Tag Archives: games

I’m more interesting than a house fire (D&D musings 002)

The PolyBlog
February 16 2024

Another night of D&D this week, this time with my friend Stephan playing as Mika, a fae-loving cleric (I think). We met in the Green Griffin Inn (franchise pending), and decided to travel together so he could learn skills to help his home area, and I could learn tales to recite as a bard. We set off on our quest towards a mine that was marked on a map that I got last week from the dead goblins.

Along the way, we found a pit with a dead mule that was an obvious trap that had been sprung. Mika and I, Torinn, the silver dragonborn Bard, avoided any issues with the trap but upon investigation, found human tracks mixed with prints of goblins and wolves heading off into the woods. Now, here was a dilemma. We are low-level characters with little power and easily killed. Our compatriots (2 other players) were absent on this night, so we could either risk all to save a human or go to the village and try to bring people back to help. We opted to save the human, which ended up as a small battle with a wolf. A larger wolf had run off, with the goblins gone before that, so we saved a villager. I healed him and we got to the village next to the mine relatively easily after that…we named the mine/village area Stonehaven.

Upon arrival, we discovered a house was on fire from a goblin attack, so we helped put it out and then I regaled the townsfolk with an impromptu tale of our mighty battle near mule pit. I might have embellished a little, but nevertheless, all the villagers were more interested in us two strangers than they were in the house fire we helped to extinguish. Nice, more interesting than a house fire. It should be on the Yelp reviews of my performance.

We spent the night at the human’s home, entertained the family, Mika helped improve their marriage, everyone loved us. We got some better weapons and lots of information about the mine, some nearby ruins, a village elder, etc. And some rations. We went off to explore the ruins while everyone else went to the mine to dig. The ruins turned out to be magical, with evidence that dwarves and goblins used to live there together, which is odd for mortal enemies. We found an evil altar in a basement, found some magic was active, collected some artefacts, and tried to leave. The two goblins and the wolf were not fond of us being in their basement altar and attacked when we left. A short battle later, and the wolf was dead, with the two goblins trussed up and ready for transport. We ended the night by deciding to haul the goblins to the fae and let them decide what to do with them.

Surprising gameplay elements

I thought most of the story would be created/run by the DM, and most things would unfold as turns. Not so much. For example, as we approached the pit with the mule, we knew it had been a trap but weren’t sure if it was an ambush, too. Mika led the way with us using our stealth to sneak through the adjoining underbrush to get to the pit without being detected. I would never even have thought of it. I just assumed we’d walk over and be presented with several options, some rolls, and then the story would continue.

Even when we started the night, at the Green Griffin Inn (franchise pending still), we did a small role-play where Mika and Torinn met each other and agreed to travel together. It’s all backstory of course, but I wasn’t really expecting that aspect as much. Then later, when we were at the house fire, Mika had some spells to help put out the fire. I had nothing that would help, but the DM asked me what I was doing…umm, I don’t know. What am I supposed to be doing? Oh, I can pretend I’m part of the bucket and sand brigade. Okaaaay. And when it was over, I performed for the crowd with our tale (not really, just said I did…I didn’t act it out or anything). But we were improvising our story more than I expected.

And then later, when we were at the villager’s house, Mika and Torinn were talking about other weapons and Mika decided that Torinn should have a short bow and 40 arrows. So out of nowhere, he just asked Deganar if he knew someone who could make them for us. Apparently, he knows a Fletcher, and thus he arranged it for us for free. Of course, we had saved his live, a friend’s house, and his marriage, while also entertaining his kids AND deciding to buy him a new mule. (Don’t ask; I only helped pay for it, I thought it was a bit over the top, but it sure convinced him to help us for life. I hope he doesn’t get unalived helping us, seems like a good bloke). We had another dilemma after the night’s last battle, which was the goblins were asleep and I wanted to kill them. But Mika doesn’t like to kill sentient beings unless he has to when they’re attacking us. Wuss. 🙂 I wanted to notch an arrow between their eyes. I didn’t even get to use my Thunderwave for the night.

But I did use my new blue dice that are easy to read with my tired eyes. I just need to find a good figurine to be my silver dragon bard. 🙂 With a horn and a lute, and a lyre and a flute!

Sorry, can’t stop to chat right now, we’re off to give the tied up goblins to the fae. Cheerio!

Death to goblins! (D&D musings 001)

The PolyBlog
February 10 2024

I know, I know. You know that I’m nerdy, socially awkward, into fantasy, a bad dresser, and your immediate thought was, “How is it possible that Paul has never played D&D before?”.

