Simple America

Been forever since I yakked about what is going on in the present. So here is a quick update.

Last weekend I woke up early and dropped off my daughter at the Scout House. This was her first outing with Venture Crew 80. Venture scouts are kids 14 years and older that do high adventure activities. Venture Scouting allows girls and boys to join together in these activities despite falling under Boy Scout of America. This trip was kayaking on the San Marcos River in the Texas Hill Country. Wish I could have joined her.

So why didn’t I join her you might ask? Aggiecon was last weekend and this is so close to home and my partners there is no way I can refuse going. Ed and I were signed up to run three games to play test our latest products. My project is the sequel to Weekend Warriors titled, Fire in the Hole. This is a military horror adventure module that should wipe out more than a few squads. Ed play tested the first part of his 12 Hours to Midnight series. This is an action packed thriller that should run a lot like 24 the TV series. There are 12 parts and the goal is to issue one mod every week of the summer. We will be breaking new ground on this project as no one has ever presented an adventure module series in this format before. 12 to Midnight also helped facilitate three panels that discussed publication, writing and much to our surprise, games and girls.

Dropping my daughter off so early in the morning allowed me to arrive at Texas A&M first. The drive proved uneventful taking an hour and half. I had followed this route to Camporee earlier in the month, but the blue bonnets are blossoming now. Fields splashed with blue, a truly lovely sight. In Kyoto you look at the cherry blossoms. In Texas you have to see the bluebonnets of late March and early April. Another delightful sight was a pair of blue jays working on their nest. I love blue jays and wish I could see more in my neighborhood. Though I am always happy to see the more common jay bird as well.

I went to Rudder Tower, as they were signing in players and giving out badges in this locale. They issued me my GMs pass and I could see the game sign up sheets. Ed’s first game was filled, in fact he had an extra player in case anyone did not show up. My game on the other hand did not have any signatures yet. Ed and Craig showed up soon after and we yakked a bit. We scoped out the rooms we had been given for running the games. Good thing we were early, as Ed had no tables. We fixed that real quick and soon his players began showing up. I went to my room and waited for fifteen minutes and no players arrived.

No shows happen, so it did not bother me to have free time. It gave me a chance to hang out with Preston who came by with his son. We went to the dealer’s room and walked around. I bought an AT ST (the little Walker from Star Wars. They had them in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi) for Star Wars Miniatures game. It will look real good next to the AT AT I received for Christmas. We also saw Peter Mayhew, the guy that wears the Chewbacca suit. Dude is just HUGE!!! Preston also pointed out Jeff Dees who is a game developer. He would be doing some of the forums with us later that day.

I needed to get out of the dealer room before I bought more stuff. A game geek can never have enough games to play. But the nice thing is now I can deduct my toys as a tax deduction. Research!!! I went to observe Ed’s game. Ed is writing 12 Hours to Midnight using the Savage Worlds game system. So it was playing fun, fast, and furious. Just like they advertise. Ed converted two players to the system. The other four players were Deadlands gamers so they were used to Shane Hensley’s game system and they are looking forward to Deadlands Reloaded for Savage Worlds. I cannot wait either. Nothing like cowboys and zombies to warm a man’s heart.

Preston dropped off his son and brought back lunch. Then he and I went to the first forum as Ed continued with his play test. The forum was titled About 12 to Midnight. Who named these things? Like anyone has heard of our little niche company. Still we had two guys show up and no, they did not know who we were. We yakked for an hour on the game industry and what we thought would be happening over the next couple of years. I invited them to come by for my 2 o’clock game but neither of them showed. I must have been a boring sod. LOL

My second game made. Two of the Deadlands player came by and an A&M student. I talked Craig into playing just to give the group a better chance of surviving. Craig had played in the August play test. Man I forgot how long I have been messing with this adventure. These guys had a great time. The Deadlands players live in Houston, so I may see about hooking up with them in the future. It is difficult to find players nowadays, especially good players. The student had a blast too. He would not stop talking about how much fun he had. I wish I could harness his energy into 12 to Midnight’s marketing.

I put up all my stuff after completing the game. Then I ran up to the forum we were doing on gamer girls. Ed had been showing off the free books Jeff Dees had given him. That was when I recognized that Jeff had been an artist with TSR back during 1^st edition Dungeons and Dragons and he had designed Villains and Vigilantes, one of the best superhero games ever. That was so cool. I tried to sell some of our new Tees while the crowd ambled in. The new tees look excellent. They are black with our alien head logo on the front. On the back they display our website and slogan, “Keep telling yourself its just a game.”  $12 bucks plus shipping (shameless plug).

