There is much awesomeness in the new Doctor Who season 6 trailer!
Well, it's been more than year since my last post, and much has happened since then.
I've become more active on other blogs, we've moved to a different home, and the nature of my work has changed yet again.
Plus, I'm a year older and getting that feeling that I have to move faster to get things done.
I've become more active on other blogs, we've moved to a different home, and the nature of my work has changed yet again.
Plus, I'm a year older and getting that feeling that I have to move faster to get things done.
There's an upside: reduced traffic, seemingly fresher air, and a lot of quiet time -- I tend not to listen to the radio when driving these days. Also, there's a chance to alter my breakfast diet on these mornings; a chance I seldom take advantage of. And I get to work early, avoiding the morning elevator rush, and some time to do some early web surfing (hello Pet Society and Restaurant City!) before work.
But I miss having my wife beside me -- to chat with, to sing with, or to ride alongside with in silence -- on these mornings. And I miss the morning chance to play with my son and get lucky enough to see his toothy grin.
Star Trek - The Reboot
I know, it's not quite a reboot or a retcon. The time travel rationale (which has been used before in the Star Trek universe) that allows for this "alternate reality" Star Trek allows us to enjoy all the old Original Series episodes and Next Gen episodes along with whatever they're going to do with this rebooted franchise.
Still, this is done all the time in other media. When the venerable Gundam anime series had already established dozens of episodes in the original universe, all of a sudden: alternate Gundam universes starting popping up with similar characters and recognizable mecha designs -- the most successful of which was the Gundam Wing series. Interestingly enough, they still kept releasing shows set in the original universe -- sidestories involving new characters or adventures in the past or the future of the original series.
Comic books are notorious for retcons and reboots. Marvel has done their Ultimate version of their universe, where people swear and are nasty and betray one another and look a lot like well-known actors. Wait, that's the Ultimates. Ultimate Spider-man was actually pretty good as a reboot, getting back to the heart of the character and reinventing it for modern audiences. Before the Ultimate line, however, there was the short lived Heroes Reborn series of comics, which had mostly good art and hit-or-miss writing.
DC is the champion of the reboot, of course. They did the famous Crisis on Infinite Earths, allowing them to reboot everything -- condensing their multiverses into a single universe! And then just recently, they did Final Crisis, allowing them to bring back the multiverse (and all those alternate reality versions of their primary universe, of course).
There'll always be naysayers -- people unhappy with the latest incarnation of the characters and the storylines -- but if the stories are good, if the TV shows are good, if the movies are good, then the characters and the universes they inhabit should flourish as they attract more and more fans.
Starbursts, Cylons, Starkillers, and Fireflies – Oh My!
This first appeared on the New Worlds site, but I'm reposting it here for the heck of it.
Role Playing in Science Fiction’s Universes
Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is not only the grand-daddy of all Role-Playing Games (RPGs), it’s also part of the mental image that most people associate have with the hobby: a handful of players sitting around a table, rolling dice, pretending they’re fighters, mages, thieves and clerics in a generic fantasy setting.
Nothing wrong with that, of course – many gamers have a fond memory of the time they triumphed over slavering hordes of orcs or vanquished an obscenely powerful dragon. It’s just that the vistas that are open to aficionados of RPGs include so many genres and subgenres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror that RPG players often find it painful to explain their hobby as “Dungeons and Dragons, but with spaceships.” Furthermore, generic settings can sometimes lead to a desire to adventure in specific, familiar universe. Perhaps some would find it more satisfying to say: “We’re playing ex-Peacekeepers in the universe of Farscape”; or “we’re playing members of an anti-Cylon conspiracy”; or “we’re playing cash-hungry cutthroats on a Firefly-class ship”.
Generic Settings and Intellectual Property
Of course, it’s not the fault of D&D that it started the entire hobby, and it’s certainly not it’s fault that it has been labeled as “generic” despite a healthy run of novels set in its wildly successful Forgotten Realms fantasy universe. D&D carved out its mindshare across the decards despite early run-ins with the intellectual property police: some of its earliest races included hobbits, balrogs, and ents before they ran afoul of Tolkien’s estate and some of its earliest spell names were lifted from Jack Vance’s works, along with its famous “cast-and-forget” spell mechanic.
