Thoughts on SCL

I'm still not sure what I think of Sword Coast Legends. I suspect I'm still fairly early in the single-player campaign, and I haven't fooled around with the DM tools yet, so there's still a great deal to explore -- and I'm looking forward to it. Still, the game thus far has left me feeling somewhat underwhelmed. I had hoped for the second coming of Baldur's Gate -- an unreasonable expectation, I admit -- but what I'm finding is that SCL is more like a single-player Neverwinter. 

SCL really does feel like an MMO to me. The storyline is linear with bland side-quests ("Find me eight ooze samples!" and such) and the gameplay hardly resembles Fifth Edition (or any edition) tabletop D&D. Instead, characters have powers with cooldown timers as in any MMORPG, they never need to rest (electing where and when to rest is, of course, a major strategic component of "real" D&D), and they never truly die unless there's a TPK.

It's a fun game, though, and I have every intention of playing all the way through the campaign and then building modules with the DM toolkit. Creating my own digital Troya Nova -- or some other location from the Druid Cycle world -- will probably win me over to liking SCL more than I do now.

Simplify, Simplify

Thoreau advises us to simplify our lives (as I learned from a Calvin & Hobbes strip -- I've never actually read Thoreau), and I'm taking that advice to heart. First up, I'm going to put my plans for the massive Quintessence War storyline on hold. I still intend to run this adventure someday, but I'd like to wait until there's an opportunity for more people to participate. Likewise, it's time to hit the ol' Pause button on The Druid Cycle and take a break from that campaign for a while. Those battle-tested heroes have earned a rest, and I need to invest some time in converting that world to Fifth Edition. Blog posts, which have been pretty sporadic lately, will continue to be sporadic, although I'll still pop in here and there to share game news and whatnot.

In the meantime, I'm going to start up a short-term Fifth Edition adventure with some of the regular Front Porch players. It's going to take place in the Shattered Realm setting and will serve as an introduction to 5e. I also plan to play a lot more Star Wars: X-Wing and 5e D&D with my boys, chip away at Neverwinter, finish up Mass Effect, and of course jump into Sword Coast Legends the nanosecond it gets released. Wait, wasn't this post supposed to be about simplification?

Games, Games, and More Games!

So now that I have a new computer, the floodgates are open. I'm playing Mass Effect (thanks, Matt!), Darkest Dungeon (ditto!), and Neverwinter -- all at the same time! I think I need to focus on one at a time or I'll never get through any of them. But with all this gaming goodness at my fingertips, I'm no longer pining away for Sword Coast Legends. Well, at least for now...

Neverwinter

The last time I bought a computer, Amy was nine months pregnant...with our first kid! So, after more than seven-and-a-half years, it was time (past time, actually) to upgrade. I purchased a bunch of parts from Amazon and New Egg, and then some of my engineer pals from work came over and put the thing together for me.

The first game I downloaded was the basic version of the Neverwinter MMORPG. It's a lot like World of Warcraft, of course, but it's free and it's fun, so I'll give it a whirl. I think the most important outcome from trying out Neverwinter was that it got Matthew interested in playing D&D again. He immediately scurried off to come up with a new storyline for his campaign, which we haven't touched in several months. An hour later, Nathaniel and I sat down to the continued adventures of our rogue and bard, respectively. Halfway through, Matthew wanted to ditch the adventure and start a different one, but at least he's keen on paper-and-pencil D&D again!

Neverwinter

Check it out! The Neverwinter MMO is coming soon, and here's a cool animated clip...