Alex "Gus" Gustafson

Category: Games

  • Magic: The Attempt-to-Gather

    Geek & Sundry produces an awesome series, called Spellslingers, where Sean Plott (aka “Day[9]”) plays the card game Magic: The Gathering with his nerdy friends. They took a lot of cues from the production of Tabletop, but gave it a unique feel. There’s a lot more shared analysis of the gameplay that doesn’t really happen on Tabletop. If Wil Wheaton wants you to play more games, Sean Plott wants you to play better Magic.

    sean plott day[9] on spellslingers
    Day[9], professional gamer
    Confession time: I’ve never actually played a game of Magic. I grew up in the bible belt where people honestly believed that Dungeons and Dragons and Magic would teach you to worship the devil. Or at least ruin your prospects at courting a respectable, God-fearing mate. The closest thing I ever got to play was the Star Wars Customizable Card Game published by Decipher. I loved that game but it never had the mass appeal of Magic.

    Anyway, Spellslingers really has me itching to play a game. Unfortunately, I’m totally not spending money on games right now. There’s a baby on the way! Gotta save up cash. But I thought I found an easy way to do this with Magic Duels – an online tabletop simulator of the game. But more downside – the only platform I can play this is on is Windows PC (I don’t have any iOS devices) and my Windows PC is so old and janky I barely got Steam installed. There’s no way I can actually play a game on it. I also tried adding it to a VM on my Mac, but the VM’s video memory is only half the recommended specifications – so it’s also slow to respond and not worthy of playing the game.

    My gathering of Magic will continue to wait and I’ll just have to whet my appetite with more Spellslingers.

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  • Spellcaster

    In our primary roleplaying campaign I’ve been DMing. But in addition to our standing game, Amber has decided to start DMing some one-off games every once and a while. Instead of the same party of adventurers travelling together through thick and thin, in these one-offs the party will be made up of any folks who can play that week. We’ll work through one short quest or dungeon crawl that can be wrapped up in one session so that there’s no scheduling a day where everyone has to come back.

    For our first one-off we have a lot of new folks joining us. It’s weird because (aside from Ber) I’ll know more about what’s going on than anyone. For that reason, Ber has asked me to play a spellcaster since managing spells is harder on new folks and it’ll help balance the party if I make sure we have at least one. pathfinder core rulebook

    We’re all going to play second-level characters and we’ll be using the Pathfinder game system. Here’s a few character ideas I thought of:

    • Human Inquisitor who worships Gozreh
    • Half-Orc Bard that runs a travelling troupe
    • “Tower” Elf Wizard

    I only learned of the Inquisitor class tonight, but loved the idea. It’s kinda like being a cleric in that you serve your deity, but you’re willing to bend the rules of the church to fight the church’s enemies. But since we’re only starting at 2nd-level, the Inquisitor doesn’t really get many spells per day so maybe it’s not the right fit.

    The half-orc bard is blatantly stolen from Scanlan Shorthalt’s backstory on Critical Role. I wouldn’t name him Dr. Dranzel or mention Scanlan, but that was definitely the inspiration. This is probably what I’ll end up playing because I always sing in real life. Being a bard is in my blood.

    A ‘tower elf’ is one of the racial sub-types for elves. Basically they’re elves that study wizardry in the time honored-tradition of locking themselves up in a tower full of spellbooks along with other elves doing the same. You gain some advantages when it comes to the arcane, but you’re also a weirdo recluse only now going out into the world — so there ya go.

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  • Titansgrave: #tablederp Edition

    Tuesday is Titansgrave day! The cast made some fun faces during their episode “Danger at Reed Manor” last week, so I snapped some #tablederp screenshots.

    Runcible isn’t cute. Just look at Wil turn away.
    Laura Bailey’s character, Lemley, takes damage
    Wil cringes at the Jakaar’s abilties
    Kiliel, played by Alison Haislip, discovers something potentially awesome

    I swear I’m not intentionally leaving out Hank Green on these Titansgrave posts. He’s a fun guy and I love his character, Aankia. But he doesn’t make silly faces very often.

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  • Running Smurfy

    On Thursday my c25k training hit a new level. On week 5, day 3, there’s no walking breaks scheduled. You warmup, you run for 20 minutes, and you cool down. I ended up taking some walking time to catch my breath, and I didn’t hit the 2 mile distance that I’d like to with a full 20 minutes of running, so I plan to step back and week 5, day 2, on my next run and give my muscles a better shot at my next attempt.

    But I really enjoyed my Ingress scanner during the run because it looked like this the whole time:

    Run in the blue, feel the blue, be the blue
    Run in the blue, feel the blue, be the blue

    Some genius agents made a field that covered the whole of Louisville and its surrounding area.

    Well done, agents.
    Well done, agents.

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  • Writing Bit by Bit

    It’s fair to say I underestimated the difficulty of writing campaigns for my Dungeons and Dragons group. Going through a pre-written module was simple enough and it provided a good outline for the sort of information I’d need. Having DM’d that adventure with success, I thought I knew enough about the game to prepare a good story.

