In Which I Nerd Out Shamelessly....

When I was a little girl there was a show on TV called Babylon 5. It took place in the later half of the 23nd century, and though humans now lived among the stars and become part of the galactic community, we were still a long way off from the utopia depicted in other space operas of the time (cough, Star Trek, cough, cough).

My parents loved B5, and it was a integral part of my very nerdy childhood. I remember devouring the series again 4 years ago when I borrowed the disks from my Mom, then I moved away and had to put that beloved universe back in my heart until I could afford the DVDs myself...or did I?

In Christmas of 2012 a trilogy of video games found their way under my tree. The series was called Mass Effect. Now at the time my husband had no idea what the games was about; all he knew was it had decent reviews and was made by the same company that had designed my, at that time, favorite immersive RPG: Dragon Age. It was cold in Northern New York so I popped in the first game to check it out. I had a hard time getting used to the game mechanics as I was not accustomed to playing shooters but after that I dove into the story...

It is the year 2183 and Humans are relative new commoners to the galactic community having only discovered Mass Relay technology in 2149, the Council has determined it may be time for a human to join the Special Tactics and Recon team (SpecTRe). Commander Shepard seems to be a prime candidate....

It wasn't until I had played through the entire series and then replayed the first and second games multiple times that I realized Mass Effect is my Generation's Babylon 5! Yes one is a television series and the other is a single player video game but stay with me...

Check this out: Only 75 Years separate the Start of B5 and the start of ME, in sci-fi terms they could practically be neighbors. Then there are other similarites (in no particular order):

• Humans are still relative newcomers in the galactic community but feel they should have a greater hand in galactic politics.
• Previous to the events of the story a war was fought between humans and an older space faring species because of First Contact gone horribly wrong: B5: Earth/Minbari War, ME: First Contact War
• Humans are now allies with their former enemies in the aforementioned War: Humans and Minbari work together on the Babylon Project; the Normandy, Shepard's Ship, is a state of the art prototype of Turian and Human design.
• Unified Earth Government: Earth Alliance, Human Systems Alliance
• Hardware assisted FTL travel: Jump Gates/points; Mass Relays
• Humans share the bulk of leadership/ power with 3 unique Races: B5: Minbrai, Centari, Narn; ME; Asari, Turian, Salarian
• Marginalized and feared minority: Telepaths, AI/Geth
• There are more than 4 Races in the story and the "minor" races are fully fleshed out and explored
•  Older race(s) that meddled with the younger races: Vorlons/Shadows, Protheans/Reapers
• Semi autonomous peacekeeping force: Rangers/ Spectres
• Super Shady Human organization with its own agenda: PsiCorps/ Nightwatch, Cerberus
• Hero falls in love with member of previous enemy Race: Sheridan/Delen, FemShep/Garrus (this last one is not universal to the series but is part of my personal canon so I included it)

Wow there are a lot more of those than I expected!!!  Well I am off to play some Mass Effect. Hope you all enjoy this piece of fluff. Happy N7 Day and Live Life in Color

Grown Ups Play Pretend

Do you remember when you were a kid and you would tie your blanket around your neck, grab a stick from the yard and spend the entire afternoon fighting monsters, discovering far away lands and having amazing adventures until the sun began to sink and your Mom told you it was time to come inside? If you had siblings or other kids in the neighborhood, the adventures were usually a shared story with every kid bringing something unique to the story. Then we all hit puberty and found out that make believe was no longer considered "cool" and put our blankets back on the bed.

I Recently discovered a great way to capture the wonderful group storytelling experience that is great for anyone old enough to roll a dice and add and subtract some numbers...Tabletop Role Playing Games. We are living in an amazing era of TRPG innovation that appeals to the little kid in all of us. From Classic d20 systems Like Pathfinder, GURPs and Dungeons and Dragons to the new d6 systems like the Adventure Game Engine that is the backbone of Wil Wheaton's new web series Titansgrave to even looser story driven games like Fiasco, Dread, and Baron Munchausen; if you have ever wanted to get a group of friends together to fight monsters, and tell a great story there has never been a better time.

