Co-Geeking

Doctor Who Season 9 Kickoff Event in Theaters

September 10, 2015May 20, 2018Eppu

…aaand there’s more Doctor Who season 9 news I seem to have missed! Fathom Events has put together a 3d-showing of the two-part season 8 ender just in time before Doctor Who season 9 airs on BBC America (starting September 19th).

Doctor Who: Dark Water/Death in Heaven Trailer by Fathom Events

According to the Mashable article on the season kickoff event,

“BBC Worldwide and Fathom Events will broadcast a 3D version of Season 8’s two-part finale, ‘Dark Water’/’Death in Heaven,’ in approximately 700 movie theaters across the U.S. on Sept. 15 and 16. The screenings will also feature a special prequel scene for Doctor Who‘s Season 9 premiere (ambiguously titled ‘The Doctor’s Meditation’) and an exclusive interview with the Doctor and his companion themselves, Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman.”

File 770 reports that the exclusive interview is hosted by Wil Wheaton.

We went to see “The Day of the Doctor” event two years ago and it was great fun. As opposed to “The Day of the Doctor” event, though, this one doesn’t show a completely new story, but packages two already-aired episodes (that have been out on disc for a long time too) with two extra clips. Even the added gimmick of 3d is a repeat from “The Day” showing. While I (literally!) applaud celebrating the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who with a special new story and movie event, this one smacks of a badly-disguised money grab. I’ll pass.

In the Seen on Screen occasional feature, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.

The Rumor Table

September 10, 2015October 15, 2022Erik

So, you’re game-mastering a tabletop role-playing game and your player characters decide to spread out around town and see if they can pick up any useful information about their current quest. How do you handle it?

There are lots of things you can do. If there’s some info you need to dump on them, now’s the time to hand it over. Or if you want them to just head out into the wilderness and figure it out as they go, you tell them that no one knows anything. You can always just make stuff up off the top of your head. Like with most GMing tasks, as long as your players have a good time, there’s no wrong way to do it. Here’s a tool that might make your job a little easier, though: the rumor table.

When I’m planning an adventure and I know that my players are going to have a chance to snoop around and ask questions, I like to prepare a rumor table for what they might find out. The table is a mix of true and false information that is more or less helpful. I plan it for a roll of 2d6 (you can make it bigger or smaller depending on your needs, but I find a 2d6 table covers most cases). For the numbers 2-12, come up with the following tidbits of information:

2 – False, and potentially disastrous if the player characters believe it
3 & 4 – False
5 & 6 – False but with a grain of truth, such as true information that has been garbled or misinterpreted
7 – Equal parts true and false
8 & 9 – True
10 & 11 – True and probably helpful to the characters at the moment
12 – True and very important

Suppose your campaign is The Lord of the Rings and your characters are meeting for the first time at the Council of Elrond in Rivendell. (I mean, imagine a world in which The Lord of the Rings isn’t a famous novel and movie trilogy that your players already know but is your campaign that you wrote and they are playing through for the first time.)

Here’s what your table might look like:

2 – Saruman is secretly on the side of good
3 – Elves from Lothlorien have been attacking outlying villages on the borders of Rohan
4 – Moria is abandoned and free of orcs
5 – Smeagol has been sighted in Mirkwood heading east towards Dale
6 – Rohan pays a tribute of horses to Sauron for the ringwraiths to ride
7 – Denethor of Gondor has a palantir but he refuses to look into it
8 – The Dunedain rangers were searching for Smeagol not long ago
9 – Saruman has ordered the destruction of Fangorn forest
10 – Wargs have been spotted in great numbers in the wildlands south of Rivendell
11 – Theoden king of Rohan has become weak and listless and lets his advisers make most decisions
12 – A balrog lurks in the depths of Moria

There are some advantages to using a rumor table. For one thing, it takes some of the pressure off you to come up with the perfect responses in the moment. Like mapping a dungeon ahead of time, it lets you prepare in advance. It’s also a convenient way of rewarding your players for good role-playing or taking the characters’ advantages into account. If the PC has a charisma bonus and the player does a good job role-playing the asking around, you don’t have to puzzle out just how much better information they should get; it’s easy to just give them a +2 on the rumor roll.

Another good thing about using the rumor table, if your players know that you have one, is it short-circuits the “it must be important or the GM wouldn’t have told us” metagaming. Your players have to think carefully and evaluate the information they get, just like their characters would have to do.

