A collection of rambling posts about gaming, running, and politics. (and, in 2009, photography.)

Monday, June 30, 2008

Clever Critters, Napoleon, Player Powers and DM Knowledge. A Rambling Assault on the Senses.

So I had a conversation with one of my players related to our recent sessions of D&D4.

I'll try to be concise. It had to do with the DM altering the behavior of the bad guys in an encounter based on the information that the DM had about the players pending actions.

Example: Player A says, "Okay, I invoke this special power that lets me get double damage on any opportunity attack for the next round." DM says, "Ok cool." and proceeds to move the bad guys in such a way as to not invite opportunity attacks.

In that example, the DM takes the information from the player, and (probably) is influenced by that information. So it brings up a couple of thoughts/questions.

Should the players keep their conditions like this a secret from the DM? This has the mindset that the DM is the "Opponent", which, like Schroedinger's Cat, is both true and not true. My answer is no, I do not think that conditions should be secret from the DM. I trust the group that I play with, and I do not think that they would be dishonest, but the way that D&D is structured, the DM is the final arbiter of the rules and the actions in the game world. I think that on the pro side, having things like this a secret from the guy who is "playing" the monsters does increase the likelihood of true impartiality, it also, I believe, would create more rules discussions and difficulties - for instance, if a monster has a power that makes it immune to some certain form of attack.

Related point - The role of the DM, or at very least, MY role as DM, is not to foil the players and their characters. The DM's job is to craft the world around them and share it with them, to mediate and arbitrate the rules, and to "play the bad guys" in a way that makes for fun and interesting encounters. I'm not interested in doing "Gotcha" gaming, as I've mentioned previously. But part of my job is to run fun and interesting encounters. I ribbed Andrew the other day, when he complained about tough monsters, and I told him that I was changing the game style, and that their party would travel from village to village, participating in Bake-Offs, to see who could cook the most delicious cake.

D&D4, with its seriously grid based minis combat, is part chess. I have to wear two hats at once, seeing the pieces in front of me as markers on the field, and moving them in a way to give maximum advantage to my side. Not because my goal is to defeat the players - because it is not, but instead because I am interested in making it challenging, as opposed to simple or easy. On the other hand, I'm supposed to be "playing" the monsters, and not every cave slug has the battlefield prowess of Napoleon. Which is fine, but it makes for sometimes tough decisions for me. "How clever is a shadow bat?" Does it know to stay out of the fighters sword range while trying to get to the juicy guy behind him? My source and reference material is.. lacking.

D&D4 works a little differently than previous editions. This one is all about powers. So it raises the question in my mind of "How do these powers get represented in the game?" I don't want every power use to involve a 30 minute discussion about whether the fighter gives obvious signs that he is doing some super-smashing-power-thingy or not.

If the DM alters the behavior of the monsters in a way that negates a special ability or function that a character has, I'll give that it is in a way penalizing that player. Or at very least negating their Cool Thing.

So, having rambled and jumped around alot - its a tough call. I'm not certain which way to go with this, or how to do it in a way that is 100% fair to my players, and also 100% fair to the critters and the system.

Obviously, I'm thinking too much about it, and have managed to ramble now for two or three pages of text.. but I'm hoping that this will help me feel my way through it.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Wanted

We went and saw Wanted this evening.

Oh. Shit.


If there was a rating scale for how fucking awesome a movie was, and that scale was from 1 to 10, with 10 being the most awesome movie ever made, Wanted gets a 12 and a half.

If you saw Day Watch and Night Watch and liked them, go see Wanted (and if you've never heard of them, you should fix that). Hell - if you enjoyed The Matrix, you should probably go see Wanted.

I might go see it again this weekend.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Math and Phone Companies

I'm no math wiz. Still, this one was pretty easy for me.

In their defense, this appears to be a 100% technical problem. All of the people that I've spoken with have been super friendly and understanding.. and just as importantly, able to do math.



We sent in a check for $1,722.34.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

D&D Session 0.5: Flushed

We got together this evening for Character creation, and a little bit of dice rolling.


