Writer Report: One Thousand

Writer Report: One Thousand — Blue Ink Alchemy

This marks the one thousandth post on my blog. I really don't know if this should be a big deal, or not. On the one hand, a thousand is a LOT. It means that, for almost three years off and on, I've been blathering my thoughts out into the nothingness of the Internet. Occasionally, this drivel gets into the faces of people who appreciate it, and I don't know if I'd still be doing this if it weren't for you. Yes, YOU, even the person who stumbled across the blog with a Google Image search (which, according to my dash, is how I get roughly half of my traffic). It also helps that I flat-out enjoy writing, even when the writing feels somewhat arduous. More on that in a bit. On the other hand, all I've done is blather for a thousand posts. I mean, it's my hope that someone somewhere found something of value in a couple of my posts, but from my perspective, half of the time I'm just brain-dumping into a text window. As much as I'd like to think that the right words in the right order perceived by the right person can save the world, my opinion of myself is not so high to think that I have those words, that order, or such a person that reads this. I could be wrong, though. There's also the fact that, after a thousand posts, I still only have one actual publication of my own out there and it's sort of stagnant at the moment. Which is probably due to a lack of promotion. Time to schedule some tweets! I certainly can't make a career out of blogging, at least not with just this thing unless I do something like sign up with Project Wonderful for ads and find a way to explode all over Tumblr, so let's move on. The dayjob has been stressful as hell lately, but I'm making time this weekend to feng shui the living crap out of the apartment, or at the very least arrange the bedroom in such a way that, regardless of where my other half is, I can isolate myself and write. I have OpenOffice, DropBox, and little else on what I'm calling the Craptop (it's an ancient Dell Latitude I got from the dayjob office when they were giving away old crap), and it's portable to the degree I can sit at either the 'kitchen' table next to my desk or the writing desk that will be in the bedroom and be free of my major distractions. No Steam, no other games, no chat clients, no Twitter, no Tumblr, no Skype. There will eventually be a nearby shelf with board games, Magic, and other such things, but cracking those things open requires more physical effort than clicking on a link. They won't interfere with the focus I'll have when I get that writing groove back. I'm going to keep the desire to write foremost in my mind, and am mostly looking towards the new year as kind of a fresh start. If I can nail down more of a routine for writing, and meet word goals I set every day, I can be much more prolific, and will finally get around to the rewriting and new writing I'm craving. Pushing forward with Cold Streets by comparison feels a bit sluggish. Maybe it's a general lack of energy due to how much I'm pushing myself at the dayjob, and I just need a readjustment, which is why stuff is getting moved around. The most important thing is not to quit. The second most important thing is to fucking write. Third is, I don't know, generally being awesome? Basically you just have to keep yourself going and making sure people know you're still at it, and eventually things will click. Or so I've gathered. Anyway, thanks for hanging around, especially if you've been here a while. If you want to how far I've come, I recommend the Wayback Machine. I'm sure Mister Peabody will happily take you to any number of embarrassing anecdotes in the growth of my blog. And if you get that reference, we should totally hang out.

---

Blue Ink Alchemy

Daunted

Daunted — Blue Ink Alchemy

As we head inevitably towards the end of the year and, consequently, the end of Q4, things at the dayjob become more and more intense. Or maybe that's just me. The last few days I've had my nose to the grindstone with a particular project. Other potential work has been moved away from me so I could focus on it. As good as it is to feel that people have my back, the obligation I feel to not let them down is a far more immediate feeling. By extension, I tend to work harder. Late nights, through lunches, weekends, and so on. And as deadlines approach, the work tends to become a bit more hectic. The frustrating part is that after the work is done, I may not be done with it. Revisions may come back if the client changed their mind or, more likely, I did not interpret the direction of the documentation accurately enough. Additional functionality may be required. Or, as was the case last night, the whole thing may simply refuse to work once it's in a live environment. I'm managing the stress as best I can and keeping in mind that this won't last forever. But my flagging energy reserves need to be addressed and I need to find my groove again.

---

Blue Ink Alchemy

The Running Returns

The Running Returns — Blue Ink Alchemy

Art by Alexandra Douglass I've mentioned the game of NetRunner off-handedly twice before. Back when I finally got around to sorting all of my old CCG cards, I found I still have my decks for the game. A couple weeks ago, I played the new iteration of the game, and many of its ideas hold up despite the intervening years, even if the game has changed in many significant ways. And it's kicked some other ideas into overdrive, to the point that I feel I'm on the edge of something very interesting provided I motivate myself to carve out the time and space I need. Let's begin at the beginning. The year is 1996. Magic the Gathering had already become a big part of my life, I was heading towards my senior year of high school, and cyberpunk dystopias were now being depicted with true computer-generated graphics, even if the graphics weren't all that great. Johnny Mnemonic, The Lawnmower Man, and Hackers were all fresh in the minds of those on the edge of the digital frontier, and Wizards of the Coast, no fools but their own, published a new Deckmaster game aimed at this emerging demographic. But rather than simply slap a coat of pixelated paint on Magic and call it a day, they tried something new. While cribbing notes from R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk 2020 game, Richard Garfield also envisioned an asymmetrical play environment. The game has two players. One represents the Corporation, a monolithic capitalist juggernaut bent on turning profits by any and all means necessary, advancing hidden agendas that increase their influence over anyone within reach of their advertisements. The other is the Runner, a hacker extraordinaire hurling themselves into the unknown wilds of security systems to spy on, destroy, or steal anything they can, especially from Corporations. Both players win by scoring a set amount of agenda points, but the Corporation is the only player with said points in their deck. The Runner has to steal them, and that means breaching the Corp's defenses. On top of this interesting foundation is the element of hidden information. The Corporation sets up their side of the table with cards that represent their remote servers, using programs for interdiction called ICE to stop the Runner from getting to whatever information they want to protect. Their hand, deck, and discard pile also count as servers, and are also viable targets for the Runner. ICE, remote server assets, the precious agendas - all of these cards are played face-down by the Corporation. The Runner, more often than not, will not know what the face-down card is until the Corporation chooses to pay the cost required to reveal it. The Corporation relies on careful planning, deception, and the intimidation of utter brutality in response to intrusion; the Runner is fueled entirely by intelligence, courage, and more than a little luck. Unfortunately for Mr. Garfield, NetRunner never really took off the way Magic did. It faded into relative obscurity and was battered around as an IP a bit before Fantasy Flight Games came across it while developing their Android universe of tabletop games. Now, rather than their identities being amorphous and generic, players build their decks around an identity, a persistent aspect that grants a bonus throughout the game and helps drive the focus of their strategy. Are you looking to achieve victory as quickly as possible through the traditional means of scoring agenda points? Do you have a more nefarious aim, such as doing as much damage to the Runner as possible, or making all of the Corp's ICE extremely brittle? Or is your aim just to watch the dystopia burn? The game has also changed in that rather than being a collectible card game, it is now what is referred to as a living card game. Instead of randomized booster packs, the game is available as a core set with several 'data packs', and each one contains the same amount of the same cards. This levels the playing field for competition, makes it a touch easier to teach, and ensures that as the game ages, older cards have less of a chance of becoming either obsolete or overpowered. In addition, the core set includes a plethora of counters and markers (or as I call them, "FFG fiddly bits" as Fantasy Flight Games loves its cardboard punch-outs) that are a welcome addition, as the old game required you to track things like credits, memory, and so on with coins, jelly beans, or whatever else you had handy. Top it off with some breathtaking art, a comprehensive rulebook, and high-quality cards, and you have one of the most successful resurrections of an older game I've ever seen. I hope to eventually find more local players of the game, or failing that, convert some people I know to it. The future is coming...

