random average

I feel weird using 'd20' to refer to a game of Dungeons and Dragons 4.0, as the game is fundamentally different than the versatile-but-expensive set of lego bricks that made up the 3.5, 3.0, and d20 systems of old.

But anyway.

We played a little more of the Keep on the Shadowfells on Saturday, and by 'a little bit' I mean 'just that one fight that notoriously kills entire parties, followed by some handwaving in the direction of roleplay'.

Man that's a vicious fight. I'm only playing with one house rule to the 4.0 system, and it is this: "You can trade in Healing Surges for Action Points on a 1:1 basis, and use the resulting action points as indicated within the rules."

If there a limit to one Action Point per encounter? If so, we ignored that one too. If not, and it's just 'on AP per round', we were fine.

Anyway, I think it's fair to say that without that little house rule most everyone would have died. (And don't anyone blame the halfling wandering off, because the fight is tuned to five players, and you had five even not counting the halfling.) As it was, Irontooth dropped the Paladin and Warlord about a round before he himself fell, but some first aid rolls got them standing again.

A few thoughts on the system, scenario, and our general gameplay:

Scenario
Good: In brief, it's a fine story, with some interesting npcs and a some pretty interesting battles.

Bad: We're not doing a thing in terms of interacting with the NPCs, really, but I think that's a combination of (a) too many people at the table and (b) too many distractions both at the table and around it -- it feels like I have to shout the simplest of replies several times to be heard by whomever I'm speaking to. Also (c) pregen characters, the 'motivation' of which very few of us are really trying to get into very far. One hopes that 'proper' characters with background would fare better.

System
There is nothing about this system I don't like, provided that this is the kind of game I want to run. If I was in the mood for a bit more soul-searching and personal issue-delving... yeah, I would hate this game for that... but for what we're DOING with it, it's really really excellent.

Regarding my little house-rule: I do like being able to trade in Healing Surges for Action Points (and oh yeah, we added that you could use APs to re-roll OR take a second action, but still only one per round). The problem is that I feel like that the ratio is too cheap right now: I want the trade in to feel a little more risky; right now, one Healing Surge isn't really much of anything to anyone (even the mage), so I think "2 Healing Surges for an Action Point" might have the kind of weight I'm aiming for. We'll try that out next time.

Our Play
Good: I always enjoy time spent with this group of folks.

Meh: Too many distractions. Too little focus. Most of that is child-borne, so I'm not sure how to fix it.

Bad: Not to put too fine a point on it, but we have, as a group, developed one glaringly bad habit. A really Bad. Fucking. Habit.

We never let anyone take their own action. Ever.

In all seriousness, this is what the game was like on Saturday:

GM: Okay, Player1, your turn.
Player1: Okay... I'm going to go here... and do this.
Player3: [Makes the obvious joke before anyone else can.]
Player2: Hmm. Do you want to go here.... or there?
Player5: [Makes the obvious movie quote before anyone else can.]
Player1: Hmm. Yeah... maybe.
Player3: Or you could go here, but then hold your action until *I* do THIS, which would help your THAT.
Player2: [Starts the obvious TV quote before anyone else can...]
GM: [... finishes the quote] Now what are you doing?
Player1: Hmm. That... wait... that means I won't be doing X in time for Y.
Player2: But do you need to worry about Y?
Player4: Well, I'm worried about Y!
Player1: [Snark.]
Player3; [Pun.]
Player2: Well, what's your Daily Power? Have you used your Encounter Power?

It takes a village to run a character? No, no it doesn't.

We need to let people just do what they're doing to do, and LET it be less than fucking perfectly optimal every. single. time...

We also need to let a few jokes go by. No pandas will die if we don't zing another quip into the ether.

In thinking about it, this is not a problem specific to a tactical game like DnD.

