So, I’ve managed to move the podcasts to the new host, A Small Orange, and everything seems to be going great.  As you can see, I’ve reduced the number of podcasts down quite a bit and eliminated the OGG stream completely.  The old host was providing MUCH more diskspace, but had serious lag times and was constantly over taxed.  As such, I made the trade off to stick with a smaller host with better latency.

That being said, this now also allows us to move from WordPress.com to Outerheaven.ca, my personal site.  Outerheaven.ca will become a nice hub for much of our work, and help keep it centralized.  Please update all your bookmarks toCritical Failure: The GURPS Podcast.

Changes to come: To meet the type of hosting available, the number of available podcasts on the RSS feed will be reduced; perhaps to simply the 5 most recent. This will not mean all the old podcasts will be unavailable, they will simply be moved to another storage solution. Watch for their return in the coming weeks.

Podcast releases will now be once every two weeks. Since I was doing the bulk of the work, it got to be really tiring to have a twice a week release. This will not only free up time, it’ll allow me to create a proper intro to the podcast, and to clean up dead air. Potentially, the new season of Critical Failure could sound almost professional (ha!).

CptCylde will be starting a new game; a nice and simple “The Matrix” setting. This will be a nice, light introduction for a new gamer, and should be starting quite soon.

“What happened to the finale of the Ayn Rand/Pseudo Objectivist/Space Setting game YOU were running?”

Well, that can be explained in one short statement: Moegreeb can’t find his MP3 player. He’s currently in the process of moving across the city, and has misplaced ti somewhere in his many boxes. Eventually we’ll find them and put them up; though based upon how poorly I was running that game, Im sure no one will miss them

We look forward to serving a new season of listeners very shortly, and we can’t wait to show off our new digs once they finally start to look complete!

NARD

Yes it’s been almost 3 months since the Critical Failure crew have made any new postings or even podcasts, and we apologize greatly.  We know some of you were listening to our antics for some time and we feel terrible for leaving you out in the cold!  Fear not, the crew will post the remaining 3 episodes of the Space campain (that sad sad fumbling oddity), and will start a brand new season of adventure!

This time we will be running a single longer term game; a dark drawven fantasy.  To ease our time constraints, we’ll be moving back on the release schedual to twice a month; ensuring a sucessful and satisfying run.

Mostly, we were distracted by Magic: The Gathering (we are geeks afterall), and simply became a little burnt out.  However, check back for more updates and new features!

Coming Soon: The Critical Failure Source Material Wiki, get all the data, settings, NPCs and other goodies from our games.  Run your own!  And (hopefully) play them better than we could

Keep rolling those dice!

Bernard

It has been awhile since I’ve contributed anything of value to the blog. It’s been awhile since any of us have contributed new material. And I have been watching the hit count slowly dwindling to almost nothing.

So I am posting here to proclaim our unofficial return to podcasting with an upcoming GURPS Supers oneshot adventure. We are progressing slowly through character creation currently, and things are starting to get interesting and a little…… outlandish.

Stay tuned for GURPS Supers action!

Critical Failure: Space Setting – 37 (A Tomb inside a Tomb)
Critical Failure: Space Setting – 37 (A Tomb inside a Tomb) MP3

Suddenly things don’t seem so cut and dry about the mysterious tombs of John and Dagny Gault. Why is there a second airlocked section not on the map? Why can’t Dick Dawkinstown follow? What is with the mysterious holographic note?

I came across “Derelict Starships” rather randomly; I was just searching in an “others” section of some sort, and stumbled upon it. What’s interesting to note is that it makes no mention of specific system, setting (outside of space) or plot. It simply is concerned with derelicts, and nothing else.

So what exactly is this supplement? Well, TTA appears to have compiled a collection of descriptions for use in a game. A GM would select a compatible description, read it aloud to his players, and wholla! Description, atmosphere and mood; taken care of for the lazy GM. Being lazy, I love the idea.

The supplement is broken into a few sections; the “Bits” section which rhymes off a series of different generic sections/corridors for quick random use, and the “Shards” dealing with specific sections in a starship (Bridge, Engineering, tubes, etc). The Shards are the bulk of the supplement, making up 20 pages. Each Shard is 10-20 lines long, usually describes the local area quite well, and occasionally comes with traps/encounters should the GM wish to use them.

