Rock Band First Impressions: The Good, the Bad, and the Clash
After sending DrScotto questing all around Maryland in search of Rock Band last Sunday, he arrived with the large box in tow and laid it at our feet to dig through many boxes, baggies, and instructions. Him, The O, my little brother, and myself rocked out for a few hours that night, each taking a turn at the different instruments. Since then, The O and I have played a few nights through the world tour, switching off guitar and bass. Here’s what I think.
The Instruments
If you’re familiar with Guitar Hero, you’re already most of the way there. Guitar and Bass work the same as you’d expect with only some minor differences. The included guitar is not my favorite, featuring a more difficult to use strummer and an obstrusive extra switch for controlling whammy effects. The whammy bar, however, is larger and easier to use. Of course, the biggest downside to the RB guitar is that it won’t work with Guitar Hero, but Guitar Hero guitars will work with RB. Also, as a seasoned guitarist, I found most of the Rock Band guitar parts to be relatively easy, featuring more repetitive sections that in songs we’ve seen before. The bass is even easier and more repetitive for most songs. I’m not sure if the hard mode is actually more do-able as a result, which is one of the next things I have to try. [Read the rest of this article]
StumbleUpon broke my blog…well almost.
As you may know, I usually get between 50 and 80 unique readers a day here. Once a week, usually either on Mondays or Thursdays, I go over the 100 readers mark and it’s all good.
I also have been self-promoting my stuff on StumbleUpon, quite a bit. Well, enough to be gently chided about it by a reader.
While I try do it only for posts that have generated good discussions, like PM’s ‘I want to be a DM‘, I got the feeling yesterday that this practice may be bad form.
Feedback and opinions on this are always welcome.
I usually get about 60 more unique visits whenever I do this and the blog goes back to it’s usual traffic the next day.
The thing is, yesterday I got well over 1200 unique readers! Almost all of them for my ‘DMing for adult gamers‘ piece. And not just insta-click and move away, each visitor spent on average 2 minute here. Un-be-li-vable (link is in French… stretch those high school French classes… it’s hilarious)
So it’s not just because people expected to see Pr0n. So I guess some people really liked it…. weeee!
I’m starting to think I should write a book on tabletop gaming psychology… I smile when I envision my ‘about the author’: Philippe-Antoine is a Microbiologist, working in a human genetics lab. Although he has never studied psychology nor actually worked professionally in the RPG industry, he writes good for reals (sic… duh!). he has also been known to be a kickass DM when he manages to fluff up his game!
And the Cover review: “A master of Cruch that has finally pierced the secret of RPG Fluff- W. Baur”
Okay…. too much sugar in them Froot Loops… Earth to Phil, Earth to Phil… time to let go of the digression…
Anyway, things got so crowded here yesterday that my site crashed a few times… for which I apologize… my host shuts things down if a site uses more than 40 CPU seconds within a 60 second period. It apparently dislikes ‘sloppy .php scripts’ whatever that means… I am no Shamus Young but I’m very lucky to have pals like Graham and PM giving me a hand in this!
I’m pretty sure things will come back to normal today…. it’s still scary when it happens the first time!
All-right people, I have a game tonight, and I managed to throw even more badly designed PC-killer monsters out the window than previously planned.
Wish me luck!
Mini-Fluff: Chatty's Top Fluff sources!
What better way to complete this week’s unofficial ‘become a DM’ theme and sandwich PM’s most excellent post with yet another Top 5 list?
In order to balance my crunchy Ying with some fluffy Yang here’s a few words on my top Fluff books and boxed sets.
Now since I’m not much of a fluff lover and I might not have 5 purely fluff books so I’ll include DM advice books if I need to pad this baby. Once again, the list is in no particular order of awesomeness.
Hands down the best campaign supplement I have ever read or used. It’s been called the Lexus of game supplement, with an original retail price of more than 100$. It is the most usable, well designed, Generic D&D campaign setting in my opinion.
It’s basically a campaign world about a single city that features a very large number of dungeons under it. The best thing in my opinion is the sheer number of organizations, NPCs, maps and plot hooks dripping from every page of that monster of a book (over 700 pages)
Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not THAT complete, no city books are, but it is the closest thing I have ever found to a complete campaign product/setting before Pathfinder came out. Some called it less than original, and that’s a bit true, but it’s very very well done not original stuff! 
