random average

So here's what's been going on.

Face to Face
Ran a murder mystery for the most recent Spirit of the Century game on Friday night. "Doctor Brightman is dead." Good stuff, for all that I suck at doing mysteries. It was "Margie's session," so I gave it a college try, anyway. There were investigations, autopsies, some wonderfully fun characterizations, a seance, and a whole lot of laughing. Present were Chris, Tim, Dave and Margie; again, I have to give a nod to Kate's observation that I run better games when I'm NOT close friends with everyone at the table -- we just generally focus more on the game and less on everything else.

Didn't even seem to get too sidetracked by having Kaylee around for the first part of the game.

This Thursday, it's Zombies at(e) my Homecoming Dance 2: The Revenge of the Hickey.

Online, not MMO
I'm going to be playing in (not running) a play-by-forum game of Galactic(!), using the ashcan edition that Matt did up for Gencon this year. That should be fun. No character information or even links yet -- we're juuuust getting rolling.

MMO
WoW
Grezzk is still level 70. I've actually being getting into some fun dungeon runs lately (there are only about... five or so in the later game that I haven't done even once, if you only count the five-mans). I'm not UBER geared or anything, but at this stage my 'effective level' is 108, taking my gear into account. (Taking gear into account, the maximum level in WoW is somewhere around 150, while perhaps 125 is as high as I'm likely to get with the Guild I'm part of.) Anyway, I'm still having a lot of fun with Grezzk.

Hit 45 on Kayti. Nothing terribly exciting to report on her. People keep stopping in mid-run to ask me what kind of weapon I'm using, cuz they can't figure out how a tanking paladin is topping the damage reports. I try to explain that the damage is all from the paladin abilities, and that I would do pretty much the same damage if i were naked, but no one seems to get it. Eh. In a few more levels, I can hurl an "Avenger's Shield" (think Captain America-esque energy contruct) at enemies to pull them, and tanking is going to get a LOT easier. Woot.

I tanked a run into Scarlet Monastery's Cathedral a few days ago and it went really smoothly. We obliterated everything and aside from one jackass who screwed up the boss-looting at the end, it was a great run.

There was one point where I TOTALLY "pulled a Hype" with her as well (which is a tactic that *I*, personally, have never seen work in WoW, that I used to do all the time in CoH). We were clearing out a big chapel area, one clump of guys at a time... like 3 or 4 guys at a time -- it was SAFE, but it wasn't particularly hard. About halfway through I told the other paladin "heal me, I want to try something" (I didn't really tell the priest ahead of time. oops :) and I just ran through a couple (or three :) clusters at once and pulled them all back to the group -- something like 8 to 10 guys. Got em all nice and pissed at me and the group just burned em down. I think most of them were JUST about out of mana when the fight ended.

The group's response: "That was fun. Do it again."

LotRO
Tyelaf is level 21. We (he tends to work with Tirawyn the Captain) have done most of the quests around the town of Bree, and now have two BIG GROUP things to deal with -- spying on the Witch King himself, and a foray into the Great Barrows that house the last ruler of Cardolan. Yikes. After that... folks need a lot of help in the Lone Lands, and a lot of that involves shooting Orcs, so I'm THERE.

Geiri remains my toughest character. I don't know if he's my FAVORITE, but he's definitely tied for first. At level 16 (17?) he's got considerably higher morale (read: health) than Tye, and he and Tiranor the elven hunter TEAR through quests that I recall being a pretty big pain in the tuchas with Tye. We were on last night for a few hours and finished up all the storyline in Ered Luin (the Blue Mountains and Celondim) and headed East through the Shire and into Bree, where we met up with Strider and continued to harass the kinda-sorta undead dwarf Skorgrim -- that dude HAS to be tired of seeing use show up and mess with his plans over and over. It's been like... well, for Tiranor, it's going on 600 years, now. (God I love how the time-instanced storyline in LotRO works.)

Downside to Geiri: he takes half a coon's age to kill anything on his own. However, this rarely comes up. :)

His personal bane: creban. Friggin' evil birds.

Oh, and elves that go running off of cliffs and break his damn ankles.

I haven't played Yarren much, but she's also wrapped up all the quests in the Shire and has headed to Bree to see what this "Strider" guy wants (something about heading into the Old Forest to look for some hobbits he's supposed to meet up with in Bree). She's also going to give up the plain-jane professions of farming and cooking. Poking at old scrolls and bits of lost lore from the Second Age is SO much more interesting (and likely to get her face melted off, but THAT'S FUN TOO.)

-----

And... that's about it.

