Well, what’d know? The COT can fly. I mean other than Michael McDowell’s memorable Texas’ qualifying wreck, the car generally sticks to the track. I’m sure Carl Edwards was as surprised as anybody to be reenacting Bobby Allison’s famous attempt to bring racing action closer to the fans. Thankfully, the track safety equipment worked the same now as then.
It’s very strange that a car that’s so aerodynamically unstable and hard to drive during a race, suddenly becomes manageable in situations that typically flip racecars right over. Ask Michael Waltrip, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, and Martin Truex about that. Then ask Matt Kenseth, who ended up getting turned over easy in the old-style Nationwide car the day before.
Once again, I was reminded not to starting mentally writing these things before I’ve actually seen the race. I was planning on comparing and contrasting ESPN’s Nationwide coverage with Fox’s Cup coverage this weekend. This is moot. The races and broadcast styles were different, but ultimately the quality of the races itself was what determined the fans’ enjoyment. In these two cases, both races were good.
I would have to give the edge to ESPN’s pre-race. It was professional and energetic. Actually, Brad Daugherty can handle “energetic” by himself. I like Brad, and say what you will, he didn’t get the job through Affirmative Action, but from experience and sheer enthusiasm. The good attitude starts with Alan Bestwick, who sets the tone well. Andy Petree and Tim Brewer both did a good job of setting up the technical side of the race. The rest of the crew acquitted themselves well. (I’m being nice to Dr. Punch.)
On the Fox side, there was a Digger cartoon rerun, a pointless radio chatter feature, and a Talledega memories segment that didn’t seem to pay off. But, they did a good job of talking to several drivers. The Carl Edwards’ interview while he was showing off his flying skills race turned out to be unintentional foreshadowing. Anyway, as I’ve said before, NASCAR is personality-driven and all drivers have their fans. Giving Kyle Busch some promotion makes his fans happy and gives his legion of detractors more to hate. Everybody wins.
I can’t believe that Fox is even promoting Digger in their baseball broadcasts now. (Sidebar: Since I’m not covering baseball at the moment, I have to put this here. The best moment of that 4 ½ hour Yankees vs. Red Sox game had to come from a Sox’s fan. After Jeter had fouled one off, a heckler, either very loud or too close to the crowd mic, shouted, “That would have been a home run in your ballpark!” Good smack.) Frankly, Fox’s broadcast seemed like a steady stream of constant commercials and product placements, more so than ESPN’s.
For that matter, I have to ask, what is up with Goodyear? Not their tires, but fact nobody mentioned them during either broadcast (except for an Indy tire test story). Is there some sort of feud? Are they not paying enough to get mentioned, like Sunoco and their freaking race fuel? Toyo Tires was sponsoring the pit stops on ESPN! Goodyear must be gnashing their teeth like Sprint does during all those other those other cell phone company sponsorships that happen during the race. Apparently, Goodyear is going to have to start messing up their tire compounds again if they want to get any airtime.
The Nationwide race featured big three-wide packs and lots of mixing it up for the lead. Kenseth took flight, as no race at this venue is really complete until somebody gets flipped. The action was thick enough near the end that the broadcast team could hardly keep up with it. In good Talledega fashion, the winner was a mystery until somebody crossed the finish line. On another note, did I hear Michael Waltrip actually flirting with Jamie Little? I hope his wife wasn’t watching. He looked a little discombobulated after his wreck. Then again I remember Dan Wheldon in the IRL doing the same thing. Who can blame them?
The Cup race was a tale of big crashes. I picked the first one to be early, solely because there hadn’t been one the day before. I saw the second one coming right before it happened. The broadcasters seemed unsurprised when it happened as well. That typical Talledega mad dash for the checkers had a crescendo that no one saw coming. That wreck will be replayed for years to come. Fox reported fan injuries from the wreck, but gave no details. Thankfully, the injuries were later reported to be minor. Thankfully, this wasn’t another Dale Sr. moment for the network.
The COT gave a good report of its self in the race. Sort of. Plenty of pluses for safety. While the old-style car flipped at the first opportunity, the COT passed up on all but one, and Carl Edwards not only walked away, but jogged. After that first Big One, it’s amazing how many cars involved were competitive afterward. Chalk that up to toughness. On the other hand, the car is an aero brick in undamaged form, so even at a super speedway, it’s not that surprising that they’re still racy after being damaged. While the Nationwide cars could run most of the race three-wide without incident, the COT could not maintain that formation for long without either wrecking (the first Big One), or reverting to double or single file racing. I’m not sure if this is good or bad. Take your pick.
One race later, I’m already lifting my ban on Junior coverage. He ran up front and finished well, so I don’t feel too bad about this. He got plenty of attention. In both pre-race interviews, Junior was way too uptight. Even Matt Kenseth was more lively when he was interviewed. As the in-race reporter in the Nationwide race, Junior did an excellent job of explaining the differences in drafting between the Nationwide car and the COT. Not surprisingly, he liked the Nationwide-style car better. Junior finally lightened up after blowing yet another pit stop by missing his stall on Saturday. After the Cup race, he looked much more relaxed as well. Did he, “Get his mojo back,” as Dr. Jerry Punch said repeatedly? Stay tuned. As the Junior turns.
There’s a lot of racing kudos to spread out here. Congratulations to a pair of first time winners in David Ragan and Brad Keselowski. Both were involved in wrecks that took another driver out, but neither intentionally. Both handled the post race well. How great was it in Cup to see somebody not on a big team win?
Congrats also to Aussie Marcos Ambrose, Scott Speed, and Jeff Burton for their top ten finishes. Burton certainly made some new fans. Not so much coming back from three laps down, but for spinning out Kyle Busch from the lead. Speed did very well considering he started the race from pit lane.
Special praise must go to Carl Edwards. He executed a race-long strategy on the last lap that came oh-so-close to paying off. He’s easily in the lead for the stunt crash of the year award, and Edwards is also in the lead for the showmanship award for crossing the finish line on foot after that crash. He’s made the Talledega historical reel forever.
While NASCAR may be basking in the glow right now, this race has exposed a couple of issues.
For the lesser matter, we return to Scott Speed. His car was tricked out for qualifying and had to be reset for the race. If the initial adjustment hadn’t been done, likely a “start and park” team would have gotten in and would have dropped out after a couple of laps. As unfair as the top 35 rule may be, a fully funded team, who intends to run the full race, that is knocked out by a team that is essentially funded by NASCAR to fill the field is worse. This issue is complicated and I don’t have a solution, but I’m sure others do, and they should be considered.
The more serious matter is safety at Talledega. No, it’s not the fences or the cars. The unanimous opinion of drivers, commentators, and myself is that it’s the double yellow line penalty. Regardless of how many times it’s explained, it sure looked like Tony Stewart got away with one last year but pushing Regan Smith below the lines. Keselowski and Edwards were certainly watching last Fall’s race and the result was predictable in the same situation. It’s also predictable that there’s going to be plenty more close finishes at this track. NASCAR needs to make a rules adjustment. Giving the drivers the whole track to work with in the tri-oval area on the final lap seems like the easiest solution.
Do a couple of great Talledega races make up for a so-so season to this point? We’ll see.
J.
Monday, April 27, 2009
How I spent my Spring Break
I’ve made a decision. I’m quitting work. I’m off to Hawaii to become a private investigator. I’ll live in bungalow on a palatial estate and drive a Ferrari. I’ll have string of disastrous relationships with an unending series of beautiful women. (I won’t need any practice on that last part.) Most of all, I want a Detroit Tigers hat.
I know what you’re thinking. Yeah, I was watching Magnum p.i. on the Retro Network, among my many other official vacation duties. (You can guess how important the rest were given that clue.) The show holds up remarkably well for being for 20 years old. Perhaps because of the great scenery and because it was so personality driven. Magnum versus Higgins banter never gets old.
Okay, I can live without the rest of it, but I want that hat. I used to have one during the 80’s. The Tigers were my favorite team and Magnum was one of my favorite shows. Time and usage caused me to love said hat to death. In 2006, I almost got a new hat for Christmas from my parents, if the Tigers would have won the World Series. (Likewise, I’ve been promised Rockies and Rays’ hats if they had won. I’ve been thoroughly blued the last three years.) Somehow it doesn’t seem right to just go out and buy the hat. It’s like it has to be earned on some level. Unfortunately, the Tigers are unlikely to do well this year. Indeed, the entire city of Detroit may be taking after the Lions and their historic ineptitude last year.
One of the Magnum episodes I saw involved him turning 40, and how he was worried about a dramatic change in personality and lifestyle to follow. I can sympathize. I doubt I’m going to look like Tom Selleck three months from now, even if I grow a mustache.
(Sigh.)
I want that damn hat.
J.
I know what you’re thinking. Yeah, I was watching Magnum p.i. on the Retro Network, among my many other official vacation duties. (You can guess how important the rest were given that clue.) The show holds up remarkably well for being for 20 years old. Perhaps because of the great scenery and because it was so personality driven. Magnum versus Higgins banter never gets old.
Okay, I can live without the rest of it, but I want that hat. I used to have one during the 80’s. The Tigers were my favorite team and Magnum was one of my favorite shows. Time and usage caused me to love said hat to death. In 2006, I almost got a new hat for Christmas from my parents, if the Tigers would have won the World Series. (Likewise, I’ve been promised Rockies and Rays’ hats if they had won. I’ve been thoroughly blued the last three years.) Somehow it doesn’t seem right to just go out and buy the hat. It’s like it has to be earned on some level. Unfortunately, the Tigers are unlikely to do well this year. Indeed, the entire city of Detroit may be taking after the Lions and their historic ineptitude last year.
One of the Magnum episodes I saw involved him turning 40, and how he was worried about a dramatic change in personality and lifestyle to follow. I can sympathize. I doubt I’m going to look like Tom Selleck three months from now, even if I grow a mustache.
(Sigh.)
I want that damn hat.
J.
The Gift: Why Paizo should give Pathfinder away
I posted this idea at Grognardia, but not well. I was tired and it was late and I wasn’t thinking entirely straight. (Sounds like everything else I’ve ever written.) However, I think it’s still worth some additional explanation.
The thesis is as follows: Paizo should publish a simplified 3e rules set and then give it away.
First, this is idea is repugnant to the capitalist within me. Not only am I asking a company to give away their product, I’m putting all the work on them. If I was more familiar with 3e and had more experience with it, I might try my hand at it. But the point of this exercise is not to produce another retro clone; it is instead to produce a finely polished product from a respected RPG publisher. The clones are awesome, but they are backward looking nostalgia. They are professional, but not stylish. On a technical note, D20 at its base is probably an easier, friendlier system than the matrix tables of older versions of D&D anyway. What would separate Paizo from the free systems is legitimacy, rather than a technical legality in the OGL.
Why on earth would for-profit company have any desire to compete in the same arena with competitors who give away their product? Computer nerds reading this are now waiting for me to make a Linux analogy. Not quite. I would put it closer to WOTC’s D20. The purpose of opening up the D&D license was to drive sales of the core books. This would be somewhat the reverse. The purpose of a free Pathfinder Basic (I’m not an advertising exec, somebody else come up with a catchy name) would be to create an easy to use system (that isn’t controlled by somebody else), that allows Paizo to concentrate on their core business of producing system extensions, adventures, and settings and to drive those sales. Given enough popularity, perhaps licensing opportunities follow.
Isn’t this the purpose of their current version of Pathfinder? Yes, but the system only appeals to 3e grognards. That’s not a large or expanding audience. The real loyalty of the Pathfinder players is likely not the rules, but the continued ability to play Paizo’s adventures without heavy modification to another system.
Who would be the audience of this Pathfinder Basic? For starters, fans of Paizo’s adventures, if my above theory is correct. If the rules allow and encourage plenty of creativity in interpretation, all but the most belligerent of Old School grognards should approve of it. As I’ve said in another posting, this group needs a published product to rally around. Make the rules simple enough and I think new novice players can be brought into the fold and expand the hobby. Lastly, new 4e players. Stop laughing. In spite of all the rulebooks, RPG’s are not about hard rules, which is what 4e is all about. This group of players may be ready to take off the training wheels, and if they do, I doubt they’ll go back.
Does it have to be free? Over the Internet as a download, yes. In print, it needs to be fairly low-cost, perhaps at cost. The theory here isn’t just to give away the razor and sell the blades, it is to expand the potential audience. A set of expensive hardbacks can be a significant a barrier to potential new players. Beyond the development costs, I do see the other analytical side of the argument; if it’s free, it has no perceived value. The only thing I can think of to combat that is to have plenty of ads and references to Paizo products in the rules. Make the rules look like an advertisement for the rest of the catalogue, which it actually would be.
That brings me to my next point, defining a few parameters of this mythical product. It can’t be a crippled set of rules. You know, like 4e and the way they’re determined to dribble out core races, classes, and monsters. It does have to have the full range of 3e classes and races. It needs to support these characters up to 14th level, the same as the Adventure Path series. (Sell the enhancement for higher level play.) It should contain a full range of classic SRD monsters and magic items. There should be a sample adventure along with a transcript of sample play with a group of newbies.
I would suggest a few other technical specifications. Make the game playable without miniatures. Encourage their use, but don’t mandate it. Strive to create a system that has no more than one modifier per roll. For events outside of standard actions, don’t try to create rules for every situation, just offer some guidelines and suggestions. Explicitly encourage groups to make up their own rules. Seriously consider some sort of simpler alternate to the experience points system. Most importantly, provide a rough conversion guide to the full Pathfinder/3e, as well as some of the retro clones. This will make the product look bigger than it is by providing access to a wealth of published and Internet material. Why not look smart, benevolent, and tolerant of other systems?
The problem with all of this is that Paizo is comprised of 3e grognards. Not to say that they’re snobs about their game system of choice, but 3e is their area of expertise. I’m not sure these are the best people to ask for a simplified rules set. Asking them to hack down 3e may be like asking someone to hack off body parts. They already think they’ve simplified the game with Pathfinder. Selling Pathfinder Basic to Paizo may be the hardest sell of all.
I’m not a business major. This isn’t a credible business plan. Then again, I’m not sure Paizo’s current plan is going to work in the long term either. Pathfinder Basic is worth consideration.
