Alea Iacta Est: Ernest Gary Gygax ( July 27, 1938 – March 4, 2008)

For geeks like me, today is a day of great sadness. E Gary Gygax, co-creator with Dave Arneson of the Dungeons and Dragons game, died this morning at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

As I wrote, it is a sad day for me. After all, this man created a game that provided me with untold hours of entertainment, a game that introduced me to great literature (and horrible drivel), a game that helped me form life long friendships. Because of this man's creation, my life (and many others) were made better and more enjoyable. My prayers go out to Gary's family, especially his wife Gail.

Surfing the internet today and reading people write about Gary has been a very nice experience. It seems that today is the day when no gamers are fighting. The grognards and the noobs are consoling each other for the loss. It's nice, if not a little surprising. As one might guess from reading Matt Forbeck's entry on the topic, Gary Gygax was a bit of a controversial figure within the gaming community. Not because the community wasn't thankful for his contribution, rather because of his disdain for others in the field and his temper at those who continued his legacy. Gary didn't really like others "improving" on his creation. To be fair no one would expect him to, but those of us who have moved on from Gary's truly original creation to later "refinements" have had to endure venomous comments from Gary and his most ardent admirers. To be honest more from the admirers than from Gary, but Gary gave his share as well.

It seems that every gamer worth his or her salt has a Gary Gygax story, and I envy those that do their stories. I have no "when I met Gary story." Instead, I have a when I "almost" met Gary story.

You see...last April I was on a trip for work in eastern Wisconsin -- Racine to be specific, and I decided I wanted to do two things. First, I wanted to watch a baseball game in Wrigley field. I am a huge Cubs fan, and there is no better place to watch baseball. Second, I wanted to tour Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, the birthplace of gaming in America. Trust me. Whether you play modern boardgames, video games, collectible card games, or role playing games, the game you are playing likely has some connection to the gaming movement started in that small Wisconsin town.

So I drove to Lake Geneva and toured all of the locations that once housed the offices of TSR, the company that published D&D. Then finally, I stood in front of Gary's house and took about 10 pictures from across the street. It was relatively early in the evening and I contemplated walking up to the door and knocking, just to tell Gary how much entertainment his game has provided me over the past three decades. I walked up to the cars parked in front of the house (pictured below), but then I thought..."what if it is the wrong house?"


What if I walk up to the door, knock and ask for Gary and it's the wrong house? What if it's the right house? What kind of crazy stalker gamer knocks on a game designer's door uninvited?

So...I walked to the library, took a couple of pictures of the beautiful lake, walked around the small downtown area, and left. I was angry at myself for not emailing/message boarding Gary earlier, or later, and I promised myself that I would do so when I next traveled to the Wisconsin or Chicago area.

That day cannot come now.

God bless you Gary.

My group and I will have a moment of silence this weekend and I think we'll even do a small reading from one of the books you wrote. We all need to push through a little Gygaxian prose every now and then. Maybe I'll open up "Master of the Game," or read the introduction to the Player's Handbook (1st edition) one more time. That introduction made me feel like I was part of something special, even before I rolled my first die.

Gary Gygax has passed

Gary Gygax the creator of Dungeons and Dragons has died at the age of 69. Personally, I am a little sad at this news, it is like part of my childhood slipping away. In a small way the world won't be the same.

4th Edition D&D The Movie: Ching Siu-tung's "The Empress and the Warriors"

My friends and I used to say that SWORDSMAN II starring Jet Li was the perfect movie to watch before our weekly D&D 2nd edition game. If THE EMPRESS AND THE WARRIORS (starring the awesome Donnie Yen of HERO and lives up to this preview, it may well become the defining D&D style movie for me.

One might ask why SWORDSMAN II is the perfect D&D movie, and not a more "literary" or "important" Wuxia film or a high quality western fantasy film like LORD OF THE RINGS. It's really quite simple. There are a lot of wonderful, and serious, wuxia films that contain great plots, great acting, and stylized action. Classics like LAST HURRAH FOR CHIVALRY or BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR come to mind, as do more recent films like CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON and HERO as examples of serious wuxia films worth watching many times. There are also quite a few excellent fantasy movies in the western canon, like EXCALIBUR, but they all lack the one element that makes SWORDSMAN II perfect for inspiring D&D play. They lack the element of playfulness.

I don't know if the playfulness of SWORDSMAN II is intentional, or if it is a legacy of Jet Li's winning smile, but the film has this quality in spades. The playfulness isn't present in THE EAST IS RED, SWORDSMAN's sequel which also stars Li, a film that contains a wonderfully tragic narrative. From the opening moments when the protagonist is running on the tops of wheat stalks, using "sword energy" to cleave horses in two, to the final fight against the Eunich sorcerer where a character uses a cannon barrel like a quarterstaff SWORDSMAN II is sublimely excessive. Which is exactly what I want my D&D games to be.

Yes, interactive storytelling is a central part of the role playing experience, but so too is fun and SWORDSMAN II is fun.

To be fair SWORDSMAN II is also whimsical, which isn't the necessary component. All I need is a larger than life narrative that is fun to inspire a great day of game play. If THE EMPRESS AND THE WARRIORS ends up a serious film, like CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER, I will still enjoy it, but that will mean that my search for the next great D&D inspiration -- much needed given that 4th edition D&D is coming soon -- will continue. I like to find a film to define play for each edition of D&D, and I hope this one is it for the new edition.

Hat tip to friend and HK/Bollywood expert David Chute for the preview.

Conan and Jem: Christy Marx on Geekerati

What do CONAN: THE ADVENTURER

and JEM

have in common?

Christy Marx was a Writer and Story Editor on both of these animated series (and a whole host of others. Listen to last week's Geekerati episode as she talks about these shows and her career as a television, animation, comic book, and video game writer. You can also visit her website to find some great advice if you are looking to become a writer in the television, animation, comic book, or video game fields.

A Small Defense of 4th Edition D&D...in Theory

I haven't seen a copy of the 4th Edition rules. I only know what I've read in the various hints on EnWorld and on the Wizards site about what 4th Edition will look like. But there is one thing I know, and it is that I am sick of hearing on various boards that 4th Edition is a game made for children or those of a childish mentality. I am bored with those who write, "this is D&D for 10 year-olds" or "if I was 10 I'd like this version."

Why? I'll give you one guess.

I started playing D&D when I was 10, thanks to the first Red Box Basic set (the red box with Erol Otis art), and haven't turned back from playing the game in each subsequent edition for 25 years.

Has anyone really gone back after years of playing later editions and read the 1st edition rulebooks? I'm talking the AD&D rulebooks here. Go ahead, read the combat section regarding initiative...all of it. How many attacks per round does a Magic User with a dagger get against a Fighter with a two-handed sword? Nope, not one. You'd better check out that chapter in the DMG again.

Worse yet, try reading the white box with the three booklets? Those are almost unplayable. In fact, if I hadn't played so much Warhammer Fantasy Battle over the past few decades, I wouldn't even be able to make heads or tails of this game. At least I wouldn't if I was using the core combat mechanic based on the Chainmail miniatures rulebook. I've read Chainmail several times, and it is only my experience as a WFB player that makes them sensible. Not to mention how confusing the "alternate combat rules" are. These seem to require that I already know how to play D&D. Thankfully, I do. How much damage does a weapon do in the three booklets again? (hint -- less than you think)

In fact, without either ignoring a lot of rules, or making up your own stuff, these games are pretty much are unplayable unless you already know how to play. The books don't teach you how to play, rather they provide the reminders for those who already know how to play. Back in the day people learned to play D&D from people who already knew how to play.