Dungeon Master Guide II/Robin Laws Rules of Good Gamemastering:
The stuff I loved best about the DMG II is what Robin Laws wrote about good DMing. Much of which seems to come from his earlier work. This is what made me want to become a better DM at a time where I was ready to say I had peaked and was Just That Good (TM)… Truly a must read for all DMs/GMs. Player types, definitions of fun, pacing… this here blog is heavily based on that philosophy.
These books reek of fluffy goodness about where fiends come from and what are their agenda. While I prefer the near-perfect synergy of Crunch and Fluff of FC I, I absolutely loved reading about Asmodeus’ schemes in FCII and I am actually looking forward to read about his ascend to godhood in 4e (which incidentally, some people seem unable to decide if it will rock or suck).
Planescape Campaign Setting (AD&D 2nd and fan-fueled 3.5):
I must confess that I’m a very late bloomer about Planescape. I’ve discovered it last summer when I got an original mint box for 20$ on Ebay. While I’m perfectly aware that it was TSR’s transparent bid to counterbalance White Wolf’s storming of the RPG world, it’s still one impressive pile of fluff. It oozes attitude and badassery!
I do find the various factions to be a bit ‘shallow’ in terms of description, and a bit dated when compared to Ptolus’ approach, but I have yet to read the ton of material available online.
A great-read nonetheless.
Manual of the Plane (D&D 3.0):
This is the one book I find interesting whenever I open it randomly. I absolutely love D&D’s cosmology and this is what I’ll be using for our campaign’s next chapter. This book will remain in my library for years to come, much like my 1st ed DMG.
Please share your Fluff All-Stars… from all games and systems!
PWW: The Apprentice Half-Orc DM
Here’s the time for another Perspective on Weekend Wizards post by PM. This week our boy has started to contemplate something that may very well break his spirit and steal his soul. Enjoy!
In my previous post, my inner closet half-orc was last seen running in the hills and howling at the moon after enjoying a successful McWoD session.
Unsurprisingly, this taste of RPG goodness developped a craving for more. As any repressed imaginary personality would do, my alter ego is planning something that may very well be bigger can he can chew.
He’s thinking of trading-in his claws for a rulebook and act as a DM for a session (Chatty DM: Or a few? DMing can be very addictive…).
I think this is a common reaction for new players who have a streak of Storyteller in them, but I’m not naive enough to think it won’t be without pain, yet I’m just confident enough to believe I might pull it off.
Also, as I comment on my experience as a player, I want to be able to comment on DM practices with a least a hint of personal experience; see how it looks from that end.
The first thing I identified as a roadblock in this incredibly steep learning curve is my poor knowledge of the rules. In the innumerable four games I witnessed, we had a couple of instances where we had to refer to some source material to shed light on an obscure rule. However, usually, the players at the table were knowledgeable enough to deal with everything on their own.
Combined with one of the basic statements of World of Darkness (The only rulebook I own and have read) which reads something like “The DM can decide to use or not use a specific rule in order to run his game”, it creates a lever that may allow me to lift this roadblock.
My plan is to construct an adventure where I won’t need to use complex rules to perform my actions. I also plan to let the players come up with the rules or mechanics, from the books they need, to resolve their own encounters.
I can see the control freak DMs in the back squirming in their seats. Many others are also raising their hands thinking that the players might take advantage of my naiveté and stage a coup (Chatty DM: Not so much a coup as Fast Talk the dice out of your hands boy-o).
However, I have an Ace up my sleeve to address this issue. I plan to DM this session with a small group of experienced players. Players whom I can trust for a number of reasons:
First, none of them are known to act as griefers and won’t try to sabotage my plans. (Chatty DM: True)
Secondly, I think they’re just the right mix of control freaks, detail-oriented maniacs and enough-let-me-kill-something players to balance each other out.
If the control freak tries something, chances are good the detail-oriented maniac will call him on it and the enough-let-me-kill-something player will give us a cue when the arguments have lasted long enough. Which leaves me as the final arbiter with a high priority for pacing.
Sounds too good to be possible? Yep.. I think there’s a 70% chance that my lever will nudge the roadblock which will promptly roll down the learning curve and squash me and my big mouth. But I’m the kind of guy who likes to play those odds.
In reality, I think I will need to following to pull this off.
- Buy-in from my targeted lab rats players. (I want to discuss that lab rat slip-up of mine in a future post)
- A solid read-through of the rules for the system I will choose so that I have an understanding of the basic “day to day” rules.
- Design an adventure that will be all about pacing and that will limit the ways I’m setting myself up for a rule fest. (I think I’ll talk more about this in another post as well since designing my own adventure instead of running a published one may compound the risks of a lousy game)
- Help setting up the challenge in the adventure in crunchy terms. (I’ll have to check if there are any available Crunch Overlords in the neighborhood to help me out.) (Chatty DM: I’ll see if I can find any…. lol!)
