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Having lunch with a friend I haven't seen since before the pandemic, so I'm looking forward to that. The kids want to visit the local Arboretum, but it's supposed to rain most of the weekend. We'll either look for a dry-ish window, or we'll just go in rain jackets and rain boots.
Has anybody here heard of a boardgame called 5 Minute Dungeon? My wife was thinking of getting it as a family game. (Rather, she sent me an email comprised of only that link and the title of the game in the subject line, so I have to assume that's her intentions.)
How's everyone's weekend looking? There's nothing going on here at Sweet Home Calabama.
My last week...
My trip to New Hampshire was very nice: I got to see my mom, my sister, my aunt, and my one cousin who still lives in the area. I also opted to stay at a hotel rather than on the daybed in my childhood bedroom (which is now my mom's sewing room), which was definitely a plus!
As for gaming...
I hit unexpected heavy traffic on my drive back last Tuesday (an accident on I-290 near Worcester, another accident on I-90 near Albany, and heavy construction on I-88), which added nearly 2 hours to what's normally a 7-hour drive. I got back home just half an hour before my Tuesday night Pathfinder game started, and I was exhausted, so I bowed out.
I did play in my Wednesday night game of Rapscallion. In this session, our Yeti guide led our band of pirates on an overland trek through a temperate rain forest of giant trees to Captain Penelope's former hideout. On our journey, we ran across another party of human hunters: Yeti pelts are a hot commodity back in Queensport, but since the Yetis are now our friends, we confronted them and had a big fight. We have captured their leader, and are now trying to decipher a strange map that was in his possession.
On Thursday, in our Trophy Gold game, the treasure-hunters wrapped our three-session run of the incursion Hester's Mill... by not actually exploring the abandoned town! Hey... it's allegedly haunted by demons and they found a decent amount of loot already in the town outskirts, so why risk tangling with demons, right??
Last weekend, I posted four games on the calendar for the upcoming online mini-convention Gauntlet Community Open Gaming weekend, planned for June 24-27. I'm running...
10 Million HP Planet (full)
The Green Knight RPG (one seat available)
Trophy Dark: Isle of Water and Blood (full)
Mörk Borg: The Accursed Den of the Cannibal Warlock (full)
And I've also been working on converting the Mörk Borg adventure "The Death Ziggurat" for the RPG Trophy Gold... which I intend to start running tomorrow night!
Our Pathfinder game didn't run last night: Two of our players are a couple who were celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary.
We're still on for Rapscallion tonight, and I'm intending to start Trophy Gold: The Death Ziggurat tomorrow!
That's quite a full calendar!
In a darkened music venue, the music begins slowly and lighters are held aloft. "You know the words! Sing with me!" Then I sing the first words to "Ain't No Game in the Heart of the City" and the crowd goes mild.
How's your weekends looking?
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It's supposed to rain heavily all weekend! We may be going over to a friend's house to swim in their pool, but that's weather permitting.
This past Monday, I returned to the office after working from home for 15 months. It was kind of draining. I just want to relax all weekend.
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Trying to not go utterly bonkers with using a 'shared' laptop while waiting for new computer to arrive, and trying to stay cool.
Trying to not go utterly bonkers with using a 'shared' laptop while waiting for new computer to arrive, and trying to stay cool.
Did your new computer show up?
No game this weekend, though my friend (and group member) Tamela is coming to town to hang out a bit. We haven't seen each other in person in probably a year and a half. She's my remote player, but since we're not even doing that now she still wanted to come and hang out now that COVID's restrictions have been loosened. I'd hoped to put together a game and play at the FLGS here in town but their Saturday hours are 11 am to 8 pm, so that's right out. Ah well, it'll still be good to spend some time together.
How about the rest of y'all?
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In-laws will be in town. They're great people, but their visits are exhausting.
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I adored my in-laws. They were wonderful, generous, supportive, and loving people, and now that they've passed on I miss them very much. But I had virtually no common interests with them and it was very difficult for me to spend time with them without my ex-wife there to keep a conversation going.
