Keeping you all up to date

I have not posted to my blog in a couple of days now because one of my players, Dalton, had his dad pass away. He's 19 years old and now both of his parents are dead. I turn 43 later this month and both of mine are still alive, in fact today is my mother's 68th birthday. I can not imagine being in Dalton's place. His loss has kind of made me think about a lot of different things, mortality being one, my mark on the world being another.

I am not saying that I am going to quit gaming or anything radical, it's just that this blog is, apparently, a part of the legacy I am going to leave behind, so too are the games I have DMed or played in; almost everything I have done in my adult life has been in some way a form of entertainment for, usually, a small group of people. I doubt more than a few hundred people have ever seen the low budget horror film I was in, and I haven't been in a play since middle school. But I have DMed, conservatively, over the last 30+ years, more than 1000 games of D&D of various editions up through 3.5 and Hackmaster 4th edition.

I have also run games in other systems, WEG D6 Star Wars and WotC D20, Twilight 2000 1st, 2nd and 2.2 editions, Boot Hill, Star Frontiers, Marvel Super Heroes, and who knows what else I can't remember off the top of my head. My wife tells me I should be a novelist, because I am a good GM. I think she's wrong, I set up good scenarios for people to react to, and I am quick on enough on my feet to counter-react in realistic ways. I've never carried anything very good, except academic papers, past about 20 pages. I can write decent short stories, not novels.


I don't know where I am really going with this, it's turning into one of my more rambling rambles, so I guess I will just wrap it up here and show you the picture of the book I got in the mail today.

I bought it so I'd have even more background material for my 43 AD game, but that doesn't seem likely to start soon now with Dalton's recent loss, he's a key player for me and I consider him a protege of sorts. I won't start anything until he's good to go.