The Best Laid Plans Part 2

My life has certainly not been going according to plan.

When I was just a boy, I dreamed of great things. For example, I thought I might be the first person to ever attend the California State Science fair seven years in a row. I was among the first group of young minds to get in starting from the sixth grade, then I returned in 7^th, and won first place in my division in 8^th. I was pretty proud. When I got to high school, I was gung-ho to be a scientist and continue my perfect science fair attendance, maybe add another newspaper article to my collection of silly childhood achievements that inexplicably get written about in local newspapers. Then, I met my science teachers, and all my dreams of becoming a scientist were dashed by a couple of incompetent asses. Actually just one, dude didn’t even know that .5 rounds up, c’mon.

Amethyst Evolution - Out Now! PDF on RPGNow in Radiohead Fashion!!

How did I miss this?!  Well, real life sometimes gets in the way of the hobby and the blog.  But, now that I have caught it, it needs to be said here.  Amethyst Evolution, the second book in the Amethyst universe, has now come out!!

You may have caught a little bit of my preview article for Amethyst Evolution a little bit ago.  You will recall I was really, really excited to see that there were going to be some awesome new organizations coming around as well as some new Techan classes and a few new races.  Things are just getting better and better.  Dias Ex Machina is going to be striking again with this awesome book.

As for a little blurb of what you'll find in this book, here's a snippet from the Dias Ex Machina site which explains what you'll find in Amethyst Evolution:

Lifepaths: New lifepaths are being introduced including options for divine and evil characters.
Races: Kodiak, pagus, and tenenbri are introduced as playable races. In addition, all the old races of Foundations are reprinted and revised to match up with the developing 4 th Edition philosophy.
Classes: Get up close and personal with a new techan class, the vanguard. Older techan classes are expanded and revised with alternate class features and powers. Also included are revised Foundations classes presented with simplified abilities and fixed level features instead of encounter and/or daily powers. These classes may replace original Foundations classes in your current game if it permits these alternative classes. These do not replace the classes from Foundations ; both versions are compatible with each other and players can elect either option in a game without upsetting game balance.
Paragon Paths: New paths are available for new races as well as options for classic races and classes.
Feats: Dozens of new feats are offered, including martial arts and explosive feats.
Epic Destinies: New epic paths are now available for both echan and techan characters.
Equipment: Nuclear weapons (yes nuclear weapons) are available. Look for larger power armor and aircraft. Players can now (clumsily) wield super heavy weapons.

Sounds pretty awesome right?!  Nuclear Weapons!!!  Awesome.  That sounds sufficiently EPIC to me.  You can get the book off of RPGNow right now! and guess what?!  In very Radiohead Fashion, the publishers have decided to let you choose how much you want to pay for the book!!!!  There are two price points available for Amethyst Evolution; you can pick it up for $14.99 or $9.99 whichever you feel is the fair price to pay.  They would love to have the support I am sure, so consider popping for the extra $5 when you buy the book.  Also, the print edition of the book will be available soon.  I love my hardcover print copy.  You might want to also consider their PDF/Print bundle which is also available now.  This pack ensures that you'll be getting the print version when it comes out.  Very cool.

Join the (RPGB)Alliance Today - Help fight the Empire!

If you've been living under a rock, or have been away on vacation, you might not have heard about the RPG Bloggers Alliance.  Founded by some of the guys behind The RPG Circus Podcast, with the help of THE Stargazer himself, the RPGBA aims to be a new community for us all to call our home.  The site features the aggregated feed for all the members on the network (something you got with the RPGBN), but also has a dedicated forum, which has been up and running for quite a while, serving as the forums for the RPG Circus and other sites (including mine :P ).   The site also features a wiki, which is still in development, but which will most likely be up and running in no time at all considering how much support has already been shown for the site in just a week or so.  At the time I'm writing this, there are already 100 members; I'm positive that number will increase very, very soon.  Join the RPGBA and enjoy.  In honor of the RPGBA, I thought I would post some Alliance Recruitment posters from around the web.  