Example from some high-drama, roleplaying scene in another game:

GM: He says, "What's it going to be, my dear? Your mother or the Knife of Ashara?"
Player1: I glare at --
Player3: [Makes the obvious "your money or your life" joke before anyone else can.]
Player1: I glare at him and say --
Player4: [Makes the exact same quote as Player3, but with an accent.]
Player 1: I glare at him and say, "Let her go."
Player2: Ooh, bad choice of words, are you sure you want to say that?
Player5: [Makes the obvious Batman Returns movie reference before anyone else can.]
Player1: Okay... "Give me the knife", you think? Or --
Player3: Or you could bluff him and say she's not that important to you. Give the rest of us time to get there.
Player2: [Starts the obvious TV quote before anyone else can...]
GM: [... finishes the quote] What are you actually saying to him?
Player1: But my character really loves my mom.
Player2: But do you need to tell him that?
Player4: Well, I wouldn't mind knowing it!
Player1: [Snark.]
Player3; [Pun.]
Player2: Well, what's your Bluff? Just in case you decide to...

This isn't the exception to the rule. Somehow, this has become what we do, on every person's turn.

Honestly, I think it's because we don't play that much, so it seems as though, when we do play, every single move anyone makes needs to be perfect, or we've wasted what time we have. ((The irony being that if we all just shushed up and let the player RUN THEIR GUY, we'd get more done.))

But regardless of the whys and wherefores, we need to stop.

It's not fun.

Posted by Doyce at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

There's Tiranor and Geiri, deep in the frozen lands of Forochel, about 30 seconds before we both hit level 50 (the current level-cap in Lord of the Rings online).

I don't know if there's a way to see the total amount of time /played on a character from within Lord of the Rings, but I don't think it was a whole heck of a lot; it's been a long time since we started playing them, but our play time has been VERY off-and-on since we started, and almost every serious bout of playing resulted in a flurry of leveling and advancing. To illustrate the ease of progression, Kate is now playing a solo minstrel and TEARING through content that took us several months to get through, since we simply weren't playing as often.

So what's next? Well, once you hit 50, there are a number (and that number is about six) of Legendary quests for each character class, so we each have our work cut out for us to go from a 'baby' 50 to a 'real' 50.

Also, there are fourteen 'books' of epic story in LotRO, and we're currently on... Book Seven? Books 8 through 14 are all geared for level 50s, so we have a LOT to do and experience there before the Mines of Moria expansion comes out later this year.

... and I need to improve my crafting of Rings of Power! useful trinkets and magical jewelry. Diamonds and Beryls and Ancient Silver, oh my...

And I have some fishing to do... what?

And... yeah, I've got two (if not three) other characters I'd like to level up. Tyelaf my hunter (and the first actual character I made), my Captain, Finnras... and man I tell you what... Kate's Minstrel sure looks cool...

She needs some help leveling, though... that girl has to "retreat" a LOT.

Posted by Doyce at 3:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have this annoying little thing I do whenever anyone is telling me about some kind of personality conflict going on in the world.

Doesn't matter if it's Margie talking about stuff at work, Kate relaying the woes of multiple-sisterhood, Dave on the latest Episcopalian Brouhaha (a pairing of words so common I feel like it should get a trademark stamp), or Stan relaying the latest in politics --

I nod my head sagely and say: "Yeah... guild drama is the worst."

Because, let's face it; humanity thrives on interaction, and we're all flawed in various ways, and the internet exacerbates those flaws -- so as often as you're likely to come into conflict when face to face, the chances quintuple as soon as the internet is added to the mix.

And what are MMO guilds? Big social constructs whose main product is an increase in Interneteraction.

Result? You will see interpersonal drama fifty times more online than in all other social gatherings, combined, and with that kind of weighting and repetition, it isn't long before every OTHER kind of drama starts to look like something you've already seen online.

I spend a fair amount of time online. I've witnessed (and caused) my share of drama, going back as far as... 1991, when a friend and I nearly came to blows over some argument in a text based Star Wars mmo... and as recently as... well, last night.

I don't like drama. I especially don't like the effect it sometimes has on me, which is frustration that puts the Enter key on my keyboard at serious risk of mechanical failure.

