Wednesday, January 31, 2024

I Finally Gave In - I'm Playing Magic the Gathering


Yeah. Whatever. I finally played some MtG. As with pretty much every gaming store in the country my local store has Friday Night Magic along with various and sundry other times when people play. As with Warhammer 40k this is one of those games where you're pretty much guaranteed to find other players.

Now before you start doing the Nelson 'ha ha' at me I have a caveat. I'm not buying cards. Nope. Not a single one. I borrowed decks at the start and I still do. But for my own decks I'm printing proxy cards. 100% printed proxy. I know I can't use these in sanctioned and/or sponsored events and I'm fine with that. But I'm also not buying into the cardboard crack.

The game has thousands of different cards. Each card can have multiple printings. The cards vary in rarity and therefore in price. You can get cards for pennies. You can get cards that cost more than cars. Most of them fall in the lower range of that spectrum but I am NOT going to pay $20 for a piece of printed cardboard that has no actual value. It's ink on cardboard. It's got a secondary market scarcity price. And I just don't care.

So my decks can be 'expensive' decks. Why? Because they don't cost me anything I don't already have. I know that's not completely fair to the people who do collect the cards and buy into the game. I do. And I'm very up front with the fact my deck is a full proxy deck in case they don't want to play against me. It's the same as my 3D printed 40k army. It's a choice the other player makes.

All the disclaimers out of the way, lets talk Magic!

When I told one of my friends I was starting to play he mocked me and rightly so. I can take it. He immediately knew what kind of deck would be best for me and it turns out I had already played a deck like that and found it to suit me. Go figure. Because there's all kinds of decks.

There's five colors that relate to the major play style of the cards. There's also colorless but that's kind of a mix into all of them. And those five colors can be mixed into the same deck if you like. There's names for the various mixes that I'm still learning and then there's the single color - mono-color - decks that are one color and colorless.

I'm a brute. I like to go in and hit things. That's my strength and weakness as a tabletop player. When I play D&D I'm a fighter or a cleric. When I play other games I build my armies to curb stomp my opponents. So it only made sense for me to go with the color that's designed to roflstomp my opponents. That color is green.

I'm going to get spanked for this but I don't know how many people reading this have played Magic. Probably more have than not. But if you haven't played it's a mystery like any other game. I've been learning and still have questions as I go.

The core of the game is to get mana (a term we've all heard) which is what you use to 'cast spells'. Everything is casting a spell. Almost everything. But we'll get to that.

You mostly get mana from the land cards. I put a picture of one because it's pretty. Each turn you get to add more land if you have it in your hand and then use it all to do stuff. There's a few things you can do but the core of it is putting out creatures to attack and defend.

This is what took me longer than it should to figure out. You're not fighting the creatures. Nope. You're fighting the player. The creatures are just there to take the damage that would have been done to the player. For some reason I was more focused on the creatures than the player. Blame role playing games and tabletop for that one. Once I got that through my thick skull I started playing a lot better. Fine. A little better. I still suck.

Each turn has a player setting up to do combat and nasty things to the other player(s), then they each do their thing. A few of the cards let you do things out of turn so that can make it interesting. But in general you're trying to hit the player for more points of life than they have. That's the goal of the game. It doesn't matter how many creatures you destroy, etc. It's all about the life points. I have to keep remembering that.

My first printed decks were ones I found pre-built on one of the many sites that has decks. There's also sites that let you print out cards. This all made it very easy for me to turn a list into a sheet of cards to be printed, cut, trimmed, edged, and sleeved. After all that I end up with a deck of my very own that I can bring to the game.


My local friend has thousands of cards and he's building me a deck that I want to try. It's a pair of colors that take more finesse than the brute strength of my precious green. I asked him if he would make one before I started building my own decks and only then realized just how much work it can be to do that. I consider it work even though I'm doing it all online. I can only imagine how bad it is when you actually have to dig through cards. I'm not pushing for him to finish that. He's got enough going on without that.

The format I've been playing is 100 cards where you have one of each card, except for basic lands. A basic land is what that picture is. It just gives you mana. It doesn't do anything else. You can have as many of those as you like but they recommend your deck has about 40% land since you need that to buy the other cards and do stuff with them. That's a big freaking deck and shuffling is interesting, to say the least.

Games tend to last about five turns or so. It's a build up to get enough mana to start buying things to put into play then it goes in all kinds of directions based on what color(s) you're playing. So it can be a fast game and this format can be multiplayer which makes it more interesting in a lot of respects.

So how do I feel about this? I'm fine with playing. It's not a bad game. I can see where people would get into the artwork of the cards and want to have special sets. I haven't played the other game formats where the decks are built and work different. I haven't had to do it so I don't bother right now. I'm sticking with the format that's most commonly played around here.

Because I print my cards I don't have to swap them around. If I were buying them I wouldn't buy a full deck and then buy duplicates for the next one. That would be wasteful. It would mean tracking what cards I have, what decks they're in, and moving them around. For me it's flat out easier to print an entire deck at once, even if I'm printing thirty of those land cards at a time.

Why would the cards have to be moved? Because the decks are sleeved. That means the cards are in plastic sleeves with opaque backs. That's to protect the cards but more so to make sure that they're not identifiable from the back. There's been big cheater scandals about marked sleeves in the tournaments. So if I were to take cards from Deck A and use them in Deck B I would have to move them. But if I wanted to play both Deck A and Deck B in the same evening in different games I'd have to shuffle cards around. Playing proxy it's just easier to make entire decks.

