Hm, it's been a while since I've said anything
So I haven't wrote anything here for all of January and most of December. Actually I've been writing up tentative entries on the bus to and from work but nothing has jelled up into a good article to post here.
It's the digital equivalent of the horror of the blank page that all authors must face at some point. Sometimes something comes, sometimes it seems like it's all been said and said by people smarter than you.
One of the ways I think I can get around this problem is to talk about my hobbies. I have a game session coming up and that will give me a write up then. My gaming pals love my summaries of game sessions. But I could broaden this by talking about table-top role-playing games in general. (Sigh. I remember when just saying role-playing games was sufficient. But software has changed all this now.):
- I did start a couple of entries on the history of my role-playing campaign: Udra. I really should finish this up.
- I could make these histories very detailed or at least as detailed as my memory and 29 year old paper can allow for.
- I could talk about table-top RPGs in general. Commentaries of rules and variations. I've done a little of this already. For example I could talk about how to use computers to aid in bookkeeping and note-taking in game sessions. It would great to have a computerized miniatures map that would help everyone keep track of the physics. As a game master, I'd love to have this so I could concentrate on the descriptive stuff and mood.
Anyway, maybe some other subjects will come to me. I've been thinking about ways to force people to use encrypted mail and whether I want to sign up for EVDO service for example. Something will come.
Posted by Pace Arko at 4:06 PM on February 8, 2008
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar--
Nearly a month ago, my friend Victor bought and downloaded Portal, a first person action game that involves puzzles, the legacies of faceless defense corporations and bizarre physics. He invited me to try my hand at it.
The game very strongly reminded me of Paranoia, right down to the jumpsuits and manipulative, deranged robots. For me, this game was rather refreshing in that it wasn't your typical paintball session in software where those with the fastest hardware, the most practice, the least RSI and the fastest connections usually pulverize everyone else.
In games like that, I quickly degenerate into kamikaze mode simply because I can't stack up the patience to do them well. I'd have the wrists of an 80 year old if I did anyway. (On the other hand, people like to play me in first person shooters and melee combat games because they get a kick out of how I transform into this insanely giggling manic--ahem--I can be quite childish for a 44 year old guy.)
In Portal, sort of like Thief or Metal Gear (Although Metal Gear did have some incredibly frustrating button mash events that I almost gave up on.), you're given some tools and then you got to figure your way out the predicament you're in. Dangerous events are immediately fatal, thus more realistic, but at least no one is immediately trying to eat your brains or blow you to bits.
It turns out there are some other ways this game is subversive to the usual shoot 'em ups. I guess Joe McNeilly, the guy I just linked to, might be over-analysing things too much but I'm pretty sure the folks over at Valve Software did seriously consider at least some of these issues while designing the game. With Half-Life, Valve became known for trying to depart from cliche and keep the escapism on a vaguely cerebral level. Nice to see they are still doing that.
Posted by Pace Arko at 7:19 AM on December 11, 2007
Circus of the Mighty Session Log
[Victor, Greg and Ralph in attendance on 11-18-2007 between 3:30PM until about 9:30PM. Greg was running Thalin and Chingara. Victor was running Mandark and Stirge. Ralph was running Dwalor and Telwyn. Hilda and Helga started off in Greg and Ralph's hands but when combat started, Victor was mostly calling the tactics. The Circus is currently in the City of Boha-Boha which is in the western end of the Twin Kingdoms of Taumau-Boha at the head of the Kalimara River.]
When we left the Circus they were making plans to capture, or at least defeat, Lord Alif.
Alif was an important man within the mysterious Leopard Cult. As the result of Thalin's scrying, Hilda's questioning of the two spies the Circus had captured and several other related facts, they learned that this mysterious cult of criminals, assassins and shapechangers was now after the Circus and was somehow in alliance with at least two of their old foes, Chebo and Marvek. Although the pattern of connections wasn't entirely clear yet, these cultists also were involved with the ancient evils of the Kosan and expunged history of the mysterious King in Yellow.
More importantly, as Thalin had long ago expected and had taken precautions against, the Circus was now being scryed on and their movements and activities followed.
