I was born 800 years too late, a chivalrous man in an indecent age.  Too swiftly do my thoughts run, too valiantly my heart strives, too often does my step fall steadily, unfaltered.  We stamd because we know not what else to do.  What can a man of such nature do in a world determined to alter the footfalls of his march?

…I heart Pathfinder RPG.  I’ve just read through the Classes and Races chapter and I think it’s pretty brilliant.  The Races have taken a cue from 4th Edition and end up giving everyone a +2 ability modifier total (so all races now have a +2 to two abilities and a -2 to one ability; save for the half-elf and half-orc.)  All of the races have been greatly improved (and not just because of the higher ability scores), with I think the half-elf getting the best improvement.  The half-orc took a hit, though, I don’t know why they watered them down so much.

The Classes have all been oomphed quite a bit.  This is a much higher powered game than 3rd edition, but not in the sense of 4th edition.  Where 4th edition just made every class a combat maven, the classes in Pathfinder RPG can simply do more.  In some cases, as in the Barbarian, this is both simplified (Rage is now a flat number of rounds per day, instead of a flat number of times per day) and more complicated (they now get special abilities while raging, so that you can uber customize your Barbarian.)  Sorcerers have been given a lot more flavor, and Clerics with the fire domain were given fireball as a 3rd level spell, a change which I think has been a long time in coming.

But the game did two things I think are great: First off, Favored Classes.  No longer are there multiclassing penalties for taking non-favored classes.  Instead, you get a bonus for taking a favored class!  It’s not a huge bonus, but it’s pretty nice to have.  And second, the game affords three separate XP tracks – Slow, Moderate, and Fast – in order for the group to pace their games the way they want to.

That’s as far as I’ve gotten so far, but already I am loving the book.  And for $9.99 for the PDF of the book, it is the greatest bargain in RPGdom of the year.  There is no reason if you’re a fan of 3rd edition to not pick up this book.

There’s something about Shakespearian drama that brings the universe of Star Wars to mind – the tragedies specifically.  I already converted and ran (well, started to run) Macbeth as a campaign for the d20 Star Wars RPG.  And I wrote an outline drawing parallels between the prequel Trilogy and Julius Caesar.

And now, having seen Hamlet again, I’m struck by the idea of Hamlet as a story set in the Old Republic.  Hamlet’s comes from a family of powerful Jedi, and himself is a padawan learner in Coruscant when he learns of his father’s death.  Laertes himself is a padawan headed to Coruscant to study the ways of the Jedi.  Hamlet’s father manifests as a force spirit to Hamlet, who tells him that a Sith lord murdered him.  And of course, Claudius has studied the ways of the Sith, and fallen to the Dark Side.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are an evil version of Han and Chewie.  Or perhaps 3PO and R2.  Or somewhere in between.  Hamlet can hold up the head of a destroyed protocol droid, “Alas, poor Y-1RK, I knew him, Horatio.”  And at the end, Fortinbras arrives in a Star Destroyer, there is a lightsaber duel, blaster shots, and everyone dies.

Just read a really touching story about a girl who became a pen pal of John Hughes’.  The man helped shape the vision of American youth in the 80s.  He deserves a moment, I think, in his passing.

I just now realized that you know the 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons was a failure because, even a year (two?) after its release, people are still specifying which edition of D&D they’re playing (”My 4E D&D game” or “My 3.X game”).  You never heard anyone specify “My 3rd edition D&D game” when 3.0 came out.  Or, really, even when 3.5 came out – people still just called the current edition “D&D”.  (If you wanted to refer to an earlier edition, though, you *did* specify – AD&D, OD&D, 1st ed D&D, AD&D 2nd, etc.)

Fail, WotC.  Fail.