80 Responses to “Speak, Nerd, and Enter!”

  1. […] What’s up, everyone? Of course feel free to continue your current discussions on the previous open thread but here’s where you should start all new […]

  2. WheelchairNinja says:

    Had a job interview today. I knew the place was accessible from when I interviewed there last year, so I didn’t mention that I use a chair when they called to schedule like I usually do. After it was over I realized my disability didn’t even come up! I’m not sure how I did or if I even want the job, but it was just so refreshing to have an interview that didn’t involve a discussion about accessible restrooms!

  3. Evelyn Starshine says:

    hi
    is this still for discussions or was it only for on the day discussions?

    • the silver ravens says:

      it still for discussion

    • You can always discuss anything on any post but I decided I’d put up a new Speak once the last one rolls off the front page. So that’s your cue to switch over to the new one if you want to keep up with anyone else!

  4. SpottedSeaJelly says:

    I should really test out my sewing machine tonight. I got it back at Christmas, but I haven’t even opened the box yet.

    ~watch, I won’t even get around to opening it tonight~

    • the silver ravens says:

      sewing is fun if i had the time i would love to learn how to do it better

  5. Booktrope is going out of business, so my illustrated comedy fantasy is going out of print with it: https://mattthecatania.wordpress.com/2016/05/01/buy-brother-banenose-now-because-booktrope-is-bust/
    You have until May 31, 2016, to conjure THE DOLOROUS ADVENTURE OF BROTHER BANENOSE into your collection: http://www.amazon.com/The-Dolorous-Adventure-Brother-Banenose/dp/151370303X?tag=smarturl-20
    Thank you for your support.

  6. the silver ravens says:

    the Japanese pokemon trailer is even better https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh4M2wOyIYw

  7. Jason Rye says:

    I found one of Transformers “grails” for an extremely good price on ebay while just randomly looking.

  8. SpottedSeaJelly says:

    Just bought my ticket to a small local convention that’s next month. It’s this con’s first year, so I don’t know exactly what to expect. Seems to largely be focused on cosplay, but there’s other general geeky/nerdy stuff there. Hoping to fix up one of my costumes in a more polished cosplay, Only got a month to do it, but the costumes I’m deciding between are fairly simple and I have at least some of the pieces ready.

    • the silver ravens says:

      there are a few local cons i go to every year the highlight of them are the cosplay since they dont always have the best guests and vendors only sometimes have what i want

      • SpottedSeaJelly says:

        Seeing the cosplays is always fun even if it’s just a small con.

        But this convention in particular seems to have a lot of panels and guests ABOUT cosplay. Makes sense though since the founder has apparently run some smaller cosplay meet-up type events in the past.

        • the silver ravens says:

          yeah i feel like its smart to focus on cosplay if you are small con since there are so many people interested in it you get a nice turnout

          • SpottedSeaJelly says:

            Also, putting the focus on cosplay means you’re casting a wider net of nerdom since it’s not just “anime” or “comics” or “science fiction” since people will cosplay as pretty much anything these day as opposed to how the term used to only seem to be applied to dressing as anime characters (at least in the US).

  9. the silver ravens says:

    New pokemon starters! i want the birb! it has a bow tie! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn25hijDL7c

  10. I don’t have a ton to add. It feels like all my free time goes toward my wife lately. What’s even up with that?

  11. That Which Dreams says:

    “Speak Nerd, and Enter”
    Klaatu barada nikto

  12. Okay, I’ve got a creative question for any tabletop strategy card/board game players:

    If I were to create a faction based card game about princesses
    capturing castles, what kind of gameplay mechanics or elements would
    anybody want to see? The basic idea thus far is that there are several choosable factions, each representing a Kingdom (each Kingdom has a deck of cards featuring a couple Princesses, several minions, and several action or ability cards; each
    Kingdom has a theme, so there’s a traditional European Medieval Kingdom,
    there’s a Kingdom of Luchadors, there’s a mythical Arabia Kingdom,
    etc). Currently, the primary influence is Smash Up, but I’m trying to
    turn it into its own thing, the focus being on controlling an army and
    capturing and holding down castles.

