ive been using audible for a wile now first on an ipod touch and now a htc rezound works well egnuf for me. ive never tried to burn a cd from them before so i can see that being a chore though.

last thing theses are perfectly valid reasons not to like something just thought id chime in with my mostly positive experience

/bow

Continue gentlemen and see you in Wildstar.

What is Wild Star?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4_riSI7Ydg

Meet the Dominion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FhB3iYv4Ng

Meet the Exiles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn8648VGMKM

http://greenronin.com/2012/10/supernatural_handbook_pre-order.php

There have been lots of other related discussions since this post- I’d check out the story behind “Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games” and all of the flak that Anita Sarkeesian got about it. That project is still going strong!

Also, I’d check out Genevieve Valentine and harassment at Readercon and what’s happened there. John Scalzi has also written related posts, and several other posts about similar subjects in the last few months.

We’ve also seen stories about Harrassment at Defcon.

Re the comics, I started reading Legacy but haven’t gotten past the 3rd or 4th graphic novel.

I’m actually playing through KOTOR right now, with some content mods. The final restoration mod was released for KOTOR 2 that adds back a ton of things that were cut, so I’m playing through both. I bought the gold pack for Empire at War too – it was interesting.

You have to give shout outs to some other games, tho! Star Wars Galaxies, Battlefront, Republic Commando, Force Unleashed, and of course Masters of Teras Kesai. And then Star Wars 1313 coming up….

I’ve mostly read comics, not books, for the EU. I haven’t even finished the Heir to the Empire series yet. The Tales series is probably my favorite.

And really? Boba Fett? Dude has 29 words total! He wears random pieces of armor because he’s too lazy to actually buy a full suit for himself. Oh, no, because he wants to be a mandalorian…. Chewie. Chewie all the way. Han is pretty awesome, but it’s gotta be Chewie. Who has no lines.

Han shot first. Nothing else is an option. It makes his growth from a selfish rogue to a semi-selfless hero relevant. It shows he’s a realist, as opposed to super naive Luke. It also means a useless loser like Greedo didn’t get the drop on him. I mean, seriously, Greedo is not the most skilled Rodian around.

Lucas is an idiot. I mean, I love the universe he built and stole, I love his characters. But dude can’t write, and can’t leave well enough alone. The best Star Wars movie (Empire) is the one he had the least writing on. I’m glad he’s stepping back.

And Carlos was right in his suspicion. The was a Star Wars d20 game the was far more 3e, just with a few mods (force skills, vitality + hp) that had a ton of books, then there was Saga, which had skill groups, etc. Saga was kinda like Book of 9 Swords. It had some new stuff, some odd, and couldn’t quite figure out which it was.

I played some d6 – it had the Force die, which would routinely screw you. Even a badass Jedi could roll a 1 on a Force die and be humbled….

And yeah, everyone playing Jedi is hard. I never do, partially from cussedness, partially because I like the others. You can make a super badass soldier that will slaughter most Jedi, but outside that, the Force is so multipurpose that it’s silly. Much like Mage: the Ascension.

But there are fixes:

Let everyone play Jedi. That sometimes works, but then someone wants to be the noble/fringer….
Use the story – Jedi during the New Hope to Return era should be constantly afraid of discovery. If someone sees them, there’s at least a fair chance they’ll turn them in. And that means someone like Starkiller showing up. And if he fails, Vade and the entire ImperiAl Army. Sure, you can deflect blaster bolts. He’s got 3 Star Destroyers in orbit.

There are also a lot of Jedi counters. In the early days, a lizard was bred that was invisible to the Force, and lethal to Firce Sensitives. It’s what killed Nomi Sunrider’s husband, iirc. Some little. Only hunter punks with no skills. Ought one, and a great Jedi died. Make up some more of those. A Force drain. Force seeking missiles ;)

Also, Dark Side points. I know most games I play we tend to gloss over DS points for most things, but perthe rules, Jedi can get DS points for a ton of things, and it doesn’t take many to fall. I think using those rules strictly would make Jedi a lot less cavalier.

