NobodysHome |
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Hey, Nobody!
The kids and I will be coming home from SoCal on Monday afternoon.
Whingey Wizzard is in the classroom by 9 Monday morning, so allegedly six hours home, add a random extra hour because kids, puts us back in the Bay around 4-ish, but could be later if needed.Would this work as the evening to swing by to do the level-up you had talked about? And, if so, what is my time window (no earlier/later than)? Because Tuesday the kids will expect "Kids eat free" night at Ikea, Wednesday is quasi-booked but not definite, and Thursday I have a committee meeting.
Monday evening is fine. I'm planning on working on the garage during the day, and relaxing during the evening. If they're open, we'll even feed you and the kids at the pub. Because feeding people is what I do...
Tacticslion |
Vanykrye wrote:NobodysHome wrote:Not I, at least not to my knowledge. Aiymi and I share a single Amazon Wish List, but since you don't have that information (to my knowledge - you're a crafty guy and might be able to figure it out) I highly doubt it came from us.OK, this is rather embarrassing: Did anyone who reads this thread have The Baleful Coven on their wish list, only to have the PDF mysteriously appear in their inbox?
I did a huge purge of people's wish lists back in December, and I just got shipping notification that a hard copy of The Baleful Coven is getting sent to me.
Since I didn't order it, it's got to be a FaWtLer's.
Anyone remember wanting it?
In the back of my head, I *think* it was for TacticsLion, but I know he pops up here frequently, so I was hoping he could confirm.
NEXT Christmas I'll actually ASK people whether they want anything before sending it. What a concept! :-O
1) you presuppose I check my list, like, ever
2) yes, that was on my list at one point3) I kind of thought I’d taken everything that wasnt out of print (orthe mind of thing that no one would get) off my list... but maybe my pruning wasn’t through, and obvisouly you’d found some things...
lisamarlene |
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lisamarlene wrote:Monday evening is fine. I'm planning on working on the garage during the day, and relaxing during the evening. If they're open, we'll even feed you and the kids at the pub. Because feeding people is what I do...Hey, Nobody!
The kids and I will be coming home from SoCal on Monday afternoon.
Whingey Wizzard is in the classroom by 9 Monday morning, so allegedly six hours home, add a random extra hour because kids, puts us back in the Bay around 4-ish, but could be later if needed.Would this work as the evening to swing by to do the level-up you had talked about? And, if so, what is my time window (no earlier/later than)? Because Tuesday the kids will expect "Kids eat free" night at Ikea, Wednesday is quasi-booked but not definite, and Thursday I have a committee meeting.
That would be amazing. And not required, but I wouldn't say no.
I would, however, say thank you.lisamarlene |
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Hey, Nobody!
Do you already have lunch plans for tomorrow?
I'm assuming, since you're prepping 95 rooms, that you'd rather not have to worry about food.
I would be happy to bring something (a couple of chicken pies, or a big pot of chili and some cornbread?), or do you want to get takeout?
We're not quite as broke-arse as usual.
NobodysHome |
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Hey, Nobody!
Do you already have lunch plans for tomorrow?
I'm assuming, since you're prepping 95 rooms, that you'd rather not have to worry about food.
I would be happy to bring something (a couple of chicken pies, or a big pot of chili and some cornbread?), or do you want to get takeout?We're not quite as broke-arse as usual.
My "plan" was just Al's or Gordo's, so no thought involved.
I'd just save your money and go with that. Of course, I will never say "No" to your cooking, so your choice.
But yeah, I will neither be cooking nor picking up the food myself. I'll just pick up the tab to have food appear on my table. Life is good.
NobodysHome |
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Hey, NH! Do you have lunch plans for Sunday and a private plane that’ll take you here? Asking for... a friend. >.>
(Look, I figure if you count as your own ally, you can count as your own friend...)
