Monday, September 1, 2014

Games People Play


I’m a gamer.  Not a gambler, which most people in this word associate the term “gamer” to, but a gamer as a role player playing RPGs and other games that would be associated to such.  My bookshelf is riddled with gamer text books, my closet is full of magic cards and other collectable card games and I still find dice in the strangest of places.  I still have my PSP, we have kept the PS2 and upgraded to the PS4 and my son and I sometimes do battle with our 3DS, so, yeah, this house is a gamer house.

 

So now it take you down a little history:

 

Like many I started with board and card games with my family, however, I was introduced to computers at home at a very young age for my generation; five.  I’m forty-two now so you can understand having a computer in the house at that age for the times, the seventies, was a huge deal. 

 

The TRS-80 Model I took the entire dining room table with it’s main cpu unit, monitor, and all it’s wires and accessories.  These days, a piece of plastic the size of my pinky fingernail holds zounds more information than that monstrosity did back in 1977.  It didn’t even belong to us.  Mom brought it home from work because she had extra work to do on it she couldn’t accomplish during normal hours.  And, of course, it doesn’t hurt to teach her son a thing or two about something that’ll be commonplace when he becomes her age.  Eventually she bought a Model III when I was eight, upgraded to an Apple IIe when I was 14 then she finally relented to a IBM compatible 1megwhen I was a junior in high school.  This on top of having an Atari 2600 with 26 games to play up to a Turbo Grafix 16 by the time high school game around then going to the Sega Genesis for college.  I played RP computer games and went “online” when I was 14, before anyone coined the terms “internet” and “world wide web.”  So gaming was firmly established for me.

 

On the other end of the spectrum is tabletop.  Like most, I started with Dungeons and Dragons, more specifically Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st Edition then had to move on to 2nd Edition.  Ah yes I remember thac0 very well.  After college I graduated to playing both the Palladium universe  White Wolf and finally by 1997 I discovered LARP and with the exception of Magic, something I picked up two years prior, the actor in me picked up live action role playing and never looked back… for a while.

 

The reason for this blog is two fold.  One, because my previous posting was drama filled and I felt I needed to get things off my chest and there are a few games out there I feel are really fun and need mentioning even if they have been discontinued.

 

Dream Park

 

Published by R. Talsorian Games, this one shot is the holodeck RPG.  Or maybe it’s Total Recall since your PCs tend to not have any memory as to why you are in this weird universe.  The premise is you and your friends are at this virtual theme park where you enter pods to go to this strange world with it’s own rules.  Of course you have an ordeal to endure as you might have a specific goal to complete but half the fun is trying to figure out this domain’s rules.

 

What got me hooked was the GM decided to send us into a world that was always a rock opera and we had to save Iron Maiden’s mascot, Eddie, from Hotel California before the residents’ steely knives devoured him.

 

If you find this book it’s well worth picking up and playing.

 

HoL: A Game

 

AKA Human Occupied Landfill and its only supplement, “Buttery wHoLsomeness.”  This one I picked up while waiting for a magic game to pick up and I could not put it down.  Now to warn you it’s chock full of crude adult humor and quite possibly many people couldn’t make sense of it.  I did, and even went so far as to run an event at GenCon with it using South Park as a theme.  It was independent then later picked up by White Wolf for their Black Dog line that didn’t last long.  Still if you want a game for a good riot of a time that goes with the lines of Cards Against Humanity, find this game.

 

Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game

 

Because of the rise to prominence of Game of Thrones, the Amber books, written by Roger Zelazny, has started to slip into obscurity.  The DRPG was based off the books and because it’s diceless can be done pretty much anywhere.  With my circle of friends it was always started with the question, “Where are you and what are you doing?”  Easily can take the time away on long car rides or waiting at the doctor’s office.  It’s hard to find copies of this one because Palladium bought the rights to Phage Press’s books but haven’t done jack squat about it but it’s a game that you can easily run a campaign for years on end.  That is if you’re into that sort of thing.  And being a god doesn’t hurt either.

 

Well, that’s my contribution for now.  Lets hope later days won’t include such drama like today did.

