I Cast RESURRECTION!!!

So,  I know it's been awhile. I didn't realize it had been quite that long. I hope some of you are still around out there.

I know I've talked about some of my roadblocks to blogging before: depression and a new career have been the main cause. Well, they haven't gotten much better. My creativity just gets sucked away by the time I get home. 

So i'm going to try something a little different. Call it a new beginning. This dwarf is going to add some anachronistic material to the Stronghold i.e., going to branch out from just D&D-type stuff. Maybe some more real life stuff. Give me your feedback; tell me what you'd like to see. 

It's good to be back. Hopefully I can make it stick. 

[The Stronghold 'Zine] Not Quite Dead Yet!

So, for all of you who don't know... depression really sucks.

No, I mean that. Literally.

Not only does it metaphorically suck, it sucks...time, energy, will, desire, creativity. All of that stuff goes down the drain while you sit and watch and generally wait, helplessly, as life passes you by while you wish for...well, all sorts of dire and unspeakable things. "Writer's block" has nothing on this, folks.

But thank Heavens for my Muse and some weird, pain-induced dreams this morning. They inspired some cool items and, 1,900 words later, I have a new article for Issue #3 of the Stronghold 'Zine. I'm getting closer, gentle readers, and am about ready to start actively looking for artwork.

So buckle up...I'm hoping to get this new something out in the world in the next month or so. Call it a birthday present for myself.

Shamless Plea for Help

OK, dear readers. I realize that I've dropped off the face of the planet. I barely have the energy to make this post, but I really need some help. Here comes the "shameless plea."

Well, actually, it comes as part of a great big "thank you" to you all in the gaming community. A great big "thank you" because of what you all mean to me, and how your unspoken--and possibly unrealized--support has gotten me through some bad times.

I've had a bad couple of years. After a dozen-plus years slaving for a modern day Ebenezer Scrooge, I bought him out and hung out my shingle. Then I slowly realized, more and more, that he'd taken advantage of me, and had incurred a lot of secret debt that now had my name stuck to it. In the past couple years I've sunk everything I have into this firm and have finally come to the conclusion that my desire to help people has not been outweighed and overcome by my inability to bring in business. I haven't made a mortgage payment in a year; heck, I've not taken a paycheck home in a year. There's been game-related spending, but it's been driven by extreme depression.

You see, I've been suffering from depression for nearly 5 years. I will confess, I was always one who kinda scoffed at depression. I was raised by parents who were nearly a generation older than most of my friends' parents, and were of the "pull up your boots and get back to work" mentality of the Nineteen Forties generation. I'll tell you, that mentality lasts only until the moment you realize that it's all true: depression has a definite mental, emotional, and physical effect on your life.

Then add to that the food allergies that hit about the time I bought out the old man, "Grampa Asshat" as my staff calls him. Severe food allergies. To the point that I have maybe a dozen things I can eat...at most.

I'm not saying this because I'm craving sympathy or pity. I'm getting to my point here soon.

Putting together The Stronghold has helped, putting out this blog has helped, proven a distraction, at least.

Fast forward to about 6 weeks ago. Due to circumstances beyond my control, someone close to me--professionally--screwed me over. I felt like I was the victim in a bad prison movie. I dropped emotionally, mentally, and physically lower than I had ever before experienced. I determined that I was closing my doors. I felt like a failure, even though I knew (and everyone around me knew) that I had been set up for failure by Grampa Asshat. Since that day, I have been nearly incapable of producing any gaming material. Heck, it's been tough to even get up the gumption to game. A few of you've provided some little goodies in the mail that have acted as defib paddles. A month ago, a colleague offered me a job in his firm, providing me an open window to the door I'd just closed. This past 3 weeks I've worked harder than I have in several years; my depression and medical issues have severely inhibited my thinking and processing abilities. All of this? It's exhausted me. Severely. Exhausted. It certainly hasn't helped my desire or ability to produce, game, or think straight. In addition to client deadlines from my new firm and my old firm I also have self-imposed deadlines: editing deadlines for a couple of OSR projects, writing deadlines for several anthologies, and, of course (potentially) Issue #3 of The Stronghold. None of this takes into consideration family stuff, of course.

