Rick Jones' Journal

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Na
Percent Complete: 65%
Days out of 30: 19.6
Tasks: Went through closet and bookshelves. (Still need to put books on swaptree and post here if anyone wants to give the comics a good home.) Went through living room toy drawers with The Boy. Made some progress getting rid of broken toys and random stuff that was in there. Almost nothing in the "go to charity" box, even with the bribe of a new toy for giving kids the old ones. May have to lean on the boy more heavily. Also discovered we have a LOT of Legos. Going to need a bigger box for them.

To be done: Hall Closet (putting off because that's where I put all of Arden and Roman's stuff). and Jack's room (expecting results similar to the living room toy drawers).

Today's Campaign Ideas
Inspired by

drelmo's recent post.

Star Wars: The Nightsaber Wars. Set a few thousand years post Battle of Endor, a group of young Jedi are the only thing that can possibly stand against the Empire Of The Eternal Night. An all-Jedi group with the Action Dials turned up to 11. (Note - you could play someone who can barely lift a rock but happens to be a badass in some other specialty.)
New Gods: Inspired by the game Scion and Matt Wagner's Mage comics. The Titans escaped from Tartarus and beat the crap out of various mythological pantheons. Only by casting their essences down into mortal shells were the Old Gods able to escape and plot their return to the heavens. Using some super-hero game system the group could agree on. Meanwhile, the Titans have set various beasts to hunt down the escaped gods.
Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies: You're the heroic crew of a skyship. You sail the Seven Skies, having merry adventures and thwarting evil schemes.
We're In The Phone Book, Under "Heroes": Using Dresden Files (playtest version for now). You guys are a bunch of urban fantasy hero types (Vampire Slayers, White Council Mages, folks like Billy's Werewolf Pack).
The Black Rose Campaign (houseruled 4E, capping out before Epic Tier). It's hard to write up in a few sentences, but it's a darker world than the default setting. Lots of theft from Dragon Age: Origins and Changeling: the Lost. The campaign motto is "sometimes heroes have to make hard choices." You play members of an ancient order of monster hunters. Vile things will boil out from the dark holes in the earth and your job is to slay them.

Oh Great God Of Freelancers, Shine Your Light On Me
I'm in the running for a cool freelance gig. It would be awesomesauce to get it. Cross various lucky appendages.

I caught part 1 of The New Prisoner. Jim Caveziel has the unfortunate problem of not being Patrick McGoohan, and it shows. Not that the poor guy is bad or anything, but The Number Six I grew up with would have gone through five or six Number Twos while NewSix is on his first. On the other hand, NewSix appears not to need drinking water in the desert. Which is a plus.

Once again, my DVR skipped the new Venture Brothers. Thankfully, it shows up on AdultSwim.Com pretty quickly, so I am covered there.

Kat and I are caught up on Castle. We started to tackle Glee, but discovered that since I'd programmed it to only hold the last 5 episodes, we've missed a couple. That's fixed, but now we have to figure out some way to get those eps.

NaDeCluMo
Percent Complete: 47%
Days out of 30: 14.18

Did a lot of catching up today, since I didn't do much. Also, I went through the last of my cushion jobs, so now it's down to crunch time. Hall closet. Jack's Room. Jack's ToyBox in the Living Room. The Office. Urg.

NaDeCluMo and other updates
No progress on Monday or Tuesday. Today, I aim to catch up again.

Gaming: We're playtesting for Owlcon. In this case, it's not the adventure itself, just a couple of fights so the DMs can get a handle on how many encounters to make the adventure and if the various teams are properly balanced.

Reading: Found a copy of one of David Eddings' non-Belgariad series (I forget the name, but the main character's name is Sparhawk) at Kat's and started reading it. Very formulaic, but there's witty banter and interesting characters.

Watching: The only thing I've been keeping up with is Venture Brothers. Kat and I are way behind on Castle, Heroes and Glee.