Earlier this year when Geek and Sundry launched their Twitch programming I tuned in to check out their D&D show called Critical Role. The show stars nine voice actors who agreed to share their weekly D&D campaign with the world. Previous to this I had only had one experience with the game. I was in high school and I had sat in on the campaign that my boyfriend was playing in. They gave me a name, race and a class, no character sheet, no dice. I was basically and NPC controlled by a person, it was not very fun. But the Crit Role crew had fun even though their shows ran for 2-3 hours and they were "performing" for thousands of geeks on the internet. I wondered what the would be like to sit down with friends and tell a winding neverending story. My normal tabletop group didn't even like video game rpgs and had no interest in looking into the tabletop version. So I went onto the wizards of the coast website and found a local game shop that hosted weekly game sessions.

That first night I was so nervous, I remembered my previous session and how all the people there had been mean about my lack of game knowledge and condescending when they had to explain "simple" game rules to me. What if that happened tonight? Oh well, I said to that nagging inner voice, trying and failing was far better than never trying. As it turned out my fears were completely unnecessary. I walked in and was warmly greeted by the clerk behind the counter,a positive sign. I told him I was there for D&D and that I had no idea what I was doing. He took me over to a game table and introduced me to a Dungeon Master. John, the DM, patiently helped me build a character while other party members began to filter in. He suggested since I was a fan of video game RPGs that I build a character similar to the type I liked to play on my Xbox. I built a dual wielding Wood Elf Rogue and named her Kethry after my favorite Mercedes Lackey character. Then it was time to play.

That night I drew first blood for my party against some enemy lizardfolk. I met Boomer a Wizard very obsessed with fire, to the point of burning most of the enemies and the tavern above the basement we were fighting in. I also met Squid, the cleric of Gond who tried to convert enemies in the middle of battle. Over the next few weeks I got to know the rest of my adventuring companions: Imotech the warforged (robot) wizard with delusions of being a Necron (Warhammer 40K), SnapJaw the NPC lizardfolk that served as our guide through marshes and was Boomer's familiar/apprentice, Falae the ex-dragon cult druid with and axe to grind with Cult we were hunting (she changed into a drake during battle), Mira the Catfolk thief, Daveth Bouey the self important Elf Bard, and lastly Faram a half Elf Druid played my own Marco who joined the game a few weeks after I did.

Over the course of the next two and half months we fought slavers, a black acid dragon, tracked the cult of the Dragon to one of their bases, incited a riot among the cult's Lizardfolk serfs (thank you SnapJaw). And performed a myriad of shenanigans along the way. Mira made of with a bag of holding with 500,000 platinum. Falea left the party with her new drake pet to live free in the wild. And Daveth attacked the party in a fit of pique that resulted in his own death. Boomer also burned down a couple of barracks and stables. We were joined by another warforged, a cleric named Altrumeada. She was joined by a bird folk named Brock (who hated birds and did not realize he was one). We continued to track the Cult and made a tenuous alliance with a rebellious cult member. We met a Tiefling Barbarian who liked to hit things and decided to join us since we seemed to like to hit things. Boomer burned down another tavern. We arrived at a Cloud Giant's Castle and fought the Cult Leader we had been tracking. The Cloud Giant was so impressed with our skills he asked for our help in defeating the white ice dragon in his basement. As the dragon fell at the end of the battle, the DM closed his reference book "...and that is the end of this adventure, you are all level 8...the next adventure begins in the city of Waterdeep."

As I leveled my character and looked into what new skills I would learn and thought on how Kethry would spend her cut of the dragon's hoard, my eyes settled on the 5th edition Starter Set I had purchased to start my dungeon master studies. My thoughts wandered to my original story telling companions. 5 of the most imaginative minds I have ever met and whose stories I never tire of hearing. I am going home this year for Christmas and I desperately want to introduce my siblings to this beautiful story telling game that has led me to many new friends and amazing amounts of fun. I even found an online tabletop interface that would allow us to continue playing after I return home. 

So what do you think sibs and sibs adjacent should we roll initiative and put our story caps back on?

GIF Hard G vs Soft G, Codename: Clickbait

I am trying to get into the habit of writing and blogging more. I used to think that a blog had to be profound and meaningful; or a spectacular piece of prose. That is not always the case. While I do want my blog to be a good one and have great content, I am realizing I cannot get to that level without constantly writing and posting. As my blog and depression management sensei Wil Wheaton would say "focus on making a thing rather than a good thing" (paraphrased from an episode of Where's My Burrito). So this week's thing is a divisive topic that I happen to find ridiculously entertaining. For those of you looking for an honest critique of the title subject, please move along, this is a humor piece.

