Pulled It Off

Well now, that was a heck of a New Year's Eve.

Somehow managed to finish cleaning the house and getting nearly all the food cooked (and the kitchen straightened up) before the guests started showing up. The menu included English-style roast beef (a new recipe never before tried...got it from the Downton Abbey Christmas cookbook), my own butternut squash soup, oven-roasted Brussels sprouts, oven-roasted potato/sweet potato medley, oven-roasted vegetable medley (broc, cauliflower, and carrot), pasta carbonara (made by my son from scratch...yes, he makes his own pasta) and a pretty expansive charcuterie board put together by my wife after we found out (too late) that you needed a 48 hour notice to just order one. Everything got demolished despite one of the adults being a vegetarian, and two of them abstaining from dairy. I mean, that 5.5# roast? There's only a sliver of it left on the plate this morning...a sliver. And somehow we still have two six-packs of beer...oh, wait, because we killed four bottles of wine even before getting to the champaign.

Everyone managed to stay awake (even me...despite getting up at 7am and missing my afternoon nap), and the karaoke machine made an appearance circa 1am. Oh, boy. 

I slept till 11am.

My but the house is in need of some cleanup, today. Not much left for leftovers (except pasta...Diego went a bit overboard and we have a ton of extra drying on the counter). I'm not a big watcher of bowl games (especially now that they don't really mean anything to college football...or college football players/coaches), but I still think some relaxing on the couch is in order today (as he sips his freshly brewed pot of coffee at 12:04pm). Cleanup will happen...maybe even before I finish this post...but, yeah, I think I want to take it easy today. Maybe some Blood Bowl or a walk in the fresh air. After the rest of the family gets up, of course.

The last thing I'll mention about last night (before it slips my memory) is I once again had a chance to regale half-a-dozen adult humans with a 30-40 minute lecture on what Dungeons & Dragons is and the state of the hobby. Personal chef, physicist, patent attorney for Microsoft, Boeing engineer, contractors, political consultant...yeah, a bunch of successful professionals...all of them knew of the game, but none of them had ever played or had any experience with it, and they were just fascinated.  It's always odd to me how this thing I do can demand such positive attention...when, as a teen in the late 80s, early 90s the opposite was more often the case. Of course, I'm a lot more self-assured/confident these days (I made a roast beef for 14 people!), but I'm also more knowledgable. I know how to explain things in a way that is A) understandable, B) interesting/relatable, and C) inspiring (I think) to the listeners. When half the people say they want to give the game a try after I've delivered what amounts to a sermon on the history of the D&D hobby...well, I shake my head in amazement.

One of these days I'll get back to running for adults. It's nice that I can still draw. 

Okay, enough bragging; on to the New Year retrospective/resolution making!

Despite most of my local sports teams tanking their seasons...and a certain presidential election not going the way I would have hoped...2024 was damn sight better for me personally than 2023. I mean, no one close to me died, so that's a win, right? Some good coaching experiences (volleyball and soccer), won an adventure writing contest, penned an adventure for Cauldron 2024 (that got played by some 40-odd people), learned to cook a few new dishes (*ahem*), got to meet and share a beer with a couple of game blogging luminaries, travelled to both Europe and Mexico, reconnected with old friends, made some new friends, threw some parties, attended some parties, and got to run some high level D&D for my kids. Heck, I even got some blogging in...more than last year, anyway (though that was a pretty low bar...).

But I didn't write/publish any new books. Oh, I had some writing published IN a couple books, but they weren't my books...they were contributions to someone else's project. It's been a while since my last publication. Which is a bit of a bummer: I've had some time to write, I've had some ideas/things to write about...but I haven't put it all together. I've been undisciplined. And, jeez, you'd think at my age (51! I'm on the downward slope!), I'd be able to pull it together. Avoid the distractions from my purpose. 

Mm. Life is a challenge.

SO...looking back at my 2023 resolutions (the last time I posted such things...right before my life went off the rails a bit), I see that I hit on less than half the dozen or so I proposed. I think we'll try to keep this year's list a bit more modest:

Resolutions for 2025

• Sell my mother's house
• Write ONE book by the end of August
• Publish ONE book by the end of December
• Coach Sofia's soccer team to the playoffs (in October)
• Publish 100 blog posts (99 to go!)

There's more that I hope to accomplish this year: I am coaching Diego's last season of middle school volleyball this Spring, for example, and I'll be attending Cauldron 2025 in October and hope to make a good showing with my adventures-not-yet-penned. But these are the five things I really want to have done by December 31st; if I can look back to this post in one year and say I accomplished all of them? That will have been a spectacular triumph for Your Truly.

All right. That's enough for right now...time to get to that kitchen clean-up.

Best wishes to everyone...I hope nothing but the best for you and your loved ones this year; may you have health and happiness and may your sorrows be small and manageable. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am currently in Orizaba, Mexico (and very tired from a loooong journey here...both my flight and our bus were delayed getting here).  For my fellow Americans who celebrate the holiday, I wish you nothing but happiness for all that the next two days (generally) bring: good food, family gatherings, parades and football on the TV and...hopefully...a bit of tabletop gaming.

My best to everyone. I'll write as I can.

Spencer

No apologies. Just been busy.

Some fifteen years ago, I introduced two kids...Zach and Spencer...to the D&D game. The children of our good friends, we refer to them as our "nephews" (they call us Uncle and Aunt), and we've been taking care of them/hosting them since they were little. Spencer, at age 4, was the ring bearer at our wedding in Mexico.

Well, it's been a long time since they were "little." Zach is 30 and 6'5", a former power lifter/body builder, he now resides in Virginia where he's working on his doctorate in organic chemistry. Younger brother Spencer (age 27) is a 6'1", 230# rock climber and professional chef, who's worked in some of New York City's best restaurants...he's come a long way since the last time I saw him (when he just heading off to culinary school).

But the kid is still our "first baby," despite the tattoos and the earrings and the fact that I only come up to the guy's chest. He's in town till September 11th, after which he's flying out to Madrid for a while before moving to Australia (for 2025), and he wanted to get together with us. And so we made it happen over the Labor Day weekend (not like we had anything else planned besides a three day soccer tournament for Diego). And wouldn't you know it, but the kid is still a big nerd who was absolutely Jonesin' for some hardcore Dungeons & Dragons. I guess there isn't much D&D in the East Coast culinary scene (not that they have any time with 80 hour work weeks...ah, to be 27 again!).

So, Spence and I had a long discussion on Saturday (while sitting on the sidelines pre-soccer match). Discussed why his few forays into "modern D&D" had been unsatisfying. Explained why my version of D&D is different. Gave a brief history of the game's evolution, including why I write/sell the books I do. I didn't bother explaining to him the OSR or "CAG" or any of that rigamarole...just kept it simple, by explaining the difference between playing the game as a game and playing the game as scripted television for a YouTube camera (which he has watched, with both consternation and disgust).

THEN I explained to him that I'm running AD&D these days, unlike the B/X that I taught him and his brother all those years ago, and why and some of that edition's differences. Oh, boy was he down to play 1E!

So we did. Kids' first day of school was yesterday, but it was only a half day. Spence came over a little after noonish, and we just played solid AD&D till 5pm (when I had to take Sofia to soccer practice...I'm co-coaching the 5th graders again). He and my wife (along with Diego) whipped up a magnificent carbonara, and we had Spencer's parents over for a little wine and festivity, just like old times. We even had "dueling desserts" (I made my blackberry cobbler, he came with a raspberry crumble...I think mine turned out better, but..well, I'm eating the remains of his dessert as I type this).

Just about as flawless a day as I could ask for.

Fifteen years, I've been writing this blog. Twenty-five or so years since the first time I met Spencer. Time flies. I've written that so many times over the years,  it feels ridiculous to be jotting it down again. But it's so worth emphasizing. The years pass by quicker and quicker, especially when we're busy. And as I get older, and I see more time stretching behind me than in front of me, it's hard (for me) not to feel whimsical or melancholic. It's hard. Damn hard. Which leads me to try to stay busy (so I don't dwell on it)...which, of course, leads the time to flit by all the faster.  

I am enjoying my life, however (the vast majority of it for certain). 

