But there is one niggle with the Starter Edition it came shipped with. It’s annoying, but not enough of an annoyance to merit the bloat of an upgrade – the perfect definition of “niggle”.

It’s that damned stupid decision of Microsoft to disable being able to change your own desktop wallpaper. Why, in the name of all that’s holy, would pissing people off by randomly limiting stuff like this ever work as a means to entice folks to upgrade? At best, you’ve annoyed a loyal customer. At worse, folks will use that as a (flimsy) excuse to hit the torrent sites for a more feature-packed version of Windows 7. It’s a lose-lose situation for Microsoft all of their own making.

But there is another way.

Actually, there are several, but most require installing Stardock My Colors, a complete (and memory resident) theme switcher for Windows 7. That’s just a bit too much of a sledgehammer for my liking; all I want to do is change the wallpaper!

Enter Starter Background Changer. It’s a mere 733k download which (when installed) adds a Personalize option to your menu when you right-click on the Desktop and a To Choose like Desktop (yeah, bad translation I know – this app has a few but I’ll forgive them that, in spades) option when you right-click an image. Select multiple images at once and you can set your wallpaper to cycle through them at fixed intervals too.

In short, it acts just as nature intended – pick an image and you can set it as your wallpaper. Done.

Niggle solved!

Like

Unlike

Stephanie 4, default settings. Bodysuit + 3Dream Boy Hair

Steph (she hates being called that but I’m going to do it anyway) is a whole new version of the previous Stephanie 3 figure. I guess the clue is in the name. The major change is that (as with Aiko 4 and Girl 4) she isn’t really a whole new mesh but is instead based on the main Victoria 4.2 model – Unimesh, as they call it. What this means is that Stephanie 4 is a custom morph (actually, many morphs!) that can be applied, mixed and matched with any of the other morph sets including Morphs++, Aiko 4, Elite, Girl, She-Freak, etc to create just the figure you want.

Don’t be silly Steph. RUN AWAY FROM THE GIANT LADY!
(Victoria 4.2, wearing the Stephanie texture rather well)

In a way, Stephanie is the missing link that the Victoria series has needed – and I mean that in the best possible way. All of the V4 morphs make it easy to dial-up a fantasy barbarian, buxom wench, anime character or a multitude of attractive supermodel types. Want big’n'beefy? That’s there too. But small – small was tricky, until now. Stephanie 4 is designed with Petite in mind.

Not, mind you, that Steph is small, really. According to the height charts, Vixtoria 4 is 5 feet 10 inches in height. Stephanie 4 scales that down to 5 feet 3.6 inches with is as near as dammit the average height of an adult female in the United States. Stephanie is normal.

“Ah,” you say, “Can’t I just scale down Victoria 4 to get the right height?” Not easily, no. Human body proportions alter according to height, so just scaling everything down will look odd. You could go in and scale each limb individually, but why bother? Stephanie 4 does it all for you. As well as the default Petite morph there’s also Proportion scale dials on the Body for Hour Glass, Lanky, Short, Stout and Super Tall and as with any DAZ3d figure you can mix and match between them to get just the figure type you want. If you’re looking for that perfect Short Lanky Super Tall woman with an Hour Glass figure, Stephanie is the one for you!

Steph4 with the Lily Body & Head and Lanky set to 1.0. UberVolume Dust on a Spotlight. Easy.

But that’s not all. See that Elite label? Stephanie 4 isn’t just a Base figure with a handful of morph dials – she comes with a metric ton of ‘em, all designed to fine-tune the figure’s bumps and curves. Unlike the broad brush-sweep of the Morphs++ dials (ok, not that broad – there’s some good fine-tune dials in there too), these Elite-class morphs are a set of sculptor’s tools which you can call upon as required. Nice!

And that’s still not all you get. The Base package (free, remember) includes 18 great poses (all of the renders in this post use just a handful of them) and a pretty good skin texture too. It’s not going to win a Skin Texture of the Year award, but it’s a darned sight better than Vicky Base’s default purple rash :D Oh, and as you get the Elite Surface Shader (regular price $18.95 – here you get it free!) thrown into the mix as well, it is possible to turn it into something special too should you so desire.

