Different Experience Tables

Current meme I've noticed on Twitter is 1st Draft Movie Lines

Wil Wheaton contributes "Have a seat near Zod."

One of my patrons gave me donuts today, as he said he would. Since the summer term started, he has accounted for a significant chunk of my requests- 25 for May-June, with more to come (by way of comparison, the total number of requests I make in a month typically fall in between 80 and 100- not that I've seen typical in a while, what with the end of spring months being way under, and June hitting 124 filled).

He didn't have to bring donuts. I'm just doing my job, and he's not the most prolific requester I've had. But, he appreciated what I was doing and wanted to show it. Yummy donuts.

Even though he makes a lot of work for me, I appreciate him a lot more than another patron, who sent me a request (via email, even though I'd given him step by step instructions for our online form) for an item we have in the library. When I told him we own it, he wanted me to send him an electronic copy, because he was too busy to walk over and photocopy it himself.

Yeah.

Besides the copyright violation, that's really not my job. No matter how busy he is.

Prompted by a recent tweet from Neil Gaiman, I got to thinking how weird it feels to see someone I associate with one thing doing something else. His tweet mentioned being interviewed by Serena Altschul of CBS. Insert record scratch, as my brain told me that should be Serena Altschul of MTV.

This was probably compounded by seeing Chris Connelly, also formerly of MTV,  yesterday commenting on the Michael Jackson funeral for the bit I saw while waiting to get blood drawn (and he was looking old).

Anderson Cooper is always going to be the roving reporter for Channel One News (a news program we were shown in high school that also had Serena Altschul as an anchor).

There is one island of stability in all this- Kurt Loder is still at MTV. I figure they were able to lock him into a life-time contract by dazzling him with the privledge of being the only man who could wear a blazer on screen.

Doing prep work for my Friday game and decided I needed doppelganger minions. I looked at a few minions around that level, took some guesses, and came up with something. These haven't been playtested, but I think they fit within expectations. Stats are behind the cut, if anyone feels like using them in their own game.

( Read more... )

Reading a thread on enworld, I saw a comment to the effect that 4E would probably have a limited lifespan as the streamlined nature of the rules didn't leave WotC much room mechanically to grow.

I might have agreed with that poster, but only before I saw the PHB2.

I knew what a striker was. They were a light, fast character who got to add in a d6 (or 2 for rogues) against a foe once per round. Then PHB2 shows up with the avenger, who doesn't get a damage boost but does get to roll twice for attacks; the barbarian, whose damage is already figured in to the powers; the sorcerer, who adds a flat bonus to every damage roll.

I knew what a leader was. They were buffers who could twice a combat let someone heal with a few extra HP. Then we get the shaman, a pet class that can heal two targets, and the artificer who can choose to heal or hand out a bunch of temp HP while allowing the party to effectively pool their healing surges.

Next, along comes the monk, who looks nothing like our previous strikers. Instead, he combines moves and attacks in his powers.

In two weeks, we'll see the psion, and I expect it's not going to look like any of the existing controllers (my guess for role).

And it's not just classes. The MM2 shows that the designers are learning from what they've done before, re-doing solos, looking again at minions, and making lots of interesting monsters. The MM3 playtest provides a new type of dragon that gets away from the standard breath weapon.

I think the WotC designers are proving that they have a lot of room to grow mechanically and try new things. I'm looking forward to a long lifespan for 4E.

Walt Simonson's run on Thor would be a great place to harvest ideas for epic level D&D.

For example, when I want to hand out a magic weapon as a quest reward, I'm going to keep in mind this sequence: http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2009/06/28/a-year-of-cool-comic-book-moments-day-179/#more-24463

From tfbretz . Ask for five words, then explain them

( Read more... )

I sat down with the Mouse Guard RPG on Tuesday, taking some time to flip through it before ultimately leaving Borders with the Eberron Player's Guide. My initial impression of the book was confirmed- it is a charming little book, and could be fun (and very different from my usual D&D).

I lent my copy of Mouse Guard, Fall 1152 to a friend, and talked to her a little about the RPG. As it was no longer just a book for a comic I didn't read, I expressed that I'd probably buy it the next time I have a large coupon for Borders.

Tonight in my inbox, I received the link for 40% off at Borders. It's either Mouse Guard or Kingdom of the Ghouls, and I've got most of two adventures to go before my players will be ready for Kingdom.

It's interesting the little things that stick in our memories. I was, at best, an infrequent viewer of Quantum Leap. And yet, I carry one episode of it burned into my head.