Well, never fear! Your expectations have been met. A friend and I were talking at work about video games, fantasy stuff, MtG, and all things related, and I mentioned that I’ve never played D&D but was open to it. A few months later, he’s starting a quest, needs more cannon fodder, err, players, we canvassed some people, and lo and behold, we have a crew!

I had five people in mind to ask if they were interested. One was out of the D&D world these days, mostly into regular board games, but thanked me for the invite. Another apparently has a real life, who knew? Well, I did, but I asked anyway. Another declined because, well, he’s in TWO other games that have been running for more than 5 years. He’s covered.

And two more said yes. So we’ve got a core group of 4 plus our DM, and two others who are likely but busy at the moment. We all had to start our quest with character design.

What’s good for a newb?

We’re playing version 5 / 5th edition D&D; I didn’t even know there WERE editions. So, yeah, total newb. They asked what clan / class / character I wanted to be, and I had no idea. So I googled things like “Good characters for newbie”. Inherently, I don’t want to be necessarily “leading” a quest, I’m more like hero support. Which matched well with a bard aka the storyteller. Toss a coin to the witcher, and all that. It kind of resonated with me so entertainer / bard / dragonborn / silver etc. came together relatively easily.

I have a rapier, dagger, and four musical instruments to focus my bardic powers — a horn and a lute, and a lyre and a flute! The lute was automatic, the rest I had some choice, but no real guidance as to which would be better or worse. I got to choose some spells (Thunderwave!), but the book had strong guidance as to which were good combos for first-timers.

Devin (as DM) and Owen aka Timm the Cleric helped me hone my combos, and distribute my points across the six attributes. Vicious mockery sounds like a great weapon to wield constantly. And we calculated a bunch of #s that affect things, but I just went with the numbers they gave me and left the formula to some future consideration if needed.

Putting it to the test

The DM laid out a quick landscape with a bridge, and Timm (the Cleric) and Torinn (the silver dragon Bard) got to fight them. Timm attacked — and missed. I attacked and also missed. The goblins attacked Timm and did a bit of damage. Then they attacked me — and rolled a natural 20. Timm and the DM went, “Oh. Well. We don’t have to count that. This is just practice.” Apparently, a natural 20 against me is not good. They did something else, and I took an 8-point hit when I only had 9. Umm, that seemed bad.

Timm healed me on the next round, attacked and missed again. I gave him a Bardic Inspiration (extra die role for the next time) and did Thunderwave (magic spell) that pushed them back 10 feet and did massive damage but not enough to kill them, apparently. Another round, I did Thunderwave again, and they were dead.

Timm examined the bodies and learned some stuff about maps and types of poor armour / who made it, etc., and got some basic loot. I don’t really understand what any of that meant and whether it would be relevant in the future, but I got a basic feel for the game.

I don’t really understand how time works in the game. 10 rounds equals a minute, and you play for X amount of minutes before rest, etc. It felt like Hagrid’s explanation of currency to Harry Potter that there are 29 Knuts in a Sickle and 17 Sickles in a Galleon, i.e., 493 Knuts in a Galleon. Simple as pie, right?

Anyway, I’m more along for the ride; everyone else has played before, and we can “table talk” / “strategize” out loud, so it’s all good.

What if I die?

When I dropped to one point away from death, my game mortality suddenly seemed super-important. I wanted to know, what happens if I die? Is it just that I’m out? I don’t need to come back next week? Apparently, some games do work that way, particularly in older versions, but this team’s rules basically would have me “respawn” as a new character. Psst…it might be Torinn’s cousin Tarinn with all the same characteristics. Or I could do it randomly by rolling. Worth a consideration at some point, but in the short-term, dying isn’t fatal. Get it? Hehehe

So I killed my first two goblins, cast two spells, gave Bardic Inspiration to my quest team, and swung my rapier and missed. Or was it my dagger and I threw it? Something sharp and pointy that did nothing. I like Magic better, Magic can’t miss.

What’s next?

Three things happen next. First and foremost, we launch the quest together. Seems obvious. Secondly, I decide if I want to get my own dice (I’m leaning towards yes, just so it’s easy to read with my tired eyes). And third, I COULD get myself a silver dragon bard to be my physical character. Yes, I’m geeking out. Hey, I already bought decent large font playing card decks this week…does that have anything to do with D&D? Absolutely not, I just wanted some nice cards to practice some tricks with, but it is equally pretty geeky. A silver dragon ain’t too far off that scale.

Next week? The adventure begins.

Today I choose to play with Kahoot (TIC00067f)

The PolyBlog
October 2 2020

For those reading the post yesterday about my love of trivia, you already know that I am helping out with a trivia game for our Charitable Campaign at work. The exact FORMAT of that trivia game is still to be determined.