To quote John Eric Holmes in Dragon 52 (you know the guy who wrote the very first blue box Basic set):

When Tactical Studies Rules published the first DUNGEONS & DRAGONS rule sets, the three little books in brown covers, they were intended to guide people who were already playing the game. As a guide to learning the game, they were incomprehensible. There was no description of the use of the combat table. Magic spells were listed, but there was no mention of what we all now know is a vital aspect of the rules: that as the magic user says his spell, the words and gestures for it fade from his memory and he cannot say it again.
When I edited the rules prior to the first edition of the D&D Basic Set, it was to help the thousands (now millions) of people who wanted to play the game and didn’t know how to get started. Gary Gygax acknowledged that some sort of beginner’s book was badly needed, and he encouraged me to go ahead with it.

The fact is that Hasbro, and WotC (as well as TSR back in the day), want new players to play the game. They don't want people to have to "learn" from other people who are already playing. They also want to increase the amount of mechanical balance (maybe to satisfy some of us old timers who like games like Hero that are internally consistent).

There are changes, to be sure, and the game is being aimed at being more accessible, to be sure, but don't you all remember what it was like when you first played the game?

I remember my first D&D gaming experience, in fact I'll never forget.

I was at my friend Sean McPhail's house and his older brothers had been talking about this new fangled game called Dungeons and Dragons that lets you play out adventures like those that you read in fantasy novels or watch in films like THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER and KRULL. From the initial description, I knew that this was the game for me.

So on a blustery Saturday when Sean's older brothers brought over someone who claimed to be an experienced "Dungeon Master." I was thrilled that I would get my first taste of this groundbreaking new game.

I was ten at the time and didn't bat an eye when the "DM" said he didn't need the rulebooks (which I had been perusing for the past few weeks) or any prepared materials to run his dungeon adventure...all he needed was his mind.

He had his "dungeon" memorized you see. I was wide eyed with with anticipation. The first character I played (not my first character), borrowed from the characters Sean had already designed, was a first level Magic-User named, uncreatively enough, Gandalf. Sean, Gandalf, and I were ready for adventure and action. You know, all the stuff I'd read and seen in various fantasy adventures.

That's not what I experienced though. Instead, I was turned into an Axebeak during the first 10 minutes of play after I tried to read a scroll to see if it was magical. The "DM" made me make a Petrification and Polymorph save and I rolled poorly. I missed my saving throw on this "save or get hosed roll." Not that I couldn't have lied, the "DM" had no idea what roll I needed, but that's meaningless. What is meaningful is that my "great and powerful wizard" was now a weird looking bird with no intelligence. I was out of the game and useless.

That's my first memory as a player.

Since that day, I have hated save or die effects. I also don't tend to like "killer dungeons" or things that take individual players out of the "action" for long periods of time. Sure, I've played through brutal Ken St. Andre solo adventures, and those are mean, but those were for distraction when I was alone. Speaking of those, they tend to remind me of my first adventure experience. I wonder if that "DM's" name was Ken.

When it comes to RPGs, I like cinematic action . D&D has always advertised, but rarely delivered (at low levels especially), cinematic action. It is my hope that 4th Edition will finally capture the feel that has been advertised for so long, and I have high hopes. Don't get me wrong, I don't want D&D to become Feng Shui (though I do like that game), I just want it to be more balanced, better able to simulate cinematic action, and I want it to be fun.

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith to Release in June

Okay, here's the quick and dirty.

According to a Press release celebrating the June release of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith,
"Guitar Hero® III: Legends of Rock fans will have the opportunity to download and jam to Aerosmith's "Dream On." The song will be available for free from February 16-18 on Xbox LIVE® Marketplace for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PLAYSTATION®Store for the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system."

I'll take the free song, but I think I'll pass on buying the whole disk.

Sure the game promises to "put players in the shoes of Perry (guitar), Whitford (guitar) and Hamilton (bass), as they rock out alongside frontman Tyler and drummer Kramer." It even claims that, "Gamers will experience Aerosmith's GRAMMY® winning career, from their first gig to becoming rock royalty, in a way that no other entertainment vehicle offers."

But who wants to spend a couple of weeks pretending to be Aerosmith? Do we get to rock through the stages of addiction?

Thankfully, no. The game will lack that level of verisimilitude. There will be no wireless syringe controller which triggers psychedelic imagery on the screen.

As much as I might mock the thought of buying an entire game devoted to the music of Aerosmith and the bands they have influence, which shouldn't be taken as me saying I don't like the music of the band, I have to admit that when it comes to new technologies Aerosmith is usually one of the first bands to jump on board.

Do you remember the old Aerosmith arcade shooter (Revolution X) where you shot compact disks at the dreaded forces of the PMRC (I mean the NON)? I do.

I was stickin' it to Tipper Gore (I mean Mistress Helga) daily...ewww...not that kind of stickin', I was shooting her lapdogs with cds and rockin' out to the Aerosmith soundtrack.

Mmmm...Mistress Helga.



On a side note, the formal press release has a great quote from Joe Perry about how games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band are revitalizing the music industry. He states, "On a larger scale, it's cool for us to be pioneers helping to rebuild the music industry through a format like video games. It's great for rock since the record companies are struggling to make sense of how things are changing. Fans want to get and experience music in new formats--and there are going to be some of them who will play the game, then pick up the guitar for real and start bands. It's what's happening now, and it's only going to build more momentum in the future. It's a massive change for the music business."

Gore Verbinski on Films and Games

Today's Gamasutra has an article covering some comments that Gore Verbinski made during a speech at the DICE Summit about the film and video game industry. There's a good deal of the type of comment one would expect at any conference dealing with entertainment. You know, the "be original," "hire talented people," and "find your own artistic voice" kinds of comments.

Not that these comments are not true, they are, it's just that they are a little cliché.

What isn't cliché is one of the final comments by Verbinski in the Gamasutra article. Verbinski states:

"This is not a debate between active and passive engagement," he added. "A novel requires active participation by imagination... a film used to do that, but now it just reminds people of that other film. Let's not do the same thing with games. You haven't even scratched the surface of what is possible."

I am absolutely in love with this passage. Lately, I have been doing a good deal of reading regarding game design theory and there are those who are dismissive of other media because they believe non-video game media are non-interactive. I usually find myself with a desire to murder these people and remove their faces to make masks I can where during speeches I give (as them of course) recanting "their" previous position. Not really, but I do find the pretense of these people as annoying as those who deny narrative elements in many modern video games. Sorry, but I believe you have to be intentionally obtuse to think that Fable or Mass Effect aren't narratives.

Verbinski gets it. He sees that novels are an interactive an immersive experience that requires "user participation." Interactivity isn't exclusive to the video game world. He is also asserting, and I'm not entirely in agreement with this part of his argument, that films don't do it as much, anymore, as books or video games. I think that whether watching a film is a passive or active experience depends upon the individual film and how that film balances Boorstin's "three viewing eyes," which he writes about in Making Movies Work: Thinking Like a Filmmaker.

Arguably one could use his three eyes theory of viewing and combine it with whether a film is passive or active to create a kind of film review matrix. Such a matrix might look something like this:

Voyeuristic/Active	Voyeuristic/Passive
Vicarious/Active	Vicarious/Passive
Visceral/Active	Visceral/Passive

In fact, I might try and elaborate on this theory later when I have a copy of the Boorstin book in front of me. Like when I'm at home.

Midweek Miscellany of Geekdom

Following in the footsteps of one of my favorite Medievalist bloggers, I have decided to include a weekly feature which highlights oddities and exciting news I have read about on a given day. Naturally, all such information will be some how related to geekdom in general.

• Though it's a year late for my tastes, last year was Robert Howard's 100th Birthday, Fantasy Flight games will be releasing the Age of Conan boardgame this summer. The game will be designed by Nexus games and will use mechanics similar to those used in their excellent War of the Ring boardgame. They have yet to post pictures of any of the game's components online. Given the track record of Fantasy Flight Games and Nexus, I expect the components will be of very high quality.
  
  
  
  As Thulsa doom might say, "Contemplate this on the tree of woe."



