ZOGAR

Here’s how to get a free copy of the full version of Artemis:

1) get the demo version.

2) get together with 2 friends (3 or more people in the same room) and play.

3) make a video of your crew playing. use your flipcam or cellphone or something.

4) also, take a still picture of your crew, to send to me later.

5) put the video on YouTube, for all the world to see. Be sure to put a link to artemis.eochu.com on the video notes.

6) Email me with the YouTube video link and attach the picture, so I know it’s you. My email is techbear@gmail.com

7) if you don’t get your full version in a few days, re-send the email. Check out our video playlist.

If you want your video to be featured near the top, bring your best game, dress up, adopt accents, dress up your bridge, do something (non-dangerous) to stand out. Thanks for playing!

It's supposed to be a starship simulation game where multiple people take different jobs, like helmsmen, weapons officer, etc. I haven't even tried the demo to see if it's something I actually WANT a free copy of, but still, sounds kinda fun.

So my D&D character died last session. I'm not bitter, it's old (i.e. GOOD) edition, that's what happens. What makes me face palm is when George turns to me and says "You're always killing your NPCs."

1) This.. this was a PC. We alternate DMs. I have PLAYED this character, dammit!

2) I don't pull the punches for fucking NOBODY. I've dropped both his and Jeff's characters running this game, the difference being, I was lenient by about a round each time to not outright kill them, and NOBODY SHOVED THEM INTO A BAG OF DEVOURING AFTERWARDS.

I think he's refering to Deathwatch before this, and that was a NPC, but it was also just the healer because nobody rolls those (and the fuckers whine endlessly, ENDLESSLY I SAY!, that they need one) and he "died" (burnt a fate point) because the PCs left him comatose on the top of a building while it was orbitally bombarded by space lasers. He would of been okay if they had just added "I pick him up," before running away. But noooo..... and this is somehow my fault??

Maybe I was a little harsh, but the moment you cut your own character any slack it hurts your DM cred. The goddam module could say in bold type MAGIC HARP IN THIS ROOM and I'd probably have to leave that out to not have bullshit called on me.

"This whole game is just to deck out your character! Your bard gets everything!"

Now I will admittedly kill the gnomes off at the drop of a hat. Because they're stupid little assholes and deserve to die.

But yeah, so now I have to roll up a new character, who will probably get murdered by the party when I introduce him. Joy. And I'm looking through /tg/ for ideas, which directly relates to the title for this post. Because they are all bad ideas, BUT I REALLY WANT TO DO THEM.

1. I really liked the Alchemist class in Pathfinder to begin with, but I never realized the true purpose for them having Sleight of Hand as a class skill. For scoping everybody. You are all my guinea pigs! Drink up!

That's 3.75 edition though, not applicable.

2. A thread on druids wildshaping into the same animal as their animal companion, and fucking it. Now I don't wanna do THAT, but later on people are talking about "Well, what if it was a necromancer?" and I have to say, the idea someone came up with of a necromancer who travels around with his wife's coffin, animating her to fight for him, that sounds like a cool character to me. Yeah, fucked up, but cool. Sadly, no where near the level where I could roll up a necromancer who could cast Animate Dead. Darn.

That leaves me one last area of douchebaggery. A kender. Give me detailed lists of your possessions, assholes! It's borrowing time!

There's something just heartwarming to me when I see someone's relationship drama post on Facebook is liked by the person I know they're talking about. It's like they've spent all that time trying to tear that person down just to have it kicked right back into their goddam face. With one click.

Brief moment of self-awareness: I am a vicious douchebag.

I went and saw the Pirates claymation movie tonight, and.... it's almost the exact opposite of every children's animated movie I've seen in the last few years. Instead of pandering to the childrens and including a few innuendo jokes to keep the parents from falling completely asleep, nope, it's all stuff for adults, toned down enough for the kiddies.

There are way too many obscure Charles Darwin jokes in there to call it a movie for children.


