johnpaul613

Made up a bunch of postcard sized flyers for Games on Demand.  I hope they let us use them.



I also made a flyer to highlight the games I'm running, inspired by Adam's post over at Story Games (http://www.story-games.com/forums/?CommentID=223678)



This certainly has been an interesting year.  Lots of work but fun. 

A couple of scenarios I'm intending to try out at Gencon given a few interested peoples.  Some of this is borrowed from suggestions on the SG thread.  http://www.story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=9673  I still would like to put one of these together dealing with 'heroes journeys' (Hercules, Odysseus, etc).  I'm just too tired to look all that up right now but I think it'd work.  

TIME TRAVEL
Facts & Reassurances
- You are a member of a research team that discovered a method of time travel.
- Time travel only works into the past.
- You are not allowed to bring any divergent technology with you on a trip.
- You were attempting to handle some sort of target (an event, object, or person).
- We are unsure what made you lose your memories. But it was during a mission into the past.
- Technology other than your teams discovery is similar to what you remember.  Your team does have access to cutting edge though.
- You are healthy and trained to go on these missions but are not superhuman.
- No one is aware of any magic or other supernatural events.
- A temporal anomaly has caused your memory to be damaged, the Orphic Institute has been contracted to retrieve your memory in order to correct any temporal paradox you may have created

Questionnaire.
2 pennies "Recall the first time you time travelled"
3 pennies "Recall a conflict that almost caused a paradox"
4 pennies "Recall your last mission and the cause the paradox and your amnesia"
Do you want to correct the paradox?


ANCIENT ENTITIES
Facts & Reassurances
-You are a supernatural being currently bound in Human Form. Somehow a group, individual or event has hidden your true nature not only from others but from yourself, you don't remember it but you are some manner of faerie, angel, spirit, demon or otherworldly entity currently restricted to a human body.
-It is the Twenty-First Century. That is not to say that you haven't possibly live for a significant amount of time compared to most humans, you may indeed have existed for many millenia, however if you have memories of strange magic, super advanced technology or weird and sinister alien devices they are likely not of human origin.
- You may have abilities far beyond those of the typical mortals of this century.
- To most people the world is a mundane place. People see wonders and terrors from simple and personal things, like the birth of a child or the death of a loved one. But to a lucky few there are wonders and terrors in this world that are beyond mortal imagination; gods, angels, demons, spirit, faeries and all many of other supernatural creatures roam the world and the spaces between worlds. Mostly, hidden from the sight of the mundane populace.  If you have memories of magic, supernatural beings or otherworldly landscapes, do not immediately dismiss them as fantasy.

Questionnaire.
2 pennies "Recall what happened the day before you came to the Institute"
3 pennies "Recall what happened when you almost remembered who you were"
4 pennies "Recall the origins of your amnesia and your identity"
Do you want to remember?

Please, people who will be at the booth spaces. Let us help you. Point people our direction when they are interested in more than a demo. We will be at the Omni-Severin Hotel just across the skywalk from the main convention center in the Fisher Ballroom.

Just make sure we have the game and know how to run it. I'll be honest that I enjoy these games but unless I've played in one I sometime feel I'm not up to speed on the mechanics. I certainly did not get everything out of IAWA until I'd played it a couple of times.

A packet to run the game for GoD would be optimal but I know the expense and trouble of putting something like that together may not be doable for everyone. Just like everything else in life though, the more you put in, the more you'll get out.

We may not get there this year, but I see a very large upside to close communication and collaberation between the designers, booth staff, GoD, and the wider community. We will definitely be pointing people back to you to get more information (and hopefully purchase) the games we are running. I've seen some companies (like Arc Dream) give out discount coupons to anyone who plays in one of their games for example.

Think it over. There has to be more and better ways to do what we do. I just want everyone to have fun. B-)

Games on Demand will be at Gencon!



What is it?
Games on Demand is an area with tables, material and a constant supply of GMs prepared to run a variety of independent and cutting edge games just as soon as you can present them with a group of players who are interested in playing them.

It is, in short, your source for the game you want, when you want it.

