Bat thought for a moment. Usually Niann, his beautiful wife, was at his side and she could help him keep a handle on things. Attendance at the Academy of Rock Justice was booming, and there was a great deal to do. However, certain events happened atop the legendary Tarrasque that were complicating matters greatly for the two of them – namely, the birth of Tarrasque Loaf. He was a wonderful little boy, but due to the blessing of Nathaniel, the newly-crowned God of Pain, he was inhumanly strong and was manifesting powers most toddlers did not possess. An epic-level parent, or at the very least a party of a dozen of his senior staff, was necessary to make sure the destruction was kept to a minimum. As it turned out, Leomund’s Secure Shelter worked as well protecting the outside world from its contents as it did protecting its contents from the outside world. But you can’t just keep the little fellow in a cage all day, Niann decided to spend the majority of her days as a stay at home rock-n’-roll mom for the time being.

It was pretty clear to Bat, especially after that completely unrelated quote at the beginning of the story, that he needed an assistant. But who? It wasn’t as if he could just hire a pencil-pusher to make sure all the GP wound up in the right place. Bat’s work was that of Rock Justice, and on a bad week his personal assistant would wind up burnt to a crisp or possessed by a demon who was seriously into genital self-mutilation. He needed someone who could back him up in a fight, and Niann’s shoes were very large and very sexy, and it would be difficult to fill them in a way that wasn’t lame or gross or involved the career-foot equivalent of a muffin-top. Plus, Bat had grown accustomed to having certain needs addressed in the field, especially on longer trips, and not having Niann there complicated things somewhat. Sure, there were always those wands that cast pornographic illusion spells, but he found them somewhat beneath him. He preferred other things beneath him, namely Niann and sometimes a succubus or three.

So it was that Bat Loaf, like so many other times before in his career, unwittingly looked through time and space to discover the best way of deciding anything: a giant 1980′s style tournament. Surely this would produce the best candidate for the job. It was a foolproof plan, and nothing strange or unpleasant would ever result from it. OR WOULD IT?

The drama continued through the evening as Critical Hits’ advertising sponsors began to leave. Evony was first, their legal department sending a curt email that said simply “We cannot be associated with real women. Only ones from stock photographs. This news not make us feel like King.” This morning, Mr. Chalker made a public statement to the press:

Good morning, and thank you for joining me. Many of you in this room are my friends. Many of you in this room know me. Many of you have cheered for me, have worked with me, always supported me. Now, it is obvious that I have failed my INT check, and my only recourse at this point is to shoot for Diplomacy (and perhaps Bluff).

My behaviour has caused considerable worry to my business partners, to everyone involved with my blog, including my staff, board of directors, sponsors — and most importantly, the young nerds we’ve reached. Our work is more important than ever. I have long been a champion of Cooties Awareness, and despite this lapse of willpower I will continue to fight Cooties wherever it rears its vanilla-scented head.

I owe it to my readers to become a better nerd with fewer social skills. That’s where my focus will be. I have a lot of work to do, and I intend to dedicate myself to doing it. Part of following this path for me is worshipping Pelor, who is fictional. People probably don’t realize it, but I was raised to worship Pelor since high school and I actively practised my faith from adolescence until I drifted away from it in recent years. Nothing repels chicks like telling her you can’t visit her parents because it’s a fake deity’s holy day.

Today, I want to ask for your help. I ask you to find room in your heart to one day believe in me again. I want all you to look into this neuralizer for a moment, and forget all of this ever happened.
Thank you.

The latest rumors are that Mr. Chalker’s mystery woman may have stolen some of his powers somehow and may even be able to speak our language. More news as it happens.

Yes, I know, I was as shocked as you. Especially with the recent upswing in Bullywug Awareness throughout our culture, it is difficult to look on such ignorance. I don’t know whether to be sad or angry. Did this poor soul simply not have access to a proper education? Or is this simply a willful choice to disbelieve that anything so magnificent and deadly could exist?

Regardless, I feel that it is my duty to enlighten this poor soul, and to give the rest of us a refresher. Let us start with the basics.

Bullywugs were discovered in the year 1852 by a sociologist by the name of Eberhard Anheuser. While on a nature hike through the virgin woodlands of what would later be known as Belgium, he happened upon a tribe of what appeared to be frog-people sacrificing one of their own upon a large sacrificial altar. This was accomplished by rolling a large boulder over the sacrifice, which caused a veritable tidal wave of bullywug-humors to cascade all over everyone in a 10′ radius. (This, also, was the origin of the little known Abjuration classic, “Eberhard’s Protection From Humors, 10′ Radius”.) These humors, as it happened, turned out to be both incredibly delicious and addictive, a fact that Mr. Anheuser quickly capitalized on. In 1854, he mobilized a small army of men to build a factory and to hunt and breed bullywugs in captivity for the sole purpose of  the later harvesting and bottling of their tasty bodily fluids. This beverage was known to the locals as “Wugweiser”.

