D&D 5E playtest, Journey, "Star Chaser: Legend of Orin" and The Last Action Hero

Games we/I recently played:

D&D 5E Playtest: Danny ran the playtest for myself and Trevor on Saturday afternoon. We were interested to test a few things:

-Mearls has said the playtest should be doable by as few as one guy or as many as the full group. With just two, we figured we'd see the balance in action.

-Combat: how fast / slow, how deadly?

-Themes: Interchangeable? yes? no?

We sort of reverse engineered the playtest because after looking at it, Trevor and I wanted some other options to play with. I made a human Fighter with the Magic-User theme for taste, and Trevor made a halfling Wizard with the Healer theme so he could back us up a bit better. We sort of fell into a happy medium relationship as two sorta scummy misplaced Brooklynites in a D&D setting of vague description. Knell, my fighter, had been in to donate blood to Sam's previous wizard teacher. When she saw how not-so-awesome said teacher was, Knell agreed with Sam's plan to split and they've been best friends ever since. Anyway! Walking out of this, as a player I think I can answer some of those questions I had.

It does seem to work just fine with two. Combat is deadly enough to be scary but theoretically fast enough to be tolerable. Trouble is, HP seems to be pretty high (on PC and monsters both) and I'm not sure how I feel about that. The way to spice up combat, in my experience as player and DM both, is NOT to make HP batteries. That just slows things down without making them interesting. By contrast, I do feel like we had some options that could have worked in theory, but one big problem is this: According to the text, fire from an oil flask now does a flat 5 damage. That's kind of shitty, and it also turns all attempts to, say, grease up an enemy and set him on fire unfeasible. When it comes down to it, Danny and I (and I think Trevor too) feel like the system's still making combat the most simple and thus most likely solution to problems. As someone who gets a thrill of delight from working in tandem with my wizard to coat an enemy in grease, light him on fire and run to wait out the barbecue...I don't really want my non-combat options to disappear.

Combat was a little slow, but I think that's more because it was just the two of us and we ran into a bad one right off the bat. I don't have a lot of complaints about this so far, but further testing is obviously a good idea.

Themes seem to be interchangeable and worded to reflect that. Hence our characters-- and I felt like they played pretty well. I'm excited to see more of them.

Journey (the video game, not the band):

So Danny bought Journey at my pitiful request (I played so much Wolfenstein 3D on Sunday you guys. SO MUCH. I got halfway through episode 5.) and I played through it a few times.

As would probably be my complaint with Flower if I'd played more than the demo, I'm always disappointed when a game is that short. I also would really have preferred there be some variety to the game. Replay value is at a pretty low point, and I don't know if I'll go back to it.

That said, I did play three times. Each time I ran into a different variety of people.

Neat things about the game: I do like the interface, and that your means of interacting with the world is nonviolent and essentially related to talking. Running into others online is an exciting and weird element of the game. Sometimes they (or you) will just want to go about their business. Sometimes they (or you) will excitedly want to show off certain secrets of the game or how to play.

The best part: on my first try, I ran into someone who was also doing their first try. So we figured the game out together, unable to actually talk beyond jumping and singing excitedly when we conveyed things to each other. We went out of our way to take turns solving the puzzles as we went, and the ending (which I will not spoil here, I suppose) felt cooler to me because we both made an effort to stick together through it. This is true of each playthrough I did; I always ended up finding someone, even if I hadn't been with them the whole time, and we always stuck together through the ending. I don't think it's the kind of thing you'd want to do alone, maybe; but I also think the game's simple style of play encourages true cooperative gameplay, and I like that a LOT.

The visuals are gorgeous and for once, I feel like that's really the point. In a way it's just an interactive movie. You and other people get to see it together, but you make no real decisions and you have to watch the same cutscenes each time if you're playing straight through. (You can jump around if you're just looking for some missing items in a specific part on a subsequent playthrough).

Coolest things: Your outfit changes as you play more (and find more items); if you find them all you get a totally different color set on your outfit, with a nice incentive in the form of regenerating your magic just by standing around. (This effect, excitingly, can be replicated by huddling with a buddy if you have one. Did a lot of that.)

At the end, even if you didn't actively work with anybody, you get to see who you met along the way.

The game is good, and 15$US is cheap enough to be worth it I think, at least in relation to the mainstream market for video game prices. I do stand by my complaint that it's crazy short. A game this short could be fine if you could do any of the following:

-start in a different location for each 'journey', making subsequent playthroughs different
-take a different path or pursue a different objective
-get different endings depending on your choices of path, or even whether you had a fellow player teamed with you at key points or not

Since it doesn't give you any of those things, overall I'd recommend it, but not as strongly as I might otherwise. It's fun to play the first time, and the beautiful visuals are great. Between the ending and the lack of replay value, though....I don't know, I would like more out of this game.