Now the plea: I'm relying on you all. I've relied on all your support (see above) for the past several years to get me through the past several years.

Do I keep going with this? do I keep going with the blog? with The Stronghold 'Zine? with gaming? I need some reasons. I need your support. Call it prayers, karma, or positive vibes. Yeah, it's selfish, it's self-serving, it's shameless. I think of you all as my friends, and I wanted you--as my friends--to know what's been going on and what you all mean. And yeah, to beg for some positive support as well.

Maybe this is overly dramatic. I certainly don't want to give all this up. I really don't. It's probably all emotional and mental burn-out. I'm sure I'll get past it.

Thanks for listening.

And I certainly can't conceive of WHAT I can use as a Joesky tax for this post. Hope y'all will forgive the intentional oversight.

Sick and Tired

I am so freaking sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Backstory (and I’ll try and keep it brief): as some of you know, for the past two years I’ve been suffering from some strange sort of food allergies/sensitivities.  We’ve narrowed it down to where I can basically eat grass and water, but we’re not too sure about grass. Or water. Now, it’s done wonders for my waistline: I’m wearing t-shirts and jeans I last wore nearly 30 years ago. After all, when you’re not eating--and if you do eat it’s immediately and forcefully eliminated for the following 36 hours--your weight can drop fairly quickly. But painfully. Whatever it is has affected my body in other ways: I’m constantly tired, and suddenly so, as if someone had simply “unplugged” me; my depression is aggravated; I have difficulty thinking at all let alone clearly and/or creatively; painful bloating and uncontrollable, vile gassiness.

Short statblock: All this makes me the life of the party and I’m tired of it. I’m tired of the pain, the fatigue, the emotional and mental issues. I’m tired of watching my family eat burgers and pizza, milkshakes and cookies while I’m eating carrots and celery, simple unseasoned ground beef (assuming it has no filler) and the occasional kosher hot dog.

So, sitting here tonight in the midst of an allergy attack and--ahem--“marinating” in my office, it got me thinking. When I game--and I know the rest of my group thinks the same way, so I can only assume we’re not unique--I don’t give much thought to my character’s illness, fatigue, and the like.

In other words, being sick and tired.

You and I get up at 5:00 a.m., maybe work out for an hour sometime during the day, put in a long day at the office or the assembly line with its accordant stress, anxiety, frustration, and back- or mind-breaking labor (physical or mental, respectively). Add in rush hour traffic both ways--or the stress and discomfort (again, physical and mental) of public transit--then you crawl your way in the front door and your toddler climbs up on your lap and either knees you (dad) in the wobblies or head-butts (mom) your sweater puppies. Then there’s the familial stresses and duties expected of you now that you’re home. And it all starts again tomorrow. Five days a week, if we’re lucky. If not, then six or even seven.

Now, I know that the above paragraph is perhaps the biggest reason many of us game. We want to get away from our normal lives. I understand this, I really do. And in this fantasy escape of ours, whatever the flavor or system, why on earth do we want to worry about mundane things. There's a reason we don't play "Houses and Humans." (There's probably several reasons why we don't play it, but that's another story.)  But face it: whether it’s through ability score modifiers, “conditions,” or some other form of RPG abstract health-tracking, characters should feel--and are, by rules as written at least, expected to feel--sick and tired. And this goes beyond simple encumbrance tracking.

Look, like it or not, it makes sense, at least from a ROLE playing standpoint. No matter what any of us do during the day, it’s not likely that we commit deeds on par with the basic tasks of our characters. When was the last time you killed a band of roving kobolds, defended a village from marauding orcs, suffered the slings and arrows of outraged towns guardsmen, or simply ran screaming from the biggest fire-breathing lizard you ever saw? All while wearing armor. And weapons. And adventuring gear. After spending the night on hard ground, half-frozen, and with a rock in your back Right. There. Oh, and you have the runs from a bad tavern meal; you’ve also been saved from near-death a half-dozen times by magic--you have to believe that that puts a little bit of stress on a body. And this is every day of the tenday. Yet we all--and I realize I might be generalizing--we all assume that a healing potion and a good night’s sleep in the woods is going to take care of all those aches and pains.

