This past weekend the Royal Dragoons hosted an Open Game Day, which was attended by Jeff Dee, who presented a demo of his new game, Cavemaster. We invited a lot of folks, a LOT of folks... in the end, we had around thirty participants. What was nice was we saw some folks we haven't seen in quite some time - Sean, Patrick, Sarah, Kathy, Alan, Mitchell and especially Larry. Was good to see you all. More about that in a bit.
Life updates before I get all philosophical. Everyone who reads my sporadic posts is pretty well aquainted with my hectic life. In fact, I'll have to post most posts as I can about some of the revelations I've had recently thanks to life, children and the therapist I've been seeing for almost a year now. Anyway... From a maximum weight of 308, I am now down to 265 on my way to my TXSG weight of 217. Actually, I'm shooting for 200. Nice round number - one I haven't seen since my junior year of High School, but what the hell, right? Gotta have goals. I am two classes away from my BA - I finish my last final this week for the current semester, then I start Korean War History and War and Society on Monday. By just after Thanksgiving, I'll be done. Huzzah. On the kid front, we've had some great frustration with CPS and our daycare arrangements that required me to spend three days off work taking care of K. I loved every minute of it. She and I had some wonderful daddy-daughter time.
Remember that moment in Jurassic Park when people freaked out when they realized Raptors could open doors? Problem-solving intelligence? Well, my 16-month-old has shown me in the past days that not only does she understand the relationship between the X-Box controller and the television, but she understands that Cat5 cable goes into the wall (and attempted to plug one in herself) and that the "Windows" key on my keyboard makes something immediately happen on my PC or laptop. Holy crap this little girl is SHARP.
Anyway... so the mediation was yesterday where the parties to the case discussed the future of the kiddos. and after angsting about what was going to come out of that meeting I find out we're not ALLOWED to know what happened in that meeting. As Foster Parents of less than one year in duration, we're still not legally parties to the case. Still just the babysitters. Damnit.
I'll have some gaming-related posts later this week. Since I'm finishing my classwork tomorrow AM hopefully, I'll have some time to post about the awesome stuff I've come across in the last couple of months...
26 September 2012
02 July 2012
Time Marches On... Updates!
Good morning, True Believers. OK, I'm not Stan Lee, but thanks to Z I've been watching a lot of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. And He-Man. And I've now seen every Beethoven movie about 167 times.
Quick updates on... stuff... and then on to some new games (new to me, at least) I'd like to draw your attention to before I plunge into this week's adventures in finishing my BA.
PARENTHOOD -
Well, things are still up-in-the-air. SSDD. Our caseworker for CPS has left the department to move up north somewhere and get married. Huzzah for him! Hope he knows what he's in for... That leaves us, once again, with a new caseworker. Who is it? Well, your guess is as good as mine this morning. We've been without a caseworker for over a week now. Fun, fun.
We had a surprise court date come up last month. Birth mom's lawyer filed for immediate change of placement for the kids. The Judge said negatory to that, but did order that visits would have to begin with the "fictive kin" the parents want to see the kids placed with. And so they have, which has made the case more complicated. First of all, CASA and the Ad Lidem Attorney surprised us by being overwhelmingly supportive of the kids staying right where they are, with the Ad Lidem going so far as to tell the Judge she felt it was wrong to call these new visits "pre-placement visits" as the Ad Lidem's office does not agree this is an appropriate placement for the children. We'll see how far they can get that line of reasoning to go. I hope all the way, as it would mean we'd have a shot at adopting Z and K.
What has occurred is now we have to schedule two visits per week, one with the birth parents, and one with these fictive kin. Mary and I have gotten to know them over the two visits that have already occurred, they are good people. A bit long in the tooth to be raising toddlers, but their hearts are in the right place. I've found that I remember a lot more Spanish than I thought I did, and I am able to communicate fairly well even though Mary requires translation by one of their teenage kids. They have a son who is going to be a Senior and a daughter who I think is going to be a sophomore. The kids speak fluent English and Spanish. If Z and K end up living with them, I will feel a little less troubled than I did before I got to know them, but I still feel their optimal situation would be for us to adopt them. Better neighborhood, schools, and an amazing support structure of family and "fictive kin" on our end.
K turned 1 in May, Z turned 3. We had small parties for both of them, with K being way too clean with her cupcake for a 1-year-old and Z riding the train at Zilker Park. These kids are so much of our lives now - they ARE our family. As far as they are concerned, Mary and I are mommy and daddy. I hope, for the sake of their stability and growth, that we remain so. Our CASA worker mentioned in court that the bonds formed at this point in a child's development have an overwhelming effect on their ability to form close connections for the rest of their lives. That alone is enough for me to fight for these kids - not to mention the fact that I love them with all my heart.
K has learned now to point at Mary and say "Ma ma." She points at me and says "Da da." She has learned that pointing is effective in letting us know what she wants, like her sippy cup or some of Mommy's fries. She also loves green beans - so I cook them often. She's scooting around like lightning, and we expect her to be walking soon.
Z is having some temper issues of a different kind. Unlike the wild, primal tantrums he had when we were first placed with him, he's acting like an angry 3-year-old- which he is, when he's angry. He doesn't like to be corrected (who does?) and we're working with him on it. He's also going through his hitting phase, so we're dealing with that. I got him Castle Grayskull for his birthday, the original 1982 one, and some He-Man figures. Yeah, he's a little young for it - but Mommy and Daddy watch him while he plays and he's a very smart little boy.
We watched E.T. with Z the other night. I keep getting blown away by the experience of being a dad for the first time, and this was no different. For the first 20 minutes or so, we thought he wasn't going to pay attention to the movie- then he got drawn into it, snuggled up with me, and stayed rapt for the rest of the film. When the guys in the space suits showed up at Elliot's home, Zane pointed and yelled "I don't like that!!! Scary!" He loved the movie. And I got to watch E.T. through the eyes of a child who had never seen the film before. It was a pretty moving experience, watching his expressions and reactions to the movie- it was like I was seeing it for the first time. I noticed things I never noticed before. Being a dad is amazing.
LIFE, THE UNIVERSE and EVERYTHING
Aside from the foster parent shuffle, I have to report that my body has finally sent me the message my friends, family, and Dr. Lisa have been trying to tell me since November. I am not a superbeing, I cannot do it all, I need to slow down. I landed in my doctor's office with what is probably a stress-related illness. Too soon to absolutely tell, but all the indications are there. I'll have to go back for some follow-up work, but it seems I have something akin to a dissociative anxiety disorder that caused me to explode into the most severe case of hives I have ever had in my life for four days plus. Benadryl, which knocked hives out in 30 minutes when I was a kid and had them with some frequency, did nothing. I was perscribed some super-antihystamine that did work after a few days, but it knocked me on my butt. My office mate was chuckling at me for two days as I kept falling asleep at my desk courtesy of my meds. So - I HAVE to slow down. I've been looking over my posts and realizing that I've been saying I was going to slow down for months, and I was going to run that "for me" game Dr. Lisa thinks I need to help me relax, and a whole bunch of other stuff.
Well... Now I kinda gotta. I kept telling myself if I just put my head down and kept marching I'd reach the goal line. My goal line was this November or December, basically because by then I'll know if Z and K will be ours permanently, I will have finished my BA course work and started a well-earned break before beginning my MA, and should be sworn in to the State Guard by then. All my major stressors resolved more or less. Well, I didn't make it that far. So I've enacted a few changes that are supposed to make my life easier, and if this last weekend is any indication - it's starting to work.
First of all, I have to have the discipline to get my schoolwork done during the work week, preferably during work hours as my job permits. This allows me to have my weekend to do weekend stuff, rather than stressing about homework. I crunched HARD last week to achieve this, and I can tell you my weekend was much more laid back without worrying about setting aside Saturday or Sunday for homework. So that much helped.
Second - some chores can just wait. If it's not mission critical to do something RIGHT THE HELL NOW I am going to consider going to bed at a decent hour every night after some leisure reading time. I've been able to do this for about four days now, and it does help immensely. Strangely, this weekend I was MORE productive on the chores front, since I found I was feeling more rested and motivated. I got a lot of work done on the game room - including scrubbing the floors by hand, vacuuming, and doing a bit of re-org and re-shelving. Someday I want to do a complete catalogue of my stuff... But that's major project for a later time.
Third - a leisure game will happen. Period. It has to. I must disengage my brain. Gaming is the way I do that. Sure, it's escapism - but it's healthy escapism. And it stimulates that imagination part of my brain that I find absolutely vital to feeling like "me" and not an automaton. What will it be? That's the question. And to with who? That's another problem. TO MY FRIENDS - For the love of sweet merciful crap. Life is too short for us to hold onto crappy grudges and stuff. I've done it - and I wish I hadn't. I'm sick and tired of having to plan crap around which of you yahoos can stand to be in a room with one another and which can't. Once upon a time we were all one big happy group, and we can be again. I know we've hurt each other, and it's been everything from personality issues to folks cheating on each other or breaking up or whatever. It's time to move past this stuff and enjoy life. Dammit.
TXSG
Still working on getting my weight down. But dammit, it's going to happen. My mates all went to Annual Training without me, but by God they impressed their chain of command and told them it was all due to the training I've given them. I want to get off the bench and back into uniform - for the first time in my life as a soldier rather than as a cadet. I will be a soldier or NCO in the 3/2 before the end of the year. Big goal. Gonna make it. Hooah.