Stephanie 4 texture without the Elite Surface Shader:

Same texture with the Elite Surface Shader (HDRPark with Velvet and Subsurface Scattering enabled):

Yes, the Elite Surface Shader is that good. If you haven’t already got it (from one of the other Elite packs, for example) then it’s well worth downloading Stephanie 4 for that reason alone. It works with the guys (Michael 4, FREAK 4, Hiro 4, etc) too! (Note to self: Write tutorial how to use the Elite Surface Shader)

It bears repeating – as Steaphnie 4 is based on the Victoria 4.2 mesh, she will accept and any all of Vicky’s textures, morphs, poses, expressions, hair and clothes (thanks to the magic of DAZ Studio’s Morph Follower) though you might need to do a little tweaking here and there. So far, I’ve had no problems at all.

Along with the 6 Proportion Morphs and multitude of fine-tune morphs, Stephanie also includes 9 complete Head and Body morph characters too with shapes covering a range of physical weights and build types. Again, you can mix’n'match between those, the Proportion morphs and any other Morph injections you want.

Steph’s Grace Morph, Short Proportion, 30% Girl 4 & a little Morphs++ dial spinning = Female Dwarf Fighter! Love how this turned out. Click to enlarge.

Alongside the free Base, DAZ3d have also released a Starter Pack (currently $34.97) and Pro Bundle ($69.97, includes the Starter Pack too) so as well as being able to steal Victoria’s stuff she also has an excellent range of clothes, characters, hair and poses all of her very own. And yes, Victoria can use all that too. High points for me are the Steam Punk Aviator clothes (oh yes!) and the cool as heck Dark Wolf Hair. Expect renders of those, real soon.

So, Stephanie is wonderful, and well worth the price (free!), but where would you use her? The smaller figure isn’t really suited to superhero renders (though I’m already envisioning a female Atom-style character just to prove myself wrong) but she is ideal for modern (or sci-fi) renders where Victoria’s height and proportions are too striking to be realistic. I’d also say she has a firm place for Fantasy renders too – Stephanie would make anything from a Halfling to a Dwarf or Elf with a touch of the dials.

This wulf approves.

The upgrade from 2.9.2 to 3.0 went disappointingly smoothly. There were no high-tension plugin foobars, no hairy chested database issues to battle, and not even an errant theme problem to fight with. Heck, even my spiffy Ajax-powered theme worked (and it’ll be back tomorrow, promise!). Your mileage, of course, may vary.

Here’s a quick overview of what’s new ‘n’ trendy in three point oh.

If you want to know more, here is where you need to be.

I like it. Do you?

I can see this being the first Superhero game many role-players of other genres (I’m looking at you, diehard D&D’ers) play, and it’s solid enough to remain as system of choice. Folks, you’ve not lived until you have said “I pick up the train and hit him with it” with a straight face. You need this.

2. The players roll all the dice
This is one element of the game I, as GM, 100% approve – the players roll all the dice. This leaves me free to concentrate on the story while the heroes’ fates are (literally) in the hands of their owners.

It’s a simple enough concept – the dice always remain at the players’ side of the table. If they attack a villain, they roll to hit. If the villain attacks the heroes, the players roll to defend. That might take a little getting used to if you’re accustomed to everyone using the same rules, but in play it really does speed things up around the table. I like.

The system has a choice of two (mathematically equal) dice mechanics. Either use 2 differently coloured d6s, one for positive, one negative. Roll them both and take one away from the other. Alternatively (and the option we picked), just roll 2d6-7. Either way you end up with a number from -5 to +5 along a bell curve. Apply that to relevant stat, power or whatever to get a result. If it’s equal or higher than the target value, the difference is how much you succeed by (0-2 is a Moderate success, etc). As dice mechanics go, it’s simple, intuitive, and darned fast in play.

3. Random Generation
I know I keep banging on about it, but Random Character Generation rocks. Whilst ICONS does have an optional points-based system as a kind of grumbling afterthought, it’s the random system which truly shines. It brings back hot summer childhood memories of rolling characters up (first in Golden Heroes, later in Marvel RPG) and trying to work out how the heck a character with Burrowing, Shrinking and Telepathy could hang together (introducing Mind Worm, the brain eating superhero!).

Like all the best random character generation engines, ICONS isn’t truly 100% random. Many powers have an optional Bonus Power which takes up one of the hero’s available powers slots but helps give a degree of consistency to the hero. For example, a hero who rolls Stretching could take Invulnerability as well to represent the elasticity of their form. My one complaint is that “Bonus Power” is a misnomer – it’s not a bonus at all as it uses up one of the rolled Power slots. Something like “Optional Power” or “Power Choice” would have been a better term, imho.

4. Determination points
These are ICONS’ answer to Hero or Action Points. They are gained when a role-playing Aspect of your character (your catchphrase, motivation, etc) comes into play, the GM triggers one of your Challenges (your arch enemy, love interest, weakness, etc), for making the GM laugh out loud, etc. In M&M, the game plays at it’s best when the Hero Points fly thick and fast across the table and ICONS is just the same.

