Urban Pathfindera - Or How I Came To Stop Worrying And Love Converting Systems

An ambitious project I started quite some time ago was the Pathfinderization of the d20 Modern system. Unlike wanting to create an entirely new system (which I thought was wholly unnecessary), my goal was to simply provide an extensive errata for the entire system, and adding a couple other neat little touches I thought were worth adding in.

For reasons of wanting to avoid being slapped by copyright lawyers, I decided that I would only provide the text that needed to be updated - everything else was as the books had stated. I went through, I overhauled *everything*. Made every character class Pathfinder-compatible, balanced unbalanced classes, removed Action Points and instead made abilities a X Times Per Day/Encounter ability, so on and so forth. I went through and did an extensive re-writing of the armor and firearms systems - armor provides DR in addition to extra AC - at the expense of Dexterity bonuses, of course - and made guns more potent by giving them base modifiers to accuracy and damage based on the type of gun being used - and in doing so prepping them to be freely modified much like one could modify regular weapons via magic or (additional) mastercrafting.

d20 Modern, Future, Future Tech, Cyberscape, and even Apocalypse were looked at, reconsidered, and overhauled. I went page by page through the Weapons Locker, assigning new attributes to each and every single gun in there, without repasting the entire book on the internet - all you'll find are the changes made to each weapon. Yet there was one sole book that escaped my purview (aside from Past... who needs to change anything in that when you have Pathfinder now?).

That book was Urban Arcana.

I loved the idea behind Urban Arcana. It was a great idea. What wasn't great, however, was that the design philosophy behind the entire thing was critically flawed from my own idea of how this system should work - essentially, in order to cast a Magic Missile, one needed to take three levels of a basic class, and then gain levels in one of the extremely-limited magic-based classes.

So basically, 4th level character, but only a 1st level caster. Magic Missile? My basic handgun deals more damage at first level, don't make me laugh! At the upper echelon, the maximum level spell castable by modern characters is a 5th level spell. While dangerous to a party with limited magical abilities, this stark contrast is insane when compared to any fantasy-based caster, who has access to far greater abilities by that time. By 13th level, a Wizard or Sorceror is slinging around 7th level spells. Even with guns, how the hell is a modern character ever going to possibly compete should these two worlds combine?

That there's the rub, and tonight, I think I'll take the first steps to answering that question. Bear with me, this might take a little while.

The difference between Mages and Hedge Wizards

Or something to that effect, I suppose. Mages are what we typically associate normal spellcasters with - they are pretty awesome dudes who didn't afraid of anything and shoot fireballs out of their nostrils all night long while banging their totally hot summoned succubi. Hedge Wizards, or what is the equivalent of the Urban Arcana spellcasters, are modern characters who somehow gain access to spells.

In the context of the game system it was designed for, this makes perfect sense - after all, the CR of most creatures skyrockets because the party is not intended to have any magical abilities whatsoever. This makes your typical monster far more dangerous, since overcoming most common defenses (DR X/Magic or Cold Iron, or even Good, for example) becomes an insurmountable task. Weapons are capped at dealing at best 2d8 (or 2d12 if you're particularly saucy and using some badass AMR), and you have very limited protections against most common damage types, such as fire, cold, and electricity. It's a much higher stakes game, where attempting to defeat something that powerful is pretty much impossible without magic.

At 20th level, the best you can hope to ever use are 5th level spells. Since damaging abilities from other classes are capped due to a lack of magical weapons to help compensate, the Urban Arcana casters are restricted access to higher-level spells, as it would make things far too unbalanced in their favor. On the other hand, though, they pale in comparison to the 'real' casters - which the 'fluff' of the setting explains has long-since been lost to the ages for whatever reason you might want to imagine.

With that having been said, here's the main big point: The only 'advantage' that a Modern caster has over a Fantasy caster is that the Modern one is allowed the use of firearms, and has a different set of skills. Additionally, these characters are granted Talents which better round out their initial abilities by granting them something special early on.

Put a Strong or Tough hero beside a Fighter, and you'll note they are fairly balanced. But put an Urban Arcana caster beside a Wizard or Sorceror, however, and you've got what can only be described as a nightmare - the Wizard or Sorceror will likely win every time, considering they have access to far more powerful spells.

Now, I'm not opposed to this being the case. What I am opposed to, however, is the manner in which this was all presented. In order to start learning anything besides a 0th level spell as a Modern character, you must first take three levels of whatever. This rubs me the wrong way, and while I can understand *why* they did it in the context of the system (which works off of six core classes that eventually specialize elsewhere), the problem lies in that very same design - every class has to move into an "Advanced" class. It is literally impossible to play a first-level character who has access to something more powerful than Ray of Frost - and that's kind of lame, in a way. So how do we solve this issue without unbalancing the scales yet again?

Solving the riddle

I like to think the best solution lies in one of two places. One, you play a character utilizing one of the Fantasy classes - not an ideal solution, of course, but it should still be acceptable in certain circles that even the oldest of old school mages could be technophobes (and unlike other modern characters, not allowed the benefits of Occupations and the like). The second option lies right in the core of the system itself - a feat available only at character creation, which allows the player the ability to cast 0th level spells.

See, I liked the idea of that, because it was a way to cast spells as a Modern character. The problem, however, is that it never scaled in any way at all - what if you decided that you didn't want to advance into the casting advanced classes? Worse yet, what if you realized that you couldn't meet the prereqs required to move into those classes? Wild magic should be allowed to bear fruit at some point, shouldn't it?

4E has taught me many things, and one thing I enjoy about it is their take on multi-classing. Particularly, the ability to take something from another class as you desire. The problem I see between the Modern casters and the Fantasy ones is that the Modern characters don't get enough of a leg up on the Fantasy boys - they're always going to be left in the dust, being nothing more than pathetic posers wishing that they could be cool enough to cast the real magics.

What if we just let them? The solution I came up with some time ago was that you could make a feat available only at character creation that turns any of the core Modern classes into a spellcasting one - by using what I called a Universal Talent, you gained access to a *very* limited spell progression chart, and chose a source of magic - Arcane or Divine. Sounds familiar, right?

Additionally, the character could choose a source of study as well - Natural or Practiced. Natural casters gained spells like Sorcerors or Favored Souls would. Practiced were your Wizards and Clerics. The kicker? These characters could never see spells above second level without proper training. Perfect for someone who plans on eventually advancing into the Advanced classes... and for someone who just wants a bit of flavor? Equally useful as well, without breaking things too much.