The bullywugs did not take this lying down, of course, and within the year had developed a strong (and amphibious) resistance. Under the leadership of one Frederick Wuglass, known both for his oratory skill and fantastic hairbeard, the bullwugs brought production of Wugweiser to a standstill. It was not long after that Mr. Anheuser began to act very strangely, retreating from friends and family, and spending most of his time sunning himself on a rock. When he eventually did return to the office, he ordered a complete shutdown and retooling of the plant to make a much more uninteresting beverage with a far more uninteresting brand name using fermented grain. The locals believe Mr. Anheuser was secretly kidnapped and replaced by one of the bullywugs, but that is complete nonsense. Everyone knows that bullwug magic is only for making rainbows and powering the Great Engine that fulfills dreams for the Make A Wish Foundation.

The bullywugs had hoped to recede back into obscurity after this incident, but unfortunately a man named Gary Gygax invented a game called Dungeons and Dragons and, using a book of forbidden knowledge he accidentally checked out from the Lake Geneva Public Library, included many of their secrets in the game. The last straw came when the D&D cartoon was released in the United States in 1983. Though largely unnoticed by the general public, it prominently featured brutal, racist caricatures of many key members of the Bullywug Parliament. Outraged and insulted for the last time, the bullywugs vowed blood-revenge on humanity. That is how hip-hop music came to be.

And that, Frank, is what the f*ck a bullywug is.

They’re calling the setting “dark fantasy”, which is mostly like regular fantasy, except people are complete and utter assholes to each other just like they can be in real life. Expect to have to deal with situations involving one or more of the following: slavery, racism, rape, social castes, homosexuality, cooking, prostitution, pet care, death, and poor personal hygiene. Demons and darkspawn ain’t got nothing on the horrors that all the humans, dwarves, and elves seem to enjoy perennially inflicting on each other. (In fact, all the demon archetypes are based on sins, which probably makes it our fault for them, too.) As a result of this new, darker, tone, choices in this game tend to be a bit murkier than in past games. Before, you’d pick the “good guy” choice or the “bad guy” choice. A lot of times now there is no choice that makes everybody happy except Team Evil, and you have to steal from Peter to pay Paul. Somebody gets the shaft, to one degree or another, even if you’re playing a good guy. So, while you will almost certainly love this game dearly, be advised you may want to save up money for a few sessions with a good therapist when it’s all over.

Well, presumably. I have not yet completed the game yet, though I am 40 hours into it already and I never want it to end. Ever. But of the parts I have played, please allow me to list a few of the things I liked (and *gasp* disliked).

Let’s start with the tips o’ the hat.

• TACTICS
  The new Tactics system for your computer-controlled allies is a step up from before, when they would mostly just act stupid and you did all the work. However, it does mean you will probably die if you don’t do this right. You need a good healer in this game, and you need a big brawny warrior-type to keep all the nasty ogres and darkspawn from squishing the mages between their toes. Finding good combinations of tactics is an integral part of this game, so if you’re dying repeatedly, look here first.
• WRITING
  Though you may find some scenarios familiar, the writing in this game has a way of making you look just a little differently at common fantasy stuff. The Elves are either second-class citizens or they’re like you’re used to except they’re always on the run because they’re persecuted like second-class citizens. Dwarves dress like you’re used to, but they’ve clearly been reading way too much Machiavelli and you could try to cut the politics with a knife (but someone would discredit the knife in the eyes of the people first, so nobody would ever pick it up in the first place). And let’s not forget the casteless dwarves, who it’s legal to murder and rape because they’re not real people because they’re not noble. Never thought that kind of stuff about dwarves before. (Not sure I wanted to!)  But it sure as hell breaks the jolly, ale-suckin’ Gimli clones we’ve all become used to over the years. Even so, it’s never stale, and it never seems just like they just changed things to get your attention like “HEY KIDS if you liked elves then you’re gonna love ELVES XTREME: SYLVAN BRONTOSAUROIDS!!!!!!“ This stuff is really well done. And with the absolutely mind-crushingly huge amount of stuff to read in the Codex as you gather information in the game, you’ll be glad they used a large font size because you won’t want to stop anytime soon.

