Dead Space is a third-person perspective, sci-fi survival-horror action game. I’ll be trying my hand at reviewing the game today. As I’ve expressed in previous writings, this isn’t exactly my forté, but hopefully these scribblings will be of some use to somebody.
Todays topic: My Top 10 Favouritest [Dungeons and Dragons] Monsters!
I rather like this meme, because whenever anybody creates a list like this, they tend to add some additional commentary. It’s in this commentary that one will often find a few inspirational gems.
10. Goblins: As a GM, I can run a goblin encounter in a number of different ways, with the goblins either acting as shrewd and cunning merchants; slow and dimwitted manual labour; clever tacticians and masters of guerilla warfare; or a swarming wall of meat for the players to hack through. No matter how I play them, because goblin behaviour can be considered so varied, the players will accept nearly any representation of it, even if two consecutive encounters differ completely. I like that, as I can plan for ‘goblin encounter’ and adapt it on the fly to match the mood/play style of the group.
9. Gnomes: As a player, I dislike them. As a GM, I love them. They have the same adaptability as goblins, though used more often as good guys. In my experience, players have accepted gnomes as vindictive pranksters, mad wizards/inventors or even as the downtrodden and exploited little folk. Sure, any race (especially humans) can fill the same roles, but gnomes are just less… boring. And to those that would argue that gnomes are not monsters, I shall refer you to the fourth edition of the game.
8. Kobolds: Just like gnomes and goblins (regarding adaptability), but more fun!
7. Otyughs: These guys are the staple of any dumpster-diving, poo-water encounter (I tend to overuse the garbage chute ‘trap’). However, in one session, my otyughs were slightly more intelligent than normal and capable of crude speech. They ran a sewer-based mafia, operating a toll system through the sewers and extorting protection money from a poor and downtrodden sewer-dwelling gnomish village.
6. Baby animals: Nothing changes how an encounter in the wild runs quite like introducing wolf pups mewling or (my favourite) a bear cub desperately trying to scramble up a tree to escape the vicious PCs.
5. Eggs: As above, but has even more uses, ranging from the eggs-laid-in-corpse-booby-trap, or egg sacks that need to be killed with FIRE to the ‘even though I killed its parents, I’m going to take this egg home and hatch myself a cute little griffon/dragon/dire platypus baby!’
4. Trolls: They’re always a challenge, because the regeneration ability and aggressiveness of trolls requires a different set of tactics. I always find troll encounters to be rewarding to run (as a GM) and fight through (and hopefully survive) as a player.
3. Zombies: Do I really need to explain this one?
2. Indescribable horrors from beyond space and time: I like running fights that involve tentacles. I often take any old monster from the MM (of appropriate level), change around a damage type or two, but describe it as an IHFBSAT to the players. Mechanically, it works like a giant spider or scorpion (with digestive acids, rather than venom, spraying everywhere), but a simple change like the description makes a potentially overdone encounter feel fresh, new and exciting (and reduces GM prep time too).
1. The players: Whenever you have the opportunity, it always pays to hold up the mirror for the PCs. Man versus Self is always everybody’s favourite conflict narrative.
- jatori
Still focusing on (RP) gaming as a field of academic study, I stumbled across the following, which may be of interest to some:
Mission critical at Quest is a translation of the underlying form of games into a powerful pedagogical model for its 6-12th graders. Games work as rule-based learning systems, creating worlds in which players actively participate, use strategic thinking to make choices, solve complex problems, seek content knowledge, receive constant feedback, and consider the point of view of others. As is the case with many of the games played by young people today, Quest is designed to enable students to “take on” the identities and behaviors of explorers, mathematicians, historians, writers, and evolutionary biologists as they work through a dynamic, challenge-based curriculum with content-rich questing to learn at its core. It’s important to note that Quest is not a school whose curriculum is made up of the play of commercial videogames, but rather a school that uses the underlying design principles of games to create highly immersive, game-like learning experiences.
You can find out more about Quest to Learn here. And over here, you can read about one of my previous forays in using video gaming in teaching (though it was teaching 4e).
