So, I think it's high time I take a step away from the video games and talk about one of the tabletop roleplaying games that I'm playing in.
Today I'm talking about a Mage: The Ascension. For anyone that doesn't know, Mage is a tabletop game from White Wolf Games. In mage, you play da da daaaaaa: Mages. I'd suggest that you look into it, but White Wolf scrapped their entire Old World of Darkness line including Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Changeling, Wraith, and many more. You may still be able to find some of these games used though. The World of Darkness system was never the best in the world. It's clunky most of the time, arbitrary some of the time, and the combat mechanics are almost nonexistent. But the world that was created had a lot of vibrant story and evoking texture. It wasn't always great, but the majority of the backstory for the world was a really deep world.
For length concerns I'm only going to post the premise for the campaign and a bit of background on the characters. I'll post at least part of the story so far later in the week.
So here's the campaign background. First off, Victor is running. Victor is a rather brilliant GM, he always has deep, involved, interesting stories to tell through the games that he runs. He is also great at rolling with whatever the players throw at him. He's not so attached to his story that he gets upset if the players want to go a different direction, and he has no problems giving the characters exactly what they deserve for their actions. The players in this game are Bob, James, Jodi, Maria, and myself. For a while we also had Allen, but his work schedule got changed so that he is now working during the game session, so he had to drop out. His character was scheduled to die anyway, so he wasn't too broken up about it.
The game is set in Japan largely, I think, because Victor wanted to use a lot of the Kindred of the East and Hengeyokai rules. Bob is playing a Japanese martial artist who is a member of the Akashic Brotherhood. One source of trouble with his character is that he has both the Overconfident flaw and the Common Sense merit. In most cases the Overconfident flaw overpowers the Common Sense merit and gets him into a lot of trouble. I really don't think that they should be allowed to be taken together. Jodi is playing an American surgeon who is a member of the Euthanatos. She's very headstrong and that causes a lot of headbutting with Bob and his "traditional" (trust me, those quotes are freaking HUGE) Japanese outlook. Bob and Jodi are also playing a married couple who have a merit called Twin Souls. That merit, taken with certain magical abilities, allows the two of them to always know exactly where the other is and to talk mentally over any distance. It also allows them to share their spheres (magical powers) when they touch and still be able to take independent actions. Usually, two mages can touch and share spheres, but they are only allowed one collective action.
Maria is playing an American librarian who worships Lilith. If you're familiar with Vampire: The Masquerade, you know how big a player Lilith is. She is also pregnant with Lilith's child/Lilith herself, Lilith being who she is, there is of course no father. James is playing a Japanese member of the Cult of Ecstasy. So far there's not been a whole lot of depth to that character, but I think he's enjoying himself anyway.
I'm playing an American doctor who was a member of the Sons of Ether, but who was later recruited by the Asian equivalent of the Technocracy known as the Zaibatsu. My character is really wacky and a lot of fun to play. The problem is that I'm the only one in the group that really wants to save the world. But more on that later.
That's all I'm going to cram into this post. I'll post at least part of the story so far later on in the week. So until then, Good Gaming.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
inFAMOUS Thoughts
First off, I have to say that I have not played the full version of inFAMOUS. I have played the demo from the Playstation Network a few times. Basically, inFAMOUS is the Force Unleashed meets Grand Theft Auto. The basic powers that you start out with are
-a quick lightning shot
-a lightning grenade
-a pulse of energy that throws things back from you
-a power that lets you glide through the air
-a way to drain power from electrical sources
-a way to heal others
-a power that lets you drain the life from others to heal yourself
-a power that restrains a wounded person to the ground
Through the course of the demo you unlock a power that is a lightning storm that travels from your character and can be controlled with the SixAxis.
So, here are my thoughts on the demo. First, it was a LOT of fun. The first time I played it, I slaughtered the masses mercilessly. I found it really hard to be a good person. Second to that, it's TOUGH. The game throws a whole lot of enemies at you and they almost all have guns. You have one long range ability that can compete with the guns. The problem is that I'm a bad shot.
It's really easy to expand how much energy reserve you have. All you have to do is pick up items scattered all over the map. The really nice thing about it is that you can detect them as long as they're close enough to be on your minimap. Another really cool thing is that your character is a gymnast when it comes to skating on train rails or electrical wires, and also when climbing just about anything.
