Orbital Lance

The Fate Roll: Handling Initiative In A Split Party

I had a curious situation this last Tuesday: I had a 3.5 gaming group where nearly every player had a character who would be in an entirely different place, doing different (though related) things at the same time.  I wasn’t sure how best to handle this… my instinct said that they should just roll initiative, but initiative wasn’t really a good story-excuse for ordering; initiative is about who…

A Cup of Kindness Yet…

I’ve not actually checked, but I’m sure this title is being used by lots of people writing blog posts today.  You probably recognize it from the chorus of Auld Lang Syne, though I actually wanted to run with a lesser known line from the second verse.  Sadly, “Surely you’ll buy your pint cup, and surely I’ll buy mine” is kind of long for a title.  Plus I don’t buy pints, but I doubt anyone’d fact…

Weird thought: how many Indie Games exist because of the popularity of Indie Games? I mean, naturally, it feels like that should happen.  People realize that they don’t need to be part of a big video game organization to make video games, and set out to make their own, so sure, there’d be more games. But on the other hand? I sometimes feel like some Indie Games are meant specifically to hit the…

One Week To Finality

There’s a lot of talk right now about the Electors “doing their job” and working together to prevent Donald Trump’s potential presidency from becoming a certainty.  Lots of people, on both sides, have strong opinions on this.  I, personally, support the Electors opposing Donald Trump, but I want to clarify that this isn’t something to do lightly. While it’s true that we have had Faithless…

Ghostbusters 2016 In Review

Ugh, what title to use… “Ain’t Afraid Of No Reboots”?  No… “Blockbusters Make Me Feel Good”?  No…  “Who Ya Gonna-“… oh, hi there!  Sorry, wasn’t quite ready, I was… I couldn’t think of a good title.  I’m just gonna… let’s just start the review. Ghostbusters 2016 might not have been the most anticipated film of the year, but it was definitely one of the most talked about, and a lot of that talk…

Dandar Dexdrer, I Dresume?

Can’t remember as much of it as I’d like, but I wanted to share this dream o’ mine. I was looking for someone.  Dexdrer was his last name, eventually, but I can’t remember anything about the first name except it starter with D (Dander, as mentioned in the title, is as close to it as I remember.  I went to brush my teeth saying the name to myself so I wouldn’t forget it, but stopped saying it to…

My Letter to Sony

I don’t really follow music news, and I admit that I don’t keep up to date with modern music trends, but the news about Kesha’s trial to be allowed to not work with someone who’s sexually abused her upsets me. And while I might not listen to Sony’s music, I do watch Sony’s TV shows, buy Sony’s movies, occasionally play Sony’s video games, use Sony electronics… there’s a lot of Sony on the market.…

We've got MOVIE SIGN! MST3K's gonna get an 11th season, and I'm giddy.

Just look at that.  It’s a beautiful sight.  (A beautiful sight that Twitter user Stephen P, AKA @dim_halo has allowed me to use here.  Thanks for sharing the screenshot, Stephen!) There’s a lot of talk about this.  Most positive, some negative.  And there are worries… I’m worried that the show will be too “polished” and won’t actually be the same slapdash performance that I like.  I’m worried…

Back To The Future Day Movie Synchronization Guide

So!  You’re a big fan of Back To The Future AND its sequels.  You’ve read Ryan North’s hilarious B to the F summary of the bizarre novelization of the first movie, you’ve laughed and cried to Telltale’s epic Back To The Future: The Game, and you’ve got Doc Brown’s science facts from the end of the episodes of the cartoon saved on VHS.  Maybe you even snagged one of the rare samples of Pepsi…

Herein lies my review of Windows 10's most important feature! #Solitaire #Windows10

So, Windows 8 had one little feature that was better than Windows 10 that I’d like to mention: Windows 8 sort of let you know over time that it had downloaded updates, and gave you chances to install those updates on your own schedule, while Windows 10 (according to some friends) just springs updates on you, ready or not.  I’ve not experienced this yet on the Windows 10 side of things, but I…

Paragon Chat Half-Week Report

Okay, I know I’ve done a lot of these posts lately, but I’m very excited.  Half a week into Paragon Chat and it feels nice. Full disclosure: we don’t have travel powers yet, so you’re slowly walking everywhere when you’re not teleporting between zones.  Also, you won’t have full access to emotes unless you manually alter your own emote files. Having said all that… it’s awesome.  For readers of…

Sometime tonight, the City of Heroes community is expected to release Paragon Chat, a social chat program that uses the City of Heroes game’s code as a platform for socialization, role playing, and just re-experiencing all the joys of the City of Heroes world.  There’s no enemies to fight or missions to take, but the world will be brought back to something like its former glory.  If you’ve read…

“Your primitive Earth Internet is no match for the mental might of The Soul Survivor!  I have breached time and space itself to congratulate you on reading through one hundred episodes of Three Virellium Coins, the chronicle of my assured victory over Captain Andrew Ortega, The Astroguard, and all of civilization itself!  Hear this broadcast of the future of the Galaxy!  From the Angelor Republic…

As a warning, this particular blog post is going to talk about science, religion, arguably politics, and other things that have nothing to do with the TV Show shown above, though I may mention it at some point.  Don’t confuse it with the historic event of the same name if that happens, though, and vice versa.  I’ll try to keep this as lighthearted as I can, but people have a lot of painful issues…

I want to be clear about one thing in this week’s Magical Mondays, one important thing before we get to the fun stuff: this is not an article about punishing power gamers, theoretical optimizers, rules lawyers, or even Munchkins. Individuals within these groups may feel punished if you use what’s in here, but the goal is NOT to punish them; in fact, if the game stops being Fun for them, I…