Real Life and What's Happening...

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The oldest came up today and said "Dad I want to play Dungeons and Dragons."
He grabbed the old 3.X beginners box off the wall. I suggested other rules but he knew what he wanted. I don't think I'd opened that box once while he's been alive.
"I want to be the person running the game." He says.
" Ok do you want to read the rules a bit?" I ask.
" No. You've played it before you deal with the rules I'll just tell you what is going on." He replies.
" This should be interesting" I think.
He proceeded to take Redgar through a dungeon defeating kobolds and skeletons. Along the way Redgar picks up a kobold companion. Ultimately they die at the hands of a small black dragon only to be resserected and teleported to another Dungeon. Treasure awards were meager. He often rolled a d4 for coins found.

Despite picking a more modern system I think his heart is in the OSR.

Edit - God I hate autocorrect
 
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Everything turned out fine, but I was a bit off-kilter this morning. First I couldn't find my car and was worried that it had been stolen, but it turned out I had just parked it on a different street than usual. So I made it to work @ 8:57, in time for 9:00 shift... except it turned out I was the opener and should have been there at 8:30. Oops. Fortunately, we assign two openers every day just in case one doesn't show up for whatever reason, so everything still got done. I did feel bad about not doing my part, though.

Anyway, I'm hoping the rest of the day goes more smoothly.
 
Something that pisses me off about this country is that you can't go to a high street shop and buy something with a reasonable expectation that it will actually be fit for purpose. Why would anyone even make a luggage scale with a maximum capacity of 22kg and a hook that's too small to go around the handle of an ordinary suitcase?

So much cheap and nasty. Why does this object even exist?
 
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Every time someone tries to courier something to me, I spend ten days playing phone tag with the courier company and then collect it from the depot myself. WHY?! For the love of Satan, what do those people get paid for? You might as well hand the package to a random car stopped at the lights and pointed in the right direction!
 
spittingimage said:
Every time someone tries to courier something to me, I spend ten days playing phone tag with the courier company and then collect it from the depot myself. WHY?! For the love of Satan, what do those people get paid for? You might as well hand the package to a random car stopped at the lights and pointed in the right direction!
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Your joking but once in Krasnodar, Russia I was sent a package (I think DHL) from the states. The package arrived in Krasnodar via air but then someone paid a taxi driver to take it the last leg. It arrived on time, I’m just glad the taxi driver was honest.
 
As mentioned in another thread folklore collecting when suddenly a new lockdown was announced has us stranded next to the sea.

The house's garden looks off a small cliff into the sea on one end and a lake on the other. Pea soup weather is a permafeature.

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However we have the local beach all to ourselves which the kids have been enjoying:
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Lot's of conversation with wizened old sea dogs out here. Getting some CoC ideas.
 
Séadna said:
As mentioned in another thread folklore collecting when suddenly a new lockdown was announced has us stranded next to the sea.

The house's garden looks off a small cliff into the sea on one end and a lake on the other. Pea soup weather is a permafeature.

View attachment 22935
View attachment 22934

However we have the local beach all to ourselves which the kids have been enjoying:
View attachment 22936
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Only Séadna Séadna would vacation in a Morrissey song based on an apocalyptic novel. :thumbsup:

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Bunch said:
The oldest came up today and said "Dad I want to play Dungeons and Dragons."
He grabbed the old 3.X beginners box off the wall. I suggested other rules but he knew what he wanted. I don't think I'd opened that box once while he's been alive.
"I want to be the person running the game." He says.
" Ok do you want to read the rules a bit?" I ask.
" No. You've played it before you deal with the rules I'll just tell you what is going on." He replies.
" This should be interesting" I think.
He proceeded to take Redgar through a dungeon defeating kobolds and skeletons. Along the way Redgar picks up a kobold companion. Ultimately they die at the hands of a small black dragon only to be resserected and teleported to another Dungeon. Treasure awards were meager. He often rolled a d4 for coins found.

