Digital Duelists

Raster opened the door from backstage, and let the roar of the club pour over him. It wasn't good - It wasn't, after all, his fingers on the controls, massaging waveforms and huge decks of samples into driving, dance-able greatness, but he could find, in a corner of his heart, a certain admiration for the sound's creator. DJ Cesium threw his body around the booth, too busy to notice Raster's approach to the stand, the heavy case in his hand.

DJ Cesium trailed his fingers trailing through a cloud only he could see in his HUD. Underneath the heavy notes that swayed the crowd, his blippy, trippy freestyling lingered, the more complicated rhythm lurking, waiting to be picked up by the more adept dancers and performers in the crowd to underpin their gyrations.

Aces of Stasis

Audio Accompaniment - Sleigh Bells - Comeback Kid

The wing of blasters cruised low, until the fractured, glassy surface of the plains suddenly fell away, descending into the depths beneath them with a suddenness that stirred Wreck's stomach.

He found himself looking away from the view, looking at the distant, shattered horizon and tried to concentrate on the numbers spewed up on the inside of his goggles. In training, they'd meant something valuable, readings for targets and the efficiency of the collectors. Right now, with the cold, black surface far below, it just showed how far his blaster had to fall if something happened suddenly. Having the plug pulled on your sim session was bad enough. Actually having a team have to burn their tanks just to get out into this wilderness and save your butt would be orders of magnitude more embarrassing.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Calliope's slightly distorted voice, glazed but not dripping with sarcasm, emerged into the cockpit, cutting through the  cosmic background buzz of the scanners. With a few deep breaths, he finally slid the useless headphones off - They wouldn't find anything out here - and pushed up his goggles, staring down at the landscape below.

In the canyon, jagged crystalline shapes loomed, lit only by the sunlight that entered their jagged spires and bounced haphazardly down towards their shadowed bases. Nothing moved. Nothing even glinted, just a white to black gradient into the depths, punctuated by the occasional flash of reflected light, or the sinuous paths that looped through the shadows.

"Stasis." The voice was Magpie's, from the rear of the formation. Even his voice, Wreck thought, sounded jaded. No sarcasm, and no reverence either, just the plan fact. Wrecks shivered a bit; The flight's senior pilot reminded him of the landscape below, the color drained out of him on his previous sorties. He was right, though. Stasis. There wasn't any other word for it.


It had stopped everything. Motion. Sound. vibration. Color. They'd all been arrested, seized, and condensed.

Legomania

I feel like when it comes to LEGO bricks, you either understand, and nod sagely, and reminisce about a childhood spent with huge bins of the bricks, or maybe your carefully sorted wall of parts back home... Or, you roll your eyes a little and call them a toy.

So, if you're in that latter camp, this might be a very, very boring Blogpost for you.

If you don't know, however, Adult-Fans-Of-LEGO are absolutely a thing. There's a cottage industry of sorts - If you go to a convention and see a huge setup, or are browsing Pinterest and see an enormous LEGO construction on someone's Inspiration board, you're probably seeing the work of an AFOL.

They're a recognized component of LEGO's market, too. They know that grown-up fans are still out there. After all, while we accept that the $300 death star playset might be on some kids list, it is harder to imagine that the static, ten thousand piece Collector's Edition super star destroyer is intended to be purchased by a 12-year old.

So, let's talk LEGO.

Wolfspell Actual Play - Part 3, Wolves and War

Picking up from Part 2, which you can read here

On level ground and heading towards the clan’s land, the wolves move through the forest. As they slip through the trees, they note that the moon has moved along in the sky. it sinks behind the mountains behind them, out of sight, as they come across a river. Vegeir considers it, and notes the clear taste of the frigid water - And then remembers that it is the same as the water at home, that the river leads back to the Clan’s hold.

The wolves travel along the river beneath the now, moonless night, well on their way to their quest’s completion, and then a howl sounds in the distance. It is a call to gather, a howl to bring a pack together - But not their pack. Nonetheless, the wolfish instincts take over before any of them can arrest themselves, and they howl back in greeting - Only for the tone of the gathered wolves in the territory to shift suddenly, singing with confusion and curiosity, before the whole of the pack begins to come towards the new voices of intruders. They begin to run, not eager to be caught in the other pack’s territory, but find themselves trapped by a river, wide and strong, and not quite frozen over.

The details about the river are from another Behold the World roll. With players feral rising slowly, it’s not surprising that most of these are panning out as senses / instinct results with high wolf values, and more rational, human intuition based Blood results are rare.

Read on for the conclusion of my Wolfspell AP!

Wolfspell Actual Play - Part 2, Shifting and Peril

Picking up from Part 1 here.

The Wolfspell itself, the process of changing, is a big, key component of the game. I felt like I needed to give sufficient setup, but also, needed to get to it relatively early, so that we could set the tone and move on to the rest of the game.

I am going to admit up front, the progression post-shifting is probably one of my favorite things in the game - But we’ll get to that in a moment.