Finished the third Night Lords novel by Aaron Dembski-Bowden. I've mentioned the first one on here before.
This one seems to be the last part of a trilogy, which makes me happy for no good reason, since it means I don't have 20 more books to get through or wait to get published.

If I consider Eisenhorn to be what you should read before playing Dark Heresy, then this is what you should read before playing Black Crusade. I cannot stress that enough. Soul Hunter over METAL BAWKSES, all day, everyday.

Beginning players would do well to profit from some basic
advice before beginning their D&D careers, and with that in
mind, the following points are offered for consideration:

1) Be an organized player. Keep accurate records on your
character (experience, abilities, items possessed, etc.) for
your own purposes and to aid the Dungeon Master.

2) Always keep in mind that the Dungeon Master is the
moderator of the game, and as such, deserves the continued
cooperation, consideration and respect of all the
players. If you disagree with him or her, present your viewpoint
with deference to the DM's position as game judge, but
be prepared to accept his or her decision as final—after all,
keep in mind that you may not know all aspects of the overall
game situation, and in that case, not everything will always
go your way!

3) Cooperate with your fellow players and work together
when adventuring. Remember that on any foray into the dungeon
or wilderness, a mix of character classes will be beneficial,
since the special abilities of the various characters will
complement each other and add to the overall effectiveness
of the party.

4) Be neither too hasty nor too sluggish when adventuring. If
you are too fast in your exploration, you may recklessly endanger
yourself and your fellow adventurers and fall prone
to every trick and trap you encounter. If you are too slow, you
will waste valuable time and may be waylaid by more than
your share of wandering monsters without accomplishing
anything. As you gain playing experience you will learn the
proper pace, but rely on your DM for guidance.

5) Avoid arguing. While disagreements about a course of
action will certainly arise from time to time, players should
quickly discuss their options and reach a consensus in order
to proceed. Bickering in the dungeon will only create noise
which may well attract wandering monsters. Above all, remember
that this is just a game and a little consideration will
go far toward avoiding any hard feelings . . .

6) Be on your guard. Don't be overly cautious, but be advised
that some non-player characters may try to hoodwink
you, players may doublecross you, and while adventuring,
tricks and traps await the unwary. Of course, you won't avoid
every such pitfall (dealing with the uncertainties is part of the
fun and challenge of the game), but don't be surprised if
everything is not always as It seems.

7) Treat any retainers or NPCs fairly. If you reward them generously
and do not expose them to great risks of life and limb
that your own character would not face, then you can expect
a continuing loyalty (although there may be exceptions,
of course).

8) Know your limits. Your party may not be a match for every
monster you encounter, and occasionally it pays to know
when and how to run away form danger. Likewise, a dungeon
adventure may have to be cut short if your party suffers
great adversity and/or depleted strength. Many times it will
take more than one adventure to accomplish certain goals,
and it will thus be necessary to come back out of a dungeon
to heal wounds, restore magical abilities and spells, and reinforce
a party's strength.

9) Use your head. Many of the characters' goals in the game
can be accomplished through the strength of arms or magic.
Others, however, demand common sense and shrewd
judgment as well as logical deduction. The most successful
players are those who can effectively use both aspects of the
game to advantage.

10) The fun of a D&D game comes in playing your character's
role. Take on your character's persona and immerse
yourself in the game setting, enjoying the fantasy element
and the interaction with your fellow players and the Dungeon
Master.
Enjoy yourself, and good luck!

Stopped by Books By the Sea, which is much less like a store now and more like a hoarder television special.

I realize that inevitablly people will trade in more books than they buy, but come on. You can barely walk in there. There's 4 copies of Twilight side by side on the counter. I'm guessing that's at least 3 more than you'll ever need in stock. eBay that shit or donate it for tax credit or SOMETHING. Fuck!

I did pick up a copy of Exalted (2nd edition) just so I can hold it up at vulpes and say "Guess what we're playing next?? Not this!" and throw it over my shoulder. Haha.