There are a few things about Dragon Age: Origins I’m *gasp* not crazy about too.

• VISIBLE SPELL EFFECTS DURING CONVERSATION
  Is it really necessary to keep glowy spell effects going during conversations? I play a mage, which means I basically light people on fire all day long, which usually includes my party members since I’m playing normal mode where they don’t die when I do that.  The end result of this is that I frequently having myself in pleasant  conversation with all my immolated friends. And if the gatling gun of moral quandaries wasn’t going to put me in therapy, this will.
• WTF DRY HUMPING
  It’s no secret that there’s sex scenes. But when they’re doing it, they strip down only to their underwear. I can understand why this might be done in our weird puritanical society that doesn’t mind a firehose of blood spraying out of a nun’s decapitated corpse but freaks out over seeing a pixellated nipple. What I cannot understand is why said underwear consists of large strips of what appears to be burlap. It is approximately as sexy as a Golden Girls marathon. What’s worse, is that the regular everyday outfits worn by some characters show more and look less like some sort of abstinence-cultist diaper. I guess the good news is there won’t be any storylines about accidentally knocking Leliana up. But I guess my point is that Mass Effect’s nude scenes showed us that this whole business can be done tastefully, without getting too graphic, and with the basic premise intact that your characters are not dry humping. The game is not called Amish Age: Bundlings.

Okay, that’s all the bad stuff I can think of, except for maybe that I don’t like how forehead crinkling facial expressions look on Leliana’s face. In short: run – do not walk - and get yourself a copy of this game. But be ready not to sleep. There’s no time for that! There’s darkspawn to kill, stories to discover, and burlap-clad nubiles to seduce.

I offer the following response to anyone who ever told me that.

Who is this fine fellow with a hot chick and a devil baby at his side, you might ask? I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you that because that would be talking about my character.

Long-time readers of Stupid Ranger may remember a post way back in January of ’08 in which I detailed the exploits of my rock-n’-roll bard Bat Loaf and his attempt to conceive a child atop the legendary Tarrasque.  This post exploded a few minds and then lay dormant for over a year, when someone emailed me out of the blue and asked if they could draw my character. As it turned out, this person happened to be an artist by the name of Adam Black. I hadn’t seen his work before, but it was plain to me pretty much immediately that this dude was really good at his craft and he deeply understood what Bat Loaf was about. Adam runs a site called Monsters & Nekkid Ladies (NSFW, duh), the contents of which are pretty self-explanatory. Lots of demons and boobs and swords and monsters. And demon boobs. Adam also draws a really excellent webcomic called Locus (NSFW again) and he created the (now sadly defunct) KISS 4K webcomic. Yes, for that KISS. Basically, I’m not sure I could have asked for a better person to draw Bat Loaf had I done an exhaustive search of the planet to find one, and here he was offering to draw him.

A couple days ago, Adam got me the finished piece. As you may have guessed, I am about to vibrate into tiny little pieces due to the criminal levels of excellence applied to this picture of my bard.  In all seriousness, I have to thank Adam from the bottom of my heart for doing this for me. I’m just happy to have written something that made people laugh, and to have someone so skilled magically appear and bring one of my favorite creations to life in such detail was one of the most excellent things that’s ever happened to me. Please go to his site and show the man some love. It’s the metal thing to do.

Just think — this never would have happened if I hadn’t blogged about my character. (And, as you can see, the mission my character set out to accomplish atop the Tarrasque was a resounding success!)

Thusly, I have been woefully negligent of posting all the Dragon Age stuff I’ve been sent lately. So here is a big frickin’ megaflood of it. ENJOY!

There’s a Character Creator app out for the PC version of Dragon Age out now, in case you want to hit the ground running when the game comes out.

Character Creator (English) – http://files.bioware.com/dragonage_cc_dl/DragonAgeOriginsCharacterCreator_en.exe

And a social network, too. Think of it as Dragon Agebook. Or Broodmotherbook. That’s where every time you throw up in your mouth a little bit, and it automatically posts when you did it and what you had for lunch.

Dragon Age Origins Social Network – http://social.bioware.com/home.php

This is where some lucky bastard gets flown out to London, England and FORCED to play Dragon Age at gunpoint in the hopes of winning $50,000. Informative PSA at the following link FOR YOUR PROTECTION.

Warden’s Quest Gaming Event – https://rcpt.yousendit.com/757914063/31dc24f8288e2a311ca27d6d6f813dad

And now, some screenshots and trailers for your viewing pleasure. File sizes may be fairly large. However, their awesome-to-size ratio is favorable.

