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...
08 May 2012
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.
24 January 2012
Battletech World Musings -
I've often talked and posted on RPG forums about my belief that contrary to what folks say, the original "feel" of Battletech was perfectly sustainable without changing the base assumptions of the universe as happened with the 3025-3050 time jump. MechWarriors went from knights to glorified tank drivers as technology recovered at a fantastic rate. The feeling of the world changed, no longer could a battalion garrison an entire planet- sometimes even a company - now there were Regimental Combat Teams being flung about and massive battles the likes of which hadn't been seen since Kerensky. The Battletech board game was designed for company-level actions and below, and the world was tailored to those skirmish-type battles. The change in focus and scope brought a lot more changes - some of which left players feeling marginalized as 'Mechs and 'MechWarriors became more common and less rarefied.
Let me see if I can weave an image of "my" MechWarrior Universe... Let's set the way back machine for the waning years of the Third Succession War, the original starting point, before the Fourth War, before the Clans, before everything else...
****
King George grimaced as the darkness in his audience chamber flashed, flickered, and then was broken by the slowly increasing glow of the electric lights. A moment later, the King's nose told him the furnace had began to operate, with the scent of that first blast of heat filling the air. Around the audience chamber, he saw men and women who had stalwartly refused to dress for the chill - their King had indicated by his dress that the lack of power to the castle would not cause them to change their daily routine. Some of them could not disguise their relief as warm air began to issue from the ventilation system, and the King could not fault them. A long moment passed with the inhabitants of the chamber saying nothing, the silence was broken by the footfalls of approaching men.
Precentor Giles did not pause to be announced, a fact that rankled King George and caused his Senior Technician, walking abreast with the Precentor, to pause at the entryway as protocol demanded.
"Precentor Giles of the Most Blessed Order of ComStar!" sounded through the room, echoing off the vaulted stone of the chamber, the voice of the officiant rushing through the announcement in a futile attempt to preserve protocol. Senior Technician Hertmann almost jogged to catch back up the Precentor, but kept a respectful pace behind the robed figure as he approached the throne.
"Your Majesty, by the blessings of Blake we have restored power to your fortress - for now." The Precentor announced imperiously, with only a sketch of a bow. The King narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. He wanted to rebuke the Precentor for his lack of protocol, but his forces were so damnably dependent on ComStar for technical support he didn't dare risk the Order's ire.
"For now, Precentor? Pray explain." The King cast a glance at his Senior Technician and noticed his visibly downcast expression.
"I must regretfully inform you that the ancient generators that power this fortress are nearing the end of their useful service lives. They were never designed to last two centuries, and I'm afraid the rather earnest but regrettably unsophisticated attempts of your own technical staff have resulted in makeshift repairs that only make matters worse."
Hertmann visibly grimaced as the Precentor derided his skills, and those of his techs. He wanted to speak in his own defense, but he was as aware of the Kingdom's need for ComStar assistance as his monarch, and held his tongue.
"Further, Your Majesty, I believe ComStar can solve your power issues with much less fuss and bother than keeping centuries-old fission generators in operation. Please allow me to ask my superiors if we can manage to have a fusion plant shipped here from Terra. We do have a few still in stockpile from the Star League days, and for the purposes of powering your castle and the surrounding town, I believe I can make a good case to the Primus that your world and your people deserve this blessing in the name of peace."
"What, Precentor, would be ComStar's fee for this... blessing?" The King asked, knowing the price would be far too high.
"Oh, quite reasonable, Your Majesty. ComStar would request one hundred square kilometers of your land centered on the old ruins north of Dansen. We would like to establish a monastery there, and a work camp for the homeless here and abroad. Your world has the blessing of ample farmland, farmland that could be worked to the benefit of those who have no food on their homeworlds. In addition, I believe there is a vein of sphalerite in that region. We could employ some of these refugees to mine that, and turn the resulting iron ore and zinc over to you as tribute." The Precentor smiled with a look of complete serenity, bowing slowly from the shoulders.
King George looked once again to his Senior Technician. Hertmann was looking back intently with an expression that mirrored the King's own thoughts. Something was wrong here. There was more to this than the Precentor was letting on, of course, but could the King turn down a fusion plant- cheap, clean power for the castle and the surrounding town- in exchange for some farmland that was being worked by men and animals and a few decrepit tractors?
"Precentor, should we grant you this land, you will doubtless work it to the extent of ComStar's vast technological knowledge to work the land in the most efficient manner, yes?" The King asked slowly.
"Of course, Your Majesty." The Precentor decided to set the hook. "And once ComStar has an agricultural interest on this world, we would of course be bringing in the kinds of agricultural equipment in use on far more affluent worlds. Perhaps Our Blessed Order would see fit to provide the services of some of these machines to your own farms as perpetual payment for the lease of the monastery land?"
The King knew he was making a deal with the devil - but he had people and an army to feed. He knew he could not ask for war materiel - ComStar was of course neutral in these matters. "We agree to this proposal, Precentor, and we thank the Blessed Order for their support of our kingdom. Please stay and dine with us to celebrate the beginning of a new prosperity..."
****
Adept Haley bowed as his superior climbed into their speeder - a vehicle that by its graceful lines and quiet fusion drive reminded everyone on this Blake-forsaken rock that ComStar and its technicians were what saved them from living like barbarians. As the hatch of the speeder clicked closed and Haley settled into the pilot's seat, he cast a glance at the Precentor in the back seat.
"Did all go according to plan, Eminence?"
"Oh, yes, Haley. Yes indeed. Our friend Georgie up there in his ridiculously quaint castle sold us the land in exchange for a fusion drive and a few ag robots." The Precentor smiled at his own faint reflection in the mirror.
"That's not much of a payout, considering the mineral reports we received." The Adept commented.