The problem with solutions

Of course, this brings about some issues of its own. If left unchecked, eventually the Modern casters would overshadow the Fantasy ones. And for that very reason, they are capped on the maximum spell they are allowed to cast. The Advanced Class grants them access to fifth level spells, and a Prestige Class would allow them access to 7th. But this comes with its own problem as well, which brings me to the point of this entire thing:

In order to create such a solution, one must tear out everything that exists with the currently-existing magic classes in Urban Arcana, in order to make them work well with Pathfinder. Not only do you have to change how their spell progression works, you also have to strip the currently-existing level-based abilities, and make them something more than just "bonus feat, divine spells" every single level.

As it stands right now, a 5th level wizard can cast a 5d6 fireball. A 5th level Modern hero can cast a 2d6 Shocking Grasp. I'm okay with not allowing them access to the higher level spells... but can't we at least let them treat their core class as part of their effective caster level? 5d6 Shocking grasp is good, but pales in comparison to the Fireball (as it can only affect a single target).

The other thing I would love to see with making Urban Arcana Pathfinder ready is the addition of brand new abilities. The book had great ideas with some of their spells, such as powering electronic devices or making vehicles move, or even casting magic through the internet. What if the Modern caster, unlike the Wizards of yore, could swap out their spells on the go? Pull out your PDA, and suddenly you've got the incantations for a spell you didn't prepare for the day - something a Wizard might find difficult, being that they still work on the old Vancian system.

I believe that selectable Talents is the way to go here - and allowing for additional caster-based benefits to allow the Modern caster to become far more versatile is one way to allow them to compete with the old masters without tipping the scales too far in one direction or the other.

Urban Arcana had great ideas. It's just a shame they were executed so terribly.

With all of this said and done, I've spent over an hour typing this thing. It's almost a freaking essay at this point. Maybe later this week, I'll start setting aside time to begin working once again on the framework of this project - unlike the previous stages, I only had to update things. With this, I will be creating brand new content, because quite frankly I never really did like what they did with casting magic in Modern. Universal Talents, probably updating the original Advanced Classes, and then adding in 5-level Prestige classes will be a great step in the right direction, I think.

It'll be a heck of a project... but I *did* do a complete firearms overhaul, so I think this will be about as ambitious as Pathfinderizing Modern in the first place.

Let's Get Creative

Doing anything creative takes a lot of time and energy. It's a lesson I keep forgetting myself, growing disheartened because something is taking "too long". But really, what is that determining factor when something takes "too long"? Does it really matter how long something takes, so long as it gets done?

I like to think this is a hurdle all of us face at one point or another - particularly with creative types. Modeling anything in 3D takes ages, but the gaming industry makes it all seem like it's effortless. Week after week we are bombarded with new things - some industry powerhouses manage to produce new material week after week - and when it comes to trying to compete with that, it can be overwhelming. How can we ever hope to be that good?

But here's a few things to remember about those places: one, they have a highly talented staff (usually) who are super-motivated to create things. Two, they've got sometimes upwards of a hundred people working on the same project, making the time it takes to complete anything far shorter. Lastly, these people working on these things are working on them every single day.

It's no wonder it's hard to compete with such a thing. Really, I believe that people thinking along these lines are maybe looking at the puzzle from the wrong perspective. The point here isn't *just* to make something awesome - it's to make something you enjoy. To do something for yourself that you are also willing to share with other people.

Art is supposed to be fun. But in today's uncertain times, it's harder and harder to justify that kind of fun - especially if it doesn't even feel like it is productive fun.

So today's short post is just a helpful reminder to myself, if no one else: make something for you, and then share it with other people. It'll matter to all the right people, and if it only matters to you? That's fine too - because that's the most important person it *should* matter to.

Initial Impressions: Deus Ex Human Revolution

For those of you who may not have had the chance to play this yet (and I'm sure there's a sizable population of that), I'll attempt to keep this as spoiler-free as possible - but as is true with any review, some things may or may not slip through that you may wish to come to you as a surprise - if you're a purist like that, I suggest you stop reading here and just move on.

So, since I've started playing this game, I've already managed to put an impressive 20+ hours into it, and I am still not at the end of the game yet. Now, if Achievements are any indication, odds are I'll likely be seeing that end within the next 5-10 hours of gameplay. With that having been said, let's just go right into this thing.

Having been a huge fan of the original Deus Ex, I've been using that as my meter stick of comparison, and for those of us who have played it, the number of parallels are astonishing - both protagonists have a similar detached attitude, both have similar character designs including shades, and both work for a powerful organization in which they both have offices that can be maintained. In fact, one could even go so far as to suggest that Human Revolution may be nothing more than a simple reskin of the original game - lord knows they probably wouldn't be that far off the truth. But there are some things that seem to strike me as strange, and I guess I'll start to address that now.

I'm one of those guys who loves to explore the game, and this is one of those gems that really tries to reward you for doing it, both in the form of usually giving you something to find but also giving you EXP every time you find or do something. But if there's one thing that aggravates me so far, it's the cities. On the one hand, looking at the map the cities feel rather small - everything is so crammed together, it's difficult to get a good bead on much of anything. On the other hand, though, it's still possible to get lost in these places - god knows I've run around in circles in Detroit for an hour trying to figure out where I was making a wrong turn, or mistakenly walking past where I wanted to be, or hell, even forgetting where that stupid manhole cover I wanted to jump down was.

But much like the original, these places feel *alive*, and that is one thing I think Human Revolution has gotten really right. The thing that struck me as soon as the game started was the amount of *stuff* that's everywhere. No, it doesn't do anything, but it really helps to set the mood to make you feel like "holy crap, this is a place where people eat/work/live". It's not pristine niceness that we see so often in games, and it's not the assorted 'random clutter' that we see in Fallout - all of it has a purpose and makes sense for the areas in which they reside. The laboratories look fantastic, and walking through them was a real treat.

The level design in this game is absolutely outstanding as well. Though I feel that because some of these areas may not be large enough there aren't enough options, I still find myself looking around and realizing "huh, there was another way to do this? Neat." Options are always abound, and this is not a game with a single 'right' path - it's a game that says "here is your goal, and here's everything between, put it together yourself."

Implants are rather well done too, though I must say I am rather disappointed in their execution. Praxis points are required to upgrade your Implants, which I'm okay with, but when you start out there are only a select few abilities that are available to you, and you must prioritize which are the most important upgrades. Add in that while XP is not hard to come by, but the large amounts you need to quickly obtain the next Praxis is, you've got yourself an aggravating early game - because there's sometimes no way to really achieve your goal until you've unlocked that one augment that lets you do what you need.