I think that I've been using a longer voice here and spent awhile lingering over the thematically heavy opening experiences of the game. As the action picks up and the wolves start to encounter more complex problems, I'll probably fall away from further explanation. Actual Play isn't something I've written much of, so there's tinkering to be done. 

As the moon begins to rise, the Pack is gathered around what was once the camp of a giant. They have brought him a dozen goats and casks of mead in order to show they mean no harm - unlike the rest of their clansmen who have hunted them to this last individual. They sought the Giant for magic - Magic to make them into wolves, to defend the clan their new, weak king has made vulnerable, without offending ancient taboos of war on their land. First, they had all sacrificed tokens of their humanity - Jona’s sword, Crow’s breath, the giant snapped to show the frailty of humanity’s arms. Vegeir’s necklace of troll ears, won by the king, torn and faded as all Glory inevitably is. Inwyr’s medicine bag, poured out and ripped to show how fleeting their Wisdom is.

Once the moon crests the bowl of mountain peaks however, that humanity begins to recede. None of them are quite sure when it begins; There’s the anticipation, calculated waiting, and then suddenly the changes are upon them…

Read on below!

Wolfspell Actual Play - Part 1, Setup

On Sunday afternoon, I gathered to me three players, some dice, paper, and a few copies of the rules for Wolfspell.

After settling in and waiting to see if any of my other players planned to make it that night, I took a deep breath and started. I had read the rules a couple of times, I’d envisioned a few scenarios, but I took it to heart not to force anything. I wanted to see this game work in it’s intended, no prep environment.

More or less, we flowed through the rules in order. The premise - You are adventurers changed into wolves to complete a quest or curse - then, I showed my players how the dice worked - One die is blood, One die is Wolf, Subtract the lower from the higher for your total. Results range from 4+ Blood to 4+ wolf, with a 0 being either a Blood 1 or Wolf 1. After that, we jumped right into character creation.

Check it out, below.

Might start up again...

Yeah.  You heard me.

Start. Up.

But really... I'm looking down the barrel of writing contests, I was invited to run games at GenCon, I'm trying to branch out and play more and get involved in the indie tabletop scene.

Obviously, gaming has changed for me a lot. Long gone are my days of playing 8 games. I'm down to Vampire, one online D&D game, and whatever my local group organizers on the weekends, usually Edge of Empire, or my own Eberron World game.

I'm not juggling 3 high-prep high fantasy games, either. Not that I miss that as much as I complain to.

The truth is, I originally felt both blown away and left behind by the wave of new indie RPG's coming out. I think I was a year or so behind the bus on Fiasco, and while it's fun and cute, maybe just due to the nature of the games I've played I still haven't had a completely off the wall, 100% bought in game of it.

Then I got into Kickstarter, and it's been downhill, and my shelf keeps filling with games I don't get to run enough. I'm probably batting .200 for games I own and have run. Well, I'm pretty much done with that crap. Time to run things.

It's only in the last couple of months, probably since the last RinCon in October, that I finally feel like I have a handle on this brave new world of indie games. And not just that, but _holy crap I can actually participate in it_.

I also want to be in top shape for GenCon. So, that means more one-shots and con style games instead of my lofty dreams of running more campaigns. So, today, I started that.

I'll be posting Part 1 of my Let's Play of Wolfspell, an awesome game from the Patreon-pushed World's Without Master RPG Zine, later tonight. Hopefully, it is the start of

“To Their FATEs” (working title) - A FATE game of Families in Arms

Originally Posted Here...


What began as a project to tell a compelling Avengers-Esque story of the origin of a high level Eberron adventuring party has gradually morphed into my desire to create a FATE game which is generic enough to be used for any game about characters ‘In the trenches’ of a massive armed conflict. I’ll drop a quick FATE Primer, and then some design goals, for people to pick over.

Read on to see what I’ve been working on!

Vamp, Incoming.

I've a tendency to create different temporary blogs for different purposes, but I'm thinking that I'll try to cut down on the various extraneous ones I used to maintain. From now on, I'll be posting RPG and other gaming related bits here, and try to revamp my Tiger Speaks blog for daily things.

Blood and Honor Playthrough - The Wandering Swordsman

The Daimyo of the clan of easily-overlooked-birds was a cunning man. Upon hearing that the famed wandering swordsman, who traveled the provinces challenging each clan's warriors to duels, was to visit, he saw an opportunity for honor, and not danger.

He gathered his Samurai before him, and spoke of how they must turn his visit to their advantage - and honor him as a guest, and in turn honor the clan.

A mystery to many, this swordsman was not so dark a shadow to the wise Samurai who fought under the Nightingale banner. Especially not so to Tatsuo, spy master of the clan, a sly puppet master who betrayed his once-clan for that of the clever Daimyo.