Creative: Noodling with a 4E setting that I may pitch to the group at some point. On one level, there will be morally easy monsters to fight. But then there's a whole other plane of morality floating around the question: "what price are you willing to pay to save your world?" For instance, a kingdom cut a deal with the Sidhe Courts in return for assistance against the Forces of Darkness (TM). Well, the check is now coming due and these Fey bear a much closer resemblance to the Dresden Files' Mab and Titania than they do to Elrond and Galadriel.

NaDeCluMo
Day 8 (morning - the day is young)

Percent Complete: 27%
Days Out of 30: 8.18

Chores Done: Put a bunch of books and DVDs up on swaptree.com. Kitchen is "All But Garage Sale" (though I know we'll do another pare-down when Kat moves in and we get rid of duplicate things). Master Bedroom is ABGS.

RPG Books In Need Of A Good Home
Contact me if you're interested.

Champions:
* San Angelo City of Heroes

Mage: The Awakening
* Guardians of the Veil

Mutants and Masterminds 1st Edition:
* Crooks
* Freedom City
* Mutants and Masterminds Annual #1

Promethean:
Magnum Opus
Pandora's Book
Promethean The Created
Saturnine Night
Strange Alchemies

HP Podcraft & NaDeCluMo
Just recently discovered the HP Podcraft - a Literary HP Lovecraft Podcast. Each episode, they take a look at one of HPL's short stories, discuss it, and provide some context. It's a lot better (and a lot less stodgy) than I thought it might have been. Check it out.

Percent Complete: 13% (3.98 out of 3 days)

It helps when you have a couple of "easy" rooms.

Normally, when I wake up at insanely early hour, I goof around on the computer until it's time to get going because I'm too groggy to do much of anything else. But I could manage to de-clutter the master bathroom.

NaDeCluMo & Swordmage Smiting
Bad day for de-cluttering. It's all on my own head - I coulda worked on it a couple of times but took the "I'm too tired" excuse.

Percent Complete: 6% (1.98 out of 3 days)

In other news, The Tuesday Gaming Throng has started our annual Owlcon Playtesting. While I will refrain from saying which event we were working on, I will say that the 18th level Shielding Swordmage I played was rocking the house. Even when I was chewed on (and swallowed), I was still busting heads and forcing monsters to chose between eating my teammates or me. I did feel bad for Theron, who got stun-locked in the middle of the fight or so, and thus did not get to share in the awesome. However, it's good that we find out this sort of thing (and adjust the encounters accordingly) now in the playtest instead of in the middle of the con.

Personally, I'm waffling about my own 4E round. An enormous project is coming down the line for the next couple of months and is about to eat my head until right before Owlcon. I should be able to squeeze in the time, but I don't want to commit until I'm sure I can do it.

NaDeCluMo
Percent Complete: 6% (1.98 out of 2 days)

Tasks Done: Closet is mostly complete. I really need to go back in and organize photos and Jack's art.

NaDeCluMo
Like

ciaracat, I am embarking on Nation De-Cluttering Month. Before I know it, I will have a wonderful new bride in The House, along with her 2 cats, 1 dog, and All Her Stuff. So, in order there to be a place to put it all (and because I have Too Much Stuff), Some Of It Must Go.

Percent Complete: 4% (1.2 out of 30 work-days complete)

Tasks Done: 60% of master closet. Goodwill clothes, blankets and pillows dropped off. Jack's kid-clothes have been washed and are about to be sorted for donation to Friends With Triplets and Goodwill.

Q&A Meme
* Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile."
* I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity
* Update your journal with the answers to the questions
* Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions

1. Your gaming friends stage an intervention and get you to commit to running only one RPG. What is it?

Wow. Each attempt at an answer I come up with, it's really a way to weasel out of it. First, I thought "okay, Mutants and Masterminds or Hero, because with a super-hero system, you can do anything. And then I could run a Pulp game one month, and a Fantasy game the next." Then I thought, "well, D&D is pretty flexible - I mean, D&D includes Eberron, Dark Sun and Spelljammer, so I could probably scratch various itches that way." If cornered, I guess I would go back to one of the super-hero systems (M&M if I got to pick, Hero if Our Group had to go along with it.), just because even if I couldn't run different campaign types, super-heroes are suited all sorts of different stories in the comic.

