Boardgames: Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords

Over the past year, a regular feature of our week has been sitting down, myself, Zoe and Ewan, to play a scenario from the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords, or to shorten it here, PACG. The very fact that this has become a thing we can all do together (once Robert is in bed, unfortunately for him) means that I suspect that I would have warm feelings about the game no matter what, but as it turns out, PACG is a pretty solid co-operative experience, with some interesting that can do a pretty diverse range of things over the course of 6 adventure decks, of 5 scenarios each. 

Games Review: The Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

What we've started to do, as Ewan has got older, and (though he often pretends otherwise) increasingly interested in same array of geek stuff that his parents are, is play a lot more board games. As often said here and elsewhere, we are in a bit of a golden age for getting around a table and playing games, especially of the sort that are quick to pick up, and fast to play, without sacrificing too much depth. So on our recent holiday, for evening entertainment, we bought something different, something a little more complicated, to pass the late-summer nights. 

Rambling: Roleplaying in the Digital Age

Image from "Full Metal Panic"

Over the last couple of years I've been playing - on and off - in a couple of different "old school" RPGs ran over the internet, using alternatively Skype or Google Hangouts. And as one wound to a hiatus late last year, I put my hand up to try running one myself, because I like running games, and had a game background from many years back I wanted to go back to and thought would suit. After nearly a year of sessions (fortnightly in theory, less so in practice) I had to pull the plug on this week for a number of reasons, most of which were just running out of time to write the damn thing week-to-week. But it was a very different experience from normal tabletop roleplaying, so I thought it would be worth sharing some thoughts on it.

Rambling Randomly

Sometimes I just have collected thoughts that don't coalesce enough for a coherent post. This is one of those posts!

Diablo 3 and the Agency Problem
Since writing up Diablo 3 a while back I've played it a bit more in co-operation with friends, and finally managed to nail down something that has been bugging me and I wasn't able to articulate. And thats the strange thing about it's story. Most games put the player at the centre of the action - after all, it's you shooting those bad guys, or you saving the kingdom, or you stacking those blocks. Even where the story calls for a defined central character, by and large you are playing that central character, even when the story allows you no choices and pre-written cut-scenes, usually you are in charge of that main character within the gameplay. It's called "agency" and is one of the more unique things about storytelling in computer games, and a lot of games in the RPG genre particularly are experimenting with the limits of this agency when it comes to emergent stories.

The thing is with Diablo 3's story, is that you actually have no agency. Sure, you run around the world killing monsters and looting their shiny things, but whenever the story crops up one of the NPCs is there to actually do the thing that needs to be done. You're not saving the world, you're getting lesser creatures out of the way so that other people can save the world. Other characters tell you where to go, read ancient manuscripts and perform ancient rites. In the end, your character may get to kill newly trans-sexual Diablo but the celebratory cutscene is Tyrael's triumph, not yours.

It feels like such an odd way to write a story - as if they were too attached to their characters to let your disposable killer get in the way.

Graphic Novel Round-Up
My current comic reading is limited to the two or three graphic novels I buy each month, largely on recommendation. Sure, I'm always behind, but the quality is pretty solid. This month I picked up Orbital vol 4 and Long John Silver vol 3, both from Cinebooks, who translate the european comics scene for English-speaking audiences. Orbital is a space operatic police series, and LJS is a sequel of sorts to Treasure Island, set around a search of a South American city of gold. Both are fantastic, great art, great stories, but these volume are the last currently in print and the next volumes look to be available sometime in 2013. Which isn't fair; I'm used to being so far behind there is always another volume!

I'm also finally starting to read Hellboy. Its the sort of thing I knew I will like, and of course I do. My reading is slightly plagued by lack of availability of some volumes, which I guess is the downside of being so far behind!

Dragons in Dungeons, Oh My! 
After many years of being a role-player, I am finally playing a proper, dungeon crawling Dungeons and Dragons Game. I'm a cleric, with the stupidly fantasy-tastic name of "Radia Lightsalve". She's Neutral Good, reads tacky romance novels, and is nice to everyone. Yes, my tongue is in my cheek throughout. That said, I've rather enjoyed it so far - it sort of is and isn't what you'd expect, by which I mean it's mechanistic, combat heavy, and a bit too much down the "boardgame" line for my usual taste in RPGs, but despite that it's pretty good fun....

My Top 5 RPG characters

My Dissecting Worlds co-conspirator posted up a blog about his favorite Role-Playing Characters recently, and appealed for others to do the same. Table-Top RPGs aren't the geek "thing" they were when I was at university, but its the sort of thing a lot more people have tried than ever seem to be prepared to admit it in polite company. But we're all freinds here, right? So I'm happy to share...

This may turn out to be my geekiest post yet. Which is saying something, really.