He knew that this wanderer was not banished from his clan, but left on his own.
He was journeying to their province for a reason -
And the reason was to find Tatsuo...
... Who had slighted him.
The samurai - Whose blade is never poisoned -
Knew that only Tatsuo could prove his innocence...
And the wanderer would duel Tatsuo, to bring him back.
Known for the ritual he performs before each duel,
he felt that he had to fight Tatsuo -
Because Tatsuo is his brother -
And, once, they shared a great dishonor.

But, to the other Samurai, he makes only one detail be known: "I cannot be here when the wanderer arrives."


The Onmyoji, advisor of the spiritual, had the ears of the province perked to his words, especially when speaking soft truths. In the hopes of maintaining control for the swordsman's visit, he sought to sully the wanderer's legend... and encourage those with doubt to test him as he passed through the province. Of course, he may as well make sure that only families who did not support the Daimyo earn the brunt of the wanderer's ire.

It is known, among the province, that Kuaru, patriarch of the Emerald Fox family, works against the Daimyo, in the shadows.

And so, the spymaster and the Daimyo's Yojimbo met with a member of the house.

They knew that the house was distrusted by the Daimyo -
But, the third son of the house is favored by him.
And this third son is more loyal to the Daimyo, than his own family...
...For he had sold out his most radical family members to earn the Daimyo's favor.
And he would tell the Yojimbo more, if his house were given more rice, come harvest.
But the third son's wife truly spied for his younger brother, the 4th son...
... And the third son knows that this time, his information will make heads roll...
... And the third son's wife overhears him and the Yojimbo dealing.
But, her guilt and disloyalty is revealed, when she spills tea during their meeting -
And the third son, seeing the truth, kills her -
And the fourth son vanishes, when next he is looked for.

Armed with the knowledge of the third son, the Onmyoji spreads word that the wanderer cannot be all he seems - And those swayed b his words to test his mettle, those not skilled enough to detect the Onmyoji's hidden warning, flock to waylay the traveler.

The Wanderer is waylaid by many fools, none of whom are his equal, or even close...
But honor prevents him from taking their inadequate lives.
And yet he does not find a moment of rest...
... And rumor spreads that he is merciful.

But the trials of these fools at the Wanderer's blade provide many chances for spies to discern the details of his ritual.

It demands he be given solitude,
And light a fortuitous number of candles,
with a bough from his ancestral lands.
And he must eat only rice,
And recite his name, which means 'Leaf which supports the tree'


As the Spymaster, Onmyoji, and Yojimbo scurry around making their preparations, Manatawa, the clan Executioner, keeper of the Clan's sword, simply waits. The wandered will challenge him, of course. It is inevitable. Trained by the ogre who lives atop the tallest mountain in the province, wielding the sword the ogre himself forged, He must simply wait until the moment is right to draw his weapon and use it as he has trained to do.

The Onmyoji makes plans, as the rabble keeps the Wanderer awake for his night in the province. He concocts a poison with which he can again help control the wanderer's visit.

The poison is a rare, but strong toxin.
It can be applied to a weapon, or ingested in food,
And it is hard to trace, after it has been applied to weapon of meal.

The Yojimbo arranges for his men to guard the Wanderer, knowing he must have solitude for his ritual preperations, and ready to spoil it with his noisiest compliment of bodyguards.

The next day, before the Wanderer arrived to the Daimyo's court, Tatsuo and the Onmyoji met. The advisor had spread words that business would take Tatsuo out of court, and out of the province for the day... when in reality, their combined talents would hide the clever puppeteer in plain sight among the Daimyo's guards.

When the Wanderer arrived, he did not see through their disguise...
... But did recognize Tatsuo's eyes as familiar...
... But the Daimyo saw through him entirely...
... And said nothing.
The disguise was so fine, Tatsuo's sword and armor blended with those of the guard.

The wanderer is no fool, and he knows much as he faces down the executioner. He claims that he will only fight the samurai known as Tatsuo - For, he reveals he is the other Samurai's brother.

Manatawa will have none of it - For he has decided, that for the honor of the clan, he will duel this man, and no force can stop him.

The wanderer knows that there is a member of his clan among the Daimyo's guards -
For he can tell members of his clan with but a glance.
He sees the Executioner's point, and accepts - But if he wins, he will face Tatsuo.
And Manatawa counters; "And if I win, you will serve the Daimyo for a year."
"Yes-And surely, your Daimyo will trust your Blade with the best man in his employ."
(Manatawa is taken aback. Should he win, he may lose his post to this Ronin!)
"Yes-But, then you will never be able to return to your old clan." notes Manatawa.
"Yes. And now, I wish your Daimyo's soldiers guard my meditation."

Of course, this troubles the Yojimbo... and his plans to interrupt the ritual.
He exchanges looks with the Daimyo however...
... And decides to allow the Wanderer his request.
... And, as he prepares, the 4th Emerald Fox Son tries to kill the Yojimbo.

The wanderer emerged, spoiling the son's surprise and saving the Yojimbo.
The Yojimbo recovered, fending off the assailant, and emerging unscathed...
... And then the son tried to attack the wanderer...
... But the Yojimbo interposed himself, and softened the Son's blow to nothing.
The son's actions were clearly his own, unrelated to his family...
... And he was taken by the Daimyo's men, the Wanderer finishing his ritual in peace.

