Pathfinder Beta

So, I picked up a couple copies of the Pathfinder RPG Beta Playtest last week.

What's good, and what's bad?

Well, the art, for one.

The art is absolutely fantastic. Let nobody tell you that it's bad art.

That's the good.

The bad? Every time I find a picture that is dead-on (the Rogue, the Wizard), I find something that's just a hair too close to being anime-ish (hey, it's popular, that's great - this ain't anime) - the Druid thing, or the Barbarian who apparently shops at the same swordsmith as Cloud Strife. Seriously, folks, swords half as wide as you, and as tall as you, DON'T WORK.

The Sorcerer (Sorceress?) art is, again, great. I'd give my left nut for five minutes in the sack with a gal that looks that fantastic, but we're back to the complete impracticality of the whole ensemble. The girl obviously has funbags courtesy of Dow Corning (be they ever-so-perky), but the most laughable part is the oh-so-clichéd loincloth. No undergarments, which makes it fun when you flip a few pages and see her delivering a kick to some random badguy, causing you to wonder if she's really a competent melee fighter, or if the gentleman was just mesmerized by her naked cooter.

I'm also finding myself getting a bit more jaded every time I read something "new".

I had gotten over my initial displeasure with the changes to the Barbarian (I didn't think it was broken, nor needed any fixing. Rage x times per day vs. Rage points in a Rage pool?), and I've been trying to keep an open mind, but it's getting hard.

Right now, I'm getting annoyed at the removal of XP costs for crafting magical items.

I'm not going to say that the Wizard was "overpowered", but let's face it - at higher levels, Wizards flat pwn.

XP costs for crafting items/scribing scrolls/brewing potions was part of a check and balance system.

Sure, you can make it yourself for half-cost, but there's a hidden catch - you need to put a bit of yourself into the item, and that's manifested as having to pay a bit of XP for it.

Without it, there's no check on crafting. A Wizard, arguably already pretty powerful, can scribe a metric fuck-ton of scrolls, and never run out.

In fact, why bother actually memorizing anything but combat spells? Just scribe yourself 2 or 3 of your generic spells that you rarely use, scribe a bunch of the more handy utility spells, and just memorize the blaster spells that you can spooge off in battle.

The removal of that XP cost changes the whole dynamic of the Wizard class, and realistically, not for the better.

There's a bunch of support for it over on the Paizo forums, but I'm happy to say that my gaming group uninanimously agrees that this is a epic fail for the Pathfinder RPG design, and one we're going to ignore.

We'll have to see if the feats bit works out. It seems that characters now get a feat on every odd level, instead of every 3rd level. This works out to two extra feats by level 13, three extra by 17/19.

I'll have to read through the feats more, to see if they've attempted to counter-balance them with this new increase. Feats were always supposed to be something pretty major...

I hope I'm wrong, I really do, but a lot of these changes don't seem to be fixes to broken or confusing mechanics, but rather, power-increases in an attempt to stay on par with the new overpowered horsecrap from 4E.

I really hope that Pathfinder doesn't fall into the "Over 9000!!!" trap.

EDIT: One comment I'm getting really tired of from the anti-XP-cost folks is the whole "it doesn't make sense that I lose memories and experiences blah blah blah!". Where the fuck does the XP cost mechanic detail that you lose any of those things? You lose a number of points from a meta-game system. You don't fucking lose a level (YOU CAN'T!), you don't lose memories, you don't lose abilities, you don't "LOSE" anything, really. It's not a penalty. It's a cost. You want to imbue yourself into an item so that it can do something special? It's gonna cost. Sure, you've potentially got less XP than someone else in the game. If the rest of the party levels up, and you're fighting average-party-level encounters, then that means you're going to get MORE experience than your party members - go read the DMG and PHB again, folks.

The McCain/D&D Fiasco...

So, perhaps I'm making a big deal out of this whole deal, but I can't help but be a little pissed at the comments of a McCain staffer last week - and it seems I'm not alone.

McCain has been telling a story for several years, about his time in a Vietnamese POW camp, where a guard showed him some small amount of mercy and drew a Christian cross in the ground, showing that they both shared the same faith - an incident that renewed McCain's faith and will while being held prisoner.

