Well, here we are at February.

Yes, I know that's redundant, seeing as there's a date right above the statement, but that's what's going through my head atm.

First off, Penguinsushi.com is another year older - bringing me up to 5 glorious(?) years on the web!

Second, RPM 2010 starts today, but sadly, I don't think I'll be participating this year for two reasons: 1) I haven't been able to come up with any new material in the last couple of months - though to be honest, I've only put in about 15 hours worth of effort in that time - and 2) because, due to some extenuating circumstances, I'll be losing a large portion of my studio gear next weekend. This will be replaced, of course, but it may not be immediately.

In other news:

Sheri & I went to see Avatar with Robb & Edie last night night. It was quite a good movie, if a bit predictable. My assessment is that it is basically 60% Ferngully, 25% The Matrix, and 15% other (possibly LoTR; others have suggested Pocahontas, Dances with Wolves and Aliens). That's not to say it was completely derivative - it did have its originality - but large parts of it definitely conjured thoughts of "I've seen this somewhere before...". Still, like I said, a good movie.

Llama and I played a fair bit of Super Mario Wii this weekend and, with an obsessive-collecting "No Big Coin Left Behind" philosophy, actually finished and beat the game seeking and obtaining every big coin in every level of the primary 8 worlds (including going back to hunt ones we'd missed in other worlds previously). Yes, we are the awesome. We've now started on the "secret" post-game World 9, which, I have to say, is pretty tough.

We started a new D&D game on friday night and I'm proud that not even the snow storm could prevent it - though driving Steve home was...entertaining...and 2/3 of our guests actually camped out here that night.
As I mentioned before, I had carefully mapped out the game's scenario from most-if-not-all angles and then gave the "party" and obvious hook for them to take - a hook which would lead them to the ruin of a prison outpost where a demon was reportedly hiding. Obvious adventure, right? Given the attitudes originally fostered at the conception of this game, I thought they'd want the obvious hook. Silly me. The first 3/4 of the session was spent around town investigating some other goings on. By the time they actually made it to the keep, it was so late that we had to call it a night after the first encounter - which was actually still outside it's gates.
So here we have a question of causality: *Because* I overcomplicated the game, writing in the multiple goings-on from different angles, I knew exactly what to do and what they would find when they went off the "expected course". HOWEVER, if I *hadn't* written up all those other angles (i.e., if I'd just said "you're in a tavern. you see a wanted poster for a demon. it's in this keep. go for it."), they wouldn't have had *reason* to go off the "expected course" (though that iteration of the setting would have seemed much less realistic and "alive"...to me anyway). So basically, my excessive detail was both the cause of my "problems" *and* my salvation there-from. Still, I wouldn't change much if i could. It was a good time.
The real beauty is, because the party did something that I didn't expect, I realized that the story was going to have to change. At least one thing they did was going to have a significant impact and make drastic alterations to how the narrative would have unfolded otherwise - and that's the way it should be. The characters' actions should have real meaning in the story, beyond the simple "either you succeeded or you failed". Being able to account for that as a GM is a bit of an art, and one that don't always feel I'm doing well. This time though, it's working beautifully.

~PS

Well, there hasn't been much to make the blog lately.

Work has been a bit subdued lately - which is good, because I think they're getting ready to give me a bunch of stuff, so I've been enjoying the respite the last week or so has afforded.

Most of my free time has been spent either A) playing some Wii games, or B) working on some roleplaying games.


Mini Ninjas was (and continues to be) *lots* of fun. If you take a rather relaxed pace, the game is about 12 hours long. I beat it in about 13. I've played it about 14, now looking for some of the remaining statues (there are a certain number in each level). The game has a lot of replay value - not so much in terms of story, but simply because it's just plain fun to play and allows you to go back and replay levels you've already completed at any time.

My Life As a Darklord has been very entertaining as well, though it's getting pretty tough. I replayed the same level 4 times yesterday trying (unsuccessfully) to keep out those pesky adventurers before giving up for the night.


I'm currently gearing up to start a new D&D game for a few friends on Friday. It's been almost a year since I've run one. This is intended to be less a "campaign" and more of a "mini-series". I set out to make some simpler, smaller, episodic adventures for us to enjoy... ...the problem is, the more you try to understand and explain, the less possible "simple" becomes. Some would say that when you have a 2.5 page outline of stuff that happened before the PC's arrive on scene, you've passed that which can be reasonably called "simple".
The premise itself felt reasonably simple when i started, but in detailing the situation fully enough that it could become a living entity (i.e., a situation that could alter and react to the PC's actions), it was found to contain several facets that needed to be addressed for it to really work. "Simple" might not be the best word for it. Still, it's scale fits the general feel I'm going for and I *do* think it will be a lot of fun to play.

The resumption of Mouse Guard was exciting and went really well - I'm really looking forward to continuing that one too.