For those interested, I’m sure we can find someone around here to take bets on the outcome of this personal challenge.
Today search engine optimization is as much a part of web development as other things like web hosting, and even more than web design.
Mini-Crunch: Chatty's Top D&D Crunch books!
Yeah I know that making lists can be considered bad form by some, but they do serve a purpose. They are perfect for a 500 word Mini-post!!! (Italics included)
Oh and if I can get 2 comments on this we hit the 800 comments mark!
With D&D 3.5 nearing the end of its useful shelf-life, I found myself pondering on the books I liked or used the most. Being a Crunch Overlord, here’s my annotated Top 5 (in no particular order) list of books whose DM-focused crunchiness brought me happiness.
Quite possibly the best environmental book out there. While it’s not filled to the brim with game mechanics crunch, it brings a lot to DMs who like to re-think the Dungeon as an adventure locale.
It features a great essay on building cool encounters by mixing monsters and terrain features to create cool combos like a Grimlocks+ Medusas. It also features interactive complex traps (called encounter traps). An all around great book!
While somewhat flawed in it’s writing (with broken parts) and the source of some very lively discussions, this low-magic alternate Player’s Handbook has remade many things in the d20 system in cool ways. So cool that you can ignore the new classes and the feat systems and transpose this in D&D to make it a better game…. (which we have done). Awesome combat-use of skills, easier AoO, saner Save or Die rules, Autoflaking, etc. Its all extremely cool.
This jewel brings together cleaned-up 3.5 versions of all magic items published in all official D&D books and provides a ton of tables for easy reference (items per type, per categories, per price range, etc). It also provides ways to equip PC/NPCs quicker and provides updated, faster to use Treasure Generating tables that I actually use! Best time-saving buy for Bling loving DMs!
Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss:
While it does feature a lot of rehashed material from the Book of Vile Darkness, this is my favorite Monster book by far. The Codex features a lot of cool demons, it provides 2 new demon types other than the Tanari and has absolutely wonderful Demonic Possession rules! One of the best examples of perfectly harmonized Crunch and Fluff. This book will feature in my top 5 fluff list.
I’m perfectly aware that I bought that one just a few weeks ago, but it is being used every sessions and is a lot more useful than what my friend Yax says about it! If you have 25$ lying around and think you are going to play until 4e’s release, Buy it!
Some special mentions that are often too specific to be used often:
- Chaositech (See, I don’t just use WotC books) : Mutants and Chaospunk!
- Requiem for a God: Covers the death of a god in your game.
- Libris Mortis: Undead Baby!
- Draconimicon: I Heart dragons!
What’s your favorite DM themed Crunch books… D&D or otherwise?
YouTube of the Week: High Level Mohawk Edition
Does Blizzard know their audience or what? Two great WoW ads featuring Mr. T and William Shatner. [Read the rest of this article]
The Pain of Campaigning III: The Plot Thickens
So, assuming you’ve considered pre-campaign decisions and successfully started your game its now time to keep running a campaign. Not just treading water, but also have it be interesting, engaging, and fun. Maintaining interest, engagement, and enjoyment from all players and a DM can be incredibly difficult, but here are some of the most common problems that can interfere with these positive aspects.
Character Involvement in the Story
There is something going on in your campaign, whether it’s the first part of a 13 part epic or your PCs have cleared out a goblin warren or an orc encampment, but the question is how much do these events continue impacting PCs. Most players enjoy the feeling that their characters actions send out reverberations through the campaign world. So, even if your planned arch-nemesis twin brother is at least five adventures from even being alluded to, maybe that disgraced mayor that slunk away should become the righteous paladin’s rival for the time being. On the other side of the spectrum, maybe you just plan on running another module out of the Forgotten Realms, but a pesky goblin shaman actually rolled a stabilization check in the last encounter. Rather than just forgot about the little guy, even if the PCs groan when he makes himself an annoyance again, the continued co-evolution of the campaign world and the PCs makes the players interested in considering the repercussions of their actions and makes for a more engaging set of decisions. Ultimately, whether your story is fast, loose, and barely planned or methodical and plotted your campaign will benefit from having the PCs characters see consequences from their previous actions. [Read the rest of this article]
"Upgraded"… and Again
Something weird happened when our hosting company upgraded something on the back end. Hopefully it’s completely dealt with now, and sorry for the downtime!
