Redwolf's Journal (continued)

I may add to this as I think of things, but it's nice to have someplace to dump thoughts, anyway. . . . . . . . . . . . For as much as Endgame messes with time travel , I think it does it pretty well and sensibly. That's not to say perfectly. Bruce's explanation, as well as the Ancient One's visual, sort of make clear they're going with the alternate/split timelines approach to avoid the butterfly effect. THEN they add the moral complexity of acknowledging these alternate timelines are valid as well, and shouldn't be screwed just for the benefit of their "prime timeline" (ie. the one we're following). That's why the make a deliberate effort to get the stones back to when they came from. That means there's a Loki that's alive, but he's in an alternate timeline. It also means that present-Thor screwed a parallel Thor by yoinking Mjolnir from that timeline (well, Cap could have returned that, though still kind of a dick

The "no spoilers" part is challenging. I find it hard to wrap my mind around how the movie would be to someone who hasn't followed the MCU. Confusing, but action-filled? For me, however, as someone who has followed almost all the movies (I think I've missed... one or two), it is some three hours of incredibly awesome payoff. I don't know how I expected it to go. There'd been mention of the Quantum Realm and importance of Captain Marvel. After Infinity War, you know there has to be more use of the Infinity Stones and a battle to "fix" things. Other than that... I wasn't really sure. What I really did not expect so much emphasis on so many characters and their personal stories. The movie juggles it all incredibly well considering how much there is. Even without the qualifier, it's damn good. There were several moments where I saw some small-scale "surprise" coming, but that didn't detract for me. It's just a crazy fun ride.

Between the 13th Age game and recent military scifi reading, it occurs to me that I may "know" a lot more about military organization, weapons, strategy, and such than a lot of my generational peers. Granted, this knowledge is a amalgam of many sources that may vary in significant ways - ranks, for example, are not universal across branches, much less nations. Still, a lot of things I take for granted are total unknowns to some people. And all my knowledge is theoretical (in that I have never served and don't use firearms). So when a player set their character up as a major in the game, my thought was less "this is the group leader" and more "that seems an unusually high rank to only be leading half a dozen people." Of course, handwaving and "it's just a game" and all that, so I don't dwell on it. But it has had me thinking tangentially about such things and how I've assimilated bits and pieces from various sources. Recently re

I commented previously about the familiarity of the system compared to D&D. I'm also starting to notice more subtle differences. The game seems a bit more class-focused (to the point I believe multiclassing is a supplemental/house-rule thing). In D&D (drawing mostly from 3E and 5E, anyway), feats are a means of giving characters a way to individualize beyond what's in class abilities. They might augment and compliment what's there, or they might be a way to borrow a feature of another class (armor/weapon proficiency, cantrips, etc.) without fully multi-classing. In 13th Age, feats seem more a mechanic to give some option of advancement specifically within a class. I think between the two main books we're referring to, there are only maybe a dozen general feats that anyone can take. A vast majority of the options, however, are "increase this things you get from your class." Leveling a character up to 2 and 3 makes me a little frustrated at this setup.

A lot of little Star Wars tidbits seem to have come out in the recent celebration. The Episode IX teaser doesn't do much other than show off a few vistas and returning characters. I'm not sure what to think of Rise of the Skywalker as a name - there's an implication of the family line living on, though Kylo's a Solo and Rey is... a solo? Heh. I think it's a given that I'll see the movie, but I can't say I'm excited or even what I want to see out of it. We get some glimpses of The Mandalorian . I think it may be leaning a little hard on the bounty hunter bit, but I'm sort of glad to see the faction getting more screen time in some form. It may make "Mandalorians" more mainstream and less just "Boba Fett." I'm curious, but not fully invested at this stage. Jedi: Fallen Order is where my interest picks up. That the business side of things (single-player with "no loot boxes/microtransactions") got a lot of focus

Hmm. Another of those books that I read through I sort of want to have enjoyed more than I did. In the end, I feel it's just "okay" and perhaps trying too hard. There are plenty of neat fantasy ideas here, with a war among gods and their avatars in the background as well as the nature of divinities in the setting themselves, various alchemical creations from bombs to "Tallowmen," and dead-eating ghouls and colonies of worms. There's a reasonably interesting cast of characters, though it takes a while for them to all fall into place. I found the technical side of the book to be more off-putting. I think I have a greater tolerance than normal to present-tense writing due to MU* experience, but even so, it rarely feels "right" to me in a novel. Also, the writing style has what feels to me like a "stream of consciousness" quality to it that results in a lot of choppy, partial sentences and such. I feel as though this book would have given

April Fools Day is pretty weird when you think about it. I'm not sure if it's my own age or society's shifting in general, but everything feels so much more serious these days than I remember in my youth, draining any fun from the day. Alas. There are still plenty of scattered corporate entries across the internet that range in levels of amusement. WoW has its fake patch notes. A number of other games do cutesy pitches for variants. I found the Lego brick finder app entertaining for how awesome it would be to be real. Rainbow Six Siege (which I don't even play) seems to be doing a week of pink pastels and unicorns in game as a "Rainbow is Magic" event. I think the one thing that I saw that I would rate the "best" of the year was Corsair's "Game Launcher Launcher." The delivery in the video was just about right and it's especially timely satire with the Epic Store controversy in the PC gaming community. You probably have to be at l