Luis’ Illustrated Blog

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Well, I haven’t heard anything yet about when I should come in and move my stuff to my new desk. All I know is that I’m going to have to do that before my start date so I can get to work right away. When they’re ready to have me do that, I was told I would get a call. No call yet.

BOARD GAMES

After owning the game for about three years or so, Alesha and I finally got around to playing my Tales of the Arabian Nights board game. This is a storytelling adventure board game. It’s by far one of the most unique games I own. It’s a cross between a roleplaying game and a choose your own adventure with storytelling optional rules (one of 5 optional rules). Very odd but tons of fun.

When I read about the game on Boardgamegeek.com (BGG), I was very intrigued. I decided to get a copy but the only one I found was being sold on BGG by another user. I bought it from them and found, to my dismay, that it was all in German. Lucky for me, the person who sold me the copy help me get a translation for everything in the game. This was a good thing because this board game has a very important item that absolutely needs a translation, namely The Book of Tales. This book is the heart of the game.

During a turn, a player can move a number of spaces on a map of Europe, the Middle East, Asia and a bit of Africa, according to your wealth level. Once you finish your move (if you chose to move) you take a card from the encounter deck. If you flipped over a Fate card you can choose to keep it for later. If you flipped over an encounter, you have some sort of an adventure. Depending where on the map you are, what time of day it is, and what number you roll on a six sided die, the person on your left looks up what happens to you in The Book of Tales. Once they do, they tell you what or who you encounter. You then choose what you want to do, from a small unique group of decisions, based on what you just encountered. Once your choice is made and depending on what skills your character processes, the person on your left reads you a paragraph of what happens to you. The outcome can be good, bad, or sometimes, a bit pointless. Never the less, you have a small adventure. Each adventure you have changes your character in some way, either by giving you Story points, Destiny Points, a new skill, a change in your statues (for good or ill), a change in wealth (for good or ill) or even a treasure.

So what’s the point of the game? Well, that depends on what version of the game you are playing. At the beginning of the Standard and Storytelling version of the game you are asked to secretly distribute 20 points between Story points and Destiny points on a separate piece of paper, this is your secret goal called your Formula (for example if you put 12 points on Story points and 8 points on Destiny points that is your Formula). If during the game, as you travel around the board, you manage to meet your Formula (to continue from the example above…you happen to accumulate 12 Story points and 8 Destiny points) you can return to Baghdad (where all players started from) and win the game.

In The Adventure version of the game, the goal is different. If you manage to complete two quests and return to Baghdad first, you win the game. The adventure version of the game is a little more involved but just as much fun. During the Merchant version of the game, the object is to set up trade routes though out the map in order to gain great wealth. You win if your the first player to return to Baghdad with a treasure. If you’re playing the Solo adventure, you have to complete all the goals of all the other versions of the games (complete your formula, complete two quests, and obtain great wealth).

Out of all the ways to play the game, the Storytelling version is the most unique. This version of the game is different in that, instead of passing The Book of Tales to the person on your left, you keep the book, read what happens to you to yourself, and then you are given two minutes to tell the story in your own words to the people at the table. The more entertaining your version of the story, the more rewards you can get out of your adventure. If you recruit others at the table to help you tell the story by having them make sound effects for you or play a spontaneous supporting role, they might get rewards out of it as well.

I have not played this version of the game yet, but it really sounds like something that would be fun and silly to play. I can picture how much laugher there would be around the table if played with the right group of people.

All in all, we really enjoyed playing the game. Even though it was just the two of us. In fact, I was surprised my wife liked it so much. She like it so much that we played it two nights in a row because Alesha wanted to play it again. She beat me in the game we played the night before. It was a fun time. Alesha had an adventure in the Valley of Diamonds that had her laughing. The floor of the Valley of Diamonds is covered in diamonds but no one goes down there because giants snakes live down there. Alesha decided to risk going down there in a very unique way (but I won’t say what it was so I won’t spoil it for anyone who decides to play the game and investigate the Valley). To make a short story shorter, she didn’t quite succeed in her attempt and was lucky to escape with her life.

We had a blast playing this game. I highly recommend it. Up until now, there is no English version of this game, but that’s going to change soon. Z-man games is releasing an English language version. The version they’re releasing doesn’t seem to support the Merchant variant of the game, like my copy does, but hopefully they won’t change too much more. The new version will have 1000 new paragraphs that my version doesn’t have. In any case, the art looks amazing. It’s much better than the art in my copy (for a view of the new artwork click here). Depending, on how pretty the game is and depending if I happen to have a little extra cash on me, I might want to pick up a copy of the new version as well. Especially since my wife likest the game so much. As of the date of this writing, the game is suppose to come out late this year. You can already pre-order it from Thoughhammer.com.

