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Monday, October 5th, 2009
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2:00 pm - Been too long since I discussed gaming theory
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My buddy Jason was talking about a game idea, and I had a visceral loathing for the idea of getting involved in another mission-based campaign.
Mission-based campaigns automatically focus the campaign around a GM-provided challenge. If players retreat from the challenge, out of fear, a sense that their character wouldn't want to be involved, or some other consideration, then the entire campaign tends to either fall flat or go off the rails. (This is a matter of GM expectation and should be clarified before the game starts. The Arb Ninja will sometimes offer up a shadowrun that the PCs should never, ever accept. Since we know that, we feel free to accept or reject runs offered to us, and the Arb Ninja is comfortable running the session either way.)
Anyway, if the game is truly mission-oriented, then the crux of the thing is whether the PCs can complete the mission successfully. For this sort of thing to be interesting, the mission must be challenging. Bad play should result in mission failure. If the game doesn't allow for the possibility of failure, it's really all just wanking. While the players may enjoy celebrating the invincibility of their characters, it's hard to understand the appeal of this game for the GM, or how it could stay interesting over the long term.
Conclusion: Mission-based game play is only interesting if there's a real possibility that the PCs will fail the missions.
Against this, consider the difficulty of character creation and the importance of character advancement. In some games, it takes several hours to create a new character. In a different (but overlapping) set of games, new characters are much weaker than experienced characters. That can be a matter of pure potency (weaker skills, lamer equipment, etc) or of metagaming mechanics (Shadowrun karma pool, Star Wars Force points).
If my goal as a player is to protect my character and avoid these losses of game power or player time, then I don't want to expose him to the risk of death. That is a real "if", of course. As a player, I might also think that my character needs the perfect heroic death to redeem his past misdeeds. I might be primarily interested in the game setting, and be OK with my PC dying, so long as someone in that situation, in that fictional world, really would get killed. Tastes differ.
Anyway, let's go back to the earlier assumption that most players really want to avoid PC death, but are playing a game where they can screw up a mission unless they're very careful. How do we make this fun?
Some genres give you an out by making failure not lead to death. In a Champions (superhero) game, it's very hard to kill someone, and there's reinforcing genre convention that once you've knocked out the other team, you go about your business. If the good guys win, the cops take the bad guys to jail. If the bad guys win, they rob the bank and the PCs wake up all embarassed.
Some GMs cope by constantly scaling the level of difficulty. PCs winning too easily? Reinforce! PCs losing? Start rolling morale checks for the bad guys, or have them make a crucial tactical mistake so the PCs can withdraw, or just fudge the rolls so that they suddenly miss a lot of shots. If the GM really does this well, and keeps the PCs from catching on, it can be amazing. The PCs feel like they're on the edge of failure every time, barely succeeding through their amazing mojo. Sadly, if the GM slips even once, and the PCs see the man behind the curtain, it's all over.
My current goal is to duck the question. I want either a game where I can make a new character in 15 minutes and be back in the action quickly, or a game where accomplishing the mission is no big deal. There's a great indie game called Empire of Dust that's currently out of stock everywhere, but looks promising for that first sort of experience. For the second type, heck, any of these indie press / story games I've discussed in previous theory entries work just fine. Dogs In the Vineyard is a perfect example. You don't ever have to worry that your team of Dogs will be unable to cleanse a town. You worry about what you'll have to do to get it done.
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009
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3:24 pm - A moment of advocacy: Back up yer data.
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If you have data you care about, and it's not backed up, you don't really have data you care about. You're just borrowing it from Murphy, and sooner or later, he's going to take it back.
I am by no means an expert on backup and restore, but I'll share my experience with those who might care. Most of this is Windows experience. Mac users are invited to comment and share their brains.
( Cut for those who might not care. )
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(9 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, May 16th, 2009
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4:52 pm - Star Trek
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Like the Chicago Bears, it's what I thought it was. Yeah, OK, I enjoyed it. It was big and pretty and had some nice bits of acting. I especially liked Karl Urban channeling DeForest Kelly.
On the other hand, it broke no new ground in any respect, and it continued a disturbing trend that started late in the old series movies and continued on into the novels - canonizing the Enterprise crew. In the original series, we see people senior to Kirk, or people he admires from outside Star Fleet, and he doesn't generally behave like he's the chosen one. His swagger comes from his confidence and the need to project total confidence when (in the first season, anyway) the nearest higher authority might be weeks away. In the movie, he just sort of vaults to awesomehood. I didn't care for it.
On a related note, isn't the entire "crisis forces crew of students/cadets/whatever into action before they're ready" trope a few notches past overdone? Or am I just jaded?
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| Tuesday, May 12th, 2009
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1:34 pm - For my writer peeps
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Is there any sort of commonly used vocabulary for describing the extent to which the characters drive the plot, vs trying to escape from it? It seems clear to me that some books are about a hero who uncovers a plot and unravels it, and the real meat of the book is in the unravelling. In a Clive Cussler Dirk Pitt novel, for example, you'd get a very similar plot if any random guy who liked to solve mysteries through investigation and occasional violence had gotten involved instead. In an Robert Crais Elvis Cole novel, you get much more emphasis on the difficult choices Cole has to make and how they change him. I want to talk about that difference in a gaming context, and I'm looking for standard terminology I can use in that conversation.
