Retro Observations: 2E PHB, Part 1: Ability Scores

Edit: ImageShack ate the original image.

While perusing the Internets at work, as I am wont to do when I'm not forced to spend two hours looking for $45 worth of parts, I came across this thread on ENWorld. Basically, someone called out the notion that AD&D 2e was a "rules light" edition of the game and that most, if not all, players and DMs of that edition ignored whatever rules and subsystems that were (in)convenient. Honestly I can't fault their hypothesis, mostly because - in my case, at least - he's absolutely right.

It was around the time that someone pointed out that there's six different ways to punch someone in 2e that I kinda got nostalgic for the old girl. 2e was my first exposure to Dungeons and Dragons, and it allowed me to meet some of the best friends I've ever had my entire life. But, well, it's been almost 9 years since I've played and a lot has changed in the 2 1/2 editions so I began to wonder how I'd view my first love with the knowledge I've accumulated since then.

So, with a song in my heart and a PDF on my computer, I started reading the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook, 2nd Edition. And, lucky you, I've made some… observations as I've reacquainted myself with the game. Fortunately or not, my notes are pretty long, and they're probably snarkier than I truly intend, but hell with it, I'll be posting them in sections.

Attributes

- Exceptional Strength is weird. A warrior with an 18 Strength can roll percentile dice to add to their Strength score. Why do you do this? It's not explained, beyond that warriors are "entitled" to do so, and that exceptional Strength "improves the
character's chance to hit an enemy, increases the damage he causes with each hit," et cetera (but any improvement to Strength does this). Do the 0.5% of warriors who were lucky enough to roll an 18 on Strength need further differentiation between them? The difference between a regular 18 and 18/00 is +2 to hit and +4 to damage; in the world of 2e, where you only get bonuses from a 16 or higher, that's a huge difference. I have "fond" memories of my friends and I bringing freshly rolled fighters, paladins and rangers to the table who "just happened" to have rolled 18/90+ with 4d6 drop lowest. Steve was the most blatant about it, having a string of characters with 18/00 Strength. Uh-huh. Totally legit.

- Meanwhile, Strength is the only attribute to have exceptional scores: there's no 18/51 Dexterity, or 18/00 Intelligence. It's also joined by Wisdom and Charisma as the only attributes that you can't increase with racial adjustments (but all three can be decreased) by choosing races in the PHB.

- Also note that, while you can only have exceptional Strength by being a warrior, class selection occurs after you've rolled ability scores. Since you cannot be a warrior at the time you roll your ability scores, no character can have exceptional Strength at character creation.

- The Strength table has entries for specific feats of strength (for lack of a better phrase), namely the ability to Bend Bars/Lift Gates and Open Doors. Opening doors (and no, this only applies to stuck doors and not any door you may encounter) requires a d20 roll; BB/LG is a percentile roll. In both cases, lower results are better. Lord help you if you fail, because you can NEVER EVER EVEEER try again. You don't have a snowball's chance in Hell (>5%) of lifting a gate until you hit 14 STR, and the open door roll doesn't really become useful until you hit 18/91 when you can try to open barred or magically locked doors (but only on a 1, 2, or 3; players can't hope to get this roll beyond 6 or less). In the Attributes section, at least, there's no mention of what happens should more than one character try to perform these tasks at once. Hopefully that's somewhere else.

- Dexterity annoys me. It affects three things: your chance to avoid surprise, your ability to hit with ranged weapons, and you Armor Class. Like many other areas of 2e and before, positive numbers are better except when they're not; negative Defense Adjustment is better because. Also, if your DEX is 7-14, you may as well write "doesn't matter" next to the entry, as scores in this range have no effect on your character at all.

- Constitution is misleading in that the table header reads "Regeneration" at the end; without magical assistance (and even then I'm not sure) players can never have a regeneration beyond "Nil". Even if you pumped your CON to 20, you're still only regaining 1 hit point every 50 minutes. That might matter in the early levels, but by the time you've gotten your CON that high it's pretty much inevitable that someone else will have run across a ring of regeneration (which gives back as much HP as a 25 CON) and you'll have so many hit points that 1 HP an hour will not matter.