• Gamasutra has an excellent, and long -- 10 pages, article covering the history of the first video game console roleplaying game I ever played. The article, "The History of Dragon Quest," discusses the success of the franchise and also finally explained to me my unnatural enjoyment of Dragonball Z. You see, Dragon Quest had character design art created by Akira Toriyama, the man behind the Dragonball mask. And that jem came on the first page of the article. When it comes to the Dragon Quest series, I have never had so much fun "killing" smiling slimes than the first time I loaded Dragon Warrior into my Nintendo Entertaiment System.
  
  
  
  Isn't he cute? Shh...don't alert him. I need to bash his brains in with my longsword.
  
  Do slimes have brains? What about smiling slimes?



• Media Tie-In Author extraordinaire, Lee Goldberg, informs us that media tie-in authors now include the snooty and artsy fartsy literati. Dave Eggers, of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius fame, is writing the novelization of the upcoming Where the Wild Thing Are film adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's picture book. Thanks Dave. Now I'll have to get into fist fights with people about how the new novelization, of a movie based on a 300 word work, has now elevated the form. Add to this all the fist fights I get into with people explaining that Blankets is a graphic novel, but Watchmen is a "trade paperback collection," I'll be spending so much time brawling, I won't be able to blog anymore.



• Apparently, the basic Risk boardgame is being revamped so as to no longer end marriages and friendships. For years, I have tried to explain to people that the Risk variants, which limit game length and add "objectives" to the victory resolution system aren't as bile causing as the basic Risk game. For years, my friends have continued to play the basic game, only to have long lasting friendships lost in the process. I don't know what it is about Risk that causes this. Games like Diplomacy and Junta are all about betraying your friends, but when the game is over everyone still likes one another. It only takes a couple hours of Risk to create hatreds that last generations.
  
  This image from the article over atGamers with Jobs, shows the "playtest" edition Hasbro is releasing to create buzz.
  
  
  
  You wanna create buzz? How about giving me a copy to promote on Geekerati Radio? I'll even schedule an interview where fans can call in. Sheesh!

A Call for Writers

Despite the fact that I have been pretty lax in my posts the past few weeks, this is not a post soliciting writers for this blog. I have enough co-writers, who don't do enough co-writing, at this time.

What this is is a call for writers who want to write for a new online magazine designed to support the Geekerati webcast radio show my co-hosts and I air each week. Essentially, I am looking for writers who are willing to work for no-pay now, hopefully pay in the future, who will write quality articles about some area of geek culture which will be published in a Monthly online magazine via the Issuu service. Here's what I'm looking for.

1. A reliable illustrator or two: b/w line art is dandy as is someone who can do cover designs.
2. A video game reviewer: we'll need 2 to 3 video games reviewed each month.
3. 2 to 3 book reviewers of various genres: do you want to write about mystery, fantasy, children's lit, comic books?
4. A television reviewer: Shawna...I'm looking at you. We need 2-3 television show reviews a month.
5. Games reviews: We need someone who can write 1 or 2 table top game reviews a month.
6. A film reviewer: (David Chute and LYT, I'm looking at you guys) Are your reviews not published in enough places? Try our magazine
7. A tech writer who knows a thing or two about the gadgets out there.

Any writers/illustrators will be invited to participate in our online radio show on a fairly regular basis.

As I wrote earlier, these positions will be unpaid until we can build an advertiser base, but when/if we do that we will pay a fair rate.

Gaming History and Piracy

Today's Gamasutra has a great article about the Apple II and its role in the history of video game development.

Actually, it's a great article about the early history of Apple with some minor notes about Apple's impact as a game console, even though the article is supposed to be devoted to the Apple II as a gaming platform.

When it comes to my early memories of video games, there are two systems that dominated my early gaming -- and thus my long term gaming habits.

I owned an Atari 2600 and played its games obsessively. Many times I played Asteroids on "flip" mode until I rolled over the score, not to mention the many hours devoted to Yar's Revenge. In fact, my modern love of "actioners" like Assassin's Creed can be directly mapped back to Pitfall and my love of "action rpgs" can be mapped back to the excellent Raiders of the Lost Ark licensed game (not everyone agrees with me that RotLA was excellent, but I'm sticking to my guns).

But many of my favorite gaming moments can be traced back to "all nighters" spent mapping the levels of Bard's Tale as my friend Sean fought against hordes of "99 Barbarians, 99 Barbarians, 99 Barbarians, and 99 Barbarians." Ah, those were the days. If memory serves, Sean owned the PC version, but the computer I learned BASIC on at school (and used all those maps made during the all nighters on at lunch while playing Bard's Tale) was an Apple II. In fact, after finishing the Bard's Tale trilogy, I wandered through the many levels of "Wizardry." For five years, and to be honest to the present day, computer gaming was synonymous with computer roleplaying for me. I wasn't much, and still am not much, for fight games and sports games on the PC, those games belong on consoles. But a "boring map game," as my wife likes to call PC RPGs, those are heavenly on the computer. And when it came to these games, during the late 80's -- and for a blink in the early 90s when Apple still had games manufactured for it -- the Apple II was the system. "Platformers" were the purview of the Commodore 64, but that is another story.

I loved RPGs on the Apple II and I always bought mine. Which brings me to the reason I actually decided to post today, sorry that I have been lax of late. Barton and Loquidice (the authors of the Gamasutra piece) briefly mention the "role" that piracy had on early Apple game development and for the most part they are dismissive of the issue. They mention at least one game, only in the text beneath an image, that went under "due to piracy's affect on sales," but they state dismissively that, "In short, the precise impact of piracy is difficult to determine, though it likely had advantages and disadvantages for the longevity of the platform."

Really? Could the fact that when it came to the Apple II, "the inner workings of the hardware was made public," have been one of the reasons Apple moved from the "open" II series to the closed and proprietary Macintosh series. To this day Apple is obsessively proprietary about their hardware and software, whether it is the iPod or the Mac. In fact, the Mac was notorious for having almost no viable gaming software (other than Marathon which eventually became Microsoft's Halo) for most of the 90s.

Maybe those businesses that claim they "went under" due to piracy should be taken at their word. Certainly, it is nice to be able to emulate games Apple (and the original companies) have "abandoned." And certainly piracy expanded the exposure of computer gaming, likely creating the modern obsession with playing video games. Free is a great way to grow a market after all. Piracy might have helped the industry develop, but it also killed some businesses along the way. I know the positive effects of freeware and "hacked games" and how they helped create demand among a less technically savvy, and more willing to pay, population. What I would have liked to see would be a little research into the real numbers.

The article dug deep into the history of Apple, and Woz, but it makes claims about piracy without ever backing up any claims with numbers. Instead, like piracy advocates (and I am not claiming the authors are piracy advocates -- I doubt that to be the case), the authors use vague language rooted in sentiments which doesn't help anyone in any discussion.

What can striking WGA writers learn from video game writers? A lot.

This year's WGA awards are featuring a new award devoted to video game writers. The award, I am sure, was created to increase the ties between television/film writers and writers in the video game industry in order to set the foundation for video game writers eventual migration into the WGA structure. While specific games selected by the nominating committee might leave those of us who actually play video games doubting the sanity of the WGA, the fact that the WGA is reaching out the the video game community proves them to be not only sane but savvy. The quicker the WGA reaches out to the video game industry, the better.

The WGA should have begun looking into a partnership twenty years ago when games like Zak McCracken and Maniac Mansion were already showing the link between film and game (you can watch the introductions to these games below). George Lucas understood that video games can tell stories, and that there was a demand for computer based games. But it is better to be late, as is the case with the WGA and their outreach to the video game industry, than never.

Had the WGA reached out to video game writers/designers earlier, they might have been more prepared when going into negotiations seven years ago. They would have had members who had experience with "alternate revenue streams" and not bought into the studios selling them on the "unpredictability" of the DVD sales market. Luckily, there is time to learn more lessons from writers and designers in video games and to benefit from their outlook when it comes to alternate revenue streams.