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All of my games ran this week:
On Tuesday, I played in our PF1 "Shattered Star" game. In this episode, my character was killed by a dhampir magus who critical-hit on a shocking grasp spellstrike, dealing 59 hp damage... which dropped my 6th-level cleric to -12 hp in one shot...
- - - -
On Wednesday, in our Rapscallion game, our band of scurvy pirates discovered a weird ancient graveyard on a haunted island, warded by three circles of standing stones. We went ashore to look for buried treasure, and were attacked by ghosts and learned that an ancient evil was buried here long ago.
On Thursday, I ran session two of Trophy Gold: The Death Ziggurat. In this adventure, the treasure-hunters raided the encampment of accursed rot-priests of the demon Akühn... and may have bitten off more than they could chew!
The GM of our Rapscallion game told us that her schedule for the summer is looking really rough, and that she would like someone else to take the reins of the group for a while. I volunteered to run a 4-session series of Fate: The Secrets of Cats... a game where the PCs are magical cats protecting their clueless humans from supernatural threats.
Anyway, serious stuff aside I'm chilling around the house this weekend. My oldest turns 19 officially tomorrow (I've been calling her 19 for a couple months now) so we're having some of her friends over for a gathering. I'm also going to try and check out the new version of Minecraft that just dropped.
Happy birthday to Hoover Child 1.0!!
My son will be 28 this September and will likely be on the road with his band at the time so birthday shenanigans will probably consist of texts and memes...LOL. I do miss the parties with his friends from school when he was a kid, though. For his 11th birthday, he wanted 11 guests. The entire living room floor was converted into a sleeping area with sleeping bags, quilts, and pillows all over the place. There were five televisions hooked up to various game consoles, as well. I pretended to sleep on a couch in order to keep an eye on things like shaving cream ambushes and placing hands in bowls of warm water, etc. That's probably my favorite of all his birthdays. They were all really good kids, actually, and there weren't any problems at all with them, though I did have to stop the actual gambling with money when some kids started a Texas Hold 'Em game...LOL
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though I did have to stop the actual gambling with money when some kids started a Texas Hold 'Em game...LOL
Why did you prevent a practical application of mathematics?!
You could have at least demanded the house cut.
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I'll be working because the boss apparently thought it was a suggestion when I told him all week I need another crew on site.
So I get to go lay pavers at 6 tomorrow and hopefully get done by noon.
At least it's all on over time, but it's been above 90 temperature wise all week so I was kind of looking forward to a couple of days off.
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though I did have to stop the actual gambling with money when some kids started a Texas Hold 'Em game...LOLWhy did you prevent a practical application of mathematics?!
You could have at least demanded the house cut.
LOL I suppose the mathematics part would've been alright, but I know ZERO about the mechanics of gambling in general. I wouldn't have ever thought about a "house cut"...lol.
I'm one of those guys who when I say, "I don't know how to play Poker" everyone good-naturedly laughs and says I'll end up with everything they own at the end of the night. But nope, I really don't know how to play any card games. I can't remember the rules for any of them from one hand to the next.
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Wow! I just posted a four-game series called Comrades: Hell's Rebels! over on The Gauntlet Calendar. The game is based on the events of the "Hell's Rebels" AP for PFRPG, but I'm running it using Comrades: A Revolutionary RPG, which is a "Powered by the Apocalypse" game where the PCs are leftist revolutionaries working against an oppressive regime.
The game filled within 90 seconds of my posting it, and five minutes after posting there's already someone on the wait-list!
I think I may have tapped into something...
That's great!
What is everyone up to this weekend? No plans here. There's a possibility my friend Amy and I will have lunch but she's not feeling well so I'm in "wait and see" mode.
We were going to have our daughter and her SO over for dinner tonight, but they just cancelled because she's not feeling well today.
I'm also in the process of weeding out some RPG books that I'm reasonably sure that I'm not going to use anymore... most of them are third-party Pathfinder 1e books. I'm going to try selling them off. Unfortunately, it looks like eBay made some seller-unfriendly changes to their policies, so I'm looking to sell through other channels.
In case anyone might be interested, send me a Private Message...
Core Rulebook (Note: this copy was from the first printing and had a defective binding. I used a library-quality binding repair kit, and it's now completely solid, but the repair is obvious inside the front cover.)
