So, the table is finally wandering towards underway. I started a small dungeon-esque military outpost. Table started out smaller then I would have liked. Axianamaus, Hope, Zen, and Myself were there to start. Lingie and Riney coming in after. I couldn't stay to run a short combat to get the twins acclimated to it. So the responsibility fell to Axianamaus.They seemed to have fun. Savage worlds "ace" mechanic is definitely entertaining. Reading your dice at 29 when the critters toughness is 11 after rolling for damage.
We started using Maptool. It's a free to use well...map tool, a Virtual Tabletop. I was struggling with it for a bit, then it sort of clicked for what we were trying to do. I do want to try using the Savage Worlds Framework, but I've been having trouble with it. So for now we are using it just for unit position, completely rules agnostic.
So far we have:
A small commando who happens to be an anthropomorphized Red Panda. A bounty hunter with cybernetic eyes. A monk from a people who don't have eyes. They have evolved to have a form of electroreception, basically Daredevil sense. I for whatever reason have completely forgot what the twins characters are. One them kept saying a Tank, not an MMORPG guys.
So hopefully this will give me something to look forward to each week. I'm generally bored, all the time. The video games I play aren't as entertaining as they used to be, and I'm trying to spend less time on my comp. So Here's to good times.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
It's been awhile.
As unfortunate as it is I haven't been able to write in this for awhile. I figured I'd pop on and leave a few ideas that have been floating in my head for a while. My goal is to help solidify my thoughts for a campaign setting. The idea is to use traditional fantasy classes and apply a Science Fiction concept to them. For example a If a player wanted to play a Spell Caster that play would have to find a good allegory in science fiction. I personally would recommend the Technomage from Babylon 5. Using implants or nanites to create the effect of a traditional Mage/wizard.
So an unknown amount of years in the future the world is destroyed by a cult that worships machines, artificial intelligence and the Apocalypse. This cult is the Followers of the Word. People still remember parts of it so they see all artificial intelligence as what 500 years ago people viewed the undead. Endoskeletons replacing skeletons, half-finished Sub-Human cyborgs experiments replacing zombies, and those successful experiments replacing vampires and powerful undead. I thought it would be an interesting twist on a classic roleplaying game staple.
The campaign would be heavily influenced by my personal favorites for Science Fiction. Fallout, Babylon 5, Akira, Final Fantasy VII, and a plethora of other places. The idea was the allow the players to pick anything they could think of as an interesting character concept and think how this character is interacting with this "Brave New World" so to speak. At one point I had a table ready to go and they all flaked, because that's what gamers do.
A few of the characters that were close to finished were brilliant. A Paladin who's "Turn Undead" was turned into an EMP pulse. A genetically altered individual with a symbiotic organism that gave him such an hyper healing factor. This person was suppose to be an emissary to a haven city the trauma of the new world causing his healing factor to erase his memory to "heal" him.
Overall I think it would have been a lot of fun, and with so much to add and screw around with. I'm mostly just posting to get some of it down so I don't forget it. I doubt that'll be the case, I've been thinking about it for almost 4 years. Maybe I'll write short stories set in this. I was a huge fan of Thieve's world.
So an unknown amount of years in the future the world is destroyed by a cult that worships machines, artificial intelligence and the Apocalypse. This cult is the Followers of the Word. People still remember parts of it so they see all artificial intelligence as what 500 years ago people viewed the undead. Endoskeletons replacing skeletons, half-finished Sub-Human cyborgs experiments replacing zombies, and those successful experiments replacing vampires and powerful undead. I thought it would be an interesting twist on a classic roleplaying game staple.
The campaign would be heavily influenced by my personal favorites for Science Fiction. Fallout, Babylon 5, Akira, Final Fantasy VII, and a plethora of other places. The idea was the allow the players to pick anything they could think of as an interesting character concept and think how this character is interacting with this "Brave New World" so to speak. At one point I had a table ready to go and they all flaked, because that's what gamers do.
A few of the characters that were close to finished were brilliant. A Paladin who's "Turn Undead" was turned into an EMP pulse. A genetically altered individual with a symbiotic organism that gave him such an hyper healing factor. This person was suppose to be an emissary to a haven city the trauma of the new world causing his healing factor to erase his memory to "heal" him.
Overall I think it would have been a lot of fun, and with so much to add and screw around with. I'm mostly just posting to get some of it down so I don't forget it. I doubt that'll be the case, I've been thinking about it for almost 4 years. Maybe I'll write short stories set in this. I was a huge fan of Thieve's world.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
League of Legends
By now most of you know what League of Legends is. We started playing it a while back, before Season One. To be honest, Season One was not that big a deal for me. All it meant was the release of a new champion. At the time, we had only been playing less than a month, or maybe just over a month.
