Comma, Blank_ Has Moved!

This will be my final post on Comma, Blank_, because I now have my own domain! All new posts can be found at:

www.PapersPencils.com

Comma, Blank_'s entire archive of RPG posts has been successfully ported over to the new site. I have also transferred each and every one of the post comments by hand, including links back to each commenter's profile, because I put a high value on the feedback you, my readers, leave for me. However, no new posts will be posted here after this one. And I will not be monitoring comments on this site any longer. So update your bookmarks, feed reader, or whatever it is you use to access my writings! I consider it a privilege to entertain my readers, and I would hate to lose even a single one of you in this move.

This site has been of immeasurable value to me, and I must confess I'm sorry to leave it, even if I'll just be doing the exact same thing on the new site. Before I started this site, I was not very happy with my life. A quick peek at the first post on the blog, entitled "Worthlessness," (which is one of the few non RPG posts here, and will not be moving to the new site), might give you a bit of an idea of just how down on myself I was. Truth be told, that's not even the half of it. I was struggling through more emotional distress at the time than I want to bother talking about here. Suffice to say, my life was not going well, and I had very little hope that it would ever get better.

The blog trudged along lazily through August and September. I was aiming to put up 3 posts every week, but I was failing, which was business as usual for me. In my mind, it was a foregone conclusion that eventually I'd get bored of the blog, and go back to being an "aspiring writer," who thinks a lot about writing, but never actually does it. I felt shitty about myself, and to be honest, I should have felt shitty about myself. I have no pity for the faults in myself which are rooted in my own lack of will. During a moment of courage in early October, I decided I was going to push myself harder. I was going to get 15 posts done that month, I decided. On October 10th, 2011, while driving my girlfriend Morrie to the train station in the morning, I told her that I was going to try to put up 15 posts in October. She snickered.

"No you're not." she said flatly. The comment stung, and I think she sensed that. She quickly qualified her statement. "I mean, you'd have to do a post what...every night?"

Don't judge her harshly. It was an off-the cuff response which she has repeatedly apologized for in the time since. I almost didn't even mention that it was her who said it, but I want to make clear that this was the opinion of someone who matters to me. The comment stung. I got angry. I've heard a lot of writers say that a dismissive comment, or a rejection, is what motivated them to keep going. I never understood the sentiment until that day. As soon as I got to work I pulled a calendar off the wall and began marking off days. I figured I shouldn't write every day, since that would just burn me out. I would, instead, write every other day during the week, on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule. I have the weekends off, so decided I should have plenty of time both to rest, and to write on Saturday and Sunday. By that schedule of 5 posts a week, I figured out that I could have 19 posts done by the end of the month. That was plenty. Over lunch that day I started working on Magically Generating New Adventures, which remains one of my most popular posts. I started keeping tally marks for how many posts I had for the month. I was going to prove Morrie wrong. I was going to hit 15 posts. I could even skip 4 days if I wanted to.

I didn't want to.

I kept to my schedule exactly. Even on Halloween, my favorite holiday, I was answering the door between writing paragraphs of The Problem With Feats. I tapped away at my keyboard despite a finger which I had severely burned on an ultraviolet light. Despite the fact that my hair kept getting in my face, since having it down was part of my costume. Despite the fact that I had already reached my 15-post goal. The goal didn't matter anymore. Proving Morrie wrong didn't matter anymore. I owe her a lot for that single insensitive comment, because without it I don't know if I would have managed to forge the self discipline which has allowed me to devote myself so fully to this writing project.

I continued my 5-posts-a-week schedule through November, which proved harder. By the end of November I had decided two things. First, writing a Comma, Blank_ post five days a week was too much for me. I started to worry that I was going to burn out, so in December I officially dropped down to only one post over the weekend, bringing my work load down to only four posts per week. Second, I decided that it was time to devote myself more fully to the writing project. So, in early December, I did some budgeting, and some brainstorming, and registered the www.PapersPencils.com domain, and purchased two years of hosting. Yeah, I've been working on this for almost three months. What can I say? I'm a busy guy.