As with Mutants & Masterminds, these points can be used in many ways – improving the degree of success on an important roll (Do you stop the train? Be Determined and you do!), pulling off Stunts, shaking off damage and even influencing the story by Retconning in details. For example, a hero could spend a Determination point for there to “just happen” to be a passing sand truck to catch his fall as he plummets to certain death.

Somewhat cunningly, Determination is also a balancing factor in the Character Generation. Those heroes unlucky enough to roll few Powers begin each session with more starting Determination points – meaning what they lack in cool flashy abilities they gain in the ability to really shake things up in-game. Batman, anyone?

5. Team Creation
Generation doesn’t stop when the characters are rolled. It’s Team time! Every superhero team needs a name, home-base and unique set of Challenges (a team-wide group of enemies, in-fighting, government meddling, etc). Spandex uniforms are optional. Each member of the team contributes one point of Determination into a pool, and the GM adds another just because being in a team is a Good Thing. If one of the heroes has the Leadership speciality that also adds more points to the pool. For example, a team such as the Fantastic Four could have a Determination Pool of 8 (assuming Reed Richards has Leadership 3).

These points can be used by any member of the team provided the other players approve of their use. One interesting option is for the group to spend them to gain access to kewl Team Stuff such as the team’s Hydrojet, secret Satellite HQ and the like.

6. Named Levels
These are optional but what ex-Marvel RPG gamer can’t weep for joy at being able to write Strength (Amazing) on your character sheet once more? Each rank from 1 to 10 has three optional names (for example Rank 7 is “Fantastic, Incredible, Wonderful”) which can be used to describe the attribute. The attributes fall into three bands: 1-2 is below human average, 3-6 in human attainable and 7-10 is superhuman. It’s not incredibly granular but perfect for the lighter gaming experience. ICONS isn’t about deciding whether Superman or Captain Marvel is strongest – we have M&M and the upcoming DC Universe RPG for that – but about getting down and playing the game. Named levels help get a rough idea of where existing superheroes sit on the scale though. Rank 8 is Amazing for a reason – Spiderman, I’m looking at you.

This has absolutely no mechanical benefit whatsoever. And I love it.

7. One book gaming
Yet again, it’s a single book (ok, PDF. For now.) containing all you need to play. There’s no DMG or Monster Manual to add on the expense; it’s all right here. While the PDF is 129 pages long it feels much shorter, and I mean that in the best possible way. This is a quick, easy rule system to read through in one sitting. It even manages to include a generous selection of ready-made Villains (my favourite is the Octofather) complete with a selection of adventure ideas for each. Add in stats for Thugs, Ninjas, Zombies, Innocent Bystanders, Animals, Dinosaurs and much more, and you’ve got hundreds (if not thousands) of hours-worth of gaming goodness, right there. Not bad at all, I’d say.

8. Random Adventure Creator
Oh I love these, and there’s one ready and waiting on page 90 of ICONS. Roll 1d6 four times to get a verb-noun pair, pick a Villain and you’re ready to play. For example, a roll of 1, 6, 4, 1 gives us “Destroy Artefact”. I’d pick Baron Kriminel for this one. He has discovered that the original Baron isn’t dead but has his soul stored in a stone jar concealed somewhere in Hope City. Can the heroes find it before he smashes it, releasing his terrible twisted mentor on the world?

Game on!

9. It’s written by Steve Kenson
Him wot wrote the bloody brilliant Mutants & Masterminds. Yes, him. This is Steve’s lighter, less crunchy superhero option (Lower carbs! Great taste!) – perfect for those folks who feel that M&M is too rules heavy for them, or just want to dip their toe into the superhero gaming genre for the first time.

Need I say more?

Oh yes, I almost forgot….

10. The price
$29.99 is, I feel, a little steep for a PDF product, even one as great as this. For thirty bucks I want to know a tree has suffered, dammit! Happily though, right now ICONS is half-price – just $14.95 gets you all this gamery goodness. Grab it before it’s too late!

This wulf approves. 9/10.

Insert obligatory warning about spoilers here.

But first, let’s start at the beginning.

The first episode of any new Doctor is bound to be tricky. There’s a new face to introduce, a new style and this time around, a new companion and new-look TARDIS too. The Eleventh Hour managed this brilliantly, and even managed to squeeze in a small but perfectly formed plotline as well. The Doctor is presented as eccentric, confident and (after David Tennant’s glorious introspective moping in the later episodes) very upbeat. Matt Smith’s Doctor reminds me oh-so-much of Patrick Troughton that I’m expecting him to pull out a penny-whistle any minute. I was sold on the very first episode.