Finally, The Wanderer and the Clan's executioner would duel. They sized eac hother up, at first. The Executioner drew his weapon, the wanderer refusing to first.

In the end, Manatawa lost the fight...
... But it was exceptionally close. The Wanderer said to Manatawa,
"I admire your style - For I, Too, was trained by the Ogre of the mountain."
And Manatawa said, "But I was his favorite student."
"I know," said the wanderer. "But I have come back to take that title."
"Defeating me will not fix that." said the Executioner, blade readied.
"But it is a step; And one that would be unnecessary, were the third student here!"
And Manatawa knew - That student, was Tatsuo. And he is here.

Rather than allow harm to come to the Executioner at the blade of the wandering swordsman, Tatsuo strode forward and revealed himself, pointed out by Manatawa.

As the swordsman turned and approached, The Yojimbo feared the worst - Even though, as Tatsuo placed his hand on his sword, the Swordsman sheathed his own katana.

He moved too quickly for the Yojimbo, striding to Tatsuo - And the Yojimbo paused, the Daimyo holding his hand high.

Leaf which supports the tree placed his hand on his brother's shoulder then. "Brother, will you return to what was once our homes, and help prove my innocence?"

Despite not wishing to return to the land that called him traitor, Tatsuo could only agree. For he knew that he was the third student - And to his old clan, his failure to kill the Ogre on the mountain while posing his student was treachery. But to the province of the nightingale, honoring his sensei, even if not the best student (his brother) or favorite student (Manatawa), was considered a duty.

So THIS is what it was all about...

Design Concept Fusion

I was thinking yesterday about one of the real draws of Roleplaying games, both of the in-person at a table and guided by computer types... for me, Exploration is a huge hook. it's not solely RPGs that I enjoy it in, however - Any game can grab me with the slow introduction of new intriguing maps, or a change of the visual palette tying a new region together.

From there, I wondered about what it would take to create a game about exploration. Some already have, but these are niche titles in many ways. A hell of a lot more people know abotu the existence of Modern Warfare 2 than, say, Journey. But the step beyond that... There is a strange place where Little Big Planet, Journey, and Dragon Age find a confluence, and that sort of shared creative world for role playing games has really existed since the beginning, with multiple authors contributing novels and modules to worlds like The Forgotten Realms.

An exploration game with a shared universe of user-created content sounds like just what would scratch this particular itch, and I began to think about the tools and my own creative process for RPGs. Even with tools like Neverwinter Night's GM's tools, creating worlds that stand up in a modern game system is hard, as many many maps and mods from Counterstrike to the tens of thousands of not-quite-popular Little Big Planet maps attest. The success and failure of such a game then, would probably rely on the usability and power of the toolsets that all of those common creative minds building new places to explore have to use.

And then, I wondered, what if this creation of new terrain was pitched as a game in itself, just abstracted? Imagine a tool that creates worlds for Third-Person explorers which begins with a tower-defense style map, where instead of enemies like toughs, hordes and flyers, you have abstracted player types that you need to place features to entertain. Different 'minigames' could handle different levels of detail for newly explored places, latching onto the sort of interest in terrain and design which lead many of us to turn backyard mud-pits into hotwheels racetracks, or an unconnected pile of backyard refuse into a potential gravity-driven marble track. I'm not sure what the details would look like, but using open-ended minigames to create content for fellow explorers seems like a fascinating way to continually expand a world to explore through the guise of a game.

Changeling character concepts.

I've decided that next weekend, I'll likely be running a Changeling: The Lost oneshot for some friends. You can find out more about Changeling on Wikipedia or White-Wolf.com, but suffice to say it is a supernatural game of personal horror, or as the book itself tries to explain, A Storytelling Game of Beautiful Madness.

Changelings are people who, somehow, were lured, abducted, escaped or wandered into the alien realm of Faerie, ruled by beings of unassailable power over their own pockets of causality, with inhuman, unknowable emotions and motivations that rarely turn out well for humans who end up before them. A Changeling player character has 'Escaped', or at least returned to the human world via cunning, accidents... or, perhaps scariest of all, being allowed back by their 'keeper'. On returning to the world however, they realize two things. They have been indelibly changed in ways both visible and not, and for one of many reasons, they can never truly go back to the life they once lived.

These write-ups of Player Character backgrounds are kept short, sweet, and ambiguous in order to give the player who picks them up a solid grounding in the game's themes, without pinning down their specific details.

As a storytelling game, all of these are told in a very formulaic, symmetric form to each other, befitting Changeling's fairytale-gone-wrong themes.

