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    Critical Hit

    Critical Hit #289: Welcome to Modern City

    Stephen SchleicherBy Updated:47 Comments1 Min Read

    moderncitysmll

    In this installment of Critical Hit – A Major Spoilers Podcast: Welcome to Modern City! A planned community founded in 1953.

    Visit the Major Spoilers store for Critical Hit and Major Spoilers merchandise!

    Contact us at podcast@majorspoilers.com A big Thank You goes out to everyone who downloads, subscribes, listens, and supports this show. We really appreciate you taking the time to listen to our ramblings each week. Tell your friends about the podcast, get them to subscribe and, be sure to visit the Major Spoilers site and forums.

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    Stephen Schleicher began his career writing for the Digital Media Online community of sites, including Digital Producer and Creative Mac covering all aspects of the digital content creation industry. He then moved on to consumer technology, and began the Coolness Roundup podcast. A writing fool, Stephen has freelanced for Sci-Fi Channel's Technology Blog, and Gizmodo. Still longing for the good ol' days, Stephen launched Major Spoilers in July 2006, because he is a glutton for punishment. You can follow him on Twitter @MajorSpoilers and tell him your darkest secrets...

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    47 Comments

    1. Adam on

      Critical Hit team, that was fantastic! As exciting, I would say, as the start of a new season with Rodrigo. You were having so much fun, and it really came across in the recording. For such a creative group, the collaborative world-building is perfect, and you have already brought such life to the setting. I am more excited for the next episode than I think I have ever been. I hope we get a good mini-season out of it. Once more, congratulations on a legendary episode! (By the way, is Legendary a +8 now?)

    2. Tiles on

      Amazing episode ! I am really excited for what you’ve started, so creative, enthusiastic and entertaining. I wish these guys tried 5e , it would have been an entirely different game!

      Congrats and Thanks for the hard work, can’t wait for next week and putting your capes on!!! Go Papetclips!

    3. KVH on

      I thought this was a blast, it was collaborative world building at it’s finest and everyone got to take part. Creating worlds and characters are my favorite parts of RPGs so this was great and I am really looking forward to next week. Also can’t wait to see some costume concepts….Mr. Perkins, Ms. Ferguson, Mysteriously Silent Intern Dante are you listening?

    4. Pierre on

      That was an amazing episode. I especially liked how you’ve all connected the element of the city together, from stadium, to Modern Man to coffee shop etc.

      It made me laugh when you guys where looking for “warrior” in french, You did get it right but “guerrière” is for woman warrior, (because noums have gender in french), I would have laugh that much harder if you had named them that.

    5. Gritpipe on

      Just started thinking about trying Fate so this arrived at just the right time. Sounds amazingly fun!
      Are you using roll20 instead of index cards for all the issues and aspects and such? How are you doing that?

    6. Jared on

      I think you guys will do wonderful things in fate. That system really works well with the kind of creative talent that the spoilers crew has.

      I went to university in a school that was built in the sixties so I can almost picture the campus in modern city. Ours had concrete everywhere, and is considered a dismal and depressing place. Stick some chrome and glass on there and it might have been more stimulating.

    7. Rex Riley on

      I’m excited to see what comes of this. Critical Hit is my favorite Major Spoilers podcast. Let’s hope this works well enough to be the first Critical Hit spin off.

    8. andreas on

      Don’t get me wrong – but i LOVE the off-season.
      Critical hit has to be the best podcast on the web by far.
      keep up the great work please.

    10. Simon Gosselin on

      This was awesome. It’s been a while since I used the FateCore. But I do remember that this system is working well with creative people with lot of imagination. And you all fits very well into that type! As Pierre said, I laughed so hard at the warrior translation bit. I imagined one of you, ok Matthew to be honnest, as a guerrière, a female warrior! The group I play with was a not as experienced as you are when we started to play (In that group, I am the Rob!) but now I think of having them try the fatecore system! I had them try Exalted but it’s too out of there for them now! You guys are great and it’s for shows like that that I’m proud to be a silver member and thinking to upgrade to gold. Keep up the good work. And I miss Adriana!

