New thoughts

Remiss in Blog Writing Updates

Never got around to updating this here blog since the datastream slowdown puts of the enthusiasm of doin update since things got really really slow that time. I better get on with this entry.

I have a number of things to attend to in short order soon enough. A trio of writing projects, one on the backburner months back, a recent one inspired by events that transpired in an interactive storytelling session during my last birthday and another inspired by the fusion of postcyberpunk and current trends and perceptions of the Internet experience.

Since the datastream is slowly but surely getting restored to its normal flow, it’ll be more accessible for me to update my blog with newer and more frequent entries.

Good Days to Look Forward and Enjoy

This item was a realization of sorts from my recent Saturday. A day would be considered would be: The sense of satisfaction gained for a purchase made that day with no guilt buying it. Meeting new people and enjoying their company as if a new friend is gained. Meeting people of similar interests like old friends and acquaintances that help renew the well of inspiration and thought where it strikes best when the discussions run long until the call for home becomes hard to ignore.

Interesting catches from the Net

The long hours of poring over and trawling over torrents lists for RPG books in PDF format and scanned comics always pays off when ever last bit of data is downloaded without incident. A few good picks I got off the net are: BESM (Big Eyes Small Mouth) RPG3rd Edition, Tekumel, Empire of The Petal Throne RPG, Savage Worlds RPG and its much lauded Superhero setting book, Necessary Evil. Comics would be Grant Morrison’s Marvel Boy, Megacity 909, Handbook to the Invincible Universe, and Forever War.

BESM 3rd Ed got the bugs and complaints out of the system by using a rollover target number approach as opposed to the quirky roll below target number setup since it threw of traditional gamers in that mindset and die rolls tend to get screwy. Its inbuilt setting of interconnected worlds are a welcome addition for the enterprising GM to use and modify since it was able to integrate a wide range of worlds and settings that are familiar in anime settings. I agree though that one complaint of the book is that it used recycled art when some fresh new art would make the 3rd edition book feel very new as opposed to being a version retread.

Tekumel, Empire of The Petal Throne was a rather unusual yet intriguing setting created by MAR Barker as his own attempt of creating a world setting in the same vein as J.R.R. Tolkien did though it lends more to Aztec and Mayan influences as opposed to the European based mythos that permeates Western fantasy. I would still have to give this a decent scan through with some subsequent reading. I got briefly jazzed about it when I saw the ads before in the 80’s issues of Dragon Magazine for the game and its books, especially the famed Man of Gold ad that got me hooked.

Necessary Evil was something that I heard a lot of buzz in RPG.NET forum boards especially on account of its intriguing premise of a setting. The setting involves supervillains out to save the world from alien occupation after the alien invaders duped Earth’s heroes to be struck down fatally by their duplicity. With Earth’s heroes wiped out, who would strike back at the alien overlords? It’s the chance to be in a villains shoes to do the butt kicking in their quirky villainous ways.

The comics are just some good reads to add to my digital comic collection. The comic version Forever War is pretty much a translation of the Joe Haldeman book into graphic novel format with exact text taken from the book. The artwork in it also reflects certain period sensibilities like the aging Space Shuttle design used by NASA was used as a dropship in the graphic novelization. Marvel Boy is quite a mindwarp of a limited series that involve an alternate reality Kree anti-hero out on a vengeance spree and has to deal with SHIELD, Professor Midas and some unusual stuff that escaped from his crashed ship like Hexus The Living Corporation. The Handbook to The Invincible Universe is a good reference book ala OHOTMU (Official Handbook to The Marvel Universe) for the Invincible comic books series with similar format like OHOTMU.

Cool reads I got trawling patiently through the sea of information.

More stuff to write about. Stay tuned and keep on living.