First time in a long time

Dec 16, 2008 16:02

Been a long time since I've posted, longer still an actual post with dialogue rather than a mere video posting. Though of course my video posts are full of the lulz.

Anyways lets see...school has been going alright. If I manage to pass all of my classes I'll graduate at the end of the week...which will be wonderful, but also leave me looking for what to do with my life afterwards. Despite this I don't intend to ever stop moving forward, no matter how slow it may be.

The class that is giving me the most shit to deal with is my His 499 class. It's the major requirement for all history majors and passing with at least a C on the final paper is required to graduate. The course is under Prof. Hamilton, a teacher I've had before about American history and I liked him in that. However I was already at a disadvantage in this class going in since I have no previous knowledge of Kentucky history, which was the focus of the class. I got to read through two books concerning Kentucky politics and the Harlan coal mines in the 1920s that helped a bit.

When it came time to decide what our final paper topics were going to be I had three or four general topics that felt researchable but I admittedly didn't know what to do, so I went and saw the Prof. at his office and he recommended researching more on Brent Spence, a congressman for the House of Representatives that I had already done a small presentation on based on his papers in the Special Collections Library. I was a bit nervous about basing a paper on a single person rather than an event or group, because if the guy turns out to be a research dud I'm kinda up that creek without a paddle.

Well it turns out I'm up that creek. Brent Spence is one of the most boring individuals I have ever had to reasearch. There's a reason no one has ever done a paper on him before. So the semester continues and I continually found nothing to create a 20 page page (approx. length) paper with....so time came to tell my prof. this.

He seemed taken aback by the situation, though from the little bits of news I've heard from other classmates and e-mails other members of the class are in the same situation to varying degrees. So the Prof. has tried to help me here and there, and seems to be rather apologetic about the whole situation since the topic was of his own suggestion. Sometimes the well of knowledge is a shallow one. What made the situation worse was when I told him how I have As and Bs in my other classes, and that I will graduate at the end of the semester if I pass this class. So I've kept on going...finding records in the Congressional Record, copying treatises and speeches he's made...and I'm fumbling through this at the end of the semester. I'm hoping that if I can at least get something halfway decent done he'll give me a passing C and I can be on my way, otherwise I'm not sure what will happen.

But on to other news.

I've also decided to try my hand at running a DnD game again this semester. It's been about two years since my first one, based in a world modeled after the Breath of Fire games. I ran into party imbalances as well as power imbalances between the races, as well as the starting DM issues of "I can't believe my players just did that! Why didn't they do this instead!?"

But now the time has come to put the hand back in the fire to see if I get burned, and so far it's been great. This time it's in the campaign setting of Eberron by Keith Baker. Over the past year or so and specifically through Gencon I managed to pick up all the supplement books (even the DM screen) for about 50% off. I like the setting, its use of almost steampunk or even victorian technology based on the high level of common magic used. The Noir-esque possibilities and the numerous villains playing games of chess with the world.
I've been rather relaxed with it, letting sessions be missed or skipped if a single player can't make it that week. This works out so that no player is essentially left out of the plot as well as providing me extra time to work on the game as well as schoolwork but at the same time it can lead to a few weeks inbetween sessions so I'll need to work on a way of re-capping previous sessions for the future.

My player base really makes the game.

JD is playing a Kalashtar Monk/Cleric with some Psionic feats that lived through most of the last war and so is a rather jaded war-weary soldier still fighting the good fight. His "eastern" style of fighting and maneuvers has left the party slack-jawed once or twice and he has a few quirks or mannerisms such as requesting the party "stop dreaming, if you can help it."

Capn is playing what I can only describe as a PotC character. A half-elf swashbuckling Gish (Unfettered/Battle Sorceror) that aims to be an airship pilot, he grew up in the Lhazaar Principalities and has a lot of family troubles ahead of him. But also daring fights!

Katie is playing an Urban Ranger variant, and her approach to the game is interesting to me as a DM. She's playing an amnesiac who has wandered out of the lifeless wasteland that was once an entire country. ~_^ Can't reveal much more about her here.

Kyle has taken the most socially interactive role in the party. As a Bard he works for the local city newspaper the Sharn Inquisitive while simultaneously managing the career of an up and coming singer and dancer named Basilia Baxton. Kyle's desire to interact with the world around him is one of the reasons I love having him as a player. =)

Finally there's the newcomer, Chris. I've never gamed with him before but he's been hanging around the Miskie meetings when he could. Chris has only read the basic campaign setting with some careful editing applied by me and some details about the New York-esque city of Sharn to go by. The result is what I think of as a young Indiana Jones. Fascinated with the ruins of ancient cultures and the emergence of the race known as the Warforged, this young bright-eyed youth (Unfettered/Rogue) is a city wise idealist.

We just finished up session 5 last night, which is the last game for this year. Hopefully we'll pick back up mid January.

Feels relaxing to vent, and to give my fingers a writing workout before getting back to the paper.

Merry Christmas everyone.
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