For me, the best line is “slap dat hobbit’s dick off, yo.”
7 August, 2013
Dungeons & Dragons….and Bitches.
Posted by blackcampbell under Roleplaying Games | Tags: dungeons and dragons |Leave a Comment
5 August, 2013
Harrison Ford Is Holding a Grudge
Posted by blackcampbell under Science Fiction | Tags: chewbacca, harrison ford, star wars |1 Comment
But, then again…he knows what he did:
31 July, 2013
Short Film: The Final Moments of Karl Brant
Posted by blackcampbell under Movies, Science Fiction | Tags: cyberpunk, jon sklaroff, paul reubens, the final moments of karl brant |Leave a Comment
Here’s a great little short starring, of all people, Paul Reubens (who’s really good here!), Janina Gavankar from True Blood (which I haven’t seen), and the always creepy Jon Sklaroff (great villain actor.)
30 July, 2013
Documentary on the Making of “Aliens”
Posted by blackcampbell under Movies, Science Fiction | Tags: aliens |Leave a Comment
This was on one of the releases on Aliens on DVD and has made its way to YouTube. It’s longer than the actual movie, but there’s a lot of neat stuff…
28 July, 2013
Animated Short: Thousandth Street
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28 July, 2013
Animated Short: PostHuman
Posted by blackcampbell under Movies, Science Fiction | Tags: anime short, cyberpunk, posthuman |Leave a Comment
24 July, 2013
Kids and Gaming, A Vignette
Posted by blackcampbell under Roleplaying Games | Tags: dungeons and dragons, Roleplaying Games |Leave a Comment
I got permission to repost this from jetshield over on the Wizards of the Coast community boards:
So there I am, watching my group bicker (in character) about how to get into the Temple of Akargon to retrieve the Rod of Improbability that’s rumored to be there. The little one (she’s 7), comes in from the next room, taps on one of my player’s shoulder to get his attention, and says “I’ve got the key I can sell you.”
Now, most groups would probably drop out of “game mode” at this point, humor her, and get back to playing. I don’t play with most groups.
The player says to her (still in character) “What do you want for it?”
“Five thousand gold” she replies, “and an ice cream cone.”
“An ice cream cone?! What’s that? More to the point, where do I find one.”
“There’s an ice cream store over near the school, but they’re closed now.”
“What if I just give you six thousand gold instead?”
“Okay, six thousand gold…and an ice cream cone.”
“No. No. I meant six thousand gold and no ice cream.”
“No ice cream, no key.” she says with her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face.
“I’m not sure it’s worth it. We could just kick the door down.”
“If you don’t have the key, the guards will kill you. They’re really tough. You’ll never get to the door to kick it.”
“According to our sources, there are no guards. Besides, a few soldiers shouldn’t be much of a problem.”
“They’re statues that come to life if you don’t have the key.” [note: this is news to me]
“We can handle a couple statues if we have to.”
“There’s a thousand of them.”
Another player chimes in (also in character). “If she’s even half-right, we’re going to need that key. I say we get her her ice cream. We’re wasting time.”
First player: “Okay, little one, we’ll get you some ice cream. How do we find you when we’ve got it?”
“I live here, silly. I’ll be in my room.” She says, and heads off. [another note: the characters were having this conversation in a burned out ruin in the middle of a barren wasteland]
The characters head off on a quest for ice cream (minus one player, who went to the store to buy ice cream and cones).
Just thought I’d share.
The original post can be found here: http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/27928765/Well,_I_didnt_see_that_coming
24 July, 2013
Trailer: Gravity
Posted by blackcampbell under Movies, Science Fiction | Tags: Alfonso Cuarón, george clooney, gravity, sandra bullock |Leave a Comment
21 July, 2013
The Players Guide to…Well, Playing (RPGs), Part 3 — How to Play
Posted by blackcampbell under Roleplaying Games | Tags: players tips |Leave a Comment
Do I really need to tell you how to play “pretend”? You’ve only been doing it since you were about two year old…but role playing games are a bit different. While they are just as collaborative as when you were kids (some of you still are, you’ve just got two digits in your age), the structure of some RPGs require a different approach to how you play your character.
There’s a lot of theories of role playing game design, GNS, Threefold Model, Big Model, Turku (or as English-speakers might call it “immersive”)…throw all that out and ask yourself this question, “Why are you playing?”
The answer should, in part, be “to have fun with friends”, but I’ve found that’s not always the case. There’s plenty of folks who view tabletop gaming and LARPing a more social form of acting practice. Game long enough and you’ll get one of these players. They’re in character the whole time. They lift their hand or some other signature to let you know when they are out of character. It’s like dealing with Christian Bale on set. They’re great players while the game is ongoing, but I’ve found they aren’t into the socializing aspect as much. (This, admittedly, could just be my experience…but there’s been a bunch of them that have crossed my path.) Really — LARP is probably going to be more of a draw.