Despite picking a more modern system I think his heart is in the OSR.

Edit - God I hate autocorrect
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Follow-up. So he's been playing what I'll call Calvin & Dragons.

My wife has a social distancing ladies night with two gals. Somehow D&D comes up. Turns out Dad #3 plays D&D with his daughter. A D&D play date is set up with me, the oldest boy , oldest boys best friend, dad #2(not a d&d person), dad #3 and his daughter.

Wife comes home all excited thinking this is going to be fantastic! I say it's good for me because I have found another gamer but son #1(our oldest) is not going to go along with this. She says "What?!? He loves playing D&D!". I try to explain he loves playing C&D where he's in charge of everything. Him not being in charge of everything is going to go over like a lead balloon. She scows and says "We'll see" in the way that means I'm crazy.

That evening she tells son#1 if the brilliant plan. That sound you hear is her happy balloon being bludgeoned to death by his lead balloon.

Now I have a week to get him ready to play a game that I think he'll really enjoy if only I can get past his stubborn resisting everything streak
 
Bunch said:
Follow-up. So he's been playing what I'll call Calvin & Dragons.

My wife has a social distancing ladies night with two gals. Somehow D&D comes up. Turns out Dad #3 plays D&D with his daughter. A D&D play date is set up with me, the oldest boy , oldest boys best friend, dad #2(not a d&d person), dad #3 and his daughter.

Wife comes home all excited thinking this is going to be fantastic! I say it's good for me because I have found another gamer but son #1(our oldest) is not going to go along with this. She says "What?!? He loves playing D&D!". I try to explain he loves playing C&D where he's in charge of everything. Him not being in charge of everything is going to go over like a lead balloon. She scows and says "We'll see" in the way that means I'm crazy.

That evening she tells son#1 if the brilliant plan. That sound you hear is her happy balloon being bludgeoned to death by his lead balloon.

Now I have a week to get him ready to play a game that I think he'll really enjoy if only I can get past his stubborn resisting everything streak
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Now I feel there should be a wizard spell called Calvinball.
 
Bunch said:
Now I have a week to get him ready to play a game that I think he'll really enjoy if only I can get past his stubborn resisting everything streak
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Good luck with that. I can say from experience, it will either go really good, or really bad. There will be no in between, God help your soul.
 
chuckdee said:
Good luck with that. I can say from experience, it will either go really good, or really bad. There will be no in between, God help your soul.
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Yeah. Chargen is going very bipolar. He's loving the idea of being a Dragonborn(black) sorcerer bounty hunter. But going over combat rules was less appealing.

This could go horrifically badly or awesome! What I'm expecting is it goes awesome and he's really engaged but when I get home he says he didn't have any fun....:sad:
 
I'm just very very tired all the time. My asthma has been diagnosed as worse than the occasional rescue inhaler as a fix, so I get a daily inhaler as well. Plus my blood pressure has been running higher than normal the last few months--I'm still dealing with the fire of my ingrown toenail which is sporadic, but extreme. Like "hurts so bad I want to burn/cut it off as it would hurt less." This has been going on for 6 months now? With a bit of pain releif for a while after cuts/hot water and salt baths. The latter is not working so well, at least I see the doctor soon.
 
