Question for the Regular Readers

So.

Did you like the A to Z blogging Challenge?
Why did you like it/not like it?

If you were avoiding it, then why?

Thanks!

Gen Con Registration is live

And has been for a about 100 minutes now.

I was here, of course and still did not get into three of the games I really wanted.
My Gen Con tradition is to play Victoriana, but that game was sold out, and I tried to get into the Dresden Files game, but they were all booked too.

I did not see anything that looked "OSR Sponsored"  (whatever that means) so if you are running an old-school game then let everyone know.

Here are my games, they are selling pretty fast.

RPG1120388 Obsession (Revised) Thu @ 7:00 PM 4 hrs
Location: Crowne Plaza :: Grand Central Blrm D :: 8 Cost: $4

RPG1120389 Dinosauria! Fri @ 1:00 PM 4 hrs
Location: Crowne Plaza :: Grand Central Blrm D :: 6 Cost: $4

RPG1120390 Dinosauria! Fri @ 7:00 PM 4 hrs
Location: Crowne Plaza :: Grand Central Blrm C :: 3 Cost: $4

Dinosauria! is completely new with new characters designed to get people up and going fast.  The 1:00 pm will be "kid friendly" and the 7:00pm one will be more older kids and adults.

Obsession is revised version of the adventure I ran last year.  If you played last year then this one is not very different except for some details and the starting of the adventure.

Hope to see you all there!!

A to Z. I did it.

I survived the A to Z challenge.
It took a bit and maybe I'll do a more indepth retrospective later.  Today's Z post was the one that made want to do this.  When I saw Z landed on Saturday, the day I do my Zatannurday posts then I figured what the hell.

Y was the hardest one.  I also almost didn't make my self-imposed deadline of 8:00am for this post.

Thank' to all the new visitors and followers.  I hope I give you plenty of reasons to keep coming back.

And I got another award in the process.

See all the winners at http://elizabethmueller.blogspot.com/2011/04/z-is-for.html

Zatannurday: Z is for Zatanna and Zullo

I have recently been turned on to Chrissie Zullo thanks to the wonderful "DC Women Kicking Ass" site.

I also posted her versions of Wonder Woman and Red Sonja too.

So a quick trip over to her Deviant Art page, and I find these fantastic Zatanna pieces.

There is an anime quality to this one I really like.  I wonder what she is thinking of.  Given how young she looks and that the hat looks too big on her, most likely she is thinking about her dad.

And this one is cute and sexy at the same time without needing to resort to cheesecake to do it.

And some more.

Y is for YAFGC

YAFGC or "Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic" is a webcomic by Rich Morris and can be found here, http://yafgc.net/

I "found" YAFGC one night and spent the next few hours reading all the comics to get caught up.  I think I was done at something like 4:00 in the morning.  I was dragging hard that day, but very amused.

YAFGC, true to it's name, is a Fantasy Gamer comic and there are tons of gamer related jokes in the almost 1800 pages of the comic.  Too many to even recount honestly.  Each page is rough, but it is also daily comic, and a free one at that.  The stories are pretty clever, starting with a group of monsters (goblins, orcs, a crazy lich, drow and a beholder named Bob) and their extended family of friends, enemies and what ever Cap'n Fang is supposed to be to them.

It is gamer humor, but there are also pop cultural refs (but not too many to make it look dated in a s couple years) and a positive message about friends and family and the people you love.  Speaking of love, it you find inter-species love to be a bit squicky, then avoid this comic.  If you find the occasional same-sex relationship bothers you, then you might want to find other fare.  If you like good humor and occasionally poking a bit of fun at some of the tropes we use in a fantasy game, then this is a great place to be.

Favorite characters are Gren, the little goblin girl from the first strip. Arachne, the drow who has little patience for anyone and Cap'n Fang ("My sandbox is crunchy!").  But there are a lot of great characters too and a lot of different story arcs since 2006, many based on Rich's own 2nd Ed AD&D games.

