Gaming with Toddler

Another year and we move from Gaming with Baby to Gaming with Toddler. New challenges and new oppportunities await.

Wow it has been a while since I’ve done one of these. The last 8 months have been busy both for Sebastian and myself. My son has gone from cruising around furniture to walking for a half mile or more on his own. Meanwhile I’ve ended two games and begun two more, seen two groups go to meeting less frequently and formed a new local group.

Bigger, Stronger, Faster

So Sebastian walks farther every day, nearly running at times. Usually he demands to walk halfway back from daycare each day, which is a nice load off my back.

His teeth arrived in batches: 3 front teeth, then a molar and side incisor, then 2 more incisors. Another molar has just begun poking through. He’s still small but grows taller every time we measure him. I think he is slowly catching up to the rest of the kids.

Mentally, he babbles constantly with over a 100 words in 2 or 3 word phrases. His longest word is the appropriate “dinosaur”. He loves to build towers with blocks, as high as he can. He obsesses over cars and trucks and he enjoys putting a name to everything.

Socially he is an attention hog. So much so that he partially killed our online game with his demands. My wife had to leave that game to take care of him just so we could continue. His terrible twos began several month early but we’ve had some luck mitigating them with the advice from The Happiest Toddler on the Block. If only he was a bit little less attached (especially to me) it would be great. He can entertain himself at times for tens of minutes at a time otherwise and sometimes even lets us sleep in.

We’ve not had much luck getting out of the house on our own though. It's mostly our own fault however since we've yet to search for a babysitter. Thanks to the Parent’s Night Out at the daycare however we did enjoy a night in binge watching Daredevil Season 2. Hopefully we'll get the babysitting issue resolved soon so we can enjoy the blockbuster season.

Conventions

If you’ve read my report on DunDraCon, there’s not much new to report here. I’m not going to GenCon this year nor attending KublaCon. I might look at some other local conventions this fall and my wife intends to drive down to San Jose for a fandom convention (she loves Arrow).

Next year I plan to run either a long game or a series of games for Urban Shadows at DunDraCon. But then again I might run something for Chronicles of Darkness. We will see.

House improvement: Progress Bar is Frozen

Movement on the house improvements has been slow. Very slow. Glacial really. Other than maintenance not much has been done on our various projects. With one exception.

I took the plunge on a hand crafted gaming table from Geek Chic. I’m specifically getting the Emissary...minus the draws. I like the look better than the other tables in that price range (like the Minimalist). Their people have been great to work with, helping us with the vast number of choices involved (wood type, inserts, vault depth, and on and on). I think we’ll end up with a terrific piece of furniture in the end. Right now we look on track for an end of year/early first quarter delivery.

Gaming: En Route

The Online Group

We finished String Theory, my Night’s Black Agents game with a big bang. In the end I removed a fourth of the Zalozhniy Quartet. The whole chase segment felt forced (and was a repeat in a way of a previous section of the game) so I removed it. I also removed a planned “our princess is in another castle” plot and got to the good stuff. I think it worked out well. The group really liked the system which bodes well for a TimeWatch game I have planned for the future.

With the vampires out of the way, I’ve decided to run something less globetrotting with a Demon: the Descent set in my version of Seattle (based on my Hunter: the Vigil game: Corrupted Transmission) as opposed to the published material for Demon. Expect some reports on that game soon.

As I mentioned my wife had to drop out of regular play so her character missed the final section of the campaign. She will be playing in the Demon game however. I plan to run her one-on-one and have the events of both sections of the game impact the other. I think it will be fun. Especially as she plans to play an Inquisitor operating under the Cover of a newspaper editor who sends the local Saboteurs to investigate situations too dangerous for her reporters.

Play by Post: Streets of Blood and Steel
(Vampire: the Requiem Elders)

Our vampire ancilla have been plotting and expanding power bases, thwarting vampire hunters, probing secrets, and occasionally setting ourselves on fire.

I’ve really enjoyed this game, even if it has been slower than I’d like. The story moved at about 1/2 the speed of real life but even so the tension remained high. One PC nearly suffered Final Death at the hands of the Prince and a revolution is brewing thanks to the rest of us. My mysterious schemer has slowly begun to reveal herself and in the process helped along the revolution. A revolution she plans to lead eventually. We are on hiatus currently due to real life issues but should get going again this summer.

The Local Game: The Sprawl

This game is done and probably most of our roleplaying with that group for a while. The other couple had their baby and current plans are to do the occasional light game. Perhaps in several years we might have a new crop of players to work with however.

As for The Sprawl it was fun though a bit disappointing that I wasn’t able to wrapped up the main subplot.

A New Local Group!

A couple of months ago I began recruiting players in Sacramento, a topic I intend to expound upon in two weeks. The game is another Vampire: the Requiem game, set in the heartland of America. Amid the cornfields young vampires find themselves alone and exposed.

The plan is to run it after Sebastian’s bedtime when Grace can devote her whole attention to it. The other players seem very enthusiastic and we’ll do character creation soon. Look forward to some actual play reports in the coming months.

That’s it for now.