In Search of a Name

Any writer who says "writing is easy" is either a savant or a liar. There's always some kind of struggle present in their work process. For some, they're able to overcome their struggle and come out on top. Others will flail around and admit defeat after what seems like an eternity for them. As for a select few, they'll purposefully drown themselves in their problems and somehow use the experience as a motivator.

Of course, the problems a writer faces will vary from person to person, and they may change with each new project. For me, my dilemma seems to be in the initial phases of the project - the part where the sparks ignite a warming fire. The weird thing is that I somehow have the fire going, but I have no spark. (I know that doesn't make any sense.)

Coming up with ideas for something to write about is a tall order for someone like me. I've been out of the writing game for a while now, and it's pretty intimidating to turn this blank text box into a whole mish-mash of words that somehow form a coherent blog entry. Sometimes I can pull it off. Sometimes I'm able to create something out of thin air and make it look like I gave it plenty of forethought. And sometimes I just fib something lame and call it a day.

Of course, when the thing that needs to be created is the name of something, that's a different matter entirely. I have a few Lego models to name, and I have zero idea what to name them, so I won't display them until I can think of something.

The Infancy of Infantry

Any decent military-minded person will tell you that infantry is one of the most important (if not the most important) resources of winning wars. There are some who would say otherwise and claim things like artillery, logistics, naval and air supremacy, or armour are paramount. The artillery can soften up the enemy forces; the supply officers can make sure the troops are well-supplied; the navy can control the sea and air routes; the armoured divisions can sweep across the battlefield and outflank the enemy.

However, without infantry, I believe all of the above are moot points. Well-entrenched soldiers on the ground can hunker down and keep casualties from artillery strikes to a minimum. Even if they're undersupplied, a well-trained grunt will keep the fight going in whatever way he or she can. The navies and air forces can sweep the seas and skies but they may miss a hidden trooper who can alert the rest of his/her forces. Armour can take on most ground threats, but the moment they run out of fuel or are surrounded, all the infantry has to do is bring in a cheap anti-armour weapon or shove grenades into the hatches.

As a U.S. Navy brat, it almost feels wrong for me to admit to preferring the typical (army) foot soldier over a navy's sailors, but the ocean can't sustain life on a grand scale - land can. And how does one win land wars? With actual people on the ground, armed and ready to take the land from the other guy (or stop the invader from doing so). The other things I listed above can support the infantry, and at times they may prove to be superior. In the end, artillery is useless without someone on the ground calling in the strike. Supplies are useless if no one can use them. Naval support (in the case of a marine force) and air support also need a set of eyes on the ground to ensure lethal accuracy (or to call off a strike if friendlies are getting hit). An armoured vehicle is (from a financial standpoint) a much more valuable target than one measly soldier and is more likely to get hit hard with something.

Of course, everyone will have their own counters to my lines of reasoning, and I'm sure there's some general who's going to dismiss my logic simply because "tank beats everything" - and in some cases, it does.

The New Old Guys

It's no secret that I hold disdain for the Pokémon franchise's fifth generation of games. The overall in-game experience wasn't that exciting and gripping. I didn't really feel as much love for it as I showed the prior generations, and I found playing White Version to be a complete chore (surprising for someone who placed the series in his top three). No wonder it took me three years to take down the Unova region's Elite Four.

Despite the present negativity, I feel like I owe my team in White Version an apology. Yes, the game was boring and dull (of all the times for the story to have a twist, it was at the end - far too late for me to rekindle any genuine interest). Yes, my overall experience was not one I'll cherish for the rest of my days. However, "Team White" stuck with it - even when I didn't - and pushed themselves to their limits from day one all the way to their conquest of the Elite Four. They gave their all so that I could move on and say "goodbye" to Generation V forever.

This is my "Team White."

They don't deserve that kind of treatment. They deserve to be remembered.

Working Detour

I don't really have any sort of topic I'd like to talk to you about today.

I know, I know - this looks like the ominous start of a foregone conclusion - one where I basically post a few sentences, call it a day, and only worry about blogging the next day. It's disheartened anyone who used to read my blog like crazy, and it's also lowered my morale over the last two-thirds of a year. At this point, it looks as though that this entry is done - I'll crawl back to whatever hole I live in with a "content" feeling inside my mind and the readers will just call me a cheapass.

Well, that's not today. At least I don't think so...

Cultural Inclusion

During my birthday I was with my girlfriend and some friends at Topper's Pizza (not to be confused with the Topper's Pizza of the Great Lakes region of the United States), discussing some things involving Terani and the role-playing game engine system (d20 Modern). As we were talking I was asked a question:

What are the cultures like for each country?

