I remember when I was younger, New Year was THE event of the year. It would be a time when I would import a girlfriend to bring home, just to go out at New Year. It was definitely the social highlight of the year. It was a time to drink and make merry, to really let your hair down.
A little bit of me thinks that part of the New Year magic died on 31st December 1999. The millenium celebrations erupted like some sort of social abcess and tried to out-do anything that had gone before. I feel that since then, the world has been trying to play catch-up to a feeling that they will never feel again in their lifetime.
Being a parent doesn't help. Wasting babysitting credit on New Year isn't always good value. We don't have a massive social circle and due to Christine's medical condition we aren't the best party animals. And to be honest, we're a little long in the tooth to do the trawling around town thing. We don't drink anymore so getting plastered at home is a non-starter. And the TV is reliably dreadful.
Its all a bit of a damp squib. One thing that this change of emphasis has done is to allow me to be a little more cirumspect about the entire affair. Whereas before I never made resolutions, nowadays I use the time as a milestone to plan things by. You get to thinking seriously about whether your lot is better this year than it was last year and what sort of a year you have had. You also get to thinking about what real positive steps you can take to effect change in your life. Last year I stopped drinking alcohol. This year .... who knows?
Maybe New Year hasn't stopped being important - maybe its actually become more important, just in a different way?
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Gaming Resolutions 2009
As has become a tradition on my little Blog, I'm going to be setting myself five Gaming Resolutions for the coming year. I managed 3.5/5 last year - hopefully I can do more this year!
1. Publish 'Beat To Quarters'
Yey! I have a resolution that says 'MAKE MONEY!'. The second part of my Duty & Honour trilogy has just started coming together and I am confident that it will be ready for the off in the summer. However, I am also determined that I don't rest on my laurels and lose some of my focus that helped bring D&H to the table. My timetabling is aggressive because I know that if it isn't, it will get lost in the shuffle.
2. Be a better player
Whilst this is something that we strive, in theory, to be all of the time, do we actually do anything about it? There have been a number of times this year when I have been stroppy, petulant and argumentative. Thats got to stop. I have also managed to come to the table with a complete lack of focus and tend to drift into games rather than be gagging for them from the get-go. In some ways, its 'do unto others...' etc. so I am going to pull my socks up on this one a little.
3. Run one campaign of a reasonable length
Ironically, the title of Iron DM hardly fits me anymore. I find it exceptionally hard to prep and plan games and rely upon my well-honed improvisational techniques and 'play it by ear' style to see me through most of my games - even con scenarios, which is suicide! I want to run one, reasonably lengthy campaign this year. Lets put a length of at least 8 sessions on it. As we are up to our necks in D&D4e, this would almost certainly be a G2 activity and it may or may not be Seven Curses. Who knows.
4. Game with the girls again
I'm going to port this one over from last year. It is crucially important to me to build that amazing link we had when we were gaming before, again. I'm not concerned about which game it is, just that it happens again to see whether it was just a one off or whether now that they are older its something that they really liked.
5. Spend with prudence
No, this has nothing to do with the bloody credit crunch! I have just got rid of 80% of my old RPG stuff this year and I could really do without replacing it with games that I am only going to read and not run. So, my resolution is that I shall not purchase a new RPG unless I am determined to run it within the reasonable future. That seems fair enough!
So there we go, five. Anyone else got any of their own?
Neil
1. Publish 'Beat To Quarters'
Yey! I have a resolution that says 'MAKE MONEY!'. The second part of my Duty & Honour trilogy has just started coming together and I am confident that it will be ready for the off in the summer. However, I am also determined that I don't rest on my laurels and lose some of my focus that helped bring D&H to the table. My timetabling is aggressive because I know that if it isn't, it will get lost in the shuffle.
2. Be a better player
Whilst this is something that we strive, in theory, to be all of the time, do we actually do anything about it? There have been a number of times this year when I have been stroppy, petulant and argumentative. Thats got to stop. I have also managed to come to the table with a complete lack of focus and tend to drift into games rather than be gagging for them from the get-go. In some ways, its 'do unto others...' etc. so I am going to pull my socks up on this one a little.
3. Run one campaign of a reasonable length
Ironically, the title of Iron DM hardly fits me anymore. I find it exceptionally hard to prep and plan games and rely upon my well-honed improvisational techniques and 'play it by ear' style to see me through most of my games - even con scenarios, which is suicide! I want to run one, reasonably lengthy campaign this year. Lets put a length of at least 8 sessions on it. As we are up to our necks in D&D4e, this would almost certainly be a G2 activity and it may or may not be Seven Curses. Who knows.
4. Game with the girls again
I'm going to port this one over from last year. It is crucially important to me to build that amazing link we had when we were gaming before, again. I'm not concerned about which game it is, just that it happens again to see whether it was just a one off or whether now that they are older its something that they really liked.
5. Spend with prudence
No, this has nothing to do with the bloody credit crunch! I have just got rid of 80% of my old RPG stuff this year and I could really do without replacing it with games that I am only going to read and not run. So, my resolution is that I shall not purchase a new RPG unless I am determined to run it within the reasonable future. That seems fair enough!
So there we go, five. Anyone else got any of their own?
Neil
Monday, December 22, 2008
Secret Films Of Our Youth
We talk alot about the hot new films that we like and if you are like my group of friends, the films that we absolutely despise. However, one group of films that we rarely talk about are those that exist in a dim and distant warm spot from our childhood. For me, the one that stands out in this nature is Fiddler on the Roof - the story of everyday Orthodox Jewish folk just before the Russian Revolution. Its a musical and I know the words to just about every song. Why? Well, when I was a kid, we only had six records in the house - Dougal and the Blue Cat, The Best of ABBA, the Best of Shirley Bassey, 'Please Please Me' by the Beatles and the soundtracks to South Pacific and Fiddler on the Roof. Strangely, I am word perfect on South Pacific as well...
Anyway, I had the chance to watch Fiddler on the Roof again recently thanks to late night ITV3 and the wonders of Sky+ and it was still as good today as it was when I was a kid. From a modern point of view I think that the embattled father, Tevye, is a latter day version of Homer Simpson and I can recognise a lot of the strains put on him by his need to maintain order in the face of his love for his daughters in modern parenting too. Of course, I just do that with less singing!
Its the singing that does it for me. I love the songs in this film more than any other musical. They have a wonderful playfulness to them and most of all, many of them are sung in a pitch that allows men to sing along to them without sounding too bad. Awesome. Stuff Mamma Mia - there should be Men Only Sing-a-Long versions of Fiddler on the Roof .... well, at least until it all goes sad and pear-shaped at the end. Yes, thats the kicker in Fiddler. It isn't like virtually every musical of the time where everyone is happy and the world is a wonderful place. The entire village is moved on by the Czarist authorities, demolishing their community, one daughter 'escapes' to Kracow (!), one lives with her dissident husband in his gulag in Siberia and the other is disowned for marrying outside the faith. And yet, there is still a message of hope right at the end, as the Fiddler follows Tevye to America and you realise that it represents the traditions and spirit that are escaping to survive what is to come in Russia and out of Germany.
Its a fucking fantastic film and I recommend everyone to see it.
Neil
Anyway, I had the chance to watch Fiddler on the Roof again recently thanks to late night ITV3 and the wonders of Sky+ and it was still as good today as it was when I was a kid. From a modern point of view I think that the embattled father, Tevye, is a latter day version of Homer Simpson and I can recognise a lot of the strains put on him by his need to maintain order in the face of his love for his daughters in modern parenting too. Of course, I just do that with less singing!
