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We need to run some errands this afternoon. The toys we want to donate are in the car. There’s a check to be cashed. I’d like to get to the post office to mail a couple of things. Then there’s the library. We have to go today or tomorrow. I should also put away the laundry I washed yesterday and run a second load. The putting away is necessary because we only have one available basket. We used to have three, but one has vanished, and the other is holding laundry that Scott’s been intending to put away for many months (I just keep dumping his clean stuff in there every week. Learning where he wants everything to go is on my long term to do list, but we never seem to have time for that).

Cordelia has finally gotten Pokemon Go to work on her phone, and she’s enjoying it. She caught a couple inside our house last night. We’re going to use that as incentive to get her to go out with us to run errands. The area around the library is soggy with Ingress portals, so it must have a lot of Pokemon Go stuff, too.

I gave the hotel where we stayed in Chicago a good review at the site through which we booked it. I’d definitely stay there again if we go back to the area. It’s the SpringHill Suites by Marriott O’Hare Airport.

I didn’t sleep well last night. I woke about 4:30 and didn’t fall asleep again until around 9:00. Scott got up at 9:30 to go do a fasting blood draw, and then the pharmacy called to say that the prescription I called in last night is ready for pick up, so I just gave up and got out of bed.

I have a DVD due back at the library tomorrow. I think I can renew it, but I’ve already renewed it once, and I’m not sure that keeping it another week will get me to watch it. I’ve also got some DVDs coming in this week’s batch of holds, including one largish set (which has a two or three week check out period). I’ve got three graphic novels due back on Sunday, and I’m still holding out hope that I’ll finish some of them in time to return them. I’m halfway through one of them, so that one’s entirely possible.

Scott’s looking at signing up to run something or another at UCon this year, and he asked if I’d thought about running a PlotLuck. I have, but I really don’t think I’m up to it this year. It just feels like something too big given how I’ve been doing the last year. I might try to run some sort of tabletop rpg, but I haven’t done that since before Cordelia was born (so over thirteen years), and I was never very good at contained scenarios. I wrote one for Scott once that worked well, but I think that was 90% because he managed it properly. I can write decent scenarios. I’m just terrible at running them so that they finish in the event window. I think that the problem is that I kind of meander as a GM and would rather let the players chase down what intrigues them rather than try to get them to follow my planned plot. That works a heck of a lot better for a campaign. Also, I have no idea what system I could use. I go rules lite no matter what I use, and there really isn’t anything current that I know well enough to run with.

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I’m trying to think what game systems I know well enough to use for running a convention game. Scott thinks it doesn’t matter, that I need to think first about the story because that’s my strong suit. He may be right, but the system shapes things, too. Scott also laughed and called me 'old school' as a gamer. I suppose I am. Not having run a game in more than thirteen years has a pretty big impact.

Would potential players know what I mean if I say 'rules lite' in the blurb?

I know Amber diceless pretty much inside and out, and I’ve poked a little at the follow up that’s Amber diceless minus the Amber stuff, Lords of Gossamer and Shadow. I’m not entirely happy with the setting for that, though, because I can’t actually figure out why player characters would even care about any plot I might throw at them unless I restrict the setting massively.

I ran some GURPS years ago, but that was 3rd edition, and I haven’t even played the current edition. I’m not sure how much that would matter given how fast and loose I play with rules, but… Still, one can do absolutely anything at all with GURPS. But how many people would be willing to sign up for a GURPS game? The system has a reputation for being difficult, and I don’t think I’d do well with players who put a lot of emphasis on the rules.

Chaosium’s underlying percentile system is pretty easy to run and extremely flexible in terms of adapting to different settings/genres, but I’d have to work at figuring out how to set things up so that they work properly. Also, I know there have been multiple editions of the different games under that umbrella, and I have no idea what’s current or how it differs from the basics that I remember.

I did a lot of World of Darkness in the 1990s, but I don’t know either the current system or the current setting. I have the impression that things have changed immensely. I’m also not sure we still have all the books I’d want/need in order to try to run the old version.

I’ve played D20 stuff a fair amount recently, but I don’t really completely grok the system. It’s more rigid than I like and may not adapt well if I want to do something weird. But it is pretty widely known.

I’ve played FATE, but I don’t understand how it works at all. Scott thinks it would work really well for how I run games, but I think it would require the exact right group of players.

I’ve played quite a lot of other game systems over the decades, but I don’t remember most of them well enough to do anything with them. I own a lot of obscure games, too, that I’ve not even read. I know, for example, that I bought the Kevin and Kel game, but I never read it through, and I’m not sure where on earth it is now.