...frak. I forgot to do that. All my work with getting enemies, NPCs, storylines and what not fleshed out and what not... all undermined by a simple question that covers something I should have had done a while ago. *sighs* This seems about right for me to do something as forgetful as this.

To be honest, it's probably a good thing that I'm doing this now. Since I have (most of) the technical aspects covered for this campaign, I now have time to help bring this world to life. Done correctly, the entire world will become the players' oyster. For example, players can hear a name or language and realize that a certain NPC hails from such and such a country. Said country consists of a sort-of "conqueror's culture" of sorts that considers running away from a challenge as the most dishonorable thing ever. Using this knowledge, the players can use this to their knowledge and challenge him for the woman he and his cronies are holding captive. (In this example, the PCs' taunt would work.)

Of course, I've got more work now for myself to take care of because of this. With over sixty countries on the Terani map, I've got to start creating the cultures.

Playing With Work

Before I went to sleep last night, I told myself I'd work a bit more on the whole "Terani" project I'm doing for my tabletop RPG campaign.

Normally, whenever I get focused on a project as fun as this one, I get easily distracted by some other form of amusement. I might be typing up a storyline or developing stats for (originally not-vital) NPCs when all of a sudden I get caught up in one line of thought (e.g.: How much damage would a semi-automatic Steyr AUG A1 do in-game using the d20 Modern system?). Initial research done on the Internet soon has me winding up at TV Tropes looking up something completely off topic like the "Funny" page of Game of Thrones - all within a span of five minutes. While entertaining in its own right (hearing sweet Lena Headey constantly insulting Joffrey with curses in the second episode's commentary: frakking hilarious, especially when you consider who she plays), it usually puts me behind.

The above paragraph is true - it only took me two minutes to type it out, yet the overall time spent using those two minutes ended up being a half-hour - getting the link for Cersei Lannister somehow got me to read TV Tropes - and as I typed this out I kept switching from Blogger to Tropic Thunder's trope page. *shakes head in amusement*

Okay. I'm getting distracted. I need to focus. *deep breath*

Anyway. I said I was going to put myself to work on Terani, and here I am, typing things up and... and, uh... *looks below*

This is "work." It's me taking a picture of (Lego!)me taking a picture of... me. Photoception?

...what the frak am I doing...!?

Resources in Warfare

Remember yesterday's talk about me trying to come up with a reasoning behind why things are the way they are? You don't, do you?

After a discussion with one of my friends last night, I think I came up with a believable idea. While I could tell you about it now, I'm not. Rather, I'll just give you a rough backdrop of the world I've created... and more of it will be coming soon as I keep working.

Legitimate Shaping

While I've spent quite a bit of time trying to come up with a storyline for my tabletop campaign, it just occurred to me that I should come up with a logical explanation for some of the things that exist in the game universe.

When confronted with a question that seems to break the "logic" behind a universe's physics and technology, the average dungeon master will (attempt to) handwave some crappy excuse and try to make it canon. In a few cases, the players will buy it, but the more meticulous and/or clever ones will find a way to turn their query into a (legal) loophole of sorts. This can either end badly (i.e.: time that could've been spent playing the game is wasted on arguing) or end in a worse manner (i.e.: verbal wars that end years-long friendships).

Of course, I'm not an average dungeon master(-to-be) - I'm a beginner dungeon master. There's a few things here and there that I feel need some kind of justification. I'm not just going to half-ass an answer and say something stupid like "That's just how it works, okay?" No - I feel like I'm better than that. So now my mission for the rest of the night is as thus: create a few believable (read: "not likely to sound like arguable bullshit") reasons as to why my game's world is the way it is.

This sounds like a fun mini-project in itself. I'm wondering what I'll be able to come up with - and how believable it is.

Swept Away

For the first time in ages I've actually begun work on that tabletop campaign that my friends wanted me to run. I'm about 90 minutes in, and I can safely say that I feel frazzled.

Right now, I can probably hear one of my friends laughing in the background and thinking, "Josh, I told you that this isn't that hard. You're making this look more difficult than it is." I'm sure he's right. At the same time, though, I need to find a way to bring all the eventual party members in to this game (I'm not doing that stupid "y'all meet in an inn" bullshit) in. Granted, it's not that hard... and the fact that I know I'm making a mountain out of a molehill is just making this worse.

However, I'm certain I can come up with something. All this panicked thinking is actually making my head think in other directions... other parts of the game as a whole. Potential plot lines, possible non-player character names, locales, battlefield scenarios and the like - all of that is just surging through my mind. As I attempted (and still currently attempt) to pick through the best waves to surf through in this torrent of ideas, one realization dawned on me:

This is going to be frakking awesome.

