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Another good show.

Although the western terrain is work in progress, it looks great. It was especially nice to see it in scale to a table/player in the background. I hear balsa wood and I was seeing something scaled to doll house level. It also doesn't help that I've only made terrain for 40K. I can't help but think of the barbershop being at least the same size as a bastion. Need to scale my thinking back.

Thanks for posting the Arcane Legions video link. I was having a hard time working out in my head how the Formation trays looked/worked. It makes more sense seeing them. Not sure if it's to be my next "battle" game though. Battlelore seems more like it will be scratching that itch to get my wife to playing. (More like chess, less rules arguments.)

One more thing, how about a Words from Wales pint glass. I have more mugs than I know what to do with. (Purely from a using the product as intended stand point...I suppose that I could use them to brace table legs and hammer in nails, but I digress) Pint glasses are another issue. Even when used as intended, I often find that I need more of them. I have clumsy friends over for food occasionally. The occasional pint glass doesn't make it. Hence, the need for more. A D6G one would look nice beside it as well...just sayin'.

We're posting lots of pics from Gencon in near real time on our Twitter feed:

http://www.twitter.com/thed6generation

Nice 'un, guys.


Regarding Russ talking about Facebook, Facebook keeps suggesting I add Russ as a friend (I don't know if it suggests Russ add me as a friend). Is that happening to anyone else?

The Fifth Dentist Report, Episode 37 (4269 Words)

0:23:35: Raef: I want to pre-emptively state that this is not Juan. Just getting that out of the way so you don't mistakenly guess the author.

Before the episode-specific report, I want to talk briefly about having attended the Podcasting seminar at GenCon - it was really good to see our three hosts live in person. I was struck by two separate thoughts, which I will relate after a single disclaimer: IN NO WAY DO I MEAN ANY OF THIS IN ANY NEGATIVE WAY. It is simply observation given breath - I'm really open-minded and (as those who have read prior 5DRs know) prone to speaking my mind. So even if you are in some way offended, keep in mind that I didn't think of the term as offensive and therefore meant no offense.

A) It was interesting after the seminar to watch the three of you work the crowd - or rather, watching Raef work one half of the room on stage left, while Craig and Russ worked stage right. And the break seemed to occur immediately. If it were Craig on one half and Russ and Raef on the other, I'd be more prone to suspect that it was a split on number of letters in the name *AHEM* I mean, WH40K/WM loyalties. (Seriously, the letters thing - that's how I think. It's a problem.)

B) I can appreciate more the comments that Craig has made about not liking his own voice - as it seemed to be the one voice on the panel that didn't quite line up with the visage thereto.

For those not present (and who did not take a look at the pictures to which the Twitter D6G put up links), I will give common analogues to the faces - for Raef, think of Miles Silverberg from Murphy Brown (or another character played by Grant Shaud - the congressional aide in the Eddie Murphy movie The Distinguished Gentleman.) For Russ, I'd suggest Robbie Coltrane. For Craig, the voice is smooth and mellifluous (when not doing Geekly, that is), while the face is something like (if you like WH40K) Joe Pesce or (if you like WM) the vampire from the classic Murnau film Nosferatu wth a decent suntan. Yes, I know my descriptors are unusual - but the point is that if Joe Pesce woke up each morning speaking with Neil Patrick Harris' voice, he'd hate his voice - not because there's a problem with looking like Joe or sounding like Neil - but just that they don't seem to line up. It would be the dichotomy that would be maddening. I can only recommend to Craig that he put a picture of Dr. Horrible on his bathroom mirror - it might help to reassure that each component of his presence is indeed merriment to the world's eyes and ears.

And Russ never said "innovative mechanic" and got a wave anyway. And I later got the bonus GenCon promo without wearing the Tac-Com button. Russ is nice like that.

Now, to Ep37. I'm gonna start giving my own answers to Rapid Fire. Go ahead and stop me. (Hell, I know I'm WRONNNNG anyway.) It will also mark the first appearance of time signatures!

0:01:50: 1) Queen Zenobia of Palmyra wins in her revolt against Aurelian in the third century AD. Result: The Great Library of Alexandria survives and prevents the Dark Ages. Technology gets about a half-millennium-sized jump ahead.

0:02:53: 2) Queen Victoria. Check the British Empire under her supervision. No contest for global influence expansion.