Considering that:
(a) Sunday is the only game I get to play in, and(b) Shiro canceled on us for tonight to prep for Sunday,
I'd say I've got a lunch date with Trig (my PC) and Shiro on Sunday.
We'll see...
NobodysHome |
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Ultimately if Shira wanted to meet me here with his cheap around 11 she could help bring a bunch of the party chairs that we keep for big parties on the deck and bring them down. We would have to put extra cushions on them but that's easily managed
We have the 4 kitchen chairs, plus 4 office chairs, plus a chair Impus Minor grabbed for no raisin.
So I think we're fine; it's just rearrangement that's needed.
Tacticslion |
Tacticslion wrote:Hey, NH! Do you have lunch plans for Sunday and a private plane that’ll take you here? Asking for... a friend. >.>
(Look, I figure if you count as your own ally, you can count as your own friend...)
Considering that:
(a) Sunday is the only game I get to play in, and
(b) Shiro canceled on us for tonight to prep for Sunday,I'd say I've got a lunch date with Trig (my PC) and Shiro on Sunday.
We'll see...
1) I love that you named your computer Trig
2) As it turns out, it’s cool! We had a surprisingly huge feast at our local mall (including leftovers!) when we bought my Eldest a pair of shoes that didn’t have a literal hole all the way through (front to back) both feet’s shoes (and my youngest a matching pair as his current ones were getting a liiiiittle but small, and he wasn’t gonna inheret his big brother’s this time).
How was your game?!
NobodysHome |
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1) I love that you named your computer Trig
I'm just going to assume you were well aware that PC = Player Character.
2) How was your game?!
It was awesome!
Shiro is exploring the various available 'themes' for an AP: A siege-style set of encounters where the PCs have no ability to rest or recuperate between fights, a travelogue with a series of traps, and so forth. Yesterday he was exploring haunts, so he did a "Rise of the Runelords"-style, "Telling a story through a series of haunts."
The stuff he did was amazing, but you kind of expect that from someone who's been running Call of Cthulu games since its inception. I'm not supposed to reveal things about the AP, but the single-best part of the whole thing was that it was entirely rules-legal; he didn't look at haunts, say, "Oh, that's hard. I want this effect and I can't figure out how to do it by the rules, so I'll just make something up."
He decided on the effect he wanted, he looked up a spell that would create that effect, and he linked the spell with the haunt and set the CR and saves appropriately.
Poor Trig ended up hiding inside a mattress for a while and then losing 8 points of Dex, and we had to go back to town to get healed up, and the session ended at just 2:30 pm (normally we go 'til 5) so we had to watch a movie (the live action Full Metal Alchemist. Don't bother), but it was a blast.
Tacticslion |
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1) I love that you named your computer Trig
I'm just going to assume you were well aware that PC = Player Character.
Well now I feel dumb, but I translated "PC" as "Personal Computer" and I liked the idea of a computer named "Trig" 'cause MATH.
2) How was your game?!
It was awesome!
Shiro is exploring the various available 'themes' for an AP: A siege-style set of encounters where the PCs have no ability to rest or recuperate between fights, a travelogue with a series of traps, and so forth. Yesterday he was exploring haunts, so he did a "Rise of the Runelords"-style, "Telling a story through a series of haunts."
The stuff he did was amazing, but you kind of expect that from someone who's been running Call of Cthulu games since its inception. I'm not supposed to reveal things about the AP, but the single-best part of the whole thing was that it was entirely rules-legal; he didn't look at haunts, say, "Oh, that's hard. I want this effect and I can't figure out how to do it by the rules, so I'll just make something up."
He decided on the effect he wanted, he looked up a spell that would create that effect, and he linked the spell with the haunt and set the CR and saves appropriately.
Poor Trig ended up hiding inside a mattress for a while and then losing 8 points of Dex, and we had to go back to town to get healed up, and the session ended at just 2:30 pm (normally we go 'til 5) so we had to watch a movie (the live action Full Metal Alchemist. Don't bother), but it was a blast.
