D&D pdf preview: classes

I know nobody cares about my D&D stuff, but since I don't really have any readers anyway, I'm still going to post about it.

My next game is good while away still (a couple months at least), but I'm putting together a campaign pdf for my players this time. Hopefully it will go over well enough. If anyone is interested, I'll post a preview of the class section of the file.

It's true, I'm a dice roller.

After this post I'll probably have lost any "cool" that I may have acquired, but I'm okay with that. I've mentioned previously that I'm a gamer... but I didn't quite explain to what degree. My name is Brian Williams, and I'm a Dungeons and Dragons player. It's okay, don't run away. Whatever your various notions about D&D are, they're probably wrong. So let's just get the misconceptions out of the way right now.
Things that D&D is not:

• Any form of Satanism, witchcraft, or any other such silly paranoid excuse for evil. D&D does not promote the actual worship of any form of evil, teach you to "cast magic" of any sort, or involve any sort of animal and/or virginal sacrifice.
  
• A children's game. Not to say that kids can't play it - many do. But D&D is a fairly complex, rules-heavy game that ends up being a fairly expensive hobby as well. Most D&D players are at least 18 or older.
  
• Against the teaching of the Bible/Torah/Quran/etc. Honestly, unless you're in some strange faith that believes that all forms of creative imagination are sinful, then your religion shouldn't have a problem with D&D. I'll go into more detail about what D&D is later in the post, but really it's just playing pretend at worst and group-storytelling at best.
  
• A game where you wear costumes and pretend to fight each other. No, no, no. Yes, there are people who dress up in silly costumes and go out into the woods to beat on each with fake weapons. But that game is not D&D. That is called LARPing (Live Action Role Playing) and has absolutely nothing to do with D&D. None of the many many official D&D books gives rules for or suggests LARPing. You know what I wear when I play D+D? Most often it's a pair of jeans and one of my many T-shirts purchased at a rock show. Same thing I wear to do anything else through the day.
  
• Perverse in nature. D&D is all about whatever you want it to be - it's that open ended. Your games can include giant robots, or pirates on the open sea, or building homes for impoverished people, or even all of the above. Anything you can think. As such, your games can include sex, rape, or any other questionable content that you choose. But the game does not require those things be a part of your game to play, and frankly the books subtly imply recommendation against such topics.
  
• Something only "nerds" do. Now obviously your definition of what makes a nerd could be very different from the next person's, but let's just work with the typical socially-inept geek here. People from all walks of life play D&D. I've talked to and/or heard of players that are rock stars, actors, college professors, wall street businessmen, farmers, clergymen (honestly), computer repairmen, and literally hundreds of other sorts. Vin Diesel has famously admitted to playing the game. Sure, some traditional "nerds" play the game, but they don't make up the entire demographic. Also, what's so wrong with nerds anyway?

That should cover most of the negative assumptions about the game. A few years back the "D&D is a game of Satan!" concept was fairly popular - led by a massive campaign of paranoid misinformation. Perhaps the most famous anti-D&D propaganda is Jack Chick's 'Dark Dungeons' tract. It's silly, frankly. You can find hundreds of parodies of this tiny little tract online, all based off on the joke that it's simply so far from reality that it can't possibly be taken seriously. But unfortunately, to somebody who has absolutely no previous knowledge about the game, they don't have much reason not to believe it. Jack Chick certainly makes a compelling case for being afraid of the game... too bad it's all wrong. First off, let's talk about the real "culprit" of this tract - the witches' coven. Even if we take this tract to be factual, it seems that the game is at worst just a tool these "witches" are using to gain familiarity with potential new recruits - thus they are the problem, not the game. But as I mentioned above, D&D is not a game of witchcraft. Many more players (at least in the US) consider themselves Christian than Wiccan, just as more people in the US consider themselves Christian than Wiccan. There are no rules or instructions for actual magic in any of the D&D books - heck, they'd probably be much more popular if there was. 99% of players don't belong to witches' covens, and if there are any actual witches' covens still out there they probably have much better ways to recruit people. Secondly, the players typically don't "become" their characters (unless they're serious method actors) - they simply act as them. If that's wrong, then every single actor through all of history is wrong. Finally, let's talk about the hardest part to dismiss in the tract - the girl named Marcie's suicide. This is hard rumor to diffuse, that X person from X town on X dated killed themselves because their character died. Well, as I said, D&D players are basically just actors, and since actors don't typically commit suicide when the character they're portraying is killed off... there doesn't seem to be much weight to the argument. But honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if once, maybe twice in the entire history of the game a person has committed suicide because of some negative thing that happened to their character (be it death or something else). The issue there isn't with D&D though, it's with the person being unstable to begin with. The sort of people that would kill themselves over that is just as likely to kill themselves because their favorite character in a book or TV show died off, so the fact that it happened to be D&D that set them off is utterly meaningless. So what does the tract get right? Well, not very much. The only thing worth any merit is that the Bible does say not to practice witchcraft. But we've already discussed how D&D is not witchcraft. So is writing fiction or acting the part of a character who practices magic sinful? Well, according the Bible murder, stealing, and lying are all sin... is it sinful for an actor to play a character that murders, steals, or lies? Is it sinful for an author to write a character that engages in murder, theft, or deception? If that's the case, then basically all works of fiction are evil - and that seems pretty silly to me.
So we've discussed what D&D is not and we've broken down the concept of the game itself being sinful/evil. So now we should quickly tackle what D&D is.
D&D is:

• A game. The point of D&D is the same as any other game - to have fun. And while some people do take it very seriously, it's no different than being very serious about watching football or anything else. It's still a game, and no matter how serious it's treated, the goal is as simple as just having fun.
  
• Social. D&D is a group game. The average D&D game is typically played in a group of 4 to 8 people, including the Dungeon Master (consider him the main storyteller). The game doesn't exist without the social aspect - a bunch of people spending time together in a group with nothing but their imagination and conversation to fill the time.
  
• A game of pretend. The "rules" of D&D isn't what makes the game - they're just there to add some structure. When you were a kid, did you ever play cowboys & indians or pretend to sword/gun fight with other kids? It's fun until you get to the "I shot you dead" "No you didn't, I dodged!" part. Well D&D is basically the same thing as those basic games of pretend just with some structure to prevent disagreements. Instead of fighting over whether or not you did in fact shoot your friend, now you roll a dice and do a quick equation and can say for certain whether or not you hit him.
  
• Group storytelling. For me, this is the most compelling part of the game. It's really not very different from sitting in front of a typewriter working on a fictional novel. Except in D&D you're not the only writer. It becomes a massive group effort to craft your story, with the Dungeon Master being the lead writer in charge of creating the world, and the players getting to be solely responsible for writing the parts of the main characters.
  
• A good activity for children. Bear with me here for a minute, I'll explain how. First off, the rules of D&D aren't simple. At all. Sure, the basics can be picked up pretty fast, but there is an insane number of rules in the game (don't worry, you don't need to memorize or even use all of them). Playing D&D is like an exercise in critical thinking - you need to apply some serious thought to figuring out some of the more complex rules. D&D is also a pretty math heavy game. The dice are the real key function of D&D, working as the variable for basically every conceivable action. Trying to hit that troll? Roll the dice, add any additional bonus modifiers, subtract any negative modifiers from armor or other circumstances, works out the percentile likelihood of success with the troll in question hiding partly behind a tree, etc etc etc. Want your kid to get a great head-start in math? Get them playing D&D. The level of English in through the books is basically college level, but it's presented in a fashion where kids can work out the meanings of any words they don't know. D&D is like a vocab lesson on steroids. The social aspects of the game are certainly a bonus for children that might otherwise be watching TV or playing video games by themselves as well. Additionally, the very concept of how the game is played is that the players are confronted with a series of problematic situations that they need to figure out solutions for... which is really the very definition of problem solving, a skill anyone would argue is important for everyday life. And as far as I'm concerned, encouraging creativity is one of the best things you can do for your children - the world of D&D that exists only within your own imagination is an amazing tool for expressing and developing creativity.

I think once you're willing to remove your pre-conceived notions about the game (almost all of which come from misinformation) and take a look at the game for yourself, you'll see that it isn't some vile creation of evil or merit badge of complete nerdiness. You'll see that it's just a silly, fun hobby that arguably could even be said to carry some real world benefits to it. Truth be told though, I didn't write all that to convince or convert anyone... I wrote it because I'm going to be posting some D&D related stuff I'm working out for an upcoming game and wanted to defend my playing the game from any unfair prejudice before I did so. Hopefully I've at least succeeded in that. If my post did happen to make the game sound appealing to anyone who hadn't really seen it as such before... well that's even better. As always, thanks for reading.


(side note: for whatever reason it won't let me put an ampersand '&' in the tags, so D&D entries will be listed as "d+d" in the tag section.)

On Gaming or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace The Revolution. pt.2

(This is the second part of a 2 part series on gamers, the game industry, and the Nintendo Wii. If you haven't yet read the first half, you can do so right here.)