The story holds some similarities with that of one told by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in The Gulag Archipelago.

Recently, the libtards have jumped on this similarity, and are bludgeoning it to death, since they have nothing better to do, and no original thoughts of their own (the similarities were pointed out by users on a conservative website back in 2005).

Markos Moulitsas and the rest of the mouthbreathers at Daily Kos can go fuck themselves, but an entry there does make a valid point:

fully believe that Solzhenitsyn didn't make this story up to sell a few more books and make a few more Rubles. But, I do question if John McCain had read this story, seeing as McCain thinks Solzhenitsyn "was a writer with unusual gifts, utterly devoted to his art, brilliant and exacting, producing work that would stun not just literary worlds but the entire Cold War political world." And I do question if John McCain has, in a mix up of perception or clarity, claimed this story as his own.

If you had had this extraordinary experience. And a famous writer, a writer that you have written about your admiration for, had a very similar experience. Wouldn't you publicize it? Wouldn't you write about it? And wouldn't you have talked about it last night at the faith forum when you we're relaying the story?

You and Alexander Solzhefrickingnitsyn have this incredible shared experience of being imprisoned , having someone draw a cross in the dirt, it inspires you and you don't publicize it? You don't talk about it? You don't write about it even as you write specifically about Solzhenitsyn and your admiration of him.

(Original Source

A McCain staffer, Michael Goldfarb, decided to respond, via McCain's website:

Smears the Left Can Fight For

In the least credible and most vicious corner of the internet, liberal bloggers at the Daily Kos are accusing John McCain of plagiarizing from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The story Solzhenitsyn told was of a prisoner who drew a cross in the dirt in a Soviet Gulag. McCain's story is of a guard who drew a cross in the dirt in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp.

The only similarity between the two stories is a cross in the dirt, but it is hardly an unlikely coincidence that there were practicing Christians in both Russia and Vietnam, or that in the prisons of those two Communist countries the only crosses to be found were etched in the dirt, as easily disappeared as the Christians who drew them.

But those desperate to discredit Senator McCain's record will have to impugn his fellow prisoners as well. Orson Swindle, who was held as a prisoner of war along with McCain, tells the McCain Report that he heard this particular story from McCain "when we first moved in together." That was in the summer of 1971, Swindle said, though "time blurred" and he couldn't be sure. He said it was some time around then that the Vietnamese moved all "36 troublemakers" into the same quarters, where they "talked about everything under the sun."

It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others. John McCain has often said he witnessed a thousand acts of bravery while he was imprisoned, and though not every one has been submitted into the public record, they are remembered by the men who were there (one such only recently reported by Karl Rove though it escaped mention in any of Senator McCain's books). But as Swindle said, this is a "desperate group of people trying to make something out of nothing."

(Original Source)

As you can imagine, gamers, from both the left and the right are kinda pissy about the comment, but I'd imagine that right-wing gamers are more so.

Wizards of the Coast excites me about as much as McCain does, these days, but they've issued an excellent statement:

D&D fans,

Many players have written us about recent disparaging D&D references by a John McCain staffer, Michael Goldfarb. I want you to know that everyone at Wizards is offended and baffled by the ignorance. Obviously, this person harbors some retro prejudices and has no idea what D&D is about or who the fans really are. I thought you should know that my colleagues at Hasbro also take offense and sent a letter to Michael Goldfarb (copied below). Wizards will continue to promote D&D as the great heroic fantasy game that it is and we thank you for your continued support and encouragement.

Greg Leeds
President
Wizards of the Coast

August 28th, 2008

Michael Goldfarb
1235 S. Clark St, Suite M
Arlington, VA 22202

Dear Mr. Goldfarb,

I was disappointed to read the disparaging intent of your comments regarding Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fans, both in your response to New York Times editors, and on the John McCain campaign website.

Dungeons & Dragons is a global game with millions of consumers in the U.S. and abroad. The brand is owned by Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc.

