The Beer Garden

Since it’s well known that I love venison, and several of the hunters in the area like to hunt but no one wants to butcher the deer (or likes the meat, I’m not sure), come deer season, I occasionally get one as a gift.  One hunter got a small one the last day of muzzleloader season, and hung it up in the barn last night after asking me if I wanted it.

So today Mr. Empire and I (mostly him, as usual when "I" do something he thinks he can do faster or better) skinned it out, and I started butchering it.  Got about half of it done, part of which is in the crockpot with mushrooms; the rest is in the fridge, waiting till tomorrow.  Fortunately for my venison-loving taste buds, Mr. E doesn’t like Delaware deer, so it’s mine, all mine! 

Also dug out some curtains Audrey got tired of and gave me, and used some of them to make up a set for the doorway between my office and the utility room, in hopes of cutting down the cold draft on my back I usually cuss quietly about all winter.  He thinks I should use the rest to make a set for the doorway between my office and the kitchen, then pick up a ceramic heater for the office so I’m not cold all winter.  I’m not used to being warm when it’s cold out, but it might be a pleasant change, so I think I shall do it.

 

After a fairly warm and mostly pleasant week, we had our first frost last night, and it actually hit freezing early this morning.  Prediction is for another frost tonight, but not quite as cold.  At least this year, it’s about the right time for frost, not as early as it has been the last few.

And it should make the fall leaves a lot brighter, which will be nice too!

Not much in the way of yard sales today, which wasn’t particularly surprising; it is getting late for them.  I did find a very nice blue winter car-coat (I wonder if that name for the length between a jacket and full-length coat is still in use?) and a heavy wool vest, both of which I think will be most welcome soon!

Also, I’d picked up a pair of earrings at Happy Harry’s (er, Walgreen’s, when it gets all the signs changed), and for a wonder, they didn’t bother me — I’ve had a metal allergy for decades, so either it’s decided to go away, or this brand simply doesn’t trigger it.  So I went back today to get a couple more, found a boxed set of 2 pairs of earrings and a necklace that matched one on sale for $5, but when I got to the register, they only charged me $3.50!  I’m going back tomorrow for some more — the original price, when I removed the sale sticker, was $9.99!  I like that kind of sale, I do. 

All in all, a pretty decent, if chilly, day.

This evening I was playing the "killer" version I’ve mentioned before, when I got game-mail from one of the admins asking for my opinion of their version.  I told him the truth — with, I fear, a bit more bluntness than usual, because of the shortness of the messages allowed.  He thanked me for the truth, then all of a sudden 10,000 gold appeared on my character’s status panel, followed by a note that it was a thank-you for being truthful and encouragement to remain so!

I was floored.  I thought sure he’d be offended, but instead he said he’d adjust the Forest Fights to take my input into consideration (such as slumming-only when my Gryphon is exhausted, running from anyone even one level higher, never ever thrillseeking without the gryphon, and not even being too sure about fighting monsters that’re supposedly at my level.)  And I pointed out that at Level 1, I’d spent enough gems on hit points that I was at 150, which is 140 over standard for that level.

Oh, and I also mentioned being happy about the Spelling Bees, since for me they’re easy money.  Being a copy-editor/proofreader has some advantages! 

His reaction to my comments improved my opinion of the game considerably — or at least of its admin staff!  We’ll see about the game over the next few days — it’d be nice if I didn’t have to play so dratted defensively!  I don’t mind taking chances, but even in a game, I’m not suicidal.

For what I think is the first time since my character in the LotGD game I described yesterday made his first dragon kill and started up the levels again, he survived an entire game day!  This time he’s at the 3 DK, Level 5 stage, having spent practically all the gems he’s found on more hit points.  Normal progress is 10 hp per level, and at 5 he has 150, I leave it to your imagination how tough this game is!

And I had to use a number of tricks to get through even as well as I did — namely by the skin of his teeth!  Now I’ll grant you that characters die, temporarily or even permanently, in every fantasy game — but this one is a killer!  And a one-town version of the game, too, which means not a whole lot of variety.

I have got to start working on my own game, or even better, go back to the one She of Many Names and I were working on together before my then-computer crashed and she got frantically busy at work.  We’re both writers, so we try for a certain degree of logic in our game.  For one example:

In LotGD as originally set up — at least in a game I played on the LotGD home server, till I got discouraged — when you kill the dragon, you lose everything.  OK, I can go along with losing anything you have with you, except possibly your mount if it’s smart enough to run away.  But what you have elsewhere, like in the bank or your house, would logically still be there.

Ah, well, this blog is no more intended to discuss philosophy of game design than it is to discuss politics or religion, though all can and will be mentioned at times, as you’ve seen.  To paraphrase Rush Limbaugh, this blog is about what interests me! 

She forgave me!  And very graciously, too — I’m a happy camper today. 

Hey, ke’chara — if you read this, let me know which of your numerous on-line names I should use here, ‘kay?

Oh, and you might be interested in something I posted in at the Cauldron  Social Forum yesterday or the day before, given our mutual interest in LotGD: 

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Given all the versions I’ve played, and my DM’ing experience, I have lots of ideas! But I don’t have admin access to any games, so I have to play on my own. Two features I really like as a player are auto-fighting (when you have a slow connection, this is a real help!) and direct deposit from the forest. :) 

I’m in a game right now that’s giving me fits, for instance. The 0 DK level was much too easy, and everything carried forward after killing the dragon, including armor and mount (!) which would logically be lost, unlike possessions elsewhere — and the 1 DK level is literally like being in a game with a killer DM. It’s practically impossible to get through a "day" without getting killed, even with 30 extra HP and slumming any time you don’t have good buffs. I know I can do better!