Addendum: I hope Paizo continues to offer the Beta version of Pathfinder as a free download, along with an addendum sheet of changes from the final version. I think WOTC offered a free download of changes from 3.0 to 3.5. This will allow players to try the system without a large monetary investment. Just getting people to try Pathfinder, may be Paizo’s biggest hurdle. If players like it, they’ll want the book.
J.
The thesis is as follows: Paizo should publish a simplified 3e rules set and then give it away.
First, this is idea is repugnant to the capitalist within me. Not only am I asking a company to give away their product, I’m putting all the work on them. If I was more familiar with 3e and had more experience with it, I might try my hand at it. But the point of this exercise is not to produce another retro clone; it is instead to produce a finely polished product from a respected RPG publisher. The clones are awesome, but they are backward looking nostalgia. They are professional, but not stylish. On a technical note, D20 at its base is probably an easier, friendlier system than the matrix tables of older versions of D&D anyway. What would separate Paizo from the free systems is legitimacy, rather than a technical legality in the OGL.
Why on earth would for-profit company have any desire to compete in the same arena with competitors who give away their product? Computer nerds reading this are now waiting for me to make a Linux analogy. Not quite. I would put it closer to WOTC’s D20. The purpose of opening up the D&D license was to drive sales of the core books. This would be somewhat the reverse. The purpose of a free Pathfinder Basic (I’m not an advertising exec, somebody else come up with a catchy name) would be to create an easy to use system (that isn’t controlled by somebody else), that allows Paizo to concentrate on their core business of producing system extensions, adventures, and settings and to drive those sales. Given enough popularity, perhaps licensing opportunities follow.
Isn’t this the purpose of their current version of Pathfinder? Yes, but the system only appeals to 3e grognards. That’s not a large or expanding audience. The real loyalty of the Pathfinder players is likely not the rules, but the continued ability to play Paizo’s adventures without heavy modification to another system.
Who would be the audience of this Pathfinder Basic? For starters, fans of Paizo’s adventures, if my above theory is correct. If the rules allow and encourage plenty of creativity in interpretation, all but the most belligerent of Old School grognards should approve of it. As I’ve said in another posting, this group needs a published product to rally around. Make the rules simple enough and I think new novice players can be brought into the fold and expand the hobby. Lastly, new 4e players. Stop laughing. In spite of all the rulebooks, RPG’s are not about hard rules, which is what 4e is all about. This group of players may be ready to take off the training wheels, and if they do, I doubt they’ll go back.
Does it have to be free? Over the Internet as a download, yes. In print, it needs to be fairly low-cost, perhaps at cost. The theory here isn’t just to give away the razor and sell the blades, it is to expand the potential audience. A set of expensive hardbacks can be a significant a barrier to potential new players. Beyond the development costs, I do see the other analytical side of the argument; if it’s free, it has no perceived value. The only thing I can think of to combat that is to have plenty of ads and references to Paizo products in the rules. Make the rules look like an advertisement for the rest of the catalogue, which it actually would be.
That brings me to my next point, defining a few parameters of this mythical product. It can’t be a crippled set of rules. You know, like 4e and the way they’re determined to dribble out core races, classes, and monsters. It does have to have the full range of 3e classes and races. It needs to support these characters up to 14th level, the same as the Adventure Path series. (Sell the enhancement for higher level play.) It should contain a full range of classic SRD monsters and magic items. There should be a sample adventure along with a transcript of sample play with a group of newbies.
I would suggest a few other technical specifications. Make the game playable without miniatures. Encourage their use, but don’t mandate it. Strive to create a system that has no more than one modifier per roll. For events outside of standard actions, don’t try to create rules for every situation, just offer some guidelines and suggestions. Explicitly encourage groups to make up their own rules. Seriously consider some sort of simpler alternate to the experience points system. Most importantly, provide a rough conversion guide to the full Pathfinder/3e, as well as some of the retro clones. This will make the product look bigger than it is by providing access to a wealth of published and Internet material. Why not look smart, benevolent, and tolerant of other systems?
The problem with all of this is that Paizo is comprised of 3e grognards. Not to say that they’re snobs about their game system of choice, but 3e is their area of expertise. I’m not sure these are the best people to ask for a simplified rules set. Asking them to hack down 3e may be like asking someone to hack off body parts. They already think they’ve simplified the game with Pathfinder. Selling Pathfinder Basic to Paizo may be the hardest sell of all.
I’m not a business major. This isn’t a credible business plan. Then again, I’m not sure Paizo’s current plan is going to work in the long term either. Pathfinder Basic is worth consideration.
Addendum: I hope Paizo continues to offer the Beta version of Pathfinder as a free download, along with an addendum sheet of changes from the final version. I think WOTC offered a free download of changes from 3.0 to 3.5. This will allow players to try the system without a large monetary investment. Just getting people to try Pathfinder, may be Paizo’s biggest hurdle. If players like it, they’ll want the book.
J.
ALMS Long Beach “Looks like he’s driving a rental car.”
A great comment from someone watching a guy fishtail and burnout. I hang my head in shame that I have again forgotten to get the names of the ESPN commentators for this race so that I can properly attribute the quote. Anyway this maneuver happened during the race after a spinout. I would have awarded points for style, but this is American Le Mans, not a Formula D drifting contest.
Long Beach is probably about the worst case scenario for processional, lock step street course racing outside of F1’s Monaco race. I have to give ESPN credit for making the venue actually look a bit like Monaco as well. I’ve watched a couple of Long Beach races before and place always looked cheap and trashy. Maybe that was because they were Champ Car events. The overhead and aerial views were beautiful. While the yachts weren’t quite as spectacular as the European race, the Queen Mary is a more than impressive replacement.
For such a beautiful day and a race full of cool cars, the crowd was just so-so, like yesterday’s baseball game. What are all these SoCaler’s doing on the weekend? Perhaps if the state legalizes weed, they’ll be more willing to show up during the day. If watching paint peel while you’re high is fun, just imagine the additional excitement of being at a race. I appreciate blowheads. They make me feel better about my own sad life. They’re a group of people I can look down on.
Good news and bad news to start the race. The GT1 Corvettes were back, but only for a final engagement. No comment on whether it was lack of GM funding and/or lack of competition from somebody like Aston Martin. They will be back in the GT2 class later in the season and be joined by the new Jaguar team. So, GT1 goes away I guess, but the competition heats up in GT2.
The commentary from the race was well done again with plenty of detail information on the cars and the tires (worth noting, since there several different brands in use). There seemed to be a careful nod to explain things to new viewers. Being new fan-friendly for a lessor known series like this is a must. Kelli Stavast (the only member of the broadcast team whose name I can ever remember) was still a little shaky in presentation at times, but her knowledge and reporting were well done.
There was more “green” crap. I don’t know what they were measuring with their “green” challenge amongst the teams, and I don’t care. Right now, this is all hype and no substance. I can say this safely, because nobody ever makes a compelling business case for “green,” only an environmental one. These competing technologies are not trying to compete in the marketplace. They are hoping to be anointed the winner by government regulatory mandate. And wherever government is involved higher cost and inefficiency follow.
It was great to see fan icon, Boris Said, enter the race. It sucked that as soon as they pointed it out, he was involved in a crash. A short time later, Said was on camera again, as the cabin of his Corvette went up in flames. That was scary to watch. I’m sure it scarier being a participant. Boris was okay and, just as importantly, his ‘fro was okay afterward as well. I love those vettes, but between watching this firestorm and Dale Earnhardt Jr’s from a couple of years ago, I think I’d shy away from wanting to drive a car prone to spontaneous combustion.
This race may not have been ALMS’ finest hour. A potentially bad call by the officials in the pits cost the Patron team the race. Said’s late race crash caused the race to finish under yellow. Because the race was timed, a potentially exciting restart got scrubbed. I think got my time’s worth from the sights and sounds of the race anyway.
Best commercial: Acura’s classically themed promotion. Unfortunately, I couldn’t identify the music.
J.
Long Beach is probably about the worst case scenario for processional, lock step street course racing outside of F1’s Monaco race. I have to give ESPN credit for making the venue actually look a bit like Monaco as well. I’ve watched a couple of Long Beach races before and place always looked cheap and trashy. Maybe that was because they were Champ Car events. The overhead and aerial views were beautiful. While the yachts weren’t quite as spectacular as the European race, the Queen Mary is a more than impressive replacement.
For such a beautiful day and a race full of cool cars, the crowd was just so-so, like yesterday’s baseball game. What are all these SoCaler’s doing on the weekend? Perhaps if the state legalizes weed, they’ll be more willing to show up during the day. If watching paint peel while you’re high is fun, just imagine the additional excitement of being at a race. I appreciate blowheads. They make me feel better about my own sad life. They’re a group of people I can look down on.
Good news and bad news to start the race. The GT1 Corvettes were back, but only for a final engagement. No comment on whether it was lack of GM funding and/or lack of competition from somebody like Aston Martin. They will be back in the GT2 class later in the season and be joined by the new Jaguar team. So, GT1 goes away I guess, but the competition heats up in GT2.
The commentary from the race was well done again with plenty of detail information on the cars and the tires (worth noting, since there several different brands in use). There seemed to be a careful nod to explain things to new viewers. Being new fan-friendly for a lessor known series like this is a must. Kelli Stavast (the only member of the broadcast team whose name I can ever remember) was still a little shaky in presentation at times, but her knowledge and reporting were well done.
There was more “green” crap. I don’t know what they were measuring with their “green” challenge amongst the teams, and I don’t care. Right now, this is all hype and no substance. I can say this safely, because nobody ever makes a compelling business case for “green,” only an environmental one. These competing technologies are not trying to compete in the marketplace. They are hoping to be anointed the winner by government regulatory mandate. And wherever government is involved higher cost and inefficiency follow.
It was great to see fan icon, Boris Said, enter the race. It sucked that as soon as they pointed it out, he was involved in a crash. A short time later, Said was on camera again, as the cabin of his Corvette went up in flames. That was scary to watch. I’m sure it scarier being a participant. Boris was okay and, just as importantly, his ‘fro was okay afterward as well. I love those vettes, but between watching this firestorm and Dale Earnhardt Jr’s from a couple of years ago, I think I’d shy away from wanting to drive a car prone to spontaneous combustion.
This race may not have been ALMS’ finest hour. A potentially bad call by the officials in the pits cost the Patron team the race. Said’s late race crash caused the race to finish under yellow. Because the race was timed, a potentially exciting restart got scrubbed. I think got my time’s worth from the sights and sounds of the race anyway.
Best commercial: Acura’s classically themed promotion. Unfortunately, I couldn’t identify the music.
J.
Phoenix Cup Race: A Labor of Love
Like I said in my baseball blog for today, nine hours of continuous sports viewing is apparently over my threshold. I’m ceasing weekly baseball blogging while I still love the sport. I’d stop NASCAR blogging as well, but I committed to doing it this season, as long as I’m able to watch the races (which may end up only being Fox’s part of the season). I hope I’m still able to watch races after this year after writing this blog. Sitting around criticizing a sport is not a good way to become more enamored of it.
This is going to be short, much like the race itself. Fox has canceled their baseball studio pre-game, but kept their NASCAR pre-race coverage.
Unfortunately.
If you love the pre-race, you can probably thank Digger. Were it not for the opportunity to promote and sell the vermin’s merchandise, Fox might have put this one down, too. This evening’s production was decidedly subpar. Digger’s cartoon was a rerun. There was some sort of infomercial segment about Subway. (It worked. It made me want a sub.) And we got a segment on “going green” for Earth Day. First of all, this is NASCAR; sports least “green” sport. Second, why this featured Kevin Harvick and his oil company sponsor, Shell, is completely beyond my comprehension, if for no other reason than surely it ticked off Sunoco and their frickin’ “race fuel” sponsorship.
Earth Day is never going to cut it as a holiday. There’s no gift giving and no over indulgence associated with it, just sacrifice and guilt. It’s like Lent for atheists and green freaks.
Thankfully there were a few driver segments in the pre-race, but by and large the best thing that can be said about it is that it ended. I suffer for this blog.
Fox did learn a lesson from last year and made sure to start the baseball early. It’s hard to get over last year’s debacle, cutting away from the ball game in the bottom of the ninth of a close game to show the start of the race.
There was no Number 8 car in the race. How unthinkable that would been a few short years ago. This is awful. First, Junior isn’t driving the car and now it’s not there at all. I’ve got three #8 diecasts! Now they’re nothing but nostalgia.
On the subject of Junior, I’m implementing a new policy. I’ve determined I’m part of the problem in Junior coverage. Until he either wins, or rolls the car and it explodes, no further Junior coverage or even coverage about Junior coverage.
Well, now no NASCAR fan is going to read this blog anymore. That’s okay. I don’t have much else to say in this entry. I’d like to give some insightful commentary about the race itself, but I was not paying attention for about three-quarters of the event. A few strategy calls mixed things up, but Mark Martin pretty much dominated at the start and at the end.
My favorite part of the race was the scene in Victory Lane. That was a truly special moment, and I was grateful to have witnessed it. Yes, Miss Sprint Cup, Monica Palumbo, got some monster, close up airtime. Her bright, beaming smile (and other assets) briefly lifted my flagging spirits. Thank you, Fox Sports for sharing that with all of us.
Oh, and it was nice that the other drivers came over and congratulated Mark Martin, even though they got in the way of Miss Sprint Cup coverage.
J.
This is going to be short, much like the race itself. Fox has canceled their baseball studio pre-game, but kept their NASCAR pre-race coverage.
Unfortunately.
If you love the pre-race, you can probably thank Digger. Were it not for the opportunity to promote and sell the vermin’s merchandise, Fox might have put this one down, too. This evening’s production was decidedly subpar. Digger’s cartoon was a rerun. There was some sort of infomercial segment about Subway. (It worked. It made me want a sub.) And we got a segment on “going green” for Earth Day. First of all, this is NASCAR; sports least “green” sport. Second, why this featured Kevin Harvick and his oil company sponsor, Shell, is completely beyond my comprehension, if for no other reason than surely it ticked off Sunoco and their frickin’ “race fuel” sponsorship.