Other than that they had a bunch of Vampire books and a Greyhawk Boxed Set that's $30, and fuck that. The Exalted book was just cheaper than Amazon, and I'd categorize as near mint condition.

Also stopped by BooksaMillion and picked up the 40k novel which is the last part of a trilogy from an author I really like, so looking forward to that.

And still kinda chugging through Le Morte D'Arthur. It's not a hard read, really, just it's really kind of a bare bones narative and I have to stop reading it everytime I hit a WTF? moment.

Sir Pelleas is a creepy fucking stalker. His victim has to hide in a castle and hire knights to beat him up to keep him away, but thanks to a retarded plan from Gawaine* and a Lady of the Lake's magic, she does fall in love with him, just so he can then turn around and say "Fuck you, whore! You fucked Gawaine!" And then she dies of sorrow.

*Step 1: Wear Pelleas's armor

Step 2: Tell her Pelleas is dead

Step 3: ??? (fuck her)

Step 4: Profit!

Note: This has taken almost all week to type. I am easily distracted by /tg/ threads and Robbaz videos.



I've been a bit of an RPG kick lately. Well, still trying to play all the video games I was gifted, catch up on old Gundam shows, and paint some 40k minis, but mostly (kinda) RPG stuff.

Picked up a couple 1st edition D&D books from a store in Fort Walton. One is to replace my PHB which is falling apart, the other is the Fiend's Folio, which Book Bin would try to sell you for $75.

$10 motherfuckers! Fuck you, out of business local used book store!!


This is a WTF D&D? I think is hysterical. You're welcome, vulpes.

Also, last link and/or picture I'm throwing in here, I promise.

Reading through the good ol' 1st edition Fiend Folio, I've come to realize, that the monsters were created entirely to fuck with you. The entries are mostly combat statistics and special abilities, unlike the listing of ecology they had in later editions. But the fluff they do include, it's just there to fuck with you.

The carbunkle is a monster with a valuable gem in its forehead, that can telepathically inform you of the value of the gem, and the gem crumbles to worthless dust if the carbunkle dies. Carbunkles have no concept of death, and can will themselves to die. Because they have no concept of death, they are fascinated by death, and will use their telepathy to start fights around the PCs so they can watch things die.


There is no point to this fucking creature other than "hur hur u wants dat gem." I wanna see a DM put a fucking carbunkle in a game. Just so when I kill the fucking thing and he's all "teh gem crumbles into dust herp derp!" I can wipe the shiteating grin off their face with:

Whatevs. How much XP do I get for killing it?

I'm still seeing at least one goddam story about Mass Effect 3 every goddam day I look at anything game related, which has embittered me enough to swear off Bioware games, forever!

And not because I, you know, already have a huge backlog of b-day gifted games I gotta work down. I'll play you more someday, Civ5! Someday....

While I voiced indifference before, I'm fairly on Team Ending Sucks now, thanks to this GameFront article that goes into great detail on how much the Mass Effect 3 ending is shit.

And I'll admit, 90% of this on my part is focusing more on the form of the argument than the actual argument. To me, this is the bulwark. This is the debate you have to tear down for Team Bioware's Artistic Vision BLARG, and no one has done that.

I mostly get the impression from that team that they're only responding to the more cursory RAEG to the ending. The FTC violation report, the cupcakes (we sent Bioware 3 different colored cupcakes, but they all taste the same, just like Mass Effect 3's shitty endings!), that fucked up thing with Child's Play, etc. etc.

I mean, yeah, "It's Bioware's game and they can end it any way they want to, you self-entitled douchebags," is fine for all of that nonsense, but it doesn't address GameFront's argument. And if you're going to weigh in on that side for this shit, that's what needs to be addressed, not the fucking retarded monkey circus.

