Getting Up To Date

Hello! So, what now? February Songaday is still a bit in the future, so not there yet. Instead, for the moment, you get my recent interests and a bit of info on what I've been doing for the past year.

Life) Graduated high school with great grades, entered college with scholarship, finished first semester with great grades again! Turned 18, still no driver's license. Uh, not much else is significantly different in life.
Actually, we just got pounded by major snowstorms in the Pacific Northwest here, lost a whole week of school which is major in J-Term (this thing our school does where we take a single course and plow through a whole semester in a single month). Also I'm awful sick :(


RPG) Well, I ceased playing D&D around May. Entirely. Our 3.5 game was stagnating for a number of reasons and we needed a change. Two of us (of five) are gone - One of us was never a real big member anyway, the other was but just grew tired of the kinda boring situation of our 3.5 game. When I brought us together soon for a new thing, I just couldn't get him back.
And so I started a new thing, a funny indie RPG from beyond the veil of the D&D mainstream. Lady Blackbird by John Harper. Super interesting, very cool setting, rock-solid mechanics and extremely different. It plays a lot more fast and loose, all rolls are done with a single resolution mechanic, all characters are pre-genned and the story's beginning is always the same. I did something a bit risky because I needed another player - I invited my brother to up our numbers. It turned out great. We played two sessions, and decided to try something else cool because I have quite a collection now and I want to play it all. Doing Lady B was the first time I've GMed in almost 2 years, so I was extremely pleased with how it went, and so were my players.
So just my two friends and I, not my brother, eventually get together for a game of Gregor Hutton's 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars. Well, sort of. I hacked it into a zombie game in the vein of Left 4 Dead, since we love those games and it was around Halloween. It was one of the most awesome things we've played in a long while, it inspired some awesome solid-roleplay, something I was worried about happening at all because the rules generally only cover combat. An incredible time, but we just did this as a one-shot.
Now my bro is back in and we're playing Dogs in the Vineyard by D. Vincent Baker. We've done one play session, and we had a bit of struggle thanks to it being so different. My villain was too black-and-white, one of my players is very used to a gung-ho "I attack" style of play and he almost got killed for it, and my maths were a little weird, but I think I know where I'm going with next time.
So we have a couple sessions of that still on the roster (probably 2 or 3 more towns), and then on to other stuff. We have a number of things on the roster to move to. A) Apocalypse World, also by Vincent Baker. Super-mega-awesome game, I want to PLAY in it rather than GM, but that's unlikely. If I must, I'll use the excellent Dungeon World instead, but I really want AW. B) Fiasco, by Jason Morningstar. A couple of playsets we could use, but especially LA 1913. This'll be our first GMless, and one of us is a huge noir fan and wants to try a noir-style RPG, so I'm thinking that one is good. C) Anything GMed by someone else. If anything, I'd start them with Lady Blackbird, since I find it very simple and natural to GM. Even our one never-before-GMed, never-shown-interest-in-GMing player has said that he'd be pretty cool for trying it out, which is beyond cool. D) Dresden Files RPG. Technically any FATE game (Spirit of the Century and Kerberos Club both look awesome) but I really like Dresden's iteration of the rules.
I have a number of other games, but those are the ones at the top of the list. I have Microscope as well, but I need to find the "game" in that if I want to use it as anything other than an amazing world-building exercise. The list'll grow faster than we can play, unfortunately. Always/Never/Now is looking mighty good. My other news for RPGs is that I'm planning on going to two cons this year, Go Play NW and PAX. More on them at a later date.

Oh yeah, I guess one other big thing is happening in the RPG world - D&D Next. I'm pretty involved on the Wizards website conversation for it, look for Egotist! I'm one of the ones super-eager for it and really want to sink my teeth into making it the best it can be.

Music) Well, now that I'm finally done talking about RPGs, recent music! I've been into modern game soundtracks and such a lot lately. I've been super-enjoying the Bastion and inMomentum soundtracks, and Zircon's Antigravity album. You'll see a lot more music when it comes to February Songaday. This'll be my second one, the first was September Songaday, and both of these will be mainlined on Kakariko Graveyard (http://kakariko-graveyard.invisionzone.com/Forum/index.php?act=idx). Sign up and join us, we're friendly folks! And you'll need to sign up to see my first Songaday. If you really don't care to register, just ask and I'll post my choices.

Art) I don't have any pieces in the pipeline right now, trying to find some cool inspiration. If you want to see some past stuff, feed my Deviantart pageviews (http://horn-head-o.deviantart.com/) or check me out on PixelJoint (http://www.pixeljoint.com/p/8297.htm).

Film) Well, I forgot to mention this but I've gotten quite into movies! Most recently I watched Ghost in the Shell, the original English dub. My first time seeing it, I loved it. I know, English dub, but yes, it was good. I want to see the original Japanese one.
Even after a year, I've got A Clockwork Orange and Schindler's List on my bedstand to watch. The former I'm still a bit scared to watch, the latter I just haven't been in quite the right mood. Not sure what's up next, will need to trawl Netflix some more.

Video Games) At last, games! Well, I seem to be playing a lot more recently. Playing lots and lots of Indie Games thanks to the Humble Bundles. Lovin' Bit.Trip tons, Blocks That Matter, Super Meat Boy, Binding of Isaac, etc. REALLY love VVVVVV. Want to get Bastion.
Also, been playing lots of 360. Currently playing Skyrim, against all my higher instincts. Honestly, I'm not impressed. The graphics stop looking good in anything other than a screenshot (other than water and the dragons, and for a game featuring dragons there's certainly not enough appearance variety). The locations all look the same generally and bore the hell out of me. Combat is nothing special at all, there's no significant motivation for any of the quests, the character models still suck quite a bit compared to many modern games, constant inventory management is a bitch, and aside from the main theme the soundtrack is pretty damn uninteresting. The pros for the game are a monstrous overworld full of exploring (though I never go IN anywhere, I just want to have all the places on my map unlocked) and the basic level-up system is different from a lot of games and is an intriguing prospect that could be explored more. Essentially, I'm playing the game to full achievements just to say I have, and it makes a great thing to do with my hands while I watch other stuff on Netflix.
Other games on the main burner are Dead Space (1 & 2, 1 is on a New Game+ and 2 is on a first run-through) and Mass Effect 2.

So, uh, that should be the gist of it all, bringing everything up to date. Should have a movies-post soonish with the Oscar nominations just come out, and hopefully I'll have RPG stuff soon (be it a report on my next DitV session, design work, or just prep for said DitV session).  Later folks. And for nostalgia's sake, I think I'll keep the outro.
End Recording,
Ego.