If you don't know why this is so awful and hilarious, that's OK. Don't figure it out.
]]>
If you don't know why this is so awful and hilarious, that's OK. Don't figure it out.
]]>]]>
We loved and we hated,
mistreated and preyed upon ourselves...
but now that we’re wise we realize
it might be time to rewind, but...
where would we go from here?
Where would we go?
In, out, in, out, we fell so hard, so young...
look at the strangers we’ve become.
No doubt, without the love we need, we’re done...
look at the strangers we’ve become.
Sometimes people are just broken from their own personal history, or they're indoctrinated into a way of thinking and cannot see it. It is very useful to recognize such issues and route around the damage.
The first time I realized that I could write off the opinion of a someone who had consistently voted in ways that had terrible, terrible results, it was incredibly liberating. Why am I taking advice from someone so reliably wrong? Why are they lecturing me? I broadened it out to politics in general. Why am I listening to the group that screwed things up? Don't I have any discernment? Can't I evaluate someone's position and decide it's foolish? And if they advocate such foolish positions regularly, can't I write off the person as a fool?
]]>
That's all I have to say on that topic for now.
]]>
-Tony
]]>
The nature of a man by ~isilien on deviantART
The graphic is called the Symbol of Torment. You might think to yourself, "What an unlovely thing to get tattooed onto your skin." However, it's not unlovely, at all. The backstory is tremendous, and those who know it will admit that it can be life-changing to experience it.
The quick of the story is this. Think of it as a fairy tale or parable. Long ago, there was a man who was the most vile, selfish, power-hungry man in all of history. He was not merely a jerk. He killed thousands, broke apart families, used women and discarded them, and did it all in the most horrific ways possible. When he realized that he had become the most evil man in history, he knew that his afterlife would be one of utter torment. So he found a witch, and asked her to make him immortal. The witch loved the man dearly, for although he was cruel, he was handsome beyond compare. And so even though the witch did not know how true immortality worked, she found a way to cheat death, and used a ritual to place that power within the man.
Over the millennia that followed, the man died thousands of times. Every time that his body sustained enough damage to kill him, he found himself awake, hours later, with no memory of what had gone before. Soon, he forgot his own identity. In his many lifetimes, he was a lunatic, a saint, a cheat, a hedonist, and a killer. He compounded the mistakes of his first life, so that soon even the gods took notice of his villainous immortality. And they made something happen. He began to remember.
He woke up in a morgue, and he could still picture his death from mere hours before. He set out to learn who he was, and why he had been damned with undeath. Over many lifetimes, he retraced his steps though history. He witnessed the effects of his actions -- entire family lines wiped out, the course of nations changed. He met the children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren of those he had murdered. He began to try to set things right. He apologized to those he met. He did good deeds for those who needed it. And then he met the one woman he never expected. He found the witch.
The witch made a terrible confession. To grant the man immortality, she had stolen the souls of the living. Every time he had awakened from death, someone else had been killed in his place. Even as he spent lifetimes trying to make things right, he was killing the innocent with his mere existence. Finally, he understood the depth of his sin. He understood how deeply he had unraveled the weave of life, and he knew that at long as he struggled against the justice he deserved, the universe would remain horribly out of balance. Overwhelmed with regret, he knew it was time to face that which he feared the most. It was time to accept his fate -- the only righteous and true end to a fearsome unlife.
And so, together he and the witch conspired to reunite the man with his mortality. Willingly, he accepted his mortality and the consequences of his decisions. Finally ready to face the afterlife like a man, he walked into the Grey Wastes and was seen no more. As his life ended, other lives began to flourish.
And that is the story told upon the Symbol of Torment. The final rune, the small twist that looks something like a double helix, is the Symbol of Hope. As one line fades into oblivion, another one grows strong, mortality and humanity intertwined, the balance restored.
Now my job is twofold. First, I need to find the best tattoo artist in northern California. Second, I need to start learning about how to care for tattoos, as I intend mine to have color, and I do not want the color to fade or bleed. If you have any suggestions, let me know.
]]>The problem with the Vancian system is that it engenders the "15 minute work day" -- that is to say that clerics, wizards, and the like seem to blow through their spells after just a few combats, causing the group to go rest after less than a hour in the game world. Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition has a solution for this, which is pretty close to just abandoning the Vancian magic system. I personally wanted to do something much simpler with the 3.5 rules. I was thinking, could I address the issue by changing just one single table in the Player's Handbook?
