So i attempted to dedicate last night to Killzone's multiplayer. I'd jumped in a few times before and really enjoyed it. I had planned to spend last night trying to unlock some new equipment. The game had other plans though. Last night I experienced two hard crashes, each one eradicating all my work in that particular match. The first one I decided to just accept and roll with but the second one was too much. After nearly thirty minutes of play the game locked up and after restarting I saw that none of my points from that match had been calculated. That's a deal breaker for me. I'm a big fan of persistence. I like the idea that the time I invest in a game is earning me new skills and abilities. The problem is that if you're going to make my time with the game valuable, you can't ever fucking steal it from me. If WOW crashed and I lost a night's worth of XP I'd never play it again. Tycho told me that this happened to him in Asheron's Call and it was the reason he quit. So I'm done with Killzone until I hear about a patch of some kind. It's not like I'm hurting for other games to play.
Speaking of other games, today's comic is pretty much word for word what happens when I talk to Tycho about my D&D game. The enjoyment I get out of being the DM comes from facilitating an adventure, not beating the shit out of my friends. I'm trying to create a story that they can play and killing them seems counter intuitive. My goal when building encounters is to challenge them and push them to their limits but not murder the entire party. My group's really picking the game up and the difference in play from our first game to this last one is crazy. We went from basically playing a board game with dice and minis to something much more interesting. It's just been awesome to watch them go from being a little embarrassed to be playing D&D and not wanting to look stupid to really to embracing their characters. I've got a friend who plays a Dragonborn and is actually speaking Draconic at the table for fuck's sake! I thought you might also like to see what happens when a graphic designer plays D&D.
Kiko made each player a set of custom designed stickers to help track all their abilities. Also, yes they are standing on candy. That way when the invoker fails to use a minor action to maintain their magic wall, you get to eat it.
Episode 3 of our D&D podcast is live today. Check it out here. Can Jim Darkmagic hang upside down from a rope ladder and cast spells? Fuck yeah he can.
-Gabe out
