2012: The Year That Didn't End

As I sit here, at the very end of the month of December in the year of someone's lord two thousand and twelve I cannot help but notice that the world did in fact NOT come to a terrifying cataclysmic halt. At least as far as I can tell. I mean, obviously there are bits that I can't see from here, but I'm fairly sure that if any of them had been destroyed someone would have mentioned it on twitter or something.

Thus I am faced with with the grim prospect of another year and the inevitable tedium it will bring. But first, let's review the inevitable tedium of the year gone by, as is our custom. As ever the criteria for inclusion is simply stuff that I got, did, played, watched, listened to or otherwise experienced in the past year. Whether or not it was actually released, or indeed bears the slightest relevance to that time period at all, is up to the whims of fate.

An Interuption

So, it's been a while since I've managed to write anything here. One could almost say I've been on hiatus. except of course that a Doctor Who fan can never use that word without an involuntary shiver of dread. Not to mention the fact that I have, sadly, not been recast as Sylvester McCoy.

So, you know... Sorry about that.

The fact of the matter is simply that I am a man with certain... Issues. And these issues have been, by and large, getting the better of me lately. So in order to get myself writing again, and maybe have a go at working out some shit in my head, let's have a talk about Video Game Addiction.

A Wrong Time Ago

It's a confusing time to be a Star Wars fan. The news that Lucasfilm has been bought out in it's entirety by Disney has, I'm sure, set the whole internet aflame with rumour  speculation, nerdrage and a great wailing and gnashing of teeth. This was, after all, pretty big news. Big enough that someone actually PHONED me up to tell me. I think the last time I got a phone call was in 1993. But no, this was important enough that they felt I needed to know right away. This of course did make for a rather odd remainder of the evening as myself and those I was with tried to finish our game of Braggart whilst wrestling with the sort of emotional confusion I imagine a closet furry feels after seeing Sonic The Hedgehog for the first time.

One does not simply type Sonic The Hedgehog into Google image search.

Terror From The Derp

It's been a while since I've posted anything here. Not that I haven't had a few ideas for things to wibble on about, but other stuff has been consuming my time. Firstly of course there was all that business with my xbox profile getting hacked, which required me to replay ALL THE GAMES. And then, I'd no sooner finished reordering my activity history when the earth was invaded by aliens.

"Hey guys, what's happening here?"

Yeah, XCOM happened. It happened SO HARD.

Unlucky For Some

So, my xbox profile got hacked this week. I have no idea how. I'm hardly in the habit of giving out my passwords to all the thoroughly convincing unsolicited emails I receive on a daily basis. Although since most of them are from banks and services I've never dealt with in my life that's hardly surprising.

Lovely. Wonderful.

Indeed, I'm hardly what you'd call prolific or gregarious in terms of my online activity, generally preferring to sit on my own on the corner ranting about the Myrka and giggling quietly. Nevertheless somehow I got targeted by T3H L33T HAX0RZ CR3W.

Kermit Vorhees

It is perhaps one of the greatest testaments to the quality of Doctor Who that it can produce episodes full of terrible writing, awful monsters and gaping plot holes that are still hugely enjoyable and entertaining. With the obvious exception of Fear Her.

Fuck you, fuck your crayons and fuck your episode.

Indeed, I think one of the best things about Doctor Who is the way in which has encouraged me to consider stuff like story structure, pacing, direction and all those niggly little things that people like to talk about when they're trying to sound clever. This doesn't mean that the show gets a free pass, far from it. But as with anything you really love you're usually willing to put up with a bit more then you otherwise might. However, even all that said sometimes they'll do something stupid that just kinda gets to you.

The Angels Take Manhattan is one of those times.

Zirconium

I was looking forward to seeing The Power Of Three quite a bit. And not simply because it was a new episode of Doctor Who. No, the thing I liked best was that it was the episode about which I knew the least in advance.

All that came before had been fairly well advertised. Daleks in asylums, spaceships full of Dinosaurs, Wild West Cyborgs. Hell, even the next episode was shouting it's major details well in advance, what will all the angels and melodrama promised. But The Power Of Three never really gave anything away about what one might expect from the episode. Aside from the whole Doctor stuck in a domestic situation AGAIN thing anyway. What's good about this is that it means you have both some interesting mystery and less baggage in the way of preconceptions. I wasn't really sure what to expect.

So I REALLY didn't expect The Sontaran Experiment.

"Beep Beep."

