Posted by Viriatha

Monday, I was able to make my planned encounter with the local mental health NPCs. Prior to the encounter, I had a snafu involving getting a ride to the location when a friend NPC failed her check to remember to set her alarm but with a bit of perspective, it doesn’t seem like a big deal as I succeeded at my roll to contact another resource.

The mental health skill challenge involved several rolls for composure as I endured screening, testing, labwork and diagnosis. Very little of it surprised me and I was hyper-sensitive to my environment so I made all my awareness rolls easily but failed a cool check or two. I did succeed at a persuasion check when the subject of hospital admittance was introduced and walked out of the building under my own control.

Loot included several pamphlets, a great deal of paperwork and 2 prescription medications including one to aid sleeping.

Several more planned encounters were arranged, involving labwork, more testing and daily therapy after the testing is completed.

Tuesday, I spent the day adjusting to the medication. I noticed 2 side effects almost immediately. First, most worrying, was that my right hand was slightly swollen. It felt very odd. The second, almost a benefit given my hyper state of the last few weeks, was severe grogginess. My brain felt stuffed with cotton, no matter how much caffeine I took in.

My daughter visited for a few hours in the morning and I rolled to notice that when in company, the grogginess wasn’t so noticeable, returning full force when alone which resulted failing a check to respond to my alarm later that afternoon and oversleeping by several hours.

I stumbled over a bit of loot that evening and acquired a game called Torchlight. If you’ve ever enjoyed Diablo 2, try this – it is most excellent. Expect penalties to checks when attempting to remember other plans, however. I missed the 2nd episode of V

Due to failing my roll for the alarm clock earlier that day, I was at penalties when attempting to sleep at a decent hour and was awake far longer than I needed to be. This did give me some time to go over some things in my head, though, and I made my int check to realize just how bad my self-esteem is right now. I feel like a complete and total failure to the point where my goal for Wednesday became “clean the clutter from a table” and nothing else.

Today, I notice I still have penalties to awareness and energy checks and have spent a great deal of time accomplishing very little. I’m just trying to succeed at checks for self-esteem and not start that downward spiral into depression.

I’m dreading art class this evening. I’ve done very little the last few weeks and have failed several times when rolling for motivation.

One day at a time. Just get through today and don’t stress over the weekend or anything else. Try to accomlish SOMETHING and feel good about it and don’t worry that I should have done more.

I’ve been advised that being in “go” mode 7 days a week since the end of July is probably a bad thing, and that I’m entitled to some down time. The problem? I’m still in survival mode and I ain’t got time to bleed, physically, mentally, or emotionally. Once I’ve got my feet under me — currently defined as having my own place and the ability to feed myself, as opposed to having to mooch crash space and meals from friends — I’ll take some time off.

I do want to thank everyone who continues to believe in me, especially when my faith in myself waivers. While I know that I come across as arrogant sometimes, I kind of have to. For a starting position of the clothes on my back, the change in my pocket, everything I own fitting into a compact car, poor health and bad debt, I have big, hairy audacious goals and a very specific deadline in which I plan to achieve them. Even I think I’ve got a lot of balls presuming I can pull it off.

Depression has been hitting me hard, though, and has really slowed me down for the past week or so. But being a workaholic helps. It gives me things to do. It sticks me with responsibilities and obligations that have to be me. And because of the kind of person I am, I won’t allow my personal situation to serve as an excuse for not meeting them.

Keep fighting,

Berin

Posted by Viriatha

Warning: This post isn’t sarcastic or caustic although I did make a bad attempt at humor. It does deal with a very serious subject the only way I know how, by using gaming terms.

A week ago Sunday, I failed a persuasion and fast talk roll resulting in almost breaking up with my significant other of 6 years. Or he made his mental save against me. One of the two.

Last week on Monday, we both succeeded at various interrogation, oratory, human perception and persuasion checks during a 2-hour encounter that ended the negotiations on a positive note.