"You just arrived from Terra, Adept, so I will spell this out for you. The Will of Blake is that Our Blessed Order will preserve mankind and have her rise from the ashes wrought by the Succession Wars, but in order for us to do that, we must carefully husband resources until we are strong enough to impose the Will of Blake upon the Human Sphere. These resources include materials and people. This world is a perfect example. Most of the rest of the Lyran Commonwealth doesn't even know this planet exists, and if they did they would laugh that this marginal ball of rock has no less that four men styling themselves "kings." We control information, therefore we have managed to monopolize trade with this world to ComStar-owned traders, and therefore we have controlled imported technologies here for four generations. The fusion core I offered them was produced on Terra in one of ComStar's mass production facilities just last year, and then painstakingly aged to look as if it were a Star League artifact. This ancient and rare artifact is being so generously doled to the King by ComStar as a token of our goodwill, in exchange for the establishment of the monastery and work camp. We'll mine their ore, keep the germanium they don't even know is there, and give them all the zinc and iron they want..." The Precentor's voice drifted off.
Adept Haley was thoughtful. "Excuse my ignorance, Your Eminence, but aside from the germanium's use in our HPGs and drive cores... what good does the rest of this deal do toward the Will of Blake?"
"Goodwill, Haley. The people of this planet will appreciate our tablescraps. Of course we could thoroughly modernize this world with trivial effort. In a decade we could have this world producing enough food to feed the nearest five planets. We allow them to continue their territorial disputes and farm their lands with mule teams so that when we gift them with 'irreplacable' agriculture drones or other technological tidbits they see us as the saviors of mankind. When the time comes for ComStar to make its move, that goodwill becomes a weapon we will use to turn the people, weary from centuries of war, to the Will of Blake."
"I see, Eminence. And... we operate in the same manner at the level of the Houses?" Haley was making a connection.
"Of course, Haley. And above. We control interstellar communications. We have technologies on Terra the likes of which most worlds don't even imagine existing. We recover or destroy what artifacts may be dangerous to the Will of Blake, and allow those that keep the status quo to find their way into the arsenal of the Successor House that is in the worst need. We keep the balance, and they oblige us by continuing to war over a throne that has been empty for centuries. Someday soon, the Houses will be so weak from the conflicts that they will be too weak to war with one another - infrastructures will shatter, militaries will be unable to conduct offensives... the people, Haley, will be so weary of the privations of endless war, of losing sons and daughters to rulers great and petty... A people will do drastic things when they are desperate for change. We have them balanced precariously on the edge of technology's knife - we only sparingly allow 'Mechs, FTL starships and advanced thinking machines to be built. When we do, we make sure ComStar is there to... 'advise'... We encourage their construction and employment of tanks... DropShips... infantry arms... the tools they need to grind one another to that glorious breaking point. The pieces will be ours to pick up, and the Star League will be reborn as the Blessed Profet Jerome Blake prophesied."
Haley swallowed uncomfortably. "And the dead?"
"How many more would die, Haley, if we failed to assume control to ultimately stop the killing? Those who die now do so to bring about the peace that will save all of those who remain. It is the Will of Blake - it is mathematically moral, regrettable though it may be."
The speeder continued on into the night, with Adept Haley's thoughts becoming ever deeper and darker. Was this The Order he had really joined? Perhaps Precentor Giles was right...
Let me see if I can weave an image of "my" MechWarrior Universe... Let's set the way back machine for the waning years of the Third Succession War, the original starting point, before the Fourth War, before the Clans, before everything else...
****
King George grimaced as the darkness in his audience chamber flashed, flickered, and then was broken by the slowly increasing glow of the electric lights. A moment later, the King's nose told him the furnace had began to operate, with the scent of that first blast of heat filling the air. Around the audience chamber, he saw men and women who had stalwartly refused to dress for the chill - their King had indicated by his dress that the lack of power to the castle would not cause them to change their daily routine. Some of them could not disguise their relief as warm air began to issue from the ventilation system, and the King could not fault them. A long moment passed with the inhabitants of the chamber saying nothing, the silence was broken by the footfalls of approaching men.
Precentor Giles did not pause to be announced, a fact that rankled King George and caused his Senior Technician, walking abreast with the Precentor, to pause at the entryway as protocol demanded.
"Precentor Giles of the Most Blessed Order of ComStar!" sounded through the room, echoing off the vaulted stone of the chamber, the voice of the officiant rushing through the announcement in a futile attempt to preserve protocol. Senior Technician Hertmann almost jogged to catch back up the Precentor, but kept a respectful pace behind the robed figure as he approached the throne.
"Your Majesty, by the blessings of Blake we have restored power to your fortress - for now." The Precentor announced imperiously, with only a sketch of a bow. The King narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. He wanted to rebuke the Precentor for his lack of protocol, but his forces were so damnably dependent on ComStar for technical support he didn't dare risk the Order's ire.
"For now, Precentor? Pray explain." The King cast a glance at his Senior Technician and noticed his visibly downcast expression.
"I must regretfully inform you that the ancient generators that power this fortress are nearing the end of their useful service lives. They were never designed to last two centuries, and I'm afraid the rather earnest but regrettably unsophisticated attempts of your own technical staff have resulted in makeshift repairs that only make matters worse."
Hertmann visibly grimaced as the Precentor derided his skills, and those of his techs. He wanted to speak in his own defense, but he was as aware of the Kingdom's need for ComStar assistance as his monarch, and held his tongue.
"Further, Your Majesty, I believe ComStar can solve your power issues with much less fuss and bother than keeping centuries-old fission generators in operation. Please allow me to ask my superiors if we can manage to have a fusion plant shipped here from Terra. We do have a few still in stockpile from the Star League days, and for the purposes of powering your castle and the surrounding town, I believe I can make a good case to the Primus that your world and your people deserve this blessing in the name of peace."
"What, Precentor, would be ComStar's fee for this... blessing?" The King asked, knowing the price would be far too high.
"Oh, quite reasonable, Your Majesty. ComStar would request one hundred square kilometers of your land centered on the old ruins north of Dansen. We would like to establish a monastery there, and a work camp for the homeless here and abroad. Your world has the blessing of ample farmland, farmland that could be worked to the benefit of those who have no food on their homeworlds. In addition, I believe there is a vein of sphalerite in that region. We could employ some of these refugees to mine that, and turn the resulting iron ore and zinc over to you as tribute." The Precentor smiled with a look of complete serenity, bowing slowly from the shoulders.
