Conclusions of Variety A Personal Blog on my happenings and thoughts

Slow JunePosted by cczernia on June 28th, 2010

Not a lot going on right now especially when you compare it to Japan. I did make it out to GameX in LA for some roleplaying fun for memorial day weekend. Having had bad luck with running games there before (no one showed up) I decided to just play and had a good time. I got to play “In a Wicked Age”, “Dresden Files RPG”, “Icons”, “World of Darkness WWII”, and “Warhammer 3rd ed.”

One of the groups running games at GameX decided to have a rpg day at a gamestore in LA so a friend and I drove up and played some “Savage World: Aliens” and “Serenity.”

I usually run a single session rpg for a meetup group once a month. I’ve recently started doing these at Gamers Torch which is a great new gaming store in Pacific Beach. He has the best selection of Indy games I’ve seen south of San Francisco and is supportive of the gaming community. They donated a bunch of prizes for hyphen-con and give us drinks during the game.

Other than gaming Stephanie and I have been following the Padres closer than we ever have before. I might know the name of 6 or 7 players and now have a bobble head on my desk.

Parents and GameX 09Posted by cczernia on May 30th, 2009

Last week my parents came to town. I took half days off work from Tuesday to Friday and got to hang out with them in the afternoon. They also brought their friends Ruth and Rob who I have known since I was a kid. Ruth is head of the theater department at NMSU and runs a children’s theater workshop. I was in both (not at the same time) so it was good seeing them, too.

On Tuesday we went to Point Loma and got some seafood and then hung around Cabrillo Nat Mon. Later we got dinner at the Linkery and then went to see the play Cornelia (about the politician George Wallace who ran for President in 72 and his wife) at the Old Globe. On Wednesday we went to the Hotel Del Coronado and got some lunch and then bummed around the beach. After we stopped at Extraordinary Desserts and then Old Town to have dinner with Stephanie. On Thursday I played tennis with my dad and then we went wine tasting in Temecula. Finally, on Friday we went and saw the Padres whoop the Cubs 4 to 0.

I didn’t get any rest because Saturday morning was the GameX gaming convention up in LA. We headed up at 7 but arrived late and ended up playing a bad OD&D game that took 2 hours of prep. I tried to run Hunter the Vigil after lunch but only had two players and one left in the middle which ended the game. I was upset by this time and luckily the third game, a John Carter of Mars style game using Fate, was a lot of fun.

On Sunday I ran Monsters and Other Childish Things which was fun but wouldn’t have had any players if my friend Sam hadn’t wrangled some up. The final game was a demo of White Wolf’s new game Geist, which I can’t say anything about since I signed a NDA other than it was a lot of fun and has the potential to be White Wolf’s best ghost game yet. We also got free dice and books. Overall, I give the con a C and probably won’t be running any games at the con since I have more fun playing.

Hyphen-Con and WeddingPosted by cczernia on April 20th, 2009

Last few weekends have been a lot of fun. A few weeks ago was the fifth rpg-sandiego meet (hyphen-con). This is our local game day where a bunch of us get together and play rpgs all day. We had some great games going and our biggest turnout around 23 people. I got to play in an original D&D (1974 White Box) game where we were sent out to hunt some dark elves but in classic D&D style everyone died. Later I played Transhuman Space, a game set about 100 years in the future where AI and uplifted creatures are fairly common.

The weekend after Hyphen-Con Stephanie and I went to go see the Padres beat the Giant which was fun. We got free Adrien Gonzales t-shirts.

Last weekend was Joe’s wedding. I flew out to Ft. Lauderdale on Thursday and Joe stayed at my hotel so he wouldn’t see the bride, Kelly. We stayed up late a drank beer so he would be ready to go the next day. Luckily we woke up without too much trouble and got some breakfast. The rest of the day was all wedding which was fun. The Friday after we went on the water taxi and looked at the swank houses and yahts and then ate at a nice restaurant in down town. We finished off the evening drinking in their suite.

Condor : Helping with RPGsPosted by cczernia on March 4th, 2009

A few weeks back I went to a Dungeons and Dragons meetup. While there I met a woman who was the chair for a local scifi convention called Condor. I suddenly became interested because I’ve been trying to consolidate and grow the San Diego RPG community. We currently don’t have a local gaming convention. We have a couple small things like game days at Game Town and our own game day but nothing large.

