5/27/14
That was an amazing weekend.
It was crazy busy, but fantastic.
Coming out of a three day weekend where we started ‘running’ on Friday
night and finished by getting home at 10:30pm last night I am exhausted. I’m just fantastically tired and a tiny bit
irritated with myself since I didn’t do any resumes nor did I get those minis
and board games on Craigslist. I figure
if I can just keep my head down and push through today the next four days will
take care of themselves, and allow me some time to get the real two tasks in
front of me done.
Friday night we
grilled with THE Karl & Kedrin, had some beverages, and rather than fire
pit it up we went inside and played the HELL out of some board games; Killer
Bunnies & Kingdoms. As always it was
a great time. I don’t think we laugh as
loud nor have as much fun as when we are with those two. There is just something to be said for people
you have a lot in common with, enjoy your brand of obnoxiousness, and can just
be yourself around. That was like a 2am
bed time, so I sort of knew the weekend was going to be a rough one.
I was up at 7am-ish and started prepping for 2nd
Group D&D. After our guests took
their leave I pounded out the pork for the 2nd Group grilling I had
promised, had some lunch and slept for a few hours. I think if I hadn’t had that nap I might
never had made it. I knew we were going
to have some new players in Andrea and Lady Christy for the session and that
the start time was sort of up in the air so I waited till the last minute to
fire up the grill. El Bobert-O brought
his normal, delicious looking slab of beef and then I got the pork on.
Surprisingly enough almost everyone either had eaten or
wasn’t that hungry so we did have leftovers.
When we finally got rolling with the session I had to figure out how to
deal with the loss of three players; Julie The Meatloaf, Chad, &
Cordell. After some minor internal
debating I simply used them to ramp up the intensity of the horror and move the
plot forward by having Chad’s statue form get shattered and spill forth
horrific snakes, Julie’s character had her head bit off by the angry Naga, and
finally Cordell had a VERY heroic death by holding off the Naga while the other
PC’s fled. I got a little intense in the
description of this which led to some recurrent comments from Tiffany &
Lady Christy.
I tried to use the potential of a sinking cave structure as
well as the possibility of horribly drowning and/or being eaten by that angry
Naga and its weird snake babies to speed up the game a bit. There was then an assisted lock mechanism
challenge to get out of the threat area.
That is where I introduced Andrea’s character, She-ra, and Lady
Christy’s character, Beep Boop, to the rest of the Group. It worked out well as I had planned on using
Barnabus The Blue as the dues ex machine to the entire adventure so I just had
the two new characters as the jumping off point.
In explaining the whole multiple Campaigns and the God Shard
thing I was met with a Pokomon comparison by one of the new players. At first I was sort of offended. I felt like the distillation of four groups
and everything I’ve tried to build with all those players down into a
comparison like that was unfair.
However, about ten minutes later it occurred to me that if someone is going
to compare you to something why not have it be something that is still sort of
a cultural phenomenon. And while at the
most rudimentary levels that might be an apt comparison it is still only on the
surface area.
Anywho, sorry got off on that tangent there, but it is my
blog. In the end the Party got to their
Barnabus meeting, had a big fight, got in some ‘ooohs and ahhhhs’, and escaped
certain death with something to do in the immediate future. I felt like it was a fun session, actually
where it fell down in technical aspects and even a bit in the inventiveness of
storytelling the vibe really made up for it.
There were a lot of laughs, and for the first time in a while 2nd
Group seemed to have a really fantastic time, and that is the real goal.
I do have some work to do though to tighten up the ship of
what I want to get accomplished. First
and foremost I need to find a way to give the next adventure some closure
without it revolving the Party in flight mode.
I’ve used that twice now, best not to overuse it. Now that I have a group that digs role
playing I need to play to that strength next adventure and give them something
to really bite into. Luckily what I had
planned should work quite well for that.
And last but not least I need to find a good solid way to re-tie the
search for that massive treasure back into the overall narrative. It has gotten put on the back burner of late
and I’d really like to bring it back to the forefront overall. Of all the groups 2nd Group has
the least real tie to the overall Shard plot of the Campaign world. It is available to them, but I think the
original hunt for the Lost Treasure angle appeals even more, so I need to
creatively find a way to drop some clues about its destination into the PC’s
lap again. So there is some work to do,
but luckily Saturday night’s session rejuvenated my drive to do it.
After the session Zack Attack, Andrea, Lady Chirsty, and El
Bobert-O stuck around for a few hours and we exchanged stories of awesome, and
I was given the treat of not only Tales Of Mecky but also Zack introducing me
to Brian Posehn’s D&D Podcast. I was
exhausted but was up till around 1am-ish, which I knew to be a bad idea since I
had CHIKARA grilling prep to do. It was
a damn fine evening of D&D and frivolity so I made an exception.