For fans, the game is essentially about heroism and therefore it is not surprising to us that thousands of military personnel play and enjoy the game. Hasbro, in turn, supports the U.S. Armed Forces by sending multiple crates of game products, including Dungeons & Dragons, to our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Recently a soldier who saw your comments online said, “Wizards of the Coast (the makers of D&D) has sent care packages to the troops on many occasions, providing free gaming supplies in support of our men and women serving the country overseas to help them decompress after hours. McCain's people should really check their facts before they spout off. Does John McCain have no idea how many GIs play D&D?”

We would very much appreciate you not making any more condescending comments about D&D -- as it is a great game enjoyed by millions of people around the world. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Wayne Charness
Senior Vice President
Hasbro, Inc.

(Original Source)

Goldfarb has issued an apology, if you can call it that:

If my comments caused any harm or hurt to the hard working Americans who play Dungeons & Dragons, I apologize. This campaign is committed to increasing the strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma scores of every American. --Michael Goldfarb (Original Source)

I can't help but think that someone may have drafted that for him, in a failed attempt to be funny and hope that he can schmooze his way back into some gamer's good graces.

Like many people, I'm not amused, and would like to see this idiot shitcanned.

It's really sad that there's not a good third-party candidate that would actually have a chance of winning. This whole little debacle pisses me off to no end.

There's no way I'm voting for Obama, but situations like this make voting for McCain an even more bitter pill to swallow.

UPDATE: I've since discovered that Goldfarb has disparaged D&D prior to this:

NYTimes Editors: Leave Obama Alone!

If the shareholders of the New York Times ever wonder why the paper's ad revenue is plummeting and its share price tanking, they need look no further than the hysterical reaction of the paper's editors to any slight, real or imagined, against their preferred candidate. This campaign has never engaged in 'racially tinged attacks,' and the Obama campaign conceded as much yesterday in a statement clarifying that "Barack Obama in no way believes that the McCain campaign is using race as an issue."

That the Times made this allegation in a blog post rather than running it on the editorial page indicates that they either knew the charge was bogus or they didn't have the nerve to make their case in full view of the public. But in their new role as bloggers, the paper's editors seem to have all the intelligence and reason of the average Daily Kos diarist sitting at home in his mother's basement and ranting into the ether between games of dungeons and dragons. They also have about as much care for the facts--the "board" has already been forced to append a correction.

(Original Source)

Multiple instances makes his forced apology rather hard to believe. This guy needs to get his ass fired out of the campaign jet at 40,000 feet.

FURTHER UPDATE: It appears the oh-so-sincere apology was made on August 1st, after the original slam on D&D, and then on the 18th, Goldfarb went on again to slam D&D.

What a piece of shit.

D&D 4E Launch

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!!

CreativeJuices7, baby!

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!!

Collection Almost Complete!

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...

America's Army Pisses Me Off

Am I the only one?

AA is like any other multiplayer FPS, with red-on-blue action.

Rather than just eliminating the other team to win (which, you can do, but isn't the goal), you've got set objectives.

The Assault Team is supposed to secure certain objectives, while the Defense Team is supposed to prevent that.

To anyone with a brain, this means that if you're on Assault, you need to go find the objective. If you're on Defense, you need to guard the objective, and not go running off around the map.

Sadly, most players online aren't "anyone with a brain".

We've grown tired of asshole admins booting us off of servers because we play Defense like it's supposed to be played (OMG WE'RE CAMPING THE OBJ!!!@#one111!), we've grown tired of abuses of the vote-kick system, and overall, we've grown tired of most fucktards online.

Thankfully, the AA devs have a couple of "co-op" maps in the game - the "enemy" is now a computer-driven AI, and human players are all on the same team.

Of course, online play degenerates into idiocy, because you've got dipshits jockeying for "the best gun" on one map, or running to drive the fucking HMMWV, all to the detriment of the mission.

Well, here at the house, we've alleviated that, by bringing back the AA server we used for the LAN party, and running the co-op maps here.

Unfortunately, the stupidity still isn't gone.

There's two co-op maps: Snake Plain, and Interdiction.

Snake Plain isn't too horrible, but the AI gets obnoxious, with it's unerring aim and seeming one-shot kills, while it takes you at least half, and usually all, of a magazine to knock down one of them.

Interdiction is by far the worst of the two, which is sad, because it's the one that I like the most.