I have a few options, and a number of variables that complicate the game. First and foremost, it has to be fully bilingual. We’re a bilingual workforce, anglophone and francophone players may both want to play, and I need to have a game (*) available they both (*) can play. I put asterisks in that sentence because one of the variables is that I could simply run a game in English for anglophones and a separate game in French for francophones.

Second, since we can’t do the game in-person, I need an online option. That basically divides itself into three options:

  • By email like I used to do — people would get the questions by email, they could respond, and I would score them…heck I think I even still have the scoring spreadsheet that helped me format things!;
  • On a website — I can run it like an online quiz, people click on the link, go through the questions, it totals up their answers, and sends me the results;
  • Live — I can use something like Kahoot to run the game live, people get the questions while looking at a screen, tap to choose their answer, and voila, scores are counted immediately.

The first two are easy, free and totally adjustable for time. Anyone can play as long as they have a computer link AND they can do it anytime of the day. I can also make it completely bilingual, no problem.

The last one is the preferred option as I can have people chatting while we do it, all good. Much more social, great. There’s a small cost involved, sure, but not exorbitant.

The bigger challenge is the degree of bilingualism. The apps are almost all American and while I can make all the questions bilingual, the transition screens and menus are NOT. So for example, in between Q1 and Q2, when it is giving the scores, it says “Poly takes the lead!” or “Jane253 has answered 1 in a row!”. At the end, when giving results, it’s automated, and it will say “Poly got 3/10 right in 90s Music”. It’s not egregious, those prompts being all in English, but it’s not ideal either.

Free and fully bilingual but not as social vs. small cost and social but not fully bilingual. Decisions, decisions. I’ll talk to some French executives at work and see what they advise, see if it is “good enough”. I can do a separate “social” one for just francophones, preferably with a different host than ME hurting their ears, but I can’t edit the app.

I also wish it wasn’t a separate computer, but there is no way to avoid it, not really. You still need a tool to do the trivia scoring and entry and one that is hosting the video. They’re not integrated, so it is either two computers or at least two apps running at the same time.

I also started going down the rabbit hole of choosing a trivia plugin for my site before I managed to stop myself. The to-do list for my site is already long enough. I do want it SOMETIME, just not sure NOW is the right time to do that. Sure would be sweet though, given the number of people in lockdown looking for some activities to do online occasionally.

Today I choose to play with Kahoot.

What choices are you making today?

Understanding Video Games – Week 11 – Serious Games

The PolyBlog
June 1 2018

For the last week, they note that there are lots of types of games that are supposedly “serious” i.e. aimed at serious purposes. In the history, the longest running example are wargames, but there are also “tycoon” games that are about business simulations. However, the largest sub-genre are education games, such as the Oregon Trail or Carmen Sandiego. Over time, the educational starter series have moved into mobile apps, virtual environment, and training simulations.

Stepping back from the genre, I can see how they are dividing things. For example, there are:

– games used in instruction, where the game is an added medium (for processes or procedures); or,

– other games are used as a construction tool, and thus the game empowers the learning style of the individual student (explore and discover).

Games often have to walk a fine line between learning and fun/engagement, but while constructionist tools are often more “fun”, they are also ripe to be subverted by emergent play.

In order to keep players playing, games frequently use:

  • Decay (daily obligations and no way to pause);
  • Sweetening/achievements (the achievements are shared publicly to encourage competition);
  • Object rarity (often with luck and play time); and,
  • Social obligation/activation (gift-giving and reciprocity).

The last video is probably the launching point for future learning that interested me the most from the start — gamification. Namely, the idea of using ideas such as game mechanics in non-game situations. The course concludes with Qs about how to gamify the course — such as course badges, increase use of avatar creator, etc. but I had hoped for a bit more.

And with that, the MOOC finished.

Understanding Video Games – Week 10 – Race

The PolyBlog
May 31 2018

The first video for the week notes that “colour” is frequently used as a way of showing race, even when it is two armies — one red, one blue. As you go through the next four videos, it is expanded to show how race is used to indicate “the other” — an opponent, for example. Some examples for the week include:

  • Choices may often reflect external racism i.e. “black dwarves” are more evil than light dwarves, often as proxies for more complex situations;
  • Race serves as the basis for conflict, and conflict can serve as the basis for a narrative arc;
  • What is present is as important as what is absent;
  • Default characteristics can serve as “indicator” of what a “normal” character should be;
  • Character race representations look at cultures and roles within games, including options around protagonist or antagonist roles;
  • Fighting games often include game mechanics framed through a racial lens to control player attributes (strength, intelligence, etc.);

It was an interesting summary, and I can see in many cases the detailed internal mechanics and choices that are presented as a basis for racial conversation. However, the initial premise — red vs. blue, or even white vs. black in chess — is a bit too stretched.