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Saturday, December 12, 2015

Random Notes

Just some random notes over coffee.

Acknowledgement. I think that's what you call it. I took my hardback of Swords & Wizardry and my yellow folder of sheets concerning the adventures of Mirado, the Black Warrior off my desk and moved it to my shelf.

Once Erik Tenkar has more time, we can play again. But until then, it's actually kind of better if I have a little more vertical desk acreage. I put it on the shelf next to ACKS, which I keep promising I'll pick up and finish reading.

Grappling Supers! I forgot that Doug and I were contacted about using our OSR grappling rules in a new book, but he found a post we'd both missed. Is it out yet? Doesn't seem like it. But we did inspire some further development of our idea. Not the first time, either. As a game designer (I think I qualify in this respect), this is very satisfying.

Reviews. I haven't forgotten my marching orders (hey, I did get to G1-3). But I have a lot of other things going on and looking back in my module collection keeps getting bumped back.

Speaking of reviews: I generally review stuff I like. I have a limited window of people's attention, and I want to spend it saying, "Here is stuff I liked and why I liked it - you might be interested in it, too!" If I really disliked something, I'm not that likely to take the time to go over it and write about it. Plus, I think it's more useful to the reader to hear about what I liked and why than what didn't match my taste. So it's more "share what I like" than "objectively examine material for its upsides and downsides."

Ogre minis sale. Yes, this will happen. When? Not sure. It's busy around here, and I need to take the time to list everything, take pictures, etc. I have a LOT of minis in the collection to sell off. And if I'm going to go eBay I may as well list some extra books, some other minis, etc. all at once.

I need to find a price guide for the individual Ogre minis - original MSRP would be fine. I paid that for many of them, so it would be nice to just know what the heck my cost basis is.

Star Wars. We're on to play Star Wars tomorrow. I'm curious how it plays. I already know I'm well behind the canon curve because all I know is stuff from the original three movies. That's the era we'll play in, but even so - I have no idea what the names of things are, what all the alien races are (I keep needing to Google them when they get mentioned), and so on. I was a huge Star Wars fan as a kid, and I still love the movies, but I just didn't keep up. Or remember all of that stuff. Or, in some cases, even know. I know the orcs in Star Wars are Gamorrean, though. Hmm. Sounds like gamers if you say it fast enough. And based on the rescue in the beginning of Return of the Jedi, the best plan is the most complex possible plan you can imagine.

Map Evolution. Warning - this has spoilers. But Mark Lawrence put up a few versions of the maps for his Broken Empire series (Prince of Thorns, etc., Prince of Fools, etc.). It's very cool. It's a good blog in general, but it's not gaming related so I don't link to it much.

10 comments:

  1. I'm not sure what the plan was in Jedi.

    If that movie was made today there'd either be an elaborate setup then something would go wrong and they'd have to improvise or they'd flashback and show the planning.

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    1. It seems like the plan was, "Let's all get captured one by one and then escape at the same time." Which isn't the most foolish plan in the universe. Oh wait, yes it is. I mean, what was the upside of it? Slave Leia costume and a lot of cool fights, but otherwise . . .

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    2. I don't for a second believe Leia intended to get captured. That makes 0 sense given her badassery with the thermal detonator (actually you don't put a thermal detonator on the stage unless it gets fired). Leia was almost out the door, but I guess that would have left the droids behind.

      Equally if Luke could have controlled Jabba I'm sure he would have walked out too.

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    3. I don't for a second believe Leia intended to get captured. That makes 0 sense given her badassery with the thermal detonator (actually you don't put a thermal detonator on the stage unless it gets fired). Leia was almost out the door, but I guess that would have left the droids behind.

      Equally if Luke could have controlled Jabba I'm sure he would have walked out too.

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    4. I'm not sure what her plan was. Unfreeze Han, carry him out while rescuing Chewie? Rescue him and come back?

      It all makes sense if you want to A) have a few cool scenes and B) show individually how amazing they all are. The rancor fight and barge fight are a showcase of everyone's badassitude. In-world, it's just an odd approach.

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  2. The Plan was multi-layered with "Plan A" followed by "Plan B", etc...

    Plan A was the droids negotiated. Lando was a deep infiltration scout and was there to back up any part of any plan if he could. In true Lando fashion... he was helpful until the last minute.

    Plan B, Leia inflitrates and springs Han. Then Lando gets the droids out.

    Plan C, Luke negotiates, gets everyone out.

    Plan D (aka the regular rpg gamer's plan) everyone gets captured, kill your way out.


    But yeah... that plan had more holes than swiss cheese...

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    1. I'm going to bet Rogue one's heist has either the elaborate plan with a betrayal or disaster, or a flashback that shows they had a different plan all along.

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    2. I also bet that if we ever see a thermal detonator again it will go off sometime in the movie.

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    3. Really?

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_One:_A_Star_Wars_Story

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