Its the singing that does it for me. I love the songs in this film more than any other musical. They have a wonderful playfulness to them and most of all, many of them are sung in a pitch that allows men to sing along to them without sounding too bad. Awesome. Stuff Mamma Mia - there should be Men Only Sing-a-Long versions of Fiddler on the Roof .... well, at least until it all goes sad and pear-shaped at the end. Yes, thats the kicker in Fiddler. It isn't like virtually every musical of the time where everyone is happy and the world is a wonderful place. The entire village is moved on by the Czarist authorities, demolishing their community, one daughter 'escapes' to Kracow (!), one lives with her dissident husband in his gulag in Siberia and the other is disowned for marrying outside the faith. And yet, there is still a message of hope right at the end, as the Fiddler follows Tevye to America and you realise that it represents the traditions and spirit that are escaping to survive what is to come in Russia and out of Germany.
Its a fucking fantastic film and I recommend everyone to see it.
Neil
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Nostalgia Gaming
I have watched with some amusement at the re-release of Dragon Warriors. It was devoured at Dragonmeet like mana from heaven by men of a certain age who really should have known better. I never owned Dragon Warriors but I have played it once and whilst the session itself ranks up there with root canal surgery in my pantheon of unpleasant experiences, the system itself never struck me as anything special. It was there, doing its thing, but nothing that couldn't be done with D&D or Runequest or one of a dozen other generic fantasy systems. So why all the excitement? Could it be that a full set of Dragon Warriors has been quite a rare thing and it has created a mystique that has to be sated? I don't know.
In some ways the same holds true for other games - the current incarnation of D&D is currently rocking our game group's world and providing a remarkable amount of entertainment. If you had told me a year ago we would be enthusiastically using a 'battleboard' and maps and we would have collective gasps of excitement when a large mini was revealed by the GM, I would have laughed in your face. However, we are. Do we play the game straight? I think we do, in that we don't really change the rules of the game, we just bolt on some techniques we have learned from playing other games to add to it.
Yesterday I picked up the pocket rulebook version of Traveller by Mongoose (which is abbreviated sometimes to MongTrav....). I'm a sucker for pocket rulebooks but this seems to have really hit it just right. Traveller is an old favourite of mine and there is something amazingly comfortable about UPPs, hex character stats and those strings of planet stats. At Dragonmeet, I picked up (as in, lifted up, rather than bought!) Starblazer Adventures ... its a fucking BRICK. Pocket Traveller is a slim booklet. What would I find more useful? Moreover, which would I be more likely to play? MongTrav, almost certainly.
I wonder if there are any other old-school games on the horizon that could be resurrected for the modern age? I know Gregor Hutton's game-in-planning 'Good Morning Britain' is a supers game set in the 80s which uses the Marvel Superheroes system, polished up and made nice. Anyone for a new version of Rolemaster? No? Really.....?
Just think of the crit tables!!
In some ways the same holds true for other games - the current incarnation of D&D is currently rocking our game group's world and providing a remarkable amount of entertainment. If you had told me a year ago we would be enthusiastically using a 'battleboard' and maps and we would have collective gasps of excitement when a large mini was revealed by the GM, I would have laughed in your face. However, we are. Do we play the game straight? I think we do, in that we don't really change the rules of the game, we just bolt on some techniques we have learned from playing other games to add to it.
Yesterday I picked up the pocket rulebook version of Traveller by Mongoose (which is abbreviated sometimes to MongTrav....). I'm a sucker for pocket rulebooks but this seems to have really hit it just right. Traveller is an old favourite of mine and there is something amazingly comfortable about UPPs, hex character stats and those strings of planet stats. At Dragonmeet, I picked up (as in, lifted up, rather than bought!) Starblazer Adventures ... its a fucking BRICK. Pocket Traveller is a slim booklet. What would I find more useful? Moreover, which would I be more likely to play? MongTrav, almost certainly.
I wonder if there are any other old-school games on the horizon that could be resurrected for the modern age? I know Gregor Hutton's game-in-planning 'Good Morning Britain' is a supers game set in the 80s which uses the Marvel Superheroes system, polished up and made nice. Anyone for a new version of Rolemaster? No? Really.....?
Just think of the crit tables!!
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Phasing and You!
One thing that I haven't mentioned recently is that I have started playing WoW again, casually. Sunraven has been transfered to a PvE realm, joined a guild with some old faces and levelled to 80. Wrath of the Lich King, the new WoW expansion, has proved to be a very entertaining little buy and I have been continually impressed by both the improvements to the game and the depth of the content. However, last night I realised that I had missed one of the most important features new to the game: Phasing.
It was like being punched in the jaw.
Flashback to the early days of WoW. I remember Gorthaal, my druid, battling hard to free the Crossroads from the threat of the Bristleback Motherf*ckers and their seek-and-destroy hyena allies. No matter how many I killed, no matter what rewards I gained, no matter what level I returned to rain hell and damnation on them, they were still a Clear and Present Danger to 11-14th level characters in the vicinity. My pwnage was for naught.
Jump to Age of Conan. Gorth, my Bear Shaman, rescued the City of Tortage from the evils of some nasty dude during the instanced Night period, whilst doing all manner of jobs for people during the Day period. My Night was my Night and my Day was shared with everyone else. In the Night my actions were persistent, in the Day they were not .... until the end of level 20 when I owned the bad guy and the place changed. Under the veil of loading screens, transitional NPCs etc, we had the vestige of a persistent world.
Back to today, well, I won't talk about Wrathgate but I will talk about Shadow Vault. I was on a mission - infiltrate the Shadow Vault for the Knights of the Ebon Blade and deal with it's undead denizens. Fair enough. Kills a few, grab some items - standard fare. However, I then had to convert some NPCs onto the side of the Ebon Blade. OK. And now me and the NPCs attack the Elite Boss Man. We own, naturally and I get sent to tell someone far away that Shadow Vault has been taken.
Now in old WoW, I would return to find that Shadow Vault was still held by undead, my new allies are now enemies and everything has been reset.
Not now. Now I return to find a thriving Ebon Blade supply camp. My new allies are now Vendors or guards. There is a flight point and a Quartermaster and even, I believe, an Innkeeper. The game world has changed.
There are other points in the game where this happens. It doesn't happen everywhere though but when it does it is very subtle indeed. No loading screens. No transitional NPCs. Its just like a story unfolding before you.
This, I believe, has been one of the things that has been requested of MMOs for some time - a truly persistent reality. Of course, this is still a single perspective reality but it goes some of the way. I was truly stunned by it last night because it meant that, in the story, for once, I had really made a difference.
Good stuff.
It was like being punched in the jaw.
Flashback to the early days of WoW. I remember Gorthaal, my druid, battling hard to free the Crossroads from the threat of the Bristleback Motherf*ckers and their seek-and-destroy hyena allies. No matter how many I killed, no matter what rewards I gained, no matter what level I returned to rain hell and damnation on them, they were still a Clear and Present Danger to 11-14th level characters in the vicinity. My pwnage was for naught.
Jump to Age of Conan. Gorth, my Bear Shaman, rescued the City of Tortage from the evils of some nasty dude during the instanced Night period, whilst doing all manner of jobs for people during the Day period. My Night was my Night and my Day was shared with everyone else. In the Night my actions were persistent, in the Day they were not .... until the end of level 20 when I owned the bad guy and the place changed. Under the veil of loading screens, transitional NPCs etc, we had the vestige of a persistent world.
Back to today, well, I won't talk about Wrathgate but I will talk about Shadow Vault. I was on a mission - infiltrate the Shadow Vault for the Knights of the Ebon Blade and deal with it's undead denizens. Fair enough. Kills a few, grab some items - standard fare. However, I then had to convert some NPCs onto the side of the Ebon Blade. OK. And now me and the NPCs attack the Elite Boss Man. We own, naturally and I get sent to tell someone far away that Shadow Vault has been taken.
Now in old WoW, I would return to find that Shadow Vault was still held by undead, my new allies are now enemies and everything has been reset.
Not now. Now I return to find a thriving Ebon Blade supply camp. My new allies are now Vendors or guards. There is a flight point and a Quartermaster and even, I believe, an Innkeeper. The game world has changed.
