kr1mz0n_ghoti

So, I game in one fashion or another 5days a week. I have two alternating games on Monday, Wednesday I play/run descent. Thursday I run a 4e game, Friday I'm playing in a gurps game. Saturday I'm in several larps and Sunday I'm on alternating games of playing shadowrun, or running a different 4e game.

Okay, that's apparently 6days a week. So, when I'm at work or on the lone Tuesday sans game, I find myself constantly thinking about gaming.... I can't get enough. Does this make me obsessed? Most likely. Does this make me addicted? Also most likely. Is this a problem, or just a fact?

I don't tend to let it interfere with my work... other than day dreaming.... but if it wasnt about gaming, I'm sure is daydream about something equally not work related.

As gaming is social, it's not like I'm closing myself off... in fact it means I'm hanging out with at least 5 friends each day, except Tuesday where I'm a loner...

So maybe the answer is to fill my Tuesday, so I'm not such a recluse.

So, I think I'm coming closer to figuring out what my favorite genre is... it's almost certainly Fantasy... but more specifically magic.

I really like magic. I especially like high magic.

I guess at the end of the day, it doesn't have to be Fantasy, it just has to be magical. I like magic in modern day as well. I just really like arcane-y stuffs.

I need to narrow this down more, determine what part of 'magic' i like, or why i like it, so that maybe i can convey to my GM's what I'm looking for.

And understand, even if that's my favorite genre, it doesn't mean I don't like the rest. I still like Iron Heroes (though in the first game I played of it, I did play the Arcanist)... or normal games, where magic doesn't exist. But generally, if it exists, I will be drawn to it.

I'm drawn to write stuff down here, but I'm not really sure what to say. I've got a lot of thoughts in my head, thoughts I want to organize, but I'm not sure if writing them down is the way I want to do that.

Most of them deal with gaming, of course... though some deal with podcasting I suppose (listening to, not creating... i'm not that far out.. yet.) Some deal with secrecy and transparancy... some deal with anticipation and disappointment... I think a lot of them deal with frustration.

Which, of course, sucks.


So, today I was asked what my favorite game was... which could be genre, rules, world, whatever. The asker's opinion, Cyberpunk. Unfortunately, while I've run a bunch of cyberpunk in one fashion or another for many years now on and off... I haven't had the same amount of time to play it. I'm playing in a once (sometimes twice) a month game of shadowrun right now... but unfortunately, I made a useful character in one resepct, it's not a very 'powerful' character... or at least I'm not taking the time to make him 'powerful'. - He's an elf "ex-corp" with something like a 13d charisma, which gives him like 22 dice to roll when bargining or fast talking someone. Unfortunately, there's a limit to what can be fast talked - a serious limit.

The group didn't have a talker, and I though it'd be fun. Would I prefered to play something different? I'm not sure... but I know that it doesn't capture my "ideal" game/concept/genre/whatever... enough so, that as my only real unit of comparison, I can't claim that CP is my favorite.

Some systems that I've looked at, and would love to play some/more, but haven't had the chance: Spirit of the Century, Don't Rest your Head, Unknown Armies, Godlike (/Wild Talents), Houses of the Blooded... heck, even burning wheel, though the people I game with that have tried it didn't like it. Maybe it was because they did a one shot, which probably doesn't necessarily work with the system. Unfortunately, my crew tends towards the mainstream: D&D, Gurps, World of Darkness, and some Palladium games (but not for a long time.) I listen to these podcasts of people playing these other games, and wow does it sound fun.

I've tried running these games before... some of them... and the sessions were all techinically successes, but not something that would want to be repeated. What made the fun, though, were the people. What made them fun were the non-rules, non-system elements. So, what difference does the system make. If the fun had gaming is had by the story, and the people... all you need is a vehicle for your story, right?

Can you tell the same compelling story, regardless of system? Obviously you can, that is the reason why "story" games exist... games that rely on little to no mechanics... of course, you (and the rest of your crew) have to be willing to use these mechanics.