Posted by Doyce at 2:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From one of the game's author's a great tweak to the phases in SotC character generation to move away from a time-oriented series of phases and instead use a more organic series of questions to find answers for:

* Who are you?
* Who are you connected to?
* What's your big issue?
* What kind of situations do you see yourself being involved in?

it's very very good.

Don't get me wrong -- I love the phases of character creation in the standard Spirit of the Century rules, and I've used them both in a standard game and an Amber game with good success, but the phases themselves are pretty closely tied to the post-Great War setting. This tweak allows you to 'fit' character generation into virtually any setting with no problems at all -- it has all the Aspecty-goodness of SotC with some great flavor added from things like Primetime Adventures "issues" and even the old-school Amber questionnaires. Good stuff.

Posted by Doyce at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Caught up by the desire to play a little wacky horror roleplaying in the middle of the week, I got a few folks together, pulled out the pocket-sized campfire horror game Dead of Night, and we had ourselves some fun.

The players:
* Jay, in town from New York for the next few months -- catch his part in Pride and Prejudice next month at the Denver Performing Arts Center.
* Meera the Fierce
* Randy

The Concept:
* It is 1985
* You are in High School
* Heathers and Pretty in Pink meets Shawn of the Dead

The Main NPCS:
* Meridith, the Homecoming Queen
* Troy, the "captain awesome", knows-everyones-name, cool but cocky quarterback (played by James Marsden)
* Rick "the Hickey" - head linebacker, bully (played by Jake Busey)
* Sarah - salutatorian, on the field hockey varsity team, pretty, popular, and rumored to be pregnant (I said Julia Stiles was playing this part, but I was actually thinking of Erika Christensen. Huh.)
* Kinney(, Melvin) - an angry young man who's been threatening to burn down the school since sixth grade
* Bender - the stoner dude

My constraints for character creation:
* Tell me why you're NOT going to the Homecoming Dance
* Tell me about some kind of relationship you have with at least two of the NPCs above

Here's what we got:

* Meera: Alice ("don't call me Allison") - the smart, acidic, Scary Goth Chick. Sophomore. She's Troy's little sister and dated Kinney in Junior High until he got "too intense". She's not at the homecoming dance because... c'mon, look at her. Look at THEM -- it's obvious.
* Jay: Chris - the slightly stoned, visionary singer/guitarist/songwriter of Beefcake Express (not the band's actual name, which I can't remember, but it was close to that). Bender is the bass player, and Kinney is the drummer. In play, we also discovered he had a one-night 'thing' with the homecoming queen, and he still has a thing for her. He's a Junior. He's not at the homecoming dance because the class officers selected a clearly inferior cover band to play at the dance.
* Randy: Jason - the rebellion-through-kleptomania kid. He's a sophomore, and has a crush on Sarah. Rick the Hickey has selected him as a particular target for harassment, but Jason returns the favor by routinely stealing Rick's stuff. ((He really doesn't like Rick because he dated Sarah for a little while last year.)) He's not at the dance because he didn't have the guts to ask Sarah (who, because of her personal drama, is also not going). Also, as we find out with the first in-character line in the game, Jason always plays halflings.

What are they all doing during the Homecoming dance?
* They're in the basement at Alice's house, playing Call of Cthulu. Alice is GMing. Jason is playing a short british man.

Quote and other wackiness after the cut.

"Kinney's an asshole, man... and a mediocre drummer." Chris, re: Angry Melvin Kinney. Clearly, the harshest judgement Chris could lay on another member of the band.

"He used to play in our games, until we got sick of him just trying to kill EVERYONE we met." - Meera, re: Angry Melvin Kinney
"He's living for the day they invent DOOM." -- Randy

"Hey, are you okay?" -- Troy the Awesome to Jason, after Rick the Hickey gives him a spinning atomic wedgie in front of the whole school
"Always glad to help the Hitler Youth get their rocks off. It seems to be my place in life." - Jason

"I borrow my mom's car." -- Jay
"A gremlin?" -- GM
"We have a Hornet - we couldn't afford a Gremlin." A little bit of Chris' backstory.

"I don't swerve for cheerleaders." - Alice

"Just go... haven't you done enough?" Jolene, of the Queen's Court to Chris the Gallant but Clueless.

"He [Jason] immediately thought 'Nazgul' when he was surprised. You, however, thought 'cat fight.'" -
Doyce to Jay

"You are assaulted by a whirling CYCLONE of...taffeta." - Doyce to Meera, when Alice is attacked by the Queen's Court after dousing them in punch

"We don't negotiate with terrorists... or zombies." - Jay

"This would be a dignified time for your bowels to release," - Jay, helpfully, to Randy, as a zombie redneck attacks.

"Thanks Chris... Alice, you should be nice to him with the... monster... polyp... game-thing." - Troy, who was bit by the redneck zombie, then given everclear
"I will eviscerate you later." -- Alice to Chris.

