Who is Rocket Llama? "The world's oldest webcomic - since 1916." Tongue-in-cheek tales of a high-flying llama, a sword-swinging cat, and a rocket as loyal as a cowboy hero's horse. With time traveling cavedogs, a persnickety penguin, and surprise parodies of Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and more. Creators have presented their work at Internation Comic-Con Comicon International in San Diego, California, with Danny Fingeroth (The Amazing Spider-Man, Dazzler, Superman on the Couch, Disguised as Clark Kent), and WonderCon Wonder-Con in San Francisco, California, as part of the Comics Arts Conference a.k.a. Comic Arts Conference; and Wizard World Texas, the Wizard World University Texas academic meetings in Arlington, Texas, near Six Flags Over Texas, with Phil Hester (Green Arrow and Clerks with Kevin Smith), Jason Henderson (The Sword of Dracula, Dracula Wars #1), Ben Templesmith (30 Days of Night with Steve Niles, Fell), Jacen Burrows (Crossed with Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis), Ethan Van Sciver (Green Lanter).
Keywords: Webcomic webcomics cartoon cartoons all-ages family entertainment comics comic books comic strips sequential art quirky humor funny furry fun anthropomorphic animals satire comedy science fiction fantasy historical history pseudohistorical pseudohistory.
 

 

Dungeons and Dragons and Separation Anxiety

Dungeons and Dragons started back before my time in 1974. Since then it has had about a dozen revision and four major editions released. With these revisions and editions there have been hundreds, even thousands, of books released to supplement the original material that is always comprised of a Player's Handbook, a Dungeon Master's Guide, and a Monster Manual.

I'm about to present to you the most basic, clear, concise, and true description of Dungeons and Dragons your eyes will every look upon...


D&D is pretend with rules, dice, and paper.


That's it. Of course it is an oversimplification of it. This description is like if I said that movie making was like playing pretend that you just happened to film. There's a bit more to it than that.

D&D has been the basis of RPGs for a long time. Thing is, it has existed for such a long time that most video game developers have lost sight of that. D&D players don't really discuss it, but D&D is becoming a thing of the past. It might die out.

So what has Wizards of the Coast, the current developer of D&D books, done to try to pull in more players? They've create 4th edition, which is heavily influenced by World of Warcraft in hopes of bringing in the modern audience of gamers. It is still too soon to say if the sales have proven this "evolutionary step" as a success, but at the very least it has helped it from falling behind.

There is a vocal audience out there that did not want such a drastic change from their beloved 3rd edition. They just wanted it to be more balanced and freshened up with some innovation. I can understand some of their complaints but I also think they are being stubborn or even dumb. First, I'll talk about how they are right.

4th edition is simpler. Much simpler. Maybe even too simple. What used to be an in-depth puzzle solving process of character creation has become a pretty limited. You get so many chances to make the right choices as you level up it is next to impossible to make a completely flawed build. There are also so many choices that after you've made all the right ones you're pretty much stuck choosing some lackluster stuff. Everything is normalized towards the middle instead of the very entertaining extremes of super weak and overpowered.
They've also made the Wizard class far too weak to make up for how overpowered it was in 3rd edition. It's just another standard World of Warcraft-like class instead of a character out of Lord of the Rings or a Harry Potter book.
The focus has also shifted way too far from skills. It used to be where you could potentially hold an entire campaign on the basis of adventuring with very little combat. The new skill system keeps anyone from being useless out of combat but no one is fantastic out of combat either.

What 4th edition gets right is nearly everything related to combat. Magic effects for Equipment have been made to really feel like it makes a difference in more than just sheer numbers. If you have a flaming sword, it can deal nothing but fire damage. You can have a chestpiece that blinds your opponents. These kinds of effects are much more common in 4th edition.
All classes get "Powers", which include anything from a special physical technique to a magic spell. A Fighter can do more in combat than just hit people over and over. A Cleric doesn't have to just heal damage every round. They can now heal twice and deal damage all in a single turn. Clerics are now undeniably fun to play. As for the Wizard, they feel comparatively limited to what they were able to do, but all of the seven other classes feel like great improvements. You also don't get four or more attacks every round. A standard action just gives you a single attack. This saves tons of time on dice rolls.
The thought for 4th edition D&D is no longer in min/maxing but instead on the choices that you make during combat.

So what's my final verdict on 4th edition? I like it. It is a new edition, but it is still very similar to 3rd edition in lots and lots of ways.
Wired explained it best. The most fun would probably be had in mixing and matching the two systems. Many will change to the new system and be perfectly happy. There are some that will not want to change to the new system out of loyalty to the old, and a company called Paizo is capitalizing on that with a little something called Pathfinder.

I'll tell you all about Pathfinder in next installment of D&D and Separation Anxiety.

Nick L.

 

 

 

© 2008 Rocket Llama World Headquarters, LLC. All rights reserved.

