My intention was to sleep in a bit on Saturday, but I ended up getting ut of bed to help the younger kids get ready for the Vacation Bible School water day. I also drove them up to church. Then, an out of town friend showed up, so heading back to bed wasn’t going to happen.

After getting caught up, talk turned to D&D and on a whim we decided to play a bit of Keep on the Shadowfell with my son. I DMed and my son and friend each played 2 PCs.  I ran the (spoilers, FWIW) first two Kobold ambushes. I liked how it played, but was confused on a couple of rules bits (charging and burst spells). I haven’t acquired my core books yet, so I imagine they may be cleared up in there. At the end we even let my younger son “play” (he’s only 5, but almost 6) upon him return from water day.

The little ones were totally sunburned, despite my application of sunscreen before we left. They were out there a long time, though. (About 4 hours.)

I played some Carcassone Hunters and Gatherers with the little ones in the evening time. Lastly, I watched Live Free or Die Hard (not bad) and then went to bed.

I had a restless night of sleep, due to an upset stomach. I was running sound for both services at church, so I took a couple of Tums and pressed on. The nausea held on all morning through church, but once I got home I went back into my bedroom nibbled on some crackers, sipped some warm soda and watched more Arrested Development. I watched the second half of season two and started season 3. 

Then it was time for the VBS show, back up at church. That’s always big fun.

Once I returned home I went back to the bedroom to finish AD season 3.

Arrested Development is damn funny. I’m sorry I missed it the first time around. I might have even been motivated to join up with one of these “save the show” campaigns.

Some of my favorite things about the show aren’t necessarily the main thrust of the show, but more “meta” items. I love Ron Howard’s narration. I loved the episode that became a Burger King commercial. There was an episode in Season 3 that must have been written once they knew they were cancelled, or at least on the chopping block. The narration in that episode was hilarious referencing making the family more friendly and repeating “tell your friends.”

On one hand, I hope the rumored movie comes to fruition. However, it seems to me the show had a very decent wrap up.

[	Tags	|	gaming, gk	]
[	Current Location	|	The cube	]
[	Current Mood	|	pleased	]
[	Current Music	|	The air handler	]

Breaking up the twitterfeed with a real post – gaming related no less. 

Last night we actually got 3 different games in.  We’re normally a crew who BSes for an hour or two and then plays a 2-3 hour game.  Last night, was a totally different attack, as we played 3 short games: Fantasy Business, Loot and Citadels.

We wrapped up a little later than desired, but I had big fun.

[	Tags	|	gaming, rpgs	]
[	Current Location	|	The cube	]
[	Current Mood	|	contemplative	]

The D&D article making the rounds the last few days (which showed up lots of places via AP) here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23903817/

Prompted by this blog post by maliszew on his grognardia blog:  

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/04/d-in-news.html

Here’s the part of the post I totally agree with and am piggybacking off of:

“I simply think that what we are seeing is that the last vestiges of D&D's faddishness are finally falling away and the game is revealed for what it always was: a peculiar little hobby activity for a small group of peculiar people.

Again, I say this without contempt. In fact, I rather look forward to the days when roleplaying is comfortable being what it really is. Those days of tremendous success were oddities. The hobby has been coasting on momentum from the mid-80s and inertia is finally exerting its inexorable pull. My own kids will probably be roleplayers, but only because their father is. They might in turn spread this hobby to some of their friends, but the odds are not great. Like model railroad building or playing bridge (a fad of its own -- the D&D of the 1950s), roleplaying games will eventually become a marginal activity that a small portion of the public finds joy in. For myself, as one of the people who finds such joy, I see no problem in this future. My only concern is that, in their quest to regain something that can never be regained, D&D's current custodians will sell the game's soul and history for a bunch of magic beans.”

Rpgs are a hobby.  You can still identify highly as a roleplayer (I do), but the hobby doesn’t really have to be any bigger than it already is.  However, I’m not sure most roleplayers see it that way.

[	Tags	|	gaming, gk, rpgs, star wars	]
[	Current Location	|	The cube	]
[	Current Mood	|	giddy	]
[	Current Music	|	The loud air handler above my desk	]

A friend of mine returned some rpg materials to me last night: most of my WEG Star Wars stuff and a Paranoia boxed set.  He had kept them for about 10 years.  

This wasn’t contentious or anything, mind you, I gave them to him when I thought I might be getting out of gaming for good.  However, he shortly ended up getting divorced, and though he had lost them during the upheaval.  He recently discovered them going through some boxes that had been in storage all this time.  Boxes believed to be old clothes and unimportant papers, had my treasure within.

It was awesome to skim through this stuff again.  One of the coolest things for me was finding stuff I had created: adventure maps, margin notes, a cheat sheet that was essentially a DM’s screen page written in pencil on ¼” graph paper.  Then there was some of the cool published stuff: poster diagrams, the mock ads,* and especially the official Sabacc rules.  The Sabacc cards were missing however, but I think I had lost those before.

I’m also the kind of guy to troll through the credits, and found one set that caused major cognitive dissonance: Galaxy Guide 6: Tramp Freighters was written by Mark Rein*Hagen and Stewart Weick.  I just would have never guessed the WW guys would have written one of the most highly acclaimed SWRPG books.

[	Tags	|	gaming	]
[	Current Mood	|	thoughtful	]

Hobby Games: the 100 best, edited by James Lowder was released at GenCon.  It’s a collection of essays by game designers about their favorite games.  The full info can be found here:  http://www.greenronin.com/store/grr4001#support  I love the book and picked it up at GenCon.  I’m only part way through it, and I think it’s full of surprises.  I’ve already seen a couple contributors reference it on their lj, and the full list for all to see is below.

At any rate, this meme is yanked from http://grubbstreet.blogspot.com/ . 

The big project this weekend was remodeling the girls’ room.  Friday night I took all the furniture out and removed the carpet.  My wife is the family’s painter – I don’t have the patience for edging can crap.  I also tend to word the roller to fast resulting in paint speckles everywhere.  However, she ended up staying out late, so we teamed up to get the painting done, since it made sense to do that before the new floor.  I put in wood laminate flooring, the same as I put in the family room last fall.  The big deal here was that I was really impressed with how good the room looked.  I normally don’t care about design and style, that’s my wife’s department.  I just do the work assigned to me.  But once complete, the paint (a shade of purple) and floor (Medium red oak) really looked nice.  I was impressed.

I spent almost all day Sunday at church.  I ran sound board for both services (which I usually do 1 of 3 months) but then stayed for the tech dress of the kids’ musical for next Sunday.  My older daughter is in the show.  I really like doing this event every year, and most of the time we then do it at a retirement home, but that probably won’t happen this year.

I’ve overcome my “grief” regarding the Dungeon and Dragon mags.  I’m even trying to have an open mind about Wizards’ digital initiative.  I don’t think that will be for me, but who knows.  A good thing that has come out of this is that it really prompted me to try and get a game back together.  My regular group disbanded last July and burnout took me through December.  I’m going to run a Dungeon adventure one shot (Ill Made Graves, issue 133) and I’ll have the pre-gens all have Dragon published features.

Making these contacts prompted me to get together with some of these former players for their board game night.

My older son and I bought some more magic cards this weekend, and have played a few times.  This seems like it will be good quality time, that’s a little easier to do pick-up as well as one on one than D&D.