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Yikes! I didn't post at all during the month of August. Probably because the month of August was a month of Insanely Busy! I fought the CMS and the CMS nearly won, but we held a Come to Jesus meeting and the CMS Powers That Be sent an Ektron Savior who helped us in our time of need and now we are Good to Go.* We launched a new home page to great acclaim after an incredible number of hours spent working on it. I fell in the lobby of my building and popped my shoulder out the Friday before we were supposed to go live on Monday. We played Fruit Basket Turnover with offices--my team and I all reside within polite calling distance of each other on the 4th floor, which is a truly wonderful thing. And we have a meeting space. My bestest bud had liver surgery (!), but it was not the Big Scary we feared and he is recovering at a mutant healing rate. I'm still playing catch up, so this is brief. The best news is--we resumed gaming this past weekend! A new campaign with two new players. I'm running "The Winds of Change" homebrew, yoinking from Pathfinder Adventure Path volumes and using the new Pathfinder RPG rules and setting. How long has it been since we've actually played with 4 players?? Should be fun. *In English: We had extensive troubles with our content management system, Ektron. My division Vice-President and the campus Chief Information Officer and various directors had a phone conference with Ektron chiefs about it. They sent a technical support engineer to our campus for two days, at their expense, who determined what the problems were and fixed them. Tags: ektron, roleplaying, surgery
Current Location: United States, Alabama, Birmingham
Current Mood:  good
Current Music: Annette Hanshaw, "Mean to Me" (Radio Dismuke)
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[I started this as a comment in ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) grayalynn 's blog, but continuing it here.] OK, let's come at it from a slightly different direction, gameplay. What about Diplomacy and Bluff and Intimidate? I never quite feel that they work. We've had discussions about player ability vs. PC ability, and that somewhat enters into it. I'm not so sure those skills should be (and I'm thinking out loud here) straight skills. Let me see if I can explain what I mean by that. Do skills adequately address the abilities of negotiation? I know that you can use Bluff and Intimidate in combat, but we rarely do. I'm not sure that those are the same skills. You might be cunning and tricky in combat, but when it comes to talking to the Hakima without losing your cool, you might not be so suave. Does that make sense? I still don't know that much about maneuvers and stances, although it seems really interesting. Bluff and Intimidate in combat might well be addressed as part of maneuvers. I think about Ari and her deft and dancing swordsmanship in this context. If she had had access to maneuvers, J could've modeled the sort of Errol Flynn swashbuckler that Ari is in my mind.
On the other hand, I wanted Raef to be decent in combat, but to excel in B, I & D, and he never really did because DONNA sux at those things. I still feel my PC got penalized for my personal shortcomings. I do not, however, want the DM to have to finess it and say, Well, you made your Diplomacy roll, so you say the perfect right thing. Or maybe I do. Still conflicted on that one. Still, there has to be a better system.
Now, a lot of what gloomforgesaid ( here) about the ability to roleplay in 4e makes sense. But it's still not there. I've said a whole lot of nothing. I think I can't get my head around how you would do RP in a better way. Social encounters is probably a better term. How do you simulate them? Hmm, White Wolf games come to mind. I may look up in the one WW book I have and see how they do it. Tags: d&d 4e, roleplaying
Current Location: my living room!
