Casey G's G+ Feed

About the views. Originally shared by Yonatan Zunger Several people have been asking me about the new "view count" number which shows up on your profile, and I've been answering on a bunch of threads, so let me give you the key answers in one place. What does this number count? This is total views on your profile, your posts, your photos, and your videos.  What constitutes a "view?" For your profile, when someone goes to view your profile page. For other things, it's when they look at it -- e.g., when one of your posts shows up on someone's screen. (That's because this is how most people read posts: showing up in a stream, without clicking on it explicitly) Looking at your hovercard doesn't count. Is this related to +1's, reshares, etc.? Only in that someone who +1'ed your post also probably saw it. You can already see counts for those on individual posts, etc., and before today you could see view counts for each photo if you looked ca

Since when does your profile say how many times it's been viewed? 731,751 times? That's crazy. And a drop in the bucket to other folks, I'm sure. This sure is a ghost town.

Running a short "get to know the system" session of Stars Without Number this Wednesday in preparation for the regular campaign starting soon. Typically these sorts of sessions include a little fight to get to know the combat system. Tried to think of a way to do this that didn't have the possibility of offing a character. Decided there wasn't a way without it being lame. Oh well.

I need to watch Home Movies again, this time from the perspective of a bumbling adult, instead of a young adult, just realizing the adults around him were just making it all up. Originally shared by Ian Williams Really happy to be featured at The Point. I wrote about Home Movies, one of the anchors of Adult Swim's early period. It was about divorce and how kids deal with it. That's what I wrote about.  http://www.thepointmag.com/2014/featured/homemovies

Finding a bunch of old D&D stuff made me nostalgic for the Epson FX-80 dot matrix printer character sheets I made as a kid. As luck would have it, someone made that exact font. http://www.1001fonts.com/dotrice-font.html So I made a 1 page OSR character sheet that will give you that 80's word processor style.

Pray for me.

The reviews are coming in. Church-nerds are complaining Noah doesn't adhere enough to the original's established canon. Delicious. I heard it has stone giants. I want to see it now.

Playing Super Meat Boy for some reason.

Short session to try out the system. events/c75b98a7b8p56274gafbnf3iieg?authkey=CITRifPKz4j4Vw

In today's mail.  Kickstarter was funded on March 2nd.

One more trip down memory lane. Here's a pdf of my first word processor created character sheet. I can't believe I had a blank one. These pages are still attached to each other.

A dungeon from my childhood. I was maybe 11 when I drew this? 12? I think I had a Player's Handbook but no other books. Later I got the DMG which at least had monster stats in the back.

It's time for ACKS ! #ACKS

One more.

No image sums up D&D like this one.  RIP Dave Trampier.

I opened SAP before I opened Outlook this morning and I've been flustered all day finding my email. But I'm too lazy to quit SAP and start it again. #XPproblems

Oh no. No no no. http://youtu.be/wTExFsVZXEQ

DM Plotting My PCs are without a quest. Nominally, the campaign is Against the Giants, but we started from 1st level and although most PCs are around 6th level now, they are still skittish of taking the fight to the giants. But they do know the location of the Steading. They've been away from Sterich and Geoff for a couple months. They are planning to return to the Keep they've occasionally used as a base. When they get there it's going to be in ruins. Destroyed two weeks before by giants from the steading. This was possible because the new Marquis of Sterich recalled his troops. Why did he do that? Because he's a werewolf (that the PCs earlier left alive) under the sway of the Drow (who the PCs discovered invading the sewers of Istvin, but escaped from and then never told anyone). So it's time for some cockatrices to come home to roost. No idea what they will do. Can't even really prepare.

A. Miles Davis, in reference to Paolo's thread, it was Greg Christopher. He seems to have gone off the deep end.

I love the Gentleman Scholar. I know, I know. We’re trafficking in some horribly anachronistic ideas here: In 2014, an able-bodied man carrying a walking stick looks simply lame. What is this, a steampunk meetup? Third, follow the advice of The Art of Duelling (1836) and, when rising early on the day of the duel to meet your opponent among the morning mists, keep breakfast simple: “I do not advise his taking more than a biscuit and cup of coffee.” Coffee means coffee here, for real: Are you prepared for your last meal to involve a hazelnut cappuccino? http://www.slate.com/articles/life/gentleman_scholar/2014/03/advice_for_men_a_history_of_dueling_and_how_to_parent_adult_children.html?wpisrc=hpsponsoredd2

Finished Archer season 4 tonight. This was maybe my favorite moment of the season. Dicknuts.

