MV's is on WoW...
Crazy, huh?
We're rolling NE. I am a Rogue and she a Druid, both lvl 18 at present. Links follow:
Kryptiste
Pandwyna
2 days ago
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Sunday, August 9, 2009
It's happening
So D and D is a go! It has taken a while, and there was some waffling, but it our first session has been finalized. MV's bro is coming up next weekend and the fun will commence. It looks like it will be a more compressed game than we were hoping for, as the summer has frittered away so, but it is first try. Leaving aside character development and game mechanics, we come to another challenge--this one more aesthetic and practical than either character background or mechanics development: selecting, designing, and painting the miniature.
Mine:
MV's:
That was their status two days ago. They are now primed. Will post picture updates on our progress and our test cases (a little goblin platoon that came with the paint set) later.
Mine:
MV's:
That was their status two days ago. They are now primed. Will post picture updates on our progress and our test cases (a little goblin platoon that came with the paint set) later.
Friday, June 19, 2009
A long-overdue post: a long, overdue post
Gentle Readers,
Please pardon my unpardonable absence. I have been busy with fairly important irl concerns: getting edged out of grad school; edging myself out of grad school with dignity (ongoing); a trip to Australia (whence comes the weird and wonderful wombat); a serious illness in the family; and finally an impending financial crisis! omg. As this is not a personal blog I will elaborate no more and merely say that all will be well in the end.
In the meantime, planning goes ahead apace for our Summer D&D session. Our other compatriots have made their character creation decisions. So it looks like the party is formed. I'll be the Eladrin Rogue about whom I've already blogged; MV is going to be a Dwarf Fighter. This means that between the two of us we'll be coming up with some fancy coordinated attacks to maximize each other's skills. We've got a couple of tandem attacks planned already. I'm hoping to make the DM proud, or at least surprise him. NC is going to be a Half-Elf Cleric. She had wanted to be a mage, but we had no healer, so she very graciously agreed to change classes. I hope that she is not doing this merely to support the party, but think that she took to the idea, quickly finding a way to apply the character mannerisms, motivations, and general background to the Cleric instead of the mage. It seems like she's going to be hilarious to play with. And she and my character should have a fairly amusing interactions based on our differing backgrounds and modes of interfacing with the world. Her SO will be playing a Tiefling Ranger. Mechanically, I think this race/class combination will prove to be a sub-optimal build, but I am interested to see how it turns out. From an RP angle, I think that both choices fit the player well, so I 'm not really worried in the long run about the choice. We have yet to choose a name for our adventuring company.
More closely connected to my own char, I have been sadly remiss in rounding out my char profile. I did a good deal of work earlier, and I unfortunately told everyone a key part of my background that would have been a really cool reveal later on in the campaign. That said, I have to work out the basics of the history. So far it's gone through a number of iterations and a good deal is sticking through. However, I had a fairly ridiculously convoluted tale of court intrigue and family tragedy. I scrapped that for more light-hearted derring-do. That is for another post though.
On another note, I have been reading the blog Advanced Gaming and Theory (whose author I shall refer to in ttis post as AGT). Unfortunately the enticingly academic title promises much more than the content delivers, both in quality and in general composition. As a complete novice, I cannot say that my experience or my ideas regarding RP-ing are that vast or that complex respectively. That said, I have remarked a number of posts at whose core rests a fairly interesting idea. And I find that the blogger's development of these ideas do not excite me all that much. The ideas themselves though are intriguing. I am referring to the following two linked posts: one on books and the other on festivals and tourneys. I post these for those wish to have a look. As I said, I didn't find that much that really grabbed me, and I do not want to criticize their content specifically, as they are definitely sound in their own contexts. And in fact they do spark the imagination admirably.
On the subject of books in game, it seems to me that books provide a really interesting way of deepening a player's experience of the world, depending on how much effort a DM cares to put into the scenario. AGT seems primarily focused on how books can apply to crafting and learning skills. He also puts forward the idea that certain books could aid players immensely in their quests if they have the right information in them (including legends). This seems rather obvious to me. I will pose what I think a more interesting question: how do the players locate, obtain, and interpret a book that is important to their quest? And how can the DM's hand in providing such information not seem patronizing? In other words how does one make sure that finding the correct book and extracting the relevant information doesn't devolve into a bit of a farce? And how would all of this be managed within the construct of the game's mechanics.
It is a challenge in real life to find books that are particularly useful to one's research. Finding books which provide useful, clear information is a skill. And even so, any book is colored to some extent by authorial bias. So even once one has a book, extracting the correct information is a matter of teasing apart the interwoven strands of solid information and the author's subjective opinion, and further of separating what of the author's interpretation is valid and what invalid. Indeed this even ignores the question of whether the book is not written in one's native tongue. Regarding language, even if one speaks a language fluently, technical writing in a specialized discipline is not necessarily easily read and correctly interpreted. I'd like to see this complexity brought to the question of books in D&D if they are to be integrated in a natural way. This requires thinking about where one would find books; who would be their custodians; whether they would be in a sacred, royal, mercantile environment; what languages they might be in.
In the somewhat rambling example I'm imagining, players find a bookshop in town and enter. The rest of the scenario follows from that. Other scenarios are possible along similar lines, but tailored say to an abbey library rather than a merchants scriptorium.
Here are some of my thoughts on how I would integrate books into a campaign:
1) Unless the book is critical to the end result of the adventure, the adventure should not require the knowledge held in the book to complete. The book would make certain aspects of the quest easier or quicker, but players could power through regardless or find clues along the way through trial and error.
