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?

Usually December is a season of red and green for everyone.  But with all the events that have been going on in my life right now, I feel like I'm in a winter rainbow (and it's not even winter yet, we still have 6 more days)!  My gaming life has been mostly on hold due to a few facts: A) The holidays, B) My sister's wedding, and C) A ridiculous work load at Mindfly.  Boy are we busy, and that's not a bad thing!

I can't think of a Christmas in years past that I haven't been really busy.  This is the first one, though, that working a retail job hasn't been my main priority, and I have to admit that it's been delightful to actually be able to enjoy the season even while running around like a chicken with my head cut off.  I love the holidays, the warmth of time with my friends and family, and all the lights, laughter, and colors.

Yesterday, before I left my parents' house on the way home from my sister's wedding, I watched Hallmark's modern version of A Christmas Carol.  It was a little cheesy, and far too heartwarming for this action movie lover.  Still, I sat through the whole thing, which must say something, right?  So, to stay in the vein of the Holidays, let's visit a few topics that are at least mildly related to gaming...

Ghosts of the Past

In my first post here, I mentioned the fact that my dad used to have the old Super Mario Bros. 3 guide, how he'd taken all the pages out, put it in a binder and put all the pages in plastic wrap.  He responded saying that he still has it, and it turns out that he wasn't lying!  I have pictures as proof:

I fondly remember the days when I used to spend all my cold winter afternoons huddled in front of the television far too closely with that book spread open on the floor in front of me, trying to navigate the various koopa-land.  We never had very many games for our old Nintendo, so SMB3 was pretty much the pick of the party.  My mother was so addicted to tetris that she made us get rid of it because she wouldn't get her work done and would only play it, although she nagged Dad enough about SMB3 that I'm surprised they never got rid of it either.

Unfortunately some 6 years ago or so, the old thing finally died.  I've been informed that if I had a Wii (I could always try to beg a borrow from Kyle) then I could probably play it again, but for now I guess I'll just have to settle with the memories.  Still, I wonder if I gave Mom a copy of tetris for Christmas if she'd be happy or angry...

Ghosts of the Present

On a form of traditional (or perhaps not so traditional) gaming, I want to speak a little bit about this year and one of my co-workers.  Gabe, our newest addition at Mindfly, is deaf.  At first I thought that this would be a large challenge to communicate with him (and I wasn't wrong), but I had hopes that with modern technology and an office full of Instant Messengers, that it wouldn't be a problem.  I hadn't really thought about learning much ASL but I did dredge up the alphabet from way back when I used to do pageants at church.  I still get d and f confused, and Gabe laughs at me a lot, but that's what friends are for after all.

Last week, we went to lunch at the Daisy Cafe with Whimsy and Kyle, and ate our fill of delicious soups, salads, and sandwiches (oh my!).  I was a bit intimidated by the situation as I wasn't sure how well we'd be able to communicate without our slew of gadgets and I was mildly worried that the lunch would be eaten in an awkward sort of silence... or what Whimsy, Kyle, and I would all yammer while Gabe was left out.

Instead, we ended up with what I'm calling a charming game of charades.  I'm sure the waitresses thought that we were ridiculous, but it was fun!  Gabe would act something out and we would start to learn the words (he says the fastest way to learn ASL is by drinking beer, and that definitely got a laugh!).  Then we would act something out and he would show us what it meant.  We spent more time talking with our hands than we did eatting (much to Kyle's dismay), but it was a lot of fun and we're all resolved to do it again as soon as we can.  It definitely gets that creative brain working!

Ghosts of the Future

On notes of the future, I can only say that this is a bit of a whine of dismay.  I ordered my Xbox, as I posted a few back, and it came all bright and shiny and new.  Unfortunately, it doesn't play any discs, whether it be games (and I already bought two.  I know what you're wondering... was one of them Ninety Nine Nights?  How could you doubt it?!) or DVDs, so I'm going to be returning it to get a replacement.  I doubt that it will be here by Christmas, so one of these days, perhaps tonight if Melbonia has anything to say about it, I'll drag my games over to her place to tinker with.  I really want to see them, and I'm mildly disappointed.

On other thoughts regarding this coming Christmas, Winter Veil in World of Warcraft starts tomorrow and I'm determined to get the Acheivement done so by next year I can get myself that purple proto drake!  Long term goals, my friends, long term goals.

I'm sure you'll hear from me by the time the season is over, but... if for some reason I get bogged down by all that holiday cheer...

Merry Christmas!

When I'm not running around like a chicken with my head cut off in LARP on Friday, or pretending to be heroic in either Scion or Hunter (Exalted is on hold at the moment), there's always WoW to fall back on.  That's not to say that I only play World of Warcraft when I'm bored.  Rather, I play it because I genuinely enjoy the game.  I enjoy playing on my RP server, Thorium Brotherhood, even though many people will tell you that the RP has gone to hell.  I also enjoy playing my original (and still main) character, Morgania, my orc rogue.  I love rogues, and no other class can compare to it, in my opinion.

That may be a discussion for today, and it may not.

Suffice it to say that I had heard from my other WoW-endeavoring friends, many of which are near and dear to me outside of the pixels as well, that our weekly Tuesday downtime has been extended.  This is no real surprise.  Downtime gets extended all the time, and this is the last patch before Wrath of the Lich King comes out, after all.   Still, something that was expected to be done by 11AM PST and was not done when I got off work at 5PM PST, and said on the page should be up and running by 6PM PST... when it is now 7:15PM PST... well, you start to get the picture, right?

There are plenty of other things I could be doing to entertain myself.  Like chores.  Reading.  Perhaps working on some art.

But after spending almost two hours adding new images to my gallery, I feel like the extent of my productivity is long over for the night.  Therefore, I claim distraction by a capella.

What, you say?

I will show you.  Not that it will last long, but when all else fails, browse youtube, right? (And yes, it's gaming related a capella!)

If you can guess all the songs without looking, I will be very, very impressed.

And more boredome that actually relates to WoW...