I just made a new deck tonight, using what I learned from the previous deck I built. I think I may have gone too hard on this one but I won't know until I play it. It may be a nasty deck but in my hands there's no guarantee it will play that way. If it does play too heavy for our casual games I'll sit down with the other players and see what's wrong with it so I can fix it. Again, I can print new cards.

I mentioned all the steps involved with me making a deck. I'll expand a little here.

I print them, either on the inkjet or color laser printer. The inkjet gives a bit of a brighter and clearer image, at the cost of using photo paper and all that ink. The laser printer is a bit duller and lower resolution but they're still perfectly usable. I have a lot of inkjet photo paper I bought at the thrift store over the years so that's not an expense. And now that I have the inkjet working properly again I can take the time to print some that way. The laser is faster and easier.

To cut them I use scissors. I have a fancy paper cutter somewhere but in this case it wouldn't be as much use as it could be. There's a gap between the cards so no matter what the cuts aren't going to be usable right out of the box.

Trimming takes off the bits that were left behind so the cards are nice and clean. I'd have to do this with scissors anyway. Probably. I might be able to do this with the paper cutter too for most of them. I'll have to try that when I find it. But for each page I cut I then carefully trim off any offcuts so the cards are just that card.

I make a decent amount of print and play games so I have a corner rounder punch. You'll notice almost all the cards in games have rounded corners. This is no exception. By rounding the corners the cards suddenly look much nicer.

Magic cards have black edges (mostly) and are printed on black core cardstock. I therefore take a black Sharpie and carefully color the edges so that they're black. I do this on game cards too. I have a bag of colored Sharpies and can edge the cards to match their inks but most of them are black. This step makes a surprising difference in how the cards look. You might want to try it on one of your own games.

The final step is putting them in sleeves. Open the sleeve, slide in the card, push it gently so it's firmly seated in the bottom, put it in the box. Lather, rinse repeat.

I spend a lot of time on this and I don't mind. I like doing print and play stuff. I have the time to spend. I have all the materials here. I did have to buy card sleeves and boxes because what I have here wasn't game appropriate. But that let me spend some money at the local game store so it's not a total waste.

So there it is. I'm one of those people who show up on Friday night to sit around playing cards. Honestly it's not that different than the people who get together to play poker, in my opinion. We're playing cards and having fun.

For everyone who's laughing at me for finally getting sucked into the game you can see where I've kept a bit of my distance. I'm really not going to spend money buying official cards. I just can't deal with that. I'm not kidding about the card prices. There's one I like and I have it in two decks now. The card price is $700. For one card. For a small piece of printed cardboard. People play with proxies for those far more often than the ones that go for $0.05 but for me it's the principle of the thing. I'm not buying into the game any more than absolutely necessary.

I'll get this deck ready tomorrow to use Friday. Hopefully there will be players I like there this week. Otherwise it will wait until they do. I'm not going to jump into another deck type until I've got one or two I'm happy with in green. Then I'll start to branch out. It gives me something to do.

Friday, January 12, 2024

Warhammer 40,000 - Thoughts on the Emperor

 

Let's start this out with a little background. If you're here then you probably already know all this but if you've stumbled on the blog for the other stuff I do this may prove helpful. Summary - Games Workshop created a tabletop wargame set in the year 40,000 (40k) and has a shit-ton of books/lore about the setting. At the top of the heap is the Emperor of Mankind - this dude up here who likes gold armor and stuff I'll talk about later. Before you ask there are no good guys anywhere in the lore. Seriously. No one is good. The genre is 'Grimdark' and it really is both grim and dark.

Now that the base concept is out of the way, let's talk about this guy. Colloquially we refer to him as Big E. There's other versions of that but it's kind of a nickname and also has a bit of snark because of what he is. One big reason for it thought is that we don't know his actual name. The lore (as far as I've read and per the wiki) does not give him a name, at least not yet.

Another concept that wraps around the story is Chaos. That's a whole 'nother universe that is trying to take over this one. That's important for story and game purposes. It's also known formally as the Immaterium and the shorthand version is the Warp. The Warp serves three functions in the game and lore:

  1. The source of physic powers
  2. Their way to do hyperspace travel
  3. To corrupt humanity so that there's bad and other bad guys fighting each other

Side note. If you've ever watched the movie Event Horizon it's mostly canon 40k at this point and the first time humans have encountered the Warp/Chaos. The writers were big 40k fans and after much fan discussion GW just gave in and said that sure, it's canon, go with that. The movie is pretty good so watch it if get the chance.

OK. I think we've got a setup going on here. If you're a lore person this would be the absolute barest introduction to one small section of the larger universe and the jumping off point for far more discussion than anyone into the game - and many who are - would not want to engage in if they had the choice. Because there's also a shit-ton of 30k lore that builds up to 40k lore. Lore enthusiasts who find each other tend to become bestest buddies. I'm an enthusiast and it probably explains why I can't get a date. But I digress.

The Emperor is considered the most powerful psycher (that's their term for someone who can use the Warp for psychic effect) in the universe, has the Perpetual gene so he's immortal, is stupid smart, has an expert understanding of genetic engineering, and doesn't actually give a rat's ass about humanity in general no matter what he says. He's got one friend who's been with him since the start of his real rise to power, who is also a powerful psycher but not immortal by nature. That guys name is Malcador the Sigilite but we won't get into him because he doesn't weave into the part of Big E's story that I'm going to focus on.

The Emperor was born in the Bronze Age of humanity. There's backstory on how he got the powerful psychic powers that's not really important but he knew early on he could do stuff with his mind. He also got the Perpetual gene and a taste for temporal power at the same time. Yes. The dude has been around since the Bronze Age. That gives you an idea how far back the lore goes.


