Previously, in Trip's Life...
31 July 2012 - Tuesday
Cow Orker M has successfully returned to his lair, despite the best
efforts of the airline industry.
(I had some trouble downloading Stealing
Cthulhu, but I contacted the author (Graham Walmsley) and he responded
promptly and helpfully.)
Walmsley's thesis is that most allegedly Cthulhoid gaming is very unlike
the works of Lovecraft[1], and going back to the originals for inspiration can
produce adventures that seem novel. He doesn't say it, but arguably the
genre jumped the shark at the time Call
of Cthulhu started calling PCs "Investigators". Lovecraft's
protagonists rarely investigated anything; they had knowledge thrust upon
them, or inescapably correlated knowledge they already had. Similarly,
they almost never defeated the cultists and interrupted the ritual at
the climax of the story; they snuck away and/or ran like bunnies. (In
fact, there weren't actually a lot of cultists in Lovecraft; mostly
solitary sorcerers.)
[1]And some Ramsey Campbell, but not August Derleth.
The first part of Stealing Cthulhu analyzes the primary
sources (can you call a work of fiction a primary source?) into portable
pieces: stock locations, set-piece scenes, themes, descriptive
techniques. These can be mixed and matched, but there are a few patterns
that seem to be essential:
- Only one kind of monster per story (minor exception for ones that
are closely tied, like Elder Things and Shoggoths, or Great Race of Yith
and Flying Polyps)
- Start with a lot of narrative distance between the PCs and the
monster (they hear about someone who collects stories of monsters) and
slowly decrease it until they see direct evidence of the monster and
finally, at the climax, encounter the monster itself.
- In parallel, increase the uncanniness: first there could easily be a
natural explanation for events, then there could possible be a natural
explanation, until finally things are obviously Not Of This World.
The second part discusses about a dozen monsters in detail: their main
schticks (the Great Race of Yith possess people, lloigor are immaterial,
mi-go put brains in jars), what kind of stories they lend themselves to,
what themes they support, how to mash them up to keep players guessing,
etc. Finally, there's an extremely minimal system based on a couple of d6s
that one could use to play Lovecraftian horror without being deceived into
thinking that one can do anything against monsters.
In addition to Walmsley's insights, there is commentary from other
Kenneth Hite, Gareth Hanrahan, and Jason Morningstar, which appears in
different forms in the eleventeen different document formats that
Stealing Cthulhu comes in. I think it the commentary is
about as useful on a per-word basis as the main text.
Conclusion: This was a very interesting book, and I will certainly
consider it deeply if I ever run anything Cthulhoid again, but... am I the
only one who finds it suspicious that the author's name has four consonants
in a row?
- Nodame Cantabile 9-10: NC suffers from the very
common trope of "sexual harrasment is funny", but it does have female
characters who have high status but are neither young and beautiful
nor withered old crones.
- Yozakura Quartet 5: IIRC, in the manga version of this
episode, Ao already knew to not use her powers, because episodes like
this were in her backstory. I guess putting things on TV really does
always dumb them down and tack on an obvious moral. :(
- Shrine of the Morning Mist 1-2: Ack, 15-minute
episodes! Dave did not warn me when I mas making the schedule! Now
everything is all higgledy-piggledy!
- Welcome to the NHK 3: I wonder what the protagonist has
been doing for the past three years, if he only just now learned what
the Internet is for.
These cats are suspiciously friendly. I wonder if someone has let
their food dish run out?
Primary Sources by Ayse (Wed Aug 8 18:01:30 2012)
Yes, yes, yes, works of fiction are primary sources! I say this as a lit major!
Re: Primary Sources by Trip (Wed Aug 8 20:00:35 2012)
Okay! I thought that might be the case, but I wasn't sure!
Make a comment!
30 July 2012 - Monday
Yuck, Monday.
