4 posts tagged “premise beach”

My son came to me this morning and asked "how is it that sometimes you can tell in a movie when someone's bad when they haven't really done anything bad yet?  Like, in the movie Sky High I could tell that the girl was a villain even before she came out and told everyone she was."

"It's a device called 'foreshadowing,' where they give you clues to what is going to happen in the movie in advance.  Also, you know how in a movie the guy and the girl get together?  Well, in Sky High there were two girls that the guy liked, so you kinda could guess that at the end he would end up with one and for some reason not like the other."

A literary critique of Sky High, brought to you by the WQ family...

Also, I had an odd dream that I was in a gaming store (frequent theme) and that there was this new game called Kloog.  It was a wargame where you could play one of three factions: cavemen, prehistoric creatures, or alien invaders.  The interesting part of the game (aside from the genre) was that they didn't have a miniatures produced for the game--you had to convert your own from other companies.  I'm half tempted to cobble some basic rules from Strike Force and give it a go.

The 2007-08 Campaign still has about four or five months left in it, but I'm already looking ahead to the next campaign for several reasons.  One, I'm administrating it.  Two, I've been playing dwarfs for the past two years, and am ready for something different. 

What that something might be is grist for Premise Beach.  I've basically got four armies:

• Empire--my largest army, but my friend Scott is wanting to borrow this one for the '08-09 campaign
• Orcs--I've been kicking orc ass for the past year, convincing me once again that they kinda suck
• Chaos--another army I've found underwhelming, with limited tactical possibilities
• Dwarfs--which I've been playing for the past two years, although with a bit of success

I actually thought about doing High Elves, using the new molds from Prince August.  Unfortunately, this means learning how to a) heat metal, and b) cast it without a) burning or b) poisoning myself.  I wish I could say that this wasn't a problem, but I know me and my motor skills too well.

Okay, I was wrong; we got a foot of snow.

Or damn near to it.  It has been falling heavily all day, and despite my going out and shoveling the walk you wouldn't know it now.  On top of the snow is 30 mph winds, and they've called a Level 2 or 3 Snow Emergency for the county (the discrepancy is in who calls to tell me this as they inquire as to whether we will have church tomorrow).

So, being stuck inside means getting some odds and ends done.  The kids are bouncing on the mini-trampoline in the playroom while listening to a CD a friend of mine made for them of her reading The Witches by Roald Dahl.  I finished up one terrain piece, perhaps the first of several I might get done today at this rate.

ruins3

In other news, I saw a think on The Miniatures Page where a gaming club in PA was hosting a Hordes tournament to support the local animal shelter.  Now I'll tell you, this really got my Premise Beach-o-meter going, because a) I like animals, b) I like wargaming, and c) I like the idea of my hobby being something beneficial to society.

Like all Premise Beach ideas (or most of them) I'll probably let this one go, but man I like the idea A LOT.









Okay, I did in fact get another piece done.  Here's the pic:

ruins4

I mentioned back at the resolutions that I might unearth "Premise Beach," which was a thing I used to do where I would just jot down an idea to get it out of my head, but wouldn't bother following up on it.

Last night I had a strange dream.  It was set in the Star Wars universe, and I was a member of the Rebel Alliance (I'm assuming that it occurred somewhere around TESB) and was imprisoned along with several other rebels aboard an Imperial Space Station.  We managed to break out and steal a ship, a small cutter that had one of those robot booster packs like Obi-Wan's ship did in Attack of the Clones.

I would, at this point, like to say that, according to my subconscious, piloting a space ship just involves a throttle, a lever to control the pitch, and a wheel to turn the ship.

Anyways, we jump into hyperspace and reappear at this asteroid field where a Rebel Alliance outpost is located.  But right before docking (after jettisoning the robot hyperdrive booster) there's a flash of light and next thing you see we're about to crash into an ocean.  The other prisoners and I escape the sinking ship and swim to a nearby island, a large rocky place inhabitant by giant sea lions who are very aggressive and start harassing us.  Fleeing the sea lions, we swim to another nearby island, this one a lush tropical paradise.

Oddly enough, the tropical island has buildings, buildings which resemble some sort of summer camp or something: bunkhouses, showers, a dining hall, even a small about of canned food.  Stranger still, there's no sign of any inhabitants, although the facility could house many more people than just my fellow escapees and me.  At this point, I start to wonder, who built this?  How are we going to escape?

I woke up thinking immediately this would make a great RPG campaign.  One of my biggest difficulties with sci-fi RPG's is the huge range of travel available to star-spanning technologies.  I also realized that the campaign could go one of three ways:

1. The shipwrecked PC's have merely stumbled (perhaps through a wormhole or similar trope) upon this island residence, but must now find their way out.  Sort of like Gilligan's Planet.

2. The island is secretly being monitored and controlled by some outside force who is using the PC's as part of an experiment or something, sort of like Lost.

3. The whole thing is virtual, and the PC's have in fact not escaped the Empire at all.  Sort of like The Prisoner.