Continue reading "Circus of the Mighty Session Log" »
Posted by Pace Arko at 12:23 AM on November 25, 2007 | Comments (6)
Circus of the Mighty Session Log
Victor, Greg, Ralph and Ian in attendence. 9-23-2007 around 5PM until about 9:30PM. However what follows is really a summary of two sessions:
To recap briefly:
The Circus is in Darth Lom, driven there primarily by Thalin's vague but powerful paranoia and his obssessive curiosity for the histories and cultures of this ancient land. But specifically they are there to find the Great Udamalore, a ceremonial weapon and badge of office for the clerical caste of Basharka. Due to several divine visions, received at the Temple of Montintera, the Circus has reason to believe that finding this weapon will stop Lady Tyrathect's plot to revive an ancient evil force only known as the King in Yellow.
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Posted by Pace Arko at 9:03 PM on October 23, 2007 | Comments (3)
A brief stay in a city of villains
So I've been playing City of Villains once every few months on my friend's son's account as I house sit for them. So why wasn't I playing World of Warcraft, which was also on my friend's machine? The irrational reasons I haven't tried WoW yet are:
- Simply everyone is doing it these days or has done it.
- Since I play paper-based fantansy role-playing games in hardspace I get enough of that genre in my life.
- Maybe it's just because WoW doesn't let characters wear fezzes like Asheron's Call does. Now that I think about it, Neverwinter Nights doesn't let you wear a fez either. This is important. I like the enormous customizability of the COH/V character editor. COH/V has five types of characters, each with a big range of abilities to chose from and tune but, for me, what really makes a character unique in a NRPG is how it looks not what abilities it has.
- I think the premise of COH/V works better for NRPGs.
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Posted by Pace Arko at 8:38 PM on November 23, 2006 | Comments (7)
Games on Linux and MSWindows
So if you don't mind running the Wine emulator on occasion, if you don't mind being careful with what hardware you install, if don't mind native ports of older games or if you don't mind games with older technology and sporadic support, there are tonnes of games you can run in Linux. This entry was prompted by something I saw in Digg yesterday about popular, free-as-in-beer, games native to Linux and, many times, Windows as well.
Posted by Pace Arko at 8:51 AM on September 21, 2006
Udra: My RPG Campaign History in Several Parts
1989 to 1994: Udra Becomes More Serious, if Schitzophrenic.
After a long hiatus, between '84 and '89, where I pretended I was normal person and denied my true nature, I met a new friend who revived my interest in roleplaying games again. To start with, his first character he built was a cleric! No one had ever, in six years of play, built a cleric in my game. This foreboded a new direction. Coming up with campaign background actually made sense now because here was a player who actually appreciated and demanded it. He wanted names, gods, local histories, heraldry, politics--he wanted the lot. He also GM'd, like myself. His campaign and style became a model for me. It was very inspiring all of a sudden.
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Posted by Pace Arko at 10:43 PM on August 31, 2006
Yes, more stuff about accessibility
By way of Amor Mundi, I found a link to this really interesting site called, the Open Prothesthics Project. This is nifty to me on several levels.
- It ties into accessibility and assistive technology.
- It ties into open source engineering. GPL doesn't have to be just about software.
- It can tie into stuff like fab labs. Imagine if doctors in poor countries had access to open sourced designs and fab labs to build limbs for mine victims.
- This is the kind of grass-roots, human empowerment that flies in the face of gloom and doom.
In a vaguely related sense I have some other accessibility links.
- Game Accessibility is a site that focuses on making software games accessible to people with disabilities. Remember when I wrote about that kid, blind from birth, who totally conquered Mortal Kombat, Soul Caliber?
- Then of course there are the obligatory accessible web design links I'm so found of listing here--How to embed Adobe Flash objects correctly and one way to do web page tabs correctly.
Posted by Pace Arko at 7:11 AM on August 15, 2006
Udra: My RPG Campaign History in Several Parts
The Early Years
I started playing Dungeons and Dragons back in the summer of 1978 (After having been introduced to the concept in late 1977 by my friends Greg and David.) after getting the garishly illustrated Basic Set (The "Dragon Box") for my birthday. In 1978 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons had just been released and TSR slowly began to clamp down on intellectual property rights and orthodoxy. It was just before the start of my sophmore year in high school. Devo had just appeared on Saturday Night Live. This is to give you historical context.