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
29 July 2012 - Sunday
Jeremy and Rachel were not available to bribe us with gaming munchies,
so Dave and Earl and I went up to Adam's place in Berkeley to play Diaspora
Effect and eat his gaming munchies. (Cat was there too, but just to hang
out, not to game.) Adam lives in a twisty maze of residential streets, all
different, or at least at different elevations, which seems pretty nice. It
may even be nice enough that I am not filled with horror that his cat is
indoor/outdoor. (Deer don't eat cats, right?)
We tried out the Diaspora social combat
system, which was confusing but interesting. Now we know how to bend the
other PCs to our will, when we finally game with Jeremy and Rachel. We know
some stuff about the plot, too, but it all just leads us to needing our
archaeologists back, so the next session might not be until September.
All of my character's Aspects are horrible and need to be redone.
Hurray for Marmasnuggles!
Make a comment!
28 July 2012 - Saturday
Finally, after a lapse of mumble years, I have
finished all eight volumes of Venus Versus Virus (Atsushi
Suzumi). The ending was not anything unexpected, but I did like the throne
of books the villain perched on.
Soul Eater Not! (Atsushi Ohkubo) is a spinoff of Soul
Eater, but as of the volume 1 it is not as interesting and the art
style is unappealing.
I had read The World I Create (Ayami Kazama) before, but
I didn't recognize it from the description Dave gave, so he lent it to
me. It is still a cute set of interlinked stories.
We hear that Ja Baby carefully instructed her parents on how to invite
Dave and Auntie Marith and Uncle Trip over for hamburgers! I probably did
not need more hambugers, but they were definitely tasty.
After Ja Baby went to bed, we watched episode 18 of
Lucifer. Only two
more episodes until everyone dies! (Except the people who wish they were
dead.)
I did not bring any hamburgers home with me! Obviously I am the worst
cat dad ever!
Make a comment!
27 July 2012 - Friday
Last day of Cow Orkers B and M and Future Cow Orker D being in town.
Also, company barbecue of doom. I ate hamburgers because a huge chunk of
the company is vegetarian and it looked like the veggie patties were
going fast, but I'm not sure that was really wise.
Not on call!
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
26 July 2012 - Thursday
Big Customer X has secured their cluster to the point where it no longer
works, which is an effective way of ensuring that no one misuses it. There
may be side effects, but that's hardly Security's concern, is it?
My Life as a White Trash Zombie (Diana Rowland) is pretty
much what it says on the tin: high-school dropout with no prospects in
rural Louisiana gets turned into a zombie and has to deal. It works out
pretty well for her, but zombiedom is clearly not good for everyone.
After finishing the book, I calculated that it takes a population of
around 10 000 to support one socially-functional zombie without
affecting the homicide statistics. At one zombie per 100k or 1M humans,
it can get into Unstoppable Zombie Overlord territory.
No Earthdawn tonight because Ken is dead from auditing. No alternate
entertainment because Ayse is dead from not napping.
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
25 July 2012 - Wednesday
Apparently climate change denialists actually make me want to puke.
Huh.
I sent this to the
person he was haranguing, anyway.
I am probably blighting my career permanently by not networking, but I
really wasn't up for going to SF to watch Batman movies and stay out
drinking until a million o'clock at night.
Yes, cats, I am bringing you more gooshyfood! See? Now you do not
have to eat me alive on Saturday morning!
Make a comment!
24 July 2012 - Tuesday
Hopefully we are successfully teaching the n00bs, and not just
blithering uselessly. I guess we'll find out.
Who would have thought that men who make a lot of money might be part
of the Patriarchy?
The Outcast Blade (Jon Courtenay Grimwood) is the further adventures of
a hapless vampire in alternate Venice. As one might expect, many people
die, most of whom either deserved it or were asking for it. I feel
pretty sorry for one secondary character in particular, but really, if
your name begins with "Desd-" and you live in Venice, you should know
better than to get engaged to a Moor.
- Nodame Cantabile 8: Apparently they can't get rid of
him that easily! Next time, they should use chainsaws. And napalm.
- Penguindrum 23-24: Now we know some things,
but not everything. The End!
- Yozakura Quartet 4: Touka is still cutest. (Yes, I know
having this opinion makes me a loser.)