Carbonara

Isn't technology wonderful? It's astounding that we live in an age where, even if we miss an episode of Doctor Who because we're far to busy swearing at the annoying boss fight at the end of Front Mission Evolved we can just press a magic button and watch it anyway, rather than punching ourselves repeatedly in the balls as punishment.

Which, to be fair, would probably be more entertaining than this bullshit.

So, how good was a Town Called mercy exactly? Quite good actually. Quite good indeed.

X & Violence Part 11: Press X Not To Care

I finally got around to preordering X-COM the other day, because what's the point in saving the earth if you can't look like Guile whilst doing?

It took a team of 100 scientists and engineers 3 months to construct this hair.

Thing is whilst I was in the shop I managed to pick up a few new games I have poor impulse control. And the first of these that I proceeded to actually play was Splatterhouse. Overall I'd say it was a fun if flawed game. As brawlers go it's not at all bad once it get's going, but there are these various issues which got me thinking. It has several instances of things which, in my humble opinion, break the rules of good game design. And I was thinking that perhaps what I should do is try to write up these nebulous concepts as a properly defined list of commandments.

And one day I will. But right now we're going to talk about Quick-Time events.

Having A Barney

I've thought for quite a while now that the new series of Doctor Who really should do a dinosaur episode at some point. After all, the BBC should already have access to plenty of CGI dinosaur models from their various documentary programs. And it's always seemed a bit odd that a show that go literally anywhere in space and time has basically avoided prehistoric earth for almost it's entire 50 year run.

There's no lizards so it doesn't count.

Imagine then my delight when it was announced that not only was there to be a dinosaur episode, but these dinosaurs would be on a spaceship. I mean, dinosaurs on a spaceship. Could you have a premise that was any MORE Doctor Who?

A Step Backwards (In Time)

The good news is that, after yet another interminable wait, Doctor Who is once more back on T.V.  The even better news is that means we can nitpick the hell out of it, and maybe start some crazy fan rumors that everyone is secretly the Myrka in disguise.

Now, I'd like to say that Asylum Of The Daleks is a blistering return to the series and an all time classic piece of Doctor Who. But since it's full of plot holes you can drive a Dalek battle fleet through and still leave plenty of room to fit a herd of obese Myrka I'm afraid I can't. Needless to say anything I say after this point may be considered a potential spoiler.

This Is How The World Ends

So, I finally managed to finish Magna Carta 2 last night. And after all that effort spent wading through the game the question I find myself faced with is do I trade the game? Or simply set it on fire so that no one else ever has to go through all that shit?

It is not a very good game. In fact it is actually a game that I would be inclined to label as OBJECTIVELY bad. Not this game is, in my personal opinion, not great. But just..... BAD.

It's a metaphor.

Catching Up With The Little People

It appears that I've been somewhat remiss in keeping up with my miniature painting activity of late. Not that I haven't been doing any. I've been pottering around with various bits and pieces in between bouts of video games and suicidal depression. It's just that I haven't really been doing very well at posting any of the results.

So then let's rectify the situation in no particular order.

X & Violence Special Edition: Kicked In The Teeth

Shadowrun Online has met it's target on Kickstarter, but it was a close thing. It was only through a last minute surge of support in the last couple of days that things turned around.

Of course, I take full credit for this myself. Whilst I'd done my humble part to pimp the project out here and on twitter, and even managed to convince a friend to sign up, the real difference was simply one of disaster. See, I realized that the problem was that Shadowrun Online getting made would be a very good thing. And we all know how often good things happen.

Any minute now...

So I simply upped my pledge level to one that was FAR to high. Not the upper eschalons of godhood these sort of things always offer the ultra rich or anything you understand. Just to a point that is clearly way to much to be spending on a game that won't be out until next year. An lo and behold, once I'd done that things really took off.

You're welcome, internet.

But this got me thinking about the whole Kickstarter thing. It has been pretty big news in gaming recently after all. So I figured I may as well weigh in with my 2 cents.

Because after that, 2 cents is probably all I've got now.

Chase Them If You Must. But Never, EVER Deal With One

Let's talk about Shadowrun for a bit. Or, more specifically:

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PEOPLE, KICKSTART THE HELL OUT OF SHADOWRUN ONLINE.

I certainly am. As are many others. Whether or not enough of us do remains to be seen. But I REALLY want this game to happen. And I figure the only thing I can do to help, short of defaulting on my mortgage, is to take the time to wax lyrical about the whole thing.

Because I am so incredibly popular that everyone automatically does what I say.

Thinking about it I should just upload this to my okcupid profile.