So here's the deal - I'm in a guild now that I don't feel a lot of connection to. Decent enough people, but I just don't feel like I know any of them. I already talked about this:

I’m acquainted with these guys, like people at my job, and they’re cool, but they aren’t my friends; not the way that Dismember or Yodi or Izmut were — or Mal or Sam or 76 were — or even Crystal and Staer.

Added to that was this thing where the guild had posted a need for some healing druids. I leveled a druid up, practiced healing, got geared up at no small expense (in-game) solely to myself, and told them "Okay... I'm ready! Put me in Coach", and got back the empty sound of Nothing in return.

Right. No personal connection in what is an ostensibly SOCIAL passtime, and a lot of effort going to waste? Time to look for better options.

I'm on a smaller server, though, so I knew I'd have to look to other servers to find another option. In my poking around, I found a guild that not only seemed like a lot of fun, but which actually had a couple of my old friends in it -- including the one guy I've really gotten along with this whole time.

And I posted to their forums, and the responses from the other guys in his guild were... well, it just clicked. I started making arrangements.

Last night, we have a raid going on, and beforehand I go to the head guy and tell him "damn, you just don't seem interested in using this guy I've worked on. What's up?"

There followed a conversation about the guild's concern about me bringing my 'alt' and getting gear that someone's 'main' might need. I assured him that I had no intention of asking for any gear beyond what would otherwise go completely unused -- I just wanted to help the group out. Whatever.

((And honestly? I'm really not that worried about it at this point, because I'm thinking "I'm probably going to at LEAST transfer Syn to another server, if not both characters." I just wanted to voice my thoughts.))

He said we'd talk later, and we got the group going, and not long after that, I get a /tell that says "Get Syn on, you're healing this.")

To quote Matt: "WTF, over?"

So I healed my first big raid (Serpent Shrine Cavern, facing the Lurker Below and Leotheras the Blind). It was fun. I learned alot (and the healing-boss-person said I was "Doing GREAT", so that's cool).

And on the last boss, two identical items dropped that I could use.

And someone in the group says "I'll take one, in case I respec to healing." (He is currently specced for damage.)

And there's silence. One main said something, but there are two of these things.

So I say "Well, I'm in for one of em, if no one else needs em, for this guy." Who is, as has been stated, an Alt character, and thus pretty much the crappy muck surrounding the bottom of the totem pole.

And just as I'm typing that out and hitting Enter, someone else says "I'll take one too, in case I respec to healing."

Ahh. Oh well. C'est la WoW. Right?

And someone quickly says in Ventrillo "You can't get those if a Main needs em, Grez!"

Hmm. Bit over-emotional in the tone, there, but okay. Easy to diffuse.

"Yeah," I say, "it's totally f--"

"Why not?" someone asks.

"Guys," I say, "I just came to play, it's totally -"

"It in the loot rules."

"Well, that's kinda dumb, he healed it, didn't he? Those are healer items."

"It's in the --"

"GUYS," I say, "Seriously. I didn't see the second person before I typed it. My bad. Don't worry abo--"

Guild Boss Guy: "We're going to give the second drop to Grezzk."

Oh. Shit.

Right. The best kind of game drama. Loot drama. (And don't shake your heads at this online foolishness, tabletop players -- the same damn thing happens in tabletops all the damn time, even in games without gear.)

So now I'm in a pickle, kids.

1. I was all 'even steven' with the guild until last night -- my time invested in raids perfectly 'paid' for the loot I'd gotten (you can go in the hole for items that drop and sort of pay it back later, though it would take some guys like... five months to do so). Now, I am not.

2. No one was 'using' Syn in raids. Now they are.

3. I got the gear, and I quote, "Because Syn getting it will be the best benefit to the guild in the long term."

... so... how the hell do I transfer to another server NOW?

Unfortunately, while the raid was nice and all, I'm still stuck with this:

4. I don't know anyone in the guild, really, or feel like there's any sort of connection.

And that #4 is a problem. It's a social game, chilluns; that's why I *play*.