    11. Ingrid Lind-Jahn on

      Love, love, love this episode! I’ve been curious about Fate for a while. (My gaming group is pretty much straight D&D at this point.) So I love seeing it in action. I’ve been role playing long enough to know that, when it comes right down to it, with a good gaming group, the system doesn’t matter that much – it’s the players who make the game. I loved listening to this come together, and hearing everyone brainstorm ideas. It really made me want to be there. I am so psyched to hear the character generation, and hear the adventures. And there had better be zombie-gators. And what would happen if a hurricane hit Modern City? Oooh, that could be part of the evil master plan…Yeah, I just can’t wait to see how this all turns out.

    12. John on

      Great episode. Looking forward to the game. Please keep asking newbie questions for those of us who don’t know the system.

    14. Chad Fopma on

      Oh my God this episode was fantastic. I can honestly say that you guys have probably sold a copy of the Fate Core System with this episode.

      And as a thought for future off season fun, I will throw out the Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars stuff (Edge of the Empire/Age of Rebellion) as a nice system to try out as well. Very narrative with the dice basically telling you how well (or bad) you did with your check and a mechanic that allows for something good (or bad) to happen no matter how bad (or good) your roll was.

      -Chad

    15. Ben on

      Hands down this off-season is going to be exciting! I’ve been dreaming of hearing this group of players delve into Fate for a long, long time. The creativity and collaboration you all bring to the table is one your strengths. It’s great to see you playing into it with the exploration of a shared-storytelling experience like Fate!

      And as @majorspoilers tweeted to me earlier, 3000 VIPs means this could be the second actual play podcast under the Critical Hit masthead. Tell your friends, tell your enemies – join as a VIP today and make it happen!

    17. Widget on

      A magnificent episode! The world is really fleshed out – I’d love to see a comic book set in Modern City!

    18. Marco on

      Oh man! I’m so excited about this! I’ve been waiting for a cool tutorial on Fate for a long time but I’ve never imagined that YOU would delve into it. Also… superheroes? Awesome! Next episode is going to be even more interesting. Keep it up!

    19. joegoat on

      I’m only 15 minutes in so far and Matthew, on behalf of all the coon-ass-critical-hittites that live in southern Louisiana, (probably a whole 10 of us) I thank you :-)

        • joegoat on

          Its not a hard one to imitate, just gotta remember to keep a lazy tounge; Dis (this) dat (that) dey (they) and dere (there) but you’re an old comic book fan so I’m sure you’ve read plenty of gambit accents lol

        • Michael Long on

          Tennessee is definitely below the Mason Dixon Line… but glad you guys were on the fence about it. :)

        • Klebkatt on

          Keep in mind that it might be best to give your character a…lisp? quirk? I’m not sure what the best way to phrase it is. Keep in mind I’m speaking as someone who has always lived in Tennessee.

          Many of us in the south don’t really have that much of an accent any more, but there are still ‘sounds’ and a few lasting pronunciations. I say ‘y’all’ sometimes, as well as ‘ain’t’ and ‘cain’t’. And, of course, drop your g’s when sayin’ somethin’. Except ‘mounTING’. That is a horrible joke.

          Depending on what comes before and after the word, you’s can be said with ch’s (like chew as in “What chew doin’ over there?) and with J’s, (Did ja do what I asked?). Even in the case of the examples, you could also say cha rather than chew and ya rather than ja. Jeff Foxworthy’s ‘Southern Dictionary’ gives me a good chuckle from time to time because a lot of the time we simply run words together into an unintelligible mess.

          I’d really suggest picking a tone you like for your voice and then pick a few words out to always say in a specific way. A tip another writer gave me once is that you may want to give your character the quirk of elongating vowels rather than changing the pronunciation of a word.

          As a last bit of examples, here are two words I miss say all the time and never really notice.
          Worsh (past of wash and used as wash): A worsh cloth, a worshing machine.
          Liberry (the library)

          I hope this helps you a bit with the character voice. Good luck!

          • Matthew Peterson on

            Thanks! As future episodes will show, I had to avoid trying a legitimate Louisiana Cajun accent due to my over-pronouncing tendencies. (Damn that uncorrected overbite!)