Once upon a time you risked your life every day, saving carefree beachgoers from the danger of deceptively calm Miami waters. Then, one stormy, summer night, you fell from your boat at the marina and were carried out through the harbor’s arch-covered mouth by wild rip-currents. Torn at by coral and rocky shoals, you washed up on the deck of a galleon, run by an alluring gentleman known only as the Generous Captain. The Captain never quite understood how a lifeguard sacrificed themselves to save others – instead of swimming out and helping the ‘people’ seen daily in the waters, you’d be thrown to the waves, swimming futiley after them until drowning yourself – An act which would suddenly leave you both rescued, barely alive, on the deck. You don’t know how long passed, but one day, you ignored the burbling cries of a drowning woman to swim away from the boat, and found yourself ashore in a swamp with other scared, confused people intent on running as far from here as they could…

Once upon a time you were a gifted, but destitute artist, selling your sculptures to wealthy tourists on sunny Miami boardwalks. Then, one crisp, spring night, barhopping took you to a woman who convinced you to stick a needle in your arm, before leading you beneath a barbed-wire archway. Torn at by rusty, twisted steel, you awoke in a prison yard-like pen, overseen by a cruel slave-driver known only as the Warden of Rusted Nettles. The Warden never quite understood lasting artworks – Instead of tough sculptures of stone or bronze, your artistic talent made lasting marks in the flesh of your fellow inmates with henna and ink, lest your own be marked by scorching brands. You don’t know how long passed, but one day you found the artistic filigree of the ‘8’ tattoo you had just finished contained an intricate number and a map, showing you the key-code and route to escape the chainlink forest. Running past steel trunks and rusting barbed leaves, you found yourself emerging in a swamp with other scared, confused people intent on running as far from here as they could…

Once upon a time you paid tuition delivering for gangs, taking messages and packages anywhere in the dark underworld of Miami streets. Then, one chilly, winter night, a rival gang put a bullet in your leg for the bag of cash you carried, hunting you through parking lots and forgotten garden arbors. Torn at by broken trellises and rusty tomato cages, you stumbled out onto a cold plain, chased by the shapeless Tireless Terror of Tundra. The Terror never quite understood that pursuits needed a reason – Instead of chasing you out of a prized garden or for sustenance, it simply chased you from garden to garden, exhausting, then shooting or savaging you, before the juices of the trampled fruits would slowly heal your wounds for the next day of the hunt. You don’t know how long passed, but one day you just stopped running and let it catch you. The Terror left you battered, bruised, but alive, before leaving you to die… or maybe just lack of interest. You limped into a cramped, wet warren between gardens, and when you crawled out, you found yourself mired in a swamp with other scared, confused people intent on running as far from here as they could…

Once upon a time you fought for your country and came back lost, until your benefactor hired you as a bouncer, guarding lairs of Miami glitterati. Then, one windy autumn night, they invited you to their office, texting IM SORRY as you passed through the revolving door. Torn at by long-tail office ferns and proactive silk flowers in the stairwell, the rooftop door revealed an old stone aerie, lorded over by a majestic, predatory count known only as Baron Raptor, who explained anything that came to the Aerie became His. The Baron never understood hospitality – Instead of greeting his guests and settling them in, you distracted them with gregarious niceties, and then betrayed them to ensure their stays became permanent. Over time, you grew to be a regal monster, just like the Count. You don’t know how long passed, but one day there came to the aerie a guest of such beauty, you could hardly lift your gaze to their face. Overcome by their comeliness, you broke down and warned them of the Baron’s plans, to which they simply smiled and turned to walk away. Furious with your failure to keep this guest, Baron Raptor struck you, banishing you down the mountainside. Climbing past shrubs and broken cliff faces, you descended to a swamp with other scared, confused people intent on running as far from here as they could…

Upcoming Project

After a startlingly busy week, I'll be aiming to discuss a little bit of my ongoing design of a major RPG campaign I want to run over the summer.

I will try to be generic and not spoil anything for my players, but just in case, players - POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERTS. I will pointedly try to put up biger warnings anyplace where I get so far under the hood player enjoyment and surprise might be threatened, but this is my blanket warning.

Here's a teaser, the RSS Feed, and a link to the Obsidian Portal account I'm working to fill up. Feel free to leave comments, questions or requests.

Madness Spreads as Winter Grows,

Forests withered, Oceans Froze,

Centuries gone Cold and Dead,

The hand of a Dark God felt with Dread…

Dreams of Ice and Madness RSS Feed

Dreams of Ice and Madness on Obsidian Portal

Experience Overflow.

My roommate plays neverwinter Nights - a Dungeons and Dragons computer game hosted on a public server. He's a DM, and one of his other DMs gave his 30th level sorcerer - Who had around 250,000 XP - 2.7 Billion with a B XP.... And suddenly, the game claimed he had negative 2 Billion XP. Whoops.


Aha. I knew exactly what happened.

UPDATE: Unexplained Phenomenon Google Trends?

Turns out, it's just Google being silly.

See This Post for the gritty details.

Short Version: Google had it's 'O' abducted by aliens, possibly a reference to the Exeter Incident, bandied the phrase 'Unexplained Phenomenon' about, and will do something whacky again on the 15th, probably as a tie in to H.G. Wells birthday.

