Good Morning.

So, it has been a long time since I have gotten around to posting on the blog.  (Over a year maybe?)  That being said, I am once again going to try and do this regularly as an exercise in writing and keeping track of my gaming acumen.

Video Gaming:
Right now, all I am playing is Mechwarrior Online.  It is partially a nostalgic thing for me due to my introduction to PC gaming being on Mechwarrior 2 back when I was 14.  Currently, the meta is all about jumping up above hills, firing a lot of direct fire instant damage weapons, and dropping back down.  It's a little sad, but I imagine the meta will shift eventually.  Honestly, it is a great free to play game (still in beta) and if you like the genre, (simulator FPS) I highly recommend it.

Roleplaying:
Fantasy: (This is our sometimes game that we play when certain members aren't there.) Our super-GM Vaden runs this game.  We have been playing it on and off for 6 years.  There is metric crap tons of character development.  It is a very game-of-thrones-ish fantasy game run out of Gurps.  People die, kingdoms are destroyed, PC's are mutilated and tortured.  It's a great story, but can be hard to play and depressing depending on what happens.

Star Wars: (This is one of our Sunday Games.)  I hacked together a Star Wars setting for the FATE system and have been running this.  We are on session eight, and the game is going strong.  I am really happy with the system, and the characters.  More to come on this later in it's own post.

Supers: (This is our other Sunday Game.) Vaden (See Fantasy) is running a Superhero game for us where we are a very... talk-show sort of family.  Andrew runs the Patriarch for the family who is ex-military, and wasn't there to raise his two kids, Doreen's character, and my character.  Doreen's character is 5 years older than mine, and had a child when she was 16.  My character also had a child at 16 while he was in jail from stealing cars.  Misty's character is Doreen's and my character's cousin who's parents are both deceased, but she is only 15 while Doreen's character is early 30's and my character is late 20's.  Andrea is playing Doreen's character's daughter who has serious mommy issues, and doesn't know who her father is.  Shawn is playing my character's son who doesn't know that.  He thinks he is just a cousin who's father is dead.

Dresden: (This is one of two weekday games.)  Andrea is running this, and it is a long running investigatory game where we tend to muddle through things due to our inability to follow clues put in front of us.  However, I feel like we are finally getting the hang of it, though inter party conflict is rife do to all of our differing interests.

7th Sea: (The other weekday game.)  Vaden is running this, and we are a group of character's sponsored by a Montaigne noble investigating Cyrnith artifacts.

Tabletop:
Warhammer 40k:  I am getting ready to attempt to sell all my Eldar.  I have a lot, and am looking to just make a little quick cash.

Infinity: 28mm Sci-Fi Skirmish game.  A lot of fun.  I highly recommend it.

Malifaux:  I am looking at getting into it.  Seems like a great time.

That's it for today on my various gaming shenanigans.  Will post more later.

It's snowing whilst I am typing this.

League of Legends:
     I just got done playing a couple games of League of Legends, and I only reported one player for being a dick!  I have begun to really enjoy the game more as I have gotten better and don't get completely rolled each game.  League of Legends is a multi-player kill-fest in it's rawest form.  80 some champions (They add new ones at an alarmingly fast rate) to choose from, and it is free to play if you are okay with only playing the free champions that week.  (They rotate several in and out each week.)  You can buy champions permanently with points earned in game, or bought for cold, hard cash.  For Christmas I got a couple points cards and I have had a good time buying the champions that I think look cool and learning to play them.

Shadowrun:
     My Shadowrun game is finally continuing.  We moved it from out Monday game to our Sunday game.  The table is SUPER FULL, and I am hoping that I can still run a good game with the number of people playing.  I am expecting to have to ramp up the difficulty in order to provide a challenge for a team of 6.  However, Shadowrun is a game where PC's play a specific role, and having lots of people means lots of roles are filled.

Fantasy:
     I am trying really hard to get my fantasy character, Karsh the Unkillable, into the game as more than a secondary... tertiary character.  (There are NPC's more important.)  I think I am getting a good foot under me, but have a long way to go until I will be happy with my own ability to participate in the game.  Currently, we are fleeing a castle under siege to request help from a floating castle with knights that ride giant hawks.  Only, we know of a prophecy where the whole thing is going to come crashing down.  Two of our party members just got hitched in game, and are dealing with oodles of personal drama.

