Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

How long's it been? Two months? Wow.

I think I weighed 125 kgs when I got on the 5:2-thingy. This Wednesday, the scale in the gym clicked in at 113. That's a consistent weight loss of 1 kg per week. My figure has trimmed considerably.

This is back in June 2011

And this is mid-October this year (2013)

Gut's diminished completely. My face is thinner. Legs thinner. There's significantly more muscle tone on the torso - no, no pics. Not yet. Probably not ever.

I'm still wondering when it's going to stop. Either way, I'm not quitting, as it's been getting easier every week.

But it's still not a diet

Three weeks in, and the 5:2-thing seems to be working. For the first time in... 10+ years, I'm now under 120 kgs - even if just under - and it gets easier and easier to not eat throughout the two days - until dinner. By taking in all 600 kcal (100g ground beef and two fried eggs along with salad) in one sitting, I am full when I go to bed and I therefore don't overeat the next day.

Even better, I've slimmed down somewhat as seen here:

I've still got lovehandles, and I don't quite know where to put my hands, but it could be worse.

Quick thoughts about fasting

Alternative titles were Fasting - the Quickening. Or Quick, Fast, Speed - Swiftly

Anyways, I'm on this 5:2 diet thing. Yes. A diet. I've consciously avoided thinking of it as a diet, but I see it as such. Right now, at least. I want to continue on it, however, even if/when I make it to my goal.

It's been a week, now, and I'm on my third day of not eating until dinner. I weighed myself at the gym this weekend, and according to the scale, I weighed three kg less. I look forward to seeing what it says next weekend, because I don't really believe it. It's either liquid (which is weird: I drink a lot of water) or something else.

Hunger's not an issue. No stomach pain. No growling. But I feel stupider and dizzy. I hope it passes.

Recap for tomorrow's game

The sun was gone. The distant ridge of the Tors of Levenies hid the sunset, but the sky was still a bright riot of pinks and blues, which made it easy to see the main structures of the fort. The trip through the town - village almost - of Varnhold had been strange. A monster at the river crossing. Dead animals. The ominous murders of crow sitting on some of the buildings. And always the dark, empty windows glaring down into the streets.

There was a faint rotting smell in most of the village. Stale. You'd think nobody had been there for quite some time. But what, then, was the deal with the faint column of smoke from the keep in the south end of Varnhold?

The entryway into the keep rose to meet the palisade. Beyond, a wooden ramp sloped down into the dark courtyard. A two-story keep loomed at the far end. There were some other buildings, maybe an enclosure of some kind.

Mutt growled.

Game systems

So Monte Cook wrote a tweet about how great it was that you can play D&D one week, Pathfinder the next and another game the third week. Choice isn't necessary, and "The only people who like to argue about which to choose are those people you don't want to game with anyway".

It got me thinking. The only game system choices I've ever made were based on TSR's, later Wizards' publishing schedules. When Monte - whom I'd noticed with Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil - created  Arcana Unearthed, I was hooked, and I began paying more attention to him than to Wizards. The pinnacle of my "Monte is not just a caffeine-powered robot - he's a caffeine-powered robot god of gaming"-phase was my Ptolus campaign, which I ran using Arcana Evolved. What a great campaign. I miss Ptolus...

Then Monte took a hiatus from making games - well, publishing 'em, at least - and 4th Edition came along. That wasn't for me, so Paizo became the recipient of my hard-earned cash, and now I run three Pathfinder campaigns. 

While most of my make-believe time has been spent with a d20 in my hands, I've also tried Hârn, Traveler, and Dragon Warriors, and to this day, I'm still in a GURPS campaign, so I'm not anti-other games or an exclusivist. 

Is that a word? Looks like one. Yup, letters. It's a word.

But what am I then? I guess I'm a bit of a traditionalist and I am lazy. No, I'm strapped for time. And I worry I can't keep my imagination spinning at enough RPMs to make something fun every third week. So I need systems that back me up with oodles of adventure. I have all Dungeon magazines from #8 onwards and I subscribe to Paizo's Adventure Paths, so I have a good collection of adventures to choose from. And in order to use them the easiest, I run them using the most compatible system.

This leads me to the conclusion that if a gaming company wants me as a customer, they'd better put out adventures (and rulebooks, and sourcebooks, and GM screens and minis - prepainted). This will show me how the game is played, AND it will make it easier for me to run the game.

Bottom line: I like all games. Or rather, I haven't played that many games, but I liked the ones I did try. I've previously been guilty of valuing some games higher than others, but now - hey, if you're a role-player I don't care too much about the shape of your dice. But I will still make a clear choice in favour of the game that provides the best support.

About Numenera

+Monte Cook asked me and a few other former members of the Council of Magisters to chip in with promoting Numenera. The time difference and, uhm, life made it impossible for me to do much, but I did offer to run some games at +Søren Staun Biangslev and +Christina Staun Biangslev 's amazing Ba-Con.

So +Shanna Germain helped out tremendously by sending me preliminary chapters - including some real-life updates during the rehearsal game, thanks, Shanna!

Afterwards, I made a short video with some impressions. Note the champagne glasses - we celebrated being the first people outside the US to play the game.

These are my own remarks, 7 weeks later.

Even from the simple, printed reams of paper I used instead of the real rulebook, and even from the sparse descriptions of the characters, this game is all about allowing GMs to say yes. Not in a over-powered way, but the system is so loose yet coherent that it is one huge enabler for the GM. 

Case in point: The adventure I ran includes a beast with a natural attack of a certain, non-damaging nature. By looking at similar items, it is extremely easy to allow the right character to harvest some of the beast's attack and let him jury-rig a single-use item that replicates the beast's attack.

When I ran Arcana Evolved adventures some years ago, I enjoyed the tokens and detonations (single-use magic items on par with potions) because they let me describe physical manifestations of spells. This does the same, but within the reality of Numenera.

Also, underlying the whole gameplay, there is a vague sense of loss because, well, this is the NINTH world. You sense that so much is gone, and it creates a resonating depth to every encounter that I have never experienced in my 29 years of gaming. It's a really, really good game.