Alien Archive
Pact Worlds
Starfinder Adventure Path #1: Incident at Absalom Station
Starfinder Adventure Path #2: Temple of the Twelve
Starfinder Adventure Path #3: Splintered Worlds
Starfinder Adventure Path #4: The Ruined Clouds
Starfinder Adventure Path #5: The Thirteenth Gate
Starfinder Adventure Path #6: Empire of Bones
Pathfinder Second Edition
Module: The Fall of Plaguestone (Paizo)
Pathfinder First Edition
Aethera Campaign Setting (Legendary Games) - hardcover, color, 568 pages
Aethera: Field Guide I (Legendary Games) - hardcover, color, 218 pages
Eldritch Lairs (Kobold Press) - softcover, color, 76 pages
Halls of the Mountain King (Kobold Press) - softcover, B&W, 160 pages
D&D 5th Edition
Tome of Beasts (Kobold Press) - hardcover, color, 450 pages
Midgard Sagas (Kobold Press) - hardcover, color, 126 pages
Other
d20 Modern Role-Playing Game (WotC) - hardcover, color, 384 pages
PaizoCon 2018 Program Guide
PaizoCon 2019 Program Guide
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Oh, and to complete my answer to Cal's question...
My wife and I ordered two flats of local organic strawberries from a nearby farm, abd we're picking them up in an hour. I'll be making a big batch of strawberry jam later, and will also prep a bunch for freezing.
We have also been season ticket holders of a local theater group for the past several years. Obviously, live theatre wasn't happening last year but... we're going to see our first live show tonight since December 2019!
Tomorrow is Father's Day, and my wife, daughter, and SIL-to-be are taking me out to a cookout at a nearby state park. My future SIL is very skillful at a charcoal grill, and he's cooking up steaks.
Looks to be a fun weekend!
When I was growing up, my mom canned lots of things, from green beans and pickles to making homemade jellies and jams. I remember how great the house would smell when she was making strawberry or blackberry jam.
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Jam-making got postponed until today... I'll start in about half an hour.
Alas, the play got cancelled last night: It's at an outdoor stage, and a band of thunderstorms rolled in about half an hour before curtain call, so we stayed home.
I made bourbon old-fashioned cocktails and we watched "In the Heights" on HBO Max as a consolation prize.
I made bourbon old-fashioned cocktails and we watched "In the Heights" on HBO Max as a consolation prize.
How was it?
My two kids made numerous Fathers Day cards for me, so after breakfast I spent a good half hour opening them and telling them how much I liked each one. My wife bought a sample pack of Haus aperitifs for me, so I've been sipping on those all morning time period where it's appropriate to be drinking.
I made bourbon old-fashioned cocktails and we watched "In the Heights" on HBO Max as a consolation prize.How was it?
The old-fashioneds were great! My current version uses a bottle of locally-made high-rye bourbon, honey instead of sugar, and Dashfire old-fashioned bitters. I also like to garnish with a nice wide cut of orange zest, but no cherry.
In the Heights was a lot of fun!
The choreography and dancing was amazing! There's one scene that takes place in a public swimming pool that was a clear homage to Busby Berkeley.
The singing and acting were very good. I was taken slightly aback by Daphne Rubin-Vega, who plays salon owner Daniela. I still think of her from when she played Mimi in Rent back in the late '90s... and she's not a twenty-something anymore. She's almost exactly my age, and seeing her play a matronly character made me feel old!
Miranda and Hudes made some changes for the film: Most notably, the character Camila, Nina's mother, was cut entirely: In the film, she'd died years before the events of the film. They added a subplot about DACA and the Dreamers, and made the character Sonny a lot younger (18-ish in the stage show; 14-ish in the film). They changed the reason Nina dropped out of Stanford from her public education not preparing her enough academically for an elite college to her being the subject of countless microaggressions, and a Latinx student community that was far too small for her comfort. (In the film, she returns to Stanford, energized by the desire to work for civil rights for the undocumented.) The film also downplayed the tension between Nina's boyfriend Benny and her father, and cut their big scene together. And, as is typical for a movie musical adaptation of a stage show, a few songs were cut and a new one was written for the movie. (Oh... and a line in the song "$96,000" about Donald Trump was replaced with one about Tiger Woods.)
