My own skiing experience was at the Hillend track here, at about 11, and stopped pretty quickly - before it got to the point of there being actual snow - which I kind of regret but I never really got to the point of staying upright.
Monday, 7 February 2022
Skiing
Watching Winter Olympics morning coverage, mum got to talking about skiing. She learned in Norway with a Norwegian instructor who was a ski jumper. Learned when she was 13 or 14 - “of course to be really good you have to start when you’re about four, about when you start to walk. He had a son who was so high (about three feet) and he’d wait till we were down and then come down and go between us, his dad yelling at him, giggling away! We got used to it by the end of the week and just stopped to let him. I preferred the Norwegian way, going on trails on hills and in the woods, to the Swiss downhill, though I’m sure that’s partially how I learned. The Swiss had great cakes though, we’d go to the patisserie in the next village and get boxes of them...”
Sunday, 6 February 2022
Exile, the game that never was
Ian A. A. Watson created a mockup for an original Aeon style cover for Exile, the cancelled game it replaced. It’s an inetresting setup, but on the whole I’m glad we got the much more optimistic Trinity.
Saturday, 5 February 2022
Men In Black
I take it the Men In Black never recruit anyone with a name starting with U or I.
Men In Black International does a decent job of franchise expanding the setting by moving to a new group in a new office.
See also the Ghostbusters RPG. Not a coincidental thought as the D6 system got a Men In Black RPG.
It shifts the secret alien-fighting dynamic with different workplace comedy archetypes, replacing the original laser-gun take on The Rookie with a keen new arrival propping up a burnout coasting on charm. That’s the part that works best, I think.
The actual story is fine, the mystery not very mysterious, the big finale done in the middle of Tomorrowland: A World Beyond, and the biggest surprise for me was the reveal about the alien gangster H was with being a different one than the one he’s with at the start, which sort of fits his crap James Bond shtick but seems like either one character too many or one too few for the comedy rule of threes. (Warning: also contains P**rs M*rg*n as the latest haha obvious alien.)
The D6 game came in 1997, nice and quick for a tie-in but late in West End Games’ classic run and was supported with exactly one sourcebook, Aliens Recognition Guide: Volume 1. That’s a shame because as the animated series also demonstrates, a lighthearted workaday alien cover-up setup can be a lot of fun, especially playing up the office side as well as the missions. Plenty of Ghostbusters-adjacent games could underscore that better than the various straight-ish UFO conspiracy RPGs.
Friday, 4 February 2022
Winter Olympics 2022
The Winter Olympics are here, six months after the summer ones last year due to the delay. Normally it would be a year and a half, then two and a half years to next summer. So if they’d moved the winter games to next year it would have been a year and a half on each side. Not great for the competitors but the most even spread for the audience.
I overthink things sometimes.
The Winter Olympics has the skiing and shooting Biathlon being the most James Bond contest (though not the most Player Character) as well as all the fun of isolated ski resorts suitable for snowbound murder mysteries. (Personal note: The first adventure I ever pitched and had turned down, when I was probably eleven, was a mystery set at a fantasy Olympics. So I still kind of want to do something with it.)
Add international politics, odd heroic moments like the Jamaican bobsled team and Eddie the Eagle (famous for being a bad ski jumper but he got down that slope and walked away every time) and both seasonal Olympics have room for all kinds of trouble for PCs to get into.
A nice low-key Opening Ceremony, mostly relying on the floor screen and cute kids.
Obvious pulp adventurer background of the games is Nathan Crumpton, author and photographer representing American Samoa as he did in the summer games last year and going out shirtless for the flag parade.
And we had hail here after the ceremony, so, seasonal.
I remain puzzled by DC live action TV
CW Offices:
“No, sorry, you still can’t have a live-action Batman show. It might confuse the brand, unlike the new Batman film, the unconnected Joker origin sequel, and the Flash film with two other Batmen.”
“Fine, we’ll do a show where Batman’s dead!”
“Sure, we’ll greenlight that.”
“... Uh, really? Oh, uh... okay...”
Thursday, 3 February 2022
Cat Burglar
Cat Burglar is the forthcoming cartoon from Netflix, a proper old-fashioned Looney Tunes kind of setup with a very modern twist - it’s a trivia game where the viewer answers questions to decide whether Rowdy Cat succeeds or gets splatted. From Charlie Brooker and the creators of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch along with writers from Bojack Horseman and Tuca & Bertie.
And I would have gotten away with it...
The Masked Singer, a bizarre TV franchise at the best of times, has always had a bit of Scooby-Doo in its unmasking of various monsters following often unhelpful clues, hence it appearing in a promo for the msot recent movie version, but tonight it went all-in.
Wednesday, 2 February 2022
Work an idea backwards
It’s Groundhog Day - again - and in a note from Den Of Geek via Cracked that the time loop story idea started to take shape with screenwriter Danny Rubin thinking of a different way to approach immortality while reading Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat, notably one that wouldn’t involve historical costumes and locations.
Renegade Con 2022, March 4-5
Renegade Con for online panels, demos and reveals for Renegade Game Studios, including World Of Darkness.
(Also G. I. Joe miniatures... that tempts me.)
The PDF schedule being called Schedule VeryFinal (1) delights me.
Ulysses at 100
Ulysses by James Joyce was published 100 years ago today. I must confess I don’t get it.
Neskowin Beach Ghost Forest
Today’s Free The Ocean trivia question was which is not a major scuba site and (spoiler) it’s the one I’d never heard of. Neskowin Beach. And looking it up, I want to use it as a space opera or fantasy location.
My second guess would have been the Maldives, because mal dives.
 |
| Via Visit The Oregon Coast |
 |
| Outdoor Project |
 |
| Our Big Little Adventures |
Sorry.
Our brand is in crisis
If it were up to me I would have kept “Washington Football Team” and gone all-in on being nondescript. Grey uniforms. Mascot the Mascot.
Angel RPG ideas
An RPGnet thread requesting Angel ideas instead of Buffy ones. I might have helped... with mostly Buffy ones. :/
Tuesday, 1 February 2022
Around The World In 80 Days
Around The World In 80 Days with David Tennant as Phileas Fogg, Ibrahim Koma as Passepartout and Leonie Benesch as Abigail Fix was a lot of fun, except the serious bits making it kind of uneven. Would still like more. No Michael Palin cameo.
D&D TV news
Red Notice writer and director Rawson Marshall Thurber to produce and direct the pilot for a Dungeons & Dragons TV series... possibly the first of more than one. Previous game-related experience includes directing Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.
Of course this comes four days after The Legend Of Vox Machina premiered, separated from official D&D, officially.
There are a lot of official books, other games, comics, and characters providing stories that could be adapted. Meanwhile the latest movie has wrapped filming and... I think it’s set in the Forgotten Realms but have no idea who the characters are.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)