I don’t even necessarily disagree with your thoughts on ME3 in general, or D3 (though I blame expectations for that). It was just the categorical statements stuck in my craw.

Plus you’re getting a backlash for my general hatred of whiny gamers, which is not you, but you angled in to it.

This episode convinced me to make a go at watching MLP – I’ve watched 4-5 episodes, but sporadically, and without any real focus, with my daughter. I think I need to watch it from the start, and pay attention.

HMM.

(At least in part, the zombies got to folks…)

There are some ‘cores that aren’t quite- hardcore and (completely counter-intuitively to me!) mathcore come to mind. ^_^;

My favorite nerdy song is Iron Maiden’s Dune-inspired “To Tame a Land”.

Center Ring of the Circus of Epic Fail: Plushies.

The Character: Twilight Sparkle

Twilight Sparkle

Hasbro Plushie:

Hasbro Plushie

Fan Plushie:

Fan Plushie

Fan Plushie

Fan Plushie

The Character: Pinkie Pie

Pinkie Pie

Hasbro Plushie:

Hasbro Plushie

Fan Plushie:

Fan Plushie

Fan Plushie

Fan Plushie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAWgFN54iHE

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/friendship-arsenal

Shot for shot MLP/Star Wars scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4wh4FnwiAg

History of DJ Pon3/Vinyl Scratch:
http://mlpfanart.wikia.com/wiki/Vinyl_Scratch

There’s a Pony for That commercial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p50-oWY1pFE

MLP Magic Cards:
http://www.equestriadaily.com/2012/06/friendship-is-magic-gathering-shards-of.html

Brony Wired article:
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/06/bronies-my-little-ponys/

Equestria Daily
http://www.equestriadaily.com

Ponychan
http://www.ponychan.net/

the brony song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUdiCqDVUxI&feature=player_embedded

Derpy de Chocobo (Derpy and the Doctor)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9udha5oToBM

Equestria Girls commercial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTPqjKk_xCo

Tara Strong
http://www.tarastrong.com/

Tara Strong twitter
https://twitter.com/#!/tarastrong

Here are some of the tools we discussed in this episode.

Maptools virtual table top java program.

http://www.rptools.net

Vegisama campaign framework for Maptools.

http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=16429

Iplay4E for play-by-post character organization and tracker.

http://www.iplay4e.appspot.com

Orokos for online dice rolling and auditing for play-by-post campaigns.

http://www.orokos.com

TTop RPG is like a lightweight version of Maptools for running online campaigns.

http://www.ttoprpg.com

Obsidian Portal is great campaign tracker and can be used for running play-by-post campaigns.

http://www.obsidianportal.com/

*Evil Hat’s Dresden Files RPG

*RPTools (including MapTools)

*iPlay4E

*Obsidian Portal

Kickstarter Projects
*Midgard Bestiary for 4th Edition
*Tropes vs. Women in Video Games
*Traveller 5th Edition
*Tabletop Forge
*Bronycon (funded, but Paypal funding still available)

*New Amethyst Series discussion

We do love the Dominion app that randomizes which 10 cards to use. You can set all kinds of parameters, like at least 3 cards from Alchemy or wanting to play with Colonies, or must have a 2, 4, and 5 cost. And I have a friend with a baby who got the Arkham Horror apps for all the encounter cards so he could play solo games with half the set up. He loved them.

@Carlos – It can totally be hard for me to remember to slow down for newer players! It’s one of those things where once you know a lot of it you can’t imagine what it was like to not know. I’ve had to work really hard to not start my turn before it’s really my turn when I know there’s no cards that interact with me on the board. Rick and I also always just took our first 2 turns as one turn and that was a hard habit to break when playing with new people. We love teaching it to people though, so hopefully we don’t give off too strong a vibe of feeling slowed down.

