The Gaming News

GenCon, and its lingering con crud have passed (and for most people I noticed, it was a delayed con crud, moving in two days or even a week after the event), so let me catch up on stuff in gaming.

Let me start with the toughest news first. Gaming legend Jim Ward (Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World, my boss for many, many years at TSR) has been in the hospital for the past way too long for a diabetic ulcer on his foot. He's not doing particularly well, but is most worried about losing time on various projects he's involved in. A GoFundMe Account has been set up to help offset his medical costs. Cards and letters also appreciated, and he can be found at:
       St. Lukes

       Select

       James Ward

       Floor 4 28B

      2900 Oklahoma Ave

      Milwaukee, WI 53125

We're all pulling for you, Jim.

The big news that hit right at the end of the convention was an agreement clearing the way for a D&D Movie. The short version: Warner Brothers wants to make a D&D with Hasbro's permission, but has been blocked by Sweetpea Productions, who claims the rights (Though, like all things, it is complicated). The settlement puts Sweetpea as an exec producer (and probably more - we aren't partial to those dealings) and clears Warner to do the movie.

Now, this news, and the mention that it will be set in the Realms, has kicked off a flurry of speculation about a Drizzt movie, or an Elminster movie, or even (yes, in some parts) an Azure Bonds movie, but the best thing to look forward to is a good movie with a good story. The Marvel franchise has not slavishly wed itself to its original books, but instead did films that captured the flavor and magic of the IP without having to lockstep into previous continuity. Have fun, guys.

Speaking of Elminster, his creator, Ed Greenwood, has teamed up with Gabrielle Harbowy to edit the Women in Practical Armor short story collection. Their Kickstarter already made their numbers, but check em out anyway.

Also news out of GenCon was the change of ownership of the venerable Chaosium, home to Glorantha and the Call of Cthulhu games. This is all tied together, because the guys at Rising Moon, who delivered the glorious Guide to Glorantha coffee table tomes are now running things, and Elder Gods Greg Stafford and Sandy Petersen are retreating to the background once more. More information here.

In the wake of Gencon, this popped up on Vice of all places. It's a paen to the wonderful weirdness that is D&D. Author Zak S created the award-winning A Red and Pleasant Land, and his thoughts on the game evoke the writing style of Harlan Ellison when the man was doing essays as a regular column.

Over on the computer game side, there is this about writing for games. I have tales of my own, but you're going to have to buy me a beer. The article includes a link to this twine game (sort of a newfangled Choose-Your-Own-Adventure) called The Writer Will Do Something.

Also on the net is your chance to check out Chaldea: War Room. Chaldea was the home campaign of Peter Adkison (you know, WotC and, um, GenCon) and Peter has been polishing up his chops as a film-maker. War Room in the first of his videos.

And finally, a video that turned up a few weeks back from the Guild Wars: Nightfall game in 2006. Originally put together for the deluxe edition, I don't know if it ever shipped with the game, but instead made its way to the net years later. There are a lot of interviews with the old gang (myself included), and all I can say is ... we all look so YOUNG in it.

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Beijing by Drone

I talked briefly about my very short trip to China earlier. It was a short trip - fly in, two days of interviews with the media on GW2's release in China, an impressive party, a day of playing tourist, hitting the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace, and then out. Hardly enough to frame any definitive opinions. But I didn't mention the drones.

Drones?

Yeah, the GW2 celebration started with a reception with a cover band, models posing by GW2 exhibits, and a lot of fans, including ones ignoring the cover band and the models and playing GW2 at computers set up around the perimeter of the huge patio area. The entire shindig was in a former industrial area turned art district, so we were surrounded with old gas works and cement storage facilities. And in the middle of this, I heard a burring noise, and looking up, saw a trio of mini-helicopter drones hovering at the edges of the property.

And I did a mental blink. This was no the first time I was filmed in a public place, but probably the first time I was in a public place being filmed by a drone. Definitely the first time I was aware of it. It felt a little odd, in part because I had not experienced it before.

