Working Steadily, it is still all uphill.

The only thing I dislike about pushing rocks up hill is that a few always roll right back down the hill. The positive part is that most of the rocks stay on top of the hill. I like to remember the positives.

Sue and I made progress on our internal organization and our ambitious plans for the future. Prioritizing tasks is not straight forward. It has to be balanced between the tasks with immediate results, those with long term value and those that are risky/uncertain.

We are going to arrange for two week periods of seclusion about four times a year so we can consider what has happened, is happening and will happen. It also gives us a chance to enjoy each other. What can I say, I really like my "Sue" time. I think t is the single most important thing in my life.

Here at the Clanhold our kitchen water pipes have finally burst. They have been freezing off and on for 20 years. It was just a matter of time. Right now I am running pans of water downstairs to do cooking etc. We are going to reconsider the kitchen carefully. The pipes go through an unheated, unprotected area currently. We would have to move the sinks to change that, but it is not a simple decision, so we will not be rushed into a bad choice.

And what did the Oracle say?

And what did the Oracle say to us?

"What you seek is beneath the hairy balls of the Blue Frog."

Damn! We found the frakkin blue frog. It was a great stone statue some ten feet tall.

There it was, wearing the strangest Haberdashery you ever did see, but what would one expect?

Well, I pulled on my great Uncles beard and thought about this.

Finally I strode right up to that frog and said "What, in the name of your ancestors, is under your hairy balls?"

One stone eye opened and looked at me. It worked it's mouth until it could speak: "It is the secret entry to the necro's tower, now go away you little twit."

Lovely Day, Just a dusting of Snow and all is a dirty white.

I went out this morning with Mocha and we pretended we were shoveling snow, but with an accumulation of an 1/8th of an inch it was just to do it.

North of here they got real snow. South, snow. East and West, snow. Even the snow stays away from Flint. It is, however, cold, so we did not miss everything. I guess it is time to put away the swim suits.

I am working on Blind Fighting rules for Crypt Crawl. They should also be useable in DS, although I will leave that for others to test. The players were just plain thrilled to be experimenting on these rules. OK, Little Harry was not so thrilled. He awoke in the Vat after his death. Luckily the other characters did grab his body with stuff on it as they ran from the scene. That means he keeps his stuff and they have a body to put in his second grave. The ceremonies were wonderful. Even Little Harry, there for his own burial, had a tear in his eye.

OK, shipping to do.

Monday Morning The Vat was just fine. Reloaded.

We had a good Thanksgiving. Both of our families were dealt with without any violence. My family can be particularly difficult, but they were good.

With the ongoing changes in search engine tech it is time for me to begin recoding our websites with CSS and html 5 compatability. For years I have just been wedging stuff into the sites wherever I can make it go. The web maintenance end of this operation is really nearly a full time job in itself. I am going to start with the Art by SVC site. I am focusing on getting templates in place so I can build the site faster and be able to add to it with more ease. I also want to make our Google Ads, Stevia, Apple and PetSmart ads fit in better. We make very little from them but it does pay our webserver fees in the fall. Every little bit helps.

Sunday Morning

Saturday at MWFF went good for Sue. She sounded both cheerful and tired last night. She is spending nights doing commissions and tagging on a couple of hours sleep, then back to the dealers room. I am hoping she can drive home tonight at the end of the Con. I want to see her.

I am continuing to build the resources for scenario and town building for the Go Time/Crypt Crawl system. I keep getting ideas as I work, so I have started on an article of when a GM really should and should not call for a contest roll. I know most of our GM's have this knowledge already, but some are confused by the question.

I am working on a new Con List page for next year. I will be adding it soon.

Mocha has just come up to let me know I need a walk...

Good Morning! and a few other thoughts.

I heard from Sue late last night and she is happy with the responses of patrons at Midwest Furfest. It is going very well.

For myself I am finally beginning to enjoy this "lonely" time. It takes me a couple of days to adjust. I have done a lot of reading the last couple of days and it has brought me to think about writing a couple of articles.

One is on the handling of "clues" when running RPG games. I would argue that clues come in two flavors: necessary and luxury. Some clues are essential to the success of the party. These clues need to be delivered by the GM. That means that the characters must get the necessary clues by using their skills, no matter what the dice say. They need to be able to read the sign, or find the notes, or solve the puzzle. The luxury clues can be missed, they are not essential, just nice to have.

