Dimension Chat - The gang tries to decided on playing game

We return today with a new Dimension Chat and this week, the madness continues. The gang and Rob try to decide on what game to play. Always remember who you're playing with and the end consequences.

Being a fan of Dungeons and Dragons since I was in the 4th grade, I just felt I had to pay some homage to the game I've played many, many time and a lot of those times have been great. The jokes in this will definitely be better if you're over 35 yrs old. 

Remember to subscribe to my channel http://www.youtube.com/RobDimension

Being a Gamer – The Women’s Perspective

Being a Gamer – The Women’s Perspective

This past weekend, we were taping some Web stuff and an interesting discussion came up – What is a Women’s Perspective in Gaming? Now, Mooch (Rob) and Pigamortis (Sal) are a couple of fair gaming fellows, so we wanted to get to the bottom of this.

The conversation touched on some of these topics:

• On being a female in a man’s role playing world.

• How to avoid being ignored and stepping up to be a leader.

• The problems with smell, attitudes and ego.

Sal has been a Dungeon Master for over 10 years, but a lifetime player, while I played a lot as a younger kid, but recently (like 3 yrs ago) restarted playing again. We sat, listened and watched as they shared stories and some of the same points were brought up.

We came up with a few simple, basic questions for Alicia Still, who does so much for the show (co-producing, camera, public relations)…she makes us the media darlings we are. Also, my Wife Kim, who plays Demonica was the other victim…..I mean person we asked. They are both Table Top Gamers, as well as others (WoW) and both can be quiet and speak up…trust us…we know.

1 – How did you become involved in the Gaming community?

Alicia - I guess initially, it's my 4th grade teacher’s entire fault. I think after 40 years of teaching she could recognize the type of students that could benefit from nerdery and escapism. She gave me Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia, and put me in a book club with other kids that had the same interest in the fantasy genre; those kids would later be the boys I played my first D&D campaign with. Having several excellent gaming stores, as well as a fantasy LARP local definitely contributed to it. I think pre-internet, if those things had not been just down the road I would have not been exposed to gaming until I was much older.

Kim - My husband opened a gaming store a few years back. He thought it was very important for us to learn how to play all the games we offered in the store. I was an avid video game player as I have enjoying playing since I was really young. So enjoying other games came easy to me. But all of my roleplaying experience was in the controlled setting of a store. I have no experience playing in someone house.

 

2 – What is it about table top, role playing games that you enjoy?

 

Alicia - The escapism and the story. I have the luxury of a phenomenal DM that can tell an amazing story and draw the pictures and voice the NPCs to go along with it. I've played campaigns with other people where they are by the book, and while enjoyable, nothing will ever be as good as campaigns with my current DM.

Kim - I enjoyed getting to play out adventures as different character classes. Getting to explore the dark side of me, playing Vampire the Masquerade. Getting to chose a path of having to learn from each of my killings, made me need to use my imagination. Plus with playing D&D, as a Half Elf Rogue. Having to use my charisma to work over the other party members. I was always great at rolling for my skills, but battling was always very different. As I was known in the party as the player that always rolls 1 on my d20. Regardless of which die, I still seemed to roll a lot of 1's. So they started saying I Kim'd it. So anytime someone rolled a one it was then known as “kim'd it”. Which I thought was funny. I've gotten to work with a few DM's. I much prefer the roleplaying versus the hack/slash, due to my character of choice is never a fighter. Not that I wouldn't enjoy it with a different character. So I know from experience that some DM's only award XP for killing, where other award for actual roleplaying.

3 – What are feelings about being a Female in a Man’s gaming world?

Alicia - First of all guys are loud and they are gross. Whoever yells the loudest is the most right. Even after 20 years of table topping I am still coming to terms with that. Often times I feel that I get interrupted and stepped on because I am not as loud or as aggressive. Sometimes it demotivates me when I play, I will sit quiet until combat happens after I am interrupted too much. Which makes me not enjoy the game, because I like role playing, not kill-loot-kill.

The other thing is they are gross, there is this odor of ass and balls and stale Chinese food that only exists during gaming. There is no escaping it, no amount of air freshner, incense, or opening the windows can ever make it go away. I always wear a hoodie to games, even in the summer, so I can hide my nose in it to occasionally escape the smell.