King George looked once again to his Senior Technician. Hertmann was looking back intently with an expression that mirrored the King's own thoughts. Something was wrong here. There was more to this than the Precentor was letting on, of course, but could the King turn down a fusion plant- cheap, clean power for the castle and the surrounding town- in exchange for some farmland that was being worked by men and animals and a few decrepit tractors?
"Precentor, should we grant you this land, you will doubtless work it to the extent of ComStar's vast technological knowledge to work the land in the most efficient manner, yes?" The King asked slowly.
"Of course, Your Majesty." The Precentor decided to set the hook. "And once ComStar has an agricultural interest on this world, we would of course be bringing in the kinds of agricultural equipment in use on far more affluent worlds. Perhaps Our Blessed Order would see fit to provide the services of some of these machines to your own farms as perpetual payment for the lease of the monastery land?"
The King knew he was making a deal with the devil - but he had people and an army to feed. He knew he could not ask for war materiel - ComStar was of course neutral in these matters. "We agree to this proposal, Precentor, and we thank the Blessed Order for their support of our kingdom. Please stay and dine with us to celebrate the beginning of a new prosperity..."
****
Adept Haley bowed as his superior climbed into their speeder - a vehicle that by its graceful lines and quiet fusion drive reminded everyone on this Blake-forsaken rock that ComStar and its technicians were what saved them from living like barbarians. As the hatch of the speeder clicked closed and Haley settled into the pilot's seat, he cast a glance at the Precentor in the back seat.
"Did all go according to plan, Eminence?"
"Oh, yes, Haley. Yes indeed. Our friend Georgie up there in his ridiculously quaint castle sold us the land in exchange for a fusion drive and a few ag robots." The Precentor smiled at his own faint reflection in the mirror.
"That's not much of a payout, considering the mineral reports we received." The Adept commented.
"You just arrived from Terra, Adept, so I will spell this out for you. The Will of Blake is that Our Blessed Order will preserve mankind and have her rise from the ashes wrought by the Succession Wars, but in order for us to do that, we must carefully husband resources until we are strong enough to impose the Will of Blake upon the Human Sphere. These resources include materials and people. This world is a perfect example. Most of the rest of the Lyran Commonwealth doesn't even know this planet exists, and if they did they would laugh that this marginal ball of rock has no less that four men styling themselves "kings." We control information, therefore we have managed to monopolize trade with this world to ComStar-owned traders, and therefore we have controlled imported technologies here for four generations. The fusion core I offered them was produced on Terra in one of ComStar's mass production facilities just last year, and then painstakingly aged to look as if it were a Star League artifact. This ancient and rare artifact is being so generously doled to the King by ComStar as a token of our goodwill, in exchange for the establishment of the monastery and work camp. We'll mine their ore, keep the germanium they don't even know is there, and give them all the zinc and iron they want..." The Precentor's voice drifted off.
Adept Haley was thoughtful. "Excuse my ignorance, Your Eminence, but aside from the germanium's use in our HPGs and drive cores... what good does the rest of this deal do toward the Will of Blake?"
"Goodwill, Haley. The people of this planet will appreciate our tablescraps. Of course we could thoroughly modernize this world with trivial effort. In a decade we could have this world producing enough food to feed the nearest five planets. We allow them to continue their territorial disputes and farm their lands with mule teams so that when we gift them with 'irreplacable' agriculture drones or other technological tidbits they see us as the saviors of mankind. When the time comes for ComStar to make its move, that goodwill becomes a weapon we will use to turn the people, weary from centuries of war, to the Will of Blake."
"I see, Eminence. And... we operate in the same manner at the level of the Houses?" Haley was making a connection.
"Of course, Haley. And above. We control interstellar communications. We have technologies on Terra the likes of which most worlds don't even imagine existing. We recover or destroy what artifacts may be dangerous to the Will of Blake, and allow those that keep the status quo to find their way into the arsenal of the Successor House that is in the worst need. We keep the balance, and they oblige us by continuing to war over a throne that has been empty for centuries. Someday soon, the Houses will be so weak from the conflicts that they will be too weak to war with one another - infrastructures will shatter, militaries will be unable to conduct offensives... the people, Haley, will be so weary of the privations of endless war, of losing sons and daughters to rulers great and petty... A people will do drastic things when they are desperate for change. We have them balanced precariously on the edge of technology's knife - we only sparingly allow 'Mechs, FTL starships and advanced thinking machines to be built. When we do, we make sure ComStar is there to... 'advise'... We encourage their construction and employment of tanks... DropShips... infantry arms... the tools they need to grind one another to that glorious breaking point. The pieces will be ours to pick up, and the Star League will be reborn as the Blessed Profet Jerome Blake prophesied."
Haley swallowed uncomfortably. "And the dead?"
"How many more would die, Haley, if we failed to assume control to ultimately stop the killing? Those who die now do so to bring about the peace that will save all of those who remain. It is the Will of Blake - it is mathematically moral, regrettable though it may be."
The speeder continued on into the night, with Adept Haley's thoughts becoming ever deeper and darker. Was this The Order he had really joined? Perhaps Precentor Giles was right...
12 January 2012
New Year - New Musings on D&D 5e
OK, dear readers. New year, new discussions, new dedication to blogging about stuff. In honor of this dedication, I'm going to use this first post to talk about Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition. The internet is burning up with discussions, disgust, hope... Forbes and the New York Times even mentioned the new edition. Mike Mearls has been making some pretty interesting comments on just what 5e would be, and the open playtest model has got a lot of people talking - and signing up.
So, 5e, eh? Here's my thoughts on 4e. When Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition first came out, I wasn't a fan. I bought the PHB, DMG and MM at launch and learned the rules and found that it just wasn't what I wanted in D&D. It wasn't a bad game- just not the kind of D&D I had grown accustomed to. Time went by. D&D launched the Essentials line. For some strange reason that hooked me. My friends tell me it was the Larry Elmore artwork on the Red Box, but I assure you it was the rules tweaks. Gone were the martial characters that played like spellcasters, "defender aura" made so much more sense to me than "mark", and best of all I got into the D&D Encounters program at the FLGS and had a blast with it. Maybe 4e *could* be the kind of game I could love. Sadly, to this day I have still not gotten to see if the game would work for me and my players as a home campaign - I have players who stolidly refuse to touch anything 4e if they can help it.
