(Risus) Be Prepared for a Talent Show

 Our weekly Gamma World game continues to go strong.  As episode 28 dropped last Tuesday, I have another 32 weekly write-ups in the can.  We left off at a good break point earlier this month to allow a player a few weeks off to deal with this odd thing called "real-life."

In his absence, I finally completed my "COVID Trilogy", or better yet, perhaps I should call in the Coffee Shop Trilogy.

Still a point of controversy all these years, COVID killed over a million Americans and millions worldwide.  But few remember the bravery and sacrifice of some of the true heroes of the front-lines:  grocery store employees when toilet paper was stowed away, baking hit an all-time high, and people wore the most outrageous get-ups to either protect themselves, or fight the new world order authoritarian regime, whatever was the by-line of the week.  

Mike Pnevmonus was one of those heroes.  A dirty, hairy, and fat Greek butcher in the meat department of a Giant Foods in Pennsylvania.  He though he had seen it all before, the shortages, the runs on the store, etc.  and by the end of it, he hung up his bloody apron and traveled the country, trying to find a place to settle down in peace.  

He ended up in Bloomington, Minnesota, and thanks to his odd penchant for olive slacks, took a job as a cashier at the Boy Scouts of America Superstore in the Mall of America

The Boy Scouts of America Superstore, Imagined by NightCafe

Working alongside him was Hoyce McGurgle, a 20-year emo-kid who had survived the COVID nightmare with his teenage apathy.  A steady stream of poor reviews let him wander the countryside, the final destination: The Boy Scout Store.  

The best thing about visiting the Boy Scout Store in the Mall of America?  A possibly infinite supply of the photography merit badge. 

The biggest problem with the store?  They were almost completely out of any scarves.  At least that's where all the complaints were coming from all week.

Shawn was a regular at the mall.  When he wasn't accumulating 30,00 steps before lunch, he was the resident expert at every store, or so he told them.  Allegedly he had been a Boy Scout as a lad, and had a broad memory of the finest BSA minutiae.  Occasionally he was even helpful, so the the fellas thought it best to keep him around. 

It was a beautiful day at the Mall of America.  It was just the way Minnesota was.

Hoyce and Mike raised the gates to the store and wandered to their spot around the registers.  Shawn, fresh from his 4-mile mall walk, came in.

"Hey guys, what's new?"

"Photography badges."

"You guys had them yesterday?" 

"We got a new shipment of them yesterday."

"What about the Excalibur pocket knife I ordered for month ago."

"What about the ones we have in the case?"

"Those don't have the dentist drillbit.  The Excalibur has the dentist drillbit."

"Why do you need a dentist drillbit?"

"To complete my dentist drillbit?"

"You're 85 years old!"

Even the apathetic Hoyce noticed that there were an unusual number of people shopping on a Thursday morning.  He girded his loins for the overwhelming act of Scan--> Pay --> Next!

As the typical Scout Mom brought up the last Webelos scarf in the state of Minnesota.  Hoyce scanned the item, the mother inserted the credit card... and the terminal kept clocking, absolutely no progress.

Mike peered over to Hoyce's machine, "Run the card again, and if it's still not working, punch in the numbers."

Hoyce, "It's not connecting at all"

Mike, "Then the internet is down.  Sorry folks, we're going to have to go to cash only."

Hoyce: "The wi-fi is working, I'm on my phone right now."

Shawn:  We can build an amateur radio with all the parts you have in stock.  

While the chaos of the cash-only economy descended upon the store, Shawn stared out at a number of mall employees set up an entire stage, complete with lights and rigging.  Shawn has obtained his lights and rigging merit badge and begins to assist the employees, who simply know better than to tell Shawn no.

Shawn completes the lights up top, when he hears the words, "Good, we're almost done.  Talent Show starts in 15 minutes."

Shawn: Talent Show?  Who's talent?

Employee: It's just the weekly national talent show at the mall.  We placed a Sudoku Store at the old location of the stage, so this is going to do today...

Shawn:  Can I participate?

Employee:  Sure!  It's a $50,000 cash prize... in tens.

Mike's getting frustrating handling cash.  The POS system does not like people using the No Sale button to open the register, so cash is simply stacked on the register.

Hoyce has decided to simply force the customers to round up for charity,...

As the tiny talented kids in adorable costumes show up for the talent show, UPS showed up with yet another delivery.  

Mike opened the box and revealed the long out-of-stock Mall Talent Show merit badge.  Of course half of the last 22 years of Boy Scouts waiting on an eternally back-ordered merit badge were coming to the mall to get one, and the other half wanted to sign up to the talent show show they would qualify for the badge... then purchase it. 

... and it was still cash-only.

Shawn:  "These skits are going to be terrible"

Morty, the manager, finally emerged from his office in the stockroom of the store, coffee in hand.

Mike: "Waitaminute, we've had a manager here the whole time?"

Morty was surprisingly quick to call the credit card company, but hung up with worry.  "We have a problem.  Since the BSA is bankrupt, the credit card fees haven't been paid.  We need to fundraise to pay off our bill, so let's assemble a skit for the talent show and win the $50,000.  I'm going to get another cup of coffee at the other end of the mall."

Hoyce: "Whatever, I'm on the clock."

Mike handled some of the more obstinate Boy Scout moms, Shawn thought up a classic Shawn idea.

"Hey, they closed that Sears down a week before they even opened the mall, but I bet the old credit card slides are there."

Hoyce: "I think we'd still have to pay our credit card bills."

Shawn: "Sure, but you can still take the slips and process them tomorrow."

Hoyce:  "Great idea, let me go get one."  And like that, Hoyce wandered away from his registered and walked down to Sears.  

Mike was flabbergasted, and Shawn was trying to convince Mike to sing Spice Girls for the talent show.  