Like A Conflict In Space

So, at long last I finally managed to finish re-reading the New Jedi Order series of books. This has, sadly, taken me quite a while to do. Not just because there's about 20 volumes of the damn thing, but also because a lot of other stuff happened when I was doing it. Like buying that wretched Xbox for example. That was a bit of a distraction.

Can't read, busy shooting things.

X & Violence Part 10: Sequelitis

As we all know, the modern entertainment industry is creatively bankrupt in all it's forms. Be it games, films, TV or music there is hardly anything original being produced any more. The cinema is an endless parade of sequels, reboots and comic book adaptations. And with games is basically the same thing. Only worse because instead of just having a crappy reboot we have a crappy FPS reboot.

Seriously, can we just stop doing this?

X & Violence Part 9: High Hoe

Since I am apparently going through a phase of stating the obvious in regards to commonly discussed topics, let's have a little chat about this whole hardcore vs casual thing.

Ever notice how often this image crops up when you talk about hardcore gamers?

X & Violence Part 8: Brother, Thou Wert Art

So, last time we ended on a bit of a downer. Again. But I still think the point remains valid, and it leads us neatly to the subject of the artistic merit of the gaming medium. So let's talk about that a little.

X & Violence Part 7: Something Blue

Okay, so I think it's time to take a break from serious and/ or controversial topics for a while, and talk about something a little more light hearted. So, what's on my mind today?

The whole area of pre owned games & the various attendant issues arising from it.

Yeah, this is gonna go well.

X & Violence Part 6: Alone Time

Okay, so last time I elected to talk a little about sexism in games. This then led to start thinking about the issue of SEX in video games. After I'd had a "cold shower" I thought I'd get to work. And then maybe do some writing.

TAKE IT!!!

Anyway, leaving aside the increasingly laboured masturbation jokes for a moment, I feel that I should take a moment to preface my usual ramblings with a warning. And not simply that you may end up with a permanent mental picture most people would politely file under "FAR to much information". See, I can't really talk about this issue without talking about a type of game many people find somewhat distasteful. And one game in particular that has received a lot of press as being the worst thing ever™. At the very least we're going to be talking about something that many people do not necessarily find a comfortable topic of conversation. Consider this a trigger warning if you like. Because we're going to be talking about Rapelay.

X & Violence Part 5: And Sex(y)

So, let's talk about sexism in video games. I mean, this is a subject that anyone who's interested in the medium is going to have address sooner or later. I must admit that while I had some thoughts and ideas for a post I wasn't planning on doing one so soon. But then events caught up with me...

X & Violence Part 4: Taking The Shark For A Walk

So, I managed to achieve a couple of things last time. I managed to retain a mostly positive tone when discussing something. And thing that I was discussing was one of the key titles involved I finally convincing me to actually buy a new console. There are a few of these as you might imagine. And I haven't gotten all of them yet. But today i'd like to talk about another one of them. And this time I don't think I'm going to be able to be QUITE as positive overall.

So, let's talk about The Force Unleashed.

X & Violence Part 3: Hell Is Other People

One of the things I wanted to do with this particular series of posts was to talk about specific games, and the thoughts and issues that have arisen through playing them. So far I've not really been able to do this, as I've been discussing things in a broader sense. But one thing that I particularly wanted to talk about going into this was the Halo franchise. Obviously it's a big important IP for the xbox. But more than that it's something that I quite like, but I know quite a lot of people don't. Certainly none in my social group. So I figured it could be fun to explore what it is I like about the franchise, and see if I can answer some of the common criticisms levelled at it.

And the funny thing is that normally the answer is "Yeah, that's very true."

I refuse to not use this picture.

X & Violence Part 2: Peen There, Done That

Okay, so I guess that introductory post to this particular series got a little negative towards the end. And even though I guessed correctly I didn't get a prize. What sort of fucking game is this anyway?

So, this time I thought I'd try and raise the tone a little and talk about something the xbox does better than the wii. No, I'm still not talking about graphics and I NEVER WILL BE. Today I want to talk a little about achievements.

Onomatopoeic Expression Of Delight At Soft Furnishings.

I suppose in some ways it was kind of reassuring that, back when Dr Who finally returned to out screens, the first proper new monster was a bit a rubbish. The Autons were a classic we were all familiar with. The Geth were just ghosts and/or zombies. And Whilst the various weirdoes from The End Of The World were at least aliens they were more bystanders than proper, full on MONSTERS.