Funny enough GW has been stingy with information about what happened with him between then and the current game era. There's been little throwaway short stories and throwaway references but in general he didn't do much visible stuff in all that time. There's reference to him occasionally showing up to lead parts of humanity but then he wanders off again. Personally I think he was biding his time until he could take complete control. He didn't see the point in being leader of one country because it would make him known to the world in general. It kind of makes sense when he knows he's not going to die any time soon and he's got Big Plans for the future.

Let's jump forward to another period of history that's left vague by GW - the Unification Wars. Earth is a mess, warlords are all over the place trying to grab as much as they can, and Big E finally saw his opportunity. As he worked his way around the planet and took over the various mini empires he also took the relatives of the defeated warlords, gene engineered each of them into his own private army, and moved onto the next.

He also did something not very cool. He made a foot soldier army called the Thunder Warriors. Consider them the Bic lighter version of his future gene engineered warriors known as the Space Marines that the game and lore is so well known for. There's not a lot known about the Thunder Warriors except that they were an experiment that the Emperor knew would be a short term project. After he won the Unification Wars and became the supreme leader, he killed almost all the Thunder Warriors. The official statement is that they died heroically in one last battle. The reality is that he had no more use for them and had them eliminated. A few survived and show up in short stories, etc. But in general they were made a footnote in the story of the empire he was building.


Dude. Not cool. But it's a very good example of his attachment to his creations.

Funny thing. He went into the Warp to learn his advanced genetic engineering and seems to have weaseled out of whatever bargain he made to get them. That matters in a bit in two ways.


So the guy is now top dog of Earth. What's left of Earth after centuries of decay and war but now he's got the power to try to repair that. To his credit he does start doing that, probably for selfish reasons because he wanted a pretty planet to be his home base. With Earth under his control it's time for the next phase in his plan - a universal Empire.

You do have to admit the guy had ambition and the power to back it up. By this time he had his personal guard of bespoke genetic engineered warriors to be his bodyguard and elite strike force. Note the term 'bespoke'. If you aren't familiar with it think 'custom made' since each one was individually genetically engineered using their original bodies.

This is where things get hinkey. He knew he needed to be in more places than one to build an empire and that he needed generals to do what needed to be done. Of course he went the genetic engineering route, using what he learned/stole from Chaos. This was not his finest hour.

Let's introduce Erda. She's not referenced much but she's generally considered the woman who contributed the necessary half of genetic material for the next project. She's also a Perpetual and once her role was done she shook Big E's dust off her feet and went .. somewhere. She's a Perpetual so she's probably still out there but doing her own thing but so far I haven't found anything that says what that is.

If you haven't guessed the lore deals almost entirely with men. This has caused much vitriol in the community. It doesn't help that the game itself started out advertising to teenage boys with their parents' credit cards. It's got a much broader customer base now that those kids have aged into adults with their own disposable income.

Anyway. Onward.

Picking up on his Galactic Empire project Big E decided to make brand new generals. Not just any generals but more or less superhuman generals. Big feckers. Each one of them would have unique qualities for specific areas of his new empire built into their DNA. Well. HIS DNA because of course all the generals were dudes. This time around he made them from scratch, using that nifty knowledge he stole. This was not a good idea.

He made 20 (or 21 depending on whether or not you count the 20th set of twins as one or two, in lore they're considered one) and created a special place where Chaos couldn't get to them. Yeah, right. Chaos got their mitts on them and flung them out into the universe. Now Big E had to find them. But first? He needed his army and this time he didn't want mistakes. The Space Marines were the new ones and while the were assembly line genetics each set was infused with some of the DNA from the Primarch who was going to lead them.

GW is big into pseudo-Latin. They call it Gothic. High and Low Gothic, depending on how formal they're being. There's a bunch of it scattered throughout the lore. Get used to it and if you know actual Latin be prepared to wince a lot.

So Chaos took the incubation pods and sent them to various and sundry worlds. Now the Emperor not only has to build his empire but he has to find these kids to do the jobs they were created to do. As he does he gives them the legion they were meant to head, all of which have already been fighting in the Crusade.


I think you can already see why lore discussion require people who get into the lore itself. It's a rich world that's been created but it's a lot of stuff. And this is just background, mind you.

The Primarchs are gathered up and each one has two things going on:

  1. They've all got a touch of Chaos in their makeup. Go figure, given how Chaos knowledge was used to make them
  2. They've all taken on qualities from the world where they grew up. Conveniently they went from infants in the incubation pods to adults in stupidly short periods of time

Cue the Galactic Crusade. As you can expect it goes pretty much like any crusade. They find a planet they like, they conquer it. then they remake the society to be what Big E has in mind and make them send resources to fund the Crusade, they move on to the next one. This was happening while the Emperor was looking for his lost sons.

Let's talk about 'sons'. The Primarchs all refer to him as their father. That makes sense given a broad definition of fatherhood. Canonically the Emperor considers them tools for his empire and indulges them by letting them call him father. He honestly doesn't care about them as individuals. It's something that's easily missed since he does call them 'son' when he talks with them so it would be easy to be fooled into thinking he cared about them beyond their usefulness to his wars.

He finds all the Primarchs. He gives each one their legion of Space Marines, all of which are renamed to match up with their new leaders. Then he makes a mistake. Yes, even all powerful guys make mistakes and this one is both valid and a reason for the rest of the lore. His mistake was to leave the Crusade to return to Earth and work on his long term project. He appoints the Primarch designed to be the best general in charge.


