LotRO Journal: Why I’ve signed up

Although I mentioned that I very much enjoyed my vacation from MMORPGs, in the month since I’ve been back, especially while my wife has been playing WoW, attending knitting groups, or otherwise occupied, I’ve dedicated some evenings to exploring (via betas and free trials) a number of other MMOs, among them Tabula Rasa, Sword of the New World, Everquest 2, and Lord of the Rings.

I’ll chatter on about each of those games (and others) in other posts, but since I signed up for a paid subscription to Lord of the Rings Online, I figured I didn’t want to delay keeping a light journal of my experiences with the game.

This is the first time I’ve ever been subscribed to more than one MMORPG at a time. I’ve kept my WoW subscription open because my wife is still playing. I’d very much like to see her reach level 70 in that game, and her being able to call on my dwarf priest for help when she needs it (almost nothing can get her to look for a group in the game unless she knows the people in real life or through real-life friends) will make that process easier. As long as she has a WoW account, I’ll keep mine open, because I really do enjoy playing games with her.

But on to LotRO. During my seven-day trial, I experimented with a human Captain and hobbit Hunter. My initial assessment: the game is WoW with a different skin.

That is, of course, a gross oversimplification. The two games each have their own unique features to recommend them. But they also have a common core:

• They’re easy to play.
• They’re fantasy games with a class-and-level character development system.
• Character advancement is a big part of the “goal,” and this is largely achieved through quests and combat.
• The tank-heal-nuke-(crowd control)-(buff) model applies in both cases.
• Both games allow soloing as a viable alternative to grouping.
• The base UI is fundamentally identical.

Some of LotRO’s refinements directly address shortcomings in WoW, like the fact that you can make objects useful to your character as soon as you learn a profession. As I understand it, professions are still money sinks, but rather less severe than WoW’s.

So why have I signed on?

1. I like the fiction, and LotRO has done a bang-up job capturing Middle Earth in MMORPG format. I’d heard that, but I must admit I’m surprised at how much it feels like I’m actually running around the Shire from The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring.
2. I like exploring and learning new classes, and LotRO gives me seven new classes with which to do just that.
3. Deeds. I didn’t like rep grinds in WoW, and a lot of Deeds in LotRO seem like mini- (or not so mini-) rep grinds. But as someone who would most like to see a level-free MMO where any character can set out to pursue any quest to gain a given ability, equipment, trait, or the like, I have to say that the deeds give me some of that feel.
4. Roleplaying. I don’t enjoy the so-called “heavy rp” roleplaying style that’s emerged in WoW. I hate being called to guild meetings to watch avatars agonize over their personal angst via text chat. But I consider myself a roleplayer because I like it best when I and those I play with stay in character. LotRO does several things inherently hospitable to roleplayers, including a default “RP” channel which new characters do not automatically join; a clearly-marked “OOC” channel and other topic-based channels that one can opt out of; and an immersive, slow-paced game world where fast achievement, boasting, and baseball don’t have a roll.
5. Immersion and a slow pace. Now, I like leveling and achieving the pinnacles of character advancement as much as anyone, but I also like to enjoy the process. In WoW, I reached 70 largely by performing the same repetitive fight sequences thousands and thousands of times without paying much attention to my surroundings, the storyline, or eventually even the quest text. In LotRO, I may will wind up doing the same fighting, but I don’t feel as if I’m in a hurry. Instead, I actually get pleasure out of running around a given region, discovering what’s over the next hill, finding that I can get a peek in Bag End. I love that NPCs say things inspired by your character as you run past.
6. The slow pace also means that I’m likely to do a lot more grouping. In WoW, I always, always felt that I was making a sacrifice when grouping with others, unless it was to do an instance I couldn’t solo. In LotRO, I just don’t care. If someone asks for help, I’ll be glad to help them. I’ve grown very bitter about the fact that WoW’s easy soloing has meant that I haven’t made many in-game friends. (Yes, it’s my own fault, but I’m not the only one who finds solo-grinding to 70 the most effective method in WoW.) In LotRO, I’ve grouped with people just to get to know them.