The other disappointment stems from the fact that only a couple of them really feel necessary - the rest, while neat and certainly useful in their own right, aren't really needed. I feel that I can take on the rest of the game as I am now, without needing to upgrade further - and I'd probably wind up with about 8-10 Praxis I hadn't spent, if not more. The only augment I've found important to max out is the Hacking Stealth implant - otherwise, Hacking anything becomes a tedious nightmare.

Which brings me to my next complaint - the Hacking system is rather obtuse at first, and while they pretty much explained everything you need to know, it doesn't really tell you all the rules around it - like not being limited to interacting with a single node at a time - for example, you can be hacking three nodes and working on fortifying five all at the same time, with no real penalty - the only limitation is how quickly you can click the right options.

Then there's the character models. I love the character modeling, don't get me wrong. It's absolutely amazing. The animation, however, is a little jarring at times - some characters just flat out will *not* stop moving their damned heads or keep waving their arms in the exact same pattern for minutes on end while they are talking with you. Once in awhile, I can see this just being a character quirk for an individual or two. But with several key named NPCs? That's just aggravating, and I really wish they had paid a little more attention to that, considering that you are looking at those characters for practically the entire conversation.

The social mod only seems to come in handy in a few instances so far, which is a little disappointing, but considering how few named NPCs there are in the game, I suppose it is hardly surprising. What is surprising, however, is that there are no more ATMs in the world! I remember back in the days of Deus Ex that a great way to get money in a pinch was to hack an ATM machine, and hope nobody caught you. Which actually brings me to my next gripe...

Nobody in the world seems to give a shit. Say what you will about the economy, but you would think that someone would be a little bit angry if you broke into their home, stole all their beer, and took all the money that was sitting right beside them. You'd think, wouldn't you? But no, literally you can be hacking terminals right in front of people, and unless you are hostile to them, they won't care at all. Including the police.

Not to mention that failing a hack (unless you're in a secure facility) no longer causes alarms to go off. I remember going to Shanghai in the original, and those guys would be on you like white on rice if you so much as looked like you were going to hack something.

So to wrap all of this up: Overall I am very pleased with Human Revolution. They've done a number of amazing things, and managed to pretty much recreate the atmosphere of the original, while even adding a 'side quest' distraction to help flesh out some extra gameplay. Unfortunately, this extra gameplay only extends a little bit, and there's only something around 8 total side quests to do - which makes things a little boring when you realize there isn't that much to do in the city aside from find things and punch thugs in the face.

I'm pleased with it, and looking forward to at least trying one more playthrough, possibly where I shoot people in the face as opposed to all of this not killing anyone thing. The game itself doesn't clearly explain all of the rules when you first start playing - but with a little experimentation, and several retries from doing the wrong thing, you find out what the limitations of the game are, and how to pretty much abuse the ever living crap out of the game to reach your objectives. This is not a complaint, however, but I feel it helps add to the atmosphere and central theme of the game itself, which is one of taking advantage of a situation.

If you liked the original, go play this. Or at least rent it. I'm sure you'll be pleased with the end product - I know I am.

Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

Late once more - technically today's update should be tomorrow's post, but since I failed to actually put anything up on sunday (when I should have) things have been out of whack.

So I'll just talk about what kept me up late sunday, and how my experiments are going with Wildly Inadvisable: Test Theory.

The test game was just a pretty quickly thrown together sort of thing. I had some very vague ideas in mind, but I had no idea what kind of characters I'd have. Speaking with those interested in trying the new system, I learned that they were very interested in trying a modern magical game - a world in which we evolved with the knowledge that magic was a very real and tangible thing. Then the first two sheets that were slid my way using the rules laid out both just happened to be college students.

I had to think on my feet. I wanted to attempt some sort of investigation-themed game, but how could I tie college students into it? The obvious choice was pretty obvious: put them into the thick of things pretty quickly. A mysterious creature (whom they've begun calling Slender) that looks similar to a cat began to lead them on, in a way. A mysterious set of numbers led them to believe that something might be occurring later that week - perhaps in that very spot. So they chose to come back later that week, and sure enough, their gut instincts were correct - a professor who had been fired that very day had return to exact some form of revenge, and once the cat-like creature was mentioned, the professor went ballistic.

In this world, magic is a very real thing - but also fairly rare. Sure, most people have at least a small bit of aptitude for magic - usually it doesn't go very much beyond levitating pens or creating small lights, or powering small devices (such as phones). On occasion, someone will develop a power that is useful to them in some way, and with training, they can manage to become Mages.

Most often, Mages are taken under strict supervision of some government entity - be it military, police, or even a federal government. They have entirely new career paths made open to them, many of which serve to better serve mankind at large. Police investigators, for example, can more easily understand what precisely occurred at the scene of a crime - emergency medical technicians no longer need to rely on chemical remedies and common medical training - the use of magic can help stabilize patients long before they even arrive at the hospital. Senior Mages can even become expert medical doctors, or maintain watch over entire sections of the city, dealing with only the most dangerous cases.

In this game, there is also an entity known as "Corruption", where a spell user can allow themselves to channel some sort of dark energy into themselves, in exchange for greater power. Every character has some sort of 'safe' threshold for this Corruption, but it both takes a long time to vanish and also has some extremely dangerous side effects - after a certain point, a character must roll each time their Corruption increases, or risk being taken over by whatever power it is they are channeling.

What is this power? I leave that up to the imagination - I have my own ideas in this world what it is (and if I have my way, it will eventually come to light in the plot itself). But it could just as easily be considered a form of 'demonic energy', or some extraterrestrial influence, or maybe even just madness itself ala Lovecraftian designs.

Of course, since this Corruption is a very integral part of the system, I want to utilize it in every combat, so pretty much any foe they will be encountering will, of course, be in the midst of channeling this power recklessly - after all, what is the point of power if one never gets to use it? How can one push themselves to the limit if they do not take some risks?

It is just another one of those things that fits in nicely with the title, I suppose.

In the last session, the characters managed to meet up once again with a very powerful person known as a Witch Hunter. In this world, Witches are supposed to be some kind of legend - nobody knows if such creatures actually exist. Witches are, according to lore, some sort of powerful magical force that is considered to be nigh-unstoppable - the Bubonic Plague is one of those incidents that was supposedly influenced by a Witch. But whether these things really exist or not, or in what capacity, is a mystery in itself.

So imagine how citizens must feel knowing that there is a top-secret government organization known as the "Witch Hunters" whose task is to protect the public at large from such a threat - and then imagine their distrust and anger towards that very same government that appears to be simply throwing money at an organization that technically doesn't appear to have any real sort of function, and who also does not seem to publically admit the existence of. Imagine if the US Government were found to be throwing billions of dollars in funding for projects into Area 51. That's the sort of anger and resentment that exists.