Earth Day is never going to cut it as a holiday. There’s no gift giving and no over indulgence associated with it, just sacrifice and guilt. It’s like Lent for atheists and green freaks.
Thankfully there were a few driver segments in the pre-race, but by and large the best thing that can be said about it is that it ended. I suffer for this blog.
Fox did learn a lesson from last year and made sure to start the baseball early. It’s hard to get over last year’s debacle, cutting away from the ball game in the bottom of the ninth of a close game to show the start of the race.
There was no Number 8 car in the race. How unthinkable that would been a few short years ago. This is awful. First, Junior isn’t driving the car and now it’s not there at all. I’ve got three #8 diecasts! Now they’re nothing but nostalgia.
On the subject of Junior, I’m implementing a new policy. I’ve determined I’m part of the problem in Junior coverage. Until he either wins, or rolls the car and it explodes, no further Junior coverage or even coverage about Junior coverage.
Well, now no NASCAR fan is going to read this blog anymore. That’s okay. I don’t have much else to say in this entry. I’d like to give some insightful commentary about the race itself, but I was not paying attention for about three-quarters of the event. A few strategy calls mixed things up, but Mark Martin pretty much dominated at the start and at the end.
My favorite part of the race was the scene in Victory Lane. That was a truly special moment, and I was grateful to have witnessed it. Yes, Miss Sprint Cup, Monica Palumbo, got some monster, close up airtime. Her bright, beaming smile (and other assets) briefly lifted my flagging spirits. Thank you, Fox Sports for sharing that with all of us.
Oh, and it was nice that the other drivers came over and congratulated Mark Martin, even though they got in the way of Miss Sprint Cup coverage.
J.
Baseball: Rockies vs. Dodgers
Boy is this tough. After my nine-hour baseball/NASCAR double header, I now know the limits of my endurance for TV viewing. The last thing I want to do at the moment is write about my odyssey of armchair paralysis. I no longer care what happened or what my thoughts are on the subject of either sport.
And with that out of the way, let’s get down to it.
For TWIB this weekend, I don’t know if the presentation made the show great, or if the subject matter was great and all they simply needed to do was show it. This was a special episode. First, brief tours of New Yankee Stadium and Citi Field. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I like the Mets’ new crib. Anything that reminds me of Ebbets Field and the Brooklyn Dodgers might be enough to make me forget that I hate the Mets. The Jackie Robinson Rotunda was appropriately impressive, as benefiting the man.
Baseball is about history. The montage of past Opening Days could not fail to bring a smile to any fan’s face. Memorializing the passing of Harry Kalas and Mark Fidrych were likewise a celebration of their contributions to the game. I’m sure in fine Philly fan tradition, Harry got a standing “Booo!” from the home crowd at his service at the ballpark. (Just kidding. Philly fans are a running gag with me.)
TWIB is going to have a hard time topping this show for the rest of the season.
On to the Fox baseball pre-game proper with Chris Rose. This guy has a hard job in speed reading the week’s news and trying to make it relatable. Rose seems to do better off script, as shown with his interview with “Headquarters,” Orlando Hudson. The kid’s childhood nickname came from his head looking too big until the rest of his body caught up. I don’t want a bunch of numbers in my baseball broadcast. I want stuff like this.
A somewhat more excitable than usual Dick Stockton and Eric Karros were calling the game. Thank God. These two work pretty well together, though my favorite memory of these two came when they were separated during a potential playoff spot clenching game a couple of years ago. Dick went down to clubhouse and Eric had to call everything for an inning. The Padres’ Trevor Hoffman failed to close out the game and Dick had to go back up to the booth. Eric made the observation that play-by-play was harder than it looked. It was hard on the audience, too. Dick wanted the Brewers to go ahead and win the game because he didn’t want to have to run back down the clubhouse to cover the celebration. Trust me. This is what baseball is all about. Funny stories.
I kind of wanted to see the Yankee game to see more of the new stadium. Judging by the crappy crowd in LA to see the Dodgers and Rockies, I wasn’t the only one. At first, I thought it was the typical SoCal crowd arriving late and leaving early, but even the Fan Cam segment had to be shortened. As it turned out, I think capacity New York crowd would have switched places too. No matter how great the new stadium is, 22 to 4 game against your team would have been painful to watch. Nick Swisher did not pitch. Girardi wants to save his arm for next blowout.
“Looking for a few good women,” said the giant ballpark sign. I think it said it was sponsored by the LA County Sheriff’s department, looking for recruits. (Jerry starts writing something that will only get him in trouble and then quickly deletes it.) I’m not quite so picky. I’m looking for a few good-looking women, regardless of their morals. Thankfully there a few behind home plate, but Fox’s score board kept intermittently blocking one of the better looking ones. She still managed to wave to me while she was talking on her cell phone. Yeah. Hey, babe. Call me. Is it just me or does it just not seem like Dodger Stadium without the guy in the Panama hat behind home plate with the radar gun? What ever happened to him?
I want to like the Dodgers, but they’ve replaced the Giants as the team I’m rooting against solely because of one player on their team. In the Giants case, it was Barry Bonds. Watching him lose the World Series to the Rally Monkey is one of my most cherished baseball memories. With the Dodgers, it’s Manny being Manny. I don’t have his full box score, but what I saw was: HR-Dropped fly ball-HR-bad attempt at diving catch, two runs scored-Walked and scored. Again, thank God, Tim McCarver and Joe Buck weren’t covering this game. They would not have shut up about those fielding errors for the entire game.
So what do we take away from today’s game? KFC is now offering a grilled chicken meal according to their commercial. I must investigate this further.
I’m going to put a hold on further baseball game blogs for at least the time being. I’m obviously not qualified to write about this sport. Even for all my years of watching, I still don’t know what a slugging percentage measures. If I feel compelled, I’ll put something up, but I don’t want watching baseball to become a labor for me. Speaking of laborious, Event Two of the double header is on deck.
J.
And with that out of the way, let’s get down to it.
For TWIB this weekend, I don’t know if the presentation made the show great, or if the subject matter was great and all they simply needed to do was show it. This was a special episode. First, brief tours of New Yankee Stadium and Citi Field. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I like the Mets’ new crib. Anything that reminds me of Ebbets Field and the Brooklyn Dodgers might be enough to make me forget that I hate the Mets. The Jackie Robinson Rotunda was appropriately impressive, as benefiting the man.
Baseball is about history. The montage of past Opening Days could not fail to bring a smile to any fan’s face. Memorializing the passing of Harry Kalas and Mark Fidrych were likewise a celebration of their contributions to the game. I’m sure in fine Philly fan tradition, Harry got a standing “Booo!” from the home crowd at his service at the ballpark. (Just kidding. Philly fans are a running gag with me.)
TWIB is going to have a hard time topping this show for the rest of the season.
On to the Fox baseball pre-game proper with Chris Rose. This guy has a hard job in speed reading the week’s news and trying to make it relatable. Rose seems to do better off script, as shown with his interview with “Headquarters,” Orlando Hudson. The kid’s childhood nickname came from his head looking too big until the rest of his body caught up. I don’t want a bunch of numbers in my baseball broadcast. I want stuff like this.
A somewhat more excitable than usual Dick Stockton and Eric Karros were calling the game. Thank God. These two work pretty well together, though my favorite memory of these two came when they were separated during a potential playoff spot clenching game a couple of years ago. Dick went down to clubhouse and Eric had to call everything for an inning. The Padres’ Trevor Hoffman failed to close out the game and Dick had to go back up to the booth. Eric made the observation that play-by-play was harder than it looked. It was hard on the audience, too. Dick wanted the Brewers to go ahead and win the game because he didn’t want to have to run back down the clubhouse to cover the celebration. Trust me. This is what baseball is all about. Funny stories.
I kind of wanted to see the Yankee game to see more of the new stadium. Judging by the crappy crowd in LA to see the Dodgers and Rockies, I wasn’t the only one. At first, I thought it was the typical SoCal crowd arriving late and leaving early, but even the Fan Cam segment had to be shortened. As it turned out, I think capacity New York crowd would have switched places too. No matter how great the new stadium is, 22 to 4 game against your team would have been painful to watch. Nick Swisher did not pitch. Girardi wants to save his arm for next blowout.
“Looking for a few good women,” said the giant ballpark sign. I think it said it was sponsored by the LA County Sheriff’s department, looking for recruits. (Jerry starts writing something that will only get him in trouble and then quickly deletes it.) I’m not quite so picky. I’m looking for a few good-looking women, regardless of their morals. Thankfully there a few behind home plate, but Fox’s score board kept intermittently blocking one of the better looking ones. She still managed to wave to me while she was talking on her cell phone. Yeah. Hey, babe. Call me. Is it just me or does it just not seem like Dodger Stadium without the guy in the Panama hat behind home plate with the radar gun? What ever happened to him?
I want to like the Dodgers, but they’ve replaced the Giants as the team I’m rooting against solely because of one player on their team. In the Giants case, it was Barry Bonds. Watching him lose the World Series to the Rally Monkey is one of my most cherished baseball memories. With the Dodgers, it’s Manny being Manny. I don’t have his full box score, but what I saw was: HR-Dropped fly ball-HR-bad attempt at diving catch, two runs scored-Walked and scored. Again, thank God, Tim McCarver and Joe Buck weren’t covering this game. They would not have shut up about those fielding errors for the entire game.
So what do we take away from today’s game? KFC is now offering a grilled chicken meal according to their commercial. I must investigate this further.
I’m going to put a hold on further baseball game blogs for at least the time being. I’m obviously not qualified to write about this sport. Even for all my years of watching, I still don’t know what a slugging percentage measures. If I feel compelled, I’ll put something up, but I don’t want watching baseball to become a labor for me. Speaking of laborious, Event Two of the double header is on deck.
J.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Vacation
I'm on vacation next week. While I plan on writing, I won't have Internet access to post anything.
I'd like to put up a link to my previous blog on MySpace, but I don't have access to it at the moment. I'm Jerry in Las Cruces, New Mexico, if that helps you track me down there. Warning: there are some very opinionated political pieces there.
I also post under jdh417 at an Archie Comics fansite. I've posted reviews and even a short fanfic in the forum in their respective board categories. Why am doing reviews of Archie Comics? That might require a blog entry in itself.
http://www.archiefans.com/
I'd like to put up a link to my previous blog on MySpace, but I don't have access to it at the moment. I'm Jerry in Las Cruces, New Mexico, if that helps you track me down there. Warning: there are some very opinionated political pieces there.
I also post under jdh417 at an Archie Comics fansite. I've posted reviews and even a short fanfic in the forum in their respective board categories. Why am doing reviews of Archie Comics? That might require a blog entry in itself.
http://www.archiefans.com/
Monday, April 13, 2009
NASCAR Off week: Flashback 2005—Newsflash: Fontana, California
NASCAR's most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., was virtually eliminated from the "Chase," the racing series' playoff, as of Sunday night's race. However, in a bid to satisfy his legions of fans, NASCAR has ordered that all ten drivers who do make the Chase to change their names to Earnhardt Jr., adopt Budweiser as their primary sponsor, and to change their car number to #8. When NASCAR president, Mike Helton, was asked if this move might create confusion among the fans watching the race, he replied, "After a few Bud's, most NASCAR fans are seeing double or triple anyway.
Current championship leader, Tony Earnhardt, Jr. (formerly known as Tony Stewart) was his usual outspoken self, "I don't like it and it kind of sucks for my regular sponsor, but my merchandise sales have really taken off. As long as they get my name more-or-less right on the trophy at the end of the season, I really can't complain though."
******
And here I am recycling material. I am a “green” blogger. Yes, I really did write that four years ago. I like Junior, but Junior fans are such an easy target.
After I posted this (on my then current blog), my friend Sandi, made this rather earnest reply:
“Now, this doesn't seem right to me. If he didn't make it, then it's his problem. It kind of takes away some of the glory from the people who did make it, in my opinion. Bottom line. I think it's kind of a pussy move. I now officially don't like Dale Earnhart Jr.”
Posted by Sandi on Monday, September 26, 2005 at 2:19 PM
Obviously, Sandi doesn’t follow a lot of NASCAR.
Okay, my problem isn’t with Junior, nor with his fans. My problem is with the continuous Junior coverage, regardless of his position on track.
So what? He’s NASCAR’s most popular driver; he should get more coverage. I’m okay with giving Junior an extra update or two during a race, even if he’s out of the top ten all day. But, the consistent amount of coverage he’s getting is at the expense other drivers, who are doing just as well, if not better in the race.
So what? Those drivers aren’t as popular. Okay, how do you explain to a new fan why the network continues to inexplicably update a mediocre driver throughout the race? And, surprisingly, all drivers have their fans. Why should those fans keep watching if their driver’s status is never getting updated, but Junior’s is?
This argument could probably be made about any of NASCAR’s more successful drivers, that the networks spend most of their coverage on them. But, the qualifier there is “successful.” The networks should give the majority of their attention to the drivers doing the best in the standings and, whoever’s performing best in individual races, regardless of their popularity.
More than just highlighting winning drivers, it’s in the broadcast networks’ best interests to give coverage to all the drivers they can. Like I said, all drivers have their fans and their sponsors (or are looking for them). Not to mention, who knows when somebody’s going to get on a hot streak or pull off a surprise win. This way, the network isn’t completely caught off guard by unlikely circumstances.
I wrote at the end of last season that NASCAR’s biggest problem was Junior not winning. (I would recycle that blog as well, except I just discovered that had posted it, but never saved it elsewhere, and I can’t get back onto my old blog at the moment. Oops.) People would still be complaining about this and that, but they’d be generally happy, and the sport would probably still be growing.
NASCAR is a very personality-driven sport. The sport tied itself to Junior and as his fortunes have risen and fallen, so has the sport. If he starts doing better, great, but you can’t count on Junior stepping it up. The sport and the networks, need to start seriously grooming and promoting more star drivers. They’ve already got a villain in Kyle Busch. It’s time to start auditioning heroes to see if anybody clicks. This all boils down to, if Junior wants screen time, he needs to get up front and win. Otherwise, the spotlight needs to move along. Risking the alienation of Junior Nation seems a small price to pay for the long-term survival of NASCAR. If they’re just Junior fans and not NASCAR fans, you were going to lose them at some point anyway, even if he wins championships.
