It’s been a while since last I wrote in my blog for a number of reasons: I haven’t had all that much inspiration to write in my blog for one; for another, I’ve been working on a role-playing game system which my friends seem to enjoy; I’ve been playing the new World of Warcraft expansion, Mists of Pandaria, and of course, I’ve been off-planet for some time, fighting Zur and his mighty Kodan Armada while a Beta Unit masqueraded as me so no one would suspect my involvement.
My inspirational deficit may be linked to the fact that up until recently, I had been deluged with political ads, sucking my life and spirit from my body. As such, what remains of my soulless husk shambles hither and yon, as though seeking cerebral sustenance. I spend my days mindlessly working and my nights foraging through the realm of dreams for a reason to poke and prod my keyboard as thoughts meander from my mind onto the screen.
As far as the gaming system I’ve been working on, it’s not entirely completed, though I have a pretty solid base. It works similarly to True20 or Mutants and Masterminds, though with a twist: Instead of comparing an attack roll’s success to a chart, damage is a combination of the roll of a d20 with appropriate modifiers plus a fixed damage value based on the weapon used. Add them together and bippity boppity boo, you’ve got your total damage. Subtract armor and the resulting amount of damage is subtracted from your Health…
Sounds pretty simple, though I had originally envisioned a system which would fit on a 3×5 index card in its entirety and still allow for playable options. Now it’s 65 pages long, though I should point out that this is with the list of playable races and their characteristics.
I feel the game has come out really well, though I still need to work on character classes. There are a lot of them in a branching tree structure, allowing a player to direct his character down one of a number of paths, usually based on a defensive/balanced/offensive template. Things have been going slowly of late, but I’ve got a vacation coming up, and I hope to work on it some more…
The World of Warcraft expansion, Mists of Pandaria is pretty neat, despite the fact that there are pandas in it. Not that I don’t like pandas… I just think Blizzard could have concentrated more on one of the already existing and established races such as Murlocs or the ursine furbolgs.
The biggest problems I have with the game at this point are minor gripes based on game play rather than significant concerns. They’ve changed the game significantly with every expansion, and as such, every time a new one comes out, there will be a large number of people who complain endlessly about the changes that have been made, complaning that they’ve made the game “unplayable.”
Unplayable to the complainers, I suppose, but I still have fun with it. I’ve made up a couple of new characters since the expansion came out, including a Pandaren, and I have to say, that aside from the toony appearance, unrealistic physics and lack of any true sense of immersion, the game is still one of my favorites.
Of course, I’m not as much a connosuer of games as my friend Dave. He’s much more of a gamer, and thus is a better judge of what games are “good” or “bad” or just “a fucking waste of time.”
So anyway, that’s what’s new here.
Oh yeah, I just cleaned my bathroom.