As long as you don't end every post with your social security number, you should be fairly safe. Just kidding. In all honesty, what are you guys paranoid about with something like this blog? It's never felt overly revealing. Is this for like future political or employment concerns?

| Bonus Content

Saw this linked off Facebook, hahahaha

Cal Worthington flowchart

| I Have Got A Lot On My Mind-Grapes

This week has been a motherfucker, man. Ask me about it sometime when I'm drunk....

Upside: I finished watching The Wire. This show is SO good, and the show ends on a great note, paying off the enormous cast of characters in a satisfying way while remaining true to their context in the show. I totally recommend it to you guys. Also, the ladyfriend has actually suggested checking out BSG next, so that's going in the queue! I'll finally understand the board game.

Aeryk: what are the costs associated with the blog transition? Year after year, I have been meaning to get you something to cover part of the cost of the site, and year after year, I fail.

What will we be able to do with the old archived material? I have some old 3.5" discs around if we want to back it up to floppy....

Also, I don't know how everyone else feels about this, but would it be reasonable to password-protect the next iteration of the site? Maybe I'm just overly paranoid.

On another topic... very tentatively, how do you guys feel about getting together for another go-round at WFRP on the weekend of 3/6 or 3/13? Aeryk I was thinking we could try it at your place this time and do something like the following: we leave SF around 9 AM, get started around 11ish, leave around 4, everybody's home in time for dinner and whatever kind of shit they have to get done.

Recording the game actually sounds kind of cool, too.

Happy Chinese New Years everyone! It's the year of the tiger, so, drink some boba, eat some dim sum and fire off some crackers. Its also happens to be on the same day as valentines day this year.

By the way, for all you wow fans, anyone played a game called realm of magic or something that is free of royalty, and is a straight clone. I saw a few clips of it on youtube and it looked pretty darn similar. It does have an item mall system where you have to "buy" unique items which does suck. but it seemed like getting the same crack addiction without having to pay.

Just throw the archives onto the Action Team cloud so we can access it anywhere: problem solved.

I don't mind another site/password/whatever you feel like doing. Wordpress sounds great? (Don't know what it is but sounds like blogging software?) All tweets all the time.

| Blogger and FTP

Apparently at the end of this month, Blogger will no longer offer FTP support or functionality for their blogs, you need to either host with them or change to a free site and host with them. I don't want to do either.

I am exploring the wordpress software on our server and playing around with it, so at the end of the month everyone will either need to a) use a new password to access the new action team site and blog, or b) be locked out of the blog and do nothing because you don't want to or I haven't figured out a transition yet, or c) something else.

I'm kinda pissed about it cause all our archives will be lost and not able to post to the new site (but possibly accessible from the old, static site).

Time will tell.

| Always with the Lying

Maybe other RPG groups in the world handle their games differently, but I swear to Sigmar, every freaking RPG we play there has to be a significant portion of the game lying to the long arm of the law, or what-have-you, when if we told the truth everything would go smoothly. MOST of the time, we haven't committed any horrendous crimes, and MOST of the time a simple explanation, even if poorly executed, would be less stressful and possibly result in a GOOD outcome instead of going on the run from the law, burning down the town, murder, etc.

The last WFRP session clearly illustrated this. ABSOLUTELY no wrong doing on our part, none - simply eliminating a clear threat to the Empire by putting down chaos infected mutants and leaving no organic material behind to further spread the infection, and yet we needed to concoct some story to tell the Sheriff about our whereabouts, that we weren't together, etc. Ridiculous.

Sure, we intended to go and loot the poor old dead fisherman's house for any valuables because he had no next of kin and better we get the spoils than the Empire, and sure, maybe that is a little bit wrong, but come on. And sure, maybe I shot him in the face first when the mutant spotted me lurking outside his house and we didn't even entertain for a moment the option of parlance with this Abbott and Costello mutant pairing before destroying them utterly, but come on. And sure, maybe we burned evidence of a crime scene, and took a few things for ourselves, but come on...

Ah.

THAT'S why we always lie to authority figures. Upon closer inspection, even when we THINK we're not really doing anything wrong, we actually kinda are. Of course, if we tried to be more honest characters, then there would be no GUILTY!, Prosti's n' Shotguns, or otherwise, and what fun would that be?

| Warhammer (warning, long)

I like the new edition of Warhammer, it's a little crazy to explain up front because there are so many bits and gubbins, but once you get going it's pretty fun and not really that complicated.

As usual for a new system, we spent about two hours making characters. The guys ended up with a dwarven Thug, recently fired from the nearby mines, perhaps for his confusing variety of accents, a human Thief with no weapons training whatsoever, and a wood elf Wardancer: deadly in combat, deadlier on the dance floor.

Amazingly everybody also picked a name for their character right away! Possibly a record. You also get to pick a party card which helps define your group's identity and is used for tracking tension within the party and gives some unique abilities. On the move and full of amoral thugs, the party chose Swords for Hire.

The adventure started as the group went down to the lake for a spot o' fishin'. Instead they almost lost their lunches as they found a grotesquely obese man floating in the lake. Turning him over they realized he was a mutant who had swallowed another man. The swallowed man had somehow begun fighting his way out near the end -- his knife was sticking out of the mutant's belly, from the inside.

Recognizing the mutant as one of three creepy brothers who live in a shack out in the woods, the party decided the next step was to rob the victim's house. Unfortunately there were people around so the group instead went to the brothers' shack. Corey Hart (the Thief) snuck up for some reconnaissance but was detected by one of the brothers, a grotesquely mutated fellow similar to the man in the lake.

Belying his lack of ballistic skill, Corey fired a bow into the mutant's open mouth, which lodged through his cheek into the window sill, effectively pinning him in place for several seconds. An unlikely shot that had the effect of swinging the battle in the PC's favor right away, as the mutant had some fearsome powers none of which he was able to use in any way. Stoneteeth (the dwarf) and Leik (the wardancer - sp?) busted into the shack where they promptly disemboweled the two cultists. Then Corey took one of the brothers' nice longbow as a reward. For dessert, they burned down the shack.

Heading back to town they decided to check out the victim's hovel again for "clues." However they came across the sheriff and decided to start retroactively "filing the paperwork," telling the sheriff that they'd found a body down at the lake but eliding the part about killing the other two brothers. On the trip the sheriff noticed the longbow slung on Corey's back, resulting in a ludicrous (but successful) set of lies and the players asking themselves the question: "Why do we ALWAYS lie?"

After leading the apparently not-so-bright sheriff to the flaming shack and playing dumb once again, the party retired to a night of drinks at the local inn, easing some of the tensions of the day and readying for the next day's job... something about a late coach from Marienburg....