Star Wars - [Insert Clever Title Here]

(I realize that the text size is tiny for some reason. I apologize for that - I'm trying to fix it as soon as possible.)

Hey everyone! I had spoken to many of my friends, family, and coworkers about the topic of today's post before finally realizing that I would need to make a post about it. Because really, how can I claim to have a blog about all sorts of nerdy topics without discussing my thoughts on the latest Star Wars movie?

Now, there are a lot of things to be said about the new movie. It broke new ground in a lot of ways, while also staying true to the characters and setting established by the previous six movies. (Some people would say "the previous five movies," but we'll allow Episode I to be considered, if only because Darth Maul was a badass. Also, Liam Neeson.) What I would like to do for this review, then, would be to discuss some of the specific things I liked about the movie, as well as a few of the specific things I didn't like as much.

I do want to mention, though, that overall, I greatly enjoyed The Force Awakens. I only got the chance to watch it once in theaters, but I would have happily gone to see it multiple, multiple times if I'd had the opportunity.

In case you couldn't already guess, there will likely be a ton of spoilers as we move forward. So if you haven't seen the movie yet for whatever reason (yeah, some people haven't seen it yet - they're out there), you should probably stop reading now. Also, I would like to point out that these are simply my opinions, and should be taken as such. Feel free to disagree with me!

So without any further ado...


Pro: The lightsaber fight

One of my biggest complaints about Episodes I, II, and III - a complaint that is shared by many people with whom I've spoken on the topic - was the lightsaber fights. (For now, let's ignore the complaints about characters, plot, and dialogue in the prequel trilogy, because otherwise, we'd be here until Episode VIII is released.) The choreography was always very well done for those fights - look at the Darth Maul/Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan fight in The Phantom Menace as an example, or the Anakin/Obi-Wan fight in Revenge of the Sith. But to me, those fights were always extraordinarily over-the-top. The Jedi involved would always flip and twirl and make about seventeen unnecessary movements for every one legitimate swing of the lightsaber at their opponents.

Exhibit A.

Also, this just in - I can use .gifs! So many possibilities.

Of course, looking at the original trilogy, we often see the opposite issue. While I understand that the special effects were not as good in the 1970s and 1980s, the lightsaber duels in Episodes IV, V, and VI could sometimes be bland affairs, with the two opponents just whacking away at one another until somebody lost. This wasn't always the case, either, but it tended to be a running theme with those duels.

So now we get to The Force Awakens, and we have a climactic lightsaber duel between Kylo Ren and Finn, which is then continued between Kylo Ren and Rey once Kylo incapacitates Finn. (It's really weird calling him just "Kylo," but I think it's better than calling him "Ren." So we're sticking with Kylo.) And in my opinion, this is the best lightsaber duel in the entire Star Wars saga, or at least in the top three. It struck a good middle ground - it was a largely story-driven fight like the majority of those seen in the original trilogy, while also being exciting and well-choreographed. Plus, it never felt over-the-top in terms of its choreography. And the other thing I enjoyed about that duel is that it demonstrated the characters' personalities very well, especially Kylo's. But more on that in a minute!

By the way, many of my above assertions apply to the special effects in the movie as well, I feel. Which I also thought to be a positive part of Episode VII.


Con: A New Hope 2.0

Probably my biggest issue with Episode VII was that, after watching it, it felt as if I had just seen Episode IV all over again, just reskinned. Droid with important information is lost on a desert planet after a stormtrooper attack and gets picked up by a local, who then flies away in the Millennium Falcon to bring the droid to the Rebellion/Resistance. The local, who is actually Force-sensitive and turns out to be more than they appeared at first, is assisted by an older companion, who was an important figure in the war of the previous trilogy. A few fights later, the protagonist's party meets up with the Rebellion/Resistance, who then take the fight to the Empire/First Order. The old sage is killed by the villain, who happens to be directly related to a few of the main characters. The movies culminate in the protagonist destroying the Empire/First Order base of operations/weapons platform, which was demonstrated to have destroyed at least one planet earlier in the movies. Plus, there's another mysterious villain who appears by hologram, and there's a scene at a bar.

And the aforementioned droids are awesome.

