19th Level

I'm a software engineer who tends to be on the early adopter side of things. I'm writing this on a Chromebook, I store most of my digital gaming products on Google Drive. I now purchase the bulk of my RPG products digitally. Most of my fiction is read on Kindle or Kindle App. My music library is in the cloud at Amazon Cloudplayer. (And also at Google Music). Earlier this week Google announced the Chromebook Pixel. Unlike most Chromebooks which are very low cost, the Pixel is a premium machine with a clear inspiration from Apple's unibody products. I began wondering how practical it would be to use a Chromebook exclusively. While I do a lot of work on my Chromebook I also have a MacBook Air (which also runs Windows 7 as a Virtual Desktop). The family also has a large screen iMac, used mainly by the kids. For day to day stuff I do pretty well on my Chromebook. I use Google Drive for a lot of my word processing. I'm able to watch movies via Amazon and Netflix. I ca...

Earlier this week Wizards of the Coast announced  they would be reprinting the original edition of Dungeons & Dragons, the famed "white box".  This set will consist of the following: Volume 1: Men & Magic Volume 2: Monsters & Treasure Volume 3: Underworld & Wilderness Adventures Supplement I: Greyhawk Supplement II: Blackmoor Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes I first started playing with the " magenta box " version of the D&D Basic Game. Prior to this the Advanced D&D Game, the "blue box" Basic Game, and Original Edition were released. AD&D 1st edition was still very active and would be for years to come; it was the game we probably played most in the early 80s though by the late 80s I'd switched to science fiction games. It wasn't till years later that I managed to get copies of the Original Edition and blue box version of the Basic Game. I also have PDFs of all...

Broadway, 1890s Having gotten together a small group for a Fantasy Grounds Call of Cthulhu  game we settled on a Gaslight-era game set in London of the 1890s. Being a history buff I did all sorts of research, read my Sherlock Holmes and H.G. Wells. The research proved useful and the first adventure, though hindered by busy schedules and Murphy's Law, went pretty well over three sessions. In the last session our heroes survived, albiet a bit less sane, and had angered an apparently pretty powerful cult. With that in mind they decided the best course of action was to cross the Atlantic Ocean and set up shop in New York City. Alrighty then. So glad I did my homework. Actually, in all honesty, I was thrilled. To let you in on a not-so-dirty little secret, I love it when what I planned goes up in smoke - at least if it does so as a result of players going off the beaten path (vs. an adventure just going lousy). To the way I figure it, I'm not a writer of fiction. I'm co...