GAMING
Ok, what you've all been waiting for. The fun part.
First, I want to talk to you all about Cosmic Patrol, by Catalyst Game Labs. This little red hardcover is definitely worth the price of admission. Cosmic Patrol is just what it says on the tin, folks - pulp sci-fi gaming with rayguns and fishbowl helmets. The system? Imagine if FATE and Savage Worlds had a lovechild. Abilities are rated in dice, D4 through D12, you have plot points you can spend, and your characters have "cues" that are very much like FATE aspects, but don't have a mechanical effect - rather, they are there to help you get into character. There are Red Martian Barbarians, Venusian Scientists, lots of pulpy aliens... this game would be amazing for pickups and one-shots. Character creation is pretty quick and straightforward, and the rules are extremely light. The other nifty thing? Well, you can share GM duties. In the default style of play, each player takes a turn as "Lead Narrarator" and GMs once scene before the mantle passes to the left. Player doesn't know all the rules? Well, no problem. The LN doesn't have to set difficulty numbers or make up monsters. The bad guys are in the book, and the difficulties are set by rolling a D20. Done. Check this book out, or download the free preview that was handed out on free RPG day back in June. If you're a fan of old school sci-fi or the old black-and-white serials like Flash Gordon this is for you. http://www.rpggeek.com/rpg/11720/cosmic-patrol
Next up - my Reese's Traveller games. Why do I call them that? Because in both cases Traveller is the peanut butter, and something else is the chocolate. In the case of Stars Without Number, the chocolate is good old B/X Dungeons and Dragons. For Diaspora, it's FATE.
Stars Without Number is available for free online, or as a hardcover book. This is sort of a retroclone, in fact as I read it I got the feeling this very well could have been what resulted if the TSR staff circa Moldvay Basic had decided they wanted to do a more direct competitor to Traveller instead of going their own way with Star Frontiers (which I love, too...) So, SWN is a class-level game with only three classes - warrior, expert and psionic. There is a skill system that uses 2D6 task resolution, which means easy adaptation of older Traveller or MechWarrior material. There's ship construction, planet and sector generation, even notes on simple artifact mecha. SWN also has an amazing section on factions and how to use them. Everything from basic mercenary units to full-on stellar empires. Also of interest to any Game Master is the section on names for characters and places. Lots and lots of tables of names based on multiple backgrounds and ethnicities. This information alone is worth the download- but the game itself is pretty darn good. We all know I have a deep and abiding love of Battletech, Dungeons and Dragons, and Travller, right? So I've got this idea to do a Battletech game with SWN since the faction system would work GREAT for a Succession Wars game.
http://www.rpggeek.com/rpg/8524/stars-without-number
My final notes today are on Diaspora. I don't have a lot to say about it at this time, as I've only owned it for about 48 hours and haven't gotten to dig into the meat of the book - but the authors credit it specifically as a FATE take on Traveller. This, too, is pursuant to my interests. Also - I'm thinking about doing Battletech with it. Again. I guess I'm just so disillusioned with A Time of War that I keep looking for other systems to run in that universe with. SWN would scratch my old-school itch, but Diaspora definitely has that FATE narrarative quality that some of my friends call "Tree Huggin' Hippy Roleplay." I like it. It has all the... erm... aspects... of a FATE game, along with minigames concerning star cluster development, ship combat, ground combat on the platoon scale, factions... Yeah, it might be tailored to be FATE Battletech if only there were a specific section on 'Mechs. Maybe I'll get to write more on this one when I get to read the rest of the book.
http://www.rpggeek.com/rpg/2676/diaspora
Well, that's all for now, folks. Excelsior!
Quick updates on... stuff... and then on to some new games (new to me, at least) I'd like to draw your attention to before I plunge into this week's adventures in finishing my BA.
PARENTHOOD -
Well, things are still up-in-the-air. SSDD. Our caseworker for CPS has left the department to move up north somewhere and get married. Huzzah for him! Hope he knows what he's in for... That leaves us, once again, with a new caseworker. Who is it? Well, your guess is as good as mine this morning. We've been without a caseworker for over a week now. Fun, fun.
We had a surprise court date come up last month. Birth mom's lawyer filed for immediate change of placement for the kids. The Judge said negatory to that, but did order that visits would have to begin with the "fictive kin" the parents want to see the kids placed with. And so they have, which has made the case more complicated. First of all, CASA and the Ad Lidem Attorney surprised us by being overwhelmingly supportive of the kids staying right where they are, with the Ad Lidem going so far as to tell the Judge she felt it was wrong to call these new visits "pre-placement visits" as the Ad Lidem's office does not agree this is an appropriate placement for the children. We'll see how far they can get that line of reasoning to go. I hope all the way, as it would mean we'd have a shot at adopting Z and K.
What has occurred is now we have to schedule two visits per week, one with the birth parents, and one with these fictive kin. Mary and I have gotten to know them over the two visits that have already occurred, they are good people. A bit long in the tooth to be raising toddlers, but their hearts are in the right place. I've found that I remember a lot more Spanish than I thought I did, and I am able to communicate fairly well even though Mary requires translation by one of their teenage kids. They have a son who is going to be a Senior and a daughter who I think is going to be a sophomore. The kids speak fluent English and Spanish. If Z and K end up living with them, I will feel a little less troubled than I did before I got to know them, but I still feel their optimal situation would be for us to adopt them. Better neighborhood, schools, and an amazing support structure of family and "fictive kin" on our end.
K turned 1 in May, Z turned 3. We had small parties for both of them, with K being way too clean with her cupcake for a 1-year-old and Z riding the train at Zilker Park. These kids are so much of our lives now - they ARE our family. As far as they are concerned, Mary and I are mommy and daddy. I hope, for the sake of their stability and growth, that we remain so. Our CASA worker mentioned in court that the bonds formed at this point in a child's development have an overwhelming effect on their ability to form close connections for the rest of their lives. That alone is enough for me to fight for these kids - not to mention the fact that I love them with all my heart.
K has learned now to point at Mary and say "Ma ma." She points at me and says "Da da." She has learned that pointing is effective in letting us know what she wants, like her sippy cup or some of Mommy's fries. She also loves green beans - so I cook them often. She's scooting around like lightning, and we expect her to be walking soon.
Z is having some temper issues of a different kind. Unlike the wild, primal tantrums he had when we were first placed with him, he's acting like an angry 3-year-old- which he is, when he's angry. He doesn't like to be corrected (who does?) and we're working with him on it. He's also going through his hitting phase, so we're dealing with that. I got him Castle Grayskull for his birthday, the original 1982 one, and some He-Man figures. Yeah, he's a little young for it - but Mommy and Daddy watch him while he plays and he's a very smart little boy.
We watched E.T. with Z the other night. I keep getting blown away by the experience of being a dad for the first time, and this was no different. For the first 20 minutes or so, we thought he wasn't going to pay attention to the movie- then he got drawn into it, snuggled up with me, and stayed rapt for the rest of the film. When the guys in the space suits showed up at Elliot's home, Zane pointed and yelled "I don't like that!!! Scary!" He loved the movie. And I got to watch E.T. through the eyes of a child who had never seen the film before. It was a pretty moving experience, watching his expressions and reactions to the movie- it was like I was seeing it for the first time. I noticed things I never noticed before. Being a dad is amazing.
LIFE, THE UNIVERSE and EVERYTHING
Aside from the foster parent shuffle, I have to report that my body has finally sent me the message my friends, family, and Dr. Lisa have been trying to tell me since November. I am not a superbeing, I cannot do it all, I need to slow down. I landed in my doctor's office with what is probably a stress-related illness. Too soon to absolutely tell, but all the indications are there. I'll have to go back for some follow-up work, but it seems I have something akin to a dissociative anxiety disorder that caused me to explode into the most severe case of hives I have ever had in my life for four days plus. Benadryl, which knocked hives out in 30 minutes when I was a kid and had them with some frequency, did nothing. I was perscribed some super-antihystamine that did work after a few days, but it knocked me on my butt. My office mate was chuckling at me for two days as I kept falling asleep at my desk courtesy of my meds. So - I HAVE to slow down. I've been looking over my posts and realizing that I've been saying I was going to slow down for months, and I was going to run that "for me" game Dr. Lisa thinks I need to help me relax, and a whole bunch of other stuff.
Well... Now I kinda gotta. I kept telling myself if I just put my head down and kept marching I'd reach the goal line. My goal line was this November or December, basically because by then I'll know if Z and K will be ours permanently, I will have finished my BA course work and started a well-earned break before beginning my MA, and should be sworn in to the State Guard by then. All my major stressors resolved more or less. Well, I didn't make it that far. So I've enacted a few changes that are supposed to make my life easier, and if this last weekend is any indication - it's starting to work.
First of all, I have to have the discipline to get my schoolwork done during the work week, preferably during work hours as my job permits. This allows me to have my weekend to do weekend stuff, rather than stressing about homework. I crunched HARD last week to achieve this, and I can tell you my weekend was much more laid back without worrying about setting aside Saturday or Sunday for homework. So that much helped.
Second - some chores can just wait. If it's not mission critical to do something RIGHT THE HELL NOW I am going to consider going to bed at a decent hour every night after some leisure reading time. I've been able to do this for about four days now, and it does help immensely. Strangely, this weekend I was MORE productive on the chores front, since I found I was feeling more rested and motivated. I got a lot of work done on the game room - including scrubbing the floors by hand, vacuuming, and doing a bit of re-org and re-shelving. Someday I want to do a complete catalogue of my stuff... But that's major project for a later time.
