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Well THAT'S annoying... kudos to you, good sir, for finding something so punchable...
Ugh. I have the winter blues something bad. Anyone got something upbeat and encouraging to drive away the darkness and cold? Otherwise, I'm going to have to retreat into a cave and go all Gollum...
I turn to my pets or eating...lol (not eating my pets. Not YET *glares at the cat*). But my great escape is music. I don't know if you do music streaming or things like that but I have a zabillion Spotify playlists, each one mostly following a certain theme or genre. I'm currently listening to one entitled "The Iron Ballet", which currently holds 1,116 different symphonic and power metal songs. It's one of my favorite ways to dig out of my doldrums (I don't have Seasonal Affective Disorder, which many of my friends have to deal with) but music does more to lift me out of the shadows than anything. If you do use Spotify, I'll be happy to send you a link to that playlist or even my whole account for you to mess around in!
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Ugh. I have the winter blues something bad. Anyone got something upbeat and encouraging to drive away the darkness and cold? Otherwise, I'm going to have to retreat into a cave and go all Gollum...
Cook yourself something hot & tasty!
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I found out tonight my son and his girlfriend are going to try and purchase the duplex where I live. My landlord called them and offered it to them at a discount before he put it on the market. I'm not ashamed to admit I cried with relief. The deal is only getting started, but I'm hopeful for the first time in a month.
Oh s*&&, I just saw this! That's great news, Cal!
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I found out tonight my son and his girlfriend are going to try and purchase the duplex where I live. My landlord called them and offered it to them at a discount before he put it on the market. I'm not ashamed to admit I cried with relief. The deal is only getting started, but I'm hopeful for the first time in a month.Oh s!!~, I just saw this! That's great news, Cal!
Thank you! They have the paperwork finished and submitted to the mortgage company. Last year they qualified for up to $220k when looking for a house but the interest rates went sort of crazy so they backed off. Since it had been a year they had to reapply, but with a much lower loan being sought plus her something like $40k in collateral she inherited from her grandparents they shouldn't have any problems.
Grab Cal's playlists, close the blinds, and DANCE!
I do have some danceable lists!
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Thank you! They have the paperwork finished and submitted to the mortgage company. Last year they qualified for up to $220k when looking for a house but the interest rates went sort of crazy so they backed off. Since it had been a year they had to reapply, but with a much lower loan being sought plus her something like $40k in collateral she inherited from her grandparents they shouldn't have any problems.I found out tonight my son and his girlfriend are going to try and purchase the duplex where I live. My landlord called them and offered it to them at a discount before he put it on the market. I'm not ashamed to admit I cried with relief. The deal is only getting started, but I'm hopeful for the first time in a month.Oh s!!~, I just saw this! That's great news, Cal!
That's great!
*whips shirt around head and dances*
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Thanks all for the winter cheer. Combined with seeing the sun yesterday for the first time in a week, I no longer feel like table-flipping the entire planet.
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Adam does have a punchable face, it's true.
I just--why make Candyland *worst*?!
Although I do swear I once saw a fake commercial for Candyland the Movie, directed by Tim Burton, with Johnny Depp as Lord Licorice. But I can't find it anywhere, so it is possible it was an extremely vivid dream.
By the way, if anyone here does use Spotify I'd love to see your playlists and I'd be more than happy to share mine! Music rocks! Ok, some of it does, anyway.
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Fantasy Monster: Shadow Griffon.
Because we need undead griffons.
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Adam does have a punchable face, it's true.I just--why make Candyland *worst*?!
Maybe you would prefer Chess, But Only Horses or Jenga, With Increasingly Bigger Gloves.
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Fantasy Monster: Shadow Griffon.
Because we need undead griffons.
This reminds me of the campaign I was in where my cleric of Nethys found a scroll of animate dead. He wasn't specifically a necromancer, but he figured he should keep it, as it was magic and all magic should be used. A couple sessions later, we killed a manticore.
ME: OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY! I GET A MANTICORPSE!
Ugh. I have the winter blues something bad. Anyone got something upbeat and encouraging to drive away the darkness and cold? Otherwise, I'm going to have to retreat into a cave and go all Gollum...
Get a seasonal job working for a demolition company. Seems to be working for me so far.
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Ugh. I have the winter blues something bad. Anyone got something upbeat and encouraging to drive away the darkness and cold? Otherwise, I'm going to have to retreat into a cave and go all Gollum...Get a seasonal job working for a demolition company. Seems to be working for me so far.
Seasonal?
There's a demolition season?
