Deck of Many Things

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I need to update this site more often.

Someone asked me what shows I watch, and since my Tivo is going full bore lately, I figured I could entertain you all with my television habits. I may even write reviews for some of these shows at some point.

SUNDAY

The Unit (CBS)

MONDAY

How I Met Your Mother (CBS)
Prison Break (FOX)
Chuck (NBC)
Heroes (NBC)

TUESDAY

House (FOX)
Fringe (FOX)

WEDNESDAY

Pushing Daisys (ABC)
Private Practice (ABC)

THURSDAY

The Office (NBC)
Grey’s Anatomy (ABC)

FRIDAY

The Soup (E!)

WHEN TIVO GRABS IT

Mythbusters (DSC)

Yeah, I was bored, and found good photo reference

Spore users can drag and drop this into their game to get it.

Picked it up yesterday, and have been fighting for time with it versus my son.

If you care to get easy access to stuff that I have made, and stuff made by Andre of course, you can add me as a buddy as “DeckOfManyThings”.

Ok, Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition (4e) has been out for 3 months and in that time I’ve had a lot of opportunities to play and run, and hear about the games other people have played and run, so I guess I should give it a “review” of sorts.

On the surface 4e is a much simpler game from 3.5. A lot of the fiddly-bits (albiet more realistic) simply don’t exisit in 4e. I couldn’t find any mention of you dropping your held object or weapon when you are stunned or dying for instance. It makes for a faster, funner game. One of the concepts in the DMG is “Consider Yes” which we have translated to “Yes you can” in our games. As the DM, if someone comes up with an idea that sounds fun, moves the plot along, and isn’t game breaking, by all means let them do it! That is simply awesome, it puts the onus of the game less on the DM and makes the players part of the storytelling experience. If you ignore this and hold a draconian rule over your game as a DM in 4e, you will quickly find that you are doing nothing but running a chess game against multiple opponents, and it gets boring fast.

We are just at the beginning, but there are already a bunch of prepared modules and scenarios for DMs to use, and, as always, they vary in their quality. DMs who are designing their own encounters and worlds will find “prep” to be much easier this time around, and actually kind of fun. One of the things we learned pretty quickly was that when you are designing an encounter, count the terrain or room features as part of the encounter. For excellent examples of this, look at the sample module in the DMG. Most of the rooms there have a “schtick” that the players must deal with in addition to the creatures in the room. This makes for more colorful fights than “I hit the monster with my axe”. When you have to worry about a giant boulder that is making crushing circuits around the room, suddenly you are trying to manuever opponents into the boulder’s path, while avoiding it yourself. This is way more fun for the players and more engaging for the DM to run as well.

As a player I am really getting into my Rogue. She’s 5th level now, having run through all of H1, and the very beginnings of H2. I love the powers exploits that she has available. We don’t have a Wizard (Controller) in that party, so my rogue has been concentrating taking powers that reposition herself and her opponents, to better control the combat situations. This has saved party member’s asses on more than one occassion. One thing to watch out for is your party’s Defenders getting Damage Envy of the party’s Strikers. Strikers can output a TON of damage every turn if their dice let them. So much so that Defenders quickly feel inadequet in that department. The fact that Defender’s defenses are generally WAY better than a Strikers is nowhere near as apparent as the damage disparity. If you play a Striker, make sure you reinforce how awesome your party’s Defender’s AC is or how the fact that he Marked that guy just saved your character’s life. This will lessen the sting when you do 30 points of damage on a non-critical hit, taking a foe from “Uninjured” to “Bloodied” in one attack.

The last thing I want to talk about is MapTool. This is a piece of Java software that connects players across the country to the DM’s campaign and maps. You have customizable tokens for your characters and the monsters, and the DM can make very elaborate maps with MapTool with very little effort. There are also dice rolling Macros you can program that can put numbers into the rolls straight from your character’s token (like your Strength Modifier for instance). It really is an awesome piece of software, and I hope that Wizards is paying attention to it as they designed their upcoming Game Table. It really does make playing D&D over the internet as close to (if not a little better in some ways) playing in the same room.