Third - a leisure game will happen. Period. It has to. I must disengage my brain. Gaming is the way I do that. Sure, it's escapism - but it's healthy escapism. And it stimulates that imagination part of my brain that I find absolutely vital to feeling like "me" and not an automaton. What will it be? That's the question. And to with who? That's another problem. TO MY FRIENDS - For the love of sweet merciful crap. Life is too short for us to hold onto crappy grudges and stuff. I've done it - and I wish I hadn't. I'm sick and tired of having to plan crap around which of you yahoos can stand to be in a room with one another and which can't. Once upon a time we were all one big happy group, and we can be again. I know we've hurt each other, and it's been everything from personality issues to folks cheating on each other or breaking up or whatever. It's time to move past this stuff and enjoy life. Dammit.
TXSG
Still working on getting my weight down. But dammit, it's going to happen. My mates all went to Annual Training without me, but by God they impressed their chain of command and told them it was all due to the training I've given them. I want to get off the bench and back into uniform - for the first time in my life as a soldier rather than as a cadet. I will be a soldier or NCO in the 3/2 before the end of the year. Big goal. Gonna make it. Hooah.
GAMING
Ok, what you've all been waiting for. The fun part.
First, I want to talk to you all about Cosmic Patrol, by Catalyst Game Labs. This little red hardcover is definitely worth the price of admission. Cosmic Patrol is just what it says on the tin, folks - pulp sci-fi gaming with rayguns and fishbowl helmets. The system? Imagine if FATE and Savage Worlds had a lovechild. Abilities are rated in dice, D4 through D12, you have plot points you can spend, and your characters have "cues" that are very much like FATE aspects, but don't have a mechanical effect - rather, they are there to help you get into character. There are Red Martian Barbarians, Venusian Scientists, lots of pulpy aliens... this game would be amazing for pickups and one-shots. Character creation is pretty quick and straightforward, and the rules are extremely light. The other nifty thing? Well, you can share GM duties. In the default style of play, each player takes a turn as "Lead Narrarator" and GMs once scene before the mantle passes to the left. Player doesn't know all the rules? Well, no problem. The LN doesn't have to set difficulty numbers or make up monsters. The bad guys are in the book, and the difficulties are set by rolling a D20. Done. Check this book out, or download the free preview that was handed out on free RPG day back in June. If you're a fan of old school sci-fi or the old black-and-white serials like Flash Gordon this is for you. http://www.rpggeek.com/rpg/11720/cosmic-patrol
Next up - my Reese's Traveller games. Why do I call them that? Because in both cases Traveller is the peanut butter, and something else is the chocolate. In the case of Stars Without Number, the chocolate is good old B/X Dungeons and Dragons. For Diaspora, it's FATE.
Stars Without Number is available for free online, or as a hardcover book. This is sort of a retroclone, in fact as I read it I got the feeling this very well could have been what resulted if the TSR staff circa Moldvay Basic had decided they wanted to do a more direct competitor to Traveller instead of going their own way with Star Frontiers (which I love, too...) So, SWN is a class-level game with only three classes - warrior, expert and psionic. There is a skill system that uses 2D6 task resolution, which means easy adaptation of older Traveller or MechWarrior material. There's ship construction, planet and sector generation, even notes on simple artifact mecha. SWN also has an amazing section on factions and how to use them. Everything from basic mercenary units to full-on stellar empires. Also of interest to any Game Master is the section on names for characters and places. Lots and lots of tables of names based on multiple backgrounds and ethnicities. This information alone is worth the download- but the game itself is pretty darn good. We all know I have a deep and abiding love of Battletech, Dungeons and Dragons, and Travller, right? So I've got this idea to do a Battletech game with SWN since the faction system would work GREAT for a Succession Wars game.
http://www.rpggeek.com/rpg/8524/stars-without-number
My final notes today are on Diaspora. I don't have a lot to say about it at this time, as I've only owned it for about 48 hours and haven't gotten to dig into the meat of the book - but the authors credit it specifically as a FATE take on Traveller. This, too, is pursuant to my interests. Also - I'm thinking about doing Battletech with it. Again. I guess I'm just so disillusioned with A Time of War that I keep looking for other systems to run in that universe with. SWN would scratch my old-school itch, but Diaspora definitely has that FATE narrarative quality that some of my friends call "Tree Huggin' Hippy Roleplay." I like it. It has all the... erm... aspects... of a FATE game, along with minigames concerning star cluster development, ship combat, ground combat on the platoon scale, factions... Yeah, it might be tailored to be FATE Battletech if only there were a specific section on 'Mechs. Maybe I'll get to write more on this one when I get to read the rest of the book.
http://www.rpggeek.com/rpg/2676/diaspora
Well, that's all for now, folks. Excelsior!
05 June 2012
The Battle of Hoth - An Exam Question
Many thanks to my Maneuver Warfare Instructor, Professor Carl Bradshaw, for having a sense of humor. It had been an long an interesting semester and I encountered, as the last question on the final exam, the writing prompt below. Please note that I got a 100% on the final, 20% of which was based on this question.Describe a battle in terms of the tenets, doctrine, or principles of maneuver warfare. What concepts led to the success or failure for a particular organization?
The Battle of Hoth in 3ABY represented a clear example of combined arms maneuver over static defense. The inexperience of the strategic leadership of The Alliance to Restore the Republic resulted in their Hoth encampment being fortified to withstand a determined assault - yet the Alliance forces had neither the troops nor the equipment to stand off a serious attack by the Galactic Empire, as the historical account of the battles bears out.
The defenders displayed a complete lack of insight into the necessary requirements of maneuver warfare in their defensive operations. In digging into static positions, they denied themselves any sort of agility to maneuver. Their concept of combined arms integration was poor - indeed they employed their air cavalry assets in direct attack on the enemy armor column. This was a deseperate measure that resulted in some Imperial losses at the cost of irreplacable Rebel pilots and aircraft. The employment of leg infantry supported by outdated heavy weapons did little but result in heavy infantry casualties when faced with Imperial armored assets. The static nature of the Alliance defenses allowed the Imperial commander, Major General Maximillian Veers, to control the tempo of the operation and employ his forces as a scalpel, rather than a hammer.
The initial Imperial plan called for surprise, but this advantage was lost due to the ineffecient maneuvering of Admiral Kendal Ozzel's naval forces. Once the amphibious assault was underway, MG Veers made the decision to land his troops out of range of the Alliance defenders and pursue an overland assault deploying his forces in a two-pronged attack that included a diversionary head-on assault, and a secondary force commanded by Veers himself that was focusing on the true objective - the Alliance's infrastructure and power generators.
MG Veers displayed a clear sense of objective in selecting the infrastructure as the main objective of his attack, as the destruction of the generator system would render much of the Rebel defenses inoperable, thereby allowing his forces to advance with an even greater degree of superiority. His concentration of heavy armor and scout armor coupled with mechanized infantry showed an awareness of integrated combined arms, although one could argue that with proper air cover MG Veers could have avoided any armor losses at all. His delay in employing his dismounted infantry until after the Rebel line had been broken was a keen example of force protection, while the head-on thrust of the diversionary force against the Rebel center demonstrated both audacity and misdirection. Using just enough of his armor in the decisive attack against the generator facilities while leaving enough to make the frontal attack convincing showed a concern for economy of force, and ensuring that his subordinates all had recieved copies of his OPORD and a clearly stated commander's intent assured unity of command.
The plan was sufficiently simple as to be executed with minor changes on-the-fly, compensating for the loss of the expected element of surprise. One heavy diversionary attack to fix the enemy and one maneuver force to destroy the initial objective was a clear, simple and historically effective plan on the part of MG Veers.
A failure to anticipate the Imperial commander's intent on the part of Rebel General Carlist Rieekan resulted in the only effective anti-armor assets the Rebels had at Hoth being directed against the diversionary frontal attack, and allowing MG Veers and his party to approach the true objective almost without resistance. The end result was the most decisive defeat of the Alliance to Restore the Republic during the Galactic Civil War, and cost the Alliance dearly in personnel and materiel.
<Please take this in the spirit in which it is intended, given our TDG lessons>
08 May 2012
Yo Joe! - Some "Comfort Food" Gaming
Let's get the Real Life(tm) stuff out of the way. After all that communication about moving our foster kids - things went quiet a week ago and have been eerily so for days. Nobody seems to know anything - maybe something went bad with the possible homestudy? Anyway, I'm now Packet-15lbs, having lost 15 lbs since submitting my Texas State Guard paperwork. Maybe this will be enough to swear in on 12 MAY? We'll see. Since I opened my big mouth about being a gamer - specifically a wargamer - in my Maneuver Warfare calss at AMU, I'm now Blue Team Commander... COBRAAAAAA!
So let's talk about Comfort Food Gaming. As I get older, I begin to notice that when I get stressed or frustrated with life, I tend to "run home to Mama" as Sonarman Jones from Red October would have put it. I listen to 80s rock. I watch "Cheers" and "Night Court." And I have the urge to play games I loved in the 80s, when gaming was a new hobby for me. A lot of times this means D&D, AD&D, Traveller, TMNT, Robotech, Star Trek, Paranoia, Marvel Superheroes, Star Frontiers, Gamma World...
