Almost a year ago now I started reading the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Currently I’m around 200 pages from completing the third book, A Storm of Swords. While I know I still have another massive tome to go before I’m caught up I wanted to write some commentary after the events of last night’s reading. For anyone who hasn’t read them yet I’ll be sure to clearly label where the spoiler section begins. Don’t expect much out of this. Just a few random thoughts.
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For those of you who don’t know what I look like… Here’s a picture. I also tried to emulate roughly my normal look of annoyance so as you have a better chance to recognize me. That is all.
I read this today and I want to share. J.E. Sawyer, via Formspring, answers various questions, including a lengthy discussion on the definition of RPG. While this is, primarily, from a video game view point there are references and parallels made to the table-top community. I’m going to bring this up on the next episode of Bear Swarm! where I get a topic section. I’m curious to see what my fellow hosts think of the question, “What makes a Game into a Role-Playing Game?” I know my answer. Tell me what you think in the comments.
I also want to call out one VERY specific line of the conversation: “Interactive storyline is not IN ANY WAY essential to RPGs.” To which Mr. Sawyer disagreed. After the transcript there is a small poll asking for your thoughts on this line but feel free to comment about it as well. After the break is a transcript of the Formspring questions. Special thanks to Ausir over on The Vault for compiling this for my reading pleasure.
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In the last couple weeks it has been commented that I have an above normal book count on my gaming shelf. I figured I’d let you be the judge. You can see the entire bookshelf here but after the jump I have shelf-by-shelf pictures and listings of (almost) every gaming book I own. There is a second book shelf in my bedroom that has my old World of Darkness, Shadowrun, Rifts, and a handful of other games that I don’t keep on my main shelf. I’ll post that collection later. For now, lets take a look at the five shelves in my living room.
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Have you seen John Wick’s zombie survival RPG Shotgun Diaries? How about Steve Jackson’s dice game Zombie Dice? Am I the only one who noticed that the green dice have one shotgun blast on them and thought, “That’s a natural 6 on a d6, the same mechanic that one requires for success in Shotgun Diaries”? Maybe I am but it was that very idea that inspired me to write this article. A small rules re-write of Shotgun Diaries to use Zombie Dice instead of normal d6s!
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This is mushy and personal. While this isn’t a personal blog, I still wanted to save this somewhere. What follows after the break is something my girlfriend wrote about me recently. It made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. I wanted to share and document it. This post is more for me then you. continue reading…
I signed up for a LiveJournal account about a month ago to comment in someone’s journal and make it easier to follow everyone I read regularly. Originally, I planned to completely ignore it and posted my usual re-direct. I use this blog as a writing and project blog, I post weekly entries over at Ideology of Madness about music, I’ve set my mind to not keep a personal diary-esc blog (I’ve done it in the past and always hating going back and reading it again), and then there is the Bear Swarm! site which is purely for the podcast. I don’t really need another blog or journal but this morning and idea hit me and I think I’ll just LiveJournal for it. Almost every single morning I wake up with a song in my head. I have no idea why but in my sleep apparently I listen to music. I’m going to post the song in my head every morning to my LiveJournal. Hopefully finding a music video on YouTube to embed too. We’ll see how long I keep this up for, but I think it’s a fun idea. Today was the first day, I work up with Runs in the Family by Amanda Palmer in my head. No idea why, haven’t listened to that song in months.
I wanted to blog about something personal today. A brief anecdote of my daily life that amused me. I debated setting up a livejournal, then I remembered that years ago I used to have a deadjournal. For those of you who don’t know, its a Goth livejournal clone. I tracked it down, read a few entries, then deleted it. I also found out I had a blog before that one… that I promptly deleted. I also found an old website I used to run… deleted.
All of this serves to remind me of what a total douche I used to be. Old me disgusts current me. Odds are good the future me will hate current me too. All of this also made me decide to NOT open a livejournal and NOT get into personal blogging. Its too easy to look back and remember what a tool you were. Some memories are better left forgotten. It also reaffirms my desire to leave this a personal work blog and not a place to blog about my personal life.
One might say, “But Rob, isn’t THIS a personal post?” to which I would explain, “While to a unwashed heathen, such as yourself, it might appear as such it is actually a comment on the status of this blog and its intended purpose.” I might also kick that person just for an exclamation point to my comment. Consider yourself kicked.
Poll runs from February 1st to March 1st.
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Almost a year ago now I started reading the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Currently I’m around 200 pages from completing the third book, A Storm of Swords. While I know I still have another massive tome to go before I’m caught up I wanted to write some commentary after the events of last night’s reading. For anyone who hasn’t read them yet I’ll be sure to clearly label where the spoiler section begins. Don’t expect much out of this. Just a few random thoughts.
