Vampire Counts - Terrorgheist / Updated Hobby Road Map

I'm making some progress on my Vampire Counts. Not as much as I would have liked, but some progress.

I painted this guy up over a few days and I'm happy with how he came out. I love his rules and I think the model is ace. A lucky eBay find made him really cheap, too, so I couldn't be happier.

I saw a guy at the Colonial base his Terrorgheist on some of the Garden of Morr bits and I couldn't help but steal that idea. He's already a big model and will never be obscured so I just embraced that and did the same. Plus, I now have lots of leftover pieces from the Garden of Morr to use as unit fillers for zombies.

On the whole I'm happy with how he came out. I got a little sloppy in some areas but I think the model is solid and will look good in my army.

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Updated Hobby Road Map

One of the worst parts of my love for this hobby is my inability to stick to any one project. I seriously find something appealing about every army Games Workshop makes and for lots of other games and minis.

Some new things and ideas have come up and I thought I should update my plans for the year. I've been on a big fitness kick lately and one of the things that has helped me stick to it has been writing down my goals in a public place. It's been working for my diet and exercise routine so I hope it works for my hobby life as well.

Vampire Counts: Finish by the end of June
Dreadfleet: Finish by the end of June
Blood Angels: Assembled by July 15, paint to keep pace with Escalation League
Zombicide & Extras: Paint in time for Halloween game
Miscellaneous: Spend November and December on smaller projects such as Lord of the Rings, updating 'Nids, Space Hulk, and anything else I have in mind.

One project I would like to get to this year, and might try to squeeze in if I get ahead of schedule with my Vampire Counts, is to do an Empire army using Old Glory's Landsknechts. They're cheap and look good and I think I can bang out a big Empire army for $250 that would look really fun. Right now I'm thinking of doing a Tilean themed army, which would explain their different appearance from the GW plastics, and it would be fun to create some background for them as well.

The Impossibility of an Ethical Life

A few weeks ago the Communication Workers of America sponsored a hashtag on Twitter called #CorporateGreed. What was meant to bring attention to how Verizon is raising prices on customers and slashing benefits for workers, while also increasing the pay of executives, was instead hijacked by free market types on Twitter. Maybe that isn't fair as many who did use it to lash out at the CWA and the Occupy Movement are less concerned with free market economics than they are with simply finding an excuse, any excuse, to be terrible and hateful towards their fellow working brother and sister.

Many of the most popular tweets were similar to this:

I saw this sentiment shared hundreds of times. It's blatently stupid* but it did make me ask a question to myself: how could we create meaningful change without simultaneously contributing to the very things that are so hateful and destructive to the world?

We see this all the time from the right**: accusations of hypocrisy for living in a capitalist society while protesting the excesses of capital. This argument exists to try to scare the left into submission. Even still, it must be addressed in some form. Put simply, the right is somewhat right about this as we are all living lives that are highly unethical and do far more harm than good. That they try to shut up any that would try to change that is quite vile, doubly so as they often celebrate the destruction capitalism brings.

Think about it, our very life in the West is harmful to the world in any number of ways. Consumption of energy and fossil fuels is driving climate change that will surely devastate the lives of potentially billions. Our diet consists of an industrialization of meat production that is the farthest thing possible from anything resembling ethical treatment of animals (I'm not a vegan but we all have to admit that the current state of meat production is awful). We consume products and services from exploited labor throughout the world. We all pay taxes into governments that use that money to bomb and otherwise cause destruction. Our lives are immediately and directly responsible for wars, death, starvation, and a future that is looking increasingly dim for much of the world.

Even those that try to live a more sustainable lifestyle are going to fall short. I don't say this as someone that thinks individual efforts shouldn't be taken, we all owe it to ourselves and our worlds to constantly grow into better people, but without real collective action it won't do much to turn back the tide of despair we are infliecting upon the world. It is this very collective and democratic action that many on the right fear and it is why they try to use the most sophist of arguments to beat down any that would try to advance that action.

