The Setup: Dungeons and Dragons

A while back I put together a post in the style of The Setup. I wanted to do another of these, but this time talking about Dungeons and Dragons.

First, The Campaign

I’m a new DnD player, having started this year. I was drawn in by the Penny Arcade DnD Podcasts. I happened to have few friends that were willing to tolerate me creating a running a campaign.

I am a Dungeon Master.

The Basics

Being a rookie I elected to begin with the setting and adventures in the back of the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Of all the source books this one is probably my favorite, as it’s reasonably organized and has everything I need in it.

I also have the Dungeon Master’s Guide 2 and all the Player’s Handbooks. I have access to most any book as a PDF, but I don’t use them for much, mostly inspiration.

Campaign Planning

I have a subscription to Dungeons and Dragons Insider that I use almost exclusively for character management. In the beginning I let my players create their characters on my account, but most of them have since gotten their own accounts and taken over. The character builder itself is tolerable, but not everything it could be.

The star of my planning phase is easily Power2ool. When combined with the Compendium I can plan all the monsters and loot that I will need for my encounter. I make extensive use of the auto-leveling feature to adjust monsters to match the difficulty I need for my players. This is the type of tool that we all wish Wizards of the Coast would provide, yet it’s done for free by a volunteer.

Game Setup

I use a Chessex Battle Map and occasionally official dungeon tiles when setting up my maps. I use Expo Wet-Erase markers to draw things. I erase it with a rag and a spray bottle of water we use for ironing.

I print loot cards on cardstock with a color laser printer using Power2ool. The thick cardstock makes the item feel better than plain paper and helps the card to hold up longer as some items will be around for months.

Actual Gameplay

Using the aforementioned map the players and monsters are represented by [wooden discs]. The players discs are decorated in permanent marker so that they are easily distinguishable and monster’s discs are denoted with letters A to Z. When I started I printed monster pictures and placed them into universal game stands. This got to be harder as there are only so many good illustrations out there, and I’m no artist.

Each disc has a magnet affixed to the bottom so that it’s useable with Alea Tools magnets. We use these for tracking various effects. The red bloodied magnets are the most helpful.

Things are more conventional from here on out. I picked up a bunch of cheap paper pads and pencils from an office supply store so that each player has plenty. We don’t use anything fancy for in-game tracking or die rolling. Initiative and hit-points are tracked on paper.

Dream Setup

4th Edition Dungeon’s and Dragons seems to be very messy and confused from a documentation perspective. Even the official tools don’t do a very good job of tracking changes and rules. The combat is slow, the characters are overpowered in many ways and the tools are weak. That being said, I’m not of a mind to complain much because the beauty of Dungeons and Dragons is that we can fix any problems we have. House rules are a long-standing and important tradition.

True Colors

In my 31 years I’ve learned something about people. We are all liars. I know, that’s a bit dramatic, but we are dramatic creatures. I’m sure you can cite exceptions amongst family, friends or yourselves, but on the whole we are optimists. Things will be better next year: more money, better jobs, faster cars, less weight, etc. We lie to ourselves and those around us because we really, really want things to get better.

Being Honest

I’ve heard a saying that we are only honest twice in our lives: When we’re coming into the world and when we’re going out. In our infancy we don’t know how to be anything but real. When we’re headed out we don’t have time for anything fake.

Companies

Corporations are people, right? Besides being treated so legally, I think they have a common attribute in their honesty. Companies are only really honest with you twice: When you are being hired and when you are being let go.

“But Cory” you say, “companies are always blowing sunshine up your ass when they hire you!” I agree. But I didn’t say what they were being honest about yet.

You!

Don’t think you are getting off easy. You have a role in this too. You aren’t being entirely honest either.

For Trill

When you are interviewing and when a company is interviewing you, you are both being honest about what you want things to be. You are looking to grow, make more money, get better perks and make more of a difference. The company is looking to grow, change and absorb your talents. Here’s the catch though: You might suck and so might the company!

But that’s ok! This is a beautiful new time. We can change together.

On the other hand, the gloves come off when you depart. Companies show their true character when letting people go. Was there a severance package? Did they talk to you about the things you did wrong and work with you? Did you even do anything wrong?

When you turned in notice, did you still work hard? Did you try and set up a solid transition? Did you offer a low rate for continued help? Did you steal office supplies?

Keep It 100

Sure, sometimes there are unique circumstances. Maybe you made a big mistake and lost the company money or your boss tried to get to know you in the biblical sense after the Christmas party. But most of the time it’s just run-of-the-mill shit. You have this opportunity to leave each other in a good place. Be honest.

Confession

I’ve changed jobs twice this year. The first time I wasn’t honest. I didn’t air my grievances before deciding it wasn’t going to help. Maybe it wouldn’t have, but I could’ve spoken my mind and at least walked away knowing I was honest.

The second time I was honest. I had no beef, I just got a great offer. The folks I worked with tried really hard to meet me, and they came at the situation honestly. As a result I still do some side work for them that makes me a little change and keeps them humming along for an easy transition.

Honestly, honesty is hard. But it’s worth the effort.

The Setup

One of my favorite distractions is The Setup. I’m always on the lookout for ways to improve my day to day technology activities. It interests me to see the setups that other people use.

