MaliQuest: Finally, progress!!

Good Tuesday everyone!

So last night I finally got my ass in gear with making the 100 card MaliQuest Deck.

This deck comes with a lot of changes, namely the removal of Cogs from Artifacts, the reduction of most +2 stats to +1 stat, and of course the introduction of multi-slot weapons.

Yeah, this was a long time coming, but it occurred to me, the Greatsword vs the Peacebringer Blade, one of them has a higher Dg profile and a longer reach, while the other, well the other is just inferior.

So then I realised, why would anyone want the PB Blade when they can have the Greatsword, for that reason certain weapons have had the following line added "equipping this weapon requires use if two slots". So you can have the stronger Greatsword if you want, but then you can't equip any other weapons without swapping out.

I have also changed the rules on Paired Weapons. Where as before you gained paired with the use of a Weapon Mod, now that mod is gone, instead you require two of that weapon to be equipped at the same time, so if you had two Peacebringers or two PB Blades equipped at the same time, then these items become paired.

What this means, while you are losing the functionality of having two weapons to choose from, the one weapon you are using is going to be better than the standard version - as Paired is a REALLY good ability.

For those curious, mods on paired weapons will NOT stack. So you can't put +1 Melee range on 2 PB Blades and gain +2 Range, instead you declare which weapon you're attacking with and then use that weapon's stats, just with paired.
- what this does mean, you can say mod 1 weapon for accuracy or range, and the other for damage, and then use whichever is the desired weapon for the time.

Ok that's about all from me today, other than letting you know we'll be recording Episode 07 tonight, it should be fun, sort of like "How to play MaliQuest - A beginner's Guide".
- we'll be covering the specific rules of MaliQuest but also the basics of Malifaux, so what's a Df Flip, a Moral duel, what's cheating fate, Soulstones etc.

And on that note, stay safe and I'll see you breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Adventures of Geek Dad: Back to Work

Good Monday everyone!

It's been a while, but I thought it best to give you all a Geek Dad update.

So as of Friday 19th I have been off work, that's 1 week and 1 day, and today I'm on my way back to the office.

What's strange, the thing I am missing most about not being at work wasn't the days spent on Warcraft or Diablo, or the opportunities to nap, or the time spent thinking about (but not actually doing) updating MaliQuest.

No, the thing I miss the most was spending time with both my wife and mini moo.



It's funny how every time I post a Geek Dad update, it always feels like so much has happened between posts, and this time is no different.

She's now wearing size 4 shoes and walking around like a big girl! To the extent this week we even started letting her walk to nursery! Of course we have a walking harness so that we can stop her running off into the road or places she isn't supposed to go, but she's been loving it!

She's been jumping into puddles and exploring different floor textures and just generally been loving the opportunity to be (almost) free.

We've also found that she seems to be obsessed by animals, and as a test of this I put on the film 'Cats & Dogs' as part of our Saturday afternoon film, just to see how she would react. The reaction was stronger than expected, jumping up and down, running in circles, all the while pointing at the screen showing her excitement for having so many of her favourite animals on the screen.

Of course my other attempts at showing her quality films have fallen flat, The Dark Crystal, The Neverending Story, both of these had little to no interest in. But I suppose that isn't entirely bad, as she also has no interest in the pure trash that TV insists kids should watch.

Of course her vocabulary has also increased so much in the past few months. We can't have an actual conversation yet, but she clearly understands what I am saying, and responds in kind, and can now in a limited manner tell us verbally what she wants.

I guess what I'm getting at, every time I have to go back to work after spending even just a weekend with my family, I really miss spending time with them, and I can't wait until I can do it again.

Thankfully next weekend is a Bank Holiday Monday! So that's 3 days with the family!

Stay safe, and I'll see you breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

New Fairbank Radio: Episode 06 + Random other junk!

Hello!

It's been quite a few days since my last post, but fear not, your good Doctor has been very busy with lots of fun stuff to talk to you about.