0:04:00: 3) Train Conductor. In days past, the conductor had a dramatic influence over what went on inside the train (which at the time was the primary mode of long-distance travel, and therefore the conductor was significant in the realm of the significant). Whereas now, the conductor is just someone in a dark blue suit with a paper punch.

0:05:05: 4) 8.625. (Partially due to friends I know in Indy, but the con was awesome as well.)

0:07:13: Craig: I am aware that you have watched over the shoulder as others have used Facebook. But as long as we consider the action of going in to make your own account, moving through the initial big push of information to get into the flow (much like carefully joining a raging rapids in a Welsh Kayak rather than simply dropping into the torrent), I submit that this quote of yours ("You haven't even seen it!") can be applied straight back at you regarding the power of Facebook. It's not about wanting to know -specific- trivial information about your friends and acquaintances. It's about the transformation of the flow of interpersonal information from a directed stream of information (email, a liquid metaphor) to a fully-dispersed -atmosphere- of information that one breathes in and out (social networking, a gaseous metaphor). You aren't aware of any individual particle of oxygen you breathe in, but each breath sustains you biologically - this is the situation with Facebook's information flow and *social* sustenance.

0:07:25: Raef: "Hey Russ! Guess what'm I wearing?" Is your hope for the show's audience so low that you stoop to phone sex innuendo? Sigh. At least keep in mind that most, but not all, of your audience is male. (Or is that when you strap it on?)

0:09:00: Raef, Craig: Kinda butted heads here on which sponsor to lead off with - which led to a fun juxtaposition. I'm not sure which would be more interesting: Battlehouse Systems or DogFoam.com. (Though the latter does scream the slogan "For the RABID Internet surfer!".)

0:11:00: All: Raef's comments on spare figures provokes a memory - a friend of mine is into the GW Lord of the Rings game, and has a fairly deep collection. However, for one army he wants to build, he needs X of some Uruk-hai guy - whereas said Uruk apparently only comes bundled in packs of X+10 or something. Is there a site or group out there dedicated to hobby gamers trading their "I wanted these two figs in a pack of ten, so the rest are spares" to someone else for their "I'm not buying a $150 mini set to get two spear-throwing orcs - I'm just not"? Is there such a trading hub site? Or, at least, -should- there be?

0:17:16: Fun with Owen aside, I am somewhat surprised that the English write in to love your show - seeing as two of the hosts have only recently made kissy-face in any way with WH40K. I'd have thought more emails would show up from the land of the Games Workshop Ork demanding your heads on pikes. :/

0:21:06: Raef: How does calling the World's End Radio Exterminatus entry "total crap" constitute part of a no-hate show?

0:24:24: Raef: I would actually, if comparing the D6G hosts to Seinfeld, characterize your role as Elaine's. It's the generally detached "whatever" response that triggers my internal comparison; that partial barrier from the crowd of Jerry, George and Kramer, and that alternative perspective to their world (Elaine's being feminine, yours being MMO'er). I'd call Russ as Kramer, since he's more off into his own tech areas and has the out-there predilections for seeing color in his rulebooks and so forth. Craig gets the Jerry call for my money. Strong opinions on a variety of germane and non-germane topics, acknowledged success in a particular field (the terrain modelling) relevant to the show, and the calls to sanity.

0:25:06: Craig: My $0.02, adjusted for inflation - Le Havre is more fun than Agricola. It's just as long, but the mechanisms are easier to see and it's far more interactive. It has my personal "I spent $70 on a board game and don't feel cheated" blessing.

0:49:33: Russ: I think if you can't make a Blood Bowl league game, it just loads up the teams with AI coaches and plays the game itself. Kind of if Major League Baseball game no-shows were decided by playing Strat-O-Matic or something.

0:51:00: Craig: If one child says "this game could go on for a long time" and the other does not say it simultaneously, then the second did not technically come up with it on his own - he just didn't agree when the first one said it.

0:54:43: All: I want to ask a question provoked by Raef's experience with Gutshot - it pertains to the role-playing aspect of Gutshot, but applies broadly. And it could be sort of heretical to the name of the podcast, but I ask it anyway.

What degree of randomness is useful in a game?

