Still Plodding Along

   Life's been fairly boring of late. Summer has come and gone. I didn't go to Gen Con or the Ren Faire. The Slot Dice and Goblin Dice Kickstarters have turned out to be rip-offs. They simply took the money and ran. I'm fucking pissed. The Gamer's Bag Kickstarter is starting to look like another rip-off. They haven't posted an update in quite some time. Their last update was May 16th, 2024, where they claimed that they were almost ready to start shipping. There's been no updates since then. The Crossroads Inn people have finally posted an update after a long period of silence. It looks like they're making a sincere effort to bring their project to completion.

  Petersen Games has teamed up with Quimbley's Games in regard to Cthulhu Wars. Petersen Games designs the games and Quimbley's manufactures and sells them. This pairing has finally allowed me to get the Invasion Faction completed. I now have all 12 factions for Cthulhu Wars. The status of the Misprint Corrections is still pretty much unknown. Quimbley's has received the Azathoth dice that were missing from the Daemon Sultan faction and, I believe, they also have the correction stickers for Bubastis and Sleeper. Why they haven't mailed out the corrections is unknown to me. From what I've seen in photos, the Azathoth die looks to be the same die that I got with that custom Cthulhu Wars dice set I bought a while back. The spellbook corrections for Bubastis and Sleeper are minimal. Both factions are playable as they are right now.

  A pair of great concerts are in my future. Gwar is returning to The Rave Oct. 31st and King Diamond will be at the Riverside Theater on Nov. 8th. Tickets have already been purchased. 

It's Been a While

   It's been quite some time since I've last posted. A little over a year in fact. I went to Gen Con 2023. Despite doing everything correctly, I still wound up over 8,700th in line. All my initial event picks except for Cthulhu Wars and the Fate Core event filled up. I got both those events plus a Never Going Home and Cypher system event. I've decided not to go to Gen Con 2024. Money's been tight and I need to straighten my financial situation out.

  On the Cthulhu Wars front, I got tired of waiting for the Misprint corrections for Daemon Sultan and Bubastis to be mailed and decided to have the Game Steward ship both factions to me and send the corrections when they arrive. It turns out that I waited for no real reason. The Daemon Sultan's faction card had three of their spell book slots labeled Awaken Thesis. A sticker was included that corrected the faction card. The only error for Bubastis was the Ailurophobia spell book. The correct version was posted on the Petersen Games website. It's a minor correction. Both factions are useable as they stand. I bought the Ultimate Errata pack for Cthulhu Wars in order to make sure that my game is the most up to date version. I'm slowly gathering the pieces needed for the Invasion faction. I've purchased the Baphomet mini, 8 Larvae, 4 Gryllus, a Fiend and the Neutral Unit Identifiers. All I need to get is the Invasion Faction (no minis), 1 Fiend, 2 Gryllus and a set of Battle Dice. This could take quite a while because I have to wait for the Cthulhu Wars Kickstarters to complete shipping and the Planet Apocalypse Kickstarter to complete. 

  I saw Gwar again last October. Another great concert. My Kickstarters are proceeding slowly. The Orbidice Kickstarter is proceeding at a decent pace as is the dUltimate. Crossroads Inn has had some changes made but it does appear to be heading towards completion. Wasteland Sagas and When the Wolf Comes are having their books printed. The Game Space Kickstarter is starting to concern me. There have been no updates since Sept. 9th, 2023. They say that the Game Space units have been packed and are ready to ship but nothing's happened since. The Gamer's Bags are being made. Hopefully, they'll start shipping them soon. 

  I had to drop the Quartz insurance plan. They said that the monthly premium would be going up and I figured it wouldn't increase by much. The premium went from $170.79 to over $442.00 a month. What the fuck? Why the massive increase? 

Hasbro/WoTC are trying to screw over the gaming community.

   Wizards of the Coast (WoTC) is trying to revoke the OGL 1.0a and institute the OGL 1.1 and it's pissing off roleplaying gamers. This has led to a lot of people cancelling their D&D Beyond subscriptions. Because of the cancellations, WoTC and Hasbro have backpedaled claiming the OGL 1.1 was just a draft and that they would rollout a revised OGL 2.0 sometime in the future. Rather than try to go into detail about the ongoing saga, I'm going to embed some YouTube videos laying out the details. 

    

  That's just a brief summary of the situation at the moment. WoTC and Hasbro have gotten greedy and are trying to alter the OGL in order to squeeze out the competition and bleed the gamer community for more cash. We're regarded as "obstacles to their money". This isn't the view of most of the employees at WoTC and Hasbro. It's primarily the view of the high up execs at WoTC and Hasbro. Paizo are creating their own open gaming license, the Open RPG Creative License (ORC). This license will not be owned by any TTRPG company and will be permanent and irrevocable (as people have said the OGL 1.0a is). Kobold Press has started Project Black Flag in response to WoTC and Hasbro. Here's a video about that. 

  The gamer community must come together with Paizo and Kobold Press. It's time to hoist the Black Flag and join the ORC Horde!! Despite WoTC and Hasbro stating that they're going to address our grievances, they're just going to modify OGL 1.1, and hope things will blow over and we'll forget. Then they'll sneakily modify the OGL adding back everything that angered us in the first place. They only way they could possibly regain our trust is to either make the OGL 1.0a permanent and irrevocable or sign the ORC License.