That sounds awesome! Except for the movie! Enjoy!
NobodysHome |
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*just because*
NH, why is the sky blue?
NobodysHome's Explanation for Kids (not necessarily 100% accurate)
Imagine taking a bucket full of tennis balls and dumping it on your living room floor. Maybe 2 buckets. There should be enough tennis balls that you can walk across the floor easily, but your clumsy old dad might have trouble because of all the tennis balls.
The tennis balls are "air" molecules; they're Earth's atmosphere. The stuff we breathe.
So now, way off in the distance, the sun shines light at us. Get yourself a golf ball. This is "blue" light. Blue light has a really short wavelength, so it's small. Roll the golf ball as hard as you can through the tennis balls. Do you think it's going to get through? Well, probably not. It's just not big enough. It gets stuck somewhere. So let's put a little motor on the golf ball so it keeps going until it gets somewhere. Now our golf ball is all crazy! It might come out the way it came in! It might get through where we sent it. It might show up somewhere else! But if you're just somebody standing on Earth, past the whole atmosphere, you're seeing blue, blue, everywhere! Who knows which direction it came from?
But what about the other colors, you ask? Well, let's take a look at red. Take a basketball. Red has a big, BIG wavelength. Roll a basketball with a motor as hard as you can through the tennis balls. Is it going to get through? You'd better believe it! So if you're on Earth, it looks like the red light comes straight from the sun, but the blue light is coming from all over. That's why the sun looks yellow, too; the blue light is running all over the place like crazy, so the sun's not as "blue" as it should be, and that makes it look "yellow" (trust me on this one).
Hey, what about sunset? Well, now the sun's at an angle to us. Instead of a roomful of tennis balls, make it a whole tennis court full. Uh oh! The little golf balls really don't stand a chance any more, and even the basketballs have trouble! The sky turns from blue to yellow to red as the bigger and bigger and bigger balls get stopped.
And once the whole Earth is in the way, ALL the balls get stopped and we get night!
NobodysHome |
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Hey nobody! Being a California Native, You might know the answer to this one. I just drove over the bridge on Shasta Lake and the lake is absolutely full. How in the name of hell is it full after the lousy winter we've just had?
We had a really wet winter the winter before that, and Northern Californians are always in a "drought" mindset, so we don't burn water after wet years. So one surplus year might last 2-3 years.
Also, keep in mind that we had an extremely large amount of March/April rain (almost 25% of the average total for the year), so you're also seeing the impact of the runoff.
The problem is, once the weather warms up and dries out, there won't be enough snowmelt to KEEP the lake full over the summer, which is what you want.
Drive by in August. I bet it'll be 10-20' low, as usual.
lisamarlene |
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Okay, so next Friday.
Here is the train of thought that just went completely off the rails and then went all Montparnasse...
1. Ooh! Going out to a fun dinner party! What to wear?
2. Don't get too fancy; Nobody's Home will be in Chef pants and a sweatshirt.
3. I wonder if I could get GothBard to work with me on convincing ALL the guests to wear Chef pants? Because that would be hilarious/awesome.
4. If I had the money and my sewing machine was not on the fritz, I would totally buy a whole bunch of pairs of chef pants and turn them into something fabulous and Carmen Miranda-ish.
5. GothBard would never go for that "everybody wears chef pants" scheme. NEVER.
6. I f everybody did, NH would show up in a suit and tie.
7.Because that would be hilarious/awesome.
8. What will everybody else be wearing?
NobodysHome |
3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Okay, so next Friday.
Here is the train of thought that just went completely off the rails and then went all Montparnasse...
1. Ooh! Going out to a fun dinner party! What to wear?
2. Don't get too fancy; Nobody's Home will be in Chef pants and a sweatshirt.
3. I wonder if I could get GothBard to work with me on convincing ALL the guests to wear Chef pants? Because that would be hilarious/awesome.