I feel like that's a metaphor or something... *strokes chin; shrugs; starts smashing s@!&*
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Ugh. I have the winter blues something bad. Anyone got something upbeat and encouraging to drive away the darkness and cold? Otherwise, I'm going to have to retreat into a cave and go all Gollum...Get a seasonal job working for a demolition company. Seems to be working for me so far.Seasonal?
There's a demolition season?
I feel like that's a metaphor or something... *strokes chin; shrugs; starts smashing s~*%*
There's no "demolition season," but there is a "non-landscaping season."
Ah. That makes sense.
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FRIEND: My vocabulary word of the day is ‘farrago’.
ME: Oh yah fer shure. Great movie dat one.
FRIEND: Huh?
ME: It’s a city in North Dakota and the Coen Brothers made a movie about it. Geez, read a book.
FRIEND: *googles; sends link* No, that was Fargo.
ME: Ha ha, made you look. But seriously, how long have you been into Italian sportscars? *sends gif of Magnum PI in Ferrari*
FRIEND: What is even happening?!
ME: Oh. Sorry. This thread turned into some kind of confused mess which I lack a word to describe.
FRIEND: … Well played.
Ugh. I have the winter blues something bad. Anyone got something upbeat and encouraging to drive away the darkness and cold? Otherwise, I'm going to have to retreat into a cave and go all Gollum...Get a seasonal job working for a demolition company. Seems to be working for me so far.Seasonal?
There's a demolition season?
I feel like that's a metaphor or something... *strokes chin; shrugs; starts smashing s~*%*
There's no "demolition season," but there is a "non-landscaping season."
I gotta say though, I can't stop imagining the festive customs of 'demolition season'. Every year the crowbar sales start earlier and earlier... all the Hallmark romcoms themed around tear-downs... roving bands of 'carolers' who show up and start wrecking s*%+ until you give them cookies to go away...
I feel like this has legs. We should make this a thing! WHO'S WITH ME?!
*grabs crowbar*
*twenty minutes later*
So. Turns out no one was with me. Can anyone at least front bail? My attorney, Nicholas St. Simian refuses to return my calls...
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Hey, if you can't take the fling, don't do the thing.
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I feel like this has legs. We should make this a thing! WHO'S WITH ME?!
*grabs crowbar*
*twenty minutes later*
So. Turns out no one was with me. Can anyone at least front bail? My attorney, Nicholas St. Simian refuses to return my calls...
I'm in! I just had to find the Christmas crowbar after putting it away for the year. Or, we could just have a trial run because my Valentine's Day crowbar is right here.
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ME: OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY! I GET A MANTICORPSE!
OR you could militarize them into the U.S. Manticorps!
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WARNING: THE GREAT WALL OF TEXT STANDS BEFORE YOU, REACHING FROM ONE HORIZON TO THE NEXT.
Well, this is probably not going to come as a surprise to anyone. I am putting my game on hiatus. It has reached a point where I just don't have any fuel left. The last session ended an hour in with me having a curb-stomp of a panic attack because I just lost control of my own thoughts and couldn't continue.
COVID hurt us, as far as getting together went, and we never really recovered. We've played less than ten games since we started back. Nearly every cancellation or postponement has had something to do with my health, either from chronic pain or my depression/anxiety/panic disorders. After a lot of reflection, I've realized (or finally admitted to myself) the anxiety attacks before or during games are because I'm just going through the motions and trying to entertain everyone in spite of the fact that I'm often just miserable.
Coming up with the adventures isn't usually too hard, as I have literally thousands of one to two line adventure ideas stored in computer folders as well as groovy ideas pitched to me by non-playing friends. But I just don't have the emotional and mental fortitude to build on them, and if I manage to, I just don't have anything left to run the actual game. It also doesn't help that the campaign we're playing is a revamp of one that I abandoned because I lost interest in it and it got out of control. The idea was one suggested by one of my veteran players and it sounded good but in execution it wasn't entertaining ME, which I sometimes forget is just as important as entertaining THEM. The campaign I put together next was designed to be an old fashioned, travel the world for fortune and glory sort of thing, but they weren't really digging that. They wanted to go back to the other one, which I agreed to if I could start everything over at first level. I rewrote a bunch of the notes and such from the first attempt, and once again, it looked great on paper. It's city-based, with political intrigue and some eldritch horror tossed in for good measure. I'm not enjoying it. They seem to be.
