Man Weekend Part Deux – The Rehash

Man, what a weekend. Get it? Man what a weekend…Okay so maybe I am the odd person here. Sue me. 🙂 This past weekend was lots of fun and am really glad that some new peeps of mine could make it this time around. Let me recap for you…

DISCLAIMER~ to protect the lives  of the innocent (or maybe I am just having some fun) I have given each of the participants of Man-Weekend a pseudonym that they will hence be known by.

Last Thursday one of the guys scheduled to go with us sent an email that he was sick and not able to make the weekend festivities. Oh crap, is what went through my head. Said individual had become sick about a week after his wife did and I had spent Monday night giving him hi-fives during bowling and now I wondering if I was now going to get sick in the same time frame as him which would place it during the weekend. The second thing I thought of was that now one of our planned day’s activities was in jeopardy of not happening – an all-day hack-fest, a dungeon crawl, a day of dice-slinging was quickly evaporating into the aether.  Another concerned “Man”, lets call him Mr. Purple, immediately called me to discuss our game plan. After some discussion it was decided that Mr. Purple would take over and run a dungeon crawl of his own design, using the pre-generated characters from the previous DM.

Catastrophe averted… So far. Mr. Purple spent four hours before he had to close his eyes for the night coming up with his over-arching idea for the game and fleshed it out as much as he could in the ever-diminishing time.

Day 1 – The next day (Friday) we all arrive at our escape for the weekend, a wonderful resort right on the beach in Seaside. Me and Mr. Pink were last to arrive of the people who were arriving this day. We checked in and assigned rooms. After that is was mere minutes that we decided to break the cards and play some Magic the Gathering for the evening. There were plenty of decks to be used for those who didn’t bring any. Mr. Lime Green had sold his cards off to another friend and me years ago and although we picked through all of his collection we left his decks unmolested and we re able to obtain them for him to play with over the weekend.

We had steak for dinner this night and the following for that matter. Some alcohol was introduced into the fray and the few of us who were actually drinking fell into doing what people who drink do – being loud and awesome. Actually it wasn’t that bad…really. Everybody maintained control and enjoyed sharing time with one another. We played until the wee hours and by 2am people started going to bed of whom I was one. I immediately fell into a coma-like slumber brought on by the excitement of the weekend and in some small way the alcohol I consumed.

Day 2 – The morning initially had Mr. Purple and I attending an owners meeting for the condo we were staying at. Did I mention that we are part owners of the resort we stayed at. Wyndham if you are interested. Tell them I sent you…really! We returned around 11 where Mr. Purple quickly started to put home-made biscuits/gravy as well as about a dozen eggs made into a scramble.

Shortly after eating we sat down for more MtG cards while we waited for our final guest to arrive. We played for a couple of hours and finally Mr. Jello Green arrived and we sat down for an epic days worth of slinging dice and killing the bad guys. The great thing was that after we were into the game, the way we were introduced into the game was very similar to that of the book series Guardians of the Flame by Joel Rosenberg. It was really awesome.

Without going into detail for those of you who haven’t and want to read The Guardians of the Flame series (you totally should because it is a fantastically well written piece of fiction that gamers get excited about after they have read it) it enabled our characters to have knowledge as ourselves and since we had played with the corpulent wizard we initially ran into in the first encounter we actually could actually converse with him like we knew him, for of course we did. It was our fat friend and wizard Talbot who ran with us always atop a tensors floating disc. This guy never did anything that he couldn’t do sitting atop his Frisbee of force.

We ate sandwiches for lunch because they are quick and easy to make and didn’t interrupt our game. We played well into the wee hours and between 2am-4am we all made our way to bed again to be seduced by the ever-present Sandman. I know I was awake for about 30 seconds before I was out like a light.

Day 3 – We started off by playing a little Zombie Fluxx before we started back into our D&D game. Mostly because a couple of the guys were recovering from the night before. This game actually lasted much longer than it needed to because we were playing 5 or 6 people and Mr. Purple goofed and could have won but didn’t so the game took another 30 minutes or so to play. Must have been the Buttery Nipples he drank the night before that were still doing a number on him.

Here si what is in a Buttery Nipple:

• 1 oz Buttershots liqueur
• 1/2 oz Irish cream

After Zombie Fluxx we got back to our D&D game since we got started late the previous day and wanted to end on an epic note and decided to run one more encounter. And what an encounter. To give you the cliff notes we encountered 2 Beholders and then ultimately a really large and nasty guy that reminded us an awful lot like Balrog – flaming whip and everything.

In the end we had two party members die in the and were able to save the day. The battles were epic and even though I cannot really give an account of them, they were super fun and I believe we all enjoyed ourselves. What I can say is that if you haven’t played D&D in a while – find a group and throw down some dice. It is well worth it.

After the game ended Mr. Jello Green, Mr. Jade and Mr. Lavender left leaving Mr. Pink, Mr. Purple and myself to find different amusements. We found the board game Talisman. We played for several hours until I ultimately was turned into a frog and decide that was game for me. We all decide that there was a time commitment to the game we weren’t willing to pay so we ended it.

Mr. Purple made spaghetti for dinner and after consuming it, we played some 3-person MtG until Mr. Purple broke Mr. Pink. Let me explain; Mr. Pink played about 15 years and about a ba-jillion sets ago. Mr. Purple on the other hand has been playing furiously the last 2-3 years buying lots of current cards and making some really wonderful decks. The problem is that Mr. Pink is not familiar with the current cards and some of the mechanics threw him off his game and Mr. Purple came at him like a spider-monkey all jacked up on Mountain Dew. In the end Mr. Pink didn’t feel like it was very fun at all and now may never play again.

To alleviate this from happening again I suggested playing with some of the 40 card decks that WoTC has produced for beginners. They come with either 2 or 4 uncommon cards and all the rest are common. This doesn’t overpower any deck and the games move pretty quick giving everyone the play and make a difference in the game and ultimately having fun.

After that we set aside all the games and talked for a while although Mr. Pink busied himself with some computer game maintenance for a game he runs on a popular social media site. I forgot to mention that the idea was for everyone to socialize in person and get to know your fellow-man. Guess Mr. Pink wasn’t feeling very social. Oh well another ones slips over to the dark side. 😉 (Kidding Mr. Pink)

Before bed we decided to go out for a little dessert whereby we indulged in some chocolate and fruity goodness.

Day 4 – We woke up early and loaded our cars with the tools of our weekend entertainment with the buzz of having played games all weekend. We drove over to the Pig n’ pancake for some breaky (Australian for breakfast) before heading out. After we finished we walked across the street to the best candy store ever that has ALL your favorite candy and drinks you grew up loving but can’t find anywhere anymore. Did I mention they also deal in fudge and chocolate dipped everything including Twinkies? Oh man – I was SO tempted but ultimately just got a few things of sour-bombs that are like jaw breakers for about a minute and then soften and an explosion of sour hits your tasters making you squint and your eyes water. They were delicious!

To get home instead of taking Hwy 26 back the same way we came we decided to go south on 101 and then east on 6. This allowed us to avoid the pass we took on our way up. The pass had some snow and ice on it and although we did see only one pickup truck upside down we didn’t want to risk not making it back home. This route was longer but was equally beautiful and I got to spend some more time with my buddy Mr. Pink.

I dropped him off at home and made my way to my own. When I arrived and unpacked everything and got to a good resting point I was tackled by our two cats whereby they promptly snuggled up on top of my prone body and fell asleep lulling me into doing the same with their hypnotic purring sounds.

Life doesn’t get much better than that.

More to come…