- Welcome to the NHK 1-2: I laugh at this show, but
probably shouldn't.
I really should spend more time petting cats.
Make a comment!
23 July 2012 - Monday
Ugh, Monday.
It is so warm that Marmalade did not want to recline upon his throne of
fresh laundry!
Make a comment!
22 July 2012 - Sunday
Hey, look, I don't have to GM! People don't have to have me GM for them!
However, we do all have to learn how to play FATE after uncounted
years of playing crunchy games where we pretended to not run roughshod over
the GM.
I think we did okay, although we are so not combat-worthy. For some
reason, psionic snow foxes are not impressed by Repair 5, Assets 5, or
Charm 5.
Only the volus understand the asari trap!
Today's popular app: Infinote.
It turns out a bunch of Sticky Notes™ is all you need to make a Diaspora character
sheet.
Where did my stack of After-School Nightmare go? I
vaguely remember seeing them recently, but they are not in any of the
places I am looking.
I see you prowling around with your tail almost kind of up, Miss White
Cat!
Make a comment!
21 July 2012 - Saturday
All Monkeycats, all the time!
We started with brunch, continued with
Dominion, took a
short walk with Ja Tricyclic Baby (who pedals "so, so, so
fast"), oppressed Marith with ratatouille containing both eggplant and
peppers, and finished up by watching Inception.
Dave did not like Inception at all, but Ken thought it
was best movie ever and Ayse liked it okay, and they had many theories
which corresponded with the Earl Theory (which Marith and I mostly
accept).
It was pretty hot today. Maybe I should start leaving a fan running
when I'm gone so the cats don't melt.
Make a comment!
20 July 2012 - Friday
We made it all the way to Friday! New Cow Orker B is flying back home
for the weekend; Cow Orker M and Future Cow Orker D are more sensibly
staying here.
Next week: more training montages sessions!
Clockwork
& Chivalry uses pretty much the same system as Call
of Cthulhu so naturally it must have a Mythos-related supplement, which
is Clockwork
& Cthulhu. There are new factions (cults, sorcerous cabals,
heretic Catholic monster-hunters), a few new spells, writeups of a few
monsters and Great Old Ones, and three moderately substantial
adventures featuring Mythos favorites. The sanity system is an exact
parallel to the hit point and wound system from the main game: just like
warfare can cripple your body for life, seeing monsters can cripple your
mind for life.
Aspen walked back and forth through the living room several times
while I was watching Princess Resurrection, but not because
she doesn't hate me.
Make a comment!
19 July 2012 - Thursday
Surprise! Cow Orker A got to deliver the training montage today!
Clockwork
& Chivalry is set in the time of the Civil War, but in an alternate
history in which the Royalists use magick and alchemy, the
Parliamentarians use clockwork war machines, and Charlie got the chop
four years earlier. It turns out that a country
that's falling apart is a great place for a band of crazies with wildly
disparate origins to get into trouble way over their heads!
C&C uses a variant of Basic
Role-Playing, modified to put personal beliefs (expressed as
righteousness points in the faction you belong to) on the percentile scale.
There's also a new wound system and crit tables, because it's not a civil
war without people tripping over their own entrails (or something like
that), and a bunch of standard features like magic points, the SIZ stat,
and Bladesharp.
It seems like it should work, especially for people who like history,
don't mind percentile systems, or both.
Levellers FTW!
The Jheris Gentlewomen's Needlework Association declined the fake
Senator's invitation to meet him and a few of his closest goons for a
secret midnight discussion, then summoned the real Senator's ghost for a
chat. Not a huge amount of information was gained, but Beatrice likes
talking to ghosts, and we were able to give his family a heads-up about
the imposter.
Surely the ghost's revelation cannot mean that the helpful Chief
Architect we've been confiding in and relying on for guidance is a
Mad Passion cultist. Surely.
Ghirardelli may not be able to take those ravens, or the apartment
manager, but he can totally take that jingly toy mouse!
Make a comment!