Our game session was great, just by the way. We all had a blast, especially Spen. The adventure is, as yet, unresolved (we're still playing Dragon Wrack) so we might try to get together one more time before he hops his plane. I know he would like to do so, but it's a matter of making all the schedules work (four soccer games plus the Seahawks playing their home opener this weekend...and my kids are running cross country this fall, too). We'll see what happens. But at least he got to play again...this time as an adult...and saw that it's not all "nostalgia" in his head. The game is fun, the game works, the game can be played for a lifetime. It makes me so happy to have been able to show that to him.

And to my kids, too...it's not just Old Man Pops who is into this D&D stuff. Cool "Cousin Spencer" digs it, too.

Delightful.

I will, perhaps (hopefully), write about the particulars of the session in a separate blog post. A lot of fun, memorable moments (aren't there always?), but it's just war stories. The playing is the important bit. The ramped up tension. The excitement. The terror. The fun. A lot of (imaginary) treasure gathered; a lot of (imaginary) blood spilled. The usual. But, sure, I might blog about it...just to have a record of it, to look back on fondly in another dozen years or so.

One last thing: I did (briefly) mention the Cauldron convention to Spencer. Oh, man, was he intrigued. As I said, he'll be in Australia next year...which is the next year I plan on trying to get back. But 2026 or '27? Yeah, he's totally down. We'll be making it a twosome, if he can get the time off work. Hell, maybe even a threesome...I'm not sure sixteen year old Diego will be ready for such an excursion, but I know he wants to go.  Good times.

; )

"Dragon Wrack"

Hope folks had an enjoyable Father's Day this last weekend, whatever your relationship to "fatherhood" might be. Speaking for myself, it was delightful, due in large part to my family bending over backwards to make Sunday a special day for Yours Truly.

Doesn't mean it was perfect, of course. I wasn't able to get the dinner I wanted (not for lack of trying...we won't go into that), and I did still have to do some dishes (though not nearly as many as usual), and I would have preferred a different pie than "Key lime" (it's not bad, just not my favorite). And then there was the gaming....

SO, one thing I forgot to mention the other day: the latest installment of Prince's No ArtPunk contest has been published. NAP 3 is available as an absolutely enormous, 'pay what you want' PDF file. 

How enormous? 694 pages. Yeah. Granted, it contains 14 high level adventures (including maps) interspersed with some half dozen essays relating to "high level play" (the theme of this year's NAP competition) and a few pages of art, but still...it's big. The adventures are big. Prince included his own most recent module (Slyth Hive) in the compilation, and that's damn near 100 pages itself.

[yes, all my ranting from the other day about large page counts still applies]

But laptop memory eater or not, slog or not, it's a pretty amazing compilation. A lot of creativity on display, a lot of enthusiasm. Folks really attacked the NAP challenge with gusto, and the sheer volume and variety of submissions is...well, as I already wrote, "amazing." I plan on doing a read through over the next couple months (slog, remember?) and will probably pen some 'capsule reviews.' At least for the AD&D modules.

Now, about that gaming...

The last couple-three years, my kids have been really good about making sure I get some serious D&D play in when Father's Day rolls around. That's just what Nerd Dad likes doing: I'm not (much of) a golfer, so I don't want to hit the course or (even) sit on my couch watching the U.S. Open. D&D (or other games) is the main event on the docket and, what with being a weekend (and usually one that's OFF from other activities), we can carve out a nice large chunk of time for ourselves, rather than the couple hours snatched here and there during the week. Often, my kids will run a game for me, but this year I wanted to DM because I had something specific I wanted to run: Dragon Wrack, my high-level entry for NAP3.

If you pick up the NAP3 book, you'll see the adventure, as it made the cut as one of the finalists. In brief: it's a re-writing/re-working of the old TSR module DL14: Dragons of Triumph. Yep, I'm still on that whole 'rehabilitating DragonLance" kick, though in this case I redrew all the maps and chucked pretty much everything from the original module save for the general concept (Tiamat's temple-fortress, surrounded by her armies, PCs doing an infiltration gig, while the Forces of Good are marching on the place). I mean, I even wrote the thing for use with CHAINMAIL, including an appendix of new AD&D specific adaptations, since I never was into "BattleSystem."  Sure, it includes pre-gens bearing a passing resemblance to certain "heroes" of the DL novels and, yeah, it has some Dragon Lords...but it's not really the same adventure. It's not set in Krynn, but in my own PNW world (Moscow, Idaho taking the place of "Neraka"), and you certainly won't find any "draconians" or "kender" or any bars of gold that have been completely devalued by the setting. Au contraire, what you WILL find are heaping piles of treasure, as well as Tiamat who never makes an appearance in the original module, despite featuring prominently on the cover. 

Illo by Clyde Caldwell

Why did I want to play Dragon Wrack? A couple reasons. First, I never had the chance to play-test the thing when I first wrote it (I was under serious time pressure just to get the thing out by the submission deadline). Second, I wanted to take a break from our current campaign...as a test for a future publication, that adventure is requiring a bit more work and attention then I really have time for at the moment. But mainly, it's just that...now that NAP3 has been made available to the general public...I figured I should at least say I've given the thing a spin myself.  And this was as good a time as any.

Hoo-boy.

Problems, problems, problems...abounding, right from the get-go. 

First, there's the premise. Unlike a normal "explore and loot" scenario, DW has a fairly specific objective: find a way to disrupt the Queen and/or her forces so that the Allied army can win the day. Okay, but how? The party is basically the equivalent of a high level task force / commando squad (or the generals of the Allied host...if you want to play it that way)...but this needs to be spelled out a bit. "Intel" could be better: what the players know (and don't know) needs to be very specific, because the time crunch, the time pressure of the thing, is very real once you sit down to play the scenario. My players have been trying to get intel AND formulate plans at the same time, all on the fly, with very mixed results.

The whole intro/background section of the adventure needs rewriting, in other words.

Then there's the town of Moscow: my original idea for the adventure was to include at least a rough sketch / layout of the place, based on actual city maps of the town circa 1890. Unfortunately time constraints caught up with me (I had less than a month to write the whole thing, start to finish), and this got 'cut' from the final. But without something to show the players, keyed or not, it's hard for them to really visualize the situation they're in. Besides which, I hadn't even bothered to decide the answers to questions like 'how open is the town?' 'What are the streets like?' 'Are there dragon army patrols / town militia / etc. and what is their composition?' Once again (as many times before) I was struck by the inadequacy of the game to provide procedures for running a town or urban environment.

The adventure has a decent timeline of events that is based on the specific pre-gens the players choose to use on the adventure. For my players, they wanted to bring their own characters as well (a provision accounted for in the adventure) despite being a little under-leveled (8th and 7th) for the scenario. Because of the particular party composition chosen, the players found themselves just a few hours ahead of the Black Wing of the Dragon Army. However, rather than try to get into the temple first, the players decided to sit and wait, giving the army a chance to enter and occupy the fortress. 

Why? Because they decided to scale the temple/fortress from the outside and wanted to wait till the dead of night to do so. And here again I see things missing from my scenario that would have been useful: pieces about foot traffic in and around the temple, patrols in the grounds, locations of guardsmen, numbers and weapons. Yes, some of this is there...in the form of wandering monster tables and percentage chances for room occupants depending on whether or not the army is present. But, as written, it needs more. And probably needs greater specificity. Also, how long a Wing takes to enter the place and in what order (as well as where they go from there)...all things I ended up needing to work out at the table during play.

Because, at the last minute, the players decided it would be easier to simply infiltrate the place as part of the army; Diego's assassin disguised himself as an orc soldier, the magic-user cast invisibility on Sofia's fighter, and the two joined the back file of grunts marching through the Black Wing's gate.

At this point, we've been playing for two days now (I'm typing this Tuesday morning; while we started the game on Sunday, it ended up continuing to Monday). The lack of clear objectives has meant the players are kind of running around like chickens with their heads cut off. They're divided on whether or not they want to find a way to the roof (to let down their ropes to the others), or find their imprisoned companions (also part of the scenario), or find Tiamat herself (though I'm not sure what they'd do if they did!). They've been wandering about, blundering into places, and then having to explain why they're in the wrong areas/sections (again, notes on how the temple's inhabitants react to such blunders should have been included in the adventure). 

