Raid Kills Bugs Dead #Blaugust2016

Last night was our regular raid night once again in Final Fantasy XIV. We had made some attempts on Ravana last week, but didn't quite take him down. It's a fairly complicated and movement intensive fights with a number of mechanics where you have to get hit once and only once by a particular attack. There are two different attacks Ravana has where he flys around diving on members of the raid. The attack is unavoidable when he's targeting you, but it applies a debuff that makes you extremely vulnerable to damage so you have to move quickly after being hit so that you aren't struck when he dives at the next person. Even being overgeared a bit for this content, the damage that does will kill anybody easily.

After a few tries we managed to get the dancing mostly figured out and made it all the way to the enrage mechanic. Our next try we took him down, though it was a close thing. Belghast managed to fall off the platform with Ravana at about 7% health, leaving us with only one tank in a fight that requires tank swapping. Ravana started charging one of his liberation maneuvers, and we knew we knew that we had to take him down before he finished or we would quickly lose our remaining tank and wipe. The cast bar was over 90% full when the achievement for a successful kill popped up.

Tamrielo got a book that looks like a butterfly

After that we headed off to the Final Coil of Bahamut since two of our raid members hadn't been with us when we beat it shortly after Heavensward launched (no, we never completed the Final Coil when it was current content. We're neither that good or that crazy.) It's been over a year since we'd been in there and I didn't remember the first couple of fights at all. The mechanics came back to us once we engaged though, and thanks to severely outgearing and outleveling the fights, we made it through. It still took a few wipes though. Mechanics in FFXIV are serious business.

Apart from that, I've played a little more Diablo 3, finishing up the Slayer portion of the season journey. The next stage, Champion, will require a good bit of grinding as it asks you to level up multiple Legendary gems. I'm successfully soloing level 40 Greater Rifts at this point, which is better than I made it up to last season on a Crusader, so I don't feel like that should be much of a trouble. What would really help would be to get lucky and find some Ancient legendaries. Last season I found three pretty early on and they made a big difference. Failing that, I need to push up my gems, find a better quiver and ring, and get to where I can comfortably handle Torment X. Should be doable.

Extra Spicy #Blaugust 2016

I'm intending to start my examination of my D&D collection up again for Mondays, but that requires some research and such that I haven't been able to do yet for the upcoming item. So instead, a little more talk about Diablo 3.

I've wrapped up the 4th chapter of the season now, so I've got all 6 pieces of the free set. The 6 piece bonus gives a very large bonus to Multi-shot (which I've already been using) and Vengeance based on how much Discipline you currently have. I also came across a crossbow that reduces the cooldown on Vengeance by a whole lot, so I threw that in the Kanai Cube and replaced the Rapid Fire buff I had been using. Rapid Fire didn't seem to be scaling very well in any case, and I was already mostly using Evading Shot and Multi-shot as my main damaging abilities in any case.

Such lovely crits

With just that boost from my set and those couple of new legendaries my damage output went up by more than a factor of 10. I went from running at Torment IV straight to Torment VIII without stopping in between, and I might have been able to go to IX and still be okay. Now it's time to get down to the business of running more Greater Rifts to level my legendary gems and continuing on through the next stage of the journey.

Seasoned #Blaugust2016

First off, it seems like something went wonky with my feed so my post yesterday didn't get picked up by my Twitter account. The twitterfeed integration is kind of slow at the best of times, but this time it just didn't work at all. No idea why, hopefully it'll work today. In any case, if you're coming here via Twitter, yes there was post yesterday, it's over here.

What time I got to spend gaming this weekend was mostly spent in Diablo 3, since the latest season started the other day. Season 6 was the first one I'd participated in (apart from a sad Barbarian back in Season 4 that made it all the way to level 4). I tried out Crusader that time, so this time around I decided to give Demon Hunter a try. Pretty early on I found a legendary quiver that removes the chaneling cost from the Rapid Fire ability, so that became my main damage dealer supported with turrets and Multi-shot.

Fighting giant spiders, like you do

By the time I logged off Saturday night I had made it through the the first chapter of the season journey and was just shy of level 70. Today I've finished that level off and completed the second and third chapters, getting me 4 of the 6 pieces of the Unhallowed Essence set armor. That means I've got a set bonus that gives me a damage boost as long as I don't let things get too close, which works just fine with my typical method of play for ranged classes. I've gone heavy on the cold damage runes for my chosen skills, which means most of them slow or freeze enemies, plus I found a legendary ring that applies a fear debuff reasonably often. I'm up to Torment III difficulty at this point, and it's working fairly well.

I did get reminded this evening of one of the things that really annoys me about Diablo 3, latency. For most of the weekend everything's been fine, but tonight while running a rift I started getting some terrible latency. In a game that's predominantly about avoiding various ground effects and pink murder balls that's not good at all.

In any case, I've made a decent bit of progress and will hopefully be able to finish up the initial season journey pretty soon. It'd be nice if I could make it far enough to unlock the stash tab this time around; we'll see if I can stick with that long.

Thalen Reads Lord Valentine's Castle #Blaugust2016

You are very peculiar. You speak no lies, yet nothing you say sounds right.I think you yourself have little knowledge of your own soul. - Carabella

This week, it's a return to older science fiction with the first book of Robert Silverberg's Majipoor series, Lord Valentine's Castle.

