So I'm just going to ramble on for a bit, since I haven't written a decent LJ post in awhile. I think I'll break it up into small sections for easier readibility.
So I started playing RPGs over the winter break with a few friends. We're playing
Deadlands: Hell on Earth and
Deadlands: Lost Colony using the Savage Worlds system by Pinnacle Entertainment, and its been fun. I really like the SW system because its so fast and easy, and there isn't a large list of "feats" and "skills" like in older systems (which got very tiring after a while.) I'm not that big a fan of the setting, but I like the mechanics, since they're simple (and the company has genre toolkits for just about everything, which is always a good thing.)
I did end up running an adventure with a different group using a different system, called True20. I really like True20, because while its based on the OGL I've come to know and love, its much faster. Using only one d20 makes it a helluva lot easier to run, and its lack of any points to keep track of--hit points, mana points, experience points, what-have-you--also make combat more cinematic and take away needless number crunching. (There are, of course, conviction points, but they weren't used too much, and the combat did get a bit complicated at points when figuring out the sliding damage scale, but otherwise I felt it was better than 3.5 D&D.) It's also so simple that you can kind of, pun intended, roll with just about anything and not give a damn about the rules. This backfired on me when my players completely buttfucked the adventure, but, oh well. That happens.
I did end up playing some D&D 4E, and, to be honest, I don't like it. It feels way too combat oriented, as if real roleplaying and storyline is just an afterthought. It's too simple, too much hack-and-slash. I wanted to play a fighter who is reincarted in a younger but not so strong body, so he has weak physical attributes and relatively strong mental attributes. You could have pulled that off in 3.5 or True20 or any number of OGL games. In 4E? Not bloody likely; all your abilities derive from your single most important ability, meaning you absolutely can't do anything. Worse, you can see it evident in Wizards' breakup of the classes into their four "roles," which are--guess what!--completely beholden to combat. It really is
World of Warcraft brought to the tabletop, and I'm sorry, but White Wolf did a better job of that when they used the d20 OGL. This 4E system is just utter nonsense.
Also in roleplaying news, I donated $20 to Doctors Without Borders for the Haiti effort, via RPGNow.com...and got about $1000 worth of RPG books. It's fairly awesome, especially since it features a number of generic systems, like QAGS and Cortex (plus Karma, which I wanted to look at for awhile.) Oh, and uh,
Classic Spycraft and the
Firefly RPG. I'd say that's the price of admission.
Den Den Town has a number of roleplaying stuff, but most of it is centered in one store called "Yellow Submarine." Over winter break, I took some of the 4E guys down there to pick up some gaming dice. The only problem is, I've never really gotten the hang of Den Den Town, and so in the end,
they took
me there! It was embarrassing--and today, when I took my new roommate to see the area (since I was going anyways to look for a point and shoot camera) I nearly got lost again. So, to remember, I'm writing two different ways down now:
- When you see Melonbooks, walk towards it, then turn right.
- Just past Taito Station, go to the guitar store, then turn right.
There. Hopefully I'll remember.
All my paperwork is now in order for the semester, although to be honest I really feel the university was being lazy and unprofessional today. First, I went in at 9:15am to get my registration sheet, but they were still putting them in the mailboxes and so we couldn't get to them--which is funny, since they told us to be there at 9am to get them. How funny. It gets better. The CIE--Center for International Education, the foreign students' headquarters--told me I didn't have to go through the verifying my insurance process again since I'm an extension student, but when I got my registration sheet, it said I needed to submit it. So, I dutifully trudged upstairs, signed it, figuring that was all they needed (I mean, the sheet already has my insurance on file at the bottom under "Office Use Only.") I didn't write down how much coverage my plan has since I don't know it off the top of my head, although in the time it took for them to set up the room which was supposed to be ready by 9:30am I might have been able to check online. But I didn't, of course, and so when I handed in the form, the lady was confused. I told her, and she conferred with a colleague, who said, "Oh yeah, we have that," (in Japanese, of course) and stamped it CLEAR, then told me to go and collect my ID. Of course, when I got there, and handed in my form, the student assistants were completely bewildered and didn't know what to do. "お待ち下さい," although I'm not sure if it was that polite. They had to consult with another guy behind him, who had to consult with another woman, and here I am going "That guy over there just told me to get my new ID!" Eventually, it got sorted out, but it was completely unnecessary in the first place.
Unprofessional. Nobody had any idea what they were doing. Communication was virtually nonexistent. And this is supposed to be
goddamn Japan. How does that bode for the rest of the world?
I'm doing some writing projects after a long hiatus. I started working on a short story not too long ago, one set in a superhero setting but with an ordinary as the protagonist, trying to still feel important next to all his superhero friends. I've also, from a Savage Worlds friend, got an opportunity to write a roughly 1000 word short story for a Savage Worlds magazine, which he'll turn into stats. Nifty, and hopefully should get me some writing credits. I also have to finish up my Tokyo write up, which is
almost done. Almost. Seriously. Just a little more, you know? At the very least, I'm busy, and I like it.
I was going to write more, but I'm tired and hungry. Maybe later.