Lack of Journalistic Integrity: A Rant

After reading through this months Game Informer I find myself...well...as irritated as ever.  I know I've gone on the rant about the lack of journalistic integrity in game rags before, and especially this one, but I really feel I need to point this months issue out. 

It is the “Top 50 Games of 2012” issue.  Now, I agree a lot of the games on this list are legitimately good games, but this list seems to represent the most PUBLICISED games of 2012.  I mean seriously, nearly 500 games have come out and that doesn’t even include small indie titles that didn’t have the official console stamp on them. (Also, there are some games still set to release later this month).  Are you telling me that out of these 500 games and between 20 different reviewers the “best” were Halo, Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed III, Final Fantasy XIII-2, Black Ops 2…gah!  And “Mists of Pandaria"!? Really?  That’s the same game that has been out for 8 years but now has 50% more Kung Fu Panda …seriously people. 

 

Now, don’t get me wrong there are a couple of toss in art games that feel more like a tack on than anything else. “Here’s the title, a stamp sized picture of the box, and three sentences about it.” “But look over there, a half page on Borderlands, and a full page on Mass Effect, then another half page on it later in the same article:”…buh…

Then there are the editors, 20  of them, and there’s about as much diversity here as a Klan meeting.   It’s all 30 something white guys…wait, there’s a token Asian man, this is the gaming world after all…and…oh hey, is that a girl? 

So…the picture starts to make a little more sense.  All of these games are aimed at the “Target Demo” a 30’s something, white, male…because that’s what the magazine is written by and pandered too. Are you telling me that out of the 500 games from this year the top 10 lists of ALL of these editors look almost identical save for some small variations and the people publishing this thing aren’t seeing a tinsy bit of stagnation and lack of differing opinions.  This is a gamer rag after all, it’s supposed to be about opinion, and having different opinions. 

 

“Did you see this game dude?” “I know dude, it’s totally awesome.” “Hey! Tits McGee, did you see this game it’s awesome isn’t it.”  “Um yeah guys it’s awesome, should I put it on my top ten list.”  “Oh yeah tits, you totally should, especially ‘cause they sent us all free posters and stuff.”

Maybe it’s not that bad, but the “content” of the magazine really doesn’t paint a much better picture. 

 

I am shaking my head right now. Because the irony has not flown over my head

Yes, I am a 30 ‘s something white male, I do play Assassin’s Creed and Halo.  Would I call them the best games I’ve played this year? ….meh.     But when I read a rag of any sort I want to read some news, something outside my sphere of experience.    Not be brow beaten with the same games that advertising has been shoved down my throat since it was announced at E3 two years ago.  Especially when these editors are supposed to be playing games for a living and be, oh I don’t know, journalists.  That’s like a movie reviewer going and seeing ONLY movies that have television spots and then copy pasting the box summary.  “I love this game because you can do *insert game gimmick here*” “I love this game because of it’s awesome shiny graphics.” I hate to break it to you, but a shiny turd is still a turd. And a mouth full of bland ass oatmeal is still bland ass oatmeal even when it has food dye in it.

Big budget, and big production value, and big advertising do not necessarily make a “Best game”.   Best new game I’ve played this year?  Probably the Walking Dead, but then again I like point and click adventure games and it’s been a LONG while since one has been released that didn’t feature Elmo or come packaged with a toy.  And yeah, this game gets drooled over it’s fair share in the article as well but, then again, this same rag tore “Jurassic Park” apart a couple years back for the same reasons it’s drooling over the “Walking Dead” now.  What’s the difference you ask?  Why Zombies of course, and advertising, and Walking Dead is HUGE right now! Dinosaurs are so last century.

Also, a lot of games I play are classic or retro games.  And some of the games released this last year were retro games with HD upgrades to the graphics.  How did these hold up?  Are they still fun to play?  Hell, I still dust “Zone of Enders” and a few others off from time to time for the sole reason of them being damn good, and damn fun games.   Did they fix any of the control issues?  Come on journalists! Be motha fuckin’ journalists!  Tons of retro games were re released and not a one snuck onto the list…but…Mists of motha fuckin’ Pandaria did.

