Category Archives: still alive

It’s been a busy week

D&D, life, the universe, and everything, new arrivals, RPG, still alive

It’s been a busy and tiring week at work. Which has left me too tired to try and arrange any midweek gaming.

My attempt to get some gaming in last night failed. No one was free or interested in playing some roll and writes. And I had to turn down an invite to learn Marrakesh as it would have meant finishing too late.

So it looks like June is on course for being a slow month of gaming, and I don’t have a car issue as an excuse this time.

Work wise I’ve stepped up the job search as the clock counts down to the end of my temp contract. Apparently there is a full time contract, they are timetabling as if I’m there next year. However I’ve not seen anything yet to sign.

At the start of the week the latest promo packs and solo mode for Rolling Realms arrived. It’s getting to the point now that an alternate storage solution needs to be found for the game. I think with the Encounters promo pack that comes out at the same time as when the game does that’s it. The limit for everything in the original game box has been reached.

So yesterday out of the blue my pre-order of Tome of Beasts 3 by Kobold Press arrived.

I am a big fan of the Kobold press pocket editions of their books. I love the format. It’s so handy. Goes nicely in a bag to read on public transport or in bed. I just love it compared to the larger books like the Monster Manual.

I currently have two other of their creature books, Tome of Beasts 2, and Creature Codex. With the updated Tome of Beasts pre-ordered (out next month if memory doesn’t fail me).

For me I actually prefer these Kobold Press offerings to the official WotC equivalents. They feel fresh and fire the imagination more. The art is amazing. Which helps fire that imagination.

There is also the benefit that unless your players also have purchased the books that they are unlikely to have come across the creatures in them. So when they encounter one it’s a surprise and refreshing to them also.

I’m looking forward to flicking through the pages of this latest volume and seeing what grabs me.

It’s been a long week for such a short week!

MtG, MtG Deck Building, still alive

It’s been a couple of days since I last posted, and I know how folks hope that the drivel has finally stopped if I haven’t posted for a day or two. And I so like to disappoint.

Even with a bank holiday on Monday, and turning 55 last Sunday. This shorter week has felt so long. Which I think is due to how hectic it is at work at the moment.

But gaming has been happening. Well last night it did with a second session of the Shadowdark rpg. But there will be a post mortem post about that in a day or so.

The cards needed for the Mindcrank and Duskmantle Guildmage combo deck have started to arrive. There were three envelopes waiting for me when I got home yesterday. With more on the way.

This deck is a different build to the one I had a few years back now. That was fun to play. So I’m expecting this to be just as fun.

I like experimenting with different deck archetypes, and I definitely have my favourites. But the experimentation does help in becoming a better MtG player. Even at a casual level. It allows you to assess the opponents deck, make inferences about possible cards, or type of card, and allow you to adjust your tactics based on that information.

For example if I was up against an elf deck or something that has splashed green, I would do my damn best to disrupt that early ramp from those Llanowar elves.

Those two new poison decks from Card Kingdom have given me the urge to revisit my Atraxa Commander deck and look at what new cards I should be considering to add to it. Although playing Atraxa as a Commander does put a pretty big target on the back.

Tuesday I got an email from Chaos Cards saying that they had the A Game of Thrones Mother of Dragons playmat back in stock. Something I had given up hope of ever owning.

Until that email landed in my inbox the price of the playmat was easily over double retail plus a hefty shipping cost on top. Assuming there was one for sale.

So I didn’t even hesitate in clicking the link and ordering one. Nothing like getting something you really wanted for slightly less than rrp and with free postage.

The playmat should be with me next week. With hopefully enough people willing to play the following Saturday.

So that’s my game related stuff this week during a very very hectic week.

Still here,possibly,maybe…

life, the universe, and everything, still alive

A week is a long time in something or other. Especially when this blog appear to go all silent.

It’s been busy at work. A different kinda busy being in education again.

Yesterday was a great day because I got to do game coding with the students. But we aren’t here for that sort of chat.

There have been a couple of new arrivals in the week.

At the start of the week another copy of the 2004 edition of Doom the board game arrived that also had the expansion with it. I had to buy it like this as the was no way the seller would have separated the expansion out.

