Folly of the Faithful Canine

Taking a Break

Sun, 08 Jun 2025 03:04:32 GMT

Some players complain about video games
Where your ammo is finite or weapons can break,
But many examples I know of are fun,
So I have to reply with an alternate take.

A whole lot of games have expendable items
For non-combat purposes such as to heal.
Allowing that feat without limit would make
The objective too easy and lose its appeal.

It’s true that disarmament during a battle
Is harsh and alarming to those unprepared,
But keeping the prospect in mind gives incentive
To swap out equipment for what can be spared.

It forces the players to vary their fighting.
The matches won’t feel so alike all the while.
It adds to the challenge, but not to the point
Of frustration, I find, so I’m glad for the style.

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Eric and the Dread Gazebo

Sun, 03 Nov 2024 00:32:22 GMT

A role-playing game before Dungeons and Dragons
That didn’t have even a title
Has nevertheless left its mark with a story
That’s worth a poetic recital.

A game master spoke of a garden that had
A gazebo upon a small hill.
A player named Eric requested more details.
The master obliged him, but still

It soon was apparent that Eric assumed
A gazebo was some sort of creature.
He tried to detect any goodness with magic.
In objects, that just doesn’t feature.

He called the gazebo; it didn’t respond,
So he fired an arrow right in it.
The master suggested an axe or some flames.
(This all happened in less than a minute.)

Since Eric had neither, he opted to flee,
But the master had had quite enough.
He said the gazebo awoke, chased down Eric,
And ate him. That structure was tough!

Poor Eric was planning to make a new mage
To avenge his dead paladin then.
The rest of the players defined a gazebo.
He wouldn’t attack one again.

Some 15 years later, the story got published
In amateur press magazines.
It’s led to some 21st-century jokes
Among folks in the RPG scene.

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Sick Games

Sun, 13 Oct 2024 03:41:33 GMT

In RPGs, most often during battles with magicians,
The heroes get afflicted with a few adverse conditions.
A common one is poison, docking health points bit by bit.
In some games, it can’t kill you, but you die with one more hit.

Another is confusion, where you strike whoever’s near,
Or else you join the bad guys, till a new hit makes things clear.
Attacks can also wake you if you’re made to fall asleep,
But only with a weapon, not with magic (what the bleep?).

A hit won’t help if you’ve been stunned; you’ll have to wait it out.
If muted, you can’t cast a spell, which must require a shout.
Your senses might get dulled so that you miss with most attacks.
You might get slowed or even stopped completely in your tracks.

Don’t worry: You can buy or find some items like elixirs
That you or party allies then can use as status fixers.
Some amulets ensure that such conditions never start.
At worst, just let the time pass, but in any case, take heart.

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What's in the Cards

Sun, 08 Sep 2024 03:13:25 GMT

The symbol of clubs in a playing card deck
Doesn’t look like a club much to me.
A forumite said that it came from a myth,
But the sources I found disagree.

In French, it’s called tréfle, which translates to clover.
Historians therefore suspect
The English used Spanish suits first and continued
The name when they swapped out the deck.

That also explains why the symbol of spades
Hardly shows what a shovel looks like.
Its name’s from the Old Spanish word for a sword,
Which the French had replaced with a pike.

So why aren’t the hearts still called cups and the diamonds
Called coins as the Spaniards would do?
The symbols are easy to recognize; naming
Them wrong makes you sound like a fool.

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Dead Man's Hand

Sun, 04 Aug 2024 02:03:02 GMT

The Grand Forks Daily Herald back in 1886
Defined a “dead man’s hand” before all other sources known,
But not a way that ever in the present era sticks:
Three jacks, two tens, a full house that supposedly was shown

To lose a man his real house, so he promptly died of shock.
Some other early sources gave the hand as tens and treys
Or jacks and eights or jacks and sevens; nonetheless, the talk
Of eights and aces came to overwhelm all other ways.

You may have heard Bill Hickok held the eights and aces hand.
The fifth card was the deuces of spades, the queen of clubs or hearts,
The jack of diamonds—no one knows for sure, I understand.
Indeed, the cards’ whole story was suspicious from the start.

We know that Bill was shot while playing poker in a bar,
But 50 years elapsed before a claim to what he held
Was published by Frank Wilstach. Well, the rumor traveled far,
And maybe now there’s not much point in having it dispelled.