Casting for Akira Leads to White Washing... and Old Washing...

I've been a big fan of the Akira anime since I was a kid.  It was one of the first anime I ever watched and It has been a film that I have constantly revisited over the last decade.  I own some of the 6 Volume Manga for which the series was based (in Japanese) and I have been looking forward to Warner Brothers and their film adaptation of the anime for quite a while now.  But, where are they going with this?

On the blog, Racebending, I saw today that they had announced a "short list of actors for the film and well, they are all white...

From his blog -
For the role of Tetsuo: Robert Pattinson, Andrew Garfield and James McAvoy.
For the role of Kaneda: Garrett Hedlund, Michael Fassbender, Chris Pine, Justin Timberlake and Joaquin Phoenix.

GOOD GOD!!!  NOOO!!! I'm not so firmly entrenched in my Akira ways to say that only Asian actors should be playing these roles, but honestly, if they are going to keep the names the same, for GOD'S SAKE PLEASE CAST SOME JAPANESE PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!  If they want to change the names, just like they are going to change the setting (from neo-Tokyo to neo-Manhattan) then fine.  I'll live with white actors being cast in the lead roles under that set of circumstances.  But, the above is just wrong on so many levels.

The Characters in Akira are high school age.  Akira is a coming of age film in many respects and having a bunch of middle-aged actors vying for these lead roles seems ridiculous to me.  As much as I AM NOT a fan of all the Justin Bieber types, he would be a waaaayyyyy better choice than freaking Justin Timberlake for the movie.  Of all the people above, I could really only see James McAvoy and Chris Pine as suited for the roles; they are the closet to the right age, and James McAvoy can do pretty good dramatic stuff, especially in war stories (which Akira pretty much is).  I could also see Chris Pine sporting the Red Leather Jacket, jumping on his Red Superbike and then fighting Tetsuo in the climax with a massive laser cannon.

    

Update - The Situation in Japan

So, as I think a lot of you know from some earlier posts of mine last week, and from following me on Twitter, I live in Japan, and as I know you all are aware, Japan has been recently devastated by a massive 9.0 Earthquake and accompanying tsunamis. I wanted to take some time right now to talk about the situation in Japan and the latest updates on our situation.

Just so you have a little bit of information on my perspective on things, I thought I should talk a bit about where I live and how I have been taking this all in. I am an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher). I live in Yamanashi Japan, which is in the Mountains, west of Tokyo and north of Mt. Fuji. The Earthquake hit in Northern Japan, near Miyagi prefecture; I am hundreds of miles away from where the worst of this hit, but I was not unaffected. We felt the quake here in Yamanashi – I was at the Train Station when it hit and it tossed me off my feet (and almost onto the train tracks). It was exponentially larger than the most intense quake I’ve felt until now.

But, the quake’s direct shaking was not the primary cause of the huge disaster here in Japan. Japan has some of the most advanced earthquake readiness plans. Many of the buildings here in Japan are actually built on large balls, which allows them to move with an earthquake, thus preventing them from collapsing, but even Japan is not immune or capable of defending against a tsunami the likes of which hit Miyagi-ken. The Tsunami measured nearly 50 feet in some areas; in some locations there was only about 5 minutes of warning between the time of the quake and the tsunami.

Although the first day that the quake hit, reports showed that about 200 or so had been confirmed dead, now, the death toll has reached almost 10,000. There are still another 10,000-15,000 reported missing; the number of people who have been displaced because of the quake and Tsunami is now reaching almost half a million (around 460,000 is the most current number). People have been relocated from Miyagi-ken as far south as Saitama, not far from my wife’s home, to the Saitama Convention Center.

My family has been very lucky through all of this. As of now, I don’t believe that my wife’s family suffered any losses, though many of her relatives live in Miyagi prefecture near Sendai. However, other people I know were not so lucky. One ALT, who I met a couple of years ago has been missing since the time of the Quake, and is believed to have passed away in the Tsunami. Another friend of mine, who used to work in the area, teaching English at both Elementary and Middle Schools, told me yesterday that about half of his former students perished in the Tsunami. His girlfriend’s family home was destroyed, as was her work, and many of her students were lost as well.

