The Short Hiatus

Good Evening fine readers!
(Good morning or night for the different time zones)

I have been on a short hiatus from writing, even after such a short time. I managed to gibble my right arm, making it difficult to remain on a computer for long periods of time - even short periods of time. This left my arm in much pain after a hard day's work and has deprived me of my need to play all my illustrious Steam games. Oh how I have missed them... and Minecraft.

My arm has returned to almost near optimal condition so I can start playing everything again. I am already behind on setting up the much needed shop system on my minecraft server - VancouverCraft. I have a D&D campaign scheduled for tomorrow, so the next update on the great 'The Walking Dead' serious may not come until Sunday, so please stay tuned.

On the D&D note, I will begin setting up a radio cast of our D&D sessions which may or may not be interesting. We will see how that goes. I know some folks out there want to hear what happens in the true bowels of Geekdom, not just the video gaming surface, but the deeper bowels of the underworld known as analog games.

That's right, I'm talking about good old fashioned Pen & Paper. There are gamers and comic book geeks - and then there are those that fall even deeper that it can get scary- Seriously, but not really. It can get weird. I can be fun and funny though as a DM (Dungeon Master for you analog virgins) I like how my group of adventurers act when given a small obstacle, a goal to attain, and full freedom to do what they please to achieve that goal and overcome the obstacle.

I have found that a few of them have been video gamers for far too long. This is funny as well as frustrating. They keep expecting me to give them tools, limitations and hints on to how to go to the next step. They have been spoon fed for far too long. I am on a mission to have them be freed from video game oppression, spoon fed design, and expected results and hooks. They struggle like children trying to walk for the first time when told they have to make their own decisions on how to tackle a problem. If I did my campaigns like video games, they would probably get further faster, but it would cut down on the parts I get to watch them struggle.

An example would be: A few of their party are stuck in a trap, a net of vines, every time they try to bite their way out, the vines shift and move. That was all the information given. At first some of the party were expecting the text "Cannot chew through vines" as most games would do - the other half expected the vines to immediately break and they would be free. Keep in mind that the players were stranded with nothing on them, but they have the ability (if the rolls are right) to create any tool they want, and interact with the environment however they want.

What happened instead was one player getting swallowed by a plant and the other falling and hurting themselves, and another falling out of a tree. And on that note, when inspecting dead bodies for loot, in video games there are no consequences for diving into a dead body, in my game - it's a dead body, it may have loot, but would you ever touch a rotting corpse with your bare hands? No, it can give you diseases and could even kill you. Needless to say, a certain player dove right into a dead body looking for loot before inspecting the body to ensure they were able to do so with no consequence, now that person is deathly ill and has been in and out of consciousness and nearly dead for the past two adventures.

Here is the kicker... That certain someone is a Cleric. That's right, a healer, a medic, and an old "experienced" one at that.

I will be able to see if they live or die come tomorrows campaign. The healer is nearly dead from disease, the fighting dryad is unconscious from starvation (irony again), the stone immortal is left to watch over their almost lifeless bodies after lying about killing a helpful NPC, and the group leader who is alone and lost in the forest.

This will be interesting...

- May the Rolls be With You