Session 15, Part 1

By Shamus Posted Thursday Jan 4, 2007

Filed under: D&D Campaign 16 comments

Last session the players defended the bridge, and then Mordan withdrew for reasons unknown.

Surprisingly, everyone was here this week.

Three days later the Dwarven army arrives, backed by the last of the Alidian soldiers. Mordan has pulled his army back and has not returned. The time has come for a counterattack. The army marches over the bridge, aiming north.

Many Dwarves look back over their shoulders as they travel, gazing up at the dark smoking peak of Khelberg.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Session 15, Part 1”

 


 

DM of the Rings XLVI:
The Hunt Begins!

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Jan 3, 2007

Filed under: DM of the Rings 63 comments

Aragorn the Ranger tracks the orcs. Keen ranger senses.

Players complain so much about having to walk long distances. You would think they were actually, you know, walking there.

 


 

Attacked by the Show

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Jan 2, 2007

Filed under: Nerd Culture 17 comments

I just got a phone call, letting me know that DM of the Rings was mentioned on Attack of the Show. Then a comment letting me know the same thing.

If you are the sort that just goes to a website whenever your TV tells you to then, you know, welcome. Just to save you some time, here is the complete DM of the Rings archives. Knock yourself out.

 


 

The Christianity Network

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Jan 2, 2007

Filed under: Links 10 comments

I mentioned before that I found Steven’s article facinating. He was using the church to talk about operating systems, although I had fun with it using operating systems to come up with different ways of thinking about the church.

The resulting post just didn’t seem like it would fit here on my “Geek Culture” site. Now I have another blog with my wife focusing on Christianity. I don’t expect this to appeal to most of my readers here, and that’s fine, but I might have a few Christian readers who find the site has something to offer.

 


 

Session 14

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Jan 2, 2007

Filed under: D&D Campaign 22 comments

Having sorted out the problems at the Mages Guild and recovered some interesting books, they proceed to the Citadel. Endo takes Garret to an inn, where the boy can hopefully keep a low profile. It is unlikely that anyone will recognize him, but the Queen has many powers of perception and it seems like pushing their luck to get him too close to her. As the last remaining prince of the Lormanites, he would most likely be put to death before he could get any ideas about following in his father’s footsteps / seeking revenge / attempting to reclaim his throne. The Lormans have been a tenacious family over the last few centuries, and the Queen would most likely not pass on the chance to extinguish his bloodline forever.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Session 14”

 


 

Happy New Year!

By Shamus Posted Monday Jan 1, 2007

Filed under: Random 6 comments

I hope your new year is very… new and extra uh, annual. Or something.

I should add: I took today off. Next DM of the Rings comes on Wed, Jan 3.

 


 

Catching Up

By Shamus Posted Sunday Dec 31, 2006

Filed under: Links 3 comments

I’m missing out. Last week I didn’t touch this blog except to trade comments and clean the spam filter. Pretty much all of the posts were pre-written, which really saved me from leaving a week-long gap on this thing.

But while I was writing four or five miles of code, I was missing out on a ton of stuff:

The big thing I missed was Steven’s bit on Linux Standardization. This thing made my spider sense tingle about ten different times. There were so many things to say and so many ideas to tackle that I ended up having a paradox of choice and saying nothing.

Fledgling Otaku put up a great Holiday Greeting. Back at you, man. He also linked to this funny YouTube bit on the Wii vs PS3. (Warning: This thing is a little daring. If you come from a formal office you might want to give it a pass. Better safe than sexy.)

Back at the beginning of December Cineris posted this bit from the Unreal Tournament forums, imploring the designers to take the game back to its roots and recapture the incredible fun of the original Unreal Tournament. I have a bunch of thoughts on this, but I never took the time to cobble them together into something readable. I will say this: The original author is spot-on. I have all of the Unreal Tournamant games here, but whenever friends come over for a little LAN gaming, it’s no contest. We play UT99 every time. The game is almost eight years old, and even up against brand-new games with the fancy pixels, it’s still no contest. Like the PS3 vs the Wii, raw technology is no match for compelling gameplay.

 


 
From The Archives:

Bethesda’s Launcher is Everything You Expect

From the company that brought us Fallout 76 comes a storefront / Steam competitor. It's a work of perfect awfulness. This is a monument to un-usability and anti-features.

 

Final Fantasy X

A game about the ghost of an underwater football player who travels through time to save the world from a tick that controls kaiju satan. Really.

 

TitleWhat’s Inside Skinner’s Box?

What is a skinner box, how does it interact with neurotransmitters, and what does it have to do with shooting people in the face for rare loot?

 

If Star Wars Was Made in 2006?

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?

 

Rage 2

The game was a dud, and I'm convinced a big part of that is due to the way the game leaned into its story. Its terrible, cringe-inducing story.

 

Trusting the System

How do you know the rules of the game are what the game claims? More importantly, how do the DEVELOPERS know?

 

In Defense of Crunch

Crunch-mode game development isn't good, but sometimes it happens for good reasons.

 

Quakecon 2011 Keynote Annotated

An interesting but technically dense talk about gaming technology. I translate it for the non-coders.

 

Object-Oriented Debate

There are two major schools of thought about how you should write software. Here's what they are and why people argue about it.

 

Game at the Bottom

Why spend millions on visuals that are just a distraction from the REAL game of hotbar-watching?