"I'm going to head toward the wet...slurping. 'Jason, man, if you don't put Jimmy Dean away before I get around the corner, I will be totally put out.'" - Chris

"The wet slurping is Rick the Hickey, going for his namesake." -- Doyce

"It's Frodo with the underwear. [to Randy] Sorry man, the nickname stuck." -- Doyce

"If you end up ending the scene without pants AGAIN, it would be SO awesome." -- Jay, making more helfful suggestions for Jason.

"Can we get back to the thing, the stuff, the vengeance?" - Doyce, as AMK.

"You can't ... you always have to HELP everyone, and you always want to be the hero, and you're just... Man... Halflings can't even BE Paladins!" - Angry Melvin Kinney, ranting at Jason

"They can't get in unless they're invited. Actually, they can't get in unless someone lets them in - the gym doors are locked." - Doyce riffing off the undead thing.

"Were you in an accident? Did you wreck the car?" - Alice's dad
"I was not in an accident and the car was not wrecked." -- Alice
[screech] [CRASH!] from down the street
"Well, it might be...now." -- Alice

And that's kind of as far as we got. We only played a few hours, but the Survival Points are starting to dwindle for a few folks, and we packed in a LOT (and I mean a LOT) of Geeky 1980's Gamer Nostalgia.

Quote of the night:
"MmmmmAN we're nerds. I can't even SEE cool from where we're sitting right now." - Jay

Good times.

Rick the Hickey is a zombie now, stuck outside the gym. Chris is holding the doors closed on the inside, and Jason is right behind Rick on the OUTSIDE. Ooops. Alice took Troy home to talk to Dad about the bite he got, but Troy wandered off with the car, and might have just wrecked it.

We play again in a few weeks. :)

Posted by Doyce at 7:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Completely. Awesome.

Posted by Doyce at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Last night, Kate and I were running around the edge of this orc camp up the Greenway a few miles from Bree. We're leaving, but one of the guards spots her and takes off after her. She ignores him, figuring (correctly) that she can outrun him and he'll give up the chase in a little bit.

Me? I stop.

"You stopped you shoot him, didn't you?"

"Yeah..."

But let me clarify.

It's not because I'm bloodthirsty or need the xp or anything.

I (a dyed in the wool Tolkien fanboy) am given the opportunity to plant an arrow fletching-deep into the back of a fleeing orc.

It is going to be a long, long, LONG time before that gets old.

Posted by Doyce at 7:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I actually had two points for my "serious gamer" post, but the thing was getting too long, so here's the rest of it.

Let me pick out the bits in the first post that had to do with my second point.

Player B can have an extremely productive 90 minutes online and then go to a movie with local friends.

Productive. Getting stuff done.

Cleaned up some old quests, and started collecting some materials I need for the next 'big' dungeon I want to do with her.

How did I know I'd need them? I looked up dungeon instances for the basic level I'm at, focusing on stuff that was higher level by a little bit, because (a) it's better rewards and (b) I'm a pretty good player, so I want to push myself.

Also, following some research on the "maintankadin" forums, I respecced her for a stronger tanking build, which cost me a ton of gold, but the results of which I liked.

I don't just research what there is to do -- I read about how to do it. Yeah, most of the posts are about playing at 70, and if I'm only level 40, that's not entirely relevant, but it does tell me what to aim for, what to expect, and most importantly, what I will be expected to do if I want to team up with other people.

... spent some time in the afternoon doing more work on game-prep for that face to face game, and reading up on LotRO quests and appropriate surnames for Men of Gondor.

Prep, prep, prep. I want the face to face game to come off well, and while I don't prep scenarios as such, I *do* prep by getting familiar with the rules. For this game coming up, I'm researching:

1. Half-life
2. Horror movies of the 80s
3. Mullets

And I'm looking up surnames of the Men of Gondor (note: they don't use them) because at level 15 your LotRO character can pick a surname, and with the server I'm on, it's important to me that it's accurate. I'm a fan-boy.

Kate and did a little LotRO stuff, which mostly amounted to us running around the Old Forest in fear for our very lives.

Why do I prep? Why do I look stuff up? Because eventually the shit is going to hit the fan in whatever game you're playing, and you want to continue to have fun -- not have a frustrating night.

That's the same reason I aim to do things that push my play ability. If my 'safe' play has more instances where I've pushed the limit and had to really work to succeed, then I'm ready for the times when I have to redline when I'm NOT expecting it.

Yes, we ran around all over, yes we scrambled -- the only time I didn't have fun was when I was defeated and had to retreat from some wild critters that really shouldn't have been that much of a challenge -- they WERE, because Kate and I got separated, which also shouldn't have happened.

