Rpg @ MindSay

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------



I've really jumped from one game to another today.
I spent a while sorting out my Farmville - after I expanded to a bigger farm, I deleted a row of fields and moved all my animals to the north. It looks pretty cool now.

I spent a while playing on Final Fantasy VII - and I got sexy Cait Sith up to LEVEL 99. :D
It won't be long until Cloud and Tifa join him.

Then I have the tedious task of getting the other members up too - they're all on like like level 78... Cloud and Tifa are on 98 and 96, respectivley.

I got the master magic and master command materia too.
I'm going to see if you can blend materia more than once.
I'll try for another master magic or command crystal - and it if it works, I could end up with one for each character. :D

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Taylor came to my town on Animal Crossing: Wild World today.
I asked her if she'd help me to upgrade Nook's shop - so she went and bought something, then kept hitting my character with her axe.
So I kept making my character cry with the emotion icons.

I shouldn't have left my golden shovel infront of my house.
Okay, it was hacked, I don't mind that much - I'd be fuming if I got it legally.

TAYLOR STOLE IT.

I'd even given her a few bags of 99,000 bells and bitch stole my golden shovel!
Grrrrrrrrrrr...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And I've started a new save on Pokémon Diamond.
Taylor was begging me to - she wants me to see if I can get her a Japanese Ditto.
It'll be a while till I get to the National Dex stage, but I'll try it for her.

I need to replay Diamond anyway.
And if people are unreasonable on the GTS...
I have an Action Replay.
I'll trade them BADLY HACKED MEWS.
Their nickname will be COCKFACE.

I hacked a Grotle for someone who was offering a level 7 fucking Onix.
I nicknamed it TWAT.
That'll teach them for being unreasonable.

Mwah ha ha.
When hacks are used for good causes, everyone wins. :D

I joined this rpg Solstice. On my third day playing I made lvl 20. And in some twists of event I ended up being the leader of a party I did't form. There really nice. I have to magic users and I think three fighters. I still can't tell between classes.

The strongest in my team is (I forgot there name.) And he helps a lot. Maybe next time we can all do the Skill Master's challenge and then maybe we can do that tricky maze.

Wish me luck.

Since I got back from work at 5pm last night, I've added 9 hours to my Final Fantasy XII game clock, bringing it to 175:03:51. I've had the game for 11 months now. Anyway. I decided I'd temporarily give up on my unsuccessful attempts at beating the Behemoth King in order to get some of the more elusive weapons in the game. Put it this way, I now realise why they're so elusive.

First off I went for the Durandal. This was the easiest to get so far, after being able to steal a Leshach Halcyon at the first attempt from a Leshach Entite (not bad considering there's only a 6% chance of stealing one). The problem there was getting the snowstorms to start, taking about 15 minutes of re-entering the Paramina Rift. Emperor Scales weren't too hard either, having to Poach the Archæoævis in the Zertinan Caverns - 7 Poaches got me the three Scales I needed. After having already sold a few Lifewicks, I got the Durandal an hour after I started getting the required loot.

The Saggitarius bow was a pain. I started at about 7pm and didn't get it until four hours of gameplay later. Starting with the 3 Beastlord Horns, these were obtained by Poaching the Humbaba in the Mosphoran Highwaste, took a couple of hours. The Ash Wyrm, also at the Highwaste, dropped a Moon Ring after the third battle, which was lucky too. I had already sold 2 Moon Rings in the past so I only needed the one.

The problem was the 4 Saggitarius Gems. I spent the rest of the night in the Henne Mines, working my way down to the areas where the Hecteyes lived and from there, chaining them. After three hours reaching a chain of 89 Hecteyes, I had only obtained two of the gems and gave up as my eyes were burning. Next morning though, I tried a different approach and went to the Stilshrine Of Miriam to steal the gems from the Oilings that lived there. Annoyingly, I got two gems in only 8 steals, also with only a 6% chance of the gem appearing. Pah, curse you, chance.

Lastly I've spent two hours this morning getting the ingrediants for Serpentarius, one of the three ingrediants for the Tournesol sword. I have one piece of the required three Serpentarius so far. One ingrediant is the Snake Skin, dropped by only one non-rare enemy in the game, the Wildsnake in the Giza Plains. I had to wait half an hour for the Dry Season and even then, there's only one Wildsnake in the Plains so I had to refresh the area loads. I got 14 Snake Skins after about half an hour, selling one of these to get my first piece of Serpentarius.

I knew where to get Serpent Eyes - the Basilisks in the Feywood, probably the most annoying place in FF history. Two of these are needed for each piece of Serpentarius, and after chaining 56 Basilisks I picked up the four Eyes I needed. Now I need High Arcanas... and now these need three ingrediants of their own. So to summarise: I'm getting the ingrediants (Arcanas, Feystones and Souls Of Thamasa) to get one of the ingrediants (High Arcana) to get one of the ingrediants (Serpentarius) of the Tournesol.

Yeah, I have a headache from reading that last bit too.

I've been playing and enjoying Disgaea 2 on the PS2.  It's a turn-based, grid-based, number-crunching blast.  And it takes a neat game design mechanic to extremes.

