Penny Arcade

Dollhouse is not an enjoyable television program.

It’s true that I’ve used a hypertext reference to link the word “Dollhouse” directly to a place where you can watch the show, but you should not interpret this as a recommendation.  Being truly granular about what makes the show an affront would require the use of holographic data storage, but in general terms the show (as delivered) doesn’t work.  There’s plenty of people to hate, and very few people to like.  It’s a science fiction retelling of MTV’s The Real World, and it works about as well as you would expect.

What we are told by people (almost without exception) is that

1.  I don’t like the show, but
2.  I will keep watching it as an expression of gratitude for a better, more engaging program he made back when he was making better, more engaging programs

which as a system of thought doesn’t work for me.  His acolytes are breathless for the show to reach apotheosis, like some scheming cult awaiting a fortuitous celestial arrangement.  It’s core to their belief:  it’s even woven into the press tour, the idea that the show isn’t bad because it’s bad.  It because some malevolent, external force corrupted the perfect work.  Well, man was ever beset by devils, within and without.  Maybe don’t enter into scenarios where you’re contractually obligated to jettison your creative vision anymore?  I’m just throwing that shit out, dog.  

Maybe it does improve, as foretold in the ancient scrolls.  That doesn’t mean I have to watch this lurching, stymied thing stagger around in the interim.  There are other things I can do with my Goddamned television.

(CW)TB out.  

if there was a me for you

We’ve got a couple conventions coming up here pretty soon. Tycho and I will be at Emerald city as well as Sakuracon, both of which are in April. I’m working on an exclusive poster that I’m hoping the Sakuracon crowd will appreciate.

I’m not a huge anime fan but making this poster was a fun challenge. When I was a kid I used to watch it all the time, but back then it was called Japanimation. My local video rental place had Bubblegum Crisis, Appleseed and Vampire Hunter D so I just kept watching those over and over again. I certainly went through an anime phase with my art becasue of those films but it didn’t last long. This poster was a fun opportunity to go back to that style.

I’ve been looking into a bunch of different options for creating maps and dungeons to be used with my D&D game. I tried some 3D papercraft terrain from Worldworks. I was super impressed with the quality of the designs but the time it took me to construct even one dugeon was just ridiculous. I spent an entire weekend cutting and gluing together one cave. The result was awesome and my players loved it but I just don’t have the time to keep that up. Dungeon tiles are great but keepin them organized and sorting through them is a pain. Also as I mentioned before they don’t work with the pre-written adventures like Thunderspire Mountain. Recently I’ve been using the Cartographers Guild forum. These guys take the time to design really great looking maps that you can print out yourself. These are cool and functional but I’ve still been searching for 3D ideas.

This morning I discovered the Dwarven Forge. The pictures of the terrain are pretty amazing and I don’t doubt that they are worth the high price. My only problem is that I don’t uderstand how they are supposed to work with D&D. They are gorgeous but they don’t have a grid built into them. Can anyone explain to me how you handle grid based movement using this kind of set up?

Finally I want to thank SOE and all the EQ and EQ2 players for their supoert of Child’s Play. By purchasing a virtual Child’s Play item using SOE’s in game Station Cash players managed to raise $20,000 for Child’s Play. Gamasutra has some more info.

-Gabe out