We Got Game

My folks, my sister Jenn, and my nephew all came over for a visit yesterday. While mom and dad played with the grandkids Jenn and I played a game of Carcassonne. She brought her copy so that I could try the Traders & Builders expansion. Good stuff. I'm going to have to get a copy of that. We also played a game of Scrabble with my wife. I got a new copy for a fiver at the after-Xmas sales. Maybe at the next Winter War I will run a session of Carcassonne with all the expansions in use.

Later after everyone went home I got onto Amazon. My brother-in-law's birthday is this coming weekend, so I ordered him a book off of his wishlist. And while I was doing that I got Elizabeth a Teen Titans DVD. She's really gotten into that show. We spent a fair amount of time on Saturday looking for a copy locally. And my needed another travel guide to Disneyworld. Reading those and planning the perfect Disney vacation are her hobby. And I got myself the official Mutants & Masterminds GM's screen and Goodman Game's Dungeon Crawl Classic #11: The Dragonfiend Pact. I bought a module. That's what getting C&C will do to you. I need another dungeon module like a need a whole in my head. But I love 'em. I spent a good portion of the weekend downloading a bunch of free adventure modules from Wizards.

Random campaign idea: a trio of sci-fi 'novels'. The first novel is set in the solar system, in a near future sort of thing ripped in large part from the Spacer's Guide for Jovian Chronicles. Book 2 is set in Alpha Centauri, a la Centauri Knights from Guardians of Order. The final novel of the trilogy would feature a first contact story set in the second solar system ever to be visited by humans: Volturnus of Star Frontiers fame. I imagine running the whole thing with Savage Worlds or d20 Future.

It came from the eighties

A Dungeons & Dragons commercial. (wmv format)

Mutants & masterminds & bears, oh my!

Last night Don, Sue, John, and Paul came over for my Home Team campaign. This campaign follows the exploits of four little-known low-power heroes who try to hold Marvel New York together while all the big boys (the Avengers, FF, X-men, & Spidey) are off fighting the Beyonder's Secret Wars. Last night the PCs inserted themselves in the middle of a Maggia street war. They apprehended the two-bit villain team known as the Enforcers and forged a tentative alliance with the Punisher. That last bit came as a complete shock to me. I had tried to set things up so that it look like the Punisher had murdered Radarman's brother. Turns out he hadn't, but had lead as to who did it. Next issue we'll be dealing with a different menace, but I plan on tying up this plot thread in the following run. So far I'm digging the Mutants & Masterminds rules. They're a big step up from first edition Heroes Unlimited, if you can believe that. :) We're all still getting used to the new rules (especially Damage Saves) and my builds were kinda wonky. But I'm confident enough that MnM is going to work out that I'm looking at getting the GM's screen and maybe a PDF or two from RPGnow.

A Fun Link for the Kids

..and educational, too!

How To Destroy the Earth

Kung Fu on You

Last night's Feng Shui game was a lot of fun. Sneezy Tang, the cheesy mobster, and his henchmen Smiley made a reappearance. I really wanted my guy Master Fo to get a second go at Smiley, since our first throwdown ended prematurely. Unfortunately, I had a ship load of kung fu sailors occupying my time, so the drunken bastard got to beat on him a bit. I would have been unhappy if Sean's PC had taken Smiley down. Dave has inserted a street urchin named Freddy into our midst. I find this to be very useful. If one of the PCs bites the dust that player could take over playing Freddie, using the scrappy kid template. I'm not sure if that's what Dave had in mind, but it seems like a good way to get a replacement PC into the mix ASAP.

A Year of Blogging

Today is the 365th day since I began blogging. It's been an interesting year. I'm doing way more gaming than I did back when I started a year ago. I started dicking around on the internet as sort of a substitute for a lack of actual play. Now this week I'll be gaming 3 times and I just declined an invitation to a fourth! My sister is organizing a game get-together for Saturday. Turns out she's found a guy in Bloomington who's also into Carcassonne and other German games. He's got her playing the German classic Settlers of Catan and she's taught him Bohnanza in exchange. I knew she'd like Settlers once she tried it. A lot of credit for me getting back into gaming in a big way has to go to two guys: Dave Hoover and my brother-in-law Jim. Their invites into ongoing games got me back into the scene and meeting new people. Big kudos to them. Being asked to play gave me a big shot of confidence I had been lacking.

A blog so good, it's going right onto the list

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Dorkland.