Start of a New Year

   I'm due to have the cataract in my right eye removed Jan. 9th. Because I won't be allowed to lift more than 10 lbs. or engage in any strenuous activity for one week after the surgery, I decided to take a week's paid vacation. I'll use that time to take it easy and chill out.

  New Year's Eve and New Year's Day didn't amount to much. I was hoping to ring in the New Year playing board games with my friends, but that didn't work out. My main computer is currently out of commission. Apparently, Windows got scrambled during an update and now the computer won't boot up.

  I've picked up the core rules for Cortex Prime and Fate. I've also purchased the Fate System Toolkit. I've downloaded .PDF files for these games as well as a bunch of files for the Cypher System. I'll buy the revised Cypher System core book some time in the future. Other than that, there isn't much going on in my life. Same boring shit every damn day. 

Myriad Bits of Random Shit

   Things have been a bit crappy health wise. I have a minor sore spot on my lower right leg just above the ankle. I told my primary doctor about it, and she set up an ultrasound. The lab tech did the ultrasound on my right leg and, for reference purposes, took some readings on my left leg. The results revealed that I had blood clots behind my right knee and more clots in the upper left groin area. Because of this, I'm now taking Eliquis, a blood thinner. The padding in my knees is largely gone and there's now some measure of bone-on-bone action going on. I've received three injections into each knee of a substance made from rooster combs. Whether or not I'll need to have one or both knees replaced has yet to be determined.

  My Dad ended up in the hospital because he was having a hard time urinating. About a liter of urine was backed up in his system and this put stress on his kidneys that led to an infection. He was transported to the hospital and spent time in the ICU. He's currently in a nursing home recuperating. Hopefully, he'll be home soon. 

  The Kickstarters I'm backing are progressing slowly. The Crit Effect and Fright Effect dice have arrived at the seller's location. I've got some new Kickstarters slowly moving towards completion. This includes the Cthulhu Mythos Tarot, Crossroads Inn, Wastelands Saga, When the Wolf Comes, Satanic Panic, FlipDice, Stokerverse, Game Space and Paranoia the Perfect Edition. The two Cthulhu Wars Kickstarters are getting closer to completion. Once The Game Steward gets their Kickstarter orders, I'll be getting my Cthulhu Wars orders. Petersen Games has added The Dunwich Horror expansion to their Cthulhu Wars expansions. They're being made along with the other Kickstarters. I contacted Petersen Games and found out that they'll be selling some of these expansions via their website as soon as they become available. Here's a video of the expansion.

  I'm really looking forward to getting The Dunwich Horror and my Cthulhu Wars orders. Once I get them, I'll have pretty much everything Cthulhu Wars related. Only a few minor upgrades remain unpurchased.

  Thanksgiving and SatursGiving were a bust. We didn't make a turkey on Thanksgiving because Dad was in the hospital, and I couldn't go to SatursGiving because I had to work. I'm hoping that I'll get New Year's Eve and New Year's Day off so I can play boardgames with my friends.

Have Some More Chop Suey

   The Era: Hitman v1.1 Kickstarter has concluded. The books arrived a few days ago. The Cthulhu Wars Kickstarters are progressing towards completion. I've traded in my Samsung Galaxy S8 and upgraded to a Galaxy S22+ (256 Gb). Like most flagship smartphones, the S22+ doesn't have a headphone jack or SD card slot. It also has a different charging setup. The charging cable has USB C connectors at both ends and I had to purchase the plugin block separately. The cable, plugin block and SD card for the S8 is now being used with the Galaxy Tab A7 SM-T307U (32 Gb) I purchased from a seller on eBay. The tablet was used and came with nothing else.

  I also purchased a screen and camera lenses protector for the S22+ and a tablet cover for the Tab A7. The Tab A6 SM-T280 (8 Gb) has become my RPG rulebook tablet. All the RPG documents I've acquired are stored on the 200 Gb SD card occupying the memory card slot along with my music files. The Tab A7 SM-T307U (32 Gb) tablet will have my GoDice app and other RPG apps loaded upon it. It will serve as my RPG gaming tablet. This will cut down on the amount of gear I take with me when I go gaming. 

The Tail End of Summer

   Another boring summer is heading towards its end. Gen Con has come and gone, and I wasn't there to enjoy it. Hopefully things will be different next year. I've been to the Bristol Renaissance Faire once this year and I'm hoping to go again before the season ends.

  I've backed a few more Kickstarters since my last post. The first one is The Big Conspiracy card game. Others include When the Wolf Comes, Era: Hitman v1.1, Gausahedron, Wasteland Sagas, Cthulhu Mythos Tarot and Crossroads Inn. The Cthulhu Wars: CATaclysm and Cthulhu Wars: The Daemon Sultan Kickstarters are progressing very slowly. According to the latest update, the pieces are being or have been molded. While I was unable to participate in these Kickstarters directly, The Game Steward has backed both projects. Over the past two years or so, I've placed orders with them for items from both of these Kickstarters as well as other Cthulhu Wars expansions. When all these orders arrive, I'll pretty much have everything Cthulhu Wars related. I've acquired an Eradication first player marker for the game recently on eBay.