Thursday, April 05, 2007
The Tale of the Head of Vecna
I came across this sad tale of two groups of RPG gamers. It’s quoted verbatum.
Most stupid gamers ever
Subject: Most stupid gamers ever Date: 11 Dec 1996 19:51:02 -0700 Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
In an attempt to get this group’s collective mind off racist Dieties & Demigods, what is Gothism, and old TSR evils, I present a story put up on the Steve Jackson Games WWW site. This story was so funny I almost hurt myself laughing.
An Important Safety Tip!
Mark Steuer recounts this tale:
Many years ago (back when we all were still playing D & D), I ran a game where I pitted two groups against each other.
Several members of Group One came up with the idea of luring Group Two into a trap. You remember the Hand of Vecna and the Eye of Vecna that were artifacts in the old D&D world where if you cut off your hand (or your eye) and replaced it with the Hand of Vecna (or the Eye) you’d get new awesome powers? Well, Group One thought up The Head of Vecna.
Group One spread rumors all over the countryside (even paying Bards to spread the word about this artifact rumored to exist nearby). They even went so far as to get a real head and place it under some weak traps to help with the illusion. Unfortunately, they forgot to let ALL the members of their group in on the secret plan (I suspect it was because they didn’t want the Druid to get caught and tell the enemy about this trap of theirs, or maybe because they didn’t want him messing with things).
The Druid in group One heard about this new artifact and went off in search of it himself (I believe to help prove himself to the party members...) Well, after much trial and tribulation, he found it; deactivated (or set off) all the traps; and took his “prize” off into the woods for examination. He discovered that it did not radiate magic (a well known trait of artifacts) and smiled gleefully.
I wasn’t really worried since he was alone and I knew that there was no way he could CUT HIS OWN HEAD OFF. Alas I was mistaken as the Druid promptly summoned some carnivorous apes and instructed them to use his own scimitar and cut his head off (and of course quickly replacing it with the Head of Vecna...)
Some time later, Group one decided to find the Druid and to check on the trap. They found the headless body (and the two heads) and realized that they had erred in their plan (besides laughing at the character who had played the Druid)...The Head of Vecna still had BOTH eyes! They corrected this mistake and reset their traps and the Head for it’s real intended victims…
Group Two, by this time, had heard of the powerful artifact and decided that it bore investigating since, if true, they could use it to destroy Group One. After much trial and tribulation, they found the resting place of The Head of Vecna! The were particularly impressed with the cunning traps surrounding the site (one almost missed his save against the weakest poison known to man). They recovered the Head and made off to a safe area.
Group Two actually CAME TO BLOWS (several rounds of fighting) against each other argueing over WHO WOULD GET THEIR HEAD CUT OFF! Several greedy players had to be hurt and restrained before it was decided who would be the recipient of the great powers bestowed by the Head… The magician was selected and one of them promptly cut his head off. As the player was lifting The Head of Vecna to emplace it on it’s new body, another argument broke out and they spent several minutes shouting and yelling. Then, finally, they put the Head onto the character.
Well, of course, the Head simply fell off the lifeless body. All members of Group Two began yelling and screaming at each other (and at me) and then, on their own, decided that they had let too much time pass between cutting off the head of a hopeful recipient and put the Head of Vecna onto the body.
SO THEY DID IT AGAIN!… [killing another PC]
In closing, it should be said that I never even cracked a smile as all this was going on. After the second PC was slaughtered, I had to give in (my side was hurting)…
And Group Two blamed ME for all of that…
So let that be a warning to you - don’t let your head get cut off unless you really know what you’re doing.
-- Bob Apthorpe
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Lost Steve Canyon Comic Strips
My father was a big fan of the newspaper adventure strips like Steve Canyon, Terry and the Pirates, the Phantom (his favorite)and Prince Valiant—and thus, I also came to love them.
Steve Canyon and Terry and the Pirates were produced by Milton Caniff, who produced Steve Canyon for 54 years—right up until his death in 1988. Recently, when looking through his papers, some previously unnoticed strips came to light. If you’re a fan—or if you’ve never heard of Steve Canyon—you owe it to yourself to take a look.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Ride With The Devil
Ride with the Devil
was released in 1999, and I frankly don’t know how I missed it. But I just finished watching it on the Starz movie channel and thought it one of the best Civil war movies I’ve seen
Directed by the celebrated Ang Lee, the movie is adapted from the Daniel Woodrell novel Woe to Live on
. The story follows Daniel Rodell (Toby Maguire), a teen who joins a group of Kansas Irregulars in 1861. At its core, it’s a coming-of-age story, as Rodell fights his way through the war, losing family and friends until he finally ends the war on his own terms.