We've also resumed Patrick's Star Wars game, and I've been trying to do a little work on my character's backstory & pursuits for that... ...but I don't really know as much about the Star Wars universe as the rest of everyone... ...I know the original trilogy very well and anything Lego Star Wars may have taught me, but not much beyond that...

Still kicking around some ideas pertaining to my pet system project, but not really anything else to say about that.


~PS

At. Last.

We finally got our Wii back. It had been left in IN over the holidays on account of us getting snowed in in OH. I make this sound like it took forever, but it was really only a couple of weeks and not that big a deal. I wasn't curled up on the floor babbling through withdraw or anything. At least, I don't think I was.

Anyway, getting our Wii back meant that I could finally play my new game - a game I've been waiting for and wanting ever since April of last year: Mini Ninjas. It's a cartoony 3d adventure game. I'm a few hours in and, so far, it is awesome. It's a little more linear than I expected (actually divided up into 'levels', as opposed to being a more open-exploration game like Zelda or Okami), but that is the only aspect that hasn't matched my expectations (while many other aspects have exceeded them)... ...and I'm not even sure that that's bad. In fact, most of the levels are quite large and require quite a bit of exploration to find everything in them - so the difference may well boil down to semantics.
It is very, very fun. Multiple playable characters that you can swap out any time, awesome ninja moves (wall walks, ledge-grabs, hat boats!?), great magic abilities (possess animals, find secrets, and of course, sling fireballs), interesting specials (matrix-like multi-attacks, mesmerize foes, exploding fireworks arrows)... ...oh, and enemies turn into cute, fuzzy animals when you defeat them. Yeah, I expect I'll be addicted to this for some time.

In addition to Mini Ninjas, I/we also have a few other new games. I mentioned before that I got Super Mario Wii for Sheri for her birthday, and we've still got quite a bit of that to get through (hopefully with some help from our friends :) - the multiplayer is hilariously fun). I was also given Lego Indiana Jones for christmas, which is proving to be as amusing as Lego Star Wars. Finally, I've downloaded full versions of My Life As A Darklord and Nyx Quest: Kindred Spirits - a couple of Wiiware games for which I'd played and greatly enjoyed the downloadable demos.

I still have Muramasa: The Demon Blade, the Metroid Prime Trilogy, and probably a few other games on my wish list, as well as looking forward to the new Zelda game and the sequel to Mario Galaxy I've heard about...

And Tony and I still have to beat Final Fantasy.

I'm not quite on the level of our friend the Llama in terms of a backlog of games to play, but, as I'm usually a much more casual player, I think I've got enough to keep me busy for quite a long time...

~PS

So Sheri and I were watching the Muppet Movie the other night and I found that I was really enjoying the music in it. Like, enough that I actually wanted to learn to play some of it. So I got out my guitar and started searching the 'net for chords or tab for "Rainbow Connection" and "I'm Going To Go Back There Someday". After about an hour, I could play through both of those passably and have been very amused by this.

Sure they're a little sappy, but they're actually good, well-written songs. You really can't say that about music from too many family/kids movies...

~PS

"...we had to walk a mile up hill in the snow to play an rpg..."

I think this deserves and honorable mention on my blog.

Last thursday was slated as a date for Patrick's Star Wars game. Since Sheri was going to need the jeep that evening, Doug (one of the other players) came to pick me up.

Somewhere between my house & Patrick's (approx. 40min trip), it began to snow very hard. By the time we were exiting in Kingsport, the roads were slippery, and we actually slid through the intersection at the interchange and a red light down the street (when we came to a stop in the middle of the intersection). Doug had said he had wanted to stop at a Hardees near Patrick's place to get some dinner, but wasn't sure he wanted to make another stop in this weather.

Around this point, Patrick called us to see how we were doing, how the weather was, and to tell us that Tony had parked down at the Hardees and was walking up to his place since he didn't want to take the roads in his car.

By the time we got to Patrick's neighborhood, there was a nice coating of snow on all the roads, and one of the hills proved to be impassible - meaning when we got halfway up, Doug's little quasi-suv ceased moving forward. I call Doug's vehicle a 'quasi-suv' because, while it does have traction-control, it, unfortunately, does *not* have any kind of 4wd.

Now, I say the q-suv 'ceased moving forward', which was true - but what I didn't mention about that just now was that, after it did so, it immediately began sliding backward. It finally came to a stop about 20ft back down the hill in front of a driveway, which we slid back into, turned around, and did a (mostly) controlled slide back down the hill whereupon we decided we'd take a cue from Llama's strategy. We headed back down to the Hardees, got dinner as originally planned, and started walking toward Patrick's.

When we made it as far as the big hill - this time on foot - as the snow poured down on top of us, I turned to Doug, and, with a wry smile, that was what I said.

~PS