Happy Buddha Day!

Well, actually it was yesterday, but I was fighting through a minor computer problem last night and couldn't post this then. I hadn't known there was such an occasion until I saw it on a calendar and did a little research.

So, I went vegetarian for the day, didn't kill anything (as far as I know) and did some extra meditating and spiritual reading. It wasn't much, but it'll do. I don't think I could be a vegetarian permanently. My sandwich today (which included meat) tasted heavenly after only a single day without meat.

I've been very busy with "house stuff" of late, which is why I've been so quiet with the blog. I certainly have more that I'd like to say, but lack the time to say it. Meditation practice continues to be extremely beneficial to me, and I'll have a lot more about that another time.

This upcoming Sunday should be my first Firefly session running my own system (tentatively called Fluid), and I'm very excited about it. Creating my own game system has never especially been on my list of ambitions, but when it seemed to fall into place, I couldn't help but at least try it to see how well it works with real live people playing it. I'm mentally prepared for the heights of success or the most abject possible failure, and curiously, I'm fine with it either way. If it rocks, I've created something wonderful. If it stinks, I've gotten the concept out of my system, and I wasn't that attached to the idea of creating a system in the first place.

So what's so different about Fluid? I suppose the best way to say it is that traditional RPGs are based on their roots in wargaming in many respects. I took the approach that RPGs should be based on how fiction is created instead. It's not the first time somebody has played with that idea (Mike Miller's With Great Power and Prime Time Adventures are just two prior examples), but it might be the first time someone has tried to do something quite as free flowing as this, hence the name Fluid. The result is supposed to feel like an improvised verbal mosiac novel, like the "Wild Cards" books associated with George R. R. Martin. I'll have to post some commentary on the results afterward.