Now…

Well…

This week I might be playing or running a game Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The Thursday game is to be a weekly event; all the others are to be every-other-week. So every two weeks or so I’ll be repeating this theoretical alignment of gaming planets.

Interesting point to ponder: Since starting to work at Wizards of the Coast I have both gamed more AND written more. It’s kind of amazing, really. And weirdest of all? My time spent with Ann has not suffered (it helps that I frequently game with her; oh, and share a blog with her, of course).

IT SQUEAKED FROM UNDER THE COUCH

Charles Groves sat in the corner of his tiny studio, hunched over a thesis of which he had spent many months of his life composing. And then he heard it. A squeak. One of perhaps terror or surprise. A cry out from the white-haired priests of Nyah or perhaps the call of a hound of Tindalos. But no, that cannot be, for hounds bay, not squeak, and those of Tindalos aren’t actually hounds–it’s just what people call them to fit them into some kind of understandable category. But I digress. No, it could not be the hounds of Tindalos either, for the star Sirius remained high in the night sky–its disappearance the harbinger of the rise of the ancient god Vow’ow.

There again! The squeak! The squeak from under the couch!

He hastened to the couch and knelt down, but for his troubles only he was startled by a flash of movement. A cry of alarm escaped his lips. But there was nothing there under the couch except shadows and the insensate worshipers of Dus’bun’iy. Charles Groves frowned. He knew too well from his studies at Miskatonic University that even the sentient worshipers of Dus’bun’iy proclaimed the power of their filth-demon with the sounds of hacking, coughing, and sneezing–real or effected. No, it was not worshiper of Dus’bun’iy, sentient or not, which made the sound.

He returned to his desk and tried to put aside the thoughts of the squeak from under the couch. But he could not, for it filled his mind like the way polite people fill a cup of coffee, such that no matter how careful you are to lift it to your lips it spills a little over the sides onto the plate and you feel a little bad about it but after all it was their fault for filling it so full. Charles Groves tried to distract himself by thinking of the many ways a person might save himself a little longer in this world by sacrificing his brethren–his fellow Man–to the awakened and angry god Cthulhu, when that monster awoke at last in glorifying splendor from the island of R–

Again! Again the squeak from under the couch!

With a start, Charles fell from his reverie–and his chair–and with a curse and a stumble he rolled onto his stomach and peered desperately under the shadowy expanse that marked the area between the seat of the couch and the floor. Nothing was there except, this time, he noticed, a cheese puff. How long had it been there and for what foul purpose did it spy upon him he knew not. Was it there before, when he communed only minutes earlier with the insensate worshipers of Dus’bun’iy? He wracked his mind but could only find himself distracted by the words of the play The King in Yellow. No, no, he must return to his thesis and resume his studies on things Men Were Not Meant to Know.

Returning his chair upright, Charles Groves opened his copy of the Cultes des Goules and immersed himself in it. He lost all sensation of time, yet the candle at his side sputtered now and then. He was forced to light a new one. And then he turned back to his book when suddenly–

The squeak!

In a flash, Charles Groves snatched up the candle and spun around, but only in that haste did he accomplish in jostling the newly lit taper in such a fashion that the air blew it out. Another curse, and another squeak. From under the couch.

Charles Groves now fumbled with the matches. Whatever foul demon might be beneath his couch now squeaking at him he must see it, even if in so doing it tore asunder his soul and cast his spiritless corpse upon the pits of M’lodr’ma. At last, a match!

With a trembling hand, Charles Groves struck a match and then the candle. There again he heard the squeak. The squeak from under the couch.

Slowly now, quietly, he knelt upon the floor, bringing low the light so he could see better what it was that might at any moment leap out and bite off his face. He suppressed his glee at perhaps discovering a new beast exiled here from Leng or perhaps the newest incarnation of the horrid hamster demon feared by the guinea-pig-eating Incas–or was it Maya–he couldn’t remember. He hoped only that he might survive the encounter long enough to write something incoherent on a scrap of paper nearby to give clues to the next investigators into the Occult what he had found under his couch.

At last his eyes came down low enough that he could see! He saw it! Yes, that thing, that horrible new beast that squeaked from under the couch!

No, no, could it be such a thing as that? Charles Groves threw up his hand and cursed, for the creature under his couch… that which tormented his studies… was…

A CAT!!!!

So anyway, Risk Legacy.

It starts off as a very slight variant of regular Risk, where you begin with all your mens in one location, which is your home base, and then you spread out from there. There are a few smaller nuances, though, that are different. For one, each of the five factions has a special ability that you can choose from between two different options (which you apply to the faction’s ability card with a sticker, and then you DESTROY the other sticker). Another small difference: none of the continents are named. Also, your group gets to pick which of the different territories are worth more moneys if you capture them and get their resource card.

In other words, it’s a customizable experience.

It’s a really clever idea, too, and also one that makes sense from a profit-driven perspective. You can play the game fifteen times with that single board and then it’s used up. You have to buy an all-new board if you wan to keep playing.

