Looping the Hen

So what do you get for the couple who has everything?

Here is my Honey's wish list.

Here is my wish list.

It is actually kind of cool, because I ordered some stuff from hers and it auto-deletes it so no one can duplicate it. Anyone else with a wish-list somewhere please let me know, because I actually like shopping this way instead of at the mall!

For any of my players, these are cool things I would like that would be used in our games but I can't bring myself to get for myself.

A Pox Upon My house!

As usual, Tammy isn't too thrilled with my latest addictive timewaster, a little game I've seen ads for on some websites as well as in some RPG magazines. It is called Poxnora, and it is very much a cross between Collectible Card Games like Magic the Gathering (where they obviously stole a good bit of their material from), DDM, with a smidgeon of your average Role-Playing Game thrown in. I only post about it here instead of over on the gaming side as many of my friends who stop by here once in a while would probably enjoy it. And MamaB, it might be something LittleB (and maybe even BigB) might like.

The demo of the game is free, and you can play as long as you like to determine if its something you'd like to pay more for for the better options. I played all of two games of the demo before I decided I loved it. (even though I lost both) The learning curve for anyone who is a regular game player is very low, and if you ever played (or play) M:TG it won't take you 5 minutes to 'get it'.

You start by building a deck of 'runes' which are cards that represent Champions (heroes and monsters), spells and equipment. As you play the game, you build up Nora (read: Mana, or magical energy) that you can use to either deploy your Champions, cast spells on yours or your opponents Champions (among other types), or add equipment to creatures already on the board. The object is to destroy your opponents home base, called a Shrine. Each board has terrain features, such as water, lava, or cliffs which you have to maneuver over or around. (One game I managed to ground an enemy Pixie (with a spell) that was flying over lava and it poofed! Very fun!) Generally, the more mana a creature costs to deploy the better it is.

The part that I really love and which has addicted me is that whenever you play a game, the Champions you deploy during the game gain experience (a la a RPG; creatures get more experience when they win but they still get some when they lose so playing is never a waste) which you can then use to upgrade those creatures. Some creatures can only have their base stats increased (Attack power, defense power, or damage for example) while others can gain brand new abilities such as healing spells, the ability to lay traps on the battlefield, or the ability to summon other minor creatures. However, to balance the new abilities and stats, each bonus you add to a creature makes it cost more Nora to cast. Thus, even though the rune pool is only around 250 now, with the ability to customize your critters there are near endless variations in what you can field. (and face)

In the demo, you are given a set of predetermined 'decks' you can play with, some of which are pretty good. You can also buy rune packs, exactly the same as booster packs in Magic or DDM. For those who know the cost of ownership of your average collectible game know it generally takes at least a hundred dollars to field a good deck, and probably $400-$500 to field more than one competitive deck, and sometimes over $1,000 for a top-tier deck. For $25 I bought my first 100 runes (you can buy packs of 30 for as low as $8 but there are more rares and exotics per dollar in the larger pack), and was a able to field my first deck that went 4-0 in my first 4 matches I played. Had I known at that point how to trade well, I could have easily gotten over 75% of all the runes available by trading off one of my Exotics I received in that first pack. (there are 4 levels of rarity: common, uncommon, rare, exotic)

In any case, I am in for a total of around $80, and I have 2 or more copies of over 70% of the set (you can put up to 2 of each rune into a deck) and at least 1 copy of 90%. I am only missing around 10 of the 'exotics', which although are powerful generally, are absolutely not necessary to play. There is a decent trading system that allows people to barter runes or credits for what they need. The nicest part (as with most things I get into) is that my runes will probably fetch around $100 on Ebay whenever I decide to stop playing.

There is also a ranking system where you can play 'ladder' games, which increase or decrease your standing depending on whether you win or lose. In the last week since I've started I am currently ranked 213 (out of probably 5000-10000 regular players) and am 21-7 in wins/losses.

Anyhoo, if anyone is bored, give it a try and you may find you have a new game to play. Generally games take from 30 minutes to an hour to play, and each player has timed turns, so it definitely moves along. My name there is Queequeg for anyone who wants to play me!

Pox on!

A Wasted 10 Years

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

When Newt Gingrich was booted after the Contract With America, the Repub's appeared to have lost whatever guiding principles they had. Both parties are corrupt, however I would contend that in '94 and '96 the Republicans were not quite so corrupt. By 2000 and having control of both houses, they became the machine, just like the Democrats were when swept out of office by a rising tide of discontent.

All I know is that as a conservative (Libertarian), having Republican dominion over the executive and legislative branches never transformed into passing laws I wanted to see. They didn't make the tax cuts permanent, didn't repeal the inheritance tax, didn't fix Social Insecurity, and didn't tackle the US's immigration issues. On top of that, they took us back deep into the red and deficit spending with huge Democrat-like social programs.

If I wanted social programs, I would vote Democratic. What I want is the mythical small government Republicans promised once upon a time. I support the war, I support fighting terrorism using most of the methods attacked over the last several years, and for me this election had nothing to do with that.

The GOP brought this on themselves, and I am sure there is much handwringing going on behind the scenes, with folks wondering how it could come to this. I'll leave those folks with the words of JFK (no, not John Kerry); they can take a look at the items left on the table they could have acted upon and know why they lost. They mostly got the war on terror right; but they got everything else wrong. Had they simply done something, their losses might not have been so bad.

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long range risks and costs of comfortable inaction. -John F. Kennedy

GOP's Secret Weapon: John Kerry

Minnesota National Guard makes fun of John Kerry. Yay!