My main character is a hobbit Burglar. I think she’s level 13 now. I couldn’t tell you her stats if you asked. But I do know that she’s “Undefeated,” a “Fur-cutter,” a “Pie runner,” and an official post officer.

And that, right there, is why I’m playing LotRO, now.

Add comment September 24th, 2007

Toddler gaming part 1—roleplaying games

Recently, my daughter played what I called her very first game. Since that time, she’s become something of a hardcore gamer, at least as much as a two-year-old is likely to be.

No, she’s not like this kid (featured in a story that smacks of bad parenting and a healthy serving of hot, steaming bullshit), but she does love to play games.

There are the obvious “pretend” games. This past weekend, for instance, she decided to pretend that we were going on vacation again. She packed bags (paper ones) full of her favorite toys, handed one to me and one to my brother-in-law, and led us in an endless march around the downstairs. She also enjoys making pretend food in her kitchen (which must be left where she puts it on the dinner table next to the real food or we are subjected to serious complaints) and pretending that things are not as they seem.

“This is a truck,” she declares, holding up a toy rabbit. And when corrected: “I want to pretend it’s a truck!”

This is all good practice for roleplaying games, of course, as is her budding collection of various dice. She found my dice collection very interesting long before it was safe to let her play with the little polyhedrons.

I remember one morning about a year ago when I came downstairs after a late-night game session with her. Back then, we took great pains to make sure that nothing that could fit in her mouth that wasn’t food got in her hands. Apparently though, in my exhaustion, I’d left 1d6 on the living room floor. I discovered the wayward cube in my daughter’s mouth, the lopsided grin on her face giving away the fact that she’d popped in something that wasn’t supposed to be there.

She has her own dice bag now (a satin bag that a small bottle of Godiva liquer came in, donated by my wife), and it’s full of several dice I don’t need. Even though I haven’t played D&D for years, I still have a notion that a set of dice requires, at a minimum, 1d4, 4d6, 1d8, 2d10, 1d12, and 1d20, so I made sure my daughter has all of those. They’re mostly dice I never pick up, but I did include several of the very first geek dice I had, clear crystal dice with numerals that I filled in with crayon sometime in the early ’80s.

While on vacation, we played quite a few games with her three friends who were staying in the house next door. There was, of course, some good pretend play, but they also had some purchased games that I’ll write about soon.

Add comment September 6th, 2007

Heroes Kingdom, St. Albans, Vermont

No, I don’t know why Heroes Kingdom spells its name that way. That didn’t stop us from enjoying the store as a fun spot to visit on our vacation in Vermont. We stayed about half an hour away from St. Albans, and friends staying in a nearby cabin decided to visit the town one evening. They spotted the store, but because it was closed couldn’t investigate.

So we all went together a couple of days later.

Truth to tell, I haven’t spent much time in game stores, despite my passion for the hobby. Online prices always beat brick-and-mortar prices, and online information is good enough that it hasn’t seemed worth the time to me. But now, even though I won’t be back to St. Albans for a year, thanks to this store I have resolved to make time. We would up spending a total of about two hours there.

The RPG section leaves a lot to be desired. It sits on two smallish shelves and features about 95% D20 books. The board game section is small, too, but it had some good offerings. Descent tempted me, but I resisted for now. My friend grabbed Zombies!!!

I picked up both the board game–inspired Settlers of Catan Card Game and Deluxe Illuminati (which has nothing to do with board games).

The store focuses on collectible games. Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures and DC HeroClix figures (and many other collectible figure games) lined the shelves. Magic The Gathering and other collectible card games were also well represented. My other friend managed to snag some booster packs of WizKid’s Pirates at Ocean’s Edge, her passion and something she’s had trouble finding lately.

Other shelves were laden with action figures (which mean nothing to me) and Warhammer materials.