Anyway for those of you who don't know what League of Legends is, it's a strategy RTS where you control a single unit rather than an entire army. You can choose between nearly 70 champions at this point, possibly more. They add a new one every two weeks. Each champion has five abilities. One passive ability that affects the game in small ways that is always on, and four abilities that you can level up to make more powerful as the game progresses. The point of the game is to battle you're way through the enemy team and their defensive turrets so you can destroy their nexus.
The game is hard to get into because it's so unforgiving. When you die, you give the enemy team gold and experience. When you lose a turret, they gain gold and experience. If you can't effectively land the killing blow on the little minions that spawn from the enemy nexus, you won't be getting any gold. This means new players cant buy items, can't become more powerful, and will just get further and further behind.
To help alleviate the situation, every player has a summoner level. This level is a reflection of how long you have been playing, and you will usually only get matched with other players around your level. This doesn't stop an experienced player from creating a low level account and stomping on noobs, but it certainly helps. As your summoner level raises higher, so do your options of customizing your game-play. You can buy runes, and put in mastery points to give yourself small bonus' is every game. Things like a small attack damage boost to give you that early edge, or higher mana regeneration so you can cast spells more often.
When you start playing every single champion in the game is locked. Each week 10 free champions are rotated in to give new players a chance to try them out before they buy them. You buy champions with IP, which is a sort of in game currency earned after each match based on how well you did. The 10 free champions each week are chosen to fill specific roles. usually it's 2 Casters, 2 Melee, 2 Tanks, 2 Support, and 2 Range.
In game, your individual champion starts off at level one each game, and maxes out at 18. Each of the abilities have 5 levels, except your 4th ability, which only has 3. Your 4th ability, your "ultimate", is your signature move. Usually it's a hugely devastating attack. Most abilities can be used every 3-10 seconds. Most ultimate's have upwards of a 70 second cool-down. This means you have to save them for the right moment.
League of Legends attempts to be more noob-friendly than its predecessors, DotA and HoN. LoL offers a tutorial on the basics, and an advanced tutorial that give you specific instructions on how to be more effective during a match. Things like buy sight wards so you can see enemies coming before they get to you.
Game play is fun once you stop dying non-stop. You learn a champion and stick with it until you feel confident enough to move onto another one. Teamwork is essential and even one team member out of place can decide the game. Communication and awareness plays an even bigger part in the game. Mentioning when your opponent has gone missing might mean the difference between getting ambushed and killed, or pushing down an enemy turret.
If you want to play this game seriously, you NEED a good gaming group. Random players can be very very good. However, more often that not they tend to be more than unpleasant. Keeping a level head and getting along well with your teammates will help to win games. If you're getting upset at your team and yelling at them, you're not helping the team. Barking orders at people will cause people to start hating you and doing exactly the opposite of what you want.
I play this game most every day now. There are a lot of problems I have with the development team, but that's for another day. Suffice it to say they are very unprofessional and like to do things their own way regardless of what the community says or wants. Even so however, they do communicate and listen more than some others out there. After you can get passed all the rage-hards and trolls, I would give this game a solid 8/10. However problems with the dev team kind of bring it down a notch to 7/10.
Anyway for those of you who don't know what League of Legends is, it's a strategy RTS where you control a single unit rather than an entire army. You can choose between nearly 70 champions at this point, possibly more. They add a new one every two weeks. Each champion has five abilities. One passive ability that affects the game in small ways that is always on, and four abilities that you can level up to make more powerful as the game progresses. The point of the game is to battle you're way through the enemy team and their defensive turrets so you can destroy their nexus.
The game is hard to get into because it's so unforgiving. When you die, you give the enemy team gold and experience. When you lose a turret, they gain gold and experience. If you can't effectively land the killing blow on the little minions that spawn from the enemy nexus, you won't be getting any gold. This means new players cant buy items, can't become more powerful, and will just get further and further behind.
To help alleviate the situation, every player has a summoner level. This level is a reflection of how long you have been playing, and you will usually only get matched with other players around your level. This doesn't stop an experienced player from creating a low level account and stomping on noobs, but it certainly helps. As your summoner level raises higher, so do your options of customizing your game-play. You can buy runes, and put in mastery points to give yourself small bonus' is every game. Things like a small attack damage boost to give you that early edge, or higher mana regeneration so you can cast spells more often.
When you start playing every single champion in the game is locked. Each week 10 free champions are rotated in to give new players a chance to try them out before they buy them. You buy champions with IP, which is a sort of in game currency earned after each match based on how well you did. The 10 free champions each week are chosen to fill specific roles. usually it's 2 Casters, 2 Melee, 2 Tanks, 2 Support, and 2 Range.
In game, your individual champion starts off at level one each game, and maxes out at 18. Each of the abilities have 5 levels, except your 4th ability, which only has 3. Your 4th ability, your "ultimate", is your signature move. Usually it's a hugely devastating attack. Most abilities can be used every 3-10 seconds. Most ultimate's have upwards of a 70 second cool-down. This means you have to save them for the right moment.