ROLE PLAYING GAMES

This weekend, my wife invited her nephew and one of her best friends to stay over. I know that her best friend likes playing board games, and her nephew likes to come over, mostly because he wants to play my video games (he’s ten years old). I tried to play Dreamblade with him earlier in the day because I thought he’d get into the figures and the dice rolling, but the game fell flat because it was too complicated for him.

I wanted to play a game with him that he’d be into. The last time they were both over, we played Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery, and even though my wife, her best friend and I had fun, her nephew was bored. I don’t have any board games that would really appeal to a ten year old boy like him. If I had Heroscape it would be a different story, but I don’t. I needed a game that was Heroscape like. I also needed a game that would appeal to my wife and her friend because I wanted them to play as well. I knew that my wife’s best friend would have fun playing anything so after thinking it over and looking into the game closet I took out, Dungeons and Dragons 3.5.

A years or so ago, I picked up a Dungeons and Dragons Basic Game box. It looks like a board game box and it comes with miniatures, pre-generated character sheets, dice, an adventure, basic rules, and a bunch of boards that you can put together to make a dungeon. I brought that down, put it on the table and pretty much treated as if it was a board game. Of course, an hour before, I had to quickly read the adventure so I could take the players through it and I was familiar enough with the rules, that I thought I could play through it without really having to look many of them up.

Besides my wife, no one else knew what to expect from the game. I was not going to make it a heavy Role Play experience. All I was going to do is run a good old fashioned mindless “Hack and Slash dungeon crawl”. Having the minis and the boards helped a ton. The game played without any complications. It also helped that my wife was familiar with the game and she took it upon herself to lead by example, showing everyone all the endless choices that could be made in the game. All in all it was a hit with them. They were having a fantastic time playing the game. We played for four hours before my wife asked if we could stop because she was really tired and wanted to go to sleep. Everyone else at the table wanted to keep on going. They all thought that the game had stopped just as it was getting interesting. I was very surprised how much they liked it. In fact, the whole next day, they were constantly asking me when we would be able to play again. Unfortunately circumstances that day made it impossible to get back to it. Never the less, I got a new appreciation for the game.

Up until that day, I thought that if you were going to play D&D and just run a Hack and Slash Dungeon crawl, you might as well just play a video game that does that, like Diablo, Baldur’s Gate, or Champions of Norrath. Playing the game that night showed me that playing over a tabletop is much more fun. Yes, the fighting it s bit slower but because it’s not a scripted video game, you can choose to do much more creative things. This makes a huge difference, and makes the game much more fun than just playing a video game. Lesson learned.

Speaking of video games…

BOARD GAMES/VIDEO GAMES

Ticket to Ride came out on Xbox Arcade on the 24th of June. I’ve been reading the reviews, just to see what people say about it. Over all the game has gotten dissent reviews. Some player are even shocked at the way the game makes them feel. Like this quote from the Official Xbox magazine site:

Turns unfold steadily but relentlessly, and since you can perform only one action per turn, every moment is significant. We found ourselves at the edge of our seats with Ticket to Ride, hoping our rivals didn’t take certain stretches of track before we could. Yes, on the edge of our seats during a board game! In fact, we got so set on completing our Destination Tickets that the end of the game nearly always caught us by surprise.

Not all the reviews are like this. The IGN review is down right odd. For example this statement in the review:

It’s also a shame that there’s zero story built around the action. There’s no need for much, but something to tie it all together would have really helped this game gel.

Uh…someone should remind him he’s playing a board game not a roleplaying game or a first person shooter. How much story does UNO or RISK have?

Anyway, most everyone likes the game. The thing most reviewers are disappointed with is the visual presentation. They say it looks a bit dull. I agree, compared to the other modern board games on Xbox Arcade, Ticket to Ride doesn’t look as good. Still, it’s about the game play and as far as that goes, they all agree it’s a fun game.

 

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

So I was called from the show last week and was told that I needed to clean out my desk. No, it’s not what you think. I have to move all my stuff from my old desk to a new one. While working on the movie, many of us, (myself included) worked at the Fox Studio Lot and drew directly into computers in order to get the story reels done faster. The producers suddenly realized that we might want to do something similar on the TV show. It seems that the time is now. Some artists, like myself, who have experience using Cintiqs, have been asked to do the work we usually do on paper, in a digital format. If successful, I think the entire show may very well go digital, either by the end of this season or by next season.

