Where Are We Now?
Let's look at what's going on this week....
- My rehearsal schedule has yet to see a successful session. The first weekend was disrupted by the realization that Sunday was actually Valentine's Day... and then this weekend there was snow. It wasn't a lot, but there wasn't any dire purpose that made it necessary to make the 2-1/2 hour drive in crappy weather. So, unless there is some further blockage in the nasal passages of progress, we have an actual jam scheduled for Sunday at noon at my brother's house in Dodge. As promised, I'll be video-blogging the process on YouTube, which I'll be sure to link here.
- Since I was home on Sunday, I went ahead and launched another house game for the girls. Roulette, Demi, Jadefoxx, and Rajhassi joined me for a Freeport game Sunday evening. I've decided to run the original Freeport Trilogy, which I previously used for a different group back in '01-'02. I've always been a big pirate fan, and Freeport is easily one of my favorite D&D settings EVAR. Green Ronin's initial adventure releases are masterfully constructed, and I eventually got my hands on the 3.5 revision and have been wanting to take another crack at it for years. Particularly after so much setting development in my earlier Freeport campaigns.
- Monday night D&D was basically one long battle... but it was a vicious one, and the players genuinely seemed to enjoy it. That always confuses me a bit, since, as consummate roleplayers, the battles are often secondary interests to my players... but to be fair, they do an awfully lot of roleplaying during combat. I'm talking about more than just descriptive actions and witty conversation. The paladin Elessar, for example, has been affected with an enchantment which allows him to see life energy rolling off of the people around him... it makes him capable of seeing invisible creatures, but the downside is that incorporeal undead - such as the specters they were fighting the other night - are entirely invisible. He wasted one entire round trying to strike down a specter which had already been vanquished. The player knew it, but he knew that his character had no idea. They all do it, too... constantly making decisions from the perspectives of their characters without regard for the disadvantages it causes.
- Tuesday night involved a bit of deju vu, since most of our Monday night players came over for an evening of Halo. With two TVs and linked X-Boxes, we hooked up seven controllers and proceeded to kill each other repeatedly for the next several hours. It was good.
- I bought another air mattress for my mom, since she plans to come visit late the week after next when Bon Jovi comes to town. I got free tickets through the station, and I'm taking that Friday off (the concert's on a Thursday night) so that we can hang the next day. Her regular air mattress won't work for us anymore, however, since the only room it fits in is currently occupied by Alydhian and Jadefoxx. So I ordered a twin size off the web, which should fit nicely in the TV room. Not a big purchase, necessarily, but I made sure to get a nice one. It was considerably cheaper than decent hotel room.
- Roulette and I sat down over lunch yesterday and touched on the checklist for the wedding. It isn't going to be anything huge at this point... we really just wanted to spend our money elsewhere. We plan to have a relatively casual little ceremony with a few friends and family at some nice location. We just need to work out the venue, justice of the peace, ring (for me), marriage license, clothing, photography, reception and guest list details. And maybe a dinner afterwards. Nothing much. We're sticking to our plans for the 20th of March, the vernal equinox. First step is to find a venue... something small, pleasant and wheelchair accessible. Gonna work on that today.