Although these people are few, there are some players that will never, ever respect a female for an assortment of reasons. 1) They have been rejected too much in their lives and are angry at everything with lady parts. 2) They feel that there is no way a woman would ever be interested in gaming for any other purpose than to meet guys. Those guys will hit on you relentlessly until eventually they turn in to #1. 3) The guys that have never interacted with a non-relative female. I can't even begin to explain how to interact with these guys. If you're nice they think you want to do them, if you're not nice enough you're a "bitch". When I was younger I saw a lot of girls use the hell out of guys like this, because these guys will do whatever you want if you talk to them, even more so if you acknowledge them in public. It's a terrible abuse of lady parts. Eventually these guys turn in to #1 too, because they get so screwed over by girls.

Kim - For the most part I enjoyed playing with the guys. I grew up a tomboy, so I'm use to playing with all boys. So as long as they treated me fairly, I didn't have any issues. But don't steal my kill when it only has a few hit points left. That totally gets me agitated. If you want to see me get pissed off, just kill something I've battled for a few rounds.
 

 

4 – How do you combat being spoken for or verbally ignored?

Alicia - Sometimes I bottle it up for months and then scream at everyone in game. This is not a good course of action. I do not recommend this. The best way to handle it is to let the DM know it's happening, and who is doing it. Then I try to address it with that person politely. If that doesn't work, well then it's time for a little attitude. I've also tossed around the idea of buying a mega phone or an air horn, but I don't want to frighten the DM's dog.

Kim - Was never verbal ignored or spoken for. Maybe it's because we were playing in our store and had a good group to play with for the most part. I only had issues with 2 players for not wanting to play as a group or for constant distractions or just being obnoxious.

5 – Advice for other Females who feel the same way?

Alicia - Let's play a game together? I've never met enough female gamers to actually have an all girl campaign. Right now I know 4 and one lives in Ohio.

Kim - Get use to the smells of the typical gamer. Try to fit in with the guys. Try playing in a store atmosphere as they will have to play by the rules and are told about hygiene.

6 – Advice for an entire group that has women players? What should the DM look for?

Alicia - "Don't be a dick." - Wil Wheaton

If everyone followed that rule in gaming and in life everything would be so much better. This isn't even a male/female thing it's a loud/quiet thing. Give your quieter players a chance to speak. The DM should just keep an eye out to make sure that person is getting their attention when they request it.

I also want to put this out there for female gamers. Do not date the guys in your gaming group. If you're serious about table topping, just DO NOT DO THIS. It ruins the dynamic of the group, creates months of awkwardness, and if you break up usually one of you has to quit, and guess what, it's probably not him that's going to be asked to leave.

Kim - The DM should find out if the group all agrees to play hack/slash or if they are more into roleplaying. The DM may need to separate the group and run two different sessions. As it is hard to convince a large group either way. If the whole group is happy doing hack/slash then go for it, but if they don't all agree then it will cause problems in the group.

Mooch Minute 12/22/10 Epic Fail from the Inside

Mooch Minute 12/22/10 Epic Fail from the Inside


Well, The Pig and Mooch sat down and we completed our 1st Podcast yesterday. The topic was Dungeons and Dragons, who we could see as the spokesperson, players, how we got started and much more. Good time but we are already thinking of ways to improve it. It should be up by tomorrow (Thursday)


Would anyone want to SEE us do the podcast? You could WATCH or listen...interested? We are looking for your feedback, so be a part of the fun.


Christmas will be here, just a handful of hours away now...what are you getting? What do you want? I have a special gift that I am requesting...I won't get it in one day...I will have to work for it. More info later....stay safe from rabbid shoppers!

Mooch Minute 12/18/10 - D&D Famous Players List

Mooch Minute 12/18/10

Famous Dungeons and Dragons Players List

As we gear up for our 1st Epic Fail Podcast, we had a great discussion about the Spokesperson for Dungeons and Dragons question we aske. Remember, if you were a non-player or even a player trying to recruit new players...who do YOU think would be the possible sway factor to get new players to play. Below is a list of Famous people that play D&D.

While the answer may not be someone famous, this is a great list of potentional front men or women.

