You'd Really Have To Hear It

Have you heard of The New Dominions?

They're an a cappella group. They sing rock songs. By which I mean, they sing the lyrics. And the percussion. And the other instrumentation. And the wacky tech bits.

They sing "Drive My Car" on their latest album, Almost Awesome. "Drive My Car" has a guitar solo.

It is possible to sing a guitar solo.

I don't mean that it's possible to produce the same notes as a guitar solo. I mean that it's possible to produce roughly the expected sound of a guitar solo with your voice. Or with someone's voice.

Maybe this is a normal thing. Maybe to everyone else, this is just another day in the world of music. But to me, this is new. And it rocks my world.

Strangely Attractive

This is the geekiest, and the most frightening, thing I've seen all week. Batman. LEGO. LEGO Batman. Naturally, Nightwing has truly strange hair.



There are plans for a video game.

My Newest Fiction Adventure

Othar Tryggvassen has a Twitter. It's a mostly day-by-day account of his adventures as a professional hero. Full of lines like "Have noticed that Spooky is staring at me. Follows my every move. Unnerving. Ate some cheese."

I love stuff like this. Square Zero has something similar--the characters post in the comments section. Which is weird, especially if you've read Schism, the webcomic it's based on. (And which I wish would update. Hasn't in ages, but when it was updating I liked it a lot.) They'll often have these odd, extended arguments with people. I don't know if the author already knows these people, or if they're just random, but either way, it's cool.

Having characters interact directly with the fans of a production is cool. It's the sort of thing that works especially well with webcomics, and other web-based media. The reader space is less formal, and it's easier to get from a webcomic to whatever forum or blog you're using. Not a bad marketing technique, really. Especially when done on a social type site, like the Othar thing is.

But what would be really cool is if the character interaction system was the whole point. Say you had a blog, or a series of blogs, and they interacted with each other and with the audience. There could be some kind of plot, and it could even be set in some world other than mainline Earth, but you'd also have the audience interacting with the characters in more or less the same format that the characters interacted with each other. Be a bit like roleplaying.

I need to get on this.

Sound Effect

The flies are back. They'd gone away for a bit, but that was just a temporary gambit.

Now they're definitely dying. When I kill them, they go "crunch."

Links Ahoy!

Now here's an interesting website: 9 Degrees of Bloggeration. Scott Duster blogs about the blogs he finds as he chains through the links, Kevin Bacon style. So far, there's a lot of Spain.

In the spirit of the thing, I found this blog through Today's Rock Stars, which tracks the profligate use of rock star metaphors to describe people decidedly non-rock star. Which I found through a link from the proprietor's other blog, the Silent Penultimate Panel Watch, which tracks the overuse of the silent penultimate panel in newspaper cartoons. Which I found through Narbonic. Actually, the director's cut, but you don't want to go there if you haven't read the original strip.

Trust me. You want to start with the first strip and just keep on going. There be plots ahead!

Fly Update

It appears they arrive only at night. And I never find corpses, so my original presumption that they were dying may have been a tad hasty. Perhaps they are merely stupid, and incapable of flying properly.

They Multiply

My room is being invaded by dying flies.

I have no explanation for this.

Jam!

Happy now.

Because strawberry jam that makes the sea steam is far from the wackiest thing Scary Go Round has ever pulled. So awesome.

Also: only good can come of cream. This I have learned.

Damn, This Is a Good Website

Girls Read Comics (And They're Pissed)

Geekery and feminism, all in one blog.

We need more of this.

Nethack Quiz

 |[..+#
 |.c.| 
#+...| 

If I were a NetHack monster, I would be a cockatrice. People tend to go out of their way to avoid me; those that don't have to treat me very carefully indeed.

Which NetHack Monster Are You?

For the Love of Lex Luthor

I've picked up a new catch phrase.

FOOLS! I HAVE NO USE FOR YOUR PITIFUL CURRENCY! I WISH ONLY TO ATTRACT THE ATTENTION OF . . .

SUPERMAN!


I just replace "currency" with whatever I'm talking about at the time, and hey! Instant comeback! So far "education" is my favorite.

I got it off this excellent website. I am all about the mad science.

I sang to a llama because that’s how I roll

Got this awesome blog meme from Jeff's Gameblog. It's just crazy enough to work!

Fwd: I smelled a noodle because I'm sexy and I do what I want.
Fwd: I yelled at my science teacher because I'm sexy and I do what I want.
Subject: I ran over a stuffed animal because Big Bird said to and he's my leader

Work the 3 tables below, then: type out the sentence you end up with in the subject line of a blog post and copy this text. Also, link back to the blog you read it on. DON'T LEAVE ME HANGING ALONE!

Pick the month you were born:
January-------I kicked
February-----I loved
March--------I karate chopped
April----------I licked
May---------- I jumped on
June---------- I smelled
July-----------I did the Macarena With
August-------I had lunch with
September---I danced with
October------I sang to
November----I yelled at
December----I ran over

Pick the day (number) you were born on:

1-------a birdbath
2-------a monster
3-------a phone
4-------a fork
5-------a snowman
6-------a gangster
7-------my cell phone
8-------my dog
9-------my best friends' boyfriend
10-------my neighbor
11---- ---my science teacher
12-------a banana
13-------a fireman
14-------a stuffe d animal
15-------a goat
16-------a pickle
17-------your mom
18---- ---a spoon
19------- a smurf
20-------a baseball bat
21-------a ninja
22-------Chuck Norris
23-------a noodle
24-------a squirrel
25-------a football player
26-------my sister
27-------my brother
28-------an ipod
29-------a surfer
30-------a llama
31-------A homeless guy

Pick the color of shirt you are wearing:
White---------because I'm cool like that
Black---------because that's how I roll.
Pink----------because I'm NOT crazy.
Red-----------because the voices told me to
Blue----------because I'm sexy and I do what I want.
Green---------because I think I need some serious help.
Purple--------because I'm AWESOME!
Gray----------because Big Bird said to and he's my leader.
Yellow--------because someone offered me 1 ,000,000 dollars
Orange --------because my family thinks I'm stupid anyway.
Brown ---------because I can.
Other---------because I'm a Ninja !
None----------because I can't control myself.

Now type out the sentence you made and put in your subject line and copy the text of this post.

Don't forget to link back to the person that tagged you!

Poor Kitten

I killed my kitten today. I was trying to throw it a treat, but accidentally threw a longsword.

Now God is angry at me.

WoAdWriMo: Best Name Ever

This is a bit late, but-- Worldwide Adventure Writing Month! It's awesome! Tell your friends!

I haven't quite decided that I'm going to do it, on account of having a lot of stuff that is to be happening this month. But, most of it is in the first half, and then I'll have a lot of (hypothetical) free time.

I've done National Novel Writing Month, so part of me says I should do it just on that account. So I can say I've done both, and because it can't be any harder. I hope.

I'm thinking that my somewhat misreading of Keep on the Borderlands might not be a bad place to start. Also, something desert themed. Probably do D&D, or maybe possibly d20 Modern/Future, because I have a decent idea of what works in those systems.

Not that I have any idea how to write an adventure. I've never actually run a published adventure, if you don't count three hours worth of Nightfang Spire which I subsequently abandoned because it was weird and incomprehensible and really not what anyone in the group was looking for. I've run a couple of decent campaigns, but I've never run anything remotely approximating an adventure, because it's unusual for me to work in such episodic terms.

Which is, oddly enough, why I think I should do this WoAdWriMo thing. Because I've never done anything much like it, and I don't think I'd be likely to for any reason other than a defined event like this.

An Improvement

Someone should dub The Matrix with dialog that consists exclusively of internet memes.

"HA! HA! I'm using teh internets!"
"Hax!"
"I'm in ur base, killing ur doods"

It's like they were made for each other.

Works Every Time

There is no situation that cannot be improved with the words, "GIANT SNAKE!"

That's it.

Quotes II

"If I was in a gang, I'd totally run away from Wishbone, because I'd be all like 'Oh shit! It's Wishbone!'" -- David

"They sell themselves for money on the street. To inanimate objects." -- David

"I knew that someday Flava Flav would influence trends in European high-fashion." -- Dr. Thorpe

"You have failed to protect the Queen. Turn in your big tall hat immediately and report to the runway." -- Dr. Thorpe

"Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad with power." -- Charles Beard

“Wake up! We need to leave before the black market closes.” – Captain Blank

"No one ever shanked Jesus." -- Qwerty

"Anything genocide-related, I want to save as a last resort." Secretary of Defense Robert Stark

"I got a crush for the freaky one, and nothing feels better than Machinegun GoGo." -- Panzer AG

"Things are more like they are now than they have ever been before." -- Dwight Eisenhower

"A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week." -- General George S. Patton

"Cheerios are full of mystery!" -- Kevin Read (?)