I think that I need a way in the adventures I am working on to let the GM know which clues are necessary. I think that having a "Clue" section on the encounter form would give a place to point out the clues. I have just skipped over to my format for encounters and rooms and done some work on it. The sections of a Crypt Crawl/Go Time encounter sheet now look like this:

1. Quick Looks: (Things the players see without a contest.)

2. Hidden Sights: (Things the players note with a contest.)

3. The Story Here: (To help the GM role-play the encounter.)

4. Clues: (Information necessary for the players to acquire.)

5. Traps: (Natural dangers and set dangers that can hurt the characters.)

6. The Opposition: (The opposition is to be overcome by combat or role-playing.)

7. The Friendlies: (The potential friendlies involved.)

8. Obvious Treasure: (Right out in the open, no roll needed.)

9. Found Treasure: (Hidden treasures, roll needed to find.)

10. Special Treasures: (Treasures that have a special significance, such as Relics. Easy to find.)

Everything takes more time to do than one expects. Writing, in particular, may go easily or it may fight back. Sometimes I spend hours on a short work and other times it seems to flow. I am never sure when to "give up" and move on, returning to the pieces I am stuck on later.

Sunday, not a day of rest.

Sue has just left for her mothers. Her mother called and is stuck in bed. It is the back problem. Looks like her mother has a herniated disk. They are trying to decide what to do about it.


I have reset my phone until feb. My Virgin Mobile phone may be rather a poor tool, but it is on pay-as-you-go so it costs me $100.00 a year. I just don't use the phone much. My computer has mostly replaced a hand held phone for me. A Smartphone would get more use, but not as a phone. A good smartphone would take some pressure off of my computer, but the contract price is a problem. Maybe the answer is something like an ipod touch. I can see that Sue's phone is an asset in work and seeing empirical evidence of the business value is better than reading an opinion. I have a problem with the reviews on the iphone/touch. Most reviewers seem to be either apple haters who do not use the iphone, or apple lovers who can not see the flaws. The difficulty is sorting them out. Leo Laporte is an interesting one. He like the iphone, but wants better. He buys every iphone killer. Takes two days to learn it. Spends a week singing the new phones greatness, then returns to the iphone due to the new phones problems.


Looks like it will be a fractured day for me. Sue is being forced to "bounce" around today and it is goining to be a pain in the butt for her. I will need to run back-up for her. She has another painting to finish before Midwest Furfest. I am going to have to stick to simple work. I will not be able to become too engrossed in any project.


I just got the Shards of Honor Audiobook by Lois McMaster Bujold. The narrator is Grover Gardner. Just starting to listen to it. Since I will be bouncing to help Sue, I will have to listen to it a couple of times to actually "hear" it all. I find that it takes me several times listening to get most of a book. Even books I have heard a dozen times (Like the Rex Stout books) still have some surprises in them.


I have a good pile of work in front of me. I finally got out and acquired laundry soap. Dishes are calling. I also got new vaccum bags, so that job is up. I had new DS cards at PentaCon that are still not up on the web. The Crypt Crawl Village and adventures are still calling me. Sue needs inventory/printing done for Con. Etsy needs maintenence. Leaves need to be in the street for city pick-up. The subjects for podcasts keep swimming through my mind, I just do not know how to make the time for them.


I have started a journal/diary in the Yojimbo to try to watch my eating and health.


With just three cups of coffee in me, I think I need to attack the kitchen, make coffee and do dishes. I will see at the end of the day how much I can get done.

New Wolf art is on the way.

Sue has just turned over a new wolf painting she has completed to me for scanning and prep for printing. I am liking what I see here. Scanning and assembling large paintings is something that I set aside a good deal of time for. If everything goes well the job is done in an hour, but if it turns weird on me it can take several hours and be a whole day job. I just never know. This one will start as four scans.

Yesterday was one of those days. A bunch of trifling "stuff" kept coming up and I let it get under my skin. I always waste a lot of time once I become agitated. I need to learn better self control. Oh well, too busy learning other new tricks.

I did get a new Crypt Crawl RPG item sheet completed. This one has several items that are used with the animals I have been putting up on the blog. Now that I have all of the pieces ready I can go through and do the Beastmaster cards. (Thought pops into head. Excuse me, but I need bandages on the next sheet.) OK, back, bandages they will be on item sheet 2015.