18 July 2012 - Wednesday
Fortunately the customers are mostly leaving us alone while we induct
the new Support guys.
Damnation for Beginners (Alan Campbell) is a novella
(published as a book) set in the same world as Scar Night,
etc, about a hapless yet heroic customer service minion, an exceptionally
evil corporation, and the architecture of Hell.
Ad Eternum (Elizabeth Bear) is a novella-length book
about Bear's vampire detective character in alternate 1962. Despite
occasional explosions, not much detecting happens; it's a character
piece.
Aspen still holds a grudge for being introduced to Apartment Manager Hope. :(
Make a comment!
17 July 2012 - Tuesday
I was going to be mad at the customer for exploding his cluster, but
it looks like our docs don't tell him how to not explode it, so
instead I will just be sad.
- Kara no Kyoukai 7: It was actually suspenseful to
almost the very end, since they could totally have gone either way with
that ending.
- Penguindrum 22: There are enough episodes left to kill
off the rest of the named characters, but probably not enough to
explain things.
- Nodame Cantabile 7: I'm sure some of the A Orchestra
people were jerks, but that was just mean.
Next week, Welcome to the NHK!
Fuzzy, fuzzy cats!
Make a comment!
16 July 2012 - Monday
Starting today, we have in town Cow Orker M (Support engineer who works
from Philadelphia), Cow Orker B (new Support guy who will be going on
site to hold customers' hands), and Future Cow Orker D (who will be a
Support engineer working from St Louis once we pry him loose from his
current manager).I only really met B and D today, but so far they don't seem like
they will annoy us more than customers. Future Cow Orker D in particular
has already endeared himself to us by disentangling some of the mystifying
TD stuff that has been plaguing us since the acquisition.
Cow Orker B is from Hawaii, which explains why his accent seems
familiar.
Mmmm, Afghan food.
I might be playing a mysterious alien in an environment suit in
Earl's game. Dave is also playing an alien in an environment suit, so
obviously I will have to come up with extra-awesome aspects to
differentiate my character.
I briefly considered the idea of wearing a mask to gaming and using a
text-to-speech app, but a) I'm lazy, and b) tabletop gaming involves too
much out-of-character communication, insufficiently separated from
in-character speech.
Skinned (Robin Wasserman) is about meatbag prejudice toward
those who have uploaded into a more durable state, and how little someone
who was once part of the privileged class likes it. Also, the perfidy of
little sisters.
This cat is so opaque!
Make a comment!
15 July 2012 - Sunday
I finished rereading the published part of Yozakura
Quartet(Suzuhito Yasuda), and still like it better than the anime.
I'm not sure I can say it's the pacing, exactly, since the first manga
volume does drop the reader into the middle of the crazy shooter incident.
But, in the manga, the mayor carries a lacrosse stick, while in the anime
she carries a spear.
"Zombie boy with magical girl powers" sounds promising, but
Is This A Zombie? (Sacchi, Shinichi Kimura, Kobuichi *
Muririn) does not do anything interesting with it.
Last (for now) session of Palo Alto D&D! The PCs managed to avoid
having to fight the ghost of the Fomorian king any more by giving him
what he would have wanted had he only known it, and betraying their satyr
hosts and leaving them to disintegrate in civil war. They snuck out to
the teleport circle, and if we ever play again, they will have to deal
with the kindly old gentleman pottering around in his triffid patch.
Earl is taking over the time slot with his Mass
Effect-derived Diaspora game.
UHF was a much more nostalgic experience than I
expected.
Marmalade has Advanced Seat-Stealing Technique. I think it is an
Orange Cat Special.
Make a comment!
14 July 2012 - Saturday
Ja Baby and her mom and Marith all came over to admire the kitties,
who were very admirable! Then we went to
dim sum and feasted
with happiness.
That is pretty much all I did today.
Make a comment!
13 July 2012 - Friday
This was a quiet week. I did not actually accomplish anything,
though.
You know those ice cream machines that have two flavors and a lever
in the middle to combine them? If you put Sci Fi on one side and Ancient
Greece on the other, the middle lever would get you Hellas.