So, what did I like about D&D Essentials that persuaded me to change my mind about 4e? Well, first of all there are a couple of things that both 4e and 4eE do that are, from a player perspective, very good changes. Thanks to healing surges and extra HP first level characters don't have the mortality rate they used to. Now, trust me, I still carry my 1985-vintage grognard card from when I first started playing D&D. I am used to player mortality rates being in the triple-digits as one or two poor players lose 3-5 characters before the party averages 2nd level. That's the way it was... and we liked it! But today's gamers are different in their outlook, and a newbie player who might be teetering between being a mundane or being a closet geek might be made or broken by a single bad gaming experience.
Let's talk about Carly. Carly is a girly-girl, and had never picked up much less rolled a D20 in her life. She was into pedis and shopping and dancing and karaoke and didn't read much and didn't really watch sci-fi or genre TV outside of the Lord of the Rings films... So, not our target audience. Or is she? I have always been of the opinion that inside nearly EVERYONE is a gamer waiting for the right game. So we talked Carly into coming over and trying D&D. A little alcohol and some good friends later, she made up her first D&D character using the choose-your-own-path vignette from the Red Box (Essentials) book. And we played.
Now, Carly had chosen to play a thief. Had we been playing BD&D or AD&D1e I guarantee you she wouldn't have lasted thirty minutes into the game as she played her character with cinematic gusto. A 4HP thief would have died several times over, ending her first D&D character and probably souring her on the experience. BUT - with the way D&D Essentials characters are built, not only did she survive taking some risks and diving into the melee, but thanks to minion rules she was able to feel like a total hero on her first time out.
Some of my players think 1st Level characters in 4e are overpowered. I tend to agree until I look at the situation I just described. Carly may not find a weekly D&D game - but I'm pretty sure the next time she comes to visit she'll wanna play with us again. Her first experience was empowering, and fun - and that's what it should be if we expect to recruit new gamers from outside the audience that is already predisposed toward our hobby.
Oh, I digressed... Back to what I liked about Essentials. OK, the Warpriest played like a BD&D Cleric. I could kick butt, and I could heal - sometimes in the same round. I really liked that. I also liked healing being per encounter rather than per day. It made the party a little more hardy and let us get on with the business of adventuring instead of camping after every fight. Now, I know this is how we played from when I got into the hobby until 4e launched, but I can admit that it's traditional - but not optimal. The slow grind up from 1st Level to about 5th Level was a slog with a lot of running back to the camp or the keep to sleep and recharge spells. Getting around that made for a faster-moving narrarative.
I like that martial abilities now make a little more sense to the in-game physics. OK, someone standing next to my fighter causes me to swing at them when they're attacking one of my friends - makes sense. Me going "Hey, you, over there! Come get me!" and having that cause a to-hit penalty, or worse in the case of the Paladin cause damage... not so much. Now, if that Paladin damage happens while the opponent is next to the Paladin, that's more like a holy aura. It's things like these, and stances, that tend to make more sense to me for some reason and make Essentials feel more like D&D that original 2008 4e.
So, now 5e is coming out. I am going to be cautiously optimistic. Now, I'll be honest. If I were to start a D&D campaign tomorrow I would be equally likely to use Essentials, Basic D&D (B/X or BECMI), AD&D 1 or 2... I have some love for all versions of D&D save 4.0 and 3.0 (I don't dislike 3.0, but 3.5 does solve some of the early 3.0 issues). There's also Pathfinder and FantasyCraft, which are also quality games each with their own flavor. To complicate things, I'm also a fan of OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Dark Dungeons and the retroclone movement in general...
So what am I saying? On one hand, I don't really need a new edition of D&D. I already have several editions that all serve their purpose in different ways. On the other hand, this is Wizards of the Coast's opportunity to do what they have stated is their goal - which is to create a version of D&D that will be acceptable to fans of all editions. They have said they will be building a modular game. I think this is a great idea. It reminds me of the Advanced Edition Companion book for Labyrinth Lord. It basically makes a B/X Clone into a usable AD&D clone. The beauty is that one adds to the other, rather than replacing it. If the new D&D is built like that, then BD&D and AD&D (for example) can be easily compatible. Mearls has already been quoted as saying that a grid and tactical combat would be a module to be added to the basic game. This suits me fine, as I've got players who love tactical combat, but some who want narrarative combat instead.
If this opportunity is made the most of, and WoTC actually listens to the playtesters... I think this could rock quite a bit. We could get a cleaned up version of Basic D&D that would contain the ability to be expanded to a more tactical, or more detailed, or more... anything game. Modular. It could work. In fact, I've been cribbing some notes myself - but I promised after Stars Without Number totally blew away the project I was working on that I'd stay away from writing my own fantasy heartbreakers. Of course... there is still the tempation to do it...
5e. I'm signed up to playtest. I look forward to seeing what they've got going on. Cautiously Optimistic.
So, 5e, eh? Here's my thoughts on 4e. When Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition first came out, I wasn't a fan. I bought the PHB, DMG and MM at launch and learned the rules and found that it just wasn't what I wanted in D&D. It wasn't a bad game- just not the kind of D&D I had grown accustomed to. Time went by. D&D launched the Essentials line. For some strange reason that hooked me. My friends tell me it was the Larry Elmore artwork on the Red Box, but I assure you it was the rules tweaks. Gone were the martial characters that played like spellcasters, "defender aura" made so much more sense to me than "mark", and best of all I got into the D&D Encounters program at the FLGS and had a blast with it. Maybe 4e *could* be the kind of game I could love. Sadly, to this day I have still not gotten to see if the game would work for me and my players as a home campaign - I have players who stolidly refuse to touch anything 4e if they can help it.
