My weekly game is cancelled until further notice.

On Wednesday major local corporations recommended avoidance of all non-essential gatherings. Later during the week came a spate of municipal and statewide lock downs and the declaration of a national emergency.

This time we had double cheeseburgers and fries individually bagged for each player from a national fast food chain.

I put the room numbers in the summary, so they coincide with narrative. Old timers may recognize this place. Corrective note to earlier narrative, [Room 18] did not have the curtain block the door to the south. I was reading from a paper copy and I should have used a magnifying glass. Now that I've seen it blown up on a screen the party should have been able to go that way.

++++ SUMMARY ++++

[Room 11]

From fighting the skeletons the party picked up any maces the skeletons had dropped (to improve their weapons) and proceed to the next room. Which was essentially the back side of another secret door. Peeking, the party noticed 5 Hobgoblins, one guarding another door, two flanking what appeared to be a throne, one standing in front of the throne reporting to whom was seated there the party's attack on the Hobgoblin barracks [Room 10] minutes before, and lastly the biggest baddest (4th level) Hobgoblin chief you ever saw. (Even his body double was wearing a Screen Actor's Guild "muscle suit" to play this role.

So the party decided to rush the guard, close the door and overwhelm the rest with Kobolds and Teenagers.

This eventually worked, losing only six Kobolds in the process. (They had lost the first nine fighting the skeletons. Sorry I forgot to mention that.)

Next item on the agenda was to survey and search the room they were now in, which was a 25 by 45 foot room an empty throne on the East end, a door in the South, 4 dead Hobgoblins each with 10 gold pieces, one big Hobgoblin with no treasure, and a secret door in the Southwest corner.

[Room 8]

Finding no traps on the secret door, Needles took the lead into a 15 by 15 foot room, only to be surprised by a Gelatinous Cube and got paralyzed. The Teenagers came in and destroyed it well in advance of Needles getting digested. Amid the remaining globs of viscous goo they found a magical warhammer, which the party prevented Grog from destroying, and a a box of 7 scrolls which DeBoDe identified and quickly pocketed.

[Room 7]

Lastly they were on the backside of another secret door on the other side of this room. (Since it was the backside, I decided to not make it a secret.) With another peek, the party espied two Ogres sitting at a table playing cards.

Given the time spent fighting the last two rooms I decided to call the game. Even though I "could" have, the next fight may have pushed it late into the night.

I decided to attach the party's map, if this forum can't take attachments, sorry. (It is posted on other forums.)

++++ CHARACTER SUMMARY ++++

- A Barbarian named Grog.
- A Magic User Sole Practitioner (Detective Class) named De-Bo-De
- "Fred" the talking indestructible wooden fish amulet found in session one and taken possession by De-Bo-De.
- A Thief named Needles (who has a fear of needles)
- A Cleric named Torquemada, a Cleric who bought the Inquisitor package with his build points.
- Eleven "teenagers", who are apparently some sort of Sprite kin encountered two episodes back who want in on the "action".
- Rescued wimmenfolk from the village. One per each defeated member of the Hobgoblin tribe.

Face to face roleplaying (that is the best option) will have to take a break for a while. On line or play by post gaming is the only option, right now... it will be OK!

How are you doing?

After quarantine is over I think I'm going to discontinue the campaign. Or if I continue at all, it will be intermittent.

I inherited 300 board war-games and have 400 more never played. I'm 64 and have only so much time to play them all. Thanks to the advent of scanners, at least I don't have to ruin their market value by punching out the counters. I can make duplicate counters.

I also got involved with the MoD, and DoD types who actually get paid for war-gaming. I may be looking at that as a post-retirement part-time consultant.

Well... best of luck anyway it progresses!

Remember Divine Right?

There was a big argument on the DivineRightGame yahoo group last night.

For the latest edition not yet published, all the workers on the design team quit.

Because Glenn Rahman signed up with a certain publisher.

I actually remember Divine Right: it was a boardgame / wargame published.... I think still in the Eighties, right?
I've briefly seen other people playing with it at a local gamers club, but I didn't, at the time. I was more interested in other games, then.

Why do you ask? Is that going to be your post-retirement activity?

Seems the author (who is still alive) signed up with a publisher.

The design team quit because the publisher the author signed up with is a self-spoken neo-nazi. The design team are no longer willing to work with him.

This is just what I read on their forum. One of those forums that is dead for months until something like this comes up. Over 100 messages yesterday.

Sigh, it was a good game too. The forum folks are not sure the original author simply doesn't know (he's is old now), doesn't care, or agrees with the politics.