 
TTFN

Watch the Birdie

A couple of months ago I joined this social network with the only purpose that I had to in order to have a chance to get a residency on Amtrak, otherwise I couldn't even fathom joining it because I thought it was silly and a waste of time but mainly because I felt I would never get any followers.  I am not that sociable, at least not in real life, so I felt my tenure there would be short lived.  I have since not scored a residency (surprise, surprise) but I am still on Twitter, gaining more followers than I loose and creating a nice little circle of professionals for myself.  Many of us writers where I see it as a community of support for one another it is something I could not see before joining and now I can't see why I could never had joined.  Like the line in the Hellraiser moving when the psychiatrist was turned into a cenobite, "And to think, at first I resisted."


"One of us!  One of us!"


I'm mutually following many writers, whether if that's what they do for a living or it's a hobby.  A huge online support group in hopes someone will catch what I created and maybe help me go to the echelon of "published."  But still it's kind of nice knowing many others are in the same boat as I.  And it kind of depresses me knowing many others are in the same boat as I.  I also have actors and singers following, very talented people, some followed me first and I haven't a clue why.   Some are seemingly become a kind of friend, but again I am always reserved because what has happened to me in the past with people and what tends to still go on today.  However I do have tweeters who I converse with more than others.  It seems I've developed a sort of report with them so it's much easier.  But for the most part and certain air of distance is required.  This is a much different animal than Facebook, an entity I don't use nearly as much anymore.


"Keep it Professional"


It is really difficult for me to not just turn to everyone and pull a Jon Lovitz, "Buy my book!  Buy my book!" or "Hey, you see that link?  That goes to where my books can be bought.  Hint hint."  You think merely mentioning such low behavior in this blog is bad enough, but just look to the right.  See, lulu dot com stuff over there, but I digress.  Twitter, I figure, is all about this international support group.  I mean, damn, I can always pull this up with the app on my smart phone.  When a tweet happens to my interest my phone informs me until I pull it up.  So when I'm not sleeping I'm tweeting.  I never thought I would be that person.  But what I do is tweet in the response of others either in support or antidotal in hopes that someday others will respond in kind.  Never mind about my bad day or why I'm so depressed or why the f--- can't my books sell.  There's a good chance my followers are going through the same thing so I've learned to keep drama away from everyone else because I definitely don't want drama around me.  So far I think I have a good thing going and best of all I've avoided the trolls thus far. (Knock on wood.  Then again I'm not famous by any stretch.)  Which now brings me to...


"I Only Have Patience for so Much..."


I am not going to follow just for following sake, unless I'm a fan and they have some sort of fame or an organization to the point I don't expect a follow back, generally I give about a week of following until I decide, "Well this person is definitely not interested."  Then I unfollow.  Again I try to keep things mutual and professional.  There are two individuals who I've kept around who don't follow me back.  I have my reasons for keeping them around, but for the rest of y'all I try to keep it mutual, professional, and respectful.  Sometimes it's difficult, but I believe if I keep my composure everything can stay flowers and birdies and bunnies, relatively speaking of course.  Believe me, those of you whom I have kept around you make sense being mutual followers and I hope you never unfollow.  Others, well... I wonder what possessed them to follow because they don't fit in anywhere with the community I'm creating for myself, especially those twit bots!  I'm sorry, I will NOT purchase followers and I will not tolerate advertisements violating my twitterverse space.  Fortunately in this case the "Ignore it and it will go away" method is the only tactic you can use and oddly it eventually works.


Others tend to be companies I've never heard of, never will patron, or just isn't interested.  Again, I wonder what went through their heads to think I would be okay to follow other than they gotta try.  Maybe this time they'll get lucky.  But for the most part, I guesstamate  every nine out of ten tweeters are not twits so are generally cool.


By the way for some of you who I have a constant communication on twitter, and you know who you are, I give you this liberty:  if I start getting all dramatic you guys have permission to give me a good mental slap across the face.  I should know better but there are days my mama said, yes there'll be days like these my mama said.  (Mama said, Mama said).


Now...


I just have one twitterverse thing, @RESIAMUSIC, amazing voice.  Check out her song on vevo.


I'd say ttfn, but I have two other blog entries today.  It's Labor Day; go figure.  One is very serious and possibly drama filled so you have been warned but it's something I feel needs to be said.  So see you in a few hours.