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Saturday, July 11th, 2009
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1:25 am - fiction - brigits_flame - wings
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| Sunday, June 28th, 2009
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9:34 am - fiction - brigits_flame - thousand island
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| Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
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12:38 am - Gaming Style from Another Planet
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At the board game meetup tonight I was talking to a couple of people after games had mostly wrapped up, and the conversation turned to one of the little preview animations that came out for D&D 4th Edition last year. One of the guys proclaimed it to be much more entertaining than the actaul game, to which I replied, "not a fan of 4th, then?" This may have been a mistake, but oh, well.
This brought on the debate of the merits of 4th vs those of 3.5. Now, I'm not trying to convince anyone to play 4th if they don't want to. That's pointless. I'm also not going to try to convince anyone that they should give up 3.5 forever in favor of 4th. I think they're different enough that they can coexist as alternatives to be rotated in and out of service according to one's whims. I think it's great that he and his friends are having fun however they're gaming, and I'm not going to try to get them to change their ways. Still, I do feel a need to defend 4th against certain criticisms.
They said it was more like Magic: the Gathing than a roleplaying game anymore. Rather than challenge this as obvious absurdity, I chose to interpret it as a criticism of the game's dependence on a map as it fully embraces its miniatures game aspect. I countered that, yes, you need a map, but you needed a map in 3.5 as well, so that's not such a big change. They claimed that they play 3.5 without a map all the time and don't have any problems. "You're running up the beach, and will be in melee next turn. Next turn: you're in melee! How hard is that to keep track of?"
This is when I realized that our approaches to gaming are from entirely different planets. To me, if you're going to ignore the map in 3.5, you may as well play some other game system entirely. You've just thrown away any part of the game dealing with tactical positioning, including reach weapons, flanking, attacks of opportunity, and area-affect spells. If you're going to do that then 4th Edition is truly not for you - but I don't think 3.5 is a good fit for you either.
Another of his criticisms for 4th is that it was "dumbed down and oversimplified," which seemed baffling in the face of how much complexity he has stripped out of the 3.5 combat system by removing the map. So, yeah, this is when we change the subject. We are not speaking the same language right now.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, June 21st, 2009
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8:01 am - fiction - brigits_flame - Caesar
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| Sunday, June 14th, 2009
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5:28 am - fiction - brigits_flame - Oil and Vinegar
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5:09 am - Digital TV = Epic Fail
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I've been annoyed by the mandatory transition for a while now, mostly because it turns a weak signal from irritating static or snow into unwatchable pixellated garbage. That has never seemed like a trade up. I discovered a new wrinkle to the suck when I learned that we'd always have to set the channel on the converter box, which means I can't set up the VCR to tape something ahead of time unless I preset the box to the right channel...which rules out setting up things on different channels for the same night that I'm away, and means that if someone watches TV in between me setting it and the show being on they have to turn it back or I don't get what I wanted.
Well, it's worse than I thought, because apparently the converter box SHUTS OFF IF YOU LEAVE IT ALONE FOR A WHILE. Which means that even the single show that I set up to record didn't tape properly. I foolishly believed that the whole point of a converter box was to allow those of us with old tech to maintain our previous functionality. Turns out it's still a massive downgrade.
Here I had been upset because most of the few shows I watched had been canceled. I guess there wasn't any point to getting upset about that - I wouldn't have been able to watch them anyway.
Screw you, DTV.
current mood:  Full of Murderous Rage
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(comment on this)
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| Thursday, June 11th, 2009
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4:02 am - Theme returning to games.
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Once upon a time, Magic: the Gathering was a game about casting spells and summoning creatures. Then, as the rules evolved over the years, it became a game about just playing cards...terms like "summon" and "cast" disappeared.
The same sort of thing happened to Legend of the Five Rings. When the game first came out it had cards that said things like "the samurai performs seppuku in a fit of despair." Over the years, wording like that vanished under a wave of carefully worded text that required several readings to actually figure out what the card did, but left less room for debate about what that effect was.
Legend of the Five Rings is getting a fancy new overhaul of the appearance of the cards and how they are worded that makes the cards stylish and tries to recapture some of that lost flavor. Previews have been trickling out for a while now, and even though I havn't played for a long time I've been checking back now and then to see what's up. It looks like Moto Chen's newest printing will feature the following text: "Target an enemy unit with lower total Force than Chen's Unit. Chen tramples it. Destroy it." I'm happy to see thing like "Chen tramples it" return to the card text, because I think the flavor really adds something to the enjoyment of the game.
This evening I wandered by the site for Magic: the Gathering, and was amused to see something similar. It looks like Magic is currently being managed by people who miss its original thematic feel, and who are making at least a nod towards recapturing some of it. The newest edition of the rules will change the wording used in the game so that cards are no longer "played" or "put into play" or "removed from the game." Instead, cards will once again be "cast" to reinforce that they're supposed to be magic spells. Cards that enter play some way other than being cast will "enter the battlefield." Cards that were removed from the game (which sometimes returned to the game, making it a rather misleading term) are now "exiled." It's unfortunate that they chose that particular term, since "exile" means something else in their game Hecatomb, but I think Wizards would like to forget Hecatomb ever existed.
Anyway, there are also a few mechanical changes (at least one of which will cause people to abandon the game in droves because it returns the game to the logical way of handling combat damage that it had several years ago), but I'm far more interested to see that someone at the company finally realized that their game about wizards and magical spells had completely lost its theme over the years, and that they're trying to do something about it. Good for them.