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First up today is Episode 06 of New Fairbank Radio!

This is downloadable from the usual means, Podbean, iTunes and the inbuilt blog stream.

This week we had a chat with our new co-host Will and discussed a few random things, like where is the podcast going, commissioned painting, that sort of stuff.

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I'm going to try to only briefly touch on what's been going on, after all it's roughly a week since my last post!

So this weekend was my wife's and my 6th wedding anniversary. So we took a trip into London where we stayed for two nights.

On Friday we saw the new remake of the film Evil Dead, which I need to do a proper review soon, but it was so intense!

This movie put me on edge, my anxiety levels were through the roof and stayed there until I felt unwell and needed to take a 10 minute break for fear of being sick.

Anyway, more on that another time.

On Saturday in the morning I took a trip to Salute, which was super fun! I got to see loads of fun stalls including Miniature Factory who have a great range called The Locals:



I also saw a really interesting game from Troublemaker Games called Timeline 300


It's a 10mm scale Steampunk Wargame that introduces resource management as you would expect in an RTS game like StarCraft.
- certainly something to keep an eye on.

Next up was a game called Sphere Wars not much to say as I haven't looked at the rules, but the minis are Nivea d should make interesting proxies if nothing else:


Last but by no means least, I also saw Smog 1888






These models are of a much larger scale than I am used to, but I was able to walk away with a very nice Pre-release that I'll be revealing shortly.

Anyway, that is that, and now time is running short.

I aim to write more tomorrow, so until then, stay safe and I'll see you breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

New Fairbank Radio - Episode 05: Big Daddy

Hello and welcome to New Fairbank Radio - Episode 05: Big Daddy!

Today we reach the conclusion of our first campaign and introduces our new player Will who plays the bad guy boss "Big Daddy".

The show is downloadable from http://newfairbank.podbean.com/, iTunes or from the inbuilt stream at the top of the blog.

As always you can play along at home by downloading the Dungeon Companion v0.3 and you can see this week's files by downloading them here.

Our music this weeks is as follows:
Intro: Cold - Just God Wicked
Intermission: Men In Tights
Outro: Dragonforce - Inside the Winter Storm

Thank you all, and i hope you enjoy the show

Stay safe, and I'll see you breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

General Junk

Good Wednesday everyone!

My head is all over the place today. Partially because my body clock doesn't know what day it is as I have Friday off (and next week too) but also because I have a monster of a cold - ouch!

But I've got a few small things to talk to you about today:

1). On Monday we recorded Episode 05 of New Fairbank Radio. The full recording came to just shy of 2 hours!

Last night I started the editing process, and currently I'm at the intermission, and it's just over an hour. I'll be finishing the editing tonight for a regular Wednesday night/Thursday morning release.

2). Urrrrrgh I hate being sick!

3). Owewweww I really hate being sick!

4). Ok this is actually interesting!
So I awoke to find the following link in my twitter feed: http://www.warpathgames.com/wholesale/warpath.php?m=detail&p=93886

It was found by none other than @DavidKerrSmith and relates to what @jdmickleburgh believes could be a Malifaux take on Zombicide! If this is indeed correct, then that could be really good!


5). Last but by no means least, I've been playing a little bit of Bioshock Infinite the past couple of days.

I went into this game with what I must say was a bit of a closed mind about what to expect.

You see, when the original was released the game had a lot of hype behind it, a hype that I don't believe it lived up to. Yes it did an interesting take on how games are played and put a spin on it, but the game itself didn't really feel all that special to me.

Call me a PC snob, but I felt that it was good for a Console game, but only 'alright' for a PC game.

Then Infinite comes along with much the same type of hype, so you can imagine that I'm a lot more reluctant to get into this than I was the original.

But I must say, despite it's obvious flaws and faults, it's a good game.

