mearrin69's page

I seem to only have addresses for Pat, El El, and lolrobots. Anybody else wants in please PM me your e-mail address! :)
M

You guys want to PM me your addresses just in case? I know I have El El's and Pat's but am not 100% sure about the rest of you.
M

Whoops! Sorry. Yeah. I've been a bit swamped. I'll pull it together and get something out tonight or in the morning!
M

That's just wrong...

I think I have everybody's e-mail address. If not I'll PM or text for it and send a group e-mail so we can discuss.

Kicked out. We'll be hanging out.

FYI, we have staked out Tacoma on the second floor and will play there if we don't get kicked out by someone official.

Hi all,
A few of us will be playing various games including Star Wars: Edge of the Empire and maybe FATE, Numenera, as well as some board games over the next few days in the vicinity of Aberdeen/Everett and the other meeting rooms on the second floor. Drop by and join us if there's room in whatever we're playing.

We're going to scrounge up an Edge of the Empire game at around 2 p.m. today. We may be playing Zombiecide or X-Wing, or both, during the banquet tonight.
M

Well, we kept an AI hologram of Shenyu out of that fenggougui Niska's hands. I reckon new identities and a new paintjob is the least they could have done. Don't much care for the berks but they're not as cracker-dog as Niska.

We're in on Wednesday night as well. Have to get together for a game of something. I think we all exchanged cell phone numbers last year. If I can't find them I'll round up e-mail addresses and send out a group e-mail.

Not sure when El-El wants to run Firefly.

Me please! So yummy! No idea of my room but I'm sure I will see you around. :)
M

White people can experience racism too. I'm white and from the south. Fortunately didn't spend enough of my time there as a youth to pick it up but I was on the receiving end of it going to middle school in HI (try "Kill Haole Day"). When I moved back to the south (Alabama) in 8th grade I wanted nothing to do with the whites who were engaging in racism...but I sometimes found myself on the receiving end of racist treatment from blacks. Even so, the majority of blacks and whites got along pretty well. The worst of both sides did not prevail.

The whole thing is silly. There are so many *legitimate* reasons we can discriminate against each other (like who plays Pathfinder versus D&D!) there's no need to stick to silly micro-fractional genetic differences. :)

Thanks, Steve!

And thanks, St. Caleth. I'm a long-time member of Cartographer's Guild.

It's a great community for anyone interested in mapmaking...or anyone that just wants to look at pretty maps! Some amazing talent in that group. :)
M

Hi all,
Hope it's not incorrect to post this here.

I've worked with some of you (LPJ, Dreamscarred, Black Star, Wayfinder, and others) on a few maps in the past but now it seems I have some extra time on my hands (after being laid off by my company!) so I've put together an online portfolio of my work to share with third-party publishers who might need maps for their products. You can view it at:

http://michael98136.wix.com/cartography

If you need cartography assistance I'd be very happy to try to help out. Thanks!
M

We'll seriously miss you at this game and many others!
M

There can be only one...

Just kidding but we're just talking about a specific annual game at PaizoCon. It's possible there'll be some room at the table but most people who have joined us previously want back in.

El-El is the boss of this game so get in touch with her closer to PaizoCon and ask if there are any open slots.
M

The issue is awesome...hard to believe it's an "amateur" publication. Nice work everybody!

I enjoyed working on a few of the maps for this one and hope to contribute to #11 if you need help, Tim.
M

I'll be wearing a very fine hat...

IT was an add-on last year. I think I found the details on their site, or perhaps even in the e-mail registration confirmation. Seems like it was ~$20/day or so with in-out.
M

Patrick will be fine once he gets his stomach pumped...
M

We're up Wednesday night as well so we'll definitely have to get together that night or Thursday.
M

Great to hear from you guys and I'm looking forward to gaming with you all again!

Pat: would love to get into your CoC event if it's not a lottery item. M-A is a must-play as well if you have room. I think LL would want to play in both of those if you have room.