Don’t believe me? I used to watch the NBA all the time. The Bulls were my favorite team. As it turned out however, I was just a fair-weather Michael Jordan fan. I was willing to watch after he retired, but whatever stars they promoted afterward seemed one-dimensional (Shaq), or didn’t win (David Robinson). Then the thugs and the jerks became the face of the sport, and I drifted away. Keep in mind, every time the Bulls won a championship, I jumped up and down and was completely insufferable. I got to celebrate six championships with my favorite player and team, and the NBA still lost me as a fan. I don’t even know what’s motivating all these Junior fans right now.
Besides, given the pit of despair most Dale Earnhardt Jr. fans are in during a race, it’s really kind of cruel to keep teasing them with repeated views of their favorite driver nowhere near being in contention for the win.
J.
Current championship leader, Tony Earnhardt, Jr. (formerly known as Tony Stewart) was his usual outspoken self, "I don't like it and it kind of sucks for my regular sponsor, but my merchandise sales have really taken off. As long as they get my name more-or-less right on the trophy at the end of the season, I really can't complain though."
******
And here I am recycling material. I am a “green” blogger. Yes, I really did write that four years ago. I like Junior, but Junior fans are such an easy target.
After I posted this (on my then current blog), my friend Sandi, made this rather earnest reply:
“Now, this doesn't seem right to me. If he didn't make it, then it's his problem. It kind of takes away some of the glory from the people who did make it, in my opinion. Bottom line. I think it's kind of a pussy move. I now officially don't like Dale Earnhart Jr.”
Posted by Sandi on Monday, September 26, 2005 at 2:19 PM
Obviously, Sandi doesn’t follow a lot of NASCAR.
Okay, my problem isn’t with Junior, nor with his fans. My problem is with the continuous Junior coverage, regardless of his position on track.
So what? He’s NASCAR’s most popular driver; he should get more coverage. I’m okay with giving Junior an extra update or two during a race, even if he’s out of the top ten all day. But, the consistent amount of coverage he’s getting is at the expense other drivers, who are doing just as well, if not better in the race.
So what? Those drivers aren’t as popular. Okay, how do you explain to a new fan why the network continues to inexplicably update a mediocre driver throughout the race? And, surprisingly, all drivers have their fans. Why should those fans keep watching if their driver’s status is never getting updated, but Junior’s is?
This argument could probably be made about any of NASCAR’s more successful drivers, that the networks spend most of their coverage on them. But, the qualifier there is “successful.” The networks should give the majority of their attention to the drivers doing the best in the standings and, whoever’s performing best in individual races, regardless of their popularity.
More than just highlighting winning drivers, it’s in the broadcast networks’ best interests to give coverage to all the drivers they can. Like I said, all drivers have their fans and their sponsors (or are looking for them). Not to mention, who knows when somebody’s going to get on a hot streak or pull off a surprise win. This way, the network isn’t completely caught off guard by unlikely circumstances.
I wrote at the end of last season that NASCAR’s biggest problem was Junior not winning. (I would recycle that blog as well, except I just discovered that had posted it, but never saved it elsewhere, and I can’t get back onto my old blog at the moment. Oops.) People would still be complaining about this and that, but they’d be generally happy, and the sport would probably still be growing.
NASCAR is a very personality-driven sport. The sport tied itself to Junior and as his fortunes have risen and fallen, so has the sport. If he starts doing better, great, but you can’t count on Junior stepping it up. The sport and the networks, need to start seriously grooming and promoting more star drivers. They’ve already got a villain in Kyle Busch. It’s time to start auditioning heroes to see if anybody clicks. This all boils down to, if Junior wants screen time, he needs to get up front and win. Otherwise, the spotlight needs to move along. Risking the alienation of Junior Nation seems a small price to pay for the long-term survival of NASCAR. If they’re just Junior fans and not NASCAR fans, you were going to lose them at some point anyway, even if he wins championships.
Don’t believe me? I used to watch the NBA all the time. The Bulls were my favorite team. As it turned out however, I was just a fair-weather Michael Jordan fan. I was willing to watch after he retired, but whatever stars they promoted afterward seemed one-dimensional (Shaq), or didn’t win (David Robinson). Then the thugs and the jerks became the face of the sport, and I drifted away. Keep in mind, every time the Bulls won a championship, I jumped up and down and was completely insufferable. I got to celebrate six championships with my favorite player and team, and the NBA still lost me as a fan. I don’t even know what’s motivating all these Junior fans right now.
Besides, given the pit of despair most Dale Earnhardt Jr. fans are in during a race, it’s really kind of cruel to keep teasing them with repeated views of their favorite driver nowhere near being in contention for the win.
J.
Baseball: Astros vs. Cardinals
I’m not sure about doing a baseball bog all season. Even though I’ve watched baseball all my life, I’m not any sort of expert. For this opening weekend, I’ll give it a shot. To start this off on the wrong foot, I’ll mention that I tuned into the coverage a half-hour early because I didn’t have the right time written down. It was a happy accident, as I watched an animal care show hosted by a woman that looked just like Charisma Carpenter. Still not sure if it was an actual show or an infomercial for their sponsor. (I wonder if this phenomena will become more common in the future.)
Speaking of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel” (Charisma was on both shows), I am unfortunately reminded of Fox baseball coverage in years past. They always started the game too late in the afternoon to finish before Buffy came on in the evening (a couple of times, even running over into “Angel” which came on afterward). I missed half the series finale of Buffy that way.
I have a few more complaints. Fox has stridently insisted on showing only the same six teams in regional action all season long. This culminated for me one afternoon as I watched the same two teams, starting the same pitchers, that I had seen two weeks before. Only in the change in venue prevented complete déjà vu. They also used to start coverage about midway through the season. By the end of the season when most of the division races were finished, Fox would stop showing games altogether until the post season. That was still better than CBS’ ill-fated baseball coverage. By the end of their contract, they had stopped showing weekly games altogether, replacing them with college track and field meets and such.
The last year I got the changes I wanted. They started the games earlier, covered the full season, and showed plenty of out-of-region games. That last point backfired on me. I didn’t count on them spending every Saturday showing a Yankee/Red Sox game if they were playing each other, which seemed like about every other weekend.
Well, Fox is back to the later start time. So much for watching full episodes of “Legend of the Seeker” in the evening. We’ll see if they completely revert to type as the season goes on.
Let’s get down to the actual coverage. I’m going to throw “This Week in Baseball,” in as part of the pre-game (mostly because there wasn’t really a pre-game). TWIB was a lot more low-key than in previous years. Even the show’s sponsor, Pepsi, produced a fairly sedate commercial. That’s good, given that it will be played ad infinitum over the season. There seemed like some attempt to make the show look classier. I’m not sure Buzz Brainer (if I’m spelling that right), the voice of the Disney Channel, is the right guy for the announcing job, if that’s the case. Whatever, as long as the “How About That,” segment with the great plays of the week is still in.
Like I said, there was no in-studio pre-game show. This was an expected budget cut. Instead, one of the game announcers (didn’t recognize him offhand, sorry) and Ken Rosenthal spent five minutes recapping the week in baseball, before passing out from not taking a breath for that period of time. This segment will probably need some work, especially as the season wears on and controversies and scandals appear.
I was glad to get the regional game I wanted, Astros and Cardinals. I was less thrilled to get Joe Buck and Tim McCarver calling the game. Oh, my head. Where to start?
In spite of his fine baseball broadcasting lineage, Joe is bored by the game. I can tell because of his incessant desire to “punch up” the game with false drama or, worse, trying to add to the drama. Nothing like watching the same “controversial” play ten times on replay with Joe’s questioning commentary each time. I know it’s him and not the director, because this doesn’t happen with the other broadcasting duos, at least not as annoyingly. Thanks a lot for helping to institute instant replay. The game really needed to be slowed down some more. I can’t wait for the MLB to expand this “feature” at your insistent behest.
Oh, when there’s game-on-the-line situations on the field, I’m sure I don’t need someone to go into detail about it. I can see it and hear it in the crowd for myself. Sometimes, less is more.
Tim, I apologize for blaming you solely for the bad coverage all these years. It was mostly your partner. On the other hand, I’m sorry you’re not a baseball manager. Really sorry. Because I’m sick of you trying to manage the teams from the pressbox. Tim, the outfielders can’t hear you up there trying to position them for the next batter, and if they could, they wouldn’t listen. Your fixation on the smallest of minutia of the game, little individual player actions, is insanity inducing for those of us who aren’t players or coaches.
You’ve gotten a bit better over the years. At least you’re not a stream of endless criticism anymore. I can’t tell you how tired I got your “special” praise. Somebody makes a clutch hit; it was because the infielder didn’t listen to you and play slightly over to his left. Somebody makes a great play in the outfield; well the batter just got under it because he wasn’t listening to you tell him to choke up on the bat and go the other way with it. I’d hate to be your kid and have you be my Little League coach. I’d be hanging myself by the end of the season.
Why do I put up with these two? Because I love the game, and I’m willing to suffer for it. Vin Sculley and Joe Garigola (boy, did I just date myself) could make blowouts interesting with their knowledge and banter, and they knew when to be quiet and let the drama unfold on the field. The Fox director really needs to tell Joe and Tim to “Just call the game as it is. Stop nagging and stop trying to manufacture controversy.”
Whew! I’ve been holding that in for the last few years. If I do another baseball blog, I’ll try to be more fair and call the broadcast as it currently is.
Okay, the game itself. What can I say?
There amongst the sea of red in old St. Louis
In the shadow of the grand Arch
There the hitting monster
In the guise of a man
Crushed horsehide
And the spirits of his foes
Beneath his mighty bat
Yeah, Albert Pujols beat the hell out of the Astros, pretty much by himself. The final score was 11-2, or if you’re scoring at home Pujols 7, Cardinals 4, Astros 2.
It was kind of a sad sight. Albert comes to bat with the bases loaded. Roy Oswalt stretches out, runs to the dugout, grabs a batting tee, puts it and the ball up at home plate, and tells Al to swing away. For his next at bat, I have never heard such a deathly quiet in a stadium, as the crowd collectively held its breath before he hit his next home run. St. Louis is an amazing baseball town. I did love that little story about the Cardinals having a designated rookie that has to carry Albert Pujols’ checkerboard with them on the road.
A few quick hits:
It was great to see Pudge (Ivan Rodriguez) with the Astros. It was a bit of a surprise. My $8 season preview didn’t see that coming. I proclaim it already completely out of date.
I liked the new, smaller game update graphic. The full screen ticker style never worked for me with baseball. Did this mean Fox couldn’t find a sponsor for it?
Ever so happy to see that two things never change in a baseball broadcast. One, shots of players picking their noses in the dugout. Knowing baseball players, if they knew the camera was on them, they’d stick their fingers in other places too. Two, the d*ck with cell phone behind homeplate waving to the camera. I swear, it’s the same guy at every stadium.
Fox didn’t have a player or celebrity read the lineup card. Did this have something to do with sponsorship?
It seemed like there were shorter commercial breaks than usual for a ball game. That can’t be right. There didn’t even seem to be the overwhelming over-promotion of any other Fox TV shows. I’m sure they’ll make up for this during the playoffs.
Twitter. The broadcast team is using Twitter for updates. Twitter. Seems like an appropriately named service for all the people that use it.
I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist that.
I wish Fox would consider switching to another game in case of a blow out. There were better games going on. They did this last year in their last regular season game, switching amongst several games to keep up with the division/wild card races. Just a thought.
There wasn’t a post game show, not even a little chat with the man of the hour, Pujols. Then again, considering what I think of the broadcast crew, less may have been more.
Next week, an MLB/NASCAR old-fashioned Saturday double-header. Can Jeff Gordon keep his hitting streak alive in New Yankee stadium? Will Derek Jeter’s risky tire/fuel strategy payoff in Phoenix? I can hardly wait to find out.
J.
Speaking of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel” (Charisma was on both shows), I am unfortunately reminded of Fox baseball coverage in years past. They always started the game too late in the afternoon to finish before Buffy came on in the evening (a couple of times, even running over into “Angel” which came on afterward). I missed half the series finale of Buffy that way.
I have a few more complaints. Fox has stridently insisted on showing only the same six teams in regional action all season long. This culminated for me one afternoon as I watched the same two teams, starting the same pitchers, that I had seen two weeks before. Only in the change in venue prevented complete déjà vu. They also used to start coverage about midway through the season. By the end of the season when most of the division races were finished, Fox would stop showing games altogether until the post season. That was still better than CBS’ ill-fated baseball coverage. By the end of their contract, they had stopped showing weekly games altogether, replacing them with college track and field meets and such.
The last year I got the changes I wanted. They started the games earlier, covered the full season, and showed plenty of out-of-region games. That last point backfired on me. I didn’t count on them spending every Saturday showing a Yankee/Red Sox game if they were playing each other, which seemed like about every other weekend.
Well, Fox is back to the later start time. So much for watching full episodes of “Legend of the Seeker” in the evening. We’ll see if they completely revert to type as the season goes on.
Let’s get down to the actual coverage. I’m going to throw “This Week in Baseball,” in as part of the pre-game (mostly because there wasn’t really a pre-game). TWIB was a lot more low-key than in previous years. Even the show’s sponsor, Pepsi, produced a fairly sedate commercial. That’s good, given that it will be played ad infinitum over the season. There seemed like some attempt to make the show look classier. I’m not sure Buzz Brainer (if I’m spelling that right), the voice of the Disney Channel, is the right guy for the announcing job, if that’s the case. Whatever, as long as the “How About That,” segment with the great plays of the week is still in.
Like I said, there was no in-studio pre-game show. This was an expected budget cut. Instead, one of the game announcers (didn’t recognize him offhand, sorry) and Ken Rosenthal spent five minutes recapping the week in baseball, before passing out from not taking a breath for that period of time. This segment will probably need some work, especially as the season wears on and controversies and scandals appear.
I was glad to get the regional game I wanted, Astros and Cardinals. I was less thrilled to get Joe Buck and Tim McCarver calling the game. Oh, my head. Where to start?
