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Articles
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LoRo, Nate, Neu as fantasy role-playing models By: Malamute, 22 March 2004
Geneforge 2 is the latest computer role-playing game I've been playing and, as such, provides a milieu for describing this week's news articles concerning Robinson, Neuheisel and Romar. Los Angeles (a small man comes up big) How about that 6 x 10 inch photo of Nate Robinson appearing in the print edition of the Los Angeles Times on March 10? As a 42-year subscriber to the Times, I cannot remember seeing a photo of a UW athlete displayed so prominently on the first page of its sports section in such a positive way. The photo accompanied Chris Dufresne’s story, “It’s a small world,” which asserts that the small man may have a future in the college and professional basketball because of the zone defenses being employed nowadays. If you play the Guardian in Geneforge 2, call him Nate. A Guardian is good at melee attacks and hand-to-hand combat. Build up his strength points to ensure a higher rate of striking an opponent. Columbus (did LoRo goof?) Now that Alabama Birmingham (UAB) has knocked off number-one seed Kentucky, you wonder if that couldn’t have been the UW instead. Washington lost a heartbreaker to UAB, 102-100, and was poised to meet Kentucky if they should have won. In the game against UAB, I hate to second-guess coach Lorezno Romar for benching two of his starters for disciplinary reasons, but you do wonder what would have happened otherwise. Apparently, Bobby Jones and Will Conroy lost starting jobs for having company in their hotel room after the team curfew. While they were sitting on the bench, Washington fell behind 19-9 and expended a ton of energy trying to even the score. In the end, fatigue cost them the game. As a punishment, why not have had Jones and Conroy run some laps on the track at Husky Stadium when they got back from Columbus? Art Thiel may have put it best, “Romar's firmness probably cost the UW the game. But future Huskies teams will know of the story, and the program will be defined by it.” As for Romar, it’s too early to call him the Mage of Montlake, a sobriquet I’ve used for him in deference to us role-playing geeks who are sports fans. I had to buy the hint book to get through Geneforge 2, so you can see where I’m coming from. If you play the Shaper in Genefore 2, call him LoRo. Being a skilled magician like a mage, a Shaper is proficient at recruiting powerful creatures to fight by his side during a battle. Seattle (so what’s Neu?) Some time ago, I wrote the “Neuheisel Chronicles” (see the History Section) to present both sides of Rick Neuheisel’s story as coach of the University of Washington. I felt, for the most part, that only one side of the story, its negative side, was being presented by the media. Since its original writing, I’ve updated the chronicles with comments from Neuheisel’s lawyers and Nueheisel himself to accompany the laundry list of charges being hurled at the former coach. Like the skies over Baghdad one year ago, the flak hurled at Neuheisel is getting out of hand. Now Coach Neu is being blamed by the media for everything that has gone wrong at the UW and Colorado campuses, even thought he is one and five years removed from them respectively. And former athletic director Barbara Hedges is taking flak for hiring Neuheisel in 1999. Supposedly, she didn’t perform the proper background check to uncover his “checkered past,” as some writers assert. A recent article (“Long trail of offenses begins in Colorado”) written by Steve Miletich, alleges that Neuheisel, while at Colorado (1994-1998), maintained lax standards of conduct when he was the head coach. The article is based on the statement of a high school girl who alleges she was raped (in 1997) during an “an alcohol-fueled gathering of Colorado football players, recruits and other high-school girls at an off-campus hotel.” Miletich writes, “Although there were conflicting accounts of that incident and no one was charged with rape, prosecutors met with University of Colorado officials to relay their belief that the girls were at the hotel to provide sex as a recruiting tool. Prosecutors said they had heard of similar gatherings.” Miletich is fair; he provides both sides of the argument, that being did Neuheisel run an undisciplined ship at Boulder that contributed to the problems the University of Colorado is faced with now? Learning of the incident in a news story, Neuheisel said, through his lawyer, that …”he canceled the scholarship of one recruit and later suspended one player for two games for providing alcohol to others at the hotel. The player also was suspended from school for a semester.” “In addition, Neuheisel said, he met with his team to discuss the incident. ‘I made it very clear to them that this was unacceptable,’ he said, noting that no more incidents occurred during his tenure at Colorado.” [Miletich]. If you play the Agent in Geneforge 2, call him Rick. As you play the game, award your Agent points in leadership and mechanics abilities, so that playing an Agent is like playing a Thief in other role-playing games. With these abilities, he will be good at picking locks and persuading people to do his bidding. Reference: [Miletich]. Miletich, Steve, "Long trail of offenses begins in Colorado," The Seattle Times, 21 March 2004. Geneforge 2, Spiderweb Software Inc., PO Box 85659, Seattle, Wa, 98145-1659, (www.spiderwebsoftware.com). Richard Linde (a.k.a., Malamute) can be reached at malamute@4malamute.com |
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Commentary
about incidents in Seattle, Los Angeles and Columbus highlight a Malamute
article that is all about role playing. In Los Angeles, Nate Robinson is
depicted as a Goliath, not a Lilliputian. In Seattle, Rick Neuheisel is depicted
as Darth Vadar, not Luke Skywalker. In Columbus, did Lorenzo Romar de-morph
himself as the Mage of Montlake? What roles in Geneforge 2 best fit Robinson,
Romar, and Neuheisel?