Redwolf's Journal (continued)

Ugh. I don't want to single people out or be negative. Yet a person has to vent, I guess? Disclaimers: I usually try to be at least somewhat objective when I look at goings on, but ultimately I'm just a person. My own perspective and experiences bias what I see. Things that bother me may not bother others. That's life. I at least acknowledge this. Lots of recently-annoying events revolve around someone who evokes an emotional response from me. I am simultaneously envious of their drive and the ensuing attention this generates as well as dismayed by other aspects of behavior. So it's entirely possible that person's mere involvement makes me picky in ways I wouldn't otherwise be. Gotta acknowledge that too. Re-ugh... Furryfaire is not my sandbox. For as much as I may have contributed to the setting through actions of my characters over the years/decades, I have never really felt I had much say in things since... hmm... since about the time a map was made a

Finally back to a little reading. Border War is the latest in the On Silver Wings series following powered armor-wearing special operative Sorilla Aida, now in the wake of the cold war cessation of hostilities with the alien Alliance. In the previous book, she was investigating a human colony in Alliance space. This one is the same in broad strokes, though this time the colonists have some particularly potent Alliance tech at hand. Not a lot of it, but enough to be dangerous and by the last page the question of who is supplying the insurrectionists remains unanswered as Aida decides she needs to get to the bottom of it, even if that means leaving SOLCOM. So it's a fair enough story in its own right, perhaps the most interesting thread being the mutual hunting of ships in space around the central planet rather than the raiding, sneaking, and fighting that goes on below. But in many ways, it feels transitionary, which action answers to ongoing questions being put off for now. Oh

This  has been making the rounds lately in the roleplay circles I view. And... mrrf... I dunno... My gut reaction was: "Well, okay. I mean, this seems a bit like caving to sociopolitical pressures of the times to make changes that aren't really necessary, but whatever?" When I see orcs defined as evil, I think of origins founded in Tolkien's tales in which they are... pretty fundamentally evil? Particularly in a fantasy world in which evil is a real thing (which I've discussed before), species that embody or are corrupted by evil forces don't seem out of place or problematic to me. That isn't my preference. Heck, when I first really dove in to create a fantasy world of my own, one of my guiding tenets was "shades of gray" - no nation or faction or race would be inherently good or evil, just motivated by interests. Defining any group as monolithic in personality isn't very realistic. But then, fantasy is often about exploring things th

I think too much. Okay, that has likely saved me from a lot of grief over the course of my life, but it also holds me back from experienced that could be positive. On a broad scale, it's kept me from things like marriage and career ambition. On a smaller scale, it keeps me away from things like roleplaying scenes that I would find disappointing (which happens to mean missing out on a lot, which is disappointing in a different way). Ugh. In small, recent example, I steered myself away from a plot that seemed pitched as "epic adventure to retrieve legendary figure from mountain of mythical importance!" My brain looked at the factors involved and decided this adventure would likely resolve in a way that would feel rushed and unsatisfying in spite of seemingly major threat along the way. It was also involving people who rub me the wrong way. This all seemed like a recipe for not-a-fun-time, so I sat it out. In the end, it has taken those involved all of a "week and

I finally caught Kingdom Come: Deliverance at a discount that made it appealing enough to go and sink some time into. I'd heard enough about it that I wasn't really surprised by any of the game elements (not that I knew much in the way of story detail). As a game, its strengths and weaknesses heavily overlap and whether they're seen as good or bad (or both) is entirely a matter of perspective. It shares a very basic level of commonality with open world fantasy RPGs like Skyrim. But it's not fantasy - it's almost-slavishly devoted to a realistic depiction of feudal Bohemia. The closest thing to magic would be the potions (that have to be brewed by following steps at a workbench or purchased) that give a few temporary stat bonuses or some other minor benefit like allowing you to save without exiting. Melee combat has a lot of little details and it's very easy to be overwhelmed by more than one opponents. Archery has no reticle. Stats and skills increase slowly

Our Monday night remote D&D game has been a little on the formulaic side. The DM is using an official campaign that seems to throw out a lot of small hooks for players to follow, but the connecting storyline seems to be threaded through the distant background (so far). It's also spread over so much of the Sword Coast it's arguably a bit silly. When someone asks you to travel for several weeks to deliver a message, for example, it kind of begs the question "why would we do that?" I sound critical, but it's been fun and a little bit liberating in a sense to do what feels like "classic" adventuring compared to other games in recent memory. Last night, we actually had what I would consider one of our first major bits of inter-party RP. It proved hilarious. As we've reached level 6, our party wizard (a necromancer ) seems to have decided it was time to discuss his vocation with the others. He went around one-on-one to the other party members with s