Wow, I'm so behind on updates.

Okay, so I realized I hadn't posted anything in quite some time, and now I feel all guilty about that. My brain is also rapidly getting full of editing, so this is an effort to let off some excess verbiage. :)

So... not looking too much at diet stuff right now. I realized that wholesale course correction is just not going to work for me right now, so I'm having to go bit by bit. I am dragging myself back on course one step at a time, but it's slow going. It's excessively hard to get myself motivated and focused right now, though... too much is in flux, including my income. I have ideas but I'm lax on both memory and follow-through. That said, though, I can feel I'm sort of approaching a tipping point again. Might be part of a seasonal shift, or maybe I'm just getting progressively sick of no progress being made. Either way, though, it'll get me there.

I have, however, been keeping busy. Ye gods. On the one hand, yay for being social! On the other hand, holy crap, I think I need to hide for a day or so. I went over and watched a movie with Trey, I went to the Aion launch party and sang karaoke, I went to Bumbershoot, I went shopping with the boys, I hosted a sleepover for Will while Al went to one elsewhere...it was a long and fruitful weekend. Oh, and my landlord has been busy fixing up little things in my house--I now have a new shower rod, one of those that bows out to give you more room, along with a new towel rack, and a new shower head, and a new sink aerator (the little washer thing on the end of the sink faucet). He's also replacing all the smoke detectors, and he gave me new screens for the windows....it's like living in a whole new place. :) It seems to be lightening the psychic load a bit too... suddenly it's a lot easier for me to see through the clutter and do something about it, which I know we all appreciate. So it's a good thing and I am truly grateful.

I've got some things on my to-do list, of course. Have to get back to writing. Have to follow up on some contacts. Have to look at putting a game together for some friends. Have to look for work (hate hate hate). Have to get my sons' stuff together for school. Have to pay bills, naturally. Have to ponder a Halloween costume, as if I wait until I know I need one, I won't be able to come up with anything, and then I'll naturally get invited to something and need one and not have it, because that's the way life works. Have to study for the GRE. Have to contact a couple more professors about letters of recommendation. Have to write my personal statement. Have to start getting my writing samples together. Have to edit a piece and start shopping it around. Have to work on my comic script. Have to put away laundry until my bed is clear -- that'll teach me to start folding last thing before bed. Have to do all the normal housekeeping stuff one has to do to keep up with the world. Have to dust. Aiiieee. Have to work on my knitting projects and finish at least one of them. Seriously. Dude. Have to make soup or something...maybe buy a chicken and roast it and do that sort of thing. Or.... hmmm. Avgolemono soup. Now that would be tasty. Hmmmm.

Anyway. Stuff. Things. I have more to say about Bumbershoot, but that'll have to wait for now. It's worthy of its own post, though.

Character Creation: Conspiracy X, 1st Edition.

I've picked up a new game, Secrets and Lies, but I'm still absorbing that game. Character creation is also absurdly simple ("rules light" doesn't begin to cover it,) and I want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding it before I post a character for it. That'll likely be the next one I do. For now, though, there's another game that's been greatly on my mind--Conspiracy X 1st edition.

Yes, the system is wonky. Yes, it's like an episode of X-Files got loose and escaped into the wild. Yes, it actually uses Zener cards as a mechanic. I don't care. I love its fuzzy little heart for all these reasons. For better or worse, IMO the system facilitates the genre and feel the game is trying for. The Unisystem version is undoubtedly smoother and provides a more... well, uniform play experience. It just doesn't have the same personality, though. I've never been a proponent of "one system fits all." Yes, you can use a generic system for a whole bunch of things, but in the end it's just a system. It doesn't bring anything to the game you want to play. At best it just doesn't get in the way. That's not the way I want to play. Systems can be so much cooler than that.

So. Here we go.

The Game: Conspiracy X, 1st Edition. Third Printing.
The Publisher: Eden Studios
Degree of Familiarity: Played it once. Ran it once, a game which reached a quick demise due to an incompatible group of players. Very sad, really.
Books: Just the core. I used to have more, but not any longer. If I actually get to pick this up I'll be searching out some of the old books to go along with it. But certainly not for this character, no.