Why is it?
Slots fill up, or their scheduling is impossible for you, or you just plain didn't know about cool games like 3:16, Hot War, or Misspent Youth before you got to GenCon and heard people buzzing about them. These things happen, but it would be a shame if you couldn't count on some spontaneous fun at GenCon.

Games on Demand lets us all be spontaneous. Want a game of Polaris?  Play a game of Polaris! Have an unexpected dead spot in your schedule? Satisfy your craving for immediate gratification by popping around and seeing what people are trying to gather players for.

Where is it?
Games on Demand is located in the spacious Fisher Ballroom in the Omni-Severin hotel. This places it just across a skywalk from the main convention center, and just above one of the closest and most convenient food courts in the area.

Who is it?
Games on Demand is run by enthusiastic volunteers, so you're always guaranteed high energy and a rollicking good time.

In particular this year, GoD is working closely with the Play Collective, a group of independent designers. So the creators of many of the games being run and played will be right there, running and playing them!

So, come over.  Play some games.  Meet some new faces and have fun!

I've a long term interest in physics. Especially the quantum and cosmic varieties. I love the constant learning about this great big beautiful universe.

So, this article about mapping dark matter is just plain cool....

http://images.apple.com/science/profiles/massey/?sr=hotnews

Does anyone else have an interest in these things?

This: http://crimsonsorrow.com/

This, is liquid awesome. Do yourself a favor. If your interested in Houses or just curious, listen to these couple of episodes. It is worth your time.

Another interesting gaming article. Some guy plays the game as allowed by the design but everyone hates him. Having just recently got my tail kicked over and over again in WoW waiting for party members at a Dungeon I can see the other side of this...social convictions matter.

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/loyola_university_professor_be.html

Check this out.

http://www.squaremans.com/?p=105#more-105

A very interesting analysis of the trends in RPG's and where they might be heading. Not sure I agree with it all but very good ideas to think, think, think on...

News flash:

Mouse Guard beats D&D 4th edition at Origins this year. This. Is. Awesome!

http://www.critical-hits.com/2009/06/27/origins-awards-2009/

Prominent abortionist George Tiller was murdered yesterday
http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/688835.html

The person thought to be responsible has been arrested.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/man-arrested-over-murder-of-abortion-doctor-14322230.html

This was a sad and evil act. I hope justice is served.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/toby_harnden/blog/2009/06/01/murder_of_abortionist_george_tiller_an_unspeakable_and_evil_act

From today's WSJ:

"Google Inc. previewed a new communications service that combines features of email, instant-messaging and document-sharing to facilitate multiperson conversations online.

The Google Wave service caps a years-long project to come up with a way to break down the barriers between different types of online communication services, said Lars Rasmussen, the Google engineer who led the development of the service along with his brother, Jens Rasmussen.

The service, which won't be open to the public for several months, will allow users to start a conversation, called a "wave," and to invite their contacts to join it. Any member of the wave can put photos, notes or other content into the group, which updates in near-real time.

People see an "in-box" with the most recent waves they have joined and whether others have added any new notes or content to them. They can click to scroll through the wave and see what content has been added to it.

...

Google, which announced the new service at its developer conference in San Francisco on Thursday, envisions Wave as not only a way to share messages with friends and colleagues, but also to share and access a variety of information online. For instance, a user could create a wave that is an article he or she wrote and then invite people to read and comment on it.

Mr. Rasmussen said it is too early to tell how consumers will use Wave, but he expects that the various applications and services Google hopes developers will build on top of it will be a big draw. Videogame developers could build a game that began as a wave, for example, and Google will allow other Web sites to embed waves into their Web sites.

He added that Google hasn't thought much about how the service could generate revenue. "One of the great luxuries of Google is that we get to not think about that yet," he said."

================================================

This is neat. I can see this as the next 'wave' in virtual table top gaming. If someone had a tabletop they would be able to plug into Wave and get a whole lot of open source functionality.

Video presentation http://wave.google.com/

Articles about it http://blogs.computerworld.com/googl...where_why_when
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/28...nd-web-vision/
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/200...ogle-wave.html

Sounds cool. I hope this is something we can use soon!

http://wickedthought.livejournal.com/881232.html?#cutid1




Looks interesting...