Dungeons

https://rcpt.yousendit.com/755168573/fd80a0df7d413fe995774017ea900888

Character Creator

https://rcpt.yousendit.com/753924043/1c9d6d0c3525ee7bbf9a8a0a12e01c2e

Villages

https://rcpt.yousendit.com/757078567/8add3b4ebb4d5b5443e603adbb6d0ebc

OHGREN!

https://rcpt.yousendit.com/760203187/f467c059e90261ea30f7f389e1452968

Thus ends my flood. I cannot wait for this game to come out. WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME WAIT, BIOWARE? WHY???

The nearby convention that I was completely unaware of happens to be FlatCon. Held Oct 2-4 at the Interstate Center in sunny Bloomington, IL (where I lived for almost a decade, hence the crying into a dicebag), Flatcon offers three days of good old fashioned gaming. The guys who run FlatCon (David Ross, Aaron Issac, and John Beemsterboer) were kind enough to take a few minutes out of their insane pre-convention schedule and answer a few questions about the proceedings:

1. Give us a little history about FlatCon and your involvement with the event.

DAVID:

Our single goal is to promote our gaming hobby.  We want to see this activity we spend hours enjoying shared with others.  Tabletop gaming is a blast!  It just has to be made approachable. We started the convention 10 years ago.  I originally had in mind running a Pinnacle (makers of Deadlands rpg and The Great Rail Wars miniature game) day.  A few folks were asking to run other games.  Aaron Isaac and I had just started gaming together, so he offered his organization skills.  The next thing I knew we had a small convention on our hands.  The first FlatCon was in the front of one game store and in the basement of another game store.  The two stores were a few blocks apart in downtown Normal, IL.  Records show we had 75 attendees, but I think it was more like 45.  My friends thought a higher number was better.  I didn’t care as we had a blast. From there we moved to running the convention at a local university.  Then eventually to our current location at the Interstate Center. For the last few years attendance has been around 450.

Aaron Isaac and I coordinate the 30+ volunteers who run the core of the convention.  These folks are the heart of the convention.  FlatCon would have never grown to what it is today without them.  It’s a very simple recipe.  Everyone doing one or two things for the convention adds up to the whole result needed.  This has really helped with volunteer burnout – especially in the key roles of Aaron and I.  I have a few volunteers that try to do too much, but we all quickly learn.  In a pinch we have several go to folks that will take on the extra bit needed to make the convention seem flawless.  In the first few years I never got to play games at our convention.  Now with our staff I play in 5 or more of the 7 slots.  Sunday during the last slot I’ll be playing The Great Rail Wars weird west miniatures game.  We have great traditions, and that one is mine.

AARON:

I was the friend of a person (Dave Ross) who thought it would be fun to get people together who like playing games.  Since Frontier Wars (a local gaming convention to Bloomington) had stopped year ago, Dave envisioned Flatcon.  I helped with some moderate planning and building skills.

2. How is FlatCon different from other gaming conventions people have been to?

DAVID:

What makes our con maybe a little different from some other cons is that all prize support goes towards raising money for the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. Gamers for a Cure, a Relay for Life fund raising group, joins us for the third year in a row. Gamers for a Cure will be sponsoring a number of activities, including game demos, silent actions, a build-your-own-sword workshop and the ever imperative Prize Support Raffle. All proceeds raised from your prize support go to the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. Gamers for a Cure raised over $1,800 dollars in one weekend last year.

For a “small” convention we have some fantastic gaming experiences.  Aaron Isaac is Over the Top!  He’s built a 11 foot 28mm scaled space station.  I wouldn’t be surprised if this station could actually orbit while you play.  He’s also done a 3D tunneled StarShip troopers planet.  We have also seen several Star Wars battles recreated, like the battle of Hoth.  We have a 6 foot in diameter globe to play Risk on.  Our historical gamers have some of the best terrain and painted figures you will see outside of the larger historical conventions.  Last year we had Alamo, Pirates, WWII, and many other recreated battlefields.  These game guides are really detailed and offer very approachable games.

My kids love this convention.  They’ve grown up around FlatCon along with several other families.  We strive to offer a family friendly convention.  My daughter has been a Guitar Hero and my son revenged my characters demise in an old west game with flair

AARON:

Flatcon focused on customer service from the start.   What would make people have a great experience and what to come back to do it again.   Also one low cost for 3 days of games with exclusive games built for the convention being introduced each year.