Well, my other half and the spawn are on the way back to Indonesia. No one straw that broke the camel's back, but a lot of straws piled up, pushing the whole endeavour into the too-hard territory.
  • IR35, Brexit and COVID team up as a tripple whammy to make the contract market here very uncertain.
  • No family here and precious little other support for the #1 spawn (autistic and a real handful). We can get a lot more boots on the ground in Indonesia.
  • Not much expat community here, and she felt quite isolated.
  • We can get more intensive speech therapy and similar services in Indonesia that the NHS won't fund here, and are prohibitively expensive to do privately but more affordable there.
  • Basing ourselves out of Indonesia makes downtime quite cheap, so it gives us a tool for managing risk.
  • I'm quite burned out and badly need to do something about my work/life balance. Taking a long sabbatical in Indonesia is looking very appealing.
  • I can also extend my contracting footprint to Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong.
  • Extending their visas was going to cost quite a few thousand pounds, and most of my income for the next six months is spoken for in tiding up tax deferred to pay for living costs during COVID.
I'll be here until I finish my contract sometime next year, then I'll take a break. We'll take a look at the economic situation in the UK and make a call then. Ironically, autism is just coming into scope for disability support, so funding for assistance might just have become available, and he got a place at a special needs school just down the road - after we were committed to leaving. As has been typical of my life, demands on my income came before I could afford them and the cavalry arrived about 6 months too late. At least we had the option of retreating to somewhere cheap. I pity the poor Poms who will have to live through this upcoming clusterfuck.

The house is very, very quiet.
 
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Looks like you at least have some good mixed in with the bad. Didn't know whether to respond to the good or the bad.
 
Bunch said:
Follow-up. So he's been playing what I'll call Calvin & Dragons.

My wife has a social distancing ladies night with two gals. Somehow D&D comes up. Turns out Dad #3 plays D&D with his daughter. A D&D play date is set up with me, the oldest boy , oldest boys best friend, dad #2(not a d&d person), dad #3 and his daughter.

Wife comes home all excited thinking this is going to be fantastic! I say it's good for me because I have found another gamer but son #1(our oldest) is not going to go along with this. She says "What?!? He loves playing D&D!". I try to explain he loves playing C&D where he's in charge of everything. Him not being in charge of everything is going to go over like a lead balloon. She scows and says "We'll see" in the way that means I'm crazy.

That evening she tells son#1 if the brilliant plan. That sound you hear is her happy balloon being bludgeoned to death by his lead balloon.

Now I have a week to get him ready to play a game that I think he'll really enjoy if only I can get past his stubborn resisting everything streak
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Don’t sell yourself short; you can do this.

You are an experienced GM and surely you’ve had problem players before.

Here you will be having The Talk before an actual problem rears its head, which makes it more likely to be better received.

And of course, it’s your kid.

Depending on how he ticks, depicting a more formal and structured game as a more “grownup” deal might be the ticket.

And of course, stressing that there will be other people and that everyone is supposed to have fun.

You got this. It’ll probably be good for him too.
 
Bunch said:
Yeah. Chargen is going very bipolar. He's loving the idea of being a Dragonborn(black) sorcerer bounty hunter. But going over combat rules was less appealing.

This could go horrifically badly or awesome! What I'm expecting is it goes awesome and he's really engaged but when I get home he says he didn't have any fun....:sad:
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Remember ... "You're not too old for the baby oil factory!"
 
chuckdee said:
Looks like you at least have some good mixed in with the bad. Didn't know whether to respond to the good or the bad.
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It's a bummer that we have to do this, but Indonesian society is very family and community oriented. They're quite isolated here, and will have a much better support network there. Depending on where I'm working, they can also come stay with me there for extended holidays, at least until #2 spawn is in school, which doesn't need to happen until 7 years old in Indonesia.
 
Silverlion said:
I'm just very very tired all the time. My asthma has been diagnosed as worse than the occasional rescue inhaler as a fix, so I get a daily inhaler as well. Plus my blood pressure has been running higher than normal the last few months--I'm still dealing with the fire of my ingrown toenail which is sporadic, but extreme. Like "hurts so bad I want to burn/cut it off as it would hurt less." This has been going on for 6 months now? With a bit of pain releif for a while after cuts/hot water and salt baths. The latter is not working so well, at least I see the doctor soon.
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Tim,

It’s probably painful but can’t they just remove your nail? Either temporarily or permanently if it’s a recurring problem?
 
The Butcher said:
Don’t sell yourself short; you can do this.

You are an experienced GM and surely you’ve had problem players before.

Here you will be having The Talk before an actual problem rears its head, which makes it more likely to be better received.

And of course, it’s your kid.