FAMILY

The library by our house has kid shows. This Saturday was the first. My cousin, who is also Munchkins Godmother, suggested that we take her to one. Alesha and I thought it was a good idea so we went. It was balloon show. There was a guy on stage making jokes and balloon animals. We thought she would be into it because she loves balloons.

It turned out that she got really into it…for about five minutes, then she just wanted to run around and play. For the rest of the hour we were there, she just played around while Alesha and I watched the show. It was fun. Too bad Munchkin missed it.

In other Munchkin news…

So Munchkin tends to watch a bit of TV. Mostly educational shows like Sesame Street, Word World, Dora the Explorer…things like that. Because of this, she can now sorta count to twenty in English, count to ten in Spanish, and she can even tell you the names of all the letters in the alphabet when she sees them individually (but only the capital letters). She also often surprises me with new phrases she picks up.

Well, a couple of days ago, Munchkin and I were going through her bedtime routine. We went upstairs to the kids bathroom, brushed her teeth and then I sat her on the pottie (where she doesn’t really do anything but sit, talk and play, but that’s okay because we are just getting her used to the toilet.) In any case, she was sitting there and we happen to have a large toy flower by the pottie and she wanted it so I gave it to her. She then began to smell it, because she knows that that’s one of the things that you do with flowers. Then she surprised me by suddenly exclaiming passionately:

It was really cute. At first, I thought she had just come up with that on her own, but later I found out she got that phrase from watching a show on Nick Jr. called Yo Gabba Gabba. Still, as my wife said, it’s great that she knew how to apply that phrase.

BLOGS

Okay, so I was reading one of my favorite blogs. Maria Johnson’s blog (which I highly recommend) and she had posted up a video that was so great, I wanted to put it up on my blog as well. Behold the wonder that is The Dance off with Star Wars stars:

 

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

So the person who is in charge of putting the schedule together and generally telling us whose crew we are going to be on, is no longer working for the show. Why? I don’t know. All I know is that I’m going to miss him and that now we have to go directly to the producer to know whose crew we will be working on until they find a replacement.

I e-mailed the producer earlier this week to find out if my status has changed. If I am still going to be starting work on the first or second week of July. The answer I got back was sort of the same. I might actually start the 14th of July which is the third week of July. Well, no big deal. At least I’ll be working soon and won’t have to worry about money.

BOARD GAMES/VIDEO GAMES

I’ve been writing a lot about board games through out my blog. That’s because I think they are great fun. Most people, when you say board games, they think, Monopoly, Scrabble, or Risk. These games aren’t bad games but they often bring a lot of baggage with them. Usually when you think of these games, you think, “I used to play that when I was little” or “Man, I played that game to death”. You don’t think, “Boy, I really want to go play that”. Well, there are a ton of new board games out there made by smaller companies that once you try playing them with friends or family, you do say, “Boy, I really want to play that again!” Unfortunately, you won’t see commercials for these games but you can often learn about them through word of mouth or even by playing them on your Xbox 360. Which brings me to my topic today, of board games on the Xbox 360.

If I was to say, “The Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, or Carcassonne,” the board game geeks would think, “Modern classic board games”. Some of the more adventurous of you would say, “Hey I’ve played one of those. I loved it!” I think most of you would say, “Huh, are they Beatles songs?” Well, the Xbox 360, will hopefully change all that. It seems that the best selling games on Xbox Arcade (which is the place you buy and download games on the Xbox 360) are board games. Though UNO is the best selling, other board games are doing well in their own right. The Settlers of Catan is one of these games:

Ever wanted to try it? You can, using your Xbox 360.

You can also play Carcassonne:

…and Lost Cities. Lost Cities is the ultimate “couples game”. At least it seems that way, because if you look at any “Geek List” on Boardgamegeek.com on: “Couples games“, it’s almost always somewhere on the list. Last time I played this against Alesha, she really beat me pretty good.

The newest modern board games on the horizon for the Xbox Arcade are Ticket to Ride (pictured below) and Alhambra (no picture for that game yet, sorry).

Many people have gone out and bought the actual versions of these games after having played them on Xbox Arcade. Woo hoo! The more people out there that play these games, the more people I might be able to get to play with.

For more pictures and reviews of these games, go to TeamXbox.com

MORE..BOARD GAMES/VIDEO GAMES

A few months back I wrote a post called: Comparing the pros and cons of Video games and Board games. In the last line of that particular post I wrote this:

Maybe someday board games and video games might become one. We’ll have video tables were we move physical pieces around on a digital board that can read what you are doing and we’ll have the best (and worst) of both worlds.