 I've read quite a few short story collections edited by Robert Silverberg over the years, but this is the first book actually written by him that I've read. Obviously I knew going on that he's a Grand Master of Science Fiction, so I expected great things. Happily I wasn't disappointed.

Lord Valentine's Castle is set on the world of Majipoor and is one of those novels that could easily be classified as science fiction or as fantasy depending on what your definitions are and how hard-nosed you want to be about it. It certainly feels like fantasy in a lot of ways; magic exists and wizards are common enough to be hired by caravans, dreams are sources of knowledge or dread punishments, and there are many non-human races. But on the other hand, space travel exists and spaceships come to Majipoor (though very rarely), vehicles float via technological means and are pulled by genetically modified herd beasts, and both the human and non-human races are immigrants from other planets, apart from a native race that is not very well treated.

We learn about this setting through the eyes of Valentine, a man who finds himself on a hill outside a city with no real memory of his past (take a drink). The new Coronal of Majipoor (one of the rulers of the planet) is visiting this very city, and just happens also be named Valentine. It's not hard to see that the Valentine we're following is somehow the real Lord Valentine and has been replaced by an impostor. Happily, Silverberg didn't try to stage this as some big reveal; both the replacement and who is behind it are verified about a quarter of the way into the book.

The main conflict of the book then centers around Valentine's quest to regain his title, although he does question whether really wants to do so. Even once he knows what has been done to him he doesn't really remember the person he was. He's fallen in with a troupe of traveling jugglers and has discovered he has a talent for the art. Does he really want to give up this new life for a title he doesn't truly miss?

The majority of the book is taken up by travels across Majipoor, first as a juggler with his new troupe and then as the deposed Coronal attempting to first prove his story and then amass a force with which to assault the castle of the Coronal and reclaim his title. Silverberg uses this to give us a sort of travelogue. Valentine and his companions pass through a reservation where some of Majipoor's distrusted and downtrodden natives live, take ship with a crew of sea-dragon hunters, fall afoul of some of Majipoor's carnivorous plant life, and so forth.

I enjoyed Lord Valentine's Castle quite a bit, certainly enough to seek out and read more of the books in the series. Apparently there are a number of them and quite a few short stories and novelettes, most of which take place prior to this book. I'm not sure if any of them go more into how Majipoor was colonized and how it's system of government came to be, but I'd certainly be interested to learn more about that.

My Backpack's Got Jets #Blaugust2016

I've been trying to think of what to write about without a whole lot of luck. I've got some things to say about Stellaris, but I don't really have my thoughts totally organized on that. I don't feel like I've done anything else in Final Fantasy that warrants more discussion of that. And that's really all the gaming I've been doing recently. I suppose there are a couple of mobile games, but I don't have a lot to say about them at the moment.

So I'm going to share with you today a couple of videos that I was reminded of thanks to a conversation about Star Wars Galaxies. SWG was unique in a lot of ways when it came out, one of which was the entertainer system. There were whole skill trees for dancing and music that unlocked dance moves and the ability to play different instruments as you advanced. The moves could be chained together and even synchronized with other players to let you perform as part of a band. Nowadays, Lord of the Rings Online is probably the game best known for its music system, but when it was new SWG had something different that I had never seen before.

Using those systems a player going by Balgosa Windspire recorded some of the first machinima I ever saw; a number of music videos using the Star Wars setting. The graphics look a bit dated now, of course, but you have to remember this was around 2004, so well over 10 years ago. At the time these were all very impressive, and they're still pretty entertaining.  Bringing them up in conversation got me wondering if perhaps they were on YouTube. As it turns out, Balgosa has a channel and all of his old work has been uploaded to it. So that's what I'm bringing to your attention today. I hope you enjoy them!

Jo-Jo the Man Faced Dog #Blaugust2016

Now that I'm back playing Final Fantasy XIV, I will of course be participating in any limited time game events that come along. Of course there are the holiday events that we get every year, the next one of which starts tomorrow and has a Super Sentai theme this time around. But right now, there is a collaboration event going on with Yo-kai Watch. And I love it.

Okay, so the event itself is pretty much just a long FATE grind. Earn new Yo-kai minions by grinding FATES wearing a Yo-kai Watch, then earn weapons to use for glamouring by grinding more FATES with those minions summoned. The event runs a little over two months, and that's good because it'll take a lot of FATES to earn weapons for every class. So far I've got the Bard, Summoner, Scholar, and Paladin ones and am working on Machinist.

Each minion is a character from the Yo-kai Watch games; there are a number of cat spirits, a couple that I believe are bears, a nine-tailed fox spirit, and so forth.

And then there's Manjimutt.

Gaze upon his awesome countenance and be humbled

Yokai are Japanese spirits, some of which were once living beings. For instance Jibanyan, one of the mascot Yokai, was a normal cat that got run over by a truck. Manjimutt was a salaryman who died alongside a poodle, resulting in the two being merged into a single Yokai. He's actually based on a Japanese urban legend, the jinmenken. This is the kind of fascinatingly weird Japanese mythology I just love.

So that's what I've been up to in FFXIV when not raiding. Collecting weird ghost pets and weapons associated with them. Manjimutt is probably going to my go-to pet summon for the near future, because he's just hilarious. And as I discovered when learning more about him to write this post, he's also quite the dancer.

