Happy Thanksgiving! And other stuff... and pictures!

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!  Okay, with the mandatory holiday greeting out of the way... ( Well, I've been working on this a while, and technically it's no longer Thanksgiving, at least in my time zone... )

Whew... I've been busy the last week or so, and either haven't had time, or too tired to write.  That, and this computer is sometimes quite wonky, and will close windows willy nilly!  It's really aggravating...

I've been a blog zombie on my downtime; reading and discovering new blogs.  One of which is the new Mystery Blog, and if you like making terrain you should check it out.  You should especially follow the link to making buildings out of foam board.  This guy is AMAZING, and the tutorials are good.  At first I thought the photos were of real buildings.  Even if you only use one or two of his techniques your terrain is going to look better.

I've removed the TARGA link, because well, in my opinion TARGA is dead, embalmed, and buried, with as far as I can tell; no chance of resurrection.  When I first became interested in the gaming hobby again I tried to become a local representative of TARGA, but after an initial inquiry and one email, from the head guy I guess ( which basically said something along the lines of 'we're working on things'... ) I decided to wait, and of course never heard anything else from them.  Oh well...

Since I've discovered the demise of TARGA I wanted to try something myself, but eh... I'm no cleric, and I would have to start from scratch, because I would want to do things my way.  In the end, I decided there probably isn't much of a need for this type of national or international group anyway.  Of course I am going to try to get something going locally to help promote the gaming hobby, but nothing as serious as TARGA.  I want to have a "Gaming Day" every month, if I can find a free, or low cost venue to hold it in.  I really don't want to have an entry fee, unless it would be for charity.  I guess it would be kind of like a one day mini-convention.  I need to do more brainstorming on this...

I've also removed the Giant Mutant Baby from the sidebar.  He wasn't too happy about that, but he was getting a little to big for his diapers. He kept insisting I work on the Giant Mutant Baby roleplaying game, and I told him I wasn't interested. ( Yes, I am in a weird mood, and no, I am not off my meds, errr I don't take meds... )

Over the course of the next month I plan on making more changes to the blog, but that may wait until I get my computer fixed.  I want a better layout, and a new logo/masthead.  I will probably remove the ads also.  I don't think anyone uses them anyway...

I have a question for my readers and fellow bloggers.  Does anyone know about a skirmish level miniature game for the superhero genre?  Preferably rules-lite?  I haven't found one yet, but for all the other genres I like playing I found what I want, and once my cash flow improves, I plan on getting some of Two Hour Wargames products because I have only read good things about them, especially ATZ ( All Things Zombie ).  ATZ won the Origins Award for Best Miniatures Game of 2005.  They have miniature skirmish rules for science fiction, pulp, horror, and western, as well as a couple of other genres.

Once I have replaced this computer, this EVIL computer, I plan on taking it out back, and smashing it to pieces with a sledge hammer.  I will not give it to someone else. I will not sell it for a couple of bucks.  I wouldn't even give it to my worst enemy.  It deserves to be destroyed.  It is a pain in the arse to use.  It keeps freezing up on me, closing windows, and what not.  It's taking forever just to write this blog entry.  And I will use the debris I create from the smashing, crushing, and demolishing of this computer, and use it for making wargaming terrain.  Okay, that felt good, and it was cathartic.  Okay, where was I?

Here's a random thought I just had a moment ago.  I want to make fortune cookies for gamers.  I want to print out the little slips and put them in those horrible cookies.  The idea would be to have a funny fortune, and instead of lucky numbers, you could have a one time bonus to certain die rolls.  You would have a bonus for a d4/d6/d8 etc... One cookie per gaming session, and the player only gets to open it when they want to use the bonus, and they have to eat the cookie!  You could have all kinds of different fortunes.  Like... "Once you have eaten the cookie you gain 10 extra hit points, which are temporary."  Or... "Upon eating the cookie you are teleported to another dimension."  The fortunes could be good, bad, or cause some minor nuisance... "Upon eating the cookie every dog that sees you begins following you for the next week."  Heh... I really like this idea.  I think it would fit in really well with a light hearted fantasy RPG campaign.

I've been reading Monster Hunter International, by Larry Correia..  Published by Baen Books, it's a long read at over 700 pages. (  A real monster of a book! Heh... )  It's a really good book, and an interesting take on monster mythology.  Monster Hunter International is a for profit company that, yup you guessed it, hunts monsters for money. 

One of the more unique concepts is that the fedgov pays a bounty ( called a PUFF ), on every monster that a hunter kills.  Of course the knowledge that this kind of evil exists is top secret, and if you start to try and divulge the information about the supernatural, monsters, et al; you can expect a "visit" from a federal agent, probably a member of the Monster Bureau, the fedgov's version of Monster Hunters.  The more dangerous and powerful the monster is, the higher the bounty is.  If a hunter survives to retirement they end up very wealthy, as in buy a third world country wealthy. 

The author's spin on elves in the modern day had me chuckling, the elf queen and other elves live in "the Enchanted Forest".  I won't go into a lot of detail, because I really don't want to spoil it for anyone who decides to read it.  I also think it would make a great modern day horror campaign for a RPG.  The sequel is called Monster Hunter Vendetta.  If you like the horror genre this book is really good.  It's even got giant stone gargoyles and wights!  Yeeeeah baby!

Well, enough for now.  I've been kind of swerving all over the blogging road anyway, but I hope you at least enjoyed my "swerving".   My blog posts might be a bit infrequent for the rest of the year, mainly because this computer is EVIL.  However, I will try my best to post when I have the patience to deal with this beast.