Bamboo Biscotti

So apropos of nothin' in particular, I got a PM from a guy I've known for ages out on a certain gaming forum.  In brief, he wrote something along the lines of "have you heard of this?  It seems to be relevant to your interests" and tagged on a URL.   This URL, to be precise. Well, no, I hadn't, and I spent part of my lunch hour looking up the site over at Evil Hat.  And then my feminine side, who you may have gathered is a frisky little Anthro at the calmest of times, imaginarily grabbed my collar, gave me a vaguely predatory grin, and in my mind's ear said, more or less, "do it for Steph!" And that , dear readers, is how I volunteered to help playtest something called Thirsty Sword Lesbians, once again finding myself looking over a game that my dear friend would have enjoyed quite thoroughly.  Because yes, it is more or less what it says on the tin: Lesbians, with swords, thirsting for relationships and romance and all that shojo-ai cuddly goodn...

On a gaming forum I frequent, someone decided to do a freeform Zootopia sandbox game.  No worries there, but...well, once some of the other characters were posted, I found myself coming up with Story and Role combinations for them.  It being the height of Bad Form to post another game on that particular forum built around the same general lines as that first one, I've held off even though our original GM has vanished.  (The game is doing just fine, by the by, in the hands of the co-GM.) So right now, this is one of those semi-hacks that I wanna run if time ever permits! ZOOTOPIA '77 Basically just straight Spirit of 77 with an all Furry cast: because the visual of a jive-fluent Tiger in a white leisure suit and an Afro boogieing on down to the disco on a Saturday night amuses me.  Khan!  Just talkin' about the Tiger.  Can you dig it? If you must, imagine Zootopia as written and directed by the Coen Brothers, Quentin Tarantino, and Guy Ritchie. ...

This is one of those facepalming moments of D'OH! that happens to me every other day or so.  The circuits go 'click', the proverbial light bulb flickers on, and I'm left going "oh! So that's why..." I am a big, big fan of Vince Baker's Apocalypse World system.  I'm also a big, big fan of Ed Texeira's Chain Reaction family of miniature wargames.  And it finally occurred to me that they have one interesting feature in common...independently derived, and not entirely identical, but surprisingly close. They also have a certain tone in common, being fairly narrativist in feel.  (I know, I know, 'how do you write a narrativist wargame'?  Ed's done it. Trust me on this.)  They achieve this by abstracting a whole lotta stuff that most of the gaming industry tries to define to a fare-thee-well and seventeen decimal places, letting you focus on the important stuff*.  This is more apparent in the 'light RPGs' that Ed has publishe...

Too many games, too many ideas, too few players, not nearly enough time. (ahem) While my aforementioned jones for Uncharted Worlds is likely to be getting satisfied by a certain black-box game of Traveler, I still have plot bunnies that sink their nasty, sharp, pointy fangs into my sensorium and refuse to turn loose.  Here is today's entry, which is the official posting of something that's been running amok like an over-caffeinated anthropomorphic little Raccoon kid with a super-soaker and easily embarrassed older siblings. An all-catgirl reskin of something Firefly-ish with a dash of Flash Gordon and Barsoom...as written by Rumiko Takahashi and directed by Nabeshin and Ralph Bakshi. Blasters, cutlasses, battle-bikinis, and a hint of fanservice along with incredible special effects and the occasional planet being destroyed by accident. Yes, this is probably sillier than most UW games would be.  That's how I roll.

"The following is a true story. The events described took place on Tatooine, in and around Mos Eisley in the year (redacted). At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed.  Out of respect for the deceased, everything else has been told exactly as it occurred." ...because Fargo, Fiasco, Apocalypse World, and Star Wars are like sodium, bleach, ammonia, and dihydrate monoxide...mix very carefully ...

More Uncharted Worlds faction musing today, because outside it is cold and wet and icky and pretty much normal for an Emerald City December. (And an idle thought, even as I glance over AARs for Ed's newest addition to his 5150 sci fi minis gaming line: Two Hour Wargames is to traditional miniatures gaming as Anything PbtA is to traditional tabletop roleplaying.  They're both streamlined, emergent, organic...which may well be why I like both of them so much, as opposed to spending eleven hours to complete nine turns' worth of a Napoleonic meeting engagement.  Some folks like their crunch and their dictionary-thick rulebooks full of painstakingly crafted simulations.  I'm in it for the story, the fun, and the creative vibe.) A couple more factions, following up a bit of table-chat with my regular gaming group last night in lieu of an actual session due to our GM's present holidaze-inspired fatigue and distraction.  UW is not likely to be our next project, but many...

Some days I really feel the need to cut down on the coffee consumption, especially when it results in little plot bunnies like the following.  To understand where my noggin was going with this, we can take the sane route or the full gonzo fanboy moment route...so of course I'm taking the latter. I have a growing desire to put Uncharted Worlds to the test which, right at the beginning of the holiday season, qualifies as extremely poor timing .  At the same time, as is usual, I have a zillion irons in the fire which means that nothing gets my full concentration much, and in turn it means that I tend to mash-up and cross-attach things with ridiculous abandon.  So with that as a little explanation for why this particular bit of whimsy hit so indelicately, I was mulling over Factions whilst on my commute and hit upon a couple of stark visual differences for rival factions.  Not so much in the black hats versus white hats sort of way, since my default is at least four ...

I owe, I owe, I owe an update to this!  And Aledys is probably sick and tired of being stuck at sea by now. A bit of news, though--I recently backed a thing called Uncharted Worlds, which is  a space opera game that uses Vince Baker's Apocalypse World system.  About five minutes in, I was reminded of one of Ed's many, many projects...and so I'm also now looking over my copy of 5150: Urban Renewal because New Hope City is a perfect setting for something like UW. (Another fifteen microseconds of fame...here I am in the credits along with all the other Kickstarters: (Credit where it's due--my current fanboyish blather about Apocalypse World is at least a little bit due to a fellow named Delos who writes stuff like this:   Ramblings of Jacob and Delos     Just don't ask him about Sin and her tendency to make heads explode!  The special memories of that first game may not yet have faded.) Also, the good folks at Hero Forge have been adding to thei...