In a recent article on Gamasutra, a United Business Media (the people who own PR Newswire and CMP) site devoted to the gaming industry, Tom Buscaglia discusses a recent negotiation he entered into with a game company and how he ensured his clients received a fair share of the revenue the game would produce. One of the first points that Buscaglia made was that their are "some things that publishers excel at and one of them is coming up with new and innovative ways to commercially exploit games." The publishers, like the movie/tv studios, may not know how to make a good game/show/movie (or even how to recognize one), but they certainly know how to make money off of one when it is successful. Buscaglia reminds us as readers that this means that those going into negotiations with publisher (and by extension producers) need to go in with their eyes wide open.

Buscaglia sites a common mistake that people make when entering negotiations with a publisher. What is it? "Often the developer is so focused on getting a publisher to sell their game that all they look at are the royalties from game sales." This is a huge mistake, according to Buscaglia, because, "If all the developer asks for is a portion of the revenue from the sales, what’s all they’ll get, regardless of how much ancillary revenue a game generates. And publishers are getting really good at finding innovative ancillary revenue streams from the games the sell."

That's right. If all you want to do is secure that you receive a percentage of sales, that's all you're going to get, but don't fool yourself into thinking that is all the publisher is going to get. I wish that the WGA understood this in their earlier negotiations with the producers and studios. The "suits" certainly understood this, even as they were dickering a low residual rate for the writers. What about business to business (B2B) revenue created from advertising sold on studio websites when episodes are streaming? Nope. None of that, but the studio is certainly making money that way. The writers were already getting B2B revenue from syndication, why didn't they see that there might be other B2B revenue streams?

What might one of these alternate revenue streams look like? Once again, we can look to the Buscaglia article and the video game industry. "Eventually, through some rather persistent negotiating, we were able get the publisher to agree to pour any in-game advertising and any B2B revenue into the revenue pool." So...they made sure to get a share of business to business revenue, and...what's this? They also got the publisher to pour in a share of "in-game advertising?" When was the last time the writer's asked for a share of "product placement" revenue? It is the film/tv equivalent of in-game advertising after all. If Bruce Willis drinks a Pepsi in a movie, and the funders are benefiting financially from that event, the writer should be getting a share of that revenue as well.

Buscaglia, in representing video game developers, tries to ensure that his clients are a part of any potential future earnings. For example, just "in case the publisher found any other way to exploit the game that was had not covered, [he] also include[s] in the contact a "catch all" provision pouring any and all revenue from any commercial exploitation of the game from anywhere into the royalty pool to be split with the developer."

Certainly, the fact that Buscaglia is representing individual clients (and not a whole union) enables a certain degree of liberty in the negotiating process, but the WGA could certainly learn from the way he looks at a creative property as a revenue source.

Here is a list of what I think the WGA should be getting:

• Continuing Syndication Revenue: Yes, syndication is dead. And yes, they are already receiving syndication money, but this revenue stream needs to keep trickling.
• DVD Residual: Like syndication, this revenue stream is actually already dead -- it just doesn't know it yet. And writers are already receiving some revenue from DVDs. They need to milk this for as much as they can get, for as long as they can get it. They also need to understand that it isn't going to be around for much longer.
• Internet Download Residuals: These too are actually already dead. That's right, this "wave of the future" way of selling movies is already obsolete. Sure, it will pass through a period of high revenue, but it will die and quickly. Once again, that shouldn't stop the WGA from getting their members a share.
• Revenue Sharing from Online Display: An absolute must. This may, or may not, be a long lasting future source of revenue, but revenue sharing -- rather than a "per view" payment -- is an absolute must.
• Cell Phone Viewing Residuals: What? Cell phones? Yes, and I'm not talking iPhone downloads -- but those too. I'm talking about "on demand" cellular viewing technology, or streaming cellular video technology. People will be using their portable devices to watch tv on the go. In fact, the WGA should be negotiating for all of the TVs of tomorrow.
• Percentage of Product Placement Revenue: This is most likely going to have to be negotiated by individuals, and likely will be limited to "creators," but the writers had better be keeping his revenue in mind. My acquaintance Rob Long likes to talk about how everyone knows that the "King of Queens" works for UPS, and that the studio is watching a revenue go down the drain every episode. The studios, and the show's creators should be fighting to get UPS money if they can do so without losing creative control.
• A percentage of any future revenue source I can't predict: I'm not able to see into the future, but the WGA and writers need to be thinking about any future revenue now. They either need to get a better "percentage" in the long run or demand more money up front.

Maniac Mansion Introduction


Zak McCracken Introduction

PSN and XBLA Retro Gaming Remakes

The game for Playstation Store Network and XBox Live Arcade releasing this year that I am looking most forward to is the remake of Bionic Commando Rearmed. No, not the next gen game that will be coming out shortly, but a graphical and gameplay upgrade of the NES classic. Behold!



I got this game in 1988 when it first game out for NES. I was a kid at the time, but I remember this was one of the most challenging games that I owned for the system. I played the heck out of it, even though I wasn't any good at it. One of my favorite memories in all the time I played my NES was the day we, my brother and our best friend, managed to get past a level that had been puzzling us for a whole year. We finally got to beat the game and save Super Joe. The sense of accomplishment and triumph after hours of playing this incredible game is still fresh to this day. I am certainly looking forward to the new Next-gen Bionic Commando, but it's this remake of the classic that I am looking forward to the most.

Retro games sell.

Nostalgia sells.

Why else do companies constantly roll out 2D platformers for the Nintendo DS, like Contra 4?

The NDS is perfectly capable of rolling out awesome 3D games, like Legend of Zelda
Phantom Hourglass. My favorite NDS game, a game I played a bunch last year, was Final Fantasy III. It's an old game from 1990 originally designed for the NES. One of our favorite PSP games here at Cinerati was last year's Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lions War, a redo of an old PS1 game from 1997.

This type of graphical and gameplay overhaul has already been executed on another awesome 2D side-scroller for XBox Live Arcade. The game was Prince of Persia and here is a cool side by side comparison of how it looked in 1990 on PC and on Sega Genesis in 1993 and how it looks now now on XBLA.



As long as they keep doing these amazing upgrades for the classic quality games and not overdo it with bad retreads of awful games I will keep buying these downloadable and portable gems of old. These games work well for both the handheld systems and for the downloading networks of the Next-gen systems.

Nintendo is also in on the trend, selling old games from their old platforms as emulation software on the Wii, via Virtual Console.

All I want to know is; Where is my Galactic Super Mario Bros., Nintendo?

Cure for the Dragon/Dungeon cancellation blues.

I know a lot of people who were pretty angry with Wizards of the Coast when they ended their licensing agreement with Paizo Publications, thus ending the print publication of both the Dragon and the Dungeon magazines. Okay, I don't actually "know" a lot of people who were angry -- most my friends aren't gamers -- but I do visit the aggrosphere (message boards) from time to time. Trust me, there are some angry people out there.

Dragon had been in publication for over 30 years, with one year long hiatus (which most people seem to have forgotten) as TSR was going under, and Dungeon has been around for about 20 years -- with a similar hiatus, so it's understandable that many might feel a sense of loss now that they are no longer available in print. They are becoming available as ongoing "online" magazines, but the process of migration from one medium to another has been less than rapid and equally less than fluid. As I mentioned earlier, this isn't the first time that Dragon and Dungeon were not available for purchase during their long runs. In the late 90s, before Wizards of the Coast purchased TSR, there was a period of almost a year when no issues of either (in any format) were being produced. Needless to say, current fans of the magazines have a lot to complain about and a moderate wait before the "digital editions" come close to filling the void left by the absence of these wonderful magazines.

But these fans do have one very exciting replacement option available to them. Wolfgang Baur, who has in the past edited both Dungeon and Dragon magazines, has begun publishing his own quarterly magazine devoted to "the world's most famous roleplaying game." The magazine, Kobold Quarterly, began as an extension of Baur's very successful Custom Adventure series of patron sponsored gaming adventures. Initially, Kobold Quarterly was solicited as an "online magazine," but Baur was able to make the magazine a print/pdf publication before the first issue was released. This was partly due to the rapidity with which Baur's patrons, of whom I am one, became subsribers and partly due to the desire in the gaming community for a d20 based gaming magazine. I have been a subscriber since day one, as I wrote I am one of Baur patrons for his custom adventure design experiment (I write this in the interest of full disclosure). I am also repeating my patronage so that he might, just might, become a guest on my weekly podcast.