In any event, the party went well and I forgot about the drones with everything else that was happening. And then I came across a video by Trey Ratcliff, a gifted photographer, who was taking pictures of Beijing by drone. And while the video is titled "Beijing From Above, AKA the Story of How I Was Detained By the Police for Flying My DJI Quadcopter", the video doesn't mention the detaining, the story of which is instead found here.

In any event, it a series of shots of various Beijing locations, many of which I did not get to visit. It does capture the grandeur (and to my mind, impersonal nature) of the Forbidden City and the beauty of the Summer Palace (which you should go to, but be prepared to hike). And then, about the 3:09 mark, there was something that, to quote the clickbait sites, "Blew my mind".

Rytlock Brimstone.

I mentioned that the GW2 party culminated in the unveiling of a huge 40 foot Rytlock statue, which, I had been told, would be an installation in this art district. Yet I was still surprised when I came across a picture of him, in all his charrish glory, taken by a quad-copter, no less.

Check it out. It's pretty cool.

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Meanwhile, 200 years ago...

Here's an interesting history bit about the burning of Washington - the conventional wisdom was that it was a reprisal for the burning of the Canadian town of York (now Toronto). But here's an article that makes the point that taking Washington was not a British goal, and the the burning of the public buildings was more the result of someone firing on the Brits expecting a traditional surrender, and in the process killing the commander's horse.

Of course we don't agree on history - we can't even agree if the song was recorded by the Arrogant Worms or Three Trolls in a Baggie.

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Pittsburgh: The Movie

OK, if  you're a Pittsburgh native (and even if you aren't), you really should watch this - a collection of movies filmed in Pittsburgh, with a lot of attention to Batman and Inspector Gadget. I think Dogma is missing, along with The Bread My Sweet (which features my Mom-In-Law as a meter maid). Just enjoy.



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What New York Superheroes See

I found this particularly amazing:



More information on the flight here.

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Buck Rogers

I've worked on a lot of Buck Rogers projects in the 80s and early 90s, and I have to say, I really LIKE this. The writing, the acting, the sepia tones - yeah, this is a web series I want to tune into:



Oh, you want a rocket ship? Here, have a rocket ship.



The site for all this is here.

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Verities and Balderdash

It hasn't been like I've been busy the past few days. Chalk the absence up to general exhaustion. But here are a few things I have stumbled across:

Author and fellow Alliterate J. Robert King is posting a conversation with Ed Greenwood in his Twelve Days of Ed Greenwood.

Grognardia has done a retrospective on the Marvel Super Heroes RPG. Now I'm feeling all Old-School.

Looking for an instant location for your D&D campaign? How about Calendria? Kinda cool looking.

And I've lost some time watching Llewtube. The idea of the podcast is that Robert Llewellyn (Kryten from Red Dwarf) drives people around in his Prius and interviews them. Like Patrick Stewart and Stephen Frye and local officials. Quirky and British and you couldn't do this in LA because after a half-hour you've only gone one exit.

And did I ever share with this Close Encounters/Dueling Banjos mashup?

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Update: The Internets are a wonderful thing. Got an email from Robert Llewellyn saying that he has done some of his "CarPool" shows in LA, both for the web and iTunes. But he stays off the freeways when he does them. Thanks!

Wingdings!

OK, I'm hip-deep in some other stuff, but thing made me laugh, and the power of the Internet is such that I can inflict it on you.



Yes, it is a real promo for a Microsoft product.

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"...and I hope we passed the audition."

So, I will fess up. I'm not much a fan of Rock Band and its relatives. I've played it, it is an OK way to spend time, but I haven't embraced this half-way point between air guitar and real chord progression. Maybe playing REAL guitar has ruined it for me, or that I recognize this game's real ancestor.

Simon.