But I guess the issue is that sometimes I don't wanna tell a story. Sometimes, I leave that higher purpose stuff behind, and I want to be heroic, put all my hopes on a die roll, watch it tumble along the table, stop on the 7, then roll slightly over to the 20, and watch the table explode! But then, people argue that tabletop makes a bad medium for combat for combat sake, siting that playing a game like wow gets instant feedback, pretty graphics, and other goodies... but I dunno. Wow isn't face to face. Wow doesn't have the chit-chat, and the (something dmnsqrl doesn't like) inherit round-robining of being on stage for the rest of the group. When you're playing wow, even if you're only doing a 5 man, people aren't usually going to notice you being awesome.... they're not going to cheer with you when you got that one hit that you shouldn't have, and it stunned the boss. No, they're going to ask you what took you so long to get that hit, and why aren't you using a better shot rotation, and why are you spec'ed with 5 points in that tree, when you're neglecting the obviously better choice.

Forget that.

Larping.

I've been thinking what I like about larping so much, since I'm really really enjoying it. It's not the rules mechanics or conflict resolution... RPS is disgustingly un-right. I'd try making some statistics jib, but I'd be proven wrong by the one person who has bothered to read this far, so I'll just accept that you're right, as long as you accept that RPS isn't a good mechanic.

What I like about it is that in our local game, we have consistantly 40 some people on the game floor. That's 40 people every other week contributing to a shared universe. That's not something you can get at a tabletop. Even if you have out going people, where all the players contribute to the game, to bring up plot, characters, thoughts, motivations etc... you're still only have 6 or so people contributing... and sure, not all 40 folks at the larp contribute... but even if only a quarter of them do, that's still almost twice as many as tabletop. So this shared universe becomes richer, more alive, and interactable with.

I'm not sure where I'm going with any of this... but I'm glad I've said some of it... maybe it will make room for the other thoughts fighting for attention.

Tuesday, October 25th, 2009

So, I'm looking at kicking off my first live test of FG2 tonight...

Things to do:
- Find Headset
- Test Skype
- Open Session (publish alias for folks to find)
- Try stuff out...

hopefully I can get some folks to log in and chat... and we can figure it out...

Non-FG2 related things to do:
- Go shopping for pot-luck stuffs
- Rake Leaves
- Cook Pot-luck stuffs
- Cook dinner
- Eat
- etc.

Stay tuned to see how it plays out.

So, I've been running a 4th ed game, called Kingom Under Seige, where the characters started as 16th level champions of the Reclaimed Myth Drannor... We're 10 games in so far (http://rpgdb.pbworks.con/kingdom/) (I think that link is right, damned limitation of posting by phone)

So, last night, after a couple of folks left, we discussed incorpotating fantasy grounds into the game. Though, we'd actually be incorporating it to supplement our tabletop game, while we're all sitting around the table, as opposed to when were all sitting at our own houses.

Basically it would be tactical assistant... Probably help organize skill challenges as well.

Right now, the game pretty much has 6 to 7 players at the table (+me) with everyone using a laptop. These laptops can get in the way of having/using a battlemap (which 4th ed kinda requires)... So using FG, every player could have the linked battlemap in front of them...

But we'd still be able to benefit with face-to-face RP... Which imo can't be beat with text-based rp... Sure, in text rp, you can stay in character more, and you can emote better... And if you are a decent write, it can generally flow better... But it lacks the speed of face-to-face conversation... And the dynamicness of a heated argument... And it generally feels more authentic/less contrived.

So... I have two weeks to see what I can cobble together, and hopefully test things out... And see about getting licenses for everyone (which since they offer discounds for multiple versions, I might get them all, and get them to pay me.

Hopefully, I'll be able to use my tuesday night attempt to figure out how to use this system... If only I didn't keep filling my tuesdays with 'that other stuff I can't do any other time.'

Anyway, that's enough typing on my phone.

WOOHOO...

Somewhere between lastnight and this morning, I managed to use the parser (along with the compendium scrape) to grab and build the PHB library and the monster manual library. It's hawt!