The map starts out with you outside, and a virtually-impossible to kill tank vehicle thing circling, forcing you to sacrifice yourself in an attempt to destroy it. Supposedly there's a key to killing it, but whatever it is, we haven't found it.

To avoid the tank, it's necessary to start running towards the entry to the underground complex, which is another form of suicide, because even when the enemies don't magically spawn right in front of you as you're running, they can see through all of the brush and smoke, and their aim is dead-on.

I think we've won Interdiction maybe twice.

We really need to find a new game we can LAN play in co-op mode. I was really hoping that they'd fix HALO 2 PC to allow it, but they didn't, and even then we're not upgrading to Vista until we absolutely have to.

:(

Christmas Trees Are Bad...

And D&D 4th Edition is going to fix that...

Among the many flawed design concepts of 4th Edition, one of them is to reduce the so-called "Christmas Tree" effect - that is, characters with magic items all over them, like ornaments on a Christmas Tree.

From the article on WotC's page:

One of our goals in 4th Edition was to reduce characters’ reliance on magic items. The most important portion of this goal involved removing a lot of the magic items that were essential just so your character could feel effective, like stat-boosting items, amulets of natural armor, and the like. We also felt like these items weren't as exciting as magic items should be, yet characters depended on them heavily to feel adequate in proportion to their level. We felt that the cool stuff a character can do should come from that character’s abilities, not his gear.

I can't cite one player I've ever met who felt as if this was a problem. WotC representatives swear up and down that they're not trying to make the game all superhero-ish or anime, but the whole idea of downplaying ability-granting or ability-boosting magical items in favor of having those features inherent to your character kinda gives the opposite idea.

But, that's besides the point. They want to eliminate the concept of your character being weighted down by a ton of magic items, and them want all of your special abilities and buffs to come from your character, not his/her gear.

So, here's the designer's character, playtesting that particular revision in the mechanics:

Example

Here’s what my 11th-level gnome warlock, Dessin, is wearing right now:

Implement: +3 rod of dark reward
Armor: +3 leather armor
Neck: +2 cloak of survival
Arms: Bracers of the perfect shot
Feet: Wavestrider boots
Hands: Shadowfell gloves
Head: Diadem of acuity
Rings: None right now, sadly
Waist: Belt of battle
Wondrous Items: Bag of holding

Yup. They've sure succeeded.

Of course, this particular little blurb is rather telling:

About the Author

Logan Bonner joined Wizards of the Coast as in 2006 as an editor on Dungeons & Dragons. He had no experience in the industry prior to joining WotC, and marvels that his clever ruse has lasted this long. After doing some class design work for 4th Edition on the side, he joined the mechanical design team. His previous editing products include Magic Item Compendium and Monster Manual V, and he wrote about half of Eberron Survival Guide, which releases in March '08.

WotC is entrusting the design and development of their flagship title to an artist (not a writer!) with zero industry experience in game design. Brilliant.

The Double-Shaft

Many moons ago, one of the members of our gaming group found a pirated copy of this nifty little program called "e-Tools".

e-Tools is the updated commercial version of the rather crappy Character Generator demo CD that was bundled in the D&D 3rd Edition Player's Handbook.

Playing with this pirated version showed e-Tools to be a rather useful piece of software, so several of us decided that we were going to support the authors, and purchase the program.

We discovered more good things about it - the company who did the update, Code Monkey Publishing, held a license from Wizards of the Coast to produce datasets for the e-Tools program - the digital mechanics of expansion books for D&D.

We were duly impressed - this meant that, not only could we create characters from the core books, but we were also able to use the software to manipulate data from books that we had purchased the datasets for.

Some of us purchased quite a few of these datasets, expanding the application quite a bit.

(On a side note, this just further reiterates my attitude on so-called copyright violations. We've all been regular visitors to the WotC website, and never saw ANY kind of adverts for the new version of the software. We didn't know it existed. Had it not been for the evil, nasty pirate who put the software out there, and one of our gamers Googling for D&D stuff, we'd never have known about it. A subsequent download and the ability to fully demo and evaluate the product resulted in them making money several times over from the members of our gaming group.)

Then came the November of 2006, and WotC decided that they didn't want to maintain the license they had granted CMP, and CMP was thereby prohibited from any further sales of the software or datasets.