2) If books are not per se necessary to the adventure, they could be included as undeclared side quests. These would grant a small XP reward and could be handled as skill challenges. What may have started out as a player going into a scriptorium to buy and sell scrolls could end up as a chance discovery of an interesting volume (a search check would return random lists of pre-prepared titles, of which only higher success rolls would include quest related books). An insight check could narrow down the choices on that list if the player hasn't already noticed the important volume. Once the book has been selected it will need to be acquired. A bluff check would determine whether the merchant sees how excited the player is about finding it. The more oblivious the merchant is, the easier it will be to acquire the book. If, on the other hand, the merchant realizes a player really wants the book, the negotiations would enter a Diplomacy/Intimidation phase. Depending on results one might get the book, one might merely fail to get the book, or one might get thrown out of the shop by passing town guards. Of the two failures, the former would allow for a further skill challenge, if players were really interested in getting the book. This skill challenge would be one of Stealth and Thievery, in which the players need to steal the book. In the case of the guards ending the negotiation, the DCs for the skill challenge would be significantly higher and the chance of legal trouble enough of a disincentive to keep players from attempting it unless they were desparate.
3) Assume that the volume if finally in the possession of the players now. Once they begin to try and read it, a further skill challenge is begun. This one requires someone who speaks the language of the book fluently or access to someone who does (an NPC could be provided, if it is not in the language). A relevant knowledge check would decide whther a good or bad translation of the piece is rendered. Once a translation is produced an insight check and/or relevant knowledge again would decide how sharp the players are in distilling out the information in the book and selecting what might be of some future use. I would say that there is no failure in this last skill challenge--merely a breadth of successful results. In other words, all possible outcomes give the players useful information. The success of translation and then interpretation merely affect how much extraneous information is mixed in with important and how garbled that important information is. In order to achieve this I would say that two sets of three texts need to be cooked up for the game session. One set of fairly poor translations (text somewhat garbled and using non-standard vocabulary to indicate slight mistranslations) and one set of good translations (well constructed englush). Within each of these groups would be three possible results which are ranked from having the most extraneous information to one which is almost devoid of it. One could even include a critical success result which allows for the player noticing someing in a small marginal gloss which gives the players a distinct advantage. At the end of all of this a small XP gain would be awarded to all players, with slightly higher bonus XP for those who were active participants. I say the whole party gains XP, as I feel that it is likely that not every player at the table would want to put tie into this whole idea, so they should have something out of it.
I suppose this all begs the question: is the inclusion of a bookstore/scriptorium by the DM just as much of a giveaway as a book being handed out? Are both such strong hints that the book is important that players cannot ignore it as a blatant plot point? I think not. While a book being conveniently found which contains keys to future success is clearly breaking the world's illusion, a bindery/scriptorium in the city is a natural part of breathing a thriving world. If a DM says "In the crypt lies a bag of gold, alchemical apparatus, and a tome bound in the tanned hide of a ...", the implication is that players should pay attention to the book, even if it turns out to be of no importance. If a DM describes a square in the center of the crafting district of a large city and mentions that among the surrounding shops are a prosperous cobbler's shop, a scriptorium with a large bay window and attached bookseller, and a tannery, reeking of boiling leather and animal scraps, which supplies them all, players are not necessarily going to take this to mean that they are plot points. Rather they may merely assume that these stores are useful for replenishing supplies, getting new gear, selling loot, etc.
As to festivals, I don't really want to cover my thoughts on them right now. I am still thinking. One of my main criticisms with AGT's article is that his best ideas are keyed to one player. And since D&D is inherently a party game, I would like to see some multiplayer options. Certainly each player could be involved in different activities throughout the day, but I think that can be dangerous (i.e. a split up party means the DM's attention is split between players). I have seen some DM's talking about letting players int the DM-ing on some level. This might be a good venue for this. In other words, people split up to do their own thing in smaller groups with one of the players in each group acting as a mini-DM. As it is though, I had a thought for how to have a
As I am not a medieval scholar, I cannot say that this idea is period, but it certainly has a strong grip on the Romantic notion and ff. notion of medieval, chivalric tourneys. I quote Ivanhoe for usage:
Taken from: http://books.google.com/books?id=lyIXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA295&lpg=PA295&dq=ivanhoe+grand+melee&source=bl&ots=O5ymOc_MzV&sig=6TBM5_AAQEQrU59EsoLtet0amxI&hl=en&ei=gdCBSrKsO4jEMNaEiakL&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Or to put it visually:
Perhaps not on that scale, but nevertheless on a field of competition open to a number of combatants at once. I'll have more on this someday, as I think it over. For now though, toodles.
Please pardon my unpardonable absence. I have been busy with fairly important irl concerns: getting edged out of grad school; edging myself out of grad school with dignity (ongoing); a trip to Australia (whence comes the weird and wonderful wombat); a serious illness in the family; and finally an impending financial crisis! omg. As this is not a personal blog I will elaborate no more and merely say that all will be well in the end.