I do have a daydream of getting an inexpensive server some day to run my own version with good balance and all the nice "extras" I’ve seen elsewhere. Plus, as an excercise that’s more interesting than most, I’d like to try translating at least some of it into Esperanto.

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WHEE!  Got an e-mail this afternoon from a friend I’d lost touch with when my old computer blew its motherboard months ago.  Now if she forgives me for dropping off the planet without any more warning than I had, I’ll be snoopy-dancing all over the house!

I’m nervous, but very hopeful that she’ll forgive me.  It was my fault for not making hard-copy backups, depending on the computer to give me some warning if it was gonna go south … but the way I misplace things, even that wouldn’t have been an absolute guarantee.

Wish me luck, all!

 

… at least if you share my opinion that the gummint is usually far more involved than it should be in running individual lives!  If letting ‘em surf is what it takes to get effectively smaller (if not actually so) government, one might reasonably hope this isn’t limited to Interior!

Sex, gambling and computer game sites being abused by Department of Interior 

I thought I’d shaken my addiction to "Legend of the Green Dragon" a couple of years ago, when I tried writing some modules for a game a friend and I were planning to set up (it didn’t ever go live), but last night, I rediscovered the Cauldron’s version, and found out I’m hooked again.

The Cauldron version I’ll probably stick with, because of friends who also play there, but any others, I’ll have to give tries and see how I like them — I remember from my first episode of addiction that there are quite a few out there that make things so hard on new players that it’s more work than fun.

I’m talking here about places that make you start out without at-level gear, and make it very difficult to upgrade ‘cause the monsters are so tough you have to spend almost all of the little gold you get paying the healer so you can get back in the fight.  (Yes, I’ve run RPGs as Dungeon Master, so I’m fully aware of the need for game balance.  That includes keeping beginners from getting discouraged and quitting, IMO!)

These games may be fine once you get up in the ranks, with 5-10 dragon kills to your credit.  That’s fine, if you don’t discourage 90% of your newcomers by  making things too difficult to get to the dragon kills!

I will also admit that I have a personal gripe about the player-vs-player night ambushes, too, and I’d love to find a game that doesn’t permit them — or at least has a law enforcement agency that tracks and punishes the killer!  Sure, some games restrict attacks to characters close to the same level as yours, but a Level 1 with 2 or 3 dragon kills is more than a match for a Level 2 or 3 with none — and it’s always a surprise attack, since it happens while the victim is "asleep".  A newbie’s nothing but an experience source for someone with several DKs, and sometimes (if he hasn’t banked everything before logging out to "bed") a money source as well.  Worse, it’s bloody well impossible to get revenge!

Uh-oh, I’m getting up on my soapbox again, aren’t I?  Sorry, but this is something I feel pretty strongly about. 

The last couple of days, the Cauldron forum has had an interesting thread going on "What Does ‘Worship’ Mean" (link is to Msg. #1; my musings were started by #7).  The whole thing is good reading, but the sentence that caught my attention was from Heartshadow: "Since it’s something the Divine wants me to do, it’s an act of worship to actually do it."  (In reference to her religion blog.)

I spent several hours chewing over that statement, since I’m one of those who has a very bad reaction to the term "worship" as I was raised to understand it.  You may have similar memories: no choice about going, boring services, hard pews, constant drumming on the theme of human lack of worth, whether spoken or just implied — that sort of thing.  Yuck!

The idea of doing something your deity wants you to as a form of worship had never occurred to me, but the more I thought about Shadow’s comment, the better I liked it.  After all, if I’m doing something Lord Ganesha wants me to, that I probably wouldn’t be doing otherwise … well, "worship" is as good a term as any, and actually better than any alternative I’ve been able to come up with.  Considering I still have no idea why He wants me to do this particular major project (my best guess is mental exercise), thinking of it as a form of worship is a real help.

Thanks, Shadow! 

Never try to clean a combined laundry/utility/mud room in one day, especially if A) it hasn’t had a major cleaning since the last Fall Cleaning Extravaganza, and B) it’s the entryway where "stuff" gets put down before being actually put away where it belongs … most of the time.

It still isn’t super-clean — I didn’t go through the closet or drawers — but at least the flat surfaces are either empty or being used for their proper purposes, for a change (well, mostly; some stuff has to go in the car or shed tomorrow, when it’s light enough to see).  All the trashcans are full, the floor’s visible, and the spilled/leaked model fuel is gone.  Fortunately, I sort of remember it looking this way last fall, so at least I won’t think we came in the wrong house when we get back from any errands tomorrow!

One thing I did that I haven’t before is make a real attack on the deep-sink, because this is the first year I’ve had copper wool around — I tried it in desperation, ‘cause I hate the way steel wool rusts!  So I tried it and my trusty Comet on some areas Comet alone wouldn’t touch, and it made a heck of a difference; got off some things I’d have sworn until now were permanently attached!  It helped so much that now I’m trying a bleach soak in addition, but it’s already better than it has been since we moved in.