Since starting Comma, Blank_, I have missed only 2 posts, which were over the Christmas holiday. My life is better in countless ways. I feel like I'm improving myself a little bit with every word I write. And my readership is growing as well. During the month of February, there has not been a single day where traffic was lower than the corresponding day of the previous month. It kinda makes me want to continue using the old site until Wednesday just to see if the trend actually continues throughout the whole month. But, to be honest, it has been a serious pain in the ass to format everything post twice--once for Blogger, and again for Wordpress. I'm eager to be done with that. Besides, in 25 days of February, I've already surpassed the traffic during the 31 days of January by over 200 unique hits, and broken the 1000-hit-per-month barrier for the first time. And I don't intend to stop there. I've got so many plans for future projects and improvements--you have no idea.


So thank you, my readers, and everyone who has ever linked to me. Thank you to my friends on Twitter, and to my girlfriend Morrie. Thank you to -C of Hack and Slash for sending me several unique hits ever day, and to /tg/ for giving me years worth of scintillating conversation and inspiration, and to every RPG blog I've ever read which has given me an idea or caused me to question my preconceived notions. Thank you to my friends who play these tabletop RPGs with me, who have been very patient with me when I've allowed writing about games to distract me from running games. You all rock.

By the way, if you were wondering, this blog was called Comma, Blank_ because I originally envisioned it as a project "in between" the major projects of my life. The idea was that looking back, the stuff I worked on before this blog would be considered significant, and the stuff after this blog would be significant, but this blog was likely to be somewhat forgettable. That's what I thought at the time, anyway. Thus, this blog was the comma between the things I did in the past, and the things I would someday do in the future. Ironic that it ended up becoming a project which I used to redefine who I am. For three days, the blog was actually titled simply " ,_ " but I started to feel like too much of a hipster douche for my own taste.

I figured I ought to tell that story, since I likely won't get another chance.

See you on the new site, friends!

-Nick "LS" Whelan
www.PapersPencils.com

Paizo's Year Long Retrospective: 1

It's a good thing nobody relies on me for news, because I am terrible about paying attention to news and posting about it in a timely manner.

A week ago today (see how on top of things I am?) Paizo put up a fascinating retrospective on their blog. The company was originally founded in 2002, so this year will be the tenth year of Paizo's operation. Ten years since they started bringing us the best content we ever saw out of Dungeon and Dragon magazines. Eventually they would go on to create many amazing products, including my beloved Pathfinder RPG. It's no secret that I'm in love with this company. They've done so much to improve gaming, and I like to hope that in the future they will continue to combine their amazing innovators, with tried and tested ideas to create some amazing games for us to spend all of our money on.

I'll forgo the play-by-play. Though I did get a hearty laugh from some friends earlier today when I recounted the story about how Paizo moved into their first offices. "The previous company in the offices had vacated in a hurry, so the landlord offered to sell us all their stuff for a dollar. It turned out to be a really good investment, because we found a $20 in one of the desks." Good times, good times.

I would really encourage you to read the post. It's a fun and charming read, with a few moment that made me giggle. I'll definitely be keeping my eye on this as more are posted throughout the year.

Also, is it just me, or does Lisa Stevens come off as some kind of nerd-badass genius? She was laid off from her job at Wizards of the Coast, so she took a year off to work on her Star Wars Collection!?

News: Dungeons And Dragons 5th Edition

I was exhausted and fell asleep last night, so I'm sure by now that everyone is aware that the New York Times broke the story that Wizards of the Coast is working on Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. Shortly thereafter this was followed by an announcement on the WotC website my Mike Mearls, titled "Charting the Course for D&D: Your Voice, Your Game." Now, technically, they could be talking about D&D 4.5 or something, but given the phrasing of "developing the next iteration of D&D," I think it's safe to assume that we're talking about 5th edition here.

Like many other gamers, my first reaction was annoyance and anger. 2nd edition D&D was released in 1989, and wasn't replaced until the year 2000. When third edition was released, it only took three years for them to come out with 3.5, but that was okay. Only the core rulebooks needed to be re purchased, and the update was pretty necessary. But then to completely drop third edition for fourth edition a mere five years later was frustrating. Particularly since I found fourth edition to be a significant step down from third edition. And now, here we are in early 2012, less than four years after the initial release of 4th edition, and we're already talking about 5th. It won't be released for a few years yet, but still. It's far too quick.