I can look at chess - completely non-random. Entirely and utterly predictable - and so much so that for high-level players, they can work on chess problems titled "Mate in 5". And let's not forget Martin Gardner's parody article in Scientific American in 1975, in which he claimed that an opening move of a4 is a win for white - and that this claim was *verified* by computer simulation. It was an April Fool's joke - but it was that the IDEA was not easily dismissable as such that makes me cite it here. Many simpler games that do not involve chance have been "solved" as if they were puzzles - such as the match-taking game Nim. Tic-Tac-Toe can be solved to a no-loss record, I believe. Is this what we want out of games? Games that only hide their predictability behind complexity?

I can look at Fluxx - which is hated by most 'serious' boardgamers. It's hated because the strategy to win is basically "have fun, and if you meet a goal, drink a beer". It's so random and fickle that the level of intellectual ability that can be applied to it is minimal at best. Basically, it involves knowing the various goals and hampering their availability to others - but you'll still lose and win in equal share to the others. Is this what we want out of games? Games that mask their use as social glue over a set of loose mechanics?

Many gamers decry Monopoly on these grounds - "It's all rolls of the dice." I have always contested this presumption - because if it fails on that logic, so does Settlers of Catan. Settlers and Monopoly are games driven by negotiation over future potential random events. If I take out the dice from these games, I'm left with Traders of Genoa - which is ranked on Boardgamegeek as #84, whereas Monopoly takes #5463. But Settlers takes #41, and it has dice. And IMNSHO, Settlers dice are FAR more significant to whether you win or lose than Monopoly dice, depending on how well you trade in speculation. But is this what we want out of games? Games that basically rely on instincts and negotiation abilities that would be far more lucrative in a boardroom?

And then to move to RPGs, as I hinted above. In an RPG, each person at the table has a narrative to offer. The GM has a general storyline to present to the group, yet each player is their own GM for their own character's journey. The fact that many RPGs go far better (as described in the Pulp Gamer podcast Memorable Characters) when the GM and players discuss their intent beforehand spells this out - players control nearly as much of the RPG as the GM does. To what degree should both these parties surrender this control to randomness? Is the prospect of having a beautifully choreographed action scene of ramming the bad guy off the roof and into the water trough so visually exciting that we should feel cheated by a die roll that prevented it? Or should we feel cheated when everything is germane to story and nothing is coincidence or happenstance?

At one end of the RPG spectrum, I would offer D&D and Call of Cthulhu. Both games use high value dice (d20s and percentile), and thus both are subject to large swings in randomness. D&D does it because it has roots in miniatures gaming - where 'scripting' a successful attack is about as much fun as solitaire Thieves' World. Call does it because having the characters succeed or fail in a task is almost nearly irrelevant to the omnipresent doom around them. You can succeed at every roll you make and still wind up a gibbering vegetable or as elder offal in the eighth dimension.

At the other end, I'd put Amber Diceless and 7th Sea - both systems firmly acknowledge the story over the dice (Amber to the exclusion of all else), and ensure that the opportunity to have random screwups or criticals interfere with the narrative is minimal. Both systems, and similar types of systems, rely on the idea that players and GM are looking for the same thing - a good story. A good story is NOT one where the players succeed at every task. Dramatic failure is just as important as dramatic success, and make for more complex and realistic stories.

I personally find that I like board games that favor a prominent role of chance - because I not only don't want to spend every game turn forecasting the next hour, but I also don't much like games where falling behind one turn is just fatal. I'd rather PLAY an interesting game than WIN a boring game. But in RPGs, I'm obviously on the other side of the coin. I'd rather play a mutually-crafted game and be surprised by the -players- than to be surprised by the -dice- and turn an epic struggle into one lucky sniper shot. Both as a player AND as a GM, I would find Lord of the Rings to be an epic fail if Gandalf took the One Ring from Bilbo during The Hobbit, called the Eagle King, and threw said One Ring into Mount Doom. Nice trick, lousy story.

I'd DEFINITELY want to hear your opinions on random vs. planned in board games and RPGs - but anyone who wanted to discuss their views as well is invited. I'd love to hear what's the minds of gamers everywhere.