I have found that once I have 12 or more programs running, on 8 different desktops, my portable starts to slow down visibly. I suppose the two screens and two printers do not help any. I usually end up adding programs as I work, like working on this and skipping to bandages. Right now I am at 14 programs running. I am wondering if I can set up an old machine with skype/canary/chat. I will need to look into that.

I have started slow cooking some chicken. Sue will make chicken soup tomorrow. Then we can have chicken meals sunday and monday.

Enough of this, on to other work.

The morning routine.

It is a good thing that I have a lot of coffee as I wake up. Since I am never sure what to post, I am going to do my morning routine. This is partially for you readers and partially to help me remember what I am supposed to do.



start e-mail, respond or act as necessary. (I immediately post card ideas for the DS blog from our e-mail links on the card submissions page, etc.).

Start Skype, check for messages, check open conversations for new comments. (My skype is markeharmon if you want to contact me that way.)

Open ichat for our internal communications and aim contacts (AIM is markharmon@mac.com).

start Netnewswire. This checks for blog updates. several game blogs, DS people I know who have revealed they have a blog. I also pick up the science channels and blog news. Sometimes I get bogged down here. (Did you know that some frogs can cross species breed? Neither did I. A little Dragon's Blood in them maybe?)

start ical calendar to see what is on the menu for today.

Start Canary, my simple Twitter app. Check local flint news. (My Twitter is markellisharmon)

start itunes a set it to pick up new podcasts.

start Awaken and set daily alarms.

Fire up Yojimbo, good program for holding snippets etc.

Check for on-line orders, print and pull them.

Log into Etsy to update and check for patron conversations. Did a renewal too.



During this process I get Sue here coffee, make breakfast, get herbs in us.

(Herbs are a side effect of being uninsured. As self employed our last estimate for a decent plan was $14,400.00 per year. It has not gone down.)

Do a few minutes of work out. Making time for this is difficult, I skip it way too often.

Walk Mocha. She needs a short trip outside in the morning. Check her food, water and emergency pee pads. (She uses the pads occasionally if we don't respond properly. It is all our fault, of course.) Then I take a few minutes and explain to Mocha everything she needs to get done during the day. While she may not be very efficient with her assignments, she provides a great excuse for why "stuff" did not get done.



Finally I open MarsEdit and write a pithy blog post on one, or more, blogs, which is what I am doing now. And, I am doing it now to avoid doing the dishes *sigh* I doubt that is going to work, I can not make excuses forever. Besides, Sue likes to cook in a clean kitchen. I clean it and she cooks in it. Good deal really. Ahhh, I need more coffee, that will buy me a couple more minutes.

Pulled orders, need to pack them. Sipping coffee. A moment to relax.

It has now been four hours since starting today. Dishes are still staring at me. I see that the garbage needs dealing with and that I am out of vacuum bags.



For the rest of my day I have a shopping trip to do and I want to spend a good amount of time working on the Whispering Village for Crypt Crawl. I still have a lot of web updates for DS, so I will "break" by doing some of that. Now I will post this and get to work. Time for a second work out stint.

Sunday Morning at PentaCon

Here we are, Sunday morning and I am considering the effects of keeping the same body for all of these years. *sigh* I think the new one is still on backorder.

The responses to Crypt Crawl have been good, so I need to complete the next several pieces of the game. Converting our experiences, notes, cards, memos and audio into a useable form is taking a good amount of time. The strange part of this is that I am enjoying working on a new game and world. I want to start by completing the Crypt Crawl Animal types so I can do the Beastmaster Expertise. Mounts, rodents, crocodiles, fish, snakes, birds, spiders, squids, sharks, insect, scorpions, crabs and ants should do just fine. The monstrous forms of these would be in the Horrors or Spawn listings.

I also need to formalize our Terrible Two charts. We are using a 1 to six by 1-6 format, giving 36 equal possibilities for each chart. We are working on a general chart and optional charts for attacking, defending, skill use and initiative Terrible Twos.

OK, my mind is swimming just a little too much. Need to eat breakfast and pack.

