of tax equivalency between a certain number of pets and one human child. There is all sorts of societal good that could be set up through this like requiring pet owners would to have said pets  spayed or neutered to qualify, certify a certain level of environment for them to play in and so forth. But, sadly enough, we do not.

All of that was in reflection of us attempting to get a second dog for the second time.

My parents put down their cat of 22 years this morning. My mother thinks she suffered a stroke at some point early in the morning due to her inability to balance or walk properly but being able to do such last night. Their vet commented in passing the last couple of yearly exams as to what, exactly, was in the water which allowed for the cats to keep going at their rather advanced age.

The drama has been reduced to near catatonic levels of nothingness but it has given me the chance to get caught up with various games. And seeing as it today is already dragging on I'm going to pass some time by writing up some mini-reviews of them.

The weekend has left me a big harried and haggard. I have see friends and family for days straight. The arrival of my sister and her now fiance returned from the Land of the Morning Calm a week ago today. A cousin who has decided that the fifth line of defense is her way to college did so a few days before. Labor with a promise of a paycheck returned to my life as well.

While I may have documented the actuality of the creation of Sansoli, I neglected to do a bit of the explaining of the "whys" and "wherefores". This is attempting to pick the piece up off the floor and finish the puzzle. It'll probably not be as brief as it could be as I am attempting to keep myself occupied and away from other subjects I could be dwelling upon currently.

but really what we're going to be talking about today are vampires.

A quick chronicle of our trip to GenCon 2007 and the things which happened there, the lessons learned, and my personal confrontations with sterotypes of the Gamer-types.

It's time to playtest!

Games can be fun for any number of reasons. Good rules, a social atmosphere, but most of all a place where an imagination can be free. As a game designer you can only have so much influence on the "Fun" through the mechanics and rules of the game. It is my opinion that the thing with the greatest impact on fun in games is the setting. If the setting does not grab the imagination of the players all on its own then you have left the person running the game with one more thing to do. And frankly, that's not a kind thing to be doing.

This is the seventh in a series of blogs attempting to record the design history and decisions I have face when making my homegrown role-playing game system.

Departing a bit from what I was going to write about this week due to a bit of inspiration that hit me late Sunday night.

One of the things that us gaming nerds like to do to keep the creative juices flowing is to attempt to have some constraints or limitations on the imagination. In this particular instance, the Forge likes to have the occasional contest or challenge where the participants create their game or system on a single page of paper. I've kept this in the back of my mind for a while now as something I should try to do.

Update [2007-7-19 11:57:56 by MartiniPhilosopher]: My wonderful wife has decided to host the file on her website. Linkage. If you do end up playing, please let me know how it went. -----------------------------------------
This is the sixth in a series of blogs attempting to record the design history and decisions I have face when making my homegrown role-playing game system. Only today's has almost nothing to do with it.  :)