Then there’s Amy Pond. Oh, Amy Pond. She’s sparky, sexy, clever, outspoken and every bit the equal to the Doctor when it comes to solving problems. We saw that especially in The Beast Below where Amy out-Doctor’s the Doctor, in style. Both in that episode and in Victory of the Daleks we see the contrast between Amy & The Doctor’s personalities. In both, The Doctor focused in the pain of life (wanting to end the Star Whale’s suffering, and to convince Bracewell of his humanity) whereas Amy saw the love in life, and used that. There’s a whole ying-yang thing going on between them, and this Wulf approves.

If  Matt Smith’s Doctor is akin to Patrick Troughton’s portrayal then Karen Gillan’s Amy Pond is right up their with Lalla Ward’s Romana. This is a Companion who looks the Doctor straight in the eye, and beyond. They’re an utterly winning combination together. Best companion so far? Quite possibly.

I just wonder what will happen when (and if) she meets Captain Jack. Pregnancy, probably.

The first episode was “all-action and introduce the characters”. The second was “we can do nice and gentle too” with a mystery to solve. The Beast Below is good solid filler Doctor Who story which further developed the relationship between The Doctor and Amy, but did not a lot more. I like these more low key episodes as they’re always a prelude to something big.

And big, it was! Victory of the Daleks (see? I got there eventually!) is a cracking boys-own yarn about WWII, Churchill, Spitfires in Space (frickin’ Spitfires in Space, people! This is Dan Dare territory!), the Blackout and the bombing of London. Oh, and Daleks. Mustn’t forget those.

Anyone – anyone – who didn’t like this episode needs to watch it with a couple of kids by their side. I saw it for the second time with my boys and they were utterly sold on it, from start to finish. I swear there was no eye movement at all while they watch the screen. They cheered and whooped for joy when the Spitfires appeared. They ooh’d at the shiny new Daleks (I’ll come onto those in a mo’) and they laughed like crazy at the Doctor threatening to blow up the Daleks with a Jammy Dodger.

For them (and for me) this is Doctor Who at its finest.

Well ok, I have one criticism. It was too short. This story would have been much, much, better as a two-parter. It needed more room to breath than a mere hour allows. We needed more time to empathize with Professor Bracewell, more airtime showing The Doctor and Ian McNeice’s fantastic Churchill. I’d have liked a scene with Amy Pond and the gal who lost her beau over the Channel. End part one on a climax (say, just as the Daleks blackout all of London) with the ominous words of Churchill “It’s just a matter of time…..” and we’re all set for part two.

Talking of time, it’s ironic that for a show about time-travel, it rarely handles the passage of time very well at all. This isn’t just a fault of Victory of the Daleks, but is common to almost every episode in the latest incarnation of the show. The impression is that everything that happens in the hour we’re watching the show really does happen in just an hour, or thereabouts. That became especially apparent in this episode where Bracewell somehow manages to kit out a whole squadron of Spirfires to make them space-worthy in under ten minutes. How hard would it be to have said “The Nazis will strike again tomorrow night. We have only 24 hours!” and add in a scene of the Doctor and Amy bunked down in a shelter, giving Amy her first true impression of life in the Blitz. But no.

It’s not a major thing – indeed, my boys missed that plot drop entirely – but I would like to feel that the Doctor sticks around for more than just an hour at a time before moving on.

I’ve been watching some of the Doctor Who Classic Series (and so should you), and the more I do the more I think that Doctor Who is infinitely better when it’s split into four or six thirty minute episodes per story. That gives room for the story to really take shape with highs (climactic endings!) and lows (time for proper acting, people!) to help bring the stories to life. It’s easy enough to empathize with The Doctor and his Companions when they’re on screen most of the time, but we scarcely get time to feel anything more about the other characters in the stories.

Food for thought, anyhow.

Oh, and the new/old Purebreed multi-colour Daleks? I love ‘em! In the words of my eldest “Wow. They’re Eeeeeeevil!”. The Daleks are back, and on top! Gone are the Daleks learning to be human and/or using human DNA (much as we loved them). These are retro bright and shiny, and have utterly no soul. More!

Then there’s the final crack in the wall, and the ongoing story arc. I have my theories, and maybe I’ll share ‘em sometime. Let’s just say I don’t think we have quite seen the last of David Tennant.