---

Blue Ink Alchemy

The Disorder of Art

The Disorder of Art — Blue Ink Alchemy

Courtesy Floating Robes "Apropos of nothing," asks one person, "what's the name of the mental disorder/condition where a person thinks his or her art/work is never good enough?" The immediate response from the other is, "...being an artist?" It pretty much is a mental disorder, as it fucks with your brain almost constantly. It can interfere with your concentration and focus, rob you of confidence, and point out all of the flaws in your work while offering no means to correct or improve it. It behaves like a mental disorder, but it really isn't. It just means that you, the artist, know your work can be better, and you want it to be better so it blows people away. But since it behaves like a disorder, let's treat it like one; instead of ignoring it or just throwing drugs at it (though they can help, and in this case, we're talking about stuff like booze for the most part), let's shine a light on it. Mental disorders are like obstacles in a darkened room: If you don't turn on the lights, they're going to trip you up and cause varying degrees of discomfort. Hank Green pointed out recently that creation is terrifying. We are taking something out of the safety and security and privacy of our own imaginations and thrusting it bodily into the world. It has to stand on its own feet, and while you can cheer for it and support it from the wings, the work is the thing doing the singing and dancing. Some people will love it; some will hate it. Is this a reflection on you? No, not really. It's a reflection on your work. There's a difference, no matter what your head might be telling you. But since our work is a part of us, born out of our imaginations and given life by our blood, sweat, and tears, that difference can seem negligible, maybe even non-existent. Instead of merely taking flight thanks to us, we can see ourselves as bound to the work, trying to fly along with it. We add our own expectations, hopes, fears, and doubts to it even as we tell it to take to the skies. In doing this, we bring both ourselves and the work down. This is why I feel it's important to keep in mind that we are not our works. Inasmuch as we are not our jobs, our furniture, our hobbies, or our khakis, we are not our works. While these things do contribute to our identities, they only truly define us if we allow them to. Just as our work has to stand on its own separate from us, we have to stand on our own separate from our work. You may paint breathtaking landscapes or reduce people to tears with your prose, but will that really be worth it if you're insufferable to be around? If you can accept that you are not your work, and that your work is separate from you and should be viewed differently from you, the fact that your work is 'never good enough' should become less crippling. Here's the other big thing that will pants this notion like crazy: your work is good enough. Now, I don't mean that first drafts and initial sketches are necessarily good enough for public consumption. I know for a fact most of my first drafts are shit. What I mean is, your work is good enough that you want to make it in the first place. If you can get past the initial idea stage to the point that you're creating a work of art, it's good enough in that regard. It's good enough if you keep working on it no matter how hectic the dayjob gets, how much you hate your boss, how many errands you have to run, and how many of your kids or pets get sick on the carpet. It's good enough if you want to improve it. It's good enough if you're eager to show it off to other people even as you're biting your nails in abject terror over their reactions. Paradoxical, isn't it? Your work is good enough if it's never good enough. If we can be mindful of the facts that our work is not a reflection of ourselves, and that it's good enough for us to keep working on and futzing over, we can overcome the doubt that undercuts and cripples us. I say "we" because I suffer from this, too. Mindfulness of this nature is, in essence, a lot like writing and other forms of art: it takes dedication, practice, and work. And we're not always going to get it right. Ever stub your toe on something in a brightly-lit room? It's kind of like that. But at least the light is on and you can see what happened; you can avoid doing the same in the future if you're aware of it. It doesn't really matter if you mess up; what matters is, keep trying until you don't.

---

Blue Ink Alchemy

The Limitless Genre

The Limitless Genre — Blue Ink Alchemy

If you step away from science fiction, you may see a tendency among its writers and creators to divide it up into different sub-genres. Time travel is practically its own sort of story, as is 'hard' sci-fi, along with various "_____punk" styles and derivations of the space opera. I mean, Blade Runner is noir, Flash Gordon is camp, and never the twain shall meet. Right? This doesn't always have to be the case. Imposing the limits of a particular style of story can make writing said story easier, but you also run the risk of falling into cliches and conventions of said style. At a Barnes & Noble yesterday, I saw that a good portion of the sci-fi & fantasy racks had been set aside specifically for "teen paranormal romance." Something tells me I have a good idea as to the content of those books, and of their average quality. Some may be spectacular, but I suspect others are sub-par to the point of making Twilight look good. Let's get back to science fiction as an overarching genre. I don't feel you need to pick a particular sub-category into which you must pigeonhole your story. Deux Ex: Human Revolution doesn't. The game has noir & renaissance overtones throughout but goes from conspiracy intrigue and solid character moments to incredible action and out-there sciences within moments. Yet none of it feels out of place. It is consistent with the themes and timbre of the story. Adam Jensen is a man reborn and remade, both struggling to maintain his identity and utilizing the benefits of his augmentations to do his job and find his answers. In most detective yarns, a scene where the protagonist punches through a wall before turning invisible would be rather out of place. Likewise, few are the space operas that truly tackle the aftermath of a tragedy the way this game does. The elements are balanced in such a way that all of them combine without losing sync and creating a richer, more rewarding storytelling experience. Why shouldn't sci-fi go for multiple tones and moods? Obviously this needs to be done with care, lest the emotional moments become too saturnine or the high-action ones come off as overly ridiculous. In a story like this, you only get so many style points in your tale with which you can get away with "cool shit" moments. Too many and you've become style over substance. Too few, however, and your story becomes dry and plodding. Again, the watchword is balance. And I believe it is a balance worth striking. Science fiction can include all sorts of threads from other genres of storytelling, from romance to horror to crime to adventure. Once all is said and done, be able to look over the work and say, "I've got a _______punk action-mystery" can be useful for marketing it, but my point is the genre only has the limits we choose to impose. Moon is phenomenal because of how hard its science is, and if your goal in writing is to go for something similar, by all means work within those constraints. There is, however, no obligation to pick a particular pigeonhole from the outset. Science fiction is our contemplation of the heavens, the nature of the universe, the exploration of the impossible, and the examination of the individual within all of it. It is, like those heavens, and like our imaginations, limitless. What examples of sci-fi that break from traditional molds come to mind for you?

---

Blue Ink Alchemy

Writer Report: Q4

Writer Report: Q4 — Blue Ink Alchemy

We have entered the busiest time of the year at the dayjob. I'm putting in a lot of extra hours, late nights, weekends, you name it. This means I'm lacking the time and energy to fully focus on my writing. This bothers me, but I'm not sure how I can change this. Maybe I need to make further changes to my diet and exercise schedule to get more energy. Maybe I need to find stronger coffee. Maybe I should start a coke habit. ... Just kidding on that last one. At least today, Black Friday, I can work from home. I'm putting out some fires for the bosses, but at least I'm doing it in my housecoat. More & better news in the future, I'm sure.

---

Blue Ink Alchemy

Giving Thanks in 2012

Giving Thanks in 2012 — Blue Ink Alchemy

So, let's see. How far have we come in the last year? I'm thankful that...

• I still have my job,
• my wife and I have moved into a larger place,
• she is attending classes happily and successfully,
• I've gotten the first (I hope of many) story of mine published, even if it was by myself on Amazon,
• my emotional state is stable and my mental faculties are undimmed,
• friends, family, and acquaintances continue to reinforce a positive environment through affection and support,
• I'm steadily losing weight,
• and my car is still running.

As I did last year, I hope wherever you are and whomever you're with, you enjoy today and remember to give thanks, even for the little things.

---

Blue Ink Alchemy

Limited Magic: BREW It Up

Limited Magic: BREW It Up — Blue Ink Alchemy

Art by Zoltan Boros & Gabor Szikszai I've written a great deal about Constructed play in Magic: the Gathering, but it isn't the only format out there. While everything from Standard to Commander falls under the Constructed umbrella, there are other ways to play the game that don't involve spending a great deal of time before an event putting a deck together. The other way to play is Limited, so called because you are given a limited number of cards to work with at the start and must build from there within a limited amount of time. Back when I first started playing, you could get generic Starter Decks of Magic that contained semi-randomized decks of cards. In those days, Sealed events consisted of you getting one of these, plus a couple boosters, and building a deck from there based on what you opened. Nowadays, there are Intro and Event decks that all have pre-determined sets of cards within. This allows for too much foreknowledge, and takes away some of the appeal of the event, as the mystery of what you'll open and how you can use it to win is part of the fun. So, if you play a Sealed event today, it'd be with six boosters. However, you at least get to keep all of the cards you open in Sealed. This is not the case in Draft. You only get three boosters when you draft, and the nuances don't stop there. You open your first pack with the rest of the people at your table, look at the cards you've opened, choose one, and pass the rest to your neighbor. You, in turn, get your other neighbor's cards, choose one from them, and so on. You end up with the same amount of cards that you open - 45 - but you chose each and every one of them. Instead of being able to determine a theme or a course of action for the deck within the generous time allowed for Sealed, you do so in real time during Draft. Either way, the only thing you can know before going into a Limited event is what to look for in your packs. You can have a favorite color combination, card type, or particular single to look for, sure, but you're going to have to play with what you've got in front of you. So how do you make the most of it? One answer is a simple acronym: BREW. Basically, BREW is a system that prioritizes the cards you get and helps you keep in mind things to look for that will support whatever deck you end up building. It's especially helpful in Draft, as your first card falling into one of these categories (usually the first two) will help narrow down your color choices. Sometimes. Anyway, let's break this down.

Bombs

First and foremost you want to look for finishers. Every deck needs ways to win, and since you know you're going to end up with at least a few low-cost creatures to hold off early aggression (or put some pressure on yourself!), finding the coup de grace is a higher priority. This is especially true since some (but not all) true finishers are rares. Also, not all of them are creatures: a well-timed [mtg_card]Rakdos' Return[/mtg_card] or [mtg_card]Fireball[/mtg_card] can end your opponent's game just as much as a titanic monster.

