Geoff offers slices of life from a Vermont GeekDad
You are loving, creative, spirited, and lots of fun. I love being your Dad; it’s such an adventure. I can’t wait to see what’s around the corner or behind the locked wooden door. 
CraftyMomma has some more cute NB photos. Check them out.
This one is going on my desk:
Among other things Steve said at his retirement celebration, today, was this. “I hope I have as much fun in retirement as I’ve had working at UVM.”
My tears didn’t come until I left the party.
Friend to me and many, many souls here at UVM; visionary, curmudgeon, provocateur, playful adopter and vocal advocate of disruptive innovations. I will miss your voice, calling to us from a divergent path, pointing toward a new, interesting destination.
Now that you’ve migrated much of your virtual essence into the cloud, I expect frequent pings (tweets, facebook updates, Asian video chats…) telling me what you really think. And keep the cool music and design posts flowing.
Let’s go out to lunch before summer is over. I’ll buy you a martini.
When I got home from work, yesterday, Beloved Wife showed me her most recent creation:
It’s a “grazing ark” for our intrepid guinea pigs. Yes, they will be spending most of their summer days outside. (Hurray!)
It came out just exactly as she had described it to me and had sketched. We had a couple brief consultations about construction methodology, but the design and execution are all hers. Well, done, BW!
Beloved Wife made a Father’s Day slide show for me:
Pretty amazing to see a survey like that. [sniff]
After a pleasant morning, NatureBoy and I trundled into town to visit the FLGS, where we picked up a few things, including some Dungeon Tiles, and several True20 products on sale.
This afternoon, NB ran some more Fourth Edition D&D. I must say that I’m really enjoying 4E, especially in comparison to the recent session of 3.5. The PCs have run out of healing and spells, but have to try to find the missing children before something happens to them…
All in all, it’s been a happy Father’s Day, and a nice Summer Solstice, too. I wish Dads everywhere a happy Father’s Day, hoping you’ve been able to send time with your offspring.
Blessed Be.
Whenever we go to Barnes & Noble, we visit the used section. Last month, I found some Transformers graphic novels that were helpful in keeping NatureBoy occupied during some of the long waits during CraftyMomma’s graduation.
Recently, NatureBoy and I were looking through the RPG section. It really pales in comparison to our Friendly Local Gaming Store, Quarterstaff Games (website needs work, but the store is great). When CraftyMomma found us, she had picked up the Mutants & Masterminds Freedom City supplement in the used section. That’s awesome on so many levels!
I have the best wife.
The last couple months have been busy, but not without some small progress on our Wiz-War project.
We got a couple coats of a dark base color on our seven board sections. Yes, seven sections. We’re making two auto-warp path sections (quarter-circle arcs) to connect the two sections across the gaps.
Also, I made a small test section so we can avoid major painting gaffes. We also have a large number of wall sections and doors to paint.
For our minis, NatureBoy selected six Reaper Miniatures. Assembling and painting metal minis will be a new adventure in and of itself. Here’s one of the minis, “T’Kay, Reptus Cleric” (14096).
That’s all for now. Hope to have more posts soon.
NatureBoy and I had a good time at Northeast 2009. Here are some cell-phone pictures.
We were greeted by the non-nonsense presence of the 501st Legion – Vader’s Fist. Trooper TK-3220 was an imposing sight (and very shiny).
On Saturday afternoon, we played Wiz-War with GM Earl; the same great guy who introduced us to the game at Carnage last November. Here are some better shots of his game.
The Magic cards have Wiz-War game card labels adhered to them. Earl decided to use some of his many “commons” as the stock material. He even color-coordinated the Magic cards with the Wiz-War card colors. Very nice.
On Sunday, we played a couple games from the lending library. I can’t remember what this one was called, but I think it was from ThinkFun (Binary Arts). Two players, playing land or water, take turns laying cards to make paths that connect the sides of the garden. It simple, and fun in a non-taxing way.
This game was somewhat more involved. In fact, it was the best tic-tac-toe variation I’ve tried. And the game was beautiful. On a player’s turn, she places a marble and rotates a wooden square 90°.
And the final game we played was a homebrew Transformers RPG based on D&D 4e. The game consisted mostly of three combat scenes, with seven players and a GM. Some fun; some tedious. But the GM was good and the rules were well-thought-out. And we played using transformers!
Can it really have been over a month since my last blog post? BW asks “What are you? Some sort of blog slacker?” I guess so…
NatureBoy and I attended our first day of Northeast Wars 2009 today, and had a really nice time. For the morning session, we split up. NB was very excited to play a round of HeroScape, which was a big hit last year. I played my first Prime Time Adventures, this one set in the Firefly/Serenity universe.
Beloved Wife came to collect us for a lunch break, then brought us back for an afternoon Wiz-War game with the the same gentleman who introduced us tot he game at Carnage in November and inspired us to create our own Wiz War set. We had a good time chatting about the process of building the set and I got some new energy to get working on our set again.
I worked had over the past couple weeks on the convention booklet, doing some cartography, simple artwork and the book layout. I am quite pleased with the result.
Here’s the cover of the con booklet (with artwork by Melissa Benson):
And here’s a map of the conference venue that I did:
We’ll be going back tomorrow for more fun.
NatureBoy had a couple of friend for a sleep-over last night. Given the Wii and DS excitement, the homemade pizza, and adolescent male I-haven’t-learned- to-use-deodorant tang, they have been having a good time.
I had a really good time, too, because my friend Josh came over to run a one-on-one game of Exalted using his rules-light Challenge System. I’ve played a couple of games of Exalted with Josh and some other friends, both with the Exalted storyteller rules, and with the Wushu Exalted variant.
Josh’s Challenge System worked well to give some structure to the situation resolution and narration. We told a story that would make good “pilot episode” for my character, Ju-Fei. We established his background as a decadent young merchant noble, covered his exaltation, the transfiguration of his longtime friend into a probable nemesis, and concluded with his setting out from Nexus in a familiar direction but with an unknown destination (walking off into the sunrise).
I’m hopeful that the story may continue at some point, and maybe we’ll get another player or two into the game. Josh is an excellent storyteller; his descriptions are rich, his characters nuanced, and his storylines cohesive and compelling. I hope my characters are a good fit.
When we attended Carnage in November, NatureBoy and I played in a huge game based on the Star Fleet Battles, a tactical space ship combat system set in the Star Trek Universe. The rules were dense, even for a stream-lined homebrew, and once combat was engaged, it took twenty minutes to resolve a single round.
One aspect of the game that I found really intriguing involved movement. Rates of travel were constant, and you could accelerate or decelerate on you turn by half you current movement, and your rate of movement affected how quickly and tightly you could maneuver. If you weren’t careful, you could fly right off the edge of the map.
Skip forward to December. I am placing my pre-order for the Mouse Guard RPG at Indie Press Revolution, and I noticed a game in the sidebar called Warcosm – Victory in the Stars. Curious, I took a closer look. The description promised an easy-to-learn, stream-lined ruleset for battles with counters or minis. The price was reasonable, so I tossed it (book and pdf bundle) in my cart, too.