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Koopa Troopa

Sat, 17 Jun 2023 21:34:29 GMT

A forumite went looking for a parody of ABBA's "Super Trouper" called "Koopa Troopa," in reference to an anthropomorphic turtle species from the Mario games. He found a lousy one and made an open request for another. I found a second version that wasn't bad but decided to try my hand at it anyway. For the sake of more difference, I focused on the character's role in the Mario Kart series rather than a platform game.

Koopa Troopa, racing in a go-kart,
Drops a big green shell,
Bidding me farewell
As everybody drives pell-mell.

I was nervous when the cup began,
As I started right out in last place.
Couldn’t hear the cheering of a fan,
But I managed to set a fast pace.
In a minute, I had passed most other racers.
Suddenly I hear a sound,
And I know that it means trouble as I skid across the ground,

Because the Koopa Troopa doesn’t have a slow kart.
Using one bright star,
It will travel far,
Not like normal turtles are.

And then the Koopa Troopa, racing in a go-kart,
Fires a big red shell,
Making me unwell.
My injuries are sure to swell.

Facing lava pits and falling stones?
How can any track be so risky?
No one even put up traffic cones.
Was the management drunk on whiskey?
Nonetheless, I plan to gain a golden trophy.
Hear them play my winning theme.
Still, I must remember things here are not always as they seem,

Because the Koopa Troopa doesn’t have a slow kart,
Thanks to that darn star.
This is so bizarre.
We shouldn’t even be on par.

And then the Koopa Troopa, racing in a go-kart,
Fires a big blue shell,
Causing me to yell,
“I wish that you would go to…”

I hope to stand upon the stairs
With other winners; I’ll have mine, and they’ll have theirs.
If I’m not higher than the shorty at my side,
I think I’ll ditch my kart and hitch a ride.

That stupid Koopa Troopa doesn’t have a slow kart.
What a shining star.
This will leave a scar.
I’m feeling like I’m stuck in tar.

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Razzle-Dazzle

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 04:39:00 GMT

If you attend a carnival, beware the Razzle games,
Which go by “Cajun Bingo” and a bunch of other names.
A bettor spills eight marbles from a cup upon a board.
They land in holes with numbers to determine how it’s scored.
A grid displays which totals lead to points toward a goal
That lets you pick a prize, so no one stops at just one roll.
A throw that sums to 29 will double throwing’s price
But also means more prizes if successful, which is nice.
The trouble is, the winning sums are always high or low.
The grid’s in random order, so you likely wouldn’t know.
The chance of scoring anytime is only 2%.
A 29 is probable, and so is your lament.
Ironically, the operator often starts with lies
Pretending you got points and thus may soon attain a prize.
Take note that many prizes are expensive, like TVs,
A telling sign you can’t expect to garner them with ease.
Since folks have lost a fortune, many nations have it banned—
Which doesn’t mean you’ll never see a Razzle-Dazzle stand.

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The Minus World

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 04:05:52 GMT

When Super Mario Bros. was released on NES,
Some players soon discovered quite an unintended mess:
By jumping off the exit pipe of World One-Dash-Two
While holding down and right, you let the hero pass right through
A wall of bricks to reach the open-secret Warp Zone pipes
Before they’ve loaded properly. What happens next? Oh, yipes!
The middle pipe just takes you to the start of World 5.
The others take you somewhere that the hero can’t survive,
Because it loops around without a way to let him out.
It wasn’t even programmed! How’d this feature come about?
It looks much like a certain other level, since a bug
Throws off the system’s math. The explanation makes me shrug.
I do know this: It’s designated World Blank-Dash-One,
“The Minus World.” Players often check it out for fun.
The Famicom Disk System version, only in Japan,
Gets even more bizarre, with three whole levels that you can
Complete, and then the game pretends you beat it all the way.
What happens in those levels? There’s too much for me to say,
Except they break a lot of rules enforced throughout the game,
So once you try them out, it really doesn’t feel the same.
Some hackers wanted even more and found a way to end
The endless one, revealing more weird levels to transcend.
The Minus World has to be the most oft-cited glitch
In console gaming history, and now I have the itch.

