Circle of Dar Janix

I have been thinking about mystery gaming recently. I am not usually much of a mystery reader, I loved Sherlock Holmes as a kid, but I tend towards science fiction. Obviously, as a lawyer, I have read many real life mysteries. I am not a criminal lawyer, and have no interest in practicing criminal law, but you don't get through law school without reading an awful lot of criminal cases.  Even though I do not have an interest in criminal law, the single best piece of advice I have ever read about being a lawyer came from a criminal law story. In Helter Skelter, Vince Bugliosi stresses the importance of a lawyer doing his/her own investigations. I try to follow this advice as much as possible in my professional life, and have yet to regret it. I consider Helter Skelter to be the best book about the legal profession ever written, it is a study in the application of rational thought and elbow grease.  As I have been thinking about a mystery game, I realized that I am not well versed in ...

I recently got to write a guest blog post for The Geek Parent about getting kids interested in science.

This week I have had a chance to game with my nephew again. It has been a couple of years since the last time we played D&D and he is 10 now. Obviously, his ability to understand and play the game has improved greatly since the last time we played. In the past we have played a very loose game of D&D, the Lord of the Rings Introductory Adventure Moria Box Set, and a few games of Descent. This time I broke out the Mentzer Red Box and adapted the solo game in the Players' Book for his use.  I added a little depth, I made the magic mouth be the spirit of a wizard trapped in the wall, the wizard's body was turned into the statue in the entry room. The statue's eyes had been made of diamonds, but the goblins living in the cave stole them. In his first, solo, foray into the dungeon he had a brief encounter with some goblins where he got surrounded and badly wounded. He managed to kill all but one of them and made it back to town with a bit of gold. When he started flashing...

I am going to have to delay the AGE Star Wars playtest due to gaining a life level this week, along with it comes the level title of "Parent". Our daughter threw us all a curve ball by coming at the very beginning of her due date period. I am not cancelling the playtest session just moving it back a week, possibly two (I work a schedule that gives me every other Friday off). I will have more information over the next few days. Everyone is healthy and adjusting well.

Quick update. I am still aiming for a game on Thursday the 26th using newbieDM's Star Wars AGE hack. The game will be set during the time period of Episode IV and will be a one shot. Players will not have to have knowledge of the rules, and pre-gen characters will be provided. I am planning an adventure that will be about two hours long to give us plenty of time to get the rules straight. I will be submitting my game proposal to ConstantCon either tomorrow or Wed.

I don't understand EA. They have in their possession, one of the most  infuential RPG developers in history, Bioware. I would say that in the history of computer RPGs (actual RPGs not Diablo-likes) the timeline basically flows from Origins to SSI to Bioware. If I were to pick a fourth, it would be Bethesda. EA not only owns Bioware, but also the Ultima series, probably the most influential RPG series in history. But EA does not seem to know how to make this all add up for some reason. While I was concerned about EA buying Bioware, since they have ruined so many great developers before, I was excited by the prospect that Bioware might bring us an Ultima game. It seems like the logical thing to do, Bioware is the clear heir to the style of gaming found in the Ultima series. Their games are about more than combat, and the choices you make really matter. But, of course, this is not what EA has done. Instead we got Dragon Age, now I realize that Dragon Age was in the works before EA bou...

Based on my research and some comments I have received, I am going to use Google Hangout to run a game. I also found Roll20 , a virtual tabletop that claims it integrates with Google Hangout that I would like to try. I am pretty sure that I am going to run a one-shot the first time, just to try things out. I am currently leaning towards using newbieDM's AGE Star Wars playtest for that game (but not necessarily for the ongoing game). I will provide pre-generated characters so we don't have to waste any time on character generation for a one shot. You will not have to know how to play AGE to play in the adventure. My current plan is to run the game on the evening of July 26th , Eastern Time. I plan to use ConstantCon to run and setup the game (thanks for the tip David). I will finalize my plan and make arrangements this weekend. The goals of this game will be to 1) have a good time, 2) meet some players, 3) test out the online gaming setup, 4) possibly test AGE Star Wars.