(A Side Note: is the concept of an "alt" vs. a "main" really... viable? I have two similarly-geared characters with completely different abilities, and I'm willing to bring either of them in, as needed. Am I, the player, not the character, the real asset to the group? Yes, obviously that is the case, if for NO OTHER REASON than the fact that the character's can't play themselves. Why not assign loot to the PLAYER who has the most 'points' to 'buy' the drop, and leave it at that?)

Posted by Doyce at 2:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

* No, no tabletop gaming thoughts at the moment. I'd have to be doing some of that to have any. (Or, if not, I'd be having a lot of Lonely Fun thinking about games I'd like to run but can't. Thanks, but no: been there, done that.) Downsides there may be, but an MMO is (almost) always available for a game at the same time you are.

* There are... nine end-game 'dungeons' in WoW, two of which have been added since the expansion came out. My guild is working on the 7th. We'd like to hit the 8th before the new expansion comes out. Not likely.

* On the last two boss fights, I hit Sunwell (final dungeon)-level single-target DPS with Grezzk. Support for me swapping my 'main' from Grezzk to my barely-geared healing druid is... fading.

* You don't get to know people in 25 man raids. To really get to know them, you need to run (and re-run) five-person and 10-person runs with folks -- where you are the only person doing your job, and they are the only person doing THEIR job... it's more personal. I've never gotten a chance to really run the smaller dungeons with my guild, having joined after my last guild melted, and it changes the dynamics of the game - I'm acquainted with these guys, like people at my job, and they're cool, but they aren't my friends; not the way that Dismember or Yodi or Izmut were -- or Mal or Sam or 76 were -- or even Crystal and Staer.

* I'm looking forward to Wrath of the Lich King (Rash of the Itch King) coming out, because we'll all be leveling together and back to running 5 and 10-person dungeons again. I might get a chance to actually get to know the guys in my guild.

* Hopefully, I'll still like em when I do.

Posted by Doyce at 4:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Virtual Table Tops for RPGs, in which the author explores the various remote gameplay options available out on the interwebs; which is something I've been noodling at for awhile now. Far be it from me not to make use of someone else's hard work.

Posted by Doyce at 9:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Build an army of reanimated corpses to destroy your foes in this puzzle-action hybrid.

The mutant child of a Bejeweled, Edward Gorey, and (at least in my head) the Shab al-Hiri Roach.

I got stomped in a pvp match, then went back to single player to learn how to lose more slowly. Incredibly addictive and weirdly fun. I actually found myself murmuring "thank god the sun came up."

Posted by Doyce at 1:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I've been to Karazhan... umm... a bunch. A buncha bunch. However, that was:

a) On Grezzk. (Ranged damage)
b) With a different guild.

Now I'm going with my *new* guy, Syncerus, with an entirely different group of people, and it's kind of all new to me -- totally different set of challenges, because I'm (one of) the healer(s), rather than a tank or damage-dealer.

So I'm back to sort of analyzing performance and such, and it's interesting to me, so you poor bastards get to read about it, too.

What's Karazhan?
It's a 10-person 'raid' dungeon. (For the CoH-centric, think taskforce, but all in one very large instanced mission with static (and very atmospheric) entrance location.) There are... 10 bosses (and one boss-like 'event') in the instance, and a LOT of 'trash mob' pulls to do between them. The whole thing takes about 4 hours to clear if you have what it takes to clear it, but that time can expand a lot or even decrease quite a bit, depending on the group.

It is, easily, my favorite group activity to do in the game. I love the atmosphere, the story, the instance itself, and the boss fights. Haunted castles are just goddamn cool.

Y'all know how I was ALWAYS down to do that one timed event out in Eden? What the hell was that called? The thing with the big Crystal Giant thing? The Eden Trial? GOD I loved that thing. (Crying shame I never got to do that on Pummelcite.)

Karazhan is my WoW "Eden Trial."

So... how'd the second run go?
Really well. I didn't get pimped out like I did last time, but I contributed a lot more.