Hoyce was surprisingly adept at breaking into the Sears storefront,   It was also a shock just how many of the old "knuckle buster" credit slides and large level carbon slip presses were on the counter in the jewelry department.  

Realizing that the larger imprinter could be swung as a weapon, Hoyce almost broke a smile and said, "Cool" before returning to the store.  

Back at the store, Shawn jumped behind the register to try to help Mike.   While Hoyce was apathetic, he had most of the prices memorized through no effort of his own.  Shawn did too, but at 1965 prices.

With the full fury of the talent show dance moms, Boy Scouts, other folks looking to win $50,000, and Peculiar Sal, Minnesota's favorite parody artist.  

Hoyce dropped his machines through the glass counter, and took a 15-minute break.   Morty decided not to question Hoyce's actions, as the manger returned with his coffee, and officially signed up the group for the talent show under "Musical Act".

As the talent show started, that corner of the mall fell into a weird time warp as each act seemed like an eternity, yet hundreds of acts were getting on stage within the mall's regular hours of operation.  

Once the store employees were called, everyone dropped everything to walk behind the stage, abandoning everything.  Morty has brought out a set of four velour Boy Scout jumpsuits from out of the backroom.  

The Boy Scout store sat behind the stage, watching "Eugene the Magician" dressed as Gandalf, began doing illusion and hypnotism.    Eugene talents were limited but his own major talent was summoning the actual zombies in the Mall of America (who could tell the difference from regular shoppers).  Sometimes a random zombie would get distracted and attack a dance mom, but most headed straight towards the stage.  

Everyone was entranced by the zombie horde, except Mike, who eyed a straight path back through the store and out the backdoor.  

Shawn pulled out his Zune and tried to lure the back end of the zombie horde to a new location with some success.  

Mike and Hoyce fought through the crowd to return to the store.  They grabbed the stacks of cash off the register, and dashed through the back store room, through the back door, into the hallway.  

Shawn successfully led his zombie horde to Hickory Farms and Doris' never-ending free samples.  Except that the first Hickory Farms he reach wasn't a storefront, it was the classic kiosk in the middle of the mall.  Lucky for Shawn, the zombies organized themselves into an infinite line, Getting free samples from Doris until she fell from exhaustion.  

Shawn didn't like Doris anyway.  

The zombies finally reached Eugene and knocked him over onto the stage.  In a classic scene, it looked like the zombie descended upon him and began pulling his entrails out.  In reality, they had simply hit his stash of never-ending scarves for his act.  Boy Scout neckscarves,  The horde of Boy Scout and Boy Scout adjacent attendees, waiting on the back-ordered neckwear attacked the stage and fought the zombies for the cloth. 

Fast Forward two years, 2026

Coastal village, somewhere in Eastern Europe. 

Another year, another pandemic.  But the country couldn't afford the fancy medicines of COVID-25 and 26.   They relied on other methods for social distancing.

At a quaint little cafe,  a large Greek man spied his socially responsible friend with a super-model on each arm, Hoyce, walking down the street, and toasted for their good fortune.  

This completes a ridiculous trilogy of COVID-adjacent adventures.  Bigg Melons  and the Great Hall of COVidiots were run in the first months of the pandemic, and I never got to us the street cafe picture above.  It's only really related by the use of Coffee Shop, and the appearance of Shawn in all three.

#RPGaDay2023 - Day 11 - Weirdest Game I've Played

Day 11 of #RPGaDay2023. and it's a bit a head scratcher.  

For each day I'll be answering the question provided, and for fun, review how I answered a similar question during #RPGaDay a decade ago.  Scout's Honor, I have not peeked at the older answer.

Day 11’s prompt is "Weirdest Game I've Played"

Although I'm usually a straight shooter by the book (PHB) player, my GM style always gravitates towards the strange and unusual.  

My longest running, continuous game is Illuminati Univeristy (IOU), those guys have just scraped the surface of Hol, and I even ran an AD&D game where the Harpers met the Green Lantern Corps (sadly not my original idea). 

It was definitely too soon, but the weirdest games I've played involved ViscountEric, Coffee Shop, and a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Virus. 

Coffee Shop was a great micro-game designed by James D'Amato.  It's rules for running characters from other games, but making them all employees of a coffee shop, with all the potential drama.  

On an off night for our Monday night online game, I actually removed the other game PC option, we created characters in Risus with a local taxidermy shop.   The game ended with a low-speed chase involving the taxidermist and the local bbq mogul competing for the same "product".

In a group that's had college-age Yoda doing keg stands, radioactive spittoons in Texas Road House, and a Mecha powered by funnel cake fryer oil, we weren't sure how we were going to top that. 

Then COVID hit the next month.  

By April, I returned to Coffee Shop, added a new player to the group, and gave them a new challenge. (The following is taken from my April 2020 blog post:)

Using my only guidelines, a modern electronics store... and it couldn't be the last Radio Shack, the guys created Shockers Electronics... and Kegerators.  It's décor (and employees) stuck in the late 80's, it was the best spot in the Quad Counties for all your battery needs, particularly 9-volts.  Unfortunately those days were numbered, because if Grunge and the 90s didn't kill them off, eminent domain for a new interstate would make that happen any day now.

The PC Employees:

• Steve (Played by Sean) The repair guy who drove around a white van to do repairs.  His family ran a small candy company, so he was known to stop and give kids candy out of the van.
• Terry Decimal (Jim) - The quintessential customer service guy at the store.. and the only one who could talk to chicks.   A beer league hockey goalie and secret alcoholic.
• Jeff (Jeff) - The high-powered, high pressure salesman in the stereo department.  Power suits, power ties, shoulder pads, with the Wall Street attitude to match.  
• Shawn (Steve) - That one disgruntled customer who simply never goes home, and is always complaining, even if it didn't matter to him.