I made every effort to have everyone avoid committing to a particular character until we had a chance to come together and discuss. We did fine in that regard, but some of the players had their eye on a character. Maddie had been eyeballing a Tiefling Paladin for a bit, and Krissi was thinking alot about a Warlock. John was still somewhat undecided, but was leaning toward Warlord, Cleric or Warlock. Jeremy Y said that he was interested in creating a Wizard, as a break from much of his 3.x gaming with his fighter, Corrigan. Jason was somewhat ambivalent, and we were somewhat uncertain of what Jerry and Andrew would take, but I assumed that Andrew would gravitate toward Rogue or another striker, and Jerry was a real wildcard, but Cleric was a good bet for him.


So we got together and started the process. Everyone grabbed a character sheet and set to work. There was much flipping of pages, and asking out loud about various bits of the characters, then some decisions about powers.


We ended up with John playing a Half-Elf Warlord named Delvin. Maddie is a Tiefling Paladin named Sorrow. Krissi changed her mind about the Warlock and went with an Eladrin two weapon Ranger named Lybria. Jeremy created a Human Wizard named Illgiliant (pronounced Ill - Gil - Eeant). Jerry made a Human Cleric named Father Kreuz. Andrew went with a Tiefling Rogue named Nate. Jason made a Dragonborn Fighter named Dzur. Character creation seemed to go pretty well, and did take us a little while. It was a little staggered, but I would estimate that it took about an hour for each person.



There were some questions and so forth during this process. John wanted to play a character who was a shield fighter. Carrying a large shield, with another shield with spikes or blades that could be used as a weapon. There are no rules for this, but I didn't want to disallow it out of hand. We made up a feat for proficiency with a shield-weapon. I asked if, for balance sake, he was more interested in doing medium and up damage, and less interested in the Armor Class boost, or if he wanted the AC boost and to do less damage with the weapon. He wanted the AC, and so was happy to go with 1d6 for his weapon damage. Andrew wanted to use the old "tells" for Tielfings, interested in more variety than the horns and tail. I had looked around for the chart that I've got somewhere that gave lots of different Tiefling features, but could not find it. Since its flavor, I told him that sure, as long as it was readily apparent that his character was a Tiefling, then he could customize his Tieflingness.


Once finished with Character creation, we rolled straight into some gaming. I took a moment to explain some general information about the world. I explained that its a "points of light" world, in which the wilderness is vast and terribly dangerous, and that points of civilization are few and far between, isolated points of light in the dark world. In times long past, this land was part of a great empire, led by four great cities. These cities were places of incredible knowledge and learning. But something happened - most call it the Dying Fever, and the population of the cities was utterly destroyed, and the people fled into the surrounding lands. That was many lifetimes ago, and still people live in small groups of isolated communities, cut off from one another by vast expanses of inhospitable wilderness, home to monsters and goblin races that hunger for the flesh of the highborn races.


I'd planned to start the adventure in the midst of some action, so to speak, partly to avoid the whole false-step dance that typifies these kind of beginnings ("you are in a tavern with all of these other people. okay, now get along! go!"). The characters had each, individually, received commissions to hunt down an escaped murderer. Each on their own, they'd tracked Jalez One Eye, a halfling of vicious and wicked reputation, to an abandoned Dwarven mine just a few days from their community. They each made their way into the mine, avoided or dealt with the bandits/mercenaries within, and found their way to the central chamber of the mine, all suddenly blinking at each other across the room. Many entrances led into the large chamber, which was cluttered with disused and broken furniture and supplies. There were large statues of industrious dwarves, and the walls and floor were carefully carved and crafted. Also in the room, sitting in a chair, was a headless halfling. Jerry spoke first, saying that it seemed that they'd all come for the same reason. Everyone made their way into the chamber then, investigating the statues and chests and headless corpse. As they were trying to determine if there was a trail to indicate where the halflings head and its owner had gone, they heard the approach of a number of people. A group of human mercenaries burst into the room, yelling their rage at the characters. The group quickly moved to meet them in combat.