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(comment on this)
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| Sunday, June 7th, 2009
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6:37 am - fiction - brigits_flame - ranch
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| Friday, May 29th, 2009
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4:22 pm - Full of Delicious Blood
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4:12 pm - Robots!!!
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I made some revisions to the giant robot I made for the SFS t-shirt this year (which was not picked as this year's design), added some color, and put it up on cafepress.
http://hwango.deviantart.com/art/Robots-Redux-124130530
http://www.cafepress.com/wjrobots
http://www.cafepress.com/wjrobotspurple
The process was not a smooth one, however. Yesterday I got an email that the purple version was suspended from being for sale on items because it was suspected of violating cafepress's policies on the use of copyrighted material. (?!) I can only assume that someone thought it represented a particular giant robot or something. What truly baffles me is that the version in browns wasn't flagged, just the purple one.
As much as this was mildly frustrating, I actually found it quite reassuring to know that they police the images this way and enforce these rules, since doing so protects my own images from being stolen and sold by other people. In fact, I wrote a reply to them saying exactly that, as well as explaining that it was my painting and didn't represent any particular robot whose likeness is owned by someone else. I got an email today that the issue has been cleared, so no harm done.
current mood:  relieved
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(6 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
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3:02 am - Star Trek: The Explodening
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In fact, so much explodening that I could miss every other movie this summer, and I'll still have met my annual quota for explosions. But it's going to be a summer of exploding _robots_, so I'm not sure how to handle things. I mean, I was seriously underwhelmed by Transformers, but the preview for the sequel has...what appears to be...MechaCthulhu. I don't...I don't know if I can pass that up.
current mood:  robots!
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(5 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
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5:30 am - Dominion on BSW
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I was disappointed that I didn't get a chance to play Dominion at the board game meetup thing, so I finally tried playing it on BSW.
The cards in your hand float and zoom in when you hover over them, in much the same way that suggested links show up at the bottom of videos on Youtube. It's every bit as annoying here and it is to me there. It just seems unnecessary, and it's not like there isn't enough space to display them all at full size. The way that it indicates that it's your turn isn't very obvious. I also didn't notice the "I don't want to buy anything" button right away, and couldn't figure out why it was still my turn at one point. And I accidentally bought a Garden instead of a Market once. That was...very upsetting. But I think with a little practice the interface will be just fine.
It was a three-player game, and we went for a completely random setup, which I've never actually done before. We got: chancellor, feast, throne room, gardens, thief, library, council room, laboratory, market, adventurer.
Someone bought a Thief early on, so I avoided buying silver or gold. My economy was based on Chancellors/Markets/Throne Rooms. To my amazement, it actually worked. Take that everyone who says the Chancellor is crap!
Each of us bought 4 of the Provinces, but I also bought a Garden, and a Duchy, and managed to win 33 to 29 to 27. The Garden was worth 3 at the end, so it didn't win me the game, but at least it didn't cost me the game either. Still, every time I drew it I shook my fist mentally at it for not being another Market.
One big plus for the BSW version is that, in spite of the interface issues, the fact that none of us had to actually shuffle cards sped things up to the point that the game only 20 minutes. So that was pretty cool.
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(5 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, May 2nd, 2009
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12:07 am - The Importance of the Right Name
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The writing activity in which I participate is holding a poll to rename the group that makes sure each entry gets at least a couple of constructive comments (so new writers don't get discouraged and think no one read their entries). I suggested "The People's Glorious Postive Feedback Distribution Collective." Alas, it was accidentally left off the poll, so I'll never know if anyone but me would have voted for it.
This reminds me of when I worked for IDD and shared an office with the only other tech writer at the company. I put up a message on our whiteboard that we were "The Department of Art, Culture, and Zen Mysticism," and that we offered free cryptic wisdom in addition to writing documentation and manuals. It also reminds me of that time in the Newspeak April Fool's issue when we put an entry in the Club Corner from the "One True Path to Enlightenment Through Spiritual Fortitude (formerly the Railroad Club)."
I recently rewatched Iron Man, and once again I cheered inwardly when the government guy says he works for the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. I mean, I know it's just set up for when they call it "SHIELD" later, but still.
More words = Better name.
current mood: zany
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Thursday, April 30th, 2009
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4:10 am - art - Martial Artist Formerly Known As...
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http://hwango.deviantart.com/art/Future-y-Martial-Artist-120947986
I signed for a piece featuring a futuristic punk guy writhing in pain with green energy bursting out of him. Alas, that card got cut from the set or something, but they told me I could go forward with my sketch with a little tweaking and no more explody green stuff, and just make a martial artist for the futuristic part of their setting. Dang, I was gonna have fun with glowy green stuff. Oh, well.
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(comment on this)
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| Sunday, April 26th, 2009
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7:13 am - fiction - brigits_flame - reap
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| Friday, April 24th, 2009
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5:34 am - art - Hanging Gardens
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5:14 am - art - Dao Biotech
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| Sunday, April 19th, 2009
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8:06 am - fiction - brigits_flame - flourish
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| Sunday, April 12th, 2009
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6:32 am - fiction - brigits_flame - seed
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| Sunday, April 5th, 2009
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7:51 am - fiction - brigits_flame - digging
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