Geeking Out

[subplotkudzu]

drcpunk  is sending me copies of The Shackled City campaign (which I epxect to read and maybe steal something from) and, more importantly, Conan d20. Given that Conan was one of the clear foundations for D&D's eneric fantasy environment it seems natural that the character would have a gaming property, especially since 3E finally had a working Barbarian class mechanic. I'm very interested to see what the book reads like, and if there are things in it I can steal for the island northerners in my Emirikol campaign.

Last weekend, during a hellish ongoing work problem, my lovely wife dragged me out of the house for a date - cheeseburger's at Harry's in Colchester and a matinee of Pixar's UP. It was a lovely afternoon and the movie was fantastic. It was nice seeing a film where I couldn't predict everything that was going to happen based on the opening 10 minutes because it was a clever and novel story concept (rather than because the plot had enormous holes and the characters kept making incredibly stupid and/or out of character decisions - I'm talking to you Star Trek). Plus, there was a nice visual depiction of a game mechanic in it. 

Secifically, our hero's attempt to reach his obsessive goal is tracked by the boyancy of his house - every distraction from his goal and or threat that he faces is handliy measured by the loss of baloons. The threat to the baloons became just as tangible as threats of bodly harm and loss of ability displayed by bruises, cuts and scrapes sported by action heroes - if not more so as the last few major action movies I've seen don't actually have such displays mean anything in the narrative.

This is going into the same file that holds the character resource loss mechanic inspired by Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, where PCs can volunteer losses to their gear rather than take damage, as both represent a reduction in their resources and ability to resolve the problem at hand.

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Did the package arrive yet?