In the meantime, planning goes ahead apace for our Summer D&D session. Our other compatriots have made their character creation decisions. So it looks like the party is formed. I'll be the Eladrin Rogue about whom I've already blogged; MV is going to be a Dwarf Fighter. This means that between the two of us we'll be coming up with some fancy coordinated attacks to maximize each other's skills. We've got a couple of tandem attacks planned already. I'm hoping to make the DM proud, or at least surprise him. NC is going to be a Half-Elf Cleric. She had wanted to be a mage, but we had no healer, so she very graciously agreed to change classes. I hope that she is not doing this merely to support the party, but think that she took to the idea, quickly finding a way to apply the character mannerisms, motivations, and general background to the Cleric instead of the mage. It seems like she's going to be hilarious to play with. And she and my character should have a fairly amusing interactions based on our differing backgrounds and modes of interfacing with the world. Her SO will be playing a Tiefling Ranger. Mechanically, I think this race/class combination will prove to be a sub-optimal build, but I am interested to see how it turns out. From an RP angle, I think that both choices fit the player well, so I 'm not really worried in the long run about the choice. We have yet to choose a name for our adventuring company.
More closely connected to my own char, I have been sadly remiss in rounding out my char profile. I did a good deal of work earlier, and I unfortunately told everyone a key part of my background that would have been a really cool reveal later on in the campaign. That said, I have to work out the basics of the history. So far it's gone through a number of iterations and a good deal is sticking through. However, I had a fairly ridiculously convoluted tale of court intrigue and family tragedy. I scrapped that for more light-hearted derring-do. That is for another post though.
On another note, I have been reading the blog Advanced Gaming and Theory (whose author I shall refer to in ttis post as AGT). Unfortunately the enticingly academic title promises much more than the content delivers, both in quality and in general composition. As a complete novice, I cannot say that my experience or my ideas regarding RP-ing are that vast or that complex respectively. That said, I have remarked a number of posts at whose core rests a fairly interesting idea. And I find that the blogger's development of these ideas do not excite me all that much. The ideas themselves though are intriguing. I am referring to the following two linked posts: one on books and the other on festivals and tourneys. I post these for those wish to have a look. As I said, I didn't find that much that really grabbed me, and I do not want to criticize their content specifically, as they are definitely sound in their own contexts. And in fact they do spark the imagination admirably.
On the subject of books in game, it seems to me that books provide a really interesting way of deepening a player's experience of the world, depending on how much effort a DM cares to put into the scenario. AGT seems primarily focused on how books can apply to crafting and learning skills. He also puts forward the idea that certain books could aid players immensely in their quests if they have the right information in them (including legends). This seems rather obvious to me. I will pose what I think a more interesting question: how do the players locate, obtain, and interpret a book that is important to their quest? And how can the DM's hand in providing such information not seem patronizing? In other words how does one make sure that finding the correct book and extracting the relevant information doesn't devolve into a bit of a farce? And how would all of this be managed within the construct of the game's mechanics.
It is a challenge in real life to find books that are particularly useful to one's research. Finding books which provide useful, clear information is a skill. And even so, any book is colored to some extent by authorial bias. So even once one has a book, extracting the correct information is a matter of teasing apart the interwoven strands of solid information and the author's subjective opinion, and further of separating what of the author's interpretation is valid and what invalid. Indeed this even ignores the question of whether the book is not written in one's native tongue. Regarding language, even if one speaks a language fluently, technical writing in a specialized discipline is not necessarily easily read and correctly interpreted. I'd like to see this complexity brought to the question of books in D&D if they are to be integrated in a natural way. This requires thinking about where one would find books; who would be their custodians; whether they would be in a sacred, royal, mercantile environment; what languages they might be in.
In the somewhat rambling example I'm imagining, players find a bookshop in town and enter. The rest of the scenario follows from that. Other scenarios are possible along similar lines, but tailored say to an abbey library rather than a merchants scriptorium.
Here are some of my thoughts on how I would integrate books into a campaign:
1) Unless the book is critical to the end result of the adventure, the adventure should not require the knowledge held in the book to complete. The book would make certain aspects of the quest easier or quicker, but players could power through regardless or find clues along the way through trial and error.
2) If books are not per se necessary to the adventure, they could be included as undeclared side quests. These would grant a small XP reward and could be handled as skill challenges. What may have started out as a player going into a scriptorium to buy and sell scrolls could end up as a chance discovery of an interesting volume (a search check would return random lists of pre-prepared titles, of which only higher success rolls would include quest related books). An insight check could narrow down the choices on that list if the player hasn't already noticed the important volume. Once the book has been selected it will need to be acquired. A bluff check would determine whether the merchant sees how excited the player is about finding it. The more oblivious the merchant is, the easier it will be to acquire the book. If, on the other hand, the merchant realizes a player really wants the book, the negotiations would enter a Diplomacy/Intimidation phase. Depending on results one might get the book, one might merely fail to get the book, or one might get thrown out of the shop by passing town guards. Of the two failures, the former would allow for a further skill challenge, if players were really interested in getting the book. This skill challenge would be one of Stealth and Thievery, in which the players need to steal the book. In the case of the guards ending the negotiation, the DCs for the skill challenge would be significantly higher and the chance of legal trouble enough of a disincentive to keep players from attempting it unless they were desparate.