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System Crash

Mon, 17 Oct 2022 04:13:20 GMT

While console games today are quite the thriving industry,
Few people would predict it back in 1983,
At least within the USA, where games were thought a fad
And lack of quality control meant most were really bad.
A notable example was E.T.’s game for Atari,
Who put it out untested; the reception left them sorry.
Too many manufacturers were working much too fast.
Computer games meant further competition to be passed.
Most video game companies back then would not survive.
Home consoles discontinued here by 1985.
Nintendo, though, got clever: They redubbed the Famicom
“Nintendo Entertainment System” so it wouldn’t bomb.
They shaped it like a VCR and even added R.O.B.
(Robotic Operating Buddy). That would do the job
Of getting kids to want it not for gaming but the toy.
Ironically, the robot would provide them much less joy.
Nintendo also emphasized a light gun called the Zapper.
That too did not fare well but saved the system from the crapper.
Small wonder that the NES would win that console war:
It catered to its customers like nobody before.

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Simon Says

Mon, 03 Oct 2022 03:02:33 GMT

We nearly all know Simon Says, the classic schoolyard game,
But recently I’ve come to wonder where we got the name.
The earliest known version uses Cicero instead.
(Of course, if all obeyed him, he would not have lost his head.)
We now have many variants, but Simon leads the way
In several different languages across the world today.
It’s possible that players merely thought it sounded nice,
But one historic figure I’ve seen nominated twice:
De Montfort, Earl of Leicester, in the Second Barons’ War,
Took over all of England; he sure gave the king what for.
He didn’t reign for long before his own assassination,
But maybe it was long enough for age-old adulation.

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Sun, 18 Sep 2022 21:11:22 GMT

I got an honorable mention in the latest Style Invitational results. The new contest also involves poetry, so I'm giving it a spin, this time with four entries. In case you can't read the link, it's about short poems using terms that Merriam-Webster added this month.

1. Most albums that I’ve listened to begin with something hot.
It makes a lot of sense to give a hit the foremost spot.
In music terms, a deep cut is a less familiar song.
“The first cut is the deepest”? Boy, Cat Stevens got it wrong.

2. If you adopt a hoglet, you had best not name it Sonic.
You wouldn’t want one dashing super-fast around the house.
Perhaps you have a slowpoke and would like to be ironic,
But tempting fate is scary with a prickly pseudo-mouse.

3. When a new CEO of Nintendo
Reached his office, he must have thought, “Yup,
This is it, the top floor of the building,
So I’ll never again level up.”

4. Imagine if a supervillain stuck to petty crime,
Only using superpowers for evasion.
Would heroes try to stop him? Would he not be worth their time?
Would they even give some thought to this equation?
If he should get away with it and everyone found out,
Would authorities be all the more maligned?
Would laws be changed if not repealed? There may be room for doubt,
But I’d bet that’s what the villain had in mind.

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A Class in Classes

Mon, 15 Nov 2021 04:04:42 GMT

Most role-playing games involve classes,
Which shape what the players can do.
Some patterns emerge across series,
And trust me: I’ve tried quite a few.

There’s often a class just called “fighter”
Or “warrior”—something like that.
Their brawn is quite handy for melees,
But that’s about it—kind of flat.

There might be an archer or sniper,
Who does the job best with a bow.
Except with a bonus for flyers,
The damage per hit is quite low.

For power and range put together,
The wizard or mage is on top,
But magic is pricy and fleeting.
They don’t fare so well once they stop.

In games where a party assembles,
There should be a cleric or priest.
They’re special for healing their allies,
But combat? For that, they’re the least.

A thief or a rogue may be present,
Despite being heroes in name.
They’re swift and amass the provisions,
But fighting with daggers is lame.

In some games, you may see a knight class,
The one with the highest defense.
They have to be strong for their armor,
But speed’s not their forte, which makes sense.

You might find a type of arcanist
Who summons foes back from the dead
Or someone who captures the weak ones
And swaps their alignment instead.

Take note that a bard or a dancer
Is there to give allies a boost.
They may or may not be the same class
To have the foes’ powers reduced.

The monk class is often bare-handed
But nimble and tough to suffice.
Berserkers are forceful yet flimsy.
The druid can shape-shift; that’s nice.

The paladin’s power is holy.
The gambler leaves fighting to chance.
I may have omitted some patterns,
But these are enough for a glance.

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