Midweek I decided for some reason that I’d get the War of the Ring card game to play with Nathan. There is no way Nathan has a table large enough to play the War of the Ring board game. He likes the Lord of the Ring movies. So War of the Ring the card game arrived Thursday. I can’t wait to play the game with Nathan at the start of the Easter holidays.

I’m not going to write now about last nights gaming. That can wait until I do a weekend gaming post. However I did do a bit of board gaming business last night.

Marcin had been after a copy of Outlive so we came to a deal last night that saw the game leave my collection and join his. In return on Sunday my collection gets a copy of Conan the board game.

In conclusion I’m still alive! And leading a pretty boring, mundane life. See you in the next post, I’ve got a D&D session to plan for.

Little life update

life, the universe, and everything, still alive

As I’m working on the next part of my Doom epic for this weekend I thought I’d just ramble on about stuff.

I’m getting the board game side of the Doom project in place so that I can get it to the table. Which naturally will then feed into the posts.

I’m not sure what folks think of the Doom posts they are a bit out there for this blog.

The latest Tapestry expansion and folded space insert have dropped through the letter box. So I have an excuse to get that back to the table but before I do I have an insert to build.

A few Marvel Champions also arrived. Which means I have all the big expansions now along with a few more heroes. But I’ll talk about that once I’ve finished organising the cards I already have. Which I’m in the progress of doing.

A lot of card sleeves are on their way so I can sleeve the Doom games when they arrive and the just arrived Tapestry expansion.

I’ve got the expansion for Deep Sea Adventure (Charlene got me a copy while at Airecon). Well I will have once I see Charlene. I owe her one Hostage Negotiator play mat too.

That’s about it for now laters.

Cake, Mars, and Crows

Fenland Gamers, game night, life, the universe, and everything, still alive

I know my usual posting schedule has once again gone out the window.

Despite having had a half term to recharge the batteries. This past week I’ve been particularly tired in the evenings. Often falling asleep whilst watching something.

I’m not sure folks appreciate how draining the day can be. Especially when you are still adjusting.

However yesterday was the end of the week and once again the fortnightly Fenland Gamers Friday game night.

Which means I go straight from work to where we meet up and play some games. Well that’s the new routine for club night considering the time I finish on a Friday, and it’s on the way home.

Plus it means I get there early, and have time to get something to eat before the majority arrive. I also get to set up the tables ready for some gaming.

Last night I got to play a four player game of Portal.

I’d been wanting to play the game with more than two players.

Our game was shorter than I expected and not as cut throat. But I put that down to one of our players not being a “gamer” and not really paying attention to what was going on. More importantly putting all their eggs into one basket so to speak by having both of their test subjects in the same test chamber. Which opened them up to Ben placing a turret in that chamber and ending the game. At that point in time Ben had the most slices of cake out on the laboratory. Giving him the win.

The second game of the evening saw Ben grab his second win of the evening when he won Alien Frontiers.

The latest edition to the collection, Murder of Crows was my final game of the evening.

The game had only arrived the day before. So naturally I hadn’t had time to read the brief rulebook.

So as I shuffled the cards Ben quickly read the rulebook, and was first player. After all first player was meant to be the most shady looking person!

Murder of Crows is a nice light take that card game, that plays in less than thirty minutes.

It definitely has a spot in the roster of filler games in my collection.

Harrison won the game.

It was a good evening of gaming.

Yep still here…

life, the universe, and everything, still alive

Well it’s been a busy week at work. I’m definitely swimming in the deep end!

But it’s good to be back in the classroom.

Tomorrow sees me attending my first Fenland Gamers Friday evening gaming of 2023. Something I don’t think would be happening if I was still at my previous job.

I did get some gaming done last Sunday when I got to try Encyclopedia. Which Colin and Ben trolled me with by saying some online were calling it “the game Wingspan wanted to be”. Which is total b.s. and most likely click bait.

The games are completely different. Encyclopedia is a fine game, but it shares no mechanics with Wingspan. I’d have put it closer to Marco Polo with the dice placement mechanic. I definitely like Wingspan more.

This was a Kickstarter deluxe version of Encyclopedia we were playing with. I have to say I wasn’t a fan of the metal coins. They felt so light. No weight to them at all. A very disappointing tactile experience.

