PAX South Was a Blast!

The main impetus for going to this con was taking my nephews along for the ride. Ross and Derek are hitting their 16th birthdays this year, and Cameron is in his first year of college. I'd never been to a PAX, and my only convention touchstone was GenCon, which is bigger and focused more on tabletop games than videogames. The boys had never been to a con before, so had no idea what to expect.

Day Zero - Thursday

Ross and I flew in early Thursday (I actually picked him up in El Paso the night before to save Julie a very early morning drive) and that is def something I don't think I'd do again. Not that we didn't have fun but unlike GenCon there wasn't much going on con-wise the day before. Or at least nothing that I was tuned into. We ended up touring the Alamo, playing a bunch of Swords & Strongholds in the hotel lobby, walking the riverwalk, and drawing up a post-apocalyptic map for a later game of Rad-Hack while we had pizza at a bar.

Cameron and Derek got in late, around 10, and after a trip to Whataburger we hung out in the room, played some Nidhogg and Jackbox, then crashed out.

Day One - Friday

We hit the convention center right around the time it opened. I had considered getting over there a little early, but between the luxury of sleeping in and wrangling three teenagers I decided to just coast a bit more. In effect this meant we cruised into the expo hall after the early queue had cleared out and didn't end up standing in a line first thing in the morning. As soon as we hit the expo hall I stopped to play a game demo and lost the kids immediately.

The game was called Think of the Children, and consisted of playing a parent trying to keep a bunch of small kids from killing themselves while also trying to complete a bunch of mundane tasks. I didn't do great. Fifty percent casualties on the first level, 75% on the second go. Was fun though. They did a decent job of capturing some of how frantic it is to parent in certain situations.

With the boys off who knew where, I wandered the expo hall for a little
while then remembered that Chris Perkins (from WotC) had a panel that was starting in few minutes. I decided to head over and see if it was full. It was not. Again, no standing in line, and I just walked in and got a seat. Not a great seat, but the main hall was equipped with large screen so you had a decent view from wherever you were sitting.

After the panel I headed back to the expo hall and found Cameron and Derek had gotten into a Rocket League tournament. I scooped Ross up and we ran into and chatted with Adam Koebel for a bit before hitting the G-Fuel booth. G-FUEL! became the refrain of the con after all the jokes about how over-powered it made you as a gamer after you drank it. We stopped at the Reaper Miniatures booth and sat down for Paint & Take. They give you a choice of one of two minis and you get to sit down for about 45 min and paint it. I have little to no experience with painting minis but is was fun, and I didn't think I did a completely awful job. After that we wandered around more in the expo hall, demo-ing and buying Three Cheers for Master at the Atlas Games booth and wandering upstairs to get a better feel for the layout of the place.

Around then Cameron and Derek had wrapped the tournament for the day (not doing quite well enough to get a bye round for the next day) and we headed out to Schilo's for lunch. Schilo's is a german deli that's been around in San Antonio forever. When Carrie and I had visited a about a decade ago we'd liked it well enough to visit it twice.

Back for the afternoon we hit the expo hall some more then made our way over to the tabletop area. The tabletop area has a boardgame lending library that was pretty impressive in size. We grabbed Takenoko and sat down in the huge free play area. Derek decided he would rather wander the expo hall so Cameron and Ross and I spent the next hour learning the game, with Cameron coming out on top.

From there it was more expo hall followed by Adam's Office Hours Live panel. He did an excellent job of dispensing advice to the gms who had questions. I was glad the kids seemed entertained by it.

It was edging on late by then so we hit the mall food court for dinner (Cameron: Ugh, Taco Bell. They put too much sour cream on their food. Me: Why don't you order something without sour cream on it? Cameron: I did.) then retired to the room. We made some Rad-Hack characters, played some Swords & Strongholds, then called it a night.

Day Two - Saturday

I split ways from the boys right when we got into the convention center to go get a cup of coffee. Then I headed over to the main hall for the Penny Arcade Make a Strip panel. Beyond the entertainment of listening to Gabe and Tycho answer questions, it was pretty interesting to watch Gabe draw an entire strip (this one, in fact).

I hit the merch booth for a PAX t-shirt and pint glass, bought some gifts for the family, and met up with the boys after that (Cameron and Derek didn't make it through to the end of the Rocket League tournament) and we headed out to get some lunch. The mall food court was jam packed, so we hit the Tony Roma's next door. We probably spent about twice as much money on lunch but we were out of there in about as much time as it would have taken us with standing in line at the food court.

