Archives

Rule #32: enjoy the little things

I got to spend a lot more time with H when she was X’s age, and I often feel like I missed out a little getting my first teaching intensive contract just as X was born and between the sleep deprivation and the workload I don’t have the depth of memories of X that I do of H at that really early age.

With X enrolled in the campus daycare, we now catch the tram to ‘Deakin’ together in the morning and it’s a wonderful a chance for us to have an experience together a least a couple of times a week, outside of play and the ordinary interactions. Going somewhere together, even if it is only to the workplace, especially on foot and at this age, transforms the mundane into an adventure.

20120301-144549.jpg

RPG #2

The second week of the Rune Quest 2 campaign went exceptionally well last night with pizza and ninja bread men, although Xavier did his best to stay up late to see what all the fuss was about.

I’m really enjoying the bronze-age mythological Glorantha game world setting and the Rune Quest rule system, but it is really great to be playing with role playing newbies again. Having players who have never played a pen-and-paper RPG before brings a whole new chaotic element to the game: who’d have thought the teacher and the lawyer would bring torture, slavery and murder to the game in our second week (those goblins really shouldn’t have stolen our horses) – and both are pregnant women, talk about shattering stereotypes.

It was good to test out the combat system, even if we did try to reason with the Goblins to get our horses back first – but we weren’t prepaid to pay for our horses they stole. Trax (my character) took a hard line stance on the suggestion that we press the goblins into our service, preferring instead to send then theives on to their next reincarnation in the great ouroboros of life.

Just a shame we have to break for the holidays – looking forward to more games in 2011.

Here is the rough background I’ve sketched out for my character, Trax A’mococo, the grizzled veteran mercenary, from the Black Grove Clan, in Delela. Trax was once a keen if amateur musician and married at a young age, but certain events lead to the death of his young love and another warrior in the clan. Although not entirely his fault, Trax was deeply troubled by the tragedy, which lead him to accompanying Soliste in the EWF raiding parties – through a growing commitment to the Humakt the Claw, a warrior and death cult that believes death is merely the requirement to move on to the stage of the great ouroboros, he has concentrated his marshal training in battlefield tactics and favours the hoplite fighting style shield and spear (he trains obsessively in fighting with the short and long spear as well as the javelin). His manner once jovial and lighthearted is now an enforced matter-of-fact facade, a deliberately attempt to tempter the rage of youth. Not afraid of death or dying, he avoids rushing into battle like many hotheads in the death cult, but once weighing the situation he commits to the battlefield with unrelenting determination and cold expertise.

Return to Azeroth – again…

After purchasing the expansion online, downloading the 4.7 gb WoW client and further acquiring another 2.2 gb in stat through the updater, I was ready to voyage back to the World of the Wacraft. I began playing WoW in early 2005, it was my second MMORPG (the first being City of Heroes), and I soon purchased a second account for Lucy and we began spending Sunday’s with our guild mates and local friends playing the game. I still remember the excitement when we earnt (or borrowed from guilds) enough gold to purchase our first in-game mounts, and deciding simply to explore the island Kalimdor. Riding about just to see what was around the next corner, and being flawed by the detail and grace of the alien landscapes. We had to quit with the arrival of our daughter, but have since voyaged back to play some of the first Expansion (Burning Crusades) and I leveled my main characters, Tallidus the human mage to 80 in the second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King.

I’m hoping I’m going to play through both the Alliance’s and Horde’s new races, the Worgen and Goblins, and thought I’d start my first Alliance female ‘toon’ (I’m not exactly sure what people refer to their WoW character avatars as toon, but I’m guessing it has a lot to do with the visual aesthetic – which has had a major graphic overhaul in the new expansion). After spending some time in character creator I just couldn’t find a male avatar combination I was happy with. Tallidus is definitely ‘me’ in the game – or at least in the sense that I choose him to represent me in the game, it’s not so much a ‘role’ but a persona I’ve created. I’ve not played with a female character in the game before, party because I don’t want to represent myself as female in the game, as many have and do, but the female worgen is also looks extremely cool, especially the head and face which is very different to the male worsen characters which are familiar advisaries.