A new computing era arrives...

I feel like the wizard's apprentice who finally found his master's spellbook! I am writing this from my new laptop in the comfort of my living room! I am no longer chained to the old desktop in my basement office! Praise be to all the gods that ever were and will be! My hope now is that this new device will allow me to usher in a new age of blogging for me, both reading and writing. Of course, I will be doing a lot of work on this thing (both my day job and freelance), but have no doubt that I will be using it to further my RPG efforts! Sorry for being a big gushy nerd right now! Just had to share...

I love the smell of D&D in the morning!

Uh, anyone else see this?

Really? *shrug* Well, enjoy! Happy Monday!

More Wednesday Night C&C Goodness!

Just wanted to pop in quick before my work day starts in earnest. I went to my second session of Wednesday Night C&C at All Things Fun! You can check out some pics here and here.

We had a couple more players come, a husband and wife duo. She played a druid and he a barbarian. They were very welcome to our little band of merry pranksters. I call us pranksters because we've been trapsing around a little town you might have heard of, the City State of the Invincible Overlord, causing all sorts of trouble since the current Overlord was assassinated.

So far we've tried to keep the city destabilized and in chaos by trying to pit the two ruling noble houses against each other. In the course of this we've stolen some uniforms from one house's soldiers (and in the process burned down what was basically a medieval laundromat ;-) and wore them to raid (and yes, burn) a warehouse belonging to the other house. We're not yet sure if our plan worked.

With our new wilderness friends, we decided to take on the slave trade, since the druid and barbarian had come to town looking for some of their tribes people who had been taken as slaves. We managed to free two women from their tribe. Then the session ended on a cliffhanger, because we decided to use the city's sewers to move in secret. Unfortunately, we finally got unlucky on the GM's random encounter roll, and the last thing he described before the end of the game was the clicking of many little legs, coming toward us...

Oh yeah, it was a good time!

P.S. One of the NPCs is a real treasure, BTW. He's a large man named Mustapha who wears, of course, a fez with a long tassle. The GM, Rich, rolled a couple 1's I think during a combat, because he kept laughing and describing how Mustapha's tassle would fall into his eyes, causing the giant hammer he wields to swing wildly and smash cobblestones and such.

Dungeons and Pattons?

I love it when celebrities publicly admit to playing D&D. Imagine my pleasure when tough guy Vin Diesel said he played.

Patton Oswalt (who I think is awesome) is apparently into Dungeons and Dragons. I haven't watched all of this yet, but I'm sure its great. Enjoy!

As for my gaming situation, I hope to be able to make it to my second session of C&C at All Things Fun! in West Berlin, NJ tonight! I want to keep my character Drance (of course!) going. He's a half-elf paladin of Torm, and he's been paired up so far with a smarmy illusionist. I sense a buddy comedy developing...

Happy gaming to one and all!

Reversal of Fortune?

So, after my recent bout of downishness, I decided to go to Wednesday Night Castles & Crusades at All Things Fun! in West Berlin, NJ.

I live rather far from this great store, as I've no doubt lamented on this blog in the past. However, my new place of employment is not too far from ATF, so it's no longer a stretch for me to get to the store! My new circumstances have put the "L" back into FLGS!

The mastermind behind the Circle of Dar Janix blog, Rich, is running a great C&C game there on Wednesday nights, I have to say! I met Rich and another player, Wesley, at TrollCon East. I was glad to be reunited with them, to say the least!

All in all, the three of us had a blast! I look forward to gaming with them again soon! It was great to be a player again, since I'm usually running games instead. I whipped up a half-elf paladin for the occasion, and Rich led Wesley's illusionist Struan and my character (named Drance, of course!) through the latter-day version of City State of the Invincible Overlord for about three hours!

If anyone else in the realms around ATF wants to get into a great game, I suggest you stop by on a Wednesday night and check things out!

The old RPG blues...

I'm bumming. There's no other way to say it. I'm just bumming tonight. I haven't been able to keep up with reading all the great RPG blogs I like to follow. I can't write on my own blog like I want to these days (I never was very prolific here, but I was intending on changing that). It seems like I can't find the time to read novels, or plan for running my campaign as much as I'd like, or keep my campaign's Obsidian Portal page up to date.

I know, "you just started a new job," you say. "You're doing a lot of freelance now too. Take it easy on yourself," you say. Then there's the wife and kids to attend to, not to mention the joys of home ownership and all the attending crap that goes into maintaining the crumbling castle. I know all that, but still...

What's really pushed me over the edge though is how it seems like my players for my still-young campaign are not very available for game sessions these days. Now granted, I had to postpone things from my end when I was laid off, but changes in schedules are making it seem like we're going to have increasing problems with getting together. Just when things were starting to look up. Especially now that it seems like another of the old guys was coming back to the table...I might be jumping the gun a bit here, but...I don't know.

I'm usually a very positive person. But even I have my down moments. This might be just one of them.

Speaking of not being able to keep up with blog reading, I just read this post on Grognardia. It's from February, and it deals with the slow down of a long-running campaign.

I think what might be a possible cure for some of my issues is finally getting a laptop. I know, I'm a bit behind the times, eh? I just have a desktop and an iPhone these days. A laptop will allow me to be more flexible with when and where I do my blogging, writing, etc. So, I'm working on that particular purchase.

Sigh. Sorry for the pity party. I need to go to sleep.

April Showers Bring...RPG Flowers?!

Wow, this new job thing can really put a hurting on one's RPG aspirations, I tell ya! However, there was no foolin' on April Fool's Day, because that night we did have a meeting of our small roleplaying group. You may ask why we were gaming on a Friday night instead of our usual Thursday. Well, that's due to more adult responsibility! One of our player's work schedules is shifting around again, so Friday has become more favorable for him. However, this means that our other guy, who works til about 8 on Fridays, can't get there until later in the night.

Anyway, there was a bit of a momentous event that night, because one of our other gaming buddies from back in the day decided to make an appearance! I was more than overjoyed to see another one of our old friends come out to sit at the roleplaying table again. It's funny, because I had taken out a bigger table for game night, and not our usual smaller card table. I wonder if it's a magic table... Anyway, we had to spend some time creating a character for the new-old guy, and also explain to all three players the concepts behind the Castles & Crusades system. So it was pretty late by the time we started to actually game. But it was a great feeling nonetheless.

Now the task will be to get everyone to keep coming back to the table on a regular basis. I'm pushing for every two weeks. Here's hoping... Also, of course, my time that I've been able to dedicate to game prep and blogging has obviously decreased dramatically. This is not only due to my need to work hard to get up to speed on the new full-time job, but also because of my very consistent freelance work writing web copy and also grading some papers for a family friend that teaches basic college English classes. This being the breadwinner thing is tough! ;-)

I think part of my solution will be to finally break down and get a laptop, which is going to be possible soon due to increase income! My company also has a computer hardware discount that I think I need to look into...anyway, gotta get back to the grindstone. Hope all is well, and happy gaming!