I realize that a) I left out a metric ton of differences between the movies, b) I'm oversimplifying significantly, and c) I'm not really mentioning that having callbacks to the original trilogy seems to be what J.J. Abrams was going for. But the similarities are hard to deny. And while I appreciated the callbacks, and I understand why they were done the way they were (I feel that they were done in order to help establish the new characters in the setting, while keeping things familiar and showing, perhaps, that history is doomed to repeat itself?), I felt that it was done just a little too much.


Pro: Kylo Ren's character

This will probably be the most controversial point of this whole post. People who have watched The Force Awakens seem to have one of two reactions toward Kylo Ren as a character - either they loved him and thought he was very well-acted and well-written, or they hated him and thought his character was terrible. I haven't really spoken with anyone who fell in the middle ground. Generally, there is a consensus that Kylo was established as an intimidating, fearsome villain in the beginning acts of the film, but once he removed the helmet, all pretenses were lost and he became an emotional trainwreck.

If you haven't seen it yet, please go look up Emo

Kylo Ren on Twitter.

But really, I liked Kylo Ren for that exact reason. I think that some people were disappointed because they were expecting Darth Vader 2.0, and instead they got Anakin. I felt that his character was very well thought-out and fleshed out, and you could constantly see the inner turmoil that defined Kylo's actions throughout the movie. You see him as an intimidating badass, but you also see him as a child on a temper tantrum. You see the nigh-successful attempts to emulate Vader, but you also see his very real flaws. I also felt, as I somewhat mentioned earlier, that the lightsaber duel was an excellent insight into his character. He fought relatively skillfully for someone whose training was cut short (and someone who just took a bowcaster shot to the torso and walked it off), but you could actually see the rage and inner conflict in Kylo as he attacked Finn and Rey. 

Kylo Ren was absolutely one of my favorite new characters in The Force Awakens, and I'm very interested to see how his character continues to develop over the course of the next two movies.

Con: The comedy

Not much to say here, really, since my argument is essentially the same as my earlier statements about similarities between Episode IV and Episode VII. Basically, I really enjoyed the comedy that was included in The Force Awakens - it was funny without being goofy (looking at you, Jar Jar), and it rarely felt forced. That being said, I felt that there was just slightly too much comedy added into the movie, especially in the first half. It's a pretty nitpick-y complaint, but I guess I expect a pretty serious tone when I go into a Star Wars movie, and while The Force Awakens was certainly a serious movie, I felt that the comedy was slightly overdone.

Pro: This guy

'Nuff said.

Con: Not enough of this gal

Also 'nuff said.

But yeah, that's most of what I had to say on the topic. There were other high points and low points in The Force Awakens, but these were the major ones that I wanted to discuss. Like I said before, I thought that overall, the movie was excellent, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, most of my complaints were simply "this was done very well, but they went too far with it." Which is not a very bad complaint at all, I feel.

That's about that! See you all next week!

Whappity whappity whappity

The Magic Color Series - Caught Red-Handed

Welcome back, for the penultimate installment of the Magic Color series!

Two weeks ago, I wrote the third post in this series on the color black, which is a fairly well-defined color in terms of its identity, but also a color on which I have many mixed feelings. This week, we'll be talking about red, which is a much simpler color in most respects.

Bottom left of the color pie!

I know I've described the color pie in most of these articles, but one thing I neglected to mention is that the positioning of the colors on the circle is actually relatively important. For any color - let's take red, for instance, for obvious reasons - the two adjacent colors are known as its "allied" colors, while the other two would be its "enemy" colors. So red's allied colors are green and black, while its enemy colors are white and blue. This is representative of similarities and differences in terms of gameplay, but more importantly, in terms of theme. Black is allied with blue because omnipotence (black's main goal) and omniscience (blue's main goal) are often two sides of the same coin. However, black is enemies with white because black has a focus on selfishness, while white typically espouses selflessness. It's not a super relevant idea when I'm just talking about each individual color, but if we were to discuss multicolored decks, then it becomes much more important.

So with that, let's continue on and talk about red!

What does red represent?

I mentioned in one of the earlier posts that the colors often (but not always) coincide with the classical elements of earth, wind, fire, and air. As you could probably guess by now, red is most closely related to the element of fire, and many of the things that fire represents. Fire is often a powerful element, but it also is the element of emotion and passion and chaos, which are all pretty close to the heart of what red represents. Red doesn't like order, and red doesn't like restrictions. Red prefers to have no limits, and to do whatever comes naturally to it. It's a whimsical color, and I mean that as "capricious" and not "fairies dancing in a meadow."