Thalen Reads The Rhesus Chart #Blaugust2016

Don't be silly Bob. Everybody knows vampires don't exist - Dominique O'Brien

Today, we're going to catch up with a review of a book that I read most of a year ago, but wanted to talk about here. Let's check out The Rhesus Chart by Charles Stross.

For this one, we're going to need to lay down a little ground work as it is the 5th book in a series which started in 2004. A lot has happened over those years which I'm not going to go super deep into, but I at least want to talk about the setting and the state of the world and the main character when this book starts.

Charles Stross, for those not aware, is the gentleman who created the Dungeons & Dragons monsters known as the slaadi. These frog-like devotees of true chaos would not be terribly out of place in the Laundry Files, which are set in a world mostly identical to our own apart from the fact that magic exists as a branch of applied mathematics. The protagonist, Bob Howard, is a computer scientist who was recruited into the British organization (The Laundry) that deals with the supernatural after his master's thesis "nearly summoned up an undead alien god in Wolverhamption."  Many of the supernatural beings of myth exist, though often in a form rather different (and more disturbing) than popularly imagined.

Over the years Bob has faced zombies, unicorns, Santa Claus, an evangelical church dedicated to resurrecting a being from beyond, and more. He works under a manager who is in fact a being called the Eater of Souls summoned into human form. His wife also works within the Laundry as a "combat epistemologist" and violinist with a company-provided instrument with utterly terrifying offensive capabilities.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend reading The Rhesus Chart on its own; a lot of what makes this series work so well is seeing Bob develop over time from a fairly typical IT guy in a government bureaucracy into a guy who's seen and done some terrifying things (and is now middle management in a government bureaucracy). In many cases dealing with that bureaucracy is more challenging than the explicitly supernatural aspects of the series and is what grounds the series solidly in the real world. This is a setting where, after facing and driving off a horror from beyond, Bob then has to justify the expenses incurred in doing so to his manager.  That said, the important stuff is explained as you go, so you don't have to know anything from the previous books to pick this one up.

This is also a series not afraid to get very dark. Bob has seen some shit over the years, and in the background since the first book is the specter of CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN. As technology advances and Earth's population increases magic becomes easier to perform, on purpose or entirely by accident. Eventually, a critical point will be reached and the stars will come right. It can't be stopped, only prepared for. Quite a lot of Bob's development over the series has come with more knowledge of what the world's governments are doing to try to be prepared and it is, in Stross's own words, 'deeply scary'.

So why, with all of the other strange things that the Laundry has dealt with over the years, is everyone so adamant that vampires don't exist? Especially since, as we quickly discover, they do. Vampirism spreads via a fractal data visualization rather than a bite in this case, but the effects are pretty much what we're used to: burned by sunlight, craving for blood, increased strength, mind control abilities, and so forth. And a group of bank IT professionals have contracted it.

From there, Bob becomes involved thanks to a decision on the part of the Laundry's management that the organization needs to get creative and innovative by imitating Google's 20 percent time, but with vetted projects and without any working hours allocated to it. Bob's chosen project is to develop a data mining system to prove that vampires don't exist. Instead, it turns up a rash of odd deaths that lead straight to the aforementioned newly minted vampires, one of whom is in fact his ex-girlfriend from many years back. If this seems to be a very unlikely coincidence, there's a reason for that.

Part of the reason nobody believes vampires exist is because vampires are both extremely territorial and very serious about remaining hidden from the rest of the world. Think the Masquerade, but instead of vampires poncing around being Princes and Sheriffs and such, they murder each other at the earliest convenience. Bob has been drawn into a complicated conflict between a pair of very old vampires which is finally coming to a head.

As I said before, I recommend starting at the beginning with The Atrocity Archives and working your way through the series to get to this book, but if you like urban fantasy and want to see a more British and more Cthulhoid take on it than, say, the Dresden Files, this is definitely a book worth checking out.

Activate Interlocks! #Blaugust2016

Last night was, I believe, the fourth night of our recently reconstituted raid team's journey through the content that has been added to Final Fantasy XIV in our absence. Having made our way through the 5th through 7th stages of the Alexander raid we found ourselves facing what most of our group referred to as Voltron. I know who he really is though. He's Bruticus.

He's formed by Onslaughter, Brawler, Blaster, Vortexer, and Swindler

Unlike the previous couple of stages, this one was entirely one long fight against the robots. First Onslaughter, then the remaining four in pairs, and finally all five combined into the mighty Brute Justice. It took us a few tries; first to get DPS focused or split in the right places at the right times and then to tighten everything up so we could finish the fight before getting steam cleaned to death. We did it though, and I hope we go back and beat him up some more in the future because it was a fantastically fun fight.

Cool adventurers never look at the explosion

After we were finished with that we wrapped up the night with some attempts at Extreme Ravana, the boss we had been working on when most of us drifted away from the game. We were quickly reminded that better gear only gets you so far in this game; mechanics are still king. The whole fight involves a lot of movement and in the second half it turns into a complicated dance to direct attacks where you want them and not get anybody killed. We came pretty close though, and I'm certain we'll finish him off next time. After that's done I suppose Extreme Thordan would be the next step along the way? It's been far too long since I faced off against the Knights of the Round.