Rich does a great job with this and I have not even talked about his other comics including on going Doctor Who ones!

So if you have a couple hours to kill and need a brain-break, then stop by, and read it.

Fortune favors the bold

A while back I mentioned that I had gotten paid to write a some D&D material for WotC, well that article is now up.  http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/drdd/20110427#viewSingle116268921

In it I talk about how my boys and I used the new D&D Fortune Cards while playing Moldvay/Cook D&D (Basic and Expert).
Also posted are other uses for Fortune Cards by other bloggers, all of which are pretty cool.

Have a look at their pages as well and see what they are saying.

http://www.sarahdarkmagic.com/

http://greywulf.net/

http://critical-hits.com/2011/04/27/i-am-fortunes-fool/

X is for X-Files

X-files

In the 90s everything was conspiracy theories, don't trust the government and the Truth was Out There.

On TV we had the X-Files.

There was a paranoia in the 90s.  Today it has boiled over into disgust about our government (believe I know, I live in Illinois, we have one ex-Governor in prison and another headed there).  But back then it was a general low hum of paranoia, suspicion and doubt.  It started with Iran-Contra, and moved on to movies like "JFK".  It was the climate that allowed the X-Files to grow.

It began on a start up station called Fox, long before they became synonymous for killing shows, good or bad, too early.  X-Files was their hit, their main show outside of the Simpsons really, and they kept it on for 9 years.

Let be honest here, the X-Files did more for genre TV than anything else. It was a cultural phenomena and most shows that we enjoyed in the 2000s and on are a result of this little show by Chris Carter.   People go on about Whedon, but Carter and the X-files has been nominated for more Emmys and the show had won more collective  awards.  Even in it's "worst" season X-files still had 3 times the views of Buffy.
Plus there is not an episode of Supernatural that doesn't in some way or another recall the X-files.  The Winchesters are this decade's Mulder and Scully.

I came to the show late.  I was working on my thesis at the time and I rarely watched TV.  Once I graduated I became a fast convert.  It became my Friday night ritual (I was watching them with my then girlfriend, so that is ok).  It was also one of the shows I did not invest in any of fandom.  I have an X-files CD and Mulder and Scully action figures, but I got them as gifts.  I really got into it the show all the same.  One of the first desktop "themes" I had for my brand spanking new copy of Windows 95 was an X-files one.

I loved the season long and multi-season long story arcs, I loved the characters, I didn't even care when my then girlfriend (and now wife) would go on about how hot Mulder or Skinner were.  That was fine with me.  I got to see Scully; hot and smart.

The trouble with X-Files is it was doomed from the start.  You can't keep the characters or the audience in the dark all the time and have a god show, and the more secrets you reveal the less the characters have to uncover.  They kept it up though for a good long run.

The same is true for any conspiracy game.  Conspiracy X, also by Eden Studios, is a great example.  You can totally run an "X-Files" game with it, but how often can you keep the players in the dark when they are looking for secrets?

The Godfather of the X-files is "Kolchak" and Darrin McGavin even made some guest spots on the show.  X-Files, while the "mythos arc" is lauded, sometimes worked the best on the "monster of the week" episodes.  Sure the aliens were great and those were the ones I got excited about, but the ones I recall the best, Flukeman, "Theef", the freaky weird family, the hallucinogenic fungus, the chupacabra.  Like Kolchak, X-files did it's best job when it dealt with "small stories"; episodes that dealt with a local myth, legend or monster and came at it with Mulder the one ready to believe anything and Scully looking the reasoned explanation.  I also liked the "spin-offs" Millennium and the Lone Gunmen.

One day I am going to go back to the world of the X-Files.  Back when Clinton was still president, freaky half-worm/half-man things lived in chemical toilets, cigarette smoking men and well manicured men sat in dark rooms with darker purposes, aliens kidnapped little girls and the Truth Was Out There