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Only 45 minutes until the Boxing Day Duck Race, and I can hardly contain myself.*Waits expectantly for both an explanation and the winning duck.*
The village where my parents live raises money for the village hall by getting people to sponsor a rubber duck. The ducks are thrown into the stream, and whoever's duck comes in first wins a little prize. Number five won, I think - it belonged to the organiser's brother. Hum.
EDIT: And this is how *I* raise... money.
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Wait, you can make money by taking your clothes off!
Why has no one told me this!!
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Incidentally, I spent much of this afternoon prosecuting a gnome.
My parents and I went to see my sister and her two girls in their new house. While we were there, the alarm went off accidentally, and the Sister Team Crocodile Detective Club, i.e. my nieces and I, concluded that the gnome that my nieces had found for my dad was responsible. It was put on trial; eldest niece was an extremely irascible and rather biased judge; youngest niece was chief witness; my Dad was counsel fir the defence; my Mum and my sister were the jury, and I was the prosecution and the police. The gnome was found Not Guilty, so I mustn't have done a very good job.
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Burn! Maim! Pillage! Steal the princess! BWAHAHAHA!
I like the cut of this guy's jib.
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So far it seems like a darker Gravity Falls.
That's a pretty good way to put it, if you also tack on "more sci-fi less gonzo fantasy" and "set about 30 years earlier so no modern tech for Dipper to play with".
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At work.
But only until 10ish.
I must be suffering Stockholm syndrome because I kinda miss working until midnight...
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(a) It is significantly faster and you can get more done, and
(b) Some players prefer Pathfinder as a tactical strategy game rather than a roleplaying game:
*puts on GM hat*
Fair enough, the above 2 apply to me. I've already told my players I cannot run heavy intrigue stuff like CoCT, Hells Rebels and Hells Vengeance.
I always need an end goal in mind and have to be working towards it.
The problem with RP is that while a player is happily RPing, the rest of the table may not be involved/interested. (Hey, is the entire party expected to like opera?)
Then what are you supposed to do if each player wants to do their own RP and runs in different directions to do it?
I.e one person goes to the bar to drink, the other the museum, the third the opera and the fourth the zoo.
As a GM you can only dedicate your attention to one player at a time, so wouldnt the other 3 feel left out?
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Oh I told my parents I was going drinking on Thursday alone for the buy 1 get 1 free drinks.
They were shocked about it and worried I would drink too much. And started telling me not to drink too much.
Really? You gotta be kidding me. I've gone drinking more then stuff like this and have more practice at drinking then they do. Even with buy 1 get 1 free, drinks still aren't cheap..
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Yesterday they said we'd get up to ten degrees today, this morning they said seven, actual high temperature was two degrees.
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And we're back down to zero.
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(a) It is significantly faster and you can get more done, and
(b) Some players prefer Pathfinder as a tactical strategy game rather than a roleplaying game:
*puts on GM hat*
Fair enough, the above 2 apply to me. I've already told my players I cannot run heavy intrigue stuff like CoCT, Hells Rebels and Hells Vengeance.
I always need an end goal in mind and have to be working towards it.
The problem with RP is that while a player is happily RPing, the rest of the table may not be involved/interested. (Hey, is the entire party expected to like opera?)
Then what are you supposed to do if each player wants to do their own RP and runs in different directions to do it?
I.e one person goes to the bar to drink, the other the museum, the third the opera and the fourth the zoo.
As a GM you can only dedicate your attention to one player at a time, so wouldnt the other 3 feel left out?
And that's the problem with a "good" RP group vs. a "bad" RP group. My RotRL group was awesome in cooperating with each other. Each person would get a turn to lead, and the other two would participate, so they had all kinds of fun. There were many nights where I'd say, "I don't have anything prepped right now," and they'd say, "That's OK! Just let us run around town for a while! We'll find something to do!"
On the other hand (sorry LM, but you know where I'm going), Whingey Wizard is a classic "bad" roleplayer: He wants to go off and do his own thing, and he gets really upset if anyone else tries to tag along, but then the moment anyone else at the table tries to do anything, not only does he "participate", but he butts in, takes over the interaction, and leaves the original player very frustrated. So there's almost no RP at the Crimson Throne table.
And Impus Minor is a great indicator of "RP heavy" vs. "RP light" groups. At the Strange Aeons and Jade Regent games, he's actively at the table, participating, and his PCs have personality and do interesting things. At the Crimson Throne and Serpent's Skull games, he moves into the living room and just says, "OK, let me know when the next fight is happening."
So even individual players can adapt to different styles.
It's only when the styles conflict (e.g. Whingey Wizard) that you end up with unhappy players.
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The only guaranteed care in the U.S. is in case of emergencies, which explains why in urban areas emergency rooms are packed with people who have nothing worse than a common cold or the sniffles: They can't afford to pay for doctor's visits (some in my area charge close to $200 U.S. for a simple check-up).
Most Americans get coverage through their employer, but the plans provided by many employers are notoriously minimal. In John's case, they managed to remove him from health insurance without his knowledge.
