Chris S. – Page 82 – Fortune And Glory

March 12, 2017March 12, 2017

Mutants and Masterminds

Today my gaming group began a new role-playing campaign, using the Mutants and Masterminds game system.

We spent a couple of hours creating characters, with me doing it hesitantly, since I was running the campaign.

I decided to make a ‘Crime Fighter’ type, since I wanted to make a Shadow/Crimson Avenger/Green Hornet type. That isn’t what I ended up with.

The following is a result of the die rolls generated as I used the quick-start character creation system:

Dark Avenger: Your life changed in a single, horrifying moment. Since then you’ve trained your body and mind to become an instrument of vengeance.

I need to come up with what that traumatic event was.

Incredible Presence: You are physically impressive or otherwise intimidating. You are also a natural leader.

Okay.

Sleuth: You’re a student of observation.

Scientist: You are a trained scientist and capable of inventing gadgets of your own.

Cool.

Acrobat: You’re a trained acrobat, capable of incredible feats of agility.

By this time I figured that I was going to have a Batman-esque hero. Or maybe Blue Beetle II/Nite Owl.

Avenger: You’ve trained yourself in a number of useful skills.

The advantages given here totally makes this guy like Batman (Streetwise, Intimidation, Vehicles).

Investigator: You’ve studied investigation and other forms of observation.

Next, this character ended up with Gadgetry, granting him a Headquarters, and a further roll granted a Combat Suit.

I figured that this would be an animal based hero, and that animal would be…

ENTER… THE KOALA

I made him about the same size as me (5’6″, 160 lbs) and spoke with a raspy Christian Bale voice as we played.

We decided that the super team would use this character’s HQ as their base, the Koala Den, located around Yerba Buena Gardens in the South of Market area of San Francisco.

We haven’t come up with a super group name yet. And I may do a little fudging and grant everyone some equipment, like Koala-rangs for my character.

Fun times ahead.

March 11, 2017

Fantastic Beasts

I watched it this morning and really liked it. I kinda regret not seeing it on the big screen.

I grew bored with the Harry Potter movie franchise after Goblet of Fire. I’m not sure why, exactly, and splitting the last book into two movies didn’t help to change how I felt. I don’t think I saw the last 3-4 in the theatre.

Even though the movie takes place in the same universe as Harry Potter, the change in time period helped it become more appealing to me.

Aside from the cast, who I either loved or didn’t know they were in it (Ezra Miller! Jon Voight!) my favorite part of the movie were, of course, the beasts.

I went and ordered this:

And this as well:

I’ve never wanted a prop wand from any of the characters in the Harry Potter movies (though I did almost pick up Snape’s a while back), but for some reason, I wanted this one.

Overall, I thought it was an entertaining movie, and I’m looking forward to the rest of the series. I just hope I don’t grow tired of them as I did with the original Potter films.

March 10, 2017

Headphones

I’ve been an $10-$20 earbud guy forever, with a couple of pairs of wired over-the-ear headphones attached to my desktop and laptop at home.

I started looking into noise-cancelling headphones, mainly for the level of noise at times at work. At the recommendation of my co-worker, I picked this up.

Bose Quietcomfort 35 wireless noise-cancelling headphones

I tried them at Best Buy, along with a couple of Beats by Dre models, and this one blocked out ambient noise better than the others did, just as my co-worker said they did.

This is definitely the priciest audio accessory that I’ve ever bought, next to my iPod.

I’ve been wearing them right now for about 30 minutes, and I really like them. They’re good for audio books, too.

March 9, 2017March 9, 2017

The Completist

Sometimes I hate myself for being one.

I recently started going back to my older non-sports tabletop board games, and found myself reading up on the rules for Starfire, 2nd edition.

This was the first boxed version of the game, which I originally picked up in high school. Before this I owned the 1st edition of the game, which came in a ziplock bag, along with it’s two supplements (Starfire II and Starfire III: Empires). I sold those off to friend.

Anyways, I picked up the first expansion/supplement for this edition, New Empires, back in the day.

I never played it, since it was more of a strategic-level empire building game that really needed a second player to get the most out of it.

There was a third product in this line, before the third edition of the game came out, but I never bought it. Until now.

I didn’t buy it back in the day because by that time my group had moved on to role-playing games and Warhammer 40K. So even though I rarely played this with friends, this, and Star Fleet Battles, went into the ‘did not play’ category of games that I owned.

I would occasionally see this product on shelves in the late 1980s, but at the time I wasn’t interested in it and it went out of print. But because of my recent interest in old games, it popped up on my radar again.

Enter eBay, and sellers who sell factory-sealed editions of out of print games. I probably spent about 2-3 times the price of this thing was when it first came out, but at least I managed to scratch that itch that is my curse, the game completist.

And regarding that third and later editions: yeah, I bought those, too, but 3rd edition was a bit complicated with it’s own set of supplements. The game later spun off from Task Force Games, became 3rd revised (bought), and finally 4th edition, which I also own, but never even punched the counters. 1st/2nd edition were the most playable (read: simplest) version IMHO.

And I own the PDF of the 6th edition, Solar Starfire. They went with electronic products starting with the 5th edition (Ultra Starfire) which I didn’t buy.

Enemy fleet on scanners – ARM WEAPONS!

March 9, 2017

The 50s

March 9th, 1967: premiere date of Star Trek episode ‘The Devil in the Dark’.

Dispatched to the mining colony on Janus VI, the Enterprise is tasked to investigate rumors of a strange, subterranean creature responsible for destruction of equipment and the deaths of fifty miners. Kirk and Spock discover a silicon-based life form, a Horta, which lives in the surrounding rock. After Kirk and his Vulcan first officer find the strange creature, Spock performs a mind meld, discovering the reason behind the Horta’s attacks.

This episode holds a special place in my memories because it was the first Star Trek fotonovel that I bought, which means it was one of the first books that I ever bought on my own, with my allowance. I think I got it from Gemco.