This was my chance to help grow a gaming convention. Condor is supposed to have gaming but hasn’t been able to bring in people and grow interest. I decided to go and meet the people who run gaming at Condor and see if I could help grow it over the next year.

I went and was successful. I even got to run some D&D4 for some people. I am now in contact with the heads of Condor and I hope to be able to work with them and grow the rpg/gaming and eventually turn it into a respectable gaming convention.

B-Day 09Posted by cczernia on February 23rd, 2009

Another year has gone by and I’m now 33.

My computer crashed on me last Friday. I’ve been having trouble with my network settings just disappearing. I couldn’t figure out how to bring them back so I used the restore software for a back-up I made toward the end of January. Well, the restore crashed in the middle and now the computer can’t boot. It didn’t come with a Windows CD and I never bothered to make a boot disk. Currently on the Lenevo site trying to figure out what to do when your computer dies.

On the weekend of the 15th I was up in LA at Orccon 09. It was a pretty slow con this year. Got to play in a Serenity rpg and then run Mutants and Masterminds. On Sunday I played a Star Trek rpg and then a fantasy game using a system called Spirit of the Century. Overall, a good time but I was going to run MouseGuard which no one showed up to. What was weird about no one showing up is that I had 5 out 5 people sign-up, and you could only sign-up and hour before the game started.

Work is busy this week as we prepare to launch the new Websense support site which is a redesign and reorganization. This is a project that I was basically in charge of and we are suppose to go-live on Friday.

More on the New Job and Gateway 08Posted by cczernia on September 26th, 2008

My new job has been going well. I started on Sept 2 and have almost finished a month. A lot of it has been getting use to corporate work style. I’m use to working in companies that have 5-20 employees. I’m now working in a company that has 500 employees at their main office and over 1200 employees world wide.

I now have a cube and don’t see many people throughout the day. Most of communication takes place through IMs, emails, or meetings. Everyone has been extremely friendly but it is still difficult to get into the corporate groove. I don’t think I have discussed anything outside of work since I have been here and have been afraid to go to any events such as an ice cream social that was held a few days ago and the coffee cup logo recycling party we had two weeks ago. Next week we are having a party to celebrate the release of the latest version of our product.

The work itself has been interesting. I helped put together a Knowledge Base for our tech alerts and have been updating the site for version 7 or our product. I’m use to having 100% control of the source files and development. Here I have minimal control. I can’t access any files to our Knowledge Base software and we use a Content Management System (CMS) called Reddot that is extremely limiting in what I can do. One nice feature of Reddot (when it works) is that I can edit a page and then submit it to a reviewer who then makes the page live.

I think it will take me another month or two to get comfortable working in this atmosphere. It seems to get better each day as I learn who people are (and am able to place faces to the name of the IMs and emails). I even scheduled and ran my first meeting today.

In other news I went to Gateway RPG con the weekend before I started working at Websense. It was a lot of fun and both games I ran (WoD Innocents, and Shadowrun) filled. Shadowrun even had an extra player. I got to play in “Gray Ranks” a game about teenage rebels in Poland during the Nazi occupation.

D&D at the library has slowed down a little. I have had to cancel three sessions due to my new job. I decided to cancel two just to get use to things and then had to stay late for v7. It has also gone down to 6 kids (down from 12 since the end of spring semester) which has been nice.

2 Concerts, 1 ConPosted by cczernia on June 5th, 2008

On Memorial Day weekend I went up to LA for GameX which is held three times a year. This con was possibly the worst of four I have been two. I had planned on running two games, Werewolf the Forsaken and Fading Suns and no one showed up to either game. I ended up playing in some fun game though including Tribe 8, Spirit of the Century, and old school Deadlands. I also got to play in a demo of D&D 4th edition.

Last Thursday (a week ago) Stephanie and I drove up to LA again for an REM concert at the Hollywood bowl. Suspecting hellish traffic we left at noon and got a room. We then took a bus to the concert. We got their about half an hour before the opening act and got some dinner. We had really good box seats where the staff brought us a table and we had a nice picnic dinner. The concerts opened with a band called “The Nationals” and then moved on to “Modest Mouse” which I was excited to see. Finally REM came on stage and they were great. We took the bus back to our hotel and left the next day.