So, what did I like about D&D Essentials that persuaded me to change my mind about 4e? Well, first of all there are a couple of things that both 4e and 4eE do that are, from a player perspective, very good changes. Thanks to healing surges and extra HP first level characters don't have the mortality rate they used to. Now, trust me, I still carry my 1985-vintage grognard card from when I first started playing D&D. I am used to player mortality rates being in the triple-digits as one or two poor players lose 3-5 characters before the party averages 2nd level. That's the way it was... and we liked it! But today's gamers are different in their outlook, and a newbie player who might be teetering between being a mundane or being a closet geek might be made or broken by a single bad gaming experience.
Let's talk about Carly. Carly is a girly-girl, and had never picked up much less rolled a D20 in her life. She was into pedis and shopping and dancing and karaoke and didn't read much and didn't really watch sci-fi or genre TV outside of the Lord of the Rings films... So, not our target audience. Or is she? I have always been of the opinion that inside nearly EVERYONE is a gamer waiting for the right game. So we talked Carly into coming over and trying D&D. A little alcohol and some good friends later, she made up her first D&D character using the choose-your-own-path vignette from the Red Box (Essentials) book. And we played.
Now, Carly had chosen to play a thief. Had we been playing BD&D or AD&D1e I guarantee you she wouldn't have lasted thirty minutes into the game as she played her character with cinematic gusto. A 4HP thief would have died several times over, ending her first D&D character and probably souring her on the experience. BUT - with the way D&D Essentials characters are built, not only did she survive taking some risks and diving into the melee, but thanks to minion rules she was able to feel like a total hero on her first time out.
Some of my players think 1st Level characters in 4e are overpowered. I tend to agree until I look at the situation I just described. Carly may not find a weekly D&D game - but I'm pretty sure the next time she comes to visit she'll wanna play with us again. Her first experience was empowering, and fun - and that's what it should be if we expect to recruit new gamers from outside the audience that is already predisposed toward our hobby.
Oh, I digressed... Back to what I liked about Essentials. OK, the Warpriest played like a BD&D Cleric. I could kick butt, and I could heal - sometimes in the same round. I really liked that. I also liked healing being per encounter rather than per day. It made the party a little more hardy and let us get on with the business of adventuring instead of camping after every fight. Now, I know this is how we played from when I got into the hobby until 4e launched, but I can admit that it's traditional - but not optimal. The slow grind up from 1st Level to about 5th Level was a slog with a lot of running back to the camp or the keep to sleep and recharge spells. Getting around that made for a faster-moving narrarative.
I like that martial abilities now make a little more sense to the in-game physics. OK, someone standing next to my fighter causes me to swing at them when they're attacking one of my friends - makes sense. Me going "Hey, you, over there! Come get me!" and having that cause a to-hit penalty, or worse in the case of the Paladin cause damage... not so much. Now, if that Paladin damage happens while the opponent is next to the Paladin, that's more like a holy aura. It's things like these, and stances, that tend to make more sense to me for some reason and make Essentials feel more like D&D that original 2008 4e.
So, now 5e is coming out. I am going to be cautiously optimistic. Now, I'll be honest. If I were to start a D&D campaign tomorrow I would be equally likely to use Essentials, Basic D&D (B/X or BECMI), AD&D 1 or 2... I have some love for all versions of D&D save 4.0 and 3.0 (I don't dislike 3.0, but 3.5 does solve some of the early 3.0 issues). There's also Pathfinder and FantasyCraft, which are also quality games each with their own flavor. To complicate things, I'm also a fan of OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Dark Dungeons and the retroclone movement in general...
So what am I saying? On one hand, I don't really need a new edition of D&D. I already have several editions that all serve their purpose in different ways. On the other hand, this is Wizards of the Coast's opportunity to do what they have stated is their goal - which is to create a version of D&D that will be acceptable to fans of all editions. They have said they will be building a modular game. I think this is a great idea. It reminds me of the Advanced Edition Companion book for Labyrinth Lord. It basically makes a B/X Clone into a usable AD&D clone. The beauty is that one adds to the other, rather than replacing it. If the new D&D is built like that, then BD&D and AD&D (for example) can be easily compatible. Mearls has already been quoted as saying that a grid and tactical combat would be a module to be added to the basic game. This suits me fine, as I've got players who love tactical combat, but some who want narrarative combat instead.
If this opportunity is made the most of, and WoTC actually listens to the playtesters... I think this could rock quite a bit. We could get a cleaned up version of Basic D&D that would contain the ability to be expanded to a more tactical, or more detailed, or more... anything game. Modular. It could work. In fact, I've been cribbing some notes myself - but I promised after Stars Without Number totally blew away the project I was working on that I'd stay away from writing my own fantasy heartbreakers. Of course... there is still the tempation to do it...
5e. I'm signed up to playtest. I look forward to seeing what they've got going on. Cautiously Optimistic.
29 November 2011
Parenthood Strikes - Reflections upon a month of being a Foster Dad.
Just a few days after having made that last post, Mary and I were blessed with the placement of two foster children. Now, because these are foster kids from the CPS system, I can't post their names or photos, since it's a "privacy issue" according to our foster care agency. The oldest is a boy, Z, who is 2 years old. He's a handsome young man who is very sharp, and quite helpful. He also has some temper issues likely a result of being 2, and of having been through some rough times in his life where he didn't get the attention he needed. These issues have waxed and waned depending on our situations, which I'll get to later in this post. His little sister, K, turned six months just a bit ago. She's a very happy baby, and has wrapped me around her little finger in record time.
In the first two weeks, I was Mr. Mom. My wife has a job that allows her very little paid time off. In fact, their company is going through a rough patch. There have been layoffs, and she's had to take Fridays off without pay for the past few weeks, and will be getting a week without pay in December. This is a set of time-buying maneuvers by the owners to keep the doors open until January, when their business traditionally picks up. What this meant is that after the placement, taking care of the kids during the day was 100% me. Which was fine. In theory.
I learned almost overnight how to change diapers, make formula, what the proper amount of time in our microwave was to heat said formula, how to change and put to bed a 2-year-old... I also learned that while juggling two small children it is impossible to do anything that requires concentration. My schoolwork started to fall behind, and in an 8-week semester, that can be deadly.
