Life has been pretty hectic lately.  With the holiday season, working my two jobs, snow and now flooding, plus getting sick and now having Nick be sick... when I haven't been wallowing on the couch in blatant boredom watching obnoxious daytime television and drinking tons of OJ, I've been relatively inclined to pull my hair out.  Thank god the holiday seasons are over, eh?

That's not to say I don't love Christmas, because I really do.  My family came up to visit and despite the obnoxious setbacks that the snow brought, a white Christmas was quite pleasant all around.  Unfortunately, due to the weather, I didn't get to spend nearly as much time with my friends as I wanted to.

Any gaming that requires an actual social group also tends to grind to a halt during December and sometimes early January.  The two tabletop games I was playing (Hunter and Scion, if you've forgotten) abruptly stopped at the end of November, and Exalted had ground to a halt at the beginning of the month.  The Friday night LARP, Changeling, took a three week hiatus due to parties and the holidays themselves.  I missed more than that merely from being sick and having to go to my sister's wedding.

That said, one of the other distracting things for social gamers that happened back in November was the release of Wrath of the Lich King for World of Warcraft.  I haven't really talked about it much, and I'm not going to be talking about it today, I'm afraid.  I'll go into a rambling speel about the glories of my Death Knight some other day for your entertainment.  Or my entertainment.  One of the two.

With all my face-to-face social gaming being on the down low, I've had some things to consider.  Melbonia and I had a fairly long conversation about tabletop gaming, LARPing, and what we are looking to get out of such.  We've been a bit frustrated with our LARP lately due to the fact that some of the players have had some interesting ideas on what to do.  The plot has been going willy-nilly with people doing their own weird wacky things, and there hasn't been much of a grand over-arching storyline to keep us interested in the game.  It's been very Changeling the Dreaming instead of Changeling the Lost.  We would both like a more serious plot.

Luckily, when we both re-entered the gaming world with the New Year, we saw that some things were being changed and we definitely started enjoying the game more.  Nick and Kyle do a great job running it, and they work hard to make sure that everyone has fun.  It would be nicer if all our ideas of "fun" were the same, but people are never going to have all the same opinions after all.  That's what makes us unique.

We also found that our tabletop gaming had become quite focused on stats and combat rather than on story.  One of the main reasons that I roleplay is because I want to tell a good story and be part of a good story.  In fact, I would say that is the main reason that I roleplay.  It's not the say that our Exalted, Hunter, or Scion games didn't have good stories.  They did.  But there was also a lot of focus on the combat angle that took away from a lot of the actual story aspect.  Plenty of people enjoy dungeon crawling, and I can't say that I haven't had my moments of kitchen raiding in an old castle, myself.  At the same time, though, it's hard to feel epic like Tolkien, Terry Brooks, David Eddings, or a lot of those other fantastic fantasy authors when you feel like all you're doing is counting squares and stats rather than enjoying the story.

I know it's funny to say that, since the games we've been playing are done by White Wolf, which is a very heavy story-based system.  Unlike, say, DND which is definitely more dungeon crawling and combat oriented.  But, Exalted and Scion are both very combat oriented games in their own rights, despite having fantastic worlds to tell stories in, and Hunter is part of our own world, albeit much darker, and since we were going for a more "Supernatural" theme with the game, it had a lot of twists and turns that were more episodic than actual epic story.

The four of us sat down and had a long, deep conversation about roleplaying and what we want in response to Melbonia and my first discussion about it.  For me, rp is sort of like a drug.  I really can't live without my "stories" just like some people can't live without their television "stories".  To each their own, right?

So, we decided to do something that was a bit ironic and see if we could play in an epic fantasy game that Kyle would run in his own world based on the d20 system.  We're even going to attempt DND 4th Edition, which I have to admit I'm a bit worried about due to the fact that I haven't even really looked at the books let alone the game in a few years now.  I definitely want to divulge some of the details of Kyle's world, but I should probably get permission before telling about it.

