Chris Perkins leaving Wizards of the Coast didn't surprise me too much and it wouldn't surprise anyone who knew him, as much as I'd like there to be a dishy version. Crawford did throw me for a loop; I sent him a mail whose subject line was "WHAT" and whose body text read "but also whaaaaaat" to make sure my bewilderment was properly registered. But I know him, too. He's been a great friend and ally during some very complex times and my life has been enriched by both of these men. My expectation is that James Wyatt - ironically, the first ever Acquisitions Incorporated DM - will be getting more of the limelight, which he will probably hate. That is the fate of the true dork; you do your dorky thing and then people like the dorky thing and suddenly you are a public person through no fault or design of your own. Alas.

This is all too real. He keeps sending me Yasuke videos that are essentially physical comedy; potent Spartan kicks that lift enemies and launch them from Japan to, I assume, the deep cisterns of Sparta itself. Enemies get caught up in a gentle zephyr and dance and sway in a foul wind. It's orthogonal to the typical experience, but in these map fucking games where you gotta fuck the whole map, sometimes a change of pace might be welcome…?

I saw a video of two puppies howling, and the text 'ertop said that they were "dire wolves resurrected by man's cold god, Science." We were allowed to enjoy this moment for about five minutes before people started coming in with their facts and shit. If you listen to their Chief Science Officer, she will say they are using the "morphological species concept" which means that if it looks like a Dire Wolf and howls like a Dire Wolf, then it's a Dire Wolf. That seems weird to me. Am I dumb? Am I the stupid one, here?

Okay now we're done.

You might be as surprised as we were to learn that dreaded continuity could rear its ugly and reptilian head. Like the mudfish, it had gone dormant in the murk and has only now begun to whip and writhe.

I learned something very important today! You actually have to click "post."

Recently Jerry and I were invited out to Wizards of the Coast headquarters to meet and play Dungeons and Dragons with two young men whose brother had a five year battle with Lymphoma. These boys had made a video about how important D&D was to their family during their brother's illness and how they are now raising money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

The only time I ever use photomode is when I push whatever that button is on accident. The boss I'm fighting will freeze in place, no doubt as surprised as I am, and a ton of UI elements unrelated to boss killing will bloom all around him. Maybe he's surprised to learn that he is a character in a game at all; a mechanical speedbump on my ascent to martial excellence. It's rude in that context to go back as though nothing happened but once I figure out what button I pushed, you know, that's how it's gotta be.

I'm in the part of Monster Hunter Wilds that you get to in a Pokemon game, the After Story, where you dealt with the main campaign but then some flavor has been retained for an extended finale. They never asked me to trap a monster once in the entire campaign, and then when I'm here on the off-ramp they're like "go trap me one." I had to look it up online! Real tourist shit, but I just never really played that way before. Kiko was trying to talk to Gabe about it later, saying that it was simply faster to catch them and thus a more efficient use of the hunting time. It was as though Kiko was speaking in muted honks and fwonks like a jazz trumpet; like an adult in Charlie Brown. For Gabriel, "mercy" is a foreign tongue.

I’m having a great time with Assassin's Creed Shadows and I just wanted to share some of my thoughts after about 20 hours with this game. I know there is a lot of bizarre discourse about it online but the only thing that really matters to me is if a game is fun and this one is. 

There is apparently a significant introductory period In Assassin's Creed: Shadows, one Gabe almost didn't endure, because he felt like he had seen and done all this stuff before. Then he got really into sneaking around as Naoe. Then he started staring at foliage dancing in a gentle breeze. Then, well, he found "the real game" and he lost his mind.

As I was mentioning the other day, the people behind a card-based wargame called Gudnak I met out at PAX East asked Mike and I to make stuff for them - my contribution is a piece of fiction about a type of Rotborn character called a Pupil, and then Mork drew the same character for use on an in-game card. There are lots of Pupils, and none of them agree on what the lesson they're supposed to learn even is, but that's the least of their problems. This is what she looks like!  Eyrewood energy.

Chaotic Great, the team behind the game, has been incredibly fun to work with and speak to which happens sometimes on projects but rarely to this extent. I should have known they would be cool as soon as I figured out the game's logo was an Ambigram. The Kickstarter is kicking ass and they keep adding cool shit to it, including early access to a dangerous digital version of the game at a certain threshold. I hope we get to play around in this world again at some point.

(CW)TB

We did play some Kill Team Lite for a very particular reason which I won't spoil, but I haven't played it in a minute so I feel confident I got virtually every rule wrong. Plus, there was another issue that marred the studio session but because it is incredibly shameful I am loathe to relate it here. Not shameful for me in the least - if anything, I'm invigorated - but it is very shameful for someone else. So shameful I decided to put it on display in a public place where many, many people could see it.

The Rivals vibes were immaculate for much longer than is statistical; people were just in there having fun, looking at the cool art, figuring out how to manage a roster of more than thirty universal paragons at once. Quickplay has curdled a bit since then, which it would basically have to do.

When Gabe rides into one of my hunts, he's always dripped out in the latest monster guts. The first time I saw him he looked like he does in the strip, hugged by weird claws. Moist where he should be dry, and - crucially - dry where he should be moist. It's a heinous affront to wear this evil jerky anywhere, let alone… well, I guess that's what the strip is for.

I'm way down in the M-hole, which sounds bad, and maybe it is. Maybe it's not safe to be in the M-hole for this duration. One reason might be the prevalence of M down there, or Monsters. It's literally their hole and they don't like it when you go in. Obviously you need guild authorization to hunt monsters but, uh, it's not super hard to get.