We're all familiar with CRPG conventions, where characters have 6 stats (hlth,str,dex,int, etc.)  and then we get a +6 sword, which usually means +6 points to your character's damage while the sword is wielded.  The Disgaea system simply makes characters, monsters, and EVERY item in the game have the same set of stats.  Your character might be defined as (12, 9, 17, 11, 11, 11).  You wield a sword that is defined as (0, 0, 3, 0, 0, 0).  So your adjusted stats, while wielding the sword, are simple the sum of the stats (you plus the sword), or (12, 9, 20, 11, 11, 11).

Not only is this system simple to understand, but it opens up lots of complexity (just what the player wants).  It's trivial to "fuse" items together.  Combat calculations are written once; no special cases for hitting a wall instead of a  monster.  On top of that, Disgaea goes crazy.  Do you want to upgrade your sword?  Level it, just like you would level yourself.  Do you have a magical stick of gum?  Wield it, for extra magic.  Or fuse it with a trash can and a bone wand. Or sacrifice it to your god.  Or sell it back to the shop.

So, if you don't want to traverse 50 random dungeons just to level up your helm, stay away from Disgaea 2.  But if number-crunching turn-based CRPGs are your thing, play it.

Mythic is really quite a neat little "magic 8 ball" gaming system.  It's almost more of a mindset than a game, and the whole system is driven by a 2 dimensional "Fate Chart" (actually, it's 3 dimensional, but it's only 3 planes deep).  It was designed for "choose your own adventure" style gaming with or without a GM, and as such is perfect for generating and running a solo wargame campaign.

 

Combine the Mythic RPG, 5150 and my Hydrissian miniatures, and you get:

 

The Adventures of Slevan, last heir to House Senoj

 

[Note: I'm naming my 'driss using hacked up "Earther" names just to make things easy on myself.  Slevan = Steven, Endru = Andrew, etc.]

 

Though I have yet to really write it up, here is the background and a summary of the first Scene:

 

Slevan is the only offspring of a minor noble Hydrissian family.  He has distinguised himself as a "Diplomat" (what the 'driss call their captains) in various minor conflicts along the imperial border.  Unfortunately, his successes have drawn the ire of more powerful families, one of which decides its time to "retire" Slevan before he causes any more trouble.

 

[As an aside, the Hydrissians are a Dinosauroid race with high tech equipment, a rigid and slightly pompous social structure and a society that seems like a strange cross between the Merchant Princes and Germanic Warlords.  While VERY civilized and technically savvy, the 'driss "empire" is really more of a feudal confederacy with only their culture tying them together.]

 

SCENE 1 - SLEVAN'S ATTEMPTED ESCAPE

 

Mythic generated a "PC positive, Destroy Elegance" twist to the scene, which I interpreted as a singularity bomb being set off in the ballroom to cover Slevan's escape.  As I was playing this scene to get some familiarity with Mythic and to set the starting parameters for my campaign, I decided to keep it pretty simple and focus on getting Slevan away from his enemies.  I began to ask Mythic some questions:

 

Did Slevan manage to collect his personal effects before leaving? [Likely]

Exceptional YES - He's clearly [from the bomb in the ballroom] been planning his escape, and Slevan gets away with his gear, some cash and his personal starship!  I really wasn't expecting this.  I figured I might get a "yes", and Slevan would have to find some way off world.

 

Did Slevan manage to recuit his companions/comrades? [Unlikely]

YES - his 3 most loyal comrades join him, but I have to roll for their REP scores and equipment to see which ones came.

 

As I'm running this as a 5150 Solo Adventure campaign, Slevan gets 3 randomly generated companions.  I rolled them up and luckily all 3 were REP4, and one of them had an SMG on him instead of the usual "Dissembler Gun"(sic).  I'll name them later, if they survive the escape.  And "exceptional yes", and would have chosen the comrades myself, a "no" would have left him alone, with and "Exceptional No" actually turning his old companions into NPC enemies.

 

Now Slevan and his crew make a break for the starport.

 

Did security intervene? [Very Likely]

YES - I then rolled the 5150 encounter set up, generating a "Standup Fight" with equal forces.  Due to exceptionally lucky rolling, Slevan's lads took down the guards in one turn with no casualties to the team.  Actually, there were no casualties among the guards either - they were taken "out of the fight" or fled the scene.  This might help me later, as my guys aren't yet "murderers".  [I was pretty surprised - 5150 can be a pretty deadly game, but dang!  I'm glad I had that SMG...]

 

Are there any more difficulties getting to the ship?[Somewhat Likely]

Exceptional NO - There you have it - Slevan and his crew arrive at the ship, lift off and jump out of system.  I guess the rest of the security forces were tied up trying to sort out the mess back in the ball room!

 

END OF SCENE

 

So now Slevan and his lads have fled.  They have a ship and a full loadout of weaponry available to them, but few prospects for recruiting new party members, especially Hydrissian ones.

 

Their next scene will be choosing a place for refuge.  My plan for him is to seek his fortune on the border worlds, ultimately re-establishing his house, defeating his enemies, etc.  The problem with the border worlds is that they're full of hostile life forms and prone to SPUG invasions!  Thanks to their very balkanized government, nobody actually "goes to war" with Hydrissians, but some words view them with suspicion, so Slevan may not always be welcome...

 

I hope to advance Slevan's story more tonight.  Ironically, the longer I stay away from actual battles the faster the game will go.  So even though I started out using Mythic to run a wargame campaign, I'm really using 5150 to do the combat and force generation for my new solo Mythic RPG game!  I hope I can get Christy involved at some point, even if it's only to run the OpFor.