Nice kid, tries hard

So the wife and kid are still off visiting her family for Christmas but since I had to come back to work I have ample time on my hands. Better knock out a few posts. I don't visit well, whatever social flaws I have I know this one for a fact. So before we went off to see her folks I stocked up on some books to pass the time. One of them in particular sounded right up my alley. Sadly it began to fall short rather quickly.

The premise of this book is akin to, World of Warcraft mixed with the Matrix. Imagine that a crazy genius invented the equivalent of the Matrix but built it so that there were many worlds within that you could visit and it played just like an RPG. You level up your avatar, can collect magic items or sci fi tech and so long as you are in a PVP zone you can kill anothers avatar or be killed yourself. While this wont do anything to your actual body there are no respawns, you die, you start a new avatar at level 1. Now this crazy tech guy became stupid rich and he loved the 1980's especially all the geek culture that one who grew up in that era would have been exposed to. So when he dies and his video will is read on every station the world finds out that since he has no relatives, all of his wealth and control of his company that runs this virtual world will go to the first person to find the "easter egg" that he has somewhere in this virtual world. 

Well that sounds all right to me, and for the first little bit it was. The writing was passable and the story was laden with cliches but there were enough nerd "inside joke" passages that it kept me reading for a while. However the story never gets up onto its own feet. If you have ever seen the comedy of someone like Dane Cook then you might understand. It became nonstop "look at all these pop culture references, isn't that awesome? You can feel like you are in on all this." At one point the main character is talking about his DeLorean done up like Back to the Future, with Ghostbusters logo's on the gull wing doors, and a few other one offs thrown on top. It was like looking at someone wearing a hat on top of a hat. There is potential galore in the book, and I wish the author had gone back and trimmed and polished more until this book wasn't just a guilty little pleasure but an enjoyable read in its own right. But if you want a quick little read that has nerdy "easter eggs" riddled through it give this book a shot.

The End of the Line

So a campaign came to an end a few weeks ago. Pathfinder Second Darkness. The "good" guys triumphed, but at great cost. In the end it was a massive team effort and removing any cog from that machine would have likely snatched a hard won victory from our grasp, but a special shout out has to go to my main man, level 10 Illusionist cohort Muicadem ( Moo for short, though he HATED that ). This little scrapper was the guy that made it all possible. Using 3 level 1 Ray of Enfeeblements, he crit strength drained some giant snake demon of 22 Str turning what would have been a huge drain on resources right before the final showdown into a single turn joke as the demon greater teleported out after getting a hard beat down, then after the big bad girl had Disjunctioned us all and even our mono build 2 handed fighter couldn't land a blow. He beats her killer SR and takes away 11 Str, some grapples and Paladin beat downs later after she Heals/Teleports twice, he beats her SR again only this time he crits the hit for 20 Str drain. With the Paladin and his young dragon mount able to pin and smite her my double cursed rogue finally managed to get to the final glyph and we shut the whole operation down.

There were fallen comrades to mourn, the PC wizard who teleported away from all of us to escape minor damage, only to be surrounded and cut down just hours before our final assault.

Our two-handed fighter, who refused to change tactics and try anything but to hit the BBEG with full attacks, who fell to a blade barrier and was diced into hundreds of pieces.

Our Paladin, who also took a blade barrier to the face, but luckily I had a scroll of Raise Dead ready to bring him back and finish the fight. ( Though he is still slowly dying from his exposure to the Black Blood, even with his supernatural saves he has at best a few years left )

The monk, who replaced the PC wizard almost died twice, once from succumbing to drow poison, and then again trying to toe to toe the big bad.

Finally there was my Cleric ally, who followed me because she thought her patron Cayden Cailen had something in mind. Her body was consumed completely, nothing left to bring back, not that she would have wanted that anyway.

So now I bid farewell to my charming smart mouth rogue, his allies dead or dying. His outlook on life violently shifted, yet for the better. The paladin will want to hunt down the remaining drow, plus the few demonic loose ends that we didn't clean up using whatever time he has left . Moo will probably go with him, not out of any desire to see the world saved, but because he was promised the PC wizards gear and didn't get it. If anyone has the patience to listen to that mouthy little wizard extol his own virtues it would be the paladin. But "Twitch", he has his own scores to settle. I can see him seeking out a few more of those "Drow disguise" scrolls and heading back down, while humming "This Town", (Destroy MY hat will you?). Or just throwing his Haversack on his back and walking off towards the horizon.

