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This coming Saturday, January 26th, 2008, will be my 57th birthday, and I’m celebrating with a big, big party in the Detroit, Michigan, area. It’ll take place at a local Armenian Church. Not for religious reasons, although my beloved maternal grandmother was a member of the congregation, but because it’s the very best place to put on a spread of terrific Armenian Food for a hundred or so of my favorite relatives and friends.

I’m posting an old picture here, taken by my good buddy, Patrice Mermoud, in Paris, back in the summer of 1994, because we’re hoping that the people coming to the party will bring along old pictures of myself.

If you’re reading this, and you know me, and you’re going to be in the Detroit Area, post a comment and I’ll see about getting you into the birthday bash.

If you’ve already got an invitation, see if you can dredge up any old photographs and bring them along for my Aunt Mary (who has been doing an epic job of arranging this whole thing: I love you, Mary!) .

If you’ve got old pictures of me, whether from games, gatherings or Gencon (or wherever else), please get in touch.

Thanks!

Erick (San Rafael, California)

BILIRUBIN, TOTAL: 0.4
Normal: 0.2-1.3 mg/dL
Collected: 1/19/2008 2:30 PM

For those of you keeping score on these things, this is a sign that my liver is responding with astonishing speed to the ‘aggressive’ chemotherapy. Just seven weeks ago the Bilirubin was a horrific 3.4 (and believe me, it didn’t feel good). Now I’ve got a number (0.4) that would be happy in a person half my age. I’ve got a couple of other test results that aren’t quite so rosy, but my health professionals assure me they’re all improving enormously, and that the chemotherapy is definitely a success. What can I say but, ‘cool,’ and I’m happy to be looking healthy!

Again, I really want to thank everyone for sending so much positive energy in my direction. I feel like I made a very lucky ’savings throw,’ but I don’t want to discount all the prayers that went into tipping the dice in my direction!

Speaking of role-playing metaphors, I’ve been lucky enough to be Game Master three times in the last week. Twice for a super-secret play-test where I work, at Totally Games.

The other role-playing event was Wednesday Night, at the GameScape game shop in downtown San Rafael, California, with six incredibly talented role-players, including the store owners and operators. I threw then an interesting challenge; to each create a character who is older than they appear, who would be introduced on New Year’s Eve, 1899, and to also invent two abilities for the character that ordinary humans do not possess. Each of the players came up with awesome characters, incredible backgrounds (everything from a wayward time traveler to an immortal Native American, from a eternal vagabond to an 18th century drug lord, from a Fairie-abducted Medieval Lord to a beautifully twisted Southern Belle) and wonderfully well composed eldritch talents. It was my pleasure to meld all this into a (somewhat) coherent storyline. My thanks to the players; I’m really looking forward to our next session, set New Year’s Eve 1924!

Erick (San Rafael, California)

Kind of crazy, but my biggest, most audacious wish is to create a book on my life’s greatest passion; the pursuit of role-playing, about the design and production of role-playing games, and the pursuit of excellence in the practice of role-playing and Game Mastering. If all goes well, the result will be a thick volume titled, “On Role-Playing.”

Success, if I can achieve it, requires that I make a wish, and a pretty big wish. A wish that can only be granted by many of you reading this blog.

You see, a huge portion of the book will be the description of many of the experiments I’ve conducted in role-playing. Far from finished or completed role-playing games, or even completed role-playing systems, my experiments have been just that; wacky experiments. The gathering of friends, or strangers, and the playing through of my of my little ‘notions’ of one odd role-playing scenario or another, often in direct violation with the accepted wisdom of what constitutes role-playing, or at very least interesting twists on the role-playing possibility space.

Those who have participated are the ones I need to find because the biggest thing I need is their participation in the creation of the book. Bottom line, if you’ve ever participated in one of my experimental gaming events, I’m soliciting your help.

What kind of help?

I need player-level descriptions of the characters, events, backgrounds and experiences from my various role-playing experiments. They can take the form of character diaries or logs, of player recollections or reflections, or plain old essays on what happened in the course of a bunch of people getting together to role-play one of my strange ideas.

The first step is getting in touch. So, if you are someone who has played in one (or more!) of my experiments, or if you know of someone who has played, please e-mail me and get in touch. The more people I can contact, and the more background notes, recollections and memories I can collect, the closer I’ll be to fulfilling my fondest wish.

Thanks!

Erick (San Rafael, California)

I’m coming to discover my own personal pace of chemotherapy. It seems that the day following, likely because of the use of steroids in the overall mix, I’m strong and high energy. Unfortunately, the following three days are marked by weakness and a non-stop need for sleep. The treatment was Monday, and it wasn’t until midnight Friday that I felt myself recovered to my usual energy level.

Happily the weekend was marked by a visit from old friends, down from the Seattle area, and Kate and I had joyous times (and meals, yum!) together. Sunday was even better since I had a chance to try my new ‘Theory of Everything’ role-playing experiment. Awesome game, mostly because the players were aways a couple of steps ahead of the Game Master, creating a truly remarkable set of theories (based on entirely new classes of particles, including ‘Entropons,’ ‘Observons’ and ‘Enigmons’). Thanks guys! See the picture for the whole group assembled.

Erick (San Rafael, California)

Monday, January 7th, 2008 was the date for my second “aggressive” chemotherapy session, and it started with great news.

First, it seems that the first session was a success. Epic news considering that the expected rate is something less than 20% effectiveness (and even less for the rare form of cancer they finally diagnosed from my biopsy).

Second, the blood tests indicate that my liver is back to operating within accepted norms. So:

BILIRUBIN, TOTAL: 0.8
Normal:    0.2-1.3 mg/dL
Collected: 1/7/2008 10:36 AM

Since the numbers were getting better even before the first chemotherapy, it seems that all the well wishes, positive thoughts, prayers and meditations of my loved ones must be having an even greater positive effect. Thank you all!

Erick (San Rafael, California)

Kate and I are back after a phenomenal trip to Asia!

First to Hong Kong where we spent happy, happy days with Sara, David and eight-month-old Tristan (aka, ‘Bean,’ Kate’s great-grandson). Getting to Shanghai required the logistics of scoring (1) extra pages for my passport, which now bulges like an over-sized little book, and (2) visas for visiting Mainland China (not possible without the extra pages in the passport).

Various people had urged me to seek out advice and possible treatment from Asian medicine while I was visiting China. I didn’t have time to do any searching, but in three instances, the world was kind enough to bring wonderful insight to me. The most spectacular and serendipitous was when I visited my friend Roy Horan on New Year’s Day, and was able to have an intensive one-on-one session with Lodreu Rabsel Rinpoche, an initiate of Tibetian Buddhism, from Nepal. as you can see from the following picture:

Of course, the most powerfully curative experience was being crawled over and played with Tristan (aka ‘Bean’):

Also wonderfully curative were spending time with all my wonderful friends and former students, at various times and places, but especially at two memorable meals; a lunch on Wednesday at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and a dinner at the amazing Yang’s Kitchen in Shanghai (both times nobody had to ask if I had a problem with my appetite since I was eating everything in sight!). At the Thursday night dinner in Shanghai, my good friend Louis Tremblay took some spectacular photographs (see picture at top), and was kind enough to post them on his website online. Here’s the link: http://www.pbase.com/ltremblay/erick_wucjik

We made it back in time for my second round of chemotherapy here in California. The next trip is scheduled for Michigan, to take place right after my third chemo, arriving by January 24th in Detroit.

Erick (San Rafael, California)