4. If I had the money and my sewing machine was not on the fritz, I would totally buy a whole bunch of pairs of chef pants and turn them into something fabulous and Carmen Miranda-ish.
5. GothBard would never go for that "everybody wears chef pants" scheme. NEVER.
6. If everybody did, NH would show up in a suit and tie.
7. Because that would be hilarious/awesome.
8. What will everybody else be wearing?
As I complained to GothBard just last night, it's looking more and more like "Chinese food on the living room floor" because apparently restaurants don't want to deal with 14 people. Rivoli just can't handle a group that size, and Skates still hasn't called me back. Making more phone calls tonight...
...though GothBard's response ("If our new couches are here it'll be Chinese food on the back deck!") was priceless.
I'll keep everyone in the loop, but so far nobody wants my money...
NobodysHome |
3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Okay, so next Friday.
Here is the train of thought that just went completely off the rails and then went all Montparnasse...
1. Ooh! Going out to a fun dinner party! What to wear?
2. Don't get too fancy; Nobody's Home will be in Chef pants and a sweatshirt.
3. I wonder if I could get GothBard to work with me on convincing ALL the guests to wear Chef pants? Because that would be hilarious/awesome.
4. If I had the money and my sewing machine was not on the fritz, I would totally buy a whole bunch of pairs of chef pants and turn them into something fabulous and Carmen Miranda-ish.
5. GothBard would never go for that "everybody wears chef pants" scheme. NEVER.
6. I f everybody did, NH would show up in a suit and tie.
7.Because that would be hilarious/awesome.
8. What will everybody else be wearing?
And more in line with the question:
- I will most likely wear jeans and a decent shirt, though if everyone else wears Chefwear I will most definitely wear a suit. Or even my tux. Yes. I own a tux.- I love the idea of a dress made of Chefwear. It would be hideous!
- Shiro will be in jeans and a T-shirt.
- Hi will be in his usual corduroys, torn long-sleeved shirt, and holey vest.
- GothBard and the Portuguese terror will be dressed up, but not TOO dressed up.
- The Impii will be in jeans and t-shirts
- I haven't received any other RSVPs
completely coincidental |
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Hi! Did your group finish Jade Regent? (I posted in your epic goblins thread some years ago.)
If so, were there any particularly fun moments? Any surprising outcomes?
NobodysHome |
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Hi! Did your group finish Jade Regent? (I posted in your epic goblins thread some years ago.)
If so, were there any particularly fun moments? Any surprising outcomes?
** spoiler omitted **
Ah, the thread that Mr. "House rules are fine, except for yours, which sucks" made me abandon...
Yes, we finished Jade Regent. Just last month in fact. I thought I wrote up a summary somewhere, but here are some quick thoughts:
After the displeasure of Books 2 and 3, it really wasn't surprising that we took a rather loooooooong hiatus from playing. Then came...
Book 4 saved the AP for us, plain and simple.
Anyway, I threw out most of the bad guys in the castle (what was it? 49 of the exact same throwaway troop?), and then Spivey's Holy Aura affected the BBEG so he went blind and was out of the fight on Round 1. The PCs had a lot of fun, but it wasn't a spectacular final battle.
Ameiko became emperor, as expected, the tiger retired, and at the end of it all I managed to extend Nick's story by having him adopt a tiefling he had to reform.
All in all we had a very satisfying ending to an AP where two books in a row were bad enough we nearly abandoned it.
In terms of truly memorable moments, give me a bit and I'll see what I can recall.
Orthos |
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completely coincidental wrote:Ah, the thread that Mr. "House rules are fine, except for yours, which sucks" made me abandon...Hi! Did your group finish Jade Regent? (I posted in your epic goblins thread some years ago.)
If so, were there any particularly fun moments? Any surprising outcomes?