I doubt I’ll ever be interesting enough to be interviewed for The Setup, so I thought I’d interview myself in the same style!

Who are you and what do you do?

I’m a hacker, father, husband, manager, executive and gamer. I write a lot of code, run operations for Infinity Interactive, play some games (tabletop and video) and try to be a good husband and father.

What hardware are you using?

I’ve been an Apple convert for about 9 years. I bought a TiBook in a fit of lust and haven’t really looked back.

I work from home on a MacPro3,1, the dual quad-core 2.8GHz model. It has 8GB of RAM and an upgraded ATI Radeon HD 5770 that I got in 2010 to extend it’s life for gaming. I also crammed 3 1TB drives into it. Two of them are software RAID-1 for Time Machine) and the other is my root HD. There’s also an old 750GB drive that was one of the mirrored pair in my previous backup disks. It’s there from when I needed access to my old backups, as I started fresh.

I also have a 15” MacBookPro4,5 with the Hi-Res, Matte screen. It was my main work machine for a few months this year, but mostly I keep it for conferences and other times when I need to be mobile. I’m pretty sure that when I replace it, I’ll go with a Macbook Air.

For input and output devices I have two refurbished 24” Cinema Displays from 2008. I use a Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 that I try and replace once a year, since I wear the C, X, S and V keys off. Also because keyboards get really filthy. My Logitech Performance Mouse MX came on recommendation from a friend and I fell in love with it. I keep an Allsop Comfortbead Wrist Rest below it. I have a set of Bose Companion 5 speakers that replaced an older, massive Klipsch Promedia Ultra 5.1 rig that dominated my desk. The Bose setup doesn’t sound as good, but it’s considerably smaller and the little puck volume knob is wonderful. I use a Sennheiser PC 26 USB headset for Skype and when I need to keep it down I have a set of Sennheiser HD595 cans.

I have a great desk from Room & Board and the cables for all this stuff are half-hidden using sticky wire guides and zip-ties. I need to finish that project…

I use an Apple Battery Charger for my all my AA battery consuming things. I have a wall-mounted Samsung SmartTV with a MacMini3,1 and an XBox 360. I use the Mac Mini with a Slingbox Pro HD for watching soccer and the XBox for games and Netflix. My house is wired with Cat5E and I use Netgear GS605 Gigabit Switches all over the place with a punchpanel in the attic from MonoPrice.

And what software?

Terminal.app, first and foremost. I grew up on vim and I still use it every day, but I use Textmate for long documents or multi-file projects. I use Eclipse when programming Java and recently started learning my way around XCode. I’m really impressed by it. Just today I programmed in Java, Perl, Javascript, Shell and PHP so I tend to be flexible with editors. I use git exclusively and often use GitX (L) for commits to GitHub. I use Querious when chatting with MySQL.

I prefer Safari and use 1Password to manage the huge number of usernames and passwords I have. I’m still converting from using Keychain.app. I keep Firefox, Chrome and Opera around for testing and I use VMWare Fusion to run Windows 7 for IE testing. I do a lot of web design work, for which I use no special tools aside from the ones I mentioned above. Well, except for Adobe CS4, which I’ve yet to upgrade. I share things with friends and coworkers via Skitch. I use xScope for sampling colors, zooming in on errant pixels and other odds and ends.

For email I use Postbox, which is way better than Mail.app if you need any of it’s features. Lion’s new Mail.app comes close, but I needed per-Account settings that Mail.app gloms into global. I use Adium for IM, Limechat for IRC, and Twitter for Twitter. ICal managed my calendars, poorly. I read lots of RSS feeds using Reeder on the desktop, iPad and iPhone.

Being a consultant I have to track time. I use Time Tracker and it does the job. I’ve not found anything that was better enough to warrant switching.

I have a good sized iTunes library at nearly 13,000 tracks. I use CoverSutra to keep tabs on what’s playing.

Miscellaneous stuff: I use Evernote off and on. I do most of writing in Markdown using Textmate and Marked. I store some things on Dropbox. I manage projects with OmniPlan, write outlines with OmniOutliner and make diagrams with OmniGraffle. I use Xtorrent for any torrents that I need to slurp down.

What would be your dream setup?

Luckily, this is pretty much it. But if we’re dreaming I’d like Bose to add some LEDs to the volume knob on the Companion speakers and make the subwoofer something worth a shit. I’m eagerly awaiting Apple’s release of an updated Mac Pro, as I’ve held off on getting as SSD and adding more RAM so that buying another gratuitous machine will feel worthwhile. Anything that cuts the number of cords I have to route is always welcome. I’d like a replacement for Textmate that doesn’t crash and adds new features. I’ve tried BBEdit and various vim plugins, but I’m just too addicted to ⌘-t.

iTunes Song Additions Over Time

During lunch today I thought to myself: “Self, what would a graph of songs added over time look like for your 12,704 song iTunes database.”

Luckily, I am equipped to answer such questions.

I had to exclude the initial import, as it threw off the chart. I am satiated now.

It's Been A Long Time

I’ve decided that I should be writing again. That’s why things have suddenly changed. New design, new host and a new outlook.

Lots has changed in my life in the last few years. Hell, lots has changed in the last few months. I’ll be talking about technology, life and work. Or maybe something different.

I hope you’ll tag along.