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Secrets of magic brings a lot of really interesting flavor to how the world of Golarion discusses the nature of magic. Further the addition of Essences is interesting and I’m wondering if it is setting up for additional variations to magic.

I particularly enjoyed the excerpts from Chapter 1, the lore and insight in the essays and treatise were really well done. It made me want to write a magical dissertation for Rune… I still may.

I particularly enjoyed the Occult insight. With occult being a new aspect to the magic of Pathfinder it originally came off as an Eldritch/Cthulhu-like concept. The letter from Djavin Vhrest really gave me a better perspective on how the Occult tradition is viewed within the world of Pathfinder. Of note, I really enjoyed the line “Why does flawed occultism always involve tentacles”.

I’m still absorbing the portion on Essences and I’m kind of interested on why Paizo chose to break the traditions out even further into these four core essences. It really implies they must have some plan for essences in the near future.

The new Backgrounds are all really interesting, I thoroughly enjoyed that Rune’s background is a thing “Academy Dropout” absolutely fantastic.

I especially liked some of the Rare Backgrounds, specifically the Anti-Magical and the Time Traveler. I think the Time Traveler has some really interesting story options. And the Anti-magic is just super interesting. I think the Anti-magic background could have gone with a full 25% chance (DC 5) on the flat check, but still an interesting option.


Oh the classes. Okay. As expected we have the Magus, the classic sword and sorcery class. Straight from the old Spellsinger days. I really enjoyed this class if PF1, and I know Mitch was a huge fan. And I do not think this version will disappoint. Then we have a fan favorite (IMO) The Summoner.

As a side note – I have really enjoyed the PF2E Class structure, and by that I mean the design of the layout in the book. Specifically, I appreciate the “what would this class do…” portion they place at the beginning of each class. Really gives a player some insight into Paizo’s intent for the class and helps shape the creation process.

Up next… The Magus

Don’t forget, every Sunday night at 830PM EST you can watch me on Penny for a Tale as I play Rune Ravenswood in our Age of Ashes campaign.

Today I achieved a significant milestone in my dissertation journey; I submitted my first three chapters to my committee. Twelve months in the making these first chapters act as my research proposal, they are intended to prove that I am intimately aware of my field and my specific topic of research. If approved, I will only have two more chapters left, simple in comparison.

The first chapter in any dissertation is the intro chapter, a smorgasbord that summarizes the entire research. The topic of research, the question that defines what the research will do, the research design and methodology. The second chapter is an in-depth literature review, not just on the topic but all of the surrounding research and literature surrounding the topic. The third chapter is a detailed review of the methodology for the research, describing how data will be collected, and how it will be analyzed.

So, now what? Well, there is a bit of a wait while my committee reviews the proposal and determines if it meets their requirements to be approved for research. In the meantime I will be working on the analysis process. I have a large data set to curate and I need to learn some “R” to conduct the statistical analysis. Since my research has nothing to do with humans, I don’t feel particularly unethical in my pre-work; particularly because it will make the next two chapters move by faster.

On to the next step…

Over the next two weeks I have the pleasure of traversing south through the beautiful Italian countryside, visiting some major cities along the way and generally enjoying life.

As I type this blog, I am sitting on a train crossing the Tuscany countryside, looking at the Alps. It is stunning, and the aesthetic is exactly what I was hoping for. The only think missing is a glass of wine. Tomorrow, I will fix that by taking a winery tour. My hope is to find a comfortable chair, a tasty bottle, and my laptop to work on my dissertation while surrounded by the gorgeousness of this country.

If you ever find yourself with a desire to see the world, I highly recommend you look into the travel costs. In my experience it cost far less than I thought it would and I certainly would have traveled more had I been aware.

In an odd twist of events I found a way to attend BlizzCon this year.  This will be my first time attending the event and I’m pretty excited.  The travel so far has been a pain in the ass.  I had a connecting flight to get to, but my initial plane decided to do donuts in the air for 20 minutes because the weather was bad aound the airport.  This lead to a very close call getting on to my connecting flight as I squeezed in just before they closed the doors.

Now, you don’t know me, but I’m a 6’3″ tall guy.  So, the exit row seat is nirvana when it comes to flights.  BUT, because I was so late to the plane (and its Southwest), i was relegated to some back-woods seat where my knees press up against the seat in front of me.  Needless to say I will probably need some painkillers when I get to LAX.

As for BlizzCon itself, I’m really only interested in a few things: 1) Overwatch, 2) Diablo, and 3) after parties.  I’m meeting up with some friends who have scoped out the voice-actor and party scene so (with luck) will get to some good stuff over the next couple of days.  I look forward to my post-BlizzCon post.

Party on, ladies and gentlemen.

Some friends and I were at a local coffee shop recently, this particular coffee place hosts 300+ board (like) games. This particular visit we were all ambivalent on what game to play so we asked the Game Guru (yes this is an actual job name at this coffee place). The Guru brought over this anime looking dice game called Dice Throne.

