A Summer's Worth of Random

This may be long, but more because I have a lot to say, less because I want to rant about it.

I started my (and I mean my) project at work. Just started, but it's already totally worth it. I'm an engineer, bitch! All in all, I'll say I really like this job. I would definitely work at ArcelorMittal if they offered me a job. Not going to commit until I see who else offers me jobs, but we'll see...

D&D 4th came out a few weeks ago, and the reviews are starting to leak out, in both the 'love it' and 'hate it' camps. I'm going to say now that, because of the type of gamer I am, I'm probably never going to play D&D again, barring nostalgia or promises of free alcohol. 4e is not the only reason, but it's definitely one of them.

As I've played more RPGs, I've kind of learned what I like in terms of gaming. I like stories, I like settings. I like images in my mind (which sucks because I can't describe for shit), and I like seeing character sheets turning into real people. I like wanting to write stories about characters when games are done. I like development, I don't care for advancement. I like conflict and even violence, I don't care for 'combat'. I like competency and concept, I don't like min-maxing and point builds.

If you're going to use the GNS model (which, flawed as it may be, boils things down pretty well), I'm halfway between N and S, narrativist (or dramatist, to some) and simulationist. I like story and conflict, and to a degree, I like realism. I mean, I can't play a fantasy game if I don't understand the consistency of the world, physically possible or not. And of course, I like stories. I like telling stories, which is one reason I GM so often.

D&D was born out of wargaming, and has been based on fantasy characters killing each other since it started. Gygax turned it into what it was because he saw more potential: potential to tell stories, potential to make characters that grow and develop. Of course, when his game started making shit-tons of money, there was no need and no reason to develop it out any further from wargaming than it already was. Its roots in the preexisting hobby no doubt made it more popular, and there were others who would do the boundary-pushing later.

Now, I don't like wargames. I'm not going to bash Warhammer or anything like that, it's just not my cup of tea. Risk is as far as I'll go when it comes to strategy, and I'll admit I like Risk quite a bit, as well as Chess. What I find interesting comparing Chess to something like Warhammer is that when the unit equation is made complicated, gameplay is simplified. The more wonky shit people put into wargames with all the different units and everything else doesn't make the game deeper. Chess is a game that becomes intellectually interesting because of its simplicity. It's easy to learn, hard to master. Warhammer is harder to learn, but after that, all you need is 1000 bucks to buy powerful shit and you're golden. You don't tweak armies like that. You choose a strategy and then stick with it. Yes, it's interesting to pick apart army builds and figure out weak spots, but you know what? I don't need to play to do that. And the play itself isn't necessarily more interesting than, say, Command and Conquer. C&C is cheaper, too.

So D&D 4th has further optimized toward the MMO crowd and the wargame crowd. They'll make a lot of money, I'm sure. I have no doubt that mechanically, D&D is now a simpler system to comprehend. It's also so far from what I'd consider enjoyable as an RPG, I know for a fact I'm not going to even bother to play it. It's not what I want.


Finally, after I scared you all off with the nerd speak:
I guess I did kind of want to rant, and to a degree, I did, about D&D. But you know? I should have learned a long time ago that vomiting words into the internet does little good.
I guess I just feel like bitching about relationships because I feel so removed from people I care about right now. People or person, I guess, depending on how widely you paint. It's only June... not a great time to start looking forward to mid-August.