Let me show you the revised table, and then I'll explain why it's awesome.
]]> Player's Handbook, Table 1-1: Bonus Spells| Score | Modifier | 0 | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10-11 | 0 | 1 | |||||||||
| 12-13 | +1 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| 14-15 | +2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||||||
| 16-17 | +3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||||||
| 18-19 | +4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||||
| 20-21 | +5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| 22-23 | +6 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||
| 24-25 | +7 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 26-27 | +8 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
| 28-29 | +9 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
Here's what I noticed about the original table. It's rigidly formulaic. If you have the 3.5 edition Player's Handbook, look at the chart on page 8. Notice how the amount of bonus 1st-level spells is set to "1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4." That same pattern applies to 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and all other level spells, but the pattern starts at a higher ability score as you move across the chart. So, I just changed it to "1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3" and so on -- giving slightly more bonus spells earlier. In addition, I attached that pattern to zero-level spells, starting with an ability score of 10.
If you make a spell caster with a primary ability score of 18, you would normally get one extra 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th spell (assuming you were powerful enough to cast spells that high-level). But with my revision, you get:
With this system, low-level spell casters get a little boost, but it peters out before the high levels. So a wizard at level 15 isn't much affected by the change, but the wizards below level 5 are profoundly grateful. Since low-level wizards are the ones desperately in need of a few extra spells to keep the combat day humming along without rest-stops, this revised system works pretty nicely and has a low impact as far as what a DM needs to do to integrate it in. And that's the kind of rule revision I like -- low investment, big payback.
Gotcha covered. Here is a revised copy of the PCGen file, statsandchecks.lst. That file controls how many bonus spells are awarded. On my computer, the path to that file is as follows:
C:\Program Files\PCGen\PCGen5121\system\gameModes\35e\statsandchecks.lst
So once you save that file to your computer (please save it with an .lst extension), you'll want to open up your PCGen folder, find the correct location of the statsandchecks.lst file, and replace it with my revision. Please note: my revision is made for the 5.12.1 version of PCGen. Later versions might be different. Therefore, you should backup your original file before trying this out. You could just add the word "backup" to the original file's name before you copy my revised version into the folder.
Have fun!
]]>He was a geek, like me. He loved video games and learning through fun. He loved his family. He has a thousand stories about the people he's met. And he passed away today, July 25th, 2008. You should watch the video.
"I mean, the metaphor I've used is... somebody's going to push my family off a cliff pretty soon, and I won't be there to catch them. And that breaks my heart. But I have some time to sew some nets to cushion the fall. So, I can curl up in a ball and cry, or I can get to work on the nets."
Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008)
]]>The problem? To fix this, we cannot just drop the confirmation roll and say "all critical threats are automatically confirmed." If we do that, then crits will happen much more often and low-level characters will die more often. But if we reduce the damage of the weapons, then we can keep all those crits. That should speed up gameplay without changing the numbers (much), because there is no more rolling to confirm crits. They just happen. It should be more enjoyable for the players, too -- their weapons might do a tiny bit less damage each hit, but they will do critical hits often. So what we're about to do will keep damage roughly the same, but remove an extra dice roll. Ready?
If you don't trust the math, I'll give you some of it here so you can check for yourself. Consider an opponent with AC 20 (to hit him, you need to roll a 20 on a 20-sided die). Now, if your character has a +4 to hit, you get to add that to your rolls, so it's a roll of 16 + 4 = 20, which still hits. Conveniently, rolling a 16, 17, 18, 19, or 20 is exactly 25% of a 20-sided die. We're going to use that scenario here to help simplify our testing. 25% of the time, you hit. Likewise, 25% of the time, you'll confirm your critical hits. OK? Here is the damage output of a rapier (1d6 damage) over the course of 80 rounds of combat:
1st 20 rounds: 15 misses, 5 hits, 0 confirmed crits
2nd 20 rounds: 15 misses, 5 hits, 0 confirmed crits
3rd 20 rounds: 15 misses, 5 hits, 0 confirmed crits
4th 20 rounds: 15 misses, 2 hits, 3 confirmed crits (x2)
23 x 3.5 average damage = 80.5 points of damage
Now, consider this modified rapier. It only does 1d4 damage, but it crits every time that it can. We don't roll anything to confirm a crit -- it just happens whenever it's eligible. In 20 rounds of combat, you would get an average of 3 critical hits (the rapier crits on a to-hit roll of 18, 19, or 20). Here it is over 80 rounds of combat:
1st 20 rounds: 15 misses, 2 hits, 3 automatic crits (x2)
2nd 20 rounds: 15 misses, 2 hits, 3 automatic crits (x2)
3rd 20 rounds: 15 misses, 2 hits, 3 automatic crits (x2)
4th 20 rounds: 15 misses, 2 hits, 3 automatic crits (x2)
32 x 2.5 average damage = 80 points of damage
You can change the weapons, the AC and the to-hit bonuses, but on average this system will still work out every time. Sometimes weapons will do a few points less damage, but that's over eighty rounds. During the course of a 10-round fight, it's negligible, and both sides would experience the change, so it's even.