    Having blogged everyday for 17 weeks straight, I figured I also knew how to write consistently. Inching forward bit by bit in hopes of making something bigger seemed like a habit I already formed.

    Between knowing DnD and having a writing habit, I was totally prepared. Boy was I wrong.

    Writing in short-form blog posts and publishing them for that quick endorphin rush is so much easier than writing for a long-form project. Sure, it’s still writing a small amount everyday – but making all that little work fit into the puzzle of a larger arc? Ugh, it’s beyond frustrating.

    Every little bit that I add to the story is some of the hardest writing I’ve ever done. I sit there tensing up over why I can’t find a way to connect one scene to another. I write up non-player characters, dungeon crawls, and antagonist monologues all to delete them minutes later. Each session is a workout in my mind.

    Manticore, a monster our players fought in a recent game
    Manticore, a monster our players fought in a recent game

    And you couldn’t pay me to stop. Writing for these games has brought how I think of storytelling to a new level. It’s made me appreciate my reading more too. Most importantly, it makes me proud to present my work to my friends at each game. Working through a module, I was playing ‘not to screw it up,’ and now I’m playing to make what’s in my head come to life.

    Bit by bit, my writing will get better.

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  • Wil & Ryon Wheaton, and the cast of Titansgrave Live Panel

    In addition to festivities at San Diego Comic Con proper, Geek & Sundry, Nerdist, and Smart Girls hosted a ‘Conival’ at Petco Park last weekend. I’m still catching up on all the videos, but I definitely enjoyed the Titansgrave panel from that event. One quote from Wil really stood out after a fan asked if Titansgrave could ever have a live stream episode:

    I was watching Critical Role before we went into editing on Titansgrave. And I thought, “there is no way we’re gonna be as good as Critical Role. There is no way we can live up to this.” […] We just had to do something that was very different from Critical Role.-Wil Wheaton (at 51:20)

    You might recall I’ve made that contrast as well.

    Watch the whole panel discussion here:

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  • c25k and Ingress

    You might recall that I’m doing the Couch-to-5k (c25k) running program. I’ve completed the first four weeks of the program and in terms of habit-forming it’s been one of the easier ones I’ve attempted in my life. I piggy-backed on my habit of walking the dog around sun-down by turning that into my warmup walk.

    But my real secret? I hack portals while I run.

    A mere mortal would be content with only the c25k app of their choice running on their phone, telling them when to walk and when to jog. But why stop there when you could collect the XM, get an evening hack to help your Sojourner badge, and maybe do a mission? Not to mention that running is the fastest way to earn kilometers on your Trekker badge.

    I’m out of missions near my house that I can complete during a 30 minute c25k session, but I still always fire one up. So long as I keep my fingers off the lock button, the mission will keep my scanner up and running so I can hack any nearby portals. And you better believe I don’t run anywhere without portals.

    One of the appeals of Ingress is that it provides a game that gets you moving. It’s a lot easier to walk two more blocks when there’s a portal over there. If you apply the same idea to running, it’s a lot easier to take on that next jog when you know you’ll have fun. Out of breath fun, but still fun.

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  • Support this Ingress LEGO Set

    It’s time to separate the nerds from the super nerds. This genius has designed a LEGO set for Ingress agents.

    Ingress LEGO set
    Ingress LEGO set

    The LEGO Ideas site will only make a set if it gets 10,000 users interested and then passes a review process. I’m not sure the folks at Niantic will let the licensing of this come to fruition. But it’s a cool design!

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  • Note-passing in Titansgrave

    When you’re in a role-playing game, sometimes characters have more knowledge or perception of their whereabouts than the other members of their party. A good way for a dungeon master to give this information to the player is by passing notes.

    In Titansgrave, we’ve seen this happen a couple times. Most recently in chapter 5, “Staff of Forlorn Hope,” when Kiliel (played by Alison Haislip) can see more about Mr. Voss than the others can. Her reaction nails why this story-telling tactic is awesome.

    It’s exciting because it empowers the player. They get the information and they get to choose what to do with it, instead of being subject to the DM’s narration of events.

    For the purposes of Titansgrave, it’s doubly effective because each of the players have secrets they’re hiding from the others. Using note-passing during more common instances like Kiliel’s actually makes it more normal when the note-passing is crucial to those secrets. I really hope a note-pass makes or breaks the climax of one of these adventures, because Wil has used them skillfully.

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  • Game Day

    I absolutely love playing board games with friends. We invited a bunch of people over for games last night.

    Zombie Dice by Steve Jackson
    Gravwell: Escape from the 9th Dimension by Corey Young
    All clumped up in Gravwell, a moment where bluffing and readin g other people can really pay off.
    Saboteur by Fréderic Moyersoen. I won both rounds!
    An epic game of Elder Sign by Richard Launius and Kevin Wilson completed the night.

    We also played Forbidden Desert by Matt Leacock, Star Trek: Catan by Klaus Teuber, and 7 Wonders (with the Cities expansion) by Antoine Bauza.

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