Update on My Father-

Mum just phoned and said that my father is practically wheeling himself out of the hospital, and that they'll return shortly.

The man's Con score would be darn near 19, me thinks.

My Father in Hospital; My recovery; Retrograde or ?-

* My father is at hospital but it may not be for a long stay, depending on what they find. He has been on dialysis for about a year now (3x weekly 3-hour sessions), and has recently shown signs of more rapid deterioration. He would be 88 this June 16th.

* I was lovingly scolded by dear friend, Reed 'ThirdRail' Decker, for not advancing the art of role-playing games with my Retrograde activities. I was specifically called out on the ridiculousness of actually rolling for long falls (such as my inelegant but simulationist accounting for lower atmospheric density of 32d6+1d4+32 for a terminal velocity impact).

The back story to all this involves our full-time, dual design sessions in Gainesville, FL. back at the dawn of the 90's as we literally were squatting in an apartment with an extension cord plugged into an active outlet in the building. Reed was working on a really marvellous Supers rules set ('Full Clock' if I am not mistaken), while I was writing my acid-inspired multiversal system which used (still in my parlour of tricks) colour logic to operate the engine. We (I) even woke poor Jack Herman of V&V (and Bill Willingham's Plotter/Scripter for the early Elementals issues) fame one Saturday or Sunday morning, not taking into account the time-zone difference to ask about V&V's rights status, etc.
Since our parting, Reed has not only abandoned dice in his games (yes, they are still games...cops & robbers didn't have any), but has chosen some really ... high-brow subject matter as the setting basis/bases.

So, I don't know if I ought to feel elated that I'm more, um, OS than not, or ashamed that I have become such a retrograde after reaching a pinnacle of RPG design nearly two full decades ago.

Dunno, can't care. I've got work to do...

Just Talkin'-

* Poor James Maliszewski of Grognardia fame. He has become so central within the, um, whatever one calls the resurgence of old D&D-type games ;) -community that when he posts a 'think aloud' article, folks far and wide descend upon his blog to engage in all manner of speculation, wandering from the topic, and outright personal attacks (both against other posters as well as James, himself). Whew! 'Can't win for losing' is the term that comes to mind -- yet, I hope it doesn't get to him, because Grognardia (even on the very few times I out-right disagree with him) is very much on a wavelength that resonates with me (plus, he has great artistic taste).
Keep up the good writing, James! :D

* I am recovering from a few days of illness, and feeling the weight of my self-appointed deadline more strongly due to my diminished output.
I think I may be able to finish the 16 pro-adventure locations with their leaders before too late this week, but I really doubt that the Ancient tech, and a gaggle of creatures will be complete before the 1st, but we'll see what happens. Hopefully I can complete the initial Aberrations/Mutations tables and write-ups before Deadline. After that, I've given myself another 30 days to whip-up the Beta .pdf.

* I'll see about posting something useful to you folks later today.

Best,

Euch, Ihr, Ihm, und Sie-

Here is an interesting little discussion: LINK

Post-game, and Talk of a Beta .pdf-

Today's session had a later start than I would have liked, but it worked out well, given that the star and another player were making use of my absence to create a 3E character for the latter's Sat or Sunday game. Okay, no problem. We transitioned fairly quickly to my game with a recap of the previous few Prime character sessions to remind them.

The entire session consisted of having the events the 2ndaries witnessed at last session's close of play transpire from the Primaries' point of view.
In the process other commonalities were made plainer and a few of my players seemed to connect the dots well enough to understand that I run events that are independent of their actions, and that their having two sets of characters more than doubles the players' discovery of Urutsk as a result of the web of information formed.

As an aside, I was really gratified to read from one of you here at the Tapestry that the Vrun alphabetic language system was both 'very elegant' and possessed a 'marvellous consistency and depth'. When my mother, a trained Linguist, heard that, her smile said it all.

Regarding the playtest campaign, short of either having them create 'kit' characters just to 'test' them, I'm not certain if we are actually testing any longer at this stage, or if my alterations of the D&Dish kernel proved so minimal in uptake (Point-Design, restructured/renamed Saves, Defence/Armour, etc.) that when nothing catastrophic arose from them, we just went on with the game-playing (the end-user desired result, but often the downfall of a non-objectively 'tested' rules set).

While the term 'Beta Playtest' still brings up a taste of bile with my seemingly wasted months trying to playtest Pathfinder during the early beta stages (why play 3.x in an Old School manner that I never really abandoned when it is such a bad fit and confuses rules-junkies, and there are people still playing the stuff you grew up on, K?!) -comma- I do hope that you folks will kick it around and take the system for a spin around the block. Moreover, I most sincerely ask that you provide feedback when the beta-.pdf is released. Please.

Thanks,

A Personal Appeal-

Michael Moorcock's health has been on the decline for years now, and just recently it came to light that an infection in one of his feet has turned nasty, and may require full amputation.
He, Linda, and I have grown somewhat close over the two years I have corresponded with them, and had the honour and pleasure to met them at 2008 Nebula's for Mike's receiving of the Grandmaster Award. I have adopted them as my second family, and I truly do care about every bit of unpleasantness that has afflicted them recently, and am helpless to do anything about it.

If any of you out there are the prayerful sort, or even entertain 'Good Thoughts', I ask that you kindly take some time to petition on their behalf, or simply send out your 'positive energy' toward them.

I appreciate your involvement,

Friday Pre-Game Monologue (parte the secund)-

I have been so busy writing the first draft that I've not thought about the game session today/-night. I've provisionally planned to return home and continue writing if the dynamic is poor again this week.

My star player has had a few personal considerations in the weeks prior and we lost two sessions to his absence, and the game lost its momentum. By switching to the 2ndary characters, I was able to use the time, and last session just managed to have the two parties 'meet' each other as the port and shipping centre of far eastern Vrun was engulfed in a fireball from the ship they had ... well, long story short (they'd been on that mega-ship and then phase-doored/t-ported FAR away, taking a portion of the hull with them)... anyway, so the two parties just met and I decided to break after only a few hours of 'actual' gaming.

I've asked another player whether the two parties should be joined, or continue to adventure separately, and she voted for separate (which I agree with).

We'll see...