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General update, nothing fancy
Feb. 3rd, 2010 01:36 amI recently received a french press as a late Christmas gift, and over the last few days I've finally had a chance to try it out (basically, I needed to get some coffee first, and I generally don't bother with grocery store stuff). It's been a bit of an adjustment; the coffee's stronger than what I'm used to, so it's affected how much cream and sugar and such0 that I use. I'm sorely tempted to try it with something outside my usual preference for peaberry coffees as well, and see if I've just been getting stronger coffee to compensate for other delivery systems.
I'm still not sure about how it stacks up to the Aeropress, as a side-note. I might do a side-by-side comparison in the near future.
In other news, I've very recently discovered that the local Papa John's franchise has dropped chicken wings from their menu. Boooooooo. I've decided that their "large pizza for $10" dollars is a proper attempt at begging for forgiveness, but it's possible my wrath may not be so easily swayed in the future.
My Hunter LARP is still going pretty smoothly, although we're doing kind of a reboot of the player character lineup in upcoming months. I was getting the feeling that things were getting increasingly strained because we had a very varied group and were trying to make that work. When I started the game, at one point I'd wanted to have it focus on just one of the organizations in the book. But I had trouble deciding, so I figured "Well, I'll just leave it pretty open and trust the players to get their characters working together." And while I wasn't wrong on that part (for the most part they've been able to manage there), I also thought to myself "And I figure they'll talk to each other outside of game, coordinate cells and settle on a couple of compacts or conspiracies and other players will follow suit and that will sort itself out."
And a little over a year later, when people almost seem afraid to join the same organization as someone else1 and every couple of months or so the group briefly turns on itself because of IC philosophical differences, I wound up sitting everyone down and we had a big discussion about reorganizing the game. We're not discarding any of the setting or backstory; just having existing player characters find reasons to stand down while we get ready to bring in a fresh crop of PCs. But I'm confident that after the 'cast change' I'll be better able to direct the stories towards the group.
With that in mind, I'm having the local TFV and Cheiron offices develop something of an alliance; that way there's extra concept room for the players while still having a spread of groups that can more or less work together.2 I've got a lot of ideas and the players have been patient enough with me thus far that I think we can make this work.
And in other gaming stuff, the time's come to register for GenCon and get hotel space and things. Who else here is planning on going, and what sorts of hotel arrangements are people making? My roommate from last year has sent me an email asking if I'd want to room with him, and while I should move fast one way or another I don't want to necessarily commit to any arrangements before I've put the subject out here.
And that's it for now. Mahalo.
0-- Now, I'm sure at least one person reading this is sharpening their claws at the notion of adulterating coffee in this fashion, and I understand. But my normally-sharp sense of taste tends to have trouble tasting the flavors of coffee beneath its natural bitterness. Similarly, I'm generally not a fan of whiskeys, scotches, and other forms of booze that are prized more for 'impact' than flavor (although I do have exceptions).
1-- I think it's just that some people are occasionally overwhelmed with being able to distinguish their character from the others based on things on the character sheet (like splats) instead of simply by concept. I dunno. Either way, it's certainly educational to realize that if I get everyone in one group, most worries about overlapping suddenly vanish.
2-- Now the trick is just to make sure people know where each group's 'jurisdiction' lies so we know who has dibs on what prisoners or remains. The hardest part, which I'm already past, is making it clear that not every Cheiron operative's job is to vivisect mages (although I will be downplaying just how many sentient humanoid supernaturals wind up in Cheiron cells -- but that will just be part of the deal that TFV and TCG will come to as part of the alliance).
I'm still not sure about how it stacks up to the Aeropress, as a side-note. I might do a side-by-side comparison in the near future.
In other news, I've very recently discovered that the local Papa John's franchise has dropped chicken wings from their menu. Boooooooo. I've decided that their "large pizza for $10" dollars is a proper attempt at begging for forgiveness, but it's possible my wrath may not be so easily swayed in the future.
My Hunter LARP is still going pretty smoothly, although we're doing kind of a reboot of the player character lineup in upcoming months. I was getting the feeling that things were getting increasingly strained because we had a very varied group and were trying to make that work. When I started the game, at one point I'd wanted to have it focus on just one of the organizations in the book. But I had trouble deciding, so I figured "Well, I'll just leave it pretty open and trust the players to get their characters working together." And while I wasn't wrong on that part (for the most part they've been able to manage there), I also thought to myself "And I figure they'll talk to each other outside of game, coordinate cells and settle on a couple of compacts or conspiracies and other players will follow suit and that will sort itself out."
And a little over a year later, when people almost seem afraid to join the same organization as someone else1 and every couple of months or so the group briefly turns on itself because of IC philosophical differences, I wound up sitting everyone down and we had a big discussion about reorganizing the game. We're not discarding any of the setting or backstory; just having existing player characters find reasons to stand down while we get ready to bring in a fresh crop of PCs. But I'm confident that after the 'cast change' I'll be better able to direct the stories towards the group.
With that in mind, I'm having the local TFV and Cheiron offices develop something of an alliance; that way there's extra concept room for the players while still having a spread of groups that can more or less work together.2 I've got a lot of ideas and the players have been patient enough with me thus far that I think we can make this work.
And in other gaming stuff, the time's come to register for GenCon and get hotel space and things. Who else here is planning on going, and what sorts of hotel arrangements are people making? My roommate from last year has sent me an email asking if I'd want to room with him, and while I should move fast one way or another I don't want to necessarily commit to any arrangements before I've put the subject out here.
And that's it for now. Mahalo.
0-- Now, I'm sure at least one person reading this is sharpening their claws at the notion of adulterating coffee in this fashion, and I understand. But my normally-sharp sense of taste tends to have trouble tasting the flavors of coffee beneath its natural bitterness. Similarly, I'm generally not a fan of whiskeys, scotches, and other forms of booze that are prized more for 'impact' than flavor (although I do have exceptions).
1-- I think it's just that some people are occasionally overwhelmed with being able to distinguish their character from the others based on things on the character sheet (like splats) instead of simply by concept. I dunno. Either way, it's certainly educational to realize that if I get everyone in one group, most worries about overlapping suddenly vanish.
2-- Now the trick is just to make sure people know where each group's 'jurisdiction' lies so we know who has dibs on what prisoners or remains. The hardest part, which I'm already past, is making it clear that not every Cheiron operative's job is to vivisect mages (although I will be downplaying just how many sentient humanoid supernaturals wind up in Cheiron cells -- but that will just be part of the deal that TFV and TCG will come to as part of the alliance).
