With MacquarieCon out of the way (more on that soon, I promise), I knuckled down and finished Dragon Age. I know there are a number of different endings, and there’s a particularly interesting one that I would like to take, but now that I’m done with my first play-through, I’m not sure that I can be assed doing it again straight away. I deliberately avoided a bunch of sidequests so there would be some surprises, but I know it won’t be enough to keep me interested.
It’s good to see that the boys at Penny Arcade are passing on the important things about Dungeon Mastering. Keeping the Old Ways alive is very important, especially since D&D 4e is nothing more than a wargame with named units. I don’t care what they say about Skill Challenges and roleplaying, they’ve stripped out almost everything that wasn’t about fighting.
Of course, some would argue they haven’t gone far enough. Certainly, the blog post that accompanies the strip remembers:
His group can scarcely believe the stories I tell them about earlier versions of the game, of sundered stats and experience loss and THAC0, when players could win and still lose.
Oh for the good ol’ days…
Being the unrelentant D&D nerd that I am, I frequent a number of webcomics, of which Order of the Stick is one of my favourites.
For the last I can’t remember how long, there hasn’t been a decent amount of action. The occasional fight here, and the mediocre chuckle there, but nothing has stood out as freaking awesome since the fall of Azure City.
That is, until Haley gets attacked by some old buddies she left behind. Even so, it seemed like things were going to be less than stellar until Belkar got in on the action. That halfling makes this comic.
If you’ve wandered away from OOTS lately because it just isn’t the same, then I suggest you start with the latest scene, or if you’re really impatient, jump to the really awesome bits 🙂