"I think it's a helpful thing for the development of the character of a young person to be different from their peers. It's a blessing to be different and stand up for that." -- Mitt Romney

"Oddysey, Marill breeding is not a valid hobby." -- Rae

"Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher." -- Flannery O'Connor

"There's no excuse to be bored. Sad, yes. Angry, yes. Depressed, yes. Crazy, yes. But there is no excuse for boredom, ever." -- Viggo Mortensen

"I realize I am generalizing here, but, as is often the case when I generalize, I don't care." -- Dave Barry

"It's kind of like porn, Keith. It's Star Trek." -- Margaret S.

"Saving world. Please don't turn off your computer." -- Fable

"It's like trip spec'ing, except with the Force." -- Rae

"If you are of the opinion that the contemplation of suicide is sufficient evidence of a poetic nature, do not forget that actions speak louder than words."
-- Fran Lebowitz

"What was his name? Banjo or something? Played the drums for the Beatles." -- Qwerty

"It is my opinion that if you put a hat on a bear, you deserve whatever comes next." -- Gabe

"You know, there's a fine line between excessive sarcasm and permanent bitterness." -- Phillip

"This is America, which makes you the Prince of absolutely fucking nobody." -- Paul

"Oh, sure. We're safe from Lite Brites. But what'll happen when the Lego people of Connectitron-5 attack?" -- Mike Dowden

"Think of alignment as crusty ol' grandpa in his rocker. Old, wants to help you, and not always very lucid." -- Rick_TWA

"If I had a reason for everything I did, I'd be crazy." -- Fighter

"That quiet chomping noise you're hearing is the noise that my backbrain makes while it's eating my forebrain." -- Darren MacLennan

Hooray for Robots!

Get Your Cyborg Name

Catching Up, With Weirdness

Wow. This just kinda dropped off the radar. Things have been happening, I guess, but still. The bastards are gaining on us!

I sort of have an excuse, in that I lost net access over the weekend. (Sort of.) But that still only covers that one weekend, couple of days.

Weird weekend, though. Got me thinking that I might be a net addict. I lose access to it for one weekend, and I get all weird. Interesting weird--I wouldn't quite say "fun," or "enjoyable," but I'd definitely want to repeat the experience--but weird. Vivid dreams in the format of Order of the Stick weird.

Not about OotS. No. Dreams presented in the format of the comic, that specific comic, the art style, the layout.

Same thing--or something similar--used to happen to me back when I watched TV. Only dreamed on the weekends, when I hadn't watched the usual show that day.

Anyway. Spent Monday morning freaking out about it. That was fun. I like having dreams that stick with me like that. I enjoy that half zoned-out kind of feeling. Same thing happened after I played Oblivion.

I don't know if I'm unusual in this. It doesn't happen too often (maybe once in six months, at most) but when it does, for at least a couple of days I'll be zoning out, talking to myself, and writing. I don't notice this behavior in other people, but I don't notice a lot of things.

My Latest 15-Minute Obsession

Argh. I want to play Promethean. Badly.

Because you know what I see when I look at this game?

Robot angst.

Probably because I'm a mutant.

I'm serious, though. I'm not one of those squares who thinks that "robot" has to mean bits and gears and dials. This game taps my inexplicable fascination with all things created, and alienated. Robots, golems, Frankenstein, heck, even the Hulk. No idea how solid the execution is, but the concept is brilliant.

Trouble is, it's a World of Darkness game. Which means that it'd be hard to find someone to run it, and other people to play it. And I'd have to buy at least one book, maybe two. I know Rae has the basic World of Darkness book, but I don't know that she'd be into running a game this summer.

If it doesn't happen this summer, I'm going to either have to wait until next year (by which time I will have lost interest) or try putting together a game with a bunch of strangers. Which I am not sure is such a good plan. Because, at the very least, the particular nature of this game's GM responsibilities means I would be very wary about playing with a GM I don't know. And I'm not terribly interested in running this game myself. This concept engages me on a character level, not a story or environmental level. (Unlike D&D, and standard fantasy in general.)

Also, I worry about World of Darkness people being freaks. For some reason.

The other big problem is the book itself. I've only read a little bit of it, but what I have read falls in an uncomfortable place between "Damn! That's awesome!" and "Get to the point already!" Maybe this is the D&D player in me talking, but I don't care how six different groups interpret the whatsit's creation myth. I want to know what the whatsit does.

Not that it doesn't make for un-entertaining reading. (Especially the bits about ectoplasm coming from the pineal gland. That's totally how science works.) But from a "how do I use this in a game?" perspective, it's frustrating.

Then there's the game fiction. Oh, the game fiction.

I figure I can get past that, though. What I know of the basic system looks pretty neat, and the additions that Promethean bolts onto it don't look too onerous. Especially when compared to Exalted, which is the most similar system I have any actual experience. Exalted is cool and all, but talk about option overload. Yowch.

If someone to run it. And people to play it. Who aren't scary.

In all likelihood, this will turn into one of those things I get really obsessed with for a week, and then forget about. Forever!

At least I've gotten some decent ideas out of it.

Call of the Weird

I want to run a game where the dungeons are really weird. Nonsensical, illogical, and happy to be that way.

I got the idea from Jeff Rients. I want to run a game where all the dungeons are like that.

Most of the dungeons I've made have made a certain amount of sense. I knew who the designers were, and a lot of the structure sprang from that. I knew why all the monsters were there. True, for one dungeon, that reason was "a wizard did it," but I knew enough about the NPC in question for it to make a certain amount of sense, at least to me.

Still. All the other dungeons I've made have been pretty straightforward. I'd like to run a game where they were, for the most part, intentionally irrational.

In A Nutshell

Pro: People call you "Piemaster."
Con: Diablo 2 has a better plot.

Evil, The Thought Goes

You know what could be fun? Running an evil campaign.

There are mechanical advantages. I've got the Book of Exalted Deeds, and I'd like a chance to try it out. There are a whole slew of monsters in the core manual that would be fun to use. Or, rather, use in a different way; I've brought, say, celestials into a game before, but always as allies or characters to be negotiated with. It'd be interesting to use them as antagonists, and, conversely, it'd be fun to use some of those evil monsters as allies.

And then, of course, there's always the Book of Vile Darkness. I have an unaccountable fondness for that book.

It'd also be a chance to run "the good guys." Not that I don't already do that--my campaigns tend to be fairly ally heavy, and I have yet to decide whether that's a bad thing--but in this case I'd be running the actual "heroes," rather than people who are intended to make the heroes look awesome-er.

On the other hand . . . I don't really mind playing bad guys on the DM side (hate it on the player side, but that's a story for another day) and the advantage to that is that, in the end, the bad guys lose. If I've done my job right, and the players have done theirs right. If the players are the bad guys, then either we're going to have to sit down for some serious discussion of assumptions, or the bad guys are going to win.

Keep on the Borderlands

When I first heard of the adventure, "Keep on the Borderlands," I thought the "keep" part was a verb. The players had to keep on the borderlands, whatever the "borderlands" were.

This impression was compounded by what little I knew of the composition of the adventure, that it was easy to retreat. It seemed reasonable that there would be stuff, towns and such, on or near the "borderlands." Or something along those lines.

Now I know better. I know that the "Keep" part is a noun, that it refers to the location of the adventure rather than what the players have to do. I know that the big reason it's important is that, rather than being a huge mega-dungeon, it consisted of several smaller, shallower dungeons. Allowed the players to work at more their own pace. Or so I've been told.

I still think my idea would be an interesting adventure, though.

Fable

Finally played some Fable, after months of meaning to. It's an interesting game.

Even if Dvorak does cause it to crash. Apparently, it can't handle non-standard keyboard layouts, and it causes crashes in very specific parts of the game. Crashes that involve the character aging prematurely, at random times. It was weird, and very irritating.

The tutorial was not so much fun, either, but that was probably because I had to do it about eight times. Compared to Lionheads other efforts in this area (Black and White 2! The horror!) it was positively divine.

But enough griping. There are lots of aspects of the game that are engaging, interesting, and fun. Like having the townspeople refer to your character as "Piemaster." No other game provides this experience!

One thing that stands out about the game is its strange tendency to wander into the whimsical. One minute, you're getting a Beauty and the Beast-style story time, the next minute you're hearing a guard--who's wearing a baseball cap--tell you about how he only got a "C+ in hostage rescue."

Wonderful World of Work

They have jobs like this. This is a legitimate source of employment. It's an entire field, even.

I had no idea.

(Quoted because that link will probably change at some point.)

Creative Designer – Digital Games
Requisition ID 1999
Full/Part Time Full Time
Location Renton, WA
Description Suits Optional ...
...Brains Required!!

Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. and the world's largest publisher of adventure games, including Magic: The Gathering® Trading Card Game and Dungeons & Dragons® Roleplaying Games, has an exciting opportunity for a Creative Designer to join our team.

Why us? Because we offer competitive salaries, a great benefits package, and the excitement of working in a creative organization. But the best part of working here is that most of us think selling games that bring hours of enjoyment to millions around the globe is an inherently cool way to earn a living.

PURPOSE
The Creative Designer in the Digital Games group is responsible for the development of concepts, names, and flavor text for Digital games under development.

In this position you would be responsible for sourcing and coordinating a team of internal and external writers to produce creative text for cards, packaging, inserts, and assorted other purposes. In addition, the Creative Designer contributes to world-building and Intellectual Property (IP) development for Digital games.

Key Relationships
-Project Team: Producer, Art Director, Lead Developer, Lead Designer, Concept Illustrator
-External contacts may include illustrators, writers, and vendors.
-Interactions focus on information exchange, receiving and providing direction, or receiving and providing training.

Duties and Responsibilities

Creative Direction:
-Ensure continuity and quality of names and flavor text
-Meet all quantitative and qualitative goals and strategies defined by the R&D.
-Coordinate a team of writers and possibly other creative staff providing hands-on direction.
- Monitor design and output ensuring all text is editorially appropriate for the product line.
-Help connect textual materials with art assets
-Assure excellent quality, consistency and timely completion of all projects.

Administration:
-Ensure that timely and effective communications are affected among the various parts of R&D (Design, Development, Creative, etc.) to enable successful development.
-Establishes consistent scheduling and resource use in coordination with the Lead Developer.
-Work directly with writers and designers to execute world building on a scheduled basis.
-Manage external contractor, either teams or independents.

Process and Standards:
-Work with the R&D leadership to define non-existent or dated processes and set goals and participate in action to establish, eliminate or improve these processes for the benefit of all stakeholders.
-Meet or exceed all department and corporate standards for business, including work hours, professional conduct, mutual respect, and teamwork.

Knowledge, experience and Skills

Required:
-Minimum 2 years experience as a writer or artist or manager of creative talent
-Demonstrated ability to write high quality, concise creative text and explanations
-Working knowledge of game mechanics, ‘races’, characters, environments, and their trends and implications.
-Ability to develop, coordinate, and maintain the overall style of intellectual property
-Must foster a highly creative environment, and manage (self and others) effectively in a fast paced environment.
-Strong oral and written communication skills, with the flair to “sell” creative ideas
-Strong creative intuition and ability to recognize and develop outstanding creative/written work produced by others
-Consistently have authored creative materials through an understanding of the target customer, consumer patterns, usage patterns, popular and economic trends.
-Enthusiastic and knowledgeable about other fantasy entertainment properties.
-Strong initiative, stays current on emerging products as well as industry trends.
-Ability to lead and participate in brainstorming sessions to develop unique concepts.
-Strong interpersonal and team building skills, must be an organizer and a motivator.
-Ability to see the big picture and ensure that all the small details support it.


Strongly Preferred:
-BA or BS —Creative Writing, Technical Writing or other creative field preferred.
-Previous work in creative writing is strongly desired.
-Ability to produce quality sketches and paintings is a nice bonus.
-Ability to write fictional prose in multiple genres (fantasy, science fiction, etc.) is strongly desired.

It All Makes Sense Now

Oh man, this is funny. The Inbox of Nardo Pace, The Empire's Worst Engineer.

Transformers On The Brain

I want to see the movie. It looks wicked cool. And I never even saw the TV show. Except for a couple of episodes of Armada. I always kind of wanted to watch it more often, but I never got around to it.

I've seen enough, though, to know that it's awesome. And now I can't stop thinking about the movie. Even if it's not very good, it's going to have giant, CGI robots. That turn into cars. You don't get enough of that in your modern cinema going experience.

And, of course, my newfound interest in all things Transformer has led me back to Optimus Rhyme. Found the website a while ago through MC Chris's, liked it, and now I'm back into it. Rap music about robots. Truly, one of the greatest styles of artistic expression ever devised.

There's no way I can stop these thoughts cause I'm hardcoded

Robot angst. Everyone knows I'm all over that.

Extra Late Sci-Fi Rant Response

You may have read John Harrison's rant on how world-building is useless and counterproductive.

My initial reaction to this is, "Er . . . isn't world-building kind of the defining point of science fiction?" The point of a science fiction story--the reason you'd write a given story in a science fiction setting, rather than a contemporary or historical one--is that the world allows you to do something that would be impossible in a normal, real world milieu.

Maybe he's using a different definition of "world-building" than I am. He implies that "world-building" somehow involves exhaustively categorizing every feature of a world. I don't know of any writer, ever, who's done that. Even Tolkien didn't do that. As an example -- he never actually "finished" his languages.

But he created enough to give his world an underlying structure. Enough so that he could name things "Morgoth" and "Mordor," or "Minas Tirith" and "Minas Morgul," and have a reason for it. The reader need never even find out what the pattern means, but the fact that it's there lends the world verisimilitude.

The feeling of being real. Which is why we read science fiction.

This Pleases Me

Can I take a moment to call out the current Something Positive story arc? Written by Eric Burns.

It rocks.

Especially today's. It's just . . . so perfect. The Watching Hour, indeed.

I love watching people learn to play roleplaying games. The moment of realization. "Wait, you mean I can be . . . ?"

And Fred is my favorite character. So, yeah. Bring it on.

On To Something

Best. Theory. Ever.

Alberto Gonzales and Kyle Sampson (his ex-chief of staff) are gamers, and that's why they can't remember anything about the firings. They were too busy rolling dice.

Now I Understand Libertarians

Things that make me stabby: morons.

Paternalistic, moralizing, misinformed morons.

Dahlia Lithwick knows what the score is.

What I find amusing is how, apparently, Kennedy thinks that a medical procedure being disturbing is a reason to ban it. He has these examples, like if he can prove something is gross, then it clearly ought to be banned.

Because taking someone's heart out of their chest and putting someone else's back in isn't weird at all.

Incidentally, there's no such thing as "partial birth abortion," medically speaking. It's a scare term, invented by opponents of abortion to get people to squick out. Usually what they're talking about is "dilation and extraction."

Curse You, Treacherous Lava

No! Not Raffles, Gentleman Thief!

Praise Be To Kord

I want to start a new religion. One where you worship whatever you want, as long as it comes from a roleplaying game, video game, or similar source.

I'd call it "video game polytheism," except that'd rule out Vecna and Pelor and all that gang. And I'd call it "RPG polytheism," except that'd rule out Mar and whatnot.

It'd mostly be an excuse to go "By the nine!" in casual conversation. Not that I need one.

I spend too much time thinking up ways to make people think I'm weird.

Dice Quiz

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

Quotes

"The meaning of life is 'bucket'" -- Richard

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." - James D. Nicoll

"I'm coming up there to get you! I'm walking up the steps now!" -- Batman, Ninja Master of Surprise

"Without my power ring, I'm superpowerless--except from the waist down!" -- Green Lantern, Hal Jordan

"So I built a third scientist! That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp!" -- John Seavey

"Lawyers make me think of the 70s." -- Qwerty

"Fear! The crack that might flood your brain with light!" -- Guildenstern

"Step away from the lobster trap." -- Batman

"The time to stop talking is when the other person nods his head affirmatively but says nothing." -- Henry H. Haskins

"Those of us make stuff up for a living face a wide variety of possible ways to make ourselves crazy." -- Robin D. Laws

"I heard a rumor that you're an idiot. Any truth to that?" -- Owyn

"The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they are going to be when you kill them." -- William Clayton

"Reality is a pie of which I do not require another slice." -- Shelley Winters

"It's an empty journey to triumph if you don't plant the seeds of catastrophe along the way." -- Tim Jones

"The safest way to approach lava is to have another person with you and he goes first." -- Volcano photographer Villi Knudsen

"Laughter is the best medicine. Next to sex, of course. And medicine." -- Vice Pope Doug

"True freedom is found by looking inside mountains filled with lava." -- Riff

"All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it." -- H. L. Mencken

"I wish I could find out who was responsible for the 'orcs look like orangutans, half-orcs look like Kramer' artistic decision." -- pawsplay, on RPGnet

"It takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a Viking to raze a village." -- Jeff Meija, a.k.a. "the Evil DM"

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." -- Lazarus Long

"It's all good clean fun until someone gets their sword polished with poison." -- Captain Blank

"How many boards could the Mongols hoard if the Mongol horde got bored?" -- Calvin

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

"Dhaaaaa!" -- Dimo
“You cut his arm off!” – Lars
“Um . . . dis vos de right von, yah?” Ognian
“It’s melting!” – Lars
“Yop. Dot vas it.” – Ognian

Archery II

It occurred to me that I should look at Arcana Evolved and Iron Heroes for archery possibilities.