A coupla days ago, we played GI Joe. Now, there was never an official GI Joe roleplaying game - which I think is a terrible, terrible missed opportunity. There have been some really good homages to GI Joe - such as Strike Force 7, Real American H.E.R.O.es, and of course Cartoon Action Hour - which I did some development work on back in The Day (the first edition, rather than the current edition linked here.) There is also a great conversion for Marvel Superheroes here. I chose to use Spycraft 2.0 for the game I ran, as the three players I had were familiar with D20 - as the day went on, I started to realize that Spycraft makes changes and additions to D20 that I'd forgotten about, and the players certainly hadn't been aware of them, either. A lot of them are good changes, but they do add significant crunch. If we continue to play, which the players want to, I'll have to really bone up on Spycraft 2.0 to make sure the players and the GM are getting the most out of the system.
This game combined one of my favorite TV/Comic franchises from my childhood with my favorite hobby and delivered a really awesome day of stress-release. Mary took the kids out and about as would be normal for an RDG meeting day, but since it's finals week and most of our players couldn't make it, I ended up with three players plus me. Hence the one-shot opportunity. GI Joe caught the imaginations of a couple of the players, and so we decided to give it a swing.
We convened at 1100, and character gen took us until 1300. Why two hours? Well, Spycraft 2.0 is D20, but it's a particularly crunchy D20. Feats and skills are implemented in a very structured way, which changes some of the base assumptions players of D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder may have. There are new concepts added, like result caps for skill rolls, threat ranges for all skills, and the application of Action Dice. There was a bit of a learning curve. For those of you who'd like to try Spycraft 2.0, I heartily recommend this excel spreadsheet which will help you create characters. It's a godsend.
From 1300 to 2300 we played. And played. And it was most triumphant.
The game was set in 1983, to take advantage of the original GI Joe team. Our players were a Soviet scientist who had defected to the US, a member of the US Olympic rifle team, and a former-US Army CIA spook. The game was broken into two sessions as I had thought my wife would be taking the kids home at around 1800, so I figured that was my turn-into-a-pumpkin hour. As it happened, she didn't finish watching movies until 2300, and the kids just fell asleep over at her friend's house. So we got a second adventure in from 1800-2300.
Session One -
A mysterious series of psychiatric events begins to occur with US personnel in Germany, formerly stable personnel experience violent paranoia episodes and must be restrained and sedated. What begins as an isolated incident at a border post slowly becomes multiple incidents, too many to be coincidence. Intelligence wants to bring in the aforementioned Soviet defector, as he has experience with a KGB biological agent that was designed to cause just such paranoid outbursts - but was never quite stable. The PC Agent was assigned to be his handler while he was in Germany doing the investigating, but before he could arrive, two members of the US Olympic team were stricken by the illness. One of the witnesses is our third PC. All of them are brought together in an invesitgation that had all the hallmarks of a good Cold War spy thriller. Car chase. Checkpoint Charlie. A cigarette gun. An assassin found assassinated. Tensions across the Wall. It was awesome, but wasn't quite clicking as GI Joe. That said, I had a GREAT time, and so did the players. Over the course of the session, we introduced some GI Joe characters by their file names, but didn't yet hint at the team's existence. Once the investigation turned up a refined version of the original KGB formula, and the Soviet scientist concocted a counteragent, they managed to track and capture Major Sebastian Bludd. Bludd was apparently there to do away with the bottom-level agents who did the actual placing of the bio-agent, and the PCs were in the right place at the right time to nab him.
The end of Session One had Colonel Dexter Sharp and Master Sergeant Conrad Hauser offering the PCs a place on a new kind of counter-terrorist team. Since they'd all seen so much in Germany, and since they all had unique skills that could come in handy... They accepted, and were flown back to Staten Island, New Jersey. Fort Wadsworth, to be exact.
Session Two -
The PCs meet SPC Lance "Clutch" Stienberg, the wrench-turner who takes them to the Fort Wadsworth motor pool - and under it. To The Pit (original comics incarnation.) The two players who were more familiar with Joe were smiling at all the references, and all three knew enough to know who they were dealing with when codenames started to be used as nicknames. The Base Commander was Colonel Clayton "Hawk" Abernathy and they met Alvin "Breaker" Kibbey who jokingly suggested the name "GI Joe" for the team when it was revealed the project didn't have an official designation yet besides some obscure DOD budgetary obfuscation name. Hawk gave Breaker no end of disapproval on naming the team after a 1960s-70s action figure, and refused to consider the name.
Banking on none of the players having read the comic recently, I basically ran Operation : Lady Doomsday from Marvel GI Joe #1. After qualifying with weapons, the players were summoned to a morning briefing with the rest of the team, who chided them on their credentials and offered some rather uncomplimentary ideas for codenames. The situation was explained that Dr. Adele Burkhart had been kidnapped by a shadowy terrorist group, and due to political realities needed to be rescued as quickly as possible.
The team was led by our PCs, with Clutch, Zap and Torpedo assigned to round out the team. The infiltrated the island with a Zodiac boat, and using a great Google Maps-style depiction of Cobra Island found here they planned their mission. This is where it went from Top Secret/SI to GI Joe. Sneaking around Cobra island, they got their first look at the bluesuits, the Stinger jeep, the HISS tank, and Cobra's volcano base. They waylaid a Cobra patrol, stole their uniforms, and snuck into the base by causing an explosion at the airfield as a distraction. Once inside, they encountered a pompous Crimson Guard officer who had been left in charge of the base in the absence of Cobra brass, who lectured them on their slovenly appearance and lack of professionalism. As he was telling them how Cobra would give back just as much as any trooper decided to put in, and all the wonderful rewards for faithful and competent service to Cobra, the team decided they were tired of listening to his guff and executed a lightning-fast attack to neutralize the officer, the armed members of Cobra in the room, and rescue Dr. Burkhart.
Setting charges, they beat feet back to the Volcano motor pool, stole a vehicle, and broke radio silence to call for extraction. A flight of Sky Strikers from the USS Nimitz laid down some AGM cover, while Wild Bill picked up the team in a Tomohawk. When the helicopter landed, they saw that someone had painted "GI Joe" on the side of the helicopter nose-art style. The PCs cheered. They lifted off, mission accomplished, and returned with the Sky Strikers to the Nimitz, meeting Hawk there and recieving his congratulations for rescuing Dr. Burkhart and putting a hurt on this mysterious terrorist organization that was apparently larger, better financed and more organized than anyone had suspected. Hawk grimaces at the new paint job on the Tomohawk, but says nothing until Breaker comes out onto the flight deck to tell him he has a radio call - from the President. As Hawk walks back to the carrier's island to take the call, one of the PCs jokingly says "Yo Joe." The cry is immediately picked up by the rest of the PCs, and the session ends with Hawk turning around and yelling "BREAKER!"
The team hath been named, methinks.
So we had a friggin blast playing GI Joe. The players and I hope to do it again. It was a great stress release for me, and a definite double-portion of comfort food gaming. I want to explore Joe gaming some more, and see if I can't squeeze it into my busy schedule...
So let's talk about Comfort Food Gaming. As I get older, I begin to notice that when I get stressed or frustrated with life, I tend to "run home to Mama" as Sonarman Jones from Red October would have put it. I listen to 80s rock. I watch "Cheers" and "Night Court." And I have the urge to play games I loved in the 80s, when gaming was a new hobby for me. A lot of times this means D&D, AD&D, Traveller, TMNT, Robotech, Star Trek, Paranoia, Marvel Superheroes, Star Frontiers, Gamma World...
A coupla days ago, we played GI Joe. Now, there was never an official GI Joe roleplaying game - which I think is a terrible, terrible missed opportunity. There have been some really good homages to GI Joe - such as Strike Force 7, Real American H.E.R.O.es, and of course Cartoon Action Hour - which I did some development work on back in The Day (the first edition, rather than the current edition linked here.) There is also a great conversion for Marvel Superheroes here. I chose to use Spycraft 2.0 for the game I ran, as the three players I had were familiar with D20 - as the day went on, I started to realize that Spycraft makes changes and additions to D20 that I'd forgotten about, and the players certainly hadn't been aware of them, either. A lot of them are good changes, but they do add significant crunch. If we continue to play, which the players want to, I'll have to really bone up on Spycraft 2.0 to make sure the players and the GM are getting the most out of the system.
This game combined one of my favorite TV/Comic franchises from my childhood with my favorite hobby and delivered a really awesome day of stress-release. Mary took the kids out and about as would be normal for an RDG meeting day, but since it's finals week and most of our players couldn't make it, I ended up with three players plus me. Hence the one-shot opportunity. GI Joe caught the imaginations of a couple of the players, and so we decided to give it a swing.
We convened at 1100, and character gen took us until 1300. Why two hours? Well, Spycraft 2.0 is D20, but it's a particularly crunchy D20. Feats and skills are implemented in a very structured way, which changes some of the base assumptions players of D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder may have. There are new concepts added, like result caps for skill rolls, threat ranges for all skills, and the application of Action Dice. There was a bit of a learning curve. For those of you who'd like to try Spycraft 2.0, I heartily recommend this excel spreadsheet which will help you create characters. It's a godsend.
From 1300 to 2300 we played. And played. And it was most triumphant.
