Receipt Wars!

I've been thinking about you, Blog. Just because I'm not posting doesn't mean you're not in my mind!

I've also been going through old stuff, through my Google docs and my black book, looking at some of my old thoughts, and feeling like I need to come back to some of them. And one of my favorites was Receipt Wars!

I've always loved randomly generated things. I loved 1st edition D&D, at least the way that Dad ran it, because it always gave random characters that you had to almost decode to figure out what they were. I've played Rogue-like PC games where they just basically hand you a character and let you go see what you can do, and loved those as well. I've got lots of other thoughts for this along the way, including using names to generate minions for a war game.

So thinking about this, I was bored one day while working at the convenience store, and decided I'd try to amuse myself by coming up with a game. But I didn't have any dice to generate the random numbers with, and really didn't have much of anything else with me either. But, I did have a huge number of receipts, and lots of pennies if I wanted them. So, might as well use the resources that I have and see what I can get!

Randomly generated things from receipts seemed the next logical step. But what can you use from them to randomly generate things? Well, what things do each receipt have (since I wanted this to be usable outside just the convenience store I was in)? Each one has some record of the time that the purchase was made - some have two, one when it was started, one when it ended. Every one of them has a record of how much your purchases were. And how many items you purchased. Most receipts have numbers by each item to say what they are, but not all of them - fast food receipts, for instance. So that one's not usable. And, well, that's about it.

Out of all these, two of them are basically random, and one of them you can control - I'd rather they all be out of the player's control but I'll take what I can get. But they're all - except for the number of items - huge numbers, or irrationally arranged ones. So, what to do?

I don't know what to call the operation. I've called it weird things, like full sum, or digit total. But what I do is take all of the individual digits in the numbers in question and add them all together. Then keep doing that until you get a one-digit number, between 1 and 9. So, if you take a number, like $23.96. 9+6+3+2 = 20. Is that one digit? Nope, so do it again: 2+0 = 2. Is that one digit? Yes, so that's your answer. Another example: 21:36:45. 5+4+6+3+1+2 = 21. not one digit: 2+1 = 3. So the price number from this is 2, and the time number is 3.

But that doesn't make a character, or anything you can actually use. So what do we do? Assign logical titles to these numbers, in some way that you can use them to fight each other. Well, hm.

The stats that I ended up deciding on were Speed, Might, and Brain. But how to get those numbers?

Well, let's go over what each receipt has again: price, time, and number of items. Logically...

Price. Everyone's trying to keep how much money they spend down, and if you can spend less for the items that you're buying, people call that a smart purchase, or you're shopping smart. So the price number becomes Brain.

Time. You always want to get in and get out as fast as possible. Entire lanes in supermarkets are devoted to this cause. And you certainly don't want your shopping to take all day. So the faster it takes, the better. Time becomes Speed.

That leaves the number of items. Well, the more you have, the more bags you fill. The more bags you fill, the stronger you'd need to be to bring it all inside, or even out of the store! Number of items becomes Might.

But there's no stat for hardiness, for toughness, for constitution or wounds! How can you determine when your character-receipt thingie is taken out? And how do you take one out, anyway? That's where the pennies come in.

Each round, you choose one of your stats. Typically, the one that's the highest. Depending on which stat you pick, you're targeting another one of your opponent's stats, using a rock-paper-scissors type element wheel thing.

Attacking with Might: You batter your opponent senseless, reducing your target's Brain.

Attacking with Brain: You present a mystery, puzzle, or logical fallacy for your opponent to pause and ponder about, lowering your target's Speed.

Attacking with Speed: You run around really quickly, tiring out your opponent as they try to catch up, lowing your target's Might.

Once you've determined what stat you're using, and thus which one you're targeting, your opponent does the same. You know, in any order, it doesn't matter. Then, you both take six pennies and toss them on the table. Be gentle though, you know, because you don't want them to go everywhere, and you have to be able to tell yours and your opponent's apart, so be gentle, but make sure that they're random as possible. Then, count up the number of heads you get, and add that to your stat. The person who gets the highest number wins the round and gets to damage their target. But remember what number you did get, even if you lost, because if you're being targeted, you get to subtract your number from the winner's number, and that's how much your targeted stat is reduced by. If any one of your stats is reduced to zero or below, then you lose! The battle continues until there is only one receipt standing, because... There can be only one!

Basic rules:

Add all digits of the numbers until you get a number between 1-9.

Most recent timestamp = Speed

Number of items = Might

Final Price = Brain

Brain targets Speed

Speed targets Might

Might targets Brain

6 coins, count heads and add your chosen stat. Reduce loser's stat by difference of loser's and winner's totals.

First to get any to 0 loses.

Idle Thoughts

Been thinking about posting for a while now but I haven't gotten around to doing it. Why? Been busy! Ditching one job, gaining two more, along with dishes and holidays and children and a million other excuses not to blog.

I'm not even sure where this article came from - K was looking at something, and it linked to something else, which linked to something else - but it made me think. It's a neat little article, comparing looking at web pages ultimately to eating - not just web pages, but media in general - and creating something for other people to read to exercising. Which made me think, aw heck, why aren't I blogging? The idea of getting these ideas out there in a place where they might help other people is awesome, becoming a part of the new social media is fantastic. But I never know what to talk about.

