Alex "Gus" Gustafson

Category: Games

  • Titansgrave vs. Critical Role

    When Geek and Sundry’s webseries Tabletop had its record-setting Indiegogo campaign last year, one of the stretch goals reached was the creation of a new RPG show to be produced as well. That show is a now a thing you can watch called Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana. Right now we’re 3 episodes into the 10 episode series, plus a bonus ‘episode 0′ that fills you in on the rpg system being used, the story’s universe, and the characters’ backstories.

    When Geek and Sundry launched their Twitch channel in March of this year, they also created a tentpole of their livestreaming with Critical Role. This is a separate RPG show, where a group of friends play their weekly  Dungeons and Dragons (5ed) game for approximately 4 hours. It’s just like your game and mine, except cameras are rolling. And those cameras are excellently run by the Geek and Sundry staff. And the group are lead by a very talented game master (GM) in Matt Mercer. And the party of adventurers are all voice actors with an incredible knack for performing their characters.

    So it’s a little better than your game and mine at home.

    I think you should watch both, but in case anyone was conflicted between between #savegrog and #savethebeer , here’s a quick comparison of the two.

    Like It Is, or Like It Is in Hollywood

    Critical Role plays it like it is. These folks are playing an excellent game of DnD and there’s no reason your home game can’t be very similar. Players are making nerdy jokes and chomping on vegan pizza while their characters haggle with the local shopkeep, polymorph into animals, or downing a cask of ale they had stashed in the bag of holding. If it’s any different from your previous RPG experience it’s probably because your friends weren’t as experienced.

    Titansgrave is a whole realm of production beyond what you and I will do at home. They’ve had the resources or artists, video editors, and graphic designers augment the experience to a level that if you try to mimic it, you’ll probably fall over before you have a chance to finish your storyline. Your everyday GM shouldn’t bother trying to make this sort of immersion happen — but holy cow is it awesome. Watching Titansgrave feels a lot more like watching a movie. Enjoy it the same way you enjoy a summer blockbuster.

    Matt vs. Wil

    Matt is clearly an amazing GM and his quick acting of NPCs is clearly at another level. Wil lacks some of the quickchange voice-acting cred, but also gets a lot of credit for creating one heck of a new universe in Titansgrave. Using a less-developed system has also given him a lot of power, so I think Titansgrave really feels like we see a lot more of Wil’s mind that Critical Role shows us playing around in Matt’s.

    That, and Wil is my man-crush. But Matt might be yours.

    Matt Mercer
    Matt Mercer

    How’s Your Schedule?

    Twitch has become the hot new place for Geek and Sundry to release content. Good on ’em for keeping up with the times. What that means though is that unless you start matching the Twitch stream’s scheduling, you’re missing out on the full experience. Titansgrave is still posted asynchronously — so if you watch it 5 hours after it comes out, you’re still on par with the rest of the world. 5 hours late on Twitch is missing the whole episode. Critical Role is definitely an in-the-moment experience. The episodes still get posted later (here) but it’s just not the same. Plus you miss out on the chat room with the other “Critters,” which is a pretty great way to participate with an RPG show.

    All I’m saying is, to max out your fandom you might need to think about just how available you can be Thursdays 7pm PT.

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  • Real Life Random Encounters

    I really enjoyed my first adventure DMing my friends’ roleplaying game. We just finished the module I planned out, and I’m now percolating ideas for the next adventure. My favorite thing is designing the random encounters.

    Random encounters are small events that may or may not occur while the players are completing the bigger story. The real adventure might be about tracking the evil hunter who lives in a distant woods, but while the players track the hunter, I, as the DM, will roll a die every once and a while to determine some random encounters. Like the grizzly bear who also happens to hunt [you] in the woods. Or perhaps something more innocuous, like a mysterious, cold wind blowing out your campfire one night.

    Anyway, I thought it’d be fun to make up a few random encounters for the real world. Be your own DM. Mileage may vary.