Shafted.

Great.

There were plenty of datasets that we didn't own (hadn't gotten around to purchasing), not to mention, WotC was still publishing material for D&D 3E/3.5, of which we'd never see a dataset for...

Awesome. Thanks, guys!

WotC did allow a 2 year "grace period" on existing datasets - CMP was allowed to maintain them, performing bug-fixes and editorial cleanup (typographical errors, missing data, etc.).

Just one problem - to date, they haven't published any kind of bugfixes. Plenty of the datasets are full of errors, and many of them are missing the support files (Help files, etc.) that they should have with them (and should have had when they were sold).

No matter - CMP keeps promising that they'll get an update out.

WRONG.

If you're familiar with CMP, and their history of doing business over the last year or so, then you'd know that they're big on promises, and short on delivery.

RPG Foundry, the supposed successor to e-Tools has been in development and being promised to people for nearly two years now, with nothing, not even a screenshot of the development version, to show for it.

Today, CMP announced that an update for the e-Tools datasets likely won't happen, because they're too busy working on RPG Foundry (yeah, right!) and other projects.

e-Tools Updates coming...? We've honestly been looking at whether this is a worthwhile thing or not to do. Not because of the myriad typo fixes, but just the time involved with packaging them up and getting them out to the store, which takes a considerable more amount of time than the bug fixes.

We're still wanting to get at least one update out before the 2yr mark this November, but honestly it may not happen because of other things, like RPGF, ToIK, and a few things we can't discuss right now.

Shaft number two.

See how that works? All of us e-Tools customers have already payed CMP (many of us in the several hundred dollar range), and publishing an update doesn't make them any more money, so, we can all fuck off.

Sadly, this seems to be par for the course - the attitude displayed by the mouthpiece for CMP is that he's doing you a favor simply by existing.

Customer service takes a backseat to the half-assed projects they hope to make them some money - the perpetually-in-development-never-to-be-released RPG Foundry, the hack e-publication of "Tome of Infinite Knowledge" (an electronic compilation of all published-under-the-OGL material they can get their hands on, rather than any actual original work), and the "Shaedraeth Player's Guide", the fantasy heartbreaker wanna-be campaign setting with far too many "hip" vowels in it's title.

What a load of shit.

On the one hand, I think it sucks that the Wazis ended the licensing agreement with CMP - on the other hand, given their horrible business ethics and complete lack of customer service, fuck them.

IDF Says "NO!" to D&D

Well, if this doesn't just suck balls, I don't know what does...

Army frowns on Dungeons and Dragons

IDF says players are detached from reality and automatically given a low security clearance

By Hanan Greenberg Published: 02.28.05, 14:17 / Israel News

Does the Israel Defense Forces believe incoming recruits and soldiers who play Dungeons and Dragons are unfit for elite units? Ynet has learned that 18-year-olds who tell recruiters they play the popular fantasy game are automatically given low security clearance.

“They're detached from reality and suscepitble to influence,” the army says.

Fans of the popular roleplaying game had spoken of rumors of this strange policy by the IDF, but now the army has confirmed that it has a negative image of teens who play the game and labels them as problematic in regard to their draft status.

So if you like fantasy games, go see the military psychologist.

Dungeons and Dragons (also known as D&D) has been a popular roleplaying game for decades and is based on a fantasy world.

One player assumes the role of “Dungeon Master,” which entails directing the game and controlling the labyrinth, while the others select from a large selection of characters that includes warriors, magicians, dwarfs and thieves.

The game focuses on the results of decisions made by the players as determined by the roll of the dice.

In a more "active" version of the game, players leave the table and go out, dressed as the characters they assume for the game, along with the requisite equipment of swords (not real) to play outside, usually in the forest or woods. Most D&D players do not don costumes, and participants in such costume games are called "LARPers" (for live-action role playing).

'Simply detached from reality'

Thousands of youth and teens in Israel play D&D, fighting dragons and demons using their rich imaginations. The game has also increased in popularity due to the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

However the IDF does not approve of this unusual hobby and prevents D&D players from being considered for sensitive army positions by labeling them with low security clearance.