0:59:33: Raef, Craig: Let me answer your question on whether Gutshot would be as fun without the kick-butt buildings Craig lovingly crafted - it would, but not for you. I can certainly plow through RPG combat scenes crafted in dramatic detail without a map - but those are more about the whole fight strategy and the cinematics. Start asking me which piece of cover I'm using, and I break out the big map and the markers. If you cut your gamer teeth on the nitty-gritty of hobby minis gaming, you're used to deriving part of your game enjoyment from SEEING the epic battles and the features of the terrain. It's the difference between movies and books - both are fun, but usually every person becomes acclimated to stories from one side of the fence and not the other. I think it's this comparison more than Russ' "You get out of it what you put into it" that determines how a game relies on scenery and/or great graphic detail for extra enjoyment.

1:00:08: Russ: Are you kidding me? "We've gotta keep moving here, or we'll run long." What does the D6G define as "running long"? I'll give you a nudge - MY definition of "running long" is "longer than an eight-hour work day".

1:01:02: Craig, Raef: Did you hear Russ say "thanks to the power of Facebook"? And that you two didn't know it until he said it? Well, there you go.

1:02:45: Craig: "I wanna build a building under construction." This just tickles me. Kind of like "I want to read that novel about the guy who never finishes his favorite book."

1:06:29: All: See 0:07:13. Facebook and Twitter do have a lot to say against them. They're another way for spam to get you. (Go look at Wil Wheaton's tweets today - it's like he thinks Twitter can wave a magic wand and drive off people who are hacking into Twitter to make money.) There's a lot of stuff going on in each area; it's intimidating to contemplate the "setup cost" in terms of attention. The learning curve for some of the more useful techniques and settings is a bit obscure. But it's all worth it - because it eliminates barriers in the flow of information. Once you've set up Facebook and Twitter, even if you check it once a day and don't forward updates to your phone, it's still just a far more comprehensive picture of your world you create. Connect them up to your phone, and you speed it up even more. If snail mail is walking your message around, then email is driving on a road with a lot of stop signs and speed limits and four-way intersections. The flow of information with the FB/T combination to your phone - well, that's having your own personal helicopter, as far as awareness of your own world. Information flows without barriers or traffic costs.

And yes, it's a lot of information. You don't just jump in, you ease in and go slowly and carefully at first. It's a dedicated process to acclimate - but it's done with the goal of immersion in mind. It brings your day-to-day existence up a notch. It widens the perceptions you command of the world. This additional perception allows you to perceive information you would WANT to know, if you only knew it existed. Like game release dates, fr'instance.

1:12:19: Craig: So you were 'overwhelmed' by Facebook, and then decided that it wasn't information you cared to know?

After you're done looking up 'pedantic' for Russ, ask him to check through a guide to modern idioms. Look for "sour grapes." Then how about going to a psych textbook for the term 'cognitive dissonance'?

1:14:23: Craig, Russ: The stipulation Russ was making was not "are you anti-social?" (the effective translation of "grumpy old man"). It was "do you enjoy small talk?" If you enjoy small talk, then you'd like that part of FB/T. If small talk makes you yawn and cringe, then FB/T will have a little less to offer you, and appear to have a larger barrier for your participation. But even if you consider "went to have my teeth done today" as spam, I would still suggest that the useful information from FB/T outweighs the spam in value.

1:18:36: Russ: I know it hurts to be voted off the island - but I think Announcer Man does add a certain panache to the What's In The Newwwwwws segment. Let me offer a balm to your pain by saying that whoever hired that Man did a good job indeed.

1:21:51: Announcer Man: 8% of worldwide communication seems to be at least a questionable statistic. You're ABSOLUTELY RIGHT that (if true) this is a mindblowing stat. Where does it come from and how did they calculate it? Did they account for yelling into a cell phone from inside an office creates communication channels to unwilling bystanders? *grumble grumble*

1:23:56: Announcer Man: BTW, for that post-GenCon What's In The Newwwwwws segment, you might want to have a lozenge on hand or something. Lots of stuff you'll be talking about. Just FYI.

1:35:23: Craig, Raef: When is the last time you actually heard not just "Girl from Ipanema" in an elevator, but ANY music in an elevator? Didn't it sorta go away one day?

2:05:39: All+Ross: "Oh - there it goes again!" Needs to go on a mug, where one side is a planet blowing up (with the classic ring of fire thingie) with the "suddenly silenced" part and then another planet blowing up on the other side with "there it goes again" on it. Maybe a Death Star silhouette on the first and an Imperial planet-buster-type-thing on the other?

2:22:32: All+Ross: Great interview. Good questions, good exploration of a game many people are looking forward to. Always nice for a generalist like me to hear you guys talk RPG.

