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pyatThe fine weather has me feeling a bit restless. I’d like to go on a road trip, something on the scale of last year’s expedition to Providence with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nottheterritory. I’m not terribly certain as to where, exactly, I’d want to go, but an experiencing a general outward urge.
Unfortunately, in all likelihood I’m not going on anything like a road trip until Midwest Furfest, which is in late November. I’ll be definitely ready for something by then, and I find October and November to be prime road trip season, for me.
For some reason, I also have a hankering to play 2nd edition AD&D. Or 1st, even. Or possibly MERP. I partly blame this combination of impulses on the latest edition of Knights of the Dinner Table which features some of the characters going on a road trip in a VW Type 2 microbus. I also wonder if the recent relative coolness and rainy weather has triggered my “fall mood.” I usually start feeling a weird need for driving long distances and playing crunchy RPGs when the leaves start to change colour.
Simultaneously, I’m also feeling unusually content with life and my place in it. Last night, after supper, I was sitting at the dining room table reading, whilevelvetpage worked on a craft, and the girls played in the backroom. The dining/living room is a complete mess – cluttered with books and crafts and games and newspapers – but I realized that this was precisely the sort of space I dreamed of having when I grew up. A comfortable, cluttered, friendly space.
All that’s missing is a shady garden and relatively easy access to a treed lot…and, like, a hot tub and some kind of enclosed gazebo for epic RPG sessions. But the essential friendly clutter is there! I just wish I could pass around the contentment.
I was also reflecting that my adult life, to date, seems to have been marked by a gradual process of letting go of guilt and worry about things, which, curiously, has lead me to be rather more conscious of who I am and what I do. Free from the constant friction between the inner and outer ideals, I can focus on the material harm and benefit of my actions.
I am describing this poorly, perhaps.
Finally,velvetpage posted an entry about Unitarianism today. People were wondering what I thought about religion, and our recent public departure from the Salvation Army. So, I choose to quote from Murderers and Other Friends, an autobiography of John Mortimer – a passage I read just this morning:
“As soon as we get on to the motorway she invites me to play Twenty Questions, and she says, ‘It’s animal.’ ‘Can you eat it?’ ‘No.’ ‘Has it got four legs?’ ‘No.’ I ask many questions to all of which she answers, ‘No.’ We play many games but I never win. Then I discover the secret of her success. She isn’t thinking of anything at all. I am expending great ingenuity asking questions to which there is absolutely no answer.”
This is my general attitude to organized religion of any kind these days. I’ve solidly drifted over to a sort of naturalistic pantheism, with aspirations to voluntary simplicity.
nottheterritory. I’m not terribly certain as to where, exactly, I’d want to go, but an experiencing a general outward urge. Unfortunately, in all likelihood I’m not going on anything like a road trip until Midwest Furfest, which is in late November. I’ll be definitely ready for something by then, and I find October and November to be prime road trip season, for me.
For some reason, I also have a hankering to play 2nd edition AD&D. Or 1st, even. Or possibly MERP. I partly blame this combination of impulses on the latest edition of Knights of the Dinner Table which features some of the characters going on a road trip in a VW Type 2 microbus. I also wonder if the recent relative coolness and rainy weather has triggered my “fall mood.” I usually start feeling a weird need for driving long distances and playing crunchy RPGs when the leaves start to change colour.
Simultaneously, I’m also feeling unusually content with life and my place in it. Last night, after supper, I was sitting at the dining room table reading, while
velvetpage worked on a craft, and the girls played in the backroom. The dining/living room is a complete mess – cluttered with books and crafts and games and newspapers – but I realized that this was precisely the sort of space I dreamed of having when I grew up. A comfortable, cluttered, friendly space. All that’s missing is a shady garden and relatively easy access to a treed lot…and, like, a hot tub and some kind of enclosed gazebo for epic RPG sessions. But the essential friendly clutter is there! I just wish I could pass around the contentment.
I was also reflecting that my adult life, to date, seems to have been marked by a gradual process of letting go of guilt and worry about things, which, curiously, has lead me to be rather more conscious of who I am and what I do. Free from the constant friction between the inner and outer ideals, I can focus on the material harm and benefit of my actions.
I am describing this poorly, perhaps.
Finally,
velvetpage posted an entry about Unitarianism today. People were wondering what I thought about religion, and our recent public departure from the Salvation Army. So, I choose to quote from Murderers and Other Friends, an autobiography of John Mortimer – a passage I read just this morning: “As soon as we get on to the motorway she invites me to play Twenty Questions, and she says, ‘It’s animal.’ ‘Can you eat it?’ ‘No.’ ‘Has it got four legs?’ ‘No.’ I ask many questions to all of which she answers, ‘No.’ We play many games but I never win. Then I discover the secret of her success. She isn’t thinking of anything at all. I am expending great ingenuity asking questions to which there is absolutely no answer.”
This is my general attitude to organized religion of any kind these days. I’ve solidly drifted over to a sort of naturalistic pantheism, with aspirations to voluntary simplicity.
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-29 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-30 01:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-30 05:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-29 05:35 pm (UTC)And yeah, I like traveling in the fall too - you know I'm always up for that kind of thing again. And I'd still like to do the _French and Indian Wars_ roadtrip sometime!
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Date: 2008-07-30 01:07 pm (UTC)Fall of 2009? I definitely wanna do this.
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Date: 2008-07-29 06:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-29 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-29 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-30 01:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-29 10:47 pm (UTC)I inherited those from my dad, and eventually bought a book that was a compendium of all four basic D&D manuals, and the Gazeteer series. Because they were having a going out of business sale.