The Will of the Hive Mind

Apparently, as mused in my prior posts, I am not the only one talking about the usage of the term geek in modern culture.

But while I'm generally talking about the multiclassed, multidisciplinary cross-over phenomenon among geeks and the phenomenon of chaining from one interest to another through social circles, Jess is tackling geek-dom from the direction of a discussion on manners in the modern geek. Take a gander at One Geek To Another tag and see what I'm talking about.

Clue is spread pretty thick across the internet, although I suspect Jess hoards her share of it.



On the subject of the gestalt here, I figured I'd point out Google Trends. Er, Google Trends. I always find a quick glance fascinating, although I'm still looking on a smaller scale. After all, I'd rather find out what the most common search term alongside 'Roleplaying' is, than know that people on the internet spontaneously searched for Unexplained Phenomenon at about 2 pm today (Although I find the concept Very meta.) Nor, did I really need to know that tons of people wanted to know about the female lead in Inglorious Bastards (Which I still need to see...) Although, I can probably guess why. Thanks, Internet.

I think the part I like best about Google Trends is trying to figure out why something became popular suddenly. Which is usually followed by the realization that my gut feeling is usually quite off from real factors. Still, Trends is a tool to try and help dispel such assumptions with Data. Or maybe it's merely because Trends is such a fine tool to get data at your fingertips... And we can't all have virtual worlds full of text to fly around in. Yet.

Braggin' and Defraggin'

My Saturday morning project was simple, and useful, even if my initial task proved to be a failure. This discussion might be a bit technical, but, suffice to say, if you know what Page Files or Disk Defragmentation is, you might find it interesting.

Quick Disclaimer:
I'm not, in theory, a hardware professional. This is personal knowledge, and I might, gasp, even have things wrong. I've been doing things this way for awhile without glaring system instability or trouble, but this risk is warranty-free. YMMV.

I may have spoke too soon on not having hardware problems - As it turns out, Mirror's edge is the first game I've bought in awhile that taxes my systems. I went digging for ideas on ways to improve my performance, short of upgrading my machine with a new video card or RAM, and recalled some ideas for page file tweaking, and defragmenting.

I spent the rest of the morning seeking ways to clear my hard-drives to that crucial 15% that Disk Defragmenter wants, but I found a few other tidbits. Here's a quick rundown of the idea behind defragmenting, and my experiences with the process:

Defrag 101

The idea is, that if a big file is in a contiguous block, it's basically in one place on your hard drive and easier and faster to retrieve. Otherwise, the system is jumping around, trying to find the different parts. On a full Hard Drive, big files tend to be heavily fragmented, and so when a game or program seeks that big file, it has to look more places, seek time goes up, performance goes down.

Defragmenting, in theory, takes all of your scattered files, tries to make a spot on your drive big enough to stash it in one piece, and moves it. So defragmentation works best when you have a lot of empty space at the end of your hard drive, so it can move those big files to the end, then compress the rest back into those gaps that open up.

Page File 101

Your computer needs space to put things it's working on. That's Memory, usually RAM, Random-Access Memory. More is better for most computers, Especially when gaming, since the machine has to juggle tons of textures and graphics and other information.

RAM is fast. It is like thinking about something - you pretty much just have to think about it and you know it. However, Ram is expensive, and Windows can only handle so much of it. So, Windows wants a Page File. This is like a notepad on your computer that windows writes down things to remember on. At first, this seems awesome. You have Gigabytes of space on your hard-drive, but only 1 or 2 gigs of RAM. But, using the hard drive is an order of magnitude slower. As if you had to go look things up in a filing cabinet when you wanted to think about them.

Windows thinks it can manage paged memory for you, and knows what's best. Windows is actually retarded, and in high performance experiences, it's really not that good at this. So, the best bet is to make your 'page file', the scratch file of 'virtual' memory that Windows writes to, a specific size, so it's always in the right place, and always open to use. I think the recommended size is like, twice your system RAM, give or take. It's my rule of thumb anyways.

However, like files, the chunks of your hard drive you set aside for page files can become fragmented. If each piece is, like, 500 megs, this isn't bad. But if it's in tiny slices all over your hard-drive, then seek time becomes even worse.


The Procedure

The theory is, open up tons of space at the backside of the hard drive, turn off page files, defragment, and then turn the page files back on, allowing them to settle into the big chunks at the end of the hard drive. The process took me a good part of my day and about 2 system restarts. There's a few basic steps.

1. Turn off the page files.
This is done by right clicking on my computer and then clicking properties. under the 'Advanced' tab, there's three buttons. You want the one up top, under 'Performance'

The second tab of performance is 'Advanced' again, and then once in there, you'll see Virtual Memory at the bottom. That's where these page files are. In order to turn them off, you need to set each drive you own to 'No Page File'.

