Deception, Insanity, and the Inner Workings of a Lovelorn Gamer

Man let me tell you guys, sometimes the hardest thing about the blogging is the title of each post.  I know I am not writing pure blog gold, but I do take a certain amount of pride in them-so I hope you enjoy them and if you don't well don't comment and tell me or I will neglect my blog for another 9 months.  Well now that I have that off my chest, let's delve into the meaty part that you all are just uncontrollably anxious to read....

Last Sunday was the second session of my Star Wars Saga game and let me tell you dear readers that I was not disappointed at all.  So pretty much (from what I am assuming I mentioned in a previous post) my group's characters had just survived Order 66 and now we are on our way kicking ass.  The best thing is that we are able to use dark side and force powers without any real repercussions due to a new class available that eventually grants us immunity to the dark side.  Now before all the hardcore Star Wars fans get on my ass about that, the basic idea behind it is that you essentially become an "enlightened" being and the force you use has neither a dark nor a light side.  It is simply focusing the midichlorians to achieve the outcome you want.  The idea of there being a "good" and "bad" way of using the force is all based on your character's perception of the force.  So in order to do this we have to make a will save and beat a set DC to not gain a dark side point-basically illustrating the aforementioned idea.  It's pretty awesome....I mean let me just say that now my character can just Dark Rage and Force Lightening all damn day-definite win in battle.  Anyway-all that happened last game, so this game we are off to find another Holocron that might be able to help the Jedi overcome the destruction caused by the Sith and the Empire.  For my character's backstory, I had a Jedi Master who was killed about a year ago and another padawan that she trained with, who after their Master's death, lost contract.  After Order 66 was executed, she reached out to the other padawan to see and make sure he was still alive.  When he reached back, he basically insinuated that he was captured by the Sith and was probably going to die soon.  My character relays this to the party and states she wants to go and find him to which they agree.  Well our plan is after grabbing this Holocron we are off to do that; instead though when we emerge from the Jedi temple, we are "greeted" (I use that term VERY loosely considering it was with force grip around our necks and not hugs and kisses) by 14 Sith apprentice and a Sith Lord.  The party is fighting like hell to get free and of course we don't, but we do manage to not die-always a win in our books.  The last thing thought that my character hears is the voice of her DEAD JEDI MASTER coming from the Sith Lord.  Oh and I forgot to preface this with the fact that she had a very intimate relationship with her Jedi Master (big no-no I know, but guys if you saw his character picture you would have the sex with him also), so she is pretty much freaking the f out by this.  Our DM is awesome and leaves it at a cliff hanger right there, so next session should be lots of fun involving torture, temptation, and a reunion to remember.  I will as always keep my inquiring minds updated on if my character makes a switch to being an awesome Sith instead of a Jedi...

The next part of this is really a follow-up to a post that I had earlier about my new love for podcasts.  I know I mentioned Drunks & Dragons and Cast of Thrones and probably Welcome to NightVale as well, but there is a new one that I have recently been alerted to and have not been disappointed with such far.  It is called Cthulhu and Friends and as you can guess, takes place in the Cthulhu world where nothing is weird and rolling for insanity is as common as seeing dark sea monsters.  The group is fantastic and has a great dynamic together and it doesn't hurt that their DM is a fellow lady.  In addition to those fantastic qualities, they are just starting out and so you get to experience the episodes as they come out and not have to try and catch up from two years worth of episodes.  Oh yeah and they are totally awesome on Twitter as well and I very much look forward to hearing more from them and their group.  If you want (and you DO WANT) to follow them on the Twitters, you can do so here: Cthulhu and Friends Twitter and from there you can follow each member individually.  In addition they have some entertaining followers (I'm looking at you David , well and myself, but I don't like to toot my own horn..) as well-check them out and follow them and you will not be disappointed.  I am making the disclaimer that there are times we get into epic Twitter conversations, so prepare your feed for that!

Now for the last part, which really is the most mundane.  Guys I have to tell what really grinds my gears when it comes to my playing video games.  I typically will embark on playing one every once in a while (and actually admitting this realization is probably the reason), not because I don't enjoy them.  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE video games, especially ones that have a fantastic story or are scary as shit.  My problem is that I get completely engrossed in the game and then have little to no time to finish it in a timely manner.  A perfect example is the Bioshock game; it came out in November and I started playing it on May and just finished it about three weeks ago.  That is entirely TOO long to finish a game and especially one that I loved playing.  Well the same thing is happening with Dishonored.  The permanent roommate and I have had this game since Christmas (Christmas for God's Sakes!!) and have yet to play it.  I started playing and thoroughly enjoy the game-save for the few problems I mentioned last post-and am still on the part I was last week, which is hardly breaking the surface of the game story.  I am hoping that I will have a few more opportunities to play this weekend perhaps or even next week, but we shall see.

