Don LaFontaine, voice of movie trailers, dies Many of you may recognize him from the GEICO ads where he was in front of the camera mocking over-the-top film trailer voiceovers. I always found LaFontaine to be an interesting figure; he's such a ubiquitous part of pop culture, and yet most people couldn't identify him in a lineup.

Piccolo Spike! I hear the pants on this outfit are so tight that the balls were inert.

Another session means another review. Sunday night was the second episode of Will's series designed to add greater purpose to the lives of our dungeon crawling heroes. If I had to sum this game up with a graphic ripped from the Sam's Club website, it would have to be this:

Mild salsa, great taste with less burn and yet somehow less fulfilling. The highs were low, the lows were high. No meltdowns, but lacking in heart compared to some sessions.

Picking up from the last game, the gang arrives at The Road Forever, a temple to the God of roads and traveling Fharlanghn. However, something everything seems amiss. The trees grow away from the structure as though they were shunning it. The building is awfully big and comfy for traveling priests, and its inhabitants have been living there for an awfully long time. Fortunately, we solved the problem by... sleeping there for the night. And then we came across a door, or something, I guess. Maybe it's the group's way of meta-thinking, or maybe it's the structure of D&D, but my experiences in open ended, very non-linear role playing always seem to fall short. I think I can solve this pretty quickly, although I'm preaching to the choir here. Ready?ENOUGH. OF. THE. SOUND. AND. LIGHT. SHIT.The next time someone brings that up whenever anyone takes any semblance of initiative in order to put them back in their place, I'm calling PeTA and reporting the vicious beating of a deceased horse. I know I didn't go to spy school, but I watch enough Burn Notice to know that Michael Westen would tell me that sometimes you have drop the doublespeak and take direct action. As it stands, if this group were the Fellowship, Faramir would've been barbeque because nobody would want to stand up to Denethor and call him out on his insanity without someone there telling them to roll initiative so we can all follow suit.

Also, a recurring problem with the gray areas of social combat is that nobody ever wants to concede defeat, leaving us with hostage situations that go nowhere or social situations where the "loser" simply changes the subject or brushes off an accusation. I'm a big proponent of the grayer social "role play" over dice heavy "roll play", but the game could use some sort of social defeat mechanism. Like, maybe once the character has made a particularly sound point, he or she rolls a diplomacy/intimidatation/gather information/craft(basket weaving) check to get a staight answer. Perhaps this mechanism should involve giant floating metaphorical locks as well. As it stands, there's a little too much wriggle factor. I think this was ironed at in 4E at the cost of reducing social situations to a dice game.

Since I knew a good bit about this area going in, I took the opportunity to have fun playing a a genre blind idiot instead of the typical genre savvy boring invincible heroes we usually play who stay in formation, don't reveal unnecessary information, can typically identify bad guys from strange behavior rather than actual evidence, etc.

Anyway, we got downstairs and found mounds of evidence of foul play, which was segued into one scary ass fight. Despite the large numbers, this is what the party needed because instead of focusing on the inconsistencies within the group like Zakk's potential +6 "unable to do basic math" bonus, we were glad to have any asset we could find when there's a giant minotaur trying to kill you! Actually, I have to give it to this party for having one of the best strategies I've seen in some time: Evard's Black Tentacles with a Choke (a gaseous demon that sucks the air out of its immediate radius) in the middle of it to bind and suffocate anyone who gets caught in the radius.

Finally, not to call this good or bad, but there's a phenomenon that comes and goes in this group that I'm going to call "psychic couplitude". It's basically where a player assumes there's some semblance of a relationship between his or her character and the character of a real-life significant other. The funny thing is that it's never acted on though and just hinted upon. Examples include Sean/Bark getting defensive when Zoltan was complimenting Anastriana way back, Anastriana and Yibbles sharing a room, and Tesa's sudden clinginess to Osric. Thankfully, I'll never have to consider what a half-kobold, half-halfling would look like at this rate.

It's the final countdown!
8. Josh: This was the easiest spot to pick. The wacky heist hijinks felt lame this week, especially since it was only a matter of time before we empty the temple the old-fashioned way leaving plenty of drowish silverware to pocket. Lately, he's been representing my favorite and least favorite thing about newbies: they want to approach everything creatively, but there are times when you just need to take the straightforward approach with spells/items/abilities.
7. Tersha: I kind of wish we had taken Tersha to Mystic Realms way back when because having a physical presence to her character would help out greatly. Again, being the strong silent type was a nice way to say dull. For instance, she responded to both major occurances to her character with avoidance, which in real life would be valid and acceptable. However, here she just wrote herself out of every scene like she was Freddy and this was the beginning of an episode of Scooby Doo, leaving us with only one woodsy elf.
6. Dean: Blah blah blah, one liner-itis, blah blah blah, boring. I justify his dullness in my head by assuming he's the main character of an RPG whose purpose is to dully lead us from point to point. The knight class isn't serving him well at all, just giving him something to whine about as there's nowhere for him to ride his horse.
5. (Tie) Kim: Kim toned down the bitchiness this week which was welcome, but I was a little sad that she toned down the good things about Tesa like her unique voice and mannerisms. Also, she's trying to start a psychic couple with Osric, but the big guy is too aloof to notice. She probably could have surpassed Zakk if she didn't have to keep reminding us aloud how she had learned not to fry her friends. We reserve the ridiculously low standard of gushing over people just doing their job for Dean, missy!
5. (Tie) Chris: Complimenting Kim's active mediocrity is my passive mediocrity. I'm curious to see how Skeigh holds up in a few levels, as I don't think he'll be able to keep up with the full casters. The whole at-will factor of a warlock is kind of unnecessary after level five or so in a real casting class. Right now, his damage and durability are crap so his keyword after healing seems to be utility, as his highlight of the battle was dispelling an otherwise very painful spell.
4. Zakk: Yibbles himself is solid. He's moving away from a wacky joke character to a typical lawful good dwarf, and Zakk has a real knack for interacting with the other PCs, last week with me and this week with Josh. Unfortunately, Zakk was bugging me this time. This group, myself included, has a tendency to use MP3 players during play. Used well, I think it sets tone and adds emphasis. Used poorly, it's just a lame distraction. Zakk is the latter kind, but it tends to follow a similar pattern. First, he gets a "hit", a song that's just too appropriate or something unexpectedly funny, and before you know it he's turning it into an MP3 jam session and wanting to play a song for every character, dice roll, or event. Add to that the fact that his Blackberry takes about five seconds between his pressing the play button and the song actually beginning and it gets to be a pain.
3. Will: A few minor holes, but thought and attention to detail was evident. I'm actually quite excited to see the next chapter in action. In fact, now even Mrs. Lewis is being sold on the idea and wants him to write a Xanth game. Who said she needs to just cut the crap and make her own goofy fall-down, blow-up Piers Anthony world instead of trying to cartoon up ours? This guy. That's why I gots the psychic icon.
2. Cricket: Toned down the abrasiveness, but didn't lose her entire personality in the process like Tesa. Aurora hasn't found her rhythm one hundred percent, but she's closer than Tesa, Anastriana, or Osric probably ever will be, and that's just the people who are trying. Put down the music player and move some more minions (also please grab a minotaur even if it means trading out a bhargest) and you just might find yourself switching spots with...
1. Sean: To quote Will Ferrell as Alex Trebek, holy crap are we getting this on film? Sean's #¹1 because he kept his head in the game, had a few good role playing moments, and thought things through before doing anything stupid in battle.