Over time, as you play, you get to customize the board further with the rules provided. There are a number of little envelopes inside the box that you get to open when you “unlock” them. So, for example, once you’ve created all nine cities that come in the game you open up one of the envelopes. Or the first time someone’s army is eliminated. Or the first time… &c.

And at the bottom of the box is one that says “Never open.”

So anyway, I love the idea. Trick described it as being sort of a cross between normal Risk and an RPG, and I feel that to be a fitting description.

From a consumer-driven point of view, like our nation is, it’s great. You can play it fifteen times and then you are done. You have to buy a new one. The sometimes-anti-consumer/pro-greener part of me cringes at that, but the gamer and idea-lover in me squees.

Every board comes with its own serial number, which is cool, but I wish there was a way you could upload your board to the Interwoobles when you’ve used it up. That would be fun and cool. ^_^

I hope we can legitimately play without map or minis.

I said, “The last time this was actually legitimately possible was in the ’90s.” D&D got its start as an add-on to a wargame and it’s never really shaken off those roots. You could play Basic D&D, 1e, and 2e pretty well without a map and minis, but 3e really turned up the tactical aspect of the game. 4e, of course, really blew that out of the water. So I hope 5e goes back to the earliest iterations of the game and makes it legitimately possible to run an entire campaign with just the books, paper, pencils, dice, and imagination.

From what Mearls hinted at I’m guessing that will be possible, but only time will tell.

I hope I can use it to tell at least one of the stories I want to tell, with minimal modifications.

I don’t really have any stories I can tell with D&D right now. As I wrote about in Story Papers a couple weeks ago, I’m just not into epic fantasy anymore. Not that D&D is necessarily epic fantasy but it is its own brand of fantasy. I’m not opposed to those kinds of stories, I just don’t have any to tell right now myself. But I’d be remiss to not want other people to tell those kinds of stories, so I’ve already included two worlds in the Ingressa specifically for D&D-type stories (Dar Hamaak and the world of the Obsidian Queen), with a third on the way.

In order to tell the stories I want to tell I either have to use a different system or modify an existing one. I’m running a game with GURPS right now. I like the char-gen for the game but running it is even more persnickety than D&D3e and a lot more than 4e. I’d like to tell my stories with a story game, but to do that Ann and I need to work on making Rule of Three capable of maintaining a long-term campaign. Until we figure out how to do that, I’ll have to use a more robust engine. It’s possible I could use 5e, depending on how flexible it is, which brings up the next heading, below.

The main problem with using D&D is that the rules as written break a lot of stories. Since I’m mostly interested right now in telling horror, science-fiction, or steam opera stories, the high fantasy of D&D just doesn’t work without pretty extreme modifications. You have to eliminate or hamper magic, and that radically throws off the balance in the game. I suppose you could reconcept the powers in the game, using the belief that “sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” (haha, out of habit I capitalized the “magic” in there on my first pass). But what do you do if you want to tell a steam opera, a mystery, or a horror story?

Well, let’s say I wanted to tell a story that I could conceivably with D&D, but even then I’d want to include other elements, which brings me to…

I hope the game allows (dare I dream, encourages?) the inclusion of non-fantasy elements.

At the very least, I hope the game doesn’t break with the addition of firearms, since it’s impossible really to escape from them in the Ingressa. A lot of the Ingressa is also powered by technology at least as advanced as steam-tech, but it also has a fair amount of Age of Sails tech as well as pre-modern, modern, and futuristic science fiction stuff. I’m not interested in telling stories in any other universe right now, after I’ve spent so many resources getting the Ingressa as large and detailed as it it is, so if I can’t tell a story in the Ingressa with a game system I just won’t use that system.

So my hope for 5e is that, if I like the system and want to use it, that I can add to it (and, somewhat less importantly, remove what doesn’t fit) what I need to so I can tell stories with it in the Ingressa.

And so I guess I should clarify the next point a little bit as well…

I hope I get to playtest it. :3

Let me put a little emphasis on the “play” in playtest. I don’t have the time to run another game right now, so I hope someone who does invites me to join in as a player. I’m not sure what the playtest rules will be, so even if I am invited to a game I don’t know that I’d be able to say one way or another.

I am hopeful.

Or, well, I have hopes. Only two of them have anything to do with mechanics because, right now, D&D (of any edition, as well as its clones) is incompatible with the stories I want to tell in RPGs (that is not a condemnation). Maybe 5e will be different. I guess we’ll all find out this year.

So anyway, in a very particular order, here are my hopes for 5e:

1. I hope there’s a true OGL.
2. I hope the books come out on PDFs (or better yet, on the Kindle, so I can read them on the bus!).
3. I hope the art gives women gamers and their allies more reasons to cheer than jeer.
4. I hope we can legitimately play without map or minis.*
5. I hope I can use it to tell at least one of the stories I want to tell, with minimal modifications. So…
6. I hope the game allows (dare I dream, encourages?) the inclusion of non-fantasy elements.
7. I hope I get to playtest it. :3
8. If I like it, I hope I get to write for it. ;)

I’m not sure I’ll ever be as into RPGs as I once was, especially now with my delve into working with Magic. At times, I want to just quit RPGs altogether, but at other times I write huge posts about hypothetical ways of playing them. So who knows? I certainly don’t anymore.