Well that is all for this week folks.  I hope you have enjoyed your stay here, felt the safety of the blog, and will journey back from time to time and check in.

Fantasy, Reality, and Alternative Universes

As promised my dear readers, I have much to tell of my new D&D character, the changeling Lich.  I know you all have been desperately searching for information on this and I am happy to bring it to you.  To start things off, this is a new game and a new type of game that I have never really played before.  The world is Eberron-so think like steampunk meets WWII countries.  My character is from Karrnath, which is pretty much like Soviet Russia, but instead of normal soldiers, they only use super zombies/undead to fight.  Yeah I know, it's pretty awesome.  So it fits that my character is a Lich-although turning into one wasn't really her plan at all, it was more forced upon her.  In any case, she ran away to Breland (think England/America) and has joined a group of ragtag group and has since been going around adventuring and fighting the evil that is lurking within Breland.  Mostly it has just been trolls, hill giants, stone giants, and frost giants.  Pretty much all the giants....but in any case it has been fantastic and the party has been great at working together and murderfacing our enemies.  The main thing I have found with my character is that I am wanting to do more than just what I typically do and actually try some plotting and planning.  The process should be seamless (or else I'm totally fucked and my character will probably die) and as not as evil as possible.  Which actually the last part shouldn't be too hard because she is CG and that is the best way to defend doing what you do as long as you have a purpose/cause.  I will see how my plan goes and hopefully I don't die...as has been the trend in my past characters.

Well that has been the fantasy portion and now for the ever boring and dull reality of my actual life.  As per always, nothing super fantastic or absolutely stunning going on and in actuality if something were, I would probably shit my pants or die.  So here's to hoping things keep calm... I just started playing Dishonored a few days ago and really enjoy it.  It is one of those games that I find visually and thematically awesome, but the controls seem a bit overbearing.  Not so much that I can't figure them out, but there is just a lot to do and it seem counter-intuitive to normal controls.  For example, if you are wanting to back out of an action on most games you hit "B", on this it is "X".  There also just seems like a lot to take in with the controls and all the things you can pick up.  You gain powers along the way and when you upgrade/"activate" your powers you assign it to the D-pad and then cycle through them.  The problem is that they give you about 6 of them and clearly you don't have that many parts of the D-pad to use.  The other thing is it seems the game really promotes using your sword out of any of the weapons because finding ammunition is a bitch.  If you can't find the ammunition you need, then you have to buy it-which comes out to 20g a bolt!  That's robbery dude...I don't pay that much in D&D games and I have a shit ton more wealth in that.  For all the negatives of that, the actual game is pretty good.  You can stealth and then just murder the shit out of bitches by jumping down on them or coming up behind them.  You can always choke out people and then drag their bodies away to hide them.  Really if you have any of these desires IRL, you should play this and just get it all out through this.  That way you don't go to jail and shit.

This last bit is a tad random, but really my whole blog is random and as is my mind, so if I didn't include it, I wouldn't be true to myself and my craft. In addition to the FANTASTIC podcasts I have written about previously, I decided to take a leap and start listening to "Welcome to Night Vale" and have not been disappointed at all.  In fact I have been listening to it for the third time through and am enjoying it even more than the first time listening.  I feel this is really the first fandom that I have actually gotten in on.  I mean I kinda count BSG, but that is something I found after it was over-so I feel as though I sort of missed that one by a short bit.  Don't get me wrong though, I LOVE BSG a lot and probably more than most things, but this is almost as good.  The characters, the world, everything about it is fantastic.  It also brings up several good thoughts on the world, yourself, and all that other "feels" stuff.  It does have me thinking about doppelgangers though and wondering if the opposite to ourselves is really out there, somewhere.  Not necessarily someone that looks exactly like you but is opposite to you in every way, but just your opposing equal, the ying to your yang, the peanut butter to your jelly?  I would like to think it is and I hope that they are having all the fun I am not....