Friday, April 25, 2008

Life in Scotland

Well… for the last few days I’ve been in Scotland… you know, that northern, mountainous, and well… British place? With a bunch of guys in skirts running around speaking with a really thick accent that makes it impossible for you to understand a word they are saying???

Wait… not all of that is true… yes, people are supposed to have a pretty thick accent, and yes, it’s cold and hilly, but I haven’t seen any kilts… yet!

But, wait, why am I in Scotland you ask? Well, my parents are taking the LDC (Leadership Development Course) here… it’s a Six-week thing that I assume will help them understand their role as leaders to the people they work with.

Anything else I want to add? Well… hmm… not much I can add… I’m playing as the Turks in Medieval Total War II which is well… interesting… I’m defiantly conquering land faster, since I don’t have to worry about the Pope telling me what to do (it’s rather nice, I must admit!). I’ve almost destroyed the Byzantine Empire, which is pretty neat, and I’m at war with Venice (fun, fun) and the Egyptians. My army, as it is has no proper infantry except a few militia units… so I’m learning how to fight with an all-archer army! Javelins, Archers, and Horse Archers… very interesting.

But what else? Oh, did I mention the place where I’m living? It’s a Manor! I’m in the process of uploading pics… so I’ll try to get some up on photobucket and link them to this blog here…

I’ve been reading through WFRP Tome of Salvation… its awesome, and it’s already given me some ideas for running a Religious based campaign… I need to brainstorm it a bit more… maybe I’ll run it on PBP House…

Oh, and its official, I have over 2 gigs of music! It is very nice… POD, Disturbed, Demon Hunter, Thousand Foot Krutch (including The Flame in All of Us), Kutless, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Hillsong, Hillsong United, Switchfoot, Dead Poetic, Creed, Evanescence, Jeremy Camp, Jimmy Eat World, Linkin Park, Pillar, Relient K, Skillet, Sonic Flood, Grateful Dead, Metallica and Zoegirl all grace my Windows Media Player…

And what can I say except, I NEED MORE!!!! Umm… More Dead Poetic, more Disturbed, Demon Hunter, Switchfoot, Kutless, Jimmy Eat World, Linkin Park, Pillar, Relient K, Grateful Dead, Metallica… and other bands… RED, a bit of Korn, maybe some Godsmack, As I Lay Dying, Killswitch Engage… anything that has the words Metal, Rock, Rap, or Metalcore in their Genre I will listen to… or at least give a chance to…

On a final note, I’m in the process of finishing up school… just a few more weeks! I have… 2 more chapters in Geometry (that means 4 weeks right there, plus another weekish for my Final Exam), I have a bit more English, finish up Much Ado About Nothing, and a project on that… then I’ll be done that too! I’ve almost completed Science… just have about 3-4 more days of work with that… my plan is to take the Test for the final Module on next Monday, and then have 5 weeks of History and Bible… which is all rather fun if you ask me. Latin… not so good, I’ll probably be doing a bit of it into summer, but it won’t be too much work, and even if it is… well, I do need to graduate from High School…

Well… that’s all I have time for… I’ll write more later.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

School... it sucks

Its finally sinking in… I have a LOT of school that I’ll be doing next year.

What is a lot of school? Well let’s see if I can get all the classes:

Latin II – This will be hard because I probably won’t be completely ready for it by the time the class begins.

Advanced Comp – An English Course that involves writing a essay EVERY WEEK… they essays will be 500-1000 words long… that’s a lot of work!

Programming I – this will be interesting, not necessarily hard, but it will be a lot of work.

Algebra II – This will be hard to. Lots of work, lots of theorems and formulas to remember and apply, hopefully though, I’ll be getting the same grade as my Geometry, or at least an increase to a Sold B+ (IE a score of 88-90 on most of my tests).

That is all my Potter School Classes… it’ll be interesting to see what happens with all of them… is a sorta bad way, lol. As for the rest…

Psychics – At least, I think Psychics, that or chemistry… both I which I don’t want to take… not that I don’t think they will be useful, but I just don’t want to take them…

And umm… that’s all I can think of for the moment… I’ve probably missed a class… because I remember taking more than 5 credits this year… I think I’m taking something like Economics and Music appreciation as well… which will give me 1 more credit. Now, while that might sound like a very small amount of classes, the work in these classes will be HARD. Advanced Comp is supposed to be one of the best High School Writing Classes ever… so… pray for me… or more likely, my social life… it’ll suffer a bit.

Until next time,

Isaac, self proclaimed Masterofweirdness

Friday, April 4, 2008

Stuff

Well… life is good.