- Once again warriors get special consideration from having a high CON. A 15 or better CON gives additional hit points per die to a maximum of +2, or +7 if you're a warrior, and then only until 10th level (9th for warriors and priests because), at which point you start gaining fixed hit points like you should have been since 1st level. There are footnotes for CON scores over 20 that indicate low hit die rolls count as higher results (1s become 2s, 1s and 2s are 3s, up to 1s, 2s, and 3s being 4s). Seeing as how a 20 CON is monumentally difficult to achieve (and, by the time you do, you've forgotten what your HP rolls were and you've probably stopped rolling for HP anyway), and monsters don't have CON scores, I don't know why these footnotes are there beyond yet more false hope.

- The Intelligence table is the only attribute table to include a column for an optional rule (Maximum Number of Spells per Level). An INT of 19 or better can automatically pass their saving throws versus illusion spells of ever-increasing levels; coming back from a post 3e viewpoint, seeing this under Intelligence and not Wisdom (which the Perception skill(s) are based on in later editions) seems odd.

- If you want to be a competent priest-type (cleric, druid, etc., I think maybe ranger or paladin too), your Wisdom needs to be over 13. This is the point where you no longer have to roll to see if your spells fail outright. Oddly enough, this is also the point where you (i.e. a priest) start to earn bonus spells; you go from failing to cast 1 in 20 spells to knowing more spells than your average priest should in 1 point, without a transitional period.

- "The Charisma (Cha) score measures a character's persuasiveness, personal magnetism, and ability to lead." Your Charisma score gives you a penalty or bonus to your initial reaction with non-player characters. From the NPC reaction table I was able to find, when the PCs encounter an NPC (or group thereof) the DM rolls 2d10 and cross-references the result against the PCs attitude. Going by this mechanic, it is detrimental for the PCs to have a high Charisma; high Charisma adds to reaction rolls, and the table goes from (low to high) friendly to hostile. To reiterate, things are more likely to hate you because you're more likable.

Next time: Races!

A very late Thank You to Dan

Some time ago (about a month at the time of this writing, give or take), Dan sent me a gift. This isn't particularly uncommon - Dan is a very giving person. Me, I'm a very taking person, so whenever I'm offered a present for conceivably no reason I get flabbergasted, especially when I receive a package of this, well, magnitude.

Dan sent me a set of the World of Warcraft Series 3 action* figures.

* "Action" is kind of a misnomer in this instance. Each figure has one (1) pose with approximately zero (0) points of articulation. There's nothing really wrong with this model - inspired, I believe, by the Todd McFarlane brand - but it gets to be problematic when you try to do things like have the toys stand under their own power.

This was brought about as a "reward" for my Blizzard Global Creative Writing (read: Fanfiction) Contest entry. Sadly, I didn't win, but at the time I was rather hopeful of my chances. So too was Dan, apparently.

As an aside, I can’t post my entry as dictated by the contest rules. Dan may or may not be dismayed to hear this, but even if he is he has a copy so he can read it whenever he wants. However, I'm mulling around the possibility of starting a (web)comic as an indirect sequel. Whether or not I go through with it remains to be seen. As of this writing, I'm still deliberating between two methods of production, preferring one over the other without actually making a decision.

Anyway, the figures:

You may notice that the Brave Highmountain Deluxe Collector Figure isn't pictured, probably because he wasn't included. To give a vague idea as to why, Highmountain is about the size of the other four figures in the series put together. As far as I'm concerned, this is a complete set.

Sadly, this set reminds me that I have no shelf space with which to display said figures, especially considering my roommates Keith and Andrew and their vast, respective collections. Thankfully Andrew was kind enough to place them in front of his anime DVDs so they can bask in displayed glory for the time being.

QUIN'THALAN SUNFIRE, Blood Elf Paladin

Quin'thalan continues the tradition of Blizzard characters wearing equipment that you can't acquire in the game. Seriously, if anyone has any idea where I can get a full body tower shield and double-bladed sword, both in Sin'dorei red and gold, do tell. Further, Quin'thalan continues another Blizzard tradition: ugly males. This is the ugliest blood elf that's been put to plaster. This is partially do to the paint job on his face, which makes him look like Clayface standing in the middle of a thunderstorm, but the sculpt itself is angular and wrinkly, two traits I don't commonly associate with blood elves.

