10 September 2010

Fire Inspection Day and WWD&DGD

  Working a half day today, as I have to go pick up our fire extinguishers from the safety equipment company, then head home to meet the nice lieutenant from the Round Rock Fire Department for our fire inspection.  The health inspection went swimmingly, now we've got to get past the fire inspection as well.  Smoke detectors in every room - check.  No extension cords in use - check.  Fire extinguisher mounted near or in kitchen - check.  The list goes on.  I'm just hoping everything goes according to plan and this will be one more completed step on our path toward parenthood.  Huzzah.

  Tomorrow is Worldwide D&D Game Day, and I've got my Red Box ready and I've studied the module.  I even test-ran it, but I won't post the results until after D&D game day has passed.  Don't want to spoil anything, and besides - I want to see if the outcome of my test-run was anomalous.

  Having now played Dungeons and Dragons Essentials, I can say that I enjoy the new 'builds' of the classes presented thus far.  The Rogue (Thief) plays very much like Thief should, with the addition of the Backstab power once per encounter to emulate the old Backstab mechanics - but with the additional bonus that it's easier by leaps and bounds to pull it off.  The Cleric feels a lot like an older edition Cleric, with limited healing but heavy armor and quite a bit of ass-whoopage ability.  My sole complaint about the sample Cleric included for Sunderpeak Temple, Korzon, is that he carries a blade rather than a mace.  If you're going to go retro, you aughta go whole-hog and have a mace or hammer-wielding Cleric.

  I'm going to be honest, here.  Lately, my tastes in gaming have been turning toward small groups of roleplayers.  I have this overwhelming urge to grab a group of 4-5, and run Mentzer D&D.  Or Star Frontiers, or Cyberpunk 2012, or Gamma World, or Top Secret S/I...  Gaming is my stress release and my hobby, but many of the games I'm involved in feel too much like work, and I'm engaged in watching one of the clubs I had a hand in creating that was in its inception all about the gaming and the camaraderie begin to circle the drain.  It lost its way, and stopped being about the gaming.  That doesn't make it any easier to watch something that you spent the better part of a decade on dying in a particularly slow and ingominous way.  It's really taken away a lot of the enthusiasm I once had for large-group gaming.  Add to that the dynamics of drama you get even in a small group and multiply it in an exponential fashion for any group larger than that...  I'm tired.  I want my gaming to get back to my enjoyment zone.  If this is going to be my main source of entertainment, socialization and stress-relase it has to be fun, not work.  Sadly, the only game session I haven't looked for a way to postpone or just out-and-out dreaded lately is the upcoming Worldwide D&D Game Day.  Something about that shiny Red Box and the idea of a nice, old-school dungeon crawl gets my creativity rolling.  So, here's hoping this Saturday rocks, both with the Worldwide Game Day, and the Royal Dragoon Guards game to follow.

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