User blogs

Tonight on Inspired Unreality we are talking about books and stories. The opening topic will be The Origins Of Fantasy. Fantasy is the well spring that D&D grew out of. Do fantasy stories predate civilization? Or is there an era in literature when fantasy was born?

Inspired Unreality is held every Monday night in the gamerplus chatrooms at Tenkar's Tavern on Discord. For more info go here.

https://gamerplus.org/index

Last week Ari and Caper worked on Caper's Song Book. And we started on a list of songs for the book. Then we wrote this.

Song of perception

tin tin aree tin tin aroo
look about look about could be you
jump about jump about one and two
tin tin aree tin tin aroo

To be sung by the whole party twice through to increases alertness and perception.

Here's a link to my post about Caper's Song Book.

https://gamerplus.org/blogs/post/798

Carl Heyl linked to the Conan Artbook Kickstarter from the Troll Lords!

https://gamerplus.org/newsfeed/4186

I added a chapter to my book in progress, Setting Up A Twitch Studio - Using Tech Creatively. The new chapter is about Web Promotion.

https://gamerplus.org/blogs/post/801

What have you been reading? Join us tonight on Inspired Unreality and let us know. What have you been writing? Post a link. Do you use tech creatively? Comment on my post.

Please share this newsletter with your gaming friends.

Thanks,
Hairy Larry
https://gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
hairylarry@curators.mixremix.cc
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com

Join us tonight at Inspired Unreality open game chat. Last week we talked about books. Before that Witch's Chicken Scratch, a cypher witches use to write down their recipes for teas and potions. And when we last left Ari and Caper they were in the Milyagon Witch's kitchen drinking love potion. The night before that the brownies had crowned Ari with a flowery garland.

Inspired Unreality open game chat is held in the gamerplus chat rooms at Tenkar's Tavern on Discord. If you haven't been we have an invite for you here.

https://gamerplus.org/index

What will we be discussing tonight? Nobody knows. Because, like Megan, we do what we want. Bring your own topic. All gaming is on topic.

I posted, "We had a good chat last night about Science Fiction and Fantasy literature starting with a discussion about Science Fiction as a late nineteenth and twentieth century phenomenon where Fantasy literature encompasses all of literature going back to the earliest written words. Now they are often indistinguishable. Then we discussed the dystopian trend in Science Fiction. The Golden Age (thirties and forties) saw mostly optimistic science fiction stories but in the second half of the twentieth century starting with the New Wave through today there has been a darker trend with many dystopian and post apocalyptic stories. Then closing the chat we each discussed our first experiences in Science Fiction."

What are your first experiences with Fantasy and Science Fiction? Join the discussion here.

https://gamerplus.org/newsfeed/4153

ZDL shared a post about how we can let the kids improve our urban landscape.

https://gamerplus.org/newsfeed/4157

If you have ideas for our Fantasy and Science Fiction discussion post them here in the Related To Geeks Book Club group.

https://gamerplus.org/groups/28

Please post your links, game ideas, art, etc. to Gamer+. We want to know what you're doing. (Ok, that's not creepy at all.)

Stay in touch.

Thanks,
Hairy Larry
https://gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
hairylarry@curators.mixremix.cc
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com

Join us tonight at the Inspired Unreality Open Game Chat where we will discuss Science Fiction and Fantasy literature. Soon to be a monthly feature at Inspired Unreality.

We've already got some discussion going in my announcement thread.

https://gamerplus.org/newsfeed/4145

We don't mind controversy over at Gamer+. As long as it's controversy about gaming. Everybody's got their own old school. Mine didn't start until the early nineties. Most old schools are older than mine.

https://gamerplus.org/blogs/post/782

I added another post to my Setting Up A Twitch Studio series. Documentation. I try to teach by example. So, if you like to read documentation.

https://gamerplus.org/blogs/785

This series of articles has turned out to be broader in focus than I thought they would be and the ideas discussed pertain to any technical creative endeavor. I need to take a big top down view and decide where I'm going with this.

And here are our twitch streams.

https://www.twitch.tv/megantopia

https://www.twitch.tv/hairylarryland

Send me your links or post them to Gamer+.

Thanks,
Hairy Larry
https://gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
hairylarry@curators.mixremix.cc
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com

Tonight! On Inspired Unreality. We will be chatting about games, or playing games, or maybe chatting about books, science fiction and fantasy literature. What we've read and what we like. Books. Games. Chat.

