For players, experience is a very simple thing; it's a bridge from the baby's first badass of their new character to the final boss battle badass that always seems inevitable just a few sessions before the campaign falls apart. It's a measure of progress and a return on their investment on having fun. What's the reward for playing your Batman-themed player character? Playing a better Batman-themed player character. For the min/maxers, it's bragging rights. For serious roleplayers, it's their character's mastery over things which have previously alluded them. For smartass snarkers, it's a license to snark to slightly more dangerous NPCs. For social roleplayers, it's...actually kind of a hassle.
Monday, February 07, 2011
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Sunday Morning Soapbox-Rocking the Cradle
Tunisia
On December seventeenth, Mohamed Bouazizi attempted to sell vegetables from his cart in Sidi Bouzid. When he could not afford to bribe officials, he was beaten and his goods and equipment were confiscated. His attempt to take his case to the local governor was rebuffed and he was left in the street with no money, no goods, and no income to provide for his family. In protest of the abuse and apathy of his government, he lit himself on fire. Within a week, other protests had started. When state police fired on protesters, more dissent sprung up in other areas. Ten days after Mohamed Bouazizi's hospitalization, protesters were in the capitol. He lived until the fifth of January, nine days shy of President Ben Ali's flight to Saudi Arabia (The European Union has since frozen his assets).
For 23 years Ali had been ruling Tunisia, taking land from citizens and redistributing it to his allies and family. He had used the media and police to silence dissent, amended the constitution to allow him to run for president twice, and won obviously fraudulent elections with 99.9% of the vote. While the interim government still contains many members of his party (his own Prime Minister now heads the government), it's not expected that those members will remain in the government after free elections (date still to be announced). The uprising was quick, long in coming, and partially organized over the internet. Some also speculate that leaked US State Department cables released by Wikileaks exposing the corruption of the Tunisian leadership may also have played a part, sadly reducing my personal ability to vilify Julian Assange at will.
Friday, February 04, 2011
It's the Magic: Phyresis (Improved!)
But if…then…hm
Elspeth’s plane was overrun by The Phyrexians. My understanding was that she wasn't from Dominaria or Phyrexia. Doesn’t that imply that Phyrexia was a threat to more than Dominaria? Was this covered during the original Phyrexian storyline? I mean, if you have two worlds (Phyrexia and Dominaria) infected by Phyrexia, and an ensuing fight in which both worlds are purged, then you figure the Phyrexian problem is ‘solved.’ Forever.
Let me go back a few steps; the first big storyline that Magic: the Gathering ever did was The Weatherlight Saga. It covered the intrepid crew (because crews are always intrepid) of the airship Weatherlight, which consisted of Gerrard, the human protagonist natural leader reluctant hero chosen one, Karn, the pacifist iron golem, and some other dudes/catladies. The Weatherlight sailed from their home plane of Dominaria (setting of most of Magic's early stories) to a few other planes (accidentally, if I'm not mistaken, adding "Jerry O'Connel" to Gerrard's description) and stumbled upon a plot by a plane called Phyrexia to invade Dominaria.
Thursday, February 03, 2011
It's the Magic: Compleation
Mirrodin Besieged comes out tomorrow, which has to be the case since I just got back on shift. I am really excited about a lot of things. I know most of the preview cards of note are ridiculous Rare and Mythics that I won’t be getting a lot of and I know that I said if I didn’t buy any Magic between the release of Mirrodin Besieged and New Phyrexia that I would (finances permitting) buy the best Star Trek ever made on DVD, plus seasons one and two of DS9, so I’ll actually be getting even fewer of the cards that I like than usual.
That said, I’m still kinda stoked about some of the cards.
Decimator Web: It moves your opponent one-tenth of the way towards defeat. Yeah, it’s expensive and it’s just an artifact that’s going to get removed once you drop eight mana or so into it, but I really, really, really like it because it has this meta quality to it. It says ‘opponent loses’ in a way that isn’t as blatant as Door to Nothingness or Darksteel Reactor. Even if your opponent manages to gain life, restock cards, or play Leeches, they can’t really do all three. It's an inefficient, deliberate method of killing someone with an easy and obvious answer. Its flavor text should be, “…No Mr. Beleren, I expect you to die.”
