Time in the City Part 2 (Geeks on Patrol!)

Cornell's Institute of Labor Relations is on 34th street, near the Empire State building. Hence, whenever I have a class there it's a chance to visit Jim Hanely's Universe and the Compleat Strategist, both right nearby.

 

I turned up a gem at Universe - a compilation of the first 5 issues of Northguard. Previously I had only owned #1, though I had read these issues before. Stack onto this the latest three Powers graphic novels and it was a good haul. Alas, they didn't have any of Mock Man Press' Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath comics to fill in the issues that kriz1818doesn't have. Some things are just too hard to get.

 

During the whole of this visit I got to listen to a bitter diatribe from several of the staff about how bad the upcoming Transformers movie was going to be. They were undoubtedly going to get the personalities wrong, for example, and how were they going to work in things like the origins of Bumblebee's name? Burning questions all, no doubt destined to be overlooked by creators who really don't care about the depth of the source material.

 

Then over to Strategist, where I learned that my plan to pick up tournament legal card Magic cards to give to evynrudewill be delayed as 10th edition is due out on 7/14 and will throw all of the tournament rules into a tizzy. I also picked up a copy of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG revised corebook. I have heard enough good things about the system's treatment not just of the show but of the balancing of one really powerful PC with a group of assistants that I wanted to see for myself. What’s coming to mind right now is adapting the mechanics to do an adventure of Roger Frost in his arctic childhood, aided by his Inuit Scooby peers.

 

All told, a good trip.