Removal

You want to keep an opponent's threats from harming you. The best way to do this is to keep them off the table entirely, which is where removal comes in. A lot of this comes in the form of direct damage like [mtg_card]Annihilating Fire[/mtg_card] or focused destruction cards such as [mtg_card]Avenging Arrow[/mtg_card] but it's also worth noting that some removal takes the form of enchantments like [mtg_card]Arrest[/mtg_card] and temporary states such as those caused by the Detain mechanic. You'll tend to find more removal than bombs in a given Limited set, so they're what we look for next.

Evasion

Remember those non-bomb creatures I mentioned? Most of them are going to be walking around on the ground. If you want to damage your opponent, you're going to need to avoid them, go right through them, or use yours to hold off the bad guys while your guys remain safe. That, in a nutshell, is evasion. An evasive creature is one that either gets around the enemy or makes attacking unattractive. A good example is flight: a card that flies on its own such as [mtg_card]Tower Drake[/mtg_card] or a card that grants flight, [mtg_card]Pursuit of Flight[/mtg_card] for example, are both viable evasion tactics. Unblockable creatures such as [mtg_card]Invisible Stalker[/mtg_card] are a given, as is anything with a landwalking ability. Creatures with First Strike are also technically evasive: they do their damage without taking any themselves, provided they're beefy enough to take out whatever they're facing. I'm sure you can think of other examples.

Whatever

If you can't find any bombs, removal, or evaders at this point, just grab whatever supports the deck. Mana dorks, Defenders, cards that accelerate your drawing, etc. In Draft, it's important to keep in mind you may not use everything you pick, so you can pick things you'll never actually play just to keep an opponent from using them. This is called "hate drafting" and Evil Steve Sadin discusses it here. Those are the basics of Limited construction, and I'll give you a more concrete example soon, as well as giving you a run down on how to draft at 4 am on a Tuesday rather than waiting for your friendly local gaming store to hold an event.

---

Blue Ink Alchemy

On The Fringes

On The Fringes — Blue Ink Alchemy

When I watch a good television program or film, one with a narrative that builds its characters and takes the plot in ways one might not expect, I feel the dichotomy in me between watcher and writer. In the moment the story is happening, the emotional connections I feel with the characters, if they are written and acted well enough, feel vital and affecting. Afterward, in retrospect, I can observe the direction and outcome of those moments, and fully understand the foundation behind the decisions the writers made as well as postulate where they might be headed. It's important to remember that any character in a story can die. It's all in the manner of how, when, and why. I think 'why' might be the most important piece of the puzzle, and I don't mean the motivations of their in-story killer. The writer, callous and unfeeling as they might seem, should have good reason for offing one of their creations, especially if that creation is well-liked. Knowing this, I think, actually helps in reading stories as well as watching them. Chuck Wendig could easily kill Miriam Black. Jim Butcher's under no obligation to keep Harry Dresden alive. And we all know how George R.R. Martin feels about the immunity of popular characters to the flashing scythe that is his pen. Character death is one of those writerly decisions that can hang on the fringes of the story, either making the whole thing more tense or dragging the whole thing down. Here's an example before I discuss my Fringe feelings. Joss Whedon writes two major character deaths into Serenity. Shepard Book dies defending the colony of Haven from Alliance forces, and Wash bites it the moment after he gets the ship down safely on Mr. Universe's station. I've thought about this, and as different as their deaths are (Book dies in Mal's arms giving a poignant line about belief while Wash is snuffed out instantly by a giant splinter from a Reaper ship), they serve very different purposes and, I feel, Wash's was not necessarily required. I'm not just saying this as someone who loves Wash; I legitimately feel his death's place in the story was superfluous. Reminding us that 'anyone can die' in this way feels a bit cheap. We'd already lost Shepard, a well-liked and well-established character. Wash's death does do the job of raising the stakes, but in retrospect I'm not entirely sure it had to happen. By contrast, the death of Etta in Fringe was a necessity. The effectiveness of her character is evident in how shitty I feel even writing that out. But her death is the catalyst for so many things, an acceleration of motivations and events towards the end of the series. At the same time this painful loss is drawing Olivia closer to Peter, it's driving Peter to such rage-induced distraction that he takes matters into his own hands by lethally stripping an Observer of his tech and augmenting himself with it. In turn, this also distances Peter from Walter, who desperately needs his son to anchor the man he is, lest he drift back into becoming the man he was when he broke two universes. Etta's death in and of itself did not necessarily raise the stakes, but it did push Peter to a point where they became incredibly heightened. Do you see the difference? Yes, any character can die. But you need to think long and hard about what will come next before you pull that trigger.

---

Blue Ink Alchemy

On The Fringes

On The Fringes — Blue Ink Alchemy

When I watch a good television program or film, one with a narrative that builds its characters and takes the plot in ways one might not expect, I feel the dichotomy in me between watcher and writer. In the moment the story is happening, the emotional connections I feel with the characters, if they are written and acted well enough, feel vital and affecting. Afterward, in retrospect, I can observe the direction and outcome of those moments, and fully understand the foundation behind the decisions the writers made as well as postulate where they might be headed. It's important to remember that any character in a story can die. It's all in the manner of how, when, and why. I think 'why' might be the most important piece of the puzzle, and I don't mean the motivations of their in-story killer. The writer, callous and unfeeling as they might seem, should have good reason for offing one of their creations, especially if that creation is well-liked. Knowing this, I think, actually helps in reading stories as well as watching them. Chuck Wendig could easily kill Miriam Black. Jim Butcher's under no obligation to keep Harry Dresden alive. And we all know how George R.R. Martin feels about the immunity of popular characters to the flashing scythe that is his pen. Character death is one of those writerly decisions that can hang on the fringes of the story, either making the whole thing more tense or dragging the whole thing down. Here's an example before I discuss my Fringe feelings. Joss Whedon writes two major character deaths into Serenity. Shepard Book dies defending the colony of Haven from Alliance forces, and Wash bites it the moment after he gets the ship down safely on Mr. Universe's station. I've thought about this, and as different as their deaths are (Book dies in Mal's arms giving a poignant line about belief while Wash is snuffed out instantly by a giant splinter from a Reaper ship), they serve very different purposes and, I feel, Wash's was not necessarily required. I'm not just saying this as someone who loves Wash; I legitimately feel his death's place in the story was superfluous. Reminding us that 'anyone can die' in this way feels a bit cheap. We'd already lost Shepard, a well-liked and well-established character. Wash's death does do the job of raising the stakes, but in retrospect I'm not entirely sure it had to happen. By contrast, the death of Etta in Fringe was a necessity. The effectiveness of her character is evident in how shitty I feel even writing that out. But her death is the catalyst for so many things, an acceleration of motivations and events towards the end of the series. At the same time this painful loss is drawing Olivia closer to Peter, it's driving Peter to such rage-induced distraction that he takes matters into his own hands by lethally stripping an Observer of his tech and augmenting himself with it. In turn, this also distances Peter from Walter, who desperately needs his son to anchor the man he is, lest he drift back into becoming the man he was when he broke two universes. Etta's death in and of itself did not necessarily raise the stakes, but it did push Peter to a point where they became incredibly heightened. Do you see the difference? Yes, any character can die. But you need to think long and hard about what will come next before you pull that trigger.

---

Blue Ink Alchemy

On The Fringes

On The Fringes — Blue Ink Alchemy

When I watch a good television program or film, one with a narrative that builds its characters and takes the plot in ways one might not expect, I feel the dichotomy in me between watcher and writer. In the moment the story is happening, the emotional connections I feel with the characters, if they are written and acted well enough, feel vital and affecting. Afterward, in retrospect, I can observe the direction and outcome of those moments, and fully understand the foundation behind the decisions the writers made as well as postulate where they might be headed. It's important to remember that any character in a story can die. It's all in the manner of how, when, and why. I think 'why' might be the most important piece of the puzzle, and I don't mean the motivations of their in-story killer. The writer, callous and unfeeling as they might seem, should have good reason for offing one of their creations, especially if that creation is well-liked. Knowing this, I think, actually helps in reading stories as well as watching them. Chuck Wendig could easily kill Miriam Black. Jim Butcher's under no obligation to keep Harry Dresden alive. And we all know how George R.R. Martin feels about the immunity of popular characters to the flashing scythe that is his pen. Here's an example before I discuss my Fringe feelings. Joss Whedon writes two major character deaths into Serenity. Shepard Book dies defending the colony of Haven from Alliance forces, and Wash bites it the moment after he gets the ship down safely on Mr. Universe's station. I've thought about this, and as different as their deaths are (Book dies in Mal's arms giving a poignant line about belief while Wash is snuffed out instantly by a giant splinter from a Reaper ship), they serve very different purposes and, I feel, Wash's was not necessarily required. I'm not just saying this as someone who loves Wash; I legitimately feel his death's place in the story was superfluous. Reminding us that 'anyone can die' in this way feels a bit cheap. We'd already lost Shepard, a well-liked and well-established character. Wash's death does do the job of raising the stakes, but in retrospect I'm not entirely sure it had to happen. By contrast, the death of Etta in Fringe was a necessity. The effectiveness of her character is evident in how shitty I feel even writing that out. But her death is the catalyst for so many things, an acceleration of motivations and events towards the end of the series. At the same time this painful loss is drawing Olivia closer to Peter, it's driving Peter to such rage-induced distraction that he takes matters into his own hands by lethally stripping an Observer of his tech and augmenting himself with it. In turn, this also distances Peter from Walter, who desperately needs his son to anchor the man he is, lest he drift back into becoming the man he was when he broke two universes. Etta's death in and of itself did not necessarily raise the stakes, but it did push Peter to a point where they became incredibly heightened. Do you see the difference? Yes, any character can die. But you need to think long and hard about what will come next before you pull that trigger.

