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.
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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?
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