| another thing

You may or may not have already considered this, but since the reality of our gaming group is that we're mostly decentralized, maybe keep in mind ways to make the game chatroom friendly. Or at least easily modified for those e-friend gaming situations.

| having really only knowing

By saying the rpg idea is gonna die here on the blog, you're setting yourself up for failure! Delete that line from your post or at least from your heart.

Run with it!

Some quick thoughts:

Fiasco is pretty hard. Really more improv than rpg, so  totally not a system for most people. I'd say the best thing to gleam from it is the "playset" feature. Come up with a solid system underneath, then you can plug in your "When Cthulhu Cthalls" playset/deck/dice/module. Next time, it can be the "Dungeon Crawl" set.

DCC: I wish we had played more. I felt like there were too many people to successfully pull off an online sesh with that game. I forget - is it made to be played with a tons of dudes? I also don't remember how much player-input there was when it came to "telling the story". Wasn't Jawn a DM for that?

| TL;DR - I have an idea that will die on this website

So, I've been thinking about roleplaying games.  I suspect I will likely never get into a meaningful campaign again in my lifetime unless I start playing with Wy, which is fine because RPGs are a lot of work and a lot of commitment!  That being said, I still totally like RPGs!

Right now, I'm really interested in the dice mechanics for Star Wars and WFRP 3rd ed, where you basically roll a grip of dice all that once that includes difficulty dice, dis/advantage, skill dice, and 'other' specific dice as well.  Once you roll all them dice, you interpret the results.  Successes vs. failures to see if you pass the test, but then some other results based on the dis/advantage results.  The long and the short of the system is that there is some narration on every roll.  I think our group would have a blast playing a system like this, and I know jr0n and Enron (maybe Mykenloft?) have already played WFRP some and I'd like to hear their thoughts and experiences on the system.

Anyway, I also really like the Mythic GM Emulator which sort of puts the story into the hands of some charts and LOTS of interpretation by the players to drive the story.  When we played DCC using the GME, it added quite a bit of interest because we were sort of writing the story as we played it.  We generally knew the plot because the GME lays it out for you to a certain extent, but the details were determined by our play.

And then there is The Armitage Files supplement for Trail of Cthulhu.  This is basically a sourcebook for all sorts of different NPCs, groups, locations, tomes, etc. for the ToC game, but with a very interesting twist:  Each one is detailed and then additional details are listed for if the 'thing' is friendly, neutral, or opposing.  Basically it means any group that uses the sourcebook will likely use it in vastly different ways.  There was a pretty good blog out there about one groups experience running a game derived from the Armitage Files and it sounded rad!

And THEN there was our mixed experience with Fiasco!  I had fun, but couldn't muster the creativity to really perform like I should have during those sessions.  Maybe I didn't quite 'get it', maybe playing in character seems weird to me in my old age, whatever it was, I wasn't totally into it, but I did really like the idea of joint story telling with a purpose.

ANYWAY, all of these things combined with how much fun we have RPing as a group when things go off the rails, got me thinking about combining them all together into some sort of GM-less Cthulhu/Investigative RPG where decks of cards define the overall story, but to keep it fresh, each scene or something rotates through the players as they sort of interpret and run the game based on a set of instructions they received from their card pull at a certain point in the game.

I don't know narrative/plot/story arc devices, terms, or structure, but it seems you could somehow combine a generic set of narrative cards with specifics from the genre (Cthulhu) combined with elements of the GM emulator for 'chaos and chance' WITH interpretation of dice during rolls, you could make a pretty fun, structured, but bite-sized RPG experience where no one has to do all the prep work and everyone gets to contribute AND join the ride.

I'm still tinkering with some specifics, and like the title says it will likely die right here, but it's been fun to think and fantasize aboot.

| vintage action team

I made it to the Full  House theme before bowing out. I'm sure it's purposefully awful, but there's also like an earnestness in how bad it is that's kind of compelling. I "get you" jorn, but I just can't do it. AV CLUB also posted a youtube link to a 9-minute loop someone made of the breakdown in the Spindoctor's song Two Princes. Same thing - awful yet compelling.

| Que Horrible!

I have no idea what just happened, but it was entirely torturous.  In its defense, I did NOT listen to the whole thing, so maybe it gets rad at some point, but not the parts I heard...

Yeah, I'm gonna have to ask you to keep your recommendations to yourself? Mkay?

Although, I do sort of love the cover along with just how horrible it was... sort of like a performance art piece.... like that guy that played one note on a piano for like 8 hours....