2:24:00: Raef: Good HD Minute - nice array of comic titles to look at. It's always interesting to me to touch base with this side of fandom. Might want to speak up a little, tho - kind of faint in places. I think the enthusiasm of dialogue naturally brings up the volume of the voice to a level sufficient for all cases.

2:30:50: All: The Wives' remark that they were just getting into Ticket to Ride provokes a thought to a question - or rather, a small featurette. For those of us who've been playing Ticket to Ride (or TTR) among other board game favorites for a while, we (or at least *I*) would be interested in a sort of inventory of where you are 'at' regarding an independent measure of popular Eurogames - the Boardgamegeek's top 100. It'd be REALLY cool to get just your list of the top 100 divided into "played it many times", "played it once", "know of it" and "haven't been introduced". I was *REALLY* curious as to whether you guys had played San Juan, given there was no mention of it in the review for Raef for the Galaxy - and the two games are quite heavily related.

2:34:55: Nicole: I'm available for Vampire Wars, Mafia Wars and Farmtown - facebook.com/gamerinterface.

2:41:25: Karen: "Oh, that's a good message." This was regarding the poise mechanic in En Garde - but I think it's the *type* of comment that distinguishes the Wives' part of the D6G from the rest of the show (and thus sets apart the D6G from other gaming podcasts). You'd never hear that KIND of evaluation on a boring nerd-only podcast. The comment kind of flies by, but it's important - thank you for adding it. It puts games into the context of the depictions of the actions and the potential impact of the depictions on the players.

2:46:38: Wives: While Wings of War might be a good non-gamer game, I think the central illustration here is that non-gamers become gamers by seeing the fun of it. Watching a game that takes three hours isn't fun - and the players are usually so drenched in the strategy of it that waiting for a "YEEEE-HAH" or a "DANGIT DANGIT DANGIT" moment will be a long wait. Games like this are perfect to let "non-gamers" know that there are games out there that don't require a thesis beforehand, are certainly not just Monopoly or Risk, and that don't tie up an afternoon. Once they get into those kinds of easily demonstrable gateway games, they can slowly be walked at least some distance down the aisle towards other games. It's really kind of a courtship - and nobody dates anybody who isn't immediately recognizable as at least SOMEWHAT cool, fun or good for the wallet. It's a slight acknowledgment that the time people allow for being persuaded has dropped to sound-bite range - but it's how a gamer can approach a non-gamer without scaring them off like a gazelle. People want to have fun - and want to participate in activities that others are doing that are clearly fun to do.

2:49:52: Ken: ALWAYS a fan of the Score. My only note (other than "keep doing what you're doing, as it ROCKS") is that if you have the software capability, rebalancing the song volume when you're talking so that it doesn't swamp your rather soft voice would be good - as your knowledge of music is compelling, and while I can hear the piece you're using any time, your words are tied to that moment.

3:21:00: Russ, Craig: Is it just me, or did going over the color-coding of the factions sound a lot like you were gonna start talking about green clovers, yellow stars and blue diamonds? Arcane Legions - they're magically delicious!

4:09:54: All: This is as dead-close as I've come to being interested in playing a freestanding minis game in years. I offer that as testament to how good the coverage is, and how good Arcane Legions is as a game. I still stand by my vow - if I'm gonna stand around a table arguing about inches with some guy, I'll accept that we are transposing a stereotypically male pursuit and just whip it out with a ruler. (Which is to say that I'm NOT doing that.) But you have explained a great game so well that it made me waver. Briefly.

4:22:41: Craig: The pre-con reminder of personal maintenance is always welcome and appreciated. I know of one gentleman who would attend GenCon and sleep in his car. Notice I didn't say "change clothes". He was a collectible card gamer, and he would get FORFEITS on Sunday by those interested in breathing. Your labors for the cause of good clean gamers everywhere is appreciated.

The post-GenCon interviews have all been great as well - thanks for posting them as "raw feeds" so we can get all the information while you guys digest the words into a distillation of experience as you are so well-versed in doing.

As Russ noted when we spoke briefly, I wouldn't write this much if I didn't really enjoy the D6G. Great show, great show - and I once again have time to wax poetically about it.

Oh, and might want to check your pronunciation on 'aesthetics' and 'nuclear'. Wonk wonk wonk.