In this episode, Sam leaps into an older black man. The wrong that needs righting, the man's daughter opened a pool hall/jazz club, and to do that, she borrowed money from a loan shark. Well, the loan has come due. However, the guy Sam jumped into is going to fix things by beating the loan shark at pool, as he is a famous pool shark. Except, he's pretty much blind these days.

Sam does have the advantage of sight, but he doesn't have the talent at playing pool. Eventually, the problem is solved by Al projecting holograms onto the table so Sam can see exactly where to hit the balls. But, before this solution arises, Sam looks for other ways to cover the debt. Having a late 20th century mindset, he tries the bank- a small business loan should let them pay off the loan shark, and then they'd have much more reasonable rates to pay off the legit loan.

He and his daughter go to the bank and are sent off to the only black loan officer. The loan officer explains how hard he's worked to get where he is, how many jokes and racist comments he's had to pretend not to have heard so that he could move ahead. And if he were to approve a loan for a jazz club, well, that wouldn't go well with the rest of the bank.

Sam's "daughter" is of course pretty pissed off, but really, it's what she expected. She storms out, but Sam get's the last word (which I looked up, and found pretty close to what I remembered). And this leads us into the quote at the top:

                     "You've made it. Maybe it took you twice as long, but you've made it. And being the first bears some responsibility to those who are trying to make it behind you."

Just one of the things I carry in my head.

I first became aware of the existence of Mouse Guard from some threads on RPG.net, when the RPG was released. I gave them a cursory glance, but didn't spend a lot of time on them. I'd later find the RPG at my local Borders (in the sci fi/fantasy section, an aisle away from the RPG shelf). Having been slightly primed for it by seeing the threads, I flipped through it a few times. It had a certain charm, but with D&D dominating my gaming time, I couldn't justify buying an RPG for a series I had never read.

Fast forward to Saturday. I dropped in at Borders before my game, hoping that they would have broken the street date on the Eberron Player's Guide. No such luck, so I did a little browsing. Back in the graphic novel section, I spied for the first time Mouse Guard Fall 1152.  I read through the first chapter, just to have some knowledge of the series. I found it charming, fun, and inspiring- seeing a mouse take on a snake has that effect, I guess. That first chapter sold me on the book.

I've had the chance to read through it now, and I really like it. Like it enough to push the RPG on to my "will buy" list. Not sure when I'd fit it in, but from my flip-throughs, it looks like a good reading RPG.

I got to play one of my favorite games tonight: Britannia, currently from Fantasy Flight Games. The island of Britain from the Roman Invasion to the Norman Invasion, with raids and conquests by Saxons, Danes, and many others. A great four player game that I think suffers from more or less. I had been looking forward to this all week, and even through the game came to a premature end, I still had fun.

One player had played before, but it was the first time for the other two. Random draw had the experienced player as Red, the newbies as Green and Blue, leaving me with Yellow- color of the Romans. Probably good that way as the the Romans have a bunch of special rules, and figuring out the right way to handle their conquest takes some learning.

It's been a while since I last played, but I was able to recall a lot of my planning. The Welsh were eager to submit, saving me a fight. I was able to handle the Belgae to protect Essex, although I ended up leaving York as a possible target. I sent three legions to reinforce the territory, which met with the full fury of  Boudica's Rebellion. All three legions died, but the fort survived the attack and the revolt was ended. The Belgae left the game with an impressive 28 points.

The Briganntes proved a tougher foe, but they would also submit. The Picts, however, stood firm, and I was denied their submission and my last two scoring territories. Losses in the North meant fewer Romans to protect my forts from the Saxons, Jutes, and Angles. I did manage to keep the Saxons from gaining a foothold, and pulled out 119 points for the Romans- decent, but not outstanding.

It was an odd game from my experience. Dice and bad tactics (mostly coming from inexpereince and forgetfulness) caused most nations trouble. The Romano-British has their best showing that we've seen, while the Saxons limped along and the Irish had hardly any impact. The Angles had the opportunity to be a powerhouse, but inexperience weakened them greatly.

We stopped after turn 10 (of 16). I maintained a solid lead, but that was mostly because Yellow is hugely frontloaded with the Romans. My existing and upcoming nations would have only contributed a few handfuls of points, although the Norwegians could do some good, especially with the weakened Angles and Saxons. Red was probably heading for a loss unless something major turned around for the Saxons, and his Norsemen probably wouldn't have done enough to make up for his shortfalls. Green was, I think, the likely winner, with the Welsh as a steady income and the Danes in the wings for a major invasion. Of the game could have gone to Blue, who did pick up some decent scores, and would likely have dominated southern Britain with the Norman invasion. But, one player was half asleep in his chair, and another was fighting off a migraine, so seeing the six remaining rounds wasn't in the card.