The Ongoing Adventures of Rocket Llama[1] is a webcomic starring "a high-flying llama, a sword-swinging cat, and a rocket as loyal as a cowboy hero's horse."[2] Created by Alex Langley while he was a student at Henderson State University, the comic first appeared in a comic book titled The Workday Comic. For the Workday comics anthology, a spin-off of Scott McCloud's 24-Hour Comics, comics creators each wrote and drew their own eight-page stories in eight hours in April, 2007, on Friday the 13th[3], which turned into an ongoing publication.[4]  Co-presenting with comics author and scholar Danny Fingeroth (Dazzler, Spider-Man, Superman on the Couch), the creators described the webcomic's evolution as members of a Comics Arts Conference panel at 2008's Comic-Con International in San Diego, California.[5][6][7]  Contents [hide] 1 Debut  2 Webcomic  3 References  4 External links      [edit] Debut The full title of Rocket Llama's debut story in The Workday Comic #1 (spring, 2007) was "The Ongoing Adventures of Rocket Llama #112: 'Trouble in Paradise'".[8] The story introduced the taciturn hero Rocket Llama and his talkative sidekick, an anthropomorphic cat named Bartholomew Meowsenhausen, who find themselves stranded on an island after a battle with an enemy called Jetpack Dog. Spherical islanders capture them and then challenge them to combat. A villain named Böwser vön Überdog arrives with Jetpack Dog and, in a sudden Star Wars parody, summons a giant robot known as the Super Robot Dog Walker which blasts a volcano to bits. Before it can fire a second blast, Rocket Llama destroys it by getting it to swallow a pot of water and backfire. The story ends with Böwser tied up and the heroes using the giant robot dog head as a boat to get themselves home, with the promise of the next story to be titled, "Yuck! Yukon!"[9][10]  Whether despite the original story's childlike art or because of it, the Rocket Llama story proved to be the most popular in the 2007 anthology collection of the eight-hour comics.[11] After comic artist Stephen R. Bissette, an instructor at the Center for Cartoon Studies and comic book artist best known for his work on Swamp Thing with Alan Moore, read all of the stories in the first volume of The Workday Comic, he remarked, "That llama's gonna stick with me."[12]   [edit] Webcomic Nick Langley redrew the story with a less childlike drawing style in webcomic form for online publication[13] as the flagship title for the website rocketllama.com which grew into an affiliation of websites featuring webcomics, art, entertainment reviews, and scholarly studies of comics.[14] The online story featured a new cover[15] and omitted a one-page gag, a preview for an unrelated Stealth Potato comic, which had appeared as an intermission in the middle of the original story.[16] The original story also appeared online as the comic's "ashcan copy."[17]  The authors present the Rocket Llama stories metafictionally as the world's oldest comic book, established in 1916, which they allegedly rediscovered and are adapting into webcomics. "Deep underground, in an archaic vault we searched until we found the fabled tales. As both the current production team behind The Ongoing Adventures of Rocket Llama and appreciators of such groundbreaking literature, we have taken it upon ourselves to restore these classic issues to a glory more befitting a modern, digital age."[18]  Although every "issue" is presented with panels and screens in the correct order for each story, the issues are presented out of order as if readers were discovering old issues of a classic comic book in a seemingly haphazard order, however they come to find them. After the redrawn number 112's online publication came the serialized time travel story #136-137, "Time Flies When You're on the Run," appearing one page at a time throughout each week.[19][20] Special Rocket Llama Says bonus features appear only in "ashcan" form drawn by the original creator.[21]   [edit] References ^ Rocket Llama World Headquarters  ^ You are here.  ^ Waddles, Joshua. (2007, April 2). Comic book club puts in a full day's work. The Oracle vol. 99 (25), p. 3.  ^ Beard, Sarah. (2008, August 25). Comic Arts Club offers excitment. The Oracle, vol. 101 (1), p. 5.  ^ T. Langley & R. Duncan, panel moderators, with respondent Danny Fingeroth. (2008, July). "Capes and Tights, Caps and Gowns." Panel presented at the Comics Arts Conference, Comic-Con International. San Diego, California.  ^ Recent and Upcoming Research Presentations  ^ Pannell, E. (2008, July 27). Comic communication part of professors' classes. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, T-1, T-4.  ^ Page 1.  ^ The Workday Comic #1. Spring, 2007.[1]  ^ The Workday Comic - online edition.  ^ Sorrell, M. (2008, April 14).Club produces second annual workday comic. The Oracle, vol. 100.  ^ Quoted in "The Workday Comic: Not Just One Third of a 24-Hour Comic." Comics Arts Conference, Comic-Con International. San Diego, California. July 27, 2008.  ^ The Ongoing Adventures of Rocket Llama #112: "Trouble in Paradise." Script: Alex Langley. Art: Nick Langley.  ^ You are here.  ^ #137-Cover.  ^ Sneak Peak at Stealth Potato #75.  ^ Rocket Llama Ashcan Copy.  ^ Who Is Rocket Llama?  ^ "Time Flies When You're on the Run, Part 1." Script: Alex Langley. Art: Nick Langley.  ^ "Time Flies When You're on the Run, Part 2." Script: Alex Langley. Art: Nick Langley.  ^ e.g., "Tanks a Lot." Rocket Llama Says #8. Script and art: Alex Langley.