After lunch we headed back to the con just in time for the Acquisitions Incorporated show. I was a little worried it would be jam packed, and there was an 'oh noes!' moment when we got to the theater door and they stopped the line right where we were. But we got in and got pretty good seats for the show. I was a little worried about whether the guys would be sufficiently entertained by watching a three-hour D&D game but I shouldn't have been. The show was great.

After the show we expo hall'd for a little while then grabbed some seats in the tabletop free play area and played a game of Three Cheers for Master. By the time that was done the expo hall was closed so we wandered around through some of the other convention stuff and ended up deciding to go to a panel called Gary Gygax's Vodka Skull Mug and Other Stories: A Q&A with Mike Selinker. I was only peripherally aware of who Selinker was but I'd heard Luke Crane was going to be moderating the panel so I figured it would be entertaining. Ross and Cameron were down for the panel and Derek decided to go see if there were spots open in the PC free play area. The panel was great. Lots of hilarious stories about being a game designer. And Luke did not disappoint either.

From there we headed back to the hotel. The intent was to maybe play some Rad-Hack in the room but Derek wasn't feeling good so we dropped him there and headed back over to the tabletop free play area of the convention center.

I ran a short post-apocalyptic game of Rad-Hack for Ross (robot: 0T15, or Otis) and Cameron (psionic: Raddy McRadface). They were from a village named WMN which was built around the ladies room of an old highway rest stop. The village elder tasked them to head out to the Cave of Bees and see if they could recover a truck that had been left there. A previous foraging group that had been wiped out by something while harvesting honey from the cave. They hired a couple of grubs (lower class) from Shit Town (the community around the burbling cesspit in the north part of town) named Patty and Harald and headed out. Traveling to the Cave of Bees the were beset upon by a pack of rad-head, radioactive zombies. 0T15 let loose with its laser eye, and Raddy used his teleportation and sound projection powers to mostly avoid dying. They killed one rad-head then distracted the other two and ran away. Finally making it to the Cave of Bees they found a spiny pig-man poking around the abandoned truck. 0T15 got a little torn up from its spines and Raddy lost his teleportation power so they rested up after Harald took out the pig-man with a well-chucked 10-foot pole. After resting they ventured to the Cave of Bees, the ground around which was torn up and bloody with bodies, of people and giant bees alike. While investigating the entrance all of the non-robots in the group got a massive dose of radiation, forcing Patty and Harald to retreat to the nearby hillside. Then a shifting, swirling mass of metal bits, some kind of extra-planar robot, flowed out of the cave entrance. 0T15 managed to communicate with it via binary and convinced it to let them help it find whatever it was searching for in the cave. Radiation be-damned, Raddy followed the two robots into the cave and was immediately ambushed by a giant cockroach. Unable to successfully wrangle the cockroach, Raddy was knocked down and the roach prepared to feast on him. 0T15, down the corridor with the swarm-bot, turned and blasted the roach to death with its laser. The swarm-bot proposed and interrogative about the laser blast and when 0T15 was unable to assure it that there was no threat, the swarm-bot attacked. Raddy and 0T15 decided to high-tail it down a side-corridor and ran right into a room that contained three nuclear bombs leaking radiation. After 0T15 successfully delayed the swarm-bot by closing a door on it, Raddy threw up for a little while before they ran on into the next room: a old armory of some sort. Raddy found a laser rifle and 0T15 a non-functioning handheld buzzsaw just before the swarm-bot burst into the room. Lasers filled the room, parts and pieces of the swarm-bot liquefying as they were blasted off. The battle left our protagonists battered but whole while the liquid metal of the dying swarm-bot (its last communique to 0T15: YOU HAVE BETRAYED YOUR OWN KIND) ruined any further salvage they might have gotten from the room. They left the cave after the battle, collecting Patty, Harald, and the truck and making it back to WMN successful in their mission. Pretty fun game!

It was pretty late by this point, but we had never gotten dinner, so we took the Riverwalk down to Whataburger (insanely busy even that late) and picked up food for us and Derek. Back at the room we feasted and watched (mocked) Gods of Egypt before sleep.

Day Three - Sunday

Derek was still not feeling well and came down worse in the middle of the night. By the next morning he was feeling better but still poorly so he opted to stay in bed until we had to check out at 1pm. Cameron, Ross, and I headed over to the convention center for the last day. We, tried for True Dungeon but they were already full-up for the last day so we took in the final Penny Arcade Q & A panel before heading back over to the hotel to pack up and check out.

After getting some Tylenol for Derek, dropping the bags with the luggage check desk and getting lunch, we went back to the convention center. Derek we dropped off on a couch in a relatively quiet area and the three of us went back to the expo hall. We wandered around some more, checking out any stuff we had missed, and Derek texted that he was feeling better when we were heading over to tabletop vendor area to check out dice. The precious metals dice were pretty awesome. They had a tungsten d6, and picking up a regular plastic die after that one was like picking up air. We goofed off a little longer, watching some folks demo some of the more popular long-line games, and playing one four-person game called Sundown together.