Kingmaker next, and I'm either looking at a racist Elven Ranger, or a bookish, irritable Human Wizard depending on what the party needs. Not much actual "meat" to this post, but after a year it was nice to see the adventure to its completion, even nicer to have pulled a win out when the GM didn't pull any punches, in fact he said he went back into the book and re-statted her / changed her spell selections to make what he thought she should have.

Rig the Scales of Justice for story?

So, I read through the previous post. Clearly trying to type while coming off a 15 hour work shift is a poor idea at best. If I was a perfectionist I would go back and edit it but I believe in letting my mistakes propel me forward, and the knowledge that I won't revise this blog means I must remain vigilent on the "quality" of what I put up.

This said today's topic comes up from a nagging little issue I encountered several times months and months ago. The GM deliberatly hedging things in favour of the PC's. Now the GM in question has had this pointed out and is taking steps to rectify it but I will put up the specific issues I saw and why I didn't care for them.

1. Giving the players X chances to succeed.

This took several forms; we play where on each level up the player rolls his HP and if he doesnt like the roll can request the GM to reroll but must take the GM's roll. All was well and good but when one player rolled poorly, followed by a GM bad roll, later in that session the GM threw out that if that player performed a daring stunt that held approx a 80% chance of success and failure would flirt with death, that player would be allowed a 3rd roll for that levels HP. Not wanting to "be that guy" I didnt mention anything but felt marginalized. Another time one of the players got stinking drunk, derailing much of the game, at the premature ending of the session we leveled up, the drunk player being too hammered to roll his own HP was rolled twice by the GM getting a 2 and 2 again. Then the next session the GM felt it wasnt fair that he didnt get to roll his own HP and he was allowed 2 new rolls getting a 9 in the end. Now I have ended up with a 3 before and hedged my bets against rerolling a 5 while my comrades are giant blocks of HP. Now I can just say to myself "Turk you are playing YOUR way, don't worry about what others are doing" but the truth is I will generally mimic the table. So if the majority of the players are min/maxing and so combat focused that the only in game talking that occurs is related to the party mage proclaiming what NPC's have magic gear to steal, I will eventually start picking up similar traits.

GM's sometimes players will fail. This is important. Your front line fighter may not hit triple digit hit points until the mid-teens. Thats ok. Fail a jump and get a reflex save to grab something? Thats ok, giving another reflex save to the player or another to catch him? Maybe you should just let him fall.

2. Pulling punches

When masquerading as slaves to some Drow a player decided that he didn't like being talked down to by a noble, despite his character having the intellectual strength of a rutabaga. After cold cocking the noble I was thinking how we could go around retrieving his corpse to raise him, but instead of brutal torture/maiming and death the player was whipped ( which was promptly healed by our Paladin ) and sent back on his way. When our dubious mage sold our party out to a powerful Drow mage for the hint of possible power and they destroyed our disguises I tried to quickly activate my Hat of Disguise and feign shock that my "fellow Drow" were not Drow at all. The Drow Arch-mage then burned 25,000gp and a 9th level wish spell to destroy my hat. This rather annoyed me as I felt if she was going to burn 25,000gp and one of her 9th level spells over that she should probably have killed me rather than destroy a 1,800 gp utility item.

GM's if your players make poor decisions dont feel the need to pull your punches. We had 2 players each go to 2 seperate crime lords on thier own, making demands with their low level mooks that their abilities and history could never back up. The entire time they were demanding to speak with the Bosses I was expecting them to be led into the buildings to a secure room and get tuned by some thug named Rocco or the like but that never came to be. I'm not of the opinion that every NPC the PC's encounter need to be out to kill/rob them, but when dealing with known degenerates some of which are famous for their cunning and brutality are encountered feel free to impress upon the PC's that they are not dealing with civilized people. Especially if your PC's are something like a level 3 chump, no crime lord worth his cigar cutter is going to get all weak in the knees when some johnny-come-lately waltzes in and starts making demands. These people supposedly got to where they are by being smarter and more brutal than their contemporaries. Heck they should have underlings that are clever and brutal enough to deal with low level PC's well before the PC's even catch a glimpse of the Boss.

3. The enemy has a better Int than a wild animal, let them use it.

The enemies should be using every advantage that your players do. Players frequently make elaborate plans in combat that "free talking" shouldnt really cover. Allow the enemies to set up flanks or elaborate tricks as well. Wizards generally have high Int, let them use it. Have them cast spells in intelligent ways. If they have the time let them prepare the battle field, soak the ground in oil then toss a Fireball. If they notice a sterotypical min/maxed mage take the field, a good roll on Ray of Enfeeblement followed by a Rogue Str sneak attack or simple Str poison will drop that PC Wizard without even killing him. Nothing will freak a PC out more than the realization that there is a first level spell out there that can almost take him out of the fight and leave him open for a coup de grace.

