Weekend Plans...

This weekend involves playing with some new toys. First up, the new Magic: the Gathering set (Gatecrash) dropped today/yesterday (it's way late as I write this). Sales for the set, despite the initial downward buzz I heard prior to today, have been *EXCEPTIONALLY* strong. The booster draft and sealed that happened at the store tonight had a large amount of excited and happy players. I like those kind of players... They make my life much easier...

The other new toy I plan to play with this weekend is Fractal Mapper 8.1. It's mapping software designed for the diagramming of campaign worlds and elements. My initial pass-through has been favorable, though I will admit to only a casual perusal thus far. My first thoughts are that it seems easier to use than Campaign Cartographer 2 PRO, which was good, but had a *VERY* high learning curve. Anywho... I plan to futz around with it and dig a bit deeper into what it can do... I'm hoping I can pick it faster than CC2, and my experience with the previous program means that while I may have to un-learn some things, it should overall be easier to get up and running.

Now... now it is 3:40AM or so, and I must bed, as I have to be up at the store by 11AM.

'Night all...

-- GopherDave

Next Blog Challenge...

Okay... another convention survived. Yes, I still have the head cold, but it is getting better...

Looking over the blog the last few months, I have noticed my regular postings have dropped off considerably. It makes sense, what, with me (and by extension, the store) getting ready for a convention and all. However, it has got me wondering "what next"?

The blog was started as a self-accountability tool for a wardrobe upgrade. For the most part, it has done that nicely, but a man can only post so many pictures of his chest/neck area before boredom begins to set in. So, what can I do in terms of tracking a challenge to keep people interested in what goes on here?

Weight loss tracking? Seems good. I need to lose weight. I was down to 285 pounds or so when life bit me in the back side. Now I'm back up to 310 pounds and am in danger of chewing on a C-Pap mask for the rest of my life if I don't make some drastic changes. When the weather gets warmer, I might buy an actual bicycle again. I should only induce about half-a-dozen heart attacks in myself trying to ride it. =P

Game design challenge? Ha-ha... HA-HA-ha... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... No. Not happening. I figured out that when pressured to write, nothing really happens that moves the game forward. Plus, I barely have time to do what I currently do in gaming. I need to pile on a plate of "extra-fail" like I need to gain another twenty pounds.

Ehhh... anyway... who knows... Just mostly posting today to let folks know that I'm still not dead... =P

-- GopherDave

Not Dead Yet...

Okay...

I went into the convention suffering from lack of sleep and some ConCrud/Head Cold variant. Came out of the convention with a lack of sleep and a ConCrud/Head Cold variant, but I had run four successful events over the weekend.

Like I feared, the system (DICEBAG) made some folks go into vapor-lock looking at the character sheet initially. There's a LOT going on in terms of information on the sheet, and it just sort of front-loads the confusion for new players. However, once we got started, and people got what I was aiming for with the system, they picked up things fairly quickly.

Once things were finished, I had received a fair number of compliments about how things flowed and the mechanics worked. That is encouraging. If, by next year, I can get the first draft of a complete core bore written, there are a number of people I'd like to pass it onto to do some more testing.

As for the after-Con, I took Monday off due to illness. I was back at the store today, though, and in uniform. No pictures as I had a family emergency pull me away from the store a bit early, but after around two months of very hit-and-miss compliance, I should be ramping up back to full necktie-wearing uniform standards fairly soon...

-- GopherDave