| Free RPG Day!

It's free swag day! Go out to your FLGS and get some free shit!

I grabbed starter adventures for DCC and 13th Age.  There was some other cool looking stuff but my local had a limit of 2 per customer.

Thank's Lou!

I've added everyone to the Realms server. If you launch MC and click on the "Realms" button you should just see it right there!

| Minecraft User Names

For jR0n:

Botz_Partz
PumpkinVespa
shop_vac
wyliet

(I think you already send Rude his, and of course I have mine and you have yours, so I omitted those as well)

| Hooky

So I took Wy and played hooky from work for the past few days to drive to LA and catch the CUp Parade!

Two years ago Jason May (who is a fire captain in Redondo) got some up close and personal time with the cup just because of where he worked and he knew where the cup would be before other folks did. We thought that might be true again this year so we took our chances.  Well, it started at the RB detective bureau so we walked over to find the whole place on lockdown and a strict "no civilians" allowed stance.  Bummer.

Wy and I walked the perimeter of the parking lot where it was being staged and found a spot pretty close to the armored Cup wagon (some SWAT beast) and got to see the cup come off the bus, watch the players all drunkenly load up in the backs of their trucks, and Brown was nice enough to lift it for us before it was mounted to the top of the tank.

In hindsight, we could probably have been close if we went down to the strand, but fuck that place and those people - we had a great time, and despite not having anything more than my camera phone, I got some nice shots to remember the day.  It was magical enough for me just to see the cup fo reals.

We drove down Tuesday night, crashed at Heather's, ate some food on Wed morning, grabbed some Kings gear from Dick's, drove to Jason's, walked to the Cup, Wy and I hit Pollo Inka, then hit the road to my Aunt's in Santa Barbara for the night, then back on the road this morning at 7am.

A fun, whirlwind trip :)

PS Aging and crazy family sux.  Lo siento, jr0n.

| GKG

jr0n, I am sorry to hear that your Dad went through that. Sucks about your half-sister too. Your mom and dad certainly don't need that added stress. Here's to a speedy recovery by your pops.

I jumped on eLzar's Minecraft server for a hot second the other day. It sounds like a fun diversion, but being in budget season right now, I cannot seem to keep myself in front of a computer much after work. That should change in a few weeks. jr0n, I will send over my user id via text.

eLzar, I always enjoyed your GM skills and flavor. I think we had more than a few excellent sessions under your deft guidance as GM. Also, Jesus Hitler... LOL. Also, also, dude the Kings! What a run! Nerve wracking to say the least.

D>M>

Fuuuuuck, sorry man. That's way too much shit for one week spanning too many different  parts of life. Goodluck on all fronts.

| I Have a Few Things to Say

I.

Things that have happened this week:

1. The kids have been relentlessly trying to one-up each other in a challenging cycle of getting sick/being crabby/refusing to eat/fighting bedtime, to the extent we've got maybe 45 minutes of free time per night. That said, they are great kids; that said, Jesus.

2. A lot of those 45 minutes go towards doing after-hours work, since both of us have ridiculous work schedules right now, which will not abate anytime in the long-term future.

3. My dad (who you may remember from elzar's bachelor party) had to have a sizable chunk of lung cut out to excise a tumor, which seems to have been a success, except insofar as

4. He suffered a mild stroke during the procedure. The damage was mild and physical, not mental, and it appears he will be able to fix it up with physical therapy. Still, not a fun few hours there. Additionally:

5. My bipolar, brain-addled-by-long-years-of-drug-addiction half-sister has decided this is the perfect opportunity to go off her meds and onto the warpath, making the entire situation about her and her weird jealousy/resentment issues with my mom, who doesn't really need this kind of shit right now.

So, it hasn't been great.

II.

Minecraft is fun! I would invite everyone to jump on the server (except that NAMBLA guy, wtf?), but I don't remember people's usernames. Text em over to me or post em on the blog and I'll get you on the whitest whitelist in town (not intended in a racial sense, more just in the sense that whiteness represents purity and goodness [did that improve matters?]).