Time for Realms of Cthulhu !

events/ch0aj185cbgf1k51e5qk41csr2c?authkey=CNu9xvf5qf-isAE

I don't have an opinion on Oculus, but this is hilarious anyway. Originally shared by Matthew “Polybius” H

Kids can't wait to grow their own mustache or lack the capacity to grow one? Just buy them a mustache blanket.

Watched We Are What We Are . I liked it a lot. Reminded me of Frailty. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPG9kZmEwcs

Will this cheer up Bret Gillan? Originally shared by Matthew “Polybius” H The NSA has gone too far....

Fuck yeah, dire lion and dire boar! http://youtu.be/4JZhGYrgCPg

To quote Benny the 80's space guy in the Lego movie, "Spaceship!" https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/168734274/mobile-frame-zero-002-alpha-bandit?ref=users

#yojoeday ! Special Missions 17 This issue again features Cobra as the bad guys, but also works in some trademark Hama politics along with Stalker being an utter badass. So this is a good one. In the opening scene, we get a classic Hama  “slice of army life” scene with some Joes being awakened by Dusty to report for a mission. Hardball, Shockwave, Muskrat, and Hit and Run meet Stalker on the runway where he briefs them. They’re on their way to “Siliconville,” CA to stop some terrorists who have taken over a computer chip maker who works on DOD contracts. At the scene Scarlet and Sneak Peek can sense something is funny with the whole situation. An FBI agent there tells Stalker something fishy is going on with the owner of the company and the chief of police. He suspects something is up, so he called in the Joes.  Inside the building we find out Scrap Iron (always one of my favorites) and some vipers are trying to break into the vault. The Joes assault the building in bad-ass fashion, di

All I want to do is scan with a Canon all-in-one, Ubuntu. Why should I need to be a fucking programmer to do this? Printing was easy-peasy. Scanning...ARGHLEBARGLE.

Truth. http://www.theonion.com/articles/find-the-thing-youre-most-passionate-about-then-do,31742/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=LinkPreview:NA:InFocus

A trailblazer and her mount enjoy the spoils of victory For Riders of the Purple Lotus .

Originally shared by Kevin Crawford The Scarlet Heroes Quickstart is now freely available to the curious at DriveThruRPG/RPGNow. In 32 tidy pages it packs everything you need to play an evening's home-brewed adventure or send a novice hero through a classic low-level adventure module. While you're there, you might also want to grab the Scarlet Heroes Art Pack, which contains the full art of the book, released into the public domain as part of the Kickstarter. Feel free to use it for your own projects, whether personal or commercial. http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/127458/Scarlet-Heroes-Quickstart

My snowbird parents took their trike to California to look at some warbirds yesterday. Check out the Frank Frazetta-style nose-art on this A-26. And the tough old P-40 next to my tough old dad.

Because of Robert Rodriguez's mad genius, my daughter and I can see Danny Trejo, look at each other, and both say, "There's Machete!"

Got a giant new printer. But all I can do is look at the styrofoam and think "mech bay."

Let's see...um...I had a probably bad idea about how Gadgets might work in Riders of the Purple Lotus instead of just reskinning spells as gadgets. There are ten "basic" inventions. Offensive, Defensive, Cloud, Travel, Mesmerism, etc. Instead of choosing new gadgets when you level, your already existing gadgets get a new more powerful setting. Like an offensive gadget starts at magic missile then after an upgrade gets, flaming sphere , then fireball etc. At 1st level choose 1 gadget that is your primary. This always levels up. Roll randomly for a number of other gadgets equal to your Int bonus. When you level up you can improve gadgets you've got, or invent something else. But the new one has to start at 1st level. I dunno. That's probably dumb. Sorry fortune cookie.