I understand that the role playing landscape isn't the same as it was in the 70s. No edition will ever have the 15 year lifetime that 1st edition had. Increased competition means that games need to keep evolving and improving their rules systems to remain interesting to gamers who have a lot more options than they did thirty years ago. And 4th edition, by all indication, hasn't been faring very well in the marketplace. Competition has been particularly fierce for Dungeons and Dragons since the release of Pathfinder, which stole a large portion of the D&D 3.5 playerbase, including myself, right out from under Wizard's Nose.

That's the point in the stages of anger where I realize that this announcement doesn't really apply to me anymore. I haven't purchased a Wizards of the Coast product since 2008. Fourth edition is not a game I found even slightly appealing, and as wiser men have said: I've got better games to play.

So with the realization that a new edition of Dungeons and Dragons isn't the worst thing in the world, lets scrutinize what's going on here.

That is why we are excited to share with you that starting in Spring 2012, we will be taking this process one step further and conducting ongoing open playtests with the gaming community to gather feedback on the new iteration of the game as we develop it. With your feedback and involvement, we can make D&D better than ever. We seek to build a foundation for the long-term health and growth of D&D, one rooted in the vital traits that make D&D unique and special. We want a game that rises above differences of play styles, campaign settings, and editions, one that takes the fundamental essence of D&D and brings it to the forefront of the game. In short, we want a game that is as simple or complex as you please, its action focused on combat, intrigue, and exploration as you desire. We want a game that is unmistakably D&D, but one that can easily become your D&D, the game that you want to run and play.

This sound familiar to anyone?

Paizo Publishing today unveiled the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, a tabletop fantasy roleplaying game that will serve as the anchor for the company's popular line of Pathfinder adventures, sourcebooks, and campaigns. Today marks the beginning of a year-long Open Playtest of the new rules, which are based upon the popular 3.5 rules available under the Open Game License. The Pathfinder RPG is designed with backward compatibility as one of its primary goals, so players will continue to enjoy their lifelong fantasy gaming hobby without invalidating their entire game library. The first Pathfinder RPG Alpha release is available now as a free 65-page PDF download at paizo.com/pathfinderRPG. Until the finished Pathfinder RPG's release as a hardcover rulebook in August 2009, all of Paizo's popular Pathfinder-brand products will continue under the current 3.5 rules set.

That's an announcement pulled directly from Paizo's news post on March 18th 2008. I guess Wizards of the Coast has been paying more attention than I gave them credit for.

Tabletop gaming has always been about community and creativity. GM not only create fantastic worlds for their players, but helpful rules to make the game more fun. Players craft their character's persona as they play. And everyone enjoys the game together. In the age of the Internet, that community has become so much larger. It's expanded from the small group of people around our gaming tables, or the people we chat with at our friendly local gaming store. Now through forums and blogs, our community covers the world. And it's only appropriate for Wizards to acknowledge that, and take advantage of it. Honestly, it's kind of silly they didn't realize that back in 2008.

We want to be involved in the games we love. As soon as it's in our hands we're going to be house-ruling it anyway, so why not see if we can get some of our house rules actually included in the published game? For myself, I'm not sure yet if I'll be participating in this project. I've thrown my lot in with Paizo, and I've been happy with their products. Still, I'm sure I'll look over the first copy of 5th edition I can get my hands on. Who knows? Maybe it'll be amazing. Maybe I'll want to be part of making it better.

Time will tell.

News: Pathfinder Bestiary Box

Paizo recently announced a new product which, in keeping with form, I'm a huge fan of. They're calling it the "Pathfinder Bestiary Box," pictured to the right. The box will contain more than 300 cardboard stand-ups with full color art of various creatures and monsters. They also mention that there will be "more than 250 unique creature images," which makes me happy, because it would be ridiculous if a GM only had one goblin token to put on the table. The idea obviously follows on the heels of the Pathfinder Beginner Box, which had similar cardboard standups for both monsters and player characters.

Personally, I've never been a huge fan of miniatures, which is why I like this idea so much. For years I've been using things like pennies and other random items found around my apartment to represent items on the battle mat. It works well enough, but I've never been fully satisfied with it. The cardboard standups provide a good middle ground between having nothing to mark your battlemat, or spending tons of time and money on minis.