            There have been some struggles to keep a Jetstar voice separate and distinct from Torq’s pseudo-Oklahoman slack-jawed tripthongative vocalizations. The *real* problem is that I hear more distinction in tones than I think comes through on the show. F’rinstance, the differences between the “Fakerigo” voice and “De Bird” are numerous to ME, but often are transparent to the listeners…

            So, what I’ve been doin’ is, I call up a couple of my Texas/Lousiana lady-friends before each recording and tell ’em to just Belle it up for a couple of minutes, and emulate that. :)

            • Joseph on

              I am in extreme SE Texas in what some call SW Louisiana anyways, so I chuckled when I heard Matthew yell out Louisiana. I love it, keep it up.

    20. Ash on

      I’m a long time lurker and enjoyed everthing Critical Hit has done but this was absolutely worth a try to give my first comment :) What an awesome way to start an adventure! You guys are really creative! I’m definitily going to check out fate! Thank you very much!

    21. Casey Bax (@mid_mo_gamer) on

      Really enjoyed this episode. Loved to hear the collaboration, curious about character creation and looking forward to seeing how actual gameplay functions.

      The sum is greater than the collective parts definitely applies here.

    22. DaveB on

      Can I just throw out there that I’m hoping that Modern Man’s name is Kilroy? Or is that just showing my age and 80 musical tastes?

      Seriously though, keep up the good work guys! Listening to Critical Hit has gotten me through many days of boring commutes, long road trips, lawn mowings. In fact this last episode had me laughing my way through putting down the third coat of polyurethane on my dining room hardwood floor!

      • Mark W on

        So that’s why I’ve been humming “Secret secret; I’ve got a secret” for the past two days! My subconscious made the connection but I wasn’t consciously thinking about the whole song, and oddly that phrase stuck.

    24. Bill Hamilton on

      Should DnDBrian be referred to as FATEBrian during these sessions?

      Based on the hour of this that I have heard so far, can you go ahead and whip up a comic book for the adventures in Modern City.

    25. Jason St Jean on

      Gotta chime in and say I loved this episode! My only suggestion to the world is to have a nefarious type group be named the “Soggy Bottom Boys”. That would make me smile! :)

      Also, gotta say I have played a couple of different systems (mostly D&D over my rpg career) and have never tried Fate-so now I may need to dip into that system.

      Thanks for the episode!

    26. Tim Nolan on

      It’s always great to hear the excitement of a group who is really enjoying a game. Like so many others, you really sold me on Fate with this world building session.

    27. Ben on

      Very entertaining episode. It was refreshing to hear Brian try the DM role and everyone was full of energy and enthusiasm. I’m looking forward to the next episode.

    28. stellarleader on

      I absolutely loved this episode. The world building was phenomenal! I had a fantastic time listening to it.
      The funniest thing for me was that I could feel Matthew’s excitement for getting to play superheroes and I was as excited as him!

      I can’t wait to listen to the character creation. I think we’re all gonna have a blast.

    29. ArckAngel_X on

      Really enjoyed the episode! Hearing such a radically different game system being used was refreshing, and now I’m curious to try out the Fate system myself and see what fun can be had there. Reminded me of the excitement I had when I heard about the City of Heroes game coming out (and before I played it and was disappointed) and started imagining an interactive RPG-style super hero world. Looking forward to see where this goes. The collaborative world-building you guys made was amusing and, of course, entertaining.

    30. CloudOfDaggers on

      I’m so glad you guys are playing a game of Fate! I got into this system about a year ago, and it’s quickly become a favorite. I think I’ve run more Fate this past year than anything else (though D&D is still my first love in RPGs).
      Really entertaining. Perfect for this group of intelligent, creative people.
      Thanks for all you do! And here’s hoping all of your dice rolls… are ++++.

    31. Roland_19 on

      Guys, I am really loving this off season. And I agree with all the above, I can’t wait till tomorrow to hear you guys start playing because I can already tell this is going to be a very interesting and entertaining game. I was already going to start with my VIP membership. But if you guys offer this podcast to VIP only, I will definitely be there.

      I love your podcasts, your on air talent, and everything about this organization. I was so touched last year when Stephen announced that he could focus primarily on Major Spoilers. I can’t wait till you all get the same chance, because I feel like we all are going to see the birth of an amazing podcast Network. Especially in 2015 the year of the Podcast.

      Thanks for everything you do for us guys!!!!!