Not Going to DexCon This Year

I've come to the difficult conclusion that I'm going to skip DexCon this year. My enthusiasm for RPGs isn't what it was, and I find myself too busy with other things (mainly my musical actitivies) to put the time into it to do it as well as I'd like. It isn't lack of preparation, as I'd finished enough material ("Room Service" and "Another Mission from God"); it's just that whenever I started preparing for DexCon (submitting events, making room reservations, etc.), I noticed that I kept finding reasons not to follow through, and finally decided to listen to myself.

One odd thing about this is that RPGs and music seem to take up the same headspace for me. I don't know the reason for that; I've simply noticed over the years that when I'm doing one, I don't feel much like doing the other.

The reason the decision was so difficult is that it feels almost like quitting a long term job because I've been doing it for so long. I couldn't tell you how long it's been since I've had a year that I didn't go to at least one convention as a player, if not as a GM. I'm fairly sure that streak goes back to 1985 or so. I finally realized that stepping away for one year wasn't going to make that much of a difference to anyone, and that it might help me regain my enthusiasm in the long run.

I'm not giving up roleplaying entirely. I still plan to follow my local GURPS Cabal campaign through to a conclusion, then reassess how I'm feeling from there.

"Lost" - Yes, They Were Lost, All Right

I'll keep this spoiler free, and that's not terribly hard, since they didn't tell us anything anyway.

I'm sure the last ten minutes was the part they've supposedly had written from the beginning, and I think the finale would have been much better without that part. Frankly, they could've ended the show at any point after the first episode and still used almost exactly that same ending. It was a feel good ending that brought a lot of couples together, and meant absolutely zip-a-dee-doo-dah in terms of what was happening on the island. I'm actually okay with how things resolved on the island itself, and wish they'd left it at that without bothering with the flash sideways stuff and the coda.

Not only did they fail to answer some questions, they failed to answer just about every question, after asking our patience all of the way and swearing there would be answers if we only hung in there until the end. I enjoyed the character aspects of "Lost", but I'm going to make a point of avoiding anything these writers do in the future after they've been party to such a cheat in terms of the mythology ultimately meaning nothing at all.

"Room Service" Playtest

I was able to run a playtest for my newest Paranoia scenario yesterday. Overall, it worked out pretty well, though I think it needs a few tweaks, since the ending was a bit muddled. Everybody said they had a good time, though. Big points to Nate for stealing the show as Harp-O-MRX, though Scott P. was especially good as Chic-O as well.

I enjoy playing running Paranoia, but I'm not sure I have much else to say of my own with it, at least for now. I have one concept that I think is fun, but didn't fit with the rest of "Room Service", so I had to leave it out. Time will tell if I have the opportunity to use that idea in another scenario down the road.

Six Person Splunge

For the first time, this session had some of the feel I've been shooting for with this group. We had Jason, Sal, Jared, and I from last time, plus a third guitar player/singer (Nick) and a female singer/percussionist (Steph).

Steph started out singing harmony and playing percussion on a few songs before taking the lead on "Free Fallin'" by Tom Petty and "Runaround" from Blues Traveller. She also plays flute and keyboards, but didn't have either available to her, and her voice alone would be reason enough to invite her again. Sal expressed the opinion that the bits of percussion she was playing really added to the overall sound as well.

Nick was singing with a group for the first time, and picked the Kinks' "Lola". I wouldn't say it was perfect, but it was a fine first try. We only had one microphone for the three of us, so we had to share, but it was a blast to have three voices to work with again.

I hadn't been sure about three guitars at the same time, but it worked out well overall. Sometimes we just had two of them playing when one of the guitarists didn't know the song. I have to give credit to Sal for coordinating the three of them in ways that worked out (different voicings, etc.).

With our respective schedules, I suspect this session will be more the exception than the rule, but everybody said they had a good time and have already been e-mailing me about when we'll get together again. I'm really looking forward to it.

Drunk Dialed By An Ex

Ex-bandmate, that is. My phone started ringing at roughly midnight on a weeknight earlier this week. I picked it up, assuming it had to be something serious for someone to be calling me at that hour, and it turned out it was somebody I'd been in a band many years ago, suggesting that we get the band back together to play sometime. He said he'd been watching a documentary about the Doors, and since we'd played a couple of Doors songs, it reminded him of the old band and got him thinking about it. I'm sure he was who he said was, because it would be even weirder for someone to call pretending to be him after all these years.

He didn't actually sound drunk, but I can't think of any other reason someone would make a phone call like that. If it was supposed to be a joke, it doesn't seem funny to me, even from the point of view of the caller. It also doesn't make any sense that he would want this band to get back together for any reason at all, because he wasn't on good terms with any of the members within two years after the breakup. And why would he insist on giving me his phone number and asking that I call him back if this was a joke? The only answer I can think of is that it is actually somebody else's phone number, but that would be a really lame joke, too.

If it wasn't a joke and he wasn't drunk, I find it hard to believe he'd seriously expect me to be receptive to discussing a band reunion at that time of night. Very strange...

Chanting

My yoga teacher hosts a group meditation session once a month, and this month we tried chanting, which was something new for me. We were accompanied on the harmonium, a sort of cross between an organ and an accordion, played by one of the participants.

