The Hazardous Precept

Blue Like the color of water   Sky Blue I'd heard so many answers before I usually tuned them out, but for some reason hers stuck in my mind. Because there is only one color that creates peace and panic as well. How many had I heard answer with the same words? How many had ever considered the answer more than a simple verbalization? The color you associate with the cold, yet smile when it stares down at you on a windy spring day. Her choice wasn't atypical.  Blue was in fact the most common color chosen, but I had never heard anyone speak so passionately about why.  They never seemed to care. When I was a small girl I visited the sea.  I remember the lapping waves nipping at my pink ankles.  The water never looked blue there. I wondered from where this wisdom came.  She didn't appear sagely.  Quiet Docile She didn't show the spark of insight Mother always explained the water was blue because of the sky.  I r

Tales of the Stargate: Season 1   Introduction: Learning a new game system can be a daunting task and transforming a love of a book, movie or television show into an interactive form like role-playing games is no small feat. Luckily Alderac Entertainment has done the hard work for you – they’ve written the extensive rulebook (that is now out of print but still accessible) and provided you with the tools necessary to create your own cooperatively developed stories in the Stargate SG-1 universe. You have the tools – now what? – Well that answer can be as simple as taking one of the many plot hooks from the excellently written SG-1 supplements and developing your own campaign. Experienced Game masters will have little problem doing this but what if you don’t have the time? What if you don’t want to do the legwork of starting an SG-1 campaign? That’s where Tales of the Stargate comes in. Tales of the Stargate is meant to serve as a series of adventures useful in intro

GM Shawn is a gracious and forgiving god.. honest. Re-Re-Re-committing to the blog life is a noble goal. In my last aspirational post I discussed some of my ideas for getting the creativity back into my non-work life. It felt good to write a games related piece and I realize not everyone is interested in that content, but I enjoy writing it. I also have put a lot of thought into the other concepts and so here and now I'm proposing a few recurring features to this here blog... 1. Vignette - This recurring feature will focus on a concept, character or image that I've spent time with before and want to revisit. I've got the Wacom Graphire Tablet plugged back in, the Sketchbook PRO license fired up and a multi-year history of storytelling with friends. I envision this as more a mixed media piece possibly running in mini-series format focusing on a character or group of characters. My first bit is a now and then concept that will feature some older hand art and new &q

Lately I've had such a busy time that I've been unable to commit to regular video game oriented work. I don't feel like with my current job I can be the "johnny-on-the-spot" I once was with regards to gaming. However, for those who read the Day 17: Thoughtsies! post, you know I still have an interest in writing some critical pieces along with the personal info and fiction. So here is a quick series of thoughts on the first public/pre-order weekend and my experiences playing Guild Wars 2 . The original Guild Wars game published by NCSoft was one of the first massively multi-player role playing games (MMORPG) I actually could understand playing. It used a Purchase once, play a lot business model. Players bought the game just like you would buy any game at the time - Guild Wars was no different than say Call of Duty 2 in that you got the entire game and all its features for one retail price. This was an odd business model for an online game. The competi