We're playing our third play session of BW this Saturday. Its a 'sword and sorcery' game set in a monstrous city called Tol-na-grondh. Most of the discussion has been at the BW forums http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?t=7500 I'm excited because the system is starting to make more sense and the players have been really into the game. I think soon the players will start pushing things more and we'll get to see how the game works in longer term play. I haven't had a Fight! or Duel of Wits yet but we have worked through vs., Bloody vs., and Mouse Guard style conflicts. This week I'm planning on getting them to use their Traits more and try to push harder against their Beliefs and Instincts. Wish me luck!

"Though these facts are well known, they bear repeating. Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas were early advocates of Aristotelian science; Copernicus, the popularizer of the heliocentric understanding of the solar system, was a priest; Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics and a chief forerunner of Darwin, was a monk; many of the founders of modern science — Newton, Kepler, Tycho Brahe, Descartes, Pascal, Leibniz — were devoutly religious men; the formulator of the Big Bang theory of cosmic origins was a priest. Perhaps most importantly, the modern physical sciences emerged precisely in the context of a Christian culture, where the belief in creation and hence in universal intelligibility was taken for granted." Rev. Robert Barron

As I see it, it is precisely out of a desire to understand this created universe that the seeds of the science's flowering were planted. We are the inheritors of this patrimony. Have there been mistakes, yes. Have there been times when members of the Church attempted to 'control' ideas in a misguided attempt to protect the faithful from confusion, yes. The Church's charism is in the teaching of faith and morals, not science. To take these errors though and create a blanket condemnation of the contribution of faithful men and women to the advancement of knowledge and culture is difficult to understand.

Acknowledgment of the compatibility of faith and reason is not an unreasonable request.

Pope Benedict XVI has been involved in several conferences dealing with evolution. The most recent conference with the Pontifical University and Notre Dame University was in March. The website http://www.evolution-rome2009.net/ has a lot of information. For those who think that science and religion are inherently incompatible it may be interesting. Let me know what you think...

The latest link for the hack (v1.3) may be found here. Thanks Rafe!

A neat character sheet has also been put together for it here. Thanks damiller!

Most of the action on the development is over at the MG hack forum. If anyone plays it please let us know.

For what it's worth. I'm running my wife and son in a mash-up of both settings.  The Jaws of the Six Serpents world is beneath the broken remains of the cloud island retreats of the Sorcerer Kings. The Swashbucklers of the 7  Skies civilizations have the addition of ancient ruins and history to delve in the clouds above. Below, the lands are unchanged except the floating wonders are in the skies overhead. It adds a bigger background, expanded character options, and slightly darker cast that we're enjoying.

Rafe over at the BW forums has gone out of his way to take this fledgling idea and expand it into something I could never have accomplished on my own.  As I've said before, the best ideas in this hack are not mine at all (the most important system stuff are Luke's and the design, layout and background material came from Rafe).  For anyone who gets enjoyment from this hack please give a moment and thank them.  Since I've been the public shill for this I did not want to give the impression that this was just my work.  It's not at all.  B-)

So we finally have a decent looking PDF put together with all the wonderful advise from the boards.  http://www.mediafire.com/?1nxtwk5y0hm   The file is about 4.5mb (PDF) right now.

Specific things we'd like input on:

• Natures: On p. 18 of the PDF, as well as all the creature Natures further on starting on p. 24. The rough rule is 3 descriptors per race and 4 per creature (including Orcs, etc.). Not concerned with gerunds, nouns... if you think something would work better, post here

• Traits: Additions or removals?

• Wises: Fleshing them out, though I've come up with a pretty decent list with ~90 wises

• Environment Nature: Whether or not specific 'Places of Note' (Moria, Ettenmoors, Dead Marshes, Fangorn Forest, etc.) should have a Nature themselves

• Tokens of Power: Does the concept make sense and is using a trait-like system the right way to go about it?

• Anything else you spot or can think of!

Please use the Burning Wheel forums thread http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/showthread.php?t=7491 for peer review or playtest results.  Thanks so much.