Ramblings and Ruminations

cpip — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 03:41:41 GMT

I never did post how the rest of the show ran. Pretty well, all things considered. The remaining five nights were entirely enjoyable; such that now, as a member of the troupe, I'm pretty much guaranteed a spot in the next show, which I will be taking. By the end of this week I should know casting; rehearsals will start probably next Tuesday. The show is a Medieval Christmas Carol. It's kind of weird -- it was amethystjade's first show with the troupe, last year; but she doesn't have the time to commit to it this year, so ... I have already asked the director not to cast me in the same role she played last year. That would be too damned weird.

In other news, my work in the financial sector is continuing, because I do like the outlandish paychecks. I hate pretty much everything else about the place; though some of the coworkers are nice enough, the supervisor's a pain, the work itself is drudgery that frustrates me, and in general I'm a semi-ignored cog, and the place is so broken in so many ways that it evokes my desire to FIX THE THINGS, REPAIR THE PROCESSES, MAKE IT WORK -- but I am very uneasy about attempting to DO that, because I am indeed a mostly-ignored cog. Conversations have quite literally gone like so:
cpip: Shouldn't we be doing X?
Nameless Co-Worker: Yeah, probably. *vague smile*
cpip: So ... why aren't we?
Nameless Co-Worker: *vague smile*

And since some of these things are things that other people would need to be doing ... yeah. I do not want to be the one to work myself into a lather trying to save these people from themselves, but by god it offends my pride and professional sensibilities. So I keep half-heartedly looking for something else, but so far nothing's panned out; this is partly because I really don't know what I want to do with my life.

cpip — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 04:28:20 GMT

Put up the set today. Tech hell begins. The show opens on Friday. It's crazy how much time this thing eats up. Just insane.

Meanwhile I'm skipping out of work on Monday to interview with two other staffing agencies, because this place is not fulfilling me in the slightest, and even after ninety days I'm just not feeling it, not wanting to be part of the place. Maybe I'm just hoping for too much, but ... I don't like it there, so may as well keep hunting. I can't see why I shouldn't.

Oh, am I tired.

cpip — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 21:55:42 GMT

It was a long and lovely weekend, spent mostly in Columbus; but even so... the drive back was oddly tiring. Maybe it was that the weekend tipped over my sleep schedule and I was already a little bushed; but having returned home, all I want to do is lay about and do nothing.

However, things must be done, and I suppose I ought be off to do them.

It was an interesting day today.

cpip — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 03:37:33 GMT

A penguin tried, repeatedly, to bite me in the ass. Elvis is molting, he's grouchy, and he was very unhappy that I was in the exhibit. So, when I sat down to give out fish to the other penguins (molting penguins rarely eat), he tried to bite me through the rubber overalls. He was quite persistent until the trainer told me to push him away.

In stage news... well. Thirty-two days to curtain. I have only seen three of the seven fight-phases I need to have memorized by curtain. I am still learning the basics; I simultaneously must learn to walk, dance, and run a marathon all within this time. I will be committing myself to more practice time; it's all I can do. Practice and re-reading the choreography until I have it memorized perfectly. (Anyone who has tricks for memorization, now would be a lovely time to offer them.)

So, what've I been up to?

cpip — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 11:33:15 GMT

Work at the new place. Things moving forward pretty well there, I think; at least, for now.

Gaming. Wednesday night gaming, Saturday gaming, and then some general hanging out and boardgaming in the mix. It's a good time for that. The Saturday group is shifting and changing and a lot of fun -- after winding down a Warhammer Fantasy game, we're going to be launching some Dungeon Crawl Classics and Marvel Heroic RPG. Manipuraka will be revisited shortly; I'll be converting it, I think, to DCC rules. I'll be co-running the Marvel game with one of the other players; we'll be trading off the Watcher's duties back and forth. I really do like that game!

At some point I may let byzantienne talk me into working up that sandbox Shal-Mari setting to turn loose players into.

Also, I'm going out of town this weekend to see gileonnen and attend UBCon.

Other Life Matters. I haven't been cooking much, but am hopeful to change that once I get back in town. I like cooking; I just ... haven't, much. It's been one of those "drag myself home, go flop down in front of the computer 'til you pass out" sort of periods the last couple of weeks.

Thursday!

cpip — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 00:20:09 GMT

Hey! I said I was gonna write a post or two today, didn't I?

I am, however, rather tired. So. We start with CRPG.