3. What is Gamers For A Cure, and how can people help?

DAVID:

Our financial goal each year is to have enough funds to host another convention the following year.  Now we are expanding the goal and turning over the convention to new leadership.  These guys have been taking our convention to the next level.  They have given FlatCon a cause.  For me this has really been a feel good part of the convention for the last few years.  I am excited about having a focus of gaming for a cause. Joining FlatCon again this year is Gamers for a Cure, a group raising funds to help fight cancer. Gamers for a Cure will be sponsoring a number of activities, including game demos, a raffle, used game auction on Saturday, and a build-your-own-sword workshop. All proceeds raised will go to the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. The members of Gamers for a Cure have all been affected by cancer, having watched grandparents, parents, siblings, and spouses battle—and sometimes die—from the disease. One member, John Beemsterboer, helped his wife fight breast cancer after she was diagnosed with the disease while pregnant with their daughter, now 5.

JOHN:

Cancer is a devastating disease for any family to face. I want to do whatever I can to prevent others from going through what we went through. This is also an opportunity to support two great loves of my life: my wife and gaming.

4. What kind of games/activities can gamers find at the ‘con?

DAVID:

Tabletop Miniatures, Board and Card games, RPGs, RPGAs, CCGs, tournaments, computer console gaming Xbox,Wii, PS, computer pc gaming, videos, shopping, hands on activities – terrain making, painting, foam sword making … and more.

5. Any highlights or must-see events?

DAVID:

There are two Hoth battles – one with Legos™ another with 28mm miniatures.  These are huge games.  Also Aaron is bringing out the Space Station (11’ in diameter hex that you can play from the inside).

AARON:

Every year there is a completion to see who can build the ‘over the top’ game of that year.  Past winners have included a massive Star Wars Hoth Battle, A 6 foot World Globe on which Risk is played, a 12 foot diameter Space Station for Space Hulk..  You see things at Flatcon you don’t see other places.

6. What are you looking forward to playing most this year?

DAVID:

The Great Rail Wars miniatures game on Sunday.  I plan to sling some lead with my undead cowboys.  Kind makes it hard to take’m down.

AARON:

Last year the BattleStar Galactica board game was a hit with many of us.  We will try to navigate it this year with the new Pegasus expansion added.   I also look forward to playing in the annual RailWars tournament in which everyone has a great time and this will be the last year for Space Hulk on the large Space Station table.

Thanks to David, Aaron, and John for taking the time to tell us about FlatCon! I’m really excited about this thing, and it certainly doesn’t hurt that I’ll be helping a good cause. In fact, I will be attending Flatcon on Sunday Oct. 4. So, if you for some godforsaken reason want to meet me or put me in a murder van or something, now’s your chance. But bring either your WoW cards or a game of Catan. Because – no Catan, no van.

SEKRET FLATCON INFOEZ:

Location: Interstate Center, Bloomington IL

Website: http://www.flatcon.com

Contact Info: Contact Page (from their website)

P.S. If you’re organizing a local convention (or you go to one you’d like to see get a little more exposure) and you’d like to see an article about it on Stupid Ranger, please contact us at this email address: contact(AT)stupidranger.com

For the longest time, and even up until last year, I had two inviolate rules about gaming.

1. No MMO’s. I didn’t have the time and they seemed like having a second job that I paid instead of it paying me.
2. No CCG’s. They cost an insane amount and it seemed like too much stress.

Last year, about this time, I broke Rule #1 and started playing World of Warcraft. I levelled like mad to try to catch up to my buddies who had been playing for years, and enjoyed that. Eventually, I got to 80 and the daily quests and constant grinds for gear caused me to quit. (Although, I did start back up again this week to try some PvP, which I hadn’t done before. I understand relapses are part of this game.)

This month, I finally broke Rule #2. The same friends who talked me into playing WoW started playing the WoW collectible card game. At first, I was skeptical. I’d played a little bit of Magic: The Gathering before, but there were a lot of complex steps (and I was NOT playing with patient people so it left a bad taste in my mouth). Suddenly I’m playing a game like Magic, but streamlined and WoW-flavored. There were classes that did different things and ally cards with people I recognized. A friend let me borrow his Death Knight starter deck over lunch one day, and after that I got hooked.

