ChrisTalbot.com

Sweeeeeet. Stephen King's The Dark Tower is going to get the comic book treatment.

Eden has released a quick play booklet on DriveThruRPG for its upcoming City of Heroes RPG.

The murder mystery party went fairly well on Saturday night. It was fun, but also a bit tiring. And it was a lot of work leading up to it. While I enjoyed the experience, I'm really glad it's over. I'll have an extra night of free time now that I don't have to work on it with Rawl.

That said, that extra night might occasionally be used to get together with Rawl, anyway. Or I could use it for some gaming.

Two TABS game nights in a row. Last night's was at the Two Headed Dragon in North York. I finally got a chance to try Tigris & Euphrates -- and I lost really badly. Tonight was the east-end gathering at the 100th Monkey. While Xavier and I brought a bunch of games, the only game that got played was my copy of Bang! And we played it seven freakin' times!!

So I guess it went over well with everyone playing. I'm Bang!ed out now ... for a couple of days, anyway. :P

My cold is slowly fading away. Yay!

On another topic... I've decided to take all the badgering to heart and run a one-shot session of Paranoia sometime next month. It's been a few years since I last ran it, and it'll be kind of neat to give it a try again. It's good for a laugh, and as long as you don't take it seriously, it's a lot of fun. I'm now trying to dig up some players for it.

The current freebie up on DriveThruRPG is the World of Darkness core book. Even if you have no intention of playing the game, it's probably worth downloading it just to look at the ruleset and lift some ideas for your own games.

Still sick. I hope this goes away by tomorrow, but I'm pessimistic. I really don't want to have to suffer through a cold during a drive to Tillsonburg.

I'm starting to feel the first hints of interest in roleplaying again. It started yesterday. It's not quite to the point where I'll start building a campaign or even participating in a game in the immediate future, but the interest is there again ... and it'll likely build slowly over the next few weeks and months. I'm not even sure what set this off. I just know I've gone back to reading the RPG.net forums religiously again, and I'm finding myself staring at my RPG collection with a feeling of longing.

Thinking about D&D changes that feeling into loathing, though, so I know I'm still suffering severe D&D burnout. I was invited recently to participate in an Eberron campaign (as a player, not as the GM), and I had to turn it down. I just can't do the D&D thing again. Not yet. Maybe not for a very long time.

You know what probably did it? That damn Paranoia: Mandatory Bonus Fun Card Game. I'll bet that's what did it. Something about that card game brought back the good memories of running that game, and the idea of being able to participate as a Troubleshooter got the creative juices flowing again.

I think I'm getting sick. Dammit!

I must have this game.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to miss the Canucks Amuck meetup on Saturday. I'll have to be in Tillsonburg on that day. It's too bad, as the plan was to play Gammarauders, but shit happens. I'll have to try Gammarauders another time.

I've finished a handful of chess games on SchemingMind.com now, and I finally won my first one yesterday. Take that, Rawlio! Checkmate, baby! ;)

It seems to be a bad time of year. I got word this evening that my Uncle Lyle died.

We're heading into prime gaming time. The weather is getting cooler, so there's less and less reason to be outdoors and more and more reason to be indoors bouncing dice off the table.

I played Magic: The Gathering for the first time in years. I hooked up with another TABS member at GamezClub in East York, and he re-introduced me to the game. I think I need to get some new cards and build a one- or two-colour deck. My old killer deck just isn't all that killer when used against players who know what they're doing. Still, out of three games, I managed to pull off one win.

My copy of Spielbox with The Fishermen of Catan scenario arrived today. Sadly, there's no English translation. Shit.

Who can translate German? :)

Just neat. Lawn furniture grown from bushes.

I had the chance to play a couple of games of Heroscape last night while at Xavier's place. His friend Paul picked the game up on the way over and we opened it up, set up the first scenario's map and gave it a try. Unfortunately, Xavier watched while Paul and I played.

In the first game, we used the basic rules, and they were a little too basic. Paul utterly annihilated my little army (squad is probably a better way to put it). In the second game, we switched over to the advanced rules. Much better. And it came right down to the end, when our last remaining units duked it out. I won -- barely -- with a lone samurai survivor.

With Thanksgiving weekend coming up, I'm trying to plan a gaming/socializing get-together for Sunday evening. I'm not sure if I'll get more than a handful of people, seeing as many people will be busy, but you never know. I really am hoping to get at least a game or two in this weekend. Unfortunately, Jacquie has vetoed Monday as a day for the get-together, which would likely be the best of the three days. Oh well. Maybe I'll see if I can sneak in a bit of light gaming on Monday, anyway.

Harry Hoyt's 1924 film The Lost World is in the public domain, and some kind person has put the film up for grabs in MP4 format. Get it here.

Jacquie and I took in a matinee showing of Serenity yesterday. I enjoyed it, but Joss Whedon didn't pull any punches. It was brutal. Still, I wish he had cleared up a couple of mysteries from the show that I was really curious about. With any luck, there will be a sequel.

Should WotC really be taking shots at MMOG players, considering the impending release of D&D Online?