2. Pizza or sushi?

Easy. I don't care for sushi, but pizza is a food group all its own.

3. How did you get into gaming in the first place?

My best friend from middle school came back from camp all excited about D&D. He showed me the Basic Boxed Set and told me I was going to be the Dungeon Master. It was all downhill from there.

4. If you could be any superhero, who would you be?

Hmm. That's a tough one. First I'd ask for clarification as to whether or not I'm getting a copy of their powers or if I get to become them in their universe. For instance, it'd be awesome to have Spider-Man's powers, but I wouldn't want to BE him. But after some thought, I will just punt and say I'd like the powers of a super-brainy guy, like Mr Fantastic or Brainiac 5 - someone who can invent all kinds of cool stuff.

5. What the hardest thing about geek parenting?

So many of the things we took for granted as being always on and available just aren't anymore. For instance, J and I were talking about something and I mentioned Elmer Fudd. J looked at me quizzically and asked who that was. Now, in my defense, all of the Looney Tunes DVDs are in my Netflix queue and he will see them, but I remember those being re-run every Saturday morning in one form or another over the years. These days, I might find Baby Looney Tunes or something but not the Real (Uncut) Deal.

Crossing the Streams
So Green Ronin is releasing a tabletop version of the upcoming computer game Dragon Age Origins. If you check out the trailers, DAO is rated "M" because the violence is a lot more gory than the average computer game. Seriously, Dexter would look at all the blood splatters and give up.

And then I thought, "wow, that's interesting considering it's the same company that did Blue Rose."

So now my brain is churning away on Red Rose where the "Romantic Fantasy" of Blue Rose meets Dragon Age's "epic tale of violence, lust and betrayal." Granted my knowledge of Dragon Age is limited to poking around on the web page and watching the trailers, but I wonder what would happen....

what a couple of weeks
But when all was said and done, well over 1000 more computers were added to the data center. It was long, hard work, but it's done now. Sadly, I'm on call this weekend, when all the users will be beating on the new boxes, so it's not really over yet.

In other news, the hard drive on my home PC died and my garage door went blooey. It does give me motivation to reinstall everything to clean out all the crap that's accumulated on it. And thankfully just about everything was backed up, on my thumb drive or in google docs.

Reading: Red Seas Under Red Skies - the sequel to the Lies of Locke Lamora. Ocean's 11 in a low fantasy world. (Okay, this one is Ocean's 2, but you get what I'm saying.) I like it, especially the way the narrative shifts forwards and backwards in time.

Watching: Nada - I don't think I've watched much of anything over the past couple of weeks.

Gaming: Gaming With The Spawn went incredibly well. I am very entertained by

hwrnmnbsol's spawn being Mini HWRNMNBSOLs. Also, Chaos Sorcerers rawk. Must play one. Missed the Tuesday game due circumstances beyond control, so I have yet to test drive my post-Harrowing fighter/barbarian. I suspect there will be awesome. I lost some of the work I'd done on an Owlcon round, but the plot is intact.

Creative: New idea sort of floating around. It's High Fantasy turned up to mythic levels. I suppose I'd describe it as D&D Meets The Justice League. Sorta like the X-Men vs Kulan Gath story from waaaay back in the day.

yeah, it's Monday, wha'cha gonna do about it?
Thanks to all of you who seem to be just as happy about me and Kat getting hitched as we are. That's just cool.

In other news....

Reading: Mostly D&D stuff, focusing on the Eberron source material I've got. It's such a fun world for me to poke at.

Playing: Back to the 3.5 Forgotten Realms game. The adventure is all about rescuing my character from The Void. Thankfully, the wise and wonderful DM has let a hiccup of a retcon occur so that the Couatl sidekick I drew from the Deck of Harrowing appeared before The Void sucked him to the Abyss, and I can play it while the group rescues my main guy. And I do have to say, having almost finished upgrading his character sheet (just realized I forgot to bump up his weapon damage since his stuff grew a size category along with the rest of him), he became incredibly more badass with just the turn of the cards. Seriously - gaining a size category and the Anarchic template are just incredible and that was only part of the deal.