S'more Smooth Suribachi Stratagems

After four seven eight days* spent not typing anything (worthwhile), I felt that it was time to post something of good quality. While it hasn't been a stellar year so far in this blog, it's still alive (albeit barely), and so I figured it deserved a little something for holding out this long. Refusing to die off like a voice in the wind... it's worth something, and that something... would be words. (A six-year-old somewhere is asking: "What the hell kind of gift is that!?")

Words are a complex crop that I haven't cultivated in a while, and so it took a lot more effort than usual to get them ready for presentation. A lot. But with a careful eye to watch them grow, some time to help them adapt to being summoned on such short notice, and (hopefully,) people bored/curious enough to read them, I'm sure these words I've labored for ought to do the job.

* = The entirety of last month was not counted in this statistic. Hell, the majority of this year wasn't counted. Ignorance can be bliss sometimes.

This was me earlier today.

Now that I've typed this all out... let's see if today's words can form sentences that make sense (as opposed to this entry's ridiculous mish-mash of a title). Let's go and rock out the rest of this long (and hopefully engaging) spiel!

Not-So-Light Reading

I recently got my hands on some rulebooks for a few tabletop role-playing games. After spending about two hours prying through all the pages and looking up various rulesets and what not, I realized that deciding to make this "new world of Terani" project into some kind of d20 campaign would be... quite challenging.

And yet I still find myself drawn to the task.

All the things I've been looking up have made themselves look quite appealing should I decide to run some kind of tabletop campaign. Whether it's the medieval-esque nature of classic Dungeons & Dragons or the street-savvy technology present in the d20 Modern Roleplaying Game, each book I've taken the time to look at has shown potential in my eventual selection of a campaign ruleset.

What I'm aiming for is some kind of (semi-)modern setting. I'm envisioning Terani with a technology level that's relatively close to our level (give or take several decades). Despite this, magic would sound quite interesting. Imagine it... a world with both guns and arcane magic. Trippy, isn't it? There's already a few rulesets that attempt to fuse this desire into reality (Urban Arcana looks very interesting right now...), but I've only begun to scratch at the surface. As I keep reading over all of these rules, I keep getting more and more ideas. Gods know that I can use them all in some way to affect this potential campaign (if I indeed make this world an RPG campaign).

There are other books I need to look over, and now I think I'll take the time to go through them. As I keep going, I'll keep jotting notes down and figuring out things here and there.

Terani World Map

On Wednesday I showed you a little doodle I was working on that was involved with my current project. After some time, work, and (not-so-)careful thought, I was able to finish up that map.

Those continent colors do seem kind of familiar...

Behold: the world of Terani. *fanfare*

Sixty-three countries scattered across six continents, separated around the world by six oceans. (There is no "six" motif; this was pure coincidence.) For those of you wanting to gaze at this map, you're in luck - the photo is at its default 4000x3000 pixel size because I didn't have the heart to shrink it.

Anyway, I'll let you gaze in wonder. But for those of you who're confused, here's a brief legend:

Names in Pen: Continent (Blue) / Country (Black)
Names in Blue Colored Pencil: Ocean
Names in Sky-Blue Colored Pencil: Minor Body of Water
Red Dots: Capital City Location

Interesting, huh? Well, we'll see where this leads.

Bachelorettes of Awakening: Introduction

It's usually scary when I can count the number of video games I touched over the past month-and-a-half on one hand. Normally, this is a sign that I'm too busy with tasks or I'm somehow being social. However, I have plenty of spare time even after performing mundane activities or hanging out with my friends... and yet that number is still countable on one hand. There's one reason - one culprit - responsible for this "travesty."

To say that I've been obsessed with Fire Emblem Awakening would be a sheer understatement - it has consumed my soul. I've just racked over 200 hours of game-time on the 3DS game (and that's not counting the resets and lost time spent after receiving a casualty), and yet I'm still drawn to it despite the fact that I beat it a month ago. I already made it quite clear how much this game has gripped me (there's a reason why it's still on that "Current Video Games" list to the left), and its influence was strong enough for it to land a spot on my last Top List.

Before the more attentive of you start asking: yes, this entry is the one I promised back on the 13^th. Matter-of-fact, it's the introduction in a series of entries I'll be posting on here. (Yes, I said "series" - prepare for a project that was long overdue.) There's a major dilemma I'm facing in-game and I'm having problems bringing myself to some kind of conclusion.

Break Out the Drawing Board!

I yearn for some kind of reader base for my blog here. Despite what I put on here, I just can't seem to draw people in. I write decent entries (well, at one point I did), make the site feel accessible to most potential patrons, and occasionally put something cool and/or funny up. And while I can get some views (I usually get more if I post a link on my Facebook), the resulting statistics are not what I was hoping for. I went to sleep wondering why, and it took me the whole night to realize the very obvious answer.

