On the topic of D&D, Ive been playing Icewind Dale II on my computer, which is fun and addictive. I should be working on my one art job instead but Ill start that this weekend if things go as planned. I made up versions of the characters from my regular D&D group (as noted earlier, the now-defunct one) and thats fun and also educational. I get to play my players characters and I can see tactical angles they havent used (for example, the monk/rogue can use her stunning fist and then get sneak attacks in on the stunned target). Last night, after getting all the characters up to about ninth level, I decided to swap out the wizard. My original wizard specialized in summoning. My tactic in most of these games (Baldurs Gate etc) is to send the rogue scouting ahead invisibly (maxing out her sneak skills) and then summon a line of creatures/undead in between the rest of the party and the enemies. I typically stand behind the line of summoned fodder and unleash with ranged attacks and spells. There are two down sides to this. 1. In Icewind Dale the monsters are very focused once they see one character they will generally attack just that one guy, moving around everyone else even if it means taking a long way around. 2. If a wizard specializes in summoning spells, they cant cast evocation spells, which are old favourites like fireball and magic missile. So that was getting me down and I realized that since my bard and my cleric can both cast lots of summoning spells, I figured it was time to get rid of the wizard and get another one one that specializes in evocation! The bad news is, the new guy starts at 1st level while the others are 9th. So I just have to keep him in the back and see how that works out for now. Wish me luck!
Things I learned about D&D
I learned some things about running a D&D campaign. If you run a game for too long, people get tired and cranky about it. My regular gaming group broke up last night. Weve been having trouble for a couple months. Originally I expected the game to last about a year but its been over two years now. Some of the chapters were received well by some and others were not (by some). Some went way longer than I had planned. Plus some of the players have conflicting styles (some love to hack and slash, others like to roleplay) which is always difficult for a DM to balance. I felt that enthusiasm has been waning for a little while now, and Ive tried to salvage the campaign using different methods but when the most recent player dropped out I initiated a discussion about whether or not we should continue playing. We wont at least not as we have been. As Paul said, it seems weve been playing just to keep the momentum going after having invested so much into the story and characters not because we were actually looking forward to the game itself. So the end result is that weve decided to take a couple weeks hiatus and decide if we want to run some other kind of campaign or even a whole different game altogether for a month or two. And if not, thats okay too. But I have been daydreaming about Dragon Fist/Oriental Adventures in between my Mutants & Masterminds and Spaceship Zero schemes.
Penguins is practically chickens…
I got two volumes of the Loonie Tunes Classic Collection on DVD for Christmas. One from Marlo, and the second from The Woods (exchanged from volume 3 of Home Movies which MarMar ALSO got me for hexmas!). Theyre providing hours and hours of entertainment and I love them. The audio commentaries, most of which are provided by a cartoon historian, are very interesting. One thing that bugs me about them is that they each have four discs. The first is Bugs Bunny, the other may be something like Porky Pig & Daffy, Sylvester & Tweety, all-stars, or whatever. I get the feeling WB knows that if they released one dvd set with just Bugs Bunny and another one with just Wile E Coyote and the roadrunner they wouldnt make as much money. Its okay though, there are a few gems in with the boring Tweety Bird episodes. And they do slip in some Bugs Bunny and other good ones in with the all stars. Super fun!
Kentucky Fried Cruelty.com
A Norfolk, Virginia, man changed his name to Kentucky Fried Cruelty.com.
U.S. financial giant Citigroup was attempting to purchase about 85 percent of the state-owned Guangdong Development Bank of China. Wives in China were suing their husbands’ mistresses to reclaim gifts the mistresses had received from the husbands.
The New Year was postponed by one second to accommodate for the slowing rotation of the earth.
Twenty Sudanese migrants, protesting their treatment in Egypt, were killed by Egyptian police.
A police officer in Fremont, California, was attacked by a pack of chihuahuas and was later treated for ankle bites.
An airplane flying from England to Spain made an unscheduled stop in Porto Santo, a 10-mile-long, three-mile-wide island, to eject a disruptive passenger.
A British woman married an Israeli dolphin after fifteen years of courtship. I am just waiting for everyone to leave, said the woman, so we can have a private moment.
In Utah a 13-year-old girl who became pregnant by her 12-year-old boyfriend was ruled a sex offender. The 12-year-old boy was also ruled a sex offender. It’s a paradox, said the girl’s attorney.
In Florida a 16-year-old named Farris Hassan decided to complete a school project on the Iraq war by going to Iraq; he made it to Baghdad, and was sent back to Florida by United States authorities. A U.S. National Guardsman who served in Iraq was sentenced to 25 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to shooting an Iraqi soldier with whom he had had consensual gay sex.
U.S. school buses were increasingly being plastered with advertisements, and the University of Michigan was boycotting Coca-Cola products because of Coca-Cola’s human rights policies.
A woman in New York City was under investigation for putting her dead husband in a suitcase and leaving him there until neighbors complained of the smell. She wanted to take him to Arizona to be buried, explained a detective.
Hunters in Spain were killing 50,000 hunting greyhounds each year by drowning, poisoning, and hanging them; those greyhounds that humiliate their owners by failing to win races or catch hares are often hanged in such a way that their paws barely touch the ground, and as they struggle against the noose, the dogs’ nails make a clacking noise. This is known as the typewriting death.
The Senate, with Dick Cheney casting the deciding vote, cut $40 billion in funding for foster care, child support, and student loans. It was also reported that the NSA had, with Presidential approval but without warrants, spied on much more Internet and phone traffic than was previously acknowledged.
Authorities in Vienna, Austria, determined that people dressed as devils can legally smack the rear ends of strangers on Christmas.
In South Africa a mugger running from security guards fled into a tiger enclosure, where he was mauled to death.
Prebiotic organic molecules–which are found in DNA–were discovered in constellation Ophiuchus, 375 light-years from earth. New rings were found around Uranus.
Scientists in Mauritius discovered the bones of 20 dodos.
The Pope was worried that “intellectual and technical achievements” were leading to “spiritual barrenness and emptiness of heart.”