Now, of course, it’s a tool, not a rule. Use it with discretion. If the character your PCs happen to be talking to wouldn’t know (or wouldn’t say) the answer you roll, don’t use it. Either go up or down the table or make up something different. If there are things that your characters really need to know at a given point in the adventure, then that’s what you give them. (You can always roll the dice anyway, so they don’t know when they’re getting plot-critical stuff.)

Happy rumor-mongering!

Image by Erik Jensen

Of Dice and Dragons is an occasional feature about games and gaming.

Doctor Who Season 9 Trailer

September 9, 2015September 9, 2015Eppu

Aah, I can’t believe I missed this: the official Doctor Who season 9 trailer has been out for two months!

Official Doctor Who Season 9 Trailer by BBC America

First jumble of thoughts: Production values look amazing! I don’t like this angry Doctor. What’s with Capaldi’s hair? Is that a dalek city? That’s definitely Missy. Electric guitar? Whoa – the Doctor wearing wedding bands – did I miss something? Yay, Maisie Williams!

Apart from that, I wish Moffat would either write only or produce only. When he tries to do both, the quality suffers. The episodes Moffat wrote for the seasons produced by Julie Gardner and Russel T. Davies were brilliant. Since then, he’s been mediocre at best.

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.

A Couple of Minions in the Metro

September 8, 2015September 4, 2015Eppu

A few months old now, but so great: this cosplaying dad on the way to the movies with his son, both decked out as Minions, deserves a hooray:

Such an easy look to put together: overalls, yellow t-shirt and bag, plus commercially available Minions goggles that won’t break the bank. Making memories doesn’t have to involve grand gestures!

In Making Stuff occasional feature, we share fun arts and crafts done by us and our fellow geeks and nerds.

A Star Trek Spin Pumps It Up

September 4, 2015August 31, 2015Eppu

I seem to be in a Star Trek frame of mind. Having just finished (re)watching all of TNG, I guess that’s to be expected. Here’s a new spin on “Pump Up the Volume” by MARRS á la every Star Trek franchise:

Star Trek Pump up the Volume MARRS by Vernon Wilmer Video. Found via Tor.com.

I’ve certainly been bobbing my head and tapping my foot to this!

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.

Dún Aonghasa

August 31, 2015March 1, 2016Erik

While doing some research on northern European hillforts recently, I found myself looking at some pictures of Dún Aonghasa (also known as Dun Aengus). It’s an impressive site. The fort is a series of concentric half-rings backing up onto 100-meter cliffs on the island on Inishmore off the western coast of Ireland. The earliest construction on the site has been dated to around 1100 BCE. Later additions were made around 500 BCE. It is one of the largest well-preserved examples of a type of structure that was built throughout northern and western Europe, from Spain to Sweden, in the prehistoric era.

The "cheveaux de frise," a barrier of jagged stones set up to slow down attackers. Photograph by Herbert Ortner — The “cheveaux de frise,” a barrier of jagged stones set up to slow down attackers, photograph by Herbert Ortner via Wikimedia

There has been disagreement in the scholarship about the function of Dún Aonghasa and similar forts. While often identified as fortified settlements, some have suggested that they were actually sites of religious ritual. It has to be said that if Dún Aonghasa and sites like it were religious sanctuaries, they were amazingly well-defended ones. I think it is more likely that sites that were originally built for defense were centuries later repurposed as ceremonial sites, much like how medieval castles built for defense have centuries later become museums and tourist attractions.

The walls of Dún Aonghasa and the cliffs of Inishmore. Photograph by Jal74 — The walls of Dún Aonghasa and the cliffs of Inishmore, photograph by Jal74 via Wikimedia

It may be hard to believe that such an enormous fortification was built in so remote a place, but forts like Dún Aonghasa were once fairly common across western and northern Europe. Most, however, have been lost to decay, erosion, and the reuse of stones. It is only in remote places like Inishmore that they still survive.

Thoughts for writers

Just a simple thought today: the world is full of interesting possibilities. Fortresses don’t have to look like medieval castles. Religious sites don’t have to look like cathedrals or Greek temples. History is huge and there are amazing things out there to inspire your imagination.