By then it was time for Ross and I to head to the airport. We said goodbye and got a good group pic in front of the big PAX sign.

After we got to the airport Ross spotted Chris Perkins, so we wandered over to say hi and let him know we dug the Acquisitions Incorporated show. It was a pretty good cap to a great trip.

PAX South, great PAX, would PAX again! G-FUEL!

Minor Regrets: Never managed to get into True Dungeon or get BBQ.

Scritch Scratch

Father's Day was great. Breakfast on the front patio, new bird feeder and D&D t-shirt, did a bit of geocaching, went swimming, guest'd on Spike and Taulb's podcast, and went to dinner at Las Trancas.

On the gaming front, WeDnD with Larry and Tiff has been great, although we've been on a break for a few weeks. Hopefully we'll remedy that soon. On Saturday we're still doing the always fun AW: GoT. We had a break from that this Saturday so Charles ran AW: Fallen Empires, skinned for Dark Sun. It was a great example of my favorite gaming - cool concept, good system, and everyone being enthusiastic.

Dad has been in town since last Wednesday. We've been to the brewery about every other day. It's not as intense as what we can expect if we were hanging out at Jon's, but it'll do. He's also been undertaking various jobs around the house to stay busy. I approve.

My food choices, health-wise, have been hit or miss lately, and I've been getting absolutely no (yard work and light swimming notwithstanding) exercise. That needs to change, but any drive in that direction tends to evaporate by the time I make the drive home in the evening. And thus far Carrie's been much more successful than me in getting up and working out in the morning.

Went to take the kids for an ice cream/brewery trip yesterday and we got out of the car while it was raining. In an effort to hurry up the kids I caused Owen to collide with Paige who subsequently fell down in the parking lot, suffering multiple scratches. Luckily Sweet Cici's had a well-stocked first aid kit and Paige is a trooper.

Face Hair

My mustache is long enough that it curls into my mouth when I open it to eat. I should probably look at significantly trimming this thing.

Yesterday I actually prepped for the Wednesday D&D game, but both Tiff and Larry got bound up with work stuff. Cancellations hurt this game less now that we've moved it to weekly. I'm still pondering a shift to Dungeon World but given that I started in with 5e to give them a taste of the new edition I'd like to at least get a decent amount of sessions in before doing so.

Both Carrie and my iPhones have had dusty lenses over the camera for a while. So I found a video on how to clean them out, and it looked pretty easy. True to form, it took me screwing it up a little in the attempt on mine to get it right the second time around. The video I perused turned out to be for an iPhone 5, vice the 5s. So when I pulled the face off I also pulled the ribbon cable responsible for fingerprint ID out, instead of gingerly removing it. It didn't appear damaged, and seemed to reconnect fine, but now the fingerprint ID on my phone doesn't work. I also managed to strip the small pentalobe screws near the charge port that hold the thing together. But at least I stripped them getting them in and they're doing their job. My camera lens, however, is dust-free. A new home button and screws were pretty cheap so I ordered them and will probably attempt a replacement. Finagling Carrie's phone went better, but she's got a chunk of brown something on the lens that resisted canned air. I may get a pen lens cleaner and try it again.

Of Tooth and Flame

Abigail cut her first tooth. Also, she's five months old. Crazy. Could be that teething is why she's been waking up about every hour or so through the night. But that tooth is out, and from what I remember once it breaks through the discomfort is over. Sleep issues continue. Speaking of, sitting up with Abby late on Saturday night, I decided to put on the second of the new Hobbit movie. I figured some hobbit and wizards and swords and orcs would be nice. About 15 minutes in I turned it off and bought a digital copy of the Rankin/Bass animated Hobbit. I love it. And it's less than 90 minutes long.

Last Thursday Alex, Ben, and Tony came over for Fire Night, the annual burning of the xmas tree. I had put it off since early in the month and I'm glad we finally got around to it. Was a lovely relaxing evening spent having beers and bourbon and bullshitting on the patio.

The weekend was primarily composed of cleaning out the garage, which seems to be a semi-annual event. We cleared out boxes of stuff to the storage unit, Goodwill, and the dump. Just in time to start up Wednesday garage gaming again!

Last night I made chicken bacon fried rice. It was amazing and delicious, both for dinner and lunch today. Full marks to Carrie for having the idea in the first place.

The Ghost Ship of Sezrekan the Mad

The Ghost Ship of Sezrekan the Mad

Here's a basic rundown of what I've got, partly because David Jenks asked, and partly because I need to write this down.

