My brain hasn’t been my best friend this week. I read some of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations to help me get centered again. I liked this quote a lot:
…thou must use thyself to think only of such things, of which if a man upon a sudden should ask thee, what it is that thou art now thinking, thou mayest answer This, and That, freely and boldly, that so by thy thoughts it may presently appear that in all thee is sincere, and peaceable…
Aurelius, Marcus (2009-10-04). Meditations (Kindle Locations 1081-1084). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.
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
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.
My Aunt Pam is a really talented person. She spins, knits, sews, dyes, and weaves – the crafter’s crafter. She made a beautiful wedding gift for Ber and me. Take a look at this throw!
It’s be living at my desk because Ber hasn’t taken it away yet 🙂
Close-up of the checker pattern
Nice and big!
It’s a handwoven, cotton throw in a really nice stone/gray color. It has a really cool checker pattern too. Ber hasn’t taken it away from me yet so it’s become a part of my workspace.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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?
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.
For the last few years my best friend and I started up the tradition of going to Drum Corps International World Championship Finals every August. Since DCI started doing these simulcasts at the beginning of the season, that seemed like a perfect addition to our year too. In fact, we so decided on this that neither of bothered to look at the upcoming tour schedules and notice that DCI Louisville was to be only two days later.
Whatever, the simulcast was great. We’ll see it all in person at the biggest show of the year in three short months. Here’s my quick reactions to the shows:
Madison Scouts
I really liked all the sectional features in ‘Gotta Dance’ and the costuming for the Gene Kelly-inspired guard. In particular the Tuba feature a minute and a half in can be a really great moment once it gets clean. What’s the deal with those manikin guard equipment in the ballad? I don’t know, but points for originality.
Super props for that hourglass drill maneuver, and really all the drill in the closer. Not easy stuff in Madison’s visual program.
Blue Stars
There’s a few nice moments but really the show doesn’t do it for me. The high striker looked cheap and they had three stages and really only did a good job of displaying great moments on one. The juggler was a fun touch, but probably needs to work on making his routine a little more impactful. There’s two big tosses splitting the routine when I’d rather have one as a nice climax.
Carolina Crown
Good lord this brass book is amazing. I was transfixed by this show just as much as I was during ‘For the Common Good,’ ‘E=MC2‘ and ‘Out of This World.’ Just as important to this show is how prominently they feature their percussion. In their recent title-contention and championship year(s), percussion scores have been their weak spot. Rather than shy away from it, they keep attacking the problem head on with aggressive features. My kind of attitude. They’ll get that whole drapery snafu figured out eventually, I’m sure.
The Cavaliers
Enjoyable, but not so remarkable. I did not like the vocalist treatment to the ballad nor did I think the ‘Game On’ theme really presented itself well beyond the guard’s performance. Hopefully they have some additions planned to project that better.
The Cadets
Every few years The Cadets win me over again. After stinker shows like last year’s I want to forget that I’ve ever liked them, but this year I come back with open arms. ‘The Power of Ten’ has just enough nerdy nods to the theme to make me go “oo oo oo!” and just as many moments of outstanding marching and playing to show they know their stuff. In particular I enjoyed the ballad, which is performed in a space only ten yards wide. Definitely a title contender.
Not as clean as The Cadets yet, but this show was mindblowing. This is the most interesting use of electronics I’ve ever heard in marching arts and it genuinely feels like a pivotal moment. Danny and I couldn’t help but gasp at each other for minutes after what we just experienced. As much as I loved Crown’s show, I cannot believe Crown as with tenths of Blooooo. Do not miss this show. I feel like this is bigger than Frameworks was in 2002, and probably what it felt like in Star ’93 — a whole new vision for what show can be. The very last moment left me wanting more, but it seemed like there is more planned to come.
After talking online with a friend about Imposter Syndrome and feedback, I decided to ramble a bit into the camera about it. Pardon the quick editing job.
“Turns out Neil Gaiman accidentally wrote Harry Potter in 1990.”
That’s how my friend Peter introduced this comic book mini-series to me. I’ve never really been into comic books, but occasionally I feel like I should be. Peter is my best enabler on that front. He recommends to me the ‘what you should read next’ and I usually get around to it eventually. For The Books of Magic, he just brought his copy to my house one day before a round of Ingress, made that quip about Harry Potter, and let me do the rest.
Yo-yo was my favorite character
Once I actually picked it up, I really enjoyed it. The art is a bit trippy and the story even moreso. But it has the arc of an epic poem, or an opera, or something much larger than itself, shoved into 200 short pages. Your mind can fill in any blanks with additional moments of wonder if you like. I read it before bed, mostly, so it lead to the occasional interesting dreams.
Most importantly the story of Tim Hunter seems to lead to each reader assessing their own morality and judgment. Is learning that magic is real all that different than learning anything else? The world around us works different than we understand it, otherwise we’d be experts by now. But the learning we undergo speaks nothing to the future it will provide. Just as Tim’s mentors don’t know exactly how their teaching will shake out either.
Not sure I’m so engaged with it to seek out the ‘volume two’ of comics that came out from 1994 – 2000… but if Peter throws some at me I wouldn’t turn them down.
Alex "Gus" Gustafson 