Saturday, I was on my paladin and teamed up with another one. I tank on my paladin, and I've done a LOT of reading on how to do well as a tank on WoW, because it is a LOT different than tanking on City of Heroes.

1. You don't get any kind of front-loaded aggro. Most tanks in WoW only have a piddly little ranged attack -- some (most paladins) don't have any, and they have to build it by getting beat on for a good ten seconds. 2. Their aggro is FRAGILE. It is no challenge at all for a damage-dealing class to decide they want to pull the bad guy's aggro from me onto themselves... the CHALLENGE in play is to do as much damage as they can WITHOUT getting aggro. (You can run an aggro meter to tell you were you are in relation to the tank.)

In CoH, Tanks get a ranged taunt that affects up to five enemies at the same time, and, once you start hitting them, pretty much guarantees you will never lose their attention that fight.

The only thing like that in WoW is dynamite, and I can't MAKE dynamite.

So I was out with this other paladin, and while I'm still running up to the baddie, they throw off a holy smite -- a ranged spell they get, because of their build, that I don't have. Before you could say "What the..." I was running back the way I came, chasing the thing down as it went after the other character.

After the fight, I asked them to wait and let me build aggro on the mob first. "Five seconds," I said, "during which you can even hit them with your basic attack if you want, just don't use that Smite."

"Why worry about it?" They said. "I can tank these little guys."

Sure, but that's not the point.

There's something my football coach used to say. "You play like you practice." Only into my mid-thirties do I really start to understand that.

If you start off every unimportant fight with some big, aggro-pulling attack, what do you think you're going to do when you start up a boss-fight against something that can kill you in two shots?

You're going to hit the same damn key. I know this -- I do it all the time on my hunter. I have purposely started playing with a pet who CAN NOT hold aggro without some help from me, so I get better at playing with a GROUP.

If you always work to have nice safe fights where everything goes according to plan, what's going to happen when things go pear-shaped?

You're gonna die, that's what. I purposely make bad moves on my paladin to get in over my head every 30 minutes or so, so I know how to deal with things when they go bad (I don't need to do this on my hunter -- things go wrong with him all the time without my help). So I'm used to it.

So it's HABIT.

I went afk at one point during that run with the paladin. I came back to my screen and we had been attacked by a patrol of trolls. I was down to half my health, and the other paladin was almost dead.

I dropped into my chair. There are like eight or nine guys on me. Throw a blessing on myself. Put up my holy shield. Put up Seal of Sanctuary. Consecrate the ground around me so that everyone starts taking damage. Let them burn themselves on my holy aura for awhile. Health is getting down. The other paladin dies. Drink a potion. Repeat. Three of the trolls run off (they always do that) and bring back more from the camp nearby. Health is getting down. Use my Lay on Hands ability that heals me up to full ONLY ONCE AN HOUR. Keep fighting. More of them rum for reinforcements. Health is getting down. Throw up a 10-second shield of invulnerability. Heal myself, twice. Shield drops. Put up all my defenses and consecrate the ground again, bottoming out my mana.

Fight. 20 seconds later it's all over but the crying. All the trolls are dead and I'm waiting for my mana to come back to resurrect the pally.

I wasn't even panicking during any of that. I was focused, yes, but I was pretty sure I'd win.

Why?

I'd done pretty much the same fight the day before. Twice. On purpose.

Solo.

You play like you practice.

Sunday night, I logged in and one of my guild leaders let me know that they were available for 'whatever you need' with regards to getting keyed to Karazhan. Word has percolated throughout the guild that I'm not a smacktard, and not a bad player. (With exactly 0 epic gear pieces in 17 body locations, I'm doing the same damage per second and performing the same group functions (crowd control, etc) as the hunter class-leaders wearing nothing but epics), and they want to get me to a point where I can do more stuff with them.

I read about playing hunters. I look at the kinds of numbers that some of the smartest, best players with my type of character put up when they're running the elite dungeons in groups of 10 -- the guys who consistently out-perform everyone else in the group.

I note that their stats are maybe 30% better than mine, and then I try to produce the same numbers as they get, anyway.

I fail. I figure out something I can do to fix it. I do that. I try again.

I look for missions where you seem to need three players and I try to solo it. If I get even halfway there, I keep trying until I succeed.

Am I perfectionist? Please -- come look at my house and tell me that. Or read the typos in this post.

I'm not leet. I have no desire or delusions in that regard.

But when I play, I want to it to be good, quality play. I want it to demonstrate some skill, and I do NOT want the other players playing with me wondering "who brought along the dead weight?"