Movies we recently watched:

Star Chaser: the legend of Orin is a 1984 or 1985 animated film that borrows heavily from Star Wars for certain elements of its fictional universe. I'd say the plot is different enough, but the striking similarities (especially in the music) would torpedo anyone's attempts to pardon this movie's obvious inspiration by Star Wars.

Everything to do with Orin coming from Mineworld beneath the surface of Trinia, though? Original and brilliant. I liked that a lot.

The movie is actually surprisingly good for its time; high values for the 80's in terms of quality of art and animation smoothness, the storytelling is good and paced in a way that isn't too quick, ala the animated Lord of the Rings, too meandering, ala the Transformers Movie, or too slow, ala the Black Cauldron.

This is why I was thoroughly caught off guard by the flagrantly sexist script. I really, really hate it when I'm enjoying a movie and then something like this happens.

There are three important female characters in the movie (with a couple of other background ladies, mostly in Mineworld). First, there's Elan, Orin's friend and lifelong miner in Mineworld. She and Orin both accidentally discover the grisly secret: that up is not Hell after all, and that there is a world beyond what they've been told of by Zygon, their cruel god. Pretty promising, right?

Well, don't worry. She got strangled to death by Zygon in the first ten minutes of the film, protecting you from any uncomfortable moments where you had to enjoy a perfectly good female character doing things in the context of this movie for reasons other than liking (or being made to like-- I'll get there in a second) a man.

The second female character we're introduced to is a sassy government-issue Fembot whose job is to be a robot secretary. I can only guess this is so because she's shown trying to carry obscenely large piles of paper during an explosion, which "comically" knocks her over and spills the papers everywhere-- twice. Well, the fembot (whose name is probably not actually Silia, but that's what she's called after the 'heroes' acquire her) goes down to investigate, in typically ineffective and petty fashion, what all the ruckus is that's causing her to drop her papers, in that straw-man, I'm going to file a complaint sort of way. This is in and of itself a little annoying because it's actually perfectly reasonable to say 'hey, these explosions are interfering with my work and could be endangering this military base I work on. What's the deal? I'm investigating', but that's got nothing to do with gender-- this is just the usual weird mentality that people who care about safety in the workplace are somehow the badguys.

Well, unluckily for Silia, she gets grabbed up by Han Solo's double, whose name is Dagg. Dagg uses her as a shield and runs back to his ship, and you'd think 'hey, cool, she can join the crew now, right?'

Actually, Silia feels that she's been kidnapped. There's a scene of her struggling while Dagg makes it known that he intends to reprogram her so that she will behave as he wishes, and after acting embarrassed, his sidekick ship-computer informs him that Silia's personality programming is in her ass. When she complains and asks him to please not do that, he gags her.

He proceeds to flip that open, and reprogram her to be a sultry, clingy sexbot who thinks Dagg is just the best.

As if this wasn't bad enough, he then immediately tries to sell her into service as a sex-slave at a sleazy market. She's only saved by Orin, who misunderstands and thinks she was stolen from Dagg when he sees what has happened. (Orin is a great kid, by the way. I actually do like him.) But does re-programmed Silia acknowledge that it was Orin who saved her after the fact, or tell Dagg he can get lost, she's only sticking around to help Orin because he helped her? No.

In fact, for the rest of the movie, I hope you're expecting Silia to be oh-so-worried about Dagg and willing to sacrifice her own life if it means his. Also, she'll be cooking for Dagg and enduring mean-spirited insults from Dagg and his ship-computer, who will remind her that she's not good for anything and then expect her to do things like repair the broken computer, or save Dagg's life, for no reason.

The abusive, sexist creepy brain-rape factor pretty much ruined this movie for me. For a movie that is otherwise pretty decent, this was just mind-bogglingly backwards, and not even remotely standard for the time period. I'd expect to see this kind of sexist, stereotypical treatment of a woman maybe in the Jetsons. Not here.

Then there's our final female character, The Princess. I'm sure she has a name, but I don't really remember it. The Princess seems potentially interesting when we first meet her; she wants to buy Silia as a new handmaiden, actually, but is denied by Orin outbidding her. (This allows her to stereotypically assume he's a sleazy perv who does bad things to girls, only to find out that he's not. The only relief I have here is that she wasn't falling for Dagg, which would have been too much-- but was possible, since it's based on Star Wars.)

