Kung Fu Panda 2

Sometimes there's a little touch of serendipity. For example, right around Christmas, Amazon had Kung Fu Panda 1 and Kung Fu Panda 2 on sale in the digital format. I snagged both of them for like $5.99 each as opposed to the almost $10 they are now.


I saw serendipity because I had no clue that I'd be playing in a Legends of the Five Rings game, which was brought about by seeing the movie 47 Ronin. Sometimes things just hit in cycles. Mind you, while I love Wuxia style games, Legends of the Five Rings is generally more of a samurai game. I'm not saying it's impossible to make a monk style character.


If I'm recalling correctly, the Dragon have their own clan for it, and there are some skills and advantages that allow you to at least be competent in it. I believe the Dragon monks even breath fire if they survive long enough. But it's been a long time since I was a master of the game system and 4th edition is still calling me to read it more and more.


Anyway, I enjoyed the original Kung Fu Panda. I dug the sound track, the visuals, and the story. The folks at DreamWorks tend to make a good movie in my opinion.


I was not disappointed in Kung Fu Panda 2. It helps that it's an animated film. By doing so, the company is able to overcome issues that plague many historical based productions like HBO's Rome. Anyone remember that it was supposed to be the sheer cost of the sets, the huge cast and the awesome costumes that doomed it to being only two season? Going the animated route allowed the creators of Kung Fu Panda to also play around with the imaging.


For example, we discover more about the Dragon Warrior's background. To all viewers, it's obvious that Po is adopted since you know, his father is not a giant panda but to Po it comes as a surprise. By using what I'll call 'traditional' or carton style imagery it clearly cuts the scenes that are memory and those that happen in the here and now. It works well.


The story hits several of the 'standard' bits. We have a little bonding between the members of the original Five and Po. We have some great 'kung fu' moments. We have moments where the opposition seems entirely too powerful and that it will take a miracle to overcome. Oh yeah, and chase scenes. We get several of these and some of them very entertaining visually like where Po and the Five are disguised as a dancing dragon for a festival and 'eat' their enemies and well, they don't come out the front end.


There is also a bit too much of the 'drama' key for me. Mind you, it's not an overwhelming thing. There are some tragic elements added to Po's background, which for the purpose of the movie, work fine, but the added little 'extra' at the end, that hit the drama key for me. Worse then that though, is the supposed sequel isn't supposed to be out until Christmas 2015. Thankfully there is an actual carton series that doesn't do a bad job of capturing some of the fun although the animation in that has nothing on the movies.


I'll be discussing some specifics of the movie below and things that inspired me from the movie so if you don't want any specific spoilers, read no further.


1. The nemesis effect: I'm not quite sure that is the actual specific name but in short, when you hear a destiny you don't like and go about changing it only to have the exact thing you didn't want to happen, happen. In this case, the foe, Shen, a peacock, is a chemist of sorts who sees a new future for the powders used to make fire works but a seer foresees that a panda will stop him. Shen's solution? Kill all the panda. Doesn't work though as Po winds up being sent off to a far away place and due to his location, becomes the dragon warrior, the only one capable of stopping Shen.


Mind you, that's the 'easy' way. It's similar to the original Batman movie with Jack playing the Joker. Joker in that movie at least, kills Bat's parents, Bat's and thug fight, thug gets turned into Joker and final showdown happens!


One of my favorites though is a little more subtle. It's a Viking tale. Powerful warrior goes to see how he'll die. He's told it's his horse. He's like, "My hose?" Kills the horse. Goes out and does all sorts of Viking things. Years later finds the skull of his horse and is like, "Whose killing who!" and kicks the skull aside, disturbing the poisonous snake beneath it who bites and kills the Viking.


2. Its a Wonderful World after all. I can't speak for Jack's acting chops. I'm entertained by his music mind you, but he really hasn't wowed me in any movies. Here though, maybe because it's animated or maybe because it's a character Jack would never have the ability to play in an actual movie, he does a great job. Now when I say great, what I appreciate is that Po is first and foremost, a fan of kung fu. He is a destined warrior and is an important part of the 'hero' food chain but he loves where he's at. He loves and can't believe his luck to work with the Five. When he meets other legendary characters, he's awed and thrilled to be working with them at the same time. It's a refreshing change of pace of heroism from some of the more cynical and standard batons of grim soldier that are so common these days. Po is fun.