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
Spins a Web, In Kilobites-Shortpacked
Shortpacked is a comic about toys.
It’s not just a webcomic about toys; it’s also about superheroes, working retail, drama, television, celebrities, your twenties, and even a little bit about politics (in that it’s as much about politics as it is any of the other subjects it dabbles in, but when it does, it avoids becoming a polemic or serious discussion). It’s David Willis speaking to his own demographic; he’s not the blank slate everymen of Penny Arcade, but he is a standard bearer.
The comparison to Penny Arcade is illuminating. I’m fond of saying that Mike and Jerry have grown up with their audience, getting married, having children, and even leaving some of the passionate immersion in video gaming that initially made them so relatable behind. Willis, despite being essentially self-employed and weaving his marriage proposal and marriage into the strip’s many non-sequiturs, manages to craft a strip about being in your late twenties, dating, and working for the man. Shortpacked! is essentially a situation comedy dialed up to twenty and put on Showtime.
That’s not an insult. Calling Shortpacked! a sitcom might seem disparaging, but that’s only because your average sitcom is toothless, restrained, and utterly generic; recycling plotlines, encounters, and characters from dozens of sitcoms before it in hopes that this particular Frankensteinian corpse, comprised of these particular reused human parts will somehow become animate and beloved by millions if you keep shocking it with electricity. Shortpacked!, as you might have guessed, is no-holds barred narrative that has no limits, isn’t afraid to ridicule you, your hobbies, or itself in the name of cracking a joke, and will integrate and cast off characters with the absolutism and randomness of a katamari with palsy.
You never know what’s going to happen next. Mere randomness isn’t necessarily a good thing--I’ve seen enough off-putting, live-action [Adult Swim] programming to know that--it’s that what Willis does isn’t randomness. It’s more akin to Deadpool filling a pool with pancakes so Domino can fall through a skylight into a soft, welcoming pool of tastiness; it’s order that seems like madness, and it spawns from an underlying method. Though I don’t know him personally, I imagine that Willis is as bored with most entertainment as we are. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, whenever we experience a movie, a television show, or a book, there are rules and we are aware of them. A few of these things break these conventions, but as we receive more of that content, we realize the particular rules for that series and begin to understand them. Whatever follows after that understanding either operates within those guidelines and becomes boring, or operates outside of them and violates our internal assumptions about previous content, a big reason why movies tend to be more talked about than television series and why sequels never seem quite as good as the original.
As you might have guessed, for serial fiction (comic books, soap operas, and webcomics), this is particularly onerous; each new installment has to provide something new, but work just within or just outside of the framework the regular viewer expects. Willis, especially with his latest story, which gains world peace at the cost of a single relationship, and contains dozens of touch points with the rest of the series spanning over the past several years, manages to reshape those expectations even as he ties the narrative to itself tightly enough that it’s hard to ever say he’s outside of the universe he’s initially presented. Even when he hasn’t strictly supported everything he’s done with pieces of easily-overlooked establishment, he’s willing to take risks because even if it doesn’t match the framework of the viewer, his story consistently matches an internal framework.
In general whenever a story I like seems like it’s going off of the rails, I consider the artist in question and ask if they’ve got the credibility to see me through it; if their work in the past is worth my faith now, when I most doubt it. On those occasions when Willis’ gives me this pause to consider, I almost always answer yes. More quickly now than I have in the past.
Have I mentioned it’s funny? It’s incredibly funny. That sometimes the characters and events from “Shortpacked!” fade into the background of one-off Transformers riffs, Luann reimaginings, and memetic takes on Batman gives the strip a feeling of spontaneity and a break from the norm that filler weeks, and even aggressive cuts between contemporaneous action can’t quite achieve. Sure, you’re watching congressional gridlock over Rock Band instead of knowing what happens to Ethan next, but it’s not all-Shortpacked! all the time and yet it’s still Shortpacked!. Maybe I have a short attention span. Maybe I’m what’s wrong with America, but even if I love a new comic strip, the archives can be a slog of sameness punctuated by filler weeks. Not so with Shortpacked!, which keeps itself (mostly) fresh with the antics of Optimus Prime and Funky Winkerbean, as well as Robin DeSanto.