AE recommends either the hawk totem warrior or the ritual warrior as archers. Both are satisfactory feat-wise (bonus progression, roughly every four levels) but I'd probably go with a ritual warrior, because the special abilities are better. Or rather, more interesting to me. More of their abilities are directly focused on archer-ing -- combat rites, giving you short duration bonuses on various things -- and they get ability score bonuses. The hawk totem warrior eventually gets the ability to fly, and to do various archer-type things while flying, but I'm not really all that interested in that, and the ritual warrior would definitely be more interesting in the early game.

Race-wise, quickling faens have both the advantages and disadvantages of halflings -- bonus to dexterity, smaller weapons -- but they also have the possibility of evolved levels, which give bonuses to dexterity and ground speed. They've also got the option of metamorphosing into a spryte, which would give further bonuses to dexterity and the ability to fly in exchange for becoming tiny size. Which could actually be worth it, because it'd make the character very hard to hit.

Then there's litorians, who also get a bonus to dexterity. A couple of those racial levels could also be worth it, because they give bonuses to dexterity and strength, as well as increased speed and a couple of odd items, like scent.

All told, I'd probably end up going human. There are enough awesome combat feats in AE that it'd be worth it.

Iron Heroes provides one very obvious option: an actual "archer" class. They get a lot of ranged goodies: a +1.25 base attack progression when using ranged weapons, an aim pool, and the best access to projectile feat masteries. Out of all the classes I've looked at, they're the most focused on straight up archery. Every other class has some other thing that they do. Archers are exclusively about chucking things at people.

Racial options would be a little different. IH doesn't have race, as it is normally understood. Everyone's human, but instead of getting an extra feat and skill point you get two traits. For an archer character, I'd spend one trait on Dextrous, giving +2 Dex and -2 Con, and I'd consider using both traits for it, which would eliminate the Con penalty. Otherwise, trait selection would depend on the other aspects of the character -- background, any other skills I wanted to have, and so on.

Comparing these two options, the archer looks much more attractive than the ritual warrior. Mostly because, with the archer, I wouldn't have to manage combat rituals. Partially because Iron Heroes generally looks like a lot of fun to play. Partially because the racial options are better. (I like the AE races. I really do. I just don't like those two races.)

Compared to the options I considered the other day, archer still comes out ahead. The only trouble with it is that I'd have to be able to convince everyone to play Iron Heroes. It'd be much easier to play a ritual warrior in an otherwise "normal" campaign.

Don't Do This!

Does anyone else read Erfworld: The Battle for Gobwin's Knob?

Is anyone else really ticked off with it right now?

Skipping time, I can deal with. Skipping a battle, I can deal with. It was obvious what was going to happen; it didn't need to be shown.

What I can't deal with is this "Charlie" nonsense.

Creating suspense by arbitrarily hiding things from the reader isn't cool. Unless you've got an in-text reason for why the reader doesn't know everything (significant) that the character does. (i.e., the unreliable narrator)

Unless, of course, it's not going to be important. We never hear about Charlie again, so why waste a page showing who he is? This, I somehow doubt, because if it wasn't going to be important it wouldn't have come up at all.

Plus, it'd edge dangerously close to telling, rather than showing. The characters talking about how unreasonable Stanley is, rather than showing how unreasonable he is.

Upshot: Irritating. I like Erfworld, but this sort of thing had better not happen on a regular basis.

Secret Project Update

It's incredibly weird, hearing people say words I've written. Especially when those words are mostly about robot mongeese.

Just for the record: I'm aware that "mongeese" is wrong, and that the actual plural is "mongooses." But mongeese is funnier.

Archery Musings

Now I've got this inexplicable desire to play an archer. I'm considering making my next D&D character a ranger. Or, alternatively, a fighter with appropriate feats. But the favored enemy option intrigues me, as does having some kind of scouting creature.

A bard might also make an interesting archer. Though I've played a bard twice already. Neither time was particularly satisfactory, although the first time it was certainly entertaining, and the second time the fun flow problems were caused by the game, not the character. And the GM. Who was horrible. But that's a rant that doesn't need to be repeated.

Anyway. The first time I played, it was fun, but mostly because I was having a lot of fun with limericks. I did an entire character journal in limerick. The game only lasted two sessions, but those two sessions were pretty awesome. Being the first KordCon campaign probably had something to do with it.

The problem I had with the bard is that I had a hard time feeling useful. This may have been because of the level. Using bardic music felt like a meaningful contribution, but I could only use that once per day. At higher levels, with the ability to provide those bonuses in every encounter, the bard thing might be better. Because then I'd be something other than "not as sneaky as the rogue, not as magic-y as the wizard, and not as fight-y as the fighter."

But, anyway. Archer. Elf or human would work--I was thinking halfling, because there you'd have both a racial ability modifier and a size modifier increasing your attack bonus. Except then I remember about reduced damage dice, on account of being sized small. Now, a halfling wizard specializing in rays, that would be awesome.

I'd probably end up deciding race based on setting. In Eberron, I'd totally go with an elf. Elves are awesome in Eberron. Basically anywhere else I know about, I'd probably play a human.

Art Ramblings

Finally found some acceptable desktop pictures.

As much as I love the actual game, one of my favorite moments in D&D was when I realized that the art had signatures on it. I went through all my books and I discovered that the same handful of guys had done most of the art. I became aware of the style of the pieces.

The art is one of my favorite things about the books. I love character art. I like drawing it, too, so having a lot to study is handy. The galleries on the D&D website are nice, but it doesn't quite compare to having the actual piece in a book in front of you. Resolution's better, for one thing.

And I've recently discovered that I really love pictures of magic items. One of my favorite things about the Magic Item Compendium (more on it soon) is the art, though I expect that to change once I actually get to use some of it in-game. The pictures convey a sense of possibility that the words don't really quite capture.

The pieces with a lot of magic items are particularly cool. Just the idea of having all these awesome things in one place--I never thought about just how interesting a magic item shop must be. (Or just how cool magic rings are.) Also: I want to make a store that sells only magic boots. And only magic boots.

Actually, I like any kind of art where a lot of things are lined up against each other. I don't know why, but those are often my favorite character pieces--those ones where they show all the races lined up against each other, or a bunch of different character options, all in the same picture. Like the pictures in Oriental Adventures of samurai and shugenja from all the different clans.

More miscellaneous favorites include depictions of an angel-killer weapon, from the BoVD, the mystery afraid of the dark, from the Tome of Magic, and "Faces of Evil" from Savage Species.

That last one, particularly, is much better when viewed on the page, because then you can read that the papers read "Plan A," "Plan B," "Plan C," and "Plan D," and that the book is titled "How to Pick Up Chicks." Which is particularly funny if you assume, as I do, that the character reading it is an incubus. The only other option that I can think of would be a half-demon, which isn't nearly as fun--and this was a 3.0 supplement, before they'd removed mention of incubi from the core game.

Entirely unrelated rant: Why'd they take out the line about succubi sometimes appearing as male in 3.5? Did they need to cut thirteen words that badly? It's not like you can't still use them that way (the stats are exactly the same, this no longer being 1973, *cough*) but it's no longer suggested. Maybe they figured it was self-evident. Maybe they got a lot of complaints.

It's all very mysterious.

Say No More

I was going to write a post about all the biological weirdness in D&D. Especially how everything can breed with every other thing. Apparently this was a big thing in the 80s. Breeding. And cross-breeding. Weird decade, all around.

I was going to write a response to Rae, who pointed out that D&D has biological problems with more than just nightvision. I was going to write about how it's actually worse than she says--according to the standard definition of species, celestials, fiends, and dragons are all the same species as . . . everything.

It was going to be this big long thing. Except that I remembered.

This game has owlbears.

Nightvision!

Elves and gnomes ought to be colorblind. Unless their low-light vision is magical, which the rules don't indicate.

I'd say orcs and dwarves, too, except that darkvision basically has to be magical. No animal on earth can see in absolute darkness. Animals that can see in the dark are just very efficient with the available light.

One of the ways to maximize this efficiency is by having lots of rod cells and few cone cells. Cones register color, but need more light to function. Rods only register greyscale, but don't need as much light. Since there's a limited amount of real estate in an eye, a creature can either be good at seeing color or good at seeing in the dark.

Maybe I'm missing something. Or maybe elves and gnomes just have extra-dimensional spaces inside their eyes.

Children of Men

Children of Men was better than I thought it'd be.

See, I have this love-hate relationship with science fiction movies. I love science fiction. I hate science fiction movies. They always get it wrong.