So Sezrekan, back before his apotheosis, traveled around looking for stuff to make that happen. That took him to some pretty weird places, both in and outside this reality. The ship he took to these places sucked up the weirdness in various ways. Here's some of those ways:

The ship is possessed by some alien intelligence from BEYOND. The ship's all rotted and torn up, but the possession by this thing keeps it from falling apart. It also keep the ship sailing, on some enigmatic route. Partly this thing either (depending on campaign needs, and I haven't really decided yet myself) either hates Sezrekan and is traveling to places that could facilitate destroying him, or it is drawn to/loves him and travels to places that could better bring his attention. Probably both.

There's a hole in the bottom of the hold, straight out into the water. Water doesn't flood the ship though, the alien possession keeps it out. If somebody dives through the hole they get stuff to help them underwater: gills, webbed hands/feet, nictating membranes on their eyes. Coming back up through the hole into the ship reverses it. The more someone does this the more likely this stuff is to become permanent.

The captain's quarters is haunted by the sadistic ghost of Grokkus Brell. If someone sleeps in the cabin they wake up having been tortured, and the ship coughs up one of a number of magic items tied to it. The torture gets worse the more nights someone has slept in the cabin. I have some tables written up for this one, but the items bit is unfinished. Each of the items corresponds directly to some kind of ship's business, some of them interacting with other places on the ship, or being required to make certain effects work. Most of them are in the good/bad vein of magic items. Ex: Bos'n's Pipe - a whistle that allows you to command people. Commanded people (npcs) get increasingly pissed off by this and will eventually snap and attack the user.

The crow's nest pokes up out of reality to a space in-between (the phlogiston?). Arcane magic works crazy well there, although there are also automatic corruption effects and mercurial magic is rerolled each time a spell is cast (caster keeps the last mercurial magic effect rolled for the spell). Getting up the mast to crow's nest is a little wonky as you have to climb up out of reality and that can make one dizzy. Clerical magic only works on a critical, and automatically incurs disapproval.

The boy's cabin is a little closet off the main cargo hold and requires the key from the captain's quarters to get in. There are a slew of small portals embedded into walls and ceiling, each leading to a seemingly idyllic pocket dimension that turns out to be a nightmare realm. Should probably come up with some kind of multiple column random table for this one. These pocket dimensions are also centered around objects of power the ship's boy pilfered during the ship's journeys and squirreled away.

There are four rune-inscribed barrels secured around the mizzen mast that contain the pickled, quartered remains of one of Sezrekan's old rivals, Gor-Mal the Butcher. Each quarter of the body has a magic item on it but opening the barrels is dangerous and could end up resurrecting the crazed wizard, who's been conscious since Sezrekan 'killed' him.

That's most of the detail I've got so far. I've got some other ideas too. Something about potentially killing yourself to contact the alien possessing the ship and then gaining some limited control over it. Also, there's probably a skeleton tied to the bowsprit that talks and lies a lot.

If I statted this thing up fully I think I would probably dual stat it for DCC and LotFP.

The Ghost Ship of Sezrekan the Mad

Here's a basic rundown of what I've got. I need to write this down before it slips from out my head.

So Sezrekan, back before his apotheosis, traveled around looking for stuff to make that happen. That took him to some pretty weird places, both in and outside this reality. The ship he took to these places sucked up the weirdness in various ways. Here's some of those ways:

The ship is possessed by some alien intelligence from BEYOND. The ship's all rotted and torn up, but the possession by this thing keeps it from falling apart. It also keep the ship sailing, on some enigmatic route. Partly this thing either (depending on campaign needs, and I haven't really decided yet myself) either hates Sezrekan and is traveling to places that could facilitate destroying him, or it is drawn to/loves him and travels to places that could better bring his attention. Probably both.

There's a hole in the bottom of the hold, straight out into the water. Water doesn't flood the ship though, the alien possession keeps it out. If somebody dives through the hole they get stuff to help them underwater: gills, webbed hands/feet, nictating membranes on their eyes. Coming back up through the hole into the ship reverses it. The more someone does this the more likely this stuff is to become permanent.

The captain's quarters is haunted by the sadistic ghost of Grokkus Brell. If someone sleeps in the cabin they wake up having been tortured, and the ship coughs up one of a number of magic items tied to it. The torture gets worse the more nights someone has slept in the cabin. I have some tables written up for this one, but the items bit is unfinished. Each of the items corresponds directly to some kind of ship's business, some of them interacting with other places on the ship, or being required to make certain effects work. Most of them are in the good/bad vein of magic items. Ex: Bos'n's Pipe - a whistle that allows you to command people. Commanded people (npcs) get increasingly pissed off by this and will eventually snap and attack the user.