I mean, if I go camping, I’m on an air mattress and in a nice, cozy tent (if not a trailer). I’m in sweats or pajamas, not armor. And I still get up in the morning with a crick in my neck, a screwed-up back, and the legs of a 90-year-old near-invalid. Forget running from kobolds, I can hardly make it to the breakfast table.

What I’m saying is this: maybe tracking encumbrance or noting conditions, fatigue--or whatever the system equivalent is--maybe it’s a pain in the neck. Maybe it’s that “one more thing” with which you don’t want to hassle. All this might be true. But if you’re in the mood to do a little ROLE playing--or in the mood to force your players to do a little ROLE playing--consider the fact that even semi-super-human demi-demi-gods might get a little muscle-stiff or brain-sore once in a while.

Now, I don’t know the right answer here, I’m just brainstorming. Thinking aloud, as it were. Throw a couple extra conditions on ‘em. Drop an ability score or two. Give ‘em a little extra something to think about when they’re tracking down the big bad. Or running from the big bad. Whichever the case may be. Of course, you’ll have to be judicious: what would be a discomfort to high-level characters obviously could incapacitate low-level characters. Conversely, what would be a discomfort to low-level characters may be nothing more than a mosquito bite (or less) to a high-level character. Scaling the discomfort may not be the right move, as logic dictates the longer you adventure, the more accustomed you become to the rough conditions. On the other hand, the longer you adventure, the older you get, the stiffer your muscles get, and the more fragile your bones get. Then you get into the “aging” rules--something else that a lot of us tend to ignore in our adventures/campaigns.

Just something to think about. Please: let me know where I’m mis-thinking this or what your ideas on the topic might be. Until then, I’m just going to keep muddling along as best I can.

Reliving the Old School Ways

This post has taken me ten days to put down on paper. Loads of personal stuff going on, all of which are sapping my creativity, energy, joy, happiness, drive, etc. Anyhow, that's a soapbox for a different day. Bear with me while I ramble through these thoughts, would you?

The one real bright spot in the last...oh...let's count it in months, shall we? The one bright spot was our game night last month. Why a bright spot? For that, we need to jump in the way-back machine.

First, some background information: I've had some great DMs over the years. I've had a couple bad ones; I've had a great one that went bad suddenly, violently, and all over the place. The last several years our group has cycled back and forth between two guys. They're both terrific at their craft. But both got a bit burned out a couple months ago and I didn't have the mental processes available to take over the screen...so another one of the guys jumped in and volunteered. The first couple sessions went great.

Now a confession.... I've told the guys this, so it's not really a surprise. My personal issues have taken some of the fun out of playing the past year or so. Don't get me wrong; I've had fun, but just not as much as I've had in the past. It's more of a "going through the motions" for me on game night.

Well, as I've mentioned before, our group plays Old School-style, with a home-brewed 3.x rule set. I will freely confess that--as much as I love the rule set--it can sometimes require some serious note-taking and attention-paying to track all the modifiers in play at any one time.

[Aside: Before anyone jumps in and points fingers with an "A HA!" moment to say, "See?!? 3.x is just TOO complex/rule-heavy/ponderous" or somesuch, take a look back at one of my previous posts wherein I shared the two-page THAC0 tracking sheet that was common in our 2E days. End aside.]

So, it can be complicated, right? So we surround the table with laptops with our character-tracking software of choice running. A few years back, we helped one of our buddies build a dedicated game room in his garage. For a while we gamed with a digital projector mounted on the ceiling projecting our maps onto an old dining room table.

Then we took the next step: the owner of the table called in some favors and, voila, we soon had a flatscreen television mounted inside the table, covered with plexiglass, and a removable cover to protect the television. A server was added and the DM suddenly had a digital tabletop map. This is how we've played for, oh, a year or more. It's a really sweet setup.