** spoiler omitted **
Rereading the thread and the argument in question, I honestly cannot fathom how the guy could not wrap his head around such a simple houserule. I hate to accuse someone of being obstinate for the sake of being obstinate, but....
Tacticslion |
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NobodysHome wrote:Rereading the thread and the argument in question, I honestly cannot fathom how the guy could not wrap his head around such a simple houserule. I hate to accuse someone of being obstinate for the sake of being obstinate, but....completely coincidental wrote:Ah, the thread that Mr. "House rules are fine, except for yours, which sucks" made me abandon...Hi! Did your group finish Jade Regent? (I posted in your epic goblins thread some years ago.)
If so, were there any particularly fun moments? Any surprising outcomes?
** spoiler omitted **
Oh. It's Aelryinth. I kiiiiiiiind of should have expected that.
He's actually a pretty intelligent guy, in may cases, but we've had very strange arguments in the past, even if we have good conversations at other times.
I wonder how he's doing! Hope he's doing well, I realize I haven't seen him posting in a while.
QUASI-EDIT: huh, he's not posted since 2016. That's too bad. Hope he's well, wherever he is...
NobodysHome |
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NobodysHome wrote:Rereading the thread and the argument in question, I honestly cannot fathom how the guy could not wrap his head around such a simple houserule. I hate to accuse someone of being obstinate for the sake of being obstinate, but....completely coincidental wrote:Ah, the thread that Mr. "House rules are fine, except for yours, which sucks" made me abandon...Hi! Did your group finish Jade Regent? (I posted in your epic goblins thread some years ago.)
If so, were there any particularly fun moments? Any surprising outcomes?
** spoiler omitted **
Yeah, that was my take, too.
I don't mind at all when someone pops onto my thread and says, "Hey, sorry to bring this up, but did you know you're playing that spell wrong?"
It can be quite helpful.
But if you then respond, "Oh, we prefer to house-rule it that way" and the person continues, and you realize they're now going to be following your thread and most likely nit-picking every rules-questionable thing you write, you just lose a lot of motivation to continue.
Running Crimson Throne right now, but I still want to try to think up some fun Jade Regent moments...
NobodysHome |
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LOL. So, just pop in, thread bomb all the AMA threads, and run off cackling into the weeds?
In terms of Jade Regent, I think the O-Sayumi story moved ME the most, but it played out fairly as-written for the players, so I wouldn't say it was notable.
What WAS notable was their treatment of the hobgoblins in the House of Withered Blossoms. Having a redeemed drow as a deity, the paladin believed that the hobgoblins deserved a chance. So the party worked amazingly hard to use Diplomacy with the hobgoblins who would listen. Most of the male hobgoblins died anyway. But the women and children listened. And now there is a hobgoblin settlement secreted away in the northeast of the forest, with all the neighboring kingdoms warned that they're there, and they've sworn they will not initiate attacks on other territories unless they're attacked. It was a very satisfying ending to the House.
I did like the marketplace brawl at the start of Book 6 simply because Spivey put a wall of stone around the paladin, the eidolon, and all the oni. OMG trapped in close quarters with a paladin and an eidolon the oni died fast.
So let's see:
Book 1 was so long ago that nothing really stands out except the party's adoption of Spivey and her becoming an extremely fun-to-play GMNPC for the rest of the campaign.
Oh, oh! And the "wish box"! At some point the PCs find a chest that's supposed to contain a "GM's choice" of something "very valuable" to the PCs. So I decided to give the party two wishes, subject to the GM's discretion. The halfling bard wished for "a good bottle of scotch" and got an Endless Decanter of Scotch. The tiger-like eidolon wished for "thumbs" and got Gloves of Thumbs. Best. Wishes. EVER!!!!
Book 2 was so terrible that it's hard to think of anything at all positive about it. I can sum it up with, "We added a magic item specifically so that if the PCs try to question anyone, that person dies."
Talk about frustrating your PCs.
