Starting School

Yeah I know, Its only Kindergarten, but in some ways it is still kind of sad. The Little guy who it seemed like a few months ago was laying on the changing table is going to School. I get sad when I think he is leaving his friends behind, and the Teachers at his day care that have been part of his life for so long. Part of it is, I guess I know how scared I would be, Big new school, new friends, new teachers It all most seem a lot to a 5 year old. I’m sure he’s probably not even thinking that much about it. His mother went to the same school he is going to, as did her brothers and sisters, Her uncle is there, and her cousin is a teacher so I guess its ok. I guess I just don’t want my little guy to grow to fast.

Having a cold

That’s right…I have a cold, in the middle of August in Delaware, In the immortal worlds of Winston Pooh “Oh Bother!”. I makes me grumpy, I haven’t slept much and Im down right out of sorts. Hopefully It will break soon and I can get back to being my normally grumpy self.

Star Wars Stuff

Many many years ago in a time called the 80’s, Game companies were bidding for the gaming rights for the Star Wars Franchise. The original trilogy had ended and it look like it was the end. West End Games won the rights to the RPG, and the rest was history…but what might have been.

Grenadier was chosen by WEG to do the Miniatures for the game. There was a mixed result, some passable mini’s and some not so good. Well it seems that Citadel/ Games Workshop was interested in doing a line of Star Wars Mini’s. I first stumbled on this rumor a few years back on ebay when I came across a superb Stormtrooper figure, The seller stated that it was from a unreleased GW Star Wars run, produced when they were trying for the license. My head spins when I think about what Miniatures they could have produced. I may be able to get a hold of one of those rare pieces this week. I am crossing my fingers.

Olde Tyme Days

That’s right, the Days of yor, when I was a thoughtless teen. We had Nextels, we called them Walkie Talkies and could reach about 30 feet before you descended into a fog of static. When I was a Teenager, phones were anchored to walls and believe it or not you had to walk over to the phone to answer it. We had remote controls, they were called “ the youngest child” who proceed to turn the knobs ( with resounding clicks) of the TV ( after it had warmed up) to his fathers verbal direction. Yes we may have cable today, but we had UHF and VHF. We also had text messaging, it was taking your Stylus (back then we called them Pens, pencils, Crayons etc.) and wrote down a message on a sheet paper, then you slapped it on a bulletin board or Refrigerator via a large Magnet. Our CD’s were large black affairs, and our players had a multi disk function to, in the center of the record player was a large silver pin you could stack your records up on, when one record was done, the next record ( with a loud thwap) would drop on the turn table. Life was simpler back then, we weren’t in constant contact with friends, when you left the house ( we did that back then) and a friend called, you simply called them back when you got the message when you returned home. We actually would walk next door to talk to our friend…its true….I kid you not. Oh well, welcome to the future.

Ptolus

I picked up Monte Cooks new Ptolus game supplement, or should I say Mondo Deluxe game supplement for it is huge. It is nearly 700 pages on and about the city of Ptolus ( btw we have decided to pronounce it Tolus…the P being silent as in Pneumonia).

First things first, The extra folder included in the book has a lot of neat stuff, Citzenship papers, calendars and a copy of the local paper as well as some extras to make Gming in the big city little easier ( encounter tables, cheat sheet etc). Two things I didn’t like were the big map of the city, it’s the same graphic we have seen X times before enlarged. The other was the CD ROM, yes it does give you Mondo material in fact it gives you whole supplements in Adobe format including color cover, but I was expecting a little better on the format of the CD maybe with a Ptolus interface. I also was bummed they didn’t give me the template for the paper so I could make my own additions.

The book itself is very very cool, the artwork ranges from good to great. I love the illustrations of the streets and areas in the city. Every person referenced in the tome appears to have stats or a reference on where the stats can be found. There is just a ton of information in this book. In some ways I am reminded of Middenheim, the GW book that came out during the Hey Day of Warhammer FRP ( that I loved BTW), but this book is about 6 times the size. The Chaos angle is played up in the book ( And there is a source book on the DVD in regards) and truthfully I haven’t read enough to form a opinion. The flavor of the town and its many aspects is a joy for a GM. A CON, I was a little disappointed on the dungeons, for some reason I was expecting vast mazes on the scale of Waterdeep, there are numerous dungeons included and certainly a GM can insert his own, But I was expecting something a party could spend months trying to conquer.

All in All I am still giving this product an A despite the CONs listed. For sheer reference and completeness it is a work well done. My big sadness is I will probably run this world and never get to take a character into Delvers Square myself…oh well.

Started back up my Friday night game a month ago, its going ok, I may move it from my setting to the new Ptolus setting just released from Monte Cook. The old Eagle Cove campaign was primarily a urban campaign and the players seemed to enjoy it, and truthfully so did I. Some of the best Campaigns I played in were Urban Campaigns. The Middenheim Campaign that Dave ran was a absolute blast ( though the mob killed my horse.) so I’m thinking it could be cool.
We are still playing DDO regularly, we all have Drow now and are bringing them up one slow level after another. We are trying to do some of the high level content with our High Level guys but its kinda tough, for the 10th level stuff you really need everyone on and that’s tough.

Man oh Man, I have realy let this page go for a while! Allot has happened, lets see…

My Wife is pregnant (Yeah!), we hope for a happy healthy addition to the family in the February, March time frame.

My Son is now a strapping 5 year old.

My Friend Justin Hoover passed away recently, he was 25 and I had known him for some time via re-enacting. He died of yet unknown causes. I had been with him the week before for our display in Lancaster for Historicon and we had a good time, well now he is gone. Matt read a great quote from TR that really hit close to home at his memorial. Justin wasn’t religious and had stated that he wished to be cremated, in keeping with his wishes and the essence that was Justin his memorial was held at a sports bar and a number of friends showed up.

My brother Is out of the Army, Two tours in Iraq is enough for anyone.