Friday, March 30, 2007
Amazon.ca finally found me a copy of Shadowrun 4E. They shipped it yesterday, and it arrived in this morning's mail. Who says Canada Post is slow?
I'm still not seeing the real point in Facebook, beyond finding people you've lost track of, but I'm hooked on it, anyway.
Stupid social networking sites. *grumblegrumble*
Stupid social networking sites. *grumblegrumble*
Thursday, March 29, 2007
The Law insisted I do something with this. Apparently I look like Jason Lee.
I held off joining a general social networking site for a long time, but I finally fell victim to the siren call of Facebook.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
In case you've ever wondered about card sharps, marked cards and the like, this article at AmericanHeritage.com should prove interesting.
BloopWatch.org is going to make it into the "bizarre" section of my links to the right. Heheh.
While in Vegas last week, I walked into Casino Royale. As I entered, visions of high-rollers in tuxes sipping Vesper martinis entered my mind. What I actually saw was a dingy, poorly-lit casino with people camped out because of the cheap beer (I know; I became one of them). The discount clothing store at the one entrance didn't help, either (but I did get a cool CSI hoodie).
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
I have a new video game obsession.
Just before going to Vegas, I spent some time with family in Gravenhurst and hung out for awhile with my teenage cousins. They brought up their PS2, along with Guitar Hero II (you can already see where this is going, can't you?).
I had been thinking buying Guitar Hero for a few months, and after giving it a try, I told myself I would have to buy it after returning from Vegas. Last night, I picked up both the first and second Guitar Hero games (only one guitar controller, though). Then I spent most of the night thrashing away. I can't wait for lunch just so I can play it some more.
Yes, I have a problem.
Just before going to Vegas, I spent some time with family in Gravenhurst and hung out for awhile with my teenage cousins. They brought up their PS2, along with Guitar Hero II (you can already see where this is going, can't you?).
I had been thinking buying Guitar Hero for a few months, and after giving it a try, I told myself I would have to buy it after returning from Vegas. Last night, I picked up both the first and second Guitar Hero games (only one guitar controller, though). Then I spent most of the night thrashing away. I can't wait for lunch just so I can play it some more.
Yes, I have a problem.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Last Tuesday, Jacquie and I set early with my parents and friends of theirs for a few days in Las Vegas. While we had a lot of fun, I don't know if Jacquie and I will ever go back to Sin City for a vacation, although I'm sure I'll be there again at some point for business. Food and attractions are simply too expensive, even though you can find cheap drinks if you look in the right spots.
The Vegas Strip is also so fake and, in some cases, tacky that I think we only needed to see it once. Again, it was fun, but unless you're a gambler, it's a city that only needs to be seen once in a lifetime.
The Vegas Strip is also so fake and, in some cases, tacky that I think we only needed to see it once. Again, it was fun, but unless you're a gambler, it's a city that only needs to be seen once in a lifetime.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Capes has finally made it onto my RPG want list. After hearing about a session of the game that Logan participated in at Pandemonium, I think it sounds like a game I'd be willing to play. A game that's GM-less and requires little to no preparation sounds good to me.
I downloaded Capes Lite and gave it a quick read-through last night. It sounds like it could be a lot of fun.
Not that I'm going to give up my Star Wars campaign in favour of Capes, of course.
EDIT: Screw it! I'm ordering the PDF of Capes. I'm such a sucker.
I downloaded Capes Lite and gave it a quick read-through last night. It sounds like it could be a lot of fun.
Not that I'm going to give up my Star Wars campaign in favour of Capes, of course.
EDIT: Screw it! I'm ordering the PDF of Capes. I'm such a sucker.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
A Delta Green PbP game I've been playing in for the last year over at RPG.net ended yesterday. It was wild, chaotic and ended with two of the PCs dying at the very end. I'm going to miss playing in that game.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Some chatter on RPG.net about "setting stakes" in a game got me thinking about risk and reward in RPGs. In the games I've run and played in over the years, the risks and rewards have not always been clear. Sure, back in the day, we all knew that the risk in D&D was having your character die and having to whip up a new 1st level PC, but during my Greyhawk campaign, I fudged a lot of rolls to keep characters alive (especially in the first couple of adventures). That probably created a very false sense of risk for my players.
Although the game ended without a single PC death (five years of D&D with no PC deaths, you ask? for sure, I say), what would have the players thought if, after a couple of fudges to keep PCs alive, I had let the dice fall as they may? Would they have been angry? After all, I think it was usually quite clear when I was fudging (for an example of this, check out the write-up of the first adventure of my Greyhawk campaign).
Contrast that with the rewards of some of the adventures or battles, and in many cases, the rewards were far greater than the risk. In an early (poorly-designed) adventure, the PCs got hold of a suit of kickass armour without facing suitable challenges, for instance.