Posted by Doyce at 6:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Okay. This is going to seem like it has a lot to do with MMO gaming, but at it's heart it's about gaming in general -- even just about social commitments as a whole.

In the MMO world (and in gaming in general, in a much less formalized/articulated way) there are two labels for players that can tossed around: "Casual" and "Hardcore".

Definitions of these two terms vary, but in a nutshell, the two might mean any or all of the following, depending on the speaker:

• Casual - Doesn't take the game that seriously. Doesn't play much (less than 20 hours a week, let's say). Isn't reliable in terms of showing up for planned activities. Automatically drops game-related activities if something 'better' comes up. Isn't a particularly good player. Isn't a particularly 'advanced' player (has good gear -- progresses through game content). Just isn't very serious about it. Might say they're showing up for something and just... won't. Has a life.
• Hardcore - Takes the game WAY TOO seriously. Plays more per week than they spend at work. Never misses, and usually organizes, planned game activities. Automatically drops other activities if something comes up in game. Is a 'leet' player with great gear, ultra-fast progression into end-game content, know the math of the game backwards and forwards, knows the Lore by heart. Is the attendance-nazi for in-game events. Lives the 'life' of a Basement Dwelling Virgin Troglodyte.

Clearly, the generalizations above are filled with statements from one side, talking about the OTHER side. In MMOs (and online forums in general) it's a lot more obvious, but it happens in face to face games, too. We all know the guy who keeps the spreadsheet of all the treasure accumulated at last weeks game -- who's got the best gear so far -- who the group has beaten, what the xp-per-session is, and who's missed the most sessions.

We also know the guy who says they'll show up to the game, doesn't for three weeks running, and when he does, arrives with his second six-pack of the day and proceeds to drunk (yes, "drunk", not "drink") his way through the game. The other players shake their head at this 'casual' person, the casual person wonders about those other five at the table who showed up on time, and clearly have no life.

So... which one are you?

Did you say "neither"? I did.

Did you see parts of both categories that, when stripped of their vitriol, could have been you?

I did. But the other inaccurate stuff makes those broad categories useless.

Do people exist who are just like that? Sure. I'd say they're both unhealthy extremes, or at least antisocial; in a nutshell, the "Casual" player (in this context) seems to be labeled as the one that is irresponsible and selfish when playing. The "Hardcore" player is the one seen as irresponsible and selfish when NOT playing.

I don't like those labels, but whatever.

I want a word for what kind of gamer I am, so I'm going to use serious.

Serious... gaming? This isn't that odd a label. Look at folks with any hobby -- biking, yarn, book clubs, softball -- no one blinks when they say they take their time spent there seriously. Let's go with that -- let's treat gaming like any other hobby.

I'm just flat-out discarding time-spent-online. I don't think it's relevant.

Player A can spend five hours online screwing around and not accomplishing a @#$@%@ thing.
Player B can have an extremely productive 90 minutes online and then go to a movie with local friends.
Who's the "hardcore" gamer? Eh.

Right, back to the main screed. What's a serious gamer? What do I do that's different from the 'casual' person, that makes me look, to them, like a hardcore gamer. Conversely, what do I do that makes a hardcore player thing I'm casual?

Quality Time
I want the time I spend playing a game to be 'worth' something. I want it to entertain. I want it to be enjoyable. I want there to be a sense of time well-spent. I DO NOT want a million different things vying for my attention, a sense of directionless activity to no purpose.

So. Here's what I did this week (not 100% accurate, but something like this):

• Monday: Crappy day at work. First evening with Kaylee in four days. Played with her, made supper, and after she went to bed, got caught up on Chuck and Heroes a little. After that, logged into WoW and couldn't find anything to do or anyone to do it with. Kate was done with her TV at this point, and wanted to play, so we both logged into LotRO and did some quests on a pair of characters we play together, but we had some problems there as well. Went to bed feeling I should have just watched more TV.
  
• Tuesday: Went swimming at the rec center. Had scheduled time to play with Kate, and we logged on and did that. Different characters, different day, different mood -- got a whole lot done. Chatted through the evening using the game's voicechat function.
  
• Wednesday: Went shopping after work. Evening spent with Kaylee. Chatted with a friend from NYC who's in town about games we want to play while he's in town, then read up on some of the game rules I'd want to use, and downloaded some resources I want to have on hand for that. Logged into WoW after that, found a group in my guild that was already running the fourth-to-last five-man dungeon that I need to visit in order to get "keyed" for Karazhan, the first "Raid" dungeon in the new end-game (a 10-man super-dungeon with something like 14 bosses throughout -- a kind of Taskforce-in-a-box, if you play CoH). Asked them to sneak me in there after they had cleared it, so I could get the 'keying' part done. They did, and that was a BIG checkmark off of a long 13-step process to getting keyed. After that, I logged onto LotRO and helped Kate finish up the last of her 'starter area' quests and move on to the Breelands with her 'solo' character.
  