---

Blue Ink Alchemy

JayCon Winter 2012 After-Action Report

JayCon Winter 2012 After-Action Report — Blue Ink Alchemy

Artemis! Every six months or so, my co-worker and compatriot Jay runs a gaming mini-convention out of his home he humbly dubbed "JayCon". The latest edition of the get-together just wrapped up yesterday, and good times were had by all. It's a great opportunity to introduce (and be introduced to) new games, as well as playing old favorites. So, without further ado, here's a rundown on everything I played over the weekend, as far as I can remember. I started off the weekend by finally playing Dominion for the first time. It is often hailed as one of the best deck-building games ever, and I can see why. Players, in their roles as medieval land-owners, take it in turns to acquire cards for their decks that increase their purchasing power, grant the more victory points, or allow them to draw additional cards or take additional actions. A fair amount of strategy and forethought is involved, especially given the nature of the starting communal stacks of cards. The game is set up in such a way that, with the expansions, it is extremely unlikely you will ever play the same game twice. It's an excellent game. I played a bit of Crokinole next. I'd played it a couple times before the weekend, after seeing it as the final event of the Omegathon at PAX East 2012. Played on a circular board with checker-like discs and incorporating elements of shuffleboard and curling in miniature, Crokinole is one of those 'simple to learn, difficult to master' games. It's simple in that its challenges don't come from over-complicated rules but the ability of the players to position themselves properly; the difficulty is in pulling off said positioning. For most of the weekend, part of the house was dedicated to the playing of Artemis, the spaceship bridge simulation program. Up to five people sat around the room in front of laptops, each claiming a different station on the bridge of the spaceship: Helm, Science, Weapons, Engineering, and Communications. The last person, the Captain, does not get a laptop of his or her own; instead, they see what is currently on the viewscreen (the monitor slaved to the server computer for the simulation). The Captain must call out to the other members of the crew for status reports, issuing commands, and so on, while each crew member must work with their specialized consoles to operate the ship. It's about as close to actually being on Star Trek as any of us are likely to get. Saturday started off with me finally playing Lords of Waterdeep for the first time since PAX. A "worker placement" game with heavy D&D flavor, the Forgotten Realms city of Waterdeep serves as the backdrop for the machinations of her various lords, who conscript heroes to complete quests on their behalf. While the game makes for interesting competition and features high-quality components and a fantastic use of the D&D universe, there's something to be said for having little wooden cubes slay dragons when one could be doing the slaying themselves. There's also the fact that Mandatory Quests are terrible. But it's still a good game we all enjoyed playing. Over the weekend I had the opportunity to play and introduce new players to NetRunner. The game I highly enjoyed playing years ago has returned as a Living Card Game (read: no randomized packs but major collectible elements) and has all of the asymmetrical gameplay, tension, and feast-or-famine hair-pulling frustration I remember. The core game is not terribly imbalanced, but definitely needs to be tweaked if one wants to build any sort of competitive or truly interesting deck. It also helps to not ditch cards that let you search through your deck, but these are the things we learn as we play. I do wish more people in my area played it, as it's challenging and fun and flavorful, three things I demand from games I want to enjoy. Hence my new love for Escape, a real-time game of dice rolling, tile laying, and hearkening back to the classic adventures of Indiana Jones. As explorers trapped in the heart of an ancient temple, players roll dice to move into new rooms, solve puzzles to ease the requirements to escape, and bail each other out of trouble. The catch is that as this is going on, a soundtrack is playing, and as the soundtrack continues the stakes get higher and higher. Only those explorers who reach the exit and defeat the final challenge before time runs out survive. With everybody rolling at once, communication and focus is key, leading to a tense, challenging, and extremely atmospheric experience. I very much enjoyed it. I assisted Jay in playtesting a game I won't mention here as it's in development and everything. The other game I introduced new players to over the weekend was Chrononauts. It had been a while since the last time I played this card game of time shenanigans, and doing things like rescuing the Lusitania and assassinating Hitler are as fun as ever. We even had a player cause World War 3! The fact that the humor remains intact and the gameplay is easy to pick up are testaments to the solid design. Saturday night ended with a long game of Fiasco, and some of the most fun I've had role-playing in quite some time. Each of the five players used the charts in the rules to establish relationships, needs, locations, and objects of interest between their characters. As each player chose a die to establish something, ideas flowed organically into the setup for the story. Once everything was laid out, we began interacting as characters in scenes. We used the playset called The Ice, and by design or collective whim, things quickly turned from a Fargo-like setup of capers and criminals to something more in line with John Carpenter's The Thing. It kept us up to the wee hours of the morning, but it was an absolute blast. Sunday morning reintroduced me to Carolus Magnus, a German game of medieval territory control. Players used 'Paladins' (wooden cubes) to establish influence over the tiles spread out at random in a circle on the table, and where a player holds the greatest influence, they build castles. As more castles are built, territory is consolidated, creating larger 'islands' of tiles that are increasingly difficult for other players to usurp. It's Jay's favorite 3-player game, and the reasons seem obvious. I was introduced to an interesting little coffee-break card game called Love Letter. With a very small communal deck of around 20 cards, players compare and contrast their cards to discover who gets to deliver their letter to the prince or princess that's captured the hearts and minds of the kingdom. It's a very quick game, similar to other coffee-break games like Zombie Dice or Tsuro due to its simplicity. The big game of Sunday was Navigador. A deep and extensive game of trade in the age of exploration, players must strike a balance between pushing their fleets into uncharted waters, establishing colonies, manipulating the market and its goods, and conscripting new workers to build up resources. The system of the rondel is very interesting and rewards careful planning, and players can engage in wildly diverse strategies while remaining competitive. I never had more than three boats on the board at any given time, which may have been a hinderance, but the gap between my score (the lowest) and the winning player's was very narrow at the end. It was rewarding, if long, but not quite as involved or time-consuming as Merchants & Marauders. Last but certainly not least, I played Legacy: Gears of Time. Being a sucker for both time-travel and Civilization-style tech trees, this one looked right up my alley. As a 'time architect', each player journeys into the past to exert influence over technology, from basic tools, writing, and sanitation, all the way up to space travel and the Internet. Things like turn order, which era to place a technology into, and ensuring your big techs don't get paradox'd out of existence are extremely important. There are also Fate cards that can yield even more canny stratagems or, if you're on the receiving end, hold massive dicking-over potential. Still, it's a game I would definitely play again. All in all it was a fantastic and relaxing weekend. If you want to know more about Jay, his various projects, and his brilliant opinions on gaming in general, follow him here. You can find his Magic-related site, Wizard's Familiar, here, along with the attached Twitter account and his frequent postings on Goblin Artisans. As for me, it's back to the grind, provided I can stop thinking about games for five minutes. This is unlikely.

---

Blue Ink Alchemy

JayCon Winter 2012 After-Action Report

JayCon Winter 2012 After-Action Report — Blue Ink Alchemy

Artemis! Every six months or so, my co-worker and compatriot Jay runs a gaming mini-convention out of his home he humbly dubbed "JayCon". The latest edition of the get-together just wrapped up yesterday, and good times were had by all. It's a great opportunity to introduce (and be introduced to) new games, as well as playing old favorites. So, without further ado, here's a rundown on everything I played over the weekend, as far as I can remember.

