[Books] Double Dead

I'm not exactly big on horror, but my partner Tobie is while my other partner Prince does have a thing for vampires. But one thing that has helped me expand my horizons a bit more is getting into tabletop game primarily through White Wolf.

And when I found out that Chuck Wendig, one of those folks who have contributed to enriching the White Wolf mythos over the years, is also a published author, well, I had to find out what was going on. and beyond his association with White Wolf, the premises behind his books are such powerful geek bait that it's hard to even contemplate not trying his books out.

And this first venture - a mash-up of both a vampire story and a zombie story - was certainly a surprise. Beyond the somewhat humorous premise and the often irreverent manner of speaking the protagonist happens to have, the book is quite the fun read with little bonuses for those who might have played some of the White Wolf games associated with Wendig.

[TV] The Fades: Season 1

I love it when a TV show totally takes you off-guard and surprises you in a great way. That's what watching The Fades was like for me and Tobie.

To be fair, we had little to no idea what the show was about other than it was something new that had just started, which is always a nice time to tune in. The basic synopsis of the show online showed some promise so we took the gamble and watched the pilot. And while it wasn't the strongest pilot in the world, the show presented some very strong potential to be an even greater experience.

I suppose the main draw for us was how a lot of the show's concepts almost felt like something you'd encounter in the types of White Wolf role-playing games that we regularly engage in with friends. They had similar concepts and even similar tropes at work but with a rather interesting story tying everything together.

This show had a much stronger resonance with us even when compared to other British productions like Misfits (which we continue to enjoy as well). And I'm glad that we embarked on this particular 6-episode adventure.

[Gaming] Playing Fictional Characters

So ever since I got together with my current partner Tobie Abad, I've also gotten into the fun hobby of gaming. While I had generally played games before, what I had not done was get into classic tabletop RPGs. This is obviously no longer the case given my partner is a Storyteller (or GM / DM, depending on your system of preference).

Now I could write about all the crazy celebrity characters that he's introduced into our games like the time the devil took on the form of Zac Efron to try and seduce my character or that instance when a character who just happened to look like Ryan Reynolds happened to have had a significant relationship with my character that I seem to have conveniently forgotten about, there are other interesting cases worth discussing.

While most times we create our own characters with the option of using celebrities and other personalities as visual pegs, there are those interesting cases when we try to step into the role of existing characters and famous members of fictional worlds. At times I feel this is a bit more difficult than the other instances given you are now bound by the common perceptions of that character and thus people assume you will only behave in one way or another. And if you don't behave like the character, it sort of disrupts the game.

In more than two years of gaming, here are a few of the interesting roles I tried my hand at...