Let me say that before we were placed with the kids, I had taken a step that was quite out of character for me, and began seeing a councilor. My work plays for an employee assistance program, and under EAP any employee can get a free 8 sessions of counciling. I had reached a point in my life where I knew something wasn't right, and maybe it was time I did something about it. So I'd been seeing Lisa, my councilor, for about a month when the kids came along. I talked to her about my inability to rest, my overactive mind that wouldn't shut off at night, my attempts to hold our group of freinds together after some events started to pull it apart... So yeah, I was not in a great place before the kids arrived.
The arrival of our children was initially a very happy event. Mary and I had worked for this for literally years, we'd taken classes, background checks, fingerprints... all the hoops you have to jump through to become foster parents. And there's a lot of it. So this was the fulfillment of a goal we had shared since we got married. Becoming parents is part of growing up, right?
Then the sleepless nights started. Or in my case, got worse. My anxiety and worry started getting worse. I was worried about falling behind in school. I was worried that both our cars needed work and we simply didn't have the money. My sleep became so shallow that any little noise Z or K made in the night had me snapping awake. I quickly got to the point that I couldn't fall asleep at all - since I would lie awake waiting for a child to cry. My mind just told me not to get too comfortable, because as soon as I did I would be changing someone or making a bottle. Then we discovered the water leak that's currently got two of our walls opened up and our insurance company involved. I'd reached a breaking point. I could no longer take on any more worry.
In addition to the stuff that was bothering me before the placement of kids, now we had so much more to deal with. There was the mechanics of having two small children - feeding, changing, playing, etc. There was the paperwork involved in foster care - and there's lots of that. There's visitations with the birth parents, which of course take place on the other side of Austin. There's medical visits, both because we have to get them taken care of as a part of our foster care (well checks) and due to visits K and Z have needed for illnesses. There's childcare arrangements, which still haven't been totally taken care of. Did you know daycare for a toddler is $600 per month, and for an infant is $800? Luckily, CCMS takes care of that cost after it kicks in, but it took three weeks for it to kick in. K was in daycare one day before a fever took her back out of daycare. And who had to take time off work to care for her? Yup. Me.
Now, that isn't Mary's fault. It's just the way things are. But the stresses from all directions started to close in on me. I felt trapped in my own home - and I started to develop an additional feeling of anxiety at the thought of being home. Especially after the water leak situation developed, I no longer felt at ease or comfortable in our house, and I looked for reasons to work late or to otherwise stay away. Mary took this as me not wanting to be around her or the kids- which was not strictly the case. The water leak and subsequen opening up of the damaged walls and week of drying equipment meant we spent a week living with my grandmother. During this time I called Lisa, who I hadn't seen for a month, and said I really needed to talk.
I'd tried to tell Mary about my feelings of anxiety. I tried to tell her that I don't want to feel this way- and I realize I'm having some very irrational fears. But knowing the fears are irrational, and dispelling them are different things. Talking to Lisa helped quite a bit. She suggested, among other things, that I may want to try anti-anxiety medications. I told her thanks, but no thanks. I need to keep my head clear to take care of my family. I don't cotton to mood-altering drugs. It takes me a lot to just take OTC medications.
In any case, Mary takes my anxiety personally. She also takes it to mean I no longer want kids. This isn't what I'm thinking at all. What I want is to understand and alleviate my anxiety so that I can sleep well, and be the father these kids need. I don't want to feel like an alien in my own home. I don't want to have a sense of impending doom like I live in the Amityville house. I want to be calm, on an even keel, and drive on.
I thought some gaming would help, so I organized a small game to try to do something "old school" that would take me back to the carefree days of youth where weekends were weekends and we played stuff like Traveller, Star Frontiers, BECMI D&D, Marvel Superheroes, etc. We played Traveller. I started to fall asleep a coupla hours into the session. It made me miserable. I can't even GM reliably anymore. Ugh.
Mary has accused me of wanting to go back to our old lives, and I'd be lying if I said that wasn't an attractive option. I'd love to decrease my stress levels. The problem is I've fallen in love with these two children, and if they left my care I know I would worry about who was caring for them, where they were, and what more I could have done to care for them. My friends and some of my family think that Mary and I shouldn't have them just now, that there are issues that need to be squared away. I used to think these issues were all me, but those same family and friends are telling me that they believe Mary could use some counseling, and that a lot of our problems have to do with her preconcieved notions of life and parenthood. They tell me I'm doing too much, worrying too much, and I've had more than one person say they're concerned for my physical and mental help.
Well, here's the deal. I want to slow down. I want to de-stress. But now, I have these two beautiful children who are depending on me. Mary's salary won't come close to paying the bills. That burden falls on me - whose paycheck covers all our bills and a bit of gas & groceries. She can't take off work when they have appointments, visits, or are sick. I have to take care of that. House has issues? I deal with insurance and plumbers and contractors. These are things she can't wrap her head around. I'm trying to offload as much as I can so she can help take some of this off my shoulders, but there's just so much of it that for one reason or another she can't relieve me of.
K and Z need me to keep on keepin' on. And I know, several of you have reminded me that if I have a mental or physical breakdown I won't be doing anyone any good. That's true, and I'm mindful of it. But if I can't find any other way to slow down, I'm going to have to keep taking care of business - because somebody has to. I just pray that sometime in the near future, I can catch by breath, get my focus back, and have some fun for fun's sake. I want to be able to sleep at night without millions of worries plaguing my mind. I want to be able to relax and not constantly have my head in "general quarters" mode ready to jump up and react to potential kid problems. I want to feel like there's time to, oh, shower, without feeling guilty about having my eyes off the kids. I got a big dose of that guilt this morning before work. And I took a French Shower (thanks, Old Spice deoderant!) and got my ass to work.
So, I am not happy. My wife is unhappy that I am unhappy. Not so much because *I* am unhappy, but because she thinks I am unhappy due to the children. You see, having children was apparently the whole point of our getting married 12 years ago. So, if I'm not happy with the children then our marraige isn't worth a whole lot. Or so she tells me. So, if I can't handle this transition and something results in the removal of K and Z, then it's my fault, and our marriage is pretty much over.
Like I needed *that* on top of everything else.
