I Cast Magic Missile: An Introduction (Part 1)

                When critics and even gamers look at games today, they base much of their judgment on how free their gameplay style is – how many options there are available for them to customize their character, where they can go, what they can do, and so on. Most games are limited by the development team’s size, time allotment, and the style of game they’re producing. But there is one game out there that has only one limit: the imagination of its players. A group of five people can sit down for a couple hours and come up with a game that has never been conceived before, all the while having loads of fun, and not even noticing the time passing.

                What is this miracle game, some may ask?

                Well, it is known by many names. Some call it stupid, nerdy, and a waste of time; others refer to it as the greatest game ever devised; most, however, know it only as Dungeons and Dragons (or DnD for short).

                Once one can make it around the negative social stigmas associated with DnD, it is truly the most enormous game playable. To begin, one simply needs an imaginative mind and a group of friends. While guidebooks are available for purchase, they are known as guidebooks for a reason: they serve only to give players ideas as to what they could do in the game. But before a prospective player can dive into even the simplest game, they must first know the basics.

                Present in every session of Dungeons and Dragons are the players – they are, after all, the center of the storyline. They generally number from two to six (though this limitation can be expanded if they are experienced), and fall within one of two categories: the adventurers and the Dungeon Master (DM). Adventurers are the most numerous of the group, making up the majority of those at the table, as they play the characters that the story generally revolves around. They can come from any walk of life, and have any amount of experience (or a lack thereof). However, the Dungeon Master fills a very important role: s/he is the one that controls the world surrounding the adventurers, from plot to geography and everything in between. Dungeon Masters are generally very experienced players that have been gaming DnD and know its subtleties well, though there are exceptions (such as myself) that jump into the role with no prior knowledge to fill a hole in a gaming group.

[Note: I've decided to divide this blog up into many separate parts, as it will be incredibly lengthy. So watch for the next part as it is released!]

(Blogging week 2)

Awesome Game Music: The Elder Scrolls

Today, I was fantasizing (as I often do) about the upcoming game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, when the theme music popped into my head. I've got it practically memorized at this point, after watching the trailer so many times, yet it's still as awesome as the first time I heard it. The huge choir knocks me flat each time, though they're singing in a 'language' (lacking syntax or grammar) present only in the realm of the game. After I had played through its final decrescendo and wiped the tears of awe from my eyes, I realized just why this music was so amazing: it connected with what I had listened to in my earlier years - to be more specific, a game earlier in the series.
My friend Brandon got me started on the Elder Scrolls game series when I was but 11 years old, and then, the latest Elder Scrolls game was Morrowind, the third installation. Its opening theme used a rumbling bass, coupled with a piccolo, that struck up an epic melody with a symphony as the title of the game appeared on the screen, and it was the most awesome theme I'd ever heard (which was saying something - I'd played through Super Mario Bros Deluxe and Pokemon Silver plenty of times by then, which are both classics, in the realm of music and games). The next installment of the game, Oblivion, brought the melody from Morrowind back in its introduction theme, though much more subtly, focusing instead on themes that sounded more imperialistic and filled with doom.
Skyrim's introduction throws back to Morrowind's, but in a much more obvious way than the Oblivion intro had. It preserves the melody almost perfectly, using a full symphony with choral accompaniment. There are many differences, however, that are used to portray the nature of the game: the staccato notes in the brass and the choir are much more intense than the legato phrases played by the piccolo and the symphony in the Morrowind theme, the choir emphasizes the importance of language and vocabulary, and the general feel of the two songs are very much different. While the Morrowind intro piece is calm and beautiful, Skyrim's theme is (artistically) chaotic, loud, and more explosive.

I absolutely love the way that these pieces connect the series together. The games are in the same series, and are connected by this and the lore they share, but also are strung to one another by this music, giving the series a sort of fluidity that not many other games have.

 Morrowind Theme 

Oblivion Theme
Skyrim Theme

Note: it's highly likely that, in the near future, I'll be doing another blog about these games focused mostly around gameplay mechanics.

The Elder Scrolls Series and all that stuff are copyright Bethesda and such and such. I take no credit in creating any of the media I present, nor do I make any profit from presenting it.

(2nd Note: This blog is similar to another post made by another music blog I had started, The Eerie Noise, because I changed my blog's theme.)

Have fun, good gaming, and remember - don't feed the trolls.
-Toast

(Blogging Week 1)