Bioware is releasing free DLC sometime though, that's supposed to provide closure without actually changing anything, which, really, I just gotta ask.... why free? At least slap 99¢ on there. Just for the fuck of it. They all hate you anyway. Make dat money!

Haha, but no, really, at this point, it doesn't matter. The cockslap to the face is that as far as they're concerned, they nailed it. Everyone who says different is a whiny douchebag who just wants to see Sheperd and Talia have their ice cream at the end and can't appreciate a bittersweet ending.

Maybe for financial reasons they can't come out and say yeah, we fucked up on this one, but it looks like they did, and it's worse that they won't admit it. Maybe EA will farm out Mass Effect 4 to some shit studio, and so this is not a true ending, but it seems kind of sad that the one forerunner for the "Video Games as Art" trilogy dropped the ball. I mean, this to me is like if Return of the Jedi was a complete piece of shit.

Although they did change the Aluminum Turkey (I can't spell Millenium!) getting the blowns up because test audiences didn't like it. TAKE FUCKING NOTES, BIOWARE.

So my favorite youtube gamer Robbaz, King of Sweden has been playing Facade, which you probably don't remember me playing around 6 years ago.

The funny thing is, as much shit as Robbaz talks, he actually tries to play the game, which is more than EVERY OTHER FACADE VIDEO YOU WILL EVER WATCH ON YOUTUBE. I mean, he does bullshit in the beginning, and occassionally bring up viking pillaging, but compared to all the other ones, it's like he's actually trying to get through the game.

Naturally, this lead me to reinstall the game, because really, why should I be playing all the fun new games I got for my birthday when I can be playing some Facade?

Well, first off, the script thing doesn't work, so I can't post the scripts here anymore. But now that I can actually get past the 2nd or so conversation bit, trust me, you really don't want me to.

Before, it'd take the awesome AI about 5 minutes to chug up an answer to what I'd say. Now thanks to me having a much better computer, since 2006, I can carry on conversations at a regular pace. This is not an improvement.

Protip: If you start off with "Hi, bitch." he will close the door right in your goddam face. I think that's my best record for getting kicked out of the apartment.

I guess I should just start off by saying that every play through on this game that isn't me getting thrown out of the apartment has ended in Trip and Grace's marriage being broken up. There's supposedly some way to reconcile them, but honestly, after the first 3 minutes of their shit, all I want to do is destroy these people. I'm actually pretty good at breaking them up now.

Some of this is randomly generated, so I think my personal favorite is when Grace tells Trip her big secret: That she always wanted to be an artist, and then he comes back with his: He had an affair.

Haha, that isn't even comparable!

The text parsing is all over the place. Sure, you can say whatever you want, but anything too random just gets you an "uhhhh". You actually do better in the game just grunting out the words they respond to like some kind of caveman. Which are pretty much sex, divorce, depression, bigger, wine and painting.

They also can't comprehend word structure all that well. One time I said "Grace is right," and her response was "Stop criticizing me!", because apparantly it could only figure out the "Grace is" part. You either have to just say "I agree," or start with "you are".

Since it also has problems figuring out which one of them you're talking to, it's easy to trigger shit you had no intention of. I think I typed out "You should be an artist," to one of Grace's tears about Trip stifling her creativity, and the response I got was "Trip be an artist? He doesn't have a creative bone in his body!"

The instructions say sometimes you should interrupt them. Good luck with that. I'm lucky if I can type out a response to questions fast enough to get em in before they start in on their next bit of dysfunctional shit.

And they don't even have real disagreements. They're just giving each other hell. Nothing makes either one of them happier than you shitting all over the other one.

At one point Trip is retelling how he proprosed (he got down on one knee, that's THE GODDAM STORY). At the end he goes "Isn't that romantic?" You throw in a quick "NO", and I swear to God, nothing makes Grace happier than that.

These people are fucked up.

I've been reading down the books I picked up when Borders closed, which was mostly the stuff in the classic lit section, because no one else wanted that shit.