3. Big Things: Po and the Five and the other masters are not your standard people. While we're not talking about Dragon Ball Z levels of power or anything, they are capable of dodging multiple arrows while fighting multiple opponents while leaping about and engaging in combat sequences that are visually appealing. This includes say, gang piling ships at the entrance of a river to prevent Shen and his canons from leaving the city and conquering China. This bigger than life effort only works short term mind you, but it does work and it's an impressive bit.


When you have characters that are capable of doing great things, like in L5R perhaps some of the more magical classes, let them shine. Let those points spent in advantages and specializations come to the forefront.


4. Character moments: One of the things that's easy to overlook in the movie, is that Po continues to bond with the others in the setting. This doesn't only include the Five, but also his master and his father. These moments of character allow the character to be more than just a set of awesome abilities.


When I was regularly running, I tried to make the characters lives interesting with numerous NPCs, interactions with lots of people, and enough things going on in the character's lives, that going to a dungeon and fighting might not be the most important thing, but countered that by having things in the dungeon that they'd need. Mind you my 'dungeons' used to be much smaller than the common monstrosities out now and might have even resembled some of those in 4e where things might be 'grouped' into mini-dungeons for specific things for the characters to do or get.


5. Visual Style: This one can be hard to pull off. I mentioned that my friends started the L5R game because they were inspired by 47 Ronin. Part of that was just how cool it looked. Kung Fu Panda has a lot of moments of visual 'stunts' and great action sequences. These things make it appealing. Doing so while just describing it can be a touch more difficult, so don't be afraid to steal visuals and even sounds when you can. There are some songs, like the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack where if I play the Anvil of Crom, from the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack, of which there is apparently a three disk version now, most of the players know that the big fight is getting ready to come down, or if I play The Siege of Camylarde, which is actually a different song in its original classic name, from the soundtrack of Excalibur, which is no longer available apparently but the blu ray is like $10 bones. Go figure.


Anyway, it doesn't necessarily have to be a 'visual' style, but if your words can enforce the themes and conflicts without any need for print outs or sounds, all the better, but don't be afraid to use those other resources when they're out there.


Kung Fu Panda 2 is a fun movie and while it gives some maturation to the main character, at the end of the film he's still jumping into the air in awe that he gets to fight alongside the legends of kung fu.

First Game of 2014: L5R

I may have mentioned that I don't play RPG's as much as I would like to and that one of my goals in 2014 was to play more.

I spoke with my buddies a few weeks ago and they were talking Iron Kingdoms. I was like well, I know the setting from the old d20 books and the table top game, but don't have any of the new stuff. No problem, come on by early and we'll hash something out.

Talked to them before coming over and bam! It'd be changed to Legend of the Five Rings by AEG .

This is what I'm talking about when I mention the inspiration part of movies, books, and comics. The fact that a group of these guys went to see the movie and were so entranced by it, by the sound track, the visuals, the scenery, the background, and themes, that they said, "You know, that game of Iron Kingdoms we were going to play? That we discussed? That the GM has been prepping for months? Yeah, screw that game. It's time to get my Samurai on!"

For me it was good because I've also been getting a samurai fix form Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog where he's been posting about playing games of Ronin, a skirmish level miniature game by Osprey.

And man, I have the PDF. It's a huge thing being over 400 pages. And it's a gorgeous book. I really need to break down one day and buy the hardcover because while my Toshiba Thrive is still working, either I'm getting old and that 10.1 screen isn't doing it anymore, or more likely, like 99.9% of PDF's, it's the book with no regard given to being read in any other format than the print version.

Because it's so graphic heavy and so tight in text, it's not necessarily a pleasant experience reading it in standard format so you can increase the size of the text and make it easier on the eyes, but then it's not a page per 'sheet' or screen view if you will. That could just be me being crazy and suffering some OCD or something though.

Anyway, one of my friends did a Crane, another one a Dragon, another a Crab, and I picked Scorpion. We all picked Samurai, no courtiers or monks or ninjas or other weirdness.

Character creation wasn't bad. The whole five rings with four of them broken into two traits per ring and then the skills and schools and advantages and potential disadvantages took me less than an hour.

