Stoned Gaming

On Saturday I played Mutants and Masterminds: not the Red Skrull game, but the reunion of the Justice Hurricane.

I used to play Champions with Jeff GMing in oh, 97 or so, shortly after I moved to Vancouver. It’s ironic that Jeff and I went to the same high school in Chilliwack, and knew all the same people, but never actually met until I moved to Van. Anyway, in the Champions game I played Rhinosferatu (half man, half rhino, all vampire) but rather than renew him I decided to make up a new character for the M&M game:

The Beekeeper.

He’s fun. His alter ego name is Cedric Doppelpopoulos. Everyone there was drinking and/or smoking pot so although there were many hilarious moments, everything was three times as hilarious to everyone else. Stuart was building things with Lego while we played, and Mike, rather doped up, stepped on the bag Stuart left on the floor and fell over like a tree, right onto the table (and my knee). I thought he had either suddenly died or had an attack of narcolepsy, because he didn’t put his hands out when he fell or in any other way reacted. He just lie on the table for a number of seconds as we all tried to lift his inert body up. Turns out he was fine, though he did cut his hand, we discovered minutes later.

Tea, Jeff’s girlfriend, is singing in a band (I don’t know the name) and a greeting was passed on to me from Karen, who plays drums for them (if I recall correctly) and who I was told I know. It’s not unlikely that I know her, but I have no recollection of knowing more than one Karen (my ex-boss who I now do web design for). Nevertheless, I returned the “via” greeting and maybe some day we’ll meet “again.”

Our cable went out on Thursday, but just in the living room – not in Mr. Chris’ room. Two guys came this morning to have a look at it. One of them was a typical repairman specimen who was taken to call objects and situations “her.” They couldn’t get the signal fixed today so we are to expect more visits by another “crew” in the next 2-3 days. In the meantime they gave us a lot of cable and a splicer. I hope all of this is free. It should be, shouldn’t it? I’ll be angry and broke if it’s not.

Yesterday, in addition to writing a few ESL dialogues, I worked on the almost-all-lady D&D campaign that I’m running. I did up a map and got a clearer picture of what the string of adventures will be. Here’s hoping they advance in levels as planned, otherwise I may have to add or remove some scenarios. I’m sure I’ll be able to deal with that if it happens. There’s just a little bit in the middle I need to flesh out (how will they get from here to there?), but overall it’s looking pretty damn interesting. I’ve left lots of opportunities for the players to make decisions that will affect the outcome of the story arc, which I’m sure you’ll all agree is important, rather than just taking them for a ride.

NecroWombicon / Robin Williams Plays Spaceship Zero?

Our rock show last night went off like a natural 20. That’s nerd-speak for ‘quite good’, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you blog readers. Despite the fact that we haven’t played (including practice) since March, we hardly screwed up at all. I did forget the words during “Shoggoths Away” but only for a second, and I covered by making up new lyrics as I went, which is always popular.  We played at about quarter after nine so by the time we finished the sun was setting. Yes, we played in a parking lot. Merrick stood right over a manhole cover. The sound system was da bomb – my worries were completely unfounded. Fatrick really came through for us, my thanks to him and to all the fans who formed the “mosh” “pit”. At a bar gig, we never (well I shouldn’t say never but very rarely) are asked to give autographs, but at these nerd-cons, we’re small ‘c’ celebs, and yes I must admit that’s a nice feeling. Someone brought their copy of SSZ for the band to sign, another person just had a piece of cardstock, and another one grabbed our set list and we signed that for him. If I had been able to bring CDs I would have made a killing. But sadly they’re still not done. I did have the foresight to bring the last dregs of the t-shirts that have been quietly sobbing of loneliness in my closet at night, and I sold all but one. Someone shouted out from the crowd that we should play some Clash, so the boys started playing some Clash song. Since I have no idea how any Clash songs go, I stood quietly and entertained myself by thinking about different kinds of wallpaper. For our one and only encore song, there was another little surprise, Jordan got off the drum kit and Mario took over. Oh the fun we have!

All the toil about figuring out the buses turned out to be time wasted – one of Chris’ friends gave us a ride there. I got to play Bubble Bobble too so I was happy. Lester’s Arcade, for those of you who don’t know, is quite a large arcade in Burnaby, open 24 hours, with pool tables and air hockey and LAN games. And it’s got its own pizza joint. After all the nerding was done, Stuey, Slater, Kathryn and I were given a ride back to civilization by Darcey, who ranted (as is his wont) about the many things he was born to rant about, to the edification of us all. A late dinner of salad, an episode of Black Adder, and it was to bed for me.

In the morning Rob called offering me a ride to the gamey-game part of NecroWombicon. Naturally I accepted and gave him his birthday present. I played a game of Carcasonne (I think it’s spelled) which was mildly dull but not without its charm, then I just kind of wandered about while everyone played video games. Finally 6pm rolled around which was when I scheduled to play Spaceship Zero. At first I thought nobody was going to show, but I ended up playing with 9 people playing (though not all at the same time). Everyone seemed to love it and a few asked how to get a copy.

Jeff told me the other day that Robin Williams has a copy of Spaceship Zero the RPG. Apparently he plays D&D with his daughter on the set of the movie he’s shooting now in town with Jeff’s girlfriend’s young daughter, so Jeff gave him his extra copy of SSZ. Will he play it? I hope so. Rob and I were hoping that he and Vin Deisel would get together and start a celebrity RPG advocacy group of some kind. Then maybe it would be cool to play RPGs…

…or they’d just be stigmatized. Either way, I approve.