Depending on how he ticks, depicting a more formal and structured game as a more “grownup” deal might be the ticket.

And of course, stressing that there will be other people and that everyone is supposed to have fun.

You got this. It’ll probably be good for him too.
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I'm not the GM. Which I think is a good thing. Different power dynamic is good. Plus due to isolation it's only really me and the missus as authority for the last six months. Good for him to here another adult say no every once in a while.
 
Silverlion said:
I'm just very very tired all the time. My asthma has been diagnosed as worse than the occasional rescue inhaler as a fix, so I get a daily inhaler as well. Plus my blood pressure has been running higher than normal the last few months--I'm still dealing with the fire of my ingrown toenail which is sporadic, but extreme. Like "hurts so bad I want to burn/cut it off as it would hurt less." This has been going on for 6 months now? With a bit of pain releif for a while after cuts/hot water and salt baths. The latter is not working so well, at least I see the doctor soon.
Click to expand...

The biggest quality of life med that I've had is a steroidal inhaler. I went to a pulmonologist and found out that, even when not having an attack, I was at 60% normal lung capacity. Obviously, I was tired all the time. A month on the inhaler entirely reversed that. You have to keep taking it forever but it's worth it.

Definitely have a doctor remove or cut the nail as ingrown nails are incredibly painful and debilitating.
 
Fenris-77 said:
Within the last year I finally started taking medication for my anxiety. Best thing ive even done.
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Strength man. I know where you've been. I'm doing well now for the most part. Have the best control of it I can.
 
Silverlion said:
Strength man. I know where you've been. I'm doing well now for the most part. Have the best control of it I can.
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30 years of anxiety. I have a possibly unfounded distrust of therapy, and so I avoided managing my issues. My wife finally convinced me that it was nonnegotiable. So I'm taking meds and doing well, but still not talking to a professional. *shrug*
 
Nobby-W said:
It's a bummer that we have to do this, but Indonesian society is very family and community oriented. They're quite isolated here, and will have a much better support network there. Depending on where I'm working, they can also come stay with me there for extended holidays, at least until #2 spawn is in school, which doesn't need to happen until 7 years old in Indonesia.
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Fenris-77 said:
30 years of anxiety. I have a possibly unfounded distrust of therapy, and so I avoided managing my issues. My wife finally convinced me that it was nonnegotiable. So I'm taking meds and doing well, but still not talking to a professional. *shrug*
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Why talk to a professional when you have the Internet! Just lay out all you problems here and Voros and Dumarest will gently guide you :-)
 
I have a vastly better understanding of the captain of the 2nd arc ships logic for staying in the bathtub.
 
Fenris-77 said:
Within the last year I finally started taking medication for my anxiety. Best thing ive even done.
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Can I ask what kind of anxiety? I had some generalized anxiety at one point and social anxiety at times, but none of it bad, frequent or long lasting enough to justify taking medication. I went to a couple of counseling sessions, though. That proved enough to keep things manageable. I'm now doing fine most of the time, anxiety-wise.
 
spittingimage said:
I'm afraid all the symptoms point to Fenris-77 Fenris-77 being dead. Or pregnant. Easy to confuse the two conditions. We'll figure it out.
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Recently a friend of mines girlfriend freaked out because she was having a bunch of weird symptoms and thought it might be Covid.
It turns out she was just pregnant.
Mind this was a planned pregnancy so how they didn't put 2 and 2 together is beyond me.
 
3rik said:
Can I ask what kind of anxiety? I had some generalized anxiety at one point and social anxiety at times, but none of it bad, frequent or long lasting enough to justify taking medication. I went to a couple of counseling sessions, though. That proved enough to keep things manageable. I'm now doing fine most of the time, anxiety-wise.
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I think you'd probably best describe it as social anxiety. Generally bad but with bouts bordering on crippling. I manged a lot of good work on my own by managing my drinking better, but that only got me so far. The meds are helping with what's left.
 
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