Bards, Sorcerers and Paladins are notorious for having high Cha. The most under valued stat in the game. You can influence people with Cha. The PC's are a bunch of murder monkeys who laugh at everything you throw at them? Have that Cha 26 Bard incite a minor rebellion against them. Shop keeps that have heard all these horrible stories about the PC's might raise their prices, causing PC's to to act angriliy since they know the market cost of that longsword. Which will only serve to cement in that shopkeeps mind that these people are villainous. What started as possibly only a lie and rumor could now be considered canon depending on the players actions. I once turned a town against another player who had pissed off my character by doing nothing but inventing little lies, then when he actually performed some of them toting the evidence out to drunken mobs in taverns for several nights, rileing the people up. When a sizable mob showed up one night to "teach him a lesson" his PC stats offered little protection to 30 opponents swinging clubs and grappling him.

Theres more but the end result is the same. Your players will feel a sense of accomplishment in succeeding where they can fail. God mode on Doom was fun for only 5 minutes or so, it took the skill and danger out and left you with just going through the motions. Whatever rules you are going to play with stick with them. If Character death is not something you like, so be it, but think about what that means for your players.

A place to hang your hat

One of the guys from my RPG group contacted me during my off cycle while the family was away and asked if I wanted to go for a bit of a drive to a games store with him. Long story short, his girlfriend was training a new crew off in Oakville and since he was off as well he had went with her while she was staying there and stumbled upon a little gem of a store out there and wanted to both show it off and patronage their establishment based off the impression it left. This coupled with the opening of a new bigger established downtown store that I checked out led me to compare the 2 stores.

I will refer to the stores as Oakville and Toronto respectivly.

Toronto had huge square footage, I had been in their previous location and they were in desperate need of the space. I may be alone in this but I hate feeling like I need to turn around slowly for fear of knocking product over and with the shelves/stands and tables this store meant I always had to keep a portion of my mind cateloging where I was in the establishment and my relation to various merchandise. The new location had lots of open room, lots of it was taken up by the MANY (opening night ) nerds but once the place settles down there will be more than enough room to move about.

I can't comment for sure on the ventilation, there being far more bodies than normal, as well as the doors propped open I suspect to help generate traffic. But I suspect that there will be a heavy nerd musk that permeates these places.

Location was great, smack in the middle of downtown and only a minute walk from the nearest subway stop. However parking would be a real kick in the pants, and as I have moved from the teenager dependant on the subway to the "adult" that drives now for the convienence the concept of free parking is a HUGE draw for me.

Now for Oakville.

The store while having less total square footage had what I thought was a brilliant layout. There were 4 "rooms" that had doors and several tables with tabletop terrain held on shelves above. Apparently if you want a private room for tabeltop wargaming or are running a RPG you can I assume book a room or drop in and hope for a vacancy. Now this was just brilliant, I remember seeing RPG's being run in stores before, its almost impossible to avoid being a looky-loo just to see what the system/campagin/characters are being run and while I would feel slightly annoyed by people constantly leering into my RPG it would be a small price to pay for a central location back in the days when none of the players could provide. The actual issue that I have with this comes when people either set up shop for 20 minutes to audit your game and start interjecting into your game, asking questions is fine;

"Hey this looks neat what are you guys playing?"
"Oh this is Shadowrun, imagine the worst parts of Corporate America given steroids and a few decades to run rampant, we each play members of what amounts to freelance wet-works guys."
"Looks like fun, could I try?"
"Sorry we have a full table right now, but if your'e interested there is a sign up board over there where people looking for a game can join up."
The guy that runs the store almost always runs one-shots too. It helps newbies get into the game and they can buy the books generating income.

But invariably I have always seen spectators either start injecting their own non-sequiters into a game where players do this all too frequently, or even worse start providing their own "advise";

"Hey, your Wizard should cast a fog spell to give your guys concealment"
".......I dont have concealment"
"Oh well any Wizard worth his salt should always stock up on......etc"

The private rooms in Oakville eliminate these pet peeves of mine as well as reduce the distracting din of conversations that make listening to the DM difficult. Now you don't get the advertisement that seeing people play gives you, but any kid that spends any amount of time in the store will eventually see people setting up in one of those rooms for a RPG and can have his introductions, it just takes a bit longer.

Oakville also had quite a few board games for sale, and the best part was they had an opened copy of all the ones they carry to play test. Check out some game that looks neat but not quite sure how it would play? They will break it out and play test it with you. This actually led to my friend purchasing more as he was on the fence about it before but after playing a game found he really enjoyed it.