• Thursday: Ignored Grezzk and played Kayti, my dwarf paladin on the alliance-side of WoW. Cleaned up some old quests, and started collecting some materials I need for the next 'big' dungeon I want to do with her. Also, following some research on the "maintankadin" forums, I respecced her for a stronger tanking build, which cost me a ton of gold, but the results of which I liked. Kate played some LotRO, but I didn't know that and didn't join her.
  
• Friday: Left work early and spent some time in the afternoon doing more work on game-prep for that face to face game, and reading up on LotRO quests and appropriate surnames for Men of Gondor. I had Kaylee, so it was an evening of play and food and bedtime stories, followed by some play on LotRO with Kate, in which we agreed to focus on clearning out some missions. ((Friday and Saturday are the two times a week that Grezzk's guild on WoW runs Karazhan, and since I'm not keyed to that yet, there's not much I can do with or for them, and I hate being online when they're trying to find enough people for the group and telling them "nope, I'm not keyed yet, sorry.")). At the end of the night, I checked the gaming calendar for our Sunday game and noticed that a couple people hadn't replied that they could make it and one had replied with a maybe, leaving three of six players actually commited to showing up for sure. That's not enough to warrant the drive, especially with Kaylee, so I cancelled the game.
  
• Saturday: I had Kaylee. We watched cartoons. Colored. Rode bicycle (inside and outside), and then she helped me vacuum and shampoo the upstairs carpet. During naptime, I ran some laundry and did two quests on Grezzk that can be repeated each day and earn him reputation with a faction I like, and some of the guys in the guild started up a run to the "third-from-last" five-man dungeon I need to get keyed to Karazhan, and we did that, even though I told them I would have a wakeful toddler somewhere in the middle. They didn't mind, and she didn't wake up until just before the last boss and sat on my lap telling me what was going on. ("Look! A dragon! Yikes! Run!"), and then I logged off. In the afternoon, we went out shopping. I picked up some pottery we'd painted two weekends ago, picked up my new tux and let Kaylee charm the counter ladies, and stopped at Cold Stone Creamery for some Ice Cream with Kaylee. We went home, played our way through the ensuing sugar rush, read a bunch of books, and went to bed. Kate and did a little LotRO stuff, which mostly amounted to use running around the Old Forest in fear for our very lives. OLD MAN WILLOW. YIKES! RUN!
  
• Sunday: Rainy rainy day. Kaylee and I played with cameras, puzzles, watched cartoons, did laundry. I did some more item-collection-for-the-dungeon on Kayti and finished up a few quests with another paladin she runs with, trying to get 'done' with a zone I'm well-and-truly ready to be done with. Grezzk's guild runs a TWENTY-FIVE man dungeon that I *can* go to on Sundays for an hour or two, and though I didn't sign up (due to having Kaylee), since she was sleeping I logged in at the appointed time to see if they needed me. They did, but they didn't get enough healers online by 10-past the hour, so the Raid Leader called it off and folks split off into smaller groups. I simply logged into a lowbie that I could leave when Kaylee woke up, and spent the time chatting with Julie and Rey, who had found me online and logged in to say hi! Great to talk to them again. Afternoon fun with Kaylee, including extended, extra-wet time in the tub. I had PLANNED on some time with Kate that evening, but had forgotten that my evening had been commited to helping out some of the NYC guys who haven't been playing WoW lately, so while Kate played LotRO, Grezzk returned to lowbie-land and helped a couple of my friends obliterate their enemies (15 levels below Grezzk, and dead in seconds) so they could reap the multiple quest rewards and get closer to the zones that I currently play in, which would be really nice. When they called it off for the night, I logged into LotRO for a bit and did some stuff with Kate, which involved shooting orcs (more on that in other post) and some exploration. Tonight, we're going into the Barrowdowns. Pray for us.
  

Now then...

What the casual player will say:
"Holy xrist! All the guy does is game, game, and prepare for more gaming! @#$@ing GET A LIFE, dude."

What the hardcore player will say:
"You cancelled your face to face game? What about the three people who COULD play?!? You're not keyed to Kara yet?!? You wasted two hours hitting lowbie mobs with your 70? You only run those daily quests every couple of days? WTF?"

Here's what I say.
Whatever you're going to do, be completely present within that activity. If you're going to read, read. If you're going to watch a show, watch a show -- don't play while the show is going -- you'll play like shit and you won't catch something in the show. If you're going to play, schedule your time so that you don't have distractions, and if you know your end-time is set, LET THE PEOPLE YOU PLAY WITH KNOW THAT.