All in all, I'm rather disappointed in how the thing is playing out...so much so that the original title of this post was "Dragon Crap." It IS tense and pressurized, but as written the adventure lacks focus or a clear path of action for the players...and that has meant the pace of the thing has been slow. I'm used to a brisker adventuring style, not this cautious, tentativeness (caused by the lack of direction). It's frustrating; I wish I'd had a chance to play-test before submitting the thing for publication. 

Ah, well.

We'll see how it goes today: last week the kids finished up school for the year, and we ain't got shit to do (at least, not till soccer practice this evening), so I'm sure it will be "game on" after breakfast. The players finally stumbled into a fight (right at the end of yesterday's session) and it seems pretty clear they've managed to alert the section they've been poking around.  I'm going to try spending a little time organizing the pages this morning, to see if I can get some semblance of what organized resistance to the PCs' intrusion. Hopefully, things will go smoother.

Later gators.

: )

News & Notes

Good morning! Hope everyone fortunate enough to have the day off today is enjoying their holiday (it's Veterans Day, here in the States). My kids are out of school, so they are sleeping in this morning...I, myself, woke up at 6:30am (not unusual) and went back to sleep till 7:40 (very unusual). Brewing myself some coffee at the moment...ratio of decaf-to-caf is approximately 5:1.

I appreciate all the condolences and kind thoughts expressed over the passing of my dog...thank you so much. Life continues to move on (as always), and everyone here is fine (more-or-less). It's still a little odd the small ways I miss her...many of my habitual behavioral patterns (closing doors, locking gates, guarding food, sealing off trash cans) were adapted over the years to compensate for my incorrigible rascal of a dog, and now every time I brush up against that, I feel a small void of emptiness. It's a bit more immediate than the loss of my mother...though it brings up a similar feelings, as this is the kind of thing I would get on the phone and call her about, causing me to confront (again) her absence. 

*sigh*

ANYway...moving on to the "news and notes." Apologies for not yet get my AP reports out from the Cauldron convention; those are still coming, and should get typed up (*hope*hope*) before the end of the month. Others (Ghoul, Melan, Prince) have provided their own post-con reports, so if you're interested in the German, Hungarian, and Dutch (respectively) perspectives on the event, I'd direct you to their blogs:

Ghoul Tunnel

Beyond Fomalhaut

Age of Dusk

(yes, they're all written in English)

For myself, I've been rather busy lately with the current writing project (writing? What a shock!). The deadline for the NAP III contest draws near, and I have only begun writing up my entry. It's a rather large one. My first NAP submission (Hell's Own Temple) was all of ten pages and 18(ish) numbered encounters. My second NAP submission (Ship of Fate) doubled the number of encounters and ran to 17 pages PLUS an additional six pages of pregen characters. Those I knocked out in a couple-three days.

This one's...a bit bigger. Double+ the size of my last adventure in terms of numbered encounters, three appendices, plus a dozen pregens. The thing is currently in a "mostly outline" state, and it's already 14 pages. 

Have not yet started the stocking spreadsheets; have not yet drawn a single map.

Instead, I've spent the last ten days "sharpening the axe," diving deeply into the lore and figuring out how...really how...the adventure works and interacts with my own campaign world. There may not be a lot of the Emerald Empire in the thing, but there will be some. The adventure is set in the Idaho Deathlands, after all. Troop numbers and resources and geography are all being drawn from my home setting. It's a doozy.

And while I'm pretty sure I'll be able to finish the thing with alacrity (my push to have adventures ready for Cauldron showed me what's possible), I am running up against an additional time constraint: my imminent trip to Mexico. The family is leaving town next Friday...the first time we'll be traveling to see our family and friends down south since 2020 (2019? maybe). Everyone is, of course, excited. But if I don't have this thing knocked out (or mostly written) before I leave Friday morning, chances are slim that I'll be able to complete it before the end of November. Polishing I can do in my in-laws house. But scanning maps? No...and I'm not going to be bringing a bunch of books and reference materials either.

SO...six-ish days is about what I have left to finish the thing (we'll be back on the 27th, but a day or two to recover from the trip will mean almost no time before hitting "send" on the email). And it's not like I have six full days...my weekends afford me very little time to write. The bulk of my work comes when my kids are at school and the wife is at the office. 

Or early mornings. Hmm...maybe I shouldn't have slept in...

But, there it is...I'll be pushing through and (if the blog is sadly silent) my readers won't be wondering whether I've fallen off some cliff or something. Just busy. In fact, I should probably log off now and clean the kitchen. The damn dishwasher broke down a couple days ago and I have to do all the washing up by hand...and last night I cooked a rather large feast of pork shoulder, Brussels sprouts, and mashed potatoes.

And...oh, crap. It's my birthday in three days. The Big 5-0. And I'm sure the fam wants to do something for me. Something that will no doubt eat into my time. Crap.

All right, all right...I've got to go. More updates in a few days!

Chewie

I am posting this today to mark the passing of my last "running beagle," Chewbacca ("Chewie"). Sixteen and one-half years she was with us...longer than either of my human children...she was a dear pet and great comfort to my wife and I through countless hard times. 

I could eulogize her for thousands of words, but suffice is to say she was greatly loved by my family and she will be greatly missed.  It is amazing the impact the loss of a simple animal can have. It is amazing the joy that they bring into one's home.

This has been a rough year. It hasn't been six months since I buried my mother. My grandmother died shortly thereafter (her funeral service was in September). Other family members (an uncle, an aunt) have also passed in 2023...though their absences leave far smaller holes to fill than the others mentioned. 

The passing of my dog...is hard. I told my son this morning that (perhaps) God has made humans (and pets) mortal so that we can have a greater appreciation for each other, so that we can cherish each other more and the limited time we have on this plane of existence. We have to love...and not take for granted...the precious time we have. 

He was still sad. But he understands.

For my daughter, it is somewhat easier. For her, Chewie is running and playing in heaven, no doubt eating treats provided by Grandma, and enjoying her reunion with her brother, Buddy.

It's been pouring rain for a couple days now, which does little to lighten my melancholy mood. But it is appropriate. And comforting in its own way.

That's all for today. God bless.

Happy 4th of July

Summer business (busy-ness) has officially landed. This year, in addition to all the usual stuff (kids, soccer tournaments, road trips, etc.) I'm dealing with all the 'stuff' of my deceased mother's estate. 

It's...a lot. Just the logistics of it all.

And cleaning out my mom's house has resulted in us cleaning out our own house. Split the kids into separate bedrooms. Converting the toy room into the new guest bedroom. Organizing the junk-filled garage. Again...it's a lot.

SO...that's why I'm not posting (in case folks are wondering). "Pickle ball camp" starts tomorrow (in friggin' Mercer Island) and I have been tasked with driving the carpool. I will be making a lot of phone calls to various banks and creditors while the kids are learning how to bat a whiffle ball with a ping-pong paddle. 

*sigh*

Probably should grill today. And mow the lawn. D&D is going to have to wait a bit.

Happy 4th, folks. Hope y'all are having a good one!

: )

Con Games

Hope those who celebrated yesterday had a wonderful and happy Father's Day. Mine was pretty good. The fam is generally pretty great about catering to my every want (for a change), though when no one besides myself is up before 11am, you do feel a little "short-changed."

; )

Still and all, it was great because the main thing I wanted to do was play some Dungeons & Dragons. Or, as I put it to my family when they asked, eight hours of D&D played in two four-block sessions with a break in between. Because I had some pretty specific play-testing I wanted to do.

As I mentioned a while back, I'm going to Cauldron, "the OSR EuroCon," in October and my plan, as of now, is to run three sessions with three different scenarios. As of now, I have two of the scenarios written  (more-or-less) but I feel it's important to test them and fine-tune them...I don't want to just show up and run a bunch of off-the-cuff stuff and crap the bed. Best to have an idea how things are going to unfold, see where problem issues are, etc.  I'm paying too much money for those plane tickets not to give a solid effort.

Unfortunately, what with the lateness of our start yesterday (the kids are on summer break already, which means late nights and sleeping in), we were only able to get through the first session. And that was okay! Because not only did the play-test go well (which was important), the kids were enthused enough about it that they are quite excited to to part 2 at the earliest opportunity. Or (as my kids put it):

Diego: I didn't really think this was going to be fun but it turned out to be really good!