Look, to whom it may concern, I have had over a month now to become bonded to these children. Yes, I kinda favor K, who favors me. She's very much a foster daddy's girl. She cuddles with my dirty shirts and it stops her from crying. (Little trick I learned from babycenter.com) I also love Z, even though he gets on my nerves with his temper issues and screaming. But that aside he's also a very smart, very helpful little boy. He brings me diapers and wipes when K needs changing. He brings us bottles when she wants to be fed. At heart, he's a good boy - he just needs guidance and love. And that's what I hope we can give him.
So I love them both. I also love my wife more than I think she realizes. It hurts me that I'm out of the equation most of the time. I feel like I'm the thing that's necessary to keep the finances rolling so she can be mommy. If I'm not actively engaged in something in direct support of the kids, I get the guilt complex. She tries to give me "my space" so I can relax, but she doesn't fathom that I simply cannot relax with my mind being the way it is right now. No amount of time or quiet is going to calm me, I fear. That's why I'm seeing a freaking councilor. I did not choose this. I do not *want* to be showing this kind of frailty, weakness, whatever you want to call it. It sucks, and I feel that I'm not hacking it as a husband or a father, and I wonder how my elders ever survived all of this.
That's what kills me. I know every dad who ever was worth the title has been where I am. Why, then, am I affected on such a profound level that I find myself losing the ability to function on a day-to-day basis? I'm fatigued, forgetful, irritable... I've had physical issues that I've been told are probably psychosomatic reactions to stress. Upset stomach, I've vomited a couple of times for no real reason, I wake up with my legs feeling like I've done a 20-mile ruck march and I haven't even taken a flight of stairs in the previous 24. All of these are telltale signs of stress and a poor reaction to it. If my dad, stepdad, grandfathers... if they all handled this crap without complaint, why can't I? Am I really this screwed up, weak or pathetic?
So no. Not happy right now. Not happy at all. I have moments of happiness, like when K is asleep on my chest and all seems right with the world for just that wonderful, warm, glowing minute. Then the world creeps back in and I'm seeing bills, and damage to our home, and things that need to be done, and a wife who's coming to resent that I have a harder time with all of this than she does. Life kinda sucks.
In other news, Traveller and Star Frontiers. If you made it this far in this post, you deserve my thanks for reading a rant I'm pretty sure only one person on the planet is actually going to read. I promise my next post won't be this heavy, and that I'll actually discuss some gaming stuff - specifically, CLASSIC gaming stuff from the 70s and 80s that I've been trying to read for recreation, when I can. Even that release is denied to me though fatigue and inability to focus. But I digress... I do have some fun stuff to talk about, and I'll try to post about it this week, since I'm out of school.
Take care, folks.
In the first two weeks, I was Mr. Mom. My wife has a job that allows her very little paid time off. In fact, their company is going through a rough patch. There have been layoffs, and she's had to take Fridays off without pay for the past few weeks, and will be getting a week without pay in December. This is a set of time-buying maneuvers by the owners to keep the doors open until January, when their business traditionally picks up. What this meant is that after the placement, taking care of the kids during the day was 100% me. Which was fine. In theory.
I learned almost overnight how to change diapers, make formula, what the proper amount of time in our microwave was to heat said formula, how to change and put to bed a 2-year-old... I also learned that while juggling two small children it is impossible to do anything that requires concentration. My schoolwork started to fall behind, and in an 8-week semester, that can be deadly.
Let me say that before we were placed with the kids, I had taken a step that was quite out of character for me, and began seeing a councilor. My work plays for an employee assistance program, and under EAP any employee can get a free 8 sessions of counciling. I had reached a point in my life where I knew something wasn't right, and maybe it was time I did something about it. So I'd been seeing Lisa, my councilor, for about a month when the kids came along. I talked to her about my inability to rest, my overactive mind that wouldn't shut off at night, my attempts to hold our group of freinds together after some events started to pull it apart... So yeah, I was not in a great place before the kids arrived.
The arrival of our children was initially a very happy event. Mary and I had worked for this for literally years, we'd taken classes, background checks, fingerprints... all the hoops you have to jump through to become foster parents. And there's a lot of it. So this was the fulfillment of a goal we had shared since we got married. Becoming parents is part of growing up, right?
Then the sleepless nights started. Or in my case, got worse. My anxiety and worry started getting worse. I was worried about falling behind in school. I was worried that both our cars needed work and we simply didn't have the money. My sleep became so shallow that any little noise Z or K made in the night had me snapping awake. I quickly got to the point that I couldn't fall asleep at all - since I would lie awake waiting for a child to cry. My mind just told me not to get too comfortable, because as soon as I did I would be changing someone or making a bottle. Then we discovered the water leak that's currently got two of our walls opened up and our insurance company involved. I'd reached a breaking point. I could no longer take on any more worry.
In addition to the stuff that was bothering me before the placement of kids, now we had so much more to deal with. There was the mechanics of having two small children - feeding, changing, playing, etc. There was the paperwork involved in foster care - and there's lots of that. There's visitations with the birth parents, which of course take place on the other side of Austin. There's medical visits, both because we have to get them taken care of as a part of our foster care (well checks) and due to visits K and Z have needed for illnesses. There's childcare arrangements, which still haven't been totally taken care of. Did you know daycare for a toddler is $600 per month, and for an infant is $800? Luckily, CCMS takes care of that cost after it kicks in, but it took three weeks for it to kick in. K was in daycare one day before a fever took her back out of daycare. And who had to take time off work to care for her? Yup. Me.
Now, that isn't Mary's fault. It's just the way things are. But the stresses from all directions started to close in on me. I felt trapped in my own home - and I started to develop an additional feeling of anxiety at the thought of being home. Especially after the water leak situation developed, I no longer felt at ease or comfortable in our house, and I looked for reasons to work late or to otherwise stay away. Mary took this as me not wanting to be around her or the kids- which was not strictly the case. The water leak and subsequen opening up of the damaged walls and week of drying equipment meant we spent a week living with my grandmother. During this time I called Lisa, who I hadn't seen for a month, and said I really needed to talk.