I was again up early on Sunday. I started marinating meat at around 7am after
chopping up the trinity of beef, pork, and chicken. There wasn’t a chance to take a nap as we
were staring early. Them Damn Wheeler
Boyz were the first to arrive and luckily James and his Magic Beard were down
to help do all the Kebab skewering with me.
Magic Mike made it and graced us with some coffee which really helped
get Cassandra and I going. Eventually Yo
Randy, Casual Doug, Peter aka ‘PJ Thorn’, and the Geneious all arrived to
consume massive quantities of grilled meat, veggies, and even fruit while
partaking of the Season 14 premier, ‘You Only Live Twice’, of CHIKARA!
The only problem was we couldn’t get the iPPV feed to
work. Luckily, that group is chock full
of folks with GIGANTIC brains, and the Casual Warrior, Doug, managed to cobble
together a VGA cord and a sound cord to run the laptop to the television which
worked literally seconds before the feed to the show actually started. Casual Doug is now, and forever more, a
L.E.W.G.I. hero. I won’t go into a
massive amount of detail about the show as we did that in the Heel Turn Radio
episode ’14 Large Brutha’. I will just
say that I loved it, and I think everyone else did as well. It was incredible and left me wanting more. It is one thing to watch and enjoy wrestling
alone; it is another to have that with a group of folks. It was a phenomenal time. The iPPV stream was overall really good with
only two minor hiccups, which was less than the WWE Network’s Wrestlemania 30
stream. I will be purchasing these
monthly now as long as the group is down for it.
Post iPPV we knocked out two Podcasts, ’14 Large Brutha’
& ‘The Casual Warrior’, both of which were a blast to record. Some times when we have a ‘Full’ room I
worry. With only four microphones it can
be a bit chaotic with five or more people, because it requires people to
share. This time we had six and it
really went well. The other thing we
attempted to do was reign in our time and I think we were pretty successful as
both Podcasts were just over an hour. We
do really well when we have a format and a plan going in for most episodes, but
I have to admit this time we went into both with very little planning and just
had fun. Having listened back to
snippets of both episodes I think it really shows.
Afterwards there was the idea of watching ‘Ashes’ and
talking about the idea of having a once a month Wrestling RPG night using the
‘Know Your Role’ system, which is an interesting hybridized Open Game
License. Alas, Them Damn Wheeler Boyz
had to depart, so instead the remainder of us just hung out and chatted. First it was wrestling, but we started
talking movies and then Horror, and then comics and we just kept going. Eventually, Casual Doug called it and
left. Yo Randy and the Geneious both
were on their way out, but somehow we three started talking about life and next
thing you knew it was 2:30am.
That is the cool thing about those guys, you can literally talk
with them about anything at any time and it is never forced or awkward it just
‘Is’. After they both made their way
home, I blissfully laid in bed with my lovely wife and talked till around
4am. It was a good talk, and honestly I
think it meant a lot to both of us.
Sometimes we both don’t communicate our hopes and fears as readily as we
should because we don’t want to scare or upset the other person. We both know that is silly, but we can’t help
ourselves. The reality is I married my
Best Friend, and she is incredible. She
inspires me to be a better version of myself every day.
Monday we were going to do resumes, but it just never
happened. Instead we slept in, well time
of the day wise but not actual hours slept wise. Once we were both functional it was around
noon, and we made the horrible decision to go out in the mid-day sun and mow. It wasn’t that it was overly hot outside; it
was that there was no breeze, no cover, and it was muggy. Either way the hour plus mowing was brutal. Together we got through it, but were both
dehydrated and pretty much exhausted.
After the clean-up, slamming down some grub, and doing some laundry prep
I passed out for a few hours. I could
have slept for a whole 24 hours and I don’t think it would have been enough.
We had made plans to go hang out with THE Karl and Kedrin at
their place and play Settlers Of Catan, a game I’ve always heard about, but
never actually played. We headed over,
had some pizza, and had a flippin’ BLAST playing Settlers. It’s a nice strategic exercise, there is a
TON of re-playability, and I dug the mechanics a lot, but what made it was the
other three people at the table. Between
the teasing of Cassandra for her monopolies, to the sneaky ruthlessness of THE
Karl, to Kedrin & I’s Poor Settlers Of Catan Alliance it all just made
something that was VERY good even better.
