J.E. Sawyer

What does that have to do with my opinion on the various editions of D&D? Do you challenge the BioWare devs' opinions on D&D by saying, "Neverwinter Nights, a 3E game with no bonus stacking rules"? EDIT: By the way, I do think that the biggest new element that complicates the game is the tracking of all the various marks/challenges/whatevers. It's very clearly something taken from MMOs like WoW, but you wind up having a lot of little markers on the grid all the time, from most of the PCs. I also think that a lot of the new ability mechanics in general would only translate well to a turn-based D&D CRPG. And even some of those I don't think would translate over to a computer environment well even if it were turn-based. But in that regard, it's no worse than 3E or 3.5. It's a tabletop game with tabletop design in mind.

Last night was the final game of the season and we won 3-2 against a team that actually had a full roster!

Be careful who you ask such a question of. Big difference between asking an enthusiast neutral on the issue, as opposed to one with a working relationship with the parent company(wotc), and who no doubt looks forward to a furtherance of the relationship as 4th ed crpgs inevitably pop up in the future. Will he say it stinks? Of course not. More likely he will be a 4th ed apologist. Yeah you know me I always say positive things about D&D. The "D&D Experience" module was pretty limited in what it showed. I didn't feel that it was, overall, less complicated. However, I did feel that combat moved a lot faster, that all of our first level characters could always contribute meaningfully, that healing was greatly improved, and that skills were organized more sensibly.

tyte sea serpents

We played the 4E D&D Experience module last night and killed the dragon. It was pretty sweet. My halfling paladin was great.

I'm in the land of eternal riding seasons. B)

Maverick rode a Kawasaki Ninja 900, which was mega-fast. All three of my motorcycles are slowmobiles, relatively.

w00t I'm the only person who cares about this thread but I'm bumping it anyway. I picked up this '73 Honda CB350G today for a steal.

Fun fact: hiding inside every hexagon are six isosceles triangles! Use them for mobs of cats, faerie dragons, and quicklings.

I don't really think that hexagons make the game significantly more complex. Unless every level you map out in adventures consists of perfectly rectilinear hallways, you're always going to deal with fractional grid spaces. I've seen tons of circular and semi-circular dungeon rooms as well as hallways that fly off at 45 degree angles to the main dungeon passageways. As a PRO HEX MAPPER, I have to say that drawing rectilinear hallways and rooms on a hex grid is really easy. I guess it's marginally less easy than drawing them on a square, but it's pretty easy to just draw straight down the middle of hexes. The reason I'm suggesting hexes is because diagonal movement on the square grid was "hard" to track in 3E/3.5. The first diagonal square costs standard movement, and then every other (alternating) diagonal move costs double. If you mix that with any sort of movement penalty (as often happens in our campaign), it starts to get pretty annoying to track. In 4E, diagonal movement costs the same as face-to-face movement. This means that you actually gain more ground by traveling diagonally than straight. It makes the game simpler, but a little goofy. Of all regular shapes, hexes allow for the most efficient movement in all directions. And, as previously stated, they make mapping things like circles and cones very easy.

Tonight marked the second victory of the season for the Obsidian All-Blacks. There have been some rumors going around that both of our victories were achieved against teams that were down a player. And that we were bumped down a league since last season. These rumors are... well, okay, they're both true. BUT... we have also tied against one team that had a full roster. Two wins, some losses, and a tie. And the season is far from over!

MCA = Master of Ceremonies Avellone or Mic Controller Avellone, after MCA from Beastie Boys. I don't think anyone came up with it for him internally. The Black Isle rap name for Avellone was Cube DCube.

I can't believe I forgot to post this SWEET RIDE I picked up at Christmas in Wisconsin. It will be my Wisconsin motorcycle once my dad and I clean up a few things on it. 1968 Honda CL350K Scrambler. Next up: a 1973 Honda CB350G (front disc!). Next up after that: my girlfriend moving out because she's sick of me buying motorcycles/motorcycle parts.

I know zero people who have bought any of those. Besides, WotC makes things obsolete all the time. E.g.: editions of D&D. They could also make templates for the 4th Ed. books. Cones and circles are usually easier to represent in hexes, anyway. I ran some Fallout tabletop games with a hex grid (AS GOD INTENDED) and I had no problems drawing maps. You just need to establish a rule for divided hexes in things like long hallways. I.e., can people stand in a half-hex or not? Even that's pretty easy to resolve: anything smaller than Medium can, but it doesn't count as a full square for Medium and higher, meaning occupying that half-hex with any part means you are "squeezed" (as in, the technical status).

Yeah but Harry gets extra points for (attempting to) ride this sweet CB125 in the sand. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/imag...RY/22221878.JPG

I was talking about public perception. Many Americans associate combat service with uneducated/poor/working classes and believe that the wealthy/educated/influential/children of government officials squirm their way out of it. It was just a commentary on why anyone pays attention.

On a tangentially-related note of role-reversal in the English military, I should be getting the complete Sharpe's boxed set in a few days. Should be pretty boss.

That's why I made the specific comparison between the children of two aristocratic families. What's your hang-up on Joe the poor (working class occupation)'s son from Philadelphia with the (diseased/insane/imprisoned) mom? Mythic Joe's service isn't less praise-worthy than Harry's. But Harry's service is more notable specifically because it is something that tens of thousands of regular folks do. Kind of like Edward II enjoying roofing. Many people see royals as effectively worthless do-nothings. When they actually do something of merit, it makes news. Why did John Walker Lindh draw attention? He did something that no one (or very few, as far as we know) in his position had done. On paper, he's just another Taliban soldier. Put in the context of who he was and where he came from, it becomes more interesting to a lot people. What, from the Revolution through WW2? I'm talking about our recent history, the stuff that people your age and younger might actually have been alive to see. If we're going to dredge up ancient tales of valor, we might as well all yawn and talk about Henry V, who was (as far as I know) the last English monarch to personally engage in combat against a foreign enemy. There have been a few Lewis Puller, Jr.'s in our recent history, but a lot more people think of folks like GWB. For many Britons, I suspect that seeing a royal in a combat unit makes them loathe the royals less or appreciate them more. I believe Americans find the story interesting because we tend to associate combat troops (and military folks in general) with the poor and uneducated, not the wealthy and privileged. I mean, no one's talking about throwing a Victoria Cross on the guy just for picking up a gun, but I think writing an article about him is probably okay!

Why the heck don't they just switch to hexes? It's the most efficient use of space and allows for very easy modeling of circles and cones. HEXAGONS: NATURE'S POLYGON. Hexes rule, squares drool.

Which is more noteworthy: being the son of an aristocratic family and voluntarily going to war, or being the son of an aristocratic family and using your family's influence to get out of going to war? Given the historical tendency toward the latter in the U.S., I don't think it's so strange to look upon what Harry's doing as refreshing... all things considered. I've always sensed a strong distaste among Britons for the chain of command in the military, with officers handing down orders to hapless grunts who get slaughtered en masse at places like Anzio. Though that's the way it usually is around the world, it seems noteworthy in the UK. Everything about the royal family suggests that they are not like regular citizens. This is one of the few things that suggests otherwise, as marginal as the exception is.

The numbers make more sense if you think of it terms of copies of games instead of number of people. Naturally, pirates will play tons of games -- it's not like it costs them anything to download ten games a month. Paying gamers probably buy only one or two games a month, if that.

I agree with pretty much everything he wrote.

Our 3.5E campaign is using the Pathfinder series of modules, which is very good overall. http://paizo.com/pathfinder/v5748btpy7zkr

In the next couple of months, I believe.

Mitosda is the creative lead on Project Georgia. Avellone is the lead designer.