Playtest of Giants

This is an old essay that never got posted. I’ve edited it slightly to fix the context and otherwise cleaned it up and polished it a bit.

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Made it to Forge Midwest 2010, and had a delightful time. The first game of the day was giving Giants a run-through–something I’ve been trying to arrange to do since I got the ashcan at Gen Con 07.

Short, short version: the organization is horrible, and we’re not sold on having to devote an entire scene to feasting/healing, but otherwise I think the game is actually “all there”. It’s too bad that it appears to be abandoned.

Blacktron Redux, pt 1

A couple months ago, I rediscovered some of the updated versions of classic Space Lego sets, and got to wondering about Blacktron, absolutely my favorite Lego theme as a kid. I did some digging around and found that a lot of people had done updates for Blacktron II sets, there were a couple different runs at “Blacktron III”, and a fair number of people doing new ships in the colors of Blacktron. But mostly people were focusing on the Blacktron II theme, using either its colors or cockpit style, and while I love those cockpits, I’ve never cared for the color scheme or actual sets in that line.

What Women Want [Their Characters to be Like]

I was reading an essay about sexism in art for D&D, implicitly for the new edition, and it got me to thinking about how women portray female characters in RPGs. 

But, as usual for such discussions, it was a bunch of guys having the discussion. I shall now compound the problem. But, in my defense, I’m not going to claim to speak for women (or even claim that they are a monolithic entity that can be spoken for), or to read minds, but will instead simply report what I have observed and experienced.

I am in the fortunate position of playing with a group that is 3 women and 3 men, and most of my RPG groups since high school have had at least a couple women, if not equal numbers or even female-dominated (I was the token guy in one all-girls group in high school, and only there because this was the GM’s first time GMing and she wanted the only GM she’d ever gamed with there for moral support; once she was comfortable, I got “thrown out”).