See? Whimsical.

While red is most closely related to fire, it also represents lightning and earth in many cases - both of these in a rather violent sense. Lightning is represented in terms of its powerful and capricious nature, while earth is usually depicted in an explosive sense. It's never stability and durability with red, but rather explosions and earthquakes and volcanoes. Along with these ideas, as you could imagine, red does have many ties to nature, probably second only to green. But where green focuses on growth and the ferocity of nature's creatures (more on that two weeks from now), red is focused more on nature's capacity to be violent and random.

What does this mean for gameplay?

So how does red represent these themes in-game? The most important thing to remember about red is that it's the color of emotion, and it craves freedom and doing whatever comes naturally. That means that for red, the simplest solution is usually the correct one. How does one win a game of Magic? Generally by reducing the opponent to zero life. How does one reduce an opponent to zero life? Well, the simplest way is by dealing damage. Just... damage. Red is the biggest proponent of just throwing out spells that deal some amount of damage to a creature or player - or perhaps more appropriately, dealing some amount of damage to all creatures or players. It's also the color that most enjoys destroying artifacts. Essentially, red can be summed up with "Is it annoying? Do we not like it? Let's blow it up." 

Again, red is a simple color. It doesn't need much explanation.

In terms of its creatures, there are a few trends that red follows. First off, like white, red is prone to having a lot of very small creatures charging at the enemy, whether that takes the form of an angry mob of ordinary humans or a horde of reckless goblins. Larger creatures in red often have very high power with a low toughness - in other words, they deal a lot of damage (read above), but die quickly. Elementals, minotaurs, and giants often fall into this category. These creatures often come with the haste ability, meaning they can attack on the turn they are played. Just like with red spells, red creatures are violent and capricious, and if you're playing against a red opponent, you're just as likely to be hit with a fireball as to be attacked by a rock elemental without warning. But as quickly as they appear, they're gone - if something red has decided to kill you, it's probably not thinking about its own survival.

And of course, we can't forget red's signature creature. Where black has the support of demons (if it can truly be called support), red has the power of dragons at its command. Dragons are like the epitome of red's philosophies, especially those regarding the violence of nature. So while a red deck's early creatures often focus on a horde of weaklings, it's not uncommon to see such a deck finish off the opponent by swooping in with a powerful dragon or two.

If you were looking for a sign to play a red deck...

...this is it.

Finally, another thing red is really known for is its randomness and chaos. As such, red is often where you'll find cards that ask you to flip a coin to determine which of two possible outcomes will occur, or you'll find a creature that attacks an opponent at random (which is really only applicable in multiplayer games, but still). This isn't really a majority of red cards, but it happens significantly more in red than in any other color. My favorite is Possibility Storm, which essentially replaces any spell you cast with another random spell of the same type from your deck.

Yeah, as much as red is a "simple" color, things can get

real complicated, real fast.

My opinions on the color:

So red is actually one of my less-preferred colors in the game. Not because I don't like it, per se, but personally, I like to play a very creature-heavy game. If I can swing with a creature for 20 damage at a time, I'm happy. And when it comes to big stompy creatures, my preference is for green over red, if only because I like my creatures to have a high toughness in addition to a high power. Red certainly has more options than green in terms of its non-creature spells, but I'm not as big on non-creature spells.

The other thing I don't really like about playing red is that it can be pretty boring on its own, at least to me. I like red with other colors, but not really on its own - to be fair, though, I have that complaint about most colors. Oftentimes, a mono-red deck is concerned only with winning the game as quickly as possible, and it can be a very polarizing game - either you have a good start to the game and win in about 5 turns, or you don't have a good start and there's nothing you can do to come back from it. To me, it's just not as interesting of a game as if you were playing, say, blue or black, and even if you have a rough start, you have the tools to manipulate the game to your advantage.

So overall, I personally am not a huge fan of playing red. However, I do quite enjoy the color when I do choose to play it, especially when making use of the chaotic and random cards like Possibility Storm or when combining it with colors like white or blue. And besides, who wouldn't want to dominate the game with a dragon or several, when it comes down to it?