Learning lessons from D&D, some of the earliest forays into Science Fiction RPG settings had universes big enough to handle the Science Fiction novels and movies of the time: Traveller, Star Frontiers, and Space Opera allowed you to explore strange new worlds, engage in blaster duels in darkly lit space stations, and triumph over overwhelming numbers of starships in space dogfights.
Fortunately, because of the original Star Wars trilogy’s success with merchandising, RPGs have – at last – become acceptable forms of merchandise, allowing licensed RPGs to come out for a variety of popular movie and TV properties.
There were some early successes – the original Star Wars RPG by West End Games, along with some beloved also-rans (the Ghostbusters RPG and the Men in Black RPG, also by West End Games) – that helped spur on an ever-increasing number of Science Fiction universes into licensed RPG-dom.
If your taste of Science Fiction gravitates to playing rogues and criminal on the run, you may wish to try out either of the following RPGs:
In the Farscape Roleplaying Game, you get to adventure in the most dangerous region of populate space, playing battle-hardened Luxans, sly Nebari, or starlost humans, experiencing the thrill and terror of being pursued by relentless Peacekeepers. With D20 system stats for characters from the show, you can test your cunning against Scorpius, armwrestle D’Argo or race your own stolen leviathan against Talyn.
If you can’t find these games in print at local game stores, you might want to get them in PDF form from online stores like RPGNow (http://www.rpgnow.com/).
But hurry – if sales for an RPG dip low enough, the game publishers may not renew their license, or perhaps the owners of the intellectual property may wish to go with another publisher and another incarnation of the licensed RPG; this is what happened to Babylon 5 and its ill-fated RPG line.
Babylon 5 – Hope and Faith
In 1997, The Babylon Project was released – the first licensed Babylon 5 RPG, published by Chameleon Eclectic Entertainment. Sadly, due to insufficient support and financial problems, it failed.
In 2003, The Babylon 5 RPG came out, licensed by Mongoose Publishing. It was well-supported, with sourcebooks and adventure material churned out on a regular basis. Encouraged, Mongoose Publishing released a Second Edition of the Babylon 5 RPG, with rules additions and refinements designed to bring the game closer to the feel and scope of the epic TV series.
Sadly, in the absence of any new Babylon 5-related stories in the media, Mongoose Publishing has decided not to renew its license this year, meaning that at some point during 2009 available material for this game will just… stop.
But nothing is forever, so if you want a opportunity to adventure using official Babylon 5 RPG material (or any of the aforementioned RPGs) – get your copies now, while the game publishers still have the license.
Unless, of course, you believe that the current incarnations are not your last best hopes of adventuring in these universes, and that you have faith that something newer and better will appear some time in the future.
This first appeared on the New Worlds site, but I'm reposting it here for the heck of it.
Role Playing in Science Fiction’s UniversesDungeons and Dragons (D&D) is not only the grand-daddy of all Role-Playing Games (RPGs), it’s also part of the mental image that most people associate have with the hobby: a handful of players sitting around a table, rolling dice, pretending they’re fighters, mages, thieves and clerics in a generic fantasy setting.
Nothing wrong with that, of course – many gamers have a fond memory of the time they triumphed over slavering hordes of orcs or vanquished an obscenely powerful dragon. It’s just that the vistas that are open to aficionados of RPGs include so many genres and subgenres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror that RPG players often find it painful to explain their hobby as “Dungeons and Dragons, but with spaceships.” Furthermore, generic settings can sometimes lead to a desire to adventure in specific, familiar universe. Perhaps some would find it more satisfying to say: “We’re playing ex-Peacekeepers in the universe of Farscape”; or “we’re playing members of an anti-Cylon conspiracy”; or “we’re playing cash-hungry cutthroats on a Firefly-class ship”.
Generic Settings and Intellectual Property
Of course, it’s not the fault of D&D that it started the entire hobby, and it’s certainly not it’s fault that it has been labeled as “generic” despite a healthy run of novels set in its wildly successful Forgotten Realms fantasy universe. D&D carved out its mindshare across the decards despite early run-ins with the intellectual property police: some of its earliest races included hobbits, balrogs, and ents before they ran afoul of Tolkien’s estate and some of its earliest spell names were lifted from Jack Vance’s works, along with its famous “cast-and-forget” spell mechanic.Learning lessons from D&D, some of the earliest forays into Science Fiction RPG settings had universes big enough to handle the Science Fiction novels and movies of the time: Traveller, Star Frontiers, and Space Opera allowed you to explore strange new worlds, engage in blaster duels in darkly lit space stations, and triumph over overwhelming numbers of starships in space dogfights.