Another thing is, as you've all seen me post ad nauseum, is I'm tired of not being a player. The couple of times someone offered to run something, I was the ONLY one who expressed any interest. Their suggestions would have required learning some new rules or systems and absolutely no one else wanted to do that. There were a couple of attempts to play a game using the old Mayfair Games DC Heroes system, but the gamemaster quit after the second game, saying it was "too much work". I wanted to slap him. I sunk a lot of money into finding one of the old rulebooks and now it's just a dustcatcher. I sometimes get the feeling that since I'm unable to work some of them have the point of view that "Cal doesn't have anything else to do so he should always run the games."
What I WANT to play isn't ever going to happen, and that's to be a player in our homebrewed world. My ex-wife and I began building this setting in 1990 and over the years it's become a collaborative effort with everyone having input, helping to shape the world and its cultures and lore. I think I could get the new guy to run games, but even before I met him in person for the first time, we had a bit of a tussle back and forth in private messages over the character he wanted to play, a young female Halfling Bard/Rogue "entertainer" named, and I wish to GOD I was making this up, Chlamydia Stenchtrench. I immediately shut that down, then he wanted to just use the first name because "it sounded like a medieval woman's name". No. It does not. Then he asked if he could change the name to "Filthy Orphan Fannie" and that she be a VERY young girl on the run from her parents and living as a street urchin having to "get by anyway she can". I again said no. The 16 year old daughter of one my players is in the group and there are four adult, highly educated women who play and they are not the type to suffer that b.s. I ran the character names by the adults in private messages, and they were as disgusted as I was. They were misogynistic, insulting names. In a recent game I was describing the love interest of a young male NPC and he piped up and asked how old she was. I said she was eighteen. His reply dripped with disappointment. He asked, "So, she's not a lo**y (insert the other two "ls" if you want), then? I guess that means she's not a virgin, either." This dude is in his fifties and has quickly revealed himself to be a perv. I'm not that damned desperate to play.
I've had invites to play D&D 5e games via Discord and Roll20, and a friend out in Washington invited me to their games via the same set ups. My anxiety disorders would make it almost impossible for me to comfortably join groups where I only know one person even if they are being conducted remotely (I used to be the King of Extroverts. Those days are gone).
But deciding on the hiatus has already lifted what felt like a physical weight from my shoulders. The only regret I have is Eddie, who relies on his son or the pervy dude to drive him from Memphis to my house and the player I have who has an illness that is 100% fatal and she's declining fast. She's been with me from almost the very beginning and I want her to enjoy the time she has left. But I just can't do this right now. I hope it won't be a long break, but I can't promise that.
Thanks for putting up with so many words. All of you have been so great and so patient as I've whinged on and on about things the last couple of years and my appreciation for your friendships is boundless.
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If you need to take a break, then you need to. Enjoying GMing is a necessary component of it. Rest as long as you need to.
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I GMed my first session in a year (more or less) on Monday. I would like to GM more but the main groups I play with (two different groups with only my and GM belonging to both) don't have time for extra session, my Legend Of Five Rings group could not get their asses together in a year, attempts to get another group for me to GM failed, and I am not exactly willing to reach farther and try looking for people I am not well acquaintance with as players (it's a second largest city of the country and there is a lot of players here, but unlike Cal, I have never been an extrovert).
...
I was never an extrovert? Hmmm, that sounds wrong... Let's stick with never have been.
You're right, Cal, this isn't surprising, but it is heartening to hear that you're recognizing what you need for your own health and happiness. I thinkknow you've made the right decision, and (for what it's worth) I fully support it.
Out of curiosity: have you told this to your players? How did they react?
Specifically, what's their response to the fact that nobody else really steps up to GM?
You're right, Cal, this isn't surprising, but it is heartening to hear that you're recognizing what you need for your own health and happiness. I
thinkknow you've made the right decision, and (for what it's worth) I fully support it.Out of curiosity: have you told this to your players? How did they react?
Specifically, what's their response to the fact that nobody else really steps up to GM?
I've only told three people so far, but I just finished composing a letter I'll post to our group's FB page. One of the three people I've told already, the one with the terrible sickness that will eventually take her from us, has offered to do a play by email or text thing, nearly completely made up of roleplaying and using just a pass/fail sort of mechanic for dice rolls. She figured out I needed this before I told her. It won't be a big ol' game with the whole group, but it will be set in a region of our campaign world where we had some great adventures and I'm looking forward to it. I didn't mention wanting to play to anyone else for fear that the weird new dude would volunteer...LOL.
What a heartbreaking decision, Cal. But a splendid choice for taking care of yourself.
I truly hope that you'll continue to chat with us here. I enjoy your stories and perspective, and draw a lot of encouragement from seeing someone else with an uncooperative body manage to offer caring and friendship to the rest of us.