Sofia: Yeah, Paps, I thought it was going to suck dog poop but it didn't!

The adventures are set in the classic David "Zeb" Cook module I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City. The first scenario is cribbed from the original tournament scenario, but tweaked and tuned for my purposes. Designed for five to seven PCs of 5th - 7th level, it is a fairly linear affair consisting of a dozen or so numbered encounters...which is about all you can expect to get through in four hours of focused play.

For our play-test, the kids broke out their 6th level PCs "Salamander" (elven assassin) and "Potter" (half-elf fighter). Neither of these characters had been used since last August (!!) because, while they had shown themselves to been fairly successful adventurers (knocking over both N1 and I6 and having last absconded with about 10,000 g.p. in owlbear eggs from an abandoned wizard tower), the kids had decided they wanted to create NEW characters that would not be subject to level caps...because of their particular class-race combinations, neither character expects to progress beyond 10th level.

[I *do* use Gygax's updated rule from Dragon #95 allowing single-class demi-humans a +2 increase to their natural level cap, though ONLY in the case of a class that could normally be multi-classed (like fighters). That's why Potter can expect to reach 10th level, and why Salamander canNOT expect to reach 12th level]

SO...since it's been 10 months since we used those characters, I updated their records with upkeep costs (10 game months passing when no active play otherwise occurring) along with their age records, etc. Before whisking the PCs down to the Oregon jungles, which is where the Forbidden City exists in my campaign world. Just what had been occurring to them while the rest of our campaign had been passing made very little difference...probably lost in a drunken haze of debauchery that is commonplace for adventurers after a successful score (see Conan the Barbarian for examples).

For the convention I am (of course) bringing pre-gen characters, taken directly from the list in the back of the original module. Since we only had two players in our game (Kieran, Maceo, and Winston presumably occupied with their own Father's Day festivities), I allowed the players to choose four of the six pre-gens to accompany them as NPCs. They chose Nasaldromus (5th level magic-user), Bruti (6th level dwarf fighter), Daniel (6th level cleric), and good ol' Olaf Peacock (a 1st level bard with 6th level fighting and 5th level thief abilities).

Timer on the clock was set and 20 additional minutes was granted for additional outfitting: swapping gear or purchasing additional equipment. The PCs had an extra suit of (dwarf-sized) Chain +2 that they gave Bruti to better his AC, and extra gear/weapons was procured and noted. I allowed the players a day to cast continual light on a pair of torches the day before starting on their adventure. 

[first "pro note" for the convention: we actually ended up running about 25 minutes over-time, so it's probably a good idea to have ALL pre-gens functionally equipped. That way minimal time will be lost in playing the session]

Nasaldromus was killed in the 2nd encounter area, which was kind of awesome (I mean dead-dead-dead). But it did leave the party without a magic-user for the rest of the session, which made several encounters MUCH harder/longer. That's good to know.

However, it brings up an important question: what do you do with players who get killed straight away? For us, it wasn't terribly important (Nasal was an NPC we'd only just met, after all) but at a convention this might be the character of a player who'd paid good money to sit down at the table. Is he/she just supposed to sit there for the next 3.5 hours watching?

[second "pro note:" have areas where new 'back-up' PCs can be introduced, seeded throughout the scenario]

There are at least three, fairly complicated fights in the adventure, consisting of multiple groups of opponents with varying abilities and tactics. Several of these include a vertical element to them, which adds further complication. In general, I've never been a DM to use miniatures or map grids in my AD&D games, instead making quick sketches when necessary or (with the kids) using Lego minifigs to show relative facing and placement of opponents, but this was pretty rough to run in actual play due to the time crunch. If we hadn't been pressed (pacing was brisk, for the most part), I would have preferred to calculate ranges (especially for missiles and movement) with more specificity, using right triangles, etc.

[third "pro note:" draw out area maps ahead of time; have scales and ranges pre-calculated and determine speed of climbing for all PCs based on armor and/or encumbrance. "Winging it" worked fine for our table, but at a con you never know what kind of stickler players you might have...best to be prepared]

The cleric was downed at the two-thirds mark...knocked down to -2 hit points, he nearly bled out (only being aided at -9). This meant no more healing for the rest of the scenario. Fortunately, the party members that remained had very good ACs (ranging from 1 to -1) and high hit points (40s+). But it was a close thing: the four remaining PCs were at 11, 12, 16, and 39 by the end of the penultimate encounter, and things might have ended very differently if the one of the quartet had blown his save vs. spells. 

The final encounter (only played after our time limit had expired) ended up being a cakewalk, though mainly because of streaky dice...Sofia rolled something like four 19s in a row and everyone was hitting for max damage, while my dice had run ice cold with nary a hit dispensed (and all damage rolls 1s and 2s). The players thought it was too easy, but mathematically it should have been very tight, especially given the shambling state of the remaining party members. Luck, which you can't really count on, had a huge impact.

While my initial thought was that an extra party member might be helpful in offsetting any streaks of "bad luck," on further reflection, I think that being able to 'sub in' new characters for downed PCs [see pro note #2, above] would accomplish the same end. All of those encounters get much easier with one or two extra bodies absorbing punishment.

All in all, a very good time. As I said, the players were very enthused...they'd said they'd like to continue playing I1 as a campaign game (i.e. open exploration) rather than in snippet scenarios designed for convention play. And I don't blame them: I1 is one of my all-time favorites of the classic TSR modules. 

But testing is important. I learned a lot of useful info from yesterday's play-test...stuff that will important when operating under the time constraints and more rigorous conditions of a con game. It's not that I'm worried a bunch of cranky Germans are going to leave me beaten and lying in a ditch. But I do want to make a good showing of myself...I care about my craft!

Anyway: it's been a while since I sat down for such a long session outside a convention. For the curious (and for my own memory), I make the following notes:

• Two PCs, four NPCs, average levels 6th (the bard counts as a 7th)
• 30 minutes prep (character selection, equipment purchase), 90 minutes play, 5-10 minute bathroom break, 110-115 minutes play. Game was "called" at that mark, one encounter short of the end. After (roughly) a couple hours break, we finished up the scenario in about 20-25 minutes.
• Total monsters slain (by hit dice): 44 (1 x22, 2 x8, 3 x3, 4 x1, 6 x6, 8 x3, 9 x1). Six combat encounters. Number of bugbears appearing: zero.
• Total treasure recovered: 42,400 g.p. (not counting enchanted items). 
• One NPC death; one NPC forced to retire prior to completion.

Not bad. Not bad at all, considering. Hopefully we'll get a chance to run Part 2 this week.

Writing Adventures

I got back into Seattle on Tuesday. My grandmother passed away yesterday (Wednesday); I got the call at the same time I was placing flowers on my mother's gravestone, one week after her burial.

Life goes on.

***

In addition to all the "real world" stuff I've got on my plate at the moment, I'm currently engaged in a crap-ton of adventure writing. I mean, a LOT.

The re-write/re-purposing of the I3-I5 Desert of Desolation series has been temporarily suspended. Not because it's not a great idea (I mean...I love it), that it's really not suitable (even as an open region of my campaign world) for exploration by characters under 3rd level or so.  And all my players are about to start over (Friday afternoon) with brand-spanking new 1st level characters.

TPKs have a way of resetting things.

SO, I need some low-level stuff to get them up to snuff. Because I've been busy, and because I needed a breath of fresh air, I took the time to comb through the racks and a game shop near my grandmother's house in Missoula. Shout out to Retrofit Games, which had an absolutely beautiful store and friendly/helpful staff, who were able to get me something sufficient for my needs (as well as great recommendation for a cheeseburger in town: Frugal's. Get "the Classic Fix"). 

What I got, was a 20 page DCC Lankhmar adventure module written by Michael Curtis called Grave Matters. I am on record as a "non-fan" of the DCC system (which I've played before, multiple times), but it's close enough to B/X...which is close enough to AD&D...that I can make it function with minimal work.

