I swear to Dog that work needs to back off. 2nd weekend in a row where I've put in 16 hours or more on projects at the last minute.

I understand grabbing an opportunity, but planning helps people. Really.

So I'm burned out again, and today doesn't look like much of a rest.
Emails started flooding in with changes and alterations to material I produced already as soon as I logged into the VPN.

Peachy.

I'm not sure if I'm going to run anything this week. At least right now I'm thinking no. Mentally foggy. Want to play. Want. Just can't bring myself to build up the energy to do it.

On a side note, a friend of mine has been tempting me with Rift.
I am totally tempted. I love MMO's and something unique looks good.
I love WoW. But... it's just hit a dull spot with me.

I enjoy all aspects of the game. But dungeons are too much for me at this time. I started running a tank in November of last year, and loved it. Easy peasy. But now, I'm struggling with the mechanics of it. I don't want to spend an hour to two running 5 man's.
I don't know if it's the content, me, my spec, or what. It's just not fun. And I don't want to pay for not fun. Y'know?

So Rift has a lot of options, does alot of what WoW does, and is all new. I enjoy the traditional fantasy races, but I want something... different from a solid fantasy game.
Unique races, with not the same ol tropes.

I'd love an MMO that has one faction. Not Horde vs Alliance or any such thing. That way there is a common goal. Let PVP be like WoW arena's, testing player vs player. I'm tired of the "Horde sux" "Alliance is ghey" mentality.

It builds an animosity that doesn't need to exist in a game.

Anywho... I tried EVE online and couldn't get into it this weekend. It's lovely, but I couldn't figure out for the life of me what the heck I was supposed to do.

So I'd like to play an rpg/mmo. I may end up checking out NVN2 or Dragon Age just to have something to let my imagination wander with.

But it's monday.

Slow start, great follow-up

With the slow start to the new year gaming, I found myself filling the time with work, and other things(other than family) instead of RPGing.

But in the last 2 weeks, I've gotten in 3 games, and am heading for my 4th game of the year this week.
I ran two games, and played in one(my friend Craig's Cthulhutech-mwahahaha). And we're now on track for the third game in a row of my DnD game.

And I've made some changes to the game to help speed it up and allow my players to progress faster.

• I've added the "you level up" functionality instead of rewarding exp at the end of each session. Less book keeping and more control on my end of how the ebb-flow of the game will be. Plus they love the faster progression.

• 1 minute rounds for the players. Hastens game play and gets people focused on the game. If they finish up their turn within the time, they gain a poker chip with they can use as a +1 dmg or attk bonus. They can only use one per attack or damage roll. They can have as many as they can earn, but they can turn in three of them for a +2 chip.

So far my players love it. It made for a faster game play in terms of combat, and I didn't have players getting "analysis paralysis".

I plan on adding in Complications from Burning Wheel/Mouse Guard for failed rolls. So things are not a total loss something will engage the player from their attempt.
For instance, the group is searching for a lost grain merchant. They know he went into the Harrowing Woods. The party decides to let Velrin use his Nature to track the merchant down. Velrin fails, by a lot, he doesn't find the merchant, but does find the merchant's wagon with scattered grain and tracks.
So it's an attempt to create a sense of drama from a failed roll.
I should have done it in the last game when the Fighter rolled a critical miss on an attack. The person she attacked had a hostage in one arm, and his weapon in the other. I had her describe her miss, which kinda fell flat on my end. I should have told her, "in your aggressive strike at the duergar, you barely miss him but do connect with the gnome hostage. Blood sprays forth from a grievous wound splattering your face, blinding you and wetting the floor." But I didn't... oh well.

Even the best laid plans...

So how's this for a kicker.
In my "so-ultimate" plan for better gaming. I have to cancel my first true game of the new year, and back out of a character generation session in a Cthulhutech game one of my players is putting together.

All because of work.
I love my job, don't get me wrong. But it's a beast at times.
This week being one of those times. Multiple projects with due dates this week, covering/helping the UK with projects and leading up "potential" projects that I have no clue about. Oy.

Just frustrating... working 7-to-7(or more) daily lately, and pulling in plenty of weekend hours too. If only I were paid by the hour...

Here's to a better week next week.

Keep it together, man!

So in my attempt at running better games, I've been fighting the elements and losing.

Not the Primordials.
The sleet, snow, ice and scheduling woes that come with adult life and gaming.
My group has not gamed since before Christmas.
Christmas. Of 2010.

I was the first to bail out on our game coming into the New Year. Work has picked up significantly for me, and usually alot more toward the end of the week. Seems by Wednesday's I'm looking at half-a-dozen projects that are due now!

So I canceled the first one and rescheduled. But Winter has put us on hold. Seems North Texas isn't prepared for snow and icey conditions. It's always "Look it's a snow flake! Shut down the city! It's the end! Woe! Woe!"

But last week it was a interesting sight. 13 inches of snow at my house and it didn't just melt the next day with the normal 80 degree weather in Texas. Oh no. It stayed and stayed. And stayed.