Zylph: I have the Toxic City mall and Jail expansions now. As if we needed tougher zombies, right?

Wouldn't mind playing a couple more maneuvers from our BE game. Know if Jake's going to be there this year? If not maybe we can sub in another player.
M

We always come for the day before, especially with the now-normal proximity to the 4th. We don't want to drive up in any holiday traffic. That gives us the full day before the event for some gaming, preparation, relaxation. Leaving on Sunday after gaming all day is a drag and there's always a game to get into Sunday night, so a Monday departure is a good thing.

All of this is, of course, predicated on being able to splurge for a couple more nights at the hotel. :)
M

Rooms booked and tickets purchased. Looking forward to gaming with the usual suspects: zylphryx, lolrobots, Pat, Mike, and the rest.

I know we'll have some Firefly again, presented by the inimitable El-El. Will try to figure out what I'm going to run off-schedule but there will likely be some sci-fi. Hopefully some M-A again, Pat? There are many animals we haven't yet tried... ;)

If any of you are into it I'd like try out some big-group Fiasco and maybe Durance (same author). Also have enough Zombicide for two tables this year and am hoping to get some folks interested in playing some X-Wing. I've got a growing fleet and new shiny nebula battlemaps to field.

Also still deciding on the beer loadout, both types and dispensing method. I have a shiny new kegerator that would be a bit of a chore to haul up but a nice thing to have on hand for three kinds of beer on tap! Will have a think about whether I want to drive my truck up just for that or not...it's tempting!

Looking forward to seeing our "regulars" there and meeting some new regulars too. Will be in touch as the show gets closer.
M

It's pretty sweet, though I haven't done any online gaming so can't comment about that. The voice interface is cool, though my wife has to go all deep-voiced to get it to work for her. The Kinect is quite a bit better than the previous version.

Battlefield 4 is awesome. Dead Rising 3 is great. Need for Speed Rivals is *very* fun, especially playing as the cops. Forza 5 is beautiful, though track racing is my wife's thing not mine. Haven't played Ryse but my wife loves it and it's certainly pretty. I haven't tried out Crimson Dragon, Loco Cycle, or Killer Instinct but they all look pretty good.

Going to get Just Dance soon and see how the Kinect works. The old one wasn't bad...unless our dogs get involved in the act. I think the new one has some improvements on that front. Skype on the box is very cool, BTW.

Oh. Also, I haven't tried the smartglass thing but my wife seems to like it.
M

I don't think there are hard and fast rules for adding new lifepaths. The system handles improving existing skills (and stats) and learning new ones through use and handles character growth through the addition of traits as you accomplish your beliefs.

Since all of the LP add several years to your age I would rule that you could add a new LP if that many years of game time had passed and you had actually done the things that make up the LP. Alternatively, if we took a break for a long in-game period I'd let people add LPs with durations up to that time if they could justify it.

Pan's not wrong about letting go of the D&D mindset. Burning Wheel and its kin are wholly different animals. The system is really about exploring your characters beliefs and how those change him or her fundamentally as time goes by. Characterization is inherent in the system...as opposed to an optional overlay. You gain rewards for playing your beliefs, for instance.

I'd suggest checking out the Burning Wheel forums and reading about any questions you have, play examples, etc. over there. Maybe check out a couple of actual play podcasts. They've helped me understand Burning Empires (a related sci-fi game) much better.

Hope that helps.
M

I love T2K but wouldn't say that it meets the description in your original post. The only game that is close to my mind would be GURPS. It's not even quite as detailed as you're mentioning but I imagine you really wouldn't want to go quite as deeply as you imply.

The most detailed wargame on my shelf is Harpoon. It's super-cool but you'd probably have to spend some time at Annapolis to fully grok it... ;)
M

Wow. Those are amazing. Nice work and good luck on moving them! Too bad you have to let them go though...

I had the opportunity to GM a one-player session the other night. We messed about with a mock combat (a single Broken Hound, which was quite uneven but let us test out some things) and then went ahead and started playing.