Friday at Pentacon, A day at the Convention

We arrived at PentaCon at about 1PM. Gaming had started at 9AM so there was a good number of people at the Con when we arrived. People were friendly and it was good to see familiar faces. Sometimes when working in solitaire in the hidden Clanhold makes me forget why I do all this work. Seeing our people makes me remember. Our patrons were good to us today, much cash was collected.

The air in the convention center is not having much of a negative effect on me, so I will be running Crypt Crawl at 2-5pm and 7:30 to 10:30. I plan on running for about an hour and a quarter, take a break and do another hour and a quarter on the session. It will run up the characters to, probably third circle.

Several people here at the con have already played in the Crypt. As usual I will forget most of the comments from people at the show. I am hoping they will follow up with e-mails from the Crypt site about there experiences in the Crypt.

The card sets are going well, but people are still having trouble adapting to them. Several times people have picked up 3-4 Deluxe Wizard or Valarian cards. I have had to point out it would be a better deal for them if they got the standard sets instead.

Right now it is 5 AM, I awoke and now I think I will go get some sleep.

Wake up procedure engaged

Morning stream of thought: Heat shoulder, stiff this morning, make coffee, walk dog, get coffee to Sue, check weight (yay! finally dropping!), check e-mail (looks like a junk this morning.),

check blogs (Yes, I have an RSS reader, and I check the DS peoples blogs and ours, Hi Pixiejorge, and others! I see you! I just don't respond much, but I am interested.). OK, need more coffee, NOW! Vibrator for shoulder, still stiff, got to be careful with it - card cutting rough on joints.

Sip coffee, second mug black. Good quality coffee. I am cutting down on my cream in coffee.

Considering todays work. Not going to be able to cut many cards, so no sense in printing a lot. Packing for Con, Sue wants some prints, maybe I can get to some of the web work I have missed. Need a DS blog update. I got another Crypt Crawl monster up last night. I am writing them up a little more complete based on what people want in the Monster Parade.

I would love to work on CC dungeon and village, but I am going to bet against that. I need pages for all of the new cards. I think that is 12 write-ups. Since we are doing the Wizard Set I should get something up on the 20 wizard cards. That would be 32 pages of writing... I don't think so.

Time to shut down this station and move to the primary work station.

I am never sure what to do in a blog, but here it is.

The Shoulder says it is time to call it a day.

Printing, laminating, typing, cutting and cornering has proceeded through out the day. The arthritis in my right shoulder has begun firing shooting pains as it moves. I am thinking that that is the end of the work day. I could go further, but tomorrow would then be a true pain.

I do have the new releases from October printed. Plus we have new sets 5, 9, and 10. We also have three new Spirit Walker cards.

Not as much new as I would like for DS, but there you go.

What we will also have is a couple of Crypt Crawl rules books, 40 demo characters, some character sheets and a chance to see what people think. I will also have all the pdf's on a CD for people to load them to there computers.

Well, see you in the morning.

Today's schedule is, well, goofed up

I am getting a good start here, but I am, as always, behind. I will have new DS cards and sets at PentaCon, but the restock is not going to happen. I'm afraid that the time to put up the Crypt Crawl beta has already worn me down, so I am not going to push. Life is too much fun to bury my head in work and miss what rally counts.

Had a fun game last night. Yeah, that is right, I played several hours of Crypt and did not work. Experimenting with some politics along with the normal smashing and bashing. The group found a Horror trapping a farm family. They, of course, stepped in and saved them. The family was in general poor condition. They talked and found out these people were tenent farmers on the local lords land. They get "survival" level food and goods, and that is all. Two of the players befriended and healed the farmers. Then one of the characters hired the farmers to look for herb ingrediants, paying in gold. They made friends, the word will spread.

Today I have to go shopping for PentaCon food, cut and corner cards, put prices on the card sets and stare at the wall and think. I have a long piece I am working on for the Crypt Blog, (What is Table Top Role Playing?) but it is taking time, not a simple question. I think I will work on starting animals for the crypt and put that up on the blog. I also need to do the web for the new deluxe cards and the Rogue card set.

OK, time to take this machine out of the bedroom, stop staring at the pretty Sue and get to my work station.

Working and thinking, what a time.

I have spent my morning shopping, laminating, shipping orders, and catching up on e-mails.

In the background here I have a piece playing about the coming Google Wave and wondering how this could be used to run a game.