I'm hoping we can take another crack at it for one of our Saturday sessions next month.

While not updating here, I've been writing up In Which I read Squadron Supreme, where I've recapped and reflected on the Squadron Supreme limited series, Mark Gruenwald's great work. Just finished writing up the last issue, and the whole thing can be found here: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=451631

Another trip to the doctor, another blood test (nothing serious, just elevated liver functions, and now too much iron). This time, they only needed a blood count or something, so rather than pull from my arm, they took from the fingertip. Which, ow, hurts a lot more than from the arm. A little gauze stops the bleeding, and I put on a little band-aid. The band-aid comes off as I'm preparing dinner- it had been 2 hours by this point, so I figured it was safe enough. No gushing blood when I exposed it, so I was okay.

Okay, until I open a jar of pasta sauce. When I go to put the lid back on, it feels like something jabbed me- odd, since the lid isn't supposed to have sharp parts. I look down and see I pressed my finger just right against the jar to open the puncture. Yay, blood.

It's now cleaned off and rebandaged. I can see the bloodspot through the bandaid, but at least it's not spreading. Band-aid feels a little tight, probably because I was applying it one handed.

Bleh. Next time, no matter how little blood they need, I'm going to ask them to go through the arm.

Since my town got passed over for the limited release of this film, I had to wait for the DVD release Tuesday. I watched it last night.

Short version, I'm pleased with my purchase. It's the story of a group of friends and Star Wars geeks who roadtrip across the US to break in to Skywalker Ranch and see Episode 1 six months early because one of the friends has only about 3 months. Along the way, they battle Trekkies, have fun in Las Vegas, and make many, many Star Wars references. It is by no means a great film, but it is a good, enjoyable one. And Kristin Bell is awesome in it, which serves to intensify my crush on her.

After viewing, I hopped on to wikipedia to find out what sort of development hell it had gone through (I first learned of the movie when a trailer for it was on the Clerks 2 DVD, back in 2006. So, I've been waiting a while for this movie). A rough cut of the movie had been shown to George Lucas and he liked it enough to approve the use of actual Star Wars sounds in the movie (Lucas gets a lot of shit online as the "Ruiner of Childhoods" or whatever, but he seems like a pretty cool guy who can laugh at take offs of his movies- see the Star Wars specials for Robot Chicken and Family Guy). This translated to a bigger budget to re-shoot scenes. But, there was a delay because they needed to get the cast back together for the reshoots. And then the director didn't do the reshoots, another guy did. And he decided to cut out that whole cancer storyline and up the gross out humor. Which resulted in an online backlash that included the new guy getting in pissing matches with fans. Then the movie went back to the original director, who got 36 hours to re-re-edit and bring back the cancer story. And then a few more delays, and then a limited release.

But, after all that and three years, I got the movie the director wanted and that I wanted.

Current Mood: pleased

Ignoring for the moment that I'm on four hours sleep, I'm feeling much better. Still need to move some stuff around and vacuum when I get home, but my place looks a lot better, and I don't feel worn out and depressed.

Today will also mark my second day following the course of 100 push ups and 200 sit ups. We'll see how that goes- my arms are feeling sorer today than yesterday.

Current Mood: rejuvenated

Dropped into a funk sometime Sunday. Haven't yet climbed out of it. Sleep might be the better option, but I think I'm going to make another go at tidying up the disaster area I call a home.

Current Mood: depressed

Just got back from Star Trek. Star Trek never mattered to me much growing up (I liked 6, enjoyed some Deep Space 9, but it was never as big for me as Star Wars), but this was pretty damn cool. If I gave it much thought, there's probably plenty of blips in the script, but for what it is, I had a good time. I look forward to more movies with these guys.

Current Mood: chipper

After seeing a lot of praise for past Open Design projects (http://wolfgangbaur.com/opendesign/), I decided to sign on for the latest, Hall of the Mountain King. It sounded like a neat idea, having a voice in and participating in the development of a product. However, enough patrons voted for the project to be 3E, which I just don't have the time to go back to. But, there was enough interest that a 4E conversion was planned, so I stayed in as a patron.

Now, work on the 3E side is reaching a conclusion, so work on the 4E conversion has begun. I volunteered to rework the derro and the howler. The howler went easy enough, but the derro ended up as five stat blocks, including minions and an elite savant. My initial efforts went up Saturday, where I got plenty of positive comments and some very good feedback. I've just resubmitted my work after implementing some of hte feedback and making some other changes.