The first character built in my campaign was made by my stepbrother, an elf wizard and warrior named named Ring Poco. Very soon afterwards he was joined by my other stepbrother and kids I had recruited from around the neighborhood and school. Initial characters were (Not a complete list):
Continue reading "Udra: My RPG Campaign History in Several Parts" »
Posted by Pace Arko at 7:43 AM on July 28, 2006 | Comments (2)
Software makes all game rules transparent
One of the nice things about including the subject of games on this site is, when I'm at a loss in other subjects, I can always rant about gaming pilpul and hairsplitting.
Anyway, one of the endless unsettled disputes among role-playing gamers is the subject of realistic rules versus easy rules. On the one end, you have rule systems so transparent as to be nonexistent, like Amber Diceless. One the other end you have rule systems so complex and flexible as to be able to model nearly anything, like GURPS or Champions. The way I like to look at this is to think of Amber as a Macintosh before OSX and to think Champions as a bash prompt on a cluster of blade servers.
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Posted by Pace Arko at 7:53 PM on October 24, 2005
The quality of gaming dice stinks
Friends have shown me and given me casino-legal craps dice. Take a look at the photograph below to see what they look like. Notice that they are transparent, have sharp, nonbeveled edges and don't have indentation to represent numbers. They are also big. This is so the user and the casino can see that the dice don't have loads or distorted faces or edges. The plastic is the same density throughout and the user can quickly test that their shape is a true platonic solid. This assures both the player and casino that there is no cheating going on. When money is on the line everything has to be as close to random as allowable by Newton.
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Posted by Pace Arko at 8:14 PM on September 7, 2005 | Comments (2)
Gaming conventions
At the behest and cajolery of various friends, I've been attending the Dragonflight gaming convention these last few years and, I plan to go again tomorrow afternoon.
I've playing RPGs for many years, ever since discovering them back in high school back in 1978 but, I've been pretty closeted about it. Many nerds are bigger snobs and are more concerned about appearances than you'd realize. At least that's been my case. For many years I was very concerned how I'd appear to all the squares so, I mostly kept to myself and my friends.
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Posted by Pace Arko at 8:56 PM on August 25, 2005 | Comments (0)
Some hobbies require a lot of work
When I know exactly what to do, I am pretty good at doing something. People have commented on how intense I am when I'm focused on something. This is odd because at the same time, I'm a lazy bastard. What I've found is that when I'm unsure how to do something, or if I'm unhappy with how something has turned out, I procrastinate. My perfectionism is such that I'll spin my mental wheels uselessly searching for and examining flaws in some idea I've had before I've even tried to realize that idea. I idle and avoid that which bothering me. Sometimes this works for me in my job because occasionally a solution will come to me and suddenly everything becomes easy again. But this is a rarity. Basically the pattern is:
- I don't know how to do something, and can't be bothered to learn something new, so I shut down.
- I perversely want to get it perfect the first time so, instead of doing anything, I dither and do nothing.
Either way it leads to procrastination. In the last twenty years I've learned a few ways of breaking these feedback loops:
- Don't try and do something all at once if you've never done it before. For people like me, this leads to overwhelming levels of detail and to shut down. Try to break something down in stages and practice a lot on little pieces. Don't rush it.
- Don't be afraid to ask for help. This one is especially hard for me. I have a lot of silly ego all tied up in how smart people think I am. Still don't be afraid to ask for help.
- If it isn't perfect, nine times out of ten, your standards are a lot higher than most peoples. Sometimes there something to be said for just getting something in place and tweaking it until it gets better. This relates to number one above.
- If the fun never comes, stop doing it. If it never gets easy, stop doing it. My friend Jeff practices on his bass constantly, almost mindlessly. If he's bored, he picks up his bass and plug it into his amp. He's compulsive about it and this rewards him. He can play the bass well.
- Anything valuable has a hurdle to climb over. The brain doesn't do music or mathematics naturally. That's why these things are hard. These things require practice, practice, practice. Native talent will only get you so far.
The reason why I mention this is because I have a few intricate hobbies, that, to be enjoyed, require a lot of work. They are fun but I'm always haunted with this notion that I could do a better job at them. What I'm talking about here is gamemastering role-playing game sessions. Coming up with plots is one thing but doing all the work to realize events in rules and statistics is something I've gone slack in over the years.