This went .. OK. The guy he appointed knew is stuff and with only some resentment the rest of the Primarchs accepted him as the new general. A handful thought they should be the one but overall they dealt with having someone they considered a peer elevated over them. BTW - in the cartoon the Emperor skips the one with the wings to tell him not to fight. That's because the guy with the wings is more or less totally good but still isn't a good guy. After that Big E goes back to Earth and the absolutely massive palace he's building to work on the Secret Project.

Now it's time to summarize because there's dozens upon dozens of books going over the 30k/Horus Heresy situation. Horus is the guy chosen to be general and because he's a fucking idiot he decides that he should rule the empire. One of the higher placed Space Marines has already been dabbling with Chaos and gets him to turn traitor. Fucking Erebus. We all hate Erebus. As part of turning traitor the most psychic of the Patriarchs is convinced he needs to tell the Emperor what's going on and does what he's been told specifically not to do - to use his psychic powers to take him to the palace.

See, the long term project is the remove the need for Chaos from Humanity. There's another way to get from place to place that an alien race has been using for pretty much forever and it's isolated from Chaos. Big E is working on a way to use that and one of his Primarchs was made to keep that way available. That would be Magnus the Red. Who was specifically told to do nothing with is psychic powers. In fact the use of psychic powers by anyone except the Emperor and his buddy Malcador are expressly forbidden. But, fuckin' Erebus.


This is where things go wrong. The Emperor's careful work to connect Humanity with the other way (the Webway) gets kinda borked by Magnus and it just happens to open a hole between the Webway and Chaos. The exact thing that the Webway was set up to avoid. Now more trouble happens since the Emperor has to mitigate that damage.


Wrapping up now. Horus is being very efficient at turning other Primarchs and their legions to Chaos then making war on them and various planets in the current Empire. The Emperor is stuck on Earth using all his psychic power to hold Chaos from coming through the hole Magnus made. And Horus is intent on taking over Earth/Terra from the Emperor.

Whew. That's a lot even as a summary.

Where was I going with this? Back to the Emperor. He's a true emperor in that he doesn't give a damn about the people he's ruling. He really doesn't. He doesn't care about the people living on the planets he conquered except that they pay their tithes. He doesn't care about his Primarchs, who consider him their father. He doesn't care about the Space Marines, leaving them to their Primarchs to handle. He doesn't care about the state of the Crusade he started.

His real concern seems noble - keep the forces of Chaos from meddling with/taking over Humanity. But even that is because he doesn't like Chaos. In theory they would take over Humanity if left unchecked. At least that's what he says. Now he's trapped by his own creation to never leave the control throne so the hole doesn't get breached. The empire he was building is still limping along but the Primarchs are gone (I haven't gotten to the books where most of them were removed - there's a few who have been killed in the 30k stuff). The Space Marines are all over the place, doing Space Marine stuff based on the nature of their Primarchs. Some are loyal, some are chaos, all hate anything that's not human.

The Emperor is stuck on the Golden Throne because he was almost killed in the battle with Horus and his minions dragged him to the throne to keep him alive, for a given definition of alive. He's been there for 10,000 years, holding the forces of Chaos at bay. Except for the ones that the heretic Space Marines have been playing with, and there's a few Primarchs who are over in the Warp being powerful and stuff. He needs a little help in that his priests feed 1,000 people with decent psychic ability to the cause. And literally feed since those 1,000 never come back out of the throne room.

During his (active) lifetime the Emperor denied being a god. He considered religion irrational in general and wiped it out of his empire. That caused some problems with one of the Primarchs but we're not getting into that. He kind of let the technicians on Mars consider him a sort of god so that he got access to all the cool things they were building but never really admitted or denied the whole thing. After he couldn't take an active part in the Empire the people deified him. So now he's a god whether he likes it or not.

Why did I bother to write all this out? 

I have a bit of a fondness for the big guy. There's a ton of fanfic out there about what he did in all the time between the Bronze Age and after the Unification Wars. There's very little canon. Personally I think he laid low, maybe played kingmaker, and let things settle themselves until he saw the time to take the reins for everything. It would make sense since he needed technology to advance to the point to match what he wanted to do. And since he was the next best thing to immortal he could wait it out.

Let's have a brief chat about that immortality thing. He wasn't the only person who had that gene. I mentioned Erda. There's a few others (John Grammaticus! But he's not immortal anymore) that show up in the books/lore and he was friendly with at least one of those people. Being immortal could have a big impact on how he viewed humanity since they never stuck around for long. I'd say he never passed along the Perpetual gene into his creations but the first set of genetic engineered guys seem to last and at least one Primarch has survived well beyond anything someone should survive. The Primarchs are tough but they're not immortal.

More about immortality. It seems that it only goes so far. If the damage is bad enough, it can't stop death. The thing that seems to override it is severe damage to the spinal cord. There's far too many times someone was killed by being broken over someone's knee in general. Far too many. It's kind of a theme and heavy foreshadowing. That's how Horus almost killed the Emperor. Almost and it may have worked if the throne, with its life support capabilities, wasn't conveniently right at hand. Horus was also directly/indirectly responsible for the death of Malcador since he took the throne while the Emperor fought Horus and he wasn't nearly as powerful as Big E so he got sucked dry by the effort.

And what was the Emperor going to do once he carved a hole in the Webway for humanity to use and needed to keep it open? He built Magnus specifically to do nothing but sit on that throne and keep it open. For the rest of time. It's kind of ironic that Magnus did what he did and made it so the Emperor had to take that role. I think it serves the Emperor right.

