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51
Call of Cthulhu / World of Darkness / Re: Call of Cthulhu RPG Journal
« Last post by Max_Writer on March 01, 2018, 12:58:32 AM »
Things are happening in Yellow Flats in the Arizona Territory.  A group of prisoners has recently escaped when something strange was found in the mine they were working in.  Then, a drifter comes to town.

On February 25, I ran the first official session of the Down Darker Trails campaign.  "The Evil Gun" by Kevin A. Ross with Lynn Willis from Blood Brothers 2 was the first session of The Catastrophe Engine campaign and saw a large group of investigators meeting in Yellow Flats for various reasons.

The role playing journals of the game session can be found here:

http://www.yog-sothoth.com/blog/172/entry-3287-the-evil-gun-part-1-strange-times-in-yellow-flats/

http://www.yog-sothoth.com/blog/172/entry-3286-the-evil-gun-part-2-the-drifter-comes-to-town/

http://www.yog-sothoth.com/blog/172/entry-3285-the-evil-gun-part-3-walking-corpses-and-the-bank-robbery/

http://www.yog-sothoth.com/blog/172/entry-3284-the-evil-gun-part-4-dealing-with-the-drifter/

Additionally, a playlist of eight videos and a highlights video of the game session can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLonZ7fuFAFDpvdiBhLXVJ3DXBKEwAKzat

Players were:

John Leppard as Lambert Otto (gunslinger)
Collin Townsend as Wilder (mountain man)
Yorie Latimer as Brandon Stalloid (scholar)
Austin Davie as Father Peter Bishop (Catholic Priest)
Kyle Matheson as Clayton Pierce (Federal marshal)
James Brown as Jack West (gunslinger)
Ashton LeBlanc as Eva Weisswald (physician)
Ben Abbott as Jacali (Apache scout)
Ambralyn Tucker as Gemma Jones (singer)
52
General Chaos / Re: Best Internet Vidyas
« Last post by CADmonkey on February 22, 2018, 06:27:14 PM »
Dun Dun Dun, Dun Dudun Dun Dudun!

<a href="" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win"></a>
53
Call of Cthulhu / World of Darkness / Re: Call of Cthulhu RPG Journal
« Last post by Max_Writer on February 20, 2018, 08:01:34 PM »
When John Valentine and his gang escape from a prison train taking them to San Francisco, four people meet to try to figure out who helped him.  It leads them to valley in the Nevada hills and terrible things.

On February 18, I ran the prologue to the upcoming Down Darker Trails campaign.  Ill Met in the West was a short scenario to start out The Catastrophe Engine campaign and sees the first strangeness in American West of 1875.

The role playing journal of the game session can be found here:

http://www.yog-sothoth.com/blog/172/entry-3283-ill-met-in-the-west/

Additionally, a playlist of four videos and a highlights video of the game session can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLonZ7fuFAFDqKKLGRXJiBzdRoSns5Ezo5

Players were:

Collin Townsend as Wilder (mountain man)
Ashton LeBlanc as Eva Weisswald (physician)
Yorie Latimer as Brandon Stalloid (scholar)
Ben Abbott as Jacali (Apache scout)
54
Call of Cthulhu / World of Darkness / Re: Call of Cthulhu RPG Journal
« Last post by Max_Writer on February 13, 2018, 07:28:42 PM »
Tommy Hill is a vampire.  Morris Vanzant is a vampire.  Christopher St. Jordan, the outsider, is probably behind it all. Can a group of 15-year-olds stave off the plague of vampirism that is sweeping the tiny town of Sanguis, Alabama, in the summer of 1929?  Or will they be too late?

On February 11, I ran the third and final session of the original Call of Cthulhu one-shot “What Rough Beast …”  Role playing journals of the game can be found here:

http://www.yog-sothoth.com/blog/172/entry-3281-what-rough-beast-session-three-part-1-tommy-hill-returns/
http://www.yog-sothoth.com/blog/172/entry-3280-what-rough-beast-session-three-part-2-billys-the-best/
http://www.yog-sothoth.com/blog/172/entry-3279-what-rough-beast-session-three-part-3-bennett-farm-murder/
http://www.yog-sothoth.com/blog/172/entry-3278-what-rough-beast-session-three-part-4-the-attic-massacre/

Additionally, a playlist of eight videos of the game session and a highlights video tomorrow can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLonZ7fuFAFDrhGI-KOHRwHnnrvEsrnZuo

Players were:

Kyle Matheson as Theodore "Teddy" Sanderson (future author)
Austin Davie as Michael Slayton (future boxer/wrestler)
John Leppard as Richard Messer (future military officer)
Yorie Latimer as Billy Hicks (future gangster)
Ambralyn Tucker as Ella-Marie Slayton (future athlete)
Ben Abbott as Jebediah Pleasant (future antique dealer)
55
RPGs / Re: Freaky Architectural Stuff for Ruin
« Last post by CADmonkey on February 08, 2018, 08:02:02 AM »
On modern architecture, and perceptions & attitudes towards it and how those concepts have changed over time, I went to a lecture at the CCA a couple of weeks ago, and a video is now online:

<a href="" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win"></a>

Quote
Author and critic Owen Hatherley presents and comments on a television broadcast of Open University course A305, for contemporary eyes and ears. The episode, “English Flats of the Thirties,” juxtaposes two housing schemes, one in London and one in Leeds, one public and one private, one modelled on the monumental mass housing of Red Vienna and one on the ideas of Le Corbusier. Looking at how these buildings were perceived in the 1970s, Hatherley reflects both on the changing reputation of modernist mass housing and attitudes toward working class housing and the architectural avant-garde. Why did one of the buildings become “iconic” and get preserved, while the other was demolished?