Having said that, I would like to say that Kobold Quarterly is rapidly heading toward Dragon Magazine quality (it doesn't contain adventures so is not a replacement for Dungeon) with regard to both the quantity and quality of content. The first issue was reminiscent of the old Strategic Review newsletters, the second issue was like an 80s issue of Dragon, and the third (most recent) issue is approaching the high standard that Paizo set in the final days of the Dragon. In the first three issues, Baur has already expanded the content from 30 to 60 pages and the quality of advertisers has increased. The magazine has also gone from almost entirely Baur written to containing articles by leading freelancers in the rpg industry. That's quite an achievement for a one man publishing show. Before you run over to his website and purchase PDF copies of his first three issues (linked here), let me give you a rundown of their content -- with brief quips with my opinion regarding each article, but minimal spoilers.

Issue 1

• Editorial: The issue begins with the obligatory editorial which describes the goal of the magazine and the central philosophy of the publication.
• Ecology of the Derro by Wolfgang Baur: Picking up right where Dragon left off, Baur gives us a glimpse into the psyche of everybody's favorite mentally unstable gnomelike creatures.
• Underdark Encounters by Wolfgang Baur and Mark Gedak: Encounter tables were a staple of the old Dragon, back in the day, and I have always found them useful. Nice companion to the Derro piece.
• Princes of Hell -- Titivillus, the Scribe of Hell by Wolfgang Baur: Demons and Devils have always been a staple of D&D meta-fiction and rules. I have never been a big fan of the proliferation of devils and demons, the core rules have plenty for me, but I know they are fan favorite articles and this one (like most of Baur's other demon/devil stuff) is well written -- even if I find the topic staid.
• 10x10 Toon by Stan!: Comics, like devils, are a staple of the old Dragon and Dungeon magazines and Stan! was one of the stable of cartoonists who have entertained us for years in those publications. This is a welcome addition.
• It's Not (always) About the Gold by Wolfgang Baur: This is a top of the line DM advice article that helps DMs think outside the box when it comes to rewards players can earn in a campaign, it's more than GP and XP.
• Interview with Erik Mona by Wolfgang Baur: This interview is a great conversation between two significant writers in the D&D "universe." I really liked reading this, both for the areas I found I agreed with Mona and Baur about what makes the game so much fun and in the areas where I think Erik Mona is crazy. There's a discussion about "unfair traps" that sent my head spinning as far as how I try to run my own games.
• The Kobold FAQ: Where our esteemed editor answers questions like "Will a paper edition be available?" The answer he gave to that question is now moot, but all the other questions are still salient.
• The Ups & Downs of Tripping by Sigfried Trent: Is a workmanlike article about the use and abuse of tripping in your D&D game. It is sure to get your min/maxers plotting and scheming.
• Bolt and Quiver by Stan!: The return of the strip that ran regularly in Dungeon and Dragon. As funny as it was there.
• The Far Darrig by Scott Gable: Let me just say that 3rd edition D&D had far too few fey, creatures actually defined as fey that is, and this article on malicious red caps is a welcome addition.
• The Free City by Wolfgang Baur: The first of a regular column highlighting the default campaign of the custom adventure project, the Free City of Zobeck and the world that surrounds it.

Issue 2

• Editorial: Baur discusses shared worlds.
• Kobold Letters: We now have a letters column. I don't know about you, but even in the digital world we live in, I still love to read a good letters page. Then I jaunt on over to the message boards.
• Belphegor by Tim and Eileen Connors: The obligatory demon/devil article. Fun, but -- as I wrote earlier -- I am not the target audience. I have devils/demons coming out the eyeballs.
• 10x10 Toon by Stan!: Funny metagaming humor.
• On the Street Where Heroes Live by Ed Greenwood: That's right...issue #2 and already an article by Ed Greenwood. That's a big get, and the article is one that my CSI: Sharn game was dire in need.
• King of All Monsters by the Open Design Inquisitors: This interview with Wayne Reynolds, the artist who really set the tone for the Eberron setting, gives some very good insight into this artist's process and even contains a brief comment regarding Football (the British variety).
• The Assassin by Robert Schwalb: This article is a preview of material published in Green Ronin's d20 Freeport Companion book. The article takes the Assassin out of the realm of the "prestige class" and makes it a base class.
• Bolt and Quiver by Stan!: As much as I like Stan!'s humor, I'd like to see some other cartoonists work featured in the Quarterly. The metagame humor in this strip seemed a little forced. Two strips...same joke told differently.
• Ask the Kobold by Skip Williams: Yep, you read that right. Skip Williams, Wizards' sage and rules guru for 3rd edition, answers rules questions as "the Kobold." The advice in this column regarding miss chances provided a good basis for making some changes to how I used the miss chance in my game.
• Ecology of the Barghest by Nicolas Logue: Nicolas Logue is one of Paizo's most prolific, and one of my favorite, adventure authors. His article on the Barghest was entertaining and informative. The "advanced Barghest" in the article is going to give my PCs a headache.
• From the Outside In, Creating Vibrant Characters by Sigfried Trent: A workmanlike article for players and DMs alike who want to make their characters a little more memorable. In my opinion, more useful for DMs -- who have the burden of creating hordes of NPCs compared to the relatively few characters a player needs to make.
• A Kingdom for my Horse by John E. Ling, Jr.: The paladin is my favorite class in D&D, but it is too often the subject of too much ridiculous controversy. "There should be paladins of all alignments!" "There should be evil paladins!" "Why can't paladins multi-class?" All these questions seem to miss the point of what being a paladin actually entails, or the mythic origins of the character type. Paladins are by nature righteous defenders of the weak and innocent and should exist, in the D&D game, regardless of what particular religions a campaign has. Paladins unswervingly serve good, it's in the archetype. All those other things, Lawful Neutral paladins for example, aren't paladins. They are other concepts by players who want the benefits of paladinhood, but not the drawbacks. Ling's article on the "horseless" paladin is a good one. He offers alternative rules that make sense given the mythic archetype.
• Joining the Noble Classes by Jeff Grubb: Yep...Jeff Grubb. This is a very good article that feeds on the idea of campaign rewards beyond XP and GP.
• The Avatar of Hunger by Wolfgang Baur: Baur provides a glimpse into the background of his second Custom Adventure project "Kingdom of the Ghouls" in the form of a really scary dragon. There's more to it than that, but I don't want to spoil Wolfgang's fun.
• Griffon Towers of the Margreve by Wolfgang Baur: More insight into the default Custom Adventure setting of Zobreck.

Issue 3

Stellar cover, more prestigious advertisers, 60 pages of content. This baby is a beauty. Go subscribe now. This this issue contains the Ecology of the Lich, an article on Baur's special "Star and Shadow Magic," an interview with Ed Greenwood, an excellent article by Keith Baker (creator of Eberron) discussing how to run Hardboiled adventure, and much much more. The issue just came out and I am still absorbing it, but this issue is what I hoped for when I first subscribed.

A Year in Podcasts

As a product of Generation X, I have a deep affection for popular culture. It doesn't matter whether we are talking about movies, television, comic books, roleplaying games, or video games. I love them all. Okay, I don't love every product in each of those groupings, but I do love all those groupings on whole. I have watched a ton of movies and television, played quite a few video games, and own a comic book and game library. In short, I am a pop culture junkie and so are a few of my friends. Last year, I decided to do something with my geekdom. Namely, I decided to get together with some friends/acquaintances who knew a lot about popular culture, often more than me (especially in their areas of exptertise), and put on an online radio show at BlogTalkRadio.com.