The game was set in 1983, to take advantage of the original GI Joe team. Our players were a Soviet scientist who had defected to the US, a member of the US Olympic rifle team, and a former-US Army CIA spook. The game was broken into two sessions as I had thought my wife would be taking the kids home at around 1800, so I figured that was my turn-into-a-pumpkin hour. As it happened, she didn't finish watching movies until 2300, and the kids just fell asleep over at her friend's house. So we got a second adventure in from 1800-2300.
Session One -
A mysterious series of psychiatric events begins to occur with US personnel in Germany, formerly stable personnel experience violent paranoia episodes and must be restrained and sedated. What begins as an isolated incident at a border post slowly becomes multiple incidents, too many to be coincidence. Intelligence wants to bring in the aforementioned Soviet defector, as he has experience with a KGB biological agent that was designed to cause just such paranoid outbursts - but was never quite stable. The PC Agent was assigned to be his handler while he was in Germany doing the investigating, but before he could arrive, two members of the US Olympic team were stricken by the illness. One of the witnesses is our third PC. All of them are brought together in an invesitgation that had all the hallmarks of a good Cold War spy thriller. Car chase. Checkpoint Charlie. A cigarette gun. An assassin found assassinated. Tensions across the Wall. It was awesome, but wasn't quite clicking as GI Joe. That said, I had a GREAT time, and so did the players. Over the course of the session, we introduced some GI Joe characters by their file names, but didn't yet hint at the team's existence. Once the investigation turned up a refined version of the original KGB formula, and the Soviet scientist concocted a counteragent, they managed to track and capture Major Sebastian Bludd. Bludd was apparently there to do away with the bottom-level agents who did the actual placing of the bio-agent, and the PCs were in the right place at the right time to nab him.
The end of Session One had Colonel Dexter Sharp and Master Sergeant Conrad Hauser offering the PCs a place on a new kind of counter-terrorist team. Since they'd all seen so much in Germany, and since they all had unique skills that could come in handy... They accepted, and were flown back to Staten Island, New Jersey. Fort Wadsworth, to be exact.
Session Two -
The PCs meet SPC Lance "Clutch" Stienberg, the wrench-turner who takes them to the Fort Wadsworth motor pool - and under it. To The Pit (original comics incarnation.) The two players who were more familiar with Joe were smiling at all the references, and all three knew enough to know who they were dealing with when codenames started to be used as nicknames. The Base Commander was Colonel Clayton "Hawk" Abernathy and they met Alvin "Breaker" Kibbey who jokingly suggested the name "GI Joe" for the team when it was revealed the project didn't have an official designation yet besides some obscure DOD budgetary obfuscation name. Hawk gave Breaker no end of disapproval on naming the team after a 1960s-70s action figure, and refused to consider the name.
Banking on none of the players having read the comic recently, I basically ran Operation : Lady Doomsday from Marvel GI Joe #1. After qualifying with weapons, the players were summoned to a morning briefing with the rest of the team, who chided them on their credentials and offered some rather uncomplimentary ideas for codenames. The situation was explained that Dr. Adele Burkhart had been kidnapped by a shadowy terrorist group, and due to political realities needed to be rescued as quickly as possible.
The team was led by our PCs, with Clutch, Zap and Torpedo assigned to round out the team. The infiltrated the island with a Zodiac boat, and using a great Google Maps-style depiction of Cobra Island found here they planned their mission. This is where it went from Top Secret/SI to GI Joe. Sneaking around Cobra island, they got their first look at the bluesuits, the Stinger jeep, the HISS tank, and Cobra's volcano base. They waylaid a Cobra patrol, stole their uniforms, and snuck into the base by causing an explosion at the airfield as a distraction. Once inside, they encountered a pompous Crimson Guard officer who had been left in charge of the base in the absence of Cobra brass, who lectured them on their slovenly appearance and lack of professionalism. As he was telling them how Cobra would give back just as much as any trooper decided to put in, and all the wonderful rewards for faithful and competent service to Cobra, the team decided they were tired of listening to his guff and executed a lightning-fast attack to neutralize the officer, the armed members of Cobra in the room, and rescue Dr. Burkhart.
Setting charges, they beat feet back to the Volcano motor pool, stole a vehicle, and broke radio silence to call for extraction. A flight of Sky Strikers from the USS Nimitz laid down some AGM cover, while Wild Bill picked up the team in a Tomohawk. When the helicopter landed, they saw that someone had painted "GI Joe" on the side of the helicopter nose-art style. The PCs cheered. They lifted off, mission accomplished, and returned with the Sky Strikers to the Nimitz, meeting Hawk there and recieving his congratulations for rescuing Dr. Burkhart and putting a hurt on this mysterious terrorist organization that was apparently larger, better financed and more organized than anyone had suspected. Hawk grimaces at the new paint job on the Tomohawk, but says nothing until Breaker comes out onto the flight deck to tell him he has a radio call - from the President. As Hawk walks back to the carrier's island to take the call, one of the PCs jokingly says "Yo Joe." The cry is immediately picked up by the rest of the PCs, and the session ends with Hawk turning around and yelling "BREAKER!"
The team hath been named, methinks.
So we had a friggin blast playing GI Joe. The players and I hope to do it again. It was a great stress release for me, and a definite double-portion of comfort food gaming. I want to explore Joe gaming some more, and see if I can't squeeze it into my busy schedule...
02 May 2012
Life... Don't talk to me about life...
It's May, and once again I've gone a month without blogging. I have these aspirations of weekly updates and lively conversations about gaming and parenthood - like what it says on the box - but somethimes life intervenes in such a way that I just don't get to.
So let's sum up the last month. The Good? I finished my previous semester with a pair of As, my GPA is 3.71, and if I can take my classes as scheduled, 2 per 8 weeks with no gaps, I should have my BA in Military History around Thanksgiving. Huzzah. I then plan to take a month or two off, and then dive into my MA. I'm looking forward to teaching. A lot. My little girl has learned to crawl, and is aaaaalmost standing on her own. I look at her and I no longer see a baby (sniffle) but a very cute toddler. Her brother has continued to learn, learn, learn and he wants to know all about the world. His latest fascination is with water towers. He makes sure Mary and I never miss one when we're driving.
The bad. Washing machine died. My iPhone no longer gets singal pretty much anywhere and refuses to charge most of the time. We had another minor flood - this one avoidable as someone left the tap on. The casualties were some of the brand new floor is a bit warped and my copy of Neuromancer got destroyed as it had fallen to the bedroom floor between my nightstand and the bed.
Oh, and the State apparently wants to take the kids away. They've found "fictive kin" who they believe might be an appropriate placement for the kiddos. I disagree emphatically, there are lots of problems with this move, not the least of which being that Z will not be able to communicate with these folks as he doesn't speak Spanish and they don't speak English - AND the family is already on government assistance, so adding two kids to their mix certainly won't make their situation any better. Or will it? My Dad and grandmother seem to thing that may be the point - to get more government money for having two more kids. I don't want to assume that's these folks motivation, but they are grandparent age, and I don't think they're up to chasing around a pair of toddlers. Also - Z *needs* to be in daycare. Our pediatrician and the Childhood Development folks made it quite clear that a lot of his development thus far is due to his being socialized with kids his own age. What's the plan if the kids are moved to this other family? Stay at home with the abuelita all day. The woman with which he won't be able to communicate.
At State Guard Drill two Saturdays ago, when I was having trouble with the State's sudden wish to remove "my" children, a good friend pointed out to me that the State I was about to swear to protect and defend with my life, if need be, was not only telling me I was too fat to be useful to them but also that they wanted to take my kids and give them to a family who was obviously not going to be able to give them the opportunities Mary and I can. Do I still want to serve Texas? Yes, I do - the only thing more important to me than finally getting a chance at the military service I was denied when I was younger is the preservation of my family. It does create a conflict when Texas is the entity that is trying to take my family away from me... Yes, I know they're foster children and this was always a possibility - but you try to live with two wonderful children for months and not develop intense emotional ties to them. To Z and K, Mary and I are their whole world. Our friends are their aunts and uncles. Our parents are their grandparents. They have this huge family unit that is nurturing and taking care of them. Why mess with that?
Weight loss is going well, I'm somewhere between 10 and 12 pounds down from where I rebooted my dieting for TXSG. The annoying part is between stress and having caught K's case of HMFD last week, I'm kinda plateau'd. Kicking the gym back in this week, and doing Atkins induction again. I'm juuuust barely in the 270s, I want to try to break the 260s this month. I'll call it a win if I weight 269.9 by 1 JUN. If, between diet and exercise, I can lose 2.5lbs a week, I'll consider that acceptable, marginally healthy weight loss. I know it's possible to lose faster, but not in a sustainable healthy way. My goal is to be an even 200lbs. TXSG wants me at 217, the US Army says I should be 184. I figgure 200 is splitting the difference.
Gaming... I know a couple of you out there read this rambling for my thoughts on gaming. So - here we go on that front. I am absolutely PUMPED for the release of Shadowrun 2050 - it's everything I want in a Shadowrun game, hopefully. 4A rules, and 1e fluff. The original feel of Shadowrun coupled with the best set of rules they ever published for the game. Count me in for that - I like my Cyberpunk firmly rooted 20 minutes into the future of 1987. Give me Pink Mohawk, give me cyberdecks that look like someone put a guitar strap on a Commodore 64. Jack in, turn on, drop out. Yeah, baby. Also in the news Jordan Weisman has re-aquired the rights to Shadowrun video games and is putting out a game in the vein of the Super Nintendo and Sega Shadowrun games. The kickstarter for this asked for $400,000, and it got over $1,750,000. Shows you how much love there is for Shadowrun, the old games, and the 2050s setting.
