Gaming related annoyances

Awhile back, I posted a question to the too-clever-for-their-own-good gang over at The Forge. Its the place you go to talk about indie games, or how to play games - and I mean 'how to play' them in the snooty Simpson's comic book guy voice.

I asked a simple question, and gave some context.

All of the answers completely ignored the question, and provided tons of feedback about my context.

Let me analogize: Let's say you post on a home repair website, "Hi, I'm replacing the garage door to my home, and I wonder if you would recommend brand A or brand B?"

And you receive some responses:
"Interesting project. Sounds like your home must be aging some. Have you checked to make sure that your roof is not leaking? A leaking roof can really kill your home, it causes all sorts of problems."

"When I'm replacing a garage door, one of the first things that I always do is mow the lawn. Why? Well because an unkempt lawn looks awful, and just drives me nuts!"

"Instead of replacing your garage door, have you considered tearing down your garage? You could convert it into a patio or a nice garden."

I even posted a followup, to point out that no one was really addressing my question, and that the context was just that - context. To which my replies were like this:

"Well, I don't understand why you are not concerned about your roof. Doesn't sound like wise planning to me!"

Gee, imagine that. Someone on the internet needs punching, AGAIN!


Second gripe:
Nit picking over pregenerated characters. I'm running a game with pregens. Thusfar I've had almost no problems, everyone is fine with playing what I've handed them. Except one dude, who wants to nit pick over it, and then when I'm less than willing to start changing stuff (or letting him play characters that are not available), he's not interested. Good riddance.

Players Wanted, Let's Try This Again

I'm either optimistic, or a glutton for punishment. After a less than amazing response to my post about skype gaming, I'm hoping that if I beg a little harder, I'll get a little pity and can get a few people to throw their lot in.

Here's what I'm running:

It's called Digging for Dead Gods.

Its a Call of Cthulhu scenario, but wait - don't draw your conclusions yet. This is not a CoC scenario in which the good guys do some investigating, and then beat up some cultists. This has been referred to as a "blood opera". Its nasty. And you'd be playing bad guys. Sortof. But you know, there's always someone worse - or in this case, something.

So if you're even somewhat interested, please drop me a note. It is a one shot, and I see it taking about 4 hours, but I'm pretty flexible about when we run it, and will try to coordinate in order to get 6 people together at once.

Players Wanted: Online One Shot

I'm looking for people to participate in a one shot skype-style role playing game.

I don't want to give it all away, but it's a horror themed game. We'd play most likely on a weekday evening, around 7pm central time until about 10 or 11 central. I've got six slots available, and its first come, first serve. Though if I can somehow find an even dozen, then its TWO one shot online games.

Serious, I need you. Post in the comments or email me.

4e Lightning Storm

Someone please use this idea, if you're running a 4e D&D game. I suppose this could be used in any game, really, but all of the juicy mechanical bits seemed right for 4e.

Take any outdoor scrap, and throw in a terrific lightning storm!

Jagged bolts of lightning crash furiously all around and amidst the fight. Each round, roll 1d6 each round for any character with significant metal (armor, weapon, etc). On a 1, let them make a save of some kind for half damage against a lightning strike. Use the Damage by Level thingy to figure out how much damage to dish out, but it should be on the high side, probably. Goes for PCs and monsters, of course. Keep in mind that if armorclad PCs are fighting some kind of non-armory opponents, it'll put the PCs at a more significant disadvantage than if they were fighting chainmail orcs or something. For anything not in armor, make it a 1 in 10 chance of a lightning strike. Oh, and let anyone hit, and anyone adjacent be stunned or dazed for a round.

For added fun, throw in some rain-slick, anyone moving more than 10 feet makes a save or ends up prone.

Happy 4th

Happy 4th of July, folks.

We did the Firecracker 5k yesterday. Maddie and John registered, but then had a wedding to go to, so they sent us in their place. Took a ton of pics, enjoyed just taking pics of the crowd. I'm dumping the lot of them here for your enjoyment. We walked it, since we had Piper with us. Also, she finished it just ahead of me...

Then I got out and did a run today! Yay running! 2.5 miles, and another .5 walking. It was H O T.

Also, I'm going to make an effort to get this here blog back on track. I don't wanna make promises that I can't keep, but I'm going to try to do some more running (despite the heat), and make some more frequent gaming related posts. Woo!

Food: Yum!

I came home from work this evening, and looked in the fridge and the cabinet, and was at a loss for what to eat.

We've done "Jerm's Chicken and Rice and Green Beans" to death. To. Death.

We had a pound of ground beef in the fridge that we needed to eat, and I felt like potatoes. On the other hand, I was feeling so uninspired... hm, potatoes and ground beef? Uninspired.

Trying to just do something a little bit different, I wondered if I could do a schnitzel- breaded meat. I was working with ground beef though.. so I did a little searching and quickly found a recipe.

So I did my good ole sliced up potatoes with olive oil and emeril's seasoning. Along with breaded hamburger patties. Also on a lark, I made up some onion soup. 2 cups of water, 2 beef bullion cubes, about 1/4th of a cup of diced yellow onion (should have used about twice that much onion).. I was uncertain if the onion soup would come out, but it was quite good. Then at the last minute I threw some green beans on the stove, and we were good!

I love food.

Conspiranoia

This post is half baked, for that, I apologize. Surely you've had something spring suddenly and randomly into your mind, and then posted a long rambling post to the internet about it, right?

I love me some conspiracy theory. Sorta.

See, conspiracy theories seem to swim around in two ponds, like a venn diagram. The ponds are connected, and some conspiracy theories are in the "plausible" pond, and others are in the "okay, I'm not really that crazy" pond.

Aliens at Rosewell New Mexico in the 50's [edit: 40's, get it right. duh.]? Sure, I'm in. Something Bigger at play in JFK's assassination? I'll bite. We never landed on the moon? Wait a second, slow down there. The Illuminati move quietly and powerfully through the world, moving nations like pawns? Nah, I wasn't too crazy about DaVinci Code. (BTW, that's another gripe I've got, which I'll get to later, or another time).

See, conspiracy theories are really just alternate theories about what really happened. And we all know, or at least can assume, that perhaps during a few points in human history, something happened other than what we've read about in history books or in the news or on wikipedia. Because.... big shocker here... sometimes we lie about stuff.

There's a certain stigma associated with conspiracy theories. Coming right out and saying "Hey, I don't believe everything that I read in the news and in the history books." can really get you labeled a weirdo, depending on the kind of people that you hang with.

But how much "alternative theory" can you buy? A little or a lot? I'll buy that Lee Harvey Oswald was not alone in the shooting of JFK. I'll buy that there were aliens, or something other than a weather balloon at Roswell. But faked moon landings? I guess conspiracy theory is subjective. I'm sure it plays into each persons understanding of the world, science, religion, philosophy, etc. While I'll buy some things and not others, someone else will pick a whole different set to believe in. If I had way more time and such, I'd create some sort of poll, or, I dunno, maybe research it with google or something, because surely someone's already done this - take 10 or 20 fairly common conspiracy theories, and go around and poll a few thousand people and see if they believe it is real or nutty. I expect that some would get high buy in, like JFK's assassination, while others would get somewhat lower buy in, like - I assume - fake moon landings.

Is the idea of he US being aware of an impending attack on Pearl Harbor a conspiracy theory? /random

One of my favorite conspiracy books, and aptly named, is Conspiranoia, you're welcome to read it if you ever come to my house and use the bathroom.