Whilst out gaming I was able to do a bit of business at the same time.

Marcin was selling his copy of Doom the Board Game 2004 edition.

I’d had this edition on my wish list for a while. Or more accurately my “it’d be nice to have a copy” list.

So I was more than happy to snap it up at the price he wanted.

But now I need to try and track down its expansion, and the 2016 updated edition. The later is easier to get hold of.

With this purchase the pressure really is on to finish off my Portal posts that are sitting in my draft folder. Then I can start this Doom project. Which will be the most epic thing I will have attempted on the blog. Whether I’m up to the challenge or capable of pulling it off is another thing!

It’s VDD Day!

D&D, life, the universe, and everything, news, RPG, still alive

Another week has passed where I’ve written and played little.

It’s been the regular weekly pattern of work and sleep.

Work has been ballistic. Lots and lots of customers and no staff!

On the plus side I only have a week or five shifts left before my return.

Which means last nights club night will be my last (hopefully) one that I miss. It’s not great that the first two club nights of the new year I’ve had to miss.

At least I’m managing to find folks to play a game or two with on Sundays.

Now onto some D&D news that broke yesterday.

It’s pretty big news.

Remember all that #DnDBegone, boycott WotC and D&D stuff that happened over the last few weeks over the OGL 1.0a?

Well yesterday WotC announced a complete surrender over the issue after the survey feedback (so far) for their draft OGL 1.2 was overwhelmingly negative.

Der! They already knew that. The massive loss of D&DBeyond subscribers, the single voice of descent from content creators, social media.

I suspect this draft and survey were a ruse to allow WotC to backdown without losing face. Or that was the plan.

Whatever their motivation, we got to the right result that community were after. The OGL1.0a is safe. Plus the SRD 5.1 (that’s the document covered by the OGL that allows creators use core rules, classes, races, spells, etc) has been put under a Creative Commons license.

It’s a big win for the community.

The only question remaining is has this been enough to stop the haemorrhaging of creators and players? Or is this too late the damage has been done?

Change is a coming…

life, the universe, and everything, still alive

I thought I better post one of these “hey, I’m still alive posts”.

It’s been a busy week back at work.

After nine days off there is always that adjustment back to the routine of shift work. So I feel I’ve been extra tired it feels.

Plus the shift patterns this week has had me going from lates (that’s closing at midnight) to a mid shift, to opening up (that’s a 5:30 start).

That shift pattern is especially tiring as you get no downtime. It’s basically going to work, get some sleep, go to work. There seems no time to chill. To unwind.

However things are a changing on the work front.

Over the time I had off I got another job!

I hadn’t specifically been looking for one. But an opportunity came up.

One of my deciding factors in going for it and accepting the job offer was those shift patterns I described above. They are hard on me. But even harder on mum. They aren’t good for her health.

I discussed things with her naturally. Mums old school. Just like the Black Knight in the Monty Python and The Holy Grail, “it’s merely a flesh wound”. She said she could handle them. But these types of shift were a lot harder on her.

Apparently dog sitting my two little attack chihuahuas in combination with her dog and cat make it hard for her to get the rest she needs at her age. That’s my observation not hers. Although she does complain they keep her up and stop her sleeping (you should hear her when I visit Nathan).

So that was my deciding factor. I love my job and the folks I work with. It wasn’t an easy decision. But in the end mums health trumps everything.

Once I accepted the offer, and the agency negotiated an hourly pay rate (yeah seems the wrong way round I know) I was more than pleasantly surprised, taken aback, even shocked at my new pay rate.

So Tuesday on my return to work I handed in my notice.

Which means in two weeks time I finish at my current employer, and then a day later I start the new job.

Oh what’s the new job? Yeah I seem to have missed that bit out.

I’m returning to education and teaching computing and game design again.

So that’s a pretty big change I think you will agree.

I’m pretty excited about returning, but also sad because I really like my current role and work mates.

But more as things progress.

But as you can tell very little gaming has gone on this week. And the #dungeon23 post will be going up tonight.

However my physical copies of Ruins of the Grendleroot, and Fantastic Locations arrived at the start of the week.