On May 14th 2007, these friends of mine and I got together to air our first Geekerati Podcast and have been doing weekly shows since. Some of our shows have been great, and others (like our 15 minute "updates" at Comic Con) were unsuccessful experiments. I still think we can do 15 minute updates at a big event, but we'll need to plan them better than we planned our Comic Con coverage.

In the spirit of beginning the new year, I would like to provide you with a list containing some of last year's episodes for your listening pleasure. Listen in, download, and experience partial enjoyment.


Our first episode, where your resident Geeks at Cinerati/Geekerati discuss and preview Summer 2007's crop.




This week we will be interviewing SF/F author Susan Palwick about her newest novel Shelter and SF/F in general.




Between designing toys and games to editing and writing fiction, Matt Forbeck is a very busy man. He still finds time to chat with the geeks.




Do you ever listen to or watch the bonus features on your DVDs? We do and we want to talk about what we like and don't like about special features. We are visited by film critic David Chute who discusses his commentary on Dragon Dynasty's King Boxer and One Armed Swordsman.




Marc Bernardin discusses the transition from comic book reporter to comic book writer.




Your esteemed panelists will be discussing the books you should be reading, the shows/movies you should be watching, and the games you should be playing with special guest James Lowder.





This week Win Eckert visits the geeks and we discuss our favorite pulp authors and analyze their legacy on modern storytelling.




Jeff Mariotte will be visiting our show for around 15 to 20 minutes to help us kick off a conversation about Vampire movies and television shows, as well as other nasty things that go bump in the night. Jeff Mariotte is a former editor in chief at IDW Comics and the co-author of two published 30 Days of Night media tie-in novels, Rumors of the Undead and Immortal Remains. A third novel, Eternal Unrest is scheduled to be released next July.




The Geeks will discuss the pending WGA strike with television writer/producer Rob Long. Rob has some interesting insights into the future financial models of the industry that are intimately related to the technology that surrounds and binds us.




Join us as as Variety editors David S. Cohen and Peter Debruge discuss their favorite animated films of the year. They will also discuss whether a motion capture film, like Beowulf, qualifies as an animated film.




Television writer/producer Tim Minear begins at minute 00:52(http://timminear.net/) and joins the geeks to discuss the ongoing WGA strike.




Professor Richard Scott Nokes returns to our broadcast to discuss the upcoming Beowulf movie. Joining him is Alexis Fajardo, the creator the Kid Beowulf comic. Kid Beowulf chronicles the adventures of a young Beowulf and alters certain elements of the Beowulf myth. In Alexis tale, Beowulf and Grendel are brothers.




Deborah Chesher, renowned photographer and author of the previous book "StarArt" talks with us about her new book "Everybody I Shot is Dead" which details the lives and deaths of several famous musicians she has fortunate enough to cover -- musicians like John Bonham, John Denver, Waylon Jennings, John Lee Hooker, Rick Nelson, and Frank Zappa among many others.




Tonight we will be discussing our favorite Christmas Holiday films.



That's just a smattering of what we offered in the past year. Look forward to more geekery in 2008. Come join us Monday nights at 7pm Pacific -- live...you can even call in and stuff -- at Geekerati Radio.

Why the Wii is so awesome.

I have to thank John Rogers, of Kung Fu Monkey, for the amazing piece of video (below) you must watch. At first, it seems a little dull...describing things you already know. Then, all of a sudden, you see the future of video game entertainment. Bam! The Wii wins. Who cares if you have 1080p, when you can make individually immersive game environments? Wow. Just...wow.

It's not Monday, but it is Geekerati time again.

My Geekerati podcast normally airs live, like a radio show, every Monday night at 7pm Pacific, but with the holidays this week and next it is a little off schedule. That means that the episode that would normally have aired Monday night will now be airing tonight.

Our guest on Geekerati this week is Ken Edwards, the games editor over at Blogcritics.org, and he's going to debate the best video games of 2007 with our resident video game guru Eric Lytle. Unlike when I use the word "gaming," Ken Edwards usually means video gaming. I'll chime in with a couple of games I enjoyed as well in the video game front, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that I'll be throwing in a little of the table top as well.

So expect a little discussion of Savage Worlds and Mr. Jack, in addition to discussion about Mass Effect, tonight on Geekerati Radio.

ABOUT GEEKERATI RADIO – Geekerati Radio is an online radio show hosted by Christian Johnson, Shawna Benson, Bill Cunningham, and Eric Lytle which features discussion of popular culture by geeks for geeks and is a featured show in the BlogTalkRadio network. The Geekerati Radio show airs Monday nights at 7pm Pacific and the archives are available 24/7

Merry Christmas!

My wife and I are celebrating our final "pre-twin" Christmas, which is both exciting and a little sad as well. Sad? Yeah, surprisingly so.

Christmas has always been a little romantic affair between the wife and me. We've always treated it like a .5 anniversary, since it comes about 7 months after our wedding date. I'm sure Jody doesn't feel quite the same, but for me (in an extremely selfish mood)it's a little sad. Not too sad, just a little.

Oh, yeah, and exciting. It is so exciting thinking that next year we will be sharing this holiday with two little girls. I don't expect they'll know what all the bright lights and cheer will be about, they'll only be 9 months old or so, but we are already talking about our plans for next year.

Good tidings to all! Merry Christmas!

Christmas Themed Gaming

If you are like me, you might want to sprinkle a little Christmas into your gaming, or a little gaming into your Christmas. There are a couple of ways to do this, ranging from the traditional to the inspired.

Traditionally, the family can gather around the tree, the fireplace, or the coffee table to play classic games like Risk, Monopoly, Heroscape, Zooloretto, Talisman, Runebound, Sorry, and Trivial Pursuit (among others). But for those of more of a roleplaying bent, there is an abundance of inspired (and seasonal) adventures/supplements available for your use.

1. It Happened One Christmas: An adventure for Faery's Tale (and thus appropriate for a wide age group -- I really recommend this game), where the players are Faeries enlisted by Santa to help save the true spirit of Christmas.
2. Silent Night, Hungry Night: A tale of the Weird West, for Deadlands, featuring a sinister figure inspired by the Grinch.


3. The Battle of Christmas Eve: An adventure for Savage Worlds. The war on terror has opened on a new front—Toyland is at war. The characters are all members of the Toyland Intelligence Committee Terrorism Obstruction Cell (TICTOC), sworn to defend Toyland against aggressors. The adventure centers on a plot to ruin Christmas for one little girl, something TIC-TOC can’t allow to happen.


4. Five Days Until Christmas, a horror themed adventure for the Savage Worlds system by 12 to Midnight.
5. If you play Dungeons and Dragons, Christmas weekend is the perfect time to introduce Nicholas the Giftgiver.
6. Basic Action Games offers a heroic adventure "Ho,Ho,Ho, Heroes", in their free supplement Basic Action Magazine.

Download a little Christmas cheer and have a wonderful, and game filled, holiday.

Gifts for the Gamer Geek

It's that time again, time for last minute shopping. This can be especially grueling if you have a loved one who is a gamer geek. It doesn't matter if they are a Video Gamer or one of the table-top variety,if you yourself aren't a gamer it can be nigh impossible to find that perfect gift for the gamer in your household. So...I'm here to help. I'm going to provide three lists for the perspective shopper. The first is for the person who has a video gamer in the house, the second is for the roleplayer, and the last is for the board gamer. Note that I wrote "board" gamer and not "bored" gamer. If you have a bored gamer in your household, you either really need these lists or your really need to avoid them.

• Christian's Current Video Game Wish/Favorite List:

1. The Dream Authentics Katana Gaming Console: No...you can't actually afford it, but anyone who plays video games would be happy to get one of these.
2. Assassin's Creed: It is likely your loved one already owns this, but if they don't buy it for him/her immediately.
3. Phoenix Wright -- Ace Attorney (Trials and Tribulations): This most recent installment of the Ace Attorney series is wonderful fun. You've never heard of the Phoenix Wright games? Hmm...The best way to explain them is as an interactive novel. You solve puzzles in order to advance the storyline. Loads of fun and the legal system is just as accurate as that shown on Shark.
4. Guitar Hero III: Nuff Said.
5. Mass Effect: If you didn't put your loved one in a stranglehold to prevent them from buying this last month, you should have. This is one of the best games to come out for any console...ever. It merges everything you loved about Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic with everything you loved about Jade Empire. This is as near a perfect game as I have witnessed.