(well, I need to figure out why my MM library has phb data in it also (or the ghost of data)... and I need to figure out how much "flavor text" I'm okay with not having.)

But, regardless, I'm very happy.

Next step is start working through the other core (in my mind) books... like the powers books, and the second MM and PHB.

But yay.

Also good news, the DDI character builder now puts your magical tomes' powers into the power-selection... so it'll make cards for them. I had worked around this by choosing those powers, printing the character out, then taking the powers off... this is much simpler.

Made an assassin character.. might get to play him, might not... we'll see.

sigh...

need more time to game.

I'm looking at trying out FG live on tuesday the 13th (which is a very unluky day in latin american countries)... we'll see how it works. (Still need to make malpanda a shaman, though.)

Tried using the compendium scraper last night (way too late last night) and it didn't work as well as I was hoping...

But I think if I actually bothered to read the version notes, I would have known it would happen that way. I think it only really grabbed feats and powers, I have to grab everything else on my own. If that's true, that's okay... it'll just take some time, now that I know what I'm doing.

I'm still quite excited.

...

Turns out tonight I'm not going to use FG for my tabletop game... I didn't have the time to load H2 into my FG... but I'll discuss it with my players, and mkae sure they're good with it.

I so don't want to be at work today. I just (finally) found a clear post on how the 4e Parser works with the DDI Compendium... and it sounds SO easy that I want to race home and try it, even though I won't actually benefit from it for a while.

Sigh.

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I'm not 100% sure what the out put will look like, and how I'll be able to incorporate that into my library modules, but I'm very excited.

Still considering how I can use this tool (the FGII in general) for my tabletop games.... I like the idea of using the masking with player views and gm views...

Hm... on the game at play at my place, I could set up the player side on the entertainment center computer in the liviing room, and drag the mouse/keyboard to the coffee table... then I have my computer off to the side... that way, when combat starts, the PC's can do their thing on the map, and I can do mine... I like that.

I have that game tomorrow... I'll just have to work quick at getting the maps set up and stuff...

Damn, I hate having to be at work some times.

(I'll publish the alias if people are bored enough to want to watch the map... though I don't think there will be much RP or Combat happening, as I'm not sure I'll be using the combat tracker... /shrug)

So, I still haven't loaded the parts of the phb stuff... but I did load the first dungeon in the 'dungeon delve' book... and I started to make some completely random npc's... (using the ddi's 'quick start' generator... though the 'cleric' it made had an 11 wisdom and 20 strength... but all the powers were strength related, so it looks like it could be an effective cleric... maybe.)

I figured I'd try the dugneon delve as a trial run, since it's short, has 0 to no rp, and allow me to get used to running a combat in FG, which strikes me as the hardest part... running the RP in FG will only be difficult to keep it text based, instead of just going off on skype (as I believe people would consider more natural, but if you're going to keep a log of what was said, it has to be said by text...)


/shrug...

just wanted to update.

okay, I've got the rest of the encounters uploaded... and the maps are done... next up is to make tokens for all the monsters (maybe) and of course, find players and run the game.

Gonna wait, I think, until dmnsqrl's sister and soon to be brother in law get back from their honeymoon... and then is the effort of finding a gaming day.

Mondays are out (two alternating 'every other week' games... though I'm playing in both which is a treat.)
Wednesdays are out (an every other week game (running) and a every other week get together with the larp crew.)
Thursdays might work, if we do 1 game a month... running an every week game and then I have to stay late at work.
Fridays are out... playing in an every week game.
Saturdays are out... larping or playing in a game
Sundays are out... running a game, or staying late at the folks place.

So... that looks like Tuesday is the best day, and since I already dropped out of my wow-raid-group (to free up tuesdays) I might be able to do an every other... or maybe one tuesday, one thursday, to spread the love.

Sigh... we need more days (with less work.)

Oh, back to the stuff I need to do... I need to figure out how to import more rules stuff into the database, for people to look at (especially powers and magic items and stuff.... you know, the hard stuff.)