To those on the right we should all abandon cities and towns and live in the forests. Only then could we approach something resembling an ethical lifestyle. The part that they never address, or even imply, is that by doing so we would become not only impotent to create any collective action, but that we would also become part of the world that is so negatively affected by the actions of the first world.

That is the dichotomy we are facing, there are only exploiters and exploited. This goes throughout capitalist morality and can be seen when starting a business, and eventually owning a business where others work and generate profit for you, is seen as the greatest moral good. That is the promise capitalism gives: each one of us can stop being exploited and instead become members of the exploiter class.

It is time for us all to embrace our own unethical lives and to actually do something about it. Simply shirking from the task and feeling bad for our contributions to the evils of the world is not enough. The gears of capital will inexorably grind forward and it is only through collective action that we can ever stop them and reshape the world in a positive way.


*This is even more stupid than someone like me yelling at a Tea Partier for using their weekend, which unions won for the working class, to protest government involvement in the economy. Or for me to yell at an elderly Tea Partier for using Medicare and Social Security while simultaneously protesting their very existence. The big difference here is that these people want all the benefits of the labor movement while trying to deny those benefits to the younger generations, while many on the left just want production to happen in a way that doesn't involve child labor, environmental devastation, or mass exploitation that resembles slavery.

**Again, I don't think this is an ideological issue. More and more I'm seeing people express such hateful feelings towards those on the left and I'm becoming increasingly baffled as to why. I don't think that there is a coherent ideology that drives many on the right, but simply a desire to hate on those they feel are at war with them and their culture.

Warhammer 40k 6th Edition Rumors and Lessons From Warhammer Fantasy

I don't usually follow rumors. Rumors seem to come in three forms: They're either false and a total waste of time, they're so vague that they can technically be true but are still a waste of time, or they're misunderstood or make little to no sense without context and become a waste of time. What I'm trying to say is that I don't follow rumors (except for leaked pictures of models, I'll follow those) because they end up being a total waste of time.

We're starting to see that play out with the rumors for the 6th Edition of Warhammer 40k. What's worse about these rumors is that they are pointing towards 40k turning a little bit more into Warhammer Fantasy and this is causing Warhammer 40k players to lose their shit.

I played 3 games of Fantasy this weekend. I love 8th edition.

I think I'm in a unique position to talk about this as I'm one of two people I know well who have seriously played both of the current editions of Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k. I'm seeing a lot of gnashing of teeth online from 40k players because they feel that 40k incorporating elements from Warhammer Fantasy is a bad thing, while not understanding how Warhammer Fantasy is played and how it all works together.

Here are some of the current rumors from Blood of Kittens and I'll discuss how people are responding and what they likely mean.

Every unit gets a 6+ save vs. all Psychic Powers & Psychic powers are selected during deployment.
Community Response: THIS MAKES NO SENSE NERD RAGE
What this likely means: Psychic Powers are all over the place in the game. They matter a lot to some armies and none at all to others. There are lots of different powers and they are all activated at different steps in the game. To put it simply, Psychic Powers are a mess that make little sense and can be hard to keep straight. They are more than likely streamlining Psychic Powers so there's more consistency throughout the game and this will likely mean that they also become a bigger part of the game. The 6+ save will help mitigate some of that as I expect other armies besides Space Wolves and Grey Knights to have kickass powers. One of the big gripes with Fantasy is that the big mean spells can obliterate characters without them getting a Look Out Sir! roll and I see the 6+ save being a bone thrown to the 40k crowd as they will likely express similar things as more armies get Psychic Powers that are as good as Jaws of the World Wolf.

People are terrified of random Psychic Powers like in Warhammer Fantasy. It's not a big deal in Fantasy, though. Here's the thing: Level 4 Wizards almost always get the one or two spells they really want, and almost every spell in the game is worth taking so you're never left with bad spells. Good players don't plan around getting certain spells off because it won't happen anyway, so the Magic Phase becomes about learning how to use the spells you do have in useful ways. As I said before, since all the spells are useful this isn't a problem at all. I don't know how this is going to be implemented, but it's not a big deal and works really well in Fantasy.