 

So here’s too you Game Informer; and your list of polished turds, oatmeal, and the odd raisin.   

*sigh*
/end rant

Three helpings of the same tasty Zombie Dish

So...Zombies.

The Walking Dead. 

If you haven't watched the show yet, you should.
If you haven’t read the comic yet, you should.

  

That said, I just read the first two Hard Cover Volumes of the comic (24 total issues).  The third season of the show seems to be picking up where the 2nd volume (Issue 13) starts.   But there are some very important things that I should point out.

 

First: The Comic and the Series have the same premise, some of the same characters, some of the same set pieces, and some of the same big plot points.  But What the characters do, who dies and who lives, and how it all goes down are so different that it is entirely worth reading/watching both if you like one or the other. They are almost two completely different stories.

Second…and Third and Forth Probably: The narrative focus of both differs. 

 My comic nerd side is ashamed to admit that I watched the show before I read the comic. 

The show focuses much more on the interpersonal relationships and the Drama of the situation. He said-she said, who’s on who’s side, and the like.  It is after all a “Television Drama”  Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of walking rotting corpses, people getting eaten, action, and interesting survival situations to keep things moving and engagin but, especially in the second season, the show slows down from time to time to examine peoples feelings

On the comic side of the coin it is a Survival Horror comic.  And it is very firmly grounded in that, the Survival and the Horror.  This gives the comic a more frenetic pacing and characters thinking more about where their next meal will come from than making sure that someone’s feelings aren’t hurt. But don’t think that the characters are any less developed or emotional than those on television. I’m simply trying to highlight that each of the two focuses more on one aspect than it’s counterpart, not that these things fail to exist in the other.  If they weren't there neither would be the amazing stories that keep fans clambering for more. 

 

Last bit is about the Walking Dead Video game...no, not the Facebook social game that is providing your information to people who want to pay for it…that’s a rant for another time. 

I’m talking about the Point & Click Adventure game released by Telltale Games.  Most Tie-In games for something from another media have a habit of being well…awful.  Typically they are made for the sole purpose of having fans of the series shell out more money because it has their interests stamp on it and are rushed through development to get them out while the “Iron is still Hot”.  This one though, is one of the exceptions.  It ties almost directly into the television continuity; so when television characters cameo their actual actor is the one you hear talking.  But that’s not what makes this a delightful bit of gaming, that’s more of a cherry on top of this sundae. 

The game, or games if you prefer, since it was released in “Episodes” is more like an interactive movie mixed with puzzles.  The interactive part has you taking on the roll of the protagonists and helping him make decisions on what to say and what to do when snap decisions need made.  Who lives and who dies being the biggies.  The cool part about this is that they are not decisions between “Good or Bad”.  Most of the time there is no “right” choice and they do pack a bit of emotional punch if you connect with the characters at all.

  The puzzles are all pretty logical, and in some cases almost ingenious. Example: find batteries for a universal remote to turn the t.v. at the electronics shop across the street on to distract the zombies.  The dialogue is well written and preformed and the art direction tying it to its comic roots. Short (a couple of hours or so per episode) but replay able if you want to see how different decisions effect the outcome…they do carry over from episode to episode for the curious.   

 

Am I fanboying over the whole Walking Dead phenom here?  Yeah, kinda.  But that’s what I do.  I write about the things that bring out strong emotion from me.  Good and bad.

Fanboying aside and looking at this through the eyes of a 30ish gent who grew up with monster movies and scary stories:  Each of these incarnations are solid entries into the Zombie field.  For being scary, for being zombies, but most importantly for having a well developed narrative and character depth that most horror movies and games tend to forget about in favor of shock and gore.  Don’t worry though, there’s plenty of that too. 