Tuesday, the Great GM in the Sky decided life wasn’t interesting enough and tossed us a random encounter in the form of the recurring boss’s mother (boss = owner of business) NPC. She failed her composure check and ended up screaming at said significant other for 15 minutes, threatening his job. He failed his check to contact the other 2 recurring NPCs involved in said job and we both spent an extremely tense 12 hours wondering if he still HAD a job.

Wednesday, I failed a mental save and broke down. Although said SO still had the job, the situation was still tense and uncertain. However, further recurring NPCs in the form of long time friends took us out to dinner. A random encounter there resulted in the waitress NPC losing her tip although I failed my persuasion roll vs the manager NPC when attempting to cadge free food for the future due to the snippy behavior of the waitress.

Thursday, I went with the SO to a planned encounter involving the painting of WH40k miniatures but failed a mental save and started drinking. Moonshine. Mmmmmmmm. Said SO failed a perception check and let me keep drinking. We both failed mental saves later that night and ended up in a screaming match. He succeeded at a later save and calmed us both down. Further perception and oratory checks were successful and while the night didn’t end entirely positive, no one was rolling initiative either.

Friday, I worked hard during the day to set things up for a planned encounter called the Charles Wagner Memorial Massacre with a Cyberpunk 2020 killfest to send off a good friend in style. I failed my decorating and organization check but made my mental check when faced with criticism from the SO on the state of the house when he arrived home from work.

Later, I failed a mental check when faced with criticism of the game (combat was stale, I could have done better) and started drinking. Again. A recurring friend NPC was drinking with me and several oratory checks went well. Again, the night didn’t end entirely positive but for all the stress of the week, it could have been far worse.

Enter Saturday.

The SO has a planned encounter with several friends playing Warhammer 40K and I express my interest in being involved. We have a long discussion on the state of the relationship during which I succeed at several mental checks due to feeling pressured by time constraints (originally, there weren’t supposed to be any) but we both fail some minro checks for keeping calm.

It comes out that a bunch of people in our social circle have been complaining about my personality behind my back, apparently for months. Then the bomb drops that I’m not welcome at the game due to the number of people already invited. I failed another mental check and break the alcohol out for the 3rd day in row.

I realize that the SO left something behind and arrange for an equipment drop. While delivering the goods (cookies and chips), I find out there are not the 9 or 10 people expected but 5. I am not allowed to play because the host doesn’t welcome me, period. I’m told that things are being arranged to fix the situation, which gives me enough of a mental check bonus to not freak out and roll initiative on the spot. I go home.

Once home, I begin hitting contacts. None are home. I start failing mental checks in succession. Said failures give me further penalties to future checks. I keep trying to reach said contact NPCs but they are either not home or busy. On the bedroom closet is a large gun. This gun would do enough dice of damage that I wouldn’t have to worry about failing a headshot. I keep trying to reach contacts. I keep failing.

At last, the encounter reaches a crisis point and I roll initiative again myself. I have the gun in my lap and the 7.62mm round in one hand. I make the critical check and call 1-800-SUICIDE.

I’m not going to continue detailing the rest of the night except to say, obviously, I’m still here to write this and I have a planned encounter first thing in the morning with an NPC psychologist and that another NPC came and removed the firearm from our home. I spent most of the day on what amounts to a suicide watch and made it through. No alcohol was involved in the entire day although the situations sometimes requires a mental save to resist the addiction.

They say, just focus on one day at a time but right now, for me, it’s one hour at a time and every hour I’m still breathing is one more I might not have had Saturday. In the meantime, if anyone knows any good feats or powers that strengthen mental stats, I’m interested. I have some experience to spend.

Today I’ve been feeling a little queasy, but I’ve been chalking it up to sleep deprivation. When I don’t get enough sleep, especially for a few days in a row, tend to have digestive issues.

Then I started throwing up, and started going over everything I’ve eaten in the past 24 hours that could be setting me off. Every place was safe and reputable, although that last slice of pizza I had at Scott’s last night had been sitting out for a while. Could it have been?