Change of heart!  What else can you recommend, J-Pets*?

And I LOVED Dredd!  I've seen it a heck of lot of times and like it every time!  It's one of those movies where it's way better than not watching anything at all and staring off into space, but at the same time it's not much more taxing than staring off into space.  I did really enjoy it.



*J-Pets is another cool nickname for you, along with "Shtoops", "Mongo", and "The Tan, Hatted Man from Manhattan."

Have you guys seen Dredd? It's an honest-to-blog good movie. The plot is basically that Bones from NuTrek teams up with Juno's friend to fight Queen Cersei and Avon Barksdale. First movie I've started and finished in one sitting in quite a while.

I kinda hate to recommend this, but fuck it. This is an hour-long mashup that is simultaneously hilarious (to me) while also being totally irritating and occasionally tortuous, and sometimes sort of amazing. I think it's some kind of commentary on pop culture? Especially '90s nostalgia? But I'm not sure? All I know is that I have an all new appreciation for "All Star".

| rad dream

I had a rad Action Team co-starring dream this afternoon.

Me and Jael were taking a test in this "Learning Annex" type of board room with a bunch of other people. The rest of the gang, specifically Jawn and Elrick, (but vaguely everyone else) got the room and were waiting for us to play board games and rpgs. So there was all this pressure to hurry up and finish the test. Jael finished before me, and I was having an anxiety attack because high school-era Elrick (hat and pony-tail) and Jawn were sitting right behind me, with their games in a stack, waiting for me to finish.

I wish I remembered the test, because it was so convoluted and weird, but ALMOST doable. I was one of the last people taking the test, and I feared the teacher wasn't going to let the gang stay to play games, so I was even MORE anxious. Then it ended when I realized I was sleeping and didn't have to finish the stupid test. I woke up, SO RELIEVED.

| I too, am tenatively excited for Straw Wargs

Unrelated: Just had a run in Payday that is worthy of the blog. 1.2M cleared in net pay and over 500k in xp in a single run, lawls. (Firestarter after stealthing a jewelry store the mission previous). Guy on the team had a saw for max loot on the bank at the end. Crazy.

Ugh. WHY!? For an ironic trip to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters, with a pit stop for a little blue milk along the way? Maybe they'll have to rescue Boba Fett from the sarlacc pit since he's the only man who get can them out of whatever galactic jam they find themselves in? Is Luke going to teach his kids to shoot womp rats in the old T16 in a way that will evoke maximum nostalgia?

Or maybe they just need to pick up the still-smoking skeletons of Aunt Beru and Uncle Jim Nabors (I can't remember his real name). Actually if Han insisted they mount them on the Millenium Falcon it'd be pretty rad.

I'm sorta like that with comics too sometimes, burning through dialog and not really getting the complete picture, but I just gotta recommend this set because so far these books are REALLY good. You can drop the minimum and still get a few fantastic books. Or not! It's just such an insane deal money wise it blows me away.

There was already a picture from turkey or wherever they shot the tatotieen stuff with JJ there, so enjoy!

That's an intriguing bundle for sure... although I have so little time and so much other stuff to read, I'm a little hesitant to pull the trigger. I'm an idiot at reading comic books anyway. I read all the words while barely looking at the pictures and then wonder why I had so much trouble following the story. * idiot *

I'm tentatively hopeful about S7ar Wars. I mean, I want to believe again, but Abrams seems like a dude who excels at pastiche and individual moments more than being an actual storyteller. I hope it's great, I don't think it will be as bad as the prequels, but in my gut I think it's going to end up like the Marvel movies and be fun to watch while browsing the Internet on your phone, but forgettable. I want to be wrong!

I hope they skip fucking Tatooine for once. That was not a place we needed to visit in 5/6 of the Star Wars films.

| Humble

The new Humble Bundle for Image comics is KILLER. The only book I'm familiar with other than Walking Dead is LAZARUS and it's a fantastic comic. I recently bought issue one on comixology and was about to buy the rest but lo and behold here's the first collection for $1+ (I went $10 to unlock the higher tier titles other than Walking Dead - read a bunch already so don't need those volumes). Holy shit, get it for Lazarus if nothing else. (It's a dystopian near future post economic collapse- rad book!)
https://www.humblebundle.com

| Star wars

I'm actually excited for the new Star Wars.

I dig the new Star Tracks and fuck ya Larry Kasdan.

The cast pic/announcement 

| I can haz Payday ?

Anyone up for Heisty heisterson good times?