Got the list of players last night, and a pack of the changes since last year's retreat. Late night last night - the CM who is one of folks who run the thing is a night owl. We also ran off topic for a while. (Theosophistry, name and number theory, the usual... )

This time they assigned seats on a first come first play basis - one list for morning/afternoon one list for afternoon/evening.

Games are broken up in an... odd fashion - first game runs 10 AM - 12 PM /Lunch/ 1 PM - 3 PM, the second 5 PM - 7/Dinner/8 PM - 10 PM (late dinner?)

No children at the retreat this time around - the insurance company charges a lot more if there are kids.

Clothing optional over the entire area except the gate/setup (I didn't even know that nudity was restricted to a small area last year, basically the north quarter and the swimming holes. I guess I thought folks just wanted to keep their clothes on. ) Probably related to the No Kids rule above.

On the list of players... a lot of folks from last year will be keeping their characters for this year, three of my regular players are on my lists this year - Jon and Julie, now a married couple, in the morning session; Jen in the night session.

I also know several others - folks that I know but haven't gamed with in years, mostly LARPers. Matt and Maria (is it just me, or are a lot of the married couples I know alliteratively named?), Venita - a girl from Brown University (well, she was at Brown when I was at the LARP).

And Megan from the bookstore - her very first game. (Getting together with her tonight to create her character. Dunc found out that I was running games at the retreat, knew she was going, and sort of chivvied her into joining the game. Megan is the tiny, Gothy pagan girl I mentioned before.) She is rolling up a witch, most likely an elf, probably with a fox for her familiar.

And a name that seems familiar, but I can't quite place - I think she was involved in a folk circle I was part of? Alicia, maybe from the Gooch Island Party? I'll probably know her when I see her.

Twelve players per session, no reserve - if someone doesn't show the seat stays empty (unless I cave and let folks sit in the empty seats).

A lot more women this year - seven in the morning game, eight in the night game. More than half the players in each game.

Up late last night, wakened early (freakin' birds), then off for CG with Megan. Tomorrow is jam packed as well.

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* Corrected some names.

Well, that took longer than I expected - ended up having to finish Megan's character at her apartment.

It had been a while since I taught a completely new player.

Met her roommate, but we frightened her off with a pile of big scary books. (Core, APG, and Ultimate Magic.) Two piles - working at a bookstore Megan had her own copies.

For some reason I had thought that she was Eclectic, but instead she is a traditional Wiccan, Alexandrian, and one that actually knew the history of her sect and the Gardnerians. (Most of the pagans that I know are Eclectic pagans, making things up as they go, or finding new (old) things and mixing them in.) When she asked what tradition I belonged to I replied 'Slytherin. Most game masters do.' This led to a discussion about Craft names, and the discovery that we both had read

All in all, I enjoyed myself tonight, we got her character finished, and I ran a quick practice session to give her a feel for the game.

The Auld Grump

Did I mention that evening game is really magic heavy?
4 (!) witches, 2 wizards, a druid, a bard, an inquisitor, and a magus.... and a ranger and a paladin for non spellcasters.

With twelve characters the bard is going to be scary useful....

The Auld Grump

Another conversation with Megan about Pathfinder. Running her through another short combat so she knows for sure what she is doing.

And we had a long conversation about that most dreaded of nerdly topics... fan fiction! We had both been victims of a would be writer seeking critique. We compared methodology, and she liked my version.

You Say: Well, I have read worse by published authors.
What They Hear: My work is of professional quality!
What You Mean: R. A. Salvatore should have been shot before being allowed near a typewriter!

Megan can be extremely snarky. I like that in a person!

The Auld Grump

The biggest is the way Smite feels - as a GM I just assume that sometime during the day the Smite is going to be used, as a player I try to save it for each day's 'special friend'.

Smite... kind of rocks.

Got in some off schedule playing yesterday - because of the 4th my usual game was canceled.

My paladin woke up with the summoner's eidolon snuggled up against him. He cuddled her a little, then went back to sleep. (He is viewing her as a child, albeit one in a somewhat demonic appearance.)

I think that her player was expecting me to play a sturm und drang paladin, instead I am playing a diplomat of the faith. (Picture a Rosicrucian paladin.) He may take up her moral education, in a laid back sort of way. With an eighteen charisma I decided to make him likable. (19 Str, 16 Wis, 18 Cha, 14 int, the rest twelves and thirteens. I consider these stupidly good stats, and originally went for a much less optimal wizard. (16 int, 8 Wis, tens, twelves and a thirteen for everything else.

Today I ran a Pathfinder game for some of the Borders folks - two of them will be running a game in a few weeks. Megan is soaking up the rules pretty well, and helped explain combat maneuvers to her coworkers.

