What does normal mean?

[frozensolid]

Why be normal?

[acmanko]

every morning at 5:00 , thats normal or is it regular?

[RoBoTeq]

Normal is as normal does. To some it is normal to post on this site regularly while to others regular posters here are not normal. Normal is subjective. Normal is in the eye of the beholder. Normal is as normal does.

[acmanko]

Originally posted by RoBoTeq
Normal is as normal does. To some it is normal to post on this site regularly while to others regular posters here are not normal. Normal is subjective. Normal is in the eye of the beholder. Normal is as normal does.

Robo, you are an eccentric, qasi-virtual entity, far from normal.

[l•k]

675 miles as the crow flies

[aircooled53]

The 20' By 20' Room
To talk, thoughtfully, about roleplaying games.Recent Posts
RPG.net Has Search Again
Recent Comments
Vaxalon on RPG.net Has Search Again
Tim on Lexicon: an RPG
Dfaran L'Eniarc on Lexicon: an RPG
Lxndr on Lexicon: an RPG
Tim on Lexicon: an RPG
orpha on Interview with Sarah Kahn
Bruno on Game For Hire
Bruno on Welcome to Post-Roleplaying
Bruno on Pete Darby reviews Impro for Storytellers
Bruno on Under the "Is Not/Is Too" Mask
Search This Blog




Categories
Administrivia
Critical Analysis
FAQs and Guides
Games and Supplements
General
Industry Analysis
Reviews
Writing Exercises
Archives
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
Miscellanea
About The Blog
Contributors
Syndicate this site (XML)
Available on LiveJournal as 20by20room
Gaming Blogs

10 By 10 Room
1001
Anyway
Autodidact-at-large
Blogless Lepolt
The Blue Room
Chimera Creative Blog
Chris Lehrich's Journal
Deep in the Game
The Dog Blog
EN World
Elliot Wilen's RPG Journal
Esoteric Murmurs
Fair Game
Flaming Monkey
Games * Design * Art * Culture
Gaming Philospher
GamingReport.com
Hamsterprophecy
in the Shadow of Greatness
John Kim's RPG Journal
Lee Short's Journal
Ludanta Reto
Musings and Mental Meanderings
OgreCave.com
One Angry Polack
Paranoia XP
Rainfall
Random Encounters
Raven Swallows the Sun
Roleplaying Tips
Roll the Bones
Shining Dodecahedron
Sin Aesthetics
Squidoo Lens: PPD RPG Design - Paper Pencil & Dice Rules
This is My Blog
Treasure Tables
Treasure Tables Forum
Uncle Bear
Wild Musings
WolfSpoor
Yog-Sothoth.com
Yudhishthira's Dice


Blogs of Gamers

Aaron Acevedo
Atomic Age
Artbroken Productions (Patrick O'Duffy)
Axiomancy
Blog, Jvstin Style
The Blog That Goes Ping
Bruce Cordell
Caveat Lector
Cayzle's Wemic Site
Cries from the Internet (Jolly R. Blackburn)
Dave Does the Blog
Distractions
Dork Tidings
A Dream of Red Mansions
Ed Heil
Frothing at the Mouth
Gamera Spinning
Grubb Street
Hitherby Dragons
I Have Powers
IMAGinES
Inkor Eynowd
John Wick's Journal
Ken Hite's Journal
Matt Forbeck
The Moral Character of the Monkey (Clinton R. Nixon)
The Non-Euclidian Staircase
Notes (Colin Roald)
Nuketown
One Man and His Blog
Polytropos
Population: One
Raj KAJ's Journal
Ravings of a Textual Deviant
Robin Laws
RoBoTNiK
This Tragic Glass
Tolen Mar
Unqualified Offerings
Where Worlds Collide

« Dice: When, Where, and How to Use and Fudge? | Main | 2003 Origins Awards Nominees »

May 06, 2004
Normal, Texas
Posted by Bryant on May 6, 2004 at 11:38 PM

This is not exactly huge news, but I just noticed it now and I haven't seen a word about it anywhere else, so hey! It didn't even show up on Gaming Report.

