Fuck yeah, baby!
In a 5-4 decision (which the Brady Campaign whiny bitches are calling "the narrowest of margins" as if that matters somehow), the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed that 2nd Amendment secures, not grants, an INDIVIDUAL right of the people to keep and bear arms, overturning the Murder Capitol of the United States' unconstitutional ban on handguns, as well as their unconstitutional requirement for disassembled firearms and trigger locks.
(Wikipedia has a good write-up on stuff.)
Most excellent- and itt only took us 74 years.
Of course, the corrupt Brady Campaign has wasted no time begging for more money to attempt to subvert this decision...
It's quite telling, though. Idiots like the Brady Bunch and their ilk continually complain that a decision like this would be horrible for the country.
Then Paul Helmke states:
[blockquote]“After the Heller ruling, as before, approximately 80 Americans will continue to die from guns every day. Our weak or non-existent gun laws contribute to the thousands of senseless gun deaths and injuries in this country that occur each year. We must continue to fight for sensible gun laws to help protect our families and our communities.”[/blockquote]
So, what he's saying is, there will be no change?
Two-faced pigfucker.
So, this past Friday marks the official launch of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, and so far, things are looking good - at least for those interested in 4th Edition.
On the one hand, the vindicitive part of me wants the new 4th Edition to tank. I want Wizards of the Coast to be punished for what I perceive as them screwing over their established customer base in favor of soliciting a new and different customer base, all the while, lying to our faces about the reasons for the change, insulting us with claims that our games aren't fun, and telling us how they know what's good for us.
Another big turn off is the fact that they essentially admitted to trying to squeeze every last penny from us in the form of splatbooks and expansions (even going so far as to claim that they published too many of them) for 3E/3.5, and that they're not going to do that with 4E.
Of course, after they say that, then we learn that they've stripped several key classes, races and features from the core set, only to be released later in what will be an annual release of sequential DMGs, PHBs and MMs, further bending over the customers they've managed to retian.
Not bad enough? Later this year, they plan to release the 4E Draconomicon - only problem is, this Draconomicon is only "Part 1 - Chromatic Dragons". There will obviously be a "Part II - Metallic Dragons", but don't be surprised if we see a whole series of these books, with gem dragons and however many other categories they can break it down into.
What used to be rich content in the old Dragon magazine will now be a $40 hardback that will be shoved down your throat.
Such actions don't make me very happy, and put a bad taste in my mouth when I buy new the bits and pieces I still need to complete my 3E/3.5 collection - I'm still giving them my money, as much as it galls me to do so, because I want the product bad enough.
On the other hand, I hope that 4th Edition does amazingly well, but for the sake of D&D and all the FLGS' (Friendly Local Game Stores). If D&D dies, then, sadly, a lot of small stores will be taken down with it. Unfortunately, the new edition doing well sends the message to WotC that they were right, and they're being rewarded for what they've done.
I was pretty pumped up and excited that Paizo made the decision earlier in the year to stick with the 3rd Edition/3.5 ruleset for their Pathfinder series, going so far as to begin development on the Pathfinder RPG, a book meant to serve as a replacement to the D&D "Core Three" books - the Dungeon Master's Guide, Player's Handbook and Monster Manual.
Paizo has released the Pathfinder RPG as a free "Alpha Test" PDF, available from their website (http://www.paizo.com), and has a forum setup where those who are interested can provide feedback and input on the development of the new RPG.
They intend to have a "Beta" release of Pathfinder RPG this coming August, in time for GenCon. From what I understand, the PDF will again be free, but they'll have a softbound/perfect bound printed version of the Beta available for $24.99.
In August of 2009, GenCon should see the final release version of the game, with a hardbound printed version for $49.99, and a nominal charge for the PDF version.
Paizo has also always been really good about providing PDFs that are printer-friendly, allowing you to turn off backgrounds, graphics, etc. on various layers, to conserve ink, etc.
All in all, pretty damned cool, right?
Well, kind of.
It's completely and utterly fantastic that Paizo has stepped up, and positioned Pathfinder RPG to be the "replacement" for D&D 3E/3.5. The stated design goal of the game is to provide an in-development/in-production game that is readily available (countering the 3.5 cancellation/4E release, which means that most bookstores supplies of the "old" version are going to dry up, as they'll be sending unsold copies back to the publisher, since WotC doesn't want 3.5 on the shelf competing with 4E) and "fixing" the few minor issues that lots of players have perceived to be present in the game (Grappling is supposedly a big one), all the while, maintaining backwards compatibility with 3E/3.5, which enables one to continue to use their library of books without having to hassle with annoying conversions.