JayCon Winter 2012 After-Action Report

JayCon Winter 2012 After-Action Report — Blue Ink Alchemy

Artemis! Every six months or so, my co-worker and compatriot Jay runs a gaming mini-convention out of his home he humbly dubbed "JayCon". The latest edition of the get-together just wrapped up yesterday, and good times were had by all. It's a great opportunity to introduce (and be introduced to) new games, as well as playing old favorites. So, without further ado, here's a rundown on everything I played over the weekend, as far as I can remember. I started off the weekend by finally playing Dominion for the first time. It is often hailed as one of the best deck-building games ever, and I can see why. Players, in their roles as medieval land-owners, take it in turns to acquire cards for their decks that increase their purchasing power, grant the more victory points, or allow them to draw additional cards or take additional actions. A fair amount of strategy and forethought is involved, especially given the nature of the starting communal stacks of cards. The game is set up in such a way that, with the expansions, it is extremely unlikely you will ever play the same game twice. It's an excellent game. I played a bit of Crokinole next. I'd played it a couple times before the weekend, after seeing it as the final event of the Omegathon at PAX East 2012. Played on a circular board with checker-like discs and incorporating elements of shuffleboard and curling in miniature, Crokinole is one of those 'simple to learn, difficult to master' games. It's simple in that its challenges don't come from over-complicated rules but the ability of the players to position themselves properly; the difficulty is in pulling off said positioning. For most of the weekend, part of the house was dedicated to the playing of Artemis, the spaceship bridge simulation program. Up to five people sat around the room in front of laptops, each claiming a different station on the bridge of the spaceship: Helm, Science, Weapons, Engineering, and Communications. The last person, the Captain, does not get a laptop of his or her own; instead, they see what is currently on the viewscreen (the monitor slaved to the server computer for the simulation). The Captain must call out to the other members of the crew for status reports, issuing commands, and so on, while each crew member must work with their specialized consoles to operate the ship. It's about as close to actually being on Star Trek as any of us are likely to get. Saturday started off with me finally playing Lords of Waterdeep for the first time since PAX. A "worker placement" game with heavy D&D flavor, the Forgotten Realms city of Waterdeep serves as the backdrop for the machinations of her various lords, who conscript heroes to complete quests on their behalf. While the game makes for interesting competition and features high-quality components and a fantastic use of the D&D universe, there's something to be said for having little wooden cubes slay dragons when one could be doing the slaying themselves. There's also the fact that Mandatory Quests are terrible. But it's still a good game we all enjoyed playing. Over the weekend I had the opportunity to play and introduce new players to NetRunner. The game I highly enjoyed playing years ago has returned as a Living Card Game (read: no randomized packs but major collectible elements) and has all of the asymmetrical gameplay, tension, and feast-or-famine hair-pulling frustration I remember. The core game is not terribly imbalanced, but definitely needs to be tweaked if one wants to build any sort of competitive or truly interesting deck. It also helps to not ditch cards that let you search through your deck, but these are the things we learn as we play. I do wish more people in my area played it, as it's challenging and fun and flavorful, three things I demand from games I want to enjoy. Hence my new love for Escape, a real-time game of dice rolling, tile laying, and hearkening back to the classic adventures of Indiana Jones. As explorers trapped in the heart of an ancient temple, players roll dice to move into new rooms, solve puzzles to ease the requirements to escape, and bail each other out of trouble. The catch is that as this is going on, a soundtrack is playing, and as the soundtrack continues the stakes get higher and higher. Only those explorers who reach the exit and defeat the final challenge before time runs out survive. With everybody rolling at once, communication and focus is key, leading to a tense, challenging, and extremely atmospheric experience. I very much enjoyed it. I assisted Jay in playtesting a game I won't mention here as it's in development and everything. The other game I introduced new players to over the weekend was Chrononauts. It had been a while since the last time I played this card game of time shenanigans, and doing things like rescuing the Lusitania and assassinating Hitler are as fun as ever. We even had a player cause World War 3! The fact that the humor remains intact and the gameplay is easy to pick up are testaments to the solid design. Saturday night ended with a long game of Fiasco, and some of the most fun I've had role-playing in quite some time. Each of the five players used the charts in the rules to establish relationships, needs, locations, and objects of interest between their characters. As each player chose a die to establish something, ideas flowed organically into the setup for the story. Once everything was laid out, we began interacting as characters in scenes. We used the playset called The Ice, and by design or collective whim, things quickly turned from a Fargo-like setup of capers and criminals to something more in line with John Carpenter's The Thing. It kept us up to the wee hours of the morning, but it was an absolute blast. Sunday morning reintroduced me to Carolus Magnus, a German game of medieval territory control. Players used 'Paladins' (wooden cubes) to establish influence over the tiles spread out at random in a circle on the table, and where a player holds the greatest influence, they build castles. As more castles are built, territory is consolidated, creating larger 'islands' of tiles that are increasingly difficult for other players to usurp. It's Jay's favorite 3-player game, and the reasons seem obvious. I was introduced to an interesting little coffee-break card game called Love Letter. With a very small communal deck of around 20 cards, players compare and contrast their cards to discover who gets to deliver their letter to the prince or princess that's captured the hearts and minds of the kingdom. It's a very quick game, similar to other coffee-break games like Zombie Dice or Tsuro due to its simplicity. The big game of Sunday was Navigador. A deep and extensive game of trade in the age of exploration, players must strike a balance between pushing their fleets into uncharted waters, establishing colonies, manipulating the market and its goods, and conscripting new workers to build up resources. The system of the rondel is very interesting and rewards careful planning, and players can engage in wildly diverse strategies while remaining competitive. I never had more than three boats on the board at any given time, which may have been a hinderance, but the gap between my score (the lowest) and the winning player's was very narrow at the end. It was rewarding, if long, but not quite as involved or time-consuming as Merchants & Marauders. Last but certainly not least, I played Legacy: Gears of Time. Being a sucker for both time-travel and Civilization-style tech trees, this one looked right up my alley. As a 'time architect', each player journeys into the past to exert influence over technology, from basic tools, writing, and sanitation, all the way up to space travel and the Internet. Things like turn order, which era to place a technology into, and ensuring your big techs don't get paradox'd out of existence are extremely important. There are also Fate cards that can yield even more canny stratagems or, if you're on the receiving end, hold massive dicking-over potential. Still, it's a game I would definitely play again. All in all it was a fantastic and relaxing weekend. If you want to know more about Jay, his various projects, and his brilliant opinions on gaming in general, follow him here. You can find his Magic-related site, Wizard's Familiar, here, along with the attached Twitter account and his frequent postings on Goblin Artisans. As for me, it's back to the grind, provided I can stop thinking about games for five minutes. This is unlikely.

---

Blue Ink Alchemy

JayCon Winter 2012 After-Action Report

JayCon Winter 2012 After-Action Report — Blue Ink Alchemy

Artemis! Every six months or so, my co-worker and compatriot Jay runs a gaming mini-convention out of his home he humbly dubbed "JayCon". The latest edition of the get-together just wrapped up yesterday, and good times were had by all. It's a great opportunity to introduce (and be introduced to) new games, as well as playing old favorites. So, without further ado, here's a rundown on everything I played over the weekend, as far as I can remember.

