The Michlin Guide has nominated Halfway Station and others for a Sunshine Blogger Award; I didn't know about those, but apparently this is "peer recognition to bloggers who bring positivity, joy and creative content to the blogging world". Goodness. Well, that is very pleasing; thank you Shelby! I'm glad you enjoy it.
This manifests itself as Shelby posing questions for me to answer, and then me nominating other blogs and posing questions to them. Let's be about it.
Q&A
Q1: What method of passive entertainment do you spend the most time with? I.e. reading, movies, episodic series, games. Why? What makes it so much better than the others?
A1: Reading, definitely. It broadens the mind, entertains, and distracts me from periodic bouts of curmudgeonly grumpiness. My diet is split between hard copy, ebooks, and audiobooks, and includes a lot of gaming materials.
Q2: What are your three favorite genres? I.e. Action/Adventure, Horror, Mystery, Crime, Drama, Musical, Comedy, Science Fiction, Fantasy, whatever. Give me a few examples of your faves within the three genres you picked.
A2: Only three? With examples? Well, in that case:
- SF: The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester; Babel-17 by Samuel R Delaney; The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold; Accelerando by Charles Stross; The Winds of Gath by EC Tubb. See also Appendix N.
- Fantasy: Let's take Conan and LOTR as read; The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch; The Dying Earth quartet by Jack Vance.
- Non-Fiction: Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond; Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal; Factfulness by Hans Rosling.
Q3: Consume entertainment socially or solo, and why?
A3: Mostly solo; my location and availability aren't compatible with social entertainment consumption.
Q4: Why do you write a blog anyway?
A4: Writing for an audience helps me frame and clarify my thoughts, it's a low-effort creative outlet, and hopefully it's interesting or entertaining for my readers.
Q5: Other than writing a blog, what are your creative outlets these days?
A5: Sadly, gaming and writing a blog about that are pretty much it. I used to play guitar, but my fingers aren't up to that any more.
Q6: What's your stance on “AI” use in creative fields?
A6: Ambivalent. Like a lot of contemporary life, it's ethically questionable, but it's convenient for some use cases and increasingly hard to avoid.
Q7: It's time to make your own movie, whatever you want. Who is your dream cast (at any age)? IE younger Marlon Brando, older Al Pacino.
A7: I think Earl Dumarest should have a series of movies. I'd start by making The Winds of Gath, with this main cast: 1980s Harrison Ford as Earl Dumarest. Late 1990s Arnold Vosloo as Cyber Dyne. Contemporary Scarlett Johansson as the Matriarch of Kund; might have to add some wrinkles in makeup for that. Contemporary Karen Gillan as the Lady Seena. 2000s Ben Kingsley as Brother Benedict. 1980s John Lithgow as Prince Emmened.
Q8: What is your favorite era for use as a setting in a creative project, either as a creator or a consumer? IE 1920s Chicago, French Revolution, Republican Rome. Why?
A8: The future, as imagined by Golden Age SF (which for me is the 1940s to 1970s); because it has hope, optimism, and a frontier to explore. We seem to have lost all of those lately; or maybe I'm just getting old.
Q9: You're holding an “expense is no object” extravaganza of a party, which five celebrities must be on your guest list? Tell me the funniest thing that happened at that party.
A9: Sandra Bullock, Henry Cavill, Anna Kendrick, Viggo Mortenson, Keanu Reeves. Viggo turns up with some roadkill and wants to start a fire in the garden so he can cook it and eat it. (If you know, you know.)
Q10: It's your birthday and you can have any live music you want, living or dead and at any age, because you're rich and famous and everybody loves you and this is a fantasy. Who do you get to perform?
A10: Slade as they were in 1980 live at the Reading Festival. There are better bands technically, there is better music, but the energy and good vibes at that gig were the best I ever saw.
Q11: Change the ending of any well-known story, from any medium. Which one, and how? Example, Hamlet: nobody dies, and only the bad guys are punished. King Hamlet the Younger and Queen Ophelia rule happily ever after because they are neither borrowers nor lenders. Polonius is proud.
