Author Archives: CJ Ovalle

Review: Much Ado About Nothing (Joss Whedon)

By CJ Ovalle | Published: March 9, 2013

You might think that on a geek site like this, Joss Whedon would just get a pass. (1) But I’m a big fan of the bard’s Much Ado About Nothing- it’s my favorite Shakespeare play- and I really did enjoy the fairly extravagant Branagh version. So, no free pass for Mr. Whedon… he’d have to [...]

Posted in Movies | Leave a comment

Dear Audible: Your DRM sucks

By CJ Ovalle | Published: October 25, 2012

I would love to have the opportunity to easily buy and listen to books in my car. We have a fairly long drive to and from work, and we occasionally take very long drives to visit our families. On the audiobook front, the most popular website appears to be Audible. I tried it once before [...]

Posted in General, Technology | Tagged , , , , | 4 Responses

The Midgard Campaign Setting

By CJ Ovalle | Published: October 15, 2012

The Midgard Campaign Setting has recently been released by Kobold Press. It’s awesome. The Midgard Campaign Setting is based on the home campaign world of famed RPG designer Wolfgang Baur. The patronage project started almost two years ago, and much of that time was spent on the Kobold Quarterly forums, exploring, discussing, and creating the [...]

Posted in Midgard, RPG | Tagged | Leave a comment

Some Musings on Kobold Press/Open Design

By CJ Ovalle | Published: October 9, 2012

The Midgard Campaign Setting has been released. It’s brilliant. It’s amazing. It’s everything I hoped it would be. I’m proud to have been a part of it, and I have to thank Wolfgang Baur for letting us play with his home campaign setting. I have the PDF, and I’m waiting for the delivery of the [...]

Posted in RPG | 1 Response

BJ’s DnD Setup

By CJ Ovalle | Published: June 27, 2012

In the last podcast we mentioned BJ’s new D&D setup. Check out a few quick photos after the break.

Posted in RPG, Tabletop Games, Technology | 1 Response

Speaking of isms in geekery…

By CJ Ovalle | Published: May 17, 2012

Lots of things have come up this week. Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting – Author John Scalzi attempts to talk about privilege in a gamified way, because a lot of people get freaked out by the term. A Look at Sexism in Fantasy by Sarah Darkmagic. This is in reaction to the Sexism [...]

Posted in General | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sexism in Geek Culture, with a look at Comics

By CJ Ovalle | Published: April 22, 2012

In the most recent Coming Out of the Basement Podcast, we discuss sexism in geek culture, with a bit of a closer look at comics (along with the Mass Effect 3 ending). For the first subject, I had enough sources and examples that I thought it made sense to do a post on the topic. [...]

Posted in Anime, Comics, General, Manga, Movies, RPG, Tabletop Games, Video Games | 7 Responses

Odds and Ends

By CJ Ovalle | Published: April 15, 2012

Like I mentioned in our just-released Episode 2, I’m not nearly as good as self-promotion or promotion as BJ is. :P A book I worked on actually came out the day we did our first podcast, but I felt a bit odd about bringing it up (so didn’t): Open Design’s Midgard Bestiary for Pathfinder, with [...]

Posted in RPG, Video Games | Leave a comment

Last minute Geek Christmas Gifts already?

By CJ Ovalle | Published: December 14, 2011

Cripes, it’s Christmas already. What’s going on? Well, here’s gift suggestions- maybe for your geek friends, maybe for you. Of course, I expect lots of folks around these parts are playing Skyrim or Star Wars: The Old Republic. I’m certainly doing the latter at the moment. The only problem looking at those as gifts is [...]

Posted in Anime, Books, Movies, Reviews, RPG, Star Wars, Tabletop Games, Technology, Video Games | Leave a comment

Whither 5th Edition?

By CJ Ovalle | Published: November 14, 2011

Referring to D&D, of course… I suspect it’s close- within the next couple of years. Rich Baker has had a couple of interesting Rule of Three columns, where he (and other designers) reflect on different parts of 4th edition. Baker mentions that powers between different classes seem very similar, which has definitely been a complaint [...]

Posted in RPG | Leave a comment