And I mean minimal. Curtis knows his stuff ("Duh," says all the people who own Stonehell Dungeon, etc. However, this is my first product of his so far as I know). For a measly $10, I got a book with TWO adventures (Grave Matters and Madhouse Meet), neither of which suck, and perfectly suitable for PCs of 1st and 2nd level. The treasure counts are even (well, almost) correct, which is the usual thing you find lacking in OSR games.

SO...yeah, Lankhmar-esque adventure is perfectly fine for my Bandit Kingdom Boise. And with a little x.p. under their belts, it should be a simple matter of slipping the group a treasure map to get them out into the desert...probably a nice way to leave behind past shenanigans.

But campaign stuff isn't the only thing for which I'm writing. Turns out I'm going to a game convention this year...my first since the pandemic...and even though it's not till October, I plan to be well-prepped for the three game slots I'm slated for. The con is called Cauldron, "the OSR EuroCon" and it's supposed to be a celebration of 1st edition AD&D that will play out over three days in Hessen, Germany. Fortunately, it is an international affair and so games will be run in English (the international language of tourists). 

Room and board...and beer...appears to all be included in the ticket price, but you have to bring your own books and dice, and I'm cognizant of my responsibility to represent the USA well (currently, I'm the only Ugly American on the docket). Because I am old and lazy, and because it is one of my most beloved adventure modules, I am re-writing I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City into something suitable for a three-part, con-style adventure series that...um...doesn't suck(?) too much (??). 

Con games are tricky: you have a few hours to get down to business, and (hopefully) provide a fair amount of game play, with a satisfying (or conclusive) end. Cauldron also has the additional challenge of being run with ADDKON rules (Germany's version of the FLAILSNAILS conventions)...which for me means that I'm not running these as one-offs but as adventures that will impact the PCs even after I've left their schönes Land (und bier) behind. No apocalyptic party-nuking scenarios, just good clean AD&D.

ANYway. It should be great, but I want to play-test those, too. And ideally, that will mean getting my current group up to 5th & 6th level by the end of the summer. Doable...but a tall order nevertheless.

Especially considering Prince of Nothing just announced his (third) annual NoArt-Punk contest. And, of course, I want to enter (again). And, of course, I want to put forth a good showing and build on what I learned in the last two NAP events. And THIS year, the theme is "high level" D&D, something that holds a special place in my heart. My last two entries (one of which was a finalist and got a place in the book) were both written for parties of 10th-14th level. I'm thinking this year's will be more in the 9th-12th level range, but I already have an idea for it and it's a little on the ambitious side: something on the scale of 60-some encounters instead of my normal 30ish. Which (to give you some perspective) would be around 50% larger than all three scenarios I'm writing for Cauldron combined. No small feat, especially considering I need to draw the maps and I suck at maps.

But NAP III isn't due till November 30th. Prince suggested I write it on the long flight back from Germany to Seattle. We'll see.

Yeah: a lot of adventure cobbling going on at the moment, some of it fairly ambitious. But working with monsters and traps and treasures and fantasy scenarios is a welcome respite from dealing with all the other "stuff" that's going on in my life at the moment. And these respites help keep me...mm...stable? Not sure the word I'm looking for ("grounded" ain't it). D&D helps let the pressure off; it's the valve that keeps the steam from blowing the kettle. I'm not sure if my life would function better (or differently) without it, but for right now I'm glad to have it.

Later, Gators.

Life And Death

Montana. 4:30am (local time).

Last Friday, after the kids got out of school, we drove out from Seattle to Missoula, arriving Saturday morning (we stopped for the night in Spokane). Monday night we set out back to Seattle, arriving by noon on Tuesday. On Wednesday, we had the funeral Mass for my mother and interred her ashes at Holy Rood Catholic Cemetery. On Thursday afternoon, I boarded a plane back to Missoula.

I'm sure I've mentioned my grandmother before, but I probably haven't conveyed just how much she means to me. If I loved (love) my mother a little more (and I love(d) my mother quite a lot) it is mainly due to the fact that she is my mother...the person who gave me life and, thus, gave me everything.

But Jeanne, whose name I gave to my daughter (Sofia Jeanne is named for my wife's only living grandparent AND my grandmother) is/was almost a second mother to me. When I broke my leg at the age of three, and was bedridden for weeks, she came out to Seattle to care for my infant brother and aid my mom while my father worked. Every Thanksgiving, we travelled back to Montana (where we stayed in my grandmother's house); every summer we spent weeks, or months here...often, just my brother and I. Often she came out to Seattle to be with us (usually at Easter time). 

I started dating the woman who would be my wife in March of 1998. In June of the same year, we drove to Montana so that she could meet Jeanne. The immediately hit it off (of course...they are both extremely lovable), and ever since we've made the effort to travel here in the summer for Jeanne's birthday (June 27th), often staying through the 4th of July. My wife has remarked, more than once, that she married me because of Jeanne. Truth be told, she loves my grandmother a bit more than my mother. And she loved my mother quite a bit.

In the Montana fashion, my grandmother taught me to play cards: cribbage and rummy and hearts. She was a competitive bridge player and tried to teach me bridge on more than one occasion. She is the reason my wife and children know how to play cribbage and rummy and hearts...games we often play while traveling or waiting in restaurants, instead of staring at phones and tablets like so many families (unfortunately) do these days.

My grandmother never played Dungeons & Dragons. However, many of the D&D books and supplements I own were purchased here in Missoula, at a used book store called The Book Exchange (it is still here, just a 5 minute walk from my grandmother's house, since 1979). My grandmother (like my mother, like myself) is a great reader of books: one wall of her bedroom is entirely taken up by a book shelves filled with books on Missoula, on Montana, on the native peoples of the region. Going to that bookstore with my grandmother, and poring through the treasures it offered, was one of the highlights of every trip to Montana in my youth. I purchased many comic books and Steven King novels there. I purchased my copies of White Plume Mountain and Against the Giants there, as well as boxed sets of the Stormbringer RPG (1st ed.) and Frank Mentzer's Companion set.

Today, sitting by my grandmother's bedside, I saw a copy of my own book, The Complete B/X Adventurer, on her shelf. I don't remember giving her that...perhaps my mother did? Regardless, I was surprised (though pleased) to see it there.

I will be here through Sunday (at least). Skipping the school auction. Missing a basketball game and a piano recital (the latter, at least, I can watch via the zoom link). I am here to help my aunt, to lend my strength to my uncles. I am here to be with my grandmother during her last days. It has been a rough 2023 for the family what with the deaths of my aunt Linda and my mother. I am here in my mother's stead, as her representative. 

I know she would be here if she could. 

En Español

As I wrote, I've been doing far less "D&Ding" of late. Probably doesn't help that the last game session I ran (April 5th, per my records) resulted in a Total Party Kill, including three PCs and at least as many henchmen and hangers on (I believe the total was eight, mostly seasoned characters). Damn harpies.

However, even though I haven't been playing D&D, it feels like I keep getting called upon to evangelize the Dungeons & Dragons game...especially concerning the way I play and the reasons inherent in...well, in doing what I do. Running into folks who I haven't seen or talked to in decades, the subject just continues to...strangely...come up. Some examples:

• One of my mom's best friends (and past supervisor or mine) ended up having an extensive conversation pertaining to the history of the game, detailing the entire history of the game its various editions and the state of the hobby. Her son-in-law is, apparently a rabid D&D fan who is teaching his own children (her grandkids) how to play.
• A woman who was one of my mother's oldest and most beloved friends (they were maids-of-honor at each others' weddings), told me how my authorship of D&D books has made me something of a minor celebrity (or at least "impressive figure of lore") in their family as her adult grandchildren are now big D&D fans, like their mother (whom I grew up with and introduced to the game...waaaay back in the day).
• A local attorney and old family friend who I contacted about my mom's will and testament (and for whom I used to run games: he was in my brother's class)...the first words out of his mouth were "Have they put you in the Dungeon Masters' Hall of Fame yet?" He had no idea I wrote a blog (or books) or was still gaming; he was just remembering the games of our youth. His own daughters, now in high school, play D&D, but it's a different game from what he remembers (duh) and after long discussion, there was some thought that I might run a game or two for his family to show them what it was like.
• Had lunch with my old college buddy, Joel, who I NEVER played D&D with (we were balls deep in the White Wolf back in the 90s), but who is now playing Pathfinder 2 on a weekly basis. Ended up having an incredible 3-4 hour discussion about the fantasy gaming hobby, its evolution the last 20 years, and why I'm playing AD&D these days (hint: it's not nostalgia). I think I might have even convinced him to come over to my side of the fence, though he's one of those types that stubbornly maintains it's all about the quality of GM, not system (and perhaps it is, but system certainly helps). At least he remembers my GMing in a positive light.