Now, we fast-forward to the present. One of our players broke his leg, requiring surgery, which would keep him from our monthly game. None of us wanted that, so we decided to take the game on the road and play at his house. When we all arrived, we found that the DM had forgotten the battlemap, one of our other players had no laptop, so he was going pencil-and-paper. A couple of us hit the road to a local game store to grab a battlemap while the others called in the Chinese food order for dinner. Yeah, we still sat around--most of us--with laptops. But it was around a gridded battlemap, the color of parchment. Wet-erase markers were the tool of the night, scribbling out rooms and hallways in the forgotten desert temple.

IT WAS THE MOST FUN I'VE HAD IN A LONG TIME. I don't know if it was the new setting, the use of the battlemap, or what it was. But it was fun. It. Was. Fun. I think the other guys all agree--we were riffing, and role-playing, like we haven't done in a while. I haven't talked to the guys about this, though, and I'm not sure what this means for the future. I don't think it means we'll be abandoning the game room, the digital table, or anything else. But it certainly raises the question for what happens next time I sit behind the screen. Do all the players need laptops? Could the DM track all the modifiers and crunch all the numbers instead? Could a battlemap and wet-erase markers, along with pencil-and-paper character tracking, be in our future? I dunno. But it certainly is food for thought.

And it certainly felt good. Really good. Really Old School.

Awww, Crap. Missing Game Stuff.

OK, I;m a bit frantic, I have to confess. I like knowing were my gaming stuff is, all of it. I'm a bit anal retentive that way.

I just went searching for a few things and realized I have some conspicuous absences in my collection. One hole I was able to fill: I was missing a dice pouch with my "DM Dice"--a collection of random dice useful in DM-ing: 30-sided alphabet die, critical hit location dice, direction dice (for random mapping), NPC attitude dice, etc. I panicked when I realized that was missing. Took me an hour or so to remember where I'd had and used them last. Actually, it took me 1:20--twenty minutes was trying to remember what dice pouch I had used.

I found them, but in so doing I realized that I was missing three more things. I put these out there just to shout at myself. Feel free to yell at me too.

1. A Kickstarter package from way back when containing three -- I said THREE -- full sets of the ORIGINAL Dungeonmorph dice by +Joe Wetzel  and +Inkwell Ideas . A full set of each of the patterns. Plus all the extras. Yeah, Joe. Feel free to yell at me about this one.
2. My X-Plorer Boxed Set from +Brave Halfling Publishing . Both #1 and #2 were received at about the same time, and in the same place (last that I remember). And now? Not.
3. A set of 7 dice purchased at FantasyCon last year. Specifically, the "Silver Volcano (speckled)" set; I laid my hands right on the "Purple-Teal/Gold (gemini)" set purchased at the same time. Both of these sets were in the same place when I saw them last. And now? Not.

Hey...I'm sure I'm not alone. Someone out there has the same OCD I do about my gaming stuff, right? Please tell me I'm right. And throw some karma my way, so that I can put my hands on these three items and rest easy this weekend.

Because you know I'm going to lay awake wondering where they are...especially my dice....

I've  just now realized I'm missing a couple other things:

1.  My XDM d2 by Howard Tayler. (Funny...also from FantasyCon.)
2. My Kickstarter package containing the original Scenes of Chance card deck.

Sigh.

[From the Mailbag] Kickstarter FULFILLED! Storyteller's Anthology

Today is one of those sadly all-too rare of days: the day when a Kickstarter promise is FULFILLED.

There have been many unfulfilled Kickstarters that have made me wary and choosy about the projects to which I pledge. Several of those actually have my money. Sigh.

But this one.... This one made it to the finish line, and then some.

The Storyteller's Thesaurus is one that I've been eagerly awaiting ever since the initial announcement and KS launch. Chalk that up to my being an (1) English Major, (2) Word Geek, (3) aspiring writer, (4) recreational Dungeon Master, (5) Bibliophile/bibliophage, (6) Dictionary collector.

