(no subject)

[the_rck]

I'm stuck in the hotel room again. I made it over to the convention center for a while, but my scooter ran out of power as I was heading back to the hotel for lunch. I don't know if it wasn't fully charged when it was delivered or if it got left on when the clerk put it away last night or... Well, I don't know. I managed to get back to the lobby, but I was fairly certain several times that the dratted thing wasn't going to go that far. The hills seemed to be a big problem.

The convention center and the hotel are on the same block. There's a connector between them, but it requires getting a door open that can't be opened by a person in a wheelchair or scooter and two elevator trips. There's also a short outdoor connection that's easier but that requires elevator trips and some threading of narrow doorways with sharpish turns. Coming back, I went outside and came around the block. I'm not sure that I didn't go the long way around (not that that should matter if the scooter were properly charged).

At any rate, the scooter's down at the front desk, charging. I'm trying to give it plenty of time. Also, I told Scott that I'd take Delia to the kids' room after he took her swimming. They've been gone a bit more than an hour. I'd have done the swimming as I owe him time off, but I can't go near chlorinated pools due to my asthma. Sometimes it might not bother me, but it's not a risk we want to take. I'll probably stay in with Delia this evening. I may try going down to the lobby for the free drinks and snacks. I'd like to be social.

The convention seems very empty compared to the last time I was here. I was easily able to drive through the dealers' room, a novel experience. I saw a few things that tempted me, largely pretty items that would sit on shelves and collect dust. There are a few game books that I'm also interested in. My main hesitation is an uncertainty as to whether I'm going to get a chance to GM again. I suspect that, if I do GM again, I'll look for a basic, generic system that doesn't annoy me for character generation (I like GURPS because you can make anything but dislike how it runs and the fact that it scares off players) and then run rules lite after characters generation. That seems to be how I do it normally, so it's not a change. That means, though, that most rule books are only of use to me as setting source materials.

The bathroom I used at the convention center had the tiniest handicapped stall I've ever tried to use. I think it was only an inch or two wider than the normal stalls. Getting the scooter in was a challenge. Getting to the toilet after getting the scooter in was even harder. I have to guess that this is an older building that had quite a bit grandfathered in.

I also got stuck at one point when I tried to go from the dealers' room into an adjoining space. (I was under the impression that cherydactyl was helping run events in there and hoped to find her. I also thought that Scott and Delia might be with her as that was where they'd been heading the last I knew. I didn't find any of them, and Scott's not been hearing his cell phone ring. Very frustrating.) I got the front wheels over the hump, but the back wheels wouldn't go over, and I couldn't back up. It was one of those big covers for electrical cords and such. I'm never trying to get over one of those again. It looked like it was meant to be possible to go over it, but I was thoroughly stuck. Fortunately, a nice young man helped me out with some lifting and pushing (after I got off to lighten the load).

The getting stuck, the not being able to find people and the battery running down are all contributing to make me want to hide in our room. Of course, I'm also lonely. I want to spend some time with people, friends or strangers, doing *something*, preferably something that I enjoy. Maybe tomorrow.

Comments

[anderyn.livejournal.com]

What games did you see that you thought were cool?

[the_rck]

I don't entirely remember at this point.

I eventually bought the Slayers D20 book, L5R Rokugan, the Kevin and Kell RPG and a D20 thing called Nyambe which claims to be an African setting (It has a small bibliography, so I'm hoping it's not utter dreck. If it is, well, it was on sale, three for $10). We also picked up a bunch of Babylon 5 supplements for Scott, a couple of Dragonlance books and a few GURPS books.

I picked up a supplement for a game I don't own because it looked like it might give me some ideas for running the Courts of Chaos next time I run Amber. I've read that one already, and it will do that much for me. It was, sadly, published by people who thought that spell checking was a substitute for proof reading, so it's riddled with misplaced words, verb/noun disagreements, dropped words, sentences that go nowhere and then stop, and so on.

[dspitzle.livejournal.com]

Nyambe is pretty cool, as long as you look at it as doing with African culture what standard D&D does with Europe. Overall I thought it was pretty worthwhile.

[the_rck]

I think I'd feel better about that if there were more game books doing that with Africa or parts of Africa. Also, my general reaction to the fantasy Europe books is colored by the fact that I already have a good understanding of the roots of the genre. I don't have that for any part of Africa and so can't tell what's being made up, what's being warped (or mangled), what's being transplanted, what I could make deeper with more research, and so on.

Does that make sense? It means that the book is bearing a much bigger burden than a standard supplement does.