Additionally, there are two “freebies”: Description flashcards and a detailed discussion on body decomp in space (What the…). Neither of these seemed very useful, but a really bogged down GM might find some use for them (however, if you are that busy, maybe you should switch back to being a player).

Overall, the majority of the descriptions are well written and generic enough for most games. The originality is a little lacking as many of the descriptions feel as if they were lifted from a random Star Trek: Voyager episode. One real minus however is that some of the descriptions are a tad short, which I suspect would leave the players a little bored when trying to picture the scene.

The entire supplement is about 200 or so descriptions, which at first glance seems like a bargain at $11 (Canadian), but suddenly becomes less appealing once you realize the individual sections contain no more than 10 each. It would literally become description of the week very quickly if a GM actually relied on the supplement to aid his descriptive skills.

The artwork and page setting for the supplement is *very* professional; so much so that I actually forgot I was looking at an indie companies production. It’s clean, clear and very suitable for printing. Bound nicely, this would look good sitting open on your gaming table.

TTA does offer more of these “Bits” for purchase, however they seem exclusively focused on Fantasy settings. Each supplement runs about the same price, and features about the same level of content. This is quite disappointing; fantasy is so over played/done that free descriptions could be found anywhere. We want other settings dammit! A little digging did not reveal any other companies jumping into this niche, and likely for good reason. The margin for profit is likely low, and unlike other supplements, looses it’s usefulness after just a few games.

Overall, I think it is a good product, but too short and a little short lived for the cost. At $11, you could simply run to a used bookstore and grab 10 novels from a bin and get much more content. If you’re like me and forgetful, or you happen to have poor writing skills, this COULD be useful. Otherwise, I’d wait until they drop the price to $5 before picking any of them up.

Example Description:

A duffle bag sits on [or: floats above] the deck in an awkward position. Its built-in locking seal is still engaged. On its side you can see traces of what once was a name and number but years of wear and tear have worn it off to the point where it is unreadable. Only part of the crewperson’s number is evident—the last 4 digits were 6947. There is no indication of who owned it or who dropped it and left it in haste. [If the duffle is opened, the characters will find it is full of uniforms, women’s underwear, and a data pad. If this is investigated, it appears to have a series of video letters sent and received between a slender woman with black skin and her family and friends. They also find a tiny ceramic animal with a flowing mane.]

Click here to Purchase Derelict Starships

No, these ones DO NOT have tentacles and libido issues; these ones move pillows and fear invertebrates. If nothing else, they add lore to an existing Asian campaign (I totally want to see Bisha-ga-tsuku in a Lovecraftian Samurai adventure).

Anatomy of Japanese folk monsters

Critical Failure: Space Setting – 36 (Douche Canoe)
Critical Failure: Space Setting – 36 (Douche Canoe) MP3

The heroes discuss their options about entering the bio-metrically coded airlock, all whilst discussing ZenJedis Urban Dictionary posting?

So, what about Mass Effect?

For months all I heard was the hype from friends:

“It’s amazing!”
“There is just so much to do, you’ll never get bored!”
“I shot Wrex in the head for poop and skittles!” <-Moegreeb (More or less)

Annoyingly enough, Mass Effect (obviously) didn't meet my expectations. It was a good, fun experience but it wasn't the earth shattering game I was hoping for. While it was well designed and executed, it seemed dumbed down and excessively repetitive. Not to say it didn't entertain me (it certainly did), it (like always) didn't live up to the hype.

Even though this game wasn't the experience I hoped for (I seem to be less and less interested in CRPG's lately), it was saved by one single fact: It has literally the best sci-fi score I've heard in a while.

This is a disc for any serious space/sci-fi campaign. It's brooding, ethereal, and incredibly original. Check these tracks out (along with my thought for their use):

Liara’s World – The decaying remains of an interstellar Hulk as your players fly in amongst the steel ribs

Eden Prime – Stealth-ing within a Rat’s Nest

The Wards – Superior and (potentially) Benevolent alien encounter

Sadly, this awesome battle track is missing from the OST:
Therum Battle

I know many of you like to incorporate music into your gaming sessions; if you have the cash to spare, a copy of this album will be well worth your coin. You won’t be disappointed, not in the slightest.

Click here to purchase the album

-Bernard/Jarvis