The Red Bearon’s Treasure

I started my collection by buying a box of the Dark Portal set. They were on clearance at Wal-Mart (though more expensive than the link I posted). I also picked up a couple boosters from Drums of War. It just so happened that in one of these boosters I got The Red Bearon, which is a Loot Card that can be redeemed for an in-game item in the WoW PC game. I wanted $90 more than I wanted to ride around on a bear, so basically I got the rare and pleasant experience of having a lot of guilt-free money to blow on more WoW cards. Especially given my previous predjudice toward CCG’s, it was exhilarating to do something rash with no fear of repercussions.

The box and the boosters I’d purchased by this point had given me several options as to what kinds of decks I could build. Since I played a female orc enhancement shaman in the PC version, I decided to go with the stuff I was familiar with. Sure enough, a lot of the powers and totems I knew were represented, and I threw a deck together.

And promptly got my ass handed to me by SirGeekelot’s mage deck. And my friend Brian’s Death Knight deck. (The same one he’d hooked me with! O cruel irony!). So I started buying some more boosters and getting some more cards. But it seemed like I was getting a lot of chaff I didn’t want. So my Magic-veteran friends introduced me to a new world: that of buying single cards.

Meet Hot 5/5 Protector Singles Today

Initially, the prospect of reading up on what I wanted and just getting those cards seemed incredibly cheap and wonderful. And for a few minutes, it was so. Some of the totems I wanted were a dime, some allies were 40c. I found a healing spell I wanted for $2. I could deal with this. Then I got to the old Shamanic staple, Earth Shock.

TEN BUCKS? For ONE card?!! Naturally, when I began to complain to my friends about such things, they laughed and said “and you’ll probably need 4 in your deck if it’s a really good card”. A chill ran down my spine, and I realized I needed to do some reality checks before I started blowing money like crazy.

In the end, I did wind up buying one Earth Shock, and 4 of its cheaper (both in-game and IRL) cousin Tremor Shock. And since I had a bunch of free money, I bought a hideous crapton of Shamanic goodies like totems and shocks and weapons. I accidentally the whole free money. (The whole thing!) And it was EXHILARATING.

Who Says There’s No XP Awarded In CCG’s?

I learned a lot in the past month. Here are some of the highlights, in convenient bulleted form:

• Always Use A Condom – Those sleeves are for protecting your cards AND for helping you shuffle. And shuffling with sleeves is way different than regular card shuffling (which I never learned to do, so it prevents Card Game Embarassment Syndrome).
• Organization Is Your Friend – Imagine, if you will, a box containing 500 cards of various types. Imagine now stacking them all by type and then throwing them into a loose bag and praying they stay together. Imagine also it taking me 20 minutes to FIND my deck before I could even think about playing. Once I got a deck box and then a long cardboard box designed for cards, I put my play deck aside and arranged the rest by type/class/etc. I’ve been MUCH happier since.
• Have A Plan – The more I play, the more I see how the cards interact with each other. Know your own deck, and know your friends’ so that you can design yours to better counter theirs. It will help your game, and also make shopping for cards a bit cheaper since you’ll be hunting for something specific instead of having a “gotta collect everything” mentality. (Usually.)
• Respect The Beast – This game is incredibly fun, but you have to keep at least a few brain cells on what you’re spending. I’m having trouble now because I’m still in “shopping spree” mode from my Red Bearon card, and I still want more. Set a budget for yourself. Don’t exceed it. The rent and food are more important.

I’m having a lot of fun with this game, and I wholeheartedly encourage you to give it a try. Even if you’ve played Magic for ages, there are some game mechanics that make the game refreshing that you might want to take a look at (like raid decks, which I’ll be covering soon).

I’m off to go prepare my deck for this weekend’s festivities. Until we meet again, remember: “If It’s Not Shaman, It’s Crap!“

In Which Vanir Relays The Origin Story Of Stupid Ranger To Provide Backdrop For His Tale

Way back in late 2003, my bachelor days were coming to a close, and I’d been dating my now-wife about 8 months. My longtime karate buddy Dante was back from college and job hunting, and we invited him and his wife (Stupid Ranger, who I’d only met a couple times before), and we invited them over for New Years at Efreak’s apartment along with a couple of her college friends. After thoroughly disturbing the other guests (I believe the phrase Dante used during Charades was “the Right Testicle of Our Lord?”), we decided it was so much fun we wanted to get together more often. I forget whose idea it was to play D&D, but I was thoroughly excited about the idea. I approached my lady-friend with the idea, and she was apprehensive about it. Eventually, I successfully pestered her enough to try it.