    Suggestions, ideas?

    PS, oh how I’ve missed the Rock’s head being photoshopped onto things.

    • the silver ravens says:

      oh that sounds interesting wish i know more about making board games

      • If you just can suggest anythign about what you like or don’t like in playing board or card games, that would help too.

        • the silver ravens says:

          There is a game called Boss Monster its a card game where you play a boss monster in retro like video game you make a dungeon with cards and try and kill the most adventurers that wonder in your dungeon maybe you can make it like that where each princess sends minions out to capture castles while defending her own

          • That’s an interesting idea, I like it. Part of my idea is that there is an average of 1 to 3 princesses per Kingdom (individual, separate princesses with unique abilities; they would be stronger if there were less of them and weaker if there were more of them), and that once you had a castle captured you’d be able to assign a princess to it, and each castle would grant abilities you could only use when a princess was assigned to it. Adding an element of defending the castles you own and attacking the other castles would add an interesting dynamic.

          • VindicaSean says:

            Don’t know how crunchy you’d want to take it, but maybe make some unique-to-faction cards, like the Middle Eastern faction can make people lose turns (wandering the desert/dehydration/mirages), Euro Medieval faction could force cards out of a hand (peasant revolt/dragon attack), etc. Just spitballing.

          • I was imagining each faction would have mostly if not only unique cards, with a flavor that matched each one. I’m kind of imagining that picking a faction is like picking a Smash Bros. character; they each have unique playstyles that favor different approaches. There would have to be a number of abilities that all the factions would have, but hopefully there would be ways to make each faction use those actions in unique ways.

            What would be a reasonable number of cards per faction, do you think? Smash Up plays with 40 cards (two 20-card decks shuffled together) for each player, that sound about right?

          • VindicaSean says:

            40 is a nice manageable number. Close enough to the size of a deck of playing cards to feel familiar in your hand. Magic The Gathering allows up to 60, if memory serves (been a few years), but that’s mostly to allow resource management for summons and spells. Not sure how you want to play it with the resource management angle, but the tack you’re seeming to take from your comments suggests you won’t be including any really nitpicky examples of it (like Magic The Gathering).

          • Smash Up is kind of the template I’m coming from; I was imagining each deck would typically be half Soldier cards and half Command cards, the soldiers having different power based on whether they’re attacking or defending, and the commands letting you do things like move soldiers, boost the power of soldiers or the defence of a castle, or various other abilities. Each player would draw 5 cards at the start of the game, each turn you’d be able to play one command and one soldier then draw 2 cards at the end of your turn. I’m not currently imagining resources. The way I currently see it, there would be a number of castles on the field of play at the beginning of the game; you get points for capturing a castle, then once you have it you place soldiers to defend it. You can capture castles already captured by opposing players by moving soldiers from one castle to another; if your attack power outnumbers their defence power, you capture it. The game would come with 6 or 8 factions, with possible expansion packs later. A lot of this is very similar to Smash Up, but if there’s some unique ways to play it I’m open to suggestions.

    • Chris says:

      Sounds like a territory control game would be the easiest mechanic, maybe with some tile placement.

      • And what, pray tell, is tile placement? I have admittedly little strategy game experience, basically Settlers of Catan, 7 Wonders, and Smash Up.

        • Chris says:

          Settlers of Catan is a perfect example. It’s laying out tiles to create the board or play space as it were. Other examples would be Carcassonne and Labyrinth.

          • Oh, gotcha. I was thinking there would be cards representing the castles and people would play their soldiers onto the castles. I’m currently trying to figure out if there’s a way to make the placement or location of the castles relative to each other be a part of the gameplay.

            Also, how do you link text in Disqus?

          • Chris says:

            You could do that, sure. Tile placement is just the placing of tiles. What those tiles represent is up to you. If you want to make the borders contextual, some kind of symbol that references influence could be useful.

            Standard HTML: [a href=”example.com”]link[/a] with < instead of [.

    • PowerSerg says:

      Oh you might be able to pick up some tips from Sentinels of the Multiverse as well. I think the main key to keeping it simple but wanting to have everyone be unquie is maybe small faction deck size, easy to read but unique abilities on each card.