There are other points in the game where this happens. It doesn't happen everywhere though but when it does it is very subtle indeed. No loading screens. No transitional NPCs. Its just like a story unfolding before you.
This, I believe, has been one of the things that has been requested of MMOs for some time - a truly persistent reality. Of course, this is still a single perspective reality but it goes some of the way. I was truly stunned by it last night because it meant that, in the story, for once, I had really made a difference.
Good stuff.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Top Three Gaming Moments: 2008
Here we go again! - you know the score.
Honourable Mention: Spirit of Exalted Lite at CottageCon II
CC2 was a great event, even though I think it is fair to say that some of the games didn't quite measure up to the heights of CC1. My highlight was Andrew's Exalted game, which used the Exalted starter rules combined with some aspects of Spirit of the Century (no pun intended). The game was high drama and played across a massive vista. It certainly laid the groundwork for things to come from Andrew.
Honourable Mention: Horror in Hot War
We played a playtest of Malcolm Craig's Hot War and I tried to run a 'horror' game. Now I have a big problem with horror games and horror in gaming in general, so this was a bit of a challenge. I ran a game called 'The Square' dealing with an isolated survivor community in London which was a facade for a horrendous social pact. I had a great time running the game and we gave the system a good working through. However, the best thing was that I got a real 'eewww!' reaction from at least one of the players and thats the best I have ever managed in a horror campaign. A victory. (I ran the same scenario as a con game as well, and got the same reaction!)
Number Three: The End of Pendragon
Nigel's Pendragon campaign was a roaring success and is currently, I believe, the longest campaign that I have played in. We lived long enough to see the Boy King come to the throne and to help in the formation of his new kingdom. Hell, Sir Brion, my character, even knighted the King! However, these five knights were always doomed to a sorry end and they warred on Cerdic, the saxon pain-in-the-ass and ended the conflict by taking his town of Hantone. The Death Flag was flying and slowly but surely, each knight was overcome in the battle - except Sir Aeron the Younger, who survived somehow. Brion died fighting on the steps of the keep, surrounded by saxon warriors and taking many of them down with him. It was an excellent end to an excellent campaign - one which in many ways rescued our groups gaming.
Number Two: Running Duty & Honour for Keary
As I have developed D&H, there have been people who I have been aware that I would eventually have to show my game to. The first is Keary, one of the guys who I gamed with in Rugby and well ... lets just say, not the greatest advocate of so-called indie gaming. Ian is part of my gaming group but he probably knows the most about this sort of stuff. I've ran the game for both of them and they had a good time. For me, that was the personal triumph I needed. I'm sure Ian will be horrified to read this but it's true!
Number One: The City of Kings
Take D&D4e - a fair whack of crunch - add four gamers, an inspirational GM with a elephantine memory, some indie-game sensibilities and a whole bucket of sword and sorcery inspiration and you have 'The City of Kings'. Its been a rollercoaster ride of adventure and intrigue leading to Sunday's 'season finale'. Andrew has done an exemplary job as a GM and I like to think that we, the players, have added a little ourselves. There have been precious few games over the years where I have been eager to play again, desperate to know what happens next. Thats a Good Thing. (Post-End of Tier Edit: I held back on this post because I knew that there was one more session of this phase of this game to go and it rocked. We rocked, despite some really quite atrocious dice rolling. It was an epic end to an epic campaign phase. It maintains the #1 spot!)
So, those are mine - what are yours?
Honourable Mention: Spirit of Exalted Lite at CottageCon II
CC2 was a great event, even though I think it is fair to say that some of the games didn't quite measure up to the heights of CC1. My highlight was Andrew's Exalted game, which used the Exalted starter rules combined with some aspects of Spirit of the Century (no pun intended). The game was high drama and played across a massive vista. It certainly laid the groundwork for things to come from Andrew.
Honourable Mention: Horror in Hot War
We played a playtest of Malcolm Craig's Hot War and I tried to run a 'horror' game. Now I have a big problem with horror games and horror in gaming in general, so this was a bit of a challenge. I ran a game called 'The Square' dealing with an isolated survivor community in London which was a facade for a horrendous social pact. I had a great time running the game and we gave the system a good working through. However, the best thing was that I got a real 'eewww!' reaction from at least one of the players and thats the best I have ever managed in a horror campaign. A victory. (I ran the same scenario as a con game as well, and got the same reaction!)
Number Three: The End of Pendragon
Nigel's Pendragon campaign was a roaring success and is currently, I believe, the longest campaign that I have played in. We lived long enough to see the Boy King come to the throne and to help in the formation of his new kingdom. Hell, Sir Brion, my character, even knighted the King! However, these five knights were always doomed to a sorry end and they warred on Cerdic, the saxon pain-in-the-ass and ended the conflict by taking his town of Hantone. The Death Flag was flying and slowly but surely, each knight was overcome in the battle - except Sir Aeron the Younger, who survived somehow. Brion died fighting on the steps of the keep, surrounded by saxon warriors and taking many of them down with him. It was an excellent end to an excellent campaign - one which in many ways rescued our groups gaming.
Number Two: Running Duty & Honour for Keary
As I have developed D&H, there have been people who I have been aware that I would eventually have to show my game to. The first is Keary, one of the guys who I gamed with in Rugby and well ... lets just say, not the greatest advocate of so-called indie gaming. Ian is part of my gaming group but he probably knows the most about this sort of stuff. I've ran the game for both of them and they had a good time. For me, that was the personal triumph I needed. I'm sure Ian will be horrified to read this but it's true!
Number One: The City of Kings
Take D&D4e - a fair whack of crunch - add four gamers, an inspirational GM with a elephantine memory, some indie-game sensibilities and a whole bucket of sword and sorcery inspiration and you have 'The City of Kings'. Its been a rollercoaster ride of adventure and intrigue leading to Sunday's 'season finale'. Andrew has done an exemplary job as a GM and I like to think that we, the players, have added a little ourselves. There have been precious few games over the years where I have been eager to play again, desperate to know what happens next. Thats a Good Thing. (Post-End of Tier Edit: I held back on this post because I knew that there was one more session of this phase of this game to go and it rocked. We rocked, despite some really quite atrocious dice rolling. It was an epic end to an epic campaign phase. It maintains the #1 spot!)
So, those are mine - what are yours?
2008 Gaming Review: Part One - Last Years Resolutions
So, last year I made five gaming resolutions - how did I do?
1. No More Games
WIN! - I have managed not to get involved with any more gaming exploits. Group One continues every other Sunday, as we have for eight years now and we are knees-deep in our epic D&D4e campaign. Group Two has met sporadically but we have enjoyed some short game success with PTA, Hot War, Cold City and others. The massed gaming family still meets for boardgames and Blood Bowl.
2. Go to More Conventions
WIN! - I've been a bit of a con-whore actually and they have all been a lot of fun. I started with Conpulsion in Edinburgh and then GamesExpo in Birmingham. That was followed by Furnace in Sheffield and finally Dragonmeet in London. I missed out on Conpulsion and Indiecon but you cannot go everywhere. This is definitely something I want to continue next year.
3. Finish Duty & Honour
WIN! - Exactly on time, D&H was published on the first of October 2008 and has been doing very nicely indeed. 2008 has been a big year of change for me (hey, thats a new one - I've never blogged that sentence before...) but this has been my major achievement.
4. Resume by position as the Iron DM
Work in Progress - Whilst I have ran a number of sessions of D&H at conventions, I have yet to get my teeth into something longer term back at home. Partly this has been because Andrew has a game that I would simply never want to end and partly because my head has been so fucked up. I have just started a new game though - a urban horror/fantasy campaign called Seven Curses, using the Fate 3.0 system. Hopefully this will kick off into something at least more than a few sessions long.