The fight went well, and although it felt as though it moved pretty swiftly along, we were at it for more than an hour, I think. We were all rusty with D&D, and all new to 4e, so there was a goodly bit of light rule discussion and interpretation. It went pretty well though. The defenders defended, the strikers struck, the leaders led, and the controller hit the bad guys with area spells. Everyone got to use cool abilities. Jason's character got caught in a bit of a punch, and took quite a beating, but was dishing it out as well. He was reduced to negative hit points, but his Second Wind immediately kicked in, and he was back up again. The cleric did lots of attacking and healing. The warlord helped others get additional attacks. The rogue kept a couple of targets locked up. The ranger darted in and out of the bad guys, dealing out damage. The paladin waded in and faced off with the biggest opponent that she could find. The wizard moved around on the field and threw damaging spells at the groups enemies.


I had a minor amount of difficulty keeping up with conditions and such, so I'll need to work on this. I have a plan though, involving tiny colored stickies. I rolled well for alot of the combat, so aside from the couple of minons in the fight, the bad guys dealt out some hefty damage, and seemed to take a little doing to put them down.


During the fight, someone tripped a mechanism which slammed the doors to the chamber shut, and began to fill the chamber rapidly with water. The fight went on, and they finished their opponents, and then set to solving the problem of the enclosed chamber full of water. The rogue was able to find and manipulate a mechanism, which opened a hatch in the floor, and basically flushed the room, and everything in it. They were pulled into a dark tunnel that flowed straight down, then curved and twisted, and just when they were certain to drown, spat them out in a pitch black underground cavern. The wizard gave them some light, and they could tell that the chamber was huge, and the water that swept into the cavern with them flowed into the darkness, and they could hear the sound of water falling over a precipice. We ended there for the night.


More observations, somewhat at random:

Mob roles - like them, they work well. They fought some diverse opponents. I had a mage-controller, a couple of skirmishers, a brute and a soldier. The soldier turned out the be the biggest threat, in a way. He hit hard, and knocked down people that he hit. By misfortune, the party ended up somewhat split in the combat, with Jason's fighter bearing the brunt of the soldier and a couple other bad guys. The miniions went down really quick - which is normal, but in this case, I thought they went down a little too quick, simply because they didn't really get to participate in the combat. But that's their role. The brute hit hard, and had alot of hit points, but was, in turn, fairly easy to hit. It was a good fight, I enjoyed it, and I think the players did too. Everyone was giving out and taking damage, and seemed to be very involved and invested in what was happening. The players seemed to, for the most part, quickly grasp how their powers worked, and how to effectively employ them.


After the game, I asked everyone to turn in their character sheets for me to keep. I think this was the one real glitch of the evening, but I'll gladly accept that. Everyone acted as though I'd asked them to cut off a finger. I'll make scans of the sheets, and give them back to everyone.


A few questions did come up, which I think we mostly answered but...


We discussed a few things like how to do Two Weapon fighting (my answer: unless you are a two weapon style ranger, TWF involves taking a feat and just doing extra damage. you do not get extra attacks). Whether multiclassing feat allowed you to take one of the classes dailies only from the explits section, or if you could take a class feature that was a power. Still not 100% solid on that one.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Product Placement.

Yes, I'm bitching again. Maybe I need to add "Cynical" or "Bitchfest" to my blog title.

Moving right along.

I hate product placement in visual media.

It would be more fair to say that I fucking hate being advertised to, but visual media- TV and movies - take the cake.

Yes, yes, I accept that advertising is a somewhat necessary evil, and that being exposed to it is a part of living in modern society and being connected to the internet and watching tv and movies. However. I fucking hate it. I do not "accept it". I accept that it is there, and I reserve the right to be completely fucking retarded about it. I. Do. Not. Want. Your. New. Phone. Or your car. Or your hamburger (okay, I do like hamburgers alot), or your what-fucking-ever.