It's not a paying gig (with the patronage system, I paid money in). But, there will be an adventure out there which I contributed to. And, since it doesn't look like howlers or derros made the cut for the 4E MM2, mine might be the only 4E versions out there for now.

Current Mood: satisfied

Another weekend of back to back DMing. Friday continued the journey of the PCs through a twisted Feywild realm as they tried to elude their pursuers and find a way out. The PCs found temporary solace in a tomb, once they'd defeated the undead that had moved in. Just a brief interlude made up on the fly with the aid of dungeon tiles and the compendium. It did give me the chance to push the cleric down a hole, where I used the classic "Grab a sword in the dark and then find it's not your sword" to give her a new weapon.

Saturday continued Demon Queen's Enclave, with the PCs now in an undead town ruled by one of Orcus' proto-exarchs. To get to said exarch, the PCs had to battle through some brutal fights. I was disapointed that I failed with three death effects- two bodaks and a nightwalker, each time missing by one. I'm also confused as to why the nightwalker was shrunk in 4E- I have two huge nightwalker minis that are now too large. The fights included our first 4E mummies and death knight, both with some fun abilities to use. The three fights felt a bit on the long side, with each featuring an elite as well as monsters that could regenerate or heal themselves by other means. However, things seemed exciting enough that no one seemed bored by the events. We finished the night with the PCs entering the exarch's fortress, which required passing through a doorway of darkness.

Before the game on Saturday, I received my Wil Wheaton-designed shirt (http://shirt.woot.com/Friends.aspx?k=8110). I think wearing it may have empowered my dice, as I was rolling HOT! (five crits in the night, and plenty of other good rolls). Likewise, it seemed to suck the luck out of the players' dice, as attested by the numerous missed attacks and failed saves.

Getting back late Saturday, I hoped on WoW to do a few things and ended up being invited by some friends for a run on Heroic Utgard Keep. My first heroic run, it went pretty well. I received some upgrades from a guildmate, and we then hit Heroic Nexus. I'd been playing WoW solo so much lately, I'd forgotten how much fun grouping could be. The guild is off to Naxxramas tonight while I'm stuck at work, but there will be more opportunities

So, last week, I managed to pick up a nasty bit of spyware on my work computer. IT's solution was to wipe the computer and re-image it. Once I got it back, I had to reinstall my software. It all went smoothly, except Ariel.

Ariel is used for interlibrary loan; I scan journal articles and send them off to requesting libraries, and I can receive articles in return. Heck of a lot faster than popping the pages in the mail, and pretty essential for my job.

Well, the newest Ariel uses an SQL server. It'll even install it for you.. unless it doesn't. Each time I tried, it'd start setting up the server, get to about 3 seconds, then hang, before the progress bar would go BACKWARDS and the setup would terminate. To add to the fun, we have an update CD to install our version, and we skipped the last version, so I was installing Ariel 2.0 from a couple of 3.5 inch floppies (yes, my computer has a floppy drive, possibly for this exact reason). Since Ariel 4.1 would remove the obsolete parts of 2.0 before it tried and failed to set up the SQL server, I had to reinstall from the floppies each time before loading the update CD.

After various emails to Ariel's helpdesk (and me attempting to install an SQL server on my own, which didn't work for one and I had no idea to do with what I installed of the other), I finally got one of our higher IT people to come in and take a look (a polite email from my boss to their boss was all it took). After some futzing around, he tried enabling file sharing, and lo and behold, that's what it took (like the old joke about the itemized car mechanic bill: hitting the engine- $2.00; knowing where to hit it, $298.00).

So, Ariel was up and running and almost instantly I was getting articles incoming. All was good.

Until I tried to scan something. Scanned the first page just fine. Went to scan the next page, and the light didn't move, the scanner didn't scan, but Ariel pretended it had scanned something by making page 2 a copy of page 1.

Let me add something else- I did not handle the previous install of Ariel. The person who did ended up leaving it at version 3.4 (provided by Ariel tech support). I figured, hey, let's actually use the software we paid for. My HP scanner is not on the recommended list.

I've been poking around with the HP page seeing if I need an updated driver (no auot update button in the scan program; ghastly). They do have a handy button on their page I can press to see if my drivers are up to date. Unfortunately, it doesn't work in Firefox, I had to disable popups in IE, and even now that it runs, it fails to complete (or really even start the process).

So, yay for more wasted time as I try to get my scanner to speak nicely with my program, which might not even work. At least I'm in on Sunday when I can catch up on other matters.

Current Mood: ranty