Brian Fargo's Kickstarter for Wasteland 2 has already, in less than 48 hours, met its $900,000 goal. Clearly, there was a demand for it. I certainly was happy to see it -- Wasteland was among my early RPGs (Ultima III, Wasteland, The Bard's Tale, Legacy of the Ancients, Might and Magic I, Phantasie III, Wizardry I, and Pool of Radiance were the greats that linger in my mind now). I cannot deny I am very much looking forward to it -- while I am considerably less interested in Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. Partly because it's just a retread of the same game; at least Wasteland is setting off with a new game; while the Fallout series may have been spiritual successors (and occasionally had mentions, early on, that suggested it was the same universe), it still wasn't Wasteland, and I look forward to seeing Brian Fargo and a bunch of the old band get together again.

cpip — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:26:47 GMT

I have a to-do list trying just to keep my leisure time activities organized, now.

Perhaps, just perhaps, I am overdoing it. Perhaps.

Oh, the things that have happened!

cpip — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 02:17:48 GMT

Job continues! Spent the weekend in the company of a pyrephox watching horror films! (Tempted to write a post recapping all ten films we watched.)

Continued dungeon-building!

I have new thoughts on that idea from way back about cities and the fight for control of humanity's destiny!

Brian Fargo is making another Wasteland game!

I HAVE MANY EXCLAMATION POINTS!

...I do not, however, have the brainmeats to write coherently about any of this tonight.

But! Know that I think of you all, dear readers! And on Thursday I shall address all these things... and MORE!

Megadungeon LIVE! experiment over.

cpip — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:57:44 GMT

Took Manipuraka down off the FLGS calendar tonight. One player showed up -- which is half as many as the week before, and still one more than the first two weeks. Monday nights, the store owner tells me, are rough there, to be certain, and it's a pretty niche idea in a niche hobby -- old-school dungeon-bashing.

So, the project isn't as constrained to a timetable now; but that doesn't mean (a) I'm not still working on it and (b) I'm not still interested in MORE. Sure, I have other ideas for games, and my mind is starting the rotation into Other Game Ideas I Have Had -- but I really want to get this one worked up more. I want an entire binder filled with notes. I want more levels drawn and keyed. I want to know that I have made this damned thing, with the jewels and the tunnels and the voices of the dead, and Crafter's Well and the Smelter's Prison; of Worm's Burrows and the Sunlit Terrace.

In a day or so, I think, I shall pursue raising this thing up as an online game; and of course I will continue delving into this dungeon.

Hells, if it's all done, after a few delves, maybe I'll just bundle it together, make a PDF of it, and post it for download. See if anyone wants to read this thing.

Design philosophy in building my megadungeon, and edition variations.

cpip — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 04:05:30 GMT

One of the things that's terribly interesting, I find, as I work through Manipuraka, is how very different my design philosophy is in 2E than in 4E. I think the upper works of Manipuraka are a key example.

Were I building Manipuraka in D&D 4th Edition, the Gatehouse would be, probably, an extended skill challenge, and the animal encounters incidental -- narratively related as part of the price of failing the skill challenge to find one of the secret entrances into the actual dungeon proper; possibly failure could entail a quick combat encounter, or merely a narrated penalty of reduced healing surges as the players had to fight off inquisitive wild animals as they searched the rubble. Instead, in Second Edition, the gatehouse is its own minidungeon -- twenty-six small noted rooms and spots of note, with several small caches of treasure and a range of animal encounters, before finding one of the ways to gain entrance into the Great Entry Hall. This assumes, of course, that the PCs proceed through the Gatehouse -- there are other ways into the City of Jewels, or at least I'd like there to be. I haven't finished the vent shafts past the broad strokes and the map; it really needs to be keyed up.

In 4th Edition, it's focused heavily around the narrative Encounter. You generally string together set-piece encounters; Manipuraka 4E could be envisioned as a chain of events, forking and twisting in a tree structure but having definite "nodes" along the way. 2nd Edition still retained the "location-based" structure, or at least still allowed it as an option: a widely keyed map of locations in the ruins, and events that could be provoked as you interacted with the area. The "nodes" of Manipuraka are merely differing mapsheets. Both styles have their advantages -- and it's an important and interesting change of mental gears to go from 4E design back into 2E design, especially when I still am playing 4th Edition once a week as well as running the 2nd Edition dungeon.

cpip — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 21:35:51 GMT

An interesting statistical note: I have posted just slightly more tweets as I have posted journal entries. This goes to show you that you can type a lot of 140 character bursts.

Of course, it's also worth noting that I just don't post as much here. I'm tempted to post bits about Manipuraka, but the fact is that some of my readers are also people I'd like to dive into Manipuraka -- and that the people who I'd like to explore my megadungeon are pretty much the same people I'd want to talk about it with. There just isn't much overlap there of "people who play D&D" and "people who I don't play D&D with at all."

