01530: Weekend Gaming and Geekery

Last night's Houses of the Blooded game session was one of the most epic and perhaps the most memorable one we've had in a long time. It's hard to explain the precise nuances of what happened, but needless to say all of us players (and Tobie too) walked away from that session with a sublime sense of satisfaction.

Houses, you see, is a highly dramatic tabletop gaming system. And by drama, I mean drama. The ven, the characters that we play, are a people who are addicted to tragedy. When you can't die of natural causes, what else is there to keep you entertained? And thus the little games these ven play with one another can be seemingly childish and manipulative by our standards but it just makes sense to them.

Last night (well actually early this morning), we saw the dragon. In game terms this is the moment when we as players are overwhelmed by the drama that we have all witnessed or even participated in. And given we could only watch as Matt sacrificed himself needless to try to save his new wife from the killing blow from his former wife, well, it was quite a scene indeed. Moments like this are precisely the reason why Tobie and I invest so much of our free time in tabletop gaming.

So Tobie and I woke up pretty late today after last night's epic gaming session. Eventually we managed to drag ourselves out of the Sietch to head over to Greenhills, which was the closer alternative after we had skipped initial considerations of heading over to Fort Bonifacio. Admittedly I was pretty determined to make a final decision on a particular Transformer that I've been eyeing on and off again during recent trips. And it's always fun to go around the Greenhills Shopping Center.

Tobie found himself some interesting finds - a cute little non-licensed Finn plushie that we can hook up in the car and the complete series of Y: the Last Man for an unbelievable price. And while it's sort of more stereotypical when I'm the one who finds stuff at Greenhills - mostly new Transformers - this time around think Tobie edged out with the better deal. I suspect we'll be going back to that store in time to see what other comic books we might be able to score.

I on the other hand have finally acquired my own Classics Optimus Prime. He's definitely on the small side for a Voyager-class figure, but then he was released all the way back in 2006 and until today Hasbro and Takara still haven't quite figured out how they want to scale these figures. But that's besides the point.

Versus the various incarnations of Optimus Prime that I've acuired in recent years, I have to admit this one certainly stands out. He's a nicely solid mold and one that has an interesting amount of detail worked into the design. And he has an unusual number of weapons (although nothing quite as crazy as Powermaster Optimus Prime). I still have to explore just how poseable he is with a few more photo sequences, but I am rather hopeful in terms of how it will turn out.

Chances of heading out to O Bar later tonight are rather small. In the meantime, we're watching The Iron Lady on HBO.