At least, that was original plan.
Folks on the Paizo boards were referring to Pathfinder RPG as "D&D 3.75" - a pretty apt nickname, if we were sticking to the above design goals.
Unfortunately, from some recent reading over there, it seems that we're getting a bit of scope creep.
Jason Bulmahn, the lead designer/author of the Pathfinder RPG stuff seems like an incredibly knowledgable guy, but he seems be trying to create a game that's a hybrid of 3E/3.5 and 4E.
We're seeing a move away from "X times/day" abilities, and a move to a "point-system" for such. We're seeing inclusion of a lot of "at-will effects" to core character classes. For a bit, it seemed that there was some serious thought given to elimination of Vancian Magic, and going to a system similar to Psionics...
I don't want to be a dick, but, guys, knock it the fuck off!
I'm not saying that your ideas suck - not EVERYTHING about 4E sucks - but the whole point of this is not supposed to be an "upgrade" to the game - it's supposed to be a drop-in replacement for the soon-to-be disappearing 3.5 core books.
What I (and a LOT of people, from all of the previous posts I've seen from the last several months) want to see is a printed-and-hardbound version of the SRD, with all the missing bits like character generation and what-not added in.
If, for example, certain monsters are missing due to "Product Identity" (like the Beholder and the Illithid), this is your chance to be creative and come up with a replacement monster that serves a similar role.
If some spells or feats or something are missing, go crazy and put something new in there.
Leave the core game alone, though. You're going to have plenty of time to publish your own versions of alternate rules like Tome of Battle or Unearthed Arcana - and there shouldn't be any worry about sales of those books, because you've already demonstrated that you've got the ability to meet, or more appropriately, exceed the quality of content that WotC has put out.
Just don't hose Pathfinder RPG, please! I want to buy the printed beta in August of 2008. I want to buy the hardbound version in August of 2009, and I want to buy your future expansions, splatbooks, campaign settings, etc.
What I don't want to do is spend time converting characters or existing source material so it matches up with the new stuff. I want a player to bring a 1st Level Wizard created with the 3.5 PHB to the table, and I want him to be virtually identical to the 1st Level Wizard created with the PRPG that another player brings. We've already seen issues of PRPG "power boosts" on some stuff, and that needs to be fixed.
I've been proselytizing Paizo and Pathfinder to my gaming group, to folks at my FLGS' (both customers and owners), and to many others for some time. It would be disappointing, to say the least, to be forced to retract my recommendations, and have to resort to trying to find copies of the 3.5 core books on eBay/Amazon or in used bookstores so that we can continue gaming how we have been.
Don't let me down, Paizo!!
59!
Happy birthday, Dad, and thanks for everything you do!
So, for the last few days, I've been subjecting my friends to the hilarity that is CreativeJuices7 on YouTube.
While following the RPG Superstar contest at Paizo, I was introduced to the work of a very talented individual by the name of Clinton Boomer.
Boomer was competing for the title in the contest, and, while the other entries were great, in my mind, a great disservice was done to the community by not naming this man as RPG Superstar. Fortunately for all, he'll be doing some work for Paizo, and with any luck, he'll be one of the next great names in the RPG industry.
Boomer posted a link to some videos on youtube that he's done, and if you're at all familiar with D&D (hell, even if you aren't), these things are amazingly, utterly hilarious.
Boomer plays a variety of roles in the films, notably Hennet the Super-Sexy Sorcerer, Blackrazor the Intelligent Bastard Sword and Invisible Christopher Walken.
It's tough to pick one of his roles as my favorite - they're all gut-bustingly funny.
Get over there and check them out!!
Well, I ordered some of the last few pieces I needed to complete my D&D 3E/3.5 collection.
Of course, that just means I'm going to have to move on to gather up the rest of the Eberron and Forgotten Realms books that I don't have, but that's all good, because it gives me something to do.
Besides, Forgotten Realms is going to be a whole new pile of fun - I've got a basic overall idea of the setting, but it'll be nice to have the source material, and better familiarize myself with it.
I should probably pick up the 3E/3.5 Dragonlance stuff, too...