I continue to feel burned out on my major project, the Royal Dragoon Guards. I love what we've built, the characters, the stories, the history... But I just can't feel as motivated about it as I used to. That's actually a problem that's pervading my whole existence right now - there's things I have to do, but very few things I want to do. I'm kinda stuck in that terrible rut we all saw our parents in and swore we'd never succumb to. I've got work, school, and parenthood duties. Those things HAVE to be taken care of. Beyond that, there's RDG. That HAS to be done for the sake of the players. I don't really look forward to it anymore. It's work. I don't want it to go away... It's something I poured my heart and soul into for years. I just no longer get the enjoyment out of it that I used to - it's always a slog, and I hate that I feel this way. I have the occasional burst of energy that allows me to get some plot written, or have some great talks with Bobby and Ed and Scott about the direction the game is going to go... but then all that happy gaming glow just dissipates and I'm left wishing I could spend what precious gaming time I do have doing something... else.
Look, I've been the architect behind several monumentally awesome gaming clubs. The original Caladan Highland Dragoons, the USS Ark Angel, the 342nd MSG, and now the Royal Dragoon Guards. Each of them had a good run, 5-8 years, and to be honest the RDG is the spiritual successor to the CHD - they're all children of the same concept, refinements of the same dream. I don't consider any of them to have failed - because they all continued in a different form.
I suppose what I'm wanting from my gaming life now is changing back to what I wanted from it when I was muuuuch younger. When I think of the kind of gaming that would make me happy - what would really put me in my happy place - I think of a small group of friends, me and 5-6 players, sitting around a table with snacks and music, playing a really great game. The games I think of are often things that floated my boat in the 80s and 90s - D&D, AD&D, Traveller, Twilight : 2000, Paranoia, Ghostbusters, Star Wars D6, Cyberpunk/Shadowrun, Earthdawn, Space : 1889, Marvel Superheroes, Star Frontiers, Top Secret/SI, Renegade Legion, MechWarrior (early editions)... RuneQuest, Rolemaster, Pendragon...
Could it be possible that the architect in me is tired? Could it be possible that that drive within me to create something larger than myself is finally ready to admit that if something must be kept together by force of will, maybe it's just to much for me to continue to do so? Do I just need a rest or a break and the old me will come back with a vengeance?
Maybe.
I know for a fact that all this stress about losing the kids, coupled with things getting dicey at work with threatened staff moves and maybe even a couple of firings, sprinkled liberally with Mary's job always being up in the air and her company always on the brink of insolvency, then seasoned with being forever buried in schoolwork thanks to 8-week semesters without a real break in between them (even over the holidays) and things that keep being destroyed around the house... all this stress has me just wanting to turtle. To revert to 1987 when I loved Cheers, Night Court, Star Trek the Next Generation, and sitting in my Mom's kitchen playing D&D with my school friends. My heart and my mind want to go back to a simpler time. Classic TV takes me there. I've caught myself watching the above shows, plus SNL from when I was in middle school and high school. Listening to the music I listened to back then. Talking to friends on Facebook I went to school with and haven't seen in two decades.
I'll be 37 this year. I'm doing the things I SHOULD have done when I was in my early 20s - beginning my stint in the (state) military, and finishing my Master's. I became a father at 36, and who knows if I'll still be a father at 37. I certainly hope so. I want to be Z and K's "daddy" - Z already calls me that. I want Mary and I to be their "forever family." Despite having had lots of wonderful adventures in the last two decades of my life, I feel I wasted a lot of that time being complacent in my job here at ACC for 12 of that. I should have graduated college in my 20s, not my 30s. I should be two years away from military retirement - not beginning what amounts to a career in the militia. I just feel like I have so much "lost time" that I have to try to make up for. Using the average ages of my grandfathers I've now got more years behind than I have ahead. One of my friends who's just a few years older than me just got diagnosed with colorectal cancer. It's sobering.
So what's my plan? How do I proceed from here? Well, chummers, I plan to reach down inside myself and grab that core that is me and try to drag him back to the surface. I am *not* the stress-laden sad sack I've allowed myself to become. I'm creative, I love to tell stories and I love to share them with my friends. I'm the one people come to when they need to be cheered up, and not vice versa. I'm going to do the soldiering I always felt was my duty to do - and in the process I'm going to help people out and make my service count for something. I'm going to be the best damn father I can be to Z and K - and I'm going to fight to keep them with every tool in my arsenal. Just give me five minutes in that courtroom to weave my verbal dweomers and see if Perry Mason ain't got nothin' on me.
Gorrammit, Mal, I'm *tired* of being depressed. I'm *tired* of being tired. I'm *tired* of doing things by rote or out of habit. If there's positive change to be made, I've got to make it. I've got to keep my eye on the ball and realize that I'm only six classes away from my BA, and then I'm getting a much needed break, then I'm going to get my MA and move forward from the dead-end tech job I've worked for over ten years. The future is brighter than I've let myself believe. I've let all the clouds block out the stars when I look into the night sky. Each of those stars is a blessing in my life that I've overlooked as I've become more and more depressed with my lot. There's a star for each of my family - who are all supportive to a fault. There's a star for my friends - who are also my family. I don't know what I'd do without the family who have chosen to be a family. We can't control our genetics - but we do get to choose our friends, and they choose us back, and that's one of the most beautiful things about life. There are people in this world more important to me than myself and each and every one of them is something I should be giving thanks for more often. I've got a good home, a steady job, and a stack of bills that somehow always manages to take my whole paycheck, but there's always just enough to keep them covered. Could be worse, right?
I'm buried under all this sturm und drang. I've gotta find myself again, be happy with who I am and where I am in my life. Right now, I feel a lot of the time that I'm robotically doing the things that need to be done with the goal of making sure Mary and Z and K are fed, snuggled and taken care of and my only other goal is sleep. I run RDG stuff for the same reason - my friends need gaming, I'm providing that service to them, but as soon as I'm done discharing that duty it's time to sleep. I love my kids and my wife. I love my friends and the RDG. Whatever this funk is that's keeping me from actually enjoying them has to go. This pall and depression has to take the hell off, hoser, and go bother somebody else. I don't want the moments of happiness to be the few and far between nuggets they have been for the last six months. I remember a time - a pretty long one, really - where I was consistently happy with my lot. I loved myself, and my life. What happened to that? How do I get it back?
Dr. Lisa says I need to relax. I told her last month I would - and then I put the lie to that statement. I kept working and stressing and telling myself I would relax - but first I have to take care of X or Y. Nope - I will make time for myself. I will make time to do things I love to do. I must get myself back in battery so I can be the husband Mary misses. The Dad Z and K need so much. The friend that all of my friends miss, and are worried about. I need a massive battery recharge, and in my conversations with Dr. Lisa I think we've worked out something that will help. I talked about it in last month's blog post - but I got too busy/sick/guilted to do anything about it. Well, chummers, it's time I got to it. I wanna be myself again.
Therapeutic gaming, here I come... I hope...
So let's sum up the last month. The Good? I finished my previous semester with a pair of As, my GPA is 3.71, and if I can take my classes as scheduled, 2 per 8 weeks with no gaps, I should have my BA in Military History around Thanksgiving. Huzzah. I then plan to take a month or two off, and then dive into my MA. I'm looking forward to teaching. A lot. My little girl has learned to crawl, and is aaaaalmost standing on her own. I look at her and I no longer see a baby (sniffle) but a very cute toddler. Her brother has continued to learn, learn, learn and he wants to know all about the world. His latest fascination is with water towers. He makes sure Mary and I never miss one when we're driving.
The bad. Washing machine died. My iPhone no longer gets singal pretty much anywhere and refuses to charge most of the time. We had another minor flood - this one avoidable as someone left the tap on. The casualties were some of the brand new floor is a bit warped and my copy of Neuromancer got destroyed as it had fallen to the bedroom floor between my nightstand and the bed.
Oh, and the State apparently wants to take the kids away. They've found "fictive kin" who they believe might be an appropriate placement for the kiddos. I disagree emphatically, there are lots of problems with this move, not the least of which being that Z will not be able to communicate with these folks as he doesn't speak Spanish and they don't speak English - AND the family is already on government assistance, so adding two kids to their mix certainly won't make their situation any better. Or will it? My Dad and grandmother seem to thing that may be the point - to get more government money for having two more kids. I don't want to assume that's these folks motivation, but they are grandparent age, and I don't think they're up to chasing around a pair of toddlers. Also - Z *needs* to be in daycare. Our pediatrician and the Childhood Development folks made it quite clear that a lot of his development thus far is due to his being socialized with kids his own age. What's the plan if the kids are moved to this other family? Stay at home with the abuelita all day. The woman with which he won't be able to communicate.
At State Guard Drill two Saturdays ago, when I was having trouble with the State's sudden wish to remove "my" children, a good friend pointed out to me that the State I was about to swear to protect and defend with my life, if need be, was not only telling me I was too fat to be useful to them but also that they wanted to take my kids and give them to a family who was obviously not going to be able to give them the opportunities Mary and I can. Do I still want to serve Texas? Yes, I do - the only thing more important to me than finally getting a chance at the military service I was denied when I was younger is the preservation of my family. It does create a conflict when Texas is the entity that is trying to take my family away from me... Yes, I know they're foster children and this was always a possibility - but you try to live with two wonderful children for months and not develop intense emotional ties to them. To Z and K, Mary and I are their whole world. Our friends are their aunts and uncles. Our parents are their grandparents. They have this huge family unit that is nurturing and taking care of them. Why mess with that?