When people do the, “If you could have any super power, what would it be?” I choose infinite grace. But I wouldn’t have any clue how to roleplay something like that and don’t watch shows or read books where that is a main characteristic of anyone.

The closest thing I can think of is when I was a kid I wanted to be Indiana Jones. Cultured, smart, and tough.

Here’s how it read to me: Gosh this sexism stuff is hard. And no one can even agree on what it is (and I don’t have the internet or any feminist friends and thus can’t find any feminist 101 primers to catch me up). Plus the artists only want to draw super hot male gaze naked chicks (’cause that’s the only thing that’s a “beautiful object”?). Plus for every complaint we get about sexism, we get 10 more emails telling us how awesome the hot naked chicks are. (So, you know, you people who are upset are in the minority – FYI.) So what do you want fans? (By the way, you have to register to comment, but let’s not worry about how that might inhibit some of the voices we’re ostensibly trying to hear.)

In searching for some of the rebuttals I read I saw that you already linked to Sarah Darkmagic’s A Look at “Sexism in Fantasy”

Why WotC’s Sexism in Gaming Art Article Made Me Happy from geek feminism

What WOTC Says to its Female Audience (and What We Hear) from gaming as women

Fett’s Vette – http://youtu.be/CJvxEjGpIqU

Geek – http://youtu.be/gqWB2ZCs9Uk

Then there’s also the whole genre that I call fantasy metal, or sometimes RenFaire metal (’cause it has dulcimers) that is maybe actually called symphonic power metal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhapsody_of_Fire) or just power metal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Guardian). It tends to have sweeping fantasy themes throughout, elves and heroes, etc. Blind Guardian has several about Lord of the Rings – http://youtu.be/RMqozfGT9pM

Opinions are relatively subjective. =P Except that Lords of Waterdeep is a lot of fun. TRUE FACT.

I’m just going to say that I disagreed with this podcast more than anything y’all have done so far – I’d venture to say that I was more against than pro. ;) I’m considering making a counter-cast just to refute things you said in this one.

N.B.: Monday Night Combat is an Xbox Live Arcade FPS game (and it’s quite a lot of fun, actually). Super Monday Night Combat is the MOBA version of that game. Although you could argue that Monday Night Combat was pretty much a MOBA as well, it was just less obvious.

There were a bunch of rules I wasn’t sure sure of (mostly about corner case things like – if the attack pushes you into a radioactive crater and doesn’t say anything about a chance to save, but you can fly, what happens?), but I was pretty comfortable just deciding something random (eh, roll a regular saving throw) so it wasn’t really a big deal.

I also totally forgot to have them kill the mini snickers I had on hand. And I gave everyone the entire encounter experience for the first 2 or 3 encounters, so it ended up being pretty easy for them. But I swore I had remembered leveling that quickly when I played so I didn’t catch it for a while. And I don’t think anyone thought it was boring easy since we played from 10:30am-6:30pm.

My group was all friendly and easy going. Though they weren’t interested in the ‘everyone can have the best roll of the group if they want’ perk. Rick & I both knew a lot of the 4E rules pretty well, so even though none of the other players had played 4E before, that all went pretty smoothly. It was really helpful to have Rick on hand for quick easy things like which modifier goes with an insight check so I didn’t have to look it up.

I’ll be coming back to add links as I go through the episode.

-The Tech Shop Boys!

-The Alamo Drafthouse!
–Governor Ann Richards Drafthouse PSA (video)
–The Irate Patron PSA (video)
–Drafthouse on Wikipedia (check out the Signature Events)

-The Papper’s Ghost Illusion
–On the Tupac Hologram
–A Quick How-To
–History of Pepper’s Ghost
–Another How-To
–Pepper’s Ghost at the Haunted Mansion ballroom
–Gorillaz (video)
–Hatsune Miku (Vocaloid)(video)

So how do we define power fantasy?