Best of all, though, my two-year-old had a grand time. The back room, normally used for gaming, had a stash of pieces of various board games, including some oriented toward kids. She played with an odd collection of a bus, a dragon, and some other bits and pieces while we grownups looked around.

My daughter has already developed something of a dice fetish, so she and I spent some time looking at the broad display of colorful polyhedrons. After we left, I kept wishing I’d gone ahead and bought some of the unusual barrel dice they had for sale. As luck would have it, we justified a return trip a couple of days later, and I did snag a set. Since I mostly play GURPS, I don’t have a great justification for the purchase, but they’re fun, interesting, and different.

And they’re tempting me to go out and buy Serenity Role Playing Game (Serenity), partly because I love the setting, partly because I’d like to try the game, and partly because it will give me an excuse to bring out these funky fellows.

Add comment August 29th, 2007

Defining RPGs: T Bone’s take

I wanted to put up a link to send readers to T Bone’s nifty definition of roleplaying games. As he observes, many people offer definitions. T Bone’s is new and different: the third way to enjoy a story.

I like the definition because it’s story oriented—which mirrors my own gaming orientation and strikes at what I think is the differentiator for roleplaying games. Also, it’s pithy and cleverly worded.

Of course, it’s not a perfect definition. You can’t have a perfect definition of something that keeps redefining itself, morphing and changing, and blurring its own boundaries. But T Bone’s definition makes an excellent and usable contribution to the conversation.

T Bone is talking specifically about tabletop RPGs, not CRPGs. No CRPG has come close to caputring what T Bone defines, making the definition even more useful. Innovators wishing to bring new dimensions to computer games should consider how they can bring the shared storytelling experience to their games. The stabs that have been taken so far don’t come close to capturing those vivid, memorable moments that have emerged around kitchen tables.

(And no, I don’t think D&D 4th edition’s computer gametable will get the job done, although it and its many competitors are a step.)

2 comments August 21st, 2007

Potion Miscibility: The Mai Tai, Part 2—The Exotic Ingredient

This post continues my discussion of the great cocktail the Mai Tai, which began here.

The Mai Tai exemplifies something that can invigorate tabletop roleplaying campaigns with a sense of verisimilitude: namely, the fact that a single splash of an exotic ingredient can transform something ordinary into an extraordinary delight. Rum punch is nice, but no amount of paper umbrellas and miniature pineapples makes them miraculous. A simple splash of orgeat, though, and you can imagine you’re sitting on a beach in Tahiti.

In any campaign, throw in an ingredient that’s unexpected and rare (or at least apparently rare). Pages have been written on interesting hybrid settings, but this is something simpler. Instead of trying to install cyberpunk hardware in a high fantasy setting (which could be damn fun!), just add a little flavor of technology. Many settings now do this, like including mechanical “life forms”—that is, robots—to a setting loaded with magic. Likewise, the world in the marvelous The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman takes a pretty standard Victorian setting and throws in “daemons”—externalized animae that everyone has—and creates a vivid and fascinating new world.

When inventing your own campaign, you can do the same. Instead of melding two genres, pick a familiar one and add a foreign element. One of the best ways to do this is set the campaign in your own home town, but add something strange. This not only assists in campaign creation (you already have pre-made maps, NPCs, and a good estimate of how to get around), it also adds a certain eeriness as players encounter mysterious things on familiar streets.

You could make your own town the locus for a vast conspiracy, with neighbors disappearing and sightings of men in black at the street corners. Horror works well, too. If classic black witchcraft is real and attracts the attention of dark powers, then when a neighbor starts dabbling, the PCs may have their hands full fighting off monsters from beyond—in the players own back yards!

And now, at last, the recipe.

Mai Tai

Ingredients

• 1 oz. light rum
• 1 oz. dark rum
• ½ oz. triple sec
• ½ oz. orgeat syrup
• ¼ oz. fresh lime juice

Instructions

Shake all ingredients in a shaker half full of ice. Pour over shaved or crushed ice in a cocktail glass. (I like to use a brandy snifter.)