Still, I'm not completely sold on the idea. Part of the reason I've never liked minis is because they steal some of the imagination from the game. If I want to throw my players up against 4 goblins and a poisonous plant creature with the head of a monkey and the legs of a spider, I don't want to have markers for the first four, and nothing for the last creature.

Still, for those more interested in using miniatures casually, this sounds like a solid product.

Pathfinder Online: Goblinwork's Development Strategy

In case you haven't heard, there's a Pathfinder MMORPG in the works. It's being developed by a company called Goblin Works, and today they just made their first blog post detailing the upcoming development of the game. The post focuses largely on business aspects and broad development strategies, rather than anything specific, but there's a lot here to be learned!

I like a lot of what I'm hearing. I'm not experienced as an analyst, but companies don't typically talk about how little money they're spending on a game, so I would guess that this is the truth. In fact the entire post reads like something you would never hear a game developer say. Goblinworks admits to spending a minimum amount of cash, to reducing the amount of time they're going to be developing the game, and even to expecting to lose 75% of their new players every month. While this may be discouraging to some, it has been my experience that those who work with the least resources, tend to become the most resourceful.

I find the idea of a cap on new players to be a really cool one. By limiting new players to 4,500 a month, Goblinworks basically ensures that they'll be able to avoid the launch-day issues which have plagued every halfway decent MMO release. And by slowly, but steadily expanding the game as the player base grows, it seems like there will consistently be new and polished content released at a good clip. But maybe I'm reading too much into things.

I'm still taking the "wait and see" approach, but Pathfinder Online is starting to look a little shinier than I first dared to hope.

Pathfinder: Percentage of a Living Body Comprised of Liquid

Click the comic to go to Penny-Arcade.com's high res version.

Penny Arcade continues to showcase Pathfinder!

It's really good to see Pathfinder getting the attention it deserves from webcomics. Wizards of the Coast seems to be working out a lot of product placement deals lately. Not that product placement is necessarily bad. In fact it's all been classy and entertianing. Nothing wrong with a nerd comic taking money from a nerd company to showcase a nerdy product which fits within the comic's nerdy theme, and which the comic's nerd audience will enjoy. But considering that Pathfinder is currently a more popular game than D&D fourth edition, It's good to see Gabe & Tycho paying attention to it.

I must confess, I would love to have Tycho as a GM. He's beyond insidious, he's positively evil. That kind of harsh game environment holds a certain appeal. Plus, the man has a way with words that I could never hope to match in a hundred years of studying the craft of writing.

Pathfinder: Pillars of Motherfucking Salt

Click the comic to go to Penny-Arcade.com's high res version.

Pathfinder made an appearance in today's Penny Arcade! You may want to click back a few comics to read the rest of the storyline. Essentially, Gabe (the fellow in yellow) is GMing a 4th edition game, but he's lost control of it. He's allowed his players to become overpowered, and is no longer capable of challenging them. Tycho (the fellow in blue) is a much more experienced GM, and has resolved to help his friend teach his players a harsh lesson.

Because GMs are all about the harsh lessons.

Regular Wednesday post will come this evening.

Paizo's New Venture: Pathfinder Online

The Internet has been abuzz of late with news of Pathfinder Online. At least, the parts of the Internet which take note of tabletop RPG news have been abuzz. In case you haven't heard, Paizo (publisher of the Pathfinder RPG) has spun-off a new company called Goblinworks, and tasked Goblinworks with creating an massively multiplayer online role playing game based on the world of Golarion. Details at this point are scarce. Goblinworks won't even open its doors officially until 2012. But considering how early it is in the process, we've actually been told a great deal.

Truthfully, my initial reaction to this news was not favorable. The concept itself breaks two of my fundamental rules of video games.