This article is what I was reading that pointed to that one, so I think I'll start there. The amount of technology, no the level of technology, that we have now is incredible. The ability to read another person's social cues with a simple camera. Measuring heart rate without any physical contact. This is stuff I know I heard about when they were talking about 'project Natal' before it was Kinect and I thought it was fascinating then, but it seemed a little out of it. Doing all that stuff with an xbox? 'Come on, it's not even as powerful as your average computer,' I thought to myself. But apparently it is possible.

Along the same lines, augmented reality has fascinated me for a long time, too. I remember seeing a movie about a guy holding a little tablet and watching as zombies attack the town he drew on the table, helping to defend it by placing skittles on the board in different colors to produce different effects. Well, I found it again but the program isn't released yet, they say that there aren't any handhelds powerful enough to run it yet. But a quick search found a whole bunch of neat looking augmented reality apps for a cool phone like mine. I'm going to have to check some of them out.

All of this wraps around in my head to the comic I discovered the other day, A Girl and Her Fed. While it does take a while to get into that part, it covers quite a bit of augmented reality, and what a savvy group can do with it, which to me has been simply fascinating. The ghosts don't hurt much either. (Seriously, read the comic. It may seem slow going for a little while but it really picks up and it's kinda attached itself to my head, and to K's too. Really makes you look at Ben Franklin in a different light.)

And now for something completely different.

Back to more of the norm, then: a post not about food! Don't worry, foodie readers, I'm sure I'll come back to it. I still have an entire spellbook - I mean, cookbook - full of notes to ramble on about. But today's post is going to be about something else close to my heart.

That's right, I mean Dwarf Fortress. It's an awesome game. I don't just like it, I love it. While the graphics may be simple, the game itself is dangerously complex. Dangerous I tell you!

Okay, so crazy ranting aside (making this a rather short post!) it's a fun game for those who can get past the ascii art graphics. The amount of fun you can have with the game, and in what different ways, is spectacular. The main idea and goal is to use the small number of dwarves that you're given in your expedition to create and keep up a stronghold in a randomly generated fantasy world. The world isn't pre-generated (although you can get some that are if you'd like), instead they're procedurally generated each time you decide you want to make a new one. Don't feel like ever making a new world? The one you already have is persistent, and everything you do in it stays, in one way or another. Things even down to the legends of heroes gone are generated for the world's backstory. The world generation alone makes it one of the most complex games I've ever played. But it doesn't end there.

Your dwarves can master tons of skills, make things as simple as copper picks and as complex as drawbridges that lift with the pull of a lever to magma pumps to bring molten hot rock up to the surface to melt the faces off of kobolds at a whim. There are no set rules for the game, no boundaries, nothing to follow but your own very whims.

Therein lays the problem of the game, though: I've already started three fortresses, and lost one, and I'm still trying to get all the way through the tutorial! There is quite a learning curve on the game, and that's probably (this is all speculation, mind you) why they've kept the graphics so simple. Not only to make it so that the complexity of the game is the forefront, not the looks, but also to help dissuade any who might be looking for just some simple easy thrills (for that, I suggest Unreal or maybe even The Sims if you're looking for a similar genre).

TLDR? If you're ever looking for a good way to waste hours of your life with something very complex but incredibly fun, download Dwarf Fortress.

OMG readers and suggestions!

For those of you who just want my ganoche recipe, here's the TLDR link to it below.

Just as a warning for what's about to follow: I'm a bit high on my meds right now. I had to not only come home early from work yesterday but to stay home today because I have just contracted a latex allergy! I wasn't aware this was something you could just spontaneously get from working around and with latex, and I'm sure not happy about it. I'm rashy (although even after not even twenty-four hours of meds, the blisters are already drying up and the rash looks tons better) and dizzy and exhausted. I slept for close to twelve hours last night and will probably nap later. As long as I'm sitting, things aren't too bad, but standing up makes me want to sit down again. Whoo.

Anyway, back to this foodie business. I love food. I'm fat and while I'd be happier if I, say, had a little more definition to my chin, I'm content the way I am. I can walk to work comfortably and only occasionally get winded when climbing up small flights of stairs. And I love food. Maybe not as much as, say, Anton Ego, but I love it. I used to be picky as heck - I wouldn't eat pizza because it had tomato sauce on it and I don't like the taste of tomatoes, but ketchup and spaghetti-os were fine - but I've been growing into more food as I get older (pizza is phenomenal!) and loving to try to cook with more and more ingredients as time passes. I love keeping fresh garlic and onions in the house and peppers for as long as they last, all three things I think my parents would be shocked to find that I not only eat but enjoy now.

Of course, like any fat person, I like chocolate. Any form of chocolate is great, but I really enjoy dark. I'd say 'The darker the better!' but once it gets to a point, dark chocolate just isn't tasty anymore. Don't believe me? Go take a big bite out of some baker's chocolate and you'll see what I mean. Man, that was a mistake.

But all this is getting to the main point: ganache. My wife tells me that I have a request to post my recipe for this wonderful concoction, so I thought 'Hey, if someone's going to make a request, I'll totally do it!' So here goes.

