Books I Read in June

I forgot to post these back at the end of June so here they are now. I also read a couple of comics, but they were parts one and two of a trilogy and I'm planning to get to the third one so I'll review those all together when I finish them.

Mapril Books

 I read a lot of things in April and also one thing in March. I found a lot of them disappointing.

The last of last year's books

I wasn't reading as much and I forgot to keep posting reviews here, so here's a catch-up for the books I read last year, to be followed by a catch-up for the books I read this year, and then hyopefully more regular posts after that.

Neither Gods Nor Genies

In Game Masters Aren't Gods... They're Genies, Neal Litherland argues that the job of a GM (and it's telling that he calls it a job) is "to create challenges ... decide what treasure the players find, what allies they make, and ... do all these things in service to the players." He sees the game as being akin to a book that the players will want to keep reading. In a related discussion on Discord he made it even plainer, casting the GM in the role of a performer and other players as the audience.

There are a couple of big assumptions at play here and I disagree with both of them.

Books I Read in June - or Didn't

More book reviews.

April May Read

Some more book reviews for the stuff I read in April and May.

Bookmarch

Prince Valiant Volume 3: 1941-1942

Hal Foster & Dan Nadel

More fun adventures. Ogres, giant monsters and several dragons. Introduces some great characters (Boltar, Angor Wrack) and includes a bit of Gawain, which you love to see. And as for Val himself? I'll quote Angor Wrack: I like that hot-headed young idiot. 4/5

Books I Read in February

Murder in Mendocino

Mary Kittredge

This one was a decent cosy mystery with a solid cast of characters. I enjoyed it. 4/5

Books I Read in January

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory

David Graeber

Does a really good job of explaining the problem and how easily it could be solved but leaves me with little hope that it actually will be. 4/5, would recommend.

Foundations Prerelease

Today I played Magic: the Gathering with real cards on an actual table for the first time in about twenty years.

I'm not going to make a habit of it, but I did find that I still enjoy prerelease events. This one, anyway. The new set, Foundations, is basically equivalent to a core set, except that it does have some themes and synergies; in this case some obvious one are Landfall effects, effects that trigger when you have creatures of power 4 or greater, and +1/+1 counters. It seemed to lead to a style of play that reminded me of playing with my friends when we were all just learning to play; quick, simple games with big creatures and not really any combos or super efficient strategies.

Foolish Games

Played a few things I liked this time. And some things I didn't.

All Games are the Same

I played some games. Several of them were very similar.

A Game by Any Other Game

Tried out some more games.

What's in a game?

Played a little bit of few games recently. And one particular game a lot.

"Employment services providers" are literally incompetent

We all know that the points reporting and compliance testing is bullshit but you'd think that, at the very least, they'd be able to do basic things like write a resume, right? They certainly seem to think they can, because it's one thing they all insist on doing - even if your current resume was written by your last "provider". Every single one of them thinks they know what a resume should look like and no two of them agree, which alone tells you all you need to know about their supposed expertise in the area. But it's worse than that. It's not just that they all assume their own opinions are universal, it's that they are actually terrible at writing resumes. Let me give you an example.

FAQ for TTRPG GMs

Q: Is it OK to kill off a player character by GM fiat?

Alexandre Dumas

 A short dialogue in the style of:

Games I Played a While Ago

I played these games way back in October of last year and started writing up these reviews, then forgot to finish and publish them. I think I was maybe planning to try out some other games and add them to the list, but I never did. Anyway, here's some quick reviews of games I played a bit of.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York

I want to like this game a lot more than I do, and I think I'm actually cutting it more slack than I should. I did enjoy it, but I can't say it's good. And I think that if I had free reign with the assets I could make a better game. I'm not saying you shouldn't buy it (although I am definitely saying that you shouldn't pay almost $30 for - get it when it's on extreme discount like I did) but do be aware that it's more atmosphere than story and more interactive cutscene than game.

Life in plastic? It's OK.

Movies should be 90 minutes. Even at just under two hours, Barbie feels long. And it's not like there wasn't anything to cut: everything before the return to "Barbieland" could have been drastically condensed. And that's about half the film. There are some funny bits in that first half, but it's not till the second half that the main plot actually begins.