In the last installment on this topic, we discussed the new "gamer" and the potential problems for the games industry in targeting that demographic. Now let's discuss what Nintendo is doing to rectify the situation.
With the release of their newest console, the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo was taking a big chance. Their system wasn't designed to appeal to the core gaming market, risking the favor and attention of the people shown to spend money on the video game industry. Core technology-wise, the processor used in the Wii isn't much of a step up from the previous generation of game systems - it's fairly comparable with the Gamecube, Playstation 2, or regular Xbox. As such, the potential game capability is lower than that of it's current competition - more importantly the Wii simply can't handle the quality level of graphics that the other two can, and ever-increasingly "better" graphics have become one of the more important aspects in successful game sales. Even the actual games were decidedly not focused on the frat-gamer - the pseudo-shooter Red Steel was the only gamer game with even a little bit of hype around it back during the Wii launch period.
But none of those things could hold the Wii back - despite all the potential negatives, there was just too much to get excited about in the little white box. The key aspect of the Wii is obviously the new motion sensor control style. Gaming isn't just about hitting buttons anymore. You don't play Wii Baseball by hitting the 'swing' button at the right time - you get out there and swing the bat like you were really out there standing over home plate. You bowl by going through the motions you would at any bowling alley, you deliver that backhand just like you've seen Serena Williams do it to return the ball in Wii Tennis, and you stand ready in your gold posture to score that hole in one in your simulated gold game. As a matter of fact, if I remember correctly, the entire Wii Sports game (which comes with the console and includes Wii Tennis, Baseball, Golf, Bowling, Boxing, and a variety of really fun training games) can be played only touched two actual buttons on the Wii Remote - a striking departure from the standard of Xbox/Xbox360/Ps2/Ps3 games typically requiring the use of at least 8 buttons as well as analogue sticks and/or directional pads. The Wii Remote has more buttons, but the idea is that it isn't about figuring about button configurations but rather just getting out there and playing. And while the sensor isn't perfect (problems vary a lot - mostly depending on the distance from and size of your television and the amount of infrared light in the room), it's pretty damn good - the remote can really detect amazingly subtle movements with fairly great accuracy. Here's the great thing about this - no longer do you have to have some familiarity with gaming to competently pick up a game and enjoy it. Can you swing a baseball bat? You can play Wii Sports! Can you hold a marble in your hand and tilt to move it around your hand? You can master Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz! Can you use your finger to point at the TV screen? You can play Red Steel or Farcry or any other shooting game on the Wii! It's really that simple. The Wii is the system made for people who don't play video games. You've probably heard these stories thrown around a lot as Wii-buzz, but there are elderly grandparents who have barely touched a computer, much less a video game, out there buying Wii systems because they had so much fun playing them with their grandchildren! The Wii isn't just new user-friendly for it's controls either - the Wii is the system most likely to appeal to new gamers because it comes in at the low price tag of $249.99 currently compared to the Xbox 360 at $349.99 for the cheap version of it's real system (you can buy a cheaper version called the Xbox 360 Core edition, but it's basically an incomplete system) and the massive price tag of $449.99 for the cheapest version of the PlayStation 3! That doesn't even take into account Nintendo's decision to keep first-party published games under $50 whereas Xbox360/PS3 first party games are averaging close to the $60 mark these days. So the choice becomes pretty clear to the potential new gamer looking for a new hobby to pass the time - either invest a lot of cash into a system that looks complicated, or spend a more manageable wad of cash on a system that seems easy to learn and has a lot of positive buzz from fellow non-gamers out there who gave it a shot. This is why Nintendo is winning the console war. Rather than go with the strategy of fighting with their rivals over the X number of people who spend money on the gaming market, they made a machine for the much larger number of people who weren't gamers already - knowing full well that the gaming scene by it's very nature would display interest in the machine no matter what they did. So the Wii sells to the gamers that support Nintendo and it's system, it sells to the new breed of casual gamers, and it still sell to a large chunk of the "hardcore" gaming community because a large chunk of that populous are multi-system owners who will consistently buy all of or at least most of the major gaming systems on the market. Nintendo does a nice little happy dance on it's way to the bank.
As fantastic as it is to draw new people to gaming (theoretically more gamers means more money into the game industry which means a stronger, better industry), that's not even the part that makes me excited about the Wii. It's that we get to experience a new sort of gaming for the first time in a long time. Games like Trauma Center, where you use the Wii Remote and Nunchuk attachment (both come with the sytesm) like surgical tools to save the lives of your patients, wouldn't exist if not for the innovations made by the Wii. Heck, even sports gaming, perhaps the absolute least innovated genre in video games, has the potential to feel fresh and new on the Wii - supposedly the Wii version of Madden's long-running and always-exactly-the-same-damn-game football series actually plays like it's something totally original! Even shooting games can really be reborn on the Wii. While I think shooting games are fun, I've long thought that they're basically just an endless chain of clones of each other. Up until now they're been basically interchangeable at least in their gameplay dynamics. But now with the Wii, we're not just facing out enemies and pushing the buttons - we're actually aiming the remote and firing at every nook and cranny on the screen like we were really there in the moment! So the Wii isn't just bringing new gamers - it's bringing a new way to game. And as a long-time gamer, I really think that's just what the industry needed.
Long live Nintendo!