Role-playing games are my hobby and they are a lot of fun. But to a certain extent I wonder if they can also be something that can magnify other parts of my life? Maybe if I get better at doing more work before running game sessions with my friends these habits will transfer to other areas of my life?
Posted by Pace Arko at 6:34 PM on August 8, 2005 | Comments (2)
He's a pinball wizard
So there's this 17 year old kid who kicks bottom and takes names when playing Mortal Kombat, Soul Caliber and other games at meets and on the Network. The thing is he's been blind from birth.
Posted by Pace Arko at 11:07 PM on August 1, 2005
A physics engine for table-top RPGs
I've ranted about this before but so far, I've seen nothing to fill my criteria. Maybe I should send some mail to SJG, Hero, Chaosium or even--SHUDDER--Hasbro to get them cracking on this.
I'd prefer the flexibility and realism of GURPS or Hero since the physics engine software would hide most of that complexity from players and gamemasters that don't have the patience for such things. Table-top, paper based games need something like this!
Posted by Pace Arko at 7:43 PM on July 5, 2005
Circus of the Mighty Session: 6-19-2005
A Sprawling and Less Than Coherent Summary of the Last Two Sessions of Circus of the Mighty
Currently the crew is on an exploratory/trade expedition on the continent of Darth Lom*, or Nyambe tanda**.
A millennia in the past, the Empire of Darth Lom established a colony in Udra and ruled for more than 200 years. During that time the Lomites had profound influences on Udran culture. But Darth Lom fell and, there followed an 800 year period of quiet as Udran culture, economy and polity advanced and grew. During this time there was almost no trade and many scholars in Urda's had almost no information as to the changes in Darth Lom since the fall.
A Sprawling and Less Than Coherent Summary of the Last Two Sessions of Circus of the Mighty
Soon after their defeat of the piracy of Cebo [Pronounced "Chay-bo"] the Drowned and while their holdings on the Isle of Jars consolidated, the heroes who saved Udra from Golem Army decided to see what they could do to re-establish trade with the Lomite continent.
They organized an expedition consisting of two ships, The Good Ship Danny Goodman and The Hoberman Sphere, each crewed with more than 30 sailors and men-at-arms, to make the long jump back to Darth Lom.
Continue reading "Circus of the Mighty Session: 6-19-2005" »
Posted by Pace Arko at 10:42 PM on June 22, 2005
Advertising in Software Games
I saw Episode III of Star Wars last Thursday. It was so-so, or at least the best of a bad lot but, here is the interesting thing that occurred to me: there was no way to have "prominent product placement" in the film. It takes place long ago in a galaxy far away. It's therefore unreachable by Sony, GM, BASF or WalMart. The same thing applies to the Lord of the Rings, Middle-earth is unsullied by Coke ads. No ads in the Matrix trilogy that I can recall. Neo is not even using a Apple PowerBook or G*. (Contrary to what the marketing weasels at Apple would have you believe, not all the heros or hip guys use Apple.) Plenty of ads before the movies, plenty of ads in the theater lobby but, no ads in the films themselves.
There were ads in 2001 and in Bladerunner. This added some realism to the science fiction but it also dated the movies rather quickly. Pan Am doesn't exist anymore. The Bell System doesn't exist anymore. Atari ceased to exist and then was revived as a brand name by a totally different company. When you see the scenes I'm talking about, with the ads in them, you'll wince.
This is really old news but now the marketroids are lathering up about putting ads in software games. Many of the sports games (auto racing, tennis, football, etc.) render stadiums, fields, arenas and tracks in photorealistic splendor--sweat, dust, ads and all. I'm sure the marketing departments at the big game companies are patting themselves on the back about that but, for me, that's another reason not to buy sports games. The Sims is rife with advertising opportunities. Why get your sim just any ol' vacuum cleaner, when they can get a Hoover (with a hidden neatness bonus to encourage players to by it.)? But I think if I stick with the fantasy and science fiction genres, I'll be pretty safe from ads in the wire frames. I've busted the ads out of so many areas of my life; this is just one more.
Posted by Pace Arko at 10:42 PM on May 21, 2005
Sometimes you just gotta let your freak flag fly!
Despite years of completely justified ridicule, people still watch television.