Speaking of disadvantages, in Legend of the Five Rings, how many people max those out? I didn't know if we were going to be playing again or what type of campaign it was going to be so didn't even bother with them and buffed up a few skills and picked a few advantages.

The GM ran something where we ran into the children of the emperor in a tavern full of semi-shady characters. There were some great interactions there with some notable NPC's and some people falling into the disadvantages like lechery or devoted to the spirits right away.

We followed along with the Emperor's children on a pilgrimage and well, long story short, two of the three were apparently killed, as were two of the players, in this case myself and +Sergio Rivera at the hands of +Tom Wright. I say apparently because the other players didn't stick around to see what happened, and while we were definitely outclassed, Legend of the Five Rings, at least story wise, has a long history of "No, that didn't actually happen see.", much like the old dime movies back in the day.

I've got a little less than a week to make my next character and I'm thinking of either another Scorpion or perhaps a ronin. The thing about ronin though, us unlike other game systems, unless it's changed dramatically, which it may, L5R is all about the clans so if you go ronin, you're really screwed at a character level.

Anyone have any Legend of the Five Rings advice out there? Any good sites I should be noting down and looking at? Help a poor man out here!

47 Ronin (Movie 2014 version)

So 2014 has started off pretty good for me. I finished a good book, knocked out a couple of miniatures, and even took my mom to see 47 Ronin with Keanu Reeves among others.

It was not what I thought it was. This may be because the advertising did the movie wrong. For example, if you look at the poster I've got up here, we've got some freaky looking dude with awesome tattoos. Yeah, he's in the movie for like five minutes at most. The ads that I saw for the movie, were heavy on the supernatural action. There is that, but it is well spaced, almost secondary to the whole gist of the movie, which is the based on the tale of the 47 Ronin. Which by the way is an amazon kindle book for like $2.99 in a few varieties.

For me, the movie has more than enough to make it enjoyable. The costumes are fantastic, the landscape is lush and inspiring, the soundtrack is great, the visuals are stunning. The fight scenes are well done with numerous pieces of action that could fit into several genres. The story or at least the themes and elements that make the story so well loved, are close enough to the original that Keanu's role for me at least, wasn't a major distraction.

I'll be discussing specific spoilers below so if you'd rather have none, read no further.

1. The Outcast. Keanu Reeves is the outcast character Kai, a 'half' breed who was left to die and taken in by Tengu and escaped them and served the Lord Asano.  Now that in and of itself may make some people groan that 'Kai' has too much spotlight but interestingly enough, the key things that COULD have made Keanu too overbearing, at least for me, are absent. For example, he is a loner, but that's because he is a social piranha. He has a specialized set of skills and knowledge, but for much of the film, those things are useless. He's a great fighter, but he gets stomped on by the champion of the enemy, who appears to be a giant suit of animated armor as we never see the actual person under it.

But outcasts are fun. Games are filled with them. It's been a while since I've played Legend of the Five Rings, but that was one of the few games I remember, at the time at least, that being a Ronin sucked. There wer mechanics built into the game that made it hard to keep up with the clan samurai if you weren't one of them.

And Kai is outcast in that way too. He is not samurai. HIs social status is low and while a retainer for the lord, and having the love of the lord's daughter, and even some friendship among the samurai, he is treated poorly by most of them and yet knows his social standing and what role his future will take if he stays there.

2. Good planning is rewarded. One of the things that surprised me a bit was that the plan of the Samurai, for the most part, goes fantastic until it comes time for the very end game itself at which point something goes wrong, but it goes right for so long I was like, "Man, are they going to just pull the whole thing off without a hitch?" The planning works well and if your players have great plans and ideas, those should be rewarded.

3. Mini-Quests: When the 47 Ronin lose their master, they disband save for Kai who for some reason, instead of being killed, is just sold into slavery. One of the first things the Ronin do when getting back together, is seek Kai for his help in dealing with the witch of the enemy. Kai is a slave on a dutch island filled with all sorts of crazy characters and is fighting for his life in a gladiator arena when first spotted against what might as well be an ogre. The escape from slavery is short but well acted with lots of swordplay and a dash of fire to give the pursuers something else to think about. But men with no masters have no right to say, bear arms, especially katanas, the soul of a samurai.

