New Priorities (some links NSFW)

Things have been piling up for some time and things that were once really important to me have fallen by the way side.  I've been meaning to re-prioritize, but distractions just keep popping up.  Therefore, I'm going to reorganize my life a bit and focus.

I'm going to finish the shorter games first.  Ones I know won't take more than about 10 hours to get through such as: Tomb Raider, Dead Space, and Bayonetta.  From there will be the somewhat longer games: Bastion, Red Dead Redemption and Darksiders.  Then I'll try to focus on the longer and more meandering games like Skyrim, Borderlands 2 and Dead Island.  These are certainly not the breadth of the pile of gaming that stands before me, but I think if I'm able to keep distractions, such as family, friends, and work to a minimum I can reach most of my goals before the end of the year.  I also expect Tomb Raider to be my last purchase for a while and I'll be going hands off PC gaming for some time.  Although I have been having fun with DC Universe Online.

I will also be playing most of these titles on Easy if available.  For the stand out ones, I can always head back and play them on higher difficulties.

To that note, I started Tomb Raider yesterday and have been overly impressed by it.  Mechanically, there's little we haven't seen represented in other titles.  At it's core it's an action title.  The strengths so far come in the presentation of those tropes.  Lara's interactions with the island feel organic and more believable than just about anything else in the genre.  Plus you don't want her to die because the deaths are brutal and so realistic that you feel them in your gut.  Luckily I'm playing on easy so the death are few and far between, otherwise I'd be a quivering mass of regret and despair.

Additionally, this is not something I want to be playing with my daughter in the room.

I plan to post weekly how the quest is going, but only if it doesn't interfere with the procession of said quest.

On other gaming news, my Monday night group is reaching the end of the published main quest for Descent (2nd Ed) and the Lair of the Wyrm expansion has been ordered and shipped.  I've been playing the Overlord and been having a grand time of it.  I may try to be a player in the second season of it, however.

In preparation for one of our members returning from the north of Africa in the next several months I sent out the following email:

"I've got two ideas I want to bounce off of you guys prior to our return to D&D in the next several months:

1. Magic Item histories:  it's easy to take magic items in D&D for granted and I think it would add quite a bit to the experience by having background information of the amazing items your characters are sporting.  Frodo didn't have a +1 short sword of Orc detection, he had Sting, an ancient elvish blade.  Where did it come from?  How was it made?  Was it enchanted by a wizard or were its properties earned by battle and heroic deeds?  Who has owned it and how did your character come by it?

Everyone's got time to work in such things in the next few months (when are you hoping to make it back to the table, David?) and I've got an idea of how to reward you for taking the extra time:

2.  Hero points: or Awesomeness points, maybe.  Points that are awarded for homeworkey stuff or doing something heroic, awesome or clever in game.  These can be spent once per encounter to take another action, add an after roll bonus to something.  Something like that.

Let me know what you think and toss out some ideas if you have them."

I'll let you know how it plays out once the D&D starts back up.

Friday night's game has been getting thick and almost drowning at times, but the DM's attention to detail has been impressive and I look forward each week to making as much of his planning worthless.