Weight loss is going well, I'm somewhere between 10 and 12 pounds down from where I rebooted my dieting for TXSG. The annoying part is between stress and having caught K's case of HMFD last week, I'm kinda plateau'd. Kicking the gym back in this week, and doing Atkins induction again. I'm juuuust barely in the 270s, I want to try to break the 260s this month. I'll call it a win if I weight 269.9 by 1 JUN. If, between diet and exercise, I can lose 2.5lbs a week, I'll consider that acceptable, marginally healthy weight loss. I know it's possible to lose faster, but not in a sustainable healthy way. My goal is to be an even 200lbs. TXSG wants me at 217, the US Army says I should be 184. I figgure 200 is splitting the difference.
Gaming... I know a couple of you out there read this rambling for my thoughts on gaming. So - here we go on that front. I am absolutely PUMPED for the release of Shadowrun 2050 - it's everything I want in a Shadowrun game, hopefully. 4A rules, and 1e fluff. The original feel of Shadowrun coupled with the best set of rules they ever published for the game. Count me in for that - I like my Cyberpunk firmly rooted 20 minutes into the future of 1987. Give me Pink Mohawk, give me cyberdecks that look like someone put a guitar strap on a Commodore 64. Jack in, turn on, drop out. Yeah, baby. Also in the news Jordan Weisman has re-aquired the rights to Shadowrun video games and is putting out a game in the vein of the Super Nintendo and Sega Shadowrun games. The kickstarter for this asked for $400,000, and it got over $1,750,000. Shows you how much love there is for Shadowrun, the old games, and the 2050s setting.
I continue to feel burned out on my major project, the Royal Dragoon Guards. I love what we've built, the characters, the stories, the history... But I just can't feel as motivated about it as I used to. That's actually a problem that's pervading my whole existence right now - there's things I have to do, but very few things I want to do. I'm kinda stuck in that terrible rut we all saw our parents in and swore we'd never succumb to. I've got work, school, and parenthood duties. Those things HAVE to be taken care of. Beyond that, there's RDG. That HAS to be done for the sake of the players. I don't really look forward to it anymore. It's work. I don't want it to go away... It's something I poured my heart and soul into for years. I just no longer get the enjoyment out of it that I used to - it's always a slog, and I hate that I feel this way. I have the occasional burst of energy that allows me to get some plot written, or have some great talks with Bobby and Ed and Scott about the direction the game is going to go... but then all that happy gaming glow just dissipates and I'm left wishing I could spend what precious gaming time I do have doing something... else.
Look, I've been the architect behind several monumentally awesome gaming clubs. The original Caladan Highland Dragoons, the USS Ark Angel, the 342nd MSG, and now the Royal Dragoon Guards. Each of them had a good run, 5-8 years, and to be honest the RDG is the spiritual successor to the CHD - they're all children of the same concept, refinements of the same dream. I don't consider any of them to have failed - because they all continued in a different form.
I suppose what I'm wanting from my gaming life now is changing back to what I wanted from it when I was muuuuch younger. When I think of the kind of gaming that would make me happy - what would really put me in my happy place - I think of a small group of friends, me and 5-6 players, sitting around a table with snacks and music, playing a really great game. The games I think of are often things that floated my boat in the 80s and 90s - D&D, AD&D, Traveller, Twilight : 2000, Paranoia, Ghostbusters, Star Wars D6, Cyberpunk/Shadowrun, Earthdawn, Space : 1889, Marvel Superheroes, Star Frontiers, Top Secret/SI, Renegade Legion, MechWarrior (early editions)... RuneQuest, Rolemaster, Pendragon...
Could it be possible that the architect in me is tired? Could it be possible that that drive within me to create something larger than myself is finally ready to admit that if something must be kept together by force of will, maybe it's just to much for me to continue to do so? Do I just need a rest or a break and the old me will come back with a vengeance?
Maybe.
I know for a fact that all this stress about losing the kids, coupled with things getting dicey at work with threatened staff moves and maybe even a couple of firings, sprinkled liberally with Mary's job always being up in the air and her company always on the brink of insolvency, then seasoned with being forever buried in schoolwork thanks to 8-week semesters without a real break in between them (even over the holidays) and things that keep being destroyed around the house... all this stress has me just wanting to turtle. To revert to 1987 when I loved Cheers, Night Court, Star Trek the Next Generation, and sitting in my Mom's kitchen playing D&D with my school friends. My heart and my mind want to go back to a simpler time. Classic TV takes me there. I've caught myself watching the above shows, plus SNL from when I was in middle school and high school. Listening to the music I listened to back then. Talking to friends on Facebook I went to school with and haven't seen in two decades.
I'll be 37 this year. I'm doing the things I SHOULD have done when I was in my early 20s - beginning my stint in the (state) military, and finishing my Master's. I became a father at 36, and who knows if I'll still be a father at 37. I certainly hope so. I want to be Z and K's "daddy" - Z already calls me that. I want Mary and I to be their "forever family." Despite having had lots of wonderful adventures in the last two decades of my life, I feel I wasted a lot of that time being complacent in my job here at ACC for 12 of that. I should have graduated college in my 20s, not my 30s. I should be two years away from military retirement - not beginning what amounts to a career in the militia. I just feel like I have so much "lost time" that I have to try to make up for. Using the average ages of my grandfathers I've now got more years behind than I have ahead. One of my friends who's just a few years older than me just got diagnosed with colorectal cancer. It's sobering.
So what's my plan? How do I proceed from here? Well, chummers, I plan to reach down inside myself and grab that core that is me and try to drag him back to the surface. I am *not* the stress-laden sad sack I've allowed myself to become. I'm creative, I love to tell stories and I love to share them with my friends. I'm the one people come to when they need to be cheered up, and not vice versa. I'm going to do the soldiering I always felt was my duty to do - and in the process I'm going to help people out and make my service count for something. I'm going to be the best damn father I can be to Z and K - and I'm going to fight to keep them with every tool in my arsenal. Just give me five minutes in that courtroom to weave my verbal dweomers and see if Perry Mason ain't got nothin' on me.
Gorrammit, Mal, I'm *tired* of being depressed. I'm *tired* of being tired. I'm *tired* of doing things by rote or out of habit. If there's positive change to be made, I've got to make it. I've got to keep my eye on the ball and realize that I'm only six classes away from my BA, and then I'm getting a much needed break, then I'm going to get my MA and move forward from the dead-end tech job I've worked for over ten years. The future is brighter than I've let myself believe. I've let all the clouds block out the stars when I look into the night sky. Each of those stars is a blessing in my life that I've overlooked as I've become more and more depressed with my lot. There's a star for each of my family - who are all supportive to a fault. There's a star for my friends - who are also my family. I don't know what I'd do without the family who have chosen to be a family. We can't control our genetics - but we do get to choose our friends, and they choose us back, and that's one of the most beautiful things about life. There are people in this world more important to me than myself and each and every one of them is something I should be giving thanks for more often. I've got a good home, a steady job, and a stack of bills that somehow always manages to take my whole paycheck, but there's always just enough to keep them covered. Could be worse, right?
I'm buried under all this sturm und drang. I've gotta find myself again, be happy with who I am and where I am in my life. Right now, I feel a lot of the time that I'm robotically doing the things that need to be done with the goal of making sure Mary and Z and K are fed, snuggled and taken care of and my only other goal is sleep. I run RDG stuff for the same reason - my friends need gaming, I'm providing that service to them, but as soon as I'm done discharing that duty it's time to sleep. I love my kids and my wife. I love my friends and the RDG. Whatever this funk is that's keeping me from actually enjoying them has to go. This pall and depression has to take the hell off, hoser, and go bother somebody else. I don't want the moments of happiness to be the few and far between nuggets they have been for the last six months. I remember a time - a pretty long one, really - where I was consistently happy with my lot. I loved myself, and my life. What happened to that? How do I get it back?
Dr. Lisa says I need to relax. I told her last month I would - and then I put the lie to that statement. I kept working and stressing and telling myself I would relax - but first I have to take care of X or Y. Nope - I will make time for myself. I will make time to do things I love to do. I must get myself back in battery so I can be the husband Mary misses. The Dad Z and K need so much. The friend that all of my friends miss, and are worried about. I need a massive battery recharge, and in my conversations with Dr. Lisa I think we've worked out something that will help. I talked about it in last month's blog post - but I got too busy/sick/guilted to do anything about it. Well, chummers, it's time I got to it. I wanna be myself again.
Therapeutic gaming, here I come... I hope...
03 April 2012
A Perscription for Gaming
Well, Dr. Lisa tells me that it is imperative that I find the things that relax me and make them happen. I must make time to relax, to de-stress. As I've heard from many, many people over the last several months "if you don't take care of yourself, you cannot take care of others."
My problem is that I'm apparently someone who has unrealistic expectations of himself and a White Knight/martyr complex. It is against my nature to look to myself before looking to others. Couched in the concept that I must look to myself in order to look to others, then perhaps I must now evaluate my hobby time.