The Table Top Roleplayer

1. The Burning Wheel: While your loved one might never actually play this game, once he or she reads the rules to this game every gaming experience that follows will be shaped by the encounter. The Burning Wheel companion RPG, Burning Empires, is possibly the best Science Fiction RPG published to date.
2. Savage Worlds: Like Burning Wheel, this system will have you rethinking what roleplaying is meant to be. Where other games become overly weighted down with a mass of rules which approach singularity, Savage Worlds keeps it Fast! Furious! and Fun! The Necessary Evil campaign setting is a must for any Superhero fan, or those who loved the old miniseries V.
3. The Serenity Role-Playing Game: Roleplaying in Joss Whedon's "verse." What more could you ask for? A quick system inspired/influenced by Savage Worlds? Check. Veteran game designers? Check. And it's based on Firefly. Go...buy this now.
4. Pathfinder Subscription from Paizo: Paizo Publications used to be the publisher of Dungeon and Dragon, the official magazines of the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game. Now they have their own adventure magazine line, called Pathfinder, and it is a good one. The adventures are written by talented designers and the articles provide depth to the campaign world. It's win/win. The only critique I can offer is to say that the adventures are not for the easily disturbed. The third adventure in the series is based (loosely) on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and features a family of deformed Ogres.
5. The Savage World of Solomon Kane: Robert E. Howard's influence extends to every fantasy roleplaying game ever invented, especially the Dungeons and Dragons game, why not check out one of Howard's most enduring characters in RPG form? This is a great game and a great setting.

I know, I know, I didn't include any D&D products in the list, but that's only because I figured you already knew about those. But in the interests of fairness, here are a couple of products from Wizards of the Coast that I think are of particular interest.

1. Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress: Trying to get your loved one, of the female persuasion, to take time off from visits to Nordstrom and spend some time at your game table? This is the book for you. Shelly Mazzanoble's writing is witty and fun, and she gets to the heart of what makes rpgs enjoyable.
2. The Eberron Campaign Setting: This is the setting of my current campaign, and it is quickly becoming my favorite campaign setting ever. There are those who cry out against this setting, but I believe they have never actually read the book. Eberron combines the best of epic fantasy with the best of urban fantasy for a great setting. The elves of Aerenal are truly "alien" from most traditional fantasy elves (sure the Khorvaire elves are the standard fare), skull face paint and all.
3. The entire Dungeon Tiles series: These are tremendously useful game accessories.

Christian's List of Board Games:

1. Mr. Jack: Easy to play + great theme + two players = perfect gift.
2. Zooloretto: The epitome of the "eurogame." Prosaic theme combined with entertaining and easy to learn rules makes this a game that can appeal to a wide audience. Give it a try, you might be surprised how much fun you have.
3. Tide of Iron: Lots of pieces and a World War II setting make this the prototypical Ameritreasure boardgame. The mechanics are excellent and the game is versatile enough to simulate a number of different battles. Highly recommended.
4. Descent -- Journeys into the Dark: Maybe the best "dungeon crawl" boardgame ever invented.
5. Lord of the Rings: How often have you played a cooperative boardgame? That's what I thought. Buy this and add that to your list of experiences.

Mel Odom and Professor Nokes Discuss Fantasy Films with the Geeks

It's Monday again, and that means another episode of Geekerati will be airing tonight at 7pm Pacific time. Tonight's topic is one near and dear to my heart, "Fantasy on Film: From the Printed Page to the Silver Screen." If you are like me, you love Fantasy films and have suffered through an almost unbelievable number of bad viewing experiences. Sometimes, I wonder how I can still love Fantasy movies, but then I'll watch a classic like "Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger." That's when I know all is right with the world.

Here's a description of tonight's episode:

The new millennium has seen a resurgence of fantasy on the silver screen. Some of these films have been spectacular, and financially successful, but others have failed to bring the audiences studios might have expected. Are we at a crest on a roller coaster of quality, or is it a sign of more good fantasy to come? Join the geeks and our guests, fantasy/sf author Mel Odom and Medieval Literature professor Richard Scott Nokes, as we discuss our favorite fantasy films.

For those of you unfamiliar with the show, Geekerati is a featured show of the BlogTalkRadio network (and a part of the BlogCritics channel on BTR), a network that is revolutionizing the way podcasting is done on the internet. The shows initially air live and then are stored on iTunes as podcasts.

Geekerati focuses on "Geek Culture," everything from movies and comic books to video and roleplaying games. You can listen to archived episodes at www.blogtalkradio.com/geekerati or look up Geekerati on iTunes. Past guests on the show have included television writer/producers Tim Minear (Angel/Firefly) and Rob Long (Cheers), Variety editors David S. Cohen and Peter Debruge, Game Designer Matt Forbeck, Science Fiction author Susan Palwick, Comic Writer/Reporter Marc Bernardin, Film Critics Luke Y. Thompson (The OC Weekly) and David Chute (The LA Weekly and Premiere.com), Wold Newton Historian Win Eckert, Comic Book editor and author Jeff Mariotte, and Game Designer James Lowder.

In a future post, I'll post a complete list of links to our archived episodes.

Top Ten Internet Meme Revisited

Burgandy Skies, over at Perrero (make sure you mute the clock after you click the link), recently tagged me with the "Top Ten" meme. I am certain, though I haven't looked through my years of archives, that I've done this one before. I am certain it was a long time ago, and Burgandy is good people, so I figured "what they hay, I'll do it."

So, I'm supposed to to a top ten random facts about myself, and then tag ten other people. I'll do the first part, but this branch of the meme ends with me (unless you choose to infect yourself).


1. I am, apparently, one of the few Science Fiction and Fantasy fans who doesn't like the new Battlestar Galactica show.

2. I eventually want to eat a meal at a Gordon Ramsay restaurant.

3. I had a great friendship with someone that never actually led to romance, but I think both of us wanted it to at some point, with someone who is now a Sommelier.

4. I used to be a 21/craps dealer.

5. I still play Bard's Tale from time to time.

6. I am a big fan of Westerns, especially Rio Bravo and Ride the High Country.

7. I think that Private Practice is a very good show, but I haven't watched Gray's Anatomy since the "killed the dog."

8. I adore the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney games.

9. I enjoy heartwarming romantic comedies more than most action films.

10. Oh,...and my wife and I are going to be the parents of twin girls. They should be coming along at the end of March.

All I Want for Solstice is My Sanity

Sometimes I come to the realization that there is just too much awesomeness in the world to fully and adequately comprehend it all. That is why I will merely alert you to the existence of A Very Scary Solstice instead of discussing it in depth. Because, when faced with two CD’s of Christmas and Yuletide songs devoted to Cthulhu, words fail. Well, almost all words:

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

A Very Scary Solstice brought to you by The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.

Carol of the Old Ones, video by Asfaril.

Like Frodo, Tabletop Gaming Lives!

How's that title for a combination age giveaway and cred establisher? Seriously though, our friend David N. Scott of Pererro asks a question near and dear to my heart, "So... anyone out there still tabletop?" The underlying assumption to this question is that gaming has moved from the tabletop to the desktop, or to the console as the case may be. Let me say, that for me tabletop gaming is alive and well. I might spend weeknights playing Mass Effect (when I'm not doing the Geekerati podcast), but my Saturdays are filled with gaming goodness. Let me share with you the games I play regularly with my gaming group (Wes, Jo, Eric, Steven, and Joel) every Saturday in our marathon 10 sessions. Then I'll mention a couple of the other games I've played this year.