Overall, I’d give Victory of the Daleks 9/10. Best new Who so far.

Next on Doctor Who: They’re back. Don’t blink!

Looking back, 2009 has been a wanton harlot of a year, promising much role-playing variety but delivering little. Yet at the same time it’s been a terrific year for gaming with sessions covering everything from Scooby Doo to The End of the World itself. My little group has visited planets (and blown the carp out of them), travelled the multiverse and camped atop a Barrow Mound in Northern Cardolan.

What we’ve not done though is seen much variety in our gaming systems. I had hoped to have some Alpha Omega sessions under my belt by now, and harboured a secret desire to mashup Traveller and Call of Cthulhu one more time. I wanted more Dogs in the Vineyard, more Primetime Adventures and more…. well, just more. but it sadly wasn’t meant to be. But hey, that’s what new years are for, right?

With that in mind, here’s the winners:

Honourable Mention: 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars
Last year’s Game of the Year has earned a pride of place at our game table time and again. It’s quick to prep and blindingly hilarious to play. Take a bunch of friends, lots of alcohol and blow shit up. What’s not to love? As the game develops it evolves with the horror of your character’s actions and increasing questioning of humanity’s place in the cosmos taking over.

Last year I said it was the perfect game system and it still is… almost. 3:16′s only weakness is that it doesn’t stand up well to solitaire (one GM/one player) play. This is one game which demands a bunch o’folks around the table!

Bronze: Savage Worlds
AKA The Little Game System Which Could. The intertubes are already chock full of praise for Savage Worlds so you don’t need me to say how good it is – you should already know by now. This is a great system for Doodle Campaigns where you want to turn your campaign idea into playability with the least effort possible. Character Generation is flexible though demands a lighter touch than hardcore D&D gamers might expect. By default a starting Novice character is far weaker than with 4e 1st level counterpart meaning it’s perfect for that gritty low-level urban sprawl fantasy you’ve been aching to play. Or a modern-era campaign. Or swashbuckling in 17th century France. Or anything else, for that matter. Savage Worlds is generic, in the best meaning of the word.

Silver: Mutants & Masterminds
Anything Savage Worlds can do, Mutants & Masterminds can do better. This is my go-to system for anything outside the D&D norm. Underneath the wonderful superhero battle armour there’s a superb generic system pulsing like a beating heart. This is the game from which 4e D&D has stolen all it’s best innovations only to copy them badly. I’m looking at you, Minions and Action Point rules. With the watertight Power Level rules M&M can scale and handle anything from the lowliest TV cop drama up to cosmic-level threats of Unimagined Awe. The default Power Level (10) is prime for superheroin’ goodness with the heroes roughly equal in power to Spider-Man or the Fantastic Four. Drop it to PL6 and our heroes could match your typical 4e D&D characters or be street-level beginning superheroes.

I’ve yet to find anything which M&M cannot do right out of the single Core Book but it’s also one brilliantly supported system with genre books covering all the Ages of comicdom and beyond. This year saw the release of Warriors & Warlocks, a full-on fantasy supplement for M&M which is inspirational reading for anyone who wants to game with armour and sword. Better than D&D? Oh yes.

Gold: Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition
Yet it’s the daddy of them all which gets Gold. Yes, M&M is a technically superior system. Yes, Savage Worlds is more flexible. Yes, 3:16 is more explosive. But nothing captures your hearts and imagination like Dungeons & Dragons. The Fourth Edition rules are rock solid and deliver the goods, in spades. Combat has gained a whole new dimension with the Powers system – it’s tactically challenging, tense and exciting. Outside combat this is the same D&D we know and love with the added awesome of Skill Challenges adding another layer onto the game. Anything you could do in previous editions of D&D you can still do, and the designers have done a fine job of adding more without taking a darned thing away.

Where 4e really shine though is it’s hackability. This is a system which cries out to be toyed with. Monster building and customization is trivially easy once more. That’s a huge relief after the painful voodoo of Third Edition. Monsters are monsters again and adding Classes to monsters no longer involves putting aside a couple of hours in a darkened room with a stiff drink. Want a bigger than normal orc or a weakened Dragon? You can do the math right at the table, during play.