TAMUURA, Draenei Mage

Tamuura is probably the best looking figure in series 3, if not the entire WoW figure line. The sculpt is amazing, the paint is evenly applied, and the color scheme fits very well. I bought this figure for my brother for Christmas to go with the blood elf series 1 rogue I got for him the year before, and I'm glad that I now own one. Tamuura is a progressive, forward-thinking character; you may not be able to see it, but she has a turquoise bellybutton piercing, in addition to fishnet stockings complete with garters.

The biggest disappointment of this figure, of all things, is her feet. Now, I don't have a problem with hot blue chicks with goat legs; it's a workaround, certainly, but not a dealbreaker. No, the problem lies with the bottom of her hooves and the figure's lack of a base. Her feet aren't flat. This makes Tamuura very prone to toppling over unless she's positioned so that she leans against something. During this photo session, Tamuura fell over at least 3 different times, spilling the other figures onto the floor. Thankfully these figures seem pretty resilient. Regardless - and it seems weird to say this - but she could benefit from a set of properly molded horseshoes.

SISTER BENEDRON, Human Priestess

This is one of my favorite armor sets in WoW, and I'm glad they made a figure that properly shows it--

--Wait a sec. What the hell is this?

That's not canon! D:<

I'm amused that an iconic priest figure wields a weapon that priests can't equip in the game. At least they took the fancy way of attaching it to the figure via a gold chain that runs around her waist, and not some gaudy pleather or plastic belt.

SKEEVE SORROWBLADE, Undead Rogue

Skeeve has a problem. It's a problem that's near and dear to my heart, and it's one that I'm sure you'll sympathize with.

Skeeve has no pants.

The part of his armor below the belt is a sort of kilt-like apparatus that isn't attached to the figure for some unknown reason. Maybe it's easier to manufacture that way (in fact, that's probably it), but it's plenty disturbing when Tamuura drunkenly knocks over her brothers and sisters in arms and parts of Skeeve's anatomy that shouldn't see the light of day are exposed for the world to see. Assuming said anatomy is still attached - again, probably not since it's easier to manufacture that way ;o.

That's the cast in a nutshell. Each and every one of them came prepackaged in shells of transparent adamantium, impervious to all but the most powerful of boxcutters which will ruin the packaging beyond all reason, destroying any hope of repackaging these figures for moving or storage. The various weapons and handheld attachments were taped next to them and came with instructions to combine them with the figures that amounted to, "Break this, then reattach as desired." Quin'thalan's shield was especially egregious in this regard, requiring one to twist it around his arm until either it's in position or his arm breaks, whichever comes first.

You may notice an ominous shape to the right of these photographs:

For those possibly in the know, this is the castle setpiece for Matt's capstone film (which I discussed in my previous post). It's been sitting in our home, gathering dust and using up previously unused table space, since the completion of his film. It's made up of Warhammer terrain and modeling clay, and was never intended to be moved from wherever they shot their footage. As a result, it's very fragile and probably won't survive another trip.

Unfortunately, the WoW figures just aren't the right scale for the model, otherwise I would have positioned them at various locations around the castle. That doesn't mean it's uninhabited.

"Could be worse. Could be stuck in Africa with a hot chick with terrible AI."

Student films suck

The UCF Film School Capstone Screening was tonight. Don't know if I Capitalized that right, but them's the breaks. Capstones, as far as I can tell, are the final film projects for the production students at the college. Matt, my roommate and future filmmaker, went first with his capstone "Macguffins & Monsters," which I helped write. It turned out pretty well. There was a last minute rewrite that I wasn't aware of until I saw the movie, but this pass added centurion whales so I can't complain much. I asked Matt for a copy to send to Dan, but Matt apparently isn't done tweaking with it yet.

Unfortunately the films continued after his. The film following Matt's was a woman staring into the distance for twelve minutes. For those of you who have never been to a student film screening, don't. There are two possible outcomes for any given student film: either it'll try to be funny, or it'll try to be depressing. The former may succeed in actually showing some form of competence for comedy, while the latter may succeed by driving you to cut yourself to get out of watching the film in its entirely. Thankfully there were 100% less films involving suicide than we were forced to experience in recent years' screenings. To compensate, this batch included 100% more flying bone pinata dildos.