No. Suddenly I remembered. After the game, I took the long way ’round from Scott’s to look at some apartment complexes in the area. As I was pretty tired, I swung by a McDonald’s to get a small coffee. I’m not wild about McDonald’s coffee, and I’m less wild about them putting the cream and sugar in for me (always too much of one and not enough of the other). The coffee was too milky, but I drank it anyway because I’m a caffeine addict. I’m thinking it was the creamer in the coffee that had gone bad.

But that’s not the punchline. The McDonald’s I stopped at is famous. Or infamous. I stopped for coffee at the very same McDonald’s where Stella Liebeck burned her crotch.

“When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.” –Billy Graham

Sitting in a coffee shop, there are about a dozen “seniors” kibbutzing about this and that. I come in on a conversation about Obama and entitlement programs. Socialized medicine is evil, people are just gimme gimme gimme, today’s taxes don’t cover the cost so the people taking money from the government now are just putting the financial burder on other people in the future. With absolutely no sense of irony, the conversation then shifts to them bitching about their Social Security and Medicare, their last increase was only X and should have been more, it doesn’t cover this and that, they had to pay for all this stuff out of pocket because the stingy government doesn’t want to pony up and give them their due.

The topic drifts to the economy, and how their property taxes have gone up, and how so-and-so’s son got laid off and is having trouble finding work, and it’s sooo terrible, it’s sooo awful. Then a homeless guy walks by outside, and one guy cracks that that’s the reason you always get a shopping cart with a stuck, wobbly wheel at the grocery store, the bums (his word) steal all the good ones. Har har har, everybody laughs. I want to yell hey, jackass, that’s so-and-so’s son out there! But I don’t. Because some people will never get it, no matter how much two-fisted enlightenment you bestow upon them.

I’ve won twice, and that’s enough. I know all of the tricks on how to make word count in 30 days, bust writer’s block, and all of the other things NaNoWriMo is good for. Instead, during the month of November I will be employing the writing/motivational technique called “Big Daddy need to sell some writing so he can make rent”. Which, oddly enough, is the same contest I entered in October and will be playing again in December. And yes, I just referred to myself as ‘Big Daddy’. Shut up.

The climate in New Mexico doesn’t agree with me. At least, it doesn’t agree with my arthritis. The chill and damp, coupled with the physical aspects of my job, has had me waking up in the middle of the night with hand and wrist pain. Naproxin sodium and some roll-on hot/cold stuff helps, and it’s nowhere near the level of pain I was having earlier in the year, but it’s annoying.

Too many of my favorite movies are putting the wrong message in my head. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind: Chuck Barris had passion, made crap, and reflects on how he’s wasted his life. Ed Wood: had passion, made crap, largely remembered for being a high-profile loser. Clerks 2: Why aren’t you doing anything with your life? We’re not even going to talk about The Wrestler.

In less than two weeks I’ll turn 46. I’m in the middle of a divorce. I’m bumming space to sleep and park my stuff, as well as food, from a friend. I’ve got a low-paying, part-time retail job to get me through while I continue looking for a “real” job. I’m writing as much as I can, as fast as I can, to further some long-term goals and make some extra income. It’s not a pretty picture. Failure isn’t an option, but this certainly doesn’t look like success, unless you count survival as success. Yet I continue to fight, because that’s all I have left. Depression isn’t an option, so I snarl and growl and snap and bite and yes, I have fueled myself on anger and bitterness at times because in lean times you use what you have. I maintain my vision that I come out of this on top, if I can just hold on. It is getting better, by inches.  But again, I have to say, this is damned hard.

News

UncleBear is hosting the RPG Blog Carnival for November. The topic is “Community: in-game and in real life”. What does community mean to you, as a player, and what do you want from a community? How does the concept of community factor into your game setting?

Office Hours
Because I’ve got a lot on my plate at the moment, I’m now keeping online office hours from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mountain Time, Monday through Friday. That is the only time I will be checking email, RPMN, Twitter, and Facebook. It doesn’t sound like much, but that’s three hours a day, 15 hours per week checking messages, and that’s the limit I’m setting. If you’re trying to reach me, please be assured that I will do my best to get back to you within one business day.