Actually, oddly enough, the wikipedia article I posted a second ago has pretty much all you need to make a good ganache! But I'm not going to leave it there, that'd be silly. And lazy. And while I'm typically both of these, I'm medicated today, so here goes!

I've used ganache a few times. I was first introduced to it by the Dove Ice Cream containers (probably vanilla caramel pecan): they pour a layer of ganache on the top of their ice cream before they ship it off. I remember bypassing this ice cream a few times before my food evolution, mainly because I had no idea what ganache was and didn't have a good phone like I do now to look it up with. I got it once, and was hooked, but I still didn't get what made ganache so friggin' tasty. I figured it was something so far out of my league that I'd never be able to do it at home and just left it at that. Then, watching Good Eats (Oh, that wonderful Alton Brown...) he threw out a ganache recipe as a frosting recipe in Art of Darkness III, kind of as an afterthought if I remember correctly. Or was that the chocolate sauce? It's been a while and I'm medicated. He made it look so simple! It's just equal parts dark chocolate and cream. And heck, I love both of those ingredients (I should do a post on my favorite uses of cream at some point...) so I thought, what the heck, let's give it a go! I don't remember what we used the original batch for - it was so good, I think we just ate it with spoons from the fridge, though I do remember pouring about half of it onto the tops of some Ben and Jerry's we had in the fridge and letting it sit for a bit to indulge in some Dove-like chocolate love. When my wife's most recent birthday came around, I knew I wanted to make her a fantastic cake - at the time, we were not doing so great financially so the cake was about all I could get for her birthday, so I wanted it to be as great as possible. So, after finding an awesome cake recipe online (I looked through Alton Brown's, but fell victim to his sciency-overcomplicatedness far too easily, and this recipe had the most irresistible URL ever) I decided to make a ganache frosting for it, like Alton Brown suggested in the first place!

I came across some problems with the ganache frosting, though. It was lovely in consistancy when beaten with a whisk, but it was too bitter, because, of course, I used semi-sweet chocolate to make it. So how to fix this, I thought to myself? Well, if it's too bitter, why not add some sweetness? I'm afraid I was silly enough not to be making notes at this time so I'm going simply by memory now, but I know I added sugar and a little vanilla. I used confectioners sugar at the time because I didn't want it to be grainy but I bet superfine sugar would work just as well. I believe the recipe went something like this:

Simple Ganache

16 oz (2 cups) of heavy whipping cream
16 oz (2 cups) of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Pour both in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave in small intervals (15-30 seconds, depending on the strength of your nuker), stirring after each interval. Continue until the chocolate's melted and the two can be mixed. Mix!

For the frosting, the basic recipe had this added to it:

1/2 cup confectioners sugar
a dash (somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 tsp, to taste) vanilla

Once the chocolate and cream are mixed, add the sugar and vanilla and mix again until combined. Cool to room temperature (if you're lazy or pressed for time you can toss it in the fridge, but keep an eye on it) and beat with a whisk until to the desired consistency. Spread over cooled or frozen cake and enjoy!

Chocolate Syrup

It's been a while.

There, with that out of the way...

K and I, I might as well admit, are crunchy. At least, that's what she tells me! It doesn't bother me either way, really, it's just a label. But I do like the cloth diapers, and making our own stuff when possible, and the organic food really does seem to taste better. My favorite part is totally making our own food, like the things that we would normally buy prepackaged and over-processed.

My most recent was chocolate syrup, like you'd use to make chocolate milk. Hershey's Syrup for those with trademarks on the mind. Well, after checking out the ingredients and looking around, I decided to try to make my own. The fact that they had to add the word 'flavor' after the words 'Genuine Chocolate' had no small part in this decision.

First, I found Alton Brown's recipe from the Art of Darkness II episode of Good Eats. Man, I love that show. One part mad science, one part cooking, one part crazy. But some of his recipes, though incredibly smart and tasty, are way over-complicated, or require some very hard-to-get things for a dad on a budget. This recipe isn't any of those things, but I still didn't like it. It called for corn syrup which, well, lets just say I'm wary. So I left out the syrup, but the result was less than satisfactory: it was watery, over-sugary, and not very chocolaty.

So I found another recipe online, through another blog, and tried that one out too! Turns out this one was much the same, watery and not chocolaty. So it was time to experiment.

On a basic level, the recipes are all pretty much the same: a simple syrup of 2:1 sugar to water, and some cocoa, about 1/4 as much cocoa as syrup, a dash of salt, and some vanilla. So I thought, hey, what if I use some of these chocolate chips we have in the fridge instead of cocoa? Maybe that'll make the flavor right. So with some backwards conversion, I ended up taking out a little of the sugar for the syrup and boiling it all with some chocolate chips instead. It didn't really help, and it ended up adding some unnecessary oils, too. Not a big deal, mind you, but still. Simple ingredient conversions aside, it was time to think about what the real problem was.

