Weird Things in the Middle of the Night

September 17, 2015 | Author: HDIAndrew

Guest blogger: Momma Mel

RPDDad wanted to title this, “Weird Scenes inside the Poopmine,” but RPGMom always has the winning vote

So all parents of pre-verbal infants use cues to determine what’s going on with their little one. Facial expressions, body movement, cries, and diaper performance are some of the main ways  tiny humans communicate. Yes, you read that right, diaper performance. Apparently there are experts who have categorized baby pooh based upon infant health, and the folks over at Babycenter put it all up on their website as a handy-dandy guide for new parents. (NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART)

In the first month new parents are overly concerned, and observant, and tend to have more discussions regarding the rear-end performance of their little monster than they would rather admit. (Yes, monster is correct. Anything that can create that much stinky mass and those bizarre noises can not be human.)

IMG_8781

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Deciding to Decide DeKalb

September 9, 2015 | Author: HDIAndrew

Since I don’t nearly have enough things going on in my life, yesterday the DeKalb County Commission appointed me to the board of our county economic development authority, Decide DeKalb. For those of you who have not been following DeKalb County politics, the county has been hit with a number of corruption scandals, including convictions for one sitting commissioner and our previous county CEO.

While no one on the previous authority board has gone to jail, it has not been untouched by accusations. The previous board members’ terms are up, and in a major break from the past, they are all being replaced at once, and I am now one of those replacements.

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Bug Hunting Baby

September 2, 2015 | Author: HDIAndrew

When I cry, there can be any of a myriad number of reasons – pain, sadness, lag, death of a character, rolling too many fumbles, existential angst, lack of coffee, existential lack of coffee, etc. – but our daughter is much more of a stoic than am I. When she cries, there is one of a small number of reasons from which to choose, and hunting for such a reason involves a simple series of steps, much as if one was bug hunting a game.

Good game playtesters often follow the scientific method when bug hunting. They propose a hypothesis – a game wall should stop my avatar. They test the hypothesis – walking the avatar into a wall. They analyze results – my avatar went through the wall, fell through the earth, and crashed the game. Then they repeat.

Testing our baby’s cries are much the same, usually without falling through the Earth or crashing. When a cry suddenly erupts, breaking through the peace of whatever FPS level I am destroying, I go to step one – get my wife to deal with it.

JUST KIDDING HONEY! Don’t erase my saved games.

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That Speaking Thing

August 29, 2015 | Author: HDIAndrew

No, not RPGBaby’s speaking. While she coos a lot, she is only speaking in my wife and my heads, and we get to make up the words. This is about public speaking, as we have opened SIEGE for speaker requests. I can’t even begin to count the number of presentations I have given at conventions, or even the number of conventions at which I have run my mouth. Heck, the con badges I have saved fill up several boxes, and most are long gone.

At times I have considered what it would be like to just run my mouth for a living, following the convention circuit, telling executives how gaming can save their lives, and surviving on hotel chicken dinner banquets. I never went that route, preferring to go to the cons I liked rather than the ones that would pay me. As a convention organizer, I hear from a number of them, and I am usually less than impressed with the general speaker for hire.

One friend of mine has, however, done it right, mixing a strong knowledge of game development with a real understanding of business culture and the regular need for culture change. Scott Steinberg still has a game industry focus, but he now takes that to all kinds of companies and events (Singapore parenting?). He’s done the traditional speaker things (books published, consulting established, videos up), but his best work has been on games and technology.

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First Words

August 8, 2015 | Author: HDIAndrew

So, I have been using “Stories from the Age of Sleepy Parents” as RPGDad’s motto, but other catchphrases have been bubbling up (much like my daughter’s milk after a good feeding). I would love your feedback on the following, but don’t do it here. Instead, I have taken over the far-too-infrequently used RPGDad hashtag and would like to try out that new-fangled Twitter thing.

Tweet a cut-and-paste of your favorite (or much-better creation of your own) to #RPGDad. Everyone who does so earns at least 25 experience points 🙂

Mottoes for Your Due Consideration:

  1. Equipped for Anything … Except This
  2. For Truly Epic-Level Encounters
  3. Nurseries and Nappies 1st Edition (my wife vetoes Nurseries and Nipples)
  4. Sleepquest
  5. World of Wetcraft
  6. Raising Gnome Illusionist-Barbarians since 2015
  7. Age of Reckoning
  8. Because Chaotic Silly is an Alignment
  9. Elemental Plane of Poop
  10. Fallout, Over and Asleep
  11. Fading Memories
  12. Leveling in Love, not Sleep
  13. Critical Hits to the Heart
  14. Minidings and Megapoops
  15. SIEGE – Sage Infant Enjoying Great Experience
  16. RPG – Real Parental Games (Not, as has been suggested, Revolting Poo Goo)

I look forward to your tweets!

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