Brief bit on the first two:

Apparently if something isn't long enough to warrant a $15 book on it's own (or $3.75 when you get it at a closing bookstore for 75% off) literary scholars love just padding it the fuck out. The Metamorphosis by Kafka is a short story, which takes up maybe a third of the book they published, the rest of it being essays and some of his letters and a drawn out introduction, etc.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass is a little worse because they could've made it a smaller book, easily, and the 'about the author' bit is basically how Lewis Carroll was a goddam pedophile who liked to use the new invention of photography for taking pictures of little girls naked.

There's also mention of portions of his diary that his family said were "missing", which I'd guess are all the parts they threw in the fire that contained references to fucking a seven year old named Alice.

"Thanks alot, Zogar, you asshole," you say. "Now you've ruined Alice in Wonderland for us, FOREVER."

YES, BECAUSE THAT WAS HOW IT WAS DONE TO ME!!!

Seriously, 19th century lit scholars, why the hell would you even put that in the book??

***

But that horrible bullshit aside, I'm on Le Morte d'Arthur, which doesn't bother with any of that shit, because it is fucking long. The essays and stuff, I mean. I'm pretty sure there's no pedophilia either. Just clarifying that...

ANYWAY, after reading Book I of this, I can sincerely say I don't understand why ANYONE thinks they need to do a different take on King Arthur for their movies, made for TV movies, television series, premium movie channel television series, etc.

The Arthurian legend as presented here has, at most, a passing resemblance to all the shit we've seen over and over again. I mean, sure, the iconic bits are all there, Sword in the Stone, Lady of the Lake, blah blah blah, but there is so much crazy shit included you could just include THAT, and you don't need to even bother with any "I'm totally gonna reinvent King Arthur" bullshit. You could just follow the book and it won't look like anything else out there.

For one, see the title of the post. Sure, Merlin's great for prophetic advice and magical disguises for sneaking in and banging a duke's wife, but for the most part it seems mostly like he's just fucking with people. And he never reveals the topical information until it's way too fucking late.

If you've seen the movie Exaclibur, it's close to this. The beginning is the same, Magic spell, Uther Pendragon nails Igraine. Where it's a bit different though is that after Arthur draws the sword from the stone, and all the other nobles say "This is bullshit, no little kid will be the king of England!" Merlin doesn't say a goddam thing. It's only way later that he chimes in "No, it's cool. Arthur is Uther and Igraine's kid, so he has a legitimate claim to the throne." The book even points out that there probably wouldn't of been a war over Arthur becoming king if Merlin had mentioned that earlier.

Merlin is habitually a dickish wizard like this. Almost always the first thing he does when he meets anybody is tell them how they're going to die, and when Arthur basically replies, "Man, I didn't need to know that shit," Merlin's comeback is that since his own death is so shitty, no one else has any right to complain. Yep, since Merlin's going out like a chump, he's gotta shit in everybody else's cereal.

Another thing he loves to do is disguise himself and go talk to people. This is unintentionally hilarious because half the time they see right through it anyway. " Oh, you won't tell me your name but say I should heed your advice. Hi Merlin."

The other half of the time when they don't see through his disguise they tell him to fuck off, then he just comes back as Merlin and explains that it was him the first time. It makes me wonder why he even bothers with the disguises. Everyone will automatically do whatever Merlin tells them to do anyway, it's like he's some jaded writer who's using a different pen name to prove to himself he's a good writer, and not just selling novels on his rep alone.

"No, my advice-giving is so awesome people will want to follow it, even if I show up as a dirty hermit!"

Fucking Merlin.

Oh, and the thing the movies, and tv shows leave out is that Arthur is a manwhore. Seriously, if any woman in these stories is mentioned to be attractive, Arthur will fuck em. And this goes on even after he marries Guenever.

And this goes back to Merlin keeping his stupid wizard trap shut, because unlike the movie, Mordred isn't a magical incest baby scheme, he's actually just a regular incest baby because stupid Merlin didn't bother to even tell Arthur who his parents were, and Arthur's sister was hot, and well, Arthur is a manwhore.