Kai however, raised by Tengu, has the solution in something he calls, if I'm not remembering wrong, the Forest of Swords where the Tengu will give the samurai a gift of katanas if they can pass a test. It's a quick jaunt and showcases some very interesting visuals on the Tengu here who do not appear to be the traditional versions I've seen, and it has something for both the 'mundanes' and for Keanu himself to do.

Heck, part of the problem some may have had is there is too much in the time frame and that there needed to be more bits and elements given here. If this had done well, perhaps we'd have seen a movie showcasing what Kai was doing in the dutch island as a slave, perhaps we'd get to see some more of the giant warrior or the pirate with all the tattoos. A lot of potential in all those great sets and costumes.

4. Rivals: Spider Man, Bat Man, and other super heroes, have their very own rogue's gallery. Many super heroes do. Many characters in Manga, like Goku do. They have that one enemy that keeps coming back and who keeps increasing their own power in order to either beat the other character or simply to be the best at what they do. I thought for sure that after Kai was curb stompped by the big armored samurai that there would be a rematch but nope, that sucker gets blown up by explosives. It's a great scene and reminds me at least, that not everything has to come to one on one combat.

47 Ronin may not fit everyone's bill. It veers a bit from the historical version. It's heavily advertised with fantasy elements but doesn't have a LOT of them in there but at the end, I enjoyed it.

Farlander by Col Buchanan

Farlander is book one in the series, The Heart of the World, written by Col Buchanan.I can't remember how I came across it, but I'd recommend getting in in hardcover from Amazon, as it's now under $3.00. Yeah, the e-book is like $7, but the hardcover is $2.83. At that price it's a good buy.

Farlander is well written and engaging. It doesn't use a standard sword and sorcery menu or the standard characters like Conan people my age may have initial grew up reading. Instead we have Ash, a highly skilled assassin, a member of the Roshun, an order that uses seals that inform the order if the bearer of the seal is killed.

The book that initially looks like it's going to be a coming of age story has a lot of twists and turns in its pages and surprised me greatly at the end. I'm going to go look for book two as soon as some of my other backlog is finished but thought I'd toss this one out here before getting into the specifics of the book and any RPG applications they may have.

Warning, there will be spoilers below so read no further if you'd like to avoid them.

1. Assassins: Much like Jedi and adventurers in general, assassins are a popular bunch to write about. They take money for doing things that are pretty out of character for a general member of the population. It makes them good models for players looking for character ideas not necessarily because they're 'evil'. I'm sure I'm not the only one whose read several books where the whole idea of being an assassin is almost of a noble calling, or at least a career calling.

With assassin style characters, the set up can be fairly simple. The 'mission of the week' can be done instead of the dungeon crawl of the week. Players have to gather intelligence, fight through protections, fight the main target, etc...

2. Worthy villains: The only weakness I thought that Col Buchanan brought to the book, was Kirkus, the sole son of the high priestess. Early on he kills a wearer of the seal and so becomes the target for the assassins. The problem though is that while he is surrounded by numerous guards and has the whole country, including its top officials behind him, he himself is essentially a pest. When Ash gets to him, killing him is pitifully easy. It's a problem I've seen crop up a few times. Heck, when I've run some campaigns, I've had characters and monsters who on paper were utterly bad ass but some lucky rolls by the players took them down. In those cases I try to give the players their props. Maybe even make them local legends or heroes when discussing how 'easily' they took out so and so.

3. Technology: I don't have an absolute clear read on how advanced the people in The Heart of the World are. They have guns. They have airships. They have ocean, or at least water, trade. They have machines that operate with coin slots. If you've been running one style of campaign for a long time, don't be afraid to run another. The 'newness' of such a setting can inspire different actions and behaviors from players who may be used to only playing in one type of setting.

4. Players die. When we're first introduced to Nico, it seems that this book, like many others in the genre, is doomed to play the role of the hero's journey. That we're going to see Nico go from an unskilled fool to a master killer. Col Buchanan reverses that and well, Nico dies and Ash swears a vendetta against the one who killed him. Mind you, he goes out like a champion and is spared the pain of being burned alive, but die he does. Now I'm not saying he stays dead in future books in the series, but it was a pretty clear, pretty brutal death.