There are two problems that I ran into that I really had problems with. First is is really difficult to tell how much damage you've taken an how much life you have left. The exception is when you are really close to death everything turns black and white, but at that point, it you don't heal quickly, it is likely that you will die quickly. The other problem is that sometimes it is too easy to skate or climb. A lot of times if you want to jump off of a ledge and get something close to the edge, you almost always automatically land on the ledge instead of falling down next to it.
Overall it's a really fun game with some problems. Most games have problems, so that's not too big a strike against it. I liked it, but I think it might be difficult to stay a good person. So if you have a PS3, I'd recommend that you download the demo and try it out before you buy the full game.
-a quick lightning shot
-a lightning grenade
-a pulse of energy that throws things back from you
-a power that lets you glide through the air
-a way to drain power from electrical sources
-a way to heal others
-a power that lets you drain the life from others to heal yourself
-a power that restrains a wounded person to the ground
Through the course of the demo you unlock a power that is a lightning storm that travels from your character and can be controlled with the SixAxis.
So, here are my thoughts on the demo. First, it was a LOT of fun. The first time I played it, I slaughtered the masses mercilessly. I found it really hard to be a good person. Second to that, it's TOUGH. The game throws a whole lot of enemies at you and they almost all have guns. You have one long range ability that can compete with the guns. The problem is that I'm a bad shot.
It's really easy to expand how much energy reserve you have. All you have to do is pick up items scattered all over the map. The really nice thing about it is that you can detect them as long as they're close enough to be on your minimap. Another really cool thing is that your character is a gymnast when it comes to skating on train rails or electrical wires, and also when climbing just about anything.
There are two problems that I ran into that I really had problems with. First is is really difficult to tell how much damage you've taken an how much life you have left. The exception is when you are really close to death everything turns black and white, but at that point, it you don't heal quickly, it is likely that you will die quickly. The other problem is that sometimes it is too easy to skate or climb. A lot of times if you want to jump off of a ledge and get something close to the edge, you almost always automatically land on the ledge instead of falling down next to it.
Overall it's a really fun game with some problems. Most games have problems, so that's not too big a strike against it. I liked it, but I think it might be difficult to stay a good person. So if you have a PS3, I'd recommend that you download the demo and try it out before you buy the full game.
Monday, June 1, 2009
An Introduction to the Characters
Throughout the course of this blog I will probably mention things that are going on with various characters of mine in the games that I play. Actually, I've already tweeted about a couple of things that have happened in WoW. So I thought it would be a good idea to give you all a quick introduction to the characters that I'm playing.
Haledar
Haledar is a Blood Elf Paladin in the World of Warcraft. Current, he's level 55 and is the highest that I've ever gotten with a character in Wow. Haledar is on what's known as a "Normal" server. His professions are Mining and Tailoring. I'm really happy with Miing as a way to make money, but I'm not as pleased with Tailoring as I hoped I'd be, except for making bags. The recipes for the higher level bags are HELLA expensive.
Skabrot
Scabrot is an Ork Warrior also in the World of Warcraft. After writing his name I realized that most people will probably read it "Scab Rot", which was reall not my intention, but things like that happen. His name is actually pronounced "SkaBROT". He's level 14 and his professions are Mining and Engineering. I'm playing him as a tank and trying to group with him a lot, so I figured that the explosives from Engineering would come in handy for threat. Skabrot is on a "PvP" server, but he's too low a level to run into much of that yet. Once I get a little higher I'll start going into battlegrounds.
Dr. Mark Walburg
Dr. Mark Walburg (A.K.A. Dr. Marky Mark) is a character in a tabletop roleplaying game called Exodus Sol. I didn't really MEAN to name him Marky Mark, but I wasn't thinking about it when I put his name down and as soon as everybody else saw it, it was too late to change anything.
I know none of you have ever hear of Exodus Sol, it's a tabletop roleplaying game that a couple of my buddies wrote up. It's a sci-fi setting where Humans have reachout to colonize Luna (the moon) and Mars. There has also been contact with one alien race. I'll go into further detail about the game and setting in a future post.