3) Assume that the volume if finally in the possession of the players now. Once they begin to try and read it, a further skill challenge is begun. This one requires someone who speaks the language of the book fluently or access to someone who does (an NPC could be provided, if it is not in the language). A relevant knowledge check would decide whther a good or bad translation of the piece is rendered. Once a translation is produced an insight check and/or relevant knowledge again would decide how sharp the players are in distilling out the information in the book and selecting what might be of some future use. I would say that there is no failure in this last skill challenge--merely a breadth of successful results. In other words, all possible outcomes give the players useful information. The success of translation and then interpretation merely affect how much extraneous information is mixed in with important and how garbled that important information is. In order to achieve this I would say that two sets of three texts need to be cooked up for the game session. One set of fairly poor translations (text somewhat garbled and using non-standard vocabulary to indicate slight mistranslations) and one set of good translations (well constructed englush). Within each of these groups would be three possible results which are ranked from having the most extraneous information to one which is almost devoid of it. One could even include a critical success result which allows for the player noticing someing in a small marginal gloss which gives the players a distinct advantage. At the end of all of this a small XP gain would be awarded to all players, with slightly higher bonus XP for those who were active participants. I say the whole party gains XP, as I feel that it is likely that not every player at the table would want to put tie into this whole idea, so they should have something out of it.
I suppose this all begs the question: is the inclusion of a bookstore/scriptorium by the DM just as much of a giveaway as a book being handed out? Are both such strong hints that the book is important that players cannot ignore it as a blatant plot point? I think not. While a book being conveniently found which contains keys to future success is clearly breaking the world's illusion, a bindery/scriptorium in the city is a natural part of breathing a thriving world. If a DM says "In the crypt lies a bag of gold, alchemical apparatus, and a tome bound in the tanned hide of a ...", the implication is that players should pay attention to the book, even if it turns out to be of no importance. If a DM describes a square in the center of the crafting district of a large city and mentions that among the surrounding shops are a prosperous cobbler's shop, a scriptorium with a large bay window and attached bookseller, and a tannery, reeking of boiling leather and animal scraps, which supplies them all, players are not necessarily going to take this to mean that they are plot points. Rather they may merely assume that these stores are useful for replenishing supplies, getting new gear, selling loot, etc.
As to festivals, I don't really want to cover my thoughts on them right now. I am still thinking. One of my main criticisms with AGT's article is that his best ideas are keyed to one player. And since D&D is inherently a party game, I would like to see some multiplayer options. Certainly each player could be involved in different activities throughout the day, but I think that can be dangerous (i.e. a split up party means the DM's attention is split between players). I have seen some DM's talking about letting players int the DM-ing on some level. This might be a good venue for this. In other words, people split up to do their own thing in smaller groups with one of the players in each group acting as a mini-DM. As it is though, I had a thought for how to have a
As I am not a medieval scholar, I cannot say that this idea is period, but it certainly has a strong grip on the Romantic notion and ff. notion of medieval, chivalric tourneys. I quote Ivanhoe for usage:
Taken from: http://books.google.com/books?id=lyIXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA295&lpg=PA295&dq=ivanhoe+grand+melee&source=bl&ots=O5ymOc_MzV&sig=6TBM5_AAQEQrU59EsoLtet0amxI&hl=en&ei=gdCBSrKsO4jEMNaEiakL&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Or to put it visually:
Perhaps not on that scale, but nevertheless on a field of competition open to a number of combatants at once. I'll have more on this someday, as I think it over. For now though, toodles.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Irony
I started a geeky blog with two blatant references to WoW. Three weeks later, I have all but decided to quit the game. Expect to hear little about my WoW exploits, as they are likely to cease until a new expansion comes out. I am not a raider. I don't have much fun raiding. I find the purposes of raiding pointless. WoW endgame is based on one goal and one goal only: raiding. This of course includes gear acquisition. But how do you acquire great gear and to what end? You acquire it raiding for the purpose of raiding. I have yet to tell my guild, but they'll just have to lump it. I would just level alts, but there aren't many lowbies to play with and the economy is really crap.
In the meantime, there is little to takes its place gaming-wise. I don't really think I want to go back to Diablo II full time. I guess I could finish Warcraft III. There's Starcraft II coming out soon. I'll probably dabble. But Starcraft people are so hardcore. They are really good. Hmmm. I'm not sure I ever fully played through Starcraft. That might be fun to go back and do before II.
MV's bro suggested Lord of the Rings on-line. I tried it out through their free trial, and it is fun. But I'm not sure that I really enjoyed it that much. The graphics were not as smooth as WoW, and the interface in many ways is WoW before either expansion. In terms of gameplay there are some really cool aspects. The integration of achievements with tangible stat rewards is very nice. In WoW accomplishments are purely for vanity (at this point, perhaps in expansion they'll give you a way to spend achievement points). It is clear that both Accomplishments and the Glyph systems in WoW are ripped from LotRO, but much in LotRO is ripped off WoW. Anyway, we'll see. If MV's bro does play, I might play with him, but I think that that is the same condition he's working from. This seeems to indicate that neither of us are really blown away with the game, so why waste time on it? We'll see. I'll give it a little more time.
In the meantime, Dragon Age: Origins looks cool. I comes out in Oct, but I have no idea if my comp will be powerful enough to play it. But it looks quite good.
In the meantime, there is little to takes its place gaming-wise. I don't really think I want to go back to Diablo II full time. I guess I could finish Warcraft III. There's Starcraft II coming out soon. I'll probably dabble. But Starcraft people are so hardcore. They are really good. Hmmm. I'm not sure I ever fully played through Starcraft. That might be fun to go back and do before II.
MV's bro suggested Lord of the Rings on-line. I tried it out through their free trial, and it is fun. But I'm not sure that I really enjoyed it that much. The graphics were not as smooth as WoW, and the interface in many ways is WoW before either expansion. In terms of gameplay there are some really cool aspects. The integration of achievements with tangible stat rewards is very nice. In WoW accomplishments are purely for vanity (at this point, perhaps in expansion they'll give you a way to spend achievement points). It is clear that both Accomplishments and the Glyph systems in WoW are ripped from LotRO, but much in LotRO is ripped off WoW. Anyway, we'll see. If MV's bro does play, I might play with him, but I think that that is the same condition he's working from. This seeems to indicate that neither of us are really blown away with the game, so why waste time on it? We'll see. I'll give it a little more time.