This thought has been in my mind since I read that there is a whole community of gamers that play on the internet using different communication methods involving chats and sms. I don't know how that works, yet. I would like to know more. It seems like their are a lot of game groups out there that play different and I wonder if there is something available that I should be adding.

Well, back to work.

Monday Morning, not the song I want to hear.

OK, it is Monday Morning a way too early. Having gotten the Crypt Crawl Beta up I would really like to bury my tired head in a pillow for a few more hours and then get caught up on housework. Maybe listen to an audio book, maybe watch a couple of Babylon 5 episodes. I see that there is a Battle Star Movie - The Plan available. I wonder if it is any good. I liked the show, but I am not sure.

Anyway, I need to get DS cards/web done. Sue has sent me some artwork for cards I have not even looked at. I wonder what cards we will have by Friday? It will be interesting to see. Based on web orders the Universal Blood Surge is going to be very popular.

I am only going to make a few Deluxe Cards of the new cards in the sets. We will do them, but I really expect people to want the sets.

I think I will start with a web search and write up what I need to put up for pages. At least it will get me a handle on what I need to do for the web. Then a check of the art Sue has done that I need to make into cards. While I am doing the second I can begin printing cards that are ready.

November 1st, Crypt Crawl goes up!

The Beta is public! You can find the downloads for the new RPG right here!

I had hoped to get more GM material done before today, but that just did not work out today. I have roughs of what I have, but they are not ready to put up.

The next couple of days will be focused on the new DS items and printing, so Crypt Crawl work time will become much shorter.

Friday, and what a start it is.

I got up, started the chicken slow cooking, took care of the dog, got Sue her morning coffee, emptied the water barrel and started to assemble my morning work set-up. Then *bang* pain in the back/shoulder. Stopped me cold. After half an hour on the vibration seat, it is moving again. On the up side, Sue has started making Sausage and eggs for breakfast, yum.

I did not get as much done on Crypt Crawl as I wanted. After the last couple of days my mind bogged down. I got pics of the dog, the new DS cards and started the mechanical work on getting the new DS card pages on the web.

Sooo, today, Crypt Crawl Monsters. I have a layout for the stats that will allow me to do cut and paste for the mundane enemies in encounters and adventures. I am probably going to be behind on the first adventure and the first village for the Beta release. I will get the monsters done today. Think the adventure and village will take about a day each to finish, and I'm not working Halloween. I am just not sure which to get up and finish Sunday. Maybe I can get both, but do not put any money on it.

Well now, looks like another day ahead

No matter what a day is about to bring, I am always glad to be seeing it.

Sitting here in the morning, cat watching the birds, dreaming of dinner. Sue to my left, her computer working for her. Rex Stout playing in the background. Coffee and smokes to my right. My weight slowly dropping. Yes, bring on the day. The morning is top notch.

Had an organic buffalo roast yesterday. Sue made up some gravy, used a bed of bread and butter. Unbelievably good.

Last night we finished up 25 Crypt Crawl pages of history, background, religion and monster making. I just need to hear back that the files work for my reliable testers.

Today I edit the monster codification and information. After that comes the specific monsters and a good useable layout for the stats. While I'm doing that I can work on putting together the first Crypt Crawl for the beta GM's.

Looking good for the launch, but it sure does use a lot of time.

OK, time to get Sue and I more coffee and a ginger swirlee.

Long days followed by short nights.

That is what life is this week. Long work days with short respites for sleep. Boy am I going to fall down once we get past the Crypt Crawl Beta release and PentaCon.

Right now I am polishing up all the pages for the "Make Your Own Monster" section of the rules. The idea is to create worksheets and guidelines for GM's to be able to bring in their favorite Demons, races etc. into their games. Crypt Crawl is designed to be open and let the GM's see how it works. Starting with this as a concept has allowed us to design the system to be open, and it will be easier to make your own adventures.

I have the first adventure roughed out and now I just need to edit it and get it into PDF form for play. I am keeping my fingers crossed that I will get this finished today, we will see.

Assembly of Susan's Religious Pantheon should also occur as soon as possible. She is upstairs editing the pieces of the world background as I type this.

I should be creating pages for the new DS Rogue cards, but that will have to wait until we get this Beta out there.

We had a great game last night. The new Demon gave the characters fits trying to chase it down. By the time they ran him out of Power who had trapped whom became a reasonable question.