Rifts Completion Delayed Just a Bit

The Rifts game that I actually ran two weeks ago went fairly well. We started late of course, but also had a good interruption of friends who I thought could not make it. The couldn't but instead were stopping by since they had gone out to eat. I even got one of them to run his character for a little while.  The only bad thing was that we ended up stopping at 1 PM with the wrap up still needing to be completed.

I figure I can get everyone together pretty easy and just run through the game without dice, character sheets, or books.  I can simply use the notes that I already have on my PDA (alright a phone, but I liked the good old days of PDAs.  It just sounded better.)  The one obstacle is getting people together.  I would like to avoid eating out to save money, but that is what we normally do once we get together.  I am figuring just calling people up and say be here at X PM on Caterday just to be done with it.

They can then find out that they are technically screwed by the loot as it a test of them abiding by their contract.  We shall see if any one actually reads this post from the group.

Catsmas went well.

So I managed to survive Christmas with my family. Actually I like all but one of my family. I will not say which one so they can wonder if they ever read the blog ... not likely. We were not able to give many presents due loss of job and illness. We were able to get all the children something and at least a book for the others. That makes it OK. All of our friends agreed to not exchange gifts. That messed up one friend who always gets her presents ahead of time. She will however be able to give them as birthday gifts later.

Everyone else was generous with us. A number of gift certificates and clothing items. My wife got three hats which she needed. One looks very 20s so she can wear it during my friend's 1920's adventure game. I got a nice tea set with good tasting tea. My wife hates tea so it is all mine. Now we will eat all the chocolate and fruit that we got. Sadly we got no no monkeys as they are so delicious.

We both got sick this holiday and had to hide in the bedroom and cancel a plan to go to dinner at a family member's house. I have fully recovered, but my wife still feels bad. Hopefully we can go to her sister's tomorrow and hit the bookstore with our 5$ off coupon at Borders. We got 40% off one book and got a coupon for five off another. This is buy one get one free basically. I wish I had bought more to get more coupons.

I do plan to go to Costco next week to look at 1TB external hard drives. This way I can perform better backups of my laptop and have a place to store my torrents.

But we did not get a cat this year so it is not truly Catsmas. Ours ran out when my wife was in the hospital this year. I think she wants one, but I cannot think of a way to get one into the house. Oh well, I can try something next year.

In the mean time I will continue to work on my Castle Falkenstein campaign. I feel I will be the only one running any role playing games for the next six months. I will need to get to work on the next three adventures to keep up with everything. I plan to do a lot of planning to get real Victorian culture and history into the game.

Castle Falkenstein Game

I ran a CF game last Saturday. Sadly two of the players could not make it, so I switched games on the rest of the game. The original game was to be a weekend gathering on the birthday of Enrico Falgori the famed CF opera singer. I ended up using a single player adventure for my wife and altering it to include the other 3 players.

They did well with the game. I think I threw one person when I had a Guild of Calamitous Intent handbook under their pillow. They had not seen the Venture Brothers, so they were real wary of the entirety of it. I just thought it was cool to put in, but I had wanted to put more sword fighting in the game. I put in a rule that caused the players to be in trouble if they used firearms in a fight with the guild. This way I can have more of a swashbuckling feel to the game while still allowing the players to use guns against non-guild forces.

I also introduced their guild assigned nemesis: the Night Baron.

The game only took seven hours with a food break. Very quick for our group. Had they known that the meeting with the Night Baron at the end would turn into a tea party they may have gone through much quicker. The group will travel back to Alexandria and pick up the rest of the group. Once that happens they will travel to Napels for Falgori's party. Most likely to be run in Janurary 2009.

And yes the Night Baron was taken from Detective Conan. I changed the outfit to white, but I just liked the look.