The A/C was running in Oakville and when it started to pick up you could sometimes catch a whiff of nerd musk it was always momentary. There was pleanty of parking, which while a bonus for myself particularly beacuse I was coming from out of area was unfortunatly a neccesity as I think it was more than a bit out of the way. But were I a teenager out in Oakville I would be willing to make the 10-20 minute trek from the nearest main bus route or wait the extra 20 minutes to catch the infrequent bus that went closer.

All in all, I find myself thinking back on my Oakville experience with better and better memories than I have gotten from any of the local stores I have gone to. Here's hoping that you have a place that resonates with you the same way this has with me.

Shadowrun Returns

Way back when I backed this game on Kickstarter. I like RPG's in all mediums and really find that most RPG's lack the gritty Bladerunner like atmosphere that I enjoy. Now I had only had a very brief introduction to the world of Shadowrun years and years ago but the universe was colourful enough that I was more than willing to fork over $15 to see what they would churn out. So here is my review of the game;

Lets get this out of the way first, my rating for this game "right now" is 4/10. HOWEVER don't be fooled by the rating, let me explain. The "main" campaign that comes preloaded is the reason for the low rating. I had thought/hoped that they would churn out a really engrossing story that would take me more than a day of playing to burn through. The Dead Man's Switch is fine as an introductory campaign but if this was all I was going to get then it would not have been worth the money.

That said, what I am hoping is that all the time and money went into really juicing up the editor so that people can write up a long and fulfilling story on their own with relative ease. They keep using the key words of "Community content" to make their point for this and once I have some time I will watch some YouTube vids to get the hang of it and try to make a practice "Shadowrun" to see how quick/easy it is to start building a campaign.

I hope that there is a lot of customization available. The gear was lacking, the sense of urgency missing, I want to be able to alter/add stats on weapons and armor. I want to be able to have multiple jobs available at any given time, but they are on timers. Just because you don't do the Renzaku job right away doesn't mean that another group of Runners won't step in and take that Nuyen. I want to make certain actions have long term effects;

 oh you broke into a corp and stole some sensitive info?

well 5 missions later guess who has hired there own group of Runners to get it back or at least send a message? And they show up while you're in the middle of something else. Or maybe when you were hiring runners for this latest one you saw a Street Samurai with killer stats and he was on the cheap.

"This is too good, it must be a glitch" you say as you hire Janus to your team,

then at a critical point in the Run, Janus suddenly goes from under your control to NPC and starts blasting you and your boys. Turns out "Janus" has been hired by that Corp and he has been sitting there for several Runs trying to entice you to hire such a deal.

Decking was never really as explored as I was hoping for, I want to design a level where your meatbags and deckers are working in tandem. Your decker will hole-up in as secure a position as you can make, then your meatbags continue with the Run, the Decker has to divide his time between shutting down security systems and grabbing targets of opportunity as well as eventually delaying any security that eventually locates his Jack-in point. Maybe have some kind of HP for a barricaded door so now it becomes a question of low long do you risk your decker providing your team his assets vs how long do you risk him getting overrun and ice'd.

All in all this game's future depends on the consumers. To use some lingo, if they put the Nuyen into giving us the best Deck, then baby, just you hang on, 'cause there's enough Shadowrunners out there with the skills to give you Runs to remember.

The SNES game never got the love it really deserved, we will see what Returns looks like in a few months. Till then,

Shoot straight,
Conserve ammo,
and Never, ever, make a deal with a Dragon.

The Multiverse at your fingertips

So there have been a few happenings in Turkland. My Papa (maternal grandfather) passed followed closely by my uncle. There have been others but that is all well behind us now, moving forward, always forward.

A few weeks ago I was speaking with my RPG group post-game and 1 mentioned he had just seen the Red Wedding episode of HBO's Game of Thrones. Since he was so blown away I assumed he hadn't read the books beforehand and asked him if he would like to borrow my copies. His reply left me kind of stumped;

"No thanks, I don't like to read. I would rather just watch the show."

It literally took me a couple seconds to process and confirm that I did indeed hear right. "But the books are so much better, not only does HBO have to cut content for time but you don't get the POV aspect that the book provides which reveals so much more than character exposition can. If you like the TV show you would love the books, that's like saying no to sex because you got a handy and as far as you are concerned nothing could be better.

I took a quick peek into one of the boxes of books I have buried in my basement and picked out a few fantasy titles I saw. I figure that the odd person who stumbles across this place can read through perhaps find something that interests them. I will throw out my opinions based on what I have read ( which in some cases may be no more than a single chapter ) take it or leave it as you will.