I ran them through the opening of Raven's Reef - a scenario I wrote thirty years ago now. Freezing rain, cliffs, pirates, and... something else. This time the guard did not get paralyzed by the baddy, so they managed to keep their prisoner alive. The baddy did get away, but not before they got a good look at it - a naked, scrawny old man with a tattered bit of sail cloth covering his eyes. Moved like a ferret, and was stronger than it appeared. The cleric took a chance, and it ran away when he channeled energy, damaging it.

One Monk came in very handy, but the icky was a modified Mantic Ghoul, using a GW Fanatic head. (Did I ever mention that I like plastics? 'Cause I do. ) The shipwreck was a bit of aquarium decor that I bought all those years ago. I keep telling myself to build a ruined Maiden.... Maybe when Obsidian Gale comes out....

I still have a hard time saying no when someone asks me to run a game.

The Auld Grump, I think that my Ego is addicted to it.

Ran another off schedule game tonight. I'm exhausted. Still at least two sessions to go before they finish the scenario, and they want to finish the scenario. (They think that they have figured out what is going on, who is doing what, but are not yet in a position to deal with either major plot.) The clock is ticking, and there is a deadline that they don't know about yet.

Duncan accused Megan and I of flirting, followed with 'neither of you ever flirt!'

Me, I think we were just exchanging repartee and witty banter, but he went so far as to ask if we had practiced it.... (We hadn't - we were both of us cribbing wildly from various books from the nineteen thirties, mostly mysteries. She has actually read The Thin Man!)

The Auld Grump

Ran for the Borders Bunch again. Way more tired than I have any right to be.

Duncan is a Chaos Monkey - a tendency to wander off and do stuff if his attention wanders.

Megan is a good support player, and seems to enjoy playing her Hedge Witch.

Mike seems the type to go along with whatever the party is up to.

Dave is the one who asks questions about the rules.

No strong leader yet.

Megan became suspicious of the dwarf who owns the apple orchard outside of town, in part because of the large stone apple barn, and in part because a dwarf raising trees seemed odd.

Then she saw the cider press, and the suspicions were allayed. (A new player, but I guess the idea of dwarfs being poor farmers is deeply ingrained.)

The apple barn is based on one that I saw in upstate New York - it looked like a small castle tower. And yes, there is a reason it is there, even if it is just an apple barn.

The sign for the town made Dave and Mike suspicious - intricately carved, it takes a while to realize that part of the decoration is ravens and seagulls fighting over a drowned sailor.

The church made everyone suspicious - a large green marble church with stained glass windows and a large bell outside. The inside is even more ostentatious, a Mariner's Chapel - stolen from the classic movie version of Moby Dick. (I built this once with World Works terrain.)

In a town with maybe a thousand people.

The party did what you are never supposed to do in horror movies, and split up. Most going around talking to townsfolk, the witch first checking the apple farmer, then heading back to the beach, where the woodcarver who made the sign lives.

She was not all that surprised to see that he was blind, his eyes covered with a strip of sailcloth. He is currently carving a bit of driftwood into a model of the ship that the PCs found dashed upon the reef.... She's pretty sure that he was the undead thing that they had seen the night before, but he seems to be alive and breathing, right now at least.

The Auld Grump

I finished the game for the Borders Bunch. They did not manage to save the town, but did manage to save the people, mostly. The buildings were a merry blaze as they fortified the stone apple barn in the dwarf's orchard.

They were hampered by not liking the person who had hired them; thinking, rightly, that he was trying to use them so that any repercussions would fall on them, not him.

The BIG baddy got away, the ogre gunner got away (too bad - in several runs through the party had managed to get him to switch sides, not a bad guy, for an ogre, not one of the wreckers, he guards their camp). All of the baddies on one side were killed by the baddies on another. Undead vs. wreckers, with the undead lumping everyone in town in with the wreckers. The wreckers holed up in the chapel, thinking that the sacred ground would protect them. Given that the priest worked with the wreckers... not so much.

Stopped for a drink with the Bunch afterward. I introduced them to Sea Dog Stout, a very good beer for gaming. I have come to the conclusion that Megan does flirt, just not with Dunc. Kind of painful to watch, actually. She is now looking forward to the game at the Pagan Retreat.

All were worried about what will happen with Borders tomorrow, but the two running the store game on Thursday are now prepared.

Beddy bye, now.

The Auld Grump

Went out drinking with the Borders Bunch, the store liquidation starts Friday.

I had a schooner of stout, remaining pretty much sober. None of us were drinking much, except maybe Mike, but he is also the largest of the bunch. I have seen merrier wakes.