The game does seem to lead you by the nose within the narrative, all the while telling you "you have free choice and you're actions have an impact on the game" with one hand, while with the other hand saying "you can't progress any further until you push that one lever, open that one door or talk to that one person".

It's clearly a solid game, with very nice use of the Unreal3 Engine and I am enjoying playing it, but it feels to me like it thinks it's so much more than it actually is.

Anyway, that's all from me for tonight, see you tomorrow for (with hope) Episode 05 of NFR!

Stay safe, and I'll see you breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

New Fairbank Radio: Behind the scenes

Good Friday all!

On suggestion from @OldManMyke today's post is a behind the scenes about NFR and how we go about recording the world's first ever (and only) MaliQuest Podcast!

Where do I start? Well I think before I say everything, I'd like to thank both @oldmanmyke and @jdmickleburgh for their help getting this up and running. Maybe they didn't realise it, but the couple of times I appeared on their show The Malifools I was accidentally learning how to make my own cast.

Anyway, here's the process:

Arrange A Game
First things first, I need to get the crew together. That's not as easy as it may sound.

What with everyone having different schedules that change on a daily basis, getting 4 people together to record is difficult enough, as was revealed in Episode 02 when Tom was unable to make the show.

Also, because out of the crew I am the only one who really uses Twitter, this has to be done over Facebook's messaging service, which is an ass!

Planning The Show
Next up is all about how the show is planned. Now this is probably the hardest part of all. I have to think of what story event can happen in our session, what beasties the players can go against that won't easily kill them, but will pose a challenge - this is something that I've been sucking at currently.

However, there's another factor that needs to be included in this stage, Time. You see I could send 10 Zombie Dogs at the players, and due to sheer numbers they'd almost certainly pose a threat, however as each show is aimed to be somewhere between 30 and 60 mins, and the sheer number of Actions in this suggested encounter would completely throw that off.

Playing the game
The next step is actually playing the game itself.
Now I've heard a few Malifaux podcasts, and I know a running order is normally a good idea, but for those who know me, they'll know that planning to this degree is not what I do. I'm more like how the Joker describes himself in The Dark Knight, an agent of chaos who just "does" things, like a dog chasing cars.

This of course translates into the game, and as such nearly everything is spontaneous. If people are finding the encounters too easy I'll try and make it harder on the fly (as was seen in the infamous "the zombie magically finds armour" encounter).

As with the initial encounter planning, on the fly adjustments is something I need to work on, burst the very least, being a beardy GM seems to make people laugh!

It is during this game playing that the term "uploading into your box" has begun to crop up. This is a mechanical thing that's required to play the game.

You see, other than Sarah and myself, none of the crew are in the same building, instead they're all over the country, so we play our games over Skype.

In order to provide players with an understanding of what loot drops and what they can use, any loot cards that are dropped is uploaded into my own Dropbox (a web hosting tool that interacts with WindowsOS), each player has their own folder, or box and so I upload the loot into their own folders for them to see and read by looking at their own personal web page on the fly. These folders are then zipped up and made available for download when the show airs.

There are a few potential issues playing the game this way, namely we can't see eachother's cards, so there is no way of knowing if someone is cheating, as such an element of good faith is required. However as I see it as the role of the GM to give the players a fun experience as they progress to the end of the game, I see no reason why anyone would want/need to cheat. It's just not in their interest.

Editing
After recording, we then have the editing phase.

This is one of the interesting parts for me, as I get to cut out unnecessary sections (like this week, I cut out nearly 10 mins of book shuffling and rules checking, something that I assume other non-game casts probably don't have to worry as much about. I also get to go through each pause that every player takes as they draw cards or decide on actions and turn it from a 10 second pause to a 1 second pause (and all together that saves about another 10 mins from the time).

There is also the chat editing itself. You see a lot of what we talk about is either personal to us, and not something we want put onto the Internet (after all we are friends from the real world who've known each other for years) or something that is too much of an in joke and therefore not of interest to the audience, or just boring in general (about 8/10ths of what I say).

