I don't know if there are many folks still on Livejournal, but like many others I have migrated away. If you are actually someone who cares about what I have to say -- wow, thanks! But my sporadic update schedule is now spending time over at a place I have eccentrically named after obscure Appalachian boojums. The address would be ethan skemp ( Read more... )

It is, among the circles I travel in, probably a minority opinion to say "elves aren't sexy." Even including the usual amount of caveats -- "fantasy novel/gaming elves specifically, everyone already knows Keebler/Santa's elves aren't sexy", "this is a personal opinion rather than an objective rule," "not just Mialee, everyone already knows she ( Read more... )

I'll quickly admit that I'm not thrilled to be spending Thanksgiving in Georgia. It's not really home, despite actually owning this current house rather than renting. No family in the city, and the oldest friends in town are, sensibly, not in town for the holiday either. It's a problem we'll maybe fix next year once we get a vehicle that can ( Read more... )

One of the most challenging things about running a generic D&D game is the question of ethnicity. Normally most D&D settings tend to approach ethnicity in one of two ways:

- Option A: Nations tend to be general analogues to "real world" nations or cultures, and are arranged accordingly: the pale-skinned raiders with the longboats are in the North, a ( Read more... )

Let's start with the joke that came out of last Thursday's game session: If you put a 1st-level wizard in a box with a cat, you will not know if the wizard is alive or dead until you open the box and observe. Unless the wizard's only spell was detect secret doors or something, in which case he's definitely dead. That's the concept of Schrödinger's ( Read more... )

For someone who's worked on a hell of a lot of horror games, I don't consume a lot of horror. Don't go to horror movies (especially slasher or torture porn flicks, which just completely do nothing for me), don't read much horror literature apart from the occasional classic. It's an odd choice to make, given my profession.

I think it has something to ( Read more... )

Last Wednesday's Tanglestone session was probably not a fantastic one in terms of Major Conflicts. It seemed fairly low key in some respects. But it hit four of the major reasons for gaming, and right on the nose.

Exploration: It opened up with the PCs interrogating... something between an NPC and a computer archive, maybe? This entity knew a lot ( Read more... )

Last night was a bit of a long dark night of the soul. All right, more sort of a short dim evening of the soul, but all the same...

About a year ago, Aileen and I had to go down to Lake Lanier (it was "down" at the time, whereas it's now sort of "up") for a company thingie. The company thingie was not quite forgettable, but about as useful as you ( Read more... )

Me: "You know, in The Yiddish Policemen's Union, one of the themes is the main character's inarguable, much as he tries to argue it, love for his ex-wife. And the character of the ex-wife reminds me of you. So I liked it."

Her: "You know I'm going to read it, right?"

Me: "So... any flaws that the character of the ex-wife exhibits you're going to ( Read more... )

So since the move, I've been casting covetous glances at the used bookstore not too far from here. Very close by the old mountain standards: only about ten minutes, a little over. It just hasn't been on the way to anywhere, so it took me a while to go visit.

My fascination with used bookstores is probably understandable. In a way, it does feel like ( Read more... )