!WARNING!
If you have a gig of ram or less, this may make Windows XP run like a dog. this is okay - You won't be doing much other than defragmenting, and after that, it'll all be over and back to normal, or better.

Restarting turns off these page files, and allows for the hard drive space they locked up to go free. If you have defragmented before and seen big green lines, those are, most commonly, page files. Or so I think.

2. Defragging
Once your page files are gone, and you have at least 15% disk space free, the boring part - Defragging. This is the most straight forward, but most tedious portion. The defragger is under start menu > system tools > disk defragmenter.

Got that going? Good. Go get lunch or something.

When you get back, you'll want to look at the report. This is sort of the defragmentation equivalent of hypermiling. You look and see what files remain fragmented, then consider if you can fix that. If the files are very large, you might just need more free space at the end of your drivespace to move it in one piece. For me, I found that TF2, Counter Strike, Guild Wars, and Beyond Good and Evil were my big offenders. By uninstalling the latter three (Which I hadn't been playing lately) I made enough room that the huge 2.5 gig datafile for TF2 that was broken into literally 980 pieces could be put together and defragmented.

I ended up tinkering with this, but when Disk Defragmenter tells you you don't need to defrag, it's usually right, and there's little performance gain to be had.

3. Turning On Pagefiles
Hopefully, you'll have pretty blue bars at this point, with maybe just a little red or green mixed in. Now, you can go and re-enable your page file(s).

You go to the same place as before (right click my computer, properties, advanced, performance, advanced, virtual memory)

This time, you want to set the page file to a specific size, rather than letting XP handle it. If you're a typical gamer with 2 gigs of ram, 4 gigs (That's 4096 MB) is probably in the right ballpark. I'd stick with twice your ram.

Give your page file a custom size - And make sure that the initial and max sizes are identical. This keeps XP from having to screw around with allocating sizes or changing anything.

Restarting allows Windows to actually use these page files.

Quick note: if you go to defragment without turning off page files, you'll see big green bars. This is unmovable disk space, such as that allocated by a page file. You can still defragment around it, especially ig you have lots of free space, but for a thorough compacting spree, it's probably best to repeat the procedure.

The above is my defragment dialog for my two partitions, a 33 gig system partition and a 116 gig applications and games disk. This is a day after my defrag sweep, with some of those bigger games re-installed. Already fragmentation creeps back in, but I should be reaping performance benefits in seek time for awhile yet before trouble brews again.

Hats Worn Today, Thursday July 30 2009

very day, I have to take on a bunch of different little hats, each one a particular type of Geek activity. Today was a very laid-back day (No Programming homework, no personal problems with my hardware, etcetera.) and so, I didn't need to dig up too many of my hats.


Font / Graphic Design / Eco Geek

My mom lost a PDF original of a flyer she needed for her composting presentations. She was going to use our printer's Copier function with an old printed one, but I noted, after she pointed out how the flyers had changed to use less ink, that she'd be wasting ink with that blackened xerox crud all over. I popped it into Photoshop, cleaned it up, and E-mailed her the clean copy after printing some copies for her.

Bonus: Cracked Comic Sans joke.


Roleplay Geek

Participated in a smallish Forgotten Realms oneshot. I was honestly a bit hesitant;

I'm moving from San Diego back to Tucson soon, and I really miss the in-depth experience of Live-Action Roleplaying in the Camarilla. It's a very immersive RP experience, more like improvisational theater and shared storytelling. There's a lot _Less_ of a focus on this in my local group of players in San Diego, especially when we're getting together simply as an alternative to not playing. I suspected the group would be some of the more RP-light folks and was worried it might not be as rewarding. In all fairness, it wasn't bad - But, I've been in numerous small, make your character on the spot games this summer, and most of the drama and investment I'd like in a Roleplaying game has not been there. Maybe that's a topic for another post however.

Roleplay TMI: 4th edition, Scepter Tower of Spellgard. I played a 3rd level dwarven devoted cleric, for healing and buffing. I aimed to add some ties to the 4E Faerun setting and some background and a good goal, seeking a lost dwarven relic, but it all basically boiled down to pushing through combat encounters. Like most games since I got back. Minor le sigh.


Computer Gaming Geek

Double dose here. My comic of Mirror's Edge (Bought for 7 bucks, shipping included off of Newegg, thanks to Dealzmodo.) arrived today, although I haven't gotten to play it, but once I got home from the above RPG, I hopped on and played a few stirring maps of Counter Strike: Source with my friends. Strangely, only one lives in my state or has met me in person, and he was the 'odd guy out', and I had to make sure it was all right he joined us. I'm acceptable at CS, and managed to top a few maps, but it was basically just shooting large teams of bots up for a very casual experience.


Comic Book Geek

I purchased Mice Templar last night, and finished it today. Strangely enough it was originally a mix up when searching for info on the new Mouse Guard that I found Mice Templar. Any comic whose foreword name-checks Reepicheep and comes recommended by Mike Mignola of Hellboy fame had to be a keeper, and I didn't feel disappointed. The novel is much more nuanced adventure, with a lot of moral gray areas and a world whose lore is never entirely honest about what's going on. And some seriously Bad-Ass Mice.


