They're good things of course, but. You see, I'm sitting here with this book behind me. In specific, the Monstrous Manual for 3rd edition D&D. Because I'm the Dungeon Master, and I create all the adventures that everyone runs through. Which although time consuming, is fine. I enjoy doing it. I like thinking up storylines, I like creating things, and I like running them.

The problem is, what it took to get this book. I've had the first two books since the middle of last month. Which is the entire basis of the problem. I realized that to do ANYTHING, I was going to need the third book. My group, however, absolutely refused to believe that. "Just use the old version." Uh-uh. Rules have changed, kiddies. Did the problem end there, you ask? Nope. ICQ messages from 3 people EVERY SINGLE DAY asking "Do you have the new MM yet?" Well jeeze guys, it doesn't come out till the middle of October. "Oh, ok." About 2 weeks ago, it started again. "Well, do you have it yet? I'm really bored, and I wanna play." Well no, it ain't out yet. When it DID come out, I went to get it, and found my card didn't have money. So I ended up getting it yesterday. And none of my friends knows this yet, although that may change while I write because I'm talking to one.

Now that you've read that incredibly long story, I'll get to the point. I don't LIKE being somebody's boredom sink. I don't particularly want to hear about you being bored off your ass every single day. If you mention it, that's fine, but don't harp on me about it, and most of all don't expect ME to solve your problem. It's YOUR problem. I AM fully realizant that yes, some of this stems from the fact that they ARE my friends, and yes, I do live 20 miles away and that it's incredibly hard to see me without spending half an hour driving. OTOH, I'm somewhat bitter about the whole thing. I have spent incredible amounts of time slaving myself to the creation of both the adventures that they play and the worlds that they adventure in. 99% of all the games we have held in 8 years of playing have been held at my house. I have spent somewhere in excess of $500 on the books (although many of them were presents), although recently one of my friends/players has bought two of the books for me. And I appreciate that. And they now contribute to the pizza fund, and supply their own pop (recently). However, there is one glaring problem that crops up. They all want sessions, but they REFUSE to take the initiative to set them up. They all expect me to do that. And you know what? I'm tired of it. setting one of these things up is harder than hell. I have to reconcile the schedules of 4 people, not to mention dealing with my parents, who are understandably unexcited about the prospect of a group of teenage males taking over the house for a night. I have repeatedly asked that somebody else set things up, but who ends up doing it? Me. And I am REALLY sick of it. And when they complain to me that "Hey, I'm really bored, let's have a session" repeatedly, my first reaction is "Hrm, I think I'll go play some AoK or something." Take some fricking responsibility, and SOLVE YOUR OWN DAMN PROBLEM. I don't want to.

Yeah. I think I might have gone a bit overboard there, eh? It's something that I've been increasingly angry about over the past months. Now on a lighter note:

It's worth noting that these guys ARE my friends. In some cases, I have known them since Kindergarten. I guess my class was like that, really. More recently, I seem to have become the focus of a bunch of people who range from 2 to as much as 4-5 years behind me. And it's pretty strange. It's like my own personal fan club or cult or something. I seem to be this combination friend/role model for these guys, and it's a really strange feeling for someone who maintained like 3 friends all the way through HS, and was totally the opposite of anything conceivably popular. I still have a hard time dealing with that sometimes. Goes to show you that my life has really CHANGED in the last 5 years or so. I'm not as much of a loner as I used to be. I actually go out and do things every once in a while. Talk to people, even. People seem to have found me, and they ain't letting go... Scary.