(Credit to http://www.edmplanet.com/forum/showthread.php?t=86735 for this list)

1. Stephen Colbert (also went to Gen Con (a dnd/comic/roleplaying convention))

2. Vin Diesel (Wrote the introduction to a book about DnD)

3. Mike Myers

4. Dwayne Johnson AKA The Rock

5. Matt Groening

6. Dame Judy Dench (Introduced to the game by Vin Diesal)

7. Jenny McCarthy

8. -=Edited out cause I was wrong.=-

9. Edwin McCain (Not sure if he still does but did when he was a kid)

10. Wil Wheaton (played on the set of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Still plays to this day)

11. Daryl Hannah

12. Robin Williams (Plays both the Online DnD Game and the Tabletop one)

13. Lexa Doig AKA Rommie and the computer AI from Andromeda

14. Ben Aflac (Forced to play by Kevin Smith on a set once and fell in love. Prefers to play Wizards over fighters.)

15. Mat Damon (Forced to play by Kevin Smith on a set once and fell in love. Prefers to play Fighters over Wizards.)

16. Matthew Lillard (Said so on G4's attack of the show then stole all of thier D&D Minatures Models)

17. Jon Stewart (He also sneaks sutile D&D jokes into his show that only us D&D nerds get to laugh at.)

18. Jim Breuer

19. Brian Warner AKA Marilyn Manson

20. John Carmack and a good portion of the original id Software crew (Some of the characters and story elements in Quake were based off of D&D session iirc)

21. Sebastian Bengtsson

22. Joakim Bengtsson

23. Robert P. Olsson

24. Björn-Erik Karlsson

25. Daniel Antonsson

26. Tommy Karlsson

27. Kevin Smith (Can't I forgot him until now)

28. Eddie Izzard

29. Johnny Vaughn

30. Michael Greco

31. Dave Gorman

32. Charles Manson (He actually ran a game in prision! That is to say until California banned the running of Tabletop RPGs in prision.(This might actually be just a rumor but I don't mind))

33. Scott Edgar (Found the actual quotes! "I also play Dungeons and Dragons with my mates, which everyone reckons is tragic, but I reckon is heaps of fun.")

34. Jon Favreau (Another one with a quote! "I'm a very lazy person by nature. I have to be really engaged, and then I go straight from lazy to obsessive. I couldn't study chemistry, but I could memorize all the books for Dungeons and Dragons. It was ridiculous.")

35. Curt Schilling from, I think, the Red Sox or at least use to be.

36. Todd Pratt from, I think, the Braves or at least use to be.

37. Jimmy Wales (One of the starters of Wikipedia)

38. Jacques Villeneuve (Use to drive race cars. Ironicly he prefers to play Monks in D&D which move faster then all other characters)

39. Rivers Cuomo from Weezer and, it is rumored at least, the rest of the band.

40. Everyone in Marcy's Playground (They even wrote a song called "A Cloak of Elvenkind" Which is a Major Magical Item in Dungeons and Dragons)

41. Everyone in Flashlight Brown (They even wrote a song called "Ready to Roll" which references 20-Sided Dice and A LOT of other D&D related things)

42. Gary Gygax (He was famous enough to play a character on Futurama(himself) so I put him on the list)

43. Seth Greene (Even made a Robot Chicken episode that refenerced THAC0 which was part of the Advance DND (or 2nd Edition) rule set)

44. Trey Parker

45. Matt Stone

46. Patton Oswalt (even talked the Reno 911 guys into doing a DnD part on the show. It was very funny)

47. Stephen King (And certain things from dnd are referenced in The Dark Tower series)

48. Steve Rune Lundin AKA Steven Erikson

49. Joss Whedon (Director of Buffy The Vampire Slayer)

50. Jack Black (He also references DND in the song "Wonderboy")

The following people stole DnD stuff from the teen choice awards. I included pictures when I could find them:

51. Ryan Cabrera

52. Nick Cannon

53. Jon Heder

54. Jesse McCartney (http://i5.tinypic.com/477z19v.jpg)

55. David Boreanaz

56. Lauren Graham (http://i4.tinypic.com/2uhq1dk.jpg)

57. Hulk Hogan (http://i7.tinypic.com/2mzlevt.jpg)

58. Metallica (At least they played Call of Cthulhu and Dungeon and Dragons before Hetfield went into rehab)

59. Conan O'Brian (Use to play at least. He has mentioned it on his show)

60. Darby Conley (though he is C-List at best)

61. Andrew W.K.

62. The band Amon Amarth (Can I get a Wha wha from all my metalheads?)

63. My Chemical Romance (They played with Thrice during the Vans Warp Tour. My Chemical Romance's lead singer Gerard Way plays a Half-Elf Ranger)

64. Thrice (Played with My Chemical Romance during the Vans Warp Tour.)

65. Alice Cooper Played D&D (And even replayed the events of a game on an episode of That 70's Show)

66. Some/All of Barenaked Ladies

67. Raymond E Feist (He Actually uses a self created world in his books that was originally created for his Dungeons and Dragons game back home)

68. Kari Byron (Played DnD and has thought about getting Adam and Jaime to play with her.)

69. Brian Posehn

70. Jason Mewes (Though when asked about it he says "DND IS FOR FAGGOTS" then turns to Kevin Smith and starts laughing)

71. Robert Jordan (And his sons which he taught how to play)

72. Weird Al Yankovic

73. Mastodon's Drum Brann Dailor

74. Neil Fallon and MAYBE the other members of Clutch (They even wrote an unreleased song called 24 Earth Years which mentioned playing AD&D back in the day)

75. David X. Cohen (In David's piece in the 30 year D&D hardback book, he says he never had time to play during Futurama, but most the writers did, and they kept D&D books in the office as "referrence" material.(He did get to play while working on The Simpsons though))

76. Alexis Cruz (He also LARPs. HAHAHA Nerd)

77. David Cross (He also mentions a group of comedians he plays with but wouldnt name them.)

78. Billy Crystal (He also plays 40K With Robin Williams)

79. R.A. Salvatore (Though I guess he would have too)

80. Some of the members of Dragonforce (And DND themes have worked their way into Dragonforce songs over and over)

81. David Duchovney (actually mentioned it on Conan O'Brien not too long ago)

82. The band Dayglo Abortions (Even wrote a song about it called Dragons)

83. Donald Faison (He plays Monks)

84. Insane Clown Posse

85. Emilio Estévez

86. Glenn Danzig



Epic Fail - Your Spokesperson for Dungeons and Dragons is?

Pig and Mooch Epic Fail Podcast #1

Your Spokesperson for Dungeons and Dragon is?

As The Pig and Mooch set up for the 1st Epic Fail (I’m sure they will have many more) Podcast our nerd minds got to thinking – If you had your choice, who do you name as the Spokesperson for Dungeons and Dragons?

While discussing this classic Role playing juggernaut, Mooch and Pig were trying to figure out who would be the person to represent the Dungeons and Dragons community. We could all piss and moan about the job that Wizards of the Coast does, from adding upgrades for 4th edition to altering the premise for the sake of making more money. We are role players…we are broke…we hunt for the latest Star Wars figures at 10am at Toys r Us…BUT, we need a voice and well, a face. Who is your choice?

Vin Diesel made his nerdness known over the summer, but is he our best candidate? Fast, Furious and a d20? Come on gamers….we want to know who is your choice…message us on FB, Twitter or by email – RobDimension@msn.com

Comic Book Vocabulary - A Beginners Guide to Comic Book terms and more

Comic Book Vocabulary - A Beginners Guide to Comic Book terms and more
Video Included!!!

by : John Cannon

Comic books have been around for a multitude of years even starting as early as 1934 when the reprinted regular newspaper comics at first. Now if you have gone through your life and have never read a comic I can understand as they don’t appeal to some people. However if you have gone through your life and never even seen a comic book then I would have to call you a liar. Comics have become apart of the main stream fabric in which we live. Today they are making them into movies and TV shows, mainly because Hollywood has apparently run out of ideas and their effort to appeal to another target audience, but I digress. Ok before I digress, some of these movies are absolutely horrible and don’t follow the established path the comic or even cartoons had taken, I make my point with the X-Men movies, ok now I am done…for now. 