Much of this can be attributed to David Willis’ extensive work in webcomics. He’s been making webcomics for well over a decade starting with (as far as I can tell) a college strip about Roomies!, followed by a dramadey strip about an alien-fighting agency called It’s Walky!, before beginning his longest-running work to date; Shortpacked!. He also makes Dumbing of Age, an alternate universe take on his largest characters set in a toned-down college setting. He’s also got several Shortpacked! books out, which collect Shortpacked strips and contain some bonus materials. No shirts though, which has always struck me as kind of strange.
I could expound on these, remarking on the thoroughly-utilized characters, the life changes of both Willis and his readers reflected by the advancing comics, and the overall advancements made in both storytelling and art over the course of this series, but I guess I ought to save something for whenever I review one of his other comics one day.
Links:
Shortpacked
Shortpacked TNI
It’s Walky - Includes 'Roomies' and 'Joyce & Walky'
Dumbing of Age
Walkypedia
Willis’ Twitter
It’s not just a webcomic about toys; it’s also about superheroes, working retail, drama, television, celebrities, your twenties, and even a little bit about politics (in that it’s as much about politics as it is any of the other subjects it dabbles in, but when it does, it avoids becoming a polemic or serious discussion). It’s David Willis speaking to his own demographic; he’s not the blank slate everymen of Penny Arcade, but he is a standard bearer.
The comparison to Penny Arcade is illuminating. I’m fond of saying that Mike and Jerry have grown up with their audience, getting married, having children, and even leaving some of the passionate immersion in video gaming that initially made them so relatable behind. Willis, despite being essentially self-employed and weaving his marriage proposal and marriage into the strip’s many non-sequiturs, manages to craft a strip about being in your late twenties, dating, and working for the man. Shortpacked! is essentially a situation comedy dialed up to twenty and put on Showtime.
That’s not an insult. Calling Shortpacked! a sitcom might seem disparaging, but that’s only because your average sitcom is toothless, restrained, and utterly generic; recycling plotlines, encounters, and characters from dozens of sitcoms before it in hopes that this particular Frankensteinian corpse, comprised of these particular reused human parts will somehow become animate and beloved by millions if you keep shocking it with electricity. Shortpacked!, as you might have guessed, is no-holds barred narrative that has no limits, isn’t afraid to ridicule you, your hobbies, or itself in the name of cracking a joke, and will integrate and cast off characters with the absolutism and randomness of a katamari with palsy.
You never know what’s going to happen next. Mere randomness isn’t necessarily a good thing--I’ve seen enough off-putting, live-action [Adult Swim] programming to know that--it’s that what Willis does isn’t randomness. It’s more akin to Deadpool filling a pool with pancakes so Domino can fall through a skylight into a soft, welcoming pool of tastiness; it’s order that seems like madness, and it spawns from an underlying method. Though I don’t know him personally, I imagine that Willis is as bored with most entertainment as we are. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, whenever we experience a movie, a television show, or a book, there are rules and we are aware of them. A few of these things break these conventions, but as we receive more of that content, we realize the particular rules for that series and begin to understand them. Whatever follows after that understanding either operates within those guidelines and becomes boring, or operates outside of them and violates our internal assumptions about previous content, a big reason why movies tend to be more talked about than television series and why sequels never seem quite as good as the original.
As you might have guessed, for serial fiction (comic books, soap operas, and webcomics), this is particularly onerous; each new installment has to provide something new, but work just within or just outside of the framework the regular viewer expects. Willis, especially with his latest story, which gains world peace at the cost of a single relationship, and contains dozens of touch points with the rest of the series spanning over the past several years, manages to reshape those expectations even as he ties the narrative to itself tightly enough that it’s hard to ever say he’s outside of the universe he’s initially presented. Even when he hasn’t strictly supported everything he’s done with pieces of easily-overlooked establishment, he’s willing to take risks because even if it doesn’t match the framework of the viewer, his story consistently matches an internal framework.
