After generating all the names for the main people in Toby’s life, I came up with a bunch of background – all of this just came to me as I typed it into an IM to Matt. I think having the location and other basics already decided made all this detail very easy to come…
Month: April 2008
Solo: What’s in a name?
I’ve seen a bunch of name generators, especially around generating random fantasy names, or names that look Tolkien-esque. However, this random name generator is for normal first and last names, as might be found in the USA. I can set an obscurity factor (from 1 to 100) and select a gender. It uses US census…
A Box brimming with Scary Things
Joshua Hoffine’s online portfolio is truly creepy. Take one part Little Fears, one part
Solo: The Hero’s Journey (Part 2)
mj: I do wonder how superheroes pay their way aidan: Ever see ‘Dead Like Me’ ? mj: one or two eps aidan:They addressed that a bit. mj: didn’t they all have to have full time jobs? aidan: Pretty much 🙂 mj: See, that would suck… aidan: shrug aidan: But it’s realistic aidan: In my character’s…
Images from the past…
Autochrome images from around the world from the start of the 20th Century. My favourite? No, it doesn’t look anything like that any more. How good would it be if some of the art we have planned for WotW appeared in autochrome (ignoring somewhat that it wasn’t invented until 1907). [Credit to Mike Cane for…
What if… daVinci…
This image is brilliant. Check out the BBC video. “A Swiss amateur parachutist made a successful drop using a replica of a parachute designed over 500 years ago, by Leonardo da Vinci.”
225 days
SI 1995/3297, also known as “The Duration of Copyright and Rights in Performances Regulations 1995”, this UK law came into effect on January 1st 1996. At its most basic, it extended the copyright for any written work from 50 years after the author’s death, to 70 years. Any work which had already become public domain…
Solo: The Hero’s Journey (Part 1)
[09:15:14] So, have you thought about where you want to set Solo? [09:16:11] Nope. ? A lot of that is up to you. Want to be a yank? [09:18:07] It makes things easier to visualise in some regards, because we’re so brainwashed by Hollywood. However, it’s also very clichéd as a result. I’ve no desire…
Solo
I’ve only run Solo-play (one player, one GM) once. It was 23 years ago, I hadn’t been gaming long and this was my first attempt at GMing. I’d bought the Games Workshop boxed edition of Middle Earth Role Play (MERP) and then tried to run it without really paying much attention to the rules. What…
The Philosophy of the Superhero
“There are men, wrote Aristotle, so godlike, so exceptional, that they naturally, by right of their extraordinary gifts, transcend all moral judgment or constitutional control: ‘There is no law which embraces men of that caliber: they are themselves law.’”– Superhero, Wikipedia “A temperamental consciousness of material force brought Hugo Danner into being. The frustration of…
Bigotry?
This post surprised me But I think I’d have a real ethical problem role-playing in a world that was Christian-realist. – some dude on RPGnet There are reasons why I find this odd. Most gamers will play in a setting where some sort of religion is real. Think about it, this covers any fantasy setting…
Superheroes can be dicks
Forget Iron Man. PJ pointed me at the new Hancock trailer. It’s true, Hancock has gone from being a “Wild Wild West” kind of camp nonsense movie to a movie I’d really like to see and a game I’d like to run. That said, Iron Man, much more than the Fantastic Four or Spider Man…
Creed/Testament/Rapture – queries and comments
It’s always nice to get some kudos from people you respect and Balbinus on RPG.net has come through again with Creed/Testament/Rapture – queries and comments. He has a few comments, mostly clarifications and does make me realise that the character sheet I provided for Creed was entirely inadequate. Or, if I meant something else I…
It is about the boobs or the invasion of personal space?
What the fuck is this all about? Damned if I know.
WotW: Earth – Vox Populi
“Have you seen my Jim? Have you seen him? My son? About four feet tall, blond hair, covered in freckles? … what about you, sir? Have you seen my Jim? He’s about four feet tall–“ – worried mother, Ealing, Day 1 after the end of the invasion “We opened fire with the mortars, next. I…
WotW: Earth – The Death Of The Martians
“My knowledge of comparative physiology is confined to a book or two, but it seems to me that Carver’s suggestions as to the reason of the rapid death of the Martians is so probable as to be regarded almost as a proven conclusion. At any rate, in all the bodies of the Martians that were…
WotW: Earth – Weapons of War
“Neither is the composition of the Black Smoke known, which the Martians used with such deadly effect, and the generator of the Heat-Rays remains a puzzle. The terrible disasters at the Ealing and South Kensington laboratories have disinclined analysts for further investigations upon the latter. Spectrum analysis of the black powder points unmistakably to the…
WotW: Earth – The Flying Machine
“The sun sank into grey clouds, the sky flushed and darkened, the evening star trembled into sight. It was deep twilight when the captain cried out and pointed. My brother strained his eyes. Something rushed up into the sky out of the greyness–rushed slantingly upward and very swiftly into the luminous clearness above the clouds…
WotW: Earth – 21 Days of Invasion
The Narrator of the book was close to one of the arrival sites but this was not necessarily the most active site. He also spent more than two weeks (or a three week invasion) hiding in a collapsed house. He was not the first to discover the dead Martians at the end of the invasion…
Social Class in WotW:Earth
War of the Worlds: Earth is set at the dawn of the 20th Century. You have the legacy of Victoriana, the sunset of the British Empire and the rise of other nations including the independence of former colonies. Even back then, state education was available to all, the British Empire (even as late as 1921)…