In a lot of ways, it makes sense though. I remember 'back in the day', when players of mixed levels would find that the newer characters who were lower level tended to have a higher fatality rate. Why wouldn't they? In a career as dangerous as adventuring, why wouldn't the old pros continue to prospect while only the best, or luckiest of the new breed survive?

5. Big Sandbox: Even as the characters are going about their mission, other elements are happening. One of the former members of the assassins guild turns out to be a double agent and leads a small army against the assassin's headquarters. Wars are fought. Alliances are made and broken. Having a 'news' sheet or a list of events that happen, like the spotting of a comet, regardless of what the players are doing, can be a good thing to remind them that not everything hinges on what they do and where they are. Everything that happens to them on the other hand...

Farlander is the first book I finished in 2014 and I hope it's an indication of good things to come.

Kickstarters: 2014 edition or late the lateness continue!

So as 2014 officially starts off, let the bitching begin:

Tectonic Craft Studios: Says stuff has been sent. Some reports of it being seen in the wild. Haven't seen mine yet. Somewhat annoying as I made a separate purchase earlier to show support and posted some stuff over on my miniature blog. Hope the stuff comes with instructions and that the various Q&A problems aren't widespread.

Dwimmermount: Tavis bounces up and down on this one. I think if he manages to get this and Domains at War finished, he should get out of the RPG pre-order business via Kickstarter. It's not that he's not a good guy or that he's not trying, but by his own admission his kids are doing what kids do, and that's eat time. You thought time elementals were bad? They got nothing on newborns. And again, if James hadn't been so late BEFORE his real world issues took over and dropped this in Tavis' lap, maybe it wouldn't be going on seventeen months late. Maybe.

Steampunk Musha: Well, ANOTHER round of apologies while the guy starts a separate Indigogo campaign to earn some funds. Can't blame the guy for wanting to make some money as everyone gotta eat and all that but notice he didn't do it on Kickstarter. I can only imagine that it wouldn't have ended well. We'll see if he keeps to it in terms of keeping people updated. This is another instance of a small company, basically one dude, just like Tavis at Dwimmermount, getting kicked in the face repeatedly by life. It happens but if you're not ready for it to happen, don't take people's money? Just saying.

Assimilation Alien Host: Man, another small company, another dude kicked in the face repeatedly. I hope that 2014 is better to this guy. He's a great sculptor, if his material actually can get you know, working in a timely fashion, it may have some real big potential but given all we've seen so far? I'll be happy to have these alien critters but would probably never support anything in a preorder style from him again.

Relic Knight: Lots of he said she said nonsense on this and bad customer service all around afaic. It's not going to make it out anytime sooner than March I bet. Maybe. Maybe April with the way shipping works. But hey, thank god they saved all of that money by doing this stuff in China and didn't have any quality issues eh? Oh wait, they did.... several times...

Cthulhu Mythos Foundry Style: Ah, half year anniversary mark. I'd love to see this one actually get out in the wild. It looks like a great figure. Guy did send out the other stuff and that was good for him because it saved HIM shipping money as old US about to raise price of stamps again. When shipments go down they'll probably complain about it again but it's a viscious circle.

Drake: M'eh? Dudes doing it have tremendous energy but I'm bored of their energy. Results, not how excited you are about them will be more impressive at this time. I'm actually at the point where I'm like, "Man, why did I back this again?" Hopefully when I get the sculpts I'll be like, "Ah man, that is awesome!" but as that hasn't happened with any miniature game I've got yet I doubt it. Mind you I'm not saying there won't be some great sculpts in it or anything like that, but is 1650 or other games like Carnivale taking the world by storm? Crickets you say?

Fractured Dimensions: Nothing like seeing all the sculpts you ordered complete except for the exclusive stuff and having updates that keep putting those exclusive sculpts further and further out. Unless there is some assurance from the company in question that the exclusives are getting done first, never ordering them again. It's bullshit.

Tablescapes: I don't even know if I should count this one late as it's like, "Well dudes, the original table was supposed to be in October, not the stretch goals." which of course I ordered but hell, I see it in my feed so threw it out there.