Sunday night, I logged in and one of my guild leaders let me know that they were available for 'whatever you need' with regards to getting keyed to Karazhan. Word has percolated throughout the guild that I'm not a smacktard, and not a bad player. (With exactly 0 epic gear pieces in 17 body locations, I'm doing the same damage per second and performing the same group functions (crowd control, etc) as the hunter class-leaders wearing nothing but epics), and they want to get me to a point where I can do more stuff with them.

That feels good, but I had to tell him, right off: "Thanks, but even if I get keyed this week, I'm gone this coming weekend."

Focus. Figure out the thing you're doing, and DO. THAT.

If you say you are going to be someplace at a certain time, it is your responsibility to be there. You made the commitment, and if you fail to meet it, then you fail. Period. If you show up late to something you said you would attend, you are telling the others waiting on you that you do not feel that their time or efforts are valuable or matter to you.

That some of the appointments you're commited to making are in a game does NOT make a difference. When you make a commitment to other people, whether in a game, in your workplace, or to a member of your family, the type of activity does not matter, it's about the fact that you made that commitment to another person. If you failed to meet that commitment, then you fail.

Did I want to fight easy-mode guys for two hours on Sunday night while Kate was exploring the Old Forest and being chased by bears? Hell no. But I made a commitment, and it was important to me to honor that. I *could* have been doing that on my desktop and logged into LotRO on my laptop... would that have been better? No, it would have been worse in every quantifiable way.

Same goes for a clash in commitments between Local Stuff and Long-distance Stuff -- I have to decide where my commitment is strongest and tell the other commitment I can't do it, with some warning ahead of time. Deciding which thing IS the commitment to stick with is my problem.

I'm a serious gamer because I take those commitments as seriously as I take any other commitment.

Not MORE seriously. Not LESS. Just as much as I feel they deserve.

Posted by Doyce at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

A good, though old, discussion about the histrionics and misconceptions that surround 'splitting the party' in gaming sessions.

Are you even really getting less spotlight time? Think about it for a moment - there's still only one GM, either way. He can only shine the spotlight for 60 minutes each hour. And even when the PCs are dialoging, the spotlight is switching back and forth between players. The total number of minutes is the same when playing "split." In party play, you feel a tad less engaged when your character is not in a scene, because you know you won't be able to be called upon to do anything. But everyone has experienced in party play where they've been in the room, but really not involved in the action going on, right? So is that possibility that you might be called on really all that much less engaging than just watching?

I like having characters who feel comfortable with doing their own thing -- this is the kind of play supported in a lot of the game I've played (Amber) and play (anything current).

What's great about this discussion is that is dissects the reasons behind player/gm reluctance to split the group up -- where it comes from, why it continues -- and shows how to make those boogiemen go away.

Posted by Doyce at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

A mix of gaming this weekend.

((Blogging bitching: it really should be possible to just hit Ctrl-B in Moveabletype to Boldface something. It worked in 2.0 for pete's sake -- you mean to tell me you can't do it NOW?))

Tabletop
Played Spirit of the Century on Friday night. I pretty much went in with a scenario 'aimed' at two player characters who bailed out at the last moment, so I had to wing it.

Luckly, SotC is good at winging it. I had:
- The Daring Magpie - burglar and dilettante faceman, who has done a couple sessions already.
- Rami Samiti - East Indian psychic: ditto.
- Trent McCoy - new character for a player who's been at all the games -- a driver and 'gun man'.
- Beau Brass - a musician and smooth talker.

My basic method with these games is to 'focus' on one or two characters in each session -- specifically, I'll pick someone who's already been at the game a couple times, and make this 'their' session. I was going to game at the retired character for Trent's player, but he was, as I said, retired, so that indicated The Daring Magpie and/or Rami as the focal point.

Those two characters are different enough, and I'm lazy enough, that I didn't want to screw around with working out a story that featured both of them equally. Rami had a lot of stuff going on in "The Ape Soldier of Teyawasu", so that mean The Daring Magpie.

Therefore: social situations, schmoozing, and possibly some sneaking about and stealing stuff. Main focus: something both urban and urbane (based on player comment).

Then, if we have new players, I try to throw something in for them. Trents a drive and shooter. Beau is also new.

So... I opened with a car chase, moved to New York City for the main action (since we'd already 'done' L.A.), and set the whole thing around a music festival at the Woolworth Building, to give Beau some musical spotlight.

The heroes started out in mid-chase, trying to stop the bad guys from delivering something to NYC for Doctor Methuselah. They stop them, open the crate with the MacGuffin inside, and find a note from Doctor M himself that reads:

Hello Century Club,

If you're reading this, you've stopped my witless minions from delivering a key piece of equipment I require for my current project.