You heard me. Not the Pre-CBS Fender Stratocaster. Not Woody Guthrie's folk guitar, emblazoned with the sticker "This Machine Kills Fascists". Not Dylan's Gibson Nick Lewis Special (or his later Fender Strat Reissue he went electric with). The origin of the Rock Band-style game is that chirping little four-color disk that dares you to keep up with it. Heck, it even uses the same color scheme.

But anyway, I come not to praise Rock Band but to marvel at the opening cinematic for its newest version: Rock Band: The Beatles. Now being an old grump who remembers when the Beatles first landed, you'd think I'd be dubious about the entire retro operation, but I have to say it is bloody marvelous, encapsulating the groups' career, with shout-outs to the movies and public appearances.

Bloody marvelous, I say. Go check it out.

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Department of Teh Cute

Because I wish to destroy your productivity, I give you Puppy Stalker!.

Ooooooh - whoozah puppy? Yes you are! Yes you are!

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Video Experiment

OK, this is to see if I can embed video here. It seems like all the cool kids are doing it:



Someone dropped this in my in-basket and I really liked it. And it just seems like it is the opening credits for a new comedy about twenty-somethings debuting on Thursday night on NBC.

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Update: Man, this song and the video has been following me all day. The song because it's a pretty catchy ditty, but what underscored it was the "meet the band" video. The band is called Dealership, by the way, and I don't have any idea if the members of the group are like their supposed filmed avatars. But by the end of the day I had turned them into the NBC sitcom I mentioned, and here is who they are:

Ray is the guy at the start of the video. Lives in a hotel because his most recent girlfriend threw him out of the house for sleeping around (note woman's underwear in scene, but no woman - she walked out on him as well). He's a hound. He sleeps all day and drums all night. He's a slacker, with no prospects, great dreams and no practicality at all.

Ari is the girl (napping in the forest with her keyboard? - its symbolix). Free spirit, smarter than she looks, always has the right answer, wise though innocent. Music is her way of cracking the code of life. Weirdness magnet - stuff happens to her and she sees nothing wrong with it. She writes the lyrics, effortlessly. She is a seeker.

Sam is the office drone. Hates the job, drinks his lunch, keeps his job through sheer bureaucratic inertia. The rational one, the one trying to live a "Real Life", and therefore the one with most pressure on him. He writes the music, and for him it is an effort every step of the way.

Those are the characters. Sam has a house, Ari lives in the attic in her own private wonderland, Ray probably moves in by the end of the first episode. They are all strugglers, but everything comes together when they play, and the band is the redeeming factor in their world - sort of like in Hard Days Night (The only time the Fab Four are in control of their lives is when they are playing). Ray and Ari probably had a thing way back, but are more friends who are protective/jealous of new relationships. Ari is Ray's muse, and often has the immediately correct answer while Sam has to struggle for it. Ray figures he has a sweet thing and strives to keep the balance between the two that lets him slack. If they become a real couple, he's out of a place to live. If the band breaks up, he's out of job.

Anything missing? Probably need a sound tech - the weird old guy in the Mini. Sixties survivor, says things like "I suppose that makes me the adult supervision around here - yep, we're all damned to hell!".

Anyway, I needed to get this out before it ate me alive. If it turns into a real show (like maybe Ken Levine pitches it), be sure to drop off my part of the cut. You know where to find me.

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Mash-Up

So to promote the latest "greatest hits" album, Bob Dylan's people have done a bit where you can write your own captions for the classic "Subterranean Homesick Blues" video.

So I had to mix it up with the OTHER part of the near-mythical New York City of the 60s:



Oh yeah, trivia piece - the two guys talking in the back are Bob Neuwirth (who co-wrote the Janis Joplin "Mercedes Benz" Song) and poet Allen Ginsberg. (Oh, and for a new geek version of that song, go here).

Speaking of SHB, here's another riff on the classic video, this one Russ Feingold, who was my Senator when I lived in Wisconsin.

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Eye of the North

We have gone live with Guild Wars: Eye of the North!

Everyone, happy dance!



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