Edit: I suppose I jinxed it since we went down for another 2 days after I said that. And considering there are still some behind the scenes things not working, it may be getting time to have a serious discussion with our hosting company…
Adventure Prep: When Fun and Logic collide…
Woot! It’s game week again!
Since this week’s game is the 3rd session in and around a Tomb dungeon, and since the adventure is pretty much prepped since last week, I was thinking of skipping this week’s prep article in order to focus on the campaign’s next chapter (Where Planescape meets Ptolus).
But then I realized that my game is at a particular stage where a DM has to think about how to treat the dungeon’s dynamics in regards to the party’s current resources. It brought to my mind sufficient ideas to make a post of of it.
I have had this conundrum trust onto my lap plenty of time and have had to fight against my very strong sense of logic and the urge to ‘do what makes sense’.
After having had 5 combat encounters and facing 3 traps, my player’s resources are pretty low now. Spells slots are used up, reserve points pools (Cixi’s) have been tapped and healing magic is nearing the ‘E’ line.
But here’s the thing.
You remember those Children of Sehan I talked about in the last 3 or 4 sessions? You know, those ill-designed, quasi-omnipotent Humanoid plant things that have been the interactive MacGuffins of this adventure arc? Well it so happens that on top of all the abilities they already had (Calm Emotion Gaze, 3d6 charisma draining poisoned claws, Wisdom Bonus to AC, Unflankable, Uncrittable…) they also share their awareness with any or all Sehan-touched creatures within 25 miles. Including Sehan and its thralls.
Aside: Sehan is that Lovecraftian thing sitting at the bottom of the dungeon, and it’s got the players a bit worried
So both Sehan and his Mini-Bosses know that the PCs are in the Dungeon and that they killed all of the remaining children of Sehan. The logical thing to do now that the PCs are down on their resources would be to have the baddies burst out of one of the yet unopened doors and attack to kill them
The thing is… much like making a Coup de Grace on a fallen PC, what makes sense and what fosters fun for your players are two completely different things. That is, unless your players are dedicated Killer DM fans and will take umbrage at you NOT killing them (Don’t smirk, I had a player like that for quite some time).
Bottom line, when logic and fun collide… I prefer to let fun win, everytime.
So here’s what’s going to happen (you reading this guys)?
Sehan is a patient entity….. All its thralls will most likely die but it doesn’t really feel threatened. Heck, its neighbor is a 20th level Druid that still hasn’t made a move on him…. what’s a quintet of 9th levelers going to do that’s worse?
However, most of that group has already been touched by it. Aravar, Nogard (who accepted its gift) and Crueger have had some of it in their veins. That opens all kind of nice Evil DM stuff that can make players squirm and creates quite an incentive to deal with this menace from the Far Realm.
The point is that Sehan will not send its thralls out yet, it’ll take a defensive wait-and-see position to gauge if the players will make better servants than the ones it’s about to lose… That’ll enable the PCs to rest and come back to finish the job at their leisure, keeping a sense of control of their environment (a very satisfying feeling in the world of unknowns that his being a RPG player instead of a Gamemaster).
I’m really curious to see what kind of devious plans the guys will come up with to deal with that pool of Green Glowing Slime… (‘Cuz I sure have quite a few lined up for them).
The Case Report James will Never Write: Post me that Purple Heart, I'm gone!
While this may look like bad Fan-fiction, it’s actually our McWod Campaign log told from the perspective of my character James Kevin Smith, Level 1 Awakened. (Franky is GMing).
Posted unencrypted on alt.conspiracy.inconnu by KingofheartS on November 25th.
James is lost, I don’t know for how long. We’re really hurt… both physically and… well let’s just say I don’t know if he’ll ever wake up.
I’m typing this with the help of JustWokeUp73 and SallyTruth81 as I can only use one hand and this laptop is probably some Iraq War surplus wreck.
They just extracted me from the clutches of the butchers at Northwestern Memorial and brought me to a safe house, under the trustful care of The Claw (yeah he’s a bit scary but he’s damn good with a Bonesaw).
There won’t be any turgidly written case report from my pal James tonight. I will give you a rundown of what landed us in the ICU though.
Last night we got briefed on a series of related fires around Chicago. Some kind of arsonist with a strange enough M.O. to warrant calling us on this case. The briefing occurred just a few hours after the last fire and we were sent to talk to the senior arson investigator, a dude called Simon Bollock.
We met the guy, after the customary butt sniffing by the local cops (they never learn!) inside the wreckage of a one-story grocery store. Discussing with Bullock and his mooks uncovered the following:
- This was the tenth such fire in the last year.