I also got to finally meet Lily, the new cat, THE Karl showed off his
impeccable paint job and base modding on the Bones Clockwork Dragon which blew
our collective MINDS, and we talked Utopianism and whether or not Star Trek
qualifies.
In case it isn’t clear, beyond my employment situation, I
LOVE my life. The things I get to do,
the people I get to do them with, the conversations I get to participate in,
the books we share, the problems we work on together, the laughs we share, the
bad movies we all watch, the games we play, the creative endeavors that spring
up, the food we get to cook and eat, etc. it is all amazing. The lack of drama, the lack of conflict, the
strange communal ‘All for one and one for all’ nature of the groups of people I
get to spend time with never ceases to awe me.
To me that has been the most amazing thing in the last year or so is
just the reformation of our social circles into a form that is broad,
inclusive, lacks pressure, expectations, or drama, and is egalitarian in nature. More than anything I feel like I don’t just
have a bunch of Friends, I feel like I have a community and that is really
incredible. The last three plus days
were just a whirlwind of awesome, so thank you all.
How about we wrap up this bad mamma jamma with some…
RANDOM CRAP!
-
I’m thinking in August that a Board Game day
needs to occur.
-
One of these days I will PERFECTLY cook you a
steak El Bobert-O! THIS I SWEAR!
-
With potential of an L.E.W.G.I. RPG going on
once a month, one without a DM, I’m starting to go back through the ‘Know Your
Role’ book. There is a LOT of
interesting concepts there. I think what
I want to do is have not just a combat initiative, but a storytelling one as
well. The way they give a mock example
of the combat does require some narration, but I think that the group is so
full of guys who want to have fun and have done e-fed stuff that it won’t be
hard to make it amazing. Tone will be
something we’ll all have to agree on as well, I for one am hoping for a CHIKARA
style federation. My other thought is to
possibly just vote every session who the General Manager will be, book as a
committee, use a ranking system to figure out who is in title contention, and
have everyone have at LEAST five characters that they run themselves with
another five characters contributed to a Character Pool. I was thinking of even just having us all do
ten characters and then do a draft.
There are a lot cool ways we could do this. I think I’ll do some Google Fu and see if any
groups out there have put their ideas or play formats online.
-
I heard that X-Men: Days Of Future Past was
great. We haven’t been to the movies in
a LONG time; maybe this one will break our streak.
-
Insecurity Blanket Podcast this Wed.!
-
We are off to Toys R Us after work to grab
Luke’s birthday present(s); I am hoping we find some D&D Kre-O’s. I really think he would flip out if we could
get him something cool like that, especially if we can get something that
reminds of the Wrath Of Ashardalon board game we got him for Christmas last
year. I just hope Toys R Us has that
stuff in stock; otherwise we can’t go wrong with Superheroes I guess.
-
Oh football, I still love you, but the NFL and
all its legal dramas and lack of accountability really makes me ill.
-
With more Deadzone stuff on the way I should try
and finish gluing our Marauders this weekend.
-
I’ve got to get back to painting this week. After seeing the amazing stuff THE Karl is
doing and talking about it with the Geneious I’m eager to get back to it. I also grabbed some sprues of ‘Pike &
Shotte’ from Warlord Games as they are having a 50% off sale right now, GO
FORTH AND PURCHASE! I figure these minis
will be another nice addition to the Pirate type stuff I’m doing for 2nd
Group. With the stuff that THE Karl is
getting done I’m starting to contemplate putting some of the smaller stuff
aside for a bit and attacking my Bones Driders, Fire Giants, or maybe something
else about that size. Diamond Dave if
you are reading this, what would it take for you to paint up my three GIGANTIC
pieces; Cthulhu, the truly massive Dracolich, and the Zombie Dragon? It isn’t that I don’t want to paint them I am
just not sure I can do them justice and I want them to look amazing.
-
The potential June garage sale just continues to
get bigger and gain more steam. It could
end up being of truly epic scale.
-
‘Vicious and Delicious’ might be my new favorite
tag team name.
-
Can the idea of Buddhist ‘Inner Peace’ and
Nietzsche’s philosophy of ‘Will To Power’ cohesively co-exist as a personal
belief system? Something that I’ve been
discussing and pondering with someone far smarter than myself that fascinates
me.
-
Infinite Ditto’s.
-
If it started thundering right now I honestly
might just pass out.
-
It was decided that Team TROLLSTRONG isn’t from
‘Murder Town’, but that everywhere they go becomes ‘Murder Town’ which we also
discovered is not to be confused with ‘Funky Town’. Oh and that even the ‘Safety Dance’ won’t
save you in ‘Murder Town’ because you don’t have any friends...
I think that is enough mad
rambling for one day…
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