Megan and I did an old Music Hall routine -
TAG:Why are we drinking?
M:To forget.
TAG:To forget what?
M:I do not know, I have forgotten.
Both: It's working!
(Hey, I said it was old, I didn't say that it was funny.)

She doesn't know now if she will be making it to the retreat or not - it depends on how the liquidation goes - if she is unemployed then she will make it, if she is involved in the liquidation crew then she will probably make it, if she has found other employment...?

I do not know if they will be running the game on Thursday, or if it will be canceled.

I do know that current plans are to liquidate the store's contents piecemeal, unless a buyer shows up to take the entire store.

I do know that the local store has been in the black throughout the mess, one of the most successful stores in the chain. I'd expect a buyer for the store, except that this is probably considered a minor market - no B&N, no Books-a-Million, just Borders and a scattering of independents.

So, despite a pint of stout, I am feeling pretty much sober. I've known some of these folks for over a decade.

The Auld Grump, up 'til the last I was hoping for a Hail Mary.

Hmmm, things that are happening because of the store closing aren't just the ones that I would expect - Megan is shutting down her modeling site until after she gets a new job, and is not certain if she will bring it back - there was a certain amount of liberal freedom working at a bookstore. She doesn't want to risk not getting a job if the site is found objectionable, and she really doesn't want to get a job because of it.

The site was pretty unobjectionable - there were a few semi draped images, but only one that showed much of anything, and even that would be '80s PG. (Sepia tone, semi draped, frontal, hand tinted with watercolors, sort of pre-Raphaelite. Possibly the nicest image on her site. Victorian candy box nude.) The other semi-draped images were from the rear, and really did not show anything.

Duncan has already found a job.

And tomorrow's game at the store is officially canceled. *Sigh.*

The Auld Grump

Ever had a feeling that you missed something?

Now that Borders is closing the employees are bringing in their own music to play.

Today there was some Goth music playing, and I told Megan that I would bet that it was her choice. Her reply was that I had no room to complain, I have an album of Goth Bluegrass.

It was only later, when I was safely at home, that I stopped to wonder how would she know that? Did one of my friends tell her this? If so, why? Did I talk to her about the song and not remember it?

For those who are curious:
<iframe width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/uRFZ2uOD4mk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Goth Bluegrass.

The Auld Grump

Heh, next year the kids will be back at the retreat.

Apparently the management of the retreat (Dave et ali) listened to a few of the younger pagans who wanted more of a chance to 'run wild'. So, between the 'wild ones' and the insurance they decided to drop the kids.

Turns out that most of the pagans who were signing up for the retreat are more thirty than twenty and would rather feel that the retreat was more responsible. And a goodly number are married, have kids, or are planning to have kids. The loss of attendees was larger than expected....

Plus, Dave is now worried just what 'running wild' might entail, and if there would be an upswing of, ahem, mood enhancing substances. I think that he should have worried about that, oh... eight months ago or so, before sending out the invites to the retreat.

Meanwhile, there was an unexpected guest at the Grump Gets to Play game - one of my fellow players mentioned to Megan that I was going to play, and ended up inviting her along to see that rare spectacle. I am hoping to turn her into a GM....

Playing a bombastic, do good, enthusiastic paladin is fun - my character got into a bar fight stopping some drunks from picking on the bald girl with four arms, two of them ending in pincers.... (I wanted to make sure that she didn't end up killing any of them - the Eidolon is a combat monster. By stepping in I prevented the fight from getting really nasty. ) I am basing the character more on 'fifties television cowboys than on Camelot. Including, of course, Paladin from Have Gun Will Travel.

The Auld Grump

I think as time passes the character may become more like Richard Boone than Gene Autry or Tom Mix.

I sent an email to my fellow players - I am about 90% sure that I know what is going on and who is doing what.

I sent the party rogue a note telling him to tell the GM that he is doing something and making sure that I don't know about it. If I am right then the baddie is going to take advantage of the party paranoia. And then we'll get him.

It is always heartwarming when the rogue tells the paladin that he is sneaky and evil! My excuse is that I am the paladin that the church sent as liaison to thieves and conjure folk. As much a face as a thug. (Thank the gods that I didn't take either Int or Cha as a dump stat.)

Yeah, making plans without letting the GM know.... He is going to get bombarded with a series of notes as the scene unfolds.

One thing that I found out about Have Gun Will Travel - years after HGWT ended Boone was in a show titled Hec Ramsey, where he played a forensic detective in the late 19th century. In one episode Hec mentions that back when he was a gunslinger he used to go by the name Paladin.... Looks like as gunslingers go, Paladin was in for the long haul.

The Auld Grump