The big twist? Shocker Electronics immediately went out of business the moment the state was shut down due to COVID-19.   Instead of the uncertainty of unemployment in these bleak times, the three employees got new jobs working at the Bigg Melon Market. 

• Steve the Repair Guy - Got a job in Produce.  He essentially squeezes the melons all day long.
• Terry - Working in the Meat Department and his drinking might be catching up to him.
• Jeff - Tries to hard sell people on milk, bread, and eggs, but his only known duty is to maintain and repair the self-cleaning robot.  Funny thing, no one has ever seen the self-cleaning robot.
• Shawn - The nagging customer is actually the manager of the Supermarket.

It's 6:55am and everyone is prepping things for the 7-8 Early Bird Senior Citizen Shoppers plaguing the world of COVID.  Everyone's ready, except Jeff, who staggers in the store through the employee entrance.  He's dressed like a bad reject from Miami Vice, save the large coffee stain.

7:00am - Shawn opens the doors to 98 seniors, most in scooters, pushing walkers, or wielding weapons, correction, canes... and zero masks or gloves.  Shawn performs some acrobatics jumping from one register to the next, finally reaching lane 17 and the only working microphone to announce a special on toilet paper.

Only problem, no one restocked the TP from the overnight.    

Things devolve further, as Manfred Lickbottom, county health inspector, makes his way through the front doors for a scheduled inspection.

Shawn blocks the few of his illogical carnage from Manfred as Steve from Produce dashes over and frees come Vietnam Vets on scooters from the TP Pile-Up and sends to in the direction of the bread.  Craig the Bread Guy, never same the slow moving vets coming and quickly succumbed to injuries.

#RIPCraig

On top of that, he hastily pulled a women with a walker out of the fray.  The tennis ball covering the legs fell off and the legs impaled Steve in the foot.

Terry finally left the meat department, where he was displaying the meat alphabetically by type, then by size, and came over the the TP aisle.  Jeff had been trapped in the TP aisle and was trying to soothe the elderly with his Melodica.   Terry used his customer service savvy to distract the seniors from panicking.

Using electronic store sign language Terry told Jeff to steal all the batteries out of the scooters, where the trapped old timers could be pulled out one by one.

As he completed removing the batteries, Jeff came face to face with dozens of snakes pouring out from under shelves.  He held his cool, but with the first woman's screams, mobility challenged geezers staggered in every direction.   Terry narrowly missed getting crushed by an endcap of canned hams, but the display managed to crush poor Gladys Runger of Rosecrest Gardens.  In a rather dark turn of events, Terry pulled out his meat cleaver and chopped off Gladys' legs poking out from under the endcap.

"Blood's a demerit, visible meat on the ground is an automatic fine..."

As to be expected, things got a little bit... fuzzy, at that point. 

Shawn managed to escort Manfred to the doors of the meat department/back storeroom, with only a few odd glances of snakes in the deli counter.   They met Terry, who was given demerits for his blood streaked face (use a face shield next time!) but no one question the women's lower legs he was holding (wearing gloves, way to go!)

Shawn had Steve grab the forklight and grab the pickle barrel that hadn't been on display since 1978... and also hadn't been emptied at that time either.  Now, Jeff had concocted a device out of all of the batteries he stole to electrocute most of the snakes, but prehistoric pickle juice and smoke bombs were the company policy for snakes.

The problem?  Steve had already lost his forklift operator certification and the quickly reminded everyone why that happened. 

The pickle juice barrel blocking his sight, Steve crashed through the stockroom doors with the lift up, ripping apart the wall, and having the debris knock him unconscious.  The forklift steamed it's way towards frozen food with Steve out like a light.

There were many heroes, but none greater than Terry and Shawn, who convinced the health inspector the social distancing taboos were happening the parking lot, and only Manfred had the authority to stop them.  Once he was out the door, Shawn saw the runaway forklift, crashing through the frozen food cases, dove over to a display of Pepsi Max shaped like a football and started chucking footballs to block the wheels of the machine. 

He did succeed in stopping it, but with one final lurch, the pickle juice tipped over onto the scooter-riding vets. 

... at least this opening was better than yesterday's Early Bird Hour. 

As this was a rousing success, I did run one more COVID game, where the same characters got jobs at a Home Depot.  

Any excuse to use the fabled "Helm of Covfefe"

We were well into our zany Star Wars d6 campaign to fit in the third installment of the trilogy, "COVIDiots Internationale."  It's still hiding, waiting for the right (or wrong) time. 

As I've described this game to fellow gamers, I usually get the same reaction.  Half the time it's the subject matter... half the time it's for using a system other than D&D.  

Ten Years Ago Today:  A decade ago, the actual question was "Weirdest RPG Owned."  

At the time, I still owned a copy of HōL, and had used it in my IOU campaign.  It's departed my collection, but not before stretching the minds of my players.  

(RISUS) Loren Stutts, Protector of Freedom and Community Standards

Early on during the pandemic, I ran some connected one-shots online: Bigg Melons in the Time of COVID and The Great Hall of COVIDiots, again using Risus for mechanics and Coffee Shop by James d'Amato for set-up.

I already used this photo multiple times for posts, but it warrants some stats. 

Loren Stutts, Protector of Freedom and Community Standards

Retired Navy Vet (Brown Water Vietnam) with a lot of free time on his hands (4)

State-Renowned Model Ship in a Bottle Hobbyist (3) 

Fledgling Internet Scholar (2)

Fervent protector and legal interpreter of individual freedom, personal rights, and medical research (1)

Loren's a good guy.  Always has been.  Church some Sundays, Salvation Army kettle every Christmas, and he participated in the Toys for Tots motorcycle run until his hip replacement failed and he was forced to sell his Harley.  