League of Legends attempts to be more noob-friendly than its predecessors, DotA and HoN. LoL offers a tutorial on the basics, and an advanced tutorial that give you specific instructions on how to be more effective during a match. Things like buy sight wards so you can see enemies coming before they get to you.
Game play is fun once you stop dying non-stop. You learn a champion and stick with it until you feel confident enough to move onto another one. Teamwork is essential and even one team member out of place can decide the game. Communication and awareness plays an even bigger part in the game. Mentioning when your opponent has gone missing might mean the difference between getting ambushed and killed, or pushing down an enemy turret.
If you want to play this game seriously, you NEED a good gaming group. Random players can be very very good. However, more often that not they tend to be more than unpleasant. Keeping a level head and getting along well with your teammates will help to win games. If you're getting upset at your team and yelling at them, you're not helping the team. Barking orders at people will cause people to start hating you and doing exactly the opposite of what you want.
I play this game most every day now. There are a lot of problems I have with the development team, but that's for another day. Suffice it to say they are very unprofessional and like to do things their own way regardless of what the community says or wants. Even so however, they do communicate and listen more than some others out there. After you can get passed all the rage-hards and trolls, I would give this game a solid 8/10. However problems with the dev team kind of bring it down a notch to 7/10.
Savage Worlds
Savage worlds is a Table-top Role-playing game. It's not a game of classes, it's a game of concepts. My personal preference causes me to avoid games that have levels and classes. It is just something that frustrates me. If I want to play a Barbarian Warlord I would have to wait until level 40 before that becomes a possibility. With Savage Worlds I can just say I want to be something and spend the points accordingly.
That's just the character side of it. Combat comes off feeling very tactical, fast paced. It seems more at home in a miniatures battle system, but works wonderfully in an RPG setting. An interesting mechanic for determining initiative is the use of cards. Each player and the GM (read; Game Master) draws a card. That card depending on what it is determines your place in combat, as well as offering certain extras. If you can always draw a Joker.
I haven't gotten the chance to play it with a full table yet, but I definitely recommend it.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
This is Certainly Different.
It's been a while since I've had a place that I could talk about things without people ignoring me, or what have you. I like to talk, and I like to give my side of things. I figure if you're reading this you must be interested in reading what I have to say. Either way it's good to have a place to put down my thoughts for the world to see.
I don't have much going on right now. It's been tough trying to find a job. Right now though I'm trying to focus on the present. My friend has a new kid, and I need to convince him to raise her as a pirate. That the most important issue right now. I'll even get her an eye patch.
I plan on writing up a few angry editorials about my view of the world, and some gaming reviews. My friend Ciatic and I talk a lot. We come up with a lot of stupid idea's. We will inflict those on you too.
Forgive my grammatical inconsistencies, I'm a terrible writer and I know it.
I don't have much going on right now. It's been tough trying to find a job. Right now though I'm trying to focus on the present. My friend has a new kid, and I need to convince him to raise her as a pirate. That the most important issue right now. I'll even get her an eye patch.
I plan on writing up a few angry editorials about my view of the world, and some gaming reviews. My friend Ciatic and I talk a lot. We come up with a lot of stupid idea's. We will inflict those on you too.
Forgive my grammatical inconsistencies, I'm a terrible writer and I know it.
The Start of Something New.
When I wake up I stare at my computer monitor hands on my keyboard. My wife and kids are asleep, and there's no one but me. Some of my best conversations happen at this time. Anywhere between 1:00 AM and 7:00 AM.
I tend to read news stories, gaming reviews, table-top rpg books. Basically anything I can get my hands on. Unfortunately I'm a lonely island. I don't have many friends that are into the same things I am. I have a lot of unsaid conversations wrestling in my head. They need a place to go.
As of now I'm sitting in a hospital room, my exhausted wife and new born daughter resting quietly behind me. Even at 9:30 at night it feels like 5:00 am. I feel the urge to communicate. So my friend Axianamos and I decided to start a blog. A way to express ourselves that our normal company precludes us from.
We hope to write about things relevant to Gaming and the occasional digression. Editorials and reviews is our main focus. I hope that my meager grammar and editing skills don't scare any folks away. I also hope that you enjoy it.
Welcome to Don't Click That Link Gaming.
I tend to read news stories, gaming reviews, table-top rpg books. Basically anything I can get my hands on. Unfortunately I'm a lonely island. I don't have many friends that are into the same things I am. I have a lot of unsaid conversations wrestling in my head. They need a place to go.
As of now I'm sitting in a hospital room, my exhausted wife and new born daughter resting quietly behind me. Even at 9:30 at night it feels like 5:00 am. I feel the urge to communicate. So my friend Axianamos and I decided to start a blog. A way to express ourselves that our normal company precludes us from.
We hope to write about things relevant to Gaming and the occasional digression. Editorials and reviews is our main focus. I hope that my meager grammar and editing skills don't scare any folks away. I also hope that you enjoy it.
Welcome to Don't Click That Link Gaming.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)