Welcome!

CL&C is a blog for whatever I feel like typing.  Generally, this will mean things about role-play games, tea, books, history, martial arts, food, PC gaming, table top gaming, and maybe some other general purpose geek things.  This is an exercise in writing, so that hopefully I can increase my ability to piece together thoughts cogently and improve my ability to express ideas.

This cogency is not something I find myself particularly adept in.  Typically I'll have some question or idea which when keyed up appears comprehensible to me, often goes ignored or only partially observed.  This implies that I can't convey meaning well.  Perhaps I am too wordy, or not using adequately meaningful words and only framing some idea so shallowly as to leave nothing to entice discussion.  Maybe I just don't select topics of interest at all!

I presently operate a Tumblr micro-blog.  While I find their setup fairly functional and their editing tools handy, it doesn't lend itself well to following blogs I have cause to read.  Further, the general culture there appears to be highly polarized, and I do not care to find myself on either pole.

To wit, I will be migrating my posts over probably in the next few days.  The content is fairly light, and just some burbles on different components of the GURPS role play system.  Blogger/Blogspot has some very nice blogs based around GURPS or RPG's in general, displaying a lot of high quality content and stimulating discussion.  I suspect my blog will be none of those.  With various magnates covering all the parts of the game that are technically in depth better than I could achieve and hosting creative content far superior to what I produce, I don't expect many will stay for my content ;)

Further, all those hosts are way more practiced in all the aspects of RPGdom than I, up to and including technical knowledge and system component integration.

For the most part, this is just a public scratch pad for my ideas; what use is letting all of my ideas gather dust in some corner of my Google Drive?  Nay, better to toss them up here for all to see.  Maybe I will get feedback, critique, or approval.  Better, maybe it'll inspire someone.  Either way, information should be free.

To further the prolix nature of this post (and to set a precedent for the discursive nature of this blog), I will introduce myself better.  Feel free to ignore all the below, as it may come up again in future posts on the subject.

My name is shown on the blog.  Sadly, unlike Tumblr, I can't just not share that.  However, in an effort to be more "adult" (and consistent in usernames) I've been going by my name in many places for some years now.  Still, it gives me discontent.

I am at present a college student, perilously navigating full time work and full time school because evidently I have no idea what I'm doing.  With luck all this school noise will be coming to an end this year.

I like to play with setting design for RPGs, and am fairly dedicated to the GURPS system created by SJ Games.  I find the modular nature of GURPS to be enticing.  While I am not the "engineering and maths" type, the ability for GURPS to get quite fine grained with how combat and social interaction plays out allows me great utility to use it as a crutch for otherwise ho-hum GMing.  I've been known to base entire characters or whole factions around one or a few mechanics, such as different schools of martial arts or even single skills and techniques.  Or, create combinations that seek to express the ideology and philosophy of the culture they seek to represent - the epitome of GURPS flexibility.  Further, if I want a very light system for very casual introductory play, the same system can be paired down as light as any [PDF warning!].  In theory, I'm running a campaign for one player in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay universe.  We liked the 'verse, not so much the rules.  He and I occasionally want to check out new systems, but we always end up converting back to GURPS, typically before first die is rolled.

I enjoy tea, both as a refreshment and as a hobby.  I have a small array of teaware at home, and even keep some in the office.  I drink tea daily, just now having finished a cup of "Breakfast Quimen" by Seven Cups.  I was raised on weak, sugary tea-bag tea growing up.  As a youth I attempted to branch out into different forms of tea, but as most teabag tea is naturally insipid, encountered little beyond false starts.  This was well before I was aware of accessible tea culture, or that you could get quality stuff online.  Sometime around 2009, I made a return to drinking plain tea, having found a few passable tea bags, which lead to me researching into tea more seriously as time went on.  This resulted in my discovery of online tea culture and the vast assortment of varieties I could access through the web.  I've been a regular drinker of the quality loose leaf since about 2011.  I am active over at TeaChat, if anyone has been.  Much like GURPS, there are many blogs on this domain that are operated by far more knowledgeable people than I.  At best, I'll just be regurgitating collected facts in the hope of inspiring a passer-by.  My favorite sources are Seven Cups, Den's Tea, and, Pu'er shop.  These are, however, not my exclusive sources.  Because they are located within the US, I find them quite easy to order from and I don't have to wait for things to cross oceans and clear customs.  Also, shipping tends to be cheaper.  My favorite form of tea is, in English, called White Hair Silver Needle.  Most particularly, I am fond of the Zhenghe produced variety.  Unfortunately, this type of tea is relatively expensive, so I do not regularly have a supply of it at hand.  Further, there are many "close seconds".

