Common Tongue

One building at a time, I'll assembling quite an enormous Lumibricks city to serve as the physical representation of Vesper for our upcoming Cypher campaign. I finished up a corporate skyscraper last night and brought in Amy and Nathaniel to see it light up in the dark. Afterwards, Nathaniel got a cheeky look on his face and asked what language people in Vesper speak. When I replied that English would be the lingua franca, he quipped, "What, not Vesperanto?"

Secret Identities

Foxy Shazam was live in Reno tonight, and you'd better believe I was rocking out right up front!

They sure sound a lot like Clark Kent's favorite band. Hey, did I just discover the secret identity of the Mighty Crabjoys?!

BGTV

Super excited about emphatically not watching this show...

Spinal Tap 2

This has nothing to do with gaming, but how cool is it that Spinal Tap returns to the big screen after over four decades! Spinal Tap II: The End Continues debuts today!

Why No GM Screen?

I've backed the crowdfunding campaign for the new edition of the Cypher System, needless to say, and ended up splurging a bit. But as I was looking down the long list of items I'll receive, I was a bit miffed at first that there was no GM screen. And then -- duh! -- I realized why. IYKYK.

Mighty Crabjoys

Side-note: There's a ton of merch for Superman on the DC website, but why can't I buy a Mighty Crabjoys t-shirt?!

2025?!?

Wait, is it really 2025? That's a date I would have used in an '80s campaign to represent a dystopian near-future setting that was rife with corruption, power-hungry tyrants, bitter political strife...oh, wait...

Tiffany, Heather, Cody, Dylan, Dermot, Jordan, Taylor, Brittany...

As part of my years-long (okay, decades-long) expansion of Druid Cycle history and lore, I've identified the reign of every Emperor/Empress of Troya Nova and every King/Queen of Teyrnas. Running through the lists of names, I can't help but speak them aloud in the cadence of the esteemed Cletus Spuckler when he calls to his prodigious brood...

Quite a Saga Indeed!

Today I beat Brave Battle Saga, finishing off the final boss in a slog that took about a half-hour just for that one combat. 

I was rewarded with some fun cutscenes that wrapped up all the personal storylines. Families reunited! Old wounds healed! It was very sweet.

Yes, the main character's name is Tim, and yes, I had that Monty Python bit from Holy Grail running through my head the whole time...

Owlbear...Beard Oil?

Well, owlbears are my second-favorite D&D monster (right after hook horrors), so maybe I need to start growing a goatee again so that I have a reason to partake of this wondrous product.

Release the Snyder Cut!

I'm super excited that the Snyder Cut of Justice League will finally see the light of day. (That's just a figure of speech -- in typical Zack Snyder fashion, there will be no daylight whatsoever in this film.) How excited? I signed up for HBO Max, the new streaming service where the Snyder Cut will ultimately (sometime next year) be released.

Netflix is the only streaming service I've ever had up to this point, so it's interesting to compare the two. Netflix has all the cool originals like Stranger Things and Lost in Space, but HBO Max has the DC stuff that I love, and Amy and I will finally get the opportunity to watch Game of Thrones. (Yeah, we're pretty late to the party on that one.) In all, HBO Max boasts over 10,000 hours of content, but upon cursory review of the offerings, it seems to me that about 9,000 of those hours are just Police Academy sequels. I kid, I kid. It's actually 9,000 hours of Looney Tunes shorts.

Some funnies in a non-funny time

Butts in Space

A game about hoarding toilet paper? Topical!

It's Good to Have Land

Poor Matthew is under the weather -- and, speaking of weather, it's pretty gray and windy outside -- so we've just spent a quiet day building Magic decks. Nathaniel and I have been discussing the optimal percentage of land cards to include in a single-color Magic deck. He consistently prefers to include a lower percentage of land than I would include, so I need to remind him that...it's good to have land.

Mash Up

It's been a while since we've had a Strat-O-Matic game with our Hall of Fame League -- the pendulum has swung back toward the sci-fi Shattered Realm campaign -- but I was thinking the other day about an amusing genre mash-up from many years ago. Back in the pixelated '90s, I had a primitive baseball video game that allowed you to create players, so one day, on a whim, I whipped up a team consisting of characters from the Druid Cycle setting. Now, that was a real fantasy baseball team! (Sorry.) 

Birthday

Do you remember what you wanted for your eighth birthday? A video game, maybe, or Lego sets, or a new bike? Nathaniel wants Roboute Guilliman, Primarch of the Ultramarines...

Game Balance

We were discussing 5e wizard cantrips the other day -- typical dinner conversation in our household -- and then Matthew switched gears to ask which classes get access to the legendary Wish spell. With no PHB handy, I speculated that the sorcerer and wizard could get it.

"As a cantrip?" Nathaniel piped up.

Heh. Wish as a cantrip would present a few game balance issues, don't you think?

Basket of Deplorables

Okay, I just had to come out of hibernation today to comment on the latest presidential election meme: basket of deplorables. Sorry, Hillary, but I'm totally going to use the Basket of Deplorables as a magic item in my D&D campaigns -- it will be the cursed version of a Bag of Holding. On a related note, Basket of Deplorables is also the name of my Cradle of Filth tribute band.

Princesses for the Emperor

Totally awesome. But no Elsa?!

X's and O's

After finishing up our hockey action on Monday, we've spent the rest of the week with my in-laws in the Los Angeles area. My nephew Daniel is also here with us, so that makes four guys -- just enough for some two-hand-touch football! Each night after dinner we've tossed the ball around, with Matthew and Daniel taking on Nathaniel and myself. And, because my boys are gamers, they also spend a lot of time coming up with exotic new plays to run in the next game. Check out Nathaniel's latest effort below.

I'm not really sure what's going on here, but I suspect the taller guy is me and the shorter guy is Nathaniel. Aside from that...well...I guess we'll have to wait for tomorrow night's game!