The Great Geek Yard Sale

There is a type of geek which exists called The Collector.  They find something, such as cards or action figures or old video game consoles, and they gather up as much of it as they can.  The justification for this is usually that there is an inherent value to said collectibles, and though they argue fiercely that said value is monetary, most of the world knows better.

I, however... I collect hobbies.  Board games, paintball, action figures, posters, magazines, all of the above.  When I find something new and shiny, I go after it with a vengeance and way too much of my disposable income.

It started when Decipher printed the Star Wars Collectible Card Game; I was still in middle school/junior high, and I loved Star Wars with a passion.  I bought cards whenever I had the extra money, all the way through my senior year of high school.  By that point I had picked up Magic, dabbled with some of Decipher's other games, bought a paintball gun to play with my brother, and had seriously begun looking at the emerging world of MMOs.  In college I started buying blister packs of Mechwarrior minis, then bought six of their Shadowrun action figure game cousins, convinced the local gaming group would start a league (they didn't).

'Til All Are One

There are certain touchstones of my childhood that I am reluctant to let go of; they hit me with nostalgia so deep that I get goosebumps, and my day is instantly a little better because of it.  One of those in the Transformers; I watched and re-watched episodes of them recorded on VHS tapes, followed the spinoffs, had chests full of the toys, and sold Michael Bay a small portion of my soul by going to watch his terrible movie.

That's why there was nothing on Earth that was going to stop me from diving into Transformers: The War for Cyberton when it released on Tuesday.  The only thing left to answer was would I love this game as a fun, nostalgic addition to Transformers lore, or would I be forced to hide it under the sofa next to my pirated copy of Revenge of the Fallen?

Fool me once, Michael Bay.  Fool me once.

The Open Range

Photo by Lorien, from Flickr

My friend Jeramy and I have been working off and on for about a year to build a new D&D campaign setting.  It started when we were watching Tombstone and The Quick and The Dead one day and trying to think about how we could fit D&D characters in that world of high noon duels, wide-open country, and general lawlessness. It reminded me strongly of the world Stephen King created with The Gunslinger, the world of young Roland and Arthur Eld before him.  I had a this vivid image of a knight in full armor with a lance at one end of a dusty street, and a duster-clad wizard at the other end; the two duked it out in front of a town of wide-eyed witnesses, and I knew we had to bring that place to life.

Free RPG Day 2010

This past weekend I finally got to go to a Free RPG Day event for the first time since I graduated college, and it was a blast.  Castle House Games in Fayetteville was a fantastic location, and my buddies Jeramy and Adam had a great time actually getting to play with me for once.  Since I'm usually behind the DM's screen (or Jeramy is), this was a good opportunity to get in and mix it up together.

Of course, as you can tell from the photo, things didn't go so well for the wizard that I was playing.  He was one-shot in the very last encounter, and actually is the first character I've had that's died in a campaign.

And frankly, I thought that was perfectly fitting.