But here's the real kicker: the last week-and-a-half we've hosted some friends from Mexico in our home. These are very old, very beloved friends: the woman, Heidi, grew up with my wife (they were neighbors as kids) and both she and her husband, Carlos, hosted us in their apartment in Mexico City the first time I visited Mexico (in 1998). They were at our wedding (Heidi was maid-of-honor) and we've watched their kids grow up (their youngest is 21 or 22 now??!). We all get along quite famously, Carlos and I especially (he is fluent in English and we share a passion for beer, music, Star Wars, and American football), despite him being a couple years my senior.

However, I've never had a conversation with him about Dungeons & Dragons...until yesterday. Like, never ever. I think he knows I did the writing thing (??) but usually when we've hung out we've spent our time discussing family or sports or culture or food or beer (these days he is a master-brewer and owns/operates a good-sized micro-brewery in Mexico...one of the few). This trip we've spent a LOT of time talking about beer (he's been touring the local breweries) or the inconveniences of death (his father just died in December and he's faced many of the same estate issues as myself). I mean, he and I have plenty of non-gaming stuff to talk about: Carlos is one of those bright-eyed, intelligent folks who goes through life with curiosity and thoughtfulness and a mind open to discussion and dialogue.

But (perhaps prompted by my wife) yesterday he brought up that his niece "really wants to learn how to play Dungeons & Dragons" and wanted to know what I recommended. Hoo-boy...what a can of worms!

What followed was an attempt to explain one of the world's stranger concepts (RPGs) to our friends in some combination of English and Spanish with a constant barrage of interruptions (er...helpful interjections) from my wife and kids. The strangest bit might have been my non-gamer wife enthusing over how much fun (?!!) the game is and how they (Carlos and Heidi) should try playing as well. Diego even offered to have me run a game for them while they're here (thanks, kid) though my wife told them we could always do it on-line (???!!!) when they returned to Mexico.

[you have to understand that my wife is fairly obstinate in her refusal to play RPGs; and, yes, she's tried them on more than a couple occasions]

Of course, there exists some significant challenges with the lack of Spanish language clones for my preferred edition(s) of the game. Even native English speakers get lost in the complications of a game like D&D (forgetting, missing, or misunderstanding rules)...throwing an English copy of B/X or Labyrinth Lord at a native Spanish speaker (even one fluent in English) and telling them to learn the game and teach it to their friends unassisted is a tall order. Never mind something as convoluted as Gygax's 1st edition manuals.

SO, despite many misgivings, and out of an altruistic desire to be helpful (and an ambassador for the game) I did pick up a copy of the D&D Essentials box set en Español for my friends at the local game shop (let's hear it for WotC inclusivity!). I own a copy of the Kit Esencial (as it's labeled) myself...though in English...and it's not a terrible way to introduce some of the basic D&D concepts. I mean...

*sigh*

Okay, I'll be honest: It actually IS a terrible way to introduce D&D concepts, but it is also the easiest way to do so, when you're talking about young teenagers from a different culture needing concepts (like class and race and hit points, etc.) in their own language. For a game taking place primarily in the imagination and constructed almost entirely from words, it IS "esencial" that the instructions be conveyed in a readily comprehended idioma. 

And it reminds me again of my own failure to produce a Spanish language retroclone, something I started working on back in Paraguay. Español isn't MY native language, of course, and translation is hard enough without needing to translate fantasy concepts (how do you say "halfling?"). Even doing a SMALL clone (I was using the 40-some page Holmes Basic as a foundation text) is grueling, thankless work...especially when considering the unlikeliness that I'd ever use it myself. Why would I? I already own all the instructions I need in my own (native) language.

But...now...here I am, exactly where I feared back in Paraguay (when my kids were young and I was surrounded by a culture of non-English-speaking, non-gamers): in a situation where I want to teach the game, and without the instructional text to do so. And so I am giving my beautiful friends WotC box sets that feature dragon fights with dragons that have no treasure. NO TREASURE. Does a hoard-less dragon scream "D&D" to you? Does that say "fun adventure?"

*sigh* (again)

SO. I got my friends the box set to give to their niece, which should tide her over till I have something more useful to provide her (at least the thing comes with dice). And I also purchased a copy of the Spanish language PHB (5E) which I will use alongside my son's dust-gathering English copy to reverse engineer RPG concepts and vocabulary for a better (Spanish) basic set. Just something I've put off for too long, considering the culture that shares my life and household.

OH: And to all my Spanish-speaking (and, sure, Portuguese-speaking) readers...you know who you are!...if you have suggestions for already-existing retroclones of "old edition D&D" that you prefer, I'd love to hear about them. Thanks in advance.

; )

Don't Call It A Comeback

Let's see. Black coffee at hand? Laptop charged? Gray morning light streaming through the front window? Sixteen year old beagle snoring on the couch beside me?

Guess it's time to blog again. 

Let's start with the basics: my blogging "hiatus" was, more-or-less, a miserable failure. At least in so far that it was meant to enable me "more time to write." Fact is, I've spent the last two plus months mostly avoiding any kind of game-related ANYthing...not just blogging/writing, but even gaming in general. At least gaming of the D&D (or role-playing) variety. Which is really the only gaming that matters much.

Instead, I've spent most of the time either A) working on myself, or B) being with my mother. The self-work has mainly been of the physical variety: a lot of nutritional adjustment, a lot of exercise. Got down to about 162ish, which is probably still about 5-7 pounds heavier than I'd like, but my flexibility and endurance is much improved (back in the yoga). Was off the sauce and mostly vegan+fish for a while...that helped a bit. Decided, I guess, that I wanted to pursue a higher quality of life going forward...I'm going to be 50 in November, after all. Hell, spent a few days swinging golf clubs in the sunshine of Coachella Valley last month...I see the appeal.

But, mainly, my time has been spent with my mom and dealing with her affairs. And on Saturday, April 22nd, she passed away, dead at the age of 75.

I don't want to eulogize too much. But my mother has been an immensely important figure in my life (mm...probably a gross understatement). It's perhaps a bit too profound to put into words: how do you describe the loss of someone who gave you life, who has supported you and loved you unconditionally for your entire life? She was always a rock and safe harbor to return to whenever I needed her. 

And now...well, now I undergo the final rite of adulthood. I must say goodbye to that foundational piece of my life, that emotional safety net that has always been. And it somehow feels (in many ways) that a new mantle of leadership has passed to me. My mother was more dowager empress than family matriarch, but for my Montanan relatives she was a lynch pin (the oldest sibling), a pillar amongst her friends (the godmother of many), and for me she has always been a crutch I could lean on if/when needed. Now it feels as if everyone is looking to me to be the stable rock in the storm. It's not a position I particularly wanted for myself, but oddly enough it has eased my grieving process. Being forced to action has that effect, I suppose.

For my blog readers...well, there's probably no blog without my mom. She purchased both my Moldvay Basic set and Cook/Marsh Expert set many decades ago, as well as my first Players Handbook (when I finally figured out the AD&D thing was a separate entity). She did not encourage me to play D&D obsessively, but she certainly enabled my passion and...more importantly...did not discourage me from my pursuits. She never played a game of D&D with me, but she never told me to stop, never took my books and dice from me, never told me to quit wasting my time with a silly game. 

Or perhaps she did and I just don't remember. What I remember instead is sitting around the dining room table with her and my younger brother playing the Dungeon! board game at the age of eight. What I remember is her acquiring copies of my newly printed books and placing them proudly on her shelf (my mother's home, even more than mine, is lined with over-flowing book shelves in most every room). 

Anyway.