Blaugust Strikes Again #Blaugust2016

Another year has passed and Blaugust has come around again. Another opportunity to try and get in a habit of regular blogging. I made it a good few months keeping at least a weekly schedule after Blaugust ended last year; perhaps I'll be able to keep it going longer this time around. I would like to pick up the ongoing D&D and book review features I was doing and get them going again. I haven't decided yet if I want to go back and review books I've read in the interim, or just start fresh. The latter is more in keeping with the spirit of the thing, but a couple of those books are ones I'd really like to talk about. Maybe I'll just catch up on them by doing additional reviews during the week.

Part of the reason I started posting less is that I fell out of playing MMOs and stopped having those as a source of content. For whatever reason most of us who play Final Fantasy XIV together stopped logging in altogether and went to do other things either singly or in groups. Warframe served as the primary group game for a few of us for a while but ultimately it got repetitive and stopped being a daily thing. We tried out Archeage and Blade & Soul, at Tamrielo and Belghast's urging respectively, but neither really grabbed me beyond the early levels.

Within the past month or so, though, pretty much all of the Aggrochat group have jumped back into FFXIV and been getting caught up on it. We played up through the end of the current expansion and defeated the final boss, Nidhogg, and have made Monday a regular raid night to work on the other raid content that either we didn't make it through before we left (Extreme Ravana, mostly) or has been added in the meantime (More floors of Alexander, Sephirot, and so on). It was pretty cool how quickly we all got back in the swing of it and were able to take on new (to us) content. We don't know yet how long it'll be before the next Expansion hits, but I feel like there's enough to do to hold us most if not all of the way to it.

Not Sephiroth. This is a different guy. He lives in a tree.

When not raiding, I've been working on getting additional combat and crafting jobs leveled up using the Beast Tribe quests that were added since last we played. Just like with the Ixal quests in 2.0, Moogle crafting quests are a quick way to level otherwise grindy crafting jobs, and the Vath and Vanu Vanu quests scale to the level of the class you do them as and award a good chunk of XP. I finally got Paladin to level 60 and can theoretically tank now, though I don't have the necessary item level to run current content with it. That's easily fixed with tomestones though, I just need to collect enough. Next up is Summoner / Scholar so that I have a healing job available if needed.

Blaugust No More

The day has come, the month has ended, Blaugust has run its course. This was my second year participating, and on the whole I think it went very well. Last year I often found myself desperately trying to come up with a blog post at the very end of the day; this year I only posted in the late evening once, and most days I had my post written the previous night and scheduled to go live in the morning for prime 'I should be working but I'm looking at blogs' viewing.

Of course, it could always be worse

Coming up with a couple of ongoing weekly features has been a huge help this time around. Knowing that my topics for Saturday and Monday are already set and being able to work on them ahead of time (not that I'm very good at doing that) makes an incredible amount of difference. Not only that, it means I've got a regular set of content that I need to add to and which may serve as interesting back-reading for any new readers I pick up.

Readership was definitely up over the month (though given my lack of posts in previous months that's not necessarily saying much). Having folks comment on posts here and there made an amazing difference too; it's always nice knowing your writing is being read. As much as I'm ultimately writing for myself, I wouldn't do it in a public manner if I didn't want to share.

Ultimately, where last year at this time I was feeling burned out on blogging, this year I'm feeling energized about the whole process. I've still got ideas coming, and I've got cool books and D&D adventures to write about for years. I might end up backing down to a lighter schedule, but for right now I'm sticking with every day. Here's to another month of blogging!

#Blaugust Day 31: Mystara Monday: Module B1 - In Search of the Unknown

Today for Mystara Monday, we'll have a look at the first of the B-series modules: In Search of the Unknown. Written by Mike Carr, it was first published in 1979 as an introductory module to be included in the first version of the Basic Rules. For reasons we'll see shortly it was replaced after about a year by Module B2: The Keep on the Borderlands.

Here we see three adventures breaking one of the cardinal rules of dungeon-delving.

B1 is out of the ordinary in a number of ways. TSR had only just begun publishing adventure modules in 1978 and nearly all those released up to this point had been pre-existing tournament adventures. B1 was instead deliberately designed to be an introductory module both for the players and for the dungeon master. The first five pages consist almost entirely of advice for the new dungeon master regarding adventure preparation, the awarding of treasure and experience, and how to be an effective dungeon master.

In the back of the adventure a full 4 dozen pre-rolled characters are provided (although these consist simply of a name, class, and statline) including such luminaries as 'Eggo of the Holy Brotherhood', 'Trebbelos, Boy Magician', and 'Norrin the Barbarian'. Tables and rules for hiring retainers are included too; retainers were still an expected part of D&D at this point, although rather than poor nameless torchbearers and trap magnets B1 presents retainers as NPC adventurers who get a full share of treasure and experience and are mostly intended to fill out an under strength party if you have fewer than six players.

The art for B1 is mostly by David Sutherland, who provided a lot of art for D&D over the years. The copy I have is a later printing that uses a piece by DARLENE that reimagines the scene drawn by Sutherland for the original cover.  In both cases, I really think those adventurers are going to regret going around poking at strange fungus.

Seriously, it's probably a shrieker. Quit messing with it.

The adventure itself is a classic two-level dungeon crawl through the Caverns of Quasqueton, presented as the stronghold of Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown, a pair of now deceased adventurers of some renown. The dungeon itself is a sort of build your own adventure kit. Maps of the dungeon are provided along with keyed descriptions of each room but monsters and treasure are each presented in separate lists and must be placed within the dungeon by the dungeon master. It was later decided that this method was overly hard on the GM, which led to B1 being replaced by B2. As far as I'm aware no future modules ever used this method, although some provided additional maps to be used to continue an adventure beyond its published limits.