Now, I’m not much of a board game player, for some reason I just find them boring. Still, I was with friends and figured we’d give it a go. The game offers six heros, each with their own set of abilities (think Overwatch or even King of Tokyo). The game is played by rolling five dice and matching icons or numbers to make sets. Whatever set you can make will allow you to use the appropriate ability. With six heroes to work with you can mix and match game styles (i.e. 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, Free-for-All). Each play style has its own adjustment to the rule set to make it challenging, fair, simple, etc. I can honestly say it was a lot of fun, so much so that I ended up purchasing the game that night and jumping on the kickstarter for Dice Throne Season 2.

Yeah, Dice Throne, a table-top game that feels like Overwatch and plays like King of Tokyo (another great game BTW). It’s easy to jump into and really fun to test out hero ability sets. Go check out the website to get some details. Head to your local game store (or whatever) and give it a go.

Crowfall, a self-described “Throne War” game.  A rather ingenious little concept in MMOs that pits players in full on PvP combat within 14-ish months, then resets.  Basically the gods of the universe pick and choose Crows, or “heroes”, that they grant eternal life (of sorts) to fight for them and gather resources from world throughout the multiverse(?).  Each player is granted an “Eternal Kingdom” or a place they can build, harvest, create an economy, etc.  Then a Campaign world is generated, in this Campaign world players are pitted against each other to harvest resources from the world in an all out war before the “Nothing” (for those Never Ending Story fans) destroys that world; which will take about 14 months (real-time), then rinse and repeat. Like I said its a rather interesting idea, so interesting that I chose to back it through Kickstarter and I became an investor.

The rumor-mill says the initial alpha build release will be coming later this year (4Q2018), and I am supremely excited.  I’ve been playing off-and-on throughout pre-alpha development, and while I generally dislike playing games so early, I can say that I am impressed with the progress.  Sometime in the next couple (?few?) months the Guild I am in (Reavers) will be doing some Twitch streams to show off progress and generally push interest for the game.  If you have not checked out Crowfall, I highly recommend it.  Watch the streams, regardless of who it is, read the lore, check out the mechanics.  Let me know what you think.

I picked up Subnautica about a week ago and I have been submersed ever since.  I had seen vids and streams of the early access stuff and I had chocked it up to another survival game; honestly I didn’t have much interest as The Long Dark and Near Death just frustrated the crap out of me.  However, a friend of mine raved about it so I picked it up.  I was an idiot!  This game is beauty!

Subnautica, like the Long Dark (TLD) and Near Death (ND), forces you to look for resources to survive a harsh landscape.  Unlike the other two though, Subnautica doesn’t maintain this consistent pressure of the environment.  In TLD and ND, the player is incessantly (and brutally) accosted by the weather of the environment.  There is no real chance to take stock and work out the situation, you must hit the ground running and pray you figure it all out in time.  Personally, I found ND to be the most frustrating survival game I have ever played, but I’ll talk about it in another post.  Subnautica, on the other hand, gives you a safe place to figure out what you need to do, plan, test the plan, and move on to the next problem.

Beyond the basic need to figure out how to survive on an alien planet comprised (almost) entirely of water, the game teases you to explore and learn of an underlying mystery.  And it’s the tease of mystery which really makes this game shine.  Because Subnautica doesn’t force its story on you, it gives you all the choice to partake in it, if you want (and I recommend you chew it all up).  Further, as you progress through the game, it becomes apparent that the player can push beyond mere survival and actually live on this planet.  Not everything is rosy, you are on an alien planet and there is a food chain of which you are just a (very) small, and unexpected, part.

Subnautica is a beautiful surprise of a game, part survival, part RPG, part base-design, part exploration.  The graphics are amazing, save for a rather niche complaint concerning the HUD.  I have dived in, head first, and clocked in about 36 hours in the last week and I can only imagine I’ve scratched the surface of this experience.  I look forward to exploring the oceans of Planet 4546B.

TLDR; Not a fan.

I had put off trying PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds for months, for a couple big reasons:

1) I’ve been burned on pre-release/still in development games via Steam.
2) The premise just didn’t hype me.

Still, being the gamer I am, I felt it was a moral imperative to give it a shot. Now, I’ve been watching PUBG come across YouTube vids for a while and all the glitches just proved my first issue; even after the release. I figured, however, I should give it a fair shake to see if the ultimate finished product was any good. Upon release, I picked it up and gave it a good 20-ish games.

Nope. Still not a fan. The Battle Royal is (arguably) already covered in games like Call of Duty, Battlefield, or even Star Wars Battlefront. Yeah, get those are still team-based, but I just don’t see a huge difference. And, while i don’t mind a good Overwatch Deathmatch, the solo PVP gig just isn’t my style.

In my limited PVP experience, I have found, I simply enjoy the team aspects of MMO PvPs, Overwatch, and even Battlefield and Battlefront. I like charging in with teammates and winning or losing together. Further, I think the delineations of tank, healer, and DPS help push the idea of real strategy and tactics. With the battle royal games, its just you trying to survive.

And, I guess, this is where the appeal is. One person, on their own, trying to survive an all out war against 99 other players is (no doubt) an adrenaline rush. Just not the rush I’m into I guess. And that is the point of gaming, to find what you enjoy and play the shit out of it.

So enjoy PUBG players, I wish you all the chicken dinners in the world.