Inspired Unreality is held every Monday night at 9:00 Central in the gamerplus chatrooms at Tenkar's Tavern on Discord. If you've never been there's an invite here.

https://gamerplus.org/index

ZDL posted Deep Dive: OSR Critique about her actual experience in the OSR world when it was just called D&D.

"To establish my credentials, I have been playing RPGs of all kinds since 1977.  My first exposure to the genre was the 1977 "Blue Book" edition and I have backfilled experience with the original books, not to mention gone forward into both branches of D&D (Advanced and what would later become the Cyclopedia).  I played through the explosion of creativity in the '80s, witnessed the rise of story games (playing many of them, though not the White Wolf line of Storyteller games—I hated those), and continued through to the present day where I play intensely story-oriented games (FATE, Spark, Mythic, etc.) as well as some OSR or OSR-alike games (most notably Mazes & Minotaurs).  I am emphatically not a young-un telling grandpa what's what.  I'm one of the grandparents saying what actually was."

And she has some opinions. As always, a good read. In case you also have opinions there's a comment section.

https://gamerplus.org/blogs/post/782

RickStump joined the Related to Geeks Book club group. Megan and I did the podcast for a year and then went on to bigger and better things. (Hello Flunking The Written and twitch) I still read every day and would love to have a monthly book discussion. So, starting next week and continuing the first Monday of every month the opening topic at Inspired Unreality will be science fiction and fantasy literature with frequent forays into SF&F movies and games.

https://gamerplus.org/groups/28
https://anchor.fm/flunking-the-written
https://www.twitch.tv/megantopia
https://www.twitch.tv/hairylarryland

I posted a new photo gallery, The Masks Of The Zuni. If you are needing images of a witch doctor, shaman, or other all around weirdo these are public domain. There's even a bizarro Hairy Larry.

https://gamerplus.org/photo/useralbum/hairylarry/104

See you tonight on Inspired Unreality open game chat. Next week, books. Post some pics. Join in on the OSR discussion. At Gamer+.

Thanks,
Hairy Larry
https://gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
hairylarry@curators.mixremix.cc
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com

Tonight, on Inspired Unreality, we continue our quest into feyland.

Ari and Caper were joined by Droggin the dwarf and Quinthalas the elf on their quest into feyland. The Milyagon witch has a message for King Groads, who is only a king on his own property. We meet our friends the fairies from our previous quest to Wilkin Woods and they don't have much use for the pretend king. But we still get along with them fine and they do show us the way. We are standing outside his gate hoping to complete our quest and hurry back home. Feyland is nice ... but dangerous.

https://gamerplus.org/newsfeed/4093

Join us every Monday night at 9:00 Central for Inspired Unreality open game chat held in the gamerplus chatrooms at Tenkar's Tavern on Discord. If you haven't been to Tenkar's Tavern we have an invitation for you here.

https://gamerplus.org/index

ZDL has big news. "The greatest epic fantasy movie put to video has finally been released!" Baelin (Rowan Bettjeman), a simple background NPC in the video game, Skycraft, has been walking the same route for as long as he can remember.

https://gamerplus.org/newsfeed/4094

I wrote a blog post about Setting Up A Twitch Studio - The Big Idea. "It's all Megan's fault. When she set up https://www.twitch.tv/megantopia Vivian and I started watching. Before that I knew it was a popular site for live gaming but twitch flew under my radar. Once I saw what Megan was doing and I started to understand how twitch worked, and how it can be used for videos that are not about gaming, I became interested."

https://gamerplus.org/blogs/761

Are you on twitch? Have you watched a good video or read a book? Have you ever been to Feyland? Let us know on Gamer+.

Thanks,
Hairy Larry
https://gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
hairylarry@curators.mixremix.cc
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com

Here's four webcomics that I like and some of them even have something to do with gaming.

I don't like rom com movies much. In fact I don't like movies much. I prefer my TV in small doses. But I do read a lot of coming of age fantasy and science fiction which is kind of close to rom coms. Especially "The Wheel Of Time" which I am definitely planning on rereading, all 14 volumes.

But it turns out that I like rom com webcomics. I guess the dosage is about right.

"Questionable Content" is alternative history science fiction. It's present day but in the recent past Hannelore's dad discovered true AI and built it into robots. So it's a rom com with robots. (Shades of Isaac Asimov) It's actually my current fav and it turns out I must have started it in the middle because when I went to episode 1 to link here I hadn't read it. But there is an AI robot right at the start. Plus rom com. It is a lot different than the more recent episodes but I'm restarting at the top and you can too.

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1

Oh yeah, it's drawn by J. Jacques. And it's 5 days a week.