- jatori
This idea has probably been mentioned before, but I would like to revisit the idea that there may exist a correlation between the character we generate, and play in the classic pen and paper rpg, and our own characteristics. Some people have said that the character they play are completely different to who they are in real life, is this true? I would like to see what other people think of this…hypothesis.
Zeneofa
How do you feel about energy resistance? by Chad Perrin has a fantastic closing statement:
“That’s certainly an aspect of supernatural effects such as magic, psionics, et cetera, that I’ll keep in mind while working on (working title) Apotheosis RPG. Too bad the 4E guys didn’t think that way. Instead, they thought about how many spells they could cut out of a game, and how much they could force spellcasting to focus on direct damage-dealing combat effects — and how much they could make swinging a sword act and casting a spell play out exactly the same way, for that matter. Tactical play concerns trumped everything, I guess.”
This is exactly my problem with DnD 4.0 – I really, really have a hard time accepting that a frail wizard and a weapons master have the same basic bonus to their attack rolls. Classes in 4th ed are truly and foremost a choice of flavor. Mechanically there are some marginal differences between them, but as a rule of thumb there is very little significance in the class choice. The “Striker”, “Controller”, etc monikers used by classes are the only true mark of class – the only point of consideration that impacts the application of the class in actual roleplaying. And this distinction is relatively thin. The only real impact is that an optimal party would like to see one character from each class role.
Some might argue that this really opens up the doors for roleplaying, as characters can finally play on a level playground where even large-scale min-maxing doesn’t particularly break anything, where munchkinism is only marginally stronger than pretty much any other build.
I, however, think that this is a cop-out. DnD 4 offers a great variety of choices that are intended to create a varied and even playing experience – but in reality the choices are all mute. They have no impact.
How bad do I think this is? Well, consider this: my current 4th ed character (level 2 Rogue, human) has 3 feats: Skill Focus (a), Skill Focus (b), and Skill Focus (c).
Perhaps it is just me, but I think that is a sign of tragedy in a roleplaying game.
- Trashcondor
A brief list of things I found of interest over the last few days:
And in other news, if you’re really interested, you can find me on twitter these days.
- jatori
This meme was stolen from here.
Step 1: List 10 of your characters.
Step 2: Answer these questions!
All characters listed are human unless otherwise noted.
1. Four invites Three and Eight to dinner at their house. What happens? (J9999 invites Smite and Tobias to dinner at his house. What happens?)
Much patting on the back would occur between these three as they regale each other of tales of their good deeds. They’d probably agree to form an adventuring party and go off to right wrongs.
2. Nine tries to get Five to go to a strip club. How? (Felix tries to get Talmiir to go to a strip club. How?)
I imagine it would run something like an episode of Lassie… except the well is a strip club and Timmy is a stripper named Bambi.
3. You need to stay at a friend’s house for the night. Who do you choose, One or Six? (Keddleford Toddingfield or Jaina?)
Jaina’s place.
4. Three falls in love with Six, Eight is jealous. What happens? (Smite falls in love with Jaina, Tobias is jealous. What happens?)
A warforged falls in love? That’s beautiful! As for Tobias? See the answer to question 10, as the reaction would be the same.
5. Four jumps you in a dark alleyway. Who comes to your rescue, Ten, Two or Seven? (J9999 jumps you in a dark alleyway. Who comes to your rescue, Kyo, Jadae or Kaleb?)
As a cleric of Fharlanghn, Kaleb would be the most likely to be wandering around and most willing to help of the three.
6. One decides to start a cooking show. Fifteen minutes later, what is happening? (Keddleford decides to start a cooking show. Fifteen minutes later, what is happening?)
The pretty assistants would be doing most of the work, while Keddleford goes on to talk about how amazing his cooking is.
7. Three has to marry either Eight, Four or Nine. Whom do they choose? (Smite has to marry either Tobias, J9999 or Felix. Whom do they choose?)
Smite is truly evolving into something more than machine. I’d have him pick Felix.
8. Seven kidnaps Two and demands something from Five for Two’s release. What is it? (Kaleb kidnaps Jadae and demands something from Talmiir for her release. What is it?)