1. Dungeons and Dragons 3.5: The first, second, fourth, and possibly fifth Saturday of every month (holidays excepted), I run an Eberron campaign based in that campaign's city of Sharn. The basic theme of the campaign is CSI: Sharn and the characters solve murders, battle terrorists, and are currently beginning to scratch the surface of a possible continent wide conspiracy that will begin with an assassination (if the players don't do their job). The game begins Saturday at 1pm and usually ends around 6pm.



2. Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 (Backup Games): Did I mention earlier that we have marathon sessions on Saturday? Well, we do, but one of our group leaves at 6pm. I didn't want this player to feel left out of the regular campaign, which has been running for three years, so the group runs a couple of back up games after our 6pm break. Starting at 7pm and lasting until around 1am, we adventure in the world of Paizo's GameMastery world. We alternate two different campaigns in the Paizo-verse. In the first of our Paizo games, the players are running through Nicholas Logue's series of Falcon's Hollow adventures in the GameMastery Module line. They started with Hollow's Last Hope, continued with The Crown of the Kobold King, and will soon face The Carnival of Tears. Characters in the second Paizo game are attempting to finish the Rise of the Runelord's adventure path contained in the pages of Pathfinder magazine. They are about a third of the way through Burnt Offerings.


3. Star Wars Saga Edition: Every third Saturday (minus holidays as usual), Wes runs our Star Wars Saga Edition campaign where our struggling rag tag group of heroes attempts to thwart the plans of the Sith during the Clone Wars. So far we are having a great time, but my Jedi character (Resh Sal'Gana) is pretty sure that every Jedi, who isn't in his immediate group, is a Sith Lord. So far, we like the new rules set, but have some issues with the layout in the core rulebook (especially when it comes to GM advice).


4. Chill 1st Edition: Around Halloween, during our "backup" game period, we played a little 1st edition Chill and had a great time. I imagine that we'll be playing another session sooner rather than later. Pacesetter games was a company founded by former TSR employees who created a number of games that were criticized at the time, but which feature elements that are common now in horror RPGs. Chill may not be Call of Cthulhu, but then again, it never was meant to be.


5. d20 Modern: Yep...we've played this, and will again very soon, in our backup game time.


6. Marvel Superheroes: The players got a little taste of this game earlier this year, and we had a blast.

There's more RPG gaming that we've been doing this year, but needless to say we've been hitting the tabletop pretty hard. Speaking of tabletop gaming, here is a list of some of the board/card games I've played with this year.

1. Bohnanza: A wonderful card game (5 of 5 stars).


2. Bull in a China Shop: A very good card game (4 of 5 stars)


3. Cthulhu 500: A poor card game (2 of 5 stars).


4. Formula De: My favorite racing game (5 of 5).


5. Mr. Jack: An amazing two player deduction game (5 of 5)


6. Tannhäuser: A fun tactical miniatures/board game (4 of 5)


7. Descent: New classic dungeon crawl game (4 of 5)


8. Runebound: My favorite "adventure" board game (5 of 5)


9. Zooloretto: Great fun (5 of 5)

There are many more, but these are just a few of the highlights from the past month.

Gaming

So... anyone out there still tabletop?

We manage to maintain a group of 4-6 despite the tidal pressures of World of Warcraft and Real Life, but it can be hard.

We're playing RIFTS these days... good ol' RIFTS, basically unupdated since the glory days of gaming in the 80s.

I've been trying to get into Exalted, but I both love the game and am instantly knocked out of it by the seeming wonkiness of Charms and the mass of books out there.

I'd love to play Unknown Armies, if I could find a copy to thumb through at the FLGS.

Speaking of which, our last actually local game store has just gone under. The massive sale is nice, but the precedent it sets is very displeasing.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Pleasures of 2007

Yesterday, I posted my Science Fiction and Fantasy Pains of 2007. Now that is out of the way, I can write about the things that made me giddy this year. Tomorrow, I'll post about those things that I feel ambiguously about, but today is for happiness. Yesterday was doom and gloom, but today is joy and celebration. I encountered a lot of SF/F that I enjoyed this past year, in fact it has been a good year overall, and it has been hard to limit myself to just five pleasures from 2007. But rules are rules, and yesterday I wrote that I would provide five pleasures. So here goes. Be warned though, like the LA Times article that inspired me, some of the things that brought me pleasure this past year aren't exactly new (just new to me).

5) Mass Effect by Bioware: There are times when I begin to wonder whether a visual medium can convey the wonders I imagine when I read a good Science Fiction novel. Then there are the times that I am playing Mass Effect. Bioware amazed me with their groundbreaking Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic videogame RPGs. I never thought they'd be able to top those games, or that anyone could for that matter. With KotOR Bioware out Star Warsed (I know it looks awkward, but it sounds cool out loud) Georged Lucas. Then they released Jade Empire and I was stunned. Jade Empire took the excellent non-combat resolution system from KotOR and overlayed an exciting, yet intuitive, action combat element. I'm not the most "1337" (that's leet or elite) of game-players, especially in 3D interactive environments, but I was able to excel at Jade Empire. The same has been true of Mass Effect. I may get pwnt (that's owned or easily and readily defeated by elite gamers) when I play Halo 3, but when I am battling the enemy in Mass Effect I feel extraordinarily proficient. That is the elegance of the combat system. My only complaints are that real life days aren't long enough for me to play this as much as I want and that the protagonist comes off as a bit of a jerk no matter what dialogue choices I make. This would be rated higher if it had come out sooner and I were deeper into the game.

4) John Scalzi's Old Man's War Series: Imagine if you took the Forever War, Starship Troopers, and Gulliver's Travels and you put them all in a blender set to liquify. That's what the Old Man's War series is like. I may be baffled that Scalzi is willing to offer whole stories from this series to his fans for free, sure in audio format (though you can read the text version here), but they are so good that I am tempted to send John money just to make sure he will continue writing. Not necessarily the Old Man's War series, I am satisfied with it as it stands, but other things as well. Scalzi has a wonderful writing style and his ability to convey humor and humanity in often horrible circumstances is remarkable. I cannot recommend Old Man's War, The Ghost Brigades, or The Lost Colony high enough. It is rare to find accessible, yet crunchy, SF these days, but Scalzi has managed to do just that. He even manages to make political commentary without being preachy. Now that's hard.

3) The Detective Inspector Chen series by Liz Williams: If you took Blade Runner and Neuromancer, shredded the books, and pasted them into a novelization of Big Trouble in Little China with a dose of Bridge of Birds for good measure, you might just get something similar to the Detective Inspector Chen books. Maybe close, but not quite. The books take place in a society where both technology and magic exist, the protagonist has a demon wife, there's an underground trade in souls, and the internet equivalent has servers that are slightly disconcerting. The stories are as fun as the covers are stellar. If you like the Dresden Files and Hong Kong cinema, give this series a look.

2) The announcement of the 4th Edition of the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game: I know this was on my list yesterday, but as I wrote then, this is a pretty big deal and I'm pretty excited about it. Yes, I lament the fact that a couple thousand dollars worth of books I own are now "obsolete," but I look forward to seeing what changes are coming with the new system. I have always thought that the game was fun, but that it lacked in certain ways as an abstraction of fantasy fiction in general. Many of the new rules seem to be aimed at fixing this small flaw and making the game a more seemless simulation.

1) The Geekerati Podcast I do with Eric Lytle, Bill Cunningham, and Shawna Benson: What does this have to do with SF/F? Everything. I decided to put the whole podcast down as a single Pleasure because otherwise I would have had nothing but Geekerati episodes listed in my top five. Starting with our interview with Susan Palwick about her excellent book Shelter, which was one of my favorite SF reads this year, the show has had a number of excellent segments. I recommend you stop by and listen to our Tim Minear (of Angel and Firefly fame) interview, our interview with Marc Bernardin (the Highwaymen comic), our interview with Win Eckert (of the Wold Newton Universe), or our discussion of Beowulf. In fact, hang out on the site for a while and download all our episodes. You won't be sorry.