Risk versus reward is on my mind as we're heading into our second session of my Star Wars campaign. Last week, I sent out an email asking the players how they would prefer to have me deal with character death -- whether they would prefer to let the dice fall as they may or have me drop a deus ex machina on them to save their asses if the dice went bad. The only response I got was a request for no PC deaths.
Now, assuming I go the route of finding a way to save the lives of PCs should the dice dictate their deaths, I feel I have to balance the risks and rewards. If the PCs will never risk death, then the rewards should be smaller, should they not? Or perhaps I simply need to find other suitable penalties for the character that would feel as meaningful as death without scaling back the rewards.
No matter which way I go, I think I owe it to the players to tell them how things are going to be.
Although the game ended without a single PC death (five years of D&D with no PC deaths, you ask? for sure, I say), what would have the players thought if, after a couple of fudges to keep PCs alive, I had let the dice fall as they may? Would they have been angry? After all, I think it was usually quite clear when I was fudging (for an example of this, check out the write-up of the first adventure of my Greyhawk campaign).
Contrast that with the rewards of some of the adventures or battles, and in many cases, the rewards were far greater than the risk. In an early (poorly-designed) adventure, the PCs got hold of a suit of kickass armour without facing suitable challenges, for instance.
Risk versus reward is on my mind as we're heading into our second session of my Star Wars campaign. Last week, I sent out an email asking the players how they would prefer to have me deal with character death -- whether they would prefer to let the dice fall as they may or have me drop a deus ex machina on them to save their asses if the dice went bad. The only response I got was a request for no PC deaths.
Now, assuming I go the route of finding a way to save the lives of PCs should the dice dictate their deaths, I feel I have to balance the risks and rewards. If the PCs will never risk death, then the rewards should be smaller, should they not? Or perhaps I simply need to find other suitable penalties for the character that would feel as meaningful as death without scaling back the rewards.
No matter which way I go, I think I owe it to the players to tell them how things are going to be.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Several months ago, a couple of local gamers (Vince and Xavier, to be specific) were talking about putting together a Blood Bowl league, but my understanding is nothing ever came of it because one of them got hooked on World of Warcraft for awhile and they also got a couple of D&D campaigns up and running.
I'm starting to get the itch to play in a Blood Bowl league, though, so I'm starting to think of launching and managing one myself. It's just a matter of finding at least three other interested players and making the effort to get it going.
I'm starting to get the itch to play in a Blood Bowl league, though, so I'm starting to think of launching and managing one myself. It's just a matter of finding at least three other interested players and making the effort to get it going.
Has Uwe Boll finally found a video game movie he can't screw up? I mean, seriously, can you screw up a movie based on Postal?
While thinking about what exactly it is I want out of my RPG experiences, I think I have come to a conclusion -- that what I think I want and what I really want are two different things. Sure, there's some overlap there. I know I want a story and I know I want everyone around me to talk in character and not disrupt the game with a lot of out-of-character chatter, but I'm now pretty damn sure the rules of the game are more important to me than I would have admitted in the past.
Even though it was a few months ago now, I think the Wushu: The Dogs of War adventure I ran for my regular group was what paved the way for this epiphany. Wushu makes you focus on the narrative -- on the story, on the character interactions and especially on the combat descriptions -- while eliminating most of the rules roleplayers just assume will be there. The rules are so simple that their only purpose is to provide a framework that lets you know when the scene is over.
Wushu actually felt very freeform, which is a style I'm pretty sure is not for me. I don't understand the fun in freeform play-by-post games (using the word "game" loosely here), and sitting around a table doing something similar strikes me as an odd pastime to have.
Perhaps I'm simply not that good of an improv storyteller, but it seems to me that the rules are vastly more important than I've stated in the past. Granted, I've always been a believer that the rules are very important to the game, but I've always stressed story and character development over those rules. I'm starting to think that instead of a 75/25 split for story/rules, the way I enjoy roleplaying may actually be closer to a 60/40 or even a 50/50 split.
Food for thought.
Even though it was a few months ago now, I think the Wushu: The Dogs of War adventure I ran for my regular group was what paved the way for this epiphany. Wushu makes you focus on the narrative -- on the story, on the character interactions and especially on the combat descriptions -- while eliminating most of the rules roleplayers just assume will be there. The rules are so simple that their only purpose is to provide a framework that lets you know when the scene is over.
Wushu actually felt very freeform, which is a style I'm pretty sure is not for me. I don't understand the fun in freeform play-by-post games (using the word "game" loosely here), and sitting around a table doing something similar strikes me as an odd pastime to have.
Perhaps I'm simply not that good of an improv storyteller, but it seems to me that the rules are vastly more important than I've stated in the past. Granted, I've always been a believer that the rules are very important to the game, but I've always stressed story and character development over those rules. I'm starting to think that instead of a 75/25 split for story/rules, the way I enjoy roleplaying may actually be closer to a 60/40 or even a 50/50 split.
Food for thought.
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