The Princess later finds and saves Orin after a pretty bad ship crash where he nearly dies. She nurses him back to health despite having good reason to dislike him, and then agrees to help him out, we discover, because she just wants to 'be with him', and if that means going on a poorly planned, crazy-stupid adventure that might just get them thrown into the hands of the enemy, then so be it.

The plot of the movie is simple and fun, and the payoff is actually pretty cool (if predictable). I really wish it wasn't so awful with regards to its treatment of women so I could actually recommend it without feeling dirty.

Luckily, we then watched The Last Action Hero. Think Stranger Than Fiction, only with Charles Dance and Arnold Schwarzenegger. And a kid!

It was really awesome. Since we were watching this on the tail end of having seen the previous, I was especially not in the mood for any bullshit treatment of women. At first I was annoyed because I thought it was going to just be ludicrously sexist (with only hot girls inside the movie within a movie), but actually, this film did a lot of things right with respect to ladies:

-the kid's mom warns him to lock the door and not open it for anybody right after she leaves for work (I think it's safe to say as a waitress). Rather than discredit her by having his plans to sneak out at midnight go off smoothly, when he opens the door, the kid ends up getting mugged and having to go to the police afterward. Sucks for the kid, but now I actually believe their neighborhood is terrible. Good follow through, and mom isn't just overprotective! A+.

-While in the movie within a movie, the kid points out the flagrant movie-ness of it by noting that every woman is mysteriously attractive and dressed to flaunt it. Where are the non-attractive women? He demands. Where are the normal women who go around wearing normal clothes? While Schwarzenegger-as-Slater can't see what he's getting at, I enjoyed the fact that he pointed it out. I also remembered when he was saying it that there had been a couple of normal women-- who were police inside of Slater's precinct. Nice moves!

-When they are briefly outside, Slater enthusiastically spends some eight to ten hours talking with the kid's mother. Just talking, getting to know her. This doesn't lead to a poorly staged romance, but it does lead to a lovely set of lines where Slater expresses excitement over the night: I've never just talked to a woman before! Similarly, he is giddy over the sound of classical music, having never been permitted to listen to anything but the hard rock of his movies' soundtracks. These are nice touches that emphasize how immature the kid is (who hates the idea of someone talking with a girl all night instead of being a wacky action hero) and how tired of being stuck at the whim of his writers Slater is (who has lost his son and wants a normal life sometimes, but is never given the opportunity to deal with it because of the nature of the films).

Most importantly, there's a scene of Charles Dance killing someone just to find out if the police will magically arrive or not in the real world. He is most pleased to discover that in the world he is visiting, bad guys can win. For those of you who don't recognize the name, he's also Tywin, in Game of Thrones! Yes TYWIN, he's so awesome you guys!

The movie also had an awesome Ian McKellan cameo and was just all around pretty enjoyable. An excellent balm after being bummed about the other!

We're going to be watching a film called The Weather Man soon (Danny picked it up on the cheap the other day, along with One Hour Photo). I'm curious how that'll go. I sort of want to watch One Hour Photo, too, but I'm also, you know. Terribly nervous that it'll creep me out.

Anyway! In short:

D&D 5E: okay, but some concerns
Journey: good, worth playing at least once
Star Chaser: unfortunately, despite being partially good, horrendously sexist and includes kidnapping and mind-rape
The Last Action Hero: Soooo awesome!

From a conversation on Deviantart

I found this person's journal post on the subject of contraception and whether the Obama Administration (TM)'s suggested legislation requiring it be a part of provided healthcare was right or wrong. Regrettably, she's had some bad experiences and was pretty strongly against it. Below is the comment I wrote her, which I hope will change her mind.

"Hey there! I found your stuff through ~inu-nutfan's stuff in a conversation about Mary Sues. I was interested in your work, and then saw your journal.

I'd like to talk with you about this subject because this is the kind of subject that's really personally important to me. As someone above mentioned, it's first of all completely reasonable because viagra is already covered. Like viagra, birth control is not required for anyone, but the option to have it should be available in case someone might need it.

Second, the problem here is that church is a social institution. There may be people who wish to use birth control who feel pressured by the people around them not to use it, and need a recourse to be able to do so without being denied the right to a medication they are seeking because of religious peer pressure.

The biggest problem though is that when a woman is denied the use of contraceptives, she is denied the opportunity to plan her family at her own convenience. Unless a woman is barren or, presuming she is involved with a man, her companion is sterile, it's very likely that an unexpected pregnancy will occur if she engages in sexual relations with that person. We're assuming here that this is a married woman having sex with her husband for the sake of minimizing outside factors in the decision-making process here, but consider the following:

-a pregnant woman has to take time off from work, and has very large hospital bills in most cases because of her stay during delivery and following (especially if she may have complications during the process of birth).