(Gaming has its own words, but I fear that using them in this context would seem like I was just using jargon to control the dialog.)
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, April 20th, 2009
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11:20 am - Monday sucks
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I had a headache last night, so at bedtime I took 1000mg of acetaminophen and 25mg of diphenhydramine. I went to bed a little after 1am, woke up at 4am and 6am, and finally had to get up for work just before 9am. I still have the headache, but now the diphenhydramine is making me sleepy. Better living through chemicals, my ass.
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| Thursday, April 16th, 2009
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1:57 pm - Dar's coming to the Ark
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on Wed 8/26. I rather imagine L and I will be there. Everyone else should come too. Since it's general admission, we don't need a bulk buy, but I wanted to get on everyone's radar. Ticketmaster says sales start this Sat. I can't find any info on the opening act yet.
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| Monday, April 13th, 2009
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3:21 pm - Catching up on TV
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If that ends up being the series finale for Life, it could have been a lot worse. I don't think it was perfect - there were a couple odd notes - but it reminded me of all the things I like about the show.
Dollhouse built momentum like a fiend. I want to get the most recent ep in powdered form so I can freebase it. So much stuff happened, and so many interesting things were said, that I felt like I'd just watched a two hour episode, and yet it never felt rushed nor infodumpish. I like the fact that Whedon acknowledges, in the fiction, that the technology used in the Dollhouse is way out there beyond anything we use today, and that we can't even imagine life in a world where its use becomes widespread. If Whedon really does start working the direct-to-net world fulltime for his next project, I hope he keeps writing such ambitious stuff.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
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3:03 pm - I also <3 The Tragically Hip
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I developed my communication skills first through high school debate, then being a philosophy major, then being a computer geek who had a better-than-average ability to explain things to non-geek audiences. All these activities reward a communication style focused on clarity, lack of ambiguity, and (especially for philosophy) narrowing one's focus to make sure that one doesn't claim any more or less than one can support.
I still find those skills useful, and it's certainly not the case that I don't like to communicate clearly, but they're totally ruined me for any art. If I tried to write the lyrics to "I'll Never Be Rid Of You," they would have come out as several different variations of, "breaking up sucks," and, "thinking of you makes me feel wrong." Oops.
And then there's the last Hip song to earworm my head, "Fifty Mission Cap." It's got two verses. It's about a hockey card. I could never have written in that song. If I was in a band and one of my mates told me he was working on a song like that, I'd have told him it sounded pretty weak. But it's not. It rocks. It rocks a lot, not just a little bit. That's why the Hip are a great rock band and I'm just a rock fan.
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12:53 pm - I still <heart> Life
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"What are you thinking about?"
"What I want, and what I need."
"What do you want?"
"A peaceful soul."
"What do you need?"
"A bigger gun."
The fact that American Idol makes money but Life is on the edge of cancellation is all the evidence anyone should need to convict the American TV viewing public of awfulness.
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
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4:15 pm - Fairmer broke me for all other gaming
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It wasn't her fault, but I've come to think that the experience of playing Fletcher in Forever Far From Home. It wasn't just the funny of saying "Reginald" in a horrible fake Southern drawl, either. It came out of my decision to play the half-bad guy, the amoral heavy sidekick. I'd have called myself the Jayne character, if Firefly had been around then.
In all the previous games I played, and too many of the ones since, I felt obliged to hang in with the party, looking for clues to the big plot, hoping to defeat the Big Menace. Fletcher was the only character I played for a long time who completely punted on the plot and did his own thing. I didn't care whether a new NPC had arrived to be the good guy, the bad guy, or just the plot device de jeur. I only cared about finding fun stuff to do with him or her. I understand why GMing for the character was a serious challenge for the poor Fairmer, but it made every session fun in a way that trying to unravel a plot simply isn't.
Edit: I do miss the horrible accent sometimes, though. And writing viciously sarcastic game logs.
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| Monday, March 30th, 2009
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3:44 pm - Question for my Boston homies
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I'm planning a romantic getaway for my lovely wife and I this summer. My current pick for a hotel is in the Back Bay, near the Prudential Center. I really want to see the USS Massachusetts while we're there, which is in Fall River, about 50 minutes from Boston. Is there any way to get from Back Bay to Fall River using mass transit? Otherwise we'll have to rent a car for the day. Thanks in advance...
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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1:49 pm - Series creep has gone recursive
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| Monday, March 23rd, 2009
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4:50 pm - BSG thoughts
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( No way to do this without spoilers. Don't click if you can't take it. Short version: 9.5/10 for the first hour, 6/10 for the second hour. )
Of course, my thoughts on the matter don't count for anything, now. BSG is over. See you all for Caprica, maybe. In the meantime, I'm also watching and enjoying Lost, Dollhouse, Life, House, Lie To Me, Castle, and Chuck, so it's not like my TV-viewing life is over just because RDM & company couldn't execute.