B1 is one of the few B-series modules that I've never run in a game. In the B1-9 anthology that I used early on, it's represented only by the dungeon maps without even the room descriptions included. It's very much in keeping with the feel of early D&D adventures with strange and possibly PC-damaging features like magic pools, a rock that can permanently raise or lower player attributes, and many fine furnishings and statuary for the PCs to try to lug out and try to sell.

In the end, In Search of the Unknown isn't a bad module, but there's just nothing particularly special about it. In particular the decision to separate the monsters and treasures from the rooms means there aren't any particularly memorable encounters within the adventure. Some of the rooms are interesting, but the monsters are nothing special with no unique or named foes at all.

Next week we'll take a look at arguably the most famous D&D module ever written, B2: The Keep on the Borderlands. Prepare yourselves for adventure in the Caves of Chaos, and remember: 'Bree-yark' is Goblin for 'we surrender'.

#Blaugust Day 30: Fight for the Users

Last night we recorded the Hatoful Boyfriend episode of Aggrochat, which meant it was time to pick the game for the upcoming month. September was my month to pick, and I though a lot about what game we should play next. I felt like after a visual novel, something more action-oriented would be appropriate. I also wanted something the rest of the crew were unlikely to have played, which can be difficult since most newer games that sound interesting get picked up and tried pretty quickly by one or more of them.

Because of this, I decided to look back at some older games. A few leapt out at me as having been critically well-received but not commercially successful, which seemed like a good recipe for conversation. One in particular I had played and greatly enjoyed when it came out over 10 years ago. That game was Tron 2.0

Relased in 2003 by Monolith Productions, Tron 2.0 was actually the official sequel to Tron until Tron: Legacy came along and shoved it aside. I haven't gotten very far into replaying it, but based on my memories of it Tron 2.0 is more successful in recapturing the feel of the original movie.

Being an older game, Tron 2.0 does suffer from the resolution issue that is common among games from that long ago. Happily there are a pair of unofficial patches that, between the two of them, allow higher widescreen resolutions, fix a few bugs in the base game, and apply a number of improvements from the console release of the game. Those files can be found at the Tron 2.0 news site. The important ones here are:

• The Unofficial 1.042 patch
• The Killer App mod

The YouTube video I've embedded goes through the process of installing Tron 2.0 in Steam and getting it patched up. If you have any problems, they'll almost certainly be covered in there. There's also an excellent guide posted in the Steam forums for the game. The basic procedure is as follows:

1. Install Tron 2.0 from Steam and run it once. You might run into an issue where the Tron game launcher goes into an endless loop; if this happens you can try:
• Running the TronLauncher.exe directly as administrator
• Running Steam as administrator
• Replacing the TronLauncher.exe file with a modified version
Once you've successfully run Tron 2.0 once, you're through the most difficult part.
2. Install the Unofficial 1.042 patch
3. Install the Killer App mod

Once you've done that, you should be good to go. It's a little bit of extra work on the front end, but it really is worth it. If you run into problems, feel free to let me know here and I'll try and give you advice or point you to someone who can help.

#Blaugust Day 29: Thalen Reads To Your Scattered Bodies Go

Burton did not believe in miracles. Nothing happened that could not be explained by physical principles — if you knew all the facts. - Philip José Farmer

This week I read another classic work of science fiction, the Hugo award-winning To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip José Farmer. This is the first book in the Riverworld series, in which the entirety of humanity from throughout history find themselves simultaneously resurrected on the banks of a world-long river. We follow the famed explored Richard Francis Burton as he works first to build a new life and then to uncover the mystery of humanity's resurrection.

As we've seen before, this is another book that started life as a series of stories published in a periodical and later turned into a novel. In this case two novelettes were expanded and combined, each making up about half the book. In the first half we're introduced to the Riverworld and learn how it works. All those who died on earth throughout history have been resurrected simultaneously in new bodies at approximately the age of 25 (or younger if they died younger). Each wakes entirely naked and hairless with only a strange cylindrical device in their possession. These devices, which come to be called grails, turn out to be a source of ongoing supplies; when placed on a large mushroom-like stone at the appropriate time food and other sundries are generated within.

Burton becomes the de facto leader of small group that includes a neanderthal, a 20th century man, an alien who visited earth in the near future, and Alice Hargreaves, among others. Dissatisfied with the thought of simply settling down in one place, he decides that they will build a boat to sail up the river that dominates the land and explore this new world. This exploration leads Burton to begin uncovering more about the Riverworld and the beings who created it. Along the way his path becomes entangled with that of Herman Göring, who has set himself up as the power behind a tyrannical ruler.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go is a fascinating novel that takes a sometimes depressing but entirely believable view of humanity. Brought forth on this new land and provided with food, some groups institute 'grail slavery' where slaves are kept so that the greater part of what their grails provide can be taken by their masters. When someone dies in the Riverworld, they are resurrected the next morning at a random spot along the river. With no need to hunt or farm for food and death not being final, war between groups becomes common in part as a means of creating excitement.

The Riverworld is a sandbox MMO.