Current Mood:  contemplative
Current Music: ceiling fan
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Twenty-seven degrees is not appropriate for February in Alabama. Well, it's typical, I suppose, but not appropriate. The sun's out, though, and the horrific winds of yesterday have ceased. I'm thankful for small things. My new character, Ka-Quindath, is finally statted out. I've been working on painting his mini as well. I've made his kilt red and his scarf orange, to reflect his fire template. I'm tempted to make it patterned, but I'm not sure if I have the time. Making his spell cards is taking for-freakin'-ever. I really like the blank cards template from The Other Game Company, but I have to type in every single one, since there's not a resource for Arcana Evolved or Unearthed spells. Yes, I'm obsessive. Met me? I have been worrying over what it means to have an 18 Charisma, as Mordecai, my warlock character does. Since Giuliana's out of the picture now, he's the one whose personality I'm analyzing. I've got him in mind as a very young (17), unsure of himself young man (er, glimmerfolk). But now it's likely he'll be the party's Face. I took Beguiling Influence this level, the invocation that gives you +6 to Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate. I think an 18 Charisma means you're an extreme one way or the other. I don't think he's the bright shiny type, like Rafael was. I decided he's seriously intense (or intensely serious). He expects people won't accept him, as that's his experience in the past. We'll see how it plays out. So far we haven't had as much chance for roleplaying. Tags: roleplaying, weather
Current Location: work
Current Mood: good
Current Music: Radio Dismuke on Live365
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It sleeted today! Okay, only for like an hour, no accumulation, but I wondered if we were going to see any this season. Mostly it turned to rain, but considering we're still in a drought sitch, that's fine. I think Giuliana, my character in Scott's Mosaic game, is going to bow out. She's a great PC, but not suited to what the campaign's turned out to be. My substitute PC will be an Iron Witch, from Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed. Don't know yet gender or race. Our party lacks an area damage specialist, and s/he would fill that slot nicely. It's been quite awhile since I seriously looked at AU, but it is quite cool. I thought about playing a loresong faen, although I had pooh-poohed the idea of playing a gnome. I've started reading the Worlds and Monsters 4th edition book from WotC. As usual, fun and fascinating stuff. I like their attitude toward a more cohesive D&D, although I've always (mostly) created my own worlds. Tags: mosaic campaign, roleplaying
Current Location: work
Current Mood:  sleepy
Current Music: Faery Voices channel on Live365
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Gah! Thomas and I agree that we're glad to see the backside of 2007. Probably icky stuff happened before April (oh yeah, like Rick and Jen's disappointment after all that time and effort), but with his quadruple bypass surgery, things went downhill. I had my yearly major sickness (vomiting and diarrhea at the same time--NOT recommended), my grandmother fell and broke her pelvis and has been in a nursing home ever since. Scott's dad being diagnosed with emphysema in addition to his pulmonary fibrosis had its good side, in that a doctor actually discovered this when his other doctor didn't, but being put on the lung transplant list is mighty scary stuff. On the good side, I started in February as worship minister at Mayberry following the scary-but-could-have-been-worse financial crisis and Ben's departure. So now I've been leading singing (and the entire service once at Thanksgiving when Scott was out of town) for nearly a year. I really love it, but need to get back to practicing my vocal exercises; I'm getting rusty. For this coming year, mine and Scott's Imperial Age: Faeries should be published by Adamant, as well as his Imperial Age: Grimoire (which really should come out first, as he wrote it first). I'm really afraid the advent of D&D 4e has killed (for a time?) our d20 publishing careers. I'm really excited about 4e. I'm also hoping, on the publishing front, that I actually get paid something by Dog Soul. It's been a year and a half now since they paid me anything! I haven't seen a dime for my Sahasra Religion: Hinduism book (or whatever it's called). Sigh. Guess that's the way of independent publishing. They seem to want to fund themselves first and then pay the writers.  Great news is that my redesigned Samford home page won a Special Merit Award for CASE (District III). It's the same award I won for the redesign back in 2002. Coolest certificate ever (see image), so I hope the new one is as nice. We should resume gaming this weekend, with the next installment of Scott's Mosaic campaign. I've nearly finished transcribing the tapes from the last session. (Yes, I tape the sessions. Got a new digital voice recorder for Christmas, too, to use!) I'm anxious to see if Giuliana the bard/beguiler will get to use her talents this session. Someone whose forte is charm and illusion isn't much good against undead, which was our primary opponent last session. Tags: awards, mosaic campaign, roleplaying, singing, year in review
Current Location: work
Current Mood: optimistic
Current Music: sounds of traffic on Lakeshore
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geeky