Facebook's "People You May Know" algorithm has been hitting me for months with a young woman whose last name was the same as a friend I made in St. Louis. I finally messaged her. She's his daughter. She told me he passed away in October 2023 from a stroke. Dan was a great guy and a fun person to play D&D with. I'm very sad to learn of his passing.
I love you guys.
Merry Christmas, everyone! May your stockings be stuffed with dice!
Dang it. I want a zen-cow now.
This is my favorite time of year. Cold weather (sorry, Quibs!), spending time with family and friends, holiday movies, etc. I'm a complete sap for Christmastime.
Hi, all. Strange doings are a-foot. I'll elaborate more when I, in fact, know more. Doctors sure love their tests...
"You can do what thou wilt at Alistair's Restaurant".
My son is always in charge of the turkey prep and cooking. My contribution is eating it.
For those who celebrate Thanksgiving, here's hoping you have a wonderful day full of good food spent with family and friends followed by gaming madness. I was supposed to play in a friend's game Saturday only to learn just today I'm needed to house sit for a friend of mine who's going out of town for the weekend. sigh....
Welp, my evening just freed up. The GM left all of tonight's game prep on his desk where he works and the building is locked for the weekend and he can't get access to retrieve it. Dang it. We play at another friend's house and he always makes a LOT of wonderful food for game nights. So now I'm not only hanging with no plans I have to cook my own dinner! There is no justice in this world.
So a couple of my long time players missed the first game in the new campaign, but should make it for the next one, coming up in January. I asked what they had finally decided to play and one said, "A Wizard, of Human origins." Which prompted the other guy to say, "What, like Australopithecaster?" I was slain.
I just got back from my friend's all Goblin game. Imagine you're playing Pokemon Silver on your Gameboy from back in the day, but with Goblins. When we kill something, we hear a "ping!" in our heads and our "bank" is updated. If you attack a boss that has something you want, you can see it floating above its head. It's literally a classic Pokemon game with elements of "Delicious in Dungeon" and smatterings of other anime and manga things thrown in. Not my style of game, but I'll keep attending. It's only fair since he's playing in my new campaign and our friendship goes back over 30 years now. And I had a good time meeting his gaming crew. Everyone brought food LOL.
That sounds suspiciously like a plan to me. Hmm. Playing in a buddy's all Goblin campaign tomorrow. I've missed the first couple of games but I'll be caught up tomorrow. Wish me luck as Buck Damnitbuck makes his Druidic debut!
We had a Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett stop by. That's fantastic!
I'm a secret tree hugger so I don't rake my leaves as over a hundred species of tiny organisms winter under them. And yes, each spring I battle them as they lay siege to my house.
Good luck with your game, Cal! And happy birthday! Thank you very much!! I just realized my game is completely ready to go. I planned on working past midnight. Now I'm not sure what to do!!!
Good luck to all of those undertaking physical endeavors! I will not be one of them. HOWEVER, unless I jinx myself with this post tomorrow will be the launch of my new campaign, "The Bones of The World". I'm starting off with our traditional Halloween game AND it's the day before my 63rd revolution about the sun. The stars are right for this weird admixture of Appalachian, Korean, Japanese, and Central European folk-horrors into what I hope will be a creepy, dramatic game. Ever get so caught up in a creative groove you end up making something that will likely never see actual use in the game but it makes it all better for you regardless? I did that this week. Waaaaaay back in 1988 I ran an all nighter type one shot game featuring a demi-goddess I'd created on the spot, Dath, Bastard Daughter of Lolth. It was a fantastic game with comedy and heroics that would bring a tear to the eye. S'anyway, a 3.5e race I'm going to incorporate into the setting are Ghost Elves, from Dragon Magazine #313. I tweaked a bit here and there and then suddenly Dath became their patron goddess and I was up way past sunrise creating her. I also dredged up the Whisper Gnomes from 3.5e's "Races of Stone" to further populate this new land they're exploring. I may take the fan-converted Birthright's Shadow Halflings and throw them into the pot, too. I have 27.5 hours to put the finishing touches on things (this is also the third utter rewrite of the inaugural game since I began feeling the familiar itch to take my place behind the GM screen again back in January).
I completely forgot this part; after defeating the Cyclopes, a nosy old man kept harassing with questions about why were we there, why did we fight the monsters, how come this and how come that, and so on. Then he reveals himself to be Poseidon, magically fixes a boat and sends us on to the next part of the campaign. Anyway, what's going on with everyone this weekend? I'm playing in a different friend's game on Sunday, which should be interesting. Sort of an all Goblins as PCs/anime style game. I am skeptical...LOL
How was the game, Cal? It was fun! He has a bad habit of just pitting us against opponents in long, dragged out fights that literally take the entire five hour sessions to complete, but this one had a lot of roleplaying with only a random encounter fight at the end (5 seventh level players against eight Cyclopes, with one of them being a Mighty Cyclops). I play a Fighter with the Two Weapon Warrior archetype so distance combat really isn't his forte. While most of the party hung back and lobbed arrows and spells, Sijjiin went tear-assin' (that's a southern phrase for running like hell, for those who don't know LOL) into the fray. I guess I'm just unable to simply say, "I move to hit the Cyclops". Instead, I get pretty descriptive with how he's moving and any special things he's doing in combat (that's what being a lifelong GM does to a person). He was knocked into the negative HP range three times but each time he was healed he went right back into the fracas. He killed one Cyclops outright and did the most damage to the Mighty Cyclops. And now they're calling him Leeroy Jenkins and I couldn't be happier LOL.