A Song of Ice and Fire.

Or as you may know it A Game of Thrones. This series I can't reccomend enough. If you have the time ( and the intestinal fortitude for some brutal scenes, incest, murder, rape, etc ) then grab yourself a copy and say good bye to your spare time.


Wheel of Time

This started out as a great series. And to this day the first 4 books I think were great. Jordan was able to write very well, but he wrote too much. Tertiary characters became psuedo primary ones, I couldn't really give a run down of everyone that shows up to the party and the actual story takes a back seat for what I felt was 6 books. Plot points would drag on forever;
Rand must be like stone,
Rand must be like iron,
Rand must be like steel,
Rand must be like cuendillar

The whole Perrin/Faile crap.

Then there was the racecar speed that finished off the series. I can't really blame Brandon Sanderson for my dilike towards the last books. After all that time dithering around if he was going to resolve all those plt points he probably didn't have much choice in how he had to play it.

One of the things I really liked about this series was that the "good" guys don't all just fall in line with the "Hero". Yes almost every series has those stubborn people from X land that have to be shown "The Way" but they are almost always depicted as foolish and obstinate for not joining under the hero's flag. In this series there is a sizable army of some of the more respected nations that outright defies the "Hero" for several books. When he does finally get to them and they talk they don't just cave to his whims. He is called to task for what he has done. It was nice to see a main character called out for mistakes or just plain called out for being reckless.

Another thing that I did like was the development of Swordmanship. Jordan keeps Rand training for the entire length of the series. There are several points where Rand really shouldn't be holding his own given his time spent with a blade but while that is a problem in the earlier books it matters less and less as time goes on. If I remember correctly it isn't until about book 11 that an official Blademaster tells him that he might be ready to be tested.

Overall I would give this series a 6/10. It would be higher but with all the "filler" books and other issues this is the best I can do.

The Lord of the Rings

You can't talk fantasy without bringing up the genesis of modern genre. For this entry I am including The Hobbit and Similarion. While this series may not bring the action and intrigue I do like sprinkled into my books what it lacks in that it more then makes up in it's storytelling and the feelings it evokes. Nothing comes close to the feeling I had reading about Sam's battle with Shelob. I could feel the webs around, I couldn't see much because of the oppressive darkness all around, only barely lifted by the light of the phial of Galadriel. A small internal cheer rose with each small "sting" to the fell spider, and when Shelob finally gave herself the telling blow I still remember the small smirk I had. But for all that there does exist an unfortunate downside. Sometimes the descriptions run on endlessly. I can't remember the passage but he went on for several pages describing the foliage. There are plenty of "dull" parts where I can see where someone would get bored of the world building aspects of the books but if you are going to go fantasy you have to give the Great Grand-Daddy his turn at bat.

Overall a 9/10 great read but personally sometimes the "World Building" goes on a bit for my tastes.

The Inheritance Cycle (aka Eragon)

Full disclosure I have only managed to hammer through 2 books. I couldn't force anymore down. This book while well written for a teenager I suppose utterly failed when I read it. I have no problem giving the guy his dues, I can't say I could have churned out something like it at his age ( or even at my age now ) but if you're going to throw your hat in the ring with the big boys then I am going to come at you like I would one of them.

This story basically hits all my hot buttons the wrong way. The main character spends I think a month training with a sword and then his dragon tells him "ZOMG you is soooooo good, I don't think anyone could take you" had this been a joke and the kid gets his ass stomped by some mook just to underlay how out of their element these people are. Sure the dragon thought they were awesome, she had never seen anyone else fight. It's like when the tough kid on the block picks a fight with the new kid whose been taking martial arts for years, an amateur vs someone who does this for a living.

There was a moment where I thought this might be interesting. The main guy takes a bad hit and becomes crippled. He cant really fly anymore but he gets a vision, an old Dragon rider tells him something like

"I was broken once too, come to me and I will show you how you can ride again"

Oh cool, I thought. He's going to learn how to overcome his adversity. Fight one-handed so to speak.
Oh no. Not at all.
Homeboy goes to train with the Elves but they are all just too fast for him, no matter what he does. All he can do is get close. So the super duper magics make him some kind of half-elf hybrid which incidentally heals his unhealable wound. Now the kid whoops the meany elf and can ride again, horray. Any chance for actual character development is lost and we have successfully removed any feelings of heroics from any of his actions, oh he managed to outfight someone who was super dangerous? Well of course he is super human now I expect nothing less. There is plenty more but no one needs to hear all the reasons I felt this series failed.

