I had planned for a quiet day today, but since I'm working this machine already I thought I would drop a few choice bits out.
Trollish Delver: Wizards given up on Gamma World
(from the post)
It probably seems obvious by now, but the latest iteration of Gamma World emerged with a bang and left with a solemn whisper.
With three product releases: Gamma World, Legion of Gold and Famine in Far-Go as well as the booster packs, the game has seen minimal support from Wizards of the Coast and their future products list is devoid of mutants.
I noticed that this appears to be the fate of Dark Sun as well, since it appears that the Dark Sun Campaign Setting has went out of print. Without the central product to jump start the setting I don't see a lot of new material coming for the only thing they may have got close to being right about, but the early complaints of a rush job and character flood seems to have sunk the setting into the Silt Sea.
Read the rest on OW at:
http://trollishdelver.blogspot.com/2011/12/wizards-given-up-on-gamma-world.html
The City of Iron: Doing without the cleric class: Blessings & pacts
Exploring yet again the theory of removing a core class this seems to be an area wide open for exploration. I personally think that the character class fitting the setting is very important, the above article (mentioning Dark Sun) being a prime example of that, but I tend to think of how the four core classes seem to exist in almost every society. Just my tinkering with magic and religion in my own project has shown how profound the ripples can become when you are dealing with these 4 principles. They are almost like the four elementals of gaming. Think about removing say water, like Dark Sun all but does, and see how it creates an entirely new society and character profiles.
Catch the whole run down at:
http://the-city-of-iron.blogspot.com/2011/12/doing-without-cleric-class-blessings.html
Panopticon « Swords & Dorkery
(from the post)
I like this word. Its Greek root gives it some ancient weight, yet the strangeness of it also sounds very sci-fi to me.
The term “panopticon” comes from the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham (the same guy who had his body partly mummified so he could continue to sit in on meetings at University College, London). The basic idea was to design a building which would allow observation all the occupants, without their knowing if they were actually being watched at the moment but always under the threat of observation. Bentham primarily saw this as a useful design for a prison, but also saw its possibilities for schools, asylums, hospitals, and so on. Foucault would famously adopt this metaphor for society’s other hierarchical structures and control mechanisms (physical and cultural, so one might understand even religious concepts — “God sees all” — as ways of applying panoptic pressure).
An interesting read all around.
Catch the rest at:
https://mikemonaco.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/panopticon/
Ok, time's a wastin'...let's get it started. The Sunday game session makes the Monday work session bearable.
Light the torch-it's time to go.
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