I decided this morning to take a day off of work instead of trying to travel the snow and ice covered roads. I’m fairly certain that if I took it easy, I would have been able to make it to work, but it didn’t make sense to me to risk it.

My truck is covered with about 1/2 inch of ice and snow, mostly ice. This type of precipitation continues to fall even as I type this. I guess I’ll build a fire in a bit, sit back with a cup of coffee or cocoa and just relax.

Maybe time for a holiday movie or two. I do have a few versions of “A Christmas Carol” I could watch.

Happy Birthday to my daughter who loves the snow. We had a good amount of snow. It started early yesterday evening and continued on into the night. Of course the schools the had either delays or closures. This doesn’t affect my work schedule, but I sometimes wish it would. I do work in a school building, and the only good thing about no school is no students. I don’t teach or work with the students, so for me they just get in the way.

Anyway my daughter wanted two things for her birthday. One was snow. Well we got that. The other was to be able to swim. We went to our local “Y” last night and got some swimming in. I can’t see the thrill in swimming during the middle of a snowstorm, but it was exercise, and I do need that.

Even with the snow, which I do not like, I had two decent days. I’ll take all the decent days I can get.

We are scheduled (if the weatherman can do that) to get more winter precipitation later this week. I’m sure hoping it clears up a little on the weekend, mine is booked solid again. I would like to be able to get where I need to go.

Five years ago this evening, my second youngest daughter celebrated her 16th birthday. It was the last birthday dinner with her mother, and our last evening out as a family with her. That dinner was no my daughters pick for a favorite place to eat, but it was close, and we had some gift certificates to go there. Money was tight at that time, with all the bills and extra gas that was used for trips back and forth to Toledo. It was a place we could afford. Not exactly what you want for a sweet 16 birthday, but it was the only thing available. I was sorry at the time, but I couldn’t put it into words for my daughter.

Today that same daughter turned 21. The family left at home went out for her birthday again. She brought along her fiance. It was a better dinner, at least it was a restaurant she chose. With others in the family we went out for Pizza last Sunday, also her choice. I’m hoping the 21st birthday was better than the 16th.

Here is to my latest 21 year old. I hope you had a happy birthday, and wish many more for you. Love you bunches.

It started with the Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” in the car this evening. Darling youngest wanted to hear the whole thing, but we need to get out of the car.

So here I am finding old songs and listening to a few tunes.

Anyway there are a few Beatles songs that just hit a certain part of my being… This one hit tonight..

The Beatles “I Will”…

Who knows how long I’ve loved you
You know I love you still
Will I wait a lonely lifetime
If you want me to–I will.

For if I ever saw you
I didn’t catch your name
But it never really mattered
I will always feel the same.

Love you forever and forever
Love you with all my heart
Love you whenever we’re together
Love you when we’re apart.

And when at last I find you
Your song will fill the air
Sing it loud so I can hear you
Make it easy to be near you
For the things you do endear you to me
How you know I will
I will.

————————

Just one song that brings back so many memories.

Went to a show today. The WCCT put on their version of “Don’t Hug Me”. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much and so hard. Our little theater knows how to put on a good comedy, and this show just hit the right cord for me. I don’t think there was a time during the show I was without a smile, and most of the time I was laughing.

Now most of my family and a lot of extended family was there. Three of 4 daughters, 1 son-in-law, 1 fiance, 2 grandparents, and my sister-in-law enjoyed the show. I was able to see friends before the show and during intermission. Fun time and a good show, good friends and family, can you ask for more?

After the show the family went to the local Pizza Hut and enjoyed more good times and food. We spent over an hour sharing Pizza, and family stories.

We then went to a Christmas Cantata that was being performed at my daughter’s church. I’m not the most religious person in the world, but I do enjoy watch my daughters sing. The youngest two daughters have a wonderful presence when they sing, and it all starts with a smile.

So my day was full of family, friends, fun and music. Not a bad way to end the weekend.

You are all alone, and there is a light, from what looks like a campfire, in the distance….

That is how the evening started. As I expected, the group of theater regulars were up to the task of playing a character. In that there was never really a doubt in my mind. The problem for all came when the small polyhedrons were needed (variety of dice for those not in the know). The comments, “Do I use this? No, that one. This one? No the one just in front of that.” were in common usage the entire evening.

