• With the end of the football season, and various other conflicts, it looks like our upcoming game schedule is being disrupted more than a little. This coming weekend we have a potential birthday conflict, then Halloween interferes with the other game. I am working with the players to see what options we have for rescheduling or if we will keep with the current calendar, but it may mean further delays before the new table can be put fully to use. Fortunately, the end of football season also brings a loosening of the evening calendar, so I am working to pull…

  • An update on our growing memento board for our gaming activities. I saw this concept on one (or several) youtube channels, and thought it was a good idea – a bulletin board to collect postings and handouts from past games. In concept, it will continue to grow and evolve as games go by, and provide a memory device for the players to recall past glories (or defeats). At this point, it is mainly filled with some of our Warhammer RPG game, an old Kingmaker Pathfinder game, and a few reference tables for games. There is also a rather busy collection…

  • Will be a bit distracted and absent for the next week or so, with a visit from my father. He lives quite a distance away, naturally isn’t as young as he used to be, and with recent Covid issues, has been unable to extensively travel. As such, we have not seen them in nearly two years. We have on the schedule kids activities – including multiple football games, marching band exhibitions, and no doubt a bit of pizza. They will be visiting thru the weekend from today, so I most likely won’t have much to comment about in the meantime.…

  • Happily, I managed to finish up the table project on time, without major issue. As pictured, the gaming area is much cleaner now with cables hidden but all the electronics functional. The surface is smooth, solid, and blends well with the rest of the decor. And with the larger size, we added an extra foot of space at either end, and about 6 inches on each side, compared to the base table. This doesn’t sound like much, but at the table it allows for much more space for character sheets, dice, and other accessories. The surface easily converts to table…

  • Another update on the gaming table – most of the panels at this point have received their stain layer. This is using Minwax oil-based wood stain, in Dark Walnut coloring – which is the same one used for TV cabinet. For the most part, the stain has gone on very easily – simply wipe it on evenly, then let it sit for 24 hours. Yesterday I managed to do one side of the center panels, today I did the other side and the end panels. Tomorrow I can do the end panel flip side, which should finish the stain. I…

  • On Thursday, I shared the progress of the gaming table top section, and that the various pieces were now cut, assembled, and otherwise drying. Following our gaming sessions this weekend, I now had time to validate that they actually fit (they do), and accomplish the original goal. Most importantly, that the various pieces slot together into a single large surface. As intended, all pieces work and function well together – there is actually no mistakes so far. This increases the surface area from 39 inches by 103 inches (3 1/4 foot by 8 3/4 foot) to an even 4 foot…

  • Finally starting on the next stage of the grand gaming table. As published previously, my intent has been to create a large gaming surface, for our oversize group. We have the table itself, which itself is rather massive, but still a bit cramped for the players. The first step was to create a virtual table top, which was done with a frame and box around an older TV – this project ended up rather successful and we have used it in almost every session since. However, it further limits the gaming space itself, since it takes up a lot of…

  • So the new MMO launched yesterday, and have been more than a little bit distracted as a result. Although the game itself runs well, and is very popular (they hit 700k concurrent users), the launch of course had its issues. The major concern for a lot of players was initially just the naming of characters. By the settings, a given character name is locked to your account, and is shared across all servers and regions. Thus, if someone in the EU connected and used your chosen name before you (since EU went live first), you lose your chosen name. Purely…