My wife and I have seen stage productions of In the Heights twice: once on Broadway during its original run (2010-ish), and a local production three years ago. I really liked the film, but my wife was a bit less enthusiastic about it: She didn't like the changes and thought they blunted the impact. Still: Definitely go see it if you're a movie musical fan!
Oh... and there's a very funny post-credit sequence with Lin-Manuel Miranda and Christopher Jackson: A reprise of the song "Piragua".
Very cool!
What is everyone up to this weekend? No plans here. There's a possibility my friend Amy and I will have lunch but she's not feeling well so I'm in "wait and see" mode.
The friend I was hoping to have lunch with made it town but then had to immediately have her car towed home because of smoke billowing from under the hood. So, we didn't get together.
Sorry to hear that, Cal. Your friends seem to have lots of troubles getting together with you! Do you live on an old burial ground?
Sorry to hear that, Cal. Your friends seem to have lots of troubles getting together with you! Do you live on an old burial ground?
LOL not that I'm aware of. An older lady who once lived next door told me once she'd lived in her house since the 1940s, even before my house was built. She said the streets weren't paved then and there were hardly any other houses and it had largely been a swamp in this part of town. So maybe some old swamp hag died here or something and cursed everything.
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Honestly, that's even cooler.
No dice on the horizon here. How about y'all?
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Gotta go shopping for a new washing machine.
Not ideal but what are you gonna do.
Gotta go shopping for a new washing machine.
Not ideal but what are you gonna do.
By a washboard and make weekly trips down to the creek.
*********
It's the last weekend before the kids are at my mom's and/or my sister's for the week, so I'm more excited for the week than I am the weekend.
My car got caught in some street flooding last week, and I didn't notice in time to dry it out before "the smell" set in. My wife is convinced that having it shampooed is all I need. We'll see. I'm taking it to get professionally cleaned Saturday morning.
Can anyone recommend a good video that's not a movie-length feature that teaches how to play 5E? I have some old friends that want to pick up an old campaign but convert it to 5E, but I don't really know anything about the system other than the advantage/disadvantage mechanic. I have the PHB, but I just haven't been able to make myself sit down and read it.
Plus, I always intended to introduce DnD to my kids with 5E, but that hasn't happened because I don't really know how to play.
Gotta go shopping for a new washing machine.
Not ideal but what are you gonna do.
I've needed a new dryer for over a year now. I usually wash my stuff then my sister comes by and takes it to her house to dry.
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Kids are gone for the whole week!
And my kitchen sink has started leaking at the handle!
And my car battery died!
Very considerate of fate to wait until the kids were sorted out.
Still no game here. After an incident last night between my son and his gf I'm about to have a come to Ba'al meeting about them not using their free time to look for a new place like they promised. My living room and kitchen are complete sh*tholes because of their refusal to clean up after themselves and I want my life back. They're the reason I won't allow my friends to come over and game or even to just hang out.
So what are you all doing this weekend?
Cal, how long have your son and girlfriend-in-law been staying with you?
***
It's a long holiday weekend. I'll be installing a new kitchen faucet, possibly installing some motion-sensing lighting in a closet, and probably shopping for a new couch.
The dealer fixed most of the issues with my car, but the alarm still randomly goes off at weird times. They're giving me a complimentary adjustment to it since they didn't get it fixed when I had the car in most of this past week, so I'll probably drop it off on Monday. But I'm kind of at the point where I just want them to disable it. I tried looking up how to do it myself, and it looks like I'd have to take out the glove compartment and do some wiring work, which doesn't appeal.
And Sunday we're going up to my mom's to swim and (*sigh*) pick the kids up to bring them back home.
Cal, how long have your son and girlfriend-in-law been staying with you?
Since the first of March. She lost her job almost immediately afterward. She found a new one pretty quickly, though, which was good. She doesn't want to rent anymore and wants to buy a house but she had to get past the 90 day probation period with her new job because none of the banks would work with her until then. She also has a ton of money put back to afford a substantial down payment that would help keep the mortgage payments smaller.