5. Start gaming with the kids again
FAIL! - Just not had the time or indeed the inclination. OK, there's a caveat - the house has been in uproar for large parts of the year and this has meant that there hasn't really been a gaming space. However, thats not really an excuse. The Dr Who RPG will, undoubtedly, be Lara's break-in game if ever there was one, so next year could seen a new 12-year old gamer. Or not, as boys and music and stuff could be more important.
3.5 out of 5. Not bad Neil, not bad.
Neil
1. No More Games
WIN! - I have managed not to get involved with any more gaming exploits. Group One continues every other Sunday, as we have for eight years now and we are knees-deep in our epic D&D4e campaign. Group Two has met sporadically but we have enjoyed some short game success with PTA, Hot War, Cold City and others. The massed gaming family still meets for boardgames and Blood Bowl.
2. Go to More Conventions
WIN! - I've been a bit of a con-whore actually and they have all been a lot of fun. I started with Conpulsion in Edinburgh and then GamesExpo in Birmingham. That was followed by Furnace in Sheffield and finally Dragonmeet in London. I missed out on Conpulsion and Indiecon but you cannot go everywhere. This is definitely something I want to continue next year.
3. Finish Duty & Honour
WIN! - Exactly on time, D&H was published on the first of October 2008 and has been doing very nicely indeed. 2008 has been a big year of change for me (hey, thats a new one - I've never blogged that sentence before...) but this has been my major achievement.
4. Resume by position as the Iron DM
Work in Progress - Whilst I have ran a number of sessions of D&H at conventions, I have yet to get my teeth into something longer term back at home. Partly this has been because Andrew has a game that I would simply never want to end and partly because my head has been so fucked up. I have just started a new game though - a urban horror/fantasy campaign called Seven Curses, using the Fate 3.0 system. Hopefully this will kick off into something at least more than a few sessions long.
5. Start gaming with the kids again
FAIL! - Just not had the time or indeed the inclination. OK, there's a caveat - the house has been in uproar for large parts of the year and this has meant that there hasn't really been a gaming space. However, thats not really an excuse. The Dr Who RPG will, undoubtedly, be Lara's break-in game if ever there was one, so next year could seen a new 12-year old gamer. Or not, as boys and music and stuff could be more important.
3.5 out of 5. Not bad Neil, not bad.
Neil
Monday, December 01, 2008
Dragonmeet 2008
Well, that was an exceptionally interesting weekend. It was the first time I had been to Dragonmeet, one of the UK's 'premier' conventions and it was a decent affair. I think I missed a lot of stuff due to being trapped in the trade hall for 95% of the event, but it was clean, clear and nice in a lovely venue (Kensington Town Hall).
From a personal point of view, it was a tremendous success. Duty & Honour sold like the proverbial hot cakes, with a lot of enthusiastic people coming to the Collective Endeavour stall and chatting to me about it. That was very cool. I even met some of the great and the good of the gaming industry who were interested in it, which was also pretty damned cool. More encouragingly, there was a lot of interest in the future D&H projects I have on the horizon. The Endeavour did great business and busted the £1k sales mark for the first time I believe. The stall ran like clockwork and looked the business (a woman's touch, I believe, helped). I had a great time meeting with everyone again and I am indebted to Civi, my buddy from SQC, for letting me use his house as a crash pad and generally showing me around for the weekend - what a star.
There was one thing that was pointed out to me by Karen of House Atreides, and thats the small scale of the UKRPG community. She was mentioning a convention in Germany that attracts 120,000 roleplayers - not 'gamers' - ROLEPLAYERS. An italian one regularly gets 30,000. UK Conventions are back-slapping and high-fiving if they get 2000. There has to be something wrong there, surely?
Anyway, D&H is a sniff off 100 sales within two months of release, which I am utterly thrilled about and it has settled my mind on exactly what I am doing next!
Excellent stuff
From a personal point of view, it was a tremendous success. Duty & Honour sold like the proverbial hot cakes, with a lot of enthusiastic people coming to the Collective Endeavour stall and chatting to me about it. That was very cool. I even met some of the great and the good of the gaming industry who were interested in it, which was also pretty damned cool. More encouragingly, there was a lot of interest in the future D&H projects I have on the horizon. The Endeavour did great business and busted the £1k sales mark for the first time I believe. The stall ran like clockwork and looked the business (a woman's touch, I believe, helped). I had a great time meeting with everyone again and I am indebted to Civi, my buddy from SQC, for letting me use his house as a crash pad and generally showing me around for the weekend - what a star.
There was one thing that was pointed out to me by Karen of House Atreides, and thats the small scale of the UKRPG community. She was mentioning a convention in Germany that attracts 120,000 roleplayers - not 'gamers' - ROLEPLAYERS. An italian one regularly gets 30,000. UK Conventions are back-slapping and high-fiving if they get 2000. There has to be something wrong there, surely?
Anyway, D&H is a sniff off 100 sales within two months of release, which I am utterly thrilled about and it has settled my mind on exactly what I am doing next!
Excellent stuff
Is this the worst novel ever?
Stuck on a bus for nine hours each way this weekend, I decided to polish off the last unread Anita Blake novel on my bookshelf. Sadly, I have broken and this will almost certainly be the last Anita Blake novel I purchase. It is, I believe, the single worst book I have ever managed to finish (through no other options presenting themselves on the bus) in my life. Terrible does not begin to describe the utter utter pointlessness of this story. Bilge, tripe, shite - words that don't come near. It is TERRIBLE.
For those of you new to the world of Anita Blake, I will attempt a synopsis. She started as a rather prim, single, sexually inactive vampire hunter who was also an animator (ie. she can raise the dead) in a version of the world where vampires and werewolves etc are legit. The early books are pretty good horror murder mysteries with a little romantic friction built into it. And then it all went wrong. Very very wrong indeed. Somewhere around books 5-7, the author decided to ramp up the sex and Anita was possessed by the ardeur, an almost uncontrollable need to feed magical energies through sex. This has resulted in an increasingly uncontrollable parade of various sexual angles for stories which have boggled the mind. Anita is now a three-out-of-four bound human servant of a vampire but SHE has her own vampire servant as well, she is part of two supernatural triumverates of immense power, she is the head woman and enforcer of the local werewolves and queen of the local wereleopards, she houses FOUR seperate strains of lycanthropy, she is not just an animator but not a necromancer AND a succubus. It goes on and on and on. Its ridiculous.
In this book she is, I kid you not, trialling fuckbuddies to feed her hunger whilst she is worried about being pregnant. Of course she finds out she has not one but TWO sorts of foetal abnormalities, but hey, she's not pregnant anyway, so whats the problem. Oh and she sends just about anyone she is near mad with lust. We have a bisexual ass-sandwich, a good old four way, some exhibitionist stuff, some borderline suggestions of woman on pimped out teenager sex, some attempted incest. And in the end NOTHING HAPPENS except, of course, Anita gains yet more powers, breaks more supernatural rules and is every more special and unique than she was before.
This book didn't even attempt to have a story. It was just one long series of very long, very dull, very complicated inter-character debates about the nature of her powers, how they might test them, the consequences of the testing, the way the people felt about the powers, the testing and the consequences of the testing and then how others felt about the way they felt. And after that went on for literally dozens of pages, poor old Anita has to have a shag again.
What makes this worse are two things. One, Laurel K. Hamilton doesn't know when to fade to black. Ever. So you get everything is vein-popping, cum-spraying, ass-pounding detail. The second is that in the middle of the book, Anita tries to will herself to not have any powers, which would kill her AND I WANTED HER TO SUCCEED!! Anything would be better for the once awesome character than to be tied to this albatross of a storyline forever.
Please. Kill the character. Please.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Max Payne...
I have very little to say about this film that can't be described in three words. Bridge to Terebithia.
OK, I might need a little explanation on top of that. Exhibit A - the Max Payne trailer
OK, so what can we take from that trailer? First half tells be, in words and pictures, that this is a supernatural movie. The second half tells me that this is an action film? Is that a fair assessment? I think it is.