Site Redesign
The current goal is to have UncleBear.com transitioned into a gateway for all of the activities below by the end of the year. Rather than having to remember or bookmark a variety of URLs, I want people to have one place where they can go to find out what’s going on with UncleBear (the company) and Berin Kinsman (the person).

UncleBear

http://UncleBear.com
http://twitter.com/unclebear
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Uncle-Bear/103866327040?ref=mf
kinsman at unclebear dot com

UncleBear is a company dedicated to producing content for and about tabletop roleplaying games. It operates the Role Play Media Network, FandoNM, a small press publishing effort, and offers consulting services to aspiring game designers.

Role Play Media Network
http://RolePlayMedia.net
The RPMN is a social network for anyone who creates content for and about tabletop roleplaying games, including bloggers, podcasters, writers, designers, and gamemasters, as well as their audiences. It offers free blogs, forums, groups, and chat.

FandoNM
http://FandoNM.ning.com
FandoNM (Fan Do, “Way of the Fan”) is an organization created to promote fan-related activies in the state of New Mexico. It is currently in its infancy and seeking officers and volunteers. While it is currently being operated as a private venture, the goal is to spin it off into a 501(c)3 non-profit organization once it finds its legs.

Publishing
In 2010 UncleBear will move into small press publishing, offering systemless game mastering, world building, and setting material. This material will be available via DriveThruRPG, RPGNow, Lulu, and other reputable vendors.

Game Consulting
UncleBear offers affordable consulting services to aspiring game designers. These services include proofreading, editing, ghost writing, and confidential private reviews. Previously offered directly by Berin Kinsman, in 2010 UncleBear will be adding additional consulting staff so that each game can be assisted by an experienced consultant who is the right “fit” for the game’s genre and style of play.

Berin Kinsman

In addition to operating UncleBear, Berin Kinsman works with other organizations to help promote roleplaying games as a creative and healthy hobby.

Phoenix RPG Examiner
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-7705-Phoenix-RPG-Examiner
While the focus of this Examiner.com column is on the Arizona gaming scene, the material is of general interest and includes game reviews, interviews, and the popular Twitter Follow Friday 5.

OneBookShelf Featured Reviewer
http://DriveThruRPG.com
http://RPGNow.com
Going into 2010, Berin will be a featured reviewer for the OneBookShelf family of online retail sites.

Southern Arizona Gamers Association
http://SouthernArizonaGamersAssociation.com
The Southern Arizona Gamers Association (SAGA) is a non-profit organization whose charter is to promote a culture of family gaming and to foster a closer relationship between the community at large in Southern Arizona and hobby games industry. We promote the social and developmental benefits of gaming. Many of SAGA members are published game authors, hobby games industry insiders, working professionals, distinguished military and accomplished students.

SAGA operates two monthly game days, Ides of Gaming and the Tucson RPG Guild meetup, as well as seminars and convention events, including RinCon. As a SAGA Marshal, Berin helps to promote SAGA and its events.

RinCon 10
http://RinConGames.com
At the close of RinCon ‘09, it was announced that Berin will be Communications Director for RinCon 10.

Podcasting
A former regular on the Pulp Gamer Out of Character podcast, Berin is currently preparing to launch a brand new tabletop roleplaying podcast in the near future.

Web Presence
http://BerinKinsman.com
http://direking.wordpress.com
http://twitter.com/berinkinsman
http://facebook.com/berinkinsman
http://www.flickr.com/photos/berin_kinsman/
berin dot kinsman at gmail dot com

BerinKinsman.com is currently a personal blog covering mostly non-roleplaying game topics. By the end of the year, that domain will redirect to UncleBear.com, and Berin’s “personal space” will completely transition to a hosted space.

To keep life manageable, Berin’s Facebook page and Twitter feed are restricted to friends only. You can send a request, but don’t be offended if it’s denied or you don’t get a response. If you don’t know Berin personally, in “real life”, the best way to contact him is via the UncleBear accounts.

So I walk into a coffee shop, one I haven’t been to before, because the library doesn’t open for another hour, it’s close by, and I need to feed my caffeine addiction. I get a cup of coffee, sit down, and pop open thebinder that serves as my day planner/filing cabinet. A moment later a guy comes in the door, starts to the counter, then turns sharply and walks right up to me.