DMing Tips
-Dave Chalker’s 5×5 Method Compendium

Some of the anime we mentioned

-Ranma 1/2 (Ranma Nibunoichi)
-Sailor Moon (Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon)
-Rurouni Kenshin (Ruruoni Kenshin Meiji Swordsman Romantic Story, Samurai X, Ruroni Kenshin Meiji Kenkaku Romantan)
-When They Cry (When the Cicadas Cry, Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni)
-Cowboy Bepop
-Tenchi Muyo (Several series that are basically retellings)
-Oh My Goddess (Ah My Goddess, Aa Megami-Sama)
-Afro Samurai

Robot Chicken: Spring of the Drowned Girl (video)(Ranma 1/2 reference)

Clarification would be good, because I forgot a ton I meant to say- it was a really off week for me, not just technologically.

I am one of the less-experienced Dominion players, and there are a couple of others in the groups I play with. When we play with some experienced people (not all, but some), we feel like we slow things down a lot. Especially with the expansions included. So in my experience, Dominion takes longer. But I meant to note, and don’t remember if I did at all, that if you know what you’re doing, it goes pretty quickly.

Now I have to do the board game section, if only to clarify and rebut some of the things you said. ;)

A group of experienced Dominion players can finish a game in 5-10 minutes. Ascension is gonna run 15 or so at least. Dominion allows for far more planning – you know the cards, you know your hand. You basically wait for your turn, then execute. Ascension randomizes far more, such that you know generally what you want to do, but can’t plan 100%.

We need to talk. ;)

I’ve tried to play Guild Wars probably 20 times over the years, and I’ve never managed to get in to it. I have all the expansions (I keep thinking “Maybe the new classes will do it for me!”) even, but….

I’m enjoying TERA Online a lot, for similar cinematic/action combat. Guild Wars 2 was good enough that I quit playing the beta to save it for launch. And then there’s The Secret World, which just had a beta weekend, and is very exciting in some ways, and a touch disappointing in others. But on balance, I think the exciting outweighs the disappointment by a good chunk. Between TSW, TERA, and GW2, the MMO space has gotten/will be getting a pretty big shake up, hopefully for the better.

I was somewhat excited – I read a lot of comics, but rarely read “supes” comics, because of all the issues you mention – the absurdity, the complexity, the fact that you need a wiki to figure out what’s going on.

I thought that between those two, I could finally find a new jumping in point. I hadn’t gotten around to getting the new 52, but I was working on it. And I did the same thing Carlos mentioned last week, and flipped through A vs X, and was just confused, and put it down. I was hoping, with Avengers coming out, that they would have started a new Avengers line for people like me, that wanted to get in, but couldn’t – maybe an “Essential Avengers” and then something continuing from there.

But instead, I ended up buying a few issues of Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi: Force Storm, which is pretty cool, and buying some back issues of Fables.

I’m pretty excited for Dinosaurs vs Aliens, though (from Free Comic Book day).

Also, y’all should really go see Hunger Games. It’s different than the book a bit, but it’s pretty good. Some scenes are better than the book by far.

And I’m slowly catching up – by tomorrow, I should be current with y’all. ;)

And within that basement, I have a wall of cabinets (they were built-in when we moved in), several of which are full of board games (primarily stuff like Catan, Carcassone, Monopoly, etc – what I’d consider more mainstream games), comics, books, and video games I don’t play much.

Apart from that, we have large room that would be ideal for a game room, but it currently exists primarily as the room the kids ride their bikes in during the winter. ;)

And regarding the sexism discussion – it’s all over the place. My Xbox Live clan has a few girls in the clan, and it’s horrifying when we join games. We play 95% shooters (Halo, Call of Duty, etc), so we get the stereotypical XBL people, but JESUS. Within a minute of joining, the randoms are immediately focused on her, to the point that several members of the clan have had to jump in to smack them down (to be clear: Both of them are well able to hold their own, but when it’s 8 voices against 1, it gets absurd). At least one of the members joined the clan specifically because she was fed up with the harassment. She pointed us to a site called something like Slut, Ugly, or dumb (I forget the actual site) that is basically a collection of messages female gamers have received. It’s saddening.

