Sadly, not all of us are able to make the yearly trip to gaming's Mecca - E3.  But sometimes you gain more insight sitting in your cubicle pretending to work and watching keynote address than you can by rushing around a hectic show floor.  Well, at least that's what I like to tell myself.  So while Commodore and I are busy enacting our master plan to attend E3 2011, I'd like to share my thoughts on what I've seen from all the hoopla the Big 3 have put out in the aether over the past couple days.

And I've also noticed some of you have already got to talking about E3 presentations in our video game forum, so I encourage all of you to join in.  Hell, I can't think of a better time to use it!  And now, after seeing each major keynote as it happened, here are my initial impressions on the recently revealed gaming news.

I ran a 4E solo encounter against my party for the first time, and it sucked. The idea was basically to have them encounter a powerful draconic guardian to strike fear into their hearts and make them think carefully about using The Ways in the future. What are the Ways? I'll save that for another column.

Why can't they just leave well enough alone? TMNT, The Karate Kid, The A-Team... they've all been made into movies and they're trying to take our money to see them... again! Today the Clan of the Gray Wolf looks at the crappy movies that have been remade, the crappy movies that are going to be remade, and the awesome movies that no one should ever touch... ever! You hear me George Lucas?!? Why are these movies made? Will they ever stop? Could we resist the temptation to see Scarlett Johansson as Cheetarah? Find out on this episode of the Echo Screen!

In this episode:
 - (0:00) Intro & successful remakes
 - (15:15) Crappy remakes
 - (24:15) What do we want to see remade?
 - (35:00) What do we not want to see remade?

You can download this episode as an mp3 by clicking here

About a  month ago, a fellow reviewer by the name of Cin Wicked was asking for help on a project.  He has a show called "Song Lyric Smackdown", where he essentially reviews all types of popular music, and he was wrapping up a month on Jim Henson music with a trbiute to coincide with the 20th anniversary of his untimely death.  I, along with several other producers, agreed to send in a minute or so long video concerning our thoughts on Henson, and how his work touched our lives.

The result is actually very moving, and I'm glad to provide it below for you guys to watch.  And I'd like to thank Cin for letting me be a part of it.  I have to say, the room got a little dusty by the time I got to the end of it...

And be sure to check out some of Cin's other stuff.  Let him know if you like it.  He's quite a talent.

*Original story from NPR*

Dan Myers of Notre Dame University talks to Robert Siegel about his claim that he's figured out what theoretically the shortest possible game of Monopoly would be. That is: If everything went just the right way, with just the right sequence of rolls, Chance and Community Chest cards, and so on, what is the quickest way one player could go bankrupt?

Edit by Roo: I read about this the other day, and seeing the video below in action gives you a new appreciation for just how quick a session this is.  :)

I've been thinking about combat encounters in my game alot lately, and after nearly two years of 4E gaming, I'm still unhappy with 4E combat. It's an improvement over previous editions, but I think there's plenty of room for improvement. Combat is a slog. I've tried nerfing the monster HP while buffing attacks. I've tried putting my players on a timer. I've tried adding more interesting terrain. I've examined my DMing and table management critically...no matter what, a combat takes at least an hour and isn't exciting enough to keep all the players focused on the game.

I blame, in part, the fact every combat ends when the bad guys are dead or dying, or have run away. Those of you who read the column regularly know I'm ex-Army, so thinking about combat in tactical terms is an old job-skill of mine. Some of my other Veteran readers know that the military has precisely defined terminology for specific tactical actions in FM 3-90: Tactics. And I've been inspired by this favorite old manual to try and change the focus of combat encounters by using these well-defined terms, and redefining them for RPG Combat.