Finally there's the music. We have the intro, the intermission and the outro (the outro is the following week's intro). As you with hope have noticed, I aim to make the intermission to be something fun or unusual, what with the use of Richard Cheese, Now You're A Man and Wolves of the Sea. This is something that I hope to continue doing and I hope it provides some light relief.

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And that's it!

Sure at the moment it's very rough around the edges, often with a recording happening on a Wednesday evening and being released in the same night, but I hope you've been enjoying the show.

If you have any suggestions, either from a technical perspective, or any part you'd like to see more/less of please let me know.

And on that I'll leave you to it, stay safe and I'll see you breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

New Fairbank Radio: Episode 04 - The Statue

Greetings all!

Well last night I was able to edit the latest episode of our adventure and with great pride provide you with Episode 04!

This can be downloaded from the following link:http://newfairbank.podbean.com/ or via iTunes or the inblog stream.

Not much else to say other than the files can be downloaded here

And as always we can be contacted via twitter @newfairbank or through myself @doctorloxley or doctorloxley@hotmail.com

Stay safe and we'll see you breachside!

Intro: Gackt - Redemption
Intermission: Pirates of the Sea - Wolves of the Sea
Outro: Cold - Just Got Wicked

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

MaliQuest: None of this is set in stone

Good evening everyone!

Today's been interesting, I've had some interesting interactions and responses in regards to the last post I did this morning.

First I'd like to thank everyone for their comments, they are well received even if I don't necessarily agree with them.

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So one of the most important is that I've decided that week commencing 21st when I have free time I'll be making another pass at the rules and cards. I'll be merging this with putting out the preset 100 card basic deck.

Doing this will allow me to update the rules to include the changes, remove cogs from Artifacts, and also delete or modify a lot of cards which frankly feel too powerful.

- I mentioned earlier about the Chestplate of +2 Df. I think this is a card that needs to make the limited 5card Epic list, it's too good not to be in there, but should the rare version also have +2, or perhaps would +1 be better? And what about the uncommon and common varieties? Yeah they're going.

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Another issue that became obvious to me was that I am currently throwing too much bumph at the players, and it was @OldManMyke who pointed out that the party in Ep 03 was about 16 points worth of models, and I'm sending about 10-12 points worth at them.

The reason behind this isn't necessarily my fault I must admit. You see over the Christmas break my wife and I played a solo game of MaliQuest, and we found that because of the low starting stats it was very hard for her to hit anything with her spells, and do for this game I have been very careful over what they've faced, and in doing so have been so concerned about killing them, that I've stopped them from having anything that poses a real risk, something that becomes quite apparent in this week's game.

Well that's going to stop here, no more mr nice GM!

Something else that I think might be apparent: the base stats are just too high!

At the moment, only a couple of rooms into the very first game and our party is starting to develop stats that would make full blown masters quiver.

So how can that be fixed? Easy! Lower the stats.

I see two possibilities, either a). Alter the +3-1 rule. Make it +2-1, and make it that you can't effect your Wk/Cg or Ht. it b). Reduce some stats before you even reach then +3-1 rule. Maybe rather than having a stat of 4 for Wp, Df and Ca, instead it is 3.

All in all I'm not sure, I'll be testing all of this and will feedback what I find, but one thing I will say, this podcast is being invaluable for highlighting where the flaws are, and I'm looking to releasing v1.5 in the next couple of weeks.

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

MaliQuest: Underestimating & Rules Change

Good Wednesday everyone!

Well last night New Fairbank Radio recorded Episode 04, this will be edited tonight and released.

I'm not going to reveal what happened, but what I will say is that I completely underestimated the party, already they are becoming strong enough to bring down some of the toughest monsters in the game, which did mean that last night's game wasn't as fun as it should have been.

You see, as it stood at the start of the session, I thought the creature I was sending against them would cut through them like a warm knife through butter, but when you hear the show you'll see that things did not quite work out like that at all.

