A bit late, perhaps, but I acquired my first official IT co-op! It's just an on-campus position here, doing IT work this summer/fall for the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at RIT, but it's a decently-paid job that I won't even have to commute to - I live 8 minutes away by foot.
Bonus round: I didn't even have to wait to hear back! The interview went so well, they offered me the job on the spot.
DM'd my first of many sessions of DnD. Just from this one session I had a whole bunch of fun. Why are people so scared of getting behind the screen again?
A very dear friend of both my brother and I just came home from college in Colorado and made a visit over our house for a short period of time to catch up with us. We're all going out to get a drink later tonight (Li_Akahi, no worries, we'll record the rest of episode 2 of Cage Rage tonight).
DM'd my first of many sessions of DnD. Just from this one session I had a whole bunch of fun. Why are people so scared of getting behind the screen again?
I would say because most of the documentation and commentary on it is poor. It's also not necessarily clear to everyone why it's awesome (not including that why it's awesome varies from person to person, group to group).
But yeah, at the core of it, people are scared because the vast vast majority of the games and books written about the games do a very poor job of conveying the information about why running them is awesome. They'll tell you why it's awesome to play all day, but not so clearly why it's awesome to run.
I would say because most of the documentation and commentary on it is poor. It's also not necessarily clear to everyone why it's awesome (not including that why it's awesome varies from person to person, group to group).
But yeah, at the core of it, people are scared because the vast vast majority of the games and books written about the games do a very poor job of conveying the information about why running them is awesome. They'll tell you why it's awesome to play all day, but not so clearly why it's awesome to run.
I think that might be because the experience is so reliant on the player group, rather than just the DM and/or the system, just like every other system. If your players are shite, then your game will be boring as batshit too.
Despite numerous distractions and yardwork, I still managed to paint for 12 hours today. My hand is killing me, but I did a lot of really cool stuff experimenting with faces so yay!
Also, it's been two months to the day since I started my Mass Effect-themed MS Paint Fan Adventure Relayblocked and I just posted my 25th update. I dunno if there is any significance to those numbers, but it feels pretty good to me!
I think that might be because the experience is so reliant on the player group, rather than just the DM and/or the system, just like every other system. If your players are shite, then your game will be boring as batshit too.
I'd say it's better than a possibility, since half the way you have fun in any pen and paper RPG is dealing with your group, assembling a good group, mitigating and/or getting rid of bad players, etc, etc. And I don't think they'll be putting out a "DM's Meta-game guide" any time soon, despite that a ton of people would buy it, because it would be pretty difficult to write something that's actually all-encompassing, works for the majority of people, and wasn't bigger than a phone book and in three volumes.
Yet good advice permeates certain small communities around the interweb. It's there. What it needs is proper condensation and a skilled hand. It can very-well be a learned skill like improv, management, comedy, storytelling etc.
But I think we're talking about the same thing here from different angles. I think that the rule-books, especially regarding "the most popular game", fail to ask the basic questions that every group needs to ask themselves. I simply think that we need to communicate up-front that "this game is not for everyone, and certainly not for every combination of people", but at least in the case of Hasbro/WotC, I think there is a certain corporate attitude that you have to push your product even when it's the wrong product for the customer.
Started using Memrise to learn conversational French. Now I'm wasting time in a productive fashion!
After French, I'm thinking German or Chinese.
Chinese is fun but hard as balls. I did some estimation, and my four years of highschool Chinese add up to about 500 classroom hours, and in theory it takes ~2,200. But, it's a really cool language, and I find that a lot of the grammar feels pretty logical.
I'm no longer a highschool student! Also, graduation presents include Ticket to Ride, a badass new flashdrive, and Letters to a Young Contrarian. Time for summer break, followed by college. Life is good.
So, I've been thinking a lot about the next thing I'm going to do and potentially what my career will be. I've been really interested in science writing and journalism lately. Several really good graduate journalism schools that I have the grades for (Arthur L. Carter @ NYU, Medill @ Northwestern, Columbia Journalism School) offer one-year journalism masters programs with an optional focus in Health, Science, and Medicine. I could do the program, finish, and then either go to med school afterwards or go right into writing and not do med school at all.
So, I've decided to apply for enrollment for summer of 2013 to each of the above places. This will either be one of my best or worst decisions, but I feel really, really good about it either way.
Friends of mine just bought their first car and actually want to know how to keep it in good repair! And they listen to and follow instructions (at least once they made it all the way through the language barrier)!
So, I've decided to apply for enrollment for summer of 2013 to each of the above places. This will either be one of my best or worst decisions, but I feel really, really good about it either way.
If you get into Columbia's J School, we should hang out for the summer.
So, I've decided to apply for enrollment for summer of 2013 to each of the above places. This will either be one of my best or worst decisions, but I feel really, really good about it either way.
If you get into Columbia's J School, we should hang out for the summer.
Awwww yeah.
Today's Booh Yah: I got the Creative Cloud trial, and I've been relearning to do some stuff in Photoshop and Illustrator that I forgot long ago. I also created new banners for my personal blog (psst...you can click through using the banner...) and my (still unlaunched) science and tech blog. Hooray!
EDIT: The Vanilla resizer breaks image links. Oh well!
Everything is set in motion for my trip to Austin. I'm going due to my favorite website's own fan-convention and everything is going to be awesome: http://www.spill.com/features/spilldotcon2012 (Filled with Bands, Panels, Live-Podcasting and Parties)
-Flight Booked, -Hotel Booked, -Food Destinations Mapped, -Got invited to Pre-pre-party with Free Food and meeting with half-to-most of the Spill Crew Members.
Went garage-saling today and got a bunch of gameboy and n64 games for 50 cents a piece, and got 2 GBA sp's for $3 a piece along with some random other Xbox and playstation games for like $1. It's that time of year again.
Comments
Bonus round: I didn't even have to wait to hear back! The interview went so well, they offered me the job on the spot.
But yeah, at the core of it, people are scared because the vast vast majority of the games and books written about the games do a very poor job of conveying the information about why running them is awesome. They'll tell you why it's awesome to play all day, but not so clearly why it's awesome to run.
Also, it's been two months to the day since I started my Mass Effect-themed MS Paint Fan Adventure Relayblocked and I just posted my 25th update. I dunno if there is any significance to those numbers, but it feels pretty good to me!
But I think we're talking about the same thing here from different angles. I think that the rule-books, especially regarding "the most popular game", fail to ask the basic questions that every group needs to ask themselves. I simply think that we need to communicate up-front that "this game is not for everyone, and certainly not for every combination of people", but at least in the case of Hasbro/WotC, I think there is a certain corporate attitude that you have to push your product even when it's the wrong product for the customer.
I'm no longer a highschool student! Also, graduation presents include Ticket to Ride, a badass new flashdrive, and Letters to a Young Contrarian. Time for summer break, followed by college. Life is good.
(Pete and Zach Braff slash fic, GOOOOOOOO!)
So, I've decided to apply for enrollment for summer of 2013 to each of the above places. This will either be one of my best or worst decisions, but I feel really, really good about it either way.
Today's Booh Yah: I got the Creative Cloud trial, and I've been relearning to do some stuff in Photoshop and Illustrator that I forgot long ago. I also created new banners for my personal blog (psst...you can click through using the banner...) and my (still unlaunched) science and tech blog. Hooray!
EDIT: The Vanilla resizer breaks image links. Oh well!
-Flight Booked,
-Hotel Booked,
-Food Destinations Mapped,
-Got invited to Pre-pre-party with Free Food and meeting with half-to-most of the Spill Crew Members.
This is gonna be my summer.