Kaleb would only kidnap Jadae if it meant saving the world. Since both Kaleb and Talmiir are save-the-world type of guys, Jadae would probably end up being locked away for a long time.
9. Everyone gangs up on Three, does Three have a chance in hell? (Everybody gangs up on Smite, does he have a chance in hell?)
He would get a few good shots in, maybe taking one or two out with him, but he wouldn’t actually have a hope of winning.
10. Everyone is invited to Two and Ten’s wedding, except for Eight. How do they react? (Everyone is invited to Jadae and Kyo’s wedding, except for Tobias. How does he react?)
Tobias would be a bit hurt (especially since Felix was invited), but being an upstanding paladin, he wouldn’t make a public fuss and instead bottle it all up, saving it for the day he snaps, goes a bit blackguard and trades in Felix for a mini nightmare.
11. Why is Six afraid of Seven? (Why is Jaina afraid of Kaleb?)
Because Kaleb ate a whole pony!
12. One arrives late for Two and Ten’s wedding. What happens and why were they late? (Keddleford arrives late for Jadae and Kyo’s wedding. What happens and why were they late?)
Jadae would promptly fry Keddleford with whatever offensive spell she would deem appropriate (probably taking out a few of the other guests too). Jadae would then have to zap her maid of honour (or equivalent) too, as she would also be late.
13. Five and Nine get roaring drunk and end up in your house. What happens? (Talmiir and Felix get roaring drunk and end up in your house. What happens?)
It sounds like they had a great time at the strip club. Talmiir would throw up and then pass out. Felix would stay up with me and play Left 4 Dead.
14. Nine murders Two’s best friend. What does Two do to get back at them? (Felix murders Jadae’s best friend. What does she do to get back at him?)
She’d kidnap Tobias and start mailing him back to Felix bit by bit.
15. Six and One are in mortal danger, only one of them can survive. Does Six save herself or One? (Jaina and Keddleford are in mortal danger, only one of them can survive. Does Jaina save herself or Keddleford?)
She would think about leaving him (because he can be such a rat bastard pervert), but in the end, I believe that she would save him.
16. Two and Three go camping. For some reason they forget to bring any food. What do they do? (Jadae and Smite go camping. For some reason they forget to bring any food. What do they do?)
Since Smite doesn’t eat and isn’t quite edible himself, Jadae would have to probably eat her familiar, Thomas the Toad, because she wouldn’t actually have spells to help her survive in the wild.
The hardest part of this meme was remembering 10 characters (that’s why I slotted Felix in – which only added to the fun). Now, all hail our robot overlords!
- jatori
It started with these two posts here and here.
It’s now near certain (as certain as it can get with whispers of GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS! going around) that I shall be working in the Netherlands for a few months beginning in March. So, just like last time, I’m hoping that one of the readers of this post can answer the following:
What’s the gaming scene like in Amsterdam/Utrecht? Where are the gaming stores and clubs? Where can I buy an awesome burger?
I was planning to stop by London and look around there too, but due to the recent bumbling of the South African Department of Home Affairs, this has just become a bit too pricey. Grrrr.
I’d like to make these travel geek posts a recurring thing on tenletter and, at the same time, inspire other bloggers to write about their FLGS (Friendly Local Game/Gaming Store/Shop) and advertise their part of the world. In the near future, I’m hoping to get one of the other authors here to write about a few South African FLGSs.
- jatori
hi all
just a quick get people chatting in the comments thing…..what habits, if any, do you bring with you to any game you play? i.e. when you play is it always to win, or everytime you play a game involving dice you always need to line the dice just so and death to anyone who touches them?
I do the dice thing……i’m a pretty superstious player, not some much in real life i wonder why……hmmmm……..can’t think of anything else, but i know there are more
ok comment now :p
Brenda Brathwaite (upon whose blog I keep an eye on – is that grammatically correct?) has written an interesting piece regarding Story and System.
- Jatori
P.S. Yes, I knowingly included ‘versus’ in the post title.
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