Random Charge Lengths are in & Pre-measuring is in.
Community Response: IF I WANTED TO PLAY FANTASY I WOULD PLAY FANTASY / RANDOMNESS!!!!
What this actually means: These two need to be taken together. If there was pre-measuring but no Random Charge Lengths than someone who's only skill was knowing distances better than their opponent could move and destroy their opponent. I know some people are okay with that, but I personally don't play these games to determine which player is better at eye-balling 24 inches. If you can pre-measure there needs to be random movements so you can still play a game.

Now, I shouldn't be saying "Random Charge Length". It's not random. Random would be a single d6. In Warhammer Fantasy you get to roll and add up 2d6, or if you have Swiftstride you get to roll 3d6 and pick the two highest. This isn't random, it's probability. If you get to charge your movement plus 2d6 then it isn't random, it's merely using probability to determine when the best time to charge is. There's risk and reward and decisions to be made. That's why I play these games: I like making decisions and seeing how they played out so afterwards I can think back and adapt based on the actual decisions I make.

Random Charge Length hasn't hurt Fantasy, it's opened it up. Yes, I've failed 9" charges with Ogres by rolling double 1s, it happens, but the vast majority of charges I try to make I end up making because I'm learning to play the game well. It's as random as shooting a Bolter is random or anything else in the game: you simply account for the odds and make decisions based on how likely you are to succeed. There's a reason people take lots of anti-tank: so they have a higher probability to destroy tanks. All this change means is that you would play the game to give you better odds to charge successfully or to hold back an enemy's charge.

One of my favorite things about Warmachine is that everything is solved by 2d6. This is great in a skirmish game since it means you can play for the odds and work out the probability. Of course my huge problem with Warmachine is that it isn't a skirmish game and holy shit I don't want to roll 2d6 60 times to resolve all the attacks of my Mechanithralls is this what playing with a pair means oh no stop it this game is awful.

Random Battlefield effects are in.
Community Response: FANTASY OMG I MIGHT HAVE MY UNIT DIE BY ENTERING WOODS
What this actually means: I'm not the biggest fan of random woods in Warhammer Fantasy, but the terrain rules needed to be changed so the game didn't become a crippling mess of moving half inches through the woods. Random woods are fine, their effect in the game matters but has never won or lost me a game. It's Not A Big Deal.

All armies can purchase buildings for placement on the battlefield
Community Reaction: GW IS TRYING TO MAKE MORE MONEY OMG
What this actually means: I think this is kind of cool. I like the idea of a player wanting to play a defender and buying some buildings and making the game a more narrative driven game. I think this could be cool. I also fully expect this to be an exception and not the rule. I doubt this will ever happen in tournaments, I've not played in a Warhammer Fantasy tournament that allowed Folding Fotress at least, and it won't matter to anyone but those players that want to allow it.

Allies are in
Community Reaction: @#$@#$!@#$!!!@^^@
What this actually means: Allies aren't in. There's a section in the Warhammer Fantasy book about doing grand armies, basically multiplayer games, and a loose framework for who would team up with who and why. This is what this will be. I doubt very very seriously that allies are in the game and anyone that's freaking out about it needs to actually know what they're talking about.


Summary
What is really weird to me is that a lot of people are freaking out about how 40k is turning into Fantasy and how this is a bad thing, but yet I'm having a hard time actually finding any of these people who know how Fantasy works. Forget Warmachine, the biggest animosity and split in our community is between 40k and Fantasy players and it really boggles my mind why this is. Yes, there are those Fantasy jackasses who will say that 40k is a kid's game or checkers to their chess, and yes there are lots of kids who play 40k who can't be bothered to fully assemble their figures, but they are both great games with a lot to offer.

Honestly, at the end of the day we're probably going to see a lot of complaining and talks of people making their own ruleset and whatnot because their MSU / Tank spam won't be as good, the game will become more about managing probability, and it will hopefully be better. Once I fully realized that to do well in 40k meant to spam vehicles I stopped playing because that's not the game I want to play. I hope it becomes the game I do want to play because I really love Warahmmer 40k, I just don't like where it is now.

Tomb Kings - Necropolis Knights, Khalida, Apophas, and Necrotect

These will likely be the last Tomb Kings models I paint for a while.