III.

In an attempt to pique Kid the Elder's interest in my nerdy endeavors, I showed her a bunch of my miniatures. Her favorite was the Transverse Enumerator, because she is the robots' friend and has a pretty dress. She was very insistent that "she like go to the zoo," or in other words, that she be constantly placed on the side table by the organic bananas and potato chips. When I eventually put away the T.E. she somewhat angrily demanded to know where she'd gone. I explained that she had gone to bed. She grudgingly accepted this explanation.

IV.

Elzar, I don't think being a good storyteller is particularly a skill related to being a good GM, and you are a great GM! I have a great deal more to say on this subject but it will have to wait.

In summary, hang ten brahs!

I joined the National Alliance Minecraft Builders Level Acquirers, pretty cool club.

| The Anonymous Member Is Revealed!

Wait, that sounds wrong. Anyway, yes, I sprung for a 6-month MC realm. Runs silky smooth!

Near where elzar set up a li'l farm there's a ginormous chasm that looks promising. Tons of horses around too. Ponies for everybody!

At this point I mainly enjoy dicking around with redstone so I built myself a little sky platform. I'll probably be switching into creative mode up there. I was experimenting earlier with a tripwire connected to a dispenser that shot out Creepers, and it did not go well.

| Tom "The Ectomy" Vasel

aka Tom Poppet, aka Jesus Hitler

Back when the big boardgame explosion was beginning to happen, I listened to the Dice Tower quite a bit.  He was playing like every game on the market and was pretty good with his reviews and why he liked something or didn't.  I bought a bunch of stuff that didn't workout because I eventually learned our tastes were different, so I learned to listen for certain indicators that we would agree, and then only bought those.  Some of those worked out.  Then he started getting notoriety, additional cast on the podcast, and then I started to hate the guy.  Now a days I appreciate what he has done, and continues to do for gaming, but I could care less about his endorsements, and don't know what his opinions are on most of the games that I own anymore.

All that being said, I didn't care if the video was a commercial because I actually got to see the entire game played out in front of me.  I could see the mechanics at work, watch the flow of turns, and see what decisions were being made (and the thinking behind them) in real time.  Whether or not the guys in the game liked the game or not is irrelevant and didn't sway me one way or another - I just liked the way the game flowed and it looks like we would all have some fun!

Also, his not liking something for its human skin theme yet advocating games with murder in them is just religion in a nutshell.  It is what it is, unfortunately.  Boobs on TV, women's rights, swearing in music, fantasy artwork, and gays - no!  War, corruption, tax evasion, crime, pedophilia, and protesting funerals of fallen soldiers/gays/schoolkids/whomever - yes!

PS I'm playing hooky from work tomorrow and Thursday to drive Wy and I down to the beach cities to watch the RB to MB cup parade!  

PPS I have an itch to continue the Minecraft fortress excavation project again.  I'm not sure where the data for that server went, I think it might have gone bye-bye when Minefold folded, so I guess I'll just have to start it again!  

PPPS An anonymous Action Team member asked about if he should get a Minecraft Realms server for all to play on and I said he should!  So maybe I'll wait to start my excavation project over there rather than on the existing server.... DO EET!

| Tom Vasel?

That makes sense, I always wondered why he had so much hate for Klaus Teuber's "Abortion".

I never watch videos but I have heard he is overly positive towards games. Recently a super hyped KS for an adventure board game called Myth released and immediately deflated into a real turd balloon because it had badly broken, incomprehensible rules and cards out of the gate. But that guy gave it a GLOWING review. Turns out when the creators of the game teach you the rules, and play it with you, little things like nonsense rules can be swept under the rug...

None of which to say this particular game doesn't look cool! I hope it's a good one.

I just got in a HUGE order of minis from a kickstarter I backed in fucking 2012, before my 10-month-old had been conceived. It was the second or third KS I did and I went a little overboard. It's for Relic Knights, an anime-themed game about stompy robots and cheesecakey anime broads. The minis are decent and the rules actually seem really good,  but when am I going to play it???????

| all this anger over T. Poppet

That kickstarter game looks pretty awesome. I personally wasn't into watching Tom Poppet (I forget his name - Dice Tower guy) and the others play because it's a paid-to-play deal - I would like it too if I was in the commercial. THAT SAID, it looks like a legitimately fun game, so we WILL make it happen next Cayucos.