The crow's nest pokes up out of reality to a space in-between (the phlogiston?). Arcane magic works crazy well there, although there are also automatic corruption effects and mercurial magic is rerolled each time a spell is cast (caster keeps the last mercurial magic effect rolled for the spell). Getting up the mast to crow's nest is a little wonky as you have to climb up out of reality and that can make one dizzy. Clerical magic only works on a critical, and automatically incurs disapproval.

The boy's cabin is a little closet off the main cargo hold and requires the key from the captain's quarters to get in. There are a slew of small portals embedded into walls and ceiling, each leading to a seemingly idyllic pocket dimension that turns out to be a nightmare realm. Should probably come up with some kind of multiple column random table for this one. These pocket dimensions are also centered around objects of power the ship's boy pilfered during the ship's journeys and squirreled away.

There are four rune-inscribed barrels secured around the mizzen mast that contain the pickled, quartered remains of one of Sezrekan's old rivals, Gor-Mal the Butcher. Each quarter of the body has a magic item on it but opening the barrels is dangerous and could end up resurrecting the crazed wizard, who's been conscious since Sezrekan 'killed' him.

That's most of the detail I've got so far. I've got some other ideas too. Something about potentially killing yourself to contact the alien possessing the ship and then gaining some limited control over it. Also, there's probably a skeleton tied to the bowsprit that talks and lies a lot.

DW - Across the Plains of Hell

Lasts night Dungeon World was pretty sweet. It having been months since we last played, we started in the midst of the endgame for one of the fronts. Hamshire was now overrun by a voracious swarm goblins. The cast included both old and new characters. From previous sessions, Gregor the Fighter and Piotr the Cleric of Torbath; new to the scene, Ssor the warforged Fighter, Regulus the Paladin of Torbath, and Dagolear the elf Wizard. After two disparate goblin swarm encounters, the new folks managed to handily undo the binding of Azathoth that the old guard had previously spent so many resources putting in place. The doorway to hell was opened. Regulus, after burning his sword hand to a stump trying to close the portal, opted for a noble sacrifice and stepped into the burning void. Everyone else followed him through. Thereafter saw a Perilous Journey undertaken across the plains of hell, searching for Cadeus, the man who had originally sacrificed himself to close Azathoth's portal, and been bound in hell in the bargain. Ssor set a brutal pace, his warforged-ness having no pity on his fleshy companions. Piotr maintained his connection to Torbath even in the depths of hell, and provided temporarily sanctified ground in which his companions could rest. Their travels were briefly interrupted when the devil lord Blix confronted the group, trying to figure out how and why a group of heroes had found their way into the nether realm. He was convinced to leave by Regulus, but only barely. Finally making their way to where Cadeus had been bound, on a platform above a lake of fire, they woke him from within his broken binding circle. Cadeus outlined how they could sacrifice an item of great power to both close the now open portal and return the group to the mortal plane. Piotr, having rescued the Shield of Torbath from the goblin swarm, briefly conferred with Torbath to assess whether its sacrifice would do the job. Torbath answered in the affirmative but also returned a warning not to trust the man before them. Regulus quickly grabbed the shield of Torbath and slammed it into Cadeus, who was thrown aside in a blast of holy light and revealed to be the devil lord Blix. Commanded by the word of law, the devil lord was forced to retreat. As he disappeared the crumpled form of Cadeus was revealed within the broken circle. The woke the old priest and enacted the ritual, Gregor and Ssor holding off the devil swarm that Blix brought down on them for ruining his deception. There was a tense moment when Ssor was almost carried off by the devils, but in the end our heroes sacrificed the artifact, closed the portal to hell, and found themselves back home. Unfortunately Blix and five other devils followed them through, escaping them and scattering out into the world. Shortly thereafter they took stock of their surroundings and realized that they were back home, but some three years in the past.

Triweekly

Gaming, since moving to Saturdays, has pretty much averaged out to about once every 3 weeks. We did Apocalypse world a whole bunch. Then switched over to Monster Hearts for two sessions. Monster Hearts had one bad and one good session. The bad was the first, where we were trying to figure out the game, not really grokking at first what the game was trying to do, trying to force it to be a murder mystery instead of high school drama. The second session focused on a high school costume dance, and had a lot more interesting player v. player conflict. In the end a couple of flubbed rolls resulted in a teacher, who had dressed as a Ghostbuster for the dance, ending up with a functioning proton pack and trying to bust the ghost character. Lots of fun in that second session. But pretty much everyone in our group is in agreement that Monster Hearts isn't the game we want to be playing on a regular basis.