Afterword

The 40k universe has been devoid of the Primarchs as active participants, has the Space Marine legions either loyal to the Emperor or fallen to Chaos, and alien races of various kinds have been around for all the legions to fight when they're not fighting each other. In lore the planets of the empire are treated pretty badly to the point of eliminating all life on them if someone thinks it's a good idea and they don't figure into the game at all except as an origin point for a couple of sub factions of human soldiers.

The current lore and game have Primarchs returning by various means. What that means for the whole thing I'm not sure about yet and I'm not sure how I feel about it. The Emperor also seems to be waking up so that's going to be a whole new kettle of fish when he finds out what's happened since he was plopped onto the throne. Funny enough the original Emperor's guard has been the biggest deterrent in the empire since they're still the same as when he was around even though they've had to replenish their ranks without him.

As for the various sizes of the groups I mentioned here's something that's vaguely considered canonical.

The Emperor is a tricky one to pin down since he appears however he wants to appear so he's not on the scale. The Primarchs vary in height and the books aren't consistent. The Custodes are generally big. Space Marines (Adeptus Astartes so GW could copyright/trademark the name) are about right although they also vary in height since they all start out as humans before they're upgraded into what's called transhumans. Figure that's a six foot/almost 2 meter tall human because they're noted as chest high or shorter than the Space Marines.

Attribution

The top artwork is uncredited because I can't find the original artist.

All the cartoons are the work of emwattnot and I dearly love those. However if you're not into the lore most of them won't make sense and/or be as funny. He uses current memes as a base for a lot of them, as you can tell.

The size reference is attributed to Tim Remin but he's not on Patreon anymore it seems.

I used the fan created Warhammer 40,000 Wiki for the bits and pieces where I needed to get things in order.

Thursday, November 30, 2023

The 'Common' Language in RPGs - Some Thoughts

 

Disclaimer. I'm not a linguist. I'm not a sociologist. I'm not any kind of '=ist'. What I am is someone who plays different RPGs and discusses them online. I know that makes me a geek/nerd but I'm not sure if it makes me anything else.

There was a bit of a discussion about having a common language in a game setting. Most of them do for the purpose of having an easy way for everyone to talk without a problem. Very rarely do PCs not have Common as a default language and very very rarely does even the most basic village not speak Common. Anyone else find it weird that there's a single language that everyone in the world seems to understand?

That got me thinking about the situation and what shenanigans could happen if Common wasn't what players expected. That's what this post is about.

It would make more sense that Common was more of a trade language than a full featured one and that's a pidgin language by definition. There may be some negative connotations to the word (or not) but it seems like it would be the best way to consider Common, if we were looking at it from a more real world viewpoint.

That would mean a lot of things in a role playing game. Characters would only get to express complex ideas in full languages. Entertainers would be in various languages. Everyone would be stuck for conversation if they were in an area where no one spoke the local language.

Now this might be a really fun way to role play. I can see a game of telephone through several people as they translate more complex statements. Frasier had a bit of that in one episode and it worked very well for comedic effect. The same thing can happen in game but only if one of the links is an NPC. Otherwise the translation is flawless unless the players decide to muck it up. It would make the game longer and after a few times it would get tedious, maybe.

I like the idea of keeping Common as a strict, basic language. Having the players reformulate their questions into simpler language would be quite fun occasionally. Having them do the telephone translation thing would also be fun occasionally. It would certainly keep them on their toes and remind them that they're out in a much larger world.

It would take GM planning to make it work. Having a local NPC that speaks one of the languages negates the telephone aspect since they can talk to them directly. Having another adventurer that has the bridge languages can do it. Rolling for accuracy will also help with how well the translation chain works.

It's something to think about in a game. How does it work when the characters are in a location where there is no common language they share with the locals and no single person can translate within their group? It's tricky but it can be done. It takes the right setting, the right location, and the right group.

That 'right group' is the other variable. You need to be sure the group is going to find the game of telephone as engaging as you might. If you know one of the players is going to flip the table at an extended attempt to get information they feel should be a simple question and answer session then you may need to set it aside. If the rest of the group is having then then that player needs to sit down and accept that the game isn't all about them. As with so many things it's up to the GM to balance it based on the players.

I would never expect my players to actually speak in that form of Common. I'd be their guide to let them know when they need to rephrase things more simply and to give occasional incorrect answers based on the questions. But it's like asking the bard to actually perform when they say they're going to do it. Players are not characters and should not be expected to be able to do what the characters can do.

Anyway. Think about it and how you might want to use a less built out Common language in your game. To learn more about it, since GMs tend to have very odd search histories, here's a link to the Wikipedia article about Pidgin so you can get a feel for what it is and what it isn't. That may help you decide if you want to bring it into your game or not.

I don't recommend thinking of it as Esperanto. Just .. don't.

Monday, November 27, 2023

What's On The Horizon

 

So, what's on the horizon for me? I'm setting up to stream! I'm joining all the cool kids and streaming stuff. Or at least that's the plan.

I'm not a great painter. I know that. I'm fine with it. I like to say my painting level is 'high tabletop', two bronze medals notwithstanding. And people seem to enjoy watching people just paint. There's plenty of stuff out there where people are teaching how to do things or painting a specific figure. Those are fine.

My plan is to stream my everyday painting and natter away while I do. The intention behind it is to be social without having to be physically social.

I'm one of those people who's only happy when painting in my area. I don't like to paint at game stores, etc. I like my area. I know where everything is. I have all my paints at hand. I have all my additives and mediums. I have a whole lotta paint brushes for different functions. I have my setup. But it gets lonely.