Fortunately, because of the original Star Wars trilogy’s success with merchandising, RPGs have – at last – become acceptable forms of merchandise, allowing licensed RPGs to come out for a variety of popular movie and TV properties.
There were some early successes – the original Star Wars RPG by West End Games, along with some beloved also-rans (the Ghostbusters RPG and the Men in Black RPG, also by West End Games) – that helped spur on an ever-increasing number of Science Fiction universes into licensed RPG-dom.
If your taste of Science Fiction gravitates to playing rogues and criminal on the run, you may wish to try out either of the following RPGs:
In the Farscape Roleplaying Game, you get to adventure in the most dangerous region of populate space, playing battle-hardened Luxans, sly Nebari, or starlost humans, experiencing the thrill and terror of being pursued by relentless Peacekeepers. With D20 system stats for characters from the show, you can test your cunning against Scorpius, armwrestle D’Argo or race your own stolen leviathan against Talyn.
In the award-winning Serenity Role Playing Game you can carve out your own corner of Joss Whedon’s ‘Verse by taking on every paying job that a tough-talking, gun-slinging, silver-tongue ship crew can handle. Just be careful: there are dangers aplenty awaiting you – Alliance patrols, rival crews, thieves, assassins, and the much-reviled Reavers.
If you haven’t had your fill of terrible odds and difficult choices, you might want to try your hand at the Battlestar Galactica Role Playing Game! Try your hand at being one of the outgunned and outnumbered survivors of the Twelve Colonies struggling against their human-looking Cylon oppressors.
If you can’t find these games in print at local game stores, you might want to get them in PDF form from online stores like RPGNow (http://www.rpgnow.com/).
But hurry – if sales for an RPG dip low enough, the game publishers may not renew their license, or perhaps the owners of the intellectual property may wish to go with another publisher and another incarnation of the licensed RPG; this is what happened to Babylon 5 and its ill-fated RPG line.
Babylon 5 – Hope and FaithIn 1997, The Babylon Project was released – the first licensed Babylon 5 RPG, published by Chameleon Eclectic Entertainment. Sadly, due to insufficient support and financial problems, it failed.
In 2003, The Babylon 5 RPG came out, licensed by Mongoose Publishing. It was well-supported, with sourcebooks and adventure material churned out on a regular basis. Encouraged, Mongoose Publishing released a Second Edition of the Babylon 5 RPG, with rules additions and refinements designed to bring the game closer to the feel and scope of the epic TV series.
Sadly, in the absence of any new Babylon 5-related stories in the media, Mongoose Publishing has decided not to renew its license this year, meaning that at some point during 2009 available material for this game will just… stop.
But nothing is forever, so if you want a opportunity to adventure using official Babylon 5 RPG material (or any of the aforementioned RPGs) – get your copies now, while the game publishers still have the license.
Unless, of course, you believe that the current incarnations are not your last best hopes of adventuring in these universes, and that you have faith that something newer and better will appear some time in the future.
After all, it happened to Star Wars….
It's available on iTunes, y'all, but for those of you who aren't interested in buying it, you may wish to view the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aym8_S3BXKw
Go see Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.
Funny, touching, though Act III kinda startled me with the shift in the storytelling style. The casting of the primaries -- Dr. Horrible (Neil Patrick Harris), Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion), and Penny (Felicia Day) -- is fantastic and I love the performances.
Here are the lyrics I could make out from one of the songs:
Funny, touching, though Act III kinda startled me with the shift in the storytelling style. The casting of the primaries -- Dr. Horrible (Neil Patrick Harris), Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion), and Penny (Felicia Day) -- is fantastic and I love the performances.
Here are the lyrics I could make out from one of the songs:
Bad Horse, Bad Horse
Bad Horse, Bad Horse
He rides across the nation, the thoroughbred of sin
He got the application that you just sent in
It needs evaluation, so let the games begin
A heinous crime, a show of force
A murder would be nice of course
Bad Horse, Bad Horse
Bad Horse, He's bad
The Evil League of Evil is watching so beware
The grade that you receive will be the last we swear
So make the battle skillful, or He'll make you his mare
You're saddled up, there's no recourse
It's hi-yo Silver! Signed: Bad Horse
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