Next I ran two modules worth of Dungeon Crawl Classics. Sailors on the Starless Sea for the 0-level character funnel, and Doom of the Savage Kings for the follow-up level 1 adventure. It went pretty well but while everyone seemed to have fun, it's not the game most folks in the group are interested in playing regularly.

Next up I was going to run Apocalypse World, partly so that Ben could have some time as a player instead of MC. That may have fallen through with most folks being out of town for the weekend. Looking like Tony, Charles, and I might get together for Dungeon World tonight in the interim.

Want more gaming.

On Nerd Parenting

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/01/02/totally-of-the-mearas

The comic that goes with that post is pretty funny. But the overall statement on parenthood, especially of my future dealing with our children, point to some aspects of said dealings being depressing. For me anyway, if not Carrie. Or maybe both of us in slightly different ways. At least Owen shows a measurable appreciation for anything blasting out from the television. For better or worse. Earlier today he told me, "I want to watch Star Wars, real quick," when I told him it was nap time.

In other fatherly nerd news, I moved the board games out of the spare bedroom/office yesterday, and into the garage. This act is fomenting in my nerd hindbrain possibilities of hosting some kind of gameliness out there. Maybe. I'll have to think on the logistics of it a bit more.

Moving On Over

Gaming has changed of late. Over the course of five or six months, after GenCon, I figured we had gotten together for Friday gaming about 8 times. The Saturday Apocalypse World game Ben was running seemed to be meeting more often and had more people playing in it, being a drop-in-drop-out game. With all that, when Ben and Amy decided to start up and open-house style dinner night on Fridays I took the opportunity to shift over to Saturdays instead of Friday. So far it feels like we've been gaming more, but that may just be a short term thing. With Ben looking at putting together a similar casual group on Fridays there could be more opportunity for schedule flexibility, which would be nice.

D-D-Dragon!

We finally got together for our Friday 4e D&D game again. Looking back it was the beginning of October the last time we played it. Generally that would be a death knell, and we spent about an hour bullshitting about movies and stuff before actually getting to the business of even updating our characters and trying to remember what happened all those months ago. Turns out my memory, while good on the broad strokes had painted them with Southwest desert colors instead of the Germanic forested ones of which they were actually comprised. Once we got back into it things rolled along pretty smooth and it turned out to be one of the better sessions of this game. There was a bit toward the end with a dragon that highlighted a strength and a weakness of 4e. The strength: we decided to try to talk the dragon down instead of fighting it. We jumped into a skill challenge and avoided what would have likely been a long-ish, possibly bogged down, fight. We got to roleplay convincing a powerful monster that we were a bigger threat than it was, and feel like badasses in a situation that wasn't combat. I love skill challenges for this aspect. The weakness: From an economic standpoint it would have, within the rules of 4e, made more sense for us to jump into combat. Or maybe to use the skill challenge to set ourselves up for advantage in the fight with the dragon. We would have gotten size-ably more XP for fighting, which does say something important about the game, "This is what we designed this game for. You can use skill challenges, but they're not as important." I don't really like that.

Should Do This More Often

Since last time:

I hiked the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim. Given a general lack of training on my part it went pretty well. If anything it mostly affected my recovery time. The scenery was, of course, amazing.

Owen and Paige turned 2. Had a great party with lots of friends and family.

I turned 38!

Gaming ground to a standstill with various travel and whatnots. Played in a session of Apocalypse World this past Saturday, was good. Was good...

Decided to put the renovation project on hold, for the patio. We're in saving mode, trying to build the money to get the job done, rather than depleting savings to do it.

The tree is pretty sweet. It finally dropped its leaves, and the yard is, for the first time, littered with leaves. Hopefully it established well enough to make it though the winter. Should be fine given how large a tree we bought.

Had a low key Thanksgiving with Mom and Nette. Made way more food than needed, as is the wont of that holiday.

Finished the firs of the Long Price Quartet and started the second, Betrayal in Winter. Good series, but I think I may pause after this one and read Ghost Brigades.

Burrito Quest is on track for a possible successful trek. It would be our first since BQ1 if it happens.

Some Kind of Dude

Here's an impromtu recap I did of our D&D 4e (swansong?) game.  I forget a lot of the names of npcs until we're actually in-game.  Other details are probably wrong too.  Fun game though.