In 1971 Farmer predicted the behavior of MMO players with remarkable accuracy before MMOs even existed. I'm actually very surprised now that there is no Riverworld MMO, as it basically writes itself. The sheer number of people (36 billion) would take some work, but the early days in Riverworld are very reminiscent of survival/crafting games like Don't Starve or Rust and the later period, once states have formed, feels a lot like stories I read of EVE Online's null sec (with fewer spaceships).

By the end of the book some questions have been answered, but a lot more are left hanging. There are a few sequels, the first of which follows Samuel Clemens as he hunts for the means to build a riverboat. My interest is definitely piqued.

For next week we have more SF, but a modern book this time. Join me next Saturday for my thoughts on The Martian by Andy Weir.

#Blaugust Day 28: Addictive != Fun

While listening to some podcasts I happened to actually look at my podcast app and noticed an ad for some terrible mobile game or another at the bottom. As I watched, some quotes from presumably random reviews scrolled by, and I noticed one in particular: "Love it, Addictive as Hell!" It got me thinking, when did 'addictive' become a positive thing?

Best game ever!!! So addictive!

Up front here, I am by no means an expert on addiction. If I fail at clever in the course of this post, please let me know. It is absolutely not my attention to minimize or insult anyone who has had to deal with addiction directly or indirectly.

Addiction implies that you're taking actions that you know are harmful to yourself, or that you don't really 'want' to do so much as 'need' to do. If anything, addictive behavior seems to be the opposite of fun; something one tries to avoid and then feels guilty about afterwards. I don't know if my time with World of Warcraft ever reached the level of addiction, but it certainly got to the point of not being fun anymore. The fact that I was able to drop it and not look back implies that it wasn't an addiction. How much worse then, to be in that situation and not be able to quit.

I guess this weird view we have of addiction isn't really new. How many times have you heard someone call themselves a 'shopaholic' or 'chocoholic'? I'd hazard to guess that most of the people using those terms about themselves aren't really addicts though, they're trying to use the language of addiction to describe how much they enjoy the thing. It seems a little thoughtless when I stop and think about it.

So maybe the problem is that, as a culture, we still don't really understand addiction. Not what it really is or how it really feels to be addicted to something. Maybe that's something you can't really understand unless you've experienced it. What I do know is that calling a game addictive is about the last way you'll ever get me to try it.

#Blaugust Day 27: Corndog Girl

In the world of comic books, Marvel and DC have both been in a period of flux recently. Worlds have ended, characters have been rebooted, it's a whole thing. If you were invested in existing superhero comics, it can seem like a bad time. But some amazing books are coming out of the chaos. One of those is Prez.

The original Prez came out in 1973 as part of DCs attempts to appeal to 'the kids of today'. It followed a teenager, Prez Rickard, who was elected President of the United States after the eligibility age was lowered. His book only ran 4 issues, and he's showed up occasionally since then, usually as an easter egg or in an alternate reality story. If you know the character, it's most likely from the story Neil Gaiman wrote using him in Sandman issue 54.

Where the original Prez came out in a time of youth protests and political action, this new one taps into today's social media frenzies, reality stars, and corporate power. The setting is near future; to me it feels like a few years down the line on the road to the world of Transmetropolitan. Corporate personhood has been established by amendment (CEOs are anonymous figures behind holographic representations of their corporation), votes can be cast via Twitter, and an endorsement from an internet celebrity can win you Ohio.

Pharmaduke is the sensational new character find of 2015

In this strange yet scarily familiar world, we follow Beth Ross as she goes from unwilling internet meme (she accidentally fried her braid in a corn dog frier) to President. For the first two issues she's very much out of her depth and subject to forces beyond her control. The third issue, which came out yesterday, is where we see her start to realize that she has an opportunity here, and maybe she can do something great.

She's not wrong

I mentioned earlier that this feels to me like a world that could eventually become the world of Transmetropolitan. More importantly, this book feels like it could be the next Transmetropolitan. Obviously Beth has nothing in common with Spider Robinson, but the book has a lot of that same twisted humor and strange yet familiar setting, and uses it to poke at the idiocies of the real world. The third issue just came out yesterday, so there's a good chance you could find the whole run so far at your local comic book store. It's also on Comixology if you prefer digital comics. Read it. You won't be disappointed.

#Blaugust Day 26: I'm a Rocker. I Rock Out

I've never thought of myself as particularly musically inclined. More generally I've never had a high opinion of my own creativity. As I've gotten older, I've come to realize that a lot of that is just my own insecurity. Everything I create tends to seem trite or derivative because I'm fully aware of what my inspirations were. There's also the fact that I tend to be more comfortable following established guidelines than having complete creative freedom. I think that's a lot of why I don't really have any difficulty with Blaugust, but the rest of the year my blog has tended to wither. I definitely lean more lawful than chaotic.

In any case, one of the game series I've been a big fan of for a while now is Rock Band (and Guitar Hero before it). I know it's not 'actually playing music' but it's a lot of fun, and I'm actually pretty good at it. I play guitar on Expert difficulty by default, and it's only the very hardest songs that give me any trouble.

I'm lookin' at you, Steely Dan. You know what you did.

Rock Band 4 is on the way, coming out in just a couple months. It's only on the current generation of consoles though, so if I want it I'll have to finally break down and purchase either an XBox One, or a PS4. By default I lean toward the PS4; I'm much happier with PSN than XBox Live, and historically XBox exclusives tend to be shooters I'm not interested in anyway. But there's a catch. All of your purchased tracks for previous Rock Band games work with Rock Band 4, but only in the same console family. All of my tracks are on the 360. And that's a lot of tracks.