I love the print quality of the soft cover books done by DriveThruRPG.

Until a crowdfunding project is run for the final version of City of Arches, I currently have two more books to get physically to have the Sly Flourish set.

I’m looking forward to dropping these into the campaign in the future.

That’s it for now. The tl;dr is job changing, not much else gone on.

An unexpected long journey

life, the universe, and everything, still alive

A three hour drive down to visit Nathan turned into a five hour plus ordeal when the M3 was closed after junction 4a.

It took half an hour to get off the M3 at junction 4. Then even longer as the back roads from Farnborough and Basingstoke became clogged with traffic. Especially as I got nearer to Basingstoke and the odd road works bought everything to a standstill.

But I eventually arrived at Nathan’s for the start of a few days with him.

This time I bought with me the latest roll/flip and write in my collection The Isle of Cats Explore and Write (plus the Kickstarter promo cards). Which arrived lunchtime. Yes it’s that new an addition. I think it also gets the honour of being my first game purchase of 2023.

I’ve also bought Trekking Through History, Rolling Realms, Castles of Burgundy the dice game, Alhambra the dice game, Riverside, Marvel Champions, Splendor Duel, and my bag of games.

Star Wars Outer Rim was already here. I’d bought that down when I was down New Years Eve.

As I’m writing this post Nathan is watching the Newcastle vs Leicester game whilst playing Iron Harvest.

Iron Harvest looks beautiful. And so it should considering it uses art by Jakub Różalski alongside the game assets.

Nathan is really enjoying Iron Harvest. Which I knew he would. He is a fan of the RTS genre. Nathan is a big fan of Command and Conquer series and the subsequent games it spawned.

For me if I had a PC to play Iron Harvest it would also tick a lot of boxes for me too. I also am a fan of the RTS genre, but I’ve been playing it a bit longer than Nathan. I loved Dune 2 back in the day. Iron Harvest shares the same universe as my favourite boardgame of all time Scythe. So you can see how it ticks a lot of boxes for me.

Now I don’t think I would have much difficulty getting Nathan to try Scythe. He just needs a big enough table, or to visit me for him to try it.

I now have three days with Nath. So you know there will be some father and son Gaming going on.

Catch you in the next post.

Life, the universe, and not a dungeon23 post!

life, the universe, and everything, new arrivals, still alive

It’s been a day or two since I last posted. Several days since I posted something not #dungeon23 related.

Believe it or not I have other stuff going on in my life.

Sadly that seems to be work.

This year I’m not able to make the majority of the Fenland Gamers holiday gaming sessions.

Currently the only one I can make is the night before I do a whistle stop trip to see Nathan.

The lack of getting round a table with friends and playing games is a drawback of the new job role I took on in the later part of this year.

Don’t get me wrong I love what I’m doing. I’m working with some great people.

But there is a price all this comes at.

I do have some new arrivals though.

New arrivals

First up is the second expansion for Dune Imperium, Immortality.

I don’t think anyone will be surprised at this one considering I love playing Dune Imperium (especially with the first expansion Rise of Ix).

Just like Istanbul, Dune Imperium just gets better with each expansion added in. So I’m pretty excited to get this back to the table

The next two arrivals just show you how much I liked these games after playing them recently.

First up is Splendor Duel. Yeah I know two player games hardly get to the table, and attempts to get a two player game evening arranged have fallen flat. Add in the fact I’ve not won a game of Splendor in a long time. But despite this I still enjoyed the game and wanted it in the collection. Splendor Duel will be making the journey with me for that whistle stop trip to see Nathan.

Next up is Trekking Through History. I played this recently with Ben and Diego and had a good time playing it. I loved the stories of your time travels you could make up with the card titles. I also think this might play well as a two player game with Nathan.

Finally the latest Vampire the Masquerade Rivals expansion The Dragon and The Rogue arrived.

It’s been out for a while in the US, and only now starting to get in the hands on UK and maybe EU folks.

I love the game. But like many before (Ashes, Star Wars Destiny, Dice Masters etc) supply issues are just killing the game for me.

Well that’s it for now. I’ve a busy few days ahead of me. As they say no rest for the wicked and those that work in retail.