GeekNights 20100629 - Shock

MrPeriod

Tonight on GeekNights, we discuss our first experience with Shock: a fascinating role playing system designed to create social science fiction. In the news, Counterstrike has been updated, and continues to be one of the most popular and enduring online FPSs of all time. Also, the Burning Wheel Adventure Burner lives.

• Rym's Thing - "American" Food
• Scott's Thing - Mario 3 in Eleven Minutes (chart)

Download MP3

Techparadox

Excellent - a new ep! *downloads*

Extended Show Notes:

Geeknights 20100629 - Shock

Expanded Show Notes - Show Run Time: 00:48:31

Time | Notes
---------+----------------------------------------------------------
00:00:00 | Intro
00:00:28 | Opening Chit-Chat
| - World Cup arguments
| - Soccer Balls and Scott's Balls (Testicular Torsion?)
00:03:25 | News
| #Counter-Strike updated
| - Discussion of the history of CS
| - Discussion of how achievements won't ruin CS
| - Note of features that were added
| - No fundamental gameplay changes
| - Cross-platform play (PC & Mac) now possible
| - Rym defends playing old game using Argumentum ad Populum
00:13:04 | #Burning Wheel
| - Adventure Burner
| - Was available for pre-order, but that sold out
| - Non-limited edition will be available
| - Essentially a GM's Guide
| - Discussion on how to learn to play Burning Wheel
00:16:15 | Things of the Day
| - Rym - The "American" Food Aisle
| - Idea of filming the ethnic food aisles at US locations
| - Discussion of ethnic accents
| - Scott - Mario 3 in Eleven Minutes (chart)
00:19:27 | Meta Moment
| - Geeknights Book Club: The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
| - ConnectiCon 2010 is July 9-11
| - Pax Prime 2010 registration is open - DOOOOO EEEEETTT NOWWW!!!!
| - If past history is any indication, the 3-day passes WILL sell out
| - New York Comic Con and New York Anime Festival have merged
| - NYCC/NYAF 2010 is October 8-10
| - 10/10/10 The Burning Con (Official Burning Wheel event) is the same weekend
| - October planning suggestions
00:25:13 | Main Topic
| - #NerdNYC Recess was June 19
| - Discussion of how NerdNYC Recess worked
| - #Shock was hosted by Joshua A.C. Newman, the creator of the game
| - Will likely be added the "Beyond D&D" panel
| - GM-less game, players create the world and run the game
| - Discussion of game setup mechanics
| - Somewhat like Distributed Gamemastering
| - Gameplay is turn based
| - Description of how gameplay works
| - Game results in having multiple story threads running at the same time but all are related
| - Shock almost requires players to be creative and think on their feet
| - Very little prep time required for a game session, all players involved in setup
| - Many Sci-Fi RPGs are basically D&D in Space - this one isn't
00:47:17 | Musical Interlude
00:47:30 | Outro
00:48:30 | One More Shocker

Omnutia

Upside-down Kenshiro..

Dr. Timo

My local supermarket has almost exactly that same american food like substances section. Every time I walk past it I am sorely tempted to try the marshmallow fluff.

WindUpBird

Every time I walk past it I am sorely tempted to try the marshmallow fluff.

I feel the same way about the canned spotted dick in the UK section at our market.

Churba

I feel the same way about the canned spotted dick in the UK section at our market.

Eh, spotted dick is just bread and butter pudding, with raisins or sultanas in it.

WindUpBird

I feel the same way about the canned spotted dick in the UK section at our market.

Eh, spotted dick is just bread and butter pudding, with raisins or sultanas in it.

Doesn't stop me from always wanting a can of it.

Churba

Doesn't stop me from always wanting a can of it.

Get some, it's delicious.

Victor Frost

Every time I walk past it I am sorely tempted to try the marshmallow fluff.

Make a peanut butter and fluff sandwich. It is as delicious as a cream cheese and strawberry jam sandwich.

Apreche

I know that fluff is from the USA, but I don't know how popular it actually is. I've never actually seen it in anyone's house before. For some reason I remember it being more popular in Australia, but it might just be getting cross-wired in my brain with Vegemite.

Churba

For some reason I remember it being more popular in Australia, but it might just be getting cross-wired in my brain with Vegemite.

Definitely cross wired, since I didn't even know what marshmallow fluff was or that it existed, until my English ex-girlfriend told me about it, but Vegemite is very popular here. And Delicious. It's like a salt-lick, melted with beer and some unidentifiable magic, then shoved in a jar for you to eat off a spoon when you're hungover to fuck and just don't care anymore, but by fucking god you miss that feeling you get after that first coffee and smoke in the morning, where the sun is punching you in every part of you that it touches like Bruce Lee and you just feel like you could kick life right in the balls, but no, this morning you feel like shit, your head pounds, and you want to die, with the pleasantly warm sun stabbing you through the eyes with needles the size of penny nails and injecting your retinas with neat hydrochloric acid, but holy shit, that was a great concert last night, and you just hope, even in your horrible, brain-dead hungover state that that cute brunette with the Ninja t-shirt gave you the right number, because you really, really want to see her again and hopefully hit that so hard that if someone pulled you out by rights they would be made the king of England, but you never know, she seemed nice, hopefully you could develop a meaningful relationship, but you don't want to think about any of that, so you're just going to sit and smoke through your hangover and suck on the lump of Vegemite in your mouth.

Joshua A.C. Newman

My wife likes fluff. She also likes Vegemite. I should suggest to her that she make a Fluffermiter.