My verdict? 2/10 the only reason he gets the 2 is a nod to the authors age

Sword of Truth

Don't worry Chris Paolini, there is a series I hated more than yours. I tried with this series, I really really did. I went 6 books in before I contemplated putting a bullet through my brain to eradicate every memory of these books. Long and short of it is this;

The main character is a stand in for the author, his Mary-Sue-ness drips from the pages. Everyone is an idiot before this guy shows up and teaches them to wipe their own asses. He can't write emotions at all. At one point I think it went something like
"Kahlan grieved to undo her sins, she railed against herself, clawing at her spirit to make amends."
Sure this isnt a direct quote ( its been years) but I think it was pretty damned close.
One of my friends read all the way through and while he doesn't dispute my points he still enjoyed it. And hey it sold a bunch of books so other people did too. I won't even touch the stuff concerning the author, I'm talking about the product not the source.

My call? 0/10. There is nothing in here I would recommend, just write your own fan fiction about something at this point, you'd enjoy it more.

Dresden Files

This series is something of a guily pleasure for me. It's not particularly well written, and is sort of noir-fantasy so isn't quite what you may be looking for. But if you have time to kill, like Marlowe and don't mind some sub par writing you may enjoy this series too. I suppose my only real complaint besides the writing comes from what feels like the author inventing things on the fly to make the book work. Sometimes he does what may be foreshadowing but I am not entirely convinced. I would like to think that at some point around book 2 or 3 he sat down and spent a few weeks writing his world, and filling it with most of the plot points he later introduces but for some reason it just doesn't read that way to me. I can see him introducing plot points but they feel as if he is saying;
"Ok I will mention that there is a group of harpies living under a bridge, and I will come back to that later and figure out what to do with it next book"
But like I said, guilty pleasure.

My verdict? 6/10. It's not bad, but its not that good either.

The Belgariad

Its been so long since I read this that I cant get more than just a sense of my feelings for it. I remember I wasn't terribly impressed with it or with its sequel. I apologize for the lack of reasoning, but there you go.

What I remember? 4/10. Give it a read if you have nothing else in the chamber.

The KingKiller Chronicles

Last on this particular docket is the latest one I read. Loaned by a friend I had to tell him that I wasn't terribly impressed with it. It was chocked full of the usual tropes;

Kid comes to an establishment and rocks it to its knees with his genius. Outsmarts the smartest people, out fights the toughest people, does everything at such a young age, is able to bring a room to tears with his music. I can only take so much of that at once. The only thing I did enjoy about it was due to its narrative structure;
The main character is already famous and is recounting his tale to a scribe. So when the scribe starts mentioning his exploits and names, like The Bloodless etc you get to see the deconstructing of the myth into the man as the tale is told. You can see how Kevin the Wind Walker got his name when he leapt across a vast gap and a sudden gust of wind caught his clothes and propelled him across when no one should have made it. Now no one else would really get that and his legend would spread but you can get a sense of how the shadow cast by a mere man could be so big.

My verdict? 5/10. But hey after I read the second in the series maybe I will be eating crow.


Well thats a hell of a long post for now. My painting has fallen by the wayside, on the advice of a friend I will start looking into a "dip" that will help with shading. Hopefully I will have another post soon filled with pictures of minis that you would swear were photos the work is so good. But probably not.

If the cowl fits......

Everyone likes Batman, yes everyone. He's probably most peoples favorite, because he is basically designed to be a bad-ass loner. I'm reminded of a line in Reservoir Dogs where Mr. Pink complains about his name and wants to choose his own,

"No way, no way. Tried it once, doesn't work. You got four guys all fighting over who's gonna be Mr. Black, but they don't know each other, so nobody wants to back down. No way. I pick. You're Mr. Pink. Be thankful you're not Mr. Yellow."

So who was the best pick for stepping in and taking the cowl once Bruce was "dead"? The one they picked, Dick Grayson. Now I must admit I am personally biased. I like Nightwing, maybe on the same level as Batman. His story has so much more to delve through than I found in the others. I just wish that they would have kept Bruce "dead" longer and really give this a good run, I'm talking close to 10 years.

You had all the elements right there. Dick was the prodigal son, he's the only Robin who ever walked away from under the Bat's cape. You had the perfect arch enemy with Jason Todd. The Joker was Batman's, and he started as the Red Hood. Now you have resurrected Jason Todd running around as the new Red Hood. Trained by the same man, each knows about the other. I could totally see from Todd's perspective;

"This usurper doesn't deserve the cowl. He left Bruce, he forgot that its about the mission, it doesn't matter how much you hurt or lose, its about getting the job done. I gave it all for Bruce, he knew that. If Bruce were alive now he would agree with me, you can't keep using a light touch with criminals. They only come back again. I'm doing more lasting good than he is temporarily."