JayCon Winter 2012 After-Action Report

JayCon Winter 2012 After-Action Report — Blue Ink Alchemy

Artemis! Every six months or so, my co-worker and compatriot Jay runs a gaming mini-convention out of his home he humbly dubbed "JayCon". The latest edition of the get-together just wrapped up yesterday, and good times were had by all. It's a great opportunity to introduce (and be introduced to) new games, as well as playing old favorites. So, without further ado, here's a rundown on everything I played over the weekend, as far as I can remember. I started off the weekend by finally playing Dominion for the first time. It is often hailed as one of the best deck-building games ever, and I can see why. Players, in their roles as medieval land-owners, take it in turns to acquire cards for their decks that increase their purchasing power, grant the more victory points, or allow them to draw additional cards or take additional actions. A fair amount of strategy and forethought is involved, especially given the nature of the starting communal stacks of cards. The game is set up in such a way that, with the expansions, it is extremely unlikely you will ever play the same game twice. It's an excellent game. I played a bit of Crokinole next. I'd played it a couple times before the weekend, after seeing it as the final event of the Omegathon at PAX East 2012. Played on a circular board with checker-like discs and incorporating elements of shuffleboard and curling in miniature, Crokinole is one of those 'simple to learn, difficult to master' games. It's simple in that its challenges don't come from over-complicated rules but the ability of the players to position themselves properly; the difficulty is in pulling off said positioning. For most of the weekend, part of the house was dedicated to the playing of Artemis, the spaceship bridge simulation program. Up to five people sat around the room in front of laptops, each claiming a different station on the bridge of the spaceship: Helm, Science, Weapons, Engineering, and Communications. The last person, the Captain, does not get a laptop of his or her own; instead, they see what is currently on the viewscreen (the monitor slaved to the server computer for the simulation). The Captain must call out to the other members of the crew for status reports, issuing commands, and so on, while each crew member must work with their specialized consoles to operate the ship. It's about as close to actually being on Star Trek as any of us are likely to get. Saturday started off with me finally playing Lords of Waterdeep for the first time since PAX. A "worker placement" game with heavy D&D flavor, the Forgotten Realms city of Waterdeep serves as the backdrop for the machinations of her various lords, who conscript heroes to complete quests on their behalf. While the game makes for interesting competition and features high-quality components and a fantastic use of the D&D universe, there's something to be said for having little wooden cubes slay dragons when one could be doing the slaying themselves. There's also the fact that Mandatory Quests are terrible. But it's still a good game we all enjoyed playing. Over the weekend I had the opportunity to play and introduce new players to NetRunner. The game I highly enjoyed playing years ago has returned as a Living Card Game (read: no randomized packs but major collectible elements) and has all of the asymmetrical gameplay, tension, and feast-or-famine hair-pulling frustration I remember. The core game is not terribly imbalanced, but definitely needs to be tweaked if one wants to build any sort of competitive or truly interesting deck. It also helps to not ditch cards that let you search through your deck, but these are the things we learn as we play. I do wish more people in my area played it, as it's challenging and fun and flavorful, three things I demand from games I want to enjoy. Hence my new love for Escape, a real-time game of dice rolling, tile laying, and hearkening back to the classic adventures of Indiana Jones. As explorers trapped in the heart of an ancient temple, players roll dice to move into new rooms, solve puzzles to ease the requirements to escape, and bail each other out of trouble. The catch is that as this is going on, a soundtrack is playing, and as the soundtrack continues the stakes get higher and higher. Only those explorers who reach the exit and defeat the final challenge before time runs out survive. With everybody rolling at once, communication and focus is key, leading to a tense, challenging, and extremely atmospheric experience. I very much enjoyed it. I assisted Jay in playtesting a game I won't mention here as it's in development and everything. The other game I introduced new players to over the weekend was Chrononauts. It had been a while since the last time I played this card game of time shenanigans, and doing things like rescuing the Lusitania and assassinating Hitler are as fun as ever. We even had a player cause World War 3! The fact that the humor remains intact and the gameplay is easy to pick up are testaments to the solid design. Saturday night ended with a long game of Fiasco, and some of the most fun I've had role-playing in quite some time. Each of the five players used the charts in the rules to establish relationships, needs, locations, and objects of interest between their characters. As each player chose a die to establish something, ideas flowed organically into the setup for the story. Once everything was laid out, we began interacting as characters in scenes. We used the playset called The Ice, and by design or collective whim, things quickly turned from a Fargo-like setup of capers and criminals to something more in line with John Carpenter's The Thing. It kept us up to the wee hours of the morning, but it was an absolute blast. Sunday morning reintroduced me to Carolus Magnus, a German game of medieval territory control. Players used 'Paladins' (wooden cubes) to establish influence over the tiles spread out at random in a circle on the table, and where a player holds the greatest influence, they build castles. As more castles are built, territory is consolidated, creating larger 'islands' of tiles that are increasingly difficult for other players to usurp. It's Jay's favorite 3-player game, and the reasons seem obvious. I was introduced to an interesting little coffee-break card game called Love Letter. With a very small communal deck of around 20 cards, players compare and contrast their cards to discover who gets to deliver their letter to the prince or princess that's captured the hearts and minds of the kingdom. It's a very quick game, similar to other coffee-break games like Zombie Dice or Tsuro due to its simplicity. The big game of Sunday was Navigador. A deep and extensive game of trade in the age of exploration, players must strike a balance between pushing their fleets into uncharted waters, establishing colonies, manipulating the market and its goods, and conscripting new workers to build up resources. The system of the rondel is very interesting and rewards careful planning, and players can engage in wildly diverse strategies while remaining competitive. I never had more than three boats on the board at any given time, which may have been a hinderance, but the gap between my score (the lowest) and the winning player's was very narrow at the end. It was rewarding, if long, but not quite as involved or time-consuming as Merchants & Marauders. Last but certainly not least, I played Legacy: Gears of Time. Being a sucker for both time-travel and Civilization-style tech trees, this one looked right up my alley. As a 'time architect', each player journeys into the past to exert influence over technology, from basic tools, writing, and sanitation, all the way up to space travel and the Internet. Things like turn order, which era to place a technology into, and ensuring your big techs don't get paradox'd out of existence are extremely important. There are also Fate cards that can yield even more canny stratagems or, if you're on the receiving end, hold massive dicking-over potential. Still, it's a game I would definitely play again. All in all it was a fantastic and relaxing weekend. If you want to know more about Jay, his various projects, and his brilliant opinions on gaming in general, follow him here. You can find his Magic-related site, Wizard's Familiar, here, along with the attached Twitter account and his frequent postings on Goblin Artisans. As for me, it's back to the grind, provided I can stop thinking about games for five minutes. This is unlikely.

---

Blue Ink Alchemy

Writer Report: Don't Forget To Be Awesome

Writer Report: Don't Forget To Be Awesome — Blue Ink Alchemy

Rather than bore you with my usual drivel on how Cold Streets is moving forward at a pretty good pace for a glacier and making all sorts of excuses, here's John Green discussing the whys and wherefores of people reading in the first place. CrashCourse is a phenomenal series and if you're not watching it already, you should be.

---

Blue Ink Alchemy

Desert Bus, Act 6

Desert Bus, Act 6 — Blue Ink Alchemy

_{(With apologies to William Shakespeare)} To bus, or not to bus. That is the question — Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous tedium, Or to take arms against a sea of terrible games, And, by opposing, end them? To quit, to sleep— No more — and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand spattered bugs That game is heir to — 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished! To quit, to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream — ay, there's the rub, For in that sleep of quitting what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this Sega CD, Must give us pause. There's the respect That makes calamity of so long a marathon. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th' highway's length, the wheel's necess'ry justments, The pangs of despised hours, the end's delay, The insolence of comments, and the spurns That patient merit of th' others take, When he himself might his quietus make With a pulled plug? Who would travels bear, To grunt and sweat with a sweaty gamepad, But that the dread of never helping children, The undispensed charity from whose bosom No comfort issues, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those roads we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus the Moonbase does make donors of us all, And thus the loading bars of livestreams Give way unto the pale cast of the room, And an enterprise of great pith and moment With this regard makes ready our captive eyes, As once again, we run to Vegas. Or, you know, back to Tuscon. Depending on what hour it is. Loading Ready Run's Desert Bus begins tomorrow.

---

Blue Ink Alchemy

FNM: You Can Dance If You Want To

FNM: You Can Dance If You Want To — Blue Ink Alchemy

Art by Slawomir Maniak To be blunt, I wouldn't have this deck idea without Magic the Gathering Online. There was a time when I scoffed at the idea of playing Magic on the Internet through a sanctioned client. I'm not talking about Duels of the Planeswalkers, the 2013 version of which I'll review once I play a Planechase game or two. No, I'm talking about the actual, Wizards-approved, "Here is the Magic experience as close as we can make it without making your computer print cards" client. Meaning one must use actual money to pay for virtual booster packs. As much as one might discount this idea as a money grab, the idea that one can practice drafting at any time rather than waiting for a weekend or a get-together with friends is an overwhelming one. Limited format Magic is a different kettle of chips from Constructed. It takes practice, a slightly different mindset from Constructed play, and a willingness to think outside of established parameters. As much as you might like a certain color combination, say black and green, if you get nothing but blue rares and no good cards outside of red, being stuck in the black/green mindset will mean you've lost long before your first game begins. I will discuss Limited play another time, but suffice it to say I drafted an interesting deck the last time I played. Its core card was [mtg_card]Sphere of Safety[/mtg_card]. My first copy was an early pick out of a pretty lackluster pack, and after seeing what it does I started picking up as many useful enchantments as possible: [mtg_card]Chronic Flooding[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Arrest[/mtg_card], and so on. While I only won one match during the event, I still had a blast playing the deck, and a couple of my opponents complimented me on my esoteric but powerful choice. So I returned to my beloved Standard with my Izzet Controlled Burn deck in hand, and checked out the scene at the King of Prussia mall. Alas, my first choice, Cyborg One in Doylestown, is now a bit of a hike to get to. The new place had a decent turn-out, and I did all right but fell in the first round to an aggressive Golgari deck that ended up winning the entire event. Aggression can be hard for control decks to deal with, and as disappointed as I was in a few mis-plays on my part, my mind kept coming back to the [mtg_card]Sphere of Safety[/mtg_card] idea. At first the thought was to cram as many enchantments as possible into the deck so that attacking me or my planeswalkers becomes ridiculously expensive as quickly as possible. However, relying on the appearance of [mtg_card]Azor's Elocutors[/mtg_card] or [mtg_card]Jace, Memory Adept[/mtg_card] could make for very long games. I love good old-fashioned mill decks as much as the last Revised veteran, and the idea of talking an opponent into submission is hilarious to me, but at least in the initial encounter, the potential to deal game-winning damage is never a bad option to have. [mtg_deck title="Standard Safety Dance"] // Creatures 4 Invisible Stalker 4 Geist of Saint Traft 1 Bruna, Light of Alabaster // Enchantments 4 Bonds of Faith 4 Detention Sphere 4 Sphere of Safety 3 Oblivion Ring 2 Curiosity 2 Martial Law // Instants 4 Azorius Charm 4 Dissipate // Planeswalkers 2 Jace, Memory Adept // Land 8 Island 10 Plains 4 Hallowed Fountain // Sideboard 4 Chronic Flooding 4 Soul Tithe 3 Negate 2 Azor's Elocutors 2 Knight of Glory [/mtg_deck] You'll notice that all of the creatures, save for [mtg_card]Bruna, Light of Alabaster[/mtg_card], have Hexproof. This means that, for the most part, an opponent's creature removal is useless. Provided this deck can win the first game of a match, it's likely they will sideboard out some of that removal for any enchantment hate they have. I, on the other hand, am free to board in [mtg_card]Negate[/mtg_card] which will deal with both those spells and any remaining removal, and [mtg_card]Azor's Elocutors[/mtg_card] for a filibustery second game. It's certainly not your normal Standard deck, but I think it'll be just as much fun for my opponents to discover what I'm playing and how I'd win as it will be for me to plan ahead, execute gambits, and come at victory from outside the box. How does the deck look to you? What suggestions would you make? Is there a particular deck or card you'd like me to discuss? I plan on laying out my thoughts on Limited next time - specifically, I'm going to tell you what it means to 'brew' up a good draft or sealed deck.