To-Do list:
Expandable Post Summaries (O)
Split Blogroll into Webcomics, Blogs, and Other (O)
Interview Fellow Geeks on Title Identity / Geek Species (O)

What is a Geek?

I think it might be easiest to explain this if people know where I'm coming from, but to get there, I guess I need to find out where others are coming from.

Before reading on or looking into the below link, think to yourself. If you're here, you probably understand, abstractly, what a 'Geek' is. You might be one. Know a few. Been raised by some. But, can you really narrow it down and put it into words, or not?

Below is the Wikipedia entry for Geek. I think it's surprisingly short.

'Geek' on Wikipedia.

The general idea is that 'Geek' is changing. It's no-longer exactly derogatory. It represents 'An enthusiast'.

I happen to like where the specific quote by Julie smith was heading:

"a bright young man turned inward, poorly socialized, who felt so little kinship with his own planet that he routinely traveled to the ones invented by his favorite authors, who thought of that secret, dreamy place his computer took him to as cyberspace—somewhere exciting, a place more real than his own life, a land he could conquer, not a drab teenager's room in his parents' house."

The definition has the things I like about the title; An implication of escapism, of a secluded covenant with things like books or the internet. And, frankly, a little bit of geek elitism.

But, as the article, and probably you, notice, there's not exactly an easy definition that works for everyone. And some of them vary a bit.

So, with so many ideas floating around, what can we agree on? Let's just break down the "Other Definitions" from Wikipedia.

* A derogatory reference to a person obsessed with intellectual pursuits for their own sake, who is also deficient in most other human attributes so as to impair the person's smooth operation within society.

* A person who is interested in technology, especially computing and new media. Geeks are adept with computers, and use the term hacker in a positive way, though not all are hackers themselves.

* A person who relates academic subjects to the real world outside of academic studies; for example, using multivariate calculus to determine how they should correctly optimize the dimensions of a pan to bake a cake.

* A person who has chosen concentration rather than conformity; one who passionately pursues skill (especially technical skill) and imagination, not mainstream social acceptance.

* A person with a devotion to something in a way that places him or her outside the mainstream. This could be due to the intensity, depth, or subject of their interest. This definition is very broad but because many of these interests have mainstream endorsement and acceptance, the inclusion of some genres as "geeky" is heavily debated. Persons have been labeled as or chosen to identify as physics geeks, mathematics geeks, engineering geeks, sci-fi geeks, computer geeks, various science geeks, movie and film geeks (cinephile), comic book geeks, theatre geeks, history geeks, music geeks, art geeks, philosophy geeks, literature geeks, historical reenactment geeks and roleplay geeks.

* A more recent school of thought sees Nerd as being a derogatory phrase, whilst Geek is simply a description. It is taken to be someone who is an enthusiast, often in things outside of the mainstream spectrum, of note is that in this definition, there is no reference to being socially inept in the slightest.

Of the above, only one of the six is explicitly derogatory. And, in truth, only two of these definitions discuss computers and technology. Yet, there's common ideas.

Obsessed. Interested. Relates academic subjects to the real world. Concentration. Devotion to something. An enthusiast.

There's social implications, too. Two talk directly about operation with society (The lack, or the lack of a lack) and two of 'mainstream social acceptance'.

So, dedicated self-selected specialists within fields outside the mainstream seem to be a common thread to most of these definitions. And it's not a bad place to start. Nor is that next to last definition, which discusses Geek as having subspecies.

That idea is really the purpose of this blog, although obviously with some bleed through from a Roleplay Geek. There's different tracks, focuses, specializations and interests among the Geek genus, Wikipedia naming most of the main ones we think of - Comic books geeks, Cinephiles, etc. But somehow, even geeks from different species seem to get along. There's some kind of commonality that lets a Band Geek get along with a Roleplay geek or vice versa. More important to this exploration, there's also very, very few examples of 'Pure' geeks with but a single focus. People who get the geek label tend to spread at least a little beyond their home turf, often as a side benefit of that easy interaction between groups.

So based on the ones I know, most geeks are, at their heart, not only in their own field. They branch out, and are, by their nature... Cross Class Geeks. I hope to chronicle all those classes, and try to figure out what Geek means in our society, and maybe discover the magic secret that makes interdisciplinary geek-dom so freaking easy.

Until then, I plan for it to be a bunch of cool stuff and musings on my different foci.


So, as best I can think of from 'Most' to 'Least', here's the geek species in me:

Science Fiction Geek (By... Birth?)
Roleplay Geek (By Practice)
Comic Geek (By Osmosis)
Internet Geek (By Exposure)
Computer Game Geek (By Daily Ritual)

Computer Geek (By Blood)
Programming Geek (In training even.)
Mythology Geek (By Preference)

Firearms Geek
Movie Geek
Art Geek


What about you?
Bottoms Up!