    • Zefram Mann says:

      Good lucha wrestlers (what we call babyfaces in the US) are called “technicos”, and baddies (called heels over here) are called “rudos” (perfect for playing dirty tricks on opponents).

      El Santo is a revered and hallowed name in Lucha. They starred in movies together (always wearing their masks) where aliens, vampires, and Frankenstein were fought.

      Mask vs mask matches could potentially be career ending (though in most cases the loser just came back with a different mask and identity).

      • Love to find another lucha fan. These are great suggestions for mechanics for the luchador Kingdom. I already have some experience with luchadors in this kind of project; I actually made a luchador themed custom faction for Smash Up already https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1438478/custom-faction-luchadors-print-ready-original-artw (as suggested by another commenter on the board game forums, the mechanic ended up being a tag team mechanic that allowed the luchador cards to switch in and out at different points; the minion cards actually are either tecnicos or rudos, and have power changing abilities based on that, the rudo cards either kill or cheat, the tecnicos are more tecnical). I’ve also been writing and drawing a luchador fantasy webcomic for the last three years or so http://www.luchaquest.net/home/

  13. PowerSerg says:

    Anyone got any favorite free comic book day books this year? I didn’t manage to get all the books I wanted but I think the Korra comic was sooo cute and Black Mask’s stuff was interesting.

    • bandit_queen says:

      I got a few! I haven’t read them all yet, just the Superman one, but I mostly liked it. I can’t remember the last time I read a Superman comic, so I’m not speaking as someone who knows a lot about his various stories etc. That said, I really like the idea of him thinking through and trying to deal with the idea of mortality, particularly in a form he can’t use his powers to fight off. And I very much liked the ending, because there are few tropes I hate more than “hero hides identity from loved ones.”

    • SpottedSeaJelly says:

      I didn’t get to go this year. There were just waaaaaaay to many events going on this weekend where I live. Plus my mom came back from her half-year stay down in Florida, so I wanted to go over to her place and see her.

  14. Stephen "Soup" Strange says:

    Nerdy Speakings: ZOOTOPIA IS SO GOOD

  15. wondercube says:

    The new Widow series by Waid and Samnee continues to be compelling as hell, but I WISH each issue didn’t go by so quickly. So little dialogue. The story is being wonderfully and subtly told, which is awesome, but dear lord it keeps leaving me itching for the next issue.

    • Chris says:

      I know this makes me terrible for the ongoing survival of so many books, but this is honestly another reason why I so often wait for the trades.

      • wondercube says:

        I would love to follow trades more, but I want the issues to sell well so it’ll last… And I’m impatient. IT’S SO GOOD THOUGH, READ IT.

        • Chris says:

          My friend owns a game/comic shop, so when I go to the weekly Magic drafts I read what’s new on the racks between rounds. I’ll check it out this week.

      • SpottedSeaJelly says:

        I’m the same. Just a single issue isn’t enough for me.
        Heck, even the trade paperbacks seem short.

        Maybe it’s also a side effect of having read a lot of manga and being used to that being in larger volumes than trades.

        • Chris says:

          Yep. I made a mistake at multiple levels in reading through the entirety of One Piece available, but one of the more prominent is that it has totally skewed my sense of length and scale for ongoing stories.

    • Stephen "Soup" Strange says:

      Truth be told, I prefer the previous run. The lack of dialogue makes it very confusing.

  16. wondercube says:

    Read the latest issue of Scarlet Witch. Probably the best to date. Art was gorgeous, the writing was poignant. I’m a sucker for a tragic love story, and I just love the idea of Wanda trying to atone for her past by helping others wherever she can. I really hope this series continues to grow and expand and create the kind of renaissance KSD started for Carol/Captain Marvel. I hope they touch a little more on her feelings about HoM and kind of the long standing effect that’s had on her (and how people interact with her), but that might be beating a dead horse? I wasn’t around for that event.

  17. Chris says:

    I am now on three different long-term projects at work that are scheduled out for the remainder of the year.

    I mourn the memory of my free time.

  18. the silver ravens says:

    Finals this week! rolls into a ball and hides under bed…