This is episode 15 of my RPG podcast, and it is Election Day, November 5th, 2024.

It is a beautiful day in North Texas, just absolutely gorgeous, perfect weather.

I have my windows up in my car because it is comfortable in the car with the windows up, and here at the parking lot of the public library we have a lot of people coming to vote, walking by the car, chatting, and I just, you know, windows up.

I’ll be glad when it’s over.

I’ll be glad, for one thing, that our parking lot will be relatively quiet then with fewer cars, fewer people who are just coming careening through the parking lot like lunatics, making it more dangerous for everyone, including, you know, the many small children who come to the library.

So all that being said, as I have mentioned before, it is nice that we are a polling place because it gets people to the library, and maybe some of them will actually walk in and read a book, and thus the war on ignorance is fought.

Excuse me, I just ate a hamburger, and I’m burping a little bit now.

So, gaming-wise, I just got back from Madness Games and Comics where I bought three miniatures.

Actually, let’s see, what did I buy?

I bought a pre-painted miniature for D&D that is a female human warlock, and it actually looks really cool.

I could probably paint it a little bit better than this, but maybe not.

It’s painted pretty well.

I don’t know what tiny hands in some child labor factory produced this painted miniature, but they did a good job.

And then I bought a saber-toothed tiger, and I bought a package that has three giant ants.

So I’m trying to only buy miniatures that support the swords and sorcery theme of my D&D 5e game.

Although there are a lot of amazing miniatures available, owl bears and all sorts of cool stuff, I’m trying to stick to either…

What I usually think of in swords and sorcery are things like saber-toothed tigers, or just regular tigers, or panthers, or other naturally occurring animals grown to horrific proportions like giant ants or giant spiders, snakes, stuff like that.

And of course I also love the Lovecraftian horrors and abominations, and I don’t really have any miniatures of those.

But tonight I’m going to search the interwebs and see if I can find any Reaper miniatures up in Denton, Texas, which is about 45 minutes to an hour away from where I live.

They have a lot of really great miniatures that I’ve bought over the years, and so I’m going to see if they have any Lovecraftian monsters.

Ooh, just about saw an accident here at the library parking lot.

But someone deftly avoided it.

Anyway, that’s my theory that I’m operating by with regard to buying miniatures.

I also look at them to see how easy they’ll be to paint, because some of the miniatures of player characters, they have so much detail, and I don’t know if it’s that I don’t have the patience or the skill to paint them well.

I think it has to do with having patience.

But the giant ants are pretty simple miniatures, and I’ve already got a really good idea how to paint them and make them look good.

The saber-toothed tiger, similarly, is pretty simple.

A dark base coat with some really interesting highlights and drybrush highlights will look really good all over its body, and some lighter colors around the mouth and the eyes and all that.

It’ll look really cool.

So I’m kind of stoked about that.

We are playing again this Sunday, so I’ve got a few days to get ready for that game, and I’m not sure what I’m going to do.

I want to delve into each of the player characters' personal lives and background a little bit more in the coming sessions.

So I may spend a little time, maybe an hour, running each one of the players separately.

We kind of do a round-robin thing going around the table, and I’ll say, Okay, Debbie, which is one of the player characters' names, this happens.

What do you do?

And she tells me, and we do maybe five minutes with Debbie.

Then I go, Simon, and we do the same thing with Simon.

And then Mick, and we round-robin for a while.

And I’ve used that method for a few things.

One is to resolve loose ends that I want to resolve.

The second is to add a little flavor and pizzazz to that character’s development as a sentient being in the game world.

And I’ve also done it to not only do those things, but to throw an adventure hook at one of the players and kind of start a new adventure.

And I think that once you develop the characters a little bit better through giving them situations that they have to deal with and developing relationships with non-player characters and their character history and stuff like that, what I found from my classic Traveler game is that I can then get away from always having a patron hire them or task them to do something or having a very obvious adventure hook they obviously need to take.

It just helps me, I think, run a little bit more interesting and varied game.

So we’ll see.

I may take that route.

I think that would be a lot of fun.

What else is up with gaming?

Well, let’s see.

My wife asked me the other day if I’m still running my Traveler game.

And the answer is yes.

We’re going to try to get it started again in January.

It’s going to have to be online.

But I need to ask her if she’s interested in playing Traveler because the fact that she asked me about it makes me wonder if she’s interested in it.

And if she is, that’s cool.

I was thinking about running these two campaigns and I’ve noticed a lot of similarities, not with the theme of the campaigns, D&D, Swords & Sorcery vs.

Traveler, but there’s definitely a certain way I run the campaign that’s common to both of them.

So I almost feel like if I ran a separate Traveler game for our current in-person group, I’d have to be very careful not to make it seem like it’s just some kind of science fiction extension of the D&D game.

I would need to run it very differently and I’m not sure how that would be.

It might be very mission-based where they’re part of an organization.

I just don’t know.

But I know that David and Randy, who play in the Traveler game, and of course have for years, they know how I do things and that how a lot of times if you meet a non-player character or you’re in a situation, I like to throw them a curveball.

So it’s pretty common for things not to be as they appear.

And I like to throw little moral quandaries at them to see if their character will make ethical decisions.

And that makes it a lot of fun, too.

Okay, that’s all I’ve got in my babbling for today.

I hope everyone is well and having a good Election Day if you’re here in the United States.

I’m probably going to try to avoid the television and the Internet mostly tonight.

That’s my goal anyway.

We’ll see if I actually have the willpower to do it.

You know, I’ve already voted.

And all I can do at this point, all any of us can do is wait and see how things turn out.

And if they don’t turn out the way we want, then you have to just face the future with some courage, some equanimity, and continue doing what you think is right.

And in my case, I’m not a Trump supporter.

And if Trump happens to win, that means I come back to my job at the library the next day and I continue helping everyone who is a member of our public, and I continue helping everyone who is a member of our public, regardless how they voted.

And I help them to educate themselves or find the entertainment they want or whatever.

And in doing so, I always try to convey the value of public institutions like the public library, which is a place that anyone can go.

As long as you abide by the library code of conduct, everybody is welcome in the library.

It’s probably one of the only places left in our society where you can go and you can just be there with no expectation of you buying something or producing something or doing something of quote-unquote value.

You can just go to the library and explore, and it’s the most punk rock thing ever.

All right, everyone.

Hope you’re well.

Bye.