Thank you, DW. I have no plans to leave the fold. I thrive in the company of nerds...LOL. I have made friends here that I'll likely never know face to face, but that doesn't lessen how much they mean to me.
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DMing is hard work, and in the end it should be fun. If it's not fun and worse, making your anxiety trigger, then it's time to stop.
And the creepy guy...needs to find another group that is more fitting for his personality.
Or, you know, just go the f$#@ away.
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And the creepy guy...needs to find another group that is more fitting for his personality.
Or, you know, just go the f~%@ away.
If he gets a job and can't come over on Saturdays anymore the problem will be solved! lol
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One of the three people I've told already, the one with the terrible sickness that will eventually take her from us, has offered to do a play by email or text thing, nearly completely made up of roleplaying and using just a pass/fail sort of mechanic for dice rolls. She figured out I needed this before I told her. It won't be a big ol' game with the whole group, but it will be set in a region of our campaign world where we had some great adventures and I'm looking forward to it.One thing you two might consider is co-authoring a book of short tales. During the pandemic, a friend and I used Google Docs to write several stories about our gang of hooligans. Their best contributions to the game had always been snappy dialogue.
Dice rolls were seldom used, except to add a kind of 'choose your own adventure' action into the storytelling. If we weren't completely sure what a PC would do in a situation, we rolled.
You might call it "Tales Told At The Dew Drop Inn", or whatever you call your house, and include epic retellings of old events. It might even find an audience beyond just your friends.
It's a good idea, and one she and I have talked about in the past. It's a really strange quirk to have, but I simply can't sit down and write fiction. I have crippling panic attacks when I try. I've tried since I was a kid (I'm 59 now. Kidhood was a long time ago!). I don't know why I have this block or how to circumvent it, but there it is. My therapist and I talk about it sometimes. However, putting together a Pathfinder game is fairly simple comparatively. I do (infrequently) update a semi-autobiographical blog and I find writing that to be quite easy. It's open to the public should anyone ever want to read about my misspent youth.
The only thing I've ever managed to write to completion is a very, very short horror story that was adapted into an independent horror short film that won a few awards at various horror cons a few years ago. The movie bears little resemblance to my actual story, but hey, a writing credit is a writing credit! (I'm even on imdb.com because of it, which I only very recently discovered).
I don't know how long you've been on Earth, but if you're a young'n you might not remember that AD&D 1st Edition was filled with pages of random charts in the back of the Dungeonmaster's Guide. Everything from dungeon design and features to treasure to wandering monsters can be generated from the charts. I still use it sometimes. I know people who actually played D&D by ONLY using the charts for their games. They didn't know diddly squat about actual roleplaying, though. The only way they knew how to play was Choose Your Adventure style...lol
Perhaps a disappointing choice but if you're miserable and it's making you worse, you really need a break. I've had players take breaks before, and they've come back. Take some time to get yourself in a better place and maybe the old enjoyment will come back again. If not, it's better to end things cleanly.
Anyway, I wish you the best. Please stick around if it fits your mental and emotional state. In any case, as we say around here, 'good bettering'.
And holy s@@! that creepy guy. You're better off without that.
"Good bettering". I like that. I like that a lot!
Fantasy NPC: Sky Wolf. Winged wolves that live in clouds.
Fantasy NPC: Sky Wolf. Winged wolves that live in clouds.
Very cool!
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Fantasy NPC: Sky Wolf. Winged wolves that live in clouds.Very cool!
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I feel like there was a missed opportunity here...Fantasy NPC: Sky Wolf. Winged wolves that live in clouds.Very cool!
Sky Wolves vs Drones vs stinger missiles.
... and done.
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I feel like there was a missed opportunity here...Fantasy NPC: Sky Wolf. Winged wolves that live in clouds.Very cool!
I don't remember much of it, but still, the theme music hit the chord.
Ok, I think I just experienced The Mandela Effect. I would have bet hard money that Eladrins were a player character race in PF1e.
I think most of us know what this is, but just in case:
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They were in 4th edition D&D where they were sort-of-high elves/aasimar.
They were in 4th edition D&D where they were sort-of-high elves/aasimar.
I never played 4e but that could be where I got the idea from.
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Now I have a vague indistinct feeling that the term eladrin might have been used in early D&D or maybe in late AD&D Planescape to refer to the race later became know as aasimar. Really not sure about that, though.
Foruntately PF1 didn't go the 4e route and f~+@ up elves. Proper eladrins were renamed azata in PF1.
Ahh, ok. I wondered why Azata popped up in my search. Like a dumba$$ I didn't click the links.