1. Tabletop RPGs never make good video games. They may have some moderate success, such as Neverwinter Nights enjoyed, but they're still bad games. Every one I've ever played makes the fundamentally bad assumption that the video game needs to emulate the rules of the tabletop game it's based upon. What never seems to be taken into consideration is that video games & tabletop games are different. The greatest strength of tabletop games is tactical infinity. When you're dealing with a GM rather than a computer, you can attempt to solve a problem using any kind of solution which comes into your head. Video games are incapable of that, it is their great weakness. One of the great strengths of video games is that computers can automatically keep track of the rules, and perform complex calculations instantly. Since humans can't do either of those things, tabletop games (even the most complex ones) use mechanics which are simple in comparison with most video games. So by forcing a video game to comply with the rules of a tabletop game, you end up with a game that takes the worst parts of both mediums, and ends up with the best parts of neither.
   
2. MMORPGs fail. I know World of Warcraft is going to falter eventually, but after seven years of completely unchallenged dominance, is Pathfinder Online really going to unseat it? I've started playing a little game with myself every time an MMORPG is released. I estimate how long it will be until the publisher excitedly announces that their game is now "Free to play!" An announcement which essentially means "so few people are playing our game that our only hope to make money off of it is to abandon the subscription model." The announcement never requires more than a year after the game's initial release.
   

That being said, I do have a certain amount of faith in Paizo. To use a ham-fisted simile, Paizo is kinda like the Blizzard of tabletop. They release exceptionally polished products, are an independent company* with a powerful fanbase, and both companies were founded by a bunch of D&D nerds. In fact, both companies also ripped their primary intellectual property off of another company. Warcraft is just a ripoff of Warhammer, and Pathfinder is just a continuation of Dungeons and Dragons 3.5. So given the faith that I have in Paizo as a publisher of quality products, I decided to look into the project a little more, and find out what there is to know about it.

Goblinworks FAQ page provided a great deal of information. Unfortunately I don't qualify for a job with the company, but there is a lot which serves to allay my concerns. For example, "almost every Paizo employee that works on Pathfinder will be involved to some degree with Pathfinder Online." That's encouraging. Too many projects are ruined when the people working on the project don't understand their source material. I suppose that's one of the benefits of starting your own publishing studio.

I also find it very encouraging that Goblinworks is promoting feedback from the community. I have no illusions about it. There's a good chance that Goblinworks is using the suggestion forum the same way Blizzard uses their suggestion forum: as a convenient way to keep people who want to bother them with suggestions busy. However, one of the things which makes Pathfinder a milestone game in the RPG industry is the massive "beta test" which took place in the months leading up to the game's release. Paizo made PDFs of the Core Rulebook freely available online, and asked players to play the game, test it, and tell Paizo if they had any problems. I have a copy of the original Core Rulebook download on my hard drive still, and I can assure you that a lot changed between it and the print edition of the book. So it's always possible that Goblinworks will actually keep an eye on the suggestions forum. Tabletop RPG players are creative people, so it certainly can't hurt to listen to what they have to say.

And then there are these two quotes:

Pathfinder Online's innovative archetype system includes specific paths of development that reflect the classes in the tabletop game, so if you want to play a character that mirrors a classic tabletop class, you'll be able to do it. However, Pathfinder Online is driven by more diverse player activity than the classic adventurer-focused tabletop experience; Pathfinder Online players will be able to act as merchants, farmers, miners, teamsters, caravan guards, spies, and explorers, and in any other role the players choose to create. Characters will have a wide variety of skills to develop, allowing them to be highly customized to the player's preference.

-&-

Characters in Pathfinder Online don't have levels in the classic sense. They develop skills over time, and as their skills develop, and as they meet various prerequisites, they unlock new abilities similar to class features or feats from the tabletop game. Characters following an archetype path will be able to unlock a capstone ability much like the 20th-level capstone abilities in the Pathfinder RPG.

This is hugely encouraging to me. Perhaps I am being overly optimistic in saying this, but it sounds like Goblinworks is not only aware of the issue I discussed above in point 1, but has resolved to fix it. PFO sounds like it will be a delightfully complex game, which works for me. The gradual simplification of World of Warcraft is part of what turned me off to that game.

We are planning a hybrid subscription/free-to-play model. Players will have the option to pay a flat monthly fee for complete access to all standard game features, or to play for free with certain restrictions, using microtransactions to access desired features and content on an a la carte basis. Pricing details have not yet been finalized.

While this is not particularly interesting to me, it seems like an unusual payment system. Perhaps helpful in staving off the "NOW FREE TO PLAY" announcement a few months after the game's release.