Adults, with kids, taxes and jobs still act like complete idiots at football games. People still play golf--that's one I've never understood. People still make beadwork. People still dance badly in clubs. People still attend live theater. People still dress themselves to the nines for events and situations that don't warrent such efforts. Kids still think wearing black and studs is cool. Old farts, who should know better, still attend Pink Floyd concerts. And people still play D and D.
A hat tip to the Lord of all Grognards!
Posted by Pace Arko at 4:40 AM on October 29, 2004 | Comments (2)
Computers and paper-based RPGs
As I've been playing NWN over these last few months (I've owned a copy since mid-summer of 2002.), I've been thinking of ways to tie it into paper RPGs. Simple examples of this would be a tool that exports a snapshot of a NWN character into an XHTML document for printing and use in your table-top game or exports maps along with notes on the critters stocking it to a paper format. Another hack that I would like to see in NWN is to make it turn-based.
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Posted by Pace Arko at 12:02 PM on May 10, 2003
Need more gaming content!
I've been thinking of putting rough summaries of my tabletop gaming sessions in this web log of mine. It would help me to fill the days when I don't have any content worth putting here and it would draw many of my friends to my site.
Posted by Pace Arko at 10:22 PM on January 29, 2003
12-07-02 Circus of the Mighty
Molna's Test of Strength, The Hights of Idiocy, Goblin Return:
After defeat by the goblins, the Circus beat a hasty retreat down the trail back to Skidrow. On the way down, they ran into Kinsaul, their comrade from earlier missions of a postal nature. Kinsaul had be sent up by Yavin to lend the Circus a hand in fighting the goblins. The party regrouped and headed down the trail. The party found a suitable ambush spot just off the trail on a rock outcrop. They made camp there and waited for any goblins to come down the trail.
The night passed uneventfully and the party used the morning to conduct what further healing remained. They continued to wait. In the early afternoon, the Circus spotted 3 goblins, 2 skeletal wolves and a flag of truce making their way down the trail.
Thalin cast a message spell to parley with the goblin they recognized as being the priest who taunted their hasty retreat before. Through Thalin's message spell, negotiations ensued. It was learned that the goblins, flush with victory and meeting from a position of strength, were on their way down to make deals with Skidrow. It was also learned that there was some recent political changes in the goblin leadership*. Negotiations continued, members of the Circus conferred and Thalin demanded some kind of proof of good will on the goblin's part.
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Posted by Pace Arko at 8:54 AM on December 8, 2002
NWN, a Time Suck on so Many Levels
A few weeks ago, as a sort of birthday present to myself, I bought a copy of Neverwinter Nights. I went into it with my eyes open. I knew I was about to mainline the gaming equivalent of heroin and I could just kiss all my spare time goodbye.
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Posted by Pace Arko at 2:26 PM on September 1, 2002
Game Theory and Philosophy
Inspired by the Dead Kennedys stuff cited below, I did some searching on things related to Jello Biafra and came across some local folks dedicated to the idea that life is a game. It's weird how the Web thinks these things are related.
Posted by Pace Arko at 7:00 AM on February 12, 2002 | Comments (2)
More Game Theory
Some interesting game links this month:
- The Settlers of Catan, a game which I've never played, apparently has inspired this bit of mathematical analysis about avoiding agressive moves early in the game.
- Nature magazine published an article about game theoretical analysis of retribution and cooperation in political and economic systems. Life's a game folks. In a much deeper sense than many of us realize.
And finally:
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Posted by Pace Arko at 8:55 AM on January 23, 2002
Interesting rants about RPGs
Found an interesting page about RPGs today by some cat named Mu.
Me, I'm real old school, I've been playing RPGs since I was sophmore in high school in '78. My friend wrote his own versions of ADVENT and Rogue (AKA, Nethack) for his university's vaxen back in the early Eighties. Things have changed a lot since then.
Still, it's interesting to see games like EverQuest and Asheron's Call run into some of the same issues that I deal with in GM'ing my own, paper-based, sessions.
Some of you squares out there may not understand the addictive appeal of these games. But I could never understand the visceral appeal of football or golf myself.
Posted by Pace Arko at 10:55 PM on July 5, 2001 | Comments (2)
Background for Chumbe Bandia
What is the Industrial States Trust?