How can this be adjusted?

Well one idea that I've been toying with for a short while is altering the bonuses on cards, or at the very least certain cards.

For example, the common chest plate:


Currently this awards +2 Df. Now this can with relative ease make someone's Df an 8, which as we all know from Masters like Lilith is very hard to breakthrough.

Maybe instead of +2 it should be +1? My original thoughts were that as a player can only equip one chest card that the most they can raise their Df by is +2, and therefore it's ok.

What do you think? Or am I instead being silly, and keeping the stat as it currently is, is the best idea and instead I should just throw stronger beasties at the party?

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Another idea I've had is about room looting. I'll be honest, I don't like how a room is currently looted (each party member must flip/cheat a 10+) if anything it actually penalises a larger party, but in reality having more party members should increase the likelihood of finding extra loot.

Based on that I am proposing a new idea for Room Looting; a 10+ is still required, and the flip is made by a player decided by the party (remember potions are no longer 'on pickup' and there is the chance of booby-traps, so a high Df is good for that) however for each additional player searching you flip an extra card up to the usual +3 modifier.

Should this be cheatable though? I'm inclined to say yes but only by the person doing the flip.

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So there we go, at the very least these gaming sessions is helping to sort out the rules and cards for MaliQuest.

Oh and one last thing!

The Mechanical Assistant shown here in it's rare form:


As you can see, currently using this is a (1) Action, and it has some very good abilities, but how often is it going to be used?

Yes it can give a guaranteed +Tome, for say Surge or Bunny Replacement, but is this really all that useful when it means you can only cast the spell once?

There is the possibility of it being altered into a (0) Action, but then there are further issues:


Namely Colette's hat (please ignore the mod cog). Bunny Replacement, much like the original Mannequin Replacement is supposed to be a rare pull off and requires a Soul Stone to pull off, but when combined with the Mech Assistant only requires a cheated in Tome to trigger, which means if the Mech Assistant is made into a (0) Action, the triple tome can be achieved twice per turn, that's 2 Beasties dead each turn.

So I think, maybe make Bunny Replacement a Quad Tome requirement? But then this becomes impossible without the Mech Assistant, and I really like the Bunny Replacement trigger.

Maybe the answer is to just remove the Mech Assistant from the game?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

And on that note, stay safe and I'll see you breachside.

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Weekend Catchup: Exclamations & Examinations

Good Monday everyone!

Boy am I tired after this weekend, but let me tell you, it's been an interesting one.

I'm not going to go into great amounts of detail, just fill you in on the basics.

- Friday
So Friday started, and while listening to the Bayou Broadcast (get on iTunes!) my train stopped at a station with an announcement that there had been an "overhead power failure".

So fast forward about 20 mins and it is starting to get late, so myself and a large number of others spill out from the train station to see that we're in the middle of nowhere.

This presented me with only a couple of options: 1). Go to work, 2). Go home.

Now option 1 sadly would involve a very expensive taxi ride on the grounds that I was at train station 3 out of ~15 on the way to London, so that would have probably come to about £150-£200, even split with other commuters, that's a lot of money.

Option 2 was certainly the cheaper. Still an expensive taxi ride (oh and I should probably mention, for some reason there were no busses) or instead a rough 2 hour walk home.

So calling work I took the day out if my leave balance with the full intention of getting home at roughly 11am and spending the day studying for my exam resit on Saturday.

Roughly 2 hours later (and still no sign of any buses) I reach my town, but then it occurs to me, I also need to go into town and pick up pens and a calculator for my exam. So rather than going straight home I walk into town, shop and then home.

At almost exactly 12, after 3 hours walking and 12 miles travelled I finally get home.

So I put my feet up, which by now are in a lot of pain along with my legs (I'm a lot less fit than I used to be 10 year ago) and fall asleep.

Four hours later I wake up and realise my intended day of studies has instead turned into a day of sleeping...

