To Traveller or Not to Traveller

I've got my hands full. A moment ago, I had a gift card. Now I have a reading list.

I've shared both Rick Wayne's series before and Mike and Shell "Presto" DeBaggio's books before. Probably a couple of times. Generally, I have a plan. 

What do these two series have to do with one another? 

My winter posting series will be about superhero games, Marvel Superheroes to be exact. I'll be reviewing all three series of books as they have inspired me to select this topic for my winter post series.  

Today, I'd like to talk about H. M. Hoover's books. Helen Mary Hoover (1935 to 2018) was an American children's writer. 

Or was she? 

I'm not a child and I enjoy these books. The Delkon is my favorite. They are slightly more mature than C. S. Lewis or Tolkien. And many of them are science fiction themed. It occurs to me that many would make a excellent setting for the Traveller ruleset. 

Why? 

Because as "children books" they don't have much violence. The potential is there but it never seems to get that bad. Which is great when you're using Traveller rules. 

Gunfire is deadly... very deadly. I think this is my hangup with the ruleset and since I would like to learn to play, I need to learn "To Violence Or Not To Violence". I didn't think of that, I totally stole it from SAFCOcast. Episode 23 to exact. I've listened to this one episode like 3 times and the more I listen, the more I think H. M. Hoover's settings would be perfect for the Traveller game system. 

The tech is there. The potentiality of a quick and final end when violencing is there. The not so obvious or completely obvious solution is there. It's built into the atmosphere of the setting. Ms, Hoover does an excellent job of hiding whether or not the solution is going to be the tricky one or the obvious one.  

Traveller has a very different science fiction atmosphere than what I am used to participating in. It seems to live in that space between tricky and obvious, with violence leading to just one of many obvious solutions. Other obvious solutions is tailoring responses to skills and talents of the players. It places far more emphasis on all of the skills available rather than just the ones that give immediate results. 

As I amble my way down to Traveller way, I'm gonna read a few books before I give it another try. 

Books by H. M. Hoover on AbeBooks.

Go Nuts!

Well, it's one of those days. Explosive creativity with little or no focus. In my last post, I shared the images I used to highlight my series posts. Not only did that involve Inkscape, it required Bluefish for html editing. I just need 5 more and I'll be done. I can do that another time. Can't stop now to finish something. 

I ran to the store for stuff for dinner. Before I left, I painted a panel of wood for a photographic background for my model series.

When I got home, the background was dry. So, I took some photos using a single lamp. It's not how I will do it when I launch this series, but I wanted quick results. No need to get all fancy with tiny details like using the correct lighting. 

I edited the photos down to web sized chunks. (For my own future sanity, I cropped each 2520 x 1800 then halved the resolution so they be 1260 by 900.)  

I took pictures of 3 unpainted ships and decided I needed some color. 

Well, that wasn't good enough. So I photographed an X-Wing toy. 

But that wasn't my paint job. I haven't painted figures in years. Since I had the paint out, I slapped some on a few mechs. Little details mostly, because I can't focus for more than a few minutes. 

Eh, whatever. It's just a few pictures, nothing important. 

My wife was listening to Dave Matthews Band which gave me an idea. I'd edit some album covers, for lord knows what reason. Perhaps to sell her on the idea that I need a vinyl cutter.

Not bad. I need some sort of vinyl cutter so I can do something with these. Because records are vinyl and these are images of records.

Yup. It all makes perfect sense. 

After that, I made dinner. Chicken and broccoli stir fry. I figured since I was at it, I'd make my special "dog fry" which is chicken scraps, a dash of rice and broccoli for the dog. Dogs can't eat onions or garlic, so this is a safe way to make her something special as a treat. 

I decided to add in a mix of water chestnuts, onions, celery and carrots. Sure, I'd have to go back to the store, but why not? I love that stuff. 

I had the cutting board out, I decided to treat myself with riced cauliflower. Since I was playing safe with the dog, riced cauliflower is better for me than rice. I chopped it all by hand. Riced cauliflower is great because I can't eat rice. I'm diabetic. 

Oh, shhhhiii....  I forgot one thing today. I didn't check my blood sugar after lunch. Hmm.

Yeah, I didn't notice that until I caught myself cooking, praying and talking to my son who is currently half a country away in Texas. That is classic automatism, when the body acts on it's own. It's pretty rare in diabetics, occuring in the tiny window between sanity and coma. 

Yeah... the little details. 

This is what I was fighting last year about this time. Nice to know things don't change. 