A Change of Pace

Yup….I haven’t posted in…months.  Then again I haven’t really played any table top games in months either.  The odd session here and there sure but nothing with any real meat to it.  Not because I don’t want to play, it’s just been a busy time.  Moving, new work…oh yeah, and me being so socially awkward and antisocial that I haven’t made any new friends since most of my old ones have moved away.

That and I have been doing studies in some of my other pursuits.  Video games, comics, books, movies, and television.  I look at these, and what I’ve been writing about them, then I look at all of the different forums that I post my thoughts, introspections, and reviews on and I think to myself “Why don’t I combine them all into one place?”  So that’s what I’m going to do.  And maybe with my brain being a little less scattered trying to section of all of these facets of myself and embrace them for the thing that they all share.

Narrative.  The telling of stories.  Examining life from different perspectives and looking at it either through un tinted glasses or characturing something so that what ever is being exaggerated can be examined a little more closely.  So here we go.  Everything under one roof.

You have been warned.

Welcome to Jack’s Dialogical Self.

Behind the Screen: Let's go that Way!

It’s a week before your next game and you come up with a brilliant idea.  You plan out all the details.  The encounters are clever and mind bending.   The NPC’s are hand crafted to the point that they have more detail to them than some of the PC’s.  Situations lend themselves to the adventuring parties’ strengths and weaknesses... 

 Game day comes, you have the table set. The adventurers stand at the mouth of the cave.
“Let’s head back to town, I want to pick up some more parchment and ink.”

“Yeah, I need some supplies too.  OH! And we can catch a ship north.  Isn’t there supposed to be a sunken castle or something up there?” 
“Cool, let’s go.”
Then a lightning bolt comes out of the sky and strikes all of the adventurers dead on the spot….

If you’ve ran a tabletop game you know that Players, unfortunately, have minds of their own.  And situations like this pop up more frequently than most DM’s would care to admit.  Maybe not the stray lightning bolt from a clear sky, but all of the hard work, all of the intricate planning is put back in its folder and slid away in a drawer because the players decided to go a different rout.   

Enter the random encounter.  Stock monsters from the monsters manual, pre generated NPC’s from the book, or just faffing about shopping in town. 

Well…kinda. 
When ever I plan an adventure I also plan for the players to NOT go on the adventure. 

Generic Encounters

One thing I’ve put together for myself is the book of “Generic” encounters. These encounters are generic enough that they can be put into any setting but still give a little spice while the group is on the road, in town, or just to buy myself a little bit of time to set up the next encounter. 

 It doesn’t take a whole lot to put one of these notebooks together for yourself, but they can be invaluable when in a tight spot.  Each entry is just a couple of sentences, a roll or two, and a loose set of stats for NPC’s that might be needed. 

A trader on the road stops the group to try and sell them copper buttons and second hand traveling supplies.  He has a slave hidden in his wagon for a local land baron.
Sense Motive check to see that the trader is hiding something
Nome the Trader : HP 6, Blows his nose a lot.
Slave: Dehydrated and bloody cuts from ropes at Wrists and Ankles

Or

A fox has its leg caught in a bear trap.
Fox: 3 HP

Trap: STR 15 to open

As I continue this blog I’ll try to have a generic encounter to close out most posts.  Or if you have ideas for quick and easy generic encounters that isn’t the stock monster or bandits on the road situations feel free to put it in the comments.

Also, look for more on how to deal with Avoided Adventures in the future. =oD

Behind the Screen: You Miss....

“You miss.”

Two of the least interesting words that can be uttered by a Game Master. 

      When running a game it is the responsibility of the GM, DM, Story teller, what ever you want to call them, to facilitate an engaging stories and exciting adventures.  It’s apparent to any player that they missed a skill check, or missed with the swing of a sword, or missed with a gun shot, but what isn’t always apparent is HOW they missed. 