Science fiction is about extrapolation. You start with "what if?" and you work from there. The complications need to tie into the world, what makes it different from the real world, what makes it science fiction.

Otherwise, it's not science fiction. If it could work in a different setting--if your story is "a western, in space," it's not science fiction. It's got the trappings, but not the mechanics.

Note that this doesn't mean that shows like Firefly aren't science fiction. (I use "western" because it's traditional, when making this particular point.) Firefly is actually an example of the reverse of this phenomena. It's got western flavor, but develops its plots in a science fictional manner: pick an aspect of the setting, figure out how that aspect could cause problems for the protagonists.

Science fiction movies--or rather, the movies people call science fiction--don't generally do this. Or they don't do it well. They tend to be too concerned with blowing things up and making philosophical points.

The Matrix is an example. I loathe this movie, with a totally unwarranted passion. And I mean the original, not the latter two--haven't even seen the third. People think it's deep, and they think it's science fiction. It's not. It (or rather, it's hack writers/directors) starts with a philosophical point it wants to make, and then puts together a patchwork setting that exists only to make this point. It's got no depth, except for some idiocy about vitamins. And that doesn't even count, because it was old hat when Asimov was writing robot novels.

I guess that's what I like about Children of Men, at least now, before I've had the chance to really think about it. It's got depth. It's got a number of different challenges and plot twists, all based on the setting. It brings up things that are never fully explained ("your parents were in New York when it happened") because they don't need to be, but they still make sense.

It's got a sense of verisimilitude. The story comes from the world, not the other way around.

And I liked the music--felt all future-y without being stupid, and there was a lot of Beetles, which made sense in the context of the world.

Plan 9 From Outer Space

I watched Plan 9 From Outer Space a couple of nights ago. It's a spectacularly bad movie, and everyone should see it. After watching Ed Wood.

I have nothing else to say. Because I'm busy.

Alignment

I am currently pondering the Dungeons and Dragons alignment system.

I'm wondering if it's possible to take it out of the game. And if I should. Or if I should go the Eberron route and just maybe make it kind of not matter so much.

It's not that I dislike the system, in the abstract. I'm just thinking about it's in-game effect, and whether I really want players to be able to tell whether or not someone is "evil" with a first level spell. And what I want that to mean.

I want to run a campaign that involves the players trying to figure out whether various people are on their side. I don't know if this is actually a good idea; the concept may change at some undetermined future point, but that's where it is right now. I do know that having the alignment system in place, as it is written, will make that difficult. More difficult than it would be, without it in.

Because that's what the alignment system is for: telling you whether a given person is on your side. Yeah, there's a lot of silliness in the books about how it's a "guide to develop your character," and I am aware that it's possible (more than possible) for two evil-aligned or chaotic-aligned or even good-aligned groups to come to blows, but that's still basically what it's for. It tells you, the player, whether or not a given creature is okay to kill.

This is cool. If what you want to do is kill wizards, it's an excellent system. Having some elaborate system, ideally involving extended surveillance and social puzzle-solving, to figure out whether you can kill the wizard would, in this sort of game, be actively detrimental to the game play experience.

However. While I've had fun running "kill the wizard" type games in the past, that's not what I'm planning at the moment. I'm planning a game that involves the calculations and challenges that the alignment system is explicitly designed to bypass. Something involving politics as well as wizard killing. And while I'm pretty sure that the alignment system, as written, is going to interfere with that, I'm not exactly sure what I should do about it.

Should I change the actual mechanics of alignment, or just adjust what the little words "mean"? Should I remove references to it entirely, or change them to something else? By which I mean--should detect evil be entirely purged, or changed to, say, detect foe?

Making any change to the system is going to alter cleric and paladin power. Changing things to "detect foe" and "smite foe" would make them more powerful; removing them from the game would make them less powerful. But how much more or less powerful? Is there any way to tell?

Do I need to change anything? Is it really going to be that big of a problem? Or can I get away with, say, banning paladins?

These are questions I may not even be qualified to answer.

Define: Dingus

I should probably explain what I mean by "dingus."

The dictionary definition gets the broad sense of it. It's an object, that you either can't name or don't want to bother naming. Comes from German. Used in the Maltese Falcon, to refer to the eponymous bird.

I tend to use it more specifically: A dingus is an object, in a story, that the characters in the story want. This, then, drives the plot.

"Object" is maybe not exactly the right word. Because I use it to describe characters. Although, technically, there's usually something else that could be described as the dingus in that sort of situation--like with Jack Sparrow, in Pirates of the Caribbean 2 it's actually his soul that matters. Calling the character the dingus still works, though, because it's a word that describes an element's function in the story.

I picked it up from The Big List of RPG Plots, by S. John Ross. Which is a wicked handy web page, for GMs and writers. And people who want to make fun of GMs and writers for use clichéd plots. (Which every plot is, if you break it down far enough. It's just one of those things they aren't making any more of.)

It's a cool word. It's a way to simplify complex plots, which makes it handy for talking about story in general, and for talking about (and designing) RPG plots in particular.

RPGs really demand simplicity from their plots--or, rather, they demand that the plots have a simple core. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the big one is that the players need to be able to figure out what to do next fairly quickly. If the GM has an understanding of the plot on a very basic level, such that dingus thinking can provide, it's easier to help players figure that out. Being able to analyze the plot simply is useful whenever you're talking about (or designing) any story, but it's particularly vital in an RPG.

Plus, it's fun to say. Which is the real reason why I use it.

Cope

If you have any interest in game design at all, you should be reading James Wallis's blog, Cope. (Loving the subtitle, by the way.)

I've been meaning to link to him for some time. He writes about storytelling in games--Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Half Life 2, as examples--as well as more basic "don't do this!" issues.

I finally got around to it today because he writes about Will Wright, talking about Spore, and storytelling in games. Read it, read what it links to. It's interesting. And important.

Dingus Ahoy!

So, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 does indeed have two separate, unrelated sequences where the heroes roll down the hill in a barrel. I'm not sure this was entirely necessary. (Spoilers ahead. Sort of.)

It invites comparisons to Star Wars, when taken as the second installment of a trilogy. The first movie was basically, self contained, because they don't know if they're going to be able to make a second. The second movie builds on what the first did, and ends with all these wacky cliffhangers. You know how the next one's going to start: they have to go rescue Han S--I mean, Captain Jack Sparrow. And you know who the big bad guy is, and why. (The heart, the death star--the details are different, but the basic message is the same.)

I still haven't quite wrapped my head around the structure. This thing has, at barest minimum, three separate dinguses. The heart, the compass, and Jack Sparrow. So you've got one people need because they want the other(s), one that starts out as two separate dinguses and then keeps transforming into different ones, and one that's actually a person, with all the wacky hijinks accompanying that trick.

That's a lot of dinguses. Add in the number of people after those dinguses, and just figuring who has what becomes an adventure in itself.

The other thing I noticed was there's just a lot of stuff in it. Stuff that only shows up for one sequence. (the cannibal/villager people never show up again) Stuff that is there mostly to make things even more complicated. (The jar of dirt being sort of a case in point. The only reason that item is there is so they can pull the three-way split.)

And then there's stuff that's just sort of there--like Davy Jones playing the organ. It's cool, and it adds a bit of complication to one scene, but they could have done the same thing with something else--something that didn't involve taking thirty seconds to show him playing it. But it's cool, because it links him up with the Phantom of the Opera and associated awesomeness.

The letters in the chest also stand out. They could easily have been taken out. They serve no mechanical purpose at all. But they're still really cool, because it's obvious what they are, and it underscores exactly what the heart is.

There's mostly just a lot going on. More than in your typical summer blockbuster. Maybe more than was in the original movie--I haven't watched it in a while. But I don't recall it having all the different characters and interlacing plots that this had. It did have several dinguses, though. And although it didn't have the amazing transforming dingus, it did pull a similar kind of sleight of hand with the whole "Ha ha! Not Turner! You fail!" thing.

Play D&D Archive

This is actually kind of cool. Handy, like.

Didn't know it was on the website. Google told me about it -- I've got it set to watch Wizards D&D for new updates, and tell me about them.

It's generally a good website. I've learned lots from the Design & Development column, as a quick example.

Evil Genius Hoaxes

Today there is naught but a link. I'm on a trip, and very tired. Didn't get enough sleep last night.

Best. Webcomic. Evar.

Seriously. Yeah, I'm writing two posts in a row about the same thing, but Girl Genius is Just. That. Awesome.

It's got mad scientists. It's got robots. It's got constructs. (Oh, man, does it have constructs.) It's got wacky Germanic accents, a circus, lunatic heroes, hats, plumbers, and a talking cat.

Mostly, what it's got is win.