Garnish with your choice of maraschino cherries, baby pineapples or pineapple slices, and orange slices. If you have one handy, make sure you use a paper umbrella to perfect the drink.

Add comment August 3rd, 2007

Potion Miscibility: The Mai Tai, Part 1—Comments on History and Culture

The great Mai Tai, perhaps the froofiest of froofy drinks. I have so much to say on this that I’ll be breaking the post in two. The first contains a discussion of the Mai Tai itself. Later today, I’ll post my thoughts on how it relates to gaming, along with my own favorite recipe, of course.

There are many competing recipes, and this seems to have been true since the drink was first mixed! In the 1930s and 1940s, the Tiki-culture fad spread like wildfire across America, but the spark was lit in California. Two innovative restaurateurs—Trader Vic and Don the Beachcomber—catering to American’s hunger for a taste of the exotic, opened “Polynesian style” restaurants to dish out tropical drinks and flavorful recipes.

Perhaps the proud edifices of steel and concrete scraping the skies in America’s largest cities, a testament to the country’s emerging preeminence as an emerging superpower, nonetheless created a longing in its citizens for a simpler life. Lounging on tropical beaches with almost nothing to do, and perhaps with almost no clothes, must have seemed wonderful to the hard-working, driven office workers chasing the American dream.

They wouldn’t give up their jobs, of course, but they might pour some of their hard-earned cash into an evening at a restaurant bedecked with palm leaves, reed mats, and strong-and-fruity cocktails. The Tiki-culture restaurants, which actually served mostly Cantonese food and didn’t have all that much to do with actual Polynesian culture, eventually faded, replaced by Chinese restaurants, some of which actually serve food that people might eat in China.

When I was a child, though, most “Chinese” restaurants still had menus chock full of items such as the “pupu platter” and bars ready to shake up cocktails bedecked with pineapple slices and little paper umbrellas. The foodie community is a bit more sophisticated, today, and more concerned with authenticity. But this sophistication has given birth to a new delight in the campy, borderline absurd styling of such restaurants, and now both the Trader Vic’s and Don the Beachcomber chains are experiencing a strong resurgence.

The founders of both these chains claim to have invented the Mai Tai, and of course their recipes differ. Since the Mai Tai was first served, almost as many recipes for it as there are bars that serve it have come to light. Although they all include rum and fruit juice (and almost all include the cute paper umbrella), some are what I consider merely pleasant rum punch recipes.

A true Mai Tai is very sweet, almost heavy, but nonetheless ethereally delicious. The key to this is the ingredient that distinguishes true Mai Tais from all other rum drinks: the sweet, almond-flavored orgeat syrup. Nowadays, this isn’t hard to come by. Even the ubiquitous Torani sells a version. Don’t make the mistake of buying simple almond-flavored syrup. Delicious though that may be, true orgeat syrup is different and distinct, and essential to a good Mai Tai.

Check back later for my thoughts on how the Mai Tai ties into gaming, as well as my favorite recipe for the cocktail. When the article is up, you’ll be able to find it here.

Add comment August 3rd, 2007

Tabula Rasa impressions

Not mine, of course! I’m in the beta but under the NDA. Michael Zenke at MMOGNation, is permitted to post his impressions (something about an exception for the press right now).

And he nails it. There’s only one area he doesn’t cover that I think deserves some discussion, but I’ll save that for when the NDA is lifted for me. In the mean time, if you’re interested, read what he has to say and you’ll know all you need to know.

Add comment August 2nd, 2007

Roleplaying tool: Dialect training “for the casual pretender”

Here’s a fun tool for tabletop roleplaying games and MMORPG players who actually want to do some roleplaying over Ventrilo and Teamspeak. Pulp Gamer is offering a dialect-training CDs. In the past, I’ve looked longingly at the advanced—and expensive—dialect training courses and coaches Hollywood stars use, but I’ve never been able to justify the expense.

