A Surprisingly Good Gaming Related Weekend

The weekend got off to an inauspicious start with both my "smartphone" and my netbook giving out on me. My planned research for information about WWII Pacific land battles came to a grinding hault. Although my phone started working again after a generous application of brute force, the netbook has refused to cooperate as of yet.*

Still, all was not lost: 

• Finished priming the Japanese forces. I used Krylon spray paint - the first time I've ever spray primed. It's definitely quicker than hand painting on gesso as a primer. I'm not a fan of having to go outside to paint when it's cold though. I may return to hand painting primer for the USMC since we're moving into actual winter here in North West Georgia. 
• Finally got around to applying basing material (flock and tea leaves) to my cowboys, pistoleros and Prussian infantry. 
• Finished reading Solo Wargaming 
• Set to work writing a campaign background for a fictional Franco-Prussian conflict on an island off of the African coast (part of the 2nd Franco-Prussian War in 1886). In addition, I made some rudimentary maps and sketches of land-based steam powered ironclads which I intend to scratch-build to supplement both sides. 

Finally, on Saturday night, Lady Shadowmoss and I hosted our 2nd game night -as new parents we figured game nights are an easy way to do something with friends but not have to worry about a baby sitter.The first time we did this, the focus was on card-based games (Lunch Money, Cards Against Humanity and even some Magic: The Gathering), but Saturday's bill was an introductory adventure for the ExaltedPG (White Wolf ) using pre-gen characters.

All but our GM and 1 player were new to this game and the mechanics - some had played table-top RPGs only once or twice before. Although the GM sent us a pdf of the core rules - he sent it earlier in the day and none of us had a chance to read it until we assembled at our table. 

At first glance, the game system itself seemed little more complicated than I like,  i.e., This Skill + This Skill, + X dice for this modifier, minus Y dice for this modifier = how many dice you roll/successes you need/etc. Being new for most everyone, it inevitably slowed us down quite a bit, but by the end of the session I think most of us were starting to get it.

Regardless, it was a great deal of fun and we were all learning together so no one appeared put-out by it.

Since we didn't make much progress on the adventure properly speaking, and as everyone has enjoyed both game nights we've held, the group voted to make this a monthly event. We'll continue to play out this adventure until it's finished (probably 1 or 2 more sessions) and then we'll switch games and GMs for another one shot.

So, after over many years of not having a gaming group, I suddenly find myself with a group 7 people strong.

Not bad for a weekend that didn't quite start like I had hoped.

*For those who care about such things, I decided to take this opportunity to switch from Windows XP to a distribution of Linux named Meego.