The last article should be coming up in two weeks! To read more about red's place in the color pie, a series of articles was written by Mark Rosewater, Magic's current head designer, on the subject of the color pie. Which is really where I got a lot of my information about the colors anyway. You can find his article about red by clicking here.

The Makings of a GM: The GM's Role

Hey everyone! I know I've spoken about RPGs in previous posts (actually quite a few times already), but as of now, I'm actually quite new to the RPG world. So as a bit of background, my first ever experience with an RPG - minus a brief D&D starter pack thing I tried with my brother when I was probably about 12 - was an Apocalypse World campaign that a friend of mine ran two years ago in the spring. It was a lot of fun, but it only lasted two or three sessions. Still, it was enjoyable enough that when another friend said he would be starting up a Pathfinder game after that summer, I was willing (even if I wasn't overly excited) to join in.

As it turned out, I really became hooked, and two campaigns later, I found myself running my own games. And while I do quite enjoy playing the game, I also very much enjoy running the game as the GM - in fact, I'm not really sure which one I prefer. (I have decided to normalize my posts and only use the term "GM," rather than "DM," since it's a bit more general.) Since it's something I like to do (and I like to think I'm pretty decent at it), I figured I'd make a few posts about my philosophies when it comes to running an RPG, starting with the GM's role in the game.

So over the past few years, I've seen and played in several different RPG campaigns, each with different GMs. And when you play in multiple campaigns, you quickly notice that every GM has a different style. What I've determined is that there are two main philosophies behind the GM's role in a game, so I'll talk about those two broad ideas and which one I prefer. There is no "right" way to GM, of course - these are all just my opinions on the topic. Feel free to disagree with me - I'll only dislike you a little.


Style 1: The GM vs. the Players

The first style of GMing is what I like to call "the GM vs. the players." Essentially, the way this works is that the GM is the villain of the story. And in many ways, this is always the case regardless of your GM style. The GM is the one playing as the NPCs, of course, and that includes any monsters and villains and Big Bad Evil Guys (BBEGs for short). The GM is the one making all the dice rolls for those monsters, too, so when your ranger gets hit with the orc's greataxe for 13 damage, that's mostly the GM's fault. But while this is going to be true in any RPG, this antagonism is the goal in the "GM vs. the players" style. The GM throws monsters and traps and challenges at the players in an attempt to kill their characters, and it is up to the players to overcome these challenges and emerge victorious.

Basically this.

There are pros and cons to each style, of course. With the "GM vs. players" style, I feel that it provides a real challenge to the players, which is generally a good thing. The story and such are important, but if there's no real threat of death for the player characters, the players probably won't be having too much fun. It's like playing Skyrim on the easiest difficulty settings when you've already gone through and beaten Dark Souls four times - it'll be fun for a while, but eventually it will get boring. So in this regard, this GM style works really well. Of course, if you accidentally overtune an encounter, or the players get bad dice rolls, your challenge may turn out to be much more difficult than you'd intended, and that can feel unfair for the players as well. So there is a balance that needs to be struck (and this, of course, applies to GMing in general, but especially for this style).

The major downside I see to this GM style is that it can lead to mistrust between the GM and players, in particular on the part of the players. Let's say one of your players is playing a wizard and casts a sleep spell on the BBEG, and you know that if the BBEG goes to sleep, your campaign will end in a most anticlimactic manner. So instead, you say that the villain succeeds on his Will saving throw, and he stays awake. If you typically run the "GM vs. the players" style, your players may have a knee-jerk reaction of "What?! You can't do that!" and they may accuse you of cheating for the sake of killing off players. Essentially, when you run a game like I described above, you run the risk of players getting bitter when they feel you have done something unfair. (There are ways to avoid this, of course, but you'll have to bear with the mediocre example. You know what I'm trying to say.)

Style 2: The GM with the Players

This style of GMing has a slightly different spin on things. In this style, you can think of the GM as a facilitator rather than as an opponent - the GM and the players work together to create a cohesive and interesting story. The GM still plays all the NPCs and monsters, of course, and is still working to provide a fun and challenging experience for the players, but a total party kill is not his main goal. In fact, oftentimes, if a GM prefers this method of running a game, they may avoid a total party kill at all costs, even using deus ex machina to work around it. In other words, when the GM sees that the evil wizard's fireball will annihilate the entire party, she might have an NPC show up just in the nick of time and counter the spell so that nothing happens. Now again, that's an extreme example, and there are risks associated with that too.