A wizard named Basterd summoned my awesome wizard-dude, Geldran, from the World of Giants to help some druid lady, Myra, fight some bad guys. The summoning didn't wear off when it should have so Geldran ran downstairs with Myra and the other warrior guy schmoe and helped them blast some goblins to pieces. Geldran got a portable hole.  Sweet! Then the group ran over to the bad guy Jasper's hideout and almost kicked his ass (only running away a little) before Basterd showed up and made Jasper fly away.  Then Basterd was all, "Why are you still here?" to Geldran.  Then Geldran was all, "Why are you such a jerk?"  And Myra and warrior-guy were all, "Oooohhh." and "How come Basterd didn't turn him into a toad?" Oh yeah, Geldran has a spellscar, like an electric blue glowing scar thing on his wrist/arm that seems to be growing as he gets more powerful.  Pretty cool. Then Geldran bought a horse and he rode that while Myra and her spirit wolf and warrior-guy walked, and they went to Myra's village.  Myra was all, "Don't tell people you're a wizard or pyre-of-fire."  Geldran was like, "Pssh, I'm a goddamn wizard, I'll burn THEIR shit." The villagers were kind of dummies but seemed ok.  Geldran shacked up with Myra and they decided to see what kind of shennanigans the goblins were getting up to.  They went off with warrior-guy and some lame (literally) tracker guy.  After a dust up with goblins near a waterfall they sent the schmoes back to town then went into the cave behind the waterfall.  They fought some other stuff, maybe zombies or something, then Geldran enacted a badass ritual that ramped up Myra's in-touch-with-nature-business so they could try to find out where the big evil in woods was.  Then they found some paladin-guy cooking lunch in the back of the cave.  Turns out he's blind-paladin-guy.  They went back to town with him, rounding up their schmoes on the way back. Blind-paladin guy asked if anybody was a twin.  Everybody said no.  He said he got teleported here and figured we were all drawn here by the same power source.  So we went to a graveyard and fought some undead dudes that blind-paladin guy admitted to accidentally raising from the grave.  Then Jasper showed back up and we kicked his ass for reals.  We found out he was working for one of the big hoo-ha wizards of the land.  Then there was a debate about whether they should let him go but Geldran figured no and pyre-of-fired him with burning hands. After some chatter and another badass ritual by Geldran we figured out there were several discrete evils being drawn to the area: goblins, undead, lizardmen.  And probably a giant, giants are teh suck, but they haven't been seen on this world in like forever.  Geldran totally thinks there are giants-in-hiding. Then Geldran started a refurb on a shack in the village and somehow conned a whole bunch of people into working for him.  It was probably his sick magic skills. Blind-pally guy told us there was some exiled priest guy around so we found him and he was really grumpy.  Then he told us about some kind of meteor that crashed in the area so we went there and there was like some psychic-echo-ghosts walking around.  So we found an old dwarf stronghold entrance and went down there to kick ass on some dark porcupine-beard dwarfs.  We went down into the nastybad and found their town where Geldran almost got killed by a sniper but we saved a bunch of villager prisoners and ran away, dropping the ceiling on the dark porcupine dwarfs following us. We took the villagers back to town with us and Geldran gave them his shack to live in and shacked up with Myra again.  We figured that the meteor was bad news and that the bad wizard lady probably had so we decided to leave but first we closed up a dark porky-dwarf tunnel and put paid to the goblins.  Geldran said, "What about the lizardmen?" and Myra was like, "Fuck those guys." So we left town and went off to different city to try to recruit some wizard-ruler guy to help us take down the bad wizard lady.  While we were there we looked around for a seer in the ghetto and got attacked by some more dark porky-dwarfs.  Then the girl-seer said we should go out to some town in the wastelands and find a map that would help us get what we needed. We went to talk to the wizard-ruler guy and he was like, "Yeah, I guess, but not right now."  So we left to go out to the ruined village.  We got there and fought some dudes and found the map.  And that's where we left it, I think.

Various Whatsits

Since last:

• Ran in a 5k with Carrie, taking turns pushing the twins in the stroller. Did a lot better than I figured I would.
• Went to Miami and Key West for work. Miami was ok, Key West a lot cooler. Wish it had been three days there, and one in Miami instead of the other way around. Ate some good Cuban food though and plenty of seafood.
• Mom came back from her trip to Mississippi with Aunt Nette in tow.  Kind of crazy since it was last minute, but it's cool she's finally come out for a visit. It's meant a lot more trips to mom's house. Which is good since we need to get the kids over there more often anyway.
• Took the kids to the State Fair (Southern NM that is). Their highlight would likely be the funnel cake, but walking them around through the show animals was pretty sweet. Never did find the petting zoo, which was disappointing.
• Allergies have been hammering me since I got back from Miami. Every day all day, and most days I wake up around 4am and have to take medicine.
• Annual switch from light to darker beers is right on schedule. Seems to happen every year right around now, independent of what the weather is actually doing.
• We bought a tree yesterday; a 15-20 foot Modesto Ash, for the back yard. Should get it in the ground Wednesday.
• We're slowly working with a contractor on getting the small side patio turned into a room. Got a bid we like, just need to get some final details nailed down.
• Friday game is a D&D4e game where we're leveling every week, planning on heading from 1-30.
• Next weekend I head out to hike the Grand Canyon with Jon. Kind of a birthday present for his 40th last year. Somewhat nervous given my general lack of exercise of late.
• Went out with Alex, Tony, and Alicia for an early birthday dinner for Carrie. Good company and conversation.
• And in three weeks Owen and Paige will turn two. Crazy.