And it seems we're in this position again this week. Albeit, a much smaller amount of snow, but lots of ice and problems with scheduling for everyone.

My solution may be just working to keep the excitement of the game alive. I plan to do this with Obsidian Portal.


I've looked Obsidian Portal as a resource for a while but haven't been motivated to use it.
I have a group that only uses the resources I provide at the table some of the time. I was concerned that if I created/setup our game there that it wouldn't be used.
So I stopped myself before I even used it.

Now after not playing for almost 2 months, I want something to reinvigorate our game and I think I'll check this out and maybe even pick up a subscription.

The site allows me to create a wiki of the campaign, store maps, handouts, npc's, pc's and a ton of more stuff.

I see the npc aspect a strong plus, as well as the possibility to store info about the game there. I've got notes and pdf's on my computer and laptop, but I need to put them somewhere where I can access them and my players can too without having either machine available.

I'm starting today, and will update you tomorrow(if not sooner) how well it goes over.

Keep your fingers crossed.

The Farce is strong in this one...

So in an attempt to "bring my A game" to the gaming table, I find myself revisiting some rpg's I hadn't finished reading. Or have read, but needed alot more reread to get my head around certain mechanics.

Shadowrun 4e for instance.
Love the setting and premise. The rules throw me off a bit. It's not that they're hard, they just have a ton of stats. And as I've gotten older, I like fewer stats in my ... uh... stat block.
I bring up Shadowrun not to bash it's lengthy stat blocks, but to fufill a promise I made to myself to finish reading certain rpg's, and run them. In the very least, read them enough to understand how to run them.

One of the games is Bash Ultimate Edition. A superhero game with a pretty easy game mechanic. But it's reeeeaaaalll loose in some of it's rules, which on one hand is great, on another... I'm struggling with it. I love openess in gaming. I love Fate, Fudge, and a few other systems that have rules but encourage alot of gray area.
Bash in it's simplistic nature also becomes deep quick.

Point in fact, my daughter Brianna who's such a wanna be gamer. Let me rephrase that, is a gamer-in-waiting. She wants to play this game. She took the rules and made up a character. She got the basics down really well, but we found out that in the process of creating her character how complicated these simple rules could become.

Not complicated in understanding them, but complicated in that we could take so many roads to get the kind of character she wanted to run. And that... was and is blowing my mind.

And due to her High School scheduling of things and my work has completely been a stumbling of us getting to play. And thus my reading of the entire book and running has fallen on its face.
But hope springs eternal. The new cartoon series Young Justice has recently respawned our interest in playing this. I've picked it back up, started sketching out a couple of adventures and written down villians. This could happen.

I'm rambling now.

So my Gaming ADD is building up strongly. And I don't know how to combat it. Because we live in a world of accessibility, too many outside influences seem to catch my attention and I think "OOooo I can run this doing X".

Oy. I need help.

Don't watch twitvid's without knowing what they're about

So in a search for something unrelated... I stumbled across an interview with Jim Butcher, author of the Dresden Files from late last year. He's chopped off all his hair(much like me) and shaved down his beard(not like me-I don't have one).



Because he's one of my favorite author's, I watched. Only to find out the spoilers from the book Changes, which I hadn't read yet.

Oy!!!

While I normally don't mind spoilers, because I'm the kind of person who enjoy's the journey of a story and can appreciate it not matter how I find out. This was a kick in the stomach.
I can appreciate the interviewer plugging his upcoming short stories book, but really? Really? The ending of Changes.

Now I have to step up my reading to finish the series. Not that I needed much arm twisting, it's just that I've got soooo much stuff on my plate I can barely keep up with my other interests and read for fun too.

At least I know there's more Dresden Files coming...

A new year, and yet again... a new attempt

Like many bloggers, and people in general this time of year, I'm restarting my blog.
Mostly so I can post on the interwebz, and get my thoughts out. Not that I don't on a regular basis, because I tend to lurk and post on rpg.net so getting my opinion out is something I do often...

I plan to post at least once a week, more often if I get a chance.



I'm currently working on upping my Game Master skills. I'm trying to reinvent the way I approach my games. Due to time restraints and real-world conflicts, I've been running a a campaign using a lot of published adventures which I've tied to my home game. Mostly with good success, but from my point of view I'm still lacking. I've got a straw man plot that I'm trying to reinforce as we further our game along.

So I'm trying to increase my skills. I've started rethinking how I do things and really start practicing more of things I preach. "Say yes or roll dice".



I'm running a 4th Edition DnD game at the moment. And it's been the longest game I've run in quite sometime. Alittle over 2 years. Wow... I've been good about keeping my GM-ADD under control, but it's starting to buckle. With such great games as the Dresden Files, Legends of Anglerre, Strands of Fate, Gamma World 4e, Bash UE, Icons, Shadow, Sword and Spell, Legend of the Five Rings 4e, and waaaay too many more to list all calling to me to run. Ugh.

Anywho... I can run those. But it all works the same, I gotta bring my game up. I gotta take my GM skills to the next level.

And I will.