I could have other people over to paint but moving from my nest to the table to be with them means all my stuff is in one place and I'm in the other. It's not as bad as being out of the house but it's still over there. Imagine me making a vague gesture in a direction and you'll have the full effect of that last sentence.

For now I'm going to see if streaming gets me the combination of being in my safe place and being moderately social. I also think that it might make people more interested to watch someone who's not one of the fancy high level ones and who only teaches what I'm doing at the moment. Even that's more of a commentary than a lesson.

This could end up being me shouting into the void. So many things end up that way. But it doesn't take much for me to give it a try and see if I'm right about finding some like minded souls.

I know I'm not going to get thousands of followers. If I do I'll be very confused. But if I can make it so some other people who only paint in the privacy of their home can have virtual company then I'm doing all right.

I'll post the information when I get streaming set up. The intent is to try to paint at regular times and put out notices on various social media platforms that it's going to happen. Then it's a matter of finding the times when people can join me. I'm lucky that I can adjust for time zones more easily than most other people and I'll take full advantage of that.

So. Wish me luck!


Saturday, September 9, 2023

ReaperCon 2023 - The Entire Thing

 

This year I'm going to do one post for the entire convention experience. I found that daily posts just didn't have enough information for my taste so instead you get one after it's done. Also, that way I didn't tell the part of the world that reads my blog that I wasn't at home. Gotta think of these things, you know.

I drove down this year since I had the time to do it and I brought my cat rather than boarding her or having someone spend ten minutes a day at the house to feed her. I think it was the right decision. I don't know if she's saving up to punish me when I'm least expecting it.

Overall it felt like, well, ReaperCon. Same kind of vendor setup. Same kind of general space setup. Same pretty much everything. And that's the problem for me. It's the same as it has been for the last few years.

Don't get me wrong - it's a good all-around convention with the added bonus of having the well known artists as guests. People enjoy themselves thoroughly. But I've reached my saturation point. Hence it was my last year attending.

The pre-game was the Meet and Greet. I chose the package that came with the limited edition 100mm version of the convention Sophie miniature. Sadly the extras sold out before I could get one for my friend. My roomie and I went shopping after I got settled in the room and I was able to catch the tail end of the food options for MnG. The options are limited to what the hotel can provide and it's been hamburgers and hot dogs the last few years. That might not sound good but it's leaps and bounds better than the 'pizza' they served before that. Trust me.

I also had a Buccee's brisket sandwich I'd purchased but saved that for another day. I think Buccee's BBQ is overpriced and overrated now that I've had some. But hey, I had it. We'd gone to Buccee's for my roomie and he picked up some merchandise he wanted. We also hit the local Walmart for basic supplies like water, booze, and snacks.

Since there's no more metal trade-in at the convention I don't have to keep Thursday open to go through the Boneyard (their unpackaged minis). I'm still sad about that. It was one of my favorite parts of the convention. But it left me the chance to take classes during that time.

I took two classes - one on freehand for non-artists and one on painting tiny text. The freehand one was good but I already knew the material from other classes. The text one was, well, not so good. Let's leave it at that. My class experience wasn't a stellar end to the series. I also crashed my friend's class on using paper and brass foliage so I learned a little there and got some goodies.

One class was Thursday, I crashed the course on Thursday, and my other class was Friday.

I did sign up for some of the Hobby Hijinks events. Those are free things like speed painting, conversions, etc. This year you could register for them like classes but with no charge. I liked that because in the past it was whoever got there first. So I had some fun with doing silly things and being kind of social.

I signed up to play a game but bowed out. I'd had a long, hard day. I was hurting. And the GM had allowed their friend to be an additional player that made the table one person larger than the event showed. I don't like either of those things so I gracefully gave them my seat and went back to the room. I would have liked to have played but I wasn't in the mental state to be a good player. I only showed up because I didn't want to leave the table down a player so having the extra person was a good thing in the end.

I didn't do any vendor shopping this time around for two reasons. One is that my knees didn't allow me much mobility. The other is that I didn't need or want anything from the vendors. I made one sweep through to get a punch card filled for a free mini and that's when I took stock of who was there and what they were selling. So I kind of did a speed browse to confirm that I was right in what I didn't need.

I did enter into the painting competition. I wanted the extra convention money (which I never spend), the badge ribbons, and I pretty much expected to bring home a bronze medal. Once again I grabbed a few minis off the painted shelf, touched them up, and entered them. They picked the one I thought they would pick to judge and it was a solid bronze. See for yourself.

Gaming miniature of a man in some armor, holding a sword in his right hand and shield in his other

I forgot they make you name your entry so the 'Redemption' thing was very last minute. It doesn't really mean anything. But I nailed the face on that one and I'm proud of that. Plus I don't think people use enough copper in their armor colors.

I now have two bronze medals to hang up by my painting area. As much as I don't seem to think much of them I'm going to show them off. I did win them at a convention painting competition, after all.

I spent more time talking with the artists I know than doing much else. I didn't paint because I didn't bring anything to paint or any paints. I was going to spend time at the basic paint and take table but the hobby events were enough painting for me. I really don't like painting away from home and the plan to practice what I'd learned in classes wasn't necessary. I did bring home a few minis that I would have painted, if I had been at the paint and take table.

I have a battered folder with all my class notes and handouts from every class I've ever taken at ReaperCon. It's got a lot of history in it. Since I wasn't coming back I felt it was acceptable to have the artists sign it - sculptors on the front and painters on the back. I'll cover those over with packing tape to preserve them as part of the whole. I do refer back to those notes at times so it's a nice way to remember everyone.