The tome was supposed to be released in October 2014. To be fair, the PDF was released on-time and I've used it numerous times. However, I note the time-delay issue only for the record. Not only were the publishers more than candid and forthcoming with their frequent updates, I'm more than pleased with the final result; the additional time was certainly worth the wait, considering the product they put out. Here's what I saw when I opened the box:

Imagine my surprise...when I pledged, I pledged for the leather cover AND a softcover. After all, I need one for the home and one for the office, right? Well, somewhere in the intervening months I apparently missed a vote to make the softcover a hardcover. That made me smile in and of itself. Then to see that they added a dust cover for the leather version as well (seen at the upper left, removed)? Magnificent. Of course, the leather cover is itself magnificent; the cloth-bound hardcover is nothing to complain about either. The content? 550 pages of synonyms, from medieval/fantasy weapons to modern military vehicles and firearms. Transportation of all kinds. Animals, real and imagined. Plants, symbols, and descriptive terms usable in ANY genre of storytelling. And it comes with a truly MASSIVE index, helping you find your way through the pages and words.

Truthfully, I'm not sure that I could have (reasonably) asked for anything more. After all, the gilded pages, silken page finders, and the hand-illuminated pages were kinda pipe dreams anyhow. [Tongue currently planted firmly in-cheek.]

Also included were physical copies of a novel by the great James M. Ward, entitled The King's Commission and The Storyteller's Anthology. There's nothing wrong with a little extra reading material, right?

All in all, a nice surprise on an otherwise grey, depressing day. What made it better? It came to the office, rather than my home address...so I could enjoy it earlier!

Not Quite Dark

Yes, I have to admit, the blog has gone a bit dark of late. Not through any intentional act, but suffice it to say that depression, family problems, car problems, career problems, and money problems have all descended upon me all at once and have made it hard to really find any joy in anything right now.

Heck, I even tried to map my way out of it and the result came out looking like...well...it wasn't pretty.

One bright spot was being able to sit in the living room of Tracy and Laura Hickman on Sunday and have a nice 2+ hour chat. Catching up, gossip, that kind of thing. I was also able to pick up my Kickstarter-funder copy of their game, Sojourner Tales. I can't wait to get the families schedules all worked out so that we can sit down and play. The final product looks TERRIFIC. Tracy and Laura know what gamers want, know what board gamers want, and this product fits the bill. Just PHYSICALLY you know that when you pick up the box. This thing has heft.

I believe you could kill a kobold with it. Although that might scratch up the box a bit.

This past weekend was my birthday, too. I received a copy of the Hickmans' latest book, Unwept from some close friends. Couldn't wait and stayed up most of the night to read it.

I loved it.

I'd highly recommend it. Great dark gothic work. I told my wife I kept expecting someone to mention how much Rebecca was missed, or "Look, over there. There's Mandalay." (And I mean that as a compliment. I LOVE Rebecca.) I was truly sorry when I reached the end, because of course, there wasn't any more.

Work continues on the Inaugural issue of the Stronghold. Slowly, but surely. I hope to have some more news for you soon.

Painted Lead: Harapan, the Elephant Man

I picked up the brush Sunday for the first time in eleven months. Yes, I said ELEVEN months.

I spent a few hours relieving stress with this guy. And by "a few" I mean "7.5" or so. "This guy" is a limited edition release from Reaper Miniatures: 01411 Harapan, Elephant Man. This was a fig released in January 2005 to raise funds for Red Cross following the Indian Ocean tsunami on December 26, 2004. I picked up a couple of these--partly because of the good cause and partly because, hey, cool miniature! They've been hiding in a box for the last 8 years.

Saturday, I was bored and exhausted. A bit depressed. My personal and professional life(s) had me stressed to the hilt. So I decided to paint. A bit of digging in my lead pile uncovered Harapan, the Elephant Man. My mind started spinning and color schemes started flashing through my brain. My hands itched to hold a paintbrush.

Yeah, I'm serious. Itching.

Don't laugh. You mini-painters out there know exactly what I'm talking about, I'll bet.

I think I'm done with the miniature except for the base/basing...haven't decided out what to do there yet. I haven't decided whether to simply paint the broccoli base, mount it to a new, larger base and do some basic terrain basing, or to build a small diorama around it (rock towers, grass, rocks, etc.) for display. Getting the right base is important, as you know.

Oh, I probably have to hit him with some sealant for a bit of protection.