I am, of course, wrong. Just like Bridge to Terebithia was advertised as a Narnia-esque children's fantasy and turned out to be an examination of the effect of death on the young psyche, Max Payne has no more to do with the supernatural than Toy Story II. Those winged creatures? Hallucinations brought on by some sort of supersoldier serum which the ... oh I could tell you more, but its just too silly. There are vague references to Norse mythology that have no tie to the film. 'The Devil is building his army...' - he might be, but not in this film, randomly injected voodoo stereotype. There is a woman who is some sort of russian ... I dunno, its never explained. She has a gun. Her sister gets killed. She has goons which disappear as soon as she gets a speaking role. She even says 'You know what I do...' No, pet, we don't - you have never said it. And your Russian accent disappears half way through the film as well!
It has three saving graces. Minor ones at that. First, the action scenes are reasonable. Nothing we haven't seen before, better, but at least they didn't mess it up (except for Max taking a shotgun blast and a full burst from a sub in the chest and just carrying in as per usual). Second, the Sin City style cinematography was pretty sweet. Not sweet enough, but very nice. Third, there is a rather nice sequence with Olga Kurylenko thats almost worth the price of admission *wink*
However, for the lame ass plot, the absolute fabrication of a trailer which completely missold the film, the holes in continuity that you could drive a planet through and just about some of the worst acting I have ever seen - and so much more - Ladies and Gentlemen, The Scorpion King has been dethroned. We have a NEW NEILS WORST FILM EVER - and it is MAX PAYNE.
I watch them, so you don't have to!
OK, I might need a little explanation on top of that. Exhibit A - the Max Payne trailer
OK, so what can we take from that trailer? First half tells be, in words and pictures, that this is a supernatural movie. The second half tells me that this is an action film? Is that a fair assessment? I think it is.
I am, of course, wrong. Just like Bridge to Terebithia was advertised as a Narnia-esque children's fantasy and turned out to be an examination of the effect of death on the young psyche, Max Payne has no more to do with the supernatural than Toy Story II. Those winged creatures? Hallucinations brought on by some sort of supersoldier serum which the ... oh I could tell you more, but its just too silly. There are vague references to Norse mythology that have no tie to the film. 'The Devil is building his army...' - he might be, but not in this film, randomly injected voodoo stereotype. There is a woman who is some sort of russian ... I dunno, its never explained. She has a gun. Her sister gets killed. She has goons which disappear as soon as she gets a speaking role. She even says 'You know what I do...' No, pet, we don't - you have never said it. And your Russian accent disappears half way through the film as well!
It has three saving graces. Minor ones at that. First, the action scenes are reasonable. Nothing we haven't seen before, better, but at least they didn't mess it up (except for Max taking a shotgun blast and a full burst from a sub in the chest and just carrying in as per usual). Second, the Sin City style cinematography was pretty sweet. Not sweet enough, but very nice. Third, there is a rather nice sequence with Olga Kurylenko thats almost worth the price of admission *wink*
However, for the lame ass plot, the absolute fabrication of a trailer which completely missold the film, the holes in continuity that you could drive a planet through and just about some of the worst acting I have ever seen - and so much more - Ladies and Gentlemen, The Scorpion King has been dethroned. We have a NEW NEILS WORST FILM EVER - and it is MAX PAYNE.
I watch them, so you don't have to!
Monday, November 10, 2008
Masterclass
... is one of the strange words that my screwed up Geordie accent cannot handle. Rather than mAsterclAss or ma(r)stercla(r)ss, I pronounce it mAstercla(r)ss. An aside.
Now, I know this is going to embarass him, but I can honestly say I think I saw a masterclass in GMing yesterday from Andrew, our 4e GM. We give him a rough time sometimes and he consistently churns out awesome. This week was a session which was focussed on one of our characters, a dragonborn. It was the pivotal session for his character, a session with some iconic martial and political scenes. It was a session that established part of the metagame for the Paragon tier. It had everything and it was, to all intents and purposes, focused on one player.
Dull?
Not in the slightest. The session was designed - crafted, almost - to keep the other two players involved. The battles were done in such a way that we played as a team. The political scenes were such that either we could be involved in some little way or they were so entertaining that the theatre was worth watching! There were little side scenes where we could help out and get involved with the interactions. There were scenes in the City of Kings where we could push the plot whilst other, more central things, were happening. It was, to be frank, superb.
I have tried to think about a way I would have handled the situation better and I simply cannot. Kudos needs to go to Nigel as well, for one of the most eloquent, quick-witted and politically barbed sessions I have seen as well!
Great stuff. And next session, it gets better!
Now, I know this is going to embarass him, but I can honestly say I think I saw a masterclass in GMing yesterday from Andrew, our 4e GM. We give him a rough time sometimes and he consistently churns out awesome. This week was a session which was focussed on one of our characters, a dragonborn. It was the pivotal session for his character, a session with some iconic martial and political scenes. It was a session that established part of the metagame for the Paragon tier. It had everything and it was, to all intents and purposes, focused on one player.
Dull?
Not in the slightest. The session was designed - crafted, almost - to keep the other two players involved. The battles were done in such a way that we played as a team. The political scenes were such that either we could be involved in some little way or they were so entertaining that the theatre was worth watching! There were little side scenes where we could help out and get involved with the interactions. There were scenes in the City of Kings where we could push the plot whilst other, more central things, were happening. It was, to be frank, superb.
I have tried to think about a way I would have handled the situation better and I simply cannot. Kudos needs to go to Nigel as well, for one of the most eloquent, quick-witted and politically barbed sessions I have seen as well!
Great stuff. And next session, it gets better!
Saturday, November 08, 2008
Bits and Bobs
Loads of little things happening at the moment.
1. My self-imposed Duty & Honour rest period appears to be working. At least now if I consider looking at stuff for it again I don't feel like ramming a pencil through my eye. I think, partly, this has a lot to do with the remarkable success of the game now that it has been unleashed on drivethrurpg and rpgnow. Its been selling really quite well and the Almanac is flying out. I've also had to do a small reprint, all within budget, to see me through Dragonmeet and probably Conpulsion. Things are going very well indeed - I had no real data point for pdf sales so I didn't factor them into my budgets, so strong pdf sales are a welcome boost!
2. We kicked off a new G2 game on Thursday, using Fate 3.0 SRD to create a dark urban magic game based in Prague. The characters are all quite different and the background that we came up with was excellent, especially the idea of the magical iron curtain, which was inspired. I'm looking forward to sitting down and getting my teeth into it. That said, I'm not 100% convinced that Fate is the best system for it, but we shall see!
3. The preparation for Blood Bowl has began in earnest. We have our first date - hopefully for pre-season games - on the 16th November, and I have started what I think will become a marathon painting session, bringing the Marienburg Stealers to life. Its been twenty years since I have painted a figure in anger and it took a little while to get my eye worked in. Its great to know that Games Workshop have still not sorted their pigments out, so red and yellow refuse to make orange still... I have to admit that some of the fine detail work is shocking. I think I might have to accept that my eyesight, whilst still pretty damned good, simply isn't what it used to be!
1. My self-imposed Duty & Honour rest period appears to be working. At least now if I consider looking at stuff for it again I don't feel like ramming a pencil through my eye. I think, partly, this has a lot to do with the remarkable success of the game now that it has been unleashed on drivethrurpg and rpgnow. Its been selling really quite well and the Almanac is flying out. I've also had to do a small reprint, all within budget, to see me through Dragonmeet and probably Conpulsion. Things are going very well indeed - I had no real data point for pdf sales so I didn't factor them into my budgets, so strong pdf sales are a welcome boost!
2. We kicked off a new G2 game on Thursday, using Fate 3.0 SRD to create a dark urban magic game based in Prague. The characters are all quite different and the background that we came up with was excellent, especially the idea of the magical iron curtain, which was inspired. I'm looking forward to sitting down and getting my teeth into it. That said, I'm not 100% convinced that Fate is the best system for it, but we shall see!