I like the GW Necropolis Knight models but I wanted to do something different. I forget where I got the idea from, but I loved the thought of them riding scorpions instead of snakes. Richard did some measuring for me and it looked like the Reaper Giant Scorpion would make for a great mount.

With some work I ended up with these guys:

I'm actually really happy with how these guys came out. They look different and they cost about $60 for the six of them (about half of what they would have costed if I went the GW route).

I do have a few caveats, though. First, the scorpions are big and do take some work to fit on the base and to make them line up with the models to their sides. Second, and most importantly, is that I got the P-65 Reaper versions and this was a bad idea. Reaper's P-65 line is cheaper but also made of a lead alloy that is softer and this caused a lot of broken joints and legs that took a lot of work to fix. If you're going to do something like this I would stick with the Warlord versions which, while more expensive, would be a lot easier to work with.

Still, I'm happy with how these guys came out and I think they look unique.

I also got Khalida, Prince Apophas, and a Necrotect done. I spent maybe an hour painting each of these and while it does show I think they came out Good Enough.

One thing I'd like to say is that the two Finecast figures (Apophas and Necrotect) were very close to flawless and each took less than five minutes to prepare and clean. Maybe I've been extremely lucky, but so far I'm continuing to love Finecast.

WWE Extreme Rules Review

I originally meant to post about the new miniatures I painted for my Tomb Kings, but I enjoyed last night's Pay Per View so much that I just had to write about it.

I've been down on the WWE lately. The months leading up to Wrestlemania were a big waste of time and Wrestlemania itself was rather upsettingly mediocre. Since then we've had a lot of spinning wheels, badly booked matches, and so many video packages that it has become difficult to care. The worst part of all this is that I'm starting to become that obnoxious TNA fan who will say things like, "Well, if you wanted to watch a wrestling show you'd watch TNA." I blame the WWE for making me say those things and mean them. Thanks, guys.

Last night, however, was really good. It's amazing what can happen when a show gets back to basics and just puts on a wrestling show. I've been saying this for months now but their roster is just so good and all they have to do is let those guys wrestle and the audience will be happy. I hate to keep repeating how easy this is, but it's really easy.

Miz v Santino

I was a little excited for this match. I thought they might get a full half hour to have an actual match, and I was really hoping that the Miz would get some good time to impress. I like The Miz and I appreciate how a lot of people like Santino so I expected something. Instead we just got a 4 minute match.

If the WWE is going to stream their pre-shows on YouTube (which is a great idea) then they should make those pre-shows good enough to get people who are on the fence about paying for the PPV a reason to actually pay for the PPV. This didn't do that, but it could have. Maybe use the pre-show as a chance to showcase some NXT guys? Seriously, give Tyson Kidd and Michael McGillicutty a chance to put on a solid 15 minute match and it'll make literally everyone happy.

Kane v Randy Orton

I keep talking about how there's lots of audiences that watch, but I can't help but feel that people who like Randy Orton also like Kane so I'm not opposed to them being in a match together, because I'd rather they were together than with someone I actually like. The only upside to this match was more of Zack Ryder being an impotent child. That was funny.

Brodus Clay v Dolph Ziggler

I was on board for Funkasaurus longer than most. This gimmick has overstayed its welcome and it's just making me cringe. I also really love Dolph Ziggler (seriously, if I was a 12 year old girl I would have Dolph Ziggler and Cody Rhodes posters on every wall in my bedroom) but he really needs to do something more than what he's doing now. I hate being Mr Internet Wrestling Fan but just because Ziggler is the best seller in the WWE doesn't mean he should be a jobber.

If Ziggler is to be taken seriously he needs to at least win a match once in a while. Mr Perfect was believable because he'd Perfectplex your ass and he'd win matches. Ziggler just bounces around when he gets hit. It's fun and he's good at making people look dangerous, but it's time for him to do something else. He's one ICP tattoo away from losing to Ryback.