In the meantime, Dragon Age: Origins looks cool. I comes out in Oct, but I have no idea if my comp will be powerful enough to play it. But it looks quite good.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
BlizzCon
This post is 3 days old now. After a long but productive weekend of gardening work, I emerge richer by $202.50 and a strained upper back muscle. I guess I wasn't putting enough good energy into the universe... silly me. :P
Begin retroactive post
---------------------------
What with the shallow and rocky strait that is my bank account right now, I had no plans of buying tickets to Blizzcon. Being of a naturally curious temperament though, I decided to see how expensive tickets were when the y went on sale this past Sat. I checked at about noon. They were already sold out. That seems a bit nutty.
WoW: though I've not played in a good week, I am slowly trying to get the 5000g for epic flight training. Yes, Yes, I know. How does a lvl 80 not have epic flight yet? Leatherworking... that's how. I've spent way too much on buying leather in the AH to level a profession which I've eventually come to the decision is a waste. It's cheaper to just buy mats and have another LW do the work for me than to invest in all the Frozen Orbs I'd need to get to 440.
Diablo II: MV ans I played DII last night. Righteous! We leveled about 3 levels, getting close to lvl 50. We are currently working through Act II on Nightmare difficulty. Only really remarkable drop was a Shael rune, which I'm saving for a bow runeword. All I need is a Ko, buteven then I'll have a choice between two runewords to work on: melody or harmony. Here's a link to a handy runeword tool. Anyway, there's no point in agonizing over this until I actually find a Ko, by which time it will probably irrelevant, as Diablo III will be out.
On that note, let me just say, I can't wait. There are millions awaiting the Starcraft release, there are as many awaiting the chance to raid Arthas, but I am most excited about Diablo III. I am actually waiting until close to release date to build myself a new computer. This will have been the first time I've built a computer for myself before (note the groovy Future Perfect there, peeps). I'll have more disposable income by then (for more, read any). No sense in doing anything until system reqs. are released anyway.
Currently listening to: On the Rise from Dr. Horrible. There are some good songs in there...
Begin retroactive post
---------------------------
What with the shallow and rocky strait that is my bank account right now, I had no plans of buying tickets to Blizzcon. Being of a naturally curious temperament though, I decided to see how expensive tickets were when the y went on sale this past Sat. I checked at about noon. They were already sold out. That seems a bit nutty.
WoW: though I've not played in a good week, I am slowly trying to get the 5000g for epic flight training. Yes, Yes, I know. How does a lvl 80 not have epic flight yet? Leatherworking... that's how. I've spent way too much on buying leather in the AH to level a profession which I've eventually come to the decision is a waste. It's cheaper to just buy mats and have another LW do the work for me than to invest in all the Frozen Orbs I'd need to get to 440.
Diablo II: MV ans I played DII last night. Righteous! We leveled about 3 levels, getting close to lvl 50. We are currently working through Act II on Nightmare difficulty. Only really remarkable drop was a Shael rune, which I'm saving for a bow runeword. All I need is a Ko, buteven then I'll have a choice between two runewords to work on: melody or harmony. Here's a link to a handy runeword tool. Anyway, there's no point in agonizing over this until I actually find a Ko, by which time it will probably irrelevant, as Diablo III will be out.
On that note, let me just say, I can't wait. There are millions awaiting the Starcraft release, there are as many awaiting the chance to raid Arthas, but I am most excited about Diablo III. I am actually waiting until close to release date to build myself a new computer. This will have been the first time I've built a computer for myself before (note the groovy Future Perfect there, peeps). I'll have more disposable income by then (for more, read any). No sense in doing anything until system reqs. are released anyway.
Currently listening to: On the Rise from Dr. Horrible. There are some good songs in there...
Monday, May 18, 2009
D&D this summer, bringin' it to the here and now
So last post I discussed the horrific experience that was my initiation into D&D. I never played again, but always felt that it was worth a second shot with the right group. This time has come. I think we have the right group of people. It will be me; MV (my gf); MV's bro; James, (the DM, we're thinking); and a couple (literally) of friends. These friends are extra cool, newly-wed, and are going to be awesome. At this point we have yet to all sit down together and discuss the game. It looks like James has agreed to DM for us. I think he'll do a good job, as he has a good sense of humor and a strong attention to detail. He's abroad now, so we've not had a chance to hammer down details. As to the other two, we really need to talk about characters. I have no idea what kind of party roles they'd want to fill.
Lessons learned from last post (and from limited raiding exp in WoW):
I want to play an Eladrin Rogue. I've been putting a good deal of thought into this character. This is a DPS char, so, of course I'd be looking to do a good deal of damage. More than that though, I'd like to maximize my skill checks. In particular I'd want a very high Perception score. I've designed the char at lvl 1 and lvl 5, so as to get a feeling for how I'd develop the mechanics of the char. In terms of ability scores, I'd be ranking it Dex, (Cha, Wis), Con, Int, Str. So I'm considering completely ignoring Str to maximize Dex, and then taking Melee Training (Dex). That would mean that I apply my Dex bonus to my attack rolls. Basically + to hit rating. I'd choose skills that look to Cha instead of Str. Meanwhile a highish Wis modifier would allow for fairly good Perception, Dungeoneering, Nature and Heal checks, the former two trained and the latter untrained. My other trained skills would be Acrobatics, Athletics, and Bluff, and the two default Rogue skills, Stealth and Thievery. That would amount to 7 trained skills for an Eladrin Rogue. Taking the Jack of all Trades feat would add a +2 to all untrained skills, giving an extra edge in Heal, Nature, Insight, etc. Every little bit helps I reckon. In order to really maximize perception I'll take either the Skill Focus (Perception) or the Alertness feats. This will put me in a position to be a really good scout with high perception, high stealth, and fairly good modifiers for information checks (e.g. History, Arcana, Nature, etc.). When in party, the higher modifiers can be used to back up others if their checks fail.
