Roman Geeks

I have still yet to watch Rome but a friend of mine simply won't shut up about how good it is. I had seen a few seconds of a few episodes last year but it didn't really catch my interest. He claims its just as good if not better than Deadwood. I will probably buy and download it from iTunes since I had so much fun watching Burn Notice on my iPod.

The reason I mention Rome is that I learned this weekend that those Romans... they were AD&D geeks. And for just under $20K you can buy one of their 20-sided dice.

A ROMAN GLASS GAMING DIE
Circa 2nd Century A.D.
Deep blue-green in color, the large twenty-sided die incised with a distinct symbol on each of its faces
2 1/16 in. (5.2 cm.) wide

Several polyhedra in various materials with similar symbols are known from the Roman period. Modern scholarship has not yet established the game for which these dice were used.

Can't you just imagine Ceaser yelling "Roll the dice to see if I'm getting drunk!"

Current Entertainment

I finally finished season 3 of Deadwood. I had heard that the final episode was quite the let down; but I was hoping that with such lowered expectations it would still be okay. But it was SUCH a let down I didn’t even realize it was the finale! There was still another DVD and I thought there were more episodes. I mean its building up to this big confrontation… building and building… and then nothing, it’s over! The final DVD is just extras. I thought I had missed a DVD and went back through the box.

It reminds me of the thing I didn’t like about the movie Gladiator. The whole movie they are building up my expectation of seeing the armies of the Roman Empire marching on Rome but then it never happens. If they do ever make the 2 movie length episodes to finish out Deadwood they better be EXPLOSIVE! …of course by then the momentum they built will have been spent.

I just started in on the third season of Entourage thanks to my friend James from work. I didn’t think I’d like it but I really do. I like the way they keep it upbeat. I like the way the writing moves it along. I keep expecting something really bad to happen to Vince’s career and there to be this dark turn to the series but it doesn’t happen. Sure things go wrong and there is the natural up and down flow, but it always manages to land on a positive note without feeling fake or like its undeserved. There are also lots of hot women flaunting their body in every episode.

I also just got the audio version of the latest William Gibson novel, Spook Country, from Audible, but I’m saving it for the plane trip to PAX. No direct flight this time – Brisbane to Sydney to San Francisco to Seattle. Same thing for the way back. I don’t know how I ever survived these trans-Atlantic flights without my Bose noise reduction headphones and unabridged audio books. But I’ve been meaning to try and track down a real email address for Audible to tell them their website layout sucks. Seriously if any Audible marketing people are scanning the web for mentions of their site, YOU WEB SITE LAYOUT SUCKS! Seriously give up the vertical columns and give the titles some room to breathe. I’m tired of having to click on each title to read about it. Do you know why if you click on the book to the right you go to Amazon instead of Audible? Because when I am browsing for what title to purchase, I have Amazon open in another window to read up on the book and see its reviews.

Oh and since I went on about Audible, let me go on about the Bose headphones. They RULE! ...except my wife got a better pair. When she went back to the states for E3/EIEIO I begged her to take my headphones for the trip but she was scared she would lose or break them or something. But halfway through her trip she went out and bought her own pair and they are newer tech and sound a little bit better. They also have a rechargeable battery while I’ve had to take stock in triple A’s. I’d steal hers but she got the ‘on-ear’ model and I prefer the ‘around-ear’ ones. It is probably a good thing she didn’t take my pair with her though, because she did lose her iPod on the plane. So if there is anybody from Bose people scanning the web for mention of their products, send me a new pair and I’ll pimp them from now till George R.R. Marin finally finishes the Song of Ice and Fire series… yeah THAT long!

Deadwood as a LARP

I just got season 3 of Deadwood from Amazon. I knew it was coming so for the last week I have been watching seasons 1 & 2 again to catch up. As I’ve been watching it I can’t help wishing that I had seen the show back when I was running Testament, my live-action role-playing game. It has so many elements that would work so well in that type of game.