Domains At War: When you like work done by someone, you want to support it. This is however, 3 that I've supported by Tavis and all three have been late so never again a preorder from him. If it's out in the store and I like the sound of it, I'll look it over. Kickstarter anything by him? No.

Dungeon Crawler: Yeah, sounds like this one gets hit by the China bug of "Oh you mean you want it last year" as opposed to quality or communication issues causing it to bubble out into probably... let's guess April of 2014.

Kingdom Death: Another one that's hit by the China bug but at least unlike Relic Knights, the Q&A seems to be happening NOW as opposed to six months down the road where the creator then goes, "Hey guys, remember how we told you it was going to be five months for now, well, hey, there are some quality issues that maybe we should have caught, you know five months ago." We'll see how it goes. As time goes on, my willingness to back anything that comes from China drops. Too much drama and too much creator blabbing that its out of the control. Hey, do something in your control next time then eh?

I'm sure I'm missing out on some. I think Cthulhu Wars is also late but I'm too lazy to look it up.

So that's my first look at Kickstarters in 2014. Strangely enough, I've slowed down on supporting these things tremendously. When I can wait for sales, and wait for closeouts, and use old e-bay to get stuff NOW at prices that are for all purposes fantastic, why do the Kickstarter thing?

Project Name	Due Date	Date	Late Days	Late Months
Tectonic Craft Studios	6/1/2012	1/1/2014	-579	-19
Dwimmermount	8/1/2012	1/1/2014	-518	-17
Steampunk Musha	10/1/2012	1/1/2014	-457	-15
Imbrian Arts Miniatures	3/1/2013	1/1/2014	-306	-10
Assimilation Alien Host	5/1/2013	1/1/2014	-245	-8
Relic Knights	5/1/2013	1/1/2014	-245	-8
Cthulhu Mythos Foundy Style	7/1/2013	1/1/2014	-184	-6
Drake The Dragon Wargame	7/1/2013	1/1/2014	-184	-6
Fractured Dimensions	8/1/2013	1/1/2014	-153	-5
Tablescapes	10/1/2013	1/1/2014	-92	-3
Domains At War	10/1/2013	1/1/2014	-92	-3
Dungeon Crawler	11/1/2013	1/1/2014	-61	-2
Kingdom Death	11/1/2013	1/1/2014	-61	-2

Onward to 2014!

2013 was not a good year.

My mom started the year off in the hospital. After two years of misdiagnosis from doctors, including specialists, and  hospital stays, for leg pain, turns out she had PAD or peripheral artery disease, which lead to the loss of half her left foot. It's one of the many reasons I hate doctors. Her recovery time was for the first quarter of the year, was in physical rehab. This required me to visit her almost every day due to her loathing of the food they served. I wound up cooking a LOT during that time and often multiple meals as she's a bit of a picky eater for 'good' food.

After getting out, she refused to wear the special boot they made her. The doctors were insistent she wear it. Doing so, there is a part where two pieces of the boot meet that rubbed her raw and lead to a huge blister which well, has been being worked on since April-May till now. And remember folks, these are all highly paid specialists involved here. Just ask them, they'll tell you.

This doesn't count a few infections she's had and a few more trips to the hospital. Boulders would weigh less.

While my painting hasn't been bad in terms of doing things, that's because it, like reading, is a solitary effort. I've made a few deliberate efforts to get out of my funk but haven't been very successful. My gaming time for example, has been almost nil. That is one of the things I'm going to strive to overcome in 2014. The funk.

But it's not just the funk. My job changed. Essentially it boiled down to keeping my job which had lots of overtime but going to salary so that would kill the overtime and result in a massive pay cut in take home pay, or go to another position in the same company for the same offer of money and well, not work as much. Bad news? It's earlier work so while the number of hours, in this case from 5:30 AM till 3:00 PM aren't overwhelming, the fact that it's 5:30 AM is killing me I say.

Add to that my new doctor decided to throw me on some medication for preventative treatment of high blood pressure. Guess what one of the side effects is? Dizziness. It gets real bad right around the end of the work day and that's only because I switched up when I was taking it. See, initially I took it in the morning when I first woke up, but around 9:00 AM, I'd be too dizzy to actually see straight and had to stop working. Now I take it at 5:00 PM and I'm pretty okay except for dozing out every now and again.