Well, guess what…

For more info on products like these, click on the following link: Gizmo Watch

I found out about this stuff from reading Purple Pawn.

FAMILY

On Friday, I spent the entire day alone with the kids. They woke up at the same time in the morning. I fed them both. Played with them both for a few hours, then I put them to bed for their naps, just a little bit later than usual (and at the same time, which is very unusual for them). They slept well and, wouldn’t you know it, they both woke up at the same time. I went and got them both, fed them while I got ready for a small day out. After lunch I got the kids ready, put on my iPod ear buds, turned on a gaming podcast and we went outside for a walk.

Munchkin, pushed her little brother on his stroller (as I guided it) and she pushed it to the little playground we have in our housing community. Once there, she began climbing and going down the slide. I picked up the boy, sat down and watched his sister be a little daredevil. The sun was shining and a small breeze often cooled us down. The boy and I followed Munchkin around as she played. At one point she decided to play in one spot, picked the curving latter thingy in the playground and began climbing it in all sorts of ways. She was being quite fearless in some of the things she was doing on it. Her brother and I sat a foot away and watched her. We must have sat there for a good twenty minutes.

It’s moments like these that make life worth living. I was so happy I was there with my kids and for the hour and twenty minutes that I was there with them in that playground, there was nothing wrong with the world. Nothing to worry about, no money problems, nothing to stress about, just the breeze, the kids, and the innocence of trying out new things. It was heaven on earth. I kissed the boy, I encouraged the girl, and I was soooo happy. I’m going to miss this kind of thing when I go back to work.

When we got back to the house, I fed Munchkin her dinner and she surprised me by eating it all up in just a few minutes. I gave her treats as a reward. Meanwhile I managed to keep the boy awake for an extra hour until his official bedtime (if I don’t do this, it makes for a very rough night). Then I gave Munchkin a bath, which she loooooves to take. She had a blast splashing around in the tub. Afterwards, I took her out, brushed her teeth and put her to bed (which of course she didn’t want me to do). She stayed awake for a few hours after and I even came in once and “kissed attacked” her. She laughed and giggled and then fell asleep a few minutes after.

It was a great day. I love my kids. They are amazing gifts. I hope I could be a good father to them. I really want to raise them right. Thinking about the day, make me want to cry for some reason. God, I love them so much.

It was the Feast Day of St. Anthony that day. He must have prayed for us to have a little piece of Heaven that day. Thanks, St. Anthony.

 

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

I called the studio earlier this week. I wanted to know if they had worked out the schedule for the season yet, and if they had, where I fit in it. Well, I was told the schedule is still not quite done yet but it’s possible I might start on the first or second week of July. Unfortunately, this is not set in stone. So until the schedule is official, I might go back to work next month…or maybe not.

MOVIES (The Hobbit)

A while back I wrote about how it was good that The Hobbit movie would be split up into two movies. Turns out that my assumption that both movies would be telling the same story of The Hobbit, was incorrect. It seems that the first movie is going to be a movie version of The Hobbit book while the second movie is going to be completely made up.

Wait…

What?

That’s right, you read right, the second movie being made is going to be completely made up, as in,

“I feel like writing a completely new Middle Earth story that takes place between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings that Tolkien never wrote.”

There are two places on the internet where you can find out all about this stuff:

Weta holics: Which has an enormous interview with the Producer of the movies, Peter Jackson and the Director of the movies Guillermo del Toro.

The One Ring.net: Which has an interview with Director Guillermo del Toro.

I personally wanted desperately to know the answer to one question. It was actually asked in the Weta holics interview. Here it is below:

WetaHost	2 - Hello Mr. Jackson and Mr. Del Toro! Thank you very much for this time. My question is one that I think you will hear alot of from many of us…from what material will you pulling the second movie from? I know it’ll be great with you two on board, but I am mighty curious. I am a huge fan of both of you and I look foward to more Tolkien films!
Guillermo del Toro	The idea is to find a compelling way to join THE HOBBIT and FELLOWSHIP and enhance the 5 films both visually an in their Cosmology. There’s omissions and material enough in the available, licensed material to attempt this. The agreement is, however, that the second film must be relevant and emotionally strong enough to be brought to life but that we must try and contain the HOBBIT in a single film.
Peter Jackson	I’m really looking forward to developing Film Two. It gives us a freedom that we haven’t really had on our Tolkien journey. Some of you may well say that’s a good thing of course! The Hobbit is interesting in how Tolkien created a feeling of dangerous events unfolding, which preoccupy Gandalf. There’s an awful lot of incident that happens during that 60 year gap. At this stage, we’re not imagining a film that literally covers 60 years, like a bio-pic or documentary. We would figure out what happens during that 60 years, and choose one short section of time to drop in and dramatise for the screen. I’m really interested in how it effects The Hobbit - do we show what happens to Gandalg during his trips away? We’ll see. We may well have seeds for Film Two that we’ll subtly sow during The Hobbit.