I felt a little odd about it at first, then became more comfortable as I settled into what was essentially musical performance in an extremely unfamiliar genre. We had three men and three women, so it was a good mix of voices. I kept feeling the urge to play an instrument, since I rarely sing without one unless I'm driving. After we were done, it was very easy to settle into our usual meditation. I might have to experiment with something like this at home. All in all, a very positive experience, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I'll bet it gave my teacher's neighbors something to talk about, though, since we had the windows open and I'm sure we were clearly audible for some distance.

Local Cabal Campaign - First Session

We finally got my new GURPS Cabal campaign off the ground this past weekend. We got off to a good start, with some of the characters actually meeting before they were supposed to. Surprises like that are one of the reasons that RPGs can be better than fiction at times. The group consists of a voodoo priestess trying to locate a lost mystical artifact, a ghost trying to solve her own murder, the reincarnation of Sir Kay of the Round Table, a vampire trying to mainstream as a police officer (working night shift, naturally), and an apparently regular guy in his late teens who simply can't be permanently killed by any means.

I've already been able to weave in an abundance of references to my ongoing GURPS Cabal convention sessions, and will start working references to the home campaign into the convention sessions when I start writing the next one.

One of the more entertaining aspects for me is that I've tied together bits of all of the characters' backgrounds a few layers beneath the obvious, so that those ties will eventually surface as fun surprises for the players. It reminds me of the Lost TV series. As those common elements are revealed, the result should be a conclusion with epic consequences for all involved, effectively ending the campaign, but my best estimate is that it will take about two years for that to happen.

Splunge

We now have a name for the music project (Splunge), and had a session with four participants (Jason, Sal, new guitarist Jared, and myself) this past weekend. We actually have three guitar players now, and the plan is to play roughly every two weeks with whoever can make it, but we only expect two of the three guitarists to attend any given session due to scheduling issues all around. It's unconventional, and probably a little awkward when all three guitarists eventually show up for a session, but we never intended this to be a regular band. One of the guitarists is planning on working on singing lead, which would solve the problem in one shot if he turns out to be good at it. Even if he's simply passable, it'll be good to have someone else sharing the lead vocal load. I still plan to learn how to play all of the songs on guitar as well as bass, but that's looking wonderfully redundant at the moment.

Since we've had three regulars instead of two for the last several sessions, we're finally starting to develop consistent arrangements of the songs. Some of them are proving to be trickier than others. We're having a lot of trouble with Warren Zevon's "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" because we're combining aspects of his original version with the better known Linda Ronstadt version, so there's no recording of what we're trying to do. Still, if we can keep even one guitar player steadily coming back, we'll work it all out.

Another Mission from God

I finished my most recent In Nomine scenario today, largely because I was able to spend a lot of time on it over the last couple of days. So it looks like I'll have two new scenarios ready for DexCon after all. It turned out that I was able to do a few things differently with it than I have in the past. The PCs are all one team, and there are significant differences in the opposition from what I've done before (can't give those differences away here, though). My last IN scenario didn't draw at the last DexCon. I didn't see some of my IN regulars, so I assume they didn't follow the change in the con location, or had other reasons not to come. Looks as though I'll have to build a new audience for it from scratch, or move on to other things.

So now I'll take a short break from RPG writing to get the two new scenarios properly playtested and leave a little time for revisions before the con. Might take the time to write a couple of songs in the interim.

Next up, the Lovecraftian installment of my GURPS Cabal series, to be run next year.

Attacked by Small Children, Part II

My nephew's birthday party was this past weekend, and he'd chosen Star Wars as a theme for it. My sister got a little creative and made cheap foam light sabers for the kids, so in no time flat there were kids beating the crap out of each other all over the place, mostly in the intended spirit of fun.

The adults were staying out of the fray, for the most part, letting the kids be kids. I was a little concerned because the bulk of the kids had drifted down the long driveway and fairly far from the house, so I grabbed a light saber myself and ambled down to try to herd them back in the right direction.

Some of the kids were getting a little too enthusiastic with their weapons, leaving one on the receiving end in tears (though not actually injured), so I waded in and got between the combatants, using my own light saber to separate them. That might have been a mistake. The entire group turned on me, grinning all the way, including the one in tears. There must have been at least nine of them, including my niece and nephew. In a replay of the "ball incident" of a couple of years ago, I found myself at the center of the attack, trying to fend off the kids by gently tripping them, pulling their weapons out of their hands, and using a saber in each hand myself. I did manage to achieve the effect I wanted, which was to keep the kids from hurting each other and get them moving back toward the house.

After that scrum broke up, there were a couple of other minor incidents between some of the kids (there were simply too many of them for me to keep an eye on all of them at once), and the adults eventually took the light sabers away entirely for a little while. There were a couple of kids in tears at various points, but I knew they were actually okay because the tears dried up and the kids were grinning and back in the fight almost as soon as one of the adults had stepped in.

I have to admit that kids are largely a mystery to me, since I don't have any of my own. I like them and enjoy them, but can't claim I truly understand them at all. Their abrupt mood shifts always surprise me. I do know how to have fun with them, though, and my sister still says she wants to rent me out for parties.