My bro got a Wii. Yes, I still want an Xbox 360… but a Wii is good I guess. It’s fun so far… besides, I still have a PC… so I’m good. Right now we just have Wii Sports, which is fun for some random enjoyment. We’re working on getting a WORKING (as in, our copy doesn’t work!) copy of Zelda and perhaps Metroid Prime Corruption or Fire Emblem for the Wii too… all good stuff…

Also I had Medieval Total War II: Gold Edition! YES! TOTAL WAR!!!!! I WILL CONQUER ALL!!!!

Okay… real me is back… :D. My insane side got lose for a bit to long… :p. Total War… you must know what this is? Turn-Based 3D (for Rome Total War and Medieval Total War II, the previous titles are a 2D map) map, 3D real-time large scale battles? Managing empires as you conquer all who oppose you in time periods of Total War? Assassinating enemy generals and faction heirs and then swooping in for the kill? Making alliances with factions and then destroying a common enemy, only to then turn on your weakened neighbor/ally? That my friends is Total War.

So yes, I am England, I’m currently conquering Wales and France, and after that I think I’ll go ahead and take Ireland and try killing the Vikings. If that fails… well… Scotland looks really nice.

In other news… I should be holiday soon, fun, fun.

Demonhunter rocks. Metalcore rocks. Rapcore Rocks.

Hmm… the above… what does it mean? Well… I’ve been “acquiring” music for the past… umm… few months. Some of it I’ve actually bought, the rest my relatives have given me. So I now have a lot of music, all the good real stuff… metal/rock/raprock

So…

Most of POD

Storm the Gates of Hell – Demonhunter (amazing band!!!!)

Some Pillar

Skillet – Comatose (another amazing band!)

Most of Switchfoot

Hmm… that’s the best that I’ve gotten.

So… on with life

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Update and stuff

I’m back in Texas, which means I’m back in a stable location. This is a good thing.

Now… my trip is nearing an end, I have many things I need to do.

1. Figure out how to pack 40k, RPGs, and the like

2. Order last 40k and paints

3. Buy random stuff

Yep… that’s my list… anyways…

My fantasy world is going great! I have a good bit of info set up and hopefully I can start finishing up some cities soon. Right now I have four locations that I need to build on

NYC – Gang infested land

Mumbai – City of Wolfs

The Great Plains of America – Biker Gangs and Rogue Vamps/Wolves

The Valley of the Dead - Not much…

Ya… so that’s what I’m doing with that. Also, working on how an RPG system would work with this place. I’m think how a dice pool system would work, probably using a D6s or D10s, leaning towards the D10 since it’s an easier number generator… but the D6 is more common…

If I don’t use a Dice Pool system I’ll probably end up using a Percentile system. I like the tactical nature of a Dice Pool.

Wait… what is a dice pool you ask? Well I’ll give an example.

I’m in a fight and I chop a guy with my axe. My axe chopping comes from my strength. Let’s say I have a strength of 5, which means I can role 5 strength dice before I run out of dice. So I could role on die every round or 5 dice in one round or any combination thereof. After that, I need to wait until I get my dice back. This can happen in a vartiety of different ways. Right now I’m thinking a stat that effects the speed of which you gain your dice back. Something like Luck or Fortune… and for every point of Luck you get your dice back faster. Something like this:

Luck 0 – You never regenerate your dice. You are as good as dead.

Luck 1 – You regenerate one die per stat per day. You have bad luck, watch out!

Luck 2 – You regenerate 2 dice per stat per day. You do not have good luck, be wary.

Luck 3 – You regenerate 1 die per stat per hour. You have average luck.

Luck 4 – You regenerate 2 dice per stat per hour. You are lucky, the goods smile on you.

Luck 5 – You regenerate 3 dice per stat per hour. Your luck is above average, you can afford to be careless.

Luck 6 – You regenerate 4 dice per stat per hour. Your luck is expetional, your life will be long.

Luck 7 – You regenerate 5 dice per stat per hour. Your luck is akin to that of the God of Luck Himself!

Luck 8 – You regenerate 1 die per stat per minute. You are a god!

After that you just keep adding dice, so luck of 9 is 2 dice per stat per minute and Luck of 10 is 3 dice per stat per minute and so on.

I like this system because it makes the players think, how should I use my dice? Basically, you will only have as many dice as your dice pool is at max for one round of combat. So a Strength of 5 character will only have 5 dice before he needs to rely on a secondary skill. Some powers could borrow dice from other stats perhaps…

Anyways… I’m going to go brainstorm. If you want to comment, do so here.