According to this Hunter, he is fairly tired of seeing one of the characters constantly seeming to show up in some form or another with every investigation he is a part of. To say that he suspects she may have something to do would be an understatement - however, thanks to one of the other PCs, who was revealed to be either a cyborg or a robot whose basic purpose was the detection and nullification of these very same 'witches', it seemed to the hunter to be just a coincidence - albeit one he might not dismiss so lightly should their paths cross again.

Of course, the two college students have their own concerns - given that they were instructed by another supposedly similar to them that they should avoid Witch Hunters at all costs - after all, they too could be considered Witches themselves, and that would not be good for anyone involved.

So I managed to take what things the players asked for - modern day society, magic spells - and spin it into something that could be intriguing. They desperately want to know what is with this 'cat' they keep seeing, and why it seems like only they can see it. There's a number of other mysteries - such as why other people not unlike the professor continue to crop up with increasing frequency - and also increasing amounts of violence.

I'm sure answers will eventually present themselves to the party, and with any luck those answer will only spur them to ask even more questions, and begin to forge their own sort of path. Hopefully I can take these initial ideas I had for this game, and spin them into something that is both at least a decent mystery, and also allow for some very intense action sequences.

That's it for tonight - another post should emerge tomorrow, most likely going on about Deus Ex: Human Revolution (which I'm playing right now, really). Until then, take care, and play safe!

Let's Do Something Crazy

As with many things, I had a crazy idea once. See, once upon a time, I dreamed of a world where d20 Modern was perfectly compatible with Pathfinder. For the most part, the conversion was going fairly well, until I got to the magic portion. The spells in Pathfinder and the spells in Urban Arcana... well, to say the least, they were extremely disappointing, and I never really did like the Urban Arcana casters - spell progression was so slow, and in order to cast even the most basic of spells, one had to be at least 4th level - at which point Magic Missile was so utterly pointless compared to firearms. There was no happy medium at all, and it left me wishing there was something better.

Well, I haven't yet tackled that issue, but it did give me an idea for something new instead - a game system where magic was the central theme, where it could be bent and changed on a whim, where everything was customizable - from the damage that the spell did, to the effects that the spell had. I then took it a step further - what if it was possible to super-power those spells temporarily, at great risk to the caster? Isn't that the stuff that stories are made of, trading terrible power at the expense of one's health?

From that was born Wildly Inadvisable. It's a bit unwieldy to get into at first, but one of my major inspirations for it was a homebrew d10 system that a friend of mine helped create: the To Aru no Railgun RPG. Weeaboo as it might be, I thought it made for an interesting base system that really appealed to some of my inclinations - a simple, single dice-roll system. The one thing I disliked was that it was a d10 Roll Under system - meaning that you roll the die, and subtract the result from your relevant stat ability for a total number that is your 'margin of success'. The reason I dislike it is because defenses are much the same way - whoever has the greater margin of success wins.

But knowing that the people I game with are extremely phobic of THAC0 (and let's face it, this isn't that much different from that very same model), I wanted to try to stick with something that didn't cap at 20 for every stat. I wanted a model that had no real ceiling, but which at some point, that ceiling becomes pointless to attempt to exceed. Instead of a d10 Roll Under, I'd make it something a bit easier to grasp and utilize: the d10 Add system.

Essentially, the d10 Add system is just like how the d20 system operates - roll the die, add the skill modifier, and whoever has the highest number wins. Simple, easy to grasp, and doesn't require two different mathematical operations.

Once I figured out that was the way I wanted to go, I made a list in my head of everything I wanted the system to do.

- I wanted something that was lightweight and easy to pick up

- I wanted something that would be quick to play, with as few die rolls as possible

- I wanted a high-stakes combat system that allowed for a great deal of badassery to occur

- I wanted a system that allowed you to customize nearly any attribute

It was an ambitious project, but it wasn't the first time I'd attempted to create a gaming system - I'd learned from many of my previous mistakes for the first time I tried something along these lines. Knowing that the entire game would hinge around magic, I had to really ask myself what was the most important parts, and that the magic system was going to carry this thing the entire way.

So I started by separating spells into their most basic components: Damage, Range, Area of Effect, and Spell Effects. Separating it into its most individual components, I wanted to showcase that two people can use the same spell in different ways - someone with a high attribute in their Intelligence or Magic stat, for example, could use their powerful abilities to get more out of the same spell by taking a 'drawback' that to them was no drawback at all to use the spell.

Spells are created by the user - whatever you can imagine, odds are fairly good you ought to be able to create it. Most spells center around either buffing the caster or causing harm to another - it is extremely combat oriented. Non-combat spells (teleportation spells, magic rituals, item creation) are things that should take a great deal of time, and require a large amount of preparation to utilize. Therefore, anything that is not a 'combat spell' has mostly been glossed over - that's really not the point of the game. If you want to fix a building, then go ahead and fix it with your magic! You don't *need* to have a spell written on your sheet to do something interesting, you just have to have enough control over the magic to be able to manipulate something along those lines.

Another thing I am a great fan of are sub-stats. You have your primary attributes, which determine all of your secondary attributes. In most systems, you can easily get some kind of 'dump stat' - let's take d20 for example. If you're playing a barbarian, you don't need Charisma, and Intelligence and Wisdom are optional at best. Heck, you can even ignore Dexterity somewhat. I dislike this train of thought, myself, because I don't believe that a single attribute should control only a single aspect of a character - usually there are combinations of this. So many of the sub-stats, such as HP, Fatigue, or Speed, are determined by two or more attributes - that way even if you only focus on a single stat, you get some benefit out of attempting to balance some of the lower stats - additionally, if you focus on specific stats over others, you are sacrificing the potential for a physical aspect over a mental one - causing your power for one to skyrocket over the other, and granting you an actual mechanical benefit.

The key is balance. I'm a huge fan of balance, and to me this is a better approach than most other games, because it means you can sacrifice just a little bit on your Constitution, but if you have a lot of Strength, it can help compensate your HP so that you don't become just a glass cannon in a fight.

Next comes the advancement system. I've eliminated 'levels' - honestly, I've felt that it's a humongous pain in the ass to attempt to 'balance' classes - especially if you start looking into that 'multiclassing' thing. Instead, I like to allow the player the freedom to advance however they wish. To that end, after nearly every session, players should be granted "Character Points", which they can use to advance their character, by either increasing base attributes, or increasing their skill prowess, or to purchase specific abilities for their characters. Additionally, CP can also be used as a fallback option for when they get into a tight spot - a player may expend unspent CP to grant them a sudden bonus in combat, for example - great for when they're having really crappy nights, and need to get out of a pinch. This is better than experience drain, in my mind, and it's a lot easier to envision. Once spent, CP can never be refunded - after all, if you've used it, then it's no longer available to you. No backsies.