History for Writers is a weekly feature which looks at how history can be a fiction writer’s most useful tool. From worldbuilding to dialogue, history helps you write. Check out the introduction to History for Writers here.

Fan-Made Doctor Strange Credits Sequence

August 28, 2015August 28, 2015Eppu

Alex Silver (of This Is Productions) made a charmingly comic-like Doctor Strange credits sequence that’s definitely worth seeing:

Doctor Strange Title Sequence from This Is Productions on Vimeo.

Found via Collider.

The actual dose of the Doctor is still a ways away – according to IMDB, the release date is November 04, 2016. I know next to nothing about the character nor the work of screenwriter Jon Spaihts or director Scott Derrickson, but I’ve enjoyed the work of confirmed actors Benedict Cumberbatch plus Tilda Swinton, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Mads Mikkelsen (in negotiations). It remains to be seen how the movie will tie to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.

Men, Women, and Games

August 27, 2015August 27, 2015Erik

Lots of women play video games, and lots of gamers are women. This is not news, yet for some reason we have to keep saying it.

The august Pew Research Center was the most recent group to say it. Here’s their Teens, Technology, and Friendships report from earlier this month about how teens use games, among other online services, to connect with one another. Among many other findings, 84% of teenage boys reported playing video games, as did 59% of teenage girls. All teens reported playing a wide variety of different types of games (which is to say: no, all those teenage girl gamers are not just poking at Barbie Sparkle Kardashian Krush on their phones; they’re doing everything from hacking up orcs in World of Warcraft to building imperial star destroyers in Minecraft).

So, if there are so many women playing games, why don’t male gamers see them? The results of another recent study, Insights into Sexism: Male Status and Performance Moderates Female-Directed Hostile and Amicable Behavior by Michael M. Kasumovic and Jeffery H. Kuznekoff showed that male gamers (specifically playing Halo 3) tended to be more aggressive and abusive in voice chat to players who sounded female than those who sounded male. Also not news. Anyone who’s spent time in any online chat environment is likely to have seen the kind of dreck that gets spewed at women who let their identities be known, so it’s understandable that many female gamers choose to conceal their gender when in mixed company.

The Kasumovic and Kuznekoff study offers another interesting detail, however. The abuse directed at the female-voiced player came primarily from male players who were performing poorly, while men who were doing well at the game tended to be positive or neutral in their comments.

I see three important takeaways from these two studies:

There are women in your games. In fact, if you play a multiplayer game, they are all around you. Just because you don’t know they are there doesn’t mean they aren’t. If you don’t hear women’s voices, it only means that the environment is toxic enough that many women choose to stay silent rather than have to deal with it.
The men who harass women in games are not doing it mindlessly or randomly. They are not equal-opportunity dirt-spewers but target women specifically because they are trying to reassert their position in a hierarchy. The people most invested in any hierarchy are not the ones at the top but the ones who are afraid of falling to the bottom.
If you are a male gamer and you want to look like you’re at the top of your game: don’t spew crap at the women around you. Good gamers are decent to their fellow players. The only ones who feel the need to put others down are the scrubs who can’t cut it.

Of Dice and Dragons is an occasional feature about games and gaming.

Back to School with a Harry Potter Theme

August 26, 2015August 25, 2015Eppu4 Comments

Reddit user 86thdj shared their wife’s classroom, which she decorated with a Harry Potter theme. And it’s magical!

Reddit User 86thdj Imgur Potter Classroom1 — Reddit User 86thdj on Imgur

Reddit User 86thdj Imgur Potter Classroom2 — Reddit User 86thdj on Imgur

Reddit User 86thdj Imgur Potter Classroom3 — Reddit User 86thdj on Imgur

Reddit User 86thdj Imgur Potter Classroom4 — Reddit User 86thdj on Imgur

Make sure you see the rest of the photos on Imgur.

I just love the 9 ¾ door and the flying envelopes – very low effort but big impact. And that’s not all – first of all, every student will get their Hogwarts letter, and, later in the year, the kids will be quizzed and sorted into houses. The discussion on Reddit also touches on the kind of teaching that this room is meant for, so it should be helpful for other teachers.

Looks like it will be a lot of fun both for the teacher and the kids! I can’t but echo one of the commenters – “So awesome!! Keep being amazing!!”

In Making Stuff occasional feature, we share fun arts and crafts done by us and our fellow geeks and nerds.