When COVID first hit, he tried to follow all the guidelines, but the were getting complicated.  However, the man simply could not stay at home and with help of a friend on an internet message board who believed in God, Firearms, and the links to the Gnomes of Zurich to financial institutions and barber shops all through Idaho, he was gifted an ingenious item.  A hat made out of the pool noodles gave him enough space to go down the aisles of local stores without everyone giving him dirty looks for not wearing a masks.  Strange looks, yes, but not dirty one.  

As the months wore on, Loren has attracted a new group of friends.  A bit rougher around the edges than his buddies he sees at the VA, but they drink the right beer, like the same music, and seem to agree with every word he says about the government's ridiculous response to the pandemic.

In truth, a sorcerer of chaos who happened upon Loren's posts on the internet, gifted him a Helm of Covfefe,  masked as a crazy mass of pool noodles.  The Helm slowly influences, then all-out mind controls people around the controller.   Loren has made mention about wishing some local government leaders and loudmouths would simply disappear.  He's yet to connect the dots and realize his new friends are fervent worshippers of him and have kidnapped, tortured, and even sacrificed some of the mentioned people to the Chaos Gods, and possibly the newest Chaos God, Loren himself. 

Be Part of Family Game Night, No Matter What Happens

2020 was a crazy year.  

Today is the 1st Anniversary of the 2nd time I was admitted into the hospital during the pandemic, this time a quite serious bout of COVID.

I'm hedging my bets, by scheduling these a few weeks out after I discovered this, but it's always good as a friendly reminder to organize your collection and relay your instructions on what to do with your games.... and who your loved ones should trust to help them liquidate things.  

I guess I need to find more games with hourglasses.

 

Set Sail, Vacation....NO?

Today, we was supposed to be our attempt at some pre-COVID normalcy, our semi-regular, yet twice rescheduled cruise to the Bahamas.  

Alas, thanks to the severe upswing in positive cases, and the more dangerous Delta variant, the cruise company cancelled our cruise once again and we'll be given a full refund.  

I'm not giving up my hard-earned vacation.  Yeah, things have deteriorated so much at work that not only will I probably be going in this week (taking off a day or two if I can), but I may be force to take multiple flights to support onboarding a new vendor.  I was trying to figure out how our corporate rates were so high compare to later flights.  

Did I mention we need to fly into Indianapolis?  During the week of GenCon?  I doubt I'll have time to scrounge up a Friday day pass, but the rental does have unlimited miles.  

Regardless, unless something pops up, there's a week for a pre-scheduled material ready to come at you.  Enjoy!

Some People are a Little Short Around Sturgis

Let's see is two-wheeled gnomes can handle large crowds than the folks from last year.

Do Not Let Loose the Masks of War Quite Yet

 After three decades of wargaming, I'll trust a wargamer's measurements, dice rolls, and special condition management before I take their word on vaccination status.

Heck, we finally broached the subject of in-person role-playing during our online session this week.   If things continue their trend, it looks like we can resume face-to-face at someone's house by mid-July.  Might re-visit Call of Cthulhu, maybe some light fantasy stuff, or best case, I might possess a physical copy of Free League's Twilight:2000.  

A man can dream, but if he's doing it in public, wear a mask for a while longer, please.

Tabletop Inquirer: Twitter (@TabletopInq)  IG (@TabletopInquirer) 

A Cleaner Bill of Health

After a freak hospitalization over the Summer, followed by a batch of COVID during the holidays, it's been a highly unusual pandemic (and I don't really want to know what a "usual" pandemic looks like.  

The good news is that I'm slimmer, trimmer, and only have a shoebox full of medication and supplies to cover my various ailments.  

This past week marked six months since my visits to health professionals started, and an appointment with the actual doctor was in order.  

Thanks to some awesome lab work, I'm almost back to be labelled as a healthy fat dude again.  Not dumping off any medication quite yet.  A few more pounds lost and I should be off just about everything.  

The best news is that I could call the medical supply company and arrange the pick-up of all the oxygen tanks and equipment that are hiding in my garage.  

With everything in the clear, it's time to donate COVID plasma and schedule my vaccine... and paint more minis and play more games.  

The Christmas That Keeps on Giving

Thanks to COVID, the cuts at the Postal Service, and additional COVID-related staffing issues at the Postal Service, this holiday season has been a series of one delay after another.  On Monday, we received three different packages from three different companies.  All were Christmas presents ordered PRIOR to Black Friday.  At least Amazon has the decency to cancel an order at the last second, rather than leave us hanging.  

Also caught up in the USPS nightmare was my sister's big box o' presents to the family.  Priority Mail from Philadelphia to Wilkes-Barre?  $18 and TWO WEEKS delivery time.  

The good news is that the wait was worth it.  Everyone loved their items, and I was colored intrigued 

Field Notes produces a whole range of handy little memo and note books.  The graph and dot-graph paper books are intriguing enough, but I received sets of their 5e Gaming Journals.  

Knowing my forte, I immediately opened up the Game Master Journal.  Within the 64-page journal are pre-printed pages for campaign conception, deities, local Kingdoms, adventure recaps, and general scheming.   The Burning Trogs Redux has been calling to me recently, and one journal I will use to review and consolidate all my notes, if indeed, things ever get off the ground.  The second journal?  I'll stash that away for another concept...

In a world of online gaming and Roll20 character sheets, the concept of a 5e Character Journal is somewhat lost, but as a hand-held history of everything from concept to creation to level-by-level documentation (if you dig that stuff.), to pages and pages of space for notes and character development.

And yes, there's two pages for a character sheet data.  It's pretty sweet.  

I also received a set of field notes own pencil line, an a pair of of the dot-graph note books, great for dungeons, maps, or setting up your own.  Character sheet for a game other than 5e.  

Now if I can only get my sister (and brother-in-law's) gifts to the post office.   Like I've said for the last ten months, it's been a long year.

Cold Wars 2021 Cancelled!