...And my feet/legs still hurt.

- Saturday.
So it was the day of my exam resit. Basic Accounting 1, the intro exam for the whole course, and I was on my 3rd attempt. Let's just say I was feeling a little depressed over the whole thing.

So I get started, I keep my cool and after one hour (of the 2 hour paper) I get to the end. Already I know 1 question I've done better than before. For the first time I've been able to get the trial balance to balance out, and that was done using only the DEAD CLIC trick, no problem solving or similar.

So I do some checking, make a few changes when I second guess my original answers and submit the paper.

Now as the exam is computer based, they have the results ready to go almost as soon as you press submit.

So I get my print out, and the top right looks strangely devoid of words. Gone are the words Not Yet Competent that I'm so used to, and replaced by simply Competent.

In other words I've passed!!

I'm ecstatic and hurry home.

- Sunday
Sunday was a quiet day in comparison, we went to the park to let the Moo have a run around, and then followed through by more playing at home in the garden.

One thing I did find that was interesting was the following miniature:


I saw this dude and was instantly reminded of my most feared boss from any computer based RPG, The Butcher from the original Diablo (not the watered down version you face in D3) and it occurred to me that I HAVE to find a way of getting this guy into MaliQuest. Queue my short bit of narrative from yesterday's blog.

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And that's it. Now I'm going to close my eyes and enjoy what is left of my 'functional' train ride to work.

As always stay safe and I'll see you breachside.

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

MaliQuest: Enter - The Butcher

Extract from Dr Loxley's Manual of Monsters

The Butcher

In all my time spent in the Crypts, there are few things that chilled my blood quite like this beast.

Clearly of Neverborn decent, but twisted by all manner of unholy magic.

I still remember it's lair, all spikes and hooks, and on each protrusion was skewered a human body.

It was the smell that alerted me to this place first. I had been separated from my party and became lost in the darkness, when I was made aware of the foul scent of decay.

It was the meat hooks that bore this creature its name; The Butcher, for it had strung up its victims like swine at a slaughter house.

But it is the image of the creature that shall forever be burned into the back of my eyes. A towering monstrosity, bloated beyond belief, with a hungering maw where it's belly should have been. In one hand it bore a cleaver soaked in rotting blood, while in the other it's latest victim which it ate with no concern.

It did not take long for me to abandon my observations and leave the beast to it's meal, but as I did I noticed how the corpses in it's lair were varied, and some even appeared Nephilum.

Whoever this creature swore allegiance to, it was not the same as the other creatures of the crypt.




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And there we have my first attempt at creating a section of the Monster Manual.

The aim is to include a sketch if possible of the creature being discussed, and a bit of background to describe the beasty.

Anyway on that note I'll let you go, and say as always, stay safe and I'll see you breachside.

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

*Image nabbed from Razorsteel on behalf of Raging Heroes

I plan on featuring The Butcher as a boss character, just need to ensure that the appropriate model is the right size: Legendary Size Heroic Size

Small steps make big waves

Good Friday everyone!

Now small talk I'm afraid, instead straight down to business.

Now for those who saw, on Wednesday I made a post about my views on Geek Culture and the attacks it has and may in future receive and how this can/should be dealt with. The post itself can be found here.

It was then that I was most surprised to read the following in yesterday's Metro.

A quick summary, it seems in reaction to a 2007 murder of a Goth girl, Goths and Emos are being highlighted as needing protection from hate crime.

So I read the article, largely with one question:
"But what about Geeks and other subcultures?"

Sadly the article didn't really answer my question and I was left feeling a little in the dark about this. So I reached out to people a lot smarter than me and found this rough explanation:

- The new rules basically means anyone who identifies themselves as part of a 'subculture' and is attacked for being a member of this subculture, then this attack is now a hate crime -

I like this definition. It means that as a Geek, a WoWer, a Wargamer and many other things, then being verbally assaulted for it (like what happened to that guy on Peaches' show) would count as a hate crime!