In general whenever a story I like seems like it’s going off of the rails, I consider the artist in question and ask if they’ve got the credibility to see me through it; if their work in the past is worth my faith now, when I most doubt it. On those occasions when Willis’ gives me this pause to consider, I almost always answer yes. More quickly now than I have in the past.
Have I mentioned it’s funny? It’s incredibly funny. That sometimes the characters and events from “Shortpacked!” fade into the background of one-off Transformers riffs, Luann reimaginings, and memetic takes on Batman gives the strip a feeling of spontaneity and a break from the norm that filler weeks, and even aggressive cuts between contemporaneous action can’t quite achieve. Sure, you’re watching congressional gridlock over Rock Band instead of knowing what happens to Ethan next, but it’s not all-Shortpacked! all the time and yet it’s still Shortpacked!. Maybe I have a short attention span. Maybe I’m what’s wrong with America, but even if I love a new comic strip, the archives can be a slog of sameness punctuated by filler weeks. Not so with Shortpacked!, which keeps itself (mostly) fresh with the antics of Optimus Prime and Funky Winkerbean, as well as Robin DeSanto.
Much of this can be attributed to David Willis’ extensive work in webcomics. He’s been making webcomics for well over a decade starting with (as far as I can tell) a college strip about Roomies!, followed by a dramadey strip about an alien-fighting agency called It’s Walky!, before beginning his longest-running work to date; Shortpacked!. He also makes Dumbing of Age, an alternate universe take on his largest characters set in a toned-down college setting. He’s also got several Shortpacked! books out, which collect Shortpacked strips and contain some bonus materials. No shirts though, which has always struck me as kind of strange.
I could expound on these, remarking on the thoroughly-utilized characters, the life changes of both Willis and his readers reflected by the advancing comics, and the overall advancements made in both storytelling and art over the course of this series, but I guess I ought to save something for whenever I review one of his other comics one day.
Links:
Shortpacked
Shortpacked TNI
It’s Walky - Includes 'Roomies' and 'Joyce & Walky'
Dumbing of Age
Walkypedia
Willis’ Twitter
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Field Manual Kris: Blogging
So, apparently, some people missed my announcement that I was moving most of my interwebs activities from Myspace to Blogspot, so I decided to make a post to that effect to make it crystal clear. Always one to be blunt when I'm not too subtle, I opted to break up my repetition with hilarious Arnold clips. Sadly, Myspace had other plans: shitting directly on things:
http://vanvelding.blogspot.com/ is where all my interwebs happen at now.
You might ask why. Take, for instance, the blog below, which extensively used embedded You Tube videos to liven up this announcement.
It's not revolutionary to allow embedding of the most common video sharing site on the internet.
It's not dangerous to allow people to embed links that actually link to those sites instead of filtering them through your arbitrary safety system. This shouldn't even be a problem for Blogspot, which is one of the most common free blogging sites out there, but as you can tell if you click the link above, it inexplicably is for MySpace.
That you can provide such poor features in your service--which, let's face is just now just a platform for showing commercials for new music and movies to everyone who isn't smart enough to move to Facebook (where they at least get the courtesy of having advertisers hawking their goods by stealing your friends' identities)--in addition to generating a new interface that can't even be bothered to work correctly gives me the impression that you've given up being a serious social networking site in favor of being a social networking site ironically.
Which you haven't. You suck MySpace. You suck so hard. You are the URL for utter disappointment on the internet. You should take your lawyers and sue fail.com for infringing on your intellectual property of 'lacking utterly in success.'
I hate you.
Please die in a server crash.
By the way: http://vanvelding.blogspot.com
Check it out.
thing
http://vanvelding.blogspot.com
I generally update it five times a week.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/aKEg6fJ-7P4
http://vanvelding.blogspot.com/
I mentioned this earlier.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/pDxn0Xfqkgw
http://vanvelding.blogspot.com
But I didn't really push the issue.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/FRJsl9B-Bvc
http://vanvelding.blogspot.com/
My problem is that I'm too subtle.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/bBBw9E2Q_aY
http://vanvelding.blogspot.com/
It's a side effect of being just so damned subtle.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/fp9DHzgr758
http://vanvelding.blogspot.com/
Real shame, that.
http://vanvelding.blogspot.com/ is where all my interwebs happen at now.