But, archive.org saves at least part of the day- use the Wayback Machine to check out

http://community.wizards.com/go/forum/view/75882/136070/astrids_parlor

(glad I grabbed that before it dropped off the google cache!)

WotC’s D&D Next Community (site)

Balancing Wizards in D&D (Mike Mearls article)

Paizo’s Ultimate Magic (which includes stuff about spell design)(product site)

Sexism in Fantasy(article by Jon Schindehette)

Unfortunately, it looks like Astrid’s Parlor isn’t there anymore. If I can find the thread called “What art gets it right?” I’ll link it. I’ll write to WotC to see what’s up.

I’ve purchased every one of these that’s purchasable at some point. Crazytown. :P

*Weird Al White and Nerdy (video)

*Plentakill (artist site)

**Plentakill – Teleport, my favorite League of Legends parody (video)

*Weezer – In the Garage (video)

*Marcy Playground – Cloak of Elvenkind (video)

*The Guild – you can purchase songs and videos from iTunes (artist site)

**The Guild – Do You Wanna Date my Avatar? (video)

**The Guild – Game On (video)

**The Guild – I’m the One That’s Cool (video)

*The Piano Guys – Cello Wars (video)

*The Malcolm Effect – This One Time by the Malcolm Effect (video)

*Marshall Gray – Critical Hit to My Heart (video)

*Albine Black Sheep – The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny (video)

*Going Down to Dunwich – Darkest of the Hillside Thickets (video)

*Nerdore Rising Documentary (film site)

*MC Frontalot (You can freely download, play or purchase all of the songs at this artist site)

**Indier Than Thou (video)

**It is Pitch Dark (video)

**Shame of the Otaku (video)

**The Penny Arcade Theme (video)

*Jonathan Coulton (You can freely download some of the songs here at this artist site, and can legally download most of his stuff if you search the blog,
and elsewhere. Go Creative Commons.)

**Still Alive (video)

Several of these videos are well-known World of Warcraft machinima by spiffworld.

**Re Your Brains (spiffworld video)

**Skullcrusher Mountain (spiffworld video)

**Code Monkey (spiffworld video)

**I Feel Fantastic (Popular Science contest entry)

**Mandelbrot Set (video)

*Paul and Storm (Creative Commons licensed stuff, you can download some from this artist site or elsewhere.)

**Opening Band (video)

*The Doubleclicks (artist site)

**This Fantasy World (video)

**and I forgot to mention it on the podcast, but here’s Oh, Mr. Darcy (video)

*Bedlam Bards (artist site)

**The Ballad of Joss (video)

*Marian Call (artist site)

**It Was Good For You, Too (video)

**I’ll Still Be A Geek After Nobody Thinks It’s Chic (The Nerd Anthem) (video with Paul and Storm at w00tstock)

(And yes, we do know Christina Hendricks is on Mad Men) ^_^

*Optimus Rhyme (artist site)

*Stephen Lynch (artist site)

**D&D (video)

Oh, and the closing song was a remix by Pogo, “Alice,”, which uses clips from Disney’s Alice in Wonderland to make a new song.

Then I declared myself triumphant and walked away! (No, not really, but I did pick up the expansion.)

Yes- I don’t think it was quite as engaging as RPGA, though.

Beaten it yet? ;)

The key to Elder Signs is careful choice of characters at the start. There are some that are more generally applicable to winning than others (although every one is a badass if you play them right). Then choose missions that are right for the character, and eventually you’ll make it. When I started out, I felt like the game was just flat unbeatable, and that the luck screwed you every time. Now I play with random characters to mix it up. ;)

I was gonna yell at you about D&D Encounters as adventure support, but then you referenced it. So, yeah.