"We have discovered that some of them are simply detached from reality," a security source told Ynet.

Game enthusiasts are aware of their problematic image in the army and prefer to maintain their anonymity. Many of them are from the former Soviet Union, where the game is very popular.

In Israel there are thousands of players, between the ages 16 to 35, and include lawyers, high-tech workers and businessmen. Matan, 22, and Igor, a 21-year-old IDF soldier, organize activities for groups of players. Soon hundreds of fans are expected to meet in a forest in the southern part of Israel for a two-day game of pure fantasy.

"It's not a game of winners and losers," Matan says, "but rather entry into another world with stories and plot changes."

He is aware of the game's problematic reputation, especially in the IDF. The army is not indifferent to the unique hobby and is trying to locate soldiers who in their free time dress up as witches and play in forests.

'The game indicates a weak personality'

A security official tells Ynet there are specific criteria for deciding the level of a soldier's security clearance.

"One of the tests we do, either by asking soldiers directly or through information provided us, is to ask whether they take part in the game," he says. "If a soldier answers in the affirmative, he is sent to a professional for an evaluation, usually a psychologist."

More than half of the soldiers sent for evaluation receive low security clearances, thus preventing them from serving in sensitive IDF positions, he says.

Igor says exposing soldiers who play the game could result in the soldiers being sent to a military psychologist or even being kicked out of the army.

"Exposing them could also harm their chances at being accepted to other military courses," he says.

Matan says he has personally met soldiers whose military career was harmed due to their connection to the game. Most soldiers who play Dungeons and Dragons simply do not admit to it while they are in the army, he says.

Why does IDF believe game is dangerous?

"These people have a tendency to be influenced by external factors which could cloud their judgment, a military official says. "They may be detached from reality or have a weak personality - elements which lower a person's security clearance, allowing them to serve in the army, but not in sensitive positions."

Unsurprisingly, Igor, Matan and thier friends do not approve of this IDF policy. They say the game is only a colorful, non-violent hobby.

"Many people who play served in the most classified units," David says. "They are intelligent and any attempt to label them as 'weird' is incorrect and unfair."

But in the struggle between the gameplayers and the Defense Minister, the latter wins - or at least this is the case in the real world of the IDF.

(Original Source)

Yeah...

So, the IDF thinks D&D players are whackjobs, and Ynet does a beautiful job at finding Matan, who *IS* a whackjob.

Gah. It's a shame that the media is so damned yellow. Just once, I'd like to see a journalist find a sane, well-adjusted subject for their sensationalist pieces...

Three-Dragon Ante

If you're a gamer, and you haven't seen Three-Dragon Ante, you should take a look at it.

While I hate to recommend purchasing any Wizards of the Coast product, what with the upcoming release of D&D 4th Edition (and their general attitude towards 3rd Edition/3.5 and the existing customer base), I've got to say, this game is fun.

It's a non-collectible card game, with the goal of winning gold from the pot, and it's pretty damned spiffy.

The cards are well-designed, with a nifty, slightly-oversized deal going on, and they look pretty nice.

Plus, it's $15.00, which isn't too bad at all, in this day and age.

There's also alternate rules that can be used in a D&D campaign, with character skills affecting the outcome of the game.

Give it a try! We've been playing it here for about two weeks or so, and we like it so much we're going to give their other similar game, Inn-Fighting a try real soon.

Muh Loot!

So, I got a couple pairs of slacks, which is pretty damned sweet, because buying clothes sucks, and I needed to refresh the wardrobe a bit, and add some fresh stuff in there.

I also scored on a bunch of D&D books, so my library is getting pretty thick, which is most excellent.

The following has been added:

Epic Level Handbook (YES!!!)
Expanded Psionics Handbook (Psionics done right, in one of the best books out there!)
Player's Handbook II
Frostburn
Heroes of Horror (The Archivist class KICKS ASS!)
Heroes of Battle
Planar Handbook
Spell Compendium
Unearthed Arcana
Player's Guide to Eberron
Magic of Eberron
Eberron Explorer's Guide

And quite honestly, one of the coolest books there is, even if you're not neccessarily a D&D fan, but a fan of RPGs:

30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons (or, as it's referred to here in the house, "Dungeons & Diesel")

I also got Heroes Season One on DVD, and idiot eBay shippers finally sent a late birthday present: Complete Warrior.