I'm very annoyed at going to a movie, and sitting through 15 minutes of fucking cell phone commercials. Okay - fine - I'm not 15. But fuck you, I still do not want to sit through your cell phone commercials. I already paid you for a seat in your theater, please show me the movie.


Thank you.



Why are there 2000 coke cans and a bunch of pringles cans and... oh, look, a cell phone company. What movie is this again? For fuck's sake.


I'm highly annoyed by product placement. Yes, I know - they have to make money. Yes, I know - I fast forward through commercials, or even change the fucking channel, just so that I don't have to watch the fucking moronic adverts in them. None of this changes the fact that I don't want you to halt the action in your movie, and turn to your co-star, and say "Boy wow! This sure a fantastic Coca Cola! I love these things and am sure to have one every day! Hey, what time is it? Let me check on my casio brand watch! I'll give you a call later on my new blackberry curve cell phone!" *wink!" Fuck you greedy hollywood assholes, and my fellow consumers, who drive this fucking thing.



So yes, I'm unreasonably angry.










But I swear, I did like the Hulk movie.

D&D links

jerm's 4e resources

kobold victory chart
http://mearls.livejournal.com/145866.html

4e encounter generator
http://www.asmor.com/scripts/4eEncounterGen/

maptool
http://rptools.net/doku.php?id=maptool:intro

tokentool
http://rptools.net/doku.php?id=tokentool:intro

dicetool
http://rptools.net/doku.php?id=dicetool:intro

random dungeon generator
http://www.gozzys.com/article.php?cm_id=8

4e encounter generator
http://www.asmor.com/scripts/4eEncounterGen/

4e monster math cruncher
http://www.asmor.com/scripts/4eMonsterMathCruncher/

Monday, June 16, 2008

I recommend pants. Or at least, something to cover your ass.

Also funny from Bonnaroo.

Pearl Jam is scheduled to play at like 10PM. I think it was just starting to get dark.

As I mentioned previously, we were sitting far enough back that we could kindof stretchout and have a little 5x5 foot section of turf. There were tons of other people around us, but we weren't elbow to elbow.

So very shortly before Pearl Jam starts playing, as more people are filing in, a pair of folks stop just in front of us and stake out some turf. No big deal. Except that she'd been poorly advised with regard to her wardrobe.

How can I put this..... When you're an attractive young woman, it may seem like a fine idea to don that cute devil horns hairpiece, and wear some kickin' red lingere.... and something that I heard called "sport shorts". She... just didn't have any pants on. I was stunned, and I'm sure that John, who was sitting, and hence had a particularly full view of the moon, was equally surprised. Krissi and Maddie had not yet noticed, and I tried to signal them to the event, without yelling "HEY, THAT GIRL FIVE FEET AWAY FROM US DOES NOT HAVE ANY PANTS ON". They were, I think, equally surprised. We wavered back and forth between shock and amusement. I'm not sure if it was the rapidly falling temperature, or our snickering, or both, but she soon sat down on a blanket, and then stayed covered up for most of the Pearl Jam show.

So, my advice is this: wear pants. Or at very least, something that covers up your ass. Or not, that's okay with me too, I suppose, but at least try to take the weather into account. I imagine that no one relishes standing around pantsless in a chilly wind with a steady cold rainy drizzle.

Bonnaroo and back

So the Williams clan packed up our stuff and headed to Bonnaroo last week.

The four of us left Wednesday evening and drove to Nashville. We stayed in a pretty swank hotel there, and got up relatively early on Thursday to finish the drive.