On Gaming or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace The Revolution. pt.1

(This is going to be a long entry and since it's really about two separate topics, I'll be dividing it into two parts. If you're not very interested in my analysis of the modern gamer and how he's hurting the gaming industry, you may want to skip ahead to why the Wii may be the salvation gamers need. You'll find that in part 2.)
I know I touched on what a modern "gamer" is a lit bit already in my previous gaming post, but let's go over this one more time... What sort of person is the modern gamer? Well sadly, he's not a hard character to describe - at least he's not a hard character to make somewhat vague but most likely accurate generalizations about. Of course this is going to be just the worst stereotype of the most generic gamer, but I think you'll get the idea I'm trying to get across pretty clearly. Let's start with the physical, starting from his head and ending at his toes:
If he's a lucky gamer then he has naturally brown, curly hair which he cuts just short enough to still curl and styles to look entirely unkempt. If he didn't get the curly hair gene, he's likely wearing a trucker or baseball cap. His head is further covered by either a Xbox Live headset if he's playing console games, or another very similar headset if he's playing World of Warcraft. He's not smiling - gaming is a serious affair to this type of gamer, so he's either staring with a bored-but-serious expression, or rambling incoherently into his headset. At best he may give the occasional snooty chuckle. He may or may not be wearing either a hemp, puka shell, or wooden bead necklace. His T-shirt either has some just slightly artsy band like Coheed & Cambria or some vague gaming/vague meme (internet phenomenon) reference on it, worn over his just slightly overweight midsection. Studded belt or faded leather belt with silly buckle is a must. He wears jeans that he pays far too much for, but so does everybody, so that's not all that important. His shoes are typically either Converse or Vans brand - though he may be wearing overpriced leather sandals as well. If he's on the computer (and thereby playing World of Warcraft), he's slouched back as if trying to recline in his computer chair. If he's on his Xbox, he's probably leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Proper posture is a faux pas for this gamer. Yes, the modern gamer is basically the worst stereotype of a slacker frat boy.
His mannerisms are the really distinct part of the frat-boy-slash-gamer however. He acts nonchalant about as much as he can, throwing in the occasional bit of "randomness" to appear cool. He speaks in l33t (click the link if you're not familiar with it), despite the fact that it was popular way back in '98 in Ultima Online (and elsewhere) and is totally played out now. 75% of his speech is made up of the words "Pwn" and "Newb." He may or may not own a few different gaming consoles, but he definitely owns a Xbox 360, or at least a 'classic' Xbox. The only game he plays on his PC is World of Warcraft, or Guild Wars - which is basically Warcraft Lite. He may own and occasionally buy a PC game, but he doesn't play it frequently enough to matter. As referenced above, he most likely listens to pseudo-art rock - nothing too artsy or intelligent, just enough to be a little bit deeper than standard radio fare so he can look down his nose with a sense of musical superiority (Coheed & Cambria, Cursive, Dragonforce, maybe even a little Cobra Starship). He does not actively listen to rap, but occasionally uses hip-hop slang for weak comedic effect. Most importantly of all though, is that he doesn't play games for fun. At least it's not the game itself that gives him the most enjoyment. Gaming is a giant pissing contest for this sort of gamer. It's about being the best, the fastest, the first. It's all about justifying in themselves their sense of superiority. He strives to be the best PvPer (player-vs-player in game fighting, for the non-gamer), the first person to reach level [x] in whatever new game comes out, the first person to beat/discover/win/obtain whatever, etc, etc, etc. It's not about being good at this or that game - it's all about being better than somebody else at it.
Looking for something to self-affirm your own superiority really isn't all that bad in and of itself. Stupid, but not much else. The problem is such - this new gamer demographic isn't looking for the coolest new games - they're looking for the coolest slight variation on games they've already played. They want BioShock to be Halo-esque because Halo was fun and is familiar to them. They can pick up BioShock and get into it like a pro quickly. And thus they can win fast and dominate others fast. Random gamer X may only be the 24th best killer on Counter-Strike, but maybe if they pick up whatever the next clone game is before the 23 other players better than they are, then they could master it faster and become the best. And so innovation dies. Games are clones of successful games before them because the new gamer just wants to keep playing the same games they're good at - just with new levels and better graphics (graphics being the most important aspect to the modern gamer). Furthermore, the gaming world is becoming less and less welcoming to potential new players. The games are made for these "hardcore" gamers. Watch somebody who has never played a video game before try to play BioShock. Sure, they might eventually get it - but it will be a long, frustrating, and frankly not very fun journey that they'll probably quit long before they become a competent player. The new player problem is even worse in games that emphasis player vs player competition. How is the guy who's first game is Halo 3 possibly supposed to keep up with the gamer that has played, beat, and dominated the previous two installments as well as the endless Halo clones on the market? Simply, he can't. And since a lot of the "fun" in these new gamers games is in succeeding in the competition setting - that new player misses out... and ultimately gives up.
But don't lose hope just yet. Obviously there are still a few games and game companies coming out that appeal to more than just the hardcore gamer. Katamari Damacy, most "party" games, any of the Sims-type games, and a few other of the quirky 'take-a-chance' type games manage to be fun, inviting, and utterly refreshing. But there is no bigger champion of reinvigorating the gaming world than the Nintendo Wii. Call me a fanboy all you want, but frankly I'm still giddy over the Wii's willingness to rethink not just the games we play, but the way in which we play them. But this post is getting pretty big already... so stay tuned for part 2 of this post where we discuss what it is that makes the Wii worth such reverence.

