The Cambias Digression

Notes and thoughts on everything from what I had for breakfast to the fate of the Universe.

  • Island of Lost Games: Dream Park

    One could write a whole series of blog posts on the theme of "unlikely licensed roleplaying games," and somewhere near the top of that list (but below GURPS Planet Krishna) you would undoubtedly find Mike Pondsmith's Dream Park: The Roleplaying Game, from R. Talsorian Games. The 1981 novel Dream Park, by Larry Niven and Steven…

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  • The Climax of That Movie

    What is the climactic moment of the movie Star Wars? Is it the point where the Death Star explodes just as it's about to vaporize the Rebel base? Is it a couple of minutes earlier, when Han Solo swoops in to knock Darth Vader into deep space so that Luke can fire the torpedoes which…

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  • Book Review: Gravity’s Rainbow

    For years people have been recommending Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel Gravity's Rainbow. So, when I saw a copy on sale at the bookstore a few months ago, I decided to pick it up and see what all the fuss is about. I was prepared to like this book a lot. It's about a bunch of…

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  • Why I Don’t Worry, Part 2

    Last time I explained why I don't lie awake nights worrying that contact with extraterrestrial civilizations will lead to humanity getting conquered by invading alien armies. It's just too hard to be worth the effort. But what if the aliens don't want to conquer the Earth? What if they just want to wipe us out?…

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  • Why I Don’t Worry, Part 1

    Last month, this New York Times article by Steven Johnson raised the alarming question: what if our efforts to find and communicate with other intelligent life in the Universe brings us to the attention of intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic who want to wipe us out? The author quoted Stephen Hawking, warning that the…

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  • Island of Lost Games: Droids

    (Sorry for the hiatus. Events happened.) No, it has nothing to do with Star Wars. Droids is a fascinating and unique little roleplaying game which came out in 1982 from a company called Integral Games, in Arlington, Texas. The lead designer was Neil Patrick Moore, and according to the RPGGeek Web site Droids is his…

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  • Island of Lost Games: Universe

    Universe was a science fiction roleplaying game published in 1982 by the well-known wargame company SPI, in partnership with the mass-market paperback house Bantam Books. That meant the game got fairly wide distribution in bookstores rather than just the hobby shop ghetto. Despite that, I don't think it sold many copies. The game itself was…

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  • Island of Lost Games: Metamorphosis Alpha

    We recently got more bookshelves installed, which meant that my roleplaying game collection emerged from the closet where it had been piled up for more than a decade, and now stands again in proud alphabetical-by-title ranks, easily accessible. I found some forgotten treasures in there: my original Call of Cthulhu box set, the battered little…

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  • Obligatory Star Wars Post

    There has been a certain amount of muted hoopla this week because it marks the 40th anniversary of the original Star Wars. One thing which I haven't seen anywhere else is a discussion of how different Star Wars was from most science fiction films up to that year. Quite simply, Star Wars turned SF cinema…

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  • Battle on the Tabletop!

    Combat in roleplaying games has a lot of variation, but most game systems break it up into two main components: how hard it is to hit someone, and how much damage that person can withstand. So in Dungeons & Dragons, everything has an Armor Class, which determines what one must roll in order to score…

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