Not an amorphous blob!

Tried out my new webcam in the Vats of Mazarin game last night. Everybody was happy that they could actually hear me this time, and that I wasn't really the amorphous blob they'd come to know.

Sadly, however, I was having server issues. So for about half the game I couldn't hear them. Pity, too, because I could see them laughing -- but I hadn't heard the joke.

But we had a good session, made some allies, cleared some of the dungeon. Three or four of us made a level (including me!)

So that was pretty good.

Generation Gap

In my AD&D game, we've been trekking through this one tunnel for over a day now (game time). We keep coming across side tunnels, which don't get us to our objective.

Tonight, we came to another side tunnel. And inside it, we found another side tunnel. And the DM was busy looking something up. So, as it my way, I said:

"And we came to another side road and off to the side of the side road was another fifteen foot cliff. And at the bottom of the cliff was another half a ton of garbage. We decided one big pile was better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up, we decided to throw ours down. So that's what we did.

"We went back to the Church, had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep, and didn't get up until the next morning when we got a phone call from Officer Obie."


And they all stared at me like I'd lost my mind.

So I said "Alice's Restaurant?"

And they said "What's Alice's Restaurant?"

The DM recognized it, vaguely, but couldn't be sure if it was Arlo or Woodie Guthrie (I told him it was Arlo, Woodie's son.)


That's when I felt really, really old.

Now I'm trying to dig this classic up on iTunes, so I can bring it along and enlighten these puir wee bairns about popular culture from the time of D&D's creation.

Okay, couldn't find it on either iTunes or YouTube, so I sent them the link from Grooveshark. In case you need to hear it (and hey, who doesn't?), here it is:

http://grooveshark.com/#/search?q=Alice%27s+Restaurant

...but am I paranoid enough?

(It's the punchline to an old joke, in case you were wondering.)

What could inspire such a title?

Dungeon Crawl Classics, that's what.

Finally got to give it a try, again on Google+. I'm really starting to like this service, by the way. Two nights in a row I've been able to game (and, incidentally, meet fellow gamers), all without leaving the comfort of my home.

What can I say that wasn't already said months ago?

It's not as bad as it looks. How's that?

The reputation that proceeds DCC (for short) is that it's even more hardcore than old school D&D was. When I started, in the early 80's, the old guys in my group told of the days when you'd start 5 first level characters, hoping just one would survive to second level.

Well, DCC trumps that: You start with a handful of unlevelled characters, hoping one will survive to make first.

I must have done well; 3 of my 4 survived. And there were only 2 of us playing! Out of 8 characters, 5 of us survived. Not bad.

I could actually feel my old school dungeoneering skills oozing back into me (which is nowhere near as creepy as it sounds).

I thought I'd lost them, what with all the 3.5 I played. But they're still there. And now some of the rust has been knocked off them.

But aside from the system, I'm absolutely loving the new opportunities to play games with people I've never met before. A lot of them are from the Original D&D Discussion forum, where I've been a regular almost since it started. It's good to put a face and a voice to these guys.

And they are, without exception, Good People (tm).

I gotta say, I like living in the future!

Gaming Online

Note that this is not the same as "online gaming", by which I mean World of Warcraft and such things. What I'm talking about here is playing a standard analog rpg (in this case, B/X D&D) online.

I got to do this for the first time last night, and I had a blast.

Everybody knew the game, so we didn't have to worry about that. We got started pretty quickly.

As is typical with 3d6 in order, we had some character quirks:

* The Thief had a higher Wisdom than the Cleric.

* The Cleric had a higher Strength (and a higher AC) than the Fighter.

* The Magic-User (me!) had more hit points than the Thief (I rolled a 4 and had a +1 Con bonus).

Overall, we were a pretty low Wisdom party, so doing silly stuff seemed right up our alley.

We were kind of bummed when we lost the Thief, but he came back as a Dwarf in fairly short order. (And when we lost the Fighter, he came back as another Cleric).

Regarding these last two points, I have to say I was quite pleased to be in a game with experienced, veteran players. Neither of these things was a problem. I've seen a lot of newer players get all bent out of shape if everyone isn't "serious!" all the time. I've also seen them have a harder time with character death.

These guys took it all in stride and kept the game going. That's the kind of player I can get along with.

Naturally, I did my best to be the comic relief. I can't help it; I see funny situations crop up and I can't resist commenting on them. They all laughed, though, so I got away with it.

(Plus they got the inside jokes, too. Party: "Why don't you fire your Magic Missile at the hand coming out of the fountain?" Me: "I'm saving it for the Darkness.")

All in all, it was a very positive experience. We're going to do it again when we're all available, and I'm really looking forward to it.

I Have Been Assimilated

And now, I also have a gmail account.

But you can still reach me at the old, usual places.

Google+

Apparently, Google+ is the latest technology for doing old-school gaming.

Or even new-school gaming, if that's what you want.

I approve. I haven't tried it yet, but I want to. I want to play something before I run something, but I want to run something. I want to run a lot of somethings.

It seems perfect for experimentation. Want to try a new system? Do it on Google+, without disrupting your regular group.

Don't have a regular group? Try Google+ and discover groupness beyond measure. (Sure, I know "groupness" isn't a real word, but I got it from a friend of mine. So it stands.)

If anybody wants to run something on Google+, let me know. I'd be happy to try almost anything.