---

Blue Ink Alchemy

Board or Bored?

Board or Bored? — Blue Ink Alchemy

"I don't play board games," my lovely wife says. "They're boring." In the case of 'older' board games, the ones I and most kids grew up with, like Monopoly or Risk or Chutes'n'Ladders, I'd be inclined to agree. Chutes'n'Ladders is an extremely randomized game. Risk involves a great deal of downtime between turns, provided you're not in an opponent's direct path, and turns get progressively longer as the players with board advantage begin to dominate the others. Monopoly has both of these problems and the added issue of money being involved (even if it is fake money). However, if you've been following me for a while, and especially remember posts like this where I discuss games that aren't played with a joystick or gamepad, you're probably aware that board games outside the old and tired Parker Brothers standards exist. There are a few in particular that I've played which, in my opinion, really break away from the idea that board games are boring. SmallWorld springs immediately to mind. The game is one of territory control, with fantasy races endowed with special powers vying for position. There is very little die rolling, unlike Risk - players rely on numerical superiority and careful planning before their turns. Said turns are rather short, leading to little downtime, and even when it isn't your turn, it behooves you to watch the board, as positions can change very quickly based on who chooses which race/power combination. And don't worry about one position on the map being better than another. There's no 'Australia' portion that, when taken, guarantees victory. No matter how attached you might get to your Dragon Master Giants, sooner or later you're going to run out of troops, and must go into Decline to choose a new race. This keeps the game vital for all of its turns and never lets things settle into a 'status quo' situation. If you want a less direct means of competing with your friends, a 'worker placement' game might be more your speed, a great introductory example of which is Lords of Waterdeep. Set in one of the largest cities in the Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting of Forgotten Realms, the game casts its players as one of the eponymous Lords, who compete with one another for control of the city through agents and adventurers. Agents move through the city, gathering resources for their Lords, engaging the services of builders, and inviting adventurers to their Lord's tavern. From the tavern, adventurers are sent on quests, which garner more riches and renown for the Lord who sent them. With Intrigue actions, mandatory quests that can be played on other players, and the ways in which play order can change, this is another game where 'status quo' is not something that really exists. The pace of play is even faster than in SmallWorld, with each player taking one action in turn as they try to gather enough resources to score the most points. Between these aspects, the replayability inherent in the structure of quests and buildings, and the fantastic aesthetic and pieces, this is a game I feel I need to play more often. The only conflict between players exists in the Intrigue cards, and this can be modified for a group's liking if they'd rather not stab each other incessantly in the back, which in my experience is the only thing that can make Lords of Waterdeep not fun. Most of the Lords, after all, are humans or demihumans; none of them are trolls. But let's say you don't want to compete at all. You'd much rather work together with others towards a common goal; for example, saving the world from some global threat. Don't fret, Pandemic has you covered. I could also mention Arkham Asylum, and while that game is a ton of fun to play in a large group, it does take some time to play through and there can be some stretches of downtime involved for individual players. Pandemic, on the other hand, has the advantages of easy setup, fast pace, and encouraged cooperation. The players are members of an elite team of specialists working together to contain several epidemics of disease around the globe, trying to keep them from combining into a global pandemic. Each turn, players move around the world, treating disease and gathering data for cures. However, at the end of a player's turn, more cases of disease crop up, and if a city hits critical mass, there's an outbreak. The world can only take so many outbreaks and epidemics before the entire population begins coughing, puking, dropping over, and bleeding out. It's a tense game that sucks you in. There are many ways to lose in Pandemic, and as much as it sucks to not prevail in a game, it's still fun to play even when it feels like the game is out to get you (which, by the way, it is.) Those are three board games that, off the top of my head, absolutely destroy the notion that board games are the same old tired distraction trotted out at family gatherings to keep conversations from getting stale. I could go on to talk about some favorite card games - Chez Geek, Cards Against Humanity, Fluxx - or dice games - Elder Sign, Zombie Dice - but for now, I will leave you in the capable hands of Wil Wheaton. Watch him and his friends play SmallWorld here or Pandemic here. I'm still waiting on a Lords of Waterdeep episode... And of the games mentioned, my wife has played... none of them. Yet. This makes me sad.

---

Blue Ink Alchemy

Board or Bored?

Board or Bored? — Blue Ink Alchemy

"I don't play board games," my lovely wife says. "They're boring." In the case of 'older' board games, the ones I and most kids grew up with, like Monopoly or Risk or Chutes'n'Ladders, I'd be inclined to agree. Chutes'n'Ladders is an extremely randomized game. Risk involves a great deal of downtime between turns, provided you're not in an opponent's direct path, and turns get progressively longer as the players with board advantage begin to dominate the others. Monopoly has both of these problems and the added issue of money being involved (even if it is fake money). However, if you've been following me for a while, and especially remember posts like this where I discuss games that aren't played with a joystick or gamepad, you're probably aware that board games outside the old and tired Parker Brothers standards exist. There are a few in particular that I've played which, in my opinion, really break away from the idea that board games are boring. SmallWorld springs immediately to mind. The game is one of territory control, with fantasy races endowed with special powers vying for position. There is very little die rolling, unlike Risk - players rely on numerical superiority and careful planning before their turns. Said turns are rather short, leading to little downtime, and even when it isn't your turn, it behooves you to watch the board, as positions can change very quickly based on who chooses which race/power combination. And don't worry about one position on the map being better than another. There's no 'Australia' portion that, when taken, guarantees victory. No matter how attached you might get to your Dragon Master Giants, sooner or later you're going to run out of troops, and must go into Decline to choose a new race. This keeps the game vital for all of its turns and never lets things settle into a 'status quo' situation. If you want a less direct means of competing with your friends, a 'worker placement' game might be more your speed, a great introductory example of which is Lords of Waterdeep. Set in one of the largest cities in the Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting of Forgotten Realms, the game casts its players as one of the eponymous Lords, who compete with one another for control of the city through agents and adventurers. Agents move through the city, gathering resources for their Lords, engaging the services of builders, and inviting adventurers to their Lord's tavern. From the tavern, adventurers are sent on quests, which garner more riches and renown for the Lord who sent them. With Intrigue actions, mandatory quests that can be played on other players, and the ways in which play order can change, this is another game where 'status quo' is not something that really exists. The pace of play is even faster than in SmallWorld, with each player taking one action in turn as they try to gather enough resources to score the most points. Between these aspects, the replayability inherent in the structure of quests and buildings, and the fantastic aesthetic and pieces, this is a game I feel I need to play more often. The only conflict between players exists in the Intrigue cards, and this can be modified for a group's liking if they'd rather not stab each other incessantly in the back, which in my experience is the only thing that can make Lords of Waterdeep not fun. Most of the Lords, after all, are humans or demihumans; none of them are trolls. But let's say you don't want to compete at all. You'd much rather work together with others towards a common goal; for example, saving the world from some global threat. Don't fret, Pandemic has you covered. I could also mention Arkham Asylum, and while that game is a ton of fun to play in a large group, it does take some time to play through and there can be some stretches of downtime involved for individual players. Pandemic, on the other hand, has the advantages of easy setup, fast pace, and encouraged cooperation. The players are members of an elite team of specialists working together to contain several epidemics of disease around the globe, trying to keep them from combining into a global pandemic. Each turn, players move around the world, treating disease and gathering data for cures. However, at the end of a player's turn, more cases of disease crop up, and if a city hits critical mass, there's an outbreak. The world can only take so many outbreaks and epidemics before the entire population begins coughing, puking, dropping over, and bleeding out. It's a tense game that sucks you in. There are many ways to lose in Pandemic, and as much as it sucks to not prevail in a game, it's still fun to play even when it feels like the game is out to get you (which, by the way, it is.) Those are three board games that, off the top of my head, absolutely destroy the notion that board games are the same old tired distraction trotted out at family gatherings to keep conversations from getting stale. I could go on to talk about some favorite card games - Chez Geek, Cards Against Humanity, Fluxx - or dice games - Elder Sign, Zombie Dice - but for now, I will leave you in the capable hands of Wil Wheaton. Watch him and his friends play SmallWorld here or Pandemic here. I'm still waiting on a Lords of Waterdeep episode...