Along comes Pulp Gamer, offering two CDs that cover various British English dialects. The first covers “Cockney and the Queen’s English,” which is just what I need for my surly gnome rogue in World of Warcraft. The second tackles “Irish and Scottish.”

Will these CDs help me attain true verisimilitude? I rather doubt it. The sample, for instance, sounds very good but not perfect.

But hey, I don’t want to spend years mastering a throwaway dialect for my upcoming Victorian countryside survival horror campaign. Instead, I want to sound good enough that I can voice several different characters convincingly enough that my players can distinguish them. If I can coax even a few smiles—or widened eyes—the $13.95 I blow on each CD will be well worth it.

While you’re ordering yours, you might want to subscribe to Pulp Gamer’s very good paper game podcast, too. It’s their main product, really, and well worth your time.

Add comment August 2nd, 2007

Great tabletop RPG setting found online: anime weird-west

I stumbled on an interesting campaign setting in a blog dedicated to gaming in the Philippines. The author, pointyman2000, has three posts (here, here, and here) about an anime-inspired weird west setting.

I’m giving this quick shout out for two reasons. First, the setting is a nifty blend of magic, space opera, and the Western genre with rich anime styling. Pointyman2000 gives enough description of his thoughts that I can really start to imagine running some players through an adventure on one The Fronteir.

Second, I think it’s a great example of how to put together a sketch of a tabletop roleplaying game setting description. It covers the setting at the right level of detail to inspire creative game masters, then offers details on a suggested system (he suggests Hero, but I’ll probably do it with my old favorite, GURPS), along with character creation guidelines and a set of delightful villains.

All around, a well done presentation of a promising campaign world. I may just have to add it to my ever-expanding list of campaigns I want to run.

1 comment August 2nd, 2007

Potion Miscibility: Ouzo!

In a far-future science-fiction roleplaying game (it was basically the Traveller universe), I played a Greek starship captain named Sophia Soulis. Unscrupulous doctors had genetically enhanced her to be able to move with blinding speed, but they hadn’t worried about the serious metabolic disadvantages that would result. Sophia was plauged by occasional bouts of epilepsy, a massively increased need for food, and strong dependence on an illegal drug. (Yes, her set of abilities was inspired by Miles Teg from Frank Herbert’s Chapterhouse Dune.)

She drank—often and heavily—as one of the few escapes from the discomforts of her physical disadvantages and the need to keep her illegal genetic modifications hidden. Loyal to the long-dead civilization of her ancestors, the Greeks, influenced her choice of potables. She opted for the strongly anise-flavored ouzo.

I don’t like anise. And I’ve never tasted anything with a stronger anise flavor than ouzo. Inspired by the (apocryphal?) story of method actor Dustin Hoffman insisting on eating garlic soup while he starred in Death of a Salesman simply because that’s what his character would do, I brought along a bottle of the stuff to each session and tippled while we trawled the stars looking for work while avoiding the galactic authorities.

Many countries have a national anise-flavored drink (Sambuca, pastis, raki, anisette, and so on). This Greek variety is very sweet without becoming syrupy. As I said, I’m no fan of anise, but I actually do like ouzo from time to time. (My wife hates olives but love olive tapenade, which tastes more like olives than olives themselves. Perhaps this is a parallel case.)

I’ve never been to an ouzerie (nor to Greece, for that matter), but I can recommend that ouzo is best enjoyed cold, with a small glass lasting a long time.

And I can certainly recommend bringing a character-appropriate snack or drink to the gaming table (with enough to share for those who are interested, of course). For instance, I knew a guy who brought pickled herring in sour cream to any session in which he played his Viking character. This Scandinavian delicacy repulses most people who hear about it (though I loved before I became a vegetarian) energized the roleplaying. The other characters were from more “civilized” parts of the game world, and the rising smell of vinegar-preserved ocean fish and thick sour cream added greatly to their disdained reactions to this northern barbarian.

Next time I play, I think I’ll create a character who enjoys outrageously expensive single-malt scotch!

Add comment July 27th, 2007