The game I was running was White Wolf’s “Vampire the Masquerade”. Now if you don’t know anything about that particular game; throw away all those pre-conceived notions you just got. It’s not what you think and yes I know what you are thinking. Toss out the whole Ann Rice, Anita Blake, tight leather and lace, pansy ass, vampire images. See told you I knew what you were thinking.

When run correctly, a live-action game is a social-political one. It is basically a power struggle set in a social setting of people who don’t really like hanging out with each other in the first place.

I can so easily see setting up a Live-Action Role-Playing game right now based on Deadwood. I wouldn’t use the Deadwood setting exactly but instead maybe do it as either sci-fi or fantasy setting, but the set-up could be mimicked under both. The sci-fi or fantasy thing just lets you throw in some other magic or technology items that help role-playing games. For example things like healing potions/med-kits that allow injured characters to quickly recover from injuries.

But look at the set-up of the power structure in Deadwood. Most of the major characters in Deadwood are completely supported by the miners. They don’t mine themselves, but rather run casinos, brothels, and the like which are supported by the regular people aka the hoopla heads. I can easily see setting up the really good power players as owners of casino/brothels just like in Deadwood. In the show each of the major players then has a cast of secondary players which new major characters have to interact with to learn the lay of the land. This is how the two major players learn what is going on and how the goals of the new people fit in with their own goals and motivations. For example in the first few episodes where Bullock and Wild Bill first arrive in town, Swearenger is worried that Bullock and Wild Bill are together and will open a business that will compete with him. Bullock and Swearenger’s archetypes are already diametrically opposed to each other. That sets up some good role-playing. Both Swearenger and Bullock get to play off each other and interact with the secondary characters to establish themselves. Later when you have Hearst come in, look how he both opposes and aligns himself with the existing power players. I’m only a few episodes into the 3rd season and haven’t seen him interact too much with the secondary players but I can see how I would arrange that. Man I could do so much with that setting. Maybe I’ll just steal it for a short story or something.

Fury Beta Keys

I had a few things I’ve been wanting to post but every time I sit down at the computer I always have one small thing I want to do first and then I vanish into some pan-dimensional time warp not to return till way past my bed time. I think it has something to do with Deadwood. I’ve been re-watching seasons 1 & 2 while waiting for season 3 to arrive from Amazon.

But before it isn’t relevant anymore I thought I would point out that Fury's official “actual” beta is coming up. Not to be confused with the “pre” beta. You can sign up here and if you got an “in.” Know somebody working on the game… somebody like… ME! You can tell me what email address you used to sign up and I may be able to poke around in the piles of beta applications and give yours a push toward the accepted pile. Assuming your machine will run the game, looks like we won’t be doing a Commodore 64 version, sorry.

Fury Beta Sign-up Link

For those of you without an in, Ten Ton Hammer is offering a limited number of Beta keys free to people who sign up for their brand new membership program this weekend. First come first serve so either get on over there in a hurry or get to know me!

Ten Ton Hammer Beta Keys Offer

And for those of you still sitting on the sidelines, and those sidelines happen to be in Los Angeles, Gamecock is going to hold a Wake for E3. You can read all about it over at Joystiq or a little about it here on Kotaku. Anyway point being Fury will be there and will be playable.

Fury Pre-Beta

This weekend was our big pre-beta test. There were loads of people in the game battling it out. Unfortunately I wasn’t one of them as I started to get sick Friday and was pretty much at dead to the world all weekend. I blew my nose so much I swear it must have been brain matter that was starting to come out toward the end.

I wound up laying on the couch most of the time under some blankets while watching really old South Park episodes. I finally got to see the Terrance & Phillip episode that they ran instead of the second part to the ‘Who is Cartman’s father’ story as well as said second part. I had missed those when they originally aired and I feel much more complete having finally seen those two episodes. I had actually meant to watch seasons 1 & 2 of Deadwood again, but I couldn’t get motivated enough to get them off the shelf.

Anyway… If you have signed up for Fury’s beta you should get a move on. That Fury isn’t going to unleash itself! Here is the link.

And just to get you into the mood here is our latest promo video.

wait for it... its loading...