    1. Litter Bug: A DC 10 Perception check reveals several small pieces of trash on the sidewalk. If a character attempts to gather the litter and throw it away, make another DC 12 Perception check to notice a copy of today’s newspaper free for the taking within the nearest trash receptacle.
    2. Playtime: You happen to glance down a road you’ve never traveled before and spot a playground. This is a super nice playground. Like, nice enough you’re surprised you never noticed it. Huh.
    3. Jukebox: A nearby tavern has its door open. As you pass by, the jukebox mysteriously plays your favorite song. If a character chooses to enter the tavern, they must battle the manipulative Ex-Lover Who Just Got a Job as a Bartender. (See Monster Manual p.682)
    4. Hipster Evasion: A hipster-class human (Str: +0, Dex: +1, Con -1, Int +0, Wis -2, Cha +5) sits at a bus stop practicing his speech on why a Libertarian will win the 2016 US presidential election. Pass a DC 18 Stealth check to avoid the hipster. Otherwise, take 4 points of non-lethal damage.

    hipster-kitty-dnd

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  • Resistance Win the Persepolis Anomaly Series

    The Resistance defeated the Enlightened by only 429 points in this summer’s anomaly series, “Persepolis.” According to the announcement on Google+, this will almost assuredly introduce N’zeer technology into the (confusing) Ingress storyline:

    The Resistance victory assures that Jahan will likely succeed in unlocking N’zeer technology in Persepolis, and the true power of the N’zeer will be unleashed. Will all of Jahan’s expectations be met, or will she encounter more than she bargained for?

    Read the full anomaly scoring summary in this Google+ post.

    I had planned to participate in the Nashville anomaly, but some last minute conflicts came up. Ber and I decided it’d be best to stay home. Our friends, agents Motamara and Kieleantra fought the blue fight and it sounds like they had a great time.

    Congrats to all Resistance agents!

    persepolis logo ingress

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  • Learning to Glyph Hack: A Guide for Real People

    Back in May, the blog Decode Ingress had a guest post called “Golro’s Guide to Glyphing” outlining more about glyph hacking than I’ve ever seen one explain. There’s really nothing inaccurate in that article, but there is a lot of stuff that probably doesn’t deserve discussion with most people. Golro’s not wrong that finger friction is a factor — but I really don’t need to read your ‘fingernail’ recommendation. I’m gonna do what feels best for me and that’s all there is to it.

    So I decided to write my own no-nonsense guide to glyph hacking. These tips will help you if you want to improve your glyph hacking accuracy and are willing to spend an extra 10 minutes a day outside of your normal Ingress time. That might be because you’re hunting the Translator Badge. Or maybe you just farm a lot and want to make the most of your time. Your motivations are your own, but here’s a ‘real person’ take on this Ingress mini game.

    translator-badge-silver

    Learn the Glyph Names

    Most everyone starts out by providing their own little names for the glyphs. “Destiny” might get remembered as “dragon,” or “hide” instead is ‘boat.’ This works up to a point, but there are many glyphs that will tend to get looked over as ‘squiggly,’ ‘dash,’ or ‘around-the-bottom.’ In the thick of a farming session, your brain cannot mess with these half-measures.

    The fastest way to learn the Glyph names that I’ve found is with the tool Memrise. I first heard of Memrise when Tim Ferriss did a memory contest with it, but my parents told me they were using it to learn the shaper glyphs. Click here to find the Shaper Glyphs course, and once you’re signed up you can play the memrise game on the web, or with their mobile app. It’s just hard to find this course on the mobile app.

    I zoomed through this course as I was comfortable with about 2/3 of the glyphs already. But even if you don’t zoom through it, these will help put in place the proper name for each and every glyph. No more than 5 minutes a day needed on Memrise, in my opinion.

    Practice the Glyphs

    Knowing the glyph names is half the battle. Practicing the motions is also important. I’ve screwed up just as many glyph hacks from missing dot as I have from not knowing the glyph name. And now that I know all the glyph names, missing dots is my most common reason! Immediately after my 5 minute memrise session, I’d do 5 minutes on Glypher. This app will simulate as many glyph hacks as you can stand, with no need to walk from portal to portal in between. Really great for nailing down the motions.

    If you need to check on real names you haven’t yet seen in Memrise, Glypher will let you draw the glyph and identify its name too.

    Speak the Glyph Names

    Once you know some of the glyph names, start saying them out loud while you read the glyphs in the real world. If you don’t know a glyph name when it pops up. Try to avoid the temptation of adding a ‘fake’ name in its place. You’re going to finish all the glyphs in a matter of weeks at the longest, so accept your best guess for now. Later you’ll be hitting all the glyphs almost every time.

    Glyph a Level, Any Level

    Unless I desperately need gear, I only glyph hack on level 7 and 8 portals now. I do this because all portals of the same level tend to cycle through the same phrases. I know all the glyphs — but some are more common than others at the same portal level, so why risk coming up on a less common one just because it gets used in L4 portal phrases? I don’t need the L4 power cubes that badly.

    I recommend you do the same. If you can handle 5 glyphs, glyph only level 8s and maybe level 7s. But if you can only handle 3, stay with the L5 portals but glyph every L5 portal you reach. You’ll see the common phrases over and over again and you’ll find they get easier.

