Field Manual Kris: A Certain State to the West

I spent a week in Texas. Since I'm not working now, I'll be moving out of my apartment and over there with Terry and Katie when either my lease is up or my roommate finds a new sucker to take my place. This trip was definitely a dry run for that. I mean, once I live here, everyone's going to need more space than we usually get for a week-long visit, but that's an issue for March.

I also introduced Terry and Katie to Zombies!. Terry suggested that we begin playing Pandemic and only only get around to Zombies! if we lost the game. I tried to explain that the length of Zombies! precluded mixing it with anything else, but when it comes to zombies, the only substitute for experience is experience. Eventually (all Zombies! games finish in the time frame of "eventually"), because I had a lot of nothing to do the next day and didn't want to miss any of it, I helped Katie to the helicopter so we could all get some sleep.

The Game's the Thing: Kris

Instead of my usual "It's the Magic" feature, today is a general gaming feature called "The Game's the Thing."

I once told someone that I was the luckiest guy on Earth. I've got some first world problems, which aren't bad problems to have. There are some rough and dark parts, but everyone has their crosses to bear.  I've got the better parts of my Dad's genes, and only a few of Syl's crazy genes, I've been accepted to the US Naval Academy, I spent an amazing year with amazing people in South Carolina, my family loves me, and I've got friends who don't always get me, but who, unbelievably, just keep trying.

My bad luck actually manifests in the form of my escapism. I love playing with dice and cards, but dice and cards do not love me at all. I've drawn eight lands straight in Magic, rolled double '1's in Dungeons and Dragons, and performed so reliably poorly in Aberrant that I had to, as Storyteller, reverse the Target Number paradigm for ten-sided dice.

If you're not familiar with those games: 1 in 1,035; 1 in 400 and baby-punchingly abysmal.

There just wasn't enough room for a second, -21 ultimate "Punch all the babies."