The scenario was just something I had been thinking about for a few days and I had scribbled down a few names and just a couple of numbers. No real prep other than that.

I guess the bulk of the game was roleplaying but we had no problem with the mechanics when they came up. The character was a very physical glaive and didn't spend many points except from Intellect.

We ended on a cliffhanger as a scary combat robot warmed up to face the character. I'd have to say it was the easiest GMing I've ever done...but we'll see how it goes with this much tougher combat.
M

Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu has tons of official, third-party, and fan-produced content. Some older games like West End Games Star Wars (D6) have a bunch of stuff. Even older is Traveller, which has scads of stuff. I can't speak to new systems much. I've just begun buying into Savage Worlds and that has a good deal of adventure/campaign material if you like their settings. Hope it helps.
M

Been married for 23 years and my wife doesn't have any interest in playing much beyond conventional board games. She has her own hobbies, of course, in which I don't have all that much interest. We share just a little bit of info about our respective hobbies and are supportive of them. I sometimes wish she liked to game but I'm okay that she doesn't. She does, by now, have a nice collection of dice and her spinning/knitting hobby has resulted in me sporting some sweet dice bags!

Good luck with your future relationships, gamer or not.
M

That is odd. I'd think they'd ship backer copies of everything and give a little time for them to get out before making it available widely. Maybe it's a shipping time thing, especially if you're not in the US?

We sat down and made a couple of characters last night. I've spent two or three hours reading the core book and my co-GM has spent maybe 30 mins reading the player's guide.

I created "Matic, a mechanical nano who talks to machines" and she created "Baronus, a tough glaive who melds flesh and steel." We figure they met on the Wandering Walk - Baronus having stolen something from his former employer and needing to go on the lam and Matic constantly questing for new Numenera secrets. Baronus came to Matic's aid when some tough guys wanted to rob him and then realized he might be able to help him reach machine-man perfection.

With our limited understanding of the system and world it was pretty easy to get the basics down. Would have been easier with physical books and we plan to pick up a couple of copies. We're still a little unsure of skills and abilities and how to note them. Choosing (randomly) cyphers and oddities was a hoot. Actually got a couple of seemingly useful oddities.

I wish we'd had another player handy to build a Jack to go along with our duo!

I'll be reading up over the next week to try to figure out some of the things that were still a mystery after our brief exploration.
M

I went ahead and picked this (well, the PDF version) up last night. Read through a good deal of it and am pretty impressed. I like the mechanics (Danubus: especially the flat damage!) a good deal. The setting is quirky and cool and the book itself is beautiful. I'll probably get the actual book at some point.

Oh. And. Best character sheet ever!
M

Nope. Never have worked tech support...and from the stories told to me by friends who have I'm very glad of that fact!

Still, if you can't figure out what you're going to get when you click a link called either "Zip file" or "PDF file" then maybe you shouldn't be playing something as complex as an RPG and should stick to Go Fish instead. :)
M

I picked up the PDF after listening to an actual play podcast yesterday. Haven't read it all but I think I like the mechanics. The setting intrigues me more than I thought it would when I first heard of it. Looking forward to trying it out someday.
M

I thought the same thing when I first heard of this. Still not sure what to make of the setting but I listened to an actual play podcast and they certainly had a good time with it. I've always like post-apocalyptic so I suppose this too would appeal to me. :) The players in the AP session seemed to like some of the mechanics.
M

I was just wondering the other day if people would play a human-only fantasy RPG...I suspect the answer is mostly no.
M

I sometimes run into the desire to do this. I keep only a fairly limited number of PDFs on my iPad (though I usually put all of the PF core stuff there) but sometimes when we're playing I'd like to get something else I purchased on there...and that's when I'm away from my iTunes computer and can't do anything about it.

So, yeah, it'd be a nice feature but I understand the issues with pulling it off and can live without it if the problems are too great.