All the characters have clear, unique voices. I can hear these people, the way they talk, and they all talk in a distinctive way. There's heavy use of dialect, which is normally a bad thing, but in this case it's cool. (My theory is that it's a large group of characters that all use the same dialect, so you don't have to learn a different one for each individual character. And it's very funny, the way they talk.)

It also exercises my plot sense, (like spider sense, only for plot rather than danger) in an extremely satisfying way. Everything that happens feels right, but it never feels boring. It's always, "That's exactly what has to happen! Awesome!" and never, "Gee, I kinda saw that coming." It escalates a lot, with plot twists galore, but it never feels cheap. It's exciting, and frustrating, but in a seriously awesome way.

It's got major character death that doesn't feel like a lame plot device! It's crazy!

Yeah, so, read it. NOW!

Girl Genius

I have a new favorite webcomic.

It's the writing, really. Strongest character voices I've ever read.

Team, Argh

Oh, how I love this laptop. I am actually writing this as I give my exhibition. I'm not actually doing anything at the moment. It's not a normal exhibition; it's a debate. And I don't have anything to do right now. I'm listening to another guy on my team give a speech.

Which is why I'm writing. I hate team projects.

As long as I'm listening to the other two guys on my team talk, all I can think is, "I could do it better." They're not using exactly the argument I would, so it's annoying, because naturally, my argument is the best of all possible arguments.

I don't mind failing, if I do it on my own. I hate it when I'm on a team, because either someone else has screwed me up, or (more often) I've screwed someone else up.

Yeah, I really don't have anything useful to say. Just a bit of a rant, because I'm bored.

Webcomics You Should Read

Scary Go Round
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: This is a good comic. Very funny. Lots of weirdness. (Not as much mad science as it used to have, sadly.)

XKCD
You're probably already reading this, but if you aren't (and you like this blog) you probably should be. (If you hate this blog, I'm not going to be much help.) It has a lot of jokes that I don't understand, because they involve advanced math, but the jokes that I do understand are unbelievably funny.

Order of the Stick
Again, you're probably already reading this. If you aren't, you should start soon, or there is no hope for you or the human race. I'm serious. This is a really, really good comic. Lots of Dungeons and Dragons jokes but, hey, another reason for people to play D&D.

Narbonic
This one's actually over, but they're re-releasing it, with commentary, one strip a day, so it's going to be around for another six years. However, you should read the whole strip plain first, because otherwise, you're quickly going to learn a lot of major plot points. Plot points the comic builds up to over years of strips. Needless to say, this is a really awesome comic. Mad scientists are always awesome.

Looking For Group
Another one I've mentioned before. It's only gotten more awesome.

Special School
This one's maybe not quite as good as the others, but it's good and getting better. (And, seriously, "not as good as the Order of the Stick" almost doesn't count as information.) It's about superheroes. It references the evil overlord list. In a word, awesome.

Missing Reference

This is an awesome comic strip.

I have no idea who or what The Witcher is. I don't care. It'd probably be funnier if I did know, but the beautiful thing is, I don't have to know.

This strip is still hilarious.

Why Martin Is Awesome

I threatened, a while ago, to describe why I think Martin is a cool character. And now it's late, and I'm tired, and I need to write something. So I've compiled a list. Well, the rest of the list.

He's not annoying in combat. I mostly credit his use of ranged magic attacks for this. (If only all NPCs were so skilled.) He doesn't hit me, he doesn't get in my way, and most of all . . .

He doesn't die. Except for a couple of plot critical points, he can't. Now, sure, this makes the game easier, but it also makes it a lot less annoying, because you don't have to worry about him wandering off and getting himself into trouble. Which is good, because he wanders off to fight bandits more or less constantly.

As an added bonus, his immunity to death means that, if for some reason he ends up very angry with you, you can just knock him out. When he comes to, he'll have no memory of whatever it is you did that ticked him off. There is endless entertainment value in this phenomena.

In general, though: He does things. Granted, sometimes he does annoying things. (Dammit, Martin, I just need one point of blade to level up!) But for the most of the game, he's actually kind of useful. He tells you a lot of interesting things. He's as involved in the whole "saving the world" gig as you are. But what he does, he does without upstaging you. In a major way . . .

He helps you be cool. He's constantly coming up with crazy plans that, basically, only you can pull off. Because no one else is awesome enough. And he never doubts that you can do it. Every conversation you have with the guy reaffirms your awesomeness.

And, of course: He's kind of geeky. I'm serious. There's no other way to describe someone who's constantly coming up with bizarre schemes, covers a table with books, gets another table so he can cover it with books, and responds to you showing up with an incredibly evil artifact by saying, "You should give it to me, because it's, uh, dangerous. Yeah."

Why does this make Martin cool? Because the only people who care whether he's cool are geeks. RPG geeks. The kind of people who actually watch video game cut scenes. The kind of people who combine English major style literary analysis to video games. Even if video games are going mainstream, RPGs are still played by some pretty geeky people.

I'll probably come up with some more reasons, eventually, but those are the basic reasons why I think Martin is cool. Besides the scowling, anyway.

The Fourth Wall, She Is Sundered

I am in pain.

It's not that I don't have anything to write about. It's that I have too many things to write about. And I don't want to write about any of them.

I have all these topics: writing, fiction, how to act smart, identity, how I've just come off my theme kick and am in the process of really discovering character, my superpowers, goals, how awesome GMing is, video games as a media for stories. I have about five half finished drafts sitting in the Blogger "Edit Posts" section.

But then, as I sit down to start writing these topics, I discovered they're all tied together in strange ways. So then I'll start debating whether I should just finish the post on the original topic, or include all the other things I've discovered were there, or write a new post for each individual sub-topic. And then I don't actually get anything written, because I'm too busy thinking about what I should write.

And now you're probably thinking, "What nonsense is this? I came here to read your weirdness, not to read about your problems writing your weirdness. Also, you have missed a few posts, and need to catch up before the end of the month or it will be enshrined behind the golden arrow forever."

Okay, so that's not true. That's what I'm thinking. You're thinking, "Finally, a post that's not about Oblivion."

Thoughts on Superheroes

I'm thinking about building a superhero universe. Not like I don't already have enough going on, but I'd mostly be working on it in art class. Which has been going weirdly well this year. It's nice to have one area of my life where I have just flat out, easily measured improvement. (Hey, that figure doesn't look nearly as wonky as those older ones.)

I like superheroes. Hate the format they're published in, but I like the concept.

I hate the format for a lot of reasons, but the basic reason is the bizarre time dilation that it produces. Time advances in some ways but not in others. Or it advances at a different speed. You end up with series of issues that cover maybe a couple of weeks of time, but take years to publish. Technology and current events advance faster than plot. Some characters age, some don't, and it causes weird things to happen to their relationships.

But I like superheroes. I like superpowers. They have interesting metaphorical implications; they have interesting "hit you in the face!" implications.

Arbitrary Revelations: Not Cool, Man

This suggests what might be bothering me about the Oblivion main quest ending.

The reversal comes at the end.

My intuition tells me that this is unusual. Most goal based stories--most video game stories--have a fairly reliable structure. They set the stakes, the win condition, and then they don't usual mess with it too much. They might raise the stakes, through villains or other opposition, but they usually don't make that goal totally irrelevant.

When they do, it's to make a point--it sets the other events of the story into a new light, that reveals new things. I'd list an example, but even mentioning that a movie has a reverse ending can destroy the viewing experience, because in the best one's you're not even expecting it, but it still makes perfect sense. Oedipus would be a good example, except that the audience is in on the secret from the beginning. (That's what makes it ironic, ya see.)

Oblivion's ending is not like this. It comes out of left field, is not anticipated at all, and doesn't cast any kind of new light on the existing events of the tale. It just makes the goal you thought you were working towards through the whole quest totally worthless.

The details of the reversal make it even more annoying. Basically, you find out there was a time limit on your goal, and you just blew it. Trick is, because it's a video game, you know that this "time limit" nonsense is ALL LIES. If the little number hasn't been counting down, you know it's just a cheap excuse for the game to spring it's reversal on you. No matter how fast you complete the quest, or how slowly, you're always going to show up just five minutes after you were supposed to.

It doesn't help that the NPCs act like they've known about the time limit all along. And by NPCs, I mean Martin. One of the neat things about the game is that it makes him actually useful, because he knows what's going on with all the daedra stuff. (And he's satisfyingly cryptic about just how he knows about it.) If you need to know something about the rules, how this whole "Oblivion vs. Tamriel" thing works, he tells you.

So when you suddenly learn this new rule, and he acts like it's totally obvious, but somehow never bothered to tell you about it, it's kind of irritating. Especially since, if I'd known about this rule, I probably would have picked up the pace a bit. Wouldn't have done any good, but at least I'd have known I tried.