A pretty decent haul. MANY thanks go out to my family and friends - this kicks quite a bit of ass. I can't thank any of you enough! YOU ROCK!

Dungeonmastering...

So, it's looking more and more like I'm actually going to DM a D&D campaign in the semi-near-future.

Between the purchase of a bunch of new material for D&D 3rd Edition/3.5 Edition, reading of all the atrocities being committed with 4th Edition, and some great reviews of some apparently great campaign material, I've decided that I want to run.

This is actually a semi-momentous occasion in our gaming history, because I have never once had the desire to a game.

Sure, the concept appealed to me - *I* control the game - but the reality never seemed to pay off when observing other DMs.

Well, no more.

I've made a few more purchases of game materials, and when it all arrives (likely around the New Year's holiday), I'll be able to sit down and start compiling a campaign, and run a game how I think it should be ran.

That's not to say that I've been unhappy with previous DMs - far from it. I just have my own ideas on how things should be done (like any DM out there, really) and now I've got a chance to do things my way.

Sweet.

Any suggestions on content or DM aides would be appreciated.

I <3 Amazon Sellers!

So, the seller from Monday's post finally got in touch with me.

He tells me he was out of town without email coverage, and is sending the correct (undamaged) item out, and told me to keep the wrong stuff.

Very courteous, very apologetic.

To tell you the truth, I wasn't expecting it.

Customer service standards have have slipped so damned much over the past few years that I really wasn't expecting a response at all.

It's nice to know that there's still people out there that know what customer service is, and still believe in it.

Perfect.

So, the books show up today.

One of the things ordered was a three-book set in a slipcase.

I open the packages to find out that not only is the slipcase all fuckered up, but one of the books in the set isn't even the right one.

Wow!

Awesome!

I've fired off an email to the seller, so we'll see how he handles this - he still hasn't responded to my email asking for tracking information, so, I dunno...

These particular books were actually ordered by my sister, as a Christmas gift, so we're likely going to have to do some shuffling around of other stuff - we can't really exchange them if they're wrapped and under a tree...

Slow Shipping!

Dammit!

I made a couple orders for some more D&D books last week, and it hasn't shown up yet, which means, it won't be here until Monday at the earliest.

Dammit!

That's the downfall to buying online - you can get so much more for so much cheaper, but you have to wait for it to arrive.

Dammit!

I want my stuff.

On a slightly related note, Radigast and I went to the local used bookstore for the first time. We've been living over here over two years now, and it's been in town the entire time, but we've never really thought about it.

It's not that we didn't know about it - we've driven by and pointed it out or discussed it a number of times - it's just that we've never made a point to go in there.

That's an oddity in and of itself. We're voracious readers, and we frequent a bunch of other used bookstores (Book Bin in Corvallis or Salem, Albany Book Company, Reader's Guide in West Salem, etc.), but this place never really attracted us enough to go visit until today.

It's in one of the old "historic" buildings, and it used to be a bank - the old 20'x20' concrete and steel bank vault is still there, making this the second used bookstore with a bank vault that I know of (the other on River Road in Eugene/Springfield, which we learned today has closed, or is closing shortly).

(A brief aside, I desperately want an old building with an old bank vault. That would rock so much.)

One of the first things we asked about when we got in there was if there was any gaming books (D&D, etc.) - of course, there were none, which seems to be common among bookstores ran by old ladies.

She gave us some story about how she doesn't know anything about it, so she wouldn't know what to stock, and it would be too expensive to try to stock the stuff - all of which makes little to no sense.

Knowing nothing about the subject shouldn't bother this lady, because she's got books on just about everything else, and I'm sure she knows nothing about most of them. Her Sci-Fi section was pretty decent, but there were TONS of dupes/trips/quads of some less-than-prime stuff on the shelf.

Knowing what to stock, and the expense of stocking it, however? What the hell? It's a USED bookstore! You cheaply buy what people sell, and you sell it for more money. You don't need to know what it is in order to stock it (though, there is the big old Internet out there so you can learn a bit), and since it's USED stuff bought on the cheap, there's not really a big expense there...

