January 2012

I explained to Maribou that, for a while there, many of us in the 90′s would randomly yell out “NEW YORK CITY?!” That led to discussions of in-jokes that me and my friends had, and that led to discussions and rememberings of what it was like to be young and in college or young and just out of college and the various dynamics that existed at the time… the biggest fer instance was the whole “how often do we see our friends?” thing. In college, friends would knock on the door and you’d listen to an album with them. You’d go to a friend’s room and read a book on their couch instead your couch because, hey, their couch catches the sunlight better.

I remembered the time that my contract at Global Conglomerate ended and said “let’s drive to the Grand Canyon!” and we did. I remembered the other time that my other contract at International Amalgamation ended and we said “let’s drive to Las Vegas!” and we did.

The whole dynamic of when I made less than 16 bucks an hour and she made just over minimum wage and how it felt like we always had money in our pockets and free time to do stuff like “drive to another time zone” (just because we felt like it) and had a life where we were spending time with friends… to now where we have to pretty much schedule everything (EVERYTHING) two weeks in advance, to where everything is budgeted, and to where it feels like we never see our friends… the ones we used to have come over and sit on our couch while we listened to albums and discussed the books we read… how we see them so rarely anymore.

Then, of course, the big question:

Would you go back to that?

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On Maribou’s recommendation, I finished A God Somewhere yesterday. While she was right that it did a decent job evoking catharsis, in the Greek sense, I put the comic down wondering “what in the heck was the author trying to say?”

It’s the story of the best friend of a guy who survives an explosion and, suddenly, discovers that he has Superman-esque powers. The superpowered guy travels through a period where he tries to save everyone, a period where he kills anyone who annoys him, and then a period of withdrawing entirely from civilization… and we see all this through the eyes of his best friend.

Yeah, I saw this as an interesting conceit myself. It’s the execution that left me scratching my head. Back to Fringe.

So… what are you reading and/or watching?

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Caught between games, I’m torn between starting Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Uncharted 3, or just fiddling about with Zen Pinball and/or Magic: The Gathering while I catch up on my Fringe watchin’.

So… what are you playing?

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The main part of this post is going to be behind a cut because of various people in the house who are on the last disk of Season One instead of finishing up the fourth disk of Season Two. I’d ask for any spoilers you place in comments to be after enough characters that they don’t show up in the sidebar… let’s say 100 characters, just to be safe. As for you, dear reader, this show is awesome and I’m going to be discussing spoilers with the exuberance of a person who just finished watching Pivotal Episodes. You’ll want to stay out of the comments if you haven’t at least watched all the way up to the “Peter” episode.

You have been warned…

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It’s been one of those weeks at work where you walk down to the lab at 11:15 to do a quick thing and then you look up and it’s 3PM and you haven’t eaten yet… and you promised that Excel Worksheet to that guy by COB. Ah, he’ll be fine. He just wants it by Wednesday. But still… I had high hopes.

Given Maribou’s week at work (direct quote: “AAAAAAAAAAAAA”), I’m thinking that Friday Night will be spent doing laundry and recuperating. Saturday, bless it, will be spent running errands and gaming? Is Saturday gaming night? I can never remember.

I *DO* know that Sunday is the Royal Rumble… and that Kane is going to beat John Cena.

So we can go back to next week being just as crazy. (The guy will certainly have his Excel Worksheet, though.)

So… what’s on your docket?

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(This guest post was written by our very own Dman!)

Now that I have explained where I stand on the editions of D&D, it is time to talk about what I would like to see from the new edition. I want it to move more back to 3.5, but, even with that said, the best book created for 3.5 was Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords. This book introduced encounter powers. There were three classes of martial warriors that each had maneuvers that they could use to enhance their combat abilities. I think this is where D&D 4E had their first idea of where to go with the new edition. Still, these classes had a problem of being  very front loaded. They gave a character a bunch of abilities at first level, so they were very tempting to jump into even if it was only for a level or two.

In 5E, each class would pick one list of powers that could be used, at most, once during a fight. The class would also have a cap on the number of time these powers could be used during the fight (example: the character has three powers and can use two of them in each encounter). As the character gains levels, they would gain access to more powers and more powerful powers to choose from. I would keep this like the 1^st – 9^th level spell progression of 3.5 D&D. There would be multiple lists to choose from for each class. The combat classes would have combat style power lists (maybe as simple as two-handed weapon style, two weapons style, etc or it could be more thematic like the dragon claw style). For the casting classes, it would be based off of domains for the cleric (example: Good, Evil, Luck, Destruction domains from 3.5 D&D today), the schools of magic for a wizard (Abjuration, Conjuration, Evocation, Enchantment, Necromancy, and Transmutation), and totems and natural forces for druids (Bear, Wolf, Weather, etc).