This round of capstones included documentary films, of which there were blessedly few. They were tolerable, but someone's idea of a film was fifteen minutes of their vacation to China without any hint of a narrative. One subset of the film students experimented with 3D. That's all well and good, except when the 3D doesn't work. This goes double for the last of the 3D filmmakers, whose project consisted of him doing jumping jacks while the director swiveled one or both of the cameras around. The last film before the intermission was a beautifully shot piece that had something to do with elephants where nothing at all happened.

After a dozen or so we had an intermission where free hotdogs and hamburgers were served; this was not enough to sway Andrew or me into staying. We went to Bojangles instead. I had a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit which was pretty good, and Andrew ordered the adamantium berry biscuits. Matt mentioned the kids from the capstones were going to see Star Trek after the screening. I agreed with Andrew that might be more movie in one day than we would really be willing to experience.

Perhaps I'm in the wrong line of work

Last night was the culmination of weeks of work on my entry to Blizzard's Creative Writing Contest. I'll quickly point out that it's essentially a fanfiction contest with the prize being a potential job interview with one of the largest and most influential video game companies in the world and leave it at that. I had almost a month to work on my entry - from the start of the contest entry period. I didn't actually start work on it until the last week of March and, despite creating goal posts and milestones to get my fat ass into gear, work on the project didn't kick in until about April 5th or so, and at no time was there a rough draft or proofreader copy.

The final (only) draft of my story didn't begin until April 9th, 4 days before the deadline. The contest entry requirements state the work of fiction should be between 3,000 and 10,000 words. On April 12th at 10:00 AM, I had roughly 1,200 words on paper. That day also happened to be Easter, so I was forced to spend some time with the family - not that I'm complaining, we had a nice dinner and I really enjoyed my time with my parents, but the fact remains that was time I could have spent on my story. I was at about 2,000 when I went home around 2:30. When I returned to my apartment, my roommates were pretty interested in getting caught up watching stuff on TV - Dollhouse was the main offender, but was followed by the first episode of the Fullmetal Alchemist series and episode 2 of Basquatch (thing Gurren Lagann with basketball). Since the living/TV room doubles as my main writing area, you can see the conflict.

Serious effort on my story resumed around 9:30 PM EDT. I had until 2:59 AM (11:59 PM PDT) to finish. In that time frame, my story ballooned to a modest 6,897 words. That's a little under 4,000 words in five and a half hours. Roughly 727 words an hour, 12 words a minute.

I finished the story at 2:52 AM.

Of course by 'finished' I mean it was forged into a form that could be passed for readable. It was somewhat coherent, there was a plot, and it had a beginning, middle, and end. The final product contains about 80% of what I intended to go in there. In fact, I'm not entirely sure what all went in there. From 1 AM to 2:52 it's all a blur.

I still had to submit the thing. At 2:53, I filled out the Blizzard submission form... only to have it reset. So I did it again... and it reset again. I refreshed the page, filled out the form, hit submit to upload my Word file... and it kicked back an error.

The time was 2:56 AM.

I hope I didn't wake up my roommates as I cursed at my laptop, uploaded my file to the network, raced up the stairs to my desktop, then pounded away at the keys in a mad dash to fill out the form again. I hit submit... and it uploaded successfully, even giving me an email confirmation.

The time was 2:58 AM. I had submitted my story at - literally - the last minute.

My thanks go out to my friends who encouraged me to keep going. I popped in to twitter several times to receive gentle proddings to keep myself on task, so thanks there, too - especially Dan, who was like the coach in Punch Out for all intents and purposes, except he didn't steal my bike. Also my apologies for not completing the story sooner as I asked you to proofread but I never delivered on my end. When I get home I'll be gloating by sending out to my friends whatever the hell it is I submitted to Blizzard so you all can point derisively at the shitpiece I cranked out in the span of about eight noncontiguous hours.

A rant on the general writing process is soon to come.

So, yeah...