I cannot help but note that I have now produced over four times as much verbiage on Manipuraka than I have on my 2011 project. I think I'm just going to accept that the 2011 project was a bust -- there were a number of reasons for that (mostly involving choking on final execution: what was it going to end up BEING?) -- and at least I know exactly what I am trying to make with this project. Will I succeed? I might argue that the fact that I have two levels, some maps, and players means that I already have in the meaningful way; now it's just a matter of getting to the bottom of this magnificent ruin before my players do!

cpip — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:00:21 GMT

And so, in the final session of this season of D&D Encounters, the heroes finally defeated the hag Judy Garland and her basket of infinite Totos and cocaine.

cpip — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 02:17:49 GMT

I had a wonderful visit from byzantienne this past weekend. Things which she was introduced to:

Lorikeets
The Booth at the End
The Random Harlot Encounter Table
Twin Peaks
Terribly Sexist 1970s D&D Articles
Coconut rum
ieatedyourcooki

An excellent time was had by all. Planning for Dragon*Con was begun. (I will be wearing a costume. With body paint. And horns. And a ruby rod.) Planning for nearer cons was briefly touched on. It was a marvelous time.

Five hours later...

cpip — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:40:51 GMT

I have pants (and two new shirts, to boot -- a man can never have too many white dress shirts). I also have the sad realization that I really have gained in the waistline. Boo hiss. I have to step up and actually do something about that, or else just accept that I have grown considerably fatter as I have aged.

Further, I reworked my sketch of the entire dungeon (in part because I need to do a sketch of it suitable for players to look at, as I've put a stylized map of the city in a mural on the first level). With that diagram in place, suddenly another map that I was having problems with suddenly made perfect sense, so I could make the map THERE. I have to sometimes remind myself that each level is NOT independent of each other; they're interconnected parts of a ruined city, and the more I think about them as such, the better that they will all end up being...

cpip — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:30:39 GMT

I've got some errands to run today. Taking inventory, I realized that I have somehow run terribly low on trousers. Admittedly, I haven't been wearing many pairs lately, but with the new job I'll be back in business casual (4 days a week, at least -- the place does denim Fridays)... so off I go to get a couple more pairs of pants to refortify my wardrobe.

The megadungeon finally has a name, and a first level completely mapped (if not keyed). I really ought to have two other levels at least briefly sketched before Monday; the whole place is shaping up and starting to get a character. Somehow it also acquired some legends, and a rumor sheet is starting to form. I'm enjoying this a very great deal...

cpip — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:59:03 GMT

Woo. Still getting over this cold. Took it easy most of the morning, and then after some productivity and dungeonbuilding (again I must thank gileonnen for introducing me to these Word War things that are making me actually put fingers to keyboard and write this dungeon out), I decided to get some cleaning done. I got some boxes moved around, up and down the stairs, and then I took a shower, and went to move more boxes -- and after maybe ten minutes I had to collapse into a chair because my legs feel like rubber and my chest still feels like someone's gently pressing on it.

At least I've got more dungeon built! Inspiration has begun to strike, and I know more of just how...interesting it's going to get farther down...

So, I'm writing a megadungeon.

cpip — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:35:21 GMT

...because every DM must, at some point, break out the graph paper, and the pencils, and descend into those dark, murky deeps, writing level upon level of trick, trap, monster and treasure, secret door and concealed pit trap, and all the rest, until he has found himself with a grand mysterious deep.

This has produced more text in the last two weeks (current count: just over 3100 words) than I produced in the entirety for the 2011 attempt at building. I've drawn about twelve sheets of graph paper and thrown out eleven, and am hastily attempting to finish three by next Monday (when I begin running players into it!).

I cannot decide based on how I am writing, whether this is going to be for me, or if it really is for others. It swings back and forth between short notes and actual paragraphs, written in a style that is so reminiscent of Gygax that it borders on the pastiche.

Still, I'm genuinely enjoying most of this. The graph-paper, less so, I cannot lie; I am finding that drawing maps out does not fill me with happiness, but simply using geomorphs makes me less happy as well, at least for these initial levels. I suspect as I descend I will be less original with my mapmaking, or perhaps I'll just hit my stride and make it work.

cpip — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:01:53 GMT

Damn it, tonight is supposed to be the opening of my dungeonbash. It's not 100% ready, but I can get there in the next 8 hours (less some time to do grown-up chores). However, I'm coughing fit to beat the band and feel like crap, clutching my chest and feeling the ache. The head congestion has moved into my chest.