You might ask why. Take, for instance, the blog below, which extensively used embedded You Tube videos to liven up this announcement.
It's not revolutionary to allow embedding of the most common video sharing site on the internet.
It's not dangerous to allow people to embed links that actually link to those sites instead of filtering them through your arbitrary safety system. This shouldn't even be a problem for Blogspot, which is one of the most common free blogging sites out there, but as you can tell if you click the link above, it inexplicably is for MySpace.
That you can provide such poor features in your service--which, let's face is just now just a platform for showing commercials for new music and movies to everyone who isn't smart enough to move to Facebook (where they at least get the courtesy of having advertisers hawking their goods by stealing your friends' identities)--in addition to generating a new interface that can't even be bothered to work correctly gives me the impression that you've given up being a serious social networking site in favor of being a social networking site ironically.
Which you haven't. You suck MySpace. You suck so hard. You are the URL for utter disappointment on the internet. You should take your lawyers and sue fail.com for infringing on your intellectual property of 'lacking utterly in success.'
I hate you.
Please die in a server crash.
By the way: http://vanvelding.blogspot.com
Check it out.
thing
http://vanvelding.blogspot.com
I generally update it five times a week.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/aKEg6fJ-7P4
http://vanvelding.blogspot.com/
I mentioned this earlier.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/pDxn0Xfqkgw
http://vanvelding.blogspot.com
But I didn't really push the issue.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/FRJsl9B-Bvc
http://vanvelding.blogspot.com/
My problem is that I'm too subtle.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/bBBw9E2Q_aY
http://vanvelding.blogspot.com/
It's a side effect of being just so damned subtle.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/fp9DHzgr758
http://vanvelding.blogspot.com/
Real shame, that.
Playing Favorites excerpts, pt 06
Every Tuesday, I post excerpts from my best-selling at not-selling super blog, Playing Favorites.
Also, I just kicked Lois off, but I’m keeping Jenny Sparks. Even though Jenny Sparks never wore a costume and never wore a mask. In fact, I think that Midnighter was the only member of The Authority who ever wore a mask (unless you count The Doctor’s goggles). Each other member had a ‘uniform,’ such as it was. Midnighter and Apollo had their old Stormwatch duds, The Doctor had that eye-searing vest and khakis thing going on, Swift had the green pants plus…whatever that shirt was, Jack did bare feet with dress casual, and Jenny Sparks had The Union Jack on whatever shirt she wore. Not traditional costumes, certainly. Semantics about active wear aside, while Lois isn’t intuitively a super-hero, defining super-heroes demands more than intuition. Lois isn’t a full-time hero. Not that The Authority or Booster Gold are. The Authority only seems to work a few days out of the year, y’know, whenever there’s an apocalyptic threat. Booster Gold is a reservist at best, showing up (some might say ‘shining up’) whenever the big three are out of the picture or the timeline needs patching. I think, ultimately, she isn’t defined by her costume (when she wears one, which was mostly The Silver Age and ‘All-Star Superman,’ which is basically The Silver Age, if The Silver Age managed to be reborn in the Modern Age and thusly grew up making a lick of fucking sense). When Lois isn’t Superwoman or anyone else; she’s on this list because she can kick ass and fight crime when she has to. She doesn’t go looking for trouble to stop it. She’s a reporter and neutral by default. Everyone else on this list, from Cloud 9 to Batman will readily engage the forces of chaos and crime when they run into them. Cloud 9 might not be as enthusiastic or self-motivated about it as others—we get very few glimpses into her mindset after she becomes Cloud 9—but she will engage criminals. It’s this desire to aggressively stop these kinds of threats that separates Lois (even Badass, Marriage-Era Lois) from Jenny Sparks.
