Superior Scribbler

So Sirlarkins, author of the most excellent blog The RPG Corner, has gone and given me the Superior Scribbler Award, which is pretty neat. A bit mind-boggling, perhaps, but very nice of him. He writes:

To me, Odyssey is a living example of the "go play" attitude--seems she's always plotting or scheming about a new campaign to map out or a new system to take a creative monkey wrench to. I can definitely sympathize. Yet, here's the thing folks--she manages to run games too! Too many would-be GMs, I think, fall victim to what I like to call the "Stanley Kubrick syndrome," getting caught up in the perfectionistic quest to perfect every set, shot, part, and line of dialogue. Sometimes you just have to grab your camera and start shooting. Odyssey shows us you can have your cake and eat it too.

Which, to me at least, is illuminating. I don't give a whole lot of thought to what this blog is "about." It tends to be "about" whatever dang fool thing popped into my head most recently. So the suggestion that there is, in fact, something resembling topical coherence in there--well, it's interesting to me, at least.

But the point of the Superior Scribbler award is that those who receive it get to pass it on to five other blogs who they think deserve it. I happen (as others have noted) to think that there are a lot more than five blogs out there that count as "exceptional," since I read a lot more than five. On the other hand, a lot of those are gaming blogs, and considering the speed this thing is already sweeping through the game blog-o-sphere, most of the good ones should get picked up by someone. So I figured I'd pick out the five best blogs that aren't part of our little cross-linked universe that still ought to have some interest to gaming folks.

Fraggmented: John Seavey writes about a lot of things, most of them geeky. Of particular interest to me is his series on storytelling engines--their creation and maintenance, as well as the various things that can go wrong with them. He starts out mostly writing about comics, but has since expanded to just about everything; movies, TV shows, books, you name it. Even beyond the purely academic (or even writerly) interest I'd have in such a topic, there's a lot of points to consider when setting up a campaign, since those are often built on long term story-generating status quo's themselves.

Square Mans: Mathew Colville is another eclectic blogger -- but he does a fair amount about gaming, of both the tabletop and digital varieties. And he doesn't just write about them--he analyzes them, writing long, intellectual posts whose intensity just about makes up for their infrequence.

I Waste the Buddha With My Crossbow: Dr. Rotwang writes about GMing! And the eighties! He's the guy who got me in to Traveller, and he writes a lot about not taking this GMing stuff so dang seriously, which is a good antidote for the kind of compulsive perfectionism all those GMing advice websites, great as they are, can engender. I know I've kind of broken my "no blogs that other people I read will probably hit" rule, but dang it, this was one of the very first blogs I started reading back when I first started getting into this crazy sub-hobby, and it's great.

Zompist's E-Z rant page: Now, what's really amazing is Mark Rosenfelder's main website, where Virtual Verduria and The Language Construction Kit reside, but it's not a blog, and his rant page is pretty spiffy too. He's a conlanger and world-builder par excellence, so there's a fair amount of advice and information regarding those two topics. No comments allowed, sadly, but he does write about economics and politics so it's probably just as well.

A Villain's Life: Not in any way gaming related (unless you're running a superhero game, I guess) Doctor Cataclysm's personal weblog is just fun. Cataclysm makes for an entertaining narrator, and where else are you going to see catfish men trying to destroy the earth with crystal resonance and an android from the future with a baked goods subroutine gone awry.

And, finally, the rules:

• Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.
  
• Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author & the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.
  
• Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to This Post, which explains The Award.
  
• Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit this post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List. That way, we'll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives This Prestigious Honor!
  
• Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.
  

Jar Jar, You're A Genius

Do you read Darths & Droids? Imagine DM of the Rings, Star Wars style, except that the game master in question isn't nearly as much of a jerk.

It's also responsible for the phrase, "Jar Jar, you're a genius," existing on the internet. It's hit #40 on Google trends on its own, through the efforts of spam bots, but --

I think we owe it to the world to sustain and propagate this insanity. So if you haven't done it yet, go to Google and search for "Jar Jar, you're a genius" (with the quotes). Mention the phenomenon in your blog and encourage other people to Google for the term. Make posters proclaiming Jar Jar's genius and stick them up all over town. (If anyone actually does this, send us photos and we'll show them off!)