Sometime after the fact Merlin does pop up and give Arthur shit about it, because, you know, it's all Arthur's fault, and tells him Mordred is gonna be born on May Day(is that some kind of English holiday?) and will be his DOOOM.

Arthur's solution is to gather up all the MayDay babies and stick them on a boat, bound for wherever. But it shipwrecks. So all of them (except for Mordred) drown. And the parents blame Merlin, because really, fuck that guy. The baby boat thing was probably his idea to begin with. Fucking asshole wizard.

And this is getting long already, but there's also this bit where the Lady of the Lake asks Arthur to waste Sir Balin as her 'favor for later' from giving him Excalibur, and while Arthur is trying to weasel out of it Sir Balin walks in and immediately chops the Lady of the Lake's head off. It's not even that he overhears the conversation. They just hate each other that bad. And Arthur gets mad because this makes him look like a bad host. Seriously.


I know, I know, you're probably thinking you need to run out right now and pick up a copy of Le Morte d'Arthur to check this shit out. I should warn you though: It's a hard read. Besides it being Ye Olde English, apparently 15th century people had the worst case of ADD ever. Each chapter is 1 or 2 pages, and they hardly explain shit. Or they obsess over details that, I dunno, were super exciting 500+ years ago, not so much now. Like one chapter of a battle is entirely about characters having their horses slain out from under them, and then their buddies going and killing some other knights to bring their horses over to the unhorsed guys. I'm not kidding, there are paragraphs of this. It's like the most awesome thing ever is killing some dude for his horse, and Sir Thomas Malory had to include it twenty times in a row.

Also thanks to ye olde ADD, it skips around, ALOT. Not so much chronologically, it just seems like things happen randomly, and then after one random incident it jumps on to the next random event.

Book I is around 50 pages, and I'm pretty damn sure it'd take up all of season 1 of your HBO original series. Maybe more if you actually spend more than 5 minutes trying to establish who everyone is.

I have 2 or so entries I've ended up not posting regarding Mass Effect 3, because I realize that as much as I can build up a hate rant on meaningless things, this really doesn't affect me in any way, at all, and EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. it escalates more and more to where it's something I'm fairly certain I want no part of.

For those of you outside the loop: Alot of fans no likey the Mass Effect 3 ending(s). Since everyone talking about this shit is NO SPOILERZ!, I dunno a fucking thing about it. I'm guessing it's not "Sheperd and Talia go off and have ice cream."

So you've got one hand where it's "the ending is part of the game creator's artistic expression!" and the other where "I spent $180 and 120+ hours to get 'Sheperd dies, THE END'."

And I initially want to say they should all go fuck themselves, and then the ridiculous circus after that makes me wanna say it even HARDER (I'm not even joking, there are game journalists that talk about this like it's a fucking milestone moment), but when other game makers are chiming in that they feel sad about it...

It makes me want to say "I think that's the worst thing I've ever heard. How marvelous," in such a way that the Six-fingered man admits he owes me money for my saying it better. Honest to God, I want those game developer tears collected in a fucking cup SO I CAN DRINK THEM.

***

That aside though, this being my birfday month has swamped me with new games. I mentioned Civ5 and Saint's Row 3, but then I also Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3. Which, I still don't think is as good as the DX games Capcom made, but is an improvement over the first one. Even if I dunno who all these bastards from Gundam X and Turn A are.

***

Watched an anime called Bodacious Space Pirates. The more accurate title I feel, that it's overly long be damned, should be Joseph Campbell's Call To Adventure Stretched Out Way Too Fucking Much with Japanese Schoolgirls, with Little Space Piracy Background. Seriously, I'm longing for the piratical content of One Piece here!

***

I hate when I say I wanna watch something people will tell me "It's on netflix!" I don't have netflix. Shaddup.

***

blarg.