I also haven't seen 300 yet; I'm a pop culture outcast.

You probably haven't heard this anywhere yet, but there's this new gaming coming out called Halo 3... Ha. In the real world, advertising and publicity for Halo 3 is literally everywhere - you can't even fill your gas tank without seeing it ads for Halo themed slurpees.

...

Actually, before I talk about Halo, let's discuss my gamer credentials. I am a gamer in the truest sense of the word. I grew up gaming. Honestly - I grew up with somewhat inattentive parents in an area with no other children my age. Video games were pretty much my babysitter and best friend for my early life. I've had damn never every system that came out, at least until recent years: Atari, NES, SNES, Genesis, Gameboy, Game Gear, N64, Virtual Boy, Playstation, Gameboy Advance, Gamecube, PS2, Nintendo DS, and most recently the Nintendo Wii. I've probably at least played every system not on this list as well. Once I was older and had kids around me, I was always the kid the other kids asked to come over and beat this level or that boss for. I've always been a completionist - I can't just beat a game, I have to get every item, uncover every secret, read every line, and watch every cut scene. I was playing games online before playing games online was the massive industry it is now. From Diablo to City of Heroes and many many games inbetween, most notably World of Warcraft and a very long history with Ultima Online long long long before the Trammel split. Hell, I was playing MUDs online in middle school. So all in all, I think it's safe to say that I'm a gamer. I'm a serious gamer.

Now back to Halo 3... The hype-fest that is Halo 3. The game finally comes out tomorrow and gamers all over are practically salivating, just waiting to devote the next month of their lives to the game. But you know what? I couldn't care less about this game. Honestly. Despite all the mass-advertising, I am so apathetic that I didn't even know when it was coming out - I had to look up the release date before writing this to make sure it wasn't actually out yet. I've played Halo. I'm played Halo 2. Sure, they're fun for a little while... but they aren't anything to get this worked up over. It's a shooter. Like every other damn shooter out there. Halo = Half-Life = Doom = Far Cry and so on and so on. Honestly, aside from cosmetic differences and what passes for storyline in those games, they're almost completely interchangeable. Halo isn't even the best in the genre! Half-Life and it's derivative games (namely Team Fortress) are unquestionably superior games! But the sad part is that Halo has somehow helped to created a new type of gamer. The term means something entirely different now - it's used for the douche-baggy, frat boy, "no kiddy game" playing, xbox-fanboyish dicks in the gaming world. The people that can actually say "newb" with a straight face and are intellectually empty enough to actually think Ctrl+Alt+Del is the best webcomic on the 'net.
It's disgusting, and unfortunately seems to be a growing trend. So sadly, we're going to have to slowly say goodbye to the real games of the world. Traditional RPGs, the genre I would argue belong to the real gamers, are already on their way out. Quirky, inventive games will continue to sell only as minor novelty items. And the "next-gen" systems will only more and more keep to their winning tactic - "better" graphics and more guns.
Thank God I got the Wii. Nintendo is where it's at. The Wii's unique gaming perspective and the DS's recent leaning towards RPGs makes them the two most stand out systems on the shelves today. Nintendo may just be the last hope for the real gamers left in the world. Frankly, I look forward to Nintendo reclaiming their rightful throne.