It wasn't chocolaty enough! It just tasted like I added some sugar water to the milk with a hint of chocolate in it. And usually the vanilla taste overpowered the chocolate. So, easy solution: reduce the syrup, increase the cocoa (well, not both at the same time) and remove the vanilla. So that's what I did, actually double the amount of chocolate chips I put in. And it was better! But still not great. You could taste the water, in the milk, and it was off-putting and weird. Yeah, I know, water is tasteless and blah blah no it's not. Even if you add some water and then boil it away you can still taste it, which is why so many cooks on the Food Network add other liquids like stocks or juices or alcohol when they need to make their dishes more watery instead of just water. It makes things taste cheap. So, what's the solution? Well, what am I going to be mixing this stuff into? Milk!

Well, the conclusion for me wasn't that cut and dry: I actually did some other research first, upon thinking to myself that I wanted to make it taste like fudge. Actually, specifically, I wanted it to taste like my mom's fudge syrup. (Story behind that: Mom used to try to make fudge when I was really young, and unfortunately fail - I think it was the lack of a candy thermometer so she'd know when it was hot enough, with a touch of impatience: I mean, it's fudge! You just want to eat it. Her fudge trials would end up being this sticky liquid goop that tasted oh-so very good on vanilla ice cream and made an awesome shell when it cooled. Not the kind you'd have to crack, but it sure did stick to your spoon.) I'd asked Mom before where she got her fudge recipe, and she'd told me her old Joy of Cooking, which I'd gotten a copy of from my brother as a birthday present. If you don't have one and you like cooking, go get one! It's kind of old and stuffy, but the information and techniques are incredibly useful. I jokingly refer to it as my master's spellbook, while I'm writing my own spell book with my own, translated spells in it (OMG D&D REFERENCE WHO'S SURPRISED). So I looked up the fudge recipes in there, and was surprised to find the basic recipe was the same: simple syrup of 2:1, about 1/4 as much cocoa, and some salt. Of course, as cocoa, they involved a lot more boiling and getting to the right temperature, and then usually adding a little butter at the very end, but the basics were the same. But, one of them (fudge cockaigne, whatever that means) called for milk as part of the simple syrup instead of water! Perfect!

So I tried it. And it was awesome. So here it is:

1 cup milk
6 tbsp cocoa powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup sugar

Bring all of this almost to a boil at low heat, stirring often. Let stand to cool, then add to milk until the desired color and flavor. Best if stirred with a whisk.

Strongholds and Warlords

I realized as I got up this morning at a way too early time that I actually didn't blog yesterday. It'd be a lie to say that I forgot, I just didn't take the time to do it. So I've already lost my challenge. Doesn't mean I won't keep blogging! I can't get this stuff out of my head fast enough.

While I said that I'd post something about my meta-game idea for Furcadia today, I actually think I'm going to skip it. It's not that I think this idea I AM going to post about is better, it's just more developed. The Furc idea needs to simmer a bit in the stew of my creative juices.
That's actually a really gross metaphor.
Anyway!

I've just recently gotten my grubby paws on a copy of the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook by Wizards of the Cost for 3rd edition D&D. It's old enough so it's probably built for 3.0 and not 3.5, but that doesn't really matter so much; the two are nearly the same anyway, so it's not like it's a big thing. I'm sure a lot of players looked at this book and thought 'Oh, look, more specified rules for an already too-specific game, making it even less of a ROLE-playing game and more of a ROLL-playing game. Whoo. I'll pass.' but in my want for completion, I snagged it up to take a look-see. And while it took a while for the idea to come to the surface of my mental soup (ewww) I got some neat ones from it.
First off, the ability to not only build but price practically any practical building with the system put out in this book. If any of my players in 3rd ed really wanted to sit down and say 'Hey, I want to build my own bar,' I can pull out this book and sit down with them and say 'Okay, here's how you do it and how much it'll cost.' Sure, I could just as easily pull something out my butt and call it good, but it really seems like the uber-planning is half of the fun of 3rd ed. You can sit down and plot out everything to the last speck of dirt and hair if you want to, and sometimes that's a whole lot of fun. Sometimes it's not, and that's okay, but when you want to, there's no better system than 3rd ed.
Another reason to do it is the same reason that I printed a copy of the World of Warcraft RPG section about making cities and towns, and why I photocopied the pages from an old Dragon magazine about building countries: because I'm an idea man, and putting them into 'reality' isn't my strongest suit. Sometimes it's nice to have something there to rely on - to fall back on - to help me out with this stuff. To tell me and remind me what a temple needs in it, what a town needs in it, and all of that. The system has also helped me realize what's wrong with some of my oldest ideas - for instance, Pine's Bend - and work toward fixing those problems so my world doesn't have those gaping plot holes as elephants in the room that no one wants to bring up else they'll fall into them. Pine's Bend isn't a trading town, it's a guardpost and stopping point at which people just happen to also trade goods. It's not a town, it's a stronghold, and I can use stuff in this book to create it and draw it up as such.
The best reason I like this book, however, is because it may let me realize one of my favorite things that I've tried to do with a tabletop RPG for as long as I can remember: Play Warlords. Specifically, for the purposes of that link, Warlords I. I can remember long afternoons, mornings and nights, sitting with my brother playing that old DOS game on the computer that Dad built, having him beat me over and over but I didn't care, it's a fun game and we would sit there for hours, before school, after school, on weekends, whenever we could, just playing the game and listening to Weird Al. To this day, I can't hear "Slime Creatures from Outer Space" without thinking about Lord Bane and the Sirians.
But ever since getting into D&D and playing that game (which, if my memory serves, happened in reverse order) I've wanted to combine the two. To be able to control a fantasy race with a leader who can get cool stuff, and go take over keeps and landscapes and explore ruins and dungeons while building up keeps and troops and dealing with plagues and and and and I could go on, but I won't.
So here's what I'm thinking. I get together a decent bunch of people. They all choose a race and make a hero, probably 5th or 6th level is what I'm thinking right now; high enough level to be important, but not high enough to be the ultimate leader of their people... Yet. Choose whatever the heck you want; all 3.5 rules are available, especially including and suggesting the rules from Savage Species (one of my favorite books thus far, btw). Everyone gets the Leadership feat for free as a way to start off the game; you're a LEADER for crying out loud, you have to have some people to follow you. Plus, everyone would start off with some extra cash specifically toward putting together their first settlement. Enough to make a small keep or something along those lines. I'll have to crunch some numbers to figure out how much money that ends up being. Then, using their initial race as a starting point, they enlist their cohorts and followers (sidekicks and minions?) and hire their henchmen (cannon fodder?) and do whatever it is that they're going to do! I think it would end up having to be played like Warlords, so to speak: Slowly. It's not something that you'd sit around a table on Sunday nights playing. It'd be more of a PBM type game. Which I've never done but heard good things about, so hey!