This is fantastic! This is what I wanted!

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It was then the question was blown up further: is the definition too vague and woolly? Would someone who likes a lesser popular sport like Hockey count as belonging to a subculture and therefore deserve protection from hate crime?

You want to know my answer to this?

YES!

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So I searched online to find a quick definition for the word 'subculture' as after all this is what the while rule change revolves around, and this is what popped up on Google:

sub·cul·ture
/ˈsəbˌkəlCHər/
Noun
A cultural group within a larger culture, often having beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger culture.

So let's look at this in regards to the Hockey example.

First we need a Larger Culture, in this case it is "people who are not fans of Hockey", then we need a smaller (sub) Culture, "people who are fans of Hockey".

If someone was to beat up the Fan because they were a fan, then to me this 100% counts as a hate crime.

But it goes deeper than this. How often do you hear of beatings and insults being thrown out during and after football matches from fans of one team vs fans of another team?
It's all the time, you can't get away from it.

Surely now, these people beating on another team's fan, because they are from another team and are probably wearing that team's colours, this now counts as a hate crime and should be punished as one.

Now this is a double edged sword...

On one hand this is great news, as I have always said that hate crimes should never be limited to race, gender, religion and sexuality, but based on this change I would hazard a guess that it happens in every single city across the UK on an almost hourly basis!

How many of you have walked down the road and had some jeering comment thrown at you because of what you're wearing? I know I have. Is that not now classified as a hate crime? Surely it is the exact same as referring to someone by a racial slur?

Why is this a problem?

Because if it is so common place, could it fall under the same banner as music piracy and TV recording? Something that is do common place that no one really does anything about it unless it's on such a scale that people have to take note (in the case of hate crime, GBH and Murder)?

This is something that concerns me. As a Geek... No wait... As a human being, I should be able to walk down the streets wearing whatever I want (as long as there are not laws against it ie nudity, Nazism, racist slogans etc) and be free from attacks, be it verbal or physical - let us not forget that a verbal insult is counted as verbal assault - and so this is where my concerns come in, that this change in ruling will be so watered down that it becomes ineffective to the extent I do not feel comfortable wearing what I want for fear of abuse.

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But this is all theory crafting. I don't know what is going to happen, but the simple fact that this is being addressed means that things are taking a step in the right direction.

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Episode 03: This Party's Dead!

Good morning everyone!

A quick post today, namely to let you know that Episode 03 of New Fairbank Radio is available via iTunes, http://newfairbank.podbean.com/2013/04/03/episode-03-this-partys-dead/ and through my imbedded player.

A quick thing however, near the beginning I talk about some on the fly rules changes.

These changes will be reflected in the books in due course. I'll be updating them once my exam(s) out if the way.

For those following along at home you can download this week's files here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/c7yrphfkht6175z/03-04-13.zip

Anyway, that's all from me, stay safe and I'll see you breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

When does pride become militant?

Good Wednesday everyone!

You know, I've had this thought bouncing around my head for a few days now, and it's something I'd like to share with you.

In short, when does a person's pride force them from being a believer in a cause, to being a militant actionist?

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As many of you know, I'm a strong believer in Geek Rights.

I believe that being a Geek is more than just a life style choice, it's who we are. It's as much a part of us as a person's race, sexuality, gender and creed. And just like these other factors should have legal protection.

When someone commits a crime against a geek - because they're a geek - it should be treated as a hate crime. To me there is no difference.

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Rewind back a few years, a certain child of a celebrity called Peaches Geldof had a talk show, and I remember in the very first episode she verbally attacked one young male, saying something to the effect of "all you Geeks are the same, lazy, greasy sofa dwellers".

I was shocked at the time, even more by how the audience laughed historically, in some cases standing and applauding.

Now just think for a moment what the reaction had been if it was aimed at another demographic, the person's skin colour or gender. That girl would have been charged with a number of crimes and at the very least made to do a formal apology.