New Logos

Many years ago, I decided every post needed some artwork. It's more interesting that way. The other day, I decided that all series need a logo. I have only three built, but here they are. 

Post 1000ish: Review of Myst

Title: Myst
Publisher: Broderbund
Developers: Cyan, Inc.
Author: Rand and Robyn Miller
Year: 1993
OS: Macintosh

I lucked out in having a computer or two since 1980. I purchased a Timex Sinclair with the 8k extended memory for the outrageous price of $126.00. It was so expensive at the time, that I financed it and made 12 payments of $12.25 @16.6% interest! Not bad for a kid financed entirely shoveling snow and mowing lawns. I needed Mom's help. I gave her $12.25 in cash every month, and she wrote a check for me.  

With everything going into the basic cost of the computer, I had to beg my parents to buy me software. A lot of times, I had to settle for going to the library for books on programming and a blank tape for storage. In 1981, the film War Games sparked my imagination as to what computers could be.  

A little over a decade later, I discovered a game that embraced both limitations and imagination to amazing effect. 

Myst.

You're the protagonist in a story that isn't told but shown. The limits of the then modern-day Macintosh allowed for spectacular images, but only just an image. One at a time. Plus a bit of sound. To do this, the Rand Brothers tweaked the hell out of their hardware and software, even stripping down the color palettes to capitalize on the Mac's meager specs. Better than everything else on the market but still limited to a handful of hertz and less than a half dozen megs of RAM.  

Gorgeous images told the story of a family shattered by envy, power, and pride. Using the linking books, you search for the pages that will restore Sirrus, Achenar, and Atrus, whoever they might be. Catherine, the wife of Atrus and the mother of Achenar and Sirrus appears only via a note. You have no idea what is happening and what needs to be done. Your quest takes you to different worlds called "Ages" to recover the pages. 

Each Age, named Selenitic, Stoneship, Mechanical, and Channelwood contains puzzles to be solved. The mechanic of the game required at least two puzzles, one to progress in the game and a second so you may return to Myst Island. Travel between Ages requires a book written to describe that age. Open the book and see the Age. Touch the page and enter the Age. To return, you need to find the linking book hidden within the Age. Ingenious.   

Game mechanics were limited to clicks. Nothing else. Move? Click. Actions? Click. 

Pure and simple. Easy? Hell, no. 

While the execution is simple, the hardware had just enough oomph for a wonderful musical score plus tiny postage stamp-size videos, which when they appeared were like magic. Puzzles were challenging but not insane or click-hell. 

The requirements of the game also allowed for very creative storytelling. There is no clock, no death, no violence, and no enemies. Yet the nature of the game caused tension. This is the fusion of art and storytelling at its finest.  

This 28-year-old game was the reason I started blogging. I wanted to make a fan site for this game. You'll notice there are no stars assigned to this review. How could I assign stars to something that provoked 10-plus years of work and hundreds of posts exploring the nature of play and entertainment?

As a corollary to this review, I gave my oldest son Paul a set of hardcover Myst novels. As former library books, they were cheap. But my son claimed that made them more special. 

"These books have passed through many hands. They were loved by many people and loved by me." He was 10 and that was more eloquent than I could be. And it was true. 

 

For his 11th birthday, he asked for Amazon gift cards. 

"I want some books. I need books." 

So, his grandparents, aunt and godmother, and my wife and I gave him Amazon gift cards. And he got the books he loved so much. 

He ordered a complete set of Myst soft-covered books. When I questioned this purchase he explained, "The little books are Linking Books. You need them both to succeed." 

To say that this one game has shaped many parts of my life would be an understatement. 

The world of Myst has expanded greatly, but these links are a start if you are interested. 

Unwritten: Adventures in the Ages
of MYST and Beyond from
DriveThruRPG

This Is Not Post 999

This is not post 999. 

This whole blogging thing started back in 2011. I wanted to create a blog about the game MYST. Check out this link to The Wayback Machine to my first website called Pretender to the Power. 

Back then I had some goals that are still a driving force on this current iteration of my blog. I had an update section, a piece on artwork, models and figurines, a planned section for music which never really got off the ground, a movie review section which I only tangentially touch on for These Old Games, computer write ups, and plans to add more.

A decade later, many or most of these ideas still drive me. A little over 10 years of practice has lead me to over a thousand blog posts when you count all of the stuff lost over the various iterations of this blog. 

So, this is not 999. It's more. And it will continue to be more.