Joshua A.C. Newman

I just suggested it. She said. "It might be good!"

Axel

I once also had testicular tension, went to the hospital and everything. It does in fact suck, Scott. However, it was "cured" by simply doing nothing for a weekend, per the doctor's orders. It still randomly hurt for like a year, and then stopped. Not a fun occurrence.

Kiey

You think you'll have this game in time for Connecticon?

Apreche

You think you'll have this game in time for Connecticon?

I guess it depends when Josh goes to the post office.

Techparadox

Sidebar: Extended show notes in my post above.

I know that fluff is from the USA, but I don't know how popular it actually is

I think marshmallow fluff is one of those things that gets used more by families with young children or by people who do a lot of candy-making. A few years back I bought a jar to use in a recipe for Christmas candies and then it just gathered dust for the rest of the year. I think I ended up throwing it out about a year later in July when I found it at the back of the cabinet. The only people I ever see eating fluffernutter sandwiches are little kids, but the discussion in this thread is tempting me to make a peanut butter, honey, and fluff sandwich.

As far as other weird regional foods go, I like Nutella on toast and I've tried Vegemite but it didn't really trip my trigger. I'm still searching for a good supplier of black pudding and white pudding, but living in BFE makes that more than a bit difficult.

Brand

I used to eat fluff a lot as a kid but after a while my Mom would buy it and it would just sit around. I think if I had kids though I wouldn't feed fluff to them for an actual meal as it is just fluffy sugar. I was kind of surprised to see so much Swiss miss though, because I don't think I've seen that much in an actual American food store before.

I actually played Shock! twice with Joshua at PAX East. I liked it so much the first time I had to get my friend to play it.

Joshua A.C. Newman

Hi, Brandi! That was some good fun. We were playing the Human Contact:Alone variety. I gotta say, it was very interesting how differently the game played when the players were mostly women.

Scott, Shock:Human Contact isn't a published thing yet. There are a few dozen promo copies that I've done especially for particular cons, and there might be another one coming in a few months about language and war, but it's just about to enter serious final development and become a full-sized book with complete, stand-alone rules.

Techparadox, I'm the sole creator of Shock: Ben Lehman wrote the fiction in the book, but the game is my design and publication.

I'm pretty sure a Nutella/Vegemite/Fluff sandwich would be awful. But we have all the necessary ingredients, and we might need to gather empirical evidence.

Techparadox

I'm the sole creator of Shock: Ben Lehman wrote the fiction in the book, but the game is my design and publication.

Duly noted and corrected in the notes! In the podcast Rym and Scott sounded like they weren't quite sure and the link they provided for info on the game had both of you listed, so I took a stab at it (and apparently missed!)

The game sounds like a blast to play; as soon as it's publicly available please let us know!

Joshua A.C. Newman

I'm the sole creator of Shock: Ben Lehman wrote the fiction in the book, but the game is my design and publication.

Duly noted and corrected in the notes! In the podcast Rym and Scott sounded like they weren't quite sure and the link they provided for info on the game had both of you listed, so I took a stab at it (and apparently missed!)

Well, Ben also wrote Journeying West, the sole supplement for my game Under the Bed. And I helped him with the book design for both Bliss Stage and Drifter's Escape. We do like to work together, so it's an easy mistake to make! In fact, we've both decided to sign all of our future games, "By Ben Lehman or Joshua A.C. Newman".

The game sounds like a blast to play; as soon as it's publicly available please let us know!

Shock: Social Science Fiction is available and has been since 2006, and is currently in version 1.2. $21 hardcopy, $26 with a PDF. I just made the exciting discovery that I've got a few more copies than I thought, due to the fixing of my inventory system. Which is great, cuz I just got this print run in a month ago and I'm already almost sold out.

Shock:Human Contact a different publication, due sometime this Fall, probably, that's setting specific in some ways that get me all wet. It's "setting" exactly up to the point where everyone's on the same page, but no further. It's got a set of tools for making your own canon at the table, from week to week. The big inspirations are Iiain M. Banks' Culture novels and Ursula K. LeGuin's Ekumen. And Star Trek, which I always forget. It started out as a critique of Star Trek. It's about starfaring anthropologists and the cultures they interact with, and how they influence each other, dealt with on a very personal scale.

WindUpBird

I'm pretty sure a Nutella/Vegemite/Fluff sandwich would be awful. But we have all the necessary ingredients, and we might need to gather empirical evidence.

I'll run prelims this weekend. Fresh-baked white bread. Churbs, does it have to be vegemite, or is marmite an acceptable substitute?

Joshua A.C. Newman

Actually, I must admit, it's Marmite that we've got.

And furthermore, I must confess: I fled the state out of fear that this deeply profane combination of ingredients might actually find their way together in my house.

Churba

Churbs, does ithaveto be vegemite, or is marmite an acceptable substitute?

Absolutely not. Vegimite is a Salty, hoppy, delicious black magic with the consistency of axle grease but a vastly superior taste and nutrition, whereas Marmite is a foul concoction that tastes like licking a hospital and is thin as an englishman's blood. There is no comparison between the two.

However, if you must have a substitute, FOR SCIENCE, try Bovril instead. It's like salted beef stock made into a sandwich spread. Delicious.

Nukerjsr

Amazes me no one has mentioned this...

Jason

Fluff is fat free. It's just carbohydrate. So it's health food? Maybe? I'd like to think so.