Of course I'm sick. I'm sick, Jen's sick, we're both sick and feeling utterly miserable. Jen doesn't want to spend the time off work and I wanted to be rested and ready to run tonight.

I suppose if I'm not magically feeling better by perhaps 3 or so, I ought call the game store and tell them to warn off people. GREAT START FOR THE FIRST NIGHT.

Ah, to hell with it. It's just pretendy fun times, right?

cpip — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 03:43:37 GMT

A conviction of utter, crushing mediocrity is difficult to shake, I have to say.

...other news.
How to Host a Dungeon is fun and everyone should give the free version a spin sometime.

I have an interview tomorrow morning. We'll see how it goes. I really need to find a job by month-end.

Digging through my office to make sure I had proper paperwork for the interview meant I found stacks of old notepads again. Wow, it's been a while for some of these. Six, seven, eight-year-old ideas that I never took anywhere.

cpip — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 03:20:49 GMT

Things to do tomorrow include: more job-hunting, running some things over to the Goodwill, possibly running other things over to the Half-Price Books, scrubbing baking pans, getting a red bell pepper, and working on my megadungeon.

These are the things which ought be done. Perhaps I shall do them.

cpip — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:06:59 GMT

My desktop machine is still frakked. (Jen's has been frakked for a year.) There's hope, though, possibly for both. However, it does mean it's harder to run online 4e games in this situation...

The front steps are still crumbling, and the landlord is still dragging their feet. Today's phone call ended with me threatening repair-n-deduct if they don't get their shit together.

Spent the weekend in Virginia; it did not go as planned. It was supposed to involve a lot of decorating for Christmas. Instead it turned into a rush of damage control when we discovered a leaking water pipe had come just short of destroying the ceiling in a side room that isn't as much used these days.

On a more enjoyable and hardly related note, I may be going to Dragon*Con in 2012. Anyone else have plans in that direction?

Things!

cpip — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 14:54:56 GMT

- amethystjade's opening night was last night! (I worked ticket booth.) She done good.

- I always get giddy like a schoolboy when NASA has a launch of some sort of probe to another world. Makes me feel like I live in some distant Science Fiction future, or something. Good luck, Curiosity.

- We seem to have clean carpets now! Less allergens! Jennifer was able to breathe when she awoke! This is hopeful for this place.

- Now I'm off to game today, launder a bit, and sell tickets and popcorn again tonight.

cpip — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 01:34:28 GMT

I have wine, Hulu Plus, and a refusal to confront any of my problems tonight.

They can wait 'til the morning.

Also, I have pierogies boiling on the stove. Yum!

Hey, it's been five weeks.

cpip — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:22:08 GMT

So. Let's see what's happened in that time.

Moved into the new place. It's spacious, but not entirely in the best of shape, and I'm a little dubious about the landlord's willingness to actually perform repairs in a timely fashion. I console myself that it's only a year, at worst. Well, okay; actually, it could be well under a year; there's a bit in the contract I hadn't considered that means they could have us out well earlier than that, depending on if they sell the property, which they're trying to do... yeah. There's that.

Work's continuing dragging along.

My hard drive is dying. Bonus: I'm upgrading to a 1TB from the old 700GB. I'm not sure I really needed the extra space, but it's nice and comforting to have.

Hmm. Other things are probably happening, though I've got no idea what, offhand.

Life as we know it.

cpip — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 00:25:29 GMT

Been busy as hell recently. The Project That Will Not Die continues to keep me busy at work, and trying to kill it is eating up a significant chunk of my free time, including a four-day stint down in Maryland -- was it just last week? It feels like forever ago and yesterday all at once.

When not occupied with that, I'm frequently busy packing for our upcoming move. We just filled out the rental app today for a roomy but slightly dilapidated house. The Aviary continues rolling on. I was at my first volunteer meeting today, for instance. Been doing some nifty stuff -- lorikeets, penguins, all sorts of things.

Halloween party, for anyone who remembered and cared, is next weekend. Going to be very, very low-key, as we're packing stuff and moving it out. We have to be out of this apartment by the end of the month. If anyone is coming and still needs address/directions, let me know.

Folks who were interested in the D&D game -- going to be November before I can even consider anything like that.

Jen's been busy with her share of the packing, plus running the D&D game she is doing a fine job with, plus she's landed a role in a small community stage fighting troupe's production of A Christmas Carol. Yes, it's as odd as it sounds, I think.

All told, it's rather exhausting of late. My sleep schedule has been erratic and I'm constantly busy.

I'm not ignoring you, but I am a bit turtled at the moment.