On one hand, the doctor has told me that weight loss could result in me being off the pill. The problem with his theory is I have two co-workers who are thin as rails and whose blood pressure is much worse than mine. They aren't on preventative treatment, their on the "This shit is going to kill you if you don't get it under control" phase. So could weight be something adding to it? Possible. Is it the only cause? Well, apparently I have to do the whole eliminating the obvious before looking at hereditary factors, but oh hey, my mom also has high blood pressure, but damn, she's also fat. Curse you logic!

But I do have a Planet Fitness membership, and I'm trying to work up the mental energy to force myself to go. You see part of mom's recovery right now, is taking her to the doctor. And her wound doctor is like an hour away form the house on a bad day. And the whole process is just messing with my head. It's so outside my direct control that it sucks the motivation to well, do anything out.

But I've still managed to catch up on some reading. Half-Priced books had some very good sales this year and I picked up a ton of stuff, both historical and in realm of fiction. If I didn't buy another book in 2014 I'd probably be more than set for the whole year.

In terms of Kickstarters... I'll save that for tomorrow's post. Suffice it to say I am deeply impressed by the commitment it takes a person to decide he's going to kick ass and take names. I am not so deeply impressed by the actual ability to get things done.

One thing I haven't talked about much here is 5th edition. If I'm not playing, what's the point of talking about it? I haven't kept up with the playtest packets for example. ON the other hand I did buy the limited edition book being sold not by WoTC, but by Gale Force 9 at Gen Con 2013. Which they then put in PDF. Awesome work WoTC. Has anyone checked to see if the rules have been updated to the latest playtest packet? There's no point in not updating them if it's a preview. After all, when the product came out, they told you right in the booklet that the rules were going to be wrong and to go download the latest batch.

I also think that a big part of 5e's future is in a combination of the OGL and digital initatives. For me, not being able to easily use my purchased products from say, Goodman Games with my DDI insured that I wouldn't be buying a lot of stuff although I'd let players use it that brought it to the table. The sheer lack of 4e third party stuff though? It was telling.

Paizo on the other hand, even though I haven't been playing, has been coming out with some great supplements. I've been buying the maps and cards and the Bestiary and a few other things here and there. They remain kick ass in those aspects. In addition, Paizo has continued to be... I don't know, "cool" towards those supporting it? They showcase 3rd party products all the time on their web page and store page.

I hope 2014 is a great year for everyone and I hope that you get more and better gaming in.

Barbarians, Marauders, and Infidels: The Ways of Medieval Warfare by Antonio Santosuosso

I would love to be an armchair historian. It's too much work though. I tend to read the same thing over and over from different resources and have some vague sense of where and when things happened but never get those specifics unless I'm digging for them.

Despite that, I enjoy reading historical material. Having some ideas on how history actually went, or was recorded at least, provides me with some fuel for role playing games that I enjoy, especially those that tend to be based on themes or ideas of 'dark ages' or non-modern eras where war was the common treat of the day.

Barbarians, Marauders, and Infidels fits that criteria perfectly. There is so much packed into this book that I could do several posts on it. The only problem with that is that I didn't mark it enough for that. But there were a few things I did mark down.

Kahina:I knew nothing about this Berber queen before reading this book. Reading it, and looking up further details though? She's almost mythical in terms of theme and stance and role in the fighting.

Or how about Alboin, a king who drank wine from a goblet made form the skull of a king killed by his hands in the lands of Pannonia?

There are also other bits I found interesting. For example, it talks about "Chinese salt" or gunpowder being used first in major battles by the Mongols, especially in their attempted invasion of Japan in 1274-1781, from whence it then passed to the Muslims, until finally landing in Roger Bacon's work.

Sadly, as much awesome as there is in this book, it was my 'car' book so I read it pretty much whenever I was waiting for my g/f or mom so while there is a ton of awesome in there, like how one group of conqueror's would allow a defeated army to leave unmolested, but kill the citizens of the lands that the conqueror's had already defeated because they were not loyal, or how knightly chivalry was image enhancing nonsense, my recollection of specifics is woefully weak and I've got a ton of other books to read over and forget.

The good news is that there are a ton of foot notes, and a ton of other books referenced here. If you are an actual armchair historian or someone who really digs into history, Antonio has a lot of reading planned for you.