Author Archives: Andy

Watch your head, TK-421

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This is probably old news to most of you, but on the off chance that a few of you have not seen this priceless Star Wars blooper, I must post it. During the escape-from-the-Death-Star sequence midway through the film, a group of stormtroopers comes through a door; watch the one on the right closely:

It happens very fast and is easily missed if you aren’t paying attention. The sound of his helmet smacking the bulkhead is audible, so I assume it was deliberate. Nevertheless, I watched this movie dozens and dozens of times throughout my childhood years before noticing it one day in college. It was something new in a film whose dialogue I (and most of us back then, before the dark times, before the Empire) could recite entirely from memory. I recall scrambling frantically to the orange dorm room phone to summon my fellow SW geek Jeff, one of only two people I know who can recite poor doomed Greedo’s cantina dialogue in the original Rodian. We probably rewound the tape (VHS, in those days) to watch that scene 20 times.

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RIP, Angus McBride

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I learned this week from the Ex-Teenage Rebel blog that Angus McBride, well known for his marvelous fantasy illustrations, passed away just a few days ago. He did a lot of different illustrations throughout his life, but I’m most familiar with his work for Iron Crown’s Middle-Earth Roleplaying Game, the RPG on which I cut my gaming teeth. His depictions of the people and places of Middle-Earth were enormously influential on the way I perceived Middle-Earth during my formative teenage Tolkien phase. To this day, his artistic style (much more than, say, Peter Jackson’s film trilogy) is the main filter through which I visualize the colors and style of Middle-Earth.

Here are my two favorite McBride Middle-Earth illustrations; the first is the cover of the Riders of Rohan module, and the second is from Gates of Mordor:

The gaming world is much richer for McBride’s contributions. Rest in peace.

(Both of the above images I found here, where you can browse many of his other excellent Tolkien illustrations.)

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Starcraft, again

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This is news I’ve been waiting to hear for years now:

There were rumors that Blizzard’s big announcement would be a Starcraft MMORPG, but I’m glad they’re sticking to their single-player strategy game roots. It looks like they’ve kept the core Starcraft gameplay almost entirely intact. Usually, you’d expect a sequel to introduce tons of new gameplay elements, but in the case of Starcraft, I hope they’ll resist the urge to reinvent the wheel. The original is pretty darn close to perfect already. (Certainly, it’s the only game that has been continuously installed on every computer I’ve owned since 1998!)

Now I’m just hoping that when Starcraft 2 does finally hit store shelves, I’ll own a computer powerful enough to run it…

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By their reading list ye shall know them

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I am sure that those of you who follow politics have heard about Mitt Romney’s incredibly significant and newsworthy gaffe. When asked to name his favorite book, he cited Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard.

Cue a whole lot of snickering and mocking overanalysis by every blogger and pundit in the universe–all of whom no doubt curl up each night in their favorite cozy chair to read from a dog-eared copy of Crime and Punishment. A presidential candidate who likes a book about (snicker) aliens? A candidate who appreciates a nice pulp sci-fi story? God forbid a candidate respond to that question with a title that falls outside our vaguely-remembered high school Intro to World Literature syllabus. Thank goodness the pretentiati is on hand to assure us that anyone who would read, let alone enjoy, such a novel is, obviously, unfit for any sort of serious position in government. Can’t have our betters and those Europeans snickering at a U.S. President, can we?

Fortunately, Romney was quick to recant, assuring a worried public that his favorite novel is really Huckleberry Finn. Clearly, that’s an answer straight from his heart, and isn’t just a book title deemed by his political consultants as the Book Most Likely to Evoke a Positive Response from the Most Potential American Voters. (Let me guess: other Romney favorites include apple pie, the Bible, the soulful poetry of Maya Angelou, and freedom; and his heroes include Jesus, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr.) Good save, Romney, good save. For a minute there I was worried that I’d spotted a glimmer of an actual interesting personality beneath the soulless political mask, an honest-to-goodness quirk that hadn’t yet been sanded down into inoffensiveness by focus groups and asinine political cliches.

I exaggerate a little; Romney has not completely renounced his enjoyment of pulpy sci-fi. And a few brave defenders are standing up to the literary snobs. But this shocking scandal has got me on the defensive, as I enjoyed Battlefield Earth as a teenager and did not grow up to be Scientologist or an illiterate. Whether or not you think that presidential candidates should be reading B-grade sci-fi, mark my words: Romney’s Battlefield Earth answer was the most honest thing you’re going to hear from any candidate for the next 18 months; and it was us who, at the first sign of deviation from the predicable norm, mocked him into repenting (so we could then mock him for flip-flopping). Xenu help us–it’s going to be a long and stupid campaign season.

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Put it in writing!

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Charles Stross, author of numerous sci-fi and other novels, recently mused online about why the commercial ebook market is broken. Much of his post (which is focused on the ebook novel market) revolves around the issues of piracy, DRM, short-sighted publishers, etc. Insightful stuff.

I have often wondered why digital versions of novels haven’t seemed to catch on; in theory, making available digital versions of clunky print books seems like a no-brainer. I have no doubt that publisher overreaction to the piracy issue has done a great deal to hobble the ebook market. But as for myself, I just don’t enjoy reading novels in electronic format as much as I enjoy reading them in print format. I regularly use and purchase ebooks (in PDF format, generally), but the ones I use the most are invariably some form of reference work. I skim through them looking for specific pieces of information; I don’t read them from start to finish.