Lastly, skills are more or less shuffled into a bracket for each attribute. Every attribute powers a specific skill, so the higher that stat, the better your base potential for that skill. Skill ranks (purchased with CP) factor into that, so that your total of training and base potential show how good you ought to be at something. This is great, to me, because even a starting character can be the best at a single skill if they wish to be - literally experts in their field - but at the expense of their combat abilities, which are also determined by skills.

Combat skills are placed into a few categories - accuracy with spells, power of spells, accuracy with melee/physical attacks, and how well you can resist damage - all of those things are skill-based. Additionally, every single skill has some sort of "Specialty" that you can acquire after you spend a certain number of points - this allows you to specialize in a specific aspect of that skill to become even better. For example, two characters can place the same number of skill ranks in the "Dodge" skill, and they can even have the exact same attribute setups. But one might have studied in the art of magical defenses, and gains a bonus when defending versus magical attacks, while another might have focused on avoiding physical attacks. No two characters need be exactly the same, even with very similar stat allocations - this allows multiple characters in a 'party' to be able to focus on similar skills, but still be able to shine when certain situations arise.

On the outside, it looks like a bit of a mess. But once you look at it, and realize that the very core of the system is an attempt at simplicity itself, then you can start to look at how that simplicity can be utilized throughout the game itself. Roll, determine result, move on quickly.

Now, the system does have its drawbacks. Especially with the skills. One of the things I wanted to maintain was the 'degrees of success', which did not go over as well as I had hoped initially. Combat was a nightmare the very first test session, because one person would roll an attack, the defender would use their base defense skill, and for every X number of points their defense was beaten, they would be dealt additional damage. When the first 'boss' of sorts was using four attacks at the same time, it became a literal nightmare to manage everything - that wasn't even attempting to factor in some of the magical defenses that were active all over the place.

If this were a computer game, where all of these operations would be calculated instantaneously, it would be no small matter. Sadly, this is a tabletop game, so some amount of simplification was desperately needed there, lest we fall into the exact same trap that I was attempting to avoid in the very first place - which was that resolving a single round of combat took freaking forever.

Another thing that was quickly discovered was that some things were just absolutely broken, despite their best of intentions. Being able to fire off multiple projectiles, despite being capable of only dealing a small amount of damage, was still far too powerful, and was immediately removed after that session.

There were things that worked wonderfully, however - the two greatest skills in the system, Defy Death and Diehard, being one of them. Defy Death is the skill that determines at what point you shuffle off this mortal coil - reach a number equal to negative that number, and you die. Diehard is the singular specialty of that skill, which extends that death threshold even further, and because it is a specialty, every point placed into that extends that final death threshold more, albeit at a great price.

Once you go into negative HP, every d10 roll you make takes a hit, making success difficult. Once you surpass your initial death threshold, and move into your Diehard threshold, it becomes even *more* difficult. It worked beautifully, especially in conjunction with the Fatigue.

Fatigue is a stat that determines how much energy you have left. Without Fatigue, you are unconcious. Stamina is linked closely to this - it allows you to reduce any Fatigue damage you take. Every spell requires some amount of Fatigue to be expended, because it takes energy. However, it is entirely possible to cast spells for 'free' - usually, these are less effective, but as one of my players has already demonstrated, it is a perfectly viable way to play the game - and is, in fact, an extremely *wise* way to play. Essentially, if your Stamina reduces any Fatigue damage by 5, so long as your spells do not exceed that number, it takes no energy to cast. If that spell takes 8 Fatigue to use, you only take 3. This is another example of how different characters with the same abilities can be different - a caster with a higher Stamina threshold can cast that very same spell more times before becoming exhausted.

That Stamina value becomes a double-edged sword, however - once your current Fatigue drops to that value or below, you suddenly become exhausted, taking a tremendous -6 penalty to all actions. Combine that with being on a death threshold, and suddenly the tides are turned - those simple spells you were able to easily control before are now becoming far more difficult to maintain. Failure to maintain your spell means that you've just spent Fatigue and gotten nothing out of it - which only makes the situation even more dire.

The other thing that worked wonderfully was the Corruption attributes - the ability to take a chance of losing your mind, at the expense of immediate power. The villain utilized this quite a bit, and boy was that a show to behold. It's a great tool that the GM can utilize not only for his badguys (who often won't live beyond that, and if they do... hoo boy). However, this is not an NPC-only thing, players too can access this potential if they wish - but they too are susceptible to losing their minds as well, if they press too far.

Which brings us all the way back to the title of the game, which summarizes the entire system fairly well; Wildly Inadvisable.

So far, I've heard a lot of positive things from my players. There are problem areas for certain, but those are things that can easily be worked out. I can only attribute the success of this particular system on one thing: selecting a central concept for a system, and then going as far with it as I possibly could.

Anyhow, I think that's enough ramblings for now, so I'll just wrap this up. Hopefully someone can take a bit of inspiration for this when trying to create their own homebrew system - take aspects that you like from other games, and ask yourself: "Why do I like this aspect?" "What do I want this game system to do?" Then once you've figured that out, ask yourself "How far can I take this without it turning into something I hate?"

I'm excited to be working on this in my spare time. One of these days, I'll get around to the next phase of the project, which is making non-magical characters a viable option as well - but sadly, that would require making an entirely different (yet similar) table to the magic casters, which also utilizes the Fatigue system in very much the same manner.

With that, I'll see you on monday! Unless something incredible happens that I must absolutely share over the weekend.

Looking For Schedule

One of the main problems plaguing me is this whole creative process. It's hard to get into the swing of things when your life is so turbulent, and when you don't bother to set goals for yourself in order to accomplish anything.

When I started this thing, I thought I'd have a lot to talk about (which I do). The problem being, mostly, that I write when I feel in the mood - and most of the time, I'm not in the mood. Thusly, everything suffers - this blog, my creativity, and everything else surrounding that.

So, starting from today, I am going to set a schedule - at least three updates a week, monday, wednesday, and friday. I will do my best to talk about something going on - be it one of the games I'm playing in, what I think went well and what could have gone better, or any projects that I am working on (which will hopefully inspire me to see some of those further along the lines to completion).

So for this week, things are already quite behind. I'll have to go ahead and fix that, starting tomorrow (because what better time to start than on the next scheduled day?).

Tomorrow's topic will likely be musing upon either my homebrew tabletop system, Wildly Inadvisable, or it will be musing on my Apoc game that's just started. Maybe even both, who knows.