However what happened? Nothing! This slur against an entire demographic was laughed off and ignored. In fact before writing this I even did a quick search and I am unable to find a single reference to this offensive comment.

Nothing, not a thing!

Just thinking about this injustice boils my blood and makes me want to demand vindication not just for the times I've been snubbed but for geeks everywhere.

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And that's when I stop, I look at myself and I worry about my trail of thought, about just how far I might be willing to go to fight for an ideal.

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I'm a Geek, and I stand for Geek Pride.

You see just the other week I was talking to a good friend of mine who was concerned that I would make their Geek interests public, and in essence "out" them as a Geek. They were genuinely concerned about the social repercussions that such an outing would have on them.

This worried me genuinely. I can't help but hear this and familiarise it with many stories I've heard (in some cases from people very close to me) who've struggled to come to terms with sexuality, and have been concerned with how the world would treat them to coming out as Gay.

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In the end I think Geek Pride is something we need.

Just like everyone else we should be able to march into a public environment (not a closed off, hidden from view convention) and demonstrate to the world how proud we are of our culture and just what we bring to society as a greater whole.

I can't explain why we don't, and why we're happy to play second fiddle to every other social group out there, but I just hope that if we do, it's in a non militant manner.

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Anyway, maybe that's just me. Maybe rather than a Million Man March, it's a One Man March.

I just think that as long as one person is still shamed to wear their Geekiness as a badge of honour, then something is seriously wrong with the world.

Stay safe, and I'll see you breachside.

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

MaliQuest: To Redesign A Deck

Good evening everyone!

So as I predicted, things have been pretty quiet from me over the last few days, but I will give you a proper update in a day or two.

In the meantime I want to involve you in the main MaluQuest updates I've been thinking about.

So last week I discussed the idea of Artifacts adding suits to your Ca stat. I want to stick with that and also alter something else... I want to remove cogs from Artifacts.

Let me just let that sink in for a second.

Yes, remove cogs from Artifacts.

I realised you see, while most Artifacts had cogs, the only thing you would want to slot into that is a suit, and if Artifacts auto give suits, then what's the point beyond giving overpowered combos?

I think suit mods still fit a role, after all weapon triggers can still use them, and who wouldn't want a Peacebringer with 2 inbuilt Rams?

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Next up:
The Basics Deck.

So as you know I have the Dungeon Essentials deck, which currently consists of 300+ cards, of which the GM is supposed to extract 50 Commons, 30 Uncommon, 15 Rare and 5 Epic cards to form a 100 card deck.

Before I push on with the Companion and the Monster Manual I want to get a basics deck, that's 100 cards ready to be printed and used, no need to sort and faff.

Which means I need to decide on what cards to go in.

The 50 Common is actually quite easy, no the problem are the 5 Epics.

I'm thinking 1 Gun, 1 Melee, 2 Artifacts and 1 item of equipment.

So what do you think?

Gun = Peacebringer (the iconic gun of Malifaux), Ryle's Gattling Gun, the stolen Shotgun, the Sanctified Crossbow or the Custom Pistol?

Melee = Executioner Claws, Relic Hammer, Peacebringer blade or Lilith's Greatsword?

Artifacts = Collet's Hat, Holy Relic, Ramos' Discharger, Jon's Mirror, Mike's Mask, Mechanical Assistant, Raspy's Orb, Shard of Brilliance or Sonnia's Lighter?

And finally equipment = Perdita's Gloves, Inventor's Jacket, Witch Hunter's Hat, Ryle's Fist, Ramos' Gloves or Guardian's Chestplate.

As you can see there are some hard decisions. No matter what is picked some really fun items are going to be missed, but this is just a starter set to get the game moving, so please cast your votes, let me know what you want to see and I'll what I can do.

Anyway, I've got stuff to do, so as always, stay safe and I'll see you breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley