Dholcrist

Re: The Super Darwin Awards Oh, I've so many stories I don't know where to start. Well, I suppose one of the first would be best. Cyberpunk, our first campaign with our first characters. We'd been doing pretty well, and had all met up and were trying to get out of Night City (which was being completely locked down, nobody in or out). After grabbing a substantial amount of firepower, we drove our van about a block from the last roadblock out of the city, and decided that the numerous tanks and dozens of heavily armed soldiers were too much for us to handle, so we would try to go through the sewers. Well, unfortunately G, one of the newer members of the group, wasn't too sure. And when the NPC driver said he was going to stay in the city and take the van back to his house (it was his van, and we weren't going to need it in the sewers, so we agreed), G thought he was a traitor. And shot him. With the largest pistol in the game. A block from the roadblock. Naturally, as one would imagine, the soldiers heard the gunshot. A helicopter hovered overhead, and focused its lights/guns on us, as a dozen or so soldiers surrounded the van. Out of desperation, my character (a Terminator ripoff) stood up in the sun roof, and fired off a Stinger missile at the chopper. Double failure, the missile jammed, and detonated in the launcher. I died, but the others got out in time. G was immediately shot as he ran forward shooting his pistol wildly. The other two who were still alive immediately threw down their weapons and layed down with their hands on their heads. As the soldiers approached, they yelled "You can't shoot us, we surrender!" Apparently the military didn't feel the same way, as about five men loaded a clip each into their bodies. Another quick one: G, new character, had just loaded up with about 8 different automatic weapons, which he loaded and carried with him slung across his chest and back. In the first three minutes of the game, he wants to make it clear that he never puts his weapons on safety, just in case, and they're always loaded. Also, they're customized with hair triggers. So, we laugh about how if he were to trip he'd probably shoot himself. The GM says that that would be likely, and as soon as G says he's going to run, the GM makes him roll. Fumbles three times. He trips, falls, and immediately every gun goes off, completely blowing him away. G came to be known for his impressive skill for being able to get killed in a variety of spectacularly stupid fashions, and for never having a character for longer than a game, maybe two at the most. He actually has a list of characters that have died hidden behind a calendar in his room, so whenever we play over there and he dies, he just gets up, walks over to the calendar, lifts it up, and marks another dash.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Those "features" were the only reason I'd randomly flip to it and watch it for about five minutes before getting bored. Just not my cup of tea, otherwise.

Re: TerranEmpire Space Battle Tracker Haven't looked at it much thus far, but sounds like a winner. IOU rep!

Re: Help me flesh out a kernal of a setting idea Hm, hadn't extrapolated the BSG info that far into the future. That would indeed make for a very cool storyline. Though I had similar thoughts/theories on what life might have been like on the original "Homeworld" that the 13 Colonies fled from.

Re: Help me flesh out a kernal of a setting idea All excellent references that I was going to point out myself, particularly Advent Rising (though I wouldn't call it "Orson Scott Card's", I ran into him at Comic Con a few years back and told him I enjoyed the story, he just chuckled and said "cool, you should compliment the scripters, I only worked on about the first third of it"). That story was cool because in it Humanity was a mythical race of godlike beings that disappeared millenia ago and are worshipped by various alien races across the galaxy. Cool stuff, and would've been a great game if it weren't rife with game-ending glitches.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Just finished watching ep. 3 of Twin Peaks. Got the Gold Edition for Christmas, and I've been slowly watching it for the first time whenever I get time. Damned good so far. And I finally know what the joke was in Who Shot Mr. Burns? when Chief Wiggum has that dream where Lisa dances and speaks in that bizarre tone. Awesome stuff though.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... I've been wanting to read this, maybe I will once I go through the pile I already have. If you enjoyed that though, I'd highly recommend Karen Traviss' "Republic Commando" series, based off the Republic Commando Star Wars game. She's a former military journalist, so she knows how to write a book that's about clone commando's fighting in the clone wars. And she's obsessed with Mandalorians, going as far as to invent their entire culture and a primitive language for them. Awesome stuff. I know exactly what you mean, the book somewhat raised my expectations as well. And yes, that ambassador was so extremely good at what she did, it was one of the only times I've enjoyed reading about a politician in fiction. She was awesome. The one in the game on the other hand? Completely lame.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? In the past week saw No Country for Old Men twice, once with my father and once with some friends. I really loved it. And yes, I enjoyed the ending. Other than that I watched about 30 minutes of Saw II just to see what the deal was (it was on Showtime), until I got bored of watching some girl crawl around in a pit of medicinal needles. Seriously? That's it? I don't even enjoy horror movies or their subgenres because I'm somewhat easily freaked out, and I thought it was boring as hell. Ah well, that's just me.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Easily one of my favorite animated movies of all time. I still get teary eyed whenever I watch the ending. *sniff* Brad Bird knows his stuff. Also, I'd like to add that it's Vin Diesel's greatest role, hands down.

Re: PA Hero--Revelations 1001 & beyond... I need to get this book.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Wow, that's a fantastic summation of the meta-setting. I've seen some rambling speculation, but nothing terribly coherent though, and my own readings have been spread out over about 10 years, so I'm hazy on many parts. Damn, now I'm going to have to go back and read all the books over again. Good thing they're so damn good.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Hm, I read Stormrider, but for some reason I remember it as a cliff hangar. I'll have to get around to rereading them. As far as the Swords of Night and Day book goes, I think I enjoyed it just because it was something new with Druss in it, and anything with Druss in it got an automatic thumbs up from me. And he did have a sort of habit in ending his series with a sub-par book that he probably had never intended on writing. And yes, I agree completely, I've enjoyed all of his books so thoroughly that I never mind going back and rereading, though some are reread more often than others. Legend, First Chronicles of Druss, Waylander, and the first Jon Shannow book are all books I've read at least 5 times, and will be reading at least 5 times more. Also, did his wife ever release an explanation as to how all of his stories fit together, or was that something that she's still not ever going to divulge?

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... I do so love hearing people talk about Gemmell (RIP). Echoes is probably my favorite one-shot book of his, though the Drenai mythos is easily the best. I started reading him with The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend, which I completed in about three hours. Soon as I finished that, I've bought up every book of his I could find without hesitation. His Druss and Waylander stuff (well, the first Waylander actually, the sequels are somewhat below standard) are phenomenal, followed closely by the Shannow books (also disliked the first few books of the series, and the last one was a disappoinment). Loved the Rigante novels, but as I recall it never actually ended. Did they ever actually complete them, or did he just move on without doing so?

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Just watched Futurama: Bender's Big Score a few hours ago, really absolutely fantastic. If you've ever laughed while watching Futurama, you'll love the movie. Thank Crom that they're back. It's been a lonely couple of years.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Exactly why I really disliked the movie. The robots were good too. It just annoys me to no end that the "Transformers" movie wasn't about the Transformers. It was about everyone and their mothers except the Transformers. It was about some nerdy hacker who liked to comically play DDR and added nothing to the movie. It was about some Australian researcher chick that didn't do much of anything. It was about some bizarre federal agents that didn't do much but talk about how "criminals are hot" and get urinated on by childhood heroes. And what's with the awkward 10 minute masturbation conversation? Was that really necessary? While I got used to their designs, and actually enjoyed the Transformers themselves (when they were on screen, that is), watching them do stuff was one of the more frustrating things I've had to do while watching movie. I'd bet that very few could watch the movie and actually tell you what was going on when more than one robot was on screen at a time. The fights were just random angles swinging around and an occasional rocket flying off. I won't even address the product-placement-bots. Sorry for the rant, but while I was a little too young to actually have seen the original Transformers in its first run, I did grow up with the repeats, and most especially, the Movie. I've seen all manner of terrible, terrible incarnations of some of my favorite characters over the years, but this gives them all a run for their money. Damn Michael Bay for making a Transformers movie that could have had so much more greatness in it. It's like the X-Men 3 movie. Not a terrible movie in its own right, but the worst movie simply because it took an incredible story and put it on film, barring others from making a good version for a very long time. /end rant

Re: Pulp/Steampunk SF Ideas My pleasure. I was also thinking, what if you were to combine the ideas? Say that Pluto is where lesser demons live, awaiting the return of their master and the destruction of all things, foretold to coincide with the return of a comet, a harbinger of death that enters this realm (aka the solar system) once a millennia, inside of which is entombed Cthulu, frozen, slumbering until the time for his awakening comes. A great place to look for inspiration of using Cthulu-esque creatures in a sci-fi setting would be the Hellboy comics. There's a few stories that involve Greater Demons being monitored and imprisoned by what look like steampunk-ish aliens. Which also gives me an idea, what about also having one of the races having had previous contact, and thus are able to quantify the supernatural scientifically? Say a mysterious race that is seen only rarely by others, and through this self-imposed isolation have taken on a nigh-mystical reputation. Maybe this race could actually be the original inhabitants of Pluto, which was the site of the last Apocalypse a millennia prior, when their own burgeoning civilization was almost destroyed, and they had to rebuild off-world, becoming nomads while constantly fighting the Demonic threat and trying to keep it from extending its reach off of Pluto, keeping the rest of the races in the dark, which in turn causes the rest of the solar system to believe that the Plutonians (?) are the actual threat. Alright, sorry for that stream of thought, just throwing ideas out at random. Hope something sparks something grander and far more refined. Look forward to whatever comes next.

Re: Pulp/Steampunk SF Ideas Hmm... do you think they should inhabit a planetary (or sub in Pluto's case) body, or that perhaps exist elsewhere? Perhaps on a comet (real or fictional) that enters the solar system every few hundred years, bringing with it untold horrors from "beyond the stars" as it were. Or something similar. Either way, having Cthulu would be awesome.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? I don't believe so, it was two words, the first being "Alternate" or "Alternative". Alternative Warp ?

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? The Star Trek original series ep. that I forgot the name of. Alternative something? The one where they have the two versions of a guy named Lazarus that are trying to kill each other, and will blow up the universe if they come into contact. Awesome stuff, and I usually really dislike ST (hence my seeing this ep. for the first time).

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? His last name's Danzig? Really? Awesome. And yeah, Flight is hilarious. I really have been enjoying it, and their music really is incredible. "Bowies in Space" and the LotR song were fantastic. I need to get it on dvd.

Re: [Review] Alien Wars I see what you mean, most of the vehicles/weapons/equipment they list is rather par for the course. Some kind of large gauss rifle would be rather cool though. I'm somewhat the same way, the stats in the book that are given are the weakest point. Very little equipment/vehicles for the Xenovores, and almost as little for the humans. Just not a whole lot of variety.

Re: [Review] Alien Wars The WWI feel (absolutely love the military doughboy uniforms) and the low tech SF setting are the selling points for me, personally. The tech is all far advanced from us, but still incredibly familiar. Kind of like the Civil War of Firefly. Sure, they had fancy guns and flying grenades, but essentially warfare hadn't changed so it was unrecognizable. Same here. You've still got the grunts toughing it out in the crap just trying to survive. And I think the gun (I forget what it is at the moment) that the soldier is holding in the "doughboy" picture is awesome just because they made a futuristic Thompson. Coolness. But to address the need for a more futuristic military sf setting, wouldn't Terran Empire address that for you? I know the setting itself at the time they recommend isn't actually at war, but they present many periods where it is happening, and easy reasons for it to happen. Complete with powered Heinlein armor!