However, this puts you in a dilemma.

While the project in question would be a brilliant step forward for mankind, it also requires certain sacrifices you would likely find objectionable. You have, probably unknowingly, stopped that plan by acquiring the object in this box. Bravo.

However, the device that requires this object is already in place and will be activated on [date two days hence], regardless. Without this object in place, as a focus for the devices power, well over ninety percent of the population of Manhattan will perish.

So: Do you keep the object, foil my plans, but doom a city, or deliver the object and complete the device (and with it, my original plan)?

Either way, it is now your problem. Good luck, god speed, etc.

M

Then I just sat back and watched the fireworks.

We had a lot of digressions and such, simply because we hadn't played or seen each other in a month, but all in all it was a good session and lots of fun.

WoW

Grezzk joined the Scholomance Debate Team on the Farstriders server a few weeks back. Since then, I haven't done a LOT with the guild members, but the stuff I have done has been both fun and a good learning experience. I've also got a lot of good loot recently, but frankly that's been mostly all my own doing.

• Ran Mana Tombs, and tanked it with Tusker the wonder pig. Would like to do that again, as we didn't finish the last boss.
• Ran Auchenai Crypts with some of the SDT members. That went just fine, although the Tank... should play his other mains.
• Pet-tanked the Coilfang Underbog. A competent healer that knew how to watch my pet and keep him standing meant that we cleared this with no problems.
• Pet-tanked the Coilfang Slave Pens. Ditto here, though the healer was different. Tusker has tanked about a quarter of the high-level instances in the game now.
• Ran "The Mechanar" instance with the guildies, and got a really nice gun that, unfortunately, I need to get some better gear to go along with it before it will be as good as my bow, despite the fact that it has better stats -- basically, I'm just in better shape to use a bow right now than a gun.
• Ran the 25-man raid "Gruul's Lair." Big group, but a short instance -- just two big rooms with some trash mobs in between -- takes about an hour. We downed High King Maulgar and his 4 Boss-level buddies (think fighting Statesman, Back Alley Brawler, Synapse, Positron, and Numina, all at once), but couldn't quite take down Gruul himself -- the Guild hasn't been able to take him yet. Crazy fight. Crazy.

Heck, all the boss fights in WoW are crazy at some level. The easiest boss fights in WoW make the hardest boss fights in CoH look like a game of air hockey at Chuck E. Cheese... I have a lot to learn about most of those fights, but I didn't screw up too bad (except for siccing Tusker on the wrong boss at one point in the Maulgar fight and feeling like a moronic "huntard" when someone on vent said "Grezzk, where's your pet?"

Kayti the Paladin-tank
Got to level 43 with her, and continue to plow forward. I like tanking, and of the tank classes, I still like tanking with Paladins the best.

Syncerus the bear-cow
Played Syncerus the tauren (bull) druid (bear form!) with Lee's little priest for awhile on... Sunday? Saturday? Got about 3 levels and most of a fourth, cleared all my missions for the first low-level Dungeon in the game, and got a bunch of new gear and abilities. Druids are like CoH Kheldians, except the nature forms they take (Tank, Melee DPS, Healing, Ranged DPS) are actually AS GOOD AS their equivalent counterparts, with different mechanics for every form. Very challenging class.

Tyelaf the Hunter joined the Council of the Secret Flame, an RPG.net-related Kinship. Good group of folks, and helpful. He's level 14.

Yarren Heatherfoot the hobbit burglar passed Tye as my highest level character, thanks to lots of Bounders-related misadventures with her cousin Tirra. I don't know that she's my favorite character -- I really like all of my characters on that server (Hunter, Burglar, Champion, GUARDIAN) -- but with the neat crowd-control ability and funny situational stuff, she and Tirra (who's also a burglar) are a LOT of fun to play.

Geiri the dwarf Guardian. Yeah. Stop me if you've heard this one -- I get in front and do a lot of shield-meet-goblin-face-bashing goodness, and Tiranor the Elf Hunter shoots things until they are very very dead. It's a match made in Valar. Although they are not our highest level pair, they are very likely our most deadly. Tiranor frequently kills stuff before it even gets to me. No oliphaunts, yet, but she's getting there.

Posted by Doyce at 2:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

"What are YOU looking at?"

I've had a couple pretty good runs with Grezzk lately, and he's looking pretty badass: the Shoulderpads-of-self-impalement (not actual name) are new, as are the badass spear and the eyepatch. Not pictured, the insanely ornate, gorgeous, kick-ass bow "of the Torn Heart" that he was given by the ghost of its previous owner, as a reward for saving the world. Again.

Posted by Doyce at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Doyce at 2:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)