Were the groups the same as last time?
Not at all.

Last time, we had one tank, four healers (as the most undergeared guy, I alternately healed or did damage, as the situation warranted), and five ranged damage dealers. No melee guys at all, besides the tank. VERY strange group.

(A typical group is 2 tanks (from 3 possible tanking classes), 2-3 healers (from four possible healing classes), and a mix of ranged and melee DPS (of which there are way too many options to count).)

This time, we had a somewhat more normal group: 2 tanks (though both were the same class, which is fairly unusual and not always desirable), 2 healers (usually, you see three unless both of the two are over-geared; we weren't), and six DPS ranging from totally overgeared to secondary- or tertiary alts of main characters. I was one of the two healers, and my gear was roughly comparable to the other healers. My class excels at covering damage on the tanks, while his is fantastic at dealing with group-wide damage from AoEs and such -- a pretty complimentary pairing, all in all.

We didn't have a way to keep the tanks from getting feared, however, and we would MISS that ability in the long run.

How did you do, overall?

Once in a while, someone will compare healing a big group to playing whack-a-mole -- you see damage hit someone, and you smack it with your healing spell. Maybe that's accurate for your first few raids - before you figure out much, you might have no idea who was going to take damage next. This is probably why you see so many newbie healing reports showing an abundance of emergency healing (high mana cost for fast, big spells); the healers just aren’t experienced enough to not play a reactive game. But good healers know their fights and know their raid-mates well enough to start a cast before damage happens.

I went into the run with that in mind, trying to school myself to see beyond what was happening and start looking ahead to see what was going to happen. I'm not particularly good at this, because most of my 'healing practice' to this point has been in PvP battlegrounds, where most of the damage IS largely unpredictable... but I really feel like I was getting the hang of this during the run.

So how about Boss by Boss

Okay, sure...

((I was going to lay this out in a table, but I realized that I don't really remember how to do that in anything but a Wiki anymore. Ahh well.))

What happened last time: I was melee dps, and I didn't do very well at all.

What happened this time: This was the first boss and only about the fourth fight with this group, so things were a little bumpy, but we beat him handily. The hunter in the group (who plays a healing priest as her main) got a nice crossbow that I never saw once, playing Grezzk.

What happened last time: I was melee dps, and I didn't do very well. Moroes garrotted me in the middle of the fight, and I died from the 'ticking' bleed damage before the fight ended.

What happened this time: I think I died once while we were clearing out the trash mobs before the main fight -- it rather stunned the tanks -- but the fight went well. Moroes vanishes periodically throughout the fight, reappears beside a random member of the group, garrotes them, then runs back over to the tank. The 'garrote' is a constant bleeding effect that will kill the character quickly if not seen too, so on top of healing the two tanks (he keeps blinding one of them, so you need two), you have to keep heals going on an ever-growing number of garroted team mates (often, you're one of them).

Oh, and he has four friends you have to either kill or crowd control while you're beating on him, so group-wide damage is happening a lot.

No one died (except me, from bleeding, seconds from the end of the fight). I was happy. Also, he dropped a really nice item for tanking, and no one else wanted it, so it took it for my 'tank set' of gear, for times when I need to respec. My tanking set is now reasonably strong.

What happened last time: I was melee for this fight, and actually did pretty well.

What happened this time: This fight was annoying. One of the two paladin tanks was on 'heal the healers' duty for this fight, cuz Maiden likes to smack the hell out of the healers, and... well, I don't know what they were doing, but it wasn't healing me. I died quickly and watched most of the fight from the floor. She dropped a very nice healing item, though, which I got, so it was hard to complain.

What happened last time: I chased the big bad wolf around and clawed at his backside.

What happened this time: I healed the tank and whoever the wolf was chasing. (Every 30 seconds, he turns someone into a little gnome girl with a red cloak and chases 'her' around the room. Healing them is a bit of a challenge, as they're running around and behind stage sets and breaking my line of sight. One guy died, but in my defense, he always dies. One of the tanks died, but I rezzed him mid fight (a druid-only ability).