I couldn't find a relevant picture, so here's a platypus.

There are some definite upsides to using this method of GMing. First off, it tends to be a story-focused game, with a bigger emphasis on roleplaying than on things like combat, which can be tedious if done poorly. But more importantly, I think it fosters a sense of trust between the GM and players - if the players know that the GM isn't out to get them, they'll be more willing to do things like split up the party to go explore the scary-looking cave AND the wizard's tower, which can make things more fun. One of the best sessions I ever ran was in a two-person Pathfinder game - one of my players wanted to take a shortcut through a swamp, while the other player wanted to take the long road around, so they split up. Now, a GM using Style 1 may have kept the swamp combat - originally meant for 2 players - at the same difficulty, thereby probably killing the player who decided to go through the swamp alone. Instead, I just changed up some numbers on the fly, and ended up with a really cool and challenging combat, but one that was still possible.

Now as for the downsides, well, as I alluded to earlier, if you're not careful with the "GM with the players" style, you run the risk of removing the challenge from the game, which can take out a lot of the fun. If the players think the GM will never kill their characters, then what's stopping them from trying to get in a slap-fight with a dragon just to see how it goes? As I said earlier, when talking about the first GM style, it would be fun and silly for a while, but soon enough people will get bored with the game. So there's definitely a balance that needs to be struck.

Which style do I prefer?

Well, you could probably guess by now, but personally, I prefer the second style of GMing. I run a very character-focused game - I try to make it so that the player characters, as well as the villains, are what drives the story forward, rather than having the characters forced into a particular course of action. But with that comes a lot of cooperation between the players and the GM to craft a story in such a manner, and if one person just isn't putting a ton of effort into the game, it can throw a cog into the works. That being said, I've been known to let player characters strike off on their own briefly and I'll run solo sessions with that player (while also letting them bring in a temporary character to play with the party so they aren't excluded from regular play), as long as that's what their character would do in the given situation. 

But in general, to try to get around the possible downsides of the "GM with the players" GM style, here's how I handle player characters' deaths. I rarely intentionally seek out a player character death (unless the player for some reason wants their character to die), and I try to avoid total party kills. However, if a character happens to die (an unlucky crit on the part of the enemy, or the player just does something stupid like jumping off a cliff attempting to use an orc as a parachute), I won't do much to stop it. 

So far, my method has worked for me, but every GM has a different style, so it's important to find what works for you. The other thing to keep in mind, of course, is that players themselves also have preferred methods of GMing - some prefer a story-focused game in which the GM acts as a facilitator, but some want that visceral challenge that only comes from a GM that just really wants to kill the player characters. So a lot of GMing is knowing what to do when - gotta strike up a balance!

That's all I had for this topic, really. If you're an aspiring GM and want to know more, I highly recommend the subreddit /r/DnDBehindTheScreen (which you can find here) - it's got a ton of resources and such for GMs, not to mention a very helpful community.

Did you know that the female platypus has a pair of ovaries, but

only the left one is functional? Thanks, Wikipedia!

The Magic Color Series - Back in Black

Happy new year everyone, and welcome back to the Magic Color Series!

Three weeks ago, I wrote the second post in this series on the color blue. (Christmas interfered somewhat with the plan to post this article last week.)

We're at the bottom-right now - just gonna keep going 

around the circle. Whoever guesses the next color gets a prize*!

So just as a refresher... well, this is the third article in the series already! You guys should already know what the color pie is by this point. And if you don't, just go back to one of the earlier articles. Don't be a rebel. Read things in order.

And without any further ado - black!

What does black represent?

Well, the symbol for black mana is a skull. So it shouldn't be too hard to see where black stands on matters of morality. But just as white isn't necessarily the color of goodness, black isn't necessarily the color of evil, either. When it comes down to it, black's mentality can be summarized as "power at any cost" - it's not so much evil as it is self-serving. Black's ultimate goal is omnipotence, and it isn't afraid to use underhanded or morally ambiguous methods to do so.

Like murder.