Finallyto damage. I should have a fairly high Attack score because of the Meelee training feat, but whe I hit, I'll be hitting with daggers, only a d4. So not much damage from straight melee. My powers will all be augmented by my dex and/or cha modifierrs, so that'll up damage. But the other thing I'm trying to do is maximize the Sneak Attack feature of the Rogue class. Sneak Attack damage can be applied anytime the Rogue has combat advantage and packs a fairly sizable whallop, 2d6. To get the most out of this I'll take the Backstabber skill, which ups the damage to 2d8. That's a really fair bit of damage in addition to any other damage done. But to get this extra damage, you need combat advantage. I am at the stage of mechanics planning where I am trying to figure out the best way given my chosen feats to gain combat advantage as much as possible. I am hoping that I can keep my feat choices as is and look to use actions and allies to gain combat advantage. The more I look, the more possible this seems. It seems that I would do better to choose Alertness than Skill Focus (Perception) though. While SF(P) grants +3 to Perception, Alertness grants +2 and makes it so that you do not grant combat advantage during surprise rounds. I think that that will fit nicely into a character build with high perception, as if even when surprised, he either unconsciously noticed noticed something was wrong or is so agile as to not be left flat footed. In the meantime, though, I am not sure I really know how Stealth is going to work in encounters. It would be nice if I could get into a Bluff, Stealth, Attack + Sneak Attack cycle, but it is unclear to me how exactly this will play out. It may be that I have to be very careful to use the terrain to me advantage. In otherwards, make sure that I am only visible to a maximum of 2 baddies in any encounter, so as to raises my chances for Stealth success. We shall see. More reading for me to understand this.
So far that is my mechanical analysis of my character: maximized sneak attack, high Perception, high level scouting skills, overall high skill modifyers so as to be, as the feat say, a jack of all trades.
Lessons learned from last post (and from limited raiding exp in WoW):
- Party must be properly balanced. We must have a dedicated tank and a dedicated healer, neither of which I had in my last exp.
- People should understand they are choosing their character both to their liking and to fulfill their specific role.
- Players should all contribute to each other having fun, not just to having fun themselves.
I want to play an Eladrin Rogue. I've been putting a good deal of thought into this character. This is a DPS char, so, of course I'd be looking to do a good deal of damage. More than that though, I'd like to maximize my skill checks. In particular I'd want a very high Perception score. I've designed the char at lvl 1 and lvl 5, so as to get a feeling for how I'd develop the mechanics of the char. In terms of ability scores, I'd be ranking it Dex, (Cha, Wis), Con, Int, Str. So I'm considering completely ignoring Str to maximize Dex, and then taking Melee Training (Dex). That would mean that I apply my Dex bonus to my attack rolls. Basically + to hit rating. I'd choose skills that look to Cha instead of Str. Meanwhile a highish Wis modifier would allow for fairly good Perception, Dungeoneering, Nature and Heal checks, the former two trained and the latter untrained. My other trained skills would be Acrobatics, Athletics, and Bluff, and the two default Rogue skills, Stealth and Thievery. That would amount to 7 trained skills for an Eladrin Rogue. Taking the Jack of all Trades feat would add a +2 to all untrained skills, giving an extra edge in Heal, Nature, Insight, etc. Every little bit helps I reckon. In order to really maximize perception I'll take either the Skill Focus (Perception) or the Alertness feats. This will put me in a position to be a really good scout with high perception, high stealth, and fairly good modifiers for information checks (e.g. History, Arcana, Nature, etc.). When in party, the higher modifiers can be used to back up others if their checks fail.
Finallyto damage. I should have a fairly high Attack score because of the Meelee training feat, but whe I hit, I'll be hitting with daggers, only a d4. So not much damage from straight melee. My powers will all be augmented by my dex and/or cha modifierrs, so that'll up damage. But the other thing I'm trying to do is maximize the Sneak Attack feature of the Rogue class. Sneak Attack damage can be applied anytime the Rogue has combat advantage and packs a fairly sizable whallop, 2d6. To get the most out of this I'll take the Backstabber skill, which ups the damage to 2d8. That's a really fair bit of damage in addition to any other damage done. But to get this extra damage, you need combat advantage. I am at the stage of mechanics planning where I am trying to figure out the best way given my chosen feats to gain combat advantage as much as possible. I am hoping that I can keep my feat choices as is and look to use actions and allies to gain combat advantage. The more I look, the more possible this seems. It seems that I would do better to choose Alertness than Skill Focus (Perception) though. While SF(P) grants +3 to Perception, Alertness grants +2 and makes it so that you do not grant combat advantage during surprise rounds. I think that that will fit nicely into a character build with high perception, as if even when surprised, he either unconsciously noticed noticed something was wrong or is so agile as to not be left flat footed. In the meantime, though, I am not sure I really know how Stealth is going to work in encounters. It would be nice if I could get into a Bluff, Stealth, Attack + Sneak Attack cycle, but it is unclear to me how exactly this will play out. It may be that I have to be very careful to use the terrain to me advantage. In otherwards, make sure that I am only visible to a maximum of 2 baddies in any encounter, so as to raises my chances for Stealth success. We shall see. More reading for me to understand this.
