RPG a Day wrap up and beyond.

I had to end RPG A Day a bit earlier than I wanted and in fact won't be responding to the last two entries since too much time has passed. I enjoy writing about the hobby and reading the thoughts of my fellow gamers and GMs. Unfortunately, I was stricken without the internet for a bit as I moved to China and what's more is that the VPN connection is suspect at best. Not even sure if I'll be able to play this year at all. I am looking at a Discord group and I'd like to play on Roll 20, but I'm not sure that my connection will be consistent enough to play.

The job itself is better than the UAE was getting, but I'm in well over my head and I'm afraid that they are working us so much that there will be no way for me to keep up with it long-term. It wouldn't surprise me if I got put on probation and/or get released before the year is out. :( I'll keep plugging away and I won't leave on my own accord, but sometimes you just know things. It's too bad that I have better students--for the most part--but I'm having trouble on my own end. You just can't win...

On the positive note, I've gone back into DDP Yoga and it was working really good for me. That combined with sweating my arse off as I climb five flights of stairs to my office every day should finally allow me to lose the weight I always wanted. Sometimes God works in mysterious ways. 

RPG A Day 2019--August 20--Noble

For today's prompt we have the word 'noble'. From my hotel in China where I just arrived this morning I can only think of one thing.

There is one job that carries the label of the 'noblest profession'--it happens to be my very own vocation, teaching. I went through the trouble of looking up the phrase and why teaching got that nickname. The writer of the article says that because teachers touch all of the other professions--and even shape the world at times--that the role of an educator becomes a noble one. Teachers sacrifice better paying, less demanding careers in order to shape every other career. I can buy into that in some ways, but personally, I consider myself more of a sell-sword. I'm a lot like the COBRA character, 'Firefly' from the 80's version of G.I. Joe especially the part on his file card about making no guarantees and giving no refunds.

I believe a disproportionate number of teachers are into RPGs. Several schools have had RPG clubs and usually one or more teachers get involved. I've tried several times to get an RPG club going in my schools. In the UAE it worked in getting the teachers together, but I'm afraid my foreign students just can't get into it enough. They loved seeing the different dice and rolling here and there, but the storytelling and critical thinking elements--among the only reasons you can use to sell an RPG club--are the things they didn't care about. Truly they liked Roll playing over the Role playing...and it really wasn't too long before got bored of that too and started throwing the dice at each other. The UAE students, for the most part, really weren't academically inclined and the culture isn't a reading one.

RPGs take a lot of reading. I didn't do it for very long--one or two attempts--but the students from Taiwan wherein I started my noble career did a little better. It was ten years ago and I guess the zombie craze had only just started. We played a game of 'All Flesh Must Be Eaten' and every time one of the characters killed off a zombie, I gave the player a piece of candy. I think I contributed more to their risk for early onset diabetes than I contributed to their learning, but you can't blame a guy for trying. Now that I'm in China, it could be the year when I have a club that takes off. Tomorrow the word is 'Vast'.