     Regardless of system there is always a target roll to hit or miss and the closer a players’ roll is to this number the more spectacular a miss can be.  After all, just because someone didn’t deal damage, it doesn’t necessarily mean they “missed”.  When fighting creatures with thick hide or a soldier with thick armor a “miss” is often a hit that didn’t deal damage. 

     There is, in fact, a combat session that has gone down in history as one of the best just because of such color.  Both sides, goblins and heroes, were rolling poorly and the deciding factor came down to a critical fumble taken advantage of with smart decisions on the part of the players.  But the whole combat was nearly an hour of “You Missed” that had everyone laughing and trying again just to see what would happen!

“Your arm jolts from the swords impact on his shield and sparks fly, but it bounces ineffectually off of his shoulder plate.”

Or
“Chips of stone fly and dust puffs into the air as your bullets riddle the wall just next to their head.”
Or
“You can feel the tumbler in the lock starting to give before it snaps back into place”
Or
“After nearly an hour of studying the book some of the concepts still seem foreign but they are starting to make sense.”

A little color to the “you missed” can do a lot for the moral of a player whose character may not be suited to the situation they might find themselves in or the player that is rolling poorly.  Some players even try for the one in a million rolls because if they succeed it will be cool but failing can still be fun and interesting. 

Character Building: I want to do that!

Some game systems are fairly lenient on what skill set you can select for a given character.  Others are much more ridged.   For the purposes of this article I’ll focus on Dungeons and Dragons.  Both 4^th and 3^rd editions have caused me more headaches, both as a player and DM, when it came to skill selection than other systems. 

            What head ache you ask?  The question of players wanting their character to have a certain skill or ability but it’s a “cross class skill” or is comes from another class.
           The first thing to understand about published game systems and modules is that skill and ability selection have been played and tested so that they are, hopefully, balanced with the rest of the game classes, monsters, and encounters.

Story Trumps Rules

            Let us say a fighter, as a young person, worked as an apprentice in a print shop and learned the ins and outs of printing, pressing, and creating documents but was then fired because they were using this knowledge to create fake invitations to royal parties, or writes of property.  Then, after being fired the fighter ends up on the street and becomes a thug really learning a tough life, thus earning the class of fighter.  However, part of what the fighter did to make ends meet, was to take this knowledge of printing and forgery to work as a doorman at certain events catching people that were using forged invites, writes and the like in the same schemes he was facilitating as a youth.  Does it really seem like Forgery would not be in this characters skill set?  Or a cross class skill at that? 

And there in lies the rub.  From a GM stand point, if a player offers a plausible portion of back story for their character and is willing to spend their meager supply of skill points in the case of a fighter on something that isn’t normally in a fighters skill set  Why should they be penalized for that?   

          Something to take into consideration as both a DM and a Player you do need to is balance.  Ultimately it’s the responsibility of the one running the game to make the determination about a change being requested. Is it within the balance of the game system? With the rest of the group?  With monsters or enemies that they might encounter?    
            Skills within the D&D realm are pretty easy to swap out without out too many concerns for balance.  If a character would like a skill as a class skill that would not normally be it is easy to trade with one that is. However, when swapping out things like Class abilities it may get a little tricky. This is when you should ask a few questions both before making the selection or allowing it as a DM.

1.  Is the Ability within the same ability level of the character?

2.   What is the player giving up in order for their character to have this new ability? 

This can help with the first question a bit. Usually when a player would like their character to have an ability that is normally associated with another class they will have to give up something their class would normally have at the same level. 

3. Where does it come from? 

Even if another class gains ability at the same level there may be other things that class does not have to compensate for the power associated with a given ability it.  Spell casting, Turning undead, Back Stabbing, Free Feats.  All have different levels of usefulness and balance issues that come with them.  So as the GM make sure you understand the full extent of the requested ability before agreeing to a character having it. 