So far that is my mechanical analysis of my character: maximized sneak attack, high Perception, high level scouting skills, overall high skill modifyers so as to be, as the feat say, a jack of all trades.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
D&D this summer
WoW was extraordinarily boring tonight. I missed the guild raid by 15 minutes and so was stuck waiting to be an alternate. By the time I realized that I had no chance at getting into the raid, it was too late to bother trying to get into a pug (pick-up group, or ad hoc group, for those who don't know). On the up side I was questing and found a quest in Icecrown where, through flashback narrative, I got to be Arthas. That was fairly awesome, if a bit morally troubling.
Recently my guild moved all of its best geared characters to another guild so as to get raid experience. I moved too because, A) I'm fairly well geared and B) it was pretty lonely in the old guild with all the best players elsewhere. Anyway, this new guild is looking to give raid spots to people who will constantly raid with them. Fair enough. I don't want to be a hardcore raider, but I could maybe do 2 a week. But they also schedule their raids between 7 and 7:30, just when I've been making dinner or hanging out with MV. So, because I am not there for raids to start I'm not necessarily "reliable" enough to be included in raids. Most vexing. We shall hope that this changes.
In less annoying news, plans move forward apace for our D&D adventure. It cannot be worse than my first D&D experience. I shall narrate this briefly, just to give a little background. I had no idea about D&D. I was invited to play with a group of people I knew from community college. Players: 2 spinsters in their late-30's, early-40's; 1 lonely female wiccan with designs; 1 overly-idealistic male with romantic and chivalric notions (read me). DM: younger brother of spinster 1, bassist in metal band, and generally cool, if non overly refined, dude.
So both spinsters decided to play misanthropic cutthroats of borderline, if not, evil alignment (can't remember precisely). Both were that annoying stereotype who would rather glare evilly at you than respond to you. They were your typical I'm a member of the party, but I'll kill you if I decide I want to. This is, of course, a great morale booster. It is particularly useful when you meet a camp of men who know about the way ahead and who seem to be important to the plot (why would the DM have put them there if they were of no value?), and these characters decide they are too suspicious of the men to even investigate. Yet it turned out that I offended these damosels for taking the initiative to talk to NPCs rather than scornfully storm away from them. They decided that I had elected myself leader of the party. If by leader they meant the only person in the group who used polysyllabic vocabulary and who thought NPCs were useful vectors of information, then I suppose I did. Silly me.
The wiccan played a bard. Her high charisma scores, though, I fear were forged, as I saw no evidence of charisma in her character. Again, when faced with a camp of men who seemed to be useful, I did all the talking, and not by way of taking advantage. Me talking was better, in my mind, than awkward silences punctuated by desperate hooks tossed out by the DM to no avail. She was the quietest, meekest, and most awkward high-charisma bard who ever laid plectrum to gut.
I was playing a Ranger and had been asked in to be the one who takes the damage, in a party otherwise fairly low on HP and AC. I was also supposed to be the one to heal. In other words, looking back with the eye of a stalwart WoW campaigner, I was supposed to be the tank and the healer. ummmmm..... What was the DM thinking here? He should have made me be a Fighter or Pally. Or he should have made me a Cleric. One role or the other, not both. If he wanted me to do both he should have made me be a Pally, even though that would have been compromising on heals. A part cannot co forward w/o dedicated heals. Anyway, this meant that I, a ranger, and essentially, in WoW lingo, ranged DPS (I took alot of ranged feats), was in the front line taking most of the damage, and at the same time needed to heal myself. Classic. Physician heal thyself syndrome. It was ridiculous.
Horror stories:
More on character building and party formation of the current party later. For now, I look to pout myself a whiskey, descend into the embrace of a well-worn leather armchair, and ruminate on battles past, won and lost, and the lessons to be learned by them. Why, when I was in India, during the Rebellion...
Recently my guild moved all of its best geared characters to another guild so as to get raid experience. I moved too because, A) I'm fairly well geared and B) it was pretty lonely in the old guild with all the best players elsewhere. Anyway, this new guild is looking to give raid spots to people who will constantly raid with them. Fair enough. I don't want to be a hardcore raider, but I could maybe do 2 a week. But they also schedule their raids between 7 and 7:30, just when I've been making dinner or hanging out with MV. So, because I am not there for raids to start I'm not necessarily "reliable" enough to be included in raids. Most vexing. We shall hope that this changes.
In less annoying news, plans move forward apace for our D&D adventure. It cannot be worse than my first D&D experience. I shall narrate this briefly, just to give a little background. I had no idea about D&D. I was invited to play with a group of people I knew from community college. Players: 2 spinsters in their late-30's, early-40's; 1 lonely female wiccan with designs; 1 overly-idealistic male with romantic and chivalric notions (read me). DM: younger brother of spinster 1, bassist in metal band, and generally cool, if non overly refined, dude.