For the last, oh, decade and a half or more... Since about 1995, I have been involved in many large gaming organizations. The original Caladan Highland Dragoons, the USS Ark Angel and her 342nd Marine Strike Group, and most recently the Royal Dragoon Guards. In all of those situations, I ended up being the only or at least the lead game master. I was also in most cases administrator and leader of the organization or a department thereof. I made it a habit to run the games that would entertain the masses, but not necessarily the games I was passionate about running. Did I have fun? Of course. But maybe now it's time for a change.
What I've basically got is a perscription to do more leisure reading, try to relax more, and pick some game I am actually passionate about and run it. Over the last decade-plus I've done a lot of D&D, Shadowrun, Star Wars and MechWarrior. I love these games, but they do appeal to the wide audience I've run for and have kept me from doing the significantly more niche stuff I'd like to do.
So here we go. I'm going to try to run a game for ME. Now, it may end up being one of the ones in that list above that I've run constantly for two decades. Or, it may be something like Earthdawn... or Legionnairre... or Space : 1889. Something that *I* have always found fascinating but have always back-burnered for reasons of wider appeal because I felt I *HAD* to entertain as many people as possible.
Nope, my perscription is to run something because I want to, not because I feel I have to in order to entertain the masses.
Let's see what I come up with.
My problem is that I'm apparently someone who has unrealistic expectations of himself and a White Knight/martyr complex. It is against my nature to look to myself before looking to others. Couched in the concept that I must look to myself in order to look to others, then perhaps I must now evaluate my hobby time.
For the last, oh, decade and a half or more... Since about 1995, I have been involved in many large gaming organizations. The original Caladan Highland Dragoons, the USS Ark Angel and her 342nd Marine Strike Group, and most recently the Royal Dragoon Guards. In all of those situations, I ended up being the only or at least the lead game master. I was also in most cases administrator and leader of the organization or a department thereof. I made it a habit to run the games that would entertain the masses, but not necessarily the games I was passionate about running. Did I have fun? Of course. But maybe now it's time for a change.
What I've basically got is a perscription to do more leisure reading, try to relax more, and pick some game I am actually passionate about and run it. Over the last decade-plus I've done a lot of D&D, Shadowrun, Star Wars and MechWarrior. I love these games, but they do appeal to the wide audience I've run for and have kept me from doing the significantly more niche stuff I'd like to do.
So here we go. I'm going to try to run a game for ME. Now, it may end up being one of the ones in that list above that I've run constantly for two decades. Or, it may be something like Earthdawn... or Legionnairre... or Space : 1889. Something that *I* have always found fascinating but have always back-burnered for reasons of wider appeal because I felt I *HAD* to entertain as many people as possible.
Nope, my perscription is to run something because I want to, not because I feel I have to in order to entertain the masses.
Let's see what I come up with.
20 March 2012
Life is a Hamster Wheel
I've been intending to post more on my Battletech World musings for over a month. I've been intending to do a lot of things... Let me tell you, the last few months have degenerated into my feeling a lot like Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day." 8-week semesters in online college are actually kinda killer - it seems just as you're getting into a class, it's mid-terms, then finals. Since everything I'm taking from here on out is a history class (save Astronomy, which I'm admittedly procrastinating on taking) it's reasearch, papers, and more research. So school is whipping my butt-tocks. I realized the depths of my morale loss when I managed to flub one week in my Revolutionary War class by simply blanking on the posting requirements and missing some things entirely. I deservedly got a C and a 50 on two assignments, and that shook me hard since the lowest grade I'd gotten so far was a 97. It made me take a hard look at WHY I got those grades.
My give-a-dam busted. It's the hamster wheel of life. Get up, dress one or more children, get said child or children to daycare, go to work. Work on some schoolwork, pick up kids, feed kids, get kids to bed - and by the time they're in bed, be too fatigued to do much else. Completely fail to sleep through the night - even with meds - and wake up and do it all over again. And again. And again. And on Sundays - marathon through the schoolwork I have left for the week. This last week it was five hours straight of finishing up my lessons.
Last week was supposedly Spring Break - so I got time off work. Predictably for my current run of luck, my wife, myself, and both kids took turns having the 24-hour stomach explosion. This, plus other commitments meant that my psychologist-perscribed concept of taking some time to relax completely by playing some AD&D turned into a total mess. There were some bright spots, to be sure - we did get 4 hours of good gaming in, I got to see my little girl learn to hold her own bottle at last, and my little boy and I got some great playtime in. I managed to hit the gym 9 days in a row, then take Sat and Sun off, and get back to it yesterday. And that 30 minutes on the elliptical doesn't feel nearly as tough as it did a week ago. Next week I'm adding 5 minutes, and 5 again each week until I hit an hour. So there were bright spots...
I will say that the brief AD&D we DID get in - after trying to get rolling twice before - kinda served to remind me of what I'm missing. I found it kind of a tease, really. I miss THAC0. I miss Exceptional Strength for fighters. I miss hit dice. Basically, AD&D, like 80s music and episodes of Cheers, calms my mind and helps me focus on relaxation. It reminds me of a simpler time when I didn't have bills to pay, research to do, and children to mind. Now, don't get me wrong - parenthood has been an amazing journey so far, but as Dr. Lisa my therapist has told me (in addition to my Mom, my friends, etc.) I can't take care of my family if I don't take care of myself. I'm not sleeping right, I'm not relaxing, and I'm pretty much tied into stress knots most of the time. The one hobby game I have left, the amazing Royal Dragoon Guards, is feeling more and more like work and I'm having a harder and harder time giving it the work it's due. My motivation for pretty much everything is just... gone. I keep doing the things I absolutely have to do, and not much else. My brain won't be quiet - I keep thinking about bills, whether or not our foster kids will still be with us a month from now, if I'm going to be able to graduate this fall... if it can be worried about, I keep worrying about it. Nothing has really helped. Even the THIRD sleep med, this one also used for anti-anxiety, fails to really help.
My perscription from my therapist is for relaxation. The problem is finding time, and not feeling guilty about it. When I'm trying to do something for me, that means I'm not doing something for my wife or my kids- and that bothers me so much I have a hard time enjoying whatever I'm doing. I've gotta do something... But I'm not sure what. My mother says parents should give up pretty much everything in their lives until their kids are in their tweens or so. I'm not wired that way - I can't relax without having some social interaction, preferably in the form of gaming. It's my mental release, and has been since I've been a teenager. And I miss it.
Sorry for the downer. Hope that I can blog more about the gaming part here soon.
My give-a-dam busted. It's the hamster wheel of life. Get up, dress one or more children, get said child or children to daycare, go to work. Work on some schoolwork, pick up kids, feed kids, get kids to bed - and by the time they're in bed, be too fatigued to do much else. Completely fail to sleep through the night - even with meds - and wake up and do it all over again. And again. And again. And on Sundays - marathon through the schoolwork I have left for the week. This last week it was five hours straight of finishing up my lessons.
Last week was supposedly Spring Break - so I got time off work. Predictably for my current run of luck, my wife, myself, and both kids took turns having the 24-hour stomach explosion. This, plus other commitments meant that my psychologist-perscribed concept of taking some time to relax completely by playing some AD&D turned into a total mess. There were some bright spots, to be sure - we did get 4 hours of good gaming in, I got to see my little girl learn to hold her own bottle at last, and my little boy and I got some great playtime in. I managed to hit the gym 9 days in a row, then take Sat and Sun off, and get back to it yesterday. And that 30 minutes on the elliptical doesn't feel nearly as tough as it did a week ago. Next week I'm adding 5 minutes, and 5 again each week until I hit an hour. So there were bright spots...
I will say that the brief AD&D we DID get in - after trying to get rolling twice before - kinda served to remind me of what I'm missing. I found it kind of a tease, really. I miss THAC0. I miss Exceptional Strength for fighters. I miss hit dice. Basically, AD&D, like 80s music and episodes of Cheers, calms my mind and helps me focus on relaxation. It reminds me of a simpler time when I didn't have bills to pay, research to do, and children to mind. Now, don't get me wrong - parenthood has been an amazing journey so far, but as Dr. Lisa my therapist has told me (in addition to my Mom, my friends, etc.) I can't take care of my family if I don't take care of myself. I'm not sleeping right, I'm not relaxing, and I'm pretty much tied into stress knots most of the time. The one hobby game I have left, the amazing Royal Dragoon Guards, is feeling more and more like work and I'm having a harder and harder time giving it the work it's due. My motivation for pretty much everything is just... gone. I keep doing the things I absolutely have to do, and not much else. My brain won't be quiet - I keep thinking about bills, whether or not our foster kids will still be with us a month from now, if I'm going to be able to graduate this fall... if it can be worried about, I keep worrying about it. Nothing has really helped. Even the THIRD sleep med, this one also used for anti-anxiety, fails to really help.
My perscription from my therapist is for relaxation. The problem is finding time, and not feeling guilty about it. When I'm trying to do something for me, that means I'm not doing something for my wife or my kids- and that bothers me so much I have a hard time enjoying whatever I'm doing. I've gotta do something... But I'm not sure what. My mother says parents should give up pretty much everything in their lives until their kids are in their tweens or so. I'm not wired that way - I can't relax without having some social interaction, preferably in the form of gaming. It's my mental release, and has been since I've been a teenager. And I miss it.
Sorry for the downer. Hope that I can blog more about the gaming part here soon.
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