Human Head Studios and Green Ronin are publishing Normal, Texas this fall. The promo piece says "Normal, Texas, is a roleplaying game set in a tiny town in the middle of Texas in the 1950s. The people there are determined to live normal lives despite the fact that just about every B-movie from that golden, post-war era decides to stroll down Main Street on a regular basis."

Kind of a cute cover, too. It looks like it could be a nice comedy game; Redhurst Academy of Magic was certainly a fun piece of work with a light prose touch and a graphically lavish look and feel.

Permalink

TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/705998

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Normal, Texas:

» Fiona Apple Song Reminds Girl To Be Depressed from at the end of
dangerously optimistic at the end of the school year, teenager Christine Lowell was reminded... [Read More]

Tracked on Jun 17, 2006 1:22:13 PM

» Website 'Face Lifts' from SpaBoom from in revitalization
website launch campaign. Included in revitalization are site refresh, redesign and [Read More]

Tracked on Jun 20, 2006 2:21:30 AM

» Migraine associated with high-normal sex drive from improve their
susceptibility may not necessarily interfere with their sex life and may in fact improve their libido, [Read More]

Tracked on Jun 20, 2006 11:08:47 PM

Comments
*blink*

Unfortunately, that fails my "what do you do with it" test. If you cannot think up three game seeds from hearing about the game, it's usually a bit of a bomb. It sounds like a cute premise for an anthology of stories, but not so good for an actual game.

Posted by: Emily K. Dresner-Thornber at May 7, 2004 7:24:27 AM

Heh, that's a good test. But I don't think we can adequately be said to have heard about the game from a teaser that brief. I mean, by that standard, Vampire: the Requiem is going to be a bomb -- I've heard about it but I can't think of any game seeds for it.

Hm. Maybe you play kids. Now I'm thinking Stand by Me and Boys' Adventure magazine.

Posted by: Bryant at May 7, 2004 7:57:39 AM

Even that is better as a set of stories or the premise of a novel than an actual game. I'm not saying it's bad, just that it's not a game. I mean, after you play boys and godzilla and/or aliens invade your town... then what? What do you do with this that isn't a one shot?

Sometimes I feel like the gaming industry has run its gamut of ideas, and even really bright, creative people are starting to get tapped. I just have this overwhelming feeling of global burnout. It's kind of a side effect of the great d20 explosion: there's so much crap out there, what do you do to make yourself even slightly tantalizing?

Posted by: Emily Dresner-Thornber at May 7, 2004 9:26:13 AM


Emily writes:

"...there's so much crap out there, what do you do to make yourself even slightly tantalizing?"

That's easy:

Busty Elf babes in chainmail bikinis on the cover...

...busty cat-girls, perhaps?

Of course, Normal, Texas makes me think of Courage the Cowardly Dog who lives in Nowhere. The game just doesn't seem to sustain. I mean, it may play great, but if it's comedy, then it's really tough to keep that running "Campaign" style.

Boys' Adventure novels...now that I like.

Tom

Posted by: Tom at May 7, 2004 11:47:06 AM

Hm. I think there's a difference between comedy and light, and I was thinking more light.

When I was a kid I read about a billion Tom Swift adventures. Plus a fair helping of Encyclopedia Brown. So that's where I'm coming from; I could play in a long-running Tom Swift campaign.

Not that I'm not just talking out of my ass, cause we dunno what the game's gonna be like.

Hey! What's wrong with selling a game designed to be useful for one-shots but not for campaigns?

Posted by: Bryant at May 7, 2004 11:55:32 AM

Nancy Drew, the RPG?

Well, here's the problem with a game designed for one-shots instead of a campaign: the price of admission. A really good game, like Shadowrun (for all its faults, and I know its faults), got played until it literally fell apart. I'm looking at a game like Normal, Texas and it will be glossy with high quality art and a nice $39.95 price tag.

Pamphlets at $4.99 a pop are fantastic for one-shots. That's great. That's fabulous. $5, you get a few hours of play -- it's better than a movie. Even $9.99 for a game that is basically played in one-shots is not bad, and extremely do-able. But the price tag for a hard cover glossy print game that you will play a single one-shot and then put it away so it looks good on a shelf -- I dunno. Seems like a hard sell to me.