Uh…is it just me or did Peter Jackson just totally ignore the question. What sources are you going to use Mr. Jackson? Meanwhile it would be nice to know what “Omissions and material” in the “licensed material” del Toro is talking about. To be honest I don’t like this idea at all. Nearly every time Peter Jackson deviated from what Tolkien had written in some source material, he actually made the story worse, not better. Some things he changed, I could understand, but then there are other things that make me go, “HUH!”? For example:

• Helm’s Deep. There really wasn’t any reason why the elves should have showed up. They all got killed to a man. There was not one Elf left alive at the end of that battle (except Legolas). They weren’t in Helm’s Deep in the book. Why have them there in the movie?
• Then there’s the question, what the heck happened to the Dunedain? In the book, Aragorn had an army of “Aragorns” (A.K.A Dunedain) that were as cool as he was, kicked major butt and turned the tide of the battle in Minas Tirith. In the movie, it was an army of ghosts. In the book, the ghosts simply helped Aragorn and the Dunedain get the ships the they needed to get to Minas Tirith to kick major butt. The the ghosts didn’t go all the way to Minas Tirith. In the movie, the fact that the ghosts did what they did, begs the question, “Why didn’t they just take those ghosts all the way to Mordor then?”
• Then of course, there’s Faramir whose character and personality they changed for the worse because, according to the Commentary on the DVD, “he needed a character arch”. In the book, Faramir was suppose to be the complete opposite of his brother Boromir and through him we were suppose got get a glimpse of what true wisdom and virtue really was. In any case, they at least fixed him some what in the extended editions, so he’s not too horrible, although having Sam and Frodo at Osgiliath just to get attacked by a Ring Wraith was a really a dumb idea too.
• Okay, so everything I mentioned above doesn’t really ruin the movies for me. I could live with those changes. They are still, “in the spirit” of what the story intended. There is one thing thought that just doesn’t fit any “spirit” at all. The worst sin in the movies…the portrayal of Denethor. This bugs me every time I watch the movies he’s in. For two reasons:

1. It is inconsistent with what the writers had established as their style. What I mean is, if they were willing to change Faramir because he needed story arch, WHY TAKE AWAY DENETHOR’S ARCH SO THAT HE’S A ONE NOTE CHARACTER?! (He’s Angry, angry, angry, angry, despairing and angry, he’s dead.) Then to have a scene were Gandalf hits him! What a disgrace. Yes, I understand he’s just a fictional character but it’s what he represents that bugs me. This leads me to reason…
2. In the books, there are many characters that represent wisdom, it’s a motif that is through out the books. Each character represents different kinds of wisdom. Elrond, Galadriel, Gandalf, Aragorn, Faramir, Sam, all, in part, represent a form of wisdom in the story. Denethor also represents wisdom but a wisdom that was slowly lost due to overconfidence and pride. Denethor was a wise and prudent (but very grumpy) leader. He knew what was at stake and what needed to be done about it. The problem with Denethor was that he was a very proud man and this proved to be his undoing. He also had a Palantir (just like Saruman the Wizard) something erroneously cut out of the movies. Denethor knew that Sauron controlled the Palantir but Denethor, through his pride, thought he was strong enough to deal with that fact and used it often. Denethor also knew that the Palantir could not show him false things. So Sauron out smarted Denethor by showing him that, the ships that Aragorn had taken from the “bad guys” using the ghosts, were on the way to Minas Tirith. Sauron hid the fact that Aragorn and the Dunedain were on board. He only showed him that evil ships with black sails were on the way. Denethor thought that more bad guys were coming and that is the reason he went into despair. Denethor thought he knew something no one else did. See, Sauron tricked a good man with false information by using his pride against him. Denethor’s pride proved greater than his wisdom and he foolishly played mind games with “evil” and lost. That is the lesson you should take away from Denethor’s story, “Don’t play with fire or you’ll get burned.” Why was this cut from the movies? If they had enough time to film big chunks of story afterwards for the special edition DVDs, why not a scene with a Palantir and Denethor, to explain why he went nuts? As it is, Denethor, in the movies, has no redeeming qualities and no character arch.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the The Lord of the Rings movies. There was far more right than wrong in them. I think, if they would have been written and directed by anyone else other than Peter Jackson and gang, they probably would have been awful. I really want them to make The Hobbit movie because I think, for the most part, they “get it”. The thing I don’t like is the fact that they are making something up from scratch, and I’m too much of a purist to feel comfortable about it.