Trouble was brewing at the Pokemon Platinum release party earlier today, caused by none other than the notorious team rocket. An overweight, sweaty, and generally unkempt man dressed as James from the Pokemon Anime distributed his own, edited version of the flyers being handed out by nintendo officials, including an extra line regarding a mystery gift event (which was not officially scheduled to occur). Using his own hacked copy of the game, he distributed a mystery gift containing a shiny level 100 Gengar named "NIGGER" (moveset: Thief, shadow claw, sludge bomb, and snatch). After several announcements through the loudspeakers dotting the area around the event not to download any mystery gifts (because they would "corrupt your game"), officials finally tracked down James and escorted him off the premises. As he was dragged away, the overweight cosplayer rebeliously yelled "TEAM ROCKET'S BLASTING OFF AGAIN!" No, really. You can't make this shit up.

On the one hand, I'm pretty appalled by this behavior. On the other, as 4chan put it, "that's some god mode trollin' right there."

It's something, I'll give it that

/tg/ seems to have a Burmecian (from FFIX) kick as of late, and seeing all the 3.5 stat blocks made me adapt them to 4e out of spite. Unfortunately, no one seemed to care one way or the other.

BURMECIAN

Ability Scores: +2 Dexterity, +2 Wisdom
Size: Medium
Speed: 6 squares
Vision: Normal

Languages: Common, Draconic
Skill Bonuses: +2 Athletics, +2 Nature
Burmecian Weapon Proficiency: You gain proficiency with the halberd and the longspear.
Muridic Shift: You can move up to two squares when you shift.
Leaping Strike: You can use leaping strike as an encounter power.

LEAPING STRIKE Burmecian Racial Power
You leap into the air, then bring your weapon to bear as you land on your opponent.
Encounter * Weapon
Standard Action Melee
Target: One creature
Special: You can jump up to your speed as part of this attack.
Attack: Dex vs. AC
Hit: 1[w] + Dexterity modifier damage and push the target 1 square. You move into the square the target occupied.
Increase to 2[w] + Dexterity modifier at 11th level and 3[w] + Dexterity modifier at 21st level.
Weapon: If you're wielding a longspear or halberd, you gain a bonus to damage equal to your Wisdom modifier.

I'm not very good arguing a point

In an effort to link this post with one preceding it: Coraline was good. It took chances other films aimed at similar audiences don't take, but stretched out in the middle making me wait for shit to kick in gear. Interestingly enough, the average age of the showing we went to was around 22, with a solitary six-year-old bringing down the average a little while also being the only person there under the age of 18.

After seeing Coraline, the realization came to me that there's nothing I want to see until Watchmen comes out. For some this might be seen as a boon - I could be doing anything else besides blowing $10 to sit still for two hours - but for me it's a down note. I like going to see movies. I like going to see movies with my friends, I should say. I'm severely disinclined to go to the theater alone; I may as well stay home and pop in a DVD. Meanwhile, not seeing a movie does not mean I will do something else instead. Eliminating cinema does not equate to me taking up mountain biking, for instance.

Soon after defining the movie-going void that stretched until 03.06.09, I found this piece concerning views voiced by Alan Moore, creator and writer for Watchmen. My enmity for this man deepens as time goes on. Is there a bigger hypocrite in comics? Please, tell me so I can add to my repertoire of vitriol. His points are essentially: 1) movies suck, 2) comic book movies suck, and 3) comics themselves suck, with two additional inferred points 4) you suck for liking them, and 5) I rule.

Y'know, I was gonna get angry. Angry over the words of an old English hippie. Mr. Moore may have been burned by the movie industry for his entire professional career (either due to or despite his decisions concerning his involvement), but at the end of the day he's going to get a fat residuals check for the work on a movie that he didn't do. Moore spent 0 hours on the set coaching the actors, 0 hours consulting the director or producers, and 0 hours editing, fine-tuning, or even writing the screenplay. If the Watchmen movie is bad, he can say he had nothing to do with it; if the Watchmen movie is good, I can say he had nothing to do with it. Either way, he gets paid*.

He's a detractor, not a creator.