I was raised on all those books too, Bryant. I read all of my Mom's Nancy Drew, plus the Hardy Boys, plus Encyclopedia Brown. I can see some appeal to playing kids. But this game doesn't really seem to go anywhere, does it? At least from the teaser trailer we see.

If you wanna write your novel, write your novel.

Am I the only one who finds busty cat-girls to be nauseating?

Posted by: Emily Dresner-Thornber at May 7, 2004 12:43:04 PM

Ah, so you're thinking one-shot as in "only interesting once," as opposed to "a good vehicle for one-shots."

Feng Shui is a decent campaign game, but I think it's probably better as a vehicle for one-shots, for example.

Posted by: Bryant at May 7, 2004 2:40:44 PM

"I was raised on all those books too, Bryant. I read all of my Mom's Nancy Drew, plus the Hardy Boys, plus Encyclopedia Brown. I can see some appeal to playing kids. But this game doesn't really seem to go anywhere, does it? At least from the teaser trailer we see."

If you wanna play kids - check out "Lashings of Ginger Beer" here

http://www.geocities.com/simonwashbourne/logb.html

It's British (based on Enid Blytons Famous Five)but covers the same sort of ground as Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.

Simon

Posted by: Simon W at May 7, 2004 3:04:55 PM

I wasn't thinking so much Nancy Drew myself, but Nancy Drew meets Men In Black -- some comedy, some mystery, some beating-up-hideous-otherworldly-creatures. I can imagine plenty of long-term campaign possibilities... I'm already picturing my character, an adventurous co-ed in a conservative plaid skirt and 'sensible' heels, always missing classes because she's off investigating the latest weird occurrence while the rest of the town resolutely refuses to recognize that anything unusual has occurred. (OK, so it's derivative of Buffy and Smallville. Sue me.)

And no, Bryant, you're not the only one who finds busty cat-girls nauseating. In fact, it was in the process of writing a fictional web journal involving a studly cat-man that the whole idea of human-animal hybrid types started to really gross me out (admittedly, it was also around that time that furries showed up on my radar). It changed the whole direction of the storyline and I eventually just ran out of steam.

Posted by: meredith at May 10, 2004 5:35:58 PM

No, no, Em thinks busty cat-girls are nauseating. I have not expressed an opinion. But I do like the idea of a fictional web journal; sort of reminds me of the loving crafted fanfic I wrote once about a fictional teen drama set in Innsmouth. Ahem.

Anyway, yeah -- the other recent TV show that came to mind was Roswell.

So yeah. It does it for me, which is all I can really say anyhow. Possibly doing it for Bryant is not a marker of commercial success -- no, wait, that's a certainty rather than a possibility.

Still hope Human Head posts more on it soon.

Posted by: Bryant at May 10, 2004 5:56:45 PM

Could be I don't see many plot possibilities and find it kind of vapid because I don't watch any TV except those shows where people are gratitiously capped. Reading -- it's fundamental!

Yeah, it's me who finds cat girls nauseating and really dislikes furries.

Posted by: Emily K. Dresner-Thornber at May 11, 2004 7:30:33 AM

Post a comment
Name:


Email Address:


URL:

Remember personal info?



Comments:

[oroy54]

We are normal because we all share something in common. We fuss and fight amounst ourselfs, we are pretty tight knit. Watch what happens when a new one around here makes a personal attack on one of us. It is never pretty. Roy

[Edited by oroy54 on 07-16-2006 at 02:53 PM]

[midhvac]

Originally posted by oroy54
We are normal because we all share something in common.

We're all here cause we're not all there.

[bb]

NORMAL



NOT NORMAL

[bb]

Originally posted by midhvac

Originally posted by oroy54
We are normal because we all share something in common.

We're all here cause we're not all there.

Well isn't there just here without a T ?

[dec]

Wishing to be a fly on the wall watching 2 young women having sex, NOW IS THAT NORMAL OR NoT NORMAL ??????????????? lol

[RoBoTeq]

Originally posted by dec
Wishing to be a fly on the wall watching 2 young women having sex, NOW IS THAT NORMAL OR NoT NORMAL ??????????????? lol

Not normal. Wishing to be the guy sitting at the edge of the bed hoping for an invite would be normal.

[frozensolid]

Robo you should not be in a thread about normal.