This kind of mindset I could buy, you've got Todd who possibly has an inferiority complex to Grayson, but also feels that his way of doing things is the best. Maybe even blames Dick for not being there for Bruce, and that if they used his methods Bruce may have survived. So now you can plumb that relationship while hiding the actual Joker ( he does not belong anywhere but with the real Batman, and the funny thing is he probably knows that too ).

It really felt right when my buddies caught me up and told me that Batman had been "killed" and Grayson was now the new Bat. Thematically he is trained by the Bat, finally forges ahead out from under his master's cape. Makes his own mark on the world, and then returns to take up the mantle of his fallen hero. It is a character progression that really only resonates with me once. If they "kill off" Bruce again or have him retire with Grayson assuming the cape and cowl it doesn't have the same punch to it anymore. There must have been a whole lot more steam left in the stories of Grayson and Damien that I would have loved to see.

You have Bruce's adopted prodigal son, caring for and trying to train his biological one. In my opinion this should have had a longer run than it was given. Rather than a lame "time dilation chrono bullet" or whatever they went with that brought Bruce back. Kill him off. Have his body claimed by the League of Shadows, throw it in the Lazarus pit, whammo, now after about 10 years of Dick as Batman, you can bring back Bruce, and remove some of that "Shouldn't Batman be like 60 or something by now" all in one fell swoop. But I am just one consumer of the material, I know that people get upset when the board is shuffled. A friend got really mad when they removed Wally West as the Flash because to him Wally was synonymous with the Flash, and he accepted the irony that Barry Allen was the Flash before Wally. I guess I just hate the soap opera feeling I get when after several story arcs, almost everything must return to its starting point.

Fan Boys

I went to see the new Star Trek film with the wife a few days ago. I rather enjoyed it, I will try to avoid spoilers when possible but will not dance too far around things so no promises readers.

I liked the movie, there were the obvious tropes and scenes that one can expect but even with them the movie progressed well. I did not require a lobotomy to enjoy the film and for the most part the action mixed well with the story telling. I actually thought it was better than its predecessor. Which got me thinking about a friend I have that hated the first J.J. Abrams film since the characters were so far removed from the previous incarnation of them. I pointed out that they had so neatly sewn that issue up at the start when they altered the time stream, I felt that was an easy way to say;

"We know X would never have behaved like this in the prime universe, but this timeline is no longer on that course, everything is up for grabs now. If you trust us for the next hour or so you may find you like what we've done."

But he was unwavering in his dislike. While I was thinking about that it reminded me of my hatred of pretty much everything Micheal Bay does and more specifically his proposed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. The leaked script that had the Turtles come from Dimension X which is inhabited by alien Turtles I wholeheartedly agree with the masses was a terrible idea. But I recently saw that the internet had exploded all over the fact that his April O'Neil was going to wear a Yellow Jacket rather than the Yellow jumpsuit that we remember. Now I hate most of the stuff I had heard of, as well as the casting of Megan Fox as April O'Neil, but I do have to give Bay credit here as a yellow leather jacket is the move I would have made myself. It's a nod towards the source material while not having her run around in an eyebrow arching jumpsuit.

I cant think of any work that Megan Fox has done that leads me to believe that this will be any different than watching the Transformers franchise, G.I. Joe, and the latest Indiana Jones nightmare. Frankly I thought that she had burned the only bridge she had and have no idea why Bay even entertained her as an option but that ship has sailed.

What makes the difference between turning a jumpsuit into a jacket, and Mutant Ninja Turtles into Alien Ninja Turtles? Why does one seem the only logical option to me and the other like its a bad joke? Perhaps its because one is a simple visual updating that has 0 bearing on the story while the other changes the main characters at their core. But really is the origin of the Turtles that critical to the story? Yes, yes it is.

Character Development

This diagram illustrates some of the character development I have seen in some of my favorite shows over the last few years. I want to point out that this does not count as character development unless she jumps off. Otherwise she is going to return back to the initial starting point and if that happens then there had better be a darn good reason, and it better not happen repeatedly. HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER.

This show has admittedly gone down in average episode quality but that's almost par for the course in any long running show, the episodes were still good enough to keep my interest, ( though I would usually just record it or watch it online later ). But after the season 8 finale I began to get annoyed.

I am going to assume that you either watch the show or have enough of a working knowledge that I don't have to hand hold you through this.