Disclaimer: I am NOT a graphic designer or web developer. I have never created and gif file and I have no understanding of how the file works.

My extensive research on the subject of the GIF file format consisted of my opening wikipedia and reading the article entitled GIF. From that I learned the following things:

• GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format
• GIF was devolped by Steve Wilhite and introduced by CompuServe in 1987
• Animated GIF capability was introduced in 1989 (this is the type of GIF that tumblr really likes)
• GIF has been recognized as both a noun and a verb

And lastly

• No one can seem to agree on how to pronounce the format abbreviation

This last point is the one that I find to be the most entertaining. Apparently Mr. Wilhite and Co. referred to it as "Jif" as an in joke on the popular American peanut butter, "choosy developers choose Jif." Unfortunately not everyone in the world got the joke and instead started using the hard G sound (you know as in Graphics). And thus a feud was born. According to the wikipedia article this war has involved 3 different dictionary publishers, the White House and Jeopardy! All I can do is sit back and smile while asking the question: WHY?

Something that literally comes down to "potaytoe, potawtoe" is getting top billing in flame wars all across the internet. When we have so many other important things to debate like internet censorship, net neutrality, and which actor was the best Batman. Why are we wasting our precious internet rage on the pronunciation of something we RARELY talk about in the real world? The world may never know.

In conclusion thank you for reading my thing. If you liked it consider subscribing, if not that's cool too.

Live Life in Color

P.S. I will not respond to comments asking me which side of this issue I am on. As I said the argument is silly and therefore I have no opinion ;)

For the Love of Making a Thing

I can't sleep. I am to excited for tomorrow. It is International TabelTop Day and I will be getting my gamer geek on all day (with the exception of a short 4 hour period when I must earn a living). During my fight with insomnia I pulled up Geek and Sundry's Twitch Channel. I did not expect the stream to be active, I was just going to watch some older broadcasts until I was sleepy. What I saw instead was moving and transportive.

G&S Twitch channel is managed by an amazing talent named Zac Eubanks. He and his brother run all of the back end of broadcasting 12 different programs 5 days a week with the occasional help of a small army of interns. Tomorrow the channel is hosting an all day live stream extravaganza for TableTop Day. It is 11:35 PDT where the G&S studio is located and after a full day of streaming Friday's programming from 4pm-10pm PDT Zac and Lucas are still at the G&S set setting up for tomorrow. They have left the stream active with no audio except for a playlist of music. Insomniacs in the U.S. and enthusiasts in other time zones are getting a special glimpse into the back end of what goes into production. For me it is not without a certain level nostalgia and a heavy dose of respect.

I Have spent many late nights in a quiet workshop or on an empty set getting ready for the production that is soon approaching. I have no doubt that these two guys will be up into the wee hours of the morning testing and retesting every system, and cord connection. They will re adjust the tables and chairs, smooth out table cloths, and remove scuff marks from the floor. They may not make it home tonight; they may crash from exhaustion at the set a mere few hours before the event starts tomorrow at 10 am PDT. They will be caffeinated and still exhausted as they manage the largest project they have taken on in the short 4 weeks since the channel went live. But at the end of it all the will high five each other and their other helpers and they will look on this experience as good, and wonderful and will begin to look forward to next year. Why? Because of the love of the work.

In theatre, in tv, in movies, and especially in the world of live broadcast entertainment you cannot work if you do not love it. The hours are too long and the pay is too low for anyone who does not truly love and believe in what they are doing to stick around. Zac and the rest of the Geek and Sundry crew are proving every day that today's world does not belong to the richest or the loudest. It belongs to those who make things and love the things they make so much that they keep making and sharing the things they make. 

Whether it is a cool web video, a new video game, a unique tabletop game, a sculpture, a story, a comic strip, or a tie dyed shirt. The world belongs to the makers and creators in our world. so please everyone who reads this, go make a thing. Because creating and making improves us all as whole. Make a story, make game, make a friend, make a memory, make an experience. Then share it. Lets fill the world with great made things. 
Live Life in Color 
(p.s. be sure to play some games and have a happy TableTop Day)