The interests meme

[i_kender]

If nobody mentions peer pressure, we'll all get out of here alive.

* Scan my interest list and pick out the one that seems the most odd to you.

* I’ll explain it.

* Then you post this in your journal so other people can ask you about your interests.

And on a side note: where does it say I'm only allowed 150 interests, godammit? I'm a complex and ever evolving human bean, I have far more interests than will fit on a matchbox! Well, bah to you...

Comments

[kittynic]

wendy cope?

[i_kender]

Wendy Cope, my second favourite poet (after Plath), writes poetry that is sometimes comic, sometimes romantic, and sometimes both. She prefers simple, unpretentious rhymes, rather than deliberately obfuscatory language. An example:

Manifesto (all copyright etc Wendy Cope)

I'll work, for there's new purpose in my art-
I'll muster all my talent, all my wit
And write the poems that will win your heart.

Pierced by a rusty allegoric dart,
What can I do but make the best of it?
I'll work, for there's new purpose in my art.

You're always on my mind when we're apart-
I can't afford to daydream, so I'll sit
And write the poems that will win your heart.

I am no beauty but I'm pretty smart
And I intend to be your favourite-
I'll work, for there's new purpose in my art.

And if some bloodless literary fart
Says that it's all too personal, I'll spit
And write the poems that will win your heart.

I feel terrific now I've made a start-
I'll have another book before I quit.
I'll work, for there's new purpose in my art,
And write the poems that will win your heart.

[i_kender]

And another:

Letter (all copyright etc Wendy Cope)

Alone too much this week,
I'm in my poet mode-
Awake at half past five and writing,
Dozing on the sofa-bed by ten.

You're there, of course, my absent angel,
But for once we don't make love
Or even talk. You have been working
In another room and then

You come in, carrying a blanket,
And cover me while I'm asleep.
It's cold today. I need the blanket.
You do it over and over again.

[kittynic]

Now that one I like :-)

[kittynic]

A lot of my friends seems to have Plath in their interests.

One thing I like about this meme is finding out about new things and possibilities of interest.

[mingmerciless.livejournal.com]

If nobody mentions peer pressure, we'll all get out of here alive.

I wasn't going to, but the others made me...

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Heh, 2nd Ed D&D. *shares moment of geek understanding* Dude, 3rd Ed sucked. Only ever played it in it's computer game incarnations, but it's horrible.

I'm going to ask about: Apocalyptic tales.

[mingmerciless.livejournal.com]

Feh. Only ever played 1st edition AD&D. I then discovered Cthulhu, Traveller etc and never looked back. Even on the occasions I returned to fantasy RPGs, I much preferred Dragon Warriors.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

The trick I always found to playing AD&D was not to take it too seriously. And never open the rulebook. I should imagine it could quickly become intolerable if you were playing it with rules lawyers.

And the good thing about AD&D was that they released lots and lots of adventures for it. I always liked Stormbringer, but I think they only ever released about 2 scenarios for it.

[i_kender]

I liked Dragonlance, but Ham (DM) would never let me play a Kender Wild Mage.

We did stick to the rules quite strongly, but I've been lucky to play with some really interesting, good players in the past, in Bahrain. I have seen really bad playing too, and it's worse than a car crash. Ham was a great DM too, although he had this weird fixation on 'realism'... I kept trying to explain to him that this was fantasy. It's supposed to be fun!

[i_kender]

Showing your age ;)

Weird, I've hardly met any people who've played 1st ed ad&d. My cousin used to... he's the one who got me into roleplaying in the first place. 1st edition was bizarre, with all the to-hit tables.

I've never tried Cthulhu, but I think I might have tried Traveller once. I've never even heard of Dragon Warriors... tell me a little about it?

I do miss roleplaying... good roleplaying though, I've had enough 'bad experiences' with dumb players to not want to do it just for its own sake. But when you have a good group, a great GM and an interesting story... gold. Just pure gold. Like writing and acting and sex all rolled into one.

[mingmerciless.livejournal.com]

So what else is new? ;-)

Yeah, that was the one, with a table for every conceivable requirement and more variations of polearms than you can shake a stick at. Actually, forgot to mention - I actually started off with the 1st edition Basic D&D set. Talk about simplified - levels 1-3 only, all characters had the same hit probabilities, they all did 1d6 melee damage and a character with a dagger could attack twice per round instead of once!

