I write to you from the nether realms of crappy airport free WiFi. What? Forgot about this blog you say?! Never!
Actually that's totally true, because I found my life to be dull when it came to gaming recently. That and adulthood has thoroughly sucked the joy straight from my eyeballs.
Anywho, I've been on a two week long solo campaign in real life. I like to call it "hopping mad".
You see, interweb pal, I'm trying my damnedest to see my dude Sir Jex. His company was ordered too freaking far away from me this passed September and I've started going through withdrawals. I'm trying to get on a military transport that also takes passengers. We call these flights 'hops'. All if them are short notice, vague, and frankly quite stupid if you aren't active duty.
So I surfed on a cot for two weeks with a friend before I decided to set out and make this damned flight thing happen! I struck out bravely on my own with no one around to laugh at my failures, or get in my way; which was nice. But then I realized that adventuring is no fun when you're solo. There's no one to laugh at your aweful jokes or keep you from half killing yourself while carrying a mountain of laundry or killing the people giving you contradictory information just to make everything more vague and indeciferable. And I don't care what you animal lovers claim, my dog is not very good company. She's freaking cute, but seh's a poor substitute for a real companion.
I just drove 8 hours, in the dark, alone, on a single sleep cycle (1.5 hours). There were many fun signs, crazy buildings, and interesting (read: horrid) exit ramps that threatened to eat our gimpy car. I got inspired to draw some crazy stuff, got to play my first episode in a fate system RPG, hell I designed my own bloody planet. Somehow it didn't mean squat without Jex around.
I need my freaking partner in crime.
Being stranded in an airport in the Capital of the U.S. just isn't as thrilling if there's no one to share it with.
Solo Adventures are Dumb, and nowhere near as adventuresome when the rest of your party is on the other side of the contenant, or the other side of the world.... Where's good teleportation scroll when you need it, eh?
Friday, December 20, 2013
Friday, June 7, 2013
What I'm going to do.
I'm going to start a comic panel for this blog.
Watch, it may not be very regular, it will happen. It may not be awesome or wonderful or anything like the Oatmeal, but it will be fun a the very least.
Stay tuned. Both of you. (^_^)
Watch, it may not be very regular, it will happen. It may not be awesome or wonderful or anything like the Oatmeal, but it will be fun a the very least.
Stay tuned. Both of you. (^_^)
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Learning a New System is a Pain
I don't know if any of you have had to deal with learning a new system after getting comfortably couch shaped in your current games.
Lucky for me I was introduced to White Wolf and D&D at about the same time, and while it was 4E not 3.5 I really feel that it kept me open for other systems.
Not so Geronimo.
Learning another system is like learning another language. I'm not kidding. I had an easier time picking up German than trying to make a character in Mutants and Masterminds. The point buy system makes sense, really it does, but damnit if it isn't hard to use. Make a super hero. Cool. Here are your points. Awesome. Now everything you get with those points costs a different amount. I can handle that. But your attributes are 2 for 1 and your skill points, you have to buy those they're not based on level and those are 4 for 1, oh and if you don't put points in 'drive' you can never Ever drive Anything for any reason. Did I mention that we're going to split the 'perception' bit of the skill list into 'search' and 'notice' yeah they're both Will based stats, they're basically the same thing but eh, we've got to make your imaginary heroes more human somehow right? How do you feel about having to buy DR, well we call it Toughness. Awesome, it's expensive as hell.
Oh by the way, you don't have hit points. This is more white wolfy in that respect. Also we're going to give you a toughness score of a low number like 5 and expect you to know what you need to roll on a D20 to save from damage. SAVE FROM DAMAGE?!
Oh my God.
Not only that but Wizards of the Coast are dicks and copy-write EVERYTHING. You can't just call something a minor action and leave it at that. NOooohoho. Everyone who ever writes a D20 system book has to change the lingo. Which is fine, until it's 1 am and your brain starts moving a little slower. Suddenly a 'swift action' makes no sense or your mouth betrays you and spouts something in D&D vernacular that confuses the GM. Or if you forget what one of the words, a distant synonym no one uses in everyday speech, actually means.
*deep breath*
On the up side, M&M is actually kind of fun.
On the really steep down side, there's not really an encounter generator. There are nowhere near enough quantifiable bits to help a new GM work out an 'issue' in their little comic book world.
Also, the encounter straight from the back of the book is STUUUUUPID.
Not stupid like, oh man that story line was lame, or what have you. Stupid as in the DM purposefully killed your character because you were new. Or maybe I'm not as great at character creation as I though I was.
Here is where I'd like to thank Sir F.W-illiam for the fun game we played. Honest to Gott im Himmel the outrage of the characters in no way reflected the feelings of the players. It's not your fault Captain Thunder sounded like a huge dick, it's also not your fault that my character hates b.s. even if it was well meant. She freaking talks to plants, her patience with the human race is very thin. Thanks brah. (^_^)
I will make that panel, you can count on it.
Lucky for me I was introduced to White Wolf and D&D at about the same time, and while it was 4E not 3.5 I really feel that it kept me open for other systems.
Not so Geronimo.
Learning another system is like learning another language. I'm not kidding. I had an easier time picking up German than trying to make a character in Mutants and Masterminds. The point buy system makes sense, really it does, but damnit if it isn't hard to use. Make a super hero. Cool. Here are your points. Awesome. Now everything you get with those points costs a different amount. I can handle that. But your attributes are 2 for 1 and your skill points, you have to buy those they're not based on level and those are 4 for 1, oh and if you don't put points in 'drive' you can never Ever drive Anything for any reason. Did I mention that we're going to split the 'perception' bit of the skill list into 'search' and 'notice' yeah they're both Will based stats, they're basically the same thing but eh, we've got to make your imaginary heroes more human somehow right? How do you feel about having to buy DR, well we call it Toughness. Awesome, it's expensive as hell.
Oh by the way, you don't have hit points. This is more white wolfy in that respect. Also we're going to give you a toughness score of a low number like 5 and expect you to know what you need to roll on a D20 to save from damage. SAVE FROM DAMAGE?!
Oh my God.
Not only that but Wizards of the Coast are dicks and copy-write EVERYTHING. You can't just call something a minor action and leave it at that. NOooohoho. Everyone who ever writes a D20 system book has to change the lingo. Which is fine, until it's 1 am and your brain starts moving a little slower. Suddenly a 'swift action' makes no sense or your mouth betrays you and spouts something in D&D vernacular that confuses the GM. Or if you forget what one of the words, a distant synonym no one uses in everyday speech, actually means.
*deep breath*
On the up side, M&M is actually kind of fun.
On the really steep down side, there's not really an encounter generator. There are nowhere near enough quantifiable bits to help a new GM work out an 'issue' in their little comic book world.
Also, the encounter straight from the back of the book is STUUUUUPID.
Not stupid like, oh man that story line was lame, or what have you. Stupid as in the DM purposefully killed your character because you were new. Or maybe I'm not as great at character creation as I though I was.
Here is where I'd like to thank Sir F.W-illiam for the fun game we played. Honest to Gott im Himmel the outrage of the characters in no way reflected the feelings of the players. It's not your fault Captain Thunder sounded like a huge dick, it's also not your fault that my character hates b.s. even if it was well meant. She freaking talks to plants, her patience with the human race is very thin. Thanks brah. (^_^)
I will make that panel, you can count on it.
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