Guild Wars 2

Magic: the Gathering

Ascension

Dominion

Board Game Geek

Shia Lebeouf by Rob Cantor

Here’s Emily Blunt on the Comic Book Heroines:
Emily Blunt Thinks Women’s Roles in Superhero Films Are Fairly Terrible

From what you and other folks say, playing in a multiplayer game when other people know you’re a female, especially in pick-up-groups, can be awful.

http://www.geekgirlsrule.net/?p=1487

I’m glad that Mass Effect was brought up during this segment, because the series is very split in its portrayal of women. On the one hand, Commander Shepard’s gender is practically a non-issue throughout the games, with very few dialogue differences between a female character and male character. Ashley Williams in ME1 is not conventionally beautiful, which fits her just fine as she is meant to be a soldier first and foremost. On the other hand, there is a race comprised entirely of blue space babes, the new female characters introduced in ME2 wore incredibly revealing outfits, and in ME3 Ashley gets a makeover with a blowout, makeup, and huge boobs. While none of these things ruin my enjoyment of the games, they do make me acutely aware that I am not the one being marketed to, and it’s discomfiting. This blog post highlights exactly how ridiculous these costumes are.

Contrast this with a series like Uncharted. While the games have their own issues, one thing I really, really liked was that Elena and Chloe actually looked like real women. They wore clothing that was actually practical. They were obviously intended to be romantic interests, but neither felt limited to that role. Both women were perfectly capable of taking care of themselves and acted like real people. While the Uncharted games aren’t perfect, their portrayal of women is far more positive than most other games I have played.

What bothers me more than the rampant objectification of women in many games, however, is the attitude that so many male gamers share about females. I hate, HATE playing multiplayer games without a party full of people from my friends list, because so often I end up getting verbally attacked and sexually harassed for being a woman. If I’m playing poorly in a match, it’s because I’m a woman. If I’m playing really well, it’s because I’m a cheating whore who uses broken weapons. If I’m average, but my team wins, I’m still a loser because my male teammates did all the work for me. It’s why I won’t play CoD or any other FPS games in any situation other than a LAN party or something of that sort, where there will be no chance of getting harassed. It’s easy for people to say to me, “Just ignore them, I don’t see why you refuse to play a game just because of a bit of name-calling!” but honestly, when people make personal attacks and say hateful things just because I’m not a man, the game simply isn’t fun anymore. There is absolutely no excuse for this behavior, and more people need to take a stand against it.

Sorry if this comes off as ranty or rambling, the podcast just hit a nerve. Glad you guys chose this as a topic; it’s nice to know that there are men who think the portrayal of women in games and comics is ridiculous.

Here’s what if the male avengers posed like the Black Widow, if male superheroes posed like Wonder Woman, and a Why does this female superhero pose keep happening? thread.

Also, here are some Kickstarter things to check out, in order of how soon they’re ending. If they’re complete, they will probably be sold at large soon and are definitely worth looking at.

The Banner Saga, Viking strategy game goodness.

Shadowrun Returns, a remake and I suspect beginning of a wider relaunch for an awesome game.

Best Friends Forever, an apocalyptic feature film that is sooooo close to being funded it’s painful

Witch Girls Book of Shadows, aimed at bringing the underserved young women demographic to RPGs- but also note that I’ve seen plenty of men say they want to play it as well

Midgard Tales, 13 Adventures for Pathfinder by Open Design with lead Christina Stiles, and it will be terrific.

And a complete project, Womanthology, which I’m sorry I missed funding for, but you can still purchase from several places online.

Better Business Bureau comment on the Mass Effect 3 ending.

http://www.bbb.org/blog/2012/04/mass-effect-3-is-having-a-mass-effect-on-its-consumers-for-better-or-worse

Casey Hudson interview where he states it won’t be an “ABC” ending.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/01/10/mass1525-effect-3-cas5ey-fdsafdhudson-interviewae.aspx?PostPageIndex=2

Death’s Heretic by James Sutter (Pathfinder Tales)

The Hole Behind Midnight by Clinton Boomer

Zero Sight by B. Justin Shier

The Academy by Zachary Rawlins

And for next time… the Wikipedia entry on Women in Refrigerators. First reference link is to the original site.