Cody Rhodes v Big Show

This match really surprised me. I could go on and on about how awful Big Show is (he's slow, racist, boring, stupid, and slow)(oh, and fat) and how awesome Cody Rhodes is and how he should be a Big Deal, but instead I'll just reflect upon how happy this match made me feel.

Cody Rhodes won a match he shouldn't have won because Big Show is a fat dude who can't stop embarrassing himself. Cody Rhodes gets all the +Rhodes.

Sheamus v Daniel Bryan

Yes, Sheamus won. Yes, I wanted Daniel Bryan to win, murder Sheamus, rip his entrails out and spell out "Bryan Danielson" with them on the mat as he ditches his slave name. Instead we got the best match I've seen in a long time. No, it wasn't the most technical match but it told a story and was exciting. Having a 2 out of 3 falls match where the first fall happens well past halfway in was brilliant as it made me excited for each pinfall attempt.

This match, more than any other, goes to show how great wrestling can be when it just features a simple storyline (jerk guy versus guy who is not as much as a jerk) and how just letting them out to wrestle can make everyone happy.

I'm a Daniel Bryan fan and he lost. He lost a match. That doesn't matter in wrestling. What matters is that he was allowed to succeed and put on a great show. That's why I was so angry at Wrestlemania. Winning and losing doesn't matter (if it did Funkasaurus would be in the title hunt!) but what matters is what we saw last night between these two guys. These two guys stole the show and really did something great.

I'm happy for Daniel Bryan and I'm happy for the people out there who love Sheamus. If I was a Sheamus fan, and I am when he's not fighting Mah Boy DBry, I would have been ecstatic with last night. Sheamus was losing the entire match but came out the winner by sticking it out and winning.

I can't find anything to complain about with this match. We would be very lucky if the WWE gave us a better match this year, but with Daniel Bryan around I think it's possible.

Ryback versus Juggalos

I love this gimmick. Skip Sheffield's new gimmick is kind of boring (Terminator? Really?) but I do like the idea of the WWE traveling from town to town having this guy just kill local Juggalos. I got nothing else to say except, "ICP sucks lol."

CM Punk v Jericho

Ehhhhh, yeah, this match. It was okay. I don't know, I never got excited about this match and there never seemed to be any sort of rhythm. I know lots of people that said there were three great matches last night, but I wouldn't call this a "great" match and that is especially true when one of those matches was Daniel Bryan v Sheamus. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but who can watch Daniel Bryan v Sheamus and then Jericho v Punk and think that they are anywhere close to each other in quality?

It wasn't a bad match or anything. It was fine, but these two guys should have an awesome feud. They should have killer promos against each other. They should have great matches against each other. Instead it just feels like a bad episode of Degrassi High and it's just making me hate CM Punk for his new schtick where he's the coolest and smartest wrestler ever.

Also, what's the point of Jericho being back if he's just going to do nothing? The only thing I can think of is that he just wants to troll his past fanbase and kill off any notion of him as a wrestler once and for all. When he first came back he said nothing for weeks and got lots of cheers for it. He showed the audience how shallow and stupid they were for liking a guy for doing nothing. Maybe he came back to bumble around with awful promos, mediocre matches, and to just lose as a way of really telling his fans to screw off? I don't know, but even worse I'm starting to not care.

Layla v Nikki Bella

Well, okay. Whatever.

That's not Kharma!

John Cena v Brock Lesnar

This match was something else. I think it was both exciting and the absolute worst thing the WWE could do.

For the first five to ten minutes I had thought that Lesnar just cold wanted to murder Cena to prove some point. I always figured that Lesnar is a legit asshole (he's against universal healthcare and all) and it wouldn't surprise me if he just wanted to come back to the WWE and prove some point about his being a warrior or something. I thought it was real.

It wasn't real, it was wrestling. That's great, too, because I don't want to watch two skinny white guys with tribal tats beat each other up for money. The problem is that it felt legitimate. They keep talking about how Lesnar is bringing back legitimacy and how he's an asskicker and everything else. All this talk of legitimacy and reality, especially with how much the lines blurred last night, doesn't make the Cena v Lesnar match feel more real: it makes everything else feel fake.