I suppose the reason you're not informed of this secret time limit is because if you knew about it, it'd be totally obvious that it was going to come up. That's just how video games work.

However, if a plot twist is that obvious, the solution is not to withhold information from the player for no good reason. Make it some weird new thing that the bad guy's done, at the very least. Make the reason that the player doesn't have the information make sense.

Or, just don't mess with the twist ending. This is a personal quirk. I don't tend to appreciate twist endings, if they're done just for their own sake. They're usually either really obvious, or really stupid. Often, both. (Atlantis, I'm looking at you. First time I watched that movie, my brother had already seen it, so when I turned to him and said, "That guy totally goes evil and betrays them," about two minutes after the character was introduced, he got kind of weirded out.)

I'm also not sure if video games support twist endings all that well. That's another topic, though.

Bottom line: Don't totally change the rules of success for the protagonist at the last minute. Especially in a video game. It's irritating, and frustrating, and generally not a good idea. Like all "rules," in storytelling, you can break it, but only if you know what you're doing, and you have a good reason. Trying to trick the audience does not count as a good reason.

Rabbit Attack Day

At first that I thought this was pure joke, perhaps a parody of some kind. A made up incident; nothing that bizarre could be true.

Then it occurred to me that it might be a reference of some kind. Some sort of strange geek culture thing. So I googled it, and discovered something both deeply disturbing and incredibly amusing.

It actually happened.

On April 20, 1979, the President of the United States was attacked by a giant swimming rabbit.

It ought to be a holiday.

Stupid Plot Tricks

Hey, 100th post. Not bad. Naturally, it's about Oblivion.

One of my favorite little things about the Oblivion main quest is this structural switcheroo it pulls right at the beginning.

Traditionally, a story starts with some kind of setback. The protagonist starts out in some kind of minor trouble, so they can have some kind of minor achievement, which then makes you care when they experience a major setback, so then they can emerge victorious from the crushing doom. Down, up, double down, double up.

Most stories don't follow that pattern exactly, because it's a hideous oversimplification. But, generally speaking, the move out of status quo is a move downward. That lets the early part of the story be about the protagonist trying to restore the status quo, until they figure out what it is that they're actually supposed to be doing.

Following this principle, in Oblivion, things start to go bad quickly. Jauffre sends you to Kvatch to find Martin; when you arrive, Kvatch is a smoking ruin. (Which is how it will stay, nigh unto eternity. On fire. Forever.) You bring Martin safely to Jauffre; you find that Jauffre's lost the damn amulet.

Getting the amulet back drives most of the rest of the game. The funny thing is, though, is that it's not all gloom and doom. In a way, you're actually better off at that point, right after the enemy steals the amulet, than you were when you gave the amulet to Jauffre.

Because at that point, you've got Martin, and you're fairly sure that he's not going to get killed. Not without you getting killed first, anyway, and since you're a video game character (in a video game that's not Nethack) you're functionally immune to death. So you've still got one of the two dinguses you need to win the game. You have, essentially, traded the Amulet for Martin, and that means you've come out ahead.

(Assuming that the amulet is a proper artifact, in the D&D sense, and can't be destroyed. Mankar Camaron's behavior establishes this as more than idle fancy--he doesn't destroy it, even though it'd be really smart for him to do so. Thus: he can't destroy it. It does end up being destroyed, at the end, but I have a theory that it could only be destroyed in that specific way.)

For a video game, this is incredibly clever. There's an early setback to drive the rest of the action (find the dingus!) but you also have a sense of accomplishment. You've done something useful.

Thoughts on Introversion

What I learned this weekend:

I am, officially, still an introvert.

Time alone is critical.

Specifically, having a day during the weekend that I spend mostly on my own terms is critical.

Otherwise, homework suffers, the game suffers, and mental health suffers.

Since Wednesday I've been feeling the "ragged edge" of exhaustion more or less constantly. It goes and comes, but I can always find it. I spent the entire day on Wednesday, 09:00 to 10:00, interacting with people, and I still haven't properly recovered. It's a different kind of tired from when I don't get enough sleep. I'm aware of my surroundings, and my mind works perfectly well. I just have a hard time processing people.

That's my basic definition for introversion. Being around people takes energy. Being alone recharges that energy. Extroverts, presumably, experience the opposite phenomena.

I'm not shy. (Found that out this weekend, too.) I like being around people, I like hanging out. But I need to spend time alone.

That puts me in the minority, in the United States. A strange minority. Invisible, but still discriminated against. Extroverts tend to have a very hard time understanding why someone wouldn't like being around people all the time. They tend to assume that it's because of fear, of shyness, that there's something wrong that needs to be fixed.

People in power are, generally, extroverts. Because being in power generally requires a lot of interaction with people, so extroverts are drawn to it.

Also: I'm going to need to keep my need for alone time in mind at college. Because--while I doubt it will be impossible to get--it will take action on my part to secure. Some kind of initiative.

Iron Age Safety Shoes

Saw it on the back of a truck the other day. What are they? "Iron Age" brand safety shoes seems most likely, where "safety shoes" is some kind of sub-brand.

My favorite interpretation, of course, is that they are shoes, that are safe, from the iron age. What this would look like, I have no idea.

Biffy Dunwhite

Best character I ever ran: Biffy Dunwhite.

Biffy was a lot of things. Mad wizard. Follower of Kord. Total yahoo.

Mostly, she was a lot of fun to play. I want to play her again, especially now that I have the Spell Compendium. With all those crazy spells available (I'm thinking scatterspray would be about her style), she'd be awesome on ice.

Not that she wasn't awesome just with the standard PHB array. See, the thing about my characters is that they all end up crazy. They always end up freaking out about mole people, or pitchforks and torches, or trees. I have a tendency to go off on crazy, paranoid rants when I'm roleplaying. Probably has to do with decreased inhibitions, and this is how I see the world all the time, I just can't tell people about it in my normal persona.

That being the case, the beautiful thing about Biffy was that she started out crazy. I made her for a campaign called "KordCon," where we start publish adventures and never finish them. We go on these adventures because we're all followers of Kord and we've gotten together for a "religious" convention.

The first time we did it, I wanted to play a wizard. (Our usual spellcaster was playing a fighter. A dwarven fighter. Named either "Aleboot" or "Axebeard," the other name belonging to the party's (dwarven) cleric. It was just that kind of campaign.)

Now, when we started making our characters, we didn't know that it was going to involve KordCon. We just knew that the adventure was going to be "really stupid," because the GM had gotten it from some contest.

So, following that line of thought, the guy playing the cleric decides to worship Kord. Kord, in this instance, being the "god of hitting things, and drinking." And it kind of snowballed from there.

So I made Biffy. And Biffy was fun-crazy. She hung out with a couple of dwarves, got into fights, liked wacky spells, and mostly managed to avoid the kind of ranting that had plagued my other characters.

I liked her enough that when we ran the second KordCon adventure, I played her again. A couple of other people played different characters--we had a different, human cleric that time. Which is the only one I remember.

Why do I bring all this up? Because I want to play Biffy again. Next time someone runs a D&D campaign, I plan on playing a wizard, and I plan on playing Biffy.

(And because I've missed a couple of days, and I have to write about something.

An Air of Desperation

I'm not sure what to say.

One wonders what Superboy looks like from other angles.

Superwoman looks awesome.

Information Themes

At the end of Oblivion, the Empire no longer has an Emperor, and it probably won't be getting one any time soon. There aren't even any possible heirs, so far as your character knows. They're going to have to come up with some kind of new system.

Note, however, why this is. It's not because there aren't any dragonborn. No one knows of any, but all that means is that there aren't any officially. In 433 years, no way is Martin the only illegitimate heir. There have got to be at least a handful of other people who fulfill the technical--if not the legal--requirements to be Emperor.

The significant thing is: there's no way to tell. No more Amulet of Kings, no more dragonfires, no way to be sure that someone's dragonborn. It has exactly the same effect as extinguishing the line, and it's more interesting.

It ties into the basic ideas of the Elder Scrolls world. History--reality--isn't defined by what actually happened. It's defined by what people know. It's defined by what's written down. It's defined by how you interpret it.

Needs To Be Said

I'm not planning on seeing 300.

It's probably a good movie. I don't care.

The "Look we have computers! Shiny!" thing not promising. When Time does a piece on how your movie is a "sign of things to come" in the movie industry, because it involves technology, that's not good. It indicates that the movie's focus is on the shiny, shiny graphics, which is where we get things like Phantom Menace.

Of course, it's also where you get thins like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and that was a good movie. It was all about the shiny, shiny graphics, but what it was showing was cool enough that it was good. Giant robots attacking New York? Good. Vaguely Spartan MEN! MANLY MEN! talking about how "free" they are? Not so much.

