Cosmic Patrol from Catalyst Game Labs appealed to me the instant I saw the book. Such classic iconography with the rocket ship surrounded by orbiting bodies. A name so evocative of the pulp stories and radio serials that I love. Elegant graphic design in an attractive digest-sized hardcover. Wait. Digest size? I suppose that’s when I knew that something was about to go terribly wrong. After all, RPG books are supposed to be the full size of a 8.5×11 sheet of paper. It’s only reluctantly that Savage Worlds and Fate won me over to the 6×9 novel-sized format. Certainly Palladium’s decision to publish the new edition of Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles in manga-sized trade made the book completely undesirable from my point of view.
Category: Media Junkie
The Invention of Lying
Weren’t expecting this, were you? Based on the trailer, my impression of the movie was that it was going to be a lighthearted romp about people who misunderstand each other and then find each other emotionally, surrounded by a materially improbable setting. I expected the very embodiment of two words I have come to dread.
“Chick Flick”
Don’t wait for the part where I relent and say I was sadly mistaken. This is a chick flick. Snag a notepad and watch it anyway.
The materially improbable premise is that “people never evolved the need to lie.” The phrasing is important. Relationships between people are based on their potential for a positive genetic match in their children. Wedding vows consist of the words, “Do you promise to stay together as long as you want to and to protect your offspring?” A man on the street screams to nobody in particular, “Why are we wearing clothes and living on top of concrete? We’re just animals!”
Forward the Foundation
Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series is most well known as the winner of the Hugo Award for “Best All-Time Series” in 1966, the only series to date to which the award has been given. Asimov himself assumed the award had been created to honor J.R.R. Tolkien and was surprised to receive it. The original short stories were published between 1942 and 1950 in the pages of Astounding Magazine. These were later collected, and additional material added to form the novels known as the Foundation Trilogy.
Dungeons & Dragons 5e Starter Set
Summer of 2014 saw the release of the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons in a box set designed to introduce new players to the game. The box includes a rule book, an adventure book, pregenerated character sheets, and a full set of dice. It retails for $19.99.
Create Your Character +0: The production quality of the box is fairly average. The dice are a nice, marbleized deep blue with bright white numbers. The rule books use thick, glossy presentation pages, and the character sheets are on heavy-weave linen. Both books are coverless, saddle-stitched jobs. A 64-page rulebook and a 32-page adventure book. The included rules are meant to take characters as high as 5th level, and the adventure booklet maps out this structure very well. The box set plays as a quaint little self-contained game that will provide four or five complete gaming sessions.
Fox Fall part 2: Sleepy Hollow
If Gotham’s mythology weights it down from sheer volume, then Sleepy Hollow is hopelessly submerged in the deluge of a mythos not its own. Every single bit of this series inspired by based on using the names from Washington Irving’s eponymous ghost story borrows in the loosest since from vaguely supernatural-sounding events, history, and publications from throughout time.
The first season pulled names and references haphazardly from the Bible to populate a wholly original end-times scenario, sprinkled with a dash of Colonial American and European lore. I am generally in favor of wholly original mythology, and I think that CW’s Supernatural has done an excellent job of presenting new mythological construction. Sleepy Hollow has other problems.
Fox Fall part 1: Gotham
Fox television groans with the weight of mythology. And you thought it was the audience.
It probably says something significant that the fall season premiered without so much as a by your leave, and I didn’t even notice. That may only be that I’m oblivious, but it may equally be that I’ve become jaded to the very idea of network television as being something worth watching. Still, I’ve been looking forward to the premiere of Gotham and the return of Sleepy Hollow. Get it right this time, Fox!
Stress Track Over 9000!
The Fate System measures health, willpower, composure, structural integrity and even the progress of a scene using the Stress Track mechanic. This measurement tool flexes to adjust to the current situation; it is not meant to emulate the absolute durability of an object, but the relative importance of the subject to the dramatic potential of the scene. The Stress Track interacts with every skill usage in exactly the same way, but the dramatic intention of the skill dictates the way in which results are applied. In Fate Core, the four actions used to affect the Stress Track are Overcome, Create Advantage, Attack, and Defend.
Revenge of the Weasel Queen part 3
In this episode of Revenge of the Weasel Queen, the climactic confrontation between the forces of good and a warren of giant killer bunnies loyal only to the Weasel Queen threatens all of reality as we know it. It’s a good thing Agatha’s got a secret weapon up her sleeve! Not to be confused with Agatha’s official history, these are stories that people tell about Agatha.
The Girl Genius Radio Theatre material has been floating around fandom for some years, but has become increasingly difficult to find. Under the terms of the Studio Foglio fansite guidelines and using a Creative Commons license, I am excited to provide a mirror site for this material. I plan to post a new episode into the feed every week, to create an RSS feed just for this title and avoid a huge download dump. If you can’t wait, go get the entire thing from the fan page I set up!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Revenge of the Weasel Queen part 2
In this episode of Revenge of the Weasel Queen, Agatha and team improvise some emergency disguises and come up with a daring plan to rescue Othar from the warren of giant killer bunnies that stand in their way. Not to be confused with Agatha’s official history, these are stories that people tell about Agatha.
The Girl Genius Radio Theatre material has been floating around fandom for some years, but has become increasingly difficult to find. Under the terms of the Studio Foglio fansite guidelines and using a Creative Commons license, I am excited to provide a mirror site for this material. I plan to post a new episode into the feed every week, to create an RSS feed just for this title and avoid a huge download dump. If you can’t wait, go get the entire thing from the fan page I set up!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Revenge of the Weasel Queen part 1
In this episode of Revenge of the Weasel Queen, Othar Trygvassen journeys to rescue a small hamlet from the infamous Weasel Queen. Of course he can’t do without his spunky girl sidekick! Not to be confused with Agatha’s official history, these are stories that people tell about Agatha.
The Girl Genius Radio Theatre material has been floating around fandom for some years, but has become increasingly difficult to find. Under the terms of the Studio Foglio fansite guidelines and using a Creative Commons license, I am excited to provide a mirror site for this material. I plan to post a new episode into the feed every week, to create an RSS feed just for this title and avoid a huge download dump. If you can’t wait, go get the entire thing from the fan page I set up!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download