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Wargame with Brick Constructs thru BrikWars!

Posted on March 28th, 2008 in games, hobbies, tabletop games by darthvid
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Want to wargame? Can’t, paint/afford figs if your life depended on it? Have piles of LEGO collecting dust in a bucket somewhere?

Despair not my acrylically challeneged, financially downtrodden friend! If you can rummage through your attic and find the thousands of LEGO bricks you failed to swallow in your youth, then there is still hope to pacify your miniature wargaming needs and still excercise your creativity!

For you my friend, there is BrikWars: Building Brick Combat System[sic]!

BrikWars is a set of rules for miniature wargaming using building block pieces and figues like LEGO, Mega Bloks, etc (I’ll refer to these peices as “briks”). The rules are created by Mike Rayhawk, which he based on an earlier endeavor called Legowars made by Eric O’Dell and R. Todd Ogrin.

The rulebook is tounge-in-cheek right from the start, which sets the informal “fun” mood the reader presumably should take. The rules for fig, weapon, armor, and vehicle/construct valuation allow you to cost a fig/construct based on how it’s built. Other factors, such as abilities or weaknesses can be factored to the fig/construct cost (some of which are in a separate document). Combat procedures are simple and require ordinary d6 (6 sided dice). The author points out that the rules are there for those who want them, and players are free to ignore aspects of the rules as they please.

The rules are intended to be a guide rather than canon. The whole idea of using briks is to unleash freedom and creativity, but runaway freedom and creativity in wargaming is not so much a “game” as it is “role-playing”. BrikWars is an attempt to produce a modicum of order to be able to play a wargame using briks with a semblance of balance and still provide an avenue for creativity. Think about it, minis in barbarian garb toting blasters! Sword weilding police teams in an ambulance tricked up with pincers and cannons! And yet you still have the feasibility of beating a fully armed spaceship! The possibilities are endless!

For me, the best thing about BrikWars is that for every HP of damage dealt, you can actually have the satisfaction of breaking apart pieces of the fig/construct damaged! Smash that tank brik for brik! Then, reassemble it again for the next game, perhaps with less hull in the front and another death ray on the left. How often can you do THAT with your week long assembled and painted Warcaster?

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Ender’s Game (book review)

Posted on March 14th, 2008 in books, review by darthvid
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I’ve never been a sci-fi reader. Sure, I’ve read some here and there, but most of my sci-fi exposure has been with movies and TV, not books. A quick look at my humble library confirmed it… I had no sci-fi books (I do remember having the Admiral Thrawn trilogy at my old home).

I decided to rectify the situation in the 3rd quarter of 2007 by attempting to get into the genre. I read top lists, checked reviews, and asked around (though I knew relatively few sci-fi readers personally). The book Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card constantly sprang-up, and knowing that any book I chose at that point would be as good as any other, I decided to get that.

Ender’s Game is about a super-genius boy named Ender Wiggins (yes, the name sounds pansy) who at a young age was forced into a special training school to prepare him in his role as “protector of humanity”. The book starts off with the “I am a genius and thus I am bullied” theme, followed by the “government/military handpicks you as ‘The One’ that may ultimately save all humanity” theme, and then Ender is whisked to the “top secret training school where all elites are trained for the ultimate conflict”. This part is where most of the book’s pages are dedicated to.

In this “school for the elite”, Ender faces more of the same as well as the task of proving his salt, gaining acceptance and respect, and the slow revealation of what “The Man” expects out of him in the end. With each positive thing that happens to Ender, something else goes wrong or a new plot twist is introduced (which kinda reminds me of the “Princess Sarah” anime).

I’ll stop here and let the rest of the story take it’s natural course, but I would like to state a major point in this review… those last two paragraphs pretty much describe the bulk of the book. The events are individually interesting (at least some are), but overall, things just seem to be your run of the mill coming of age story. It’s not that it’s entirely predictable (some parts are, some aren’t), it’s just that when all is said and done the whole thing feels thin.

The journey, however, can be quite engrossing. I can immediately see how nerds in their childhood can relate to Ender, but the empathy goes just a tad further than that. As you grow older, you tend to lose the connection with the youth, forgetting what it meant to be young. If you think about it, Ender’s serious and thoughtful demanor is not simply due to his way-above average intellect (athough it partly is), it’s more of how the younger ones see the world and what they hold dear. Adults may find it unlikely or silly that a boy would think of the things Ender did, but they do. Kids see things differently, and most of us saw things the same way at one point or another in our young lives (on the assumption that you’re one of the so-called relatively ‘old farts’ like me).

Which leads to my other major point… it is this aspect that makes the book special in spite of the weaknesses I mentioned earlier. What the book lacks in sophistication of plot, it makes up for in empathy. It’s not extremely well done, but it was enough to keep me reading, urging me to get to the next page and see what will happen next, being by Ender’s side in his endeavors.

This type of storytelling, however, is not for everyone by definition. Not all people will be able to relate to Ender, and thus the book may ultimately fail on them. To those who do empathize, the plot/story will matter less than the ongoing experience, and thus the book may be successful. If all you’re after is plot and story… well… there’s not much of that in this book.

If you read the preface/introduction, Orson Scott Card acknowledges that Ender’s Game was originally a short-story converted to a novel, and it shows. Some plot aspects are cliche, some parts feel like fillers or were forced. The core story that is Ender’s “coming of age”, however, will draw some of you into a trip down memory lane where you will reminice in your own similar plights, celebrate with him in each triumph, and root for him to succeed with each challenge. This will not happen to all of you, but it will to some.

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Gary Gygax: Father of RPGs (1938 - 2008)

Posted on March 6th, 2008 in games, geek culture, hobbies, pinoy, tabletop games by darthvid
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Ernest Gary Gygax , co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons (), passed away last March 4, 2008 at his home in Wisconsin.

I never really got to play the old vanilla that was published under Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. or TSR (the religious zealots insited TSR was an acronym for “To Satan’s Realm”). I did get to play some of the near kin, specifically a “Choose Your Own Adventure” style book and three 1 on 1 PvP style variants (two of which were Marvel licensed). Of course there was the Saturday morning cartoon (did they ever get to go back home?). In later years, the nearest I got to was with the Icewind Dale PC game.

Most of the games that I play and love, however, are decendants of . All Role-Playing Games (RPGs) ever made (pen-and-paper, electronic, or any other format) inherited one thing or another. Any game that has spells, multiple character classes, leveling up, stats like HP STR DEF DEX etc, random number checks that influence a hit/miss, even the concept of critical hits and backstabs, inherited from .

Reading through the hundres of messages from people expressing their grief and appreciation, I personally think the comment by someone named ‘Mo Khan’ at Wired.com describes best how much he meant to so many people.

Rest well Gary, and thank you. You’ve touched more lives than you know and your work will continue to influence generations to come.

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