I mostly can't stand Tom Poppet over his dumb negative reviews of stuff like Chaos in the Old World - because of the "theme" and how it goes against his missionary priestly beliefs. He plays and endorses all these other games with totally violent themes of WAR and MOBSTER BULLSHIT, but when it comes to "demonic" stuff, forget about it. That's such bullshit. I wish all game boards had human-skin art.

I prefer Wil Wheaton for board-game TV host.

I couldn't wrap my head around Winter Tales from that page, but the components look nice. Let me head over to Dice Tower to watch a vid- FUCK!

| What's New

 - Go Kings Go!  If ANYONE has access to a schedule of when/where the cup will be in the South Bay, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could send it my way.  I missed out on all the viewings in 2012 and I realize after the second cup it might not happen again, so I want Wy and I to get a chance to see it in person if possible.  Danke, friends!

 - I backed this and am excited!  XenoShyft by CMON Its a coop deckbuilder where each hand you need to build a defense against 4 unknown aliens that attack each player.  If they player cards defending all get overrun, then your base takes damage.  You need to keep your base alive for 9 rounds of attacks to win.  I watched the whole 1hr 20min play through and wished that regular TV would just show people playing games - I would TOTALLY watch it.  Anyway, it looked fun and interesting and I think/hope we'll get some mileage out of it.  Check it out for yourselves!

 - I also picked up a copy of Winter Tales, which should arrive sometime next week.  It appears to be a weird mixture of card management, storytelling, and boardgame that seems pretty interesting.  In a nutshell, there are fairly tale characters that are fighting for control of their land.  You use the board to move around the land and help to give context and location for the story.  When you 'battle' I guess you play a certain number of story cards, which are essentially cards with small abstract sketches on them (not unlike Dixit), to 'win' the battle (or whatever).  The trick is, you need to use the sketches IN your description of what your side does in the battle.  I guess the game is decided by the number of wins vs. losses in these different conflicts, but that I'm not totally clear on.

ANYWAY, it seemed really fun, different, and interesting and reading some of the stories that other people have created while playing inspired me to pick it up.  I look forward to playing it for the first time 9 months from now at Cayuco 2015!!!

 - Wy and I are back playing on the Minecraft server, though the IP changed.  The new IP is 198.52.168.132 and the port stayed the same.  It's a new world, though I have the old one saved so the kick-ass, resource-consuming lighthouse was not lost!  Anyway, jump in if you want sometime.

 - Reading through all my old Cthulhu adventures is interesting.  I need to come to terms with a few things.  First, older CoC stuff is basically epic level D&D in a different setting.  Lots of big horror, lots of interaction with pretty high-level baddies, access to many spells, books, etc.  It's a much more crunchy game than I think I ever wanted it to be, much more pulpy (even though I don't think it was supposed to be).

All that being said, I need to get over it because I THINK that's just what it is.  The new school of CoC-like games are much more thematic, personal, low-epic level, but I'm not sure that 1) I as GM could pull off a game like that, b) we as a group could pull off a game like that, or c) there is anything better about that.

I've always wanted to run a slow building game with a lot of ah-ha moments where the magic of mythos discovery is part of the fun of the game, but I need to be realistic and honest - I'm not a great storyteller and we the fact of the mater is the best parts of our games are not the story but memories of shaking down kids in high school until they cried (Delta Green), visiting whorehouses and sticking shotguns in said whores faces (Mountains of Madness), and watching Rudes character get hit in the left leg like 5 times in the same fight (Horror at Red Hook, I think?).  I Rude also said it best, (paraphrasing) 'Just stick all our characters in a room together and we'll fuck around enough to make a full night of roleplaying'.

 - Happy Father's Day, those of you nerds that have offspring!