A11: Star Wars. No additional movies are made after 1983; only Episodes IV, V and VI exist. I might unbend far enough to allow Rogue One and Andor to exist.
Nominations
I don't actually read that many blogs on a regular basis, but I nominate:
- From Poland to America for the writeups of a Twilight: 2000 game I wish I'd played in. (I have happy memories of working in Łódź in the real world.)
- Seed of Worlds for the analyses of gaming data.
- the180fantasyproject for the brick maps and general pulpiness.
- Uncanny Worlds for the solo game reports.
My Questions for Nominees
- Why did you start blogging, and why do you keep doing it?
- Why did you choose the blogging platform that you use?
- Why a blog, rather than a YouTube channel or a podcast?
- What are your favourite games and gaming genres, and why?
- What game is criminally overlooked and should be more widely played? Why?
- What RPG mechanic should be more widely known and used?
- You're suddenly placed in charge of your favourite game and can make any changes to it you like, money is no object. What's the game, and what are the changes?
- You assemble your dream team of RPG authors to work together on a game, setting and campaign tailored just for you. Money is no object, so it can have any components you like. Who are the authors? Describe the game they produce.
- What is the best size, or size range, for a gaming group?
- What are your main interests outside gaming and blogging?
Well earned, Andy.
ReplyDeleteI would have added The Mandalorian. But 1-3... I like, but they didn't improve the story. And 7-9 were... all over the place and muddled. I liked parts, but not enough to want it the same way as I do for 4-6 (aka the original 3). Really, the best one was Rogue One.
Just for my own amusement, I'll (without offending I hope) answer two of the questions you sent back to the folks that gave you your aware:
Q: You're suddenly placed in charge of your favourite game and can make any changes to it you like, money is no object. What's the game, and what are the changes?
A: Traveller. I'd want them to give me the good parts of MegaTraveller (the task system, robots joining, great art) and the DGP stuff was never decanonized. I'd also made them to create a decent space battle game that isn't just for fleets and huge vessels. Something like a cross between Mayday (the boxed set) and Brilliant Lances (from TNE). I'd have At Close Quarters for the boarding system but just buffed up to cover more of the stuff that didn't show in that small booklet from B.I.T.S. . Would have demanded no assassination, a fizzled assassination (G:T version), or the other version from Bill Cameron which was the Wounded Colossus. I'd have given a roll of Traveller players from the start - a bit about them, and where they are now. I'd also fix the spelling of vacuum suit instead of the bizarre vacc(uum) suit. Also they'd made enough money that they didn't have to go into big box book sellers and thus GDW was still going.
Q: You assemble your dream team of RPG authors to work together on a game, setting and campaign tailored just for you. Money is no object, so it can have any components you like. Who are the authors? Describe the game they produce.
A: Team: Andy Slack, Marc Miller, Dave Nielsen, Loren Wiseman, Frank Chadwick, George Lucas, Bryan Gibson, Steve Jackson, and Timothy Collison (the Traveller librarian), Joshua Bell (TravellerMap) and P-O “BeRKA” Bergstedt (from the Zhodani Base). We'd include some of the crew of the Rocinante (Expanse), some from Blake 7, the crew of Serenity, all of the crew of the Razza (Dark Matter) because as the game folks would be building a great SF game, the others would be preparing the series of movies and streaming with those actors. It would be closer to AD 2300 / Traveller 2300 but less old-history and more expansion like we see in The Expanse.
why, thank you! tc
DeleteGo for it! I like the idea of making movies in parallel, I hadn't thought of that!
DeleteDang, I LOVE your Dumarest movie!
ReplyDeleteThank ye kindly for the nomination!
ReplyDeleteThe Twilight 2000 campaign was both my longest ever, and most sustained writing topic ever.
Greatly appreciated, thank you very much!
ReplyDelete(It goes without saying, should you stumble across any gaming data troves, happy to be pointed at them)