Highmoon’s Ponderings

For various reasons the entire MonkeyGod catalog of products had been unavailable at RPGnow/DTRPG since the beginning of this year.

Not anymore!

All of the MonkeyGod products we were distributing are now back on sale at RPGnow/DTRPG, including such critically-acclaimed titles such as From Stone to Steel and Frost & Fur, and adventures like The Hero Snare (learn to fear kobolds), Hellstone Deep (venture to the lowest layers of hell) and ENnie-nominated Song of Storms.

And to celebrate, from July 4-7, the entire MonkeyGod Presents line is on sale at 50% off!

Enjoy.

“Seattle seduces,” my friend Patricia warned me on our very first day in the city. She was 100% right. I absolutely loved our time in Seattle and environs and to be honest, I’d rather be there than in Miami right now.

The pics have been uploaded to Flickr and once titles and tags have been added I’ll post the link here. I will also try to fill in the blog posts I was unable to do while traveling, and post an “index” as they will be backdated.

I’m going to sya this unequivocally: my wife and I have talked about this all week long, and we have made the decision to start doing our research to move to Seattle sooner rather than later. I will later go on more in depth on the reasons why, but the short version is that Seattle fits our moods and personalities quite well, and a change is needed for sure.

I find that I do not want to interact with Miami at the moment (except for the job interview I have tomorrow), sort of feel like, even though I’m here, I’m still in that travel limbo. I’m gonna use this week to catch up on my mail and other stuff and get back to work next Monday.

I’ll be vacationing in Seattle from June 20 till the 30. I’ll try to do some posts from the road but we’ll see.

And yes, this means there’ll be a Seattle episode of The Gamer Traveler soon (as soon as I can fix my laptop monitor once I get back).

I’m super busy getting ready for my trip to Seattle, so I won’t be doing a long post about this. Short version: the GSL sucks and I don’t see Highmoon Media using it to produce D&D 4e-compatible products in the near future. The license is horribly restricting in what I can and cannot do, reference, or develop, but the dealbrakers are the clauses dealing with OGL conversions (6.1, 6.2), with beyond-termination limitation of my GSL-released products (6.1), and the draconian sections dealing with litigation and damages (10), especially the one where you waive your right to a jury trial for any legal proceeding dealing with the GSL (19).

There’s more stuff that annoys me about it (like the fact that the license seems to put a clamp on anything I develop for 4e/GSL to be used solely for that or not at all), but it will have to wait for me to break that down further.

Honestly, I feel they should just have closed the whole game. I know some folks with use this GSL to release products, but in general, it feels like a forced participation in the idea of Open Gaming, and only in the most bitter of ways.

Wizards of the Coast continues to become a company that I more and more do not want to support with my dollars.

I miss very much the Wizards of the Coast of the Peter Adkinson years, but that’s a different post.

The rumors of a live-action Robotech movie have circulated for years, but lo and behold, this morning I see the following at ICv2.com:

Lawrence Kasdan Adapting ‘Robotech’

According to The Hollywood Reporter screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, who penned Return of the Jedi, The Empire Strikes Back, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, has been hired to write the screenplay for Warner Bros.’ live action Robotech film.

Read more.

Hot damn! Return of the Jedi aside, those are some excellent scripts to flaunt (not to mention The Big Chill as well), and I trust Kasdan to deliver a script that adapts Robotech well to the screen and keeps the theme and tone of the series. Now they just need to get a good director and we’re on!

Last week was one of those where I literally only got to sit at my computer for like 10 minutes, period. I had my mom and two nephews visiting here all week, which was great, but severely affected my comp time, in addition to the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which meant two days of no electronics at all. So this all amounts to a crapload of backed-up emails, including a series of them from Amazon.com, telling me that the credit card I had given for my D&D 4e Gift Box pre-order was expired (Doh!) and that if I didn’t give a new one, my order would be cancelled. It was. So not only did I not get the box set on release day as is normal for Amazon.com pre-orders (due to stock issues), the great price I had locked in via the pre-order has also gone away, and while the regular price they offer is still a good one compared to regular retail, it bothers me having to give them that extra money. So I’ll be going with Buy.com, which has it at just two more dollars than I had thought I would pay at Amazon.com. I do have to wait for the restock from Wizards, so for now no 4e for me. Which is just fine, as I’ll be traveling this Friday so my thoughts are all about Seattle, not 4e.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri 
rating: 5 of 5 stars

It is easy to see why Lahiri won critical acclaim and the Pulitzer Prize with Interpreter of Maladies: these are stories that resound with emotional punch, unhindered by gimmicky prose or twisted plot devices, laser-focused explorations of the human condition. Though Bengali immigrants are Lahiri’s predominant type of characters, we also get a couple of stories set in India, where we get to see a glimpse of the society the other characters have emmigrated from. This is the kind of book that anyone can read and get lost in, and in fact, everyone should.

In The Digital Front - Episode 12 we chat with Don Dehm of Pulp Gamer Media Network about the history of Pulp Gamer, from podcast to media network, about podcasting, hobby podcasters and pro podcasters, and the place of podcasts in the gaming industry, past, present and future. We also talk about the Evil Hat Retailer PDF Guarantee, a new program from Evil Hat Productions that allows people who buy their products at a brick-n-mortar store to get a free PDF version as well.

Please feel free to discuss this episode on our forums or call our voicemail line at 206-350-4441.

Links:

• Guest: Don Dehm of Pulp Gamer Media Network & The Podcast Advantage
• News: Evil Hat Retailer PDF Guarantee - Evil Hat Productions (contact Fred for info)
• Promos:
  • RPGPodcasts.com
  • Pulp Gamer: Inside Track 
  • Goblin - Gaming Broadcast Network

Download TDF - 12

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The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri 
rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a fantastic novel by a talented writer. To me a good book is characterized by two things: it makes me want to read more from that author, and it makes me want to write as well, reminds me of the magic of the written word. The Namesake accomplishes both.

Anyone who is an immigrant, or can still identify with their immigrant heritage, is sure to connect with the story of the Gangulis, whether they are the immigrants themselves or the first generation of Whatever-American. Lahiri’s simple prose gets to the emotional point of each sentence without making it sappy or heavyhanded; you truly come to care for each member of the family and their own struggle, and especially for Gogol, whom you learn his past and present and surrounding circumstances straight from their own point of view. There is no gimmick here, no surprise revelation, no conspiracy of any sort, just a straightforward story of lives lived between two sides of one self, and the reprecussions of lives split in two, whether the parts are old/young, male/female, Bengali/American, past/future.

After reading The Namesake there is no doubt left why Lahiri is hailed as one of the best new writers in modern American literature, why we suddenly care so much about the lives and dreams of the Bengali-Americans that inhabit her stories: in many ways, they are us, and we are them, and Lahiri is slowly showing that truth one brilliant book at a time.