The horrible truth about Limbo .

My new favorite artist: http://supersaurs.bigcartel.com/products

A herd of nine suburban deer were hanging out in a neighbor's yard this morning. This one got closest and you can see some of his? her? (too early for antlers) friends under the trees there. I tried to get a Vine of them all crossing the road in front of me, but I wasn't fast enough.

This kickstarter ended March 2nd. I got the final version of the pdf a couple weeks ago. I had a 90% complete pdf the day I pledged. Today fulfillment is complete with codes to order hard copies. Less than three weeks since it ended. Originally shared by Kevin Crawford Thanks to the tireless efforts of my artists and my great luck in avoiding calamity, Scarlet Heroes is now available at DriveThruRPG/RPGNow. Backers have all received their freebie PDF coupons, print backers have all got their at-cost print coupons, and Languorous Harbingers have all had their books ordered for them. All that remains now is to check out the proofs on the quickstart that should be arriving by the end of next week, put the art into the public domain this weekend, and polish up the epub and mobi versions of the core book before the end of the month. If I get all that done tidily, this KS will have wrapped up three months ahead of its deadline. http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/127180/Scarlet-Heroes

The art goal for Riders of the Purple Lotus is "no worse than the crappiest late 70's TSR art."

I'm not making light or offering opinions. Just look at these. Ron Edwards for flails. http://imgur.com/a/jKYpS?gallery

Saving for later. Originally shared by Dirk Puehl “They told, how in their convent-cell / A Saxon princess once did dwell, / The lovely Edelfled. / And how, of thousand snakes, each one / Was changed into a coil of stone, /When holy Hilda pray'd; / Themselves, within their holy bound, / Their stony folds had often found. / They told, how sea /fowls' pinions fail, / As over Whitby's towers they sail, / And, sinking down, with flutterings faint, / They do their homage to the saint. (Sir Walter Scott “Marmion”) Being able to petrify snakes is generally a useful skill to have, especially when you live in a place where you might find a deadly poisonous reptile in every crack. The north of England is usually not rated tops among the regions with an abundant serpentine population, but in the early days of Christianity it must have been all the rage for a saint to have a proven track record of driving out the brutes, with St Patrick leading the way in Ireland, of course. When a hor

First sketch for the interior of Riders of the Purple Lotus . Based on Cowboy Watering His Horse by NC Wyeth.

Time for Hollow Earth Expeditions ! Also, I had cheesecake at lunch and a big piece of angel food cake with whip cream and strawberries for dessert just now, and I'm a little bloated.

Catzilla surveys his destruction of the Isle of Sodor and roars at his might.

G+ Post gets people to talk about G+. Is Wrong. http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/03/18/mh370_disappearance_chris_goodfellow_s_theory_about_a_fire_and_langkawi.html

This falls into the the impulse purchase category. I'm in for the PDF, which was cheap enough that I probably would have snagged it on DriveThruRPG at some point anyway. I'll decide if I want a print version before it ends. Having a printed book with Juan Ochoa art would be worth it I'm sure. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/847190685/circle-of-hands

I didn't know there was a name for this affliction. I've got a touch of masocore gamer in me. I'm just not good enough to actually beat most of the super hard games I've played. I actually like these kinds of games for mobile gaming more. I did beat Wind-Up Knight using only items earned in-game. My Superhexagon scores are not bad. Flappy Bird mastery still eludes me though. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/03/dark_souls_ii_the_rise_of_masocore_gaming.html

No! Marcie! Originally shared by Jonathan Tweet Jack Chick's classic 1984 tract about the diabolical dangers of D&D, now turned into a live-action movie. Next we need a larp where you play satanic D&D teens in the 80s.  http://youtu.be/jk2Pr9jXCr8

OK, if I'm going to do this DIY stuff, I'm just doing it in Google Docs. Being able to use tables as a field and the ability to put a table within a table means I can quit attempting to learn Scribus.