Building a whole new class isn’t for the faint hearted but creating a new Race is simple enough and adding new skills is as simple as… well, just adding them. Where 4e stands out is in Encounter building. Given a pool of XP (enough to create an easy, medium or hard challenge) you can fill it in so many ways with combinations of monsters jumping off the page. With monsters being given roles it’s easy enough to match the critters to your tactical needs. Want the heroes to battle big monsters up close while being harried by arrow-fire from above? Drop a couple of Brutes on the table, and add Artillery. Pick your monsters according to XP and taste, and you’re done. Want a load of monsters under the command of a leader? Use one Controller and a load of Minions. Encounter building was one of the most difficult aspects of Third Edition, and in 4e it’s one of the best and most enjoyable parts of the game – for this Lazy GM, at least.

I could go on about just how great the Monster Manuals are, about the individual Classes, Treasure allocation and more, but I’ll save those for future posts. There is a whole new year of blogging to fill up too, after all.

Till next time, and good gaming!

Like

Unlike

I’m not surprised that the top two pages were my review of the (frankly, brilliant) Javascript 4e Character Generator and the post about how to speed up 4e D&D combat. Between them they accout for over 11,000 pageviews, and I thank you all. They’ve both been googled to heck and back and show there’s a clear interest in the latest (and second-greatest) version of D&D ever made.

Since I wrote the post about how to speed up 4e combat my own opinion has shifted a gear or two – I now think that 4e encounters aren’t slower, just different with one, two or three Encounters being more than enough for a single session. Wrap in lots of sugary role-playing goodness and add salt to taste. Some of the bestest sessions I’ve run just had a single Encounter act as the climax to an intense immersive game.

What’s more surprising is that my silly playtest post about running Scooby Doo in Savage Worlds came in a close third. There’s a reason for that – the picture of Linda bloody Cardellini :D She was one of the most googled terms to hit my blog over 2009. Lesson learned there – if you want hits, namedrop hot women. If you want good hits, don’t.

There’s a slew of other 4e posts in there too with the post about Cardolan being one I’m very happy to see on the list. Injecting Fourth Edition D&D into Middle Earth feels so wrong, but yet it worked so well. I look forward to re-visiting our Cardolan Campaign Setting in the New Year. I’ve got some half-formed ideas about running a political Game of Thrones-style game in 4e that would be well-suited to a nation of distrusting city states. Oh yeah!

What I’m most proud of is that my DAZ Studio tutorial posts get a decent showing in the top ten – and all through the rest of the list, for that matter. I try to balance this blog between role-playing and 3d stuff and it’s heartening to see I’m not just doing it for my own entertainment :D Unless anyone says otherwise expect to see more of the same next year with a heady mix of RPG-related posts, renders and 3d-related tutorials. I’m going to try and alternate between posting render pics and “real” post so the front page doesn’t just become a sea of images. If that does happen, somebody hit me, ok?

So anyhow. Here’s to 2009, and I thank you all. After Christmas is done I’ll be rounding out the year with Greywulf’s Games of the Year 2009. See you there!

Like

Unlike

I’ll be writing a full hands on review of this teeny tiny ‘puter, but in the meantime here’s 10 things to know about Oscar (in no particular order).

1. He’s red. C’mon – given the choice between a red or a black, who wouldn’t pick red?
2. 250Gb hard drive. That’s a quarter terrabyte of storage in something which fits under my arm. My first computer had two 720k 3.5″ floppy drives and no hard disk so numbers like that still boggle my mind. That’s two hundred and fifty thousand megabytes, people! And yes, I will fill it.
3. Intel Atom N280 processor and 1Gb memory. That’s 1.66Ghz in speed so only marginally faster than the icky Celeron 1.5Gz on the old laptop, but  it feels much faster thanks to Hyperthreading. It might also be due to the fact that…….
4. It’s running Windows 7. On a teeny-tiny netbook? Oh yes. And it’s great – quick, efficient, reasonably unobstrusive (for Microsoft) and streets ahead of Vista in terms of…. well, everything really. This is the Starter Edition which means I can’t change the desktop background (thankfully, it’s quite nice), no DVD playback (there’s no DVD drive anyhow) and no multi-monitor support. None of those are deal-breakers for me, and can most likely be fixed with other apps.
5. The screen is bloody gorgeous. No, really. I was going to go for the Samsung N110 but in the netbook line-up this screen shone. It’s bright, sharp, clean and just plain superb. It’s streets ahead of any of the other netbook screens out there. With a resolution of 1024×600 I highly recommend using winsupermaximize to reclaim some screen estate. This is a tiny free app which removes the titlebar from any window when you press WIN-F11. Set the taskbar to auto-hide and that resolution is more than enough, even for…………
6. DAZ Studio. Oh yes. It works. I can render on a netbook. I am happy. Both DAZ Studio 2.3 and 3 work thanks to the (better than I expected) Intel 945 chip. That supports OpenGL 1.4 – not exactly cutting edge but more than up to the task for my needs. Just remember: Hardware Optimization needs to be turned off in the options or that baby will crash. When it comes to rendering, it’s twice as fast as my old lappy. Which is nice.
7. There’s a scroll wheel in my touchpad. Slide my finger up and down the right edge of the touchpad and the window scrolls. I like that.
8. Less pre-installed crud than you’re expect, but still more than you’d want. The netbook comes with Microsoft Works and Photoshop Elements all set up and ready to use, which is great – this is a netbook you really can pick up and be working with right from the start. It took an age to successfully remove the useless piece of in-your-face malware crap that is jokingly called Norton Internet Security though. The netbook also comes “complete” with a horde of poor quality game demos (just install Torchlight instead, ok?) and trial versions of Microsoft Office. Into the bit-bucket they go!
9. Battery life. They claim 6 hours, I believe ‘em, and more. I used it for 4 hours last night sans power-lead and it still reported 43% charge remaining. That’s while I was throwing together a couple of test renders, installing and de-installing and generally hammering the poor baby into submission.  I’ve read reviews of this netbook which say it’s good for 6 hours solid use or up to 9 hours general light service and I see nothing to say they’re lying. That’s basically a full day between charges, folks. Techhead nirvana.
10. The keyboard. Yes, it’s smaller than I’m used to and some of the keys (the TAB key most of all) are too darned small, but after a day of getting used to it I’m touch-typing like a pro again without making too many mistaeks. The keys have decent travel and bounce nicely as you press ‘em. Just like me.