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  • Jason Rohrer on Skill vs. Luck and Online Gambling

    American game designer Jason Rohrer appeared on the Wisconsin Public Radio show To the Best of Our Knowledge discussing his two-player, strategy (and gambling) game, Cordial Minuet.

    I’m not too interested in this game personally, but I do think Jason really knows his games. The interview is really great.

    Listen to “Gambling with 100% Skill” at ttbook.org 

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  • Dungeon Master Tips from Critical Role’s Matt Mercer

    While preparing for my first romp at Dungeon Mastering, a resource I really appreciated was Episode 12 of Critical Role from Geek and Sundry’s twitch channel.

    Matt Mercer has been DMing this same group of performers (most of them are voice actors, which makes the characters really awesome) for a long time. Critical Role is normally the group’s weekly DnD game, but episode 12 are tips and tricks on how to run your own game and get new characters started. The DMing advice really starts at 42 minutes in and lasts about an hour, but you can see the whole video here:

    Critical_Role__Episode_12_–_Dungeons___Dragons_Campaign_Tips___Geek_and_Sundry

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  • The Master

    As socially inept as I can be, one thing I’ve learned to do as an adult is convince people to come to my house and play games. Here’s a hint: food is key. Normally this consists of board games. Folks ready to come over earlier get to play a couple games [usually] under and hour each. But then we like to tentpole the night with long “big box” games like Arkham Horror or Battlestar Galactica.

    Ber knit cool dice bags for all the players. Mine has colors inspired by the fourth Doctor's scarf.
    Ber knit cool dice bags for all the players. Mine has colors inspired by the fourth Doctor’s scarf.

    But for a while now, some of my friends have also been into playing role playing games. Our first campaign was in Dungeons and Dragons (3.5) but more recently we’ve been playing in the Pathfinder system. Really the only issue we’ve had is that everyone has been more interested in playing than in running the game. Even though you get the venerable title of…

    Dungeon Master

    This weekend will be my first time as dungeon master. It’s a pretty terrifying thought, because of all the people at the table I’m the least experienced with RPGs. Saturday night might set a world records for the number of times a DM asks their players for a rule clarification.

    In true min-max tradition, what I lack in rules knowledge I’m making up for in other preparation. We’re playing out of module and I know that story inside and out. I’ve given serious thought about all the major non-player-characters to know their fears and motivations. I’ve got alternate paths ready to railroad keep the story on track no matter the decisions that are made.

    Will report back here if my players coup and never let me DM again.

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  • Titansgrave Is Late. And That’s Okay.

    Wil Wheaton said Titansgrave was gonna come out on June 2nd. On June 2nd we got an apology and an explanation for why it wasn’t coming out on June 2nd. Here it is:

    And I’m totally cool with this explanation. I’m excited to see the show and I’m disappointed that I’m not watching it right this second, but I trust Wil and the staff at Geek and Sundry to put out the very best program they can.

    Me: *Waits for June 9*

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  • Level 9: A Productive Grocery Trip

    I got to Level 8 by throwing a ton of derp links out of one portal. A newbie mistake, but one I was willing to accept for the level.

    I got to Level 9 by blowing up everything in my sight on the way to and from the grocery store — with some efficient glyph hacking as the cherry on top. More about glyph hacking to come later this week, but for now let me revel in my screenshots. I’ve already got the badge count handled for Level 10. Just need another 1,600,000 AP. Easy!

    Level up!
    Level up!
    Full profile
    Full profile

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  • That Time My Wife Saved My Sojourner

    Trying to head out the door this morning, I made one more check at my to-dos and phone notifications before we were on our way.

    “I only have 44 more minutes to hack a portal,” I mentioned to Ber. I knew, because I use a timer to help me track my Ingress Sojourner medal.

    “Something tells me you’ll be fine,” she replied, dismissing my concerns quickly.

    Ber has the day off for Memorial Day so we decided we’ll mix up the schedule today and do some adventuring. I still want to work, but there’s WiFi in plenty of cool places outside of my house. We decided on Highland Coffee for our morning hangout and got there without issue.

    We got coffee and a table. And I started working. Right into it — no thought about my phone or silly notifications. Amber logged into Ingress on a whim.

    “Hey, did you hack a portal?”

    Shit.

    I had 14 minutes left. I had never cut it that close before. Almost lost my 79-day hacking streak, and would’ve been forced to start over on the 360 days in a row required for the black medal. Thank you, Ber.

    Ber captured the portal afterwards.
    Ber captured the portal afterwards.

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