This is a huge tragedy, the likes of which the world has not seen in a long, long time. Though the worst might be over, Japan is still very much having trouble. There are massive gasoline shortages and rationing on gasoline is limiting people’s mobility within the country. Last weekend, while in Tokyo, we observed lines some miles long trying to get into open gas stations. All last week, food was very scarce. For the first time, I saw supermarkets and malls which had been almost completely cleaned out on virtually any food items with preservatives. In my area, Yamanashi, we weren’t affected quite as badly, but even yesterday, we still are having shortages on many items and my fellow teachers tell me that gasoline shortages are still very much a problem.

Probably the biggest problem now is the Nuclear power plant in Fukushima. The tsunami hit the power plant at about 15 meters tall; it wrecked the plant and since then, the plant’s situation has been very much in question. Several explosions and the leakage of radioactive material were observed – some of this radioactive material has been detected even in Tokyo and where I live in the mountains (though the measurements of this material are virtually nothing and are no threat to humans). Still, now that the Fukushima plant has been updated to a Level 5 Nuclear Disaster, until the plant is completely brought under control, people in Japan will continue to tensely await any news regarding the situation there. Many governments are evacuating their citizens here, including America and the UK; these evacuations are spreading a great deal of panic and unease here, which is certainly not helping the situation at all.

So, if you want to help, find somewhere accepting donations and give your money to help people here. RPGNow has a donation service, as do several of the publishers on the site. I have a link to one of those, by Highmoon Games, here on the right on my blog. You can also simply donate to the Red Cross via their direct site. Please help the people of Japan. They still really need you.

Real Life Heroes - Glory to the Ghorkha

Sometimes you read about stories that are just too awesome for words.  Today, I read one of those stories and was floored.  Normally, things like this only come up in stuff like D&D; hell, that is why most of us play these games - to do crazy, cool heroic stuff and enjoy the fantasy of it all.  But, there are times when real life imitates fantasy and this is certainly one of those times.

Today, over at MYREPUBLICA, I read a story about an Indian ex-soldier who fought off 40 train robbers with a Kukri, wounding several and killing 3 of them.  In the end, he was able to save a young girl from getting raped in front of her parents and was also able to save a whole lot of loot from getting passed into the hands of these bandits. 

You can read about the story here and here. 

Here is a bit of the story from MYREPUBLICA.

The band of about 40 robbers, some of whom were travelling as passengers, stopped the train in the Chittaranjan jungles in West Bengal around midnight. Shrestha-- who had boarded the train at Ranchi in Jharkhand, the place of his posting--was in seat no. 47 in coach AC3.



“They started snatching jewelry, cell phones, cash, laptops and other belongings from the passengers,” Shrestha recalled. The soldier had somehow remained a silent spectator amidst the melee, but not for long. He had had enough when the robbers stripped an 18-year-old girl sitting next to him and tried to rape her right in front of her parents. He then took out his khukuri and took on the robbers.



“The girl cried for help, saying ´You are a soldier, please save a sister´,” Shrestha recalled. “I prevented her from being raped, thinking of her as my own sister,” he added. He took one of the robbers under control and then started to attack the others. He said the rest of the robbers fled after he killed three of them with his khukuri and injured eight others.



During the scuffle he received serious blade injury to his left hand while the girl also had a minor cut on her neck. “They had carried out their robbery with swords, blades and pistols. The pistols may have been fake as they didn´t open fire,” he surmised.



The train resumed its journey after some 20 minutes and a horde of media persons and police were present when it reached Chittaranja station. Police arrested the eight injured dacoits and recovered around 400,000 Indian rupees in cash, 40 gold necklaces, 200 cell phones, 40 laptops and other items that the fleeing robbers dropped in the train.



Police escorted Shrestha to the Railways Hospital after the rescued girl told them about his heroic deed. Mainstream Indian media carried the story. The parents of the girl, who was going for her MBBS studies, also announced a cash award of Indian rupees 300,000 for him but he has not met them since.