-some states do not recognize the right of a woman to take this time off from a job and will permit employers to lay off or fire women as a result of this.

-a pregnant woman may have serious medical complications, which increases the overall cost of living for her even before her child is born.

-a mother's cost of living is also increased because of the presence of her child, but she may not be able to make time for a full time job while also parenting. This is no poor reflection on the woman, but it does make the job of providing for her family that much more difficult. This is exacerbated if the woman was not planning to get pregnant.

For example, a woman who gets pregnant unexpectedly while working as a lawyer may be fine, financially, but risks losing clients while she is on maternity leave; likewise, a woman who is only barely making ends meet and works full time at a local movie theater may have no way to keep her job and also care for her child, and is not going to be making more money following the birth to help support her.

Contraceptives are the solution to religious concerns about abortions, as well. Abortions are going to be less likely if women who wish not to have children have the opportunity to use contraceptives in order to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Contraceptives are not prescribed by physicians to women who are already pregnant in order to protect the unborn child, and they provide a middle-ground option to help provide women greater equality in our society.

Women as it currently stands are not equal players in the field. Our society is a very patriarchal one, and women's rights need to include the right to decide what to do with your body, personally. Just as you have your right to abstain from the use of birth control, other women should have the option to have the right to use it if they so desire.

The final thing I want to point out is, many women in abusive relationships are entrapped by husbands who seek to get them pregnant as a means of ownership and control. When pregnant, as you can imagine, a woman is fairly vulnerable (moreso than she might be otherwise), because the process is physically limiting and, at late stages of pregnancy, can prevent a woman from, for example, running away from a bad situation. Giving women in these situations the option to try to prevent these pregnancies, so that they have a little bit more freedom in their lives and the ability to (hopefully) leave these abusive situations, is probably the most important side-effect of the Obama administration's suggested change.

As someone who wishes not to use birth control, I hope you can understand that the legislation is simply being put into place to make it more possible for people who want birth control to access it. This is something you should support because, as someone who is in favor of tolerance and respecting the rights of other people (as I surmised from your post), I can't see how you would find fault with this legislation.

Anyway, I hope to hear back from you and that this framing of the issue is a little more logical than those arguments you have been exposed to thus far. Thanks for posting about this. Always interesting to see someone else's side of things!"

There are a few important things I didn't mention in this comment because I felt they would taint my response with emotion that is unimportant to this person's personal feelings on the matter:

-I live in Arizona, where I have already experienced the fact that my birth control medication is no longer required to be covered as part of my health insurance. Despite the fact that I use this insurance for literally nothing else, the cost has recently gone up and may go up to the full monthly price thanks to the recent legislation passed by the AZ governer Jan Brewer.

-The expectation of society is, as she noted, placed heavily on the woman to be responsible for preventing pregnancies. Despite the existence of condoms, I've found that the men I have associated with balk at buying them and don't like the expense. On average, a box of condoms (which, with my sexual appetites, lasts longer than a month) costs between 6 and 16 US$. My birth control at its cheapest cost 20$ per month, and now costs 33.50$. If my insurance stops covering it, it'd be 60$ per month. Additionally, I should point out that there is a generic version, but both my physician with Planned Parenthood and my health insurance provider made it clear that even though the generic version was 9$ per month, they have not prescribed it for me and I may not use my insurance for it.

The generic version of the medication is identical, chemically. Sort of like getting Kroger mouthwash because you don't have 7$ that week to buy a bottle of Listerine brand, and the Kroger was on sale for 3$.

Insurance providers need to be required to cover this kind of medication because it's absolutely unreasonable that women should be expected to pay full price for this medication when it's actually necessary for the woman to be able to continue working as a productive member of society. As pointed out in my comment, briefly, and in the comment I reference, viagra is actually covered by health insurance, and that drug is popularly known for being used to help men who can't to enjoy having more sex.

I have heard arguments made that covering the contraceptives is tantamount to paying women for having sex. (Thanks, Rush Limbaugh.) I contest that if we're paying men to have and enjoy sex, it's about time society gave some thought into making sure that women are allowed to have and enjoy sex, too. Yes, women should be able to enjoy sex. Instead, the arguments against the proposed legislation are basically that women should not be allowed to have sex at their convenience, and should be prepared to have a baby-- an onerous, exhausting, life-risking experience, no matter how exciting it might be to bring a new life into the world-- every single time they do so.

That is not just sexist, that's fucked up and creepy.

So, I really hope she'll understand where I'm coming from and that said comment will have some effect. Nothing makes me sadder than seeing a woman who's against the rights of other women.