Painted on my Heart

I'm on vacation.  Won't be back at my desk until July 23.  Probably will duck into the office once or twice to pick up some packages I had shipped there (GenCon badge and two WoD books), but outside of those fleeting minutes, the big white building at 100 Midland Avenue has ceased to exist for the next week and change.

Today's Bastille Day.  I am seriously thinking about whipping up a Musketeer character for Aaron's D&D game tonight.  Yes, I know - end of the monarchy, rise of the republic.  Screw it.  It's French, and stylish and cool.

Before D&D though, there's a Heroclix tournament over at the Scabbard.  I think I'm going to go watch for a while.  Maybe try to learn a little more about it.  The game's plenty fun, but I haven't played in probably three years, and there are quite a few new wrinkles.

In which I rediscover a truth

I've read and heard many times that bad gaming is worse than no gaming.  I tend to agree, and tonight was an unfortunate reminder of that.

My buddy A runs a good game.  He's one of the best ambassadors this hobby has.  He's one of the better players I've ever had the pleasure of running games for.  About once a month, he throws an open game for his Meetup group, and for the first time in forever, I was able to go tonight.  Old Gaming Buddy Jim was there, and we talked about Origins and GenCon.

And the room kept filling up.  12 players, 2nd-level D&D characters.  2 couples, one of which was plenty cool, the other not.  Not-Cool Couple brought their kids - and a portable DVD player for the kids, which would have been wonderful, except they left the power cord at home.  In Richmond.  So, Not-Cool-Mom sets the kids up with her laptop, but the headphones from the DVD player won't work on the laptop, and OGBJim and I get the constant audio.  Now, these are pretty young kids, I'd guess 6 or younger.  And the game started at 7 p.m.  By 9:30, they were cranky and loud.  And Not-Cool response is to yell at the kids until they quiet down.  Oh, and this couple?  They were both Those Kind of Fans - every third comment is a (not-at-all) zany quote from a movie we've never seen at least twelve times before.

So, yeah.  Twice the number of players I'm comfortable with, plus loud kids and irritating parents (who named the boy, I swear to God, Rookwin.  Rookwin.  Jesus, people, give your kids real damn names, okay?).  Man.  I should have stayed home and wrote about Chicago or multidimensional empires originating in ancient Egypt.

Pizza was pretty good, though.