About Me

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Seattle, Washington, United States
I'm an old time roleplayer who became a soldier who became a veteran who became a developer who became a dba who became a manager who never gave up his dream of a better world. Even if I have to create it myself.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Still Snowing

I live in Colorado.

It's still fucking snowing.

photo credit: blmiers2 via photopin cc


Less than two months from the summer solstice now. I'd like to turn on my grill by then. Maybe drive the car at some speed faster than that one dude on snowshoes passing me in the fast lane.


Saturday, April 20, 2013

SMART for the Bad Guys

Professor Poo strikes again!
photo credit: betta design via photopin cc

When it comes to bad guys, some adventures just fall short.

We've all experienced it. Bad villains might be boring, irrelevant, 2-dimensional, or a variety of other negative buzzwords or anti-patterns.

On the other hand, good villains inspire oppositional heroism.

I've been ... slowly ... working on a new adventure for my Monstrarium game. I wanted to really focus on having a more memorable BBEG, and I started thinking about what makes villains memorable in movies, books, or popular adventures.

I think that good villains have good goals. And by good I mean horrible. And by horrible I mean the kind of thing that practically forces heroes into action.

This doesn't have to be from "depth" of evil - sacrificing children and raping schoolteachers and stuff might be a form of shock-method, but it gets old fast and is little more than a poorly-tasting trick.

Let's take a page from the Holy Book of Business Management and consider the acronym SMART. Yea, that boring thing that comes up once a year (if we're lucky) during annual employment reviews. When properly used, goals motivate employees by providing confidence in future success.

I recognize that isn't how most employee reviews actually go, but let's fantasize for a minute.

SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Temporal.

Let's start with an amusing idea for a Monstrarium villain - a Weresnake - and see what happens.

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