No Avatar, but lots of Christmas Fun!
Sadly, no Avatar for me today. I totally underestimated the demand to see the film on 11:50 on a Sunday, and so when we finally arrived, shows were sold out until 11pm! So, Tammy and I will have to wait until we get back from North Carolina to sit and watch it. (Tammy's family lives in a nice place, but I'm willing to bet money there isn't IMAX any closer than Raleigh.)
Still, it's a nice day. Tammy and I went out to Brunch with our usual group, and had a good time eating Sweet Potato Waffles (me) and Strawberry French Toast (her). We also got to hang out and chat with the usual folks, as well as Owen and Amanda, who don't show up as often as they should. Happily, this meant I could give Owne his secret Santa gift from me, which was some pick-a-brick Lego to help him with his Settlers of Catan Lego project, along with a gift card to get more. I also got some gifts, which was neat - a copy of The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines and a copy of Hammer Glamour by Marcus Hearn, which is a beautiful picture book of various Hammer Horror girls from their films in the 50's, 60's, and 70's. I forget which journal I heard of it from, but it's lovely. Tammy rolled her eyes a little at it, though.
It's been a fun week... with so many relatives outside of Denver, and with our own online purchases, it's been fun coming home every day to find packages waiting on the doorstep. Alongside gifts for xmas, there's a few things I ordered for my birthday that are showing up - Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd edition, Monsters and other Childish Things, Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies, Don't Lose Your Mind, and diaspora.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd edition looks really neat, with a bunch of cards and tokens and the like, as well as funky dice used for task resolution. Among other things, it's got an interesting way of dealing with task difficulty - instead of rolling against a task number, the GM indicates when various challenge or misfortune dice are added to the die pool, which have results on them that may negate the successes on other dice.
But, my eyes have been stolen from WFR by diaspora. This is a really neat hard science fiction roleplaying game based on the FATE system, and the whole thing's been very well put together. Faster than Light travel is impossible, except for strange slipknots - passages from star system to star system that sips can instataniously travel through. The players are starting in a local cluster of interconnected systems, which are created en masse between the players and the dice. Once the setting is worked out, the characters are generated as per the usual Fate rules, with aspects laying out what makes characters unique, with skills, and a few stunts. Stunts are more general and less spectacular than in Spirts of the Century (a previous FATE game), reflecting the more realistic nature of the game. Beyond that, there seems to be more on combat, space combat, and the like. I'm looking forward to reading through it.