“You’re in my seat,” he says.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re in my seat,” he says again. “I’m a regular here. I come here every day. That’s my seat.”

“Okay, well, it wasn’t marked as reserved or anything. I’ll be out of here in a few minutes, you can have it then.”

“No,” he says. “That. Is. My. Seat.” He’s looking pretty angry, and getting red in the face.

“Alright, I’m going to suggest three ways to handle this. First, you can piss off, because it’s a coffee shop and unless you’re the owner it’s not ‘your’ seat. Second, you can go and get the manager and see if he or she will enforce your squatter’s rights to this chair. Third, we can continue this discussion in the parking lot, because you look like you’re going to take swing at me and if I’m gonna have to kick your ass I’d prefer to do it where bystanders won’t get hit by your flying corpse.”

He took option two. The manager told him, in polite language, to reconnect with reality and piss up a rope.

I finished what I was doing and leave, as was my plan. Just needed to check my notes and kill time until the library opens. At the library, I stood outside next to  trash can, backpack on my shoulder, sipping the dregs of my coffee before I go in. Waste not, want not, and as I said, I’m an addict. I’d finish it even if it were stone cold and bitter and it was getting close to that point.

As I’m standing there, a woman crosses the parking lot toward the entrance, but stops next to me. “You can’t take that coffee inside the library.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s why I’m standing out here to finish it before I go in.”

“There’s no food or drink allowed inside the library,” she says.

Blink. “Am I in the library right now?” I ask, possibly with a hint of annoyed sarcasm.

“No, but just so you know, you can’t take that inside,” she says.

“Look, lady, I don’t know if you’re an overzealous librarian or just an upright citizen with too much time on her hands, but I’m not IN the goddamn library, I’m standing OUTSIDE the library, I know the goddamn rules, and you’re starting to piss me off. Is there someone, say, INSIDE that you could be annoying?”

“Just don’t bring that coffee inside,” she says, and go into the library.

WTF?

Now, inside the library there’s a walled area where the public computers are. Half-wall, you can see the people in there checking there email and doing whatever it is they do. At certain times of the day, there’s a queue because there are more people than computers. So far as I know there’s no time limit or anything, so people just sort of hover waiting for someone else to be done. Outside this little corral is a long table, with outlets, for people who bring their own laptops. That’s where I typically set up. So I’m working, writing, keeping an eye out for the crazy coffee-enforcement lady, wondering if she’s somehow related to, possibly married to, mister “that’s my seat”. I’m there for a while, writing, and have to use the restroom and recycle the coffee.  No problem, I tilt the screen down and walk over the men’s room.

When I come back, there’s a woman using my laptop. “Um, EXCUSE me,” I say. Quietly, as it’s a library. Probably not politely in tone, but more polite than I’m feeling.

“Oh, I’ll be done in  minute, I just need to check my email,” she says.

“No, you’ll be done NOW. That’s not a library computer, that’s MY computer, and it’s not there for public use.”

“Well, you weren’t using it,” she says.

“It’s doesn’t matter,” I say, trying to not raise my voice but still sound forceful. “It’s my computer, I got up for a moment, that doesn’t give you the right to just jump in!”

“Well, I’ll be done in a minute,” she says.

The battery on my laptop is dead. Dead-dead. Doesn’t hold a charge. Does not work when unplugged. This is why I save frequently, in case of a power outage or surge or something. I saved before I when to the john. So reached down and unplugged it.

“Buh, wha, why did you do that? I lost the email I was sending!”

“Not you computer, lady. You do not have permission to use this machine. My laptop, my rules. Go complain to a librarian. Call a cop, for all I care. Just go away before I actually get angry and make a scene that gets us both kicked out.”

She ratted on me to a librarian. She told the librarian I was rude. The librarian spoke to her as if she were a child and told her not to touch other peoples’ things without permission.

This kind of crap happens to me all too often. I’m like a magnet for the insane. Is it any wonder why I developed a dark alter-ego to deal with this nonsense?