Dr. Walburg is a crazy old coot. He's 63 years old, with white hair tht's bald on top. He walks with kind of a hunch and talks like the albino from The Princess Bride did before he cleared his throat. He acts like a curious five year old with a radio, taking it apart to figure out how it works, but never able to put it together again. The difference is that Dr. Walburg is obsessed with finding alien life so that he can dissect it. He's not particularly popular with the party. There have been multiple occasions where I have creeped out not only the NPCs with this character, but also the other players and the GM.
Dr. Daniel Green
Dr. Daniel Green is also a character in a tabletop roleplaying game. The game is called Mage: The Ascension, it was part of White Wolf's old World of Darkness series before the reboot. Daniel is a medical doctor who's wife was diagnosed with a degenerative bone disorder. I've never named the disorder, or specified what its symptoms are, but I'm thinking something like Osteogenesis Imperfecta. A doctor in Japan was experimenting with a radical new procedure that could cure her, so Daniel and his wife moved to Japan. Incidentally, Daniel's unnamed wife is Japanese.
The Japanese doctor was actually a member of the Mage tradition known as the Sons of Ether. Through their work together on the procedure, Daniel's latent magical ability was awakened. He's kind of a mad scientist type with a heavy emphasis on bioengineering and gene splicing. He's a lot of fun to play.
Well, that's all the major characters that I'm currently playing. I'll be sure to introduce you to any others that I start in the future. Until later, happy gaming.
Haledar
Haledar is a Blood Elf Paladin in the World of Warcraft. Current, he's level 55 and is the highest that I've ever gotten with a character in Wow. Haledar is on what's known as a "Normal" server. His professions are Mining and Tailoring. I'm really happy with Miing as a way to make money, but I'm not as pleased with Tailoring as I hoped I'd be, except for making bags. The recipes for the higher level bags are HELLA expensive.
Skabrot
Scabrot is an Ork Warrior also in the World of Warcraft. After writing his name I realized that most people will probably read it "Scab Rot", which was reall not my intention, but things like that happen. His name is actually pronounced "SkaBROT". He's level 14 and his professions are Mining and Engineering. I'm playing him as a tank and trying to group with him a lot, so I figured that the explosives from Engineering would come in handy for threat. Skabrot is on a "PvP" server, but he's too low a level to run into much of that yet. Once I get a little higher I'll start going into battlegrounds.
Dr. Mark Walburg
Dr. Mark Walburg (A.K.A. Dr. Marky Mark) is a character in a tabletop roleplaying game called Exodus Sol. I didn't really MEAN to name him Marky Mark, but I wasn't thinking about it when I put his name down and as soon as everybody else saw it, it was too late to change anything.
I know none of you have ever hear of Exodus Sol, it's a tabletop roleplaying game that a couple of my buddies wrote up. It's a sci-fi setting where Humans have reachout to colonize Luna (the moon) and Mars. There has also been contact with one alien race. I'll go into further detail about the game and setting in a future post.
Dr. Walburg is a crazy old coot. He's 63 years old, with white hair tht's bald on top. He walks with kind of a hunch and talks like the albino from The Princess Bride did before he cleared his throat. He acts like a curious five year old with a radio, taking it apart to figure out how it works, but never able to put it together again. The difference is that Dr. Walburg is obsessed with finding alien life so that he can dissect it. He's not particularly popular with the party. There have been multiple occasions where I have creeped out not only the NPCs with this character, but also the other players and the GM.
Dr. Daniel Green
Dr. Daniel Green is also a character in a tabletop roleplaying game. The game is called Mage: The Ascension, it was part of White Wolf's old World of Darkness series before the reboot. Daniel is a medical doctor who's wife was diagnosed with a degenerative bone disorder. I've never named the disorder, or specified what its symptoms are, but I'm thinking something like Osteogenesis Imperfecta. A doctor in Japan was experimenting with a radical new procedure that could cure her, so Daniel and his wife moved to Japan. Incidentally, Daniel's unnamed wife is Japanese.
The Japanese doctor was actually a member of the Mage tradition known as the Sons of Ether. Through their work together on the procedure, Daniel's latent magical ability was awakened. He's kind of a mad scientist type with a heavy emphasis on bioengineering and gene splicing. He's a lot of fun to play.
Well, that's all the major characters that I'm currently playing. I'll be sure to introduce you to any others that I start in the future. Until later, happy gaming.
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