I'm going to go make Pine's Bend as a settlement and see what that takes for cash, and use that as a guideline to figure out how much to give these people. Then I'll bring it all up and see what they think.

Doom to others!

Today's post: Playing old games with new twists!
In a few instances, this concept requires cheating, and may not be for everyone, but they might just be a good way to get some more play out of an old, good game.
The first and the one that I've been playing this way for the longest is something I fondly refer to as Beastmaster DooM, perhaps not-so-aptly named after the movie of the same name. The concept is to play DooM - as in the video game of the same name - while putting a new twist on it. The idea is never to kill anything yourself. In many levels, especially those in Doom II, there are plenty of monsters and zombies and what-have-you that you may never have to actually dirty your own hands to get through the level and even get close to a 100% kill ratio. Here's how you do it.
Start the game off as normal - begin the level in question with a pistol, and that's it. Sure, you could cheat if you wanted to and give yourself more guns and ammo with a simple code, but there's no need. What you do want to do, however, is to make yourself invulnerable (otherwise known as god mode) and gain the ability to walk through walls - and thus, monsters as well. This keeps you from picking up any more ammo or weapons too, but in this scenario, that's a good thing, as you only need the one gun that you already have. Besides, if you get really strapped for ammo, you can fix that easy enough with the aforementioned cheat code.
I never really decided on a real story idea behind this one, but the beastmaster idea always appealed to me, for the same reason that I enjoy Pokémon - you get to be in virtual control of something else that you can make fight for you. And because the monsters in Doom will fight each other if you can get them to damage each other - a brilliant and fascinating game feature that seems far before it's time for such an old game, and one that I've never seen correctly reproduced - you can go through the entire game letting everything else fight for you.
Walk through the level chosen as normal, getting the attention of the demons and zombies therein and enjoying the symphony of their screams and rage as you do so. Don't worry, you're not even here - practically an illusion to them, since you can walk through them and they can't affect you in the least. If you're not getting the proper attention, take it from them with your pistol; consider it a godly smite for not worshipping properly, or a simple slap from a trainer to get the unruly beast's attention. Since it takes several pistol shots normally to kill anything, even the simplest zombie, the pistol is the best weapon to use. Then, after you get a decent sized group following you, lead them into another group, and have fun! See which side comes out victorious, and egg them on if you have to.
Here's a few tips and strategies I've found work well with this type of game:
* Imps are the best army of folks to use in this scenario for one simple fact - their ranged attack doesn't aggravate or damage their fellow imps, so they'll never set upon themselves. Because of that pack mentality, they'll be the best to get to follow you, and they'll follow you the longest.
* Try to stay close to your chosen herd. If you have their attention, they'll usually engage you in melee (that is, those who have melee attacks will, anyway). If you want something else to get their attention, pop out of melee - remember, you can walk through anything - and get the attention of some long-ranger with your smite pistol, then hop back behind one of your herd as the other target shoots back. Instead of hitting you, the new target'll hit your herd, and then you'll be at it again!
* Try to stay away from elevators and teleporters. Sure, almost all of them work for the monsters, too, but sometimes it's hard to get them to follow you onto them.
* Use Doom Legacy. All you need is the (small) program from their site to run the game, and the (large) Doom and/or Doom II and/or Heretic .wad files that hold the game information. Honestly, the main problem these days is actually getting your digital hands on the wads; unless you own a copy of Doom or Doom II, they're practically impossible to find, and since they're supposedly still being produced, it's not abandonware.
* Have the monsters respawn. It's not an actual cheat code like you'd expect, but apparently a game setting (at least, I know it was available in the copy of Doom 95 I used to play on, and in Doom Legacy as well). The monsters are on a timer; after they die, their corpses disappear in a flash of green light and they respawn where they originally are. This will greatly increase the amount of time you can spend in a level having fun, and (if you're a completionist like that) also increase the chances that you'll get at least 100% kill ratio greatly.
* Pick the right level. A good level for this type is a decently large one with a good selection of monsters and a good number of them. Of course, always play the game on the hardest difficulty - not Nightmare difficulty, since the cheats don't work, but the one below that - so you get the largest number of monsters in each room. My favorite level to play this style of Doom in is one from Doom II. It's called the Refueling Station, and I believe that it's level #14 in the wad, but it's been a while.