Having a love of Star Wars, webcomics, this comic in particular, internet shenanigans, and hijinks in general, I agree.

(Internet shenanigans brought to you by Qwerty.)

EDIT: If you're here for the first time, welcome. Though it's not quite as crazy as the game in Darths & Droids, you might be interested in the space adventure game I'm currently running. I've also got a quick and dirty guide on how to start roleplaying, a few notes on putting together a megadungeon, something like a review of Fight On! and a few crazy ideas for Vampire chronicles. And I encourage you to check out the links on my sidebar: there's a whole lot of gaming goodness in the blogs mentioned under "More Words to Read."

Gnome Rodeo: Why It's Awesome

Gnome Stew has a new feature that I hope very much becomes a regular one (and that does look like the plan): Gnome Rodeo.

It's a big ol' list of links, mostly about GMing but with a few contests for flavor. Having a large, (and I think Gnome Stew aims to become a mighty force in the GMing blog-o-sphere) active, and consistently useful blog doing this is excellent.

If writing something clever about GMing will get you linked by Gnome Stew, that'll encourage people to write clever things about GMing. And everyone who reads Gnome Stew gets easier access to all those clever things people are writing about GMing, because Gnome Stew (and its readers) are out there, searching the web.

And Gnome Stew's multi-author, comment-encouraging, community driven set up makes it pretty close to the best possible forum for this endeavor.

I haven't gotten a chance yet (limited computer access, it's been a busy weekend) but as soon as I do I need to go through my own list of GMing resources. Can't be extolling the virtues of the program if I'm not going to contribute.

Adjustments to the Look

I'm continuing to make changes to the layout. Added a few blogs to the blogroll, and fiddled with its settings. I may make some more changes to it, and move some more things around. Mostly, I just like tinkering with it.

And while I needed an "about me" type of section, what's there right now might be too much. I'm going for short, entertaining, and relevant, but getting there may take some time.

Gnome Stew

Gnome Stew is up and running!

I don't read as many GMing help-sites as I used to, but Treasure Tables was one of my favorites back in the day, and if Gnome Stew ends up half as good (and so far, it does look very good) it's worth checking out.

I'm not a huge fan of the layout right now, with all the text way over to the left--looks fine above the fold, but once I scroll down it gets a little disorienting. But that's a massively minor nitpick.

The community features intrigue me. If they end up getting used, it could end up as a pretty powerful game blog hub. I'm not aware that we really have one right now. There are some sort of hub-esque things, blogs big enough that most people know about them, but nothing like When Fangirls Attack that keeps everyone talking to each other.

The take home message: Gnome Stew. It's cool. Go there! Do it now!

Why I Keep Geeking Out About A Villain's Life

Man, I already thought A Villain's Life was cool, and sort of sweet, but now I care. Doctor Cataclysm, please be okay!

Yeah, I'm still geeking out about it. It'll pass. In the mean time, a small insight:

Most media has a fairly clear division between real/non-real. Movies have a screen, books have their pages. Even if there's a framing device, in most cases it's still pretty easy to tell, just from the format, that it's fiction. Yes, that book may claim to be a journal, but its still professionally printed with the publishers name in the front.

This kind of fiction, this fictional blogging, has a little less of that. It's still obviously fictional--there are no superheroes, no superpowers, no weather machines. But that's only discernable from the content.

In form, this is just another blog. It's framing device is built into the media itself. I tend to dislike frames in books, just because they're not. You can tell, very easily, that the frame is also false, so it tends to interfere with my suspension of disbelief. Your mileage may vary.

But this is cool. I get information about Doctor Cataclysm in exactly the way I would if he was real. 'tis a trick, rather like a well done game story, that allows for stronger audience/character attachement.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Doctor Cataclysm

I mentioned Doctor Cataclysm, and his blog A Villain's Life, in sort of an offhand way, but it really deserves a full, proper post. If you haven't read it, go read it now, so far it's very short. (I further recommend that you add it to your feed, and if you don't have a feed, to get one, but now we're shading into irrelevancy.)