Book 3 wasn't so much bad but boring. As you'd kind of expect from a travelogue over a polar cap. I did significantly enhance the battle of Dead Man's Hill, and I was pleased that it worked out beautifully. (The PCs had to survive a zombie onslaught until the dead man could circle the hill with his banner once, at which point all the undead who had ever died defending the hill arose to defend it... and the PCs who were on it.)
Book 4 saved the entire AP for us. I played Prince Batsaikhar as beyond crazy, and the players ate it up. They were desperate to get out of the city, but they were having so much fun with his lunatic eccentricity that they wanted to stick around just to see what he'd do next. The feasts and challenges were all utterly hilarious, especially since the eidolon (a talking tiger.. with thumbs!) got to participate!
Then they played politics, politics, politics throughout the House of Withered Blossoms and it worked out wonderfully: If the bad guy wasn't an evil outsider, and/or didn't attack the PCs on sight, he or she would most likely survive.
For the players, Book 5 seemed rather "meh". The ninjas were particularly frustrating, since it's just, "How much of your wealth are you willing to give up for an unknown reward?" Not great an an AP with PCs who were extremely generous to NPCs who had earned it, but, "Just bribe the ninja clans and be done with it" was pretty boring. The rescue of O-Sayumi went just fine, but the forced assassination for a group of good-aligned PCs didn't go over well at all.
And finally, the start of Book 6 with the caverns was amazing. But the whole, "Oh, by the way, there's a Rebellion Point/Teamwork Score mechanic we're going to introduce retroactively, so what they did in Book 5 suddenly has a significant impact, and we're going to hide critical information (such as rumors you should have been spreading in Kasai all this time) in the descriptions of the final bosses. So if you don't read the book cover-to-cover, including the boss "fluff" text, you're going to miss some critical details.
Running an AP shouldn't be a reading exercise.
So all in all, I wouldn't recommend it unless you're willing to do a full rewrite of a couple of the books. Meh.
completely coincidental |
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...
In terms of Jade Regent, I think the O-Sayumi story moved ME the most, but it played out fairly as-written for the players, so I wouldn't say it was notable.What WAS notable was their treatment of the hobgoblins in the House of Withered Blossoms. Having a redeemed drow as a deity, the paladin believed that the hobgoblins deserved a chance. So the party worked amazingly hard to use Diplomacy with the hobgoblins who would listen...
Thanks again for posting your thoughts! I particularly like the origin story of the mysterious hobgoblin settlement. (Perhaps one day a group of brave hobgoblins will emerge from hiding and become the PCs for another adventure path…)
NobodysHome |
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Hey, Nobody?
When are you, GothBard, and the Impii leaving town? More specifically, are you still there/free Saturday the 29th?
We're not leaving until July 7th, but we're desperately trying to avoid social obligations from now until then. However, for you, we'll make an exception. Email me and let me know what you have in mind...
lisamarlene |
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Two questions:
a) What model year is your Celica, and approximately how many miles are on it?
b) Would you be offended if I used your car and your fashion sense for a character who is almost entirely unlike you *except* for the fact that it wouldn't occur to him to waste money on clothing and cars when he could use it on so many more important things. Kind of a cross between you and Kramer from Seinfeld, but not exactly, because he's a retired dentist and defrocked Mason in Texas.
NobodysHome |
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1996, and about 150,000 milesTwo questions:
a) What model year is your Celica, and approximately how many miles are on it?
b) Would you be offended if I used your car and your fashion sense for a character who is almost entirely unlike you *except* for the fact that it wouldn't occur to him to waste money on clothing and cars when he could use it on so many more important things. Kind of a cross between you and Kramer from Seinfeld, but not exactly, because he's a retired dentist and defrocked Mason in Texas.
LOL. It's pretty much impossible to offend me other than by accusing me of doing things I didn't do or of holding opinions I don't espouse. Otherwise, I don't know that it's possible.