Yes. Several types of premium content can be purchased using microtransactions. This content includes "bling"—visual enhancements to the character or the character's property that have no mechanical effect; a wide variety of mounts that let you customize your ride and show your personal sense of style; and adventure content packaged like classic adventure modules that you and your friends will be able to play through as a group.

I find this somewhat worrying. Microtransactions for bling doesn't bother me. If somebody wants to spend a few bucks on a special hat, I'm fine with that. In WoW, I'm quite happy with my Lil' KT minipet which cost my girlfriend $10. However, actual adventure content being purchasable skirts dangerously close to being a dealbreaker for me. I'll be keeping an eye on that as the game's development goes forward and we learn more.

The final line in the FAQ provides some of the most interesting information:

Most fantasy MMOs, including World of Warcraft, are "theme park" games. In theme parks, you're expected to work your way through a lot of scripted content until you reach the end, and then you play end-game content while you wait for the developers to release more theme park content so you can continue to advance your character.

The other end of the MMO spectrum is the "sandbox" game. In sandboxes, you're given a lot of tools and opportunities to create persistency in the world, then turned loose to explore, develop, find adventure, and dominate the world as you wish. You and the other players generate the primary content of the game by struggling with each other for resources, honor and territory. There is no "end game" and no level cap.

Pathfinder Online is a sandbox game with theme park elements. You'll be able to create your own place in the world of Golarion, complete with complex social and economic systems. You'll form ad-hoc or permanent groups ranging in size from small parties to large settlements and even huge nations, and interact with others in your world in a realistic, unscripted fashion. You'll also be able to participate in scripted adventures, though, with the outcome of those adventures helping to determine the shape of your world.

This all sounds pretty awesome to me. But as a more experienced MMO player pointed out to me: it sounds like a game which will be rife with griefing. I like to think Goblinworks will be aware of this issue and make sure they have a fool-proof solution in place before the game goes live, but we'll see.

That's essentially my outlook on the entire project right now, actually: we'll see. Truth be told, there aren't many reasons to believe that Pathfinder Online will have any more success than Warhammer Online or Age of Connan did. Every video game sounds good when the only thing we can talk about are concepts. However, I choose to have faith in Paizo, and through them Goblinworks. They've done right by me up to now, and I want to see them succeed.

I'll see about examining the game & the people behind it more in depth as details emerge.

*Technically Blizzard is no longer independent, but their acquisition by Activision didn't come until after the release of WoW's second expansion. And the third expansion bombed so hard that subscriptions have plummeted. Coincidence? Probably.

Online Video: LoadingReadyRun's Rarelywinter

I've been a Loading Ready Run fan for years now. (LRRmon for life!) I've always enjoyed their nerdy brand of sketch comedy, and it's especially fun for me when their nerdiness culminates in a Dungeons & Dragons video. They've done a few before (and even a Pathfinder video once!) but those aren't exactly news. This video was just posted today:

The Escapist : LoadingReadyRun : Rarelywinter

For the record, I'm pretty sure Jer is being a bad GM intentionally for the sake of comedy. But it still serves as a good example of what not to do. Here are all the GMing pitfalls I caught in the video:

• Discouraging your players from jumping into their role play is a bad idea. As a GM, your goal is to help them get in character, not obstruct them from doing so.
  
• Joking about wanting to kill your players is fine, every GM does it. But a GM's job is to facilitate fun. Feeling as though you're constantly in completely over your head, and dying because of it, isn't fun.
  
• When your players are facilitating their own in-character fun, never stop them. If your players want to name the dragon, let them do that for as long as it seems like everyone is having fun. (Out of character joking, on the other hand, should be corralled by the GM. You don't need to ban it, you just don't want it to take over the game.)
• Of course there's cheese in Neverwinter. As the GM, he should have come up with a name and given it to them. Not only does it make sense, and help facilitate the player's fun (see my point above), but it ALSO ends the discussion on what to name the dragon, which is ostensibly what he wants anyway.
  

Again, I'm sure Jer knows all these things. The video was funny, I just thought I'd do a quick critique of the GM to add some content to the post.

This doesn't count as your regularly scheduled Monday post, by the way. That will still go up later this evening, as normal.