I try to read as much as I can.  Typically, "reading" is blog posts, news articles, forum posts, and the like.  As a kid I consumed novels voraciously, but for various reasons stopped reading as much for some time.  I was for a while very into Dragonlance, and it got me into the Fantasy literature genre sometime around 2003 or 2004, I believe.  I slowed down with books in general for a while, but have slowly made it a point to return to it.  Subsequently, I have recently begun to maintain a Goodreads profile.  Take a look, you may find something you like.  I've tried to back date as much as I can, but I definitely didn't get it all.  As an elementary/middle school kid I read the pages off Goosebumps, Animorphs, and both variations on the "Fear Street" sagas.  I will probably never track them all down.

As you can see, several of the books are on subjects of history and martial arts.  Both of these inform my RPG habits, so I'm always looking to obtain new knowledge to forget about.  Daily Life and Military subjects interest me most.  Dynastic issues, dry dates, and great geniuses not so much.  I prefer hoplology and other related subjects; I used to obsess over medieval weaponry, especially swords.  My favorite is known as the Oakeshott Type XIV.  There are others near and dear to me, though.

Related, I was an on-again-off-again WMA practitioner for a while, briefly running my own study group.  However, as I have learned, I am not the type of person who can keep a group together.  Unable to interest people to attend regularly, progress halted and I became frustrated with the whole thing.  In an attempt to at least salvage it as an athletic endeavor (atoms know I need it), I'm slowly migrating it into what is basically Dagorhir, except not with foam weapons.  Almost the antithesis of what I desire, but we can't always get what we want.

I like to cook and read into the cuisines of all the world.  I'm not an elaborate chef, as my time (and budget) is quite limited.  I do make good food, even if the menu is often a little sparse.  I read into nutritional sciences, and I have a Primal Blueprint and Winston A Price influence on what I eat and recommend.  The politics of food is important to me, but I never label myself as a purist because it is more work to shake associated baggage than it is to just tell people what I think.  I don't have a favorite one-stop-shop for cultural cuisine (though Hispanic food sure is close); I'm not all about any one culture, even if I love good corn tortillas.

In addition to GURPS (to bring this post around full circle), I am a PC gamer and, to a more limited extent, a table top gamer.  PC gaming was a substitute for actually having friends for most of my formative years.  While I did have a friend or two here or there, the ruro-suburban region I grew up in did not lend itself well to meeting with them easily.  I was a modder of a few different engines and briefly attempted to create my own RTS (failed) and a couple of mainline mods for the old game Oblivion (also failed).  While I was the coder for most projects, my real enjoyment came from level design.  May yet return to that someday.

I was also an active table top wargamer for a while, starting I believe around 2003 with Warhammer 40k.  Eventually I got into Warhammer Fantasy, and dabbled in a few other systems.  Moderate success with 40k, basically none with Fantasy (I liked it more, but could never get others to play, even when I furnished them armies for free).  Also had no success with alternate systems; what few wargamers I knew were happier with expensive commercial systems that spoon fed you the way rather than cheap (or free!) ones with a much higher degree of creative control.  I've tried here and there in the last few years, but those I know just don't have the time/energy/money for it.  I actually enjoy painting miniatures and creating scenery, so I am at times tempted to just do that for its own sake.  Maybe I'll share (awfully shot) pictures of my old works, see if I can get some of the new.  I cannot bring myself to return to the commercial Games Workshop games (40k, Fantasy), as their rule-sets have degraded and their business practices worsened beyond even what they were when I began.  Their universes have been interesting, and I am (more or less) currently running a GURPS game set in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay universe.

Magic the Gathering was something I picked up around like Sixth Edition, having learned from someone I was friends with in middle school.  Unfortunately, it was too expensive, and at the time I prioritized Warhammer (because I enjoyed painting).  I come back to the game every now and again, though it has gotten quite a bit more complex than when I began.  Deck building can be fun, but often ends up feeling like a chore (no wonder net decks are so popular).  When I'm able, I still like to play, though a reliable source of players who aren't hyper competitive (read:  Annoying) isn't always available.  I have a FLGS, but I'm not often able to get down there.

If you haven't collapsed under the sheer weight of that wall of text, and have managed to make it back down here to base camp, congrats!  If it was too lengthy, I do apologize.  I'm not quite good with introductions, and maybe showing it out like this would entice others to ask questions that can form the basis of more inspired blog posts.  For now, this is all I have to say.  Now I just need to survive until 4PM, and I can look into transferring those Tumblr posts over.

Until next time!