The Midnighter and Ultimate Cap make the list because they are both awesome. These guys don’t have complicated character arcs: Midnighter hurts people who (mostly) deserve it when we meet him, and he was still hurting people who (kinda) deserved it when we last saw him (I’m assuming he’s dead because they’re shuttering Wildstorm and I’m quite certain that The Midnighter was we know and love him won’t be surfacing in the DC Universe at large any time soon). Ultimate Captain America will beat the shit out of anyone who crosses him, which, incidentally, involves crossing America. He’s a good soldier who will mostly follow orders about not breaking your jaw, unless you beat your wife. Then it’s on like Donkey Kong (no, seriously. Check out that fight. Girders. Barrels. One tiny guy versus one big guy. Ultimate Captain America versus Ultimate Giant Man is like Donkey Kong, if Mario could cut sweet backflips.). Or if you imply he should surrender. Or you try to take over his country. Hell, let’s just say that you better watch what you say around Captain America, because he’s got a list of pet peeves he feels very strongly about and you’ll probably break one if you know him long enough. If you do, curl up into a ball and protect your softest parts; your hard parts are already forfeit.
Also, I just kicked Lois off, but I’m keeping Jenny Sparks. Even though Jenny Sparks never wore a costume and never wore a mask. In fact, I think that Midnighter was the only member of The Authority who ever wore a mask (unless you count The Doctor’s goggles). Each other member had a ‘uniform,’ such as it was. Midnighter and Apollo had their old Stormwatch duds, The Doctor had that eye-searing vest and khakis thing going on, Swift had the green pants plus…whatever that shirt was, Jack did bare feet with dress casual, and Jenny Sparks had The Union Jack on whatever shirt she wore. Not traditional costumes, certainly. Semantics about active wear aside, while Lois isn’t intuitively a super-hero, defining super-heroes demands more than intuition. Lois isn’t a full-time hero. Not that The Authority or Booster Gold are. The Authority only seems to work a few days out of the year, y’know, whenever there’s an apocalyptic threat. Booster Gold is a reservist at best, showing up (some might say ‘shining up’) whenever the big three are out of the picture or the timeline needs patching. I think, ultimately, she isn’t defined by her costume (when she wears one, which was mostly The Silver Age and ‘All-Star Superman,’ which is basically The Silver Age, if The Silver Age managed to be reborn in the Modern Age and thusly grew up making a lick of fucking sense). When Lois isn’t Superwoman or anyone else; she’s on this list because she can kick ass and fight crime when she has to. She doesn’t go looking for trouble to stop it. She’s a reporter and neutral by default. Everyone else on this list, from Cloud 9 to Batman will readily engage the forces of chaos and crime when they run into them. Cloud 9 might not be as enthusiastic or self-motivated about it as others—we get very few glimpses into her mindset after she becomes Cloud 9—but she will engage criminals. It’s this desire to aggressively stop these kinds of threats that separates Lois (even Badass, Marriage-Era Lois) from Jenny Sparks.
The Midnighter and Ultimate Cap make the list because they are both awesome. These guys don’t have complicated character arcs: Midnighter hurts people who (mostly) deserve it when we meet him, and he was still hurting people who (kinda) deserved it when we last saw him (I’m assuming he’s dead because they’re shuttering Wildstorm and I’m quite certain that The Midnighter was we know and love him won’t be surfacing in the DC Universe at large any time soon). Ultimate Captain America will beat the shit out of anyone who crosses him, which, incidentally, involves crossing America. He’s a good soldier who will mostly follow orders about not breaking your jaw, unless you beat your wife. Then it’s on like Donkey Kong (no, seriously. Check out that fight. Girders. Barrels. One tiny guy versus one big guy. Ultimate Captain America versus Ultimate Giant Man is like Donkey Kong, if Mario could cut sweet backflips.). Or if you imply he should surrender. Or you try to take over his country. Hell, let’s just say that you better watch what you say around Captain America, because he’s got a list of pet peeves he feels very strongly about and you’ll probably break one if you know him long enough. If you do, curl up into a ball and protect your softest parts; your hard parts are already forfeit.
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If September was famine, October is feast. Let's eat! Digger (October 26th) You son of a bitch, I'm in.