The strange thing is (okay, maybe not too strange), I'm really excited!  I'm even going to be playing a class type that I've never enjoyed or been too interested in the past (priest), but I think I have a solid concept and I'm really looking forward to how it plays out.  Melbonia has a great concept as well, and Nick is still working on his, but I think he's got something down, too.

I'm hoping this will inspire some stories and art, and I'll definitely be giving you a first look at DND 4th Edition from my perspective.

Who'd have thought I'd ever go back to DND?

One of the greatest things about gaming is the amount of hilarious inside jokes that it causes.  Not that general life doesn't do the same things, but the references change so much inside a game that I always feel the amount of hilarity is amplified by the jokes and puns that come out of a gaming environment.  I'm sure other hobbies retain something akin to this, but for the life of me, I can't fathom them meeting my standards.

The current tabletop that I'm playing in is a Hunter: The Vigil game.  Melbonia, Kyle, and I are playing a trio of cousins who have a dynamic relationship not unlike you see from Sam and Dean in Supernatural.  In fact, on that note, let me diverge for just a moment.

How can anyone even consider playing a Hunter game without ever seeing Supernatural?  Seriously, when I watch Supernatural, I can't help but think "Put these two guys in the middle of The Crow, and you'd probably have a better World of Darkness setting, but otherwise... Perfect!!"  Really, the premise of the show is the same as the premise of the game.  There are things that go bump in the night, they will do horrible, evil things to the world and no one is going to try to stop them except you.  Which is why WoD Hunters take up the Vigil, and Sam and Dean "Kill some evil sons of bitches and raise a little Hell".

Madison (Mine), Edward (Kyle's), and Kate (Melbonia's) Eckhard don't have the same relationship as Sam and Dean, for sure.  For example, they're not suicidally bent on sacrificing themselves for the rest of their family.  Not that family isn't important to them.  It most definitely is.  It's just not "sell my soul to the devil to save your life" important.  At least, not yet.

The truth of the matter is, our intrepid trio of traveling trappers (Yes, I used thesaurus.com to help me finish up that alliteration.) are far newer to this whole hunting thing than Sam and Dean, who have been doing it since they were kids.  Sure, Kate is a cop, albeit a dirty one, so that gives her some view into the dark world of "Bump in the Night", and Maddie, skeptic though she may be, has been writing blog posts about supernatural conundrums since she was a teenager.  In fact, it's her main source of income: Blog advertisements.  Eddie, on the other hand, is a washed-up college student that's on his sixth, ninth, somethingth year and has no real experience with anything darker than his credit card limit being maxed out and mommy and daddy refusing to give more handouts.

That said, family is family, and between the three of them, they make a pretty good crew.  Now that the rest of their large, extended relations disappeared on Christmas Eve and the three kids (not really, I think Eddie has hit his 30s) are missing a week of time, they're left alone to run for their lives from one monster of a demon and find out what in the world is really out there.  But do they actually want to know?

Their first experience and real "job" (Not that they get paid for it, as Sam and Dean will also tell you.  Thankless people.  Peh) is in Marshaltown, Iowa, a city most well-known for it's 20-story hospital.  At least, in WoD.  I haven't researched it that far.  Said hospital has been closed down and deserted, four people went missing and one has since been found dead with his chest open.  Werewolves?  Zombies?  Wendigo?  Seriously, what in the world do they know about the "real stuff"?  Maddie thinks she knows things, but I can tell you right now: She's wrong.

In the end, badass vampire that sent his little ghouls on us.  Thank you, blood-sucking morons for not having a brain of your own and being addicted to vampires.  Eew.  Okay, I like paranormal romance as much as the next girl.  Or at least, as much as Whimsy.  But the truth is, it ain't the same in World of Darkness.  These guys don't have compassion, and drinking their blood is still icky.  ICKY!

After listening to Kansas' Carry On My Wayward Son three times that day, and one ghoul climbing into the air ducts to crawl through the ceiling (not that he ever landed on us), Melbonia's "Carry on my wayward ceiling child" quote was a giggle-fit in the making.  Like most inside jokes, you probably had to have been there.

I won't even talk about Nebraska... yet.