That being said, there is more to black than just selfishness in the purest sense. Black is also closely linked with death (again, the skull should have given that one away), or at the very least, manipulating death to suit its own purposes. Essentially, anything that can be considered an "underhanded tactic" would likely fall under black's jurisdiction. Madness, disease, death, undeath... they're all black. But it's important to remember that all of these things are secondary to black's real, self-serving goal of power.

What does this mean for gameplay?

The whole "power at any cost" thing takes on a slightly more literal sense when it comes to black's gameplay. Ordinarily, cards have mana costs, which you have to pay with your lands (or other cards that produce mana), but occasionally, cards can have alternative costs. Black is the color in which these alternate costs are arguably the most common, and these costs often involve paying life or sacrificing creatures. In other words, if you're playing black, chances are you're hurting yourself in order to hurt the other guy more.

Like I said before, black is willing to use any methods to achieve its ends. In game, what does this mean? Well, black is the color that most often outright destroys other creatures, a la Murder (pictured above). It will make enemy creatures weaker by giving them penalties to power and toughness, which often represents disease, and going along with that, it is likely the most prolific user of -1/-1 counters (which permanently make creatures weaker). Black will often force opponents to discard their cards - if we continue with the analogy from the previous article that your deck of cards is the sum of your knowledge and your hand of cards is the things you are currently thinking, then forcing a player to discard their cards could be seen as driving them mad. And finally, black is the master of graveyard manipulation - black is never afraid to bring back the cards that have been destroyed, or to use their dead things for their own ends in other ways.

In terms of creatures, black is the most willing to use creatures that others may find twisted, demented, or just morally grey. Black is where you'll find the vast majority of the game's zombies, skeletons, and vampires, as well as stuff like snakes and scorpions and rats to a somewhat smaller extent. But black's mentality of "I don't care if I suffer a bit, but I've got to make sure the other guy suffers more" is clearly seen in perhaps the most distinctive black creature - the demon. Usually, demons are supremely powerful and cost-effective, but have a fairly significant drawback. It's like you, as the player, literally struck a deal with a demon - you'll get a huge benefit, but you could end up regretting the decision.

I mean, he looks cool and all, but something gives me the

feeling he's not the most magnanimous of individuals.

My opinions on the color:

Well, now we come to the important part of the post (in my oh-so-humble opinion), and frankly, it's a bit of a tough question. A lot of my opinion of the color depends on how it is played, really. In some cases, black can make for a very interesting deck, with versatile and powerful cards that have significant trade-offs, which of course means a lot of decisions have to be made. If my opponent plays a demon that causes him to lose life every turn, I may want to destroy it as soon as possible, but I may also want to just prevent it from attacking and leave it on the battlefield so that my opponent is forced to take the life loss. It can be the cause for a lot of interaction between the players in the game.

On the flip side, black decks can be very frustrating to play against. Some black decks, especially those using older cards, rely on forcing opponents to discard cards from their hands, destroy anything that the opponent plays, and just generally making it a one-sided and unfun game. In my preferred format, Commander, black can be frustrating for another reason, which is the overwhelming presence of tutor cards (in other words, cards that let you search your deck for any card that you want). Since Commander can sometimes be prone to silly infinite combos that instantly win you games, having tutors to grab you the exact cards you need can turn a game from "Hey, if I happen to get the right combination of cards, I can win in a silly manner!" to "I win every game because I go fetch the right cards for my infinite combo using all my tutors." And black has no shortage of silly infinite combos.

Like this one.

As for me, black isn't really a color I play too often. I don't dislike its gameplay as much as I dislike white, but I just don't like the risk/reward thing that black does most of the time. It can also often feel mean to play a black deck, since it can be frustrating for the opponent. (I find that whenever I play one of my black decks, I end up painting a giant bulls-eye on my chest for everyone else in the game.) That being said, it can be fun to play from time to time, and one of my absolute favorite decks is mostly black - it's got some green and blue in it too. But overall, I have very mixed feelings on black as a color.

And there you have it!

As always, I plan to post up the next article in this series in two weeks! To read more about black's place in the color pie, a series of articles was written by Mark Rosewater, Magic's current head designer, on the subject of the color pie. Which is really where I got a lot of my information about the colors anyway. You can find his article about black by clicking here.

*You can get your prize here!!