In Chumbe Bandia, the Industrial States Trust, or simply, IT, is the name of an alliance of economically powerful and highly technological countries who, before the war, ruled the global economy. Most of the world's multinational corporations had their head offices in these countries. Their sphere of influence contained most of Africa, India and South America. Over past forty years, in this timeline, the military, economic, environmental and political policies of this block has alienated a significant portion of the global populace.
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Posted by Pace Arko at 9:41 AM on February 21, 2000
Chumbe Bandia
"Entry 64
"Things are quiet now and I have a few to jot a note in my diary before before they send us to Prep. Warden Mausa says it's another sample mission?just routine. That's a patent lie though. If these things were routine, they wouldn't send political prisoners to do them.
"Like I said before I hate Prep. They strip you naked, dunk you in chemicals and flash burn your body hair off. Then they shoot you full of every antibiotic known to medicine, stuff you in an itchy paper jumper, shrink-wrap an environment suit on you and finally send you to the airlock where your gun, armor and tools are waiting. After that it's a mile hike up ladders and stairs to get to the surface. And that's just to go up to the surface. Coming back, if you come back, is worse.
"The funny thing is they haven't confiscated my diary yet. They know I have it cause it's impossible to hide it in the cells. I guess they feel it will keep me diverted or perhaps they think I will forget how to read. It's hard to guess what the Directorate thinks.
"The Directorate says it's just trying to win the world back and that humanity is hanging by a thread and, as such, harsh measures are needed. That's it. Gaurd's here. Hope this isn't my last entry
"Mweli Msisi
Shango Station
22 CB"Entry 137
"It's hard to remember things. For the politicals, they routinely administer drugs and surgery on them to?I won't say destroy?to edit?memory. They've got this chemical, administered by medical microbots implanted in your brain, that's supposed to render the brain more plastic. They try to wash away what they don't want while at the same time rending the brain more receptive to learning new things.
"I can't even remember my parents now. They died in the early stages of the way. This diary is the only way I have to remember things. I suspect now that they tamper with it while I am away on sample missions or when I am at learning sessions. Did I just write this? Or did I just fabricate the memory that I did in order to rationalize what I see here?
"Mweli Msisi
Shango Station
22 CB"Entry 651
"Where to start? How to describe the end?
"It began as a dispute over mineral rights in the frozen waste of the Polar Continent. At the time, Earth was divided into three political groups: The Industrial States Trust, The Bioregional Progress and the Commonwealth of Independent States. The dispute became a shooting war. Considering the amount of money the BP and IT alliances spent on defense over the past forty years, it was only a matter of time before someone attempted to use weapons of mass destruction. It began with plague weapons being used by the BP. The IT retaliated with nuclear and kinetic weapons, which the BP answered in kind. Civilization began to fall apart but, the governmental and military command structures managed to remain intact on both sides even though the populations of many nations were reduced to a tiny fraction of their pre-war numbers. This was possible because the automated factories kept pouring out war materials despite repeated bombardment.
"It was then that the IT introduced the Hunters. The First Global War was 6 years old. Hunters were simple zombies, not much smarter than insects, that were produced by small, mobile factories called Mothers. Hunters had a very simple goal: Find and destroy the enemy. Or at least find and destroy those who could not identify themselves as friendly with the correct, ciphered, control signals. A new arms race began as each side invented smarter and tougher creatures and smarter and tougher countermeasures.
"And so things went for another two years.
"It was then that we began to find new varieties of war zombies whose origins didn't seem to correspond to any known enemy design. By then it was already too late. They were beyond our control. The Era Chumbebandia had begun.
"Now, as I sit in one the endless vaults of Shango Station, the Reign of Humanity appears to be over."
Continue reading "Chumbe Bandia" »
Posted by Pace Arko at 9:41 AM on February 21, 2000
Role Playing Games in Twenty-first Century
I'm a hardcore nerd and, as proof, I relate the following history:
I starting playing Dungeons and Dragons back in high school the late Seventies, just as the hardbound rulebooks were coming out. Around the same time, a friend of mine wrote his own versions of ADVENT and Rogue (known to some as Nethack.) which we all played on one of the local university's mainframes he rented time on. And of course I went to a lot of science fiction conventions during those days.
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Posted by Pace Arko at 3:27 AM on January 12, 2000