One thing I am excited about, is that Guillermo del Toro is directing the movies and this means the art direction is going to be a little different. I personally didn’t like that way the Orcs, Goblins, and Wargs were designed in the original movies. Del Toro in the interviews, has already said, he’s going to be changing some of those designs. Especially the Wargs, which are going to look more like Wolves instead of Hyenas, and the Goblins are going to look different also. I’ve seen the trailer for Hellboy 2 and the monsters in that movie look great. I like that monsters in Del Toro’s movie Pan’s Labyrinth also. If The Hobbit movie looks anything like that, I’ll be happy.

ROLE PLAYING GAMES

Dungeons and Dragons 4^th Edition (D&D4E) came out last week on June 6th and at it’s peak the Core 4th edition gift set became the 4th highest seller at amazon.com. Dungeons and Dragons was the first role playing game ever invented. It inspired tons of other games since. Including some popular video games such as, but not limited to, the Final Fantasy series, the Zelda series, the Knights of the Old Republic series and Bethesda Softwork’s Morrowind, and Oblivion games. The role playing style of gaming has really come to popularity with the invention of games like Lord of the Rings Online and World of Warcraft. Now everyone who plays these games knows what geeks like me have known for years, playing role playing games with friends is fun. Not bad for a game that, in the 80s, was erroneously thought to lead kids into Satanism (much like a certain series of popular books about a young wizard named Harry).

Now that there are so many other role playing games out there, both tabletop and digital, why would you care to buy and play this one? Much like the Wii, D&D4E was designed to attract the new gamers. It has taken a lot of elements from some of the best of both the tabletop and digital role playing games out there, and simplified them so that anyone can pick up and play it; and if you’re into World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings Online, it will be even easier because it has borrowed a lot of ideas from those games as well. There is no better time to get into the geeky goodness of playing games like these.

MY WEEK

Man! I hate being sick. My throat is killing me. I’ve been sick since last week. This weekend I got really sick. I started getting better on Tuesday but that’s when I made the mistake of yelling along with The Munchkin when I was playing with her. On Wednesday I could barely swallow. I’m grumpy and feeling just awful. To make matters worse, the drawing below had to be drawn twice because my laptop over heated and turned itself off as I was just finishing it. I hadn’t save the drawing. It’s all I had the strength to draw. What a lousy week.

COPYRIGHT PROTECTION

Woo Hoo! Some illustrators have actually gone to Washington to fight the Orphan Bill. Hope they can make a difference. Let’s pray for them:

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP

 

Visual Artists Go to Washington, Independent Record Labels Oppose Orphan Works Act

 

Last week over two dozen visual artists, representing illustrators, photographers, fine artists and the arts licensing trades went to Capital Hill to explain to legislators how the Orphan Works Act will harm creators and the hundreds of thousands of art-related small businesses that serve and are dependent on them. At the same time, independent music labels have joined the opposition to orphan works legislation as it currently exists.

 

The Illustrators’ Partnership has stressed that Orphan Works legislation should be limited to true orphaned work and not act as an unwarranted compulsory license imposed on commercial markets. IPA, the Advertising Photographers of America and the Artists Rights Society have joined to offer amendments to that effect.

Excerpted from the Washington Internet Daily/Monday June 09, 2008:

 

The visual-arts community hit the Hill last week to protest what it portrays as a hijacking of the orphan-works issue as it was presented in a 2005 Copyright Office report…

 

The Copyright Office ran a bait-and-switch from its 2005 notice of intent, which focused on facilitating libraries’, museums’ and other nonprofits’ efforts to digitize collections to improve access to them, [Illustrators’ Partnership co-founder Brad] Holland said. Artists want the issue narrowed back to that focus, scrapping commercial use, he said…Copyright Office roundtables on orphan works never addressed alternates to registries, an “untested, untried, unaccountable market system” favoring Google, Getty, Corbis and other commercial aggregators, Holland said. [Cynthia] Turner [also of the Partnership] said artists would incur high costs registering works, and they hesitate to hand over high-res, commercial versions to Google or others.

 

In the same article, Washington Internet Daily also reports that the leading group of independent music labels has broken with the corporate music trade associations. The American Association of Independent Music has published a position paper opposing the current orphan works bills. The article quotes a music industry executive: “I can tell you that nobody in the music business” sought the bill.