Oh yeah, and for the record, B5 had the best finale ever. The fifth season had major issues, but JMS really nailed the end. I've watched the whole series a couple times since it went off the air, and "Sleeping in Light" brought tears to me eyes each time.
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| Friday, March 20th, 2009
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10:08 am - That's it, I'm done
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My boss and the other mgr under her have both been out this week, leaving me minding the store. I've been trying to keep up with things while kicking off a new project and taking over another one, which had previously been run by someone two levels above me in the org chart.
Once the work day ends today, I am halting all non-essential activity. Any activity not involving eating or sleeping is officially declared optional and liable to cancellation without notice. (Plans for meals with friends are still on, though.)
Also, my frustration level may impel me to try to work on my circuit problem. If anyone hears a loud crackling noise from the direction of our house, it was me grabbing hold of a live wire and exploding.
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
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2:54 pm - Electrical WTF
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The circuit that runs up the back well of our house, powering outlets along that wall and the exterior porch light, seems to have gone stone dead all the sudden. I've reset the breakers and nothing has changed. This confuses me.
Anyone know of something more I can do without killing myself?
Anyone know a good electrician in my area?
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, March 11th, 2009
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11:26 am - ifconfig, what have you done?
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| Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009
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1:14 pm - Kindle review
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I bought a Kindle 2.
They succeeded admirably in their original objective - making it disappear from your consciousness while you're reading. The e-paper display updates too slowly for comfortable internet use, but it's certainly no slower than a page flip, and the display is large and legible, so I'm every bit as happy to read a Kindle book as a paper book. Downloads over Whispernet are as fast as advertised. I had no trouble getting my old unlocked ebooks from Baen onto the Kindle.
The bad news: The e-paper display is too slow to be comfortable for internet browsing. The Kindle store is manageable but frustrating; even on vacation, I think I'd try to use my PDA to buy books for the Kindle. That isn't a request for a different display, though - current display technology means that the best technology for reading ebooks isn't the best technology for web browsing, and that's fine.
The really bad news: The tools for managing metadata are nearly nonexistent. It looks like there are some Perl tools that I could use to change title or author information, but that's about it. I already submitted feedback to Amazon saying that they need a supported tool for editing the title and author metadata and including additional information. In particular, there needs to be a way to mark books as part of a series and set their order in the series. I can barely remember the correct order of the Honor Harrington series. I would never be able to do the same thing for Robert Parker's Spenser books. I'm not any computerized system would handle the chronology of Jhereg, but it would be nice if the Kindle would let me try.
In any case, my overall verdict is positive. At my typical rate of consumption, it will pay for itself in bookshelves not bought.
Edit: One thing it lacks, compared to using my PDA as an e-book reader, is portability. The Kindle fits easily into luggage and stuff, but the PDA goes everywhere with me. If the rumours of a Kindle app for cell phones are true, and they let you use Whispernet to sync your current page in a book between different Kindle devices, all would be perfect in my world.
Edit 2: Battery life is good. I read the latest Weber book, which is 768 pages printed, and used maybe 1/3 of a charge. I wouldn't ever take it on vacation without a charger, but unlike my PDA, it will stand up to an entire day of reading quite comfortably.
I turned on text to speech once, shuddered, and turned it off again. It's functional, I suppose, but I can't imagine why you'd want to listen to that completely emotionless voice when you could just read. It delivers none of the performance value that might make an audiobook interesting.
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| Sunday, March 1st, 2009
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12:39 am - Bleh
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Woke up at the usual time to do work stuff, which would have been all well and good were it not Saturday. Since it was, I decided to treat myself and just go back to bed when work wrapped up. Wrong choice! I had a nightmarish dream, in which I was just lucid enough to know that things were not right and something horrible had happened, but not fully aware that I was dreaming.
I dreamt that we had bought a new house on the northwest side of Ann Arbor. It was much bigger than our current house, but also much older and worn. In my dream, I woke up after the first night in the new house, and could not fathom why we had bought it. I didn't love it, didn't like the neighborhood, felt awful about uprooting Liralyn, and generally didn't see the point. I also knew that it was too late to back out now, we'd closed the deal. I felt incredibly pissed and wondered how I'd ended up doing something so stupid. When I finally woke up, and realized I was still in our actual house, it took a minute for me to realize that it had all been a dream.
I hate that.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, February 12th, 2009
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11:34 pm - Can't win for losing.
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After spending the last few evenings working on internet space ships (not playing, because that suggests fun), I took the night off. I thought I'd stay away from the computer, watch a Blu-Ray, read a book, that sort of thing.
I watched Pan's Labyrinth and didn't like it.
I realized that while my new Civil War book is better than the last, there's a strain in Civil War writing that I just don't like. There seems to be a general tendency to refer to everything by proper names. (Perhaps to gratify descendents?) My problem is that I'm awful with that sort of thing. I need a structure to fit things into if I'm going to keep track of them, and names alone don't provide it.
Meanwhile, back in internet spaceships, sometime this evening we did some totally sweet stuff and blew up another enemy titan.
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(6 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
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9:15 am - Happy birthday, Mykkel
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