* To be fair and a bit more precise, Dave Gibbons (artist of Watchman) gets paid, as Alan Moore will abdicate any money he'll receive from the film to Gibbons, the same situation that occurred with V for Vendetta. Gibbons was heavily involved with the shaping of Watchmen, so if anyone deserves praise or residuals for their work on the movie, it's him.

JACON

Greetings from JACON, the con that led me to question whether or not I'm in the right fandom. I think I'm transitioning (or have transitioned) from 'typical anime fan' to 'older guy who remembers the glory days of watching cartoons'. I don't even watch a whole lot of anime anymore. Oh well, that didn't stop me from paying $36 for a 3-day pass (of which I used maybe 8 hours worth).

Anyway, let's get to the pictures.

1) Nerd fight club, presided over by the undead master of the ring (see background). Honestly I'm surprised the con and the hotel let them do this, even if they were using foam bats to beat each other with. Meanwhile, the ring was taking up valuable dealer's room space, negating the size increase from JACON's previous venue. Sadly, this was only 50% of what was worth taking pictures of on Friday. The other half was...

2) Motherfuckin' zombies. No, I have no idea why they were there. Maybe they got the wrong con? Who knows. Not that I'm complaining; there have been zombies in anime and video games before, and they fit in just fine with the rest of the crowd (zombie shuffling looks remarkably similar to convention meandering). There was one that was absolutely huge - I guess he'd started the flesh-eating early. And I was sad that Tomonobu Itagaki was added to their ranks.

We got our fill of the dealer's room and the adjoining halls, so we decided to mix it up and actually watch some anime at an anime con. I know, I was weirded out, too. We took in two episodes of Hayate the Combat Butler, which was exactly what its name implied and was better than I thought it would be.

After finding out firsthand that Friday evening is not the time to come to a convention, we got food at a goddamn Shoney's. You don't see those in the wild that often anymore. Unfortunately we made the mistake of going to a Shoney's after 12 PM so we were relegated to the dinner buffet. Shoney's isn't known for its dinner buffet, and this one was a prime example why. It wasn't bad, per se, it was just a) seafood, which I'm not a fan of to begin with, b) fairly small, only one three-sided buffet with a small tray of donuts off to the side, and c) $11.99. Our waiter took forever to get our drinks and we only got 1 refill, so that didn't help.

Saturday:

3) Anonymous. This is incontrovertible proof that Anonymous has to be stopped. It was funny at Megacon, but here it just seemed a little tired. They walked around the con with the pictured boombox blaring "Never Gonna Give You Up", "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", and I'm sure other tried and true songs that I'm blocking out at the moment. I could hear other con-goers complaining about getting RickRolled, and if people complain about Rick Astley you've done your job, so I'll let Anonymous live, for now.

4) Yet again in the anime room, I snapped a picture of a con's most valuable freebie: the guidebook and accompanying event schedule. I was disappointed, since JACON didn't give you a free loot bag to carry your crap in this year. Maybe that was to compensate for the bigger venue?

5) The book was kind enough to include some meta humor. I'm guessing they needed space to fill when an advertiser pulled out. Then again, last I checked this con was run by nerds so it might have just been an honest attempt at humor.

We watched Ghost Hound while waiting for the AMV contest. I didn't even think to suggest going to the [adult swim] panel, but I should have, since Ghost Hound was boring as all hell. I'll give it some credit though: after setting up this mysterious atmosphere in episode 1, episode 2 actually bothers to explain what the hell is going on (or at least what you're supposed to think is going on). Most anime doesn't even bother until the last episode, and even then usually opts for the mind screw. However, that was balanced by the fact that it was directed by the guy who did Serial Experiments Lain, so that should explain what I blew 60 minutes of my life on.

Next we sat in on the AMV contest. I got in some more time on The World Ends With You, since I'll be damned if I was going to watch some of that crap. Seriously, what happened to AMVs? Here's a brief primer on how to win a modern AMV contest: 1) Get an idea beyond 'Anime A set to Music B to make Video C', and at least try to select music that's either thematically relevant or ironic enough to get some lulz, not just stuff you hear on the radio; 2) Use DVDs or RAWs for your footage - please don't use fansubs; and 3) Don't be afraid to cut to something else. Jesus. One of the videos was a Sasuke video set to "Carry On Wayward Son," which was hilariously awesome, until I realized they'd just hit Play on their video and audio sources and called it a video. Whatever. At least some of the winners were good.