Suffice it to say comic books have been read time and time again and generated their own world. I know this as Rob and I went to Wizard World in Philadelphia and felt completely out of my element. Rob was like a kid in a candy store as he went through comics, DVD, Toy, T-shirt & artists booths. He was like a kid in a candy store until we saw the Jedi’s fighting, then it was just plain depressing, at least to me it was. Yet in a way it was a side of Rob I had never seen before, it was pretty cool. To see him in his universe, as I called it, with such a love and passion for everything comic related was pretty cool and I was glad to be apart of it. However I couldn’t help feel a bit out of my league as I looked around at the people and heard the conversations in a language not entirely familiar to me. It was English, with maybe a little bit of Klingon mixed in, but it was the phrases that they used.

I asked Rob a ton of questions about what was this, what does that mean and why are fat storm troopers so funny to look at. I knew then that I could not be the only person in the world who would be completely lost in this bizzaro world of comics and its terminology. I used to read some comics back when I was in middle school and high school and if you ask Rob he will tell you the only comics I ever really remember reading were any Lobo comics and the graphic novel Batman vs Judge Dredd, which I will find and own someday. Again, I knew I could not be the only one in the world to have such limited knowledge of comics so I pitched the idea to both him and James from Cyborg 1 about doing a segment that could be related to the more novice/beginner comic book reader. Whenever Rob & James get together to go over comics or Rob talks to me about comics I usually stand there with a blank look on my face because I have no clue of the terminology being used. I figured this would be the starting point for me and all those like me, I would research and write down some comic terms and have Rob & James explain them in a way that they were understandable for the average beginner comic book reader.

Listed below are some of the terms I brought to them and you can see the 2 part video of a more in-depth definition of the words on latenighthorrorhotel.com we filmed.

Comix	This is associated more with Alternative and Underground comics
Comics	This is associated more with more mainstream comic companies such as DC & Marvel
Graphic Novel / Trade Paperback	A series of individual comics compressed into one big book.
Motion Comic	A hybrid of comic books & animation
Prestige & Bookshelf Format	Is based upon the number of pages within the “book” usually being 48 to 64 pages in length
Alternative Comics	Is non-mainstream and delivers on a wide range of subject matter
The Marvel Method	A way a comic is written; mainly being the artist would draw the comic first based upon an outline then the words would be added.
Continuity	The way in which a comic flows and little things are observed or happen within a comic series
Canon	Refers to the stories which are, at any one point, part of the "official", "accepted" history and story of particular characters/universes.
Retcon	A retcon affects the past history of characters and/or the whole shared universe, and says that the "new" changed events have always been that way.
Crossover	A guest appearance by one superhero into another superheroes world. Usually one companies heroes into another’s.
Shared Universe	A multitude of different characters co-exist and/or interact
Direct Market	The comics that are sent directly to the comic store rather than to places like Borders or Barnes & Nobles
Variante	Same exact comic, but with 2-3 different covers
Sleeper	A lesser known comic with great potential
Grade	The condition of a comic
Mini-Series	Usually a series of 6 comics to tell a story over time
Maxi-Series	Usually a series of 8 or more comics to tell a story over time
Manga	Japanese comics
Bleed	The art touches the edge of the pages without the traditional white frames
Splash Page	Full page drawing in a comic book
Gutter	The space between borders
Previews	A monthly book that shows the up and coming comics for early purchase.

I found this glossary link on the DC Wiki website, check it out for some more definitions: http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Glossary_Entries

Hopefully these terms and definitions help you understand the comic world just a little bit more and if you have any other you would like explained please contact us at latenighthorrorhotel@hotmail.com

At the end of all this I realized there was a whole other word out there that I was not aware of. I have heard Rob discuss things like Magic, Pokemon & Starwars RPG Games just to name a few. Now I have “heard” of these things before I just don’t know what the draw is to them, I don’t know anything about them and again I know there are a lot of people out there just like me who have the same confusion. So again I have put it to Rob and we will look at filming some segments that will help to uncover and understand the underground geek world out there. And believe me they are out there and some of them are really scary…did I mention the fat storm troopers?

Be safe and don’t forget your 13 sided die,

John Cannon

Part 1
 

Watch LNHH Comic Definitions Part 1 in Entertainment  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Part 2