Remember the Not so Hot?

The second half of the last post was meant to be dedicated to the latest Dungeons & Dragons, 4th Edition. The game suffers from one major flaw: it is not D&D. This is some strange table-top version of a videogame. More specifically: this is the table-top answer to an online roleplaying game. I play video games, lots of them, and I play D&D because it offers a completely different experience. D&D 4th Edition is not a completely different experience, it is a stats based, linear progression of character, cookie cutter hack and slash experience. In an attempt to, I can only guess, ‘balance’ the game they have in fact eliminated the charm of D&D.

Table-top roleplaying games, and above all in my opinion, D&D shine because you are not a computer generated avatar confined within a world of programming and graphics, you take on the role of a real adventurer. By real adventurer I mean the kind that you see in the best fantasy books and movies. These are extraordinary people, or creatures, but always with weakness, with flaw, with past experience that has created the unique character they are when you encounter them. D&D gives you a chance to take a character through many adventures, each new adventure and the way you personally act in that adventure shapes who you are. D&D 4th Ed. is streamlined to prevent characters from having weaknesses beyond that which their “class” should have. Like a video game, a fighter character will always be stout of health, gone are the days of rolling for your hitpoints and perhaps having a fighter that is incredibly skilled but slightly weak in constitution. These imbalances built, no pun intended, actual character. In past D&D games skills and spells were selected from a roster of possibilities open to different characters, now it is predominately a set path. These are issues that absolutely need to be balanced in online games, but the imbalance is part of the charm of D&D. This edition is not D&D, it’s something else.

That’s not to say this isn’t a fun game. It is fun: if you want to buy grids and miniatures, want the experience of an online roleplaying game sitting around the table with some friends. My friends and I, however, will stick to past editions. We’ve been playing our current characters for just about a year now, they have unique personalities, strengths, and weaknesses. They’re D&D.

The Good & the Not so Hot

I’m an avid reader of fantasy, and I’ve considered myself a fan since my mom and dad raised me listening to (and eventually reading for myself)The Hobbit, and then The Lord of the Rings, until I’d devoured all things Tolkien before I’d hit high school. Somewhere between Tolkien stories I digested some C.S. Lewis, and Ursula K. Le Guin. As I grew up and other people learned I enjoyed reading, and in particular that I enjoyed reading fantasy, I would be asked who I liked to read. I would answer with the above authors and then be asked if I’d read Robert Jordan, or Terry Goodkind, or Terry Brooks, and so on down a very long list of authors. Of course I hadn’t read any of them, so it came that the next time I was in a Borders with my mom I was looking over the fantasy books and saw the first book in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. The back had a quote that said it was comparable to Tolkien; I was convinced I’d been missing out. I ended up disappointed, and concluded that anyone that thought Jordan’s writing could even come close to the power, beauty, and rhythm of Tolkien’s mastery of language had to be missing brain cells. Ever since then I’ve avoided those recommended authors, instead reading Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, more Le Guin, and some novels based on Magic: The Gathering that weren’t all that great, but entertained.

I’ve always seen Terry Pratchett on the shelves of the fantasy section and I somehow sorted him into the category of authors to be avoided. Perhaps I’d tossed him in with the other Terrys, or maybe it was an aversion to the odd and not-so-fantasy covers of the books, but for whatever reason I’d not cracked a Terry Pratchett book until two nights ago. I’ve only read, The Color of Magic, the first book in his Disc World series, and I’m really quite pleased. The book is absolutely hilarious, and a lot of fun. But I’m not sad I waited 24 years to read them, because in the time I spent not reading Terry Pratchett I’d been reading Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, and of course more of my childhood staples, all authors that clearly influenced Pratchett a great deal. There are many little nods, and parodies, and jokes about other great fantasy novels that I might have missed had I read Pratchett before now. The Color of Magic really is a wonderful book, and I’m so glad I picked it up. I look forward to visiting Disc World again, but for now it’s on to Gene Wolfe’s The Shadow of the Torturer.

The “Not so Hot” portion of this post was going to discuss D&D 4th Edition, but that will have to wait until tomorrow, as I hadn’t expected to babble about Terry Pratchett and my fantasy roots for quite so long.

