Hey Man, well this is Babylon

Yesterday, while on my daily lunchtime walkabout downtown, I saw a guy on a motorcycle. He was wearing samurai armor and had a sword. It was awesome, and yet another reaffirmation of my love for this wonderful city.

Remember Showbiz Pizza? Watch this. Right about 3:02 is there it gets really damned awesome.

Man, I remember as a wee little kid how Billy Bob used to appear in my nightmares.

What a weekend!

Good Times (anytime you need a favor!)

Friday night Avatar: good times! Thanks for bringing over those episodes, Trinity. I’m glad you’re finally getting to see Season 3. Soon you will understand why I love Zuko so much! And thanks for Skies of Arcadia Legends, Andrea. I’m enjoying it greatly. Plus, it’s good inspirational fodder for the Sky Pirates game (further below). Also, Bethany picked up a copy of No More Heroes for the Wii, and so far, it’s pretty sweet. My one complaint: so far, I don’t notice any strategy in it. There’s several things you can do in it when facing enemies, but mainly it seems that the “hit A repeatedly to beat them down” strategy is really the best tactic. Regardless, it’s bloody and brutal and lots of fun. Read more

* Cleaned up the organization of the character creation section
* Added more example text in Character creation section
* Added missing information to Random Character Creation rules.
* Filled out more information on the Quick-Tables
* Now with 13 total Mojo powers.

As always, the rules can be downloaded here.

Yesterday I proposed a new game idea to my group: Let’s build a city, populate it together, then play in it. My basic idea was a city called Torch, with a very flame-focused motif in the common nomenclature of the city and its populace. The idea took hold, and we all threw some ideas around to give it more life. Here’s what we have so far: Read more

Yesterday I picked up the two modules I’ll be demoing on June 21st at Guardian Games for the upcoming 2nd Annual Free RPG Day. The two modules in question are “Take the Money” for the Tunnels and Trolls RPG, and the brand-spanking-new quick-start rules for Green Ronin’s upcoming A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying Game. I’ll save the T&T write-up for a later occasion – it’s fun, fairly ridiculous, and amazingly simple, and there’s not much more to really say about it. Let’s take a look at ASOIAF. Read more

Holy cow, the guys at Penny-Arcade, in their own round-about “Wall of Text” way, have pretty much blasted the new Metal Gear game. You know… sadly, as much as I enjoy hanging with Beth and Chris and Crew and watching them play video games, and as much as I’m looking forward to doing just that this evening, I agree with Tycho. I just never got why or how that series was supposedly so awesome. Too many do-it-again-stupid moments make it frustrating for me, and too many goddamned cut scenes (and they only multiply exponentially with every new game) make me feel like I’m playing a retro Sega CD “Full Motion Video Game” (aka the X Button-Pressing Sim) with very little actual playing of the game.

Seriously, why is it even a game series anymore? Why not just turn them into movies, like the series designer obviously is trying to do? Anyway, tonight is part 2 of the MGS3 play-through (formerly called Metal Gear Jawsome, and now renamed Metal Gear Hotness). I’m excited by having good friends over, and even more excited that I can easily retire to my bedroom when the game’s terrible dialogue and endless cutscenes eventually grate on my nerves.

The Suffering: Ties That Bind is turning out to be a lot more difficult than I remember it. I gave up the “Hard Mode, Bat-Only” approach after realizing that I’m not entirely sure if it’s even possible on normal mode. Now I’m playing Normal, just so I can reach the end of the game. I’m tempted to search some local bargain bins for the first game and give it another run-through. I think the first was a bit superior, in a good many ways: creepier, deadlier, and less limiting with inventory.

I think I’m going to try and finish Oni in the next week or so, too.

In other news, I finally got around to seeing The Forbidden Kingdom this past Tuesday evening. Needless to say, I have ideas. Many ideas.

I’m posting this as an open query to whoever might be reading/enjoying/testing the Cannibal Contagion Playtest Rules. Do any of youb think that there should be more example text in the book? What kinds of examples, and what parts of the text need clarification?

I’ve updated the draft with two more quick-charts, one for random Agsomafas and the other for random Tragic Flaws. So far I’ve only got thirteen of each. If you have more ideas for some generic “stock” examples, comment and let me know.

Update 6/11/2008: Added second sets of Agsomafas and Flaws to the list Read more

I’ve been updating the character creation system of Cannibal Contagion to fix some issues brought up in some recent playtests. More specifically, I’ve been writing out an optional fully-randomized character creation process, which includes a handful of draw tables. With the draw of a handful of cards, the entire character can be created from scratch. These tables will also serve as examples for folks seeking ideas on their own Flaws, Archetypes, and Agsomafas. I’m posting the current list of 52 archetypes here for comment and discussion. These are pulled entirely from movies, games and comics of the zombie-survival genre. Read more