wanted to retain faith with? Why did the poor girl have to run around in a uniform mini skirt and Go Go boots? It was the one thing that felt jarringly out of place.

The Enterprise was not the fleet Flagship, and if it was they wouldn't allow some freshly minted Captain to command it. I'm just saying is all.

Battle scenes were filmed a little too herky jerky. It got pretty annoying to be unable to focus on the action when the camera never stayed on it.

Overall though, I loved it, and would encourage anyone who enjoys Star Trek to see it. It was just fun. With lots of cool little nods to the adventures of the original cast. A great time was had by all.

Trek v. Wars

I will come right out and say that I have always been a Star Wars fan, from seeing it for the first time in a tiny theater in the Citadel Mall up until seeing the Clone Wars movie in the theater with my sons and wife. I love everything about the Star Wars universe, even though I don't read the novels. It's such a rich universe and the stories are so cool to me.

And I have engaged in a couple of Forum wars over Star Wars versus Star Trek. Always taking the side of Star Wars. I grew up watching the original Star Trek series, liked the first couple of movies. Read and reread the novelization of the original series episodes. And I watched the Next Generation regularly at first.

Then my interest waned, and I have not regained it. The only movie I have liked recently was the first Next Generation movie. Other than that I have had no interest. My friends tried to convince me to watch DS:9 and Voyager, but I never liked them much.

So recently I started following Wil Wheaton, both on his web site and his Twitter feed. And both are very cool. Pretty much off the charts cool as far as his willingness to embrace his geekiness, claiming to play miniature games, playing RPG's (real role playing, not computer games) etc.

And his complete embrace of the new Star Trek movie has me thinking it might be time to give it another shot. Wheaton can be pretty brutal about the Next Generation, and for him to give an unflinching endorsement forces me to consider seeing the movie myself. And if I see it with James I might have to consider introducing him to the rest of Star Trek (or not, that's a lot of Star Trek for me to handle, maybe way too much).

This is so cool I have to figure a way to work it in

This article details something so cool it just screams out that it be used in a role playing game. My mind is just whirling with possibilities. I just read the article on my lunch break and all the way back from work all I could think about was ways to incorporate this into my game.

I don't know exactly how I plan to do it, but I will make it a centerpiece of the game, oh yes I will...