#yojoeday ! Special Missions 16 This issue is a rare crossover issue with the regular series. It is also strange in that Cobra Commander actually makes an appearance.  This isn’t my favorite issue by far, but it has some stuff going for it. We start with the Joes spying on Cobra Island with their satellite in the aftermath of the Cobra civil war. Check out the “Magnify and Enhance” buttons Mainframe uses. Love it. Cobra is moving a bunch of suspicious material around on their airstrip and the Joes want to know what’s up. So all the Joe jets, joined for the first time by their stealth pilot (what’s his name again? no one knows ) head out to take some “funny pictures.” Wild Bill, Mainframe, and Lady Jaye follow in a C-130 decked out with electronic warfare equipment.  Reaching Cobra Island, there is the predictable dogfight, and we learn again that the secret of the Joes is that they are a team, while Cobra is a conglomeration of individually motivated mercenaries who can’t work togeth

More progress for Riders of the Purple Lotus . Is it outsider art yet? I haven't put this much work into a drawing since college.

I've seen the you-tube video mashing up Let it Go and the Watchmen movie, now here's the original Watchmen art with the lyrics. The parallels are very amusing to me. More at the link: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/03/17/_let_it_go_watchmen_mashup_does_let_it_go_pay_homage_to_the_dr_manhattan.html

Despite my snarking, Non-Stop was a fairly effective thriller. Liam Neeson is really good at "haunted tough-guy." And when the plane starts to go down and his gun floats up in front of him in slow motion, it was my wife exclaiming, "YES!" not me.

I haven't played LIMBO in forever. Now I'm sad.

Congrats Rafael Chandler and Gennifer Bone! Can't wait! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rafaelchandler/lusus-naturae-a-gruesome-old-school-bestiary

Gonna watch Liam Neeson shoot people. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iSMPR5zVuM&app=desktop

Time for ACKS !  Hail satan!

DM Scheming If the PCs survive being ambushed by the remaining forces of Sakatha, this is what they face next. Spoilers for Tomb of the Lizard King. Originally shared by Casey G. Having (mostly) survived the top level of the Tomb of the Lizard King , next session the PCs will have to navigate a trapped staircase that dumps you down a ramp into a sixty-foot deep pit of flames. Then, the River of Nothingness . The river and the boats are illusions over a dry ditch. In the ditch are vats of acid under the illusions of the boats. This is the DM view with the acid vats visible.

Watch this: Biting Elbows - The Stampede (Official Music Video) then this: http://vimeo.com/62092214 Crazy Go-Pro parkour 1st person shooter action. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYm-dT24iRY

Hey, the Veronica Mars movie has the Garske seal of approval. It's a two-hour episode of Veronica Mars. That's perfect!

Swag.

In a world where mimics exist, doesn't it make sense to shoot an arrow at every treasure chest you find before trying to examine it? Last ACKS session the party found a mimic impersonating a door and went around shooting doors for the rest of the night.

You're going to see a lot of this today. Just submit. Originally shared by Rafael “Francisco” Chandler The most dreadful entities I can imagine! I am happy to announce that Lusus Naturae , the spiritual successor to the Teratic Tome , is now crowdfunding on Kickstarter. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rafaelchandler/lusus-naturae-a-gruesome-old-school-bestiary Lusus Naturae ("freaks of nature") is a hardcover compendium of horrific monsters for old-school role-playing games, and it will feature face-melting artwork by Gennifer Bone. I would be most grateful if you could help spread the word. \m/ -- Rafael #lususnaturae #teamscaphism https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rafaelchandler/lusus-naturae-a-gruesome-old-school-bestiary

DM Scheming What's a DM to do? My players have again high-tailed it out of the Tomb of the Lizard King after scoring some major treasure. They have completely cleared the bandits and cultists from the upper level. Sakatha the Lizard King has more minions though. On the second level are almost 100 lizardmen that can be pretty easily avoided. But Sakatha could send them to ambush the PCs and their mercenary army at their camp, or wait at the entrance to the temple for them to come back. On the other hand, a certain part of me wants to get on with the adventure, skip the more realistic repositioning of forces, and let the players get on with their dungeon-crawling when they return. It's not like I don't have several deadly traps waiting for them as soon as they get back to where they were. Opinions?