Roll to see if your favorite game can save vs. CCGs...

[ps238principal]

Comments

McRib is back

[ext_283257]

For those of you who don't know where the McRib comes from, or why it only comes back every so often, here is the answer: http://truckbearingkibble.com/comic/2007/06/07/porkicorn/

Re: McRib is back

[ps238principal]

I had fallen out of checking out Truck bearing Kibble; I need to re-acquaint myself with that particular comic, methinks.

And I never thought I'd see Grimace weeping with joy. :)

Re: McRib is back

[ext_283257]

just so you know: Here in germany you can get a McRib all year long, it's no special burger.

Gamma World Booster Cards

[anonymous]

I recall West End Games Shatterzone Space Opera setting had an optional deck of cards to add random events to an adventure during game play. If memory serves both the GM and players could access the deck in some manner (its been about 10 years sincec I last played the game so I don't remember for certain).

Re: Gamma World Booster Cards

[ps238principal]

I was almost tempted to call this "Nightmare Chess for D&D." :)

I missed picking up that game, though I do recall seeing ads for Shatterzone. I wish I still had my West End Games "Star Warriors" game; no cards, but it was fun trying to blow up Luke Skywalker during his run on the Death Star.

Re: Gamma World Booster Cards

[anonymous]

The main reason I did pick up Shatterzone was because at either Gen Con 99 or Gen Con 2000, West End Games was having a close out sale on some of their less mainstream stuff (in other words, anything not Star Wars) The two main books and the cards were $3 apeice, and the supplements and tie-in fiction were $1 apiece, so I picked up the whole setting for $18. In my home group I'm that guy who likes to buy and try out different settings (our group mainly plays D&D)...even managed to talk my group into trying out Shatterzone for a few sessions, which I consider a victory. :)

Re: Gamma World Booster Cards

[word_geek]

OK, so here's the thing I don't get -- and maybe it's just me, or the group I play with, or our GM -- but if you want a new monster, or a mutation, or a setting, or whatever...why not just make it up yourself? I mean, those cards must have, what, all of 50 words on them, and some stats? Why would you pay for that when you could make up something equivalent, and have it be unique to your game? I get that officially-sanctioned products have a higher guarantee of being "balanced" within the game system, but if it becomes obvious that you've botched some of the stats, why not just change it on the fly

[word_geek]

That Stephen Fry rant was fantastic...I don't think I've ever heard him sound quite so irritated as he did in the middle there. It makes an impression. I think I may forward that to some of the other editors and writers I know.

[ps238principal]

I find that one has to have several "rules" of grammar handy for writing. There's "dialogue correct," which is writing how people sound (I wonder if there's a macro for dropping the "g" from the end of every spoken word and replacing it with an apostrophe?), "structurally correct" for how to arrange paragraph breaks and making sure one can tell which person is speaking, and then "English major correct" which you don't dare use unless you know how to brandish a semicolon in a threatening manner. :)

I love having an evolving language, though it does make accessing previous works somewhat difficult; I checked out some audiobooks of older sci-fi stories (mostly from the 40's) and the gangster-slang sounded very corny, indeed. It was also interesting to hear the protagonist express disgust at having to romance a woman who weighed an unthinkably obese 160 pounds. Heck, I want to weigh 160 pounds...

Stephen Fry

[kiddala]

I did it funny when he was talking about the evolving of language from kids. His nephew (I believe) said something was "book". After enquiring what he meant by that he found out he meant "cool" but that book had come about from texting. The default when entering cool using T9 is book and the kids were far to busy to go through the effort of changing this and so book became the new cool.

[jedisoth]

I can't imagine how you missed the preview at the WotC booth. I only walked by it three times before realizing it WAS the WotC booth. Their presence at Gen Con this year was...underwhelming.

[ps238principal]

Mostly being stuck in our own booth or making sure Josh was having a good time. :)

We also had a nephew along who was helping with child care and doing more demoing than any one human should be allowed to.

But yeah, I really need to set aside at least an hour a day to go walkabout and note what's new, aside from the giant Lego mountain.

Gamma World

[1boringperson]

Gamma World was borth the first RPG I played and bought, but I didn't keep up with the subsequent editions. So to me, it's not Gamma World if it doesn't feature a nice, big, post-apocalyptic map of North America. (And "D&D Gamma World Game"? Really???) I agree that mutations randomly changing during game play is just weird. Frankly, nothing about it appeals to me.

Re: Gamma World

[ps238principal]

I still love that map. I think it was one of the first that had "changes" to it, which were fun to consider for campaign settings (I think New Orleans was well and truly submerged, if I remember how Louisiana looked).

And I picked up some subsequent GW books from both WotC and White Wolf. My biggest gripe was that the setting was completely unrecognizable. Part of the "fun" is the creepy feeling you get when you can vaguely recognize things as they're described to you as stuff you see everyday, but after the fallout has settled and a century or two has passed. The new books had nanotech and ultra-biology and all kinds of other high-end science going on before the bombs dropped, so it was more like someone nuked a William Gibson novel or something.