Dumbing Of Age is a College Webcomic by David M. Willis. This is my latest fav and it's actual contemporary fiction rom com. It has more about cartoons than about games although D&D does get an occasional mention. Big on superheroes too with an actual superhero character who is actually just a shy girl with tendencies towards violence.

7 days a week. Yaaaaaay!

https://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/home/

The absolute best webcomic ever is all about D&D with in jokes right from the first episode. The Order Of The Stick is about an adventuring party drawn as stick figures. If you haven't already read this it's a treat. The only bad thing about it is that it's a weekly so I save it for my weekend reading. It's by Rich Burlew.

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0001.html

And my new find is Gunnerkrigg Court. It's also in a school setting but so far not a rom com. Definitely fantasy and I'm not far enough into it to tell you much more. Except that I like it so far. Not sure of the publishing schedule but the art is great and it's drawn by Tom Siddell.

https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1

Please add your favorite webcomics in the comments. Especially if they are about gaming.

Thanks

Full disclosure: I was given this game for free by its publisher.  This was not done for purposes of review (more out of pity!), but it would not be honest to fail to mention this potential bias.

I have a somewhat complicated relationship with Bloodshadows.  I originally encountered it when it was a West End Games setting for their Masterbook game (itself part of the '90s trend of turning every house game system—in this case the game system behind Torg and Shatterzone—into a generic game).  The thing is that while I admired several features of Masterbook, at it core I found it a pretty fundamentally flawed game that I didn't want to play very much.  Which was a pity because the Bloodshadows setting I adored straight out of the box.

So here we are, over two decades later, and I find myself with a Bloodshadows game in my hand from the home where all the great, undervalued games go for continued unlife: Precis Intermedia (rapidly becoming my favourite currently-active publisher of RPGs).

... more

Tonight on Inspired Unreality open game chat our opening topic will be "D&D grew out of fantasy literature and then a branch of fantasy literature grew out of D&D". As always Inspired Unreality begins at 9:00 Central in the gamerplus chat rooms at Tenkars Tavern on Discord. If you haven't been to Tenkars Tavern we have an inivite for you here.

https://gamerplus.org/index

I have posted a new gallery of public domain fantasy art called, John Anster Fitzgerald takes us to Feyland. Fitzgerald was a Victorian illustrator who specialized in fairies and other fey creatures.

https://gamerplus.org/photo/useralbum/hairylarry/94

After looking at these pictures sound and I started discussing fairytales. Fairytales predate history and yet are still being written in the 21st century, often melded with other types of literature. Click the link to join the discussion.

https://gamerplus.org/newsfeed/3306

Please welcome our newest gamer, TabletopBellhop, creator of blogs, vlogs, and podcasts about tabletop gaming.

https://gamerplus.org/user/TabletopBellhop

I hope to chat with you tonight about fantasy literature and gaming. As always, bring your own topic. All gaming is on topic.

https://gamerplus.org/groups/9

Thanks,
Hairy Larry
https://gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
hairylarry@curators.mixremix.cc
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com

Caper and Bones found a bench under an oak tree and sat down to rest while Ari and the witch made the squamish salve.

They ground the squamish mushrooms into a paste with wild cherries and sage to make the salve which is good for treating carbuncles and other skin ailments and can also cure light wounds. About 2/3 of the salve filled a jar the witch had set aside so she went and got a smaller jar which she filled and gave to Ari.

With that task done Ari and the witch walked over to Caper and Bones and the witch said, “The items are for the Ogre up in the foothills Northwest of Milyagon. He has been under pressure from orcs and hobgoblins moving in. The branch makes a magic quarterstaff to fend them off and the mushrooms are the important ingredient in a salve for his carbunkles. And the feather? That's for his hat. The Ogre has a magic hat and the owl's feather, willingly given, is a component of the spell. He is smart for an ogre because of the hat so it is very important that the feather in his cap does not become bedraggled.”

Enlightened but still very tired the party made their way back to the inn where they ate a hearty supper and turned in early for the night glad to be sleeping on beds under a roof instead of on the ground under the stars.

#SixWordStories is a thing.

Xan is an expert.

Here’s my first shot at #SixWordStories.

And then the sun went nova.

- by Larry Heyl CC-BY

There’s a website.

Six Word Stories

And a Flickr group.

https://www.flickr.com/groups/sixwordstory/

Prefaced by “Just as a reminder here is the story that started it all. For sale: baby shoes, never worn. “.

Cross posted from SFF Short Stories.

https://sffshortstories.com/?x=entry:entry200727-052139