Well the MCAT is in the bag and I am ready to rise from the ashes of my rpg semi-sabbatical like a nerd phoenix. Hopefully I hit my targets and need not revisit the test but we’ll see. Whatever happens I feel a great sense of accomplishment in just “rolling the dice” and whatever happens happens, que sera sera and all. There was a young cat at the testing centre that I had taken the MCAT prep course with and we sort of sweated it out together. He was a little tense and I told him that there were greater disappointments to be had in this world than not getting into medical school. Life, death, love, family these are the big deals I said.
I know it is easy for me to say since I already have a doctorate and a career but it’s the truth none the less. I have seen a lot of people over the years that have “made it” so to speak and still weren’t happy and kind of hated what they were doing, me included. I came to realize how important having passion for what you do is. I understand that not everyone can chase their dreams or flights of fancy as sometimes you gotta put food on the table, but to those people I would encourage them to find something they are passionate about and do it balls deep. Freud wrote that the love and work are the two pillars of mental health; I would add hobbies as a third.
I recently read Kevin Smiths latest book “tough Shit: Life advice from a fat, lazy slob who did good” and I had to chuckle at the thematic similarities between our lives as he reflects on being a filmmaker and his decision to transition out of it and chase passion again. I have become a big fan of his over the years and I encourage anyone to check out not only his movies but his books, Q&A’s, and Podcasting Empire.
In the meantime the gaming world is my oyster so to speak and I am ready to jack things up or off or whatever. Although I have to admit with such limitless options I am a little paralyzed with indecision. I think I am going to start up an online game again but what game/system or what setting? Should it be more 4E or pathfinder or Castle and Crusades or Star Wars or a supers game, see I just don’t know. Part of me is thinking about a game in Dark Sun as I just started reading Rob Schwalb’s new novel in that setting.
I am going to jack things back up in my home game as well. Just this evening I finished detailing some NPC’s and potential plot hooks in the wake of the last adventure arc. I also had this idea to sort of spice things up not only for the players benefit but for mine as well since we have been going at it with the same cast for the better part of 2 years. The players have some henchmen mostly consisting of gladiators they freed from slavery. So for a change of pace I am going to roll up some of these cats and have them play through side adventures as their henchmen doing stuff that the pc’s are far too important to waste time doing. This will give my players a chance to try different classes out. I was even toying with the idea of playing the henchmen with the Castles and Crusades rule set and running them through some of the classic 1st edition adventures like Hommlet or the slavers series. Alternatively I might put them through the 4th edition Village of Hommlet and have the henchmen uncover the rise of the cult of elemental evil which then the players main characters might need to go and curb stomp out.
So decisions, decisions, decisions…any thoughts?
Sounds like you’re fired up! Take a look at the blog post below (it’s someone else’s, I’m not plugging myself) and tell me that dragon doesn’t sound scary as hell! That is Dungeon World in a nutshell. I’m currently running an online game of Dungeon World (set in 2e Planescape as a backdrop) and it’s a great system for running games online – deceptively simple while producing very complex and interesting results. The DM even gets to play to find out what happens which is very refreshing! Happy to invite you to lurk or play in one of my sessions on Skype to see if it’s for you.
The link would help I wager! http://www.latorra.org/
looks pretty cool. is that your blog?
No, I’m just a fan. My group and I are really enjoying the game.