So both spinsters decided to play misanthropic cutthroats of borderline, if not, evil alignment (can't remember precisely). Both were that annoying stereotype who would rather glare evilly at you than respond to you. They were your typical I'm a member of the party, but I'll kill you if I decide I want to. This is, of course, a great morale booster. It is particularly useful when you meet a camp of men who know about the way ahead and who seem to be important to the plot (why would the DM have put them there if they were of no value?), and these characters decide they are too suspicious of the men to even investigate. Yet it turned out that I offended these damosels for taking the initiative to talk to NPCs rather than scornfully storm away from them. They decided that I had elected myself leader of the party. If by leader they meant the only person in the group who used polysyllabic vocabulary and who thought NPCs were useful vectors of information, then I suppose I did. Silly me.
The wiccan played a bard. Her high charisma scores, though, I fear were forged, as I saw no evidence of charisma in her character. Again, when faced with a camp of men who seemed to be useful, I did all the talking, and not by way of taking advantage. Me talking was better, in my mind, than awkward silences punctuated by desperate hooks tossed out by the DM to no avail. She was the quietest, meekest, and most awkward high-charisma bard who ever laid plectrum to gut.
I was playing a Ranger and had been asked in to be the one who takes the damage, in a party otherwise fairly low on HP and AC. I was also supposed to be the one to heal. In other words, looking back with the eye of a stalwart WoW campaigner, I was supposed to be the tank and the healer. ummmmm..... What was the DM thinking here? He should have made me be a Fighter or Pally. Or he should have made me a Cleric. One role or the other, not both. If he wanted me to do both he should have made me be a Pally, even though that would have been compromising on heals. A part cannot co forward w/o dedicated heals. Anyway, this meant that I, a ranger, and essentially, in WoW lingo, ranged DPS (I took alot of ranged feats), was in the front line taking most of the damage, and at the same time needed to heal myself. Classic. Physician heal thyself syndrome. It was ridiculous.
Horror stories:
- As we were leaving town to go and find the tower of the powerful wizard who had summoned us together, we noted a large mercenary army gathering outside. Being wary of them, as one should be, we wanted to keep an eye on them and make sure they didn't follow us. Being a Ranger, I had an animal companion. I decided that, since we didn't want to split up the party to have someone keep watch, I'd summon a badger to stay behind and watch. This provoked a controversy of at least 15 minutes. The spinsters were collectively (they acted collectively often) worried that the mercenaries would see the badger and be suspicious. I suppose they were playing their paranoid characters to the full. I offered to not cast the badger, but then they worried that we'd have no way of knowing whether the mercs were following us. Upshot? 15-30 minute argument about whether a band of profesional mercenary soldiers would find a badger suspicious and what they would do to it either way.
- One of the spinsters, a Rogue, if I am not much mistaken, got fed up with trying to carefully ascertain what was on the other side of a door and so kicked it in herself and leapt into the room. um.... ok. She's a Rogue. She's a misanthrope. She's Drow. She should like to stay in the shadows, hidden away until she can do the most damage posible and avoiding contact with the lower races as much as possible. Quite apart from this being radically outside of character, she totally flew in the face of her class role. She's supposed to scout, not get tired of scouting and bash doors in. That's the fighter's role, dammit. So after this ridiculous move, I leapt in after her to try and take any damage (my role in the party, mind you) and I took a crossbow bolt. This, I thought was in line with my character and with my class role. Suddenly and without warning she remebered to play her character and was taciturnly disapproving of me for being paternalistic and chauvanistic. She was fairly frustrated that I had presumed to take the damage for her, little remebering that one of the explicit reasons for asking me to play was that the party needed someone to soak up damage.
- I dated the bard... but that's not a story for this blog...
More on character building and party formation of the current party later. For now, I look to pout myself a whiskey, descend into the embrace of a well-worn leather armchair, and ruminate on battles past, won and lost, and the lessons to be learned by them. Why, when I was in India, during the Rebellion...
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
First!
Hello all,
for reasons of employability I shall be writing this under the pseudonym Reginald Peabody. You can call me Reggie, though. The explicit reason for this blog is to waste time talking about the various geeky pastimes with which I fill my life. Perhaps the longest running of these right now is my WoW character, Romana, a rogue. She resides on the Undermine server and is now lvl 80. I am currently trying to gear her up for he more involved Lich King Raids. I include a link to her armory.
Here she is!
My primary alt is a paladin, Modwenna, at only lvl 33, so she's got a long way to go.
In order to immediately dispel any confusion, while my chars are female, I am a dude. This is an undeniable fact and can be verified by my girlfriend, whom I shall call Minver (abbreviated as MV) for the sake of anonymity.
As this is merely a first post, I will leave it there, but look back, as things are likely to speed up in the Summer, at which point MV and I and a few friends will be running a D&D 4e game. Looks to be really fun!
for reasons of employability I shall be writing this under the pseudonym Reginald Peabody. You can call me Reggie, though. The explicit reason for this blog is to waste time talking about the various geeky pastimes with which I fill my life. Perhaps the longest running of these right now is my WoW character, Romana, a rogue. She resides on the Undermine server and is now lvl 80. I am currently trying to gear her up for he more involved Lich King Raids. I include a link to her armory.
Here she is!
My primary alt is a paladin, Modwenna, at only lvl 33, so she's got a long way to go.
In order to immediately dispel any confusion, while my chars are female, I am a dude. This is an undeniable fact and can be verified by my girlfriend, whom I shall call Minver (abbreviated as MV) for the sake of anonymity.
As this is merely a first post, I will leave it there, but look back, as things are likely to speed up in the Summer, at which point MV and I and a few friends will be running a D&D 4e game. Looks to be really fun!
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