I had been extra torn about this because the other upcoming current gen game I actively want is Kingdom Hearts 3, which I had thought was going to be PS4 exclusive. Looking around however, it looks like it was announced on Xbox as well (though as a port from the PS4 version, so....). So it looks like I'll be getting an Xbox One. I don't know if it'll be right when Rock Band 4 comes out; I'll likely wait until around Christmas to see if I can find a good deal.

#Blaugust Day 25: Birds and Bees

Last night was our regular Final Fantasy XIV raid night. We ended up going into Alexander to get gear upgrades for those what need them (which includes me), and then spend about an hour working on the Ravana fight. The speed with which we burned through Alexander really drives home how much better geared we've all gotten in the past few weeks; fights feel super quick now and we can push through phases quick enough that rotating mechanics only come up once or twice. I ended up getting the second token to turn in for a hat as well as my last piece of jewelry, so now I just need pants and chest armor for my main job. Pants I can get next week, as I just need one more spring, but I haven't gotten any of the tokens for chest armor, so that's a month out. I should probably just try to actually run more expert dungeons to cap Esoteric Tomestones and get the artifact chest. Great in theory, unlikely in practice.

I feel like I should be able to open the faceplate

Ravana went pretty well; where last week we didn't always make it through the butterflies with their swords, this time we made it to the dash mechanic nearly every time. Definite progress, and it's mostly a matter of cleaning up our reactions at this point. Ravana is a very precise fight that hinges on reacting quickly and properly when you get targeted with something. Happily, although there are multiple abilities to worry about throughout the fight, you're generally only having to think about one or two at any particular time. Nowhere near as frantic as, say, Nael Deus Darnus from Second Coil.

After we finished up raiding I decided to play some Hatoful Boyfriend so I can hopefully have experienced the long playthrough when we talk about it this weekend for Aggrochat. Basically, once you've successfully romanced enough birds, you're given the option to 'fulfill a promise made long ago' which triggers a longer run that apparently delves into the mysteries that have been alluded to in the normal playthroughs. I had already gotten the endings for the best friend and the aristocrat; last night I played through and got the teacher, the flirt, the runner, and the doctor. On that last playthrough I was given the 'promise' option, so tonight I'll probably play through that.

When you meet this guy, you think he's a little creepy.
But as you get to know him, you realize he's EXTRA SUPER BONUS CREEPY

Man oh man is this game crazy, and much deeper than you might suspect. The first two birds I romanced did not prepare me for how dark things could get. Through sheer happenstance I picked the two that seem to be the least linked to the big mystery of the game. (Well, okay, the runner is also off doing other stuff. Pudding related stuff.) The other three though, those three really make it clear that there is some dark shit going down that you're not really privy to. I'll be interested to see where the game goes with it all.

#Blaugust Day 24: Mystara Monday: Basic Rules

Today we take a look at where it all began, the first Dungeons & Dragons product I ever owned, Dungeons & Dragons Set 1: Basic Rules.

Adventure lies within

If you played Fourth Edition D&D you may recognize that art and cover design as being nearly identical to that of the Fourth Edition Starter Set. This was the third boxed set to be released as the Basic Rules. The first came out in 1977 and was intended to introduce players to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. The second, often referred to as the Moldvay rules was a heavy revision done by Tom Moldvay in 1981. I was in this revision that the Dungeons & Dragons rules split from Advanced D&D. What I have here is the third Basic Rules set, revised by Frank Mentzer in 1983.

In this box, I got a 64 page Players Manual, a 48 page Dungeon Masters Rulebook, and a set of polyhedral dice. Sadly, the dice were stolen along with all my others nearly 20 years ago. I've bought plenty of dice since then, but I still miss that very first set I ever owned. The books have almost the exact same cover layout as the box cover.

The art on that box, by the way, is by the famed Larry Elmore, and the Players Handbook is full of more. Jeff Easley contributed a fair bit as well, but Elmore's art is what I always think of when I think of these books, and of D&D in general. The Dungeon Masters Guide mostly has art by Jim Holloway which is a bit rougher. Elmore's adventurers look like high fantasy characters, almost superheroes even; Holloway's look more like rough and ready mountain men.

And that is what elves, halflings, and dwarves should look like

Based on my internet research, the rules differences between the previous version and this are pretty minor. The big change is in how the information is presented. The box says for ages 10 and up, and the books are very well suited for just that. The writing is aimed young without being pedantic or insulting. The set was also clearly designed as an introduction for someone with no prior experience.

Rather than starting out with rules to create characters and so forth, the Players Manual first explains what 'role playing' is and then runs the character through a simple, linear solo adventure. Throughout the adventure concepts are introduced as they come up, so constitution and hit points are explained when you fight your first monster, a goblin. Saving throws are introduced in a fight with a poisonous snake, and so on. By the time you reach the rules for new character creation, 48 pages in, you've played two solo adventures and should have a pretty good concept of how the game works.

The Dungeon Masters Guide is set up in a similar way, starting out with a pretty straightforward castle adventure to run for your group. I recall playing this adventure with my best friend at the time, with each of us running two characters and me serving as DM. Eventually I put together a more typical gaming group in high school where I DMd for a group of friends every day at lunch, but in the beginning it was just the two of us.