Dungeons Anonymous

I have a problem. The Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG has all sorts of fun tables and charts and weird gameplay going on, so it's not like I had much of a choice. Also for page count the cost was pretty reasonable. And all the pictures of bell–bottomed wizards with sick belt buckles just added to the pot. My rationalization knows no bounds. I think I got a total of 10 pages into the PDF before I ordered the damn thing.

Ye Olde Gayme

The LotFP turned ACKS game died a swift death last Friday night, culminating in a total party kill. A couple things likely promoted us deciding not to continue on with new characters. One was a disconnect between my desire to focus on running a strictly old school game and what the players likely were interested in playing. The other was me not having the time outside of play to learn the rules to the degree that my desire for rules accuracy necessitated. We had a good time when we focused on the game, I think, but the frequent moments when I turned to the book to make sure we got the rules right got in the way of the overall enjoyment. For me, and I assume for everyone else. I still want to do some old school stuff but I think me running it, beyond a one-shot maybe, will have to wait until I have the free time to get after it the way I want to.

Impending travel to Carl-Bad caused me to write up some quick rules for a Halo game. And before the comments about free time pop up, it was generally done during downtime at work. The rules feel like a mashup, maybe, of Lady Blackbird and Dungeon Squad. We'll see if Ross and I can fit in some time to try them out.

ACKS & ack!

Last Friday we switched from Lamentations of the Flame Princess to Adventurer Conqueror King, keeping the same characters. Ben swapped from an expert to an explorer, Amy from an elf to an elven spellsword. Most of what like about LotFP lies in the setting it evokes, no necessarily the rules. ACKS seems more focused on the potential economics at work in a traditional D&D setting. We'll see how that works out, but given the focus in old school games on $=XP… Part of me, though, feels bad that we're not playing Dungeon World. Add to that D&D Next open playtesting starts up in less than a month. Gaming! There's always something new to play with.

Coolio

Put a deposit on refrigerated air install for next weekend. This summer we'll be coolerating in style.

Dad got in last night. Staying the weekend and doing a 5k with Carrie. And now we have and extra registration since Julie can't make it, so I might get enlisted to push the stroller.

Tonight, we Flament!

It Cometh WIth Snot

The past week has been sickness all through the family.  Near as I can tell Owen was our own patient zero, followed by either Carrie or I, with Paige bringing up the rear.  It hit me last Sunday/Monday and lasted till about today.  Still not completely over it but much better since yesterday.

This past weekend we toted the kids out to Carlsbad for Julie and Rosss birthdays.  Was good to get out there and see 'em but also tough what with everyone not feeling well.  Made for a tiring weekend.  So much so that I came home from work after a couple of hours early on Monday.

Managed a session of Flamentations Friday before last.  A mini-dungeon crawl followed by a survival scenario and finally returning to a town beset by chaos.  Next session this Friday.

Pulled a 12-hour at work today.  Surprisingly, not that bad.  But then a 3 hour nap yesterday and staying busy all day today probably helped.

Oh, and I got a new nook.  Carrie was wanting to do more reading so she took my old one and I upgraded to a nook Simple Touch.  Very small, and very nice.  Still working through Dance with Dragons, but taking large chunks out at a time.  Carrie's been reading Bossypants and enjoying it, so I may hit that up next.  Or maybe Ready Player One, not too sure.

Sinu-balls

Some kind of sinusitis has descended upon me. Out of work Friday and still feeling worn out and sore.

Friday Flamentations were booshed by sickness. And it looks like no gaming for the next two weeks for other reasons. May have to see if Ben and Amy are interested in something during the week, to ablate the seemingly inevitable once-a-month gaming schedule.

Kids have been getting more and more "getting into things.". This morning they moved the 'fencing' we have in front of the trash can and retrieved a mostly empty cup of ranch dressing. It was, undoubtedly delicious. I, being sick and tired (of sickness, not kids) got a bit frustrated with the situation, when Owen's ranch smeared mouth clearly called for humor. So Carrie bundled the kids up and took them for a walk. Next time I'll just go back to bed like she suggested.

Been thinking about getting a new nook. I may have mentioned this before, but with the old one working just fine, not sure it's warranted. Maybe if I sold the old one...