Mostly, I'm kind of off Frank Miller. Since I figured out that his subtexts weren't limited to weird crypto-fascism, "but he's a genius!" hasn't seemed like much of an excuse.

Because if what you're doing is evil, being really good at it doesn't make it any less evil. Depicting women as sex objects, as accessories and plot devices for the male characters, as anything less than human, is evil.

Because it ties into and supports a culture that says, "women can't . . ." because they're women. A culture that says they're not as smart as men, or not as stupid. A culture that restricts human potential based on gender, and that's evil.

Light Years Behind . . . Painting

Not too be too down on BBC News, but their tech guys are idiots. Complete and utter maroons.

They've got this article about how, according to the industry "experts," we are at most two years away from photo-realistic humans. Which is total nonsense. We may be two years away from photo-realistic movement, but that is not the biggest challenge standing in the way of photo-realism in games.

That, hands down, is skin. Human skin absorbs and scatters light in a way that we don't really have the technology to do, even in pre-rendering, let alone real time. You'll notice that a lot of games, like Oblivion, with high quality graphics have characters that kind of glow. It's a way of tricking you into letting computer people be pretty, and not freakish. We may not be able to simulate subdermal refraction, but we can at least make people glow!

That's not my favorite part, though. My favorite part is down at the end. After the article has made a big deal about how, in the future, computer characters will be totally indistinguishable from humans, it quotes Ian Livingstone of Eidos: "We will be able to play with people's emotions - we can make them laugh, we can make them cry, we can make them sad."

Because, y'know, you totally can't affect people emotionally, unless your characters are totally, perfectly human. We're totally impervious to anything that doesn't look 100% real. Without the perfect visual experience, without being able to see every nuance of the characters action, no one ever feels any connection to a story.

Because no animated movie, or novel, or radio show has ever made anyone feel sad.

Honestly, I think that games would be better off if they went less realistic with their graphics. Not lower quality, mind you. Just less realistic. Characters drawn with broader strokes can actually be more effective, emotionally, because it's for people to invest in them. It's easier to imagine them as being exactly what you want them to be.

Eventually, computer games are going to figure out that there are other kinds of art out there. Naturalism isn't the only way to make pictures look good. Someday, video gaming is going to discover impressionism. And they're going to realize that suggesting an image, and capturing a feeling, and making it really pretty, are all way more important goals than "realism."

Colorblind Vengeance

Rainbow Raider is my new favorite villain. Ever.

Outlaws Core Story

You’re an outlaw. You’re a robot, or a mutant, or just be some punk kid with your head screwed on wrong. You’ve got guns, you’ve got the wasteland, you’ve got hacker skills and psychic powers.

The other guys have everything else. They’ve got armies, they’ve got technology, and they’ve got power. But mostly what they’ve got is stuff.

Outlaws is about breaking stuff.

See, I was fiddling with the idea of doing an Outlaws remake. Putting together some outlines for rules modifications I'd like to use. Thinking back on that campaign, and thinking about why it was fun. And reading some stuff on the internet.

I happened to come across a mention of "computer controlled trash cans." Which, of course, would have been exactly the kind of thing to turn into a crazy awesome session. Naturally, "computer controlled" would have meant"controlled by the city mainframe, and connected to the internet." And naturally, as soon as the PCs heard that, they would have hacked into them and started wreaking trash-related havoc.

I think that was one of the major things that made that game fun. The Republic had all this stuff, and the PCs were always hacking into it, or destroying it, usually with some inane scheme. As long as it stuck to that, it was fun. When it didn't, it was . . . less fun.

All You Need To Know

Boot to the head!

Gamer Lineage

Gamers are like vampires. In a lot of ways, really, but I've been thinking of one, in particular.

We've all got a lineage. By which I mean, there's a person (or several persons) who got you into the hobby. (Tabletop gamers do, anyways. Not computer gamers so much, but I barely fit in that demographic.) In my experience, it's somewhat unusual for someone to teach themselves, or to play their first game without a veteran gamer of some stripe. That may be a peculiarity of my time/space location, but it's how I see it.

Even if you taught yourself how to play, you've still got your first group. The social nature of the medium practically guarantees that you'll teach at least a couple of people how to play, at some point, because you'll need players.

Thus, lineage.

For me, it's been important. The people who taught me to play, who I played my first games with, are still my best friends. Even five years later, even across state lines and time zones. And -- amusingly, ironically, but somehow not surprisingly -- they're the people who I link to.

That first group, back in those early days: Karen DMed, and me and David, Rae, and Andy played.

I got the impression, at the time, that everyone else had already played together, that I was the only one who was new. Later, I think I heard that Andy had joined around the same time I had.

At any rate, that's who I learned from. That's the first group I GMed with, too.

And now I've got three people who I taught to play, who played (or are playing) their first game with me. Which is kind of a weird idea, once I started thinking about it. If I hadn't started the school group, or put together the current campaign, these people might not have gotten into gaming. They might have, anyway--it's not like I'm the only person at school capable of running a game, and Qwerty probably would have gotten around to it with his own friends, sooner or later--but they might not have.

The Practice

You know what's great about having a blog? My favorite part about the whole thing? It's a reason for me to write every day.

I really enjoy this thing, updating it, for a lot of reasons. It's a way to keep in touch with people I don't see often enough. It's a way to get rants out of my system. But mostly, it's a reason to write every day, something that makes me feel guilty when I don't. Bit of incentive.

Sometimes I can't really think of anything to write about. Sometimes it takes a while, sitting at the computer, to come up with a topic. But I always do, because I sit down and say "I'm going to write a post today." That's where I start. I don't wait for topics: I make them.

That's the practice. That's the point to writing every day. It helps me to learn how to do that. Because everything else I know about writing basically comes down to one thing: the only way to get better is to write. The only way to get a lot better is to write a lot. And the only way to write a lot is to go looking for things to write about.

This post being an example. I says to myself, "What should I write about today?" And that question, naturally, leads to the answer, "I should write about writing," because that's where my mind is. (Also, because other people have been posting about posting, and that suggests some thoughts.) It's not a great post, but it's something. That's the point.

Yet Another Random Project

I'm thinking of writing an adventure, module style, for publication in my school's literary magazine.

I would never do either of these things on their own. I have no need for "adventures." I don't keep my notes in that format, because it's not useful to me as a GM. I could see writing them if I was interested in getting into the game design industry, but I'm not, at the moment.

I'm also, generally, not interested in submitting things to the literary magazine. I have lots of things I could submit, drawings and short stories and even a vaguely novel-like object, but I don't want to submit any of them. My attitude is, basically, if it's good enough to get published, I want to get it published somewhere I'll actually get something for it. An actual magazine, something that at least pays copies and an actual credit, rather than a magazine where my work will be side by side with a bunch of moronic poems.

I also don't like the people who run the literary magazine, for various reasons. They're just not part of my tribe.

Ironically, it's that last point that gives me reason for wanting to submit an adventure. While I have no interest in letting them anywhere near any of my "actual" work, that means something to me, the idea of giving them something hideously geeky and incomprehensible fills me with glee. I like bothering people with my geekiness. I own a green wool cloak, and carry around D&D books in public even when I have no intention of reading them. There is no greater joy than the puzzled stranger.

Thus: the module gambit. Perfect opportunity to share the joy of the weird, and to confuse people who I don't like, without anyone getting angry at me.

I figure they can't legitimately reject it, especially if it's my only submission, because they're always freaking out about how they don't have enough submissions, and pulling stupid stunts to get people to submit. And they're willing to publish horrible poems about cheese, so they have no grounds on subject matter.

I'll write it for d20, probably D&D, because then I can just use the Hypertext SRD as reference for what I can and cannot use. Probably go kitchen sink golden age batshit on the whole project. Everything I can possibly think of that I think is awesome, but most normal people think is irredeemably weird.

I Only Saw Ten Minutes Of It! I Swear!

You should really be watching Yu Gi Oh: The Abridged Series. If you aren't already.

It's what you get if you take the 4Kids adaptation of Yu Gi Oh and cut out all the interior monologue. Seriously -- the real show, one character will say something, and then repeat it in interior monologue, and then the other character will do an interior monologue about how amazed they are by whatever it is, and then they'll say basically the same thing out loud. And then one of the characters, Yugi, is actually two characters, so that gets really bad because he'll have these long conversations with himself where he keeps telling himself about how he needs to "believe in the heart of the cards." Or something.

That show should be incredibly creepy, but all the characters are oblivious to it. Too busy monologuing, I suppose.

Power Mad

I want to run for President, so I can bury "defend earth from the space frogs" in my campaign platform. Then, I'll be able to accuse my opponent of capitulating to the space frogs. Victory will be mine!