 It's the worst kept secret in wargaming, but it was finally announced this morning that Cold Wars 2021 in Ocean City, Maryland was officially cancelled.  

While HMGS was more than willing to institute the necessary changes to enforce social distancing, including restricting max players to games to three and spreading out dealer space, the continued high rate of infections, plus the probable economic hit to the dealers was just too much.  It was the right decision, just one I was hoping for a different resolution. 

Of course, this means my convention shopping list goes online! 

ViscountEric's 2020 Holiday Riches Report

(Edit: This is the third time in nine months that I'm reposting this entry.  For all my research, the words "holiday" and "swag" in the title has triggered some sort of bot traffic, which has guaranteed this to be the most viewed post of my 2020-21 gaming year.   Here's hoping a change in title keeps this off my Weekly Top 10 Blog Posts list, ten months later.  I mean, it wasn't a spectacular gaming haul like in years past.  I'd delete the post outright, but the non-gift stuff I mention makes me all nostalgic and should be kept for my posterity... until Google kills Blogger one day.)

Another Christmas is in the books, and I for one will complain.  With the pandemic, my own personal medical issues (more on that later), and the overall divided nature of the country, the concept of Christmas with just my wife and the girls wasn't the original Christmas we wanted, however, in hindsight, it was the Christmas we needed.

We snagged a LOT of deals on the kid's stuff, and both my wife and I were pretty blasé when it came to a wish list.  She gave me a short list (of which I was largely successful, and thanks to impeccable timing of my bout with COVID, I never assembled an Amazon wishlist, or a special order list for the FLGS that won't arrive until Christmas Eve, so my wife did the best she could.

The Swag: 

• Smart Ass by University Games: Can't argue with a trivia game with raucous interjection, even if it's not your turn.  It might also be a game my wife will actually try and play.
• "I'll be GNOME for Christmas" Kitchen Towel
• Assorted A-Treat Diet 20 oz bottles:  My passion for gaming was fueled by Mountain Dew, Doritos, and M&Ms on my family's dining room table, but my heart goes to A-Treat.  Located in Allentown, PA,  A-Treat is the local soda and certain flavors (Big Blue) fueled some zany antics in the 90's.  Despite their delivery range to supermarkets being over 30 miles from our house, my house went to the closest supermarket and purchased sixteen 20 oz bottles... of various diet products.  The Diet Orange Cream Soda is the closest in comparison to the full sugar version.
• Bicycle "Aurora" playing cards.  Self-bought with the big boss's Christmas gift card.  I like the card backs, but everything blends in on the faces, which would make them poor to use in a Savage Worlds game.  
• Llamas Unleashed.  Also from the boss' gift card.  From the same folks that brought you Unstable Unicorns.  I figured a few llamas can't be that bad, right?
• Oh yeah, my biggest gift was the office chair the rest of the swag is piled on.  A fat guy working from from home 8+ hours every day since March has not been kind to the furniture in our home office, and this chair is super solid, on wheels, and is super comfy.  

(Edit:  I will add two self-purchased stocking stuffers.  Space Dwarves packs #1 and #2 from Simtac for the Macho Women with Guns RPG were Bob Olley sculpts I grabbed off of eBay.  They arrived in the care of USPS on December 21st and arrived at my doorstep on New Year's Eve.) 

Basement:  We were one of the areas that got two feet of snow last week, and were blessed with 60 degree temps and two and half inches of rain over Christmas.  My streak of keeping a dry basement finally failed and I have multiple pumps desperately keeping up.  It even gently lapped at the ignition/motor for the furnace, leaving us without heat/hot water from 10am-6pm on Christmas Day.  Once the water drops, I have approval from the household financial officer for a full horsepower (or more) sump pump with battery back-up, cause the 1/2 we have installed and the 1/3 "mobile assistant" ain't cutting it on 100-year old storms... and we're getting those every other year now.  I think I'll need to replace two ill-placed cardboard boxes I left on the lowest shelf/footrest of the painting bench, but no damage to anything else. Once the water goes down enough, I shall trudge through it and grab the things I need for a very special Christmas game.

Health:  Our dear readers might remember my super-special episode with COVID.  I'm still cleared for work, did the mandatory face-to-face shopping for Christmas, but my endurance is still not there and that dreaded COVID cough seems to have returned this weekend.  Time to call the doctor, and hopefully it's an anti-biotic for some residual pneumonia.  

Maja, Chess, and Meatballs:  To counter all the dire news above, our traditional Swedish Smorgasbord was cut back considerably thanks to COVID and no guests, so we only made one batch of kjøttboller (Swedish Meatballs).  My eldest daughter, Maja, has been helping, and to the relief of a tired Dad, took over the reins of the process, allowing me only to chop onions and brown the meatballs.  The best part?  When I eat them, I have flashbacks to my grandmother's meatballs on Christmas Eve, many moons ago.  They're as close to perfect as I have seen in the last 25 years.   

I also took some time out to correct one fatherly sin.  I finally taught Maja chess.  Way back in July, during our trip to Wellsboro, I picked up a reasonable chess/checkers/backgammon set at Pop's Culture Shoppe.  Outside of the Knights' movements, she picked up everything fast, we paused the games to talk a lot about looking beyond the next move, and Dad still made plenty of unintended boneheaded moves to keep things interesting.  Besides being rusty, I was never a good chess player to begin with, but learning the game in my youth helped me comprehend wargaming and other non-hobby things later in life.  If it supplants Uno a few times this year, that would be great.

Project 350:  I was saving this until the end of the year, but since the post seems like a full disclosure:  year: 510 (346/164) from 513 (349/164).  Of course, I found five more holiday pics to add to my future/scheduled holidays (I already have posts set up for God Jul, Christmas Eve, and Christmas until 2026.) so that will cancel out the work posting this week, so it's a wash.  As the month/year winds down, I only have some Christmas games to play with the girls to play/write, one Star Wars Actual Play, and a book review, if I can get the time to read the last 50 pages.  We promise to do better next year.