Speaking of all this: John, have you looked into Obamacare? I thought the whole point was that an insurance company could not deny you insurance for a preexisting condition. Could you afford Obamacare insurance for a year (or whatever the requirement is) to get the surgery, or is that not how it works? (Both NobodysWife and I get health insurance through our employers, so we've never looked into it.)
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I do not profess to know US laws. Just you know looking around to see what, if anything can be done. I would not be surprised if John's condition is not covered by Obama care/national health insurance since it isn’t life threatening.
NH - also congratulations of discovering my little secret...have an idea why I seem to exude the law now?
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More on U.S. healthcare:
I wish I had something more hopeful to say.
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It's slow tonight.
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It is.
The ladies are watching Bambi, and it's amazing how much movies have changed. They're a good 15 minutes in, and still no hint of a plot. And the overall length is a mere 70 minutes.
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Well, today I'm the last person to ask for anything hopeful to say about American health care.
I'm on employer-paid (Kaiser), which is only as good as you are willing to fight and argue for. I spent two hours there this morning to take a ridiculous "back care" class that was for low-back issues only (my arthritis is in mid-to-upper spine, so not much use). But in order to gain access to the Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy services, you have to take the class, and in order to get access to the class, you have to have a positive result on an x-ray. So I can now get PT/OT services for my back, but not for my knee, because my knee x-ray was negative, so I can't take the "knee class" to get PT/OT for my knee problems. I hate Kaiser. Also, my employer-paid dental plan is so risibly bad that I've had a missing crown for seven years that I cannot afford to get replaced. Luckily it's in a place that you don't notice easily.
Whingey Wizzard has an ACA (Obamacare) plan that we pay for based on income. It's good for basic tests and check-ups, but right now we're trying to figure out what (if any) vision coverage he actually has, and it's confusing. Also the GP's keep dropping out, so he's been reassigned to new GP's more often than I can count.
The kids are both on income-based Med-Cal, i.e. free health coverage through the state of California. We lucked out and got a really good pediatrician and pediatric dentist for them, but it's a crapshoot and a lot of folks aren't as lucky. Before we got assigned to this doctor and had to go to the County Public Health department, well, they treat you like "low-income" is a highly-contagious airborne pathogen.
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I dunno man, perhaps you'd hear your kids better if you weren't yelling at each other from across the store.
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And that's the problem with a "good" RP group vs. a "bad" RP group. My RotRL group was awesome in cooperating with each other. Each person would get a turn to lead, and the other two would participate, so they had all kinds of fun. There were many nights where I'd say, "I don't have anything prepped right now," and they'd say, "That's OK! Just let us run around town for a while! We'll find something to do!"
Urm…I’d consider it as a GM is slacking moment, and if I were that GM I’d be horribly embarrassed about the “I didn’t have anything prepped now.” Also I’m not good at winging it and creating things on the fly. Not the spontaneous sort. I actually will prepare for every side quest that players want to do etc.
I’ll tell you I’m running the AP, and the AP is what you pretty much get. Well, players do get to change the world somewhat, I do try to give players freedom.
Now I did run a prequel (adapted First Steps PFS scenario) to this, since I usually do to get a feel on how the posting activity of the group is like. They surprisingly did not murderhobo an NPC to get his shiny, so I gave them a pass on the revenant encounter – since they proved that they weren’t that kind of people.
On the other hand (sorry LM, but you know where I'm going), Whingey Wizard is a classic "bad" roleplayer: He wants to go off and do his own thing, and he gets really upset if anyone else tries to tag along, but then the moment anyone else at the table tries to do anything, not only does he "participate", but he butts in, takes over the interaction, and leaves the original player very frustrated. So there's almost no RP at the Crimson Throne table.
The freedom to RP ends at your neighbours nose? There will be times that characters disagree – there was this argument about trap the soul and animate dead and not being able to adventure with the particular character that I got so irritated with the whole thing that I ban hammered animate dead, trap the soul and any spells of that nature. If too much freedom is given…people don’t make good use of it, and use it to squabble instead.
And Impus Minor is a great indicator of "RP heavy" vs. "RP light" groups. At the Strange Aeons and Jade Regent games, he's actively at the table, participating, and his PCs have personality and do interesting things. At the Crimson Throne and Serpent's Skull games, he moves into the living room and just says, "OK, let me know when the next fight is happening."
So even individual players can adapt to different styles.
I don’t think I will ever be RP heavy. Too business minded for that. I may do nice stuff for friendly NPCs and generally go out of the way to protect them, but other then that I ain’t sitting in town to shop for 8 hours.
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Lisamarlene - try call up the insurance company and get them to explain the ACA insurance coverage to you. If the requirements are as such for Kaiser, the best you can do is to write in and complain about it. Whether anything will be done about it or not is ><
Have you tried talking to your town council/mayor about the sorry state of Healthcare yet?
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~readies my sledgehammer~ John, this will help your headache!
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He'd have to find me first. Pittsburgh's a big city.
I used to live up there and my Uncle still lives there.