Overall, I think me and Oscar are going to get along just fine.

Laters.

Like

Unlike

Last time I wrote about two of the problems 4e D&D needed to address – the lengthy GM prep-time in 3e D&D, and the reduction in corner-case silly rules lawyering questions. 4e tackled both of those issues brilliantly and gives us a game that’s both fun and fast to design scenarios for, is easy to customize & fine-tune yet manages to be simple to understand and play. It’s this GM’s dream edition of D&D combining modern mechanics with an old school hackability.

The biggest problem that 4e D&D needed to address was this: attracting new players to the game. Third Edition introduced a comparatively massive influx of new players to D&D and role-playing overall. I reckon it’s fair to say that 3e completely revitalized the RPG industry overall, giving both lapsed gamers and newbies alike a new found enthusiasm for the hobby. Whether you play D&D or not, there’s no doubting that without the resurgence from Third Edition the hobby would be much smaller and poorer as a whole.

It’s pretty clear that 4e’s designers set out to woo the MMORPG crowd with it’s artwork and cinematic gameplay style, and that’s not a bad thing. But there’s a lot more to it than that. This is an edition which should – in theory, at least – appeal to anyone who loves Third Edition D&D but wants more options for their characters and also suit old-school gamers who yearn for a simpler, less cluttered system.

Has it worked, and if not what went wrong?

I really don’t know the answer to that one. I know old schoolers and Third Edition gamers alike who hate it – but I also know converts who love it in equal measure. What I don’t see (probably by definition) are the silent majority of players who don’t blog or write scathingly vitriolic forum posts but instead quietly get on with the game and play.

My foggy impression is that 4e D&D is moderately successful but hasn’t whipped the world into a shedstorm of fury. At least, not yet. WoTC have (mostly) done all the right things with a much improved Community Site, a Facebook app and D&D Online. They dropped the ball with the D&D Starter Kit but have more than made up for it both online and offine, so I’ll forgive ‘em that one.

So yes, Fourth Edition D&D is a high-pixel flashy graphic combat centred battlegame. But it’s also rock-solid stable when it comes to out-of-combat mechanics too. They might take up a tiny proportion of the text compared to All Those Powers, but that’s because they don’t need to. From the superior (imho) multi-class mechanics to the Skill Challenge system and Quest-based XP rewards this is a version of D&D that’s well suited to “proper” role-playing, characterization and immersive story-telling. The combat system is just icing on the cake. Thick icing, I’ll grant you.

I’ve said before that the combat system is really whatever you want it to be – whether that’s gritty Fantasy Noir or its own default Superhero Fantasy style. That’s down to narrative choice more than anything, and that’s something which only comes with an open mind and a willingness to give 4e a fair chance. It took my group a LOT of session before they were fully on board. What can I say? Gamers are a notoriously conservative lot.

Oh yes.

I mentioned that I’ll say something controversial about the OGL, and here it is.