The Return from COVID

Usually, this time of year, I'm swamped with work culminating on December 7th, followed by a deluge of other projects leading up to Christmas.  Thanks to the never-ending battle of work-from-home, there's never been an opportunity for a steady pause. 

Even before this last push, everyone was already exhausted, lingering coughs, congestion, and sneezing plaguing everything.   There was no surprise that my wife ultimately came down with a positive test for COVID-19.  It was a bit surprising to find me with a positive test as well.

For the first week of December, I handled things pretty well: multiple journeys to Employee Health, and lots of Day-Quill to self-medicate all the minor conditions.   Push finally came to shove, and the numerous symptoms could be treated, however, last Sunday morning found myself with difficulty breathing just for a 20-foot walk to the bathroom.  

Still, I left my house, walked to the ambulance, and got myself situated under my own power, which was my goal in the whole process.  With a guy my size, my age, my comorbidities, I had a window to go in under my own terms... or else end up dead.  

Another advantage I had was that I work on the non-clinical side of an integrated hospital system.  The first thought of calling out the "employee" card screams preferential treatment, but I can assure you, every employee got triple the thank you's and three statements/questions

(a) What can I do to make things better for myself?  The doctor told me to lay on my stomach, side, head, and I was using all my power to move.  Seconds and individual breaths count.

(b) What can I do to help the staff? "Get better," was the usual answer, but trying to coordinate a wired-filled trip to the bathroom and avoiding a demanding call-bell at the wrong time meant extra check-ins during off-peak time.  

(c) Was anybody else getting better?  Definitely going into HIPAA territory for this one, but I spent six days in the ICU.  The hospital has 25 ICU dedicated beds (with more expanding into other parts of the hospital.  Of those 25 beds, all COVID, only one patient was communicative of any sort (me).  The rest were heavily sedated, on vents or very close to it.  No one ever seemed to get better.  New patients were replacing the old (never confirmed. You could tell from the tone and phrasing of the staff.)

I strongly felt that I was the department mascot.  Somebody who did belong, but provided a little hope that people could get better.  It hurt, but I waved and smiled anytime someone passed by the windows of my super-reverse pressured glass room.  The positivity works both ways.

Super-early on.   

After days in the ICU, wave after wave of IV steroids and anti-virals,  I could actually start to breathe again, with only half the oxygen, then even less.  Late Friday night I was moved out of the ICU, and into a regular room, with regular oxygen and tubing.  By 2pm Saturday, I was in the car and heading home. 

Thankfully, oxygen levels are staying between 94-98%, I'm eating regularly, and only have a few days of steroids left to mess around with my body.  

The biggest residual issue: exhaustion.  It takes three days to recover from every day of being bed-ridden, and while I've walked the dogs and carried a small bit of laundry up the stairs, just standing in one spot produces the greatest amount of pain and fatigue.   

Another cool story to add to the insanity of 2020, eh?

A fun surprise at my door on Saturday were my rewards for the Wars of Ozz Kickstarter.  I stuck with the core rulebook and a few individual figures, and was immediately disappointed that I didn't order more!  Still pledging to reduce other parts of the lead pile first, but a post-holiday order to Old Glory is pegged on the calendar. 

Project 350:  513 (349 drafts /164 scheduled) from 519 (353/166).  There's still a boat-load of RPG actual plays I need to write-up, including our Star Wars "Life Day" game, but I also have posts ready to go all the way through Christmas Day.  Using some saved up gnome art for these COVID posts didn't hurt either.  Breaking 500 for the first time in a long time might happen before the end of the year, and if I'm feeling up to it, a Christmas game might be a reality.  For now, I'm just happy I'm still blogging.  Games will come back shortly.

Stay home, wash your hands, wear a mask! 

Winter Gnome, COVID Gnome

The first measurable snow in on the ground here. There’s a bit more snow where I am vs the family abode.  I’m currently in a higher mountain at the local hospital in the ICU, half recovered from COVID. 

Back on Friday’s quick painting posting, I casually mentioned the positive test from Wednesday.  By Sunday morning I was still feeling ok, but the Pulse-Oximeter was pulling lower and lower O2 numbers, and this viruses doesn’t favor the procrastinator.  Off by ambulance to the hospital!

It took a few hours, but I was moved down to the ICU, where I’ve been staying at ever since.  Thanks to oxygen, antivirals, and steroids, it’s been a steady improvement since my admission.  Perfect timing from self-care.

I’m in a large regional trauma facility, retooled to take in more COVID patients that the other hospitals, hence a larger ICU, but I don’t share one trait with other patients.  I can actually hold conversations with staff, or my family.  Every one else is sedated, vented and strapped down, while varying  life saving procedures are being conducted. 

It’s too terrifying to ponder at times.

Stay home, wash your hands, wear a mask! 

 

I Said Wear a Mask!

Gaming Year in Review 2019-2020

Hey true believers! Ever since high school, I've tracked my gaming like the federal fiscal calendar, so it makes sense to have September 30th cover my Year in Review.

The Top Ten Blog Posts Over the Past Twelve Months

#1  (Kickstarter) Tales from the Loop - The Board Game

#2  Random NHL19 Post***
#3  3,000 Post! ****

#4  Cold Wars 2020 AAR - Pandemic Edition

#5  My Day-Trip to Fall-In! 2019

#6  What in the Sweet Name of Fantasy Wargames (Heroquest)
#7  Cold Wars Event Registration Has Been Opened!
#8  (Painting) Archaeology in the Zombie Apocalypse
#9  (Kickstarter) Planet 28 
#10 (Risus) The Search for Pumpkin Spice

Two of the top ten (***)  were victims of the focus of certain bots from Italy and the Ukraine, but they also had their own traction before the inflated views hit, so I hold them in there place after I killed the posts and re-published them.

