Freewill Applicator (Free subscription) | 11/23/2009
I was lucky enough to catch a very good reading at LA's Poetic Research Bureau last night. First off, it was a great chance to socialize with almost the full complement of LA poets. Ara Shirinyan, Joseph Mosconi, Brian Kim Stefans, Aaron Kunin, Franklin Bruno (on loan from NY), Harold Abramowitz and Andrew Maxwell were all there, plus Mark Wallace and Lorraine Graham up from San Diego--I was thrilled...
BigLee's Miniature Adventures (Free subscription) | 11/22/2009
I like web comics. I follow dozens of them, not all game related although most are. There is some great humor out there and here is a selection of my current favorites (the list is growing all the time). The Unspeakable Vault of Doom is a quirky but very very funny Cthulhu Mythos inspired comic. True, stories of cosmic horror and tales of the old ones seem like a strange subject for comedy. But if...
BOTH BOTH (Free subscription) | 11/12/2009
Lately I've been noticing a lot of new poetry being written here in the Bay Area that seems like Gary Snyder or Kenneth Rexroth could have written it fifty years ago. Actually I like some of this retro-eco-writing, but when it comes to a new twist, John Sakkis is my go to guy. The tidal basin of the Bay Area has left its mark on every aspect of the region, and everywhere you look you see some lovely...
The Wertzone (Free subscription) | 11/10/2009
The History of Dragonlance In January 1984 a rather minimalist advert appeared in the pages of Dragon Magazine , the monthly Dungeons and Dragons periodical published by TSR. This advert informed the reader that something called ' Dragonlance ' was 'coming soon'. In March, the magazine published a short story called 'The Test of the Twins', written by Margaret Weis, and had a feature on the forthcoming...
BOTH BOTH (Free subscription) | 11/10/2009
The Poetic Research Bureau presents... Lindsey Boldt & John Sakkis Sunday, November 22 , 2009 at 4:00pm @ The Poetic Research Bureau 3706 San Fernando Blvd Glendale, CA 91206 Doors open at 4:00pm Reading starts at 4:30pm $5 donation requested Lindsey Boldt lives in San Francisco where she is a practicing poetess, cultural worker, vaudeville-style entertainer, elementary after-school teacher, human...
Dark Diamond Network (Free subscription) | 11/08/2009
This weekend comes with a feeling of great loss for geeks of all associations. Shel Dorf, Comic-Con’s founding father, has died this past Tuesday, he was 76. Beyond the rift comics and manga have, or any other flavor of geekdom, we should all be grateful for Dorf’s work to the community as a whole. Basically pioneering [...] Related posts: RIP: Gary Gygax Father Of The RPG Comic-Con 2008...
BOTH BOTH (Free subscription) | 11/04/2009
Grendelwulf from a D&D website reviews my Gary Gygax ! "Whether he means it as sincere homage or quick cash, I can't say. But as a poetry lover (from Poe to Shakespeare to Chaucer to Maya Angelou to Robert Frost and everything else in between) I can agree with you that it is not very good...at all...not even a little...seems like he is a grade school teacher who had his students all write...
NCSX Import Video Games (Free subscription) | 11/03/2009
NCS Game Synopsis «©NCSX» Back in the 80s, Table-talk RPGs came into their own in Japan thanks to inspiration from Gary Gygax's Dungeon and Dragons role-playing phenomenon. Table-talk RPGs are different from videogame RPGs in that the scenarios, characters, and game world are overseen by a human "Dungeon Master" or "Game Master" who recites from a rulebook. One...
Boing Boing (Free subscription) | 10/30/2009
Kevin Haw writes in to tell us about World of Warcraft and Philosophy, a new collection of essays and stories: Plato, Socrates, Nietzsche, Adam Smith... Sure, they were all great thinkers, but how long would they have lasted in Ulduar? Continuing with the ongoing Popular Culture and Philosophy series, World of Warcraft and Philosophy, (Wrath of the Philosopher King) will be hitting bookshelves on November...
The Wertzone (Free subscription) | 10/25/2009
The History of Greyhawk Dungeons and Dragons was created in the early 1970s by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson as an extension of their tabletop wargame, Chainmail . The earlier game was about massed battles between armies of miniatures, initially focusing on historical events and then bringing in fantastical creatures and magic. Continuing the process, Gygax extrapolated out a game focusing on a smaller...
The Wertzone (Free subscription) | 10/13/2009
Since its inception in the early 1970s, the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game has attracted millions of fans, both of the game itself and the numerous worlds that were created as settings for its adventures. After the demise of the original publishers, TSR, in 1997 and the sale of the game to Wizards of the Coast, most of those worlds were unceremoniously dumped, including the more quirky and...
GamesIndustry.biz (Free subscription) | 09/18/2009
Creating original content and owning your own IP is something that can build "real value" into your company, whereas your position is "really weakened" when the focus is mainly on work-for-hire or licensed products. That's according to Eidos life president Ian Livingstone, in the closing keynote of this year's GC Asia conference taking place in Singpore, as he took the audience...
Luke Reviews (Free subscription) | 08/31/2009
As August draws to a close, and the new school year sets upon us, things get a bit busier and the adjustment throws things a little out of whack for a period. I apologize in advance if I become a tad slow as my schedule slowly readjusts myself, but the pace of reviews shouldn't make a large change, I still will shoot for at least two books a week. As the last list I left up here just finished (and...
Book Calendar (Free subscription) | 08/30/2009
Arents Cigarette Cards W.Somerset Maugham, From New York Public Library Digital Gallery Daily Thoughts 8/30/2009 I finished reading Songs of the Dying Earth Stories In Honor of Jack Vance, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. Jack Vance is considered a masterful writer of science fiction. He is 93 years old and still writing. His style is very interesting. This collection is an excellent...
Jeff's Gameblog (Free subscription) | 08/11/2009
I know I can’t be the only one tired of comparing one retro-clone to another, one edition to another, retro-clones to the editions they ape, and different entire games to each other. There’s lots of useful discussions to be had in this vein, but there’s also a lot of internet monkeys flinging poo. I know because sometimes I allow myself to be one of them. What I would like to propose...
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