Of course that was back when I actually bought D&D books, and still held out some hope of actually playing the game with real people one day. XD
Well maybe one day, I was considering moving to Hamilton for a while...
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Date: 2008-07-30 01:11 pm (UTC)Good times. I have that ruleset, too! The D&D Cyclopedia is one of the best self-contained RPGs out there, if you don't mind the system.
I was considering moving to Hamilton for a while...
It's an all right place. :) London is also pretty cool.
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Date: 2008-07-30 08:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-30 08:20 pm (UTC)I'd happily play basic D&D, if only in a one-off.
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Date: 2008-07-30 09:03 pm (UTC)The first time was when I was ten, so I was a year too young according to the manual. Things kinda devolved when we swapped the orc chief's bodyguards with strippers. Oh those ten year old boys...
I got into a couple hours of Werewolf: The Apocalypse once at a comic shop that doesn't exist anymore. Nobody would let me read the rules so I didn't have a clue what was going on. I read the World of Darkness sourcebook last year, which was a pretty good read IMO, but I still don't know what the heck was going on in that Werewolf game years ago.
Somewhere in there I tried to get an AD&D 2e Council of Wyrms campaign going but that only lasted a day before the group broke up.
A couple years ago I met a local furry and we started a game, I rolled up a char and we played, but soon after that the guy broke off all contact with me, and stopped answering phone calls or messages.
I've kinda had bad luck with this sort of thing...
I read a lot of D&D books. I really liked D&D 3E and the whole d20 system. I'm the sort of person who likes a lot of rules, and with some tweaks and a little added info, d20 makes a pretty decent life simulator, too.
Mostly I've played D&D based video games. Things like Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, Neverwinter Nights... Bioware's Star Wars RPGs were all based on d20. I'm kinda looking forward to Dragon Age, since Bioware decided to stop milking D&D and make their own system. But I understand you're not much of a video gamer so that might all be gibberish for you...
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Date: 2008-07-31 01:58 pm (UTC)We cheered him mightily once he got his character dressed.
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Date: 2008-07-31 03:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-31 11:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-31 03:01 pm (UTC)No, I know 'em. I really liked Baldur's Gate, and I've played through NWN twice, plus the Underdark and Shadows of Urdentide (sp?) expansions. I own NWN2, but can't run it properly without a graphic card. :(
You do seem to have bad luck with gaming groups! Does the local game store have a sign up sheet, maybe, or host anything?
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Date: 2008-07-31 11:35 pm (UTC)There's one D&D group that plays there regularly, but one of the people in that group is one of my former superiors from my last job.
Mostly though I'm scared of the place. I never really got to know the guy who runs it, but I sorta know him, so I don't know how to act. Plus he looks really stern and he's getting older. He's been running that shop since I was a little kid.
They do comics, fantasy novels, anime, those expensive action figures you're not supposed to take out of the box, collectable card games, tabletop war games, and PnP RPGs. I used to play Warhammer 40K but mostly that was at the other comic shop before it closed down.
When I was going to college, I often hung out in the comic shop while waiting for the bus in the winter time, 'cause they have a nice cat and it was warm. But I felt bad for not buying anything, and now I'm too ashamed and intimidated to go in there.
Undrentide. It's a weird name for a floating island city. XD
I have NWN2 as well but I've never finished it. It's not nearly as good as NWN1 was. The only improvements are graphical, most everything else is a step back. ^.^;;
They improved the interface a lot with patches over the first year, then released an expansion. I hear the expansion is really good, but that makes sense since the expansions for NWN1 were both at least twice as good as the original campaign.
Lately I've been thinking about buying the extended modules for NWN1, since I can afford them. But I want to finish the console RPG I'm playing first, Persona 3 FES, and the other game I got recently, Xenosaga 2.
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Date: 2008-07-30 11:58 am (UTC)I'm a big fan of being, as Richard Pini once described, 'pleasantly pagan,' with a somewhat Bramanistic structure and shamanistic flavouring.
As for 4e, I've only just recently discovered it exists when I spotted the PHB in a bookstore. I'm so tempted to order the three book box set, but, frankly, that'd be a waste as, having recently moved to a new city, I know absolutely no one I can game with here. Alas...
BTW, been reading a bit about 4e; how well does it meet its objectives?
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Date: 2008-07-30 01:14 pm (UTC)Here (http://pyat.livejournal.com/761310.html) is what I thought...
Whereabouts did you move?
Road Trip
Date: 2008-07-30 03:03 pm (UTC)Re: Road Trip
Date: 2008-07-30 04:11 pm (UTC)Re: Road Trip
Date: 2008-07-30 05:30 pm (UTC)Well, if you end up going down the road a bit, then. Or possibly aught nine.
Re: Road Trip
Date: 2008-07-30 08:17 pm (UTC)Re: Road Trip
Date: 2008-07-30 08:26 pm (UTC)Re: Road Trip
Date: 2008-07-30 08:33 pm (UTC)Re: Road Trip
Date: 2008-07-30 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-30 11:51 pm (UTC)I'll see what the kids would like - wouldn't be surprised is Syd is a no and Adam a yes.
You have lots of great words to describe your views. Often, I don't know what any of them mean! But, I'll have to describe what I think one day, and find out from you if there is a word for it.
;)
no subject
Date: 2008-07-31 02:34 am (UTC)But, I'll have to describe what I think one day, and find out from you if there is a word for it.
Okay! :)