The goal I want to achieve by adding these encounter powers to all the classes is to balance out the power discrepancy between the casting classes and the combat classes. Under normal 3.5 D&D, low level casters are very weak since they only have a couple of spells and then they flail impotently with a staff until the group decides to rest. Then at high levels, the casting classes rule over the combat classes because their spells are very powerful and they have plenty of them to last a long time. So, the encounter powers will allow the low level casters to have some ability even when their daily spells are gone. Then build the higher level powers for the combat classes to help equal out the power of the spell that the casters can cast. This would be a delicate balance, but if the developers kept this goal in mind, I think they could come close.

The next thing to do is to make first level a worthwhile level under 3.5 rules. For this I would bring back the concept of the Favored Class. The Favored Class in 3.5 just allowed you to take as many levels of that class and not count it for when multi-classing  (if you had too big a difference in levels between your classes the character received negatives). But in 5E the Favored Class would do a bunch of things. First, the favored class would be each characters starting first level class. This would allow the character to pick an additional power list from those allowed for the class (they would now have two lists to choose from). Next it would allow the character to pick one first level encounter power to become an at-will power (this would be most helpful to the low level casting classes, but at higher levels that at-will power would be pretty weak as long as it does not scale very well. Finally, your favored class would grant the character 15-20 hit points (a fixed number for each class) plus the class’ hit die and Constitution bonus at first level. This should make first level a viable level for all classes. It also allows multi-classing without too much front loading of the classes since you can only have one favored class.

The last thing is what to do about healing. This one I do not have a good idea for. 4E’s healing surges feels way too much of the MMO world and auto healing everything with an extended rest seems silly. Pathfinder uses the channel ability, but in practice it becomes too powerful the larger your group is. I have played this with a group of nine other player characters and it is crazy how much damage this heals. Still, the healing needs to be better than what 3.5E did, so that the character can adventure longer without resting. I might discuss ideas in another posting if people are interested.

I would be curious of your ideas for 5E and how you would want to improve D&D. Hope to hear from you.

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I’ve come to the conclusion that the highest compliment I can give a game is not to show pictures of its amazing graphics or discuss its amazing storyline or talk about the various character ability trees it makes available… it’s to sit down and play the game from start to finish. (Well, not the *HIGHEST* compliment… the highest compliment is to start it over again after the credits roll… but, still, a pretty high compliment.)

There are a number of games that I absolutely adored but found myself stressed out playing them (LA Noire, specifically when you go to a house to report to a guy that his wife has been murdered and you step over a tricycle to get to the door… I had to put the controller down and it took me a couple of days to pick it back up) or frustrated at the forced stupidity “required” by the storyline (Deus Ex, specifically the creation of a truly stealthy character… WHO WALKS DOWN THE MIDDLE OF THE HALLWAY IN CUT SCENES??? BRAVO SIERRA, DUDES!!!).

If I can sit down and play a game and, yes, beat it then that says something about the game that all the technical accomplishments in the world won’t communicate.

All that to say: I beat Saint’s Row: The Third.

Now, I’m not particularly *PROUD* of having done so. The storyline is… well… to call it “over the top” wouldn’t do justice. We’re well within “crossing the line twice” territory. Some might say we’re in “tap dancing on top of the line” territory (we’re not… but some would say that). It’s a videogame sequel to a sequel to a game that carved out its own sandboxy Grand Theft Auto feel but, seriously, they’re not really the same kind of games at all.

Playing Grand Theft Auto IV, for example, I got the feeling that, underneath everything, the writers were trying to say something about War and what it does to the people who survive it.

Saints Row? Well, here’s a scene from the first 20 minutes. You’re parachuting and holding your comrade after jumping out of a cargo plane that you’ve just escaped. The plane then wheels around and it’s going to ram you. So you tell your comrade that you’re going to drop her, shoot out the windshield of the plane, run through it, find another parachute, jump out of the plane *AGAIN*, and then catch her again.

And then you proceed to do just that.

That’s one of the more or less safe for work things you do in the game. There are a *LOT* of things that happen that, erm, aren’t. Why worry about that, though? It’s too cool, too stupid, too awesome, too over the top. There’s no real moral to the story, no redeeming social value… it’s just a fun romp with fun missions driving fun vehicles and blowing up fun explosions. Don’t play it around the kids but, after they’ve gone to bed? You’ll find that it’s one heck of an effective way to wind down. More to the point? You may even find yourself playing to the end and seeing the credits roll.

So that’s my recommendation for you this week.

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Powerball tickets are no longer one dollar. They are now *TWO* dollars.

(Now, I enjoy a good daydream about winning the lottery as much as anybody, but I do not hold my daydreams in so high an esteem that I’m willing to double the price of having a good one.)

My prediction: The fact that the minimum jackpot will be $40 million will not be enough to overcome the price hike and we’ll see $1 powerball tickets again before October.

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