Expect blogging to be a bit sporadic over the next few weeks as I'm very busy with a number of things, not least of which is my mother's funeral arrangements and managing her estate (she expected to live into her 90s...my maternal grandmother is still going strong at age 93). We also have friends in town from Mexico for the next ten days, soccer tryouts for the kids, end of school stuff (auctions and whatnot), basketball season, blah-blah-blah. More yoga, of course, though I am back on the sauce (when your mom dies, you're allowed to tip a few), but that should be (mostly) ending about the time our friends leave town, i.e. by the 9th,

But, sporadic or not, I expect blogging to resume. I expect gaming to resume. The last month or so I've been realizing some...hmm..."interesting" stuff about my gaming, my writing, and my place in this funny little hobby of ours. And I've still got a few things (or more than a few) to blog about. And the blogging spurs my other writing...for whatever reason. So I need to be doing both.

Deep breaths. More coffee. Shoulder shrugs and apologies for being absent so long. 

Time to cook the kids breakfast. But I'll be back. I am back. 

Restraint

I need to write.

The trip to Orlando was a good one. Made it to the gate by the skin of our teeth (both ways!), but made it we did. The weather was lovely: cloudless, sunny days in the 70s-80s. Four days at the Universal parks and a couple days at Disney, and saw and rode on all the attractions we'd planned/intended. Very, very stress free for the most part, which is...frankly...amazing. No explosive arguments or catastrophes, and we even picked up a bunch of merch that we were (somehow) able to fit in our carry-ons without checking a single bag (we hate checking bags).

Lot of sickness, though. I picked up a sinus infection on the plane ride there, and it took me a couple days to get over it (but I managed). Then my daughter caught a cold the second to last day we were there and was able to pass it on to my wife and I just as we were pulling up stakes. Now back in Seattle, my daughter is on the mend, I'm, mm, pretty rough, and my wife is sick as a dog. However, tests show all four of us are negative for Covid, so there's that.

["masking" is not on the menu in Orlando. In six days at theme parks among thousands of people we saw exactly one mask on one employee (to be fair, we weren't wearing them either, outside the airport). But we saw a LOT of coughing and sneezing people, and plenty of snot-nosed children. I get it: you drop a load of cash on a Disney vacation and you're not going to skip it because you got a sniffle. Probably, I'm just germ-phobic in these post-pandemic times, but it's nice to be back in Seattle where no one bats an eye if you decide to wear a mask to the grocery store...hey, man, I'm protecting YOU, too]

Longest wait time for a ride was 2+ hours for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Second longest was about an hour plus for (tie between Jungle Cruise and Space Mountain). I do not like waiting in lines, but it is far easier to do with your family than solo (as I did with Space Mountain). But 2.5 hours definitely tries your patience, even with company. I mean, it really, really does. Probably a good idea to bring a cheap paperback novel. 

Most disappointing ride: Pirates of the Caribbean. I've been to Disney Land thrice in my life (once in Tokyo!) but never Disney World and not for 30+ years. Pirates has long been my favorite ride, and DW's version was: crap. I mean, it's obnoxious anyway that they've had to insert animatronic Johnny Depp into multiple scenes because of the stupid movies (at least I didn't have to see animatronic Orlando Bloom)...but the ride is SHORT...they cut out whole scenes from the DL ride, characters that were the basis for the original movie (like the bomb dude), all the undead/ghost stuff and...I don't know. It felt cheap and chintzy. And I just heard they're getting rid of the original ride at Disney Land, too, changing it for "Jake the Pirate" which is just...*sigh.*  I guess what counts as "adventure" for AdventureLand in the 21st century isn't the same as the 20th. Don't scare the kiddies with grim brutes and bloody cutlasses. Heavens!

The Magic Kingdom did seem geared to a younger audience. Asking for a beer in LibertyTown, the colonial-dressed cashier told me point blank "There will be no alcohol in the Magic Kingdom" in an ominous tone of voice. Like, none? Quite the contrast with Universal's theme parks, where the tourists are walking around with double-fisted pints from 9 in the morning. I mean, that's the way to wait in line (assuming it curls by a restroom). 

[DW's other parks...like Disney Hollywood...were a bit looser than Magic Kingdom in this regard. Though I heard from an Uber driver that a flight of beers at the SW Cantina costs $85!  Holy-moly! Most of the booze cost $12 from what I saw, but I'm not sure the additional $6 shot of rum would save that blue milk. Not my taste]

ANYway, all bitchin-moaning aside, we had a splendid time. Not sure if I'm a fan of the whole 3D/4D rides, as THOSE things made me far more queasy than ANY of the roller-coasters (especially that Escape From Hogwarts thing that the kids made me go on...twice! Nearly tossed my cookies every time we zoomed onto the Quidditch field). But those were mostly at Universal, where you could always grab a beer or a Bloody Mary to settle your stomach afterwards. And beautiful, sunny weather to stand around and drink it in (he says as he looks at the wind and hail...hail!...outside)...the fam had me cooking asado last night for Fat Tuesday and I was grilling in the pouring rain!

By the way, shout out to our hotel, the Cabana Bay (part of Universal) with its 1960s retro-modern vibe. Wow. Loved it...every bit of it. It was like a theme park unto itself (that theme being "1965"). But an extremely relaxing one. 

The one thing I didn't do much of, however, was writing. Oh, I had the chance to do some writing...mostly on the six hour plane rides. But a lot of it was just...mm...not "mean-spirited," so much as just negative. I find, more-and-more, that a lot of what I'm inclined to write about (at least, with regard to commentary) is poking holes in things that others praise...or bringing a hammer to things that others are "okay" with. 

I know, I know...I've blogged before about wanting to be constructive and positive, rather than destructive and negative. I don't really want to start singing that song again.

But it occurs to me that maybe there's a purpose for my negativity. Maybe.

Still, it's Lent and I want to practice a little restraint. Yes, I have one or two half-cocked (well, half-penned) rants waiting to be fired off, but I think I want to get a little more above the weather before I post 'em to Ye Old Blog. Just to make sure my heart's in the right place, I want to make sure my head is clear and non-stuffed.

[okay, now it's freaking snowing. Jeez]

This weekend...well, tomorrow, actually...the fam is headed out west to Port Angeles. My uncle recently passed away, and while there's no formal funeral or memorial (as my father told me long ago, folks in Port Angeles "never really took much to religion") there's a "get together" of friends and family at a (kid friendly) tavern. Very Port Angeles. 

[yes, in Port Angeles they're called "taverns," not bars or pubs, at least by the locals. Most places tend to have a nautical theme to it as well...restaurants have names like The Hook & Line or Smuggler's Landing or 48 Degrees North. My grandfather...and late uncle...ran a tavern called The Wreck for decades...]

SO, I'll be gone this weekend (again) starting tomorrow, and I've got a bunch of packing and whatnot to do before then, as well as a D&D session to prep/run. So...maybe regular blogging to resume again on Monday? I'm hoping. 

Hey...at least I didn't give up blogging for Lent this year.

; )

Later, ya' land-lubbers!

In The Time Of Covid

So...the boy was back at school Tuesday, per the CDC guidelines. By the end of the day, however, the middle school had been shutdown due to Covid outbreak (apparently, he wasn't the only one whose been sick with the 'rona...nearly a third of the kids in his class, plus several teachers). Since yesterday we have been back to Zoom learning, and here we'll stay for the remainder of the week.

Remarkably (*knock on wood*) no one else in our home has contracted the virus. Sofia continues to attend school (I'm waking her up in about 15 minutes).

The fam is leaving town anyway for a few days: heading to Orlando to visit Disney World. The kids are at a point where they're both tall enough to ride everything, but they're still young enough to appreciate and enjoy such things. Heck, I'm excited myself...though my enthusiasm can't help being damped by the costs and stresses involved in such an excursion. Just finding a place for the beagle for the week has been a major chore. 

Anyway. I hate these little nothing updates, but I don't know when I'll get a chance to scribe another gaming post anytime soon. Apologies.

Killing It Softly

All right...maybe a very SHORT blog post. 
; )

There is weirdness in the virtual (internet) air these days...anxiety over Dungeons & Dragons that I simply don't understand. Stuff about One D&D and the new OGL and the "death" of the game or the "death" of the OSR or...I don't know. Anxiety.