A few episodes ago Barney was kind of a jerk to Ted. Ted pointed out that as a man who is days away from his wedding perhaps he shouldn't be checking girls out in front of his bride, because she isn't as cool with it as she lets on. Barney's response was less than gentle, and included a little jab that Robyn is ending up with Barney not Ted. I had no idea where this reaction came from since we had already seen Ted "give up on Robyn" during the Last Play. Part of Barney's plan to propose to Robyn hinged on Ted effectively let her go and give her and Barney's future his blessing with 0 regrets. This was nice since the whole "Ted must finally let Robyn go" bit had been going on for years. They had mined this particular vein dry long ago and I was glad that the final nail had been put into that story. Then in typical serial TV fashion it got cracked open again.

Turns out Ted is leaving New York. He can't be in the same city after seeing his "soul mate" marry his friend. Not only that but now he has this super emotional gift to give Robyn at the 11th hour that even Lilly has warned him about. I liked the whole part where after calling all her friends, Ted is the only one to show up because he was the only one to pick up on the subtle hints that she needed someone. Now that whole mess isn't a sweet display of the special bond they share as friends but some sort of dangerous liaison of forbidden love. If you are going to keep Ted's infatuation with Robyn as a plot point, then stop having these long arcs culminating in him reaching a point of self awareness where he learns to let her go, only for it not to happen a few episodes down the line.

Battlestar Galactica did this. Apollo and Starbuck went back and forth so many times I literally got mad during the boxing episode. They are in the ring kicking the snot out of each other, everyone else leaves because its clear what is going on between the two, including their respective spouses, but we had already watched them reach something like 3 conclusions to their relationship. If I was in a relationship and we each decided to end things. We would end things, now that's not to say that there might not be a few reconciliations for a few weeks, I think it was Seinfeld who said
 "Break-ups are like tipping over a refrigerator, you don't get it done in one push, you have to rock it back and forth a bit."
But this kind of stagnation should not last years.

Well, at least I have Breaking Bad coming back soon, I was talking with one of my sisters a while ago and while she was complaining about how few episodes come out for it and how long it takes I countered with, would you prefer 12 episodes of Breaking Bad quality, or 24 episodes of Walking Dead season 2 quality? Well, I am off to play me some Guns of Icarus. Check it out, for $5 I don't think you will be disappointed. 

Not just a six letter word

I so often find that people enter my life. Most stay in some regard for years, a scant few grow close enough that I feel a personal bond to, then invariably there will be a parting. Be it distance, an increase in demand for one of our times, or just apathy these friends slowly drift further and further away, until one day you may think of them and realize it would be a bit awkward if you were to run into them. This preamble is leading to something I promise.

A while ago I had someone complain to me that I didn't respond to a Facebook post or something. When I told them that years ago I had set my Status to: "Is leaving Facebook forever, if you need to talk to him, actually talk to him" and never signed in again. His reaction seemed to indicate that either he hasn't actually looked at my page in years, or Facebook has some kind of expiry date on statuses. So I logged back in to delete everyone off my profile just in case I was cyber offending people unawares. I ended up deleting everyone but 2 people; my wife, because there are a few times I get sentimental and didn't like the thought of deleting her, and an old friend whom I hadn't seen for about a decade. I couldn't tell you why I found myself hesitant to delete this one guy, while I had no qualms about deleting my best friend for years who I still see regularly.

I met this guy in the very beginning of what I consider my formative years. He can nerd out right next to any neckbeard you've got but looking back what probably struck me the most was how unashamed of it all he was. Yes NOW in my 30's I could care less when the occasional snicker comes my way about my pastimes. But 17 year old Turk had the catch 22 of enjoying all these nerd things while having that innate teenager fear of being seen enjoying anything that falls outside the established "cool activities".

My wife always makes cracks at me when I go to my RPG group and I feel comfortable enough now to make them right back at her, I even told this same advice to one of the people I game with once " The moment I accepted that I was nerd was the moment nobody could affect me." Now, I own it. I don't intentionally try and act weird or fly my nerd flag for all to see but nor to I try and hide or sidestep the issue. Looking back I think I can safely say that this revelation came about because I watched a man, who would rather spend his time doing what he actually enjoys than put on a pretense and only do something he kinda likes.

It's a little funny that looking back and remembering all those people who appeared on your path at one time or another. Maybe only for a short while, maybe it was for years. I got a short synopsis of where some of the others are now. It's strange I cant picture any of them except as teenagers sharing an old tent with me, laughing at the strangest things. I wonder what mid 40' Turk will think of me now. He'd just better still have hair.