*The last time this was actually legitimately possible was in the ’90s. And, yes, this is one of my mechanics hopes (the other appears two slots down).

Some day I want to play a game of Magic that combines my two favorite forms of the game (Commander and Draft) into one: Commander Draft. Although this is clearly a casual way to play, you’re going to need some hardcore casual players (and a probably an entire day) to pull it off. That said, here is my idea, along with a little analysis at the end.

To do this, you’ll need at least three players, each of whom brings three Commanders who (and this is vitally important) they would want to play with. So, for example, since I hate Goblins I would never bring Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, no matter how awesome he is. Anyway, each player also needs to bring nine booster packs plus three different cards of each color. So…

The Setup

• 3+ players
• 3 Commanders each
• 9 booster packs each
• 3 different white cards each
• 3 different blue cards each
• 3 different black cards each
• 3 different red cards each
• 3 different green cards each

The Draft

1. Do a normal three-pack booster Draft, passing left-right-left.
2. Shuffle together all of the Commanders, then deal out three Commander cards to each player.
3. Draft Commanders, passing right.
4. Choose one of those Commanders and set it out in the middle of the table for everyone to see. Now you all know which colors everyone else is going to draft.
5. Do another three-pack booster Draft, passing left-right-left.
6. Draft the fifteen cards everyone hand-picked. Pass right.
7. Do one last three-pack booster Draft, passing left-right-left.
8. Build your decks.
9. Sleeve your decks. (MOST IMPORTANT PART!!)
10. Play and have fun!! (Actual most important part.)

Recommendations

• Bring multicolor Commanders to play. It should help; really.
• Don’t bring an artifact Commander. That is an asshole move.
• It would probably be most fun if every pack you bring is from a different set. If that’s unpossible, try to at least mix it up a little bit. It’ll be much more fun for everyone.
• Remember to bring Commanders and chosen cards you actually want to play, and not a bunch of fodder to screw over your opponents. Remember: casual is for fun.

Drafting a Commander

Yup, it’s totally possible to draft a Legendary creature you want to use as a Commander somewhere in those nine booster packs you open. Go for it. If it happens before the Commander draft round, just put your chosen Commander out instead of the other three Legendary creatures. If that happens after the Commander draft round let everyone know what you’re doing and put your new Commander out in place of the one you chose in Commander draft.

Analysis

In a typical booster Draft, you get 39 cards out which to add land and build a 40-card deck. If you follow the 40% rule for land, that gives you 24 of your 39 cards to play with, or just shy of 2/3rds. Following the same 2/3rds ratio, in order to get the 59 cards you need to build a Commander deck (that’s 100 -1 Commander -40 land) you will need to draft 96 cards, or 7.something packs. I boosted it up to 9 packs (117 drafted cards) to help ensure you have enough cards to play with, because Commander decks are a little more exacting in their construction than normal decks. You might even want to push that up to 12 packs, though, and draft four each round.

There are lots of options you could do to fiddle with this idea, so make sure to change things up appropriately in ways that appeal to your group. I’d love to do this some day (maybe multiple times if it’s as fun as I imagine it), and if I ever get the chance I will obviously talk all about it here. If you beat me to it and do a Commander draft with your group before I can, let me know how it goes! :D

I am not clawed all to pieces, which is a huge plus for someone on an anticoagulant medication. He has been busy grooming himself ever since. It will take him a while to get all his fur smoothed back out, since he has a lot of fur. >_>;;

I’ve picked out my eleven favorite pictures from the 200+ I took on campus and uploaded them to Flickr. Here’s my favorite of those eleven:

You can see all eleven I chose here.

I suppose I should get a Flickr account (or get the login information for Ann’s, lol) so I can efficiently share the photos I take on my photo walks. Now that I have a really nice DSLR I plan on taking a lot more pictures, some of which might actually be interesting to someone who isn’t me. XD

Planned future photo walks in Seattle before the end of winter include:

• A return to UW to get some of the other buildings and parts of campus (I only shot four buildings, plus a little grotto)
• International District
• Capitol Hill
• Pioneer Square
• Somewhere I can get a good photo of downtown
• Somewhere I can get a good photo of the Space Needle from afar

I’ll keep you posted!

Part of what makes Night of the Hunters different from her other albums are a series of duets she sings with her daughter and niece. To me, those are the most memorable songs on the album, and I’ve been playing “Cactus Practice” a lot recently. The practicalities of touring, though, undoubtedly made it difficult (or nigh impossible) to drag a couple of little girls along all over the world, so Tori sang the non-duet songs from the album on Wednesday.

The concert was amazing. Tori has a powerful stage presence and her back-up string quartet (how cool is that?) was outstanding (and also very showy–the first violinist in particular was very animated).

The crowd was horrid; possibly the worst I’ve ever been forced to endure. And in Seattle, that’s really saying something. :\

Overall an enjoyable evening, though. :)