---

Blue Ink Alchemy

Board or Bored?

Board or Bored? — Blue Ink Alchemy

"I don't play board games," my lovely wife says. "They're boring." In the case of 'older' board games, the ones I and most kids grew up with, like Monopoly or Risk or Chutes'n'Ladders, I'd be inclined to agree. Chutes'n'Ladders is an extremely randomized game. Risk involves a great deal of downtime between turns, provided you're not in an opponent's direct path, and turns get progressively longer as the players with board advantage begin to dominate the others. Monopoly has both of these problems and the added issue of money being involved (even if it is fake money). However, if you've been following me for a while, and especially remember posts like this where I discuss games that aren't played with a joystick or gamepad, you're probably aware that board games outside the old and tired Parker Brothers standards exist. There are a few in particular that I've played which, in my opinion, really break away from the idea that board games are boring. SmallWorld springs immediately to mind. The game is one of territory control, with fantasy races endowed with special powers vying for position. There is very little die rolling, unlike Risk - players rely on numerical superiority and careful planning before their turns. Said turns are rather short, leading to little downtime, and even when it isn't your turn, it behooves you to watch the board, as positions can change very quickly based on who chooses which race/power combination. And don't worry about one position on the map being better than another. There's no 'Australia' portion that, when taken, guarantees victory. No matter how attached you might get to your Dragon Master Giants, sooner or later you're going to run out of troops, and must go into Decline to choose a new race. This keeps the game vital for all of its turns and never lets things settle into a 'status quo' situation. If you want a less direct means of competing with your friends, a 'worker placement' game might be more your speed, a great introductory example of which is Lords of Waterdeep. Set in one of the largest cities in the Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting of Forgotten Realms, the game casts its players as one of the eponymous Lords, who compete with one another for control of the city through agents and adventurers. Agents move through the city, gathering resources for their Lords, engaging the services of builders, and inviting adventurers to their Lord's tavern. From the tavern, adventurers are sent on quests, which garner more riches and renown for the Lord who sent them. With Intrigue actions, mandatory quests that can be played on other players, and the ways in which play order can change, this is another game where 'status quo' is not something that really exists. The pace of play is even faster than in SmallWorld, with each player taking one action in turn as they try to gather enough resources to score the most points. Between these aspects, the replayability inherent in the structure of quests and buildings, and the fantastic aesthetic and pieces, this is a game I feel I need to play more often. The only conflict between players exists in the Intrigue cards, and this can be modified for a group's liking if they'd rather not stab each other incessantly in the back, which in my experience is the only thing that can make Lords of Waterdeep not fun. Most of the Lords, after all, are humans or demihumans; none of them are trolls. But let's say you don't want to compete at all. You'd much rather work together with others towards a common goal; for example, saving the world from some global threat. Don't fret, Pandemic has you covered. I could also mention Arkham Asylum, and while that game is a ton of fun to play in a large group, it does take some time to play through and there can be some stretches of downtime involved for individual players. Pandemic, on the other hand, has the advantages of easy setup, fast pace, and encouraged cooperation. The players are members of an elite team of specialists working together to contain several epidemics of disease around the globe, trying to keep them from combining into a global pandemic. Each turn, players move around the world, treating disease and gathering data for cures. However, at the end of a player's turn, more cases of disease crop up, and if a city hits critical mass, there's an outbreak. The world can only take so many outbreaks and epidemics before the entire population begins coughing, puking, dropping over, and bleeding out. It's a tense game that sucks you in. There are many ways to lose in Pandemic, and as much as it sucks to not prevail in a game, it's still fun to play even when it feels like the game is out to get you (which, by the way, it is.) Those are three board games that, off the top of my head, absolutely destroy the notion that board games are the same old tired distraction trotted out at family gatherings to keep conversations from getting stale. I could go on to talk about some favorite card games - Chez Geek, Cards Against Humanity, Fluxx - or dice games - Elder Sign, Zombie Dice - but for now, I will leave you in the capable hands of Wil Wheaton. Watch him and his friends play SmallWorld here or Pandemic here. I'm still waiting on a Lords of Waterdeep episode...

---

Blue Ink Alchemy

Board or Bored?

Board or Bored? — Blue Ink Alchemy

"I don't play board games," my lovely wife says. "They're boring." In the case of 'older' board games, the ones I and most kids grew up with, like Monopoly or Risk or Chutes'n'Ladders, I'd be inclined to agree. Chutes'n'Ladders is an extremely randomized game. Risk involves a great deal of downtime between turns, provided you're not in an opponent's direct path, and turns get progressively longer as the players with board advantage begin to dominate the others. Monopoly has both of these problems and the added issue of money being involved (even if it is fake money). However, if you've been following me for a while, and especially remember posts like this where I discuss games that aren't played with a joystick or gamepad, you're probably aware that board games outside the old and tired Parker Brothers standards exist. There are a few in particular that I've played which, in my opinion, really break away from the idea that board games are boring. SmallWorld springs immediately to mind. The game is one of territory control, with fantasy races endowed with special powers vying for position. There is very little die rolling, unlike Risk - players rely on numerical superiority and careful planning before their turns. Said turns are rather short, leading to little downtime, and even when it isn't your turn, it behooves you to watch the board, as positions can change very quickly based on who chooses which race/power combination. And don't worry about one position on the map being better than another. There's no 'Australia' portion that, when taken, guarantees victory. No matter how attached you might get to your Dragon Master Giants, sooner or later you're going to run out of troops, and must go into Decline to choose a new race. This keeps the game vital for all of its turns and never lets things settle into a 'status quo' situation. If you want a less direct means of competing with your friends, a 'worker placement' game might be more your speed, a great introductory example of which is Lords of Waterdeep. Set in one of the largest cities in the Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting of Forgotten Realms, the game casts its players as one of the eponymous Lords, who compete with one another for control of the city through agents and adventurers. Agents move through the city, gathering resources for their Lords, engaging the services of builders, and inviting adventurers to their Lord's tavern. From the tavern, adventurers are sent on quests, which garner more riches and renown for the Lord who sent them. With Intrigue actions, mandatory quests that can be played on other players, and the ways in which play order can change, this is another game where 'status quo' is not something that really exists. The pace of play is even faster than in SmallWorld, with each player taking one action in turn as they try to gather enough resources to score the most points. Between these aspects, the replayability inherent in the structure of quests and buildings, and the fantastic aesthetic and pieces, this is a game I feel I need to play more often. The only conflict between players exists in the Intrigue cards, and this can be modified for a group's liking if they'd rather not stab each other incessantly in the back, which in my experience is the only thing that can make Lords of Waterdeep not fun. Most of the Lords, after all, are humans or demihumans; none of them are trolls. But let's say you don't want to compete at all. You'd much rather work together with others towards a common goal; for example, saving the world from some global threat. Don't fret, Pandemic has you covered. I could also mention Arkham Asylum, and while that game is a ton of fun to play in a large group, it does take some time to play through and there can be some stretches of downtime involved for individual players. Pandemic, on the other hand, has the advantages of easy setup, fast pace, and encouraged cooperation. The players are members of an elite team of specialists working together to contain several epidemics of disease around the globe, trying to keep them from combining into a global pandemic. Each turn, players move around the world, treating disease and gathering data for cures. However, at the end of a player's turn, more cases of disease crop up, and if a city hits critical mass, there's an outbreak. The world can only take so many outbreaks and epidemics before the entire population begins coughing, puking, dropping over, and bleeding out. It's a tense game that sucks you in. There are many ways to lose in Pandemic, and as much as it sucks to not prevail in a game, it's still fun to play even when it feels like the game is out to get you (which, by the way, it is.) Those are three board games that, off the top of my head, absolutely destroy the notion that board games are the same old tired distraction trotted out at family gatherings to keep conversations from getting stale. I could go on to talk about some favorite card games - Chez Geek, Cards Against Humanity, Fluxx - or dice games - Elder Sign, Zombie Dice - but for now, I will leave you in the capable hands of Wil Wheaton. Watch him and his friends play SmallWorld here or Pandemic here. I'm still waiting on a Lords of Waterdeep episode...

---

Blue Ink Alchemy