“Even the veins and arteries in my left hand were slit but the injury has now healed after two months of neurological treatment at the Command Hospital in Kolkata,” he said showing the scar. “Fighting the enemy in battle is my duty as a soldier; taking on the dacoits in the train was my duty as a human being,” said the Indian army nayak, who has been given two guards during his month-long holidays in Nepal.

Is that awesome or what??  I particularly like this last bit here, which just reeks of militant fighter training.  You know this guy had weapon proficiency and weapon expertise.

“I am proud to be able to prove that a Gorkha soldier with a khukuri is really a handful. I would have been a meek spectator had I not carried that khukuri,” he said.

WoW.  The Khukuri has become a whole lot cooler in my book after reading this.  It may just beat out my love of the Khopesh in terms of favorite weapons.  I'll have to roll up a Khukuri wielding two-blade ranger in order to honor this guy.  Also, I feel a Khukuri weapon guide coming down along the pipeline in the near future.

News: Tales of WotC Woe

@InitiativeGames was kind enough to send me this Wizard's Ampersand article today which, near the end of the article, talked about some pretty bleak stuff.

I want to call out this section of this article written by Bill Slaviscek and call your attention to the highlighted areas below:

D&D RPG Product Release Updates


Despite the best laid plans, sometimes we make changes to the D&D product release schedule. Usually this happens well before we’ve communicated our plans, but sometimes we must make changes to schedules that have already been announced. That happens to be the case we have here.
 

The Last Set





We have made the decision to depart from prepainted plastic miniatures sets. Lords of Madness stands as the final release under that model. We will continue to release special collector’s sets (such as the Beholder Collector’s Set we released last fall), as well as make use of plastic figures in other product offerings. Check out the Wrath of Ashardalon board game next month for the latest example of this. Moving forward, we will continue to explore more options for players to represent characters and monsters on the tabletop, including Monster Vault and other D&D products that feature monster and character tokens.



The Heroes of Shadow product, originally scheduled for March and presented in digest-sized, paperback format, is moving to April to accommodate a change to hardcover format. Additionally, three D&D RPG products have been removed from the 2011 release schedule—Class Compendium: Heroes of Sword and Spell, Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium, and Hero Builder’s Handbook. While this means fewer books, we plan to deliver just as much great content for players this year through other formats, including board games, accessories, and digital offerings. I’ll keep you up-to-date on the latest releases each month as we go along.



Finally, I wanted to let you know that we’re making a change to the way we handle D&D Insider content. Subscriber data informs us that the vast majority of you consume our articles individually, when they are posted, as opposed to downloading the monthly compilations. So, starting this month, we’re just providing the articles. There won’t be any more monthly downloadable compilations. This is not a reduction in content, just a clarification of presentation and putting the emphasis where the majority of you are using it. Corrections and updates to articles which used to appear only in the compilations will now be made to the individual articles a few weeks after the original posting.



None of this looks very good.  I must say though, that I understand why they would probably have to scale back on the minis front, but it comes off a little odd that they would end the collectible nature of minis and replace that with Fortune cards, another different collectible element.  I am relieved that they will still be releasing minis in things like board games though.  I plan on picking up both the Wrath of Ashardalon and Castle Ravenloft Board Games for my birthday this year.  Also, they will still be doing stuff like Orcus.  Another relief.

The release schedule got trimmed up considerably.  Knocking off three books seems like quite the trimming, but the Shadow book got hardback again, which is a good thing.  I know I like that a lot better.



Honestly, I think I found the last announcement to be the most disheartening.  I loved having my compiled dungeon and dragon magazine at the end of the month.  I love it that way.  It makes it feel like an actual magazine.  Too bad.  I thought it was also interesting that the two upcoming columns will be written by two of the much higher ups in the company rather than freelancers.  This could be a sign of more trims to come.