Western

I want to take a moment to straighten out “Country Western” fans. The pop singers you look at as “western” or “country” are in fact lame. That should be a simple concept, but I’ve made up a couple images to help you out. Let’s start with a pop culture example:

And for those of you not satisfied with Clint, here’s a historical example:

Hopefully this clears some things up.

News!

I’m getting married! I proposed to Adrienne, she said yes, I’m thrilled, and yes “It’s about time.”

Finals

Finals are hell. Why the education system feels the need to pile everything on at one time I’ll never understand. Why not assign a major paper in the middle of the semester? Or perhaps a few weeks before the end? That would be reasonable. Every teacher feels its absolutely necessary to assign some absurdly huge project and then they unionize and pick the same week for all these absurd projects to be due. In some cases the projects are a waste of my time, busy work, a place holder for what would be a real final paper/exam/project if the class had any real point.

Moving

We have a desk, my computer has been placed on the desk, and the internet turned on. Other than that: progress is slow. We’re clearly first time movers. Wish us luck, and perhaps some photos and updates later. Back to work!

Give me Sleep

Sometimes I just can’t shut-down. I want to sleep, I’m tired, I’ve set the alarm, the temperature is fine, I’m not thirsty, I’m certainly not hungry, but something’s just not giving in, so let’s read some poetry. Baudelaire? No, I read him last night. Maybe some nonsense delivered first class via the pen of Mervyn Peake? I don’t want to go to that shelf. Tennyson doesn’t feel right, not tonight. Larkin? Church Going would be fun, but I’m feeling sleepy, not lost. I think Auden feels right. I’m sure of it, actually.

“Lay your sleeping head, my love” By W.H. Auden

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit’s sensual ecstasy.

Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell,
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.

Beauty, midnight, vision dies:
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of sweetness show
Eye and knocking heart may bless,
Find the mortal world enough;
Noons of dryness see you fed
By the involuntary powers,
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by every human love.

I’m going to go read more, and hopefully slip off to sleep — eventually.

Leprechaun Genocide

Ladies and gentleman I have reason to believe we have been ignoring a Leprechaun tragedy of potentially staggering proportions. I give you:

First there’s the title: Too Many Leprechauns. Then an image of other Leprechauns pushing about large piles of shoes. It begs the questions: What is the Leprechaun government doing with the surplus of Leprechauns, and why are there so many orphaned shoes? The last time I saw pictures of piles and piles of shoes it was not a good thing.

Happy belated Saint Patrick’s Day, save the Leprechauns.

Weddings & Ghosts

It’s odd to think I haven’t seen Alex, Jim, Dewayne, or Sean in a very long time, and it’s funny that once the initial “Hey, how are you?” and “Haven’t seen you in awhile!” passed it was like we’d never really been apart. Old friends are great like that. Dewayne remarked that it takes a life changing event to bring us all together, and I’m not sure that’s the way it should be. Alex’s wedding was lovely, he and his new wife Jessica looked very happy. Now on to Ghosts, I-IV to be exact.

Trent Reznor is doing exactly what he promised. Freed from the shackles of contracts and record companies, he promised to deliver content in a myriad of formats, at fair prices, and in such a way that the money would go directly to the artists. First there was the Saul Williams album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust, which he produced and then along with Williams released via the web at a cheap $5 dollars or absolutely free for the first 100,000 customers. On the Nine Inch Nails front he talked about no long waits between releases, albums would be put out when they were ready. The first offering of this kind is Ghosts I-IV, a collection of instrumental songs recorded in just 10 weeks. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from something that sounded a bit like a release of jam sessions, but the result is really quite good. It’s inextricably NIN while being rather ambient. I had it on while I was editing a paper for a friend, and it was perfect. I read in the New York Times that they interpreted this as Reznor offering up something to the remix community, and I can certainly see that, but frankly the songs stand alone wonderfully. Throw it on and enjoy. I recommend purchasing it, but if you want a sample head over to the site and download the free 9 song package.

Good Reads

May had me sign up for this site GoodReads, and it’s actually pretty cool. Everyone should sign up and add me as a friend. That is all.