3. The preparation for Blood Bowl has began in earnest. We have our first date - hopefully for pre-season games - on the 16th November, and I have started what I think will become a marathon painting session, bringing the Marienburg Stealers to life. Its been twenty years since I have painted a figure in anger and it took a little while to get my eye worked in. Its great to know that Games Workshop have still not sorted their pigments out, so red and yellow refuse to make orange still... I have to admit that some of the fine detail work is shocking. I think I might have to accept that my eyesight, whilst still pretty damned good, simply isn't what it used to be!
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
No We Can't!
So, history has been made. Not only do we have the first black Formula One champion but we also have the first black American president. OK, the former might not quite be on the same scale as the latter but poor old Lewis is being forgotten in the rush. He'll just have to console himself with the attentions of his Pussycat Doll. Poor lamb.
I stayed up and watched the election results until about 05.30am, just after Obama's acceptance speech. It was a funny old night. I chose to watch the BBC coverage because I cannot abide ITV and I think I would have cried at the overload of the CNN/FOX coverage. I should have probably watched SKY. The BBC coverage was atrocious. The technology was barely working, the studio was in chaos, the OB stuff was rarely prepared. It was embarassing. Bumble-by in the chair looked mostly pissed, was padding like a champion and rarely seemed to be able to get any enthusiasm up for it all.
Some of the guests were awesomely bad too. Simon Schama decided that the BBC should have called the election at around 100/200 and just mocked them for being scaredy-cats. The former US UN Ambassador was on, basically bad-mouthing anything that was said anti-Republican as BBC and liberal media bias. He was a cock. There was another guy on who I sort of recognised and all he did was rip into Sarah Palin at any opportunity. The best of the bunch was the politics professor with the dodgy wig who was just like an American version of Jon Snow!
In the depths of the night however, I did finally get it. For years I have become increasingly interested in America, Americans and Americana. I have found the marked differences between Brits and Yanks to be fascinating. Last night, listening to Obama's acceptance speech (and McCain's concession speech) the penny finally dropped. I may be making massive generalisations here, but America's history has been shaped by its politicians in a way that ours simply has not. Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Johnson, Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Bush and now Obama. Even their none-political figures, like Martin Luther King, seem to have a greater resonance in popular culture. I watched the crowds and I listened to the passioned rhetoric and I realised that deep down, the Americans really do LOVE their country and the ideals that it stands for and whilst they may not like big government, they love big personalities to lead them and to champion those values that they love so much.
In contrast, we just don't. The majority of the population has precious little respect for the Royal Family - tolerance is about the best it gets. We despise anyone who dares call themselves a politician, from the lowest student politico to Gordon Brown and David Cameron. We have no core of values that we would dare own up to as the beliefs that bind the country together - look at the reaction of any exercise in 'Britishness'? We're even in a situation where if someone was to stand in the UK and make a speech like Obama did last night, I honestly believe some people would accuse him of being right-wing, racist and draped in nationalism. Well, he certainly was the latter because that is something that Americans have never had a problem embracing. We have and we will continue to until we overcome a little bit of our inner turmoil over Empire. Do we need an Asian Prime Minister? Could we handle an Asian Prime Minister? I don't think we could and thats sad.
I thought last night, as I was brushing my teeth, what sort of impact Obama could have on UK politics. Could Cameron capture that zeitgeist or is he too wrapped in the cloth of the established politic system? I doubt Brown could. Maybe the nearest we came to it was Blair in 1997 but even that wasn't quite right. What would happen if someone stood up in the UK and said that there was no North, no South, no Scottish, Welsh, English or Irish, no working class, no upper class, we are all British. What would happen if someone said to the British people that we have to stand by our core values - democracy, social justice and equality? What if someone asked the British people not to be a bunch of blame-game playing, super-cynical haters? To throw away the attitude of 'why the fuck should I?' and 'its not my fault!' and instead use the simple credo of 'yes we can!'
Sadly, I suspect the answer would be 'No, we can't. Now lets turn over to Eastenders.'
OK, so I might be being a little harsh on us here, romantacising the Obama charisma and generalising like a bugger but wouldn't it be fantastic if, just for once, we had someone who could wash away the self-hate, the distrust and the apathy and unite the United Kingdom? In our time maybe?
I stayed up and watched the election results until about 05.30am, just after Obama's acceptance speech. It was a funny old night. I chose to watch the BBC coverage because I cannot abide ITV and I think I would have cried at the overload of the CNN/FOX coverage. I should have probably watched SKY. The BBC coverage was atrocious. The technology was barely working, the studio was in chaos, the OB stuff was rarely prepared. It was embarassing. Bumble-by in the chair looked mostly pissed, was padding like a champion and rarely seemed to be able to get any enthusiasm up for it all.
Some of the guests were awesomely bad too. Simon Schama decided that the BBC should have called the election at around 100/200 and just mocked them for being scaredy-cats. The former US UN Ambassador was on, basically bad-mouthing anything that was said anti-Republican as BBC and liberal media bias. He was a cock. There was another guy on who I sort of recognised and all he did was rip into Sarah Palin at any opportunity. The best of the bunch was the politics professor with the dodgy wig who was just like an American version of Jon Snow!
In the depths of the night however, I did finally get it. For years I have become increasingly interested in America, Americans and Americana. I have found the marked differences between Brits and Yanks to be fascinating. Last night, listening to Obama's acceptance speech (and McCain's concession speech) the penny finally dropped. I may be making massive generalisations here, but America's history has been shaped by its politicians in a way that ours simply has not. Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Johnson, Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Bush and now Obama. Even their none-political figures, like Martin Luther King, seem to have a greater resonance in popular culture. I watched the crowds and I listened to the passioned rhetoric and I realised that deep down, the Americans really do LOVE their country and the ideals that it stands for and whilst they may not like big government, they love big personalities to lead them and to champion those values that they love so much.
In contrast, we just don't. The majority of the population has precious little respect for the Royal Family - tolerance is about the best it gets. We despise anyone who dares call themselves a politician, from the lowest student politico to Gordon Brown and David Cameron. We have no core of values that we would dare own up to as the beliefs that bind the country together - look at the reaction of any exercise in 'Britishness'? We're even in a situation where if someone was to stand in the UK and make a speech like Obama did last night, I honestly believe some people would accuse him of being right-wing, racist and draped in nationalism. Well, he certainly was the latter because that is something that Americans have never had a problem embracing. We have and we will continue to until we overcome a little bit of our inner turmoil over Empire. Do we need an Asian Prime Minister? Could we handle an Asian Prime Minister? I don't think we could and thats sad.
I thought last night, as I was brushing my teeth, what sort of impact Obama could have on UK politics. Could Cameron capture that zeitgeist or is he too wrapped in the cloth of the established politic system? I doubt Brown could. Maybe the nearest we came to it was Blair in 1997 but even that wasn't quite right. What would happen if someone stood up in the UK and said that there was no North, no South, no Scottish, Welsh, English or Irish, no working class, no upper class, we are all British. What would happen if someone said to the British people that we have to stand by our core values - democracy, social justice and equality? What if someone asked the British people not to be a bunch of blame-game playing, super-cynical haters? To throw away the attitude of 'why the fuck should I?' and 'its not my fault!' and instead use the simple credo of 'yes we can!'
Sadly, I suspect the answer would be 'No, we can't. Now lets turn over to Eastenders.'
OK, so I might be being a little harsh on us here, romantacising the Obama charisma and generalising like a bugger but wouldn't it be fantastic if, just for once, we had someone who could wash away the self-hate, the distrust and the apathy and unite the United Kingdom? In our time maybe?