The gamer girl forum was packed, well for a game convention forum it was packed. We had 8 girls and 4 guys in attendance. It was very interesting discussion. The biggest thing we noted was that the younger girls are more like the boys today than in the past. What does that mean? In the early days the girls were more interested in the roleplaying aspect of these games. Much more than the hack and slash style that most guys seem to prefer. Now girls are just as eager to kill something as are the boys. Is this good? Is it a sign that the American boy has been emasculated or have we placed the girls on an even playing field? Be an interesting phenomenon to observe. And to tell you the truth I don’t mind doubling my customer base either.

We met a nice gamer girl from Houston. She is a big Call of Cthulu fan and also fond of Firefly and Serenity. She is coordinating a Sci-Fi and horror convention in Houston during the month of June. We offered to come run some games. Heck I’ll run a Firefly scenario if they want it. She seems eager to have us.

Once the forum was over we had some time to kill. So we went to Wings and More so Ed and me could tackle our passion to eat as many spicy wings as they could bring us. Though I must admit I was pretty wimpy and did not get close to downing my usual numbers. Did save room for some key lime pie, however. El perfecto.

We went back to see if our late games were filling. The kids running the con were doing a poor job in this regard. The sign up sheets were missing. How can players sign up for games if they have no roster? Craig and I went upstairs to my room and Ed ran Part 2 of his mod. I was tired and nodded off. Damn! So I just said the heck with it and drove back to Houston.

Once I got home I saw LB and May were still missing. JJ asked me to put up a wanted poster on my blog for LB. I was so tired it took me two hours to post that sucker. I kept falling asleep. I wanted to add a title and short message. Then I accidentally posted it without any title or message. So tired then I did not care. Off to bed.

Sunday was spent working on the books for 12 to Midnight. I had two studios and an editor to pay and I was a month behind on one with absolutely no excuse for the last week since tax season for businesses was over.

Called in sick Monday. Cons just kick my wimpy old fart butt! So I recuperated at home working on financial statements and studying. I need to complete a correspondence course before the end of month. Part of the continuing professional education that a CPA must endure. I’m studying compilations and reviews in hopes that I can pick up some of that work in the future.

Tuesday was a great day. The Savage Worlds version of Skinwalker went on sale. I know the savage crowd has waited a while for my baby to get out for them. These fans are pretty loyal so I hated they had to wait so long, but it could not be issued a second earlier. I apologize to all of them for the wait.

Boy Scouts meet on Tuesday and this was also the Court of Review. This is where every boy is recognized and all of his accomplishments are recognized. The Historian presented his slide show covering the last six months activities. It went on and on, taking up 49 minutes. Oh boy. I thought I would never get out of there. This will be my son’s last meeting for a while. He received an F in English and a D in Science on his last report card. So academically he is disqualified from playing in sports. I extended this disqualification to Scouts. He has been given a hundred chances to make up his work and he does not. Therefore I must take this action, though I hate to see him miss scouts. Especially, since he had been voted to the Patrol Leader position. He asked for a second chance, but this kid is on this fourth or fifth chance.

Why did I want to get out of there so early? I had to prepare for today’s birthday celebration at work. Our custom at the college is the last person with a birthday prepares the current birthday’s celebration. Lately we have had a lot of luncheons. So I dropped my kids off at home. Inventoried the fridge and ran off to the grocery store. Bought everything I needed for the luncheon, but forgot milk and cereal for the kids. Shit! By now it was almost 11 so I passed on baking a cake. I wake up at 5:30 every morning so no way do I wanna stay up much later.

In the morning I chopped up four heads of lettuce and cleaned some cherry tomatoes. I bagged these items and packed the rest of the food I would need for the luncheon. Went to the grocery on the way to work and bought a cake, a card, and candles. I also got forks, but it does not complement my other purchases.

Forgot drinks too, but I picked those up in the town where the college is located. The ladies enjoyed the luncheon. I had broccoli and carrots with dill dip. I rolled up pieces of ham and laid them atop the broccoli and carrots. I tossed the lettuce and tomatoes (which I sliced at work to keep them nice and juicy) and placed croutons, cheese, and dressing close by. There were also some wheat crackers for anyone that wanted a bread product with lunch. I purchased a nice white cake and the cutest candles. The candles were the colors of crayons and they spelled Happy Birthday. One of the ladies at work wrote the birthday girl’s name on the cake. I was thankful as my handwriting is horrible.

Everyone enjoyed the food and the birthday girl was touched. I really owe this lady so much. She helps keep me sane at this boring job, where I am seen as a pariah at times. But that is the joy of being an internal auditor. Eventually, you can piss off everyone. If I don’t then I am not doing my job.

So that is why I want to write or design games full time. So the fans may want to know more about Fire in the Hole. I found a few small things I want to change in the mod. Five minutes of rewriting there. The chore that is clogging production is my work on the adventure generator.  I have finished the mapping feature, but now I need to develop the encounter tables. Once again my little projects keep expanding.