I save some money by building my own computer. Now I have a computer that won’t boot for some mysterious reason. And I’m without a bevy of replacement parts to even try replacing components to do some basic trouble shooting. Add to the the possability that my power supply might be killing replacement motherboards. Hooray!
The saving grace is how clean this photo makes my computer room look.
More RPG fun! This time, I get to play. And talk. And mostly crack jokes and complain. We made it to the end of combat, which makes the fight pretty fast for how many enemies and players there are. This is a homebrew setting on top of the Buffy game system, fashioned from sticks and some model glue by the GM, Stone. Tonight we used a battle mat to run combat … and combat seemed better. A revelation! Combat with miniatures is better?! Wah?
Obviously my big metal robot leanings have exposed me to miniatures combat from the first days of my RPG life. Battletech, Aerotech specifically, was my serious indoctrination into the hobby, and those games are seriously miniatures and map centric. And then I played a bit of Robotech, never using a map or a miniature. All those times I played both with and without maps and miniatures, and I never really looked into how combat unfolds in each. The maps make a large difference in how I see combat and my options.
Without the maps, combat is often randomly direct attacks between enemies and player characters. Lots of time and effort have to be expended by the GM keeping the scene straight and conveying it clearly to the players. Maybe that’s advanced play. And maybe if your games are combat light, it’s no big deal. I am seeing that a map and character markers are really valuable tools. Focusing fire, creating bottlenecks, flanking, and many other tactical options come into tangible view on the table. Even if the game system doesn’t specifically reward these maneouvers, it can help facilitate more teamwork. And in my specific game night of play, it can even help everyone get a quick look at the situation and decide what to do, because someone told a really funny joke and you weren’t paying attention. Now the GM doesn’t have to re-explain what just happened, or tell you which enemy is in sight or posing the greatest threat.
And why is this anything even close to a surprise for myself? Mostly because I used to consider maps as a crutch, or a distraction. Too “game-ist” or “simmulation-ist” maybe. In my eyes, table-top gaming was just a complex board-game and had no place in role playing games. Would people who want to play an RPG be ok if I whipped out a map, some miniatures, and started a game of Battletech in the middle of their game? My recent experiences with Fallout and D&D 4e seem to indicate that it will work fine. Would it work with every system? Probably not. But when it does, I think it’s a great way to enhance the combat in a game.
I’ve given this blog a rest. I’ve pretty much stopped playing World of Warcraft and I’m not really looking back. I play some Warhammer Online every so often. I’m not really happy with any video games recently. Maybe something better will come along.
Until then, I’ve started running a weekly D&D session. It seems to be all the rage in the nerd community to get back into D&D with the latest edition, as is evidenced by “The Podcasts”. I can’t argue with the prevailing logic that fun things are fun. Curse you logic!
I used to hate D&D. The third edition was quasi skill based without having any solid footing in a setting. I’m not a fantasy kind of guy. These issues, which are mine alone, turned D&D into a bitter experience that I avoided, or managed to tolerate in the company of excellent friends. I was always more attuned to the Robotech, Battletech, and Heavy Gear persuasions of RPGs. I skew big metal robot, I suppose.
And then D&D 4e came along and when I saw it, it said, “I’m totally a game, and you can kill enemies and take their stuff.” Something inside me just shrugged and said, “I can dig it.” The setting is a plane of squares. The game is downright devilish in it’s design, bridging the gap between a complex board game and seriously serious role playing with two page character backgrounds and people crying when their character dies. That’s some crazy bridge, I tell you. A bridge that I imagine many people spend their entire lives on. Never really wanting to go to either extreme.
In the image above, you can see that combat has commenced, enemies hiding out of sight, while our fearless Warlord, Mortiz, has rushed headlong into a trap. The faceless Warlock, Slayn, stands next to him, planning to hurt evil goblins. They managed to not die that night. But they aren’t out of the dungeon, yet.