Friday, October 31, 2008
20 Years Later...
Twenty years ago was the last time I ever bought anything from or took part in something from Games Workshop. I was seventeen and it was almost certainly some Warhammer 40k stuff. Just after that I seriously discovered girls, got a job and never had time to paint figures and do stuff like that again. Even if I say so myself, I used to be a decent painter - not Golden Demon standard - but I wasn't ashamed to whip out the odd model during a roleplaying game.
Twenty years on, we have been dragged back into the world of Blood Bowl in the latest of our gaming group diversions. Ben, who is acting as our Commissioner, is an enthusiastic NFL fan (who has incidentally rekindled my love of the sport) and he is running the league. Of course as money rich, time poor adults we are acquiring teams en masse. Some are coming painted, others are being processed through the Gow Paint Shop as it opens its doors again.
I shudder to think what this is going to be like. Some people have never played the game before. Others are hard worn veterans who can remember the stats of nearly every player on a team. Some have experience in board games and sports tactics. Others can barely remember which way the ball will go. Its going to be very interesting, hugely competitive and something quite unlike anything we have done before.
I'm playing humans, btw. I believe I could be getting squished quite regularly. I will keep you informed!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Like Father, Like Daughters
One of my most vivid memories of childhood is the day I bought the Empire Strikes Back Movie Special from the newsagent around the corner from our house. I had been waiting for weeks for this sneak peak magazine to come in and I was thrilled. I had diligently saved my money and ran, clutching it in my grubby little mit to the shop.
By the time I got home, I was in tears.
Why? Because Han Solo was DEAD! Locked in a tomb of carbonite! The sneak peak mag just had pictures of the scene near the back without any context for the decision. Han Solo, my hero - the no-brainer choice for my first Star Wars figure - was dead. Now, I was a sturdy lad of 9 or 10 at the time but I cried like someone had just thrown my pet rabbit in a blender and then force fed me the bunny slurpee. My mam was even considering keeping me off school because of my apparent grief!
This morning, twenty-something years on, I had nearly the same situation when I had to break it to the girls that David Tennant was not going to be Dr Who for much longer. It was painful. There were cries of disbelief, tears, huffing and more than a little hoarding of Dr Who memorabilia just in case this meant that I would be confiscating it - although I'm bemused at that one.
It was bad enough at the cliffhanger episode of S4, when there was more than a little bit of child-edited bad language thrown at the TV screen. I can only imagine what will happen when the moment comes. They have a year to get used to the fact.
But the pain lasts forever ..... damned carbonite!
By the time I got home, I was in tears.
Why? Because Han Solo was DEAD! Locked in a tomb of carbonite! The sneak peak mag just had pictures of the scene near the back without any context for the decision. Han Solo, my hero - the no-brainer choice for my first Star Wars figure - was dead. Now, I was a sturdy lad of 9 or 10 at the time but I cried like someone had just thrown my pet rabbit in a blender and then force fed me the bunny slurpee. My mam was even considering keeping me off school because of my apparent grief!
This morning, twenty-something years on, I had nearly the same situation when I had to break it to the girls that David Tennant was not going to be Dr Who for much longer. It was painful. There were cries of disbelief, tears, huffing and more than a little hoarding of Dr Who memorabilia just in case this meant that I would be confiscating it - although I'm bemused at that one.
It was bad enough at the cliffhanger episode of S4, when there was more than a little bit of child-edited bad language thrown at the TV screen. I can only imagine what will happen when the moment comes. They have a year to get used to the fact.
But the pain lasts forever ..... damned carbonite!
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
A Week in Geek
In Heroes, Tim Kring continues to tear comic classics and mash them together, with Sylar doing his very best to create Kingdom Come, there, on my screen. I'm really getting into S3 of Heroes but I can see why some of the less comics-savvy people might be getting a tad confused. They have never had to handle a 'Crisis...' after all.
In Fringe, 'The Observer' does things, people get injected and shot, the mad professor is madder and the cow makes another essential cameo. Series is still good and might even have had a sniff of metaplot here, but I have no idea what. Still struggling to find the female lead attractive, which is kind of refreshing. At least the old woman from the massive corp who are obviously the baddie/goodie flip flop wasn't in it again with MacGuffin of the Week.
In Spooks (yes!), Adam Carter bites the big one in one of the worst written episodes I have seen. A little too much pro-soldier, 'we must do it for the troops' monologuing for my liking. However, Harry is still bad-ass and HorseFaceWoman killed someone with a fork. YoungBlondeOne will become Wolverine too. Mark my words. (Note: Its never worth learning anyone's name in Spooks until they have been in three series. They're dispensible...)
In Fringe, 'The Observer' does things, people get injected and shot, the mad professor is madder and the cow makes another essential cameo. Series is still good and might even have had a sniff of metaplot here, but I have no idea what. Still struggling to find the female lead attractive, which is kind of refreshing. At least the old woman from the massive corp who are obviously the baddie/goodie flip flop wasn't in it again with MacGuffin of the Week.
In Spooks (yes!), Adam Carter bites the big one in one of the worst written episodes I have seen. A little too much pro-soldier, 'we must do it for the troops' monologuing for my liking. However, Harry is still bad-ass and HorseFaceWoman killed someone with a fork. YoungBlondeOne will become Wolverine too. Mark my words. (Note: Its never worth learning anyone's name in Spooks until they have been in three series. They're dispensible...)
Friday, October 24, 2008
Indulge me...
So MI:666 popped back up again as I finally had the lightbulb moment about mechanics.
OK, so you have paired sins and virtues, as has been suggested. - e.g. Lust/Chastity. Each of these will have a value and ala Pendragon, they will be linked and the value of the sin/virtue will be reflected as a dice pool. So, for example, you could have Lust (4)/ Chastity (3). When acting lustfully, you roll 4d6, when acting chastely, you roll 3d6.
When you make an action within the game that falls into the realm of a sin or a virtue (Almost all actions can be stuck into one of them. A combat situation is Wrath. A chase scene is Pride. Stealth is Sloth, Social skills are Lust, Endurance style situations are Gluttony, Medical can be Envy (its more like Kindness, the virtue). Still struggling a little for Greed) you roll your dice against a target number. Roll over, win etc.
The trick comes when the GM takes the role of the Tempting Devil. In any action, the GM can offer you extra dice, but will cost you points from your virtue. So, for example, the GM might off you an extra +2d6 on your roll, at a cost of 1 point of virtue. You stand a better chance of succeeding if you move towards the 'dark side'.
I'm also looking at having the difficulty numbers being ... fluid ... so that the more infernal influence there is in an area, the higher the difficulty numbers are - so you may have to be tempted or risk the horrors of probability.
The final arm of this mechanic would be that whenever you are successful tempted 'Hell' gets a point to their total and this would eventually move Hell towards an endgame. And yes, this would get to a point where the agents might well tip the scales and start that endgame.
Now, this is about the vaguest representation I can think of, and as usual my initial mechanics for games tend to rotate around some sort of bluff, barter, game-theoryable mechanic.
I would appreciate your thoughts on whether this is madness!
Monday, October 20, 2008
Furnace
So, how was it for me?
From a game point of view, I have to admit that Furnace was a very mixed bag. I played Dread:The First Book of Pandemonium (GM:Scott Doward) which was a nice visceral way to kick off the convention. Its a game based on demon-hunting, madness, ultra-violence etc. All very graphic, all very gory and definitely very stylised. I felt sometimes the system tried to hard to be cool - when powers are described as vicious lampreys bursting from your stomach to attack the bad guys, it makes it quite hard to feel like a good guy! Also the use of terms like 'Clusterfuck' and 'Cockpunch' as game terms seemed ... gratuitous? Regardless, it was a decent game and produced a number of very memorable moments.
In the evening I played Poison'd (GM:Graham Walmsley). This is a game I have been wanting to try for a while and whilst I was not disappointed by the game itself (I thought it was quite elegant) some of the subject matter around the table just made me sigh inwardly. Lets see ... rape, homosexual rape, child abuse, necrophilia, group sex, group rape... oh what a wonderful advert for the hobby! Now I can see how some people might see these themes, in the context of the game and comment on how the game allows us to explore the range of human depravity in a society without rules or boundaries. I would say its just an excuse for a lot of cock-jokes and rudeness. I'd like to play Poison'd again, but I'd like a little less quite literal butt-fuckery.