Sometime next week, I expect to be picking up Deus Ex: Human Revolution. And I am sure I'll have quite a bit to say about that as well.

Sometime later that week, I may even have some things to say about modeling as well - because I'm trying to pick that back up again, as a means of getting better at that thing I went to college for, while at the same time trying to bone up for a project I probably shouldn't have put off for as long as I have.

Since this post has been kind of short, I'll go ahead and talk about that just a little bit. For many years, I've had an idea burning in my skull. At first, it was just a simple little roleplaying thing for me - but over time, I realized it had evolved into something quite incredible, even though I really had no clue how to properly express that awesomeness.

I tried to start things with it - flash animations that never went anywhere, drawings that never really materialized, and half-written stories that just stopped going anywhere. But now that I have this degree in Computer Animation (a Bachelor's of which I am rather proud of), I should start working for myself to start seeing some of these dreams to completion.

I want to start small, of course. I want to model the main character that this revolves around, so I can finally visualize him well. (Drawings would help this, of course). But to do it in the way I wish, I'll want to utilize cloth and hair simulations, two things I am very unfamiliar with. Additionally, I want to try to push my high-resolution texturing skills to the test - which means I've got quite a bit of work ahead of me.

So my first step for now is to continue trying to get back into the swing of things, and to get modeling people! Following online courses from the ever wonderful Digital Tutors is a great step in the right direction - but of course I need to set goals and guidelines for myself so that I can make the time to actually sit down and do the damn things.

As of recently, I've finished up the first part of a modeling humans tutorial, which has helped immensely. Now the real test begins: can I recreate what I learned by using my own reference images?

With that having been said, I'm starting where the best place to begin is: the head. I've got a rough model already sketched out for the head - a bit more work and I can move on to roughing out the torso, then the arms, hands, legs and feet. And of course the bobbly bits (since in this case I'm attempting to model a female reference).

That's where I'm at right now. Some more practice with that stuff will do me quite a bit of good - and putting to practice those skills I've learned recently will go a long way, I feel. In the near future, I hope to be going over some fur/hair stuff, and then cloth simulations once I get that far as well. The end goal here is to attempt to make a very short animation of the character in action, so we shall see just how far that gets me.

In the meantime, I guess I'll just be moseying along. Tomorrow's post: It's The End of The World (or Doing Something Advisably Stupid). We'll see which I decide to go with tomorrow. One deals with game design, the other just running games. Such tempting little topics.

Taking Time

As with most things in life, good things take time to achieve. This is most important with anything creative or artistic, be it game development, writing, or drawing a picture. Everything takes time - often far more time than it takes to actually appreciate whatever it is you are looking at.

For example, a good book can take years upon years to finally see the light of day. All for maybe only a few day's worth of reading. Video games are a great example of this, requiring teams of hundreds of people working constantly for two to four years (or more!) before releasing it, only to have the average consumer spend anywhere from 30-60 hours on it before moving on to the next big thing.

This is common knowledge, right? Everybody knows that good things take a long time to do right. That's why they take so long to get done. But when you bring it down to the individual level, on a more personal level, this common perception falls apart and loses all meaning. As with many people, I have this little problem called "lack of focus". It means that I don't like to sit down and spend a lot of time doing the same thing, or working on the same thing (unless it is a particularly engrossing task, like a video game or a good book or something).

Obviously, this is a huge problem as an artist and creator, because I fall into what seems to be a very common trap: Things take a long time, and I am not good enough yet to do them in a very short amount of time, and therefore I shouldn't even bother in the first place.

But of course, in order to get to where you want to be, you've got to take those first painful steps. One will never be 'good enough' if one is not terrible at it first. And that's what separates the wheat from the chaff - those who can manage to actually sit there and be terrible at something long enough to do it right wind up actually making something worthy of praise.

Which brings me to the bulk of today's post: How do we take the time to do the things we must?

My grandmother once told me (when I was learning piano and of course complaining about not wanting to do something) that the best way to deal with something you don't like doing is to just sit down and get it done and over with. When faced with a list of tasks, deal with the ones you hate the most first, and then you can focus on the ones you like.

It's the same thing when you're crafting up a game scenario or working on an art project: get rid of the stuff you don't like so you can get to the things you want to do. I have a particularly difficult time struggling with this these days, because there are so many tempting things that wish to take me away from doing those things I need to. Instead of teaching myself new modeling techniques and brushing up on the ones I have, I spend that time playing video games. Or talking on the internet. Or sitting staring at a blank screen going to myself "Maaaan, I don't want to do this, it's so booooring."

But that's the crux of it - it's boring, but necessary, and you have to find a way to work past it. Just like with writing these blog posts, I've already hit the first of my many flaws - lethargy. But forcing oneself to sit down and just get it done and over with instead of doing fun things (like watching a movie with my roommates) is just one of those little things we have to do.

The other part of today's post focuses on the actual doing things - if you're going to do something you hate, don't half ass it. You'll just hate yourself for it later. If it's drawing feet or hands (because who doesn't hate that?), if you half ass that stuff you're just going to cringe when you look back at it. It will drag you down as an artist, and a person. Focus on those things you hate, and then have some fun after you get that stuff dealt with.

If you're going to do a task, you may as well take the time to do it right.

So how do we deal with these things? A few tips if you're like me, and have trouble forcing yourself to stop playing those online games and need to desperately focus on a given task:

1. Try to set up a schedule, and stick with it as much as possible. Deviation from the schedule will cause things to fall apart rather quickly. Get into a 'swing' as much as possible, and keep the momentum going. Once you fall into a pattern and it becomes natural, that's one less thing you have to worry about.

2. If you have problems with that (or your schedule doesn't allow for that sort of idyllic pattern), try getting an egg-timer. I prefer one of the old style twisty ones, not those newfangled digital pieces of crap. The 'tick tick tick' of the timer can be soothing, and remind you that you're on a schedule - don't look at the timer, just focus on whatever it is you're doing, and lose yourself in it. If you set the timer for, say, 20 minutes, it might feel like forever. But so long as you're able to make your goal to complete whatever task it is within 20 minutes, and you can hear the time ticking away, it can be a welcome reminder that if you accomplish your goal, it will all be over sooner than you think.

3. Get away from the distractions. Move to a different room. Make a cup of tea or hot chocolate to drink - avoid sugary drinks or caffeinated beverages - the goal is to make yourself relaxed, not hyped up. If you can calm all the buzzing thoughts in your mind down, you'll be better able to focus on the task at hand.

4. Set deadlines for yourself. Say "I must get this done by tonight", and then see how far you can go with it. If you can actually meet that deadline, reward yourself somehow.