I'd tried to tell Mary about my feelings of anxiety. I tried to tell her that I don't want to feel this way- and I realize I'm having some very irrational fears. But knowing the fears are irrational, and dispelling them are different things. Talking to Lisa helped quite a bit. She suggested, among other things, that I may want to try anti-anxiety medications. I told her thanks, but no thanks. I need to keep my head clear to take care of my family. I don't cotton to mood-altering drugs. It takes me a lot to just take OTC medications.
In any case, Mary takes my anxiety personally. She also takes it to mean I no longer want kids. This isn't what I'm thinking at all. What I want is to understand and alleviate my anxiety so that I can sleep well, and be the father these kids need. I don't want to feel like an alien in my own home. I don't want to have a sense of impending doom like I live in the Amityville house. I want to be calm, on an even keel, and drive on.
I thought some gaming would help, so I organized a small game to try to do something "old school" that would take me back to the carefree days of youth where weekends were weekends and we played stuff like Traveller, Star Frontiers, BECMI D&D, Marvel Superheroes, etc. We played Traveller. I started to fall asleep a coupla hours into the session. It made me miserable. I can't even GM reliably anymore. Ugh.
Mary has accused me of wanting to go back to our old lives, and I'd be lying if I said that wasn't an attractive option. I'd love to decrease my stress levels. The problem is I've fallen in love with these two children, and if they left my care I know I would worry about who was caring for them, where they were, and what more I could have done to care for them. My friends and some of my family think that Mary and I shouldn't have them just now, that there are issues that need to be squared away. I used to think these issues were all me, but those same family and friends are telling me that they believe Mary could use some counseling, and that a lot of our problems have to do with her preconcieved notions of life and parenthood. They tell me I'm doing too much, worrying too much, and I've had more than one person say they're concerned for my physical and mental help.
Well, here's the deal. I want to slow down. I want to de-stress. But now, I have these two beautiful children who are depending on me. Mary's salary won't come close to paying the bills. That burden falls on me - whose paycheck covers all our bills and a bit of gas & groceries. She can't take off work when they have appointments, visits, or are sick. I have to take care of that. House has issues? I deal with insurance and plumbers and contractors. These are things she can't wrap her head around. I'm trying to offload as much as I can so she can help take some of this off my shoulders, but there's just so much of it that for one reason or another she can't relieve me of.
K and Z need me to keep on keepin' on. And I know, several of you have reminded me that if I have a mental or physical breakdown I won't be doing anyone any good. That's true, and I'm mindful of it. But if I can't find any other way to slow down, I'm going to have to keep taking care of business - because somebody has to. I just pray that sometime in the near future, I can catch by breath, get my focus back, and have some fun for fun's sake. I want to be able to sleep at night without millions of worries plaguing my mind. I want to be able to relax and not constantly have my head in "general quarters" mode ready to jump up and react to potential kid problems. I want to feel like there's time to, oh, shower, without feeling guilty about having my eyes off the kids. I got a big dose of that guilt this morning before work. And I took a French Shower (thanks, Old Spice deoderant!) and got my ass to work.
So, I am not happy. My wife is unhappy that I am unhappy. Not so much because *I* am unhappy, but because she thinks I am unhappy due to the children. You see, having children was apparently the whole point of our getting married 12 years ago. So, if I'm not happy with the children then our marraige isn't worth a whole lot. Or so she tells me. So, if I can't handle this transition and something results in the removal of K and Z, then it's my fault, and our marriage is pretty much over.
Like I needed *that* on top of everything else.
Look, to whom it may concern, I have had over a month now to become bonded to these children. Yes, I kinda favor K, who favors me. She's very much a foster daddy's girl. She cuddles with my dirty shirts and it stops her from crying. (Little trick I learned from babycenter.com) I also love Z, even though he gets on my nerves with his temper issues and screaming. But that aside he's also a very smart, very helpful little boy. He brings me diapers and wipes when K needs changing. He brings us bottles when she wants to be fed. At heart, he's a good boy - he just needs guidance and love. And that's what I hope we can give him.
So I love them both. I also love my wife more than I think she realizes. It hurts me that I'm out of the equation most of the time. I feel like I'm the thing that's necessary to keep the finances rolling so she can be mommy. If I'm not actively engaged in something in direct support of the kids, I get the guilt complex. She tries to give me "my space" so I can relax, but she doesn't fathom that I simply cannot relax with my mind being the way it is right now. No amount of time or quiet is going to calm me, I fear. That's why I'm seeing a freaking councilor. I did not choose this. I do not *want* to be showing this kind of frailty, weakness, whatever you want to call it. It sucks, and I feel that I'm not hacking it as a husband or a father, and I wonder how my elders ever survived all of this.
That's what kills me. I know every dad who ever was worth the title has been where I am. Why, then, am I affected on such a profound level that I find myself losing the ability to function on a day-to-day basis? I'm fatigued, forgetful, irritable... I've had physical issues that I've been told are probably psychosomatic reactions to stress. Upset stomach, I've vomited a couple of times for no real reason, I wake up with my legs feeling like I've done a 20-mile ruck march and I haven't even taken a flight of stairs in the previous 24. All of these are telltale signs of stress and a poor reaction to it. If my dad, stepdad, grandfathers... if they all handled this crap without complaint, why can't I? Am I really this screwed up, weak or pathetic?
So no. Not happy right now. Not happy at all. I have moments of happiness, like when K is asleep on my chest and all seems right with the world for just that wonderful, warm, glowing minute. Then the world creeps back in and I'm seeing bills, and damage to our home, and things that need to be done, and a wife who's coming to resent that I have a harder time with all of this than she does. Life kinda sucks.
In other news, Traveller and Star Frontiers. If you made it this far in this post, you deserve my thanks for reading a rant I'm pretty sure only one person on the planet is actually going to read. I promise my next post won't be this heavy, and that I'll actually discuss some gaming stuff - specifically, CLASSIC gaming stuff from the 70s and 80s that I've been trying to read for recreation, when I can. Even that release is denied to me though fatigue and inability to focus. But I digress... I do have some fun stuff to talk about, and I'll try to post about it this week, since I'm out of school.
Take care, folks.
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