I stayed a day later than I normally would because it meant spending time with my roomie. Last convention and all that. He left early the next day to get to the airport and I wonder if the room felt as empty for him when I would leave early in previous years. It was nice not to have to rush but it was sad that he was gone and I'll probably never see him in person again.

The attendees seemed to have a good time like they always do. This is their convention now and it's a good one for them. It's a nice mix of the art side and the gaming side with the chance to socialize all weekend. And it's one of the nicest, friendliest conventions I've ever attended.

That being said the unthinkable happened. This was a convention where you could leave your stuff out all weekend and be sure it was safe. The artists left their minis at their tables so you could see them even when the artists were out and about. This year someone went through - twice - and stole minis from the artists. That really bothers me and I'm hoping desperately that it wasn't a convention person who did it. I also hope they can get the minis back. But it's going to change the tone of the convention going forward. I could have done without ending on that note.

I don't know if I would drive rather than fly if I were going back. It was a very long, boring drive broken up into two days on either side. If the hotel were closer to the cheap airport I don't even think I'd need a rental car now that I have no reason to go to the factory. If I'd been running games and needed all the accessories then driving would be the way to go. I've seen how careful my roomie is with his luggage weight and how much he has to bring. Driving means it's whatever fits in the car.

I don't have pictures of the convention itself. I didn't find any reason to take them. It was an event hotel with all the generic fittings and some Reaper specific decor. The painting contest entries are on the ReaperCon website so if I feel the urge to see what was there I can scroll those. There's a lot of entries if you want to see some good painting and imaginative work.

Last year I didn't think much of missing the convention. I have a feeling that I'll get a pang when it rolls around again but no more than that. It turns out my roomie only showed up this year to force me to show up so we could have a proper goodbye. I think that's sweet in a number of ways. I needed this last visit all around.

So there it is. After all these years my last ReaperCon. And it goes out with a whimper, as it should.

Friday, December 16, 2022

Warhammer 40K TV Series?

 

This post is going to be a little different. I've had my own thoughts about the 40k universe as I've been reading Horus Heresy and what it means to be a Space Marine. This kind of ties into the strong rumors of Amazon making a series out of it with Henry Cavill. I have thoughts about him too.

I'll try to make this as coherent as possible but for anyone who has read my blog you know I can't make any promises. I don't know why I bother to say I'll try but I do. I think it makes me seem like I'll be better this time. We all know I won't.

About the 40k universe. I'm talking about the Space Marines in this case. Yes, Custodes kind of fall under that but they're not important to the general theme I'm going for. And yes, Primarchs but they're not relevant either. All three are gene engineered but to different extents. As Space Marines are the equivalent of generic while the others are brand name we'll go with that.

Yes. In the lore the Space Marine tinkering was meant to be generic. Anything more than that took too long. So Big E toned down the goodies and made a bunch of super soldiers without any real special stuff. They're assembly line work. And they're treated as disposable in a lot of respects even without going through all the HH culling. Because, after all, they can always make more.

Now I'm going into my head canon and my own small knowledge of biology. It's been a long time since I took biology but with the lore and a bit of that there's some things that come to mind for Space Marines. The short version is that they're mules. The process that makes them into Space Marines pretty much takes them out of the gene pool. And that's by intention.

So many books refer to the changes in their physiology. There's a consistent "He would have been handsome if it hadn't been for ...". They're massive compared to humanity. And they're processed when they're teenagers. They have the fear response removed. So hormonally they're altered as well. All in all it makes sense to cut them out of the human pool since they're not meant to spread the geneseed willy nilly.

Then there's that geenseed. It comes from implanted organs. So there's no canon on whether or not those changes actually change the DNA or if they're reliant on the organs. The implication is that the organs do it and that's why they take them back when they can. There's bits and pieces saying that the 'donors' will live on in the next implantation but that's the kind of lie someone who's dying would tell themself. As it is the geneseed seems separate from previous hosts or they're be far more careful who they took it from.

Why am I going on about whether or not Space Marines get it on? Because with the way they're made and the changes I honestly don't think they can. Quite probably their naughty bits aren't part of the equation and the hormones involved down there have been rerouted into more aggression and less fear. So not only may they not be able to do the dirty they don't have any interest in it.

On to Mr. Cavill. He's a handsome man in most respects. When he's all cleaned up and shiny he's about as interesting as a soggy water biscuit. I stole that. Honestly - have a look at him on the red carpet or as Superman and while he's good looking he's rather meh. When they dirtied him up as Geralt he looks a lot better. At least in my and general opinion. He's got the kind of face that needs definition that comes from hard living.

Which brings me to the next point. How are they going to cast him? There's a lot of talk about which of the lore characters he'd be and my thought is that he should be none of them. Space Marines aren't handsome. They're also huge. So anything where he's in the Space Marine clique would require the huge costumes, CGI, and other expensive things that look dated a year after they're released. There's also only so much you can do with a chapter of Space Marines. They fight. They practice fighting. They fight. There's not much else in their lives. That's what they were built for. And they wear those big helmets. What's the point of casting a well-known handsome actor when you're going to slap a helmet on him for most of the show?

My personal opinion is that the series would be better served by using the guardsmen as the central focus. The humans. And I say this for several reasons.

The first reason is cost. Having the bulk of the cast be human means they're working just fine with fewer special effects. That and the comparison between them and the Space Marines would be more jarring. Fewer Space Marines too when it comes to that. Showing the difference between guardsmen who do know fear and the ones who don't make both more emphatic.

The second reason is story. As I said earlier - Space Marines are pretty boring, story wise. They have their little spats within the chapters but overall they do what they're told. They're toy soldiers. It would be problematic if they keep killing off characters around the one Henry is playing. Making him more of a leader again gives the problem of a fluid cast around him and little in the way of character development. Space Marines don't grow.