We were coming from the west, and when we got to the exit for the town where Bonnaroo is held, we noticed that the exit was closed from our direction, but that traffic coming from the east was *really stacked up*. Like.. there was a line about 7 or 8 miles long. I was fearful. We turned on the local Bonnaroo radio station, and they were giving directions to get off on exit 127 or something, which we'd not reached yet. So we drove on, looking across at the seemingly endless line of vehicles, afraid that the plan was to have us join this long line of cars (cue the cake song). We got to the exit, which was backed up just a hundred yards or so, and were able to see that they were not just having us turn around to join the long line - YAY! We were in a line of our own, but it was not on the shoulder of the freeway, and it moved along pretty reasonably. Still, we were in line for two or three hours. It was fine though. Despite being hot, we rolled the windows down, and there was a nice enough breeze to cool things down a bit. So the weather was nice, and we were on little semi-rural streets, so we enjoyed the scenery as well. Finally we got to the checkpoints, where they were searching vehicles for contraband - mostly glass, drugs and weapons, I guess. We made it through fine, having none of these things, but were slightly amused by watching them pull out and throw away stuff from other vehicles. I was a little surprised that the checks were not more thorough. They were a little bit random. One or two guys would eyeball the inside of your car, open up one or two pieces of luggage, and that was about it. While it was more than "cursory", it certainly could have been more thorough. But I think that there are two things at play here: they want to get people in, like, sometime today. And they're not super serious about the drug thing. I mean, its a hippie drug and music party. Anyway, we got past that and made it to the tents area. They were packing people in pretty tight. We'd wanted to score some tent-only camping, which meant parking somewhere and walking elsewhere to do camping, but we weren't sure how quickly it filled up. We got our hands on a map and saw that the tent-only area was super tiny, and figured that it'd be full, and we'd have wasted our time. So we didn't try. Where we parked, as I said, they were packing us in tight. They'd park cars in rows, two cars long. So in front of our bumper was a clear space for about 25 or so feet, then the back bumper of another car. Another car was immediately behind us, and behind them, more open space. And on each side, cars and more cars. So we pitched our two tents, one for sleeping and one for hanging out, right in front of our car. We had neighbors on three sides of us, and our car one one side. We got our tents up, and soon headed off to Centeroo, which is where all of the events and most of the food and stuff is.
We saw Grand Ole Party, which was fun, and totally channeled the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. We ate, and hung out and saw Grupo Fantasma. We were pretty spent by midnight, from the driving and waiting and walking and sun and heat and so forth, so were were back at our tent before 1, and crashed. Some of us slept well, for others, the music from Centeroo kept them from getting a really good night sleep.
We were up on Friday around 8. I went off in search of sustenance, and found it easily. By 9 or so, we were all up and starting to move. We hung out, waited on bathrooms, drank water and goofed off until very early afternoon, and headed for Centeroo again. We got to see M.I.A., which was totally freaking awesome. I love MIA, and it was fantastic to see her in concert. There was a ridiculous crowd. We'd picked some floor space about halfway back from the stage, under the huge tent. I figured this would be a descent spot, keeping us out of the super tight part of the crowd, but still close enough. I was kinda wrong, and this is why I'm not a big fan of concerts I think. Or maybe I'm just old, either way - it was constantly annoying, being jostled, and pushed by, and stood right in front of, and so on. I guess I'm just not 22 anymore. I know its a concert, and with tons of people, but really, folks, when the crowd in front of you is a tightly packed sea of humanity, and have to shove past me to get in front, where are you really going? And "to stand right fucking in front of you" is not a sufficient answer. Anyway, despite that annoyance, the show was great. I love MIA's music, and she rocked. She interacted with the crowd, at one point getting "all the girls" on the stage - enough so anyway that she filled the stage, and then soon after, sending them off and getting "all the boys" on the stage, to play Boyz. It was a fantastic show. We split up a little, catching some of The Raconteurs, !!! (pronounced chk-chk-chk), The Swell Season, and then getting back together. We went and saw Metallica, and it was great. I love Metallica, and enjoyed seeing them. They played a ton of old stuff. It was a little weird having them, and some of the heavy bands at Bonnaroo, since they're metal, and bonnaroo is kinda folksy and hippy. It started drizzling a little before dark that evening, and so we sat in the semi-rain for Metallica. Again, we bundled in and were trying to get to sleep before 1. Shortly after 1, the sky opened up and the rain setting was on "FULL!". Sadly, we'd taken a shortcut when setting up our tent, so instead of shedding water completely, we were getting some pretty serious drips and water in the tent. It wasn't flooding in the tent, but it sure wasn't sleeping conditions either. Maddie and John gave it up and broke for the car. Krissi and I stayed in the tent and made do. It slacked off after awhile, but it was a really good storm. Saturday, Krissi and I got up and moving a little before 8, I think. We got our breakfast on, and soon the other Williams' were up as well. Again, we goofed around a bit before heading to Centeroo around noon. On Saturday we saw Gogol Bordello which was fucking awesome. I love me some Gypsy Punk Rock. It was a seriously awesome show. They have an amazing stage presence and show. The crowd was super into it, and it was all kinds of awesome. We also saw Pearl Jam, which I have mixed feelings about. I love Pearl Jam.... I love Pearl Jam's music. And I certainly identify with Vedder's political stance, and environmentalism and all of that. Pearl Jam played a great set, doing lots of stuff from the old albums that everyone could sing along with. But Eddie kept taking time between songs to mumble about Bush and gas prices and Iraq War veterans. Eddie is just not a good speaker. He writes and sings amazing songs, but his little mumbly political rants were annoying at best. He also encouraged the crowd to take action and change the world. I wonder if he was aware that he was talking to 60,000+ hippies, who's biggest concern right then was whether or not there would be enough pot to last them until the end of the festival.
Again, we crashed "early", shortly after 1. It got pretty cold overnight, and eventually M&J headed to the car, while Krissi and I stuck it out with our sleeping bag.
Sunday we got up, and started packing. There weren't any bands that we were super keen on seeing on sunday, and we all wanted to get back. You take showers and amenities for granted, until you don't get them for a few days at a time. So we headed back to M-town, and made it here before 3pm. Caught the new Hulk movie, started working on the 700+ items on my feed reader, and called it a night.