Last night we saw a really fantastic match with Daniel Bryan and Sheamus. That's everything I want out of wrestling. It told a story, was exciting, and just made me feel like a little kid again. That's what professional wrestling is and does best. The Lesnar v Cena match from last night makes it feel fake. In trying to push Lesnar as a legitimate threat they are delegitimizing everyone else. By trying to emulate MMA they are ceding ground and calling attention to how it is fake.

How can Lesnar have another match without similarly beating the blood out of his opponent? We'll look at that match and think about how fake it is. I'm afraid that this won't be about Lesnar alone and we'll be acutely aware of all the other matches where no blood is shed and wrestlers are able to pull of their staged moves. Rey Mysterio's 619 is one of the stupidest moves ever, but when he did it to Kurt Angle it made me excited. I knew it was stupid and staged but it felt real. How can something like that feel real now when we all know that a real fight should just be two grown mean grappling each other as they lacerate one another with their fists?

There's no a very firm demarcation between the WWE and reality. Pointing out where that line is makes it difficult to become invested in the story that they are trying to sell. When you're not invested in the story you are just watching some grown men pretend to fight each other, and who wants to do that?

My Ten Favorite Warhammer Fantasy Models

The post I wanted to put up today is giving me issues. I hope to have it up next Friday as it's something I've been trying to express for a while and I think I'm finally getting close to doing so correctly.

Instead, I thought it would be fun to look at my favorite Warhammer Fantasy models. Unlike other games, miniature gaming demands an aesthetic appreciation. When I played Magic the Gathering or the Game of Thrones Card Game I would just make decks based on in-game mechanics and effectiveness. I didn't really have any attachment to any of the cards or anything else. After a period I would look past all the art and just see mathematics and simply play the game with that in mind.

Miniature gaming, and Warhammer especially, is different. I know people who are married to one army and have played the same army for over a decade. I'm obviously not that guy, but for me to play a game, or a faction within it, I have to like the figures. This makes sense as I'm sure most of us spend far more time painting figures than we do playing with them. It's why my attempt to play Warmachine in 2010 fizzled out: half of their figures are just awful.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to look at some of my favorite figures from Warhammer Fantasy. I only included figures that are currently available, but there are lots here that really inspire me and demand me to buy and paint them.

Beastmen - Jabberslythe

I love this figure. If I were to design a monster that was able to fly and made people go insane by merely looking upon it this is what I would have come up with. It's just totally nuts and I really love it.

Warriors of Chaos - Chaos Lord on Chaos Steed

This figure works for me for a totally opposite reason from the Jabberslythe: it's so simple and classic that it is immediately evocative of what a Chaos Lord should look like. Whereas the Jabberslythe was unbound imagination, this Chaos Lord is a simple figure that is just classic and timeless.

Tomb Kings - Prince Apophas

Egyptian demon assassin made of scarabs? Yes, yes please. 

Tomb Kings - Queen Khalida

This is similar to the Chaos Lord I talked about above. The pose isn't dynamic and she's not as complex or detailed as many figures, but she is just so classic and evocative that it really works for me. I picked one up and painted it last week and I'll be posting her and the remainder of my Tomb Kings stuff this Monday. This is a fantastic figure that is also amazing in the new Tomb Kings book.

Vampire Counts - Winged Vampire Lord

This is, again, not a very elaborate or dynamic figure but it's just so full of character that it is one of the big reasons why I want to do Vampire Counts. This guy just looks like a total badass.

Skaven - Deathmaster Snikch

Just look at that guy! He has a great pose and just looks mean. I really liked the older Snikch model but this one is even more fantastic. 

Dark Elves - Cold One Knights

These guys were some of the first new cavalry Games Workshop put out in the last few years. Four years ago they started to update a lot of their old cavalry models and these are probably my favorite, although the Chaos Knights are up there. 

Orcs and Goblins - Arachnarok Spider

Just look at that thing! I know some people aren't a big fan of the new books getting a big monster, but I think it makes a lot of sense and I'm very much in favor of every army have a centerpiece model.