Dragon Warriors was essentially a streamlined version of D&D but with a very Dark Ages feel: the authors were trying very hard to reintroduce a sense of the unknown, dread and mystery into the game as opposed to the modern day US/Europe only with magic feel that had become commonplace then i.e. people are scared of elves because they have no soul and can't walk on hallowed ground, forests are dark scary places and hobgoblins are devious magical creatures that steal babies, not cannon fodder. Despite that, it also had a realistic, unromanticised view of human nature: i.e. in this world, the Knights Capellar (Templar equivalents) are dangerous, violent fanatics and the Crusades are acknowledged to be as much about political power and empire building as about religious faith. Think Robin of Sherwood the RPG with more overt magic but just as much mud and you wouldn't be too far off...

DW was unjustly neglected, partly, I suspect because it was released in a series of small paperbacks and tended to therefore get bunged in with the Fighting Fantasy books. See <a href="http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/8017/dw.htm>here</a> for an overview. Cthulhu must be unique in that the more experienced characters become, in many ways, the more of a liability they become as a result of their falling sanity levels and the corrosive effect of their Cthulhu mythos knowledge levels! Also, an axe is still an axe but ain't nobody wearing chainmail! At least, that's they way it was supposed to work. Quite often, it ended up like The Mummy: first hint of trouble, the PCs draw their guns and blaze away at anything that moves, however iffectual that may be. I swear the guy who wrote the script must be a Cthulhu player! Traveller for me was a real eye-opener but my true love SF RPG-wise is 2300AD aka Traveller 2300: Another GDW SF game but one with a strong Aliens feel to it and retaining the sense of national rivalries at work i.e. everyone still hates the French. Of course, it also tied into strongly to Twilight: 2000 which was another fave of mine (its future is what happens after Twilight's Third World War). As you may have noticed, I like games that are tightly integrated with strong, well written backgrounds.

[i_kender]

Ah. Um. You picked a tricky one.

Sometimes I believe we're living at the end of days. That the world is gathering momentum towards a big finish, a grand pyrotechnic finale. But this is only something I half-believe. From time to time. And it doesn't worry me, curiously enough.

But yes... I do like apocalyptic tales. Books/films/whatever where comets hit the earth, or a plague spreads, or zombies take over. Like Stephen King's The Stand, any George Romero zombie flick, the AntiChrist, Larry Niven's Lucifer's Hammer (which tells the comet story far more convincingly than either Armageddon or Deep Impact). Night of the Comet, 28 Days Later, anything like that. Particularly interested in how people would behave if they thought the world was ending. Also post-apocalyptic stories and future dystopia stories, like Strange Days, Bladerunner, Mad Max et al.

And the only reason I put it under 'interests' was because it relates to the novel I'm writing! But you called me on it, so...

[i_kender]

3rd edition so sucked. I've read the sourcebooks thoroughly, and played one or two sessions. They raped the races, messed with classes too, made everything super-customisable and prone to min-maxing powermongering players, stole the points-based system from Vampire and other worthier games, and worst of all, made it very much Basic D&D rather than Advanced D&D. Why?! 2nd edition was fine... it could've used some fine-tuning, but not this butchery. And it really frustrates me that Wizards of the Coast have such a stranglehold on the market now, and most games systems have converted to the D20 system, which is not all that hot...

Whew, that was a long rant!

[spintrian.livejournal.com]

Um, groo?

Hey I bet you added that just for this meme ;)

[i_kender]

Heh. Maybe.

But Groo the Wanderer is great! When I was trying to remember some of my favourite comics from the past, Groo was one of the ones that popped into my head. Created by Sergio Aragones... a fellow artist said about him that he drew ten times faster than any other artist, but since he put ten times as much detail on the page, it tended to average out. He started on Mad magazine, drawing tiny doodles in the margin. He also drew for the Tracy Ullman show... which also saw the debut of the Simpsons characters (although they had normal pink flesh tones).

Groo was his creation, a kind of comedy Conan spoof, a truly dumb but deadly barbarian. Accompanied by his faithful (and smarter) dog, Rufferto, Groo wandered through a colourful and detailed fantasy Hyperborian-esque age, leaving war and destruction in his wake.

Famous quote- Groo: "Did I err?"

See www.groo.com for further details.

[mingmerciless.livejournal.com]

Feh. Now, Thrud the Barbarian, there was a real Conan spoof!