We also caught a good number of comedy shows, which were great. We saw, in order I cannot recall: Janeane Garofalo, Brian Posehn, Jim Norton, Mike Birbiglia, Louis C.K., and one or two others that I cannot recall. They were all very very funny. Janeane was a little disappointing, simply because.. well, she really didn't do a standup show. She rambled a little about racism and politics, and then kindof ran around the audience area a few times, and then was done. I mean, she was still sorta funny, but it wasn't really a comedy show. With that said, I still love Janeane and would gladly have her babies.

The food was plentiful, kinda pricey, and very delicious. On Thursday when we walked into Centeroo, we immediately grabbed Gyros, which was THE BOMB. (Kwik Check on Madison's are better, but these were super good). We also had pizza, burgers, brauts, hot dogs, corn dogs, and a number of other delicious goodies. The crowd and the staff were mostly easy going, friendly, and good natured. There was SO MUCH POT.

Funny stuff: On Saturday, we rolled up to the main stage area as Jack Johnston was wrapping up, and before Pearl Jam was gonna play. For both Pearl Jam and Metallica, we made do with "way in the back". We could see the stage, and hear everything well, but we didn't want to have to fight for breathing room. So we sat down on our little tarp-blanket, and Krissi pulled out the little glowsticks and stuff that she'd brought, since it was getting dark. She and Maddie made headbands and wristbands and such out of them, and were having a grand time, when the solicitations started. Some girl came over and knelt down beside them, and smiled real wide at them and asked "So what are you guys doing this evening? Are you partying?" It was immediately apparent to me what was happening, but - bless their innocent hearts, Krissi and Maddie were totally clueless. And then terribly embarrassed, after the girl made a few seconds of awkward conversation, and then wandered away. By the third solicitation, Krissi was thoroughly disheartened that people were coming up to her and asking her how much ectasy she was trying to sell. But it was still mighty hilarious.

We all had a great time. I am doubtful that we'll even consider going next year, but that it not because we did not enjoy ourselves.

Also, since I mentioned that we saw the Hulk, I'm compelled to give my two cents. And they are:
I liked it. I have some gripes, but I thought it was fun.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Awesome.

I want one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Roadrunner

Monday, June 9, 2008

Lately: D&D

So lately I've been a little off of the blogging tip.