 

… the executive said the bill is “de facto… establishing a new compulsory license” by putting unregistered artists at a legal disadvantage in court. The law can’t explicitly require registration or it will violate the Berne Convention, TRIPS and other treaties the U.S. has signed, the executive said. Book publishers and music executives in the U.K. think the U.S. will be in trouble, the executive said, citing a recent visit: “I can tell you there are European commissioners that are looking at this right now.”

 

-Excerpts from “Orphan-Works Bills Scorned by Visual Arts, Indie Labels” by Greg Piper, Washington Internet Daily June 09, 2008

 

Also see http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/27803/visual-artists-and-indie-record-labels-voice-concern-over-orphan-works-bills/

 

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

On Monday I got an e-mail from one of our Simpsons producers telling us that the actors signed their new contract. We were informed that the rest of the day, they were going to begin figuring out a schedule for the shows in order to have some idea for our start dates. That’s really good news for us. Hurray! Although, I don’t expect to be back to work until sometime in late July early August. We were told, before our hiatus, that we were to expect to come back a month after the writers signed. Although, because the shows start up about two to three weeks from each other, not everyone will be coming back at once.

ROLE PLAYING GAMES

 

So I was listening to The Daily Breakfast #492 last Tuesday, and I heard myself there because I left a voice message, earlier in the week. I had called to say something about Role Playing games based on a comment from another caller. I really didn’t think much about it until I heard what happened next. It went something like this:

 

Yeah, so now that I opened my big fat mouth, I thought I should write a little about some Role Playing Game systems in case people have decided to come to my blog because of what I said.

Here’s a small list of the games I own. Hopefully this will give you an idea of the games that are out there. I’ll give you the name of the game or game system and a description of it. I will also put Pros and Cons for each one when I could. If it’s a games system I will put the games that can be played with it. A Game System is a generic system of rules that could be used to play just about any game genre. Some are better and more versatile than others.

Okay, lets begin…

THE HERO SYSTEM:

This was my favorite system, mostly because I was able to make superheroes with it.

PROS: Very, very versatile. You could play just about anything you want with it. You can play Star Wars in it, if your willing to put the time into creating the Star Wars universe from scratch. You can play Pulp, Fantasy, Sci-fi…you name it, you can play it in this system.

CONS: Very complicated. Character creation takes a very long time. If fighting occurs the game begins to get very sloooow. It has no ‘official setting’ which means you have to create everything from scratch. This involves a lot of work and it means that you won’t actually be playing a game right away. Someone will have to sit down and create the setting. (This may not be a con if you love doing that sort of thing anyway).

HERO SYSTEM GAMES I OWN:

· CHAMPIONS: Superheroes

· PULP HERO: Like Indiana Jones…

· FANTASY HERO: Any kind of Fantasy setting you can think of.

· STARHERO: Any kind of science fiction space genres.

MUTANTS & MASTERMINDS:

My new favorite system for playing superheroes. This game (unlike HERO) is only a system to play superheroes games. It uses a very heavily modified D20 3.5 system. So heavily modified, that its now its own system. This system is very much like the HERO system Champions game only a lot easier.

PROS: The system is easy and fast. The artwork in the game is great. If you like superheroes, this is the game to play. You can make Jedi with this system. You might be able to use this system for anything you want.

CONS: To be very honest, I can’t think of any right now. If I do, I’ll but them in.

SAVAGE WORLDS:

This is my second favorite system. It’s lighter than Hero system and almost as versatile. It’s a little like the D20 3.5 system only easier.

PROS: Not very complicated. Easy for beginners to use so it’s a great starter role playing game. Character creation takes fifteen minutes. Quick combat mechanics. Has some official settings.

CONS: Not as versatile as Hero system. (in other words you wouldn’t be able to make Superheroes or Jedi using this system). Otherwise good system. If you want to play a game outside of some of the official settings it has the same world building problem as Hero System.

SAVAGE WORLDS GAMES:

· DEADLANDS: This game seems like a very interesting wild west game with fantasy and horror elements. Some of the mechanics of the game require using Poker cards.

(Here is the official description of the game):

Welcome to the Weird West!

The year is 1879, but the history is not our own. The guns of the Civil War are silent thanks to a tense cease fire between North and South. California is shattered by the Great Quake of ྀ, a new superfuel called ghost rock is revealed in the flooded channels and buried in the cliff faces that loom above. Powerful Rail Barons strive to be the first to complete a transcontinental railroad, and the Great Rail Wars exact a bloody toll on an American frontier divided between not only the Union and Confederacy, but the Sioux Nation, the Mormon state of Deseret, and the Independent Commonwealth of California.