Her probationary period is up and I've found a half dozen houses in her price range and favored locality but to my knowledge, she's not bothered to look into them. So yeah, despite my almost complete inability to confront people anymore (even when it's in my own best interests) something's got to give.
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Cal, how long have your son and girlfriend-in-law been staying with you?Since the first of March. She lost her job almost immediately afterward. She found a new one pretty quickly, though, which was good. She doesn't want to rent anymore and wants to buy a house but she had to get past the 90 day probation period with her new job because none of the banks would work with her until then. She also has a ton of money put back to afford a substantial down payment that would help keep the mortgage payments smaller.
Her probationary period is up and I've found a half dozen houses in her price range and favored locality but to my knowledge, she's not bothered to look into them. So yeah, despite my almost complete inability to confront people anymore (even when it's in my own best interests) something's got to give.
I'll confront them if you want, people are more apt to listen to the surprisingly focused hippie with a saw and hammer then family.
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I'll confront them if you want, people are more apt to listen to the surprisingly focused hippie with a saw and hammer then family.Cal, how long have your son and girlfriend-in-law been staying with you?Since the first of March. She lost her job almost immediately afterward. She found a new one pretty quickly, though, which was good. She doesn't want to rent anymore and wants to buy a house but she had to get past the 90 day probation period with her new job because none of the banks would work with her until then. She also has a ton of money put back to afford a substantial down payment that would help keep the mortgage payments smaller.
Her probationary period is up and I've found a half dozen houses in her price range and favored locality but to my knowledge, she's not bothered to look into them. So yeah, despite my almost complete inability to confront people anymore (even when it's in my own best interests) something's got to give.
Cap and I will tag team it. Between the two of us you'll likely have your place back to yourself that very afternoon.
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I'll confront them if you want, people are more apt to listen to the surprisingly focused hippie with a saw and hammer then family.Cap and I will tag team it. Between the two of us you'll likely have your place back to yourself that very afternoon.
I'll get out of their way and let them work.
*********
Faucet installed! Nothing's leaking!
This faucet has a sensor on the side so that you can wave your hand in front of it to turn the water on or off instead of using the handle. It was a selling point for my wife.
You guys rock! LOL
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I spent the long weekend with my wife and most of her family at her parents' vacation home on the east end of the North Fork of Long Island. (Not The Hamptons... that's on the South Fork.) All of her siblings were there for at least part of it: The younger of her brothers and his family day-tripped it, and her sister's family only stayed one night.
It was fun, but the older of my wife's brothers (who also stayed the whole weekend) brought his two large, not-well-trained dogs. This was after FIL asked his kids not to bring their dogs to the house. (Everyone else somehow managed to find dog-sitters...) The dogs barked CONSTANTLY and got into EVERYTHING, including one that grabbed a steak off the grill. (This also resulted in a fight between the two dogs over said steak that knocked over one of the coolers.) And they spun up his twin four-year-old boys such that they got really obnoxious, too. It was so bad that one of the neighbors came over and asked him to control his dogs because they were barking all. Day. Long. Let's say that we were glad to leave after two overnights, and we left a good four hours earlier than we'd originally planned.
Last week in gaming...
I played a session of our ongoing Pathfinder 1e "Shattered Star" campaign. We're delving deeper into the dungeon level, and closed the session upon encountering an advanced seugathi that we're legit afraid of.
I ran the first session of a projected six-game series of The Secrets of Cats, a World of Adventure for Fate Core. (I'm running it using the lighter Fate Condensed rules.)
And, I ran a session of the slasher-movie RPG/story-game The Final Girl. Our session: "The Mary Kay Killer": The unsuspecting gated community of Magnolia Groves is terrorized by the insane make-up saleslady Bunny Blonde. If anyone is interested in hearing an unedited audio recording of that session, it's up on my YouTube channel.
Well, my group is scheduled to reassemble on July 24th for the adventure we were supposed to run in February. Now I just have to find those notes again. But the sound of the clicky-clacky maths rocks are sounding closer and closer!
What are your plans this weekend?
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I got my honeydew list.