King Red

I agree that the new few weeks will probably be interesting; however, I have already my fill of interesting times. Times of contentment and normality sounds much more appealing.

I agree that the new few weeks will probably be interesting; however, I have already my fill of interesting times. Times of contentment and normality sounds much more appealing.

Hydroxychloroquine Sulfate is a less toxic variant that is also being made available. There's a company called Teva Pharmaceutical that is donating 10 million tabs of it as a potential treatment of COVID-19.

Define irony:  getting sick from a pandemic while playing Pandemic.

Thank you for the updates. I’m working from home right now, and my daughter is out of school through early April. I think we should plan on social distancing being a thing for at least another 2-4 weeks.

I'm looking into online gaming alternatives for my D&D game. I've used Fantasy Grounds for D&D, but I don't know how well it will support Hero or Cortex Plus. It may be easier to do the game mechanics portion through talking like we do in a face-to-face game. We certainly all have dice and can roll them and declare our results. We can save video for maps and our lovely faces. This assumes of course everyone has access to the necessary hardware: computer with camera and software. We can always go on hiatus if need be.

So, given the givens of the current state of reality, I think it is probably best to postpone face to face sessions until things have returned to normal. If social distancing becomes the new normal for more than a couple weeks I'll look into getting an online virtual table top type of solution going. 
 
In  the meantime, I've been chipping away at adding more meat to the Cortex Plus Heroic port. I did more character writeups , more Ability Trait writeups, and filled in the details on how dice pools are formed, how plot points work, and so on. In days to come I'll be porting over setting content, vignettes, npcs / monsters, and so forth. It might be of interest to some of you, and of course feedback is welcome.  
 
Obviously, I hope all of you & your families are well. Stay healthy and safe!

FYI
Beginning Monday, March 16, all the gaming tables will be closed for the At Ease Game Store in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. All tournaments, all events will be cancelled until further notice. The store will now officially close earlier at 7 p.m. instead of 11 p.m.
 
May you all stay healthy,
Conrad

Ed,
 
I wish your family good health. See you in a couple of weeks.

I like this campaign so far and hope to see everyone in February 8.
 

I like this campaign so far and hope to see everyone in February 8.
 

Ok, so here are my thoughts:
 
1) Normally if 1 player can't make it I prefer to still meet and work around it. 
2) If two or more can't make it, I make a judgement call based upon where the the characters of the missing players are at narratively and whether or not their absence can be worked around without causing more trouble than it is worth.
3) However, currently the team is in a critical place where I actually want everyone at the table. Particularly considering we just spent an entire episode / session jumping thru the necessary hoops to get the team back together in a way that avoided a deus ex machina.
4) Unfortunately due to the holidays the current "action" has gotten stretched out in real world time over the course of a couple of calendar months and I feel like it has sucked away the urgency / emotional impact of the stakes involved for the characters. In the game world, the stakes are quite high, time is of the essence, and the situation is quite dire. In the real world, it may be hard for some of us at the end of January to remember and / or care about stuff that happened in November and to still feel the anxiety and engagement I hope was present when the current leg of the adventure unspooled.
 
Now, real life presents us with challenges to all being in the same place at the same time and I get it. Work is important. Family is important. Shit happens, and when push comes to shove meeting to play a game or indulge a hobby is obviously of lower priority. However, I feel like we have a good thing going with this group and I at least am having fun with the campaign and would like for us to find a way to move past all of the recent disruption and continue. 
 
So...here's what I want to happen and then we can discuss if we all agree and if we can make it happen:
 
I want us to all be present for the next session, which will hopefully be Feb 8, and for us to all make an attempt to re-engage with the in-game narrative and try to get back into the headspace of feeling trepidation for the characters and caring about what's going to happen next. For my part, I will take a beat at the beginning of the session to reframe the scene and do my best to sink the hook for all of you. 
 
If some of us are at a point where we need to take a step back from the campaign and focus on other things, or if we are tired of the campaign and don't want to continue that's ok too...I just ask that we all be transparent about where our heads are at.

This is just one man's opinion, and you could disagree with me. After watching "The Last Jedi", my expectations were lowered. In my opinion, TLJ was worse than "Revenge of the Sith". RotS is a bad movie, just not as episodes 1 & 2. Overall, the fun parts outnumbered the non-fun parts. I wish it was as good as Avengers: Endgame, but that did not happen. I disagree with the movie critics, and I give a slight recommendation for others to watch this movie.

This is just one man's opinion, and you could disagree with me. After watching "The Last Jedi", my expectations were lowered. In my opinion, TLJ was worse than "Revenge of the Sith". RotS is a bad movie, just not as episodes 1 & 2. Overall, the fun parts outnumbered the non-fun parts. I wish it was as good as Avengers: Endgame, but that did not happen. I disagree with the movie critics, and I give a slight recommendation for others to watch this movie.

I'm hoping to resume running sessions on Jan 11th if everyone can make it.

I have trust issues with Star Wars now
 

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas. See you in January,

No game today then. See you all early next year. Wish you the best.

No game today then. See you all early next year. Wish you the best.

No, it was rather desultory and ignominious. Drew burned through all of his extreme luck keeping Jack (who started the session with only 3 BODY remaining) alive, and without any remaining to modify the bad guys rolls he got hit and staggered. Without his Combat Luck to save him Drew was then easily ripped apart before he could recover by the trio of tentacled nascent shoggoths played by Steve, Scything, and King Red. Looks like Unconventional Solutions needs a new ops chief.
 
In death, members of Unconventional Solutions have a name...his name was Drew "Reckless seems like a sensible Complication to me" Altman.

 
Later in the evening Killroy had a classic Jason Bourne / Jack Bauer-esque solo adventure, successfully (and rather easily) reclaiming from a drug gang's crack house a mystery loot box of unmentionables stolen from the Societatis ex Monstrum Interfectorum. He even resisted to urge to look in the box, which he had been forbidden from doing by his handler. Having established his trustworthiness and reliability, Killroy has been accepted as a member of the Societatis...secretly of course. Killroy never even pulled a gun; he roughed up and intimidated his way through the gang members. It was pretty epic.

I had fun playing the game Saturday last night.

I had fun playing the game Saturday last night.

I plan to be there Saturday at 5pm.