Wizards Podcast June 26th 2009 Tales from Customer Service

I went into this podcast disappointed that they would waste a week that could be used to talk about development and current products in order to spend it talking about customer service rules questions... but it turned out to be ok considering the depth they went into talking about the Monk near the end. They announced that the theme of the PHB3 would be character options which i think is pretty cool; it harkens to the earlier PHB2 back in 3.5 and maybe even to some Unearthed Arcana like stuff. I'll be waiting to see that book come out next year.


I would love to get a hold of Santa from Customer Service. Who wouldn't want to just make him a regular villain in their games? I know i would.

A Gamer in Japan Part 1 @ Stargazer's World

My first post in my series on being a gamer in Japan is up on Stargazer's World and has already been met with several great comments and some really good feedback. I hope more comments are coming in; i'm a comment whore. Here is a link to the post over on his site. I hope you will get a chance to check it out and read further into my adventures and my comments about staying in touch with the Dungeons and Dragons hobby while you're abroad in Japan; maybe you will find information there which you can relate to your own experiences in traveling in a different foreign country.

Here is the link:
http://www.stargazersworld.com/2009/06/25/a-gamer-in-japan-part-1-the-group/

Wizard’s Sell Your Sole competition an attempt at Mainstreaming DnD?

If you haven’t seen the news you haven’t heard that Wizards has posted up a new competition on their website, which I can only be disturbed and intrigued by. They are asking people to design a pair of shoes which are Dungeons and Dragons themed…

Here are some links to this so you know I’m not crazy…

Link to the competition at wizards:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4news/20090625

Link to the competition at RYZ wear:
http://www.ryzwear.com/blog/233/sell-your-sole-dungeons-and-dragons

What does this say? Well, for a long time I have been under the impression that Wizards of the Coast is doing everything they can to mainstream Dungeons and Dragons and make it “cool.” It makes sense from a business perspective to make the game more appealing to the masses by getting rid of the nerdy pen and paper elements and making the game as electronic and consumer friendly as possible. D&Di is a big part of this; adding revenants back into the game and making the Raven Queen more important, while having basis in prior editions, seem to be an attempt at piggy-backing off the success of Blizzard with The Scourge in World of Warcraft. If Wizards saw the kind of user numbers and money that Blizzard was seeing they would never have a money problem. Ever. What do shoes have to do with this then? Well, how many gamers care what they are wearing. I’m not saying that gamers don’t usually have good style sense…wait, I am. Designing a pair of custom kicks seems like something that wouldn’t be something a pen and paper RPG company like this would do; if you’re going to make something for Nerds T-Shirts and Sweat-shirts like those sold by JINX are the way to go. Very few gamers realistically want to spend over a hundred dollars on a pair of shoes when they could easily spend that money on new books for their games, it just isn’t practical for appealing to this group, in my opinion.

I guess I myself don’t fall into this category because I consider shoe fashion to be one of the things I pride myself on. I have well over twenty pairs. I have been called a girl on many an occasion for it. I have custom sets of converse weapons. I have custom Nike’s and I have custom slip-ons from Vans of every color and variety. Maybe I am just the type of person that Wizards is trying to appeal to… perhaps they are being very successful in this new marketing, but the reason that they are successful is because I am highly susceptible to fashion and trying to look cool, call me a lemming if you will, but I live in a city where 50% of the women riding a given train at one time are all carrying Luis Vitton bags, regardless of whether or not they had to mortgage their tiny house to get them. If Wizards of the Coast is trying to make Dungeons and Dragons fashionable and cool, where will it take them in the actual game department? Will they make an attempt at doing nerd makeovers? Where will the madness stop?

Will you be designing a pair of sneaks for the competition? I would love to give it a try, but my tragic lack of any artistic skills or media to work with on this would probably be a big problem.

XDMC #11 "Create a Little Bad Evil Guy" is up!

As if i wasn't still backlogged enough with all of my previous entries that i have yet to put up on the blog, the 11th Expert Dungeon Master's Competition (XDMC) has opened up on the Wizards forums. This competition has been running for a fairly long time since the birth of 4e DnD and is a place to let your creative juices flow. I've been taking part for the last 3 XDMC's with very little success, but maybe the one will be different.

