cigsvon :

My boys are just shy of three years old now.  I've been trying to get them started with some of the old NES stuff and a couple of old Gameboys, but I don't think they're quite ready to start playing things right (They tend to just hit the select or start buttons just because those things change the picture on the screen, its pretty hit and miss to get them to do more than that.  I'm hopeful that they start to get a little better soon.  I'm looking forwards to handing them each an xbox 360 controller and playing Minecraft with them once they stop being such a hindrance to play.

marianne26 :

Nothing wrong with food!



Sword legion :

We have a lot of basic blocks.  I've been lucky and have managed to pick a lot of our current LEGO collection up for a couple of bucks for a bucket at garage sales, or a gallon ziplock full of them for a dollar or two at the thrift stores.    Its allowed me to put together a relatively large collection of LEGO for my boys fairly cheaply. 

Sword legion :

I know that feeling well.  I couldn't get enough LEGO as a kid, and I'm really not much better now.  I used to have a five gallon bucket mostly full of them as a kid.  I'd spend days on end building things with them, and any time I got a new set, I'd have to build it and leave it built for several weeks before I could bring myself to tear it down and use the parts to build something else

About 6-8 years ago, I started collecting the Star Wars LEGO sets again.  I was building them and setting them up for display (Who knew LEGO attracted so much dust?)  Its just been in the last year or so that I finally broke down and added them to the LEGO I have been collecting for the boys (Been picking up cheap/clearance/second hand LEGO anywhere I can find them within my price range.  I'm up to one full 35 gallon tote, and about 2/3 of a second one full of LEGO for my boys, along with a one gallon bucket full of the little people for when they are old enough to play with them.  Unfortunately, they are coming up on three years old now, so I expect that I have a few years to wait before I get to drag them all out and start playing with them with my boys.  In the meantime, I get teased a little bit by my wife for wanting to pull them out when our kids are in bed, . . . . .

That's a really difficult question to answer, it seems like about a quarter of everything in the EU is absolutely incredible, about half of it is mediocre, and that the last quarter of all the EU is junk (Yet I love it all anyway.) 

I really don't know that I could pick just a single story in the EU as my favorite.  But that said, the top three would (In no particular order) be: The Thrawn Trilogy, Tales of the Jedi (Anything in that era really.), and anything from the X-Wing series.

So, I got to wondering as I sit on the Internet, waiting for my kids to wake up so we can do Christmas Morning. 

For my kids, we found a bunch of "Thomas the Train" track and engines, which goes a long way towards completing their set of Thomas the Train track and engines (They had a lot before today, what's being added will put them a little over half way to a "Complete" set.  At two years old, I know they don't really care, but my OCD demands that I have an itemized list of everything available, and that I track their progress towards a complete set.  )

My wife isn't getting anything that might be considered "Collectible".  And for myself, I expect a couple of video games, and maybe some books, all of which will help fill out one collection or another.

What did all of you guys get?  Anything that furthers one or more of your collections?  Something that you've been looking for, for a long time?  Something that you wanted really badly?

I guess I'm the odd man out.  I've a mild obsession with Star Wars (Own every book, the complete WEG RPG, a near complete set of the WotC miniatures(Missing two), A near complete set of the old Decipher CCG (Missing 5 cards, all but one from the Coruscant set), two complete sets of Starship Battles, a near complete set of the comic books, and a host of other collectibles.)  That being said, it looks like I'm the first to vote episode VI: Return of the Jedi.

Favorite Star Wars movies in order of preference:
-Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
-Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
-Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
-Episode II: Attack of the Clones
-Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Movie)
-Episode IV: A New Hope
-Ewoks: Caravan of Courage
-Ewoks: Battle for Endor
-Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Had a chance to watch the first episode of "The 100" last night.  I have to admit, I REALLY enjoyed it.  Their circumstances may be very different, but the overall feel felt a lot like what I want to accomplish with my own game.  It looks like that's going to be my evening TV staple for the next couple of weeks!  Thanks again for the great suggestion!

Sword legion :

I might take you up on that.  Right now, I have a basic framework in place, and we're going to be playing Battletech for the next few weeks before picking this up after new years (That way, the inevitable missing players over the holidays don't miss anything, or slow the game down in any significant way.  Instead, all we need to do is drag out some miniatures and a few mech sheets.)

A great list of movies.  Most of which I've seen at one point or another (I've always loved sci-fi)  Love Pandorum, just finished rewatching the Aliens series about a week ago, Pitch Black was fun, and Enemy Mine is one of my old favorites! 

The100?  I just added that to my Netflix list the other day, had no idea it was that kind of story.  Will start watching some of that when I have a little time!

I haven't had the chance to see Interstellar or After Earth yet, but I'll be sure to bump them towards the top of my list!

I actually intend to have the first game session or two take place in space.  I figure this will give us a chance to get used to our characters, establish some of the lore/story behind what is going on, and since the characters will KNOW they are still +60 years from their destination, . . . . they will know something is up, even if they aren't sure what it is. 

Thanks for all the feedback and the insights, I appreciate it!

For reference; some of the books I've read that touch on the subject:
-The Warriors of Spider by W. Michael Gear (Deals largely with the descendants of a crashed prison ship.
-Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon (Deals with an old lady who stays behind when a colony leaves and her dealings with the natives.
-The Legacy of Heorot by Niven/ Pournelle/Barnes (A colony struggling to survive on a distant world with no chance of outside help.)

How expansive, . . . fairly.  I expect the roleplay campaign to run 1-2 years in real life, playing every other weekend.  While there are two native alien species on the planet (Both stone age, moving into the bronze age.) the players wont immediately run into those species.  The world itself will provide plenty of dangers during the first few panicked days.  The characters wont find themselves caught in the middle of the war between the two native species until they start to get a handle on their situation.

I figure that about 10% of the campaign will take place before the characters encounter any of the natives (though there will be clues to the fact that the characters are not alone.)  The rest of the campaign will be a mixture of dealing with the natives, trying to find various important equipment/potential survivors, and setting up a secure settlement.  Once the campaign reaches a degree of relative safety, it will come to a close.

I'm preparing to run a "shipwreck/survival" roleplaying game with some friends on Saturdays in my home soon. 

The basic idea is that the characters are on a colony ship being sent to colonize a planet, . . . Earth's first colony.  The idea was to run a generation ship with most of the settlers in stasis, while a crew of a few hundred spend their lives running the ship (Supposed to take roughly 150 years to reach their destination, which means that it will be the grand kids, and great grand kids who are supposed to finally reach their destination.)  Unfortunately for the crew, and their colonist passengers, things do not go to plan.  About half way to their destination, there is a problem with the ship when passing near a nebula, and the captain has to make the hard decision to put down on a planet inside the nebula that may, or may not, be capable of sustaining human life (It had been passed on as a possible place to settle by the people back on earth because they were unable to get any reliable data on the planet through the interference of the nebula.)  Due to the troubles with the colony ship, when the captain tries to park the ship in orbit so they can start shuttling things down to the surface, instead, the ship ends up making a crash landing which leaves parts of the ship, and many of their supplies, spread out over several hundred miles of the planet.  about half of the crew is lost during the crash, including most of the command staff (Leaving some of the characters as the highest ranking survivors, and they are fairly low on the chain of command.)

At this point, the game starts, with the characters discovering that the planet IS capable of sustaining human life, and the characters scrambling to find lost supplies and settlers.  The characters quickly discover that while the planet has a breathable atmosphere, its a VERY dangerous place to try surviving.  And after the crash, there is no chance of leaving the planet, and no hope of help from earth.



With all of that said, does anyone know of any good sci-fi shipwreck books or movies?  I'd like to do a little reading, and possibly watch a couple of movies that fall into this nitch to help me gear up for the game and maybe give me a few ideas.  Things along the lines of Earth2?

endings :

Sorry about the shortcomings.  This was my first attempt at a review, . . . I'll try to do better in the future.

The reason for comparing this game to others in the series is simply because I've yet to find any other games that easily compare to it.

Nearly every room has one or more environmental hazards, from fireplaces to iron maidens.  In addition to each room's hazards, you can also set up three traps per room, one ceiling trap (Anything from boulders to boiling oil.), one wall trap (from spiked walls, to push walls, to arrow traps.) and one floor trap (from bear traps, to lightning rods, to spring boards.)