On Sunday I played Monkey (GM and Writer: Newt Newport) which I had played last year. I even got to play the same character again which was a lot of fun. He's an administrator from Heaven and well, he has a different way of dealing with things! The power of the manifest, the filing system and the index card! The game itself suffered a little from very low energy around the table and quite a lot of explanation from Newt regarding the game which ate some of the time. It too had a number of memorable moments.
I ran two sessions of Duty & Honour, which officially launched at Furnace. The first (Cadiz or Bust) had four members of the 22nd Lothian chasing a spy from Badajoz to Cadiz. The second (City of Vipers) had the same soldiers rooting out a spy in Cadiz and saving the entire Mediterranean station, as well as getting the girl, dodging debts and (not) saving reputations. From the feedback, the games went well and I am obliged to Mr Walmsley for making a couple of suggestions which I wrapped into the second game to great success. D&H sold like hot cakes all convention - 16 copies sold in total - and gained a lot of praise from people. I was especially pleased because it got props for the layout and design of the book.
Last year Furnace blew me away with the quality of the games. This year, it would have been almost impossible to match it. I suspect that my expectations might have been a little too high as I left feeling a little disappointed. In retrospect, each game had its own highs and lows but the entire event was well worth the money. Roll on next year.
From a game point of view, I have to admit that Furnace was a very mixed bag. I played Dread:The First Book of Pandemonium (GM:Scott Doward) which was a nice visceral way to kick off the convention. Its a game based on demon-hunting, madness, ultra-violence etc. All very graphic, all very gory and definitely very stylised. I felt sometimes the system tried to hard to be cool - when powers are described as vicious lampreys bursting from your stomach to attack the bad guys, it makes it quite hard to feel like a good guy! Also the use of terms like 'Clusterfuck' and 'Cockpunch' as game terms seemed ... gratuitous? Regardless, it was a decent game and produced a number of very memorable moments.
In the evening I played Poison'd (GM:Graham Walmsley). This is a game I have been wanting to try for a while and whilst I was not disappointed by the game itself (I thought it was quite elegant) some of the subject matter around the table just made me sigh inwardly. Lets see ... rape, homosexual rape, child abuse, necrophilia, group sex, group rape... oh what a wonderful advert for the hobby! Now I can see how some people might see these themes, in the context of the game and comment on how the game allows us to explore the range of human depravity in a society without rules or boundaries. I would say its just an excuse for a lot of cock-jokes and rudeness. I'd like to play Poison'd again, but I'd like a little less quite literal butt-fuckery.
On Sunday I played Monkey (GM and Writer: Newt Newport) which I had played last year. I even got to play the same character again which was a lot of fun. He's an administrator from Heaven and well, he has a different way of dealing with things! The power of the manifest, the filing system and the index card! The game itself suffered a little from very low energy around the table and quite a lot of explanation from Newt regarding the game which ate some of the time. It too had a number of memorable moments.
I ran two sessions of Duty & Honour, which officially launched at Furnace. The first (Cadiz or Bust) had four members of the 22nd Lothian chasing a spy from Badajoz to Cadiz. The second (City of Vipers) had the same soldiers rooting out a spy in Cadiz and saving the entire Mediterranean station, as well as getting the girl, dodging debts and (not) saving reputations. From the feedback, the games went well and I am obliged to Mr Walmsley for making a couple of suggestions which I wrapped into the second game to great success. D&H sold like hot cakes all convention - 16 copies sold in total - and gained a lot of praise from people. I was especially pleased because it got props for the layout and design of the book.
Last year Furnace blew me away with the quality of the games. This year, it would have been almost impossible to match it. I suspect that my expectations might have been a little too high as I left feeling a little disappointed. In retrospect, each game had its own highs and lows but the entire event was well worth the money. Roll on next year.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Fringe Ep2
Still good. Lead female growing on me, a little. Elder professor is still barking and still very entertaining. I called it to Christine that the black guy would look like a baddy but be a goody. Still more going on than meets the eye. Oh, and the cow was back again, which made me very happy. Not enough Fresian Representation on mainstream TV.
Mining Moria
One other thing that we have had a great deal of fun doing in the last couple of sessions of 4e is playing 'lets mine classic cinema for scenes'. I think every game does it at one point in time or another - there were certainly a number of Two Towers moments in our Crescent Sea game.
In the current game we did the Chewbacca Move, we did more than a little Fellowship of the Ring including just about every key scene from Moria except 'Tsk! Fool of a Dragonborn!'. We did a bit more Star Wars Princess Leia rescue as well and as Ian pointed out in his blog, Earthome, the first citadel of the dwarves was more than a little Emerald City. Oh and we even squuezed in the Klingon Court from Star Trek: Undiscovered Country as well! And we usually have a little Rocky moment or two.
Now, we have played games before where this sort of thing has happened - I'm thinking specifically about Pulsars and Privateers although the entire run of Buffy could well have been one extended exercise in this. I don't think they worked as well as these have and here is my theory why - in this current game we have established the game world, its ethos and our personalities BEFORE we have done this stuff. Therefore the background of the scenes seems to be superfluous to the actual execution.
For me that was most obvious during my character-defining 'None Shall Pass' moment. I didn't see Gandalf on the bridge against the Balrog. I saw Morn, all dodgy ragged plate, massive shield, bronzed granite sledgehammer, bald head and almost manic attitude - the skull of a dragon as one shoulderpad and the skull of a god as the other - standing, ranting and taunting the swirling giant black chaos beast and the baying pack of beastmen behind it. I saw him bringing the hammer down and channelling the power of the Earth Titan to bring the ancient structure tumbling down. I saw that adrenaline moving on to deal with the stubborn dwarven guards that blocked their way and then him praying and centering himself.
Fuck Gandalf. That was my Paladin of Freedom doing his bit!
The thing is, those amazing mental images would not have been possible without the context of the cinema shots that we were emulating. They provided that mental backdrop for the scene. Without them, it would have been something totally different.
In the current game we did the Chewbacca Move, we did more than a little Fellowship of the Ring including just about every key scene from Moria except 'Tsk! Fool of a Dragonborn!'. We did a bit more Star Wars Princess Leia rescue as well and as Ian pointed out in his blog, Earthome, the first citadel of the dwarves was more than a little Emerald City. Oh and we even squuezed in the Klingon Court from Star Trek: Undiscovered Country as well! And we usually have a little Rocky moment or two.
Now, we have played games before where this sort of thing has happened - I'm thinking specifically about Pulsars and Privateers although the entire run of Buffy could well have been one extended exercise in this. I don't think they worked as well as these have and here is my theory why - in this current game we have established the game world, its ethos and our personalities BEFORE we have done this stuff. Therefore the background of the scenes seems to be superfluous to the actual execution.
For me that was most obvious during my character-defining 'None Shall Pass' moment. I didn't see Gandalf on the bridge against the Balrog. I saw Morn, all dodgy ragged plate, massive shield, bronzed granite sledgehammer, bald head and almost manic attitude - the skull of a dragon as one shoulderpad and the skull of a god as the other - standing, ranting and taunting the swirling giant black chaos beast and the baying pack of beastmen behind it. I saw him bringing the hammer down and channelling the power of the Earth Titan to bring the ancient structure tumbling down. I saw that adrenaline moving on to deal with the stubborn dwarven guards that blocked their way and then him praying and centering himself.
Fuck Gandalf. That was my Paladin of Freedom doing his bit!
The thing is, those amazing mental images would not have been possible without the context of the cinema shots that we were emulating. They provided that mental backdrop for the scene. Without them, it would have been something totally different.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)