Amid the chaos, fortunes can be made by those bold enough to make their way West. These brave souls have more than plain old human violence to contend with. Something’s going on in the West, something downright nasty. Fear stalks the land like a hungry beast, and abominations from man’s myths and nightmares haunt the High Plains. Legends tell of ancient and powerful beings that thrive on the fear created by these horrific creatures. All around, the night grows darker and the shadows grow longer as evil twists the land.

Arrayed against the forces of darkness are the heroes of the Weird West: Grim gunslingers, spell slinging hucksters, brilliant mad scientists, and wizened Indian shamans stake their souls and fortunes on the battle against the evils of the frontier, and often lay down their very lives for the cause of righteousness and light. And sometimes, death is not the end.

D20 3.5 SYSTEM:

This is the most popular system out there. Wizard of the Coast owns it (they make Magic the Gathering collectible card game) and it’s an open game license, which means anyone can make and sell a game using the rule system . It’s famous because Dungeons and Dragons and Star Wars RPG used it. Now both Star Wars and Dungeons and Dragons have their own separate systems. The Star Wars game is: Star Wars Saga Edition. The new Dungeons and Dragons game is: Dungeons and Dragons 4^th Edition. I don’t own either of these systems, so I really can’t comment upon them.

PROS: Not too complicated. Easy for beginners to use but a bit “crunchy” (rules heavy) it’s a good starter role playing game. It’s everywhere. Lots of games use the system. Fights are moderate in length. Lots of resources out for it. Great to play ‘Hack and Slash’ games with. You could play Paranoia with it!

CONS: It’s a bit shallow. Not very customizable. It’s very limiting in the type of characters you can make. It almost forces you to make stereotype characters rather that deep ‘real’ characters. It’s more a miniatures game than a role-playing game. Too heavy an emphasis on fighting and very little on character development.

D20 3.5 GAMES:

(I will limit this list to the games I own.)

· D&D 3.5: Dungeons and Dragons is the game everyone thinks of when they think RPGs. I thinks it’s fun to play if all you want to do is “hack and slash” monsters but it you want a deeper fantasy experience then there are other games that work better. This game tends to pigeon hole you into making very limited character types.

· CONAN: I ain’t talking lame Arnold Schwarzenegger Conan here, I’m talking Robert E. Howard’s Conan. From the books. This game is interesting because you don’t play as Conan but you play in the world of Conan which is as interesting as Tolkien’s Middle Earth. One of the things I found interesting, is that in order to do magic, in the world of Conan you have to, in some way, sell a little of your soul. The more magic you learn the more of yourself you lose. Very interesting.

(Here is the official description of the game):

‘Know, o prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars - Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyberborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet.’

The golden age of fantasy is brought back to gaming as Conan and Hyboria stride into the realms of gaming once again. This 352-page, lavishly illustrated full-colour book realizes the world of Conan as never before.

Exhaustively researched, Conan The Roleplaying Game features new innovations to ensure combat, magic, character creation and development reflect the epic writings of Robert E. Howard. From the shores of the Western Ocean, to the Sea of Vilayet, the countries of Hyboria are explored, detailed and illustrated. The cultures, religions, traditions, legends and more are all explored to ensure this is the most definitive Conan roleplaying game of all time. This complete roleplaying game lets players and Games Masters alike step into the world of the greatest fantasy hero of all time and shake the world of Hyboria.

· TESTAMENT: This is a game where you play during the age of the Old Testament. I bought this because I was curious. It’s an interesting game. It might be interesting to play this as a political game. Problem with this book is that it was originally written for D20 3.0 not 3.5. But it’s not too big a deal to modify it to 3.5.

(Here is the official description of the game):

You’ve Read The Book, Now Play The Game!

There were giants in the Earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in onto the daughters of men and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
—The Book of Genesis

The world of the Bible comes to life in this campaign setting for the d20 System. Play a wandering Babylonian magus, a sorcerer in the service of Pharaoh, a Canaanite maker of idols, or a prophet of the God of Israel. Walk the streets of ancient Jerusalem, stand beside King David as one of his Mighty Men, smite Philistines, ponder the mysteries of gargantuan tombs, look upon the dwellings of the gods, and battle demons, dragons, plagues, and the legendary beasts of Babylon. Testament gives you everything you need to immerse yourself in the Biblical Era, including:

• A dozen new core and prestige classes, including the Levite Priest, the Egyptian Khery-heb wizard, and the Desert Hermit.
• Over 30 new monsters, including Nephilim, Tempter Devils, and Zebub-Spawn.
• Over 50 new feats and over 100 new spells.
• Rules for barter, curses, piety.