Others want to just socialize of beer and pretzels — a board game, computer game, movie night would be just as enjoyable. In the middle you’ve got folks who like to do problem solving and tactical exercises (here be “gronards”), and others like the storytelling aspect. The latter are even happy when they aren’t the center of attention; they want to be entertained by the story and other characters, as much as anything.
Which of these you are is going to shape your interactions with the other players and their characters. If you’re an “immersive” player (the actor) in a group of the latter folks, they’re going to love how well developed your characters are, and hate how much you try to hog the limelight. If you’re a beer and pretzels guy, you probably just aren’t going to be as into the game as the other types.
This is okay.
However, the GM is going to have to balance the group members’ goals for what they get out of the game. If you’ve got a bunch of B&P players, this is easy. Short one-shots, a few different, rules-light games will fit the bill. If you are the sort that likes character or plot-driven storytelling, you’ll want to find the balance of how immersive you want to be. Our group tends to slide in and out of character, and can often find themselves on the sideline for a while as the story necessarily focuses on one character or another. There’s no one “right” way to play. Rather, it’s about managing your expectations of what the group will be and how you want to interact.
20 July, 2013
After Action Report: Battlestar Galactica RPG
Posted by blackcampbell under Roleplaying Games | Tags: battlestar galactica rpg |Leave a Comment
It’s been a while since I posted one of these, so here’s the latest from our BSG game:
The last half dozen sessions have revolved around our version of the Water episode (see here for recap) and the fallout of the same. After clearing Aaron Doral of involvement in the murder of the master-at-arms, and dropping the suspect as he was attempting to vent the ship’s atmosphere at auxiliary damage control, the characters continue to investigate the sabotage of the water tanks, focusing on the mysterious pilot that was seen on the surveillance camera. They work out it was female, despite the helmet being on, and from the squadron patch that it’s one of the raptor pilots.
The investigation seems to clear all of the women the right size, but in their questioning of the alibis work out that Boomer’s timeline is questionable. In the course of discussing the situation, the new master-at-arms (one of the PCs) lets slip that they have a test for Cylon agents. They decide, just for safety sake, to test Boomer. When they go to arrest her, her programming trips and she nearly kills the MAA with a metal chair, but gets dropped by one of the other PCs. Injured, but not dead, they take her under guard to the infirmary for her shattered leg.
The doctor does surgery on Boomer’s leg, and while under anesthetic transmits their location to the Cylons. The battle that ensures when two basestars jump right into the middle of the fleet took two sessions to complete. They launch their fighters and the good guys are outnumbered 20 -1. Half of the fighters hold back as a screen for the basestars, but several hundred hammer the civilian and military ships. It was a very desperate fight, and our first real engagement of the campaign.
This gave us a chance to try out a really stripped down set of house rules for fleet combat. In it, the fighter squadrons get three actions to the capital ship’s one. To handle the fighter combat, the CAG (a PC) rolled his initiative versus the Cylon squadrons. To resolve combat between large numbers of fighter, I handled each squadron or group of fighters as a single unit. The CAG rolled his piloting skill and gunnery for the vipers, with the number of successes over the Cylon defensive roll being the number of fighters that were splashed; it was vice-versa for the Colonials. It ran fast and clean, and allowed for a big fight to be resolved in a night.
Galactica and the other military vessels did very well in the initial stages of the fight, mostly because the Cylons were concentrating on the civilians and damaged military craft first. As the toasters took serious damage in the first few capital-level exchanges, they changed their focus to the battlestars and hammered them. The fight took about five minutes game time, and once the fleet was jumped away, the characters ran for it. But not before they had taken serious damage — all three of the combat vessels were at half damage or worse. The fighters, on the other hand, did remarkably well, killing 20 Cylons to each viper lost. Another problem — two heavy raiders got through the point defense screen and landed in both of the landing pods (one crashing through the windows of the museum.)
The next session was a hard fought battle against a Cylon boarding party, while a PCin an unarmed shuttle attempted to bottle up the only functional heavy raider from escaping to report their position. For the Cylon fire team, I had two of the toasters carrying heavy machineguns, instead of just using their arm guns; another two used grenade launchers. They did not show fear or hold back when under fire (why would they?) which led to a nasty, but short fight in which the master-at-arms character is nearly killed and half his team is injured or killed as the Cylons punched through their defense and made for the CIC. Eventually, they were able to stop the machines, but not before there were a lot of bodies on the deck.
The first few times we encountered the centurions, they seemed a bit underpowered to me, but having made certain to apply their armor properly, they were damned tough opponents.
The Black Campbell 