Lots of stuff going on though.

For one, D&D 4 is now actually out and on the shelves.

I've got myself and seven folks lined up to play. Due to scheduling problems, we're waiting until the 21st to get together to create characters. Wish we could do so sooner, but them's the breaks.

The people that do have their hands on the books are excited. Jason has yet to get his, and has been occupied with other stuff. John and Maddie have been flipping through the Player Handbook some, and Maddie has preemptively started outlining a Tiefling Paladin, though she has one or two backup strategies as well. John is still waiting to see how the cards fall - I think that he has a few ideas about things that he's interested in playing, but is waiting to see what kind of stuff everyone else is putting together. Jason claims to be ambivalent, and Krissi is pretty dead set on a warlock. We assumed that Jeremy Y. would stat up his old 3.0/3.5 mainstay, Corrigan, a fighter, but he's talking about trying out the controller role. Our guesses for Jerry and Andrews characters are pretty up in the air, though I'm betting Andrew will go the Striker route - probably two weapon ranger or rogue, and Jerry will go Leader, or perhaps Defender.

The roles are sortof important in this incarnation of D&D. You've got Controllers, Leaders, Strikers and Defenders. If you create a party that skips on one of the roles, you can still function, but you're going to be missing out on something.

I'm a little torn on dealing with death in the game. In recent times, I've been loathe to let characters die, because it screws up my stories, and punishes the player, and generally brings the fun to a halt. I'm going with a new tactic though, for this D&D game. The dice are going to have to be the boss. I've setup that expectation with my players, so I will rely on them to play accordingly. The difficulty that this still presents though, is that if we do have one or two characters die, it can throw off the role balance of the party. Its been my experience that when a character buys the farm, the player either creates a carbon copy of their recently deceased character, or creates something radically different. If we loose a character, and they create something radically different, it could leave us with a role that is not filled.

I'm working on setting up some framework for a homebrew world. Not for the reasons that I used to do so - which were to immerse my players in a world steeped in history and politics and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzsnorezzzzzzzzzzz. I'm doing a homebrew to make my job easier. I don't have to feel compelled to stay on top of all of the details of someone elses world. So I'll be plagiarizing rampantly, and coming up with stuff that seems cool or fun. Its kindof taxing, and alot of work though. While I'm not trying to be an anthropologist about it, I'm trying to do better than having a big white sheet of paper with the town of "Here" in the middle with the river "Amozan" nearby, and a forest marked "Elves", and some mountains marked "Dwarves", and some orcs scattered about in the white places. Anyway.

I'm interested in coaxing my players to keep up with the game, through notes, after-action-reports, and maybe even some actual play stuff. I'll try to keep up with the actual play myself.

So yeah, I'm kinda geared up about getting the game going :)

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Politics

Huzzah Obama!

I'm very pleased that he has clinched the Democratic nomination. I find him to be a captivating candidate, and believe that he will be an amazing leader for this country. I'm MIGHTY disappointed to see that some Clinton backers are so mad, that they're declaring for McCain. I feel that, were the situation reversed, and Clinton had clinched the nomination, that I'd be disappointed, but certainly would throw the baby out with the bath water. C'mon people, get a grip.

On the other hand, if Obama fails to win in November, I can live. I am against many things that McCain stands for, but I think that he is capable of being a good leader of the country, as opposed to the asshats that have been running things for the last 8 years.

I'm afire with speculation now about the VP nom for Obama. The big question of course is to Clinton or not to Clinton. While I think that she has a fairly strong case to make for being the VP nominee, I think that he'll choose someone else. I think that he'll choose someone else and that Clinton will still stump for him, because, as I heard on NPR, she wants to get the Democratic nomination in 2012 if Obama fails to beat McCain, and unless she toes the lines, she won't be able to. I wish we could see Obama/Edwards, but Edwards has already shot that down :(

Anyway, that's it. Congrats, Obama. I look forward to voting for you in November! Good luck, man. It may be a tough fight.