- The first three fires were classic cases with clear indication of arson.
- The next seven showed no traces of arson, each site showed multiple points of origins for the fires, all from within the walls
As we were preparing to leave to continue the investigation from HQ, we were informed that a surveillance tape was found. We reviewed it and found the following:
- Shortly before the fire, a white male was seen breaking and entering the premises.
- He surveyed the interior of the store but saw something and he fled.
- Right after that, following the perp closely, was a humanoid form apparently made of fire.
- The form floated a few inches over the floor and passed through an exterior wall, igniting it.
Yeah, a freaking Human Torch/Kitty Pride combo! Man we went from from Jurassic goddamn Park to a DC-Marvel honest to god crossover, I love this job! Yeah… Right.
As we left, Dindler (you know.. the blood sucker) said something about feeling some of Them around. But it was a fleeting contact and soon lost it… (Useless!)
Anyway, James and pals spent the rest of the evening looking for additional clues and came up with very slim pickings.
- Of all ten buildings , only the second one had a casualty, some dude whose name I forgot (This is James forte, not mine).
- We got the name of the guy in the videotape, some pretty well-known arsonist that did time but slipped out of the feds grasp when on parole.
And that’s about it. All agents called it a night then.
I have absolutely no patience with these types of investigations. I’m an action guy and those make me sick to my stomach. I had no intention of spending another day looking over James shoulder while he made further useless inquiries.
So when James finally went to bed, I went on the net and tried finding about the arsonist’s whereabouts through, shall we say… less formal channels. I got a rapid hit and some dude IMed me asking for me to drop 200$ into the nearest mailbox.
God I hate these mind games where someone wants to make it clear that all I do or try, they’re just one step ahead of me…
Anyway, I dropped the cash and lo and behold! I had mail waiting for me when I came back. Apparently the arsonist had a series of contracts to ‘honor’ and the 10 destroyed buildings were on that list. My mysterious shadow sent me the next target, some sort of chemical plant.
I rerouted the info through more official looking channels and sent them to to my colleagues (I’m preety sure they know about me, they just can’t communicate directly when James is in the way).
I went to bed, knowing that James would have to pay for my nocturnal activities.
The next day saw the squad organize a stakeout of the chemical plant. James dosed most of the way there and well into the first few hours of the stakeout. We stayed in the car while Gunther (Splinter-Cell-Ninja-ex-seal) and Clark(Short-tempered furry) went to check the building’s back door.
We didn’t wait long. I woke up real fast, letting James snooze, when I heard a car pull up to ours. Also, I sensed Dindler go all ‘Doppler radar’ so I rapidly guessed that some of his friends were dropping in for a social call.
The dude getting out of the car with his two rather fragrant goons had all the arrogance and lack of finesse that only minions of the Inconnu could muster. When he called Dindler a traitor and refered to me as a dog, I knew we were in deep trouble.
When I was ‘asked’ to leave the car, I rapidly annouced our predicament to our partners with a few taps of the car’s CB.
That’s when James decided to wake up and start screaming inside… With the Sucky’s sneer, his two obvious furry thugs looking for blood and poor Jamie’s cries for control, I snapped and applied the 1st rule of gun-barrel Diplomacy: Always initiate ‘parlay’ behind a few inches of rifled steel-pipe.
Negociations were short and, unfortunately for us, didn’t quite go our way. Result: I got mauled by the 2 Wolvies at the same time. The pain caused by several steel-jawed bites sent James into absolute gibbering , making concentration impossible.
I was within inches of my life barely 6 seconds into the fight.
Thinking only to kill them in the most efficient manner, I returned to the car, jumped in, locked the doors and put it in reverse. While Dindler engaged both sucky and one furry, the other one followed me and broke the car’s glass.
My plan was to back the car a few tens of yards and shift back into forward and ram that damn werewolf… I was about to showcase my mastery of all things automotive when my foot slipped from the brake… Mostly because that’s when James finally decided to make a stand against me…
The bugger has a stronger backbone than I remembered… probably fueled by the madness that created me. It got so strong that I actually blacked out…
I woke up in a hospital bed, a few more lacerations on my body and James nowhere to be found… That’s not a good sign.
I can’t fight the Inconnu like this, I need to find a way to meet those Mofos on some sort of equal footing: Body Armour, Bigger guns, better Intel…
I called my alternate crew and decided to go MIA for some time. I need special training for if and when I come back to the IDA. Right now, my priority is finding little Jamie and bring him back…
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