I got Little Red Riding Hood's cloak, which is quite a decent healing cloak for healer/spellcaster, and actually toughens me up a bit into the bargain.

What happened last time: We died repeatedly, even with four healers on the tank, and finally decided to give up and come back and kick his ass later. He's probably the toughest fight in the whole run.

What happened this time: We died repeatedly, even with two tanks, mostly because he fear-bombs the groups and we didn't have any way to keep our tanks from running all over like chicken little and getting dragon-chomped in their unprotected back. We decided to come back later and try again.

What happened last time: After a really frustrating nightbane fight, I respecced out of melee and into a Healing & Ranged Spellcaster build. During this fight I did both.

What happened this time: This is a damage- and healing-race. We had lots of DPS, and two healers. No one died, and the curator dropped in record time.

The Curator marks the end of the 'first half' of Karazhan. It is generally accepted wisdom that everything after Curator is a serious upshift in difficulty from what has come before. (With the exception of Nightbane, whom you can fight earlier, but really aren't *meant* to until later.)

What happened last time: I was healing for this fight, but my health was so low that when Illhoof summoned me into the "sacrifice circle", my teammates couldn't heal/free me before I died.

What happened this time: Obviously, I was healing, and I was really nervous about being sacrificed, because last time there were THREE other healers and they couldn't keep me up until the damage-dealers could free me... this time, there was only one healer besides me. What I didn't count on was the simple fact that I'm tougher now than last time, and the dps was more on the ball. No deaths. We annihilated him.

What happened last time: Aran has no aggro table, so he can't be tanked: he does AoEs and randomly targets people and hammers them with spells. The first time he did that to me, I died. I just didn't have the health to take the punishment, even with four healers.

What happened this time: He targeted me for a personal beat-down not once, but twice. Thanks to my own increased toughness and come anticipatory healing on my part, neither one killed me. I also combat-rezzed our biggest damage dealer when he dropped in the middle of the fight.

What happened last time: I was an off-healer and, when called upon, switched into bear form and TANKED Netherspite.

What happened this time: We wiped very quickly on this one due to an inexpert pull by the lead tank -- I just couldn't stand where I was in range of everyone for heals. On the second try, we took him down with only Mister Big Damage But Dies A Lot going down, two seconds from the end of the fight.

What happened last time: We won.
What happened this time: We won. The Chess event isn't exactly... hard.

What happened last time: I think we had to beat on him at least once before we won.

What happened this time: Took him out in one shot. I didn't think about it at the time, but that may be the very first time I've EVER been involved in a one-shot of Prince... there are a lot of random elements in that fight that usually screw you at least once before it all goes your way. Not this time.

What happened last time: We got a priest into the group, so they could fearward the tank.

What happened this time: We got the player of the hunter to log on their main character -- a priest -- so they could fearward the tank (stupid gimmicky fight). We took him out in one easy attempt. Of course, with that player on the wrong character, Nightbane dropped nothing but hunter gear. :P

All in All
I had been looking forward to this run all week, because I knew I was going to be one of the main healers for the first time EVER in a proper raid, and I really wanted to see if I could do it. I think my performance was strong; I got two very much needed gear upgrades, kudos from the other healer, and a lot of surprise and disbelief when I told the group after we were done that I'd only done Kara once before on Syncerus and had NEVER been a main healer for it. My guild leader was on the run and commented that he would never have guessed I was a total healing-noob. "Really great job for your first run. Well done."

/preen

I need to replace my pauldrons for sure (one more Kara run and I can) and possibly my gauntlets (entirely up to chance), but as soon as I do I'm going to tell the guild leader I'd like to bring Syncerus to the next big-boy, 25-man raid instead of Grezzk. I believe he now knows I'm up to it.

Posted by Doyce at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Beats slaying dragons...

"Nerds!"

Posted by Doyce at 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nothing to see here, move along.

Posted by Doyce at 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)