Tomorrow is my birthday. Hooray.
Every year, I receive some amount of money for my birthday, since no one ever knows what to buy me. I suppose I could set up wish lists and the like as other people do, but they don’t really work. For one, I’m not a very materialistic person. (Good thing, since Kitty is, but that’s for another entry). There’s rarely anything in the world out there I just can’t live without, which makes it difficult to make lists of things I want When I want something, I usually just get it, so by the time an event like my birthday comes around for someone to look at the list, I’ve probably already gotten whatever was on it. So folks being long used to this odd behavior, just give me money or gift certificates and let me sort it out.
Most years, finances are such that I end up using my birthday money to do mundane things like catch up on bills. This year things are not quite so tight, so I actually allowed myself to spend a little money on myself. I went down to The War Room, a local gaming shop, and picked up the new 3rd Edition AD&D DMG and MM, which I’d been procrastinating on buying. I also grabbed the first collection of Nodwick along with the two most recent issues, which catches me up on that — I’d been reading them by borrowing them from a friend I game with.
Nodwick is a delightful comic book for anyone who has ever enjoyed fantasy RPGs. Nodwick is a henchman, you see. Those long suffering hirelings who tote and bail for the adventurers, lest the might warrior or the cunning mage have to do any actual heavy lifting. In this case, Nodwick is also easily the most sensible and intelligent member of the party. It’s got a very keen sense of humor, and is well drawn.
Regarding 3rd Edition AD&D: I’m still disappointed that it entirely failed to suck. When it was first about to come out, I’d been reading little snatches about it here and there, and was fully expecting it to be just awful. Then a friend loaned me a copy of the new PHB to look over and I started reading it. And not only did it utterly fail to suck, but many of the things they chagned were either house rules we’d been using for years or things that I’d always thought would make sense. In other words, they for the most part did what I would have done.
So my thursday night gaming group decided, after a little playtesting, to convert over to the new rules. And, sad to say, we haven’t regretted it for a minute. Damn. And now I’m starting to pick up the books needed to start my own campaign. For one thing, we’re going to visit my sister-by-choice and her husband in Tennessee, and they want to play again. Also, I’ve proposed running a fill-in campaign on Thursdays for weeks when B, who travels a lot because of work, is out of town. So I’ve got to sharpen the old DMing skills again. Should be fun.
Now to kick back, relax, and enjoy some orange sherbert. Yum.