Game tomorrow! Woot! It's my friend's campaign and I get to be a player. No responsibilities beyond rolling dice and killin' stuff! How about you all?
It was the lad's birthday on Tuesday, so he has a party at a trampolining place with his pals tomorrow. Other than that, possibly galloping through the storm, brandishing my black runesword at the clouds and laughing maniacally. In the distance, Deep Purple begins to play...
And hiking requires zero effort? I'm all about economy of motion but I'm not seein' it.
Godspeed, Erik.
Oh my goodness. I followed his Kirthfinder project for a long time.
Today, September 18, marks the 40th anniversary of the first AD&D game I ever played. I don't know why I remember this date more than many others, but I do LOL. Forty years ago I sat in on a game with an ex-player's character sheet and was told, "Just do what we tell you and you'll catch on." I ended up leading the party through a homebrew dungeon and becoming the first party to ever make it through to the end. I guess I did, indeed, "catch on".
I think this was me in college...
What are everyone's plans this weekend? Saturday I put the helmet back on and begin DMing again after two and a half years. I figure I have 10-15 years left on this planet and I want to spend it doing what I love with people I can at least put up with! The debut adventure of the "The Bones of the World" campaign kicks off Saturday! Wish me luck!
Not a lot going on this weekend here. My kid's band is playing in town and I might go see them, but the venue allows smoking and I really don't like being around that much smoke for three hours. I'll probably doing some household stuff and finishing up the inaugural adventure for the new campaign next Saturday.
Classic CoC this time, instead of Delta Green. I have some friends who play Delta Green, but gimme that old time Lovecraftian religion at any time. I love classic CoC.
In the ongoing saga of "What Ailment Does Cal Have This Week?" I have H1N1 influenza, also called Flu A or swine flu. It's not been a terrible bad case but enough to just knock me out of being at all useful to the world for a week or so. I think the worst of it's behind me but I still have some stubborn chest congestion and a mild sinus infection. I figure at my current rate I will have had nearly all diseases known by science by the end of the year. In better news, my new campaign is on track for its debut game on August 31st. I have some small details to hammer out and then building them into a coherent adventure. But I haven't been excited about GMing in a long time and I have high hopes for the game and for myself. What's everyone else got going on? Oh, and I echo Andostre's sentiment about Orthos finding a gaming group! That's great news!
Howdy! No game for me this weekend, but work on my upcoming campaign continues. A friend invited me to play in his new campaign (he'll be playing in mine) and their first game is the 16th but I have plans for that night already with my brother and a friend from college. But my tentative launch date is August 30th, so we'll see how it goes! What about all youse other scallawags? Big plans this weekend? OH! I almost forgot. Yesterday I got spend some time with one of my dearest friends over Guinness and pizza. We hadn't seen one another since 1983. Nothing like good times with a good friend to fortify one's soul.
The blackberries here have already peaked and only the bushes remain. Growing up on a farm as a kid, we had a hilltop pasture that had nearly an acre of wild blackberries. We'd have an all day sort of berry picking and then my mom would can homemade blackberry jam. ...*sniff*... No, I'm not homesick or nuthin'...
I'm not gaming any more (long story) Oh no! I hate to hear it!
*de-beverages
The leader of the rock band my son plays in has the last name deFrance (it's also the name of the band). I keep a list of their tour dates on my PC entitled "Tour deFrance". I kill me. We're gaming tomorrow, the season finale of my friend's PF game. Then he'll probably take a break and I'll run the first game of my new campaign in August. I've got everything pretty much ready to go except for the writing and scribbling part. What's everyone else doing?
Well, I'm borrowing a trawler and heading over to Boston harbour to try and get all that tea back out. I saw Whitesnake in concert on Saturday, July 4th, 1987. They were opening for Mötley Crüe, so it was an insanely great party atmosphere with a packed auditorium. David Coverdale strode onstage and grabbed the mic, and in that unmistakable voice shouted, "Happy Birthday, you traitorous bastards!" Cue crazy happy concert mayhem.
Next, a tape worm made of...heh...
Oh, this is great! Thank you!
Me and this guy would not get along LOL
It was fantastic. My son's band was really well received given that the average age of an audience member was probably 65 and every man there had a long grey ponytail and could play guitar (except me, on both counts). Pat Travers is 71 or so and didn't have a lot of energy when he addressed the audience but could still belt out a tune and play guitar as though it were a natural extension of his hands. He was funny and had a really good rapport with the audience, too. My son said he was one of the friendliest, most welcoming of the rock legends he'd ever met. Travers said he hoped to do more shows with them in the future.
Well, it's humid, it stormed all night, and is likely to the rest of the day. I have a three hour car trip ahead of me, too. Still. Gonna go rock and roll! Born to me mild! Party hardly!
Happy Friday the 13th! Roll those lucky dice! Nothing happening today but making a three hour road trip to see my son's band open for the legendary Pat Travers Band, sort of a Father's Day thing. What's everyone else up to?
It's also never too late to complain!
Only age keeps me out of regular trouble... That and the statutes of limitations have run out on the feral youth who once lived in my body.
I'm extremely jealous of your journey and I would have had a hard time resisting that same urge (as someone who was banned for life from the zoo in Memphis, Tennessee I have a history of saying the wrong things at the wrong time).
Go visit the Field Museum and see the life-size reconstruction of Sue the T. rex!
I can't love this enough!! It's perfect for something I'd had in mind.
Please give Sophie lots of ear scritches from me.
You spoil that pup rotten, y'hear? I teared up every time I read your original post. I wish you strength and peace.
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