Sunday!

Sunday was an interesting day.

First off, there was the Great Sims Hunt. Since it's nearly my birthday, I figured that the best way to stop my Sims 2 installation from demanding that I put in the University disc which I do not have would be to...get University. This, as it happens, is more difficult than it sounds. Ended up going to three different stores before I found one. Then I went to my father's house...aunt is still there, but at least she's actively looking for places, now. Still looking for places beyond her means, though. Much sadness.

But! There were steaks. And then, there were hailstones. Yup, we got hail. A fairly nice amount of it, too. It turned the deck white, while the sun shone down. We ate, and then I headed home in between the bands of storms...a rainbow guided me all the way there. And not just any rainbow. This was a full, /perfectly/ formed arch of full Roy G. Biv color. There was a fainter double arch above it, but the smaller one was really the remarkable one. And it made me feel...incredibly good to be driving into it like that. As if I were going somewhere special, as untrue as that might be.

Last week of work before vacation. I'm /really/ looking forward to the happy vacationness. Going to go down to Charleston, since Myrtle Beach is not such a great idea. Hang out with a friend from college, all that happy stuff.

Poem for Monday!

This one is by Baudelaire, and as a consequence, is not entirely worksafe...although it is only non-work-safe in very flowerly language.

( What A Pair of Eyes Can Promise )

Productivity!

Started on dishes, and finally called in the maintainance request for my bathtub. The drain has been...very, very, very slow. I've tried various over the counter things, but none have worked, so time to call in the big guns, I suppose. :D

At some point, perhaps this Saturday since there is no game, I figure I'm going to try and give the entire apartment a good going over, and getting everything cleaned up. Between then and now, of course, I have to empty every blessed thing out of my kitchen, and find somewhere else to put it. Hate. Only for a day, which is almost worse, because then I have to put it all /back/. Grrr.

But, hey.

[In Nomine] Discord/Disadvantages

I have...problems with many of the Discords/Disadvantages in In Nomine. Like the fact that, as written, it is impossible to make a paraplegic using Crippled. You just have to give them 6 and write in, and then some, because missing limb and a little of one other is about as far as it goes. But most of the Corporeal Discords are reasonably okay.

Paranoia, however, is just dumb. Roll a Will roll or else disbelieve for /every/ statement someone wants you to accept as fact? Where the heck is the fun, there? I'd end up tossing my dice off the table half-way through a session. Or you can just ignore it except when the player or DM finds it convenient, and essentially get free points. Same with Fear calling for rolls every CD rounds, even if you pass. That's, what, about five rolls an IC minute as long as you're in the presence of it, or you flee screaming? Again, where is the fun?

I developed an alternate writeup for Paranoia for my RL IN game, in case it ever came up. It never did, for my players managed to avoid most Discord. But here it is.

Paranoia

A character with the paranoid Discord or Disadvantage sincerely believes that 'they' are out to get him. Which 'they' varies...the player and the DM should get together to decide who the character's shadowy enemies are when the Discord is chosen, and what their 'defining characteristics' are (government agency, demons, religious, alien, etc). At the beginning of every game day, the character must roll Will minus their level in this Discord; failure means that they're slipping further into their delusions, and more and more things will seem to have connections to the object of their Paranoia, signs will point to their being stalked, and so forth. The check digit determines the degree of delusion for the day; at level 1, a character may feel compelled to buy every newspaper in the city, convinced that the Media Elite are hiding messages in code in the personal ads. At level 6, even close family members, friends, and loved ones may /clearly/ be members of a grand conspiracy which is directly threatening the character's life, and must be confronted or avoided. A successful Discord roll means that the character can surpress his paranoid feelings well enough to function without acting on his feelings.

Success or failure, a character with Paranoia always takes a penalty equal to his level of this Discord to Detect Lies rolls pertaining to someone trying to convince him that they are not a member of those persecuting him (only removal of the Discord can convince the character that there /are/ no persecutors); on a day which he has failed the Discord check, add the CD of that roll to the penalty.