It was rough for her at first, especially the roleplaying, but she got the hang of it eventually. And so the four of us, along with our friend John, embarked on a year-long adventure that would come to be known as the Evensbrook campaign. Efreak played a little rogue gnome named Goudy Sans Sarah (she’s a graphic designer – if you don’t laugh, she will negatively readjust your kerning). I loved that campaign. I thought Efreak did too. I was wrong.

In Which Vanir Completely Chubs His Perception Check

Things went really well for a couple months. But slowly, the frustration she was feeling started to get the best of her. She was too scared to tell me she wanted to quit, and I, of course, was too blinded by the fact that I had a wife who played D&D with me to notice. However, I did start to take notice when she started referring to game night as “F#$*ING D&D”. It was, at the time, like a bomb went off in my face. That sucked. A lot.

In retrospect, I can’t say I’m really surprised there was a breakdown of communication. It was during our first year of marriage, and wow did we need to spend some skill points on that. And we eventually got through that and a lot of other stuff in the years to come, but gaming was one thing we never really saw eye to eye on since. We’d play a little Rock Band every now and then or the occasional game of Scrabble, but by and large we’d just hang out and watch TV. And, as previously stated, my heart’s desire is to game with my wife. So, it never really sat very well with me.

Consequently, every couple of months, I decide to try another game and see if she’ll play it with me. Usually, it’s a videogame. And unfortunately, it usually results in her getting frustrated and not wanting to play anymore. Which sucks, and is not the outcome I wanted at all.

In Which Vanir Discovers That Level 5 Married People Have More Skill Points

This very cycle was perpetuating in my living room yesterday night, this time with Carcassonne on the Xbox 360. I’d recently played the tabletop version with friends and enjoyed it, and thought perhaps it might do the trick since the console version did all the math for you. Well, she got frustrated again, and I got frustrated again, but something a little different happened this time. I’m not quite exactly sure what, but I think our communications circuitry might have finally adapted.

We started having a very enlightening conversation as to what it was we both want out of games. I’m certain we’d tried to have this conversation before, but this time it worked a lot better. The things I enjoy in a game are somewhat typical of a lot of “gamer” types. I like twitch games and shooters, but I have a special weakness for turn-based strategy (disclaimer: I suck at it, but I love it) . I like a lot of interactivity in my games, and I like to feel like I’ve accomplished something when I finish one. And, as you may have guessed, I loves me some roleplaying.

Efreak, on the other hand, loves games of chance. She likes Rock Band. She absolutely hates strategy games. When I asked her why, she said she gets so stressed out that she feels like she’s going to have a heart attack. That’s when it started to make a little more sense to me. When she comes home from work, and she’s frazzled out of her mind, one of the things I’ll frequently hear her say is “I don’t care, I just don’t want to decide anything“. She’s been making decisions and stressing out at work all day. She doesn’t want to do it at home on top of all that. Decisions aren’t relaxing for her, ergo strategy games aren’t relaxing for her. And here I was picking a lot of turn based stuff because I thought it would be slower paced (and I like it). My dear wife informs me a lot of women feel like this.

How in the hell did I miss this? So what does she find relaxing? “Traditional” games like Life,  in which you don’t have to decide very much. The excitement of winning a race just from random chance appeals to her. Card games (sadly, the only one I really know is poker, and that’s only because… well…). Games that you can use your brain on (but not strategy) like Trivial Pursuit. I don’t understand why she likes Scrabble. I’m usually thinking two moves ahead when I play that game, but whatever she does it makes her more than a match for my limited intellect.

There is also a certain amount to which, for some reason, she gets intimidated because “you’re so much better at these games than I am”. I don’t generally pwn the crap out of my wife every time we play games, but it’s a factor nonetheless. Playing a game of chance, in this case, makes her feel like she’s on equal ground.

In any case, it’s plain to see we’re different kinds of gamers. Now, the trick is going to be finding where that Venn diagram intersects so we can have some fun together.

In Which Vanir Ponders The Road Ahead

Well, the road ahead for damn sure contains Boom Blox, as that’s one game Efreak specifically said she’d love to play with me. And she’s a huge Beatles fan, so this is a no-brainer. We’re also going to head out to our FLGS and try to find some stuff we’d both enjoy playing.

In the meantime, I would wholeheartedly encourage anyone with similar experiences as ours to either tell your tale, or (better!) to share what you’ve done that helped you. We surely cannot be the only couple who have gone through this!

Ultimately, it comes down to one of our old standbys here at Stupid Ranger – the only thing that matters is that everyone at the table is having fun. Finding out how to do that in one’s marriage might take some time and effort, but I can’t really think of a better reason to get back on the horse and keep trying.