Here is the link the the thread where this competition takes place.
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1206693

This month's competition is entitled " Create a Little Bad Evil Guy"here is the synopsis:
"A good DM can create a compelling villain (the "Big Bad Evil Guy") to antagonize adventurers for a dramatic climactic final confrontation. But it takes an Expert DM to create a lesser villain who is equally memorable. Lackeys, sidekicks, rivals, minor antagonists. All require care to craft. This entry asks you to create a memorable minor villain (the "Little Bad Evil Guy") for the adventurers to confront."

Well, doesn't that sound interesting??

The competition has several main rules, which can be found on the thread, but the real fun from this competition comes in the constraints... welll, kind of constraints, kind of building blocks. Each entry must include at least 3 of the following optional elements:

1. At least one confrontation is a non-combat skill challenge that uses no Charisma-based skills as primary skills.

2. Fulfilling a minor quest (described in the entry) could cause the villain to become neutral to, or allied with, the adventurers.

3. The adventurers discover the villain has information or a unique item useful against the main antagonist.

4. The entry presents statblocks for the villain at multiple tiers of play.

5. The entry summarizes three or more hypothetical confrontations that include the villain.

6. The villain is neither humanoid nor unintelligent.

7. The villain is Small or Tiny in size.

8. The villain is the spouse, offspring, or parent of the main antagonist.

9. The villain serves multiple masters with contradictory motivations.

10. When first encountered, the villain appears to be the main antagonist, but isn’t.

Sounds like fun right? Why not get over and enter? The competition is a great place to be creative and interact with some of the creative geniuses that float around on the Wizard's forums. If you win, you get a cool little Title below your name, the chance to judge further competitions, a boost for your ego, and mad streed cred (...well, maybe not street cred, but at least forum cred...). Hope to see you there! Good luck on your entries!

The Dump Stat Joins the Ranks!

Hello to all the followers and fellow members of the RPG Bloggers Network. The Dump Stat has been granted admission into your auspicious ranks. I’m proud to now be a member of this esteemed network. I hope that I can add my 2 cents to the communal thought pool.

When I initially started developing the dump stat, my goal was to provide a source for information for both DM’s and Player’s, which could be used to maximize the fun you have around the game table. I’m trying to keep away from commenting on the actions of Wizards of the Coast, but every once and a while something will come up on my blog about them.

I really think that the community of Dungeons and Dragons is the driving force behind 4th Edition. The Wizards forums are a great source for discussing game concepts and homebrew, so I’m on the forums looking around a lot. When I find something interesting, you’ll often find links to it on my blog,

I’ve got a great line-up of planned articles coming up. I’ll be finishing my series on Druid Tech before delving into other technological power sources and how they fit into Dungeons and Dragons 4e. I will also be posting some of the results for the WotC forums contests: Hero Artisan, Hero Craftsman, Expert Dungeon Master, and Master Dungeon Master, which I am often a participant in, but rarely a winner of anything. I’ll be talking about my entries as well as the winning ones from the recent contests. I am also currently doing a guest spot on Stargazer’s World, my current weekly series called the “Gamer in Japan” details the time I spent in Tokyo and how it affected my pen-and-paper RPG adventures. Following that I will be doing a series on “World Building the Japanese Way;” this column will discuss Japanese themes and how they can be used effectively to create a splendid world of fantasy regardless of setting or time period.

Finally, I will be posting chapters from the nearly completed novel I’ve been working on inspired in part by a D20 Modern game I’ve been running for a while, set around the Japanese underground and crime world of the Yakuza. I will also be posting character fiction and back stories for several of the characters in my gaming group as well as my past and present characters.

I hope that everyone can enjoy these articles. I am glad to be able to share my thoughts on the hobby with people from around the world and I would really love to hear people’s comments and criticism for anything I post up here on the blog.

Looking forward to a wonderful new relationship.

-Shinobicow