St. Paul – Day 1
Arrived in St. Paul yesterday. I met two of my roommates and I went out to dinner with them. We went to Pizza Lucé for dinner and I did my usual, ask the server what I should order. This is quite a hit-and-miss method of selecting my food. Sometimes it pays off, other times it doesn’t. Last night, it didn’t. My waitress suggested the Blue Dog (tomatoes, arugula, roasted asparagus, bacon, red onion, blue cheese, and mozzarella) and yeah, I didn’t really care for it. Oh well. You win some, you lose some. I also had a Surly Furious to drink. It was fine, but I’m hardly a beer connoisseur so what do I know.
Surly Furious
Worked a pair of games today as a scorekeeper. I’m paired up with Professor Murder (jam ref). Honestly, I don’t feel like today was my strongest performance. I got distracted and lost focus a couple of times. I’ll do better tomorrow.
Walked around downtown St. Paul a bit; checked out the Landmark Center and the Schubert Club Museum.
Wrapped up the day by walking to the Liffey Pub with an NSO from my crew, Bear Trap. I enjoyed a great fish & chips.
WFTDA Championships
Today, I am traveling. I am honored and privileged to have been selected to work this year’s WFTDA Championships tournament in St Paul, MN. My crew head is Reed d’Rulz, from Rat City. I really like working with Reed. The crew head referee is Sir Osis, also from Rat. This looks to be a great crew. I’m looking forward to working with a number of people with whom I’ve never before had the opportunity.
Organizing chaos
Last RPG post for at least a few days, I promise.
Dungeons & Dragons, well, actually, Wizards of the Coast, does a public play thing. Every Wednesday, kinda wherever one may roam, there’s this thing called Adventurer’s League, D&D Encounters. It’s essentially the first few chapters of whatever the current campaign season is. The first season was Tyranny of Dragons. The second was Princes of the Apocalypse. And the third (current) season is Rage of Demons. So on Wednesdays, various game shops (and other places) host public play. It’s an opportunity for new and veteran players to come enjoy an evening of play. Every shop has a coordinator; towns/counties have a Local Coordinator. I guess there are area coordinators and regional coordinators, etc. Well, I am sort of the store coordinator for TimeSync Gaming in Salem. Mostly that means that I make sure that there are DMs to run the tables. On the one hand, it’s a good fit for my need for structure. On the other hand, my need for structure can make it a little frustrating when others don’t feel the same need.
For the past couple months, we’ve been running the main storyline, Out of the Abyss. But in November, we are giving the DMs a break and running a different series of adventures. We run three tables each week so we need three DMs. One of my DMs for tonight is calling in sick. I only have 2 DMs for next week, and possibly only 1 for the following two weeks (me).
It would be nice to feel like I didn’t have to go tonight, because I am flying to Minnesota early tomorrow morning (more on that tomorrow). But then there is that over-developed sense of responsibility.
Reading: Elminster: The Making of a Mage, The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag, Underwood and Flinch
Forgotten Realms current events
I’ve recently been playing D&D again. The setting in which we’re playing is the Forgotten Realms. Now, I used to read the FR novels back in the early 90s; I probably read around 30 or so back then. So I figured, I’ve got this; I’m familiar with this setting. But it turns out that my knowledge of ‘current events’ in the realms is 130 years out of date. I guess I need to get caught up. But where to start? My friends, if you know me, you know I have a sickness, a terrible compulsion. Yes, I’m a completionist. I can’t just start something in the middle. I thank God that I am often able to stop before I get to the end, but I MUST start at the beginning.
So, I’ve got some work ahead of me. 🙁 A week ago, I purchased a dozen FR books that I did not already own. I’m in the process of tracking down what I do have, and catching up from where I left off 12-15 years ago.
Fortunately, the interwebs have got my back. This page will prove to be an invaluable resource as I track what I own, and what I’ve read.
Wish me luck!
Tabletop RPGing
After years of, at best, occasional tabletop role-playing gaming, I find myself all of a sudden quite busy with Dungeons & Dragons, and to a lesser extent, Shadowrun.
Back in Modesto, I met from time to time with a group from the college to play whatever was on the table for that period of time. We played some D&D 3.5e, Dark Heresy (loved that campaign!), or really whatever the GM du jour was running. After moving north, I was without a regular gaming group for a long time. I started playing Call of Cthulhu with a group, and that was fun, but we only met once per month or two. We tried other games such as A Song of Ice and Fire RPG, and Shadowrun 4e, but the players were rather spread out geographically, and coordinating availability was a challenge. Meanwhile, it turns out that there are some great tools available nowadays to facilitate online play. Rob, the GM for Shadowrun, had us try playing online and it has worked rather well.
At the same time, I’d pursued my nascent interest in Shadowrun by attending a few public play sessions up in Portland. Not wanting to drive back and forth so much for that, I looked for a similar group here in Salem, but to no avail. So, I’d have to start such a group.
I scouted out a few game shops by dropping in for some weekly D&D public play sessions and before I knew it, I was playing D&D with folks a couple times a week. I also started my own online D&D campaign with some friends from Facebook.
Rob got busy at work, so had to suspend his SR game. In its place, I am running yet another D&D campaign (Out of the Abyss). Finally, I am a player in an online SR game that meets every other Sunday at 11am Pacific time, and another D&D campaign that meets on those same Sundays later in the afternoon. Not sure how I’m going to juggle those, to be honest.
It’s sort of funny how the wheel turns. This hobby I was fully into back in the 80s has reclaimed a very large portion of my time. At least I enjoy it. 🙂
Challenge accepted
Rizzachill suggested challenging ourselves to resume writing on a daily basis. So, being a goer, here I am.
Let’s be honest, my writing isn’t what one would call compelling, or even interesting really. But that’s ok. This is really for me to attempt to exercise a little creativity. Very little as the case may be.
You can expect posts about roller derby, role-playing games, television, the Winnipeg Jets, the Minnesota Vikings, and whatever other randomness strikes me.
Full disclosure, I’m starting a few days late so these first couple posts are being backdated. Hey, at least I’m honest about my cheating.
