Mortaine’s Blog

Not surprisingly, DunDraCon was a blast! And now I’m totally wiped out and exhausted, of course.

On Friday night, Sharon and I got there too late to register for a game (game registration ended at 7, and bitchy traffic got us there at 7:30; it took 90 minutes to drive what should have taken 40). Anyway, we checked the list of games that were starting at 8 and saw that a FUDGE game with bunny PCs was starting and had open seats. We hurried over and got into the game, since it was under-booked. Yay! Sharon played a big, strong (but not very bright) buck bunny, and I played a “leader” bunny with a moral conscience (the only one in the group with a moral code, I might add). It was a ton of fun; I’ve decided to run a FUDGE game in the future with my players, if I can get them interested. I even have an idea for an adventure that would be complementary to the current campaign.

We dropped off our registration slips for Saturday morning’s games, to see if we could get in, before we headed to the bunny game. On our way back to the car, we checked and saw that neither of us was in an 8 AM game. That was actually a plus, since it meant we didn’t have to be back until 11 AM (to sign up for the Saturday afternoon/evening games).

On Saturday, we arrived at about 10:30, and handed in our game reg forms. I’d encouraged Sharon to decide in advance which games she wanted to try to get into. Her top pick was another FUDGE game, actually– a Ramen Noodle House adventure, and I was really glad that she got in. I used my priority registration (as a DM) to get into “Return to Dragon Mountain,” which was a 9-12th level 3rd edition adventure. I bumped Rowena (my cleric/bard who’s a socialist) from 7th to 9th and brought her along as-is. I think she was the least powerful member of the party, but I didn’t really care– Ro has never been a powerhouse except in role-playing. She’s always a support member when the fighting starts, casting protective spells and generally keeping an eye on the health and survivability of the party. Sharon’s game ended at 10, 2 hours before mine, so she came and crashed in the room while we played.

Sunday, Sharon wanted to go swimming, and her mom was to pick her up at about 3 (before I’d be out of my game), so she stayed back at the hotel to enjoy herself.

On Sunday morning, I ran my dragon game. Once again, I lucked out and got a good group of players. It was a TON of fun. Unfortunately, we hit the 4:00 deadline rather abruptly, right in the middle of the big combat scene. Ah, well– I made a short storytelling finale, and called it a wrap.

Afterwards, I was kind of wiped out, but I couldn’t decide what to do. I ran into a few friends in the main hallway in front of the dealer’s rooms (there are 2 dealer rooms at DunDraCon, plus a gamer’s flea market room). I ended up hanging out with a guy named Rob who had played in the Dragon Mountain game the night before. His wife was in a game that evening, and he was watching his two sons (9 and 11, I think). We ended up hanging out until about 11:00, when I finally was too tired to stay awake. I loaned him my core books to help a new DM (age 12, I think) run his first game, and went back to my hotel and to bed.

Monday morning, I ran the Og game. I had fun, the players mostly had fun. There was one I was tempted to smack a few times (if your voice is shot, just…. don’t waste it on attempting to make bad jokes that no one can hear, Mr. Dramatic-in-Black). Two characters died (not bad for a group of cavemen). And I think I decided to not run OG next year, though I might run a Monday morning game of Stuperpowers (or maybe a Friday evening game) instead.

I left at about 2:30, and went to Milpitas to rendez-vous with Chris and Ann. Unfortunately, I spent too long chatting with them, so I got home at about 5. I took a 90-minute nap, then got up to have a nice Valentine’s Day date with John. All in all, it was a very good weekend, though– as I said– I am really tired today.

This is the Interview meme that’s been circulating forever. Questions courtesy of . If you want to be interviewed, post a comment (I’ll do one; first one to ask.)

1. It’s everyone’s favourite disaster movie scenario! There’s a large chunk of rock hurtling towards the Earth, all attempts to stop it have failed, and we’re all about to die. You’re outside of the direct impact zone, so you’ve maybe got a few weeks to live. What do you do?

Well, I’d visit my family for a few days, then come home and do what I can to help out locally. I’d try to get into any program launching some survivors into space, and I’d prepare for surviving a disaster. After all, if I might survive the initial impact, there’s a chance I’d survive into the aftermath, and that means I might be there to rebuild. Or, at the very least, I could record the events and aftermath so that others might have some record of what the world was like before.

2. There’s an earthquake in California, and you have god-like powers to change it. You can’t change its strength, but you can position it over any city in California. Which one gets it, and why?

I’ll assume I can center it only on metropolitan areas: otherwise, I’d put it over a small city, like Lake Tahoe, which is not very highly populated.

If it’s a really big quake (~7 magnitude), I’d put it in Northern CA, probably Modesto. Modesto could really use a good levelling, plus Northern CA is well-equipped to deal with disasters on that scale. If it’s an enormous quake (higher than 8.5), I’d center it in Sacramento. Yeah, our government infrastructure would take a significant hit, but the surrounding area is farmland with not too many tall buildings to be damaged (I’d want to place it as far from our major aquaducts, though– just in case).

3. Aliens invade your office, and kidnap all the women. They tell you that they’ll invade the planet unless you all willingly become their slaves, which would include medical examinations and probably icky alien sexual experiments, but mostly just living a life of servitude and, of course, never seeing anyone on Earth again. Would you volunteer or refuse?

This is absurd. They’d never take me alive!

No, more realistically, I’d go along with them until I could find a way to overthrow them or free ourselves.

4. You’ve just lost your job, and money is getting very tight. You get a job offer, but it would mean relocating to Alaska. The job is work that you would enjoy doing, and has really good pay and benefits. Would you take it, or refuse it and risk not finding anything else?

I ain’t moving to Alaska.

I wouldn’t take the job, unless it meant I could do it from California.

Actually, that’s not entirely fair– I *might* take the job, but it would have to depend on what kind of opportunities there are for John, and what part of Alaska we’re talking about. If it’s a super-remote area like Nome, I’m not sure I could do it. If it’s something like Anchorage, then sure, I guess. But I’d also have to be not “just” having lost my job; I’d have to have been out of work for about a year, with no possible freelancing gigs going at all, and no local jobs in any sector (including retail).

5. You’ve been commissioned to write a disaster book, or script a disaster movie. What would the disaster be?

Oh, I like the idea of creepy virii wiping out the planet. Honestly, though, the actual disaster is less important to me than the aftermath– how do people get along after their world has crumbled before their eyes? What do they do to rebuild? How does the planet respond to a sudden drop in human inhabitants?

I had a great weekend, which I’ll write about later.

Right now, I’m gonna jot down some dream-snippets I had last night. I slept so hard, I barely dreamed, you know.

I dreamed last night that I’d finished reading a book. That John’s nephew was visiting from Tennessee and I accidentally walked in on him in the bathroom when I didn’t have my glasses on. That I got a job working for Wizards of the Coast, and my boss was Swedish, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to juggle two jobs while I quit my old one. That I had a few extra dogs that all looked like Hammer. And that I had a baby that I had never particularly wanted in the first place, and who I barely ever had contact with (as in, I couldn’t remember the last time I fed it).