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Gaming and music Post - and Rogue update
Mar. 8th, 2008 01:16 pmAs (nearly) everyone knows, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax, died this week. I cannot honestly say I was particularly a fan of any of the game systems he developed (Dungeons & Dragons, Cybog Commando, Mythus, Lejendary Adventures), nor most of the scenarios he developed, not to mention his ethical reasoning in rpgs. Nevertheless the contribution of D&D to the gaming world is underestimated; with hundreds of "copycat" games after D&D (many of them significant improvements) and almost the entire fantasy computer game industry, Gygax will certainly be remembered. The comic The Order of the Stick, provides its own excellent tribute.
Apropros to this I suppose I should announce that I've been asked to write for Polymancer, a rather good Canadian print RPG magazine. My initial article is on "Bad Game Design", which inspired me to conduct a couple of straw-polls on livejournal and RPG.net on what constitutes the worst roleplaying game of all time. RPG.net has put up my review of HeroQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and there's a more than outside chance that I'll be heavily involved in the next edition of Rolemaster's Campaign Law.
Every so often I go on a bit of splurge on music purchases. Most recent haul includes the following: Monty Python - Best Of, Public Image Ltd - Greatest Hits So Far, ELO - Time, Blancmange - Living on the Ceiling, Asia - Alpha, Orbital - Halcyon Best Of, Psychedelic Furs - Pretty In Pink - Best Of, Pop Will Eat Itself - Now For A Feast, Chapterhouse Very Best Of, China Crisis - Difficult Shapes and Passive Rhythms Some People Think It's Fun to Entertain, Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Welcome To Pleasure Dome CD, Jacques Brel - Here's Jacques Brel Best Of, Jean-Michel Jarre - Zoolook, Ultravox! - The Island Years, Ultravox! - Ha! Ha! Ha!, Ultravox! - Systems of Romance. The latter two I picked up purely by luck by visiting Dixons prior to going to Polly's for Brendan E's, birthday drinks. Whilst the list does read a little like "important but relatively unknown music from the eighties", a major exception to this is the late 70's LPs from Ultravox! (with exclamation mark) which, for music aficiandos, should be distinguished from Ultravox. Whilst I don't mind the Midge Ure led latter band or its string of commercial hits, the earlier incarnation with John Foxx was well ahead of its time, with some brilliant poetic lyrics (see in particular Hiroshima Mon Amour, Just for A Moment, I Want To Be A Machine, My Sex and The Wild, The Beautiful and the Damned).
Rogue Rat is not in the best state. Whilst clearly a content he's spending much of his time asleep with a sloppy grin on his rodent face, his movement these days is quite shaky and he's given up eating solids (although he's been coaxed into eating baby food, soy milk, cheesecake and the like). Over the past few weeks he's lost about 20% of his total body mass. Unfortunately I don't think they little guy's going to make it to 100 rat-years. Still, he's had an excellent life and is clearly appreciative of the attention he's getting in his twilight days.
Apropros to this I suppose I should announce that I've been asked to write for Polymancer, a rather good Canadian print RPG magazine. My initial article is on "Bad Game Design", which inspired me to conduct a couple of straw-polls on livejournal and RPG.net on what constitutes the worst roleplaying game of all time. RPG.net has put up my review of HeroQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and there's a more than outside chance that I'll be heavily involved in the next edition of Rolemaster's Campaign Law.
Every so often I go on a bit of splurge on music purchases. Most recent haul includes the following: Monty Python - Best Of, Public Image Ltd - Greatest Hits So Far, ELO - Time, Blancmange - Living on the Ceiling, Asia - Alpha, Orbital - Halcyon Best Of, Psychedelic Furs - Pretty In Pink - Best Of, Pop Will Eat Itself - Now For A Feast, Chapterhouse Very Best Of, China Crisis - Difficult Shapes and Passive Rhythms Some People Think It's Fun to Entertain, Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Welcome To Pleasure Dome CD, Jacques Brel - Here's Jacques Brel Best Of, Jean-Michel Jarre - Zoolook, Ultravox! - The Island Years, Ultravox! - Ha! Ha! Ha!, Ultravox! - Systems of Romance. The latter two I picked up purely by luck by visiting Dixons prior to going to Polly's for Brendan E's, birthday drinks. Whilst the list does read a little like "important but relatively unknown music from the eighties", a major exception to this is the late 70's LPs from Ultravox! (with exclamation mark) which, for music aficiandos, should be distinguished from Ultravox. Whilst I don't mind the Midge Ure led latter band or its string of commercial hits, the earlier incarnation with John Foxx was well ahead of its time, with some brilliant poetic lyrics (see in particular Hiroshima Mon Amour, Just for A Moment, I Want To Be A Machine, My Sex and The Wild, The Beautiful and the Damned).
Rogue Rat is not in the best state. Whilst clearly a content he's spending much of his time asleep with a sloppy grin on his rodent face, his movement these days is quite shaky and he's given up eating solids (although he's been coaxed into eating baby food, soy milk, cheesecake and the like). Over the past few weeks he's lost about 20% of his total body mass. Unfortunately I don't think they little guy's going to make it to 100 rat-years. Still, he's had an excellent life and is clearly appreciative of the attention he's getting in his twilight days.