My personal idea is to make him a put-up guardsman sergeant. Give him a troop and all the problems that come with being in that rank. Then he could really chew the scenery and have a decent ensemble cast to keep the stories fresh. Killing off one or two won't matter as much and the Space Marines are as rare as they should be.

There's people who are trying to decide what Primarch he should be. Unless they go back to 30k time there's not that many to choose from and they were even less interesting than the Space Marines. These were beings designed for specific roles and they didn't really deviate. They're figureheads and the amount of special effects to have a main character as a Primarch would be incredibly cost prohibitive.

I know everyone wants him to be the Hero. That's what he's been. But maybe it's time to let him be the hero, lower case letter H. Center the show around him but not as the top of the pyramid. Having characters both above and below him would give him a huge range that's not possible when it gets unbalanced. Let's face it - 40k is unbalanced enough as a game that doing it as a show would be correct but annoying.

Another reason to put him as a human would be to let him be human. That means his physiology would be just fine the way it is. Heck, he could even cut down on the weightlifting and slim down a little. Being human means romantic interests. It means getting hurt. It means fearing things that the big guys brush off. It gives him a range as an actor that isn't possible if they cast him different.

I could be completely wrong on this. On all of it. I don't think I'm completely off the mark on the geneseed stuff but the show? Yeah. They're going for ratings. And if their audience is expected and demanding the guy play in power armor then he'll be in power armor. I just think it would be a waste of the show and of the actor to take away so many options for where things could go.

Comment below if you have thoughts on this. Note that all comments are moderated on this blog so if you're just going to call me names it isn't getting through. Comments that are civil will go through even if they destroy every single thing I've written here. I'm all for discussion, if it's done with manners.

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Virtual Credit Cards FTW - Update at the End

 

I'm a HUGE fan of virtual credit cards. Seriously huge. Having credit cards that are tied to a single vendor and can be locked are a wonderful security feature for online shopping. There's been way too many data breaches and there's always going to be more.

This is the second time in a week that I've had attempted fraud on my credit card account. I'm pretty sure I know where it's coming from and that it will stop now that the new charge has been declined. Why was it declined? Because I wasn't sure the vendor was on the up and up but decided to give them the benefit of the doubt because I could risk the $5. After the charge I immediately locked the card.

Lo and behold guess who tried to charge me for something else and it was more than $5 this time.

My credit card company asked about the declined charge, I confirmed it was unauthorized, they're sending me yet another new card. So I'm without a credit card for a few days again. I can use my debit card (as a credit card) for local in-person purchases until it shows up.

I'm officially done with the vendors who make me question if they're using the initial cheap thing they deliver in order to charge something more expensive later. I know the answer to that one.

People might try to quibble about it being fraud since I gave them my credit card number. They'd be wrong. I did not authorize the second charge. If they had asked and I agreed then I could have unlocked it for the purchase and everything would be fine. They didn't ask. I didn't agree. That makes it fraud.

I did authorize the initial purchase. After all, I created a virtual card for them. So that little bit of money is gone. I don't know what it was supposed to be so unless it shows up in my mailbox I'm writing it off. And I'm done with playing with sketchy vendors.

If your credit card company offers virtual cards then I highly suggest you start using them. There's a few real vendors out there who aren't set up to take them. Some even say that on the checkout page. But most do and that gives you another level of control. Even if you leave the card unlocked and someone other than that vendor tries to charge it, it gets declined.

If your credit card company doesn't offer virtual cards ask when they will. If they won't and you don't have a good reason to stay with them switch to a company that does. My credit card company has been excellent about catching fraud. I think this is the third fraud attempt in over a decade and honestly I invited them by where I online shopped. 

The first recent one is kind of odd since they didn't have a virtual number and almost no one has my real card number. I did do a bunch of local shopping the day they said the charge was made. It could be coincidence or I could have gotten skimmed. Either way my company caught it. I need to think about where I shopped that I hadn't shopped before. Just having the chip cards isn't enough anymore it seems.

I'll end this one with a reminder to look into virtual credit cards. My company upgraded so that you can create them when you want them and use them for a single vendor. I'm guessing the first charge locks them to it. This is handy for things where you don't buy online - like the food delivery apps.

The only thing that's missing is something my previous credit card company had - the ability to set a dollar limit on what could be charged to the card. That was another level of protection but I can see where there would be a lot of false positives when someone set the level too low, bought something, then it got declined. There's always a tradeoff.

Now I'm hesitant about using my debit card in person, once I think about it. If for some reason I got skimmed locally they'll have my debit card and that would be bad. I'm pondering if I can wait to go shopping until I get my new credit card. I had a whole list of errands I had planned for today and they all involved buying things. Maybe it's worth the wait for the new card, just to make sure that I'm covered.

Credit card fraud is annoying and inconvenient. Please make sure you're adequately covered.

UPDATE

I called my credit card company rather than reply to the 'did you make this' text/email. I didn't want them to cancel the new credit card they issued and I hadn't even received yet since this was a vendor using a virtual card.

After some back and forth and me saying the same thing about seven different ways I got confirmation that by deleting the virtual card any attempts to charge it in the future would come back declined saying the card didn't exist. I was concerned that for whatever reason the credit card company would roll an attempted charge on a deleted virtual charge up to the main card and honor it. Which seems stupid but it is a credit card company.

I'm 97.2390875% sure that it's not going to happen. I think I'm done with fraud charges from this vendor. We'll see in the next week.