In other news, I've got to make Jack's character sheet. He plays his first real game of D&D this Saturday. I'm so stoked. Unfortunately, I recently showed him the first D&D movie and he's decided to name his character "Snails" after the Wayans in the flick.

Creating: Working on the Owlcon round. Need to firm up the story beats and figure out what will fit into the time slot. I've done two characters (three including the Shaman that I'm going to chuck). Additionally, reading the DMG2 about plotting campaign arcs has me wanting to dig out notes for an original campaign. I also fiddled with the Wacom tablet this weekend, but didn't make much progress. It's like learning to draw all over again.

the rumors are true

ciaracat and I are engaged.

Current Mood: jubilant

slaying and other stuff done with dice
I've been all over the place lately. Highs and lows, generally connected to the quality of the sleep I get.

We've been playing in

tfbretz's Arkham Slayer game. Lots of fun scenery chewing and general gamer goodness has been had.

The plans for Gaming With Kids continue apace. First session is in 2 weeks, with many of the kids already having statted out their characters. After going round and round with ideas, we hit upon a sweet spot in The Boy's interests. A druid with the summoning spells from Dragon so he can both turn into a Beast Form and summon critters.

Campaigns I Want To Run: One of the central mysteries of the Eberron campaign setting is the Mournland. A magical catastrophe destroyed an entire nation, bringing the hundred year war to an abrupt halt as all sides held their breath waiting to see who did it and if they'd do it again. The player characters are a small group of survivors of the Mournland, but unlike everyone else, they saw something, and it's going to lead them to solve the Mystery of the Mournland. Probably just a Heroic Tier campaign, but the ending could be re-written to fill up all three tiers.

Owlcon: The GM signup went live. I am going to run something. The original idea that got me started was "Leverage, but in Sharn." Since then, I've re-framed it a bit, since one never knows who is going to show up at a con round, and a heist / caper adventure relies heavily on who sits down at the table. But I am definitely keeping the rogue based on Parker.

I'm going to raise him Geek Orthodox....
So, a week or so ago,

tfbretz planted a seed in my brain that we need to start a game for our kids. Adding the dual spawn of

hwrnmnbsol brings our little group up to four in the 7-10 year old range. The tide right now is swinging towards a somewhat simplified 4E for them.

So, who out there in internet-land has run RPGs for little kids and what are the pitfalls to avoid?

work to come
We're going to be assembling 15 more towers of computers at work. The parts are all arriving. If you pray, pray for my spine.

Reading: Finished the Legacy of the Force Nine-ology. The ending was kinda disappointing. For NINE frakkin books they've been building up to a massive battle between Jaina Solo and Darth Caedus. Heck, half of book eight was Jaina learning how to be a badass from Boba Fett. And yet, when I got to the fight, it was okay, but over FAR too quickly. Next up, I think I'm going to re-read some of the Dresden Files - I can not even remember what happened in White Night.

Watching: Just Leverage and Star Trek TOS lately. Picked up a replacement DVD player. Oh, and you can catch the first two episodes of The Guild Season Three online. (Go to watchtheguild.com) Two words: Wil Wheaton. Two more words: No Pants.

Gaming: <lj user="tfbretz"> ran a monumentally awesome Buffyverse / Cthulhu Mythos crossover game last night. Most notably, Kat has been dragged into the gaming group and did great. Being Buffyverse, the emphasis was on the character interaction and quippy remarks, and the group stepped up. I really need to remember to write down some of the funnier stuff folks said, because I laughed until it hurt.

Crossing the Streams
"Xander Harris. You have the ability to overcome great fear. You have been chosen. Welcome to the Green Lantern Corps. Your ring will guide you to Oa where you will be instructed in the proper use of your newfound abilities as Green Lantern of sector 2814."

Edited to clarify.