May 20, 2007 at 10:32 pm (Art, Culture, Retro Gaming, Roleplaying)
I learned this week from the Ex-Teenage Rebel blog that Angus McBride, well known for his marvelous fantasy illustrations, passed away just a few days ago. He did a lot of different illustrations throughout his life, but I’m most familiar with his work for Iron Crown’s Middle-Earth Roleplaying Game, the RPG on which I cut my gaming teeth. His depictions of the people and places of Middle-Earth were enormously influential on the way I perceived Middle-Earth during my formative teenage Tolkien phase. To this day, his artistic style (much more than, say, Peter Jackson’s film trilogy) is the main filter through which I visualize the colors and style of Middle-Earth.
Here are my two favorite McBride Middle-Earth illustrations; the first is the cover of the Riders of Rohan module, and the second is from Gates of Mordor:
The gaming world is much richer for McBride’s contributions. Rest in peace.
(Both of the above images I found here, where you can browse many of his other excellent Tolkien illustrations.)
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May 19, 2007 at 10:51 am (Computer Games, Strategy)
This is news I’ve been waiting to hear for years now:
There were rumors that Blizzard’s big announcement would be a Starcraft MMORPG, but I’m glad they’re sticking to their single-player strategy game roots. It looks like they’ve kept the core Starcraft gameplay almost entirely intact. Usually, you’d expect a sequel to introduce tons of new gameplay elements, but in the case of Starcraft, I hope they’ll resist the urge to reinvent the wheel. The original is pretty darn close to perfect already. (Certainly, it’s the only game that has been continuously installed on every computer I’ve owned since 1998!)
Now I’m just hoping that when Starcraft 2 does finally hit store shelves, I’ll own a computer powerful enough to run it…
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May 7, 2007 at 5:49 pm (Roleplaying)
Here’s an item I’ve been meaning to mention for a while now: Worldwide Adventure Writing Month. This June, you’re encouraged to write a 32-page adventure module. It doesn’t need to be the Best Module Ever, and it can be for whatever game system you choose; the point is just to write something down and revel in the accomplishment.
I don’t think I’ve ever met a roleplaying gamer who has not, at some point or other, aspired to game writing. (In fact, I know very few gamers who have not dreamed of creating their own game from scratch–maybe that merits a post at some point.) The nice thing about WoAdWriMo is that you don’t need to craft an epic masterpiece; you just need to put together 32 pages of adventure. If you’re a GM, chances are you’ve already got far more than that already written up, in the form of campaign notes and homemade adventures. Why not gather up your notes, fire up the imagination, and see if you can’t crank out a short module this June?
I’m absolutely planning on trying this, and have been pondering for a week or two now what my epic adventure will be. I’m leaning towards putting together a nice, old-fashioned dungeon crawl; but a tiny part of me wants to write an espionage adventure, in loving memory of the late lamented Top Secret S.I. Would-be game writers of the world, join me this June!
(Also, check out the WoAdWriMo blog for some decent adventure-writing tips, even if you don’t plan to participate.)
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May 6, 2007 at 6:23 pm (Personal Musings)
No, I’m not dead, although posting’s been light lately. What have I been up to lately? Here’s a brief summary of my gaming life over the last few weeks; some of these items might merit full posts when I get some spare time.
- I finally purchased a mount for my main Warcraft character. It’s a bit embarrassing to have taken so long to finally buy a mount–I’ve been playing for well over a year now–but mounts are really expensive, and not until very recently had I bothered to really work the in-game auction house for spending money. At any rate, now that I’ve got my mount I can finally hang with the cool crowd. And start saving up for an epic mount…
- And speaking of Warcraft, I got suckered into buying a starter set for the new World of Warcraft CCG. With a baby on the way, the last thing I need is another game upon which to spend money. Hopefully my wife will intervene if things get too ugly.
- I played the Hackmaster roleplaying game, and loved it! I loved it enough, in fact, to go out and pick up the core rulebook myself, and I’m already scheduling a summertime Hackmaster game with my wife and a friend. What a unique game; I’ll try to post further thoughts about that this week.
- On a bit of a lark, I installed and fired up the classic computer RPG Baldur’s Gate. I am a big fan of the computer RPGs created by Black Isle (the BG games, Fallout, Planescape: Torment); seized by nostalgia, I decided to try playing through Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 back-to-back. So far, so good; we’ll see if I make it all the way through both of them this summer. It is actually taking me some time to adjust to a non-Warcraft RPG. It’s a fun change of pace.
That’s the quick update. Hope you’ve had as much gaming fun lately as I have!
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