I'm really quite taken with it. I have a mild obsession with non-standard storytelling, and I've been interested in the idea of fictional blogging for a while. And, of course, superheroes are cool. Supervillains even more so--especially mad scientists.

That's all certainly part of it. But Doctor Cataclysm himself is really quite charming. He's a super villain, but he's not psychotic. When he's not engaging in (excellent) supervillainy, he occasionally stops muggers, and worries about being "too much of a moocher." The villainy is entertaining, but it seems like a cross between a job and a hobby, (love your work, I guess) and less like destroy-the-world craziness.

Which is good. It's relatable. And, at times, very sweet. (Though I recommend running through the previous posts before hitting that last.)

My favorite thing about this is that it's not fiction in blog form. It is, in fact, a fictional blog. In addition to recounting his villainy, he blogs about movies, politics, and YouTube videos. The politics and the videos are fictional, which is probably necessary, (though the videos might make an interesting project) but the movies are real, which is excellent.

The only trouble is that there's not very much of it, yet. Which is great for me, and you, and everyone getting into it right now, because there's not much to get into before we're up to speed. But I sure hope it keeps up, at the same level of quality, because it sure is a lot of fun.

(I can think of one other nitpick--the most generic of the generic blog templates. But in some ways, that adds to its charm, and I can't fault a brand new blog for not having figured out it's look yet. I still haven't really figured out mine.)

Oh, and a thank you to Neitherworld Stories, for linking to A Villain's Life in the first place. From there I have also learned of Velvet Marauder, but haven't yet had quite the chunk of time I'd like to get through it.

Truth in Advertising

Livejournal's "sponsored links," that it displays on the link-out to this blog, are as follows:

Sandbox
Fast Cars
Lasers
Elder Scrolls
Solar System
Dinosaurs

(You can see for yourself on my friend Maggie's LJ.)

I am amused.

Also, this blog would be better if it fit that topic list more closely.

New Look

It had been overdue for a while; I think the last time I changed it was over a year ago. And I don't really wear all black anymore, so my blog doesn't need to, either.

I might, eventually, return to some variation on that, because black background white text does look pretty spiffy. But for now, this is good.

I'm still not totally solid with the way the sidebar looks, though. Wondering whether I should rearrange my gadget scheme, or add some more. Particularly, I think I may break up the blogroll by topic.

And I am, at the moment, really not happy with the label system I'm using. Not sure whether I should actually go back and do the work to redo it, or just start using a new one and leave the old one as an artifact of earlier times.

Drafts Up The Wazoo

I have 95 un-posted drafts. 95! It's crazy!

A lot of them are just things I thought were funny, and might build a post around at some point. "Kung Pao Squid," that kind of thing. Observational.

Some of them are half-written posts that I will probably never get back to, because the moment has passed. Like how the culture's monster of choice says a lot about the zeitgeist. Or something. It wasn't a very good post; that's why I never finished it.

Occasionally, I will write a full post, complete, and then not post it. Doesn't happen very often, but it does happen. Sometimes I forget about them. Sometimes I'll write it and then think, "Nah. I don't want to put that up."

And sometimes I'll write something and then pull it down later. Which people may or may not notice.

Anyway: lots of drafts.

Really don't have much more to say.

Links Ahoy!

Now here's an interesting website: 9 Degrees of Bloggeration. Scott Duster blogs about the blogs he finds as he chains through the links, Kevin Bacon style. So far, there's a lot of Spain.

In the spirit of the thing, I found this blog through Today's Rock Stars, which tracks the profligate use of rock star metaphors to describe people decidedly non-rock star. Which I found through a link from the proprietor's other blog, the Silent Penultimate Panel Watch, which tracks the overuse of the silent penultimate panel in newspaper cartoons. Which I found through Narbonic. Actually, the director's cut, but you don't want to go there if you haven't read the original strip.

Trust me. You want to start with the first strip and just keep on going. There be plots ahead!