Hatherley is the author of books including Militant Modernism (2009), A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain (2009), and Uncommon (2011), about the pop group Pulp. He has contributed to publications including Building Design, The Guardian, Icon, Jacobin, London Review of Books, New Humanist, New Statesman, Socialist Review, and Socialist Worker.

The CCA currently has an exhibition on, The University Is Now on Air: Broadcasting Modern Architecture, which looks at one of the courses of the British Open University project: A305, History of Architecture and Design, 1890–1939 and they invited Hatherley to comment on an episode of the course broadcasts.  If you're interested in modernist architecture and how people's concept of it have changed over time, this is worth an hour of your time.

The CCA also has broadcast from that Open University course on their youtube channel: A305, History of Architecture and Design 1890–1939.  They're quite interesting on their own, with studies of a number of modern architects and buildings.  And videos from the exhibition are also online: The University Is Now on Air / L'université à l'antenne, for anyone interested in the Open University's experiment in higher education.

Edit A few things I forgot to mention: Hatherley mentions the documentary The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, I can't recall if I've mentioned it on this forum, but it's an absolute must-see for anyone who has opinions on public housing and modernist architecture.  Hartherley also mentions that this was his first trip to Canada, and he made a brief tour of Montréal and was fairly impressed by the Metro.  He also made a side trip to my home town of Ottawa, where he was less impressed with some of our architecture. :)

Edit the Second  A "Freaky Architectural Stuff" tweet I forgot to mention: Hatherley found the high-rise from David Cronenberg's Shivers (which he considers to be the best adaptation of J.G. Ballard's High-Rise) in Montréal.
56
RPGs / Re: Freaky Architectural Stuff for Ruin
« Last post by CADmonkey on February 08, 2018, 07:15:57 AM »
Quote from: clockworkjoe on February 08, 2018, 02:23:51 AM
hahaha yeah, i found out shipping containers are shit as structure components at some point during the brutalist campaign. Oh well, i guess they are more viable in a zombie apocalypse because steel is stronger than zombie claws.
They can make sense if you're cut off from other sources of steel and have a surplus of containers.
57
RPGs / Re: Freaky Architectural Stuff for Ruin
« Last post by clockworkjoe on February 08, 2018, 02:23:51 AM »
hahaha yeah, i found out shipping containers are shit as structure components at some point during the brutalist campaign. Oh well, i guess they are more viable in a zombie apocalypse because steel is stronger than zombie claws.
58
General Chaos / Re: What Wargames are you playing?
« Last post by clockworkjoe on February 07, 2018, 03:14:08 AM »
Renee has a Japanese army.  We keep up with new K47 developments via their Facebook group, which posts pics of new sculpts etc on a regular basis. I think we will start our campaign in March.
59
General Chaos / Re: What Wargames are you playing?
« Last post by CADmonkey on February 04, 2018, 04:32:12 PM »
Looking through the February issue of WI, I was wondering if there's been any squeals from one of the RPPR players* over the new Japanese units for Konflikt ’47?  I also noticed an article about giving awards to miniatures for their "service" in wargames.  I immediatley had a flashback to an issue of KotDT where the guys started giving themselves medals for their own actions in RPGs! :D

*one of you has a Japanese army, right?
60
General Chaos / Re: What are you reading?
« Last post by CADmonkey on February 04, 2018, 12:59:22 PM »
Read the first two volumes of Star Trek: The Classic UK Comics (didn't know there was a third, I'll have to pick that up soon).  It's a funny little piece of Star Trek licensing history produced by the publishers of Gerry Anderson-series comics adaptations, for an audience of British children.  There's a lot of "wonky" elements to the comics:  The writers and artists only saw one episode of the show before producing their first several months of work, so Kirk is refered to as "Kurt" in the first few serialised stories, and a character who only appeared in that one episode (The Corbomite Maneuver) appeared as a regular member of the bridge crew for months.  There's also a lot of other oddities that come from the British writers & artists:  The proliferation of very "Gerry Anderson-esque" vehicles and machines, the crew using a lot of British colloquialisms and the crew generally behaving more like early 20th-century British navy officers than Roddenberry's idealised, egalitarian starfleet officers.  Many of the stories fall short of Roddenberry's vison for Star Trek (even moreso than the TV series), but for the most part it's a fun alternate take on Star Trek, with some great art (Harry F. Lindfield's work is particularly gorgeous).

I also recently read Cherie Dimaline's The Marrow Thieves, an apocalyptic YA novel about an Indigenous youth living through an environmental apocalypse and genocide.  I don't normally read YA novels, but this one had won some awards and was written by a Métis author, so I gave it a try.  It's not bad, but I think YA still isn't my cup of tea.

And I've started reading Richard Wagamese's Indian Horse, the story of a residential school survivor, written by a residential school survivor.  This book has been sitting on one of my bookshelves for a while, ever since a relative of mine tried and failed to read it and gave it to me, but I was prompted to finally pick it up when I heard that there's a movie adaptation coming out this year.  The descriptions of life in a residential school are horrific, but I was braced for them by having already been exposed to stories of what went on in those places, and that setting isn't the whole of the novel.  Despite the terribly depressing nature of the subject matter, Wagamese's writing is beautiful and moving, and I'm quite enjoying this book.
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