Category Archives: still alive

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.

Brief – I’m alive (but tired) post

life, the universe, and everything, still alive

This is going to be one of those brief still alive posts.

After a weeks holiday it was back to work Sunday. Although my next few weeks work schedule sees me swapping between lates and omg it’s early shifts. Before having another weeks holiday at the end of the month.

With my next bit of gaming this weekends D&D session. You may have noticed from the recent posts that’s my main focus, along with the D&D taster session three or four days after.

I’ve managed to swap shifts at work so that I can attend the next Fenland Gamers club night. So really glad was able to do that.

And hopefully there might be a gaming session with Diego somewhere amongst these things too if schedules work out.

Right that’s another proof of life over. Catch you in the next post.

Looking for the cake aka still alive!

still alive

It’s been a couple of days since the last post. So thought I’d write one of these still alive posts letting you know what’s going.

The D&D session 9 post mortem will be up in the next day or two. I’m just gathering my thoughts about it at the moment.

There are plans in place for me to visit Nathan in a couple of weeks time. I have a weeks holiday. Which is the first holiday since March. Which means I now have a week off each month for the next five months.

Nathan’s birthday was mid week. And he’ll be getting his birthday present when I visit him. Oh forgot to tell you what the present is. I got him a copy of Alien Fate of the Nostromo. It’s a game he nearly bought on his holiday in America, and regretted on his return that he hadn’t. So that made the decision what to buy him easy.

I finally got a laminator. Which means my planned project of laminating the player sheets in the roll and writes I own will actually start. But I also plan to use it for D&D stuff.

Which reminds me the flip and write Welcome to the Moon has joined my collection. Excited to get this to the table and try the eight map campaign.

That’s about it for now laters.

More ramblings

D&D, D&D Grp2, Gloom Chronicles, life, the universe, and everything, Marvel Champions, rambling, RPG, session planning, still alive

Well just like politics a day in my life can be a long time, and things change.

The next session arranged for Saturday has had to be cancelled due to a union work thing that has cropped up.

However it looks like it may go ahead Monday (currently my day off!) evening instead. I’m still on lates next week, so I don’t have to worry about getting up for a damn early start the next morning.

So there is a silver lining to this cloud.

It would appear that soon (next payday) I will be jumping into the lcg from FFG, Marvel Champions.

Hence the new little icon thingy I’ve done.

I did enjoy the game when I did the “try before you buy” game with Gavin. And it is his copy with expansions I’m buying.

I also think this is a game I can play with Nathan that I’m pretty sure he will enjoy. I’m not sure I’ve played a co-op game with Nath. But I know just from the theme alone he will love it. And I’m excited that I will be able to play this with him.

Buying Marvel Champions does boot into the distance any decision I was going to make about getting into another FFG lcg The Lord of the Rings Card Game. Which does also appeal to me on theme alone.

We know I like the idea of solo gaming, and when I see a game can be played solo it does help sell the game to me. But when it comes to actual reality I very rarely play a game solo. I think I can count on one hand the games I’ve played solo. So I’ll never (ok I know never say never) play Marvel Champions solo.

Another given is in the coming months once Marvel Champions has joined my collection I will be catching up with the expansions I don’t have. It’s that whole Pokémon “got to catch ‘em all” thing.

Bugger they also have playmats for the game. And we know how I am about playmats.

I better order in a lot of sleeves. I usually go Mayday Premium with boardgames. But this technically is a card game so I may fall back to my other preferred brand Dragon Shield Matt sleeves. The ones I use for playing MtG.

Before I look for players willing to commit to playing the campaign version of Gloom, The Gloom Chronicles, I need to get the two expansions that I currently do not own.

Obviously The Gloom Chronicles uses the core game. But it also needs Unfortunate Expeditions, Unquiet Dead (need to get), Gloomier: A Night at Hemlock Hall, Unhappy Homes (need to get), and Unwelcome Guests.

It’s a twenty game campaign. It should be possible to play multiple games a session. I don’t see it being much of a commitment, three or four sessions at most.

I’m very intrigued how Gloom plays as a campaign. It’s a story based game. Well technically if players are not into the story side can be played as just a card game. I know other games like Scythe, Pandemic, etc have campaigns that are tied together by an over all story. But that’s a story written by the designer. Gloom is a different animal altogether. The storytelling is part of the game.

I definitely want to get Gloom to the table sooner than later for sure. Especially around the end of the month. I don’t do Halloween but if that isn’t the time to at least play the game once I don’t know when is.

A Rambling Wednesday Update

life, the universe, and everything, rambling, still alive

The September monthly stats will go live on the last day of the month. I suppose they could have gone live now. It’s not as if I will have played any more games before October starts.

Being one of those glass half empty doom merchants I don’t think October will be a massive month for playing games.

October starts at the weekend with a D&D session. But after that my next bit of gaming will be the following Friday with the next Fenland Gamers session.

My next day off is a Monday when our hosts are not open. Plus I’ve not had much luck getting others interested in gaming on days I’m off. So even if they were open I don’t think I’d find others to game with.

That’s the drawback of my current job with my shifting days off during the week.

So far I’ve been lucky that I can make the Friday evening sessions.

It also makes it harder to arrange things. I should know three weeks in advance what my rota is. But at the moment I know what I’m working up to the end of next week and that’s it. I’m on lates for this and next week. Which I like working.

I do have a weeks holiday next month as well. I’m hoping to visit Nathan then. So that will be quality time together gaming.

But for the next five months I do have a week off each month, as until that week off I’ve only had one days holiday this year.

I was watching The Dice Tower Autumn Spectacular – Top 10 Horror Games last night.

It reminded me although I own them I still haven’t got Fury of Dracula nor Ghost Stories to the table. Plus The Others appeared on a couple of the lists, and now I want to get that back to the table.

The Others has the dubious distinction of putting me off ever backing or buying a CMoN game again. Or I should clarify it was the Kickstarter campaign CMoN ran for it and not the game itself (which I really enjoyed).

But one omission from the four top ten lists the Dice Tower contributors came up with for me was Gloom.

Which I have played once. But I really do need to get back to the table (especially now I have the fancy storage box, Gloomier, and Gloom Chronicles from the last Kickstarter) as I think there are others in Fenland Gamers that would also enjoy playing it.

10th October sees a World Mental Health Day.

I’m going to try and “celebrate” it with a post. I don’t know how the post will come out. That will all depend on the day I suppose.

That’s it for now. See you in the next post.