No, the first proper shot we got was with the Slitheen. They were big and real and actual villainous bad guys. With a 2 part story to roam around in and everything. And whilst perhaps that particular couplet was the highest point of the revival, it really wasn't all that far down the list either. I mean, I'll take a tired and overplayed fart gag over a bloody love ship any day.

One of the things I think they really got right in that story was the design of the aliens. They're distinctive and original and actually a bit creepy. I've always liked them from a purely aesthetic standpoint if nothing else. And luckily for me the world of Doctor Who miniatures is a strange morass of murky trademark infringement and minor but legally binding differences.

X & Violence Part 1: All A Bored

As you may be aware, a little while ago I finally bought myself an xbox. Why? Well, partly because I'd actually been given opportunity to play a few games on a friends one and quite enjoyed it. Partly because I was getting back into Star Wars in a big way and wanted to get The Force Unleashed. But if I'm honest it's mostly because I was sulking. Various issues had ruined my plans for the weekend and set me in a rather bad mood. And nothing brightens ones mood quite like wasting three hundred quid or so.

As a consequence of this of course my available free time has become rather occupied, and I haven't been doing quite as much of other things as maybe I should. Some might call it video game addiction. Personally I'd say it's more to do with having a compulsive personality and shitty life. Anyway point is since I've been playing a lot of video games it means I've been THINKING a lot about video games. So why not turn this to my advantage and squeeze out a few posts on the subject?

So, let's start with some general faff and see where the thought train leads us.

Comic Sans Part 3: We Are The World

So, I've already been over the (admittedly loose) mechanics and character building used in my Overpower game. And I said I'd talk a little about setting in this instalment.  So let me see if I can remember enough about how the worlds worked to actually describe them.

Comic Sans Part 2: We Are Here, Where Are You From?

So, last time I talked a little about the basic mechanics of the Overpower system that I came up with some years ago for doing super hero games. It's fairly rules light, but still has a few. And this of course means that we'll need some way of recording the relevant details. So today I'm going to go through the character sheet and character generation.

Comic Sans Part 1: Maths And Stuff.

It is a given fact that, when running a game, I tend to favour the rules light approach. Often to the exclusion of actually having any rules whatsoever. Now, partly of course this allows me to concentrate on story, character and drama without having to worry about the fact that only one person at the table is capable of rolling above 10 on a D20.

Every time. Every. Damn. Time.

But equally I suppose it's simply that I can't be bothered to do all the maths and have to stat out every little thing just in case. Obviously there are both advantages and disadvantages to any way of running a game, and one is not necessarily better than the other. It all depends on the type of game you're aiming for and the people involved.

But anyway, at least one time I DID write up a system with actual rules. Not many, I admit. But some. And since some of my players have expressed an interest in maybe digging the game out for another go at some point I figured this was a good opportunity to dig out my notes and write it up.

So, ladies and gentleman, let me introduce you to the Overpower system.

Not The Sort Of Wars You Were Expecting

I'd like to take a moment, if I may, to talk about about racism. Specifically racism in Star Wars.

Request Spot

The good news, you will no doubt be thrilled to hear, is that I have apparently started doing requests. The bad news is that the request wasn't to stop. Sit down while I tell you a tale...

See, it appears that I know a guy. This in itself is not particularly strange, even for me. However this guy apparently knows some other guy. Again, I understand this is fairly common. But the guy in question is apparently in the process of manufacturing a miniatures game of some description. And so it was that the first guy (that is the one I actually know) presented me with a handful of tiny metal objects, purloined through nefarious and no doubt drunken means from the second guy, and asked me if I could try painting them.

Now, the thing is that whilst I was given a handful of the miniatures to play with, I wasn't given much else. such as what the hell any of these things are actually supposed to BE. Or which ones go with which other ones. Or even the name of the goddamn system so I could at least google it.

But what the hell, I like a challenge. I'd prefer a blowjob, but sadly no one was offering one of those. I guess I'll just have to do the challenge part instead.

If You Go Down To The Woods Today

Wow, so it's been nearly a month and I haven't put anything up here? I must be slacking off.  But dear reader (and I do mean that in the singular) fear not! For it's not like I've spent ALL my time slavishly pressing buttons and swearing at the screen of the new xbox. I mean yes, MOSTLY it's been like that. But totally. In between these Tourettes laced bouts of action I've actually managed to get a little bit of painting done.

Can you guess what it is I've been working on?

What's My Name?

So, I'm sure your aware by now of the screaming abortion of a soul crushing abomination that it Star Wars Kinect. The timing of it release was rather unfortunate for me. There I was, really getting back into Star Wars. I was actually enjoying the franchise properly for the first time in several years. And then I saw this.