I don’t know if it’s a hard-wired mental association that makes me prefer print novels; but put a lengthy story on any size screen (computer monitor, PDA, whatever) and it becomes a struggle for me to read it. I just can’t read any form of narrative onscreen for more than a few pages (see, I can’t even break out of archaic pre-digital metrics!) before I start getting antsy. Lengthy blog posts and online articles in the New York Times are about all I can handle before I start wishing for a print version. If I want to read something by Jane Austen, I’d sooner shell out for the paperback than read the freely-available online text.

Maybe I’m just a dinosaur when it comes to this issue. My wife, for one, seems fairly comfortable reading longer pieces of literature on a computer screen. But I suspect, given the failure of ebooks compared to the popularity of digital music, that I’m not alone in just not finding ebooks as they exist today to be an attractive medium for lengthy, involved stories. While I certainly agree in principle that cumbersome DRM and other reader-hostile practices are a terrible idea, the real reason I’m not buying ebooks is that I just don’t find them very usable to me. Maybe somebody will come along in the next few years and make the medium more attractive to aging Gen Xers like myself, but until then I’ll stick with my beat-up, cracked-binding, age-yellowed print library.

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Bring on the Singularity

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Reason Magazine (which I’m finding to be an increasingly good online read lately) has an interesting interview with Vernor Vinge about the Singularity and related topics. Very thought-provoking stuff. The whole concept of the Singularity is, my wife assures me, crazy; but it’s a fascinating idea nonetheless. Anyway, if you, like me, eagerly anticipate the day when the stars are right and our AI overlords will take over to make things right again, go check out the interview. And if you’ve not read Vinge’s A Fire Upon the Deep or (my favorite) A Deepness in the Sky, hasten thee to a library and check ’em out–they represent some of the best sci-fi I’ve read in years.

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This June, write your own adventure

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Here’s an item I’ve been meaning to mention for a while now: Worldwide Adventure Writing Month. This June, you’re encouraged to write a 32-page adventure module. It doesn’t need to be the Best Module Ever, and it can be for whatever game system you choose; the point is just to write something down and revel in the accomplishment.

I don’t think I’ve ever met a roleplaying gamer who has not, at some point or other, aspired to game writing. (In fact, I know very few gamers who have not dreamed of creating their own game from scratch–maybe that merits a post at some point.) The nice thing about WoAdWriMo is that you don’t need to craft an epic masterpiece; you just need to put together 32 pages of adventure. If you’re a GM, chances are you’ve already got far more than that already written up, in the form of campaign notes and homemade adventures. Why not gather up your notes, fire up the imagination, and see if you can’t crank out a short module this June?

I’m absolutely planning on trying this, and have been pondering for a week or two now what my epic adventure will be. I’m leaning towards putting together a nice, old-fashioned dungeon crawl; but a tiny part of me wants to write an espionage adventure, in loving memory of the late lamented Top Secret S.I. Would-be game writers of the world, join me this June!

(Also, check out the WoAdWriMo blog for some decent adventure-writing tips, even if you don’t plan to participate.)

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I live!

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No, I’m not dead, although posting’s been light lately. What have I been up to lately? Here’s a brief summary of my gaming life over the last few weeks; some of these items might merit full posts when I get some spare time.

  • I finally purchased a mount for my main Warcraft character. It’s a bit embarrassing to have taken so long to finally buy a mount–I’ve been playing for well over a year now–but mounts are really expensive, and not until very recently had I bothered to really work the in-game auction house for spending money. At any rate, now that I’ve got my mount I can finally hang with the cool crowd. And start saving up for an epic mount…
  • And speaking of Warcraft, I got suckered into buying a starter set for the new World of Warcraft CCG. With a baby on the way, the last thing I need is another game upon which to spend money. Hopefully my wife will intervene if things get too ugly.
  • I played the Hackmaster roleplaying game, and loved it! I loved it enough, in fact, to go out and pick up the core rulebook myself, and I’m already scheduling a summertime Hackmaster game with my wife and a friend. What a unique game; I’ll try to post further thoughts about that this week.
  • On a bit of a lark, I installed and fired up the classic computer RPG Baldur’s Gate. I am a big fan of the computer RPGs created by Black Isle (the BG games, Fallout, Planescape: Torment); seized by nostalgia, I decided to try playing through Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 back-to-back. So far, so good; we’ll see if I make it all the way through both of them this summer. It is actually taking me some time to adjust to a non-Warcraft RPG. It’s a fun change of pace.

That’s the quick update. Hope you’ve had as much gaming fun lately as I have!

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Support the troops, send your games to Iraq

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Got a few good games sitting unplayed and gathering dust on your bookshelf? On June 9, the first official game convention in Iraq will take place–it’s called Ziggurat Con, and the organizers are looking for help in providing roleplaying games to be played and handed out to the troops as prizes. More details here:

The largest problem with running a Con in Iraq, of course, is that there are no local stores or game publishers, and few game books on the post. Even dice are in short supply, with many soldiers breaking the unwritten taboo held by many gamers and sharing dice. Thankfully, many game publishers have also lent their support. […] But Amberson indicated that the soldiers could definitely use more.

“This convention is currently in drastic need of prizes and giveaways for the troops,” he said. “Everything donated will go directly to the troops, or to MWR to use as loaner books for the soldiers.”

What a great way to lend some moral support to the troops. Consider gathering up a few games and shipping them out in time for the convention! The post linked above has a list of specific games they’re after, but it sounds like they’ll welcome most any sort of gaming material you can send. I’ve been looking to trim down my game collection anyway–this is the perfect opportunity to do so.

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