I was going to use this post to also describe my thoughts on how to make playing Furcadia more interesting if you're tired of just hanging out in one dream and/or role playing in one place, but I don't want this one to get too long.

To Dos and Goals

It seems like I haven't blogged in forever, even though I just blogged yesterday. I guess it's just been a long day.
Anyway, besides that...
My wife brought up the idea of making a few lists: one for short term goals, one for long term goals. I didn't say so at the time - I was pretty zoned, after work and driving around aimlessly can do that to me - but it seemed like a pretty good idea. So I thought I'd do it here. Why? Two reasons, really: One because it makes the list seem more solid, more real, if I show it to someone else, and who better to show it to than you, Internet? And two, because maybe someone else will read this and get their own idea to do the same thing to make themselves better, too. Hey, who knows? I'd love to have more positive impacts on other people's lives.
So here goes.
Oh, a little definition first: The short term things are things for the next week or so, while long term is more like next month through the rest of the year. The short term list is the To Do for the next seven days, long term are more Goals than To Dos.

I want to make sure that I take my vitamins every day, and in doing so make sure that Kiddo takes his, too. We both take the gummy Flintstones (r) or (cm) or (whatever), so it's easy to get him to take his because I'm taking them too. This is a To Do.
Along with that, I want to keep taking the St. John's Wort. To Do.
Another To Do: Walk three times a week. Even if it's just down to Walgreen's and back - heck, that's almost a mile, so that's a good walk. The four-hour walks that Kiddo and I take are good, too, but almost too long. And I need to stretch before and after I walk so maybe my legs won't hurt so much so often.
Stop eating more than two servings of sweets at a time. Hey, I gotta start somewhere. Another To Do.
It seems most of my list is going to be To Dos. Like stop eating fast food. Which does include Hardee's, even though they're technically 'slow' food.
I want to get to level 55 on Wow before the Refer-A-Friend bonuses wear off. I want to be able to make Death Knights on other people's servers, and finally have a decent leveled character.

Let's force out some Goals.
I want to save $200 and put it in savings.
I want to never be called by someone collecting money again.
I want to pay back my debts.

Another To Do: I want to rearrange my hard drive and re-backup my stuff once it's arranged in a logical manner.

Really, that's about all I got.
It's sad that all my Goals have to do with money. And I really can't come up with any more.
I bet that says something about me.

Thirteen to Thirteen: 30 Days of Blogging

Okay, I've decided something. Whoa, hold on to your chairs, this is different: I made a decision! Omg.
Anyway.
I'm tired of ignoring my blog. I started it for a reason and wanted to do something with it, and then I keep thinking about it and talking about it with my wife, but I never do anything.
So today, in the shower, I made a decision.
(I find I think about a lot of interesting things in the shower. Stephen King mentions stuff about that a few times himself; he likens it to the environment in the womb - filtered light, constant noise, warm, moist heat, and solitude most of the time. I find that a bit more than half of my showers are taken with a cute toddler these days, but it still feels pretty solitary.)
I'm going to force myself to blog every day, at least once, for the next month. Thirty days, at least thirty blog posts. It's not like I don't have enough to post about - I can think of at least five blog posts just here sitting mostly formed in my head right now that I just haven't taken the time to post yet. Talking about KFC and Talyana's, making wish lists and rambling about not only plots but systems for role playing games and pointing out things that I think are cool online and talking about why. Mind you, I'm not really doing this because I think other people will be interested. I hope they will, because it'd be cool to get some feedback finally and have people actually read what I write (though not necessarially in that order...), but that's not why I'm doing it. I'm doing it because I want to.
So that's it! I think now, because not only do I think most people don't know I have a blog but would believe that I would never get one - as I think I've claimed at least once before, I'm going to make some sort of post about this on Facebook. And hey, maybe I'll challenge others to do so, too! Start a blog (Heck, it's free here on Google) and post something every day. Sure, there's no post limit, it doesn't have to be so many lines to be considered a post, I'm not going to be anal like that (though it is tempting...) but just make a reasonable post, get a whole idea out, once a day for thirty days. Until 5/13.

Oh my word.

My blog, I have ignored you for far too long. A mistake I do not intend to remake.

Today was the longest time that I've actually played 4th ed yet. It's a sad truth - I love the game so very much, but I don't often get a chance to PLAY the game. I want to play it all the time, so much that I don't think I really want to go back to any other game. Well, perhaps that's an overstatement, but the game's just so fresh and shiny and new that I don't want to play anything else. And it seemed as if all my players - despite having a few minor rules issues due mainly to lack of knowledge - had fun, too. Even if it was just a quick one-off game that I pulled out of my pants at the last moment.