My usual Kickstarter format for Tales from the Loop drew far more traffic than I originally thought.  Through 9/29, it's the 13th most viewed post all-time for my blog.

Other posts that cracked my Top 30 All-Time Views List were the obituary for "Uncle Duke" Seifried  (#24) and after a lot of viral traction, My Canadian Cthulhu "Fourteen Beers at Chili's" actually cracked the top 10 at #9!

The posts that dropped off my Top 30 All-Time List weren't anything special, except for a now-nostalgic look at playing Burning Plastic on Steve's bar, and literally using Beer and Pretzels for terrain.  

COVID Keeps Familes Together - My new duties at work, plus our basketball extravaganzas every night gave us little time to play, but worse yet, there was little motivation to play.    Plus we couldn't even enjoy our gamer neighbors during quarantine.

Looking back, we had just enough distractions not to break out a game at any given moment.  Damn you Netflix and Disney+ !

I can also somehow get to blame COVID that I only played 22 different games at least once this past year (Average is usually 25-27 per year). 

Gallstones for a Vacation Away from Family!
To complicate months of work from home and quarantines, I came down with a gall stone shutting down my pancreas, sending my blood sugar through the roof and my body into a horribly squishy mess.  Things are better now, slowly progressing off insulin and onto medication.  My pancreas absolutely despises giant muffins (as expected), but can handle most restaurant meals and even a reasonable piece of pizza or two. It's also allowed me to spend some an hour every other night in the basement, cleaning cat litter, lifting a few weights, and painting some figures.  Outside of a squad of four rescue kittens finding the bench to be a perfect place for them to practice the feline art of knocking things off tables, it's been a productive time, and I feel confident with the direction I'm going for next year, both gaming-wise and physically.

Triumphs!
The Saga Completed - Almost.
Lost Dispatches of Feraso will finally finish out the beginning of November with Episode #100.  With some holiday pauses, this project started over TWO YEARS ago, and has fleshed out some of the sections of my homebrew world that I haven't touched since high school.  Thanks to that, we'll have a new project on next year's goals when that posts tomorrow.

Strike it down, and it becomes more powerful than you could ever imagine.
For the first three months we were doing great, with seven sessions, and I filled in one Gulluvia session and two Risus.  After Christmas our Monday Day Online Gaming sessions just evaporated.  I wasn't quite sure what was going on.  E-mails weren't getting answered, I'd log onto our Skype/Roll20 group and only one other player would jump on.  It was getting to the point that I at least dropped a major hint on Facebook and Twitter that I was looking for new players to continue the sessions, if not a different game altogether.

One new person responded:  The Gnome King himself, Jim Stanton.   On a completely unrelated note, our GM rose from the dead the same week and appeared online, stating the mostly obvious: He was tired of GMing and would be happy to show up as a player.  I ran them through two Risus games, Bigg Melons in the Time of COVID and The Great Hall of COVIDiots, for some light-hearted pandemic fun, and to make sure everybody meshed with Jim. 

With that a success, I moved onto the my usual "What does everybody want to play?" poll, and for the first time since I broke up my Hackmaster group in 2004, it came back unanimous:

Star War d6  (West End Games) - It has been a rousing success thus far.

Risus:  The COVID themed games were big hits, but the Spice Girls espionage-esque games seemed to be an odd niche that... just.... works.  I'm a little worried that our Christmas in July game was more an homage to Kim Cattrall.  And yet it worked, and somehow became the most popular post of my #RPGaDay2020 project.

Mouslings Live!  It took forever, but we did get three Mousling games set up using Savage Worlds/Showdown.  Great little scenarios that got to showcase a lot of the painting I got done the first half of the year.

Catastrophes
Face to Face -  Thank you COVID.  We're suffering from a different type of Masks of Nylarathotep.  And speaking of CoC, this was the first time in years we didn't at least assemble for one Call of Cthulhu game.

No play, No Test:  COVID had me treading water for a looong time, but you would think I could get something together for the Legions of Steel playtest, or at least trying out the rules for Planet 28.

Maja Millie - Retired Archaeologist?:  The Pulp game suffered the same fate as many others.  Just not enough motivation, or time when the kids are around.

Gnome Wars - Only a little fluff work, like Canadian Bermuda.  Only significant painting was by Maja at the Fall-In!  The Nauvoo Legion project is indeed my new version of the German Schutztruppe.

Kickstarter Status
KS: Flying Circus RPG - It finally delivered, 20 months late, and despite some interesting concepts, I find much of it ho-hum.
KS: Legions of Steel Classic Minis - ARRIVED
KS: Planet 28 - ARRIVED
KS: Pulp Figures Dangerous Dames - ARRIVED
KS: Reaper Bones V - It's Reaper.  It's such a big project that regulars know to enjoy the long experience.
KS: 7 Space Dwarfs  - ARRIVED
KS: Space Dwarf Bikers - ARRIVED
KS: Sci-Fi Dwarves (Macrocosm) - Pending October 2020
KS: Sci-Fi Dwarf Miners (BattleValor) - ARRIVED
KS: Wars of Ozz - Pledge manager up - December 2020
KS: Cthulhu and Pulp Characters - ARRIVED
KS: Sandstorm Wars - Holy crap, it arrived!
KS: Twilight: 2000 - June 2021
KS: Steve Jackson Coasters for the Party -  June 2021
KS: Cthulhu Wars: CATaclysm -  Overdue four months. The one true joke that I pledged real money to and it funded.  Now I get some dull updates over the delays thanks to COVID, China, and other issues.  The cats should be fun to paint.

General Muckery:

Conventions
Fall-In! 2019   - Forgot how Byzantine the Valley Forge Casino and Convention Center was....Lots of walking on our daytrip, the joust, and painting.

