Unexpected...

Last night's DC Adventures game went in a manner that was unpredictable in many ways. First. Marathon devised a plan (a good plan, mind you) that the group not only accepted, but followed. Second, up until a third party jumped into the mix, said plan actually worked. To be honest, the third party jumping into the mix didn't really affect how or what the plan actually accomplished. The third party was to make clean-up easier.

It is while clean up is being made easier that things got a little out of hand for Marathon. It seems that his marriage to Mongal, which he really wanted to make work for his own reasons, was one of heir-producing convenience. On top of that, he's still married, and while he can see other people, Mongal pretty much warned him that spawning any more heirs would bring down her wrath. Yeah, I see bizarre marriage counseling in Marathon's future.

In the end, the group dealt with...

...L.E.G.I.O.N....
....forward observers for the Green Lantern Corp...
...several members of the Sinestro/Mongul Corps...
...WarWorld...
and each other.

To be honest, it was a fantastically fun, but odd-as-hell session. Kudos to KnightErrantJR for it, and the game in general. I'm truly enjoying it... =)

-- GopherDave

Getting Back To It All...

Okay... I think my general mood is starting to hit the upswing once again. Just in time to play my favorite cynical, recently married, telekinetic, Marathon... Never mind the hideous costume in the picture. Yes, his main colors are red and yellow, but they are put together better than that... =P

Beyond that, the weekend went well... I came in yesterday to do orders, and then left. It was very relaxing and I needed it more than I realized. Also finished the first employee evaluations we've ever done for the store. I was reminded how much I hate doing those... I may never do them again...

Also some things changing on the gaming front, but things are still in flux, so...

-- GopherDave

Survived...

Apologies for being incommunicado for the last few days, but we have had a BUSY weekend at the Gopher.

This past Saturday was when we held MtG: Avacyn Restored Pre-Release events at the store. We held three sealed-deck tourneys, with 38, 36, and 38 people respectively. We had a blast, with a lot of great times generated by all the wonderful people that showed up and participated. Along with myself, Loquacious, Skribl, and HiSign held the store down and kept things together and the events flowing. As an added bonus, we had students from the local community college's Massage Therapy program come out with a couple of massage chairs and help keep participants and players relaxed during the whole deal.

Today was mostly a day of recovery, and it was slow at the store for the bulk of the time we were open. That was a nice change of pace after Saturday. The weekend hasn't been all Magic: the Gathering, though. Through a deal with a couple of friends, I managed to pick up a couple more books that used to have in my collection that I missed a lot. One is commonly considered a cool item, and the other will make you go "WTF, mate?!?"...

The first... a copy of Steve Jackson Games In Nomine core rulebook... I never played the game personally, but I read through the book numerous times the first time I owned it, and it was one of the many games that got started thinking about RPGs in a more "rules-lite" direction. Shame that it needed to be errated all to bejeebus to make it work even close to smoothly. Nice to have a copy again, though.

The second book? White Wolf's Street Fighter RPG. Say what you will, but the whole set-up for the game triggered my "over-the-top" button enough that I ran a short-lived campaign of the game, and had fun doing so. As a bonus, it had the only combat system among the Storyteller games that worked worth a damn for the time it was out. I had mentally laid out a plan on how to graft tricks from Vampire and Werewolf onto whole the skeletal framework of the SF combat process, and on "paper", it was going to work beautifully. Honestly, I wish I had done so and submitted it... It couldn't have worked any worse than what the Wolfies were publishing for combat rules at the time, but that's just my opinion. YMMV...

Anyway, off to do real work...

-- GopherDave

More Of The Same...

Once again, it was more of the same stuff, different day... with a twist... Unfortunately, the twist is private, and I really cannot talk about it here. Suffice it to say that this was not how I wanted to go into a major event weekend...

Rest assured, things will get better. I just need to get through the depressive episode and get past this weekend. Any offers of help are pre-emptively appreciated, but these mood swings are things I have to get through on my own. I apologize in advance if I act like a complete a** to folks here in the next few days. It's not intentional and there's other stuff going on...

In this case, it's not you, it's MOST DEFINITELY me...

peace...

-- GopherDave

It Keeps Going And Going And Going...

Okay... More of pretty much the same stuff, different day...

The depressive episode is still lingering and I feel nothing but impending doom as we hurtle toward yet another Magic: the Gathering Pre-Release weekend. I'm not certain why I'm feeling like this. Normally, crazy weekends like what we have coming up get me excited, but this weekend is full of angst on my part, but currently it is all I can do not to curl up in a corner and pull my hair out.

I think part of it has to deal with gaming... I'm not really running anything I can get behind right now, and things are starting to bottle up inside of me. I play in three games, and they are all great fun, but I am A-D-D enough to know that I am a game master/storyteller at heart, and I think that is part of the issue. Trouble is, with all the stuff that happens at the store on a near-constant basis, I don't really have the time/opportunity to make things happen as often as I would like.

That may be the issue at hand... I may need to go on walkabout for a bit to clear my head... We'll see what can be done with that...

-- GopherDave

As Things Roll On...

Today has been a weird day already. I have been tired and irritable for apparently no good reason. Little things are setting me off. Tonight, Skribl is watching the store and I'm off at a quiet place where folks cannot ask me questions they already know the answer to.

I was supposed to have a game tonight, but PapaJosh is feeling under the weather. I don't mind, though. The way I'm feeling, I would have probably snapped at someone at the game.

As it goes, I have forgotten about the deluge of product that people want to trade in right before a new MtG set comes out. With that, I have been answering MtG questions a *LOT* today, and I do not have anymore in me.

After the last few weeks, I can see why people get burned out on doing this... why we end up with "comic book guy" store owners... Mayhaps it's been happening a while, but I am *REALLY* starting to feel it. I'm not sure what I can do about it either. People will ask me if there is something they can do to help, and I honestly cannot answer them currently. I sort of know what is going on, but I am not for certain it's what I am thinking, so nothing I am thinking is concrete.

I hate dealing with wispy, nebulous thoughts, but that's all I have right now. Sorry...

-- GopherDave

More Catching Up...

Another Monday, so it's another order day. Once that is off the agenda, I need to go run some errands for the store. For what is supposed to be my "off" day, I do a lot of work on Monday. =P

I had a nice talk about gaming with the Loquacious one as I drove her somewhere she wanted to go. We mostly bandied about games bouncing in our heads. She's got her idea that she's been blogging about, while I have a couple of ideas that germinated a bit during our talk. My biggest problem is determining when I will have time to work on them... Oh, yeah...

Off days...

-- GopherDave