I like making the characters, it's fun to take these pieces that WotC provides and fit them together carefully into a cohesive whole, like trying to put together a 3d puzzle without the box or directions. Making encounters is not only rediculously easy, but fun and almost stress relieving. The only complaint I have has nothing to do with the system and everything to do with myself and the group: I had trouble incouraging movement, mainly because I insisted, even after forcing myself to use larger spaces in my encounters, on jamming as much into one room as possible, just like you practically had to do with 3rd ed just to get everything to work. No, there's no reason! Give the characters reasons to run around. Heck, let your goblins have 4 squares in which to move so they can get their +1d6 damage with those javalins. Just do it, man! And..
Goblin warrior my butt! 'Warriors' stand in the front line, like Xena! Those aren't warriors, they're skirmishers, more adept in running away and throwing things than anything.

On a kinda seperate note, I'm so totally looking forward to the PHB2. One thing that I've loved thus far about 4th ed is that it's taken almost every character concept that I've had or seen in my games and made it not only playable but fun in combat and out. the PHB2 just expands on that and adds more core classes to fill out the other characters that I never got the chance to see to fruition, and still feel bad about.
Algor, son of Balgor, a human shaman. A primal leader, fitting completely, even with the option (according to popular blogs) to choose a stalker spirit in the shape of a wild cat; Kira, resurrected once more.
Not only would Melira have more useful abilities as a bard, but I highly doubt that I'd have to change the entire way that the class works just to get her magic to the point at which I thought she'd be useful. Totally a cunning bard.
Elrohir worked relatively well as a sorcerer and then a warlock, but he sounds like he'd be even better as a sorcerer in 4th ed, with the dragon path - exactly what he went down in the first place, what with Dragon Disciple and all - and a focus on ice powers, which I can't prove but would be willing to bet that you could pull off.
Lilly can already be done, and well at that: a trickster rogue, artful dodger, with emphasis on movement based powers and the whip weapon feats to go along with them.
Swordmage is such a better class for what Kass could do than Duskblade was. At least, it's far more useful and much less limited than Duskblade was, though Duskblade does have one thing that I would miss that Swordmage does not: the ability to cast spells through the sword, not just use your sword to cast magic. A subtle difference, but a big one for the character. Not a big deal, however, mainly just description.
I think I would have to, at this point, make Joseph an artificer. It would better fit what he used to do - rogue and wizard? Sounds like an artificer mix to me - and the powers that he used to use- almost all buff or debuff, only once did he use an offensive spell that I remember - fit better into what the artificer could do.

The only character of the old game that I'm unsure of what class and how to make it is Joseph, just because he was such an intentionally noncombat wizard. 4th ed doesn't suit itself well to that, with nearly every power of every character - at least, every power that isn't utility - dealing damage to someone. Mind you, not that I have a problem with that - I find I actually prefer it! - but it does make characters that are specifically non-damage-dealing difficult to play in this system.

I'm also looking forward to when they finally release psionic as a power source. After just hearing about what they do with primal and everything in the PHB2, I can hardly wait to see what they do with psionic. It's also nice to see some more controllers coming up, finally. Just the wizard makes a pattern hard to recognize.

3.75 ed?

Let me get this straight before I begin: I really enjoy 4th ed. There are a huge amount of improvements that I think they've made successfully and I enjoy that more than I can ever express. The system is clean and fresh, easy to use and fully intuitive, using the same mechanic universally. Adventure creation is easy, monster creation is actually fun, and while making a character is kind of lack-luster and formulaic, playing that same character is fun in all new ways.

But fourth edition lacks some things that I really enjoy about 3rd edition. Not to say that I like the Vancian style of magic - in fact, I've hated it forever now - but there is a certain charm to it. Without vancian magic, the Reserve feats would never work, and spellthieves wouldn't be nearly as neat, nor would the special abilities given to Ultimate Magi. But, really, that's the only thing that I can say that I do like about that magic system - three or four different examples of abilities found in fringe products. If I'd never read Complete Adventurer or Complete Mage, I wouldn't have any appreciation at all for their magic system. Another thing I do like about 3rd ed is the customization. While 4th ed does feel as if you get the same amount of customization, with the different number and style of attacks you can take, that's the only place that you can feel that sort of customization - in combat. Outside of combat, you can't tell any difference between one fighter and another.

Of course - as usual - I'm of two minds about this. I've gotten that previous arguement several times now, mainly from people who have just started trying 4th ed and love 3rd with a passion and don't like the more 'game-y' feel that 4th edition has. My typical arguement against that is one that deals solely with role playing. You don't need to have a character sheet that looks different from everyone else. You don't need to spend points on Craft skills to be able to make things - In fact, on topic of that arguement, Craft is untrained, so anyone with a non-negative wisdom can say that they made their own stuff and take 1/3 the cost on it. Older editions than 3rd didn't have as many options for customization either - 2nd ed did have it's non-weapon proficiencies, and I've been told many a story about 2.5 that has lots of customization, but it seemed to me that you were very limited in what you could and could not do with your nonweapon profs. First edition character sheets didn't even have skills on them. If you wanted to say that you were playing a blacksmith who was going adventuring and take your down time to make stuff, you just did it. You didn't need anything on your sheet to say so, you just told the DM and went with it, and if the DM wasn't okay with it, you didn't go with it.

