While reading through some of the strange pushback against calls for inclusiveness in tabletop gaming, I wondered if anyone had statted out a Straw Man. Here’s a quick Straw Man as a variant Soulbound Doll for Pathfinder.
Author Archives: CJ Ovalle
Happy 2016!
Happy holidays, all! ^_^
WE LIVE!
Ben will have a podcast up soon.
In the meantime, here’s an article about the death of Final Fantasy, from Wired… Sigh. Here’s to you, once great series.
Review: Much Ado About Nothing (Joss Whedon)
You might think that on a geek site like this, Joss Whedon would just get a pass. (1) But I’m a big fan of the bard’s Much Ado About Nothing- it’s my favorite Shakespeare play- and I really did enjoy the fairly extravagant Branagh version. So, no free pass for Mr. Whedon… he’d have to earn it.
Dear Audible: Your DRM sucks
I would love to have the opportunity to easily buy and listen to books in my car. We have a fairly long drive to and from work, and we occasionally take very long drives to visit our families. On the audiobook front, the most popular website appears to be Audible. I tried it once before on a trial basis, and disliked-it-with-prejudice for reasons that will become clear, because not a lot seems to have changed from my earlier experience.
The Midgard Campaign Setting
The Midgard Campaign Setting has recently been released by Kobold Press.
It’s awesome.
The Midgard Campaign Setting is based on the home campaign world of famed RPG designer Wolfgang Baur. The patronage project started almost two years ago, and much of that time was spent on the Kobold Quarterly forums, exploring, discussing, and creating the various parts of the world in the manner of Open Design. Other lead chapter designers include Jeff Grubb, Brandon Hodge, Christina Stiles, and Dan Voyce. A dozen other folk, including Ed Greenwood, also contribute to design. Among that dozen, I participated when I could (especially early on), and wrote some spells, deities, NPCs, and offered various suggestions in different places. And patrons gave suggestions, feedback, and ideas. So, given all that…
Some Musings on Kobold Press/Open Design
The Midgard Campaign Setting has been released. It’s brilliant. It’s amazing. It’s everything I hoped it would be. I’m proud to have been a part of it, and I have to thank Wolfgang Baur for letting us play with his home campaign setting. I have the PDF, and I’m waiting for the delivery of the hardbacks. I’ll put up a review after they arrive.
Way back in 2010, I mentioned I attended an event at a local gaming store (Dragon’s Lair). I woke up far too early on a Saturday morning so that I could attend the Monte Cook signing. I hadn’t realized it prior to arriving, but after the signing he was also going participate on a panel about game design. I left and got breakfast, fully intending to head home. But then I decided that the panel sounded too interesting to pass up, so returned to the store. Besides Monte Cook, I’d heard of Chris Pramas (founder of Green Ronin), but I wasn’t too familiar with the other folks. The people who had published the Shard RPG were there, as was the lead designer for the steampunk RPG, Tephra. There were also a couple of freelancers writing for Open Design and Paizo– Adam Daigle and Brandon Hodge.
I’ve always found the word “open” interesting. I’ve been a proponent of Open Source and Open Access for some time, and have followed the various open movements colloquially and in my professional and academic work. I found the Open Game License fascinating for a number of reasons I’ve discussed before. So what was Open Design? It seemed to be a way to do collaborative game creation. There was some payment required to get involved, but you received a product at the end, like a preorder, and you gained access to some normally behind-the-scenes aspects of game design. And you could potentially write and get credit for your contributions depending on how the community responded. So I signed up for a project that was using the Pathfinder system, to see what was going on. Although I had been an ardent 3E player, I hadn’t made the leap (well, hop) to Pathfinder.
BJ’s DnD Setup
In the last podcast we mentioned BJ’s new D&D setup. Check out a few quick photos after the break.
Speaking of isms in geekery…
Lots of things have come up this week.
- Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting – Author John Scalzi attempts to talk about privilege in a gamified way, because a lot of people get freaked out by the term.
- A Look at Sexism in Fantasy by Sarah Darkmagic. This is in reaction to the Sexism in Fantasy article at WotC that BJ and I briefly touched on at the end of the last podcast. (Also, the Prismatic Art Collection Kickstarter that she’s running will be over soon, so check it out.)
- (Trigger warning: sexual assault.) Finally, Kickstarter Cancels Tentacle Rape Card Game, from the Border House blog. Links to a lot of related discussion there. (I believe there will be additional commentary from Geek Girls Rule soon.) This one brings up lots of issues, so I’m really interested in what she’s going to say.
Sexism in Geek Culture, with a look at Comics
In the most recent Coming Out of the Basement Podcast, we discuss sexism in geek culture, with a bit of a closer look at comics (along with the Mass Effect 3 ending). For the first subject, I had enough sources and examples that I thought it made sense to do a post on the topic.
I meant to mention three areas:
- the portrayal of women in geek culture media (comics, games, RPGs, etc.)
- the treatment of women in geek culture in real life situations, and
- women in positions of authority in the industries (writers/artists/creators/editors/etc.).
Lots more below.
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