I have no idea what I'm going to make, so let's just throw this together and see what happens. This is one of those games where I think it really works best to have an entire group create characters at the same time, but obviously that doesn't work for this, so we'll just pretend. :) Oh, and have I mentioned I've been watching a lot of Leverage lately? *grin* Um... yeah.

Name: Amy Kasperzek

1) Concept: The book gives some general concept types for characters that tend to work well in ConX games. You're not restricted to these (and they have no real game effect) but it helps give you a bit of focus. Looking over the list, I think that Amy's concept is going to be an Explorer. It's never the mountain, it's the climb, to paraphrase a song my kids are listing to all the damn time right now. Curiosity is her weakness, her primary motivation -- and we know what happens to those people, don't we?

Character Points: 100. Every starting character has 100 pts by default, though GMs can naturally raise that if they want. 100 is a pretty good default, though. You can improve your character after chargen, though it's not a question of XP but rather taking downtime and devoting it to training (or fixing up the secret base, or therapy, or whatever the pressing need is). It's at its core a skill-based system, so improvement happens by drips and drops and while it does matter, the intent of the game is that you basically start out with the character you intend to have.

2) Physical and Mental Attributes. Default is 3, costing or returning points to move the needle up or down. I think I want her to be a computer security genius, so INT will be the most important. If I remember chargen correctly, it's a waste of points to spend too much in your attributes. Some is expected and useful, but it's an expensive point sink. I'm therefore going to raise her INT to a 4 and leave the rest at 3. I debated a 5, but that's an extra 20 pts, and I'm not sure it'd be worth it. That leaves me at 80 pts.

3) Luck. Good Luck is 2 and Bad luck is 12 by default. Again, this is pricey. I may come back to this later if I need to fudge points around. For now, though, I'll raise her Good Luck by 2 (20 pts) putting it at a 4. Bad Luck can stay right where it is, thank you.

4) Influence. This reflects how established you are in your government institution and how easily you can get things from it. Don't underestimate the importance of this. Lvl 1 is the default. I'm raising it to a 2. That's another 15, putting me at 45 points left.

5) Credential. Amy is, naturally for a computer science grad, a member of the NSA. Recruited straight out of college, she's proven herself on the team. Of the two possible jobs, she's a Computer Specialiist.

6) Traits. Her Profession has overall trainings available of Communication and Awareness. I'll take Communications (which includes using specialzed tech and equipment correctly) for 10 CP. Then again, as part of her Psych profile, she'll take Cautious which gives her back 10 -- she always doublechecks everything and she hates being rushed. She also takes a Military Contact (Lt. Col. Ben Robertson, USAF) for 10 CP. That puts me at 35 total left to spend on skills. That boils down as follows:

Brawling 1 (free)
Drive 1 (free)
Computer Programming 3 (14 pts)
Computer Use 3 (14 pts)
Cryptology 2 (6 pts)

Trainings: Swim, Communications

One point left that doesn't get spent anywhere. Too bad.

7) Background. So, Amy's really too smart for her own good. She blew through the computer engineering program at Penn State, always trying to prove herself, always looking for a challege. She was methodical, thorough, and always did her homework--plus the extra credit. People might have disliked her just a little, and she was a pain and a half to be on a group project with -- she'd end up not only doing her work but redoing yours--yes, she was that person. She graduated with honors in her degree and was recruited straight out of college by the NSA, based in no small part on the connections she had through her professor, who had contacts there. She's of a somewhat conservative bent (though apolitical at the best of times) and moved directly to sign on with the goverment. She's been there ever since, slowly working her way up. The agency will lend her to other groups sometimes -- they're not worried she'll decide not to come back. Her most recent assignment had her working with the Air Force on their remote intelligence software (read spy drone transmissions), which is how she met Lt. Col. Robertson. There's a bit of chemistry there, but nothing's come of it yet. She's only been back at her job for a couple of months, but she's just been contacted and told to report to the office on Monday for a new "on loan" assignment.

Welcome to Aegis, Amy. Enjoy your stay. :)