Wizards’ of the Coast abandoning the Open Game License was a good thing for the industry, and I’ll tell you why.

Next time.

Like

Unlike

Reviews are funny things. There’s reviews after reading. There’s first impressions after playing a single session. There’s thorough reviews following a game or two. And there’s long-term tests – the king of reviews. These reveal what you think of the thing after it’s finally gotten under your skin.

And this is mine, of Fourth Edition D&D.

Here’s the short version: if this game was a car, it would be the one I hated in the showroom, disliked and felt resentment at being fooled into buying by the pushy salesman, grumbled about for the first 100 miles then grew to quite like, then love. Now I’d cry buckets if it had to be towed to the knackers yard.

I’m guessing we’ve all had cars like that, right?

And that’s why reviews are funny things. If you’d asked me what I thought of 4e D&D at every step along this journey, you’d have a different answer. On my first readthru’ of the PHB I was downright savage. It looked to my virgin eyes like nothing short of a shambles with rules in all the wrong places, Rituals tucked into the back like some forgotten afterthought and – horror of horrors – a piss-poor mockery of an index.

My first play of the game was followed by just a single grumbling tweet: “Well, it plays better than it reads.”. It’s taken a long time to get my group to like it from the first faltering steps playing fun gladiator league matches in the Ptolus Arena to a short campaign set in Middle Earth (Cardolan, we will return!) and now in the run up to the end of the world in the Endday Campaign. It’s supplanted Third Edition in my mind as being the Second Best D&D Ever Made (after the Classic D&D Rules Cyclopedia (praise it’s holy name)) and that’s no mean feat.

Third Edition D&D is one heck of a hard act to follow. The supporters are fiercely loyal and it managed to completely turn D&D’s fortunes around. The rules began simple and while they gained a fair degree of complexity thanks to enough Splatbooks to sink Iceland, it managed to still stay playably fun all the way through it’s tenure as being the top of the D&D tree.

Unless you were the DM, that is.

To my mind, 3e suffered from just three problems which I’ll cleverly call Problem One, Problem Two and Problem Three. If 4e set out to do anything, it had to solve these.

The first (and, for me, the biggest) problem was that game preparation for the GM just took too long. Customizing (or, heaven forbid, creating new) monsters was this weird time-consuming science that could eat up hours like nothing else. That’s hardly fun when the resulting critter just lasts 5 combat rounds. I remember generating a 14th level Drow Wizard for one game; it took the best part of a weekend to create this guy and his retinue and less than an hour for my players to take him apart again. That’s hardly a great return. Yes, it’s brilliant in 3e that your bad guys and NPCs use the same rules as the players. But it’s less brilliant that it took damn ages to make them. The whole LA/CR/EL thing didn’t help matters either. Here’s a hint: if you have to explain the differences between them in the splatbooks and Dungeon/Dragon every single time they’re mentioned, it’s probably a rubbish rule.

And it was, and it’s gone in 4e. Woot!

Fourth Edition fixes that problem, perfectly. I can alter the level of a monster on the fly. I can build a whole new critter in under 5 minutes without needing a computer, and make it as simple or detailed as I want. Building an encounter is just a matter of totting up the XP totals, just as it should be. Give me page 42 of the DMG and I could run a game with nothing else. Ok, except maybe dice. Fourth Edition makes being DM fun again. I like that. Simple rules for the DM means the creativity flows and the prep-time slog is gone.

Problem Two sits at the opposite end of the table. It’s you, oh players, and 3e (and prior editions, for that matter) suffered under the shedload of silly, daft and anally retentive questions asked in the pages of Dragon and countless forums. Every time someone asked “is leather armour flamable?”, “where are the rules for gravity?” or “how much damage do I do with a flaming vorpal returning ghost touch longbow against a wight when I’m underwater and raging?” a fairy died. Please. Don’t do this.

Fourth Edition solved that by saying “Screw this. Ask the GM.” For that matter, 3e said that too. And so did 2nd Edition AD&D, but then TSR/WoTC promptly forgot all that and offered Sage Advice as a legally-mandated way for players to be able to tell GMs they’re wrong.

Don’t get me wrong: sometimes there are questions which only the designers can answer (such as “How the feck does Rain of Blows work?”) and to their credit they’re stepped up, clarified and errata’d where it’s needed. The number of rule questions is a thousandth of what it was though. That is a Very Good Thing Indeed. Simple rules + GM trust = win.

That’s enough for now. I’ll stop there.

Next: Problem Three, and ol’ Greywulf says something controversial about the OGL.

Like

Unlike