5. Turn off the Internet, if at all possible. The Internet, for all of its wonders, is the single most largest source of distraction - and all at your fingertips. Get away from it, unless you must use it.

6. Simplify your life. Get rid of the things you don't need in it anymore, and just kick back and relax. Years ago when I entered college, I found my life relatively simple - go to class, do my work, come home, talk to my girlfriend and play silly internet games. Even when I was working, the routine was more or less the same. Simplify your life if at all possible, and see where that leads you.

Of course, some of these things may or may not be the greatest advice. Most of it is pretty duh stuff. But that's just part of the whole "trying to do something right the first time".

Maybe later this week I'll see if I can't comment on some 3D artwork or something. Not having a schedule is really making this blog suffer, so for now it will just go through some growing pains until I can manage to get into the hang of it all.

Starting something from the beginning

Probably one of the best things to start this blog off with is about starting something from the ground up. In this case, I'm going to be talking about one of my upcoming d20 Future games, which is based on an Apocalypse setting I've been running for the last couple of years.

Where do we start with something like that? I read a lot of other message boards and gaming blogs on occasion, and often I hear a lot of the same questions, like "How do I get started" or "How much prep work do I need?"

Well, I may or may not address those questions. What I'll be doing here is providing a bit of behind-the-scenes stuff, because what I'm doing is highly experimental (as have most of my games lately).

The experiment this time around revolves around attempting something I've not done before: running a short game that is not only consistent and makes sense the entire time, but has a very clearly-defined goal from the start. The main premise of the story consists of, well, apocalyptic proportions. It's pretty much the end of the world as you know it, and the goal is pretty simple: survive. The things I knew going into this:

My players wanted a game in the same setting (Roguelife is the title), that was before the "Contact" period (or when things ended). They wanted it to be on a space station in orbit, and they may or may not have insinuated wanting zombies of some sort.

Given all the material I have for this setting (which contained all of those things, most in the very first session!), this was a pretty easy thing to set up. I had the major set pieces (space station, apocalypse, add zombies), all that was left was to figure out how events would play out.

This is where the next part of my experiment comes - trying to build something around the characters themselves. Given that this is a game about the apocalypse occurring, the characters and the people they know are *extremely* important! So before I can plan out anything about how the session will go, I need to know who the major players are - so that I can craft some kind of scenario around them. Which leads me into the final portion of the experiment: unbalanced party levels.

Characters range anywhere from 1-6th level. But the only guidelines I gave them was to give me a character concept - to describe who their character was, and what they had done so far in their lives. So far, there is a school teacher, a retired master mechanic, a sports-car driver (for lack of better term), and a sort-of-mobster. Not a bad spread, and individually going over creation guidelines was rather interesting. Some people were given more experience, and more choices of cybernetic options - after all, the school teacher likely isn't going to have a whole lot, but the racer might, because he is semi-rich and it would help make him a better driver.

So the process behind this was pretty simple: Find out what the players wanted (pre-apoc space station, maybe with zombies), and then generate an area for them to live in. In this case, a Space Station is pretty easy - you don't have to worry about them hopping from town to town. But on the other hand, it means you have to go to some great lengths to find out where they might go, so that you can plot out some rough escape routes, and understand what avenues are available to your characters - especially if they are unfamiliar with the area!

In this case, I went with something large but also small: a recreational station. There's the sports arena (the only one of its kind in the solar system!), an amusement park, casinos, and some general relaxation stuff. But of course there also has to be housing for the people who actually live there, so I spent some time listing out what kinds of places there would have to be there, and made that information available to the players, who then commented on things. Then, I sat back, and expanded on these options a bit, adding pieces of information to help ease them into the setting - for example, adding in 'space races' or what I like to call the "Star Driver" event. Yes, that was the whole premise behind it and I'm not ashamed to admit it's a joke I'm playing through to the end. It's best described as NASCAR mixed with Hot Wheels. In space. I figure, why the hell not, may as well go all the way with the joke and make it an actual sport. Therefore, our racer boy who is popular with the ladies was born.

Usually, I have a sort of game plan set out before sheets are submitted. This time, I wanted to wait until three sheets were submitted - that would give me some time to figure out just how exactly things were going to work, and what the characters would excel at - so that I could throw in opportunities for them to utilize those skills, and not being trapped because there was no possible option for them to survive. As a player, I hate the prospect of a no-win scenario - instead, I embrace the creativity of utilizing aspects of a character (skills, abilities, equipment, whatever is around me!) to create a 'winnable' solution - even if it wasn't exactly intended in the first place.

That's part of the reason I prefer the older d20 system - yes, it's got its flaws, and it can be somewhat broken from time to time, but it's flexible enough I can do whatever I like to it and it'll still turn out okay. There's a great deal of power granted to the players, so that even with a team of three or four people, you should have a well-enough rounded experience that they can at least have some sort of reaction to whatever you might throw at them.

At this stage of the game, I'm still in the prep phase. I have a number of things I'd like to do, but I don't want to go overboard - that will just compound the problem I already have, which is stretching things out too much. This is to be more contained and kept brief - my goal is to run 6-10 sessions at most. Less if the party dies, which is something that rarely happens, but in this game I'm upping the stakes purposefully - it's the end of the goddamn world after all, so of course you can die at any turn! And people will die - even if it isn't the PCs. NPCs are all on the chopping block, and will likely be sacrificed to show players "this is what happens if you go this way without paying attention."

Technically, I have three completed sheets in. I'm still waiting on one to be resubmitted, which would make for a total of four. I have two more players that may or may not be interested in the game - I gave some guidelines, but whether they make it to the game or not remains to be seen. All I need at this point is to sit down and do some actual prep. Here's the things I need to focus on:

- Chronology of events. The most important, I need to know when the major events will be happening, so that way I can spin things as the game moves on.

- List of NPCs. Probably the most important, I need to go through and figure out who all knows people, and what people are on board the station. Then I need to go through and create a supporting cast of *other* NPCs that the players might encounter - not a huge list, maybe six to eight is all. NPCs don't need to be very fleshed out for this, and will only have the important bits: Name, rough background (one or two sentences), maybe an HP value, and any important skills they might have, with any special items they may have on their person listed too. It could all easily fit on a single page (since most characters may only have one or two big skills associated with them).

After that, the rest is just details details, which I can generate on the fly as need-be. I have a listing of the major areas on the station listed on a wiki, which I'll be referring to quite a bit. Now I just need to figure out where viable 'escape' options are, and I'll be pretty done.