Firefly:
     Cain Haverly Transport is making tons of cash transporting people back and forth from the small town we are in with the new brothel/casino/riverboat thingy.  Also... Cain won an asston of money at a higher risk table and now has to enter into a high stakes tournament so he can loose it all.  (Damn compulsive gambling.)  We also have a family that is supposed to be dead stashed out in an old abandoned military facility awaiting pickup to get off this planet.  Cain wants to go with them.

Dresden:
    We just fought Muffy's (Our rich, sorceress in training) thought to be dead warlock husband.  Now we are traipsing into the never never to find and rescue Adrian's (Rich white court virgin) mother.  (She just happens to be my superior in a super shady organization dedicated to eradicating all existence of things not meant to be known.

Steampunk:
     I'm not 100% sure what is happening, but, I got a cool idol with some kind of creature magically sealed inside of it.  I need to take a strip to Istanbul so I can go in the library there and figure out what the hell it is.  (I suppose Budapest might work too.)

DND:
     My sad gaming.  I basically got pushed out.  Our GM is a grad student at UCLA, so, his schedule changes with what classes he has to teach.  And, well... apparently the only time he can run is Monday nights or the weekend, and Monday is when we play Fantasy or Dresden, and the weekend, well, I just can't commit to that with all the trips I have to make to Lynchburg or Greensboro on a regular basis.  Poo.  We are in epic tier and I was just starting to get really into it.  I have a lot of trouble getting into 4E and the GM finally caught me and now... well... no more game for me.

Battlettech:
     Our missing player was finally able to make it, it was awesome, I like gaming with him, and our mercenary command is a little weak without our third voice in it.  Currently we are working for House Kurita  pirate hunting right before the War of 3039.  We are expecting to have our contract extended and modified to go smack up some Davions and Lyrans.

Life:
     I just got a new job.  It was a difficult decision that I had to make.  I really appreciate all of the responsibility that FLBE, my old company, placed on my shoulders and allowed me to do my own thing.  However, it was a small minority owned business, and couldn't provide what I needed to live the lifestyle that I want.  So, I have made the change and will be working for Wiley|Wilson in Alexandria.  It is a much shorter drive, and the benefits are out of this world.  I am super excited to start on Monday.  (Today was my last day at FLBE, no rest for the wicked.)

Other shit:
     I am still working on Persona 3, Deus Ex, Assassin's Creed 2, and Oblivion.  I need to get back on those games and kill them off soon.

Also...

I have been playing league of legends recently, and I want you to as well.  If you do, please use this link so I can get free stuff: http://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4e56f14c6dc73680049153

May the dice gods bless us one and all.

Happy Holidays to everyone.  It's been a couple (several) months since my last post and I have gotten the urge to post again.  However, as it is the first post of 2012, I will do the state of gaming.  For those of you who are curious, the gaming horizon that I sail towards is relatively stable except for 4E.  Our DM is in academia, so every semester his schedule changes, and it looks like this time he has scheduled me out of 4E for a semester.  It's boo because it's kind of the end of a campaign we have been playing for YEARS.  Our fantasy GURPS game has restarted.  It's kind of a little bit insanity.  I will get into that more in a later post.  Dresden is still going strong, I have started a new character for that game, (I can't remember if that was in an earlier post or not.) because we needed an 'investigator' character type.  Our Victorian game is on break until the author finishes her mods.  Steampunk is continuing at it's pace.  Shadowrun hasn't been played in a long time.  We are sort-of moving it to Sunday which I am really worried about because it increases the party size by two.  I am hoping I can still run it with the higher number, we shall see. 

Battletech is continuing in it's every other week capacity and is a great time, though, there are some changes that are going to be implemented to make it easier on our GM to run.  I'm not sold on them, but am willing to give them the strong push and a chance.

Anyways later

Two days of gaming later...

