日常生活

We finished of the last bits of the D&D Starter Set campaign yesterday. During this third and final round things got a bit hectic. The challenge got steeper and people were almost killed (more than once in one case). On the whole, everyone had a good time.

The surprise I threw in last time around -- a Human Cleric (that I originally created for myself to use in case anyone else would want to be the DM) named Otigold Shieldheart that decided to join in the battle [in a sort-of NPC-way] -- was welcomed with open arms.

The gang got to control Otigold, deciding what actions he'd take. He saved both the day -- and the party -- many a times during the crawl. Thanks again for the idea, Cheryl. :-)

Both quests from the Starter Set were completed. Somewhat. The mysterious rider was found and subsequently slain. And the stolen box was retrieved.

However, the group decided against returning the box and it's contents to the merchant, [name?]; a measly 30gp wasn't enough of a reward to part with it. This decision worries me a bit, to be honest. It's just not set up for good times...

In an effort to further educate our silly butts on the subject of D&D(Essentials), I have ordered Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms, Dungeon Master's Kit and Monster Vault. Let's see what the future brings... :-)

Wow, this achievement isn't really hard, but still a bitch to do. The voids kept despawning on me when I arrived so it took me a little while to find them all. Sorted now, though. :)

While I don't own a lot of games that require it -- for some reason, no matter what game we play, if a DM is required, yours truly seems to be the guy for the job. Every single time.

I don't know whether it's me doing a good job (not likely) or the others thinking they'd do horribly at it (more likely), but either way I'm not complaining. I mean, I would rather be a part of the "group", going through the bad-assery and maiming. But being the DM helps me work on my storytelling which is lacking, to say the least.

Anyhow, last weekend my brothers and a friend of ours set off on the adventure contained within the "Red Box" and I did my best to keep them entertained. Being new to this game meant a lot of flipping through the books trying to work out all the mechanics.

My superior die-rolls and the gang making the error of not bringing a healer to the party (two of them play Fighters, the other a Wizard) has caused them a lot of grief. I try to be a humble DM but the dice says otherwise. (I'm contemplating lying in their favour, just to see them get through the campaign)..

Today we'll continue the adventure and I have a little surprise in store for the gang. It'll be an improvised "encounter", going out of the box to try and help them out a little. The idea was a suggested by Cheryl, one of my Canadian friends. We'll see how it turns out. :-)

Oh, and the image - I've ordered Rules Compendium: An Essential Dungeons & Dragons Compendium and Player's Essentials: Heroes of the Fallen Lands, two books that might help our gaming experience.

The Essentials-line looks to be right up our alley. :-)

For the longest time I have feared this game. When I first heard of it many years ago, it seemed like a behemoth, its contents so vast that my mind would melt if I tried to approach it... Nah, maybe not really.

Honestly, I don't really know why I never bothered to check it out. I'll bet it's likely because of how much of the gameplay is in your head - my imagination's pretty poor. At least for "serious business".. ;-)

Recently though, a spark of interest has formed after my cousin linked me a page with videos where the guys behind Penny Arcade and PvPonline along with Wil Wheaton are playing a game together (with DM Chris Perkins). By the looks of it, they were having a lot of fun.

After watching that play (and listening to some of their podcasts [look for Penny Arcade/PvP]) I decided to buy the "Red Box" to try it out; take them first steps. None of us have played any 'paper'-D&D before, but a few (or all) of us have played at least one game on the computer, such as Baldur's Gate, that uses some rules from D&D. It'll be a blast, I'm sure. :-]

Wow, really? The expansion "The burning Crusade" has been out for more than three and a half year's and now I get this achievement? The expansion that followed ("WotLK") has almost run its entire course and in less than two months a third expansion (Cataclysm) will be released.

I'm pretty horrible at doing things in a timely fashion.

Not long after I got WoW up and running again it was time for another patch. Updating went smoothly and now I'm faced with the new cool launcher. (Dunno what the "!" in the lower left corner is for, it doesn't show anymore). The first thing I noticed after logging in was the improved UI and how tasty the new water-engine is. :-)

That, and a shitload of reset addons that I'll need to tend to. D:

That annoys me to no end. Thankfully -- this. <3

I've played MTG on the Xbox360 for a while and have grown accustomed to Liliana Vess' deck, Eyes of Shadow. I'm having a lof of fun with it and it's the one I'll most likely play, although I'm slowly finishing of Tezzeret's deck Relics of Doom which is also fun to play. My brother plays Nissa's Ears of the Elves which combined with Eyes of Shadow wrecks havoc wherever we go. :-)

Now, of course we don't only play on the 360, we have a bunch of decks (finished and unfinished, but not personalized) that we play each other with now and then. Sadly we have too many less-than-awesome (aka common) cards that we just can't fit in anywhere. Piles of them, in fact. :/

I bought the Liliana vs Garruk Duel Decks in hopes to get the cards I love from the 360. Buying the Duel Decks was cheaper than buying Liliana's deck on its own. I also bought a couple of spare cards that would serve me well, some of them were unlockables on the 360. To my surprise the Duel Decks didn't hold the cards I wanted. I hadn't really looked into exactly what cards were in the decks assuming they'd be identical, but as it turns out, the physical decks were only inspired by their digital counterparts. D'oh.

The cards I got were far from awful however, they were just not as well matched with the extras I bought. Swapping a few of the cards I got with some older ones made it all better though. ;-)

And also, we finally got some protective sleeves for the cards. Our oldest cards have seen better days to be honest, and it was about time we got some protection for them. It made shuffling the decks a hundred times easier as well. :-))

Now, in all this there's one thing I'm not really happy with, and that's the Planeswalkers themselves. I got Liliana in the Fat Pack I ordered a few months back and also recieved both Liliana and Garruk with the Duel Decks. Currently I'm the only one in our group (of four) that has a Planeswalker and I think they're a little overpowered. Of course we don't have to play with them, and I always opt not to, to "even out" the game a bit. Even though the others sometimes insist I should. :-]

Ok so it's rumored to be released November 2, so "around the corner" may be a bit of a stretch, but it's getting closer. I'm a happy puppy! :-)

A few things I'm looking forward to:

New quests

I don't raid much and I don't pvp. When I run out of quests, there's not enough to do. (I also suck at leveling alts)..

Worgen

Nuff said.

Smaller Talent-trees

They're currently a little too big for my liking. Smaller means easier to manage.

Flying in Azeroth

Fcking finally, this. Trecking the old land is a bitch. Flying will be win!

My brothers and I started playing Magic: The Gathering some 8-9 years ago and it was great fun. The problem we had was we didn't fully understand all the rules which made the game a little tough to play at times.

On top of that we made up some house-rules which led to ridiculous armies being produced and we completely disregarded that there are no official rules on playing more than two teams; playing with 3 or 4 people, all against each other, makes for some silly combat indeed. We played for a good while, but eventually strayed away from Magic. I think the biggest reason was not knowing the rules well enough.

Now, we've recently started playing again. Both with our old cards and a bunch of

new ones; I bought a Magic 2011 Fat Pack that came with some rather nicely dangerous cards and my brother have been raiding auctions for vast amounts of cheap cards. We've built a bunch of different decks in various colours and strengths that we randomly pick and play one another. Every now and then a friend joins in to play and we team up for "epic" 2 vs 2 battles.

I also bought the game Duels of the Planes- walkers for the Xbox360 which has helped immensely with sorting out the rules for us as well as explaining a lot of the cards abillities. Not to mention that it's fun and super-easy to play it while sitting relaxed in a couch in front of the tv. :-]