4. Will it need limited?

Say a rogue wants to Have Turn Undead in exchange for their backstab ability?  Assuming the player has a plausible and well thought out story reason for this of course. Since the rogue does not have ranks in cleric the ability will be limited to begin with.  So do you leave it at the weaker form or,  like the ability it’s being traded for, will it become stronger as the character levels up? 

In the end, the biggest piece of advice I can offer when allowing characters to swap abilities or skills in any game system is: Be familiar enough with the system enough that you can recognize balance issues and address them.

And remember, multiclassing is  almost always an option. 

Table Top Accssories : Mini Rant

One thing that is not necessarily required, but often fun even if they aren’t used on the table is minis(or miniatures if you prefer)! They help you and other players get an idea of what your character, monster, or any other permeable set piece looks like.  Minis can also help clear up rule arguments in regards to distance (if they are to scale with everything else), location, and what exactly is a viable target in combat.    

The only downside to minis that I have found around the table is Metagaming.  One Players character spots an inbound motorcycle coming down the road so I place the motorcycle on the game map showing where it is.  Another Players turn  comes up and they say. “I scan the motorcycle for military markings.”  I then have to remind the 2^nd player that their character is currently engaged in a fire fight with enemy troops and that the 1^st Player did not let anyone else know what they saw.  This is just one example of a situation that arises in most games where minis are used. . 

Let’s face it, when people think of table top RPG’s it’s always the fantasy games people think of first which seems to be true of companies that make minis as well.  Sure, if you want to play Warhammer or a Star Wars you’ll have plenty of choices at your local game store, but what about older or more fringe games? 

Toy Store!! 

          The awesome thing about Sci-Fi games is that you can find tons of cool space ships, robots, cars, trucks, and anything else you can think of at a toy store.   Need cars? Matchbox and Hotwheels have got you covered.  For both real world, concept, and crazy off the wall things.  The only real issue I’ve had with these little cars for gaming is finding people sized minis to go along next to them. So, I’ll often used flat tokens or coins to show where a character is in relation to the vehicles. 

How big is big? 

     Trying to figure out the scale from one toy to the next is a bit of a hassle when not all of them give a scale ratio.  What I tend to do, especially when trying to keep robots and other strange craft to scale with one another, is look at the cockpits.  Typically a cockpit is meant to hold a 5 to 7 foot pilot with a little bit of wiggle room.  Comparing cockpits and cabins for scale will work with most anything that you can see inside of.

You can also ignore this.  Say you find a robot that is meant to be 50 feet tall, but want to use it for a characters personal power armor.  It’s easy to do as long as you determine how tall it should be.  After all, you’re playing a game of imagination so tap into your inner child and figure out how big it “really” is.   You’ll be surprised at just how many things you can find that are “in scale” with one another once you start looking outside of the hobby shop. 

           

Not on the Table

            Maybe a player finds something that is “exactly” what they are supposed to be using.  Cool, but it’s way to big or small to be in scale with the rest of the figures on the table.  They can still use it but you, or they, will need to find a place holder for the table.  Then use the mini that you or another player might have to help show where damage has occurred and to get a better since of what people will be aiming at. 

Place Holders

            Can’t find a proper mini for the table?  Place Holders. 

Cardboard boxes: They are great for vehicles. You can then put character minis, equipment lists, and even stats sheets in them to help keep track of what they carry.  If you’re feeling really crafty you can always carve those same card board boxes up to make a better representation of what ever craft you’re looking at. 

            Clay and Putty are awesome, malleable, and easily resized to fit your needs in regards to shape and scale.

            Game pieces are great for any setting. Chess pieces, checkers, dominos.  You can often find bags of these loose pieces at thrifts stores. 

            Rocks: Bags of rocks and stones from a craft store, or even a nifty one out of the garden.  Just be careful the game doesn’t become too heated and people start throwing them.  

            And as always, use you’re imagination!

           

I know a lot of this might be common sense to the more seasoned gamers out there. Though, keep in mind,  what we veterans take for granted as common sense might be a revelation for you to pass on to new players.