That first adventure was a great introduction, even if it did contain more than one of the classic PC killers (a carrion crawler, yellow mold, and harpies). It also connected to the solo adventure from the Players Handbook through the character of Bargle the Infamous, an evil magic user who served as the main villain in each. In the solo adventure, Bargle kills a beautiful female cleric named Aleena whom you have befriended and now the town (and you) want him to pay. Bargle is a fantastic, and well-loved (hated) villain who reappears in later supplements and adventures and makes a perfect Big Bad for an ongoing campaign. When this mini-adventure was reworked for 3rd edition and published in the final issue of Dungeon, it was even titled 'Kill Bargle.'

Seriously, Bargle is the worst

This box was what kindled my love of tabletop role-playing games, and nearly 30 years later I still treasure it. I had played a few computer RPGs prior to this, notable Might & Magic, so I had a decent idea how the dungeon crawl part was supposed to go. I actually found the character sheets for the two PCs I played in that first campaign with my friend, and I had even reused the names of two of the default Might & Magic PCs for them. But this box was what made me realize we could create our own adventures, and that they could involve more than just killing monsters. It was the beginning of something wonderful.

Next week I'm going to take a look at the first adventure released specifically for the Basic Rules (although for an earlier revision); Adventure Module B1: In Search of the Unknown. Let's see how many ways to kill a player we can find in this one!

#Blaugust Day 23: Sound and Fury

The Hugo Awards were presented last night at WorldCon, and a lot of people were waiting to see how it would all shake out. If you haven't been following the whole Puppies mess, the short version is that a group of SF authors who have been previously nominated for Hugos but didn't win decided to run a nomination slate to try to get things they like on the ballot. They've tried this for a couple years without much success, but this year the combination of a racist, loudmouth author running a related slate and gaming's own 'organization' of reactionary misogynists getting involved did the trick. The Hugo nominations were gamed.

A lot of people freaked the hell out and declared the Hugos destroyed, or ruined, or what have you. Last night proved that wrong. A number of categories had no award, but that's happened before and will again, just possibly not in the same numbers. The big award (Best Novel) was awarded to a book that is by all reports amazing, and basically none of the slate nominees got a thing. The main result of this whole thing was to highlight just how few people bother to nominate for the Hugos and to sell a heck of a lot more supporting memberships to this year's convention than any previous (though the total number of people voting was apparently only about half the number of memberships; about 11,300 memberships were sold, and just short of 6,000 ballots were cast.)

The part that really fascinates me comes from the voting and balloting statistics that are released each year once the awards have been handed out. Going through the nomination numbers, it looks like a little over 200 people voted a Puppies slate, and about 160 of those voted the racist asshole's version. 6,000 ballots were cast in the final vote, but only 200 or so people were able to game the nomination. Admittedly this year's vote total is skewed by people who specifically voted either in support or protest of this whole nonsense, so let's look at the 2014 totals. 3,587 total ballots were cast last year. So about 6% of last year's total vote. That's all it took.

And that's the lesson of all this. Angry assholes are really good at being loud, puffing themselves up, and making themselves look bigger than they are. The jerks on your game's forum or on Twitter or wherever? They're a minority making themselves look like the majority through volume (in both meanings of the word). They only win if we stand aside and let them.

#Blaugust Day 22: Thalen Reads Choke

We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are. Sane or insane. Saints or sex addicts. Heros or victims. Letting history tell us how good or bad we are. Letting our past decide the future. Or we can decide for ourselves. - Victor Mancini

Choke is a book about salvation.

It's also a book about sex addiction, dementia, suffocation, rocks, and chocolate pudding. But the over-arching theme is salvation. The power that saving someone gives you over them, but also the power the saved has over the person that has, in saving them, taken a measure of responsibility for them.

Victor Mancini is a sex addict and a med school dropout. He works at a colonial village with his friend Denny, who he met through an addiction recovery program. He never knew his father. His mother was in and out of jail throughout his childhood for 'acts of social rebellion' of the Project Mayhem sort; swapping colors of hair dye in store, giving LSD to zoo monkeys, and so forth. Now she's slowly wasting away in a home for those with dementia. To support her, Victor chokes in restaurants.

What Victor has learned is that he can pretend to choke in a restaurant and when someone 'saves' him, they feel a responsibility to him. They keep in contact with him, send him a card with a check on his birthday, ask how he's doing and if there's anything they can do to help. He's choked thousands of times and uses the income from that to pay for his mother's care.

At the care center, other patients with dementia keep mistaking him for someone who wronged them in the past. He ultimately plays along, accepting those sins onto himself and giving the patients a kind of closure. He meets a doctor who claims she can cure his mother. The doctor just needs Victor to have sex with her. He learns that his mother has a diary (written in Italian) that contains some shocking secret about his heritage. And Victor begins to question who he really is and what he can do both for himself and for others.

If you've seen or read Fight Club (and seriously, you should do both) then you should have a pretty good idea of the type of book this will be. By turns hilarious and disturbing, and often both simultaneously. Loaded with sex, but almost never sexy. Ultimately it's a book about a man learning the truth about himself and taking some control of his life. I think I actually liked Choke a little better than Fight Club. It was a bit more optimistic in the end; with a 'we could go anywhere we want from here' feel.

Next up I'm going back to the classic science fiction; Philip Jose Farmer's Hugo-winning To Your Scattered Bodies Go, the first book in the Riverworld series. Come back next Saturday to see how I like it!