An idea: for products that are a single PDF include two links, one for a zip and one for a raw PDF. I don't know the technology issues surrounding this but I'd think it'd be clear enough from the users' point of view.
M

I missed these streaming but will check out the archive. Thanks for sharing.
M

Jeremy,
Yeah. That's a bit ambitious because of the hand-drawing. That looks like the work of "Djeckspek" or someone who has emulated his style. I can tell you from trying to copy him myself that it's a bunch of work.

Something in an "atlas" style are much more achievable...and you could probably do it yourself if you follow the tutorials I'm linking below.

http://www.cartographersguild.com/tutorials-how/4084-award-winner-my-atlas- style-ps.html

http://www.cartographersguild.com/tutorials-how/8086-award-winner-saderan-% 96-tutorial.html

Lots of aspiring cartographers want to try out those tutorials so one thing you might do is post your world outlines and other details in the map request forum and offer somebody credit and adulation if they'd try out one of the how-tos using your world as the basis. Or, for a little money, I'm sure you'd get a taker. Before you do that, however, I'd suggest checking out galleries of potential mapmakers to ensure they in general execute to a quality level you'd be happy with.
M

I've created a couple of "opening crawl" videos for Star Wars games but that's about it. They went over well. I've occasionally found other videos that were just right for something I wanted to show but, often, they would have required editing work to really be useful...and that take time and skill.

I've found that you have to balance player appreciation versus the work you put in to something. I have some players that really appreciate when I put effort into creating nice game handouts/multimedia/etc. but most don't seem to care one way or the other. When I'm playing I certainly appreciate it.

Not sure I've answered your question, really. I wasn't able to get to anything that seemed like what you were trying to show via your link...just sponsored videos and such.
M

@Brock: I must admit that's an angle I hadn't considered. :)

@Jeremy: Thanks and good luck.

As noted above the price can vary based on the cartographer and the style/quality you want. I do some freelance cartography work from time to time, mostly for fun not to make much money. I'd probably start off thinking about a couple hundred for a nice page-sized (8.5"x11" at 300dpi) world map without a lot of detail. If you want a bigger map then the price would go up. If you want hand-drawn as opposed to digital processes then the price would go up.

Go check out the Cartographer's Guild forum. There's a requests forum. Sometimes cartographers will take on a job gratis (you sometimes get what you pay for, sometimes a whole lot more) or to order for payment. You might get some estimates that will help you a bit...and can certainly find the artist for the job while you're there.

Hope that helps.
M

My gallery: http://www.cartographersguild.com/members/mearrin69-albums-my+maps.html

My group has a copy. I've per used it but haven't quite grokked the system. It's a bit odd but I'm hoping I'll wrap my head around it eventually. Also have Mutant City Blues and a couple of modules for it (same system, right?) and have read that a bit more. Will post here if I figure anything out...though we probably won't get around to playing either of these for some time.
M

Lol. Yeah. First edition still works fine for me.
M

Went to Aero Games in Santa Monica yesterday. Dusty little place but a great selection of stuff. The best stuff, sadly, isn't for sale: they've got a *ton* of interesting (and often unique) minis laying about for use in tabletop games. I really wanted to buy the custom-made Tyranid BFG fleet in their display case!

They also have several TIE/INs and A-wings for FF's X-Wing minis game. Nobody I've ordered from seems to have them in stock and I've never seen them on shelves. Just sharing in case anyone in the area is looking for them.
M

Hi,
Don't see a way to do this through the store interface so: please could you cancel pending order #2499791? Thank you!
M

Hi all,
I'm in LA for a few days on business with a gaming colleague from the UK. He'd be interested in dropping in to see one of our gaming stores. We'd be interested in a store that has tabletop games (he plays Warhammer Fantasy, Flames of War, and some others) and RPGs (for me). We're up and down 405 every day so somewhere near that highway would be good. So. What's your favorite FLGS in LA? Thanks!
M

Thanks. I ordered and cancelled first from Amazon then reordered through Paizo. Any word on supply, Paizo? Otherwise I'll check B&N.
M

I'm still waiting on my A-wing and TIE/IN! Love the game, though.
M