Oh well.

There's always Amazon, eBay and other online sources for my stuff. If the local small business can't (or, in most cases, won't) compete, then I've still got someplace to go...

D&D 3.0/3.5 Haul!

Woohoo!

Thanks to badass sellers on Amazon, and a "clearance" at Borderlands to make room for 4.0 stuff that won't be out for another 7 months, I've got quite a load of crap coming in:

I picked up the following at Borderlands today:

Draconomicon
Dragon Magic
Races of the Dragon
Monster Manual V

At some used bookstores, I snagged:

Faiths and Pantheons (Forgotten Realms)
Sandstorm

And, either tomorrow, or Monday, the boxes from Amazon will show up, and they contain:

Psioncs Handbook
Manual of the Planes
Arms and Equipment Guide
Book of Vile Darkness
Ghostwalk
Book of Exalted Deeds
Eberron Campaign Setting
Monster Manual III
Monster Manual IV
Complete Arcane
Weapons of Legacy
Tome of Magic: Pact, Shadow and TrueName Magic
Complete Psionic
Complete Mage

Yay!

My bookshelf is going to freaking ROCK.

And yes. I'm a nerd. Deal with it.

Dungeons & Dragons 4.0?

So, we've been under a rock here at House v0.9 Beta, and nobody really knew about the D&D 4.0 announcement that happened back in August.

Regardless of the timing of things, we're underwhelmed.

D&D 4.0 looks to be more of WotC's fuckery of the hobby, and they seem determined to kill the pen-and-paper nature of RPGs.

Don't take that the wrong way - we don't hate WotC. In fact, we adore them for keeping D&D alive after the Williams-era TSR nearly ran it into the ground.

We're just a bit jaded about the third new version of the ruleset in about 8 years.

Despite the marketing hype that WotC hopes you'll believe, they're playing a semantics game with the facts.

Sure, this is the first "full-version" new release in eight years. Wow, eight years?! That's some massive amount of time right there, fuckers!

Let's face it, people. We all bought into D&D 3rd Edition. We went out, we bought the core books, we bought a bunch of other WotC-published material, and then four years into it, you shafted us with D&D 3.5.

Instead of simply publishing a Rules Compendium-style book that details all of the new changes, you decided that you were going to release a completely new version, and attempt to bullshit us all that it wasn't officially a new version.

Let's see - different/changed rules, making the all of the old material incompatible (unless you spend time converting it), and forcing us to go shell out for new core books, and this isn't a new version? Fuck you guys.

Now, in a repeat of history, four years later, they're bending us over again.

D&D 4.0 is going to require all new core rulebooks, and they're going to re-release all of the same shit under the new ruleset.

By WotC's own admission, this new version will allow for easy conversion of existing 3.5 stuff, much like it was to go from 3.0 to 3.5.

So, then, isn't 4.0 really 3.75? Nope! They've added a shitty little gamechat and map application to it, and they're going to require a monthly subscription fee for the service, as well!

Oh, there's also a character generator in there, as well - nevermind that a metric fuck-ton of your customer base already went out and plunked down a ton of money for e-Tools and the datasets that were being produced for it. Nevermind that you've shafted us there, as well, by yanking Code Monkey Publishing's license to produce/update/expand e-Tools, leaving us all out in the cold, with our substantial investment now ruined, because it's incomplete.

Now you expect us to pay out for new books, new software, a monthly subscription fee, for what? Your shitty attempt at knocking MMORPG's off their throne?

I know you shouldn't judge a product on it's pre-release demos, but your little character creator/map system looks like crap. The graphics suck, which, in this case, since you're trying to win back market-share from World of Warcraft, kind of matters.

Jay Garmon says it far more eloquently than I can.

Suffice it to say, I'm not going to purchase anything from D&D 4.0.

There's still a plethora of D&D 3.0 and 3.5 books out there that I don't have, and want. I've got zero interest in a "new" or changed D20 game system, and I've got no interest in the online components. I'm a role-player, not a hack-and-slasher. That's why I don't play MMO's, and that's why I do play D&D. Why would I want a simulation of tabletop hack-and-slash, when games like WoW exist?

Why would anyone?