Cold Wars 2020 - Pandemic Edition -  With COVID (and CW being the weekend they shut down all pro sports... and the state) Wargming in Education was a bust, so I was a bit happy not to take Yellowstone out of the mothballs... yet.

Still getting my feet wet with the virtual conventions, Mepacon and CyberWars in particular.  Fun was had by all, we just need more folks to attend.  Still doesn't beat face-to-face gaming, but we need to take what we can for a while longer.

Media: Baby Yoda (the Rest of the Mandalorian was top-notch as well.)  Can't wait till Season 2.

Painting:  If last year was a drought, this year at least kept the grass green.

I think this meme sums everything up quite succinctly.

Painting 51 figures isn't record setting, but it is far more than the average whiner on social media who either wishes they had time or talent.  The latter requires the first, and at the end of the day, the only person that is responsible for my time, is me.

Arl, Beaverian Brute

My Red Phase....

Easter Island Heads

The mushrooms are new, not the mouslings.

An Unexpected Encounter

Kim Jong Un

Archaeology in the Zombie Apocalypse

Apocalypse Santa and his crew, ready for Zombie Action!

Gnomish Space Marine VTOL Support, with ground crew

General Folger Sandstrom, Commander, Gnomish Space Marines

It took me a bit to realize that the first and last figures I finished this year came from the same Gydran Miniatures Kickstarter.

Kid's Painting - The Ring of Fire

2020 Gaming with the Gnomies Awards!
Best Kickstarter:  BattleValor Games' Sci-Fi Dwarf Miner Warriors beat out Macrocosm, Pulp Figures, and Brigade Games' awesome campaigns thanks to tremendous value and ridiculous turnaround time.

Worst Kickstarter:  Sandstorm Wars - It was finally delivered, but from the moment I pledged to the campaign, I regretted I didn't jump on the Macrocosm Kickstarter before they sold the molds to these guys.  There are a few figures that will get to the head of the line for one of next year's projects, but I'm not happy with the experience.

Best Game:  Bo'Non'as and Oopsa - The Legend Continues.  It's a proud moment when my players embrace and play the roles of two minor NPCs, and continue to inquire about the next time we'll leave the Star Wars d6 regular campaign and return to the forests of the Kurabanda.  A definite moment of growth from my players.

Best RPG Purchase: Star Wars d6 30th Anniversary Slipcase.  Jump-started my Star Wars d6 online game, even though I reference the 2nd Edition rulebook I already owned.

Best Minis:  7 Space Dwarves - A great year for quality minis, but these figures are so awesome I'm still ok that I over pledged and forgot to include add-ons during the Pledge Manager.  I did add those to my Space Dwarf Bikers pledge during their next campaign.

Best Other Purchase:  An LED Desk Lamp for the Painting Bench.

Next: My Plans for 2020-2021

HMGS to Host Another Cyber Wars - November 12-15

In lieu of the previously cancelled Fall-In!, HMGS will be hosting another Cyber-Wars online, November 12-15.

While not filling up convention centers and tennis barns of previous conventions, the Cyber-Wars for Historicon was deemed a success by the organizers, particularly given the short notice (six weeks) to organize it.

From the message sent to membership:

We had four days of virtual gaming across a variety of platforms. We had twenty games, all of which had enough players to run through the games.

We had a virtual club room in which we were able to highlight nine different clubs.

We had a virtual painting competition with 26 entrants, who submitted 66 entries between 6 different categories. Our vendors provided excellent prize support for this competition.

We had a virtual Hobby Room in which we posted 7 videos. Greg Zuniga ran a live Twitch stream on Friday night, and James Wappel live streamed on Twitch for over 15 hours for us.

No Dice No Glory coordinated the HMGS Round Table for us. These live events ran from Thursday evening, all the way through Sunday evening. We had a total of 18 different presentations from podcasters, historians, game designers and presidents of major gaming companies. Over four hundred people watched the videos live. No Dice No Glory uploaded all the presentations within 30 minutes of the evening’s presentations ending on their YouTube channel. As of July 26, 628 people had watched videos from the event.

We had a virtual vendor hall with 105 vendors listed, 24 of which offered either a show discount, prize support for our painting competition, or both.

We created a CYBËR WÅRS Facebook page which gathered 243 likes, and a CYBËR WÅRS Lounge group for people to talk about CYBËR WÅRS which gathered 130 members.

We created a webpage on the HMGS website which had our virtual games, Round Table events, and vendors so those members who don’t use Facebook could access CYBËR WÅRS.

I am still amazed at how much we managed to get done together as a team in only six weeks. 

It appears the listing for the Historicon Cyber Wars is still up.  It should be replaced with the Fall-In! version as material and events are confirmed.  

#RPGaDay2020: Day 18 - Meet

Good Lord, it was just a bit over five months ago that I was at Cold Wars in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, drinking Corona to spite the gods, and watching sports leagues shutter faster than a town in tornado alley.   The oncoming threats of the virus had already kept the older population of the wargaming community away, so it was a surreal experience, but even after the Governor's orders that Friday, day-trippers were still coming in Saturday morning.

Wars of Ozz at Cold Wars

One day that will happen again, but it's only been five months.

The Cold Wars Flea Market (aka Wally's Basement)

What should have amounted to fun birthday weekend at Mepacon full of Car Wars, Illuminati, and yes, My Little Pony RPG games instead turned into an all digital event.  Heck, unless you shot yourself in the foot (I'm looking at you Origins), digital events replaced the face-to-face conventions.  Not the same feel, by any stretch, but a welcome alternative to moping around at home.

And it's only been five months.

One day we will all be able to meet up again.  Heck, it was part of the conversation at last week's online game that our one player, who recently built a new home, has a dining room set so obnoxiously big that four players plus a GM could sit and stay six foot apart.

One day my friends, one day.