This is a personal blog.

Patch 2013.02.27JDB

Today started with a blank page.

This is what I had planned for today's entry. As you can see, that didn't happen.

Well, that's how most stories start, don't they? An empty space waiting for someone to pour their words onto - a sheet of paper or a white screen waiting for the writer to give it life. I stared at my laptop screen as it booted up, wondering what I was going to do for my personal blog today. I had a few ideas, and so after I logged in, I got on the Internet.

Originally, I logged on my blog in an attempt to begin work on that "promise" I made two days ago. However, as I began typing things out, the willpower to do so practically vanished soon afterwards. Dismayed, I almost gave up - but then I remembered something: I wanted to work on revitalizing my blogging spirit (and in doing so, my writing spirit would be revived as well). I've had enough with dragging my fingers through the keyboard and posting things that I'm ashamed to call "entries."

Of course, when the willpower vanished, it took with it the access keys to my creativity. Or to put it another way: I had no idea what to write. So instead, I decided to look at my blog, hoping I could find something to recall my inspiration. Long story short: I didn't find anything (considering how the majority of the first 57 days of the year composed of those "entries," this isn't surprising).

However, I did find that things on my blog were in severe need of updates. Headers and side notes that were last updated at the 2011/2012 block. Incomplete pages that so desperately yearned to be finished. Lists that were as outdated as the Oscars. So, I set to work on that, figuring that the look of any personal diary is just as important as its contents.

The changes are subtle, but observant readers will be able to catch them. I think I did okay.

The Lion Finally Roars

For the longest time I've been stuck in some kind of energy-draining rut. Work seemed like complete and utter shit (and that's before considering fourth quarter traffic). Gaming felt like a grinding task to perform (and that's before considering the leveling I'm putting Gefallen through). Writing - both on my personal blog here and otherwise - became a chore and a nuance rather than a creative outlet for my restless mind. Life (and living, in general) felt like a despicable curse that haunted my very being.

It's easy to pinpoint (and subsequently blame) potential sources of this lethargic malady... but do I really know if they are the origin points? I found myself beginning to turn blue when my camera got lost a while back. It was found a little over a week ago, and while I was ecstatic (my co-workers will report something on the lines of "overjoyed"), my spirit's core wasn't lifted any. When I lost the right to use the phrase "I'm going home," I wanted to cry my small Asian eyes out and wail like crazy. (Nopony knew this; I'm good at façades.) However, this... depressed "condition" of mine... started long before I became homeless. So, if these weren't the sources (although I can honestly say they amplified my "condition"), that left me to ask two things:

1. What's the true source of this malady?
2. Why the frak is it still afflicting me like so? (Or rather: why the frak am I letting it afflict me?)

I don't know the answers, but I'm certain they'll come to me in due time.

I'm going to be frank with you: this post was originally going to end here. As you can see, however, I didn't let it stop. You'll also see that the rest of this entry's overall mood and morale levels are much, much higher than they've been in weeks - nay, months. (PMX 2012 lifted my spirits, but apparently I didn't show it well enough.)

/roar

Let's find out what got me to finally roar like the lion I know I am...

A Rogue's New Home

Today's entry is both about roleplaying and about World of Warcraft. As such, I must start it by stating something interesting: Gefallen is no longer on Tichondrius.

Wat.

P4 Dissertation Preview

Over the course of the last week I found myself suddenly inspired to write. I wrote and wrote and wrote - and to be honest with you, it feels good. Tiring, yes... but good.

For those of you wondering what I was working on... remember that crazy idea I had for a dissertation back in April or so? Well, after six months of not doing anything about it, I did something about it.

It's what I was working on last week, and I'm proud to say that it's actually going somewhere!

For your entertainment, here's an excerpt from the preface. Enjoy!

A War Diary

Last night (and a majority of the early part of my day) was spent grinding through Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and doing my best to max out the stats of my main party. So I'm taking a much-needed break today from video gaming to talk to you about that thing I was talking about yesterday.

Just wait 'til I put it all together.

Yeah. Legos. And that project I was talking about.

Playing the Adventure

Today's a good day off so far. Within hours of waking up, I came up with an idea for an excellent entry to post up here. I'm fleshing out these ideas and turning them into something I can incorporate into a writing project... something that just might get that jump-start I had planned for the end of this month become something worthwhile.

What's funny is that it's incorporating a great amount of ideas from both past projects and current ones. There was a saying out there that nothing is really "new" anymore - just recycled into something fresh and (hopefully) unheard of by today's public. And just like that, nothing I have is entirely 100% "new" - it's bits and pieces from the things I enjoyed most from my (many incomplete) works put together into something that has now taken my interest.