Warriors of Chaos - Nurgle Chaos Lord

I really like Nurgle. The only army I regret selling was my Deathguard army for 40k. This guy is the epitome of how awesome Nurgle can be. He's one of those models that's just so awesome I'm still honestly surprised it isn't an Avatars of War model. This guy just oozes Nurgle and it works great.

Ogre Kingdoms - Firebelly

This is an ogre that eats lava and spits out flames. The model is as awesome as that sounds. 

Call me a fanboy (or is it "fanboi"? I always forget), but I'm a big Games Workshop fan because they put out some amazing models and their games are fun. I could complain about prices, lack of FAQs, how they won't release the books in the order I want them to release them (6th Edition and Tyranids please), and tons of other things but at the end of the day I just don't care because I love their models, the game worlds, and the rules make for very fun games.

I'm finishing up the last of my Tomb Kings. I have some characters and Necropolis Knights that I'm excited to share for Monday. I'll also be working on a big post summarizing my Tomb Kings and have pictures so I can link to the army easily.

The Lack of Protagonists in the WWE

I've not been enjoying Raw or Smackdown for a few weeks now. I don't want to be too dramatic, but I usually love the hell out of any and all wrestling because I'm a man-child. The last few weeks have been peppered with crap and the parts I otherwise might enjoy have been lackluster or boring. I'm starting to think of why this is and I have a few theories. Today I'd like to talk about how the WWE is starting to lose all of their characters.

The WWE is becoming filled with NPCs - Non Playable Characters. An NPC exists in an Role Playing Game as a plot device, enemy, or something for the character to interact with. They're there to provide content for a character, or to give a protagonist something to do. I'm starting to think that the only character that lives in the WWE is John Cena, and as much as I tend to like John Cena more than most it is simply not enough.

I like a lot of the wrestlers in the WWE. Hell, I like most of the wrestlers in the WWE a whole lot. As much as I love Jack Swagger and Dolph Ziggler, though, I don't cheer for them because I relate to them or want to see them win a championship (although it would be rad!) but because they are entertaining within themselves. Their function in the WWE is to entertain the crowd and to interact with "protagonist wrestlers".

Right now everyone exists to serve a role for another wrestler to interact with, but we no longer have any of the wrestlers to actually progress through these storylines. I'm not a huge fan of Kofi Kingston but shouldn't he be in meaningful feuds with these people so we can see his character grow and become attached to him, instead of him just being the guy called in when they want to make a heel look strong?

I've seen them try to do this with Sheamus, but for various reasons it's not been going well. I really loved his feud with Mark Henry and it was great to see something like that turn him face. His winning the Royal Rumble was big and made him feel like a big deal as a face. His feud with Daniel Bryan has been engaging and I really loved his promo from a few months ago where he showed a lot of empathy and growth and felt like a two dimensional person. Sheamus could be a guy who we can latch onto and care about as he interacts with all the archtypes in the WWE, but instead they booked Wrestlemania so poorly that we are now forced to choose our love for Daniel Bryan and Sheamus. There's no way I care about anyone more than the American Dragon and now I hope Sheamus gets exported back to Ireland.

It's just really difficult to find someone to care about or to relate to. I'm no longer emotionally invested in any of these people and instead I see a lot of archtypes bumping around and acting the way they should, because their role dictates them to act that way. John Cena is the exception as we've seen him react to The Rock and Brock Lesnar. We've seen how his friendship with Zack Ryder and the hilarity with Kane has affected him. It's easy to hate on Cena but he's the only guy who seems like a human being, even if Cena himself comes off more than a little superhuman.

I want to care about these people. I also know that a lot of the wrestlers are there to serve a role. Instead of seeing an actual story with actual characters it is starting to feel a little bit like The Sims: we're seeing people play out their characters and interact, but there are few clear narratives or characters to really invest in.

Maybe I'm wrong and maybe people relate to Big Show or Randy Orton or Santino. For me, however, I'm starting to feel cold about all of this. I'm able to forgive the WWE when it's bad because I always thought they would get around to dealing with someone I care about, but now I really don't care about anyone outside of "mah boy right there" Daniel Bryan. Now that there is less for me to look forward to the bad parts feel worse.