So I have been asked to give a speech tomorrow at my parents’ golden anniversary party. Here’s a sneak peek at the speech I wrote, based on interviews I had with both of them a couple weeks ago.

A wise man once said to me that “there are many different stages to love”. With my parents celebrating the 50^th anniversary of their wedding today, I wanted to take the time to extol to you what some of those stages are, and give you some insight into how my parents have tackled fifty years together.

I would say that one of the more popular stages is “Bliss”. Bliss is that whirlwind at the start of a relationship where one another can do no wrong. You see perfection in everything the other person is doing. I had asked my parents how they met and my mom’s version involved seeing my dad at a basement party her sister Jean was throwing. My dad had just gotten out of the army, and my mom asked her friends if Randy was seeing anyone. To me that is Bliss. The dating started soon thereafter, and even though the two were involved with other people at the time, I count myself lucky that they ended up together. Or else I wouldn’t even be here today to give this speech!

Another stage to love would be “Opportunity”. A couple in love will take any opportunity they can get to further their relationship. My parents found this stage when they decided that they should get married before my dad went to electronics school. This left just over a month to do everything. Get a place to marry, set up a reception, plan a honeymoon, everything. Fortunately my mother’s sister Jean and their mom called in every favor they could to see to it that the wedding went off without a hitch. A small problem occurred when the priest at my mother’s local church refused to perform the service, but a neighboring church had no such qualms. They couldn’t be married in the church proper, but in the chapel, since my dad was not catholic. For the chance to be married as quick as they did, it didn’t matter to them in the least.

Still another stage of love is “Unconditional”. This is the first point where a couple has to ask themselves “what have I gotten into?” when they look at their spouse. Fortunately for my parents, the issue that sparked this was relatively minor. My mom had forgotten her allergy medication on the honeymoon, and woke up the day after the wedding with one of the worst allergy attacks in her life. My dad was a trooper, and he convinced the local pharmacist to call and confirm my mom’s prescription so she could get the medication she needed. A lot of people might have taken that incident as an omen of worse things to come, but my parents just laughed it off as one of those things that happens to make your honeymoon even more memorable.

You’re probably thinking at this point that I am running out of stages, but I could go on and on. “Memories” is a stage, such as the most memorable delivery my parents had would have been my sister Peggy. From the fact that John Glenn had just orbited the Earth to the fact that the nurse technician scared the crap out of my mom by telling her he heard she was having twins. That was by far the most memorable of all the childbirths for both of them. “Parenting” is a very long stage, which I have the most experience with. The couple has to agree on how to discipline their kids together. Fortunately I was the little angel and never got into as much trouble as my older siblings, but the stories I have heard of the things they have done, and the punishments they received, are probably what scared me straight. I think at least one of my siblings is still grounded for life, if I’m not mistaken.

Finally I am going to talk about a stage that I probably shouldn’t: “Secrets”. Everyone has secrets, and in talking with my parents I could tell they still had secrets. This is probably a good thing, and I didn’t want to pry, but I did ask them both to share one secret with me: What is the secret to being married for fifty years?

My mother’s answer was “separate rooms”. You see, eventually, as the years go by, you tend to take different interests. By having their own rooms in the house, my parents consciously avoided situations where one or the other got on the other’s nerves. And the less you get on each other’s nerves, the happier a couple you will be. That is a good solution to get to 50 years.

My father’s answer was to find someone who shares the sanctity of marriage. I know that I myself did not enter into marriage lightly, and my sisters had definitely found their soul-mates when they settled down, so this is a lesson that my dad can rest assured that his children adhered to.

I just want to reiterate what I have been saying here today. A wise man once said to me “There are many different stages to love… and your mother and I have been through every one of them.”

Thanks Dad, for those words of inspiration.

So let’s all raise our drinks and give a toast, not only to my parents Randy and Marlene, but to Love and all the stages it comes in.

Yeah, that’s right this heirloom piece is made for GAMING. Space for books, drinks, and even has a light up 1″ grid (so you can lay grid-less maps over it and get a grid pattern on it). I want this so bad, but I don’t even know where I’d put it. At work for now I guess!

Anyway if you want to get your order in ahead of me, head over to www.geekchichq.com and plunk down the 50% deposit that’s required to get your place in their order queue.