So let's wrap this up. This really is simple, even though the math might make your head spin. The good news is you don't have to think about the math, just remember this: you can change your weapons' damage to use the next smaller die and just assume any crit is confirmed without a roll. Enjoy!
And if you'd like to see the other gameplay advancements in this series, just review all the articles with the 3.t tag.
]]>I'm calling my revisions 3.t, as in 3.tony, because I'm the one to blame if the revisions suck or work well. The criteria for "sucks" would be if a rule change requires large rewrites, or breaks lots of other rules. The criteria for "works well" would be if a rule change speeds up gameplay but has little effect otherwise. So if a typical combat takes 90 minutes to resolve normally, with my rules I hope that you can resolve combat in an hour or less.
First up for revision is the cleric system for turning undead. We merely drop the turn check roll, and replace it with cleric level + charisma bonus + knowledge religion synergy (if the character has it). The turn damage roll would remain. So the steps are as follows:
Let's consider the example of a 2nd level cleric with 14 charisma and no points in the knowledge religion skill. If the cleric rolled a 4, he'd have an 8 for step 1 (4 + 2 for level, +2 for charisma). Then for step 2 the cap would be set at 2 + 2 + 0 (no synergy bonus), or 4 total. Therefore, the cleric could turn two 4 HD undead (8 total, capped at 4 HD). But he/she could not turn one 8 HD undead, due to the per-monster cap.
This is almost exactly the same as turn undead following RAW, but removes one roll and replaces it with a reasonably fair, typically unchanging number. Should be easier for players to follow and execute quickly.
I'll group all my articles about rules revision under the 3.t tag, should you wish to see what else I have for it.
]]>I've owned a Wii since day one. I've put probably a thousand dollars into the console, games, and controllers. But I'm thinking hard about things, and so I want to share with you what I posted over at the RPG Codex.
]]> This is what I wrote:]]>Actually, I think Nintendo is being very innovative right now... it's just that they're innovating away from anything I'd like.
I've owned the Wii since the first day it came out. I even ran a Wii Web site and forum for the first 18 months or so.
I still like it for all the reasons that I was first attracted to it. I like it for being able to play all the old, original Nintendo games. I've boughts tons of them at the Wii store, and I suspect that the original Sim City for the NES is my kids' second or third favorite game. Some of the old stuff has legs, and is really good still today.
I love the Wii for the innovative controls, which never bothered me much and in fact made me pretty happy. My kids love a lot of the platformers on the system, and I love a lot of the 5 minute mini-games (especially the Rayman stuff).
I even like the Web browser.
But having said all that, Nintendo is lately going away from "games for normal people." Now it's more like, "games for soccer moms." I really think Nintendo has confused the two pretty badly. I think Reggie was genuinely confused when the interviewer said that hardcore gamers were not smiling. Reggie thinks Animal Crossing is "hard core" for gamers? That's a serious disconnect from not only the hard core gamers, but even from the mainstream. His thinking has gone way over to being almost grandmotherly.
You know, it's one thing to say to a grumpy old gamer like me, "We know you love old RPGs, but try Excite Truck and see if it doesn't make you happy." It's another thing to say, "RPGs? Listen, you probably have a weight problem from sitting at the computer all day, you nerd, so maybe do Wii Fit on a schedule, OK?" I mean, Excite Truck and similar shallow but amusing games are at least fun. But Wii Fit? Really? We're talking about turning the Wii into the discarded exercise cycle that nobody uses? We're talking about turning the Wii into that thing that makes us feel guilty because we're supposed to use it? I want to want to use the Wii. This is just ridiculous.
This is where I can't go. I feel like Nintendo is Tom Hanks in the movie Big -- he's fully crossed over into being an adult, but I just want to play some games. Couldn't he just walk away from adulthood and think up something fun to play with his old friends? Please?