I would appreciate any honest feedback, etc. from y'all. Please let me know what you think. I have to be honest, it was my first time trying out a few different techniques.

Also, I know the pictures aren't the best, but they were the best and most well-lighted of the four sets I tried.

Again: let me know what you think in the comments. Constructive criticism is more than welcome.

[From the Mailbag] Gamer Generosity

I've tried to write this blog entry a dozen times and I've deleted my efforts just as many times.

You see, I want to express my gratitude to several people and I want to laud the generosity of the RPG blogging community. But at the same time, I worry that others will try and take advantage of the same generosity for which I'm so grateful.

In the end, I've decided that I have to go ahead and make my thank-yous and count on the same gamer goodness that spawned this entry in the first place.

Now that my dithering is out of the way, I guess I should explain myself.

I've mentioned recently that my father passed away in June 2011. A year later, my mother decided it was time to pick out a headstone design and get it installed on the grave site. She enlisted the help of my older brother and myself and set up an appointment with the monument company's designer.

The problem: the appointment fell on the same day as Free RPG Day 2012: June 16. I'd waited a year for this date and found that I could do nothing to accommodate both my familial duty and my hobby cravings. I resigned myself to missing out and relying on the release of free PDFs from some of my desired Free RPG day materials. I explained my predicament online in a couple places and took care of my mother on the day in question.

I've spent the last 18 months or so in a spiral of depression. My father's passing did nothing to help the spiral; problems at the Firm and with my family's finances have piled additional weight on my shoulders. My back isn't broken, but the straw of missing Free RPG Day this year was close to a final one.

And then something happened, something that strengthened my faith in humanity and reassured me that the RPG community is full of good-hearted and caring individuals.

I had three friends respond to me...people that I know only from online correspondence, people that I have never met face to face. These three friends took it upon themselves to share with me their Free RPG Day bounty. In fact, I received an extra bit of gaming goodness that took the act of kindness to a level above and beyond.

Once the envelopes arrived, this is what my desk looked like.

1. Q-Workshop Free RPG Day 2012 Forest Dice (d4, d8, d10, d20, d100)
   
2. Harn Map, by Columbia Games
   
3. Dead in the Eye, by Wizards of the Coast
   
4. Cosmic Patrol Quickstart, by Catalyst Games
   
5. Dungeon Crawl Classics Free RPG Day 2012 Module, by Goodman Games
   
6. Dawn of the Scarlet Sun, by Paizo
   
7. Cardboard Heroes: Castles Walls and Towers, by Steve Jackson Games

Most of these items were on my "Wanted" checklist for the purpose of teaching my kids to game. Because of the generosity of others, I can do it.

I want to thank the three individuals publicly; in the spirit of effective alms-giving, I want to keep them anonymous, however. They know who they are, and hopefully they know how grateful I am to their kindness. They went out of their way to help a friend who was unable to help himself. I do not think that I could find the words sufficient to show my gratitude to them. At the least, I can try and pass along the kindness to others in the community in the future.

Thank you my friends. You've given me a bit more than simply RPG products. You've given me some hope and faith. The depression isn't gone, but this experience has thrown me a little life preserver.

Depression

I have a confession to make. And an apology to my readers.

I'm suffering from depression.

It's taken me a long time to finally admit it. Back in December I chalked it up to what a buddy of mine calls "Blogpression." I'm ready to admit that it's gone beyond that. I'm fighting it, at least enough to be marginally functional. Usually it's not too debilitating, at least to my regular life.

But gaming, no matter how fun it is, is only a game right now. It's not my life. And it has to take a backseat to my family, especially when I only have enough physical and emotional energy to deal with one or the other.

This is not to say I don't have blog-fodder. In fact, it's just the opposite: I have several reviews I need to type up, and a couple maps I need to scan and upload. I just don't have the ... oomph ... right now to get over the hump and actually do it.

This isn't an announcement that the blog is going into hiatus or disappearing or anything of the kind. It's more of an apology: I know I don't contribute a lot, but I try, and I like to think that what I DO contribute is enjoyed somewhere out there. And to that (likely) single person... I apologize and promise that more is coming soon.