Unfortunately, the Sci Fi was left out too long and has dried up: it is
both tiny (planets have all the ecological and cultural diversity that
can fit on one sound stage, asteroid belts are fields of boulders
constantly bouncing off each other that you have to slalom through)
and flat (spaceships reverse course with Immelmann turns; hyperspace has
up and down which correspond to closer/farther from realspace, leaving
only two dimensions for travel). This may be mandated by their central
conceit of planets == Greek city-states, but that doesn't make it not
bad. Put another way, a mashup of two concepts should be multiplicative,
not subtractive.
Adventures
in Wonderland is not any better than you'd expect Wonderland + D&D3.5
to be. Oh well.
Ghirardelli is not usually much for toys, but lately he has been
playing with a small stripy ball. Maybe he is learning from Marmalade?
Make a comment!
12 July 2012 - Thursday
Someday we're going to have to actually make someone who misses the
meeting responsible for everything, just so people take it seriously.
Earthdawn! The PCs confirmed that the senator is an imposter, and he
put a mind spell on Isidari, but they were not able to provoke a fight,
even when Beatrice stole the tattooed skin of the corpse of the real
senator(?). Next session, we'll have to try harder to be annoying.
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
11 July 2012 - Wednesday
So far this is being a pretty quiet week. I'm sure the customers are
just saving everything up for Friday afternoon.
Vulture Peak (John Burdett) is the fifth or so in a series
about the one uncorrupt cop in Bangkok who gets mixed up in bizarre murder
cases involving deeply crazy people. This episode's theme is
organlegging, which it still hurts my brain to think is a real crime.
Hopefully it will become obsolete soon.
Seven Leagues (Hieronymous) is a fairy-tale roleplaying
game with minimal system, only slightly above the level of "write down
five things your character can do and three things your character can't
do". The interesting thing is that it has both rounds and one-roll
conflicts: play goes around the table with each person describing how
their awesomeness is FTW and getting awarded a -1 to +3 modifier that
stacks up until someone runs out of ideas and calls for the final roll
to see who wins.
With so little in the way of mechanics, the fairy-tale flavor has to
be conveyed with examples, which works okay. There are some sample PCs,
and then three sample adventures (presented as stories in the contingent
past tense: "if the heroes had then done X...") with lots of NPCs.
This is explicitly not a game for people who care about continuity or
minmaxing.
Special nitpicking note: calling statements about what your character
can't or must do "Taboos" is wrong.
I reread what there is of Qwan (Aki Shimizu), but it
still stops at volume 4. I should search around for scanlations,
obviously.
So many paws!
Make a comment!
10 July 2012 - Tuesday
Customers not too wretched today.
The Dead White World (Graham Walmsley) is the first part of
Cthulhu
Apocalypse, a set of Trail of Cthulhu
modules that start with the end of the world England. The
emphasis is on atmosphere, because it's not like the investigators can
save the world through action or anything.
- Kara no Kyoukai 6: Someone other than Shiki gets to
kick ass! Also, that magus must have been a fey pact warlock because he
was totally using Eyebite.
- Penguindrum 21: Family trauma! Mysterious meetings in
dubious joints! Doooooom!
- Nodame Cantabile 5-6: There's some saying about honey
and vinegar that seems to apply here...
- Yozakura Quartet 3: Compare and contrast tonight's two
kotodama users! But the anime format is not working very well for
YQ; not enough time to get attached to the cute thing
before it suffers a horrible fate.
Last medicinal treat for Ghirardelli! At this point, the prednisalone
has done as much good as it's going to do, I guess.
Make a comment!
9 July 2012 - Monday
Argh, getting up in time to commute is so horrible! Fortunately not too
much work stacked up while I was away.
It's fairly common for modern fantasy novels to have magic in the
shadows, unknown to most of the population.
The Liminal People (Ayize Jama-Everett) is more like
superpowers in the shadows; not so many summoning circles or ancient
books, but plenty of shapeshift, mental illusions, and TK. There are
many hints dropped that Something Bigger is going on, but they aren't
resolved within the book, and probably don't need to be.