And I conclude this is just a cyclical thing, because Once Upon A Time, many years ago, I had similar anxieties. The Game Will Die. Go extinct...like the dodo. And my children's children's children will never know the joy of kicking in a dungeon door and sticking their imaginary blade in some fairytale monstrosity.

Alexis used to give me a hard time for worrying about that kind of thing. 

Who would carry on the legacy of D&D when all the old idiots like me had passed from this planet? Who would be left to understand the "right" way to play D&D?

*sigh*  It seems like every few years I have to take stock of my own past idiocies. It's a constant process of refinement called "living an introspective life."

Cyclical. I was recently hipped to this old Raggi blog post from waaaay back in 2008...never read it at the time, and only heard about it through this video post of him reading the transcript.  However, even if I had read it back in 2008, I'm afraid much of it would have been over my head...just as it is clear from the comments that much of it was over LOTS of folks' heads. The problem is, he is conflating multiple issues into a single rant and thereby burying (or at least, confusing) the kernels of truth that he'd hit upon. 

It's taken me decades of self-work and re-wiring analysis to synthesize this kind of thing. Here's probably the best bit:

You're not playing a game pretending to navigate your playing piece (called "a character") through some story where you get to be the hero! You are using the rules to pretend to be someone and experience and react as that person would though a dangerous world. Nothing more, and nothing less. If you want to be the hero...then you get to try. To guarantee success is to defeat the entire purpose of role-playing.

[if you want to read the most pertinent bits of the post, rather than the entire screed, I'd suggest beginning your read AFTER the indented tangent]

And, you see, to me that IS fun...if by 'fun' one means an enjoyable pastime that one wants to continue pursuing for the pleasure of it. Despite his provocative title, Raggi doesn't "hate fun;" he hate's a particular brand of time-wasting that some folks (including he himself!) lazily assign the convenient label of "fun."  

I can grok that. I've been hitting the holiday goodies and holiday booze a little too hard lately myself (and my waistline bears witness to the fact). Tis the season, as they say. And while it's all well and good to hate one's lax discipline in January (and vow to take steps to rectify the back-sliding), it's important that we appreciate just why we have this period of time when we "let ourselves go:" we are enjoying the company of our fellow humans and sharing a bond of seasonal joy (and stress!) together.

Which is, of course, one of the great benefits of the Great Game of Dungeons & Dragons. It helps us connect with our fellow humans, sharing joys and excitements and stresses with them in a fashion that is UN-likely to leave (real) folks dead and bleeding on the ground.

Has crass commercialism killed the spirit of Christmas? I realize that sometimes it can feel like this. But what IS the "spirit of Christmas?" It's not like Jesus (the dude my fellow Christians and I celebrate) was born on December 25th...that was simply the day the Romans celebrated their winter solstice festival...the darkest day of the year and the mark of the return to growing light in the world. Folks wanting to listen to cheerful music, decorate their homes with lights, give gifts, and eat/drink special foods with loved ones this time of year should feel little guilt in their holiday enjoyment...whether they're believers in Christ and His message or not! If you're celebrating your shared humanity...and not robbing and murdering folks...then you're probably showing more "Christmas spirit" than MANY of us display for MOST of the year.

I celebrate Christmas in my own way...just as I play Dungeons & Dragons in my own way. I have adapted holiday traditions of my mother's family, my father's family, and my wife's family, as well as creating traditions of my own for my own family. My children will synthesize these traditions and add their own twists and tweaks...just as they will do with their D&D games. Just as their children will do, some day down the road.

Will the continued commodification of D&D and the iron grip of corporate greed destroy D&D? Are you kidding me?

Pick up an extra copy of your favorite rule system (print on demand is still available for many books). Teach the game to someone young and imaginative. Pass along the rules to them to explore on their own. Share your joy. Engage with your fellow humans in a deep and meaningful way...one that is active rather than that of the passive consumer.

Doing this might assuage some of the anxiety. Maybe even cause it to dissipate entirely.

I (half-)joke that I'm an old man. "Old" is an extremely relative term. I'm not even 50 (that's next year), and my low impact, semi-healthful lifestyle has kept me at about the same level of fitness for a couple decades. Even so, I've been playing D&D for longer than many players have been ALIVE...that makes me a real geezer in relation to the gaming community.

Here's my "geezer wisdom" for my fellow gamers this holiday season. Worry less, play more. Play for the experience; play for the connections it makes with others. 

I'll talk at y'all in the New Year (or possibly, next week). Have a happy one, folks!

Monday Morning

Mmm.

Lot of distractions lately, and I'm not just talking about the putrid football coming out of the local team.

[make no mistake: the Seahawks are not good. And I was at that Monday Night Football game where they beat Denver. That victory was 85% crowd...I haven't heard the stadium that loud since the NFC championship game against Green Bay. Hell, I'll even give myself credit for starting the chants of "Geno! Geno!" but, at least in our section, we meant it in a sarcastic, raucous way in order to poke the eye of...and stick it to...Russell Wilson. If you rewatch the broadcast, you'll see that the chants started in the second half (when the offense was stinking up the joint and the ONLY thing Smith was  doing was running the ball like a poor man's RW). We weren't actually backing the QB; we were yelling nah-nah-nah at the Broncos and their $250M man. Longtime fans who remember the AFC West will remember how much we hate Denver]

No, the majority of distraction is all family-related. Good things to be sure...not financial issues or health issues or marital issues or anything like that. School, church, and a TON of sports activity. Yes, sports participation for the most part (two kids on four teams, one of which I'm coaching), but also 2-3 fantasy leagues (that I'm running, or helping to run, for extended family), a Blood Bowl season of 16 teams, and then the ongoing, must-follow fun of the NFL, Sounders team (struggling), Mariners team (ascending), and local college programs.

[let's not forget the Seattle Storm's playoff run...yeah, it ended a few weeks ago, but I didn't post much even in August, and the Storm was part of that. Much love and respect to Sue Bird] 

Fact is, Dungeons & Dragons has, in general, taken a backseat. Oh, I did get something written up for the second installment of Prince of Nothing's "No ArtPunk Contest"...a little high level one-off for AD&D that came out to some 17ish pages. This one actually got some play-testing from the kids (Diego, Sofia, Maceo, and Winston), and much fun was had.

[a couple quick notes about that (for interested parties): none of the players have "high level" characters, so they used pre-gens made specifically for the adventure (these were included with my submission adding another six pages for a total of 23). Second, on average a party of 10th to 14th level are looking for the same x.p. as a party of 16th, 18th, or 20th level so treasure scale for high level adventures aren't all that tough to write...the main thing is to create scenarios that take into account the higher level of resource attrition. I might talk about this in a future blog post]

But other than that, I haven't been doing anything as far as running/designing for D&D. I was playing in my son's AD&D campaign...absolutely destroying the Keep on the Borderlands (that's a future post, too), but even that's been put on (hopefully brief) hiatus as our focus and priorities have shifted.

And so we come to the "Blues" part of my Monday Morning: I know I've been lax in blogging, but there's two things that have delayed/prevented me from posting. I've kind of decided that I really, really want this blog to be about gaming, specifically D&D, AND I want it to be as positive and constructive as possible...which I've probably said a dozen times in the past but this time (yeah, sure) I really mean it.

I've got multiple posts sitting in draft form on Ye Old Blog because they just tend to go off into fairly negative rants (also, they're not all that good...you folks aren't missing much). And while it's easy to denigrate someone's play style or design work or gaming ignorance...or even The Company's failings...that's all a waste of my time. I mean, it's not like I haven't vented that a gazillion times already, right?

I want to be helpful. It IS useful to tear things down to build them back better and stronger, but I have to make sure that that's what I'm doing. Doing that takes focus...and the distractions get in the way of focus. Right now the majority of my focus has been on my family and (probably not surprisingly) the kids I'm coaching. I could certainly blog about the latter...but, then, that's not D&D, right?

[by the way, ripping on the Seahawks isn't exactly positive, but players and coaches in pro-sports are paid millions of dollars to entertain fans. I don't feel zero remorse about expressing negativity and disapproval to guys making that kind of money: that's the job, dudes]

So, a bit of a quandary. But I'll give it a shot, in the next few days, to get things going. I should have a little more time coming up (especially after next weekend). I'll try to put together a list of topics and see if I can't bang out a couple per week in the next few weeks.