In spite of his fine baseball broadcasting lineage, Joe is bored by the game. I can tell because of his incessant desire to “punch up” the game with false drama or, worse, trying to add to the drama. Nothing like watching the same “controversial” play ten times on replay with Joe’s questioning commentary each time. I know it’s him and not the director, because this doesn’t happen with the other broadcasting duos, at least not as annoyingly. Thanks a lot for helping to institute instant replay. The game really needed to be slowed down some more. I can’t wait for the MLB to expand this “feature” at your insistent behest.
Oh, when there’s game-on-the-line situations on the field, I’m sure I don’t need someone to go into detail about it. I can see it and hear it in the crowd for myself. Sometimes, less is more.
Tim, I apologize for blaming you solely for the bad coverage all these years. It was mostly your partner. On the other hand, I’m sorry you’re not a baseball manager. Really sorry. Because I’m sick of you trying to manage the teams from the pressbox. Tim, the outfielders can’t hear you up there trying to position them for the next batter, and if they could, they wouldn’t listen. Your fixation on the smallest of minutia of the game, little individual player actions, is insanity inducing for those of us who aren’t players or coaches.
You’ve gotten a bit better over the years. At least you’re not a stream of endless criticism anymore. I can’t tell you how tired I got your “special” praise. Somebody makes a clutch hit; it was because the infielder didn’t listen to you and play slightly over to his left. Somebody makes a great play in the outfield; well the batter just got under it because he wasn’t listening to you tell him to choke up on the bat and go the other way with it. I’d hate to be your kid and have you be my Little League coach. I’d be hanging myself by the end of the season.
Why do I put up with these two? Because I love the game, and I’m willing to suffer for it. Vin Sculley and Joe Garigola (boy, did I just date myself) could make blowouts interesting with their knowledge and banter, and they knew when to be quiet and let the drama unfold on the field. The Fox director really needs to tell Joe and Tim to “Just call the game as it is. Stop nagging and stop trying to manufacture controversy.”
Whew! I’ve been holding that in for the last few years. If I do another baseball blog, I’ll try to be more fair and call the broadcast as it currently is.
Okay, the game itself. What can I say?
There amongst the sea of red in old St. Louis
In the shadow of the grand Arch
There the hitting monster
In the guise of a man
Crushed horsehide
And the spirits of his foes
Beneath his mighty bat
Yeah, Albert Pujols beat the hell out of the Astros, pretty much by himself. The final score was 11-2, or if you’re scoring at home Pujols 7, Cardinals 4, Astros 2.
It was kind of a sad sight. Albert comes to bat with the bases loaded. Roy Oswalt stretches out, runs to the dugout, grabs a batting tee, puts it and the ball up at home plate, and tells Al to swing away. For his next at bat, I have never heard such a deathly quiet in a stadium, as the crowd collectively held its breath before he hit his next home run. St. Louis is an amazing baseball town. I did love that little story about the Cardinals having a designated rookie that has to carry Albert Pujols’ checkerboard with them on the road.
A few quick hits:
It was great to see Pudge (Ivan Rodriguez) with the Astros. It was a bit of a surprise. My $8 season preview didn’t see that coming. I proclaim it already completely out of date.
I liked the new, smaller game update graphic. The full screen ticker style never worked for me with baseball. Did this mean Fox couldn’t find a sponsor for it?
Ever so happy to see that two things never change in a baseball broadcast. One, shots of players picking their noses in the dugout. Knowing baseball players, if they knew the camera was on them, they’d stick their fingers in other places too. Two, the d*ck with cell phone behind homeplate waving to the camera. I swear, it’s the same guy at every stadium.
Fox didn’t have a player or celebrity read the lineup card. Did this have something to do with sponsorship?
It seemed like there were shorter commercial breaks than usual for a ball game. That can’t be right. There didn’t even seem to be the overwhelming over-promotion of any other Fox TV shows. I’m sure they’ll make up for this during the playoffs.
Twitter. The broadcast team is using Twitter for updates. Twitter. Seems like an appropriately named service for all the people that use it.
I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist that.
I wish Fox would consider switching to another game in case of a blow out. There were better games going on. They did this last year in their last regular season game, switching amongst several games to keep up with the division/wild card races. Just a thought.
There wasn’t a post game show, not even a little chat with the man of the hour, Pujols. Then again, considering what I think of the broadcast crew, less may have been more.
Next week, an MLB/NASCAR old-fashioned Saturday double-header. Can Jeff Gordon keep his hitting streak alive in New Yankee stadium? Will Derek Jeter’s risky tire/fuel strategy payoff in Phoenix? I can hardly wait to find out.
J.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Outclassed: Ideas for Demi-Human Classes
As far as Old School D&D characters are concerned, you can have any flavor, as long as it’s vanilla. Old School characters are completely anonymous, expendable, and replaceable. Any personality that develops is purely accidental. 3e characters have the opposite problem; too many choices in creation and it takes forever. For a DM, it must be like having pretend tea party with a bunch of antique china dolls. You don’t dare play too rough with starting 3e characters.
I’d like to have a happy medium of characters that are easily differentiated from one another, but fairly simple to make up. AD&D and 3e got it right in this regard; having more classes is better. More character options and real differences between classes taken by different races is something Old School could benefit from. (As long as those class differences mean more than plusses to dice rolls (3e) or how many squares you can move in a round (4e).)
These listings of powers and rules are something of a mish-mash of several different versions of D&D. This list does not pretend to be all-inclusive, authoritative, or even test-played. It’s just meant to explore the concept of demi-human classes being different than the human classes in an Old School environment.
***********
Humans may be any class, up to any level, but may not multi-class. Their only advantage is a bonus to earned experience, so human characters should always advance the quickest.
The demi-human classes listed are the typical adventurer types. There are Elvish and Dwarvish Clerics and such, but their societies frown upon them making a habit of hanging out in dungeons. For multi-class characters, earned XP is split equally between both classes. The other classes posted here should advance in level at about half the rate of the human equivalent. I’m being vague on certain items because of the differences between different rules sets.
Elf base racial characteristics:
Infravision
Improved chance to detect secret doors
Resistance to sleep and charm spells, and Ghoul paralysis
Elven Sword Mage (Fighter/Mage): Can wear armor and cast spells, but that armor has to be Elven or magical (in other words, expensive, salvaged, or gifted), else they lose their spell casting ability. They may use any type of shield or weapon but must have a free hand to cast spells in combat. As a practical matter they will typically only use one-handed melee weapons without a shield. Hit Dice 1d6.
Elven Arcane Thief (Thief/Mage): Has the full range of thief skills and restrictions. They may cast spells in combat, as long as they are wearing Elvish leather armor or magic leather armor and have a free hand. Hit Dice 1d4.
After 8th level, Elves may no longer advance as a Mage, but can continue to advance as a fighter or thief at half the human rate. Note: if the elf character had the aptitude to reach the master Mage level, they wouldn’t be adventuring. They’re too valuable to Elvish society.
Half Elf base racial characteristics:
Infravision
Improved chance to detect secret doors
Resistance to sleep and charm spells, and Ghoul paralysis
Arcane Tracker (Ranger/Mage): Limited to leather armor (does not have to be magic) and one-handed melee weapons, no shields. Cannot advance past 6th level as Mage. Hit Dice 1d8 with two 1d8 at first level.
Sword Mage: Mage progress ends at 6th level, however they can wear any normal armor, up to chainmail. Still requires a free hand to work magic. A bit heartier than the Elf version, Hit Dice 1d8.
Arcane Thief: Mage progress ends at 6th level, however they can wear non-magical leather armor. Still requires a free hand to work magic. A bit heartier than a normal Thief or Mage, Hit Dice 1d6.
Dwarven Defender:
Infravision
Hit Dice 1d8.
Natural –1 (or +1) to AC due to small size.
Saving throw bonus
Detect changes in stonework/underground environment
They are restricted from using human-sized armor, large shields, longbows, and human two-handed melee weapons. They may use a human-sized longsword or axe as a two-handed weapon. (Essentially limited to 1d8 damage weapons.)
Dwarven Rage: May rage up to three times per day. This rage causes bonus damage on a single hit (the player may call on this ability after rolling the damage dice) +4 (levels 1 to 4), +6 (levels 5 to 10), +8 (level 11 and up).
Halfling Acquisitions Expert (Burglar):
Infravision
Natural –2 (or +2) to AC due to small size.
Hit Dice 1d6.
Ranged combat at one length lower. (Long range is medium range, medium range is short range, and short range is point blank to a Halfling.)
Fearless: Immune to fear based spells or effects.
Lucky: Halflings may make a reroll of any failed saving throw.
Charm: If not in combat, Halflings may attempt to distract intelligent creatures, essentially capturing all of their attention. (This is owing to Halflings being seen as inherently cute, harmless, and silly by other races.) The level of this effect is equal to the Halfling’s level. The victim is allowed a saving throw each round, as long as nothing hostile or startling happens. For a group, only roll for the being with the best saving throw and take that for the entire group. Halflings with high Charisma should get a bonus. (Again owing to differing rules, this is left to the DM to decide on.) Caution: This ability doesn’t work other Halflings.
Standard Thief abilities and restrictions. Any leather armor a Halfling uses must be cut down to their size. They are restricted from most human-sized melee weapons. Short swords, maces, etc. may be used as a two-handed weapon. (Essentially limited to 1d6 damage weapons.) Halflings are restricted from longbows, but may use short bows.
Halflings would also seem to merit a special Bard class. But then again, “Bards suck.” Why bother?
Half Orc Berserker:
Infravision
Natural –1 (or +1) to AC due to thick skin.
Hit Dice is 1d12.
Bonus damage: Natural +1 to all melee damage.
Conditionally Fearless: Immune to fear based spells or effects, but only in combat.
Fast healing: Half Orcs heal at twice the normal rate, regardless of Constitution. Magical healing and potions are twice as effective. (Note: I’m still thinking about quick natural healing rules. Call them healing surges if you must. In lieu of that, with every hour of rest, a Half Orc regenerates 1 hp plus any Con bonus)
Half Orcs may not wear any armor. They can use any type of shield. Half Orcs may use human-sized two-handed swords and axes one-handed.
Battle Frenzy: In melee combat only, a Berserker gets multiple attacks per round. Two attacks at levels one to four, three attacks at levels five to ten, and four attacks starting at level 11.
And I don’t care what even my own rules call for, I’m house-ruling my Half Orc Paladin, Smite, into the game, because he rocks.
“Hey, J. What about Gnomes?”
“They’re good eatin’. What about them?”
J.
I’d like to have a happy medium of characters that are easily differentiated from one another, but fairly simple to make up. AD&D and 3e got it right in this regard; having more classes is better. More character options and real differences between classes taken by different races is something Old School could benefit from. (As long as those class differences mean more than plusses to dice rolls (3e) or how many squares you can move in a round (4e).)
These listings of powers and rules are something of a mish-mash of several different versions of D&D. This list does not pretend to be all-inclusive, authoritative, or even test-played. It’s just meant to explore the concept of demi-human classes being different than the human classes in an Old School environment.
***********
Humans may be any class, up to any level, but may not multi-class. Their only advantage is a bonus to earned experience, so human characters should always advance the quickest.
The demi-human classes listed are the typical adventurer types. There are Elvish and Dwarvish Clerics and such, but their societies frown upon them making a habit of hanging out in dungeons. For multi-class characters, earned XP is split equally between both classes. The other classes posted here should advance in level at about half the rate of the human equivalent. I’m being vague on certain items because of the differences between different rules sets.
Elf base racial characteristics:
Infravision
Improved chance to detect secret doors
Resistance to sleep and charm spells, and Ghoul paralysis
Elven Sword Mage (Fighter/Mage): Can wear armor and cast spells, but that armor has to be Elven or magical (in other words, expensive, salvaged, or gifted), else they lose their spell casting ability. They may use any type of shield or weapon but must have a free hand to cast spells in combat. As a practical matter they will typically only use one-handed melee weapons without a shield. Hit Dice 1d6.
Elven Arcane Thief (Thief/Mage): Has the full range of thief skills and restrictions. They may cast spells in combat, as long as they are wearing Elvish leather armor or magic leather armor and have a free hand. Hit Dice 1d4.
After 8th level, Elves may no longer advance as a Mage, but can continue to advance as a fighter or thief at half the human rate. Note: if the elf character had the aptitude to reach the master Mage level, they wouldn’t be adventuring. They’re too valuable to Elvish society.
Half Elf base racial characteristics:
Infravision
Improved chance to detect secret doors
Resistance to sleep and charm spells, and Ghoul paralysis
Arcane Tracker (Ranger/Mage): Limited to leather armor (does not have to be magic) and one-handed melee weapons, no shields. Cannot advance past 6th level as Mage. Hit Dice 1d8 with two 1d8 at first level.
Sword Mage: Mage progress ends at 6th level, however they can wear any normal armor, up to chainmail. Still requires a free hand to work magic. A bit heartier than the Elf version, Hit Dice 1d8.
Arcane Thief: Mage progress ends at 6th level, however they can wear non-magical leather armor. Still requires a free hand to work magic. A bit heartier than a normal Thief or Mage, Hit Dice 1d6.
Dwarven Defender:
Infravision
Hit Dice 1d8.
Natural –1 (or +1) to AC due to small size.
Saving throw bonus
Detect changes in stonework/underground environment
They are restricted from using human-sized armor, large shields, longbows, and human two-handed melee weapons. They may use a human-sized longsword or axe as a two-handed weapon. (Essentially limited to 1d8 damage weapons.)
Dwarven Rage: May rage up to three times per day. This rage causes bonus damage on a single hit (the player may call on this ability after rolling the damage dice) +4 (levels 1 to 4), +6 (levels 5 to 10), +8 (level 11 and up).
Halfling Acquisitions Expert (Burglar):
Infravision
Natural –2 (or +2) to AC due to small size.
Hit Dice 1d6.
Ranged combat at one length lower. (Long range is medium range, medium range is short range, and short range is point blank to a Halfling.)
Fearless: Immune to fear based spells or effects.
