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Don’t get too hung up on horses. While the rulebooks have all sorts of rules for movement speeds while on foot, encumbered, or riding, the truth is that all travel takes exactly as long as the DM wants it to. This brings to mind the wise old saying:
“A player is never late, Dave. Nor is he early. He arrives precisly when the plot dictates he should.”
Or something like that.
Now that I’ve savaged the lazy, junior-high ending of this game and taken some time to cool off, let’s talk about what worked:
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| A female half-orc… Warlock? Hey man, whatever floats your boat. |
The game does an excellent job of stepping you through the process. The explanation for every race, class, feat, and spell is available right there, so you never feel lost and never feel like you don’t have enough information to make a decision.
I’ve been negative towards attempts to bring d20 gaming to the PC in the past, and I stand by those comments. Having said that, this is an excellent adaptation of d20 gameplay, and I don’t think it could be done much better. If you’re going to bring the tabletop rules to a computer-driven world, this is how you do it.
The game has a fairly modest system for cutomizing the look of your character, but the variety of races more than makes up for the lack of ability to really customize your appearance. It also offers a few fun surprises, like the ability to create dwarven or half-orc females, which has always been tough for me to picture. It will let you create an Elven Barbarian, or a half-Orc Wizard, if you really want to.
Once the game starts, it does an excellent job of teaching how to play as you go. At the outset, your home village is having a harvest fair with a number of different competitions. Each one teaches you the specifics of some gameplay or character class, and does so while keeping you amused with several colorful (and wonderfully voice-acted) characters around town.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Neverwinter Nights 2: First Impressions”
Here is my third and final wrap-up post on the D&D campaign. Hopefully this will answer the last remaining questions anyone might have.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “D&D Campaign: Unanswered Questions”
(The following is a little gruesome.)
Nilus left a comment here, talking about looting companions after they die when playing a tabletop RPG:
I’ve never played Shadowrun, but I’ve read Neuromancer and seen a few cyberpunk movies, so I think I get the idea.
Just for fun (fun for me, I don’t know if anyone else will enjoy this) I thought I’d detail how I would handle something like this. This is not to knock on Nilus’ GM – everyone has their own style, and there is no right or wrong way to play this game as long as everyone is having a good time.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Sidequesting”
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When dealing with railroading DM’s, never waste skill points on the tracking skill. If it’s part of the plot, you’ll find it no matter what you roll. If it’s not part of the plot, then it doesn’t exist anyway.
On Friday I had an inner-ear infection. I’ve never had one before. I’ve heard people complain about these, but I always figured it was like an earache, only – I dunno – maybe it hurt more or something? Turns out inner ear infections don’t hurt at all. At least mine didn’t.
What happened was that my inner ear (both ears, I guess) stopped working, and I lost all sense of balance. And I do mean ALL.
Every kid has spun around in circles until they were so dizzy they couldn’t stand. This was the same feeling, only it was more intense, and it was constant. It was actually kind of scary, since I couldn’t stand or sit up. I wasn’t sure how long it would last.
The slightest movement would make me nauseous. It was like my ear was telling me I was spinning, but my eyes were telling me I wasn’t. I found that if I lay on my side in the dark and didn’t move, and if I had a fan blowing on me, then I wouldn’t be nauseous. It was like my inner ear was saying, “Hey, we’re spinning!” and because I could feel the moving air and I couldn’t see the room, I could just go with it. “Yup, we’re spinning. Whee.”
It only lasted about 12 or 16 hours. Once I was able to stand up without throwing up it got to be sort of amusing trying to get around the house. I thought, “I don’t need my inner ear. I can just judge balance by looking at the floor.” Sadly, this doesn’t work. I walked in a weaving side-to-side motion, and more than once made a left turn into a wall for no reason.
Which brings me to the following question:
Taste, Touch, Smell, Sight, and Sound. Why isn’t balance included in our list of senses? I promise you, life without balance is more debilitating than life without hearing. It’s way worse than life without smell. I would put balance just behind sight and touch in order of importance.
This is getting unhealthy, but here is some more in-depth stuff on the game:
Most of my strategy from yesterday was based on intuition. I decided to run some tests and see if I could prove what I’d been thinking. The very first level is great for running these kinds of tests, so I played the first level several times with differing tower configurations.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Flash TD: Analysis”
Be careful what you learn with your muscle-memory, because it will be very hard to un-learn it.
Why make millions on your video game when you could be making HUNDREDS on frivolous copyright claims?
Imagine if the original Star Wars hadn't appeared in the 1970's, but instead was pitched to studios in 2006. How would that turn out?
Let's count up the ways in which Bethesda has misunderstood and misused the Fallout property.
Ever wondered what's in all those quest boxes you've never bothered to read? Get ready: They're more insane than you might expect.
A programming project where I set out to make a Minecraft-style world so I can experiment with Octree data.
A look back at Star Trek, from the Original Series to the Abrams Reboot.
A breakdown of how this game faltered when the franchise was given to a different studio.
Just how big IS No Man's Sky? What if you made a map of all of its landmass? How big would it be?
A screencap comic that poked fun at videogames and the industry. The comic has ended, but there's plenty of archives for you to binge on.
T w e n t y S i d e d