All of this is common when starting this type of game. There are 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 20 sided dice used in this game. Knowing how and when to use them is a bit of a learning curve. It seems that teenage boys and some young adults are much better at learning this, just like video games. 😉

Well, I think most of the group had fun. I certainly had fun. It has been than a few years since I ran any sort of game, and I certainly had fun doing it. Thinking on the fly, running people through a part of a world I created are enjoyable to me. But the complexity of the characters, and multiple dice rolling, sometimes slows down the game play. What to do, what to do?

Me, I started thinking of games with no dice at all. There are a few on the gaming market, but the character creation is just as complex if not more complex. How do you determine winners and losers of confrontations without randomizing effects of cards, spinners or dice… How complex do you make your rules?

Well, I’m thinking of just such a game. Role Playing for the actors in all of us, and no dice to confuse the situation. Designing it in my head as I write this. In few weeks, I will be looking for a group of volunteers to run through this game.

For those who want to know the setting. Think current time period, and ghost hunters…

I was given a challenge. To come up with an simple Dungeons and Dragons adventure that could be finished by novice players in one evening (around 2-3 hours).

There are a few ways to go about that.

1) Make it so simple, it will not give a good indication of how the game works
2) Make the area to be explored very small — again lose some of the way the game works
3) Heavy Non-Player (game master run) character guidance — See above.
4) Come up with something where the primary objective is straight forward, but allow some side paths that will allow players to make their own choice. But the path to the true objective is easily found if looked for. Do this to make sure as many aspects of game play are introduced. Fights, parleys, retreats, find paths, avoid pitfalls, ect.

And of course don’t start with, you all meet in a tavern…

Guess which one I chose?

To make it easier, I also generated some characters with survivable statistics. I know more people who dropped the game just because their character didn’t survive the first attack. No overpowering characters, but they aren’t slouches either. Given a good selection, they should survive the first adventure (unless they try to combat the dragon).

Those that decide the game is worth playing could continue with the characters they are given for many further games. Those who want to give up the game, can. If they don’t like the type of character they have, they can change after the first game.

It has been fun getting back into the swing of running even a game. I was hoping to run a tournament module for some more experienced players in the future, so this should give me a bit of practice to get back into the swing of things.

I do have a tournament module that I designed years and years ago for low level characters
, but that is/was an experience in survival. It ran under 3 hours most of the time, but it was because the characters were all killed. Survival to the furthest point in the game was the object. I was told is was a lot of fun for players used to running high level characters to step back and see how well they can survive with the low level again. All the playing experience, with a rookie character for backup…

The next adventure shouldn’t be an experience in survival, but it could turn out that way. Make an incorrect decision and oops.

I’ve been having a bit of fun writing up an Dungeons and Dragons adventure journal. It is something I wanted to share, but I didn’t want them to get lost or take over the main part of my blog. So I put them into different pages. Because I wanted easy access to my posts, I decided to change my blog theme too. This new theme allowed me to post the page links in a side bar and allow easy access. so far so good.

But the one thing i did notice is that the new pages were not included in links to new posts… Hmm, no easy way to indicate a new story line was added. I thought about writing an intro post for each new chapter or page. That seemed to be a bit too much. One or two lines are all that are needed anyway. Since I have a post that starts the adventure, I’m thinking that I will add a comment for each new page. The comments are listed as recent events, so people who are interested can see the new additions easily.

Lost a few on my post count, but who’s counting anyway?

5 years ago at this time, my wife was spending her time at her parents. This is 1 hour away from our home, her husband and 3 of her daughters. On the nights we couldn’t visit, we had to make do with phone calls.

It was also at this time that I took one of the afghans she made to provide a bit more warmth while sleeping. I woke up early this morning under that same afghan. My early morning mind was thinking of how it was like being wrapped in a hug. I guess in a way it was.

You may have noticed (or not) that this site now has a new Theme. I found the old one just a bit restrictive on what I wanted to do now.

Since I started adding additional pages, I wanted an easy way to get to all of them. And I noticed the two column design was getting very lengthy. I don’t like scrolling down the page to find what I am looking for.

So here is the new theme. As a side benefit, you should be able to respond on each page. I’m always looking for feedback so here is your chance.