Chapter 12, Page 15 Never ever

Sorry for the delay! I could give all sorts of reasons, some better than others. And I was getting so close to maintaining a regular schedule.

Have to try and do better next week.

Chapter 12, Page 13 All a game

And here's the conclusion of what was going on last week. And I got it up on time! Yay!

In case anyone is curious, the game Mary and her cousin are playing is Castle Falkenstein. It's really good.

Chapter 12, Page 12 Now, something completely different

There's a good(ish) reason why this took so long. I was trying to make it look more dramatic. More like what you might find in a graphic novel.

Okay, so I've also been playing a lot of video games, looking for a job, playing with my cat, and generally goofing off. (Looking for a job isn't goofing off, but everything else I've been doing pretty much is.) What's going on should be explained next week. If I don't get too distracted.

Ooo... shiny...

Chapter 12, Page 8 Work with it.

Well, it's only been two weeks since my last update. I'm getting better! ^^;

Anyway, yes, Mary just reinvented the Molotov coctail. In a swords and sorcery rpg. It's a perfectly reasonable idea! And actually happened. Complete with Dad's reaction.

...

Chapter 12, Page 5 Stop Action

Neither Mary nor Dad are very well organized, so this sort of thing happens a lot. Actually, I got the impression while playing with Dad that the things I decided to do were frequently outside his expectations. A sort of unspoken "Seriously? Are you sure you want to do that?"

Chapter 12, Page 4 The Big Reveal

In Dad's defense it had been a while (over a decade) since he'd worked with low level characters.

On the other hand, Arvin, Deliverer of Cold Medicine, isn't the sort of thing ballads are written about.

Chapter 12, Page 3 Arvin's job

Yes, Mary's PC, Arvin, had 'delivery boy' as his first job. Whoopee.

It gets better. Sort of.

Chapter 12, Page 2 The Fantasy Starts

There are some things that your typical gamer doesn't think about. Like the cost of living, how to find work, things that affect them in real life but they don't expect to come up in a game. Obviously, they never had Dad as a game master.

Chapter 12, Title Page

And here's Chapter 12. The title comes from something my Dad said about roleplaying games. "Building castles in the clouds is fine, until you try to collect rent."

I don't know if he was quoting someone or if he came up with that himself. He does like to quote people and he seems to have at least one for every occasion.

Anyway, I thought this chapter it'd be fun to focus on The Game, thus the chapter title.

Chapter 10, Page 7 Be careful with your gaming

Yeah, it is dangerous to get obsessed with RPGs, or video games, or fantasy novels, or chocolate sprinkles, or... It's dangerous to get obsessed with anything. Obsession is a bad thing, some people get a little focused on certain things people can get obsessed with, though.

For understandable reasons. It's especially concerning if you're dealing with a kid with a tendency toward obsession. But at least Mom's giving them a chance.

Chapter 10, Page 6 Ask your mom

So sorry for the lack of consistent updates! I wonder if I still have any readers. School has been intense this semester, so I've been focusing more on that. Of course, I have tried to relax, which is where my new video games come in. (Ike rules!) Also been trying to get the apartment in some semblance of order, which is starting to look less like an exercise in futility now.

Anyway, I finally get around to Mary asking to play 'The Game.' Yeah, I doubt Wizards of the Coast would bother suing me if I used the actual name, but we very rarely called it AD&D, anyway. It was 'The Game,' a highly mutated version of the commercially available system using rules from a couple different editions (at least) with some parts made up out of whole cloth.

Fun times.

Chapter 10, Page 2 Your spell is Zippo?

Hey, you play games to have fun, right? And some people have fun by playing with words.

Maybe that's why Dad always likes playing the wizards.

I wish to apologize for the lack of updates since the chapter started, I'm having a little difficulty getting my Real Life schedule worked out this semester. Doesn't help any that I'm supposed to be exercising, too. Which is what I should be doing now, come to think of it. Oh well.

Anyway, I will be trying to make more regular updates on an actual schedule. In the meantime, I don't know how many of my readers are also on TVTropes, but a page for MQC would be great. ^_^

Chapter 10, Page 1 What not to wear, D&D

For those of you wondering what the title of this chapter indicates ... uh, yeah. This isn't actually the focus of the chapter. Though she does raise a good point.

The answer: These games are marketed to late teen, early twenty males who suffer from severe (and self inflicted) babe deficiency.

Or if they aren't, they sure do a good job looking like they are.

Chapter 9, Page 8 Hexagonal graph paper

For those of you who aren't in the know, Mary has just discovered something that has certain groups screaming about Satanism and witchcraft.

...

I just realized that doesn't narrow it down much.

Chapter 9, Page 7 A key distraction

A summer of lagging on updates makes for a difficult return to a regular schedule. Doesn't help any that I have a lot of homework. ~.~ I have a lot of MQC drawn, I just haven't inked or scanned any of it in.

Oh well. Try to guess what Mary's discovered. Looking at the tags is cheating.