Sure, there’s a “love story” here, but it also offers a lot from a wargamers’ perspective. As it focuses on “irregular” cavalry operations, there are no set piece battles as in Glory or Gettysburg, but the skirmishes come across as quite authentic. And inspiring. I have this urge to go right out and buy some 28mm Civil war cavalry figures to do a skirmish game.
While I’m sure that the historical stickers among wargamers will (as usual) have a long laundry list of “errors” in the movie, there wasn’t anything that jumped out and ruined the movie for me (one critic I read pointed out that in that period, women didn’t’ have inseam pockets in their skirts—big deal). In particular, I loved the period language: formal and rather flowery by modern standards. While people may not have really spoken in that manner, it is right in keeping with the phrasing in period letters I have read.
If you haven’t seen it, I think you should seek this one out.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
LibriVox Free Audio Books
I’ve recently discovered the joys of MP3 players and audio books. I am, for example, currently listening to The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)
. Listening to audiobooks on the drive to work is a great way to maximize the increasingly scarce resource of time.
But audiobooks can get expensive. So that’s why I was delighted to find Libri Vox, a site with free audiobook downloads of classic works. There is an amazing variety of works, ranging from a biography of Jacques Cartier to Lady Chatterly’s Lover.
Of course, you don’t have to have an mp3 player to listen to the books. You can also use WinAmp or Windows Media player to listen from your computer.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Plustek OpticBook Flatbed Book Scanner
A couple of years ago I set out to reduce the size of he piles of books and magazines on my shelves by scanning them and converting them to pdf files. But I soon discovered that my flat scanner was not really up to the task. No matter how hard I pressed the pages against the scanner, the part of the page near the binding had a curvy distortion. What I really needed was one of those scanners designed for books. But those were far too expensive. So I gave up.
It looks like there’s a solution in the Plustek OpticBook scanner, though. For less than $300, it offers a scanning bed that extends to the very edge of the unit, allowing you to get a flat scan along the binding edge. Special softwre apparently also gets rid of the shadow effect. You can see the results from the Plustek website below. This is definitely on my short list of things to get and of projects to take on this summer.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Tekumel Miniatures
Professor M.A.R.Barker’s Tekumel has been lauded over the years as being the most original—and one of the most detailed—fantasy worlds ever conceived. It’s had a small, but rabid following extending back to the publicaiton of Empire of the Petal Throne by TSR in 1975. The main attraction of the world is that it is not based on the standard european fantasy archetypes.
I recall that there were some miniatures out for the game many years ago—and that they had a vaguely meso-american look—but I never picked any up.
Now, Eureka Miniatures of Australia is in the process of releasing a new line of Tekumel miniatures. They look fabulous—and unlike any fantasy figure you’ve yet seen. They would make a great army for HOTT or other generic fantasy system.
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About the Miniature Wargaming Hobby
Miniature Wargaming is part of the "adventure games" hobby, which includes r ole p laying and board games. Wargamers recreate battles on the tabletop with toy soldiers, like a more complicated game of chess. Models range in height from 6mm to 28mm tall, with 15mm and 25mm being the most popular. There also is a growing interest in toy soldiers and military models, such as the 1/32 and 1/35 scale plastic soldiers from Conte, and Marx.
The most popular miniature wargames are fantasy and science fiction based, such as Warhammer, Warhammer 40K, Warmachine and The Lord of the Rings. World War II games such as Flames of War and Axis and Allies are new favorites. Other favorite historical periods include Napoleonics, the American Civil War, and ancients, such as Romans or Greeks. Other gamers enjoy miniature naval wargames, recreating battles like Trafalgar, Jutland and the Coral Sea.
Hobbyists research historical periods and paint their tiny soldiers in accurate uniforms. Others develop "historically realistic" rules sets or build scale battlefield terrain using model railroad techniques.
For pictures, visit the gallery.
Some of the bigger hobby companies are Games Workshop, which produces Warhammer, Wargames Foundry and Old Glory Miniatures. Wizards of the Coast produces several lines of pre-painted miniatures games, such as the Star Wars and Dungeons and Dragons miniatures games, and a historical game with pre-painted miniatures: The new Axis and Allies game. Wizkids produces a fantasy collectable miniatures game, such as the Mage Knight and Heroclick fantasy games, the science fiction games MechWarrior and Rocketmen, as well as the quasi-historical Pirates of the Spanish Main.
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