Lucky: Halflings may make a reroll of any failed saving throw.
Charm: If not in combat, Halflings may attempt to distract intelligent creatures, essentially capturing all of their attention. (This is owing to Halflings being seen as inherently cute, harmless, and silly by other races.) The level of this effect is equal to the Halfling’s level. The victim is allowed a saving throw each round, as long as nothing hostile or startling happens. For a group, only roll for the being with the best saving throw and take that for the entire group. Halflings with high Charisma should get a bonus. (Again owing to differing rules, this is left to the DM to decide on.) Caution: This ability doesn’t work other Halflings.
Standard Thief abilities and restrictions. Any leather armor a Halfling uses must be cut down to their size. They are restricted from most human-sized melee weapons. Short swords, maces, etc. may be used as a two-handed weapon. (Essentially limited to 1d6 damage weapons.) Halflings are restricted from longbows, but may use short bows.
Halflings would also seem to merit a special Bard class. But then again, “Bards suck.” Why bother?
Half Orc Berserker:
Infravision
Natural –1 (or +1) to AC due to thick skin.
Hit Dice is 1d12.
Bonus damage: Natural +1 to all melee damage.
Conditionally Fearless: Immune to fear based spells or effects, but only in combat.
Fast healing: Half Orcs heal at twice the normal rate, regardless of Constitution. Magical healing and potions are twice as effective. (Note: I’m still thinking about quick natural healing rules. Call them healing surges if you must. In lieu of that, with every hour of rest, a Half Orc regenerates 1 hp plus any Con bonus)
Half Orcs may not wear any armor. They can use any type of shield. Half Orcs may use human-sized two-handed swords and axes one-handed.
Battle Frenzy: In melee combat only, a Berserker gets multiple attacks per round. Two attacks at levels one to four, three attacks at levels five to ten, and four attacks starting at level 11.
And I don’t care what even my own rules call for, I’m house-ruling my Half Orc Paladin, Smite, into the game, because he rocks.
“Hey, J. What about Gnomes?”
“They’re good eatin’. What about them?”
J.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Texas Cup Race: “Charles Nelson Hammond”
This is why we kid, because we care about Chris Myers improving his material. We put up with the groaners, because every so often he busts out a zinger. Of course, even Carl Edwards couldn’t resist commenting on Jeff Hammond wearing, what was for all intensive purposes, an ascot. So, with Fred from “Scooby Doo” in tow this Fox NASCAR broadcast began.
Yes, it was much like a cartoon, a Digger cartoon in fact. The merchandising empire spokes-rodent was, thankfully pretty low-key in his appearances, if not ignored, throughout the race. The way God intended.
I liked “DW’s Rant,” and wouldn’t mind if this was a semi-regular feature. However, the topic was really self-serving for the network. This goes back to the Bristol race. Fox is begging for some controversy to stir up some interest. DW seems to be blaming NASCAR for being too authoritative. How about adding the sponsors and the up-armored, Tank-of-Tomorrow vehicle as also diffusing some tensions.
Well as the broadcasters noted, this race had a lot of lead changes. Great. Finally, a race where several drivers had a good chance to win based their abilities and their cars’ setup. As opposed to one driver dominating the day, with only the possibility of some fluke taking him out. The downside is that this leaves me little to complain about, and apparently little to comment on about the race itself. I’ve always been afraid this would happen. I wonder if NASCAR discussion might disappear entirely if the fans are made too consistently happy.
I have to give Fox one big up and one big down in the way they handled the end of the race. On the negative, what happened to Carl Edwards in his last pit stop? Why weren’t they covering the leader’s pit stop? It’s not another “Tiregate” issue, but really this was a big broadcasting whiff, as it impacted the race finish. Thankfully, Fox’s director made a good decision after the checkers in carrying the Jeff Gordon’s and Steve Letarte’s radio chatter. Those two certainly the expressed the emotion in ending Gordon’s season plus win-less drought better than any commentator could.
I could swear I heard the crowd cheering after Jeff won the race. Don’t they know that they hate him? Has Jeff been replaced by Kyle Busch as NASCAR’s most despised driver? I hate fair-weather haters. Or perhaps the fans were in a giddy, euphoric mood as Junior managed to lead the race for like two seconds under green and were confused into cheering for anything.
Dad called me right after Jeff’s exuberant Victory Lane interview. “Where’s Ingrid?” he began. Dad wanted to see her new hairstyle after reading my blog. Oh, and it gets worse. Drivers are all superstitious. Ingrid and Ella (and Mr. Hendricks) may not invited back to the track until Jeff loses again. I have mixed feelings about that possibility.
J.
Yes, it was much like a cartoon, a Digger cartoon in fact. The merchandising empire spokes-rodent was, thankfully pretty low-key in his appearances, if not ignored, throughout the race. The way God intended.
I liked “DW’s Rant,” and wouldn’t mind if this was a semi-regular feature. However, the topic was really self-serving for the network. This goes back to the Bristol race. Fox is begging for some controversy to stir up some interest. DW seems to be blaming NASCAR for being too authoritative. How about adding the sponsors and the up-armored, Tank-of-Tomorrow vehicle as also diffusing some tensions.
Well as the broadcasters noted, this race had a lot of lead changes. Great. Finally, a race where several drivers had a good chance to win based their abilities and their cars’ setup. As opposed to one driver dominating the day, with only the possibility of some fluke taking him out. The downside is that this leaves me little to complain about, and apparently little to comment on about the race itself. I’ve always been afraid this would happen. I wonder if NASCAR discussion might disappear entirely if the fans are made too consistently happy.
I have to give Fox one big up and one big down in the way they handled the end of the race. On the negative, what happened to Carl Edwards in his last pit stop? Why weren’t they covering the leader’s pit stop? It’s not another “Tiregate” issue, but really this was a big broadcasting whiff, as it impacted the race finish. Thankfully, Fox’s director made a good decision after the checkers in carrying the Jeff Gordon’s and Steve Letarte’s radio chatter. Those two certainly the expressed the emotion in ending Gordon’s season plus win-less drought better than any commentator could.
I could swear I heard the crowd cheering after Jeff won the race. Don’t they know that they hate him? Has Jeff been replaced by Kyle Busch as NASCAR’s most despised driver? I hate fair-weather haters. Or perhaps the fans were in a giddy, euphoric mood as Junior managed to lead the race for like two seconds under green and were confused into cheering for anything.
Dad called me right after Jeff’s exuberant Victory Lane interview. “Where’s Ingrid?” he began. Dad wanted to see her new hairstyle after reading my blog. Oh, and it gets worse. Drivers are all superstitious. Ingrid and Ella (and Mr. Hendricks) may not invited back to the track until Jeff loses again. I have mixed feelings about that possibility.
J.
St. Petersburg ALMS race: Something Missing
I was planing on writing an Indy 500 blog and decided I’m only commenting on other non-NASCAR races if I saw something worth writing about. When I sit down for a NASCAR race, I’m always worried that nothing comment-worthy is going to happen. Somehow, plenty of stuff always comes up. The day it doesn’t, I guess I should stop.
This ALMS race was entertaining. There were only two significant passes, and while I rail at NASCAR for boat racing (few passes for the lead on track), I go into a sports car race with entirely different expectations. Forgive me for not naming names and teams, but again I don’t watch American Le Mans for the personalities, so much as for the cars. Where else can you see Ferraris banging fenders with Porsches? The series best selling point, the cool cars, tends to overshadow the drivers, completely backward from NASCAR marketing.
Still, there was stuff missing from what I had seen from previous broadcasts. Teams: Penske and AGR. The Aston Martins (privateer and factory). The factory corvettes. The entire GT1 class (such as it was to begin with). The P1 Audi’s. Hopefully, some of these cars will return after Le Mans in France runs. There was still plenty of variety with BMW, Porsche, Ferrari, Dodge Viper, Ford Mark VII, Panoz, and a privateer Corvette. The field was a bit thin, especially in the Prototypes. Anyone watching on TV or in person, likely got what they were looking for anyway.
The coverage was entirely functional. Considering this was an ESPN production, that’s a compliment. The pre-race was no nonsense setup and the commentary was lively and involved throughout the race. Forgive me for not naming names. I know who these people are, but forgot to write their names down. One person I will name is Kelli Stavast. I am familiar with her CORR (off road racing) coverage, and she is totally crush-worthy. In this venue, she seemed a little shaky at times, but I’m sure she’ll grow into it.
The bright, sunny camera views were perfect for this oceanfront race. There were even happy crowd shots. The on-board cameras, especially the rooftop views, were great at bringing the speed and claustrophobia of street racing home. I was disappointed with their video blog racer, Chad Cody (hope I got that name right), because it was interesting, but there wasn’t enough of it.
Will ALMS ever live down ruining Dale Earnhardt Jr’s racing career with that fiery, spinout a couple of years ago? Who knows? In the meantime, they’ve found their niche. Even with some subtractions, the series delivers on what it promotes.
Geek out: Gotta love the mostly classy, upscale commercials during ALMS broadcasts. The slow motion, bullet through the bottle spot for Acura, was my fav.
J.
This ALMS race was entertaining. There were only two significant passes, and while I rail at NASCAR for boat racing (few passes for the lead on track), I go into a sports car race with entirely different expectations. Forgive me for not naming names and teams, but again I don’t watch American Le Mans for the personalities, so much as for the cars. Where else can you see Ferraris banging fenders with Porsches? The series best selling point, the cool cars, tends to overshadow the drivers, completely backward from NASCAR marketing.
Still, there was stuff missing from what I had seen from previous broadcasts. Teams: Penske and AGR. The Aston Martins (privateer and factory). The factory corvettes. The entire GT1 class (such as it was to begin with). The P1 Audi’s. Hopefully, some of these cars will return after Le Mans in France runs. There was still plenty of variety with BMW, Porsche, Ferrari, Dodge Viper, Ford Mark VII, Panoz, and a privateer Corvette. The field was a bit thin, especially in the Prototypes. Anyone watching on TV or in person, likely got what they were looking for anyway.
The coverage was entirely functional. Considering this was an ESPN production, that’s a compliment. The pre-race was no nonsense setup and the commentary was lively and involved throughout the race. Forgive me for not naming names. I know who these people are, but forgot to write their names down. One person I will name is Kelli Stavast. I am familiar with her CORR (off road racing) coverage, and she is totally crush-worthy. In this venue, she seemed a little shaky at times, but I’m sure she’ll grow into it.
The bright, sunny camera views were perfect for this oceanfront race. There were even happy crowd shots. The on-board cameras, especially the rooftop views, were great at bringing the speed and claustrophobia of street racing home. I was disappointed with their video blog racer, Chad Cody (hope I got that name right), because it was interesting, but there wasn’t enough of it.
Will ALMS ever live down ruining Dale Earnhardt Jr’s racing career with that fiery, spinout a couple of years ago? Who knows? In the meantime, they’ve found their niche. Even with some subtractions, the series delivers on what it promotes.
Geek out: Gotta love the mostly classy, upscale commercials during ALMS broadcasts. The slow motion, bullet through the bottle spot for Acura, was my fav.
J.
Friday, April 3, 2009
The Trouble With Pathfinder
The best thing that has come out Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition has undoubtedly been Paizo. I say that they are the best RPG publisher in the business. I can back this up with their run on Dungeon and Dragon magazines, their modules, and their Adventure Paths. These guys are good. Would that they were using better tools to ply their trade, namely 3e. Paizo is now set to publish their version of those rules, Pathfinder.
The main purpose behind this game is to fix 3e’s grapple rule, and by all accounts, it hasn’t even succeed at that.
Okay, that was uncalled for and not true. Well, not entirely true. I stand by my statement, but the real reason is to keep the 3e rules in print.
Okay, that motive doesn’t really make any sense either. I know Paizo wanted to publish under the OGL/D20 SRD and have access to that material. I understand that they wanted nearly complete backward compatibility with their own published 3e adventures. But essentially any change they made was going to disrupt that and cork off a bunch of 3e grognards. Realistically, the entire audience for 3e already owns the core books. In order to make Pathfinder appealing to that group, they had to “fix” things and add new material, and convert their future adventures to the new system. The snake swallows its tail.
I applaud Paizo’s open design process for Pathfinder and candor about their publishing plans. I question the reality of it. To make the system backward compatible, player suggestions couldn’t really change anything. While open playtesting was incorporated into the design, little fundamentally changed with the rules as written.
I realize the finalized game hasn’t been released and that I’ve only read the Alphas and the Betas, without actually playing them. However, I doubt the game is going to change much when put in print, so I’ll comment on the showstoppers.
First and most importantly, the game is impenetrable to newbies. I can say this because it applies to me. I sense D20 is a simple system, but I’m only guessing, because what I’ve read is mess of modifiers, a multitude of confusing options, and any number of rules exceptions and special cases. Jason Bulmahn, the games’ lead designer, posted on the Paizo message board, “I also want the system to have enough complexity to keep advanced players interested, looking for new crannies and corners of the rules to explore.” That goal has been more accomplished. On the other hand, I have to give an Incomplete on the following statement: “We are aiming this at average gamers, both those who have been playing for decades and those who have just started.”
The unforgivable sin of Pathfinder is that they did nothing to fix the perils of playing a high level game. The game allows for high level play, but breaks down in such a predictable manner that even Paizo’s own Adventure Paths don’t support it. Combat, with a huge numbers of bonuses, actions, and options, is simply unplayable but for the most devoted hobbyists. Suitable threats are limited and also unplayable. Perhaps they should have fixed it by dropping it. Release it later as a supplement with a separate, reworked set of rules.
Clerics: Pathfinder and 4e seem united in one goal—Screw the Cleric. Whereas 4e tried to make the class irrelevant with healing surges and the Paladin supplanting the role, Pathfinder just castrated them. The “Channel Energy” ability combines “Turn Undead” and healing into one almost useless activity. It’s not very efficient. And why would you play anything other than a “Good” cleric? The “Evi” ones will end up fratriciding everyone in the party every time they channel negative energy. The people on the Paizo board insist this is all a feature and not a bug.
I’m just going to starting nit picking again.