     As the title says, I haven't posted for the Sunday or Monday night games yet, so this one will cover both.  (Also... I got into the Old Republic beta, so expect something on that.)
     Sunday we played our Firefly GURPS game.  I haven't given a lot of back story on the game, but allow me to summarize the characters as my character, Cain Haverly, understands them.  First is Selene.  Selene is played by Farbot and is a mistress/whore/assassin/killer/holy shit it's a shark with a laser!  Basically, if there was another PC that Cain was afraid of, it's her.  She tends to be a little callous/immoral and has no problem working with bad, bad people to get ahead.  She was also the only one smart enough to buy any armor at the start of the game.  We have a mechanic (Hank) who used to be a Brown-Coat, and has lots of contacts in the mercantile world.  A pilot (Lotte) who we hired for a pittance that keeps trying to cook even though she burned down the doc's place.  We have a doctor(... Doc) who looks over the sleepy little mining town of Oasis.  Finally, we have Charlie, our mysterious mercenary.  At the start of the game we crashed in the desert and were brought together surviving until we found a plane. My character had to then bargain with a misogynist based on Krastor from Game of Thrones for power cells for that plane so we could escape.  And so, Haverly Transport was born.  Somehow over the course of a few games, I got tricked, strong-armed, and brow beaten into serving to semi-rival criminal factions, one in Oasis, and the other in Downsport.  (The two towns we make deliveries to and from)  A group of inbred hicks from the sticks then shot up the sheriff, and we didn't take to kindly to it.  Over the course of a few more games, Cain broke into the Sheriff's office and took the star for himself, then rode out to kill him some bad men... only it was a trap, though we came out ok-ish at the end.  However the surviving "bad man" came back to town and is running against Cain in an election for Sheriff, and we ended right before the results are to be read.  Also... the game has a second moniker as "Sim-Whorehouse." Farbot's character runs it and has three troublesome girls, one of whom just got thrown in jail in Downsport.
     Last night was our first game of Deathwatch and our GM (We will call him Fulken because that is the name of our Watch Captain in the game) Fulken ran his first RPG in a long time.  We started out on the ship "Harsh Messenger" a small destroyer for the Deathwatch chapter.  We were to board the "Solitary Purpose" which was docked with the "Zealoutus." The SP was an Adeptus Mechanicus ship that had docked to and boarded the Zealoutus when he showed up in this sector.  However, after docking and boarding, it went comm silent.  We were dispatched, and Techmarine T'Kun of the Salamanders was chosen to be squad leader.  (My character)  I used my requisition to call in some close support to eliminate all but one of the boarding tunnels between the SP and the Z so that we could hold one ship without splitting the squad.  Our objectives were to recover the data logs from both ships and rescue any Mechanicus crew from the SP.  We encountered no-one on the SP, but when we pulled the cameras down off the wall, we heard the sound of cables receding in the walls towards the Z.  We hit the bridge of the SP ASAP and found that all of the computer terminals had been torn out.  We made out way to the remaining boarding tunnel between the SP and the Z and encountered our first three enemies.  They seemed to be standard ship's guardsmen, however, when we shot them with bolters, they didn't fall down.  That's when we knew things weren't all right.  We eliminated all targets, and they were a tech-heresy.  Machines with human parts grafted on.  We then pulled down the cameras in the tunnels, and destroying them, found blood and human eyes in them.  Speeding up the pace, we moved quickly into the Z and encountered combat servitors with heavy bolters.  Afterwards we moved to the bridge and found that the data logs had been moved to one of the cargo containers and we made our way towards it through the first three cargo containers.  The first container used to be a habitat for pilgrims, but it was empty.  The second contained was the same, but there were bloody footprints and marks on some of the walls.  The third was filled with vivisected corpses and bodies and general eww.  We continued into the fourth container and fought off some more servitors and a giant gun with a body grafted onto it for sensory input.  We shut that down post-haste and as we were finishing up, two inquisitorial storm troopers entered, and opened fire.  They pulled back and closed the door behind them.  In response, WE MELTA-BOMBED THE SHIT OUTTA THAT DOOR, and tossed in a stun grenade.  Following that in, we recovered a Mechanicus adept, a prisoner, and the data logs.  Also, on the SP we had discovered a Navigator locked in his closet that we turned in for a tertiary objective.  All in all, it was a lot of fun, though I didn't really feel in danger at all.  Space Marines are butch.
     The Old Republic.  I love the Old Republic.  I got my beta acceptance on Friday and began the downloading... 38 gigs worth.  So needless to say, I got up and played Saturday.  I played for a long time.  Needless to say, I chose a Jedi Knight.  (Who wouldn't?)  I got through the newbie area by the end of Sunday.  I super recommend getting into the game if you can.  It is still beta, so there are some graphical and gameplay glitches, but they have done a REALLY bangup job on the story and the voice acting.  Also, the story mechanic for the heroic (2+ person missions) is really innovative.  Everyone chooses responses to every dialogue choice, and it rolls a d100.  Whoever gets the highest gets to be the one who responds.  I am on my second heroic quest, and I just failed it with the group I was in.  However it was a lot of fun, and I plan to try again with a new group.  Also, I made my lightsaber. *squeeeee*