For years I have wanted to see the band The Cure and had given up as they kept saying they were going to retire. My dreams were answered and Stephanie and I went to see them last Tuesday. They played a really long set and ended with three encored of vintage Cure. It was great and was the best concert since NIN a few years back.

D&D Program Two YearsPosted by cczernia on March 7th, 2008

Yesterday was the two year anniversary of the Dungeons & Dragons teen program at the El Cajon library. I bought pizza for everyone and handed out dice prizes for the teens who have Dungeon Mastered and then raffled off a couple other prizes.

The group has changed a lot over two years. I started with five players and the group would change a lot. I have had three players that have been with for almost the entire time. It has now gotten so big that I can no longer run games but have to coordinate them and help the teens run their own games.

Orccon 08Posted by cczernia on February 20th, 2008

Last weekend four friends and I went to Orccon up in LA near the airport. Orccon is part of a three con series that lands on three day weekends including Presidents Day, Memorial Day, and Labor Day.

For this con we left around 7am and arrived a little after 9. We got our badges and hit the dealers room where I bee lined it to the Indy Press Revolution booth which sells independent role-playing games. I picked up “Grey Ranks” and rpg about playing teenage rebels during the Warsaw Uprising during WWII. I also got “Cold City” where you play supernatural investigators in Berlin during the 1950s.

At 10am was my first game which was “Houses of the Blooded” with game designer John Wick. HotB is his new game and it was a lot of fun. It had a fun system which allowed players to define characters and the setting as you played.

My second game I ran which was Witchcraft. I had ran this adventure before and it didn’t go well. Something had to change and I cam up with an idea before the con. I decided that each player would declare a contact for their character. They would write the contact on a piece of paper and hand them to me. The game would revolve around each character visiting their contacts to solve a mystery. They would take 2-4 other characters with them. The other players would play the contact and other NPCs.

The game was fantastic and everyone had a blast.

The next day I played Heroquest. There were four of us and the GM was ill prepared. He had us make characters (something I discourage for a con game). However, everyone was open-minded and we come up with some great characters. The GM ran with it and was encouraging and creative. The game turned into a great experience and I’m using the concepts we came up with for my own one-shot.

Final game was Unknown Armies. We were playing a published adventure called “Jail Break” in which some of the players play escaped convicts while other players play hostages. I have heard this is one of the greatest written adventures of all time. I ended up disappointed in the adventure though I still had fun. It had some fun moments but a few players with left with nothing to do and character goals could have been a lot clearer especially for my character and the woman who was playing my characters wife (the characters had a very important roll).

Overall, great fun gaming, staying up late, and hanging out with old friends and meeting new ones. I have grown to really enjoy the con scene and am looking forward to GameX in May and possibly Gencon Indy (the big one) in August.

Not the Next Door NeighborPosted by cczernia on January 19th, 2008

Last night was the first time I had hosted a roleplaying game since I lived in Las Cruces. I ran the Witchcraft rpg as an oneshot. People started rolling in around 7pm and by 8 everyone was there.

We were maybe an hour into the game when someone rang the doorbell. I thought “Who could that be, everyone I’m expecting is already here and no-one ever rings our doorbell.” I answer the door and it is our old next door neighbor who moved out about three months ago. I can see his door is open with all lights turned off. Our conversation goes something like this.

Him “Do you know if anyone is living here?”

Me “Yes, a few guys moved in about a month after you left. Maybe sooner. But I remember they even moved in something large because they knocked the 3 off our apartment number (35).”

Him “Well, we still own this place and haven’t rented it out. I noticed that I kept getting my electrical bill so I decided to check it out. There shouldn’t be anyone living here.

I talked with him a little more and then headed back to my game. Twenty minutes later there is a knock at the door and this time it is a cop. He asks me some more questions and takes my information. He then points to my “Witchcraft Game” sign on the door I used to help everyone find my place. I told him it was like DnD and he laughed. When I went back in we promptly made jokes about sacrificing chickens to help him find the culprits.

From the rest of the evening we could hear my old neighbor walking up and down the stairs with his friends moving stuff out. So yeah, we had a bunch of squaters living next door.

As for the Witchcraft game, it went ok. Not my best adventure but I got some great feedback from my players and plan on running it again at Orccon in February.