Unfortunately I didn't find the main character's fear of his creepy
boss who never shows any powers or his love for his estranged family
very convincing. I'm not sure why.
Costume Not Included (Matthew Hughes) (sequel to The
Damned Busters) is also adjacent to the superhero genre, although in
this case it has the trappings more than the powers, and the superheroics
are only a minor part of the story. It's really theological fantasy (Christian
subgenre — I'd say "heretical Christian" but everything is
someone's heresy).
I don't think the trilogy is going to end with the
destruction of the world, but it's really unclear at this point.
I meant to do things, but mostly I petted cats and went,
"Durrrrr".
Make a comment!
8 July 2012 - Sunday
Last day of vacation! Tomorrow I must get up super-early and go help
people read manuals. (Although not, as one of my cow orkers did at a
previous job, sit and read the manual out loud to them.)
By The
Book has quite a lot of fanservice, but it entertains me. (D&D3.x is
still a horrible menu-based system, though.)
Although I do not own Starblazer
Adventures, I figured it was close enough to Legends of
Anglerre that I could understand Mindjammer
(Sarah Newton), which I picked up because it sounded kind of
Cordwainer-Smith-esque from the blurb. Sadly, it's not very, despite
impulses in that direction, but it looks like a viable SF setting as
long as you don't peer too closely.
Radioactive mutant space Nazis FTW!
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
7 July 2012 - Saturday
No brunch, because Ken and Ayse have gone to confirm that no, they cannot
afford to live in the good part of Oakland, because they are not
millionaires.
No gaming, because Dave has cancelled Academy of Science and no one is
running anything and also Oakland.
The Black Opera (Mary Gentle) bills itself as "a novel
of Opera, Volcanoes, and the Mind of God", which is all true. It
also contains intrigue, alt-historical cameos, deviant gnostics, and
heroic atheists. Because Mary Gentle is awesome.
BookBuyers has failed me! Or I
have failed them, depending on how you look at it, I suppose. But I was
able to cart most of what they rejected to the library donation point
and still catch the bus back home, so at least I was efficient in my
failure.
I never expected them to reject comics, but perhaps they have
discovered that only generic superhero comics sell.
Doodling
Around is cute.
Look, cats! They are so fuzzy! And adorable!
Make a comment!
6 July 2012 - Friday
This time, Ja Baby past 8 o'clock was only about 8:30. There were
windmills, and many readings of the Mail Carrier Bear book.
I went to the bookstore and library and lunch, but mostly I spent
today being in my own apartment with no people but with my cats (who are
all fine, of course).
Recently there have been some "old school renaissance" RPGs from
designers overwhelmed by nostalgia for the days of original D&D, when games
had RULES, and those rules would destroy your character with a single
failed die roll, or even a successful die roll if you hadn't correctly read
the GM's mind. I think Dungeon
Crawl Classics (Joseph Goodman) is supposed to actually be one of them,
not satire or parody, but it's hard to tell. I mean, the official method of
character generation is to make at least four 0-level characters (3d6, in
order, period, with randomly-generated peasant occupation) per player and
then send the whole lot into a dungeon and hope the number of survivors is
at least equal to the number of players. d3, d5, d7, d14, d16, d24, and d30
are all frequently used during play. There are crit tables, to ensure that any
character could, at any moment, expire in a shower of gore. Most spells have
effects unpredictable not only in magnitude but in kind, and any spell could
cause the caster to permanently lose stats or otherwise mutate toward
unplayability. Etc.
Possibly more annoying than the rules is the all-pigshit-all-the-time
fake-Medieval background, the kind that tries to make up for every instance
where someone in the Middle Ages accomplished something, no matter how
trivial, all at once, in the name of "historical accuracy". No one knows
anything, no one has ever been more than half an hour's walk from their
hovel or met more than six other people, currency and the the written word
are completely unknown, etc, etc. And why does your mob of "historically
accurate" miserable peasants have an elf in it? Bah, world-building is for
effete modern weenies! Get into that dungeon and start dropping like
flies!