Now, like most people upon witnessing such an atrocity I'm sure your initial reaction would be to ask WHY?!?!

Although this is also an acceptable answer.

What Else Would You Do For Fun?

You know what the single greatest hands down number one truly ultimate worlds best toy line of all time was?

Battle Beasts.

The Scenic Route

It's been a long, long time since I've actually done much painting, hasn't it? Such is life. Various distractions got in the way of me actually sitting down and getting any work done. Mostly distractions with Star Wars written on it seems, but not entirely.

Anyway, the point is that I actually managed to get a couple of projects finished up at the weekend.

The More Things Change

Ladies and gentlemen, today I am going to talk about Star Wars. This being the internet, I will of course be complaining.

However, just for a change I intend today to complain not about the many, many crimes against storytelling committed in the name of the franchise, but rather I'm going to talk about one of my favourite characters from the prequel trilogy.

And how UTTERLY POINTLESS they are.

One Of These Things

I'd like to talk to you today about one of my all time favourite shows. It's a science fiction tv show that started way back in the 60's when TV was still black and white, but is still going strong today.

The Quick And Easy Path

I've been gripped in a sudden and severe Star Wars mood of late. I think this is largely due to chatting with a friend of mine about the possibilities of playing a Star Wars Saga Edition game set in the Legacy era. The beauty of the Legacy being that no matter what your favourite bit of Star Wars is, this something suitable mixed up in there somewhere. So all this thinking about the possibilities of the Star Wars really put me in the mood.

I mean, you would, wouldn't you?

And so it was that I finally decided to do something I'd been putting off for many years.

I bought the prequel trilogy. After all, I've gotten quite a fair bit of post mileage writing about things that aren't very good before. At the very least I thought it would be good for a few invective laced rants about how George Lucas is actually the anti-christ or something. And thus it was that I settled down one night to watch the films.

ALL OF THEM.

Top X Things Missing From Star Wars Miniatures

Back in the day I really loved playing a bit of Star Wars Miniatures. it was a fast, fun and simple system that had plenty of depth and variety in the play. Plus, it was Star Wars. Everything's better with Lightsabers. Sadly due to various reasons I kind of drifted out of it and stopped collecting, although the line went on for quite a few sets after that before it finally got killed. In many ways it seemed reasonable that it ended when it did. After all, how many Darth Vaders does one man REALLY need?

However, having said that there's actually a metric shit-ton of stuff that they could have made but didn't. And since I've recently had my passion for Star Wars rekindled, (and thus my desire for collecting and playing SW Minis has ignited in a fairly severe way) I've been thinking about what I'd really like to see in the minis game but never will. Stuff like....

Goldilocks

It's no secret that I have developed a certain degree of affection for the Owlbear. However, I think that maybe I need to try to rein it in a little. The enthusiasm part that is. You can't put reins on an Owlbear, they just bite through them.

Anyway, the point is I went shopping.

#drwhoporntitles 2: Electric Bogaloo

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Some Three

Time again for some minis I think. Believe it or not I have actually been doing some painting. I just haven't actually gotten around to taking any pictures since.... Last year?

Bloody hell. Anyway, let's see what we've got.

#drwhoporntitles

You may have noticed a slight lack of posts recently (although more likely you didn't). Unfortunately I've been tied up with various projects and haven't managed to get much stuff written up. In the meantime here is a list of Dr Who Porn titles which I for some reason started thinking up the other night.

No, I don't know why either.

The Horny Nimon
Castrovulva
The Anal-geddon Factor
The Greatest Ho In The Galaxy
The Massacre Of St Bartholomews Ass
Pair a Dick Towers
The She-Males Of Marinus
The Mark Of The Randi
Sperminus
The Whore Machines
Queer Head From Space
Furry From The Deep
Full Circlejerk
The Pee Devils
Assshock
The Minge Robber
The Ass Warriors
The Monster Of Penisdon
The Cunt Of Peladon
The Asstecs
Delta And The Band Of Men
The Handjob Of Fear
Cum On My Face Of Evil
Erection Of The Daleks
The Long Gape
The Impossible Analnaut / Gay Of The Moon 
Unquiet Head
Smith & Bones
The Sound Of Cums
Vaginas On Varos
The Invisible Enema
A Scat Of The Cybermen
The Penis Of Kroll
Love & Monster Cocks
The Curse Of Felchric
Let's Fuck Hitler

LITERALLY ANY TITLE WITH THE WORD INVASION IN IT IT

Seriously, anything.