It's really fairly lightweight in terms of prep, but it served me well when I launched the last major campaign (Roguelife), and it's also done wonders for managing larger arcs (so that I know names and have a good idea of how play should progress).

That's all for tonight. This has gone on way longer than anticipated. I could probably write an entire book or two about everything I have to say about gaming and the settings I've created - I take that as a good thing. I'll try to touch on them more in future blog posts, but time is at a premium as always.

Going forward, if you've got any suggestions for things you'd like to see in the future, or questions you'd like answered, I'll try to answer them. If it's short, I'll just make a quick reply, otherwise I may just address it in my next blog post.

Until next time~

Entertaingineerment: Or how I made up an important-sounding word

Welcome to Entertaingineering. What the heck is this? Well, for one it's an attempt to get myself to put out goals and deadlines for myself, to finally get around to doing all those "fun things" I keep saying I'll get around to. Additionally, it's also a place for me to share all the fun gaming-related stuff I make, such as house rules for various P&P games, or just odd little dissertations on something even tangentially-related to entertainment.

That means I'll occasionally ramble on about some awesome new movie or show I saw. Or horrible movie or show. On occasion, it may even be both.

So what's this guy who types things like? My name is Ed, and currently I am 25 years old, living in Florida. You'd think this was a great thing, but honestly, I can't wait to get out of here - between the job market and the humidity, I'm ready to pack my bags and call this whole thing done.

I came to Florida for one major reason: to go to school to learn Computer Animation. I succeeded, and after four years of study (the last year repeating the same class over and over), I'd like to think I learned something. The initial hope was that I'd go off to do some grand things.

Except I realized that I had no money to move, no jobs in the area, and uh... not enough connections to land a job anywhere else. So far, I've managed to tread water, and things have improved. With any luck, I'll be looking to move out to Texas sometime next year, and we'll see how things develop from there.

Enough of that crap though, that's not why you're here (I hope!). The important thing is fun! Because that's what this blog is all about - attempting to document my chronicle through learning new artistic abilities, and expanding on ideas that have been bounding about the inside of my skull since I was a child, and letting them out to play for a bit.

Ever since I was young, I had a couple of dream jobs. The first one was a rail-road train track switcher. Then I wanted to be a conductor on a train. When I grew up a little and hit maybe four or five, I got it into my head how awesome it would be to become an astronaut. Then I grew a little more and decided I wanted to be a writer.

Well, I think that about settled it, really. I was huge into cartoons growing up, and TV shows were awesome. I used to read quite a bit growing up. I never really lost that writing bug, though after a traumatic childhood event early on nearly stopped me from ever writing again, it did take me eventually. In early High School, I got into drawing a bit, but never really thought a whole lot of it... despite having tried to create webcomics on three different occasions. One of which actually managed to see the light of day at some point.

As for gaming.... when I was a wee tyke, I was hooked. Five years old, we went to my aunt's to visit our cousins. They had an NES. I remember very distinctly staying up late to play games... I also remember another time that we went to visit, they were renting an SNES, and had such amazing titles as Road Runner's Death Valley Rally. I remember it clearly because I was somehow more awesome at it than my older brother OR our older cousin. I was hooked on those. Next Christmas, our parents got us an NES and an NES Entertainment System to go with it, and a few choice titles.

From then on, we got our games mostly from pawn shops or the like, but I was hooked. Zelda, Double Dragon, Megaman... those were the worlds I longed for, and as a child I would often dream of how awesome it would be if the 'cartoon world' and the 'video game world' and OUR WORLD were combined. Needless to say I was a tremendous fan of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Next to Princess Bride, it's still on my list of top favorites.

Moving along, the other game that help shape my childhood was a little board game called Hero Quest. It was described to me as a lighter version of D&D, which sounded awesome to me growing up. After all, it has Dungeons, and it has Dragons, so how the hell could that be anything *but* awesome? Obviously, despite my parents somehow owning an original Red Box, I was never allowed to play it. Didn't keep me from staring at it for weeks on end, wondering to myself if it was worth climbing the shelf to take it down and take a peek inside.

But Hero Quest put it into my mind how awesome tactical board game combat could be. I was hooked, and I didn't even yet know at the time just how badly addicted I was to this stuff.

My first initiation to D&D was much without my parents blessings. They didn't know for many years that I was gaming with my older brother (who had come back from the military by that time). They never knew their son was going out to gather together with people mostly 8 years his senior (and then some!) to pretend he was some badass from another world, where magic reigned supreme. Within the first year, I wanted to Game Master.

And boy was I terrible at it, but over time I started to get better, and now I think I can safely say I'm at least halfway decent at it.

I love to say that I've played more games than most people have even heard of. From CCGs to Tabletop to freeform-forum-posting. I've played Magic, Lord of the Rings, Deadlands, Star Wars, Star Trek, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Legend of the Five Rings.... and probably some others I've forgotten over time. I've played AD&D, D&D 3.0 and 3.5, Pathfinder, d20 Modern/Future, and recently I've played some 4E as well. I've played GURPS, RIFTS (don't get me started on that), and made a few characters for various iterations of Shadowrun. I've ventured from Rogukan to Eberron to Greyhawk and beyond - I've tasted Spelljammer and been left wanting more.

I think it's fairly safe to say that few people know entertainment quite the way that I do. Because quite frankly, I've made it a tremendous part of my life, because I feel that it too is a medium for artistic creativity to blossom.

As a child, I always wanted to go and make people feel something. As that same child, I was influenced by the books and television shows and movies and games I played, and I always desperately wanted to give something back.

So here we are today: Entertaingineering. Or learning how to create something entertaining.

I hope that you are better understanding the sort of person I am. And if you are thinking that I tend to ramble on an awful lot, you're probably correct. But I only ramble because I feel it's the only way to properly convey all of the information I wish to impart, because for whatever stupid reason, I feel that it's important.

So with all of that said.... here's what I hope to convey on this blog:

- Things related to my gaming group - materials, settings, or other awesome things that occur. This can range from gaming mechanics to just general table play, or plot hooks I think are kind of neat.

- Inspirational images, movies, television shows, books, whatever it is I come across. For some time I was doing movie reviews and such on another blog of mine, so I may continue that trend here on occasion.

- Plans for moving forward with my artistic career - either works that I am currently working on modeling or animating, or talking about webcomics or my plans to create a series I feel has never been matched in the world.

- Stuff relating to the previously-mentioned comicry/entertaining medium. Because I've never decided where I wanted to put that thing.

- And occasionally, things pertaining to writing, because it is an important creative medium nearly as old as painting itself.

So with all of that said, I hope and pray that any other entry I write will never be this long. Unless it is super important. Or super silly.

Hope you stick around for the ride.