Until next time!

136 Years After A Long, Long Time Ago In The Same Galaxy Far, Far Away

Unfortunately, I walked into this having neither played the latest incarnation of the Star Wars RPG, nor having read the Star Wars Legacy series of novels upon which this campaign guide is based. Thusly, my knowledge of this era of the Star Wars timeline comes completely from this book. It kind of reminds me of when I picked up a ton of Who’s Who in the DC Universe and The Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe comics when I was a kid, and knew digest versions of all the characters’ histories without actually having read the comics. So, based on that, allow me to give you a brief synopsis of the setting you’re plunging your characters into if you use this sourcebook:

The book even starts out by saying something to the effect that Obi-Wan used to refer to the rise of Palpatine’s Galactic Empire as the “dark times”, and if he saw these times he would probably call Palpatine’s time the “sort of dingy grey times”. The galaxy is a freaking mess. The New Republic is gone. The Jedi are all but wiped out, and the few that remain are outcast fugitives. A new Galactic Empire took over everything, but then the Sith overthrew the Emperor and now a Sith Lord sits openly on the throne. The overthrown Emperor still is trying to get his old job back. By the way, did I mention the new Sith Emperor (Darth Krayt) is a freaking sandperson? There is, of course, a Skywalker around to try to save the universe. Except he’s a bounty hunter, and he’s kind of a douche. Mostly I say that because hunts Jedi sometimes. However, he has a hot girlfriend from a race of sex people and a secret agent mom. And he’s trying to be better. He swears! Except he got kidnapped by Darth Sandpeople and now he’s learning how to use dark side stuff, but for good.

Yeah, the galaxy is pretty screwed. That’s where your PC’s come in.

Everything Old Is New Again

One interesting thing about this campaign setting is that since the galaxy’s all effed up, people tend to reuse stuff. They explicitly say you’ll see weapons, ships, characters, etc. from every other era of Star Wars because it’s all still around. Probably the coolest part for me about this is encouraging players to make their characters a descendant of a Star Wars character they’re familiar with. In addition to just having this be a cool-factor for roleplaying purposes, characters descending from certain families get special abilities. For instance, Skywalker descendants (in addition to the chance to not be a douche) get a power that increases their force powers greatly when they use it. Descendants of the Solo family get some sort of mechanics bonus. (No idea what to do if you’re descended from his kids he had with Leia. That’s probably another sourcebook.)  My favorite of these was if you’re descended from Greedo’s family – in which case you get a survival check bonus. I’m guessing that’s either because of karma. Maybe it skipped Greedo’s generation?

There’s lots of new ships and places to go and races. There are a few new classes of note. My personal favorite are the Imperial Knights, who guard the deposed Emperor. They’re like Jedi, except they only work for the emperor and they’re not about mysticism, just using the force to protect and defend like any other tool or weapon. Also, their armor is based off the stuff Darth Vader made his out of, which apparently made him way better at lightsaber-duelling. The Sith also have a specialized Knight Hunter class, trained specifically to kill anybody who isn’t using a red lightsaber. Their armor is based off the Crimson Guard’s. Sort of.

Do, Or Do Not. There Is No Try.

This seems to be like a book that will make Star Wars: Legacy fans who also play the Star Wars RPG really, really happy. For the rest of us, I’m not real sure. To be fair, it’s not really the designers’ fault. The campaign guide gives you a very shallow overview of the events that have occured, and some history and (usually) pictures of all the new stuff you’ll be using and doing, but I get that same feeling I had when I first played Knights Of the Old Republic. Everything seems kinda Star Wars-y, but you’re not really invested enough in it to care. KOTOR, by way of excellent storytelling, won my heart over. You’ll probably have to do the same with your players if they’re unfamiliar with this new stuff.

My only real complaint with the book is that finding anything specific inside it is very difficult. There’s a broad table of contents, and there’s an appendix that lists people by challenge rating, but for other stuff you have to hunt for it yourself. Things are arranged by faction rather than by what it is. I tried to look up Rogue Squadron, whose section I wanted to mention in this article, and eventually stopped trying.

Barring that frustration, if you liked the Legacy books or you want to try something new, I think this would be a worthwhile buy.

I did realize something very important while reading this book. In this new setting, Darth Krayt basically wipes out 10% of the populace of Mon Calamari and enslaves the rest. If I ever become a Sith Lord, I’m modifying my lightsaber to coat everything it cuts in a layer of fried breading and I’m going hunting at Mon Calamari. My name will be…. Darth Cuisine.