So uh yah. Not recommended.
The Apocalypse Codex (Charles Stross) continues the trend of
pastiching(?) a different 60s spy author each book, this time with one I
recognize. Also, Bob continues to be in more over his head each book. However,
the Parasite Anti-Defamation League would like to issue— never mind,
they seem to have reduced the spokesprimate to a gooey mass of nutrients for
their larvae.
John Carter of Mars is super-cheesy, but at least the green
martians had four arms. What's up with the red martians wearing clothes,
though?
Did I mention I like my kitties? Even Aspen?
Make a comment!
5 July 2012 - Thursday
HAPPY HAPPY JOSH-DAY!!
There were cupcakes. Also, we played Munchkin Fu
and ate food from um some restaurant after Sherilyn talked Josh out of
wanting the strange Hawaiian food that other people don't eat.
Because other people were playing Race
for the Galaxy, I reread the first volume of PS238 (Aaron
Williams). It is pretty funny, but I don't find it as hysterical as some
people do. I think my humor is defective.
D&D never materialized.
I forgot to call Marith, but I expect she remembered to give
Ghirardelli his medicine.
Make a comment!
4 July 2012 - Wednesday
Happy Ungrateful Colonists Day!
Roseville's local comics/gaming store did not have much I wanted to buy,
because I don't play Pathfinder or White Wolf, and have all the D&D4 stuff
I need (and then some). But we did get the Grand
Dames and Be
Not Afraid... expansions for Small
World, and then played them. As is typical for expansions, they were
more complex than the original races and powers, but not excessively
so. I was crushed like a bug again.
We levelled up our Infinite Archipelago characters in case Al felt
inspired to run, but every time I have to confront the fact that D&D4 is
so grotesquely menu-based that it takes a computer to manage the list of
thousands of feats and items, I hate it more. Bah.
Ken's sister Jamie stopped by to hang out, which brought the number
of people there to 15. That seemed like a lot, but maybe it was just
hatred of menu-based systems diffusing into general misanthropy.
Grill! Grill! OK!
None of us visitor types went to see fireworks, because we are old
and lazy (except Ja Baby, who is young and must sleep 16 hours a day).
There are many people here, but no cats.
Make a comment!
3 July 2012 - Tuesday
We left at Ja Baby past 8 o'clock this morning, which was more like 9:45,
but there was not much traffic, so it all worked out. Roseville is very hot,
but our amazing and wonderful hosts have a pool, which is full of water. All
visitors like the pool, especially Ja Baby.
Also, we have been introduced to Small World,
which is very silly but pretty fun. Naturally, I suck at it, but I suck at all
games.
Putting Small World together with King's
Blood would make great setting history for a fantasy game. "And then
the elven kingdom was overrun by flying ghouls, lead by the Pope of
Corruption"!
There was a tragedy involving chicken and fire, but we were saved by
sausages.
Marith remembered to give Ghirardelli his medicine and also feed and water
an assortment of kitties who probably didn't appreciate her as much as they
should.
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2 July 2012 - Monday
Today I am finally really on vacation! Cow orker A has to do the customer
meeting! I don't have to do anything except laundry!
Marith used so much PTO on her spine that she feels she can't go to
Roseville, but at least she can take care of the cats. Probably they will not
eat her!
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1 July 2012 - Sunday
The Battle of Blood and Ink (Jared Axelrod, Steve Walker) ends
with a plan that should have killed everyone who appeared on-screen and only
didn't because of completely unforshadowed deus-ex-machina. Also, the art
didn't do it for me.
Three different kinds of cyclopes is too many for one combat. Also,
symmetric battlefields with too much open space are boring. However, soon
people will no long be subjected to my horrible GMing! Earl is going to run
something derived from Mass Effect using
Diaspora. Not that I know
from Mass Effect, but everyone else seems interested.
I have to finish this horrible adventure in Satyrland first, though. Maybe
it's time for TPK.
Twelve paws!
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