I guess what it comes down to is I want my players to stop complaining and enjoy 4th ed for what it could be and stop comparing it to 3rd ed. Really, if you want to compare it to anything, compare it to 1st ed. Finally, the game puts the emphasis back onto actual roleplaying, and not just roll playing.

I very much enjoy that 4th ed makes the roles practically equal. You no longer need a cleric to have an effective healer in combat, any leader class will do the job just as well. The cleric can actually DO things other than just heal, as well - their healing and buffing are mutually exclusive, so you don't have to choose like you do in 3rd ed. Sure, the spontaneous transformation of normal cleric spells into healing spells was a far cry better than 2nd ed's clerics, but it still limits the cleric in so many ways that other spellcasters aren't limited. Likewise, every striker has extra damage dealing things they can do, just like every defender can mark targets to keep 'aggro.' The arranging of characters into set roles per class is the best thing that happened to party balance... Ever. You can have the non-typical party of a barbarian, a druid, a ranger and a sorceror - provided that these classes can be approximated - and the party will still be just as balanced and effective as a fighter, a cleric, a rogue and a wizard.

Of course, the other arguement that I keep getting against 4th ed is that there are some concepts from 3rd ed that just cannot translate. Well, I heard the same thing from 2nd to 3rd, too, and it was quite a while before some of that stuff would even work. Heck, 2nd ed didn't even have barbarians, but 3rd ed did. Find me a monk in 2nd ed and I'll find you an alternate rulebook. Yes, there are a lot of things that aren't in the core rulebook in 4th ed. But there are a lot of things that are, and - even though there are more classes in the 3.5 rulebook - I think you have more options in the 4th ed rulebook than you do in 3rd. That, and the addition of the extra books - Forgotten Realms, Adventurer's Vault and Martial Power - give a lot of options, even opening up things that were iconic in 3rd ed that were, when it comes down to it, really broken. The druid, an offensive spellcaster with healing spells that comes with her own tank? All you need is a rogue for trapfinding and you have the entire party right there. At least it takes actions to make your animal do something in 4th ed - something that was always broken in 3rd ed.

The balance of time between party members is about equal now, too. At least, a lot closer than it ever was before. The high level specialized fighter, making six rolls per attack, four attacks per combat, vs the high level wizard making all the enemies make multiple reflex saves against a meteor swarm and then asking around for enough dice to roll 16d6 and add them up, vs the rogue who gets in, makes one attack, does a little extra damage and then gets out, vs the cleric who.. Heals the fighter, vs the druid who summons more elder elementals, orders the old ones to attack, gets her advanced wolf companion to trip the rogue's target, then sends the new elementals to help the cleric. If you didn't make your character 'correctly,' you end up stepping into the room, making one critical miss, and walking back out to go play Fable until it's your turn again half an hour later. 4th ed goes much faster, smoother and crisper, keeping everyone at the table more into the action, and I like that a lot better.

Okay, okay. I've lauded 4th edition enough. What would I want to add to 4th edition from 3rd edition that I keep complaining isn't there? That's really the question. What is there not in 4th ed that there is in 3rd ed that I'd like to be there?
There are a few characters that I can't make easily conceptually in 4th ed. Like Kristi Terrichi. Honestly, it's not the Knight class that's the problem, it's the skills! She was originally a knight, obviously, or at least a knight in training. That's easily enough done with the Fighter class and the marking and such, that's just some role playing along with it (darn!). But she was also an aspiring herbalist.
Then again, why couldn't I do that in 4th edition?
There were some rules on the Wizards website for like starter kits for one of their adventure paths. Apparently I only viewed and didn't download that one, because I don't seem to have a copy. But it had something in it for many different character beginnings, giving them an actual game rule addition, like the blacksmith who could use crafting rituals without needing a book or the feat, just because he's a crafter. He doesn't get gear for a reduced cost, he gets to use a small number of rituals for free. Others gave similar small bonuses, I just don't remember any others because that was the one I was looking at at the time.
Add that to 4th edition to give a character a chance to have some other little boost and there you have it, you're good to go, imo. So, really, no 3.75 edition. Just 4th. And that's how I like it.

Okay, I've finally done it...

I've started a blog. Whoo, go me, I've joined the Blogosphere!

I've actually been putting this off for a long time now, unsure of if I really want to be this trendy and join with the crowd. Also unsure if I really want other people to be able to go and read my thoughts like this. But I thought 'Eh, why not?' and I started it anyway. Besides, I'm getting tired of filling up my Google Docs with random train of thought stuff. So I'll put it here instead!

This is going to be a random spot for all of my random musings. Mainly about game - meaning D&D, Mutants and Masterminds, random d20 systems and other role playing games - but sometimes about other stuff. Probably not very often about other stuff, though.

Whee!