To give some idea of the kinds of things you can do:  One of my staple setups was to set up my traps in a the room what includes a large fireplace, and a chunk of wall that carries an electric charge.  My ceiling trap was a boulder at the top of the stairs.  My wall trap was a high powered push wall just a little bit a head of me, positioned directly across the room from the fireplace.  And my floor trap was a spring board directly at my feet, aimed towards the electric wall.  When the enemies would come for me, I'd wait at the top of the stairs, just a little bit behind my traps.  I would let the enemy reach the springboard first, triggering it and hurling the enemy into the electric wall, before the enemy could stand, I'd trigger the boulder to roll down the stairs and smash the enemy against the electric wall again before they can recover enough to dodge.  If my springboard has had time to reset before the enemy can reach the top of the stairs again, then I repeat the combo.  If not, I have the wall trap set up as a safeguard; I could trigger it, hitting the enemy hard enough to throw them across the room into the fireplace where they are set on fire, buying me plenty of time for my other traps to reset, . . . should my victims survive that long.

I've always been a fan of the Deception series.  While the first one was ok, this second game in the series was there the series of games started to become something truly special. 

Deception II: Kagero, is not your typical action/adventure game.  Instead of fighting your way though hordes of enemies in your quest for glory, you instead find yourself fighting off would-be heroes and enemies while defending yourself and your inner sanctum. 

Having no real weapons of your own, you try to out maneuver your opponents and stay one step a head of them while setting a wide range of traps that you collect and upgrade through the course of the game, and using your environment to your advantage.  If done right, you can set your traps up to push or hurl your enemies into natural hazards in a room, or to create brutal combos to destroy your foes, . . . All while using yourself as bait for your own traps.

Over all, the game is one part adventure, two parts strategy.

While Tecmo's Deception: Invitation to Darkness (The first game in the series) is a fun game to play, the real gems in this series are Deception II: Kagero, Deception III: Dark Delusion (And Trapt on the PS2)  This series is easily among my favorite game series ever. 

I had no problem playing through the original game,  Tecmo's Deception: Invitation to Darkness, but I openly admit that I only ever played through it once.  Deception II: Kagero, and Deception III: Dark Delusion on the other hand, I played through them many times each, perfecting my strategies and finding new ways to overcome the challenges in this game.

I highly recommend the series to anyone who enjoys strategy or tower defense style games!

I have to agree.  While the Creeper can be insanely frustrating at times, it does add an element of suspense at night, making night time travel dangerous, and keeping you on edge.

Another thing that I feel adds some suspense to the game is when you are down in some cave system, spelunking.  Where you have to watch for those tell tale signs that you are about to dig your way into something dangerous.  The next swing of your pick could easily break into an underground lake, or lava flow.  And as you said in your original post, the Creeper is an always looming threat.  Especially when you're exploring an unfamiliar cave system with nowhere to run.

MysteryMan007 :   Very nice.  Metroid has always been among my favorite, and was among my earliest NES games.  And Super Mario Brothers 3 is probably my wife's single favorite game from the NES.  Both were (And still are) some amazing games!

Myself, I tend to start with a simple dirt house just for protection.  Just something to get me through those first few nights.  Once I become a little more resourcefully secure, I tend to scout out where I want to find a larger home, as which point I will typically either map something out myself, or find a blueprint that I can use as a guide when building.  With my new build site staked out, I'll build another little dirt home to use as a safe house/construction area while I begin work on my big project

To date, my more noteworthy projects include a full mid evil city, including farm land, castle, about 40 houses, windmills, harbor, and lighthouse.  An undersea city (Much more humble in scope.)  A scale replica of two different real life castles.  The Millennium Falcon.  And a half complete Corellean Corvette (The FarStar specifically.)

The kinds of projects I take on largely depend on my mood at the time.  I'll fire up my xbox 360 version of the game, obsess over a project for a couple of weeks, then put the game up again for a while until the mood to build strikes again.

I've always been a little bit of an adrenaline junkie (No where near as bad as I once was.) so there are times that I look for excuses to pull some of the stunts I used to pull as a kid, but mostly I'm a more conservative driver now.