Pathfinder has attempted to make 3e’s base classes appealing, but done nothing about the weirdness of 3e multi-class characters. You know, 6th fighter/ 3rd thief/ 1st monk/ 3 bedroom/ 2 bath characters. How about some restrictions?
They tried to fix 3e skills in the Alpha version. By making them more complex? Chalk one up for the Paizo board posters for shooting this one down. Unfortunately, the all-at-once inadequate/overburdened skills system was left the same, except for getting rid of “Use Rope” and few other edits. How about getting rid of the separate skills system and integrating it into the characters classes?
Feats: dump. Just get rid of them. Add a selected few as class features with level advancement. Chalk another one up for the Paizo board posters. The Alpha version attempted to give characters literal, button-mashing, video game-like attack combos.
Buffs: I’ve seen gameplay posts on the Paizo forum by very knowledgeable players, and even they can’t keep all the plusses straight. Maybe some drastic limits need to be imposed to make this playable.
Iterative, Hastened, Quickened, Immediate, Swift: WTF! Strange, the more actions a character has, the slower the game gets. I wish I could find the post, but one Paizo employee wrote about his experience about playing with his boss, James Jacobs. “I think James was referring to me about abusing multiple actions. In one game, I called out, ‘I cast Quickened Etherealness.’ He shot back without hesitation, ‘Quickened Etherealness is banned from the game.’” (Now that’s a DM!) I have some more thoughts on this I’ll put in another post.
Others and myself put in several pleas for a “Basic” Pathfinder after the completion of the main volume. This would have ideally been a simplified rules set, more or less compatible with the full version. Disappointingly, there was never any official response.
RPG’s can be made by mere mortals on their own. I’ve done it (though not necessarily well). There’s plenty of free systems available on the Internet. I understand the need for publishing companies to make somewhat complex games with many options, at least in order to justify creating a library of material and to differentiate themselves from home-brews. But an intro version, especially for a complex system, is mandatory if you want to attract new players.
Put this “Pathfinder Basic” game in conjunction with their Pathfinder Society scenarios, and you may have a party game. Something that could be played inside of a couple of hours, give the players a clear goal and a reasonable chance of success, no “shopping at the bazaar” during the adventure, just straight-up adventuring (fighting, parleying, puzzle solving).
The OGL has proven to be extremely flexible. Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, Mutant Future, Basic Fantasy, OSRIC, and others all publish under it with a wealth of material to support it. Along with that, I believe the D20 system has not been exploited to its full potential. White Box, Microlite 20, Microlite 74, Green Ronin’s True 20 have shown that it’s flexible and can be easy to learn and play. D20 could be the Rosetta Stone system that FUDGE wanted to be. Paizo, push Pathfinder out the door for the 3e grognards. Then think seriously about making a game for the rest of us.
J.
Links of Interest:
Labyrinth Lord
Swords & Wizardry and White Box
Mutant Future
Basic Fantasy
OSRIC
Microlite 20
Microlite 74
True 20
FUDGE
Pathfinder
The main purpose behind this game is to fix 3e’s grapple rule, and by all accounts, it hasn’t even succeed at that.
Okay, that was uncalled for and not true. Well, not entirely true. I stand by my statement, but the real reason is to keep the 3e rules in print.
Okay, that motive doesn’t really make any sense either. I know Paizo wanted to publish under the OGL/D20 SRD and have access to that material. I understand that they wanted nearly complete backward compatibility with their own published 3e adventures. But essentially any change they made was going to disrupt that and cork off a bunch of 3e grognards. Realistically, the entire audience for 3e already owns the core books. In order to make Pathfinder appealing to that group, they had to “fix” things and add new material, and convert their future adventures to the new system. The snake swallows its tail.
I applaud Paizo’s open design process for Pathfinder and candor about their publishing plans. I question the reality of it. To make the system backward compatible, player suggestions couldn’t really change anything. While open playtesting was incorporated into the design, little fundamentally changed with the rules as written.
I realize the finalized game hasn’t been released and that I’ve only read the Alphas and the Betas, without actually playing them. However, I doubt the game is going to change much when put in print, so I’ll comment on the showstoppers.
First and most importantly, the game is impenetrable to newbies. I can say this because it applies to me. I sense D20 is a simple system, but I’m only guessing, because what I’ve read is mess of modifiers, a multitude of confusing options, and any number of rules exceptions and special cases. Jason Bulmahn, the games’ lead designer, posted on the Paizo message board, “I also want the system to have enough complexity to keep advanced players interested, looking for new crannies and corners of the rules to explore.” That goal has been more accomplished. On the other hand, I have to give an Incomplete on the following statement: “We are aiming this at average gamers, both those who have been playing for decades and those who have just started.”
The unforgivable sin of Pathfinder is that they did nothing to fix the perils of playing a high level game. The game allows for high level play, but breaks down in such a predictable manner that even Paizo’s own Adventure Paths don’t support it. Combat, with a huge numbers of bonuses, actions, and options, is simply unplayable but for the most devoted hobbyists. Suitable threats are limited and also unplayable. Perhaps they should have fixed it by dropping it. Release it later as a supplement with a separate, reworked set of rules.
Clerics: Pathfinder and 4e seem united in one goal—Screw the Cleric. Whereas 4e tried to make the class irrelevant with healing surges and the Paladin supplanting the role, Pathfinder just castrated them. The “Channel Energy” ability combines “Turn Undead” and healing into one almost useless activity. It’s not very efficient. And why would you play anything other than a “Good” cleric? The “Evi” ones will end up fratriciding everyone in the party every time they channel negative energy. The people on the Paizo board insist this is all a feature and not a bug.
I’m just going to starting nit picking again.
Pathfinder has attempted to make 3e’s base classes appealing, but done nothing about the weirdness of 3e multi-class characters. You know, 6th fighter/ 3rd thief/ 1st monk/ 3 bedroom/ 2 bath characters. How about some restrictions?
They tried to fix 3e skills in the Alpha version. By making them more complex? Chalk one up for the Paizo board posters for shooting this one down. Unfortunately, the all-at-once inadequate/overburdened skills system was left the same, except for getting rid of “Use Rope” and few other edits. How about getting rid of the separate skills system and integrating it into the characters classes?
Feats: dump. Just get rid of them. Add a selected few as class features with level advancement. Chalk another one up for the Paizo board posters. The Alpha version attempted to give characters literal, button-mashing, video game-like attack combos.
Buffs: I’ve seen gameplay posts on the Paizo forum by very knowledgeable players, and even they can’t keep all the plusses straight. Maybe some drastic limits need to be imposed to make this playable.
Iterative, Hastened, Quickened, Immediate, Swift: WTF! Strange, the more actions a character has, the slower the game gets. I wish I could find the post, but one Paizo employee wrote about his experience about playing with his boss, James Jacobs. “I think James was referring to me about abusing multiple actions. In one game, I called out, ‘I cast Quickened Etherealness.’ He shot back without hesitation, ‘Quickened Etherealness is banned from the game.’” (Now that’s a DM!) I have some more thoughts on this I’ll put in another post.
Others and myself put in several pleas for a “Basic” Pathfinder after the completion of the main volume. This would have ideally been a simplified rules set, more or less compatible with the full version. Disappointingly, there was never any official response.
RPG’s can be made by mere mortals on their own. I’ve done it (though not necessarily well). There’s plenty of free systems available on the Internet. I understand the need for publishing companies to make somewhat complex games with many options, at least in order to justify creating a library of material and to differentiate themselves from home-brews. But an intro version, especially for a complex system, is mandatory if you want to attract new players.
Put this “Pathfinder Basic” game in conjunction with their Pathfinder Society scenarios, and you may have a party game. Something that could be played inside of a couple of hours, give the players a clear goal and a reasonable chance of success, no “shopping at the bazaar” during the adventure, just straight-up adventuring (fighting, parleying, puzzle solving).
The OGL has proven to be extremely flexible. Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, Mutant Future, Basic Fantasy, OSRIC, and others all publish under it with a wealth of material to support it. Along with that, I believe the D20 system has not been exploited to its full potential. White Box, Microlite 20, Microlite 74, Green Ronin’s True 20 have shown that it’s flexible and can be easy to learn and play. D20 could be the Rosetta Stone system that FUDGE wanted to be. Paizo, push Pathfinder out the door for the 3e grognards. Then think seriously about making a game for the rest of us.
J.
Links of Interest:
Labyrinth Lord
Swords & Wizardry and White Box
Mutant Future
Basic Fantasy
OSRIC
Microlite 20
Microlite 74
True 20
FUDGE
Pathfinder
Deathmatch: 4e vs. Retro-Clone/Pathfinder
Within two years either 4e or the Retro-Clone movement/Pathfinder (united in cause, divided in method) will be effectively dead. That is to say, not gaining any new players and losing what it has. I wrote that on paper a year ago, but I’ll give myself another year.
Of course, the likeliest possibility is that they’re both dead in that timeframe.
Hasbro could plug the plug on pen and paper D&D at any moment for reasons that only make sense to their accountants. They could relaunch D&D as an online-only service, buying out Everquest or something. Or they could make D&D just a miniatures board game (well, that’s already pretty much 4e), or a collectible card game (shudder), or combine the two for 5e (petite mal seizure).
Paizo, God bless them, may be only prolonging the inevitable with Pathfinder/3e, they just don’t know it yet. Don’t worry. Their Golarion setting and adventures will live on using another system.
And the clones, divided and squabbling over what is “real” D&D is will never amount to anything. It is the domain of fanatical altruists, as well as opportunists looking for a trendy marketing niche, like Monte Cook. On the other hand, their games are free and resources plentiful, so they won’t die a final death either.
Is D&D a hobby/passion with an expiration date for most people? Superhero comic books, the bulk of new comics, are a hobby most people can only stomach for so long. In the span of about five years, you’ll see essentially every type of superhero story there’s ever been. Is D&D the same? Can the average person only do role-play so many times before abandoning it, perhaps picking it up and dusting it off every so often to remind themselves why they liked it and why they stopped? Sort of reminds me of my old Dark Tower game.
I've said plenty about 4e, and I have something to say about Pathfinder’s ultimate survivability in another blog. For the Old School, I have two areas of overall concern. In another post, I'll get to some specific issues.
First, I hope Grognardia is right and that we are on the cusp of a New Old School. More Old School style, but with a better rules framework, incorporating Make It Your Own with the best in playable new ideas. Trying to satisfy the grognard community with one system is a fool’s errand, but a central, published product to rally around is essential. It has to be new material, not a nostalgic rehash of rules systems come, gone, and replaced. It has to be user expandable, with clearly labeled differences between core rules and optional rules. Paizo might be the best option for this mythical product, if they can just pull their head out of their 3e rear.
Meanwhile, I worry about the current OS fascination with mega-dungeons. Does “Old School” really work best in dungeons? “Explore till you die” seems like the OS motto. 4e with healing surges, an easier trap detection mechanic, minions, and a complete reliance on minis, seems like a better fit in such an environment. 4e is Old School in that regard at least. OS, with its looser, judgement call rules and the threat of easy character death, might work better in places like small lair-type dungeons, or thieving an urban business, combat arenas, or raiding a mysterious outdoor temple. Places that could conceivably be studied first before they were assaulted and where escapes could be quicker.
If the Old School movement becomes synonymous with only dungeon crawls, no matter how inventive or clever, it dies. Stuff like Dragonlance and Paizo Adventure Paths became popular because players and DM’s wanted more. If Old School can get it’s act together with a system, expanding the playing environment needs to be the next goal.
J.
Link of Interest:
Grognardia
Of course, the likeliest possibility is that they’re both dead in that timeframe.
Hasbro could plug the plug on pen and paper D&D at any moment for reasons that only make sense to their accountants. They could relaunch D&D as an online-only service, buying out Everquest or something. Or they could make D&D just a miniatures board game (well, that’s already pretty much 4e), or a collectible card game (shudder), or combine the two for 5e (petite mal seizure).
Paizo, God bless them, may be only prolonging the inevitable with Pathfinder/3e, they just don’t know it yet. Don’t worry. Their Golarion setting and adventures will live on using another system.
And the clones, divided and squabbling over what is “real” D&D is will never amount to anything. It is the domain of fanatical altruists, as well as opportunists looking for a trendy marketing niche, like Monte Cook. On the other hand, their games are free and resources plentiful, so they won’t die a final death either.
Is D&D a hobby/passion with an expiration date for most people? Superhero comic books, the bulk of new comics, are a hobby most people can only stomach for so long. In the span of about five years, you’ll see essentially every type of superhero story there’s ever been. Is D&D the same? Can the average person only do role-play so many times before abandoning it, perhaps picking it up and dusting it off every so often to remind themselves why they liked it and why they stopped? Sort of reminds me of my old Dark Tower game.
I've said plenty about 4e, and I have something to say about Pathfinder’s ultimate survivability in another blog. For the Old School, I have two areas of overall concern. In another post, I'll get to some specific issues.
First, I hope Grognardia is right and that we are on the cusp of a New Old School. More Old School style, but with a better rules framework, incorporating Make It Your Own with the best in playable new ideas. Trying to satisfy the grognard community with one system is a fool’s errand, but a central, published product to rally around is essential. It has to be new material, not a nostalgic rehash of rules systems come, gone, and replaced. It has to be user expandable, with clearly labeled differences between core rules and optional rules. Paizo might be the best option for this mythical product, if they can just pull their head out of their 3e rear.
Meanwhile, I worry about the current OS fascination with mega-dungeons. Does “Old School” really work best in dungeons? “Explore till you die” seems like the OS motto. 4e with healing surges, an easier trap detection mechanic, minions, and a complete reliance on minis, seems like a better fit in such an environment. 4e is Old School in that regard at least. OS, with its looser, judgement call rules and the threat of easy character death, might work better in places like small lair-type dungeons, or thieving an urban business, combat arenas, or raiding a mysterious outdoor temple. Places that could conceivably be studied first before they were assaulted and where escapes could be quicker.
If the Old School movement becomes synonymous with only dungeon crawls, no matter how inventive or clever, it dies. Stuff like Dragonlance and Paizo Adventure Paths became popular because players and DM’s wanted more. If Old School can get it’s act together with a system, expanding the playing environment needs to be the next goal.
J.