Week in (my) Gaming.

So, I beat Borderlands yesterday afternoon.  (The main campaign, I still have whatsamahoozits armory and the Ninja Assassin Claptraps.)  The final battle was REALLY easy.  I just stood as far back as I could and shot my revolver into it's face until it died.  I didn't even have to move.  I am not going to go into any more because I don't want to spoil anything for people, but I was unsatisfied with the ending.  Don't get me wrong, I love the game, one of the most fun I have ever played, (I love Diablo-esque item collection.) but I needed a little more closure at the end of the game than was supplied.

Monday our Dresden Files RPG run by Farbot.  I finally got to introduce the new character that I have been working on for the past couple of weeks.  Our party has been lacking a character with good investigatory skills even though this is a mystery game.  (Seems like poor planning on our part.)  After Farbot and I sat down a couple weeks ago (She was having trouble finding ways to get my character "into" the story.) we decided that maybe it was time to make him an NPC and figure something else out for me to play.  I won't go into too much of his background on here because at least one of the players in the group reads this thing, but he is vanilla mortal.  It was funny, at the table the other PC's kept trying to figure out what kind of magical beastie he was, and Farbot kept telling them "Human."  I am on page two of a fiction I am writing for him so that the GM can understand his character motivations and the like.

Next Sunday is our Firefly game, and my compulsive drinking, carousing, gambler who owns an on-world shipping company, and just became sheriff of a lawless town will have to survive another harrowing day in Oasis.  This game is brutal.  It is GURPS at tech level 5/6 and none of us have armor.  That means that at our 10-15 HP there are weapons that do 5d6 damage.  DO THE MATH!  Lucky for us, bullets have blow through meaning they can do at most your Health in damage. (10-15)  But, basically, it means get shot once and you are going down like a chump.  We need to avoid combat as much as possible and just keep it as me running my buisness, and Farbot with her sim-whorehouse.

The Monday directly following is the first night of our Deathwatch game.  I am playing a Salamander's Chapter Techmarine named T'kun.  (Named after my cat, it was all I could think of.  [Takkun])  Our first mission is to retrieve Adeptus Mechanicus Adepts from a ship that has gone silent.  Another Mechanicus ship docked with them, but they went silent as well.  THEREFOR SEND IN THE DEATHWATCH!

Been a week.

Dear Lost Odyssey... go to hell.
I got to the Black Cave area and continued with my tremendous amounts of skill grinding that that game calls for.    However, there is an enemy with a whole team petrification... and well... I lost two hours of game play.

Farbot and I just got back from Toledo, Ohio for a family reunion of hers. (By just got back, I mean Monday night)  Because of that, my gaming this weekend was shot.  Though Friday night, she and I went to dinner with a couple of our friends (who are a couple) who played through Borderlands in Co-Op and had a good time.  I recommended the same thing to Farbot who reluctantly agreed. (I can be an anxious asshole when it comes to games, though, I am trying to tone it down.)  We got to level 4 and through a couple of the story line missions and had a good time.

Last night was GURPS Victoriana.  The game was run, it was a good time, and sufficiently creepy towards the end.  My character went to bed in this (haunted) house and had a terrible nightmare.  A stairwell with mesh walls with children reaching through the walls.  My character sliced their fingers off with a knife and the fingers then crawled along and dug into my legs.  When he awoke (stoically because he is a bad ass) the wounds were actually there.

Tonight is Dresden, and hopefully I will have a better post than an update after that.  Now for question:  Do any of you try and get your significant other to game with you?  Does it work?  If you don't have one, would you consider it?