But let's be honest, The Deadly Ass-sasin is FAR to obvious.

D&Don't Part 10: The 4th Dimension

It's undeniably true that I have have spent FAR too much time here moaning about the many, many shortcomings of D&D. However, this is the internet. And what sort of internet discussion of D&D would this be without an invective filled tirade regarding 4th edition?

Whilst I've touched on on a few points here and there I've never really taken the time to concentrate properly on the subject, confining myself mostly to whinging about 3.5 without really digging into 4th ed much.

So I guess it's time to do that.

D&Don't Part 9: Terms Of Engagement

Okay, this time the issue that we're talking about is actually a lot more general than being a purely D&D issue. D&D certainly suffers from it, but then so do a lot of games. And curiously this is one of the few areas where D&D has actually taken some positive steps.

Yeah, you heard me. This may be the only time I actually have something good to say about the game, so buckle yourselves in, it could be a bumpy ride.

SEXWANG

So, the guy from D&D with porn stars posted a questionnaire and invited everyone to fill it out (ooo err). Let's have a crack at it and see what happens.

D&Don't Part 8: A Question Of Competence

You know, I really wish Blogger had a word count function. It would be nice to see how much verbiage it is exactly that I've been dedicating to this ongoing screed against D&D. I certainly didn't plan on it going on for this long. I'm almost getting tired of it. However I did resolve to myself that if I was gonna do this I was gonna do it properly, and thus we must press on.

Today I'd like to talk about the competence of the characters.

Sorcerer Generals Warning

Here's another idea for a magic system variant.

D&Don't Part 7: Misaligned

Following on from my last post on monsters, I'd now like to take a moment to talk about alignment. And since the purpose of this series is simply to complain at length about stuff in D&D I don't like, you know that I'm not going to have anything good to say.

D&Don't Part 6: Nigglings

After having vented at some length over the shortcomings of the magic system in D&D I'm not sure that there's too much left for me to complain about really.

Well, actually that's a lie. The next issue I wish to discuss is one of terminology.

D&Don't Part 5: Nine To Five

Following on from my last post, I'd like to take some time to finish moaning about the awful, awful magic system present in D&D. For all the long, rambling intro I included last time, I didn't really have the room to properly get into my main problem with the Magic system.

The purpose of having a magic system in a game is, after all, to provide a framework to allow spellcaster type characters to actually, you know, cast spells and stuff. The issue I have with D&D is that it doesn't actually do this. Quite the opposite in fact.

D&Don't Part 4: It's (Not) A Kind Of Magic

Okay, we've come to the point in this little series where I'm going to have to discuss the magic system. This is something of a problem, because the main problem I have with D&D, the primary source of all my rage and aggravation, the one irredeemable suppurating turdbag that forever sets me at odds with the game and ultimately prevent me from overlooking any of it other flaws however minor, is the magic system.

D&Don't Part 3: Class Is Dismissed.

I fucking hate class based systems.

There, I said it. If there's one thing I've learnt from my experiences playing D&D in it's various forms it's that classes as a gaming concept need to be lined up, stabbed, beaten, shot, set on fire and then pissed on by an elephant. Not necessarily in that order.

D&Don't Part 2: The Basics

Okay, well let's start at the beginning, and try and work out way through in some sort of coherent order to the major bugbears. +1 Infernal Dire Bugbear Zombies to be precise. The first I'm going to mention is the stats.

Now, what could possibly be wrong with the base stats, aside from my obvious inability to roll highly for any of them?

D&Don't Part 1: An Introduction Of Sorts

I've been think quite a bit about D&D lately. Mainly because lately we've actually been trying to play it. It's odd, for all the various gaming I've done over the years very little of it has been actual D&D of any flavour. Even in terms of of computer based RPGs the only D&D I've really managed was Planescape Torment, and that was only because the fantastic story managed to outweigh the atrocious game mechanics.

See, as far as I can tell, there's only really one major issue with D&D. Put simply, it isn't very good. At all.

A Deadly Medley

It's nice having a bit of time of work isn't it? Gives you a chance to relax, and maybe catch up on few jobs. Well, more likely it gives you a chance to wake up on Saturday morning wondering why it's suddenly Friday and having achieved basically nothing.

However, despite not actually doing half the crap I wanted to, I did at least manage to get a little bit of painting done, so let's try and focus on the positive shall we? Although to be fair I doubt there's many that would describe my mini painting as even remotely positive, but screw those guys.