Link of Interest:
Grognardia
Thursday, April 2, 2009
I dis 4e
It’s as good an RPG as could have been designed by a corporation. It’s good that Marketing had a seat at the design meetings. It’s bad that the seat was at the head of the table and everybody else was just there to take their orders.
There’s a psychological element to the dislike of this game that isn’t fair, but if WOTC didn’t want enemies then they shouldn’t have made them. I’ll start with the two worst issues.
They cancelled Dragon and Dungeon to create a monthly online service. Like it or not, ready or not, Internet subscriptions are poised to gut the newsstand. The loss of these printed magazines was like losing an old friend, but the community can still gather around the D&D website, I guess. The worst aspect of this for WOTC was turning their best asset, Paizo, into their biggest competitor.
Dishonesty about 4e was the bigger problem. Even when everyone knew they were working on the new edition, they denied it to keep 3.5 sales going. How bad did Paizo make WOTC look as their Pathfinder playtest was open and public, while 4e test players were under non-disclosure agreements? This has left a lingering bad taste in my mouth.
It was designed to be a collectible miniatures game, some hellish cross between chess, backgammon, and Pokemon. It’s also been designed to be incompatible with all previous versions. So, shell out for the minis and hope you get what you want in the booster packs, and you may as well throw out all your old books and adventures and buy new ones. At least, that’s what WOTC hopes you’ll do. Like I said, marketing ruled the creation of this game, not game designers.
I’ll throw in my tacky, nit-pick game issues. The ones that I know of, that is.
-Treasure parcels: Allowing the players to pick their treasure? How on earth did this rule get in there? That doesn’t even happen online.
-Skill challenges: From what little I understand of this procedure, I don’t understand it. I have heard the same from people who play the game.
-Traps: Somehow, what got slimmed down on monster stat block, got added to the trap stat blocks.
-Saving Throw continuing conditions: From what I’ve read, this is one of those things that adds needless complexity to the game. The same thing goes for monsters’ power recharge rolls.
-Immediate Interrupts: I think this rule actually goes back to 3e. Whatever. It reminds me of Attacks of Opportunity and other such nonsense. Look, when it’s my turn in a combat round, it’s MY turn.
-Character death: 4e players may actually have to willfully want their character to die in order to make it happen. Meanwhile in a harsh Old School environment, every dungeon is “Tomb of Horrors” to a low-level character. Is there a possibility of finding a happy medium? I wonder how a player with only 4e experience would react to any other RPG, especially games where characters can actually die suddenly.
Perhaps 4e’s worst sin is that it seems to have delineated all the rules so thoroughly. The ragged gray, improvisational edge that all RPG’s live in when played in the wild, has been erased. I think this was supposed to help shield players and DM’s from bad playing experiences from arguing over the rules (like an online game). They missed the point. Much like children playing Cowboys and Indians, the arguing was an integral part of the game. The participants shape the rules. This is stated or implied in most RPG’s.
If the intention of “hard” rules was to have less arguing and more role-playing, it may have only half succeeded. 4e players seem to tend to metagame more with concrete rules, looking for every advantage that the rules allow. Finding the best method to crack an encounter is the focus, just like a video game. Ironically, this actually sounds Old School, challenge the player, not the character. But rather than using creativity and logic in a situation, it’s a matter of finding the best combo move with the dice. Like good chess and monopoly players, experienced 4e players will be easy to spot in a game. Again, not too much different from some Old School players and DM’s, who end up in some kind of “Spy vs. Spy” mentality with tricks, traps, and raiding dungeon rooms.
The bigger question may be how close are WOW and D&D’s virtual tabletop getting to replicating the in-person D&D experience? As WOTC has made D&D more like a video game that difference has eroded significantly. I have to believe that the next version of D&D will get them out of the publishing business altogether and into an online subscription model. The only question in my mind is when. At least at that point, the grognard/retro clone movement wins, however Pyrrhic the victory.
All is not lost. While many long-time gamers have embraced 4e, the target audience of this edition was new players, specifically collectible card players and online gamers. There are several nods to WOW to make the game seem very familiar, including rules for games without a referee. With the combat rules having easy analogues to the computer game, the in-person RPG opens up whole new dimensions for these players. Gabe from Penny Arcade seems like the perfect conversion story. The old-timers, meanwhile, like to have a new set of rules to play with and break, I suppose. D&D may be coming back around to its roots, away from character drama, huge settings, and adventure paths, and this is the perfect system for dungeon hacking.
Given its prop-driven nature, 4e seems like it would be hard to improv and role-play, but the RP in face-to-face RPG apparently can’t be suppressed. Check out this quote from Gabe:
“We went from basically playing a board game with dice and minis to something much more interesting. It's just been awesome to watch them go from being a little embarrassed to be playing D&D and not wanting to look stupid to really to embracing their characters. I've got a friend who plays a Dragonborn and is actually speaking Draconic at the table…”
Now that sounds like D&D.
J.
Source:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/3/4/
There’s a psychological element to the dislike of this game that isn’t fair, but if WOTC didn’t want enemies then they shouldn’t have made them. I’ll start with the two worst issues.
They cancelled Dragon and Dungeon to create a monthly online service. Like it or not, ready or not, Internet subscriptions are poised to gut the newsstand. The loss of these printed magazines was like losing an old friend, but the community can still gather around the D&D website, I guess. The worst aspect of this for WOTC was turning their best asset, Paizo, into their biggest competitor.
Dishonesty about 4e was the bigger problem. Even when everyone knew they were working on the new edition, they denied it to keep 3.5 sales going. How bad did Paizo make WOTC look as their Pathfinder playtest was open and public, while 4e test players were under non-disclosure agreements? This has left a lingering bad taste in my mouth.
It was designed to be a collectible miniatures game, some hellish cross between chess, backgammon, and Pokemon. It’s also been designed to be incompatible with all previous versions. So, shell out for the minis and hope you get what you want in the booster packs, and you may as well throw out all your old books and adventures and buy new ones. At least, that’s what WOTC hopes you’ll do. Like I said, marketing ruled the creation of this game, not game designers.
I’ll throw in my tacky, nit-pick game issues. The ones that I know of, that is.
-Treasure parcels: Allowing the players to pick their treasure? How on earth did this rule get in there? That doesn’t even happen online.
-Skill challenges: From what little I understand of this procedure, I don’t understand it. I have heard the same from people who play the game.
-Traps: Somehow, what got slimmed down on monster stat block, got added to the trap stat blocks.
-Saving Throw continuing conditions: From what I’ve read, this is one of those things that adds needless complexity to the game. The same thing goes for monsters’ power recharge rolls.
-Immediate Interrupts: I think this rule actually goes back to 3e. Whatever. It reminds me of Attacks of Opportunity and other such nonsense. Look, when it’s my turn in a combat round, it’s MY turn.
-Character death: 4e players may actually have to willfully want their character to die in order to make it happen. Meanwhile in a harsh Old School environment, every dungeon is “Tomb of Horrors” to a low-level character. Is there a possibility of finding a happy medium? I wonder how a player with only 4e experience would react to any other RPG, especially games where characters can actually die suddenly.
Perhaps 4e’s worst sin is that it seems to have delineated all the rules so thoroughly. The ragged gray, improvisational edge that all RPG’s live in when played in the wild, has been erased. I think this was supposed to help shield players and DM’s from bad playing experiences from arguing over the rules (like an online game). They missed the point. Much like children playing Cowboys and Indians, the arguing was an integral part of the game. The participants shape the rules. This is stated or implied in most RPG’s.
If the intention of “hard” rules was to have less arguing and more role-playing, it may have only half succeeded. 4e players seem to tend to metagame more with concrete rules, looking for every advantage that the rules allow. Finding the best method to crack an encounter is the focus, just like a video game. Ironically, this actually sounds Old School, challenge the player, not the character. But rather than using creativity and logic in a situation, it’s a matter of finding the best combo move with the dice. Like good chess and monopoly players, experienced 4e players will be easy to spot in a game. Again, not too much different from some Old School players and DM’s, who end up in some kind of “Spy vs. Spy” mentality with tricks, traps, and raiding dungeon rooms.
The bigger question may be how close are WOW and D&D’s virtual tabletop getting to replicating the in-person D&D experience? As WOTC has made D&D more like a video game that difference has eroded significantly. I have to believe that the next version of D&D will get them out of the publishing business altogether and into an online subscription model. The only question in my mind is when. At least at that point, the grognard/retro clone movement wins, however Pyrrhic the victory.
All is not lost. While many long-time gamers have embraced 4e, the target audience of this edition was new players, specifically collectible card players and online gamers. There are several nods to WOW to make the game seem very familiar, including rules for games without a referee. With the combat rules having easy analogues to the computer game, the in-person RPG opens up whole new dimensions for these players. Gabe from Penny Arcade seems like the perfect conversion story. The old-timers, meanwhile, like to have a new set of rules to play with and break, I suppose. D&D may be coming back around to its roots, away from character drama, huge settings, and adventure paths, and this is the perfect system for dungeon hacking.
Given its prop-driven nature, 4e seems like it would be hard to improv and role-play, but the RP in face-to-face RPG apparently can’t be suppressed. Check out this quote from Gabe:
“We went from basically playing a board game with dice and minis to something much more interesting. It's just been awesome to watch them go from being a little embarrassed to be playing D&D and not wanting to look stupid to really to embracing their characters. I've got a friend who plays a Dragonborn and is actually speaking Draconic at the table…”
Now that sounds like D&D.
J.
Source:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/3/4/
I <3 (heart) 4e
Not enough to want to play it, but I like some of their rules or concepts enough to steal them as house rules. Take note that I haven’t played the game or read the rule books, so I’m commenting on the concepts as I understand them.
First, I applaud 4e for dispensing with Vancian magic. If nothing else, this was worthwhile. Anybody who wants to play a wizard character wants to cast spells during a fight. Putting a dividing line between combat spells and non-combat rituals also gets a hearty cheer from me. Spells that can be cast in combat should be different than utility/divination/whatever spells.
They’ve created some sort of standardized system for non-standard combat maneuvers and instituted Action Points as a way to allow heroic stunts. Other systems already use variants of this. Let the swashbuckling begin.
There are actual meaningful differences between different races being the same class. Unfortunately, these differences seem to just amount to counting off squares in combat and various bonuses, but I really like the idea.
Streamlined monster stat blocks and abilities: Well, anything would be an improvement over 3e stat blocks that might cover several pages for a major NPC in Dungeon magazine. It’s cool though to make monster powers easier to play and to see what a monster can do at a glance. It’s bad in that seemingly every power again involves counting squares.
Skills rules: They couldn’t be any worse than 3e. Use Rope? Out of class skills, anyone? Skills are trained or untrained with bonuses based on level. If you’re going to use skills, this at least seems simple.
Spell duration: Counting off rounds for spell length is nuts! There I’ve said it. Combat can be complex enough without having to keep track of a bunch of spell effects. If you have to have a rationale for spells only lasting for an encounter, say that they’re adrenaline activated.
Minions: I really like this idea. It fits in well with the heroic fantasy genre. It lets the players feel cool. It makes the main villains look that much tougher. Why bother tallying hit points for hoards of nothing monsters?
Healing surges: Not per se, but I like the notion. 4e Adventuring parties do not have to have clerics. Granted, parties still pretty much have to consist of characters in assigned roles, since 4e assigns party roles even more stridently than Old School. This is an unfortunate by-product of its dependence on miniatures in combat. But the is idea is there, buried, that you could have parties that don’t have a traditional composition. Why not a gang of thieves? A cadre of mercenaries? A class field trip of wizards from Hogwart’s? (Scratch that last one.) Pity that they didn’t go further with it.
Defense stats: AC, fort, will, and reflex are static values. D20 should have been set up to work like this from the beginning.
See, I do have some respect for 4e. There’s some good ideas in there, and I’ve only listed the ones I know about. Of course, I’ve also got a post of things I don’t like coming up.
J.
First, I applaud 4e for dispensing with Vancian magic. If nothing else, this was worthwhile. Anybody who wants to play a wizard character wants to cast spells during a fight. Putting a dividing line between combat spells and non-combat rituals also gets a hearty cheer from me. Spells that can be cast in combat should be different than utility/divination/whatever spells.
They’ve created some sort of standardized system for non-standard combat maneuvers and instituted Action Points as a way to allow heroic stunts. Other systems already use variants of this. Let the swashbuckling begin.
There are actual meaningful differences between different races being the same class. Unfortunately, these differences seem to just amount to counting off squares in combat and various bonuses, but I really like the idea.
Streamlined monster stat blocks and abilities: Well, anything would be an improvement over 3e stat blocks that might cover several pages for a major NPC in Dungeon magazine. It’s cool though to make monster powers easier to play and to see what a monster can do at a glance. It’s bad in that seemingly every power again involves counting squares.
Skills rules: They couldn’t be any worse than 3e. Use Rope? Out of class skills, anyone? Skills are trained or untrained with bonuses based on level. If you’re going to use skills, this at least seems simple.
Spell duration: Counting off rounds for spell length is nuts! There I’ve said it. Combat can be complex enough without having to keep track of a bunch of spell effects. If you have to have a rationale for spells only lasting for an encounter, say that they’re adrenaline activated.
Minions: I really like this idea. It fits in well with the heroic fantasy genre. It lets the players feel cool. It makes the main villains look that much tougher. Why bother tallying hit points for hoards of nothing monsters?
Healing surges: Not per se, but I like the notion. 4e Adventuring parties do not have to have clerics. Granted, parties still pretty much have to consist of characters in assigned roles, since 4e assigns party roles even more stridently than Old School. This is an unfortunate by-product of its dependence on miniatures in combat. But the is idea is there, buried, that you could have parties that don’t have a traditional composition. Why not a gang of thieves? A cadre of mercenaries? A class field trip of wizards from Hogwart’s? (Scratch that last one.) Pity that they didn’t go further with it.
Defense stats: AC, fort, will, and reflex are static values. D20 should have been set up to work like this from the beginning.
See, I do have some respect for 4e. There’s some good ideas in there, and I’ve only listed the ones I know about. Of course, I’ve also got a post of things I don’t like coming up.
J.
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