6) Dan sent me a picture of him posing with “Black Akuma”, so I felt compelled to snap a picture of “Black Akuma” on the east coast. Before anyone complains, Dan started it.

7) Again, I think someone came to the wrong con. Then again, with an Aperture Science Hand-held Portal Device, you don't really have any control where you end up. I think this is a case of anime fandom adopting something outside its purview based on the fact that it's awesome.

8) High school friend dressed as someone. I couldn't tell if he was supposed to be Marth, Ike, or Parn at the time; knowing Kevin I should have known it was the latter. I was only 50/50 on whether or not to take a picture of him, until I realized it was him, then I totally had to. I think he called me Casey - which is way out of left field - so I was tempted to delete it :P.

Third time was the charm for anime this con. While waiting for the George and Spike panel we watched Spice and Wolf (or Wolf and Spice, depending on if you go by the fansubber or the anime itself). It's about a travelling merchant in some pseudo-European fantasy world who's joined by a pagan god of the harvest - in this case, a wolf who takes the form of a redhead with wolf ears and a giant tail - to take the god back to her birthplace in the north, as she's no longer needed in a world transitioning to an age of reason led by a monotheistic church. The little details of the world really drew me in, and both of the leading characters (and some of the supporting characters) were interesting enough to draw me into monologues about economies in a medieval society. We'll be watching more of this in the future for sure.

9) Space Ghost at the George and Spike panel. As always, George Lowe was great. That day he shared a panel with Spike Spencer (guy with the long hair behind Space Ghost's left hand), and not 5 minutes into the panel both of them had me in stitches. Like most panels they were bombarded with Dumb Fan Questions, but neither one took it sitting down. (Well, they actually were sitting but... you know.) This guy came in early in the panel and warranted George's attention. George then proceeded to regale us with his experience at Comic Con where a Space Ghost cosplayer had neglected to wear underwear, and he was, quote, "happy to be there." There, now you share George's pain.

10) This was a good costume. I forget the character's name, but this guy did a good job. That job when from 'pretty good' to 'totally awesome' when I snapped this picture and all of the reflective tape and florescent tubes on his costume caught the flash and made for a kickass pic. The guy on the right was Genesis, and I was hoping to get both of them in the same shot, but dudefella's costume completely overrode the other guy's.

11) I see Dan's Black Akuma, and raise him... Black Morrigan! Yes, I'm well aware I'm going to hell; no, I'm not comfortable with that. When I went to get her picture she offered to pose. I thought she looked good sitting like she was and I didn't to have her get up immediately after sitting down, so I asked her to pose right where she was. She didn't seem too pleased.

12) This guy's hair was hueg. Seriously. The duo's cool factor went up when I saw them walking piggyback through the con, so they got bonus points for character (if not costume) accuraccy.

13) This won Best of Show at the costume contest. This is probably because a) it wasn't Bleach, b) it wasn't Naruto, c) she had extendable/collapseable wings, and d) she had a wierd plasma laser thing on her chestplate. Good costume all around, too.

14) Last but not least. I don't know what character this is - probably from some ninja anime I've never heard of >.> - but I had to get this picture when I realized she was holding a live animal. I feel bad for any dog or cat that is forced by its master to wear clothing, but the idea of 'dogsplay' tickled me.

We topped off our adventure with a trip to another rare animal, Cici's Pizza. I've never had a bad experience here, since going for the first time before seeing Episode 1 in the theaters with my brother and his friend. For a $5.49 pizza, pasta and salad buffet, I think we'll stop any time. That might explain my waistline.

All in all it was a good time (otherwise I wouldn't have written a dissertation on it). I think we've come to the conclusion that we won't be buying weekend passes to JACON in the future (if we decide to go, since our attendance came into question several times). Some of these people are just weird - like the 15-year-olds going around with 'Free Hugs' and 'Will Yaoi for $1.50' signs - but it's starting to dawn on me that there's no room for elitism in this subculture. To paraphrase a similar revelation related to the roleplaying community, at the end of the day, we're still people who enjoy sitting down to watch cartoons.